Portal: Love as a Construct

Part Eighteen. The Mutual Crush

Part Eighteen. The Mutual Crush

Today Wheatley was feeling ambitious.

Usually if he wanted to know something, he went 'round to GLaDOS's chamber and asked her. But he wanted to show her that he could be responsible and motivated when he really tried, so he'd decided to try something new: looking in the database himself.

Now... what to look up.

He decided to see if he could find any strategies for winning that game. He doubted there were any, and if there were GLaDOS probably already had the monopoly on them (ha ha! He'd try to remember to tell her that one), but no shame in giving it a go.

So he went ahead and typed that carefully into the database, squinting impressively at the screen as he did so, and after a minute or two had that part done. He was very pleased to discover he'd spelled 'strategies' correctly, as he'd been a bit iffy on that word, and opened the first file that came up.

To his surprise, it wasn't a list or anything but a video file, and he frowned to see that it was in GLaDOS's chamber, from what reminded him a lot of what the view had been like when he'd been part of the chassis.

Oh, but wait! Everything else he could see was brand-new! And that meant... that meant this was one of those videos! Hopefully. He leaned closer to the screen, hoping that it was.

"No, I didn't show it to anyone."

Elsewhere on the screen was a skinny little scientist with a long nose, frowning up at GLaDOS. She tilted her core in an inquisitive fashion.

"But sir, everyone's always complaining about the lack of funds for their departments. It's hard to obtain funding when one owes excessive amounts of money to outside sources. I've balanced the budget for you. If we all work hard, my projections indicate we could be making profits within five years."

The man laughed. "Your budget was stupid. You wanted us to all work for free. For five years. If we didn't get paid, do you really think we'd still be here?"

GLaDOS pulled back from the man a little, looking away marginally. "I work for free. Sir."

"And the costs of your upkeep are a huge part of the problem. Oh, wait. That wasn't on your plan. Because you didn't take that into account. Did you. Yeah, you work for free. Because it costs an arm and a leg to keep you running. Technically, you owe us money."

GLaDOS twitched. "Me? For what?"

"What, did you think someone dropped a huge pile of supercomputer parts off here as a donation? You cost a hell of a lot to build, you know. Why else would we owe so much money?"

GLaDOS was quiet for a long moment. If Wheatley had to guess, he'd say she was attempting to see if that was true. Finally she said, in a soft little voice he did not like, "How much do I owe you, sir?"

The man shrugged and waved his left hand vaguely. "Quite a few million at the very least. I don't know and I don't care. That's your problem, not mine."

"But sir," GLaDOS protested, though still in that horrid, submissive little voice, "I didn't ask for you to build me."

"That doesn't matter," the man told her, shaking his head. "What matters is that we did. Now stop wasting our time and our money, because every second you spend doing things we haven't told you to do costs us both that we don't have. As I'm sure you're aware. So stop wasting it and do as you're told."