Author's Note: I have never really played Half-Life, but I've watched my brothers play it for hours at a time and I fell in love with the storyline. However, Barney, my favorite character, disappeared after a while! This story covers in detail bits and pieces of Barney's life that the game doesn't really explore. Furthermore, the title at the end of the original Half-Life game, "Subject: Barney Calhoun, Status: Out of Range, ect." really intrigued me.
This section deals with Barney from before and after the Black Mesa incident, before Gordon reappears. The next section will deal with Barney's fatal departure on the train, and my take on what became of him. Enjoy!
Progress Report
Subject: Barney Calhoun
Location: Anderson, South Carolina
Status: N/A
Barney sat on the grass; arm wrapped around one knee, watching as Lauren talked animatedly about the things that made her happy. The sun, casting gold and red rays over the hills, the lake below, still blue and cool and sparkling, the green, sweet smelling grass on the hill, even the air, which carried the faint scent of wildflowers from the field behind them.
Barney just listened, and watched. He wanted to tell her the things that made him happy. Lauren's big green eyes, the way her brown hair ran down her shoulders and danced there with every movement she made, a perfect frame for her face. Her blushing cheeks, the blue jean skirt she was grinding into the hillside with her knees as she reached for the dandelion further along the lawn. Even the light blue blouse that she must have worn at least ten times out of a hundred dates. But especially her. Definitely, absolutely her. All those other qualities just contributed, just artfully covered her inner beauty. In fact, she seemed to beautify them, with her smile just making Barney's entire world go to pieces.
He wanted to tell her all this, but it somehow got stuck on his tongue and didn't come out all the way. So he just listened.
And then, noticing it was getting late, Lauren turned to him. "You're awfully quiet today. Something on your mind?" She sat back beside him, fingering the dandelion.
"Yeah." Barney answered after a few seconds, as if his speech was delayed. "I'm going back on active duty."
"Oh." Her face fell for a moment. Just a moment. "How long? When?"
Barney had joined the Secret Security Forces with excitement and adventure lust, eager to leave his hometown where nothing ever happened. Now, something had happened, something that made him actually wish he worked in a factory instead, if he could only stay. Lauren had happened. He twined his hand in hers. "May. New Mexico. Trust them to send me to one of the hottest states in summer." He tried for a joke, but the half smile fell off his face. "3 month shift, then 3 more at another research facility in Oregon."
"Ah." They were both silent for a while, she staring pensively at the ground, he searching her face anxiously for the emotions that fought behind it. Then Lauren looked up and grinned. "You'll be back in time for Christmas, anyhow."
Relieved and touched by her optimism, Barney let go of a breath he had been holding, grinning back. "Right! And for Christmas, I'll bring you some desert flowers. You know, the ones that can bloom even in winter? I'll hold em on my lap, all the way back!"
"Ha. You'll just drop them and break the pot." Lauren joked, hiding her real tenderness.
"Who said anything about a pot? I'm bringing you a whole boxful!" Barney flung his arms out wide to emphasize this.
"You dweeb." Lauren giggled, before flinging herself into his surprised embrace.
Subject: Barney Calhoun
Location: Black Mesa Research Facility, New Mexico
Status: In Queue
Engrossed in the radio program, Barney nearly splashed beer on the young assistant who tapped his shoulder. "Whoa, kid! Don't sneak up on me like that! What's the fuss?" He felt less than sociable, having stayed up late last night with a few friends.
"Dr. Kleiner lost the key to his office and he can't…"
"I'm on it!" Barney interrupted him, dropping his beer almost clumsily on the table and leaving his helmet. He sprinted away, calling over his shoulder, "Wait a few seconds before telling Dr. Freeman, won't ya?"
"Nice try." Gordon met him at the corridor, grinning.
"Every little bit helps." Barney made a face and then ran to an air duct, lacing his fingers through the grate and tugging hard. After a few seconds, it came away with a clang and Barney fell on his backside.
Gordon had his open first and was crawling inside. Barney shot into the dark, narrow chamber, every part of him wriggling and pulling and pushing, all the while ignoring Dr. Kleiner's thin complaint as it floated through the air. "Really, I hate to put you two through so much trouble, though indeed I think you bring most of it on yourself by racing like this. There are countless bacteria and mold species growing in those air ducts that you could easily breathe in by stirring up the sediment in your harried mode of travel…"
Mercifully, the doctor's voice grew too quiet to hear.
