Chapter 40: Nine Times Nine
When he awoke, his world was blue. Not blue like a cloudless day, but an artificial blue. Blue raspberry. Picasso's Blue Period. Doug's Blue Period?
He blinked and groaned as his eyes adjusted to the artificial lighting and...real lighting. Was that sunlight? He squinted and eased himself to a sitting position in his relaxation pod.
Pain shot up from his leg as he shifted it. Ah. So that hadn't healed while he had been out. Noted.
He blinked again, the hazy features of the room coming into focus. The walls of the vault were fractured and grimy, more opaque than he'd ever seen them before. Vines crept up the cracks. But most noticeably, up and through the vault's lack of a ceiling, it almost looked like he could see natural light. The sky. The real sky. Not just a tacky image of clouds slapped over fluorescent lights.
"Hello down there!"
The voice startled Doug. He wasn't quite awake enough yet to place where it was coming from. He glanced down at his cube, but that wasn't the cube's voice. Not at all.
His cube spoke. "Look. Up there— a personality sphere."
Doug squinted and picked out the dark stripe of a management rail. Near the end of it was one of the personality spheres, though it looked a bit smaller than it should. Perhaps it was up another level higher than he thought. The core twisted in its casing, almost nervously, studying him with its electric blue optic. More blue.
"Oh good, you're awake! Thank God," said the core. "I thought you'd be another dud. Like a firework. Y'know, the ones that don't go off, obviously, so you're just left there sitting and waiting and staring and there's no BOOM! like you were hoping for. Complete waste of time."
Doug cleared his throat, though no noise came out. He could already tell that he was hoarse. He hadn't had a drink of water in who knows how long. "Is that accent...British?" he asked the cube, voice barely above a whisper.
"I don't know," said the cube. It didn't know the slightest thing about accents.
"What was that?" the core shouted. "Can't hear you."
Doug shook his head. It was nothing. Hopefully the core could tell that by his body language. He waved a hand dismissively, just in case. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to talk loudly enough for the core to hear him, anyway. He pointed to his throat and shook his head no.
"That's all right! I'll do the talking for now, then," said the core.
"Which core is that?" Doug whispered to the cube. If he could remember a name and a primary purpose, that would be helpful.
"I don't know," said the cube.
The core shouted down again. "Though I not understand why you went to the trouble of getting my attention a few minutes ago, leading me all the way over here—this is not an area I'm supposed to be in, by the way— only for you to disappear and then climb into that pod! You made me have to re-activate it. There was no wake-up date set on that thing. I just saved your life!"
Doug stared up blankly, reclining slightly so that it wasn't such a strain on his neck.
"You're welcome!" the core added.
"Who is he talking about?" said the cube.
"Me, apparently," said Doug.
"Though— did you change clothes, too? How did you even have time for that?" the core said, the internal circle twisting from side to side as he tried to get a good look at the human below him. "And where did you get that companion cube? Why is it so small?"
Doug glanced over and imagined the cube giving a shrug. Not that a cube could shrug. But cubes also weren't supposed to talk.
"Ohhh," the core said. "You know what? Scratch that. That doesn't make sense. I thought you were someone else." The personality sphere appeared to look Doug up and down. "Humans. Always looking so similar. "
Doug leaned forward slightly, but paused to look up at the core. He attempted to clear his throat. "You saw," he said, swallowing. "You saw another human?" He began to pull himself upright further, using as much of his arm and core strength as possible. Eventually he swung himself to the side of the pod and tentatively set his two feet onto the ground.
"Yes! I'm actually going to need your assistance with that, you see," said the core. "I lost track of that man and then stumbled across you! What a lucky coincidence, am I right? But there is a slight problem. You're not that man, and I need to find him. It's important. He was quite well-dressed for a human— had a suit, one of those miniature suitcases, what are they called— "
"Briefcase?" Doug wheezed.
"Yes! Briefcase. Very official. Very business-like. Never seen him before, though. Looked like some sort of government man? " The core rapidly looked from side to side, as if shaking its head. "We're supposed to watch out for those. Haven't seen any in years, though," he said. Then, his gaze steadied. "Look, point is, if he is down here for an official inspection—and he very well might be— then I'm going to need your help. Otherwise I am going to be in very hot water."
Doug wondered if the core had ever actually experienced contact with water, or if it was just using the idiom. Maybe he took things literally and thought they would actually place him in a tank of hot water if he didn't behave properly. Maybe Aperture actually did.
"Why does he need our help?" said the companion cube.
Doug tried to clear his throat again, looking down at his cube. The cube. Of course! It should have some water stored in there, speaking of water. He tentatively put weight on his good leg, which still wobbled underneath him. Awkwardly, with his hands still on the pod, he lowered himself so that he was sitting on the ground, injured leg sticking straight out since bending it hurt too much at the moment. He opened up the side of the cube and rummaged around until he found a mostly-full jug of water. Hopefully the water hadn't gone bad. If water could go bad.
