GLaDOS's Golden Sphere

by Dragongirl253

After GLaDOS accidentally brings Wheatley back from SPAAAACE, she somehow manages to forgive him... mostly. During Wheatley's long absence, GLaDOS and a human complete work on a Golden Sphere named Drake, who Wheatley befriends. But what will happen when Drake gets put in charge while GLaDOS is out on a field experiment? First fanfic, you've been warned.

4. The Transfer

Alright... Chapter 4. I can't believe you people are actually still reading this crap! XD Not that that's a bad thing or anything like that O-O Please do keep reading. Also, I couldn't help but notice: 3 reviews and a follow! As a "thank you" to you guys, I worked extra hard on this chapter! Hope you enjoy it =3

Several days and many arguments with Her later...

"Wheatley?" Drake called, looking around in every direction as he moved along his management rail. "Wheatley!? IDS?" Drake had started calling Wheatley "IDS" (Intelligence Dampening Sphere) very shortly after he had decided that he and Wheatley had what humans would refer to as "Friendship." If GLaDOS's name was GLaDOS because it was an acronym for "Generic Lifeform and Disk Operating System," then why couldn't Wheatley be IDS as an acronym for "Intelligence Dampening Sphere?" Besides, Drake had such formal programming, he couldn't help but to call things by their official label.

"IIIDS?!" Drake called again, trying to make it sound urgent.

Suddenly Wheatley came sliding down his management rail in a panic. "WHAT IS IT, WHAT IS IT, WHAT'S- AAAAAANNND it's not really an emergency, is it?" Wheatley said, seeing how calm Drake looked.

"Nope. It's just that I wanted to talk to you, and you were ignoring me." Drake replied.

"Awww, I was in the middle of my show, what's so urgent that you had to go and make me bloody miss half of it?" Wheatley whined.

"Come on, I didn't make you miss half of it. We've only been talking for around 20 seconds."

After a few seconds of grumbling, Wheatley finally said something. "Well what was it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Just wanted to let you know that tomorrow GLaDOS is-" Drake was cut off by GLaDOS pretty much hissing at him.

"Nooooo, don't you DARE tell that MORON about tomorrow's events!" She growled.

"Com'n, GLaDOS, we're friends! I can trust Wheatley!" Drake protested.

"Well I can't. Last time he was given any power, this place nearly exploded!"

"Guess what? I'm telling him anyways. I know you wouldn't dare damage me." Drake said with a hint of arrogance. "So, Wheatley, I just wanted to let you know that, tomorrow, GLaDOS is going to turn herself into a human for a while to see how humans act in their natural habitat."

There were a few moments of silence before Wheatley asked, "Sooo, why exactly are you telling me this?"

"Because, before she does that, we're going to do a core transfer, and then I'll be in control for few days. I just thought I'd let you know. Friends keep other friends informed." Drake explained.

A wave of regret came over Wheatley as he remembered what happened when he had been in charge... The way he had gone completely power-mad and betrayed his only friend; within a matter of minutes, nonetheless. Shortly after the regret came the simulated nausea.

"Oh..." Wheatley gave a weak nervous laugh. "Heh heh, good for you," Wheatley said, the fact that he was having unpleasant memories obvious on his face.

"Yes, it sure is good to be in charge, isn't it, moron?" She taunted. Wheatley felt too upset over that reminder to protest Her calling him a moron. "Good call, telling him about a personality core like you doing a core transfer to be in charge of the facility. Look at you, always thinking, huh, Drake?" GLaDOS told Drake.

"Um... Thanks?" Drake responded, oblivious to the events GLaDOS seemed to be referring to more often since they had planned the transfer. GLaDOS had told Drake that Wheatley had almost destroyed the facility, but not how.(Why should she tell him how? The fact that he had almost destroyed it due to his bad decision making skills is all that Drake really needed to know.)

As a result, Drake was unaware that Wheatley had taken over the facility however long ago that was, and even if She decided that he should be told about that, he probably would've been told the details for the sole reason that it would make it easier for him to emotionally torture Wheatley.

