Title: Fear Nothing (A Story In Three Parts)
Rating: T
Warnings/Pairings: Light Rick/Craig (Factventure), some language.
Part 2
Aperture's employee apartments were in a gated community, a fine block of duplexes, gilded with posies for the executive staff and top scientists and a set of tasteful low rise apartments for the office workers. Despite the amount of time she spent at the office or with Cave, Caroline herself had always spent the money for the upkeep of her personal premises and now, walking into a house that was clean and cheerfully lighted, she was sincerely glad she had.
The two Dobermans resting in the corner raised their heads as she arrived. Caroline was not the type to natter at her animals as though they were humans but she did assume that her pets were wondering why they had been moved and where her loud companion with the test tubes had gone to. She sighed.
There was never any sense in procrastination so she removed her skirt and blouse, put her high heels into the shoe rack and once in her nightdress proceeded to pick up the phone and dial the number that the University Admissions secretary had provided her with. Harvard echoed Doug Rattmann's glowing review of Neil's accomplishments. It seemed that the young graduate student had not been idle; his resume seemed to boast several peer reviews that he had published solely for the padding of his resume and to boost his status in the scientific community. Caroline copied the titles, mostly to verify their existence than to research them thoroughly.
Hanging up with the Harvard secretary, she was forced to turn her attentions to the unfamiliar eleven-digit number with all its country codes and long-distance add-ons. It was apparently the number to Oxford University where Wheatley had studied.
Caroline simply picked up the phone and dialed the number. Now away from the enigmatic man, she was having even more trouble fathoming what was giving her pause.
"Hello, may I speak to Doctor Matravers?"
"One moment please." There was a pause with a vague static noise before a sharp, English-accented, and much to Caroline's surprise, female voice echoed down the line.
"Ellen Matravers, Department of Biochemistry." The woman's voice reminded her of a teacher she'd once had who had given Caroline several nasty welts with a ruler until her handwriting had become the fine, even script it was today.
"Doctor Matravers, my name is Caroline Johnson. I am the acting CEO of Aperture Science and I believe I just hired one of your former students: Wheatley Harris."
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line, or at least Caroline believed there had been. When Doctor Matravers spoke, it was with the same even, sharp voice with which she had answered the phonecall. "I'm familiar with Aperture Science Innovations. I am sorry to have heard of the loss of Cave Johnson. As to Doctor Harris, he held a post-doctorate student in our department until just last year."
"That's what it says." Caroline affirmed.
"He also holds a minor in Psychology." The good doctor continued. Caroline assumed that was the end of it and prepared to continue her questioning when the woman spoke up again. "Wheatley was indeed a protégée of mine. Perhaps not the quality I normally look for in the students I take on, Madam but absolutely a fine addition to your company."
Caroline nodded, despite the fact that the woman on the other end of the line could not see her.
"He's very charismatic." The chill in Doctor Matravers' tone seemed to frost over into ice. "Very charismatic."
The repetition sounded very much like a warning and Caroline was no fool. "I'll keep that in mind. As you can tell I've got his transcripts and resume however were there any other internships or jobs he has held down since leaving Oxford that you know of?"
The woman remained business-like but rather clipped as she assured Caroline that Oxford kept very tight tabs on what their alumnus did after leaving the institution and checked employment history carefully when giving references. The double, unspoken meaning behind the comment was crystal clear: I don't know how you run things in America, but we are professionals here in the United Kingdom.
"We are just following up, I'm sure you understand. If there are any more journal reviews or peer reviews outside of his field I would like to see them. We'd like to cross reference them with one of our new young intern's work."
Dr. Matravers sounded appeased from the earlier snub. "Of course Ms. Johnson. We already have your fax number."
Caroline put down the phone after delivering the remaining professional pleasantries and replayed the call in her mind. It had been no accident that she had given her surname as 'Johnson'. Black Mesa was probably already looking for ways into the proverbial vaults of company secrets and had no doubt been looking for truths in the rumours flying about her. There was a very real chance they had already tapped something as trite and unprotected as her residential phone line. Let them chew on that. She would retain her own surname within the company walls.
Shuffling a few papers just to give herself something to do, Caroline considered Wheatley's motives. She had two thoughts in mind for any potential threat he might actually be: the first was the one she had considered all along: that he was a Black Mesa spy. The second she had tried to write off as vanity or paranoia but had been reawakened by her call to Dr. Matravers as well as what the public thought of her; namely that the man was trying to seduce her into forking over a share of the company for himself.
