Repurposed 10.3

Interval 10.3
November 10, 2007
1300, Fairport, AL
Enrichment Center / Conference Room 401




With the discussion from the debriefing fresh on everyone's minds, but the lessons learned already taking hold, Paxton didn't yell at anyone about where Mossman might have gotten off to. After all, she was the only Adult they really had in the place. Everyone's assumption mirrored his own: she was supposed to be the responsible party and be able to take care of herself.

She hadn't been very vocal about anything that the students did, at least not after Paxton got the bulk of his Replicas into the building for patrols and protection duties. That weight – the protective motherly type of weight that apparently settled on women her age (as seen through the eyes of ten year olds) – had largely been lifted by the steady tromping of armored men as they gave brief reports through the long halls.

And she had started showing the stresses of being the only properly born-and-raised adult. While the Vortigaunts could council her on some things, they weren't Human and she still wasn't sure whether to completely trust them. Her behavior toward the Replicas, however, was curious in the sense of the word that she was obviously willing to ignore the fact that they had no personalities of their own. Whether Paxton's mind was in one or not, he noted her chatting with them – or at them – quite frequently. Even the ELLs thought that was weird. She was desperate for any kind of interaction, the kind that children – even such special ones – could never provide for any adult.

Mossman had been very, very interested in getting to Black Mesa. Since they had opened up the communication satellite earlier in the year, it was obvious that she had skills they needed over there: her specific education after all had never really been geared toward teaching elementary school. Sometimes too eager to beg out of watching the kids plan, to return to her vigil at the communication room, Judith seemed to be warring with herself most of the time. Quietly, internally, a tide broke down solid stone: abandon children who had occasionally looked up to her and done some of the most amazing things she'd ever seen, or seek refuge with people who needed and understood her?

Had she just vanished now? The Vorts had already searched for her in her dorm, in the classrooms, communication center, access halls, and many other locations she was known to frequent. The one relayed this information to Paxton, who came from the conference room followed shortly by a few of the nearer kids. It seemed to them that even Paxton was at a loss now. It would have been more useful to them if Mossman had any kind of psychic energy about her, which she did not.

They saw each other as a variety of bright spots against the darkness of the Vortessence. Most had adopted the Vortigaunt words for it: there weren't any in English that came even close. Searching for one of their own minds was easy, even lesser powers caused some kind of glow. Looking for a normal one… not so much. It was like seeking a spot of indigo against black.

"Maybe she fell," Tina suggested, but the Vort who had come to inform them of this event swayed back and forth, their way of saying 'no' with body language.

"If the Mossman had met an untimely demise," he said, "we would clearly see her impact upon the Vortessence. Such a thing was not discovered." Amos was the Vort's English name, he closed his three smaller eyes, lidding his larger fourth, "even your own very gifted Vortal seers have not detected her passing, the TeddieKim or the Lynne would have become … agitated."

"That's an understatement," Paxton muttered, "keep looking out for her then, if you would, we've… still got to keep going with what we're working on. I don't want to spare a search party yet."

"It is with wisdom," Amos said, folding his central hand in respect, "that the young leader speaks. The success of yonder raiding party has surely stung deeply into the enemy's mechanical heart, and she-who-is-broken," their term, one of many, for GLADOS, "will not likely abide further trespass into her convoluted corridors without aggression in response."

Amos's grumbling, alien voice trailed off, and he ignored or perhaps could not interpret the open-mouthed stares on most of the children he addressed. Even Paxton stood there for a moment, digesting it. His brother abruptly slapped him on the back of the head, causing everyone else to jump away.

"Give them smaller words so we can all understand them, Geoff said; no, no, they should know the language as it was 'meant' to be heard," Geoff parodied his brother's words, "you idiot."

"GLADOS will be pissed," Paxton sheepishly translated, rubbing the back of his head. "Thanks for the concussion, brother."

The others gave off guffaws or merely chuckles, as they split up from the meeting room. Some went to rest, shower, collapse. Others found their way to the kitchen. Geoff went to see if Martin and Alyx needed anything. Paxton swaggered off to locate Sandy – he really did have a concussion after all. Melissa remained behind in the conference room. Isabella hadn't risen either.

