Disclaimer: I don't own Half-Life.
(A/N: Thanks to Hhgbh for beta work. You're a rock!)
The Black Mesa Incident
Chapter Eleven: Blast Pit
His name had been Terry. The big guy in the gym who always gave him that look. The look that Barney always told him to ignore, because it wasn't important. And Gordon tended to agree with him; why should it matter what some overgrown body builder thought of his workout routine? Just because he didn't care for weight training. In many ways, aerobic exercise was healthier than anaerobic, he would say to Terry.
As he let out a grunt and tugged on the plank of wood fruitlessly for the eleventh time, Gordon was beginning to doubt the wisdom of his own words. After making his way down the pitch black tunnel, Gordon had come to another slightly-but-not-by-much better lit tunnel going to the left. Unfortunately for him, it was blocked off by some 'Danger' placard barriers and, as Barney would put it, 'a shit load' of planks.
Of said shit load, Gordon had managed to remove five, which still wasn't enough room for him to squeeze through. He once more pushed his glasses up his sweaty nose before they had the chance to slip down again. Another pull, and the sixth plank sprung off the wall Gordon's end, sending him onto his rear. That had happened every time he had removed a plank, and it was getting somewhat… irritating.
With a growl so restrained it was almost inaudible, Gordon pulled himself to his feet and surveyed the damage. He smiled. Finally, a gap he could squeeze himself through, even with his Hazard Suit on. At this point, abandoning the suit certainly wasn't an option, especially if he was heading into a missile silo complex.
He took a peek through the gap before doing anything else. Inside was what Gordon guessed was a cargo room for the elevator leading down to the silo. The green glow of spilt radioactive material cast a sickly bright hue across the room, illuminating it in a way Gordon didn't enjoy.
An upwards tilt of his head revealed the cargo elevator chamber in the distance. No gurgling, growling or snarling. A good sign.
Gordon tossed Martha through first, then his crowbar. He wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to hold on to the both of them. He wouldn't be able to rely on continually finding ammunition for Martha, and he certainly couldn't afford to keep on lugging her around.
He frowned.
It, Gordon, it. Martha is a shotgun.
One of the crates was marked 'Office Supplies'. On a whim, Gordon smashed it open with his crowbar, impatient with all the wedging and pulling. It worked surprisingly well.
After some fishing, he found some duct tape and plastered the crowbar to the top of Martha, making sure not to let it interfere with the workings of the reloading mechanism. That done, he threaded his arm through the strap and tossed the shotgun over his shoulder, happy to have both hands free for once.
He climbed down the ladder and made his way to the elevator control room, the glass viewport of which had been smashed for some time. He activated the cargo elevator, and the appropriate warning noise sounded.
Along with a dull thudding noise behind him. Gordon turned to face the door to a supply closet. Upon which dents were appearing. Rather than greet whatever was behind it, Gordon sided with the better part of valour and quickly slid his way down the ladder and onto the now arriving cargo elevator.
A zombie, confused at the sudden absence of its visitor, looked down at him from the elevator control room. If it could have flipped him the bird, Gordon was sure it would have done at that moment.
He pressed the red button in front of him, and, after a brief worrying pause, the elevator started to descend. A cautious hand cocked Martha, and Gordon prepared himself for whatever kind of creature could have knocked over the radioactive material that was making the entire elevator shaft glow neon green.
As it reached the ground floor, he noticed that the green glow wasn't coming from spilt radioactive material, at least not in his immediate vicinity. He gave himself a mental slap and shook his head when he realised that the suit's Geiger counter hadn't registered anything radioactive.
Although under the circumstances, Gordon thought he could be forgiven for forgetting the little details in a moment of pure fear and adrenaline. He stepped off the cargo elevator and surveyed the new area. He was in a rail tram loading area. The emergency lights were working surprisingly well for an abandoned part of the facility.
And lo and behold, there was a tram ready and waiting for him. A platform ran alongside the rails, and Gordon considered taking the long way, considering his luck everything electrical or mechanical since even before this whole thing started.
Funnily enough, he wasn't much of a nature person either. It seemed he didn't really fit in or belong anywhere.
He noticed where the green glow was coming from; around the corner of the tunnel, out of sight. And it would have been out of mind too, if the tunnel wasn't his only way forward. With a sigh that was becoming all too familiar, Gordon slung Martha over his shoulder, pushed up his glasses and hopped down from the platform and onto the tram.
The controls were fairly simple, and were (luckily) the same that he was used to from hazard course training. A handle that always reminded Gordon of the gear sticks in automatic cars could be pushed forward or back, and had six different settings; backwards, stop, forwards, super forwards, super duper forwards and kiss your ass goodbye forwards.
Barney had named them.
He grasped the throttle a few times to get a steady grip before cautiously pushing it forward. With a mechanical grunt of displeasure, the tram burst into motion, making Gordon stumble slightly. He nodded in approval. He was well on his way.
The tram continued on at its' slow trundling pace.
Gordon checked his watch, groaned and rolled his eyes when he realised he wasn't wearing one. Bored green eyes looked back down to the throttle.
With a shrug, he pushed it up to maximum.
And almost fell off the tram as it sprang into life and raced forward. He tumbled back and fell on his rear. Feeling somewhat annoyed and with a grunt that proved it, Gordon heaved himself up from the awkward position, wrapping his hand around one of the guardrails that lay on either side of the tram to help.
He stood up, leaning over the controls. He squinted when he saw a bright green haze over everything. A quick adjustment of his glasses proved that it wasn't a trick of the eyes.
Then he looked up.
Before him was a veritable lake of toxic waste. Where it had come from, Gordon didn't know. All his keen scientific mind could tell him was that the track ended just at the tip of the lake, with a very thin bumper being all that stood between him and a rather nasty dose of radiation poisoning.
And he was going at speeds that would pretty much annihilate that pithy excuse for a bumper.
With only a few seconds to think on the matter, Gordon tried to judge just how big the lake was, and what kind of jump would be required to cross it without incident. There was some solid ground at the far end of the room, with what looked like a ladder leading up to a large pipe safely placed there.
He sighed, shrugged, and pumped up the speed to maximum. The tram slammed into the bumper, which barely existed as far as Gordon was concerned. It did, however, send the tram up into the air at an angle, arching over the toxic waste lake like a rainbow.
Gordon frowned. A rainbow? Where had that come from?
It worried him that he was thinking about the random words his brain came up with at inconvenient times, rather than thinking about the fact that he was flying over a lake of toxic waste in a tram designed for the transport of heavy goods.
The arch the tram was taking began its' downward spiral, and Gordon clambered up on top of the control panel and kicked off, aiming for the 'island' of solid ground at the far end of the room.
And then he noticed the alien waiting for him to land, opening its' tentacle lips, looking very ready for a mid-morning snack. Gordon adjusted his flight pattern so that he would land on top of the beast and not in it.
