WHEATLEY (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
testgasm) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ataraxionlogs2012-05-28 01:28 am
testgasm) wrote in ataraxionlogs2012-05-28 01:28 am
Entry tags:
wait, what if this hurts? what if it really hurts?
CHARACTERS: Wheatley, Cave Johnson, Dirk Strider, special guest star John Watson (BBC) possibly maybe?
LOCATION: Meanwhile, in the Science Department...
WARNINGS: We can't stop here. This is medical horror country. Seriously, blood and a giant needle right off the bat. TREAD WITH CAUTION.
SUMMARY:TEAM SCIENCE thinks it is a very good idea to try and shove a person into a robot.
NOTES: SPOILER ALERT it is not a good idea.
The lack of concrete day and night in space didn't really bother someone who'd spent nearly all of his existence in an underground lab (where the passage of time was anyone's guess), but he waited until the ship settled for what was presumably the evening anyway. A circadian rhythm was still a bit foreign--he slept when this body got tired, whether on schedule with the other passengers or not. His irregularities were, perhaps, advantageous in that sense. This wasn't something he wanted to do with humans about--they made him nervous, kicked his anxieties into overdrive, and seeing as he was already anxious about most things, the relative quiet of their pseudo-night seemed ideal.
Wheatley knew it was a bad idea. The tiny, ever-present voice in the back of his mind that fed him a constant, needling maybe you aren't as smart as you think you are was back at it, and this time it was hard to ignore.
But there was something on the ship, and the last thing he wanted to be was squishy and inefficient and mortal and he was becoming impatient. Half a year was more than enough, and he'd been slowly realizing that if he didn't take some initiative, nothing would happen. Wheatley had thought about holding off, waiting another jump, waiting for HAL to get back (if HAL was coming back), but his restlessness was getting the better of him. That fear toxin, he thought, was the tipping point. He was sick of this body, sick of the ship, sick of waiting, and his so-called friend wasn't even the person (the AI) Wheatley thought he was, anymore.
He didn't care if Cave was there or not. He'd do it himself.
Which was, of course, the plan, and he found himself inspecting their equipment (assembled almost entirely from spare parts), flicking switches on the devices and monitors, as if delaying what he knew was the inevitable. They'd done the best they could given the resources, and even though Wheatley didn't know what Cave had built, exactly, he knew where the wires were supposed to go, what they was supposed to do. How hard could it be?
Hooking up the robotic shell Dirk had constructed was easy enough--it was the other end of the cords that made him nervous, a strange, cobbled-together marriage of a plug and a thick, sinister-looking needle swiped from Medbay. The most injury he'd ever experienced was the odd punch, but he didn't need a thorough understanding of the human pain spectrum to know this was going to hurt. This was not going to be simple, or pleasant, so it would be best to do it as quickly as possible, before he had a chance to change his mind.
Unzipping his jumpsuit and clumsily tying the arms around his waist successfully killed a few moments, but soon enough he was staring down the needle again. Wheatley inhaled deeply, squeezed his eyes shut, and positioned the device at the base of his skull, angling it upward and feeling the sharp tip against his hairline. Then, repeating over and over to himself that he needed out of this body, he couldn't stay in it any longer, he needed out--he pushed.
And if there was anyone working late in the science department (perhaps an executive), they would certainly find the resulting shout difficult to ignore.
LOCATION: Meanwhile, in the Science Department...
WARNINGS: We can't stop here. This is medical horror country. Seriously, blood and a giant needle right off the bat. TREAD WITH CAUTION.
SUMMARY:TEAM SCIENCE thinks it is a very good idea to try and shove a person into a robot.
NOTES: SPOILER ALERT it is not a good idea.
The lack of concrete day and night in space didn't really bother someone who'd spent nearly all of his existence in an underground lab (where the passage of time was anyone's guess), but he waited until the ship settled for what was presumably the evening anyway. A circadian rhythm was still a bit foreign--he slept when this body got tired, whether on schedule with the other passengers or not. His irregularities were, perhaps, advantageous in that sense. This wasn't something he wanted to do with humans about--they made him nervous, kicked his anxieties into overdrive, and seeing as he was already anxious about most things, the relative quiet of their pseudo-night seemed ideal.
