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The two men sat at the bar, a few beer bottles scattered between them.
One of them was a bit older, faint hints of gray in his hair making him look older than he was. Scars scattered his heavily lined face, worry lines prominent on his forehead and around his mouth. He wore heavy armor, colored black and blue with dark green pants and tall boots. He took a deep swig from the beer bottle he was currently holding.
“So, all it took was one bad day at work and your whole life came to a screeching halt too, huh?”
He looked at the man sitting beside him. A bit younger than the first man, but not by much. His hair was still a rich black, but he had his own set of deep worry lines on his face as well. No scars to tell the story of the last 6 years. He was dressed in a security officers uniform, dark shirt and slacks with shiny black shoes. The only oddity being the large device strapped to his chest. Squarish in shape, it was held right over his heart by 4 thick straps, meeting in the back to a large square patch reading FBC.
“Yup. Man in charge lost his marbles, set loose a hostile alien force using an altered item. Building went into lockdown, and that was that.” He took a long drink of beer.
“Huh.” Was all the older man had to say. He looked down at the bar top. “For me it was a science experiment gone horribly wrong.” He paused to think. “Or horribly right, by the way Eli and Kleiner talk about it.”
“What were they trying to do?”
Barney snorted. “Fuck if I know. All I know is one second I’m trying to fix an elevator for a couple of stuck up scientists, the next thing I know is the building is falling down around my ears. The scientists are dead, I’m beat all to hell thanks to the elevator falling, and now I’ve got to fight off aliens.”
Simon nodded, waving the bartender over for another bottle of beer. As he brought it over, he gestured to Barney, silently asking him if he wanted another. He nodded no, intending to nurse the one he currently had.
“What did the aliens look like?” Simon asked, taking a sip as he waited for an answer.
“Oh there were a bunch of different types. Big ones, small ones, big as all hell ones. The smallest ones were the worst though, freaking headhumpers.” He shuddered dramatically, finishing off his beer sooner than he had intended. Simon looked at him, a look of vague disgust crossing his face at the last word.
“Headhumpers?”
Barney let out a small chuckle, gesturing to the now annoyed bartender to bring him another bottle of beer. He then brought his hand to rub nervously at the back of his neck.
“Yeah… that’s what I call them. Everyone else calls them headcrabs, which really isn’t a better word for them if you ask me.”
Simon’s mouth twisted into a grin, but he held in the laugh that wanted to come out.
“You’re telling me. How did they get that name anyways?”
Barney’s face fell. Thinking of all of the zombies he had had to kill, innocent people who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
“They jump onto your head, and they have this large… beak. On their bellies. And once they get a hold of you, they use that beak to chomp away at your head.”
Simon’s face tensed, his skin growing pale at the gruesome description.
“That’s a hell of a way to die.”
Barney’s eyes darted to the side, quickly taking in Simon’s expression.
“We never really figured out if you actually did die.” Simon’s eyes grew wide. “After the headcrab is done chomping away at your head, you come back. Split down the torso, fingers growing into claws. Zombies, we called them. Really didn’t have any better word for them. But… sometimes when killing them, it almost sounded like they were still trying to speak.”
The two men were quiet for a moment, until finally Barney cleared his throat.
“So, you said you had aliens too. What did they look like.”
Simon lifted his head to gaze at the ceiling, sighing. “Don’t know.”
“Huh?”
“Couldn’t actually see them. Actually, I’m only calling aliens because I don’t know what other word to use. They aren’t actually from our dimension, I don’t know too many details. Like I mentioned earlier, boss man went nuts, and used an altered item and opened a door to another dimension. And… something came out.”
Barney was looking at him with an incredulous expression.
“Something that was invisible?”
Simon shrugged. “Maybe. Jesse called it the hiss, and the name stuck. ‘Like the sound of gas leaking in’ is how I heard her describe it once. And there was something about… resonance?” He waved the hand not holding his beer in irritation, “I don’t fuckin' know, its all above my pay grade. All I know is these things kept us safe from it somehow.” He tapped at the device on his chest. Barney’s brows furrowed as he took in what was being said.
“Kept you safe. So this… hiss. What happened to anyone who wasn’t wearing one of those?” He gestured to the HRA with this bottle. A pained smile appeared on Simon’s face at the question.
“Infected. A lot of them aren’t hostile.” Barney’s brows raised at the word “hostile”. “Just… floating there, repeating that fucking chant.” This time Simon shuddered, then continued. “The others? They attacked. So that whole thing about not knowing whether the person inside was actually dead or not? We ask ourselves the same thing as we shoot every hiss.” He grimaced, taking a long drink of beer.
