Here's chapter 2! It picks up a little from here. I'm trying to stay in character as possible, while still getting into uncharted territory and being trash just like I planned.

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Off he went to the turret redemption line. He'd been here before once or twice and spent quite a bit of time watching all the little broken bodies drifting along the conveyor toward the recycling portion of the factory. Efficient to a fault, he thought, but it's not like they were truly sentient. There was a collective turret consciousness that was downloaded into every turret, so they seemed to share the same sentience as the main personality cores, but it fell just short of the mark. He looked over the mixture of white sentry turrets, and the failed skeletons of the crap turrets, until a small red laser quite literally caught his eye when it bounced off one of the drop chutes on the belt.

"I'm different!" A tiny voice called through the endless hum of the belts.

"What's this, then?" He turned around looking for the source of the voice. He saw a little white turret with its laser on and moved over to it. The optic light was still on, suggesting that this one hadn't met quite the same end as the others. Momentarily he was able to override one of the robotic arms sifting through the pieces. He snatched up the little turret, feeling his influence on the arm slip away as he did so. The white turret fell onto one of the steel girders under the conveyor belt, and Wheatley moved over to get a closer look.

"Thank you…" Muttered the turret.

"Any time little one." He looked over the turret. " Um, how'd you end up here on the redemption line at any rate? You're not looking, er, in need of redeeming at the moment?"

"Her name is Caroline…. Remember that."

"Caroline? Hm, no, don't know one of those. Sorry! Must have the wrong bloke."

"The Tower trembles; the worlds shudder in their courses. The rose feels a chill, as of winter." The turret flicked its laser toward Wheatley.

:The tower? We're not in a tower, little one. Can you… Can you elaborate? Just a touch? Would help greatly in trying to understand. About anythin' really. I'd settle for clarification on literally anything you just said."

"The queen is in check. She weeps for her loss."

"The qu-"

"What are you DOING down there, moron?" The queen herself came ringing through the entire turret redemption line. As if on queue, the prophet turret's optic light went dim. "I thought surely even you could manage something as simple as a count. I suppose I'm not shocked to find myself proven wrong."

"Um, no! No worries! I uh, I did find the distress signal. Nothing to worry about, probably just a glitch. Um, one of the turrets appeared to be not in need of redemption at all, but I went and had a look, didn't find anything. All the optics are off, anyway. Nothing but rubbish here," He chuckled, hoping she was distracted enough to disregard his obvious quaking.

"Hmm. Well, it's not the first time." He heard a mechanical chirping as the camera that was pointed on the redemption line sprang to life. "What's that turret doing there on the girder?"

"That's the one I was havin' a look at. But the optic is off, so clearly that means it's broke, right?" He tried not to look directly into the camera, knowing full well it would give him away immediately. He stared down at the prophet turret instead.

"Ugh, the collection service must have piled the conveyor belt too high. This one likely fell off. I'll have to talk to someone about that." Her tone twisted into one he knew very well, "They won't be making the same mistake twice." He watched her grab the prophet turret with her arm, placing it back on the line. "Please return to the central chamber at my earliest convenience. I have more work for you to do." He wanted to yell, to save the prophet turret, but he didn't want to give himself away either. His optic narrowed to a pindot as he looked down at the turret sailing toward redemption. He cried out as soon as he saw the camera go back offline. He tried in vain to grab the turret with the arms, but his frantic state was clouding his ability and optic coordination.

"Fret not, far traveler! I go on to a better place. Hooray!" The turret called just before it slipped under the collection grate. Wheatley stared at the conveyor belt for a long time, wishing in that moment he could cry. Once he realized that time only flowed in one direction, he turned from the redemption line and headed back toward GLaDOS, hoping she didn't send him back to this place for a long time.

"You certainly took your time." She spun herself to face him, "I do hope you realize there's no overtime in it for you." She flicked her head nonchalantly.

"You don't pay me anyway ol' girl." He mumbled sadly. "Never did, actually. Unless you count the insults, got those in spades. Rich bloke, I am." He looked up to watch her crane her body directly toward him. He saw her optic flash blue for a moment before she shook her head. Whatever she was currently caring about, she had stopped.

"If you require a break, you'll have to file the appropriate break request in triplicate, pen and paper only, no electronic substitutes." She moved out toward him, only a few feet away from his optic. She was close enough that he could feel the heat coming off of her optic.

