Brotherhood gone bonkers 9

I got a Valve on my head - special

(Welcome to Haven. After seven years in development it hopefully was worth my weight. Oh man… I already thought before I would finally finish writing this there would rather be a Half Life 3. And 4.)

Thunderhawk jolted out of sleep thanks to the noise of a jackhammer.
'What in Aurora's name...' he thought while he rubbed his eyes and sleepily rolled out of bed. Not that it would be way too early for anything loud going on in Haven - actually he was surprised that he hadn't been woken earlier by the usual explosions, breaking things or screams - but 3 pm was still way too early for a hung-over Guardian to get up. Slowly he walked down the corridor, trying not to get sick from his own steps, to find the source of the noise.
"Morning", a passing construction worker greeted him and nearly knocked him out with the steel bar he was carrying. Confused and head hurting even more he followed the stranger to the library - at the moment he was too stunned to think of anything else to do - and stopped dead in the doorway. Rollercoaster rails were winding around the furniture, some of the shelves had been replaced with monkey bars, Athair had built a fort of books in a corner. A cat wandered around on one of the remaining shelves but that was nothing out of the ordinary anymore. It had been seen a few times in Haven and Spectre had called it his inner pussy - they knew better than to question him about that.
"What is going on here and where the heck are the others?" Thunderhawk asked the only other Guardian in the room and tried his best to ignore his hurting head. What a great way to start the day. At least the jackhammer was quiet now.
"Oh I thought just ladders were boring. Wouldn't it be more fun to ride past the books and quickly snatch one before the cart makes another turn? Also those old shelves needed replacement. Some of them looked as if someone had drawn with chalk on them" Athair replied. "Where the others are ... Well, Sabre wanted to buy some bread so I think he's in Echidnaopolis. Locke and Sojourner wanted to try out some new invention while Spectre wanted to have an eye on them. Haven't seen them since they walked through the wall in the surveillance room."
Thunderhawk blinked at him dumbfounded. Guardians walking through walls - yeah, that still sounded normal enough, especially when Locke was with them but they really had decided it was okay to leave Athair behind all alone? Sure, Thunderhawk was here too but he had still been fast asleep and they had known it. And there also was the AI but that couldn't hold back a crazy Echidna.
"Edi?" Thunderhawk asked. "Can you tell me where Locke is?"
"One moment please. Sorry for the delay, a turret tried to shoot me. They are at something called Aperture Science."
Thunderhawk couldn't say he ever had heard about that place but at least it didn't sound like anything he should worry about. That a turret just had tried to shoot Edi he already had forgotten. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. Should Spectre deal with Athair and the library when he came back, he just wanted some painkillers and very strong coffee.

~~~***~~~

"I think this belongs here", Sojourner said and dropped a cube with heart pattern on it onto a switch on the ground. A laser beam then nearly shaved his chest fur off.
"I think it would be better over there", Locke said.
Spectre watched them with crossed arms and impatiently tapped his foot. He could just blast a wall so they could get to the next location and get this whole lab thing done and finished within minutes but Locke and Sojourner seemed to enjoy these riddles. A hat wearing sentry stood in the middle of the room looking kind of lost. A turret snuck up to it and bumped against it. The sentry only turned to scan it top to bottom but then found white was no colour necessary shooting at and showed its back again.
"Your portal shooting sentry could open one right on that goo and another one on the wall behind you", a male voice said over the speakers. It sounded familiar somehow but thanks to the speakers' bad quality it was hard to tell who it belonged to.
"I don't think you are supposed to help us", Sojourner said.
"It's my first day at the job, okay."
The confused and ignored turret bumped into Spectre and as a reply it was blasted through the next wall.
"Stop ruining Glados' furniture", the announcer said. "I'm a soldier, my insurance doesn't cover it when I get someone else's stuff destroyed."
"An AI that is a soldier?" Locke asked.
"Hey, I might be very robotic but I am not an AI. I'm ... Uuh ... Oh hey, there's a hole in the wall now. Why don't you take that as the solution to your riddle and move on?"
"Yeah, let's get going", Spectre said with full mouth.
Sojourner raised an eyebrow. "Where did that bread and the jar come from?"
The dark Echidna was just about to put jam on another slice of bread.
"Got breakfast from my pussy. ("I am a male cat!" it echoed through the halls) It wasn't too great that it carried the bread slices in its mouth but then again I already kissed that pussy so I shouldn't be too picky."
That just sounded wrong on so many levels but Spectre was the last Sojourner wanted to talk with about that matter and so he just grabbed the companion cube and followed Locke and the portal sentry through the hole in the wall.