Finally, unable to bear the silence as the group split up through corridors and away from the room, Melissa went back to stand where she'd been before, beside Geoff's chair, opposite the dimmer corner where Isabella still remained. "What is with you?" Melissa demanded, "you've never been like this, Bella."

Though Cricket was possibly Melissa's best friend, Isabella and the honey-haired girl had always shared a great amount of their lives. They were proud of each other, they competed with each other, they occasionally almost treated one another in the way that Geoff and Paxton did: as siblings, rather than merely friends. It was no surprise that Geoff had fallen for her, Isabella was growing up faster than the younger girls: she'd always be a petite, slender woman, but a woman was what she'd started to become. Isabella remained silent for a moment longer, and then looked away.

Distantly, she said, "did you know what I was trained for, Mel?" Melissa furrowed her eyebrows and shook her head. Though they'd been close, sharing what the Keepers did with them was very rarely something any of the Paragon students did. It was as close to taboo as they had. Moreover, not everyone even knew what their specialized training sessions were eventually going to produce. For some it was obvious, they embraced their work as Paxton did. But for others, whatever they learned they kept to themselves, and however it was rewarded or alternately punished for mistakes, even more private. For most, private was the least of it, they didn't even remember. For a very few, the brainwashing and memory erasure didn't take as well – if at all.

"I was being groomed as an assassin, a spy. For Armacham. My dossier says 'infiltration specialist', but it really means a spy."

"But what does—" Melissa started, but Bella raised her head and glared back. Her dark eyes were hard, her beautiful lips were in a sneer.

"I am so useless in this place," she spat. "All that stuff Geoff and Pax said about their training to be warriors? Well I do have an idea of what it means. How you're supposed to act, how you know things without being told. Then you get … Stuck, caged into a role and you can't break out of it no matter how much you try. I'm… I'm wasting my potential, wasting all that training and work, I went out there," she threw her arm back, toward the east wall, "so I could feel like I'm not so completely useless to everyone, to myself."

"You aren't useless," Melissa said, but she already felt that her words were going to be wasted. "We do need you."

"Needing me and needing what I am supposed to do," Isabella said, low, "are very different, Mel. You know that… Or you will know that." Her eyes flickered down, looked back up, "probably soon enough."

The younger girl wasn't sure what to say about that, or even think. Isabella softened her gaze, fine lines of black eyebrows furrowing behind her still-clean glasses.

"I… I don't envy you, Melissa," Isabella said. She stood up, still so much more graceful than any acrobat or dancer. "I've read your dossier. And even if you don't know, yet, what you're for, here, you will." Her mind was closed, whatever she knew, Melissa wouldn't pry for. "But … as for me, I …" Finally she looked down, and Melissa saw the drops of tears leaving her face and splashing onto the table. "I don't belong here. I … can't stay here."

"But we don't even know if it's-" Melissa said and was once more interrupted by the sharp tone of her friend's words.

"I do know," Isabella hissed, "because I've been outside. You think I haven't seen the light coming in from that water main break? Really? That I wouldn't want to fly out there and see what it's like? We've been in here more than a year without even trying to dig through it."

Melissa wanted to be angry, to think that she'd been betrayed – but couldn't bring herself to blame her friend: she was a bird, and birds apparently needed to fly to feel alive.

"You… have been trapped here and you've been okay with that, this is your hive after all." Isabella continued, her words confusing Melissa a bit, "but I… It's not okay out there," she said, a little more conversationally. "It's a mess. And Armacham… they've got the place locked down even with our comm room running." She glanced away, "I took a terrible chance then too, going outside. Paxton would have yelled at me just like today if he knew."

"What about Geoff?" Melissa asked, "did he know?"

"Of course he knew," Isabella said, drawing in a sniffled breath and wiping her hands over her wet face. "And he told me to stay, we talked about it. I couldn't have brought you all out there – we would have been gunned down."

"Does everyone want us dead?" Melissa groaned, and Bella's expression told her what she already knew. "Seriously? But Bella what… what would you do?"

"I don't know yet," she said simply. "But I promise I won't leave until all this is done. After all, I'm one of the big guns."

