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decks-writing-blog · 4 months ago

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Gordon Swap Chapter Five: Barney Was His Friend Now

Chapter One

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Gordon was kind of a coward for running away, wasn’t he? Bubby would probably have called him ‘a little bitch’ for it. He’d technically caused the Resonance Cascade so he should be trying to fix it, right? Or he should at least try to help fix it.

His hand was gone though. Surely that was a valid excuse, right? Let Barney’s Gordon handle it alone. So he just… kept following Barney, trying not to think too much about anything. But of course he kept coming back to this thought process over and over again anyway because that’s what life was like sometimes.

Barney was efficient at killing soldiers and aliens alike. He did so stealthily and tactfully. No expectation for Gordon to even try to do anything more than watch their rear and alert him if anything or anyone came up from behind. Which coupled with the less than fast pace Gordon’s exhaustion brought them to made for slow going. Too much time to think about stuff. Such as whether or not his former companions still headed in that general direction? … Maybe.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t be heading to the Lambda Lab to try to fix this?” He spoke in a whisper as he placed himself shoulder to shoulder with Barney. The hall they were walking down was long thus now would be a good time to talk, right?

“Hell nah, man. Being a hero’s great and all but we’d just die. We’d do more good getting ourselves and however many other survivors we run into, that want to risk coming with us, out of here.”

“But like…”

“Dr. Rosenberg said that the folk at the Lambda Lab are counting on Gordon, the real one, to go there and help them fix it. He’s been told ‘bout that and last Dr. Rosenberg heard, was on his way there, probably faster then we’re going. So if we did head down that way and assuming we didn’t get turned into those alien zombie things on the way or get blown up or whatever, he’d probably already have it sorted. He’s efficient like that.”

Something about that still didn’t sit right with Gordon. It was off. Everything was just off. The map, the way Barney had talked about Dr. Coomer’s clones as well as how Gordon might be a clone of some other guy who couldn’t talk. None of it made much sense. But alas, it also wasn’t outlandish enough to dismiss outright. There was something Gordon was missing about all of it. Figuring out what it might be didn’t feel likely.

“You’re his clone though so I get why you’re feeling obligated to help. He’s like that too. A real good guy. He can handle it. I’d love to help make sure he’s okay but… catching up to him would be rough and well, no offense but you’re missing a hand. Even if you’re just his clone, I’d still feel weird leading you into danger like that or just leaving you here. So don’t worry about it, okay pal?” He patted Gordon on the shoulder.

“Okay.” What else could Gordon do? He was missing a hand. A valid excuse for running away even if something was still wrong. Probably it was just his exhaustion and stress over being left for dead and betrayed by people he’d thought were his friends, resulting in the lost hand, making him feel that way though. Good ol’ trauma and mental illness combining to make him feel bad and guilty about stuff beyond his control. So, dropping back a couple feet to keep better watch on their rear, he kept following Barney, heading further way from the Lambda Lab.

They continued to make their way through the facility, occasionally chatting when Barney wasn’t busy protecting them by killing stuff. The one other person they ran into preferred to stay in the hiding spot they’d found and wait it out as opposed to joining them in their escape plans. Eventually they ended up swapping stories of how they’d ended up where they had before meeting, starting with Barney. A fascinating tale, especially the borderworld, Xen. If not for everything else that was a much bigger priority, Gordon would’ve pressed for more details on it.

When it came his time to share the temptation to leave out the fact that the Resonance Cascade was maybe at least a little bit his fault was strong. He didn’t give into it though, mostly due to coming with a lie sounding far more mentally exhausting.

“Obviously you’re misremembering something,” Barney interrupted, “‘cause it was the real Gordon in that test chamber. He told me ‘bout it.”

“I don’t know, man, maybe. I really feel like it was me though. Maybe he told you about a different test he was doing.” Lots of tests of various sorts were going on all the time around here. Two being scheduled for around the same time wasn’t a stretch even if two people, one of whom might be the clone of the other, doing them was.

“Or maybe you’re having some kind of weird clone memory thing.”

“Would a clone be wearing a real HEV suit though?”

“If they wanted the clone to think and believe it was the real one, yeah. They’re expensive and uncommon but Black Mesa’s makes them so if they needed one for a specific experiment, they could easily get one.”

