There's several company programs with variations on the Aperture logo for icons, as well as the usual calendar, email, office programs. All of it might be useful, and Wheatley might decide at any time that for whatever reason he doesn't want her messing about with his desk, despite his distraction.
Chell swallows. She isn't sure where to go first, or how much she has time to go through. Logically, the email or calendar are what she knows will probably serve her best, although she feels guilty even considering intruding on them. Unfortunately, she has no choice, anymore.
Calendar first, maybe. It's like to have an at-a-glance view, whereas the email will take longer to sift through. Maybe a quick overview will serve her well when trying to gather more details.
Right, right. That's decided, then. On this, with a deep breath, she opens the calendar app and hurriedly begins to peruse it.
It shows her a monthly view that immediately highlights something weird. The first half of the month is packed. Every single day has notes. Judging by the way the way a lot of them are written, the thing is probably synced with his phone, and he probably makes them on the fly, his own strange sort of organization. The second half of the month is busy, too, but noticeably less so- entire days have nothing on them.
All of today's tasks are highlighted as overdue, but yesterday's have been dealt with, giving a hint as to when exactly he lost his phone.
Chell frowns at it. Before she goes over the month's tasks, she takes a quick look at the previous three month, flipping back to see how they compare in terms of workload.
Busy. Overwhelmingly busy. Seems like it started getting heavier around the same time she'd begun to notice his changes in attitude and temperament.
Again, there seems to be no such thing for him as a free day.
She frowns, and goes first a bit further, and then back to this month. With the briefest of glances back at Wheatley, Chell starts to check the tasks that his wretched employers have heaped upon him, and to try and puzzle out why they seem so heavy towards the beginning of the month, consistent with the last three or so, and so light near the end.
There seem to be notes highlighted in different colors, and upon closer inspection, the colors seem to reveal task priority- or more accurately, who told him to do something. The difference in the first and second half of this month is evident the second she takes a longer look: the first half is all different colors, where the second half is only notes in blue. It only takes a little digging to see that blue indicates notes to self or self-assignment.
That doesn't sit well at all with Chell. He can't be bogged down with every conceivable task for months on end and then have it all just stop like that. They're too close to the end of that projected workload for that to make sense, and they've been weighing him down so much that it's quite literally taken over his life. This isn't right. Something isn't right.
To make things still more disconcerting, there is no handy clue as to why his workload should suddenly lessen to virtually nothing. The very last item coded for a different source is in red, and it says mr johnson's office - re: relaxation vault trials. Does that mean they intend on sticking him into one? With how much weight he pulls around this place, a workload far beyond one man's capacity, it seems unlikely.
That's what she needs to learn more about, then. 'Relaxation vault trials' sounds ominous, and knowing what they are does nothing to ease her mind about the brief, implacable note. Those six words, not forming even a whole sentence, hold horrors untold in their secret meaning. With another glance back, Chell begins to move to the email.
But when she glances back at Wheatley, he is looking at her, something strange in his wide, deep blue eyes. He gives a slight jerk as their gazes connect, as though he hadn't quite realized she was there. It's an intense look.
She closes the window at once, gut reaction, pure instinct. Oh God. Time's up.
He doesn't look away from her as she does this. When he speaks, his speech isn't slurred- it's quite clear, actually, but it sounds like another person completely. It's a question, but it doesn't sound like a question. "What are you doing, love?"
Chell hesitates, because it's so, so eerie. There's this feeling of being in a movie when the pause button is pressed, an old VHS that warps and fizzles before it's still, all of time frozen in an instant. No breathing, no heartbeat, only those eyes looking back at her, eyes so similar to her own, but distorted by the pausing of the tape, static and unreal, impossibly fixed. It's like they're the only things that she can still see. She feels so cold that she almost forgets that she's been mute from birth, that this isn't a new development, her voice not stolen by the ice in Wheatley's.
I just was looking to see if there was anything about the job, she signs, warped with the unpausing of the tape, the flickering in distorted space and time where nothing makes sense and even the most lifelike details just don't seem real at all.
His eyes dip from hers to her hands only a second after she's begun her sentence, and they don't linger there, as if he really doesn't care what the answer is. He leans forward in his chair. They're siblings, so it isn't as if he hasn't been close to her before, hugging her or passing the popcorn or nudging her to remind her that she has to actually be facing him for him to read her signs, but there's something about his closeness now that feels... sinister. Like even he, in this moment, is not just an employee of Aperture Laboratories, but a part of it. "You really did come all the way down here just to babysit me, didn't you? What makes you so convinced I can't take care of myself?"
She flinches like a well-worn tape, missing her cue. Where does she belong in this scene? Who is she? Perhaps more importantly, who is he? It was stupid, indescribably stupid to let him take that shot right in front of her. She had seen it as an argument avoided; hoped, in her severe lack of knowledge of drugs (no real world grounding at all), that this would be something that he would do and then it would be over. But this is the source of her troubles, isn't it? The reason he's been growing ever more distant.