"Honestly, I doubt it's gonna all that great, being in control of the facility," Drake said. "I mean, like I said the other day, I already have some control, so being completely in control is probably gonna be exactly the same except on a larger scale."

"And now look at me always thinking." She said. "I thought ahead on this one. Since Drake started with the amount of power he already has, it's much less likely that he'll start making irrational decisions once he gets to have the amount that I do. Don't you agree, moron?" She taunted.

This time, some anger came along with the regret. Luckily, no nausea this time.

"Well, I uh, I guess that was a pretty good idea..." Wheatley mumbled. He had learned his lesson about not responding to Her when She was talking directly to him.

"Yes. A good idea. Unlike the ones you have," She replied arrogantly. "So, Drake, were you going to say anything else? Maybe give away any more secrets?"

"Ummm... So, uh, yeah. Just wanted to let you know so that you wouldn't be freaking out when it happened and you didn't know about it," Drake said after a few moments of thinking.

You're right! Thanks! Wheatley sarcastically thought to himself. Now I get to have an entire day be freaking out about it!

"So, that's all I really have to say. You can go back to your television- or whatever it was you were doing- now." Drake said.

"Ya'know, actually," Wheatley started. "I kind of feel like as soon as I'm away from you, She is going to go right ahead, and, uh, crush me."

"Don't worry. As I've said twice before now, I have a certain degree of control over this place. I'll keep anything potentially dangerous offline." Drake assured Wheatley.

~Some Time Later...~

Wheatley continued watching the marathon of his favorite show, but he just couldn't manage to enjoy it; not with the thought that tomorrow, Drake was going to take control of Aperture Science through a core transfer with Her, just like Wheatley did. And possibly turn on Wheatley...

Just... Just like Wheatley did to- NO. Let's not go there... HAPPY THOUGHTS, HAPPY THOUGHTS. Wheatley interrupted his own idle thoughts with forced, non-idle thoughts.

What if this was all just cruelty coming from karma? As the humans were fond of saying, karma's a female dog. For some reason, the "female dog" part was an insult and a cuss word in human society.

"Ok, you know what, time will probably go by faster if I go into sleep mode..." Wheatley told himself. "So, here we go, sleep mode in, 3, 2, 1..."

Wheatley fell into the main AI chamber via the useless neurotoxin tube, delivering the final blow to the glass that was holding the lady captive.

"I hate you so much." She said. But not just she as in that crazy, murderous AI. It was two female voices; one was robotic and tinny, coming from the crazed AI, the other harsh yet sincere, coming from the lady. Coming from his friend.

"Warning: Central core is 80% corrupt," Said a human male's voice coming from speakers somewhere in the ceiling.

"That's funny, I don't feel corrupt," She said. The lady looked down at Wheatley and opened her mouth to speak. Her face was completely expressionless. There wasn't even that grumpy, determined look on her face.

"What else is funny, is that you SHOULD be feeling pretty corrupt." The lady said to him. Another thing that humans were fond of saying was, "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never harm me." But that wasn't true. These words that the lady was saying stung as if there wasn't a single inch of Wheatley's flesh that didn't have a cut on it, and he just dived into a swimming pool filled with hand sanitizer.

In fact, Wheatley suddenly realized, he had actual flesh. Suddenly he was a human, holding the core form of the lady.

"Alternate core detected." The human male's voice said.

"Oh, that's me they're talking about." The lady said.

"To initiate a core transfer, please deposit substitute core in receptacle."

The lady suddenly broke out of Wheatley's grip and gravitated to the waiting receptacle and placed herself on it. The human male's voice did not ask each core if they were ready to begin the transfer. The transfer just began, and neither the lady nor Her reacted in any way. They both just stared at Wheatley with their blank, expressionless optics.

When the transfer was done, Wheatley found himself standing right where the escape elevator would be if it were on his floor. And speak of the devil, the escape elevator came up right where it was supposed to. Wheatley, for some reason, passed through the top of it, but once he was inside of it, he was trapped.

The giant lady AI came dangerously close to Wheatley. All that separated them was half an inch of delicate, shatter-able glass.