Gordon didn’t exactly have a good argument against that. He could say he didn’t feel like a clone all he wanted, knowing for absolute certain when he knew clones were without a doubt a thing Black Mesa was capable of making, was something else entirely. The wrongness of the situation was unmistakable. Something was up and it wasn’t just the Resonance Cascade. … Or maybe it was. “Could the Resonance Cascade cloned me somehow and did some weird stuff with my memory? Or maybe I’m not a clone at all and it did something weird with your memory.” Gordon liked that idea better. Admittedly he was biased but it only messing with one person’s memory was more likely, right?

“Hmm…” Barney lifted a hand to rub his chin. “Maybe. I’m just a security guard. I got no clue how this science stuff works.”

Gordon knew more of course. It was unlikely but it would be folly to pretend he or anyone working with the samples and anti-mass spectrometer knew everything there was to know about any of it. That had been part of the point of the tests after all. They were still figuring stuff out. Maybe the Resonance Cascade could be responsible for whatever was wrong with Gordon and/or Barney’s memories of his Gordon.

Regardless, now in the middle of trying not to die when they both only had speculation was a bad time to put much effort into pursing an answer. After everything had blown over, Gordon would get to the bottom of it. For now though he’d just continue as he was. On the bright side, he wasn’t dying and was no longer stuck with the people who’d betrayed and left him to die alone. He didn’t need those assholes. Barney was his friend now.

Finding another break room and thus another pair of vending machines, prompted a much needed rest. They chatted a bit more as they ate but mostly were silent lest something come up on them. Other than the hand, things felt almost normal for once. Hostile aliens were still popping in occasionally and the military were roaming around with the intent to kill anyone they ran into but at least Gordon wasn’t saddled with a bunch of weirdos anymore.

He didn’t miss them at all, not one bit. Why would he? He was better off without them. They’d betrayed him and left him to die. … What were they doing without him though? Were they still traveling as a group without him? That thought hit like a gut punch.

What had he done to make them betray and abandon him like that? Was it because he was a clone? Or maybe it was his frustration with them. Yeah, maybe there’d been a few times he’d been a bit mean about it but they were acting weird and stupid in the middle of a disaster. He could be forgiven for being a bit frantic and impatient, right? And if they really didn’t want him around anymore, they could’ve just said so. It would’ve been awkward but that way only his feelings would’ve been hurt instead his feelings and his everything else, especially his hand.

He glanced over at Barney sitting in the table in the corner so they’d each be sitting facing one of the room’s two entrances lest anything come through. Having been abandoned once by people he’d thought, if not friends then at least allies in getting out of here alive, wasn’t much of a precedent. But there’d be even more reason to do so than before; Barney was convinced he was a clone and he was basically no help in combat. He was needed to try to fix the teleporter but if he failed… what use was he?

“Hey, uh, what’s your plan if the teleporter is busted and I can’t fix it? I mean like, a lot’s going on so it might not be viable to fix it quickly. And I’m missing a hand so I’m a bit limited on what I can do and stuff.” And he had no experience with such a device.

“I don’t know. Probably we’ll just keep going until we reach one of the car storage areas and then drive out. We might need to steal some keys or hot wire something but I’m sure we can be forgiven that.”

With the tram system being the primary means of transportation through the facility, cars were only used when people left and thus the parking lots for them were few and far between since they needed to connect to roads. It’d be a lot more walking through alien and military infested halls to reach one. Lots of opportunities for Gordon’s newfound helplessness in combat to cause problems for both of them. The HEV suit could help keep him alive for longer but it wasn’t perfect. If trying the teleporter escape method failed again then Barney would be better off by himself.

“We’re close the lab though so we’ll know soon. Speaking of which,” Barney stood and stretched, “let’s get headed that way once more, huh?”

Gordon stood and followed. Again, something happening once didn’t set a pattern or even really a precedent. Decent people didn’t abandon each other in disaster situations, they at least tried. And so far Barney seemed like a decent guy. Gordon’s old companions had just been evil assholes. So probably – hopefully – it would turn out fine.

“Ah, god damn it,” Barney said as he stood in the doorway. “This ain’t good.”

“What is it?” Just what Gordon needed, more things to go wrong. He was cursed apparently. Nothing could go right for him anymore.

