Repurposed Interval 21.10

Interval 21.10
June 2, 2018
Time Unknown, Constructed Location
Exact Location Unknown



He stood with his arms folded across his chest, holding them almost as though it was cold. It was neither chill nor overly hot here – at least in terms of temperatures. The appearance of the location was, as his usual preference, rather bleak; anyone else might think it was positively freezing, or at the very least more than mildly discomforting, just by how the place looked.

That fact was mentioned on almost every one of her trips here, and Melissa got it out of the way earlier on. Now, she waddled a bit and checked on readouts which she’d had to be trained to understand; the devices themselves had to be recalibrated for her to use. There were no screens, it was hardly the kind of equipment she might have seen in any normal laboratory. Few of the machines and devices here were normal in any way, though they all served similar purposes to those she had access to in her own chosen haunts.

“I wish you’d stop doing that,” Melissa said, grunting and taking a brief look over her shoulder. “When he wakes up you’re going to scare him shitless.”

“Yes?” The Mystery stated, head tilted a little, in all his over the top sinister glory. He’d allowed so much of late; such a permissive attitude wasn’t anything like his older methods. But she’d managed to convince him that this would be for the best… He was still playing at being resistant to the idea, and enjoying every moment. For such an intelligent girl, Melissa proved to be marvelously gullible at times.

His reflection in the curved glass could probably be described as frightening. With the darkness around, the under-lighting, and his own shockingly bright eyes… He knew his expressions weren’t pleasant much of the time; he might even have practiced looking that way. But those eyes didn’t see any hint that the inhabitant of the tall cylinder was going to open his own in the meantime, so kallah-vahh continued to just stare.

He heard the expected, exasperated, sigh from the young woman and couldn’t hold his chuckle back. Also as expected, she launched into a chain of Vortigese swear words until she ran out of steam. Or, as was growing more common these days, she was interrupted by a twinge in her lower back and started cursing at that instead of him.

In this case, it wasn’t merely her back that was giving her issues. She stood to stretch, placed one hand on her back and the other on her belly. But her face didn’t show the casual annoyance that it usually had: her eyebrows were pushed together still, nose crinkled and lips in more of a grimace than a sneer.

It passed within moments, but it wasn’t as though the Mystery didn’t notice it. He considered the other pregnant women he’d seen before, thought on their own movements and expressions. Truth be told he had only glimpsed them briefly at best, in the work-place or out and about before the Events. He was given to wonder if they all took this pain (which he could sense as well, but hardly had any kind of equitable way of understanding it) with the same grace as she showed?

Well, several thousand generations of them had, apparently, so it was nothing out of the ordinary.

“You’ve still got that suit somewhere, right?” Melissa said after the pain subsided. She’d been told of that armor, hadn’t ever bothered looking for it herself, as her attention was on the Human subject in the cylinder.

The Mystery blinked away from her, indicated another, darker section of the ‘lab’ in which they worked. He briefly concentrated and that area lit up. Within its normal enclosure – normal, as in the same one which used to rest near the locker rooms and staff kitchen in Sector C – stood the HEV suit. Since a Portal Storm had shaken Black Mesa up, that specific location couldn’t be reached any longer. Not even with their clever use of the portal devices: the entire section of hallway as well as the kitchen, lobby and locker room had been reduced to piles of rubble.

The other two suits were still in use at the time that particular storm had wrecked the hallways. They had been set up with new storage units: the Lambda labs had plenty of empty chargers. Hardly any of their suits had ever made it back from Xen. So he’d taken the liberty of removing that section of wall and just tucking the HEV suit back onto its old recharger.

The beat-up piece of technology maintained a charge, that was more than he expected it to do. That it was being recharged by energy which had never been noted, let alone defined by Human sciences, Melissa would comment about soon enough, once she thought about it.

Or perhaps not. Instead she just closed her eyes slowly and pushed out a long breath.

“Good, they’ll probably want that back,” she said. Leaning on the grey counter, she added while gazing over to that cylinder and its inhabitant, “if I wasn’t this fucking pregnant,” she chuckled, “I’d comment on how I do adore these hot science geeks when they’re naked.”

“And that wasn’t a comment on it?” The Mystery raised an eyebrow.

“He’ll want clothing, I mean,” Melissa giggled. “I guess that has to happen after he’s awake though. Putting on pants inside a liquid-filled tube wouldn’t be easy or smart.”

