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Author's Note: I am really sorry about the lack of updates lately, I've had a busy week and still quite a bit more to go. Last week was spent preparing a set of plushies for a store that I'm selling in, my best friend's graduation party and this week I only have one day off. And with that day off I'm going to my cousin's shipping off party, so...yeah, lots of partying going on. Hopefully things will die down after that, but I'm still going to try to get an update in by the end of this week.
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Chapter 11: The Friendly Faith Plate
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"You know, I really hate to say it."
"Shut up."
"I mean, I really do."
"Shut up."
Between Rick's stubborn unaccepting attitude towards directions and Wheatley's persistent direction giving, Chell was unsure of who to be more pissed off at.
"But I told you so."
"Shut up."
"I did, didn't I? I said, 'hey, look up there mate, that arrow's pointing towards the library'. Am I right?"
"The human known as Wheatley is correct in his observations."
"Shut up."
"Space."
"But, you know, that's fine. We'll just keep wandering around aimlessly. I mean, it's not like we're hopelessly lost or anything."
"Lost in space."
"Shut up."
"What do you know? Another arrow! Pointing to the library. Will we actually follow it this time or will we continue to go on our adventure in the complete opposite direction that the arrow's pointing?"
Rick continued walking in the direction that he had struck out on, ignoring Wheatley's indication of another sign. The former Intelligence Dampening Core began a slow clap as they walked along.
"Good choice! Brilliant, really. I mean, the arrow's pointing that way and all, but you are the adventurer," Wheatley said, pushing his glasses up. "I feel it's necessary to point this out that that was sarcasm. Not entirely sure if you were picking up on that."
"Shut up."
"Oh for God's sake!" Chell said, pushing past the others and blocking Rick's path. The former test subject pointed in the direction the arrow was pointing, deciding they would never make it to the library at this rate. "We're going that way, now move."
"Listen, no offense but you're trying to take directions from a moron. And I AM an adventurer," Rick said stubbornly, looking Chell over. Wheatley and Flynn were hanging back, beginning to feel an argument coming on. But Chell stayed planted in place, shifting from foot to foot when Rick tried to make his way past her. The former Adventure Core chuckled, putting his hands on his hips. "Feisty, aren't we? I like that in a lady."
Chell wasn't in the mood to get hit on, especially by a man who refused to listen to reason at the moment.
"Rick, if you don't turn around and follow the god damned arrows this second," Chell began, poking a finger into his chest. He hadn't expected this and instinctively backed off a step, obviously intimidated by the woman's brash intrusion of his personal space. "I will personally shove this high fall boot so far up your ass-"
"Whoa, whoa whoa!" Rick said and put his hands up, admitting defeat. "Whatever you want, little lady." He added that last bit with a wink.
"Same threat goes for if you call me 'little lady' one more time." Chell said and pushed back past Rick, taking lead of the group. Rick began to follow along, glancing at Wheatley.
"Happy?" Rick grumbled.
"No, actually. That was perhaps one of the most frightening things I've ever witnessed." Wheatley said in a hushed tone once Chell was out of earshot.
"She totally digs me." Rick said with a grin, earning an incredulous glance from the former Intelligence Dampening Core.
"And you're the one that's calling me a moron?" Wheatley finally sighed, threading the bridge of his nose with his fingers. The group continued to walk in relative silence, save for the never ending babble provided by the Space Core. Although it seemed that they were terribly lost, once they began following the arrows the trip to the library was a relatively short and simple one. Chell maintained her leading position, pushing one of the glass double doors and holding it open as the others wandered into the small library. To be completely honest, Chell was rather disappointed by the size of it considering Aperture's predisposition to go above and beyond the call of what was necessary. The selection of books and condition of everything seemed more suited for the library of a high school, but then again the Biotechnology Department seemed as though it was an afterthought in comparison to the Para physics related part of the labs. Chell allowed the door to close behind her, taking note of the former cores' hesitance as though they weren't sure what to do.
Chell decided that she would lead by example rather than trying to order them around, seeing as she really didn't care much for what they did with their time. Although the idea of relaxing was a bit difficult for her to wrap her mind around at the moment, Chell went to go poke around the book selections. There was a fair amount of children's books, along with encyclopedias for reference, sci-fi, horror, drama...it all became a matter of what she wanted to do.
"Space, gonna play a game in space."
