Chapter 4: When Life Gives You Lemons

Northern Woods, Border between Musutafu and Nagano

10 HOURS LATER

Gordon's eyes shot open and he lurched up from his slumped over position on the floor of the shed, his pile of accumulated firepower lying next to him, the closest thing he had to a pillow. "Bah!" Gordon panted, looking around the shed, then looking at himself to make sure he was still in one piece. "Okay, still alive. That's good. Y'know, maybe that river water wasn't so good to drink after all..."

Gordon heaved himself up and stretched, feeling his worn out bones start popping. "Agh! I'm too young to be hearing those sounds. I need some vodka... Or maybe whiskey..." He began to gather his weapons and fastened them back onto the HEV suit, alongside the LJM "God, that was an awful dream last night, I dream't that I was... I don't even know, I think I was a swampboat operator in like... Louisiana or something? Giving tours to yuppies? And the cops were chasing me with a fucking attack chopper or something. Fucking river water, blech...!"

Gordon inched the shed door open and looked outside, making sure the coast was clear before he opened the door, and stepping back out into the woods. "Okay... what do I do now? Well, let's take stock of the situation. I'm still wanted, I'm still stuck in Japan... and... I guess aliens are still invading, but that's less of a "me" level problem and more of everyone's problem. Yeah, that's my situation... So, how do we solve the problems that effect me specifically? I could assume a new identity; that means I'd have to shave my beard off... and my hair. And I'd have to ditch the suit too- Oh! Wait, I am such a fucking idiot..." Gordon smacked himself in the face as he began to pace around the perimeter of his temporary home.

"That's how the US Army knew I was in Japan, this suit still has a tracker on it! Yea! I remember that bird guy mentioning the JSDF. That might be where they sent their guys from! Still, even if they beat my location out of the scientists, I feel like the army still responded really quickly to me getting here. But, then again, we have got military bases all over Japan, and with how many soldiers I've killed in the last, I don't know, fifty hours? I'm probably a matter of special interest to the entire United States Armed Forces, every base has probably been briefed on me. Hell, I bet the fucking President has been briefed about me at this point. Yeah, the theoretical physicist who single handedly slaughtered an entire company of soldiers? I think that warrants at least a memo on the Resolute Desk. How many soldiers did Simo Hayha kill again? Have I broken his record yet?"

"Wait, wait, I'm getting off topic. If the army knows where I am, then why didn't they just ambush me last night then? I dunno, now that I think about it, some of those guys were definitely Japanese, didnt we sign a treaty disarming Japan or something? I know they're allowed to have a "self defense" force, but mutated supersoldiers seem a little excessive for self defense. Maybe there's a clause in there about like... domestic terrorists from US soil or something? I don't know. Or maybe, maybe the US has jurisdiction to just missile strike a building in Japan because some criminal is in it because... Well, because that just sounds like a clause MacArthur would write in... MacArthur was a mad dog."

Gordon spotted the same body of the 'animal' he killed yesterday, weirdly enough, it seemed as if it'd been untouched overnight, like no animal wanted to eat from it, not even flies wanted anything to do with it. "Oh, yeah, the land crab. Man, I was too exhausted to think about it, but what the hell even is this thing then? Maybe it's another mutant or something, the US Army is running out of people to experiment on so now they've just switched to whatever else they could grab. I'm not very impressed, honestly, out of all of the animals you could mutate and you send a fucking crab after me?" Gordon poked the carapace of the dead 'crab' with a stick.

"From all the genetic blacksites I'm 90% sure the government has, this is what they could muster after me? It was dying before it even reached me! If I had control over a genetic supersoldier program like this I'd send like, like what? Squids or something, yeah, land squids. See, I know most people would say something like... 'Oh! A dinosaur!' Like a T-Rex or a Velociraptor or whatever. But that's because most people are idiots. Just cloning, let alone mutating a dinosaur is such a gamble it's just not worth it."

"Let's just assume you managed to get a real sample of DNA from a dinosaur that's actually viable, and you don't have to go into some kind of bullshit Jurassic Park explanation about how you have to use amphibian DNA to actually complete a full genetic sequence. Even then, you really don't know how good they'd even be as soldiers. I'm pretty sure they exaggerated the intelligence of the Velociraptors in the movie to spike up tension. But even then, they're still fucking sauropods... Earth doesn't even have the atmosphere it did in the Jurassic period! Your dinosaurs aren't going to be much good when they need to stop and catch their breath every five seconds, because there's not enough goddamn oxygen in the air anymore!"

