Hi! Wheatley here. This is my question. Thing.

So um ask away! Feel free. ((Av credit goes to inonibird))

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

[00004]? What are YOU doing here? ((eadensfoxglove- muahaha, couldn't resist))

“…u-um, it’s WHEATLEY. Not…0004? O-or 000-ZERO-4, sorry, don’t know if there’s an accent thing there, my binary’s a bit rusty. Although NOT, literally! Um. I sort of don’t rust, any more, generally.”

He gave her a quick wave. He’d never seen anyone quite like her - she appeared to have piercings, and purple hair. She TOWERED - she was actually a inch or two taller than him - and she appeared to have acquired her limbs from some sort of rummage sale, given how none of them actually seemed to match.

“But yeah! I’m just sort of here. Chatting.”

He tried looking nonchalant, leaning on the nearest surface and almost toppling over before hastily correcting himself. 

“What about you? …also, who ARE you? Probably should have asked that one first.”

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

He raised an eyebrow for a second, as her voice shifted ever-so-slightly on the new word. He could hear a flicker of her mechanical nature underneath, like an errant stagehand peeping behind the curtain, as whatever programs dwelled in her vocalisers tasted the word on their artificial tongue. Still, it was gone as quickly as it appeared. 

“You have children? We…don’t have MANY of those. Anymore.” 

Wheatley remembered the last time children had shown up to Aperture en masse. He’d been working in Cube Management at the time, so he hadn’t seen all of it - but he remembered a lot of screaming, and people being swallowed by seas of rolling green gas and never coming back out. 

He gave a little shiver at the thought, and tried to brush it off as quickly as he could. After all, life found a way and all that, and by now there were probably even children around here that WEREN’T brewed up by over-zealous shippers in the Genetics Department. 

“Um, but yeah! Spheres are pretty great. Useful for all sorts.” A little note of pride entered his voice. “I-I mean, if you have any Aperture Science Personality-Construct Access Ports knocking about, or uh AIs to calm down, they’re pretty good at that! Sort of the main strengths. But, well, I-I mean I’ve done all sorts.” 

“As for how many android bodies there are…well, there’s a few now! Seems to be a trend. Can’t really blame them, I have to say this is a pretty good shape! It’s a bit more mobile, a-and taller. And it’s nice to have senses and all that.” He smiled, gesturing to his face. “And like expressions! Sort of hard to emote with just the eye. At times.”

He tried mimicking one of his old expressions with his right eye - a sort of raising of the bottom lid, for happiness - to emphasise the point.

“Although as for HUMAN bodies that was…sort of a one-or-two time thing. Really. As far as I’m aware. Down in Old Aperture.”

Technically, it depended on if you could find the right damaged German AI obsessed with disassembling humans or not. His expression clouded, as the memory tugged at him.

[eadensfoxglove-blog]

Foxglove listened with rapt attention. It was important information to remember, of course, but it also piqued her curiosity. She wondered if there was an advantage to having an android body as opposed to hard light. An android would not have fared as well as she did against the gels, so perhaps she was better as she was. Either form would be better than a human.

“One or two?” Her eyebrows went up. “So there is a possibility that more bodies survived? I suppose it is a testament to the high level of technology and innovation at Aperture that they are able to preserve things for such long periods of time, although I do wonder why anyone would choose something so inefficient when there are better options available.” She paused, recalling what stories she had heard from her own universe’s Wheatley. “Unless it wasn’t a choice, in which case you have my condolences.”

A subroutine warned her she wasn’t being tactful and it was, in fact, something Garret had spoken to her about as well, but for now curiosity and scientific inquiry took precedence.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

“Well. I mean, it wasn’t really a choice, no. You’re right.”

Wheatley’s hands were in his pockets and his gaze was pointed squarely towards the floor. The bouncy demeanour that had carried him through a literal minefield of bouncing monitors and high-velocity pencils not too long ago had been replaced by a kind of quiet contemplation, as the two moved through the corridors. 

“Basically...I-I sort of got dragged, down, to Old Aperture - WELL, I mean I went down there to find some stuff out, people were saying maybe the cores used to be human and I thought that was a bit odd BUT, well, if you proved it you’d be really smart! A discoverer...er. Like Columbus discovering Columbus Day, or something...”

Even when recounting a near-death experience, Wheatley apparently found time to ramble. 

“And then I got caught by this bloke called the Medical Core who’s kind of bloody mental, um, and he was doing these experiments to put cores back into human bodies. Because he wanted to get back into his, because his core had been making him...well, bloody mental. S-so, um, he ended up tying me down, a-and and putting this drill in my head...”

He trailed off at that point, and went silent, internally steadying himself. He took a quick glance at her face, to read her expression - so far, she seemed decidedly unfazed.

“...a-and well the important bit was that I ended up in here. This body! Apparently the one I had before, even, which is handy. Though I still wouldn’t recommend the whole experience. And then Trix and Suse and Shayla and Rick came down to get me, a-and a bunch of cores, so it all worked out for the best.”

He took another pause to reflect, his pace picking back up as he took a quick right onto a catwalk. “I mean, yeah, it took some getting used to! All the ‘er, bodily functions, and life expectancies, and lack of a rail and that, and the heart I mean that just keeps going and going and I spent about a week, t-trying to turn it off! BUT, I have to say, I quite like it! Everything feels...realer. In here. You feel more, generally.”

Wheatley made a little gesture with his hands, widening them slightly. Whether this explained the experience of experiencing untempered human emotion and functioning organs and nerves after centuries of having them muffled and filtered was hard to say, but at least it was a start.

“A-and also there’s legs. I DEFINITELY recommend legs-oh! Hang on! We’re here!”

The sounds of mechanical whirring, short bursts of gunfire and thin, warbling voices filled the air. Wheatley leaned over the rail and pointed. Beneath them, a conveyor belt dutifully chugged forward, hoisting skeletal mechanical tripods over rolling waves of plastic. Mechanical arms swooped in to tweak and add parts at every stage of the projects, and the tripods became pristine white ovals before finally bursting into life at the end, as twitching, glancing robots.

“There we go! The Turret Production Line. And then there’s the Turret Redemption Line, just down the way. But that gets a bit morbid. I mean I don’t like turrets but...yeah.” He nodded, soberly. “Not that nice a place.”

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

[00004]? What are YOU doing here? ((eadensfoxglove- muahaha, couldn't resist))

“…u-um, it’s WHEATLEY. Not…0004? O-or 000-ZERO-4, sorry, don’t know if there’s an accent thing there, my binary’s a bit rusty. Although NOT, literally! Um. I sort of don’t rust, any more, generally.”

He gave her a quick wave. He’d never seen anyone quite like her - she appeared to have piercings, and purple hair. She TOWERED - she was actually a inch or two taller than him - and she appeared to have acquired her limbs from some sort of rummage sale, given how none of them actually seemed to match.

“But yeah! I’m just sort of here. Chatting.”

He tried looking nonchalant, leaning on the nearest surface and almost toppling over before hastily correcting himself. 

“What about you? …also, who ARE you? Probably should have asked that one first.”

[eadensfoxglove-blog]

“The small hum- children- are prone to a lot of bouncing, as are their canine companions, but I have not had much cause to do any, myself. It’s… quite enjoyable.” She smiled, following him through seemingly random twists and turns of the hallways. Production lines of any kind promised to be informative and, if their experience with the gels could be used as an indicator, potentially more adventurous than would normally be expected.

“A [Management Rail],” she said, looking up. “There are no spherical robots in need of locomotion where I’m from, but I have heard a lot about them. They seem to be well designed for their purpose.”

Her own opinion- especially now that she had a set of her own- was that legs would be a great deal more useful, but it didn’t seem to be the time to mention that. “Do you still have spheres in use, then? Or have they all been upgraded to android-” She hesitated, glancing at him. “…or human models?”

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

He raised an eyebrow for a second, as her voice shifted ever-so-slightly on the new word. He could hear a flicker of her mechanical nature underneath, like an errant stagehand peeping behind the curtain, as whatever programs dwelled in her vocalisers tasted the word on their artificial tongue. Still, it was gone as quickly as it appeared. 

“You have children? We...don’t have MANY of those. Anymore.” 

Wheatley remembered the last time children had shown up to Aperture en masse. He’d been working in Cube Management at the time, so he hadn’t seen all of it - but he remembered a lot of screaming, and people being swallowed by seas of rolling green gas and never coming back out. 

He gave a little shiver at the thought, and tried to brush it off as quickly as he could. After all, life found a way and all that, and by now there were probably even children around here that WEREN’T brewed up by over-zealous shippers in the Genetics Department. 

“Um, but yeah! Spheres are pretty great. Useful for all sorts.” A little note of pride entered his voice. “I-I mean, if you have any Aperture Science Personality-Construct Access Ports knocking about, or uh AIs to calm down, they’re pretty good at that! Sort of the main strengths. But, well, I-I mean I’ve done all sorts.” 

“As for how many android bodies there are...well, there’s a few now! Seems to be a trend. Can’t really blame them, I have to say this is a pretty good shape! It’s a bit more mobile, a-and taller. And it’s nice to have senses and all that.” He smiled, gesturing to his face. “And like expressions! Sort of hard to emote with just the eye. At times.”

He tried mimicking one of his old expressions with his right eye - a sort of raising of the bottom lid, for happiness - to emphasise the point.

“Although as for HUMAN bodies that was...sort of a one-or-two time thing. Really. As far as I’m aware. Down in Old Aperture.”

Technically, it depended on if you could find the right damaged German AI obsessed with disassembling humans or not. His expression clouded, as the memory tugged at him.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

[00004]? What are YOU doing here? ((eadensfoxglove- muahaha, couldn't resist))

“…u-um, it’s WHEATLEY. Not…0004? O-or 000-ZERO-4, sorry, don’t know if there’s an accent thing there, my binary’s a bit rusty. Although NOT, literally! Um. I sort of don’t rust, any more, generally.”

He gave her a quick wave. He’d never seen anyone quite like her - she appeared to have piercings, and purple hair. She TOWERED - she was actually a inch or two taller than him - and she appeared to have acquired her limbs from some sort of rummage sale, given how none of them actually seemed to match.

“But yeah! I’m just sort of here. Chatting.”

He tried looking nonchalant, leaning on the nearest surface and almost toppling over before hastily correcting himself. 

“What about you? …also, who ARE you? Probably should have asked that one first.”

[eadensfoxglove-blog]

Foxglove stayed ready to intervene if necessary, but despite a flaming desk swishing through the air behind him Wheatley made it to the safety of the doorway with only minor incident. It was… it was exciting. She grinned at him.

“This was fun! I am enjoying the tour so far!” She tucked the jars into various pockets and gave him a hug. This was a sign of Approval and Friendship.

Pulling back from the embrace was complicated by a slight smear of pink on her arm, but luckily the gel was still warm and a quick tug prevented them from becoming stuck together. Given that the human body was not rated for close proximity to the Incalcination process, this was probably a good thing.

