"Hello? Black Mesa? Yes, this is Pizza Mutt delivery service. I've got a complaint for ya: The address you gave us doesn't exist."

In the back of the room, Caroline muffled her giggling with her scarf, watching the unbelievably believable boss of Aperture Science as he continued to argue into the phone. There was never a second of hesitation in his voice between lines.

"No, I'm not LOST, I said it DOESN'T EXIST. I went to the address I was given, and it doesn't exist!"

Another pause. Caroline would've liked to be right up close to the phone to hear what was going on, but she'd been banished to the back the last time on account of her laughter giving away their position to the enemy.

"It. Does. Not. Exist. What part of this isn't getting through to you? I demand to speak with your manager! ...You are the manager? Then I DEMAND to speak with your employee! Which one? I don't care which one! Just gimme whoever ordered this stupid pizza in the first place!"

A pause. Then just the barest nod and smug little smirk to inform his assistant that they were, indeed, transferring him over to an employee— after they'd found out which one had tried to order pizza on the job, which nobody was going to own up to, in part because of the fact that nobody had actually done so.

That was the thing about Cave Johnson: he was so absolutely full of confidence, nobody dared question his authenticity.

Not even Black Mesa.

Not even after he'd already prank-called them 16 times within the past two months, and they swore to call the police if he ever so much as touched a phone with his grubby little hands ever again.

'How's it going?' Caroline mouthed. Cave grinned, not bothering to cover the mouthpiece with his hand.

"They put me on hold. That new voice modifier is working great! Or, at least, I assume. Not that I can hear myself."

Caroline giggled happily, proud of her success. "And the new VPN should stop them from suspecting anything."

"VPN? I didn't even know phones had those!" Cave mused. "Say, how's the test with the green goo going?"

The assistant opened her mouth to answer, but her boss suddenly thrust up a hand with a serious look on his face, holding the phone back up to his ear.

"You find the guy yet or what? ...Yeah, it was a guy! You think I can't hear a woman's charm through the telephone? I'll have you know I worked at a phone company for twelve years before getting this blasted delivery job! Wish I still did, but I was fired on account of my numerous indecent rashes. Ohhh, don't even get me STARTED on the bosses here. There's this one gal, Tina, real peckish lady— always eating the toppings right off our pizzas! And then she blames me! ME! The delivery boy! Why the next time she tries to make me look bad on Casual Cult Friday, I oughta…"

Caroline, sadly, did not get to hear the rest, as she opted to leave the room before she actually burst out laughing and gave away the entire operation.

Yeah.

Just another day at Aperture Science.

(A/N: some-new-disaster on tumblr answered an ask about Portal BROTPs with "#I see your angsty caveline headcanons and I raise you cave eating glowsticks while caroline facepalms in the background#they prank call black mesa together"

and I kid you not as a former angsty caveline headcanoner I spent a solid DAY thinking about those tags and then proceeded to write this fic to ask forgiveness for my sins because oh my gosh that is SO much better in every conceivable way)