"Psst, Narrator," Wheatley whispered into the gloom after the lady had fallen asleep, "Did you see all that? We again didn't follow the story to the letter. We disabled the neurotoxin generator without getting stuck in that room, and now we're having ourselves a nice, cozy little nap - the lady is, anyway - before moving onto the third and final phase of our plan, a phase which, as you very well know, was not in the story at all. If you really want to stop us, now while the lady is sleeping would be a pretty good chance to do so, wouldn't you say?"
Silence, with the exception of the lady's soft, deep breaths.
"You aren't going to, I don't know, send in those zombie clones after us again? Or toss us into a pit? Or into acid? Or- Or- Or something involving fire? Oh! Or blow us up with the reactor core? Those are just some of the options you could choose to stop us, but I'm sure you could come up with more. So, anything? Anything at all to stop us from 'ruining' the story?"
Still no response. And, once again, Wheatley was at a loss for how he should feel about it. Maybe he shouldn't be feeling anything. Maybe it was time for him to stop expecting the Narrator to reappear - or at least for his voice to reappear... Re-a-hear, maybe? Re-be-heard? Whichever.
Or maybe he was really gone and shouldn't he, Wheatley, be feeling happy about that? On one handle, he was happy about it. He was glad that he didn't have to worry about falling into any more of the Narrator's traps, trying to herd him towards whatever endgame he had been aiming for, and, at the very least, complaining in his receivers all the time. On the other handle, he was... he didn't know, and that was the problem. He really wasn't sure where all this inner conflict was coming from and that was bothering him. An even weirder thing was knowing that he wouldn't have had this kind of inner conflict in the past. He never would have even stopped to examine the feeling beyond basic annoyance towards the person who had caused it, blamed them, and then moved on.
When had things inside of him become so open, so exposed and vulnerable? When had that happened? During the final battle with the lady in the first time through the story? On the moon? In his crummy little office? With the Line™? Just outside of the testing chambers? In one of those alternate stories? He had no idea. He could barely grasp onto it, let alone study it, let alone answer to it.
"Well, all right," he said, sighing in an attempt to remove himself from whatever it was that was going on inside of him, "if you're going to be that way, that's fine, all fine. We don't really need you. Never did, actually. I'm sure you've moved on to other stories by now and you're happier over there. Either that or you really are dead, and in that case, well... I guess I'm... I'm sorry about that. Sorry in a not sorry kind of way, you know? I mean, you did kill me first, so- fair's fair. Anyway, um... Goodbye, I guess."
Wheatley sighed and looked over at where the lady lay fast asleep still. He watched her for a while, having no idea how long she had been asleep - long enough for him to hum the same song to himself at least nine or ten times - but he had no intention of waking her - unless he started to see more of those vines and moss and other organic matter starting to creep back in again. He had to assume, though, that she would wake up long before that happened, and if she didn't then perhaps from that he could ascertain that maybe it wasn't just the cryosleep chemicals that had kept her in such a deep sleep all those years. Maybe she was just a heavy sleeper - in the metaphorical sense, not literal, although he really had no idea of exactly how heavy she was, just that she had slept through the entire facility falling apart around her so the weight of sleep must be particularly heavy for her. If that was the case, though, he really hoped that she wouldn't sleep like that again. He was sure he would be able to wake her up prematurely if he had to, but for now he decided it was best to just leave her be.
"There is another world. There is a better world. Well, there must be... Oh, good morning, luv!" he piped up, noticing that her eyes were open and that she was looking at him. "Or, well, it might not actually be morning, hard to say with us being underground and without any indications of the passage of time and all, but we'll just say that functionally it is morning, and we'll hope it's a good one. Feeling better?"
The bed creaked as she nodded at him and shifted, sat up and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She stretched and Wheatley could hear several joints cracking, wincing in sympathy as they did. He really hoped that those sounds were normal and not the result of latent neurotoxin poisoning or being asleep for too long.
"You ready to get a move on?" he said, turning the brightness of his flashlight back up for her. "Get to that last task and then get the heck out of here?"
The lady held up one finger, reached into her jumpsuit, and pulled out one of those little nourishment packets she had acquired way back in the Extended Relaxation Recovery Annex. Wheatley shuddered as he watched her consume a piece of the abhorred substance. He could remember very clearly how awful that thing had tasted - not just the taste, but also the texture - and cringed as her face scrunched up, just as it had before.
