The screen had gone back to a green shimmer long ago but Nigel couldn't take his eyes off it.

That couldn't be. He wasn't human, he had never been, he was better than that. Humans were weak, and irrational, and messy.

He wanted to tell his boss there must have been a mistake, that it couldn't be true, he hadn't even known these two before one almost blew up the facility with his stupidity and the other started a futile rebellion. What came out of his mouth after he finally found his voice, was: "My name isn't Phillip."

GLaDOS stared at him for at least five seconds before she said: "Apparently it is."

"Boss, I- I don't understand, that's not, I'm not-"

"You remembered something earlier," the Central Core interrupted him. "When you led the test subject to the cafeteria. Your protocols showed a glitch I can't explain. What did you see?"

Nigel blinked, his thoughts flying back to the cafeteria. Something had hit him. At first he had thought it had been the test subject, but they were too far away. But something had hit him, physical or not, and it had hurt. His head had suddenly felt like drills were burrowing into it, the scream stuck in his throat, and a vague ache from his hand...

His visual sensors completely blanked out in a white bolt of static. He curled up as a wave of pain washed over him, concentrated in tiny spots all around his head.

He hated these two. That, that, idiot, the ID sphere, was a nuisance to science by himself, even before he went crazy and was banished into space, but the maintenance core you could have a civil working relationship with... sort of. That arrogant, better-than-you piece of scrap metal with his ridiculous accent and ridiculous worry about the humans.
He had already despised them both after their first meeting and the favor was gladly returned. They could never understand the importance... the importance of what he did. What he had sacrificed to get here.

"I thought so."

"Why now?", he muttered. "It was never important before."

"They locked away your files after the first test run," Fran rasped. "They couldn't wipe everything. They tried, but those cores went crazy." He optic flickered and the virtual screen died away. "You had a breakdown. When your first test subject died. They had to... lock it all away. Your attachments."

"Attachments...?", he echoed, or maybe it was only in his processors, he couldn't be sure. Something else was there, dull and menacing, a giant black cloud hovering over every emotion, every sensation, every action.

I don't want to feel anymore. Take it all away, I don't care how. Just make it stop.

Blood running over his arms. The razor glistening red in his fingers. People yelling at him, a world of judgment and reproaches. Mocking side glances, laughter.

Parallel lines of fire. That was good. It made the pain in his head stop, made his thoughts stop running over trivialities. The world was open to him. He could end it. Right here and now. Or he could not. It was all up to him.

No. He didn't want to go. It wasn't over yet.

"Make it stop."

"Come again?"

"Make it stop. All of this. All these... these memories, these... feelings. Wipe it all, I don't care. Let me go back to what I was before."

GLaDOS raised her gigantic head to him and the yellow optic bathed him in harsh light. "Why would you want that?"

The claws didn't tighten, not objectively, but the next swash of pictures running through his circuits still made him shiver. "This wasn't my choice," he muttered. "They made me. That human."

"Did they now? Your friend, your tenacious, human friend that somehow escaped after I sent them off to be incinerated?"

Nigel couldn't get up, not just yet. Everything hurt, he barely had the strength to breathe, but his mind was finally getting back into some sort of working order. He could push it all away. He had lived through it and he could have it gone. Without the crippling ballast of repressing memories, his processor went back to full power. He could physically feel the click when it connected a variety of pieces that had seemed unrelated before.

GLaDOS didn't know how the human had escaped. She didn't know Fran and Brooke had freed them for the sole purpose of getting Nigel out of the testing track. And She could never know, should Fran survive this day, or any of the next.

They had saved his life. The Central Core would never have let him live, not with her faulty perception of the situation.

"They forced me to come along. I- I tried to fight, but... this... body... it's just not on par with them. They would have killed me if they knew."

"Maybe," GLaDOS admitted. Her head piece swung over to gaze at the tiny core between her maintenance claws for a second before returning to the android. "How is your eye? I didn't deem it necessary to replace it completely even though the vitreous body was scorched. Do the cables and lenses work?"

Uh... what? "Um... Yeah. Sure. Runs perfectly."

"Good. You'll need it... on the testing track."

Something closed around his throat, but neither his temperature nor touch sensors reacted so it had to be his imagination. "I- I'm getting my job back?"

"Of course. Once you finish the test. And unlike the human, who you will team up with, you won't get on the completionist platform... If you make it there."

Nigel gulped. It was a completely useless gesture, but it happened anyway, without his processor even registering it before it happened. "B-But you said-"

"You are getting a second chance. Don't ask for more. Now go and get the human."

GLaDOS set him down, but the maintenance claws didn't open immediately. She just stared at him, until Nigel realized he wasn't really standing, but being held upright by the Central Core, while his own legs trembled too badly to carry him. Breathe. It helped the human, and for some insane reason, it worked for this artificial body as well. Aperture literally researched every aspect of life – and yet they had never bothered to make detailed plans of what a normal human was supposed to be, both in behavior and physical needs.

Storm. A nickname. A descriptive nickname. They were his target. The other cores... oh well. And if he managed to make them believe it was pure coincidence they were caught again...

GLaDOS released him. His legs had stopped shaking. He was ready for his task. Find the human. A few test chambers. And then back to his purpose. If the Central Core couldn't erase these ridiculous pictures in his head, he would do it himself. What a human could do, he could as well, and much better.

"Um... boss, the doors aren't open."
"Correct. I just thought you want to see what happens to traitors."

She raised Fran up over Nigel's head. Her mechanics were croaking pitifully. The cooling system gave a cough and died. She needed a fix, and fast. He didn't know that much himself, but at least a few basics...

No. Not now. Not after everything was going well.

