#I have long since forgotten what a Damage Interrupt Circuit does

[vanvelding]

If you have opinions about BattleMech equipment, here's your chance to voice them.

[knight-of-heart-and-art]

 You are the Prince, the beating heart of this piece of the world.  For you, the visible world is a room. It's not a room that could be found in any normal house, though—its sheer dimensions prevent that. From wall to wall, floor to ceiling, might measure a full hundred feet or more. Likely more. The measurements are available, if you chose to check them, but you don't care enough anymore. The room is large. Leave it at that.  The room is also beautiful, and you know that even though you haven't left it for so very long that you've had time to memorize every nuance of the patterned carpet, each detailed inch of the sculpted walls. You know that they aren't gold all the way through, but the amount of that precious metal used to give even that thin coat, a few molecules thick, is impressive.  And then there's the throne. And then there is you. 

 The throne sits dead center of the great room. Like the walls, it seems to be gold, but unlike the walls the coating on the throne is actually substantial. It still isn't solid. Under the quarter inch or so of gold is lead shielding. Under that is circuitry. You think you might have been the one to build and program the throne, but that was so long ago. It doesn't matter, though; all that matters is that it's still functioning, information running back and forth along the pure-gold chains that link you to the throne at ankles, wrist, and throat, the machinery of the throne and this room powered by and sustaining you.  The name on the schematics of this place is the throne room. The name the people who come here give it is the audience hall. You don't think of it with a name, though. To you it's the world, even though you can request of the Sovereign that he send you images of the rest of the world, or at least wherever he has sensors.  Unless you have to—say, to confirm that one of the people who come here to make requests really does need and deserve the change they claim they do—you choose not to look out. This is your world. This is the world, this great (small) room, and you don't leave. You don't move from the throne. You don't sleep.  You haven't done any of those for enough decades that you can't remember to count. The throne keeps you alive, awake, unaging. That is how things are and how they have to be.  You, the Prince, clothed in gold and chained in gold and still smaller than should be expected on this great gold throne in this vast room, are the beating heart of this place. You are needed.  Someone's here. They might have been here for awhile; you've been thinking, assuming that you didn't need to pay attention since it was so late. Stupid. You raise your head.  "Greetings." It doesn't matter how quietly you speak; your voice can be heard anywhere in this room, even by querents who linger by the door, too overwhelmed to come closer to you. The young man you're looking at now isn't one of those, though. He's only ten feet away from you already, and you curse yourself for not noticing him sooner. "What do you require from me?"  He blinks at you. "Hi." You're already looking him over without letting him know that that's what you're doing; he's taller than you would be if you stood up, maybe about the same height as Jake, who's been assigned to be your companion for the last ten years and the rest of his life. He's built different, though—the loose dark clothes he's wearing don't hide the fact that he's carrying enough extra weight that most of the court might look down on him as less than perfect. From the excited look in his blue eyes, you don't think he knows or cares. Good. "I'm John."  Ah. When you realize that there's a small but real chance that he's come not for a request, but out of curiosity and a desire to see who or what the Prince is, you have to restrain a smile. People don't come to talk to you, not anymore. "Hello, John. Can I do something for you?" You still need to offer your services. These are the rules. You think you wrote them into the throne yourself.  But John just shakes his head, hesitating before taking another careful step forward. "No, I—is it all right if I come closer?"  "It's fine." Jake, protective as he is, might say differently, and you wouldn't challenge him, but he's asleep, and you have the rare opportunity to fully direct this yourself. "If you'd like a chair—"  "No, I don't—" John stops, eyes widening as he realizes that he interrupted you. "I'm sorry."  "Don't be. It doesn't matter." The throne nudges at your mind, pointing out that you're not following the guidelines set in the circuits of its brain. You ignore it. "Why are you here, John?"  He just shakes his head, taking another step forward and nervously smoothing his dark hair down. "I wanted to see if you really were here. I...um...I was assigned to help check some of the records for damage, and I ended up reading about the beginning."  "About me."  "About you, yes." John takes a deep breath, meeting your eyes. "Dirk Strider, the reason we have peace. The Prince. I wanted—"  "You wanted to see if it was really me still here after—" Does he catch the minute pause as you query the Sovereign and receive an answer? Probably not; it's too small for most people to even register. "—three hundred and seventy-eight years? It is. There should be images in some of the records, I'm sure you saw them. Or I can tell you of the beginning."  Another head-shake. He's close enough to be able to touch you now, no one other than Jake and the companions you've had before him has been this close to you for decades, maybe centuries. "There were maintenance logs for the, um, the throne in some of the records. I know that you're the same person who's been here all this time. I just—"  He sighs, and you realize with faint amusement that he does want something. He must want something. They don't struggle with themselves like this when they come out of curiosity or for conversation, and you have practice in being patient and letting them untangle their words for themselves.  "Dirk, do you ever want to not be this?" John says, finally.  You freeze. Unheard by anyone but you, quiet alarms go off within the throne, warning you that something's not right with either the interface or your mental state, insisting that you start biofeedback techniques and calm the hell down. You don't even acknowledge it.  No one's bothered to ask that question for three hundred years.  You thought you'd forgotten.  "Dirk?"  You haven't. Not really.  