I don't know if this has been done before. If so, I apologize. If not, I still apologize.

Sorry's all around, really.

The Wrong Man in the Right Place

Ushering in the Green Apocalypse had been bad. Being attacked by fifteen different alien species, bone-headed Marines, ninjas, and a Lovecraftian turnip had been bad. Waking up to see that CIA guy breathing his paint-breath directly into Gordon's eyes had been bad. And then being transported onto a train that seemed more and more like it wasn't going to Hawaii the longer it rattled down the tracks was also, you guessed it, bad.

Things were bad and Gordon Freeman was doing everything in his power to make sure his brain didn't say: Well it couldn't get worse.

Goddammit it just did that! Ahhhhhck, he was gonna be in for it now.

Gordon stepped off the train and, as he blinked away the flash of some phantom camera drone, tried to see if he could smell Hawaii smells around him. He couldn't. It smelled like a really old bookstore and rotten meat.

And just as he nearly got his sight back, he heard a voice echo over the train station's loudspeakers.

"Welcome everyone! Welcome to City 17!"

Whoever this was, he sounded way too chipper—and since this place didn't smell like Hawaii, Gordon couldn't figure out why this mystery figure would feel that way.

Gordon blinked one last time and, looking up, there was the figure with the voice: a man in sideburns and a turtleneck, up on a massive television screen, staring down at the milling people on the platform like he'd just been given a box of humans as a Christmas present.

Gordon had no idea who this guy was but he still gulped.

"Astronauts, war-heroes, Olympians—there aren't many of you left but that's fine, what we're doing here'll blow those namby-pamby moonwalkers straight out of the water! Now you already met one another on the train-ride over here so let me introduce myself: I'm Cave Johnson. I own the place.

"All of it. The whole Earth. If you didn't know that already then you haven't been reading your mandated propaganda packets and some people in gasmasks are gonna want to have a word with you."

Again, Gordon gulped.

"Now I know what you're probably thinking: Doesn't seem fair, one guy owning all this everything. And to that I say you also haven't been reading your mandated propaganda packets, because that's on Page One of the Things To Not Say Out Loud section and, again, some guys in gasmasks are gonna want to have a word with you.

"Hopefully we've thinned the heard a little bit here so, if you're still with us and not being beaten to death by someone wearing a gasmask, congratulations! For every dead rule-breaker there's another portion of nutrient paste for you to plug your nose and swallow."

Gordon adjusted his glasses. Oh man, this guy made that fussy administrator with the white beard look sane…

"As you move through security—which you should be doing right now, chop chop time's a-wasting—"

Gordon started moving through security.

"I'll impart some wisdom onto you all that I think will help us in the long run: Taking orders from other people is perfectly fine and we should be doing more of that. Heck, I know from personal experience how important taking orders can be! Bought a whole bunch of moon rocks once—was gonna turn 'em into a gel of some kind. No idea what would've happened, but the egg-heads said it'd be a bad idea. Nearly fired 'em all. Then I didn't, and I listened to them, and I found out that moon rock dust pretty much liquifies your insides. So! Moral of the story is, listen to what I'm telling you and you too can one day be contacted by an interdimensional Empire looking for a puppet governor to oppress the locals.

"Except don't hope for that here because we're under a strict agreement with the Combine to not be oppressed by any other interdimensional Empires. Told me if that happens they'd liquify our insides and feed 'em to us. Don't know how that's possible, that's just the memo I got when they handed me the keys to the place.

"Which is Earth. Just wanna emphasize that again in case anyone's sleeping through my speeches. If so please point that out to an officer so that the beating can commence as soon as possible."

Gordon's throat felt dry. It really, really wouldn't have been unwelcomed if this Johnson guy at least pretended he wasn't evil. He was…he was just so upfront about it.

"Anyways," this Cave Johnson guy said, "processing shouldn't take too long, especially if about half of you are bleeding out on the floor. We do things a little differently in City 17 so, if you're afraid that some technological and/or occult artifact is gonna start sucking out your personality and individuality the moment you step foot in the city, I've got some good news and some bad news.

"Good news is that's a totally unfounded worry: really not worth my time to suck your personality out through technological and/or occult means, don't even really know what I'd do with it once I got it.

"Bad news: at some point between now and next month you'll likely start growing vestigial limbs. Part of an experiment I'm running—can't spare the details, but let's just say the Advisors are intrigued to see where I'm going with this, so I'd really appreciate it if you reacted with the appropriate level or horror. Frankly this could happen at any time so, feel free to let a sense of paranoia settle in on your rapidly mutating brains. But otherwise, if you wake up one morning and have an extra foot, do us all a favour and have a complete mental breakdown over it. No stiff upper lips please: jut let loose and start screaming about that extra foot you now have."

Gordon blinked.

"All right enough babbling. We're done here."

And with a click, Cave Johnson was gone.

Gordon, again, blinked.

"Oh my god, this guy's crazy in a box with a side-order of fries," he said.

And somewhere, out in the quantum foam of the multiverse, the G-Man straightened his tie and smiled an almost-human smile.

"Hmph. The…wrong…man, in the…right…place, can make all the di-fer-ence in…the world."

FIN

The Gordon here is based, naturally, on Ross Scott's version, because...I dunno. Writing isn't about why, it's about why not! Or...something like that.

We're done here.