"...Now arriving at: Sector C Test Labs..."
Gordon was impatient of getting to work; he had been in the complex for less than two months and already had two late arrivals. That was something the higher-ups did not like.
Security was extremely strict in there: although one could board a train nearly hassle-free, you couldn't get off on your own as you had to wait for one of the security guards to let you out. This was probably made to fool wannabe intruders... But who the hell could even get into the complex? It was `trespassers shot on sight' for over ten kilometers around the facility.
"`Morning, Mr. Freeman! Looks like you're running late!" greeted Alex, the guard on duty that morning, after taking and scanning his ID from the preposted slit in the train.
"Assume the position..." Gordon removed his glasses as the retinal scanner beam moved up and down over his green eyes.
"You'd better move, Gordon. They seem to be quite pissed off down in the test chamber."
Not surprising. "Don't tell me..."
Gordon climbed down the train as Alex pressed the `return' button on the console, and entered the Sector C Anomalous Materials Test Labs entrance still running.
Once inside he greeted Mason, the front desk guard, who seemingly had problems with the computer system - when doesn't he? - but he had no time to waste; he went for the changing room, again empty as everybody was at work already, and from there, after stripping and hastily storing his clothes in his locker, to the HEV containment room.
In the room were three transparent cylinders, each one controlled by a button, which monitor, recharge and maintain one HEV while unused. Only one of them was still full: the orange-and-black colored one.
Gordon didn't know why, but nobody seemed to like that color. They said that it brought `bad luck' and all that superstitious stuff.
But Gordon was a scientist: he never cared for superstition, and he pressed the activation button. The glass lifted and the cylinder opened, as the HEV inside began startup procedures by releasing its safety clamps. Actually, releasing the clamps meant that the suit would crumble into a heap on the floor, but that would allow Gordon to actually slip inside.
As soon as the on-board computer detected his presence, the clamps shut around him, making him as comfortable as possible. A tingle on his forefingers, a sign that the suit was scanning his fingerprints, then the synthesized voice, which he found out was curiously was always of the opposite gender to the user, greeted him.
"Welcome, user Gordon Freeman, to the HEV Mark 4, protective system for use in hazardous environments conditions..." He felt the usual tingle on his face, as the standard transparent energy shield covered almost perfectly all of his face but the mouth, to let him use it, and glasses, projecting an HUD just in front of them.
The suit came with a powerful armor, much more powerful than its appearance would lead one to think, and an integrated shielding which covered all the armor and his head, which was left free of cumbersome, and, word was, optional and expensive, helmets. The armor and shield status indicated yellow, then, as the voice talked on, they went green, indicating nominal status. His health, shown in percentage, was full.
From that moment on, the suit was fully active, and he could finally move.
He ran out of the changing rooms, the suit's nearly invisible and almost soundless servos helping him to a much higher speed he had been capable of on his own strength - another plus, as he had still very little time to spare right now.
As he descended the elevator to the test chamber, from one of the speakers came a short jingle, then a horribly synthesized male voice croaked
"Doctor Freeman to Anomalous Materials test lab immediately."
They must be really upset down there to call him on the comm system.
He quickly got out of the elevator and ran past the analyzer's secondary computers and laser pipe feeders, waving the occasional `hello' to his friends; he was almost at the door when a computer console blew in pieces and caught fire just a few meters from him.
"It's about to go critical!" Reines, the nearest person to the accident, cried as Gordon grabbed an extinguisher and sprayed the flames in a single fluid motion, the suit aiding him by countering the weight shock from the sudden pickup. Reines calmed as he approached the console and rapidly studied the damage. "Must be yet another malfunction. Thanks Gordon."
"No problems, Karl. See you later." Gordon didn't alarm; it sure wasn't the first thing going bad he had seen since he began working here; equipment this advanced was bound to have malfunctions sooner or later - much often sooner rather than later, apparently.
He set the extinguisher back in its charge station, then entered the test chamber control room just in time to hear his colleagues worry.
