Chapter Text
Aperture Laboratories was a squat and lone building in the middle of nowhere, Michigan. Caroline hadn’t expected the main office building of the renowned new applied science organization to be so small. Perhaps the facilities of Aperture ran deeper into the ground, rather than being built up. Why else would the founder and CEO make headlines in all the local papers for buying up an abandoned salt mine to build his new base of operations?
Caroline waited for nearly half an hour in the lifeless front entrance. There was an open seat where a receptionist should have sat. There were even a few dead plants to decorate the space. This is where her contact said to arrive for the interview, and she arrived five minutes early. Nobody was here.
Still, Caroline couldn’t just turn back. Not after quitting her pervious secretary job. Her skin still crawled at the memory of her old boss.
Caroline tapped her foot anxiously. She kept her mind busy by running through her qualifications in her head: typing, shorthand, making coffee-
Caroline jumped when she heard a bang behind one of the hallway doors. The double-doors swung open and a man in a tweed business suit fell out. As he dusted himself off, Caroline saw that several areas of his suit were burned. The man smelled like char and he panted heavily as if he had just run a marathon.
As the man stumbled towards her, Caroline recognized him from the papers – this wasn’t just an employee who had agreed to meet her for an interview, this was the founder and CEO himself.
“Well! Glad I made it in time. You'll be helping to keep my schedule on track - if you get hired, that is.” Cave Johnson clapped his hands once and smoothed down his light-brown hair. Despite being a year shy of thirty, his hair was already producing flecks of gray.
He fixed his blue eyes on the woman in the room. “And you are…” He looked at a smudged name written on the back of his hand. “Caroline…something…ffmm…” He let out a fake cough.
Caroline was used to people messing up her name before. Both first and last name. “Actually, it’s pronounced-”
“Listen, Caroline, you like science?”
“Yes, yes I do,” Caroline answered earnestly. She wanted to study physics at a real college, but then her parents laughed at her, and then the laughter turned into yelling.
“What about testing? Do you like to test science?” Cave asked.
“Umm…yes?”
Cave grinned. “And here the boys at the lab said that all uteruses were repelled by science! Now, I’ll tell you what: I’ll give you the job right now if you can help me out with something.”
Cave went on to explain that the newly-invented Aperture Science High Energy Pellet was a success – but hundreds of them escaped during a test gone wrong. Now, the entire Aperture Laboratory facility was flooded with bouncing beams of lethal energy pellets. During the entire conversation, Caroline could hear a sharp "pling" sound bouncing off of the door that Cave just entered from.
“The boys and I have been able to corral all of the pellets into an incinerator using sheets of metal.” Before she could answer, Cave was already heading back towards the door. “Come on, I’ve got a spare for you.”
Caroline knew that she had all the chance to walk away from this place and never return, and spare her of any risks of death by flying High Energy Pellets.
But it wasn’t every day that she was invited to something that sounded so important. Maybe being Cave’s assistant would mean more than just managing calendars and preparing coffee.
Caroline followed Cave through the doorway, took up a massive sheet of metal, and spent the rest of her afternoon knocking balls of crackling energy back into a container to be destroyed. After the last one was secured, she shook hands with Cave and gladly reminded him on how to pronounce her name until he got it right.