CHAPTER ONE

In the Barrel

Goddamn alarm clocks. He hated them, every single one. Especially the clock currently blaring by his bedside. It had gone off a good half hour too late. At least he thought it had; he'd been pretty groggy that morning, a result of the party the night before, which had left him with a slight headache. The noise of the alarm did nothing to improve this. The incessant beeping was playing havoc with his currently sensitive head. He finally managed to slam a hand down on the thing, then grabbed his glasses off the the table beside him and moved quickly to the bathroom.

Gordon Freeman looked at his face in the mirror. He didn't look like much of a scientist, not a normal one in his particular field at any rate. His trimmed beard and hair tied back into a small ponytail were, as far as he was aware, unique amongst theoretical physicists. He was also one of the youngest ones he knew of. Most of the more esteemed figures were well into their forties or fifties. Gordon had turned twenty-seven just last month, though he'd been interested in this field of science since high school. It was in his college days at MIT, however, that he'd gotten his first real taste of the study that would become his passion: teleportation.

That was the whole reason he'd accepted the job here at the Black Mesa Research Facility in the first place. After graduating from MIT he'd been disappointed by the lack of proper research projects into teleportation technology. Black Mesa was one of the few facilities really studying the subject.

This wasn't exactly public knowledge though. He doubted he ever would have even known about it, if it hadn't been by chance that his old mentor Dr. Isaac Kleiner was assigned as a lead scientist on the study at Black Mesa. He'd offered Gordon a position at the facility, and of course he had leaped at the chance without hesitation.

Though sometimes he wondered if he ought to have been so quick about his decision. Black Mesa may have had access to some of the latest advances in teleportation technology, but the facility itself was located in the middle of nowhere, an abandoned missile testing complex isolated in the desert of New Mexico, revamped into a government research center. He missed his college days in Massachusetts. Sure, MIT wasn't exactly the kind of place that threw wild parties, but at least there was real civilization nearby. Even his post-grad in Innsbruck was more lively than this. He yearned for a little more change, a little more action to break up the monotonous pace of Black Mesa.

But every now and then he managed to convince some of his fellows to throw a decent party, though, he suspected, much to the annoyance of some of the senior staff members. He'd once sent an invite to the administrator himself, Dr. Breen. He never got a reply, but he'd sworn Breen had thrown him a nasty look when next he'd seen him.

Something he'd have to put up with a great deal more if he was late today. There was quite a bit of tension about today's test, though he had no idea why. Nobody told him much about any of the various tests they performed on a regular basis. Gordon was just a research assistant, and lacked the "need to know" as so many had explained to him impatiently. That was the problem with these government types: too many secrets.

He did have a few friends amongst the scientists though. Dr. Kleiner had been his college professor at MIT, and the two had always enjoyed each other's company. There was also Dr. Eli Vance. At first he and Gordon had been minor rivals, Eli being a Harvard man, but now the two were close pals. Eli worked with him in Sector C, and shared his passion for teleportation. The two often spent lunch breaks working on ideas for improvements to Black Mesa's current experiments.

Then there were a number of scientists that Gordon vaguely knew, but got along well with: Gina Cross and Colette Green, both of Sector C like himself; Gabe Bond and Carl Simmons in the Bio labs; and of course Mark Cory down in Lambda Core. He hadn't seen Cory in some time, though. He'd been told the man had quit several weeks before. It seemed odd that Mark would have done so without saying a word to Gordon. He'd met Mark at one of the rare parties, wondering around drunk, complaining about neckties to whomever he could find. The two had hit it off pretty well, he'd thought, at least enough to warrant a good-bye before going away.

Gordon looked at the clock.

"Shit." It was already 8:20, and he was supposed to be suiting up by now. As part of his assignment for today's test he was to wear one of the Hazardous Environment Suits, or HEVs as most called them. They were immensely strong powered metal suits designed to protect their user from any danger that could crop up in the test chamber. It seemed like overkill to him though. He'd done dozens of these sorts of experiments before without any problems. But hey, he wasn't paying for it. If the government wanted to pour money into a neat looking toy, who was he to complain?

