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By this point, Wheatley had abandoned the idea of checking in on the lady while she was testing. He wisely decided it was much safer if he just sat there and listened to her and followed her progress in the background, the way he was supposed to in the first place. After all, the lady knew what she was doing, especially when it came to tests, and certainly didn't need help from the likes of him.

In one test chamber, he listened while the big scary boss lady explained to his lady that the Emancipation Grill was broken and not to take anything with her.

Wheatley's eye shutters narrowed in annoyance. "Why couldn't I have fallen into this bloody test chamber?" he groused.

Don't even think about it, Wheatley.

"I'm not," he scoffed, "I'm only saying-"

And I'm saying not do it. Besides, I'm sure you'd find a way of making a cock-up of even that opportunity.

"I'll make a cock-up of you," he muttered. And then, aloud: "It's not like I would get far anyway. I would just be fizzled at the end of the very next test. A repeat of that whole scenario would be pointless, wouldn't it? Already got a taste of what it's like to be vaporized, and let me just come out and say that I am not at all interested in going through that again. Nope." He paused, but when there came no reply, he said, "What, am I wrong?"

No, I was simply waiting for you to come to the same conclusion as everybody else. And now that you have caught up-

"Right..." he scoffed again, rolling his optic - there was just no reasoning with that voice anymore, not that there ever had been, so he figured he may as well just cut to chase at this point - or, well, cut to just before the chase, seeing as that part was still quite a few test chambers away, "What's next, then?"

In Test Chamber #9, you will reveal to Test Subject #2845 that you are still alive.

"Ohhh, right, I remember that now. I remember telling her all about the bird that saved me - except, well, now I know that it didn't - although still nothing about that makes any sense - so now there's really no need to tell her that at all."

There isn't need to tell her much of anything other than you survived, Wheatley. Just stick to that, and, dare I say it, you'll do fine.

Wheatley moved on, recalling where he needed to go in order to intercept the lady so as to complete this part of the story. He followed his rail up above the test chambers, maneuvered his way through some the debris that had not yet been cleared, and crouched there on his rail, waiting for the lady. There was a gap through which he could see a small bit of the test chamber directly below him. It was through this gap that he was able to see the lady when she arrived. He perked up, excited the moment she came into view.

The lady gazed around the test chamber, drinking it all in, placed a couple of portals, and then moved to step onto the Aerial Faith Plate. It sprung her high into the air - most of the way to the ceiling, though not quite enough to reach the portal she had placed there, but most importantly, high enough that she passed by the gap in which Wheatley was waiting. He had positioned himself in such a way that she would be able to see him. As she reached the proper altitude, he quickly announced his presence.

"Hey! Hey! It's me! I'm okay!" he exclaimed, his cyan iris beaming at her from the dimly lit passage. He briefly caught the look of utter surprise on her face, her eyebrows so far up on her forehead Wheatley thought for a moment maybe they had detached and journeyed upwards due to inertia and wondered how he was going to help her fix that. "Everything's okay just like I-" And then she promptly fell back down. "Oh."

From his vantage he could just see her stepping onto the Faith Plate again, but it was failing to engage and instead complained that it was malfunctioning by way of a rhythmic, agitated beep. That didn't stop her from stepping on it again and again, though, trying to get it to reactivate.

He was just about to call down to her that he would just meet her up ahead, but it was at that moment that the scary boss lady reappeared. "Well, I'm back," She intoned, "The Aerial Faith Plate in here is sending a distress signal. You broke it, didn't you." It wasn't a question, more of a statement of fact, and an agitated, accusatory one at that.

"Bah, the whole place is broken, if you hadn't noticed. And they said I was the one who ruined the whole facility," Wheatley rebutted quietly from his hiding spot, shaking his chassis and waving his handles at Her like he thought She was an idiot, although of course She couldn't see the gesture, thus making him the idiot. Also neverminding the fact that he had ruined the facility after She had fixed it from being ruined by years of neglect due to nobody being around to maintain it in the first place. Also disregarding the fact that he had done in less than 48 hours what nature had taken dozens of years to accomplish.

"Come off it, mate-"

He was interrupted by a sort of banging noise, like someone jumping up and down on a sheet of metal lying atop a sheet of glass. Concerned, he peered down and saw that the lady was actually stomping on the Plate, practically abusing it in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to get it working again herself.

"Well, that's not going to help fix it, luv," he whispered, vaguely amused although bewildered by her bizarre behavior.

The boss lady didn't seem to have noticed, at least. "There," She said, "Try it now."