Barney didn’t respond but instead edged in just enough to move out of the way of the door, allowing Gordon to enter too. Inside it became obvious rather quickly what was wrong. The machine in the middle of the room was sparking and flashing, arcs of electricity jumping from the emitter over top of it. Said emitter was obviously damaged, bent and scrapped like it had been hit with some force.

“The soldiers that tried to jump me right as I was going through must’ve probably tried to destroy it. Heck maybe they’re why it was jumping me around all over the place so much before finally dropping me off. You still think you might be able to fix it or do we abandon this and go straight for Plan C?”

No, Gordon almost assuredly couldn’t fix it. Being the smart scientist guy was his only real value towards getting them out alive though so… “Maybe.” He walked closer to it. Barney followed, a couple steps back. “It doesn’t hurt to…” He cut off with an undignified yelp as the machine made a particularly loud crack, flashing bright enough to make him flinch.

Nothing bad happened though. It was just a loud, uncomfortably close, zap of electricity from a damaged teleporting machine. Gordon had the HEV suit though so probably it was fine. … Even if it was now sparking even harder, lightening jumping from the bit up top to dance between the metal bits below.

“Uh, first, how I do it power it down? A plug, switch, an emergency off button or something.” Gordon took a step closer so he could try to look past it at what was probably the command console. Nothing obvious from this side but it was the back of the console so that was to be expected. Getting to the console would involved going around the machine. Knowing exactly what to shoot for in that case would be preferable.

“The power thingy for it is in the other room. I’ll just pop over real quick and…”

The machine cut him off with an almost thunder-like crack. Leaving the room seemed wise. Gordon took a half step backwards and… the machine exploded. A ball of light, starting from center of the broken containment field, expanded outward far faster than Gordon could do anything in response to it.

Clenching his eyes shut against the overwhelming brightness of it, he completed his step back… right off a cliff. He was falling! Shit, fuck… He landed on the ground, his legs giving out from under him, sending him reeling to the ground. He land on his back, knocking the breath out of his lungs. A short fall, he was completely fine.

Blinking open his eyes, above him was… sky? Weird sky if so. It extended up forever but it was shades of purple and deep blue. Like looking at the painting of a galaxy. Gorgeous as it was unknowable. A bit frightening too.

Was he dead? Heaven or perhaps hell or some other form of afterlife was somehow real and this was it? If so, the least the afterlife could do is not hurt, right? And why would he be struggling to catch his breath if he didn’t need to breathe anymore?

“Damn, we fucked up.” Barney’s voice came from behind Gordon. He titled his head back to see him straightening from presumably his own fall.

“What the fuck happened?” Beneath Gordon the ground felt almost soft. It had cushioned his fall. It should’ve been concrete… except if the sky was different the ground was too so actually that made sense. “Where are we?”

“I’m not sure why but uh… it opened a portal that sent us to Xen.” Barney walked over and looked down at him. “You okay?”

“Uh… I’m alive so sorta.” On one hand he got to see the cool alien dimension Barney had told him about. On the other though, this wasn’t a planned trip for fun or science but the result of a machine malfunction. So while he was physically mostly okay, this situation might not be.

He sat up and accepted Barney’s hand to help him stand the rest of the way up. Once back on his feet, he looked around. As Barney had described, the plant life here was ‘interesting’. What he’d failed to mention though was that a lot of it was bulbous and/or had a mushroom like vibe to it. Bioluminescence also seemed to be common. Yellow almost lantern like plants grow on the wall to their right. A little cave in that same wall was filled with long tendrils growing out of the ground and ceiling almost like stalactites and stalagmites, their tips glowing a slight blue.

A few feet to their left was the edge of the floating island. The next one over wasn’t far, it could probably be jumped to, though Gordon wouldn’t want to risk it, especially with the HEV suit. Walking over to the gap and looking down revealed more sky beneath, extending just as far down as it did upwards. There wasn’t even a proper horizon line, just endless sky dotted with floating islands. Looking out at it sent a wave of vertigo through Gordon.

He quickly stepped back. At first a little and then a lot. Who knows what would happen if he fell? Instead of thinking about that, he shifted his gaze to the one area of the sky that was different. The swirl of bright blue seemed to be this place’s primary light source. To the left of it was the silhouette of a tall tower. The distance to it was impossible to gauge due to its size and lack of anything else familiar to look at. But probably it was pretty far away. Clearly it had been built by someone though and had a red light, just visible within the claws at its peak.