The robot continued. "So you might be wondering, 'why does Wheatley need my help?' Well, I'll tell you— they put me in charge of the extended relaxation wing—very important job, by the way— but then the reserve power ran out! Which was not my fault, by the way," the core emphasized. "But I have been having, erm, a bit of trouble finding a human that is…functional. So if this is indeed an inspection, which I think it is, then I'm gonna need you to talk to that inspector man and tell him that everything is good and that Wheatley has been doing a wonderful job as the relaxation wing attendant. And deserves a promotion. If you have time to add that. Because I do. Deserve a promotion, that is."
With a little bit of trouble, Doug twisted open the lid and drank from the jug. He immediately broke out into a cough and spat water across the vault.
"Easy!" said the cube. "You're still waking up. Swallowing requires a lot of coordination." The cube paused, then seemed a bit irritated. "You got water on me."
"Sorry," Doug whispered.
"You all right down there?" Wheatley said.
Doug gave a few shaky nods and a few residual coughs. He patted the cube in what he hoped was a reassuring manner.
Wheatley twirled in a circle. "Wonderful, wonderful. Well, when you're ready we can get going," he said. "Just follow me."
"Oh. Well. This is not good," said Wheatley as he inspected the chasm. The catwalk they had been limping down (much to Wheatley's chagrin) had suddenly ended in a jagged twist of metal, leaving an insurmountable hole between them and the long-term relaxation vaults.
The robot ventured out a few feet on the rail. Somehow that had managed to stay intact. The robot glanced down again, slowly retreating back to Doug, who had paused to sit on the cube.
"Here's an idea," Wheatley started.
Doug raised an eyebrow.
"How about you hang onto me, and I can just go really fast across the gap? You can grab a handle. And you can just put that—" He gestured with a handle at the cube. "On your back, or hold it with your other hand, yeah. And we zip on over there. Really fast, before you drop anything. Problem solved, yeah?"
Doug stared up for a moment, then stood. He motioned for Wheatley to come closer to him. The robot obliged. He wrapped a hand firmly around the handle and then tugged down, trying to gauge the strength of the robot's frame as well as the load-bearing capacity of the rails. The whole thing creaked as he pulled. It was way, way too low.
They would make it about four feet before the whole thing busted.
"It's not gonna work," Doug said grimly.
"What?" Wheatley seemed surprised. "Why not?"
"Too much weight."
"Ah," said Wheatley, not understanding. "How do you know that?"
Doug gave him a curious, almost incredulous look. These railings were just a simple piece of steel to let these sentient bowling balls get around. There was no way it would also carry a human plus a weighted companion cube. "You do know I weigh a lot more than you do, right?"
"Er, right," said Wheatley, after a hesitation. "Of course. On to plan C, then."
"What about plan B?" said the cube quietly. "Does he even know the alphabet?"
Doug only gave a small wave of the hand in the cube's direction.
"So what do you recommend?" said Wheatley.
"Well," said Doug, "if we could get our hands on a portal device, I could just use that to get to the other side. It would be easy."
Wheatley seemed to become instantly uncomfortable. "About that," he said, turning back and forth. "I'm not sure I can really— I'm not allowed— None of us are allowed— "
"It's okay," Doug tried to reassure. "I know where to find one. You know how to get from here to the testing tracks, right?"
"Right," said Wheatley. "But— "
"If you can guide me there, then I can grab one. Then we'll be set."
Wheatley hesitated. "I— don't want to get into even more trouble, potentially," he said. "If they found out about this, they would be mad. Like, really mad. Like 'I'm-now-out-of-a-job mad," he said. He rolled back a bit closer to the edge of the catwalk. "I think hanging on to me really is the way to go. I mean, we'll have to walk to get over to the testing track, and I wouldn't want you to put any more pressure on your— " He hesitated, scanning Doug. "Your hip or anything."
Oh, so now he cared about the limits of the human body. But not the part where Doug might slip and fall to his death.
"Look, Wheatley. This is an emergency." Doug gritted his teeth. "It will be okay if we do not abide by that rule this one time. I promise," he assured the robot, though Wheatley still twisted back and forth, optic still tiny and worried. "If it ends up being a problem, I'll speak to your supervisor myself and explain what happened. Your supervisor will understand. You will not get in trouble," he promised. "Besides, I'm used to handling the device. I used to repair them. I know what I'm doing. I'll be careful."
Wheatley thought for a long time before he eventually spoke. "All right," he said. "But you're just going to be borrowing it. Temporarily. Until we get the power back on. Then we put it back."
"Then we put it back," Doug agreed, and Wheatley turned and began to lead him to the main testing track.
"Where did you say it was?"
"Over there!" Wheatley shouted from the end of his rail, outside of the test chamber. " It should be right in there." With a regular storage cube wedged in the chamberlock, they could still hear one another. Barely. "It should be on some sort of pedestal— that's where the test subject gets it."