"Ugh, I am so sorry I ever suggested you eat those, luv. So very sorry."
The lady quirked an eyebrow at him, shrugged, and ate another piece. At least she seemed to be having a much easier time with it than he had, considering he was pretty sure he would have literally died had he not gotten out of there when he did.
Well, he was alive now and ready to move on, and moments later the lady was as well. She readjusted her jumpsuit and her long-fall boots before lifting Wheatley with the portal gun. While she did that, Wheatley studied his map.
"Okay, let's see here. As you know, we need to get as close as possible to Her chamber without being detected. The longer we can go, the better. I mean, we did disable Her turrets and neurotoxin and all, but I'd still rather not tip Her off sooner than necessary, yeah?"
The lady nodded.
"I wish you could just see the map that I have - would make things a lot easier, I think. I, I-I think we're going to have to do some fancy maneuvering through some of these areas we need to go through. How do you feel about climbing and crawling around through a bunch of air ducts?"
The lady shrugged. At least it was no big deal for her.
Wheatley, on the other hand, wasn't so sure for himself.
"Yeah? You're really up for it?" he queried. She again nodded. "Because I'll be honest- I've never done anything like this before myself, lacking the, um, appropriate limbs and the need to do it in the first place, however now we do have a need and I still don't have the limbs, so- so I'm going to be totally reliant on you to help me along." He let out a nervous sigh. "You- You all right with that?"
She nodded. Her reassurance only marginally helped, but, well, the task had to be done regardless.
Wheatley paused to collect himself, took a simulated breath, and said, "All right. Let's come on out of this dormitory and back out into the corridor. Once out there, you're going to take a right and follow it - the corridor - on for a bit. There will be some staircases and a couple of lifts along the way, but nothing too dangerous - not according to my map, anyway, but you know, still be on the lookout and all."
The lady nodded and off they went towards the third and final task. As instructed - not that he had needed to instruct her, with her being so naturally vigilant and all - the lady kept her eyes peeled for any sign of danger. Nothing unexpected happened, which was a relief, but all the same there was still some part of Wheatley - and the lady, too, it seemed - that was fully expecting something to happen. That expectation made Wheatley nervous and the only thing that made him feel even remotely better when he was nervous was to talk.
"So, um..."
The lady's eyes flickered to his, acknowledging him, then back to the path ahead.
"Did I ever tell you about some of the things I invented?"
She looked briefly at him again, this time with a hint of interest in her eyes.
Wheatley wriggled himself into a more comfortable position within the zero-point energy field and shifted his eye plates and handles into a smirk. "Oh yeah! I've invented loads of things! You didn't think I've spent all this time living in a science facility for nothing, did you?"
Her lips quirked to the side and Wheatley's smirk became more pronounced.
"Let's see, aside from the emergency back-up oxygen masks that didn't take hold, and the Twinkie vending machines - those didn't take hold either, as you know - you'll never believe what else I invented! Drum roll, please."
When the lady shook her head at him, he provided his own drumroll by rattling his panels together.
"Boom! Post-It Notes!"
At that, the little quirk in the lady's lips spread from one side to the other and her eyes glimmered with mirth.
"What? You don't believe me?" he said, somewhere in between surprised and not surprised. "Yeah, well, told you you wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever believes me when I tell them that. But it's true! I really did invent Post-It Notes, although I never called them that. I called them Stick-Em-Ups. Guess the name didn't stick as well as the paper did, and neither did the idea because things became permanently stuck to the paper after only approximately 4.5 seconds of contact. Yeah... caused a lot of problems for those with skin, as you can imagine. They did not appreciate that. I was forced to scrap the idea and then what do you know but some schmuck months later reinvented the wheel - and by reinvented the wheel, I mean they reinvented my product, rebranded it, and now they're a millionaire! Well, I'm assuming they are, and why shouldn't they be? It's a brilliant idea! It was my brilliant idea!" He sighed. "Anyway, yeah, I'll always regard that invention as the one that got away... Could have refined the glue formula and all if I'd had the chance, but, ah... well, you know how it goes around here. All the good ideas get scrapped and all the bad ones get the green light, like the whole neurotoxin generator thing, but we've already been all over that so no need to go there again."
