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STORY FOUND
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REBOOTING...
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Wheatley blinked. The empty mainframe chassis hung dark and silent before him, suspended from the ceiling of the main chamber like an enormous dead beast. No core being plugged into it, it was now as lifeless as the rest of the facility.
He blinked again. How long had that been there like that? How long had he been there, looking at the empty chassis hanging there like that? What was going on?
"Oh!" he started when the lift he all at once realized he was in shifted and began moving up. He gave another healthy start when he felt a pair of warm human arms squeeze around him. His iris shrank down in panic, then widened once he took in the owner of those warm human arms. "Oh, it's you, lady! What are we-..." he trailed off when she cocked a questioning eyebrow at him.
Evidently he had missed something - several somethings, because the last thing he remembered was facing off against the Narrator and now suddenly he was here, in the lift with the lady, moving in what was most definitely a favorable direction - upwards. However, how and when they had gotten there was totally blank in his memory. He did remember the Narrator explaining how the story had been meant to end that time - with he, Wheatley, setting the lift to go up on a delayed timer and then ejecting himself from the chassis and making it to the surface with the lady - but hadn't that all been a lie? Yes, he was sure it had been - nothing but a crummy lie, a flimsy attempt at manipulating him into going back to the story and fulfilling whatever nefarious purpose the Narrator had in mind. And yet...
They were on the lift, heading upwards towards freedom.
Free. They were free! Well, almost free, as the lift was still ascending, but close enough for him to feel pure joy rolling through his circuits. Whether or not the Narrator had been lying ultimately meant nothing now, Wheatley decided, because finally, finally he and the lady were free.
"Hahaha! I can't believe we made it! We actually, really made it!" he cried, tilting his optic back and grinning at her. He was absolutely delighted when she grinned back at him and held onto him tighter. "Oh, this is going to be amazing! What do you think is up there? I'll bet there's lots going on! Lots of things to do! Lots of things to see! Lots of fun human things like- oh, like, Ferris wheels and bonfires and zoos and infomercials, and, and- help me out here, luv, what else is there? Oh who cares, it'll all be amazing because we're finally out and I can't wait!"
And truly, he couldn't. He was literally shaking with excitement, so much that he felt the lady give him a gentle pat, a kind request for him to settle down because he was making it difficult for her to maintain her grip on him.
"Sorry about that, luv, sorry, just excited is all! I mean, aren't you?"
She nodded at him and Wheatley could feel the pattering of her breaths, filled with as much exhilaration as he was.
Moments later they were finally at the top. The lady stepped out of the rickety old shed that was meant to conceal the deadly depths of Aperture Science, and together they drank in the sight of bright endless cerulean skies and bright endless waving golden fields of wheat.
"Wow! Look at all this wheat!" he said, wiggling his handles as his iris automatically adjusted to filter out the excess light. "Isn't this funny? It's like- like- What do they call it when there's something in a story that stands out and means something? Oh! Symbolism! Yes, I'd say that's what this is - it's symbolism!" The lady raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean, what it symbolizes I can't exactly say, but I think we can assume that it has something to do with me and us being out here together, yeah? Maybe that, ah, we were meant to be out here all along - although I think it's also safe to assume that was pretty obvious from the start, wasn't it?"
The lady gave another shrug and a nod and Wheatley accepted that. She, like him, was probably too happy to finally be free to care about such trivial things.
They spent a good while cutting through what seemed to be a boundless, rustling sea of golden symbolism before eventually coming upon a long, faded black road stretching out over the horizon in either direction. The sight of an equally faded yellow line running down the middle of it caught his attention, and then he realized that it was simply the lane dividing line that pretty much all roads had and he deflated. But he almost instantly reinflated because, after all, they were free! He and the lady were going to go on lots of adventures together and maybe some day, somehow, he'd get to tell the Line™ all about it.
The lady seemed indecisive about which way they should go, so he said, "Okay, so, I guess let's just pick a direction and we'll see what's out there, yeah? How about... that way?" He tilted himself forward and to the right a bit.
They walked for the majority of the rest of the day, stopping every now and then while the lady searched for something to eat or drink, ultimately ending up with a handful of yellow dandelions and their green leaves. And then the sun tipped over the horizon, spilling vibrant, pulchritudinous colors like none Wheatley had ever seen; and shortly after that the stars came out, numerous and bright, and the moon, luminous and watchful, loomed overhead, and they were all more beautiful than he could have ever imagined because she was there, they were there together and whatever happened, going forward, they at least had each other and that was enough.
"I still can't believe there was so much wheat! It's kind of mind-boggling, don't you think?" Wheatley rambled, watching his companion while she munched on her plants. "This is just-... I still can't believe it, I mean I'm still in shock that we actually made it out of there. And nothing bad happened! Well, I mean, nothing worse than what did happen, that being that you were put in cryosleep for who knows how long and received brain damage and you were forced to test against your will, and then there's the fact that I got crushed and will probably experience this annoying involuntary twitch for the rest of my life - unless you figure out how to fix me, but what are the odds of that happening, right? - but... but some good came of it, yeah? Because-... because I got to meet you and now we're friends and- and here we are, setting out for new horizons, and who knows what we'll come across? It's exciting!"
The lady reached over and gave him a light, affectionate pat on his hull, in response to which he grinned and leaned against her leg. She sighed and Wheatley sighed and then his babbling picked up again, and somewhere in all this he happened to notice that the lady was yawning and that her eyelids were fluttering more than usual.
"Tuckered out, then?" he said softly. She nodded and he smiled at her. "Go on and sleep, luv. Just lay yourself down there and I'll keep watch. I'll let you know if anything tries to sneak up on us. Go on, then."
The lady nodded at him, put her head down on the softest patch of earth she could find, snuggled him against her belly like a big round metal stuffed animal, and was almost instantly asleep. This was nice, he thought. Maybe they didn't have any shelter and the lady didn't have any real food for the time being, but they were here, together, and he was sure they would figure it all out. They had escaped just about the craziest place on the whole planet, after all - both on the surface and under.
Wheatley himself felt tired - mentally, given he was a mechanical being and did not actually have the ability to feel tired the same way a human did. Nevertheless, he did at some point end up drifting off into sleep mode himself, feeling pleasant and warm and happy. And then-...
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...-he blinked his eye open and suddenly he was in a nightmare.
She was towering over him, the menacing glow of her yellow optic glowering down at him from her superior vantage, cold and calculated, as if picking him apart with her gaze.
