#Turret OC: Widdershins

[turretdoctor-and-engineer]

Gilligan’s Island (An AU Portal Parody)

Just sit right back

and you’ll hear a tale

a tale of a fateful trip

that started in a pneumonic tube

aboard this tiny lift

The mate was a mighty trigger man

the opera singer; antiwar

A Back Mesa scientist fell in one day

to be heard from nevermore

to be head from nevermore

(things get weird after this point)

The puzzles started getting tough

the test subject was concussed

if not for the courage of crippled sentry

the scientist would be lost

the scientist would be lost

The scientist laid down on the floor of this

sterile empty room

with Widdershins

and Nigel too

The Companion Cube

And Hoopy the Hoop

The Opera Star

The Party Escort Bot

And Wheatley

Here in GLaDOS’ Lab

[turretdoctor-and-engineer]

La La Lullaby,

“All I meant was that sooner or later, a test chamber is going do us in….” Elaine’s brow furrowed, as she picked at her lip. It had been there, the horrible little nagging doubt that her actions were futile, and meant nothing in the end. It’d been eating away at her, and she was after years of feeling numb and void, suddenly afraid-

“Of course,” the turret chirped, unphased by the doom that hung so dark and forebodingly obvious over their friendship. It was going to end with one of them dead- well her anyways. She was fast, but Widdie had already put one bullet in her.

“But that’s no reason to lie awake without sleep. You worry over things that don’t matter. I might shoot you. You might kick me into a pool of acid. That’s what happens in test chambers El. You must solve the tests. It’s your duty. As mine is to stop you....Within those chambers I can’t engage you as a friend….”

The turret fell silent then, looking off to the side as Elaine raised her head from her arms to stare at her.

“I’ll be sorry when I kill you…I don’t want to.” The turret met the human’s gaze, and held it. “But I will.”

Elaine believed her. There was no deception there, just a twisted horrifying mix of resignation and fear. Widdershins really would try to kill her, and there no sliver of doubt. And in the back of her head Elaine knew she should be running, fleeing for her life, and while her heart seemed determined to do just that, her legs did not follow, nor her feet, and she remained motionless staring at the turret unable to look away, as blood roared in her ears.

“So that’s how it is.”

The turret winced, eye shields narrowing, as Widdie fidgeted inside her own casing, wishing to be anywhere else in that moment.

“You’re angry.”

“I’m scared.” Elaine wracked a hand through her hair, and slumped against her wall, to stare up at the broken ceiling, absently picking her lip.

“I’m…this has been eating me alive and you,” she gestured at the clammed up silent turret. “You just. You’re not- I feel like I’m losing my mind! One of us might kill the other-or who knows, maybe the next test chamber will get the both of us, and you’re staring this in the face resigned to it?! And you don’t even intend to stop it? I should be running. I should be trying to escape this place-trying-I don’t even know!”  

“I’m scared too,” the turret whispered. “I don’t want this.”

A breath hissed through Elaine’s teeth as she looked back at the cringing turret. “Then why?”

“We do what we must because we can do nothing else.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Elaine snapped, but deep down she knew. Widdershins was exactly what she was, her behaviours determined by programs and protocols that she couldn’t disobey even if she wanted to, and with a twinge of guilt the former roboticist knew the turret truly did. “It means exactly that.” Still Widdie refused to look at her.

The turret’s side panels opened, her antennae revealing themselves, and the red eye, became a deadly laser. Heart in her throat, Elained jumped to her feet, knowing she was utterly screwed.

The laser darted to nearby hallway.

“Forward Elaine!”

“What-?!”

She darted to the turret’s side expecting to see another robot. A zombie. Or an alien.

There was nothing.

“Forward Elaine!” Widdie shouted again. “And ask was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldiers new someone had erred. It was not theirs to make reply. Nor theirs to reason why. But theirs only to do. Only to die.”

The laser swivelled back to Elaine, and she raised her hand to shield her eyes from it, before it winked out of existence.

“So we’re just a couple of doomed soldiers marching toward a depressing future.”

“I’m a sentry turret. It’s comes with the territory. I’m like a little teapot short and stout. Tip me over and I go out.” The turret chuckled hollowly.

Elaine bowed her head, trying to gather her thoughts.

“So this is your secret is it? You recite poetry to yourself.”

“It keeps things in perspective, but I sing too.”

Elaine’s eyebrows rose. “You sing? Yeah sure you do.”

“It’s true!” The turret snapped offended.

Elaine bit her tongue, fighting to keep a straight face. There was no way on earth a talking gattling gun could carry a tune.

“Prove it.”

The turret’s side panels closed. “I’ll do it…just lay back down, and make sure you’re comfortable.”

Eyes narrowed in curiosity and mild annoyance, Elaine did as the turret asked. Glumly curling up under the ballistic protection of a stolen blanket. With her head propped on her bunched up coat she waited.

Widdershins stared down at her with an unreadable expression, and then one side panel opened, and cocked itself back with a click. The other did likewise, as the first one closed, and for a moment the turret was silent.

Then the turret’s voice hit a singular note that shivered in the laboratory’s cold air.

La la lu, la la lu,

Oh my nervous hand-wringer,

I’ll keep watch over you,

La la lu, la la lu,

Little reluctant sleeper,

Here comes the moon to guide you,

La la lu, la la lu,

Wandering test subject,

Pause and close your eyes for tonight,

[turretdoctor-and-engineer]

This is the cutest thing. It’s is so precious. But I really think I need to be careful of the word ‘cute’ or ‘adorable’ in the presence of turrets, lest it turns into the robotic equivalent of  stereotyping or slander. 

I just imagine that if Widdie ever heard me call turrets ‘cute’ in an all-encompassing collective sense, she might get on to me, and say: “when a turret calls another turret cute, it’s fine, but when another robot or human does it....”

Then again I may be overthinking this, but...it’s better safe than sorry. I suppose I could run it by her. Or not. Maybe I’ll just never use the word ‘cute’ again.