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A bright flash blinded him.
“Surprise!”
Gordon rubs his eyes.
A man slowly came into view, as Gordon’s eyes readjusted.
Walter, stoic and stiff, stands at the entrance to the room.
“Yes, well let’s keep this short” he affirms.
A rollicking start.
It’d only been 2 months since Gordon had joined the Black Mesa team, with not much direction and very little to use his PhD for, he felt as much as a guinea pig as the actual guinea pigs, doing menial tasks and getting little to no satisfaction out of it than his own slice of cheese.
He sits at one of the tables, cleared of scientific equipment to celebrate the birthday of a man who couldn’t care less for anything but procedure. The drink reflects his gloomy expression, he sinks further into his chair, chin firmly planted on the edge of it.
“Oh Walter, did you like the present I got you?”
‘By Schrödinger’s cat, nothing you could give that man is going to make him happy’
“Yes, Cathy. I was very pleased with it.”
Gordon sunk lower in his chair, even if it seemed physically impossible at that point.
He’d only known him for a couple of weeks now, he was promoted to Sector C for ‘effectively purging lazier employees’, so basically being told to put down the headsmans axe here instead. Not even Eli or Kleiner were here to save the day, the only reason he was invited was just to fill the room, and if that doesn’t say everything about the kind of man Walter is, what will. Muttered whisperings from the other corner of the room, thinking he was either passed out or had terrible hearing, his ears would’ve twitched like a dogs at the sharp sound of their disapproval. Was this a party at his parent’s house, or a colleague’s birthday party, he couldn’t tell, they seemed pretty damn similar in that moment.
“He should be more respectful of his superiors”.
“These young ones are more impolite than I thought”.
‘Ugh’.
A thought occurred to him, there wasn’t any security at this party, so they must be on duty, and he surely had his patrols changed recently, he was talking about it the other day.
Would he?
Would he come through?
Gordon started watching the windows, waiting for a sign of life out there. Despite all the people in the room, it couldn’t feel more dead and decrepit.
“Would you like another drink Gordon?”, he sprung up, as if rudely awoken, his eyes bleary, blinking rapidly, processing what they said, and nodded. Cathy nodded back, a smile on her face, but her face turned to disapproval when she thought he couldn’t see it. He has no idea why Cathy is so infatuated with Walter, maybe she gets just as turned on by loader he sees on the trams every morning, as she does by seeing that robot of a man. He feels eyes on him, like someone is watching, he looks around, and as if God himself had descended from the heavens with bottles of beer and the beard trimmings of a college student, Barney had seen him suffering through the window.
His wide-open mouth grin started happening, he began rapidly pointing towards himself through the glass.
Gordon’s smile was equally wide, he gestured as if he was yawning, and then falling asleep, silently snoozing.
The security behind the window rolled his eyes, started performing a ‘blah blah’ impression with his hand.
Gordon rolled his eyes in conjunction, pointed at himself, and then back to Barney.
Barney mouthed a ‘yeah’ and slightly shrugged his shoulders.
They grinned from ear to ear and gestured to each other with their hand raised to their face, pointed towards each other, fingers wiggling at each other for their own little invisible handshake.
“What are you two doing?”
‘Oh god’
Barney’s face mirrored the reaction, he turned to Walter, then to Gordon, then back to Walter, smiled and waved, before hurriedly pressing the doors panel, with Gordon rushing out the door as soon as it opened.
Quickly they ran down the hallway, they knew their regulations, but it was their break, Barney could shift a few things once he got back to his security cam post. They turned a corner, entering an unoccupied office, and immediately broke down into fits of laughter and giggles, Barney having to support himself against the wall, and Gordon slumping on it until he was on the floor. It took some time before they recovered their senses, Barney’s eyes were red from tears, and Gordon’s cheeks ached more than a stomach cramp, but man if they didn’t feel good.
“Oh my god, you’re a psychopath” Barney managed to cough out “you should’ve seen the way you ran out that room, you looked like you were running from the cops”.
Gordon’s smile went wide again, and he couldn't help but turn his face away.
“Oooooooh man” Barney joined his slumped friend on the floor, “I really hope Otis didn't see that, he’d never let me live it down.”
“You didn't steal Kleiner’s keys again, did you?”
They didn't even notice in the corner of the room, Eli sitting at a computer, clearly he’d been running some tests for the last few hours and needed some excitement. They stared at him wide-eyed, like schoolboys who were trying to hide their misdeeds.
Despite not being much older than they were, Eli had the kind of matured appearance and attitude, he knew exactly what they’d done, you’d think he’d be a hardball, but instead he simply chuckled,
“You kids, I’m sure it was a dull party to begin with.”