Rat man

Doug had known that working at Aperture Science had been a bad idea, but his therapist had insisted that his concerns were more to do with his latest schizophrenic episode than with any reasonable concern.

It was also partly due to the fact that he didn't like being away from his little girl for most of the day. Chell was his angel, his saving grace. His wife would have been so proud to see how she had grown to become so much like her, mischievous and tenacious.

He looked forlornly out of the window of the coach as he commuted to work, thinking of Chell, and the tasks that lay ahead that day. He had been put to work on their new project straight away, and though it took his mind successfully away from his wife for a few hours, Chell's face as he left each morning stuck with him.

GLaDOS was the project that had his entire department's devotion, a new type of machine on the razor edge of modern science. 'She' was meant to be the first truly sentient, completely artificial life form; the work of over fifty of the world's brightest and morally lax scientists.

She was magnificent.

She was terrifying.

She also had her heart set on killing each and every one of them.

"You missed all the fun; we had to hit the kill switch on her again today" Called his one friend from a control pedestal, a wide grin splitting his face.

"I don't see why that should be cause for such glee Henry." Doug stated disapprovingly as he climbed the steps to join his colleague.

"I do believe, Douglas, that we have gone over this before."

It was true. Doug had argued before with Henry about his chirpy optimism, to no avail. He was simply convinced that this was to be the scientific breakthrough of the century, Doug on the other hand knew better; if anything was going to come from GLaDOS, it was more likely to involve some sort of disaster.

Doug, distracted by work, shrugged, tapped a few buttons and collected data before he had to go back to his lab, muttering to himself the entire time as he always did.

"Hey." Henry said as Doug turned to go, "How's your pet project going? Wheatley, right?"

He stopped, and smiled to himself,

"He is going to be great."

Wheatley was the answer to an important question: How does one clog up her circuits and confuse her murderous streak without detracting from her abilities and intelligence?

Wheatley had not been the first attempt; the prototype had been a small computer core that filled her processor with ideas about space and desire to see it. Although a clever idea, it was obvious and irritating and it took GLaDOS less than thirty seconds to get sick of it and take it offline. Wheatley would succeed where its predecessor failed, Doug was sure; it had no obsessions or motives, it simply offered ideas and suggestions that were based on faulty logic, in short, it was designed to be a persuasive moron.

The name was a joke, based on the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz, having had a head full of wheat and no brain. One of Henry's friends had annoyingly pointed out that the scarecrow actually had a head full of straw; but he could hardly call his invention Strawley, that would have sounded shit.

Months passed like this. Doug kept mainly to himself at work, whilst Chell spent hours waiting for him to come home each evening becoming a very self-sufficient eleven year old.

When he was home he was a kind and loving father, spending hours reading to her and playing logic puzzles with her. But there was a problem, recently he had been staying longer at work and when he was home he would be distant and distracted, to the point that he had forgotten to take his medication for a few days.

Doug didn't notice anything different straight away, but people began to seem more secretive and untrustworthy. He thought he would spot them following him on his way home in the evenings; they were talking about him in the corridors; Plotting; Watching; always watching him. It was only when he had accused Chell of being an imposter planted by Aperture Science that he realised that his mind was deceiving him. He only forgot his medication that once. He couldn't scare Chell like that ever again.

However he had begun to realise that his absence had been noticed, Chell seemed lonely. Unfortunately, she had inherited his social life; Doug was her only friend bar the companion cube he took home from work for her, and the teddy bear that guarded her sleep.

He needed to step up his game as a father; he had to get her more involved with his life.