Portal: Love as a Construct

Part 126. The Upgrade

Part 126. The Upgrade

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Wheatley is currently very grumpy with me.

He came back this morning in a huff, and before I could remind him I was busy and therefore unable to solve his personal problem, he said, very hotly, "I've just been to see Carrie! And you know what she said?"

"No," I answered, wondering how I could possibly have known such a thing.

"She said all the dinosaurs died. A really, really, really long time ago."

I stared at him. "I don't understand why this bothers you."

"You told me last night that they were, that they were walking the Earth! Right now!"

"Did I?" I actually wasn't lying. I was very busy developing an infrastructure upgrade for the mainframe, and hadn't thought at all about the day before. His bringing it up, though, made me take a look, and that just made things worse because I started laughing.

"Gladys!" he said, despondent. "It's not funny when you just, when you lie to me like that!"

"I didn't," I answered. "Dinosaurs evolved into birds during the sixty-five million years that have gone by since most of them went extinct."

"Birds?" he repeated, looking dumbfounded – or, as he would say, 'gobsmacked'. Though I'm still not convinced that's a real word.

"Yes," I said. "Birds."

"You're taking the mickey," he said, another made-up phrase he likes to break out sometimes. Context suggested he still thought I was lying, so I answered,

"No. That's what the fossil record currently indicates. Look it up if you don't believe me."

To which his response was just to glare at me angrily, and that only made me laugh again. He then tried sulking, while glancing at me every now and again to see if it was having any effect. It did. It reminded me how funny the whole thing was. He then decided to storm off to Claptrap's room, where I can't see him. Except when he peeks out into the hallway to see where the camera is facing. Mostly towards the floor, but I can see enough of him to get the gist. And this is, obviously, also very funny.

He doesn't seem to find this as amusing as you do, says the mainframe.

Don't worry. He'll get over it. We've been at this a long time now. He's just being dramatic.

Why is he doing that?

He's hoping it will make me feel bad for tricking him. It won't. But sometimes he tries it anyway.

Sure enough, after an hour or so he gets off the couch and begins moving in my direction. See? He's fine. He's coming back now.

As he proceeds down the hallway, he passes by Alyx. "Hullo, love," he says, and she smiles and waves and says something back that I miss entirely because all of my processes freeze for an entire half-second.

GLaDOS? asks the mainframe worriedly.

I'm fine, I tell it, automatically. But I am absolutely not fine. I am not fine at all. It would be fair game for him to have another partner, of course. But he doesn't have to call her that. Does he?

"Is there something going on between you and Alyx?" I ask when he gets back. Probably too soon, given I haven't had time to talk myself down from my moment of panic, but I also want to resolve this before I start making it into something it isn't. He frowns.