A/N
The idea came for this after watching the episode Point of Salvation. I'm...mixed, about it. The fact that it's a callout to FPS games aside, on one hand, it's probably got some of the best raw emotion of the first two seasons as we see Ezekiel begin to lose it (even if John Kim doesn't quite do the dialogue justice). On the other hand, I feel the events are brushed over far too quickly - there's little time to breathe before we enter the season finale, and while I haven't started season 3 yet, the events of the knowledge are, as far as I'm aware, never brought up again. Which is a bit of a shame, because similar to What Lies Beneath the Stones for Stone, this felt like the moment where Ezekiel's character was peeled back.
Anyway, drabbled this up.
Doctor with a Crowbar
"So, is this Half-Life One or Two?"
"One." Ezekiel looked at Stone. "Seriously, you can't tell?"
Stone shrugged. "Ain't really an expert on computer graphics."
"Yeah, I can tell." The former thief returned his gaze to the screen and went back to using a crowbar to beat shambling zombie creatures to death.
If they're zombies, am I really beating them to death?
He couldn't be sure. He understood that the headcrabs took control of the host, but did they actually kill them? Maybe one of the Half-Life wikis said something about that, but he was Ezekiel Jones – master thief, master librarian, and he wasn't about to let some poorly run wiki do his job for him and-
"Damn it!"
He let out the exclamation as one of the little bastards took out poor Doctor Freeman. Of course, this was Half-Life, so instead of getting to see the good doctor get reanimated, it was more a "ugh" sound and the screen panning to simulate the idea of dying, coupled with the HEV suit's heart monitor going into overdrive.
"Wow," said Stone. "You suck at this."
Ezekiel looked around from the PC and glared at his fellow librarian. "Like to see you do better."
"Ain't gotta do better, all I've got to do is see how Ezekiel Jones, master of third person speaking and first-person shooters, fares in one of the most groundbreaking PC games of the 1990s."
Ezekiel stared at him.
"What? I know a bit of geek history as well."
"Says the person who spent their break going to visit the Terracotta Warriors."
"Visit," Stone snorted. "That's one word for it."
"Yeah."
"Noticed that you didn't come."
"What can I say? Some of us believe that time off work is meant to be time off work." He leant back in his chair and took a sip from the beer he had on the desk beside him.
"Yeah." Stone patted him on the shoulder. "Well, keep practicing."
Ezekiel smirked and raised the beer towards his colleague. He kept smirking until Stone left the room, at which point the smirk faded faster than the Duchess of Summerset's diamond tiara had when he'd nabbed it four years ago. The smirk, having been replaced with a frown, returned to the screen, where Doctor Freeman was still lying on the ground.
Why couldn't you come to life? Ezekiel wondered. Why couldn't we deal with you instead of Prospero?
Would have been easier, he supposed. Less talking for one thing. Less magic for another. Of course, if they had to deal with stuff like the G-Man, that was another story (especially if he really was a nihilanth). But Gordon Freeman? Nah, that would be easy. What was he going to do, wave a crowbar at them?
He shut the game off and was returned to his Steam page. Figured that Prospero was the one the Librarians had to deal with and not Gordon Freeman, he reflected Shakespeare might have been momentarily possessed by his id and try to turn the world into a giant forest (wasn't there a Doctor Who episode that did that?), but at least Shakespeare finished his plays. Because unlike Valve, William Shakespeare could count to three, and write protagonists that weren't mutes.
The thief's frown faded slightly as he took another sip of the beer, staring at the computer screen as he did so. Prospero was gone. The ley lines had quietened down, but according to Jenkins, it was only a matter of time before a magic-user either tried to take advantage of that, or magic found its way into the hands of a hapless sod who'd be possessed in the same way dear Will had. In that brief period of time, he, Ezekiel Jones, was going to take it easy, and if that meant using one of the Library's PCs (yes, it had PCs), then that was his right (didn't have Macs or Linux for some reason...) At the time, choosing Half-Life had felt natural. Hard to say why, but ever since the group had got back from DARPA, he'd felt a hankering for something old school. Something with crowbars, gunplay, and without any of that regenerating health nonsense. And yet…
Have I lost my touch? He let his mouse drift and clicked randomly, showing him pictures of Barney Calhoun and Adrian Shepard. Ezekiel Jones does not lose his touch.
