Half-life2:Resistance

[theotherguy]

Alright, seeing as everyone else has their own personal forum, I am moving my story (which was originally created in "HL2 fanfic")
Also, I have included the zip file for easier reading....
My fanfic is available also at http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1734062


sadly, the text is too large to simply copy and paste here, and im too lazy to break it all up again sorry guys

 

[Cutey_Kaite]

Is this the WHOLE story?

 

[Letters]

It says 'Chapter 9' at the bottom with nothing under it... so I don't think so...

 

[ray_MAN]

There are 10 chapters. At the bottom of the forum there just click the arrow button.

 

[theotherguy]

its not the whole thing. The first ten chapters either at the top or the bottom of that site there is a box that says "chapters 1-8" and if yu click on the arrow, it will let you select "chapter 9" or "chapter 10"

 

[herbster]

well, I would just like to say that theotherguys fanfic is what inspired me to write my incredibly crap ones. No, I'm not implying anything. No, that was not sarcasm.

If your wondering why I felt the urge to clarify that, it's because I'm I might unintentionally offend someone. His work is, I think, very good.

 

[herbster]

paranoid. see why my fanfic will be crap?

 

[Zeus]

Who wants to get a mod team together to mod this for HL2?

This is nice, could make a mod out of it for HL2.

 

[theotherguy]

Alright, a LONG chapter is in store.
I don't know if a mod would be possible, at least not for the moment anyways, as I have no idea how to even begin modding, but if anyone truly wants to make a mod based on this, then so be it, I wouldn't be able to help much though

_______________________HALF-LIFE2/Resistance____________
THEOTHERGUY
NUMBER....17?


Chapter 11
Existence
Time ticked by like a dripping faucet, constant, and rather annoyingly. Ian felt like he was being crawled upon by a million insects, but he suspected that it was only his mind playing tricks on him.

But his torturous wait would not last much longer. He heard a loud noise from the front of the building; an echo of sound in the silence. It was the door opening and then slamming shut. Ian dared not peak at whatever it was.

“Regain consciousness!” Ian heard a shout from what sounded like a combine officer, muffled and metallic under his gasmask. Ian shot up, and was blinded by the light…the light? Ian was dumbfounded for a moment, sitting stunned in the light of morning. Had it really been that long? Had he dozed off? Ian checked his watch: 7:00 AM. It had been a long night.

The slaves stood up, stretched out, and blinked. No one said a word, however, for fear of being shot. “Into rows!” yelled the red-uniformed officer, moving through the rooms with his iron truncheon, pausing every so often to examine a slave.

The slaves stood there for a moment, and then lined into semi-neat rows, three across and many deep. After this had been done, the officer moved to the front of the room and then said: “You will follow us in rows to The Citadel, where you will be issued uniforms, and shaven!”

The officer stiffly marched out of the room, followed by the two tired soldiers that had guarded the slaves the entire night, both of them carrying submachine guns on straps.

The slaves, as they always do, obeyed without question, and followed them out of the building and across the dusty yard towards The Citadel, which loomed ever larger. Ian wondered whether it was actually growing, or if it was an illusion created by the shattering of his spirit by the slavery he now had to endure.

Ian thought about what he could have been doing if The Combine never invaded, how he could be helping his father with the shop, but now that his father and mother were dead, probably along with his dearest friends, Tonya was all he had left. It’s amazing how your way of life can be changed forever in an instant.

The slaves grouped with the others from the other two shelters, along with the conscripts, and even a few of the medical test subjects who hadn’t been “treated” yet. The mass of ragtag refugees of the Czech Republic gathered in front of The Citadel, surrounded by combine soldiers.

It appeared that almost over night, it would seem, a balcony was constructed midway up The Citadel, and upon it stood a couple of guards, and a rather familiar podium that Ian had first seen the commander stand upon. There was also a door behind the podium that went into the recesses of the massive Citadel. From out of this door stepped the commander himself, dressed in a dark trench coat, and sporting his now trademarked loudspeaker. He wore a white gasmask, with bulgy red eyepieces that resembled insect eyes. They never seemed to take these off.