She turns her head.
Wheatley's expression darkens as she turns away, and his lip curls into a snarl, and the grip of his hand, still rested on his arm, tightens until his nails are leaving marks in his skin. He looks like an entirely different person. He looks- dangerous. "Get out."
Chell is horrified. In fact, the word is perhaps too weak to do this feeling justice. She looks at him, takes a step away, forms his namesign.
When his word is not immediately heeded, he stands, kicking the chair away behind himself. He's much taller than her, but it is not his greater height that makes it feel that he is towering over her. It's frightening. "Did you not hear me? Was it you're mute, or you're deaf? Get out."
Chell feels cornered, pinned between him and the desk. Just to try and get past feels like a mistake, yet obviously the real mistake would be to stay standing here when Wheatley has changed so completely into this beast before her. She can't see even a trace of her meek, gentle brother in that face.
She slides against the wall towards the door, shaking her head in disbelief as if she could stop the tape and put in something with a happy ending. She feels like she's going to vomit as she signs Wheatley's name again.
As soon as she is no longer in the way, he slams his hand down on the desk, his whole body tense, coiled like an animal. Her attempt to get through to him by signing his name does the opposite- in a sudden fit of blind passion, he lashes out at the desk, sending papers and his mug and anything else within reach crashing to the floor in a single, furious threat. "Now!"
Chell runs out of the room, leaving the door open behind her in complete abandonment. She has no idea where she's headed, only that she needs to get the hell away from that office. She isn't sure what's stronger; the fear and the horror, or the white-hot rage.
Behind her, he gives a scream of fury; if there's words hidden within, they're incoherent. The door slams, the sound echoing like a gunshot throughout the corridors. He doesn't follow her.
Chell races back up to the relaxation chambers, the only thing she knows in this cold grey hell. She doesn't stop until she's reached them, out of breath and burning in her chest, in her throat. Her mind is a whirl, as out of control as he is.
Despite the fact that he's far behind her now, the hall seems to echo with the crash as he'd taken his anger out on his desk, the door and his scream, the horrible tone of his voice. The silence makes these short-term memories all the louder.
She leans back against the wall and wipes her face with her hands. She's cursing herself for letting this happen, but as she comes down from the terror and the start, that gives way very, very quickly to a renewed anger at Aperture, and now, at Wheatley himself.
What the hell was he thinking? Can he seriously have not known how injecting himself was going to make him act, or has he really deluded himself into believing that it doesn't affect him? Did he not care? Was the need to shoot up so pressing that he couldn't have at least told her to leave first?
Chell shivers, and at this point she can't be sure if it's the cold or her anger or that residual fear. It doesn't matter; they're all mingling so much and right now she's such a mess of raw emotion that it's inconsequential. How can he be so stupid, so careless? She grits her teeth and thumps her head back against the wall. She wants to give him excuses, to say that maybe he doesn't even know, but she can't ignore what's just happened, that he just did that to her, that he refuses to let her be his ally. Yet, she can't abandon him to the wolves, either, because without the injections he is Wheatley, and without Wheatley, she would be very much lost.
Would he have hurt her? It's hard to question, but either answer is hard to accept, too. At least it can be conceded that he chased her out instead of starting the vicious fight he was on the cusp of, but that doesn't win him a lot of points, given the context. No, not in the least; Chell is still reeling, and his face in rage is still stuck in her mind's eye like a ghost image over her reality. Recorded, it stays sickeningly close, a reminder of why she came like a hurricane to Aperture in the first place. Yet, she has no idea where to go from here. She can't return to the office, she can't wander off where Caroline might catch sight of her. She's like a rat in a river, or stuck on fast-forward.
At least not many people are likely to come up here, allowing her a little time to recover herself. If she doesn't find a way to get him back up to the surface, what will happen to them? To him, and to her?
She can't even guess. All that she can say for sure is that Wheatley is only going to get worse from here, more aggressive, more tired, more lost. She kind of visualizes herself running around the facility in the shadows, living up to their surname to become a human rat. That's not a possibility, but it's what comes to mind. She sighs and sinks to the ground. She might as well take the opportunity to rest, because goodness knows she needs it after that. Her heart is still racing.
The quiet of the hallway seems to stretch the minutes into hours, especially after Wheatley's outburst. It's possible she sits there for any length of time at all.
Then come the footsteps. And there's nowhere to hide.
Chell scrambles to her feet, eyes wide and fierce. She doesn't know what's coming, she's sure she can't fight it, but she's going to face whomever it is standing. Her heart is pounding. She prays it isn't Wheatley.