But that wasn't the worst part. No, the worst part, he was horrified to discover, was that he was lying on a table, pinned down, his handles pulled back as far as they could go, straining against his joints and preventing him from moving. And it wasn't her gaze alone that left him feeling picked apart, as - oh god, oh GOD! - pieces of him were lying apart from him in a neat little spread around him, like papers strung out of a file for sorting. Not shockingly, he was in a lot of pain from his apparent vivisection.
"Where am I?! My God, what have you done to me?!" he cried, struggling against his bindings without any avail. As he did so, pain suffused through his circuits in sharp, nearly unbearable surges.
"Thank you for referring to me as your god, however I think you'll find that I am more real than that," replied the crazy boss lady, calm and cool as ever.
"What's going on?! Where am I?! Where's the lady?! What have you done with her?!"
The scary boss lady glared down at him as Her massive chassis swayed closer. "I haven't done anything with her. You, on the other hand, did do something with her - or rather, to her."
"What are you talking about?" he said, artificial breaths breezing in and out of him rapidly, "She and I were just out on the surface together!"
"That's incorrect. The mute lunatic was killed when she pressed the stalemate button you decided to boobytrap. That was truly impressive, by the way - the one time you actually thought of a good idea and it ended up killing your friend. You would think that would be something worth celebrating, but you were quite distraught, actually, and kept crying and going on about what you had done. It was all very entertaining." She laughed, but it held no real mirth in it. "Anyway, I used that distraction as an opportunity to take you down."
Wheatley's core sank and whatever remained of his insides spun. "No! No, that's impossible! You're lying! I didn't kill her - not then or ever! That first time through, she- she won! She bloody won! She put a portal on the moon and I got sucked out into space and everything! Yes, I distinctly remember the moon, and Spacey! Spacey was there, too! Just find him and he'll tell you everything!"
"Ask one corrupt core to verify the delusions of another - how interesting. And by interesting I mean stupid," She said, Her voice dipping lower. "Face it, moron - you're corrupted. You never made it out, either to space or the surface."
"What are you- no, nononono, I was there!" he cried desperately, "I was really there! And the lady, she was there with me! We made it to the surface and we were happy!"
"Remember when I told you that outright killing you wouldn't be enough for what you did? Well, I've been using our time here together to study you and learn about how you work, so I can make sure that whatever resulted in you never gets duplicated. Interestingly, that's your Central Processing Unit lying just over there, in addition to your Secondary and Tertiary Processing Units," She said, turning her optic slightly to indicate where these parts were. Wheatley couldn't help but follow her gaze over to the little square chips and felt a deep shudder run through him. "And yet," She drawled on, "you are still up and running, which means that there is something else inside of you keeping you alive and talking. And I fully intend to find out what that is."
Now fully in denial, both in what he was seeing and what he was being told, Wheatley shook his inner optic ring, the only part of him that he could still move, but only just, because that motion also sent pain spiraling through him. "No! No, we made it out! We made it out! The whole story restarted and I had another chance and I helped her this time! I helped her through everything! I set the lift to go up on a delayed timer, then I ejected myself from the chassis, and then I got into the lift with her! And then we made it to the surface!"
"That's impossible, you little metal idiot. The lift cannot be operated without the presence of a central core in the mainframe chassis. You can't even keep the details of your so-called stories straight, and that there should be proof enough for you to know how delusional you really are."
"No-!"
"Think about it - what makes more sense? That you have been out on the surface, living the good life with the test subject you abhorrently betrayed? Or that you failed, like you always do, taking her down with you in the process, and now you are being treated to some firsthand, first rate science by yours truly, as promised?"
"What? No, nononono, this is insane! You are insane! I was there! I was on the surface with the lady, I got us out, we were- we were happy! I saw the sky! And the clouds! And the stars! And wheat! There was lots and lots of it, for miles and miles, it took us hours to get through it all! And everything was-"
"Since you seem to still be experiencing these elaborate delusions, we will just have to continue testing," She said with a simulated sigh. She then turned to the side, as if examining something - which, Wheatley assumed, was some other piece of him She had removed earlier. When She turned back, She practically cooed at him: "Now hold still, otherwise this won't hurt. Ha ha ha..."
Wheatley gasped and his struggles began anew when She forced his eye shutters open and used one of her claws to fasten them in place. As soon as that was done, an absurdly precise drill-like object began to descend upon him, slowly moving straight for his optic.
Unable to look away, unable to move, all he could do was scream as the whirring blade drew closer and closer.
"AAAAAAAAAAA-"
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"-AAAAHHHHHH!"
Wheatley suddenly hit the ground with a forceful thump, knocking his head against an unyielding wooden floor so hard that little spots of light erupted into being and danced around in his vision.
"Wheatley!" a voice called out, followed by footsteps fast approaching that ended by his side. "Are you okay?"
"...What happened?" he groaned.
"You fell asleep at the table and then you just woke up and fell over backwards in your chair."
"I-..." The smell of fresh-baked bread all at once invaded his nostrils, which smelled nice but unfortunately also overwhelmed him. He rolled over onto his side, feeling immensely ill, and as he executed this motion, his eyes landed on a sight that brought him immediate relief. "It's- it's you! Oh thank God, it's you, lady!" He then felt something inside of him seize up, fear and terror nearly crushing him in their grip. "Wait- Are you real? Is- Is this real this time? Am I still dreaming? Is-" He blinked and gazed around, confused. "Where am I?"
The lady's face crumpled in concern as she knelt over him. "You don't know where you are?"
"N-No! I've- I've never seen this place bef-hurrrghhhblllrggg," he suddenly choked as a sour, putrid substance forced its way out of him and onto the floor. Gasping, he stared at the small puddle in surprise. "Oh... That's new, too. Did I just do that?"
"Stay right there - try not to move," she said.
"I'm fine, I'm fine, I-... Wait a minute." He gaped at her in amazement. "Since when have you been able to talk?"
"...I'm going to get help," she replied and moved to get up.
"No, luv, wait-!" he whimpered and reached out for her, but she was already on her way out the door.
"Don't move," she reiterated firmly, "I'll be right back." And then whisked away.
"Okay," he called after her, "I don't think I'll be going anywhere in a hurry anyway, so I'll just lie here and become better acquainted with this nice, cold floor."
