Chapter Text
“Calhoun,” Otis says, “I just do not understand you.”
Barney zips up his coat, checks he hasn’t misplaced his keys and ID, and offers a crooked smile to the man leaned up against the wall. “Shucks, Otis, there’s not that much to get. How am I troublin’ you today?”
“How do you think,” he says, and gestures one-handed to take in Barney’s coat, the three 5-gallon water jugs set beside him, and the rusty metal door letting cold air in around its poorly-sealed frame. “It’s cold as shit, Calhoun, and there’s no point in pouring water in a desert.”
Barney shrugs at that and wraps a hand around the handles of two of the jugs, flexing his fingers to make sure his grip is alright, before snagging the last jug with his free hand. He glances at Otis, who rolls his eyes but obediently opens the side door for him. Barney quickly hefts up the water containers and hobbles over the threshold and outside. It’s awkward as hell and not easy but Barney’s been doing it after every shift for months now; he's used to it. (Plus, there’s just no way he’d let himself take two trips when one will do just as well.)
“’Appreciate the help, even if it’s bunk to you,” Barney says as he sets the jugs down with a grunt. He can roll the extra from here. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Otis.”
“Not even gonna try to explain, eh?” Otis calls after him, and Barney raises a hand in a good-natured wave before picking up two of the jugs and shoving the spare with a boot. The other man mutters something after him as the door shuts with a whine and a clunk.
Otis is alright. He’s jovial and laughs easily and, on occasion, humors Barney his eccentricities. But there’s only so many baffled looks a guy can take before giving up explaining why he does what he does as a bad job — as much as he likes the man, it’d be better for now to just let Otis guess.
And so, alone, Barney sets off into the night.
His destination isn’t too far. Ten minutes walking and expertly kicking along the outside of Black Mesa brings him to an odd meeting of the walls, a corner inexpertly created. It’s shielded from the harsh desert winds and is in a constant sort of half-shadow, half-light during the day. Now, nearing eleven at night, it’s just barely lit with the ambient light given off by the research facility. Underneath the earth, Barney figures there must be a metal ceiling jutting out beyond the upper levels that prevents the water from leaching away so easily here.
Whatever the case, it’s very nearly a mini oasis: this particular collection of sand is greener and wetter than anywhere else round the facility and just far enough from any exit doors that no humans tend to disturb it. Not too far off there’s also another niche, neatly shielded from the winds and at the perfect angle for a person or two to hunker down and unobtrusively watch what happens in this one. It’s far and away the best thing Barney has found in New Mexico.
Barney snags the loose jug with his foot before it can roll too far ahead. The others he sets down and sets about uncapping. He can feel eyes on him as he dumps out the water into the muddy little area, can see some movement in the shadowy plants and sand as he finishes up, and he can’t help his eyes crinkling at the corners.
While Black Mesa likely wouldn’t notice if Barney stole three full water jugs from their reserves everyday, he’s not trying to get fired — so he only steals one, and refills two empties in the bathrooms. He figures while that water might not exactly be human-safe to drink, it’s likely fine for desert animals that wouldn’t otherwise be getting water anyway. And besides, the animals’ growing familiarity with him, that gradually built trust, those are worth more to him than getting written up in this dumb job anyway.
Shaking out the last drops of his final jug, he collects the others and heads off to the secondary niche. He sets his load down and checks his watch, squinting against the blue light-up numbers; there’s plenty of time until the next tram and it’s not too cold out tonight, so with a sigh of relief he sinks down into the sandy little corner and settles in for the next little bit, his eyes on the homemade watering hole.
It’s not a bad night for it. The cold isn’t enough yet for the reptiles and amphibians to have hunkered down, so they’re the first ones out, slow-moving when they aren’t stock still in wait. The small mammals are next: mice and things, little warm-blooded creatures darting in and out of the sparse vegetation for their chance at water in the desert. Birds show up sometimes, too, all flashing eyes and silent wings that send the smaller creatures scurrying, and the larger creatures follow. Hares are common, kit foxes less so, coyotes rare. A bobcat had shown up once; Barney had held his breath the whole time, aware that the thing’s teeth and claws could do a lot of damage to him even if he'd had his bulletproof vest, but unable to tear his gaze away from the casual, stalking strength belied by its relatively innocuous shape.
Tonight is calmer. There are a few hares at the largest but most of the night’s visitors are small. Barney can’t see much detail at this distance with this light, but he can see the occasional movement of scaled bodies, the smooth arc of a slithering snake or the sedate hop of a toad. It’s relaxing, after an eleven hour shift walking Black Mesa’s hallways and nodding along to his coworkers’ unfunny jokes and kow-towing to the demands of every whitecoat he’s unfortunate enough to be noticed by. To just sit for a bit and be… it’s nice.
The night sky above is dark and wide, a thousand stars out even with Black Mesa’s lights. Barney’s fallen asleep underneath this open sky a few times before, waking sore and cramped, and though the cold isn’t yet enough to make his breath visible it really ought to be enough to deter him from taking a nap.
