Doug expressed far too little skepticism of his little announcement for Wheatley's liking. While normally he'd be thrilled someone was so ready to listen, something about the earnestness with which his scientist friend watched him explain was… almost too much. There was no safety net of doubt with which he could lay any wrong conclusions. Thankfully, the memory did serve useful. As soon as Wheatley mentioned the walls, Doug's shadowed eyes lit up in realization.
"Of course," he muttered to himself, "we would have to patch it into the office, and that would give her access to the underground." Doug turned his attention to the pile of torn cameras in the back corner of the balcony. "We would have to work quickly, but it could work. It was built into every panel. There's a chance She's deactivated that feature, but I should be able to turn it back on for the collection that make up Her chamber."
"Before she notices?" Wheatley cocked his brow up.
Doug nodded. "I've had to reactivate machinery more times than I've worked on something entirely functional." He furrowed his brow down at the water though. "I'd need to find a map first. I don't know where the power stations would be off the top of my head."
They lapsed back into silence, broken up only by Wheatley sucking down another large breath. The thoughts clogging his head were starting to bleed together in a way that had happened in the seconds his battery finally petered out in space. He rested his head against the pole. "You never explained what that was, by the way."
"Hm?"
"Me needing to suck down all that air meaning I'm tired." Paint chips clung to his cheek where he had it pressed into the rail.
Doug drew his legs up through the bars and dragged himself upright. "It's a yawn. Your brain wants oxygen." He picked up the radio. "And you're still tired." Wheatley took the cue and tried to realign his limbs, dipping his weight into the metal to try and get himself standing. Doug's hand looped around his forearm for support, and some of that gregarious warmth leeched out the cold that the mine's atmosphere worked into his muscles. They trudged back into the lab, and Doug stopped to return the radio to its proper spot. In the low lights, he looked, if not optimistic, more assured.
The darkness of the main room was less oppressive as he entered. It was no longer this living breathing thing that crowded in too close or forced him down and sucked the life out of him. It was just an absence of light, like it always had been. Doug deposited him back on the blankets, but as he turned, Wheatley's eyes tracked to the steady blinking red light behind the frosted glass. He'd lost many systems, but perhaps he could remedy one of those. "Hey," his companion paused, "could you go grab that?"
Doug quirked up a single brow, then disappeared into the cubicles. The red light disappeared with a small snap, and plastic wire tapped across the floor as it was dragged back into the room. He placed the small black box between the blanket palettes. "What is this going to do?"
"Here," a smile tugged onto his lips as he flopped over and snagged the plug, "now, we can tell what time it is!" Wheatley crowed as he pushed the prongs into the closest socket, only for it to blink 12:00 at him. "Oh. Bugger."
"We're not that affected by a day and night cycle anyway." Doug commented as he sat down. "We're underground."
Wheatley only scoffed, scooping up the contraption and tapping at the buttons. "Okay, fine. But we- I need to keep track of time somehow. So," he held it readily and turned his attention to the scientist, "what's your favorite time?"
"…my favorite time?"
He nodded. "Course! Everyone's got a favorite time. I think." Wheatley clicked the buttons a few times. "Mine's 5:02. It's got a nice line of symmetry."
Doug examined the clock, then nodded once. "Then set it to that."
Wheatley happily punched in the time and balanced the clock on one of the overturned filing cabinets Doug had taken to using as counterspace. He rolled and dragged himself back into the blankets, twisting around until he was his approximation of the feeling of 'comfortable'. Not that it really was. 'Comfortable' didn't include the impassive greyed out iris of his broken optic staring down at him. The core lay tilted against the back of the folding chair, shutters halfway pinched and wires akimbo. It gave the impression of judgement, of saying look at what you've been reduced to and Wheatley couldn't help but bristle. Surely, he hadn't been that smarmy. No, if any other core were in his situation, he would offer the appropriate amount of pity, then dutifully move on with his day. Of course, there were no other cores here that could fall into such a situation.
It was at about this point that Wheatley realized he probably shouldn't be able to see his core anymore. He stifled an annoyed huff at himself, then plucked off his glasses and placed them near the cabinet under the clock. Returning to his knots of fabric and lumpy pillow, Wheatley turned his head away from the grey blob still judging him from the chair. I can make this work, he told himself as he shut his eyes tight, I always do. Even if it didn't sound very convincing, it smudged away the image of his own disapproving death glare.
.
Wheatley's dreams that night were filled with artificial suns, red lights, and tired smiles lined with crow's feet.
.
Waking was still an ordeal.
Having not been thrust to consciousness by a dream of his own death, Wheatley got to experience the blissful state of half consciousness where reality wasn't a concrete thing yet. Everything was just feeling. A fog blanketed his thoughts and he almost let himself fall back unconscious again, before remembering his bootup sequence shouldn't be like that. None of this was correct. Reality crashed into a solid state, the echo of a heartbeat rattled his chest and air became something he practically bit down upon. That layer of static had found itself back in his body, leaving him feeling just to the left of where he should be. Memories trickled in. After once again asserting that yes, the breathing and heartbeat were his, Wheatley was struck by a sudden melancholy. He missed his little noises, and he missed being able to complain to no one about how he hated them. And Wheatley also missed more practical things like running diagnostics because once again, dull pains twitched through his muscles, an easy burn that protested the shape he'd twisted into. He missed not feeling the itch or the way his head pounded in time with his heartbeat.
