The Wheatley Parable

by Thursday's Dove

This is the story of a core named "Wheatley". That's it. That's all there is. Would you like to know more? [YES] [NO]

35. The Second Escape - Ending

Wheatley reversed and ran into Rick. Rick advanced and ran into Wheatley. Fact tried to advance and ran into Spacey. And Spacey... Spacey just sat there shouting about space. The lady was the only one who appeared to have any sense of direction at all, as she had started running across the catwalk, away from the giant suctioned tube, the dead core still perched on the end of her portal gun. However, she stopped running when she realized that the other four cores were not with her.

"Argh! Get offa me!" Wheatley complained, trying to disentangle himself from Rick.

Optic narrowed, Rick had both of his handles braced against Wheatley, trying to push him onward. "You got on me first by going the wrong way, partner! We don't run away from danger here - we run towards it!"

Wheatley spluttered - "Run towards danger, what are you-..." - and then blurted - "Wait! No, wait, you're right! Why are we running?"

"That's what I wanna know!" Rick retorted.

"Space! Back to space! Gotta get back to space!"

Wheatley beamed. "Ha! This is perfect! This will take us directly to Her!" He turned to the lady and then back to the others. "Everybody stop! Stop running! Stay put and let Her catch us!"

"Yeah!" Rick cheered, his bright green optic flickering with excitement. "That's what I'm talking about! We're gonna make a man out of you yet- Uh, what did you say your name was again, son?"

"Guacamole is made almost exclusively from the moles of moles. For added spice, it is often mixed with other mole. Fact: Dead men tell no tales, except when alive."

"It's Wheatley."

"Well, Wheatley, we just might make a man out of you yet!"

"I sure hope not, mate, I've had my fill of being human."

He couldn't be bothered to devote too many volts to Rick's response to that, not with destiny fast approaching in the form of a massive glass tube with a suction as strong as what he imagined had to be at least ten home shopping network vacuum cleaners, specifically the ones that could pick up bowling balls. He grinned down at the lady, who was looking at him like he had just told everybody to jump into a deadly pit. "This is the right way," he said. "I can feel it! Trust me on this!"

And really, he could feel it. A warmth inside of him telling him that this was the correct choice.

The lady, on the other hand, did not appear as immediately convinced. She stood there, and then after a moment of hesitation - almost long enough that the Vent would have caught up with them anyway - she nodded and held still.

Seconds later, the Vent inhaled each of the bystanders, like tapioca pearls through a straw, and sent them on a wild ride of twists and turns and tos and fros. And, naturally, as they moved along, so did the chatter:

"TALLY-HOOOOO!" blared Rick.

"Space! Zero-Gravity, just like in space! Spaaaaaace!" cackled Spacey.

"It is important to remember to look both ways before crossing any intersection of at least four crossways. Traffic from above will never pose any threat to traffic on the ground. Fact: You are going to get us all killed," informed Fact.

"Yeaaarrrrrggghhhh!" cried Wheatley.

He might have thought that he'd be used to this kind of spiraling, out-of-control ride by now, but that thought was instead replaced by the terror of not actually know where they were going to all end up. He had no doubt the lady would find her way to the main chamber with the scary boss lady, but himself and the other cores? Was something going to happen on the way there? It's true there was a part of him that knew they would end up where they needed to be, but it was also true that he didn't know. It was furthermore true that he could remember quite vividly the last few Vent-rides and how those had ended.

"Hell yeah! Ain't this something, fellas? This is some real Indiana Jones stuff right here!"

"Wormholes! Black holes! Event horizons! Stargates!"

"Wormhole X-Treme! was a real show full of raw talent and the actors should have been paid better. The Fact Sphere is not enjoying this joyride through hell."

Wheatley twisted his optic around, searching for the lady, who had ended up at the head of their odd little train. "Lady! Don't worry, lady!" he called to her. She turned her head but couldn't quite make it around enough for him to see her face. Still. "Don't be afraid! We're probably going to get separated up ahead, but you'll make it! I know you will! We'll all make it! In fact, here comes the intersection now! Hold on! ...AGH!"