Gordon carefully stepped over the now dried up fluid that had pooled around the crab's dead body. "Now squids on the other hand, are one of the most intelligent species on Earth besides man... and I guess dolphins. But squids have appendages that could actually grasp objects unlike dolphins, so that honestly puts cephalopods even closer to man than dolphins are...well...I guess it puts them somewhere above dolphins, but still below primates. Last time I checked, I didn't evolve from a cuttlefish... But yeah, squids would be perfect, they've got natural camouflage, and you could probably easily turn their ink into some kind of corrosive acid. Now that I think about it, octopi would work too, they're in the same family as squids even."

Gordon stood on a high hill and looked around the general area surrounding his shack. Nothing, not a single hint of human civilization as far as he could see. "Okay, so...what to do now? I guess I could get breakfast. I am not eating that crab though, I know better then to touch something that vultures won't eat. It didn't look like it had good meat on it anyways. I guess I could find something in the woods. With the weapons I'm packing, I'd have to hope I could bag a deer or something, anything smaller will just kind of explode if I shoot it. They have deer in Japan, right? Damn, I kind of wished I hadn't dropped the MP5 back there honestly but there is no way I'm going back there to get it. I'm not fighting Birdman and the Galaxy Trio again, or I guess It'd be the Galaxy Duo? I don't know what I'm talking about..."

Before setting off Gordon decided to take stock of his weapons. He had lost the MP5 and his crowbar during his scuffle back at the factory, but still had the majority of his other weapons. He was running low on ammo for the SPAS-12, though he figured that 12 gauge buckshot wouldn't be too hard to come across, he could always just steal it from a police station or something. 4 magazines left for the Glock 17, 3 rockets left for the RPG, enough ammo to refill all six chambers of the .357 Magnum two times, a pair of grenades, and 1 box of DU-235 for the Tau Cannon... Which Gordon was still uncomfortable carrying on his person, but he figured that considering it was depleted it probably wasn't too dangerous. Even then, as long as he didn't breach the seal, he could deal with maybe skin cancer in the future.

"Okay... well, unless I run into a Walmart out here, then I guess maybe I should start being a little more conservative with my attitude about firefights... Christ. Why can't this just be easier? I was overflowing with ammo back at Black Mesa, I didn't even have to think about how much I had, and now I'm in a desert, figuratively.. I need to get moving. I don't want those bastards ambushing me here. Welp, goodbye random shed, and jungle crab corpse, you've provided me with semi-decent sleep and... I don't really know what the crab did for me, but I'll think of something..." With that, Gordon departed deeper into the woods.

2 HOURS LATER

"I swear, I have to be going in circles now. I think I've seen that tree and rock combo, like, 5 times now..." Gordon scratched the back of his head, once again scanning all directions for any sign of something other than just more forest. "Y'know, I never thought I'd say this but-" Gordon stopped to heave himself onto a rock and get a better look. "-I think I'm actually starting to miss Black Mesa. Now granted, this place is better by a huge margin. No aliens, no airstrikes, no fucking crate smashing rooms over bottomless pits, no indestructible Looney Tunes doors. Though the soldiers are still a problem, now with the added bonus of mutants too. I guess that's part of the problem of pissing off the US military, we're everywhere, so they can always get to you."

"But back at Black Mesa, when I was lost I could at least tell If I was going in a circle, here though? I have no clue! I could potentially just have been running the Daytona 500 around these fucking trees for the last two hours and I would never know." Gordon began to find himself moving uphill, a thick brush of trees lay ahead of him. "This suit has trackers in it, right? So it's connected to a satellite network? So why is there no GPS in it then? Or at least a compass. And I mean, sure, its a fucking hazmat suit. But it's got an ammo counter, It can keep track of my weapons, It's bulletproof, it has a geiger counter, and it can inject me with fucking morphine. Oh, but a compass you could pick up for like 3 dollars? Nah, we don't need that..."

Gordon counted the HEV suit's features on his hands as he continued to walk up the hill, albeit starting to find it a bit hard what with the steep incline and the suit's weight. "Fuck me... Am I climbing up St. Elias now? Hold on, I can run this...!" Gordon started to sprint up the hill, kicking up mounds of dirt, though making actual progress as opposed to his walking.

