Chapter 65, Everybody! Still working hard on all active fics this month and angling to get back into the updating swing of things. We've got updates for several weeks now for this fic—and I think we're close to the end so…my goal is to finish this fic this year. *excited flailing*

Moving on…let's have a bunch of cameos of Don't Starve characters via personality spheres. :D 'Going around the elbow to get to the thumb' is something my parents say, so I expect it's a bit of an older saying. We're also quoting a litany of other movies like Beetlejuice, Jungle 2 Jungle, and The Emperor's New Groove. And Maxwell's snide comment is usually something I write as someone telling him that (let's be honest, none of us pictured Charlie as a girl when we first heard the name). And Willow's response is my beef with people discussing the lack of romance for girls like Queen Elsa and Lara Croft—did they not look busy with something else at the time give them a break.

Don't Starve © 2013 Klei Entertainment

Portal © 2007 Valve

It took a lot of finagling and going around the elbow to get to the thumb, but they slowly circled around closer, finally had to risk going back up into the shifting main facility, aiming in the same general direction and hoping for the best.

Also, tuning out Wilson's raving.

"You hear that?" she hissed at Maxwell. "That's what you sound like."

"Well unless you want to sound dead, hush!" he hissed back—flinched at a piston moving, leaned over the railing to consider things. "On the positive side, he seems to have suffered a nervous breakdown—nothing's moving as smoothly anymore."

"How is this good news?"

"It means he'll make mistakes. Make it easier to nail him."

She felt conflicted about that—torn—he might be too far gone to save. Her Wilson might be buried under the entirety of the facility, unable to dig himself out—she might be his only hope. Save him, don't save him, believe he was still there, give up on him—either way, she'd have to make a decision before they confronted him—otherwise, she'd freeze at a crucial moment, when she needed to act.

Deep breath—exhale. "Maybe we could try getting rid of the neurotoxin and the turrets again."

"Mm, tempting…but no. That was something you did with him—even if we could find those areas again, he'd be on alert for that—gonna need a different plan."

"Hmm," she noised, looking at him. "How effective would neurotoxin be against you? I mean it didn't really affect you last time."

"Keep in mind that last time I was hooked up to the facility with fully functioning nanites," he shot. "Right now I'd have a very awful death, same as you."

So possibly entertaining to watch, but not helpful. "Any other choices?"

"Hope he doesn't just drop a mashy spike plate on us?"

"I meant good choices," she muttered, heading down the line again.

"Oh hello!"

They froze at that, looked around—

"Over here!"

Exchange glances—follow the calls of several voices until they found a room with glass containers, some half-full of spheres with black lenses—

And some with active lenses of different colors.

"Hello!" one chirped. "Watchu doing out here?"

"More like 'what are they doing out there?'" a different one said.

"Uh…Max, what are these?" Willow had to ask.

"Hey, rude," one said.

"Personality cores," Maxwell said. "Official story is that they're programmed with these personalities."

"Unofficial story?" Willow asked.

"Eh, one of the higher-ups was scrambling for a way to cram a person into a computer—something to do with the Aperture Science CEOs wanting it—and these are a bunch of failed experiments." Point at one rattling off different recipes. "Pretty sure that one used to be a cook." Point at a different one making incomprehensible noises. "And that one used to be a monkey."

"Yup, there's the awful KVAS angle," she said brightly, before the implications hit her hard. "Wait, these used to be people?"

"What are those?" one asked.

"I think they're some sort of exotic insect," a different one said.

"Don't—don't tell them that, they're cracked enough as-is from the process. Aren't'cha pal?" he asked one with an unseeing rose-colored eye.

"All is death and destruction," it intoned in a little girl's voice.

"See?"

"That's awful," Willow said.

"Eh," Maxwell noised, shrugging. "Par for the course, actually—do keep in mind the plan they finally went forward with was plugging a full human being into the thing. By the by, that hurts."

One of the spheres was glaring at Maxwell with a narrowed optic. "Oi mate, don't I know you?"

"Say pal, do I care?"

"What if we plugged in one of these guys instead?" Willow asked.

"Won't work—these are all failed experiments because they only got part of the person in there—it's like a fraction of their personality, not enough to power the facility."

"Wolfgang can most definitely power puny facility!" one core declared, making its speakers crackle with the force of the statement. "Will power facility with mighty muscles! Right, quiet friend?" it asked, looking at one that was simply staring at nothing and not responding. Glance at them. "Quiet friend is mime pretending to be in box."

"I'm guessing they don't add up," Willow offered.

"I'm guessing you don't know how computers work at all," Maxwell said. "Plug too many of these in and there's too many contrary orders flying around—it'd slow everything to a screeching—"

"The skinny scary dude cut off abruptly," one of the cores said. "Should we be concerned?"