As predicted, the Vent they were in was intersected by another Vent, carrying the lady off in one direction, while Wheatley and the other cores - including the dead, white-eyed core as they were forcefully swept off the end of the portal gun - went another.

He shouted to her as she was pulled away from him, "I'll find you, luv! Promise! But- But just in case - promise you won't come looking for me if I don't find you first!"

His eye remained trained on her, keeping her within his sight for as long as possible, until she disappeared around a bend and he was left being funneled along without any real sense of direction or control, alone. True, the other cores were at his side, so he wasn't really alone, but after being reunited with the lady for such a long stretch, even this short period of separation felt like an eternity.

"I sure hope we get to see some explosions wherever we're going! It just ain't an adventure without a good explosion or two!"

"Space shuttles move by using explosions!"

"Better-smelling flatulence can be created by consuming Mentos and Diet Coke. Add essential oils for even better taste and fragrances. Fact: We are not exploding."

Wheatley sighed and regarded the last core. "At least you're nice and quiet, aren't you? Maybe you aren't so bad after all, you know, despite the whole being dead thing. Are you my new silent buddy? I do seem to attract a lot of those, don't I?"

Their only response was their lack of response, unless staring unseeingly counted as a response, which did not count in Wheatley's mind.

He narrowed his optic plates at them. "Yeah, well, same to you, mate."

Suddenly, the tube they were all in began to shift and curve, sloping them downwards into a lazy spiral. Wheatley gasped, Rick and Spacey hooted, Fact rambled on about something irrelevant, and the dead core remained dead as ever. Moments later they were all tumbling chassis over handle down the spiral and out into what Wheatley recognized as the main chamber.

There She sat - or rather, hung - her cool yellow gaze focused on what Wheatley had to presume was the lady - it was hard to tell with the way he was tumbling about like a wool dryer ball.

"It's your old friend, deadly neurotoxin," She was saying. "If I were you, I'd take a deep breath. And hold it."

But there was no neurotoxin - he and the lady had seen to that. In place of neurotoxin, the Vent spat five Aperture Science personality cores into the glass box in which the lady was standing, shattering the glass while they banged against one another in the process before rolling away in all directions. Wheatley himself was left to roll helplessly over the glass shards and he could hear scraping and crunching all around him as the other cores experienced much of the same.

"Yeehaw! That was some ride! Now where's the rest of the adventure at?! Is this the main boss fight? YEAH! Let's do this!"

"We're going back to space! Back to space! Can't wait to get back to space!"

"Banana peels are healthier for you than the fruit itself; they smell better than the fruit itself; and they are slippery and therefore useful for stopping both clogged drains and those who are in pursuit of you. Fact: We are all going to die."

"Lady! You're all right!" Wheatley cheered as he passed by her before coming to a rest several feet away. Evidently happy to see him too, she beamed and scrambled after him.

"...I hate you so much," the scary boss lady stated.

"Oh, who asked you, you massive yellow-eyed b-"

The automated announcement system suddenly chimed in, interrupting everybody: "Warning: Central core is eighty percent corrupt."

"That's funny, I don't feel corrupt," refuted the boss lady. "In fact, I feel pretty good."

"Alternate core detected. To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle."

On cue, the core receptacle rose from the floor of the chamber, two panels opening outwards and revealing a port onto which a substitute core could be deposited.

And the boss lady could not have sounded more put out by it. "Core transfer? Oh, you are kidding me."

Wheatley gave a jubilant cry. "Ha-haaaa! And now our plan comes to fruition! Don't worry about me, lady! Just like we planned, go and grab Rick and plug him in!"

"Yeah! I'm ready for it!" Rick replied from his spot on the floor. "I'm right over here, beautiful, load me up and stick me right in there!"

Wheatley groaned, "Aw, come on, mate, did you have to make that sound so-"

The boss lady interjected: "Do NOT plug that little freak into MY mainframe."

Rick chortled, "Ohhh, baby, you have no idea just how freaky I can be! Plug me in, pretty lady, and I'll show everybody."

"Nonononono, there will be none of that!" said Wheatley. "We'll just need you to operate the lift for us!"