The pair carefully approached each other, and though Bella was nearly fifteen and Melissa hardly past eleven, Melissa was still much taller. They embraced, it wasn't a cold, distant hug – but it was drizzled with tears and broken by gentle sobbing from both of them. "I won't say anything," Melissa said. "But you should. It'd be best if Paxton knew. Maybe not until this is over."

"He's got plenty to worry about already, and…" Isabella tossed a half-smile over her shoulder as she floated out of the room, "I'm supposed to rest up for the big event."

Melissa was left in the room alone, wondering what Bella had seen in her dossier. She was pretty sure that it had been what one or more of the scientists had been taking notes in, over the years, as they watched her work. Melissa had always been close to the genetic engineers that had created them all, and knew that working with them on isolating and identifying Origin-worthy genes was part of her training. She hadn't needed the intense subliminal sessions that Pax and Geoff … and apparently Bella and everyone else did, though she did have them… She knew her own regeneration rendered much of the memory erasure drugs useless, but try as she might, she couldn't recall what those subliminally induced skills were supposed to be about. What else was there to it? Should she worry? And should she go looking for this dossier? Right at the moment, no – she decided it was time to take a nice long shower, and wait for the word on the Cores.


**


Geoff's appearance at the secure-room's door was welcomed by Alyx, who immediately grinned and bounced up and down. "We're working!"

"I can see that," Geoff said, hesitant to do anything more than smile at her. He wanted to tussle her hair or give her a hug – she was always so energetically friendly. But twice in the last hour he'd managed to injure his own brother, and he knew his own pent-up anger about Bella's injuries were still stewing in the back of his mind. He couldn't risk hurting Alyx, he'd never in his life be able to apologize enough to her father for it. Geoff entered their domain: it smelled clean, of new plastics and faint electrical discharge.

The room had been used for very similar tasks in years prior: on long, grounded benches and worktables, sat endless miles of wiring and circuit boards. The room was tall, with long dangling light fixtures, some of which had been broken and hung at jaunty angles – still with their lights working, or more probably been repaired by Alyx in the meantime. It wasn't easy to see the floor, metal parts, plastic screws and fiber optic lines which had been scattered into a massive pile from their normal shelves during the Event had been left to lay for the most part, but picked through as needed. None of the kids really wanted to organize this stuff after all. The ones who might need it anyway, didn't care and always seemed to know where they could grab what they were looking for.

Martin grunted, hunched over and completely absorbed in his psychic examination of the current Core at his work station. Whatever programming it needed, he could do both manually with the keyboard and monitor, or more likely with his mind. After that one connection that Tina allowed him to have with Geoff, Geoff's appreciation for his art had grown.

Alyx spun back and handed Martin one of the many tools that were scattered around the room. How she knew which of them to pick up was an absolute mystery to Geoff, since the boy hadn't actually said anything more than 'ugh'. The tools all looked bewilderingly similar to Geoff's eyes: fifteen lengths of wrench, a dozen different screwdrivers, wire cutters and pliers with all manner of ends, things that heated or were magnetized, all sorts of devices that he'd never once had the inclination nor the training to work with.

He could, however, distinguish something else in the room apart from everything. "Alyx, what is that?" He asked.

She was more than happy to show it off. Over on 'her side' of the room, a side which was considerably more cluttered but also more clumped with half-built objects than Martin's mere mess, there was … something bigger than usual. "This is Dog!" It had clearly been put together in the last few hours, because it bore one of the distinct Cores as its heavy 'head'. The sleek, blue-white capsule-shapes of a gutted turret or two were built into its body, and what looked like a dozen miniature pistons moved the head up and down. "Well actually it's Dynamically Operational Guidance Guardian / Independently Energized. But that's way too long, so I call him Dog!"

It swiveled, and the red lens opened wider, shrank, spun on its axis. It clearly seemed to see Geoff, and something down on the bottom end of it started moving. A squiggling lump of banded, twist-tied wiring rippled, dragging with it some square feet of the mess around it on the floor. A distinct burning scent came from it.