And God, he missed his shutters. Wheatley hadn't opened his eyes yet, but light already pierced through the thin flesh covering them and bathed his vision orange. Was the human body really not built to withstand light? Wheatley winced as he peeled them open, groaning at the harsh light and feeling it scratch roughly through his suddenly dry throat. The ceiling that greeted him was a mash of blobs too bright to look at and grey ceiling tile broken through by blotches of water damage that were so plentiful even the lack of clear vision couldn't erase them. It took a second to coordinate himself enough to get up on his elbows, and even longer to parse through the heaviness still swimming around his thoughts. It was like a human's very own boot up sequence, and something about that wording drew out a small puff of a laugh. Wheatley wasn't sure what was so funny about it. Maybe he was still tired. Maybe at the thought that humans and machines were somewhat simpatico.
"Mate," he called as he fished around under the clock for his glasses, "couldn't you let me wake up first before you turned on the lights?" Wheatley could hear how scratchy his voice was, how thick it felt in his throat as if the mere weight of it could drag him back to sleep. He found the glasses right where he set them. "…Doug?" The scientist was usually a quiet man, sure, but he didn't skimp out on responses. "Hello?"
The room was empty. Wheatley's stomach bottomed out and something crawled down his neck as he turned about, now very alert and very awake. "Doug?" His voice pinched and his heart beat like a thumping piston against his ribs Oh god, he'd left him, he'd gone out and gotten killed, or thousands of other awful alternatives that his brain threw at him. Wheatley bunched his hands around the blanket under him, straining his ears against the buzz of the lights overhead. No voices, no footsteps, no movement.
Wheatley was alone.
A kind of alone he hadn't thought to feel ever again. It had been long enough now that he'd rather forgotten what it meant to actually have someone by his side. The Lady had dulled that tolerance, and now Doug had torn down all his walls. Wheatley had forgotten what it was like to fear true loneliness, to fear never seeing someone else ever again. In that small space of time between his activation and Her takeover, some of the human scientists had found the bumbling little ID core to be something almost charming, and Wheatley had grown to enjoy their company. Then they'd all disappeared. It was the first time he'd truly grasped the difference between internal knowledge and experience, and his first real brush with impermanent life and permanent endings.
Machines weren't supposed to be that social either, but someone had forgotten to tell Wheatley's programming that because he'd craved interactions and conversations like no other. The other cores focused primarily on their function, and even those used for employee interaction didn't converse that much beyond the topics they were programmed to hold. It had taken so long for him to convince himself the relative silence of the facility broken up by visits by the management was enough. The Lady hadn't been the biggest conversation partner, but even her presence started thawing out that desire. Being put into Her body had inundated him with so much noise and conversation that the whiplash of being cut into the void of space with a single voice to keep him company had almost fried his circuits.
He'd thought the time spent alone in space had toughened him back up again. But no. And now Doug was gone, right after giving him a tablespoon of that interaction he so desperately craved, and Wheatley felt like he was back on the management rail, frantically searching through green gas tinted vision for life. Oh, and that's not even mentioning before-
Before…
That train of thought abruptly derailed with a reel of images he couldn't make out beyond impressions. Faces blurred and featureless, rooms foggy around the edges, and the overwhelming sense of monachopsis. Wheatley could scream. Not only does he have his own rapidly metamorphosizing memories, but the ones from this human were threading almost seamlessly into his narrative. He'd never been too hung up about the memories before now, seeing as the human's experiences held insight Wheatley wouldn't normally have, but to find himself bodying those very memories as his formed a fear he never knew possible. That was without addressing the headache that made thinking at all rather difficult at the moment.
If his awakening weren't already terrible enough, his gaze once again fell on his own robotic cadaver, still judging. It grated on his nerves. Wheatley screwed his expression up and hissed. "Oh piss off!" Not the most mature reaction, and it certainly didn't change the expression facing him but it felt good to let off some of the building steam. He hitched his shoulders up once he realized just how loud his voice was in the quiet, and how it caused the pain in his head to reannounce itself. But the quiet brought with it white noise. Wheatley preferred the pain more, if he was being honest. If filling it meant talking to an inanimate object, then so be it. Wheatley had shouted into nothing plenty of times, simply directing it at something was just another step up. "I'm fine." His heart threatened to prove him wrong as it thumped right up his throat. "I'm fine. And he's fine, and it's going to be okay. I can make this work."
Wheatley clawed his way up to a standing position; the movement was getting easier with each attempt. His stomach sounded its alarm at him, and he hunched his shoulders. "Doug, man, come on. Where'd you go?" He called again, in the hope that he may be in the lab area instead. Only silence and his own voice rung out.
A can and cup of water were laid out on the table next to the long-cooled computing part. Okay. So he'd been here. And if he left them, then that meant he didn't expect to be here when Wheatley woke up. He swallowed around the lump in his throat and wandered over, slumping into the chair and scooping them up. Stomaching the cold beans was far worse than warm ones, but he needed to take care of that pesky stomach alarm. It did little to staunch the anxiety sloshing around in there, but the movement gave him something to focus on, and reduced the alarm in his skull too. Wheatley rattled the can back and forth once it was empty. He glanced at the clock.
11:54. Doug could have been gone for minutes or hours at this point, and Wheatley had no way of knowing.
11:57. Wheatley tried to busy himself by stacking the few cans around him in a pyramid. He couldn't do much else but wait, could he?
