Title: Tick-Tock

Rating: T for now

Warnings/Pairings: Wheatley/ *spoiler, but not strictly an OC*, Chell/Wheatley, One-sided GLaDOS/Chell Cave/Caroline, Spoilers for Portal 2. This chapter involves a little more sex talk but again it's meant to be funny rather than racy.

Summary: Tick: A young man watches as his friends are corrupted in the name of science. Tock: A young woman by the name of Chell brings down the tyrant who destroyed Aperture Science; several hundred years years after it would do any good.

AN: A food-related AN. I've always imagined that the Portal cake was a Black Forest Cake and also, the cherry/melon/coconut milk thing I describe was something made by a highschool friend of mine whose mother was African-Canadian and if I'm not mistaken of Jamaican descent. If I could go back some 13-14 years and tell myself to get the recipe I would. (Hint hint any Jamaican cuisine-savvy people who may be reading this?) Also – New Father has some overlap with this story but I'm not sure whether it's legitimate overlap or a kind of AU of my Interpretation of the Pre-Portal Universe. At any rate, it's sort of a look into Rattmann's mind which we won't see here.

And an extra Dedication: It seems only fair that I dedicate this story to the real Feather since I'm using her name for my own purposes. Yes, her real name, no, the lady is not a hippie, but her parents were.


Chapter 7: Tick

"Happy Birthday to you dear Cilla. Happy Birthday to you!" The song ended with a burst of enthusiastic but scattered applause accompanied by a huff of air on the eponymous birthday girl's part as she blew out the candles on the cake; some sort of chocolate thing adorned with cherries and whipped crème.

"Presents!" Wheatley chorused, even before the smoke receded.

For John, the little party was the most heart rending thing he'd ever witnessed. It was an effort to even behave in a remotely normal fashion. His secret was becoming more and more difficult to hide. Not simply because of his friend, but for the turnout.

Of course, Wheatley had decided to throw the party but not a single one of the small group of test subjects was missing from the proceedings. John was meeting them all as humans for the first time. All the little nuances that made them people were becoming impossible not to notice, particularly in light of Douglas Rattmann's 'meeting' last week.

Take Jamal Tennenburg for example. A man who was almost sort of famous at that point because he was Black and paid at Aperture the same salary as the White employees. He'd even been interviewed for a magazine article recently, a fact which had delighted Cole. How exactly Cave Johnson would get around that, he was dying to find out. The man wasn't the life of the party but Cole noticed how he chose to celebrate his heritage proudly but quietly in dress and actions. He never preached and never bragged, but made absolutely sure everyone tried at least one spoonful of his regional coconut dish with melons, grapes and cherries. It was delicious and spoke volumes of his thoughtfulness, to bring something everyone could enjoy.

"ALL RIGHT! FUCKIN' PRESENTS!" The equivalent of the rowdiest American football cheer erupted from the mouth of Stanley Howard. John knew that Rattmann had been feeding him extra testosterone. While he was in his mid-thirties, he often behaved like a teenage boy going through puberty, replete with zits and teenage insecurities. "Open mine first!" He all but rammed the parcel into Cilla's face.

"Lovely Stan! Thank you!" The young woman smiled openly and hugged the stuffed rabbit before setting it gently on the table.

Stan gawked down her top in response. At John's side, Wheatley tensed up.

"Easy there Wheatley, let's not pick fights we can't win…" John murmured. "Besides, you know you got her something better than a stuffed rabbit!"

Wheatley relaxed somewhat, whether because of the party atmosphere or because he was in the presence of his lady friend John didn't know, but he was relieved.

"We got yours together. I asked Leslie and then we decided it would be practical to get you a nice gift because that is smart budgeting. I was curious as to whether it was inappropriate so I researched it myself and it was not." Milicent and Leslie held out their parcel next. They were young – just interns, paid a little less and still attending their respective Universities, also a fact that John felt good about. It turned out to be a large box of bath beads and soaps. John caught the surprised look on Leslie's face that suggested he probably had very little to do with the choice.

There was a tense moment when Feather's bong was unwrapped but Cilla managed to avert disaster by placing Rick's flowers in it like a vase.

John himself had bought her a little glass ornament shaped like a basset hound based on Wheatley's advice, but he barely cared about her praise, watching as the man who was his best friend stepped forward to give her his gift. Wheatley had spent so much time on the decision and knowing what he did, Cole felt almost as much anxiety as if Cilla were his own girlfriend.

Cilla's eyes widened as she took out the pearl bracelet. Not even just any pearl bracelet either. It was a strand of perfect rare pink pearls.

"It's your birthstone."

"Helped him look it up myself." Feather drawled.

