The Rebirth of Aperture Radio part 3

Sleep mode was much different from normal human sleep It was like blacking out completely. There was no gently drifting off involved. It was just blackness and then the process would start. It most of the time consisted of an 8 bit video game cores could play in her head while the rest of their body filed away data ran simple calculations and recharged for a period of time. Cores were actually still lucid during sleep mode. They could answer and respond to questions and preform simple tasks.

Socee's sleep mode however had been compromised. images and memories would come flooding in her head. Kind of like dreaming only much more chaotic. It was like a nightmare or memories and events but not so much scary just panicked. Moving and whirling images sounds of voices she hadn't heard in ages all exploding in the darkness and churning around her senses.

There was a time when her sleep mode was much more peaceful. Now it was a terrible mess and Socee came out of it feeling more exhausted. She could barely ever recall exactly what fragments of her memory were being  replayed and distorted but there was always one image that stood out in her mind when she came out of the chaos. That circular logo burned into her memories no matter what. Dripping red and other colors Destroying everything it touched. Closing around her neck like a noose and choking her completely until….

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

Socee was startled out of her charging cycle. She fell off of the EQ table flailing her arms about wildly. She hit the ground with a thump.

"Are you okay, Socee? That seemed like quite a fall." Wheatley inquired.

"Yeah I'm fine it was just a little spill-" Socee stopped short. She hadn't hit her com or heard the ringing like normal. The source of Wheatley's voice was coming from somewhere else. She flipped herself over onto her back and looked up at the celling. There was a bright new monitor with two giant pairs of blue eye watching  her.

"You should consider going to sleep mode in a safer position. That table is kinda high." Wheatley instructed.

"High it's like four feet off of the ground. But besides that, want to tell why the hell is your face plastered on my wall?"

"Oh the monitor! You noticed that huh?"

"Kinda hard not to."

"I had it installed last night."

"Why?"

"Well because of two reasons: there should not be a place in this lab I can't see and I couldn't see into your station at all."

"And the other reason is…"

"I was worried about you. When I tried to talk to you again a little later last night you were nearly completely unresponsive. And when you did respond you were saying things like 'No, Don't touch me. Get away off of me.' Worse of all I couldn't get you out of sleep mode. I was afraid you wouldn't wake up."

"Oh. I didn't know that was happening."  She just assumed that the compromised sleep mode hadn't effected any of her other functions.

"Is sleep mode still normal for you on your end then?"

"Um, yeah it's fine, just fine." She lied. She didn't want to worry him any more right now.

"Well whatever it is the diagnostic will figure it out." Wheatley affirmed.

"Oh no, You're not still on this bloody diagnostic kick are you?" Socee stood up and walked over to the wall and entered her motion password into one of the many circles. The cabinet opened and she once again began picking through albums to queue for the day or at least for the time she might be gone running errands.

"Yes I am. It's obvious you need one bad. So as soon as you get done starting your broadcast get down here pronto so I can escort you to the diagnostic area." He informed.

"Escort me? I'm having a little trouble responding in sleep mode, I'm not completely broken down."

"Yes but I don't trust you enough to go down without trying to run away." He sneered. Socee sat down the stack of records on the EQ table and picked up her broadcasting microphone. She moved the switches and slides back into their normal position in order to increase the volume again.

"Well, I won't run away because I'm not going to your little painfest. Now pipe down will you? I have radio show to run." She sneered back. She flipped the main switch and the Chimes rung through Aperture once more.

DING! DONG! DING! DONG!

"Good morning my beloved listening public! Welcome to another edition of Aperture radio!"

Chell had been up for a while. Socee made good on her promise to make sure she didn't have cake for breakfast. Well mostly. It was pancakes but at least they were served with the bacon they'd found the day prior. Chell once again sat cross legged in her bed and ate. She knew she'd have a long day of testing ahead so she relished calm moments like this. The bacon was slightly burnt on the edges but she didn't mind. Wheatley had seemed so excited to tell her of this new addition to her breakfast. It was becoming more apparent to her that he really did take joy in knowing that she was happy and comfortable and in turn that made her sort of happy. It was nice to be thought of and cared for.

When Chell heard the chimes she got out of the bed and put the plate of left overs back into the dumb waiter. Wheatley instructed her that when the broadcast started she should start making her way down to the testing track. Socee's voice came over as loud and chipper as ever. She seemed to never be out of energy. Chell exited her room and started for the track mentally preparing herself the whole way there.

"Listen, guys I know pretty much everyone listening has a long and hard day ahead of them right now." Socee started.

