Disclaimer: I don't own Half-Life.

The Black Mesa Incident

Chapter Three: Anomalous Materials

The giant metal doors closed together behind him with a loud clang that went unnoticed by the occupants of the reception area. Gordon walked over to the desk that stood in the middle of the room, where a security guard was typing away on a computer, checking a nearby book as a reference every now and again. Behind him stood a scientist that Gordon wasn't too familiar with, but had seen around the lab. He was shaking his head and pointing things out on the screen and the book that the guard apparently missed, and correcting him accordingly.

The guard, whose badge named him as Rossman, glanced up in Gordon's direction as he came to a stop in front of the desk.

"Hey, Mr Freeman. I had a bunch of messages for ya, but we had a system crash about twenty minutes ago and I'm still trying to find my files." Rossman rubbed his eyes wearily. "Just one of those days, I guess."

Gordon gave him a sympathetic smile. The guard looked through a few papers that were on his desk beside the computer DIY book.

"They were having some problems down in the test chamber too, but I think that's all straightened out." He found the piece of paper he was looking for and handed it over to Gordon. "They said for you to head down there as soon as you got into your hazard suit."

Gordon nodded as he took the sheet of paper. "Right."

"And… would you mind taking this," he said, handing over another piece of paper, "to the theory office on your way down? I'd take care of it myself, but I'm kinda swamped here."

"No problem." Gordon replied without second thought. He was already late, what more could they do?

"You're one in a million, doc. Have a good one."

After another quick summary of the room, Gordon turned and made his way down the corridor that linked directly onto the reception area. Although he had been here many times since he came under the employ of the Black Mesa Research Facility, he was still grateful for the colour coded directions that were painted on the walls. It certainly made things easier for some of the more… absent minded scientists.

He exchanged a few nods and greetings with various co-workers along the way, most of whom he knew only as colleagues. Eli was working in the lower levels at the moment with Dr Kleiner… and that was about it. True, Magnusson was busy taking readings somewhere, but Gordon wasn't too concerned about him.

The piece of paper that the guard had given him was about exactly what he would be doing in the experiment. Start the rotors, wait for the anti-mass-spectrometer to reach one hundred and five percent, insert the carrier into the beam… it was all the same thing. After a pause, he looked over the figures again.

One hundred five percent?

That was a bit excessive. Of course, that all depended on the purity of the sample.

Gordon walked to the door of the theory office and pushed the 'open' button, waiting for it to slide aside fully before going in. The scientists inside were all gathered around an old fashioned whiteboard, complicated quadratic equations and diagrams scribbled all over its' surface in colours from all over the rainbow. They barely even noticed him when he came in.

"Dr Stevenson?" he enquired slowly, holding up the piece of paper.

One of the scientists, with slicked back black hair and pale features, turned to look at him and made his way over.

"Yes, Freeman?"

"This was at the front desk for you."

He snatched it away from Gordon, looking almost suspicious of him and his motives. Beady black eyes looked it over.

"Yes… thank you, Freeman. Incidentally, shouldn't you have been in the test chamber half an hour ago?"

Gordon put up his hands in mock surrender. "Just trying to do a good deed, doctor."

Stevenson seemed to regret his words, and smiled apologetically. "Sorry. Stressful day."

As he left the office and made his way to the changing rooms, Gordon paused as he saw that someone else was in Breen's office. It was the same two people Gordon had seen on the tram earlier when his had been stopped by the toxic waste spill.

But… weren't they going the other way?

Even though the large windows were relatively soundproof, Gordon could still make out their muffled voices, though not their words. They were arguing vehemently about something, with fingers being pointed and arms slicing downwards through the air as they shook their heads. At least, that's what the scientist was doing. The man with the briefcase and suit didn't seem to be much offended by anything. Whatever the scientist yelled at him, he seemed to counter slowly and calmly.

Suddenly, he noticed Gordon looking at him and turned his head to stare directly at him. It was like being stared at by… Gordon couldn't think of a comparison. It haunted him.

The scientist followed his gaze and scowled at Gordon for seemingly eavesdropping. His arm sprang out, angrily pointing for Gordon to leave. Realising his rudeness, Gordon turned and continued on his way to the changing rooms, feeling the 'briefcase man's gaze on him the entire time.

It wasn't very crowded in the pale yellow room, with only one person currently occupying it. He had one foot up on one of the benches as he tied his shoelaces. Gordon hated him; he could never remember the man's name, yet he always seemed to know his, and always seemed incredibly happy to see him.

As expected, a grin spread across his lips beneath his bushy white moustache as he saw Gordon.

