-IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER-

Rolling out of his booth and into the corridor, the first thing Wheatley noticed, aside from the alarming tremors and tremulous alarms, was that everything was dark. And covered in strange vegetation. And that the place was deserted. And that he had a very strange, yet intense, feeling of déjà vu. And that the feeling of having déjà vu was giving him déjà vu. Perhaps it was all just a glitch in his sleep mode simulation matrix, and so he passed it off as such.

But the feeling came back almost immediately as he called out into the deserted area for his coworkers, only to find that none of them were, in fact, there. Perhaps they were all playing a very good game of hide-and-seek. Or perhaps he had simply missed a memo. Or perhaps it was even a prank.

"Okay, um, ha-ha-ha... You all got me. Really got me this time. Kind of stupid to be pulling the same prank three times in a row, but third time's the charm, right?" he said.

But even that gave him déjà vu. Déjà what the heck was going on here? Had this not just all happened yesterday? No, the day before yesterday. No, wait, yesterday and the day before yesterday. Wait, no, wasn't he floating around the moon just a couple days ago? Had his sleep mode simulation matrix just simulated him having a simulation? Was he in the middle of a simulation right now? No, he thought, that didn't make any kind of sense, rational or otherwise, despite this situation being most irrational and most certainly not otherwise. Unless he had somehow unwittingly gotten himself caught up in some kind of infinite feedback loop - unlikely, as he was much too clever to fall victim twice to something so amateur - it must be something going on with the world around him.

Yes, that was it. The world around him was off. He may have just had a simple glitch in his sleep mode simulation matrix - not something that couldn't be fixed easily enough - but something about the world around him was definitely alarming.

"REACTOR CORE MELTDOWN IS IMMINENT. RUN, DO NOT WALK, TO THE NEAREST AVAILABLE EXIT. IF YOU ARE A LEG AMPUTEE, PARAPLEGIC, CRIPPLE, OR OTHERWISE UNABLE TO RUN, SHOULD YOU SOMEHOW MIRACULOUSLY SURVIVE THE ENSUING INFERNO, PLEASE RECONSIDER RE-APPLYING TO APERTURE SCIENCE IN THE FUTURE, AS THIS EMERGENCY SHOULD PLAINLY ILLUSTRATE TO YOU THE VITAL IMPORTANCE OF HAVING THE USE OF BOTH LEGS AT ALL TIMES."

Ah, he thought, that would the alarms. That must be what was so alarming. He nodded to himself, reassured.

Right, now that he had that sorted out, he proceeded along his rail, knowing that he needed to find Test Subject #2845 and wake them up so they could get the heck out of there. And he knew just where he could find them. All he needed to do was follow the instructions provided to him yesterday and the day before yesterday, collect Test Subject #2845, and then row back to Spain like there was no mañana. His special lady human friend sure would be happy to see him, especially after-..

The lady!

"Oh my God, that's right! The lady!" he exclaimed, his panels flaring out as a feeling of dread nearly overloaded his circuits. Funny that he felt that way only now, given the fact that there were literally a hundred other reasons for him to feel dread at the moment, most notably the fact that the whole facility was about to be filled with molten radiation. But maybe not so funny because nobody was laughing.

"I have to find her! I have to find her! I have to find her!" he ranted as he sped along, "And she has to be in one piece and not dead! Not that I have any proof that she died, or that this isn't all some prank or simulation or glitch or- I don't know! She just has to be alive!"

But who did he think was listening to him? Everyone was gone. And more importantly, why should the lady not be alive? He already knew he had to find her, and in which Extended Relaxation pod to find her, which meant that he-...

As Wheatley came to a set of two management rails, he took-...

As he picked his way around the ravaged rails-..

Wheatley was in such a hurry, he raced right over the narration like it wasn't important in the slightest. It was only the sole cohesive thing about the situation, words and ideas woven together, responsible for carrying him along through all the decisions that needed to be made and for conveying all the thoughts, situations, and surroundings in between. What good was it anyway, thinking it was so important to the story. It was only the story itself.

But perhaps all could be forgiven, because miraculously, he had taken the rail on his left without any further prompting. That indeed was at least an improvement.

He took his rail down four levels, took-an-immediate-right, tookrowthirteenandstraightdown-..