"So how about I play some real jamming music to get you through this morning? That sound like a good idea? You don't have to respond, I know it's a good idea. So let's get started shall we. Right Now we have the Gap band and one of my all-time favorite singles 'Early in the Morning'! If this doesn't get your gears in go nothing will." She put the record in place and once again let the music start pulsing through the lab. Electric guitar riffs and keyboards blared through the lab once again giving it new life.

"Right. Now that you're done making sure everyone listening has hearing damage, are you ready to go?"

"I thought I made it perfectly clear, I wasn't going to that concentration camp you call a diagnostic center."

"Listen, I know in the past the center has gotten a pretty awful reputation. But like I said before I will be there every step of the way to make sure all is well. So will you just come down?"

"Hmmm." Socee put her hand on her chin as if she was thinking. Wheatley waited intently for her reply.

"No. The only way you'll get me down to the torture center is if you drag me out of this station." She declared folding her arms on her chest.

Wheatley sighed heavily. She watched his giant blue eye roll on the screen.

"Is that your final answer?"

"Yes it is." She grinned smugly. She was too busy sassing off the monitor that she didn't notice the wires worming their way up from underneath the EQ board from the hatch. They gently snaked around Socee's ankles.

"Fine then. You brought this on yourself." The wires pulled tight around Socee's calves and brought her down to the floor in one swift yank. Socee looked up from where she had fallen and looked back at her legs. The wires were steadily pulling her under the EQ board and into the lair.

"OH you low down dirty son of a bit-" Socee was abruptly cut down from her insult as the wires jerked harder nearly dragging her completely into the lair. Socee's nails dug into the floor scratching it up as she was pulled in deeper. It was slowing her down quite a bit  but her nails broke off into the floor with a metallic crack and she was hurdled under the EQ table, through the hatch down the catwalk and stairs and finally off of the last bit of the catwalk. She dangled upside down in the lair nearly forty feet above the ground. A giant palm came between her and the view of the floor. The wires un round from her legs and she landed with a plop into Wheatley's hand which then closed around her.

"Right, now let's be off shall we. Unless you have any more qualms."

"You make me sick." She spat.

Wheatley ignored what she had said with a little smirk and began to stomp off toward the diagnostic center.

"The least you could do is let me walk there myself." She moaned. A large panel in the lair slid open allowing Wheatley to pass through into long large corridors.

"I was going to but then you had to go and make an ass out of yourself. Now you pipe down for a second. I have to give Chell her instructions for this test."

Chell waited expectantly at the test track. The monitor should be coming on any second now.

"Ah, hello! Good morning, love. Did you sleep well?" The screen beamed at her. Chell nodded and gave a tiny smile.

"Good. Unfortunately our good friend and sister Sociopath core did not have as successful a sleep cycle so I am taking her to the diagnostic bay to be fixed up." He informed.

"Don't tell her all my bloody business!" Socee whined.

"Is she going to be okay?" Chell inquired.

"Oh yes she'll be totally fine. All of it is routine. Though the way she's acting you'd think she was being marched to her death. But anyways, this next test should be a bit more challenging for you. But just do your best. I'm sure you'll be great." He complimented.

"Wheatley and Chell sitting in a tree. K-i-s-s-i-n-OW!" Wheatley had bobbed Socee on her head with his thumb.

Chell had leaped off head first into the test portal gun in hand determined to survive another day. Wheatley watched  her on while still escorting Socee to the diagnostic center. They'd been walking for a while now and Socee was actually glad to have Wheatley caring her. It would have been a pain to have walked here on her own. Finally they reached the cradle of life for all cores. AI enrichment center. All the cores who were ever built started out their lives here.

This part of the lab was extremely important. It held back up data of core's personalities, files on cores behaviors, traits and histories of every core living or dead. Each core had there one special section in this large room devoted strictly to them. All of the sections contained the same thing. A large computer running code, a small file cabinet, and of course the diagnostic chamber which took up most of the space. All of these sections were stacked up on top of each other against the wall. Catwalks ran horizontal allowing  you to walk on one level at a time. Elevators moved up and down perpendicular to the catwalks so you could visit sections bellow it.

"Doesn't this place bring back memories?" Wheatley smiled.

"Yeah traumatizing ones." She retorted.

They kept walking until Wheatley located Socee's section.

"Here we go! Now let me turn on the lights for you." The screen on her computer was cracked but it continued to run code despite of it and the file cabinet was barely recognizable and all of its contents were gone.

"What happened here?" Wheatley question as he gently placed Socee into her section.

"No clue." Socee lied effortlessly. Socee faced the diagnostic center. It was like a carwash. All of its appendages were hidden just beneath the white walls.

