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Stars. Earth's polluted atmosphere really made it hard to see the stars. What, with all the smoke, chemicals, and stray satellites clogging up the sky, it was a wonder any stars could show themselves at all.
But up here? He could see them.
Wheatley had been floating up in space for a very long time. The exact measurement of time was unknown, as earlier, he had turned off his internal clock. But not known how to turn it back on again.
He had turned it off because when it was in working order, he kept checking it. But it had become depressing. The core had very little sense of self-control, and it eventually became a damper of morale when the time was somehow simultaneously too slow and too fast.
"What? Only five minutes have passed since I last checked? That felt like an eternity!" would be a "too slow" moment.
And, "What?! How many months have passed!" would be a "too fast" moment.
From Wheatley's perspective, this all felt like a form of personal Hell. Here he was... armless, legless, without a management rail. With only the gravitational orbit of the moon as his way of movement. The only thing he had with him to talk to was the other core, who seemed more preoccupied with the vastness of space.
"SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"
"Yes. Yes, I know there's a lot of it. It never gets tiring for you, does it, mate?"
"Space! Gotta go to space! Space!"
Wheatley eventually came to the conclusion that it was better to simply talk to himself. At least that led to somewhat decent conversation.
This couldn't have been more perfect a prison if it had been custom designed in a boardroom meeting with Aperture's brightest scientists heading it, fingers laced together, leaning in with the question, "What would the Intelligence Dampening Sphere hate the most?"
But it wasn't. It was simply a bad combination of ill luck and circumstance. And conversion gel.
In the beginning, Wheatley blamed her. Not to be confused with Her, who was also someone to blame, as far as Wheatley was concerned. But no, he blamed her, the human.
If she had just held onto him longer. Had been faster. Had been cleverer. Had been something, he wouldn't be in this mess.
He could replay the moment over and over. She was right there, holding onto him by his handles. Not letting go when he told her to and letting go when he hadn't. And now he was in--
"SPAAAAAACE!"
Wheatley sighed an airless sigh. It was the sort of thing that made one want to plan some sort of revenge.
But he didn't want to think about that, strangely enough. He wasn't Her, he realised. But he had become Her when he had replaced her in the chassis.
Something had gone horribly wrong with his plan. Something had gotten inside him. Corrupted him. Making him want to test, test test...
He had started feeling more himself after his banishment, he realised.
The blue eye continued floating above the moon, drifting without aim.
"I wish I could take it all back. I honestly do. I honestly do with I could take it all back. And not just because I'm stranded in space."
"I'm in space."
"I know. I know you are, mate. We're both in space," said Wheatley, really wishing that he wasn't.
"Space. Gotta see it all."
"Anyway," continued Wheatley impatiently, trying to get his train of thought back on course, "You know, if I was to ever see her again, do you know what I'd say?"
"I'm in space."
Wheatley pointedly ignored that answer to his rhetorical question. "I'd say... I'm sorry. Sincerely. I am sorry I was bossy. And monstrous. And I am genuinely sorry. The end."
The end. And that would be that. He expected nothing afterwards. No forgiveness. And no redemption.
***
More immeasurable time passed.
Being in the vacuum of space with nothing more than your own thoughts had a way to make you do some introspection.
Was his betrayal really because of Her influence? Could it have been entirely to blame?
Or could he, once again, be entirely to blame for something going wrong? It would certainly explain why he felt so bad.
The truth was, there was no way for him to know. There was no way for him to see that alternate universe where he hadn't plugged himself into Her mainframe. Aperture hadn't invented an alternate universe portal. A rival company beat them to it.
But bad Wheatley felt. The idea that AI didn't care was nonsense. Robots had feelings.
Aperture Science's AI had feelings, at any rate. It was a part of the manufacturing. Wheatley didn't know the exact process, or any of it, really. But he was sure he knew the important bits.
Perhaps it all really was his decision to punch his escape-partner down an elevator. In which case, he was getting his just desserts. It was poetic justice, really.