"Oh! There we go, maybe the stomping helped after all," he said, and when the lady sprung up again, he again grinned at her, "Don't worry about a thing, luv! Ol' Wheatley's looking out for you! I'll- and there it goes again, back to not working. Suppose I'll just wait."

"Hmm," the scary boss lady hummed, as though in deep thought, "This Plate must not be calibrated to someone of your... generous... ness."

Wheatley scowled. "Ugh, there she goes yet again about the lady's weight-"

"I'll add a few zeros to the maximum weight."

"Oh yeah? I'll add a few more zeros to your-.."

Shhh, Wheatley, don't ruin things now!

"..-Hrrrmmm," he growled, forcing himself into silence while he waited.

"You look great, by the way. Very healthy. Try it now."

The lady stepped onto the plate for a third time, and this time, Wheatley could see a light in her eyes. And something was happening to her face, rather alarming. It was going all stretchy and wrinkly and-... and he suddenly realized that she was smiling. Actually smiling. He honestly hadn't thought she was capable of smiling - thought that perhaps her face had been frozen into its typical stoic look as a result of some kind of neurological damage sustained from prolonged cryosleep - but here she was, smiling. It was odd but he wasn't about to tell her to stop doing it, especially when it meant that she was happy.

He hurried to tell her, "And just so you know, you aren't fat, you're- you're brilliant- bloody brilliant- the best- you're- gone again. Well, I'm supposed to just see her up ahead anyway, right?"

Correct, Wheatley. Do move on now.

Happy. Happy! She was happy to see him, just as happy as he was to see her, perhaps more happy. No one ever looked happy to see him. Had she made that look at him last time? He couldn't remember, perhaps because then he was too busy regaling her with the (incorrect) tale of how he had survived. It didn't matter. What mattered was that was she was happy to see him now. It filled him with a molten warmth and his core hummed with it. He was practically glowing with it, which was sort of alarming but there was also no point in going to get it checked out either.

Wheatley sighed, feeling a bit lighter than he did before, knowing now that the lady knew he was alive and that he was there with her, even if he couldn't be with her in the testing chambers. He would not let her down this time.

He moved away as She declared that She was unable to satisfactorily repair the Faith Plate and lowered the ceiling instead. As he was waiting for the lady to complete the test, while he was contemplating all the warm fuzzy feelings and pride at the fact that the lady was his friend, he heard Her begin speaking again.

"Look at you," She said with, what even Wheatley could tell was, faux admiration, "sailing through the air majestically. Like an eagle. Piloting a blimp."

Still filled with a light-hearted joy, Wheatley reacted without thinking and blurted, "Oh yeah? She's not the one who's the size of a jetliner!"

There was a cool, deadly silence on the other side of the wall. And then, Her voice, just as cool and deadly, "Who said that."

All the warm fuzzy feelings vanished and were replaced with panic and dread.

"Uhhhhh... I mean-.." he stammered while his processor scrambled for an appropriate response. It dug deep into its cache of witty repartee, rooting around for something definitely clever and cleverly definitive, and finally supplied him with: "Caw caw!"

The panels right in front of him suddenly peeled back, revealing him to the lady and the rest of the test chamber, and, most frightening of all, to Her - or at least to Her cameras. He reacted in a similar way one might approach a larger animal by trying to appear smaller and non-threatening. He pulled in all of his plates and tucked his handles in close against his hull.

"Eh heh. Eheheheh. Hello! Ehhhh... no touchy."

Next and last thing he saw was one of the panels rebounding smack dab into his face-

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"Okay, my fault, my fault, that one was completely on me."

They all have been completely on you, Wheatley. All of your deaths - and hers - every single one of them - on you. Didn't you literally just learn-

"I know, I know, honest mistake, it was an honest mistake on my part. No need to be rude. Now shut up."

Wheatley continued following the lady throughout the tests. Something was beginning to bother him, though he couldn't quite pin down what exactly that was. He knew it had something to do with the course he was taking, with the sequence of events he was following, but to what end this all led, he really had no idea. At this point, all he could do was trust that the story was unfolding the way that it should, the way that it needed to, and that everything would turn out just fine in the end.

After listening to the crazy boss lady berate his friend some more - calling her a murderer of all things! ("She has a lot of bloody room to talk - She's the one who murdered all the humans and then tried to murder the lady! I'd like to see Her argument hold up in court! What the lady did was self-defense, pure self-defense!") - he approached the spot where he would be able to meet the lady again. He just needed to jam up the door first and that would allow him some time to talk to her.

