Chapter 8
They both reached their hands through the small opening in the glass, soon enough entwining their fingers with each others. Wall•E had put down his portal gun and Eve had kept hers still folded within her arm. They were supposed to be passing a box over through the hole, but they really didn't want to.
After so long apart, they couldn't resist when they were able to do this: To hold each others' hands, to feel the warm that radiated off of the other's body, to entrance themselves in each others' electromagnetic energy, and to comfort each other in the deepest and firmest ways.
"Do you not remember the task you have?" GLaDOS said, her cruel voice made Eve twinge slightly, but she continued to look into Wall•E's eyes.
"The wall will detonate in 3… 2…" Before she could say one, the glass wall erupted, sending both Wall•E and Eve tumbling backwards and slamming into the opposite, real wall. Eve groaned in pain as she slowly got back up, looking fast at Wall•E to make sure he was okay. The glass wall had not destroyed itself, but in some way had blown them back and scorched the opening where they had put their hands through.
Well that was welcoming. Eve looked through the opening to see Wall•E starting to get up, "Wall•E?" She asked in concern. He turned his head to her and nodded slightly before pushing himself to be upright again. Eve made a relieved sighing sound and then turned and grabbed the cube they were supposed to pass—which had also been blasted a little ways off. She pushed it through the opening and went through the Emancipation Grill that was facing the exit down the chamber, and then came back over to another opening in the glass beyond it.
Wall•E grabbed the cube and brought it back over to her and pushed it back through, but as they both grabbed the cube, their hands brushed, making them pause. Eve giggled, pulling in the cube and putting it down on her side, then tapped Wall•E's hand, which he had placed calmly on the sill of the opening. They looked into each others' eyes, saying things to each other that no one could understand just with their eyes.
Eve could sense that GLaDOS was about to say another sour retort about their actions or set off yet another detonation at random, just to separate them. She pulled away from him, giving a quick nod to him before she grabbed the cube and placed it on a big red button on the floor. By effect, it opened both of their doors, and they went through them together and the door shut behind them.
Eve turned right again to take another gander at her beloved, but, with horror, she saw that the chamber had changed, and now there was no longer glass in between them, but instead a thick, black wall.
"WALL•E!" Eve screamed, pounding the wall, but she could not hear a reply of any kind, "WAAALL•EEE!" She screamed again, hitting on it harder. Her concentration on sounds on the other side of the wall, she barely noticed as gears started up on her side.
"I wouldn't try it." GLaDOS said calmly, bringing Eve's attention back to her own place, no longer avoiding what she heard coming from below her. Terror tore hollow wounds deep in Eve's main circuits as she watched the floor part below her. She yelped as she looked around for any way to get away from the disaster of the flames far below.
It was impossible… The entire room could not hold a portal, and now there was no way to hide from it, there was no exit door as well. Eve smashed her body up against the side of the wall, shutting her eyes as she felt the floor disappear from under her and she fell. Final regrets drew her to the conclusion that she had never wanted to feel: This was the end.
She fell for a few seconds before she landed with a huge thud onto something metal and moving. Her senses went into a short moment of shock before she could drag herself to open her eyes and get up. The thing she was on was a moving platform, and it was going down some kind of corridor. Although, unmistakably, below her were the flames of the incinerator room.
Wide-eyed with surprise and terror, Eve waited for GLaDOS to at least explain to her why she's been threatening to drop her into an incinerator room and then saving her at the very last second.
"Funny things, emotions." She finally said as the platform continued down its path, "Probably the most terrible trait that a human can possess. These so-called, 'feelings' only makes them weak, dangerous, pitiful, and unreliable." Eve watched around her carefully, folding out her portal gun just in case she needed it suddenly, with the way she was talking.
"That is exactly why robots are superior to those filthy things, they don't have feelings. They can only establish what's logical and what's false, whether or not the results have moral or 'meaning' is completely irrelevant. Data points are data points." The platform started to go down a place that forked off, both corridors had a bottom, so that it didn't just drop into the incinerator room.
"But you!" The platform smoothly started going down one way but then suddenly jerked to go into the other, "You, Probe, like to pretend like you can have feelings… It just makes it seem so much funnier." The place started to darken, and Eve could barely even see.
"I'd have to congratulate you on that, by the way." A pre-recorded male voice cut in, "Sarcasm self test complete." Eve groaned, trying to ignore everything she said and watch out for what was coming up ahead. She kept thinking of Wall•E, where was he? Was he okay? What was happening to him right then? What if she was going to try and kill him? … What if he was already dead?
She could barely hold back a whimper when she thought of it, and she shoved the thought from her mind, and instead started to spot a small light ahead…