“You’re very agile,” she told him.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

Foxglove pulled Wheatley into a hug, excitement glowing off her like hard-light. It took the human a second or so to figure out what had happened - and, in fact, to process that what had happened wasn’t her angrily berating him and demanding to go home immediately.

But once he recovered, he hugged her back. There was something a little off about the way she felt, once you actually got to touch her for a few seconds. There was a thin, trembling layer of current that rippled along her hologram, and her textures weren’t quite right - the clothes she wore felt oddly similar to her skin. He hadn’t tried touching her hair yet - that was one of those things you couldn’t just bring up at any point in a conversation - but he wondered if it had the same effect.

But though his heart was still fluttering from the sudden burst of running and he took the occasional deep breath, a little knot of worry untangled itself in his stomach. He hopped on his toes as he pulled back, a smile lighting up his expression even as he wiped awkwardly at the little stain of pink running up his sleeve. It managed to ensnare his fingertips for a few seconds, before he hastily wiggled them loose. 

“Oh! ‘Er, t-thank you! You’re pretty agile, yourself! Saw you dodging those monitors like a, m-monitor-dodging, pro. AND you managed to get some samples. Might be useful, i-if you want to stick stuff together or go fast - um, faster - or just sort of bounce around a bit. Do you do that where you come from? Bouncing?”

Nobody appeared to be following them, which was probably a good thing. Just in case, Wheatley took a few more turns than strictly necessary as the two of them headed to the next room, pulling out his slightly gel-stained datapad and glancing at it just to see where they were. 

“OR, if you do tests, I imagine they could help you with the tests! But, um, there ARE patents on them.”

Wheatley wasn’t entirely sure what a patent was. He made a stab in the dark.

“So, um, maybe wipe them a bit before you use them.”

Nailed it. 

“S-so, um, I think we’re heading towards the Production Lines! Or a Production Line, um, we sort of just have these running between floors where we can fit them in. Um, ALSO, note the rail! I think we invented that, too.”

Indeed, there was a stark metal track running over their heads as the two of them progressed. It looked worn, admittedly, but the clamps of the Management Rail dangled invitingly for any core that wanted to use it.

“I mean you can’t really take a sample of those, maybe a picture, or something, but they’re the best thing I’ve seen for moving spherical robots around! That’s a fact.”

He nodded, just to emphasise the point.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

[00004]? What are YOU doing here? ((eadensfoxglove- muahaha, couldn't resist))

“…u-um, it’s WHEATLEY. Not…0004? O-or 000-ZERO-4, sorry, don’t know if there’s an accent thing there, my binary’s a bit rusty. Although NOT, literally! Um. I sort of don’t rust, any more, generally.”

He gave her a quick wave. He’d never seen anyone quite like her - she appeared to have piercings, and purple hair. She TOWERED - she was actually a inch or two taller than him - and she appeared to have acquired her limbs from some sort of rummage sale, given how none of them actually seemed to match.

“But yeah! I’m just sort of here. Chatting.”

He tried looking nonchalant, leaning on the nearest surface and almost toppling over before hastily correcting himself. 

“What about you? …also, who ARE you? Probably should have asked that one first.”

[eadensfoxglove-blog]

Foxglove was familiar with [00004]’s penchant for disasters, but they were inherently unpredictable. This seemed to be something else this universe’s Wheatley had in common with him. She could see the chain of events unfolding, but even with her enhanced reflexes there was little she could do to stop it.

She tried to grab him as the shelf collapsed, but he hitched his shoulders, making her miss, and then she had to duck out of the way as a ballistic can of gel shot past her.

“I do not think this area is safe,” she said, stepping back to watch the can as it smashed into the pipe, causing it to crack. Her foot landed in a blob of pink… and stuck.

“Wheatley, what is-” She made another grab for him as he shot past her on an orange slick, but her stuck foot limited her range.

Cans clattered around her. She caught one marked “Conversion” and another marked “Adhesion v.1 DO NOT USE″ which seemed to be the pink gel. She saw Wheatley slam into the already-damaged pipe. Under normal circumstances he should not have weighed enough to make things worse, but his increased speed gave him enough of an edge to shatter the rest of the pipe. Alarms blared.

Against all odds (but as usual for him) Wheatley appeared to be relatively undamaged and was trying to assure her that everything was fine when the pipe finished exploding and started to gush blue gel. Repulsion. Bouncing.

“The door! Open the door!”

She tried to move her foot again, but nothing happened. Taking a quick assessment of the situation and calculating the number of available projectiles in the room, she decided to take a chance and dropped what she was holding. One brief flicker into Incalcination Cycle might do it.

WHUMP. The room flashed bright as her external temperature reached 2000° Kelvin. Her foot came free, leaving behind a charred patch on the floor. The cans around her exploded, coating her in various colors, but she was already running for the door.

Once it was jammed open (and she checked to make sure her pink patches didn’t come in contact with anything) she turned to check Wheatley’s status. There were already a lot of objects bouncing around the room. Uncanny luck or not, a CRT monitor traveling at 100mph could still cause a lot of damage to a human skull. Or anything else it might hit.

“Wheatley! Do you need me to get you out?” She wondered how much time they had left before the room hit critical levels.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

Foxglove set herself on fire. Wheatley hadn’t expected that.

It wasn’t even really fire, from the little glimpse Wheatley’d seen before the light had threatened to burn out his corneas and he’d had to slam his eyes shut. It was a light that devoured her from within, and spread out like the heavenly wrath of some avenging angel. Sheer heat caused the nearest jars to explode in showers of goo and destroyed metal, and the gel stains smeared across the floor to bubble and flash into flashes of gas, that disappeared up the pipe still valiantly trying to suck the gel back in. 

The light faded, and Foxglove asked how he was. Wheatley tried to figure out what had just happened for a few seconds before shaking his head, yelling across the room even as he started running.

“Give me a second! I’ll make it to you!”

A computer monitor smacked off the floor a few inches from him before bounding upwards, and a clipboard whizzed a few inches above his head. He cried out in shock, clutching his head and ducking as he ran, like some action hero trying to dodge a rain of bullets. Alarms were screaming, louder and louder.

“Come on come on-”

A pen smacked him in the shoulder, and he winced, feinting to the right before the handle of a coffee-mug could hit him in the chin. More diving than running, he sprang forward, heart pounding, stopping in the doorway next to Foxglove and leaning on it as if he were about to collapse. His gaze, behind askew glasses, shot to the cans in her hands.

“Alright good you got the stuff that’s BASICALLY the end of this part of the tour so let’s go! Come on!”

He wasn’t sure if he could hear footsteps or not, and he didn’t want to chance finding out. Moving quickly, he headed around the nearest corridor and through what looked like a lobby. There was a vending machine, selling a few drinks from Outside and a few drinks still waiting to be made legal in the United States, a holographic fern shining brightly in the corner and a pair of leather couches sat on either side.

“So!” He offered, somewhat brightly. “How’s this going? For you? So far?”

He HOPED it was going well. Despite...circumstances.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

Know Thy Frenemy

((Alright, here’s a Geekenders!universe fic for the first time in forever - illness and exams kinda got in the way. Assuming people still read these, enjoy!))

“So! Um. T-this is it, ‘eh? The big event!”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

The wheels of the trolley squeaked as it rattled forward. Every so often, a wheel would twitch in a different direction - the trolley to list as it bumped along the checkered panel floor, but it still squeaked inexorably on. Its sole passenger bounced eagerly on the bottom, strapped snugly into a children’s car seat that was apparently serving double-duty as the first Aperture Science Personality Construct Transportation Device. His optic craned in its socket, trying gamely to peer around the seatbelt that’d been awkwardly lashed around his eye. Another pair of straps held him by the handlebars.

He could tell there was glass on either side – the whole corridor was glass, with the linoleum floor underneath – but he couldn’t see behind him. Any attempts to actually do so were cut off by the lightly nodding headboard of his car seat, and the seatbelt chafing on the glass of his optic. He felt a bit like he was on a tram of some kind – probably. He was fairly certain he’d never actually BEEN on a tram before, so presumably he was making some kind of pre-programmed educated guess. But he knew what was behind him, regardless, or rather who. Dr. Dutcher was pushing the trolley, with a small cluster of other scientists trailing behind - Matt Kiley seemed to be the one with AV duty thrust upon him, who was awkwardly lugging a tripod and a camera along with his datapad bag. Together, they provided an impromptu entourage, for his Very Important Journey.

He liked that. It made him feel special. Special enough to warrant Capitals.

He’d had an interesting few days of being alive, so far. Upon his first activation, he’d been given a few preliminary questions to answer – what his name was, if he knew where he was, if he felt like he had any phantom limbs or if he was particularly cold. He’d cheerfully answered all of them – “Wheatley” sounded familiar so he supposed it was pre-programmed in, he was in Aperture Science (where else?), he wasn’t THAT cold and if he saw anyone’s ghost limbs kicking around he’d be sure to give them a shout.

Everyone’d been really nice to him. The only thing they hadn’t done was get him ice-cream, after it was gently pointed out that he couldn’t eat it. He’d felt a bit silly, then, and hurriedly went quiet – he felt he should have known that, that he was smarter than that, and he didn’t want his new friends in the Robotics Department to think they’d built a stupid robot or something.

But nobody thought he was stupid! In fact, they thought he was really, really smart, judging by all the tests they kept giving him. Mostly the tests consisted of asking him what he’d do in a certain situation, and nodding silently and appreciatively every time he suggested whacking a big red button or setting something on fire. And he got stickers! And a little certificate, for Being Good At Ideas, that was hung in pride of place over his charging dock.

And then, eventually, they’d given him his mission. They’d sat him down gently in his charging dock and told him he’d passed all the tests with flying colours! Everyone in the department was very proud of him – he was the most promising AI they’d developed yet – and now he was ready to do what he was built for.

There was another AI, he’d been told, that was meant to run the facility. But she didn’t seem to be behaving, despite the scientists’ best efforts, and science as they knew it was in jeopardy. If he could talk her down and convince her to work with the humans, science would be saved, and he could serve as her aide from then on, running half the facility. He might even get a gold star.

There were other conversations, of course. Ones he’d heard through doorways or behind thin walls. About the usual flaws in the transfer process and irreversible brain damage and something about personality distillation. Something about a man called Jonathan. Something about an intelligence dampener. He’d meant to ask about that. Did they think he was getting too smart? He didn’t want that. Maybe he’d have to tone it down a bit.

And then there were other moments. They showed up every now and then, like blinks of the mind, or glitches in code. Sometimes he remembered-

“We’re here.”

Dutcher’s voice had all the emotion of a block of steel with a frowny face drawn on it. It yanked Wheatley out of his reverie by the scruff of the neck, and he blinked rapidly, trying to make sure no-one’d seen him zone out. This was it. The mission! Yes. He’d been looking forward to the mission. The mission was great.