Chell glanced over, finding Flynn and Rick beginning to dump the pieces of a board game out onto the table. Seeing the unusually variety of pieces Chell could only assume they had selected a chess set. That was certainly going to be interesting. However, it seemed that Flynn had some concept of the set up as he began to put the pieces on the squares. Heck if Chell knew if they were in the right places, but it was their project, not hers. Wheatley had surprisingly broken away from the others, staring at the book shelves with a glassy eyed look on his face. It seemed that everyone had found something to do but her. The former test subject found herself in the children's section of the library, wandering about with no real title or subject in mind. However, as she began to scan over the book's names, a smile came to her face.
'This was one of my favorites as a kid,' Chell thought as she selected a hard cover copy of 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie'. She felt sort of silly really, but plopped down in the aisle and began to read the book in silence, savoring the comforting sense of nostalgia that washed over her. It seemed that the only time she would spend with her mother was with this book, right before she would fall asleep as a girl. Although sadder memories of her childhood gnawed at the corners of her thoughts, Chell pressed on through the little volume, closing it and placing it back on the shelf. It wasn't long before she found another familiar title, and another, and another. Eventually, Chell stopped putting the books back in their proper places and simply made a stack nearby, wanting to be able to find them easily in case she wanted to read them again.
The former test subject hadn't realized how many children's books she had plowed through until she spied the uneven stack of colorfully illustrated volumes, placing her latest acquisition on top of the others. She listened and heard the space core chattering in the background, Flynn and Rick grumbling between themselves. Chell stood to observe the game that was going on, Flynn sitting across from Rick with the Space Core sitting on the table next to the board.
"Space. Move space E7 to space C8," the Space Core babbled, Flynn moving the horse shaped piece in accordance to the Space Core's direction. "Spacemate."
"What! No, no no," Rick grumbled, honestly having no idea how the game was played except for the vague instructions given by the Fact Core, who would correct either party if a piece was moved the wrong way. "And it's checkmate, you cheatin' little-"
"No. Spacemate. Because I win, at space chess. Because you're moving on spaces. Duh." the Space Core corrected. Another awkward grin tugged at the corners of Flynn's lips at the exchange, seeming to find the argument humorous. Chell couldn't help but smile in spite of herself as Rick crossed his arms and leaned back in the chair.
"You cheated!"
"Space."
"That's not an excuse!"
"Space."
"Would you stop saying that!"
"Spaaaaaaaace."
Chell shook her head with another laugh as they began setting up another game, trying her best to tune out the arguing that was going to happen again soon enough. The former test subject began to go down an aisle that featured several collections of classic literature, a familiar name catching her attention peripherally. 'The Prince on the Art of Power by Niccolo Machiavelli'. The question was if she was feeling terribly mean that afternoon?
'Oh, a bit of mild teasing never hurt anyone.' Chell thought as she pulled the volume off the shelf and weighed it in her hands, deciding to seek out the former Intelligence Dampening Core. It seemed that Wheatley had made himself comfortable on one of the tweed couches in the far corner in the library, his blue eyes fixed on the text of a paperback book.
"Whatcha got there?" Chell said in a soft tone, the trained instinct to stay quiet in the library was one that was easily followed by the former test subject. Wheatley jumped a bit in surprise, turning to look over at Chell.
"Oh, a book." Wheatley said with a nod, holding it up so she could see.
"Which one?" Chell said with a small roll of her eyes.
"'Lord of the Flies'. Which has surprisingly little to do with flies." Wheatley said with a disappointed frown, turning the book upside down on his own little stack of books as to not lose his spot. Chell remembered that book with disgusting detail, making a face to show her disapproval. "What?"
"Just found something else that you might want to read," Chell said with a shrug and offered the hard covered classic to Wheatley. He glimpsed the title over and pushed up his glasses, not seeming amused by Chell's figurative poke.
"Well, seeing as I already have and do not see what the big deal is." he said dismissively, offering the book back.
"Really? What's it about?" Chell said, refusing to take the book back.
"Oh, I wouldn't want to ruin the ending. You'll just have to read it yourself," Wheatley said, trying to get Chell to take the book back again.
"I already did," Chell said and grabbed the book, tucking it under her arm.
"Then why don't you tell me what it's about then? Because you might be lying about having read it," Wheatley accused, crossing his arms. Oh, Chell was going to have too much fun with this.
"It's about two star-crossed lovers, named Romeo and Juliet," Chell said, finding it much more difficult than normal to keep a straight face. Wheatley nodded as though agreeing. "You see, they're both from two feuding families who won't allow them to be together."
"Is that right?" Wheatley asked, leaning over to examine the book that was now in Chell's arms.
"Oh yes. Now, Juliet fakes her death to be with Romeo, but Romeo doesn't realize she was faking and kills himself." Chell continued to explain. "And when she finds out, she really kills herself."
"Really?"