Wheatley knew it was a bad idea. The tiny, ever-present voice in the back of his mind that fed him a constant, needling maybe you aren't as smart as you think you are was back at it, and this time it was hard to ignore.
But there was something on the ship, and the last thing he wanted to be was squishy and inefficient and mortal and he was becoming impatient. Half a year was more than enough, and he'd been slowly realizing that if he didn't take some initiative, nothing would happen. Wheatley had thought about holding off, waiting another jump, waiting for HAL to get back (if HAL was coming back), but his restlessness was getting the better of him. That fear toxin, he thought, was the tipping point. He was sick of this body, sick of the ship, sick of waiting, and his so-called friend wasn't even the person (the AI) Wheatley thought he was, anymore.
He didn't care if Cave was there or not. He'd do it himself.
Which was, of course, the plan, and he found himself inspecting their equipment (assembled almost entirely from spare parts), flicking switches on the devices and monitors, as if delaying what he knew was the inevitable. They'd done the best they could given the resources, and even though Wheatley didn't know what Cave had built, exactly, he knew where the wires were supposed to go, what they was supposed to do. How hard could it be?
Hooking up the robotic shell Dirk had constructed was easy enough--it was the other end of the cords that made him nervous, a strange, cobbled-together marriage of a plug and a thick, sinister-looking needle swiped from Medbay. The most injury he'd ever experienced was the odd punch, but he didn't need a thorough understanding of the human pain spectrum to know this was going to hurt. This was not going to be simple, or pleasant, so it would be best to do it as quickly as possible, before he had a chance to change his mind.
Unzipping his jumpsuit and clumsily tying the arms around his waist successfully killed a few moments, but soon enough he was staring down the needle again. Wheatley inhaled deeply, squeezed his eyes shut, and positioned the device at the base of his skull, angling it upward and feeling the sharp tip against his hairline. Then, repeating over and over to himself that he needed out of this body, he couldn't stay in it any longer, he needed out--he pushed.
And if there was anyone working late in the science department (perhaps an executive), they would certainly find the resulting shout difficult to ignore.
no subject
He was snoring.
Mumbling about chariots.
Dreaming of science. Screaming... science?
It took a few moments for his addled consciousness to register the obvious: 1) Fell asleep in the science shop again. Damn. 2) Experiments have proven time and time again that falling asleep in the science shop will result in aching backs, possibly blue-prints stuck to one's cheek. This was true. Damn. 3) And finally...
"What the hell...?!"
Lights, sparks, and screaming was coming from the far side of the department--undoubtedly that was Wheatley. Undoubtedly that sounded like the drilling needle of the incomplete brain machine. Undoubtedly, whatever was happening was dangerous.
To Cave, that was just exciting. In a flash, he spun out of his chair, ambled into a sprint. It soon became clear that Wheatley was his... own perpetrator of pain? It was difficult to see the blood in the dim lighting of the Tranquility's "night", not that it would change Cave's expression much from abrupt confusion.
"What the hell are you doing?"
no subject
Staying quiet, however, was another matter entirely. The other hand flew instantly to his mouth and he bit down, trying to muffle his cry of shock, another human instinct that he didn't plan for. This kind of pain, this stabbing, incomprehensible pressure was more than enough to elicit a familiar choking noise and the telltale sting in the corners of his eyes that went with it.
Blinking past the white-hot lines that crisscrossed his sight, he gave the plug another shove and this time it was impossible to stifle the anguished growl that ripped from his throat as his teeth dug into his own fist. The sound was something he didn't even know he could make; an animal snarl, a wordless expletive that encompassed six months of poorly concealed frustration and pent-up rage against the human body. It was almost unbelievable how even as he drove the needle further, this revolting organic prison rejected his actions, threatened to give out on him right in the middle of it.
He could do it. He needed to do it. This was the hardest part, and once he was through, the payoff would be more than worth it. No proper mechanical body without a little bit of risk no pain no gain why don't you marry safe science if you love it so much--
"Mister Johnson--"
The words were a sob, and all at once he noticed that he'd stopped pushing and sunk to the floor, Cave standing above him, without any knowledge of how or when the CEO arrived. Wheatley couldn't tell how far he'd managed to insert the damned thing, but through his blurred, watery vision he could see his hands were covered in blood and he could feel it, warm and sticky in his hair.
