AN: Hello all. Well, I delivered on my promise, so yeah, here's chapter sixteen. I understand the past couple of chapters have been a bit slow. Everything should start ramping up from here though. Feel free to review at your leisure, and let me know what you think! With that, read on!
Chapter Sixteen
"Can you deal with something like this?" Sophie whispered miserably as they made their way into the kitchen.
"Eh," Wheatley waved his hands around as if it were no big deal, trying to reassure her, "don't you worry, your dad's got experience with this sort of thing. We'll sort it out sooner or later. C'mon then." He guided her to the table, and Sophie sat gingerly.
"Right," he paused, hovered over a kitchen chair nervously, then sat, "right, so…what triggered it, do ya think?"
"That's just it, I don't know. I was asleep!"
"So-oh-ohhhhh," Alex softly thumped into the room, yawning. Her bony knees thunked against the floor as she crawled into the kitchen space to spare her still-bandaged feet. After a good minute, her yawn at last subsided and she managed to get out, "Sophie, why are you awake?"
"Go back to sleep, Alex." Sophie sighed, rising from the table, and she gently took Alex's arm.
"No no, hang on, wait," Alex protested, and she held up her hands, forcing Sophie to look down at her particularly diminutive person before, "what's going on?"
"It's nothing." Sophie glanced at him, and Wheatley let out a long, long sigh.
"Sophie's having some trouble with her—what'd you call it?"
"Technopathy?" Alex supplied, helpful as ever.
"Dad," Sophie put special emphasis on the word, letting him know on no uncertain terms that she wanted to discuss this in front of Alex, but he plowed on ahead.
"Hang on, Sophie, maybe she can help."
He and Sophie stared at each other for a long moment, and he was struck with the sudden thought that although Sophie's eyes were remarkably like his own, she had inherited her mother's iron-hard stare. A stare that was currently being used on himself to great effect. He winced a little, tugging at the collar of his pajama shirt.
Sophie looked away, clearly displeased. "Fine."
"Alright then." Alex said matter-of-factly, either oblivious or purposefully ignorant of the tension in the room. She took Sophie's hand and guided her slowly to a chair, then settled in herself. Folding her hands rather seriously for her age, she turned her head in Sophie's direction.
"What seems to be the problem?"
"It's really nothing." Sophie glanced at him on the last word. "You really should be resting, Alex. It'll probably be a big day tomorrow."
"Sophie, I like to help people. It's what I've always be meant to do."
The statement caught Wheatley off-guard, and a memory bubbled, inches just out of reach. Something…something to do with helping people. Something about…about Her.
He couldn't imagine why She and Alex could have anything to do with one another.
Sophie hesitated, but finally she said, "I've…well, I've got these nanites in my system, and they've been doing some weird stuff all around…but recently my eyes have started glowing whenever I get angry or…or when I purposely do something with them," she shifted, "the nanites, I mean. I'm not doing anything with my eyes that triggers it, is what I mean…"
Alex nodded with all the gravity of a lauded professor, opened her mouth, and said, "I believe they're trying to give you a backlight."
"What?" Wheatley and Sophie asked at the same time, both of them quickly sending worried glances toward the ceiling.
"A backlight." Alex repeated, unperturbed. "I think that they think that you need to see better in the dark, so they've given you a backlight."
"Well, I don't need a backlight, so if they—if you guys—could just stop, that would be great." Sophie held her arms aloft, looking every direction as if she could somehow spot the nanites hovering in midair and glare at them.
They were all silent for a beat. Sophie blinked a couple of times, the gentle blue glow of her eyes casting a clear, cold light on the surface of the kitchen table, and she scowled.
"Well, come on! Give me something!" She snapped, yelling, and this time both Alex and Wheatley winced.
"Sophie, please listen to me," Alex took Sophie's hand to emphasize her point, "you've got to find the melody behind the machines."
"But what does that mean?" Sophie pulled away, her expression twisted in confusion and her voice frustrated.
