A/N: Once again I have to apologize for the extreme lateness of this chapter. I'm sorry that updates of this story have been so sparse since about two summers ago, but just know that I'll never abandon it. I want to see it through to the end.

"I think this thing is running out," Gaz complained softly at the back of the small procession. The girl moved so silently that if she hadn't spoken, Chell would have wondered if she was still there.

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Gaz traipsing several feed behind, messing with the hose attached to the container strapped to her back, the strange visor she was wearing on her head slightly lopsided. A blob of acid-green Corrosion Gel—the name which Chell had unofficially given the metal-melting substance apparently invented by Gaz's father—plopped onto the grating of the catwalk under their feet. Chell grabbed Gaz's wrist and yanked her forward, running a few feet with clanking footsteps until they were safely away from the sizzling floor. It didn't seem as if much damage had been done but she wasn't taking any chances.

Gaz snatched her arm out of Chell's grasp. "Thanks, but I saw that coming. And look, I'm just saying that we've been using this stuff a lot. What'll we do if we run out?"

Well, we have other weapons, Chell thought grimly, fingering the satchel hung over her shoulder. Her handgun was still nestled snugly inside. It was not, of course, a perfect safeguard against the dangers of this place, but without a portal gun at her disposal it was the best she could do.

"Hey! I pulled up a map of the facility and it shows a shortcut through here!" an excited voice said. Chell looked up to see Nick the overly-happy core gesturing excitedly at a narrow opening with a walkway extending into darkness between two enormous, gray-paneled structures. "Extended Relaxation isn't too far away now. We've made great time!"

Chell nodded once and beckoned for Gaz to follow her into the alleyway.

"Do you really think Dib's in there?" Gaz asked doubtfully, not moving.

Chell reached down and touched Gaz's arm briefly; it was the only answer she had to offer. They'd wasted too much time already. The Relaxation Center was the only place they could look for real clues. The boy had been there when he'd contacted them, and surely She would have locked him up there if he'd been caught.

And knowing this place, he almost certainly had been.

She tried not to think about the exact contents of Extended Relaxation, the stacks upon innumerable stacks of crates once used to house unfortunate test subjects in cryosleep, and now mostly containing only skeletons and withered remains. Any one of them could have Dib trapped inside. But that was a problem for later. Chell had never gotten anywhere by worrying about how she might do something, after all. She followed after Nick down the narrow catwalk with Gaz keeping pace just behind her.

"Through here, I think," Nick said. He had stopped at a branch in the path and was bobbing his faceplate toward the left side before he turned back to them. "You know what, actually, there's a computer around here somewhere with a database that lists every currently-running test! Do you want to check that first? Or do you want to go on with the tour right now?"

Chell pointed to the catwalk.

"Okay, okay, tour first!" the core said cheerfully, zipping off down the management rail over the catwalk. Chell and Gaz followed, and almost immediately the dark alley turned sharply and opened out into a huge but crowded area.

Pale whitish light filtered in through the ceiling, illuminating catwalks and corresponding management rails running in every direction, skirting through the stacks of room-sized crates that filled the place.

"Welcome to Extended Relaxation!" Nick said happily. "People were kept here, asleep, before they were used in tests! It used to hold thousands and thousands of test subjects before they all sort of died out. Isn't that fascinating? Ooooh!"

Gaz looked slightly sick as she stared around at the boxes. However, she tore that expression down quickly and built up a look of annoyed indifference in its place.

"So… you think Dib's stuck in one of those things?" she asked.

Perhaps. Chell stepped up to the catwalk railing and gripped it, leaning forward to peer at the label on the nearest crate. The label looked ancient, worn and faded. It had various fields stamped with red X-es that looked largely scratched away with time. Test Subject. Adult. Male. Tall. The label was also printed with the date it had been packed and the date it would expire, as if the person inside was a packaged lunchmeat.

Would Dib's box be labeled? Was that still being done, or had that practice died with the scientists long ago?

"Could that be a way out of here?" Gaz asked, staring up at the open-looking ceiling with her eyes cracked. Chell glanced up as well, and shook her head. 'Sunlight' in this place could be misleading. She wouldn't trust anything until she set foot in that wheat field outside once more.

"So if you're looking for someone in particular, how long do you think it'll take us to search the entire room?" Nick asked, examining a different box with a thoughtful expression.

A new voice, feminine-sounding and devoid of much expression, spoke up then. Its owner was hidden from view around a towering stack of Relaxation crates. "What was that?"

Chell froze. Her finger flew to her lips and she stared down at Gaz, who was standing wide-eyed and stock-still as well.

"W-w-what was what?" a second, trembling voice asked.

"I'm sure I heard voices just now. Didn't you?"

"You have your au-aural processors turned up too high," the second voice chided, though he sounded too skittish to effectively tell anyone off. "They're too s-sensitive. It was probably j-just the w-wind."

"Oh, yeah. Sure, I forgot how much wind we get down here," the first voice said. "We should check it out. You know what She wanted us to—Wait, where are you going?! I said we should check it out! Get back over here and quit stammering every other word, you're getting on my nerves!"

Chell hurriedly backed up, almost colliding with Gaz, the springs on her long fall boots clanging with every step and loudly announcing their presence. She whirled around and tried to push Gaz back the way they'd come, her heart nearly pounding out of her chest.

"Get off me!" the girl growled, shrugging Chell off and ducking away. "I think I can tell when it's a good time to run without you yanking me around all the time."