He finished getting ready, and grabbed his lab coat and I.D. off a hanger by his dorm door, quickly putting them on as he ran out. He jogged through the halls of the science staff dormitories, stopping only briefly to swipe his I.D. card through a scanner in order to open the dorm exit. He stepped through as the large metal door slid open and entered the cavernous transport sector.

It always amazed him just how big this place was. Only a small section of the monstrous facility, the transport area easily dwarfed any train station on the surface. He'd been absolutely floored by the sheer size his first day, and more than once he'd found himself misplaced in the seemingly endless tunnels. He knew it far better now, but still he had a nagging fear of getting lost permanently in here.

He started jogging faster across the metal and concrete walkways surrounding the network of rails the transit cars moved on as they made their journeys here and there throughout the facility. He had to hurry and get to the nearby stop before the 8:30 resident train left, the last one headed to Sector C that morning.

"Gordon! Hey!" A voice called out his name from behind. He recognized the voice immediately: it was Barney Calhoun, a security guard here at Black Mesa, and more importantly Gordon's friend since high school. They'd gone separate ways in college, but kept in contact. It was another positive of working here, and another reason Gordon had been inclined to accept a position at the facility. Both technically worked in Sector C, but their differing duties made talking on the job a rare occurrence, Gordon working in the testing labs, and Barney patrolling the halls or assisting science staff in more labor-intensive tasks. But after work the two would hang out in the residential areas.

"Hey Barney," Gordon replied, stopping and turning around. "What's going on?" Barney, in full security uniform with his blue helmet and black bulletproof vest bearing the logo of Black Mesa, was walking toward him, likely on his way from the Security dorms to catch the 8:30 train just as Gordon was, though unlike himself Barney was right on time, as usual.

"Well, you're running late," said Barney. "But what else is new?" He smiled.

"I swear, my clock is broken, it woke me up late."

"Just like every other time," said Barney. He chuckled. "You sure it wasn't that party last night?"

"You mean the one you never showed up to?"

"I told you Gordon, I couldn't, I've been put on the Blue Shift now, I have to do rounds at that hour."

"That's too bad man, you really missed out."

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked Barney.

"Gina was there..." Gordon said, winking.

"Aw, shut it Gordon." Barney rubbed his neck, slightly embarrassed.

"Come on, Barn, you know you can't resist a woman in an HEV suit."

"If that were true, I'd have married you."

"Ouch, that hurt man." They both laughed. Barney looked down at his watch.

"Oh damn, I'd better get going, and you're going to be late...more than usual, anyway."

"Don't worry, we'll take the 8:30 down to Sector C."

"Ah, actually I'm not going down there today Gordon," said Barney.

"Why not?"

"Can't believe I forgot to tell you, we had a server crash just this morning."

"Which ones?"

"All of 'em, everything went down."

Gordon whistled. He'd heard of sections going down every now and then, but the whole facility? There were so many failsafes in place he'd thought it impossible, but they must have all shutdown somehow.

"Things are back up now," said Barney, "but there's still a lot of glitches in the system. I'm headed down to Level Four to help some guys with malfunctioning elevators." He pointed at the security door just ahead, which led down into the lower levels of the main facility.

"Have fun with that. I've got samples to transport, should be a hoot." The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. Gordon's job as a lowly assistant consisted basically of pushing samples in and out of the test chamber. Eventually he'd be given more responsibility, but for now he had little role in the real analysis of the experiments.

"Yep, looks like we're both in the barrel today," chuckled Barney. Gordon nodded, smiling. A train car pulled up on the rail by the platform a few meters ahead. Gordon stepped on as the doors opened. After a few moments they closed again, and the train started to move forward along the rail. As he began to pull away he noticed Barney banging on the security door, which was apparently jammed.

"That's Black Mesa for you," Gordon shouted at him, "they spend millions on a damn suit, but they can't even fix a door!"

Barney gave up knocking and laughed. "Hey," he shouted back, "meet me at the cafeteria later, I'll buy you a beer."

Gordon gave him a thumbs up. "I'll hold you to that!"

The car pulled around a corner and Barney went out of sight. The automated announcement system began playing through a speaker in the train car, announcing some current events and relaying the temperature and time. 8:47. No way was he going to make it on time. He'd catch a lot of flack over this one. He'd probably be getting paperwork for weeks. What else could go wrong today?