Author's Note: Before I begin, NO! This isn't in script format, instead its just an artistic form of… I'm getting ahead of myself FORGET WHAT I JUST SAID! You want a story like this? FINE! Please don't get horribly confused during the first part because it's just a measly prologue. Read and Review because reviewing makes me feel all giggly inside and helps me to believe there are real people in the world who don't think I'm a total loser. No, I don't know anyone who thinks that either, but who cares?
All Instances presented in this story are completely fictitious. None of them are based in reality. No, I am not a government conspiracy theorist.
~X~X~X~X~X~
PROLOGUE
On October 4th, 1957, the USSR successfully launched the first artificial satellite into space; further igniting the scientific push to place a man into the vast unknowns of space. At around the same time, Aperture Science had developed a successful prototype for a handheld portal device, weighing with the full vacuum accelerator at around 21kg. Less than three years later, the USSR again surpassed expectations by launching the first human in orbit.
After this, President Kennedy made it a top priority for the United States to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Government funding for scientific companies such as Black Mesa and Aperture Science were greatly increased during this time, and in 1969, the world was stunned when they saw two men climb out of their lunar lander and onto the moon. The official government statements told the public that Lance Armstrong was indeed the first person to walk on the moon; however, the truth was best kept secret by those who feared what it would evidently lead to.
Aperture Science decided to capitalize on this opportunity by hybridizing their quantum tunneling project with the space race. The first test went extremely well; the handheld portal device turned out to be stable when presented with the vacuum of the moon. The second test… turned out to be a little less than satisfactory.
It wasn't until 40 years later that the real truth was revealed, when the world was plunged into chaos from otherworldly influences. This is the leaked transcript from a 1960's conversation taken directly from the president's phone.
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
MORETTA: Good morning Mr. President.
JOHNSON: David Moretta, NASA's top liaison official. What can I do for you?
MORETTA: President Johnson, you know that I'm in charge of dictating which… very sensitive information is released to the public, correct?
JOHNSON: Yes, I'm well aware of that…
MORETTA: Good, because this issue deals directly with one of DARPA's closely observed private administrations, which is in this case Aperture Science.
JOHNSON: Aperture Science. Where have I heard that name?
MORETTA: Most likely in official statements made by the Pentagon, or half of the bureaucratic backroom deals involving the worlds "top physicists".
JOHNSON: I see. So then what's the real issue here?
MORETTA: Aperture Science has been investigated many times before by a number of executive agencies including NASA. But recently, Aperture Science is believed to be involved in the mysterious disappearance of three astronauts. I've already contacted the CIA about this, but I don't want the public to get involved. The worst thing that can happen is to bring the people into this.
JOHNSON: So what are you suggesting?
MORETTA: Mr. President, with your permission of course, I'd like to make this a class B case.
JOHNSON: An interesting proposition; do you think we should leave this alone until we have more information?
MORETTA: No… but in the end that's not my decision.
JOHNSON: Very well then. Keep it at class A until our friends at the CIA reply back to us, understood?
MORETTA: Yes Mr. President… understood.
JOHNSON: Good, then its done.
MORETTA: Yes Mr. President…
END TRANSCRIPT
~X~X~X~X~X~
Caroline smiled as she reached to touch her newfound joy. "Isn't it so cute?" She said, looking up to Cave for a response.
"Well I can't argue with you there. It has been scientifically proven to be downright adorable." Cave casually replied. "Although I don't know what everyone else will think when they see the bill."
Not satisfied by the underwhelming response, Caroline tightened her grip on the small bundle in her arms. She moved closer to Cave to expect his strangely placed motives. "This is your creation after all. You should be so proud, yet you don't even act like this is a big deal."
"Trust me, I know how big a deal this is. And technically it's only half of my creation." He said with a wink in his eye.
"That doesn't mean it's any less extraordinary!"
"You're right… it doesn't." Cave paced around Caroline, eyeing the precious entity. "And at the same time, we must remember there's still a lot of work to do… especially with more immediate matters."
Caroline's face grew worried, but then retained its calm complexion once she thought about it deeper. "As much as I'm afraid to say it…" She said with a disappointed gaze. "I have to say you're right."
"Caroline, lay the handheld portal device on the desk, it seems to be weighing you down a bit."
Caroline placed the device onto the desk as ordered.
"You should try handling one of the real bad boys instead of one of those miniature models." Cave said as he retreated into his desk chair. "Now how much was our funding been increased by the Department of Defense since last month?"
Caroline was shocked at how quick Cave had just changed the subject. "Well uh, let me look at the reports here…" She took out a couple of number ridden files. "Sir… Mr. Johns… Cave…" She stuttered. "As long as we keep promoting contracts, Aperture's likely to see a 7% increase in funding."
"Good, and what about Black Mesa?"