Whomever this person is, they're whistling as they come closer and closer. And then they round the corner, and they stop, both in movement and in sound, the whistle trailing off somewhere. It's a man, expression surprised and a little confused; he has a National Geographic with the NASA logo on the front tucked under one arm, and a coffee in his hand.
Short, chubby, calm, and definitely not Wheatley in any way.
"Hey, lady," he says, after a second's worth of awkward startled silence.
Chell blinks. The greeting is very strange, unexpected. Her posture relaxes, her feet come closer together. She doesn't quite know how to respond to him, only to note that, all in all, he does not appear threatening (although looks account for little in Aperture, she thinks).
After this hesitation is up, she gives him a little wave of the sort where your whole hand goes side to side on the wrist.
He lifts his hand and returns the wave, though his own movements are small in comparison. Another awkward moment's silence follows, before finally he says what's on her mind. "You're not Wheatley."
She shakes her head hesitantly in agreement. Neither one of them is Wheatley. Thank goodness.
He walks a little closer. He seems to have decided that he has nothing to fear, but maybe one or two things to be cautious about. "So... who are you?"
Chell fishes her phone out of her pocket with what's beginning to become a practiced hand. She opens her speech app and has it answer, "I am Chell. I am the residential caretaker's new aide."
"Wheatley finally got an assistant?" The man asks, surprised. He also looks a little worried. Does he recognize her name? "...Oh. Where is he?"
Chell frowns with concern of her own and hurriedly shakes her head. Her phone monotonously answers, "He's busy."
"Oh." He bumps his fists awkwardly against his thighs once, twice, three times, as he looks for a way to reply to this. It's not hard to see he's not exactly an expert at social interactions- beyond that, it's readily apparent that her answer has troubled him. "What are you doing?"
This question leaves Chell feeling a bit out of her element herself, although she is much quicker to hide it, and far more adept at doing so. Instead, she takes to her phone again, and seizes on the discomfort he's displaying with her response to the previous question. "I'm taking a break. You think there's something going on with Wheatley, don't you?"
"Wrong?" He seems pretty taken aback, not just troubled, but also surprised and confused that she should ask. "What do you mean? Didn't you just get here? I thought you were new. Do you know him already?"
Gauging his reaction, Chell considers what angle to play this at. As awkward as he is, after all, he's clearly no fool. Her phone replies, "I did just get here today. Yes. But something seems wrong with him. I would think that even if I hadn't met him before, though I have, once or twice. He seems off. Don't you think?"
His brow furrows slightly. It's hard to tell if he believes her or not, and he is quiet for a few moments again, shifting from one foot to the other in decision. "When have you met him before?"
"At a party. He recommended Aperture to me," Chell's phone app answers, ready for this follow-up question. She makes sure to look at him whenever she isn't paying attention to the screen, trying to sell the latest in her series of small cons.
"A party? Wheatley?" This doesn't seem to make him less guarded. If anything, his face sets just a bit, a decision that he doesn't know her- and she doesn't know Wheatley -well enough to say anything. "Well... I haven't noticed anything. He's pretty much the way he always is."
Chell frowns at this. She has been to small parties with Wheatley, with him trying to be all impressive to the other guests for half an hour or so and then getting bored of the affair and signing back and forth with her over all the food they got from the buffet like it was the secret language of siblings. She doesn't see what a stretch it is to say she could have met him at one. But she supposes that he doesn't frequent them, especially not without her, and as far as lies go it was pretty cliché.
"You seemed worried, though," she tries.
"I'm always worried," he says with an anxious little chuckle. "Why are you so interested in Wheatley if you barely know him, lady?"
Chell is beginning to feel a little worried herself. "I was just concerned, he just seems kind of... weird."
"Don't gossip," the strange man admonishes, and he takes a step back as if he's just remembered something important he needs to do. "I'm gonna go."
Chell swallows, feeling a drop in her stomach. There's something she doesn't like about this sudden attempt to disengage, and that something feels like an encore appearance from GLaDOS to her, which is the last thing she needs. "Weren't you looking for Wheatley? I didn't catch your name, by the way. I gave you mine."
"Oh! It's, uh, Neil," he says, and, through force of habit too strong to deny, he moves towards her again to offer his hand for a shake. "I'll find Wheatley later, he's always around here somewhere."
Chell accepts his hand and shakes it firmly. This leaves her momentarily without the power of speech, and that moment feels quite long.
When it ends, she takes to the phone almost immediately. "Neil. You know Wheatley well?" She's heard the name. He's mentioned it before.
"Well- yes," he admits, though not quite comfortable doing so. He shoves his hands in the pockets of the NASA bomber jacket he's wearing. "He's a good friend."
When Wheatley has mentioned a man named Neil- Dr. Apollo -he's mentioned a scientist who is a little chubby (check), who has round glasses (check), and who is always wearing something with the NASA logo on it (check). He's described Neil as reserved, but nonetheless as babbling as a brook, and nearly obsessed with space. They play checkers together on downtime, and both spend a lot of free moments together with two other friends Wheatley has described. They've worked around each other for a long time.