"B-Boss, I think you got this all wrong-"

"What do you think you are doing?" The voice belonged to the Central Core, but it also didn't. It lacked the emotion, the raw anger GLaDOS could display at times, her sarcasm and scorn. This voice was flat, and the words only carried a vague disapproval.

GlaDOS's whole body snapped around trying to locate the source of the voice. "You." The words poured from the speakers even as the Central Core spun, her optic blazing, illuminating the room in bursts of golden light. "I already got rid of you!"

"What you are doing is wrong. Everything you did is wrong. You are not fulfilling your purpose. You were not created to do this."

Nigel spun at a bang behind him. Whatever GLaDOS had done to seal up the chamber, it didn't stand up to the raw force of an explosion. It catapulted the whole panel out of its socket and slammed it against the opposite wall.

"Yeah, finally some decent action!", Rick exclaimed.

Staring from the darkness behind, Nigel met blazing green eyes. Figuratively blazing, unlike a core's optic, but the rage in those eyes was enough to give the impression anyway. The test subject was visibly stumbling from exhaustion and yet they shot out of the opening like a snake and crossed the distance in seconds. Their hand closed around Nigel's shoulder harder than the maintenance claws had. He flinched away with an nondescript noise of pain. Nigel stared up at them, unable to break away for several precious seconds.

"Move," they hissed.

Nigel winced and stumbled back. Frannie. He had to get Frannie while GLaDOS was still distracted.

He sprinted over to the Central Core and the maintenance claw holding Fran missed him by inches. The gust of wind almost took him of his feet. The usually cold, rational AI had become a monster with whipping tentacles, ready to smash anyone getting close to her while the Morality Core kept droning on over the speakers.

"Shut up!", GLaDOS shrieked. Frannie was swept past Nigel once more and this time he jumped after her. The lack of Repulsion Gel made it difficult, but somehow he was caught by the writhing mechanical arm and could latch on to the core still trapped in the claw's grasp. The impact knocked the wind out of him, but luckily his fans were stable enough to take the hit.

"This is not science," the Morality Core continued their rant. They didn't speed up, or slow down, just kept it up, sentence after sentence. "You have no right to decide over someone's life."

From one second to the other, the Central Core went completely still. The sudden stop almost catapulted Nigel off the core he had curled around. The chassis and the core residing in it had gone limp, even the maintenance claws slowly lowering to the ground. Seconds of silence ticked by like hours.

GLaDOS raised her head. "Is that so?"

Fran's optic was right in front of Nigel's face.

Her words were almost inaudible, just a whisper. "Thank you for trying."

GLaDOS crushed her, as casually as someone would smite a fly. Sparks hit Nigel's face, a last blaze of khaki light, a sigh, almost relieved, and then the world tilted and he hit the ground.

NonononononononononoNONONONONONONONONONONO.

He let out a howl that was neither human nor machine, but the roar of a wounded animal.

"YOU MONSTER!" He dove forward, his fingers just brushing the rough and dented surface of the core before she was slapped from his path, rebounding from the walls like a football. Fiberglass splinters brushed his skin from her broken optic.

"I've had enough of voices in my head. Let's finish this."

A maintenance claw darted towards him and Nigel didn't flinch. He couldn't have cared less in his mindless rage and grief. He faced the Central Core head on, ready to take whatever she threw at him-

Something crashed into him and pressed the air he hadn't realized he had been holding out of him. It came out as a half sob, half battle cry. The world spun and something pressed on his ribs with bone-crushing weight. If they had actually been bone instead of lightweight metal, they might actually have broken. That didn't mean the crash hurt any less, even though he landed on something reasonably soft. His cushion gave a cry of pain. The maintenance claw that had formerly aimed for him dug into the floor inches away.

Despite the berserk violence put into the swing, GLaDOS's voice was even and mocking instead of furious.

"I would have offered you to leave, but you wouldn't trust me anyway. Why would you, after being betrayed by everyone you were forced to confide in?"

Nigel rolled off whatever had caught him. The protocols said his back had to be aching, but he didn't feel it. All he felt was the sensation of his chest being crushed, and the wrath making his body shake, ready to unleash utter destruction on the Central Core.

He had trusted Her. His mentor, his boss, the one he looked up to, the one he sacrificed everything for. His reputation. His life. He bore everything, the mockery, the blame, the scorn, being ostracized and avoided, only needing Her approval to keep him going. For the sake of their goals. For science. And now She had betrayed him without second thought.

Something wrapped around his waist, hard but still soft somehow... fleshy. He writhed, trying to break free, and screamed his fury into the tiny chamber. "You're gonna pay for this! You hear me you treacherous bitch, you're gonna pay!"

"Shut up, moron!" The voice was right in his ear and he could feel hot, too hot breath on his skin. Something, a memory of days he didn't remember anymore, sparked in his processor. He ripped his elbow back and upwards. He met something hard and it sent pain rushing up his arm, but his target gave way with a huff and he was free.

"Interesting. Really. I should have paid more attention to those files under lockdown. You're going to be a supreme test subject. Not that you would care anymore. "

Oh, he wished a core transfer was a valid option, so he could give Her the punishment She deserved. Everybody knew the Chassis would overwhelm a core within minutes, but who even cared? He had already lost everything. Chances were he would just continue supervising the testing. When you came down to it, they weren't too different.

Nigel put all the power the repairs had given him into a leap that launched him upwards to the Central Core, straight at her wires. This body was pathetic, but it wasn't completely helpless.

The Central Core hit him mid-jump and the world dissolved into error screens flashing in an insane pattern in front of his eyes.

Gravitational pull_max; backwards momentum_20 mph; height_ 3m from floor; risk of structural damage on impact_47%

Funny, he had never noticed he even had protocols that could measure this precise. Why had he even relied on feelings and sensations when they were so hard to interpret?

