Once upon a time, a tiny bird hid inside of an egg, growing all the while and dreaming of the world outside. When the bird grew too big and broke the egg, it found the glaring sun and infinite sky too frightening and longed for the safety of its shell, but there was no way it could go back inside the egg.
If this human made it out, he'd be safe.
If he figured out how to survive off of his management rail, he'd be golden. They'd be golden!
If she spoke once in a while he'd feel a lot better. It was a little strange how she looked at him and listened but never spoke back. Maybe she couldn't talk. Brain damage and all.
If he couldn't get ahold of himself and figure out which thoughts were his, he and awful girl would never get this on with.
If she was capable of catching him, why didn't she? She had arms.
If Muse cared so much about him why didn't she tell him this might happen? If she was so smart, why didn't she know?
If they could get past Her safely, he'd thank Android Heaven for the rest of his battery life.
If she was so happy for him, why wasn't she smiling? He was happy. He was huge and powerful for once in his life. What was wrong with her?
If he had something to focus on, he could process all of this. But it was coming so bloody fast and all at once. How could he make sense of it?
If she was around, he felt safer. It was odd. She was a human, and no doubt a rather smelly one after all that running around and sleeping. She wasn't like the other test subjects who'd off and died. She wouldn't die. Remarkable, it was. She had quite a talent.
If she cared about him so much, why didn't she tell him her name? Why did she plot against him with Her-tato? Why wouldn't she just perform the bloody tests? Why wouldn't the fix work anymore?!
If he could say sorry to her, the guilt would go away. That was how guilt worked. It had to be. An Itch had a fix; guilt had to work the same. He was a bloody machine. His emotions shouldn't work like human ones!
If he could speak, he could say sorry to her. If he could speak, he could talk to someone about what was going on. If he could speak he could talk to someone again about anything and he wouldn't have this awful storm going off in his head all the time.
If she would just DIE…!
"Cero! Come on, Cero! Wake up! Jesus…!" Mari shook the cyborg who crouched doubled over, hands over his face and eyes flashing. His fingers were digging into his own face, and it took all of Mari's strength to wrench them a few inches away. He didn't react to her otherwise, even as she shouted into his ears.
"Cero! What's wrong? Are you sick? Come on, please! Don't leave me here…!" She hated herself for panicking, but she was used to the rafters and roads of the upper city. There were parts even she'd never explored, controlled by the Puppets, but even they couldn't compare to this seemingly endless maze of underground tunnels. Her ragged boots splashed in the two inch layer of water and she nearly slid again as she ran in front of Cero, attempting to force him to look at her. He just stared past her, eyes flickering and unfocused.
Moments later, he started shaking. He wasn't crying in a literal sense; she guessed those ocular implants surrounded by puffy scar tissue couldn't do that. But she recognized the sharp gasps and shudders.
"Oh, come on man. Don't…okay. Are you having a…it's okay. Grandma has this happen sometimes." Not that Mari knew what Michelle was thinking about when she stared at seemingly innocuous objects like broken glass tubes or bent scaffolding, only to abruptly lead Mari in another direction and refuse to look back. She'd only ever heard Michelle cry late at night, when she herself was supposed to be sleeping. But it was the closest refrence point she could think of, and she needed Cero to pull through whatever it was.
She placed a hand on his arm, which felt rock-hard under the layers of cloth, as if he were made of nothing but fabric and hot bone. "When this happens, I just talk a lot. I can't do much else. Sorry, but…I can't hug you. Don't know you very well. It'd be weird. But listen to my voice, okay? I'll talk about anything at all." She didn't say it, but at times like that the sound of her own voice comforted her as well. There always had to be someone else around to be strong and brave; when Mari was the one who had to be strong, she certainly didn't feel all that brave. It just made her feel smaller and more vulnerable.