At that moment two cores—one with an orange optic, the other with a dim red optic—slid around a bend in their management rail and blinked at the group in surprise. Chell side-stepped to block Gaz from their sight.

"Wow, She was right," the orange-eyed core said almost lazily. "A core and a human. I guess we found them."

The red-eyed core squinted at Chell and Nick through narrowed eye shields, tilting his faceplate. "B-but it's not a human child, and- and I really don't think that core's I.D…."

Nick, still hovering near Chell, widened his optic in delight at the sight of the two cores and darted forward. "My friends!" he cried.

The red-eyed core blinked, suddenly seemed to recognize him, and fled back down the rail with a scream.

"Nick?" the other core said in genuine shock. "I didn't think we'd be seeing you again. What are you doing with this human? …Well, it doesn't matter, I guess. I've just got to report this and then you'll be dealt with and it's not my problem anymore."

Chell's hand flew to her satchel. Before she could even unclasp it, however, Gaz stepped out from behind her back.

"Good luck doing that blind," the girl snarled.

"Another human?" the core said, sounding surprised but skeptical, just before Gaz blasted a stream of Corrosion Gel at her.

Everything flew into chaos. The orange-eyed core let out a terrible scream, reeling backward, the gel eating away at her metal casing like acid. A few stray drops had landed on the catwalk, slowly melting small holes in that as well.

The red-eyed core appeared back in view and stared, horrified, at his companion. "I h-heard you scream! Gloria! What happened? Are you okay?!" His panicked look traveled from his friend to Chell, whose very appearance seemed to terrify him even more. "S-stay right where you are, y-you monster! I'm telling the Boss!"

He spun around and took off back in the direction he'd come.

Chell bit down hard on a curse and ran after the escaping core, jumping over the damaged section of catwalk and whipping her handgun out of her satchel, taking aim; only then did she realize how much more difficult it would be to hit a moving target than a stationary one. She took the shot anyway and managed to hit the core's connector. This ended up being a mistake.

"HUMAN ATTACK! HUMAN ATTACK!" the core shrieked, rocking back and forth in terror for a moment before charging off again, increasing his speed and rapidly outpacing Chell.

"Hey! Where are you going?" Gaz called from a long distance behind.

Chell skidded to a stop and almost tripped. She'd forgotten. Caught up as she was in trying to stop the core from raising the alarm, she'd almost left Gaz behind. Quickly she turned around and sprinted back to the girl.

Nick was hanging next to the core damaged by Corrosion Gel, nudging her with his handlebars in concern.

"Can you hear me?" he asked.

The other core didn't respond; she just hung there, shivering. For a robot, she had become a gruesome sight—her casing was half-eroded with her inner poles and wires exposed and partially melted, and her eye shields had become welded shut over her optic. Something in her insides was making a dull, chk chk chk sound as if two things were clicking together that shouldn't have been.

Gaz saw Chell's eyes raking over the core and looked distinctly uncomfortable. "I didn't mean to hurt it that much," she said.

Chell tore her gaze from the core and looked at Gaz and Nick, waiting uncertainly. She waved them on ahead. Nick nodded quickly and obliged, with a backwards glance at Gaz.

The girl had her eyes narrowed at Chell as if she knew exactly what was about to happen. "Do whatever you have to do," she said bluntly. "But you know that other one got away. We'll probably have every robot in this place after us soon."

Chell dipped her head briefly, closing her eyes. This was bound to have happened sooner or later. They'd come so far without detection, but she supposed they'd been running on borrowed time from the start. They'd just have to salvage what they could of this situation.

Gaz shifted her attention back to the core she'd sprayed. She took a steadying breath, a look of deep regret on her face (regret for hurting the core or for what she was about to say, Chell wasn't sure) and shuffled forward, her feet dragging on the metal catwalk grating. She bowed her head and muttered, "Look—I'm sorry about the gel. I'm just trying to help my brother."

The core didn't appear to hear her. Gaz turned abruptly on her heel and left down the catwalk with Nick close behind. Only Nick looked back, a flicker of uncertainty passing over his optic. A moment after they were out of sight, Chell leveled her gun at the dying core.

It would be quick. And much more merciful, after all, than whatever lingering agony the gel might bring about. She told herself she'd do the same for a human, if they had fallen into an acid pool with no hope of rescue.

Her fingers tightened against the trigger. I'm sorry.

The shot rang out. It sounded much louder than she had expected, and it echoed in her ears for a long time afterward.

Her instincts couldn't get them far enough away.

Chell and Gaz tore down catwalk after catwalk with Nick running on his connector just in front of or just behind them. All three of them checked backwards periodically to see if they were being followed, but none of them had spotted anything.

Nothing yet, but if that core had really reported them to her, it was only a matter of time. Who could their pursuers be? Chell's mind flashed to the two bipedal robots running around this place, one of which she had very recently attempted to chase down while he made off with a screaming alleged alien.

Were those two robots stalking the halls, looking for them? Were they on their way right now?

She led the small group through several sharp turns, doubling back a few times when she thought they could risk it. She even picked Gaz up at one point and dropped down to a platform below them; they kept running, having landed safely thanks to Chell's long fall boots. It took Nick nearly five minutes to catch up to them, and Chell started to believe that maybe they'd gotten away.

Unfortunately, they had reached a dead end. The catwalk they were following came to an abrupt stop underneath a management rail that continued over a wide expanse of completely empty space.

"Wow, this looks pointless," Gaz said, gazing out at the chasm with a dubious look on her face. "Who designed this?"