Caroline's mouth tightened. "What… about Black Mesa?"
"You know… have they made anything big? Moneywise?"
"Well uh… um…" Caroline looked back at the reports. "I wouldn't know… but I would logically guess that they've seen an increase in funding but… I don't… see anything…"
"Those are public reports. They've released the financial report for the last few years, I wouldn't expect them to suddenly classify the information on Black Mesa."
Caroline shuffled through the stack once more. She remembered seeing the name 'Black Mesa' once or twice throughout, but she was focused on finding Aperture so something like that wouldn't matter. Besides, Cave usually got angry whenever he saw those reports. It wasn't that he wasn't satisfied with Aperture's performance, but that he believed that the primary reason behind Black Mesa's success was because they'd steal from the real scientists at Aperture.
Then, in an instant, Caroline's eyes widened. She looked to Cave and back at the reports a couple times. Cave knew this meant she was holding something back.
"Caroline…" Cave's hand was open, ready to receive the reports no matter how bleak they looked.
"What?"
"Caroline… hand me the paper." Cave insisted.
Caroline bit her lip. She avoided eye contact with Cave as she handed him the paper.
Cave received the report and began to read silently. "Hmm…" he murmured, passing all the useless grant information. He seemed pretty nonchalant until his eyes reached the bottom of the page. "My God." He said, his mind delivering an instinctively intense reaction at the sight of the numbers.
"How could this be?" He asked, looking up at Caroline to see if it were some sick joke.
Caroline hid her face from Cave.
Cave put the paper face down onto the desk. "Well, Caroline." He began, raising his eyebrows in the process, "how do you think this happened?"
Caroline looked back at Cave not with a frown, but with a smile. "I believe it began with a young shower curtain engineer and his entrepreneurial expertise."
"Ha, ha, ha!" Cave heartily laughed as he arose from his chair to unexpectedly hug Caroline. "We did it! We outperformed Black Mesa!" He yelled, signaling a confidant reaction.
Caroline smiled at the rare show of affection.
"We must celebrate… but how?"
Caroline looked back at him confused. "You mean you weren't planning anything beforehand?"
"Well no. The good news came as quite a shock to me."
The two stared at each other awkwardly for a few seconds, until Caroline won the battle when Cave decided to continue speaking.
"Well if you weren't planning anything…" Caroline turned around and headed for the office door.
"No, WAIT!"
Caroline grinned as her feet came to a sudden stop.
"There was this umm… there was this…" Cave nervously scanned his mind for a way out of the strange ordeal. "There uh…"
"Go on." Caroline nodded.
"I… maybe was thinking, no suggesting… that we uhh… perhaps should…"
"Should…"
"MANNY'S! GO there I mean… to uh… eat. Because that's what people do at Manny's… I think." Cave was sweating so hard he felt like taking a shower would dry him a little. It was all because he was as nervous as a paralyzed grasshopper watching an slowly approaching horde of ants.
Caroline giggled. "For dinner? And miss out on Aperture Science nutrition gel?" she joked.
"A tough decision, but one that has to be made." Cave remarked.
"So… tonight at 6:30?" Caroline suggested.
"Uhh… yeah… 18:30."
Caroline saluted to Cave as she walked off, leaving the man alone in his office.
'I guess that went well…' he subconsciously told himself.
A few minutes of silence was all that Cave needed to fully engage himself in his own emotions. In almost fifteen years since he'd known Caroline, he'd never gotten very far into their relationship. Sure they'd chat with each other and joke around, but nothing serious really came between them. But now they were finally going somewhere. Maybe this would eventually lead to something big.
All was going well. He'd just succeeded in finding an excuse to take a break from the chaotic environment at Aperture. At least that's what Cave thought until the lights immediately shut off, leaving him in total darkness.
"Damn!"
~X~X~X~X~X~
"What the hell are they doing down at the reactor core?" A man yelled as he flipped the switch on one of his flashlights.
"I don't know, but they better get the backup started immediately." Another man replied.
"Call them and tell them to hurry up."
"Uh sir… I can't do that…"
"Why not Chris?"
"Because the power's out." The man named Chris answered.
"Damn." The main cursed as he slammed the wall with his fist. "Well I guess since we're so close to the reactor we should go check what they've done with the damn thing."
Chris silently nodded and the two walked off into the dark corridors of manufacturing. It felt like another world in complete darkness. The bright reflections of cubes were replaces by haunting reminiscent shadows, the conveyer belts conveyed themselves in a ghoulish way, and the thick overhead pipes of steel acted as a looming proportion to the rooms whenever flashed with light.
"Ooh, dark down here isn't it?"
"Well… yeah."
"They say the old administrator of this place went absolutely crazy. Chopped up his entire staff." The man said, waving his flashlight at all corners of the room.