In a manner so graceful Barney would have given him sarcastic applause, Gordon slammed into the two legged creatures' back and tumbled head over heels off it, rolling along the ground until he hit the wall with a dull (but still painful) thud.
And the alien thing didn't even have the common decency to allow him to shake off his dizziness.
Rather than waste any more bullets on slow, stupid alien things, Gordon made a run for the ladder leading into the titanic pipes overhead. Luck must have been on his side, because he made it to and up the ladder with a few seconds to spare.
Halfway up the ladder, Gordon thought about that statement, although he didn't stop climbing. Luck? On his side? If Gordon had been the type, he would have laughed. Being the kind of person he was, though, all he managed was a wry smile as he reached the top of the grey, rusting ladder.
He wasn't quite sure what the pipe was for, but all he knew was that it was big enough to accommodate him standing up, which at this point in his life was a luxury as far as pipes were concerned.
Although unsure as to whether it could support his weight, Gordon threw himself through the opening in the pipe, landing with an incredibly loud clang. After he pulled the fingers from his ears, he noticed the small ladder that allowed maintenance crews to climb inside the pipes.
With grumbling that bordered dangerously on curse words, Gordon stalked onwards down the pipe, following it to (hopefully) the rocket test labs.
A relatively quick walk around the corner, and Gordon came to another ladder leading to another opening in the top of the pipe. The way forward was blocked, so with a mental shrug Gordon climbed up.
Directly below him was another lake of toxic waste. Although technically it was probably more of a pond. But in front of him lay an observation platform that led into a corridor. And Gordon liked corridors. Corridors were simple, boring, safe. Nice.
After a long, deep breath, Gordon leapt forward and landed feet first on the platform. His forward momentum forced him to go into a roll, which was incredibly difficult with a shotgun slung over his shoulder. As it was, Martha interfered with the whole process, leaving Gordon to tumble awkwardly to the floor into something halfway between a foetal position and that picture of the walking man on traffic light signs.
Gordon wondered if anyone would mind if he went to sleep for a few minutes. Just a few minutes, and he'd be just fine. His head lolled back and hit the concrete floor. He hissed from the small pain he had been dealt, and allowed himself another small smile at the fact that he was choosing to complain about conking his head on the floor, rather than complaining about… well, everything else that had happened to him today.
He was getting more like Barney every day.
God, that idea was scary.
So scary, in fact, it made Gordon heave himself to his feet continue onwards. Just in case of any further impromptu forward rolls, Gordon removed Martha from her perch over his shoulder, letting her weight in his hands comfort him.
He turned the corner, and was once again bathed in the lovely luminescent green of toxic waste, the Geiger counter in his suit crackling angrily in protest. Gordon hadn't noticed the counter when he had been flying over the toxic waste in the tram.
Realising he had just answered his own query, Gordon cricked his neck, adjusted his glasses, and moved forward. His feet echoed loudly as they stepped onto a metal platform. He was standing in a huge cylindrical chamber, the toxic waste in a pool far down below him. The platform on which he stood ran about a quarter of the circumference of the chamber.
Directly in the middle of the chamber stood another cylinder, this one going from the very top to the bottom. With a tiny nod, Gordon realised that the cylinder in the middle contained the rocket test labs. His ticket out of here, or so it seemed.
He walked slowly across the platform, heading for the other end of the bending walkway. There was a little cubby-hole of a room there, built into the chamber. From there, a straight walkway led into the rocket test labs.
A familiar whirr made itself known to his eardrums, and the strange one eyed three legged things from before reintroduced themselves to him, en masse.
There were seven of them, and while Martha took care of six of them, Gordon ran out of ammunition when it came to the last little monster. The creature started up, ready to release the shockwave that Gordon knew the platform wouldn't be able to take. He grasped the other end of Martha, and, after a quick shrug, used it as a golf club to send the little alien thing away and down into the toxic waste below.
Gordon tried to avoid the temptation to lean on Martha like a golf club. Instead, he slung the spent shotgun over his shoulder. If he didn't find any more ammunition soon, he'd have to throw her away. The bespectacled scientist wasn't sure whether he hated that idea or liked it. His relationship with the admittedly cumbersome weapon had become somewhat love/hate. On the one hand, he loved that it kept him alive. On the other, he hated that it stopped him from running away from trouble, which was by far the preferred option, at least from his end. He sighed, shook his head, and continued on.
After that, he reached the end of the quarter circular platform without incident. He stopped himself before he stepped onto the straight walkway. Toxic waste lay what he interpreted as miles below him.
Why the hell didn't these things have guardrails? Pipes running alongside the walkway wasn't really enough to guarantee the safety of the Black Mesa personnel. Gordon told himself to stop whining like Barney, and walked over the walkway as fast as he could manage without running.
He stepped through a solid metal doorway in the side of the cylinder. He was in the airlock. Looking around, Gordon saw the big red lever that could only be turned to six o'clock or three. At the moment it was at six. There was a closed metal door in front of him, the frame around it the same as the one he had just come through, yellow and black stripes indicating the danger of the pressurised entrance.
Above the lever was a green sign that read 'SILO D-01 ACCESS'.
That sounded like a rocket test lab to him. Gordon wrapped his hand around the lever, and with a good yank, pulled it up to the three o'clock position.
The door in front of him slid open as the one behind him closed. Gordon looked behind him for a moment to check that the door behind had indeed shut, and then turned back.
And came face to face with a zombie.
It swung its' lengthy hands out with an annoyed growl, and Gordon tumbled back underneath its' swiping attack. He reached for Martha, but quickly remembered the problem with said weapon. Acting on instinct, Gordon swung Martha at the zombie's head. The way it reacted, it was though nothing had happened. Wiry fingers latched around the shotgun and pried it from Gordon's grasp, tossing it away and into the corridor behind it.
A deafening clanging sound echoed into the airlock, but it certainly wasn't the zombie that was making it.
Gordon saw the zombie's feet. One was in the airlock, the other in the corridor. He reached over and pulled the access lever back down. The metal door sliced the alien/human in half with little difficulty.
Rather than think about what he now had on his hazard suit and his face, Gordon scrambled to his feet and reached for the lever. He paused as he realised he couldn't hear the clanging. Maybe it had been the zombie. After a few more seconds of intent listening, Gordon heaved the lever back up, and the airlock hatch opened.
The clanging noise erupted back into being. Gordon stepped into the corridor that curved around the silo, scooping up Martha and slinging her over his shoulder once again. As he continued on, he realised that the noise was coming from inside the silo. But what could it be? Nothing that Gordon had seen so far was big enough to make that kind of noise. Maybe there was just a lot of them.
Wandering hazel eyes came across the form of a man with slicked black hair, wearing the customary white coat and blue shirt associated with Black Mesa scientific personnel. He seemed to be conscious, but just barely.
Gordon knelt down beside him, wracking his brains for First Aid knowledge. Blood caked the scientist's hands as he clutched them against his abdomen. He looked as though he dare not remove his hands for the irrational fear that everything might fall out.
