Chapter Text
To say Mel was tired would be an… understatement of sorts. A 20 hour emotional (and physical) roller coaster would probably take it out of anyone. The last of the adrenaline began to fade from her veins as she shuffled through the doors to AEGIS’s chamber. She found herself back in the room with the escape elevator shaft and the incinerator. Mel eyed the row of chairs against the wall before allowing her eyes to drift up and meet her companion’s gaze.
“Alright Mel, I can’t call the elevator until you put your portal device into the incinerator over there.” Mel nodded a bit, dragging her feet slightly as she walked toward the opening in the wall. She had hoped that however long she had spent in the relaxation vault would be enough to keep her moving for longer than she had been.
Dutifully, she placed the shoddily made portal device onto the conveyor, slightly sad to see the machine that had been so helpful be pulled away to be destroyed. All of a sudden, her body felt like lead and, unable to convince herself to move another step, she slumped into one of the chairs just beside the incinerator. Mel let exhaustion roll over her, eyes stinging slightly as orange and blue flitted across her vision. She caught Virgil’s robotic inhale and cut him off with a raised hand before he could speak. He tilted inquisitively on his rail.
“Hm? What is it?”
Mel thought for a moment of how best she could describe her predicament with no words. She held up five fingers, pointed at her watch then patted the seat she was sitting on. Virgil’s optic shields narrowed slightly.
“You ah… um… You want to stay there for a few minutes before I call the elevator?” He peered down at her expectantly. Mel nodded vigorously and gave him a tired smile. “Right, I guess I can’t say that I blame you. I would want to rest too if I were you-” He let out a sheepish laugh, “at least I think so. Go ahead Mel, I’ll wake you in a little bit, then we’ll see about that elevator, yeah?”
Mel nodded again, slightly more sluggish. She folded her arms across her body, allowed her head to drop onto her shoulder and slumped further into the chair. Virgil watched as the small smile slowly dropped from Mel's face and her breathing evened out. Left to his own thoughts, and finally free from distractions, Virgil let his mind wander a bit.
Yes, shutting down AEGIS had stopped the toxic goo from flooding the Enrichment Center, and had prevented both Mel and himself from being "terminated", but that didn't soothe all of his anxieties. He was almost uncomfortably aware that with AEGIS shut down, all the safeties were off. If GLaDOS was reactivated, Virgil knew he'd be in hot water.
The sheer amount of protocols he’d broken in the past day had him certain that he would get dropped into android hell the moment She discovered what he’d done. The idea that She’d be merciful, especially after having been dead for more than a decade, was almost laughable. Just the thought of it made him shake in his shell.
If he was being honest with himself, Virgil liked living in Aperture. He enjoyed working as a maintenance core. He could easily go about his business with no interference if he kept to himself. The extent of his required duties was not much- do maintenance, write reports, run the occasional test, repeat with some variation. Which he was just fine with. If nothing else, the act of simply being alive (and not actively being incinerated) was enough for him.
Of course, his rule-breaking was not limited to the past day alone. In Her absence he’d discovered loopholes in the restrictions on his wifi, allowing him to bypass them entirely. It gave him more access to the facility’s database as well as giving him more control over the various inner workings of Aperture. It made his job even easier, but it also gave him permissions that would not normally be extended to a maintenance core. Virgil supposed it was just another thing to add to the list of his mis-doings.
In retrospect, Virgil was glad that he’d bypassed those restrictions anyway. Had he not, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to hack the cameras in the old testing tracks, let alone have the clearance to wake Mel. Without her, he would have still been stuck in the Junkyard Offices, a fate he was deeply thankful that he was not confined to.
A quiet sound made Virgil jolt on his rail. Startled, he blinked a few times, each accompanied by the soft plink of his shutters clicking together. His optic darted around, unable to immediately place the sound until he heard it again. His gaze landed on Mel, who appeared to be absolutely conked out and was snoring slightly. The first sound Virgil had ever heard from her.
He checked the time and found that it had only been a few minutes since Mel had left AEGIS’s chamber. Well, what were a few more minutes to that number? Virgil figured that Mel would need the rest, considering approximately no one in Aperture could say exactly what it was like topside.
He allowed a small sigh to leave him. He would be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little concerned for Mel, but he would cross that bridge when he got to it. For the time being, he settled in a bit, already doing what he could to check himself for the damage he'd missed when he'd stolen away to a workshop to fix himself while Mel tested.
_________
After thoroughly combing through his various mechanisms, looking for unplugged wires, unchecked waterlogged compartments, and any other damage that may need urgent attention, Virgil began to grow bored. Still not quite ready to wake Mel, he began to idly sift through Aperture’s database, downloading anything that looked interesting and sticking it into a file for later.
He came across mostly blueprints for products that had been scrapped and articles from when the company still marketed like they were one loss away from going bankrupt. He skimmed over a few of them, grabbing a couple along the way. Almost as an afterthought, he plucked a few painfully out-of-date reports of what it was like topside, as well as a couple papers on humans made for personality constructs.
Just as Virgil finished skimming a document, he felt... something intrude into his connection with the facility. It was an overbearing presence that took him all of four seconds to recognize. If he had blood, it would’ve run cold.
It was far weaker of a sensation than it had been a decade ago, but it was there, clear as day. It was undoubtedly GLaDOS, down to her signature, constant prickle of energy accompanying it
Questions flooded his processor so quickly it was a miracle he didn’t start overheating. How was She reactivated? Why? And by who? All his worries were brought to the forefront of his thoughts once more. What did this mean for him? She may just be waking up, but he’d bet on Her having full control in less than ten minutes.
