"Mornin' Calhoun!"

I rub my eyes, mumbling something to Otis in response. I drank a little too much last night, and the dull ache behind my eyes won't let me forget it. I invited Gordon along, but he politely declined this time, the little asshole.

"Looks like we're in for a long day today, huh?" Otis continues, and I wince and rub the bridge of my nose, trying not to snap at the guy.

"Yeah, sure looks that way," I mutter, giving him a nod and a smile. Just give me clearance and start the damn tram already…

"Have a good one, Calhoun!" Otis waves his clipboard in farewell, and with a lurch the tram is off again. The overhead speakers are droning above me softly, talking about the temperature outside and reiterating for the hundredth time where this tram will stop and which clearance levels are supposed to go where. It gets old after a while, and I do my damndest to tune it out and keep my headache to a minimum. As soon as I'd gotten on the tram and headed into the facility, the naked New Mexico heat was replaced with the cool, clawing dampness of the tram tunnels. When I first started, I was a little shocked at the difference in temperature and the slow, subtle feeling of being enclosed.

"Can't think about being so far underground," my coworker Lombardi had once said. "If you think about it too much, you go a little cuckoo. I don't think people were meant to be in caves and tunnels like rats." After those first few weeks, the sensation disappeared and the walls and fluorescent lights became scarily normal.

I check my watch as the bridge connecting the offices to the food court comes down, with a few dusty old labcoats making their way across. Movement catches my eye, and I notice that Dr. Kleiner is one of the men at the crossing, and he's waving at me in greeting. He must be headed to the cantina for his customary morning coffee. God, does a piping hot cup of black coffee sound good right about now.

"Calhoun," he calls out over the purr of the idle tram. "You're going to be late, son!"

"There's a lotta worse things I could be," I call back with a shrug. "Oh, and give me a page when you get locked out of your office. Gordon'll be too busy today with that test for him to crawl around in the vents." I give the old doc a wink, and he rolls his eyes. He's a brilliant guy, half the stuff that comes out of his mouth is so brilliant I can't even understand it. But hell if he doesn't lock himself out of his office at least a half-dozen times a month. He gets so excited with his work he loses track of everything else-including his security key-card.

"Very funny, Calhoun," he says before turning away. The bridge folds up with a metallic squeal, and the tram lurches on.

"Now arriving at Area 3 security facilities," drones the overhead speakers. That's my cue. When the tram comes to a jittery stop, I hop over the extending stairs and approach the door while the speaker lady is still giving her spiel about clearances and levels and where to meet connecting trams to different sectors. The single fluorescent light above the door flickers and hums as I input my code on the keypad next to the door. A denying ping sounds, and I sigh impatiently. It's hard to concentrate with this damn headache, maybe I put my code in wrong. Beep, beep, beep-beep. Access denied. Damnit.

"Hey," I shout, banging on the heavy metal door.

"Hold on a minute," someone yells from the other side. Sounds like Hudson, and of course he's pissed at me for banging on the door. "The door's not responding to your pass ID," he says, his voice muffled by the two inches of reinforced metal between us.

"No kidding?" I mutter to myself.

"Let me see if I can get it open from this side," Hudson says. I hear him fiddling with the keypad on the opposite side of the door, and I then hear the interface deny his code several times too. Wonder what kind of bug the system has today? And how long before the maintenance guys can fix it?

"Ok, I think I got it." A few more clicks, then a happy little ping. The door scrapes open, but only gets half-way. Hudson shakes his head and swears under his breath, taking his hands and practically prying open the door.

"Sorry about that, Calhoun," he says, waving me in. "We've been having problems all over the facility today-system crashes, security malfunctions, it's a frickin' wonder this place hasn't been shut down yet."

Despite all the hiccups, there's a familiar feeling in the air when I reach the main hub. Reminds me of the main atrium leading to the lecture halls back at Martinson College. In the mornings, when students and teachers would be walking to classes or preparing for exams, there was a low rumble across the entire room, like everyone was waiting for something to happen. To give a lecture, or fail a test, or realize you've been sitting in on the wrong class for nearly a week. Not talking from personal experience or anything, of course.