Trying to take steadying breaths, Chell studied the emptiness yawning in front of them. It was just a bottomless pit. Jumping down there would likely take them into Old Aperture, if they didn't just land in an acid moat far below. The only ways to go were across the pit on the management rail or back the way they'd just come.

Her head jerked up. Echoing off the walls, she thought she could hear clanking footsteps. And she realized that, without having consciously made a decision, her mind was already made up. She swallowed heavily and gripped the railing in front of her, gritting her teeth. They couldn't be found. Gaz could not be found here. There was already one child lost in this place. There couldn't be another, not when Chell herself had brought the child here, not before she'd done everything in her power to keep Gaz safe.

She hated herself for this. But what else could she do?

"Nick," she said softly, her eyes hard, her voice not much more than a rasp. "How much weight can you carry from your handles?"

The core was so startled by her voice that he looked like he might fall off his connector. But he recovered quickly and beamed. "You can talk! So cool! What a reveal! But I can't carry much, sorry, it'll pull me off my rail. But that's okay, we could figure it out! What did you have in mind?"

She'd hoped for more, but there was still another way. Chell's gaze flicked to Gaz. "Her?"

The girl's eyes widened. "What? No. No. You're kidding. No."

However, Nick bobbed up and down on the management rail. "Yeah, yeah! I think she'd be fine, even with that thing on her back!"

With a brisk nod, Chell hoisted Gaz into the air and hung her unceremoniously from Nick's lower handlebar by the armpits, so that Gaz had to scramble for a better grip to keep from falling off.

"Whoa!" Nick struggled against the extra weight for a moment, sending Chell's heart into her throat, but he readjusted and waved at her with his top handlebar. "Wasn't expecting that! Now what?"

Clank. Clank. Clank. Clank.

Now there really were footsteps. Distant, but too close for comfort.

"I know what you're trying to do, and it's beyond stupid," Gaz said, struggling to reach out for the catwalk railing. Nick had heard the commotion growing nearer and had drifted out past the catwalk, leaving Gaz's legs dangling over empty space. "What are you gonna do, try to lead them away? Don't try to be a stupid hero just because I'm a kid! I've played enough video games to know heroes just get killed!"

Chell jabbed a finger at them. "Go!" she commanded.

There were two sets of running footsteps now.

"I'm warning you, if you don't get me down from here—!" Gaz's eyes were slitted with fury.

Chell stepped back from the railing, still watching Nick and Gaz. She suddenly had the urge to call Nick back over, but she clenched her fist and pushed the thought away. "Don't come back here."

The two of them were still motoring away. Chell turned to leave.

Something small, hard, and white flew through the air and stung the back of her neck, falling onto the catwalk with a clatter.

"I hope that hurt!" Gaz yelled.

Chell snatched the object off the floor, recognizing it as the wooden skull pendant Gaz had worn around her neck since Chell had first seen her.

"I'm going to want that back!" Gaz shouted. "You'd better find me later and give that back, or I'll break every one of your limbs and shove rabid weasels into those stupid boots—"

There was no more time. Chell shoved the necklace into her satchel, gave Gaz and the core one last, fleeting look, and pelted away down the catwalk.

It was definitely much faster to travel alone. She ran full tilt down the catwalk, swinging around a right corner, but skidded to a halt when she reached an emancipation grill that spanned the entrance to a barren office, pausing for an instant; she couldn't let her clothes and equipment be vaporized. Instead, she turned around and sprinted until she came to another branch that led to an open doorway, leaping through and stumbling badly when she landed on the leg that still ached due to an old injury. Sucking in a pained breath, she forced herself to keep going, struggling to overcome the limp.

Every pounding step she took brought with it the same question—had sending Gaz away been the right choice? Had they made it? Would the girl have been better off staying with her?

Double sets of running feet answered that question for her, growing nearer. Chell fled down the hall and ended up on yet another catwalk, surrounded by clear glass tubes filled with cubes and other test-solving junk that zipped through them. Casting a hopeful glance over the railing, she wondered if it would be safe to jump again and land on something below, but she couldn't tell what was down there. She decided against jumping and continued running.

Quite suddenly, as if summoned from nowhere, there weren't two sets of footsteps—there were four. No, six—no, eight—all around her, echoing, and she realized with a jolt that the sounds of running were being played on the intercoms around the facility. Which direction were the real ones coming from?

In a split-second decision Chell jumped after all, vaulting over the railing and clambering onto one of the slippery glass tubes; she was forced to slide/crawl down it until she was stable enough to crouch on one of its relatively horizontal twists, and looked upward.

A flash of blue light flew past her face and spattered into a stream of particles against the glass tube next to her. Someone had attempted to shoot a portal near her. Chell ducked down to avoid more blasts and kept climbing, swinging herself out onto the next nearest catwalk and starting to run once more.

There was a series of excited, electronic gurgles nearby at the sound of her fleeing footsteps. She still couldn't see what was chasing her, but she could guess.

The path she'd chosen ended at a circular door in the wall. She hammered on it, willing it to swivel open—and it did. But when she stumbled into the room beyond, she found herself in pitch darkness. The size of the room and the nature of its potential occupants were completely indistinguishable.

They were herding me, Chell thought, hurrying forward at a faster pace while jerking her satchel from around her shoulders and diving into it in search of her flashlight.

BAM! Reeling backwards, her head feeling split with pain, she dropped to the floor and only just managed to catch her fall with her hands. Her satchel flew out of her grip and vanished in the darkness.

She had run directly into a wall.

