What it Means to be Human 1

What it Means to be Human

Disclaimer: I do not own Portal 2, this is only for enjoyment.

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Space.

That endless horizon, the last dimension, the final frontier... featured in so many movies and tales ranging from horror to comedy, to even a "family" film...

Wheatley would give ANYTHING to stop seeing it now.

How long... how long has it been since that day he first encountered Chell, the woman who had managed to kill GLaDOS, the head of the entire Apeture Science Laboratories? How long had it been since he got a taste of what GLaDOS could do and went mad from the power? It all seemed so far away now. He silently wondered to himself as to how long he had actually been up there, staring at the moon and the earth, regretting that he had betrayed Chell. He had meant to do it... he had meant to help her escape from that awful place, but the power lured him in like a angler's lure and he bit. If only he could have a brief moment to speak with her... to apologize, then maybe things-

"SPAAAAACEEEEEE!"

Wheatley's current bout of guilt was brought to a crashing halt as his over-active companion floated past him, Space Core's single eye moving around so fast Wheatley thought it would crack from over-use. " Yes, mate, we're in spaaaace, for the last bloody time." he repeated in a robotic voice, now used to the endless comments about the hellish void they were trapped in. He doubted that Space Core would pick up on the sarcasm in his words, instead turning his single eye back towards earth.

It was just as lovely as it had always been, with it's oceans and landmasses, covered by a gentle blanket of clouds. He longed to be back there, even if it was spending his days as a useless "Moron" in the lab. How he hated that word... which was surprising, even for him. He had always been told that he was devoid of emotions, that he wasn't actually feeling anything except a simulated response... but the irritation and hatred he felt from certain words and things felt real. Well, as real as he could feel.

" Don't even say it." he snapped before Space Core could start another tangent. " Don't you even dare."

"SPAAAAAACEEEEE!"

Wheatley groaned again and resigned himself to his fate, doomed to be driven insane by his only companion. He was fairly certain he was half-insane already, but hey, why stop there? As humans were fond of saying, why stop at half when you can have full? Not that he really knew what they meant... most sayings flew over him anyways. Closing his eye, he prepared to enter sleep mode for a while, the only counter-measure against Space Core's endless tirade. Now he knew why humans liked to sleep for so long, it helped keep them sane. He had also heard that humans had something called dreams... but his version of sleep was a dark empty time, a short moment of blacking out for hours or minutes until he was called upon to work again.

He briefly wondered how much longer he was going to keep working... it was like he had been up here forever, and he doubted he could keep running that long. As his eye closed fully and his system went into temporary hibernation, he softly whispered the same words he had been repeating for so long.

" I'm so sorry."

–

Chell tucked a strand of dark hair behind her ear as she sketched, several drawings all scattered around her. It had been nearly five years since she was freed from the lab, but things still hadn't gone back to any sense of normalcy. After wandering around for hours in the wheat field, she found the remains of a city, and some humans trying to rebuild and recover from some sort of event. Having been asleep for so long, she was amazed that humanity was still around, and had been fully prepared for the last-woman-on-earth style living. But, there they were, still adapting. With the help of a few trained psychologists, she had managed to get some of her voice back, even though it wasn't much. It was too much of a hassle for long conversations anyways, so she kept quiet most of the time.

Setting the drawing aside, she picked up a fresh piece of paper and started to sketch again, this time of a destroyed wall and the growing plants around it. In order to cope with some of the memories of the place, a friend had suggested that she try to draw everything, to face it head on and maybe overcome it, even though she had long since written the stay at the lab as a learning experience... like never to trust anything that speaks in a cute or female voice.

Halfway through the drawing, she started sketching a tiny ball off to the side, tracing the eye lightly and reaching for a blue colored pencil. Wheatley... her companion during her escape attempt, her enemy later. He had gone mad with the power of the facility, trying to follow GLaDOS's footsteps and begin " Testing" her with her use of the portal gun... even though he wasn't very bright. But then again, that was a good quality of his. He was created to try and make GLaDOS behave, called the Intelligence Dampening Core, but he was an excellent companion to her.

GLaDOS always had this condescending tone to her voice, even when she was turned into a potato for a length of time, while Wheatley never really seemed to know what was going on. He was incredibly timid for a  robot, one simply had to say he would die while using something installed in his body and he wouldn't even touch it. Only after they met did he start becoming brave... and trying to help her as best as he possibly could. Even after his betrayal, she felt as if she couldn't really take him seriously, despite him trying to kill her.

When they had engaged in battle, she was trying with all her might to get him to stop, placing the cores on him to try and separate him from GLaDOS's original body, but things went downhill faster than propulsion gel. In a desperate move, she shot a portal onto the surface of the moon and managed to somehow pull the both of them through it, GLaDOS saving her from an untimely fate by pulling her through the portal back to earth, but knocking Wheatley away in the process. Sometimes, in her nightmares of the lab, she could see his single eye glowing and his eye fearful as he went spiraling away into space. In more pleasant dreams, she often saw him patiently waiting on his rail, waiting for her to catch up with him once more so they could continue.

She often wondered why she bonded with him so easily, but it wasn't hard to figure out why. He was the first thing in the entire laboratory besides the companion cube that didn't try to kill her. As an added bonus, he could actually speak to her. Setting the colored drawing of him down on the cube, she gave it a faint smile, almost hearing the British accent in the distance, calling for her to turn around while he did something.

She still wanted to pound him for being dumb enough to become completely drunk from the power of the facility, but longed to hear him telling her some odd story once more.
She missed him.

–

GlaDOS watched the screens before her with a growing level of ire, making a metallic sounding groan as Atlas tumbled to the floor once again, colliding with the wall. P-body stumbled along on it's side, companion cube clutched tightly as it waited for Atlas to rise again. This was the third time they had repeated the test, and it was beginning to try her patience. She had done so well when she had to go through the testing, these two were having some difficulty. That was one thing GLaDOS always had to hand to her... she was accurate with the portal gun, no matter what.

She briefly wondered if it was the human survival instinct that made her so accurate, seeing as how Atlas and P-body could be rebuilt easily but she could not, but the humans still left in stasis were probably all useless in that aspect. She also briefly toyed with the idea of waking one of the remaining ones up and forcing him or her to test, but that would only result in a quick and most likely painful death, she doubted they had the same aptitude as her best subject.

Sliding her frame back slightly, she heard the incessant chattering of a few cores that were still working, all confined to a single room. It reminded her of him...that moron. The tumor. There were plenty of other names that she had for him, but all of them would have been lost on his mind, seeing as how he was DESIGNED to be stupid. How she wanted revenge for her time in the potato, but she had no choice but to be satisfied with the fact that he was probably dead in space, having been either crushed by something or driven to the point of insanity by a single objective core.

Hearing Atlas and P-body make rather triumphant sounds made her head back to the screen in time to see them performing a basic maneuver that humans did to celebrate. They must have picked it up from somewhere, she knew that she hadn't installed that feature in them. Turning back to the facility power signals, she ran through a system check that she had usually saved for after testing, but since the two robots she was currently using were being repaired, she had free time. Looking at the signals, she was amazed to find that the Intelligence Dampening Core... the moron, was still transmitting a signal, along with the corrupted Space Core.

Perhaps revenge wasn't just a small idea tucked in the back of her memory anymore...

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