GLaDOS and Me

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Wheatley paced back and forth in front of Henry's office, gnawing on his right thumbnail. Of all the days for Henry to take his time...

When he'd arrived home, Wheatley had tossed and turned for hours before rolling out of bed – literally, he'd rolled right onto the floor and smacked his head on the nighttable – and dug around in his work bag, his jacket pocket, and yesterday's jeans for his cell phone. He'd finally found it on the floor, but after confusedly stabbing at the keyboard for a few minutes, he discovered the battery was dead. As usual. He'd hurriedly plugged it into the charger and tripped down the stairs, heading for the kitchen. Two pieces of burnt toast and a bowl of soggy oatmeal later, he'd gone back upstairs to discover that the battery was still dead. Puzzled, he'd picked the charger up and inspected it, since it'd seemed pretty much working the last time he'd used it, shoving aside an annoying dangling cord hanging from the back of it. He put it back down and jammed the phone back into the charger. That was when he noticed the little green light wasn't on, so he went to check the... oh. Oh, that was what the cord was for...

Twenty anxious minutes later, he'd got the phone charged enough that he could make a call, and he'd dialled Henry. He hadn't answered on the first ring, nor the second or the third, and Wheatley was about to make three more calls and then give up when he answered on the eighth ring.

"What in the world do you want?" Henry screamed into Wheatley's ear, and Wheatley was so startled that he dropped the phone on the floor and sent the battery flying across the room. After pulling it out from underneath his dresser with a fistful of missing change and more than a few cobwebs, he jammed it back into the phone and called Henry yet again.

"Sorry, mate," he muttered apologetically. "Look, I need you to get into work early this morning. I have something I need to talk to you about. Urgently. Like, right now urgently. Well, five hours ago urgently, but right now'll do, right now'll do. 'cept we gotta talk uh, face to face. So... can you head off to work, if you don't mind?"

"This better be damn important," Henry muttered, and Wheatley took that as a yes and ran down the stairs, managing to only trip over the bottom three.

And now Wheatley was adding to the black streak on the floor in front of Henry's office, which had begun back when Wheatley had been hired and had latched onto Henry as a mentor of sorts.

After another twenty minutes, Henry finally showed up, with a decidedly unhappy look on his face, but Wheatley barely noticed. "Let's duck in here, mate," he said, shoving Henry into his office and pulling the door shut behind him. Henry sighed and dropped his leather satchel onto the desk with a heavy clunk.

"What is it now, Wheatley?" he asked tiredly, well used to Wheatley's late night urgent missions.

"I need you to get me on the team that works on GLaDOS."

Henry laughed so hard he had to brace himself on the desk to stop from collapsing onto the floor. "You? Work on GLaDOS? Are you out of your mind?"

"Henry... I..." He wasn't sure he wanted to reveal his doings last night, but he really didn't have a choice. "I woke her up last night."

Henry abruptly stopped laughing and stared at him as if his head was on fire. He rubbed at it self-consciously, just in case it was.

"What the – Wheatley, you know you're not allowed in here at night."

"I know, I know," Wheatley cut in, raising his hand to stop Henry before he elaborated further. "But... well, you know 'bout what you said, 'bout the whole uh, the um, the impartial observer thing?"