Chell wasn't sure she remembered how to breathe at the moment. She reached forward, feeling the wall ahead of her, smacking it with the palm of her hand. There were only solid panels. No. No. NO. Now what? Now what?

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Chell's blood ran cold.

"I have to congratulate you two."

It was that voice.

She sat frozen for a moment, every muscle in her body tense as she crouched against the wall, as rigid as if she'd already been hit with rigor mortis. Slowly, inch by inch, she forced herself to stand and turn to face the front of the room, a bright rectangle of light from the doorway that didn't come close to reaching her.

"You'll be pleased to know that you've both made it onto my list of Top Five Most Hated Runaways. Which is not usually an easy list to get onto, because most people aren't so impolite as to completely reject someone's hospitality by escaping when they're only trying to do what's best for you. I know we had our fair share of differences when we last saw each other, but I think it's time we put all that behind us. For Science, of course."

A quick spasm of fear traveled the length of Chell's body and she shook her head to dispel it.

"Despite all that, you were so easy to recapture it was almost boring… Now, why don't we put you back in the one thing you're somewhat decent at? After all, very few people have ever managed to escape the incinerator without even being set on fire. You might say it's just an especially deadly… Test."

Chell's insides seemed to drop out of her at those words. No. Never again.

The voice seemed to be on a roll, because it continued on. "Of course, if you don't want to test, I do have another important job I could give you. And after all, wouldn't your father be proud that you're finally making some worthwhile contribution to Science?"

…Now, that didn't register at all. Father? What father?

…Who did the computer think she was talking to, exactly?

"It's your choice, really. You could go back to the testing track or take up my other offer. What do you say?"

The lights snapped on, causing Chell to wince and squint against the brightness until her eyes readjusted. She realized dimly that she had been chased into what might have been a large storage closet at some point.

There were clanging metal footsteps and the two bipedal robots—one squat and spherical with a blue optic, and the other tall and oblong with an orange optic—stepped into the room and stared at her without venturing any closer. A heavy presence hung around them, as though something else were observing the world through their eyes.

There was a long, stunned silence.

Chell refused to move and simply stared at the two robots, her face an impassive mask and her jaw set.

"…Oh."

The voice seemed taken aback. Almost as if this was all completely unexpected, which left Chell more confused than ever.

"Well. This is… a pleasure." The shocked tone disappeared at once. "It really is a reunion, isn't it? We're all back here… But of course, if I knew you were coming, I'd've baked a cake."

Gaz was not afraid of heights.

But then again, she usually didn't find herself dangling by her fingertips over an endless pit, held up only by a happy-go-lucky robot moving along at a quick pace.

"You all right down there?" the core asked, trying to crane his optic downward to get a better look at her.

"Sure, I'm fine," Gaz managed to say. She remembered Chell's spring boots that kept you safe from falling long distances. Where did you get a pair of those, anyway?

"You sure you're okay? That doesn't seem very comfortable."

"You could always just go back and put me down on the catwalk," Gaz pointed out.

"But your friend told us not to come back! I think she just wants to keep you safe, that's all."

Gaz said something nasty under her breath.

"Hey, come on, only happy language here!" Nick said.

There was a pause.

Then, his voice dropping a little, he said, "Hey… remember what happened earlier? Back there? …Gloria'll be okay, right?"

Gaz was silent for a moment. When she answered, her voice was hollow with the lie. "Yeah. She'll be fine."

"Oh… that's a relief." Nick perked up. "D'you wanna play a game? How about 'I Spy'?"

"No."

"Twenty questions?"

"Not likely."

"Aww, come on! Come on, you think of a thing, and I'll try and guess the thing! It'll be super fun!"

Gaz rolled her eyes and let out a huff, blowing a strand of stray hair out of her face. There wasn't exactly much else to do up here and she figured she could use a distraction. "Fine. I've got something."

"Is it an animal?" Nick asked at once.

Gaz's fingers were cramping. She debated whether it was a good idea to try to shift her grip. "Yes."

"Does it walk on two legs?"

"Not in this dimension. Unless it's a costume."

"Is it a praying mantis?!" the core guessed, grinning.

Cocking an eyebrow, Gaz peered up at him. "That's an insect."

Nick flipped his upper handlebar. "Yeah! But I mean, if you take animal, mineral, or vegetable, animal's definitely closest to mantises, doncha think? Does your animal have wings?"

A soft growl escaped Gaz's throat. "No, and neither do I, so let's get across this abyss quickly before my hands fall off."

"Whoa! Does that happen with humans?!" Nick exclaimed in awe. The core was still trying to gesture with his handlebars for emphasis and Gaz had to squirm a bit to keep from being jostled too much.

"Just shut up and keep moving!" she snapped.

"Righty-oh!" Nick chanted, snapping his upper handlebar up in an imitation of a salute. "So, have there been any feature films made about your animal?"

"Uh…" Gaz thought for a moment. "Yeah."

"Cool! That would probably be useful info, if I'd seen any feature films ever."

Gaz pursed her lips. "Don't bother watching any. They're all garbage."

"Naaah, I don't believe that. Hey, look!" Nick nodded straight ahead, to where Gaz could see that the chasm finally ended and a platform waited. "Land ho!"

The core hurried over to the platform and helped Gaz lower herself onto it. She stretched and shook out her fingers, readjusting Dib's X-scope on top of her head, feeling that if she never had to take another trip like that again it would be too soon.

