"I knew it! I knew she had to have something up her sleeve, I knew it was too good to be true! Saves me, brings me back here with all her little humany friends, makes out like she cares, bloody talks to me even, ohh, I knew it, knew she had to be planning something! And all that talk about my memories yesterday, well- well, that just goes to show she probably knew all along, didn't she? Surprised she could even keep a straight face, listening to me going on about my first memory back there, knowing it was all basically rubbish. Clever. Clever girl. Been playing me like- like some sort of, of really easy game. Ludo. Snap. Marbles. Playing me like a... a game of... marbles..."
Wheatley trailed off. He was curled up against the sofa, the lead in his hands, staring down through it into a world of his own. Whatever the scenery was like down there, in the sorry little dimension his mind was currently inhabiting, it probably wouldn't have made for a very attractive holiday brochure.
The bitter inner voice, the one that had so often been proved right and therefore had more confidence in itself than the rest of him put together, wouldn't be silenced. There was a horrible note of triumph in it, now, the smug I-told-you-so recklessness of something with nothing left to lose.
He could remember everything he'd dreamed since they'd left the facility, every scratchy, glitchy old human memory that being hurled into this new body had knocked loose, sent skittering into his head as he slept. He remembered her. The human- his mind cringed abjectly from the idea, pinioned like something clamped into a cage, desperate but unable to flinch away- the human he'd been- had known her.
Had wanted to-
And she'd probably seen everything, on her little screen there. She'd hooked his head up to this- thing, and she'd had a good old look. She'd probably seen it all, the whole lot, and just thinking about that made him feel sick and panicky and something else, harder to describe but something like rummaged through, his mind left carelessly open like a reference book she'd skimmed and tossed aside. It wasn't a good feeling- or, come to that, a new one.
"Just- just wasn't enough for her, was it? Not good enough me just telling her, about my memories, like she asked, ha, no, had to go and apply her tricky little human problem-solving brain. Probably thought, yeah, fair enough it looks like he's properly trying to remember, first memory and everything, but I know old Wheatley, can't trust a word he says, how about I just stroll in and have a look for myself?"
He twitched, the sick choking phantom feeling screwing itself up in what he had no reason to call his throat. He strangled the striped cord between his hands and curled up tighter, trying to overwrite it, trying to bring back the way he'd felt at the very end– that wonderfully blank, empty, painless feeling of being nothing.
"Why didn't she just-"
He stopped, his rising, cracking voice cutting itself off in mid-sentence. Another memory-
[why
why didn't she just
just hold on why didn't she pull me back in I COULD HAVE FIXED EVERYTHING I could
(space I'm in space)
blows up it'll be her own fault and good riddance I could have FIXED IT it would have been brilliant, it would have been a TRIUMPH if it hadn't been for her and her best potato buddy back there, and now I'm in BLOODY SPACE and what am I supposed to do now? What am I
(I'm in space)
she should have let go while I was still connected! Selfish! Selfish, arrogant, traitorous little- you know what, I bet they planned this, all along, the whole time! I bet She was in on it right from the start. Probably having a party, now. A Wahey-We-Got-Rid-Of-Wheatley party. You know, if I'd had a party I would have invited you, love! Because that's MANNERS! Oh, she's never going to hear me, is she? Not up here in bloody space.