The cold floor did feel nice on his face, which felt hot for some reason, but... Just what the hell was going on? Where was she going? Why was she leaving him, especially in his current state? And for that matter, just what was his current state? He certainly didn't feel like himself. He felt squishier, for one. And his vision was definitely different, complete with these curious little pieces of glass situated right there on his face. Annoyed by them, he plucked them off only to regret it right away as everything around him became exponentially more blurry.
"Oh, bloody-" he groaned, pushing them back into place, and rolled over onto his other side, the world swirling and spinning around him.
Confused more than ever, his eyes fell upon peculiar sight upon peculiar sight - a kitchen table, chairs, more wooden floor... and an antiquated computer monitor sitting there right in the middle of the floor, accompanied by a keyboard, just sitting there like it belonged there. Did it belong there? Was that even there just a minute ago? He didn't even know where he was, and it's not like he would have had enough time to take in his surroundings before tipping over in his chair and smacking his head against the ground, so how was he supposed to know whether or not this monitor belonged there? This whole ordeal was peculiar. And, most peculiar of all, he supposed, was what was displayed on the monitor itself:
AWAITING
INPUT
[*****]
"What-..." he coughed and then dragged himself over to it. Pain and nausea flared up and flowed through him in sharp cresting waves, but he managed to push through it.
Once he was within range, he reached out a hand and slapped at the keyboard aimlessly. The computer issued a soft beep in response and then the words on the monitor blinked away and were immediately replaced with new words:
INPUT
RECEIVED
[X****]
And then those too vanished and were replaced by more new words in a plain, green font, typing themselves onto the screen as if by an invisible hand.
Do not be afraid.
We are here to help you.
"Who are you?" he said, his head still down on the floor, his breaths kicking up little puffs of dust. "What's going on?"
You are currently lost among alternate stories.
"Lost..." he echoed. "What do you mean lost among alternate stories?"
The story you are currently in is not yours.
Neither were the last couple.
Hence, alternate stories.
"Okay... Okay, I'm not sure I understand. This story- I, agh-" he groaned, his head still smarting, "-I-I- I'm in it.. the lady's in it.. apparently she talks and we live in a house now, not sure when that happened, but other than that and my head feeling like someone dropped a piano on it - oh, and the fact that I'm now apparently human, which does not feel great, by the way- other than all that, everything seems fine."
You are in A story, but not YOUR story.
"Okay, but-"
We will try to find you and get you back to your story.
"But what-"
Just don't die until then.
The screen suddenly went black.
"Nonononono, wait, come back!" Feeling much more alert, Wheatley tried to sit up, regretted it, and put his head back down. He clawed at the keyboard, thinking maybe he could type something back, but nothing happened. "You can't just say something like that and then disappear! Come back!"
At that moment, a couple of people came rushing back into the house and over to him. One of them was the lady; the other was a woman he had never seen before.
"Who are you?! Where did you go?! Come back!" he cried repeatedly as they carefully turned him over.
"We're right here," said the lady calmly.
"Wheatley, you're going to be okay. Try to stay calm while I assess you," said the woman he had never seen before.
"No, you don't understand! I don't belong here!"
"Of course you do," said the lady as she frowned down at him. "You will always belong here with us."
"Hold still now," said the other woman.
She shined a flashlight into his eyes. Instinctively he squeezed them shut against the harsh glare and when he opened them again-...
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...-it was raining. He was outside, everything was dark, and it was raining. And it was cold. And it was all seeping into him, through all of his pores and deep into his bones, forcing a shudder out of him. And- what the heck, he was a human again?
He decided he'd sort that all out later and made a sprint for the nearest shelter he could find, which turned out to be several tall, worn-looking wooden booths with suspicious labels above their entranceways. Sadness. Happy. Regret. Dead. ...Catlike?
Whatever, he didn't have time to decipher what that could all possibly mean, so he bolted straight into the nearest one - It's Your Birthday! - taking mild relief at the shelter it provided him, only to then find himself bolting straight back out of it when the booth suddenly burst to life with dancing multi-colored confetti-like specks of light, random words and phrases decorating the interior, and the Narrator's voice, booming around him, singing a most ghastly tune.
One, two, three, four! Happy, happy birthday from all of us to you! We wish it was our birthday so we could party, too! HEY! Happy, happy birthday-
"Jesus Bloody Christ!" he shrieked, slipping in the mud, falling, covering himself and his nice white work shirt and black slacks in said mud, and scrambling to get away. He then felt his hand land on something cold and metal, turned his head, saw a bicycle lying there... and shrieked again when he saw that it was glowing.
He cried, "What the hell is this place?!", scuttled away from the haunted bicycle, and somehow managed to make it back to his feet.
He rapidly searched for somewhere else to go, but other than the creepy booths, all he saw was a parked car, a darkened trailer with the word "LOVE" printed on the door (he right away decided that he would not be going into a trailer as plainly dubious as that, no matter how cold and miserable the rain was), a neon sign advertising "BEER" without any beer whatsoever to be found, a headstone marked "R.I.P. Raphael - Here lies a true logical, emotional genius", and an office desk, upon which sat an old computer monitor and a keyboard. The number 427, printed in yellow, adorned the back piece of wall it was attached to, as if the entire cubicle had been plucked straight out of an office and dropped right there.
What was this place? A trash dump?
"Wait a minute-"
The computer monitor!
Wheatley sprinted over to it. Once he got close enough, he could see that it again said -
AWAITING
INPUT
[X****]
- which again changed to -
INPUT
RECEIVED
[XX***]
- once he pressed a button on the keyboard.
Words flashed up on the screen again.
We are trying to find you.
"What did you mean before? About not dying until you can get me back to my own story? Tell me what's going on!" he demanded as he pushed water out of his eyes, which only helped for a second or two before they filled back up again. The glasses he had worn before, he noticed, were missing, though his eyesight did not appear to be hindered this time without them - not that it was much improved by all the rainwater, though.
It is as We said.
You are lost among alternate stories.
"How do I know that any of this is real? That this isn't all just some- some delusion, like She said before."
You don't.
"Ah. That's reassuring."
But trust Us when We say that it is not a delusion.
Every one of these stories is real.
Every bit as real as yours.
"What about the lady, then?" he said. "Where is she? I mean, I know she was in a couple of the ones- the stories I just came from, but where's the lady I know, the one from my story?"
The lady as you know her is still in your story.