He put the loudspeaker to his mouth, and spoke, Ian found it hard to hear him over the sound of the crowd, and the wind that was howling at the moment. “As you may know, slaves, there was an idiotic attempt at rebellion last night that ended up in the death of one of my soldiers!” He sneered, making dome very strange snake-like sounds on all of his S’s. “I cannot afford to lose a single soldier to you worthless slaves, when I am fighting a war!” He roared. Surprisingly, the Czechs that had been conscripted let out a cheer. “So, here, I will make it much harder for you to revolt. You will line up, as usual, and you will be stripped, shaven, and given uniforms. We will also brand a barcode onto you. That is all!”

With a swift movement, the commander turned and went back into The Citadel. Ian had a very nervous feeling in his gut as the officers began herding the slaves into lines. It wasn’t long before all of the slaves were in straight rows in front of The Citadel. From somewhere behind the structure came a few soldiers pushing carts that were stacked with folded garments, apparently the uniforms.

When the carts had moved to the front of the crowd, the officers began ordering the slaves to strip by kicking and cursing them in some unknown alien language.

The slaves obeyed their orders, and without shame, quickly taking off their clothes and throwing them onto another cart which was being pushed around the rows by a low-ranking soldier. And then, after this had been done, the slaves were ordered to go over to the carts with uniforms, and take one shirt and pair of pants.

The slaves formed yet another line, and began taking the garments from the cart. As he stood in line, Ian could see the other slaves trying on the uniforms. They were composed of white, long-sleeved shirts; composed of some kind of heavy material, with alien writing all over them, the only recognizable character was a “17” on the right shoulders of the shirts. The pants were green, heavy duty cargo pants, with places to hold tools.

Ian was issued his uniform, and he put it on without hesitation, anxious to cover up his own nakedness. The clothes had a loose fit, but oddly, they shrunk to his size within seconds. When trying to find out how this mechanism had worked, Ian discovered that several numbers had appeared on his shirt that weren’t there before: “17-0089” was the number that appeared on his shirt most magically and instantly. He noticed that the others had personalized numbers as well.

Once the slaves had dressed, they were hustled into yet another line, but this time, they did not advance. They were told to stand still for as long as “this next step would take” one of the officers ordered. Ian stood in line with the others, the sun in his eyes. He could see the buildings of city 17 over the ever-advancing walls of the complex. The sky was clear and blue, with a few wispy clouds over head. It was a beautiful day, most ironically; but Ian didn’t care anymore. It had only been three days, and he already thought of life as nothing but working from one hour to the next, and obeying his alien masters. He wondered if this was how the alien slaves that he had seen and heard about felt, although they had been in bondage much longer.

Suddenly, from one of the carts that a soldier was carrying, there was a buzzing sound, and out of it flew many tiny machines, bowl shaped, and glowing blue. They flew with tiny propellers on their sides with grace and ease, all twenty of them zipping speedily toward the crowd of slaves.

The crowd gasped, and Ian was afraid for a moment, until he noticed that the machines were systematically going over peoples heads, landing upon them, and within half a second, they lifted off, leaving the person bald, and with a barcode burned onto the back of their heads.

Ian didn’t have time to react when one such machine landed on his head. He heard a sound that was like the buzzing of a fly, when it fly’s too close to your ear. He felt a tingling sensation, and his brownish hair fell from his head onto the ground. He knew that he was bald. Then he felt a huge jolt of pain on the back of his head, and he let out a yelp.

The thing flew away, and Ian was left rubbing the burned-in barcode on the back of his bald head.

Tonya and Kleiner got similar treatments. Tonya’s shoulder-length hair disappeared in an instant. And Kleiner, being mostly bald already, only looked slightly different. The affect on the crowd, however, was rather mundane. Now that they were bald and had uniforms, the slaves all looked generally similar.