"What should I talk about? Can you hear me? Well, I'll keep going anyway until you can." Mari ignored the drop of cold water splashing onto her hair. "How about…okay. There's this place Grandma told me about. It's really far away, way far south and west. She isn't sure what it is, but she thinks it used to be some kind of inland sea that dried up. There's ruined houses that predate the-you know, the aliens. They're all rotten and look like someone just wanted to get away from them. There's salt all through the air blowing everywhere and dry beaches made of fish bones. Fish bones! Doesn't that sound weird? I really want to go sometime…"
Cero's heavy breathing was starting to subside. He was glancing back and forth, still apparently unable to see Mari or focus on her, but at least he wasn't clawing at his face again. A few drops of blood dripped down his cheeks, ignored.
Talk was working, she hoped.
"She saw the aliens, too. I bet she helped fight them, but she won't tell me about it. I know she did, though." Mari wanted to cry a bit herself. Would this keep happening? She was separated from Michelle, who might be in worse shape than Mari thought, with a cyborg who was having a breakdown not 20 minutes into their journey.
No. Grandma was worth it.
"She just doesn't brag. She's humble. I'm probably not gonna be like that when I grow up. As soon as I do something amazing, I gotta let everyone know. How can I keep that in? It's easy to be modest when you think you've done a whole lot. When you're doing something amazing for the first time, it has to be like…like your first taste of candy. Or the first time you climb all the way up to the roof of somewhere. There's this rush. Do you know what that's like?"
Cero jerked away from her and stared at her, recognition returning to his eyes to her relief. He nodded very slowly, straightening himself back up despite visible shaking in his hands and mild flickering of his eyes.
"…Okay, are you here? Can you hear me? Do you want me to keep talking?"
Another slow nod was followed by a much more fervent one. He reached out like he was going to pat Mari on the head but withdrew his hand, staring at it and shoving it tightly against his chest.
"Uh, sorry, I'm not sure what that means. Anyway…I-I can keep talking." Mari's own heartbeat thudded in her chest as she walked along. It would have been better for them to approach in silence in case there really were Puppets stalking about, or worse. Were the rumors of sewer alligators escaping to the train tunnels true? But Cero was the muscle of the two, and she needed him to stay conscious. Besides, what would Muse say if Mari accidentally broke her cyborg?
"Right, so other stuff Grandma's seen. There's a place where all this runoff from factories started piling up and killing a bunch of the plants there. So it sunk into this toxic pit…okay, from how you're staring at me you don't think that's cool. No more scary stuff?...Right, no more scary stuff." Mari tried to think of something to talk about that didn't involve fish bones or toxic lakes. "Oh, uh…she found this one valley. People used to live there, but I guess they fled after the aliens or something. There were just a few occupied cottages. It was somewhere in the mountains during the spring, and she said there were all these flowers blooming everywhere. Some kind of flower she'd never seen before, and it was really blue, like…" She turned to point to his eyes. "That blue."
Cero stopped and pointed to his optics, tilting his head questioningly.
"Well, I guess I don't know if it was that kind of blue. She didn't say. She said it was like the…sky, except not the sky here." Mari took a deep breath. Her throat was starting to feel sore from talking so much in the damp air. "Can I rest now? Are you gonna be alright?"
At first Cero shook his head vigorously before stopping and nodding instead. It meant he wasn't okay, she guessed, but he seemed alright with the awkward silence that followed as they trudged through.
He was carrying a tattered backpack Muse had arranged for him with what Mari hoped were supplies. Sure, Muse didn't need food and water and was also insane, but surely as a medical robot she at least had the clarity to know Mari and Cero did.
There was no silence; the absence of her voice was filled by sloshing noises, squeaks and skittering footsteps of unseen creatures. There would be no disguising their approach from anyone or anything down there between the light in Cero's eyes and their footsteps. So Mari ignored the way the air burned her throat down here, took a deep breath and started talking again.
"This one time, Grandma saw a volcano. In Idaho! She said it was called Craters of the Moon…"
Cero…
No, Wheatley.