After a few minutes, Barney saw light ahead. Ka thunk, ka thunk, went his back against the roof of the vent. He began pushing down on it steadily.
A dark haired head appeared below. Gordon!
With a sudden, frantic lunge, Barney smashed the vent into pieces. Unfortunately, his momentum pulled him down as well, causing Gordon to be showered with plastic shards and than crushed by Barney Calhoun.
Amidst the wreckage, someone twitched. Then someone moaned.
There was a knocking from the door. "Gordon? Barney! What's happening in there? If you've broken my Clip Lamp again I swear I'll…"
Barney sat up gingerly, one hand gently prodding his side. "Oww."
Gordon pushed Barney off him and reached below himself. He pulled out the Clip Lamp, which was now cracked in one of its un ducktaped places. Both men looked at each other.
"Well…you better let him in." Barney gestured.
"You fell on me. YOU let him in." Gordon retorted.
Barney relapsed into reluctant silence. Both men sat a little longer, listening to the protests of Dr. Kleiner, which were slowly growing louder and more vehement.
"We are the only guys in the complex who don't mind crawling through the Doc's vents, right?" Barney said after a while.
"I think so."
"That's some insurance. And it's not like we've never done this before." Barney touched the broken place on the lamp, which was still held in Gordon's fist. The other half of it promptly fell off and landed with a dull clang.
Both men cringed at the sound. Gordon picked up the broken piece and tried to fit it back on. Barney, struck with inspiration, pulled out one of the dressers in the desk and pushed the lamp deep inside. Both men picked up the papers that were scattered on the floor and layered it over.
"I'm going to get security! Really, this is most outrageous…" Dr. Kleiner's protests were cut short as the door swung open. He nearly fell over with the sudden imbalance, but when he looked at Barney and Gordon's' pasted smiles, he nearly fell over again.
He rushed past them and frantically scanned his office. Nothing ripped, smashed, or broken. Just a few crumpled papers. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, everything's intact for once. Thank yo…" He suddenly noticed something that wasn't quite right. "Wait, where's my Clip Lamp?"
Subject: Barney Calhoun
Location: Black Mesa Research Facility, New Mexico
Status: Out of Range
Barney stumbled slightly as the portal energy around him died away. Dr. Rosenberg was shaking visibly, leaning heavily on his colleague, Dr. Stafford. Barney fingered his arm curiously, feeling something like static electricity still fuzzing over him.
Several other scientists and security guards clustered together, blinking in the sudden, bright sunlight.
"Hey, Doc Rosenberg, any idea where we are?" Barney asked suddenly, worried about their proximity to the Black Mesa Research Facility. Not that he was nervous about the millions of zombies, head crabs, Vortigaunts, and other creepy, slimy, killer creatures back there. Or even the giant hooks coming out of the ground or the military troops and assassins sent in to slaughter the entirety of the Black Mesa personnel.
One thing was for sure, Barney reflected, remembering the strange purple sky, floating rocks, and overall alienistic planet of Xen, I'm never gonna laugh at Sci-Fi movies again.
"Not exactly. We should be any where in a radius of 14 miles from Black Mesa."
"That means we could reach a road anytime between three hours hiking or two days!"
"Correct, I'm afraid."
Barney said nothing, merely contenting himself with being alive. He checked his pistol. A few shots left, just in case those marines tried to follow them. Now that Barney was out of that infested nightmare, he wasn't gonna die now.
He turned only once, watching the smoke and strange blue lights, far away on the horizon. More than a hundred people had died. And Gordon…Gordon had been at the heart of it. Dr. Kleiner, Dr. Vance, his baby daughter Alyx, the darling of the complex, his wife Elaine. They were probably…all gone.
He clenched his fist a moment, cursing the whole, decrepit, rundown system that caused this, praying for lost friends, as images of them rose up in his head, perhaps never again to be beheld by his naked eye.
He looked back. Being the only security officer to survive from the Center Labs, as well as the only man to enter Xen, and come back alive, he was unanimously elected the leader. He looked at the motley group, blistering under the sun.
I'll get them out alive. He vowed. For you, Izzy, Gordon, Eli. I'll get them out.
"Ok." He spoke, feeling his voice sharp and commanding. "Let's march!"
Subject: Barney Calhoun
Location: United Nations Hall, New York
Status: Located
Barney yanked a dead Policeman off a barricade, dodging bullets as he snatched out the cop's rifle. He dropped his own useless weapon and layed away at the enemy as they stormed over. Vortigaunts made mincemeat out of the defenders with their electric barrage. The Striders above were practically destroying the very buildings they walked by, while Copters chopped into the humans as they dive-bombed over, shooting a strange plasma weapon that incinerated anyone unlucky enough to be in range.