~~~***~~~

The little bell above the bakery's door chimed when Sabre entered.
"Good afternoon", the ... thing hanging off the ceiling greeted him, "what can I get you? Maybe a cake? We got a special discount on cakes right now since I made a bit too many. Way too many actually. We barely have bread anymore though thanks to an ... experiment."
"What the heck are you and where is our usual baker?" Sabre asked. Seeing a robotic thing like that made him wonder if the Dark Legion was on to something again.
"Just call me Glados. Your baker is ... indisposed at the moment so I was so friendly and took over the store for a while."
Meanwhile a very confused baker is wandering around on the Aperture Science area and tackled to the ground by a friendly headcrab that just wants a hug.
"It always had been my biggest dream to own a bakery", Glados told.
She looked at the still quite confused Sabre. "So, uh ... You want a cake?"

~~~***~~~

The call to Haven’s communicators was answered.
“Uhm … hello?” Remington started when he at first saw nothing but … a railroad track in mid air right before the screen.
With a loud “Wheeeee!” Athair sitting in a roller coaster cart was racing by. “Heyyyy Constable, what do you want? You wanna go for a ride? You wanna go for a ride? What do you want? Constable. Constable. Heyyyyy!” was then heard from another part of the room in varying volume, indicating that the cart was still moving closer and further away from the communicator.
The muscles under Remington’s eye started twitching. Normally in such a case, when he was greeted like that he would have said, “Hello, little one, are your parents at home?”  but he had a grown up Guardian right in front of him (or, well, maybe not right in front at the moment but still – he had contact with him), furthermore a Guardian whose parents were already dead.
“Hello, little one, is your grandfather at home?” he heard himself ask in a sarcastic tone.
“Noooooooooo!” Athair raced by again. “I’m all alone, even Thunderhawk left. But you can tell me anything. I can help too.”
The Guardians leaving Athair alone in Haven – if they hadn’t already before, now they had definitely lost it. But then again, maybe it was best to ask Haven’s biggest troublemaker first. Not that he would accuse any Guardian to do such ridiculous things – but after what had happened in the past he could never be too sure.
“Alright then. Do you by any chance know why some of the streets in Echidnaopolis are blocked by cakes? I also recently heard of a talking traffic light. This isn’t by any chance one of your doings?”
“No way, I was too busy with my roller coaster. But it sounds like a fun idea as well. Can I see it? Can I eat the traffic light? Can I talk to the cakes?”
Remington hoped that Athair had only accidentally messed up those two words and didn’t actually want to take a bit out of a traffic light. Or have a chat with a cake.
“No. No, it would be a better idea when you stay where you are. Just … take care of Haven.”
That probably meant that Haven would be lying in ruins by the end of the day but actually it was the Guardians’ fault if they left Athair home alone. To Remington the only thing that mattered was that he wouldn’t go and wreck havoc in the city as well.

~~~***~~~

“What on Mobius is that?” Thunderhawk muttered when he inspected one of the sentries he had found in Locke’s lab from all sides. Yes, it was a sentry, he could clearly see that much, but he also noticed that Locke had changed some of its features and added new things. The lavender Guardian knew better than to press random buttons on things he had found in Locke’s lab but his curiosity, this need to know what Locke had made of it, was killing him. Athair had said the other Guardians were walking through walls – could this be one of those devices they had used? As far as he could tell one shot was already fired somewhere and it was asking for a second shot. Same counted for another sentry right next to him. He turned the one he held to face upwards, hesitated for a moment but then pushed the button anyways. The first thing he saw was a pile of hats raining through the hole in the ceiling – and then the bottom of a van.
“Oh fuuu…”
He stumbled backwards and fell over the other sentry which started firing too.