"Are you all right?" he asked, although he wasn't sure if the man could hear him over the incessant noise. He lay a hand on the scientist's shoulder.
His head whipped up from the contact, his reddening eyes boring into Gordon's as he grasped onto him, clutching his arms.
"Fire the rocket engine. Destroy the damn things before they grow any larger!"
His face crumpled, and he let out a brief cry of agony before his eyes rolled up into his head, and he collapsed forward, his head resting on Gordon's shoulder.
Gently, Gordon lay him back against the silo wall where he was sat.
Larger? There were things in there that were getting larger?
Gordon loved the sound of that. He continued on, ascending up some steps that led to another sealed door on his right. Another red lever lay beside this door.
'PROP/LAB 01 ROCKET TEST'.
Sounded promising. As Gordon reached for the lever, the clanging stopped. A second of silence. And then Gordon heard the noise. It was halfway between a cow's moo and a bloodcurdling howl. Haunting, like a ghost that could barely be seen but was still there, all the same.
Feeling ever more confident in his mission, Gordon turned the lever, and the door opened.
Inside was a lab with an observation window looking into the rocket test chamber. A large red button lay in the center of the control panel, two lights on the right of it and one on the left, all of them shining approvingly. On the left side of the room stood a wall of control panels, the purpose of which Gordon could only vaguely understand.
A balding scientist huffed and puffed as he desperately worked at the control panel in front of the window, checking every few seconds to make sure that whatever-it-was wasn't looking at him. Gordon stepped inside as the scientist moved to the red button and reached to press it.
The glass of the observation window exploded into the room, knocking the screaming scientist on his back and making Gordon duck down and shield his face. When he lowered his arm, he froze at the sight before him.
The creature was a green tentacle, its skin scaly and armour-like. At the end stood a large black claw, almost like a beak, a solitary red eye perched above it. With one stab, it impaled the scientist through the stomach, pulling out through the window with it. He was still screaming when he was torn in half.
Not knowing where his courage was coming from, Gordon scrambled along the floor on his belly, heading for the control panel below the window.
The red button had text reading 'TEST FIRE' above it. Gordon peered over the top of the control panel. There were three of those creatures inside the chamber. Above their heads were the rocket engines. Gordon's gaze fell back on the red button. He slammed his hand down on it. A negative sounding noise, like one off a game show, was all the response he got. Frowning, he tried again. The same noise, except this time it felt more personal.
Gordon looked across the control panel and found that the lights that had shone so brightly before had gone out. Above the two on the right, there was text reading 'FUEL' and 'OXY', and on the left, 'POWER'.
Except Gordon had no idea how to get any of those working again. He muttered a silent curse, which the creatures appeared to hear, since they began their clanging once again. Gordon felt like flipping them the bird. To his right was an open metal door. Sparing only a few quick glances to the observation window above his head, Gordon got to his feet and sprinted through the doorway, slamming into the wall of the corridor which quickly turned right.
A ladder ahead of him led up to a ledge. The shadowy figure of a security guard managed to scare the shit out of Gordon long enough for him to lose his grip on the ladder and slip. A helpful hand latched on to his and pulled him up. With a final great heave, they fell onto the ground next to each other. They both picked themselves up, and the security guard dusted himself off. Gordon almost did the same, but then realised that his hazard suit was pretty screwed by now in the 'keeping clean' department.
He smiled at the guard. "Thank you-"
His new companion put his finger to his lips. "Hey; be quiet. This thing hears us."
The clanging made it almost impossible for Gordon to hear what he was saying. After a few seconds of processing, he cocked an eyebrow. "It-"
"Hey!"
Gordon looked through the doorway behind him, where two open crates of grenades lay, the rather pointless 'DANGER: EXPLOSIVES' written across the side in red paint. He walked through and saw the entrance to the rocket test chamber, where a lone security guard was firing off pot-shots from his handgun at the three tentacle monsters.
"Right here, you bastards!"
The security guard rushed out past Gordon, pushing him aside.
"Robertson! Get back in here, now!"
Robertson didn't hear him; he just continued firing over and over again, screaming as he went. Just as his companion was getting ready to intervene, a large black claw descended and went straight through his neck and out between his legs, silencing him.
Gordon didn't know how he knew what the surviving security guard was going to do. He had just seen so much of people surviving under pressure…
The security guard slipped his handgun out of his holster and charged forward. Or at least, tried to. Gordon latched on to him from behind, threading his arms up through the guard's armpits and round his shoulders.
"Get off me! Ted! Get off me!"
He was screaming now, hysterical. Gordon managed to pull him back through the doorway and back onto the little ledge area. He waited until the guard stopped struggling before he released him. The man sobbed uncontrollably as he collapsed to the ground, his back against the wall.
"I've got to… I…"
Gordon didn't know what he could say, so he settled for gently prising the handgun from the guards' hand, not wanting any impromptu suicide attempts while he thought about what to do. He removed Martha and slung her on the floor before sitting down beside the guard, his back to the wall as well.
'This thing hears us.' That's what the muttering man beside him had said. Hyper-sensitive hearing? Did that mean the eyesight wasn't as strong? He looked through the doorway and saw the open crates, a few grenades on the floor beside them here and there.
He cleared his throat in a way he hoped seemed sympathetic. He understood how the man felt. God knew he had seen enough today to make him weep. It didn't seem to grab the security guards' attention over the din the monsters were making.
"Do you…"
That got his attention, however distant it was. The security guard's head lolled over to look at him.
"Do you know how to turn the rocket engines back on for a test?"
The security guard wiped his nose with the back of his hand, irritably stubbing out any tears with clenched fists.
"God…" he whispered. His head fell back against the wall, his helmet making a slight thud as it hit. He took some breaths.
"Come on Philips. Come on." Feeling himself suitably stable, he looked over to Gordon. "What did you say?"
"I was asking if you knew how to turn on the power."
The guard stared blankly at him.
"So I can test fire the rockets."
Still blank.
"So I can kill it."
Philips scrunched up his face, closing his eyes tight. Then he opened them again. "Sorry. I'm really not…" His bottom lipped wobbled precariously, but he took another calming breath and fought it down.
"I'm really not used to this," he said, offering only a weak smile as an apology.
Gordon smiled sympathetically, nodding.
"The only way I know to turn all that stuff on is to go out through those doors." He pointed to the open doorway leading to the inside of the rocket test chamber. "There are three floors inside there. This is the top floor. On the second floor you've got the fuel and oxygen supply. We get our power from a wind turbine on the same floor. It's… it's basically a giant fan. On the bottom floor you've got the main power generator, which works with the fan. Usually we just call down to get someone to turn them on, but…"
Gordon nodded. Communications were down all over the facility, and there were no guarantees that anyone was alive to take the calls down there anyway. He heaved himself to his feet, leaving Martha where she lay. For what he had in mind, he was going to need to run very fast. Pausing at the doorway, he also removed the holster for his pistol. The HEV suit was stopping it from clinging properly to his body, and it ended up flapping about in a way that didn't make running easy.
