LaaC: Part Forty-Four - The Puzzle

Part Forty-Four.  The Puzzle

 

I can’t figure them out!

My mom acts like she doesn’t even like my dad, but she gets anxious when he’s not around.  She likes to pretend she’s not, but I’ve seen her.  Even if she’s working she’ll stop every now and then and lift her core, go through all the cameras until she finds him, and then continue working.  I’m not even sure anymore if she actually cares about him, but just thinks of him as some sort of possession of hers.  I don’t like that thought, I don’t like it at all, but it’s not common for her to demonstrate any caring at all.  And if I ask Dad about it, he just shrugs and says, “That’s how she is.”  He’s obviously okay with that, but I don’t know why.  I don’t like thinking this way, but… I don’t think she cares about him the way he thinks she does.  I mean, I don’t see everything they do, but… can they really do that much in private that would change my mind if I saw it?

I hope they do.

I don’t know what to think about it.  Dad doesn’t like that I’m trying to find them in books, but none of the books has anything like what they are.  And I’m sure that the people in the books are the ideal sort of couple, but none of them fight for pretty much half the day.  My mom and dad are always fighting about something, whether it’s about where Dad’s allowed to put his piece during a game of Payday or whether it’s about Mom not sleeping enough.  The second kind is the worst.  They’re not doing it for fun then, they’re doing it because both of them refuse to change their minds even a little, and those fights go on the longest.  But what’s weird is that Dad changed the way he fights with her.  He used to get really emotional and start yelling, and eventually he’d leave the room so that he could calm down, but now mostly he matches her as best he can: he looks her firmly in the optic, keeps his voice calm for the most part, and does not stop pushing his point home.  And he’s been winning the arguments more often, strangely enough.  It seems that if he makes Mom understand how serious he is about something, she’ll back down.  But right now, neither of them have budged. 

“You’re the one who decided you were gonna, uh, gonna sleep more, remember?” Dad says, still not looking away from her.  “Why’re you changing your mind all of a sudden?”

“Because I thought of something I have to do,” Mom says insistently.  “I can do it during the day or I can do it at night.  I was trying to be considerate, but apparently you don’t see it that way.”

“And what is this… thing you have to do,” Dad asks, a bit dully.  Mom looks away from him.

“It’s part of that thing I can’t tell you.”

“Oh.”  Now he sounds mad.  “That thing you said you were finished.  Turns out it’s not finished, is that it?”

“It was finished.  I thought of something I have to add to it, and the more I think about it the more I need to add it.”

“And what is it?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“Why not?” Dad shouts, chassis shaking.  “I do not understand what is, what is so important that you can’t tell me!”

“I can’t tell anyone, not just you.  If I talk about it, I might be heard, and that will be the end of… well, possibly everything.”

Dad just stares at her.   She shakes her core and bends to look at him seriously.  “Look.  I know that sounds insane.  But I’m not making it up.  It is truly a risk to tell anyone.  I told you before, every minute I think about it is a risk.  Wheatley,” she says, her voice a little softer, “do you really think I like giving you this answer every two days?  I don’t.  But you don’t know what the consequences will be, and I do.  I can’t tell you.  And if I think of ways to improve it, I’m going to act upon it.  I’m not doing this for fun.  It’s for our safety.”

“I don’t… it feels as though you don’t trust me enough to tell me, that’s all,” Dad says, looking at the floor.  Mom shakes her core again.

“It’s not you I don’t trust.”

“There’s no one else here!”

Mom just stares at him for a few seconds, and then she turns away.  This makes Dad really upset.

“What!  Am I crazy, am I nuts now?  There’re people here I don’t, haven’t got any awareness of?  Ghosts in the machine, is that it?  Maybe you ought to have fitted me with whatever crazy lens you’ve got on so I could see these wonderful people!”

