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“What's your name?”
The barista looked bored, as she should. Most of the service workers at Black Mesa were used to dealing with the worst kind of nonsense, and the female service workers even more so. The old boy's club was still alive and well in the upper echelons of Black Mesa's scientists.
“Harry,” Harry said automatically, startled out of contemplation of the decorative chalk art around the edges of the menu.
“Short for Harriet?” the barista asked as she scribbled on the side of the cup.
Harry sighed. “Yes, I suppose so.”
“It's a nice name.”
“Thanks,” Harry said wryly. “My parents gave it to me.”
The barista looked up and raised her eyebrows. “That...tends to be how it works, yeah.”
“Can I swipe my card now?” Harry asked sharply.
“Oh, yeah, go for it,” the barista replied, and plopped Harry's cup on the counter behind another that was twice as big. “Should be ready in about two minutes.”
“Thank you,” Harry said, pocketing the receipt and stepping out of line to wait with the gaggle of other white-coated scientists who were also on break.
This was one of Harry's favorite break rooms. It wasn't too far from the Engineering department, and it typically wasn't very busy. Plus, it intersected with the Biological Sciences department, so if Harry got the right seat, there was all kinds of gossip to be heard.
“I just don't understand what it wants,” one stocky scientist was muttering to another, slimmer man. “It's got three phDs worth of information in its head, and now it asks to learn about slugs? What's the angle?”
“It's just fucking with you,” the slim scientist said languidly. “Don't worry about it. As long as it can pass its milestones, your reports will be fine.”
“I just don't want anyone to think I'm falling behind –”
“Justin!” The barista's voice cut through the conversation, and the slim scientist stepped forward to accept his cup. A moment later, the stocky scientist – Mackery, apparently – also got his drink and retreated to a small table to continue his hushed conversation.
“Harriet?”
Harry twitched and glared at her. “It's Harry. Not Harriet.”
The barista just raised her eyebrows again. “Sorry, Harry,” she said tonelessly, then turned around and went to help the next person.
Harry suddenly didn't feel like sticking around in the break room anymore. There were reports to enter before the end of the day. Might as well get some work done while trying to enjoy the coffee.
“Miss Coomer, wait!”
Harry's shoulders stiffened, steps quickening. “It's Doctor Coomer, Randall.”
“Right, sorry, Dr. Coomer,” Randall huffed as he drew even. “Look, I heard – someone said that you, uh – are you the person to talk to about, um, maybe, um -”
Harry stared at him as he struggled to keep pace. “Spit it out, man.”
Randall straightened. “I heard something about an....underground boxing ring?” Then he cringed a bit again, as if expecting to be laughed at.
Harry regarded the man coolly for a long moment. Randall himself was like one big wince – slender and gangly, he was relatively fresh out of college and still struggling to find his feet in Black Mesa. He deferred too quickly to the senior scientists and too slowly to Harry, despite the fact that Harry had been the section supervisor since before he was hired.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” Harry said, and kept walking.
“But everyone said -” Then Randall's face changed, going awkwardly sly. “Oh, right, this is like a loyalty test, huh? I have to ask three times to be let in, and then, after the third time -”
Harry stopped abruptly and Randall almost tripped into the wall. “Look,” Harry said, spinning to face him, coffee mug in hand. “I run the boxing ring, and that means I pick who gets to fight. If you want to try, you can try – but knowing what I know of you, you won't last a full round.”
Randall tossed his shoulders back and puffed up his toast-rack chest as much as he could manage. He had a solid foot of height on Harry – not that that ever mattered, even though people clearly thought it should be intimidating.
“Listen here, Miss Coomer -” Randall started, and Harry was done. Switching the coffee mug to a left-handed hold (it was one of the good ones, with Punch Today In The Face! written in rainbow text, and Harry didn’t want to break it or spill any coffee), Harry sank a right fist into Randall's gut, sidestepping at the same time so when he doubled over, they wouldn't bonk heads.
Randall dropped to the ground, curled up and wheezing. Harry took an obnoxiously long sip of coffee and blinked down at him just as a pair of coworkers rounded the corner. Their gazes flicked to Randall, groaning at Harry's feet, then up to Harry's face.
Harry shrugged at them. “He kept calling me 'Miss Coomer.' I'm afraid I had no choice.”
They both nodded and walked on down the hall without a word. One gave a thumbs-up and a wink as he passed.
Harry looked back down and nudged Randall with a foot. “Now listen closely, Mister Cline. It's not much fun to box with someone you don't actually enjoy spending time with. And I'm afraid I just don't like you.”
