Black Bloom 2

by Bronycommander

Chapter 5 Black Mesa East

Chapter 5: Black Mesa East

“No problem.” Jacob grabbed the site of the boat, standing on it like a surfer.
On the way, they talked about the years and how Gordon landed here. A beautiful sunset ruled the sky.

“A base disguised as a generator station. Brilliant.” Jacob commented. They entered the entrance. The large blast doors slowly slammed behind them. Lights flashed on. Two cameras popped out of the wall above a slit-shaped window in the wall and beeped at their presence.

We’ve got something,” a female voice buzzed on the intercom. “Ok. It-it’s human. Actually, I am seeing three contacts.” The voice seemed unsure. “Hello? Take it easy in there, you’re safe now.” The steel plate covering the window slid open, revealing a woman and the control man. “Look, you’ll have to forgive the scanning process- we can’t take any chances.

Dr. Freeman? Gordon Freeman? Is this you? You’ve made it this quickly? Well, Eli is going to be amazed, not to mention relieved.” A red laser slowly proceeded up and down. Apple Bloom became uneasy. Mossman noticed her. “You’re Apple Bloom and Jacob right? Barney told us about you.

Gordon, I’m Dr. Mossman. Dr. Judith Mossman. I’ve been hearing about you since long before the Black Mesa incident. Ah, Black Mesa I do so envy, you working with Eli and Dr. Kleiner when they were at the top of their field. There we go. You can come through now.” The scanners stopped, and the blast doors creaked, and slid open.

Mossman steeped out. “I’ll take you three down to Eli right away. He would never forgive me if I kept you waiting.” Mossman chuckled, leading Gordon Jacob and Apple Bloom down the corridor of the base. She stopped to enter a passcode on another blast door. “We can certainly use the extra help around here. We’ve covered a lot of ground in the last few months, but things would go much faster if we had more people with your training.” She chuckled.

“What about us?” Jacob asked.

“We could use another spy in Civil Protection like Barney already is. Apple Bloom can stay here. We will contact Barney so he can inform your wife that you two are safe. Now where was I?” She thought.

“Oh yes. We're closing in on a reliable local teleport technology, something the Combine still hasn’t mastered. Eli thinks their models are string-based, similar to our Calabi-Yau model, but they failed to factor in dark energy equations. They can tunnel through from their universe, but once they're here they're dependent on local transportation. If they knew what we were doing with entanglement-” She walked into the elevator and chuckled. “Oh, listen to me, I sound like a post-doc. I’m just so excited we’ll finally have the chance to work together. Where was I?”

“Somewhere what only scientists can understand?” Jacob joked.

Mossman ignored his comment. “Doctor Kleiner compressed the Xen Relay far beyond anything he imagined at Black Mesa. We've figured out how to use Xen as an unexpressed axis, effectively a dimensional slingshot, so we can swing around the border world and come back local space without having to pass through. Oh, there’s Eli now!” The elevator dinged and came to a stop at the laboratory floor.

“All right, good, you keep right on it,” Eli said to a Vortigaunt.

“Eli. Look who I found in the airlock.”

“Gordon Freeman! Let me get a look at you man! My god you haven’t changed one iota! How do you do it? Now let’s see, the last time I saw you, I sent you up for help after the resonance cascade. Heh, I never thought it would take you this long for you to get back to me!” Eli chuckled. “Welcome to the lab anyway. It’s not Black Mesa, but it served us well enough.”

“It’s going to be a lot more like Black Mesa with Gordon here to help.” Mossman smiled.

“Right you are. M.I.T Graduates are far and few between these days. We’ll get you out of that Hazard Suit and back into your lab coat, where you belong.”

“Let me just finish up some work, I’ll see what I can dig up.” Mossman walked to the elevator and turned, “Doctor Freeman, It’s been a real honor. I’m looking forward to working together.”

“Gordon, I didn’t know that you would bring company. How are you, little one?” He smiled at Apple Bloom.

“Ah’m Apple Bloom, nice to meet you sir.” She held out her hoof.

“Eli is just fine. Barney told us already about you. I promise we will find a way to bring you home to your family.” He looked at Jacob.
“Jacob, you’re still looking good for your age. How’s your wife?”