"Oh look he's wagging his tail! He likes you!" Alyx cheerfully said, and Geoff gave a weak, horrified smile in response. "He's not done yet, I'm still finding parts. But we can't get the parts until you get GLADOS fixed and that's what Martin is doing." She handed him another tool, whether he'd asked for it or not. Turned out he'd need it in a second or two anyway. It looked as though Geoff could do very little here. Either watch and be wagged at by some mechanical monstrosity, or feel like a useless fool – or, he settled for bowing out, offering to bring back something to eat at some point. Martin had been in there since three in the morning, but he'd always been more eager to play with these things than eat or sleep. Alyx… probably did sleep in there. He could easily imagine the little dark-skinned girl curled up in a nest of those cords and wires.

It was up to Martin and Alyx, Cricket, maybe even Jared, now. To make sure that the Cores they had would reset the system and give them control over the facility again. Had they ever had control over it? Geoff didn't know, it was their show, and they'd figure it out, and be duly rewarded. They would deserve it, any of the cheers and relieved hugs and clapping – like the others had gotten when they came back with the Cores. This was something he doubted the people that made GLADOS would have been able to pull off themselves. If any of them were like Rattmann, anyway.

Paxton, however, hadn't been among those cheered and applauded and hugged last night. And that had stung his pride, deeply. Geoff felt a bit bad, too – Pax had worked most of it out, with Martin's input only bringing them to the staging point before then. Paxton and Geoff had gone over many different suggested routes, but it was him who wanted things done in such-a-way… Geoff rarely argued with his logic – unlike any other feature his brother displayed, it had essentially never failed before then. Why start thinking on it now? But oh how he'd fumed, teeth gritted and face trying to look happy or pass off a grin to those who'd come back covered in GLADOS's spare parts and thrown technological bile.

The elder Fettel brother had never really liked the spotlight that his brother enjoyed. But then, that had been trained into him too: he was a warrior, not a commander. Had he always been content with that role? What had gone on the hour before, in Paxton's mind as he fought with his inner lab-coated demons, wasn't new to Geoff. He'd come to terms with his own 'liberation' from their keepers some time before, as Paxton had guessed. But the difference between his training and Paxton's showed there too: Geoff was reasonably secure being called the 'strong one', to Pax's 'smart one'. No one could suggest that Geoff was in any way average, there, but who was around here? Geoffrey however, had been trained up to do, to think in terms of the immediate surroundings, quickly analyze and effect any needed changes.

He'd played eyes and ears for Paxton many times, when they were younger and getting used to their new strengths. If Geoff felt slighted by their creators, when Paxton kept getting more and more things to do, and he was left to be 'the strong one', he never let that show. It did mean that he was often bored, more so than Paxton would admit to – Pax always had the Replicas to keep him occupied. Geoff kept training himself. Almost always out with the hunting parties, on barnacle patrol, rooting out nests of headcrabs, and more importantly trying to locate safe routes through the Enrichment Center. Now that it was just GLADOS, he actually felt it was far easier to do.

Geoff alone had walked through Alma's domain unscathed, when she was still there. Not for lack of trying, he could still feel her howling, twisted maelstrom of a mind attempting to get through his defenses. Apparently those defenses left him unsuitable for Paxton's training, they made him somewhat stunted psychically speaking, as well. But he was still four-sixths, still showed a tremendous aptitude on any of the Paragon system's charts. Four sixths, not two thirds: their four shared donor parents. Maybe Melissa was right, those last two donors of his had probably weakened whatever it was that Pax's pair had given strength to.

But Geoff had held Pax's mind, once upon a time, inside that well-defended brain of his. To keep him safe: the first time… The first time Alma had beaten them, Paxton was such a fragile young child. Geoff hardly older, but far, far less easily shaken by her mind. When she would start appearing, ashen footsteps or bloody ones on the walls, a startling reflection in a mirror, a haunting laughter of a child… Paxton immediately dove for cover. Times after that, Pax came wordlessly into the safe zone Geoff offered him, but Geoff had started to notice it. He was originally like a quiet mouse, holed up inside a warm wall, with solid beams to support him. If Paxton's nest was destroyed, it was because his changed demeanor was unexpected – from within, those walls were softer and meant to be friendly, allowing direct access to whatever he needed. Tearing them up with his now-frantic fangs and claws… It could have destroyed them both from the inside out. Paxton's inert body would not have risen, with him still trapped inside Geoff's mind.