"Chugga Chugga Chugga Chugga Woo-!" Breaching the treeline though, Gordon found himself, not still in the forest, but now falling off of the side of a retaining wall, straight down onto a highway overlooking the nearby mountains. "Ooh shit! Oh shit!" Gordon flailed in the air, before slamming down onto the steep retaining wall and rolling like a bingo ball all the way down until he found himself lying in the middle of the road.

"Okay- agh- Well, I found civilization. At least I'm not in the woods anymore... Gah, my knees..." Gordon rose to his feet, just in time to hear what sounded like a bus approaching before feeling a heavy impact against his body. While it was a glancing blow at least, and sure, the HEV suit was capable of taking a great amount of damage; it had served Gordon well during his escape from Black Mesa, it still hurt him severely. Because a bus, for it was indeed a bus, a school bus, in fact, traveling at (or possibly over) the legal limit would hurt or outright kill just about anyone south of God himself, unless perhaps they were wearing hyperadvanced armor from your choice of the mid 2500s, Hell, or post-apocalyptic America. Unfortunately, while it was advanced, the HEV suit wasn't that advanced, and the impact nearly knocked Gordon out completely. He sailed through the air with all of the grace of a ton of bricks, before impacting in the forest below, startling a group of birds, though harming very little else besides himself...

5 KILOMETERS North of Training Lodge, Beast's Forest, Nagano

A drone hovered silently in the air, watching two Pro-Heroes at a particular rest stop on the highway overlooking the Beast's Woods: Pixie-Bob and Mandalay, one half of the "Wild, Wild Pussycats." A bus with a noticeably large dent on its front left side pulled into the rest stop, and out stepped a group of students from UA High-School, Class 1-A.

The drone's glowing red eye focused onto the bus, identifying the members of Class 1-A, alongside their teacher, Shoto Aizawa, or 'Eraserhead.' Satisfied with its mission, the drone flew around to report back to its owner, who stood among members of the League of Villain's newly christened 'Vanguard Action Squad.' A squad led by Dabi and Himiko Toga.

The drone's owner reported its findings to the two villains, "Yes. It's them. They just arrived at the rest stop now." She was a tall, skinny, white plated robot spoke who with a slightly vocoded feminine voice, with an unmistakable tone of boredom, or perhaps condescension, or both. Her singular, yellow optic slid along a servo in her small, birdlike head. Her legs were thin, with maybe some traces of white plating protecting the black pneumatic servos that curved backwards, almost like that of a bird's legs into two 'feet' which were nothing more than a set of metal, padded stubs.

Her arms possessed the same lack of detail, besides plates on both shoulders and forearms, leading down to a pair of three fingered, claw like hands. Both arms, though, had an individual device integrated into them. One looking like nothing more than a standard machine gun, but the device built into her other arm was much more bizarre. From front to back, the device had a round white hump, that lead into a glassy chamber containing an energy force that pulsed both blue and orange, all of that lead down into a noticeable hole in the robot's hand that pulsed the same color.

Her drone returned and fastened itself into a depression located in her back plates. A masked villain among the small squadron piped up. "So we should attack now right? What are we waiting for?" Dabi shook his head. "No, not while they're all together. We need to wait until they're separated. Carol, you keep watch on them. For now, we need to wait..." The robotic woman, 'Carol,' nodded, clearly not looking at Dabi, but rather up into a nearby tree where a pair of birds were nesting. "Hmm... Fine."

Beast's Forest, Nagono

Gordon laid against the forest floor in a small impact crater, staring up at the mid morning sun above. Paralyzed from the pain, his spine broken for all he knew. "Y'know what? maybe this isn't a bad spot to die in... It's got grass and... woods... Nature. Maybe I'm ready..." Gordon closed his eyes, preparing to just let death take him if it saw fit... Until he felt a rumbling underneath him. "Rumbling? Is that... Is that what's supposed to happen? I haven't died before so I wouldn't know-"

Before Gordon could even process what was happening, a landslide ripped through the trees from the nearby mountain and carried the abused scientist on a wave of dirt and rocks through the woods, screaming all the while. "Is this was death feels like!? Do you get swept up in a fucking landslide like we're on some fucked up Disneyland Ride? Is this was Fleetwood Mac was singing about!? What's Happening!? This isn't what I expected at all!" Gordon slammed against one of the trees and was sent into an uncontrollable spiral "Wahhhh!"

