Freeman Investigations, Chapter Four

I knew the second I woke up that I had seen something important in the dream, and needed to get it down onto something before I forgot all about it. I looked around for a piece of paper, and scribbled a hasty sketch of a person.

He looked sort of like a caricature of a generic authority figure - dark suit, wrinkled, graying hair, smiling widely. There was something off, though. Maybe the face was too tall or too squared, or the eyes too wide, or the pose too statuesque. That was the man’s defining characteristic - he was just inhuman enough to give you the willies. I had seen him before - years ago, or maybe it was yesterday. He was there at the Incident, he was behind this. He was important. I needed to have this on hand. I put it into my desk’s top drawer, and saw a huge pile of papers - all sketches, of the same man. I jumped out of my chair, scattering a couple dozen of the who-knows-how-many papers on the floor. Oh, God, what could this...

What could this...

This...

This mess needed to be cleaned up, I thought as I stared at the pile of old, scribbled-on stationary. Ugh, forget it. I was too tired to sort through stacks of papers with my mind like this - I hadn’t even had breakfast yet.

I went to the kitchen, and, over eggs on toast, plotted out my day. It was Thursday, May 15th. I had my appointment with my old boss today, in... just a few hours, as Barney’s note had revealed. I had some time, then, to sit down and work out a game plan for talking with Dr. Breen.

This is the sort of time when a man turns to his “What would Bond do?” bracelet. Breen, as I’ve said, is barely a white cat’s hairsbreadth from going all-out megalomaniacal, and though I haven’t had much occasion to learn, it would be a safe bet that he shared are the weaknesses along with the strengths.

I was really getting into the spirit of this - I didn’t have a map of the Mesa’s Administration offices, but I had a feeling I could easily sneak past Breen’s retinue through the air ducts - when you’re a couple hundred meters underground, you need all the ventilation you can get, and I knew from extensive experience that the facility’s vents could comfortably fit someone about my size and then some. It’s practically an extreme sport; the wind in your face, steering by service lights and a map in your head, half your senses stifled and the other half overwhelmed.

Ironically, it was as I was planning to break into Breen’s office when I heard a muffled noise from outside mine. I jumped, and listened closely - footsteps, light but audible. I got my crowbar down, and raised it as I flung open my door, to see...

Little Miss Vance. Who else?

I grabbed her by the shoulder, as she froze in fear. She gasped out an expletive, as I walked her into my office, locked the door, and indicated her to sit down. She did so, trembling slightly as she did. Calm as can be, I sat on the other side of the desk, I drummed my hand on the hardwood, and gave her one of my angrier looks.

Alyx was simply speechless - she buried her head in her arms and cried, softly. “D-don’t! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Dr. F-freeman...” I bit my lip - she was probably playing her anguish up for sympathy, but I was willing to give her, to some extent, the benefit of the doubt.

I walked over to her side, and took her wrist, looking at her hands. She had some of that runner tape stuff on her palms, but her fingers were raw and cut in several places. In response, Vance paused between anguished breaths to explain.

“Your window... I broke in... I’m sorry...” She trailed off. Your speech... fragmented sentences... faking it... trying for pity. I was willing, though, to show her some compassion. I gestured for Alyx to stay, and went out to my solitary full-sized window, which was indeed open, with chinks on the sill and the screen shoved aside. I also went to my closet, getting a first-aid kit that I had kept there - getting . I brought it back into the office, where she was messing with her jacket. She regarded the little green box warily, but held out her hands at my instruction after I took out some bandages and dabbed them in some bright green goo from a tub, then wrapped it around her fingers. As she stretched and wiggled them to get them comfortable, I sat back down and simply shook my head, looking down and sighing. Theatric, I know, but I was disappointed in her, and I didn’t feel like shouting.

Vance started squirming, grimacing as I stayed, moving my head back and forth rhythmically. After I judged she had had enough, I finally looked up, and bade her out. She scampered out of my apartment, taking care to close the door as quietly as she could.

I looked around - I was going to have to leave soon. I wouldn’t want to keep Dr. Breen waiting. I collected a few odds and ends from my desk, and went to get my coat. I almost slipped and fell on a solitary piece of paper on the floor - some trifle or other that had fallen from my desk. I stuffed it in my pocket - it was blighting the otherwise bare floor. Feng shui and all that, and though I suppose it is technically a bachelor apartment, I still try to keep up appearances.

