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It was some time later that Cave realized where Aperture was truly going. In the years after the accident Aperture Science paid the price of its slowly fading existence, barely managing to collect funds from older products and soon to be outdated innovations of which they had once been the main producer. Currently in these still occupied remains of a once great Aperture stand the two most powerful people to walk the asbestos lined walls.

"Next week's launch will probably be the last one…" Caroline noted as she monitored the stream of Aperture's advanced auto typewriter, which was at this moment receiving transmissions from the core monitoring team. "That means… we're free to buy as much we want. For another few years at least, who knows how much space we'll be able to hoard in the meantime? The rocks should provide a good surface material for the handheld portal devices."

"You sure the Russians won't have a go?" Cave asked, also watching the typewriter as it haphazardly recreated the core manager's words into lines of text. "It would be very awkward to run into them while we're trying to find a good place to pick up lunar rocks."

"The real challenge is getting off of Earth without catastrophically blowing up; they've most likely dropped their N1 rocket as a viable option for space travel, so unless they've taken one of our portal systems from us I don't see them travelling anytime soon." Cave gave Caroline a faint suspicious look, one which was only recognizable to someone who had experience reading Cave's facial expressions. "Which they don't have of course…"

"Right…" Cave returned to the automatic speech-to-text translator, still decoding the last of the manager's message. "I'm telling you Caroline, these things will be the communication of the future, imagine, no longer having to talk to that relative with the sandpaper for a throat voice, now you can read their words instead of listening to them. Beautiful, isn't it?"

Caroline nodded; she then plucked the fresh paper from the auto-writer and began to read it aloud.

"Mr. Johnson, we've coordinated with the eel wreck trickle… wha?" Caroline halted in confusion at the strange words written on the paper, but then smiled when she weaved through the error. "Oh… I suppose it means 'electrical'… silly translator."

"Continue…" Cave ordered, miffed at the interruption.

"With the electrical team working around the clock on our grid's surge protection system, thanks to him prove mints- I mean, improvements in the Maine seek wincing, we will now have no more blackouts due to a fix in the stability damp innards… stability dampener's primary drive routing. Due to this there will be an automatic shutdown of sector-6b's local power grid during any pro seed your- procedure involving the new clear power generators, but be advised, none of this will hinder any progress the team is work in hard two attain. Signed, Nathan Halpert." Caroline looked away from the printed paper. "That's all it says, it spelled his name wrong too..."

"Hmmm, if only we could get it to make sense…"

"Mr. Johnson, if I might say, the translator seems to have greatly improved on its capabi-"

"No, it's not the translator, Caroline, its Nathan… I don't know what the hell he meant- he's just babbling in sciencey nonsense to sound smart. I'm not sure if he even knows what he's saying."

"Oh, well… he says the grid's been improved so that there won't be any more accidents with the power, which also means,"

"We can go back…" Cave said with a large and deeply rooted smile. His mind ascended to an odd memory, a memory of the future. There would be nothing to hold them back now, except for themselves. "We can return to the moon, this time without repercussion."

"Mr. Johnson, don't you remember whe-"

"Damn it that was almost four years ago Caroline!" Cave let out, almost pushing the woman backward with the forceful intensity of his words. "Imagine how much this will advance our portal devices! Just imagine!"

"I know Mr. Johnson, but… don't you think we should wait a little before we can devote more resources into…"

"Damn the resources Caroline, this is what we need to get out of this valley, our boys down below have planned a whole bunch of projects that require materials we can only find on the lunar surface."

"But Mr. Johnson, I don't know if we've gone through enough testing to know if we're ready for such a move." Caroline urged in a forward motion, shaking her head.

"Testing… testing." Cave turned back to the automatic text machine, marveling at its sublime technological level and its rigid practicality. In the recent years, Aperture had slipped, and he was hoping that small innovations like this would help bring them back from the slump; however, not even these machines were selling enough to break even. That is of course if they reached to point of selling them anyway, and currently there wasn't much of a market for Aperture's products, and most of the time, they were impractical or impossible to control. "So much testing and so little using… I'm afraid by the time we reach the moment where we're 'ready' it'll already be too late."

"But we don't want to rush into it either, we need to take it slowly, enjoy the rare moments without chaos. We don't need to go back, we can buy rocks to help make more of that gel."

"We won't get the chance to rush into it if we don't… wait what?" Cave sat confused at his sentence. "What I mean is that we're Aperture Science and we don't cut corners even if those corners are covered with giant neon signs saying 'please cut me'. When the time is right we'll know, I mean when has science failed us?"

Caroline attempted to retrieve the memory of the unfortunate turning point in Aperture's history. "There was that time whe-"

"No, don't answer that, I meant it in a personal way."

"Personal way?" Caroline repeated, unsure of what her boss meant. "What do you mean?"

"That's not the perfect way to state it but…" Cave took a deep sigh. "It's between… it's… forget it."