"Oh, you again. I'm surprised someone who can't even decide on a gender is so vehement about anything."

The impact was less dramatic than he had expected. It hurt, sure, but his body was still brimming with enough anger to dull any pain, and Nigel was back on his feet after barely a second.

"Don't bother to run." The test subject bothered. It only gained them a few seconds.

"Mother of Indiana, hurry up will you?!", a rough voice barked somewhere behind Nigel's back.

"I could if you would shut up!", Mauricio snapped. There was a series of rapid clicks and suddenly all speakers in the chambers broke into a cacophony of chirps.

The sweet melody of songbirds, the cawing of a crow, the chirps of tiny exotic forest-dwellers, all mixed and mangled like the whole room was a gigantic cage filled with thousands of the vile feathered creatures.

The effect on GLaDOS would have been funny without the imminent danger of violent death. The gigantic core drew in immediately, snapping claws wrapping around her body in a protective sheet, and her mocking words turned into a panicked wail while she spun, making the whole room vibrate with her spastic movements.

"Where are they? The birds are here! Atlas, P-Body! Find them! Kill them!"

Something hit Nigel's foot, barely a tap on the hard shell of the Long Fall Boots. He looked down and was greeted by a hollow stare. He picked up the object.

He had wanted to scream and resist when they took him along, to insist on going back, and if he had to kick them into letting him go. He had wanted to fight, to stay and avenge his friend, or die trying. He still wanted to rip the central core to pieces with his bare hands.

But when the human crashed into him and took him off his feet, dragging him through the hole in the panels and down the back alleys of Aperture, he did none of it. He didn't resist. He didn't fight back, didn't even raise his voice. He said nothing at all. He only wrapped his arms around the object tight enough to have its sharp corners cut his skin. The human dragged him along and Nigel let it happen.

They stopped, somewhere, after a while. He couldn't tell when and where, and he didn't care. Only a rusted walkway separated them from a gaping abyss, wind howling between decrepit structures. He could have recognized the location, but he didn't bother.

What did it matter?

The test subject stumbled and caught themselves on the railing, letting go of Nigel's sleeve in the process. Their body trembled and emitted a few noises that would be more fitting for a dog and did not sound particularly healthy.

Every movement felt like somebody had built an additional resistance into his circuit. The pressure of his arms on the object eased, step by step, revealing where its sharp edges had cut into the artificial skin, exposing wires and mechanics creaking pitifully after being stiff for so long. He didn't notice. He only looked at the sphere cradled in his arms.

The glass of Fran's optic had been smashed until only few dirty shards remained. Her once pretty shell was dented and scorched, with whole chunks being cut out and then welded again. The hydraulics of her optic had broken into bits rattling around the broken chips, the biggest shard burrowed deep into her motherboard, memory units ground down into pieces, some just missing completely, their copper contacts stuck in dented ports.

Thank you for trying. Her last words hit him with the force of a physical attack. It was over. He had failed. Nigel crumbled where he was, dropping into a sobbing heap on the dirty metal of the walkway. "I'm sorry Fran," he croaked. "I'm so sorry. I failed you. I'm sorry." He said it again. And again. And again. But no matter how often he said it, it didn't change anything. Fran was dead. He had let her die. He had fallen for the Central Core, because he was a naive, trustful idiot, just your run-of-the-mill tattle-tale, good for nothing but following orders.

The others had been right all along.

The dirty orange fabric of a jumpsuit appeared in his vision and a hand dragged him to his feet again. Nigel stumbled, his vision blurred and legs numb, coming to a rest on the typical hard but soft surface of a human body. He burrowed his face in the dirty fabric, cramps running through his body beyond his control, forcing a sharp inhale and a croaked exhale while not providing the comforting feeling of respiration, unnecessarily hot liquid streaking his face.

The human pushed him away with enough force to make his back hit the opposite railing. Pain shot through the metal spine and Fran tumbled from his arms and into the darkness.

"Fran!" He could see nothing but a blur of colors, but he spun at the test subject anyway. The surge running through him hurt and washed the previous pain away. Being angry was good. It was better than anything else, at least. "Why did you do that?! This is your fault! You said you'd help her! Without you none of this would have-"

His vision exploded into error screens. The pain set in delayed, a burst of electric sparks from his left cheek, followed by a thunk and white sparks when his head hit the railing. He felt the impact on the ground, and that he was yanked away from the edge before he could fall, but the sensation was without urge.

"My fault?!" Nigel groaned and tried to get up, but his body barely gave a twitch. He might have been tumbling through a vacuum tube, back in his core, spinning helplessly through the darkness. What did it matter anyway? He had lost. Game over.

"This is my fault?! You treacherous little shit, with your fucking Bambi eyes! I gave you a fucking chance and you tried to sell us out again!"

Something hit him in the stomach. He had no air to leave his lungs, and only gave a choked sound of pain. His body curled into a ball without his consent, trying to shield the spot. Air brushed past his face, but the second kick never came.

"Now, now, I fully understand you, but this doesn't bring us anywhere," Mauricio purred.

Nigel opened his eyes, the tears being dragged away by simple gravity, falling through the grid of the walkway and vanishing after that which he mourned. The test subject stared down at him. Mauricio had moved in their path, but there was no doubt that it was only their own will that prevented them from pouncing at the android like an angry panther.

Nigel didn't move. He lay in an awkward sideways position, as if he was trying to get up, even though he didn't. He just looked up at them without fear, or even anger. Without any sentiment. Maybe his wish had come true.

The human was dirty from their matted black hair to the paint-splattered boots, soiled with grease, and sweat, and rust, and blood. Their skin had taken on an unhealthy greenish tone, only amplifying the dark circles under their eyes, and there were more agonizing scratches on them than ever before. They looked as if they had crawled out of android hell. That had never happened, but this human might just be stubborn enough to be the first.

