Physics of the Crowbar

Command Center

The tram switch wouldn't flip. The control panel was dead, less messily so than the security guard; all of it was in place, just not functional.

Freeman slammed his right palm onto the heavy plexiglass window, then clenched it in a fit of self-consciousness at his own temper. One did not physically express temper around delicate instruments, expensive metamaterials and impressionable interns.

He crawled under the console. All wires in place, just not receiving power. Alright, so the system's backup generator had cut out. Simple enough. Now he just had to find it. Or find a way around it. And the beast was still out there.

Outside the tram station office, the collapsed floor lead into a more utilitarian area. He climbed down and cleared it of parasites with the crowbar. He was sliding the third one off the crowbar's forked end when the ceiling fell.

Chunks of cement and conduit rained down as the building groaned around him. He crouched again the wall, arms wrapped over his head, and waited for the tremors to end. Black Mesa was built into stable bedrock, not near any known faults. Fault lines had just as poor an effect on delicate instruments as bad tempers. Had the resonance cascade awoken something in the surrounding mountain?

That'd be the cherry on top of the day, he thought. A volcanic eruption or major quake would neatly solve everyone's problems.

He stumbled through the rubble, brushing sharp bits of rock out of his hair, and was glad to see a med box. His left arm was functional but throbbing; the med box's more powerful cocktail calmed the pain and the uneasiness in his stomach. He wasn't sure if it was actually helping his reaction to the serum or if he was developing a Pavlovian calming response in anticipation of the drugged payload.

The maintenance corridor took him to a central access shaft. It'd had an elevator in it once, but now the lower levels were a swamp of fluids and chemical waste. Maintenance areas went useful places, he thought. The generator would need regular servicing. If he followed the path a mechanic would have followed, he should end up somewhere sensible.

Something stung his ear and kicked cement shards back into his face. He dropped to the steel lattice platform and scrambled back into an alcove backed by a HVAC panel. He tried it with the crowbar but it wouldn't give. Bullets traced a pitted line behind him, demarking the narrow safe-zone the shooter couldn't reach.

Just to be thorough, Freeman stuck his hand over the line and signed "don't shoot."

The shooter shot at his hand and missed.

One man or two? Two. Military always came in pairs. Semiautomatics, inaccurate but rapid-firing. Good for keeping a man pinned in cover. Location? Most likely straight across the shaft and one level up, from the impact angle of the bullets. They could move right overhead but it wasn't likely; that would sacrifice the clear shot they'd have of him from the opposite side. Matching the angle of the shots would be easy. Matching that angle from the place where the shots had struck the floor required a little more fortitude.

He lay on his stomach on the floor, revolver in hand, just outside their angle of visibility. Then he rolled onto his back, spine aligned with the track of bullet divots, and fired twice.

They were where he thought they were. And they were no longer shooting at him.

He went up the ladder and into the next landing. He shot before he recognized what he was shooting at; the whir of a drone gun, he realized, as he watched the tripod spark and fall.

Tables. Maps. Ammunition crates. A very large, powerful radio transmitter. Medical supplies, rosters- someone came around the corner. His subconscious registered white coat first and then gun, and for a split second he thought he wasn't the only scientist fighting back, but no- the soldier's bullet clipped his shoulder. He shot a moment later and the man crumpled.