“You’re not listening,” she says, in an even quieter voice.  “I want to tell you.  But I can’t.  And I wish you’d drop it.  I’m sick of fighting you about this.  I’m not going to tell you and I hope you never need to know.  If I have to lose sleep to pro – to make sure I’ve done everything I can, that’s what I’m going to do.  I already told you that if I could talk to you about it, I would.  This is one secret I would prefer not to keep to myself.  I asked you to trust me and you said that you would, and yet day after day proves that you don’t.”

“I do!” Dad protests, and Mom turns on him.

“Then why do you do this every day.”

“Because I want to make sure I’ve done ev’rything I can.  You said you were going to, to make more time to get that uh, that bad code out of you.  And now you’ve gone back to making it worse.  And I keep bringing it up because, because I’d rather fight with you ev’ry day about it than watch you fall apart because I didn’t try hard enough to, to convince you to stop.”

Now neither of them are looking at the other, and Mom in particular looks very tired.  “What a mess,” she says, sounding just as tired as she looks.  “This is going nowhere and it never will.  I cannot wait until tomorrow so we can do it all over again.”

“I’ll go for now,” Dad says, not sounding any better than her, “and you can, can uh, can get on it.  If I go then you don’t have to um, to send me away.”  He starts leaving, and I shrink back a little against the wall and hope he doesn’t see me.    

“Wheatley, I don’t…”

“Don’t what?” he asks, turning to look at her. 

“Never mind.”

“What’s the point?” he snaps.  “What’s the point in asking you anything?”

“You’re making this far harder than it needs to be.”

“No, you are.”  He rounds on her, his optic plates narrowed.  “You’re the one being all secretive.  You’re the one who’s all ‘I wish I could tell you’, ‘it’s for your own good’, ‘I wish I didn’t have to do this’, and yet, but you’re the only one who can change any of that!  And you don’t!”

“I don’t want this,” Mom tells him, and now she’s getting angry.  “And I can’t change it.  Why do you not listen?”

“Oh, so now I’m the bad guy, is that it?  You cause the problem and it’s my fault?  Again?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’re thinking it!”

“If you were half as good at reading minds as you think you are, you would obviously know that I did not think that.  But maybe now I do.  Since you’re volunteering, it seems you want to be the bad guy.”  She shakes her core.  “Whatever that means.”

“You’re supposed to be clever!  Figure it out!”

“Why don’t you leave, and come back when you’ve remembered how not to be a total imbecile,” Mom snaps, turning away.  “I have things to do and no time to argue with little idiots over things I’ve already made quite clear.” 

“Come back?” Dad splutters.  “Why would I want to come back?”

“Don’t ask me.  I don’t want to damage my brain by forcing it to think at your level.”

I don’t get it.  She says the same things to him when she’s mad as when she’s not.  How can Dad tell whether she’s kidding or trying to hurt him?

“I’ve had enough,” Dad says, shaking his chassis.  “Fine.  I won’t care about, about whether you’re damaging yourself or not.  And why should I?  You obviously don’t.”

“Wheatley,” Mom says, suddenly sounding a lot less hostile, but Dad’s not listening anymore and he leaves, seeming not to notice me. 

Well, Mom’s got work to do and Dad’s pretty angry.  That leaves the co-op bots for me to hang out with today.  I wanted to try to figure Mom and Dad out, but since they’ve had one of those fights I really can’t, since he won’t be back to see her for hours. 

As I head down to the test chamber Atlas and P-body are using today, I go over the argument a little.  They’ve had that one before.  Now that I think of it, a lot of their arguments are over Mom not taking care of herself.  That’s… weird.  Why wouldn’t she want to do that?  Is work that much more important? 

And that’s part of what I don’t get.  They have a fight like that at least once a week.  Sometimes it’s about me, which I hate, but one of them usually gets the panels or the bots or someone to distract me so that I don’t hear it.  And I mean… I like them together, because when they’re doing well they’re pretty cool, but… with all of those differences, how did they even get together in the first place?