Caroline got up, fed her pets and tried to put all traces of self-doubt and curiosity about her own ego out of her head. She was the head of Aperture now and she would find out in the morning what, if anything, was to be pursued on the matter.
She traipsed off to her bedroom and deliberately turned her head as she passed by the silent and dark guest suite of the house which would now remain as such for the rest of her days.
She arrived at the office by five am, had two cups of coffee in her by five fifteen and started working on the budget as she always did in order to force herself to slow down. Her practiced eye had the work done quickly and she was almost convinced she could do this all on her own by six thirty until she realized that apart from the excessive intake of coffee, this had been her morning routine for further back than she felt she needed to count. She was still doing her old assistant job, not Cav—the CEO's.
As if to punctuate her own thought, a click at the door in the office foyer came, and she could hear the march of feet as well as some shuffling. That was likely Craig, Neil and Wheatley. Belatedly she realized that there was no 'her' to announce their presence or let her in. Craig was smart enough to know not to knock so she pressed her eye to the crack in the door.
Four, not three people occupied the couch. She had predicted the first three but Rick as the fourth caused the fear to rise up in her belly once more. Seeing his bulky, muscular frame wedged between Wheatley and Craig was even more of a suggestion that she might still be correct to be worried.
It was an established fact that Craig and Rick were a homosexual couple. Cave had barely given the issue a second thought, informing the both of them that as long as he 'didn't see any fucking about on the premises' they were free to 'fuck in their own home'.
While there had never been any apparent sexual behavior beyond the occasional ass-pat that Caroline had ever come to see, Rick definitely liked to brag to anyone who cared to listen just how amazing he was in the bedroom. Many a lunch break had caused a very large outbreak of blushing and, depending on who you asked either an embarrassing or very entertaining row between the two which usually ended with Craig insisting he was not just Rick's bitch and that he was blowing smoke up his ass about the size of his cock.
Caroline had never cared much for office gossip, even if it was impossible to fully ignore, but she did have a fairly decent understanding about the nature of their relationship that if Craig was allowing Rick to accompany him for any kind of protection without comment then there was the chance he too had seen what she had in Whea—one of their new employees and it was a gesture to be observed.
She backed away from the door and sat down at her desk, shuffling Neil's papers to the top. Very well then. The Intern first. She walked back over to the door, put on her game face and opened it.
Four heads snapped toward her and Craig immediately stood.
"Good morning Ma'am. I've brought the new hires up for the follow up interviews you requested."
Caroline nodded once and turned her gaze to Rick.
"Don't mind me. I'm getting outta here and going back to the labs. Just wanted to see what all this plush office crap Craig talks about all day."
It was a Rick-like statement and action but also a very obvious lie. Not only did Rick hate office work and talked about it like it was poisonous but Craig barely discussed his meetings with her or Cave at all, save to express whether or not the project progress was met with approval.
She nodded. "Thank you Craig, Rick get back to work. Neil, I will see you now."
Neil stood and entered the office, his eyes darting around with nervous excitement. Caroline didn't have much to say to him after having spoken with Harvard the other night but she wanted to give the illusion she was concentrating equal treatment on both.
"Please sit down." She crossed the room and took a seat in Cave's chair, hoping it looked as natural as if she did it all the time. Belatedly she realized she had often sat right here, finishing up a report and enjoying taking advantage of her boss' ergonomic chair.
"I spoke to the people at your University and had a look at your Masters' thesis on the space program." She began. "However I wanted to question some of this other work you've done: articles on macromolecular science? A peer review in an Engineering journal?"
"Well, you understand how it is. It's difficult to get accepted to conferences or published when you're just an undergrad." Neil said quickly. He did meet her eyes, but they jumped around her face hyperactively. "I chose engineering and polymers as they're both important components and questions that get raised in Space travel."
It was a typical textbook student answer: exactly what she'd expected from a nervous first-timer.
"Tell me something about your career so far."
Neil launched into a quick explanation of his thesis statement, the classes he'd taken in Undergrad and some of his discussions with his adviser. Caroline picked up on a few key words but she was already quite convinced that Doug had picked a winner.