"I guess we're… sort of on the lam for a little while now, huh?" Nick said quietly, his lower eye shutter raised in only a small smile rather than his usual blinding grin. "That's a cool word, isn't it? Lam? Like a baby sheep but not. Do you wanna continue with the tour now? Or should we wait around here for your quiet friend? She's pretty nice, don't you think?"

"…Yeah, sure," Gaz said. Almost inadvertently she touched the place where her necklace always hung. Gone. She'd lost the necklace and at the same time she'd lost the one person who knew her way around this place, who knew what was going on—Gaz's one chance at finding her brother.

She glanced up at Nick, who was exclaiming in wonder over the size of the gulf they had crossed. All right, so Chell wasn't the only one here who knew what to expect in this place. That core had lived here his whole life. Gaz clutched the railing of the catwalk and gazed down into the misty depths, thinking.

They could not count on Chell to return. That much was certain. The woman had likely been captured and imprisoned (or worse) by whatever entity ran this stupid deathtrap. And if she somehow hadn't, she'd probably be too busy avoiding that fate to come looking for Gaz and this happy, chatty robot sphere.

It was up to Gaz now. She was Dib's last hope of getting out of here.

Groaning, Gaz slid down onto the metal grating of the floor and sat with her legs swinging over the side.

Why hadn't she just minded her own business and stayed home playing video games?

Rap, rap, rap.

Three sharp taps with a gloved fist on the wooden door yielded no response. Professor Membrane tried once more and was met with the same result. Clearly, a different tactic would have to be used.

"Daughter?" He turned the knob on Gaz's door and threw it open dramatically. "Daughter, I have respected your privacy by knocking but am asserting my authority as your father by coming in anyway! Where have you and your brother been hiding?"

The dark room appeared to be empty. Gaz's bed was neatly made and looked as though it hadn't been slept in for a couple of days.

Membrane shook his head. "Now, children, you know better than to stay out for several nights without my permission! How are you going to develop into respectable scientists when you run away without notification of your absence?" He left the room and closed the door behind him. Really, now, this disappearing business was getting out of hand, and he was losing his patience.

At that moment his communicator beeped and he answered it, receiving the familiar voice of his employee Simmons.

"Sir, I'm sorry to bother you but we really need you back at the lab!" Simmons said. Membrane's tinted goggles lit up with every word the other man spoke. "I think we're getting closer to a breakthrough in artificial intelligence, especially since that Aperture runaway you hired disappeared. You'd almost think she was holding us back. What time will you make it over here?"

"I may have to wait until tomorrow, Simmons!" Membrane said. "Do you have any idea where I might find my kids?"

"Your… kids?" Simmons asked in complete bafflement. "I don't know, Sir. Since when did you have any kids…? I mean, are you even married?"

"My son and daughter have gone missing!" Membrane interrupted. He made his way toward Dib's room. "You remember them from the failed Perpetual Energy Generator presentation!"

"Oh! Right…" Simmons said. "You set out chairs for them but they never showed up. Is there anything I can do, Sir?"

"Just continue with the project," Membrane ordered brusquely. "Let me know immediately when either a breakthrough or a disaster occurs!"

"Will do!" Simmons said. "Either way, you'll probably be hearing from me again in about five minutes!"

With that, he signed off.

Professor Membrane knocked on Dib's door. "Son! Have you returned from your little foreign friend's house?"

Without waiting for an answer he swung open the door but, much like Gaz's, this room was devoid of life.

Well, almost.

"You smell like space!" a metal sphere sitting on Dib's bed gurgled happily at him.

Membrane paused. It was some sort of spherical robot with handlebars and a single eye, and somehow it looked like it was smiling.

"Ah yes, I remember Dib did mention something about circular robots," Membrane mused, scrutinizing the thing. "What's your programming, little ball?"

"Programmed for space!" the robot said, gazing up at him. "Have you seen Space Friend? Does Space Science Man know Space Friend? No, not in space anymore. Earth. Back-On-Earth Friend?"

"Remarkable…" Membrane walked closer and examined the sphere, tipping it over to view it from all angles. "It seems to be aware of myself and its location!"

"Earth!" the robot said. Its tone of voice, if robots could be said to speak in expressive tones, seemed to be perpetually fast and excited. "Earth! I'm in Earth, not in space. Earth and then space and then Earth again. Not so good with Earth. I'm better at space, I'm the best. I'm the best at space. Are you space? Wanna go to space? Can you take me to space? I love space."

Membrane stepped back and shook his head at the robot's inane chatter, turning to leave. "Never mind," he said, a note of frustration in his voice. "That boy and his trinkets. Where did I go wrong? My son can't even build a functioning robot—"

"Wait!"

The cry sounded urgent, and it had come from the little robot on the bed. Membrane looked back, surprise lighting his goggles.

"Wait!" the robot called again. "Wait, wait, wait! Radio! My radio! I have a radio. Space radio. No, not a space radio. Can you fix it? Space radio connection. Broken. From space. Smashed in landing I think. It's gone. You can fix it? Fix the radio? Space Boy—no, not in space—Earth Boy, Earth-Dib fixed Space Friend. You can fix it? I want to talk to Space Friend. Space Friend knows what to do. We can go to space."

Somehow, this thing was asking for help. Perhaps its programming was somewhat impressive after all.

"Of course I can fix a radio connection!" Membrane declared. "Any top scientist could fix one in their sleep! And I, of course, am the world's top top scientist!" He rushed back over and picked up the robot, peering through the hole in its side to look at its innards. "Now! Where does the trouble originate?"