The walls and floor of Area 3 practically glow underneath the fluorescent lights, and I wince when they stab me right in the corneas. Which part of your eye is the cornea? I forgot. At any rate, it damn hurts. Just concentrate on what's first, Barn. Vest and sidearm, that's right. Akhmetov is in the locker room when I get there, lacing up a boot. He laces those things so tight that me and the other fellas wonder how his feet haven't fallen off yet. He gives me a sidelong glance and a nod hello.

"Wonder what kind of handyman jobs they'll give us today?" he asks me with a crooked grin. I shrug.

"Hell if I know," I reply. "You'd think they'd hire a few more maintenance guys with all of the crazy malfunctions happening lately."

"You think all this is the Lambda lab guys' fault?" he asks, giving me another quick glance. I resist the urge not to sigh.

"No idea. This whole facility is full of nutcases like those Lambda folks, you know." He smirks and shrugs, going back to his laces.

A lot of the fellas know I'm friends with a few of the Lambda folks. Gordon and Kleiner, mostly. Out of all the Lambda scientists, they're by far the most approachable. I met Gordon on my first day here-I had just barely caught the last tram scheduled for that morning, and the headlong sprint I'd made for the closing door had me with my hands on my knees and gasping for breath. When I looked up, Gordon was in the aisle up ahead of me, hands on knees and sides heaving like a mirror-image. Late too, it seemed. We stared at each other for a second, then I couldn't help but laugh as his glasses slipped down his sweaty nose and gave him a librarian-esque air.

Gordon was the most un-sciency scientist I had ever met, and by that time I had been introduced to at least a few dozen labcoats during a tour of the facility and my orientation. Sure, he had the trappings of a real nerd-the thick-framed glasses he was always pushing up, the shirt tucked tightly into his waistband, the pocket protector-had quite the stutter, too. When he was stressed it got worse, to the point where his words would lurch to a stop and refuse to start again. But because of that he kept up quite the manly silence while at work. He maintained a daily workout routine, kept a nicely-trimmed goatee(I can't grow facial hair worth a damn), and was a pretty good shot with a glock 17 pistol when we went to the range together. He reads obscure philosophy in his downtime and won't shut up about it to me when we go to the bar. I thought I was done with philosophy when I dropped out of college, but now I have a nauseating amount of information about Marcus Aurelius and Seneca floating around in my brain. But he humors me when all I want to do is drink myself blue, so I humor him when he wants to wax poetic about the human condition. It's better than him talking about quantum physics; that kind of stuff is so beyond my understanding-and to that end, insufferably boring-that it makes me want to slam my head against a wall.

Kleiner is Gordon's supervisor and project head for whatever the hell it is they do down at the Lambda lab. I met him for the first time while catching lunch at the cantina with Gordon, and boy did he seem like a nut at first. It was hard to catch ahold of the old man in conversation; his interest was entirely on his work, and if I tried to shoot the breeze with him or talk about last night's game, he'd look at me like I was some sort of unpleasant specimen he couldn't wait to throw in a biohazard trash bin. Then there was a day I'd heard he'd locked his keycard in his office. I took the tram over to sector C where the offices are and found a way through the air ducts into his room to get the keys. I didn't know it at the time, but it was usually Gordon's job to crawl through the ducts and retrieve the old doc's keys, but he was busy with some kind of test sample at the time. After that, it became a sort of competition for us to see who could get Kleiner's keys back to him. He'd page for both of us at the same time, and we'd drop everything to see who could get there first. After that, Kleiner took a shine to me just fine.

The scent of cheap black coffee wafts out from behind the front desk in the Area 3 lobby, and I stare at the pot hungrily until my supervisor, Davis, catches my look.

"You hungover again, Calhoun?" He asks me, frowning.

