Gordon should have gone to Caltech.
He stared a minute at the concrete wall of his room in White Forest. Then he sighed through gritted teeth and doubled over, running his hands through his hair and shaking shrapnel out.
Only a day had passed without him hearing cries of "Don't forget to reload Dr. Freeman!" Only several hours since he ran like hell from Antlion Guardians or pumped a shotgun at headcrabs vying for a taste of his face. And only half an hour since Magnusson demanded Gordon cleanse his precious rocket silo of Hunters, a gunner's nest, and a small Combine army… all while Magnusson periodically "checked in with him" over the base-wide PA system.
Gordon rolled his eyes. One in a million colleague, that Magnusson.
Eli had afterward sent Gordon off to get some rest as he and Kleiner waited for the Citadel's data packet to download in their office, but Gordon knew rest wouldn't come. He accepted the break to instead catch his breath before the next exhausting battle arrived, one already stacked up in queue on his To Do list, no doubt.
Doubling over again for a second run-through of his hair, Gordon touched a slick spot on his scalp and his hand came away bloody. Huh. Okay. Should take care of that soon.
For now though, he sat down and exhaled, bleeding slowly on a rotten chair as he allowed everything—all the memories and voices he normally pushed back as he fought—to finally drown the world out because he was too tired to restrain them any longer. Oddly enough, the first memories to bubble into consciousness were of graduate school. Applying for it, interviewing for it, and of course, his conversations with his undergrad roommate, Rob, about his acceptance.
Gordon's eternal obsession with physics meant thatnot going for a Ph.D. was out of the question. Rob knew that. Other people… needed help understanding that.
However, the young, undergraduate Gordon did not share current Gordon's diplomacy skills—namely, the ability to listen to others before jumping into things. Maybe, Gordon wryly thought, that's why reality now cursed him to listen to mission overviews he'd no say in concocting and then hurled him out into an angry world to complete them…
But never mind that now—he remembered applying to grad school. He remembered Rob. His face darkened.
He remembered himself.
24 years earlier.
Formal interview for PhD program in physics. Unnamed university. One of the world's Top 10.
Four physicists—all potential lab supervisors—sat in a row, scrutinizing the seemingly-meek, green-eyed undergraduate up in front for knowledge both deep and broad as he drew diagrams on a chalkboard bearing un-erased traces of the Schrodinger equation from the last applicant.
"Don't you think your vertical axis would make for a tighter graph if your units were an order of magnitude higher, Gordon?"
"No, not in this case. We need to consider that the…" But already the judge's eyebrows had gone up as the others scribbled lines on their clipboards. Gordon continued his lecture, but he'd already felt the atmosphere tense.
Afterwards, each judge shook Gordon's hand and flashed a winning smile, but Gordon noticed that their eyes never left him. He was a wasp in the room, a danger to be monitored and a threat to be evaluated as long as he was not their protégé. None of those professors wanted to be at fault for recruiting a problematic student who might taint the school name.
The postdoc meet-ups weren't any better. They'd smile and slap Gordon on the back, but would rig the hallway vending machines to malfunction and then hide cameras to record his and other PhD candidates' reactions. They hosted parties and pressured a toast, and then another and another, to see if he'd fall for a glass too many of cheap wine. They intentionally decalibrated scientific instruments before he experimented with them to watch how he handled negative results.
Yet Gordon bore through all the torture. He knew that once he passed the gatekeepers to the graduate program, he could work on his own project all he liked. And he liked the idea of teleportation.
Months after the ordeals of applying, he received two letters in the mail. A yes from MIT, and a maybe from Caltech.
His friends and family were ecstatic. Gordon was indignant. But his roommate Rob was simply confused.
"How could you be mad about this, dumbass?" Rob asked the young Gordon as the latter slammed a desk drawer, scrambling to find the equations sheet for a class that started five minutes ago.
"MIT's better for physics," Rob continued. "Everyone from here to Timbuktu knows it. Screw Caltech. If they were too dumb to realize who they turned down, they don't deserve you. MIT's better anyways."
Gordon stuck his head underneath his desk in search of his equations. "I'd make Caltech better," came the muffled reply.
