Another long wait, so take this extra long chapter to make up for it.

Chapter 12

"Could you turn away? I can't... I can't do it if you're watching..."

Chell raised an eyebrow at that. She was fairly certain her long time friend Wheatley was blushing beet red at the awkward statement.

Well, he would be, if he still had skin to get flushed. And blood vessels. And generally be a bit less robot and a bit more human.

Though Chell herself wasn't one to admit it, she was getting quiet nervous fluttering around back scene in what was obviously an evil organization.

Not because they had already seen (and indeed been captured once by) some very burly guards.
Not because everything in this facility looked very dangerous and not at all safety-checked.
Not even because the snarky AI had threatened quiet ominously that they should stay put and wait to be 'collected'.

But because she had quiet figured out what was going on here, in general terms at least. And what she was surprised to find was that she was absolutely frightened. Because it had dawned on Chell that the chances of herself not only finding her friends, but also somehow restoring them to there human bodies was decreasing with every passing second.

And so, she begrudgingly turned around, waiting patiently for Wheatley to let out some mechanical beeps and open the locked door. It was time for her to swallow her pride and do everything in her power to save her friends.

As the saying goes, you don't know what you have, until it's gone. And Chell was certainly starting to feel the loss.

Still, you had to assume, after you had basically cradled someone in your arms and impaled them in a core port, you had pretty much reached second base.

One push on a button. That had been all it took to shatter Glados her illusions. As far as she still harbored them anyway.

Like how she still believed her father was proud of her. That he still loved her. That he was still working for the greater good of the world.

That had been long ago. And it had been true. But ever since Caroline's disease, Cave had been forced to see her slowly slip away into death, and Glados had watched her father slip away with her, into mental instability.

He was not the same man he had been back than, in a time where he would still tell her how much better the world could be with people of their intellect. How they could change lives. Save lives. Create lives.

But now Cave was solely focused on his own goals. His warped idea of reality and his weird focus on 'digital immortality'. Not that something like that actually existed, as Glados' own research had clearly proved.

Her father was excitingly pouring over his various screen now, completely forgetting about her for the moment. Line after line of code ran along the screens, as the AI named GlaDOS (as if that hadn't been an extra punch in the gut) acclimatized to it's new function.

Glados could see her namesake was slowly taking over the facility, growing in intelligence as it processed the various files on the computers and gaining functions. She idly wondered what her father would do with all the human employees working at this Aperture lab.

With the AI effectively taking over their job and essentially making them superfluous, her father would probably seek for a way to get rid of them. They already knew too much to simply be fired, so Cave would likely opt for a more 'permanent' solution.

As if answering her thoughts, Cave turned on his daughter, eyes bright with malice.

"As you've probably already guessed, I won't be needing these bumbling idiots anymore. They were great at doing the footwork as long as I needed them, but right now they're really just decoration."

He walked over to the wall, tapped it in a quick rhythm and looked conceded as a hidden panel slid open. Behind it lay a glass tube apparently filled with a greenish substance, somewhere between liquid and gas.

"Neurotoxin?" Glados questioned, raising an eyebrow. Wasn't here father ever a sucker for a good old fashioned overkill...

"Self-defense mechanism." Cave clarified, tapping the glass with a forefinger. "We can't expect the abundant masses to understand our creation. They would threaten it with their measly ethics and conventions. Dear GlaDOS here needs to be able to defend herself in case one of those idiots tries something. You know how I hate technophobes."

Glados let out a breath she had been holding, without even noticing it. She was all for the exploration and development of artificial intelligence, the initial plans had been hers after all.
But this was bordering on the ridiculous.

Making an AI that was capable of understanding basic human values and morals had proved to be impossible, even for her, which meant it was definably not within her father's capabilities.

And giving something that lacked any regard for life or death a toxin that could potentially kill any person in the facility, just seemed like a terrible idea.

Cave walked back to the screens and keyboards he had been fawning over just minutes before and began typing excitingly. "Don't you think it would just be the ideal way to dispose of them. Killing those morons with the exact weapon they helped develop."

She had known. Glados had known this would happen the moment she read those files. But still she felt tears well up in her eyes at the though of the loving father she once had, and now had lost.

The AI evidently wasn't the only thing in this room without regards for life and death.

But Glados did, and she wouldn't allow him to play his screwed up games any longer.

There were some plus point to being a robot. For example, Penny didn't break a sweat, even after 2 straight hours of 'testing'. She didn't feel tired, hungry or thirsty. She could probably go on like this for days on end, weeks even.

However, there was a definite downside as well. Dying, for example. The rooms she and Atlas traveled were littered with traps. Crushed, zapped, melted, you name it, they had been through it.
About 10 times, each.

And while the lack of nerve endings in their bodies, also allowed for a lack of pain, there was something about repeatedly dying, being brought back in an instant with a shining new outer frame, that didn't work well for the human mind.

It was like turning a computer on and off and on for god knows how many times. A normal computer may be able to handle that just fine, a human brain... not so much.

She was pulled out of her zoning by some beeps from Atlas, who was gesturing towards a button, hidden in an alcove about 20 feet up the wall. He pointed toward the opposite wall, and another set of buttons on the ground.