When this gruesome process was complete, the machines disappeared, and the slaves were ordered to go immediately back to the mines.

The slaves moved off in an unorganized mass, rubbing their heads, and pulling on their uniforms. Most of them went around with a feeling of gloom, as if shaving off their hair and burning their clothes had broken their spirit.

When the slaves entered The Citadel this time, they were all amazed upon how the place had improved. The first thing that Ian noticed, as he passed through the familiar hallway into the “lobby”, was that the place was no longer dark. On the contrary, it was now well lit by red, green, and white lights that lined the ceiling. It was also much louder. The grinding of machinery had become apparent, coming from massive pistons and gears that lined the outside of the lobby, moving slowly, and loudly. Ian could only guess what all this machinery was for.

The slaves moved through the now metal tunnels down into the ever deeper recesses of the mining facility, and moving to the familiar site of The Citadel’s “roots”, and to the mines.

Again, they were watched by the increasingly annoying scanners, and every so often, one would fly by and scan the barcode of a slave. Ian found it all very disturbing.

As usual, the slaves worked, and worked for hours upon hours upon end, and resurfaced for rations, and then retreated back into the mine for more work.

This routine, like the days before it, continued until about 8:00, but this time, the slaves were not allowed to search the newly-conquered buildings (which there were many) but were directly herded into the structure to sleep.

This night was uneventful, but Ian still sat and listened to his radio, playing that same message, listening nervously for scanners or soldiers, and eventually went to sleep.

 

[Navy Man]

dude i've read it all and its left me wanting more , are their comming chapters to hope for ?

 

[theotherguy]

dude i've read it all and its left me wanting more , are their comming chapters to hope for ?

Oh right! I forgot to give you the title of the next chapter....

Chapter 12- Xenoform
(coming soon)

Im not really working on it right now, but I will have time friday afternoon, so expect one between 6-8 PM Us Central Time (-6 GMT) tomorrow.

 

[Navy Man]

awesome

 

[theotherguy]

Chapter 12- Xenophobia

Three months passed since the lives of the slaves became harder. Three months of endless work, and the boring patterns, the same grueling routine of mining, eating and sleeping.

Ian began keeping a calendar after the first week, marking out the days with a nail, hardly a calendar, but enough so that the guards wouldn’t notice. Sometimes it was hard for him even to tell when a day had passed, sure, the sun rose and set as normal, but the days had all become so similar that they blended together into one terrible nightmare.

Every day, there was work, every day there was pain, every day the conscripts would go out and fight the Xenofauna and resistance, fewer of them coming back each time. The ones who were failed medical experiments would come out of The Citadel, babbling, and useless, they would usually end up dying within a day or two. Last but not least, the slaves would go into the mines every day, mind the same brown dirt for countless hours, and retire back into their structure.

The only difference was that each time the sun rose, The Citadel was a little taller, the occupied territory was larger, and the mining tunnels were more cavernous.

Ian had now become close to Kleiner and Tonya, he listened to the stories Kleiner told of Black Mesa, the event that had started it all; about the mysterious “Gordon Freeman” who killed many aliens before apparently dying in the facility. Personally, Ian doubted the truths of this story; it seemed ridiculous, as if Freeman were a one man army. At least he could not see himself in Freeman’s shoes, not in a million years.

Tonya told him about her life before her parents died, and caught up with him on memories they had had together, but that Ian had already forgotten about.

As for a matter of treatment, hygiene and clothing, there hadn’t been many changes, good or bad, their clothes were replaced every now and then, but by the time they were replaced, they had always been made fairly dirty by the relentless work. Their shoes, however, were repaired and recycled regularly, as The Combine, in a twisted sense of compassion, didn’t want their slaves to get diseases that came from the oversight of good shoes, which would therefore result in the loss of their healthy workforce.