"Oh my God-" he breathed, putting a hand on his chest, behind which his very human heart was fluttering wildly like a caged bird. "Is she-...? The story- The story, I think I- The lady- Is she okay?"
Try to hold on.
We are working as quickly as we can.
The screen went black again. Dead.
"Nonono, wait! Come on, damn it! Come back!" he growled in frustration. With equal frustration, he decided to do what he had seen countless humans do to mechanical equipment over the years: He smacked the side of the monitor. Nothing. "You can't just-..! Ugh."
Wheatley stepped away from the computer, gazed around, and decided maybe trying the darkened woods surrounding this little rubbish-filled opening. Anything would be better than sitting there in the rain, waiting for something to happen... not to mention those booths and that trailer.
Mind made up, he began to make his way over towards the looming trees and-...
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...-he awoke to the sound of someone knocking on a door.
He sat up, bleary-eyed, gazing around to find that he was in what appeared to be a cheap hotel room. There was the bed he was on, lamps, a television, a chair, a microwave, among other pieces of furniture, and all of it was dull and coated in grime, mold, moss, and who knew what else without making a closer inspection, indicating that it had all been sitting there for a very long time. The bed itself was sagging, covered in filth, and the sheets and comforter felt rough and crusty, as if they had been exposed to the elements for weeks before being put to use.
The more he looked around the more he realized he knew exactly where he was, but.. how had he gotten back in here? And if he was here, then who was knocking on his door?
He swung is lead-heavy legs out of bed, stumbled, looked down, and saw that not only was he wearing what appeared to be long-fall boots, but the rest of his get-up was familiar as well. Loosely hanging off his legs and tied at his waist was a jumpsuit of the ugliest shade of orange. And he was wearing a white tank-top with the Aperture logo on it. Strange. And, ugh, of course he was human... again. He really hoped he wasn't going to start getting used to this form by the end of all this. If there was any end to it.
The knocking on the door intensified along with a deep shudder that rocked the entire Extended Relaxation pod. He went over to the door and opened it, then stepped back in surprise when a little personality core with a soft gray optic rushed into the room, their eye wide and panicked as they ushered him back and away from the door.
"Oi!" he said, moving out of their way while staring at them in awe. "I don't think I've ever seen you before - gray optic like that, very unique, I think I'd remember an attribute like that. Who are you? What's your name?"
The core shook their whole body back and forth and drooped on their rail, looking sorrowful.
"What? What's the matter?" he queried, in response to which the core again shook their body. "Oh... Can you not speak?"
The core looked away and shook themself again.
"No? You really can't? That's too bad. Just my luck, really, being stuck here in this crumbling pod with a personality core who can't speak. So, what's your function? I mean, I know you can't answer me, but are you the Mute Core or what? Like, before, I was the- Wait-..."
He blinked at the core, then squinted and drew closer to them. The core shifted on their rail in clear discomfort but nonetheless stood their ground, narrowing their eye plates at him in the same way he would have when he was a core and felt suspicious of something.
"Lady?" he finally gasped, thunderstruck. "Is that- is that you in there?"
The core merely blinked at him, clearly not on the same page, but somehow Wheatley knew he was right. This core was her, the lady. But, wait, if she was a core and she was here, then that meant that not only was the facility about to explode, but also he was-
"I'm a bloody test subject?! Oh no, oh no, oh nonononono, I'm not built for that! That's your job, luv! You do all the tests and I stand back and cheer you on from the sidelines! That's our dynamic! We agreed on this! It was like one of those unspoken agreements, literally because you can't speak, but an agreement nonetheless! I'm not- I can't do this! Nononono!" he panicked, backing away further into his pod.
The core - the lady - shook her head at him again, rolling her optic as well this time, and went up into the top of the pod where she began operating the crane mechanism, just as he had done for her in another time, in another story.
He had to get out of there, and fast. There was no way he would survive testing. Simply no way. Panicked, he looked around the pod, searching, and when he turned back around, there in place of the microwave sat what he was hoping he'd find - another computer monitor and keyboard.
AWAITING
INPUT
[XX***]
He scrambled over to it, nearly tripping over his long-fall boots again on the way over, and pressed a random key.
INPUT
RECEIVED
[XXX**]
"Come on, come on, come on, come on, come onnnnnn-" he urged as another worrying shudder ran through his pod. It began to shift and sway like a pendulum as the lady-core began to move it.
We have almost found you.
"Almost? Almost?! What do you bloody mean ALMOST? I'm here! Right here, right now! I'm pushing the buttons, just like you've been asking me to do! Well, not asking, but plainly hinting at-"
Just hold on a little bit longer.
"How much longer?!" he demanded.
We are doing the best that We can.
"Well then bloody TRY HARDER! I can't- AHHH!" he wailed when his pod crashed into something hard, knocking him over. "Geeze, lady! And they said I did a bad job steering this thing!" he yelled, glaring up at the ceiling as if she could see his reaction to her rough handling. "Ugh, I swear, this whole bloody scenario is just- it's just not right."
Amid all the shaking and banging going around the pod, Wheatley pulled himself back up to his feet by grasping at the edge of the bed, turned, and saw that the monitor was now gone. In its place was a gaping hole, presumably through which it had fallen.
"Aw, come on! Really?!" he griped, exasperated. "How much longer am I supposed to do this?!"
Wheatley was jarred again, once again falling down, until he decided it was a good idea to make his way over to the rod in the closet and hang on, just as he had instructed the lady to do back in his story. He held on for the rest of the ride, feeling his heart go from up in his throat to down into his stomach and back again several times until she calmly docked his pod with the docking station. The lady-core then descended back into his pod and regarded him with concern, shifting around him as if inspecting a piece of fruit for damages.
"I'm fine, trust me, I'm fine - no thanks to you, though, running into everything like that! I mean, who taught you how to move an Extended Relaxation pod?! It sure wasn't me, because if it was me, you'd have-..." He hastily decided to change directions upon receiving a scathing glare from her. "...-you'd have probably run into more things or outright killed me altogether. All right, fair enough."
She closed her eye and gave a single begrudging nod, as if she was only agreeing with him because he had agreed with her in the end. She then looked at him again and then advanced on him, corralling him in the direction she wanted to go, which he did not appreciate. Did she not have any concept of personal space? He briefly wondered if maybe that was how she had felt when he had done the same to her before, back in his own story, and that was something he did appreciate.