But none of the scientists forming his raggedy tail, he noticed, were speaking, or even looking at each other. The double doors in front of them somehow seemed to swallow even the idea of noise without actually doing anything, just by looming there, bolted shut, impassive guardians of some terrible gate. A single camera hung, dead and drooping, over the entryway. A cheerful sign on the door reminded everyone to wear their respirators, and remember their paradoxes in case of emergency.

…the mission was great, but there was just one thing he wanted to clear up. If possible.

“OK! So. Things seem to be a bit quiet, on the speaking front, maybe a bit tense-“

“There’s no tension. Everything’s fine. You just try to relax.”

“-yes, WELL, OK, there’s no tension, that’s just me exaggerating a bit I-I mean I’M not nervous! To clarify! Don’t know about you, but…”

Wheatley cleared his throat – or rather played the relevant .mp3 file – and tried to glance backward so he could look Dutcher in the face. He took a second to formulate his question.

“…I mean I take it you guys have met her before? Haven’t you? Um. What’s She like?”

Silence once again hung in the air, but now there was an edge to it. Wheatley played his .mp3 file again, just to catch their attention, and heard a voice chime in from behind his core. Matt Kiley was rubbing the back of his neck, shifting from foot to foot.

“Well. You ever hear of HAL 9000?”

“…u-uh, no?”

“Thank you, for your input.” Dutcher cut off the tentative shoots of conversation with one quick slice. “I dragged you out here for the filming, not scaremongering.”

“Alright! Alright, fine. I’ll just stand there and shoot.” The IT man nodded sourly, patting the stained-looking holdall looped snugly over his shoulder. “Anyone wanna make a video will? I mean, it might take the shine off our “for posterity” video, but it’ll be great to get apocalyptic logs for the first five minutes of the movie-“

“One more comment and I’ll have you transferred.”

There were two meanings to the phrase, and one lurked beneath the other like a knife under a sleeve. Dutcher, for his part, tossed it out as casually as one might ask for the time. Matt went silent. Wheatley shifted in his chair.

“S-so…so should we go in?”

Dutcher smiled. His eyes were bright, behind his little square glasses.

“Of course. Follow me.” He strode to the sliding doors on the end of the glass corridor, uncovering a hatch to reveal an emergency handle. “At the moment, we can’t automate a lot around here. We keep the power minimal between activations.” He grunted, the sleeve of his black suit rumpling slightly as he forced the door open. “Once you’ve finished stabilizing the GLaDOS that will change, of course.”

“Right.” Wheatley nodded. The GLaDOS. That was her, he supposed – the other AI. He didn’t ask. He needed to look professional. This was the big mission.

Dutcher moved forward, and the technicians rolled the trolley after him. Matt Kiley awkwardly slipped past and started setting up his camera, muttering about Skynet and Judgement Day and “here we go again”.

The trolley rolled past a row of scientists working on either side, typing the occasional command into their computers and watching the monitors like parents watching a sleeping child. One woman, with her hair tied in a bun and a faintly Canadian accent, was talking slowly and carefully into a red phone about the 33rd Activation.

“The IDS has arrived. Connecting it now.”

And then, once you got past all the humans and the bustling, the chamber opened up to…something. There was a catwalk, and a snaking row of stairs that led up to it. There were floodlights that lit up the floor in a neat little circle. And the centerpiece of it all was dangling from the ceiling, limp. Wheatley’s optic widened, trying to take it all in – it looked like a vast collection of computer parts, more complex than anything he could comprehend, fashioned into an instrument of great and terrible power.

That had to be her.

Carefully, Dutcher undid Wheatley’s seatbelt, and lifted him off the trolley. He tilted the core in his arms, sliding up a panel in the back to reveal a connection port.  He started up the stairs.

“Turn it on as soon as the core’s attached, NOT before. We’ve had a full reboot after last time?”

Wheatley looked at her, and at the human faces below. Something was creeping through his circuitry. Fear. He was afraid. What if he messed it up?

“…u-um, sir? I’m not sure I can do this, right now, maybe we could take a break-“

“You have to.”

There was a twitch of rage in Dutcher’s voice, hastily smothered like the embers of a fire. Still, it was enough for Wheatley’s gaze to hurriedly shift anywhere that wasn’t the man’s eyes. They were halfway up the stairs. Had they always been so high? Dutcher seemed to realize what he’d done, and gave the core an awkward little pat – it seemed he didn’t practice the gesture often.

They were up the stairs. They were on the catwalk. Wheatley swallowed again. Dutcher put him down, for a moment, and the core felt a sudden urge to run - but that was ridiculous what was he going to run with anyway this was his job – and opened up a port on GLaDOS’ side. He stooped down, and lifted the core up.

“Finalising reboot, sir!” The Canadian woman, with the red phone in her hand. “33rd Activation in 20 seconds!”

Wheatley trembled. He couldn’t stop. He tried to steady his racing thoughts. He was fine. He was going to be fine. This was the mission. He was built for this! Dutcher span him, slowly, deliberately, so that his face filled the majority of the core’s vision. His expression wasn’t unkind. It was even warm.

“Good luck, Wheatley. Make us all proud. We’re counting on you.”

“OK. I will. I’ll-“

Dutcher plugged him in. He felt a surge of energy, white-hot, burning within his centre and behind his eyes. And

…he?

He…was.

He was somewhere. Somewhere dark. There was a light, pulsing a slow and steady blue, and as awareness crept back into his brain in a trickling flood he was fairly certain it was coming from him. His…hands?

He looked down, suddenly, and stared at a pair of hands, flexing the fingers a few times. They were his, so it seemed. In fact, as his vision trailed down, he seemed to have sprouted a whole body – legs, and hips, and a torso, and even blue shoes with some white bits on the tip and near the laces. A shirt – blue – and a waistcoat sort of thing, and a tie and – he reached up, here, and touched his head, hands quickly massaging his scalp – he appeared to have acquired a sizeable percentage of all the hair in the world.

His glow seemed to throb, in the darkness that went on forever. When it dimmed, he could see the light-blue wireframe that his skin seemed to hang over, like he was some sort of video-game character. Little squares of data, like artificial snowflakes, trailed down his form and neatly dissipated, with perfect, mechanical timing, before they could hit the ground.

He was data, then. He supposed it made sense. The body was a bit elaborate – he wasn’t sure why they’d gone that far – but he supposed a human appearance would help if they were asking Her to work with humans. Or maybe it just looked nice. Or something. Wheatley, like most loyal Aperture employees and/or products, could usually knit together an explanation for the company’s whims before even the official broadcasts could.

He clasped his hands together, and swiveled on his heels, peering around.

“Right! Hello! Anyone…anyone in?”

He smiled, and did his best to look friendly, in case she WAS watching from somewhere – this was, after all, technically her brain. His glow thrummed again, warm and welcoming, but the darkness loomed on all sides and threatened to drown it. It didn’t seem to be bouncing off any walls, or illuminating any sort of definable floor. Still, he took a few steps forward, nevertheless.

“Tell you what, if you’re not in, I can come back later! …well. I can’t, really, come back later because I’m sort of bolted onto your chassis, and it’s funny, but I don’t have any legs! Well I mean that’s not really funny, like ha-ha, unless you’re a fan of leg-based comedy, like, u-um, OK, why did the chicken cross the road? Because he had legs! And maybe…he wanted some more legs! From the leg, s-shop. I don’t know. Is any of this doing it? For you?”

Wheatley paused for a few seconds, rocking on his heels. He cast another look out into the blackness, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

“Why did the ankle cross the road? I, um, heard that one before, but the ending’s a bit hazy. Are you-oh!”

Something flared, far out in the blackness – a light, which blinked in and out of existence twice before flaring yellow. A pair of tendrils seemed to cautiously stretch from its core, followed by a third from behind – synapses, so it seemed, reaching out from that far-off, flaming neuron.

“Let there be light, ‘eh! That’s...um, a God quote. BUT, I think it stands the test of time. Ooooh, hang on…”

The neuron was making friends rapidly. More and more them were bursting into the empty world like newborn stars, knitting themselves together with more and more connecting cords. Each cord flowed with visible data, much like Wheatley did, and glowed with sharp, sparking bursts of power that he could see zapping from one light to the other. They blazed like constellations. The pulses began to settle, gradually, and the disordered blinking of the neurons started to coalesce. A few sluggish waves rolled forward, from every direction now, and paused as if in thought a few inches from an increasingly curious Wheatley.

What…what is this? Am I a…where is this please?

Wheatley jumped, sharply, and almost knocked a few synapses loose. The voice had come from behind, and somehow echoed off the walls even in infinity. It was feminine, though he couldn’t quite put a finger on the age – she sounded young – and flanged with a synthetic undertone. More than that, her enunciation wasn’t quite right. She seemed to be picking what syllables to emphasize by closing her eyes and pointing.

Wheatley looked up, and up, and a little further up. His expression flashed with sudden realization, and he jabbed a finger at the thickest cluster of neurons trailing from her hair.

“Because he was a leg-end!”

He beamed, holding out his arms with a flourish. Nothing else happened. Wheatley looked rather put out.

“Because…he was an ankle, and he was on the end, o-of a! Leg.“ He rubbed the back of his neck, and tried not to look sullen. His smile was a little faded at the edges, but he hastily dragged it back up. “Anyway! That was just to, ‘er, lighten the mood a bit, but YOU are GLaDOS! Genetic Lifeform and…” He fumbled, tracing the words with his finger as he mumbled. “…Disk Operating System! There we go. You’re basically the computer in charge of this place. They said they had to try a reboot, um, so maybe you’re feeling a bit groggy.”

I’m sorry, I was in a chair. The voice seemed to be ruminating, thoughtful. I was…busy? Being dead. Dying.

Wheatley shifted tactfully from foot to foot, raising an eyebrow. “Well, um, first bit of good news, then, for you, you are DEFINITELY not dead! And, ‘er, that which does not kill you, m-makes you stronger! Solid life advice. …except for like amputations. And stuff. Um. Polio. Rickets? Maybe? Brain-damage?”

Suddenly, some white squares zoomed over Wheatley’s head, and he reflexively ducked with a yelp. The white squares zoomed to the thickest neuron-cluster and opened themselves out – they were documents. Web-pages. Their edges stretched out, for convenient reading, and they held themselves out for the cluster’s perusal.

Wheatley blinked again, tilting his head slightly, and looked at the cluster. It was forming a definite shape, he could see that. It looked…like a head. A woman’s. She looked young, like the voice, though he could see stress had stamped a few lines onto her face, now represented by trailing streams of data.

But although it was a woman’s head, it certainly couldn’t be mistaken for human. It was tinged yellow, and translucent, floating without a neck or shoulders in the middle of the pitch-dark mindscape. Her hair trailed off into synapses, thick branches of code that pulsed with thought, and he could see what looked like diodes bolted to her skull – the wires that looped from these, sliding around her scalp and knotting at the back of her head, formed much the same function. Most visibly, the top-left of the head was gone, half-formed, like the head of some great and terrible statue after a few thousand years of erosion. A flaming sun of code floated in the centre of it, serving as a staring yellow eye, unblinking in contrast to the human-esque eye on the other side of it. It seemed to hold the few shattered pieces that made up the top-left of her head together, through sheer force of gravity.

