Chapter 2 - Anomalous Materials

There wasn't anything special about the sector C lobby. The room itself was on the smaller size, minimal concrete walls and exposed air ducts. At the far right of the lobby a hallway extending out. In the center of the room was a circular desk, with a map of the world in the backdrop, on the left wall, a vast array of monitors displaying...something. On topside the lobbies were of high quality, big rooms with fancy flooring and decor. It was all about showing off to the public up there. Down here though, this was where the real science was done, far far away from the public eye.

Manning the front desk was another security guard, he was typing away at the desktop computer in front of him. While one of the researchers leaned over his shoulder rather invasively, Gordon could tell it was bothering the guard just by looking at his face. As Gordon approached the desk the guard looked up "Oh, hey Mister Freeman" Gordon smiled in reply. The guard turned back to type at his computer and continued "I had a bunch of messages for you, but we had a system crash..I don't know about twenty minutes ago" he scratched his head and turned to look at the researcher still hanging over his shoulder, who nodded in confirmation. The guard then turned back to face Gordon "It's just one of those days I guess. They told me to head on down to the test chamber once you got into your hazard suit" Gordon nodded and made his way down the small hallway on his right. He passed some researchers, as he headed down the sloping corridors towards the locker rooms.

Passing the break room Gordon arrived at the male locker room. He opened the door to be greeted with a fellow scientist tying up his laces. "Another day, another dollar" the scientist greeted, Gordon grinned in reply. He wasn't much of a talker, he just felt he didn't have much to say. He made his way to his locker, which had Freeman printed on it in large writing. Opening the locker he was greeted by the photograph of his niece, 'I need to visit my brother soon' Gordon thought to himself. He hadn't even met his niece in person yet. He took off his lab coat and hung it on a coat hanger, he wouldn't be needing it for this experiment. Shutting the locker he made his way over to a small room on the left, attached to the larger expanse. This area was named by the AM staff as the suit room, where the Hazardous Environment Suits or HEV suits were stored.

As Gordon entered the room there were three suits in their respective glass security case. Freeman's HEV suit was the one in the middle. The button to fetch Gordon's suit had a glass cover, fortunately for Freeman he had a key that was given to him by the Administrator, Doctor Breen, after he had completed the hazard safety course. He inserted the key and the glass cover opened. Pressing the now uncovered button there was a whooshing noise as the HEV suit case slid upwards revealing the suit on display. It was the coolest Hazard suit Gordon had ever seen, the most technologically advanced as well. It was bright orange and silver, that way it was always visible by personnel. It came with a stylish helmet too. On the center of the suit was a lambda symbol. Below the symbol were some buttons, ports and a flashlight beam. Gordon quickly threw on the suit, being sure that he had put the suit on correctly.

After putting on his helmet Gordon pressed one of the buttons on the center of the suit, an automated female voice beamed through the helmet's headset "Welcome to the HEV mark four protective system. For use in hazardous environment conditions." The voice announced all the booted up systems, while the heads up display showcased the boot up with cool graphics. This truly was the coolest hazard suit Gordon had seen, it was also the safest. The suit was constantly scanning to check the health of the user, it came with a large supply of morphine and anti toxins which it could use when it felt it needed to. 'If only this thing had an mp3 player' Gordon joked to himself. The boot up finished and the suits automated voice concluded with, "Have a very safe day".

He exited the locker room and jogged down the many corridors leading to the test chamber. After riding the elevator and going down a few more corridors he finally arrived at the test chamber control room. There were three scientists chatting to themselves, one of them was Kleiner, he was the first to notice Gordon enter the room. "Ah Gordon there you are"

"Nice of you to finally join us Doctor" another researcher butted in standing with his arms crossed, Gordon was lucky he had the helmet as his cheeks started to heat up from embarrassment

"We've just sent the sample down to the test chamber" Kleiner was cheerful, which relieved Gordon a little. At least he hadn't disappointed him it seems.

"We've boosted the anti mass spectrometer to 105%. It's a bit of a gamble but we needed the extra resolution" The third scientist spoke up, he was holding a clipboard in his hands.

"The administrator is very concerned we get a conclusive analysis of today's sample. I gather he went to some lengths to get it." Kleiner added, the clipboard researcher grunted in agreement.

"They are waiting for you Gordon" the grumpier of the three spoke up again "In the test chamberrr" Ok so maybe everyone but that guy is fine with Gordon being late. "Right! Come on then, I'll walk you down" Kleiner pointed in the air with excitement spun around on his heel and walked towards the door on the other side of the room, Gordon followed. Kleiner operated the eye scanner, it beeped and the door slid open. The two stepped into the next room. "Doctor Kleiner, I'm really sorry that I'm late" Gordon's voice came through the exterior microphone of the HEV suit. "Oh it's no trouble Gordon, one of us is always late. It can be a nightmare to navigate this facility." As they moved into the plasma cell room Eli Vance also made his way in from the elevator at the far end . "Greetings Eli" Kleiner announced

"Morning Izzy" Eli replied, the trio approached each other. "Gordon, good morning. I'm glad you're here" after greeting Gordon, Eli turned his attention to Kleiner. His face was riddled with concern "These last minute changes, uh they're a bit strange to just-" there was a sudden sparking noise as a piece of a computer terminal exploded. "It's about to go critical!" Eli yelled as he and Kleiner ran over to address the problem. "What in the blazes is going on with our equipment" Kleiner questioned

"It was never meant to do this in the first place" Eli replied. Kleiner suddenly remembered Gordon was present and quickly changed what he was about to say next. "It's nothing we can't handle ourselves Eli" as he said that he was looking at Gordon. "Run along Gordon, we will be but a moment." Gordon turned to enter the same elevator Eli had just used. He stepped inside, pushed the button and the elevator rotated ninety degrees left as it quickly descended.