"Well what are you waiting for? Go ahead and step inside." Socee sighed and entered the car wash of doom. As soon as she stepped in she was strapped to a large moving panel that had seemingly come out of nowhere. It started moving her forward through an array of scanning lasers.

"Alright, mate! I am monitoring your diagnostic right now! These scans are just making sure that you are the Sociopath core before the assessment begins. After that a software update will start, then finally your droid well be scanned for any damage and be repaired thusly. Easy as one, two three." He explained.

"Why doesn't that make me feel any better?" she grumbled. After the laser confirmed her identity wires snaked from out of the celling and plugged into various ports on Socee's person.

"Oh, ah! These things are freezing." She shivered. Socee started to feel a bit more relaxed as the wires started to play around in her mind and interface.

"Wow you have a lot of new software that's being installed right now. How long has it been since you got yourself updated?"

"It's not polite to ask a woman such questions." She offered as a reply.  She was there for quite a few minutes before Wheatley spoke again.

"Software update is nearly completed. Now it's going to check your corruption levels." Socee's slightly relaxed were feelings ended as soon as a very large wire snaked up and plugged into her center optic where her core was.

"Corruption test?"

"Yeah. So um listen you are at about 19 percent corruption by my readings. So that giant wire is gonna start running a program to fix that. Here's the thing though. With my new and vast intellect I've been meaning to get around to figure out a way to make this part of the diagnostic less painful, but unfortunately never got a chance to tackle that problem. So I suggest you grab something because this is probably going to be the worst pain you'll ever experience." He warned.

Socee didn't get a chance to brace herself as the wire sent corruption destroying software into her body. The pain pulsed and ravaged her. It felt like something was being ripped from body over and over again. Socee let out a terrible shriek that echoed throughout the AI center.

"Well at least we know your pain sensors are working right. Um, so that pain you are feeling is every part of your software being scrutinized and then rearranged. Don't worry, love it'll be over in a moment."  But the pain seemed to go on much longer than a few moments. It felt hours of endless suffering. But eventually it did end. The relief came in sweet sweeping waves.

"There now your software update is finished! See besides the soul crushing pain of corruption removal that wasn't too awful." Socee didn't respond. Her mind was fried at the moment. Green lasers started scanning her now as the panel moved forward to the next part of the diagnostic.

"Now comes the physical! This shouldn't hurt at all. Unless you've suffered any major falls or collisions recently- and wow that's really awesome, love good job."

"What are you talking about? Am I in the clear for the physical?" Socee questioned.

"Oh sorry, I was talking to Chell just then! She finished one of her new tests. You however are completely out of sorts. It's like you got run into a wall by a truck!" he exclaimed.

"What? How could that have…." Socee trailed off. The Freezer. She thought to herself.  She should have known she wasn't going to take a hit like that and get away Scott free. Now the bigger parts of the diagnostic center unfolded themselves from under the wall. Large arms with pointy things at the end, big sharp things that sparked with electricity, and even a blow torch all pointed themselves in Socee's direction eager to take her apart and reassemble her.

"Well this isn't going to be as painful as the corruption removal but it's still going to smart quite a bit let me tell you."

"You know I'm really starting to think you only put me through this just so you could watch me be in pain. Is this pay back for all those years of pranks?" Socee accused.

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm doing this to make sure you are running smoothly. Now you may want to take a deep breath because the repairs are about to start." He instructed. All the arms lunged at Socee as she closed her eyes tightly. The arms whirled and clicks and clanked and banged as they all did their work replacing and repairing every single damaged part. It burned and tickled and itched and every other unpleasant sensation possible.

The panel moved to the end of the diagnostic center. It released Socee from her restraints. She stumbled on to the ground feeling worse for wear.

"Now you're all done. Oh here's a little message I'm supposed to read to you. 'Thank you for using the diagnostic center her at Aperture labs. Your diagnostic was successful and you are now operating at optimum capacity. However some operations may be disabled. This should wear off eventually. Please feel free to come again for normal maintenance or emergency repairs. Now please exit out through the door in front of you and have a lovely day'" He finished reading. Socee stumbled toward the exit swaying in her walk.

The door slid open and she found herself back in one of the office areas of the lab.

"Oh joy, it's the land of cubicles and broken dreams. I didn't think there was any way this place could be more depressing" Socee rolled her eyes. She always hated this part of the lab.

"Oh it's very good that you landed here! This your first assignment! Alright there's a crew of nano bots in this section and they are working on a fallen column in here. I need you to supervise their progress and make sure they remain on task. Can you see the column?" Socee squinted and in the distance she saw a large mass lying on top of and crushing some desks.

"Yeah I think I see it." She nodded.

