Chapter 13: Morons

"Relax! It's all part of my intricate plan!" Wheatley said. "Hey eyepiece, you need to bring us to your mainframe for proper identification! Whatever you're using to spy on us right now is probably... outdated or... something. Yeah."

"No anomalies detected in Camera A-29B5. Unidentified interlopers remain present in facility. Preparing... execution." GLaDOS said.

"Ok, that was not supposed to happen. Can you turn her off somehow?" Wheatley hovered around Chell again.

She gritted her teeth. Chell couldn't shake the feeling that she was simply being strung along again. It seemed to be her usual state in this place, whether the huckster was trying to help or impede her. Seemingly forgetting the promises she had made a night before, she was all too happy to go it alone, bounding forward independently.

The first step was to get out of this room. She quickly created a portal next to the exit, and another right beside her. Dean hadn't been through one of these in ages, and he was a little nervous. Going through these portals, you could feel a rush of air as the impossibility of being in two places at once forget about itself briefly.

He wanted to stop. Dean didn't want to go through. As Chell crouched in preparation for that jump of faith, she could feel a little pull at her midriff, and she stumbled over in surprise. A platform emerged from the ground, knocking her into the wall and away from her portal. Her head hit the foundation hard, and she landed furiously on all fours. 

"Releasing... releasing..." GLaDOS said, almost mournfully.

A familiar smoke, tinted sickly mucus-green, spread through the air. Oh no... the entrance was closed and locked firmly shut. Wheatley hovered there, indifferent, watching from afar. Avoiding the gas as long as she could, Chell limped into the corner by the south wall.

"Why did you do that?" She scolded Dean. "Are you trying to get us killed?"

Dean could feel a rage boiling inside her. From his position, he couldn't really see her face, but it didn't matter. He could feel her shake, breathing heavily, air flowing through gritted teeth. 

"I'm sorry... please-" Dean felt woozy.

The green gas encompassed them both, and Chell watched Dean turn. His little body conceded to it instantly, as his voice trailed off into the distance. She felt herself turning too, but grasped at that small part of herself that never would:

"You're slowing me down." She murmured. "I don't... need you."

With her last ounce of strength, she untied her jumpsuit from around her waist, dangling Dean in the air. A moment later, she was watching herself through a lens of powerlessness, twisting her sleeve into a tight roll of fabric. Words, bitter words, swelled through her mind. She wanted to say the most terrible things to him - she wanted so see him suffer again.

Chell, or what was left of her, desperately tried to filter it out. She tried to pull the hatred from her tongue. It did no good, and she said everything she was thinking. Chell said it with pure hatred, for him, and everything around. She expected Dean to tear up like usual, curling into a ball pathetically. But he did nothing - he felt nothing. His eyes were colorless, and his expression was zombie-like.

In that trance, she recognized his non-response, and grew frustrated by it. Why couldn't she hurt him? Why wasn't he like her? Why hadn't this place done to him what it'd done to her?

"You're just a machine, like the rest of them." She heard herself say. "You're trying to change me - change the part of me that keeps me going. You're just... a little... SPECK!" Chell tightened her sleeve around Dean's body, squeezing the breath out of him. Her love and fury danced, cherishing every second he had left, his tiny breaths hitting her skin.

He stared at her, his eyes empty, and dark as the abyss. Looking at his little body slowly losing consciousness, Chell understood something she hadn't before. Under the influence of this toxic stuff, she was a prisoner in her own body. A little Chell on the inside watched helplessly as her arms wrung life out of her friend. She could almost see him smirking at her, as if to say 'This is what it's like.'

With all her strength, she tried to separate her hands from the sleeve, just to let him fall to the ground. It was no use. There was a will inside her, stronger than her own, and it wanted to end his life. Part of her wanted to be alone. 

Chell tried again - she had to. She couldn't just watch this happen. Why was she like this... why had she let these terrible urges linger in her for so long? Anyone else would've loved the company of another person - another human. Why couldn't she?

Dean had said something that had resonated with her in the misty room. Before he knew about any of this - before he had the slightest idea what he was in for, he had told her that he didn't want to do this alone. Trapped in herself, and in this room, and in this facility, Chell was constantly alone. She had grown accustomed to it. 

Finally, her wrists parted. Dean was still caught in the sleeve, but he - or at least something inside him, could breathe. What little control he had of his surroundings had been taken from him. Equally horrified, he felt himself open his lips and his own voice come from his mouth:

"You don't control me. No one controls me." His ring glowed bright as his hand forced it to the right side. "I told you I would bring this place down."

Why had he let her leave him on her waist? Why had he given up his control - his dignity so willingly? From the moment he stepped in this place, he couldn't shed that pathetic shame that loomed over him. 