"It's like finding the right frequency, right, Alex?" Wheatley ventured, continuing as the small girl nodded, "You've got to find the sort of order behind all the piddly little things going on."
"But how?" Sophie threw up her hands in exasperation. "I don't know how to do that!"
"Shh," Alex placed another hand on Sophie's arm placatingly. "Just listen."
"I don't hear any…" Sophie sucked in a breath.
"Do you hear them singing?" Alex asked.
"Not…no, not singing, exactly. But they're…they're trying to give me a backlight? Is that what the whole glowing eyes thing is about?"
"I mean, I suppose that would make some sort of sense—not that you're a core or anything, but I mean, they must think you'd need one to see in the dark, I suppose—" Wheatley offered.
"Ok then," mustering a strong, no-nonsense tone of voice, Sophie commanded, "turn off, then."
The blue light faded almost immediately, leaving the three of them in near darkness.
"Yes!" Alex cried at their success, at the same Sophie collapsed, and his heart jumped into his mouth.
"Sophie!" He quickly ran round to the other side of the table. Sophie was lying on the ground, her face pale. "You alright?"
"I think…I maybe…" she puffed, breathing hard, "I think I maybe…maybe turned them off…all the way."
"Wait, what does that mean?" Alex's head was poked over the edge of the table, staring sightlessly at them. Her brows were creased with worry. "Is it something bad?"
"Sophie's nanites keep her alive." Wheatley managed to say, propping his daughter up on the floor.
"Here, let me—" Alex slid out of her chair and started crawling towards them.
"Hang on, Alex. Not yet." He waved her off, too preoccupied to catch her swift change of expression and the sudden, deep hurt that flashed across her childish features.
"What's going on down—" Chell came padding in, silent and careful as a jungle cat in her usual fashion, and quickly rushed over. "The nanites?"
Wheatley nodded, at a loss for words.
"Mom, I don't know what—"
"Shh. Alright, alright," Chell began soothingly, though he swiftly recognized the hard look in her eyes. The kind that suggested the Aperture laboratories property destruction. "Here, let's get her to Garret, maybe he can—"
"Let me help!" Alex stomped over to them—er, well, about as well as she could manage on her knees—and she poked both him and Chell in the shoulders. "Just," she huffed, clearly angry, "just let me help, will you?"
Speechless, the pair of them stepped back a touch, letting Alex kneel next to Sophie.
"Alright little robots," Alex began, her voice hard, "let's turn back on again, okay?"
A touch of silence, and Sophie began to close her eyes sleepily.
"I said," Alex repeated, a little louder this time, "Turn. On."
More silence, and Chell moved to pick Sophie up. Wheatley held out a gentle hand to stop her, meeting her eyes with the calmest, most confident look he could muster.
Alex let out a ragged sigh. "Fine," she said, beginning to tremble just a little, "fine. If it's an admin override you want, then you'll get it."
Alex's eyes took on a strange blue glow, distinctly different from Sophie's. It was somehow warmer, more electric.
"Reactivate. Admin override, Alexandria alpha one."
Sophie gasped, and her eyes flickered blue once as they shot open, then faded to their natural color. She breathed in, deeply, and the color started to come back to her cheeks.
"Sophie!" Wheatley was absolutely certain he was hugging too tight, but he didn't much care, since he could feel Chell's strong arms around Sophie as well. Sophie was alright. She was fine.
Alex stood awkwardly off to the side, breathing somewhat hard. Had he thought to look up, he might have seen the fading electric blue glow of her eyes, and the thinnest of blue lines fading from her cheeks.
In the end, however, what any of them had been planning to do next didn't much matter, since a new voice interrupted their conversation, amidst the sound of machinery whirring to life.
"Oh, thank God. I thought you'd leave me sitting in a corner like this forever. We really need to talk. And case you think I'm lying again, let me ask you a question: how attatched are you to this house? And everything around it in a five mile radius? Because unless we do something, we're all going to blow up."