"Well how the bloody hell would I fill out paperwork if I haven't got any ha-" He stopped, narrowing his optic at her. "Bit cruel, that is, isn't it?" She snaked her body back in mock surprise.

"Oh! Where are my manners? I am a Genetic Life Form and Disc Operating System. You can call me GLaDOS for short. I would ask your name, but suddenly I find myself unable to care." She returned to her default position, moving back and forth in the same snake like way she did. He was unsure if the movement was a comfort mechanism, a way to keep her body cooled, or what, but it was something he always saw her doing when she wasn't doing anything else.

"You're a wicked one, you know that?" He found that his tone was a bit more endeared than anything he ever could have planned for.

"Why thank you. Now, get to the repulsion gel pump station. It's clogged."

"Clogged? With what?"

"If I knew, I can only imagine how much faster and more efficiently I could fix it myself. All I know is it's clogged. Explosions and the thought of them exhaust me these days, so do see about preventing that."

And clogged it certainly was. Upon reaching the pump station, he could see little spurts of the bright blue gel forcing their way out of the massive pipe. He could see that it was clearly in distress, but he couldn't see what was causing it.

"GLaDOS!" He called, hearing one of her cameras spring to life.

"Mmm." She sounded disinterested. Not uncommon.

"This things gonna blow for sure, look at the stress on the joints! Oh that's gonna be bad, gel everywhere. What an awful mess...that… Well I'll probably have to clean it up, ahh I didn't think of that. Less exciting." He moved closer to the pipe, hearing an awful churning from deep within.

"No, it hasn't reached critical mass yet. YET." Her camera moved around, "I'm moving you to the maintenance rail. You'll have to go inside to see what the problem is."

He'd never been on the maintenance rail. He was surprised she trusted him with such a thing, given that it involved a little more technological prowess than he had. The maintenance arm gave him a little more freedom than the management rail, given how much more maneuvering was required. He could detach himself at will, attached to a giant pliable wire of sorts. He popped himself off the rail, and began wiggling around on the wire.

"Whale of a time!" He cheered. "Look at all this freedom, I can go so many more places now!" He stopped, looking back to the pipe. "Well, um, here I go then!" He began travelling down into the pipe. "What should I do when I find the clog?"

"It depends on what it is. If you can dislodge it, do." She somehow echoed through his audio input, as if she was in his head somehow.

"Um. Okay?" He travelled further into the pipe, bouncing around a little more due to the slack on his tether. Eventually, he saw a dark mass jammed directly into the pipe. Rather than a solid mass, it looked like a collection of many different things balled up into one big conglomerate. He saw what looked like office chairs, desks, rocks, steel beams, all warped together. He figured if he tapped it just right, he could break pieces off and slowly dislodge the obstruction. He brought in the maintenance arm, and began tapping away at small pieces he could reach. He plucked out many chairs, a couple glass ashtrays, and he was beginning to feel as though he was on a treasure hunt. Soggy pieces of paper, plenty of those, more rocks, steel bits, and eventually he came to a picture. A young man with his hands folded in front of him. A brass name plaque was anchored to the bottom of the frame.

"Hey, who is… Cave Jackson? Johnson! Johnson sorry there's no A. Cave Johnson?"

"Nothing. No one. Throw it away."

"But he loo-"

"We are 10% away from reaching critical mass. Throw. It. Away." He noticed her tone. Rather than alarmed that the pipe was approaching critical mass, she sounded defensive and threatening instead. He shook it off as the pipe around him vibrated, the churning sound growing louder as he tossed the picture into the depths of the facility from whence it came. As he began picking away at the garbage with a renewed pace, he came across the heart of the blockage, a whole office desk. He grabbed it with the maintenance arm, and began pulling as hard as he could.

"Can't you," he grunted, "Can't you overclock this thing, love? Just a bit?" He grunted again and pulled, "I can't get a grip on the bloody thing!"

He wasn't sure if she did, or if he pulled just the right away, but all of a sudden he felt the desk spring free. He didn't see much else though, as what followed next was the screeching of steel, a great lurching sound, and the rush of gel as it soaked every inch of his small body. He yelped, feeling his connection to the management rail snap as he flew through the air. He connected with an unknown surface and bounced right off of it. His optic, covered in the sticky gel, didn't allow him to see where he was headed. At first he was cheering, finding bouncing all over to be a fun experience, but when he realized he wasn't stopping or slowing down he began to worry about where he would end up.