“Perhaps one of his old… cohorts ought to find something for him, then,” the Mystery said, indicating a single box with what remained of those pants, shirt and tattered undergarments the man been wearing under the HEV suit. There was blood on them, plus acid stains, sweat, bullet holes, burns, rips… The only thing truly intact in that meager pile of belongings were the black-rimmed glasses he’d worn, and even those had a v-shaped web of cracks on one of the lenses. “He did sustain a considerable amount of damage. And while the suit protected him from many of the auxiliary effects…”

Melissa peered into the box and gave off a faintly disgusted noise. “I suppose, but that’ll ruin the surprise. Why don’t you just find his old dorm?” They went back and forth on that notion for a few minutes, Melissa wasn’t sure whether he agreed to do it or not. She was positive he knew where it was, or at least he could find the records Black Mesa’s human resources department must have kept about it, told him so in no uncertain terms. He mentioned how difficult it was to actually walk around the dorms these days, and Melissa was forced to admit that even when Mars had taken her on that tour many years ago, full-sized adults might have issues in certain spots. Melissa didn’t note his knowing smile at the end of that little discussion. Rather, she continued muttering to herself about not being able to sense proper readings from that slumbering man and wanting a better idea of whether she should take samples from him, while she was busy preparing him for his new life.

It might have been all the interference from it being the Mystery’s construct, explaining why Melissa couldn’t easily sense the man’s genes through the stasis unit he was in. It wasn’t the same machinery as Armacham’s, after all; she could sense through those just fine. It wasn’t feeding him skills or downloading information, accelerating his growth, or even helping to repair his body – the HEV suit had done much of that work, and time solved the rest. It was only there to store him, protect him, in a perpetual dreamless sleep.

The Mystery recalled, faintly, the annoyance this man had given off as he realized that his weapons had all been removed. He probably wouldn’t be pleased to note that he’d also then been stripped down even further, for storage. Neither would he appreciate the effort it had taken to do that, it hadn’t been easy. In all the explosions, firefights and assorted sundry dangers he’d been exposed to, the HEV suit had protected him diligently, but had taken plenty of damage. The release clasps had been effectively welded shut at some point, and the Mystery wasn’t much for popping open beer cans let alone prying into complicated armor. He let Wilson break it open, and they both realized that it would need to be repaired once it was off of him.

Those repairs had yet to be made, and it had been years since either had thought about it. Neither of them knew anything about how to do those repairs. Wilson and the Mystery had once considered that it could have been replaced by a new one; but it’s prior owner would know. Within the stasis unit, floating in peaceful, unobservant slumber, he’d know.

As the liquid within the tube slowly turned to gas, it would allow its inhabitant to adjust to gravity once more, as well as breathe on his own. It was a slow process, one which had been started earlier in the day and would last at least another three. That was for safety, more than anything else; the Mystery had long since realized that the abrupt coughing and gagging that other subjects had done when they were awakened more rapidly roused them in an unpleasant manner. He didn’t much care about their feelings on the matter, but they tended to be less controllable when they woke up terrorized rather than merely disconcerted.

Each of the varied people that the Mystery had placed in storage over the years responded slightly differently upon being roused, but all of them had undergone the same basic treatment before then. If kept in there too long with their clothing on, it would be rotted when they got out. No point in having that happen to an extremely expensive and incredibly useful suit of protective gear.

The HEV suit that this subject had donned that fateful morning some dozen years before wouldn’t have done very well within the stasis unit had they left it on. In fact it would have been quite worse for wear after this long immersed in the liquid there. Even if it was able to keep its wearer from being too damaged, it could only take so much. As promised to its wearer, however, he got to keep it. Perhaps he would repair it. The Mystery pondered that for a moment: that might be a more subtle way of reintroducing him to his friends. He’d have to bring in tools and other equipment; this area would be useful for such activities, once it was no longer needed for stasis.

This stasis unit wasn’t with the others that he’d created, though Melissa had seen those as well. While kallah-vahh wasn’t normally in the habit of allowing people free reign in his realms, what with her other projects, Melissa was ideally suited to this one. Mainly since she was trusted and knew what to do. Having the time and desire to work with him on it, the Mystery thought, was actually quite nice. It was allowing him the closeness to his… descendant (he had yet to decide whether the baby would be called his grandchild or great-grandchild or even niece; that would be more up to Wilson in the long run, wouldn’t it?), and the unborn child appeared to enjoy the contact as well.

Having Melissa on hand wasn’t originally in the Mystery’s plans. But then, hardly any of the people in his life at this point had been. She was of far more use to the Mystery at this moment and in this fashion than she was to Paxton; as he and Wilson were busy trying to out-do one another and test their abilities, she served merely as a judge of her flamboyant contests of will. That, they noticed, was a job best suited to Mars and Alyx, Nigel and Kitty. The Black Mesa Pantheon had grown steadily over the years, some of them were now able to put their subliminal training to use in rebuilding or healing or even just entertaining the refugees.

