Wheatley wasn't the least nervous. Nope, he wasn't. Worse, he was purely terrified of the task ahead of him.

He was quietly [ to the best of his ability] riding the rails in the service areas.

He hadn't a clue who he was looking for, the Central Core had told him all he needed to do was convince a "friend" to follow him to a lift and that be that.

Easier said than done. She'd assured him that he'd know who he was looking for as soon as he'd see him. He'd be the only person in the service shafts. He couldn't possibly mess up. He quickly caught on to the last part though, several hours later. "Person", she'd said person.

This seemed like an important observation. Whether it was intentional or not he didn't know.

She could have said "core", "turret" or tried "nanobot" for size, but she hadn't. She'd said "Person".

Pressure was building behind his optic and he wasn't liking it.

If he was correct, "person" could only mean one thing.

He shuddered at the thought, blinking profusely as he continued his search. The service areas were very dirty and overrun with water jugs and bean cans. These objects only feed his worry more and the pressure behind his optic.

"Hello?' He finally braved, directing his light in several dimly lit areas.

He'd been searching for hours. At this point, he was regretting having ever thought watching over the production line without someone was boring. At least it wasn't terrifying.

Every creak, hum, or whirr got him on edge and scurrying for cover. Sometimes he thought he could hear the footfalls of long fall boots! He had no clue how he knew how those sounded he'd assumed he had before his memory wipe. His mind playing sick jokes in the dark.

Sometimes he'd hear a portal gun shooting somewhere off behind the walls and the echoes of pre-recorded messages repeating a number over and over again. It was all in his mind of course but the prolonged darkness was getting him sick!

He was zooming on his rail at this point just trying to find his way out of the service shafts as fast as he could. He didn't want to be here anymore. It was bloody terrifying!

He kept going and going marginally noticing his beam of light bouncing off an orange-covered panel just seconds in front of him. Panicked he stopped too late slamming optic first into the panel.

The impact sent a violent tremor down his entire spherical body. He'd barely registered small bits of shattered glass colliding with his closed eyelids. He was too stunned to realize he'd gone partially blind. He just stayed there, stunned and motionless in the dark narrow passageway. He wanted to cry. His pain receptors finally picking up on the pain he was experiencing.

He opened his eye slowly the action causing him to yelp and squeal. Pain shooting up and down his hull.

He closed them instead. It wasn't any better.

He was going to die here, a slow and agonizing death. An embarrassing one too at that.

He tightened his handles towards his faceplate. Slowly opening his eye, little shards of glass began hitting the floor and scattering all over bouncing and twinkling under his flickering light. It hurt. He could barely see. What's worse his flashlight was pulsing non-stop. It had been damaged too and threatened to turn off forever.
He slowly focused his gaze on the panel he'd struck. He'd seen that it was stained in orange gel from afar but close up it seemed too organized to be a forgotten splash of propulsion gel. He slowly made out a jumpsuit, hands, arms, a face, eyelids, and hair. He squinted at it hard trying to make sense of all these shapes. He gently tugged back on his rail taking in the portrait as a whole.

It was a woman.

She wore a face of peace and determination, even though her eyes were closed. She had her arms speared to her sides in gently light brush strokes.

Out of all the things, he wouldn't have expected to have found such an artifact.

He continued to stare, his flashlight continuously flickering. Sometimes leaving him in total darkness for long periods of time until it fizzed back to life.

There was a familiarity in the portrait. Some kindness he didn't understand. It melted his artificial heart beckoning him to cry. He'd be dying next to a portrait, how lovely.

He gently tugged forward until he was touching the panel, curling himself where the woman's chest would be.

She would have hugged him back, something was telling him that. Assuring him even.

"I'm sorry." He painfully murmured. It wasn't because he'd remembered her or because he knew what he'd done to her, but because he wouldn't ever remember her and he'd never know if she'd ever really been real.