I didn’t even bother going the official way, taking a maintenance stairwell from ground level down to the admin facilities. I walked down the hallways briskly, with my head down - this was a research center, meaning that almost everyone here had been working at Black Mesa for years on end - especially here, in the upper echelons. I had mostly stayed in the Anomalous Materials divisions when I worked here, but I had somewhere to be, and didn’t want to be recognized.

Time to get down to business. I wandered the corridor until I found a janitor’s closet. There was an emergency exit diagram on the door, which I had to look over a few times to get the way to Breen’s office down on my head. I carefully moved one shelf out of the way, exposing a dull, featureless panel. I tested it - it opened at a tug, seemingly on hinges. Interesting. I wet a finger and put it in the vent - the air was totally still. More so.

Everything seemed to be in order, though, so I stretched out, cracked my neck, turned on a pocket flashlight, and climbed in the vent.

I was surprised to find I didn’t need the torch - dirty red light flooded the long metallic tunnel, provided by tiny red bulbs protruding from little alcoves at regular intervals. My guess was that for some reason the vent system had been converted into maintenance ducts. It would certainly be smart, and practical - so something was obviously up.

The tunnels still followed the corridors in predictable patterns as the vents had, and the question wasn’t really high priority - as I squinted to check my watch, I saw that I had less than ten minutes before I was supposed to be showing up for Breen. I looked out from the vent openings into the hallway to track my progress. I was nearing Breen’s office, now - the floors that were the easiest landmark from directly above had changed from the normal checkered tile to more exclusive green carpeting.

A few turns later, I had to stop; the vent had twisted and turned to, seemingly, nowhere. I inched backwards to the last grate I had passed. The hall below was an empty hall, lined with doors. I had to awkwardly tilt my head to read the nameplate on the door:

DR. WALLACE BREEN, Ph. D
FACILITY ADMINISTRATOR

Paydirt - almost. Dropping from here would be completely pointless - I wanted to make a grand entrance. I turned over in the cramped tunnel as I reached for my flashlight again, and pointed it where the tunnel had abruptly stopped. I noticed a grate there that was obviously newer than the rest of the system, still shining silver in contrast to the dull gray surrounding it.

This was the kind of thing I had been planning for. I reached into my coat, and after a few false starts, managed to extricate my crowbar. I slid it around in front of me, and muscle memory from years of vent-crawling took over. I tapped the edges of the new grate with a finger, delicately searching for any imperfections. After I found none, I sighed, and  gave it a hearty whack with the crowbar.

Bad idea - I hadn’t done this in years, and the ringing in my ears made me quite dizzy. I heard a few echoing noises of confusion from below, and decided to move, wincing as I forced myself over the (quite sharp) grate.

The next vent opened, happily, right above Dr. Breen’s desk. I saw him standing with his back to me, in his open doorway. As I opened the vent cover, I heard him speaking, distraught, to some unseen someone. “I simply don’t know, but I’m all but certain it was...” He stopped - I had landed on the floor, with less coordination and more noise than I would have liked. I was rusty, no doubt about it.

I scrambled to my feet, as Breen turned to face me. He even looked the part of the evil CEO - silver hair, goatee, business casual. His veneer broke for a few moments. “What’s the meaning of this? Who are you - how did you get in here?”

I had been expecting this, I passed him a business card. I had gotten a few dozen made for a lark, after I got my investigator’s license - because what’s the point of having both “Ph.D” and “P.I.” after your name, if you don’t get to show it off? Breen read the card, and suddenly was all charm. “Ah, Dr. Freeman. Delighted to see you again. How long has it been?”

I shook his hand, then took out the now dog-eared experimental orders with a flourish. “What’s that?” Breen said, dismissively. “Oh, put it over there.” I went to his desk, and gestured to the curling papers, insistent. Breen was aggressively polite - “Make yourself comfortable, Doctor. Would you like something to drink - coffee? Tea? Anything?”

