EXTREME EDIT UPDATE: Can anybody say, Overhaul? I got rid of some typos (That's what I get for working out of wordpad on a super-rough draft... I mean, what self-respecting word processor doesn't have spellcheck these days?), shifted some stuff around, added lots of other stuff, cleaned it up, seriously embellished its sentimental value... So yeah. Overhaul.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Portal. So that's interesting.

*Aperture Science is required to remind all Test Subjects that while reviews are rewarded with cake, flaming is punishible by euthinization. And no cake.

**Continue testing.

The purpose of life is a life of purpose.

-Robert Byrne

It was time.

Today was the day.

They were ready for her.

Waiting.

"...Immortality, Caroline. Imagine..."

"But at a price, Cave... At a terrible price!"

"You don't know that. We'll make it work. We can make it work!"

"But sir -"

"Dammit, Caroline, don't call me that."

"Cave. I ... I can't, I don't... I don't - want - this!"

She shook herself from the memory, and found herself hesitating at the elevator. The cylindrical pod perched silently at the opening of its glass shaft, patiently awaiting her entrance. But she couldn't move. She was rooted to the spot, her heart pulsing in her ears and her stomach in knots. The elevator's double doors remained wide open in front of her, passive and unassuming. Waiting.

But Caroline couldn't move. Her mind reeled endlessly, flicking through memories of her fallen employer like a broken '45.

"This is it, Caroline. Today." He coughs into his hand, spattering it with blood. His eyes are tired, sunken, bloodshot; yellow with jaundice.

"Don't say that, sir. You'll-"

He squeezes her hand, a faint flexing of his bony fingers. Enough to silence her.

"I'm not your boss anymore." It is barely louder than a breath. He's fading, slowly but steadily now. "I haven't been for... a while."

"Cave..."

"No, Caroline... This is it. This is... Caroline..."

Her hand tightens around his strengthless fingers. Tears streak down her face, and she tries to pretend that he's still breathing.

Remembering those last few moments drove a knife through her heart, even after all these years; but the memory of his funeral remained the most painful of all. For all her strength and poise, and even having had the constant reminder of his failing health for more than a year, the image of his casket disappearing into the ground still plagued her dreams. The sight had made everything about his death so incredibly... final. For the first week after his burial, the simple thought of him had made her physically ill. His absence from the world was ungodly, his death tearing a huge chunk out of the universe, and out of her life.

Despite her unstable emotional state, Caroline had somehow conjured enough outward composure to attend a publicised conference the morning after the funeral. Like a monarch inheriting the throne, she'd stepped up to the podium and announced, with her face a stern mask, that Aperture was not finished. "We will continue our work." She'd dared her stricken audience to believe otherwise. "Cave Johnson's death will not have been in vain."

She'd known about the GLaDOS project, of course. The entire facility had heard Cave's angry rant nearly every day for ten months. But even before his passing, Caroline had already taken over managing so many of the facilities primary functions that she had honestly found herself working on the very project she dreaded. She had known full well that Cave intended for her to be put into the machine, were he not to live to see the project's completion. They had even fought about it in the few weeks prior to his passing; but as it was, arguing with a dying man as stubborn as Cave Johnson had proved a useless endeavor.

There had never been any stopping Cave Johnson. Even in death, his ultimatum hung over her head like an anvil waiting to fall.

In reality she could have forced the project's termination. She'd had the authority to do so. So easily she could have done it - should have. Should have turned it around, overhauled it to serve another purpose, maybe even shut it down entirely. But it seemed that she'd never quite had the heart to deny Cave his last wish. The only thing he'd had to live for, in the end, was the possibility of immortality.

And when he finally understood that he couldn't have it for himself, he forced it on her.

Caroline found herself unable to help a brief, if pained, smile. That's just like him, she thought to herself, forcing you to accept what he considers a gift. It was a trait she had grown to understand well, and even cherish.

And she had grown to know him very well over the decades: she'd learned to understand exactly how and why he did the things he did. From the start Caroline had been enraptured by his outgoing and commanding personality, and in the absurdity of her youth had found even his flaws to be both fascinating and alluring. Unadulterated admiration and devotion moulded her into everything he had needed her to be.

But she had been pretty, and young, and willing - and even Cave Johnson, a man focussed so intently on the world of tomorrow, had found himself shifting his eyes presentward with an acute interest in the dainty butterfly that now fluttered diligently in his wake. The extroverted CEO of Aperture Science had excercised minimal restraint in making this interest known to her.