Your best friend doublechecking your coding, looking up at you and asking if you were sure you wanted to start this. You can still see the unsure look on her face when you said you had to. The tears in her eyes decades later when she told you she wasn't going to come back anymore. How your own eyes stung, and how you had to force yourself not to beg her to stay or to take you with her. You remember.  "Uh, Dirk?"  Your brother sitting on the floor by the throne for hours at a time, talking about everything and nothing, sometimes trying to talk you into letting him unhook you from the throne but mostly just telling you about the rest of the world in ways that the Sovereign's video feeds never capture. He asked you if you were sure you wanted to stay, when he left. You remember his smile and shrug when you shook his head, and how he leaned in to kiss your cheek.  He was supposed to come back. He didn't.  "Are you all right?"  The Sovereign used to ask you. He didn't want you to stay here forever, he said you were never supposed to stay in this throne forever. Just long enough for him to develop into something greater than a direct copy of you. Something better. At some point he lost interest in you, stopped bothering to ask or talk to you or do anything but give you the data you request. You created him, and he doesn't need you. He runs this piece of the world now, and you, you...  "Dirk!" John's hand comes down on your shoulder, and how long has it been, exactly, since someone other than one of your companions touched you? "Are you—I'm sorry, all right, I didn't mean to, I—are you okay?"  As he pulls you up you realize that you've slumped over, bowed your head and closed your eyes. Forcing yourself to straighten and look at him is so very hard. "I—apologize." Worried. He's worried. You almost forgot what that looks like when it's directed at you, no one is supposed to be worried for you. "I—"  Where are the words?  John blinks, reaching out with the hand that's not on your shoulder and gently running one finger across your cheek. It comes away wet. "You're crying...I'm sorry."  "Don't." You are not supposed to do this. You are not supposed to remember, you are not supposed to care. "Don't be." You can't look at him, and the chains attached to your wrists clink against each other as you raise your hands to cover your face. "This isn't—this—don't be sorry. Oh, fuck." You haven't answered his question, but you're fairly certain that you've done something inadvisable to the throne's programming. Alarms are still going off, but they're much fainter and out of sync. Or maybe it's just that you're going back to that state of mind you had before, when you could still tune the throne's messages out, ignore them even if they were in your head. "I forget. I do forget. It's been such a long time..."  "I shouldn't have bothered you." John takes his hand away, and you force yourself to look up as he steps back from you and the throne. "I'll go—"  "No." Nice to know you can still summon a tone of authority sufficient to stop someone like him in his tracks, even as disturbed as you are. "You've done nothing wrong. I'm here to serve—here to be bothered, if you will." You take a deep breath, and think another command to the throne's deepest programming, one of the only bits that you didn't design to evolve over time. "The answer is complicated."  Now he's confused. "The answer?"  "Your question. If I ever wanted to—not be this." The chains are going inactive. It feels strange to have the peripherals of your mind going dark. "It's coping. It's who I am supposed to be. I made a choice to mediate everything that I could, and let everything around me move on while I didn't." Can he see the microcircuits in your eyes flaring and going dark, little bursts of gold in amber? "I don't know what I want."  Well, you do. But there's no way you can have it.  "I don't understand."  "I know. You might not understand this either, but I'm grateful to you for reminding you that I was supposed to do it."  John just stares at you in pure confusion.  You wince as the Sovereign finally realizes that something unusual is happening and sends a probe down your quickly-shrinking mental link. He only has a second before it cuts off completely—enough time to send frantic questions of what you think you're doing and why, enough time for you to be surprised at the concern you can feel from him. Then he's gone, the sense of the throne is gone, and you're alone in your head for the first time in not quite four hundred years.  The cuffs around your wrists and ankles crack open, the chains fall away. The crown that's just a receiver of information pulls back and folds into the back of the throne.  John's gasp is very, very loud in the silence.  You may have just done something very stupid, but now is not the time to think over your actions. Instead, you grip the arms of the throne, and stand up.  Predictably, you stagger. It's been so long. At least the carpet is soft...  John catches you. He's strong enough to hold you up, pulling your arm over his shoulders and wrapping an arm around you, and that's somehow surprising, even though it shouldn't be. "Prince—"  "Dirk. Not the Prince." You're done with that. You don't know what you're doing, but you're done with being the Prince. The Sovereign can do almost everything you did. That's why you created him, after all. "Dirk." You are trying very hard not to lean on him more than you need to, but you haven't touched anyone this much in hundreds of years.  He seems to be okay with it, though. "Dirk. Are you—did you mean to do that? If I did something—"  You can't help but laugh, and that feels strange too. "No, this was my choice. Can—" You almost reach for the Sovereign to ask him for the floorplans, but he's gone. Of course. "Damn. I want to not be here, preferably before anyone comes to see what I've done. Can you..." You don't know how to ask him for help. You're not even sure what you're asking him for.  Fortunately, John seems to understand what you want even if you don't. "Uh, yeah. I know some pretty good places to hide out. Can you walk at all?"  "I—" You have no idea. There's nothing wrong with you physically, the throne wouldn't let your muscles atrophy or anything like that, but you may have forgotten how to use them a little. "Maybe. I can try, though."  John nods, adjusting his grip on you. "All right. We'll make it work."  By the time you make it to the exit of the room—the entrance to the rest of the world—you're supporting most of your own weight. You still don't want to let go of John, though, and he hasn't let go of you.  You manage not to hesitate as you go through the door, and then you're outside what's been your entire world.  It occurs to you that Jake is going to panic.

