Portal 2 - Resolution

It wasn't going as planned.  

It wasn't going as planned at all, and as much as he'd have liked to blame her for that (brain-damaged like a fox, yes), with her leaping about and her clever plot to coat the room with portal surfaces and her terrible rudeness in admitting all these other idiots into their private battle, he knew that that wasn't really the answer.

So far, she'd evaded everything he'd thrown at her.  Quite literally.  And deep down inside, a part of him knew that he hadn't quite been giving it his all.  He was aiming poorly.  He knew she was a good jumper.  He consoled himself with the thought that his aim would get better over time, but really…deep down, a part of him knew why he'd been failing.  

He didn't want to win.  His heart—his heart, not the rage or the code or the foul chassis pumping this insanity through his system, making him part of itself—it wasn't in this.  It was fighting him at every turn, staying his hand, misdirecting his aim, making him miss.  It was incredibly frustrating.

But that annoying, worthless part, the part that was making him fail, over and over and over again as he chucked his bombs just a little too slowly at her, and she leapt out of the way—well, he had a little trump card meant for that part, and for her too.

So he chuckled darkly at the mention of the stalemate button, his amusement swelling even further when that useless potato friend of hers began to urge her to press it. He knew that GLaDOS was sending her to her doom.  Maybe she'd press the button before the bombs he'd rigged up went off; maybe she wouldn't.  But she would die.

Either way, she would die.

Good.  His lips broke into a vicious smile. Good.  After everything we've been through, you orphaned, lying, arrogant little monster, now, I only want you gone…

…No.

Wheatley twitched, his thoughts a confused snarl of warring artificial and human polarities.  Emotions tangled, like so many dark cables in the chassis above him, until he was unsure where he ended and the AI began.  But through it all, the part of himself that seemed the most pathetic, and therefore the most human, screamed at him to stop this.  Before it was too late.  Before she—

NO—

And then, just for an instant, confused, maybe, overridden by the suddenness of the surge of emotional impulses that dashed through his human neurons, the AI's crushing hold over him broke.

All desire for her death drained out of him like poison from a wound, leaving him blinking with shock.  She was coming toward him, toward the blue portal she'd left on the ground right in front of him, her eyes hard and pained and blurry with tears, and he had absolutely no time left, had to do something because she was throwing herself straight to her death.  

And the supreme irony of it all was that he had backed himself into a corner where he could do nothing but scream.

"Don't press that button!"

"Press it!" GLaDOS urged, foolishly.

"Do not do it!  I FORBID you to press it!" he shrieked.  His throat was raw with the effort.  He tried to tell her; tried to yell to her that the place was wired with bombs, but a pulse of pain burned through him and his throat tightened and closed on itself, bringing tears to his eyes; the protocols, the damned testing protocols, they were still working.  Trapping him, fixing him in the AI's clever—it had been clever, for once in his life, it had—and devilish machination.  His thoughts flew desperately, zipping along at a speed his tongue could not hope to match.  Oh God listen to me oh please, listen to me like you listened before; it's me!  Listen to little Wheatley, your little Wheatley; please don't go don't please please please—

But she wouldn't; of course she wouldn't, because why would she listen to what he had become?  He saw her body drop through the blue portal, saw it emerge from the orange one through the wire grille, saw her hand reach out, steady, determined as ever, so oblivious, and he screamed wordlessly—

It was a tiny, pathetic, human sound, utterly swallowed in the roar of the explosion.

He felt the blast of heat, felt his ears pop with the force of it.  Then her body was flying out of the room through the now broken grille, landing limply on the ground in front of him, and something in him died, died in agony, gave itself up and begged for the cruelty to flood back in because he wanted it to, because anything, anything, would be better than looking at her body on the floor and knowing that it was all his monstrous doing, all. His. Fault.

And the cruelty did rush back, happily, and as he looked down at her body on the floor, separated from the heavily damaged portal gun, he found himself filled with savage, brutal satisfaction.  A job well done, it was—for once—a job truly well done.

"PART FIVE!" he crowed triumphantly, wildly, over the hell of the still-crackling flames he had unleashed on the both of them.  "BOOBY-TRAP THE STALEMATE BUTTON!"


If only he had waited but a half a second longer.