"...If he doesn't make it within ten minutes, they might consider firing or... Oh, Gordon! There you are; we were getting preoccupied down here!"
"At last! Is everything allright?"
"Yes... Sorry, Al, Jim, everybody... my alarm clock decided to stop working right this morning, and..."
"Damn right, Gordon, they don't make these things as they used to. That's OK, don't worry."
The group of four, relieved, returned to their seats, except Stryker who remained to talk to Gordon.
"Anyway, there's really no time to lose in chit chat; today we will be deviating a bit from standard procedures as this is the purest sample of Etherthel we've ever got our hands on, and we can't risk leaving the slightest bit of detail behind!"
Wow! Etherthel! He had heard of it, and of its incredible (and mysterious) properties, but never ever got a chance to even see it.
"Deviating a bit... You mean we're going for the overcharge?" "Hmmm, yes, between the other things. Don't worry; your suit will keep you comfortable through all this, as usual. Now, to the test chamber! We really don't have time to lose!"
Stryker went for the retinal scanner for the door opposite the entrance, the scanner whirred happily and the door opened.
Gordon, still excited, entered and descended the stairs to the test chamber elevator.
"What are you doing here? You're not authorized!"
The guard waved his gun at the man.
"Turn your back against the wall, hands where I can see them!"
As the guard got closer, the man slammed his briefcase on the guards' gun, knocking it back, and then on the surprised man's neck, instantly breaking it.
The man readjusted his tie, and went to the stored materials. He checked thoroughly the ID tags on the storage; he was about halfway through when he heard footsteps coming from just outside of the room.
"... Yeah, sounds like an easy job. Why must we guard those things in four, as I said, is beyond me. It's not that they're going to spruce up legs and walk away anytime soon!"
Three were a few too many. G quickly scanned the rest of the labels, and grabbed delightedly one of the cases.
"With all the stuff in there, it's a miracle we haven't all blown up already."
As one of the guards began to enter his code on the door's keypad, he pressed a button on a hand remote and an orange spheric field appeared in front of him. He dived in, the sphere disappearing mere instants before three Black Mesa guards walked into the room.
"...Don't forget that Bennet has screwed up yet again!" "Yeah, bet he'll get fired one day or another. The higher ups don't like mistakes, especially - hey, what the...?"
"...Gordon doesn't need to hear this! He's a trained professional and..." The door hissed open, and the two stopped bickering as Freeman stepped in the test room antechamber. The room was just a small maintenance shed, with a few secondary monitors and two people stationed there at all times in case of emergencies.
"Ah, you're here, Gordon. Come on, let's let him in."
Two simultaneous retina scans later, the large, super reinforced door, slowly whirred open only to shut silently as Gordon walked past. It was just yet another security measure, but the equipment in the room ahead more than justified its need.
The test chamber was a scientist's dream come true: the enormous analyzer beam emitter stood in the center of the room, coming down from the roof which was well over ten meters of height from the floor, and was almost half as wide.
It was a sight to behold when fully operative; and Gordon always found the lightshow of the analyzer fascinating, almost a living entity of its own as computer technology beyond anything imaginable perused the underlying material with unbelievable accuracy.
The enormous apparatus was not in function at the time, of course; an almost eerie red glow shrouded the chamber, together with the analyzer's console and materials elevator.
A screeching noise caught Gordon's attention. It came from above and behind him, noise which then converted into Stryker's voice, talking from the control room hidden behind a reinforced anti rad screen.
"Testing? Testing? OK, Gordon, Jim has just received a call saying that there have been some problems down in the material storage room, and we'll have a ten minute delay or so. So, while we're waiting, we thought we might as well warm up the analyzer. Beginning standard procedure when you're ready."
Gordon sat at the console and began the initialization procedure. It was, at least for a scientist of his preparation, amazingly easy: just press a few buttons in the right sequence and wait for the corresponding gauges to get to green.
And he did just that, as Stryker gave his usual reports. Everything was fine and nominal...
