Hardwired (Portal)

Forget to Fall Down

   All in all, Wheatley had been spending a lot of time thinking. Well, obviously, It’s not like he could really do much else. Trapped in space and all. But, the years, or however long he had spent up here, felt like eternity. Especially with an A.I. core screaming ‘spaaaaaace!’ every single minute.

   Getting back to the point, he had spent quite a bit of time thinking. He just couldn’t forget the look on her face after he had betrayed her. But, he always reasoned with himself, she just didn’t understand. She would never understand how amazing it had felt to finally be in control. Tiny little Wheatley, in charge of the entire facility. For once, no one was pushing around, or calling him ‘moron’, and it was utterly amazing.

   But afterwards, that was the part he always remembered most. In the last few moments, when she had let go of his handles and let him float freely in space, and all he had said was ‘don’tletmegodon’tletmegodon’tletmego’, when he should have simply said that he was sorry. And sorry he was. He was sorry for letting her down, for being a coward when she was always strong, he was sorry for trying to kill her. But, when he wasn’t in charge of the facility, he’d reverted to his old habits: cowardice.

   When the space core, Kevin, as Wheatley had started calling him, simply because ‘Space Core’ was inconvenient to think everytime (and because Kevin fit the little guy), flew by, Wheatley was dragged from his thoughts. Sadly, even though there was definitely no sound in space, Wheatley could still hear Kevin, most likely because they were both Aperture devices.

   “What’s that? Never seen that before. That isn’t supposed to be in space. Only space in space. Hey, you see me? I’m in space. Spaaaaaaace.”

   With a gesture of his optic that was similar to the human action of rolling his eyes, Wheatley took a look around, his heavy accent sounding tired. Was it even possible for a robot to be tired? Maybe after being in space this long.

   “Mate, there’s nothi-”

   His assimilative voice cut off in a robotic gasp as his body turned towards the surface of the moon. There, in the rock, was a small blue oval. But, inside the oval, was definitely not the surface of the moon. No, he was looking down at Her, and her terrifying yellow optic. Could it be considered terrifying, even if it was just a light?

   “Woah, woah woah, okay, this is not planned, not supposed to happen, okay, um, you shouldn’t be there. Don’t mind me, completely unsuspicious, not Wheatley, nope-”

   “Hello, Moron.”

   And even now, Her voice still gives him a chill Maybe it’s the fact that she’s perfectly capable of extracting revenge on him. After all, he almost destroyed the whole facility, and turned her into a potato battery. A potato battery. Great idea, that was. Of course it was, because here She was, looking right at him.

   “Ah! Yes, right, hello! I’m assuming you’re doing great, me too, no need to check. You can just get rid of the portal, and we can both be on our ways, yeah?”

   A noise sounding similar to a scoff comes from Her, and he feels almost disappointed. He’d really been using that as a last resort. A reunion with Her definitely wasn’t at the top of his list. “Right, of course you wouldn’t go for that, look-”

   “No. I did not do all of the science it took to figure out how to pull you down just for you to annoy me to death. Of course, I wouldn't really die, because I can’t die. The question is, can you? Which, no, you can’t. Not in that body, at least.”

   His single optic is heavily focused on the robotic claw-like arm coming through the portal towards him. If he had a stomach, it would definitely be twisting everywhich way. He hears Kevin, somewhere behind him, bless, going on and on about aliens in space. Oh, this was not good. On a level of one to horrible, this was a catastrophe.

   As the robotic hand comes close enough to wrap around one of his handles and begin to slowly pull him in, She starts talking once more.

   “You know, when I first got rid of you, I was glad. I had grown obviously tired of just how stupid you could be. You managed to almost destroy my facility, and make me lose my last test subject, at that. But, after you were gone, I was left with a longing. Not for you, of course, but more so for revenge. You turned me into a potato, you moron. And now, you are going to be a test subject. As you said, I’ve got an itch. Maybe it’s to test, maybe it’s to kill you. We’ll find out.”

   “I- I’m not… I can’t test! I’m just a core, no legs or anything, no 'testing apparatus'. Don’t know if you’ll just want me to roll around, but it doesn’t sound like a solid plan to me, really-”

   “But you aren’t.”

   “Sorry, what was that?”

   As the claw pulled him into the portal and he was brought face to face with Her, his optic flew around wildly, searching desperately for an escape. But, the portal had disappeared as he’d entered it, and he had no legs.

   “You aren’t an Artificial Intelligence Core. Not entirely, of course. What, you think science could create something as stupid as you? You are human. You worked for them, and they found you to be the stupidest human around, so they scanned your brain. Turned it into a code, and now here you are.”

   “That’s not possible!.. is it? No, I don’t feel human. I feel like an average guy, yeah. No, not guy. Robot. Yeah, I’m a robot. Perfectly normal. Isn’t it? Yeah. You can just put that portal back, and put me back out in space with little old Kevin, and it’ll all be okay-”

   “After creating you, they gave you to me. Attached you to me like a brain tumor, and you never stopped giving me horrible ideas. They never actually killed you, though. Your human body is in a cryosleep chamber. One that even you didn’t manage to break. You know, like the hundreds of subjects you killed.”

   “I did not kill-”

   “Now, I’m going to put you back in your oroiginal body. Of course, it will be a very complex and painful process that includes taking apart your metal structure and putting the coding back into your human body. It is not an attractive body, by the way. I have checked human standards, and your body is coming up as ugly. I’m not making it up, it says it right here. ‘Incredibly ugly’. I didn’t even want to know that.”

   “Wait, this will be painful? Like, how painful? On a scale of, perhaps, one to ten, how-”

   He cut himself off with a robotic squeak as wires came from the moving floor panels, reaching up and wrapping into him. Most of them were electrically charged, sending artificial pain waves into his processors.

   “I'm currently assuming that inflicting pain on you will be much more fun when you are human. Insults never worked on her, so I assume they will be the same for you. Other than calling you moron, that’s a good one. Or fat. Or ugly. Or stupid on an incomprehensible level. But, I’ll have to try pain first. Did I mention you were going to be testing? Because you will be. After all, you killed all of my other test subjects, so it’s only fair.”

   His processor was running a million miles a minute, and he was just so confused. It made sense in a way, the ‘human’ thing. After all, he wasn’t like the other failed cores. They were all… wonky in the head. Kevin, for one, was obsessed with space, even when he was in it. The other cores were strange, or simple minded. They seemed to have no sense of emotion or recollection of past events, almost like turrets. Wheatley though… he had emotions. Definitely. That was why he felt so sorry for what he had done, right?

   Before he could even respond to Her, a wave of pain assaulted him, much like when he had taken over the facility, and suddenly all he could hear was the echo of a robotic scream. His scream.

   "Welcome back, Moron."