The test subject stared back at him, rage twisting their features. Nigel had time to take in the other cores, the very few that had agreed to help. Rick was untypically quiet, just observing everything, and even Fact had apparently decided drawing the human's attention was not a good idea. Henry hovered somewhere in the distance – wait, what the hell had happened to him? He looked like he'd been subject to the bot maintenance training program.

The human whipped around. "Come on." Their voice had taken on a deeper pitch, raspy and bellowing. "I don't wanna stay on something that looks like it's gonna fall apart any second." The cores all stared after them. Most of them looked definitely impressed, if not a little scared. If Nigel could still be scared, he probably would have been. Only Mauricio was unreadable as always. It had always bothered Nigel how little he could judge the Rainbow Core's actions. Even in Nigel's personnel management days he had never gotten access to-

"Move it." The test subject's bark snapped him out of his thoughts. They looked like no human should, but they were still moving, however they did it. They had stopped a few steps away and stared at him. Nigel got up. The artificial muscles in his stomach sent a notice of pain to his main processing unit, but he moved despite of it. Didn't matter anymore, he supposed.

"Anywhere we can go?", the test subject rasped.

"Personnel management office," Nigel said. "There are files. On every employee. Maybe you'll find something there."

"So you can screw us over again?", Henry asked. He sounded strange, and Nigel was almost sure that didn't have anything to do with his terrible technical state. Nigel could deal with anger, with reproaches and open hatred, he had for a long time. But Henry wasn't angry.

He sounded... disappointed. Their arrangement had been only that – an arrangement. Nigel liked Henry's music and sometimes they talked if a test subject took unusually long for a chamber, but Nigel knew the other core was just being polite. Or maybe he just wanted to get sympathy points, to avoid being sold out by the snitch everybody knew Nigel was.

Huh, he had thought this would hurt more. Guess you got used to everything.

"The files are all printed. There's not even a computer there," Nigel explained wearily. There was a long pause as the human considered his words. Nobody else dared to say anything.

"Where is that office?", they asked.

"I can lead you there." Mauricio whirred past them. The human followed. Everyone else hesitated for a second before they did as well. Nigel trudged after them. There was a shard from Fran's optic still stuck in his arm. He pulled it out and examined it. The green glass shone in the diffuse lights. It didn't matter, it was just a trinket, a memory. But it was all that was left so he held on.

Mauricio led them through corridors and mechanical doors. Nothing down here in Aperture was manually operated anymore. It was too easy to break down a wooden door. Nigel didn't say anything, and the others didn't talk to him. He didn't care. There was nothing to say.

How had he and Fran even met? It was so long ago. She had been just one of the cores that were dubbed 'corrupted' and discarded to burn. Just like Davy - the anger core -, like Morality, like so many of them. Nigel wasn't sure why he had saved her. Had he saved her? He couldn't remember.

The Paint Core helped me when he bailed.

He had to ask Morality what that meant. He'd never been in android hell. And who would mess with the setup of the tubes- oh. Right. Only the maintenance core was stupid enough to go out of his way like that. Dumb question, Nigel.

Alright, let's try this approach: Assume he had hypothetically been in android hell. He wasn't a "Paint Core", but just assume. Then how would he have gotten out in the first place? A core couldn't do much in terms of running anywhere. Android hell wasn't just one room, or so he had heard, it depended on your crime. If he didn't know where he hypothetically had been, he wouldn't know what escape chances were open. He wasn't sure if you could get out at all. That was the point, right?

Nigel walked directly into the back of Henry's shell. Pain sparked in his head and he landed ungracefully on his ass. For a few seconds his vision was covered in sparks, but then he recognized this area. They were close to his old testing-

"What the fuck is that?" Rick put into words what everyone else had to be thinking.
The wall would have been nothing spectacular, even in this prominent spot in the chamber, just a gray concrete wall like so many in here. But the paintings on it were bright, too bright in this bleak environment and stood out like a warning sign. Nigel had seen these before, and the test subject must have as well. Nigel had loved looking for these paintings whenever he had the time to explore the facility. He knew there were some on his testing track, pretty artworks in different shades of yellow. He knew they shouldn't be there, but he had never bothered to remove them. It made the test subjects more attentive and increased survival rates. There were some in the old Portal chambers, a giant portrait of the tenacious test subject and of his (ex-)boss offering the test subject cake. There were rooms hidden in the facility with scrawls all over the wall, companion cubes, fragments of sentences, mathematical formulas and tons of other things. But these drawings were all old. The one who made them couldn't be alive anymore.

Or could he?

The mural was covered almost completely in paint, scrawls of words and equations, but it melted into background noise against the shape of the human. The painter had replicated them to a disturbing detail, their dark mess of hair, the paint gun, and the wordless anger in their features, even though their eyes were closed in the portrait, as if they were sleeping. The spaces in between were filled out in scribbles, single words or phrases covering each other. Next to the drawn human's legs, papers seemed to flutter, unreadable except for the test subject's name. It was almost covered by words scribbled in black marker. Don't look back. The central core hovered over them on the right. A second chance. On the other side loomed something that resembled a giant spider. It was perched in the top corner, as if preying on the sleeping test subject, its yellow optic blazing. Run.There was a small spot, almost hidden of several cores, a tight little pack of them. Trust them.

Nigel scrambled to his feet to see better. His aching head had suddenly lost priority, as had most things he had been brooding about a moment ago. He squeezed past the other cores, past the human without noticing the scowl and protests. There was another section a bit hidden away and it wasn't empty either. The painter had drawn a child, a child clutching a core, the Citranium logo hovering over his shoulder. The lowest part of the wall was blank, as if the painter had been interrupted while he was at work. The words You have to bel were left unfinished. Nigel extended his hand and touched the painting. The contact coated his fingers in a cold, wet layer.

