The Buzz: Half-Life fan fiction special (part 2)

Half-Life – The College Years (click to read part one)

Chapter 7

Gordon didn't have time to wonder who this man was. Footsteps were splashing down the corridor, so he frantically looked for a place to hide. All of the nearby doors were locked, and if he tried to conceal himself under a cabinet he would be a sitting duck, so there was nothing else for it. Using a crowbar that was lying handily on the ground, he smashed the front off a ventilation duct and climbed in.

He didn't dare move until the hall wardens had gone, since the shaft would amplify his shuffling. He waited for the voices to fade. While he lay there, he wondered what had happened to the twins. Todd had probably frozen to the spot, wetting himself. And Barney had probably tried to save him, getting caught in the process. They would almost certainly be expelled.

Would they blame Gordon? He had spiked their dinners with Rohypnol when they refused to go drinking with him, after all. But they weren't to know that. As far as they were concerned, it was their own degeneracy that had led to the crisis.

Chapter 8

Gordon looked back along the shaft. The wardens had gone, so he squeezed himself through the surprisingly capacious system, looking for a way out. He hadn't gone far, however, before something started to trouble him. There was a noise, a scuttling, quite distant. He had taken it to be the echo of his own movement, but that wasn't it. He stopped and the scuttling noise continued. He held his breath, peered into the darkness.

Nothing.

Then a scrape, then a fast clatter.

Then, out of nowhere, a wet crack against his face, shooting pains up his cheeks, cloying and tenacious. He was too scared to scream.

A lobster was on his face.

Chapter 9

Eventually, Gordon reached the end of the shaft. He smashed the grate with his crow-bar and flopped out into the fresh air of the School gymnasium. It was dark and silent, but through the high window he could see the faded reflection of blue flashing lights. Things had escalated: the police were involved.

He took a quick look around. There was an exercise bike, a rowing machine, three treadmills, and behind them a large crash mat. At one end of that there was a aging wooden horse, and at the far end of the room there were two ropes hanging from the ceiling. Most importantly, there was a door.

Gordon tried the handle, but the door was locked. There was a fire door on the other side of the room, but a sign above it warned that it was alarmed, and in any case it led straight to where the police there waiting. He was trapped.

Chapter 10

"Is there somebody here?"
Gordon froze. He looked around, and the room was empty. Where could the voice be coming from?
"Gordon, is that you?"
"Todd?"
"Gordon?"
"Where are you?"
"Gordon, did you wet yourself?"
Gordon frowned in the dark. "No Todd."
After a pause, Todd said, "Me neither."
"Where are you?"
There was a shuffling noise inside the horse and then the cushioned lid lifted very slightly. "I hid in the horse," Todd said.
"Where's Barney?"
Todd started to sniffle. "He's a good brother," he said.
"Todd, where is he?"
"He tried to make me run, but I was too scared. Then he went outside and argued with the wardens. He said there was nobody else. They didn't believe him, and then he punched one of them."
"Shit," said Gordon, breaking into a smile. "Go Barney."
The lid of the horse closed again. "He's going to fail," said Todd, from inside. "And it's all because of me. He won't be a physicist. He'll have to work as a shelf stacker or a security guard, and it's all my fault!"

With that, he collapsed into a fit of hysterical sobs, so violent that the horse creaked on the gym floor.
"Yeah," said Gordon, absently, trying to work out how to incorporate Todd into a new escape plan. "Too bad."

Just then, a light bulb switched on in Gordon's head.

Chapter 11

"Okay," Gordon said, "I've got it."
"What?"
"How we're going to get out of here."
"Barney was always the smart one, you know."
"No kidding," Gordon said. "So here's what we're going to do: you want to save Barney, right?"
"Sure I do," said Todd, sulkily. The lid of the horse lifted so that Todd's whole face was showing.
"Then all you have to do is go through that fire exit," Gordon said, looking automatically up at the high window where the blue lights still flashed.

Todd followed his gaze. "Aren't there police out there?"
"Of course there are police out there," Gordon said, urgently. "That's the point! You don't want Barney to take the fall for this do you? The smart one? How would your parents feel? Two hundred grand on a double education and the two bit son gets through – do you think that's fair?"

Todd seemed to give it some thought. After a few seconds, he said, "Well, you could take the fall."
"I'm going to do you a favour," Gordon said, "and pretend I didn't hear that."

Chapter 12

Just then, at the far side of the room, a key scrambled in the lock. Somebody was coming. They had to hide. Gordon dismissed the idea of climbing into the horse with Todd. He had wet himself, and besides, there wasn't time. Instead, he ran for one of the ropes and started to heave himself up.

As his hands gripped the rough rope and his biceps tensed, he almost considered letting himself drop, going down with a fight, and letting life bear him kindly away from his arid, bewildering future of calculations and experiments into the safer seas of mindless violence.

It wasn't for him, though. Perhaps years of reluctant scholarship had made him soft, but he kept climbing.

He reached the top just in time to see the door swing open.

Chapter 13

It was as though the room itself were holding its breath. For almost a minute, nobody stepped through the door. Gordon's arms strained. His breathing grew heavier, and he struggled to control it. Then, movement. A man walked at a sauntering pace into the room, his footfalls echoing in the dark gymnasium. Gordon's eyes had adjusted to the dark: it was the same man he had seen earlier.

The man walked up to the horse and put his briefcase on top of it. Then he walked over to the rowing machine, gave it an appraising kick. "I don't like the rowing machine," he said, apparently to nobody.

He seemed to be waiting for a response. None came. "I don't like the bikes, either."

Gordon's arms burned. Sweat formed on his forehead.

"I like the running machine, though," the man went on. "I like all the machines, I like the free weights. I like running outside, especially in the summer." He sauntered back to the horse and picked up his briefcase. "I don't mind tumbling about on the crash mat, as long as my opponent is equal to it," he said, "and I'll even skip, from time to time, if there isn't the room for anything else."

Gordon was in agony.

"But what I really don't like, at all," the man went on, "more than anything else. What I really hate in fact, and what I'll soon have expelled from this gymnasium, are the ropes, and the horse."

There was a long silence. Then the man said, "The dean is away, gentlemen. He has asked me to check in. Now I can see why." He paused to brush something from his cuff. "Rest assured, tonight's incident with the trolley will not go unpunished. I have posted my recommendations to the dean, and you can confidently expect him to revoke your permission to graduate."

He walked towards the door, then waited beside it. The flashing lights stopped flashing, and then there was the sound of a car driving away. Gordon managed to look at his watch. It was 4.23. The wardens would be in bed. The man walked through the door, then drew it almost shut.

"Mr Freeman, Mr Calhoun," he said, "Your education has been a waste of time. You will live the life of violent criminals. Goodnight."

He closed the door.

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The Bee is an industry insider who has fed on the nectar of over three decades' worth of gaming. All opinions expressed are the author's own.