Wheatley looked around for something with which to complete this task, finally resorting to the bird eggs he had found last time. He managed to lift the entire nest with his lower handle, cradling it against his chassis as best as he could, and dropped the entire thing into the door mechanism. Through the slimy yolk the door let out a distress signal and stopped working properly.

"Sorry about that, mate," he said as the door cursed at him. "Though that better not count towards the F-bomb use in this story - I'm the one who gets to use that, not some measly ol' door."

When the lady approached the malfunctioning door, the scary boss lady excused herself to fix it. Wheatley took this opportunity - just like last time - to engage the lady while he had the chance.

"Hey! Oi! Up here!" he said, gaining her attention. He knew she could see him, even through the distortion of the wavy glass window, and he also knew that he wouldn't have long, so he spoke quickly. "I broke the door so we could have a moment to chat- AGH!" he broke off as the bird from before came after him, taking full revenge for him murdering its brood. "BIRD, BIRD, I FORGOT ABOUT THE BLOODY BIRD, AGH, GET OFFA ME!" He managed to shake the bird and came back huffing, "Okay, sorry, sorry about that, luv. What I wanted to say is- I've been watching you this whole time, through all of your tests, and you've been nothing short of brilliant! All right? Nothing but brilliant! No matter what She says. You aren't a murderer, and- and you aren't fat, and even if you were either of those things, you'd still be brilliant. So don't you ever believe otherwise, that are you are a murderer and/or fat, okay, She doesn't bloody know everything."

Wheatley, get to the point-

"The point- oh! The point is, I'm gonna break us out of here, all right? I've got it all planned out. All you have to do is keep testing for now, just keep testing, and- I gotta go, She's coming back now. Just act like you never saw me, okay? Just keep testing, act like you never saw me, and remember, you're brilliant! Go!"

He turned and left, fully trusting that the lady would make it through these tests, especially now that she knew he was with her. He followed along with her progress through the test chambers, enduring - as did she - a number of insults against her from the scary boss lady. Surprisingly, Wheatley managed to control himself through all of it, all the way up until She mentioned having a surprise for the lady after the next test. This, of course, concerned him deeply.

"Surprise? What does she mean 'surprise'?"

It's not the kind of surprise you're thinking, Wheatley.

"Oh yeah? What kind of surprise am I thinking of, then?"

It has nothing to do with neurotoxin-

"Oh, well-.. lucky guess."

-at least not at this point.

"Wait, what? What's that supposed to mean?"

Well, you already know how the rest of this plays out, don't you? Very soon it will be time for you to break her out. So long as you stick to the plan, she will avoid that particular end.

"But- But supposing you're wrong-"

Wheatley, everything that has happened so far has happened exactly as I said it would, has it not?

"Well-.. Well, yes, I suppose it has, but what if-"

Remember what happened the last few times you interfered? The acid and the sight of her falling into it?

Wheatley cringed and shuddered, but said nothing. He didn't need to. Of course he remembered.

You do? Good. I want you to think of that any time you even contemplate interfering or changing things. All it has done is make things worse. Remember that. Now, all you have to do is meet with her up ahead one last time, and then you will find the corridor that will allow her to escape with you. That is the moment you will get her out of testing.

"Are you sure I can't break her out any sooner? What could possibly happen?"

Would you like to try and find out?

"No, no, not really." He sighed. "Okay," he said, though he still felt unsure, "Okay."

For her. He was doing this for her. If he could just stick to the plan, soon they would both be home free. After that, he was sure that he could get them both out of there. Something about the situation did still feel a bit off - he was sure he must be missing something, there was still that opaque block in his mind that he couldn't see into, but- no, they would be getting out soon and that was that. He needn't worry about anything else.

Turned out, he really was worrying over nothing, because the "surprise" was nothing but a nasty, cruel prank played by Her against the lady. Not that it was nothing, per say, because it did infuriate him - and there was confetti - but at least it wasn't neurotoxin. Being told that her biological parents had abandoned her at birth and wanted nothing to do with her, at least, the lady could survive, at least physically. But neurotoxin? Well, Wheatley was admittedly relieved for once that his little invisible nuisance had been correct.

Up ahead, he could see where Jerry and the nanobot work crew were rebuilding the section of elevator shaft that had fallen apart, which would grant him an opportunity to provide the lady with some further reassurance as to their situation. He came blasting through it all without any care, much to the chagrin of the nanobots, who began screeching and swarming at him. He dutifully ignored them.

