"This has got to be the one."

I stood on my rail in front of the door, getting ready to open it. Maybe, JUST MAYBE, there could be someone that's, oh, I don't know, ALIVE?! The door swung open slowly, revealing the rotting corpse of a man who looked to be in his fifties. Great. Just great.

"Oh, for the love of-"I said to myself, as I backed out of the room in frustration. I couldn't escape by myself, which I knew. I needed help.

"One more door Wheatley, just one more." I said to myself. If this didn't have what I was looking for, I was just going to call it quits and give up. Then again, I would probably die, but hey, I would be out of options. Brilliant, bloody brilliant.

"Come on, come on…" If I had fingers, I would be crossing them now. Here we go, now or nothing.

"Hello? Anyone in there?" Nothing.

"Helloooo?" I said, hoping for all my life that someone would respond.

"Are you going to open the door? At any time? Hello? Can y- no? Are you going to open this door? Because it's fairly urgent." I added. To my satisfaction, the door slowly started to swing open.

"HA! I knew someone was alive in- AH! Oh. My. God." In front of me stood a lady, probably in her 30s. Her hair was black, but she looked like she hadn't washed in ages.

"You look terribl—ummm… good. Looking good actually." She gave me a funny look. Humans, with all their facial expressions.

"Are you ok? Are you – Don't answer that. I'm absolutely sure that you're fine. There's plenty of time for you to recover. Just take it slow."

"PLEASE PREPARE FOR EMERGENCY EVACUATION." Boomed the announcer. Yeah, thanks mate, as If I didn't know already.

"Stay calm!" I yelled. No, that was too excited. The last thing I wanted was a scared test subject. Calm down Wheatley, calm down.

"'Prepare'-that's all their saying. Prepare, it's all fine. Alright? Don't move, I'm gonna get us out of here." I moved along my management rail, into a special section designed for cores. I took over manual control of the suspension chamber, and proceeded to unlock it from its stationary position.

"Here we go…" I thought to myself.

"Oh, you MIGHT want to hold onto something. Word of advice, up to you." She grabbed onto a bed post next to her, telling me she was ready. I started moving the chamber out of its parking area (if that's what you want to call it), and out into the open, ready for the big move.

"You alright down there? Can you hear me? Hello?" I yelled down to make sure she was ok. I couldn't go on with a dead subject; I had to keep her alive. I stopped moving the chamber, and opened my hatch to check on her. She was fine, though only to a certain extent. Thank God, something was going good today.

"Most test subjects do experience some cognitive deterioration after a few months in suspension." I said, trying not to freak her out with what I was about to say.

"Now you've been under… for QUITE a lot longer, and it's not out of the question that you may have a very minor case of serious brain damage." I tried to put emphasis on the MINOR, but what came out sounded a lot better in my head.

She gave me a worried expression, which I could definitely understand.

"But don't be alarmed, alright? Although, if you do fear alarm, try to hold onto that feeling because that is the proper reaction to being told you have brain damage." I added. Fat lot of help that would do. And there came the funny look again.

"Do you understand what I'm saying? At all? Does any of this make sense? Just tell me 'Yes'." She thought for a second, and then jumped. Okaaaay… I've been paired up with a bloody lunatic. Fantastic.

"Okay, what you're doing there is jumping. You just… you just jumped. But never mind, just say 'Apple'. 'Aaaapple.'" She jumped again. Yep, a mute, brain damaged lunatic. Brilliant. The buzzer rang, reminding me of the urgency of the situation.

"Okay, you know what? That's close enough. Just hold tight." I re-entered the manual control area, and started to move again. We were going to leave this bloody place, that was certain.

"ALL REACTOR CORE SAFEGUARDS ARE NOW NON FUNCTIONAL. PLEASE PREPARE FOR REACTOR CORE MELTDOWN." Droned the announcer.

"Shut up mate, just shut up." I said to myself. That guy had to be the most annoying voice I had ever heard, in all my time at Aperture. I started to move the container, smashing my way not-so-gracefully through the other chambers. The container started to fragment, pieces falling off constantly. Probably should catch her up on what was happening.

"Okay, look, I wasn't going to mention this to you, but I am in pretty hot water here." I said, as even more of the container fell off.

"How are you doing down there? You still holding on?" I checked on her, she seemed to be doing fairly well.

"The reserve power ran out, so of course the whole relaxation chamber stops waking up the bloody test subjects!" I explained. I slammed the container up against a wall of stacked chambers, slowly knocking them over.

"Hold on! This is a bit tricky!" I said as I rammed it again. The chambers collapsed, and opened the way for us to continue.

"And of course, nobody tell ME anything. Noooo. Why should they tell me anything?" I bashed against a few more containers, clearing the path.

"Why should I be kept informed about the life functions of the 10,000 bloody test subjects I'm supposed to be in charge of?" I pulled the container for a brief stop, trying to see the docking station.

"Oi, It's close… can you see? Am I gonna make it through? Have I got enough space?" I asked, looking at the container in front of us. There looked to be enough space, so I moved us forwards again. We crashed into the container, almost knocking it down.

"Agh, just… I just gotta get it through here…" I said as I bashed up another time.

"Almost got it…" I said to myself as It almost fell. "One more try…" My next hit knocked it over, and I started to go sideways. It was so close, I could even see it.

"Okay, I've just gotta concentrate!" I said as the container responded to my orders.

"And whose fault do you think its gonna be when management comes down here and finds 10,000 flipping vegetables?" I backed up a bit, smashing into something behind me.

"Aggh, see, now I hit that one, I hit that one…" I said, partially to myself. I sailed around a corner, and managed to go about 5 full seconds without hitting something.

"Okay, listen, we should get our stories straight, alright? If anyone asks – and no one's going to ask, don't worry – but if anyone asks, tell them as far as you know, the last time you checked, everyone looked pretty much alive. Alright? Not dead."

I couldn't really tell, but it looked like she nodded. Then again, we were bangin up against all kinds of stuff.

"Okay, almost there. On the other side of that wall is one of the old testing tracks. There's a piece of equipment in there that we're gonna need to get out of here. I think this is a docking station. Get ready…" I slammed the chamber up against the wall, cracking it somewhat. Pieces fell off of both the chamber and the wall, and I backed up, ready for another go.

"Good news: that is NOT a docking station. So there's one mystery solved. I'm going to attempt a manual override on this wall. Could get a bit technical! Hold on!" I yelled to her. She applied a death grip onto the nearest object, and I slammed the chamber into the wall once more. It almost broke through, but it just needed one more slam. God, they made some bloody strong walls here.

"Almost there! Remember, you're looking for a gun that makes holes! Not bullet holes, but – well, you'll figure it out! Really, do hold on this time!" I tensed up my body, and closed my optics. Finally, we breached through the wall, revealing a very worn-down and old looking test chamber. At last, we had reached our destination.

I came out of my little area, and revealed myself to her again. She had already exited the container, and was looking over into the test area. She was tenacious, I could tell that.

"Whew. There we go! Now I'll be honest, you are probably in no fit state to run this particular type of cognitive gauntlet. But... um... at least you're a good jumper. So... you've got that. You've got the jumping on your side. Just do your best and I'll meet you up ahead." She gave me that signature human look once more, and jumped into the test chamber.

"That's the spirit! Good luck!" I yelled.

"I think we have a pretty good chance of living now." I said happily. I turned, and followed my management rail into the unknown.