"Ah! Hello, Gordon Freeman. It's good to see you."

"Yes… hello… how are you?" He waved half heartedly as he made his way over to the locker, trying to look like he was in a hurry.

Well, technically he was, but still.

"Doing great, doing great."

Gordon took off his lab coat and hung it up on the open door of his locker, which stood a few inches taller than him. He hurriedly removed his tie, not bothering to undo it before he hung it up on the inside of the locker door.

"And you?"

Then the shoes and socks. He looked up at… nope, he still couldn't remember.

"I'm fine. A bit late, but…"

Off came the shirt.

"What are you going to do, huh?" the scientist with no name replied, bursting out with laughter.

Now the pants.

"Um… right," Gordon replied. He felt a bit awkward talking to the guy in just a t-shirt and boxers, and so after an entirely too quick wave, made his way to the HEV room. There were three glass booths on the other side of the room, two of them being empty. They must have been taken by Gina and her assistant. Gordon shook his head and pressed the release button for his HEV suit, banishing thoughts of his… ex… from his mind.

Well, technically, she wasn't his ex. They only went out for about two weeks; hardly long enough for them to qualify as a couple. And yet, everyone seemed to think that they were. Case in point being Eli's wave, Azian.

With a hiss, the glass tube rose up into the ceiling, and Gordon stepped up to the pedestal where the orange and black HEV suit was standing. He slipped into the bodysuit easily, feeling the computerised monitoring system shaping the suit to his body so that it felt comfortable and protective, but didn't cling to his skin or chafe. He looked down at his wrist and pushed the button shown there, inserting the needle that helped the suit to link to his nervous system. A quiet, tinny female voice sounded in his ears, only audible to him through the link the suit had created.

"Welcome to the HEV Mark VI protective system. For use in hazardous environmental conditions."

Various stats appeared in his peripheral vision in a pale orange font; not enough to distract him when he was working on something else, but not hard to see if he concentrated on them. The suits' extra shielding was at zero.

Not that he would need it. Gordon didn't expect the experiment to last more than an hour at the most. The extra shielding was only required if he was going to be in hazardous conditions for a day or so, or unless he would be handling materials that were particularly toxic. He made his way out and through the changing room, hoping the cheerful scientist had decided to move on.

"Hey! Looking sharp there, Gordon!"

"Thanks there, um… you," he said at the door, not waiting for it to slide fully open before making his way out and down the corridor, heading for the elevator that would take him into the bowels of the Sector C test labs.

The door to the test chamber control office opened, and Gordon stepped through, trying not to look too guilty in front of his colleagues. After all, there had been a system crash twenty minutes ago, so for all they knew, that could have been the cause of his lateness.

"Ah, Gordon. There you are," Dr Phelps said, as if nothing was wrong whatsoever. In fact, all three of the scientists stood before him didn't seem to mind his lateness. When Gordon thought about it, he realised that they probably didn't notice.

Phelps continued. "We've just sent the sample down the test chamber."

Bennet nodded, his wild white curly hair going with it. "We've boosted the anti-mass-spectrometer one hundred and five percent."

"I know," Gordon said, a grim look crossing his features. "Are you sure we need it?"

"It's a bit of a gamble, but we need the extra resolution," Bennet replied, shrugging.

Then it was McFarly's turn. "The administrator's very insistent that we get a reading from this latest sample. I gather they went to some lengths to get it."

Gordon nodded, now understanding why Kleiner and Breen had argued, and why Kleiner had been reassigned to another sector during the experiment. The sample had been difficult to obtain, but was obviously of some greater value than the ones that were usually experimented on. And was a much riskier sample, to boot. So Kleiner had been sent away in order to stop any interference on his part.

But… why was Breen so hell bent on using this particular sample?

"They're waiting for you, Gordon. In the test chamber," Phelps said, the impatience in his voice apparent.

He nodded and made his way over to the door on the other side of the room, where a retinal scanner was attached next to it. McFarly but his eyes to the designated lens and held it there as the scanner beeped in confirmation. The door obligingly slid open, and Gordon stepped through, heading into the next room.

There, on the other side of the hallway was Eli, conversing with Dr Kleiner, an equally grim look on his face. Their expressions lightened slightly as they saw Gordon approaching, but still not much. Now Gordon knew why.

Suddenly, a control panel on the other side of the room exploded.

"It's about to go critical!" Kleiner said, and the two sprinted over to the panel.

Eli feverishly tapped away at different controls before his shoulders slumped and he wiped his brow nervously.