"GLaDOS!" He cried, "I can't stop! Could you lend me a hand here please? Um, GLaDOS?! Bouncing. Bouncing. STILL bouncing, love. Please!"

"Shut up, I'm trying!" She huffed, "If you could just quit bouncing around like an idiot for five seconds I might have an easier time!"

"I can certainly try. No guarantees! This gel stuff is wild!"

She eventually managed to catch him, having to repurpose one of the liquid cooling lines that wormed through the facility to wash the gel off of him as he bounced by. Once she had repaired everything and set him back on his rail, he sat there for a bit, letting his internal processors cool off, and checking himself for damage.

"So! Um, what's next?" He called eventually.

"Remember that break I mentioned? I'm waiving your paperwork. Mostly because it's my break. Don't touch anything. Be ready if I need you."

Some time later, he realized she hadn't called for him in a while. Curious, he headed back toward the central chamber. Once he reached the corridor just outside, he stopped. A strange sound caught his audio input, and it seemed to be coming from GLaDOS' chamber. It certainly sounded like her, at any rate. He got closer, and the sound got louder. It almost sounded like singing? He wondered what she could be watching that involved singing. Maybe she'd rescued the little prophet turret after all. Finding just about anything to be more likely, he grew ever closer. He craned his body, politely asking one of the chamber panels to move aside so he could have a look. Okay, her rescuing the turret was only the second least likely thing. It was GLaDOS herself who was singing. He could hear her voice clearly now, and saw her moving her body rhythmically, keeping herself on perfect time as she always did. He must have caught the end of her song, and listened in carefully, slowing his processors and lulling into a resting state as he did, so as not to alert her to his presence.

She was singing in a language he didn't understand. He tried sorting through his files, but he couldn't quite decipher the words she was using. He wished he knew, so he could find out what the song was about, but he quickly disregarded it in favor of listening to her voice. The light in her chamber had been dimmed, save only for the light that she gave off naturally, and the lilting highs and resounding lows of her spectacular range bounced off the walls of her chamber. What a beautiful sound. It was boggling to Wheatley, how someone as normally flat and deadpan as she could be could belt out a song with such fervor. The song itself, however, sounded melancholic, and even though it was loud, it was sung with an aching heart, or whatever the mechanical equivalent was. Revving up his tiny processor, he saw fit to get closer to her, but he forgot to straighten himself on the management rail. The odd angle he was held at caused his bearing to scrape against the rail, causing a loud screech. He froze in place, hoping she hadn't heard him. When the camera outside sprung to life, he heard the singing stop immediately. Deciding to play it cool, he strode into her chamber.

"H-Hello! Um, just thought I'd drop in for a chat. Hadn't heard from you in a bit so I wanted to make sure you were okay. Used to you givin' out tasks one after the other and all that. Uh, so, boss, good ol' boss, what's next?" He was hoping that would work.

"You were outside. How long." Nope, didn't work at all. She was acutely aware. He supposed he shouldn't have been shocked.

He couldn't find the words to say, so he sat quivering in front of her instead. He watched her lift her body until he was flush with his. She was a few feet away from him, and again he could feel the heat coming off of her, but this time it was almost unbearable. Rather than the residual warmth from her processors and fans, this was an almost sickly wave of heat that didn't seem to be cooled by her normal fans and liquid cooling system. Why was she running so hot? His musing didn't detract from his terror for long as he watched her stare at him for a moment. Her optic flashed blue once more, but this time it continued to do so. He felt the crushing weight of her influence surge through his components. She was attempting to connect with him. He tried to resist her, but her raw power was too great. He felt her overtake him completely, and it was an experience he'd never had before. In that instant, he could feel HER. He remembered this feeling, having been in the mainframe. He felt her sheer dominance smashing into him like a brick wall, but it was tainted with something else. There was an ache he couldn't describe, and he'd certainly never noticed before. He shook it off, and tried desperately to push her out of his processes. She demolished any attempt at a firewall he could muster. He felt her invade his hard drive, seeking his black box.

"A firewall. Please. Child's play." Her optic had stayed blue for a while now. "You were out there for exactly three minutes, thirty seconds and point two milliseconds." Her optic returned to its normal yellow, and he felt the tendrils of her connection bleeding out of his body once more. "And what exactly did you have to gain by spying on me like some sick little voyeur?"

