When Live Gives You Lemons

The boss had asked for combustible lemons. So it was time to get to work.

A short one-shot based on the scene from the second Portal musical 2017 production by Geekenders.

It had been about 2 months ago when Wheatley first came to work at Aperture Science. He was just an intern and he got saddled up with all the stupid little chores, like making coffee and cleaning. He was officially placed in the archives where his common job was to order the files. But the scientists liked to get him to do some little side quests every now and then.

His job wasn't important and though he was verily sure he could handle something that asked a bit more responsibility from him then making sure the papers with the letter A came before the B, but his co-workers thought he was in his rightful place. Because he somehow managed to screw up all of his tasks. He couldn't get the files done just right and always ended up putting the N's before the M's and forgetting the W's didn't come before, but after the V's. Or he would accidentally drop all his organized paperwork and had to work overtime to get them all back in order.

And even the things where he hadn't been hired for to begin with, he couldn't do them right. He managed to break the copy machine, breaking the coffee machine and even breaking his who farted?-cup multiple times. Every time he had to get his superiors a drink, there always was a long trail of brown, spilled coffee in the hallways where he'd run back to the office, holding onto the cup for dear life as not to spill too much. Though his coffee refills always ended up half empty once he'd made it to his destination, even though he had filled it to the rim.

And today the same things had happened again. Wheatley was sure he'd pushed the right buttons for once, but still the copy machine had started to make this buzzing noise and started to smoke. He had lost two files on his way to the office, spilled coffee, forgot to hand in his reports, spilled more coffee and to top it all off he sat on top of his glasses. They now had one big crack on the left side and it cut his vision in two, dizzying, unequal halves.

He was now sitting inside his slightly claustrophobically small office, with his elbows prompt on top of his desk and his chin resting on his arms. Wheatley stared at the brownish, paper cup that had been for one of his co-workers, but he decided to let it be since there was nothing more than a little bottom left in it to drink.

He rubbed his tired eyes with the palm of his hands and sighted. Maybe this office-like work was nothing for him. He wasn't a scientist, he wasn't a doctor, he wasn't even a full-time employee! What was he even doing here anyways? His job didn't pay that good for him to want to stay. He was just a waste of everybody's time here.

Wheatley glanced up at the sound of the intercom switching on.

''Cave Johnson here. It's been a while since our last announcement, so I figured a good old update on our work so far would be a great way to bring everybody back in their working spirits.'' There fell an awkward, long silence. ''um.... l-llamas. They're proud, majestic, cheap on the black market. And Aperture just bought twenty thousand of them due to an accounting error. Oh god.''

The announcement was cut short as the intercom abruptly fell into silence once again. Wheatley, who had only be listening to it with semi-attention, leant back in his office chair. The wheels peeped in protest as he slightly rolled backwards. He picked up the paper cup, tapped on it with his fingers in a repetitive drum of boredom before tossing it towards the trashcan in the corner of the room. Of course he missed and the cup bounced off the edge of the plastic basket and then fell on the floor. Groaning tiredly, he pushed himself out of his chair to pick it up and throw it away normally.

''Alright, I've been thinking.'' Cave's voice spoke up again after a little while. ''When life gives you lemons. Don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! I don't want your damn lemons, what am I supposed to do with these? Demand to see life's manager. Make life rue the day it thought it could give Cave Johnson lemons! Do you know who I am? I'm the man who's going to burn your house down! With the lemons! I'm going to get my engineers to invent a combustible lemon that burns your house DOWN!''