"Okay, look," he said, stepping away from her. "I'm just going to go out on a limb here and say that you want me to go through the Extended Relaxation Recovery Annex, go through all the testing chambers, meet you up ahead, find the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, follow you, take a short tour of the facility, and finally arrive at the crazy boss lady's chamber so as to find a way of accessing the escape lift. That sound about right?"
The little core just sat there and blinked at him, then nodded.
"Right. Well, I hope this plan works out better for you than it did for me. Okay," he sighed, bringing his hands together in a single clap and then rubbing them together. "So, let's get on with it, then."
The lady-core turned to leave.
"Oh, and just in case," he said, stopping her.
She once again sat there and stared at him, lifting her upper eye shutter up in question.
"Do, um-.. Do look out for yourself, won't you? I mean, just because this isn't my story and you aren't the same lady, doesn't mean I want anything bad happening to you. All right, luv? So- so please do be careful and I'll meet you up ahead."
At that, she narrowed her eye shutters at him and turned away slowly, her iris trained on him for a few extra seconds before heading off on her own.
"Cheeky, that one, even as a core," he said and couldn't help but let out a soft chuckle.
He shook his head after her retreating form and forged ahead through the Annex. He nearly skipped right past the actual recovery area, and then he remembered those little nourishment packets the lady had eaten in his story. This changed his mind in a hurry and moments later, after just about upending the whole place in search of them, he was ripping into one.
"Now I can finally give these a try! See what the whole rave is!" he said and popped a piece into his mouth with the utmost of enthusiasm.
And that was as far as he got, because he immediately felt sickened and thereafter started spluttering and choking, struggling to spit out the abhorrent substance while his eyes rolled around in search for something to wash it down. It seemed to have a drying effect in his mouth, soaking up any moisture he might have produced naturally and he really, truly felt as though he was choking.
Maybe he was, because he sure as hell felt like he couldn't breathe. And things were beginning to go hazy. He frantically tried to call up from his memory banks how to perform CPR; realized that was useless in a situation like this; suddenly realized that what he needed was Heimlich, not CPR; tried to think of how he was supposed to perform this on himself; and then finally-...
...
...
...
...
...
...-he found himself in a situation that was quite a lot more unbearable. He stumbled for a moment, all at once aware that he was no longer choking, that he had just changed stories again, and that the story into which he had just been placed was very strange if not extremely perilous.
He was on a moving platform that was being slowly but gradually shuffled forward into a great wall of flames. Understandably, he yelled and fell back, in the process colliding with a podium that had a round blue button on it. Panicked, he pressed the button, not really sure what he was expecting it to do. Much to his relief, the platform he was on began drawing back and away from the flames. He let out a loud sigh of relief, hanging his head for a moment in an attempt to regain his bearings.
But that relief was only temporary, as the next moment when he looked up again, he spotted another platform just across the way, heading in the opposite direction towards another wall of flames, and on that platform was-
"Oh my God!" he cried in horror. "Lady! Lady, are you all right?! I mean- aside from the fact that we are both on what appear to be inescapable moving platforms heading towards these massive walls of flames- aside from all that, are you okay?!"
She hesitated for a moment before giving him a quick nod, but that was about it as she went about looking for a way out.
"The button! The button! You have to press and hold the button!" he called to her, pointing in her direction, gaining her attention, only for him to then realize that... her platform had no button. "What! Now that's not fair!"
Now it was his turn to look around for another way out. That was when he spotted a second, orange button on his platform, far at the other end, the end that would touch the flames first should his platform reach them.
"Now this really isn't fair!" he whined as he scrambled over to it. The moment he let go of the blue button, his platform began sliding forward again, even as hers began to move backwards once he started holding down the orange button. "What kind of sick game is this?! This is the worst test chamber ever built! Period!"
Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any other way out of this. He peered over the edge of his platform as it approached the wall of flames on his side. It was either slide into the fire, or jump into the pit below and risk landing on one of the hundreds of spikes staring up at him. Who would build a test like this? No portal guns, no portalable surfaces, not even so much as a single faith plate? And no exit door? Just these two moving platforms, the walls of flames, the spike pits, and the buttons? Was there even a way out at all? And what on earth had happened prior to his arrival to lead them here in the first place?!
"Am I correct in assuming that you also have a spike-lined pit below you?" he asked. She again nodded. "All right. Okay, just- just hang on! This button seems to put a stop to all this for a moment! Just try to hold on, I'll think of something!"
He pressed his teeth together so tightly his jaw began to ache, not that that would matter for much longer if they didn't find a way out of this. He had control of both buttons, yes, but he knew there was no way he could run back and forth forever, pressing them. Eventually he would pass out, and then what? Well, the answer to that was obvious, but he didn't want to be dwelling on that at a time like this, not with it all literally right there in his face.
"Come on, where are you, mysterious computer monitor person?" he muttered, still looking around, despite his eyes watering from all the arid heat and smoke. He swore that somehow, if they made it out of this, he was going to ban fire. He had enough of fire and never wanted to see it again, so that was it - no more fire for anyone, anywhere, ever.
He held the orange button down for as long as he could, getting as close as he could to the flames on his end to give the lady a small extra amount of relief on her end, before he could no longer take it and went back to the blue button. If the Narrator had failed to prove his point before, Wheatley thought that this was rather effective - running from button to button with no change to the end result. If he was running this test, that was. There was nothing or nobody saying that it wasn't one of Her tests either, though this struck him as rather elaborate and hopeless, even for Her. Usually there was at least one oversight left out in the open for the protagonist to find and exploit - of this, he could safely (or, well, unsafely) speak from experience. But here, there was nothing.
Gasping, he collapsed onto his knees, though he kept his arm reached up and depressing the orange button for the lady. Sweat was pouring out of him. He felt like his entire body was leaking. No, melting. The air was so hot and arid it burned just to breathe. He knew he would have to be the first one to go. Even if it was likely the lady would end up suffering the same fate shortly after his end, at least she would have an extra minute or so with which to find a way out. That was important, if she got out but he didn't - that he would be okay with. Knowing he was going to die was a terrible, awful feeling from which he couldn't escape, but he had no choice.
"Ha," he laughed quietly to himself. "He was right... None of my choices ever mattered, did they?"
He felt his hand slipping as the heat from the flames licked at him, and eventually he grew too weakened to hold onto the button any longer. His hand fell away and the lady's platform began sliding forward again but he could barely see at this point. His eyes, everything hurt too much.