Chell sucks in her lower lip and nods. This isn't easy, so she has to take a moment and prepare herself, drawing in a deep breath before taking to her phone. "Yeah. I thought so. Listen. You're worried about him, right? You want to help him get better, don't you?"
Neil fidgets even more, letting the questions drag in the air for so long that it's almost as if he hasn't heard them. When finally he speaks, it's in what tries to be a challenging tone of voice. "You're his sister, aren't you?"
Chell can't deny it, and she was honestly leading up to it anyway, given that Neil is known to her as a friend and could serve as a potential ally in getting Wheatley the hell out of this place, and so she nods.
He relaxes visibly, as if a huge weight has been taken away from him. Suddenly he seems much more willing to be in proximity to her. "Oh, thank goodness. Then- you should come with me, we should probably let the guys in on this conversation."
Chell moves to follow him, but with a look of slight concern on her face. "Guys?" her phone asks. She hopes that he means the other two friends of Wheatley's.
"Rick and Paris," he clarifies, asking with a glance whether the names are familiar to her.
Recognition flashes in her eyes, and she nods again. These are names she knows, and in this context she knows them immediately, without the delay that met Neil.
She is grateful that her missteps with him haven't caused her or Wheatley too much trouble. Still, she had to be cautious. Aperture, she's finding, is far more a forbidding and wicked place than she ever could have imagined, even with all the trouble it's been causing her brother.
Neil returns the nod, and turns his gaze back to the hall ahead. His footfalls are loud on the metal grill that makes up the floor in this part of the facility. He doesn't say much as they go, and he doesn't share his thoughts, whatever they may be.
Chell wonders more and more about those thoughts as she follows him, about whether they are on her or her brother. She is full of nervous energy, putting her on edge. She wants to say something to him, but although her thumb lingers on the screen of her phone, no words come to mind.
It seems so peculiar that this should be her first time meeting Neil, or Rick, or Paris. Shouldn't they have come over at some point? Shouldn't she have been introduced to them?
It really seems odd, now that she's looking back on it, that she shouldn't have met three of Wheatley's closest friends. He's talked about them before; it isn't as if they're a secret to her.
Neil has pulled out his phone, and is sending a text, not really looking where he's going but nonetheless managing not to run into anything.
It's kind of impressive, actually, the way he just keeps walking almost blindly. Chell is distracted just long enough to wonder if he ever bumps into things like that, or if he's just really that good at texting. Of course, then she's right back to wondering what it is about the scientists that makes them such good friends with Wheatley and why it seems they never interact outside of work.
At length he pockets the phone, and a minute later he stops at a door. They're at the far end of the residential sector, as far away from Wheatley as they can be and still be in the same wing. When he pushes open the door, it looks like a small staff room- a couple sofas, a table and chair, a microwave, a sink, all crammed into a space not quite big enough for them. Nobody is in there, thankfully, so Neil goes in first. "Paris and Rick are coming. They'll be just a second."
Chell nods silently and, without giving it much thought, puts her hand up to her mouth and moves it outward in an arc. She takes a moment to look around before sitting on one of the sofas, feeling out of place despite being dressed for her surroundings.
Neil stays standing, clearly too restless to make himself much more at home. He paces a little, torn between looking at her and looking anywhere but. There's a painting on the wall, but pausing to look at the art does not appear to reinvigorate him.
Chell isn't sure whether she should try to initiate some interaction with him or just wait until Paris and Rick arrive. It is supposed to be only a second, isn't it? Yet he just looks so damn awkward that she kind of wants to help him feel at least a little more comfortable around her, especially since she needs his help (and she's still got to smooth over having lied to him). She only doesn't know what to say that would be any good to him.
He fidgets as they wait- specifically, with a little keychain of the moon he's drawn from his pocket. By the time she thinks of anything she can say, somebody is already approaching the door, drawing Neil's complete attention.
Chell looks to the door at once, the same as Neil. She remains sitting as she waits to see which of the two scientists is on the other side, if indeed it is one of them.
It's... them. Probably. But the wrong number of people enter. The first of them is tall and skinny, wearing glasses and a lab coat, and his eyes go right to Chell, keen with interest of a scientific kind. The second is dark and handsome, his interest perhaps a bit less scientific. The third seems confused and surprised, as if he doesn't know why all these people are congregating in the break room.
Neil looks surprised too. "Oh- hey, Virgil? What, uh, what are you doing in here?"
Perhaps it's to be expected that the man who seems confused is the one who looks over to Neil. Virgil, he must be, is fairly handsome, with pretty eyes and an attractive dusting of stubble. He would appeal to someone who was not Chell. However, the nervous concern in his features is what's most striking now, as he looks from Neil to give a once-over of the room and then shrugs exaggeratedly. There's a paper bag in one of his hands.