"A little," I return, sheepish. "That easy to tell, huh chief?" Davis gives me a harrumph in response.

"Help yourself before you head over to your first assignment," he says before squinting at his computer monitor. I mutter a grateful thank you and pour myself a tall paper cup full of coffee. "Looks like people are having problems with the main access lift in sector G. All the maintenance workers are pretty swamped right now-why don't you head over there and see what you can do?" I slump my shoulders and resist the very powerful urge to roll my eyes.

"Aw hell, chief," I complain. "I did 80 hours of intensive security training and got a license to carry just so I could plug a few power cords back in?"

"Now don't you start, Calhoun," Davis growls. "A lot of weird crap's been going on here lately, more than normal for BMRF standards. Everyone's hauling ass to try and get us back to a baseline level of weirdness."

Inwardly I tell myself to settle down; my hangover's given me a short fuse, seems like. And I don't actually mind these gopher-type tasks as much as I tell folks. Running around doing odd jobs beats standing in front of a security checkpoint. Headache's making me a bit too cantankerous for comfort. I take a breath and raise my unoccupied hand in supplication.

"Fair point, chief. Can't have the weirdness level here at the BMRF get too high, can we? I'll go turn this lift off and on again and be back before you know it," I tell him with a wink. Davis shakes his head at me as I walk toward the door leading to the particle labs, sipping the hot coffee in my paper cup. It's both revolting and delicious, leaving a bitter taste on my tongue but clearing the ache behind my eyes pretty well.

Sector G looks just about the same as any other sector-flourescent lights, low ceilings, malfunctioning equipment, the whole nine yards. I passed a maintenance guy slumped underneath a hulking computer console, with two impatient-looking labcoats standing over him. I take a second to watch them as I drain the last dregs of my coffee and toss the cup in a bin.

"Perhaps I should give it a look," one of them says, looking at his watch. "This is taking a lot longer than you said it would."

"I've got it sir," the maintenance guy replies, and by the way he says it, it's probably not the first time the labcoats have asked him to hurry it up.

"This is ridiculous," the other scientist fumes, tapping one dress shoe on the linoleum. "This console was working perfectly just yesterday."

A small electrical boom and a puff of black smoke make all of us jump back.

"Jesus," I exclaim. "You alright, pal?" the labcoats chuckle under their breath when my hill-country accent rears its ugly head-can't get rid of it, especially when I'm surprised. The maintenance guy slides out from under the console, his face blackened from the smoke.

"I'm alright," he replies, coughing. "This computer isn't, though." Suddenly an alarm rings from the ceiling above us, and with a spurt and a hiss, the emergency sprinklers douse the area with water. The scientists yelp and scramble to shield their PDAs and themselves from the downpour, and I leave them there to moan about the computer. This was turning out to be one hell of a chaotic day for the BMRF; I can only hope Gordon is having more fun than I am playing with his shiny new sample over in the Lambda lab. All that I have to do today is run all over creation lifting this or carrying that.

Because of another few sets of malfunctioning doors and elevators, I have to hike through a maintenance shaft and cut across a storage warehouse to get to the lift. Even before I get there, someone spots me and zeros in on me.

"Are you the one they sent to repair the lift? Calhoun, right?" The labcoat asks me.

"Yes ma'am," I reply. "I'm your guy."

"Very well, this way," she tells me, and I don't have time to tell her I know where I'm going before she strides away from me. "I'm Patrice by the way, and it wasn't me who called for you. That would be my colleague, Trevor. He worries, and can't help being impatient with things like this." Patrice glances back at me, giving me a once-over. "Your uniform-you're not maintenance staff, are you?" she asks over her shoulder.

"No ma'am, I'm security," I reply. "But I've done my fair share of odd jobs around the facility. It'll be a cinch for me to fix this lift, don't worry." She sighs, and even through the din of a reversing forklift and the bark of a warehouse supervisor, I can hear the doubt eek out of her breath. "I guess we should be thankful it's just a faulty lift," she says. "There are worse things in this facility that could break."