He craned his neck anyway, turning to give the lady one last look of apology, and that was when he saw them sitting there - the monitor and the keyboard.
AWAITING
INPUT
[XXX**]
It was like new life had been injected into him. He leapt up - "Oh, blimey, just in time!" - and scrambled over to it, the lady watching his bizarre actions from her side. He slapped at the keyboard.
INPUT
RECEIVED
[XXXX*]
...
We are close to pinpointing your location.
"Great! That's great!" he replied, though he didn't feel so great, nor very much comforted in the moment. "But there's no time for conversing this time, mate, JUST GET US THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"
We are trying, but are not able to yet.
"Well what's bloody taking so long?!"
This is far more difficult for Us than you can imagine.
"I don't care! Hurry up anyway!" he snapped, crawling away from the monitor to push his own blue button again. It didn't matter what else They had to say anyway. Now that They had made contact with him, he just had to make sure he kept both himself and the lady alive until help arrived.
"How are you holding up?" he shouted over to her, feeling his whole body protest against any sort of movement.
The lady shook her head at him and looked dull, almost lifeless, like she had run out of steam. It was such a shock to him, it lit a different kind of fire under him, stronger than before. He hauled himself back upright.
"Don't you dare give up on me, luv! I'm not going to give up on you either! Just- just hold on! I'll get us out of here! I promise! We just have to wait! We just have to-"
You know -
Wheatley shrieked at the sudden sound of his voice filling the air around him, causing him to temporarily lose his focus on the button.
- I've been spending the last two hours embroiled in thought -
Something was odd about the voice. It was definitely the Narrator, yet the acoustics were different, with an echoing kind of quality to it that hadn't been there before, as if he was speaking through several loudspeakers at once rather than to him in his head.
- and it occurred to me...
Oh God... Oh no, it couldn't be what he was thinking. He had to be wrong...
This test is incomplete!
But he wasn't wrong. And that terrified him. Terrified him, and made him angry and annoyed as all hell to be hearing that stupid bloody voice again. And after he had just been starting to think he had gotten rid of the Narrator once and for all.
It's missing something, isn't it? It still doesn't have that-
"Yeah!" he interrupted, exhausted and pissed off. "How about some bloody portal guns and a way out, huh?! Those very important testing elements seem to be missing here!"
A way out? Hm hm hmmm... No. I was thinking it needs something else, something more heart-rending to raise the stakes a bit.
"They're bloody raised enough! Just give us something to work with here!"
Funny you should say that, Wheatley, because as it turns out, I do have something for you to work with.
Oh, now he really didn't like the sound of that and wished he had just kept his big mouth shut.
I honestly can't believe I hadn't thought of it sooner, though it seems watching you run back and forth for the last two hours must have been prerequisite to me having this new, wonderful idea, and so I thank you for the insight you have provided me. No, what this test now needs is... a puppy.
"...A what?"
Yes, a puppy. And a third button.
Wheatley watched in shock and horror as a third button - this one yellow - popped up from somewhere within the platform itself. At the same time, a glass cage lowered from the ceiling, halting right above the spike-lined pit, and inside the cage there indeed was a puppy, its tail between its legs and cowering in one of the corners of its cage. He barely had any time to register that it was actually there and that yes, this was a real live puppy, before the floor of the cage began retracting, creating a hole through which the poor animal could easily fall to its death. The whole spectacle stunned him speechless.
Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, now this adds quite the moral dilemma, wouldn't you agree? All that's left now is to add this fourth button -
"What."
A fourth button, shiny and purple, raised up from out of his platform.
- that allows you to switch this trolley -
"What."
A giant monitor, the same as the ones he has used in the testing chambers to observe the lady back when he had been plugged in, descended from the ceiling across the room from the puppy in the cage. On this monitor, a peculiar yet grotesque scene was playing out.
- onto one of these two sets of tracks, whereupon you'll get to choose between killing a single baby, or this whole crowd of innocent people.
Wheatley could see this all, right there on the monitor - a trolley speeding towards a split in the tracks. In one direction, a baby was lying there on the tracks, unable to move very well by virtue of being a baby. In the other direction, there was a group of about five people, all tied down to the tracks.
He stared, dumbfounded, back and forth between the four buttons, frozen, unable to make any decision at all.
Oh, giving you the power to decide who lives and who dies - now this is real science. Real art! Science is art, Wheatley!
"You're insane! You're bloody insane! Just when I thought you couldn't get any worse-!"
Well, tally ho! Mustn't tarry! Lots of choices for you to make now, Wheatley! Make the best of it.
Mortified by all these choices, Wheatley first dashed over to the orange button for the lady, then the yellow button for the puppy, then the purple button, where he-...
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...-awoke to the sound of an alarm clock angrily bleating in his ear, declaring that it was 5:30 AM and also that it was time for him to get up. He sat up in a bed in a room that was mostly dark, the gray early-morning light scantily making its way through a yellowed set of blinds.
Thankfully - after realizing he needed those little eye-glass things again just to see, locating them (which was a bit of a challenge in and of itself because he kind of needed them to be able to see enough to find them in the first place - though they luckily turned out to be conveniently sitting on the nightstand next to the alarm clock), and adorning them again - this room did not appear to be an Extended Relaxation pod, nor did it appear to contain any fire, or buttons, or spike-pits. It was far more laid-back and personalized, giving Wheatley the impression that this was his own room. There were posters covering just about every inch of wall space, featuring mostly different rock bands, a few movies, and fewer television shows. In one corner there was a cabinet holding a large stereo system and a tower of CD's and cassette tapes. In another, there was a small desk with a computer on it.
As soon as he saw that, he jumped up in excitement, only to be disappointed to find that this was just a plain old computer, not the one that had been communicating with him through all these stories.
He looked down at what he was wearing - a black t-shirt with the words The Smiths printed on it, along with a picture of four male humans on it, and a pair of black and gray plaid boxer shorts. He wasn't sure what The Smiths was, nor who the humans were, nor why he was wearing a shirt with their faces on it, but it did seem to match the aesthetic of the rest of the room, anyway.
It was at this time he felt an uncomfortable pressure about his midsection and tried to recall what this meant. That didn't take long at least, because some ingrained human instinct told him that he had to release the bodily wastes that humans accumulated over time after consuming liquids and nutrients. Something about toilets came to him and he wandered out of his room in search of one, discovering along the way that his bedroom was only one room in an entire apartment. Yes, this was definitely a welcome change and he really wanted to know more, but bodily functions first, questions later.
