Author's Notes: Hey, Wow… it's been some time, hasn't it? Thought I'd continue this story for the sake of plunging you readers into a pit of despair which your feeble minded plans will never find a way out of! Your failing efforts to create a substantially structured sentence are useless and above all meaningless! Why do I even bother to write to the cesspool of folly and intellect while I could by presenting my work to the highly literate and esteemed posh of society?

Forget everything I just said, or just keep reading since you probably didn't even understand it in the first place.

~
Coming to terms

Cave Johnson stood atop a looming metal staircase encircling the less tiresome method of transportation; the elevator had failed so now all that was left had to be used manually.

"I think we're almost there…" He noted, speaking to a long line of scientists behind him. "If we can just get to the backup generator, we can get the facility running again. Just hold hands and make sure you don't get separated."

The small collection of scientists weaved through the now dark and unlit parts of Aperture with great diligence. They cared little about not being able to see where they were going for more of their focus was imbedded in the deeply held worries about Aperture itself. With the power gone, everything inside would essentially have to restart, whether it was the testing chambers or the lights. They all worried about what they would do now that they had to only rely on their own wit and not on the trusty hand of technology.

Everyone watched their step closely, because now all they had to see where they were going was a flashlight for each two hands, a pre-caution they had taken due to the recent power failures throughout the facility.

Up from the back of the passing line squeezed Caroline, who ran up towards the front to meet up with Cave.

"Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson!" She said, nearly running up the stairs.

"Caroline… what is it?"

"The others back at the presentation chamber said they'll wait for it to come back on, they didn't say anything about trying to rescue the astronaut though, I'm worried about it."

"We can't rescue him now, that damn explosion made sure of that."

"Cave, what does this mean for us?"

Cave looked back at Caroline like she had a poison dart frog just leap off of her forehead. "For whom, us or Aperture."

"well… I don't know… I… I just don't know."

"There are a lot of things we don't know, such as how we're going to distribute our numbers once we manage to get the power back on."

"Well… Mr. Johnson, I don't know what's going to happen, that's what I'm afraid of."

The group collectively stepped closer to the top of the stairwell; this meant that they were now near Aperture's main power room. "Alright men, find a way to open this door…" Cave said with an invigorating voice. Immediately, the group of no less than twenty scientists got together and scientifically concluded the best way to open the simple door. "That's right, we're Aperture, and we get stuff done…" He said once they managed to twist the flashlight illuminated doorknob.

In a blurred and somewhat convoluted rush of events, the scientists piled into the room, all sorting into their little pre-defined categories of work, twisting this, pulling that, measuring these, and calculating everything in between. Once they went to work starting up the generator, Caroline pulled Cave aside once more so they could speak to each other.

"See? Nothing to be worried about. So what, some of the subjects might be stranded a couple hours in the dark, at least it gives them time to rest."

"Cave, Mr. Johnson, I'm worried about Aperture, about what they're going to do now that an astronaut has… gone missing."

"Caroline, you don't have anything to worry about. As long as I'm in charge, it'll be smooth sailing."

Caroline moved closer to her superior. "I don't want to be afraid, I want everything to be normal… I want to run the facility like it's supposed to be run without splitting off into all these tangents. Can't we just do science normally and not jeopardize our ability to do so?"

Cave took a deep breath. "Well, no Caroline… That's not what we need. We need new ideas, big things…"

"But we need to work more on what we already have, look at the quantum tunneling device; we need to focus on that, making it safer and more reliable so we can do ambitious projects like this."

"No, that's not what we need to do." Cave concluded, his face grew tight and construed amongst the newly lit emergency lights. "We need to punch them even harder, show them that we mean business."

"But don't you see? We were doing fine! We even beat out Black Mesa if only for a little bit. We need to put more focus towards testing what we already have so something like this never happens again."

Cave usually listened carefully to Caroline's advice, and more often than not, she turned out to be right about such things. But Cave's desires here were elsewhere, he wanted to go to that moon, he wanted there to be an Aperture Science flag already on there before a country managed to put theirs on it.

"Caroline I… Caroline…" Cave's words failed to echo in the rather open space. The recent disaster had pulled him further away from Caroline, and now he could barely even connect with her.

"Mr. Johnson, listen. Any more of this will bring Aperture lower even as we try to ascend. Please, please don't do any more of this for the sake of the company, for me."

Slowly, the lights began to return, and the hungering depths of Aperture were fed with the brightness that came with the returning hum of the nearby generator. Cave and Caroline found themselves standing close together, much closer than one normally would when abundant light allowed a more distant focus on another.

"I… can't do this alone… will you go through it with me?" Cave asked, astounded by the return of the beautiful landscape.

"Like a cube through an emancipation grill." Caroline leaned in to hug her higher-up, but only for a short time since everyone nearby was in looking range.

"Thanks," said Cave. "I'm certainly going to need it."

In a flowing stream of invisible and silent waves, moved a force through the veins of Aperture Science. It wasn't the revamped electricity, nor was it Caroline's ensuing sense of optimism that drove the mysterious force. Instead, it was time that came to affect Aperture Science. An estranged and choked reputation was what soon followed. With mysteries and conspiracies abounding as to what happened to Aperture's missing astronauts, things very quickly got out of hand.

~X~X~X~X~X~ Some time later

"Next, we will have an oral presentation from Cave Johnson, the CEO of Aperture Science."

"Thank you." Cave said as he nervously shuffled the disorganized array of papers in front of him. "By the way, Aperture probably supplies your shower curtains, so that should get me points with you guys right off the bat."

"Mr. Johnson, you are well aware of the recent disappearances of three astronauts, all of whom have not been heard of after entering the doors of your company?"