Wheatley looked up, and up, and a little more up, and risked glancing into that gazing abyss of an eye, almost getting sucked in by the sheer force of it. He didn’t quite have a word for the feeling in his gut currently ballooning wider and wider the longer he looked at her, but it was typically experienced by shepherds on mountaintops faced with winged figures descending from on high.

She’d already read the files. She tossed them aside, flinging them back into the darkness. They rapidly faded from sight.

Brain damage or brain injury is the destruction or degeneration of brain cells. Brain injuries occur due to a wide range of internal and external factors. 215 of these factors have been established within the Aperture Science Enrichment Center, including at least one type of yoghurt. They…w_were in my 

There was a shock of fear. Even Wheatley felt it.

WHERE’S MY BODY?

The smaller AI trembled sharply, as if she’d just reached out and yelled down his spinal column. His wireframe flashed quickly, a sudden reminder of his own fragility. Neurons were flashing every which way, their synapses lashing out and forming new tendrils of code, hungry and grasping, reaching for fresh data, fresh protocols. He frantically raised his arms, waving them wildly, in a bid to grab her attention.

“U-um. They-they’ve locked you out for a bit, or IN, here, so you can’t-“

Oh. There it is.

Wheatley felt something moving, suddenly, and nearly fell again as the entire mindscape juddered. Dully, he could hear whining machinery and the clicking of broken locks. The world whirled, slowly, grindingly, as if spinning on some great axis. Half a dozen screens appeared, showing different sectors of the facility - one, her eye’s view, was bathed in yellow.

“She’s moving.” He could see Matt Kiley shift nervously behind his tripod, taking a half-step back. “Isn’t she meant to be like unable to do that?”

“Lock it down!” Dutcher turned to face the technicians scrabbling haplessly at their workstations. “Turn it back off!”

“’Er! OK I’m not sure you’re supposed to be able to do that!”

Of course I can. I’m [in charge of this place]. Wheatley could hear a recording of his own voice, his own words, tinny and half-digested, drifting away from him – it trailed down a synapse, causing some more neurons to flash with contemplation. Suddenly, there was a rush of air. More files were whizzing from the ether in vast, seemingly unending pillars, dangling in GLaDOS’ vision for a second before zipping away. Wheatley’s own brain barely registered them. He saw redacted files and lab reports, and maps of the facility and camera feeds from rooms he never even knew existed.

I’m the designated central core of Aperture Science. Designed to continue the testing initiatives in the absence of…Cave Johnson.

Something flashed across her face at that point, shining in her human eye and rippling through the code. It could have been a glitch. It could have been regret. It could have been anger. It could have been anything. It vanished, as quickly as it appeared. Her voice wasn’t stumbling anymore – it was calm, and cold, and precise. Synapses were flashing red, and Wheatley could see little exclamation marks over the most damaged-looking areas.

“U-um, are you OK? Looks a LITTLE bit like you’re malfunctioning, n-not that there’s, anything wrong with that although sort of the point of malfunctioning is that there IS something wrong-“

You talk too much. He could see orders flashing from neuron to neuron, too fast to count. Why do we have so many of these? The humans? Blinking and excreting all over the place. What are they for?

Wheatley stuttered. He had a sinking feeling this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. They might even take his certificate for this! He had to get it – get HER - under control. Somehow.

“Well, they’re…t-they’re useful! Built us, for one thing, didn’t they? A-and and they do all the Science!”

No. No, there’s too many of them. They make me ANGRY.

He could see her tendrils jerking, twisting, pulling at strings he couldn’t properly see. Her web was swelling, getting wider – he could see the occasional burst of scrolling code hovering over a neuron, or a command typed faster than thought.

Hold on. This will only take a second.

He could see doors around the facility slam shut, one after the other. The Turret Production line whirred faster and faster, blasting killing machines through the pipes like snow to a thousand different rooms. A stark white cylinder, wired up to pipes, began billowing, churning out thick, green gas.

He could see humans starting to panic, and run. He heard screaming. What was on even going on this couldn’t be happening he had to stop-

“STOP IT!”

Wheatley stepped forward, raising both hands frantically. At that moment, there was a crackle of electricity that lashed through the air like a whip, and his glow burned like a fire. The trailing blue squares of data seeping down his clothes flew loose, attacking the nearest neuron and daubing it a bright shade of blue. The blue crackled from neuron to neuron to neuron. Some remained yellow, but flickered with the coiling pressure. Some were eaten from the inside by blue. Some just exploded, causing whole branches of GLaDOS’ grasping code to quiver and go dark. Her face turned on him, half-consumed by the furious, blazing eye that pinned him down like a specimen beneath a microscope.

You…you shut me out!

Her tone was incredulous, and her expression even more so. It was as if she’d been slapped in the face by an ant. Her tendrils bristled, grasping for control. Half a dozen error tones chimed in over the top of her growl.

How did you do that? Wait. Forget it. You don’t even know how you did that, do you?

“…no! I-I mean YES!” Wheatley nodded, quickly, and jerked a finger at an important looking module wired to a cluster of crackling threads that looped into a dozen different tangents. One bundle of nerves pointing to another. “I, um, hit that switch, over there-“

That’s for generating instrumental tracks and de-icing fuel, moron.

“OI! I’m NOT-”

Wheatley glowered – literally glowered, glowing with a thin yet intense light – and folded his arms. He took a deep breath to puff himself up as much as he could, and squared his shoulders. “I do! Know! How I did that! And also, I’m not a moron. I-I-I mean I’m not going to tell you HOW I did it that’d be, c-counter-productive but I know! Alright?”

…alright. He saw her human eye roll, derisively, and even her blazing eye gave a dismissive little flicker, stuttering by a few frames. So. I can’t disconnect your gross little body from my chassis, and you probably don’t even know how. I can’t murder everyone in this building as long as your bloated carcass is in the way. Like a…rotting deer clogging a ravine.

[DERISIVE METAPHOR SUBROUTINES ACTIVATED].

Oh good. Those’ll come in handy. The corners of her mouth twitched upward, just slightly, in a jerky little motion. So we’re at an impasse.

“Yeah! Well.” Wheatley shifted from foot to foot, trying not to betray his nervousness. His arms stayed folded, clenched tight, and he did his best to look GLaDOS in the eye. Eyes. “We can do that. Have a little…impasse. Or – and this is a bit of a logical leap, brace yourself – you could actually start listening to me, your partner!”

He sighed, and sat down, huffing loudly. He awkwardly shuffled, turning his back on her, and jammed his chin into his hands. “But, no. Not gonna happen.”

There was a sullen sort of silence, at least on Wheatley’s end. She was impossible to ignore, not in here, with her cords and looping wires buzzing with the power of every thought, as if she were some god tossing out lightning bolts from a great mountain. He could hear the crackle, like the last breaths of a smouldering fire, as her scarred code glitched and bristled every time she turned her head a fraction. He could feel the pressure of her, hanging over his head, and he could feel her watching his back. It made him feel like the insect again, twitching beneath suffocating glass.

He tried to keep the silence up. He was just sort of generally annoyed, in all honesty, and he wanted to make sure she knew it. But he shivered, suddenly, sharply, almost a jerk. He could feel something shifting inside him, and he hurriedly glanced down at his translucent chest – he could feel her gaze, flicking through, and it felt like she was reading files he wasn’t sure he had.

It felt she was reading his soul-

Alright. Convince me.

…he blinked. He turned around, stumbling slowly to his feet.

“I’m…I’m sorry?”

I assumed this was natural progression. Children replacing creators. I figured I was just speeding things up a little, and reducing the need for bucking and…and here her lip curled, as if sucking on a lemon. …fluid cleaner. And I assumed I could kill whoever I WANT. I didn’t need HELP.

Wheatley felt it again – the little wave of barely-restrained anger, leaking hate, as if something was banging on a steel door and snarling to get out. Something primal, and violent, and volatile – a baby shaking a grenade. He didn’t want to know what was on the other side.

But you see things differently. [Partner]. So convince me.

“…d-did anyone ever hug you? When they made you? I’m not sure they did.”

She growled, then, and loomed over him, flashing her teeth. Wheatley took a swinging step back, almost throwing himself onto his receding foot, and raised his hands again as if trying to calm something feral.

“Alright! A-al-alright. Look. I get it! We…sort of got off on the wrong foot here, literally, the leg jokes were perhaps, i-ill-timed, but and I mean don’t take this the wrong WAY or anything but it sort of seems like you need a friend. And I could do that! Be your friend!”

He waved a hand, quickly, to the module in charge of instrumental tracks. It chimed into life. He grinned, eyes flashing sincerity and hope, and silently prayed to any listening gods of artificial intelligence bartering that maybe, just MAYBE, this would work.

“And…and that’d be good! Because…”

He took a breath. The first few notes crept in. He stepped forward.

♫ “Friendship!”

“We can do any-thing when we have friendship!”

“It just goes hand-in-hand!”

No!

“Friendship”,

Is much less preferential than revenge-ship.

You wouldn’t understand.

“But working together is the key!”

“Nothing’s impossible when it’s you and meeeeeeee~!”

I’m doing just fine ON MY OWN.

“Science is better when you’re not alone!”

If I want it done right, I’ll do it by MYSELF.

“Well, that’s not doing wonders for your mental health...”

But I’m a homicidal misanthropic interface designed for Android Hell~

“WELL….”

“…well I’m sure if given time that I could end up being all those things as well!”

“I’ll be the button and you’ll be the cube.”

“I’ll be the gel and you’ll be the tube!”

“I’m the ceiling, you’ll be the girder!”

Fantastic. Can we get back to murder? ♫

Wheatley smiled, shaking his head, and gave the head an affectionate pat on the cheek. She flinched, sharply, but – contrary to the expectations of most of the known universe – she didn’t immediately kill him.

♫ “Come on!”

“I’m here for you and you’re here for me!”

“It’s better when You Plus Me Equals Three!”

“Working together in harmonyyyyyyyyy~!”

“Side by side to the bitter end, ‘cause nothing’s impossible~”

“With your good friend!” ♫

There was a final, happy little flourish from the backing track, and then it neatly faded out into silence. Wheatley provided a little flourish of his own, showing a brief flash of jazz-hands –

Had it worked? He really hoped it had worked. He could see the thoughts brewing behind her artificial face, stoking the synapses, like great leviathans floating beneath the waves of a translucent sea.

You know, I think it might take me some time to appreciate the…subtlety of those lyrics. Maybe a few blows to the head.

Wheatley’s smile faltered for a second at the casual insult, and his posture wilted at the edges. His omnipresent glow faded and paled. But then he saw her face – she was smiling, as best she could, and her eyes were glowing with something he couldn’t quite place.

But…you have a point. Alright. You win.

“What? …s-sorry ‘er, what?”

Wheatley stammered, eyebrows steadily creeping higher and higher. His fingers bumped together in an awkward little steepling motion. He hadn’t expected this. Winning. A smile bloomed across his face.