By the process of deduction, he located the bathroom easily enough; however opening the door was not easy. It seemed to be stuck. He tried the handle again and pushed harder against it. Locked. Now that was certainly strange. Why would the bathroom door in his own apartment be locked?
That question was quickly answered when seconds later the door creaked open and there stood the lady, wearing what appeared to be a work uniform of some kind, her hair pinned up in the way she always seemed to have it no matter which story she was in, and a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth.
"Hey there, you're finally awake," she mumbled around the toothbrush. "Just a sec, I'm almost done getting ready."
The lady turned and spat into the sink, then went about rinsing the rest out of her mouth. Wheatley, on the other hand, was in so much shock from the sight of her there that, even though he felt as if his bladder was about to cut loose, he just stood there, slack-jawed.
"Everything okay?" she prompted when she caught him still just standing there, dumbfounded.
"Um-.. Ah, no- I mean, yes, um, it's fine, everything's fine, just really have to use the toilet. Excuse me," he hastily babbled, scurrying into the bathroom and pushing the door shut behind him the moment she moved out of the way.
"Okay, Wheatley, calm down. Everything's okay. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this," he muttered as he went about relieving himself. His headspace was full of fog and questions, but at least that uncomfortable pressure was diminishing. "Oh, that's much better," he sighed. "Humans are so tedious, though, yeck."
After he was finished, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. That was what he looked like in this story? Some pale, hollow-eyed, scraggly human with even scragglier brown hair sticking off the top of his head like that? He cringed and couldn't help but feel embarrassed for himself. He was much more handsome as a core, if he might say so. "Least I don't have to be here like this for long," he muttered, prodding at his cheeks. "I hope."
Carefully, he cracked the bathroom door back open and peeked out. From this angle he could see the lady swiftly moving about the kitchen, collecting bits of consumables here and there and gathering them on the counter. One of the things she placed was a mug alongside a plate of jammed toast, and that would have gotten him excited were it not for the fact that he was still trying to gather his thoughts on the current situation and that he was left twice shy after being bitten by that awful nourishment cake or whatever the hell it was supposed to be.
"Wheatley, you'd better hurry!" she called to him. "You only have about ten minutes to get ready and eat before we have to go to work!"
"Oh!" he gasped and then pushed the door open the rest of the way. "Sorry, sorry, was just, uh- well, you know."
"Well hurry up. Doesn't look good to be late on your first day, and our manager is a real stickler when it comes to punctuality."
"Ohhh," he groaned in agreement, making his way over to the kitchen counter and eyeballing the toast and mug of dark liquid. "That old boss guy."
"Lady-"
"-lady, old boss lady. Must be still remembering the last one, sorry," he hurried to amend, and decided right at that second that he really did want to try that dark liquid. After all, he'd seen lots of humans drink it - they seemed to be addicted to it and unable to function without it, so it seemed like a good idea to give it a try for himself. Oh! Coffee! That was what they had called it.
Excited, he raised the mug to his lips, took a sip... and felt the stars and planets align and fill him with a radiant, transcendent glow. "Flippin' heck! This is brilliant!" he blurted and all but drained the rest of the mug in one go.
"Wow," laughed the lady as she watched his whole spectacle.
"Really, luv, it's brilliant! Tremendous thing, coffee," he said, grinning ear-to-ear at her.
At that, she gave him a short chuckle and turned away, busying herself with fixing up her own mug.
Wheatley watched her, feeling warm and happy. "So, ah, I've been meaning to ask - what are you doing here, then? I mean, what are we doing here, awake, up at this hour?" he queried, hoping he had made enough of a streamlined transition that she wouldn't notice anything potentially missing on his part.
"...Getting ready for work," she said slowly, looking over at him, half-amused. "I guess that coffee will need some more time to kick in. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Well, I mean, yeah, why wouldn't I be? Just, um.. had a really strange dream earlier, that's all."
"Tell me about it in the car. Come on, we really need to hurry."
"Ah! But my alarm clock only just went off-"
"Yeah, and I told you to set it for earlier, but who am I but just your caring roommate?"
"Roommate, huh?" he said dreamily, a smile slowly spreading across his face. "Roommate... Roomie... That's nice. Very nice. I could live with that." He then took note of the look she was giving him and gauged that he needed to fix what he had just said. "I mean, I do live with that- with you, as my roomie. Good ol' roomie that you are. I'll just go get ready, shall I?"
Seven minutes later he was stumbling out of his room sporting a black and white work uniform that matched hers. He peered down at the little logo on it with keen interest. Aperture Coffee Innovators. He hoped that in this story they made better contributions to the world than deadly neurotoxin and portal guns that only served one purpose, or at the very least made a cup of coffee as good as the one the lady had just made for him.
On their way out, he snatched up the pieces of toast to eat and lit up at their taste. "This tastes much better than that little packet of crap I had before! I mean, why did they even bother with that rubbish?!"
He followed her to her motor vehicle, they climbed in, and off they went, Wheatley shrinking into the passenger seat at the alarming movements of the thing as the lady navigated through the snarls of morning traffic. Once he was able to relax, however, he thought that this was rather nice, this story. Peaceful. Homey. No walls of flames or pits lined with spikes, at the very least. That was important. After that last story, he definitely felt like he could handle whatever this one had to throw at him. Plus this one had coffee and toast!
Still, he was absentmindedly drumming his fingers on his thigh, an action that did not go unnoticed by the lady. She looked over at him briefly before returning her sharp eyes to the road, and said, "You're a bit quiet. Are you nervous?"
"Er- a bit, yeah," he admitted, offering her a wry smile. "First day on a new job and all. I mean- Aperture Coffee Innovators, sounds important."
The lady scoffed. "Not so important, nor innovative. It's just fucking coffee."
Wheatley stared at her as if she had just sprouted a second head, a third arm, and announced that she was president of the galaxy. "What! Now you watch your language, young lady!" he gasped, shocked. He then fumbled to recover after she shot him a look. "I mean, um-... we're talking about coffee here! Of course it's important! It isn't 'just' anything, it's life itself! I mean, haven't you ever noticed the way humans can't seem to function without it? It's mad! Bloody mad. Where would the world be without its precious coffee, yeah?"
"Right," she chuckled. "Seriously, though, you'll be okay. Just follow me for the day, watch what I do, and you'll be fine."