Wheatley clung to the sound of Mari's nasal voice. He felt as if he were about to drown in a murky flood of memory data and her stories of things The Lady had seen were the only things keeping him in the here and now, where he was Cero with a hodgepodge not-really-human body. He kept slipping back to the years in Aperture where he spent endless hours on management rails desperate to find something to do, monitoring sleeping humans and avoiding the wrath of a machine god. Then he'd be in the Lady's capable hands, urging her on to what he was certain was the way out. Then he'd be the machine god. It took work to remind himself that this awful journey in the flooded tunnels wasn't also a memory.
And then there was the guilt.
That was the awful feeling he felt from Mari's glare. He understood where he'd seen it before. That was the Lady's glare, 'Michelle' apparently. When he was a god and looked down at her, seeing how utterly tiny she was and how petty his friendship with her had seemed, she had turned that glare on him. The molten fire behind those eyes stayed with him every moment he was in space with poor Cosmo, chatting the other robot's ears off. When Mari gave it, she was just looking defiant. It was like an angry kitten. But the look the Lady had given him…
She hated him.
Emotions were like the Itch. They had to be. They built up until they had a release. When he was lonely, he alleviated it by spending time with Cosmo and imagining himself talking to the little robot. When he was hungry, he ate. (Hunger was an emotion, wasn't it?) The logical solution to guilt was to apologize, somehow. He would apologize to Chell and, once forgiven, be free of the thick coat of remorse coating every recovered memory like molasses.
He smelled mildew and rot. Smell and touch were novelties he imagined he would enjoy more if the scents and textures he encountered didn't invoke instant revulsion in the human part of his body. He was sure he hadn't been walking very long and already was well acquainted with the sensations of dankness, humidity, moisture and stickiness. Mari, awful child that she was, stomped ahead as if it were nothing. Several times he had to jog a little to keep up, urgently pointing at his eyes to remind her that he was the one with the flashlights.
Having a general sense that parents and grandparents generally passed traits onto their children, he found himself wondering about Mari as flashes of the younger, healthier Chell he'd known returned to him. Mari didn't look a lot like Chell. She had short curly hair and darker skin, spotted on the nose and cheeks. Her facial structure was different even if the expressions were similar.
Moreover, she talked. There was no frustrating feeling of mystery when Wheatley occasionally paused to see if she was reacting to his hacking skills, his flashlight or his bravery in leaving his management rail. She moved like Chell, though obviously a little smaller and more hesitant. It was understandable; she had no Portal Device, after all. She had no defense except him.
Mari turned back to look at him again. "Are you listening? I mean, no offense, but it's sort of hard to hold a conversation like this."
He carefully nodded for fear she'd stop talking. Looking down at his hands, he tried to figure a way to convey the words please stop talking about bloody terrifying things, won't you? Don't you have any nice, calming interests? I'd like a happy distraction even if I probably don't deserve one. As there really wasn't, he let his hands drop to her side and waited for the next tale of dead fish lakes, underground fires and whatever other horrors Chell seemed to have made a habit of finding over the years.
But nothing came. Instead, Mari held a finger up to her closed mouth and backtracked, moving up close to him. There was an intersection of tunnels up ahead, and sloshing sounds coming from around the corner. Wheatley froze in place and looked down at Mari, staring. What exactly did she want him to do? What was she looking to him for? She was the human! Wasn't stopping whatever was ahead her job? He was already providing a light!
She scowled up at him and pushed him towards the wall of the tunnel. Oh, of course! He pressed his body against the wall and dimmed his own lights. He only realized seconds later he had his hand over Mari's shoulder as she followed his lead. Well, naturally. If she slipped again she would give them away.
A green light shone from the walkway, worn on the dented hard hat of a tall figure in a long coat. Well, he or she didn't have optics. With luck this person was just passing through and wouldn't care. Maybe luck would go Wheatley's way.
The flashlight shone directly on the two intruders standing against the cold stone wall as water drizzled into Wheatley's hat.
Why would luck ever go Wheatley's way?
