Another little oneshot with Barney and Doctor Kleiner I wrote while playing "A Red Letter Day". They just have such...good chemistry. Enjoy! :)
And a disclaimer: I do not, I repeat, do not own the In N' Out burger chain.
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"Barney, would you be so kind as to check the parameter reading for the teleport?" Dr. Kleiner peeked at the ex-security guard over his clipboard as he nervously paced the lab.
"Gesundheit." Barney noisily munched on a burger Alyx had stolen from a metrocop station. "Y'know, doc, this tastes kinda like the In N' Out burger back in Albuquerque."
"I've no time for fooling around! Alyx and Gordon are coming back from Nova Prospekt at any moment and I cannot do five things at once!"
"So you can do four?" Barney chuckled and took another bite of his burger.
"Please."
"Aw, c'mon, doc! You've been saying that Alyx and Gordon are coming back for the last, what, three days? If they're not here by now, they're not coming."
"You seem to be awfully cheery, in that case."
"I've accepted it and moved on. I had my emotional episode about an hour after they didn't come through."
"Do you want me to go into details about the possibility, however small, that they could come back in a few days?"
"No." Barney said simply as he finished his burger and licked his fingers.
"Then please, please don't be childish and read me the details of that monitor!" Dr. Kleiner angrily pointed at his computer.
"Alright, alright." Barney held up his hands defensively. He walked to the computer monitor and read out the information. "GY base, CG orbifold. Wait, now it's changed to LH orbifold. LF. LG."
"Blast it all. How is the massless field flux going to self-limit now?"
"I don't know, I'm just the messenger."
"That orbifold battery must be dying. I'll need a new one." Dr. Kleiner sighed and wrote a note to himself on his clipboard. Then he plucked a sticky note off of a stack on his desk, wrote another note, and stuck it to his bulletin board.
"Doc, I was wondering...where do you get all this stuff?"
"What stuff?"
"Where did you get the parts to build a teleport in a world that doesn't let you carry goddamn sewing needles around?"
A look of nervousness passed over the doctor's face. "Barney, don't you have your metropolice shift to get to?"
"It starts in an hour. Why?"
"Oh...oh, it's nothing, really. Wouldn't want you to gain suspicion, now would we?"
It was obvious to Barney that Dr. Kleiner was hiding something. "Since I have an hour, why not tell me about your, uh, equipment sources?" Barney grinned.
"Barney, you are quite clever. So I have no choice..." Barney smiled. "...but to tell you that this is a secret." Dr. Kleiner crossed his arms, as if amplifying his point.
Barney's face fell. Embarrassed, he quickly devised an exit excuse. "Oh, would you look at the time? I still need to walk to the station, I'm gonna be late! See ya, doc!" Barney power walked out of the lab and shut the door of the vending machine behind him.
Damn it, he thought to himself. I almost had him. As he went up the stairs to get through the secret passage in the wall, he heard Dr. Kleiner talking in the lab. Barney turned around and pressed his ear against the vending machine.
"-battery. Yes, I need it for a Calabi-Yau manifold-type device so the massless field flux will self-limit. One minute? Thank you."
Dr. Kleiner was obviously talking to someone over the phone, as if he was ordering a part. What was one minute? The time until delivery?
He decided to find out. A few supply boxes had been dropped by passing rebels a day or two ago. Barney sitauated himself behind them and waited.
After about a minute, a man in a blue suit walked out from the secret passage to the lab. The suit was stained with grease and the man had a beard as untamed as an angered bear. Stitched onto his suit was his name, "Mac" in cursive letters. He carried a clipboard.
He knocked on the vending machine after inserting a coin and pushing a few buttons. The door opened and he entered the lab. The door shut behind him.
Immediately, Barney came out of his hiding spot and pressed his ear against the door again.
"I got a truck waitin' outside with your new battery. You Isaac?"
"Why yes, thank you...Mac. I sign here, correct?"
"Yep." A period of silence followed.
"Thanks. I'll go get it."
Barney jumped back behind the supply crates as Mac walked away.
A few minutes later, Mac returned with a shiny metal box the size of a car engine. He dropped the metal box, opened the door, and brought the box in, shutting the door behind him.
Barney ran back to eavesdrop.
"This what you wanted?"
"Indeed. Thank you very much!"
Barney heard a clang as the box was put onto the ground. He ran back behind the boxes as Mac came back out. This time, he waited another minute or so and followed Mac.
He passed through the secret passage, up the elevator, and up the broken stairs where Gordon had been captured a few days ago before Alyx came along.
Once he came to the attic of the building, he wriggled through a window. He looked down to the street to see where Mac might have gone.
His eyes settled on a white truck driving away from the lab. On the side, it read, "Mac's Science Surplus. If We Don't Have It, No One Does."