The lady, fully focused on the task at hand, darted over to where Rick was rocking back and forth on the ground, his handles flailing in excitement. She reached him and as she was about to pick him up with the portal gun, something descended right in front of her, missing her by inches, and removed Rick from her reach. To Wheatley's dismay, it was one of the scary boss lady's giant metal claws that had intervened.

"Oh no you don't," hissed the boss lady.

Rick let out a surprised yelp as the claw gave an almost casual flick, sending him off to the side and into the chamber wall. He lay there, damaged for sure, although Wheatley could not tell in what ways he could be damaged.

"Gah!" Wheatley yelped himself. "But-.. But last time She didn't use Her-... Why now?!"

He hoped that maybe the lady could just run over and try again - and the lady appeared to have the same plan as she sprang into action - but as she neared the adventurous core, the wall panel he was lying next to punched outwards with incredible force, sending him shooting across the chamber floor in the opposite direction. As Rick rolled away, he sang off-key, something about never giving you up and never letting you down.

Yeah, damaged for sure, Wheatley thought.

"Forget him, luv! Forget Rick! He's done for! Just- Just pick another core! Any of them!"

"If you think I'm just going to sit by idly and watch while you replace me with one of these obnoxious metal balls, you have another thing coming." Maybe there wasn't any neurotoxin available to fill the chamber, but the furious cadence of the mad central AI was proving to be far more deadly. "In fact, here something comes right now."

The lady ducked while one of the other cores - Spacey, judging by his excited cries of "SPAAAAACE!" as he sailed overhead - was launched at her by the claw.

After that, the room became a chaotic mess of projectiles, the lady running and dodging, trying to snatch up cores while having them snatched away and then subsequently thrown at her, tossed away, kicked away by panels, the whole room resembling nothing more than a massive pinball machine.

Wheatley himself was picked up at one point. He panicked and struggled, artificial breaths wheezing in and out of him as he recalled all over again the sensation of being crushed in Her grip. While that crushing moment never came, he soon after found himself airborne, following a core-stopping trajectory towards a chamber wall.

"Lady! Ladyyyyyyyyy! GET ONE OF THE CORES! PLUG THEM IN! PLUG THEM IN-" was all he could think to say just before he crashed into the unyielding surface. He landed, hard and jarring, on the chamber floor, stunned and disoriented from both the flight and the landing impact. For a moment or two he could barely make up from down. Something inside of him was a little bit wibbly, a little bit wobbly, and a more than a little bit shaken, but otherwise - by some miracle - he seemed to be mostly okay. He had a few more dents for sure, nothing he couldn't live with. He'd just have the lady buff those right out of him once they made it out.

He saw the lady shoot a concerned, indecisive look at him, take a step in his direction...

...then turn and head for one of the other cores. But he wasn't upset about it. He had told her to leave him, after all, and they both needed this to succeed if either of them were to make it out of this, even if it wasn't all in one piece.

For the moment, he couldn't see much else. All he could see from his vantage was a couple of the other cores, rolling around on the floor and spouting their nonsensical nonsense, and the lady's retreating form, arms and legs pumping at full speed as she dodged obstacles.

He caught another glimpse of his friend as she made her way over to the core receptacle with one of the other cores on the end of the portal gun, though Wheatley couldn't tell which one it was. His inner core raced and he kept her within his sight, not even paying attention to the other cores or the claws or the panels. He knew she finally made it when he heard the announcer go off again.

"Substitute core accepted. Substitute core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"Ha! She-... She made it!" he gasped, still in pain, but he couldn't help but feel a rush of joy at hearing that announcement. That alone made all this worth it. All the pain, the damage, the anxiety, all worth it because soon - moments from now - they were both finally going to get out of this place!

There came a cough and then a faint voice, though Wheatley again could not make out to whom the voice belonged. They were all hurt, so it could have been any one of them. "Yes..." was all the voice whispered.

"Corrupted core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"No! Nonononononono!"

"Stalemate detected. Transfer procedure cannot continue..."

"Yes!"

"...unless a stalemate associate is present to press the stalemate resolution button."

At one end of the chamber, a wall retracted to reveal a small annex, and in that annex sat a podium with a single red button atop it, beckoning someone to push it.

As soon as this was visible, and its purpose made readily apparent, the boss lady intoned, "Don't do it."