But they could hardly be called healthy. Non life-threatening diseases ran rampant in the unclean environment, and it wasn’t uncommon to get a visit from a combine doctor who would carelessly and painfully insert a needle with some unknown drug in it to cure you. The slaves’ skin had become calloused and pale from the constant work underground. They hardly ever saw the sun except for when it was dark, and during their ration, where they had to shield themselves from the sunlight they were once able to handle.

The general mood of the camp became mundane, with the slaves just moving from one place to another, following orders, and working. The only thing that kept Ian from becoming totally brain dead was his radio, which he had managed to hide from the Combine soldiers as of yet.

Every night, he continued to listen to the recordings of Father Gregori. He learned that things were changing in the world. Even though The Combine had now officially conquered every nation on the Earth, there was still organized resistance in some parts of Russia, south China, the Philippines, areas of the Middle East as well as in South America. Also, the climate of the planet was changing rapidly, caused either accidentally by The Combine, or possibly it was the purpose of the Citadels themselves.

The earth was cooling at the poles and heating up in the equator, at much higher rates than before. Water was freezing in the poles, and water was evaporating quickly at the equator. The sea was literally drying up. It wasn’t known how long it would take, but eventually, the oceans would be nothing but miniscule puddles. (Along with a lot of the oxygen, as most of it is produced by sea plants anyway)

However, these changes did not affect Europe in the slightest (yet) as they were in a temperate zone and resistance was close to nothing in the area, aside from Father Gregori.

So, the routine rarely changed, that is, until the day that Ian met the Alien Slaves.

It was like any other day; the slaves were told to go into the mines, as always, and they would slave away in the ever-increasing tunnel system, pulling out metals, and loads of dirt for The Citadel with their worn bodies and inadequate tools. Ian was working, as always, next to Tonya and Boris, doing his usual set of strokes, rests, and hauling of the material back to the roots of The Citadel.

However, on his third load back to The Citadel, Ian became lost in the extensive corridors. He had traveled this tunnel many times before, so he could not see how he could have gotten lost. It was fairly simple to find his way back, of course, because of the colored lights that led in specific directions, based on their color. Green, Red, Green led back to The Citadel, so it wasn’t long before Ian realized which path led back to The Citadel.

The dark hallway smelled of fresh dirt and human sweat, and gravel randomly fell from the ceilings. Even though Ian was following the correct past, he just became more and more lost. It didn’t make any sense.

After a while, Ian, carrying his load of minerals, came to a part of the tunnel that widened into a room, Ian thought that it must have been the entrance to The Citadel roots, so he sighed in relief.

Ian was wrong. The room was totally unfamiliar, it had strange green lights, and a strange smell; but the oddest thing about the room was not the room itself, but the workers.

Instead of human workers, this chamber contained Alien Slaves. Their three arms held familiar tools as they grudgingly worked in the same matter as the human slaves, grunting and speaking in their strange tongue, their red eyes glowing in the dark.

Immediately, Ian, turned to run, but he was stopped by the swift movements by one of the aliens. It slurped, and said something in its language, Ian backed away, trying to find another way out. His heart was racing a million miles an hour, and he was breathing heavily.

There was no way out, he was trapped, and the watchful aliens seemed to be closing in, he knew there wasn’t a chance of fighting out, so he covered his face and cowered.

Just as he thought he would surely die, Ian thought he heard a voice, but then he realized he wasn’t really hearing it, he was THINKING it.

“Do not be afraid, alien, we are not here to hurt you, you are enslaved by The Combine too, and any enemy of our enemy is a friend.” Ian looked around at the blank faces of the aliens, but he could not tell where the voice was coming from.

As if they were reading his mind, the alien said “Do not attempt to discern who is saying this, we communicate with our minds, and without knowing it, you are communicating to us as well, whatever you think, we can hear. We were the ones who changed the lights to bring you here, because we are sure that you can help us… you see, we have been looking into the thoughts of you aliens, and we have found that you are compatible with our mind speak. You can be very useful to us, because, even as we speak, there is organized human resistance planning on breaking into this place, and liberating you, but in the process, we fear that they will not take us along, for we are seen as hostile threats. We need to rely on you when they come, to put a good word in for us, so that we can take part in the resistance.”