And there he went again, outrunning the narration. Rather rude, but he did at last arrive at Test Subject #2845's pod. He hurriedly entered-in-the-commands, wokeherupand-..

"What? What's all this?" Wheatley said, disconcerted when an internal dialog box popped up in response, "'Program not responding'? What in the bloody hell does that mean?! Wake up the lady already!"

He again abused the cryosleep program interface, plugging in the commands again like he could rush things along at his own leisure.

"'Program still not responding'?! I'll show you 'still not responding'!"

And again with the button-mashing. Really, that kind of anxiety wasn't healthy, even for a robotic being such as Wheatley, so he relaxed for a few moments-...

"Oh, come on, don't make me ask for the manager! Look, I don't know who this Karen is you're referring to, but- Hold on, I am the manager, now wake up the lady!"

..-with some calming new age music.

The moment the music came on, Wheatley sighed and felt himself gently swaying along, "Oh... Oh, that's rather nice. Not sure where it's coming from, though. And odd for them to be playing elevator music when I'm kind of in a hurry here, but that is nice."

Feeling soothed, Wheatley calmly moved forward on his rail and again tried the commands, this time at a more controlled pace and therefore allowing time for the narration to keep up. The cryosleep program let out a polite chime in response, as if to thank him for his patience. He considered thanking it in return, which would have been the polite thing to do, but then Wheatley was about as rude as they came, because the moment the vault door slid open and the lady appeared before him, he was right back torushingthingsalongandburstingstraightintothepodwithoutanyfurtherado.

"It's you! Oh, man alive, am I glad to see you! Alive! And in one piece! I thought for sure you were a goner! I thought I'd killed you! I thought I was never going to live that down, but here you are! And did I meantion, you're alive! I can't believe it's really you! Again! Ha ha ha ha! Yes! Finally, everything will be all-.. Ow! Ow, hey! What is-.. What are you doing?!"

Wheatley flinched and drew back upon simultaneously seeing the scowl on the Test Subject #2845's face and receiving a smart smack upon his chassis followed immediately by pain.

He shook his entire hull, blinked rapidly a few times, and readjusted his iris, assessing the situation. The lady was wielding what appeared to be one of the lamps that came installed next to the cheap hotel bed. Apparently she had ripped it out of its place on the wall and had just hit him with it. That much he had figured out. But what he failed to understand was why. Perhaps he should keep rambling instead of sitting there and staring - it was what he did best, after all.

She came after him again, striking him again, again and again and again.

"What are you-..Why are you hitting me? Oww! Oh my God, Lady, are you mad?! Stop hitting me! Ow, that hurts! Really hurts, would just like to point that out! I'm trying to save your life here, show a little gratit-.."

Here he was struck not only again by the lamp, but also by a thought.

"Wait, are you doing this because you remember too? Everything, from before? Oh, blimey, what a relief! I thought I was the only one! Ha ha haaa! I can't believe you remember too! This is, this is great! Tremendous! Wait, wait a minute, you remember- Look - all that stuff I did before, I- it wasn't on purpose, okay?"

The lady narrowed her silvery gaze at him and brandished the lamp at him again - and, again, Wheatley reacted by wincing and shifting backwards along his rail.

"Yeah, I mean, the first time I went a bit off the rails, no pun intended, but I didn't mean any of that," he went on, panic racing through his circuits, and by now he had backed all the way up to the doorway. "-and, and, and, and I certainly didn't mean to make you test and try to kill you and all that. And you actually look great in that jumpsuit, by the way! Honest!"

The lady's eyes narrowed further, her entire face scrunched in on itself, creating a sinister sort of black hole where that composed, albeit a bit creepy, expression of hers would usually be. It made her look utterly terrifying, and Wheatley could feel his servos working overtime in response to it. Even worse, it reminded Wheatley of the look she had given him back in the testing chambers, the look she had given him every time right before she smashed one of his monitors.

"And the second time, that was a total accident! I was just trying to get us out of here in a hurry! I really did look for you! Honestly! Okay, I glanced around a bit, couldn't really see that far down, but, please- don't look at me like that, I'm trying to say I'm s-AAARRRGH!" he yelled, his shriek splitting the air, and had there been any other living test subjects left, it surely would have awakened all of them, "Oh my God, you broke something! I felt something break! What did you break?! What did you- GAHHHH! You broke my optic! Where'd you go?! Why did you- STOP HITTING ME! YOU'RE INSANE! STOP-..!"