12:01. There were the paints, but Wheatley was almost nervous to try that out for himself. Doug might get mad if he made a mess or got paint all over his clothes. He'd been very accommodating up till now, and he wasn't going to risk mucking it up by being an annoyance.
12:05. But, if he thought about it, he didn't have to wait. Did he? Wheatley stared down at his legs, experimentally curling the toes on his left foot. "Freedom or immortality?" Doug had called the human body freedom. Hours earlier, he'd made the choice to get up and stumble out to the balcony. Right now, he'd chosen to clamber his way up and get the food laid out for him and play with the cans. And if he wanted, he could paint. Fuck, this was what Doug had been talking about.
12:08. Wheatley caught the eye of his core still glaring at him. He threw his hands up. "Fine. We'll go looking for him." He grabbed the handle on an odd compulsion and stood. There was no reason to take his core with him, but it gave the room a presence that he couldn't articulate. Wheatley wondered if he'd started to lose his mind if he was already bonding with a dead thing, and just how quickly he'd taken to calling his old self a 'thing'. Honestly, he'd just woken up; he didn't want to have a crisis of personage, so he resolutely chose to not think about that.
Wheatley trudged across the floor, privately celebrating that it took less furniture to keep himself upright, and halted in front of the broken door. It wasn't like he wanted to go outside. With his shotty sense of direction and general clumsiness, he was far more likely to topple into the suspicious lake below or get lost rather than find Doug. Wheatley wanted nothing more than to slump back in that chair again, but under his own watchful eye, one reminder kept circling. This is Aperture. An older one, yes, but still Aperture. A place built by humans and subsequently survived by them. The picture that had been painted of it wasn't too positive either. Doug had survived this long, but it only took one slip. Not knowing was slowly eating him away from the inside; Wheatley didn't want to know just how much anxiety he could hold before he keeled over.
Getting in had been a dual effort from both him and Doug, and now he just had himself and… himself. No time like the present to learn the art of crouching. Wheatley bent his knees ever so slightly and slumped his neck, wedging down into the opening and whining as he pinched his forehead between the frame and the broken door. The metal holes on the catwalk bit into the skin of his feet as he sidled out, and he quickly threw himself onto the rail, causing his core to smack roughly into his hip.
Salt and sulfur stung his nose, and the lingering warmth from the room was snatched from him. "Doug?" Wheatley splayed his feet out against the edges where holes weren't punched. "So. Which way do you think he went?"
His core remained silent. There was probably too much relief there from this reality. It just meant that his faculties were still intact, and that his core's weren't. Wheatley peered down the way he'd been led from before. "Maybe he went to wash?" He mused, but based on appearance, Doug didn't seem the type. From what he'd seen, there hadn't been much else down there besides the empty Enrichment Rooms. Wheatley turned to consider the other path. It ran down over the murky water and past a couple bulkhead doors, one of which was open. "Or maybe, he went there."
One of his hands pushed off the rail, and he adjusted his grip on his core. "And you'd probably say something like Yea, but we don't know that, go back inside and wait. You were always a bit of a coward." Wheatley pitched up his voice for a moment, then sighed. "Man alive, this is probably how poor Doug went down." He inched down the railing, and listened to his words bounce off the cave walls. "But aren't there human folktales of people talking to dead things? You know, I heard this lovely myth about these two boys and their dead uncle. They had to pretend he was alive for an entire party." The groan of the metal and the words were enough to stave off the encroaching silence.
Getting to the bulkhead cost a lot of stamina and the soles of his feet as he could feel every lump and unfiled metal edge as he stepped on them. Wheatley was damp and sticky again as he leaned up against the metal and let the cold sooth the flush along his cheeks. "This walking thing, man, terrible way to get around." He spoke through puffs of air, then took in the terrain for the journey before him.
Stairs.
God damn it.
.
They'd gotten down to their last two cans. Doug hadn't been nearly as careful as usual, refusing to leave the ID core mid transfer in case the generator gave out or the core went critical or any number of issues. It was a good thing too, as the core had gone out in spectacular fashion immediately after the transfer finished. Now that he had to stock for two, he needed to double his can acquisition anyway. Leaving Wheatley alone seemed like a poor idea, but there were no other options. He couldn't get around the broken beams and twisted girders that filled the hallways in certain spots. It was just easier. It was easier even if he couldn't shake the pervasive feeling around the edges of his senses, fuzz that rippled and convulsed as if to draw his attention away. Like a gnat right by his ear or flitting near the corners of his eyes. Doug tried not to focus on it, nor the geometry of the space spilling out in front of his eyes. He could ignore it. He could ignore a lot of things. The wariness and hesitation on a face that had long ago stopped expressing those to him, gestures so familiar on a body that didn't know their meaning, the vestiges of a person buried deep. Doug could ignore a lot.
He'd remembered something. And Doug had no choice but to ignore it.
"…iend? Friend, are you with me?"
Doug blinked, and realized he'd been staring down at the can of peaches in his grip for far longer than necessary. "Yes. My apologies."
"You came back faster this time." Cube's lower edge bumped into the small of his back as he straightened out.
He carefully tucked his delicacy in with the rest of his stash. "I believe some human interaction has helped." Doug nudged the drawer shut with his foot.
Cube made an affronted sound. "Human interaction. Am I not enough?"
