This is the story of a core named "Wheatley".
Wheatley worked at a science facility that resided deep underground in an old salt mine, where he was Personality Construct #427.
Personality Construct #427's job was simple: he sat inside a booth for monitoring the vitals of the human test subjects in Extended Relaxation, and pushed buttons on a control panel. Instructions came to him through a monitor on his desk, telling him which buttons to push, how long to push them, and in what order. He never thought about what any of the buttons did, because he did not care.
This is what Personality Construct #427 did every day, of every month, of every year. And although he considered it boring, mindless, and otherwise soul-rending, for Wheatley it was an easy way to complete a day's work. Perhaps it would even one day lead to that big upper management promotion he knew he deserved. Over time, Wheatley came to relish every moment that the instructions came in, even though he often felt like he was meant for something greater.
And Wheatley... was content.
And then one day, something very peculiar happened.
Something that would forever change Wheatley.
Something he would never quite forget.
He had been in his booth, minding his business in sleep mode, when a sudden, frightful, all-encompassing tremor shook him out of his stupor. This was followed by three things happening at the same time: a loud automated announcement that the reactor core was in the process of melting down; a cacophony of alarms reinforcing that announcement; and the dawning realization that no one had given him any instructions, told him he was doing anything wrong, or even called him a moron in at least the last five minutes. Never in all his life had this happened, this complete isolation - nor the alarms blaring that the reactor core was about to explode.
Something was very clearly wrong.
Shocked, frozen solid, Wheatley found himself unable to move for the longest time - and that was saying something, seeing as he had just been sitting there, motionless, for nearly 99999- days.
But as he came to (what he believed to be) his wits and regained (what he thought was) his senses, he pulled himself up on his management rail and rolled out of his booth.
I made a Tumblr blog for The Wheatley Parable! Here I will post updates and trivia and such. Please feel free to follow if you like (just remember to take out the spaces)! the-wheatley-parable . tumblr . com
Cover art created by NerdStreak! Please check out her links below!
Tumblr: nerdstreak . tumblr . com
AO3: Username is NerdStreak