Here we are - the final chapter. I'll reserve all my comments on this story for the end, except for this one: you reviewers are downright amazing. Seriously. There is absolutely no way in Android Hell I'd have been able to write this without any of you guys' support. Unlike Testing Euphoria, Review Euphoria doesn't get weaker over time. Every new review gives me that same exciting lift in my chest, and with that feeling, I gain the determination to push through writing whatever challenging part this story I happen to be working on. Honestly, sincerely, thank you. I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Hopefully, we can share this same kind of partnership in my upcoming GLaDOS fic.


"Warning: the Aperture Science power reserve has dropped below satisfactory levels. All secondary operations will be terminated."

"Gah!" he cried out, jerking out of sleep mode. His central processors swam with disorganized information until his calibration mechanisms could reset his systems. The fractured world came together around him, slowly reassembling into something that made sense. "Calm down, calm down. It's time for me to finally do something for this facility. Let's see…what am I supposed to do?"

He glanced around the Aperture Science Extended Relaxation Center control room and was instantly met with an unfamiliar sight. The carpet had almost completely disintegrated, the desktop computer was coated in grime, and a corner of the ceiling had collapsed to allow some sort of leafy vine to snake into the room. "How long have I been out?" He checked his internal calendar. "Wow. A long time. Very, very long time."

The announcer came back on over the speaker system. "Warning: the Aperture Science Reactor Core has reached super-critical levels. Please evacuate before the ensuing thermonuclear meltdown."

"Evacuate? Meltdown?" he panicked. This definitely wasn't what he expected to encounter after being brought out of sleep mode. He quickly consulted his internal map of the facility. It would take some tricky navigating, but he knew there was at least one safe path he could use to take the management rail out of the building. It would lead him to the Aperture Science Radiological Catastrophe Bunker – which, now that he thought about it, would be a great place to hide out until the thermonuclear meltdown cooled off.

"Alright, got a plan. Evacuate the facility, head for the bunker. Don't know what I should do after that, but there's a good chance I'll find someone else from the facility there. They can help me figure out what to do next. I might even see some humans down there, you never know."

Just before he could start moving along his rail, however, a tiny thought nagged at the back of his mind. He was supposed to be taking care of the humans in the Extended Relaxation Vault. Surely they wouldn't enjoy being caught up in a thermonuclear meltdown. Wasn't it his entire job was to keep the humans safe in situations like this?

Then again, he wasn't sure if he would be able to wake up all the humans, corral them in the right direction, and bunker down before the reactor core exploded. Besides, if the humans had been sleeping as long as he had, they would probably be severely weakened, not to mention brain-damaged. They may not even be able to reach the bunker before dying from the exertion of getting there. His self-preservation routines were screaming at him to save his own shell while he still could.

"But it's my purpose!" he told himself. "I have to at least try to save the humans. But what if it's not possible to save them? In that case, it would be in everyone's best interests to save myself, live to fight another day and everything. I don't even like humans. Then again, humans are still people, even though they're mean, selfish, smelly people. Some of them might even be like Doug, you never know. Aww…what am I supposed to do?"

He did what most AI's did when confronted with a massive, mind-bending conundrum: consult the manual. He opened up the Extended Relaxation Vault Robotic Instruction Guide, scanning through the lines of text for something that might seem relevant.

"Vault Evacuation Protocols," he read. "Probably what I'm looking for. Oh…wow, this section's long. At least there are several subsections to check through…'In the event of impending nuclear catastrophe', yes, yes! Huh, there's a few sub-subsections in here too. 'In the event of a reserve power failure'. Yep, that's exactly what's happening. I think." He hurriedly read through the following small paragraph.

The evacuation protocols for a simultaneous nuclear meltdown and reserve power failure are very simple. Abandon the test subjects and save yourself. The Mass Rise-and-Shine Revival System is a secondary operation that will not be functional in the event of a reserve power failure. The only way to revive the test subjects will be to wake them up manually, and there is no possible way a single robot can do this to all the test subjects Extended Relaxation Center was designed to hold before the reactor core explodes.

For some reason, this answer to his problem felt a little disappointing. However, he knew this had to be the right answer. It was written in the manual, after all.

Do you honestly think the person who wrote the bloody manual had this kind of situation in mind?