"Am I not supposed to be in the break room where we take breaks?" he asks, and it sounds like he's trying not to sound derisive, but the words themselves can't help but to be. He has a gently pronounced accent that Chell can't immediately place. "I came to eat lunch, what are you doing in here, Neil?"
Neil, already revealing himself to be a man of transparent emotion, blushes. However, he isn't the one who answers- instead, it's the tall and dark of the group that speaks up, in a rolling Southern accent.
"Now V, I'm sure what Neil meant to ask is somethin' more like- why you're taking lunch all the way down here, instead of upstairs," says the man, diplomatic but a bit defensive. He's on Neil's side. "You know, a lil closer you where you work, 's'all."
"I happen to be doing work down here today," Virgil answers haughtily, apparently catching the other man's defensiveness. He isn't confrontational, though; it's more like he's answering from a greater position than the Southern man. Like he's put out to be having this conversation at all. "So I didn't think it was necessary, you know, to go all the way back upstairs just to eat. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
"Alright, no need for the attitude," the Southern man says, backing off, but not without the faintest etch of a snarl in Virgil's direction. He turns to Neil, and he gestures to Chell, and Neil gives a helpless shrug, glancing pointedly towards the extra member of their party. It looks like a whole conversation is taking place between them.
Chell is more than familiar with nonverbal conversations. She knows what they're getting at, but she knows too that if they all left, it would look pretty suspicious, and so she stays where she's seated. Neil is right, what can they do? She can't exactly get up and introduce herself, can she?
Virgil shakes his head as if he can't believe the Southern man's rudeness, but he says nothing of it. Instead, he sits down; not at the table, but on the couch directly across from Chell. He gives her a polite nod (which she returns) as he opens his bag and extracts its contents, which come to a fork and napkin, a plastic container, and a small thermos onto the cushion next to him. There is a particular method to it that she watches without really meaning to; the man presses down the bag, puts it across his lap, and then puts the container on the bag with the napkin just under the corner and the fork on top. The thermos stays where it is.
Only when this odd procedure is completed does he seem to take any particular notice of her. "Oh, I haven't met you have I? A pleasure. My name is Virgil. Computer sciences. You've come as part of the testing initiative, yes? Or maintenance, perhaps?"
"Was wonderin' that myself," the Southern man, turning to look at Chell, and missing how Neil groans in dismay at the direction the group's meeting has inevitably gone in. How could he be so careless as to highlight her presence in such a way, with Virgil still in the room? He comes a little closer, his walk a swagger. "Not often a lady as fine as yourself comes 'round. Trust me- if they did, I'd notice. Go by the name of Rick; pleasure's all mine. Don't mind V here, he thinks he's a big shot. Seems you already know Neil, and four-eyes here is Paris. That's all the names out of the way, I think."
He doesn't ask her to introduce herself. Maybe not as careless as he appears.
Virgil wrinkles his nose, and Paris rolls his eyes. It seems like neither one of them prefers the introduction Rick has deemed fit to give them.
"Virgil," the former corrects, shaking his head. He leans forward over the container in his lap and offers his hand. Chell leans further forward to give it a rather firm shake, which seems to satisfy him, for as soon as she's done he leans back again.
"People who spend more time studying are more likely to need glasses due to eye strain," Paris chimes in, coming around to stand behind Chell's couch across from Rick.
She's starting to feel a little uncomfortable with all the attention. She doesn't mind Paris, but instead looks dubiously up at Rick, whose swagger Virgil did not sufficiently distract her from, and who is much too comfortable with her on first meeting. Does he even know her name? Even if he doesn't ask, she's afraid that Virgil yet might.
Neil fidgets, as if he's uncomfortable with the attention she's getting, too. He's still messing with his little keychain, which seems to calm him down a bit- but it definitely isn't a solution for the problem at hand. The addition of an uninvited guest to the party has added a great amount of stress to what might be a simple conversation. Who knows what they can say in front of him? Even the fact that she's Wheatley's sister is a secret for now.
For that matter, what did Neil tell them already? Was it simply a summons, or do they already know her name and her relation to the caretaker? And what do they know about what's going on with Wheatley?
"People who spend less time studying are less likely to be nerds," Rick says, despite the fact that Chell already knows he's also a scientist. He leans his hip against the armrest of the sofa Virgil is sitting on, affecting an air of someone who thinks he looks cool. He does actually look kind of cool.
"But more likely to be bad at their job, if they're a scientist," Paris counters with a huff.
Virgil gives Rick a look out of the corner of his eye, but doesn't let him distract him from eating. He's very quiet about it, polite, but that doesn't help the stifling effect he's unwittingly brought about of having an uninvited party in the room who might compromise their efforts.
What are they supposed to do about it? They can't really just loiter around until Virgil isn't on lunch anymore- eventually, somebody will notice their collective absence.