"Actually…you may be on to something there," Maxwell said, wagging a finger at her thoughtfully. "Right now he's still mostly in charge and running everything at top capacity—what if we clogged everything up? Added a bunch of contrary orders surging everywhere?"

Willow could guess what he was after. "How many would we need?"

"I'd say four or five."

She looked at the spheres, grinning. "You heard the man—who wants to go on a road trip?"

There were suddenly a lot of clamoring volunteers.

"For the record, I vote we leave Miss Doom-and-Gloom behind," Maxwell told her. "Pretty sure she'll just blow up the facility."

"We will all shuffle off this mortal coil," the one sphere intoned.

"Yeah," Willow agreed. "Positive ones only."


Good news: Wilson was able to hold at least a part of himself together enough to put his plan in motion.

Bad news: it also involved constantly pulling up all the information in the facility just to hide the bits he wanted, trying to keep it all straight in his limited human mind because using the facility's full power meant giving himself back over to them and if he did they'd figure everything out and he didn't want to go over that deep end again where he was totally blasé about killing his friend he had to hang on—

Even when he felt like a stranger in his own body, when he felt it moving but wasn't in control of the action, spewing vitriol and moving the whole of the facility around in an effort to slow her progress, knowing if she got here again she'd once again destroy everything—

You're afraid, he observed, able to wrest enough control back to use his own vocal chords, no matter how laborious the action. What are you so afraid of?

Threat to the facility.

And letting her go wouldn't work? he had to ask.

Could compromise location. Others would come. Cannot risk it.

Kill her.

Despite everything, despite controlling everything about him, him with only a small fraction of control over his own body—despite all that, the facility wanted him to make the final decision, wanted him to kill her.

No, he ground out, bracing against a fresh shock. No we're not ready. Stall—do something to stall her.

Kill.

No! he barked. No—she dies in here. if she dies in here we can confirm. Out there she might turn up again—in here we can make sure. If he could prey off their paranoia—

He could feel it, up against his mind and chewing against it—them thinking about it.

Acceptable, they decided finally. She dies here.

Good.

I know what you're planning! he projected to the facility at large, addressing her. I know what you're planning and it won't work! Don't even think about coming any closer!

Please—please just give him time—

Give him some time to finish this up.


Okay, on the list of aggravations about this plan, figuring out how to carry five spheres was high among them.

Also high among them: the fact that they all apparently had opinions.

"Weak man!" one of the ones Maxwell was dragging spat. "You dishonor Wolfgang with your puny muscles!"

"Yeah," Maxwell huffed. "I'm gonna dishonor you right into an incinerator if you don't shut up. Hey—hey! Why did I get stuck with the annoying ones?"

"Because it amused me," Willow said, still looking around for something that would send these straight to Wilson's chamber. Or at least, a dolly or something to cart them with. Hers, at least, were a bit more tractable.

"So what's the story, mate?" one asked. "What is it we're doing?"

"Kinda a rescue mission," she told it.

"Ooh SWEET—I love those! Who are we rescuing?"

"My friend."

"Her boyfriend," Maxwell muttered.

One of the other cores gasped. "OHHHH I LOVE this kind of story!"

"He's not my boyfriend," she snapped at Maxwell.

"Then why are we calling this a rescue mission instead of a coup?" he asked her, taking a break to crack his spine back into place.

"I will willingly go to Valhalla to defend such a noble story!" the other core Maxwell had been dragging exclaimed.

"Wolfgang always cry at movies like this!" the other core sobbed, optic narrowed. "Strong manly tears!"

"Is he cute?" one of Willow's cores asked.

"I don't know," Willow said defensively, looking around for a closet before giving up on that and glancing at the pipes overhead—yep, still going the right way. Theoretically.

"She hasn't really been in the market," Maxwell told it. "She wouldn't know."

"You know SOME people go for personality, not looks," one of the cores told the one that asked about Wilson being cute. Look at Willow. "Does he surf?"

Willow had to give that one a blank look. "Now how would I know that?"

"Don't you two talk about HOBBIES and stuff? Like what you like to do?"

The Wilson is cute one narrowed its optic at the hobbies one. "What makes you think they talk on their dates?"

"EW!"

Willow made a face at Maxwell.

"I vote we toss these and try again," Maxwell said, shrugging. "Or I guess they'd make your pal extra-flustered…you've been awful quiet," he added, nudging the last one.

"Are we going to see any spiders on this trip?" it asked. "I like spiders."

"Oh lucky you! You're probably going to see turrets that look like spiders."

"Yay!"

Sigh, go back to looking—spot a pneumatic tube that seemed to be heading in the right direction. "Hey Max!" she called, pointing it out. "Think we're lucky?"

Maxwell came over, considered it.

"We might be," he conceded finally.


They ran back for several more after dumping the first five in, after he confirmed that yes, this tube would go straight to the main chamber—it was, after all, the one that would feed the turrets in.

