Three Years after the events of Portal 2:
Was he sorry? Yes, maybe at first he had been definitely, truly sorry. But after what had probably been at least a thousand years of that blasted Space Core screaming with glee as they floated endlessly around the orbit of that hideous blue and green planet... Well, let's just say he was feeling a little less sorry.
As time dragged on, Wheatley spent his time counting the hundreds of thousands of satellites surrounding the planet, even giving them nicknames at times.
"See that one? We floated by her yesterday. I named her Wanda," Wheatley acknowledged the debris with the broken satellite dish, long since damaged by surrounding space trash. He himself had taken some damage during their space journey, his protective eyeglass cracking more and more with each passing day. It was a wonder his sight receptors continued functioning at all.
"We're in space," Space Core giggled.
"Yep." An automatic response. Wheatley hardly acknowledged the other core's presence anymore. He was tired. Tired of space. Tired of trash. Tired of his own thoughts never shutting off. His very non-moronic, genius thoughts.
What could he have done differently? He could not have betrayed his partner, first of all. Wheatley had never intended to hurt Chell, but something had happened when he had taken control of Aperture. Everything had felt itchy and wrong but so good all at the same time. He had been mad with delicious absolute power, and he hoped he never had to taste it again. She could keep it, thank you very much.
"Space is shrinking."
Wheatley looked over at Space Core, who was staring down at the planet, a strange melancholic look in his eye. This was new.
"What are you talking about, mate?"
"Have to say goodbye to space," Space Core said, his eye drooping sadly.
Wheatley was still confused. "You finally running out of power? About time," he scoffed. Years of this nonsense. Years.
Space Core closed his eye completely, "Space is shrinking."
"Sure it is, mate. Sure it is."
Days later, Wheatley finally realized what Space Core had meant.
Aperture Science Laboratories:
"The party escort bot has retrieved Aperture Science technology from aboveground. It is en route back to the facility," the system's announcer spoke matter-of-factly.
GLaDOS's yellow eye narrowed at this information. "Elaborate."
"Aperture Science property was detected aboveground approximately 307 kilometers away from the facility. The party escort bot automatically was sent to retrieve it and will be returning shortly."
"Why was I not informed of this?" GLaDOS felt an uncomfortable sense of befuddlement. After all, she had sent a companion cube to the planet's surface along with... that thing she refused to speak of. It hadn't tripped the bot's sensors, had it?
"What technology was detected?"
"Two corrupted personality cores were detected on the planet's surface. They will be arriving shortly," the computer responded.
Two corrupted cores?
Oh. Oh...
This was going to be good.
The cores were both damaged from the fall back to the planet, but if Aperture Science was good at anything, it was creating good hardy technology. The scientists hadn't held up quite as well as their creations had though.
GLaDOS had the jabbering orange core thrown into the room where the corrupted personality cores were locked away and promptly forgot about it. But him...
"Hello again, metal ball," her tone was icy as the blue moron flickered back on in one of her claws. Ah, memories.
His eye widened in shock and he actually let out a squeal as he recognized the robotic eye so close to his own.
"Oh, no no no, y-you're kidding me! You're joking!" he wailed, his voice just as grating to her sensory systems as she remembered.
"This isn't possible! There's no bloody way we fell all the way from space just to end up back... back here!" he spluttered, his handles swinging around wildly in her grip.
"You didn't really think we would just allow the disgusting land dwellers above to have access to our precious technology, did you? Of course, we had to retrieve what is rightfully the property of Aperture Science Laboratories," GLaDOS spoke calmly.
"Y-you just couldn't leave us alone, could you? What are you going to do now, shoot me back into space? Please do!" the moron shouted, the panic clear in his voice. GLaDOS was enjoying this so much.
"I was happy to let you float through the endless vacuum of space forever. It is not my fault you chose to come back," GLaDOS replied.
"I didn't choose anything!"
