Test Chamber 032: Repulsion Gel

[super_astute]

Wheatley did eventually make it back to Chelldon, though his form was a little less android like and a bit more spherical.  Tyler brought him in with a smile at Chelldon and the fantastic drawings he did around his room before he deposited the blue 'eyed' core in Chelldon's arms.

"Well?" Tyler asked, eyebrows arching.

"No, doesn't seem to...  I'm not, you can go now, get to work on fixing my bodies, just standing there like a lump won't do any good!"

The door opened and closed as Tyler exitted the Relaxation Chamber and Wheatley turned in his orbital socket towards Chelldon.  "Well then!  Who's excited to test today?"

Comments

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Wheatley was a ball. A big heavy ball with a big blue eye, who could blame Chelldon for staring? But, of course, exposure to robots made him easy to adapt to this sort of thing. He smiled and looked down at Wheatley because despite his rather pathetic form, he had missed the moron. "Hi."

Carrying the ball out of the room, he headed down towards the test chambers, everything had been cleared up pretty well but still, Chief Hunt was patrolling up and down every day.

Chelldon went out of his way to seem nice and normal, he always nodded his head like Wheatley had told him too.

Once they arrived just outside the testing bay, he adjusted his hold on Wheatley so he didn't accidentally get in his way or something. How was he going to use his gun if he was carrying him?

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

This body was awful! Absolutely awful! And what was worse, he had just recently found out that they didn't actually have spares of his android body any more! They only had one evidentally and lied to him about it so that he wouldn't be afraid of having to be downloaded into a lesser body.

Like...oh...this one!

Wheatley had also been told not to expect any more direct cores either after the incursion. Too many resources were being allocated to the bloody maintenance department!

"Oh, this is useless!" he complained, frowning though it was hard to tell with just this awful set of expression pistons. So. Limited. OOOH! As soon as they figured out how to clear out the effects of Specimen 379, he was never going into this thing again! "Can you pick me up with the portal gun?"

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Chelldon shrugged and set Wheatley on the floor before grabbing his gun and adjusting it, he'd never tried to pick up Wheatley before, there was one incident where he was meant to catch Wheatley but that ended with the man just falling on him rather than being caught. It was weird that his loyal friend was so small now.

But hey, look at that, he was picking up Wheatley with the gun. Hmming idly, he walked along, the floating core in front of him as he entered inside.

"Test?" he asked, he wanted information on what he was doing here but clearly Wheatley was going to end up thinking he had renamed his gun test or something equally as stupid. He really did need everything spelled out lately!

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

"Yes, yes, we'll get to your precious testing," Wheatley grumped, a bit more despondant than usual. Could he be blamed, though? He couldn't get around on his own, he couldn't move his mouth and his beloved, and devilishly handsome, android body was infected with an android infatuation serum! Oh, it was just horrendous! It was enough to weep!

Chelldon had no idea how good Test Subjects got it. They could just be terminated if they wanted to be!

Wheatley took a good look around the chamber and pointed -- stupidly, it made him laugh to try without fingers! -- across the wall. "Jumping test. Oh, perfect! Look, we can to try out this new repulsion gel! Hit the button and we'll start!"

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

He whacked the button heavily and the repulsion gel came splattering out. And yes, Chelldon did as expected and excelled at jumping. Especially when it came to jumping around on the repulsion gel, which was fantastic fun. Grinning all the while, he leapt around and about the place.

Course he had no idea what he was doing but he and Wheatley were getting rather high.

Shooting a portal up and a portal down, he jumped in propelled them through the portal at a massive speed, onto the gel and they must of flown right across the room before they landed on a giant button.

Which, of course, splattered more gel.

Chelldon couldn't help it, he laughed his head off.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

With the portals transfering the slurry onto the walls, and Wheatley deciding that he really did not care much for bouncing around when he could crack and break, he spent most of the time whining, screaming when he looked down, or begging Chelldon not to drop him.

The moment they managed -- yes, they, Wheatley was there! -- to figure out the puzzle, the buzzer sounded and the door swished open, allowing them to move from the room...

Into another room.