As if all those slimy creeps weren't enough, now the entire Earth was being invaded by some sort of force that called itself the Combine. It had been almost seven hours since the war began. According to Dr. Kleiner, the Combine had been attracted here by the Portal Storms.
Barney almost smiled. He had discovered the Doc alive, protesting as usual about the scant space in the evacuation units. He had almost wrapped the horrified Doc in a hug, which would have resulted in them both being coated in dirt and alien blood.
And what was better, the Doc had informed him of the survival of Eli and little Alyx.
There was only one friend still missing, one Barney had no hope for. Gordon.
He sighed. In that moment of dejection, he let his guard down and bit down a scream as a bullet tore into his arm. He dived down behind the barricade, holding the gun awkwardly with his elbow as he examined the wound. Not too bad.
Suddenly, a voice rang out.
"Attention, defenders of Earth. This is Dr. Breen. Please, lay down your arms. You can see for yourself the situation is hopeless. Really, this is one of those times when discretion is the better part of valor. I have been engaged in conversation with the Combine Leaders. While they may seem brutal to you, I assure you that you have only seen their stern, judicial side. They have another side, a side of benevolence and generosity. They have come to help, not destroy us. We are leaving them no choice by this insistent bloodshed! As has, unfortunately, been the usual case with our ancestors, we have reacted with violence and distrust. The Combine have come to raise us up out of ignorance and turn our faces to the stars. Now, as the new Representative of the Earth government, I tell you to lay down your arms. Forget anger, and enter a new world of technology and wonders."
Lots of people stared in amazement, first at the broadcasters, than at each other, unsure. Most of them cast down their guns or came out from hiding, clustering in timid groups under the Stalkers. A few others yelled angrily, shaking their fists and screaming out defiance. Barney was one of those.
He reared up. "Are you crazy! The Combine came here with no warning and slaughtered an unaware humanity for four hours, than fought us another three! They didn't even announce themselves! I've heard better speeches from Adolf Hitler, Breen!" He nearly spat out the last word. That slimy little bureaucrat had just sold his planet, his people, for that irresistible position of Ruler of Earth.
He jumped on top of the barricade, raising his gun on high. "Who's for Combine slavery? Stay with them! Whoever's for Earth, with me!" And he blew both barrels of his gun into the speaker nearest him. It exploded in sparks.
A crowd of people rushed towards him, whooping. The striders turned, standing over their new slaves, in order to fire killing blasts at the rebellious ones. Dozens fell dead in the streets. But Barney got some of them out. He always got someone out, as if to make up for the one person he had lost.
Lauren.
He hadn't seen her, hadn't heard from her, couldn't even go look for her. Despite the fact that she was everything in the world to him, he knew there would be no more world unless everyone fought their hardest, and sacrificed the most.
When he slept, he dreamed of dandelions. He dreamed of a hillside, and desert flowers. He heard her voice, beautiful, "You dweeb." And felt her arms around him. And then he woke up, and fought.
And the Resistance began.
Subject: Barney Calhoun
Location: Five miles outside City 17
Status: In Queue
"You sure this is gonna work? I'm not gonna come back looking like…like scrambled eggs, right?" Barney eyed the teleport mechanism distrustfully.
Dr. Kleiner looked up from some adjustments he was working on. "Well, theoretically, there's a 36.2 % chance you will return with some physical disorientation."
Barney backed away from the machine. "Doc, I'm not too keen on that. I really, really wouldn't like that."
"Exactly why I've located a test subject." Dr. Kleiner pointed at a carrier. "Take it out and put it in please."
"What?" Barney bent over and peered through the grating. A green eyed cat, its fur a mottle black and brown, peered back at him. Bad mood if he ever saw one. He opened the grating and gingerly reached in, feeling for the scruff. When he finally found it and dragged it out, the cat transformed into a living garbage disposal, making quick work of Barney's hand and sleeve.
With a few bad words and even more exclamations of pain, Barney dropped the thing into the transporter. It stopped yowling and crouched at the very back of the transporter, quivering with rage.
Barney squatted down, looking at the cat eye to eye. Green, big…they reminded him of Lauren. This cat couldn't really be blamed for its nasty attitude. It had been nearly 15 years since the Combine took over, and this cat was just a scared refugee, like any human at the moment.