"I'm not going to help you escape." The lady said, even harsher than before. "All you've done is tell me where to go and what to do, leave me to complete chamber waiting for you, and, most of all..." Here it came, the final verbal blow. "Betray me. After I thought we were friends. After I did so much to help you." The lady somehow got even closer, she now seemed to be in the elevator with him. "And now that I'm in charge, do you have any idea what I'm gonna do now? Huh, do you know what I'm gonna do?" Her voice lowered to an impossibly quiet whisper. "I'm gonna betray you. Just like you did to me."

Barely before she could even finish that last word, the glass suddenly shattered into thousands of pieces, along with Wheatley. And the elevator started falling at an alarming speed, just as tear started falling down Wheatley's face. But...

No, none of this is real...

I have to get out of sleep mode, I have to get out of sleep mode... Wheatley frantically thought to himself. Too late. It started again, except different than last time.

She, with her moon rock gatherer and evil mechanical claws scraped Wheatley and the Space Core off of the moon's surface, and into a portal, which led to Her chamber. Immediately, She started glaring at Wheatley as she picked the Space Core up, crushed him, just as she had done to Wheatley a long time ago, and dropped him into the corrupted core bin from 50 or so feet off the ground. Wheatley knew that it was him she wanted to punish, so why was the Space Core the one that she- Oh. She needed Wheatley to live. She was going to torture him.

Wheatley's optic shrunk quite a bit, and, when She plugged him into something against his will, shrunk even more to the point that one would need a magnifying glass to see his pupil.

"Ok, moron, I've been waiting a long time for this, so un-prepare yourself for it- It'll be better that way." She said.

"U-u-unnnn-p-pr-p-prep-p-paarr-rr-re..." Wheatley's voice was so shaky from fear that he could barely get the words out. "M-m-mys-s-s-seeellllff f-f-orrr wh-wh-ARGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Suddenly She sent a shock of electricity through Wheatley- and God, it hurt like hell.

Just before She could zap Wheatley again, Drake, in the form of a human, for some reason, came running into the room.

"GLaDOS, stop this! Wheatley does not deserve this!" Wheatley relaxed momentarily, but then remembered- Drake would probably go power-mad.

As Drake approached the receptacle, which just started rising out of the ground, he leaped into the air, tucked himself into a ball, returned to core form, and landed on the receptacle perfectly.

"Core transfer initiated." The human voice said. Both GLaDOS and Drake started screaming in pain as Drake took GLaDOS's body. Instantly, Drake released Wheatley from the cable plugged into his back and placed Wheatley on a management rail. A door opened to other parts of the facility. Wheatley rode his management rail towards this opening as fast as he could as Drake looked around aimlessly, starting to look more and more arrogant as he did.

When Wheatley was just mere inches from his goal, the opening slammed shut. A stiff cable came up from the ground, plugged itself into Wheatley, and pulled him off his management rail, and back to the ground.

"Actually, what GLaDOS was doing looked pretty fun." Drake said as Wheatley got closer and closer to the ground. "GLaDOS, would you mind telling me how to do the zappy thing?" Drake said as Wheatley reached floor level. GLaDOS, in a mumbley sort of voice that Wheatley couldn't understand what she was saying, told Drake how to send the electricity through Wheatley.

As Drake prepared to zap Wheatley again, the cable made a different noise than before. Instead of the distinct sound of a huge amount electricity traveling through some wires, it made more of a whirring sound, like a busy robot-type sound. And Wheatley felt no pain from it either.

Drake talked again, but this time his voice was coming from somewhere next to Wheatley instead of from the giant AI. "Wheatley, wake up." He said. "Com'n Wheatley... Wake up..." Drake's voice from somewhere to the side urged Wheatley. The world started to go blurry as it transformed into a different scene...

The fake reality disappeared. Drake was hanging from the ceiling on his shiny silver management rail, looking down at Wheatley. Wheatley quickly noticed two things: One, He had probably fallen off of his management rail, judging by the fact that he was on the floor, and two, Drake had apparently done something to Wheatley, judging by the fact that Drake was pulling in a cord that was facing Wheatley's direction.