From the outside though, Geoff's mind had always been cool, smooth stone, unbreakable or perhaps even invisible to Alma. She must have known that Paxton had been hiding with him some times, but been furiously unable to do anything about it… Until she'd gotten past their defenses, Paxton had broken that second time, and… Geoff just could not maintain his own identity strongly enough, felt himself slipping away into the same raging storm of fire and anger. The nest had been doused with gasoline, and Alma burned brightly…

He'd never really felt attachment to their mother, Alma was a monster. He'd always known that – he had heard the scientists and keepers say it and he believed them. But Paxton … for whatever reason, he'd never been able or willing to give up on her.

And now the Vault where she'd been kept, the house where they'd been beaten, was gone. He looked at the great dark patch of it off in the deep blue distance, as he walked to get these things off his chest. Geoff tried, really tried, the night before, to understand why Paxton was so set on keeping it around. He couldn't then, still didn't. Pax was sentimental over it. In the same way that he was sentimental about his keepers' praise. It was the kind of place that Geoff wished they'd never had to confront, if only Pax would see that. Some battlefields should be left to their ghosts.

Paxton would become a problem to himself, and to everyone around him, Geoff realized, if he was ever actually bored. While the everyday activities here kept them all on their toes, their lives continually in danger, it was all very fine and good: they both had things to occupy them. What would happen when GLADOS was turned off? When, if all went according to plan, the facility was no longer turned on itself and they could leave?

The question remained unanswered, because Geoff realized his feet were off the ground, and he was being tugged upwards by a thick, ichor-covered tentacle. Barnacle, he thought. Not today.

He caught his foot on the hand rail of the catwalk he'd been distractedly strolling over, pulled himself back to the floor with it, and then grasped the tentacle itself. "Not. Today." He grimaced, and yanked it from its cemented grip on the distant concrete ceiling. Normally they would disgorge the remains of whatever they'd recently eaten in a foul pile below them when killed, insides simply turning outward. This one didn't get the chance, he'd pulled it out by the root-anchors, along with a good chunk of the ceiling.

It undulated, perhaps still alive, with its ring of teeth probing for whatever might still come into its maw. It reminded Geoff of a headcrab's 'mouth', they were probably related in some distant way. He'd never been too up on biology and wildlife studies, plus he wasn't sure anyone had ever written a book on these things.

He would have been wrong: Black Mesa's xenobiology lab had one. It even included several extremely clever potential uses for the things, not the least of which was as a self-propelled grapnel and line.

Geoff however didn't have any further use for the alien invader except to take out his pent-up aggression on, which he did, eventually pulping its exterior into oozing, bloody submission and kicking it in disgust off the catwalk into the blue depths. He felt much better after that.


**


Paxton's swagger through the facility's halls, peering into rooms and peeking behind doors, eventually led him down the same path as the others, to the dining hall, where he hoped to find Sandy. His gait turned less swagger, and more punch-drunk stagger as he went, and finally when he did locate the younger girl (who was, thankfully, eating with the others as Chet suggested in another room) it devolved further into a stumbling fall. His aim, as always, was impeccable.

He planted his face directly into the couch seat next to her, adding a muffled ow, and did not bother trying to get up. "Blunt force skull trauma," he said, a bit deliriously, "is not fun. Do not try it for yourself."

"Oh Paxton," Alessandra groaned, putting her sandwich down on the table nearest, "what now."

Several others, including Natascha, laughed even harder than they had a few minutes earlier, and the white-haired girl the loudest. "His brother wholloped him a good one," she said, swinging her hand through the air and laughing again.

"And what started this?" Sandy sighed, but she saw a silly grin on the boy who had managed to lean himself sideways to look up at her.

"No, this time, I deserved it." He snickered and winced, with equal intensity. His eyes were bloodied, not just blood-shot, there was also a trickle of blackened blood coming from his nose: never a good sign. Sandy tried not to look shocked.

Sandy huffed, turned from him to her food, ignoring the other kids who were still laughing and reenacting it for those who hadn't been there. "Well I can't do this here, there are too many people who don't want you to get healed," she looked pointedly at Natascha, who feigned innocence.

"Sure you can. I… probably shouldn't be moved, anyway…" Paxton addressed the couch once more, and Sandy decided he was correct. His hand had slipped limply down to the floor and he was pretty clearly unconscious by the time she spoke again.