"Yes, I am. And I can also tell you that science does not come without great sacrifi- I mean… knowing where to hit it."

"I'm… I'm sorry, knowing where to 'hit it'?" The courtroom descended into a confused mumble.

"You know, hit it. Like last week when the Dodgers hit that ball into the outfield and won the game. Sure they may have gotten an out, but in the end, it was the speedy run to home that truly mattered."

"I'm sorry, I don't believe I understand your point."

"My point is this," Cave said with an assured, deep tone. "Aperture Science does what it can to advance science, if I'm correct, did NASA not lose lives with one of their little accidents? So far, it's been my knowledge that nobody has claimed the moon to themselves, and fortunately for us, that's our next destination. If you haven't even placed an American flag onto the surface, how can you say that we have no right to go there ourselves? Who really own the moon? Does it even belong to the inhabitants of earth? Does the moon belong to any nationality or corporation?"

"Mr. Johnson, international treaties aside, let me stop you there. You say that you've already been up there?"

"Yes your honor."

"Well then, that certainly changes things. Tell me Mr. Johnson, what you would change if you were to ever conduct an experiment similar to the one which resulted in the 'disappearance' of these astronauts."

Cave stood proud and tall over his audience. "First, I would make sure that none of it would land me in the Supreme Court. Second, I… I wouldn't allow the desire for increased funding to cloud my judgment and force me to make decisions I would otherwise not even think of."

"So what you're saying Mr. Johnson is that your facility would be much safer if we decreased funding?" The government employees in the chamber all smiled at the implications of the notion.

"No, no! On the contrary, just the er… opposite would be preferable." Cave shamelessly admitted.

"Enough of this nonsense." Another justice spoke up. "Mr. Johnson, ever since you stepped out of the realm of shower curtains, we have been receiving numerous petitions about your… applied science facility and its complete disregard for safety. If you cannot follow regulations, I'm afraid we cannot allow taxpayer dollars to go into allowing your company to grow."

Cave remained silent; he knew this was not the moment for him to continue. Before, Aperture had made it a priority to hire only the best and brightest for their experiments, but now, it would be much more difficult to gain subjects.

"I'm afraid we cannot trust Aperture Science until they prove that they can follow through with safe and efficient products, I need not remind anyone of the dangers of their failed food supplementary gels." Those words were a kick to Cave's face. "Aperture Innovations should stay within the realm of shower curtains, because that seems to be the only thing they're good at other than losing our American heroes."

~X~X~X~X~X~

Cave sat in his office, not knowing what move to take next. He got up from his seat and opened the nearby drawer. Out he took a picture, it was an older one. In his hand he held a black and white photograph of him and Caroline smiling as they stood outside of an elevator on the surface. From their young and bright faces, he could see a different future, one of happiness and prosperity. But now, it was going to be far more difficult for Aperture to rise.

In the recent months he and Aperture had co-operatively slipped into a depression and the end of the tunnel unfortunately was far away and unreachable with any portal device. It had been in the best interest in the company to change the style up a bit to suit their growing needs. No longer did people come to them, now they had to go out and find people to be subjected to their often unethical experiments.

A knock came to the door.

"Come in."

Caroline carefully stepped inside the room. "Hey Mr. Johnson."

"Caroline…"

"I… just wanted to see what you were doing."

"Caroline, I'm trying to tune my brain to listen to radio signals; so far it's not working." Cave took a couple of shiny rocks from his pocket. "So far, I've heard a little Elvis, but that doesn't prove anything significant."

Caroline sighed as she approached Cave's messy and disorganized desk. "Is there a problem with your radio?"

"It's knob is broken, I don't think even our best engineers could fix it now."

Caroline picked up the small device. "Oh, don't talk like that; see you were just turning it the wrong way!" She said, then placing it back onto the wooden desk.

Cave's face was immensely stunned once he heard the sound of Elvis blasting in his office. "I knew it! I knew it! It's working it's a miracle!" he grew disheartened once he figured out the sound was actually coming from the radio. "Oh… I thought for a second." He shook his head. "Nevermind."

"Why haven't you cleaned up in here? And what are these doing here?" She held up a group of photographs which were taken while orbiting the moon. "are you still mad about that?"

"No, no no no no… I'm fine! I'm fine! Everything's fine! I'm only seeing the beautiful company that I started crumbling before my very eyes! How do you think I feel to see my future slowly start to fade away while Black Mesa continues to soar past us while all we can do is watch!"

"Cave…"

"I don't want sympathy, I want a way to change this."

"Cave…"

"It's not my fault the quantum tunneling device decided to fail, It's not my fault this all happened."

"Cave, if you don't want any sympathy, stop asking for it?"

"Huh?" Cave turned to Caroline, more confused by her words than by women themselves.

"Listen, I know it's going to be harder, and I know it won't be easy, we just have to look to the future to see what it offers! Sure, we might have to pick test subjects off the streets now, but living on the streets has to be bracing!"

"But what if the future doesn't want to follow us?"

"I can't believe I'm hearing that from the man who started the company from practically nothing."

Cave was hit with a hammer pounding with a disheartening blow.

"You started it all, we can't give up now. Aperture's the same as it always was; we're still the best damn applied science company in the world." Caroline tried to retain her own giggle. "Who cares what Black Mesa thinks, or those justices? We're still Aperture, not because we squiggle through the ground like worms, but because we bury our competition! We don't need to listen to what they say, do they pay the bills?"

"No." Cave said softly.

"I said do they pay the bills?"

"No." He repeated a little more sternly this time.

"Do they? Do they? I think they do…"

"They sure as hell don't!" Cave yelled with a loud and booming voice.

~X~X~X~X~X~

Author's Notes: Please review if you like! If you don't, review anyways because it'll be much easier on your pet goldfish if you do!