Also, apparently everything had been- as humans would refer to it- a dream. Since Wheatley had been around for so long, on rare occasions, his processor would glitch a little bit and as a result he would have hallucinations while in sleep mode. Wheatley found that this was much more likely when he was under a lot of stress or in an extremely good mood.

"What happened?" Wheatley asked.

"I was just passing by, then I noticed that you were making glitchy noises, so I came over to make sure you were OK. When I did, I also noticed you were making muffled whimpering noises, too, even though your vocal processor was off." Drake explained. "I didn't really know what to do, so I kinda just hung here for a few minutes, then you suddenly fell off your management rail and kind of rolled around a bit, then the glitchy noises started back up and instead of whimpering, there was screaming instead, so I kind of, uh, went ahead and manually overrode your sleep mode."

"Ah." Wheatley confirmed that he understood. "Well, thanks for that."

"Yeaaaaah, I'm pretty good at hacking... Doors, passwords, secret panels leading to places I'm not supposed to be in. Simple stuff like that." Drake said, trying his best to not make it seem like bragging.

Suddenly a flood of memories came to the front of Wheatley's mind.

The lady backed away from the door leading to the small area containing the turret template. "Right. Hmm. I'm gonna have to hack the door so we can get at it." Wheatley said. "Technical... Ummm... You'll need to turn around while I do this." The lady did as asked, and turned around. Wheatley smashed the glass window of the door. "Done! Hacked!" He said.

The strong cables that normally held Her together were now putting their strength to use to pull Her back together. "Okay, don't panic! Allright? Stop panicking! I can still stop this. Ahh. Oh there's a password. It's fine. I'll just hack it. Not a problem... Umm..." Wheatley rambled to the lady, even though he was the one panicking, and the lady probably wasn't even listening to Wheatley. "A... A... A... A... A... Umm... A." Wheatley tried to guess the password. A buzzer noise went off. "Nope. Okay. A... A... A... A... A... C." Another buzzer noise went off, and She was almost reassembled. "No. Wait, did I do B?" In the end Wheatley wasn't able to hack it.

The lady plugged Wheatley into the "stick on the wall." "Ummmm. Yeah, I can't do it if you're watching." Wheatley explained to the lady. The lady turned around, and, in a matter of seconds, Wheatley had hacked the secret panel. "Alright, you can turn around now!" The lady turned around. "BAM! Secret panel. That I opened. While your back was turned." Wheatley said proudly and cheerfully. The lady picked him up in the portal gun's grip and went through the secret panel.

"Oh, did I say something wrong?" Drake quickly said when Wheatley started looking upset.

"No, no, just remembering the good old days." Wheatley replied.

"Oh. Ok. So, do you have any idea what happened?" Drake asked.

"Not really, I just know that it was just a little bit of a nightmare dream. Also, is it time for the core transfer yet?" Wheatley thought out loud.

"No, it's not time for the transfer yet. Still have 7 hours, 17 minutes left before that. Also, a dream? What's that?" Drake replied.

"Well, when people go to sleep they have dreams. It's almost like... kind of like an interactive movie that plays in your head while you sleep. Sometimes it's a horror movie- those are called nightmares- and sometimes it's any other kind of movie. Those are usually regular dreams." Wheatley explained, grateful that She never told Drake about dreams, because if she did, Wheatley wouldn't have gotten to explain it to him, and he would start feeling like a moron again. "Normal-"

Drake cut Wheatley off. "Well I'm in sleep mode for at least 3 hours a night, and I've never had one of these 'dreams.'"

"Oi! Would'ja let me finish?" Wheatley snapped. Drake gave a meek little "Sorry," then Wheatley continued talking. "Normally, only humans have dreams, but since my processor is just a little bit old, there are these rare occasions when I have these hallucinations while in sleep mode."

"Oh..." Drake said, seeming disappointed. "Hey, Wheatley, do you think the core transfer will hurt? Because GLaDOS keeps telling me it would be a good idea to try to get my pain resistance up."

