Chapter 5 - Preparation

Grace Pov - It was Saturday morning and I headed off to my self-defence class. My parents were at a wedding for the weekend (one of their friends from college) and I had been left alone. My Aunt Tessa was meant to have come down to 'look after' me, not that I needed it, but she had become ill at the last minute and was not able to come. Therefore, I had to trust my phone's built in navigation system and my ability to read a map. After getting lost at least twice, I finally found the small sports hall where the self-defence class was held. (We only moved into town last month and I still couldn't find my way around). The instructor, a tall, strong looking, blonde haired ex-boxer, got us to start with a simple warm up, jogging around in a circle and then doing various stretches to loosen our muscles and get our hearts pumping. Apart from me, there were three other people there: a middle-aged women who looked like she was desperately trying to get fit and feel young again, a young man, probably early 20s, with a large build, and an elderly man, who looked as if he may need a knee replacement. After the warm-up, the instructor, who's name I had learned to be Bradley, showed us some simple kicks. Whilst we were practicing these in pairs (I was paired with the middle-aged woman), I thought about our plan to rescue the mute girl. We were planning to get into Aperture and find the girl. I would go and distract GLaDOS, and Wheatley would go and get her. Then Wheatley and the girl would collect me and we would run for it, and get out hopefully unharmed.

I snapped out of my daydream and mentally rejoined the class. By body seemed to have been working independently from my brain because now we had moved on to punching and blocking. I was actually quite good at this self-defence stuff. When I started to focus, I really got in the zone. Kick, block, punch, punch, block, kick, punch, punch, punch, block. We carried on like this for about 15 minutes. By the end I was the only one left standing. The elderly man had started to get an asthma attack and had to sit out to try and save us all a trip to A & E. The middle-aged women had somehow managed to brake one of her toes and the man obviously did not have as much stamina as I thought he would.

At the end of the class, I wondered home slowly, stopping at the newsagents to get a sandwich and a packet of cheese and onion crisps for an afternoon snack. However, the food tasted like dust in my mouth as I carried on walking, terrified of the next day. What if everything didn't go to plan? What if I couldn't keep GLaDOS distracted for long enough? My mind spun with the infinite number of possibilities of things that could go wrong. There was only one thing I was sure of. Though I hadn't known Wheatley very long and I had never met GLaDOS or been inside Aperture, there was a very big possibility of our plan completely failing. And if this happened, I knew from that moment onwards, that I would be willing to risk my life to get that poor girl out of a life of slavery and labour in Aperture.

Wheatley POV - Grace was out at her self defence class so there was nothing much I could do but go over and over the plan. Thinking of my little mute friend made me wish that I had never betrayed her, although I wish that every day of my existence. There was not much else I could do without my management rail, so I was just stuck on a chair, thinking. Suddenly, I heard a key turn in the lock in the front door. I knew it would be Grace, but at that moment it occurred to me that if an intruder came into the house, I would be able to do nothing to stop them. I wouldn't be able to hide, and I, myself, would probably get stolen, since to most people I looked like a little, valuable, metal ball.

"Hi, I'm home," Grace called from the front door. Tammy came running down the stairs from where she had been trying to find out more about Aperture on Grace's laptop.
"Hi. How did it go?" Tammy asked Grace.
"Great," she said. "I was the youngest person there. Everyone else was over the age of 20. I mean, one man looked about 80. On the bright side, I won against all of them. I feel ready for tomorrow." I didn't know if she was actually ready mentally for what was in store but I wouldn't really expect anyone to be ready anyway, bearing in mind what GLaDOS makes humans do there.
"Hi, Grace," I called, hoping that she would come and get me from that bloody armchair. I had been stuck in it since yesterday and I would quite like to see a change of scenery. Hopefully, once we'd rescued my mute friend, she would take me on what humans call a holiday. It's when a human, or a group of humans, go to a place which they don't inhabit. It sounded fun.

After about 15 minutes, Grace and Tammy entered the room in which I was (what they called the 'living room').
"So, do you want to hear the good news or the bad news?" I asked them.
"I didn't know you had any news," Tammy said.
"Well, I been thinking," I told them.
"Sounds dangerous," Grace said.
"Not at all," I told her. "Every living organism thinks, and none of them have died from it yet. Anyway, the good news is that you can now defend yourself, Grace. The bad news is, it won't do much good with an opponent like GLaDOS. But if you don't give up, hopefully you will survive."