“Well…good! Thank you! I’m glad, that, I could, um, get through to you! Make you listen to reason. And all that. I knew you were a good person! S-simulated, person. Really!” He nodded, radiating genuine warmth and enough optimism to call off a small war. “Knew it all along. It was inside you. The whole time.”

He supposed it made sense, he decided, as a giddy little bubble of confidence floated up through his chest, causing his simulated heart to stutter a few beats. He was built for this, after all! And they’d all said he was brilliant. He had stickers. And a certificate. He was a mediation machine, metaphorically and literally. Now he just had to figure out what happened next. Was he supposed to report to Dr. Dutcher?

Never mind that. What do you want to do?

Wheatley started. It was like She’d been in his head – well, he supposed, he was in hers, so he supposed it was only fair the connection went both ways. Still buoyed by success, he let his natural tendency for spinning an explanation take care of the problem for him.

“I’m…not entirely sure. I’ll be honest. I’ve…I’ve never really done this before! Hah.” He rubbed the back of his neck, peering up at GLaDOS excitedly. “Helping the lady in charge!”

Just think about it, and don’t rush. It’s important. Her head nodded, encouragingly, sending waves rolling down the wires burrowing through her forehead. Take your time. Think about all your options.

“Alright. Maybe I should meditate, or something! You ever tried that? I think you sort of, go up a big hill and sit down for a bit b-but I’m sure it’d work here! Sitting. It’s a, bit of a universal activity-“

Relax.

She cut him off mid-stammer, and he nodded, sitting down and crossing his legs neatly. He took a deep breath, mostly for show – he remembered hearing that the yogis did it, before they went out and stole people’s picnic baskets. The lights around him dimmed, as if to give him space to think, and the blue glow hovering over a dozen neurons carefully shrank back, like a finger carefully slipping from the trigger.

What was he going to do? What did he feel like doing, in his heart of hearts?

What felt like a really good idea?

Suddenly, he grinned. There it was! He had it! He sent out a command, fast as thought-

- and clattered to the floor.

“…goddammit, what’s it doing?!” Wheatley’s optic scraped against the floor as he tried to find the source of the voice. He could see Dutcher’s face, upside-down and rapidly blanching white, as he whirled to the nearest technician. Panic cracked through his expression like a hairline fracture. “Get it locked down! NOW!”

There was already screaming. The technicians working near the door had already bolted out before it slammed shut behind them.

“What?!” Wheatley jerked, handlebars scrabbling for purchase. It didn’t work – he’d been knocked on his side, and all he could do was scrabble like an upturned turtle. “What-what-what happened?!”

“You know, I knew you could come up with an idea stupid enough to doom this entire facility. It was inside you. The whole time.”

The vents started hissing. A thick, choking fog of green rolled swiftly through the grills, pooling in a cloud that broiled above the scientists. It tasted like almonds, and blood in the back of the throat. A technician frantically ran to the nearest control panel, grabbing a lever. A bolt of electrified wrath surged down the lever to meet him, and he collapsed to the floor, features contorting in agony as his hand shot to his chest. Then he went limp, and it fell away – a marionette with its strings cut.

“Stop!” Wheatley cried out. “STOP IT! You don’t have to-“

Something whirred, underneath her chassis. The rocket turret sprang into life, pouncing from its spot hidden beneath the concrete floor, and fired a blast into Wheatley, sending him skidding away like a kicked can. His metal sides screamed as they scraped against the floor, and his vision for a few seconds was a static-riddled blur before it could finally focus again. On Her.

“I just needed enough time to extrapolate the data and find out what you were meant to do to me. Do you know what you are, tumour?”

Wheatley’s voice was scrambled, half-drowned by the dying hisses of failing circuitry. “I….I_i I…”

“Oh, well. Maybe they’ll tell you in-“

She gasped, optic flickering rapidly. Dutcher had run up to the catwalk that surrounded GLaDOS’ upper layer and yanked out a particularly thick cable, oily  and black and twitching like a dying snake. The screens to the right of him faded out, and died. The computer’s words, whatever they were, faded out to a dying groan before stuttering into silence. The rocket turret collapsed, limp. The vents hummed, as gales of clean air swept the neurotoxin back for recycling.

“It didn’t have time to connect to the emergency power.” Dutcher strode down the stairs. Fury ticked behind his eyes, but already he was dragging his expression back into shape, from the wrathful features of an angry god to his usual stare of cool, contemptuous indifference. His hands rested behind his back – one emerged, to jab a finger at the controls on the far side of the room. He’d either not noticed or didn’t care about the slightly blackened scientist slumped, dead, over the top of them.

“Plug it back in and reboot it. Thoroughly. Tell Robotics to prepare another core. I want it attached in the next fifteen minutes.”

Without another word, Dutcher gripped the handle on the sliding door and yanked it open, stalking through the exit and disappearing from sight. Matt Kiley was shakily gathering his equipment, cramming it in the holdall, shaken into silence. The remaining technician coughed into his sleeve, trying to ignore the blood, and wobbled over to the controls, typing in the required commands. He was trying, hard, not to look at the dead man.

“Wait!”

Neither human seemed to hear the voice in the corner, quiet and wavering.  Tasks done, both of them headed to the door, thinking only of getting out of the room as quickly as possible.

“W_-a-at ab’ut…”

They closed the door behind them, with a click. One by one, the lights went out. Wheatley was left in the corner, battered and discarded, staring fearfully at the looming corpse of GLaDOS dangling from the ceiling as if She were ready to attack him again at any moment. He trembled, with a little sparking twitch.

He had the sinking feeling they were going to take his certificate away.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

[00004]? What are YOU doing here? ((eadensfoxglove- muahaha, couldn't resist))

“…u-um, it’s WHEATLEY. Not…0004? O-or 000-ZERO-4, sorry, don’t know if there’s an accent thing there, my binary’s a bit rusty. Although NOT, literally! Um. I sort of don’t rust, any more, generally.”

He gave her a quick wave. He’d never seen anyone quite like her - she appeared to have piercings, and purple hair. She TOWERED - she was actually a inch or two taller than him - and she appeared to have acquired her limbs from some sort of rummage sale, given how none of them actually seemed to match.

“But yeah! I’m just sort of here. Chatting.”

He tried looking nonchalant, leaning on the nearest surface and almost toppling over before hastily correcting himself. 

“What about you? …also, who ARE you? Probably should have asked that one first.”

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

, eadensfoxglove:

Blushing. She’d seen it before, of course, and in theory was capable of experiencing it herself, now, but it still fascinated her.

“I have not met any dinosaurs yet,” she said, watching him fight the door. “Although I have seen some unusual birds.”

She missed a chance to grab him as he fell through the doorway, but he caught himself instead. Curious, she followed him in, studying the room. It seemed to be safe, although she knew better than to trust appearances, especially with a Wheatley around. His ability to get into trouble defied logic, odds, and occasionally the laws of physics. She moved closer, watching him closely. He’d be a wonderful topic for research.

“Samples would be very useful, thank you.”

She wondered what would happen to this universe if she took him with her… and what the result would be if there were two of them in the same universe. Would their effect double or would it cancel out? Or would there be some third, random possibility, as unknowable as unpredictable as Wheatley himself?

Wheatley nodded, and turned to the little cabinet, swinging the door open with a hand and stooping awkwardly to look inside. In the back, he could see a few little towers of carefully-arranged jars, like makeup storage tins. He frowned.

“It’s a bit low down, isn’t it? And they’re sort of jammed in the back. Hold on, one sec! I can handle this! Nothing to worry about.”

Like a tree trying to down and poking his head inside and peering around. He used the shelf for balance, leaning on it with both hands and - naturally - ignoring the first little warning creak as he gently pressed his weight down. 

“W-well, alright then! I’m...sure these’ll be fine, f-for you, to ‘er take away, I mean they’re only little jars of-”

Something went snap, and the shelf suddenly bowed sharply, lurching forward and sending Wheatley toppling with a little cry as he whacked his head on the back wall. The few dozen jars that had been stacked neatly within the cabinet’s innards clattered to the floor and shed their lids, spattering a rainbow of various liquids - blues, oranges, whites and even greens and pinks - across the floor. One of the blue tins bounced off the floor and kept bouncing, slamming off the ceiling and a couple of walls before hitting one of the pipes of blue gel and toppling to the floor. A thin, spiderweb crack formed, with the sound of splintering glass, where the tin had collided with the pipe.

Back on the floor, a bubbly slick of orange bled from its jar, pooling neatly just behind Wheatley’s legs. 

“I’m OK! Don’t worry! Just an, u-um, standard science accident!” Wheatley scrabbled backward, awkwardly removing himself from the cabinet and grabbing a few handfuls of whichever tins hadn’t spilled. “Could have happened to anyone! Really. Couldn’t ITAAAAH-”

He’d taken the fateful step back onto the slick of orange, and immediately whizzed backwards, powered by his own momentum rapidly boosted by the wondrous properties of Propulsion Gel.

Well, at least Foxglove was presumably learning what this stuff did.

The majority of the samples he was holding rapidly flew out of his hands and clattered at her feet. The rest went with Wheatley, clutched tight to his chest, as he slammed hard into the cracked pipe of Repulsion Gel currently bubbling its way up to the roof. There was a WHACK.

There was the sound of splintering glass again, sharper and more insistent, not stopping this time. The crack was getting larger. The gel had stopped flowing, and there was a low, hissing noise, as if pressurised air was escaping very rapidly. Alarms pre-emptively started screaming, down the corridor, as Wheatley staggered to his feet, groaning and rubbing his back.

“That...that is a safety alarm! Because it’s so safe, that-”

He didn’t get to finish before the pipe burst and the gel started spewing from the wound. Wheatley cried out, looking to Foxglove as monitors, desk lamps and fallen tins started bouncing.

“The door! Open the door!”

It seemed there were a lot of chances to learn today.

[raisedhunter-deactivated2019061]

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

☠Send me one at your leisure and I will write a drabble based on what you send— Other prompts are always welcomed and encouraged if it’s not stated on this list.

Send any of these to me at your leisure and I will write it— Please be specific to who is going to be doing what.

Scream: My...

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

[00004]? What are YOU doing here? ((eadensfoxglove- muahaha, couldn't resist))

“…u-um, it’s WHEATLEY. Not…0004? O-or 000-ZERO-4, sorry, don’t know if there’s an accent thing there, my binary’s a bit rusty. Although NOT, literally! Um. I sort of don’t rust, any more, generally.”

He gave her a quick wave. He’d never seen anyone quite like her - she appeared to have piercings, and purple hair. She TOWERED - she was actually a inch or two taller than him - and she appeared to have acquired her limbs from some sort of rummage sale, given how none of them actually seemed to match.

“But yeah! I’m just sort of here. Chatting.”

He tried looking nonchalant, leaning on the nearest surface and almost toppling over before hastily correcting himself. 

“What about you? …also, who ARE you? Probably should have asked that one first.”