It had been a developement that Caroline had not resented, to say the least.

In time they became an inseperable pair, controlling their mighty Empire of Science in tandem. He was Cave Johnson the Fearless, the Man of Tomorrow; and she was Caroline the Diligent, the Woman Behind the Man. His charisma, her brains, their combined energy - they should have been unstoppable. An invincible team, infatuated with each other and with their work.

But Aperture Science itself, it soon became apparent, was not unstoppable.

Funding became scarce. The lawsuits became harder and harder to win. Cave became too stressed and Caroline too busy. Keeping the company afloat took immense effort, and neither had the time nor the energy to actively pursue a once less-than-subtle romance. Their relationship mellowed into a strong, but mostly platonic partnership; Cave's sudden illness had only advanced that development. In several years' time, the romance was but a memory. The chasm left in its place, however, was mended by a deep respect that substituted well for love.

Married to science, indeed.

The click of her heels alerted her to her own sudden movement. The taps echoed emptily on the polished floors as her feet stepped slowly into the waiting lift, mocking her with their frivolous, cheery noise. She didn't exactly know why she had even worn heels today. Perhaps it had been a vain effort to preserve some sliver of her womanhood, of her humanity.

Because today, she was going to lose that humanity.

Caroline knew every inch of the GLaDOS construct, how and why it all worked; it would use a matrix copy of her brain to formulate a functioning computerised consciousness. The process would likely destroy her body, but her consciousness would remain preserved in the machine. Even if the transfer of consciousness completed successfully, the individuality and personality associated with it would be almost completely overriden with protocol and programming once in the machine. The science team, she thought with bitterness, had ensured that quite completely. It was the only way to allow the machine to function properly, they had said. That it was necessary.

She turned to watch the glass doors slide closed with hardly a whisper of sound. The lift started down, gliding as airily as a cloud.

This facility was almost seamless compared to the original, if not fully functional as of yet. Using the funds brought in with the production and military application of the new Aperture Turret, the past few months had been dedicated to fine-tuning the GLaDOS programming and completing the nuclear reactor that would power it and the rest of the facility. After GLaDOS was fully functional, it would be possible to manage the rest of the facility's construction.

It was only after she surrendered herself to the machine that would it be possible to complete the facility.

She was going to lose herself to the computer.

It wasn't immortality. It was sacrifice. She would be nothing but a host mind.

She'd be giving up her mind and her body for science.

Science.

It had been her life for so long. She had lived and breathed it. She loved it enough to die for it.

Was that what she was doing now? Dying for science?

Dying for Cave?

When the elevator breezed to a stop and the doors slid apart before her, Caroline stepped into the circular lobby and paused once more in her solemn march. She stood on weak legs, observing her surroundings: her weeks and weeks of hard work. This was all her work now, her facility. She had built this facility, just as Cave had built his. This was her legacy. And it was as much a part of her as she was a part of Aperture.

She was about to become much more than metaphysically connected to her work, today.

Caroline took a few tentative steps forward, mind churning.

Perhaps there was more to this project than preserving one's own self. By completing this procedure, she was going to offer the facility the ability to flourish and thrive infinitely...

Cave had commissioned GLaDOS because he'd wanted to immortalise the human mind: his own mind. But Caroline had no interest in preserving herself forever. Immortalising her own consciousness meant nothing to her. Aperture always came first, and Aperture existed for science, for the future...

It came to her then, like a peaking of sunlight in her mind. The dawn of a new day, a new purpose; finally revealing itself to her in this half-built hallway, leagues beneath the earth. It wasn't about her. It had never been about her.

Immortalising myself means nothing...

...But immortalising Aperture meant the world.

Caroline began walking again, this time with determination, purpose, colouring her stride. She was willing to sacrifice herself for her life's work. Without Aperture she was nothing, and Aperture was nothing without her.

Today is the day, Caroline. Today is the first day of forever. The first day of Aperture's forever.

So when she crossed the catwalk into the voluminous cavern of the GLaDOS construct and took a seat at the Matrix Transfer consol, her fear and dread had been replaced with satisfaction and pride. Even as she began to scream and writhe with the pain, even as radiation and electricity seared through her neurons and disintigrated the very tissues of her brain, her conscience was clear.

Because for Aperture, she would die and let live.

R&R. :D