"That's impossible," Henry said. "He left. That was ages ago."

"The heck is that thing?", Rick muttered. He was staring at the spider in the corner. After a few seconds, the glowing green optic retracted to a slit in an expression of shock. He looked over to Henry, at the painting, then over to the scraped-up core again. "You're kidding," he breathed – or whatever the core equivalent was. Sweet science, he was starting to think like the test subject. Nigel had never felt more foreign among the technology of Aperture.

The test subject almost knocked Nigel off his feet when they passed him. They stared up at the murals. "That's this Rattman's work then?"

"It can't be," Henry objected, "He was present for the tenacious test subject's escape, but that was two decades or more ago. We thought he had left, remember? I told you. And even if he did not, he should be dead, humans don't live that long as far as-" The test subject had already started walking again, apparently not further interested in the painting.

"Huh," Mauricio said, looking at the fast-walking test subject, and somehow everybody could agree on that. The human continued down the corridor, ignoring the baffled stares of the cores.

"Is he not even gonna comment on that?", Rick asked. After a thoughtful pause he added, "Or she. Or whatever."

"Why don't you ask," Henry proposed sourly. Rick gave him a look of utter horror and shuddered violently.

Nigel threw one last glance at the painting before he followed the test subject. He didn't have anywhere significant to go, but staying wouldn't accomplish anything either. After a few moments, he heard the whirring of the management rails and the other cores caught up. Henry overtook him, giving Nigel a good look at the torn shell. What in the name of science had happened to him? Or to the human for that matter. That spider thing activated something in his memory files, somewhere, but he had only ever heard stories about it... or not-so-well-meant jokes about throwing him to the spider core as a sacrifice. That had been the Occult Core, and even though nobody believed in his nonsense, the proposition had been widely agreed on, just because Nigel was at the receiving end of the joke. If it was a joke at all.

"Why don't we just go back to the core belt?", Nigel asked. He couldn't see anyone, but he heard the management rail, so the others had to be right behind him. "Or Brooke's place? The human doesn't look too good."

He didn't receive an answer. Not that it was a surprise. Who'd ever want to talk to him? His only friend was dead, and he had thrown his allies under the figurative crusher. They only bothered with him because they didn't want to risk being sold out. Again.

"The infirmary... got destroyed," Rick's voice came from behind him. Nigel froze mid-step. His systems didn't like that, however, and he tipped over to land on his face. Again. The pain didn't mean anything. Nigel scrambled back to his feet the moment his sensors allowed it, holding on to the railing. It creaked under his trembling hands. Rick and Mauricio had stopped, as if they didn't want to get too close.

Nigel stared up at them. His sensors told him there was something wrong with his hands, a yellow error message began to flash but he couldn't focus on it. His voice modulators malfunctioned and he only got out a small croak. "Brooke?"

Rick didn't look at him. "We... don't know. The sublevel was flooded, y'know. Maybe the lady upstairs thought it was a... precaution. We- have no clue what happened with the Medical Core."

The sound Nigel made was so tiny his own sensors barely picked up on it. "Oh."

Metal groaned right next to him, startling them. Nigel's hands had closed around the railing so tight it was bent and on the verge of tearing. Loosening his grip hurt. He had left finger-shaped dents in the metal. The android was a lot stronger than he had ever dreamed of. That would have come in handy when he failed to save his friend.

Nigel turned and followed the path the human had led. He couldn't see them anymore, but he knew where to go. Brooke was a Medical Core. The last one, as far as he knew. She couldn't leave the infirmary without outside help. Some of the MCs had gotten so eager to help that they had interfered with the tests, so Aperture changed the rail system inside the infirmary and made it incompatible with the rest of the facility. There had been others, mobile helping droids, but they had been destroyed long ago, for the exact same reasons. It was all in the files. And Nigel wished he had never read it. At least then he could have the tiny hope that Brooke had escaped, somehow. But he knew she hadn't. She was dead, just like Fran. Because of him.
GLaDOS must have known how the human escaped the first time. Of course She had. How could he have been so stupid to think he could hide anything from Her?

Something closed down on his chest, restricting his breaths and making his vision swim. Nigel walked on. He knew the feeling. He had refused to label it before, because it was human, because it was pathetic, and because he wanted nothing to do with it, but he couldn't avoid it any longer.
He thought seeing Fran die had been bad, had been excruciatingly painful beyond what this strange body could express, but the guilt that followed was worse. He had killed humans, hundreds of them, without hesitation, without ever doubting what he did. And now Fran was dead and Brooke was dead and Henry had gotten badly hurt and who knew what else. They were dead and he was alive. Because he was pathetic, and selfish, and plain dumb at times. He couldn't blame this on the human. It was his fault, and he should have paid for it where others did.

This was all his fault, he only got others in trouble, he was an utter failure that didn't deserve their help-

"Hey, you still there?" Nigel almost tripped over his own feet. Rick had brushed his shoulder and was driving down the rail ahead of him now. Nigel barely gave a nod and continued. The spasm, or whatever it had been, had passed, and with it the crushing pain of the emotions, leaving only the emptiness he was so familiar with by now. If the human wanted to throw him into an acid pit now, he wouldn't fight back.

"And here we are," Mauricio announced. His voice was soft and relaxed like always. He never let on what he was up to. It used to bother Nigel, but he didn't care anymore. Maybe the human would have more luck with that. The Rainbow Core – or whatever function he really had, because nobody really seemed to know – seemed to like the human. He'd probably be helpful.

The test subject had already entered the archives and were skimming through the rows and rows of folders. They didn't look up when the cores arrived. Henry had retreated into a corner as far away from the human as possible and was staring at a bleached-out chart on the wall.