Mercifully, the landslide ended, leaving Gordon partially buried. "Bah!" Gordon pried himself free from the dirt and stumbled to his feet, panting and shivering. Several moments of deathly silence passed. Something had just snapped in Gordon's mind. It was finally too much, the scientist dropped to his knees, his hands covering his ears as he just... started to cry. He turned and began to slam his gloved fist against a nearby tree, angrily vocalizing incoherent gibberish. After doing nothing but sob and hyperventilate for a few, long minutes, Gordon finally took to his feet, rubbing his eyes from both dust and tears.

He looked down at his suit, still functional despite all the abuse that it had taken, and his weapons, strapped all over his body. That was all he really had now. Swallowing dryly, Gordon grabbed the Glock 17 and checked to make sure there was a fresh magazine inside. Sucking in a bit of air, feeling whatever minor amount of material left in his stomach welling up, he placed the barrel of the pistol against his temple. He hesitated for a moment, then switched to the roof of his mouth instead.

Then he just ...waited, his trigger finger frozen, constantly switching from gripping the pistol to placing it against the trigger. Gordon exhaled, working up the nerve to finally pull the trigger, when a low, growling sound broke through the treeline. A creature looking like a mix between a dog and a pile of dirt poked its head through the brambles and locked eyes with Gordon.

A tense staredown ensued, with Gordon finally breaking the silence by screaming in fear, and opening fire on the beast, unloading a full magazine. The shots knocked several holes into the creature, and it didn't bleed, though it still seemed to be dead, at least Gordon hoped that it was. Stumbling backwards, he fled deeper into the forest, frantically reloading as he ran. "Okay, so I am no longer safe in Japan. The military and the aliens are here too... God why... Why!?" He shouted to himself, his mental breakdown only moments prior already forgotten.

Gordon bolted behind a large tree and knelt down, trying to just hide in the hopes that if whatever hellspawn that was wasn't dead, that it would just leave him alone. "Sand dogs. Really? That's what they've got now? So what kind of planet do those guys come from then?! If they aren't from a swamp planet... I mean, I know the Navajo believe in like...sand demons but... Damn it! First the land crab, and now we've got dirt based life? What is it with biological anomalies lately!?"

Gordon was alerted to a presence on his left. He glanced over to see, surprisingly enough, a purple haired boy wearing a school uniform hiding behind a tree right next to him. He was silent, just staring at Gordon in fear.

Minoru Mineta had seen plenty in his short life, but an armed man in power armor covered in more blood than an axe-murderer? That was just... too much. "Are you hiding from the Seitaad too?" Gordon finally piped up, Mineta to scream in fear before bolting off into the woods, leaving Gordon both confused and a bit worried. "Uh...okay. Bye? Why is there someone's kid in the fucking woods? I know I'm not exactly one to give parenting advice but... I don't think qualifies anyone for father or mother of the year honestly."

Gordon glanced back around the tree to see if that Sand Beast had followed him, nothing. "Huh, maybe I did kill it after all... or I'm hallucinating from withdrawals and hunger and there never were any sand demons in the first place, and I just fired off into the woods and probably scared some family on vacation...Christ. Wait, that kid... I didn't- Nope, nope, I'm not going to think about that." Gordon loaded a fresh magazine and stood up.

"Running low on ammo , I really don't want to have to become Robinson Crusoe out here... Anyways, family... Yea. I suppose leaving your kid in the woods with maybe demons is bad but I mean... I remember when Dad gave me that cloud chamber toy for Christmas. It had uranium and everything too, polonium, lead, It was a hand me down so I mean... some of the seals were broken on the samples."

Gordon cautiously continued through the woods, he swore he could hear yelling off in the distance, but none that he was willing to investigate, probably just that kid running off to his parents. "Mom said It was fine for us to play with it as long as we wore goggles... and we didn't do it in the living room. I swear, that was the one thing that pissed mom off was the living room. 'Don't play in the Living room...!' Liv-ing room... Okay, where the hell am I?"