The lady shook her head at him again, like she still didn't believe him, but Wheatley found that he didn't mind so much - not like their first time through the story, when he had caught her rolling her eyes at him from time to time, dismissing his complaints like everybody else did, hearing him but not really listening to him. No, the difference this time was that she was actually smiling while she shook her head and rolled her eyes. Whether she actually believed him or not became somewhat irrelevant, took a backseat to the fact that she was smiling at him like he was her best friend. Maybe he was! She was certainly his best friend, he knew that without a doubt.
Wheatley sighed and checked his map again to make sure that they were still on the right path. They were, but he was pretty sure they were coming up to where they would need to figure out a way of getting into the air ducts.
"Okay, stop here a moment. Let me check to see where we need to go from here." Wheatley was quiet while he examined his map and the lady stood there patiently as well, shifting occasionally while she kept watch. He said, "Go into this room right here."
The lady carried him into what appeared to be a meeting room - there were rows of chairs, a projector screen, filing cabinets, that ugly puke orange carpet again, and a single large desk at the head of the room.
"All right, so, here's where things are gonna get tricky, because here's where we need to get into the air ducts," he said, his gaze meeting hers. "You see that grate up there? I'll need you to get us into it. As for how to get us into there, well... I'll be honest, I'm relying on you to figure that out. Think you can do it?"
The lady nodded, setting down first Wheatley and then the portal gun on one of the desks. She then pushed the big desk a couple inches at a time over to the wall where the duct was, straining from the effort. Wheatley watched, really wishing he could help her. As little as he liked to work, especially when it came to physical labor, he even less liked sitting around watching his favorite human do all the work. She seemed to have things under control, though, because in a matter of minutes she had positioned the desk, climbed up onto it, and began inspecting the rust-covered grate covering the duct.
"Have you got any ideas yet?" he said.
She seemed to ignore him, focused on what she was doing, and Wheatley didn't mind that either - he now knew better than to think she would ever actually ignore him. She turned around, eyes now inspecting the whole room. He followed her gaze, trying to deduce whatever she was deducing, but all he saw was the desks, the chair, the carpet, the projector, and a bunch of half-hearted motivational posters all over the walls, the same as were posted everywhere throughout the facility.
Something must have given her an idea, though, because she marched over, picked up her portal gun, aimed it at the wall, and fired. She then turned and headed back out of the room.
"Ohhh, you have got an idea, haven't you?" he shouted after her, excited to see what thoughts of hers unfolded.
He heard the distinct whooshing sound of another portal being fired somewhere out in the hallway. The lady came back in, lifted the overhead projector with the portal gun, went back out into the hallway, and it was only when the overhead projector came flying through the portal in the room and crashing against the grate that Wheatley wished she had filled him in on her thought process instead of leaving him to wonder.
"AHHHH!" he cried. "Oi! You could have at least warned me that that's what you were planning, lady! You scared the bolts out of me!" His complaints then quickly switched over to amazement when she came back into the room, hopped back up on the desk, and checked out her handiwork. "Oh! Look at that! You actually got the grate off there! Smashed it right to bits! Well, okay, it's still in one pretty solid piece, but point is you got it out of our way! Brilliant!"
The lady poked her head around in the opening, inspecting it, and then came over to him and gave him a tap on the side of his hull.
"Oh, yeah, I'm definitely ready for this! Ready as I'll ever be! That is to say, let's get in there and get this taken care of!" Wheatley said, feeling full of undiluted enthusiasm and energy and gusto.
Moments later, that enthusiasm, energy, and gusto became about 95% diluted after the lady helped first him into duct and then herself, and then, while crawling on her hands and knees, rolled him along in front of her. This was much less fun than being in the Pneumatic Diversity Vents. He suspected it had something to with gravity and the way his gyroscopes were struggling to find his center of it. And his damaged optic. All the same, he felt that had he been physical capable of doing so, he would have hurled twice over already. He could even imagine exactly what that was like as he now had the experience of having actually vomited before in his repertoire, which only served to make the feeling all the more real to him.
Wheatley groaned and closed his optic. "Ugh... Maybe just, uh... tell me when we've reached our destination, yeah?" He felt his movements stop, followed by another tap on his side. He opened his eye and looked at her, puzzled. "What? What's that look for? Ohhh, right, you need me to- to direct you through here." He sighed and closed his eye again. "Okay, just- just keep rolling me along then, I'll- I'll tell you when we have to... to turn or anything, all right?"