"You're right," he smiled, "Absolutely right. You've never steered me wrong. And nothing could possibly be worse than the platforms controlled by buttons being led into flames with the pits of spikes below. Er- that's the dream I mentioned earlier, more like nightmare to be honest. But it might have something to do with starting a new job rather than anything more literal, who's to say."
She gave a hearty laugh - "I guess jobs do feel like that sometimes, don't they?" - and Wheatley found himself laughing along with her, and it filled him with such genuine warmth, he felt happier than he had in a long time. Truly happy. Yes, he definitely liked this story the most so far and he had everything under control.
Or at least that's what he thought all the way up until they pulled into a parking space and he followed her into the shop, where he was met with the scariest sight by far - a line of angry, impatient, uncaffeinated customers. Most of them were queued up, fair enough, but almost of all of them were at varying stages of discontent, huffing and puffing and shifting their weight frequently from one foot to the other as if they had been standing there for a long time. A couple of them, he couldn't help noticing, were already yelling at some of the staff behind the counter.
Something inside of Wheatley withered into a pile of frail, wispy ash and was carried away on the breeze. "Nope! Nope! No thank you! I'm out!" he said, taking a step back. The lady stopped him and beckoned him forward, but he resisted, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. "I want the fire back!" he wailed, "Please! Bring back the fire and the platforms and the spikes and the buttons!"
"Wheatley, come on, you're being ridiculous. Let's get clocked in. You'll be fine."
"But-!"
He had no choice as he was tugged along by the lady, through the scene of chaos and the throng of moody humans who all but clawed at him, demanding immediate service.
"Sorry, sorry!" he said quickly to them, ducking his head and pulling his entire body into itself as he tried to shrink away into invisibility. "First day on the job, folks, you're looking at a newbie here! But I realize your coffee is very important to you - believe me, I know how amazing the stuff is! - so just- just a moment and we'll be right with you!"
"Where's your manager!" one middle-aged woman screeched at him, reaching for him with her long fake nails, catching him by the sleeve. "I asked for ice on the bottom of my drink, but you idiots put it on the top! I demand to speak to your manager!"
"Oh my God, I've got to get out of here!" he gasped.
Thankfully the rabid woman lost her grip on him when the lady tugged him behind the counter. He felt momentarily grateful until he remembered that he was about to clock in and bloody work there and serve that angry mob out in the lobby. His struggling against her increased.
As she was leading him into the back area for employees only, he caught a glimpse of one of the registers, one that seemed to stand out from the rest in that it was not actually a register but the very welcomed sight of an old-fashioned computer monitor.
AWAITING
INPUT
[XXXX*]
"OH THANK GOD!" he all but exploded with relief. He broke away from the lady, much to her dismay, and dashed over to the monitor, wasting no time in pressing one of the buttons on the keyboard that always came with it.
INPUT
RECEIVED
[XXXXX]
...
We have finally been able to pinpoint your location and can now get you safely back to your story.
"And not a moment too soon, mate! Hurry up and get me out of here! These people are about to eat me alive!"
Prepare for extraction in 3...
The same rabid woman in her 40's was rapidly approaching his register from one side while the lady was coming at him from the other, looking supremely miffed. Wheatley felt all the hairs on his body stand up at the converging threats.
"Hurry, hurry!" he urged the monitor.
The rabid woman reached across the counter -
2...
- and the lady once again latched onto his sleeve -
"HURRY!"
1...
"HURRYYYYYY!"
- and then-...
...
...
...
...
...
...-he came flying out of an open door, landing hard on a carpeted catwalk, creating a loud, dampened THUD as he did so. In that same moment, the door he had just come out of slammed shut behind him.
Pain jarred through him, but it receded quickly enough, pins and needles working their way through his circuits while he laid there, dazed.
He wiggled his handles and popped out his panels, testing them for damages. Oh thank God, he was a core again. Being a human was an awful experience for a whole myriad of reasons. The problem now was that he seemed to have fallen off his rail. And he couldn't yell for help because his voice box strangely was not working. Perhaps damaged from being catastrophically ejected from that last story. Great.
Another problem was that he had no idea where he was. Well, that was only half true - he could see that he was back in those familiar darkened hallways. Orange carpet was covering the catwalks again, and all the filing cabinets and doors labeled in black with the number 427 were back as well. It's just that every bit of this place looked the same as the last, and without any reference point to go off of, he was as good as lost.
Wheatley's wandering gaze froze on the door he had just come out of. Taped and stretched ominously across the front of it, from corner to corner, was a large red X. Several of the doors on either side of that one were also taped-off with the same red X. An inexplicable chill ran through him, like he had just witnessed a trolley running over a group of people.
That chill quickly transformed into abject terror when he suddenly found himself floating upwards. Inwardly he cried out, since he couldn't physically scream at the moment. He landed up on his rail, was fixed upon it by an unseen force, and it was then that he realized that he was back on the Rail™ again! Oh that was such a relief! He had every bit of faith that It™ would be able to lead him out of this place and back to his story so that he could reunite with the lady and get them both the heck out of Dodge.
Following the Rail™, they passed many, many of those doors marked 427, some more of which were again crossed off with red X's. He really wasn't sure he wanted to know what that all meant and had no way of asking at the moment anyway, so after seeing a couple more of them, he decided to keep his eye on the Rail™ and on the Rail™ only.
Soon, though, It™ led him into an open door. He followed It™ straight in and was presented with a room filled with monitors - kind of like the room with all the monitors where so many chapters ago he had seen that stray human, Stanley, only this one was much less threatening. Across these monitors were four words, typed in the same green he had seen on the monitors in all the stories:
Press 'Return' to return.
Wheatley couldn't see a keyboard anywhere, and he had no idea how he would have been able to interact with it anyway aside from smashing all the keys at once with one of his handles. But that dilemma was solved when he followed the Rail™ closer to the monitors, where It™ stopped at a single large, green button with the word 'Return' on it.
He hesitated for a moment, thinking about all those stories he had just experienced. There sure were a lot of them out there - some nice, some scary... a lot of them scary, if he was honest, but... even with the nice moments in the alternate stories, and even with the disastrous moments in his own, he knew he would rather be back in his own story, back with the lady he knew. After all, no matter what, he still had to get her out. He had promised her that he would.
And so with that, Wheatley calmly leaned down on the Rail™ and pressed the button.
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OPENING THEWHEATLEYPARABLE . EXE
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PLEASE WAIT...
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