Caroline turned away, ending the conversation's tangent. Not wanting to probe into original thought any further, Caroline returned to the automatic text machine, she figured it was time to remove it and then return the machine to the lab boys, whom in their science centered basements were eagerly awaiting the results of its failure and the chance to turn that it into success. She neared it and was about to unplug it when Cave stopped her.

"Caroline wait…" Cave said, softly.

"What is it Mr. Johnson?"

"I don't want you to remove the auto-adapter… not yet at least" Cave requested, calling the machine by its officially designated name.

"I'm just going to take it down to get adjusted." Caroline illustrated with a facial gesture directed at the floor.

"I wanted to… actually try it out myself first… if that's possible."

Caroline removed her hand from the translating module, which was resting just above the large computer's processing module. She pondered the notion, not knowing whether to advance by means of acceptance or rejection. "I don't know… I think this only contains the output, you can't speak into it, but you can receive someone else's words."

"Hmmm, can we get one of the input modules up here so we can test it?"

"No it won't work, these things were integrated into the different departments, taking them out of those places isn't an easy task, and really it would just be easier to go down there and speak into them and then come back to read it."

"Doesn't this have an input module?" Cave asked.

"It does, but it's connected with the one down near the core, messages can only be transmitted with this one from here to there."

"Then let's go." Cave said, getting up from his cushiony custom built Aperture seat.

"Wha? Mr. Johnson… please don't leave yet."

"You're right Caroline I need to say something. Thanks for reminding me I almost forgot." Cave ran over to the text translator and pressed the talk button. He wasn't necessarily worried about its effectiveness of the device itself but more accurately he was genuinely curious about whether or not the guys downstairs would even receive the message. "Eh… say something." He told Caroline.

"Ok… I wish I had some cake right now." Caroline giggled.

"What flavor?"

"I'd like a chocolate walnut cake, with, strawberries on top of sugar cream lining the edge in a circle…"

"Stop it, you're making me hungry."

"You wouldn't eat any cake if you weren't."

"Good catch, Caroline. Nathan, make sure to retrieve a cake from the dispensary, we'll be down there shortly."

~X~X~X~X~X~

"Hey Nathan, what's wrong? You look like you've just received your tax form; we're in the middle of December! Relax! Christmas will be here soon."

"It's… the adapter. It's transmitting a message right now, see? Something about… cake?"

"Cake? Hey that reminds, me, wanna check out the new dispensary later? I hear they mostly serve test subjects, but they'll allow some employees to a slice."

"I don't have time today, Chris. Actually the coolant guys were thinking about heading to Manny's later, that is if they MONITOR those graphite tips like they should!" Nathan echoed loud and clear so that the engineers sitting in the corner could hear him. "So no, I'd love some cake, but not today."

"We'll that's a shame. The test subjects love it apparently, I mean most of them. I heard this one guy lost his sense of taste after he tried licking the edge of a portal field. It might actually work in his favor though, now he can eat anything!"

"Are you going to say anything important now? Or can I get back to my work?" Nathan said with a stern direction in his tone. "I have a new team of incompetent core analysis engineers who can't tell a megawatt from an emancipation grid, and I've got a high priority message coming in from Mr. Johnson himself… about cake apparently… I'm not getting paid enough." He reassured himself.

After reading the first line of the paper, Nathan was already convinced that the rest of the content was going to end up worthless anyways. He shut the machine down before it could finish its message, already he could see the errors in the translation. "What is it with him and Caroline?" He asked Chris, turning towards where he was mere seconds ago, only to find that he was no longer there. "Chris?" He searched the room with his watchful eyes, but couldn't find him on the upper catwalks, or near the control station, or anywhere.

Nathan returned to his duty as core manager. Not much would happen that day, except for Cave taking him aside from his work to show the nuclear team administrator his plan to create another secret of Aperture Science.

~X~X~X~X~X~

"You see Halpert; these rocks provide the perfect material for our handheld portal devices to work with. Now with these new conversion gels free for us to use as we please, we can finally begin the stages towards further development and then a long way down the road, release." Cave led Nathan down a highly restricted walkway and into a large room filled with assorted machinery, cutting and molding white slabs and then transporting them further along on a mainline conveyer belt. "At Aperture Science, we don't cut corners," He said, leaning next to a machine with automatic arms slicing the edges off of one of the rectangular pieces. "Except with these things, those are corner cutting machines, but they don't count, they just cut." He then walked over to a large vat sitting at the corner of the room.

"What's this?" Nathan asked, pointing at the steel gray drum.

"It's a container of course… can't you see?"

"What's inside of it?"

Cave chuckled, knowing what he meant all along. "Good thing you asked, because I've already prepared an answer for you with one of my pre-recorded messages." He pulled a small metal latch on the vat of gel down, showing a clear glass window behind the new opening which itself uncovered a flowing stream of chalky white goop, this action also initiated a nearby message with Caroline's voice on it.