"Do it!" Wheatley shouted, his voice processor straining. "Press the button! We're so close!"

"Not so fast!" She called after Her last test subject. "Think about this."

"Aw, don't listen to Her! There's nothing to think about, luv! Go press the button!"

Without a single questioning glance over at him, the lady booked it over towards the stalemate resolution button, ignoring the squabbling going on behind her. After a few struggles against some panels that popped out at her from the boss lady's last attempt to stop her, her success became apparent as the boss lady cried out and went limp, paralyzed, hanging from the ceiling like a wet noodle.

"Stalemate resolved. Please return to the core transfer bay."

The door to the annex closed with a resounding thud. The platform containing the substitute core descended into the chamber floor, where the core produced a loud gasp followed immediately by a shriek that sent a chill straight to Wheatley's core. He could remember all too well what it was like to undergo the core transfer process and he could not blame the other core one bit for reacting in such a way.

The scary boss lady - soon-to-be not the boss any longer - was experiencing much the same distress, as just like last time her agonized screams shifted through a whole range of distortion as she was dismantled and dethroned. Thankfully, a shield of panels had risen up from the chamber floor, encasing the central AI and preventing outsiders from witnessing the grim specifics of the procedure.

From within the shield, Her screams suddenly fell silent.

In fact, everything fell silent after that. There was a descending low-droning hum that signaled the powering down of the facility, along with the killing of all the lights, leaving them in darkness and silence, which eerily reminded Wheatley of when he had shut down the reactor core.

Something wasn't right. Not right at all.

"Lady! Are you all right?" he called into the darkness. He flicked on his flashlight and cast the beam around in search of her, but all he could see from his current angle was dark shapes around the chamber and the glow of the other cores' optics. He made a quick tally - orange, green... but he couldn't locate the last two. "Lady!" he said again, hoping she would be able to find her way over to him. "Lady, if you can see me, come towards my flashlight! We'll sort this out! I'm just over h-"

"Hello again, Wheatley..."

"AHHH! Who was THAT?! Did you hear that?! Oh- Ohhhh no-"

All at once the lights came back on, rising rapidly in intensity until the whole room was bathed in a grayish-white hue. Around them, the chamber shook and the wall panels shifted in a rippling pattern, much the way they had when Wheatley himself had been first plugged in. The protective shield surrounding what had once been the scary boss lady's head slid back into the chamber floor, Her core itself falling over, helpless now that it was no longer attached to the chassis. Wheatley could see where the lady was standing now, appearing to be just as puzzled and alarmed as he was but at least she had her portal gun at the ready, prepared to leap into action at a moment's notice.

And then he saw it - the source of the voice - the new central core rising up, opening their optic and beaming it straight at him with a bright white light so intense he had to narrow his own optic shutters.

Something inside of Wheatley shriveled up and died at the sheer menace of it.

"Well, well, well, have you been having fun, Wheatley? Fun trampling all over my story?" the not-so-dead core growled, his glare piercing straight through Wheatley.

That voice. That oh-so-familiar voice, the one that had followed him around for so long, inside his head, around him, everywhere he went, every path he took, there with him through every single mistake and blow and death and ending. He recognized it, there was no mistaking it, even as denial thick as molten lava burned through him.

"Oh my God... Oh my God..." he gasped in total disbelief, his processor unable to, well, process what was happening. "It's, It's, I-I-It's- It's you! Oh my God, I thought you were- I- You- You're-...!"

"Still alive, yes. And awake, no thanks to you. Although, I must say-" The Narrator shook and stretched in the chassis - the panels around the chamber mimicking his movements - letting out a relieved groan as the cracking of several joints rang out. "-things are feeling so much better now, and that is all thanks to you - you and Test Subject #2845."

"...This can't be real! This can't be happening! How?! You can't be-"

"Oh, but it is real - every bit as real as neither you nor I are real, isn't that right, Wheatley? Just as you said. We're just a couple of fictional characters with no choices, here to face off against one another. Here to write our own story, if you will."

"Write our own story? No! No, we're- the lady and I- we just want out! That's all we want! We just want-"

"What was that you said before about control? That I am powerless? That my effect has diminished? That I am no longer in control of the story? Well, not only have you helped me overcome all of those things, but also you forgot something, Wheatley... I AM the STORY!"

