Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Eleven. The Anniversary

Part Eleven.  The Anniversary

Wheatley wondered if it had been real, or if he was having a memory lapse of some kind.  That wouldn't've been completely out of the ordinary, but he'd hoped that he'd gotten that sorted by now.

He could have sworn he'd heard GLaDOS singing last night.

That was... well, bloody well impossible.  Hm... unless he hadn't been quite off yet when she'd started.  Maybe she had, then.

Why would she never do it so he could hear?  You'd think she was shy, or something.    

Wheatley frowned down at the telephone he'd been inspecting.  He didn't how punching a bunch of little buttons let humans speak through wires to each other, but he thought GLaDOS might know, if he asked.  But hold on there, Wheatley, he told himself.  You were thinking about whether she'd sung or not.

If she had... that meant something was bothering her.  He knew that one hundred ten percent.  Only time she ever sang.  Ever.  So... the only thing to do was to decide whether he'd imagined it or not.  It never boded well if someone accused GLaDOS of doing something they weren't sure she did.  And the less certain he was, the easier it would be for her to... well... to lie, to put it bluntly.  He'd meant to talk to her about that, the whole lying thing.  She had a lot of different names for what she did, but Wheatley knew by now that she just knew a lot of fancy ways to pretend she wasn't lying.  Even though she was.

So!  Now he had to figure that out... he moved along the rail some more, trying to think and stay on topic at the same time.  Oi.  That was difficult.  Hmmm...

Well.  Nothing so far.  He decided to go back to her and see if she'd teach him another game.  Maybe he'd find a way to bring up whether she'd sung or not in casual conversation.  Yes, that sounded like a plan.

When he re-entered her chamber, though, he immediately knew that it was not a good plan at all.  She was programming, the little blinking cursor spitting out numbers and letters in large chunks and then pausing as she looked over what she'd written.

"Oh, are you busy?" he asked, then wanted to shock himself.  No, Wheatley, she is not busy, he berated himself.  She's just casually writing a program that... that is for entertainment.  Yes.  Of course.  She always writes programs for fun.  Fun?  Ha!  As if she knows the definition of fun.  Good one, Wheatley, good one.

"It can wait," she answered, looking over at him.  He didn't know why she set all the monitors to display orange text on top of an orange background.  Honestly it made it very hard for him to read.  Not that he could read it anyway.

"Well... d'you want it to wait, I guess is the uh, the real question," Wheatley mumbled, looking at the floor.

"The sooner I get this done, the better," GLaDOS admitted, "but there is a very long game I can show you that I can play while I'm doing this."

"Good idea!" he said excitedly, and he came to the end of the rail as she brought out a different monitor and put the other one away.

The game, he discovered, was called 'Monopoly', and it seemed to be a kind of ruling the world game.  Whoever ruled the world won, and not only that, but they also became very, very rich, because in order to lose the other person had to give up everything they had.  He resolved to do his best and selected the little dog character, while GLaDOS picked up the boat, leaving the rest of the pieces in the box.  They played it for a little while, with GLaDOS explaining things every now and again, but honestly it wasn't much fun at all.  Wheatley looked down at his little cards telling him which of the little rectangles on the board were his, and decided not to take his turn, putting the maintenance arm back in the dock instead of pressing the button on the randomiser.  It was definitely not as enjoyable when GLaDOS wasn't paying attention.  And she had been different yesterday.  He wasn't sure how, but he knew that she had been really happy, for once.  He wanted to make her really happy again, because it made him really happy and made things loads more fun, but he wasn't sure how to go about it.  "GLaDOS, um... if I ask you a question, will you answer honestly?  Like, just give me the straight answer and uh, and not a... a work-around one?"