"Did you ever consider any other companies besides Aperture?" she asked finally cutting him off when he started to slow down and sputter, clutching at straws for anything else that would have padded his answer out more.
Neil froze. "I'm supposed to say 'no', but that wouldn't be true. I applied for Black Mesa as well. I wanted my first internship to be either here or there though, because well, you're the best." His hands fidgeted in his lap.
No. Caroline decided. He was no threat at all. Just a kid who wanted his first job and was willing to work to make himself as successful as possible. She would keep an eye on him later after his graduation. If he jumped ship in the hopes of getting better pay from a rival, then while she couldn't fault him she would be sure to ruin his future chances from the ground up. It was what Cave would have done.
That thought gave her confidence and she gave him a smile. "No, that was exactly the answer I would have expected. Good luck here at Aperture and remember that we reward loyalty as well as fine science. Go report back to Doug Rattmann and bring this with you."
She placed a stamp of approval on the application, added her signature, tore off the top page and set the remainder of the CV aside to put on file.
Neil looked relieved as he grasped the paper and all but flew out the door. She waited until she'd heard the ding of the elevator before rising from her chair once more. Ladies and Gentlemen: the main event.
Her second look at Wheatley was about as jarring as the first. He was in fact still wearing the gloves and cravat though he'd swapped the somber black suit for a grey waistcoat and of course, a white labcoat. He smiled and stood when she opened the door. She did not smile back as she had with Neil.
"Please have a seat." She parroted herself from before and was proud of the increased confidence with which she took up the CEO's chair. Wheatley beamed back, folding his lab coat neatly under him and staring up at her with a look of perfect attentiveness.
"Thank you luv. Sorry, Ma'am. Force of habit you understand."
"I made a call into Oxford the other day. Your references are very good however I would like to talk about our conversation at the funeral parlor."
Wheatley did not seem surprised by that. Rather, he launched into a rather pleased sounding, boastful review of his many accomplishments. Rather than the cocky smug tones she would have expected a spy to have taken up after being told she was considering his proposal, he was rambling fairly innocently but as though he was talking about his favourite subject in the world. It occurred to Caroline that he probably was.
"Well I am bloody impressive at filing, I'll have you know. I mean bam. With the letters and numbers and oh – what's the word? Alphanumerics! Yep, those. Plus I have a ton of ideas! I bet you gave Cave lots of ideas! For experiments! That's what I'm about! Ideas! Getting them done too! Ol' Wheatley, yep. All ready to help out!"
She almost expected him to stand up and salute. None of it had been what she had been expecting at all. There was no long involved track record of a perfect blameless employee who dotted every 'i' and crossed every 't', the hallmark of a potential threat.
But then, what about…
Her thoughts suddenly slipped back to Rick and Craig. She had to fight to control the blush of embarrassment she could feel threatening to make its unprofessional and inexplicable way onto her cheeks,e ven though her egomania if egomania it had been was only internally expressed and misdirected. Maybe Rick was the one who was concerned about Wheatley's interference into his relationship with Craig.
Caroline was no expert on relationships apart from those that involved science but there was a certain something about the way Wheatley dressed and she'd noticed it straight away. Perhaps the reason had not been her sexual identity but his.
She shook her head. She was seeing embezzlers and Black Mesa operatives everywhere. It was time to make some executive decisions.
"Alright Wheatley. Your resume says nothing about any office experience however I do need an assistant and you're the first to make any sort of proactive move in the application process. I like that: it shows dedication. However working with Doug and the boys as well as being my assistant is not going to be an easy job. If it looks as though you cannot handle it, we'll be looking for someone else immediately and you will go back to the labs."
The man across from her nodded, his bright blue eyes coming alive. "I won't let you down. Trust ol' Wheatley."
"You keep saying that. Let's see if you can deliver."
She marked down the situation and sent him to follow Neil down to Doug, instructing him to return as soon as he'd done so.
"Hey! Blondie! You ever get tired of playing the bitch to a woman!"
"Oh go nance off you twat. I make three times the amount of money you do, so why don't you go prance off back to the labs and think about that for awhile." The remark was accompanied by a huffy-sounding sniff.
Three months later, hearing that kind of jibe leveled in the boss' assistant's direction had become somewhat common place. The man seemed to be able to take care of himself so Caroline chose not to directly step in, apart from a subtle recalculating of who would be working on which project.