"I sometimes wonder what's happening down there," said Wheatley, his optic light pointing in the direction of Earth. He was presently on a side of the moon that allowed the view to him.
"I wonder what happened after the portal closed. I saw her getting pulled in... by... Her..."
He pondered over this.
"I guess She won that round, huh? And the human has to start right back to square one. Right back to the beginning. Test chamber one. In some sick, twisted loop of tests. Must be awful."
The core was being pulled backwards, the view of Earth beginning to be blocked by the moon's circumference.
"Yeah. Must be awful..."
Wanting to say sorry became wanting to show he was sorry.
"I'd help her out again. I'd help her escape and reach the surface. And this time, it would work. I'd do everything I could to make sure she would escape."
Even if it meant leaving myself behind, was the unspoken thought that hung through the space around him.
SHE would punish him, Wheatley knew. And the thought made him tremble. Miles and miles of circuits, an artificial brain the size of a facility, if not a planet, and it would be filled with nothing but hatred for him. For letting the last living test subject go.
SHE would make sure he would suffer. And suffer greatly.
But still, he wished he could go back there and risk it all. An odd thought, since Wheatley was far more used to thinking about himself.
But he'd already been given what felt like Eternity. Albeit, a boring one. It put thinks into perspective.
***
Wheatley had started imagining scenarios. It was his new fantasy.
He had a very good imagination, he felt, because he had a visualiser built into his hardware. Before, he had used it to visualise the Manual Escape Override and well as the Frankenturret--less and less of a good idea the more he thought about it--and had now moved on to more complex ideas.
Idea A involved doing everything he did last time, except for the whole villainous betrayal bit. He imagined that scenario play out several times successfully, but then he started simulating factors such as Her remembering what happened last time, and predicting their movements and stopping them.
This led to Idea B, which was slightly different. Once again, the simulation failed eventually.
With each iteration, the escape plan grew in complexity. Involving the railings, the Pneumatic Diversity Vent system, aerial plates, thermal beams, elevators, and more. It became like a fun game to him to help pass the time. Just him and the human, against Aperture and Her.
At first, he'd picture himself as the hero of the story, with the human holding him up, thanking him.
Then the story changed. He'd be the one holding her up. Metaphorically, of course, since he had no hands. But he would be the support and help on her journey to the surface.
Wheatley eventually ran out of letters in the alphabet. He should have listed them as numbers.
***
Wheatley started wonder if she was still alive or not. He began to fear that she had been killed. Maybe by Her during another escape attempt. Or during a test. Crushed by a misplaced panel, or shot by a turret.
He tried to keep the hope that that had not happened. "No, no, no. She must be all right. She must be. She's too clever. She's too resilient, too determined to die."
Organic life was strange to him. It was difficult for him to process that humans shared more with a blade of grass than Her. Grass didn't seem to do anything but grow. He watched the grass grow in the science centre, sprouting up in the cracks where they weren't meant to be. Which in a way, was similar to humans. They prevailed.
Wheatley of course was not an organic carbon-based lifeform. He didn't even technically need a body to survive. And losing energy would simply put existence on pause. He could be woken back up with a new power source, and a new body.
It made him feel separate from it all. He felt trapped in Aperture. But he realised it was not in the same way that the humans had been. He could have found some way to go into stasis until help arrived. To have whatever made him him unplugged, with instructions to be re-plugged back once things were better. He could leave a note that said something like, "Hullo there, please only plug object labelled A into object labelled B when She has been defeated, and/or you've managed to escape the facility with these two labelled objects. Thank you. -W"
***
Wheatley tried to come up with a plan to get back to Earth.
He had more or less perfected his Escape Plan Simulation. The problem was, he hadn't actually planned far enough to include a method of getting back to the lab facility.
There were so many problems however. A thousand little--and not to mention, big--problems that got in the way between where he was and where he wanted to go.
The lack of propulsion for a start. Without a rocket or other method to push himself forward and out of the pull of the moon's gravity, Wheatley was immobile.