The further down they journeyed into the lower parts of the facility, the darker it became. Soon Wheatley had to switch on his flashlight to illuminate the path from above while Dib, the angry green-skinned one, and the two-eyed robot traversed the catwalks down below.

But they were getting closer to their destination. Soon they'd have the lady free, and Wheatley couldn't stop talking about it.

"Aw, I'm telling' you mate, you'll love her," he enthused, wondering vaguely how many times he'd said that.

"Wheatley, you've said that like nine times." Dib sounded exasperated. "She sounds really great. Are you going to marry her or something when we find her?"

"You're president of the Science Lady's fan club!" GIR said, pushing forward past Zim. "And I'm Secretary of Defense and also Treasurer!"

"What? No, there is no fan club and I'm not the president of anything," Wheatley said, slightly embarrassed. "…Unless it's something like, I dunno, 'Best Core' or whatever, because, well, yes. Although that sounds more like a prestigious award than a presidency. I mean, thing to be president of, that is. But if it was a real award, I'd win, definitely. Don't you think?" He looked down at Dib, who glanced up at him with the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Hm. That depends. Are there any other cores in the running?" Dib asked.

"What—! Oh, haha, very funny." Wheatley tried to appear unruffled. "Just forget the award, then. I mean, I'd never win if I was actually judged against other cores, now would I?"

"Maybe no one else would show up and you'd win by default," Dib said with a shrug.

Wheatley's motor slowed a bit and rasped against the management rail. They were still joking, right? Or had Dib meant that?

"Where are we going?" the angry green non-human-but-non-robot blurted out, shoving past Dib to glare up at Wheatley and squinting against the flashlight. He had his arms clamped around his metal backpack thing. "We've been walking forever! Where are you leading us, Space Cube?!"

"Space Cube?" Wheatley spluttered, stopping in his tracks. "Where the bloody heck did that come from? I'm not a cube, mate, I'm a ball. Or did you get smacked in the head and now you can't tell the difference anymore? And as for the space part, I never want to see the place again—"

"Never mind, forget you!" Zim snapped. He rounded on Dib instead. "Dib-thing! Where are we going?"

"Uh, actually, I don't know, Dib said, stopping as well and glancing between Zim and Wheatley. "I was never told the plan. What is the plan?"

They both looked up at Wheatley expectantly.

He quickly pulled up the current map of Aperture, checked it, and closed it away again. "Well, all right. We're nearly there, so I should probably tell you. So you'll be ready. Um, but you, little alien Zim, thing—this plan was made up before you came along, and you don't have a part in it so you may as well leave. Cheers."

Zim narrowed his eyes. "I'm only interested in a plan that'll bring destruction to that computer."

"Wheatley, if we let Zim out of our sight, besides trying to take over Earth he'll probably try to kill us," Dib pointed out.

"I'd be delighted to," Zim said tightly, and Dib gestured at him as though showing Wheatley the proof of what he'd just said.

Wheatley sighed irritably. "All right, all right, fine. So, I don't have just one plan, I've got two plans. Or at least, one plan with two parts. That are unrelated. And both parts are good, but we need to get to the turret production center to do it."

"Turret production? Why are we going after turrets?" Dib asked, while Zim looked shocked. "What are we supposed to do there?"

"The turrets have something we need! Shouldn't say much more out here, though," Wheatley said quickly. He lowered his voice and took on what he considered to be a more serious tone. "The walls have ears. Not literally, of course, but y'know. You never know who might be listening and actually, She might've installed microphones in the walls just to make that saying true. Or, half-true. In a more metaphorical sense. Even though it was a metaphor in the first pla—"

"I've had enough of your nonsense spewing from your non-mouth!" Zim broke in. "Get to the point!"

Dib pressed two fingers to his temples. "Yeesh, Zim, can you stop screaming everything you say? You're gonna get all of us killed!"

"Good!" Zim spat. He shuddered oddly and clamped his mouth closed.

"How is that good?" Dib scowled.

"Well, honestly, just reaching here," Wheatley said. "I think he might hate us all. Just a bit."

Zim didn't respond to that, opting to just look furious instead. "Well? Are we going or not?"

"Oh—yes, I guess we're heading on then." Wheatley hurried up to the front of the group and resumed his path toward the turret production center.

It was another torturous while of navigating through the darkness, with Wheatley attempting to fill the silence with whatever ran through his mind. Twice they had to stop for Zim to have another panicked episode about that electronic thing on his back—he never wanted to put it back on, but keeping it off for too long greatly weakened and almost killed him. It was all very strange, but after long last and much arguing, they finally caught the sound of shots firing up ahead.

"Ohoho, this is it!" Wheatley said, zipping forward to try to see better. "D'you hear that? We're getting close now!"

"Wheatley, if we go in there, won't the turrets shoot at us?" Dib asked, looking nervously in the distance.

"No, no, they're just firing at a test dummy," Wheatley said. "Probably."

He came to a sudden stop, troubled. Well, this was different from last time. Ahead of them was a flight of stairs going downward, but his management rail veered off to the right through a hole built into the wall. "Ooh. Looks like we're gonna have to split up here."

"Split up?" Dib asked sharply.

"Only temporarily!" Wheatley hastened to say. "There's no other option, see, my management rail doesn't go over the stairs. I'll have to meet you three up ahead."

"No, you need to stay with us," Dib said.

Zim stepped in front of Dib, frowning at him and Wheatley. "I don't have time for your pitiful arguing with your stupid pet robot. I'll go scout out the turret-making room."