"What the hell is going on with our equipment?" Eli mused, stroking his chin.

"It wasn't meant to do this in the first place," Kleiner replied, worried.

"Anything I need to worry about?" Gordon asked, making his way over. Eli sighed, his hands on his hips.

"Let me put it this way, Gordon: there's nothing much either of us can do about it anymore."

Gordon didn't like the finality in that statement.

"I'll… see you later, all right?"

Eli didn't look so sure. "…right."

Gordon turned and made his way to the elevator and made his way further down.

There was something about the airlock that day that made it seem different than the many times Gordon had been in it before. Perhaps it was the extenuating circumstances that led to the equipment being pushed to levels that it really shouldn't be. Perhaps there was a malfunction with the suits' environmental systems.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was impending sense of doom Gordon felt when Bryce and Philips started talking to him before letting him into the test chamber. They rarely did that.

"I'm afraid we'll be deviating slightly from standard test analysis procedures today, Gordon."

Bryce rolled his eyes. "Yes, but with good reason. This is a rare opportunity for us; this is the purest sample we've seen yet."

"And, potentially, the most unstable," Philips muttered, crossing his arms.

His companion gave Gordon a smile. "Now, now, if you follow standard insertion procedures, everything should be fine."

Philips whipped his head around to look at him. "I don't know how you can say that. Although, I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade his extremely unlikely-"

"Gordon doesn't need to hear all this, he's a highly trained professional. We have assured the administrator that nothing will go wrong…?" he said warningly.

Philips avoided Bryce's gaze. "Ah… yes… you're right." He looked at Gordon apologetically. "Gordon, we have complete confidence in you."

After leaving a lingering gaze on Philips, Bryce made his way over to the retinal scanner on one side of the room. "All right. Go ahead," he said to Gordon, nodding for him to wait at the airlock door.

"Let's let him in now," he said gently, as though appeasing a child. Philips made his way over to the scanner on the opposite side.

Beeps sounded from both scanners, and the airlock door slid open with a clang, much faster than the entrance to the Anomalous Materials lab earlier. Gordon stepped into the immense orange chamber and heard the doors clang shut behind him as he made his way over to a ladder on the other side of the room.

It never ceased to amaze him just how huge the test chamber machinery was; a hole in the ground in the center of the chamber (which itself was shaped like an upright cylinder) was surrounded by a metal frame, with three almost claw like arms sprouting from the sides. In the center of the circle in the ground was a focusing lens which allowed fantastic resolution of the crystalline samples that they would commonly scan.

Gordon still didn't know where the samples came from, and any questions were quickly shot down as being classified or 'above his head'. Some of his colleagues had even given him badly disguised warnings about asking too many questions, and although Gordon didn't admire their talent for subtlety, he understood the message and let it be. The way he saw it, he would eventually be promoted into a position where he would be privy to such information. And, if he was anything, Gordon Freeman was a patient man.

Above his head was the apparatus that performed the scanning itself. The machine pointed downwards at the pit in the middle of the chamber almost looked like a laser cannon, with a large yellow lens on the tip matching the hue of the focusing lens that was imbedded in the ground. Three small angular cylindrical shapes were held aloft next to the lens of the 'cannon'.

The noise of a microphone being tuned came over the large speakers of the chamber.

Philips cleared his throat, his slightly nasal voice evident even through his grunting.

"Testing… testing… well, everything seems to be in order."

Bryce's voice came over next.

"All right Gordon, your suit should keep you comfortable through all of this. The sample should be delivered up to you in a few moments. If you would be so kind as to climb up and start the rotors, we'll break the anti-mass-spectrometer at one hundred five percent, and hold it there until the carrier arrives."

Gordon climbed up the ladder leading up to an overhead platform. He made his way over to the keyboard and red box that was on the other side of the gantry, and typed in his clearance code. The red box lifted up, revealing a simple push switch. Gordon flipped it on and made his way back down.

"Very good…" Bryce said absent-mindedly. "We'll take it from here."

"Power to stage one emitters… activating… now," Philips announced, although it was hardly for Gordon's benefit.

A shaft of light shot out of the 'cannon', focusing on the much smaller lens below.

"Power to stage two emitters… activating… now."

The cylinders began rotating around the 'cannon', blue bolts of electricity emitting into it.

"Stage three emitters… activating… now."

Golden electricity shot out from the under side of the cylinders as they made their way around the 'cannon', making contact with the small focusing lens at the bottom of the central pit.

"Systems operating at one-oh-five percent."