Rob hefted himself onto Gordon's desk and sat on his uncomfortably large physics book. "Well milksop, what are you going to do to change their decision?"
Gordon popped his head back out from under the desk, gripping his prize. "I'm going to be so successful that they'll regret not taking me. That, and pull an Andy Dufresne mail attack."
"Hey man, this isn't Shawshank State Penitentiary, and you aren't asking for books. Real life people take it poorly when you start sending letters telling them why they're wrong."
"How else will I get noticed? Communication," Gordon tapped his temple with the sheet, "is key… Now where's my physics book? I'm already late for class." He got to his feet and paced the room as Rob, still sitting on Gordon's book, looked out the window and began to whistle.
The next few months, Gordon published two research articles as a first author in his undergrad lab, helped patent add-ons to MALDI-TOF mass spectrometers to improve resolution and run-times, and gave polished speeches at scientific conferences. He pushed so hard for achievement, his own professors called him mad.
As if to prove them right, Gordon sent letters to Caltech every week. He messaged every dean, mailed new recommendations, and wrote and re-wrote appeals. Within the month, everyone in Caltech's administration knew who Gordon was. But still he wouldn't stop.
The next Caltech admissions meeting occurred without incident until Gordon's stack of letters reappeared. The head admissions officer massaged his temples and asked, "Can someone please remind me why this Freeman kid was rejected?"
The sickly little dean to his right answered, "We'd initially taken a Fulbright Scholarship winner over him. We thought Freeman had potential, but at the time, he never really demonstrated it…"
The head officer slammed his fist on the table. In the ensuing silence, he asked, "Well? How do you feel about that now? What's your Fulbright kid doing this instant? Have they published a few research papers as a first author in several months? Have they created patents before passing their preliminary exams for doctoral candidacy? Have they flooded their professors with proof why they should be here, week after week?"
"But that student…" the dean sputtered, "she flew to Uganda to research the economic…."
"Miller, will she change the world?" The head officer turned to the shaking dean, glaring straight into his eyes.
Pause. "Sorry, sir?"
"Will her work change our lives down the line? When we think back on how technology used to be and how it could be, will she be the link to those possibilities?"
"Uh, I think…"
"After I walk out of this room today, will I ever hear her name again?"
Pause. "I don't know. Maybe. I think so."
The head officer folded his hands. "There's your problem. I don't want a 'Maybe,' Miller. I want a 'Yes.' And I think Gordon Freeman is a 'Yes.'"
He turned to the rest of the table. "Who else is sick of revisiting this topic and wants to end this matter once and for all?" Heads along the table quietly nodded.
"Good. Cast your votes."
The next week, Gordon received a thick letter from Caltech. He opened it expressionlessly in front of a nervous Rob, who nobly tried to keep his foot from bouncing holes in the floor.
With an unfettered rip of the envelope flap, Gordon pulled out the papers, unfolded them, smiled a small strange smile, refolded the documents, and stuffed them back in the envelope. He threw the letter on his desk, took out his physics book, and started his homework on top of it.
Stunned, Rob watched for a full minute as Gordon chewed his pencil over Problem 55. Then he lunged for the letter underneath Gordon's book and hastily unfolded it.
"'Dear Gordon, we have reviewed your application a second time and have decided to welcome you to Caltech's class of…' WHAT THE HELL, GORDON?" Rob furiously waved the letter in Gordon's face and cuffed him on the head. Gordon turned to him, scowling.
"For the love of… Gordon, other people throw parties or go skydiving or at least show signs of human emotion! But you? You're a robot."
"Well, I'm not a skydiving sort of man, Rob."
"I don't think you even are a man, Gordon. Caltech can have you!" Rob threw the letter at Gordon's face. Gordon blinked.
"For all I care," Rob said, "you'll fit in perfectly with all the other robots disguised as students. You can all go, 'Beep-boop-science-is-fun-beep-boop' together! Not that MIT is really lacking in that department either…"
"I'm not going to Caltech."
Rob looked down, slack-jawed, at Gordon as returned to Physics Problem 55. Then he sat on the bed, defeated.
"Gordon, do you have any extra meds for me? I'm asking because I'm feeling a little lightheaded, but also because IT LOOKS LIKE YOU HAVEN'T BEEN TAKING THEM!" Rob yelled. Gordon shushed him angrily and turned back to his work.
