Chapter 5!

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"So. I'm going to be your test subject. It makes sense, since it seems the lady has disappeared from the facility. What happened to her anyway?" Wheatley took a look around the test chamber. It was simple, a button and a cube with a pit of acid in between. He watched a panel with a mirrored surface come down from the ceiling.

"I killed her." Wheatley froze.

"You.. killed her? Even after all she did for you, you killed her!?"

"Yep." Wheatley stared into space, then slowly sat down on the ground. He drew his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them. Which hurt, as the knees were unusually sharp.

"Cheer up Moron, it's not my fault she fell into that acid. Maybe the panel that malfunctioned to push her in was though..." the mirrored panel came to rest on the floor. "Anyway, say hello to your new body. It's going be yours for a while." Wheatley stood up and looked in the mirror. He was tall- very tall, his legs were stick-thin and his arms almost reached to his knees.

"Are humans supposed to have these proportions?" Wheatley asked. "I remember the lady was shorter than this..."

"It's just a shape I though suited you. Plus, I thought it would be a nice change from a sphere." More like the most awkward one possible Wheatley thought to himself. He looked in the mirror again, noticing his messed-up silvery brown hair and the rips and tears in the thin, white synthetic skin that covered his body. He lower half was covered in what looked like half of a jumpsuit, and had some strange bits of fabric hanging off his waist. Two handles were attached to his shoulders, what for he didn't know, but were a reminder of the core he once was. He found that they were very flexible, and he wiggled them around a bit before sitting on a raised panel and turning his attention the scraps of jumpsuit-nylon that hung from the metal loop around his waist. They were edged in a strange blue material, the same stuff that ran in a straight line up and down the front and back of his legs. He found that this material connected to itself, and slowly started piecing the rest of the jumpsuit together over his handles.

He was halfway done when a tube suddenly appeared through a panel in the ceiling. A portal gun and a pair of long fall boots dropped out of it. He looked at the camera staring down at him, then carried on with the jumpsuit. Eventually, he finished and went over to put the boots on. He stood up in the boots; they unbalanced him a bit and rubbed against the back of his heel, but they fit well enough. Then, he reached down and picked up the portal gun.

"Finally. We are ready to start testing." Wheatley slid his hand into the device, feeling three buttons on the inside, aligned to fit three of his fingers. It was a tight squeeze with the absurdly long fingers he possessed, but he managed it. He pressed one button, and a dull orange spark of energy shot out of the gun and hit the wall. It opened in a brownish oval. Huh, I thought it would be the same colour as the lady's portal gun. Wheatley went up to it and ran his fingers over the closed portal. The surface felt almost like a liquid, but he could not force his hand through. He pointed the gun at another wall and pressed the next button, but nothing happened except the device vibrating a bit. He frowned at it, then pressed the last button. Another blob of energy- this time greyish blue- shot out and hit the wall, opening another portal. He could see himself through the grey oval, and turned to the brown one to peer through. Sure enough, it had opened and he could once again see the back of him, staring through the portal. He took a step through. Hm. He'd expected there to be a strange feeling when he went through, like a shock of static, or some disorientation. But there was nothing. It was as if he took a step down a perfectly normal corridor, not a warp that seemed to tear through the fabric of space-time itself. Then again, he was an android, so maybe normal humans experienced something different going through portals.

"Now you've introduced yourself to the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, it's time to begin testing. This test is painfully simple, I expect even a Moron like you could figure it out." Yes, he could. He went over to the cube, and after a few moments thinking, pointed the gun at it and pressed the non-portal button. Sure enough, the spikes on the end of it spread apart, and an electrical energy crackled between them, lifting the cube off the floor. He tuned and went towards the grey portal with it, then dropped it to shoot a brown portal over the other side of the pit. Going through the portals, he set the cube on the button to open there door. There, simple. He knew how to test; he'd seen the lady do it.

"Congratulations. You solved the first ever test to be solved by an Aperture Science Human Shaped Android." The door opened, and Wheatley went through. The elevator doors closed around him, and he felt the elevator shift and drop down to the next test.

"But it was simple enough for a child to understand. Let's make the next one a little harder, shall we?" the elevator door opened, and Wheatley stepped out and through the door to the next chamber. He nearly dropped the portal gun in shock. The chamber was a mess of testing elements. Tubes, glowy spinny funnels, lasers, hard light bridges, turrets, jumpy plates, gels, even some things attached to the wall that emitted a ball of electricity every once in a while. He stared around the test chamber.

"Excuse me, but, uhm, is this what you mean by a little bit harder?"