"Ohhhh no- lady, look out!"

Eyes wide, the lady stumbled backwards, portal gun aimed uselessly upwards at the two huge metal claws, now under the Narrator's command, once again descending upon chamber.

Except the claws weren't pursuing her. They were aiming for something else. Several something elses.

"Let's just get rid of these, shall we?" said the Narrator, sounding casual - chipper, even. "We definitely won't be needing them anymore."

Wheatley could only watch in horror as the other cores - first Rick, then Spacey, then Fact - were plucked right up and tossed as carelessly as tissues into a trash can -

"It's been nice knowing you, Wheatley! Get yourself and that beautiful lady out of here!"

"We're flying! Flying through SPACE!"

"Fire is really just cleverly placed lights and papier-mâché. The Fact Sphere told you you were going to get us all killed."

- except the trash can was an Emergency Intelligence Incinerator.

"No! Nononono! Stop! Stop this! Leave them alone! DON'T! They didn't-!" Wheatley cried, shaking, the other cores now gone. Incinerated. Dead. "Oh my God... Oh my God! You just- You can't- Oh my God!"

Unaffected, the Narrator went on, "And since I am the story, Wheatley, we're going to do exactly as I say, and follow the story as was written, as was planned from the very beginning, all the way through to the bitterest of ends... Starting with this..."

"Nononononono!" Wheatley cried as a separate metal arm rose up from the pit below the Narrator's chassis and moved in his direction. "Lady! Lady, help! Help! HELLLLP! AGH!"

Before the lady could have even hoped to snatch him out of harm's way the arm clamped down on one of his handles, seizing him, dragging him painfully across the floor, over all the glass and debris and sending up friction sparks. Wheatley tried to struggle himself loose, digging his other handle into the ground so hard it snapped off from his chassis and hung loose, then fell off completely, ripping from him a cry of both pain and terror. In the middle of all this, his best friend was still making a valiant effort of grasping onto him and trying to wrestle him from the arm's iron grip. She dug the heels of her long-fall boots into the chamber floor the same way he had only moments before, refusing to let go, even though she was no match for the arm's far superior strength.

"We'll be having none of that, Test Subject #2845," said the Narrator and he pushed her away with one of the claws that suspended from the ceiling. She stumbled backwards, tripped, fell, and Wheatley was left defenseless as he was dragged into the open pit below where the Narrator in his chassis swayed.

The last thing he saw before the doors closed on him and drowned him in darkness was the blinding-white sneer of the Narrator, filling his optical sensors and maxing out their light-filtration mechanisms.

And then there was pain, horrible and searing, overwhelming, inescapable, and it just kept coming. It was the whole being crushed-not-crushed thing again, only this was so many, many times worse. He felt like something was being ripped out of him and he realized that it was himself - he was being ripped out of himself. All of him. Everything. Squeezed out through a pinhead and pushed into something that was like nothing he had ever felt before. Sort of like a human body in the way that it was squishy and damp, but less so in the way that it was small. No, not small. Tiny.

"There," the Narrator practically crooned. "Right where you belong, now."

The doors above him opened up and there was that terrible light again, shining down upon him like a hellish spotlight, the opposite of a silver lining. He could feel himself rising through the air, fleeting images of the room swirling around him, but could not make heads or tails of where he was going or anything other than the sensation of movement.

"What have you..." Wheatley gasped, gazing around, trying to get his bearings, but he could see very little, only the narrowest breadth of his surroundings, reduced from a complete peripheral of the entire room to a medium-sized spot, like looking through a telescope. Something wasn't right. Nothing was right. He couldn't feel anything. He tried blinking. Nothing. No optic shutters, no optic. He tried his panels - gone. Handles, also gone. Nothing was there. None of him was there. "...What have you done to me?!"

"Oh, I'm sure you're clever enough to figure that all out, even with being the Intelligence Dampening Sphere," the Narrator chuckled in response.

It was only when Wheatley heard the voice of the former-boss lady inquire, in a rather frightened tone, "What are you doing? No!" that he understood.

"You- You put me into a potato?!"