To the man's credit, he waited a week before requesting a transfer to another department. Harry had figured he'd be gone by the next day.
“So what exactly do you want from me?”
Harry looked up at the person standing in the glass cylinder, who was dripping greenish liquid onto the recently-drained floor. The button to retract the tube’s curved front was in easy reach, and the subject's eyes widened when Harry pressed it.
“Let’s go,” Harry said. “We're breaking out of this joint.”
“There's no way that's allowed,” the subject replied.
Harry shrugged. “Behavioral observation isn't very useful if there's no behavior to observe. Have you been to the cafe yet?”
It was a new addition to the Biological Sciences wing. At some point, the department head had gone begging to the Board of Directors that her department absolutely needed more coffee, along with round-the-clock service. Due to her tenacity and the undeniable increase in output from having the break room coffee station stay open for 24 hours for just a week, her wish was granted, and the Biological Sciences Cafe was born. The other departments rarely touched it, joking about what other substances might be in the coffee. BioSci didn't mind – they didn't want any of the Chemical Division's coffee, either, especially after an absent-minded professor had melted a coffee pot in their break room.
The subject stepped slowly out of the tube and reached automatically for the jumpsuit, but Harry pointed to the scrubs and lab coat on a nearby table instead. “Wear those. You don't want to stand out, do you?”
“Most everyone here knows what I look like,” the person said slowly, before carefully toweling off and pulling the scrubs on over the skintight leotard that was the usual liquid-filled-tube dress code. There might have been a grumble of “Engineering asshole” when the scrub top was over the subject’s head, but Harry chose to ignore that.
The subject tugged the scrubs to straighten them and squinted at Harry. “You're really doing this, aren't you?”
Harry beamed. “I'm certainly going to try! There's no reason you can't go to the cafe, and if we both act like it's normal, who's going to say anything?”
The subject shrugged the lab coat on and ran cautious fingers down the lapels. “I've never been to any of the public areas.” The words were tight and quick, spoken like a secret.
Harry smiled. “In that case, there will be plenty of new behavior for me to observe. Come along, now!”
“Dr. Coomer?”
Harry glanced up in the middle of a hasty lunch, one hand on the keyboard, the other clutching a plastic fork full of noodles.
“Yes, Dr. Brentley?” At least Harry was able to swallow before speaking.
The head of the BioSci department raised her eyebrows at the cluttered desk with paperwork jammed underneath Harry's plate and noodles dangling precariously over a stamped sheet that said “SECRET.”
“You shouldn't be working during your lunch break, Dr. Coomer. What would HR have to say about that?”
Harry snorted, and the forkful of noodles slipped off the fork and splattered back onto the plate. A single drop of noodle juice landed on a sticky note with several equations scribbled on it.
“Yes, all right,” Dr. Brentley said. “But still.”
“Was there something you needed?” An email alert popped up on Harry's screen. Harry closed it.
Dr. Brentley pursed her lips. “Your experimental treatment plan was approved,” she said. “You'll need to get the signed papers to me by Monday. And talk to the subject, would you? It's getting antsy.”
“The subject has a name,” Harry said mildly, and scooped up more noodles, trying to be casual but cheering inside at the news.
“Again? Well, put it in your report,” Dr. Brentley said, and walked away.
“You told Brentley WHAT?”
Harry leaned back against the tube and looked up. From this angle, the person standing in the tube was upside down. “I told her you have a name.”
“Oh, really. And what does it say on the paperwork, Coomer?”
The folder Harry was holding flopped open on the floor. “Subject: 8UB8-Y.”
“Does that look like a name to you?”
“So what have I been calling you?”
“That's...that's a nickname.”
Harry shrugged. “A nickname can become a name, Bubby. If you want it to.”
The silence of the room was studded with drips of liquid hitting the floor panel of the cylinder, and the faint humming of machinery.
After a moment, Harry looked up again.“...Do you want it to?”
“I don't fucking know.” The reply was immediate and cross.
Harry laughed out loud. “You're such a dick.”
The subject huffed. “Don't assign genitals to me.”
“Do you even have a gender?” Harry asked, flipping through the folder again.
“Fuck that. Those things are pointless.”
“Yeah,” Harry sighed, fingering the seam of another spare lab coat. “I guess so. Well, do you want to go back to the cafe?”
“I want to know what happened to my slug farm.”
Harry nodded decisively. “Then we can go see that. Dr. Brentley was going to have them recycled, but I had a boxing buddy take them in. He's a very strange person, just like you, and he works in Security, so his dorm is safer.”