"I am great at my job," Rick counters, folding his arms. He doesn't really look that offended.
"I assume 'great' is being used subjectively?" Paris asks dryly. Chell glances up at him, since he's standing so close. He is, she thinks, exactly what one pictures when asked to imagine a scientist.
"Objectively," Rick corrects, a little haughtily. "You're the one that has to use technical modifiers to make yourself sound smarter."
Neil, meanwhile, takes the opportunity of their distraction to sidle over, taking a seat at Chell's side. He lowers his voice to speak to her quietly, masking his words from Virgil under Paris and Rick's good-natured bickering. "I didn't know he'd come all the way down here. ...He's not a bad guy, but..."
Chell cuts her eyes to him, but tries not to look suspicious. She notes that Virgil is looking at the two bickering scientists, rather than at her and Neil, and so she makes a gesture to Neil to continue, kind of a shrug with one hand raised. She's pretty sure he doesn't understand sign language, after all, so she's got to make due with gestures.
"He plays straight," Neil says after a moment of twisting his lips, voice somehow becoming even quieter than before. He looks uncomfortable, as if it causes him great distress to gossip about a coworker like this. It probably does. "He even works on the GLaDOS project. Mr. Johnson thinks highly of him. Not that I think he'd go parroting everything we say, but I don't know if I want to talk about Wheatley in front of him, is all."
GLaDOS project? This gets Chell's attention; does this mean that he built GLaDOS, or helped to do so? All the questions she'd previously had no time or need to ask about the pale woman come creeping up on her now, and it's almost a struggle to keep from getting distracted by them. Yet, the very mention of Wheatley by name is enough to keep her on track. Unless she's given reason to believe it has something to do with the lockdown and massively increased workloads, she can't focus on what Aperture's projects are right now, no matter how unsettling they may be.
She nods her understanding to Neil.
She doesn't hear exactly what Rick and Paris are saying, but the nature of their bickering seems to have shifted, because now Paris is snapping at Rick. Virgil is getting visibly irritated.
Maybe their squabbling will be enough to convince him to find somewhere a bit more peaceful to have his lunch- somewhere that isn't here in this room with this company. It doesn't seem to be working, though. In fact, it just seems to be making Virgil more determined both to take his lunch right where he's at, and to enjoy it.
"Would you two children sit down?" he interrupts, shaking his head. "And there's a lady present. You ought to be ashamed." As if to underscore the point, he unscrews the cap of his thermos and takes a sip from it. That he is perfectly ready to sit here all night is readily apparent. In a way, it's kind of impressive.
Rick puts his hands on his hips, sputters for a moment, and then draws himself up. However, before he can speak, Neil takes a turn stepping in, trying a different tactic.
"So, how's Mel?" He asks Virgil, hurrying before one of them can issue a retort. "Usually you take all your breaks in the company of lady fair."
Virgil chuckles, and there's a distinct fondness in his eyes although he waves his free hand dismissively. "Oh, you know. Can't always get to work together. It's just that I was needed down here and she wasn't, that's all. She's doing fine, though." he answers, and puts the cap back on his drink. He sets it against his hip on the opposite side this time, between himself and the armrest. It seems that he has already forgotten about Rick.
"Glad to hear," Neil says, and Rick folds his arms but doesn't interject. "What have they got you doing down here? They don't tend to move you around that I've noticed."
"Nah, it's still the same project," Virgil answers, a little more at ease now. It seems that Neil has hit upon just the right subjects to distract him from Rick and Paris, and from Chell. "They brought me down here to do some work on the servers. They were having trouble handing the load."
Distraction is good- but it's not the ideal result, which is finding a way to make him leave so that they can talk privately. "Sounds pretty important."
"Of course! If it wasn't, I'd still be upstairs." Virgil laughs. There's a distinct difference, Chell notices, between the way he's responding to Neil and the way he'd responded to Rick and Paris— and, well, to Neil when he'd first addressed him.
She also notices that the distraction, while helpful, is also having the adverse effect of making him take longer to eat.
Rick seems to be noticing the same thing, giving a soft, impatient grumble under his breath that says he isn't on lunch, and doesn't have the time to be loitering. "Say, you know what? I think my break's about to be over. You too, right, Paris?"
It takes Paris a moment, likely because he's still in such a foul humor over his argument with Rick, not to mention the admonishment from Virgil. "No, I'm not..." then he pauses, and realization can be seen clearly on his features. "Oh! Right, I think you are right, Rick. Yes, now that you mention it, my break is almost over."
"Come on, we should be heading back," Rick says, tense expression becoming near tangible relief when Paris catches on. He turns to Chell, gestures with a hand. "Care to walk with us, little lady? I'd love to get to know you a bit better."
Chell nods and gets up to follow.