[sweet-christabel]

A Trusted Friend In Science

FF.net: (x) AO3: (x)

Chapter Twenty - Unknown year. Near Misses.

After figuring out which testing track Chell was on and reattaching Wheatley to the management rail, Doug once again found himself running ahead with the intention of depositing supplies in some of his now-exposed hiding places. He'd been against it at first, or rather the cube had, not comfortable with the broken-down state the facility was in. Not only was it harder to avoid GLaDOS's cameras with the crumbled walls, but travelling between chambers had gotten more dangerous due to the aged structures. Still, he'd persevered, his unwillingness to abandon Chell overpowering his apprehension.

Wheatley had yet to find a blind spot in which to contact her, but Doug had caught glimpses of him travelling the rail alongside the tests, keeping an eye on them both. He'd seen Chell once, entering chamber two just as he was leaving it. Although she was bearing up well, her expression betrayed her anxiety. There was a raw edge of sorrow to her demeanour too, which he attributed to grief for her father.

"It might help if she knew you were alive," the cube spoke up as he added a full tin of beans to the row of empty cans in one of his dens.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked quietly, mindful of the gaping hole in the wall that led to test chamber three. "Write 'hi Chell, I'm alive lol' on a wall?"

The cube snorted at his heavy sarcasm. "It would get the job done."

"No," he said firmly. "She's seen my graffiti. She probably thinks that whoever wrote all this stuff is crazy. And she'd be right." He glanced up at the murals he'd painted in the room, images that made very little logical sense. During a long-ago period of restlessness, he'd managed to get his favourite song to loop on the radio, and had incorporated the lyrics into his work. The song had seemed to speak directly to him, which had been depressing, but at the same time he'd found its melody soothing.