Silence fell over the two men as they took in each others stories. The horrors of having to fight of people you once knew, taken over by hostile forces, not knowing if they were still there as they died. They took time to drink the beers in their hands, finishing and calling for new bottles. Simon looked over, finally starting up the conversation again.
“So how long ago was that for you, when it all went to hell?” The question caused Barney to sigh, long and hard.
“About... 20 years give or take.” Simon whistled in shock.
“Holy shit, and here I thought I had it rough.” Barney looked over, a wry look on his face.
“Oh yeah? How long ago for you?”
Simon laughed at his expression. “Six years. Feels like forever though.” He ran a hand through his hair, gaze on the bar in front of him. Barney’s expression grew curious.
“How long did it take for you to get out?”
Simon’s brows furrowed, and he looked over in confusion. “Huh?”
“Get out after the invasion. Took me about… a day or so? Maybe? Found some scientists who were trying to hobble together some of the old teleporter tech, and we got out that way. How about you?”
Simon’s face turned grim, and he turned his gaze back to the bar, hands gripping his newest bottle.
“We never did get out.” His lips thinned, his knuckles turning white on the bottle. Barney started at him, turning on his chair to partially face him.
“You mean to tell me you’ve been trapped in that damned building for 6 years?” he said, tapping the bar surface with an index finger for emphasis on the last two words. Simon nodded, face taut.
“When the hiss invaded, the building went into lockdown. No one in, no one out. Well, except for Jesse. So… yeah. Six fucking years trapped in the Oldest House with the hiss.” He shrugged, taking a sip of beer. Barney looked down at his beer bottle, turning that thought over in his head.
“Shit, I don’t know whats worse. Escaping, but watching the world burn around you, or being stuck in the building where it all went to hell, unable to do anything about it. Do you know if any of those hiss made it outside?”
“Nope.”
Barney huddled over the bar top, shaking his head. “We got out, but so did the aliens. We tried to stop them, but that didn’t work. The Seven Hour War they called it, that’s how long it took for us to lose. Well, I say lose, what actually happened was the man behind the whole shit-show surrendered.” His voice grew tight as he finished, and he took a long drink of beer, angrily thumping the bottle on the bar when he was done.
“Seven hours and he damned the world all to hell. Sure, we might have all been dead otherwise, but better dead than living under the Combine’s thumb for the last 20 years.” His glove creaked as he gripped the bottle, and Simon winced in sympathy.
“Trench killed himself right after he let the hiss in.” The casual way Simon said this snapped Barney out of his anger. He looked over at Simon, eyes wide.
“Shit, really?”
“Yeah. Jesse found him in his office, dead on the floor. That’s how she because director. She fixed his mess, stopped more hiss from coming in. But the building won’t break the lockdown until all of them have been taken out.” His gaze was fixed forward as he spoke, and he finished off his beer. Glancing down at the bottle, his brow furrowed as he debated whether calling for another one.
Barney’s eye looked off into the distance, looking at nothing. “It took nearly 20 years for Breen to finally get himself dead. He was trying to teleport away to where the aliens lived, but my friend Gordon put a stop to that. Destroyed the machine, killing Breen. Good riddance to bad rubbish.” He finished off his bottle as well, pushing it to stand with the other bottles in front of them. “Although, still plenty of Combine around stuck on Earth, so works not over yet.”
Simon huffed out a laugh. “I feel ya. You’d think after 6 years we would have gotten control of the hiss by now. But no luck. Only thing I’m grateful for is the fact I’m not the one in charge.” He smiled, crossing his arms on the bar in front of him. Barney laughed.
“You can say that again! I have enough to deal with as it is, just being friends of the ones in charge. Couldn’t imagine if I was the one having to make all those big decisions.” He rubbed at his neck again, then propped his elbow on the bar, head in his hand. “But seeing as how I’m not some smarty-pants scientist, I couldn’t make those decisions anyways.” Simon laughed.
“Tell me about it. Sometimes when I hear Emily talk about the stuff she’s studying, my head starts to spin. I’m good keeping track of ammo, guns, and keeping people alive.” Barney grinned at that.
“A security guard’s work is never done, is it?” Simon shook his head, laughing. He then lifted an arm, waving the bartender over for two more beers. Barney raised a hand to object.
“No, no, I’m good-” Simon cut him off.
“One more for the road, a toast.” He slid one of the bottle over to Barney, who took it. He held it in front of his face, his expression thoughtful.
“You know, you’re right. It’s been so damned long since I’ve had a good beer, one more won’t hurt. Just wish Gordon were here, I still owe him one.” He looked over to Simon, who was holding his bottle at an angle towards him. Oh yeah, the toast. He reached over and clinked the neck of his beer bottle against Simon’s.
Simon grinned. “To overworked security guards.”
Barney laughed, and the two of them drank.