"You know, I'm still tired from all of last night's work," Sandy commented, placing her left hand on the back of his head and noticing that it did seem a bit… dented. "Stop laughing, it's not funny," she said to the others, who did so out of reverence to her power, rather than respect for who she was healing just then.

"I thought you needed positive emotions to heal well," Chris said, kneeling by Paxton's right side, checking for pulse and such. After returning from the raid himself, he was proud for having contributed what he could do for the small cuts, scrapes and bruises that had been gotten by the others the night before. At least he could pick up the things that Sandy shouldn't waste her power on. He had little more to give: his power accelerated natural healing, it did not substitute for surgery.

"Helps, yes," Sandy said. The Vortigaunts nearby curiously looked on. Their own experiences with healing Humans so far had been limited: most of these children could heal quickly anyway, those who bore the distinct Icarus vouch'kalla, a word they claimed meant 'sign', but anyone who had delved a little deeper knew it had the connotations of 'taint' as well as 'brand'. They found it most curious that Sandy's Vortal power drew from everyone around her, in a true sense. She was clever: in order to be less distracted, she let the others get back to eating and chatting. As long as no one was yelling or angry, under her tanned hands almost any wound knitted quickly. The Vorts present did not contribute their energies – not unless she asked, and even then, this was Xkah-shuu'vahh, but what that name meant was still their own secret.

Sandy munched on her sandwich in her right hand, while her left expertly delivered a nudge here and a pinch there – psychically speaking. Healing Paxton was old hat, by now. These boys. Paxton's skull, like the rest of his bones, was coated with the Icarus-process stuff, and while Sandy had been told that it was there to make the bones more or less unbreakable – she'd seen plenty of breaks. Their bones healed quickly, though, all she really had to do was put it in the right configuration first. Melissa had taught her that: her own incredibly rapid healing factor would heal her however she was broken up, but that meant re-breaking and setting things, if they happened to fall together wrong.

"He's not breathing very well," Chris whispered, not sure whether that would help her or interrupt.

Sandy continued with more intensity, after Paxton's skull was fixed and her sandwich consumed, she had to move on to heal some of the hemorrhaging in his brain. And fix those horrifying eyes: drain the blood from the tissue, let it settle deep within the bones, it would be of more use there. She all but spoke to each part, as she healed it. Though she appeared to be concentrating with the effort that, say, a child doing their homework might show, she became tired from it none the less. She sat back in a huff at last, dark eyes lolling and her little bare feet kicking against the couch.

"Now I'm hungry again," she said, and Chris smirked, got up to fix her another sandwich.

They had, at long last, been able to locate a storage maze which apparently even the ELLs hadn't been aware of. It was rather dangerous to reach, and was itself still covered by GLADOS's watchful, baleful red eyes. (Was that why she wanted to fix Paxton's eyes?) But now they had plentiful food, and knew better than to squander it. There had yet to be any contact from the outside of the facility to restock anything, food, medicine, or other goods – even though they had been able to speak with Black Mesa, they couldn't just call for pizza.

The non-native wildlife was helping a little there, too… Sandy actually preferred the taste of headcrab to regular crab – or whatever it was that was passed off as crab meat in those cans.

Paxton stirred, and Sandy smoothed down his hair. With some effort, he managed to flip himself over, but didn't bother to rise to the seat itself, just laying on the floor with his head against the couch. "Thank you," he said. Sandy blinked, and then peered down at him. She felt around on his head again, but didn't seem to be finding what she was looking for.

"He must have hit you way harder than I thought," she said, half-serious, "he knocked some manners into you."

He chuckled, weakly, and winced again. And with that, Sandy noted – with her big black eyes that could see so much more than what color shirt he was wearing and that his nose had begun to bleed down it before locating her – the distinct Geoff-shaped-hand print bruising up on the middle of his chest. Instinctively she reached down but he held up his hand.

"Not that," he said. "I … think I need to keep that for a while, I need to learn from it."

She fiddled with her pony tailed hair, glanced at the notch that had been taken out of his lip during the Event. It had scarred up, finally healing on its own, even as she or Chris couldn't make it do. "Like that," she touched it, he blinked and nodded once. "What did you learn from that?"

"That there are some places I don't want to go back to," he admitted.