Rob now struggled to form words. "Gordon," he began slowly, "can I just know why? Can you possibly convince me that neither of us has gone mad and that this is not some fever dream? That I shouldn't be afraid to face a mirror and suddenly see myself in my underwear, or…"
"I already said yes to MIT after I got the first two letters. I was never going to Caltech," Gordon said, staring intently at a Feynman diagram. He could feel Rob's eyes boring holes into his back, so he tore away from his physics and turned to him, annoyed.
"Don't you remember what I said when I got Caltech's letter?" Gordon asked.
"That you'd show Caltech who's boss by being successful, and then they'd take you, and then you'd teach the world to sing while you won the Nobel Prize working in their labs…" Rob trailed off.
"No. You are adding to what I said." Gordon brushed eraser shavings off his desk absentmindedly.
"I said that I'd make them regret not taking me. Period. Caltech—and MIT for that matter—rarely rethinks its decisions. If they've waitlisted a person, they've already more or less given their opinion on the applicant. For them to change their decision, they have to be desperate. They only take applicants they think might actually change the world." Gordon leaned back in his chair and stretched, interlacing his fingers above his head.
"The fact that Caltech's changed its decision means I've somehow managed to convince its graduate program to radically revise its image of me. Now we finally see how desperate they are to take me because they've realized what I can do." Gordon turned back to Problem 55 with a smile that worried Rob.
"And I get to deny them their prize."
Rob gaped. "You enjoy that, don't you? You sick, pathetic, nerdy little bastard."
Gordon smirked at his book.
"Hey scum-bucket, you know what else you said when you got your letter? 'Communication,'" Rob tapped his temple in mock pomposity, "'is key.' I thought that included communicating to me!" He crumpled a stray equations sheet lying on the floor and threw it at Gordon's head, but Gordon ducked.
Rob continued, "For someone who preaches communication, you sure seem to be taking a backseat to your own holy lessons! That, or your mission seems to be, 'Make EVERYONE around me desperate, not just grad school admissions teams!'" He crossed his arms in finality, yet Gordon ignored him.
"Hello? Earth to Freeman!" Rob waved his arms.
Gordon nonchalantly glanced at Rob out of the corner of his eye and continued his physics.
"One day, everyone around you will go mad because of you, you know that?" Rob said. "You'll be begging—and I mean begging—for someone to put you out of your misery! Don't come crying back to me for advice once you've screwed the world over so hard, it won't orbit the Sun straight…"
Gordon snorted at his desk and gave Rob the middle finger, not even deigning to look away from his homework.
Rob shrugged, said, "Okay, you asked for it," then grabbed a pillow and swung at Gordon. Gordon ducked in time, snatched the pillow, and threw it squarely at Rob's face. Rob toppled onto the bed, yelling, "How the HELL do you do that? You soulless, four-eyed, ninja piece of sh—OOF!"
Gordon sat back and dusted his hands after hefting his physics book onto Rob's stomach. He raised his hands in acceptance of Rob's praise. "The one and only…" he grinned.
24 years later.
Still sitting on the rotting chair, Gordon shook himself out of his trance with White Forest's cracked stone walls before him. His eyes darted left and right, half-expecting him to have blanked during a fight…but no, it was just his room with the cot that mocked him with promises of sleep.
Man, he'd been stupid when he was younger, four years ag...actually, it was twenty-four years ago now, wasn't it? Shit.
He leaned forward on his knees, hands grasping his hair from sheer nerves…but hissed as he accidentally pulled the hair over the shrapnel-inflicted wound and started a fresh blood drip down the nape of his neck.
Never mind, he was still stupid.
But now that he thought about it… he would've pursued a different branch of theoretical physics—probably string theory—if he'd attended Caltech. He never would've met Kleiner, never would have played around with the equations that he did, equations that suddenly sprouted doubts in his mind about the alleged impossibilities of teleportation during his lifetime. And those doubts would never have urged him on to make teleportation real.
What's more, Caltech might never have led to Black Mesa, where teleportation was already real… and where he got hired as a cart-pusher to instead make the administrator's dreams of exploring Xen real.