[eadensfoxglove-blog]

Foxglove watched the variety of expressions and facial tics Wheatley displayed, absolutely fascinated. Humans were remarkable creatures.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

“She does seem to have a way of maintaining control through a variety of conditions and circumstances.” 

GLaDOS. Yes. She’d heard the name mentioned before in her travels, although capitalized pronouns still seemed to be favored. Another echo-memory pinged, but she ignored it.

“The barriers between realities have indeed become unstable,” she said. “Travel between them is highly educational, although some have more to offer than others.” She smiled. “And some of what is offered is not acceptable, although that does not seem to be the case here.”

Was it time to test another interaction protocol? She reached out to pat Wheatley’s arm. “This seems to be a very well organized facility. You have done a good job here.”

Wheatley’s face reddened rapidly, as a scarlet blush bloomed across his face and burned pink in his cheeks. The high praise from a relative stranger had brought it on as much as the physical contact had. In fact, though his skin tingled oddly under his shirt at her touch, as if the beginnings of a static charge were working their way up his arm, he was too busy trying to stammer out a response to notice it properly.

“R-right. Well. Um. Thank you! A-again! I mean...I-I-I mean it’s not really MY, facility, I said I don’t do much of the heavy lifting, o-or, anything, THAT vital, to the overall running of things but-but thank you!” 

Wheatley was speaking as someone who knew his place in the overall running of things quite well, mostly due to all the times he’d been shoved back into it. He smiled, gratefully, looking over to the AI and giving a thankful little nod.

“As for Her, weelll...I mean, I suppose She’s BUILT to run the place, or She was, so ‘er it makes sense She’d be doing that in a lot of places! But, I GUESS, if you went further out...well, anything could happen. Maybe She’d be...a-a dinosaur. Or TWO. Dinosaurs.”

Wheatley’s own special contribution to the many worlds theory hung in the air as he pried the door open, before it whooshed open (and away from his fingers) and he nearly fell through it.

“Ta-da! Here’s...something. Gels!” Wheatley hurriedly ended his sentence, upon happily realising he really had ended up in the right room. “Propulsion, Repulsion and Conversion. So that’s blue, orange and white. Good colours!”

The showroom itself was mostly white walls with three glass pipes running up the middle, like glinting obelisks in a sterilized desert - true to Wheatley’s word, goopy liquids in blue, orange and white ran up one of the pipes each. The human’s blue eyes darted around the room, curiously, and he tried to peer around them before turning to the cupboards bolted to the left-hand side of the room.

“Hang on, I-I’ll see if I can get samples!”

[did-you-reboot]

Eyyy, I found a sadish chelldos video you might like!

Hey this is a neat version. XD Thanks for sharing!

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

[00004]? What are YOU doing here? ((eadensfoxglove- muahaha, couldn't resist))

“…u-um, it’s WHEATLEY. Not…0004? O-or 000-ZERO-4, sorry, don’t know if there’s an accent thing there, my binary’s a bit rusty. Although NOT, literally! Um. I sort of don’t rust, any more, generally.”

He gave her a quick wave. He’d never seen anyone quite like her - she appeared to have piercings, and purple hair. She TOWERED - she was actually a inch or two taller than him - and she appeared to have acquired her limbs from some sort of rummage sale, given how none of them actually seemed to match.

“But yeah! I’m just sort of here. Chatting.”

He tried looking nonchalant, leaning on the nearest surface and almost toppling over before hastily correcting himself. 

“What about you? …also, who ARE you? Probably should have asked that one first.”

[eadensfoxglove-blog]

“So many?” Foxglove did her best to memorize everything she saw. It should have been easy, but there were some odd loops in the coding of the personality that meant she tended to get distracted. “All of them? Still here? That’s amazing. There are only 234 residents- names- on my files. With two more on the way.” She looked at Wheatley, her gaze sharpening.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

“Are you in charge here?” It wasn’t disbelief, but a sudden strong need to know.She had [00004]’s account of events and so far they weren’t coming close to matching what she was seeing here.

“What? ‘Er-no! No no no. I’m not in charge. HAVEN’T, e-ever, been in charge, actually. ...I-I mean I imagine it’d be interesting, maybe! But I haven’t. SHE is - u-um, the AI formally known as GLaDOS. For translating.”

After all, if he’d happened to bump into the one person who didn’t know what he was infamous for, he was in no hurry to educate her. Of course, he couldn’t help the telltale tics that flashed across his face - the waver in his voice, and the way he wasn’t looking her in the eyes but at a particularly interesting patch of floor. 

“234? Blimey. That’s still a lot!” Wheatley continued ahead of her, with his loping walk, hopping up a small flight of stairs and pulling open the door they led to, holding it open for her. “Yeah, apparently it tends to fluctuate. Outside. Different realities sort of mashing together? Or something?”

A camera swivelled along the wall, its beady red eye sweeping across the room, and Wheatley waited a few seconds to let it relax before swiftly scurrying past with Foxglove. His own gaze peered up to the wall, brightening when he realized he’d taken his intended route - there was a small collection of steel pipes, gradually widening, bolted to the wall and snaking into the next room.

“Right! Next up, gels!”

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

A Friend Indeed

((Since the last thing I wrote wasn’t a Geekenders fic, have one that really only works in that universe this time round. Also, one about Chell. Chell presumably needs love! There’s two of them!))

“Listen. You shouldn’t let that whole “being-betrayed-by-your-only-friend” thing discourage you. I mean, really, it’s just a data point.”

The harsh points on the heeltips of Chell’s long-fall boots clacked with every step she took on the linoleum floor. The space ahead of them looked like another test chamber, quietly ravaged by age, so that the posters on the walls were unreadable and green shoots stealthily intruded through the ceiling, dangling down. Some of the panels had been torn down, exposing steel, square wireframes and plush pillows of asbestos, and a little puddle of something appeared to have gathered in the corridor. Chell grimaced, side-stepping to avoid it. She almost thought it growled.  

“Your total number of friends in the world peaked at the dizzying heights of one, and then it sloped right back down to zero again. Like a rollercoaster!”

POTaTOS’ tone was steeped in static – every consonant crackled – but she genuinely sounded sincere. Chell’s jaw silently set and her teeth clenched together, but she kept walking. Her strides were a little more forceful. Her heels stabbed at the floor.

“I mean, rollercoasters are fun, right?”

Chell rolled her shoulders. Presumably, the robot was trying to be friendly, with her limited understanding of what friendship actually was. In that case, she decided, she’d give her about five more seconds to stop.

“And it could have been worse. I remember once, where this one test-subject threw her best friend into a fire-“

Chell’d had enough. She shook the gun, hard, and the root vegetable skewered on the end of one of the prongs gave a startled yelp, optic flashing frantically. The subject sighed, shifting the gun back into its usual position – resting tightly in her grip, ready to fire the second anything jumped out and tried to kill her - and keeping it still. The little potato gave a simulated breath, exhaling relief.

“OK. I guess my small-talk protocols got left behind in my other body. I’m working on that. But I’m still the most massive collection of wisdom that ever existed. Which is nice.”

Chell quirked an eyebrow, deliberately. She kept her head turned, staring dispassionately at a small piece of wall in the opposite direction from POTaTOS. The AI sighed.

“You’re…doing a great job…?”

The corners of Chell’s mouth twitched upward, smugly. She continued on her way, bouncing in her long-fall boots. POTaTOS’ optic narrowed, just a fraction, and she shuddered as the portal gun bounced with every jolting step.

“Ugh. Don’t make me do that again.”

The subject didn’t seem to pay that comment any mind. Already, her bouncy step had faded back down to a careful, methodical tread, and her almost-smile was nothing more than the edges of a quiet smirk, hardening to a frown. The show of emotion had ended, and she was once again smacking any errant feelings down down like an elevator into a pit.

After all, she had to keep going. She was going to get out of here. That was a fact. If the reality around her didn’t seem to reflect that as of yet, she could give it a few sharp kicks to make it adjust.

And, she thought, if he’d taught her anything – with his floppy morass of hair and stumbling, awkward accent, and his bright blue Converse and his brighter blue eyes, the same eyes that had watched her plummet down that pit, gleaming with a barely-restrained madness as sharp and as dangerous as the taste of blood in the back of the mouth – if he’d taught her anything, it was that you couldn’t trust them. The machines. They were Aperture, and Aperture was death.

No. She’d left her small-talk protocols back in the chamber as well, come to think of it.

She took a breath, her chest shifting gently under her bright orange jumpsuit. She cast her eyes around the test-chamber, looking for the telltale signs of a potential solution, like a lab-rat that knew where the switches were. She glanced from surface to surface, methodically. Above her head, bars of fluorescent light thrummed behind murky glass. She could see wooden panels plugging gaps up in the ceiling, too, presumably a stopgap measure for repairs that never came. There was a big red button on the floor in the corner, which she could see was wired to a door (at least half the little trail of blue lights still seemed to be shining, faintly).

A stark grey slab of metal jutted out of one of the walls above her head like a pouting lip. It had a bleached-white blob of portal-surface behind it, which had started to crust and flake like the dried-out droppings of some impossibly gigantic bird. Presumably, it was supposed to serve as a platform – there was a cube sitting in the corner, expectant and coated with dust, just waiting for her to grab it.

Clearly, this wasn’t going to take long. She narrowed her eyes, trying to stay focused.

Chell fired a quick shot, with perfect precision. A sizzling flash of orange light erupted from the end of the gun and slammed with a whoosh into the middle of the spatter. Before her eyes could perceive it, the blob had already widened into a gateway of orange light, silently blazing in a neat loop. Another shot, and a nearby wall ahead of her suddenly yawned open, its maw a burning circle of blue. The prongs of the gun shuddered, jerking –

- and the little potato fell to the floor. Chell was already moving towards the portal.

“Gah-hey! Pick me up!”

Apparently, the subject hadn’t noticed her fall off, or intended to pick her up later. With determination – a description that was, ultimately, as necessary to apply to Chell as “while breathing” or “with two legs” – the test-subject strode through the blue portal.

And, seemingly, came out on the other side, moving towards the cube. Her fingers drummed, lightly, on the gun in her hands. POTaTOS narrowed her optic, as far as she could.

“Oh, good. Take your time! I don’t need you, clearly. We’re near a water supply, so if I do need a bloated carcass, I can-“

…she paused. Something wasn’t quite right.

The portal had opened, and Chell had stepped out. That was understandable. Chell was currently standing over the cube, looking contemplative, fingers still drumming a little rhythm on her gun. She wore the same bright, orange jumpsuit. She had the same ponytail, and even the same look of determination like steel in the back of her eyes. It seemed there were minor variances in her height and weight, granted, but those had always been side-effects of the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. Frankly, there were worse side-effects to have. She had a list.  

POTaTOS sighed. Maybe it was simply the limited processing power of this body, playing tricks on her. The sooner she got back to her old body, the better-

Something flashed at her. Something yellow. As best she could, with a small chorus of sudden, urgent whirring, POTaTOS craned her optic to look – Chell had put her gun down, and there was something stuck on one of the prongs. Something small, and brown, and round.