"Are you sure? It's pretty dark." Wheatley looked out at the passage in front of them but could see very little, even with his flashlight playing off the walls.

For a brief moment, Zim took on a sort of twisted smirk. "Irkens don't need light to see. I'm going ahead! Come, GIR!" Zim turned and took the stairs down two at a time, fading into the blackness.

"I also have a head!" GIR trotted after him, arms flailing.

Dib leaned out over the stairs and called down, "I'm the one with the stupid pet robot?"

"That's what I said!" Zim's voice floated up.

"You're all bloody weird," Wheatley said to himself.

"What'd you say?" Dib looked back over at him.

"Nothing, nothing! Look, you're standing right by the stairs, your best friend there's gone down already, why not just follow him? I'll catch up to you as soon as I can."

"I thought the point of teaming up was to stick together," Dib said. "I can't see without your light, anyway!"

"Oh… that's right," Wheatley said blankly. "I'm just—I can't…" He sighed. "…I know, I know. Well, what would you have me do, eh?"

And so several minutes and one terrifying drop later, Wheatley found himself hovering in the energy field put out by Dib's portal gun. Dib took the stairs at a slower pace than Zim and GIR had. Wheatley flipped himself over to point in the direction they were going and did his best to keep the light steady while bouncing around with every step.

"You know, if we fail to find a connector for me later and I'm just stuck on the end of your portal gun again, that's on you," Wheatley said. "I'm not gonna be any good in a fight if it comes to that, mate, you'd be on your own. I mean, what am I gonna do, whack 'em with my handlebars?"

"If you think that would help," Dib said. "You can also be lookout again."

Wheatley's upper optic shield lowered. "Right, yeah. Yet again, 'Lookout Wheatley,' that's me."

"Try to do a better job than before."

"You know," Wheatley said, his optic shields narrowing still further, "back when the lady and I were running around in the facility together, we split up all the time and she never minded."

"Okay, when you put emphasis on 'she' like that, are you talking about the mysterious test subject lady or GLaDOS? Because it gets confusing."

"Oh, that time I definitely meant the lady." Wheatley bobbed up and down in a hasty nod.

"Why don't you ever use names?" Dib asked curiously. "I get that you're scared of GLaDOS, but what about that test subject? Is she really just 'the lady' to you?"

Wheatley blinked. "Should she be something else?"

Dib reached the bottom of the stairs and shook his head in incredulousness. "Well, yeah! She's gotta have a first and last name, a family, an age, likes and dislikes. She's a real person. We—humans are all, we're all real people."

Wheatley saw Dib swallow hard. He struggled to work out what the boy was trying to say. "I know you're real people. What on Earth else would you be? Funny-lookin' cores?" He laughed.

"I'm just saying people are more than just 'the' something. 'The lady' or 'the boy,' maybe. See? Even if they don't seem like it, they're all… they're all different."

Wheatley flipped back over and looked the boy—well, Dib— up and down, then turned back. "All right, so you're all different. To be honest though, humans never made much sense to me. I've got no idea how you lot work. And what about me? I've got, uh, all that stuff you mentioned. A name, likes, dislikes, et cetera. Vice versa. Incognito. Other fancy Spanish words. What does that make me?"

Dib peered at him. "I don't really know. You're not human."

"Oh, well done." Wheatley rolled his eye good-naturedly. "Bravo, that must be your premier investigator skills kicking in right there. I guess I'm just a machine, but I've gotta be more than that, right? I mean I'm not a bloody toaster oven."

"A robot's kind of a step up from a regular machine," Dib pointed out.

Wheatley nodded again. "Okay, okay, so a person is like a heightened form of human, then, and a robot is a heightened form of machine, so it's… a robot is basically the machine equivalent of a person?"

"No, see, all humans are people but not all machines are robots. And not all robots are even sentient, either."

Wheatley groaned. "You've lost me. You've flat out flippin' lost me, mate."

"Let's just keep going." Dib seemed eager to change the subject. He looked around, squinting in the gloom. "Where are Zim and GIR?"

"Maybe they fell down a lift shaft," Wheatley said hopefully. "So what about Zim, then? Is he a person or a robot? He's not human either."

Dib's response was quiet. "I don't know. Let's talk about something else."

Wheatley frowned. "I'm pretty sure you're the one who brought it up in the first place, little mate, but sure. Whatever you say." He glanced around and motioned Dib forward with his upper handlebar. "The turret production center'll be up here somewhere—"

[HELLO?]

If Wheatley had been on his connector at the moment, he would probably have leapt off of it. Not only had he been unexpectedly interrupted once again, he was pretty sure he'd heard that voice inside his head. "Hello! What? Hello? Who said that?!"

"Who said what?" Dib asked, alarmed. "What happened?"

"Didn't you hear that?" Wheatley looked wildly from side to side with his handles and eye shields pulled back tensely. "Just now! I heard someone say hello!"

Dib stared at him in concern. "I didn't hear anything… You don't think it was GLaDOS, do you?"

Wheatley flailed. "Well now I do! Thanks a lot, mate!"

The thought of Her sending him messages that only he could hear was beyond terrifying.

[Helloooo? Hello? Hi? Hi? Hello? You there?]

Wait, that didn't sound like Her. That sounded too friendly and… oddly, familiar. And if he didn't know better he'd say it was coming, not directly into his head, but over his seldom-used radio frequency. But he'd only ever shared that frequency with the Space Core…

[…Hello?] Wheatley tried tentatively.