The others knew something. They didn't tell him what had happened at the DARPA site, or what he supposedly did, and since Prospero had super-charged the ley lines a mere hours afterwards, the whole DARPA thing disappeared as…well, as fast as Ariel actually. But for some reason, playing Half-Life wasn't putting him at ease. It was making him feel…feel…
Screw this.
He went and selected Quake III. If it was up to him he'd have chosen Quake Champions, but this PC didn't have the specs for it, and he doubted that Jenkins would like him fiddling with one of the few pieces of 20th century technology the Library had. In a short amount of time, he got to the character select screen, and chose Ranger. In much less time than that, he was in one of the arenas.
It didn't go well. Gritting his teeth, he ran for the lightning gun. He grit them even harder as the screen read "MThief337 got fragged."
Damn it, I'm better than this, Ezekiel thought, as "MThief337" went further down the ladder, falling even behind "ISl3thernobs69." Seriously, what the heck-
"Oh, Quake Three now?"
Ezekiel looked back at Stone, who'd returned with a beer of his own in hand. It was an action that was met with the sound of body parts being splattered by a rocket.
"Yes, Stone, Quake Three." Ezekiel returned to the spawn point. "Figured I needed a true test of skill."
"Yeah. How you doing?"
Ranger fell down as he was hit by a volley of super-sonic nails.
"Oh."
Ezekiel grit his teeth so hard he could feel them grinding. He was better than this. Ezekiel Jones was a Quake III master, not some noob who didn't even know how to jump-run.
"Hey, shouldn't you be jump running?" Stone asked.
…damn you Stone.
He began to jump-run. That gave his character a bit of extra speed, which let him get a kill in or two – user "SmokinHot!" began yelling something over the voice chat, but Ezekiel went and muted him.
"Y'know, I didn't think you were into FPS games," Stone said. "Thought you were more…y'know…"
"What? Grand Theft Auto?"
"Nah, more stealth." He pulled up a chair beside Ezekiel and sat down. "Syphon Filter, Metal Gear, Splinter Cell…"
"I…" Ezekiel fell silent as his character got shocked to death by the lightening gun. As the match ended and the score screen appeared (one he didn't want to look at out of shame), he looked at Stone. "Okay, first off, who the heck even remembers Syphon Filter?"
Stone shrugged.
"Second of all, yeah, I get it. Thief, stealth, that sort of thing. But…"
"But?" Stone repeated.
"But they're too close to reality. And I'm the world's best thief. Not to mention I ain't one for helping the CIA."
Stone snorted. "Metal Gear. Right. 'Close to reality.'"
Ezekiel looked at him.
"Actually, in light of the past year…"
"Yeah, don't jinx it. I don't want Psycho Mantis spilling the beans on me." He looked at Stone. "Or anyone else."
"I get that." Stone took another sip of the beer. "All got our own secrets."
Ezekiel frowned. Secrets. Ever since DARPA…
No. He selected Sarge and went back into one of the arenas of the…whatever the antagonists of Quake III were meant to be. What little Stone and the other Librarians had told him about DARPA indicated that he'd been…good. Self-sacrificing. The kind of stuff he most certainly wasn't, thank you very much. He was Ezekiel Jones. Master Quake III player.
"Oh good, the rocket launcher," Stone said.
Ezekiel smirked. He was back in the game. Course one of those bastards was trying to end his game, and-
"Damn it!"
Sarge got fragged – cooked to death by a plasma gun.
"Y'know, you could have rocket jumped out of that," Stone said. "Just saying."
"Just saying," Ezekiel repeated, looking at Stone.
"What?"