"You need to get over thinking she'd judge you," the cube told him sternly. "She knows better than that, and you know she does. Let her know you're alive. She needs something to help her keep going. Tenacity alone won't always cut it."

Doug sighed, crouching to avoid being seen by the security camera in the test chamber, and sneaked over to the opposite side of the room. He switched the radio on, letting the music calm him, its familiar words once again questioning whether he'd given up. As before, he felt determined to prove them wrong.

“I can’t just…” he began, trailing off almost at once. “I already told Wheatley not to mention me to her, so doing this just seems…”

“She won’t know everything,” the cube countered. “Just that you’re alive.”

The cube had a point, as it often did when he let his fear control him. He wanted nothing more than to stay there and simply wait for Chell to arrive. He knew that wouldn’t be long, as she was only one chamber behind, but he couldn’t bring himself to face her, knowing that he’d been the one to place her life in danger. Although he was afraid, however, the thought of leaving her no clue as to his survival made him feel almost panicky.

Before he could change his mind, he drew a pen from his pocket and scurried over to the can of beans he’d left for her, bringing it back over to the ‘safe’ side of the den. Hand trembling just a little, he pressed the pen nib to the stark white label and wrote ‘Don’t give up’.

“That’s it?” the cube squawked.

He shot it a look over his shoulder. “It’s enough.”

“But how will she know who…”

“If she hears that song,” he interrupted, “she’ll know.”

The sound of GLaDOS’s voice emanating from the speaker outside the door startled him. He dropped the can and the pen next to the radio, hurrying over to the broken wall panels on the far side of the room. Carefully, mindful of the murky, bottomless drop below, he scrambled out of the den and climbed up the girders and mechanical arms on the outside of the chamber until he was safely perched on top of it. It was slow going, what with the constant ache in his leg and the extra weight of the portal gun, tucked in securely next to the cube, but he made it unseen.

“Now what?” the cube asked.

“On to the next one,” Doug replied softly.

Ever since GLaDOS had dropped her unceremoniously into the incinerator room, Chell had been wracking her brain for an escape plan. So far, she hadn't had much luck, settling back into testing compliantly to keep the A.I. appeased until she thought of something. Although there were still places where she could have gotten out of the test chambers, the sheer drop down put her off trying to leave that way. Despite the boots she was wearing, the fall looked like a death sentence.

GLaDOS wasn't allowing her a moment's peace, constantly prodding and berating her about the fact that Chell had shut her down, resorting to cheap shots about her 'horrible' personality and her adoption. It seemed that the powerful supercomputer had conveniently forgotten that she had been the one to attack first. Chell let the comments wash over her, not allowing them to rattle her. She had bigger concerns than GLaDOS's petty opinions.

A hole in the wall caught her attention as she entered test chamber three, and she darted over to it, wondering if it was an exit. It wasn't, but it was interesting nonetheless. Dropping down into the once-hidden room, she glanced around, taking in the empty bean cans, the outlandish murals on the walls and, most of all, the radio that was playing something other than the irritating Samba tune she'd heard before.

Wait, she thought suddenly, I know this song.

Doug had driven her crazy with it once, playing it on a loop on his car stereo when they'd taken a lunch break outside and retreated to the car to avoid the rain.

Her stomach gave a lurch, and she rationally tried to figure out if it was possible for the radio to have been playing during the entire, unknown amount of time she'd been in suspension. It was unlikely, even with Aperture’s longevity track record. She crouched down to investigate it, checking for wet paint or fingerprints. The toe of her boot sent a tin rolling. Letting go of the portal device, she reached out and stopped it, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise as she realised it was unopened.

She set the device on the ground and picked up the tin, wondering if it had been forgotten about or left deliberately. It was as she was turning it over in her hands that she saw the message, the handwriting shaky but still familiar.

Chell exhaled noisily, closing her eyes briefly. A quick search of the immediate area yielded a pen, the same kind of cheap ball-point that was once found in every office.

Why would he have left that behind? she wondered inwardly. Is it just that he left in a hurry, or does he expect me to use it?