Still… he’s warm in his coat, and there are trams through the night so it’s not like he’d be stuck out here if he did close his eyes for a bit. The animals aren’t being particularly interesting this evening anyway, most sticking by the little oasis. Barney’s eyelids flutter shut, then open, shut then open again —
And then he jerks into full awareness because where seconds ago had been nothing is now something and — and that something is wrong.
Logic says the creature before him is a toad, because the desert has plenty of toads, because nature adapts even if the arid climate isn’t where one would expect to find them. Logic says he closed his eyes for longer than he meant to. And logic says that one of the animals from the little oasis approaching him isn’t unusual, either, whether due to curiosity or naiveté or both. A toad hopping a bit closer shouldn’t be enough to spook him.
No, what has the hairs on the back of Barney’s neck suddenly standing up is the size of the thing. It’s easily five times larger than any toad he’s seen since growing up in Alabama (and then some!), and he’d swear it’s got spikes on its back, but they seem to be moving in a way spikes shouldn’t — and that color doesn’t seem right, either, much deeper than the pale, sand-colored things common to the desert. It’s shaped subtly wrong, too, with more of a four-legged gait than the squat-and-hop kinda silhouette it ought to have, and — well, it must be a trick of the dimness, and the weird pattern on its face, but…
From this angle Barney’d almost swear its head was taken up by a single giant, peering eye.
He doesn’t dare to blink, gaze darting around the toad (?) to take in as much as he can even if probably he’s seeing things wrong. Probably it’s some animal with its young on its back with some color mutation just weird enough to make him think he’s seeing things. Probably it’ll turn in a second or move just so and its shape will resolve into something familiar, something that Barney knows and that won’t keep him up at night, wondering.
He’s just starting to force his shoulders to relax when the sudden shriek rips through the air.
An owl lifts off from over by the watering hole, some small prey in its grasp. But Barney’d been holding himself so stiffly that when the noise reaches him he startles, twitching hard —
And the toad, the thing, leaps straight up into the air — and in a burst of violet light, it explodes.
Barney flinches back — but in between blinks the thing’s gone, sparks and all, leaving behind only a patch of disturbed sand.
For a moment, Barney’s little oasis is nearly silent. Black Mesa hums beside him and the wind tears through the desert. He stares at the spot the toad had just been, blinking away the pink and violet aftermath.
“What,” Barney whispers, “in the goddamned fuck .”
***
Barney’s been on the Yellow Shift for half a year now. He’d spent a year and change swapping between Red and Orange, patrolling low-clearance areas of Black Mesa like the dorms and cafeterias, which had been boring as hell and played havoc with his sleep schedule. The Yellow Shift is more interesting on account of being actually inside the secret research facility and, since he’s not often asked to go Green, he’s been able to get some solid sleep during the night hours since the promotion.
That is, he had been able to. Last night was an exception; he’d spent most of it wide awake, questioning and requestioning what he had seen. Really, he ought to be able to dismiss the messed up animal he half-saw in dim light while he was three-quarters to sleep, especially given that it seemed to disappear when he rubbed his eyes (apparent explosion notwithstanding).
But no matter how many times he reminds himself of the facts, the damn thing sticks with him. It was bad enough that he found himself getting out of bed around one in the morning, pawing through some of the conspiracy books he owns sort of as a joke as though they might contain the answers.
All this is to say that by halfway through the next day’s shift, he’s three vending machine coffees deep and is blinking rapidly against his own desire to just sit for a minute. There’s no time, though; every science team member who catches sight of him has got some new task that needs doing, from fetching extra beakers to carting chemicals back and forth to changing a lightbulb (and ain’t that a joke). Not to mention the joke that is calling him a “security officer” when really it seems like he spends his whole day catering to the needs of tantrum-throwing eggheads.
He’s just finished hauling some sample all the way over to the east side and is wishing he’d used his lunch period to take a nap in one of the supply closets when he hears a wavery “Pardon me! Ah, could you possibly—?” Barney closes his eyes, steels himself, and manages to pull on a friendly smile by the time he turns around.
The man looks to be in his early fifties, balding and delicate and maybe even as short as Barney himself. He’s got his hands clasped together and behind his huge, clunky glasses he’s smiling more apologetically than any other whitecoat ever has when faced with a security guard they want something from. Barney doesn’t recognize him, but something about the man makes his own expression ease a little. “How can I help, doc?”
“Well, I feel so foolish,” the scientist says, tilting his head back the way he came, and Barney falls into step beside him. “But I was giving our newest ‘science team’ member a tour of the facilities and, although I could have sworn I had my keys on me this time, I seem to have locked myself out of my own office! Now, normally I would have asked young Andrew to help me out, but I looked everywhere and just couldn’t seem to find him. And, well, then I saw you, and as I understand it all security guards have copies of a master key, so I hoped perhaps you might help? I’m so very sorry to pull you away from your patrol, but I would feel absolutely terrible if I brought Gordon all this way just to be unable to show him the very research he’ll be working with.”
