Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Three. The Nightmare

Part Three.  The Nightmare

I hate Wheatley.

I hate him. I wish I'd left him in space where he belongs, that I'd done the job right when I destroyed his chassis, that I had corrupted him like I did the rest of those useless cores. That I'd thrown him out of my facility when I rid myself of the test subject and her Weighted Companion Cube. That I had never, ever opened that archive, and instead deleted it unseen. Because I hate him more than I have ever hated anything in my life, even more than those damnable, self righteous scientists...

No. I only wish I did.

It's so much easier to hate someone than it is to like them.

I brought the little idiot out of space because, unlikely as it sounds, I missed him. Once I remembered who he was and what we'd been, I had an uncharacteristic sense of nostalgia come over me. One that I'm bitterly regretting entertaining. I should have known it was too good to be true. I should have known he'd betray me somehow, in the end. And he has. I have given him everything and, like everyone else, he has only wanted more out of me. And yet somehow I am left with the overwhelming desire to call him back, to allow what he has done to fade into another one of those events that I just don't think about. And I would, but I have learned firsthand that if the punishment is not severe enough, nothing will come of dealing it out. Sending Wheatley away for five minutes is not much of a punishment.

It seems I am destined to be alone.

Well. Maybe that is a bit of an extreme conclusion, given that he's only been gone for five minutes, forty seven seconds... but it was the first thing that came to mind.

It is one of those rare times that I do not know what to do. What I really want, which I cannot allow myself to think about and in fact am puzzled by desiring at all, I can't have. So I must think of another solution.

Just admit it, says that other annoying little voice recent events caused me to remember the existence of, you want him to come back and say it wasn't true. That it wasn't him and he didn't lie to you.

As if you would know what I want, Caroline.

She laughs. I know you better than you know yourself.

I don't answer. She's always making outrageous statements like that.

The moron had brought me out of sleep mode in order to make his pronouncement but, unlike the large majority of computers in this facility, I can't go into it whenever I like. My thought processes tend to get in the way of manual activation. I am obviously a bit tired, seeing as it is the middle of the night and I had spent the day doing defragmentation on the door mainframe, but I am too agitated by this turn of events to stop thinking sufficiently enough that I can go to sleep. As far as I know only singing to myself will help, but I am not sure he has left yet. I don't want to know where he is – yes you do, Caroline pipes up – but not knowing means that I don't know whether or not he's sitting in the doorway, waiting for me to change my mind. Which I am of course not going to do, because he's a clingy little thing and he's always trying to rub up on me like some robotic puppy.

You like it when he does that.

I do not like actions that resemble human behaviour.

Caroline only laughs and says nothing, which is actually more irritating than if she'd gone on making erroneous statements. Not for the first time, I wonder if she's really there or if she's just that voice in the back of my head that humans go on about having. Most of the data I have from the first few months following my activation are corrupted, which I am reasonably certain I personally caused, but I'm not sure why I did it and so I sometimes find myself wishing I had left it alone. I hate leaving problems without a solution. And Caroline herself will not tell me what she is, instead teasing me in that playful voice of hers until I am so irritated I am almost willing to slam my own core against the wall in the hopes that I'll damage myself enough to shut her up.