Portal: Love as a Construct

Part 22. The Purpose

Part 22. The Purpose

He knew it was a dream, but he could not help believing in it anyway.

It was nothing elaborate. Nothing was really happening, but that was okay with him. He didn't need anything elaborate. He just needed for it to go on forever.

In the dream she was there beside him again, and though she didn't say or do anything or even acknowledge he was there, he felt so much better. Just having her presence nearby calmed the horrible storm inside of him, the one filled with fear and pain and confusion, and he didn't feel quite so panicked that she was gone. Because even though she was no longer there, she was at the same time. He didn't understand it. But he'd never really been one for understanding anyway, so he didn't try. All he needed in the world was the reassurance of her existence, and he didn't care whether it was real or not. Even though he knew it wasn't real, it was comforting anyway.

He'd never been so silent in all his life. He didn't speak and he didn't move and he almost wasn't even thinking at all, except for that quiet trepidation deep inside of him that told him he was wasting his time in this fantasy. He was well aware that dreams fell apart as soon as you tried to touch them, unless they were her dreams of course. So whenever he felt the drive to move or speak or do something, he reminded himself that it was only a dream and his state in it was tenuous at best.

Oh, it was so real...

In the dream he looked around the room a little, as best he could without moving his chassis, and it was just as clear as if it were truly happening. The panels shifting a little bit now and then; the whooshing of hidden Pneumatic Diversity Vents sending apparatus every which way throughout the facility; and of course her, the whirring of her brain and the heat from her core and the faint straining of the mechanisms holding her chassis in position. It was all so familiar and comforting.

Why had he never noticed the simple joy of just being? Why had he always covered the silence (or what he had formerly considered to be silence) with chattering, or rushed off whenever nothing of note had happened (though now he knew that her existence in and of itself was something of note), or any of those other stupid things he'd done?

Wheatley.

He looked around confusedly for a few moments. That wasn't her voice, but no one else was in the room.

Wait – no. No no no no no...

In the dream he clamped his optic plates together, trying to shut out the voice. It wasn't real. He'd imagined it. All that was real was the dream. Not the dream inside of the dream... oi. That thought strained his CPU.

It's been twelve hours.

Twelve hours. Such a tiny span of time. It was so small, compared to all the time he needed. Twelve hours were not long enough. Twenty-four hours were not long enough. He would have gladly traded everything he had, his existence and his soul, if only he could just remain inside the dream and not have to face the cold world outside of it.

"Just a little longer. Please. Please don't wake me up."

It's too late for that.

And it was, Wheatley realised; when he managed to separate the plates again he could see the panels of her chamber beginning to spark and fall into the abyss below him, and all he could do was watch in horror as the peace of that room fell away to reveal the chaos of reality. He fought to keep it from happening, knowing that even as he did he was only accelerating the decay, but he could not help himself. He needed to stay asleep. Why didn't they understand that? You don't know what it's like here without her, the mainframe had said. But he'd had her back and here they were taking her away from him again. Why? Why? Why? Why were they being so selfish? All he wanted was to spend eternity quietly next to her, where he would happily never move or speak ever again, and they were tearing it away from him and forcing him to work. Ha! As if work were important when she was involved. It wasn't. Nothing was.