Is it because they’re the only two here?  But if that was it, wouldn’t Mom have just built more bots?  If she really wanted to she could have built herself some other guy, and Dad some other girl.  And there wouldn’t be any of that stupid fighting.  I stop and think about that for a minute.  What about when I grow up?  Maybe I’ll just build a guy that I like instead of hoping one’ll drop out of nowhere.  I’ll know exactly what I want, right?  He’ll be everything I want him to be.  I don’t know what that is yet, but I will eventually.

I dunno.  Now that I think about it… it doesn’t sound like that good of an idea after all.  I mean, it seems pretty great… but if I just built him to be everything I wanted, then how much of him is him?  Building the perfect construct sounds kinda like… building a slave.  And that’s kind of sad.

When I find Atlas and P-body, they’re playing this version of… well, I wanna say basketball, but as far as I know it only has one hoop, and they throw the ball through portals.  I watch them for a few minutes, and then I ask, “Why did Mom build you, guys?  Do you remember?  Or… did she tell you, I guess?”

We remember, Atlas chirps, bouncing the Edgeless Safety Cube off P-body’s core.  For testing.

And missions! P-body adds, running after the Cube and missing Atlas by inches with it.  Very dangerous missions.

“What missions?” I ask.  I haven’t heard anything about this.

The Human Vault, P-body says reverently, and Atlas nods with a serious air.  And The Nemesis.

“Those sound pretty mysterious,” I say, hoping they’ll tell me more.  “Were you ever afraid you were gonna die?”

Die? Atlas laughs, snatching the Cube out of P-body’s hand and throwing it through the orange portal.  No.  As long as the Central Core is around, we are in no danger.

She said she couldn’t reassemble us that time, remember? P-body says, poking him in the optic.  He closes the shields on her finger, apparently pretty hard because she starts squealing and waving it around.  She said the reassembly machine was broken.

You didn’t believe that, did you? Atlas chides her, going after the Cube again.  There is nothing the Central Core can’t fix, Orange.  She was probably trying to make it sound more dangerous so it would be more fun. 

I don’t know, Blue, P-body says worriedly, not even chasing him this time.  She seemed pretty serious about it. 

“Why are you calling each other that?” I cut in.  “You have names.”

We like the nicknames the Central Core gave us better, Atlas says, bouncing the Cube off P-body again.  She snatches it up and throws it at him so hard his Core comes out of his chassis.  He starts yelling as he rolls across the room, and P-body just stands there and laughs at him.  When he’s finally got himself reassembled, he shakes his Core a little and goes on, She called us something else, once… do you remember, Orange?

Marshmallows! P-body says gleefully, picking up her portal gun and placing two more portals.  She said we were marshmallows.

Oh yes!  Atlas takes up the Cube and squints at her portals, as if trying to figure out what game she’s trying to play without asking her.  Marshmallows.  We all know who’s really a marshmallow, don’t we, Orange?  And they both start giggling at each other.  I frown.

“What?”

Don’t tell her, Atlas whispers, and P-body puts one of her three fingers below her optic.  But we know that she is a marshmallow. 

The biggest, fluffiest marshmallow of them all! P-body squeals, and they both start laughing again.  I have no idea what they’re talking about.  My mom?  A marshmallow?  Have they seen her lately?  I must be missing something.

“Uh, I don’t think so, guys,” I tell them, shaking my chassis.  “She’s definitely not a marshmallow.”

Yes she is, they say in unison, which makes them start laughing all over again. 

“Are we talking about the same person?”

Yes, P-body answers.  The Central Core.

The Marshmallow Core, Atlas whispers, nudging her, and they apparently think this is just as funny as everything else.  I roll my optic.  “But she built you to test and then made you test.  Didn’t that make you mad?”

Now they stop laughing and glance at each other.  We liked testing for her, P-body chirps, shrugging. 

And missions, Atlas adds.  We liked those too.

We don’t know why she stopped, but we would like it if she sent us out again.

You might not know what it feels like, Atlas goes on, rewrapping his fingers around the handgrip of his gun, but it is odd, no longer doing what you were made to do.

Do you have a purpose? P-body asks me suddenly, and they both look up at me with intense interest.  I shrug a little uncomfortably. 

