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B-U887 does not feel. It is a machine, one built to deal with nuclear radiation. It should not have thoughts or feelings. Only to follow its code and to do what it is told.
Bubby does feel. He is not a machine, he no longer deals with the radiation. He has thoughts and feelings, and he does not follow a code or listen to what he is told.
The issue? Bubby is B-U887.
He isn't supposed to feel anything, but he does. He gets angry, upset, he laughs.
The scientists at Black Mesa, the ones who created him — they very much don't like this development. B-U887 was the only surviving prototype, the only one who has lasted as long as he has. The other ones die within a few months, but not B-U887.
His one friend — the singular one in Black Mesa, says it's his fault that Bubby has lived as long as he has.
"Maybe if I visit the other ones, they would last a bit longer!" The man would laugh, eyes crinkling and ripe with smile lines. B-U887 rolls his eyes, and crosses his arms.
"As if I haven't been alive for the past seven years before I met you," he huffed, mocking annoyance. His friend couldn't help but laugh again, and he holds onto his stomach as he does so. A warm feeling fills B-U887's chest, and he pushes it down.
Bubby sits inside his tube, bubbles rising towards the top every time he shifts his weight around. The tube down his throat was uncomfortable, and he hated being unable to hear outside of the liquid they suspended him in.
He isn’t meant to, but he does. He hates everything about this. He hates the scientists that created him. The only light in his miserable life is the one and only Dr. Harold Coomer.
So, one day when Harold broke into the room in the middle of the night — Bubby didn’t go against it. He brought Bubby a lab coat and a weirdly tall pair of boots (claiming that they were his ex-wifes), and broke him out of the tube.
He was soaking wet and shivering, and quickly snatched the towel from Harold's hands and dried himself off to the best of his ability. He changed into his ‘disguise’ as a regular scientist, and the two set off.
Harold freed him, and Bubby would never be B-U887 again. Thankfully his name was something the two of them shared, and so when a new scientist named Bubby was hired, no one batted an eye.
Obviously, they didn’t go that right away. The whole wing was searching for B-U887 the following morning, and searched the whole area for any leads. They even searched Dr. Coomer’s dorm, knowing the man had grown fond of the experiment. Though they expected this, Bubby hid across Black Mesa in plain sight.
Then, a month later, Dr. Bubby arrived. No one suspected a thing — after all, everyone was a scientist here. One more generic face in the crowd wouldn't draw attention.
Now, as long as Bubby never exposed his shoulderblades, no one will ever know he was B-U887. And if anyone squints at his weird tendencies to set things on fire — well, not everyone in Black Mesa was a complete human anyways.
Take Dr. Coomer for example. With his extendo arms, power legs, and even the Black Mesa issued power lungs, he isn't anything like a regular human.
Which might be why the two work well together. Black Mesa has fucked them both up in completely different ways, and yet the two understand each other better than anyone else they know. They only had each other for years, living a peaceful life together (or, well, as peaceful of a life as one could get in Black Mesa).
That was until the Resonance Cascade, caused by the one and only Gordon Freeman. But that won't be for another couple years yet. And until then, Bubby was going to take the domestic life as long as he could.