Portal Oneshots

The Part Where She Kills Him

"Wake up, moron."

When Wheatley opened his eyes, he lay on the floor of another glass enclosure. The back of his skull ached. He touched it and winced.

"Oh good, the party escort didn't finish you off." GLaDOS' voice reverberated off the walls of the central chamber. "You make friends anywhere you go, don't you?"

A mechanical claw descended upon the enclosure. Wheatley scrambled to get away, but it scooped him up and brought him within an inch of GLaDOS' faceplate. Her yellow optic, now close enough to make him squint against its glare, bore into his soul.

"Well, here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." GLaDOS crooned. "I'm kidding, of course. It's really not."

Wheatley was too afraid to be offended. The claw gripped him tight—both arms pinned uncomfortably against his body. His portal device was gone, still in the archives or returned to storage. It would be of no help to him either way.

"You know what's ironic?" Asked GLaDOS. "You solved a problem—for me. That's right, your pathetic existence has actually benefitted science. That's something even a moron like you can be proud of."

Wheatley blinked, incredulous. Praise? From HER? From GLaDOS?!

What had he done?

"I'm a little short on humans these days, so I poked around in the employee database." She explained. "It was a long shot, but I found a silver lining: I'm not the only AI who was based on a human. You, me, the other personality constructs...let's just say we have a common origin."

A second claw descended—clamped to a blue and white personality construct.

"Hey! You're a test subject!" It chirped. "What are you doing all the way up there?"

"I read up on your...accomplishments. Those were impressive. If I didn't have that data on file I'd swear it was a mistake."

"Aren't you the boss lady?" The core asked innocently.

GLaDOS chuckled over the core. "How poetic. The creator, trapped in his own creation." She turned to the core, whose optic plates plinked together in a neutral blink, and then back to Wheatley.

There was a pause, succeeded by a sound that Wheatley had heard once before. This time he felt it rattle through him like an electrical charge.

The core clattered to the floor, optic dark.

Wheatley felt himself drop—balanced and caught by his long fall boots—and turned to the fallen core. She lay silent, crumpled, and Wheatley didn't understand why that unsettled him.

"There were so many things I wanted to do to you, but I just couldn't decide on a suitable punishment." GLaDOS admitted. "The incinerator, the room where all the robots scream at you, the cryo-wing—actually, I can check that one off..."

Wheatley wasn't listening. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the core, or what remained of her.

"...those ridiculous spiked panels you were oh-so proud of, and I finally came up with the perfect solution."

A hiss filled the chamber, and a strange scent filled Wheatley's nostrils. He sniffed it, then clamped both hands over his face. Memories of the sickly green mist—not its scent, but what it did—hit him like a freight train.