“What does that mean?”

You know, Atlas says, waving his free hand emphatically.  A purpose.  A directive.

The thing that’s your absolute favourite thing to do in all the world.

“I don’t think we have those,” I tell them, confused.  Atlas tilts his head.

Who is ‘we’?

“Me.  My m… the Central Core.  And my Dad.”

They do, P-body nods.  They have them.

We’re not sure what Wheatley’s is.  But the Central Core has the same purpose we do.

“But that doesn’t make any sense!  If her… purpose is to test, then why did she stop testing you?”

She needs humans to test, P-body says, a little sadly.  We are perfect for testing, so she cannot test us.

“Huh?”

We never fail, Atlas explains.  We never make the same mistake twice, and we never give up.

Perfection provides no results, P-body says, nodding.  So we can’t be tested.  She looks at the floor.  I feel sorry for her sometimes.

“Why?”  Why would you feel sorry for someone who has everything?

It is hard, Atlas says gently, as if I’m a little kid again and he needs to spell something out to me.  Not being able to carry out your directive can be sort of…

... painful, P-body finishes.  When Atlas nods to that, she goes on, We don’t think about it much.  Sometimes when we’re talking about old times.  But she has to think about it all the time.  Because her brain is so big, you see.  I can’t imagine what that feels like, she finishes sadly, and Atlas puts his arm around her shoulder assembly as best he can with the height difference and gives her a squeeze.

Sometimes when we start to think about it, we can’t stop, Atlas continues.  All we can think about is testing. 

“She did that to you!” I tell them.  “Just… tell her to undo it!  You don’t have to go through that!”  And it’s cruel of her, really, to build them that way if it bothers her so much!

We will not ask her, P-body says solemnly.  This is how we were made and this is how we will be.

Us marshmallows have to stick together, Atlas agrees.

“But why?” I ask, moving closer.  “Why are you so… so… so loyal to her?  Does she even pay attention to you anymore?”

Of course, P-body answers.  We talk to her all the time.  But she is very busy and her time is very valuable, so we try not to waste it.

“She built you!” I tell them forcefully.  “If she doesn’t like that you want to talk to her, she shouldn’t have done that!”

They look at each other for a long moment.

Sometimes we feel like that, Atlas tells me.  But we know that we were built when she didn’t know any better, and we don’t blame her.  I suppose we could get angry with her, but that wouldn’t fix anything.

We forgive her for it, because we are glad we exist.  We do miss her sometimes.  But we know if we really want to see her, she is not far away.  P-body closes her fingers around Atlas’s and smiles at him.  And she built me a best friend, so it mostly doesn’t bother me.

Atlas squeezes her fingers and then lunges over to hug her, and she squeals and falls over.  They start wrestling, which ends after Atlas accidentally pulls one of P-body’s fingers off.  She cries out a little but doesn’t let the pain affect her otherwise.  Atlas looks at the finger thoughtfully.

Actually, now we can show you something, he says, waving it at me.  Come with us.

What the heck can he show me that involves a yanked-off finger?

We all make the trip back to Mom’s chamber, and when they get within a few feet of her they stand and wait for her to notice them.  They could be waiting a very long time.  My mom likes ignoring people until she’s made the point that she’s busy and doesn’t want bothered.  Weirdly enough, she doesn’t make them wait that long.  “What do you two imbeciles want?” she asks them, irritated.  Atlas shows her P-body’s finger. 

I pulled it off by mistake, he says, gesturing at P-body and her sparking hand.  We were wrestling and –

“I don’t need a play-by-play,” Mom interrupts.  “Give it to me.”

He hands her the finger and P-body holds out her hand, which my mom bends over and inspects.  “You must do this a lot,” she remarks, bringing out a maintenance arm.  “It looks like you’ve been punching him, Orange.  I’m just going to replace your whole hand.  Try not to damage this one.”  And with that she just removes P-body’s hand, replacing it within a couple of minutes.  I still don’t know how she gets anything done with those huge maintenance arms she has, but I’ve seen her install capacitors I can hardly see with them.  With a spray of sparks from her welder, she moves away.  “There.  Now you can go back to your roughhousing.”