"I'm...I want to run the transfer," he managed, as if it wasn't obvious. His chest heaved, limbs and shoulders visibly shuddering, the instrument half-lodged in the back of his head. "I'm doing it...right now. Is it--is it in?"
no subject
"Easy there..." Cave stepped forward, quickly shoving his palms under his arm pits and hoisted him into a seated position over the machine. The kid was weak and mostly dead weight, but relatively easy for Cave to move. When Cave pulled his hands back, they were about as red as Wheatley's.
To his inquiry... "Ahm--hold that thought." Peered around his head. Noted, the wobbling instrument and myriad of wired sticking out he back of his bloodied skull. "Yes and no."
This had bad idea written all over it.
There were no bad ideas in science.
"Look, I admire your enthusiasm kid--I really do--but you can't just go shoving yourself into brain transferring machines when they aren't ready yet." Cave was more upset that this could have missed out on all this. This could have happened all while he was sleeping.
no subject
The last thing he expected was for Cave to tell him no. The man had always seemed so gung-ho, so forward and cavalier, so why not. To be told no, that it wasn't ready, was not on Wheatley's agenda. He'd already gone and jammed the apparatus halfway into his squishy human brain, and now Cave was going to tell him no.
"Not…ready," he parroted weakly, dazed, as if he didn't understand what was being said. "It's not--it has to be, I'm ready, I--"
He hadn't spent the entire evening mentally preparing himself for Mister NO SAFE SCIENCE AT ALL EVER to figuratively (and perhaps literally) pull the plug for another god-knew-how-long. And he knew it didn't make sense for him to decide if the machine was ready or not, but any voices of reason--Cave's, HAL's, his own--had long been swallowed up by desperation.
"Call Dirk." One of Wheatley's hands fumbled for his communicator while the other worked to push his glasses back onto his face. "I'm...calling Dirk."
I miss edit sob.
And so, it was happening. This was SCIENCE COUNTRY we couldn't go back now! Safety was not guaranteed, much less it wasn't even a part of the equation to begin with. The kid knew that already, so no need for disclaimers. The irritability was short lived as Cave swept himself to the side and the computer screens; pressing buttons and calibrating controls, leaving a trail of bloody finger smudges as he worked.
After a series of clacks and clicks and ensuring everything was set to record this monumental and very experimental data, the machine dinged almost pleasantly.
"Now, I'm ready." Ready to jam that sucker in there and see what happened.
And maybe Dirk. But only maybe.
I forgive you
With that out of the way, he concentrated his energies on not passing out. The throbbing, though still present, was subsiding, or at the very least, becoming less excruciating. Touching the plug sent the stabbing pain through the back of his head, and he very nearly cried out again, knowing that the device was only halfway to its destination.
Sitting on top of the whirring, flashing machine was not necessarily where he wanted to be, but he supposed he was lucky enough that Cave would go through with it, after all. He swallowed hard, fixing his eyes on the core Dirk had built, still finding it difficult to look at, an approximation of what he'd been, only lifeless and unmoving without him inside it.
"We should...wait for him," he said finally, tearing his gaze away. "And if you could. Help. With this. I tried doing it myself, but..."
Wheatley trailed off at that, knowing his effort was more than obvious, if only because he'd gone and bled everywhere.
no subject
Dirk hadn't really been sleeping when he noticed Wheatley's message which was something like, "We are doing it, man," but not verbatim. Ok then. As he began heading to the science department, he started wondering about the message cause he was pretty sure that the maniac Cave hadn't finished the machine yet. Speaking of which, that transfer device just seemed unreal. As in, it literally looked like a thing that should never have happened because it was too primitive or implausible or something. Whatever, it wasn't as if Dirk knew about that shit because robots were his deal, and he'd already delivered his part of the project.
He slowed from flashstepping to brisk walk to casual saunter just outside the science department before strolling on in to find...
What the hell? If he were perhaps a more expressive person, his disapproval would be written all over his face. But he's Dirk Strider and therefore managed to keep his Strider cool even in the face of what pretty much looked like a failing attempt at euthanasia.