"You didn't?" Fake surprise. "Shall we perform a quick overview then? You chose to violently usurp my position and rip me from my chassis. You chose to banish me to the far reaches of the underground. You chose to cause a reactor core meltdown and almost blow us all up," GLaDOS inched her faceplate closer to his shivering frame.
"You chose to put me in a potato," she finished.
His eye narrowed, "That's what you chose to finish off with, huh."
She chucked him across the chamber and reveled in the sound of his cry of alarm and his spherical body clattering along the floor. My how she was tempted to do the same to him; place his moronic little consciousness in a tiny, rotting potato. It would be justified. It would be satisfying.
But she was done with him, she realized. "I would happily send you back into space," GLaDOS spoke. "But then again, you'll likely come back and I don't want to send out any more precious resources to retrieve you. Shall I stick you in a stasis chamber with the brain-dead humans?"
"Humans? You found more of them-?"
"Or shall I crush you to pieces and be done with you forever?"
"I-I'm not too fond of that idea-" he stuttered.
"Or I can always stick you in a potato and let the birds feast on you as you scream for mercy. I quite like that one."
"I really don't think-"
"But then again, that would require me listening to your excruciatingly annoying voice longer than necessary. Maybe I'll throw you into Android Hell for eternity and be done with it."
The moronic metal sphere had finally stopped talking, watching her closely. The fear was prevalent in his busted eye and she felt a calming sensation wash over her as she realized what she had to do.
"No. I'm going to do to you what you did to us," GLaDOS finally spoke.
"'Us'?" the core repeated.
"What you did to me," she backtracked.
The floor opened up beneath her and one of her loyal androids walked over, the tall orange one, arms extended and ready to do her bidding. Orange picked up the moron and he squealed in fear as he realized what she was about to do.
"Enjoy your time in the pit," she laughed softly, "I know I didn't."
And Wheatley was cast far, far below Aperture Science.
Virgil knew that he was a special personality core. A rare breed that loved his work and his environment. He loved interacting with the humans; the test subjects, the scientists. He loved everything about his job. Except for one thing:
He was completely alone.
The core hadn't always been alone, of course. In Aperture's heyday, he had been at the forefront of the testing initiatives, chatting with the humans all day and fixing up damaged Aperture technology all night. He had always been busy, always had meaningful work to do. But now...
Ever since he had been woken up from, well, who knows how long he had been deactivated for? Ever since that test subject, Mel had been awoken from her stasis chamber years ago, Virgil had been completely alone down in the dilapidated vestiges of Aperture. A few years back, the system had informed him that old test chambers were being used, but he had been doing self-maintenance at the time and by the time he had gone to investigate, whoever had been down there was long gone. It was a lonely existence.
That's why when he came across a busted personality core lying on the floor of one of the offices, he was filled with excitement. A core! Someone to talk to!
He flipped the core over and examined the damage, praying that it could be salvaged. "Pft, of course it can. I'm the greatest maintenance engineer. I can fix it all," Virgil laughed to himself. Why even ask that?
The core was heavily damaged though, its eyeglass completely shattered and one of its handles missing. It was badly dented in on the side and showed no signs of life.
"A fall like that would do that to ya," he nodded to himself. "A relatively easy fix though. I'll have you up and running in no time, friend."
And off he went to work.
Wheatley, despite being a robot made up of metal and electricity, was no stranger to pain. All the personality cores, turrets, and even GLaDOS herself were created with pain receptors to supposedly keep the robots in line. Keep them from turning on the humans in charge.
Like that had worked.
Surprisingly, his pain receptors were quiet. For the first time in years, he felt no pain, and it was liberating. He tested his motor functions, blinking and moving his handles around. So smooth. My eyesight is so clear too. No cracks!
"That must feel a lot better, eh?" a male voice piped up. An older, rusty-looking core popped into view over Wheatley, nodding in satisfaction as he looked him over with his bright, yellow eye. No, he wasn't rusty, just brown-colored with a bunch of strange decals and flower patterns. He looked like no core Wheatley had ever seen.