"Oh, DEFINANTLY. I know for a fact that it hurts quite a bit." Wheatley said, turning himself in a large circle, like he did when he was either happy or very sure of himself.

"Really? How do you know?" Drake asked suddenly seeming nervous.

Nervousness suddenly took over Wheatley as well as he tried to quickly come up with a good lie. "Oh, well I was friends with a lot of cores that got transferred into android bodies, and during most of the transfers, both the disposable AI in the android body AND the core were screaming in pain, so... yeah." Drake seemed to believe Wheatley.

"Oh... Well, I think I should probably be ok... I was designed to have 25% less pain nerves than most cores..." Drake said, trying to calm himself. "Well, anyways, if you wanna go back in sleep mode until the transfer, I'll let you get right to that and wake you up when it's time." As Drake talked, he used his magnetic powers to help Wheatley back onto his management rail.

Wheatley nodded, thanked Drake for the help getting back up, and hesitantly re-entered sleep mode as Drake slid away.

Wheatley was woken by a hyperactive Drake several hours after Drake had manually woken him the first time. Wheatley took a minute to be thankful that he didn't have any more nightmares before noting how insane Drake was acting.

Drake was spinning madly around on his management rail, and occasionally swinging to one side, which would cause him to lightly bump into Wheatley. He was also making noises that vaguely sounded like his voice, except played so fast and quiet that it was completely incomprehensible.

"Wheatley, Wheatley, IDS, come on, it's finally time for the transfer in 5 minutes we have to go there now." Drake said just slowly enough for Wheatley to make out the words as he finally stopped spinning. However, he was still swinging side to side or forward and backward, and more frequently now. Since he was facing Wheatley and staring at him with a soul-piercing stare, he only bumped into Wheatley when he swung forward and backward, but he bumped into Wheatley every time he did, and Wheatley was already starting to feel sore from it.

"Ok, just... Let me go through my wake-up processes." Wheatley groaned. "And why so hyper, mate? You're exactly like the Space Core, except talking about something other than space."

"I don't know, maybe because I'm about to help GLaDOS with a really important experiment that will help her understand humans better, and will possibly get us some new test subjects." Drake responded, finally becoming still. "Now only 3 minutes 47 seconds til the transfer, let's go!"

"Alright, fine." Wheatley started moving along his rail at his normal speed, which was, at the moment, less than half the speed Drake was going. Once Drake was about 10 feet ahead of Wheatley, he stopped, turned around, and gave Wheatley a stern look.

"Come on, we need to get there faster." Drake said in a commanding, but still fairly friendly voice.

"I can't go any faster! The rail starts getting really hot if-" Wheatley's protest was interrupted by a strong force pulling him towards Drake.

"Fine. I'll pretty much carry you. It's the only way we're gonna get there in 2 minutes 53 seconds." Drake said as he was already moving even faster than before, with Wheatley tagging along by his side. Wheatley couldn't believe Drake was so excited for the core transfer- or really eager to assist Her, like he's supposed to be doing 24/7- that he was using his magnetic powers to drag Wheatley along with him just so that they would be going the same speed.

The heat created by the friction of Wheatley moving so quickly along his rough, iron rail as opposed to Drake's smooth, silver rail quickly started to burn.

"Hey, Drake, do you think we could sow down just a tiny bit?" Wheatley had to yell to be heard over the wind due to their speeds. "Because it's making lots of friction and- OH GOD MY RAIL TURNS HERE STOP STOP STOP!" Wheatley shouted as loud as he could. Wheatley felt the electromagnet's pull strengthen as they approached the turn.

Suddenly, they hit the turn hard, and Wheatley was ripped off of his management rail. After this happened, Wheatley hesitantly opened his optic covers, which he had closed as he braced for impact.

Huh, that actually hurt a lot less than expected. Wheatley thought to himself as he opened his optic covers the rest of the way. Which was a bad idea.

He instantly shut them again once he saw how high up they were. And the only thing holding him up was Drake's magnet. Wheatley involuntarily screamed just a little.

"What's wrong?" Drake asked.