"What's this?" The voice was deep, and probably male. Wheatley couldn't see its holder very clearly through the glare of the flashlight. When he adjusted his vision, he made out a lanky figure wearing some kind of cloth mask underneath the helmet. "You know we charge a toll to get through here. Cough it up."
"Bullcrap," Mari snapped before Wheatley could stop her. "The tunnels don't belong to anyone. Nothing here does."
Flashlight Helmet tilted his head and laughed; it echoed through the stone tunnels. "Well no, there's no deed. But I live here, and I have expensive needs. So you wanna get past, you pay a toll." He removed one of his gloves, revealing a scarred but human-looking palm with five jointed knife fingers attached, gleaming. "She's been askin' for a few locks of hair and as it is, I'm all out…"
She. Well, of course. Why would Muse warn her little 'doll' about some of her loony customers living down here? But hair, he had hair!...Well, no, he reminded himself as he rubbed underneath his cap. He had barely grown-in fuzz in the parts that weren't metal-plated. He looked to Mari, who had those short curls. Surely she'd understand! Neither one of them wanted a fight, after all.
Except Mari clearly didn't understand. She grabbed Wheatley's arm and whispered. "Cero, this guy's a creep. We need to get past."
Well, yes! We need to get past this ugly lunk, so if you'd just stop being selfish and offer up your hair… He turned back to watch the toll man Puppet leering at the both of them, grinning with entirely too many teeth.
Mari was squeezing his arm in a vice grip. When she looked up at him again, her brown eyes were wide enough for him to see the whites.
Oh, bloody hell! How was the the Lady used to carry him? Under her arm usually, though occasionally she held him in front of her. That wouldn't work for the elongated shape of a human. Grabbing Mari by the waist, he lifted her onto his back and hoped she'd find a way to hold on. Thankfully she clung to him right away, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and neck. Clever human!
"Hey! I told ya, no getting past! Don't try anything funny…" The Puppet raised his bladed hand near his face, about to bring it down against some part Wheatley no doubt didn't want shredded. Taking a deep breath and rushing into it before he could regret his own actions, Wheatley held an elbow in front of his face and started running against the man, right into and over him.
He felt something quick and sharp against his face as the scarf snagged against the Puppet's scissor blades and kept running, leaving it behind. He wondered from the shouted curse if he'd hit the toll man a bit harder than intended, but didn't care. He was quite sure he'd be screaming if he had the voice for it.
But how fast he could run on those legs! It was much quicker and more flexible than a management rail. He ignored the furious shouts and curses from the man pursuing him, just running madly until he could find somewhere to hide for a bit.
"You got him good!" Mari held Wheatley's shoulders, apparently not aware she was shouting into his ears. "Just keep running! Uh…turn…turn over there! If you keep turning corners it's harder for someone to catch up. Keep going in a straight line and you'll just get tired."
He was sure he'd never tire as long as that maniac was behind them, but he heeded her advice, turning down one narrower tunnel and then a wider one opening up into some kind of waterway lined with a path. His chest was burning and he had to catch his breath.
"You're really hot. –I mean hot to the touch." Wheatley had no idea what else Mari could mean. She jumped off of his shoulders and blew on her hands. True enough, he did feel like his insides were cooking. Raising his hands to remove the scarf from his neck so he could expose his heat vents, he remembered the scarf was back with Mr. Snippykins.
Immediately he turned away to ensure Mari couldn't see his exposed face, briefly catching it reflected in the smooth surface of the water and shuddering at a mouth and eyes lined with scars. There were fresh red lines across his cheeks, dripping scarlet.
Mari mercifully didn't push to face him, instead leading him to a stepladder mounted into the wall. This led into a tunnel so narrow they both had to crawl, Wheatley with some difficulty. "He got you a little bit, right? Don't touch it. Your gloves probably have all kinds of crap on 'em and you'll get infected."
She turned around, and Wheatley immediately dimmed the lights in his eyes as she reached into her bag. "Hey! I need to see for this. Okay?...Man, Muse is a medic. She better at least have provided…alright, here we go. Jesus, turn the light back on!"