Tearing his gaze from it, he looked back at Barney who wasn’t gaping at it. Which made some sense, this was his second time here. But his description hadn’t gotten anywhere close to doing it justice. How as he not still gaping at it? Especially since, “This is fine, right? You’ve been here before and got back no problem. We just gotta find the teleporter’s calibration equipment on this side and set it same as you did before.” It was just a slight detour in their escape. Or heck, it might even facilitate their escape the way it had for Dr. Rosenberg and his buddies.

“Yeah but after I set the thing, I had to return to where the portal dropped me and go through when Dr. Rosenberg reopened it. There’s no one there to reopen it this time. Who would even want to try with the way it was acting?”

“Oh.” That did made it a lot worse. It had just been the two of them in that room. No one else even knew they’d gone to it.

“Also, this isn’t even the same place I was sent to last time. So even if someone was there to open the portal for us, would it be here, the place I was sent to, or somewhere else entirely?”

And thus it wasn’t fine at all. Damn. “So… we’re stuck here with no way back to Earth?”

“Looks like it.” For the entire time they’d been traveling together, Barney had remained composed. Now he finally broke as he lifted a hand to press to his forehead. “I’m an idiot. I fucked up so bad.”

“Yeah, uh… you did kinda fuck pretty bad on this call.” But he was admitting it. That’s more than any of Gordon’s prior companions would’ve done. Which coupled with how strange this place was dampened the urge to get angry about it. For now anyway.

With a groan Barney snuck to the ground to put his head in his hands. “Sorry I got you into this mess.”

Gordon walked over and sat next to him. What else could he possibly do? Especially since it wasn’t entirely Barney’s fault. How could he have possibly known the machine would malfunction this bad? Especially during the short window of time they’d been in that room. Horrible luck. Not to mention if Gordon hadn’t said he might be able to fix it, they probably wouldn’t have gone there in the first place. Speaking of that horrible luck though… “Maybe the portal will open again? I mean if it fired off randomly once, maybe it’ll do it again and bring us back.”

Barney perked up. “Oh! You’re right. Of course you’re right. You’re Gordon’s clone so you’re super smart. Probably it’ll open it again. Heck it’s probably gone off several times ‘cause it’s just that busted and will keep doing it until the power’s drained or something else within it breaks. All we gotta do is wait and hope that wasn’t its last broken hurrah.”

He stood. Wow he recovered morale fast. “Quick, let’s go back to where we came in and wait for it open again.”

Gordon stood and followed him over that spot. There was still a dent in the dirt where he’d landed in it. Sitting for a bit wasn’t an unwelcome idea anyway.

With nothing else to do and distraction from their situation being so appealing, they talked. They were both chatty guys after all. Their only point of familiarity being their place of employment, they did what all people who’d worked for Black Mesa for long enough did; gossiped about what the other departments might be up to or had gotten up to in the past. A lot of it was rumors and hearsay, focusing on and exaggerating macabre details. All of it, as always, was to be taken with a grain of salt or two.

“Yo, that’s Bubby,” Gordon interrupted as Barney began a tale he’d heard about an experiment to grow the perfect scientist in a tube.

Barney’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“Yeah. He said was made in a tube and that’s why he spent his whole life in the facility.”

“From what I heard the project got canceled after the prototypes started crawling into the vents and dragging passersby into them to eat. I guess maybe it was one of those ‘it was officially canceled but not really’ deals. Supposedly some of the prototypes are still crawling around though so be careful if you ever find yourself in that part of the facility. … Assuming uh, we ever even get back there.”

“Yeah, assuming.” This place was still beautiful but the awe had long since worn off, leaving the fear of being trapped here forever itching at the back of his mind. The portal hadn’t reopened but it hadn’t been that long yet. It still could though and thus they just had to continue to wait. Best not to think about that too much. “Anyway uh… ever heard of an immortal dog project?”

“Hmm… can’t say I have. I heard they got some kind of immortal slime plant thing but that’s the closest thing I know of.”