That done, he continued on through the door.
"Wait."
He paused and turned to Philips.
"You're going down there?"
"It's the only way, right?"
"Well… well yeah, but… those things in there. What're you gonna do against them? They're bullet proof."
Gordon nodded again. He was beginning to feel like a donkey, he was nodding so much. "I've got an idea that might work."
"What if it doesn't?"
He thought for a moment. "Then it doesn't."
With no further comment, Gordon walked to the doorway leading into the chamber. Philips was right on the money. Through this doorway was a walkway platform that went immediately to the right, presumably to a ladder that led down. Below that was another walkway that went all the way around the chamber. There was a gap on the left where a ladder went down to the lower levels. Gordon didn't see a door on that walkway. Below that walkway, however, was a door. Sealed off by wooden planks, but still a doorway. Gordon did his best to see below that without getting his head removed. Below the walkway with the boarded up doorway was the ground floor. He squinted as he tried to see with further clarity.
He smiled. There, directly below the blocked doorway on the walkway above, was a clear and true doorway. He let out a little 'Ah' noise of triumph. A monstrous tentacle beak suddenly turned and looked at him. It sliced down through the air and collided with the walkway in front of Gordon, getting stuck in the hole it created there.
Gordon backed up quickly, almost falling over the crate of grenades in the corner of the small room. The creature managed to wrest itself free of the platform, taking a quarter of the metal with it. It finally shook of the metal, letting it clang loudly to the ground. Not that anyone would have noticed that noise amidst the din the creatures themselves were creating.
So. Sound sensitive, with possibly weak eyesight. Gordon scooped up some grenades and piled them up in a corner just beside the doorway. Hoping his throwing arm was better than he gave himself credit for, Gordon pulled the pin from the grenade and tossed it into the chamber, aiming for the doorway that had been blocked off with wooden planks.
It bounced off one of the tentacle creatures and landed in the room at his feet. Gordon kicked it back out again and watched it explode in midair. He took cover in the other corner beside the doorway, not particularly wanting to step on a stack of fifteen grenades or so.
He peeked back around the corner. The tentacle creatures were swiping blindly at the spot where the grenade had exploded. Gordon smiled, which he realised he enjoyed doing. He hadn't smiled for so long, it felt like a luxury.
Gordon picked up another grenade and stood in the doorway. He tilted his arm back, hoping his aim would at least by somewhat on target this time. Then he realised something. The grenade still in his hand, he went back to Philips and crouched beside him. He wasn't looking particularly alive at the moment, simply staring at one point on the wall opposite him.
"I… could use some help."
Philips slowly looked at him, his expression blank. "To do what?"
"I need you to throw grenades and make a lot of noise." He placed the grenade in Philips' hand, closing his fingers around it.
The security guard looked down at the grenade and then back to Gordon. "What… what will you be doing?"
He stroked his beard contemplatively, trying to think of the best way of putting it.
"Running like crazy."
Within a few seconds, Gordon and Philips were at the doorway leading into the chamber. Philips tossed the grenade like an old baseball pro, lifting one leg in the manner Gordon had seen many professionals do on TV. He'd seen Barney trying to imitate them once or twice when he thought no-one was looking, although he would never admit it.
The grenade flew through the air and landed with expert precision just under the planks of wood blocking the doorway on the second floor. Gordon and Philips shared a desperate smile of accomplishment as it exploded, shattering all of the wood.
It certainly grabbed the attention of the tentacle monsters, who attacked the doorway like there was no tomorrow. Philips looked to Gordon with understanding now.
"Good listeners…"
Gordon nodded, and with some renewed enthusiasm, Philips scooped up another grenade. He looped his finger into the pin and got ready to pull it. He looked to Gordon and nodded to the left. Gordon returned the gesture. The walkway that went immediately right had been wrecked by one of the creatures, so Gordon had no choice but to leap straight from the doorway and to the next walkway down. Hopefully the HEV suit would take the brunt of the impact.
Philips pulled the pin and tossed the grenade to the right hand side of the chamber. Gordon ran and jumped to the left, not quite sure how to decrease the damage done to his body by the impact.
As his feet collided with the metal walkway and he fell head over heels forward, he heard the explosion of the grenade. What he didn't hear was any kind of ominous crack from his knees or ankles. Always a good thing. The tentacles didn't notice him, too busy pecking away at the imaginary enemy that had just tried to attack them.
He scrambled to the ladder, starting off on all fours before transforming his crawl into a sprint. He quickly latched onto the ladder and almost fell down the hole in his haste. His gloved hands easily gripped the rung in front of him, preventing his fall. Gordon let out a loud breath, puffing out his cheeks.
Apparently, that was enough noise to distract the tentacles away from their imaginary enemy. They turned to where Gordon clung helplessly to the ladder. He looked to the clear doorway, gambling his chances of survival against three tentacle monsters with beaks if he just ran for it.
Another explosion on the other side of the chamber took the decision out of his hands, drawing the monsters away. And so, Gordon ran, going so fast his shoulder collided with the doorframe as he went through. The impact made him turn around in mid run, his back ending up to the wall of the corridor he now stood in.
Breathless, Gordon stepped forward and looked up at Philips, giving him a thumbs up as he hunched over, resting his other hand on his knee. Philips just nodded in his acknowledgement.
Gordon took stock of his surroundings. This corridor glowed the welcoming green of toxic waste. The corridor itself was in fact a platform just like the ones outside the chamber, except these had that pleasing wire mesh effect that let people see down at what they could possibly fall into. Doing so, Gordon saw the same toxic waste that had surrounded the chamber outside, except just that little bit closer. Lovely.
Rather than think up any more ways he could die today, Gordon walked on, trying not to ponder what he would do against any alien threats he came across without even a crowbar for company.
At the far end of the corridor, Gordon spotted an open door, leading into another airlock. He presumed that it would take him outside the chamber itself, just a floor lower than where he began. Gordon went through, wondering why he hadn't bumped into any more aliens.
The door opened, and he was outside the rocket test chamber, once again basked in the glow of the moat of toxic waste beneath him. A walkway in front of him led to a corridor. The walkway, unfortunately, already had a passenger in the form of a zombie. It didn't seem to notice him, simply standing idly around, its' long claw-like fingers dangling, almost as though bored. As seemed the norm in this place, there was no railing to hold on to, the walkway simply relying on the fact that those that used it had incredible balance.
Gordon sighed and pushed up his glasses. He was getting increasingly tired of these insurmountable obstacles. He cracked his neck to the left and then to the right. Then he ran at the zombie, diving for his legs and wrapping his arms around the ankles. As hard as he could manage, he squeezed them together and tried to tip the zombie over the edge. The zombie had barely realised what was going on before it was sent moaning and writhing to the toxic waste below. Gordon had no idea if zombies were more resilient against multi-storey drops (or to toxic waste), but if he was honest, either of those fates couldn't be worse for the human inside than staying alive.