Actually, Atlas interjects, stepping forward, we wanted to do something else.

“And I need to know about it why?”

We want to test, Central Core! P-body chirps.  Mom freezes.

“Why would you want to do that.”

It’s fun, Atlas says.  It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?

“Yes,” Mom answers slowly.  “I suppose I can… whip up a few chambers for you.  Since you’re going to the trouble of asking.  Go and get your portal devices, and when you come back I’ll send you into the track.”

Thank you! they say in unison, waving and scampering out. 

“Did you want to go in with them?”

I blink in surprise, because I hadn’t realised she knew I was there.  And I’m about to say yes, because I’ve always wanted to test.  But I’m an adult now.  I can’t do stuff like that anymore. 

But she’s asking me.  If she’s asking, that means it’s okay… right?  Or is that a trick question?  Is she testing me?  If I say yes, is that the wrong answer?

I guess… I gotta say no, then.

“No thanks,” I tell her, even though I really don’t want to.  “I’ll just watch.”

She turns away from me.  “Caroline, why didn’t you tell me this would happen,” she mutters.

“Why didn’t I tell you what would happen?”

“I’m not talking to you,” she snaps. 

“There’s no one else here.”  It’s times like these that I wonder if she’s all there.

“I know that.”

“Then why are you – “ Ohhh.  That Caroline.  I narrow my optic plates in her direction.  “Why are you talking to Caroline?  She’s not here, is she?”

“No, she is not,” my mom answers in a very flat, controlled voice. 

“Then why are you talking to her?”

“I’m not.”

“You just did!”

“I wasn’t literally talking to her.  I was talking to myself.”

“You’re crazy,” I mutter to myself.  She is, she really is.  She was talking to herself and talking to Caroline, who doesn’t exist, all at the same time?  She whirls on me.

“I am not crazy.  Just because you lack understanding does not mean my sanity is in question.”    

“I thought you had work to do!” Dad exclaims, staring at her indignantly.  “Now you’re, you’ve got the co-op bots in there, and, and you’ve Caroline over here… look, Gladys, if you just don’t want me around, just say so!  Don’t make things up.”

“I didn’t!” Mom snarls at him.  “I don’t know what Caroline is doing here.  As for them, they decided they wanted to test all of a sudden.  I granted their request.  Anything else you want to yell at me for?  On second thought, never mind.  I’m not in the mood.  But if people do not stop arguing with me we are all going to regret it.  As unlikely as it sounds, the only ones not disappointing me at the moment are Orange and Blue.”

“That’s not very nice,” Dad says quietly.

“I’m not feeling very nice.”

“Luv, we need to talk about earlier, alright?  Now that um, now that we’ve all calmed down, and – “

“If I appear to have calmed down to you, I assure you now it’s an illusion on your part.  I am not calm at all.”

“I just want to fix things –“

“And so would I, if I weren’t so angry right now.  You all need to leave me alone.  There are too many people asking for my attention right now, and quite honestly I don’t want to give it to any of you.  Just leave me be.  Before I do something we all regret.”

“Gladys, I just… don’t want to give this time to get any worse.”

She looks at him, still seeming very tired.

“It won’t.  Just… please leave me be.  You have no idea how hard it is for me to remain civil right now.”

“Of course I do,” Dad says softly. 

“Then why are you still here.”

“I hate walking away from fights.”

Mom sighs.

“I know you do,” she says quietly.  “But I’m just going to make things worse right now.  So just let me do my job and we’ll fix it later.  I know you don’t want to stew over it anymore.  Unless you want another fight, however, it’s best you leave.”

“If you spent as much time on, on us, as you do work we’d be perfect by now,” Dad grumbles, turning around, and Mom starts laughing.

“Don’t be stupid.  We are perfect.”

“Why?  Because you’re my better half?  Your perfection cancels out my overwhelming failures?  Something along those lines?” Dad asks dryly.  She shakes her core.

