"We've set the Mayberry compound up so the visible footprint is minimal." Danni explained, "This has allowed us to set up a fairly large city and still avoid detection. Don, do you have any idea, where you are?"
"Well… an hour ago I was totally clueless; but now… my guess would be Texas or New Mexico maybe." Don's eyes widened as his mind started to leap forward and make some improbable connections.
Danni smiled conspiratorially, "Would you believe… Black Mesa, New Mexico?"
"But I thought..."
"It was a smoking pit of radioactive sludge" she teased.
"Well Yeah."
"First off, no one really knows what happened. But when they nuked the site, portals were opening and closing in a pretty steady stream as the inhabitants of Xen saw a way out. So you could describe this area of the Space-Time continuum as pretty fluid in the least. When the blast hit, there were some pretty exotic energies floating around. And some pretty extraordinary sfuff happened. In fact, There is a 5 mile section underground here that is actually Xen."
"Now wait a second, you're telling me that 5 miles of the planet Xen was transferred during the blast." Don stated incredulously.
"Nope" giving him that conspiratory grin again.
"Hah, didn't think so"
"No, there is 5 miles of Xen underground."
"Huh"
"It wasn't transferred, it's actually Xen"
"I don't get it."
"There you go, now you're getting in the spirit! Space and time do not necessarily follow the rules we dictate or believe. You have to let go of a lot your old conceptions of reality, many don't apply here. If you go to where the original entrance to facility was, indeed you'll find that pit of radioactive sludge. But there were other exits from the facility. Enter from one of these, and you may still find Black Mesa."
Don shook his head, "If the place was nuked it was nuked, I don't believe the scientists at Black Mesa has something strong enough to shield themselves from the blast, otherwise why not protect the whole facility."
Rather than react Danni just smiled, "Don, I understand what your saying and agree with you, but your still thinking in those old terms. But let me just throw a couple of things at you. What if Black Mesa was moved or what if it was't here when the blast happened? Or what if the blast hadn't happened yet, or what if the blast was moving out from it's center very, very, very slowly. Remember, we're talking Space & Time here."
A little light started to grow in Don's eyes, but he'd not given up yet, "What makes you believe it's still there?"
"Don, I believe it because I've been there. This is big, something is going on here and it's not just about us. Something unexplainable happened and is still happening. I personally believe that although it's very unusual, that it's still following the fundamental laws of the universe. We just don't know what they are, because either they have never happened within our time frame of history or we have not been able to recognize them. Now, think about this one Big Boy. We periodically find someone at a work station just pecking away at the keys trying to find their files or continue their work. And for these folks the resonance cascade has never happened or has just begun."
"Has anyone ever, huh come out that survived? That was a stupid question," Don said, "and that's not what I meant anyway"
"I think I know what you're asking, and the answer is no. There has never been a double. But there is something bigger than all of us going on here. Cause these new survivors, as we call them, are important and needed. Each one has held a key figuratively speaking. Their knowledge or skills, or hell… it could be anything. The point is, when something has been needed, Black Mesa has provided."
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
They had been walking towards a stand of small trees. Danni stopped and waved her hand as if to let Don walk in front of her, "Watch your step" and just like that the stairs and descent began. What Don had thought to be small trees were the tops of trees that grew far below. The stairs had been carved (God knows when from their worn appearance.) out of the canyon wall. "My dad discovered this area during the Black Mesa incident. He was a member of an elite military task force sent in to neutralize the situation after everything went to hell. His squadron never made it though. They were shot down by some Manta Ray like thing en route. He was the only one who survived. His parachute brought him down in that meadow back there. Dad was a Kiowa Indian and his family had been practitioners of battle medicine down through the centuries. I only mention that because I think it's one of the keys to all this"
Don's jaw dropped as they descended the stair. It was unbelievable, city was right and it was ancient. It was built out of the canyon wall and extended in every direction as far as the eye could see. "This is our first stop" Don saw a Table of food set out before them. There was a large plate of sausages and buns, corn on the cob, large pots of stews and beans, plates of fruit, bowls of berries, pitchers of drinks and coolers filled with ice containing a whole host of cans and bottles. "Domestic or Import, Sir Knight... Black Mesa will provide. Personally I like a Corona and a slice of Lime." When he turned to her, Danni was performing some hand gymnastics with a lime and a balisong (butterfly blade). The balisong flipping open and closed, the blade rolling over the back of her hand and across her palm, across her knuckles, the blade and handles spinning, and constantly clicking open and closed. Her hands and fingers were incredibly fast. "Beautiful and simply the best Bar Maid I've ever seen!"