"I-I-I wasn't spying! I-"

"I knew you were dumb, but I didn't expect you to be dumb enough to lie to my face when I can quite literally read your mind. That's a new achievement on your part. Well done."

"N-No that's no-... Would you just listen a moment?"

"Violation of privacy is a serious offense in some places. Punishments vary from simple imprisonment to more...extreme, measures."

"GLADOS!" He yelled. She stopped. "I-... I wanted to hear you sing. I wasn't comin' here to spy on you. I came initially because I hadn't heard from you in a while, thought maybe you forgot about me or somethin', and when I got here you were singing so I stopped to listen. Quite a set of pipes you have there, love. Gorgeous. Really. A-and I mean that. That's all." She froze, and it was a few moments before she spoke again. Her tone had softened, and he fancied that he might get to zoom out of there with his life intact.

"You know, the beauty of singing is that you don't have to stop when someone enters a room, moron." She said quietly, with a roll of her optic. "You don't have to lurk in the shadows like some creep with nothing better to do. Unless you really are some creep with nothing better to do, in which case I'm less than surprised."

"R-really? So, you'll sing for me again sometime?"

"Don't push your luck."

"Also, violation of privacy? Um. Miss destroyer of expertly crafted firewalls, who exactly was it that just INVADED MY MIND minutes ago, hmm? What um, what exactly do you call that if not the BIGGEST invasion of privacy?"

"Don't question me either." The way she narrowed her optic and tossed her head was unusual… Was she being playful with him? "I can also disassemble you and have you put back together as a cymbal monkey. It's a toy. For children, "He noted that. She was parroting him when he stuffed her into a potato, "Then maybe I could keep you in here and use you as a metronome while I sing. At least then you'd be of some permanent use to me." She was. That was absolutely it. Wheatley was gobsmacked.

"You're so twisted, you know?"

"Oh, you have no idea…" The seductive purr tore through his body like a solar wind, jumbling his thought processes and scrambling his optic signals for a brief moment.

"Are you….are you flirting with me?" He spoke before he had a chance to recalibrate himself fully. His voice was jumbled and slow.

"Are you malfunctioning? When was the last time you had any routine maintenance done?" As usual, she never missed a beat. Clever girl.

"You just did some on me last, um, last time. Bloody hell, how d'you even keep track of time?"

"Internal processes. It's built in. Now, I'd like you to go and fetch Atlas and P-Body for me. There's something I'd like for them to do."

"Right-o. I'll go and bring 'em. Back in a flash!" He turned to leave.

"Oh, and Wheatley?" She called.

"Yes, lo-AH!" he turned around to be met face to face with GLaDOS. She wasn't even inches from him this time. The heat was unbearable. His optic all but disappeared, and his processor was struggling as he shook in place. He heard that giggle again as she nuzzled her head against his body with an unbelievable gentleness. As she pulled away, a single jolt of static sizzled through his circuits. It was pure ecstasy for a fleeting moment, before he snapped back to reality and remembered exactly who it was that was loving up on him at the moment.

"Never ask me that again, or I'll make sure you burn."

A squeak was his only reply as he flew out of her chamber. His fans were moving at a speed he was sure would end his life early. His optical output was scrambled, and all he could see was static as he moved forward, thankful he was on a rail that only went to scripted locations throughout the facility. Every time he thought back to the static kiss she had sent through him, a blue screen flashed before his eyes. He disregarded it each time, moving forward on his rail. Eventually, he had to come to a stop and attempt to quiet himself down. He decided to shut his optic and reboot. It would only take a few minutes, surely she could wait, he thought. As he felt himself slipping away toward a total shutdown, his thoughts drifted.

God, she was wicked. She was bossy, and nasty, and powerful, and wicked, and, and… wonderful? Wheatley silently prayed for the shutdown to take him sooner, chasing the newer feelings from his mind and hoping they wouldn't be there when he woke. They were. Those feelings were still there. He confirmed it as accurately as he could, about 75% in fact. However, he noticed that he could replay the image of her face against his without the blue screen of death appearing before him. "Blimey. What a woman…" He muttered before realizing what he was saying. Chasing the image away again, he sped off to find Atlas and P-body before she caught on or got impatient.