A task which was easier said than done. Trying to follow a map and read out directions while being rolled around like a bowling ball turned out to be far more disorienting than he had anticipated. At least in some areas she was able to stand up and carry him with the portal gun and it was during these times that he was able to gather himself back together enough to confirm that they were still on the right track.
At one point they entered a larger opening, the duct branching off into multiple directions, a couple of which were covered by enormous spinning fan blades. Thankfully they did not have to go through any of those - as Wheatley could simply not imagine them both making it through those blades without being chopped to bits - but something else that gathered their attention was the collection of opened tin cans, boxes, computer parts, and a mural alongside almost nonsensical poetry painted upon the walls. This one depicted an enlarged close-up of a human eye with no iris or pupil, just a blinding white radiating outwards, with the word "UNREALITY" printed next to it in black - downright creepy if not a bit dramatic in Wheatley's opinion.
"Huh, more of that bizarre artwork. You know, this stuff is up all over the facility. I mean, I would call it vandalism, but honestly who's around to care at this point? I say vandalize whatever you want now! Although," he said, squinting as he drank in more of the image, "this one is giving me curious vibes, you know? Makes me want to question our reality. Could just be the word 'unreality' right there putting that idea in my head, but it does sort of, sort of give off the vibe that nothing is real, doesn't it? Like we're in a simulation or something. Being watched."
He felt the lady shift as he spoke, moving them away from the mural.
"Could be the case, you know. I mean, do you ever wonder if this is all real? Well, not like- are we really here, because of course we are, but maybe if we are in a- like in a simulation or something. What if we were? How would we even know? Everything seems real enough, doesn't it?"
She shook the portal gun, causing him to move back and forth within the energy field. He snapped back to attention.
"Right, well, guess now's not the time for existentialism. Life is a doozy, though, isn't it? Anyway, um... let's head on down this passageway over here. We're getting close - which, I don't know about you, thank God for that because I have had just about enough of these ducts. Dampness, rats, weird smells, eeyugh."
They continued down the indicated passageway for a fair bit, some areas requiring the lady to do some of that aforementioned fancy maneuvering to get them up and down some drop-offs. They came upon one downward slope so suddenly the lady lost her grip on him, resulting in him tumbling handle over handle, screaming in terror the entire way, until he ran full-force into the end of it. He sat there, dazed, definitely sick now, while the lady scrambled after him.
"I'm-... ohhhh, that was bloody awful. I'm all for joyrides and all, but I'm gonna give that one zero stars, not counting the stars I am seeing right now. 0 out of 10, do not recommend rolling down a metal slope and colliding with a wall at the end of it. I don't blame you, though, luv, not at all, that- that took us both by surprise, didn't it?"
He cracked open his optic to see that she was nodding at him.
"Okay, well, just a moment, let me check to see where we ended up."
While he did that, he could feel the lady turning him over and checking him for damages. He didn't think anything was broken - anything new anyway. Either way, when he saw where they were he brightened significantly.
"Oh! Good news!" he said, wiggling his handles in excitement. "As much fun as all that was, we can actually exit through this here grate that I just ran into."
The lady scooted up next to him and together they peered through the other side of the grate. They couldn't see much - just the same old catwalks and pipes and all - but Wheatley knew they were where they needed to be.
"Let's hop on out here."
It didn't take long for the lady to put her superior problem-solving skills to good use once again, this time to kick open the grate so that she could climb out. She lifted him onto the end of her portal gun and slid out of the duct, the catwalk below welcoming her with a creaky rattle.
"Just down this way. It's not far. And hurry - I don't know if She can detect us over here or not, but I don't want to take any chances."
The lady nodded, making her way along the corridor as instructed. A single bright white light at the end of it must have given her a moment of pause, because she stopped walking at the sight of it. Wheatley started to protest this pause, but soon enough she got moving again.
As they came upon the light, so did they come upon a small nook. They could see into the nook via a wall-to-ceiling glass partition, and just on the other side of that partition, filling the nook in a haphazard pile, the source of the white light itself, was what they needed.
"Here we go!" Wheatley said, exuberant that everything was going according to plan. And now here they were, at the final step before they could confront the scary boss lady and finally get out. "Lady, I present to you - ta-daaaaa! Corrupted cores!"