[Space Friend! It worked! It's fixed! Hi! Hi! Hi!] The voice sounded overjoyed.

Wheatley blinked in disbelief. […Space Core? Is that you? How are you doing this?]

[Hi! Here I am! I'm here to bring us to space!] Spacey said. [Back to space!]

[I'm not going back to space. Where are you, Spacey? Oh, let me guess, you're stuck down here too. Everyone else is.]

[Not stuck, but on Earth,] Spacey said. [Stuck on Earth.]

Wheatley narrowed his optic shields slightly. [Hang on, are you… are you still at Dib's house, mate?]

[Yes! I'm at a house. Can't see space. Just one big bright star going down.]

"Oh, that's brilliant!" Wheatley said.

"Huh? Did you figure out what the noise was?" Dib asked immediately. He wasn't heading toward the production center anymore but instead had stopped.

Wheatley waved him off. "No, no—well, actually, yes, I did. Spacey—you know him, yellow optic, talks about space a lot—he just contacted me by radio. He's still at your house!"

"The other core I found? He could give Dad the message that we're down here!" Dib said, his eyes going wide. "Can you ask him that? He can't hear me, can he?"

"No, he can only hear me." Wheatley opened up the communication again. [Hello? Spacey? You still there?]

[Hello Space Friend!]

[Hey, yeah, great. Could you do me a favor, d'you think? It'd be extremely helpful.]

[Helpful! I can be helpful! In space!]

[Nonono!] Wheatley said hurriedly. [No, Spacey, you have to be on Earth for this favor. Do not go to space. Not yet. All right?]

[Oh… okay…] The other core sounded more dejected than Wheatley had ever heard him sound.

[Good. Er, sorry.] Wheatley simulated taking a deep breath. [Right, then, right, er… look, we need you to take a message to Dib's father. Or his sister, or his… I dunno, dog, if he's got a dog that he never told me about. Provided, of course, that the dog in question is capable of speech and is therefore able to convey the message to a higher party, such as, er, Dib's father! So if you can't get to the dad, go for the sister, or the hypothetical dog. Got it?]

[Got it!] Space Core affirmed.

Wheatley nodded, before realizing Spacey couldn't see him. [Good. Talk to you later, then.] He gave Dib a reassuring smile and closed the communication. A second later, and with a wild flurry of his handles, he opened it back up again. [Wait, wait, hold the phone, I haven't given you the message yet!]

"Is something wrong?" Dib asked, probably having noticed Wheatley's frantic movements.

Wheatley waved his handles again. "Give us a tick, little mate, er, hang on. Err, Spacey told me he forgot something." Urgh, switching back and forth between radio speech and regular speech was making his circuits ache. [Sorry. Are you ready to hear the message?]

[IS IT ABOUT SPACE?]

[No!] Wheatley snapped. [Opposite, in fact, exact opposite! Dib and I are trapped back There, and we've been here a few days. Can you tell his dad that?]

[You're trapped in space?]

[Not space! The other 'There.' Aperture!] Wheatley said. [Bloody heck, I feel like we've had this exact conversation before.]

[Don't have to yell…]

He sighed. [Sorry, Spacey, I'm sorry. Could you just- could you tell someone we're trapped here? Yeah? I mean…] He looked up at Dib, who was alternating between peering around at the darkness surrounding them and gazing down at Wheatley worriedly to see what was going on. [Y'know, I don't reckon anyone up top even knows Dib's down here. He's all alone—well, he's got me, which is nice and all; I can… y'know, open doors, and everything. But I think…] Wheatley's "voice" dropped lower and his face tilted downward. [I just think probably someone should know where he is, that's all.]

[You're underground,] Spacey said softly.

[Yeah. Underground, that's a good way to put it. And the lady—sorry, I don't actually know her name, but you know who I'm talking about—she's here too, somewhere. I know it.]

[I remember down there. You can't see the stars there. Can't even see the big one.]

Wheatley glanced off to the side. [Err…? No, we can't see the stars.] Frankly that seemed like the least of their worries right now.

[I'll tell him!] Spacey said. [I'll tell Dib-Dad! Space Friend can count on me!]

[Thanks, mate.] Wheatley's expression softened. [Talk to you later.] He shook himself a little after the call ended and looked back at Dib. "Right, well, I asked him."

Dib perked up. "Did he tell Dad?"

"Uh! Well, I don't think he has yet, but I'm sure he'll let me know when he does."

"All right. That's good, at least," Dib said.

"No idea how he called me from your house, though," Wheatley said. "Honestly, I'm stumped. Those radios are supposed to be only for short distances."

"Maybe Dad did something to it," Dib said. For some reason his voice caught in his throat when he mentioned his father again.

"Well if that's the case and it gets us out of this bloody place in one piece, then I'm glad he did," Wheatley muttered. "Come on, we're almost at the production center."

Dib started off once more and Wheatley jumped a bit at the sudden indication that his communication line had been opened again.

[Space Friend! Guess what!] the Space Core's excited voice said. [The stars are coming back! I see so many stars! All the constellations!]

As Space Core rattled off a bunch of the constellations he was apparently seeing that probably couldn't possibly all be in the sky at the same time, Wheatley almost wished the radio hadn't been fixed after all.

Look on the bright side, mate, he said to himself. We've got a real chance of getting out of here now.

He pushed away thoughts of Her, what She might be doing at this exact moment to bring them back, and how exactly they were going to actually escape even with Wheatley's plan and possible help from Dib's dad.

Surely, surely, the worst was behind them all.