"Why, thank you sir" she beamed as Danni handed him a bottle of corona with a slice of lime in the neck. Before he could grab it though, Chiyo snatched it, tipped it up and finished the whole bottle. She smacked her lips and gave a out a satisfied "Ahhhhhh"
"I hate when you do that, Danni is there another one of those, and show that knife stuff to Chiyo."
Danni grabbed another lime from the cooler and went through the balisong routine again.
Chiyo held out her palm, "May I?"
Danni performed a ceremonial open and closed balisong routine with the butterfly blade flipping open and closed and rolling all around her hand at incredible speed, it ended with the knife closed in Chiyo open palm with Danni's hand palm down being drawn away, as she pulled her hand away she turned it over and magically another lime was in her palm. Chiyo quickly went through what looked to be the same hand gymnastics Danni had. When finished, she looked as stunned as everyone else. And with that... the floor show began.
The alcove where the food had been set up started to fill up with people, laughing and talking, everyone just milled about conversing and watching the 2 girls. Danni would perform a routine with the balisong and piece of fruit, hand the it to Chiyo who duplicate it move for move. Each routine was faster and more complex, a second balisong had appeared, so now they did not have to pass the same one back and forth. Danni reached into her back pocket and pulled out another and started a 2 hand routine. And then Don heard it, the clicking of the balisongs created a little tune. "Is that just me or are you doing that on purpose." Don asked. "My Dad really liked this song and one day when I was playing around I just started to hear it in my head and in the balisongs. I can't even really tell you how I do it. I just do it" Danni shrugged and said "Enough, I'm hungry"
Jack asked, "Did these brats come from Black Mesa too"
"Nope" Bob beamed, "You can thank me for those. They are equal parts ground Houndeye, Bullsquid and Headcrab with my own set of seasonings I developed when I worked at a Delicatessen."
"Man, a simple 'Ancient Chinese secret' would have sufficed for me." Don coughed.
"And miss the look on your face…" Bob chortled, "No way."
"There is an abundance of Xenian wildlife in the sewers, and Danni's exercise and training sessions provide an abundance of carcasses. The carcass retrieval is part of an acolyte's training. Instead of cutting them into chops and steaks, we have found that grinding them into sausage makes them easier to stomach. However a Bullsquid rib steak rivals any sirloin I've ever eaten"
"Stop… Stop! This is more information than I need" Don exclaimed, "But... I understand the invitation for exercise better though. I have to say I'm a little disappointed I was hoping that invitation was for something different." And Danni's blush was almost purple. Don realized his earlier instinct had been right on target.
"You can get your own Damn beer next time, Mister." Danni said feigning hurt and dismay as she indeed handed him another Corona, which Chiyo promptly snatched, tipped up and downed. The girls turned toward each and slapped a high five.
"Would you stop that" Don whined.
Danni turned to Chiyo, "So where did you get your training?"
"I have no idea. I've never done anything like that until about a month ago. Actually it was probably around month after we left City 7. Man, that seems ages ago."
"I see..." Danni said.
"Okay, fill up a plate join me at that table in the corner. It's time for some serious talk. Have Gordon, Jeff and Kurt got here yet?" Danni turned to a heavy set asian man, "Uncle, would you send them our way when they arrive."
A few minutes later Gordon showed up pushing Jeff in the wheelchair escorted by a Vortigaunt. "This is Gordon's friend Kurt, you can thank him for your lives, if he hadn't of sensed you out on the plain last night… Well, I'll just leave it at that." Danni said, introducing the Vortigaunt.
"A Vort with a human name?" queried Jack.
