H λ L F - L I F E: Bishop's War✔️

CHλPTER 07: Route Bypass

"How'd you get this job?" Steven asked.

Eric gave the storage room he was investigating one last look-over and saw nothing but rusty shelves and old boxes. Same as the last two rooms he'd stopped to check out. Part of him wanted to hurry, but part of him was anxious about leaving a survivor or something useful behind. He felt like he was in uncharted territory right now. He had all sorts of training, and even disaster training with regards to Black Mesa, sure, but this...

This was not just a disaster.

This was a goddamned cataclysm.

"Friend of mine got me in," he said as he rejoined Steven in the maintenance tunnel. They'd found it after returning to the antechamber and finding an old door that Eric had to kick open because he didn't have time to go looking for the key.

"Oh...another guard?"

"Yeah. He was the guy in the office we found the keycard in. Martin."

"...I'm sorry," Steven murmured.

"Me too. We were in the Marines together."

He resumed his journey, moving down the passageway. It was lit by weak florescent bulbs overhead that buzzed annoyingly.

"You're a Marine?"

"I was a Marine," Eric replied a little more sharply than he meant to. That was still a sore spot. If anything, it felt more sore now that Martin was a corpse. His mind kept suddenly jerking back to it, throwing up that image of the man's death mask of a face, the way his flesh was blackened and missing in several places, a hole burned in his cheek, exposing his teeth, most of his hair melted away...Eric shuddered at the thought.

"What happened?" Steven asked softly after a few more moments.

"To what?"

"The Marines. And you."

Eric sighed but forced himself to relax. Steven was just anxious, and hey, hadn't he been asking for that all important human contact an hour ago? He made himself remember that this was better than being alone.

"I was dishonorably discharged. I...got into a fistfight with my Sergeant."

"Holy shit, seriously? Over what."

"It's...complicated. We should focus on the task at hand," Eric replied.

"Okay," Steven murmured.

He fell silent again and Eric felt at least a little bad. They reached a junction at the end of the maintenance tunnel and looked first left, then right, and then went right. There were more doors down the left corridor, but he couldn't stop and search every last room. They'd never get anywhere. He opened up another door and looked inside, then sighed at the fact that it was basically a carbon copy of the other rooms he'd investigated so far.

"God, what are these rooms even for!?" he snapped, lowering his shotgun as he realized that nothing was hiding in here. "I mean, what's even in these boxes? Nothing useful, obviously, because no one has been back here for a goddamned decade."

"There's a lot of places like this in Black Mesa," Steven said quietly.

"Don't get me started," Eric muttered. "I've been all over this sector when the workload is too big and there aren't enough of you techs to go around. They send me to make repairs."

"What's the worst one you ever had to deal with?"

Eric thought about it as they continued. "Had to make a repair once hanging off the side of a tram," he said finally.