Work Text:
Chapter 1
Buddy skipped through Aperture, carefree. It had been years since She had been shut down and buddy was finally free of her prison that she was kept in. Buddy often spent her days with Curiosity core, exploring parts of Aperture laboratories that the sphere's management rail couldn't reach. She liked hanging out with Curiosity, but today Buddy had a mission. Intelligence had sent her to find a missing sphere; Wheatley, he called him. When Buddy asked why he didn't go find the missing sphere, Intelligence just rolled his eyes. "I have much more important matters to attend to than babysitting a sphere who can't even go in a straight line." My eyebrows furrowed at this statement. "But… its not his fault if he doesn't go in a straight line. He hooked to his management rail so he can't-" "Its a metaphor, kid." He said, shooing the girl on her way.
So here she was, following this management trail to who knows where, when she bumped into a glass wall. Inside was a room full of boxes. Not cardboard boxes, like the ones they pack turrets in. Boxes like the one she used to be. Buddy looked into the room, then back up to the management rail, considering. "I was sent on a mission." She said to herself. "I can't abandon it." She started heading down past the room, but reconsidered it. "I wouldn't want to abandon them either. But Wheatley needs me! How do I know these guys aren't safe?" A memory flooded her mind as it had so many times.
She pressed the button. I turned to look from her to where it was connected. There was a picture of a flame behind a chute that was opening, an orange glow radiating from it. Then I looked back at her. Don't do it, I thought. Please, just don't do it. She hesitated for just a brief moment, then threw me down. Then, it was just falling. I wanted to scream, but I didn't have the lungs. Falling, falling. I tried reaching out but I couldn't. Falling, falling, falling. Then came that extreme heat. Just because I had been a box, didn't mean I didn't feel pain. And man did I feel pain.
She shook her head. She wouldn't let that happen to them. As Buddy opened the door to the room, she saw that there were much more boxes than she anticipated. There was no way she could save them all. But maybe if she saved one. Buddy pulled a cube out of the pile of boxes. That started a chain reaction of tumbling blocks, She grabbed it and ran. She got out of the way of the avalanche of falling cubes and ducked into safety. "It's okay." She whispered to the cube next to her. "I'm gonna get us out of here.