Gordon stopped and tried to identify anything that might indicate he was actually traveling towards civilization. "This being lost in the woods crap is getting really old. I am not a botanist. Nothing in my doctorate calls for this. Except maybe the mushrooms but I mean, that's street physics, I suppose... God, I could go for a good high right about now. If I wasn't on such a fucking time crunch I'd see if these woods have any psilocybin mushrooms but, I don't have time for this, nor do I have a lab either."

"Who is that...?" Everything thus far had been going swimmingly for Pixie-Bob's first phase of training for her new 'litter' of students. The... 'young at heart' was probably the best way to put it, cat-hero was over the moon with how much action she was taking part in, and really that's all it was meant to be until Class 1-A reached the lodge too, but no more than 10 minutes into the training, she'd spotted Gordon among the fighting.

A man with a firearm that destroyed one of her Earth Beasts. Running back what footage she had within her goggles, she got a better look at the man. Pausing, she found that a lump formed in her throat. This was him, the man who attacked three Pro-Heroes in broad daylight and managed to wound two of them before escaping.

'Lambda.'

"We have a problem, I've spotted Lambda near the students. He just took down one of my Earth Beasts..." Mandalay looked to Eraserhead, who sighed and readied himself for combat. "Tell the students to keep moving towards the lodge as planned. Form a perimeter around them, we can handle this..." Mandalay proceeded to use her Quirk to inform Class 1-A to continue forward, which they agreed with, but found it rather odd they had to re-iterate what was already said.

Some even wondered If the time limit of 12:30 was still in effect, but they continued onwards anyways. Pixie-Bob rerouted some of her Earth-Beasts towards where Lambda was last seen, though continuing to use some of them to engage the students as before. Meanwhile, Eraserhead entered the woods himself, following one of the Earth-Beasts close by.

"Hmm, Y'know. I think I might have a theory on why I got teleported to Japan instead of Massachusetts" Gordon pondered to himself as he wandered aimlessly through the Beast's Forest, finding himself at the base of a particularly massive tree with obstructive roots all around it.

"Considering that we were experimenting with teleporters... Which I mean, is already opening up a massive can of worms. Maybe the more we teleport objects, the greater the universe's metastability begins to decay... in which that case, maybe we've already fucked the universe up beyond repair. Maybe they wanted to send me where I wanted to go, I mean that's giving them a lot of credit but let's role with it, but the universe is so broken that the coordinates for Boston or Santa Fe are just completely screwed up-"

Gordon found himself standing before a chest high wall of pure root and had to heave himself over with a loud grunt. "Agh! So I guess..." Gordon balanced on a series of roots, leaping across several on one foot. "-The question then is, is the universe completely screwed...? or did we just damage it? Or maybe the damage is localized, but how localized? Oh fuck! Maybe that's where voids like the Boötes Void come from! Some far off civilization messes with physics and blows a big hole in the universe..."

Gordon leapt off of the root and landed on the fresh dirt. "I think I've outweighed my tree climbing quota for today. I shouldn't have to be climbing trees, We evolved past the need for it. We're not monkeys or cavemen anymore. I probably would have been a shitty caveman... I mean, If a had a gun maybe." Gordon rounded the tree and began to make hooting noises like an ape. "Shaman Gordon still unsure about sand spirits, believe might be bad omen."

Gordon heaved himself up into a nearby tree and perched himself on the top branch like a chimpanzee. "Luckily, Gordon have big rock thrower that throw fire like sun and... thunder..." Shaman Gordon's voice trailed off when the sounds of rumbling came from nearby, pretty similar to earlier in fact. "Ah, Gordon not be afraid of sand demon anymore. Gordon seen men from stars before and warriors from American tribe too. Sand demon nothing."

An Earth-Beast breached into the clearing, Gordon watched from the top of the tree, "Sand demon not welcome in Shaman Gordon's village! Shaman Gordon throw you down big hole!" Gordon shouted from the top of the tree, before once again hooting like a monkey and opening fire on the Earth-Beast. Pixie-Bob meanwhile wasn't really sure what the fuck she just heard, but now 'Lambda' was hooting like a psycho and shooting at one of her beasts.