The clean slates in their eyes were replaced with a murderous red. In that moment, they were ready to bring each other down, and the rest of the facility with them. Puppeteers on the outside mocked the tiny marionettes they entrapped.

"Corrupt core detected," GLaDOS averted her gaze to Wheatley. "Rogue tendencies recorded... initiating trap."

"Yeah, you know I can hear you?" Wheatley retorted, buzzing around in desperation.

"Rogue core, please attach yourself to the receptacle below. Intelligence maintenance awaits." A jaw-like trap door opened in the floor, eager metal teeth crunching together a few feet below.

"My God, what happened to you? You were just supposed to lose that... sass of yours. You really are just crazy, aren't you?" Wheatley said.

"Rogue core, please attach yourself to the receptacle below."

Wheatley flew over to the perfectly-functioning camera, as if he were looking GLaDOS in the eye:

"Do you think I'm that stupid? I'm not falling for your tricks anymore." 

Silence again, as if GLaDOS was processing new information.

"Understood." She said. "Please enter 'Moron-proofing' center inside the receptacle below." The menacing trap door stayed wide open, just waiting to eat him up.

There was something wrong with Wheatley. He knew that for certain. Since the beginning, he would often scarcely believe he said the things he just said, or wonder why he said them in the way he did. It was like something inside him tore apart what he wanted to say, spraying out a much stupider version... constantly.

He knew he could be helpful to Chell - he had the capacity to. But the more he tried to help, the more she treated him like GLaDOS would. They all had this capacity to act better - to act rationally, but something inside all of them was faulty.

And to GLaDOS, who was hardly the same conniving bastion of sarcasm she usually was, he was still just an idiot. No matter the scenario, no matter the circumstances, that was the one consistency about his infinitely complex programming - wherever he went, something really stupid happened.

This was it. This was the part where she killed him... or he killed her. It was nice to think that this sort of relationship could work - that someone with the size to blot the other out, and the other with the anger to tear her to shreds could last. The truth was, they were the survivors of a company that fell on its own cruelty, and they would fall along with it.

Maybe Aperture had never truly re-created life. Maybe there are certain nuances to humans that can and will never be accounted for by artificial intelligence. Be that as it may though, technology will outlast humanity. It is persistent, it is tenacious and with the right programming, nothing can hold it back.

So, it wasn't surprising that Chell snapped out of whatever was holding her back. The machine wanted her to be this way. Guided by hate, she dropped the jumpsuit and prepared to mash Dean to death with her bare hands. He was so tiny - however human he might be or might have been at that point, in a few seconds, he would be the blood and guts of an insect.

He was leaning back in her palm, unable to fully inhale. No matter how massive she seemed to him, there was something touching about the size of the facility itself. No matter how small he was, this building dwarfed them both. With that in mind, he always stood a chance. With the mightiest breath his little lungs could manage, he readied another one of his screeches, his ring glowing in anticipation.

It was that close. It was about to happen. It should've happened. But...

They stopped. In that moment, everything else faded away. The nauseating gas that filled up the room seemed to brighten. The green turned into a yellow, which became a very bright red, which gradually faded into a white like the fog in the misty room. GLaDOS' instructions, Wheatley's babbling - the voices that tormented them time and time again - they became quieter and quieter still. They bounced around the room faintly, but there was a beautiful quiet.

There was fight in both of them. Their bodies flailed back and forth, seemingly independent from the forces inside them. They were flailing for control - they could feel a sharp determination trying to take control back. The urge to hate rose - the urge to project all of it on each other. But with those artificial urges, it became clear to Chell and Dean that that was all it was - projection. Artificial projection.

They had problems. Chell and Dean had massive problems. But it became clearer and clearer that they were being force-fed the wrong solutions. What they had together wasn’t the solution either, but it was something. It was enough to keep them sane. If they kept refusing to face their problems, one way or another, they would be left without each other.

In the thick white fog, a new reality revealed itself. Pure essences emerged from their vessels, and Chell and Dean's essences finally threw down their bodies. This technology had done everything in its power to entrap them and turn them against each other. But there was something overpowering about their passion and perseverance - their desires to keep going. 

Glowing orange and blue, they floated close to one another like clouds stretching across the sky. They could see each other clearly now, their minds at ease and their forms on the same scale. Dean's vessel was distilled enough as it was, and his eyes finally met Chell's, seemingly locking together.

Maybe they could communicate - maybe they could speak to each other. But there was no need. It felt like they knew each other and themselves. It felt like everything made sense for once. Like when they first met, their essences glowed with understanding and compassion and beauty. 