“Good”.

“You took care of her?”

“Yes like a father. I am already like a father for her, right?” he smiled at her.

“Yes, sir!” she saluted happy.

“Why did you join Civil Protection?”

“Was the closest job to a security guard I could find. And my wife was feed and safe from trouble. But I am not like the other officers.”

“Well, feel free to look around.” Apple Bloom took notice of a strange head-shaped object held in a container.

“We’re still not sure what that does. Alyx brings in the strangest things,” Eli explained. Jacob saw a picture of a family in the corner of the room; he walked up and examined it. “You remember my wife Azian, don’t you? That picture and Alyx were all I managed to carry out of Black Mesa,” he said sorrowfully. “But at least, your wife and Apple Bloom made it out of there alive.”

“If Gordon and a marine named Konrad had not helped us, nobody had survived.”

Gordon read some newspapers on the wall. “Dr. Breen…” Eli said with hate. “He’s the Administrator of this whole vile business now. He ended the Seven Hours War by managing Earth’s surrender. The Combine rewarded him with power.”

At first, Gordon couldn’t believe what Apple Bloom told him, but this confirmed it.

The sliding doors on the far side of the room slid open. Alyx stepped in the room and instantly locked eyes with Gordon. “Ah, Gordon! The vortigaunts said you were here! I can’t believe you made it so quickly on foot.”

“I believe he broke your record honey.” Eli chuckled.

“Well, he earned it. Agh! What does a CP here?!” She pointed her custom made gun at Jacob.

“Whoa, Alyx! Let’s calm down, that’s Jacob a former Black Mesa security guard. He’s a CP but a friend.” Alyx calmed down as she spotted Apple Bloom.

“You’re much cuter than Barney described!” She scooped the filly in her arms for a tight hug.

Apple Bloom blushed. “Thank you for the compliment Alyx. Mah name is Apple Bloom.”

Alyx sat her down and rubbed her mane. “I hope you enjoy your stay. And you too Jacob.” She holstered her gun.

“We will.”

“Alyx,” Mossman said, walking out from her office, “I thought you were on watch.”

“The vortigaunts relieved me so I could come see Gordon. Anyway I should be in here working on the portal.” Alyx replied, annoyed.

“I have the repairs well in hand. Someone misjudged the capacity of the combine thyristor.”

Are you blaming me?”

“No, not at all! It was a calculation error, not a mechanical problem.”

“Then maybe you should let me do the calculations next time, as well as the installing.”

“Alyx, really. Sometimes I think you deliberately misunderstand me.”

Apple Bloom giggled. That reminded her when Applejack was complaining about Big Mac’s fancy mathematics.

“Ahem. Alyx, why don’t you take Gordon and his friends to check out the gravity gun.” Eli smiled warmly at Apple Bloom.

“Sure… Come on, Gordon, let’s go have some fun.”

“The zero point field energy manipulator is not a toy, Alyx!” Mossman scolded.

“Let’s get out of here.”
Alyx opened up a door with keypad and leaded down a hallway.

“So I see you’ve met Dr. Mossman, she is one of the main reasons I spend so much time outside. You should hear her drone on about how it should have been her in the Black Mesa test chamber that day. I’m sorry; I shouldn’t be talking behind her back. It just gets a bit claustrophobic down here.”

She pointed to a long, narrow hallway. The lights flickered and a rusty gate blocked the way.

“That’s the old passage to Ravenholm. We don’t go there anymore.”

“What happened there?” Apple Bloom was curious. Jacob knew what happened there.

“We used to be able to go right up there to Ravenholm. It was an old mining town inhabited by some escapees from City 17. Believe me; Apple Bloom, that tunnel is sealed for a reason. Come on.” She had a hint of fear in her voice.

Apple Bloom had also little bit fear after Alyx said this.

She showed them through another airlock into an area outside. Tires, boxes, and rusted barrels littered the area. The dust was freshly settled on the ground, but lifted into the air as they walked. It was night.

“So here we are the scrapyard. This is the gravity gun my father was talking about. You can call it the ‘Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator’ if you really want to.”