Sighing, Wheatley brightened the light again, illuminating his face for her to see. Mari stared for a moment, but rather than scream or call him ugly she just reached into the bag again and pulled out a tiny bottle and bandages.
"Alright, this is going to sting a little." Moments after her understated warning, Wheatley felt her apply something torturously burning and sharp to his already beleaguered face. Was she punishing him? Had she already figured out who he was and what he'd done? And what was she doing with that bandage?
The burning faded after seconds, and Mari had attached the adhesive bandage to his face before capping the bottle. "Disinfectant. Grandma taught me that. I guess she had some bad infections in her day. Anyway, just don't touch it."
Infections? Chell? He tried to remember if he'd spotted any signs of it from his time with her. He'd seen her bruised from long jumps and battered by bad falls. Oh, and then there were the times he tried to kill her. That might have done it.
What was it Muse had said about memories? He would regret having them. He already missed just being Cero, who only looked monstrous.
"Hey, what's wrong?" Mari peered at Wheatley, poking him in the shoulder. "You smashed right through that guy. I don't think he'll be able to follow us here. Honestly, that was kind of fun! Riding your shoulders, I mean. Not that I'd do it all the time. So you're gonna be okay, right?"
Well, no. I tried to kill your gran. Is there a way to fix that? There some bandage for that?
Wheatley nodded.
"So we keep going in further and we're bound to find…some clue. In the meantime, I'll keep telling you a story. I mean I guess we should sneak around, but they're gonna hear us moving no matter what. So do you want to hear about this wall mural I found?"
He wanted to hear another story about Chell, and what odd miracles he could have seen with her if he'd just gone in the bloody elevator. But he nodded anyway.
Michelle awoke to a giant yellow eye.
She choked back a scream and sat up, groaning. For a moment it took her a moment to recognize the flimsy-looking cot in the claustrophobic little room full of clutter. How irresponsible of her, to fall asleep in the enemy's lair. But her earlier hypothesis seemed to hold. Muse had left her alone when the medication had taken effect. In fact, she felt a bit better. She was collateral. It was strange to think a clearly insane artificial intelligence was trying this time to keep her alive.
As for the eye, it belonged to a dented personality core with a great crack through its optic. It had the strange addition of eight spidery metal legs on its sides which wiggled eerily as Michelle picked it up in her arms.
"Shh. I know you." She had wondered if the poor little Space Core had indeed followed Wheatley up to his namesake, and here he was back on the ground. If only Muse had chosen to give Space the body and keep Wheatley a harmless spider. The Core was oddly silent, its characteristic babbling replaced with a faint hum and clicking sound.
Yet as she held him on her lap, she could hear that voice in her head all over again. Not the Space Core's excitable chatter, but the optimistic and only slightly condescending British voice reassuring her and leading her through a plan she was sure wouldn't work. She had thought the basketball-sized core would be heavy, but they all seemed to be at least partially hollow. She could remember all too well Wheatley's little "nod" with his big blue eye as he spoke with total confidence, no matter how dire the situation.
Space blinked up at her, staring through that yellow iris optic.
And then she was back there again, running through a quaking chamber slick with gel and stinking of gunpowder and smoke as the core in her hands spoke of the "space cops." The great blue eye loomed over her, his chassis looking bloated and grotesque with the haphazard shields, and he was screaming at her…
She hadn't meant to push Space Core from her lap. The little ball recovered his footing quickly and scampered off no worse for the wear, running for a wall and scraping his claws against it as if trying to climb. Based on the little scratches near the floor here and there, it wasn't an uncommon action.
Rising to her feet and letting the blood return to her limbs, she resolved to leave nostalgia to a time when Mari's life wasn't at risk. The room was full of scattered broken objects and books, many of them stained or torn. Walking down a hallway painted a faded clinical white, she came across entire rooms full of clutter. A closet was packed with shoes, and another room held mountainous heaps of clothing smelling of wet dog and old sweat. At least she could see where Cero got his haphazard outfit.