"I didn't know you could get jealous." They moved into the next room with a fluorescent light hanging by a single wire drooping down towards a hole in the floor. Condensation ran thick down the windows. "As I said before, I will always need you, friend. That will never change." He placed Cube down on a table growing lichen and slippery moss. "It's just been a long time since…" the thought scattered outward like electricity over a storm torn sky. Doug shook his head. "It's been a long time."
"…I know." Cube's exterior caught the light of the flickering bulb. "But as I've said many times now: you need to tell him. I'm surprised he didn't piece it together when you mentioned Caroline."
A few rocks tumbled down underfoot as Doug crept around to the cabinets toppled across the gap. "He tends to avoid thinking of implications." He tugged at the first drawer but found its rusted lock stubborn. "It's not a good time."
"You will never find one. And the longer you wait, the angrier he's going to be."
Mechanic clicking rattled against the back of his ears, and Doug winced. "He should still be given time to adjust. That kind of transition isn't easy. To learn how deep the corruption truly is might break him." Eyes pressed down upon the curves of his being.
Cube sighed. "If what you said about his memory is true, then it isn't long till he realizes something is wrong. And when he does, it's highly probable that he'll take it out on you."
Doug gave another tug at the drawer before giving up and moving to the next one. "You seem convinced that he is going to hurt me."
"You seem convinced he can't. You saw what he did with his first shot of real control and his first revelation. He almost killed Chell with that fall." Cube's voice fluctuated low, soft and earnest. "I don't want that to happen to you."
The second drawer opened much easier, though it only held papers. He rifled through them anyway. "It was a fluke, anyway. A second of memory does not make him who he once was. That man is gone, and I'm not going to kid myself into thinking he can still exist."
"Perhaps not. But the pieces are there. I believe the ship could be rebuilt; what the two of you make of it is up to you."
"Doug?"
He paused in his rifling as white and red packaging caught his eye. They sighed again. "You went through all this trouble. At least give him a chance to understand." Doug didn't respond as he scooped out the carton.
.
It turned out, almost any part of the human body could sound an alarm. Wheatley collapsed against the top step as his legs and arms screamed their unhappiness. The dull pain had crescendoed into something he could no longer ignore, and that gross damp feeling coated his body again. To top it off, the headache was back at full force. His core's optic lulled lazily to the side as he set it down, gasping for air like this was his first time using lungs. In some ways, maybe it is. Wheatley hadn't gone about testing limits yet, and this felt very much like one. The worst part was he'd gone and found out by walking a fair distance away from the room, which meant he also had to get back, and that was probably going to set back any progress he made on the whole pain front.
Wheatley dipped his head back to peer up at the room beyond. The hall split off into a few doors- normal ones, not the heavy bulkheads- and a few were propped open. No more stairs though. Sinew twitched angrily in his thighs and calves at the mere thought of moving. "Doug?" He tried, cradling his core close and feeling the liquid seeping between his palms slicken the metal. Still no response. The cold rock of the stairs felt wonderful to keep laying on, but he knew nothing came from sitting here.
Anxiety continued its steady march of scenarios behind his eyes as he hoisted himself up. The millions of things Doug could be doing right now, and his brain didn't want to think of anything more positive than 'out scavenging'. Wheatley rolled inelegantly up onto his knees and rocked back onto his heels. Concrete tugged at the pants of his jumpsuit and irritated the skin under it, and he passed an indignant finger over the cloth. "These bodies are so soft. I swear. One little thing and your shell falls apart. Skin has way too much give." Wheatley mumbled as he wobbled up the last step and started popping his head into the open doors. He didn't want to mess with the closed ones just yet. Something about open doors… too many possibilities, Wheatley had to limit himself.
The rooms proved to hold little more than similar metal chairs and large screens pulled down from the ceiling. Wheatley crawled up to the door at the very end of the hall and lumped his shoulder against the frame.
This room was bigger than the previous one, built with wooden paneling and sported the same chairs lining the wall opposite him and a desk built into the wall. A few small tables were set up between the groups, dusty lamps and water damaged papers sunk into the pulp of the wood. A moldy line of carpet ran right across the middle of the floor. Down to the left was a sign labeled 'Elevator to Surface' in yellow chipped paint alongside an illustration of a circle and some oblong shape. The doorway to that lovely sentiment was covered by a panel of plywood though, and the glass was darkened so Wheatley couldn't even muster a false sense of hope. On the right though was another door, this one wooden instead of the previous metal ones and sported a tarnished brass handle. Whoever had been here last hadn't seen fit to shut it fully, which gave him an eyeful into a room lit with a tiredly buzzing desk lamp struggling to light up more than its own little circle. The desk it sat on had a deep rich stain and lacquer that hadn't faded much despite time, and he caught the edge of a painting glaring down at him with one darkened eye. That feeling of familiarity snapped against the back of his skull like a rubber band. Now, not only momentum pulled him forward, but some siren's call beckoning him to investigate the room with a hazy glow to guide him onward.
Wheatley tentatively reached out a hand and splayed it against the wood, ignoring the whine of the hinges as he shifted them out of position for the first time in what was probably centuries. Light from the previous hallway flooded the room. It caught across a gilded plaque and heavy eyes still watching him as he shadowed the doorway. There was not much else inside beyond the desk and a single chair sitting in front of it; an office, he thought hazily. The desk only had a vase with long dead flower ash joining the dust on the surface, and a computer monitor. The chair behind the desk was larger and made of leather, scuffed and torn with rust colored stuffing gurgling down into a puddle on the floor.