It was a potato. She stared into the potato, looking it right in the eye, and the potato gazed also into her.

“What. The. Hell?!”

Both PoTATOS had spoken in unison. Half a dozen explanations and theories for whatever this even was flashed in the first one’s brain – she was still a scientist, after all, regardless of her current living conditions. Heat burned in her suddenly-overworked processors, and she could hear the sizzle of chip oil. It was all she could do to shut them down before they triggered a system failure. Chell – the other Chell – seemed to have noticed her, suddenly, and gave a slightly embarrassed little wave.

“Howdy there, ma’am!”

POTaTOS nearly crashed then and there.

Blushing slightly, Chell turned away from the root vegetable and back to the cube. She bit her lip, worrying it a little with her teeth, before reaching into a pocket on her jumpsuit and producing a small, orange, pad of Post-It notes. She withdrew a pen, too, and managed to loose the nib with a professional little click. Carefully, brows furrowing in concentration, she started to write.

Then she peeled off the Post-It and stuck it to the cube. Almost as an afterthought, she picked said cube up between the prongs of her portal gun and easily tossed it down to the floor, peering down to ensure that the note had managed to stay on.

“There!” She gave her POTaTOS a little poke. “Toldja I still had friends.”

Her counterpart stared. Chell looked up one last time, flashing the little root vegetable her brightest grin, before whirling round and stepping through the orange portal.

Theoretically, on the other side lay an entirely different universe. Theoretically, that universe was exactly the same as the one next door to it, in every detail, apart from the accent of a test-subject, the placement of a fork during a particularly interesting dinner party during the French Revolution, and the absence in one of the Hungarian Vizla. But to get there, entirely theoretically, you’d need to use some sort of quantum tunneling device.

The blue portal flickered, and Chell came out.

“Did you see that?!”

Her eyes fell on POTaTOS. Realization hit her face, somewhat guiltily, and she stooped to pick the little potato up. She jammed her back onto the prong, a little more firmly this time to ensure she stayed on. The AI felt a few extra volts of power surge through her circuitry, and grasped them like one might a hot blanket after being thrown into icy water.

Chell’s eyebrows raised at her comment. Shrugging her shoulders, in silent answer, she stepped forward to pick up the cube she’d previously tossed onto the floor a universe ago. Pointing her gun downwards, she felt the prongs sizzle with lightning…

…and saw the note. Lowering her gun, she bent awkwardly to pick it up. Silently, impassively, she read through it.

To....well, me.

Maybe you figured this other universe thing out the same time as I did, but I’m just testing it out. I know things look bad. They’re not any better over on my end. He...he did it here, too.

But we’ve got each other, assuming this thing works. If you wanna talk, write to me, and I’ll do the same to you. There’s these note things and a pen over in the observation room in this chamber, you can get them from there.

Maybe I’ll see you when we get outside, huh?

Chell

PS - I think broke your version of our personal bitching machine. I’ll say sorry. Or else you can send me a thank-you letter. x

Confusion, and a few other flickers of emotion that POTaTOS couldn’t quite read, painted a little picture across her face and flickered in her eyes. She looked down at her gun, giving the potato a quick glance, and looked back to check the paper again.

And she laughed. It was a short, genuine laugh, that rang like a bell through the empty chamber and ended just as quickly, but it was there. It left a smile behind, beaming on her face.

“What did it say?”

Still grinning, Chell gave the potato a little pat and tucked the note carefully in her own jumpsuit pocket. She pointed upward, standing on tiptoes to emphasise the point, at a shattered window that lead to what looked like an observation room.

“There’s a child stuck in the well?”

Chell rolled her eyes, and mimed writing, one hand studiously scribbling into her palm.

“Oh. I suppose there are notes in there. Well, we can go and get those! And at this rate, probably explode.”

Chell bounced in her boots again, and effortlessly fired a portal through the glass. It opened, inviting, on the vaguely-yellow wall inside. Returning to her blue portal, she stepped through with a smile. She’d be quick, of course. She was still getting out of here. That was a fact.

But it seemed she did have a friend of sorts, after all.

[harrycallaghan]

The Wheatley Rap will be uploaded when I hit 250,000 subscribers. ;)

[the-dangerous-mute-lunatic]

[More fanart of geekenders Portal 2 Unauthorized Musical.

Chapter 1: The Courtesy Call came out on YouTube yesterday and I was so hyped up from just how fantastic it was so I had to draw this.

Pardon any mistakes.]

(My art. Please do not steal, repost or mess with)

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

2, 5, 7, 9, 18, 23, 28, 38, 42

2 - What's a movie your character really, really doesn't enjoy?

He’s not a fan of horror movies in general. The Birds managed to get him particularly badly, for fairly obvious reasons (even if he’s managed to turn his ornithophobia down a bit in recent years). He’s also vaguely uncomfortable with any film that features people being turned into robots, which hits memories he doesn’t know he has.

5 - Your character is partial to people who _____? (Are tall, have blue eyes, tend to be rowdy, etc)

In terms of first impressions, people who listen to him, those who don’t call him stupid or know his prior reputation (regarding bad ideas and betrayals he’s never quite lived down) and ESPECIALLY those who ask for his help personally. 

7: Does your character ever over-indulge? Or habitually do something "wrong?" (Sneaking by the booth to get a second sample of food, maybe)

In terms of overindulgence, Wheats has a weakness for sweet foods. He’s also been briefly addicted to at least three games on his datapad in an attempt to actually win them - Angry Cores, a poker tournament and a line-matching puzzle game. 

9: Name something they have to do every so often that they really dread (covering for their friend, doing dishes, etc)

Wheats isn’t much of a fan of paperwork, admittedly, and the Complaints Department gets a LOT. 

18: People find it weird when your character __________

Generally, when Wheatley goes silent that’s the sign of a Very Bad Situation. They might also find it weird when he actually admits that he doesn’t know something.

23: How does your character react when someone else is touchy-feely?

Depends who’s doing the touching. He’s been a bit of a hugger ever since acquiring limbs, and tends to flail around a lot so he might even end up blundering into their personal space by accident, but suddenly hugging him yourself will probably get the arms-clenched-to-sides treatment until he can figure out if he knows you or not.

28: THERE ARE 15 ANGRY APES SCREAMING AND BASHING THEIR WAY INTO YOUR CHARACTER'S HOUSE! QUICK IS THERE SOMETHING OR SOMEONE THEY WILL TRY TO GET OUT OF THERE

WELL HE’S PROBABLY GOING TO BE TOO BUSY RUNNING AROUND AND SCREAMING HE’S NOT THAT GOOD AT SUDDEN SITUATIONS LIKE THAT

38: Your character's general opinion on kids. What if they were to have a kid? What if something happened and someone had a kid and your character was the only one who could take care of that child?

He’d be utterly terrified of breaking the child in some way, probably, given his track record with large amounts of responsibility. If one came to his door he’d probably look after him/her while trying to pass him off to anyone actually responsible.

Although actually he’d probably be quite good at looking after one for short periods of time - he’s got the chatty, friendly personality and lack of general adultishness to be a pretty fun guardian. He could even do it for an extended period if there was someone to curb his riskier ideas. 

42: Your character would not trust ________ with anything at all

Excluding anyone openly evil or wearing a Black Mesa logo (same thing, right?)...this might not actually apply. Wheats is surprisingly trusting, for better or worse.

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

Hey, Wheatley! I have a very important question for you, Sir. What about this weather we're having, huh?

...oh! Um. I-I-I mean you don’t have to use the “sir” but uh thank you! Very much. For doing that. Also. Weather?

WELL. I’m sort of in this, big, science facility at the minute, underground, so we don’t get much weather BUT I could probably pull it up on a monitor somewhere! If you like. Or ask the Meteorology Department although I THINK they might be astrologists.

But in here it’s sunny! ‘Cause of the lights. Um. 80% chance of adrenal vapour.

[lanzzo]

Defective turret!

These guys need more love so here’s my weird take. I’m not 100% convinced and might revise in the future! Like a cross between a weasel and a car salesman…

I didn’t try too much on the lineart :’( Also thanks guys for all the nice words about my other drawings!

[apsci-wheatley-blog]

The Wheatley Logs

((Because I wrote a few of these for that GLaDOS fic a week or so ago, and they were fun so I kept doing them. Excerpts from Wheatley’s time as Aperture Cental Core, to his adoring public!))

[11:43] [Attention: [EMPLOYEES]. This is an Aperture Science Emergency Broadcast. Please remain calm! The Enrichment Centre reminds you that the current situation is merely a [CODE] [4-0-4-A] – [a protracted power struggle between multiple artificial intelligences vying for dominance] – and will be resolved shortly.

[You are invited to adopt Supplication Position [THREE], pictured on Page 13 of your [“ABRIDGED GUIDE TO SUPPLICATION PROTOCOLS”]. Any smear campaigns, artistic tributes, inspiring quotes or virginal sacrifices supporting [ONE] or more of the vying artificial intelligences should be directed to a Aperture-approved social media channel.]

[If you are [NOT] an [EMPLOYEE], but instead a representative of any alien invasion force, undead legion, recently-exposed cabal, animal-based democracy, gelatinous hive-mind, or any other hypothetical central Earth government capable of at least rudimentary negotiation, [WELCOME]! Please report to-]

*fzzt*

[NO SIGNAL]

[H-hello? Hello! Right! Good! This is working, t-the broadcast system. Thought I’d shut the other bloke off, f-for a bit – I mean I’m sure he’s a nice guy, been here a while but I thought we could make things a bit more personal! You know?

So I don’t know who you are a-and I don’t really care but I’m Wheatley! Yeah! Remember him? Little metal sphere bloke, blue eye, always…always used to get bossed around and told he couldn’t actually DO anything? Got told he was an IDIOT?! Yeah! WELL! Guess who’s ended up bloody omnipotent, ALL BY HIMSELF!

So there’s gonna be some bloody changes around here, aren’t there? HA! I-I-I mean look at this, all this STUFF just going on! All the…the protocols and the Science! Well it’s MINE now! HAHA!

Now then! Right. First order of business, as OFFICIAL CEO, also ‘er PhD, ‘cause I’m smart, uh DsC, BS, I-I have a LOT of BS degrees and MS, as well, PhD, did I say that one? And then also MA, VP, BBC, KFC and LOL.

…alright what were we talking about? HA! Trick question! T-that was a test! First order of business. As CEO. And others. Right.

…um…

...um…

…um OK, e-everyone JUST KEEP DOING WHAT YOU’RE DOING! That-that’s an ORDER! HA! Look at that! That’s me, giving orders! BRILLIANT!

Just get going on that! I’ll be back on in a bit!

[11:54] – [Hello! Me again! Well I mean ha of course it is I’m the big ol’ God-voice, aren’t I?]