Then there was hitting the Earth's atmosphere without disintegrating into a little pile of ash.
"You know, you'd think that those smartie-scientists would have thought of adding a miniature rocket or something to me. Or a gun. A gun would be able to push me forward in space, right?"
Wheatley paused as he bumped into the space core, their pathways crossing against the odds. Besides the sound, Wheatley didn't feel any significant damage, and the space core didn't appear to be bothered at all.
"And that's another thing! Nobody gave me a shield. Not a round hard light shield, not a blast shield. Nothing!"
"Space. Stars. Moon!"
"Anyway, if they simply gave me more that these handles, an optic, and a flashlight, we wouldn't be in this mess!"
"In space! Space!"
***
"Space, space, space, so much space."
"Yes, I know! I know that we're--bzzt!"
With a nasty fizzling sound, Wheatley's sentence was cut off. He tried again.
"I--fzzt!"
His voice box was wearing down, like a funny electronic toy that had been overused.
This was concerning. No, worse than that, this was horrifying. He was now losing his one way of interacting with the outside world. Not that there was anyone in the immediate vicinity to interact with.
Wheatley liked his own voice. He enjoyed talking. He didn't know which human his voice was modelled after, but he did a bang up job, whoever he was. Probably one of the scientists who worked in the facility. Which meant that he was probably dead.
"Fzzt! Brzzt!"
Then, like a radio dying, the noise faded.
Wheatley was voiceless, but still awake. A busy mind in a silent body.
***
Imagine the torment of loosing your voice when you're a chatterbox. Of losing one of the few remaining things you actually like about yourself.
Imagine the possibility of being awake forever, with only the vastness of space as your ever-present, unchanging form of stimulation.
Apart from a core that's obsessed with space.
Imagine wanting to scream, but being unable to.
Actually, maybe try not to think about it.
***
He was running out of batteries.
The Aperture Science Centre had developed its AI with a battery life that could recharge by taking power from surrounding services. It was Cave Johnson's way of saving time and money whilst also taking from company rivals. Not strictly legal, of course, but science was about asking "Why not?" over "Why?"
Being several million miles from other power sources however, the batteries were no longer doing that, which meant that they were simply draining without replenishing.
Aperture had, surprisingly, thought about that. Probably in case all the rival companies realised their energy was being fleeced. But if an Aperture battery failed to detect energy to steal, a full unit could last about ten years on its own.
But it couldn't have been that long, could it?
Wheatley looked at his inner workings again, trying to find whatever mechanism that would let him see a clock again.
He flipped a switch, and something lit up in his heads-up display.
Let's see, what have we got here for the time? thought Wheatley, checking the new addition to his HUD.
Eleven years. Eleven years precisely. It was, in a dark sense, the steel anniversary of Wheatley's biggest screw-up.
He'd been gone for eleven years. How much older would the human be without the help of cryosleep? How much more could the facility be in shambles in eleven years? How much had he missed?
The HUD flickered. Oh well. This might as well happen. He had lost his voice output. Now from the look of it, he was losing his visual input. He was losing his sight.
The blue optic light silently flickered out.
***
The metal shell floated through space, unable to leave the rotation of the moon.
It was lifeless, and had remained lifeless for some time.
Nothing of note happened for some time. Until it did.
A hole opened up in the moon. Not a crater, but a portal. It was blue.
Through the rapid rush of oxygen emitting from the portal, a voice could be heard. Several, in fact.
First, pre-recorded announcer. "Stabilising atmosphere in 3... 2... 1..."
The flurry of air subsided.
Another voice. "This will get us back our jobs for sure! It's a toilet, a turret, and now a..."
A large metal claw emerged from the portal.
"... Space probe! It's got a crane-grabber and everything!"
There was a pause in the conversation as the claw adjusted itself experimentally.
"Here, try to grab one of those cores and pull it through. For practice."
Something hard pressed against Wheatley.
End.