When she looked back at the writing, she saw that her thumb had smudged the end of the D and her heart did a little flip.

Still drying, she thought elatedly. He left because...I entered the chamber. He is alive.

She closed her eyes again, grinning stupidly in relief, then took another cursory glance at the paintings. There was nowhere on them that would show her writing clearly. She would take a leaf out of Doug's book and use the cans. Lunging across the room, she snatched one up and pondered what to write. There was so much she wanted to say. In the end, though, she settled for ‘Please don’t run. Let's escape.' Chances were he wouldn't return, but she resolved to repeat the message at every opportunity.

He’s running ahead of me. So I need to catch up.

Chell wasn’t stupid. She realised that he wasn’t medicated, and she didn’t know how it had affected him. The dioramas on the walls were not the work of an entirely stable mind, and yet he was leaving her supplies that she needed. He’d obviously kept up with his art therapy, which suggested he’d also continued the calming techniques that his regular therapist had taught him. There was a chance that he’d maintained some semblance of his old life. Feeling a little selfish, she clung to that hope. She wasn’t sure how she’d get through to him otherwise.

Spurred on by fresh motivation, she solved the test quickly and progressed to the next chamber, the one after that, and the one after that. She found a few more of Doug’s refuges, some with water and food in, but no new signs that he’d been there recently enough to catch.

GLaDOS had responded to her new determined speed by complaining that she was solving the tests faster than they could be built. Chell knew that that was not strictly true, since what GLaDOS was doing was making the tests usable again rather than building new ones, but she was well acquainted with how her robotic adversary stretched the truth. With more to occupy her mind, she was finding it even easier to ignore GLaDOS’s taunting. The A.I. did not react to Chell’s lack of interest, which was mildly irritating but not wholly unexpected. They were both pros at trying to get a rise out of each other.

In chamber nine, Chell made a slightly startling discovery, catching sight of Wheatley hiding in a blind spot near the ceiling. Since she could only see and hear him when she stepped on an aerial faith plate that shot her up in the air, his explanation for not being deactivated was more garbled than usual, as he did not stop his flow of speech whenever she dropped out of earshot. By the time that GLaDOS lowered the ceiling and cut him off from view, all that Chell had surmised was that the core was attributing his survival to a bird.

Whatever happened to him must have damaged his circuits a little, she theorised.

As she solved the test, she pondered the matter further, stringing two and two together and deciding that Doug was probably involved somehow. She simply couldn't see any other way that Wheatley would have gotten himself fixed and back on the management rail if not with human help. It certainly wasn't a bird.

As she stepped into the elevator, she sighed in frustration. Everything would be so much simpler if she could only talk. She could just ask Wheatley, rather than having to rely on guesswork. Cautiously, she attempted a quiet, "Hello?" She heard her soft rush of breath, but nothing else.

"Godammit," she hissed, partly in disappointment, partly to see if she could whisper. She could, after a fashion, but it sounded difficult to decipher, even to her ears.

Biting down her distress and anger, she picked up her steady mantra that had seen her through her first set of tests: Carry on, carry on, carry on.

Having collected more rain water in the large containers he'd rediscovered in his hiding places, Doug was busy distributing it into smaller bottles that would be easier to carry around. With the cube and the portal gun, he was fairly weighed down already, but the water was necessary. Using a mixture of portals and his old climbing routes, he'd found his way into an old den in the ceiling of chamber twelve. He was far enough ahead that he could take a moment to rest. His leg still throbbed, but it was feeling stronger, and food and water had put a little colour in his pale face.

Setting down his heavy bag, Doug lowered himself to the floor, his back against a mural he'd forgotten he'd painted. It was nice to sit down for a while. He felt as if he'd been running for days, although in reality it was probably only a few hours. Chell was most likely suffering too, her only respite in the elevators between tests.

"Ah! There you are!"

Doug jumped violently as the cheerful voice shattered his peace. His eyes flew open and he spotted Wheatley peering in the gap to his left, between the ceiling and the wall.

"Been looking for you for ages! I've got an idea, right. I'm going to orchestrate a situation so I can have a word with our lady down there, and I need your help for that, cos, uh, you actually have hands."