So far, it had appeared that Caroline's residential phone line had indeed been tapped. Somewhere in her possession were no less than three tabloids, published within a half-week of her initial hiring calls and all of which insisted that 'reliable' informants could verify that Cave Johnson wasn't dead and he had faked his own demise so that he could elope with his secretary. It also discounted not only Neil and Wheatley but most of the present staff as Black Mesa informants. In fact, the rival company had been very quiet. Too quiet
"Wheatley?"
"Yes luv?" He never had gotten over that but Caroline was used to it (as well as several other English colloquialisms) by now. "Please be sure to ask human resources to keep an eye on Black Mesa. They have been quiet for far too long. Also, who was that you were speaking to just now?"
"No one luv."
She raised an eyebrow. "I don't like being lied to. Who was he?"
"Um…" Wheatley was terrible with names to begin with but she knew better than to let any employee have even a finger hold on her, even for a second. "I think his name was…Ted. Yes. Ted. He works on the conversion gel project, you remember Craig was up here just a tick ago to tell me that Doug's finally finishing up. I can put him on something new if you like."
"What else is there?"
"Two secs luv!" He dashed back to his desk. "Alright um. There was…Mantis men: breeding the ones we have in captivity. Also human relaxation vaults and building a robotic aide for that and um…deadly neurotoxin and adrenal vapors in testing scenarios."
Caroline considered the list. "Tell Ted he's being moved to testing the Neurotoxin and Adrenal Vapors project."
Actually, all these ideas had initially been Wheatley's. The trick was that most of Wheatley's ideas were brilliant at their base but each suggestion also involved long, convoluted and ridiculously (emphasis on the 'ridiculously') dangerous execution procedures. It was really even a tiny bit like working for Cave near the end of his life, only thankfully she had final veto power over what would actually be accomplished.
They made a decent team as a matter of fact, even if it still did feel like treason to admit it. She reminded herself that he simply wasn't the caliber of secretary she was nor the caliber of scientist. She should remember her time with Cave as a well-oiled machine that would never again be seen by the scientific community but rather an experience that she had had the honour to be an integral part of.
Wheatley had saluted and was halfway out the door before he turned and offered a small smile. "Thanks."
She found him at the end of the day snoring on top of a pile of accounting reports, glasses dangling by one arm off his ear. She salvaged them from the dollop of drool that was threatening to spill out of the corner of his lightly snoring mouth and began to check them over. There was the usual erroneous calculation here and there. Sometimes in the debits columns, sometimes in the credits columns, never any more than forgetting to carry a one or deduct the tax markup from some supplier.
She marked over his mistakes and added the numbers properly, then went to get one of the blankets. He shrugged his shoulders and positively cuddled into it. He reminded her powerfully of her dogs when they slept and she began to wonder what could ever have possibly possessed her to see anything less than a hard-working, eager to please, if perhaps a little bit of an idiot of a man.
Her answer came the next morning. It started as usual: Wheatley came in with a cup of coffee. He had learned to make decent coffee even if he asked her if she wanted tea at every available opportunity and drained what seemed like gallons of the stuff every day. He seemed somewhat subdued.
Her suspicions about why were confirmed at the time he usually begged off for lunch; apparently he'd been rather brutally shot down by one of the test subjects (she'd been wrong about that too – if Wheatley did like men he certainly also liked women equally well) who had finally and in no uncertain terms rebuffed his rather clumsy advances. Instead of his usual schedule of racing off to try and woo his lady, he offered to clean out Caroline's office.
She allowed it, now long able to tune out his babbling conversation, something apparently even the most brutal rejection had not been able to leech out of him.
"So I was thinking we could…Hullo. What's this?"
The pronouncement was followed by the distinct sound of a pile of papers toppling over. Instead of a stream of muttered curses and worry, there was a definite edge to his voice. "I think I need to look this over."
He wandered away without bothering to clean up the papers. She filed it away as presently unimportant, though she would be having words with him if he'd just messed up her office and order was not later restored.
She allowed the break in the task to carry on awhile before she decided to see what had happened. She came across him ear-marking and annotating something that had been recently photocopied with a neon yellow highlighter, his expression almost gleeful and so unlike the man she'd seen last night that she was startled.
"What are you working on?" she was unable to help herself.