Yet, something wasn't right. He didn't know what it was; it began slowly at the back of his mind, then crept its way to his rational hemisphere.
The word `Etherthel' seemed to echo in his mind.
"Ehm, no, nothing at all. Sorry." But he was lying; he had stopped, because he felt gripped by fear.
Fear of what, he did not know.
The voice was definitely not an echo. It was almost growing in strength.
He continued the procedure uneasily as the enormous apparatus slowly began to show signs of life. But the voice didn't stop, until the protonic charge tester's overhead capacitors' rotors began to spin to life.
As it had come, it had gone. But still, what the hell was going on with him? It was like some kind of omen, some sort of `sixth sense', telling him to... to stay clear of Etherthel. But why?
And why had it stopped with the rotors? Gordon couldn't find any kind of rational answer. And no rational answer means no fact; for he was a scientist:
`If you can prove it, it's true. If you can't, it's not.'
That was the way he worked; that was the way everything worked.
He kept repeating the motto in his mind, as Stryker continued to give his usual reports and the machine came slowly to full power.
"No time to lose, G. Let's begin."
The case was set in the enormous apparatus. Ten minutes, and it would be the beginning for the end of all their problems.
"Beginning destabilization in three... two... one."
The overhead wheel began rotating...
About ten minutes had passed, and no sign of the material yet. Gordon had calmed down from his sudden attack of paranoia, but he still didn't feel completely right about this; the machinery couldn't operate for too long, even if below overcharge.
He looked again at the machine. The sight, even through his worries, was as always wonderful: the three oval and near flat surfaces that were the overhead capacitors were rotating at about one hundred RPMs, as the large protonic charge tester streaked wildly in a multicolored beam towards the scan focus, which was also about to be hit by the main blue analyzer beam, with an effect both marveling and dizzying.
The noise in the room was high, due to the rotors' high speeds, yet he could still hear Stryker's reports.
"...Overhead capacitors operating at ninety-nine percent and..."
Gordon heard the intercom buzz on the loudspeaker, which turned off, then, after a few seconds, back on: "Good news, Gordon. Looks like they sorted out the mess down in storage. The sample should be arriving soon."
That was good. He wanted to be done with this thing as soon as possible. Believing in those kinds of `sixth senses' or not, he didn't like what he had felt. The tester was now just beyond full charge, and in less than a minute it would reach overcharge.
A hard condition to explain, he remembered, trying to overcome the last of his worries; it was something vaguely like `overcharging' those old PCs back in the late nineties: you could have them run faster and better - but if you weren't careful, they could burn up, taking the rest of the PC with them.
Suddenly, the four lights inscribing the material elevator's safety cage began blinking.
"The sample seems to have arrived, Gordon. Let's try to make this as quick as possible." Even Stryker's voice sounded a bit worried. Gordon wondered what the others in the control room felt about all this... But he knew the answer: it was just paranoia, and they were feeling as he should be, perfectly safe and normal as everything was.
The cage dropped down, going actually below the floor, just after the elevator came to a full stop in the chamber, holding the safety cart and the Etherthel sample. The enormous apparatus reached overcharge, and the overhead rotors, now useless, stopped; and the chanting began again.
The Etherthel could have been defined as beautiful; pyramid-shaped, glowing softly and smoothly, as it sat, almost impatient to get analyzed, on the safety cart's grabbing arm. But for Gordon, it could have been the anti-Christ material. He was simply rattling with fear, as he tried to approach the cart. Just a push, a push into the analyzer, and he could steer clear of it. Forever, clear of it.
He took one more step. "Gordon? What is going on with you today? Too many women on your mind?"
He took a very deep breath and charged through his fears, his mind almost numb from the torture, grabbing the cart's handles, eyes still shut, as he pushed it towards the analyzer beam.
Stryker's voice broke momentarily his concentration:
"Gordon, we... No. No, that's nothing. That's well within the limits. Go on."