"Not exactly, their actual names don't necessarily roll off the human tongue, so with their approval we've taken to giving them nicknames"
"Why Kurt" Don asked.
"Did you ever read 'Slaughter House Five'" Gordon beamed.
"Ah ha" Don laughed "Kurt Vonnegut, Kurt Vortigant; that's rich, Gordon did you come up with that."
"Yeah, he did" Danni said "You're going to run into a lot of that around here. Like naming this place, Mayberry, like the town from the old Andy Griffith Show."
"I was wondering about that" Jack said.
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
"No better place to start than the beginning" Danni started, "and what happened at Black Mesa that day."
"The Vortigaunts have helped us fill in some of the facts we couldn't have known including how Gordon Freeman won their freedom. The Vorts (as you have taken to calling them) had been enslaved by a creature called the Nihilanth. They were fitted with collars that allowed the Nihilanth to control their actions. It was simple as pleasure and pain, reward and punishment. It did not necessarily control their thoughts only their actions. But after centuries of enslavement they had little independent thought. The combine invaded the Vortigaunts home-world and with the intent to Combine-ize the Vortigaunts and enslave the Nihilanth, but the Nihilanth was doing it's best to escape that. Xen was their last place to run, so when the resonance cascade began the Nihilanth and all other life on Xen, sentient or not saw it's chance for escape."
"Time is fluid. We don't know that it can be stopped, but it can definitely be slowed. Maybe it's because we have seen no active evidence of it, but unlike a lot of science fiction it seems to be one way. We believe that is what has happened to Black Mesa. Mayberry is impossibly old, it pre-dates mankind; who knows, it may have been a city of the mythical "Old Ones" HP Lovecraft wrote of. But somehow it has remained hidden, even with a major scientific facility bordering it. Like I have said, there is more going on here than just us. It could be possible, that the city actually attracted Black Mesa to it. The Vortigaunts say that Xen is a border world, a weak spot or bottleneck of existence. At one time the inhabitants of this city may have used Xen themselves to pass between dimensions."
Don held up his hand like he was in class and was asking to speak. Danni said, "I know this is a lot to digest, but save your questions, I probably won't be able to answer them anyway. However, the Vorts might. Like I said earlier, My Dad was a member of a team sent to clean up the Black Mesa mess. He was a full-blooded Kiowa, a true Native American whose ancestry had practiced battle medicine. And that's a whole other story, so please save the questions... Don." He put his hand back down like a scolded child. "And don't pout either, however cute you are when you do it." "God, get a room, you two!" Chiyo squawked. Bob let out another belly laugh and Chiyo turned impossibly quick, "Don't you dare!" before he could slap her on the back again.
"The city is huge, in all the years we have been here we have not been able to explore it in totality. And that could be by design. It is like a Labyrinth, in that you think you are walking in one direction, and suddenly find yourself back where you started 5 minutes earlier. But father was drawn here, actually he was drawn to..." Danni pointed over the side and down, " Down there, at the bottom, he found a corridor dug into the rock. It was dug with some kind of machine or process which fused the surrounding rock into something akin to glass. The corridor continues for 6 to 7 thousand feet. He said the air was blowing out of from it, and that he could hear voices. Still attempting to complete his mission, he ran down the corridor which ended abruptly at a wall. The wall was covered with a series of glyphs. He could hear panicked voices on the other side, not what they were saying only the panic and fear in them. And though he wanted to preserve as much of the wall as he could, to possibly decipher at a later date, his desire to preserve life, or take it if that was needed to fulfill his mission, because he had been sent in to clean up the mess (okay, you know the drill - You can't make an Omelet without breaking a couple eggs - he was an assassin). Something pushed him, time was critical. He yelled to get away from the wall and rolled a grenade up to it. When it exploded it had completely pulverized the wall (sorry boss, no deciphering), And what was on the other side you ask, well... my mother and I. We were dying. Some of Dad's cronies had forced poison gas into the air system to handle the witnesses."
"At this point, my father's mission changed to something he was more accustomed to and comfortable with, preserve and protect." In the back someone began whistling the theme to the "Twilight Zone." It was Jeff.
... ... ... ... ... ... ...
end of Chapter 3
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