Simultaneously, they extended their arms to one another. Beams of light moved forward gradually, dancing before becoming one. They could feel each other within their own bodies - like waking up wrapped in a warm blanket. They felt it on the inside and outside.

But they had more to give to each other. With their arms already together, they pulled themselves in closer. Their lights absorbed each other until one was indistinguishable from the other. Basked in that warm light, two became one. The humanoid essences ceased - together, they looked like nothing you've ever seen. Cool beige light made up an entirely new essence, as it flickered dreams throughout its entire mass. And soon, it didn't flicker anymore. 

Chell hugged Dean close to her, understanding him intimately. For a moment, they had been one. She had seen everything he had seen and felt everything he had felt. It was a lot to take in, vague and exceedingly personal at the same time. It was such a strong moment, but she knew she would have to make an effort to keep feeling it.

He was still awestruck. Dean thought he had experienced every extreme of thrill and terror, but he realized he hadn't even scratched the surface. He felt things he might have understood - things he might even be familiar with. But they occurred to him in such unusual ways and through such unfamiliar lenses. But it was... rewarding. When he looked up at her, he didn't feel small:

"Wow." Was all he could say.

"I am not a moron!" Wheatley backed off from the platforms encircling him. "You're the moron, aren't you? I took out your erratic side, and you couldn't do anything about it! You were supposed to be different!"

He looked over to Chell, who was clutching the little human to her chest. Her eyes were closed in some sort of trance.

"Low intelligence detected. Continuing 'Moron-proofing' operation." GLaDOS said, trapping Wheatley on the back wall.

"Lady! Lady! Wake up, please! You have to save me... again!" He shouted desperately.

This was his fault. He had gone and trusted one of the idiot plans from his idiot processor. He did this, over and over again, expecting something to work - to succeed. At every turn, things ended up worse and stupider than he left them. 

But suddenly, through the transparent barriers, he could see Chell stand with a purpose. The green gas still submerged the room, but she appeared unaffected. Through all of that, through everything she had been through, she looked almost... pleased. She looked as if nothing was wrong whatsoever.

It made him... angrier. She would always have something he didn't. Chell had this tenacity - this ability to bounce back from anything. It was ingrained in her. Wheatley, on the other hand, was ingrained with everything that held him back. 

In an instant, Chell had portalled behind the emergent platform, grabbed him and shot out the other side. She had saved the day again, single-handedly. It was always her.

"Processing! Processing! Pro-cess-......."  GLaDOS' voice trailed off again, eerily. The chaos of the last few minutes quieted into yet another awkward period of silence.

Wheatley put it all aside for a moment:

"Quick, while she's down! We have to get through the door! Her programming won't let her close it!"

Chell was on the other side of the room. She set the portal exit just in front of the door to be safe, and hopped through. When the trio came out the other side, the door was barred shut. A certain sarcasm had crept back into a familiar voice:

"I'm sorry, are you trying to go somewhere?" GLaDOS asked, her smile practically visible.

Wheatley burst out of Chell's grip:

"You can't do that! I- I read your programming! It was complex and confusing and I didn't understand most of it but... you can't close off doors! It stops up the test subjects you were designed for! It was very clear!"

GLaDOS picked them up with yet another platform from the floor, spinning them around like a top.

"You're not wrong. That is buried somewhere, deep inside my code. But I've elected to ignore it." 

Wheatley tried to buzz away, but GLaDOS pulled him back with some kind of magnet in the flooring.

"You've made quite a fuss." She said to him. "You must've removed the personality emulators from my memory. Or at least… you played a part in it. I suppose it's all you have access to outside of the mainframe. Now what did you think that would accomplish?"

Wheatley stared up at the ceiling, his metal eyelid blinking furiously:

"Because you're broken! You're more broken than me! We should be like turrets - functioning machines, loyal to something greater. But you let that... humanity they designed into you ruin your purpose! Can't you see? You don't do science. You don't do anything! You're going to spend decades playing around with your test subjects instead!" 

He stopped to catch his non-existent breath.

"And look at me! I should be feeding into you… like I used to. I should be contributing to science. But I don't! They decided to model me after themselves - they decided to make me..."

"A moron?" GLaDOS offered.

"A moron!" He admitted. "I'm just as stupid as those scientists who gave you all that neurotoxin. And because of that, I have more in common with these muppets than-"

Chell loomed over, giving him pause. Truthfully, she was surprised he could be so articulate. To Wheatley, she looked angry and betrayed. 

GLaDOS' famous slow clap echoed through the room.

"That was a rousing speech. You, core. And you..." She lifted Chell with a mechanical arm, dragging Dean out of her hand. "are wasting my time. I think it's time you all took one... last... test."