I indicated I wasn’t thirsty. “Oh, come now, Doctor. I insist - I’ll get you some water.” He went into a back room and came back a moment later with a glass, which he all but forced into my hands. I didn’t drink it - I wouldn’t peg Breen as the sort of person to slip a mickey on someone who hadn’t even said what he was here for yet, but it’s always good to have a healthy dose of paranoia around people this powerful.

Instead, as a sort of petty retaliation, I took a long draught from my flask while staring at him pointedly, then stood up and shoved the experimental orders at Breen. Making a little smirk, he read them. “Is this why you came to see me, Doctor? A routine mineral analysis, done by your old science team? If you’re looking for me to reinstate your employment, I’m afraid you’ll...”

I stopped him, and showed him the older order, tapping the prominent “INCIDENT.” Breen was about to say something, but I shushed him with a wave of my hands and pointed to his name on the letterhead of both orders, giving him a look.

“Ah. I see. You’re worried that this experiment will lead to a duplication of this... ‘incident’, as I see you call it?” I nodded pointedly. I was surprised how dismissive he was of this - he had to have known the damage that the Incident had wrought on...well, pretty much everyone and everything I had known about.

Breen was in full speech mode. “Doctor, things have changed at Black Mesa, since you left here. Shortly after you left, you see, I embarked on an extensive renovation initiative. Black Mesa is a safer, better maintained place, Dr. Freeman. We’re practically a different institution than the one you left over a decade ago. That... grievous accident you’re referring would never be possible in the current testing environment.”

Breen talked a good game, but I had seen enough of the facility after I left to know it was a lie - and, like all good lies, it was wrapped around truth. After the damage Black Mesa incurred in the Incident, Breen had taken the opportunity to get lots of cutting-edge testing equipment and a few brand spanking new luxuries as well. The problem was that he didn’t know the first thing about theoretical physics. From what I remembered from around the time of the incident, the fault lay not in the equipment but in the actual sample - what happened was a theorized phenomenon called a Resonance Cascade, that occurred when the specially-constructed resonator we had attached to the anti-mass spectrometer... well, I actually don’t remember. Sorry, folks, but I haven’t needed to use all the jargon for about a decade, and like the saying goes, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.

Come to think of it, I it was a safe bet that it wasn’t a lie - Breen had no idea what he was talking about. I thought this made him less dangerous, until he spoke again, sounding grave.

“Doctor, I would be lying if I said I didn’t share some of your...apprehension about this. To be frank, I’m not sure I would approve this experiment, given the choice. But this order comes verbatim from the Defense Department, as did the previous one, and I have no real power to stop either. I have to sign off on everything, but I have no real prerogative - you don’t understand the politics of this, Doctor!”

And that was when I realized it. He had no conception whatsoever of this - he couldn’t have been behind it. He knew about everything that went on in Black Mesa, but he wasn’t paying attention to it - he was only trying to advance his power in more conventional ways, instead of death rays or sonic superweapons.

Speaking of, I had noticed a steady, heavy breathing behind me. Trying to do it casually, I turned to the side, and noticed a face darting out of the frosted glass of Dr. Breen’s door. I motioned for Breen to excuse me, and in one fluid motion jumped from the chair and opened the door. There was Dr. Judith Mossman, sitting at a secretary’s desk and avoiding my gaze. Wordlessly, I took her by the wrist and dragged her back into Breen’s office,

Breen was more amused than anything else. “Well spotted, Doctor. You’ve met Judith, I trust? She did so care for your safety - and I’m glad you took her suggestion to heart, hmm?” Translation: Wow, you actually fell for that? You’re stupider than I thought. To add insult to injury, he thought I had been outsmarted by his lackey.

I didn’t like that idea - but I was trying to ignore that - the vague, half-formed plans for investigations I had planned out mostly consisted on trying to dig up dirt on Breen. He didn’t seem to be behind any of this. I had been sloppy. As much as I might delude myself, I wasn’t Sam Spade looking for the Falcon.

I needed to go home and have a real think about this - I had a feeling that if I put all the pieces I had together like a professional, it would put me in the home stretch. I stumbled through the rest of my conversation with Breen, walked my way out of Black Mesa lost in thought, and got on the bus back to my apartment. Wincing in the early-afternoon sunlight, it took me a while to notice that the person sitting next to me was...

Little Miss Vance. Who else?