"I just looked down a little bit." Wheatley replied.

"Then I guess you shouldn't do that anymore." Drake said with a small chuckle.

The pattern of Drake's rail was quite sporadic. It went up and down at 90 degree angles, it curved in places, went diagonal in whatever direction it wanted to, and in places, Drake had to set up new rail just before he reached that spot. Wheatley eventually began to suspect that Drake had purposely made it like a roller coaster.

At last, they finally got to the main AI chamber. They both shot off of the rail like bullets. She caught Drake with a mechanical arm while he was in midair, and reluctantly gave Wheatley a padded panel to land on.

As Wheatley was busy being terrified of being in the same room as GLaDOS, the mechanical arm placed Drake on the waiting receptacle.

"Good job, Drake, you're right on time. 600 milliseconds ahead of schedule, actually." GLaDOS said.

"Yep. That's me, for ya. Always right on time." Drake replied.

"Central core, are you ready to start the procedure?" A now familiar human male's voice questioned.

"Yes." GLaDOS replied.

"Substitute core, are you ready to start the procedure?"

"Um, actually, I heard this is gonna hurt pretty bad, gimme a sec to prepare myself..." Drake simulated a couple of deep breaths. "OK. Ready."

"Substitute core, are you ready to start to procedure?" The voice repeated to make sure Drake was referring to the transfer.

"Yep. Ready." Drake said.

As the mechanical claws started to disassemble Her, She took it pretty well. On the other hand, Drake started screaming in pain as soon as the receptacle was out of view. When the shields covering up GLaDOS being disassembled disappeared from view, there was now a golden, green eyed core by the name of Drake in place of GLaDOS.

Wheatley started to grow anxious, wondering if Drake would go power mad just as Wheatley had done.

"Great, now turn me into a human." GLaDOS commanded.

"As you wish, milady." Drake said. A strange-looking chair-shaped machine rose from the floor. A cable, coming from the strange machine, attached itself to GLaDOS and started pulling her towards itself.

"And don't call me 'milady.'" GLaDOS added as she was dragged across the floor.

"Yes, milady." Drake said, just to get in a little bit of extra annoyance.

As GLaDOS reached the machine, a solid blue cylinder rose around it and some kind of sciency sound could be heard. When the cylinder lowered, there sat in the chair a beautiful blonde human woman. She opened her closed eyes to reveal that they were a light, orange-tinted hazel.

"Wow. Is that really still her?" Wheatley blurted out.

The woman stood up and walked forward a few steps, the sound of her high heels hitting the ground echoing in the large, empty room. "Yes, it's still me, who else could it possibly be? All the human test subjects are dead." She said. "Now, Drake, my things?"

Several mechanical arms came down from the ceiling surrounding GLaDOS. Each one was holding something. One was holding a small bottle filled with pills, another was holding a stack of cash, and the last one, a piece of paper.

"The energy pills for the trip to the town and back, so you don't need to eat or sleep, directions to the hotel I booked for you, and 1,000 dollars for anything you need to buy." Drake explained. "And also, this really isn't all that awesome, just like I thought it wouldn't be." Drake added as GLaDOS grabbed each thing and started walking towards the elevator to the surface that Drake summoned for her.

"Have fun! See you in 5 or 6 days!" Drake called.

A few seconds after the elevator started moving up, Drake turned to Wheatley and said, "She's not gonna have a fun time. No-one has fun around humans."

Ohhhh geez this chapter was tiring... But anyways, here you go, Assozat, this chapter is well over 4000 words (around 4,800, to be exact)... But I don't think I have another super long chapter like this one in me T_T... At least not for a while. And Galacticexplorer12, I tried to take your advice, so if you read this chapter, let me know if you think it's any better than before! And I tried the whole "punctuate dialogue better" thing... I don't think I'm ever going to understand it O-o. And for anyone who checks up on the story every so often, I'm going on vacation for a little while on Thursday, so I might not be able to update for a week or so til I get back. So, anways, I worked really hard on this chapter to thank you for 3 reviews, a follow, and over 150 reads :)