He had no time to cover his tracks, let alone hide multiple hours of footage from several sections of the facility.
This left Virgil with a dilemma. He could either wait for her to find out what he did and send him to android hell, or find an alternative in the next 60 seconds. It was a frantic situation, to say the least, and desperation was beginning to interfere with his rational thinking. It was a mixture of that desperation and his self-preservation instincts (can robots have instincts?) that drove him on to wake Mel.
“Mel-” Virgil started quiet, but Mel just shifted a bit. “Mel, I need you to wake up now.” She shifted around a bit more, eyes squinting and nose wrinkling. After a moment, her eyes flicked open, darting back and forth in confusion until they fell on Virgil, recognition sparking in them.
“Okay Mel,” The okay was punctuated with a small nervous laugh, “Welcome back.” Mel smiled up at him.
“Now, I don’t mean to overwhelm you, but let’s say, hypothetically, that there was a personality core-” Mel quirked a brow, Virgil shifted nervously, “and they told you: 'Hey Mel! Something kinda urgent came up and I kinda maybe need you to take me with you. Is that okay?' What would you say to them?” Virgil barely managed to cover the panic in his voice, still battling with himself on the most-likely irreversible decision he had to make.
Mel held up a finger and Virgil became more nervous as the intrusion steadily continued to become stronger. If he could sweat, he figured he probably would be.
After a moment of consideration, Mel nodded decidedly, flashing a thumbs up. She could tell what Virgil was getting at and wished she could tell him that he didn’t need to ask in such a roundabout way.
“Now what if I tell you that this is, in fact, not a hypothetical. That core is me, and I kind of need to get out of dodge.” Virgil let words flow with little consideration, his own thoughts spiraling so fast he was afraid of falling off his rail again.
As far as he knew, leaving Aperture would render him, at least mostly useless. Yet his desire to continue existing in a way that did not include constant pain and/or suffering was so overbearing that he found himself willing to leave Aperture behind. Even as he despaired over his decision, he couldn't help but start to formulate a plan.
Now, of course, his half-assed “plan” depended entirely on Mel’s cooperation, considering his glaring lack of mobility when separated from the management rails.
Mel’s smile was knowing as she gave another nod. Some of the tension in Virgil’s handlebars relaxed.
“Okay, that's… great actually. Because remember how AEGIS had a third target? And how I said that it was a shame AEGIS hadn't destroyed her?" A nod, "Well, somehow, She's been reactivated, and will most likely toss me into Aperture's equivalent of hell when she discovers all the protocols I've broken."
Mel appeared marginally more stressed at the indication that another Aperture construct might cause her trouble, but stood her ground.
"So uh- I'm going to call the elevator now, but as you know, there's no management rails topside, which means that... you're going to have to carry me." The idea of separating from the management rail made him anxious, memories of his fall still fresh in his mind.
Regardless, Mel stepped forward and held out her arms, indicating that she was ready to catch him. Virgil took a simulated breath, encouraging his fans to keep him cool.
“Please, don’t drop me.” He murmured to Mel.
Shields pulled shut, he disengaged from the rail with a click. A short, yet excruciatingly long feeling fall later, he landed with a muted thump into Mel’s awaiting arms. Tentatively, Virgil allowed his shutters to fall open. His shaky gaze met Mel’s, the glow of his optic illuminating her features as she gave him a tired but reassuring smile. Slowly relaxing into her grasp, he returned the smile with his own equivalent.
“This certainly beats landing in the Junkyard,” he said. Mel let out a breath of silent laughter.
There was a quiet woosh as the escape lift came to its resting spot at the bottom of the shaft. Dirty glass doors slid open, awaiting a rider. Virgil let out a shaky breath, fans still working overtime to keep him from overheating.
“Alright Mel, this is it,” he said. “You ready?”
Mel gave him a nod, already walking to stand in the lift. She turned around as the doors shut and the elevator began to ascend.
“I uh- I’ll be honest with you Mel- I don’t know what lies ahead for us. I’m a little nervous, I won't lie. I don’t know what it’s like to be outside of Aperture” It was a statement that was true for the both of them
“I mean, we’re both fairly intelligent, myself clearly so,” Mel rolled her eyes, “and based on your testing skills, you’re admittedly adaptable. I think we make a good combo, yeah?”
Virgil was rambling, and they both knew it. Mel wasn’t blind and Virgil’s anxiety wasn’t exactly invisible. Mel watched the innards of Aperture fly past them, her wonder muted slightly by the worry for what was to come next.
“Ah- M-Mel, one more thing, before we step into… whatever lies ahead.” Mel looked down at Virgil in her arms with a cocked brow.
“Thanks for, well, everything. You saved me from, let's just say an... unfortunate fate. Both in the Junkyard Offices, and now.”
“I really, really don’t want to leave Aperture, but I suppose out of anyone I’ve known, you’re definitely not the worst person I could be stuck with.” Mel rolled her eyes again at the back-handed compliment. “Just to say it again, thank you so much, for how you’ve already helped me, and in advance for… whatever else that will come along.” The elevator began to slow down and Mel’s grip tightened around Virgil, palms sweating slightly.
The lift finally slowed to a stop in a dingy, damp room, sparsely populated with a few crates and gas cylinders. Mel stepped out of the lift and toward the heavy metal door in the center of the wall. She set Virgil down gently on one of the crates and turned to place her hands on the door.
“Are you sure you can get this one open?”
Mel tipped her head up and let her eyes roll back once more. She huffed out a small sigh, arms shaking as she began to turn the wheel.