He ran. Didn't think about it, he just ran, breathing harsh, ragged, sweating. Oh, God, what had he done?!
He can't stay dead, Cube reminded him, He will survive Her.
But the man would still die, regardless, and he, and he just—!
It was a necessary sacrifice, Cube said.
Keep running, Cube told him.
What was the point of it?! He could've kept him along!
The man would've hindered you, eventually, and vice versa.
Your roles were too diverse to be compatible, separation was inevitable, indeed vital. It is best this way, Cube reminded him.
In every definition of the term, though, he now classified as a murderer.
The dead body on your metaphorical hands will deconstruct within five minutes, and recompose alive, whole, and well.
Amongst the enemy. He could be our enemy, now. And he wouldn't blame him.
He would come to understand. He is a mercenary, who deals with other mercenaries, and a hunter no less.
He understands survival, so he'll understand you.
He understands trust, too, and that hadn't been it.
Trust is not always so simple, or pure. Keep running.
He stopped, and in spite of himself, dry-heaved into the nearest, dusty wastebasket.
His immune system tried to empty something that'd been empty for a long, long time.
You are going into shock. This is normal, and for now, pardonable. We aren't being pursued.
So She was after the Australian. Not him. He might've saved him, he might've—!
Accompanied a man with a target on his back? He was doomed to die, and is capable of it. Not you.
Die by the enemy, not by him, he might've been able to keep him alive for a little longer, at least!
This is part of the plan, you understood this, you prepared for it. Why does this distress you so?
Because he was...
He collapsed on the desk chair, which miraculously bore his weight, and he stared at his Companion on the desk.
Because he was human.
He laughed aloud—such a stupid, simple thought! Human!—and then cringed, as Her voice crackled over the intercom system.
"I have your friend, you know."
Don't listen to Her. Just tune Her out. Why don't you make a drawing? There's a nice wall right there, go ahead.
He stumbled to his feet, spilling open his pack, at the wonderful colors, and turned to the wall Cube indicated.
"At least, he might have been your friend. I don't think he is, any more."
"Shut up..." he mumbled under his breath. What was a good base? Blue, make it blue...
"Would you like to see him and check? Of course, it'd be hard to talk to him, given that he has:
Six vertebrae of his vertebral column shattered, and the respective discs ruptured,
Four ribs bruised, five broken, and consequently
A punctured lung,
Internal bleeding in the lungs and stomach,
And many bruised and battered organs.
And that was just from the fall you gave him. You remember? The fall after you let him go?
It was about 12 meters. That's about 40 feet, roughly the height of a three storey building.
I'm impressed, honestly. Even I'm not that sloppy. I would've made it five storeys, at least."
He shook his head, quickly, finding black chalk, making some dust of it to rub on his hands.
She spoke up again.
"You know, you'd think the Aperture Science Long-Fall boots would've saved him. I wonder why they didn't?"
He paused, hands shaking as he tried to trace a shape in black on top of the blue.
"Are you wondering why they didn't?
I'm wondering why they didn't.
Aperture Science products are designed to be infallible."
She 'hummed' thoughtfully, and he shook his head again, needing to find some yellow. Yellow, yellow, yellow...
Shut up, shut up, shut up...
"Maybe all that tugging he did to get them off tampered them somehow? It's sad that nothing can be truly foolproof.
Unless they were purposefully tampered with."
Don't listen to Her, She doesn't understand necessity, She doesn't understand you, She doesn't understand human...!
"Oh..." She purred, and Her voice was ecstatic, "You are evil..."
"SHUT UP!" he screamed, throwing whatever was in hand at the nearest speaker.
The chalk bounced off it with a pathetic 'plink' to shatter on the floor in a dusty spray of red.
"You should know, of course, that I can't actually hear anything you say at the moment.
But I'll be considerate and presume you're denying the truth?
You were waiting for him to die. You prepared him for it."
Strange voices crackled over the intercom, and Doug cringed as he realized She was playing back pieces of a certain conversation.
The Sniper's boots had bugged him, and Doug had offered to loosen some of the external parts, though neither man could take the boots off.
But while doing so, he had the opportunity to disconnect the graviton regulators in one of the boots...
"Of course, you couldn't be patient. How nice," She continued happily.
"You made him his own noose and wrapped the present of your betrayal with it. Humans really can't be trusted, can they?
Especially the murderous ones, the ones with schizophrenia."
Just tune Her out, man...
He turned back to his picture, and quietly worked on it, twisting inside.
"Don't worry," She soothed, "I'll be sure to let him know that you are doing just fine."
Let it go, the Cube told him gently, as a piece of chalk crumbled under the force of the man's grip.
The plan will work, She'll get Hers, and everything will be okay, Doug.
Doug?
Everything will be okay...
. . .
The Scotsman was in a slump against the wall, amusing himself by trying to count how many of those running devils there were, then how many of the spidery ones, and constantly losing track, and feeling just dandy about it.
"Why aren't you testing, test subject?" the witch-woman asked from Her ceiling.
He scowled, "A man'll rest when he needs t', and seein' as I don't have me bloody drink, I can't rest proper. So it'll take a bit longer."
"Alcohol dulls the brain even more than it had been before the alcohol, and impedes your results, and therefore impedes Science.
Alcohol is a detrimental vice, and so is unnecessary."
"Tell tha' to my kill score!" he chuckled, and scowled at the spiders, "Will ye stop movin' around? Yer bloody hard to count!"
"Kill him. Slowly." She told them, and they responded eagerly.
Yet when he popped back into the world of the living, he went to the same spot and sat down, clearly unimpressed.
She waited.
He did nothing.
A few shots ricocheted off the wall, very near his head.
He did nothing.
"Alright, what is the point to this?" She asked wearily.
He grinned, eye glinting, "I'm on strike, woman! The point should be obvious!"
"Enlighten Me."
"Scrumpy improves me performance, aye? I drink, I test!"
"No drinking."
"Then no testing!" he decided, and crossed his arms with a sigh, "Could use a nap, anyhow."
"You dare..."
To his surpise, from the far wall, a giant one appeared and looked at him.
"Well, tha's a new one..."
And then another one opened up, "And now there's two a ye, well, well..."
"What?"
She sounded as surprised as he was, "TWO?"
. . .
"BIRD, BIRD, BIRD, BIRD, BIRD!" the Scout screamed, running as more of those crazy flying pieces of crap tried to divebomb him, beaks slicing at his hunched back, small tiny bullets lodging under his skin and stinging like Hell.
The Pyro was screaming something over and over too, swinging at the things with its gun.
Scout wasn't too sure the guy was saying 'BIRD'.
. . .
The two Kings faced each other, seeing something of equal power in a place too small.
This would not do, there could only be one King in this small place, and this shameless imposter it saw before it was not it.
The only solution was battle, and so, destruction.
. . .
"I could drink t' this..." the Scotsman chuckled, sitting back and enjoying the show.
The two giants were brawling, clawing and shoving at each other like oversized roosters, laying waste to the chamber and the smaller machines.
She was screaming and cursing organics and other random things She could think of.
This was a decent day to be sober.
. . .
The Heavy watched the screen with anticipation, waiting for the BOOM.
One of these machines had to fire, that's all that was needed.
He just had to wait.
The Doctor and the Engineer were arguing in the background, prostrating to Her as She expressed Her fury and panic.
He grinned.
They would suspect, soon, and find out. But it would be worth it.
He just needed that BOOM.