Gordon hurried on towards the test chamber, the sign on the door stating that the lab is "Test Lab CC-33/a" Gordon pushed a button as it like every other door slid upwards. He entered a small room with a large blast door, and two scientists stood in the room waiting for him. "Ah there he is," the older of the two noticed Gordon first. The younger scientist turned to look at Gordon he had a nervous look, "I'm afraid we will be deviating a bit from standard analysis procedure today Gordon,"

"Yes but with good reason, this is a rare opportunity for us" the older man butted in, "This is the purest sample we have seen yet.."

"And potentially the most unstable" Gordon was beginning to feel unsure about all of this. Did he really want to take the risk?

"As long as we follow standard analysis procedure we will be find" the older scientist refuted

"I don't know how you can say that," the younger researcher paused and looked at Gordon, he didn't want to stress him out "Although I do admit, the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely..I just dont-"

"Gordon doesn't need to hear all this, he is a highly trained professional. We have assured the administrator that nothing will go wrong" his tone sounded aggressive in that last part. The younger researcher scratched his head, "Gordon, we have complete faith in you"

"Let's let him in now." There were two eye scanners on both sides of the blast door, the two scientists operated them and the door slowly cranked open. It gave Gordon enough time to rethink all of this 'I'm a theoretical physicist not..whatever I'm doing right now. Such a highly trained professional and yet I don't even know what a resonance cascade is.'

He entered the dark orange test chamber, in front of him was the large anti mass spectrometer, it was a huge, incredible piece of machinery. Gordon took a brief second to marvel at the size before making his way towards the ladder at the back of the chamber, towards the front was the window from where the researchers in the control room could view the test. There was an audible drone in the large room which was quickly cut off when the microphone chimed in "Testing, testing. Umm everything seems to be in order"

"Alright Gordon your suit should keep you comfortable through all this, the specimen will be delivered to you in a few moments. Now if you would be so good to as climb up and start the rotors, that way we can bring up the anti mass spectrometer to 80% and hold it there until the carrier arrives." Gordon began to climb up the large ladder, when he reached the top there was a small control panel with a red button, he pressed the button and the emitters unfolded and powered up, on the ground floor what could only be described as arms unfolded and opened up. The rotors began to spin, gradually picking up in speed. "Very good, we will take it from here" Now it was time for Gordon to enjoy the light show. The emitters began to emit a small orange glow of electricity, "Power to stage one emitters now" one of the scientists announced over loudspeaker. There was a sudden bright beam of light shooting from top to bottom, the rotors picked up in speed and the machinery roar became louder, "I'm seeing predictable phasor rays" there was a brief pause "stage two emitters now" a secondary set of emitters unfolded and also lit up, the rotors were now spinning fast and the beam was getting brighter, and the roar was getting louder. "Gordon we cannot know how long the system can last at this level noar how long the reading will take. Please work as quickly as you can" Gordon climbed down the ladder there was chatter from the scientist but it was too loud to hear them anymore, something with capacitors. "Probably not a problem, but I'm showing a small discrepancy, no never mind it's well within acceptable bounds now." Why did Gordon have to hear the negative part? There was more chatter from the scientists as the sample was lifted by an elevator into the test chamber, followed by the fence blocking it sliding underneath the floor. Gordon knew what to do next, he gripped the handles of the cart and slowly began to push it towards the great beam of light. The cart rolled smoothly along the grooves.

As Eli stood in the plasma cell room there was a whisper in his ear. "Prepare, for unforeseen consequences" he turned to see who it was but only saw a man in a blue suit for a half a second before he disappeared.

The crystal was inches away from the beam before finally making contact, almost instantly there were large green sparks going everywhere. An alarm blared and Gordon could hear the shouting of the researchers in the control room. The green sparks were crackling and shooting off in every direction, Gordon could hear the researchers' voices frantically yelling to each other "Attempting shut down!"

"Shut it down!"

"Somebody get Gordon out of there!"

"It's not-It's not shutting down!?" A sudden concentrated beam was fired directly into the control room, Gordon heard the screams of agony as the room exploded, pieces of glasses fell to the floor of the chamber, the anti mass spectrometer was now completely out of control, sending exploding beams of energy left and right. Freeman knew this was it, he would die here. Pieces of debris fell to the floor as the alarms continued to wail. Gordon watched in silence when he was suddenly struck by the beam, there was silence for a moment, the only noise was Gordon's heavy breathing. Then another explosion noise as Gordon was instantly back in the chamber. That was only for a short moment as he was teleported away again. He was in another world, in front of Gordon, a strange creature was drinking from a glowing pool of water. Another explosion and Gordon was teleported again, he could see some...creatures, they approached him "Galalung"

"Jarr"

"Ah garr" one of the things tried to reach out and touch Gordon before he quickly blacked out.