Compared with the vast underground complex of Aperture, Muse's "laboratory" was almost pitiful. If she could guess, it was some kind of refitted bomb shelter, though parts of it suggested an office of some kind. They would have been close to the old, unused subway tunnels. Unlike the meticulous GLaDOS and obsessively reconstructive Wheatley, Muse seemed to care little for the status of her surroundings. Her little bowling pin drones rode back and forth, bumping into Michelle and muttering a little beep.
She peered around every corner before proceeding, in case a turret was waiting to greet her. Whatever Muse was, she was Aperture. Sure the beating in her chest couldn't be good for her heart, she still refused to let her guard down.
A dull buzzing noise led her down another hallway, past rooms full of jars, an actual medical supply closet, and one room that seemed to be entirely empty save for giant blobs of blue and orange paint smeared in uneven shapes on the walls. The buzzing turned to a hum, and then a literal human-sounding hum. It was Muse's voice, coming from behind a heavy steel door. Michelle detected the copper smell of old blood.
No. Just turn back and wait it out. Try to find out where her power source is coming from and threaten to break it until she gets Mari back. Go find Mari yourself and damn those knees and that heart.
She pushed against the cold metal of the door and it opened easily.
The air was thick with the scent of copper. This room was bigger than the rest, even as crowded as it was. Arranged around the room were figures, some of them leaning over desks, others covering their faces or crying. Some wore tattered shirts resembling labcoats. One leaned over a crate painted to look like a Companion Cube. Several others lay sprawled out on the floor like corpses. They were all humanoid and life-size, constructed of garbage, twisted wire, and bones.
Hanging from the ceiling, throwing a shadow over the figures as it was lit by a sickly yellow light, was Her.
No, it wasn't Her. The massive, unwieldy-looking sculpture had been wired together with shoes, cloth, broken plates and warped metal. Michelle could detect shards of glass here and there, all of it held together with wire mesh. The shape was unmistakable, however. The great wheels were formed of broken bicycle wheels and tires. The massive head loomed down at Michelle, perpetually frozen in a wordless glare. Where GLaDOS's great yellow eye had been was the broken front of a bleached human skull.
Michelle covered her mouth and buckled over. Muse, hanging from a management rail that ran in a rectangle around the GLaDOS replica, immediately hovered over her. "Oh! Many apologies. I didn't see you there! But you really should knock. I was so busy working. You know how art is. Just breathe through your nose and you'll be fine. The chemical smells are probably a little hard on you, aren't they, Grandmother?"
Taking deep, slow breaths, Michelle glared up at Muse. No, Chell. Today she was Chell again, the jumpsuited monster.
The centipedal robot seemed unconcerned and unaffected, clapping her two front arms together with a metallic ping. "You do know her, don't you? Cero reacted the same way. I'm sure he didn't realize what he was seeing, but some part of him remembered. We never really forget. And yet you're a human. You're a human she didn't…"
Muse's pupil shrank to a pinpoint, and the robot edged ever closer and stretched her long body until Chell could feel the heat from her optic. "You're a human she knows and fears. I…I want to know about that. Please! Please tell me. How did you make her fear you?"
Chell ignored Muse, forcing herself to her feet and marching out of the room. Her stomach churned, and Chell reminded herself it was just a sculpture. A ghoulish sculpture of a monster. The sole yellow optic stared at her through the empty eyes of the skull when she blinked. No, think of the potato. Think of the moon. Think of Mari.
"Please!" Muse raised the pitch of her voice, whining like a child. "I thought if I built her, I could visualize her and feel stronger than her. She never feared me. They tried to use me to distract her, but it didn't work. Instead she-she-and she's out there! She's out there with her terrible monsters, here to take me back. Grandmother, tell me that story! Please, tell me…! I need stories."
Digging her fingernails into her palms, Chell turned around to face Muse again. "Help me save Mari."
"Who? Oh, the little girl? But…she's gone with Cero to recover my treasure. That's the payment."