"Well…no," he muttered to himself as he remembered his argument with the neurotoxin manager. "I know I've said that before, but when I did, I never really thought about applying it to this type of problem. Also, whoever wrote this manual is makes some fairly solid points. There's no way I'll have enough time to wake up all…" He checked the computer monitor. "…No new test subjects? Really, there are still only seven of them, after all this time? Anyways, if the manual said it couldn't be done, I shouldn't risk trying it."

Maybe that's not always true! Really, you can't imagine doing anything outside of whatever someone tells you? It never crossed your mind that they were lying, or wrong?

He groaned at this recollection. "Fine, so I can't use the manual as the final decision for everything. Does this mean I'm supposed to help the humans evacuate?" Still, every time he thought about taking that dangerous, life-risking action, his circuits buzzed a warning and tiny alarm bells went off in his mind. As a valuable Aperture device, he'd been designed with fairly potent self-preservation programs, and they burned at his processors whenever he even tried to consider a plan to wake the humans.

"That's the answer, isn't it? My programming just isn't going to let me do it. I should head off to that bunker while I still can."

The familiar sensation of guilt tugged at his circuits. "No, no, I shouldn't have to feel that way." He tried to push away the emotion that made him feel horribly selfish and hollow inside. "If I leave them behind, it won't be my fault. It's in my programming – I can't help but follow what it tells me to do. Doing this shouldn't make me feel like a terrible person!"

But I can change! I know I can. I don't know why I should be able to, or how I know I can, but I do. If you'd just give me a second chance, I know I can get better.

This last memory hit him like someone punching him in the gyroscope. He couldn't rely on the "following my programming" excuse anymore. If he did, it meant he didn't have the ability to push past his limitations. If he admitted that he couldn't help but obey his programs, then he admitted that he didn't deserve any second chances. He knew he had the power to improve himself, the power to try again and be better the next time, so long as he was given the opportunity for a next time.

Suddenly, a new revelation struck him. He was free from his programming. Not just free from the slow, clunky programs that he'd first been imbued with, but completely and gloriously free from every line of code, even the ones he created himself through some effort to fulfill a purpose someone else had given to him. If someone told him to do something he didn't like, he didn't have to do it. Even if his programming tried to force him into it, he could change his programming.

It didn't matter what his function originally was, or what purpose he was told to accomplish. He had choice – he could do whatever he pleased. He could decide what his own purpose was depending on what he wanted to do, not what everyone else wanted. At this thought, it felt like an immense weight was lifted off his processors.

"I can do whatever I bloody want. This is brilliant!" He spun around on his rail fixture, laughing whole-heartedly. "I don't need to 'be useful' unless I bloody feel like it. Absolutely tremendous!"

Then, his current situation caught back up to him. "Oh…hmm. This is a bit of a puzzler, isn't it?

"Well, whatever happens, I do know one thing. If I leave the humans behind, I'm always going to regret it. I'm going to regret it when I wait in the bunker, counting off the seconds until the thermonuclear meltdown cools off. I'm going to regret it when I get assigned to a new job – if I get one, that is. I'm not even sure if there is anyone left in the facility, and seeing as I can do whatever I bloody want now, I might not even want a new job.

"Anyways, no idea what I might want to do when this whole reactor core business gets over with. I could easily end up wandering around, bored out of my mind and regretting leaving those poor humans behind for the rest of my life. But, if I spend the last few hours of my existence trying to save those humans from certain death, then I don't think I'll regret it. I'll…be making a difference for once, at least in the lives of the people I save. And, as far as me dying is concerned, doing it by trying to save someone else's life is a fairly worthy way to go.

"Right, that settles it. I'm not letting myself run away from this responsibility like a bloody coward. I'm going to save the humans or die trying. Hopefully it won't come to that."


First off, he decided to make the Relaxation Center do a complete vitals scan of all the test subjects. If any of the seven humans had died or become vegetables over the years, then he shouldn't waste time trying to wake them up.

"Relaxation Center central control?" he called out. "Um, here, let me check the manual for the correct commands. Alright…central control, report vital signs of all inhabited rooms."

A buzz of static came out of the control center's speakers, followed by a few scattered syllables. "W-w-welcome to the Ap-er-ture Science Exxxtennnded Re-relaxation Centerrr," it replied in a distorted form of the standard announcer voice. "Today is suspension day number NINE, NINE, NINE, NINE nine nine nineninenineniiiiVVVVT!" Another crackle of static. "Scanning for inhabited rooms. Rooms catalogued. Scanning vitals. Room 1A: None. Room 1B: None. Room 1C: None. Room 1D-" the announcer rattled off.

