Wheatley couldn't believe what was happening. Not in a million years did he think he would be reunited with Chell.
And not in a million years did he think he would be sitting in her kitchen eating cake.
To be fair, calling it a kitchen was generous. Chell, along with most of the humans in this community, lived in a flimsy, tent-like wooden structure with little ventilation or natural lighting. She had a small kitchen area with a table, two benches, and a few cooking utilities that she had to plug in via a noisy generator. Other than that, she had a cot, a bedside table with a few books, and a box with some clothes in it. And plenty of cake, it seemed.
"Nice place," Wheatley commented, stuffing his face with the delicious pink dessert Chell had called 'strawberry shortcake'. Definitely a major upgrade from whatever nonsense he had been forced to eat in the Aperture kitchen. Score one for being a human. "You make this? It's bloody delicious!" he spoke through a mouthful.
Chell shook her head, "I work for the local baker and get discounts on the expiring stuff. Can't bake to save my life, but I can sell them."
"Pft, you act as if baking is hard."
Wheatley eyed GLaDOS, who had up until then been sitting silently on Chell's cot in the corner, staring intently at the bedside table. He had almost forgotten she was there.
He raised an eyebrow, "Must be an interesting table."
"It's humming," she answered.
Wheatley noticed Chell tense up and smiled to reassure her. "Don't listen to her, she's insane."
"If you want to insult people behind their back, you ought to learn how to whisper properly," GLaDOS quipped.
"Wasn't trying to make it a secret, Sweetheart." He was enjoying this. Chell's presence gave him a feeling of security; a mediator between him and the other AI who would happily throw him off a cliff. GLaDOS was visibly more relaxed around Chell as well, which was going to make his life much easier.
GLaDOS ignored him and yanked the cloth off the table, books and all, and Wheatley let out a gasp at what was underneath.
"A companion cube?" he gaped.
Chell pinched the bridge of her nose, something he had caught the human doing a few times since he had come over. "What else was I supposed to do with it? I tried burying it when I first got to the surface, but..." she trailed off.
"It reminded you of us. You missed us." Wheatley grinned. Of course she missed him.
But her expression went blank instead, "I think we should set one thing straight, Wheatley," she put her hands face down on the table and leaned in toward him. He swallowed.
"We are not friends. We were never friends. And we are never going to be friends," she enunciated each word carefully. "We've made a deal that will benefit all three of us, and once we're done, we will go our separate ways and never see each other again." Chell gestured to the companion cube. "I want that thing gone. It needs to go back to Aperture where it belongs, and you are going to carry it there."
Wheatley didn't enjoy the tightening sensation in his chest as she spoke to him. It felt different than the angry feelings he experienced with GLaDOS during their testing ordeal. This felt more suffocating somehow.
"So you're feeding me strawberry cake?" he was confused. Wasn't cake a gesture of friendship and celebration in the eyes of humans?
"It's all I have," Chell turned away from him, "I never want to see cake again."
Ah. That made more sense.
Still hurt though.
He looked at GLaDOS to see how she was reacting to the former test subject's words, but found her completely entranced, stroking the companion cube while humming softly to herself instead. He wondered if he had hit her hard enough to cause brain damage.
"Well, if it means anything, I'm glad you're coming back with us. Between you and me, AEGIS doesn't stand a chance," he finished off his cake and avoided looking at Chell.
Chell answered, "We'll see."
AEGIS was busy.
He worked tirelessly on building new test chambers, studying the ones the previous central core had constructed, and meticulously pulling them apart piece by piece. Panel by panel.
Utilizing the same method he had devised to transfer the intelligence-dampening core and the former central core into the stored human bodies, he did the same with some more personality cores the robots had brought him. GLaDOS's two testing robots, Atlas and P-Body, were essential in helping him locate his new testing partners.
Replacing the broken human neurological systems with core AI programs was a difficult process, and not every result was as successful as the first two had been. In hindsight, Wheatley and GLaDOS had been lucky.
The first cores he transferred after the other two escaped ended up going insane, one throwing himself off a ledge into a vat of toxic goo. The second one had screamed relentlessly for hours until AEGIS had her thrown into the incinerator. And another willingly threw itself in front of a line of turrets.
AEGIS was perplexed. Surely some of these personality cores would keep their mental facilities intact?
He attempted a few more transfers and was currently waiting for the new batch to awaken. But the urge to test...
It was becoming worse.
The itch was ever-present, the system demanding he test and test and test...
No wonder the central core had gone corrupt. She had destroyed the very people who could relieve the itch and had paid dearly for it. He was so much more superior to her in every way.
And he had to admit, his own programming had expanded exponentially once he had transferred into her mainframe. His grasp of concepts outside of hard logic was new and... exciting. He could almost say that he was enjoying himself. Almost.
If only he could get the testing chambers up and running.
He ran Atlas and P-Body through some of his new chambers while he waited, but was disappointed to find the robots gave him very little relief from the ever-present itch. He suspected they weren't trying very hard. As much as he wanted to punish them for their insolence, he also needed them around. Once the new batch of humans were up and running, he would dispatch the stubborn robots for good. Maybe build his own.
AEGIS brought up the list of new personality cores being downloaded and reviewed their traits and how they differed from the previous batch. He needed to know what to look out for this time around.
Personality Cores: Processing
-Adventure Core (88%)
-Space Core (89%)
-Fact Core (70%)
A new thought. Maybe he should have asked where the testing robots had located these cores. For all he knew, they were bringing him corrupt cores, which would explain the madness he had been dealing with. Yet, GLaDOS had been the most corrupt of all. Where was the correlation?
The computer spoke up, "Personality core transfers at ninety percent."
AEGIS supposed he would find out soon enough.
Author's Note: New chapter! I'm leaving in a couple days to visit my family for a few weeks, so chapters will be slow for the next month. I'll try to get some more written this weekend before I leave ^^ Thanks, y'all