With a grunt, Gordon heaved himself to his feet and instinctively dusted himself off before proceeding onwards into the corridor. It led into a darkened room that made Gordon squint. On his left was another corridor with a lit metal door at the end. On the right hand wall were two pipes, one red and the other blue. Gordon assumed that red was for fuel, blue for oxygen. All that he cared about was the fact that they led to the lit door, which meant, for once, something simple.
Feeling somewhat heartened by the small mercies fate was throwing him amidst this living hell, Gordon walked over to the door with halfway confident strides. The door didn't open for him. There was no control panel to open it either. For a few seconds, Gordon was silent, just staring blankly ahead at the heavy metal slab that stood between him and one of his many goals. Then, with a sigh, he rested his head against the cool metal of the door.
"I really… really… hate you."
He turned wearily and walked into the darkness. On the far side of the room, Gordon could see a railing that seemed to be part of a tiny balcony overlooking a small room beneath. There wasn't much in the small room but a rather large grating. Beneath it was a ladder that descended into the bowels of the… place where he was. Gordon wasn't exactly sure what to call it. Lab, office, something like that. His brain was beginning to flag on the details. He reached up and rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses, really feeling like he could use some coffee.
Gordon looked around him. There was a hole in the ground beside him, a ladder leading into the room with the grating. Without even thinking about it, lowered himself down, hopping off the last few steps to land on the ground just that little bit quicker.
Two zombies stood on either side of him.
"Wah!"
With an energy he hadn't been feeling before, Gordon darted around the ladder and to the garden table sized grating in the floor, gripping some rungs with both hands. With a cry of effort, Gordon heaved it out. The zombies were almost open him, wandering seemingly aimlessly, but still with him as their overall target. They were stood next to each other, so Gordon simply pushed the grating to them, as though passing it to a friend to hold while he worked on something. He slipped inside the hole and clambered down the ladder as fast as his fear of heights would allow. The bottom of this cylindrical hole in the ground was at least fifteen feet down.
After a surprisingly short trek downwards, Gordon reached the bottom and found himself in a dank cavern. It was shaped like a tall rectangle, but with a curved top, like a semi circle. He was stood on what looked like an incredibly slippery pipe that led down the cavern and went to the left and the right at the end. Beneath him was a layer of water that would be lucky to come up to his ankles if he was stood in it.
With nary a deep breath of preparation, Gordon went onwards. After only a few slips, Gordon reached the junction and opted on a left turn, simply because Barney would have insisted on going right. Every single time they were on their way somewhere, Barney would just insist on going right. It was almost like a compulsion.
The pipe turned right, and after that turn, Gordon saw a ladder that would lead him up into whatever obstacle the lovely Black Mesa facility had prepared for him.
Not for the first time, Gordon wondered if Barney was even alive, let alone insisting to some hapless scientist under his care that they have to go right. He wondered what had become of Dr Kleiner in the wake of the disaster. Or Eli. Eli with the wife and daughter. How was a baby like Alyx supposed to survive in a place like this?
Gordon shook the thoughts from his head as he clambered up the ladder and came to another grate above him, just as big as the one he had forced upon the two zombies before. It was surprisingly easy to dislodge it, but pushing it aside was the 'bitch', as Barney would no doubt put it. The scientist climbed out and took a breath, and clapped eyes on another zombie standing over him.
There were a lot of zombies in this place.
At a lack of options, Gordon did a repeat performance of his tackle from earlier, this time tilting the zombie so he would fall down the hole that Gordon himself had just clambered out of. Amazingly, it worked. Gordon continued on and came upon a metal door. His spirits almost fell again when he noticed the control panel next door. With a relived sigh and a smile, he pressed the 'open' button. It groaned open, reflecting both the age and the power of the door. Nothing got through these things without authorisation.
Including the two zombies on the other side.
Now it was just getting annoying. Gordon groaned and took a step back. The zombies practically fell over themselves trying to get to him. He waited until they were both stood in the doorway when he pressed the 'close' button. The door was unrelenting in its efforts to close, crushing the two zombies into each other before they even had a chance to make a grunt of displeasure.
Something inside him helped bypass the vomiting reflex, and Gordon pressed the 'open' button, heading on into the chamber beyond. It was yet another large cylindrical chamber, with a walkway that ran around the circumference. There was a ladder on the other side that led down past the huge fan to a walkway beneath that led to the base of said huge fan.
As Gordon found after climbing down the ladder, the control switch to turn on the fan was beneath it. So, naturally, Gordon had to turn the fan on, then climb up the ladder and past the huge deadly fan blades of death before they went fast enough to turn him into paste.
Naturally.
Feeling twenty years older than he was, Gordon pressed the green button to turn on the fan and sprinted to the ladder, climbing as fast as he could while still trying to keep his body as flat to the wall as he could. He could have sworn he felt the fan blade swipe at his back, but through some miracle, Gordon managed to reach the circular walkway unscathed.
Someone up there wanted him alive. Probably to suffer more.
The fan was really building up speed now, and Gordon wondered where the hell he was supposed to go to reach the fuel and oxygen switches. Then he looked up. At the very top of the chamber were innumerable planks of wood, obviously covering something up. Through the gaps, Gordon could swear he could see what looked like a very wide air vent cover.
He felt a little like Charlie in the chocolate factory as he leapt out on top of the fan, letting the wind blow him up to the top. The fan had picked up a surprising amount of speed in a short time. So much so, in fact, that it propelled Gordon up to the roof so fast he cracked through most of the planks blocking his path.
Gordon felt like saying many things as he was impaled to the grated ceiling by the strong winds. Only one came out through.
"Ow."
On his right, Gordon could indeed see a wide air vent cover. Hooking his fingers into the grated surface of the ceiling, Gordon managed to crawl upside down to the cover. With a grunt, he prised it off and slipped inside. The wind that had been keeping him aloft now out of the way, Gordon fell into the vent in a somewhat ungraceful manner. He licked his very dry lips and tried to get some moisture back in his throat.
Now he could really use a coffee.
A headcrab leapt out of the darkness at him. Suddenly feeling quite irritable, Gordon grabbed it with both hands and tossed it out of the opening like a football. He watched for a few seconds in some amusement as it floundered against the gale force winds of the turbine fan.
Then he got his mind back on more serious things and crawled onwards through the air vent, every shuffling movement echoing loudly down the thin metal passage. Something about it was rather therapeutic, surprisingly. Small air vents were the one constant Gordon had come to rely on throughout the facility, and they actually had a strange, calming effect on him. They reminded him of times before the incident. Before his life was just about survival.
God, was that just this morning?
Gordon had no idea what time it was now. Had a day passed? Two days? He physically felt like it.