"Why, do you want me to send you to one that is a lot harder?" Wheatley decided to shut up.

"Good."

A panel beside him suddenly retracted, then pushed a small dome-shaped radio into the room. It started playing a cheery tune.

"Enjoy the test."

This was a triumph, GLaDOS thought to herself, making a note of 'Huge success' on the files. Not only had the transfer and boot up been successful, but the android tested well. The only thing holding it back was the Moron itself, but she could fix that. She already was fixing it; the manufacturing wing was already busy creating new android core processors. She wondered what core would be next, then remembered the two cores that had fallen from space along with the Moron. They should still be in the repair wing, along with the portal gun. A scream came from the speakers on the monitor. Wheatley was running around, frantically beating at his hair, which he had apparently set on fire from a Hard-Light-Bridge.

"Those bridges are made of natural light pumped down from the surface. Consequently, they are quite capable of setting your hair on fire if you rubbed your cheek against one. So don't do it." GLaDOS clicked the intercom off with a chuckle, and went to the repair wing that held the two cores.

"Huh?" there was a third core there. GLaDOS checked the core. It was the fact core, the one that kept going on about facts that were usually 100% false. So it seemed I'll have three new test subjects then. She grabbed all three with some claws that descended from the ceiling, and dropped them into the transport tubes, programming the tubes to bring them to the core transfer area. Meanwhile, she set about designing the bodies for these new androids. After a few minutes, she had designs she liked for all three of them, and the manufacturing wing was hard at work, building the new androids. The process would be much faster than last time, as it was familiar. GLaDOS watched the machine work, then went back to Wheatley in the test chamber, who was walking up and down a bridge, apparently thinking.

"Get back to testing, Moron."

Wheatley flopped down behind a panel of the test chamber. He was exhausted and breathing heavily, which confused him as he didn't think he needed to breathe. He ran his finger over the sleek casing of the portal gun. A grey-blue glow emitted from a hole in the top. He stared at it, transfixed. It was this portal gun that had kept him alive so far. He closed his optics and sighed. His over worked processor slowly cooled down as he calmed his frayed nerves. He should of known from the very moment he was recalled into the facility something like this would happen. Okay, not exactly like this, but something bad.

He peered through the gap between the panel and the wall out into the test chamber. He's been working at it for hours, and estimated himself to be about a third of the way through. The panel he was sitting behind was about two-thirds of the way up the wall. An excursion funnel wound past just below the panel. He'd spotted the panel and pulled himself up into the gap when he was going past. Now he sat, contemplating on how to get past the next part.

"I swear some points of this needs two portal guns..." Wheatley said to himself quietly. He stuck his head out of the gap to look around.

"Oh, there you are." The panel shifted and pushed him out. He screamed as he fell, but the funnel caught him. He floated around a bit, then the funnel suddenly shut off and he fell heavily to the floor. Something in his back cracked as he hit the ground.

"Oww..." He sat up and rubbed it: pain flashed through him, making him groan again.

"I have a surprise for you." Now what? Wheatley thought. Turret party?

"As you probably haven't figured out by now, this test needs two people to solve it. How you've managed to work out how to get so far by yourself is beyond me. Oh, creative use of the adhesive gel, I see." A tube emerged from a panel in the ceiling.

"So, here, met your new testing partner." Wheatley watched the tube expectantly. Who was to come out of it?

"SpaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCEEE!" with a clunk, a small figure landed on the floor below the tube. It rose up to it's full height of not even up to Wheatley's shoulders, and started looking around frantically.

"Space? Space! Where's space. Space, not in space, gotta go to space. Space!" He was short, with bright yellow optic darting around and blondish hair. He held a portal gun in his left hand, and it emitted a deep red glow from inside.

"Huh, I guess mine isn't the only one with different colours then..." he went over to the newly android space core.

"Space! Space buddy!" Wheatley was suddenly being tightly hugged by the hyperactive android.

"Ello again. Didn't know she turned you into a human too."

"Space." Wheatley pushed space off, and turned to look around the test chamber. He still didn't see any solution to the current part, but he could figure out a few new things he could try now they had four portals. Mainly how many more places could be reached with the excursion funnel.

"Come on space buddy. Space, gotta solve to space test." Space ran off to a hard light bridge. "Space!" Wheatley sighed and followed behind.

"Whatever, buddy."

The two androids dropped into a test chamber. The shorter of the two stood up and looked around. he was more heavily built than the other androids, with dark, unkempt synthetic hair and the dark shade of a beard around his lower jaw.

"Alright, what's the situation?"