"Oh, that's... too bad," Virgil says, sounding genuinely disappointed to see the party leaving. He doesn't so much look it, though. It's like he's making an effort not to. "Well, it was a pleasure to meet you." he nods to Chell.
Neil gives a surprised look, but rises to his feet as well. He pauses to give Virgil a smile; he seems more friendly with him than the other members of the little party do. "Maybe I'll see you later, since you'll be down here for a little while."
"Yeah, sure thing," Virgil replies. He shrugs. "No big deal, though," he adds, then resumes eating.
Chell gives him a brief wave and leaves the room with Rick, Paris tailing just behind. The latter seems to largely ignore Virgil (and Neil, for that matter).
Neil seems a little antsy about it, but leaves with them, taking a place to Chell's side opposite the other two.
They're several steps away from the door before Rick breaks the silence between them, glancing back at the door, and then down at Chell. "So... anybody wanna tell me who this lovely young lady might be? And why it was so important we come meet her right now?"
Chell crosses her arms and tilts her head irritably at him, not terribly fond of being referred to as "this lovely young lady." She doesn't take her phone back out just then.
Paris glances over at Neil. "I was actually wondering the same thing," he adds.
"This," Neil says, pausing for emphasis, and then getting overwhelmed by his own pause and grabbing his keychain from his pocket, "is Chell."
"Chell?" Rick echoes, surprised. "You mean like Wheatley's sister?"
Paris's face goes slack. "Is that who you are?" he asks Chell.
Chell nods, her posture relaxing somewhat. She feels like there is a strange importance to the reveal, a weight to the connection. There is, in a way. There is power in knowing that enables her to gain the help of these three men, and which could put her in danger should the wrong person find it out.
Rick whistles in astonishment, looking down at her with something new in his expression. "You're even prettier than I imagined you'd be. But why on Earth-"
"-Isn't it obvious?" Neil interjects at once. "I don't think Wheatley's had surface clearance for two or three days. I didn't even know that was a thing in our security system that you could lose."
Chell blinks in surprise at Rick's words, her ruddy cheeks slightly darkened. Neil's interruption clears this away, and her expression becomes very serious again.
"They've been doing something to him," Paris says, tapping his chin. "Running some kind of experiment or punishment. Not only has he not been allowed out, he's been acting strangely." He turns his attention to Chell. "It was very brave of you to come all the way down here for him. It's not likely you can do anything for him, however."
"But what, exactly?" Rick says, almost stepping on the end of Paris's speech. "I get you're right, but what would they do to a guy Mr. Johnson ain't even willing to replace? He even managed to talk his way into gettin' opted out of the testing initiative. Haven't they got enough guinea pigs?"
"That doesn't take 'punishment' off the table," Neil points out nervously. "Chell... do you know anything we don't?"
Chell shakes her head anxiously. He's missing and taking meth, she signs, so overcome with the implications of what Neil and especially Paris have said that she forgets herself for a moment. She thumps the heel of her hand against her forehead and reaches for her phone.
Rick is watching her intently as she does this, as though trying to puzzle out the signs, but if he is able to understand them, he doesn't say so. If only Wheatley could be here- he's so quick at translating for her that he's often saying the words out loud before she's even finished signing the sentence.
Chell wakes her phone, app still open and ready on the screen when it's unlocked. Her thumb feels reluctant to spell out what she needs to tell them. In the back of her mind, she wonders if Rick understood any of what she signed. She swallows as she presses the button to have the phone read out the long version:
"I know that he is missing and that he is taking meth which was given to him by Mister Johnson."
"Meth," Neil repeats, in a struck, strangled tone of voice. The word wants to be a question, but instead it's a statement, the horrified single-syllable of things that didn't make sense before now coming together.
"Mr. Johnson?" Rick says, his expression similarly stunned, but his voice louder, angry. "Are you sure about that?"
"Why in the world would Mr. Johnson do that?" Paris asks, seeming almost parts shocked and incredulous. "What would he have to gain from it?"
Chell draws in her lower lip as she inputs her next message. "He gave it to him to make him work harder and now Wheatley is addicted and thinks it's like an extreme version of coffee," her phone stated monotonously. "He got very angry. He doesn't want to acknowledge the side effects at all."
"Extreme coffee? Look, I get Wheatley has kind of a reputation for being kind of..." Rick gestures furiously with one hand.
"Spacey?" Neil volunteers.
"Yeah, that's it. But he's not a moron, I know he's not a moron," the taller man continues, becoming increasingly agitated. "There's no way he actually believes that."
"It's a side-effect of the drug," Paris states with a sort of know-it-all authority. He looks incredibly anxious to be talking like that, though he gestures proudly to suit. "It's got his brain chemistry working completely differently."
Rick looks at him almost accusingly, all full of feelings with nowhere to properly direct them. "Why is he on lockdown, then? Wouldn't having to come back for the meth make that unnecessary? Why keep him from going home at night?"