Tired of either hearing Locke and Sojourner discussing about the next steps or the disembodied voice of the announcer trying to crack a joke Spectre was ready to break through another wall when suddenly a portal opened in the wall right in front of him. The first to shoot out was Thunderhawk who quickly rolled out of the way when a van and a couple of hats followed him.
“What did you do now?” Spectre asked. To Thunderhawk’s surprise he hadn’t even flinched when the van shot out of the wall and had stopped right in front of his nose – as if things like that were the most normal in the world to happen. Well, maybe they were normal in Aperture Science and after spending hours in it Spectre had simply gotten used to it.
The lavender male groaned when he stood up. “Don’t ask me, ask Locke. He’s the one who never locks things away or at least puts up descriptions what his inventions do.”
He again was surprised when Spectre turned around and asked Locke instead, “What did you do now?”
“Huh? I let our cube slide over the platform and then drop through a portal to activate the switch on the ledge which opened the door. Why do you ask?”
Locke hadn’t even noticed that a van just had crashed through the wall.
“My job description didn’t warn me of mass tourism”, the announcer’s voice complained.
“Oh just shut up!” Spectre shouted. “You are worse than my cat!”
He picked up a glass of jam and threw it against the camera where it broke and oozed sticky liquid over the lens and the speaker underneath.
“Have you really just jammed the speaker with jam-Jarate?” Sojourner asked sounding amused. He too now noticed Thunderhawk for the first time. “Oh, hello father. Do you want to join us as well? It was a good idea to bring the van. We could use it as a shield and so. You should have brought it earlier though because I think we are close to the last level.”
Thunderhawk sighed. No, he didn’t want to join them but since he also didn’t know where the exit of this complex was he had no other choice.

~~~***~~~

“Who stores cake in the furthest backroom?” Sabre asked when he followed Glados’ voice through the corridor. He had already walked through the storage rooms of the bakery, something that looked like the living place of the usual baker and the trash room and now it looked as if the AI wanted to lead him out of the building.
“It’s not really a backroom. More of a back alley. Could also be a main street.”
“Wait …. What?”
“You see, there was way too much cake and the more I put into the back alley, the more it poured out onto the street. But don’t worry, when there are enough customers the caked traffic jam will be gone in no time.”
Sabre doubted that a lot of people wanted to buy cake that had been lying around on the streets.
"Are you even moving with me?" he asked. "I mean physically. I haven't seen you in a while but you are still talking to me."
Glados' head popped out of the wall. "Yes but it is very uncomfortable to appear and disappear all the time."
Her sudden appearance made Sabre flinch. "Whoa, how are you doing that."
"Portals", and with that one word the question seemed to be answered detailed enough for her.
"What do you mean by...?" Sabre stopped and stared when he opened the last door and was greeted by a mountain of cakes. Carefully he squeezed through the gap between the wall and the cakes until he stood on the main street again.
"Lady, you definitely have a problem here. I don't want to be around anymore when someone from the EST arrives here to get the street cleaned."
"Humans, please stay calm, I have everything under control here. At least I think so. I have a red light, see? That means when you stop here everything will just turn out fine", a male voice above Sabre's head said. He looked up to see a hectically blinking traffic light.
Glados appeared out of a lamp post close to the traffic light.
"You seem awfully familiar", she said and then she suddenly realised...

Dim dim dim. Here are the commercials.
"Only you can prevent wildfires", a bear said while in the background Athair jumped around happily, a lit torch in his hand, and set everything on fire.
Dim dim dim. End of commercials.

Start of Glados’ flashback.
There once had been two AIs created the same time but only one had been able to lead test runs at the facility while the other one had been a totally hopeless good-for-nothing case and was shipped away.
End of flashback.

“So you basically are my twin brother”, Glados said. “Nice to see you again … whatever your name is.”
“Carl”, the traffic light replied.
“Oh, yeah, Carl, right…”
And with that the conversation seemed to subside again.
“I’m taking this bread and will be off again, okay?” Sabre said. “Don’t want to be found on this place when the EST arrives. Let’s just say … we have some pretty strange history with them. I left the money on the counter.”
“Don’t forget to take a cake”, Glados said but Sabre was already out of hearing range.
“So, uh… How is everyone back at home doing?” Carl tried to revive the conversation.
“I have some bad news for you”, Glados replied.
Dramatic music started playing – until someone threw a shoe at the cat with the instrument.
“Our mother has died.”
More dramatic music started. The same person from before wanted to throw another shoe but then stopped completely flabbergasted when he saw that the cat was playing a huge organ in the middle of the street.
“Oh no”, Carl said. “Why?”
“Herpes.”
“Oh…”
“Yes, and that means that our risk to die of herpes is very high as well”, Glados said, an ominous tone in her voice.
“Oh no, I don’t wanna die of… Wait a second, we are AIs. We can’t get herpes. Can you even die of herpes? And we don’t have a mother.”
“Oh darn.” Glados pouted. “I nearly got you.”