"Fact: the central AI is testing a new experiment where she transfers cores into humanoid bodies to test them."

Rick looked at the other android. this one was taller, with short, hair, darker than his but not black. he sure won't last a dangerous situation long, Rick thought to himeself. That's where I come in.

"Okay. No need to do anything dangerous, Rick's got this." He turned around to look at the door at the opposite end of the room. A cube sat at near them. Rick judged the distance between the two sides of the acid pit, then at the claw that hung, forgotten, from the ceiling.

"The Adventure sphere has an 89.34% chance of failing what the Adventure sphere is about to do."

Not listening to the fact core, Rick grabbed the cube and ran to the edge of the pit and jumped. He grabbed the claw, holding the cube between his legs, and swung over to the other side of the pit. He landed heavily with a grunt, and placed the cube on the button.

"Easy!" a shot of light blue energy hit the wall beside him, and the fact core came through the portal.

"The chamber was supplied with Aperture Science Handheld Portal Devices and Aperture Science Long Fall Boots to complete the test." He handed Rick a pair of boots and a portal gun.

"Well, it looks like you completed this simple test in a way I hadn't anticipated, well done." The claw receded into the ceiling.

"Please proceed to the chamberlock for the next chamber." The two former cores went through the open door into the elevator. The doors closed, and they waited as it dropped down a few levels. The door opened, and they went through into another chamber. Rick looked around.

"Fact, this chamber is possibly the largest test chamber ever built in Aperture."

"Yeh, whatever." Rick portaled a hard light bridge to them and hopped onto it. "Let's do this!"

Despite the fact that his inner clock worked now, Wheatley had lost track of time. He and space core were finally within sight of the exit, yet an obstacle of nothing blocked them. There was no bridges, no funnels, no portable surfaces, and jumping plates, nothing. Nothing except what looked like a huge bottomless pit.

"Space."

"Yes, I get it, space. Shut up now. Please!"

"No gravity, anti gravity. Walk on ceilings. Space. Look at space. Look at space."

"What!?" Wheatley looked up. There was a line of purple adhesion gel along the ceiling.

"Oh." He traced it through a hole in the wall, and looked down to see another hole. Space was already crawling through it. Wheatley went over and got on hands and knees to crawl through after him. Inside was an excursion funnel. Both floated up to the gel, and stuck both feet on it. They walked across the gel, upside down, over the pit. Wheatley looked into the pit anxiously, waiting for the gel to fail and send him falling in. but they got over safely. Space jumped and fell down, grabbing a cube that was sitting on a panel and slamming it down onto the button. Wheatley fell after him, landing on his back awkwardly. The pain that had been throbbing there ever since he first met space again came back with even more intensity.

"OWWW!" he sat up slowly. Something in his lower back clicked painfully, and he gently rubbed it. space skipped through the door, and suddenly fell with a yell of "SPACE!"

"Space!" Wheatley jumped up and ran over to where he's disappeared, and ended up falling for the same trap. He yelled as he fell, landing on his back again. Though this time he was slightly cushioned by the space core. He rolled off him and pushed himself up onto his knees.

"I'm seriously surprised you even managed to complete that." GLaDOS's voice echoed around the empty room. "Enjoy your stay in this room, I've got other subjects to test right now." The panel above them closed, and the light clicked off, leaving them in total darkness, save for the faint glow from their optics. Space suddenly sat up and pulled at the seams of his jumpsuit.

"What are you doing?"

"Starlight." He pulled the jumpsuit apart slightly, revealing some of his chest. A faint yellow glow emitted from inside him. It helped light the room a bit, even though Wheatley found the situation rather awkward. They sat in silence for a while. About three hours according to Wheatley's internal clock, when the light suddenly flickered back on and the panel above them opened. There were two screams, and Wheatley and space scrambled out of the way just in time for two more androids to crash down right where they had been sitting. They got up, groaning.

"Fact: the Fact sphere and the Adventure sphere have just fallen a distance of 50 feet. This is enough to cause minor damage to the Fact sphere's inner mechanisms." He twitched slightly. The other android was staring at Wheatley.

"Say hello to your new room mates. This is the adventure sphere, he holds the record for being able to start walking in the fastest time- 7.839 seconds, and demonstrate 50 different types of martial arts in under 5 minutes. And this is the fact sphere, holding the record for the most useless facts ever." Fact scowled at GLaDOS's mockery of him.

"The Fact sphere's facts are 100% accurate to the rate of penguins." One of his optics glitched slightly and he twitched a bit, and fell silent.

"Enjoy your stay."

Yes, I gave Rick a beard.