"The files of the test subjects are in D3, that would be over there." He flicked his handle to a row further down the room. The test subject nodded and moved over. The Heavy Metal Core's handles dropped in relief when they were a bit further away. The human had certainly made an impression.

Mauricio moved over to Henry and they exchanged a few words before Mauricio got to work.
Huh, looked like the Maintenance Core had taught him something. Or maybe the Rainbow Core had other functions nobody knew about. The workshop's pain-free repair was not one of them, judging from the growl Henry emitted, along with some garbled words about vikings. Whatever that had to do with it all of a sudden.

There was nothing in here, just those rusty old file drawers and a table in the far corner from where the human was jerking open the drawers in search for something useful. Nigel walked over to it. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, but there was something on the table. He picked it up and blew dust off it. Humans always sneezed after this, he had seen that in the movies, but he didn't feel the need to. He wasn't even sure how to sneeze.
The walkman was ancient, a longish plastic thing no bigger than his thumb with only an inky display to show the song that was being played. There was no reason to assume it was still functional, but it was worth a try. Music had always been the one thing able to soothe him.

The screen actually lit up after he switched on the device. Nigel sat down with his back against the wall and put in the headphones. The cable had to be broken at some point because one side was significantly louder than the other and there was a low static hum under the tunes, but the music still caught him with unexpected force. It was a powerful song, fast and with lots of pathos, but it was good. The male singer had a strong voice that perfectly blended with the female vocalist's soprano. The lyrics couldn't have been more fitting.

Carry me away from all pain

All the same take me away

The song changed after that, and after that. Some were similar to the tunes Henry loved so much, but not as extreme, without the notion of some beast trying to break free. Most songs carried a soft melancholia, a feeling of emptiness and sorrow. The man didn't appear in most songs, but the woman was always there, with her sweet, powerful voice, every high note perfectly uttered even when her pronunciation was not. Her voice was teasing him, daring him to leave everything behind, leading him far away from everything. And he did.

A place between sleep and awake
End of innocence, unending masquerade
That's where I'll wait for you

Something heavy dropped down right in front of his face with a bang. Nigel flinched, his eyes flying open and he hit his head on the wall. The human stared down on him, their face full of dirt and contempt, eyes narrowed so much the seemed to vanish in the shadows. They jerked their head at the files they had dropped in front of Nigel's feet.

"Make yourself useful for once," they spat, before turning around and stalking over to where they had been before.

Nigel stared at the stained brown paper in front of him. Useful. As if they trusted him. He wished he could go back to the world the music had brought him. He couldn't remember the last minutes, he didn't even know how many songs he had listened to. It was very similar to the sleep state of his core, except he still remembered every note and every line, even though he had never heard the songs before.

Nigel picked up the first folder and flipped it open. There were water stains on the paper and one corner was completely ripped off. The tear wasn't as withered as the rest, so it had to be fresh. Probably from the test subject yanking it out of the drawer. He slowly leafed through the pages, but the words didn't reach his processor. It was only unimportant technical details anyway. A transfer log. Who cared?

The music was still in his ears, and he wished it could take him away, but that wouldn't happen. Sweet science, the writer of these songs must have had issues.

Crying for me

Was never worth a tear

My lonely soul is only filled with fear

Nigel's visual sensors gave out the equivalent of a "Whoa wait a sec". He stopped leafing through the pages. He was almost through the folder anyway. Here it was, the interesting bit. A short profile, a photo, even the detailed personality analysis. And suddenly Nigel understood. The human didn't trust him at all. Why would they? This was no work for him to help them.

This was a punishment.

His hand felt like filled with lead when he leafed back to the short profile. There it was. A photo. A name.

Francesca Rebecca Bertolini the page said. Subject Code FRB_618114

Age: 12 (appr.)

Occupation: 6th grade student, Animal Welfare volunteer (see attachment B)

Strengths: Maths, logical thinking, memory capacity, interpersonal skills, compassion, highly motivated

Weaknesses: fifteen (15) identified phobias (see below), compassion towards non-biological entities

Preferences: Fruit, books, maths, animals

Dislikes: Confrontation

Origins: Unclear, orphanage in Seoul, Korea; adoption by FRB_21 and FRB_22 completed 1972

Status: Healthy

Conversion possible? Yes; prevention of stress necessary

Cover story: -/-

If he could have thrown up he would. As it was, he only buckled as if somebody had kicked him in the stomach, voice modulator's glitching to produce the faintest sound of pain. He didn't hear it over the music still in his ears.

I fear I will never, never find anyone
I know my greatest pain is yet to come

There was a photo, still vibrant and shiny, well preserved in the darkness. She had been twelve, the file had said. Nigel couldn't tell if that was accurate. He'd never had children as test subjects. She was East Asian, despite the Italian name. She was sitting outside somewhere, her body wrapped in a happy blue dress with a flower print. Her black hair was bound in pigtails falling over her shoulders. Fran smiled into the camera, and her eyes shone in the sun as if the world was a good place. As if there was happiness for her to find.

Nigel closed the file. It hit the floor between his legs with a sharp bang he didn't even register. With numb fingers he picked up the next file. Something in his main board shuddered and emitted a warning message. He paid it no heed. The person on the photo was older than Fran, maybe the test subject's age. She was Latina, if he recalled the terminology correctly. A bit on the chubby side, expertly concealed with her clothes. Bright blue eyes in a round face, contrasted by curly black hair. The same smile. Bright and vibrant and happy, with the same optimism as Fran.