"Oh, right, yes, out to have mentioned, and truly sorry about this, but you shouldn't get the repulsion gel on you. Does funny things with human skeletons. So... Try not to splash in it any more."

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

"Careful," Chelldon agreed as they headed out into the other room. The mess of gel on the floor was used to bounce onto the platform and hit the button in time to turn off the laser that was blocking his way to the cube. Moving the cube and Wheatley was hard but he managed it.

And, sadly, all that button did was drop more gel on them.

Well, this was trick. What exactly did they want from him? He could only bounce around so much and-- whoops! There went a flying ball intent on smashing their faces in.

Jumping out of the way, he made a noise of distressed and tried to work out the pattern of it so he could portal it all away.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

Wheatley was no help, absolutely none. In fact, he was the exact opposite of help. "Oh, you should do that thingie and use the other thingie and you'll be across!" he said at one point before breaking down the thingies into a check list that only he seemed capable of following as he mostly just determined that neither thingie was made of chocolate or rabbits and therefore of little cultural value to Chelldon.

He at least stopped yelling through this logic problem, stating that the coefficient of the repulsion gel was 'false' and therefore deadly to human skeletal tissue, which left him humming in calculations that ended up short circuiting him for a small bit.

"At the very least," he said once they launched from wall to wall to get to the last platform, "we should never jump down. That would likely kill us."

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

The only thing Chelldon had gathered from all of this is simply that Wheatley was twice as useless as a core. Of course he was the same amount of stupid and annoying but this time around, he had to hold the moron. Fortunately he provided a few kicks and a bit of amusement, which was nice. It was like a portable radio.

Maybe he should talk to Wheatley and dupe him into singing.

Another thing to know about Wheatley? He was always wrong. So when he said don't jump down, it was probably wise to jump down. And, ironically, it was. Down there was one little platform portal worth and, after firing a shot, he smirked and leapt off. Course Wheatleys cries almost burst his ear drums.

They propelled right across the top of the building and flew right through the exit and right into the elevator. Ow! Oh well, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out!

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

"T-That was...that was amazing! I've never felt so alive! It's amazing what you can feel when you realize that you can actually die! Oooh, oh, let's do that again!" Yes, Chelldon, prepare to fly through the air a few more times just for Wheatley's personal enjoyment! The core was acting punch drunk straight through to the next elevator ride.

Test chamber 32, Wheatley found, was a rousing good time and he described Chelldon's fanciful flying at least twice more to any droid that passed as they headed back to Chelldon's Relaxation Chamber.

"Hm. Oh. Oh, this is terrible!" he exclaimed when he was put down on the bed, unable to do more than roll around a very tiny little bit here and there. "No where to plug in! No where to go! No way to get my punch card punched!"

Panic!

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Chelldon sighed and shuffled closer, sitting on the floor in front of the bed as he listened to his core ramble on. They had to get the card punched, whatever that meant, and h was meant to plug in to do something? Who knew, he was not an expert on cores, he just knew a lot of them were defective and extreme.

"Punch in?" Chelldon asked with a small frown then he set his gun aside and once more picked up the ball that was once a man. "Doctor Handy can punch the card."

And he could do that for the distressed core and perhaps drop him off with another core before going to bed.

Carrying Wheatley out the door, he was soon on his merry way again.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

There was only one small problem with this arrangement. Chelldon was not an employee of Aperture Laboratories. He was, for all intents and purposes, property. So was Wheatley, but the droid had a much higher clearance level than the Test Subject, who was not actually suppose to interact and potentially contaminate other humans without strict clearance.

Just because Aperture was still recovering from an attack was not an excuse for Wheatley to be lax in his duties, but to be honest, he'd been lax in his duties from day one with Chelldon. He routinely broke his quarentine, brought him to the medic, let him fraternize with the chief of Aperture security, took him to the cafeteria--

Still, the experiment of Wheatley, the rogue AI, and Chelldon was actually fairly telling. And that was the only reason anyone let it continue.

"Oooh, and look there! See that core with the legs? I should get legs!"