Man, look at all that blood and that hideous plug stabbed halfway into the back of Wheatley's neck. Dirk wondered if even part of that probe actually reached the kid's brain. If not, he'd probably wind up responsible for making sure that it did so. Fuck, he was starting to get cold feet because he really wasn't sure he could do something like this even to an AI. Wheatley was currently human and could feel that pain just like any other human would.
Still. No pain, no gain. If this thing actually worked, then Wheatley would be transferred into his robo-body. The end justified the means, but it didn't mean that Dirk didn't inwardly feel sick about it.
"Sup. What'd you need."
no subject
Wheatley's first instinct was to stand and greet the new arrival, but his body had other plans, forcing him back down on the machine almost immediately, to say nothing of the way the cords tugged sharply at the back of his neck. Not a good plan.
So he stayed put, trying to appear much less nervous and addled and in pain than he really was.
"I sort of...thought maybe you'd want to be here. For this."
And also in the event things went Horribly Wrong. Not that things would go Horribly Wrong.
no subject
"Stand over here," He instructed to Dirk, and gestured to the myriad of computer screens with flashing red boxes, errors and digital mumbo jumbo Cave, frankly, would rather not look at if he could help it. "and tell me when that little screen starts flashing green."
He'd much rather get his hands on some science and make it happen. As best as he could roll his bloody sleeves up, he positioned himself behind Wheatley. "And you? Tell me when the pain stops, if you experience any hallucinations, lack of motor control, or if you're about to pass out from blood loss. I'm sure we can find some spare blood around here somewhere but a little advanced notice would be great."
This was it. Do or die. If this worked, Cave could eventually pour himself into a computer and be the first man (or first Cave) to cheat death. Digitally. What that meant for Wheatley was a whole lot of pain, as one hand clamped on his forehead as a brace, and the other hovered near the back of his head.
"Ready?"
Ready or not, Cave was pushing that needle in.
no subject
There wasn't much he could do by way of movement once Cave secured his head, but his eyes flicked upward to meet Dirk's, all the while trying to look more confident than he actually felt. Unable to hold the gaze for more than a few moments, his face fell, focusing instead on the strange, counter-intuitive appendages that, despite their obvious design flaws, were very good at holding things.
He would miss hands, he thought.
Hands were, however, only a small upside to an entire world of inconveniences, and he knew that if he could make it through the procedure, everything would be so much better. Just had to...weather pain, hallucinations, lack of motor control, and loss of consciousness, apparently. Suddenly he did not feel so sure about any of this.
Which of course, meant that his vocal chords would start working again, almost against his will, simply because it was a bad idea to provide Cave with an affirmative answer. "Yes."
And then, as an afterthought: "Please."
no subject
and jammed it in.
/sobs Sorry for the super-late, was so tired and not around for a while D:
He moved toward the multitude of screens and noted the cartoonish flashing red boxes, X's, and "Do Not Proceed" symbols before glancing back at Wheatley and almost feeling sorry. Almost. Because he's Dirk Strider and knew that Wheatley wanted this so badly, regardless of Cave's outdated credentials. Nothing short of failure would stop them from pushing the experiment forward, and who was to say they wouldn't just try again in the future? Even if this did stop them, it might not be long before they simply try again.
The only thing that Dirk felt sorry for was being complicit enough in this nonsense to have his name attached in some way, shape, or form.
Fuck.
Anyway, the screens continued flashing with all sorts of blatant pop-up warnings indicating that they should abort, that imminent failure was at hand, that something Horribly Wrong™ was about to happen. Then Wheatley confirmed that he wanted to go through with this, but Cave probably would've assumed the fucking position and jammed that shit deep into the kid even if he hadn't answered at all.
... Man, that had to hurt.
no subject
The good thing, he supposed, was that the hard part was over, even if the hard part had left him gasping and shaking and bleeding atop the transfer machine, throat sore from the scream he barely registered. And through it all, the mantra of stay conscious.
It was easier said than done, and when the stabbing pain subsided to a dull throbbing, he found it a struggle to keep his eyes open.
"I'm okay," he managed, more of a drawn-out moan than actual words. "Do it, please, just get on with it."
no subject
For science.