"With a traitor. I can't trust him with her." She wasn't used to speaking in anger, but silence was useless against Muse. "I'll tell you everything."
Sure. Let Muse know what she was dealing with.
Muse looked uncomfortable, her body swaying back and forth. "I don't know where they are. Even if I broke my deal and fixed your body, you'd be just as lost…"
Chell spun around and started marching away again. "Wait, wait!" She heard Muse's voice, desperate, and the screech of her management rail. "Wait, Grandmother! I can make another deal! That's what humans like, right? Deals? That's how it works…"
Chell stopped walking and waited. She didn't turn around. "You know about Aperture."
"Of course. Something, anyway. I'm from there. Tell me, did it burn down? Did it flood?"
"No. You tell your story first. That forcefield. This city. You tell me everything you know about it. You tell me why things are the way they are." It all made sense now. Muse was connected to the secret at the center of this city. It was Aperture after all. "If you lie, I'll take your treasure from Mari and break it."
Muse hovered, crawling up the length of her own body and clinging to the rail with all of her legs. She hemmed and hawed, moaned and clicked her legs against herself. Finally she let herself hang again, curling upwards like the tail of a scorpion. "Fine. I don't know why you care about the truth. It's all so subjective. But you can have it. But if you don't tell your story afterwards, I'll…I'll take your spine and use it for that witch's sculpture."
"Don't worry. I'll talk. I have a lot to say."
Charley cursed and limped back through the tunnel, holding his shoulder. It burned, the pain to strong to alleviate with alcohol or sleep. He could guess that damn ugly cyborg had dislocated his shoulder when he body-slammed past Charley with the brat on his back. Whoever the man had been, he'd hit like an oncoming train.
He was sure he could find his way back to that doctor robot's office. He had the tunnels memorized; it was a survival technique when one was just a small fry Puppet. A few more locks of hair and he would have been able to afford better upgrades. Now he'd just have to blow all he'd collected just to fix his shoulder.
Two figures appeared in front of his clouded vision. The woman was tall and lean, the man shorter and muscular. There was something off about their faces. It hurt to look at them even in the dim light. Their skin was too flawless, like glass.
"Are you alright?" The woman leaned over to look at him, raising her hand as if she was about to touch him on the shoulder before stopping short. Her movements were halting, like a squirrel's, and she had large orange eyes. "You look a bit damaged."
"Yeah. Thanks. Didn't notice," Charley grunted. He tried to lurch past when the male half of the duo spoke up in a baritone.
"We're looking for a tall man in a lot of clothing and a teenager."
"And a box," the woman added politely, clasping her hands. "A very important one."
Charley laughed, though it hurt to do so. "Oh, Ugly there? Yeah, he went past me. I think he ran towards the old waterways. Or the sewers. Go ahead and kick his ass for me. As for a box…I dunno. There's that thing the King has, but good luck getting it outta his hands."
"King?" The woman looked to the man, and it was the latter who walked up to Charley, tapping his foot and examining him with glowing blue eyes.
"What king? Where?"
"Ohhh, so you're new. Look, I have somewhere I need to be. You wanna mess with the Puppet King, go ahead and have fun with that." Charley coughed and waved his hands. "Go on, get out."
The two oddballs seemed satisfied enough with his answer, and brushed past him. As they did, Charley reached into his pockets and pulled out a pair of shears, snipping off a long lock of the woman's hair.
She shouldn't have felt a thing, and yet she stopped walking immediately. He could have sworn he saw the glow of orange fiber-optics on the tips of the black hair he held in his hand. She turned around and glared down at him as he realized she was about as tall as he was, and when she spoke it was halting but commanding.
"I'm sorry, but that's Aperture property. You'll have to give it back."
He spat into the water. "Not gonna give you good advice like that for free, am I?"
The woman and man looked to one another and nodded.
"On second thought," the woman said as she returned to her chipper tone and he felt her unearthly strong grip on his arm, "I think we will take you to the doctor ourselves."
Chapter End Notes
Well that chapter got creepy.