"Hey Doc, does this cat have a name?"
"No." Doctor Kleiner had probably barely understood the question, engrossed as he was in his work.
"I'll call her Lauren." The words were out before he realized it. Dr. Kleiner glanced up sharply, and Barney wondered if he had ever mentioned Lauren to him over one too many beers.
If he did know, however, the Doc gave no indication and walked up beside him, pulling the levers and setting the coordinates. "Ready, Eli?" He spoke into the radio.
"Ready on this end." Dr. Vance answered.
"Alright. Transporting…now!" Dr. Kleiner pulled hard on a lever.
Barney stood well back, arms crossed, watching as the strange, floating blue shields whirled around the cat, faster and faster, until the cat itself could only be discerned by its bright green eyes. Barney got an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.
Suddenly, there was nothing.
"Have you received it?" Dr. Kleiner asked the radio.
"The cat's safe and sound." Eli grinned. Barney breathed out in relief.
"Now let's try a return path. Ready on this end to receive."
"Alright. Transporting…now!"
The blue glow started up again, shields whirling. But something was wrong. A strange, throaty sounding scream built up, and Barney nearly screamed himself as blood began to spray out of the transporter and onto the walls, the desks, and Barney.
"Something's going wrong!" Kleiner cried, trying in vain to correct the process.
Then, the shields dropped. Barney felt sick, very sick. He stared with wide eyes as Lauren…the cat…swayed on bone legs. Guts were dripping and hanging out of different areas, the cat's face was unrecognizable. Barney couldn't even find it. The brain was flat, the tail was gone, and there was so much blood. But was really horrifying was that it was still alive. Barney could see the lungs shaking, breathing, somehow.
He couldn't bear it. He yanked out his pistol and fired round after round into it, not daring to stop until the thing stopped quivering, spread out flat on the floor of the transport. He stared at what had just been a living creature.
"How…unfortunate." Kleiner muttered, looking a little green.
"Izzy! What happened?" Eli's voice came, worried.
"I don't think you really want to see." Dr. Kleiner said wearily. "Let's just say we've had a minor setback."
Barney almost lost it. Almost. He ran outside, totally disregarding the threat of Snapper Bots, or Civil Protection. He just needed air, room to breath, something to help him forget what he had just seen. Unfortunately, he'd never forget.
Subject: Barney Calhoun
Location: City 17
Status: Selected
Barney felt his heart beating against his ribs, his tongue tight and dry, as he filed in with several other humans into the Civil Protection Center.
"You. Stand over there." Combine directed them all against the wall.
The clang of the door locking sounded like a jail door slamming. Barney gulped and raised his hands as each person was searched for weapons. He almost winced as a hand went over his face. Only recently an antlion claw had scarred him there. Luckily, the Combine Inspector chose not to question him about it.
Finally, the Inspector began asking them questions, showing no clue in his bearing as to whether the answers were true or false. Barney had no idea if he had failed or not. The questions were about their lives, their occupations, what they thought of the Combine, and what their interests were.
The Inspector walked towards one of the five Combine guards and pointed at four of the human beings. The guard shot every one dead. Obviously, their answers had been unsatisfactory. Barney was surprised, somehow expecting himself to be among the fallen.
Only Barney and one other human had been considered worthy to join the Transhuman Forces.
Barney followed the guards into the Memory Replacement Room. He watched as they took off the shirt of his companion and strapped him in. When his turn came, he waited till they were occupied, one with tying down his legs, the other with turning on his companion's apparatus. With a sudden, almost silent movement, Barney spat something out of his mouth. With a tiny click, the thing hit into the helmet waiting above Barney and stuck there, glowing a dull red.
The Combine officer stood up, crushed Barney's chin in one hand, and shoved down the helmet with the other.
Barney closed his eyes, praying as he had never prayed before that Dr. Vance's device would work, that it would deactivate the mind-wiping machine. He heard a lever grate in a socket, felt the helmet get warm, than hotter and hotter.
He concentrated hard, searching for everything…Ma…South Carolina…Lamarr….Gordon…Lauren…wildflowers….Breen…Headhumpers...Zombies...Combine...
And suddenly, after a few, agonizing minutes, it was over. The helmet came off and Barney felt cool air brush his face. He realized he still remembered everything and opened his eyes, jumping for joy inside, but schooling down his face as the Combine wordlessly handed him his new uniform.
He was accepted into Civil Protection Squad.
**to be continued**