The vent came to an abrupt – and, for Gordon, somewhat disappointing – end, and after pushing the vent cover off, Gordon stepped out onto a seemingly pointless platform in a narrow room. At the end of the platform was a ladder that led to the room beneath, where a doorway stood at the far end, which, really, wasn't very far at all. Cautiously, he climbed down and went through.
There, on his right, was a control panel with two red buttons on the surface, beside one button a blue light labelled 'OXY' and red light labelled 'FUEL'.
There were also four zombies in the room. Gordon had no intention of trying to tackle all of them to the ground, and so settled for sprinting to the control panel and slamming his palms down on both buttons at the same time. With and affirmative and uplifting bleep, the lights came on, and the entire control panel sprang to life. Without even a glance back at the approaching predators, Gordon noticed a door on the wall on his right, beside the doorway he had just entered through. And, happily, there was a control pad beside it.
Without a thought, Gordon ran to it opened it. As he stepped through it and closed it, he realised it was the first locked door he had come across. But why would they only have a control panel on the one side?
Some of these scientists were smart, but good God, they could be dim.
It took Gordon less than a few minutes to the return to the rocket test chamber, where the tentacle monsters were still making the same banging din, punctuated by the occasional haunting, monstrous call.
He stood in the doorway, safely beyond their fatal reach. Gordon tried to think. Where was the next door? He knew it was below him, but where exactly? In the same place as this door, or on the opposite side of the chamber?
"Hey!"
With a frown, he looked up to the doorway on the top walkway. Philips stood there, waving largely with both hands. The creatures took notice of his noisy announcement and started banging against the walkway in front of him. Unnerved but not undeterred, Philips cupped his hands around his mouth.
"It's below you!"
Gordon gave him a thumbs up and a nod. Philips continued yelling incoherently at the monsters, attracting them to him while Gordon ran out onto the walkway and went into a skid, dropping off the walkway and onto the ground floor. The HEV suit beeped in protest, alerting him to a minor fracture, but Gordon ignored it. He didn't have time to run to the ladder and climb down, and in any case, the suit would take care of the damage while he walked.
Thankfully, the doorway on the ground floor wasn't boarded shut as the one above had been, and Gordon wasted no time sprinting inside. He was even closer to the lake of toxic waste now. Gordon continued on down the very familiar seeming corridor and went through the airlock.
Once again, he found himself on another thin, rail-less walkway, but with a merciful lack of aliens. Gordon actually found himself feeling tenser. He continued on down the corridor. A power cable ran the length of the corridor and around the corner. Some water pipes had burst somehow, and a pool of water had spread out across a good portion of the corridor ahead of Gordon. The power cable dangled dangerously close to the broken pipe, and what appeared to be a crack in the casing meant that as soon as the power came back on, that water would be electrified. With a sigh of resignation, Gordon kept on going.
He turned another corner left, where a doorway waited at the end of the corridor on the right. He went through and was immediately taken aback at how big the place was. It looked like it was used for cargo transport down to the lower levels, although what cargo could be taken to a power generator, Gordon didn't know. His attention was on the bull…squid thing with the tentacle mouth in the corner of the room. It was feasting on the remains of a dead scientist and hadn't noticed him yet.
After taking one step into the room, Gordon froze. Ropes were lowering themselves from the ceiling. He took a step back and turned his suit's flashlight on, pointing it upwards. It was those barnacle creatures, like the one he had mistaken for a rope during his fight with the soldiers. Except these were everywhere. It would take a great deal of caution for him to circumnavigate them all, and caution was something he couldn't afford with the bullsquid creature in there with him. Then he thought of something.
Sneaking into the room, Gordon positioned himself so between himself and the bullsquid was the thickest collection of barnacles in the room. Then he clapped loudly.
"Hello!"
The bullsquid turned with an indignant grunt, and quickly started towards him. Before it knew what was going on, three barnacle tentacles had latched onto it and were heaving it up. It writhed and squealed like a pig as it was torn in three different directions. Rather than linger on the pain the thing must have been going through, Gordon focused on sliding through the remaining barnacles and reaching the platform on the right hand side of the room.
The latticework grating beneath him left little to the imagination insofar as how high up he was. It was yet another large cylindrical chamber, a pool of toxic waste lying below. A control panel sprouted out of the platform beside the very edge. Wondering why his hand wasn't shaking, Gordon pressed the button on the panel to summon the elevator, which he curiously couldn't see below him. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then lights began to come on at the bottom of the chamber. Gradually, like a wave travelling up towards him, the lights began switch on one tier at a time until the entire chamber was lit.
Not that it was anything to look at when it was lit up, either. Dull grey was dull grey. He heard a groaning noise from above him, and saw an elevator coming down. It was attached to a cable, the apparatus lowering it concealed by shadow. Well, he said elevator. One side was just open, while all the other sides had huge viewports that anyone could fall out of accidentally from the slightest slip. For a place that handled such delicate equipment, they certainly weren't stringent about safety. Gordon wondered if it was just this older part of the facility, or if Anomalous Materials had been this unsafe and he just hadn't noticed.
Pushing it aside for now, Gordon stepped in and pushed the single button next to the gaping doorway. With a shudder that rattled the whole elevator, the suspended box eventually complied, lowering him down the chamber. After a few seconds of peaceful downward travel, Gordon smiled. This wasn't so bad.
Then the elevator stopped suddenly, tilting dangerously from side to side.
Feeling like he was being toyed with, Gordon looked around, and saw a ladder running the entire height of the chamber. He propped his feet up on the ledge of one of the viewports and kicked off, leaping towards the ladder. His hands managed to latch on, and his body slammed into the wall in a manner which was, to say the least, inconvenient. Then the elevator cable snapped, and it fell into the depths of the chamber before finding a sticky end in the pool of toxic waste below.
At least, Gordon assumed toxic waste was sticky. With a shrug, he climbed down the chamber, feeling somewhat safer being in control of his own descent instead of relying on decades old machinery.
At the bottom was a stone platform that looked far sturdier than the metal latticework one above. In the right hand corner of the room stood a scientist with what could only be described as a bushy tuft of hair sticking out the back, his bald head shining against the light of the panel in front of him. Gordon made his way over, thankful for some more human contact.
The scientist was studying some dials on the panel, and from what Gordon could see, there were no controls. Gordon cleared his throat, making the scientist jump before finding the source of the noise and calming himself. The scientist thumped his chest melodramatically.
"Goodness. You scared me witless for a moment there."
"Sorry."
He looked Gordon up and down and smiled, nodding approvingly. "Ah, you have a HEV suit. That should be useful."
He steeled himself up for whatever deadly task awaited him. "Useful… for what?"
"Why, for surviving this mess, of course!"
That took Gordon aback. "Oh. Right."
The scientist sighed and returned to looking at the dials. "You know, I hope no-one expects me to start up the generator. Smithers went down there and never came back."