Blinking as he registered the core's hurried speech, Doug scrambled wearily to his feet, fighting hard to focus on Wheatley as shadowed figures dogged his peripheral vision.

"You're okay," the cube said quietly, injecting some calm into his mentality. "You're in control, not them."

"What did you have in mind?" he asked Wheatley, pushing the hallucinations aside as best he could.

Wheatley fixed him with an eager, blue stare. "Well, I thought she should know that we're working to get her out of there, you know, so that she's ready to escape when the time comes. But I can't do that with Her watching everything. But don't panic, it's okay, right, cos I found a way to slow up the door mechanism. So, uh, if you'll just...follow me. We can use the door to this chamber below."

"Is Chell far behind?"

"No. I just caught sight of her in the test before this one."

Doug nodded and used the cube as a step up to reach the top of the wall where the core waited.

"Wait here," he told it. "I'll be as quick as I can."

"Be careful," it said sagely.

Turning back to Wheatley, Doug glanced at the potential route to the door. "Hmm," he muttered. "Portal device isn't going to help me here."

It was going to be a steep climb above the yawning gap into nothingness. Just looking at it made his stomach flip.

"Although..."

Hopping back down, he picked up the gun and shot a portal into the room’s single compatible surface: a few panels in the ceiling.

"Might make for an easier return trip."

He moved the cube out of its bag, dropping the portal device safely inside. Then he swung the strap across his shoulder and returned to the wall.

"You still have to get down there," the cube pointed out.

"I don't suppose you know how secure you are on the rail, do you?" he asked, glancing at Wheatley with a raised eyebrow.

The core narrowed his optic suspiciously. "Why?"

Doug opened his mouth to reply, but was swiftly cut off by Wheatley's cynical tones.

"Oh wait, wait, wait, I know what you're about. What is it with you humans, eh? You...you...you look at me and all you see is a means to an end. I mean, do I look like a bloody zip line to you?"

Doug glanced at him, trying to keep his expression neutral. With his bottom handle looking so invitingly handy and the management rail gently sloping towards the chamber entrance, the core did rather look like the key to progressing.

"Um," Doug began diplomatically, "well, not exactly..."

"Don't bother," Wheatley snapped, sounding exasperated. "Don't even bother. I can see it in your face, mate, and I'm...I'm disappointed, truth be told."

Doug sighed, holding up a hand. "Now, look-"

"Oh!" the core interrupted. "I just thought of something else that's disappointing. What if our combined weight is too much for this rail, eh? What if we both plummet to our horrible, grisly deaths? Cos you know what, that would be really bloody disappointing."

"It's a short journey," Doug shot back, his voice firm. "I think we'll be okay. I promise you, I don't weigh much. Not after three years without a square meal."

"You want to risk your life, that's up to you," Wheatley argued waspishly. "I don't see why you should drag me into it as well. Good old dispensable Wheatley, what does it matter if he falls into a deadly pit of death? Well I'll tell you why that matters, it matters because....uh....because....well, it just does, okay? Honestly, you humans, you think just because you created us, you're the boss of everything, well you're not. Okay? One day, I might be the boss and, uh, and then...well, I haven't thought that far ahead, to be honest, but something important will definitely happen."

"Meanwhile," Doug cut in, "Chell will have walked right past us and we'll have lost our opportunity."

The sphere halted, optic shifting as he considered. "Ah," he said. "You may have a point there." He glanced down at the drop beneath him, then hurriedly looked away. "Oh god, I really, really don't advise that."

"Look, just don't look down and move as fast as you can," Doug recommended. "We'll be there before you even register that we're going."

Wheatley made a short collection of sounds, imitating a sigh and a few fearful grumbles. "All right, all right. Let's get it over with, for god's sake. And if we die, it will be entirely on your head."

"Fine," Doug muttered, perching himself on the edge and reaching for Wheatley's lower handle. The murky depths of the pit stretched out shadowy tendrils, threatening to grab him and pull him into the darkness.

Oh god, I can't do this.

"You can," the cube called to him. "Don't look. It isn't real, Doug. It isn't real."

"Ready?" he asked Wheatley, thankfully managing to disguise the tremble in his voice.