“Apparently Tommy made one and named her Sunkist ‘cause he likes soda. I haven’t seen her so I guess he could be lying. He doesn’t seem to type to casually lie though so probably there’s an immortal dog named Sunkist somewhere in the facility.”

“Being immortal would actually be scary, wouldn’t it? I mean imagine you get trapped under a ton of rubble or something. You can’t escape or die. You’re just there forever.”

“Damn. That would suck. Hopefully she’s not in that kind of situation then. And… I guess I kinda hope Tommy’s okay too. And Dr. Coomer. Not Bubby or Benrey though. I’m still mad at them so fuck them.”

“I’d still be mad too. Heck man, I’m mad your behalf. Fuck them.”

Running out of things to talk about was forever the bane of those who used conversation to avoid other important thoughts. The tired silence was awkward and uncomfortable. But one of them eventually had to say what was becoming more and more obvious the longer they sat here, waiting. And it couldn’t be Gordon because it was Barney’s fault they’d gone to Dr. Rosenberg’s lab and thus were here right now. Bringing it up would also be bringing that up in a way.

Perhaps Gordon should be mad at Barney for this and he was a little annoyed. But the way Barney told it, he’d almost gotten out thanks to the machine once and the scientists he’d been with at the time had gotten out. It made sense he’d want to try again. Bad luck had caught up to him though and dragged Gordon in with it. Or maybe it was more like Gordon’s bad luck had infected him. Regardless, it hadn’t been an intentional betrayal. Barney hadn’t led him to a trap then left him to die.

Also so far the only things that had attacked them here were a few headcrabs. All easily dealt with, barely any kind of threat at all. They were safer here for the time being. Good in general but also it meant the dead weight of keeping Gordon alive too wasn’t as heavy. And as the only other human around, being left was less likely, right? Not that Gordon was worried about that. Being completely and utterly betrayed and abandoned once didn’t mean anything even if he was maybe a clone – and thus more expendable by default – missing his dominant hand – making him basically useless in a fight. But still that slight chance was less now; Barney was a sociable guy and thus wouldn’t want to be stuck here all alone.

And besides all that, the view was gorgeous and in general, their surroundings were interesting. There were worse places to be trapped by far – such as the facility they’d just gotten out of. But still, they were trapped here in an alien dimension with no way back. … No obvious way back anyway.

“Didn’t you say that Dr. Rosenberg said something about the machine in the lab we were in was out dated?” He’d mentioned it in passing but Gordon had been paying rather close attention to that part of Barney’s tale.

Barney shifted his gaze off the horizon to look at him. “Yep.”

“Out dated should mean there should be in date machines too, right?”

A couple beats of silence passed before Barney seemed to make the connection. “And people might be using them. They possibly might even provide a way back.”

“Yep so… maybe it’s time to starting looking.”

“Where though? This place is pretty big, far as I can tell.”

Gordon stood and stretched as he looked around. It was more a show of looking around really. He’d purposefully orientated himself to be facing the blue swirl and right next to it was… “The tower. It’s easy to see from afar, making it easy to follow and head towards. And it was clearly built by something, maybe Black Mesa. If not, they’d want to study whatever had made it so they’d probably want to set up near it, right?”

Barney joined him, looking towards it. “It looks pretty far away but… we’ve already been waiting for hours. So, I guess let’s go.”

“Uh… maybe first we should see if we can’t find something to eat and then sleep for a bit. I don’t know how long I’ve been awake but it’s been way too long for sure. Plus, it’s pretty safe here and it might not be somewhere else. And we could sleep under where we came in at. If the portal doesn’t reopen and bring us back by the time we wake up, it’s probably never going to.”

“Sounds like a plan. We can rock-paper-scissors for who gets to keep first watch. First though, let’s do look for something to eat, I’m starving.”

In hindsight, keeping watch was something Gordon should’ve done with his old companions. The idea hadn’t come up though, it was just luck nothing bad had happened. But regardless, this was another win for hanging with Barney.

[A/N] If you don't recognize my description of Xen, that's because it's inspired by the Xen from Black Mesa, making this a surprise 3 way crossover! That game exists to be pretty and make Xen good, making its version the best (because Alyx sadly doesn't go there in her game) so it's the one I like the most. I don't follow its through line though, just take inspiration from it in general.

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#hlvrai #half life #hlvrai gordon #barney calhoun

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