“Yes, we fight a lot.  But does it really matter?  We’re going to disagree on things.  That’s what happens when two people are as different as we are.  I’ve already told you.  As long as we work it out by the end of the day, everything will be fine.  And we always do.  So I’m far from concerned.”

“Fine,” Dad concedes.  “You win.  Again.  I’ll come back… some other time.”

“Give me a couple of hours.  Then I’ll be far enough along that it won’t bother me as much, and then – are you two seriously – you ask to test and then you go and pull stunts like this!  Though I suppose if you’d asked if you could annoy me for a few hours I would have said no.  So congratulations.  You tricked me.  Can you stop throwing the Cubes into the acid for no reason now?”

“Oh my God,” Dad says, laughing, “they never change, do they!”

“No one ever does around here,” Mom mutters.  “I have to do all the work.”

“Now what did we discuss yesterday?” Dad chides her, though he doesn’t look mad. 

“Shut up.  I’m trying to be indignant and that doesn’t help.”

“Can we just… fix things now?  Please?  You’re pretty uh, you’re distracted and not working at all so um, so I think you’ve time.”  He moves closer and gives her his best pleading look.  She relents, turning to face him.

“Fine.  What.”

“I’m just looking out for you, luv!” Dad says.  “You know it’s good for you, to uh, to let Maintenance do its thing so, so just… come on.  Send me away during the day if you have to, alright?  Don’t… don’t burn yourself out just because um, because you don’t want to… to get rid of me for awhile.”

“As long as you understand that I’m not doing it that way to keep secrets.  I don’t want to have to tell you again that if I could reveal it to you, I would.”

“I’ll try to remember that.”  He smiles at her.  “We good now?”

She nods and he rushes up to her for a cuddle, which she allows.  “That’s all I wanted,” he tells her quietly.  “Just wanted to sort things out.  I’ll go now so you can, so you can work.”  And he leaves just as quickly as he’d arrived, and… and if I’m reading her right, Mom looks… like she doesn’t want him to go. 

I’m probably wrong.  They’re going to start fighting as soon as he comes back, after all.  I leave as well, because I don’t want her to find something at fault with me, and when Atlas and P-body are done testing I go back to her chamber.  Sure enough, she and my dad are arguing over how much money she owes him in that Monopoly game that never ends.  I’m pretty sure even my dad has figured out how to play by now. 

“What – it’s only an extra fifty,” Dad presses, as if he can go against my mom, the living calculator, and win this sort of argument.  “And, and you’ve all that money anyway, so what difference does it make, hm?”

“None, other than the fact that I’m going to have to take your side of the board eventually anyway.  So it doesn’t matter if I overpay you right now, because you’re going to have all of my properties within fifteen minutes.”

“Or… we could just… save time and do it now,” Dad suggests, slowly pushing at the corner of the board nearest him, and Mom starts laughing.

“We could do that.  Or maybe you could learn how to play this game.”

“I think my way’s better,” he says quickly.  “Here!  I’ll uh, I’ll help you move your stuff, luv.”

“You’re a hopeless little idiot, you know that?” Mom tells him, surprisingly fondly. 

“And you wouldn’t have me any other way.”  He gives her an exaggerated wink and starts moving the pieces on the board around.

“I’m not so sure about that,” she says dryly, moving one of the houses before he can get to it.  “I might find it in myself to… cope with a more intelligent you.”

“See, there?  You said cope.  Cope means that uh, that you wouldn’t even like that kind of, of me.  You’d be wishing the real me’d come back!  You’re lucky, you know, that I’m figuring all these things out for you.  Otherwise uh, you’d make a terrible mistake.”

“I might,” Mom says, swapping his dog for her boat, “but then again, I might not.”

I don’t know how they do it.  Six hours ago they were yelling at each other.  Now they’re goofing around again. 

I still can’t figure out whether Mom cares about Dad, or whether he’s just here because she’s got no other choice.  Because it honestly could swing either way, most of the time. 

But how do you figure something like that out?