Want You Gone

[Chapter Eleven: Sabotage]

I walked slowly down the steps, following after Wheatley as he rolled along. "Almost there..." He whispered, disappearing into the doorway of the office that I had earlier observed. I walked in after him, looking up expectantly. "Tadah~!" He motioned to the room in front of us as he rolled his way in. "Only the turret control center! Thank you very much." I stepped in after him, eyes resting briefly over every detail of the room. "Sweet, so... What's our game plan?" I asked, not focusing in on any one thing. 

"Here, come and have a look out the window and I'll tell you." Wheatley hummed, nodding toward the large glass window in front of the room. It was more of a glass wall, really, as it covered the entire side of the office. I stepped up and noted the scanner outside and the screen in front of us indicating what it was looking for in the turrets. 

"See that scanner there, right?" I nodded. "Mmhm," Pressing my hands to the cold glass, I leaned in to get a closer look at the scanning process. "It's deciding which turrets to keep, and which to toss, and it's using that master  turret, there, as a template!" He rolled over to a small section of the room. It was closed off from the rest of it by a few glass walls, and inside, there was a template turret with perfect features, being scanned before the rest of them. As Wheatley said, she was a template for what was acceptable. "So what do we do with this?" I motioned to the template and looked back up at Wheatley. 

He looked into the room through the glass door and twitched, sparks flying from his side. "N-Now- If we pull out the template, it should shut down the whole production line." I cocked my head to the side. "Wheat-? Are you okay?" He ignored me, squinting at the door. "Right, um... I'm gonna have to hack the door... So that we can get at it." He turned and looked back to me. "Technical... Um... You'll need to turn around while I do this." I crossed my arms stubbornly. "Alright, but do you wanna tell me what that was all about?" He blinked. "What are you talking about, mate?" 

"That twitchy thing you just did, what was that?" He stared at me blankly for a moment, his eye flickering. "Could you just- Turn around? Is that possible?" I sighed and spun on the heel of my boot so that I was facing away from him. From behind me, I heard the piercing sound of shattering glass. "Wheatley!" I yelled, spinning back around. "Done! Hacked!" He said proudly. There were bits of glass wedged into his parts, which he tried to shake away. His optic looked like it had earned a few newer, small cracks. "Did you just smash that window with your..." I paused to think of the right word. "...face?"

"Nope! I hacked it!" He shook the last few bits of glass off of himself ebulliently. "Okay, go on. Just pull that turret out." I walked past him and through the now shattered door slowly, reaching up to wipe some of the remaining shards of of my mechanical, glitching friend as I passed. I looked into the small room and picked up the template turret before the scanner could come back down. "Well, that should do it!" Announced Wheatley. 

"Template missing; continuing from memory." Voiced the announcer over the speakers. "Ohh, it hasn't done it." Wheatley sighed, as the effective turrets continued to pass inspection. "Alright, let's figure out how to stop this turret line...Have you got- any ideas?" He asked, pausing for a moment and sparking. I leaned against one of the rusty filing cabinets and shook my head. "No..." 

"Me neither." He moved back and forth along his management rail as if he were pacing. "Tell you what, you just take your time, and if you've got an idea, you let me know." I nodded, staring at the floor and fidgeting with one of the prongs of my portal device. "Oh! I've got one!" Wheatley called excitedly. I looked at him attentively. "What's up?" 

"So, I could pretend to her that I've captured you," He began. I nodded along. "And, I could give you over to her and- she'll kill you." I stared at him, disapproval painting my face. "But, I could go on... living..." He said, a little less confidently. "You know what, that is actually a bad plan, now that I think about it." I nodded. "You think?" I leaned back against the cabinet and thought hard, listening absently to the defective turrets' pleas as they were flung toward the incinerator. Then it struck me: What if they didn't have to. die for their defects?