Tension welled under his temples in a way separate from his headache, and Wheatley gasped weakly as that tugging thread pulled at the barrier he knew led to more memories. Without a second thought, he pressed forward, reaching, stretching, trying to break the levee with all his might and siphon out whatever this human might have hidden in his head. Screw whatever he'd been upset with earlier. He wanted to know, he needed to know just to get this feeling to go away-
Anxious, in a way he'd never been before— tiles clicking under heels— tired old eyes— disappointment and fear, but he could— "-daring to dream!" — a smile, lined with crow's feet and an extended hand—
Wheatley yelped as he fell back on his ass. Apparently, he hadn't been putting enough thought into keeping himself standing. He ground his teeth and tried to drag back the images, but they were a slurry of colors that didn't form identifiable things. "No, no, come on, you were just here!" He smacked his hand against the ground, a purely perfunctory action that shot a bolt of discomfort across his palm. "Ow…"
"Wheatley?"
The noise that escaped him wasn't one that spared much dignity. Doug eyed him from the entrance to the hall, gaze tracking from his cheeks down to his core rolled across the floor and then up to the painting. "You left the room."
Wheatley swung his legs around, so he was facing him and let out his most accusatory huff. Those embers of annoyance grew to a small pilot light in his chest. How dare this man show up now, right when he was in the middle of something and not when he was calling for him? How dare he stand there all indifferent? "Well, obviously. I woke up and you were gone. Gone." He folded his arms over his chest. "D'you know how often I've had to wake up to nothing over my life? Spare a guy a thought next time, it's not like I've been in space for years." At the very least, the knots in his organs were loosening at the sight of Doug, no worse for wear and toting a significantly thicker satchel, but that didn't do much for his ire. "I mean, for God's sake, what if something happened to you? I'm still new to this bloody human business; you can't just leave me to figure it out meself."
The silhouette moved from the hall and closer to the doorway where Wheatley had crumpled. Doug's expression was inscrutable. "I'll leave a note next time."
"With your time of departure." Wheatley was willing to push his luck, even as the scientist's brow dipped.
"…with my time of departure." He acquiesced, though his gaze remained pinned somewhere between Wheatley's cheek and shoulder. "You could figure this out on your own though."
Despite the intent, the words only made him bristle. Wheatley pressed his back firmly into the wall. "No, actually, don't think I would." A line of self-loathing cut through the anger, but that only made everything worse. "I can barely walk, mate. Can't find food on my own or know how to work those flat machine bits so I could get warm. I can't even separate my own memories anymore!"
Doug shook his head. "You would find your own way." He stated plainly, and now the lack of expression or direct eye contact was really starting to get on Wheatley's nerves.
"Why do you trust me so much?!" His tone carried with it an accusation he didn't know how to place. "Is that, I don't know, part of your whole screws missing thing? Trust the idiot who almost blew up the facility? Almost blew up his only friend?!" Wheatley could feel himself getting mean. That lashing beastie in his chest was wounded, and it wanted everyone to know. "If you can't even trust yourself, then you shouldn't trust me!"
The words echoed. Wheatley panted like he'd walked the length of the catwalk again and a vein in his head throbbed. He curled his fingers into his palms and focused his gaze on the optic staring from above his thighs. It was judging again, cold and slimy like the first time he'd seen it. Look what you've been reduced to. Guilt twisted into the reflection on the glass.
"Because of things like this." Doug's pitch hadn't changed, but when Wheatley looked up, he realized just how much of an idiot he'd been. No, Doug had been expressive, just in his own way. Because whatever he was looking at now was something completely devoid of those touches. This was cold, this was an emotional stonewall and a poker face better than any robot in this facility barring Her. "You are honest to a fault," And Wheatley hated it. He hated everything happening in front of him, "eventually. You are not as subtle as you think."
"Well, I wouldn't say tha-"
"You think I'm wrong about the exits. You might be polite, but I know when someone is doubtful of me. And while I might be irrational, I have survived this long by being cautious. The mind can lie to itself, yes, I do not make the mistake of believing otherwise, but I understand its limits. They are real."
Wheatley pressed himself more into the wall, this time with the hope that it might swallow him alive. Well, if they were laying everything out on the table… "Just… are you crazy or not, Doug?" he asked meekly.
Doug didn't shift his gaze an inch from where it looked over his shoulder. "…I am irrational. And perhaps, in a way, I am crazy. Though those two do not come from the same source." Suddenly, his eyes shifted and caught Wheatley's, pinning him to the spot. "I am schizophrenic, and I have lived in isolation far longer than a human should. And yet, I am alive. I managed escape once and came back because if I'd left it would have been at the expense of someone indispensable."
"So… yes?"
"Yes. Does that bother you?"
He swallowed thickly, and tried to conjure up an expression that wasn't wrung through with shame. "No." Wheatley breathed out as Doug's piercing gaze slipped down to the floor. "You said irrational and crazy. Is there a difference?"
"I am no stranger to illusions. Those I describe as irrational. The murals help remind me of what has been." Some of the cold melted from his expression. "And I am crazy because I am still going. I am a rat trapped in an ever-growing maze, and I've yet to call it quits. That is the difference."