Bryce's deeper voice once again came over the speaker system. "Gordon, we have no idea how long the systems can operate at this level, nor how long the readings will take. Please, work as quickly as you can."

Philips came on again. "Sustaining sequence." He paused for a moment. "Uh, it's probably not a problem… probably… but I'm showing a slight discrepancy in… well, no, it's well within acceptable bounds again. Sustaining sequence."

Gordon really didn't like the sound of that.

Small red lights began flashing on the carrier system elevator, which was surrounded by metal grating to prevent anyone falling down the not inconsiderably deep shaft below.

"I've just been informed that the sample should be making its' way up to you any moment now," Bryce said, however unnecessarily.

Gordon made his way over as the grating lowered down, revealing the sample that, as Barney would say, everyone was getting into such a tizzy about. It was certainly the largest crystal sample that Gordon had seen, and the fact that it was so pure that he could almost see straight through it astounded Gordon. It was definitely breathtaking. As usual, it was attached to the end of a sample buggy, which Gordon merely had to push forward into the path of the beam.

He stepped behind it and gripped the handles tightly, feeling somewhat reluctant to take part in an experiment that could no doubt cause quite a bit of trouble.

"Gordon, please insert the specimen," Bryce said, somewhat impatiently.

Gordon shook his head and pushed the buggy forward, feeling foolish for being so worried.

He pushed the crystal into the path of the beam.

And then all hell broke loose.

Bright green energy burst from the center of the pit, and electricity of the same hue shot out across the chamber. Bryce and Philips panicked over the speakers.

"Gordon! Get away from the beam-"

"Shutting down… attempting shut down-"

"No-"

"It's not working, it's not… it's not-"

All Gordon could hear were screams as the green electricity shot forth out of the machinery above Gordon's head, striking the control room, the airlock, and everything in between. Gordon ran forward and grasped the buggy by the handles, attempting to pull it out of the pit. As he did so, he noticed a tendril of green energy attached to the crystal coming from the epicentre of the reaction, pulling it back in.

It flew back towards the reaction like a slingshot, and Gordon fell back, having lost his grip and his footing.

Gordon covered his eyes with his arm as an unbearably bright green light filled his vision, blinding him.

Suddenly, he was somewhere else.

He looked down to find he was up to his ankles in water (or what at least looked like water). Slowly, he brought his dazzled eyes up, and gasped as he saw the sky. It was a strange mix of dark greens and purples. As he looked around, he found he was in some kind of… ravine?

He couldn't think of the right words. He couldn't think of much of anything right now. Before him crouched two… animals. Animals that only had two legs, and yet were stood as though they had four. Animals that had long, alligator like tails and red tentacles coming from their heads where mouths should be. Gordon felt like he should have vomited, or run away, or something. But all he could do was sit there on the ground, paralysed by fear.

The green light blinded him again.

He was back in the test chamber. Relief flooded him, but quickly left him as he saw several pieces of the ceiling bearing down on him. He scrambled onto all fours and quickly moved away, narrowly missing the tank-sized pieces of the ceiling.

He heard a strange almost gurgling noise come from his left, and he looked over and saw some… thing stood there. Its' back was to him. Its'… skin was brown, and it stood on two legs, but its' back was hunched forward, with two skinny arms and small two clawed hands at the end of them. Gordon tried to back away slowly, but must have made some kind of noise that was audible over the sound of the roaring green energy, because it whirled around the face him.

Gordon's entire face went pale as he saw the creature in full. It had one large red eye surrounded by several smaller ones, while its' teeth seemed to be tucked under where a human's chin would be. There was no nose or ears to be found. A third arm protruded from its' chest, seemingly dangling idly. Dark green braces were clamped around its' neck, wrists and ankles.

Almost as though they were… chains?

It rubbed its' two hands together and green electricity gathered around it, coming together into a small orb between the creatures' claw-like hands. It shoved its' hands forward, releasing the electricity at Gordon.

The same green light as before consumed him before the electricity could reach him.

Everything was dark.

All he could hear was his breathing.

…

Am I dead?

He heard a gurgling noise. Fear shot up through his spine as he slowly turned around and came face to… face with not one, but four of the creatures like the one he had seen in the test chamber.

This time, he took action, and began to back away from them slowly, preparing himself to turn and run in case they decided to electrocute him as well.

But they didn't. They simply stared at him. But it wasn't out of curiosity.

It was almost as if they were… expecting him…

Air rushed back to his ears as though he were coming up from water, and he was once again blinded by green energy.

Gordon could only wonder where he was going now.

(A/N: And so it begins…

Not much to add, except… review!

Next chapter: Insecurity)