Physics of the Crowbar

Fault Lines

Black Mesa was a broken, dying beast above him but the waste reclamation system was still functional. The conveyor belts that fished floating debris and metals from the sewer system were greasy slick and the walls splattered with rust and organic matter. The atmosphere was heavy and feted and grew worse the deeper he went.

His eyes tracked movement and his body responded; inanimate machinery could crush him, but it wasn't going to shoot and its motions were limited and predictable. Metal slammed on metal, the sound torturous. His head rang with it. His ears ached. Blood pounded in his temples, reminding him with every heartbeat that he'd hit his head very hard sometime recently.

He twisted under a steel bar, designed to shove oversized debris into another chute, and gasped as the broken ribs shifted. Johnson's medical attention had made the journey through the reclamation system possible but still far from pleasant.

There would be a med box up above. The box would make him feel better. Endure the pain, get the carrot. Let the wet body want what it wants.

He rolled under a pulverizing piston and jumped for the next conveyor, this one rough with metallic fragments. The system was designed to be hostile to life; radiation, biohazards, incinerators, mechanical sorters and crushers, all crafted to reduce the laboratory's industrial waste to its most minuscule possible form. And here he was, a full-size human being, forcing his way through the system.

Jaws reached for him. He swung and caught the parasite mid-leap, its pincers wrapping around his forearm and its beak clenched on his wrist. It couldn't penetrate the heavy joint where glove met sleeve and he crushed its back against the wall. It left a wet streak as the conveyor dragged him forward.

Steel slammed on steel at the belt's end. The serrated edge ratcheted back and slammed again.

Just like the fan, he thought. Just like the fan. Count, breathe, leap. Human-like, he wanted to close his eyes against the oncoming pain, against the image of that serrated edge catching him in the belly and cutting him clean in two.

I am a physicist, he thought, clenching his teeth and working backwards against the belt's motion. Predict. Act. Like pendulum motion, knowable and controllable. He stilled his breathing, counted the seconds and fell.

Steel clashed above his head. He rolled down the last chute and saw the sickly glow of irradiated chemical waste below. A glimpse of safety yellow and -yes, ladder- he jumped, arms out and praying the broken ribs wouldn't cut him to pieces.

His gloves closed on steel rungs, the right size for human hands, the right spacing for human strength. And he nearly lost his grip as his mind registered the searing pain in his side. Something stabbed where it shouldn't, bone and muscle unaligned and at war. Breath wouldn't come. His vision went dark as he clung to the ladder. He hadn't come this far to be defeated by mere injury! No. Broken ribs were for people who fell from ladders and did foolish things on bicycles.

No. The body wanted what it wanted, but the mind was its master. The body wanted to fail. Wanted to crawl into a dark corner and wither away and die. But the mind had chosen survival.

Survival meant pain, more thin breath between his teeth, more dry-mouth panting as his hand closed around the next rung. He pushed up with his legs. Pulled with his good side. Worked his way upwards into the red glow of an emergency access hatch.

The red light was pleasantly dim, almost warm. He lay flat on the clean steel for five blessed minutes and let himself feel human.

Was Johnson still alive? He didn't know, and he didn't want to imagine him as a parasite or a military casualty. The bullet wound was the most superficial of his injuries but he felt the skin-level tug of medical tape holding the gauze in place, and remembered the man's touch on his back.