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

"What about your body?" Chelldon asked with a small frown, he didn't like to get into a proper conversation with Wheatley because it could go on forever but honestly, what happened? One day he was that dork with glasses who he drew on his walls and had an awkward hug from... and then he was a ball.

And he missed that dork in glasses, he was amusing and flailed around a lot. Perhaps he could find a way to go portal jumping with the more fleshy legged Wheatley?

He inspected the core with legs before shrugging, worst came to worst, it would work better.

As they headed to the lab doors, Chelldon held up Wheatley to get them through the doors. He didn't have clearance and he was meant to be in his room, he knew all of this... clearly Wheatley didn't.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

"Mechanical infatuation spray," Wheatley said, matter-of-factly, hardly registering that he was being used like a security badge for Chelldon to move about the facility. Should the young man want, he could likely just...leave. It never occured to Wheatley. And it likely never would. Why would anyone want to leave when there were things to do? Important things.

For science!

Passing several startled technicians who just went about their own business like the tech monkeys they were, low wage scrubs that just kept their heads down so that they weren't called into the testing pool, they headed into the lab sector.

Doctor Handy did not look pleased. Wheatley didn't even notice, continuing to give away all of the secrets of what that specimen did to his android body.

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

And Chelldon just listened and watched, it was truly pretty wonderful and he couldn't help but be take in by how lovely it all was. He could see a sky out the top window. A real life sky, not those fake ones they often trick him with and-- Suddenly a hand seized him and jerk reaction, he lashed out.

And accidentally punched Doctor Handy. Whoops.

Handy shook his head and groaned, not his first punch in the face today, adventure cores had punched him as well before dying a violent death on his table. "Ow! Careful! You're not meant to bring the subjects in here Wheatley!"

Was he insane? What was he doing here with that person?!

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

Wheatley wasn't bringing anyone anywhere. "Doctor, I've no arms or legs, I can't move on my own, so honestly, I hardly-- Oh! Chelldon! Bad human, no no, we're not meant to be here! What are you doing?!" Yes, yes. Wheatley had been so busy talking that he'd failed to notice that they were headed here rather than the break room for tea.

Oh, if he had a newspaper, he'd whack Chelldon on the nose with it and then teach the human to read. The way he filled out his personnel report made Wheatley firmly believe that he couldn't read. Or write.

Though, in all actuallity, the paper had just been fed into the scanner upside down and Wheatley hadn't realized that all he needed to do was flip it in his memory banks.

"So sorry, Dr. Doctor. Won't happen again and oooh, what are you working on?"

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

"So sorry," Chelldon mimicked because if he seemed very damaged then usually people just sort of humoured him like they did when he came in with his potato clock and everyone told him he was genius, he was a clever boy and oh a portal gun as a gift from daddy, go along and play in the testing area. Unfortunate people rarely told him to go and play in the testing area any more, he just had to stand here and humour people.

Doctor Handy flailed to his feet and covered his nose, Chelldon was so insanely strong and scrawny, it made no sense! He was a scrawny thing too but he couldn't whomp someone that hard.

"I'm trying to dissect a subject here! Adventure killed another one," the doctor complained as he headed over to the table and double checked his subject was still indeed dead. Chelldon peered over and hmm, poor guy, hopefully his organs would be useful for science. "Need your card punched?"

He didn't want to be Wheatleys supervisor... but he was becoming it anyway.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

"Punched? Hasn't there been enough punching? Your nose can't sustain any more damage and that's Chelldon's gun arm! And the arm he holds me and...oh...oh... You mean the paper. Yes. All excellents again, well. Except for following suggestions, there really ought to be a 'nearly excellent but jumped anyway and scared me to death' option. Though I suppose saying I was scared would be bad for morale. Also, death...mentioning death might be a very bad thing as I've just realized that I can, indeed, die."

Wheatley just kept on talking when the humans decided to ignore him. He didn't even noticed. The world of Wheatley surrounded around Wheatley.

"How did this Test Subject die? The wounds look superficial. Are humans that unresilient?"

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Handy just ticked very excellent on all of them again and offered it back to Chelldon, he knew the human didn't care and Wheatley would be thrilled but frankly, he could tell by that punch that very little got in Chelldons way and brain damaged or not, he probably did excellent.