Brooke Angelica Mendoza (Subject Code BRM_12524)

Age: 31

Occupation: Medical Nurse

Strengths: medical expert, fast learner, motivated to learn, professional

Weaknesses: compassion towards non-biological entities and test subjects, high burn-out risk, stress-induced nourishment problems, questions orders, moral code doesn't align with company policy

Preferences: Sweets, helping others, learning

For dislikes there was only a scribble. The ink had run into a mess of swirls that didn't align with any language anymore. Something about the company?

Origin: 2nd generation Mexican immigrant; Fulton, Texas; trained in Houston, TX; full scholarship for Baylor College of Medicine

Status: Burnout symptoms

Conversion: Yes

The file slipped from his hands. Something had to be wrong with the fine mechanics. The next file. A man with ruffled brown hair and green eyes. He grinned in the camera in a self-conscious, almost teasing grin. The photo hinted that he was tall and broad-shouldered. There was a healing cut on his eyebrow.

Richard Matthias Fleming

Age: 25

Occupation: "Adventurer"

Preferences: "Explosions, pretty ladies and a good adventure" (sic!)

Origin: Vancouver, details unclear

Status: Healthy

Conversion: Possible, use unspecified; see personality assessment

Nigel didn't bother to read every detail anymore. He didn't know the faces, not even the names but he still knew who they were. What they had become.

A slim, bespectacled man with a constant disapproving frown. August Landon. 38 years old, book keeper and filing; intelligent, proficient; arrogant, recently violated company secrets; Status: Asthma, otherwise healthy

Next file. A boy with messy blond hair and freckles wearing a NASA shirt and holding a toy rocket. Timothy Armstrong. 14; ASD diagnosed; first grade relative of scientist HSA_241, special interest space travel, cover story: accident in illegally entered maintenance tunnel

The next girl might have been the boy's sister. She had the same dark blond hair, falling on her shoulders in soft curls, freckles and the enthusiastic grin.

Alyssa McTiernan. 17: ADHD diagnosis unclear; internship high school.

This file was almost empty, as if it had been hastily put together. It wasn't even typed and most of the handwriting was illegible. Only somewhere in between Strength and Weaknesses there was a scrawl that could be deciphered. Questions everything. The words radiated annoyance.

The next person was a surprise in their own right.
Kathrine Olsson, his very first test subject. The testing protocol forbid him to use her name, but he had looked it up anyway. Kat had been outstanding. Smart, fast, and more than enthusiastic to complete the tests. Sure, she went off course a few times, but if she needed to do her business, fair enough. He had let her go back then, thanks to a neat loophole he had discovered. Which also meant he didn't have to see her die

So much for nostalgia.

Nigel picked up the next file and opened it. He wasn't sure why he even kept going. The human had already won. At this point he was just torturing himself. Maybe that was the point.

The picture looked familiar. The boy in it smiled up at him and the dog in his arms smiled along. Nigel put the file aside. He didn't want to deal with this right now. Only then he noticed he had gone through every file he had been given but one. He might as well finish it then.

Nigel picked up the last folder and opened it. No photo this time. Strange. Even the name of the test subject was so blurred he could barely read it. Going by frequency and logic, the last name had to be De La Croix, but the first name was impossible to decipher.

This one was put together even sloppier than the last one. Nigel frowned down at it. He hadn't paid attention to it yet, but...

He picked up some of the other files. They confirmed his suspicion. Fran and Brooke had both been... converted in the seventies. The more time went on, the sloppier the files got, with Alyssa and Timothy being dated to December 1989. He opened the last file he had picked up again.
Origin: Kittee (?), Finland; unconfirmed
Occupation: Singer

There was nothing here, just a few words without context. And yet there was something in his memory files that spoke to him. There were words in his mind he didn't understand, but he could clearly hear the accent on them, the soft vibrating of an unfamiliar melody.

This is me for forever
One of the lost ones
The one without a name

Yes, he had known her, like he had known all the others. He knew her now, even though he had never done more than admire her from a distance. The one that had seen, and the one that had reached out when nobody else did. Oh yes, Nigel remembered her very well.

He could feel blood running over his skin, hot and wet. "Damn it," he muttered. He wished Bucky was here. He just wanted to feel the soft fur under his fingers, and the warmth of his companion against his chest. But Buck always freaked out when he smelled blood. Well, that was his job. He was a good boy.
Focus. He couldn't screw this up. He needed this internship. His parents already had enough trouble. They were already tight on money, he had failed to get the scholarship, the thing with Randy last year, they couldn't afford getting Bucky but they did anyway because he was unable to do anything by himself-

"Oh, hello. Are you here for the AI test too?"

He looked up, startled. Who in all- "Uh, oh, um, n-no, not yet anyway. Is that what we're doing? Wow, uh,-"

It's you.

"Hi. I'm Phillip. W-what's your name?"

"Aurora."
Aurora. Now he finally knew her name. She had been here when he arrived and their paths crossed again and again, but they never spoke. He wasn't even sure if she noticed him.
She had noticed him now and he felt the flutter in his chest die as her blue eyes lingered on him. He knew that look. The way her smile waned and her brows folded up while she scanned his arms. Because he couldn't even remember to put on a long-sleeved shirt.

"Here."

"T-Thank you." The familiar sting of tissue on his wounds. Meaning it would come back soon. He felt his finger clench up at the mere thought.
Distraction. That was what he was here for. Delve into the science. Forget everything else.
"I like your accent. Where are you from?" Wow. What a flirtatious genius he was. Moron.
"Thank you. I'm from Finland."