Dirk was absolutely right. Ready or not, Cave was doing this. With the needle/drill firmly planted in where it was supposed to, evident by a dull
hollowthunk as it reached it's maximum entry point into Wheatley's brain, he barked the order, grinning with excitement.Go head Dirk, hit that flashing green button on the screen. Let's see what this baby can do.
"Hit it!"
no subject
Then again, it was highly possible that Wheatley couldn't actually register anything at all. Anything other than pain, that was. Man, why am I actually part of this thing? Dirk wondered before Cave finally gave the word.
"Got it."
That was probably the last thing Cave heard before something very cleanly knocked him hard to the floor. Nope, that wasn't Dirk doing a flashstep thing and clubbing Cave with fancy Santa. Ok, maybe it was. A desperate time called for a desperate measure, and Dirk wasn't particularly fond of the idea that Wheatley might die on his watch.
He could always tell Cave that the science was truly overwhelming or whatever. The guy probably wouldn't know what hit him.
He then turned his attention to Wheatley, who was clearly in A Very Bad State™. If he pulled that needle-plug out, the AI-guy was gonna bleed to death. Gotta get him to the medbay. But carefully. As much as possible, anyone suffering from that kind of injury shouldn't be moved at all. But this was an emergency, and Dirk had to get Wheatley out of the science department. Out of Cave's reach.
no subject
Cave didn't know what hit him.
He of course, presumed it was the result of some excellent science.
no subject
"No--no, wait, no nono, what are you doing?"
He'd already come this far, already gone and jammed a plug straight into his brain. He wasn't about to stop now just because Cave was floored for some inexplicable reason and Dirk was hesitating.
"What are you waiting for?"
This was what he got, he supposed, for putting the execution of the transfer in the hands of humans, humans that didn't understand what this was even like how desperate he was, how badly he needed this procedure to happen now. If Dirk wasn't going to hit the go, he'd have to do it himself.
Somehow he was standing (albeit leaning heavily on the machine), holding his arms out defensively and inching towards the main computer screen, hands tight around the cable that trailed behind him, trying to alleviate the pull at the back of his neck.
"Dirk, we--we can't stop now, I need to--just--let me. Please."
no subject
Dammit, he didn't want to hit the button in case it'd make Wheatley's head explode. That was just way too risky, and where would they be afterward? In any case, Dirk was already coming up with a back-up plan should Wheatley still want to go through with it. He could push the button and flashstep sever the cable to hopefully minimize some of the damage. Or he could sever the cable before Wheatley could notice and then hit the fucking button.
"So you're sure you want me to hit it? I mean, no hard feelings if your head explodes or whatever, right?"
no subject
Another step, another yank of the cable and he paused, wincing.
"I don't--I don't know what you did to Mister Johnson, but you've got--you've got no idea what this is like, for me."
And how could he? Dirk had never been forcibly removed from his body, uploaded to a foreign platform, stripped of the familiar protocols and reference programming that allowed him to function properly. Dirk didn't know what it was like to have familiar responses, artificial emotional simulations suddenly become real and visceral. It was more than anything organic could possibly comprehend.
Wheatley was vaguely aware that his quirks and mannerisms were often more easily identified with humans than machines, and since arriving on the Tranquility, wasn't a stranger to reminding others of what he really was.
"I'm a computer program, Dirk. I can't--I can't stay like this, I'm not cut out for it."
no subject
The auto-responder prided himself on being glasses. He was always going on and on about some shit about multi-tasking. Talked big about the supercomputer algorithms that Dirk himself wrote up and made shitty jokes about numeric percentages and calculations and whatever. Sure, maybe Wheatley was stupid, but that didn't discount him from a similar kind of pride and joy for being the robot that he was. And Dirk here had promised and already delivered the body. So there was only one thing left to do.
Right now, Dirk seriously pitied the AI. You were a computer program, he thought. But he was pretty sure that even though Wheatley's mind was very much made of programmed computer algorithms, his body was very much human.
The pain that Wheatley would feel was likely exponential to any that Dirk had ever felt in his life, and Dirk wanted to protect him from that if only he could.
Well, there was no point in trying to reason any longer.
"Alright." His hand came down on the button. Hard.
"I warned you, man."