"I have no idea how he died, Adventure core said something about being thrown across the room and into moon dust," Handy said with a grimace as he prodded the dead man. He was going to send a memo around, they really needed to warn the cores about that stuff.

Chelldon moved closer to have a look and see what the damage was, just so he could avoid it in future.

"Dead man?" Chelldon asked as he cocked his head to the side and while it sounded like a childish question on the simplicity of mortality that confused the poor brain damaged subject... it was actually a very interesting question because if he was dead, why were his fingers twitching and his chest rising?

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

Wheatley sighed and turned around in Chelldon's hands until he could look directly at the human. "Dead means no longer alive, Chelldon, don't interupt the man. He was telling us about Aventu--" But Wheatley, perhaps tracking Chelldon's eyes, realized that yes. Something was wrong.

"Err. Now, not to alarm you, doctor, but it appears as if your subject isn't exactly-- I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job and I am certainly not telling Adventure Core how to do his, however--"

The man actually groaned.

"But dead people don't generally groan."

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

"You're right," Handy said with a curious expression before groaning himself. Adventure core told him the man was dead... well, no, exact words were 'dead or as good as' but still. Pulling out his little device, he held it up to his mouth and sent a quick message. "Handy to cores, just a quick message, bring me your dead, not your ill. Handy to adventure core, he isn't dead!"

Making sure his audio messages were sent, he tossed the device down and sighed. Now what? He was only good with the dead, he always killed live people.

Chelldon watched them both with a curious look before turning his head to Wheatley and gesturing at the groaning twitching man on the table.

"Cake?" he suggested to help the man... well, he wasn't brain damaged but no one ever said he was meant to be especially smart nor especially useful outside the testing arena.

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

"No, no, last time you had cake, you ruined my body and now I have to stay with you. So that's that, sorry, Chelldon, but I really can't risk becoming just a disc drive. But tea? Tea I can get you. And by get you, I mean direct you. No hands. Remember? Chelldon, pay attention, we just went over this!"

He clucked his non-existent tongue and whirled back to the doctor.

"Should Chelldon die, I'll bring him right to you." But not right now. He wasn't going to give up on Chelldon until he at least beat that monkey!

He cleared his throat.

"Off we go, then. And grab that power cord on the way out. No, the power...cord...the cord. The cord...the...thank you."

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

No more cake? Now that was cruel!

Chelldon sighed and picked up the cord, he knew which one it was, he was just pausing to look at the sighs above the door. Why were their warning signs in here... were they specifically just because Handy was a bit useless? Because that was harsh but kind of fair.

He carried Wheatley out of the room and dodged past the cameras just to avoid getting them into further trouble. For all he knew, they could of been monitoring Wheatley. He wasn't totally aware yet that his 'friend' was a laughing stock and not only he considered the man a moron.

"Where to?"

[super-astute.livejournal.com]

"Left, right, straight on, straight on, straight-- Oh, no, left!" He actually meant right, and luckily, Chelldon pretty much had learned to do the opposite of what was asked of him. But Wheatley didn't notice. He didn't mind. He was much too busy going over how one makes tea.

Molecule by molecule. And incorrectly at that. They passed Tyler again, who gave them a double look and opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it.

Tyler was a core that worked with all sorts of humans. He didn't have a Test Subject, he helped out with the guards. But seeing a human like Chelldon was still strange.

[stubbornsubject.livejournal.com]

Chelldon never made it easier on confused cores, thanks to Wheatleys terrible social advise, he nodded a bit too long in Sams direction before turning back to Wheatley and listening to him jabber on and on about tea. How was he going to measure the exact amount of milk and how much fat?

He didn't have those sort of instruments. When he got to the staff bay where the tea machine was, it was just hot water, tea bag, some milk that had been standing and two packets of sugar left over. No precise measurements or molecules.

He filled the cup with all the ingredients, added water and the frowned. How was Wheatley going to drink it? Or was it just for him?

How oddly lonely, he was used to sharing his treats now, it was strange.