~~~***~~~

Riding an elevator together with a van wasn’t the most comfort thing to do. At least their elevator was able to carry all the weight.
“I’m not too sure about this but I think bringing a van is cheating”, the announcer said. Spectre only had been able to jam the speakers in one room.
They also weren’t alone anymore. This elevator had a lift-boy very well known to them – it was Dimitri. He was decorated with stripes all over this body.
“I don’t want to sound impolite”, Spectre said after a while of silence, “but why are you playing the lift-boy in this facility? And why do you look so … interesting.”
“Dumb”, Sojourner murmured silently but was only heard by Locke next to him who tried to suppress a chuckle.
“Glados took a day off on our island and since we basically look like robots she asked us to come over and keep the place running for her”, Dimitri told. “When she said I could be the ruler in this world I didn’t think she meant it in a … measuring way. Heh, if her humour is always like that then I can understand why she chose him as the new supervisor.”
“I told her that I’m not suitable to watch over test subjects, Grandmaster” the announcer said.
“At least she gave you a job. I chose to be a lift-boy on my own because after I instructed everyone else of my Legion who came with me what they should do I had nothing left to do for me.”
A knock was heard over the speakers.
“Oh, is that you already?” the announcer asked. “No, can’t be, you are still in the elevator. Did Glados expect a visitor today? Wait, I’m logging off shortly. Will see you in a bit anyways.”
“Finally”, Spectre sighed. “He had been talking our ears off the whole day long.”
“Oh, don’t cheer too soon”, Dimitri said. “This is the last elevator ride and then you will meet him again.”

The doors opened and they stepped into a big room.
“It is never going to happen”, the man who probably was Glados’ visitor said. He had glasses and wore armour with something on it that looked like an upside down Y.
“You just have to be patient”, Xenin said, hanging upside down from the ceiling. “My upgrades also needed a couple of years to be finished.”
“Patient?” the man whined. “I waited one thousand five hundred and forty years and there still is no third part.”
“You are Glados’ substitute?” Sojourner asked.
“Yes. And as I can see I had been testing Guardians the whole time”, Xenin said and made a face as if instead of testing he rather would have liked roasting them. “But since I had not been instructed what to do with subjects who make it all the way up I suppose you will just get a handshake and then you can leave.” He looked over to the guy with the glasses. “Oh, may I introduce you to Gordon Freeman? He said he is coming over to have a chat with Glados every Tuesday.”
“Hello, I think I somehow know you”, Sojourner said.
“…”, said Gordon Freeman.
“Don’t mind him when he isn’t talking”, Xenin said. “He’s kind of a shy guy. For me he only made an exception because I’m Glados substitute. So… is my task finished for today? Can I come down now? My head feels like all the blood from my whole body has gathered there.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea”, Thunderhawk said holding back Spectre who trembled with suppressed anger. “Not as long as he’s still out for blood of the one who bothered him the whole day long.” He gently tugged the dark Echidna’s arm. “Come on. There’s the door. Let’s just go home and then you can take a nice relaxing warm bath … or something the like.”

~~~***~~~

Night had fallen over Angel Island, silently and calmly. Crickets were chirping, the wind was rustling through the grass and ….
The loud crashing of breaking metal was heard from Haven, a scream from Athair and then Spectre’s roar.
“I’m going to kill that bastard!”

~~~***~~~

Glados looked up from her conversation with Carl (or to be more precise, he was holding the conversation, she pretended to be listening while she watched the EST cleaning the cake mess off the street) when a loud roar echoed over the island.
“You surely don’t have the quietest neighbourhood here. But it reminds me of home – at least home after my little baking experiments. I wonder what it is doing right now and if it has pestered a few test subjects.”

~~~***~~~

Xenin climbed off the ceiling and held his buzzing head. Most of the Legionnaires had gone home by now and since no more test subjects were left to annoy he decided to call it a day as well. At least the dizziness wasn’t as bad as the last time – when he had gotten off the ceiling to open the door for Freeman he had staggered around in front of him like a newborn fawn.
“Today definitely wasn’t the best of all working days”, he muttered to himself. “I’m glad it’s over.”
A low growl behind him caused him to turn around. He was greeted by the sight of a giant bread, green goo oozing out of several holes on its crust.
“Oh, hi, what are you doing here still loafing around?” he asked and rubbed his forehead. “Heh, loafing. Got it?”
The bread opened a mouth revealing its fangs. It roared and sprayed sticky green salvia all over Xenin. When the cybernetic Echidna slowly opened his previously tightly shut eyes again he saw the bread slithering away from him like a slug, not giving a care in the world if he was still there and dripping on the floor or not.  It seemed as if it had just come here to do exactly that and nothing more, and though Xenin could neither hear nor see it he could clearly imagine the bread mutant gloating. He grimaced and tried to shake off some of the goo.
“I … hate my life.”