Gordon sighed. Too good to be true, just as he had suspected.
"Where is it?" he sighed.
"What?"
"The generator room."
"Oh. Just down that corridor and on the left." The scientist pointed an bony finger towards the passageway behind Gordon, which bent immediately off to the right.
With only a nod of confirmation, Gordon walked off in that direction, feeling like a sulky teenager. He followed the corridor to its eventual end, which was an opening into a silo not unlike the one the tentacle monsters now inhabited. Except, instead of a walkway going around the circumference of the chamber on his floor, a small platform, barely big enough to accommodate one person stood waiting for a passenger, a control panel sprouting from the front. They looked like little Segways. And there were guardrails! If Gordon ever got out of this, he would find a lawyer somewhere and sue the Black Mesa company, not for the aliens, the soldiers or the constant peril, but for the lack of damned guardrails.
The platform seemed to run along a rail that ran the right side of the chamber, and led to a ladder on the other side. Above him was a normal walkway that did run the area of the chamber. But there was another platform running along that walkway. It looked like it was out of control, going at high speeds from side to the other, only stopping for a precious few seconds on either side of the ladder from below before setting off in the other direction again.
Gordon stepped onto the platform and pressed the button. With a little jerk, the platform came to life and rocketed him around to the other side. He waited for a few moments before prising his fists from their vice grip on the guardrail and climbing up the ladder. As he reached the top, he looked around. There was another ladder on the left hand side of the walkway leading up to what Gordon assumed was the generator. It was a platform that bridged from one side of the chamber to the other, a circular shape bulging in the middle.
The out of control Segway platform was still whipping around the walkway at deadly speed. Gordon noticed that it cut in front of the ladder that he needed to get up.
"Of course it does," he muttered. He waited for the platform to get around to his left side. After it launched away to get to the right side, Gordon guessed he would have enough time to run to the ladder and get up it before the platform returned and ran him over. The platform came to a clanging halt on the left hand side of the ladder. It launched away again, and Gordon propelled himself from the ladder and almost tripped over himself in his haste to reach his target.
In a moment of rare ease, Gordon managed to climb halfway up the ladder before the platform had come back around. With a self-impressed smile, Gordon climbed up to the generator.
Feeling very unsafe, Gordon crawled on all fours up the stone platform towards the generator. A red button cried out to be pressed, so he did so. The circular bulge was in fact a fairly hefty looking squat shaped cylinder, and Gordon had to clamber up and over it to reach the red button which Gordon assumed was on the other side. As he got up on to, he came face to face with another bespectacled scientist, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.
"This is my hiding spot," he said urgently, the way in which he crawled around the generator making him look like a nervous dog. "And I'm not moving until the situation is drastically improved. Now go away!" he commanded, waving Gordon away. "And don't tell anyone I'm here!"
Gordon opened his mouth to try and convince him otherwise, but thought better of it. No danger could come to him here, and trying to force him would just be stressful for all concerned. He would tell his friend back in the control room about him, and that would be that. Gordon crawled to the other side of the generator and pushed the red button there as well.
The generator thrummed to life and Gordon climbed back over the generator to the ladder. Apparently, turning on the generator stopped whatever was making the platform go insane, so any caution Gordon approached the walkway with was removed.
By some miracle, the journey back was uneventful. The scientist said something incredibly stupid along the lines of "Someone has restored all power," which made Gordon want to hurt him. The fact that the scientist said it with a great deal of wonder made it even more irritating, somehow. But, instead of hurting him, Gordon settled for telling the scientist where his friend Smithers really was.
The scientist didn't seem surprised, and looked like he was considering doing the same thing himself.
Gordon took the ladder back up the chamber and negotiated his way past both the maze of barnacles and the now electrified pool of water in the corridor. He wouldn't have thought taking a running jump in such a manner would have worked, but there he was, crossing the bridge to the rocket test lab.
Before long he was stood on the bottom floor of the silo, wondering how he could signal to Philips that he was ready. With a weary shrug, Gordon settled for yelling incoherently. The tentacle monsters replied by slamming their fifty ton beaks down into the ground in front of him. Then they became distracted, and the three red eyed creatures turned their attention to the top floor. Gordon could just hear Philips making as much noise as he could.
Never been known for being a time waster, Gordon ran to the ladder and climbed up to the next level, quickly darting into the doorway on that floor. One of the tentacle monsters glanced back at him as he went inside, but was far too distracted by Philips to do much else about it. Gordon took in the situation ahead of him.
On the right was a ladder that would take him up to the second floor. And then, almost entirely on the other side of the chamber, was a ladder that led up to the walkway that Philips was trying his best not to occupy, lest he be eviscerated by angry green tentacle monsters. He checked once more that the monsters weren't concentrated on him, then sprinted to the ladder. He slipped on one of the rungs, but otherwise was pretty swift.
And then he ran again, knowing that the creatures would be facing him but hoping beyond hopes that Philips was making enough noise.
He wasn't.
Just as Gordon reached the ladder, a monstrous beak slammed down into the walkway in front of him. He backed up as fast as he could, when another break sliced through the air and crashed into the metal floor behind him. The third was getting ready to strike when an explosion sounded from the opposite side of the chamber. Gordon spotted another grenade being tossed from the walkway above him, again landing on the far side of the chamber.
After the second explosion, the creatures turned their attention to the imaginary enemy behind them, and Gordon scrambled up the ladder faster than he would have thought possible of himself. He sprinted into the doorway, almost knocking Philips over as he went through. Gordon wanted to collapse. He was spent, he knew it. The adrenalin would wear off soon, and then he would just fall into a coma for a few days.
But not yet.
"You okay?" Philips asked, smiling in happiness and disbelief.
Gordon offered a breathless nod, resting his hands on his knees. God, he jogged regularly and ran marathons. He shouldn't be this exhausted.
"Good, because I was out of grenades."
That elicited a small smile from the exhausted scientist. He went through the doorway in front of him. He scooped up Martha and the pistol, still snug in its holster. Having weapons again felt good. Gordon didn't even bother to think about the moral ramifications of such a feeling as he climbed down the ladder and walked to the control room, followed by Philips.
The control room was lit up again, just as it had been when Gordon first entered it. Hopefully he would have more luck with this endeavour than the first scientist did. The 'POWER', 'FUEL' and 'OXY' lights were all shining hopefully, and Gordon walked to the red button between them that held the glorious label 'TEST FIRE' printed above it. He slammed his fist down on it.
Klaxons sounded, and the doors on either side of the control room slammed shut automatically. Gordon indicated to Philips to get in the far corner of the room, while he took the other. They needed to be as far away from the heat as possible. He scrunched his eyes shut as he heard the engines start up.
"Close your eyes!" he yelled.
"Already doing it!" Philips yelled back.
And then the rockets fired. The monsters roared and moaned in agony as they were burnt to a crisp. The blackness that surrounded Gordon grew white from the intense light, and he could feel the heat even through his HEV suit.