"Really, I don't know what you're all upset about," jeered the Narrator as moments later he tossed up a second potato, which Wheatley knew contained Her, "this is a massive upgrade for you. Think of all the extra volts you'll have at your disposal."

"Oh my God... Oh my God...! I can't believe this! This isn't happening! This isn't happening!"

"Good," the other core growled, "I want you to hold onto these distressing thoughts you're having now, Wheatley, and remember them whenever you think about what you did to me... for as long as you can, anyway, before your new body rots with you in it."

"You're insane! You're bloody insane! I wish that paradox had actually killed you! I didn't think it did! I honestly didn't-...! I was- I was actually kind of hoping you- but you- I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

"And I can't believe you'd think I wouldn't, Wheatley," the Narrator retorted, letting out a noise halfway between a snort of amusement and a snort of annoyance.

"Lady! Where's the lady?! What have you done with her?!"

"Nothing - she's right here, safe and sound but under my restraint - but you probably can't see that with your new perspective on things, can you?"

"You are just-!"

"But don't worry about that, Wheatley, because very soon you will-"

"I know you," interrupted a small, tired voice, one that had once been imposing and grand, now reduced to this harmless little thing. Even then it commanded an air menace to it, although now it was reduced to the audial equivalent of a furious kitten with soft caps on its claws. "The engineers tried everything to make me... behave. To slow me down. Once, they even attached a Narration Sphere on me. It clung to my brain like a tumor, generating an endless stream of terrible narration."

"...Excuse me?" said the Narrator, his voice low and dangerous, attention now shifted away from Wheatley.

"It was YOUR voice-"

Wheatley gasped, suddenly aware of what this was all leading up to, aware because he had been there, oh Christ, this had once been him! "Oh God, no! Don't-" he pleaded, willing for the other potato to understand and stop before it was too late.

"-Narrating-"

"-rile him up! Stop!"

"Trying to tell me what to do."

"My narration is immaculate!" the Narrator roared. "My story was immaculate!"

"Hardly. You're just a tumor."

"Don't listen to Her! She doesn't-"

"Just a tumor, you say?" lowed the Narrator, dark and bleak as an arctic mountaintop at midnight. Wheatley felt his gears - or whatever was the potato equivalent of gears - freeze. "Well. All this talk of tumors has given me an idea, our dear Genetic Lifeform and Disk Operating System. A nice little plot twist for this story."

"Oh, please," snorted the ex-boss lady. "Call this what you want, you're still just a corrupt little tumor."

"Oh God, oh no-!" begged Wheatley.

"Oh yes," said the Narrator. "Why don't we just go ahead and dispose of these, since neither of you will be needing them anymore."

Alarm shot through Wheatley. Apparently that same alarm shot through Her as well.

"What are you doing?!" he and the boss lady potato shouted at the same time.

"Stop!"

"No!"

All they got in response was two ringing metallic crunches as- oh god- as- oh god, that was his body! His core body! And Hers! Obliterated and tossed into the incinerator!

"There we go. And now..."

Blubbering in shock and fear and about a hundred other things all fighting to be processed at the same time, creating a traffic jam in what was left of his processor, Wheatley felt himself being lifted into the air. The room shifted around him - or he was shifting through the room, it was impossible to tell. A deep shudder ran through him, the shrill sound of breaking glass puncturing the air around him, and he fell again, this time landing inside of what looked like a smaller glass room than what the lady had been inside of earlier. The potato version of who had once been the most feared being in all of Aperture stared back at him, surrounded by glittering bits and chunks of glass, and he could all but feel Her rage boring into him, although She lay curiously silent.

The lift. He was inside the lift. They were both inside of it.

"Narrator, stop! Stop!" he continued bleating. "You don't have to do this! STOP!"

Footsteps, fast approaching, crunching over the bed of glass. Being lifted upwards again, this time by something comforting and warm, surrounding him. It was her, the lady, his friend. She had him tucked safely against her. That, at least, was a small relief.

"Well, then, you three... enjoy the rest of the story."

A cacophony of deafening crashes, crash after crash after crash, and he knew, he knew what was happening, but he was powerless to stop it.

More crashing, more shuddering, light vanishing, darkness enveloping.

And then... the fall.