Both let the silence fall like a curtain between them. Wheatley curled himself up, trying to think of a string of words that wouldn't widen the hole he'd most certainly dug for himself, while Doug probably spent his time thinking he'd picked the wrong core to help him escape for the nth time. Surprisingly, it was Doug that broke the silence. "What did you mean by separating your memories?"
By then he'd curled into a much tighter ball of regret and more self-loathing. "Wha? Oh. Just more of this human's memories. When I woke up, I started thinking about one as my own." Wheatley laughed tersely. "I just had part of one now actually. Actively went after it too despite this terrifying me to bits. Innt that stupid?"
Doug didn't respond, but Wheatley watched as the wall that made up his expression crumbled. A line formed between his eyebrows and his lips pinched slightly. Contemplative. Wheatley drunk in the expression as much as he could; he would never make the mistake of assuming him emotionless again. "You want to remember?"
"I suppose? These memories seem helpful."
"Yes or no, Wheatley. This isn't something you can take back."
A nervous bubble of laughter squeaked against his throat. "You make it seem like these memories are going to kill me." Silence. "They aren't, are they?"
Doug shook his head. "You said you were having trouble differentiating. If you gain more, that is going to get harder."
"It's not like my own memories are going to stay around for much longer." Wheatley grumbled out, still feeling the itch demand between his ribs and the frustration of too much feeling. "How come my own memories are going to shit, but this human's can just crop up whenever they feel like it?"
"Because human memories aren't real."
Wheatley sputtered and snapped his head back to him. "I'm sorry?"
A tiny tick of the corner of his mouth, shifting eyes. Sheepish. "The human brain and a computer's hard drive are very different. While yours have been recorded and preserved as disc space with nothing to interfere with it, the human mind cannot take in information like that. Our memories are little more than electricity along synaptic pathways pulled together to form a thought. We focus on what left the biggest impression and overlay our biases onto the past, and the more we think about it the worse it gets." Doug folded his hands together. "Your memories from your time as a core are being subject to disruption and destabilization as there is no system to record them 'objectively'. You are being subjected to neuroplasticity, and it will take a while to stabilize. In fact, it never will. Each time you recall something, it will change. When we're recalling something, our recollection is tampered with by emotion and focus and time because we are not recalling the memory itself, but the last time we recalled it. I believe you still have those memories from that body because the structure of your brain was still slightly conserved in stasis, and those neural pathways are being triggered by your environment. That's only a theory, though."
Wheatley had no clue what expression he was making. It must be something wild and bug eyed because Doug sighed. "Your body has had time to consolidate or strengthen its memories. You, the core, have not."
"…oh."
"So. Do you want to remember?" Doug's eyebrows ticked up, but his expression was once again hard to read. This decision felt far more important than learning some cursory information. Wheatley unfurled from where he'd hunched up with a nod.
Maybe this was foolhardy, and it would come back around to hurt him, but Wheatley, above all else, was curious. It had been one of his worst traits according to several of the lab coats as it usually led to him getting stuck or worse, seriously breaking important equipment. His memories from before, so much time spent wandering around and talking to nothing, he couldn't properly grasp it anymore. Maybe that was for the best. Having ready memories of every time someone was annoyed with him or hours spent roaming around pointlessly didn't do much good. The time spent with the Lady is still clear, as clear as Wheatley could make it, and he could still pick out the important bits; being turned on for the first time, his first encounter with Her, the shape and layout of the Enrichment Rooms. Everything else was falling away to feeling, impressions of faces and features, syllables of conversation he could no longer discern, but he knew it didn't make him feel great. But these memories from this human body, they struck something deep that he couldn't quite place his finger on yet. A yearning in some way just beyond his understanding.
Doug's expression twisted into something that appeared maybe hopeful or… fear? Damn, he couldn't tell. Maybe both. But he extended his hand and hauled Wheatley to his feet without much effort. "Where did you feel the most déjà vu?"
"Most what?"
"That feeling of almost remembering, where was it?"
Wheatley pointed over his shoulder to the office room. "Funny word that. Dehja vuh." He picked up the core from where it had rolled partially down the hall. "What's it mean?" He asked mostly to dissipate the strange air that had started to settle around them. It wasn't as tense as when Wheatley had gone and insulted Doug's person, but it was still stilted and wrong. And somehow he is very sure Doug will know the answer to this random question.
"It's French," Doug mercifully supplied, and he took special note of the way his lips twitched upward, and the corner of his eyes lifted; a positive emotion for once, "and it means 'already seen'." They crowded into the room, and Doug instructed him to sit in the smaller metal chair. "This is about focus. I need you to close your eyes and think back to what you saw."
The cushion squished suspiciously under his legs, and Wheatley curled his lip back. "Yeah… dunno how I'll focus around this bloody headache." Something rattled over his head. A carton was dipped in front of his face, and a few orange tipped rolls angled toward him. There was another smaller box inside. "…this is…?"
"Nicotine."
Bits of memory only tangentially related to his clarity on the balcony fly through his head. Wheatley took the pack between two fingers and dumped the contents into his palm. The smaller box had a strip along the side and the Aperture logo plastered on the top, and the were a total of five and a half cigarettes with one being half burnt. Something about the half-burn ticked him off, but he ignored it and placed one between his lips. Already the taste of something sharp and biting made its way onto his tongue. Doug pulled the smaller box from his fingers before he could attempt to figure it out and struck a sputtering unstable flame. He cupped his hand around the end of the flame, pressing it to the tip and they both watched as it smoldered against the paper. On some built-in instinct, he ducked a bit closer to it. There's something poetic there, Wheatley thought, about the way Doug so carefully and willingly held something that could hurt him the moment he moved wrong. He didn't even realize he was staring until the hand cupping the light was no longer there, and Doug is back against the desk. "You're going to have to take a drag for it to work."