The man titters rather self-consciously. Barney nods along as the man continues his chitchat unhindered by Barney’s fatigued inability to come up with interesting responses. They travel down a few hallways like that, the doctor cheerfully waving a finger around in emphasis as he goes on about how helpful Andrew has been and how he’s so very embarrassed to have misplaced his keys yet again, honestly, he was sure he had them this time, until the man comes to a sudden halt.
It takes a second for Barney to realize he’s lost his guide. He stumbles a bit in his haste to turn around and hide his error, but the man’s looking back the way they came, naked confusion on his face. “I — I beg your pardon, we walked right by the place. So sorry, I was expecting Gordon to still be here, but naturally he’s wandered away — ah well — it’s right here, if you wouldn’t mind…”
“‘Course,” Barney says, fishing his key ring out of his pocket. He’s blinking blearily, trying not to lose count of which keys he’s already passed, when from above echoes a heavy CLANG.
Barney jumps. “Goodness,” the scientist beside him comments mildly. Together they look to the ceiling, where nothing appears to be out of the ordinary.
“...Well,” the doctor starts, when another loud CLANG echoes from above. It’s a little farther away this time; in fact, if Barney were less tired, he might even say it was coming from above and within the locked office he’s standing before. The CLANG comes again, followed by a low, groaning creeeak and, from lower down, a heavy thump.
“What in—” Barney starts, when without warning the door he’s standing before is thrown open, revealing a tall, square-shouldered figure with enormous, flashing eyes.
The thing looks down at Barney, expression unreadable, its hands raised in menace and Barney barely chokes out a “Son of a—,” quaking hand reaching for the firearm all security guards are required to carry and never expected to use, but of course something like this would happen at Black fucking Mesa —
“Ah, Gordon!” the scientist beside Barney says, calm and delighted. “There you are! How on earth did you get in?”
The figure before them resolves into a human being, one wearing thick, square glasses that reflect the fluorescent light from the hallway. Barney catches his breath, heart thudding painfully in his chest. It’s a man — just a man.
A man in a pristine white labcoat, at that — this must be the new science team member. He’s fairly young-looking for it, probably not more than thirty, with a goatee and enough chestnut brown hair to pull back into a ponytail. He stands tall and stiff, the light still reflecting off his glasses and his expression unreadable.
Then he points his thumb over his shoulder. The older, friendly scientist leans in, placing a hand on Barney’s shoulder for balance. “Ah, the vents! Brilliant as always, Gordon.”
The vents? Barney leans in as well, tilting his head up to see that the cover to the office’s air duct has been removed. Did the man climb in through the vents?? Barney has a sudden, intense vision of this mysterious man descending from above, hands out-stretched like owls’ talons aimed at its prey.
“But really, you ought to have waited!” the friendly scientist scolds his coworker as he pats Barney’s shoulder. “I brought young, ah, young… Oh my.” The older man turns to Barney now, face creased in yet another apologetic smile. “I was so eager to get that blasted door open that I quite forgot introductions; my apologies. My name is Dr. Isaac Kleiner.”
“Barney Calhoun,” Barney says, shaking the extended hand and wondering if perhaps he did take that nap during lunch and is still dreaming; a whitecoat treating anyone from the security team like a person is even less likely than strange men leaping down from vents in locked rooms. “It’s no problem, Dr. Kleiner.”
Kleiner’s smile broadens. “Well, I appreciate it all the same, Barney. Oh — and of course, this is my colleague… as of today,” he says, pride clear in his eyes as he pats the tall, rigid man on the back. “Gordon Freeman.”
“Hey, Doctor Freeman. Good to meet you,” Barney says on auto-pilot and thoughtlessly extends his hand to the strange scientist.
The man doesn’t say a word. He tilts his head down to look at Barney’s hand and at last the light reflecting off his glasses clears, revealing striking green eyes. He really does look young, with a smattering of freckles across his cheekbones and thick, dark eyebrows. He might even be good-looking if it weren’t for the intense expression of almost primal scrutiny on his face as he looks Barney up and down, like he’s looking for weaknesses.
Barney thinks of that bobcat he’d once seen at the watering hole, all powerful muscle and tense stillness before it pounced, and fights down a shiver.
At last Freeman reaches out and clasps Barney’s hand. He gives it a firm squeeze, his palm cool to the touch, and then drops it without saying a word. He has the decency to nod at least as he retreats back into the office to apparently set about reattaching the vent cover to the ceiling.
Kleiner beams at Barney as though that was high praise. “Well! It was wonderful to meet you, Barney. We’ll look forward to seeing you around the facility. Give my regards to Andrew if you find him!” And with that, Kleiner unceremoniously closes the door in Barney’s face.
Barney stares for a long moment at the office door, trying to understand the past few minutes and failing. He doesn’t feel tired anymore, at least, his heart still pounding in his chest as he processes the fact that he nearly shot at an innocent man today.
Well — an innocent man, yes, but a rather terrifying one who apparently thinks nothing of climbing through the walls and ceilings of his workplace, dropping down into locked rooms as it suits him.
At least Barney’s not thinking of that freaky toad thing anymore, but still: as he turns away to drag his feet down the hallway and back to his patrol on the other side of the facility, he can’t help muttering to himself.
“What in the goddamned fuck.”