Paris shrugs helplessly, intimidated by the force of Rick's emotion. "I, um... I'm afraid that is something that only Mr. Johnson would know for certain." he is reluctant to admit.
"It doesn't make sense." Chell's phone agrees.
"Do you know anything else?" Neil implores of Chell, rolling his keychain in his hand. "Has Wheatley said anything to you? Where is he right now, have you already talked to him?"
Chell lowers her head, her expression falling with it. She has her phone answer, "He is busy right now." The same as she'd told Neil on their initial meeting. She fidgets a little with the phone and tries to decide what else she can say to questions like these.
"Busy," Rick says tensely, picking up on exactly what that probably implies in the context of this conversation. He looks away, like he's considering going straight to Wheatley's office to find him right now.
Paris's brow furrows, and it looks as much like he wants to block Rick's path as it does like Rick is going to take off, his muscles tense as he shifts his weight a little towards the space in front of other man.
"Yes. Busy." Chell answers. She hesitates, scratches at some imaginary stain on her screen. When her phone speaks again, it has a lot to say. "I just came from talking to him when I met you Neil. We checked a problem with the oxygen. It isn't flowing in the empty relaxation chambers. He told Mr. Johnson about it already. He didn't take it seriously. I don't know if it has something to do with this."
Rick is actually changing his course a little, not enough to break away from the group, but enough that he's clearly still considering it.
"There's always something like that going on around here," Neil says anxiously. "Some this breaking, some that doing weird things, some those people moving around. It's really hard to decide what has anything to do with what else."
"That is very true! Most likely it has nothing to do with any of this," Paris is quick to agree. "We should really concern ourselves more with this drug problem and why it's happened in the first place."
Chell looks unsure.
"I'm gonna go check on him," Rick decides abruptly, pulling away from the others with a purposeful stride. "I'll catch up with you beautiful people later."
Paris makes a go to catch him, but of course, Rick has planned for this. He is unable to step in the way in time, and curses under his breath as the other man effortlessly breaks away and walks off.
Chell does not try to follow him, unwilling to confront Wheatley again so long as he is in the state that he is. It's a split-second too late that she realizes she should warn him to this, and her phone says "Wait" just after that; a statement rather than a call, with no force in it whatsoever.
"Wait!" Neil echoes, with a lot more force, but this too is unheeded, and he hangs back by Chell's side, glancing at her with an anxious flutter to his movements. "...I guess he's headed to Wheatley's office. Is there any chance Wheatley's not in there?"
Chell shakes her head with a concerned frown. Wheatley is most definitely still in there, probably still seething and certainly still under the immediate effects of the poison he's put in his veins.
Paris is reluctant to follow as well, and he storms back to stand across from Neil. "That idiot is going to do nothing but cause trouble for himself," he grumbles.
"We don't know that," Neil says, still looking to Chell, perhaps for guidance or reassurance. "Anyway, anyway, we can't really do anything to stop Rick once he gets something in his head."
Paris pinches the bridge of his nose. "You're right about that! Huh!" He huffs.
Chell can't help but to think that the four of them seem awfully tight knit for Wheatley to speak of Neil, Paris, and Rick so rarely.
It's so strange. Maybe it's because they have to do with Aperture, and he dislikes talking too much about his job, especially lately.
Neil is watching her think. "Do you have any ideas? About what we can do for him? Wheatley. That is. Not Rick."
Chell exhales softly and shakes her head. She has her phone answer, "I just know that he is in a bad way right now and that we need to get him out of here and away from Mr. Johnson."
"You're right about that," he says, and then, a moment later, "what about you, though? How did you even get down here?"
"First I snuck in and then I got a job." Chell informs him, trying to look proud in spite of the phone's monotonous voice and the anxiety pooling and twisting in her belly.
"How did you get a job? What sort of a job is it?" Paris asks, almost suspiciously.
"Caretaker's assistant. I told Mr. Johnson that he inspires me and asked him to tell me what an amazing innovator he is." This actually does still make her proud, if not as much as it had when she'd told Wheatley the same.
Paris nods, satisfied by the answer. "Well... that makes sense."
"Wow," Neil says, looking from her back to Paris. "So... you weren't lying about being Wheatley's assistant now? Isn't that kind of weird? How does he feel about it? Are you actually hired or did Mr. Johnson just decide to accept your presence?"
Chell shrugs and shakes her head. "I guess he's just accepting my presence. I know a lot about Aperture's history with shower curtains and asbestos now. And science. Of course."
"Of course," Neil agrees. He doesn't seem sure what to say after that, in spite of his babbling only a moment ago.
"It's a rich and... rather convoluted history," Paris comments, feeling almost as out of place as Neil. It seems that all three of them have been left at a loss for words, and their thoughts show in the discomfort on their faces.