"Good now be off. " He dismissed her. Socee began to walk through the office. It was almost like a grave yard. People's personal effects still left strewn across the floor. The song in the radio had finally switched to Katy's Perry "Hot and Cold". Socee herself wasn't a huge fan of the artist but she figured the pop jam would keep the tempo of the day and she had to admit it was catchy. She once again stepped I time to the music while humming along.

"You're hot and you're cold. You're yes and you're no." she sang gently. Socee could hear buzzing over the sound of the music as she made her way to the nano bots. They must've been working feverishly to fix this huge column.   She was now at the edge of where the column had fell. It was covered in potato plants that had managed to sneak their way into the little cracks and grow big enough until the top part of the column finally cracked and toppled. The nano bots had been eating away at the column slowly and rebuilding it molecule by molecule.

"Oh! You have got to be kidding me! I have to watch them pick this thing a part one atom at a time!?" she screamed.

"I am not sticking around for this!" she fumed as began to stomp away. She started to bring up her map but it wasn't working. An error message popped up in its place.

"Navigational systems offline." The message read.

"Oh fine! I'll find my own way out of this hell!" She growled as she stomped off into the collection cubicles.

Meanwhile Chell had just managed to blast through 4 more tests and now stood waiting before the door of the fifth one. Wheatley would have to be coming on the monitor soon. In the meantime Chell re tied the braces on her legs. Some strands of hair were falling front of her face and eyes so she looked into the reflective surface of the portal gun to try and tuck the strands away but to no avail. Finally she just reached for her pony tail and undid the little tie. Her hair fell in waves of russet each strand caught glowing in the artificial light. She shook it out about before pulling it back and retying it.

"I never noticed how pretty you look with your hair down." Chell looked to the screen. It was on and Wheatley was staring down at her with wide eyes as if he was stuck in a trance. Chell felt blood rushing to her cheeks. She looked away from the screen. She couldn't maintain eye contact because she was so embarrassed. No one had called her pretty before. In fact she was used to hearing the exact opposite.

"Sorry didn't mean to stare. That's very rude of me but um let's just move on to the next test."

"Wait I wanted to ask if Socee is okay?" she said.

"Oh she's fine. She made a huge fuss about going there though. She's never been fond of doctors or anything of the like. She's paranoid about them. She once broke with a guy just because he was in med school. It's just one of her many 'quirks.'" He accented his statement with air quotes.

"She is a bit of a character." Chell conceded. "She is very nice though, for the most part. Why did you never talk about her before?"

"Well to be completely honest her existence was erased from my memory. So I didn't know of her to tell you about her."

"How can you remember her now if she was erased from your memories?"

"Well data can never be really gotten rid of permanently even when it's deleted. It always exists in some form or another. When you recover it it's like it was never gone at all. But that is all very technical and boring. I'm sure you don't want to hear about all of it." He trailed off.

"it's funny if you think about it. If would have just left like we were planning to, Socee would have been locked in that room forever. So it's kind of a positive that we stayed behind. So that's a plus, right. We wouldn't want her to be all by her lonesome for all time." Wheatley offered. Chell merely stared at him sadly.

"Alright listen, I know you must still be harboring a lot of pent up resentment for that stunt I pulled weeks ago. You'd be right to by the way. That is a very appropriate way to respond to being betrayed. But as Socee and her little song so eloquently explained last night is that I am truly sorry for doing all of this. I just got so angry  and then  she  started making all those wild accusations it was just something that got too far out of hand. Can you ever forgive me?" He begged. Chell seemed unsure. It wasn't that easy get over what he did. But Wheatley was waiting for an answer.

"I could but it will take some time." she offered. Wheatley smiled sort of sadly.

"Right I understand. Just take your time. It's not like we need to rush or anything. None of us are going anywhere." He chuckled nervously.

"Right." she said bitterly.

"Now how about that test. Are you ready?" he said putting enthusiasm back into his voice.

"Yeah sure." she sighed gripping her portal gun.

"Good, let's get back on the ball then!" He beamed.

Socee was stomping through the offices angrily. She flipped over chairs and threw desks and knocked over the frail walls that separated the cubicles. She'd been trying to leave this area of the lab for thirty minutes or 17 songs by her count. It was okay the queue was handling everything well. Pink sung about raising glasses and Socee never wanted a drink so bad in her life.  

Socee never realized how completely dependent she was upon her navigations until now. Finding her way out this maze was nearly impossible and every few minutes or so she'd end right back at the fallen column and the nano bots. Around the fifth time is when she really began to get frustrated.