Penny instantly knew what he wanted from her. That was another bonus about their current... situation. Atlas and herself were obviously linked through some netwerk, making it so that speech wasn't much needed anymore. It was like they could read each others thoughts and communicate that way.

Some people may find that creepy or invading, but Penny was secretly exulting over it. It was like in those cheesy romance novels she used to read, where people had one definite soulmate on this earth, and you just made a connection upon meeting each other, that was forever unbreakable.

And if anyone could be considered her soulmate, it would surely be Atlas.

After her parents' messy divorce, Penny and her mom had moved out, relocating to a quieter suburban neighborhood. Atlas lived in the house next to them, with his grandparents. His parents had died shortly before that in a car accident.

They were both 6, only child, and dearly missing a parent (or parents). It was a match made in heaven.

After that, where in any normal circumstances they might have drifted apart due to their opposing characters, they just sticked together. And that was over 12 years ago now.

Needless to say, they had both had their fair share of high school lovers and puppy love, but somehow they always ended up with just the 2 of them.

And that was just fine for Penny. She just wished she could actually manage to spit her feelings out one of these days. She was so extroverted with everybody, but when it came to confessing her deeper emotions, she always lost her tongue.

All buttons ended up being pushed in the correct order, opening up the door for them to proceed.

So far, neither Penny nor Atlas had found an obvious way out, so they had little choice besides to keep moving. How long they could go on like this, was the real question.

As they entered the next room they passed through a small hallway between chambers. Just as the 2 robots were going through, one of the doors slid open to reveal a mildly startled Chell. She had been standing with her back to the doorway, and just turned around to see if Wheatleys hacking trick had worked.

Penny let out an excited robot squeal, which in fact didn't sound much different from her human one. She threw her arms around the motionless human. Either Chell was used to this craziness by now, or the mute girl was suffering from shock.

In reality, Chell had pretty much figured out what the disappearing students were turned into, and while she had hoped her 2 new friends hadn't encountered such a fate, she was already suspicious they could have.

When the long, thin arms released her she shot a small smile at what used to be Penny and Atlas.

"Hey, what's going on?" Wheatleys voice sounded from where he was still stuck in the port, facing away from the door. "Is it a way out?"

Chell picked him up and showed him what they found.

"Oh, cool, robots!" he piped up. Atlas face palmed and Penny crossed her arms annoyed.

Well, strength in numbers, as they say. With 3 portal guns and a talking hacking device, Chell was pretty sure they would be out of here soon. About the remaining students, she was a lot less certain.

Her eyes pricked with unshed tears, her throat constricted around sobs she would refuse to let out, her fist was clammy from clenching around the pen she held in an unsteady hand. Glados was pretty sure that if her father wasn't so focused on his murder scheme and actually paid her any attention, he would see she was trembling from head to toe.

She had never felt this way before. An unfamiliar combination of fright, uncertainty and exhilaration at what she was about to do.

Glados was pretty sure she could get away with it. She knew how these things worked. She was a top chemistry student after all. But what would be the consequences.

The panel still stood open, as Cave hadn't bothered sliding it back into place after his little show-off. The green toxin swirling behind glass casing. If Glados knew her father well, and right now she prayed every deity she doesn't even believe in that she did, this glass wouldn't be especially reinforced.

What with it already being hidden behind the walls, which were made to be indestructible themselves, Cave would never had bothered. He never learned to cover all his bases.

Glados did.

With all her might she struck out, using incredible momentum to force the pen through the glass.
Even if she was only able to make a small hole no larger than a penny it was more than enough. She was sure to force the pen in deep and leave it there. It would delay the neurotoxin from slipping out for a precious few seconds.

This was all the time Glados needed to run for the door, slam it shut and seal it airtight.
Her father knew what she was doing immediately, but there was nothing he could do anymore.

Neurotoxin works fast. Faster than Cave's ability to access a manual override of the highest security level. That's what you get for using door locks that work with genes. It makes you vulnerable to people that share your DNA.

With her back to the door, the sobs finally came out, sounding broken and desperate as for the first time in 10 years, Glados allowed tear to freely run down her face. Her father screamed at her from the other sound of the door and started pounding it hard, as he succumbed to the poison invading his system. Trying to ignore the noise, Glados was sure she would hear it every night to come.

It seemed to go on forever, for it took her a while to realize the pounding had stopped, and it was her own heartbeat drumming in her ears.

Chell and Atlas their combined intellect was enough to map out the basic shape of the facility, and the 4 of them began to make their way towards the surface again. Chell pretty much figured they could make their way back to the school for now, but that obviously didn't solve the real problem.

Being a robot for the rest of their lives didn't sound like so much fun to any of her companions and Chell herself would very much love to see her only friends returned to a human form.

Who else would she share a lunch table with. And despite how much he sometimes annoyed her, Chell was pretty sure she would die of boredom within the week without Wheatley.

And though she wasn't very good at communicating it, or anything else for that matter, she really did appreciate his humor, care and general positive demeanor.

Long story short: she wanted her Wheatley back.

Only 1 or 2 chapters left to go. The story is nearing it's conclusion, guys /o/.

Please leave a review, it's what motivates me to keep writing.