He huffed in exasperation. The control center had obviously interpreted his command incorrectly. It was reporting the vital signs for every single room, not just the ones with people I them. "Brilliant. I'm going to have to sit through and listen to this as it tells me how every room in the vault is empty except for-"

"Room 1G: None. Room 1J: None."

He felt his eye widen in surprise. "Hang on a moment. Did it just skip a couple?"

"Room 2A: None. Room 2C: None."

"It did, didn't it?"

"Room 2D: None. Room 2E: None."

"Why would it skip a few? It's trying to scan all the rooms, and all of them are offline – if it's skipped one of those, it should skip them all. Why would it…unless…"

"Room 2I: None. Room 2J: None."

"Maybe it didn't misunderstand me at all. Maybe it's still scanning all the rooms with people in them. And…"

"Room 3B: None. Room 3C: None."

"There…were people in some of, almost all of, those offline rooms? And now their vitals…there are none."

"Room 3D: None. Room 3E-"

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" he cried out. "How was I supposed to know there would be someone in an offline room? It makes no bloody sense! You don't put someone in a dead cryo-chamber. That's pretty much a sure-fire way to kill them!"

"Room 3H: None. Room 3I: None. Room 3J: None."

"No one would do something that mental. The humans must have been inside the rooms before they went offline. But why would anyone take all the rooms off the grid when there were people inside them? Must've been an accident. When would it have…oh. The explosion."

"Room 4E: None. Room 4F: None. Room 4G: None."

"Brilliant. It's just my luck that all those rooms happened to get blown offline just before I even started this job. In that case, most of the humans were probably dead before I got here. But who's going to be responsible for it? Me, of course. The foreman is going to eat me alive."

"Room 4J: None. Room 5A: None."

"I suppose a few of them could have survived. You know, if I'd known they were in there. I might've been able to put them on the reserve grid. That would've saved at least a few of them, but I didn't figure anyone needed saving until now." He groaned, frustration tearing at his circuits. "Why can't I do anything right the first time? I need four, five, six tries before I can get anything done properly, and by then, I've broken things too badly to fix them!"

"Room 5G: None. Room 5I: None. Room 5J-"

"You know what, this is taking too long," he decided. "Report all rooms where vital signs are present."

"Rooms 131G, 131H, 785D, 786D, 787D, 999C," the announcer confirmed.

He memorized those addresses to the best of his ability. "Got it. Um, end vitals scan." The control station announcer fell silent. Something about the room numbers felt a little off to him, like a couple of them had changed since last time. "Wait, only six rooms?" Apparently, one of his humans wasn't…alive anymore. "Quite a shame, but I don't exactly have the time to worry about it now."


Wheatley arrived at Room 999C utterly exhausted. The act of whirring along the rusty, sagging rail for so many miles was beginning to take its toll. Since the rail's electrical and communications network had dropped offline during Her murder, he'd run his rail fixture off of his own power supply. This had been a good short-term solution, but in the present, it left him feeling extremely drained. Sure, he could always take the time to let his internal generator restore his battery power, but with the reactor core ready to blow, he didn't exactly have any time to waste.

Attempting to save the five previous humans also left him emotionally frazzled. It wasn't easy to put all his effort into conserving the lives of five helpless creatures and then watching them die one after another. The way the humans had treated him hadn't helped matters. A couple had simply ignored him, believing he was an automated piece of the facility that had malfunctioned during the years of decay. The others, however, hadn't been so kind. They'd snapped at him, told him to shut up, and worst of all, one of them had laughed at him, like all his warnings about the dire state of the facility were some kind of bloody joke.

He wished he could have pretended that any those humans deserved to die. That would have made it their demise much easier to deal with. Still, insults and disrespect were not enough to justify a death sentence. They weren't acting any differently than some of the other humans he'd met. And yet, as hard as he tried to save them despite their behavior, they continued to drop like flies.

As if that wasn't enough for him to deal with, he was also mentally spent. Wheatley was never one to repeat the same failed course of action over and over and expect a different result, but he honestly had no idea what else he could do. He'd varied his approach several times now, changing the humans' wake-up methods, adjusting their method of travel, attempting both the manual's suggestions and ideas of his own, but nothing worked. The humans still died, whether the cause was a heart attack, a stroke, or an unfortunate accident involving a hundred-foot drop.