"Ohoho, just something very interesting I found in Mr. Johnson's office." He gazed up at her and it took all her willpower not to take a step backward and certainly not simply because of the aggressive way he was suddenly addressing her. The fact that he had referred to it as Mister Johnson's office had not escaped her. "I think you'll find it interesting too, luv." He drawled the last word, dragging it out in a purr.
She seized what was the original copy lying next to the photocopied one pinned under his arm. She recognized the handwriting at the top instantly but it was the words it spelled out that made her blood freeze in her veins.
This is the Last Will and Testament of Cave Marian Johnson
This was Cave's will alright. No one but her had ever known the secret that was supposed to go to his grave that his parents had named him after not an uncle named Marion but rather his Aunt Marian.
So that meant she'd been lucky, hadn't she? To be suspicious of whatever Wheatley had been intending, to find it before he had the chance to tie them up in legal battles with forgeries and loopholes.
"I'd like to see what you were working on, please."
"Of course." He handed over the highlighted ones. "I've of course already made calls to the team of lawyers and a back-up copy." He handed over the highlighted pages and Caroline could see that the stack beneath his hand was indeed twice as thick as the two sets of pages she now held in each hand. She stared at both. Nothing changed from what she could tell at first sight. The photocopies had black smears on the bottoms of pages. It would be impossible to pass them as forgeries. He couldn't have done anything that quickly. What was his game?
"I don't think I need to worry about anything else with these luv. I'll just put the backup copy here in my drawer, shall I?"
"Yes. Very good. Please clean up the office when you get a chance."
"Sorry luv I just forgot. I want a chance to talk to you anyway. I have some ideas for a new project. I think you'll know what I mean soon enough."
His smile and his cryptic statement followed her all the way back to her office.
A quick check on the phone records confirmed that Wheatley had indeed made the call. His words had been polite and professional, simply stating that he had the will in his possession and that he was sure that they would like to retrieve it immediately for analysis and of course to allow the long unfulfilled dying wishes of a man to be granted.
She put the papers aside for the present, choosing to behave as though nothing was causing her any concern. She collected testing reports, had Wheatley do some filing, run a few things back and forth between Doug, Rick, Craig and Neil and organize a company reward for the Conversion Gel team upon the successful completion of the project, minus of course the unfortunate Ted.
She meanwhile informed security to run security checks on her office from the day that Wheatley had begun work at Aperture but while he had indeed been in her office when she was not there, they reported nothing unusual about his behavior. He brought in coffee and took away used mugs, organized her desk, picked up things in her inbox and according to them had never seemed to have cause to go near that one messy shelf in the back until today.
She knew she could wait him out. Finally at eight o' clock he left to go home for the day. She counted out five minutes after hearing the door slam behind him before she pulled out the will and its highlighted photocopy.
She followed along the first page where Cave's immediate family and personal affects were listed. Thankfully she wouldn't be involved with those. Given that no will to date had been provided his family had held a private state auction and as far as she had heard of the issue, everyone had gone home happy. They could quibble over it if they wanted. She was not a part of the family and had no say in those matters.
There was a short passage, strangely untouched by the highlighter that named her as the successor to the company. It was almost word-for-word what had been said in the recording. She wondered if Cave had in fact been trying to write it at the same time he was dictating it.
She flipped over the page. Here started the highlighter marks.
She read through the part where Cave discussed his plan for a large chassis imbued with his will in it that would run the entire facility, followed by: '…and if I die first try to get my brain in there before it goes cold'.
'Goes cold' had been highlighted. She shivered involuntarily, trying not to think about what her boss' handsome rugged body would look like after 4 long months buried underground. She read on.
"If that's just not possible, I want you to fire whoever dropped the ball and then I want you to work on getting Caroline's mind in there in my stead. I want Caroline and her new assistant to make that top priority. Caroline's judgement on replacing herself with a new assistant will be air-tight and I give him or her full permission to make the GLaDOS project a success. Attached are the blueprints for the GLaDOS design."
Caroline read it again. The words 'her new assistant', 'top-priority' and 'full permission' all glared up at her in yellow neon. 'Air-tight' was double underlined in red.
She stared at it, barely able to feel a thing as she flipped through the rough sketches for the large robot.
She clicked out the light, letting the infrared sensors on the security cameras take over so no one would see her bury her head in her hands in the dark.
"Oh Mr. Johnson, I don't want this!"