"Ever since DARPA, you haven't said much."
"Since DARPA, we had to focus on Prospero."
"Yeah, and? We're on break now and-"
"You're on break," said Stone. He got to his feet, scrunched up the beer can, and tossed it in one of the bins. "Some of us still get out there."
"Says the person who…" He sighed. "Okay, how did you get into games anyway?"
"Spend time on the computer writing under pseudonyms long enough, sometimes you need to blow off, ahem, steam."
Ezekiel groaned and put a hand to his face.
"Hey, I use GOG as well." Stone smirked. "See ya Ez."
"Yeah. See ya." He respawned and continued to play, not looking to see if Stone left, and barely hearing his footsteps over the sound of guns, grenades, and fragging.
What the heck is happening?
Thing was, he'd played some other games before Half-Life, and his skill hadn't gone down there. Street Fighter? Still a pro. StarCraft? Zerged his way to victory. Super Metroid? Beaten his last speedrun record. But Half-Life and Quake? No. Something was off. He was off. Because looking at the screen, as he finally remembered how to rocket jump, it wasn't giving him a sense of exhilaration. Rather, it was a sense of him falling…falling…falling…
"Mister Jones."
"Gah!" He spun around in his chair, not noticing his character get fragged. Right now of course, Sarge losing his upper torso was the least of his worries. Because Jenkins had walked in. And he suspected that Jenkins might not be too happy about one of the Library's few PCs being used for fun and games.
"Am I interrupting?"
The look Jenkins gave him was innocuous, as was his tone of voice. But Ezekiel Jones knew better.
"No. Not interrupting at all."
He inwardly groaned – it wasn't just his gamer skills that were atrophying, it was his ability to lie. Actually, that ability had been atrophying over the last year.
"Hmm. Keeping busy of course."
"Yep. Definitely."
"I see. So why aren't you doing better?"
"I…what?"
Jenkins sighed. "Mister Jones, do you take me for a fool?"
"I-"
"Don't answer that." The head librarian walked past the former thief and looked at the PC. "Quake Three. Interesting choice in light of…"
"In light of…wait, how do you know about Quake Three."
"One endeavours to keep up with the culture of the time," Jenkins said. "And I dare say you have a long way to go before you get your old skills back."
"Wait, you…know about Quake Three?" Ezekiel repeated.
"I do. In fact, I know about all of the Quake games. Played them too. Except Quake One. Too close to reality."
Ezekiel opened his mouth to say something...then closed it. Slowly.
"Well, keep at it," Jenkins said. "And remember, grenades can be used to rocket jump as well."
Ezekiel remained silent. Not so much because of the comment, but rather of the image that entered his head because of it.
A narrow corridor. A hole in the floor. A world collapsing around him. Three grenades. Four librarians. Him falling…falling…falling…
"Well, I'll leave you to it." Jenkins patted him on the shoulder. "But remember, I expect you back on the job when the need arises."
"Yeah yeah, save the world, stop the magic, I get it."
Jenkins gave him a nod, and a look that was…sad, Ezekiel supposed. Odd. He couldn't remember Jenkins ever looking sad. It was the one emotion the old geyser seemed incapable of displaying. But that counted for little, as Jenkins left the room, leaving Ezekiel alone again. Alone with a sergeant that was on the bottom of the scoreboard, and numerous twats rocket jumping and fragging.
Sighing, he logged out of the game. He sat down and took another sip of the beer – it was bitter. Far more so than usual. And all the while, the Steam page remained. Tempting him. Daring him to remember. Daring him to click. To take the plunge. To fall.
Screw this.
He logged out, went to the PC's games folder, and chose an emulation – Super Mario World. A simple game. But simple was what he was after right now.
Because if life was a videogame, it felt like his RAM was corrupted. Getting visions of something that the other characters of the game had taken part in, but refused to come clean on. Claiming that he wouldn't want to know.
He couldn't answer if he even did.
But for better or worse, Mario wasn't going to give him the answers.