The lift is dark as I step inside it, pushing one of the inert sliding doors open wider. As soon as the labcoat seated inside spots me, he jumps up and swarms over to me.

"They sent a security guard? For heaven's sake-you'd think with all the funding Black Mesa receives there'd be enough maintenance staff to facilitate repairs, and yet here we are, with a hired gun ready to kick the machine until it's working!"

"Well doc, I don't see you trying anything to fix it," I say with an annoyed smile. Trevor's face contorts into an ugly frown.

"Why, of all the-"

"Settle down, Trevor," Patrice snaps. "The entire facility is having problems today. We should count ourselves lucky that we even got someone to come look at the lift." Trevor lets out a "Phaw!" before sitting back down to fume, and I turn my back to him to take a look at the interface on the wall. None of the buttons are illuminated, and the lights on the ceiling aren't on either. I don't see any damage to the interface, and when I press a few of the buttons I don't hear as much as a peep from the electrical equipment behind the panel. It couldn't be that easy, could it?

"I'll be right back," I tell the two labcoats behind me, flashing them a reassuring smile. "I just need to check something in the generator room.

"We'll be waiting," Trevor moaned, throwing up his hands. "Just as we have for the past twenty minutes."

"My supervisor is going to give me an earful when I get to the office," Patrice mutters, shaking her head.

I clamber down a half-rusted ladder and make my way through a narrow corridor toward the generator room for the sector G access lift, trying to shake off the feelings I have about Trevor's little temper tantrum. It wasn't just him that gave people like me the stink-eye; there were a lot of labcoats working down here that acted just a little too big for their britches. I know us security staff don't have PhDs or anything, but everyone deserves a little human decency every now and again, right? In my head I can see Gordon nodding in my defense, his eyes serious. He'd pull this really deep quote from some philosopher out of his ass to back me up. That or he'd just flash his beefier PhD in front of these labcoats, because-what was this sector for again? Hydroelectricity, that's right-because these brainiacs were small potatoes compared to Gordon and Kleiner and the other super-brainiacs in the anomalous materials department. And what the hell, I had two years of college under my belt! I'm not some mouth-breathing neanderthal to be told I'm sub-human by a few guys with little pieces of paper framed on their office walls. Sure, I had a GPA of 2.8 and dropped out after failing calculus twice, but I know how to handle people, and I know how to handle myself. That's gotta count for something.

The generator room is dark, so I click on my flashlight and half-feel my way through the room. There's the generator itself, and along the wall next to it are the breakers and plugs. "Yep," I say to myself. "Unplugged, just like I thought." When I heft the heavy plug back into the wall socket, I hear a pop, and in the distance I notice lights flickering back on. I click my flashlight off when the overheads finally flicker to life, and then make my way briskly back the way I came.

"You did it," Patrice exclaimed with a smile when I reached the lift. "The lights came back on and the door opens and closes at the click of a button. So it's alright for us to operate it now, correct?" I grin at her.

"Sure is, ma'am. I'll head down with you in case there are any wrinkles to iron out."

"Well then come in so I can close the door!" Trevor practically shouts. Patrice gives me an apologetic smile as I step inside, tucking my feet in quickly as Trevor repeatedly mashes the closing button.

"Now we can finally get the ball rolling on our tasks for the day," Patrice says to me as Trevor sits back down. The lift rumbles downward as I nod at her.

"I'm sure I have at least a dozen more lifts to plug in around here," I tell her with a laugh. "I swear, it's like today is jinxed or something."

"You're telling me," Patrice exclaimed. "I got called in early because of some issues with the hydroelectric dam-issues that have sent ripples throughout the electrical grid of the whole facility, I suspect. But who knows? Maybe all we need is a security guard to plug something back in for us." We both laugh in earnest at that, but fall silent as the lift grinds almost to a halt.

"For heaven's sake…" Trevor mutters as the lights flicker. But the lift groans into motion again, and we breathe a sigh of relief.