"Yes, really." Chell said with a nod, getting a strange feeling of deja vu.
"Well, maybe if Machiavelli didn't write about people dying all over the place he'd be more popular," Wheatley said with a small harrumph, feeling as though he had gotten through Chell's cross-examination successfully. However, when the former test subject began to laugh, Wheatley felt he had said something wrong. "What's so funny?"
"I just described Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet," Chell replied, setting the other book down on the side.
"Oh, you're sick. Alright, fine. I didn't read it. There, are you happy? I lied about reading Machiavelli, but even if I did read it, you know what? I probably still wouldn't see what the big deal was," Wheatley said, throwing his hands up in a small fit of exasperation.
"Calm down, it was just a little teasing." Chell said, looking over at the other books Wheatley had stacked in order to change the subject. There was one about computer programming and another seemed to be a picture book on insects. Weird choices. "You read these ones already?"
"I just looked at the pictures in this one," Wheatley said with a small sigh, indicating the book on insects. He pointed at the one on computer programming, continuing to say, "I just sort of grabbed this one and leafed through it, not much I didn't know already."
And here he was going with the expert hacker guise. Really, now that she was talking, Chell seemed to be tripping him up all over the place and he wasn't catching onto the lesson 'it's better to be honest than to keep building bigger lies'. Although it was humorous, people were laughing at him, not with him. Chell suddenly leaned forward and grabbed up the book on programming, the former Intelligence Dampening Core making another snatch for it, not wanting Chell to quiz him again.
"Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't mind me asking a couple questions then," Chell said and pulled out of Wheatley's grasp, cracking open the programming book.
"This isn't fair, you expect me to have it all memorized?" Wheatley said, looking rather distressed by the thought of getting tripped up again in a lie.
"With a hacker of your caliber, I'm sure you'll have no problem," Chell said, cracking open the book. "I'll ask some easy ones. What does the abbreviation DOS stand for?"
Wheatley closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers and sighing. Was she being too hard on the guy?
"Disk operating system," Wheatley said, not opening his eyes.
"Got it, told you it would be easy. Let's try...what two characters are used in binary programming?"
"One and zero."
Although his close eyed scrunch-faced look of concentration seemed to indicate he was having trouble remembering, the answers were coming surprisingly quick. Chell decided to hit on details, see if he really knew his stuff.
"And those characters mean...?"
"On and off."
"Good. Okay...in C++ programming, what data type is used to deal with decimal numbers in an equation?" There was no way Wheatley would know-
"Floating-point data type."
Chell was really surprised by that one, the former Intelligence Dampening Core still holding onto the bridge of his nose. Although he seemed to become increasingly distressed with every question, Chell was too focused on proving her point and too stubborn to admit that maybe he really did know what he was talking about. It had to be a fluke; she just hit on something he just happened to remember. His hacking skills involved smashing a door open and hoping to push over the neurotoxin storage canisters. There was no way in hell he knew what he was talking about.
"The bool data type only has two values-"
"True and false."
"Overloading a function name refers to what?"
"Making several functions with the same name."
"In HTML formatting, the href command-"
"Makes a hyperlink." Wheatley interrupted before Chell finished her question, his eyes snapping open and hand flying forward, smacking the book down into Chell's lap. "Are you quite finished or are we going to have a written part of this exam as well!"
Chell jumped at the sudden movement and weight of the book in her lap, realizing that she was being quite the pest. Wheatley normally seemed very patient, but his brows were furrowed in an angry scowl which Chell took as she had pressed all the wrong buttons at once.
"Sorry," Chell said quietly, closing the book. Wheatley closed his eyes again, taking in a small breath and heaving it out. As he exhaled, it seemed like any trace of anger left his features and actually looked guilty.
"I...I yelled, I didn't mean-" he stuttered and looked to Chell, rubbing his temples. Now he looked panicked, like something was terribly wrong. Chell didn't know what to make of his sudden change of mood, watching as he picked up the small book he had been reading before, mumbling under his breath. "He-I-I have to go. Good night. Morning. Whatever time of day it is."
"Alright," Chell said with a nod. "Everything okay?"
"No worries, everything's right as rain," Wheatley said with an incredibly forced smile, waving a bit to Chell as he began to retreat.
"Okay, just don't get lost." Chell said, the black haired man making his way out of the library without another word. She couldn't help but worry that he wasn't alright, but decided that she would wait until the others got tired of playing chess before calling it a night. Chell leaned back on the now vacated couch, closing her eyes for a moment. Although she really did feel like something was wrong, Chell simply pushed it off, thinking to herself, 'I'm just being paranoid. It's been a long day for everyone.'