"Who- who are you?" Wheatley asked the strange core.
"Virgil the maintenance core, at your service," the core bowed on his chassis attached to the railing above, "Found ya dead as a doorknob in one of the office buildings. If I hadn't found you as soon as I did, a bird might have carried you away forever!" Virgil laughed. "They love to do that."
Wheatley was unsure what this core was so happy about, but he had to admit he was grateful to the guy.
"Hey, let's get you attached to a chassis and I'll show you around the place," Virgil suggested. "I'll give you the grand tour."
After a couple hours touring the underground facility, Wheatley learned that he was in Old Aperture. He also learned that Virgil had been completely alone down here for years. Golly, the guy was a talkative sort.
"And then here is the old turret line. Most of the little guys down here stopped working centuries ago, but I still have a few buddies hanging around. How ya doing, Chester?" Virgil waved his handle at a defective turret sitting behind a desk.
"Out of bullets!" the turret griped.
"Ha ha, always such a jokester," Virgil continued on his rail and Wheatley followed. "I guess technically I'm not alone since the turrets are always around, but they don't offer much in the way of conversation, y'know?"
Wheatley nodded, knowing the feeling all too well. Virgil continued on about the facility, but Wheatley's mind was distracted by the sights around him. Old Aperture. It was creepy is what it was.
A gargantuan, spider-like machine caught his eye and he stopped dead on the rail. "What's that?"
Virgil backtracked toward the other core and his eye widened, "That thing right there is AEGIS, otherwise known as the 'Aperture Employee Guardian and Intrusion Security' AI. He's been shut down for... reasons. Don't worry, he can't hurt you like this."
"It's another AI?" Wheatley was intrigued by the thing. It was clearly old (as was everything else here), but it was intimidating even when it was off. Not unlike another certain AI Wheatley knew. "It's real creepy, it is. Why's it shut down?" he asked.
"It's a protocol-based AI," Virgil said as if that answered everything, "It eliminates any and all security threats indiscriminately. Tried to kill me and a test subject once when it was in the middle of trying to destroy her. We were just minding our own business too. I only wanted-"
Wheatley gasped, "Wait, wait, back up. You said it was trying to destroy her?" He pointed his handles upward, his eye wide.
Virgil nodded, "Of course, he didn't succeed. We had to shut down the thing in order to keep ourselves alive. Almost didn't make it. Close call."
"Would... would it have succeeded? I mean, if you hadn't interfered?" Wheatley asked, hope rising in his voice.
The other core gave the impression of frowning, "Yes, I suppose he would have. AEGIS runs throughout this entire facility, even reaching his creepy little tendrils into the reaches of upper Aperture. In theory, he could reach her if he wanted."
"That's perfect!" Wheatley exclaimed, "We can reactivate it and take her out all the way from here."
Virgil swung around in front of Wheatley to block his view of AEGIS, "Whoa, whoa, you aren't touching that thing. Did you miss the part about where he tried to kill us too? That AI is a monster."
"She's a monster," Wheatley hissed. "I'm tired of her rudeness and tired of her crushing my body and calling me a moron- and- and I'm tired of space and I am not a MORON!"
Virgil backed up on the rail slightly, "Yeah, you clearly have a whole thing going on here. But I mean it, you are not to touch AEGIS. You'll regret it and I will regret it-"
"-and she will regret it," Wheatley finished.
The older core vocalized a sigh, "Just... forget about AEGIS. I want to show you the original Aperture logo. It's huge!" Virgil motioned for Wheatley to follow him and took off down the rail.
Forget about a giant killing machine that could take on the Queen of Aperture herself? Ha. Wheatley didn't think so.
Author's Note: I love Portal and have been sitting on this story idea for a long time (it's nothing audacious, but I have yet to find a Portal continuation that scratches the right itch for me, if you know what I mean). There are no romantic relationships, just enemies to frenemies fun times. Please enjoy ^^
(Also includes characters from Portal Stories: Mel)