"Right- yeah." Wheatley sucked in a deep breath and felt the smoke curl down his throat. It tickled, but more importantly it burned. His eyes almost instantly began to water, and he coughed violently, ripping the cigarette out and sending smoke out in spurts. It reminded him far too much of his first time attempting to eat, but a few seconds later the headache had already started to dull. "Okay… Okay, I think I'm good." Wheatley went for another drag, smoother than the first but still bookended by a cough and shut his eyes. It was dark.
Doug's voice reached out from beyond the stillness. "What did you feel?"
He cast his mind back. Cold, almost unpleasant— anxious, drumming against metal beneath his fingers— fretted and torn paper—
"It helps if you verbalize." Doug again, no closer and no farther than before and yet almost infinitely more distant.
"It was cold." Wheatley eventually said. "There was paper. Metal. I think… I think I was in one of those chairs outside." His voice warbled around the cigarette.
"What did you see?"
Faces bowed and clouded by faint smoke— big oak door, doorway to his whole future— outdated magazines leafed through to the point of falling apart— a single woman behind a desk, under a painting of— crow's feet, always— "People. I can't tell how many. It's that room out there, and here. There's a woman in here."
"What do you hear?"
Voices overlapping, demure chatter— computer keys clicking— clearing of a throat— disappointed sigh— "I hear…" The wall was in view, pressing back, presenting holes. "…talking…" Wheatley dug in, focused on the words. "Something about a job-" But that was all he could get out before the world in front of him forewent itself, all sense turned to the images in his mind's eye.
.
Wheatley stands at the base of the elevator; resume gripped painfully tight between his hands. It's creasing the paper he'd been so careful to keep pristine on the ride over. He forces his hands to relax but keeps his eyes on his competitors. Because that's what they are: competitors. Everyone is vying for this job, and little old Wheatley barely scraped by into the interview process after getting resume help from a friend. They all look so much more experienced, with their pressed suits and coiffed hair and shined shoes. He can't tell if they're staring as he walks to the desk with the smiling attendant, but it certainly feels like it. They all know the game, and they can tell the bumbling British man who showed up in his good sweater, out of fashion corduroy pants and scuffed trainers is no match for them. There are a few women too, just as put together. It's not looking good.
The lady at the desk takes his papers. "Thank you." She doesn't say anything further, and he idles just long enough to realize that's a dismissal and that he's overstayed his welcome there. Wheatley shuffles off to one of the open chairs. He sits, and he waits.
And waits.
The lady at the desk takes the papers back once a few more people appear, and then they're called back one by one. Wheatley bums a… what was the American word for it… 'cigarette' in his time waiting and drums his fingers against the metal arm of the chair. He's anxious in a way he's never been before because he knows this is it. If this job doesn't land, then it's a plane back to Kent. That big oak door held his entire future behind it.
The waiting is killing him. But most of the people are gone by now, surely it should be his turn soon.
"Mr. Devonshire?"
Wheatley pops his head up and quickly ashes his cigarette. The lady from the desk, he thinks he heard the name Deliah, motions toward the door. The Door. Big deal that. He swallows down his nerves and walks with purpose, back straight and chin tilted up like he can't feel the eyes of the remaining interviewees trailing after him.
The room beyond is larger with honey-colored lights bathing everything in a pleasant glow. Plants decorate the corners, giving the bitter underground a spot of life as the green pops against the walls stale grey paint. A single chair sits in front of him facing a desk that's not much larger than the reception outside, and another lady sits at the table. Documents are spread over the surface, next to a monitor, a potted plant and a frame that he can't see the front of. What really draws his eye though is the large painting on the opposite wall. It's imposing, detailing the large gaunt face of a man with hollow eyes and a grey receding hairline. The plaque under it reads 'Cave Johnson'. He feels minuscule under that gaze.
The lady clears her throat, and he comes out of his reverie. She is older, the skin of her face is starting to crinkle and sag, and her eyes are about as hollow as the painting above her. They watch him curiously though. She sports a grey and white scarf tied in the front and a thin white dress with a dark blazer overtop. Wheatley can't help but note the bags poking out under her powder around her eyes. "Sorry." He murmurs as he relocates into the chair.
She smiles. He can see the way it's a practiced thing, sugary and sweet and not at all real because it's only her mouth that's smiling. "Don't be. It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Devonshire."
"Oh- no. Just call me Wheatley." He laughs because he doesn't know what else to do with the nerves threatening to spew out his mouth. Wheatley finds himself fixated back on the painting though. "Is that him?"
The lady looks back, and something both fond and frustrated plays through her expression. "Yes. That's Mr. Johnson." She speaks evenly. There is grief hidden there. "He was a great man."
"I heard he was a bit of a tosser, actually." Spills out before he can think about the ramifications of insulting someone so important to the job he's trying to get. "I mean- not that- I didn't know him. Or anything-"
A laugh knocks him out of his ramble. "Oh. Yes. Yes, he was."