"It's not here," Doug shouted back over his shoulder. The pedestal that should be cradling the portal gun was empty. He leaned down to adjust the straps on the long-fall boots Wheatley had found for him. Well, Doug had found them, but Wheatley had claimed credit for it.
"What?"
"I said, there's no portal gun here!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes!"
"What?"
"I said yes, I'm sure!"
"Have you tried looking harder?" Wheatley yelled. "Maybe it fell down."
Doug sighed and moved farther into the chamber, deciding to look around in the debris lining the outside edges of the chamber.
Meanwhile, from his position outside, Wheatley heard a startled scream.
"What's going on in there?" he yelled, but only heard a loud crash in response. Then, nothing.
"Hello?" he tried again. Dust had risen, obscuring the already-limited view into the chamber. "...Mr. Rattmann?"
Doug groaned and blinked blearily. It was dark now. Much darker than it had been earlier. As he drifted into consciousness, he realized he was lying on his back in a shallow pool of water, but he was not yet awake enough to do anything about it.
He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but as he looked up at the sky (it was incredible that he could even see the sky from here. Had he ever been able to see the sky from down here?) he saw that it was night now.
He didn't know what time of day it had been when he had fallen, or how much time had passed since he had fallen—but now, as he looked up, he saw a waxing moon perfectly framed in a black sky.
What were the chances of this? Of being able to see the moon at this time, in such a small window to the outside world, on a planet whose axis did not align with the orbit of its moon? The moon was never reliably in the same place in the sky on any given night.
It was a miracle.
It was a miracle to see the moon.
It was a miracle that he was alive.
And it would be a miracle when he got out of here.
As he stared up, he was struck with an inexplicable certainty that this point of view of his right now was important. The moon was important. He just didn't know why. At least not yet.
Lying on his back, Doug suddenly felt like Michaelangelo on on a scaffold, painting the ceiling of a grand chapel. Except Doug knew that nothing he painted could be as beautiful and simple and beautiful in its simplicity as this precise moment.
Painting.
He should have taught Chell more about painting.
Why hadn't he done that?
Yes, it may have been a bit of a messy pastime, but painting was certainly more interesting than playing cards. And it wasn't like painting supplies would have been difficult to acquire, considering he usually stored some inside his cube at any given time.
He had allowed her to help with painting a long, long time ago, back when they had first met, back when he was taking her under his wing. Maybe the art would have been a helpful outlet for the heavy emotions she was going through.
Maybe it would have been a helpful outlet for himself, too.
He hadn't done much art during those later times. He should have done that too.
So many things he should have done.
The image in his head of himself lying on a scaffolding changed. No longer was Doug near the ceiling of a chapel, but instead it was Doug and Chell on a scaffolding, each holding paintbrushes and decorating the blank canvas of a ceiling.
The image morphed again, turning like the spin of the Earth, until they were no longer painting a ceiling but lying on a hilltop and stargazing. Pointing out old constellations with the handle of a paintbrush. Teaching her the scatterings of world mythology he could remember. Creating new constellations. Making up their own mythology for the images they pieced together in the sky, silly or serious or seriously silly. Weaving them into existing pantheons. Creating their own. Not a task to be completed during one night, but across an expanse of nights.
Things they would do on the surface.
Because they would get to the surface.
Doug pushed himself into a sitting position, water sloshing around him as if he was simply getting out of the bath. It dripped down from his hair into his soaked lab coat.
"You're awake," said the cube.
He spotted the cube a ways away, propped up diagonally against some rubble, most likely from where the test chamber flooring above them had given way.
"Did Wheatley—"Doug rubbed his forehead, a pounding headache pulsing in time with the pain in his leg. "Does he know we're—"He moved his hands to grab his leg—the same leg that had been shot by that turret— and pressed in, as if that would take away some of the pain. Even with the help of the long-fall boots (which he was thankful for, because if he hadn't been wearing them, he would probably be dead), the transfer of kinetic energy upon his landing had caused enough pain and shock to render him unconscious. "Did he go wake her up?"
"I don't know," said the cube, "but you did at least show him the right area."
Doug peeled off the lab coat and let it fall into the puddle. He desperately hoped that Wheatley would be able to find a way to get the system to move Chell's vault over to somewhere where he could access it directly and wake her. All the robot had to do was go through all of the long-term vaults in that area. Eventually he would find her. He had to.
Doug dragged himself onto his feet, putting the lightest amount of pressure possible on his bad leg as he limped over to collect the cube and the portal gun.
It was time to regroup and figure out how to get them out of this place, once and for all.
Note:
The title is a reference to my dear friend's fic of the same name that inspired me ages ago.
This was meant to go in with my next chapter, but it was getting too long and I realized that I could post this on its own! So, here is chapter 39.5