"Come on, you're just trying to scare me."
"They say at night you can still hear the screams."
"That's just you receiving your paycheck at night." Chris said, shaking his head at his friend. "And who's this 'they' you speak of?"
"The dead workers of course. At night, they stay in the same rooms they were in when they were murdered. There they scream for help… but no one comes for them."
A strange sound came from down the hallway. At first Chris thought it was just his imagination thinking out loud. It was hard to make out, but he actually hear soft yells of help coming from all around.
Chris stopped in his tracks. "You hear that?" He asked, noting the voices that were oddly enough calling for him.
"Hear what?"
"Those voices… Nathan, I really hear someone calling for help."
Nathan shook his head and smiled. "Chris C'mon, even I'll admit the story wasn't that good." He said, his face turning more serious as he saw his friend's.
"Over here, I hear him!" Chris ran over to door that was closed tightly.
"Help!"
"We're coming!" Nathan yelled as the two fiddled to get the door open.
In seconds the wooden door gave way, and the two found themselves in the backup generator's room. On the floor was an employee lying on his back injured.
"Chris, you take care of turning the backup on." Said Nathan. "I'll see how our friends doing."
The man on the floor grabbed his leg tightly. "Ahh… I was walking on the second floor catwalk… when the power came off. I was surprised enough that I slipped and fell." He leaned forward to hold his leg even tighter. "Urghh, I think I may have broken it."
Nathan looked around the room. "Is the equipment all right?"
"Yeah, my leg's the only thing here that's broken."
Nathan gave a sigh of relief. "Good, I'd have a lot of explaining to do if any expensive equipment was broken."
Within the time span of two minutes, Chris had activated the backup generators systems. The whole facility took time to re-adjust to the change.
"Finally, the lights are back on."
"Yeah, no s*#!." Chris remarked as he climbed out of the activation panel.
"What the hell made the generator go off like that?" Nathan asked as he tended to the wounded man.
"It's those damn super-particle tests they've been running that makes the reactor overload and automatically shut off. That's why we don't put the facility in charge of idiots; they'd destroy the facility!"
"Right…" Chris commented as he walked towards a red telephone and picked it up. "Hello? Yeah, put me in with the engineering department… you what? No automatic generator systems? Yeah, he couldn't get to the generator due to… physical constraint."
"Chris, how should we help him?" Nathan asked.
"Take him to the infirmary… and don't let any mention of worker's compensation reach Cave."
"Wha- what?"
"Enough. There will be no mention of work related accidents, understand? Cave's had enough with these accidents."
The man looked up at them as if he'd lost an important battle. With a submissive gesture, he nodded and the two helped him off his feet.
~X~X~X~X~X~
Cave straightened his suit for the 73rd time. He quickly paced down the sidewalk nearest to the locally acclaimed restaurant. Checking his watch, he beat back thoughts of having the establishment packed so full that no one could get in.
He'd never been to Manny's himself. Instead, he'd only seen and heard about it from other people at Aperture. The general consensus was that they'd go there to celebrate a new breakthrough or discovery. However, Cave rarely ever dined out; and even then it was very uncommon for him to do it with anyone else.
"6:34." He read. "If it weren't for those incompetent employees I'd be sitting down by now." He rounded the corner in hopes of seeing Caroline waiting for him at the entrance of the restaurant, but instead he was met with the fear which he'd previously thought up. The restaurant looked packed, at least in Cave's eyes.
Now if he could only find Caroline…
"Mr. Johnson?"
Cave looked to see Caroline calling for him. She was exiting the building, and by the looks of it, she had good news.
"Cave, I already got us a seat, where have you been?" She asked as she met up with the man's pace.
"I was a bit caught up with the generator problem. I tell you when those scientists go crazy it could cause a disaster to the facility." He said as the two entered the wooden doors to Manny's restaurant.
It was your normal setup. A bar resided in the middle with table density becoming less prominent the further out it was. The light outside was beginning to diminish, so the overhead lamps would cast soft light onto the individual tables.
"Our seats are over here." Caroline said as she pointed to a small seating are at the less populated edge of the restaurant. Cave squeezed through a couple of people who looked like they were standing around with their mouths open drooling on the floor.
Once they took a seat, they both picked up their menus and began the search for something edible.
"So uh… what do you think about next week's big project?" Cave asked with a smile.
"Oh, you mean the…" Caroline looked around the restaurant, suspicious that someone was listening in. "the moon project?"
Cave lowered his menu. "No, the other multi-billion dollar undertaking." Cave casually joked.
"Well since the last one went so well, I'm sure nothing can go wrong this time." Caroline said with an equally re-assuring smile. "We've taken even more precautions than last time, in comparison; we were running it pretty loose back then. We've also been successful in er… inflating the project's financial requirements."