And the whole while, he had one niggling little worry in the back of his head: was the yutz listening in?

Couldn't confirm or deny it—trying to see if he was still there could actually attract his attention, and at this point he wasn't uncertain Wilson wouldn't just kill him outright at this point.

Maybe that was the sign that he wasn't—after all, he'd certainly lost all pretense at niceties, and if he were listening in he would have sent maintenance bots or those spider-turrets after them by now. No, he was pretty sure the kid was still lost in a haze of pain, being punished by them.

He was surprised at the pang of empathy he felt for the kid then—he had thought that had stopped working a while back.

Willow was back by now, hauling a couple more personality cores.

"I'm thinking we throw the monkey one in too," she announced. "Go for the monkey wrench pun."

"Or a monkey on his back," Maxwell offered.

"That works too," she said, smothering a smirk as she tossed that one in. Grabbed the next one. "And who are you?"

"I be Woodlegs the pirate!" it declared, narrowing its optic at her. "Who be you?"

Willow blinked, exchanged a blank look with Maxwell. "I'm going to say that works."

"Toss it in," Maxwell agreed.

"Belay that!" 'Woodlegs' barked—Willow ignored it, tossed it into the tube. "This be mutiny!"

"I'm passing on the mime one and the scary doomsday girl, but we've got a few more options," she said, watching the pirate core zip away. "I'll go grab them and then we can go from there."

"I'll keep holding this railing up then," he said, watching her run off. Sigh as his mind once again reminded him of the whole litany of issues crashing down on him.

I'm sure—she's got your toes and she thinks she's never wrong.

Apparently had his sense of humor too…and it left the question of what to do with her once he was back in the hot seat.

Killing her was out entirely—so was letting her go, it was too dangerous out there. And the facility would be wanting her dead—dead, dead, deadski. So she was doomed any way you sliced it.

Ugh—there needed to be a way around this—sag against the railing, turning everything over in his head again—

Was alerted to the fact that the railing was old and rotted when it snapped, sending him teetering dangerously over the edge—flailed frantically, grabbed at part of the bent railing, gravity taking over—

Barely heard the cry over his own, was aware of the hands frantically scrabbling at his arm—

Swung over the yawning abyss, staring in terror at it before looking up at her hanging on for dear life.

"You know," she muttered, straining to haul him back up. "It's a good thing you're not some huge fat guy or we'd really be in trouble."

"Yeah, well this is what happens when you don't eat for several years," he countered, straining to reach the edge with his other hand and help haul himself up. "I call it the KVAS facility central processing diet, great for the figure."

She snorted—both of them breathing a sigh of relief when he was back on relatively solid metal.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Just gonna lie here a bit, don't mind me," he muttered into the grating.

"Thinking about filing a complaint with the facility?"

"No need—those go direct into the incinerator."

"I knew it."

Huff, sit up, watch as she tossed the last three cores in (the one that sat next to him as the first one was tossed asked boy that was some rescue, eh? Really got the blood pumping!), haul himself up once that was done, being careful of the railing this time.

"Let's save the near-death experiences for during the big confrontation with Wilson, okay?" she asked.

"Fine, if I must—dampen my glee," he muttered, following behind her. Couldn't help the smirk he gave her. "So you mean to tell me you can't tell if a boy's cute or not? You're batting for the other team, aren't you. I knew it, I knew you dressed too nice."

She turned to give him a look he had seen a lot on Charlie, that said I cannot believe you are being this inane now STOP IT. "Seriously? I have been kinda busy trying not to die, I don't have time to decide whether a boy's cute or not. Besides, the only options as far as guys right now are you and him, and both of those are kinda horrifying. Well, super horrifying in your case."

"Feeling's mutual," he said as they continued on. "Oh come on—all that time in the elevators and you didn't once sneak a look at him and think oh he's cute? I'm pretty sure I remember seeing at least one of those looks."

"Will you stop? Wilson's just a friend—one of those we're in a sucky situation together let's team up friends."

"By that logic you and I are friends and I know better than that. Yannow, all that talk about getting to the surface—you'd better hope you two don't need to repopulate the earth because if that's the case, humanity as a whole is doomed."

She had her hands over her ears now. "I'm not listening to you."

"And you're going to break your little boyfriend's heart friendzoning him."

"Still not listening."

"I mean he is nuts about you—like healthy nuts, not I'm going to tear you apart and put you back together for science nuts—oh wait nevermind he is."

"So yeah I expected that out of you actually."

"I thought you weren't listening."

They had to break for another several minutes, since that's how long it took for Maxwell to get his air back and pick himself up from a sock to the gut. Ow. Okay fair he deserved that one.

Now here was hoping that was just hyperbole on his part, that she wasn't wrong.

Because they didn't really have any other options at this point.