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Here to Stay Drabbles: He's a Person

Summary: Breen has a chat with Gordon about Benrey

[A/N] A sequel to chapter 13. In which Breen sees Benrey driving Gordon's car around town.

~

Being called into the boss’ office was never fun but Gordon wasn’t about to let himself be outwardly intimidated. With Black Mesa on track to being well established – even if it would take years upon years to reach the size it had been before the Resonance Cascade – he didn’t have as much leverage against Breen as he’d had upon helping kickstart that rebuilding process. But he was still much higher up in the company, answerable only to Breen himself. And with how small their numbers were he’d have to do something really bad to get fired which he hadn’t done. So he wasn’t powerless in whatever this situation was. And thus he walked in with a straight back, forward gaze and not fiddling with his gunhand despite desperately wanting to turn it to make it make that satisfying clicking sound and feel that had grown to be far more soothing than it had any right to be.

Breen, seated at his desk, looked up at him as he entered. “Close the door and have a seat, Dr. Freeman.”

Gordon obeyed. “What’s this about?” Did he sound sufficiently nonchalant and mildly annoyed at the disruption?

“It has come to my attention that you’re in possession of one of Black Mesa’s experiments. One that presumably escaped during the fallout of the Resonance Cascade.”

Oh no! How did he know? They’d been trying so hard to keep Benrey a secret. … Maybe, hopefully,it somehow wasn’t about Benrey. “What do you mean?”

“I saw it driving your car.”

In hindsight, maybe this shouldn’t be surprising. Tuefort was a small town, it was only a matter of time before someone from the lab caught sight of Benrey, especially now that he had access to the car, allowing him to go out more often and further. Bad luck it was someone who recognized him.

But now Gordon had two options. Come clean and make a case for why Benrey was a person and not property or an experiment belonging to Black Mesa. Or try to continue to keep him secret and lie by saying his car had been stolen. Since giving Benrey a key to the car, he’d come into work with Dr. Coomer or Tommy fairly often anyway, so he could maybe make it believable. … That lie might lead to them viewing Benrey as a rogue experiment on the loose that was stealing cars and thus a potential risk to Black Mesa should he be caught committing crimes. Which would probably lead to the former being necessary anyway. So might as well just cut to the chase before the silence answered for him. The cat was out of the bag and there was no putting it back in.

“That’s Benrey. He was part of the group I escaped Black Mesa with after the Resonance Cascade. He’s not a threat or a problem or a thing to be possessed by Black Mesa or anyone else. He’s a person.”

Breen frowned as he folded his hands on his desk between them. “Very well. We currently lack the resources to deal with it anyway. So as long as you promise to keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn’t do anything to jeopardize us with the law or the media when we’re already in such a precarious position, I’ll let your not reporting it immediately slide.”

Almost Gordon lifted his gunhand to point at Breen. Even if he had no intention to fire it, showing his anger like that wouldn’t do him or Benrey any favors. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? He’s a person. I’m not ‘keeping an eye’ on him to make sure he doesn’t do anything naughty or whatever. And I didn’t need to report him because again, he’s a fucking person, not Black Mesa’s plaything.”

Breen’s frowned deepened but Gordon didn’t care anymore. He’d been through Benrey’s files so he knew what Black Mesa had done to him. And thus he wasn’t about to sit here and just let Breen talk about Benrey as if he were an experiment or an object to be possessed.

For a moment Breen looked like he was going to argue but instead after several seconds of silence, he sat back with a sigh. “Very well. I’m not unreasonable. And I’m not familiar with all the specifics of the experiment that produced i- him, so perhaps it is possible they did create a person on accident. If possible I would like to meet him.”

“Huh?” Gordon hadn’t expected him to fold so easily. “Is this like… a trap? You want me to bring him into the lab so you can try to capture him or something?” Not that they were likely to succeed. As far as Gordon knew, all the glass that had been special made to contain Benrey had been pilfered and destroyed, its remnants buried in the dessert. But still the thought of anyone trying made him angry.

“No. But we’re on thin ice with the military currently. If they find out we have anything alive that’s related to Xen, they’ll want it and they’ll do everything in their power to take it. And in general, if it gets out publicly that we created… whatever the fuck he is, I’m not sure what’ll happen but we certainly don’t need that kind of publicity right now. So if he really is a person, I would like an assurance from him that he won’t do anything to draw too much attention on himself or Black Mesa.”

That wasn’t an unreasonable request actually. And maybe if Breen met Benrey and had a real talk with him, he’d see for himself that Benrey was a fully thinking person and thus any talk or eve thought of him being an experiment of Black Mesa’s would be discarded. So… “All right. I’ll ask him then. If he doesn’t want to come down and talk to you though, I’m not making him.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to. Bring him into work with you tomorrow or whenever he’s willing to come in. For now, your dismissed.” He lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture.

“Uh… all right then. Sure.” Gordon got up and left the office. That had somehow gone both worse and better than he’d feared. He’d talk to Benrey about it when he got home. Probably he wouldn’t want to come, right? But then again, he was often unpredictable so who knows for sure? He’d do his due diligence and tell him about his conversation with Breen though.

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