She opened up a glass case and handed the device to Gordon. The grip was metallic but the front glowed orange. It was heavy for Alyx, but the suit made it easy for Gordon to carry it. “It’s designed for handling hazardous materials, but we mainly use it for heavy lifting. Give it a try. The primary trigger emits a charge; you can punt stuff and send it flying. I found it handy for clearing minefields. The secondary trigger lets you grab things; you can send them flying with the primary. Once you have picked something up, you can drop it gently by pressing your secondary trigger again. Pick up some stuff and toss it.”

Gordon tried it out. He, Jacob and Apple Bloom were fascinated.

“You can also pull stuff over from a distance. Try grabbing those barrels from that ledge up there.” Gordon grabbed the barrels to get up to the ledge. He found an old HEV-Charger.

“All right.” Alyx jumped up onto a platform. “See if you can stack some stuff to climb up here. “ Gordon stacked some boxes to get up. Jacob followed and helped Apple Bloom up. “All right.”

Alyx led them to a large, open area. The ceiling exposed to the blank, gray sky. There was a sign. “Beware of Dog.”

“Now let me call Dog. He loves to play fetch.”

“Ah also have a dog, called Winona.”

Alyx smiled. “Now my dog isn’t a normal dog. Dog, come!”

A large robot came out tumbling of a shack on the opposite side of the junkyard.

Alyx patted him. “Good doggie. This is Dog. My Dad built him to protect me when I was a kid. First model way about yay-high,” she said, holding out a hand just above waist height. “I’ve been adding to him ever since. Haven’t I, boy? Ok Dog let’s play catch with Gordon. You’ll need to use the gravity gun.”

Before Dog played with Gordon, he hugged Apple Bloom tightly. “Ah like you too, Dog.” Jacob chuckled. Dog looked suspiciously at Jacob. "He's a friend, Dog." Dog obeyed Alyx.

“Go ahead, Dog, throw!” Alyx watched with Jacob and Apple Bloom how Gordon and Dog played. Gordon caught every box Dog threw at him. “Dog, go get your ball.”

Dog removed a rock from a round crate. Alyx laughed as it started to move.

Under it was a disarmed roller mine. It rolled harmlessly into Apple Bloom, then into Gordon. He threw it a few times to Dog. “Okay Gordon, let’s try something else. Dog, throw something else.”

Dog checked the dumpster and grabbed it. “No, Dog! No! No, boy! Put that down!”

Dog drooped it to look alarmingly to the sky.

“What is it, Dog?” The ground shook by an explosion. “Oh my god! What was that?” Headcrab shells smashed into the ground and City scanners could be seen.

“Scanners! The Combine’s sweeping the area! We’ve gotta head back to the lab. Come on!”

They ran out and back into the airlock. Alyx ran to the terminal to call Eli.

“Dad, it’s Alyx, do you read?”

“Alyx, honey…”

“What’s going on in there?”

“Where are you, Alyx?”

“We’re in the scrapyard airlock stuck in a full autocycle.”

“Is Gordon still with you?”

“He’s right here.”

“Good. I want you four to…” The power shut off for a moment, before red emergency lights kicked on.

“Dad?” The screen turned on again.

“Take Gordon out of there! Head for the coast! Do not go through Rav---“ The monitor cut off.

“Dad? Dad! Damn it! Dog, open the airlock. Get us out of here. Hurry! Now!” Dog began pulling the doors apart. “Tear it apart if you have to! Just get it open! That's enough, Dog.” They kneeled down and crawled through the opening.

An Alarm sounded while they were running. The ceiling caved in between them and Alyx, blocking the way out. She peeked through the only crack in the rubble.

“You need to get out of here. I can’t leave my father. Dog, take them to the Ravenholm tunnel, then circle around and try to meet up with me. Hurry!”

Apple Bloom gulped as they entered the tunnel. “Daddy, Ah'm scared.”

Jacob checked his weapons. “Don’t worry, we protect you. Gordon, I think this is the perfect opportunity to test the gun in combat. I still have plenty of ammo for my MP7 and my USP Match, but ammo should be rare in this Ghost Town.”

Gordon nodded before saying, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Author's Note:

Looks like they have to go through Ravenholm or should I say Sunny Town? What will they encounter? You will see.