"And as long as we have the bureaucracies on our side, we're never going to run out of taxpayer dollars."
Caroline laughed at Cave's remark. "Oh Mr. Johnson, you've always known how to look on the bright side." She said, still retaining the memories of Cave's negative reaction to almost anything with Black Mesa.
"True, but what other side is there to look at?"
Caroline laughed once more. "If your eyes emit light, you can never see the dark side of things."
"Unless of course none of the light is reflected back to the viewer..." Cave returned.
"Or if you're wearing sunglasses."
"Or if the reflecting surface constitutes an angular range which folds in on itself through a linearly placed pattern of photon capturing structures which act as a beam transmitter that shows the unlit outer edges."
Caroline broke up at Cave's words. "Or that…"
Cave laid his hands on the table and looked out the window. "Caroline… have you thought about what you're going to do in… the future?" He asked it as a question, but delivered it like a statement.
Caroline bit her lip. "Well I guess I'm going to be working with Aperture until we successfully create an anti-aging machine."
"And what if we don't?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean we're not going to stay young forever."
"True, but I do see an youth pills somewhere in the future."
Cave looked disappointed. "I see… do we have any updates on one of our nuclear projects?"
"Oh yes well… there was this advancement with the antiparticles being shot through a dense electron field." Caroline admitted.
"And how did that go?"
"Well… now we know what not to do when experimenting with possible antimatter fluctuations."
"I see." Cave said as he checked out the frustratingly small beverage section of the menu. "So what's new with the caustic grenades? You know, the ones that would stick to enemies skin and slowly-"
"Oh those… heh, well they were… sort of banned."
"Banned?" Cave's eyes grew larger. "Banned by who? The U.S. Army?"
Caroline solemnly nodded.
"Damn, that would've helped our boys beat back the Cong." Cave gave another hearty laugh.
"Oh stop your chortling." Caroline said with the wave of her hand. "You and I both know that by the end of the year that mess will be over." Caroline then saw a cheery waitress approaching them, notebook in hand. "Ooh, I think it's time for us to order." She said, bouncing in her seat.
"And what may I get to start you two off tonight?" The waitress asked, taking out a pen. "We have an assortment of beverages ranging from alcoholic to non-alcoholic."
"I'll have the lemonade." Cave told the waitress.
"Just water…" Caroline sternly answered.
"Ok, and have you two decided on what you're gonna eat?"
"Let's see," Cave said as he scanned the menu once more. "you got anything that won't uh… Caroline?"
The waitress changed her focus to Caroline.
"Mm… I'll have the steak and potatoes with the grand salad deluxe… and with a bit of negative clutter on the side..."
The waitress looked at her confused. "E- excuse m-"
"BREAD AND Butter… I meant bread… and butter." Caroline put on a fake smile as both she and the waitress turned towards Cave.
"Uh yes I'll have the… omelet." He said as he closed the menu.
"Uh sir… I'm afraid we don't serve omelets." The waitress answered politely.
"You don't?" Cave said, moving his tongue around in his mouth. "Well why not?"
"I'm sorry sir, but it's not on the menu." The woman said again in a very polite manner.
"So what if it's not on the menu?" Cave critiqued, ushering in what Caroline knew was going to be pre-recorded message material. "If the world was only able to experiment with 'what's on the menu', there wouldn't be a Manny's restaurant!"
"Cave…" Caroline tried to suppress Cave's urge to inflate the topic.
"You got eggs? Steak? Onions, olives, peppers? An oven that can reach 425 degrees Kelvin?" He asked the waiter in a direct manner.
"Well… yes, but…" The waitress backed off a couple steps as she learned there was nothing she could say to the man that was professional and negative at the same time.
"Two words: Flip it."
"Mr. Johnson…"
"Sir, the cooks are trained to only make certain orders, they can't-"
"What? Use their brains?" Cave interrupted. "Sounds about right from the looks of them."
"N-no its just."
"Oh I see, you're too tied up in all the red tape to move outside the norm and do something different! Well I'll tell you this; without a complete disregard for that ideology, Aperture Science would never have moved past making shower curtains for military scumbags working for Black Mesa!"
"Mr. Johnson!" Caroline looked around her to see everyone's eyes focused on the strange commotion.
Now it was on. Cave had reached the point of no return, and Caroline knew this meant he wasn't going to stop anytime soon. All she could do was accept the fact that Cave was being a bit eccentric and enjoy the ride that came with it.
"I demand to see the manager!" Cave exclaimed.
"Cave!"
"Here I am!" A man said as he exited the bar during the confrontation.
"Good, now we can talk business!" Cave muttered as he argued with the manager.
"Oh dear…" Caroline muttered as she followed Cave four steps behind and two the right, just like normal.
~X~X~X~X~X~
Author's notes: You got this far down? SOMEONE CARES!