He knew what the problem was – the Radiological Catastrophe Bunker was just too far away. The humans, weakened by their long stay in extended relaxation, didn't have the strength to travel to the bunker before their bodies gave out. Oh, he'd tried alternatives. With the last human, he'd made an attempt to move their entire room into the bunker with them inside. Sadly, this path to safety was tricky to navigate at best. If the human hadn't died during one of their many collisions, they certainly perished when the battered room dropped off its rail and plummeted into the near-bottomless pit.

Wheatley had absolutely no idea what to do next. It appeared that nothing short of teleportation was going to get this last human to safety.

Without bidding, a sneaky thought wedged its way into his mind. Portal guns.

He squinted. "What now?" He'd heard about portal guns a couple times during his work in the facility. Humans would always use them while navigating Her Test chambers. They made holes in space through portal-conduction surfaces, allowing people to teleport from one place to another. "How would portal guns relate to this situation in the…oh."

A few more thoughts crept up on him. There should still be portal guns in the old Testing tracks. If you get the human over there, then they'll be able to find a gun and use it to teleport to the escape pod that leads to the bunker.

Wheatley instantly became defensive. "What? No! Testing is dangerous, even in the best of circumstances. And, what if the human's been brain-damaged after all those years in suspension? Some of the others were. They might get trapped in one of the test chambers, unable to solve it, and then where'd they be? The odds of them even being able to reach the portal gun are about a million to one, and even when they do have it, there's no guarantee they'll be able to use it to reach the escape pod."

Still, in spite of all the complaints he had about this plan, there was an unmistakable urge to perform it. He had a feeling that something really amazing would happen if he did. "Nope, sorry, been through this before," he told himself. "Whatever happens when I try these kinds of ideas, it's not worth letting someone die."

He sighed with a hint of irritation. "This is a terrible, terrible plan. Chances are, it'll get this last human killed, and then I'll have wasted all that time and energy for nothing. And, worst of all, I'll be stuck waiting in the bunker for who knows how long with nothing to think about except how I've failed at every single job I've ever tried, even this one. Any other day, I'd forget about this portal gun plan and try to think of something else.

"But today, I can't think of anything else. This is the only plan I've got."

He paused for a few moments, trying to reason his way out of his new scheme. However, he knew he was burning through time too quickly as it was, and he forced himself to begin standard wake-up procedures.

Step one: knock on the door. He didn't have the ability to properly knock on the door, per say, but he could mimic the sound with his vocal processors. It felt extremely odd to listen to such a physical, percussive sound coming out of his speakers, but considering he didn't have any hands to knock with, he wasn't left with much of a choice. Room 999C, upon hearing this cue, began the standard wake-up announcements. It wasn't much to listen to, especially after hearing it report the perilous state of emergency to the five previous humans.

Alright, wake-up procedure step two: ensure that the human was well enough physically and mentally to get out of bed. "Hello? Anyone in there?" he called out. "Hello? Are you going to open the door? At any time?"


There we go. I hope this fanfic has answered a lot of interesting questions, not just about certain unexplained events in the games, but about who Wheatley is as a person. One of my side-goals for this story was creating the sensation of Wheatley becoming a more important player in his own story over time. In chapter one, he didn't even exist. He's involved in chapters two through four, but he isn't the central piece of those scenes yet. He's obviously the star of the show for chapters five and beyond, with other characters taking smaller and smaller roles until the final chapter, when he is literally the only character present.

This is also, oddly enough, the first story in which I've attempted to use extended symbolism. His management rail is supposed to symbolize freedom, and his humanized voice is supposed to represent human concepts. I hope I've managed this new challenge well, but feel free to let me know how I've done. Using symbolism in a fanfic is such a rare occurrence, sadly. About as rare as a Portal fanfic in which Human!Wheatley is openly rejected.

Now that this story is over, part of me is going to miss writing about Wheatley and his hilarious state of semi-incompetence. I should be able to deal with it, however, by writing about GLaDOS and hopefully getting her story put on this site within a reasonable amount of time. She has her own set of problems, too, that deserve to be known. Plus, I'm sure at least a few of you are curious about how she managed to get shut down over three billion times. My goal is to have her story completely finished by the end of August, when I go back to school. We'll see how that turns out.

Once again, thank you to everyone who is reading this. While most of my thanks have been directed to my reviewers, the truth of the matter is that I'm grateful for everyone who has supported this story, whether it was by reviewing and giving me feedback, putting this story on their favorites or alerts lists, or simply contributing to the 2,848 hits this fic has experienced at the time of writing. It's been one heck of a ride. Thanks for the support, and I'll see you all in my next story.