“You gave my slugs to a cop?!”
“Okay,” the subject said slowly, standing in the middle of Calhoun's room. “You probably are the right person to take care of my slugs.”
Calhoun grinned brightly. “They're great little guys,” he said affectionately, peering into the tank taking up his entire kitchen table. “And they eat all the rabbit food crap I don't like!”
The subject blinked at him. “Right...”
“What's your name again?” Calhoun asked guilelessly, still looking into the tank. “I gotta make sure they remember who they belong to.”
“...They're slugs,” the subject said blankly. Harry hid a smile by regarding the bookshelf with fake interest. There were an awful lot of baby books for someone who appeared to be a single man living alone.
“Doesn't mean they can't learn,” Calhoun replied. “Do you have something you like to be called?”
The subject cast a helpless look at Harry, who shrugged, rocking back and forth on patent leather heels.
“I guess...Bubby,” the subject said hesitantly.
“Bubby,” Calhoun repeated without missing a beat, and stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Slowly, Bubby reached out and took the hand, grip careful in Calhoun's broad palm. Calhoun gave an easy grin and pumped their joined hands twice before letting go.
“Your slugs are safe with me,” he said, and Harry could see that Bubby believed him.
“I think I might like to try some gender,” Bubby said, suspended upside down in the liquid-filled tube. Harry was never sure how sound traveled in those conditions, but it worked somehow.
“Of course, Bubby,” Harry said, nursing a black eye, muscles pleasantly sore from the weekend's matches. “I'll hook you up with my personal dealer.”
“Don't call your doctor a dealer, Coomer. And for god's sake, put some ice on your face.”
Doc Zimmer blinked between the two of them. “I'm sorry,” they said. “Is this a new part of your treatment plan?”
“Nope! Bubby would like some gender,” Harry said again.
Doc Zimmer sighed and pushed their glasses up before marking something on their clipboard. “That's not how this works, and you know it,” they said.
“Explain it, then,” Bubby snapped.
The doctor gestured broadly with one hand. “You don't need an injection, or pills, or any sort of prescription for, um, for gender. You just...decide what feels best for you, and then pursue changes if that's necessary, or, um...desired...”
Bubby continued to stare at them.
“Look, I'm not – I'm not the right kind of doctor for this,” Doc Zimmer said. “I suggest you speak to a licensed therapist about –”
“Doc, this is Black Mesa,” Harry cut in. “Do you really believe that anyone here has Bubby's best interests at heart?”
The doctor leaned back in their padded chair and eyed the two of them before their gaze settled on Harry. “I believe you do,” they said.
Next to Harry, Bubby went very still.
“Well, that's a given!” Harry said. “Bubby is a dear friend.”
Bubby's eyes flicked to Harry's face, then back to the doctor. “I think,” he said quietly. “I think I might want to try some of this...he/him thing.”
Doc Zimmer smiled. “That's a great start.”
“Who is that?” Bubby asked, hunched over a cup of hot chocolate in the cafe.
Harry glanced up, then did a double take. The woman had flaming red hair that must have been dyed, and stood like a crane among geese – tall, sure, and imperious.
“I have no idea,” Harry said slowly, “but I'm inviting her to the boxing ring.”
The woman stepped forward in the line for the cafe counter, long legs flashing beneath her lab coat.
“Perhaps we should start a kickboxing offshoot,” Harry murmured, chin in hand.
The woman ordered a black coffee in a throaty voice, and Harry hummed, thinking about springy boxing mats and sweaty gloves.
Bubby sniffed, then took a sip of hot chocolate. “Y'know, I think I'm feeling pretty feminine today,” she said.
“Of course, Bubby,” Harry said, and made a note in the folder.
Later – maybe months later, maybe years down the line – after the dust had settled, Dr. Coomer would stand in line at the cafe again, Bubby an ever-present shadow, flickering though identities like old film, but alway hunting hot chocolate like a heat-seeking missile. Likewise, Dr. Coomer would choose black coffee – and even though their orders never changed, Bubby would try to make Coomer order both drinks every time.
“Name?” The bored barista asked. It could have been the same one, or it could have been a completely different person. It didn’t matter, in the end.
“Harry,” Dr. Coomer said automatically, startled out of a conversation with Bubby about the medicinal uses of green slime.
“Cool. Short for Harold?”
Dr. Coomer blinked, momentarily taken aback, then smoothed down his thick mustache. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I suppose so.”
He squeezed Bubby's hand where their fingers were interlaced, and he smiled.