With a nearly inhuman determination, he kept going and the material finally contacted the beam.
He quickly took several steps backwards, still unnaturally fearful, as he looked at the analyzer.
Strange; the beam was supposed to hit the material, instead it was circling it and was hitting directly the floor below the focus. Strange kind of analysis; he was never instructed in something like this.
"Wait a minute, Gordon, what the...? Oh, my God!"
Gordon's fears and thoughts were broken as the analyzer beam instantly reversed its flow and hit one of the overhead capacitors, collapsing in a streak of multicolored sparks with a deafening explosion.
"What do you mean, can't shutdown? Emergency procedures NOW!"
The people in the control room were obviously in a frenzy. Gordon was confused, unable to react, and the ground began shaking.
"Attempt shutdown! Again! AGAIN!"
Something was definitely wrong, as even the comm system creaked in:
"Mass system failure in Sector C! Repeat: mass system failure in Sectoooorrrr Seeeeeeeee..."
The voice slowed down considerably, then it interrupted.
The shakings worsened; Gordon fell and hit his head on the control console, his confused state getting the coupe de grace as his vision blurred. He could still see beams of green light flowing freely through the space from the Etherthel sample, bouncing on the walls seemingly randomly.
"My God... What the hell is going on in here...?"
One of the beams blew right through the control room shielding. The shrieks of the people up there were barely audible over the sound of the machinery exploding upon contact with the beams. Both the remaining overhead capacitors had already blown up when the beams seemed to have found some kind of pattern; they rebounded again on the walls, missing him by a mere centimeter, and hit the sample again, machinery still exploding all around the room.
Moments later, most of the beams were reflecting on the sample as a large green sphere formed just above it, growing larger by the second.
The explosions faded out of Gordon's mind, and the only thing he could see was the sphere.
It was mesmerizing, almost as if...
Then, Gordon's confused view turned to complete darkness.
Gordon was looking at the purple streaked sky. It was wonderful, yet, on what place on the Earth was he? He looked around; he was laying in a garden of some sort; or at least so he thought.
Everything was seemingly covered in a strange, soft looking, purple goo. He soon recognized that he was immersed in a shallow depression in the ground, filled with more goo.
Far away, he thought he heard a dog barking. Even stranger.
He reached down in the puddle of goo to help himself stand up, resulting in a purple left glove. His suit's HUD was showing a biohazard symbol, meaning the air outside was toxic and that the suit's purifier was on. He listened to his breathing, which sounded unnaturally heavy, confirming the air as toxic.
How long could he remain there before the purifier gave up the ghost and he was left to breathe whatever unbreathable gasses that formed the atmosphere
"And especially, where the hell is here?"
He turned to look better at his surroundings.
The place was distant to each and every thing he had ever seen, yet seemed familiar to him... As if it was from an old dream - but he couldn't remember exactly.
He approached one of the walls encircling the garden. The goo wasn't liquid, as the pool he was immerged before was, but solid. Very solid. He punched it lightly, and saw no effect. Whatever it was, it had the consistency of rock.
"Great, Gordon. Now what?" A green glow at the corner of his eye attracted him, and he turned to see a green sphere floating about a meter above ground. Strange.
He reached for it and it exploded; then it was darkness again.
Gordon woke in a cave, or at least what he thought was a cave, since it was nearly pitch black in there.
The biohazard sign still hadn't dropped.
He stood up only to hear noises coming from his left. Was there some kind of atmosphere here then? He listened as they grew in intensity, and soon recognized them for some kind of distorted laughter.
Then, a creature fully covered in metal appeared, almost suddenly, in front of him and punched him back to the floor.
As Gordon, confused and scared, tried to focus on what the thing was, the beast lowered his arms to the floor, fingertips almost touching the nearly invisible ground.
An electrical charge began flowing from the ground to the creature, that quickly raised his arms, the charge growing in intensity, and pointed his fingers at Gordon. The electricity discharge went straight through him, or at least that is what it seemed as darkness surrounded him again.