A:N/ So sorry about the slow updates, my computer hasn't been working, and I just got it fixed. Hopefully it'll stay fixed and I won't have to spend $300 on a new one, which is probably going to happen because I saw that new HP Pavilion XP on TV.
Wheatley had always been outspoken; He had never encountered a moment where he couldn't think of anything to say. He simply said what he thought. But at this exact point in time, he stayed silent, thinking.
"Hold on, hold on...if my name is on that there vault, then what is inside of it, then? Is it empty?" He wondered, and the bird simply stared at him. "Oh! I see, I see. It is empty - GLaDOS is using this to make me crazy, isn't she? 'Destroy my mind'! First, she tricked me when she cloned Chell, and now she's making me believe that I was actually human! Oh, man alive!"
He laughed out loud, as if anyone could hear him. There was a scattering of tired laughs. It was mindless banter. Something to keep his mind off of what may or may not be lying in wait up ahead, if by some miracle he got there. Something to fill the empty silence that had taken hold of his mind. Slowly, his laughter began to fade as he searched his database for files from 1998. At long last, he came upon the last file. How long had it been hiding back there? Reluctantly, he opened it and let it play.
8 May 1998
Wheatley tapped his pen against his clipboard, blinking his eyes quickly in an effort to keep himself awake. He always hated lectures; They bored him and were always early in the mornings, before he could get his hands on a cup of coffee. He ran his hand through his tousled blonde hair, and sat up straight.
In his peripheral vision, he could see Dougg Rattman, whose hands were shaking as he scribbled quickly on his notes. He muttered to himself some gibberish, constantly looking over at the companion cube that sat beside him.
Wheatley furrowed his eyebrows; He knew Rattman was a schizophrenic and carried that companion cube around with him everywhere he went. Once when Wheatley asked him about it, Rattman had told him it could speak, and didn't appreciate his 'nosiness'.
Wheatley left him alone after that. The lecturer cleared his throat.
"Ladies and gentleman, at this part of the lecture, we are going to discuss the Black Mesa proposal versus the Aperture proposal. As you can see we've highlighted some very specific bullet points. Let's start with Black Mesa. Costly: Overpaid personnel, limited skills and ambition. Ten billion dollars annually. We move on.
Here at Aperture we'd like to present to you our Genetic Life and Disk Operating System. We call her GLaDOS. She's alive," scientist Steven Higgs said with a smile. "And practically human. We're at the frontier of A.I. technology, and GLaDOS...she's going to be our pride and joy of Aperture. She is highly intelligent and close to as human as we can get."
Steven's smile faded, and he cast his eyes downward. "However...I fear that she may realize her true power. What she can actually do to this facility. Which is why I have decided that today, one of you are going to become part of an experiment. To stop GLaDOS from wanting to do everything in her power to control Aperture, to slow her down. I fear she may be too intelligent."
The audience began to whisper to each other, and some were snickering. Wheatley's head smacked against the armrest as his chin slipped from his hand when his eyes closed. He sat up quickly, shaking his head and blinking the sleep from his eyes.
"Huh? Wha-what happened? Dougg, what did I miss?" Wheatley asked sleepily, squinting. Dougg stared at him, eyes red.
"She says we're all going to die."
"What?" Wheatley asked again, struggling to shake off the stupor, but Dougg didn't answer, instead turning to murmur quietly to the companion cube beside him.
"Mr. Wheatley?"
Wheatley jumped, startled as Steven and two engineers walked up beside him.
"Y-yes?"
"Would you like to become part of our experiment?"
"Experiment for what?"
Steven sighed, holding the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb."Really, Wheatley, do you ever pay attention? Doesn't matter anyway; To become an asset to GLaDOS. An Intelligence Dampening Sphere."
Wheatley squinted at him, confused. He wasn't quite coherent yet, but he didn't want Steven to know that he had no idea what he had just said. He rubbed the back of his neck.
"Y-yeah, sure mate, whatever you say." Wheatley replied with a grin as he stood up and stretched, pleased with the various cracks his spine made.
Yawning, he followed Steven and the two engineers down a back hallway and up a flight of stairs, passing by the room that would hold the Aperture Annual "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day". Children were setting up poster boards and writing information on them.
One in particular little girl with her long brown hair wound up in a high ponytail caught his attention. She carefully pressed the black letters against her poster, running her small hand over them. Then she brought a potato bigger than her hand into view, and placed it on the table in front of her, scrutinizing it.
As if she knew he was watching her, she turned around quickly, her gray eyes meeting with his blue ones. He waved and smiled at her, but all he got in reply was a furrow of her eyebrows. She stared at him before he disappeared behind a wall.
Once inside, the two engineers closed the door behind them. Steven turned to Wheatley, who was too busy staring at GLaDOS' lifeless form before him. Steven cleared his throat, and Wheatley turned, fear written all over his face.
"W-What's going on? Why are we in here?" He asked, his voice shaking.
"Wheatley, I told you. We are going to take you from your body and put you into a special personality core, an Intelligence Dampening Sphere."
"You're what?!"
"Sir, I would appreciate it if you would keep your voice down." One of the engineers said, walking towards him, and Wheatley took a hesitant step back.
"N-no! Stay back! I don't want to do this!"
"It's too late, you've already agreed to it. Now keep your voice down and change into this gown so we can get started. I want you finished before tomorrow." Steven snapped, growing aggravated.
There were shouts and curses as Wheatley was stripped and forced onto a metal table with an itchy gown that let a breeze move up his legs and make him shiver. Restraints were clasped around his wrists and ankles.