"Here is where we refine our conversion gel, after crushing up those million dollar moon rocks, they come here and mix with our special mixture of Aperture Sticky Slick Bonding Agent™ and a super secret substance we found in the basement so it doesn't slide off those walls after it joins with the surface. Those adorable lab boys do a great job at making sure these gels are nice and clean! You could even brush your teeth with them I think!"

"You're making toothpaste out of moon rocks?" Nathan asked with partial disgust. "You're making toothpaste out of moo- You actually put that stuff inside your mouth?"

"It's one of the… many uses. I call it moon paste. Don't know if it really works yet, but it keeps my teeth nice and white! Now don't judge me; it's probably a lot safer than that crap you rub into your gums anyways… that reminds me, Caroline!"

"Yes Mr. Johnson?" Caroline dutifully rushed over to Cave at the mentioning of her name; on her face was a smile bright enough to cheer a dispirited orphan who was just forced to jump over pits of imminent death.

"Can you go down to the lab boys and request a study on the organic health benefits of conversion gel?"

"Right away Mr. Johnson!"

"You brush your teeth with that stuff?" Nathan still stared in amazement at the vat of gel.

"Oh and, Caroline?"

"Yes Mr. Johnson?"

"Let the lab boys know we're not going to space anytime soon, it's just a lot easier to buy the damn rocks at this point believe it or not, and I don't want them getting excited. You know how they'll explode at the chance so… I don't know; tell them to create weaponized hamsters or something."

"O…k… Mr. Johnson."

"You… put that on your… what?"

"You really don't believe me do you?" Cave could see that Nathan had strong doubts about Cave's claim. "Caroline, could you come over here?"

Caroline halted in her tracks; Cave rarely gave so many successive requests to her. "Yes?"

"Mr. Halpert doesn't believe me that I use this stuff as a substitute for toothpaste."

Caroline giggled, covering her mouth.

"What! You believe him Caroline?"

"Well, I have noticed a positive change in his breath…"

"Wha…"

"And it doesn't taste too bad either…" Caroline looked over to Cave with her signature 'smile until something dies' expression. They both shared an unconscious sputtering of laughter with each other in that moment, which if they were to continue, would become intermingled with an assortment of jokes strange and very unfunny to anyone else.

"You mean you use that stuff too?" Nathan asked, surprised.

"No… Only Mr. Johnson…"

"Then… how do…"

Cave patted Nathan heavily on the back. "Mr. Halpert, how about I show around a little more?" He gave Caroline a wink with his left eye then two from his right, which was only part of a secret code he and Caroline developed a while back telling her to get back to her duties.

"Show me around? Why am I even here? I don't even work in this department."

"Funny you should ask. The uh… manager of the pumping department tried to use some of the orange Aperture speed gel to try and boost 'productivity' or whatever, you know, make people get from here to there faster, didn't work. So six broken legs and three weeks of drawn out safety inspections later, he slipped and fell out of the exit, Hah! Get it? 'Cause he was fired!"

"Let me guess, you want me to be the new manager?" Nathan asked, worried that his suspicions might be right and equally afraid that Cave had something else in mind.

"Actually, I was planning on you and Dr. Moritz fighting to the death over the position in a daring battle of wits, but, I knew he'd probably win, so I'm picking you for the fun of it and just watch where it goes… see, that was a lie in case you couldn't tell… Besides, if I offered Dr. Moritz the position, he wouldn't be able to yell at me every day about how all my ideas are going to hurt people, and that's it's too dangerous, whatever. And even if he could yell at me, he's still shaken after that whole moon debacle a few years ago, so I'd doubt he'd want to be surrounded by these moon rocks all day, he says it'll gives him headaches."

"So… what about the new core manager?"

"Christopher seems competent enough, he'll be a fine core manager, and he also knows exactly where the cake dispensary is located, so he can get me some whenever I come down, unlike the old one."

Nathan drooped in shame.

"Oh wait you're the old one now! Huh, funny how that works. Anyways, you're first job as pumping station manager is to make me a new desk."

"What?"

"Just kidding, I want you to make a desk with the top made out of moon rocks, I kind of like the smell, I don't know why…" Cave presided over a wide room, where thick pipes protruded from the walls and all collected into a central hub where the gels were distributed to each.

"Of what, the moon rocks?" Nathan's face contorted in confusion

"No, of science! I love the smell of science! Now get to work before you have an unfortunate accident and have to be removed under shady and mysterious circumstances… that was a joke too… by the way."

~X~X~X~X~X~

Author's Notes: Hey, it's me again. Yeah, I know that reading these notes must feel like snails getting stuck in between your toes and just puking like crazy, but you know, I think it brings us closer together. So here I was yesterday, minding my own business when this guy walked up to me and asked me if I had any pressurized cans of air from the Netherlands… wait, you've already heard that story? Good to know.

Also, some of you may be confused about how little 'romance' there seems to be between Cave + Caroline… read the title! It's supposed to be romantic with science! Do you not understand! /ragemodeoff If you've read this far, I guess that means something.