It wouldn't have been him in the test chamber that day. There might not have been a test chamber that day—not one with a spectrometer efficient to run the experiment—if he hadn't patented more add-ons at MIT with Kleiner.
There might not have been an alien apocalypse in his lifetime. No headcrabs, bullsquids, snarks, Vortigaunts, Tentacles, portal storms, Nihilanth. No Combine.
And it would not have been his fault.
Gordon paused in his thoughts and stared at the wall again, transfixed.
Rob was right. He should have thought his decisions over.
He should've gone to Caltech.
Gordon leaned in the chair, which creaked wearily in protest to his HEV suit. He grasped his hair with blood-smeared hands and couldn't move. Couldn't blink. Couldn't think of anything but what could have been.
It was Gordon's only half hour of peace, and he used it to give himself hell.
Sure, he had been Rob's "scum-bucket" in his undergrad years… but if there was one thing graduate school could do, it's change people. Force life into perspective. Without it, Gordon simply would have never grown up.
For years during his doctoral candidacy, he'd lost sleep to an overthinking brain that pondered what seemed wrong…unjust…unfair about his life.
Why isn't anyone noticing my papers? Why don't others use my patents? Doesn't anyone care what I've done…?
But after a particularly restless night in which the alarm clock's 4:30 am bathed his room and face in a deep red glow, casting shadows on the wall as he tossed in bed… He'd finally understood.
The world was the independent variable here, not him. The world never changed… and if it did, it wouldn't be because of Gordon.
Graduate school—his Spartan path to doctorhood—made Gordon realize that he'd done little (in comparison to his current workload) up to that point. It frequently told him that he meant little to others...and it very nearly convinced him that was true. For all of undergraduate Gordon's talk about making colleges desperate to have him, Gordon soon learned at MIT that few truly cared whether he attended its Ph.D. program. The earth would spin on regardless of his so-called contributions to the field.
I can't change the world, Gordon remembered thinking,no matter how hard I try. Instead, the world will change me.
By the time Gordon's peers started calling him Doctor rather than Mr. Freeman, he already expected his work to soon become obsolete, forgotten. Millions of other starry-eyed Ph.D.'s failed to make a dent in their fields even after lifetimes of effort. Why would he be any different?
And just as Gordon embraced the fact that he'd live and die a nobody, well… Black Mesa happened.
With his luck, grad school's life lessons about his place in the world turned out to be laughably untrue. Life was now a different sort of game, one joined by extra players who replaced the rulebook with a torn pamphlet written in cruel alien gibberish. Now Gordon's actions suddenly meant a whole lot more to the planet (and planets beyond his own) than even his ambitious younger self thought they would.
Moreover, Rob's words began to haunt him. "Your mission seems to be, 'Make everyone around me desperate…' 'You'll beg for someone to put you out of your misery…' 'After you've screwed the world up…'"
Gordon grasped hair again and pulled hard in unthinking punishment. He sucked air through his teeth but tried to ignore the pain screaming from his blood-dribbling wound.
Caltech. What could have been.
When I was young, I desperately wanted my work to change the world. But even when I still believed it could, no one asked me if I imagined it would… destroy it.
He huffed.
I should have gone to Calte…
The door swung open and two rebels with MP7's burst in on Gordon holding his head in his hands. "There's a second wave of Hunters we missed on the radar, Dr. Freeman!" they barked. "We need you to join us over at the silo roof to help us hold them off!"
Gordon wearily swung to face them, interrupted mid-pull of his hair. At the swift movement, his scalp dripped blood down his cheek.
"Uh, Dr. Freeman, do you need a med k…."
Gordon abruptly stood, ignoring them. He grabbed a pulse rifle, slung his crowbar across his back, and strode past them out the door.
Like it or not, the time for thinking's over.
He shifted his grip on the pulse rifle as he sped down the hall.
Now I have to fix things the only way I still can.
He eyed the rifle and chuckled mirthlessly.
Brute kinetics.
Gordon turned a corner and disappeared from the rebels' view.
But still those two rebels swore they saw Freeman shake his head and softly murmur as he sprinted towards the crossfire.
I should have gone to Caltech.