Part 2: Still Alive

"This is death. I'm dead, aren't I?" Wheatley's optic opened hesitantly, but he could see nothing. His surroundings were pitch black. "I didn't really think I'd be around to think about it. Figured I'd just… switch off, y'know? Being a machine and all. Didn't really think I had a soul to go anywhere. But I guess I am somewhere, huh? Wonder where somewhere is…" He had a sudden idea. "Hey! Maybe my flashlight still works! I mean I'm dead, but it feels like I've still got a body, and if I've got my body I've got my flashlight! Right?" He realized he was wasting time talking to no one. "Okay, here we go. Let's try this thing." He squeezed his optic shutters closed, concentrated hard—

And the light inside his core snapped on. Looking around by its illumination, he saw inky darkness to all sides, flecked with bits of detritus and the occasional stream of tiny bubbles. He felt a sudden stab of terror. "Oh god I'm underwater. I'm dead. I'm dead I'm dead." Any minute he'd feel water rushing through his hull, destroying his delicate and very non-waterproof system, any minute…

…Any minute…

After another few minutes of waiting, he wondered if maybe he was more waterproof than he'd thought. He wouldn't put it past the lab techs to lie to him about it—after all, they'd lied about everything else. So maybe he wasn't going to drown. Score one for Wheatley.

And then he noticed a soft, tuneless hum off to his right. The water warped it somewhat, but it sounded strangely familiar. "Hm-hm, hm-hmhm, in the water, went to water. Not in space. Big and wet. Lots of water. Not space."

Wheatley laughed in relief. "Space! You're okay!"

"Not space, not space. In the water." In the murky distance, he saw the yellow light of Space Sphere's optic turn to look at him. "Hey! Hey, Blue! Hey! Not in space!"

"That's right, we're not," Wheatley chuckled. He peered at their surroundings again. "Don't know where we are, but it's not space."

"Gooooing up. Up up up!"

"What?" But the Space Sphere was right—they were rising. Their cores must be buoyant somehow. Wherever they were, they'd be out of the water pretty soon.

He looked up towards their destination. It was just as dark above as below. Maybe they were in a cave? No, how would falling from the sky land them in a cave? Maybe it was nighttime. Yeah, that made more sense. But with his flashlight he'd be able to see something, at least. In fact, he could just make out the surface now—coming at them fast. "Here we go!"

As they bobbed up out of the water, the first thing he saw was the starry sky above. It made him shiver. The stars looked just as distant from space as they did from here—cold and distant and lonely. Floating around up there for the rest of his life was not something he wanted to think about.

Beside him, his companion was in awe at the sight. "Ooooooooooh…"

"Yeah, that's space again—"

"Oooooooocean…" But the Space Sphere wasn't looking at the stars. His optic was trained at surface level, gazing out across the vast body of water they'd landed in. "OCEAN! Ocean ocean ocean!"

"Actually not ocean. Lake, in fact." His internal GPS said they were somewhere in the waters of Lake Superior, whatever that meant. He could just make out a shoreline in the distance.

So what did that mean for him? He took a moment to fully assess the situation. Floating around in a lake forever was marginally better than floating around in space forever, he supposed, and he still had Space for company. That was something. And he was alive. That was… miraculous, actually. The fall hadn't killed him, the water hadn't killed him—he was more durable than he'd thought. Thank you, Aperture Science. Maybe he could still get through this.

Get through this to what?

He sighed. Life was so much more complicated without a management rail and orders to follow. Not that he'd been very good at following orders, but he tried. Now there were no instructions to follow, no authority figure to listen to—knocking about with her had been so much nicer, even if she was murderous and mute and crazy. She'd always known what to do. Even though he had no idea what went on in that squishy human brain, her solid determination had been a strange comfort. He wished she were here now.

But it's better that she isn't, I suppose. She wouldn't want to be around me anyway.

This was an unpleasant train of thought. He tried to shake it, but couldn't come up with anything else to think of. At last he looked up again at the stars. They were beautiful, in a cold and distant sort of way. Watching their sparkle on the surface of the lake made him feel… tranquil? Melancholy? Somewhere between the two—he couldn't quite find the right word. He hated not knowing the words for things.

The little sphere was uncharacteristically quiet as his optic stared out to the dark horizon. He was trying not to think.