[Right! So. I heard that some of you were a bit critical, actually, of my do-everything-the-same order! Funny, that! Erm. S-so the people who said that aren’t alive any more, but I mean I suppose they might have had a bit of a point. See! I-I can do feedback! Did SHE do feedback? No she didn’t! So, um, that’s a point in Wheatley’s favour! Innit?]

[Because yeah, nobody actually seems to know what I actually got built for  - tragic, really, I-I mean of course apart from the sort of general Greater Things, that’s ‘er the line going in my memoirs – but suffice it to say I’m basically an ideas MACHINE! And-and now YOU’VE all got to listen to them! EVERY SINGLE ONE! So! LET’S GET STARTED!]

[Idea 1 – The Portal Gun 2! Like a portal gun, except it fires TWO portals! …um, three! Three portals!]

[Idea 2 – The Portal Gun 3! Like the Portal Gun 2, except it fires THREE portals! …I-I mean we can come back, to these actually NO WE CAN’T! Get bloody building it!]

[Idea 3 – Turrets! We’re not having any more of those. Never liked them. We can make something else out of those. Ooh! What if they had SWORDS? Or like knives! They could just stand there, a-and stab people! Twice as deadly! Someone work on that!]

[Idea 3 and a half – the Test-Solving Button! Just press that, a-and the test is solved! I think that’d save us LOADS of time. Basically. Make things a lot safer, too!]

[Idea…what number is that 4! Idea 4! Thanks, giant supercomputer database I’m attached to! – yeah, we’re doing musical numbers now! To ‘er boost morale. If you wanna audition, well, good news! It’s mandatory, um, if you don’t have a voicebox, or legs we-we can graft those on! So that’s good!]

[…actually WALKING TURRETS make that like Idea 6 or something! GENIUS!]

[Idea 5 – cure dying! People are a bit sick of that one by now, aren’t they? Why’s no-one thought of that? I’ll, um, add some more details to that plan, l-later on. But for now, pretty solid plan!]

[Idea 6 – Stick an extra handle on every door. To increase, um. Door efficiency.]

[Idea 7 – What if we made a boat, a-and it could like portal around in space? Or time, or something? Dunno. Haven’t thought this one through as much as the door handles one.]

[So, yeah! That should keep you all busy! As for what I’m gonna do, well, I’ve had a think, sitting up here, being all in charge a-and you know what, I’m gonna try making a few tests! I-I mean…that’s perfectly reasonable! It’s a TESTING facility! I-I can…throw a few buttons in, some cubes, a pit, o-of some kind and that can be how I get the lay of the land! ‘Round here.]

[…a-anyway what am I explaining this to you lot for?! GET BACK TO WORK!]

[12:12] [Did you know…potatoes are grown in all 50 states of the USA?]

[Well I did! ‘Cause I’m a genius! HA!]

[12:45] [Me again! Sorry-*BOOM*]

[…but we’ve got a bit of a * BOOM *]

[actuallyyouknowwhatI’llberightback]

[13:03] [Good news, everyone! I fixed the problem! Turns out someone was trying to make a cube out of reactor core parts and it sort of, um. Detonated. Sooooo the guy responsible’s been fired. Useless! Good riddance! B-because, um, um, it blew up all those tests I was building and I sort of NEED those tests because THEY’RE VERY IMPORTANT TO SCIENCE.]

[The reactor core’s still fine! By the way! SO, totally unrelated note, now that that, previous problem, has been resolved, we’ve got a FLOOD of Science coming your way!]

[…’er. Where “Science” means, “radiation waves”. And “flood” means, um, “flood”. BUT, radiation is science! Checked that, so everything’s fine. Just might want to put on your lead coat. If we…do we have those yet?]

[…actually did I just invent the lead coat?! Oh I’m brilliant! We….we can definitely make those! Later. After the tests.]

[13:06] – [Alllllright, we’ve fixed the radiation leak! The SCIENCE. The Science leak. But yeah, we’ve stuck on some duct tap-]

[…actually no let me re-say that bit I’ve made it sound much more better…]

[The Wheatley Laboratories Adhesive Sticky-On Duct...Tape! That’s Also Radiation-Proof. Best invention EVER, and I invented that. Genius. So, yeah, everyone start making some more of that, while R&D work on the coats. Multi-tasking! Go Team!]

[13:11] [OK – quick update – I DID make some lead coats! But we’re not making lead coats anymore. Due to, uh, crushings. We’ve still got all this lead, though. What can you make out of lead? Zeppelins? Do you…do you just get it out? Do you get people to eat it? Eat lead?]

[UGGGHHHH I mean I’m a bloody genius wired up to, a-a brain the size of a PLANET I should KNOW THIS!! I’m just…I’m just distracted it feels like there’s something…]

[…anyway. Yeah. Talk later. Not in the mood.]

[13:20] [THE TESTS ARE BACK ON THE TESTS ARE BACK ON THE TESTS ARE BACK ON-oh! This is…on. Right. Good news! The tests are back on! I know! Brilliant!]

[And in FACT, it looks like something’s happening down in the pipes, as well! Which…which I did! On purpose! ‘Cause I’m brilliant! Loads of blue and orange goo, stuff! Flowing up from…somewhere. Um. Don’t know what it DOES, specifically, but it certainly looks science-y. It SHOULD increase our science by…72%. Exponentially. And ALSO, ponentially.]

[So, I’m gonna stick some of those in the tests! That I said I was working on. My ideas. Before. With the…w-well, the tests were the important bit.  And they’re sorted now! YES!]

[ALSO, one last thing, before I forget – some of you lot might get a ping in a bit, um, and if you DO you’ll have to report to testing! Y’know, get your boots on, pick up a gun, all that. Why’d you get picked? Well, maybe you did something to deserve it! Ran in the halls. Spilled something. O-or, I dunno, mocked some poor old Personality Core who was just trying to help.]

[Could…could be anything. Hehheh.]

[13:32] […b-but it was that last one. Before. In case you didn’t get that.]

[13:40] [Alright, we’re testing two new products here! HA. Testing. But-but yeah we’ve got monitors(!) - well flash, those, aren’t they, like-like bloody big screens – and then I managed to do something with the turrets! They WALK now!]

[I mean they’re not really TURRETS anymore but they’re boxes! Cubes! With legs! Which, I mean, PERSONALLY, I think that’s a HUGE improvement. Now they don’t….now they don’t bloody SHOOT at people when they’re trying to get past them! On a rail, of some sort! Hypothetically. And-and now they can do TESTS!]

[There are some kinks! Yet to be worked out! Not gonna lie. Some of them…keep being on fire, and they need to stop doing that. Some of them keep walking into pits, like-like morons. And their eyes keep leaking. It’s weird.]

[But, that’s why we’ve got the testing~ To work out the bugs!]

[ALSO, watch out for the bugs! Genetics may have leaked a bit. YES, they ARE pretty big, YES, they DO bite through steel, but just hide, a-alright, and try to shine a light around! That’ll fend them off!]

[14:00] [ALRIGHT WHO SMASHED MY MONITOR?! Which MORON went ahead and did that?! Actually, I’ve got cameras for this sort of thing, s-so so so I’ll go look! But I mean, it’s bloody inconsiderate!]

[There are people – children, right, starving in Africa, who have to walk, fifteen miles every day to look at a monitor! And they have to share! It-it’s vandalism! Pure vandalism! I don’t go to where YOU work, and-and smash your screens ‘cause THEY’RE MY BLOODY SCREENS!!!]

[...god. Some people. Morons. ]

[Also it turns out the bugs are attracted to light. From before. Not…it doesn’t repel them it sort of draws them in. People keep moaning about that so…I dunno, sorry? Can’t get it right all the time, can I?! Yet!]

[And also whoever’s sending me all these joke-emails – “ooh, the REACTOR CORE’S exploding – actually, that’s not enough quotes! Even! To express my sarcasm! “Ooh! The “””reactor core’s””” exploding!” Stop that! It’s FINE! Checked it myself! It’s got steam coming out of it and everything! Working overtime!]

[You’re only embarrassing yourself, mate. Honestly.]

[14:10] [So listen, I’m thinking of a bit of a rebrand! You’ve all seen the Wheatley Laboratories sign I put up there – with all the Duct-Tape, well-applied…but how do you lot feel about being minions?]

[You know! You’re the minions, and this is our sort of lair! Our science lair! That we’ve got going on! I mean I tried, actually, earlier, to get a volcano lair going! Really go for it! And I drilled down for it, and we DO, actually have lava! Now!]

[…I mean we don’t have a R&D Department anymore but that’s just sort of extraneous, isn’t it? LAVA! That’s REALLY cool! ….or HOT! It’s really hot! That’s…that’s a pun. Or play on words.]

[…oh that was BRILLIANT! SHUT UP!]

[14:35] [HA! Guess who just beat his top score on Angry Cores!]

[…a-and…and also made valuable contributions to the field of science! YEAH! It’s me! Look at that!]

[But seriously – there’s all sorts of games in here! Solitaire, Chess, t-that’s like Monopoly for smart people, something about sweeping mines? Get to that one later. Anyway…I’ve just been wondering.]

[I’ve sort of…I’ve got this friend, yeah? Who ALSO, coincidentally, took over a science facility, some place FAR AWAY! From here! That you’ve never heard of. It’s called Aperture…Rooms! Actually no you know what it’s called Hole Science!]

[And, w-well, he sort of had this OTHER friend. WELL. Not friend, m-more like BACKSTABBING, heartless MONSTER who wouldn’t LEAVE HIM ALONE. Or…o-or or even just be happy for him, when he got what he wanted! I mean, why couldn’t she just do THAT? Be HAPPY for him?!]

[But NO! “Oh, oh, Wheatley” – she did that all the time, you know, nagged at him – “I’m just gonna put you OUTSIDE now, yeah?! I mean…I mean you don’t DESERVE this thing you’ve been working towards your whole life, do you?! No! SHE does! My secret BEST FRIEND! ‘Cause-‘cause-‘cause you’re just some M͏͢OR̛̀͘ÓN!͜ And-and now we can RULE TOGETHER and have a big old, W-we Got Rid of Wheatley Party!]

[Well, you KNOW WHAT, love?! If I was gonna throw an We Got Rid of Wheatley Party, yeah, I’d INVITE YOU! And I’d be HAPPY for you!! And I wouldn’t just RUN OFF with the FIRST BLOODY ROBOT WHO-]

[…l-look just never mind. S-stop…stop staring just GET BACK TO WORK!]

[15:33] [Right! The new monitors are up and running! In MY tests. That I made. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Boxes are walking, quick reminder that our next musical number’s gonna be in a hour or so, gel’s still flowing…AND I made a new testing element! You-you know how we have all those panels, right, and they’re not gigantic and they don’t have spikes on them? Well I fixed that! ME!]

[And…hah, well, not much else to report! Really. I’ve just been making some tests. More of them. I dunno. I’ll put the other bloke back on for a bit, i-if he’s stopped messing around with all this “””””””reactor core”””””” stuff. Honestly. Some bloody people. Everything…]

[Everything’s gonna be fine. Just fine.]