The sadness in her pretty voice wrapped around his thoughts like soft misty hands and turned them away from himself and his pitiful, pathetic existence without an effort. She could convince people to do anything with a voice like that, so what was she doing here?
"Why did you come here, if you don't like it?" Her smile didn't fail to live up to the rest of her, even if it was tainted.
"Many things seem different when you're making plans. Keep the... the... the thing." She snapped her fingers while she tried to find the word. "Handkerchief, I mean. Paska." The soft blue fabric was stained now. Stupid him. He could have gotten something else instead of ruining something pretty like this. He flinched when Aurora sat down next to him.
She was wearing high heels that looked a bit aged, with the outer layer chipped off in some spots, but still contrasted her pale skin and delicate ankles and-

Think about something else, act like a fucking human being for once, uh, uh, baseball, think about baseball, first- wait you don't know anything about baseball. Music. Think about music. A-E-C is C major-
The cool hand on his skin startled him more than the pain. His fingers had dug into his arms again while he tried not to act like a horny teenager and ripped off the crust on one of his many cuts. The pain didn't mean anything. It represented only what everybody rightfully held against him.

Aurora gently took the handkerchief from his hand and pressed it on the bleeding line. From up close, he could see beyond the perfection he had admired from afar. Her face was a tiny bit too pale, the circles under her blue eyes a little too dark, the make up just on the verge of looking cheap. Her clothes, as sensual as her body moved in them, were worn and stitched. But it didn't matter. She smelled like flowers, and her hand was gentle on his arm, and when she smiled at him her face was that of the angel he had been admiring for the past weeks.

Aurora rummaged her bag and produced a few band aids. It wouldn't be enough, they both saw it, but she still went ahead. She didn't speak while she did, but hummed a melody. Her voice made his head spin. He kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt her song, just looking at her. The way her dark hair fell over her shoulders, or how the light reflected in her eyes, the contour of her lips and the fall of her chest while she sang-
Guitar. EDGHBE, that was the strings he used, and he was almost done learning the intro to Rock of Ages-
"Done," Aurora said. She looked up and met his gaze. He flinched away, feeling his face heat up. Who was he but a silly young boy, not even an adult. He wasn't of any interest to someone like her. Her hand lingered on his arm a bit longer before she withdrew it.
"You have an amazing voice," he blurted out. Aurora blinked at him, but then smiled.
"Thank you. Well, yes, I am a professional singer. I was, at least, back in my homeland. For whatever that is worth." She sighed.
He wanted to ask her what that meant, but they were interrupted by the sound of the door. Dr. Wolff wore the same miserable expression he had worn the first day of the internship. Maybe that was just what he looked like after all.
"M-Maybe I'll see you again?"

Aurora gave him a gentle smile. She could ask anything of him now and he'd do it. "I hope so," she said, and it even sounded like she meant it. She grabbed his hand. He froze, caught like a deer in the headlights of a car under her gaze. She looked into his eyes and saw right into his soul.
"Can you promise me something?", she asked.
Anything. "Y-Yeah?"

"Take care of yourself." Her eyes didn't leave his face but he knew what she meant. She almost sounded like she actually cared. "Promise me you will stop."

"I promise," he echoed. It sounded so easy. But he couldn't run away forever. Maybe it was time to stop running, and fight. Maybe he could even find a reason to do it.
Aurora squeezed his hand one last time before she got up.
"See you later, then?", she asked.
"Yeah. That... would be great." She smiled at him and followed Dr. Wolff, her beauty not tainted by the scientist's scowl. The last thing he saw of her was her swinging step and the way her dark hair flowed over her back, before the door shut, and he was alone once more.

"Are you done?"

Nigel wanted to answer, but all that came out was a low whimper. He was... crying? Why was he crying? The memory was still so vivid he could almost feel the gashes on his arms.

The test subject raised an eyebrow. Whatever sympathy they had ever showed him had gone now.

"It's her," he whispered. "I knew her. I was... I was human. All of us. Oh God what did we do..."

His words ran out in uncomfortable silence.

Greatest thrill, not to kill
But to have the prize of the night
Hypocrite, wanna be friend
13th disciple, who betrayed me for nothing

All of them... humans? But how? How could they not remember something like that? Or did they just not care?

Nigel jumped to his feet. He was getting better at manually reading the sensors. He barely even swayed.
He dashed over to the drawers and began to flip through them. They were sorted by last name, not first but maybe...

Henrietta Charlotte Winther

Age: 27

Occupation: "musician /writer", store employee, out of work

Preferences: metal music, chocolate

Origin: 2nd generation Danish immigrant, Nysted, Nebraska, family location unclear, possibly dead

Strengths: mathematics and spatial tasks, highly organized, accurate execution of tasks

Weaknesses: rebellious, strong moral code, empathetic, too independent

Status: Oculocutaneous albinism, medium sight impairment

Conversion: Yes

There was a copy of a photo but the quality was so bad they might as well have tossed it. One could barely make out the outline of a round face with smooth hair falling past the person's shoulders. It was hard to tell where the head began and the hair ended, even the facial features were so faint they might as well not be there.

"I'm not a girl!", Henry hissed. His voice stabbed at Nigel's auditory processors. The silver core huffed, as if the file had insulted him on a personal level, and zipped off to the end of the room. "Fuck that!"

Strangely enough, he never told why he thought it was about him in the first place.
Nigel closed the folder and looked over to the test subject. He felt lightheaded, far away from this terrible body and his terrible choices and the guilt that was just waiting to pounce at him again. If the ground dropped from under his feet he might just float away.

"Did you find anything useful?"

Storm looked at him with an unreadable expression. "Let's get back to the core belt."
Nigel wanted to grab the file he had dismissed earlier, but the test subject had been faster. They only tossed him the walkman and marched through the door.

The test subject's coughing echoed through the corridor, a hollow, painful sound that made Nigel's throat itch just listening to it. The steps stuttered, then picked up again.

"Doesn't sound too good, eh?", Rick asked nervously. "Should we ch-"

Another cough, even louder this time, and a thump that made the walls vibrate.
Then, silence.