He blinked at her, his eyeplates scraping indelicately over his cracked iris, and the action sent fresh, searing pain coursing through his entire core body. She lunged at him again, he screamed and pulled back, and somehow within those two very quick, precise movements, the lamp got caught up on his lower handle right as Wheatley was pulling sharply away, back out of the pod and onto the catwalk. There was an ear-splitting screech of metal, the lady's eyes popped open almost comically, he gasped, and then-...

...And then, for a second, Wheatley had the very curious sensation of free-falling. He, having been attached to his management rail his entire life, had never experienced such a sensation before. It was almost like being out in space, except he was not out in space. It was almost pleasant, like being free.

But then that second stretched out into another second, and another, and all at once Wheatley came to a heart-stopping conclusion - he was actually free-falling. Quicker than he could process, his rail disappeared above him and suddenly he was left surrounded by nothing but air.

Never before had he been more less curious about what was at the bottom of that pit, unless it was covered in Repulsion Gel. That stuff was leaking all over the facility, wasn't it? Not that he knew that for sure, but he could get lucky, couldn't he? If not, then the next best thing he could hope for was that the pit was actually bottomless, which would give him ample time to devise an escape plan.

He spun around in his own casing, uselessly searching for something that could possibly save his life or at least slow his descent so as to prolong his life. But there was nothing. Nothing but dark shapes whizzing by him at an alarmingly rapid speed. And a few other shapes that were falling with him - it was difficult to see, what with his optic being damaged, but he could make out bits of the ruined catwalk, a lamp, the lady, and-..

Oh! The lady! She had fallen with him! And she had those long-fall boots. Perhaps he could convince her to grab him and then, if the pit had a bottom, they'd both be safe.

"Lady!" he called to her over the wind as it rushed by, "I don't know whether you've noticed, but both of us seem to be plummeting quite rapidly, alarmingly, to our deaths. Now would be a GREAT time for putting old grudges behind us and working together on this. That is, if you could just grab me and land on your feet, I think we'll both be okay!"

The lady gave him a dubious look and went back to looking around for a way out of the situation, as if he had said nothing at all.

"Hey, did you hear me? I know you're brain damaged and can't speak, but I'm under the impression that you can hear just fine! Hello?"

Still no response, and with that Wheatley came to another heart-stopping conclusion - she was going to let him die. She was looking for a way out, and she was going to just leave him there, behind, to die. Just like before. Just like when he had detached himself from his rail and she hadn't caught him. And again, when he was being pulled through the portal on the moon and she hadn't grabbed him and pulled him back in. It was all playing over and over again in his mind. Was this his purgatory? Was he going to fall, in one way or another, on repeat, every day for the rest of his life? Was his fate as bottomless as this pit? And, for that matter, was the lady's fate the same? Was there anything he could do to change things for good?

He wondered what in all of Aperture he had done to deserve such a fate. Sure, he had betrayed his only friend and tried to kill her, had begged for an opportunity to make things right again, but this was not what he wanted. For her to kill him. For him to watch her die. If they were going to die, that is. He was certain at least one of them was going to, and why shouldn't it be him? He was the useless one, the one who was never good at anything, whose sole achievement in life had been pushing buttons and keeping the human test subjects alive. And he hadn't even been able to succeed at that. Everybody was gone. Let go. Lives gone in a different direction. Their bodies a part of a permanent outplacement. Dead. And it was all entirely his fault.

No. No, that couldn't be. This wasn't his fault. This-.. This was all just a glitch in his sleep mode simulation matrix. At least he hoped that's all this was, at this point, and if he could just wake up from it, he swore he would get himself straight to the Robot Rehabilitation and Wellness Center and get himself looked at, first thing. He had been putting it off for a while, convinced that everything inside of him was all right and that it was everything else around him that was wrong, but here, now, he knew something more was going on. He didn't know what, just that it was more. More than he could handle.

Well, it seemed at that point Wheatley was going to think himself to death, and as much as everyone delighted in his misery, it was time to say-

- THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER THE END IS NEVER-