"Every time I think I'm even remotely close to leaving this place I come right back here." she fumed. She locked at the nano bots progress. They'd to recover 3 more inches of the fifteen foot pillar.

"And you bloody things! Could you be any slower!? I mean you're a swarm of bloody machines. You're supposed to do things faster than humans! A human would had this done ages ago. How does that make you feel? You are more incompetent than a human!" she ranted. Socee turned away from the nano bots in a huff.

"Ugh, now I'm insulting microscopic particles. They can't even hear me the whelps." She put her hand to her head in defeat.

"Fine, I'll just wait till my navigations get back up. I suppose there's no real rush." she looked to the file cabinets.

"Might be some useful information to keep me occupied for a bit." she decided. Socee grabbed one of the smaller cabinets and drug it behind her to the nearest intact cubicle. She walked around its walls to the chair pulled it from under the desk and plopped herself down into its cushion. She then undid the latch on the file cabinet, pulled open the drawer, pulled out a random manila folder, and began to read.

"Oh personal background information." she said excitedly as she flipped open the folder. Even her chest optic opened wide to catch a glimpse of someone's private affairs. Wheatley use to get on to her all the time about being so nosy and being interested in others business. He also used to get on to her about her excessive swearing, and drinking but those behaviors certainly hadn't stopped. Besides ,these people were long dead.

"Someone was on the down low. Naughty boy." she chuckled to herself. Aperture kept a very detailed record of their employees and test subjects. Most average files were as thick as a Nat Geo magazine and contained just as glossy depictions of moments in people's lives. Some of things you didn't want to see or know about in person you had a professional relationship with. If ever you saw a PR represented leering at another employee from across the way you knew that poor PR rep had seen the darkest side of that employee's life and he was disturbed by what he saw. So rumors became very huge at Aperture and Socee loved to be in the middle of it often using the radio station as a method of spreading, confirming, and starting new rumors. Chell her co host would act like she didn't want to take any part of it but she was just as eager to hear about the new dirt at the office too.

Those were the good old days. Well as good as they could be. Socee found that she had stopped actually reading and had blacked out into into sleep mode somehow. It was fine though nothing had really changed.

I wonder if they would have had an employee file on Chell? she thought. By all technical accounts she did work here. And she had an Aperture ID badge so she could get into the building. They didn't give those out without doing back ground checks. I should try and- BUZZ!

A large noise like bees interrupted her train of thought. She looked from the ceiling to see a cloud of nano bots hovering over her.

"Oh, it's you." she said putting down the file. "What do you want?"

BUZZ! BUZZ! They offered as a reply.

"Are you finished with that column!? Impossible." She stood up from the chair and leaned over the cubicle's back wall. The column was back in its proper place standing tall.

"How long have I been out?" Socee exclaimed in horror. She had no real since of time and there was no daylight to tell by anymore.

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ! The swarm moved around agitatedly.

"What do you want? I have bigger problems at the moment." she whined. The bots flew off toward the pillar then back to Socee then back to the pillar and back to Socee.

"Oh you want me to get a closer look. Fine." she rolled her eyes and hoisted herself over the cubicle wall. She made her way to the column with the nano bots egging her along.

"Alright! I'm here." she stood before the pillar which stood back at its full glory. "You guys did a very good job. Okay can I go now?"

BUZZ!

"Right." Socee rolled her eyes again. She turned around and began to walk away to the rhythm of "Moves like Jagger". That was much further down on the queue than the last song she'd heard. She felt a bit panicked now.  

CRACK!

A sharp noise cut through the air. Socee turned back around to the nano bots to see what happened.

"Now what are you up-" To her horror the pillar was falling and Socee was right in the path of its landing. She quickly dove to the left before the pillar could crush her. The column landed with a thud stirring up a cloud of dust around Socee. As it cleared she looked to the place where the pillar had stood. Nano bots had swarmed around the base and the top.

"You! You did that on purpose!" she realized.  "What's your deal!?" she fumed.

BUZZ! BUZZ! The cloud just reformed into one mass unable to offer Socee a proper explanation about the attempt on her life. Socee stood up and dusted off her blazer.

"Well whatever the reason you pulled that little stunt it didn't work. Now what are gonna do you miserable insects?" she smirked.

BUZZ! BUZZ! BUZZ!</i>

The cloud angrily swarmed around the fallen column and within seconds reduced its entire mass to dust on the ground. Socee recognized in terror that the nano bots were planning to do the same thing to her.

"Oh, well that's a nice party trick. Very effective. But if you excuse me I must be going." Socee slowly backed away from the aggressing swarm before finally just breaking out in a sprint.

Oh great! What another fine mess I've gotten myself into! Now how Am I gonna survive this one?