"No," the core said obstinately. "Just remember to tuck your legs up, we'll be going through a fairly small gap at the end."

"Okay."

Tightening his grip, Doug took a deep breath and let himself slide off the edge. His body swung out into emptiness, the portal device clunking gently against his back. His stomach was immediately invaded by a small army of butterflies, his heart dropping into his shoes.

Why the hell did I think this was a good idea?

Following his suggestion rather more literally than he had expected, Wheatley shot off at top speed down the rail, causing Doug to fight the air resistance as he tried to keep his legs up.

Holy crap!

Keeping a death grip on the handle, staring adamantly straight ahead, Doug clenched his teeth as he battled his fear. But then they were slowing, drifting through a square hole in the wall, turning several corners, then finally emerging in a dimly-lit corridor. Doug let go immediately, landing on solid floor only to lose his balance and stumble against the wall. He was shaking, breathing hard. Wheatley stopped, spinning to face him. It was difficult to tell which one of them had been more terrified. Although it soon became apparent that only one of them was suffering after effects.

"Well," the core said cheerfully. "That wasn't too bad, actually. Reckon we could do that again."

"No," Doug panted, shaking his head as he crouched down, "I am never doing that again."

"It was your bloody idea," Wheatley huffed.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean it didn't scare the hell out of me."

Wheatley shook his optic from side to side, mumbling a tetchy, "Humans." Then he paused, tilting to one side as if he was listening to something. "The lift's on its way," he reported. "Come over here, we'll shut down the door."

Still on wobbly legs, Doug straightened up and complied. Wheatley halted beside a panel he'd obviously opened, displaying the mechanism for the door.

"What do you need me to do?"

"Look up in the gap that the missing ceiling tile left," Wheatley instructed.

Doug did so, hopping up onto a nearby desk. He found the nest almost at once, bringing it down into the light with a sceptical expression. There were three eggs inside it.

"A bird's nest?" he said in disbelief.

"Yep," Wheatley beamed proudly. "Chuck 'em in."

Frowning, Doug stared at him. "You want me to...throw eggs in the door mechanism?"

"Yes, it's brilliant. Trust me."

Shrugging, he threw the whole thing into the workings behind the panel. It sparked, emitting a pathetic groaning noise. Then they heard GLaDOS’s words of complaint as she told Chell to stay put.

“Cheers!” Wheatley said brightly, zipping away down the rail, turning into the observation room through the only other open door in the corridor.

Doug followed, keeping out of sight, pulling the portal device out of the bag and hugging it to his chest. He would need it soon. He just wanted to find out exactly what Wheatley was saying.

“I found some bird eggs up here,” the core was explaining. “Just dropped ‘em into the door mechanism. Shut it right down!”

Just as Doug was thanking the heavens that Wheatley had remembered to keep him out of things, there came a whisper of wings, and he just had time to see a dark, feathered shape flit through the open door.  

“I – aaggh!” yelled Wheatley in apparent shock. “Bird! Bird! Bird! Bird!”

Doug froze in bewildered surprise, a guilty smile lingering on his face as he listened to the personality sphere sliding back and forth on his rail to get away from the creature. After a beat, he heard him return.

“Okay. That’s probably the bird, innit, that laid the eggs? Livid!”

Doug shook his head, still smiling, and wondered how Chell was reacting.

“Okay, look, the point is we’re going to break out of here, all right? Very soon, I promise, I promise,” the core reassured her. “I just have to figure out how. To...break us out of here. Here she comes!”

Not wanting to stick around, Doug fired a portal in the wall further down the corridor and dropped through the one he’d placed in the den’s ceiling. It wasn’t a moment too soon, as the connection closed a fraction of a second after he’d passed through. He didn’t have time to fathom why, however, as his awkward landing caused a large panel to fall out of the floor.

Eyes wide as he struggled to regain his balance, Doug watched the tile tumble down past a hard-light bridge and land with a quiet splash in the pool of toxic goo below.

“Shit!” he hissed vehemently. There was a place at the very back of his mind that was grateful for whatever GLaDOS was saying over the room’s speakers that would drown out his panicked word.