Then, suddenly, it was over. The noise was gone. All Gordon could hear was the crackling of something burning. A pungent smell was wafting its way into his nose, but he ignored it. Slowly, cautiously, he opened his eyes. He looked over to Philips, who was still tucked into a protective ball.
"It's okay," Gordon assured, getting to his feet and walking to the viewing port. The monsters were gone. Philips was by his side shortly.
"Take that, you bastards," he muttered, and then he gave Gordon a happy hug.
"Oh, um… okay," he managed, feeling a little awkward.
Philips released Gordon from his embrace. "Sorry. Just… happy to have those things gone."
Gordon looked down to the hole in at the bottom of the test chamber where the creatures had sprouted from. He guessed that was where he was heading, and readjusted Martha on his shoulder.
"I'll… see you later, I suppose."
"Huh?"
"I'm… going. Down there."
Philips looked to the hole in the silo. "Damn," he admired, smiling and shaking his head at Gordon. "You don't stop, do you?"
"Can't."
The security guard just nodded at that. "Mind if I come along?"
Gordon blinked. "Sorry?"
"Do you mind if I come along? You know, to help you?"
A volunteer? Gordon was getting a volunteer? And one that wasn't mentally unstable? He felt like hugging Philips.
Instead, he just pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded.
Both of them feeling somewhat safer with a companion to watch out for them, Gordon and Philips made their way down to the bottom of the silo and lowered themselves into the caverns below.
"What's down here?" Gordon asked, immediately surprised at the way the ground sloped beneath him.
"Don't know. Never really had a reason to climb down here."
Gordon wasn't sure whether the security guard was being ironic or not, but decided to let the comment lie either way. After a few minutes more of sliding and downward climbing, they came to a ledge that was at least twenty stories. At the bottom was a perfectly circular pool of water. No way to tell how deep it was, unfortunately.
"We jumping?" Philips asked from he was crouched at the ledge, looking down.
He thought of some nice way to put it before replying.
"Yes."
"Thought so."
Gordon tossed Martha and his pistol down the chasm first, not wanting one of them swinging around his body upon impact with the water and knocking him out. Or interfering with his swimming, for that matter.
"Can we survive that?" he asked Philips.
"Hell, I don't know. You're the doctor."
"Scientist."
"Same thing, right?"
"Not… really."
"Oh. Didn't know that."
"Oh. Okay."
The pair were silent for a moment.
"So," Philips said, pointing a thumb to the chasm. "Shall we, uh?"
Gordon nodded. The two took a few steps back before running out and leaping off the ledge. What was that movie Barney had loaned him?
"I can't swim!"
"Don't be stupid, it's the fall that'll kill you!"
Well, Gordon could swim, so it was kind of redundant.
And then he was in the water, shooting down into the greenish pool like a bullet. The impact knocked the breath out of him, and he quickly pushed his way back up to the surface. Philips was already there waiting for him as he launched out of the water, gasping for breath. Philips whooped like a teenager. Actually, on closer inspection, Philips practically was a teenager. Gordon wondered how young Black Mesa was hiring nowadays.
They were in a very dark, small cave. The HEV suit's Geiger counter was crackling away, and Gordon realised why. Several toppled crates of radioactive material lay around the pool. None of the green liquid had reached the water, but it was only a matter of time.
"We should keep on swimming."
Philips was still panting. "Huh? Why?"
A nod to the radioactive drums was Gordon's only response. Philips turned and saw them, then looked back to Gordon with increasing alarm.
"Shit!"
And with that, he dove down. Gordon followed.
The pool was about twenty feet deep, and at the bottom lay the charred stump of what Gordon assumed was the tentacle creature. The water was warmer near the stump. In little time, Gordon found Martha and his handgun, although the holster had disappeared somewhere.
On the right and left hand side of the bottom of the pool were some smaller, carved out caverns in the white porcelain. Three on one side, three on the other. Philips had already taken the right hand side, and Gordon reluctantly followed, hoping he wasn't following a security guard to an early grave. Maybe it wasn't just Barney who liked to turn right. Maybe it was a security division thing. The archways on the right hand side led to a thin rectangular passageway that immediately went up. Gordon could make out a light source at the top, and followed his eager companion up. Maybe right was correct now and again.
They both emerged gasping for air, and Philips wasted no time in heaving himself out of the water and offering his hand to Gordon. Encumbered with Martha like he was, he appreciated the lift. They wonderful green light of toxic waste surrounded them. They were stood on a platform that overlooked a river of the stuff, drums of radioactive material floating along down the river like ducks. It looked like some twisted sewer. A large pipe ran over the river and led around the corner. A ladder led up to the pipe, and Philips led the way.
It was sort of nice to have someone else making he decisions. Until this point Gordon had been relying on his own instincts, and he had been beginning to doubt how much longer they could have kept him alive. But now he had someone with training on his side, and he felt much safer for it.
The pipe was as thick as a truck, but the two walked along it as though it were a tightrope. They turned the corner to the left, and Gordon could make out that the 'sewer' opened up into a much bigger chamber at the end. They reached the end and Philips cursed quietly at how high up they were.
"Jesus, this place is like the grand canyon," he muttered, before shaking his head and continuing onwards.
The river of toxic waste became a waterfall at the end of the 'sewer', falling into a pool at the very bottom of the chamber. An equally thick pipe ran across the middle of the chamber, connected to the pipe they were now walking on. Gordon could see an opening on the top of it not unlike the ones he had used earlier.
Except that this time, Gordon knew about the ladder, and his somewhat smug expression when he climbed down into the pipe confused Philips. The two wandered into the darkened tunnel, and Gordon flipped on his flashlight. They turned a corner.
"Where are we headed, by the way?"
"The Lambda complex."
"Why?"
"They're trying to find a way to stop this. And… I was told I could trust them."
"Trust them? What's that mean?"
Gordon looked over at him, realising that Philips wouldn't have known. Of course he wouldn't, he was stuck in that chamber with those tentacle things since this mess started. How could he know what the military were doing? Quietly and reluctantly, Gordon told him about the soldiers that had entered the Black Mesa facility, eradicating 'evidence' as they went.
Philips, obviously a big believer that the army were on his side, looked like he had been punched in the gut. He didn't ask many questions as they continued on. The one question he did ask was nothing to do with the army.
"Did you hear that?"
Gordon stopped and listened. He could hear it. A steady creaking, all around them. After a cautious look back at his companion, Gordon took a step forward, closely followed by Philips.
There was another creak. Then, with a massive crash, the pipe gave way, and they fell.
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(A/N: Now this took way too long, I wholeheartedly agree with you readers on this. And I have no other excuse except for real life intruding on this chapter, which, admittedly, was already a bitch to write.
Anyway, review (even if it's just to say how late I am)!
Next Chapter: Focal Point. Barney visits the alien world of Xen!)