"Hey!" he called as the lady came into view. There was that smile again, so infectious he couldn't help but beam back at her in spite of the nanobots currently swarming him like a bunch of angry little bees. "You're doing great, luv! Just great! Spectacular, even! Tremendous! You're- you're handling those tests like a pro- ACK!" He accidentally knocked over a steel rod that the nanobots had just replaced, earning him further admonishment from them. "What? Oh piss off, Jerry, I don't have time for you! Yeah, you heard me! Fire me then, go on, I don't care! Ohhh, you better not have used my F-bomb just now! If you have, I'll definitely be seeing you in court for that!" He then returned his attention to the lady. "Gah, sorry about all these bloody interruptions. Part of the story - gotta happen and all - yadda yadda. Anyway, as I was saying, you're doing great, and I'll be breaking us out of here soon. Just- Just a couple more test chambers, all right? You can do it, just hang in there!" He nodded at her, confident, earning from her a nod in return and an even warmer smile.

"Oh, and don't worry about that stuff She said about your birth parents hating you and abandoning you," he quickly added, seeing that the lift was about to descend into the bottom of the shaft and therefore they would lose sight of each other, "I mean, I'm sure it's true that you're adopted, but I'm also sure that the circumstances weren't what She implied, not even remotely. I mean, I'm just guessing here, but maybe your parents died in an accident and you spent a while going through the ruddy foster care system before you were adopted, and then your adopted parents LOVED you! Yes, I'm sure they did! They'd have done anything for you!"

Wheatley couldn't see her very well now, because by this point she was descending into the repaired section of the shaft and was now blanketed in shadows, so he raised his voice after her. "So you see, don't listen to Her - She just says rubbish things to get a rise out of you! Kind of like how the Narrator- Er, I mean, you know what? Just hang in there and I'll see you up ahead! Promise! Good luck, luv!"

And then the lift clicked into place and she was gone, off to the next test, while Wheatley himself had to go off to his next task: Moving ahead to where he would break her out of testing and advance to the next part of the story.

"Still can't bloody believe She said all that rubbish to the lady," he said, shaking his chassis in disapproval, as he made his way there. "Awful. Just bloody awful. Ooohhhh, if I ever get plugged in again, I swear, it's straight back into the potato with her."

Not to worry, Wheatley, soon enough you will have that opportunity once again.

Wheatley came to an immediate halt on his rail, so sudden he felt some of his insides rattle together, the temperature of his core plunging. "Wait, what?"

You, being plugged in and putting the Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System into a potato again.

At that, Wheatley just about fell off his rail. "What? No! No, I was just- I was just joking!" he refuted adamantly and then gave a nervous laugh. "Ahh, well, sort of joking, you know, in a half serious, half joking sort of way. Like 50% joking, 50% not joking, but only inasmuch that She definitely deserves being put into a potato again, but that, um, I will have to find another to do it, that's all, that's what I meant."

There was no response - and certainly no chummy laughter - which Wheatley found most disconcerting. It stopped his nervous chortling, at any rate.

"You're- you're not joking, though, are you?"

Wheatley, do keep up. The only joking I have ever done has been at your expense, and while I do find the idea of your distress amusing, I would never joke about the story. Now, let us press on.

"No, nononono, what are you- No, I'm- I'm- I am not going through with that again. No way."

I'm sorry, Wheatley, but you will.

"No, but- why?" he said, voice all high and airy in disbelief, as if his non-existent lungs couldn't get enough air. "Why do I have to do that again?"

It is a part of the story and must be done.

"Part of the story, what- But then- What was the point of all this then, huh? To have me start everything over only to run through the exact same thing all over again?!" Wheatley growled, panic switching rapidly to anger and then back again, leaving him somewhere in the middle, hyperventilating, frozen and boiling hot all at once.

Haven't you been paying attention? That's exactly what's been happening, and that's exactly the point - for you to follow the story, as was planned, as was written.

"But- But you said, you said, that we started the whole story over so that I could have a chance to apologize- to- to make things up with-"

Oh, Wheatley. I only said that to motivate you. My goodness, you really haven't been paying attention. Pity. But it is what it is. Now, proceed, go on and meet with Test Subject #2845 up ahead and let us get on with the rest of the story.

"No. No, I'm not doing that. I'm- I'm not- not doing- that to her again! I, I-I-I can't believe- No."

Yes, Wheatley, you will do this, otherwise need I remind you of what will happen?

"No. I don't care, I'm not- I'm- I can't- NO!" he barked, voice shaking, nearly hysterical, and he tore out of there, tore away in a blind panic, leaving behind the test chambers and mounds of garbage and Pneumatic Diversity Vents and, most importantly, the lady.

Where are you going, Wheatley? Come back! You must continue with the story! Come back-

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WARNING: Narrative Contradiction levels at 70%. Proceed with substantial caution.