Melissa wanted to feel helpful as a scientist or record keeper. But Melissa was quite typically frustrated as a woman of her advanced pregnancy could be. She wanted to be up and about, but even the Mystery put a stop to that quickly enough – she wouldn’t be following Alyx around the complex or exploring the Outlands in this state, even though her body still recovered almost instantly from damage. The thoughts she’d shared with Paxton and later her other companions regarding children in the ruins seemed to be all but forgotten in her desire to actually be out there.

She seemed to be tired, though; they’d been preparing for this particular individual’s unveiling for a number of days. Of course the first of those days had more involved Melissa explaining why it ought to be done now and not some other time in the unspecified future. Once she learned of his presence here, she latched on and wouldn’t let the idea go.

And it had made sense to kallah-vahh – though he didn’t let her know that until she was flustered and about ready to get angry at him for it. Her other surprise was nearing completion, though it wasn’t in his realm that it was being kept. All of this was more enjoyable than the Mystery expected; he felt of use to her, in shuttling her back and forth from Black Mesa, his own constructs, and the Medusa facility without the need for physical teleport devices. No one was exactly sure what those devices might do; though assured they were quite safe, as they’d been used to move other pregnant women around, it was clear that none of kallah-vahh’s family were going to allow Melissa to use them if they could do it themselves.

It had been many years since he’d wanted to show off for anyone. The Mystery enjoyed toying with Eli and Mars, but that was different. They both had been told or had guessed that he was not quite what he purported himself to be – he could talk frankly to them, but they would never quite ‘get it’. Melissa had always simply known, by virtue of her own Vortal abilities, and he felt more or less at ease giving up his trade secrets. She was his conscience, after all, wasn’t that what she was supposed to do? Moreover, Melissa, he thought with a private smile, could understand Vortigese in ways they didn’t. These days, when they weren’t busy discussing the potential travel plans for the others, he found she could debate subtle nuances of the language that normal Humans had difficulty understanding. Like playing chess with Paxton, verbal origami with Melissa took up hours of their down time.

Kallah-vahh began to sense that she was very much done for the day, though. As well: her unborn child was giving off a peculiarly demanding shade of orange-colored emotion. The Mystery hadn’t seen that before; obviously the baby couldn’t tell him, and neither could Melissa, what she wanted. Even though she’d become aware of herself months before, that didn’t mean she had any kind of reference point. She was sill an unborn child.

As Melissa tilted her head back, stretched her shoulders and shut her eyes against the pain in her abdomen, they returned to Black Mesa’s slightly more comfortable space. The Mystery saw that, as usual, Melissa hardly even flinched when she was moved like that, through the barrier. He wondered if she even noticed, or perhaps adapted to it somehow; though her ignoring of everything just now may have been due to her extremely advanced state of pregnancy. It occurred to him a moment later that it might also have been the baby keeping her relaxed for it.

Melissa and Paxton had already taken up temporary residence near the medical wing there at the refugee city, in anticipation of their daughter’s birth. There were plenty of spare dorms, this one sat two floors up from the eastern sector; Alyx and Geoff had a similar arrangement nearby. “You should put a couch in there,” Melissa commented as she lowered herself down onto the beat-up old red one nearby.

“That would completely ruin the mystique of the place,” kallah-vahh sighed with a grin.

“Sure… But it would make it easier for me to sit.” Melissa propped her feet up. Though she’d said that her body healed or at least compensated for it, she still experienced all the aches, annoyances and daily difficulties typical of a full-term pregnancy. Swollen ankles, she pondered while peering past her own belly at them, were neither pretty nor painless. She moved to glance up at her elder. “And you need to stop glaring at him like you do. He’s the same every time you look at him, you know. It’s not like he changes.”

“Soon,” he told her, “I will wake him, so I do hope you’ll allow me to have my… fun.”

“Your fun might make him violent,” she pointed out. Come to think of it, he had threatened violence when last he had been awake, but that was quite some time before, and in completely different circumstances. Melissa didn’t know that, she waved her hand as she often would to emphasize her words. “So just… wake him up and leave the rest to me.” She sniffed at the air. “And tell Paxton to stop burning things. It’s one thing to burn the Medusa down, but Black Mesa is off limits!”

They heard something muffled and less-than-seriously-angry from the kitchenette, assumed correctly that it was Paxton attempting to eat whatever it was that he’d ‘cooked’. She loudly wondered whether he’d used his pyrokinesis to do it this time, to which he spouted even more angry noises. Melissa gave off her bright laughter and then gasped in surprised pain once more.