"I found him! He's in the trees!" Pixie-Bob shouted over the radio, and no sooner than when Gordon opened fire, Aizawa stepped out of the nearby treeline and moved in to subdue Gordon using his Binding Cloth, reaching to rip the SPAS-12 out of his hands. Gordon had little time to turn and fire before his prized shotgun was now gone. "Aghh! New mutant take Gordon's boomstick! But no worry! Me have MORE!" Gordon shouted down at Aizawa before quickly drawing his .357 magnum out and attempting to quickdraw the Eraser Hero while he was still pre-occupied with his shotgun

"Draw!" Gordon fired, but the bullet somehow ricocheted off of the shotgun, scaring the shit out of Aizawa and confusing the shit out of Gordon. "What?! Me hate Italian weaponcraft! How plastic and metal reflect .357...rock" Gordon turned to his left to see the Earth-Beast leaping into the tree after Gordon in a massive pounce. "Aghhh! Wait wait!" It was too late though, the Earth-Beast ripped Gordon out of the top of the tree and slammed him down against the floor of the forest. A bit too hard, but neither Hero was willing to take the risk of Gordon escaping. The impact against the hard ground completely knocked Gordon out cold...for the second time in the past 3 days. "Good pincer attack..." Aizawa approached the Earth-Beast holding down Gordon to get a better look at him. "Yea...that looks like him. English speaking, orange armor..." Aizawa two handed the SPAS-12 and looked it over, realizing it was well used. "-Armed to the teeth...I cant imagine what he would have done If he escaped into the woods. Lets bring him back to the lodge..."

Training Camp Lodge, Nagano

6 HOURS LATER

It had taken the members of Class 1-A far longer to traverse the Beast's Forest than expected, but at least they had arrived at the lodge safe. No other incursions were detected throughout the exercise. With their return, the members of Classes 1-A and 1-B were given a good, hearty meal, courtesy of Pixie-Bob and Mandalay, and had taken off to the lodge's bathing quarters. Some sort of incident had occurred with one Minoru Mineta attempting to peep on the girl's spring, and subsequently, Mandalay's cousin, Kota Izumi, was injured in the process. One of the rooms within the lodge was rapidly becoming a makeshift hospital, with Kota lying on one couch, and Gordon lying on another...though in his case, he was tied down to the couch and disarmed, including his HEV suit, which was standing nearby like a set of knight armor, his weapons were locked up in another room for obvious reasons. Now all Gordon seemed to be wearing was a blue, button up long sleeve shirt with khaki pants...rather worn down and sweaty too.

"That's who attacked Endeavor, Hawks and Fatgum?" Izuku Midoriya asked, standing nearby wearing a towel, having come to check up on Kota's condition, he kept shooting glances at the HEV suit in the corner. "He doesn't look too much like a Villain..." Izuku commented, looking at Gordon's damaged face, alongside the unusually casual set of clothing he was wearing. "All he seemed to have that wasn't a weapon was an ID card..." Aizawa waved a plastic card around in his hands before handing it off to Izuku. It was all in English, but Izuku could read it decently enough to get the gist. "Black Mesa Research Facility...Dr. Gordon Freeman. Theoretical Physicist...that's certainly a first." Its not really what Izuku pictured when he heard 'Physicist' certainly not a gun-toting madman as 'Lambda' seemed to be, wounding one of Japan's top Pro-Heroes and shooting Endeavor's ear off. He wasn't too heavily involved in the scientific fields, but he had never heard of any Black Mesa in New Mexico of all places, nor really of ANY advanced research labs beyond maybe I-Island or Sand Basin, though those were all local. Figuring that someone would come in the morning to cart Gordon away to the slammer, and satisfied with Kota's recovery, departed, leaving Aizawa to guard their prisoner until morning incase he awoke again. Though something was bothering Aizawa about Lambda. Namely the fact that his Erasure Quirk seemed to be ineffective against Lambda during the fight earlier, alongside that. Upon arriving at the lodge, Ragdoll attempted to use her Search Quirk to uncover more info on Lambda to forward to the rest of the Pro-Heroes. Though all Ragdoll could really hear was just...whispers. Whispers in a dark room with flashes of light here and there.

"Get him out of there! Shut down the equipment and someone get him out!"

"I never thought I'd see a Resonance Cascade, let alone create one."

"They're waiting for you Gordon, in the test chamberrr"

"Do you know who ate all the donuts?"

Any further attempts to delve deeper into Lambda's mind yielded about the same results. Nothing but muffled chatter that provided very little context as to who Lambda even was. What was alarming was the fact that there is no recorded evidence of a man named 'Gordon Freeman' even existed...

To be continued