He shifted his weight sideways, letting himself fall and roll out of harm’s way. There was no time to take a breather, however. He knew that there was a chance that Chell had caught a glimpse of his lab coat. Even if she hadn’t, she was likely to explore the hiding place at any moment.

Doug hurried over to the cube, quickly repacking his bag. Taking care to avoid the gap in the floor, he passed it, scrambling across the air conditioning ducts and disappearing into the shadows beyond. Behind him, he heard the pop of a portal opening in the ceiling, followed by the sound of Chell’s boots.

“Focus,” cautioned the cube.

I am focused, he argued silently. Come on. We need to catch up with Wheatley.

“Good job with the bird eggs back there,” Wheatley said, as soon as Doug had pinned him down between test chambers.

“Hello to you too,” Doug murmured under his breath.

Wheatley barrelled on, unperturbed. “I’ve been thinking about our escape, right. I’ve got an idea. Ahh, you’re gonna love this, honestly, it’s tremendous. So, I was thinking about how our original plan was just to go up in the lift, okay, and I thought to myself ‘why change it?’ I mean, it��s still the best plan we’ve got going for us so far.”

Doug frowned in disagreement, but Wheatley continued before he could voice his thoughts.

“No, I hear you say, She is still holding us back. And right now, you’d be right. But what if she wasn’t? Um, holding us back, that is.”

“Uh…well, obviously that would be great,” the scientist spoke up, “but she’s not as easy to take down as you might think. I couldn’t do it. That’s why I needed Chell.”

“His plan is to do exactly what we were already trying to do?” the cube put in scathingly.

“Shh,” Doug pacified.

Wheatley peered at him, optic narrowed. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Not you. Never mind. What was your idea?”

“It’s simple, really. Genius. We don’t kill her, we replace her. Y’know, do a core transfer and put me in her place. I can summon the lift, we all leave. Easy.”

Doug arched an eyebrow, considering the idea. It wasn’t as ridiculous or far-fetched as he’d expected Wheatley’s plans to be. In fact, it might even be the easiest way out.

“She won’t be eligible for a core transfer unless her central core is corrupt,” he said, already recalling the route to a usable console.

“Yeah, but you can do that, can’t you?” Wheatley asked, tilting a little.

“I can, if I can get to the right office.” Turning back to the sphere, he added, “Have you figured out when you can break Chell out of the testing track?”

“Not quite, but I’ve got a plan for that too. Leave it with me, mate. Working on it.” He bobbed in a confident kind of nod.

“Be careful. She’s always watching.”

But it seemed that where GLaDOS was concerned, Wheatley was as paranoid as he was.

“If GLaDOS finds you or suspects what we’re up to, she’ll fight back,” Doug told him gravely.

Wheatley looked at the floor, an air of nervousness overtaking him. “How?”

“In my experience,” he shrugged, “turrets or neurotoxin. Those are her favourites.”

“Weellll,” Wheatley said, drawing the word out, “I reckon Chell and I could stop by turret control and the neurotoxin generator on our way to the main chamber. You know, shut everything down so that she can’t use them against us. That would give you plenty of time to get to the console thingy and work a little bit of corruption magic. Err….science. Swap that in. Meant science. Of course!”

Doug shot him a quick smile. “Now that is a truly excellent plan.”

The core beamed at him, lifting his lower handle in a vague imitation of a smile.

“I’m going to keep tracking Chell until you break her out,” Doug went on. “Then I’ll make my way to the office.”

“Okay. I’d better go. I’ve got a meeting with the nanobot crew.”

“You’ve got a what?” Doug called after him, but the sphere was already moving along the rail.

“Hmph,” said the cube, with feeling.

“He needs to work on his greetings and leave-takings,” he commented dryly.

“At least he’s not welcoming you with ‘You’re looking good today’ anymore,” the cube pointed out.

Doug rubbed his tired, gritty eyes. “It was never true anyway.”

“Oh, stop.”

“What?”

“Anyone would think you were Quasimodo the way you go on,” the cube scolded. “Let’s get moving. Chell must be in chamber fourteen at least by now.”

Smiling to himself a little, Doug did as it suggested and took off running. 

No illustration this week. I just didn’t have time.