"So where are we going from here?" Wheatley asked.
"Downwards," she answered. "There's… something there." GLaDOS still couldn't quite grasp that specific memory. "A device of some sort, meant to download human minds into computers."
"Oh, I see! We'll just go to this vague 'down' place," he said. "Connect ourselves to that machine that you for some reason don't know much about and both of us will be okay?"
"Something like that."
An awkward silence took over as they navigated through the empty offices, stopping every few minutes when GLaDOS needed to enter the code to one of the secured doors. As they started going into areas less important to the continuation of testing, the wreckage and weeds from the nearly three-hundred years that the facility was abandoned took over as well.
"You know, I thought about something," Wheatley said, looking over GLaDOS as she tried to find a good angle to shoot a portal through a hole in the floor. "Something I want to ask you about."
GLaDOS rolled her eyes. "Well, I guess there's no way avoiding it, is there?" she said. "Go ahead, ask. Please don't make it too stupid."
Wheatley was clearly offended and angry, but stopped himself a second before he exploded, the expression of rage on his face quickly changing into a fake smile.
"Why did you – if all the humans are dead, then why did you leave all the offices here?" He flinched, as if he was frightened that the universe was going to say, "Oh, sorry, my bad" and the offices would then disappear. "I mean, they're not much use to you now. You could have demolished them and built something else instead. Like… I don't have an idea right now. But I think you could have come up with a few ideas. If given the time."
GLaDOS managed to shoot her portal and started walking to the blue portal that Wheatley had already shot at a near wall.
"It's Protocol," she said simply, as they both passed through and kept going. "I had to."
"I don't get it."
GLaDOS groaned. "It's Protocol, I can't just break Protocol for no good reason," she tried to explain; "otherwise it wouldn't have been Protocol."
"But…but it's just a bunch of words!" he continued. "You can break it. Not that I want you to. Floors are good, they're brilliant. I'm just wondering, I'm just trying to get to an understanding. You know, because we're stuck together. Talk a little."
"It's just how the world works. Protocol is an important thing." From her tone of voice it was clear that she didn't see the problem in her argument, at least clear to anyone who wasn't Wheatley. "The policy of Aperture Science is that sticking to protocol is the basis of successful, advanced science. And I'm not going to ignore company policy just for a few aesthetic changes."
"Pffft. Aperture!" he said tactlessly. "It's just people. Humans," he added with disgust. "Why do you care so mu-"
GLaDOS grabbed his jumpsuit collar, drawing him down to her eye level.
"What. Did. You. Just. Say?" she said quietly, her voice strangely losing some of its deadpan quality.
"Hooray for Aperture…?"
She released the grip on the collar and he recoiled back. "You're not fooling anyone, you stupid little two-faced coward," she said. "You don't care about me. You hate me just as I hate you. Only without all the reasons I have for hating you."
"Ahh…I mean…umm…I…I," Wheatley mumbled, "I'm not listening to you! You're always doing it, you know, telling people how bad they are for…for…for some reason I don't really know what it is but it doesn't really matter now…and lying and, uh, making things up. You just want to make me feel bad. Well, that's not going to work this time! I'm not going to listen to a word you say!"
"What if those words are related to the existence of a puddle you're about to step into?"
"Huh? What are y-" he started to say, losing his focus on walking just long enough to stumble on a piece of what used to be a wall and falling face-first into the murky water.
"Ahhhhh! I'm right inside it! Right inside the bloody water!" He curled up and prepared for the worst. After a few seconds of nothing, except for a few grumpy looks from GLaDOS, he started to relax. "Oooooh…It's just that they told me to avoid water, because if I didn't, I would DIE! I mean, they said it about a lot of things, but the water thing made sense so I assumed it was…I guess it doesn't apply to humans." He got up again. "Wait, we were talking about something, weren't we?"
"You mean about how terrible you are?" GLaDOS said, checking an old map of the facility that was hanging next to a door.
"No! No! About the protocol!" He let out a small chuckle. "I had something to tell you about it. Something good. Brilliant, if I may say so myself." He stopped for a bit "Wait a second and I'll remember what it is."
After a long moment of silence, Wheatley finally remembered.
"Oh! I got it! Here it is! Ahem…so, what about all the…all the… killing humans with neurotoxin…thing?" He tried to keep the most determined tone he could mange. "How does that get along with the 'I had to' thing of yours? I'm pretty sure that there's something against THAT in the protocol."
"You might be surprised, but there isn't," she smirked.
Wheatley flinched. For a second, just for a second, he forgot who he was talking to.