"But you just said…"
"Great doesn't always mean good." She turns back to him. "He was great. Brilliant, brave, reckless really, forward thinking." The lady shakes her head. "Also, the most stubborn inconsiderate man I've had the pleasure of working for." She breathes out, and the smile finally reaches her eyes, causing the edges to bunch into a few happy lines. The lady moves some papers around. "How are you enjoying the States, Wheatley?"
He does his best to relax into the professionalism he'd done his best to perfect in the weeks leading up to this. "I'm having a very lovely time, really. Love all your… museums and little roadside stops." Wheatley folds his hands together to stop from fidgeting.
The lady nods. "Lovely, and, just to be clear, you are eligible to work in the United Stares?"
"Er- yeah! Course!" Wheatley realizes he isn't exactly sure. But his aunt should be able to sort it out.
"Excellent!" She smiles as she considers the paper, "so why do you want to work for Aperture?"
Wheatley straightens up, pulling up the prepared list of talking points he'd practiced in his head over and over. "Well, I know that the scientific scene doesn't look good right now, but I heard that the labs over in America still had some hope. I know I'm no scientist, but I've always wanted to work around the fields in some way. I heard Aperture was working on computers and thought that sounded like a right good time. Computers are so new and interesting, even if I can't understand them, I can surely help the great minds that do.."
The stretch of silence after his response causes his heart to pick up the pace slightly. The lady's eyes are roaming all over his resume in a way that is too thorough; he'd always been told employers used it for talking points and they never actually looked at the damn thing. And now he's even more nervous. "Miss…?"
"Sorry, sorry." She clears her throat. "Yes, we are working on that. Can you tell me about your time working for the BSA?" The lady's eyes leave the paper, and Wheatley feels a heavy sense of foreboding.
The silence and intensity have thrown him off. His carefully prepared answers are mixed up, and his script is thrown off. "Uhm… just f-filing paperwork, mostly. You know. Clerk work." Heat rises under his cheeks as her gaze lingers. It's a bad answer.
"Verstehst du mich?" She presses further, and the mask of professionalism turns to something more calculated.
Wheatley can no longer keep his hands still as they fidget with his sleeves. "Beg pardon?"
"¿O esto?" Her stare hardens as she continues to receive no reply, "I don't like having my time wasted, Mr. Devonshire."
He startles. "Now hang on." He's been caught out, but he could still save this. "I just-"
"It says here you've worked with the BSA for three years."
"Well, yes I-"
"And that your father is in the Royal Society."
"Okay, I may have over-"
"And that you're fluent in both German and Spanish."
Wheatley swallows nervously, now resolutely avoiding eye contact.
"Do you even know my name?" His silence clearly speaks volumes. The lady sighs, full of disappointment, and the strings of his heart pluck in horror. "Okay, we're done here."
"Wait- wait!" Wheatley stands and slaps his hands against the table in desperation. Iron eyes stare back at him. Talking. Come on, this is the one thing he's good at. He just needs to start talking. "Look, okay, I know I'm underqualified. I know I'm making all the wrong impressions right now, but I can learn. I can talk to people; I can learn to do assistant stuff but please. I need this job. I can't go back to Kent; my dad's not a member of the Royal Society, he's a strikebreaker. We can't- it's not good, Miss. I didn't even tell my family I was leaving. I know my resume is mostly… made up," it's lies, but he's not about to say that word, "but I wasn't making up what I said earlier. I've always loved science, and even if I'm not particularly smart, I'd like to be there around it. I'm not made of harder stuff like my father, and I'm not that creative. Just… please.
"If you give me this, I'll give you anything. I'll give you everything." Wheatley hears how pathetic it sounds, but the words keep tumbling out. "And- and isn't that what this company is all about? Isn't that what science is all about? Achieving your dream by any means necessary. Well, I'm shooting for the stars! I'm daring to dream." He cracks a wide grin that he hopes is charming. "Are you?"
The lady doesn't break eye contact as he runs out of steam, but slowly she breaks once more into that wide genuine smile and humor dances in her eyes. "Well, Wheatley Devonshire. You sell yourself mighty well."
"Thank you." He puffs up.
"But that doesn't change the fact that you are woefully underqualified."
And he deflates again.
"While I would love to have you on board, I don't have time to teach you, nor do we have it in the budget to hire more than one assistant. However," she gathers the papers of his resume and taps them against the desk to straighten them, "we are in need of a safety inspector."
Wheatley leans back from the desk. "But I know even less about safety than I do about being an assistant."
She laughs like he's told the funniest joke she's ever heard. Wheatley gives a half-hearted chuckle in return. "Oh, Wheatley. Don't worry. You don't have to." The lady holds out the papers, and he quietly takes them. "It'll be easier than being an assistant."
"Oh… okay." It occurs to him to ask questions, but in the face of an unknown possibly life-threatening job and an unknown life-threatening home, Wheatley knows which he's picking. "What gave me away?" He wafts the papers in the air.
The lady shakes her head. "Nothing on there." She stretches her hand out over the desk. "And it's Caroline Clark."
"Wheatley, Devonshire." He takes her hand then scoffs. "But you uh, already knew that."
Caroline gives another mirthful chuckle. "Welcome aboard, Wheatley."
.
The taste of the smoke was the first thing that registered back in the present. Wheatley opened his eyes slowly as the bright and lively image of the office faded back into the desolate present. His cigarette was a quarter of the way burnt. Doug appeared in his peripheral leaning against the table and watching him closely. Nervously.
"Doug," he intoned as evenly as he could, "who am I?"