"Oh, Wheatley." Cilla kissed Wheatley to a chorus of praise and John closing his eyes while he rubbed his temples to quell the despair he felt.

She smiled at him a moment later and spoke softly in his ear while Wheatley was distracted. "Thanks, Johnathan."

"For what?"

"Helping Wheatley with the gift." She chuckled.

John swallowed down the lump that had risen in his throat. "You're welcome. You look beautiful tonight." He meant it, though certainly not in the context Cilla probably imagined it was meant. There was some hope his little plot was working. The girl did look healthier. Her figure was still soft but her curvature had developed muscle with regular exercise. He'd entertained a few more drastic plots but there were cameras all over the place so none of them seemed safe. He was hoping for the best with what tools he had.

The rest of the party almost made up for the gnawing guilt in John's stomach. Wheatley had insisted upon bringing Risk and they had some wine and picked away at the cake and other appetizers while they played and talked.

The last thing John Cole remembered was laying his head down on his arm, just for a second while Wheatley rolled his red dice to attack Jamal's blue soldiers in South America.

Seemingly a moment later, he got shook awake by a frantic Leslie. The young man was standing over him talking high speed.

"Someone came here in the night!"

"Oohhh?" Cole sat up. His mouth felt a little bit cotton-filled.

"I was…was…kind of drunk." Leslie's head sunk to his chest. "I don't know where Millicent went!"

"Probably just woke up, figured just like you she had a little bit much and went back to her room." John yawned. A sweep of the room showed everyone was a little bit sprawled. "Don't worry you didn't do anything silly. Sure you'll find another g..g…" he yawned deeply. "…girl if…she's not…into you or whatever."

"I've been to her room. She's gone." The young man insisted, shaking Cole's arm.

Eventually John became more alert. The guests were indeed sprawled around Cilla's room. Wheatley and Jamal were still slumped across the table with dice clutched in their hands. John swallowed. His mouth was unnaturally dry and his head was spinning still but he had enough sense to know that all of this made absolutely no sense. Two bottles of sparkling wine split between ten people wouldn't cause blackouts. Not even drunken antics. It was physically impossible.

He got up, feeling like he was dragging himself to the sink and poured two glasses of water, draining his own and offering the other to Leslie who also downed it as though he hadn't had a drop in days.

"You say Millicent is missing." That was the place to start.

"Yes sir, she is. I wanted to apologize when I woke up but she wasn't here and not in her room. I'll never drink again I promise!"

"Leslie…Um, yes. You were positively terrible last night, far too much to drink lad. It's a terrible habit and I'll thank you to sit here and think about what you've done...What we both did. I'm…going to go find out what happened and if you're lucky she'll forgive you."

Weighted down by his lie but without the time to think about the consequences, John set out down the hall from the relaxation wing to the labs. He knew he would find Rattmann there. The man was there, his labcoat sloppy on his shoulders - he had apparently washed it though as the ink stain was far less pronounced.

"Oh, Doctor Cole. Sorry about the drugging but um, it would have been suspicious…you know…since…we don't want people to worry. Don't worry it's…fast acting. You know. There's no side effects."

John had nothing to say. There were so many questions he could have asked. Where were the drugs? The cake? Slipped somehow into Jamal's offering? The drinks? He sat on the chrome table. He had to sit down.

"Where is Milicent?"

Rattmann smiled at the wall above John's head. "The operation was a success. We've done it. GLaDOS is going to be a complete success."

The block of ice in John's belly spontaneously turned to lead.

Rattmann disappeared and returned holding a cloth covered object. For a terrible moment John believed it to be a body but he soon rationalized the lump was far too small to be a person. Rattmann whisked the cloth away and a digital but painfully familiar female voice chirped away.

"Oh hello man. You are a man right? I know you. Don't I? I don't know where from, could you tell me? This is all very strange, it was all sort of white before and now I see lots of things. Is that normal? Why do I see lots of things now? What's that? Oh. Oh and that? Oh what's that square thing? What's a square? Is it different from a circle? And what's a circle?"

John stared at Douglas Rattmann as the metal thing in his hands continued to babble questions.

"Millicent." He said.

Douglas Rattmann beamed at the clock on the wall. "Mr. Johnson is pleased."

"So this is how it's going to be." His limbs didn't seem to be working any better than his head.

"Hm? Yes. The experiment was a complete success. The test subject's a little different as a core but she's doing her job. Next time we won't drug you – it was just a precaution."

John gazed into the whirling amber optic part of the sphere and felt powerless. All his attempts to stymie this and they'd failed. He'd been so very sure that Millicent was safe because she was a University student. Perhaps if he'd been a little more forceful or proactive he could have prevented it. Now the only question was: Who was next?