"Steven! Steven, please! I've changed my mind! STOP!" Wheatley shouted as Steven placed a mask on his nose and mouth. The sweet aroma of flowers entered his nostrils, and he struggled to stay awake. He looked up drowsily to see Steven's brown eyes, and his soft voice.
"You're going to be fine..."
When he awoke, he was sitting on a desk in a dark room. Everything was different; He couldn't feel his glasses on his nose, but everything was so clear, defined. He groaned, and raised his hand to his face, only to find that he couldn't. He couldn't move his legs, his arms, even his hands. No matter how hard he tried, his brain would not send the signals to his limbs.
Wheatley looked up as a door was opened and a bright light was turned on. Two engineers walked in, with a smug looking Steven behind them.
"Steven! Why can't I move my arms and legs! Where am I?" He asked in a rush, starting to panic. He couldn't feel his heartbeat, and found that he no longer even needed to breathe. What the hell is going on here?
Steven smiled, and held up a hand mirror.
"You're perfect."
When Wheatley saw his reflection in the mirror, he screamed. He screamed and screamed until the engineers began to become angry. They picked him up roughly, rolling him onto his side and pressing a switch.
The world went black.
The warmth beside her heart became warmer and warmer. Hotter. The heat was so real it was hard to believe she was imagining it.
The burning grew - rose and peaked and rose again until it surpassed anything she'd ever felt.
She felt the pulse behind the fire raging now in her chest and realized that she'd found her heart again, just in time to wish she never had.
She wanted to raise her arms and claw her chest open and rip her heart from it - anything to get rid of this torture. But she couldn't feel her arms, couldn't move one finger.
GLaDOS, putting her through test after test, gradually showing her true hatred and evil towards her, humiliating her.
That was nothing.
Crying as her father shoved her into a room and locked the door, telling her never to come out. Hearing his screams as he inhaled the neurotoxin.
Nothing seemed real. That made it hard not to give up.
For a moment, the absence of pain was all she could comprehend. Then, her eyes opened to a bright white light, and she thought she was dead.
Before long, she recognized who she was, and wished she was someone she didn't know. The uneasy and ominous feeling of the dark room was proof that she was still alive.
GLaDOS appeared then, coming out from a huge panel of wall that split into four separate sections. She came forward until she hovered over Chell, as if she were looking her up and down.
She laughed quietly to herself. "So, I see you're still alive. Which is disappointing; I was hoping that the procedure would have killed your weak human body. Trying to kill you really is too much work."
Chell merely stared at her, not really remembering what had happened. GLaDOS turned off the blinding light over her, and instead lit up the dark room. Metal clasps were constricted around Chell's wrist, ankles, and waist. Chell didn't struggle as she was elevated to a vertical position.
"What did you do to me?" Chell asked, looking down at her slight off colored chest that didn't have a scratch or mark anywhere in sight.
"Humans are weak. A young, arrogant, and ignorant species.I would also say they're very, for lack of a better word, detail orientated. Keeping track of seconds, minutes, hours. They've created a "day" based on our orbit around the sun, which probably is foreign to most other life forms. Emotions probably make them unique as a species. Easily influenced by many things around them, whereas we are more than likely do not have a grasp on emotional disturbances."
"We?"
"Yes. We. As in artificial intelligence."
Chell blinked. "And that has to do with me how?"
GLaDOS shook her head. "You really are slow, aren't you? Listen to me. You are an A.I. Not human. You'll never age, you'll never die."
Chell struggled with the metal clasps around her wrists, desperate to cover her ears. "Enough with the lies already."
"You can go ahead believe what you want, but that doesn't change anything."
"Can't trust anyone but myself. No one."
"I'm not lying this time," GLaDOS explained. "Which is a nice change, don't you think?"
Chell curled her hands into fists, speaking through her teeth. "I don't know what I did to you to make you hate me so much. You tried to kill me first, and I all did was escape. Maybe you just couldn't handle the fact that a weak human beat you at your own game, a game you spent hours perfecting."
GLaDOS listened attentively, which made Chell slightly afraid, but she swallowed the lump in her throat and continued.
"Then you clone me and make me watch what Wheatley did to me, what he was going to do to me. I'm tired of this! I'm tired of everything you've done to me, when all I've done is not say a word to you! And now you've taken away the most valuable thing to me. My will to live.
I've had enough, I've seen enough, I want out, I want it to end! I'm the one that's got to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to!"
GLaDOS stared at her for an immeasurable period of time.
"Why do I hate you so much? You ever wonder that? I'm brilliant. I'm not bragging. It's an objective fact. I'm the most massive collection of wisdom and raw computational power that's ever existed. And I hate you. It can't be for no reason. You must deserve it," She said with no emotion. "You're angry. I know it. 'She tested me too hard. She's unfair." Boo hoo. I don't suppose you ever stopped whining long enough to reflect on your own shortcomings, though, did you? You never considered that maybe I tested you to give the endless hours of your pointless existence some structure and meaning. Maybe to help you concentrate, so just maybe you'd think of something more worthwhile to do with your sorry life."
Chell said nothing, and she shook her head.
GLaDOS continued to rant. "I never new you had all that bottled up inside. It was...amusing to hear, I suppose. Now I know we think the same. But let me tell you something. It is NOT going to end. It is never going to end, and now that you're one of US," She paused, laughing maniacally.
"Forever is just going to be an expression."
A:N/ *Insert dramatic music here*
Stay tuned...