Ian could barely believe what they were…thinking to him. He thought that that they were going to kill him and eat him on the spot, he thought of the Xenofauna as mindless, bloodthirsty beasts whose only intent was to kill mankind. He was shocked to find that they wanted to help the human slaves, but at the same time, it was logical to assume that there would be any other way. After all, the aliens were slaves of The Combine against their will too, why wouldn’t they want to help?

Some greenish drool dripped from the mandible of one of the spiny aliens. Ian decided to try to speak to them through his thoughts. “So, you are saying that if I help you, you will help me? The offer is greatly appreciated, but how do you actually know that the resistance is coming to our aide so quickly?”

 

[theotherguy]

Sorry for it being two posts, but it was too long for the server to acceptThe alien answered quickly, as if he were expecting that question to be asked. “Years ago,” he thought to Ian, “our species lived in peace, much like your own, we were the masters of our planet, and thought of ourselves as the only intelligent life in the universe, that is, until The Combine invaded us. We were immediately enslaved, and since we were peaceful, we put up no resistance. We spent years working for them without resistance, they brainwashed us and changed our minds to suit their purpose. It was many decades before the first humans arrived on Xen. A few of us that were captured by the humans were studied diligently, and I was one of the ones captured at Black Mesa. They implanted something into my brain that allowed them to communicate with me, and I was able to give this same method to other Xenians telepathically. When the humans destroyed our leader, the Niniliath, we were for an instant free of the calls of The Combine, and we could go about converting others to our cause. After we were recaptured by The Combine, we retained our beliefs, and sit and wait for the day we are liberated, for I know that we will be. When we were brought here by The Combine, a human mind spoke to me from somewhere, he told me that we would be liberated. This was not long ago, and I have learned to look for his mind. I have found his thoughts in this city, and they plan to liberate us very soon, but just how soon, I cannot tell.”

The story touched Ian, just like humans, the alien slaves had been invaded without warning by The Combine, just like them, the aliens wanted to be set free. Ian was extremely excited with the news about the resistance coming to liberate them, and even more excited that he was chosen by the aliens to help them.

“I’ll do it!” thought Ian. The aliens all seemed pleased at this. “You will wait for us to contact you again, it will be a long time, no doubt, but when we do, it means that we know with absolute certainty when the liberation will come for us, you must prepare for that glorious day; do you understand?” said the aliens. “Yes…” thought Ian. “Then it’s settled, you will wait for us.”

Ian returned to his work, and when they had gotten back to the structure to sleep, he gave them the news.

-Chapter 13-
Anticipation

 

[Max35]

Who wants to get a mod team together to mod this for HL2?

This is nice, could make a mod out of it for HL2.

A sudden thought just struck me: what if we hold a 'contest' on the fanfic forums for the best fanfic?. The users will vote obviously, and which ever story generates the most interest, a mod is created from it. btw, I think theotherguy's story would make an excellent mod!.

 

[theotherguy]

Updates

UPDATES
Ive been doing ALOT of writing since the fourms went down, so, forgive me. I have written two chapters, and here they are, they will in no way be able to fit completley, so it will be in several parts.

Chapter 12- Xenophobia

Three months passed since the lives of the slaves became harder. Three months of endless work, and the boring patterns, the same grueling routine of mining, eating and sleeping.

Ian began keeping a calendar after the first week, marking out the days with a nail, hardly a calendar, but enough so that the guards wouldn’t notice. Sometimes it was hard for him even to tell when a day had passed, sure, the sun rose and set as normal, but the days had all become so similar that they blended together into one terrible nightmare.

Every day, there was work, every day there was pain, every day the conscripts would go out and fight the Xenofauna and resistance, fewer of them coming back each time. The ones who were failed medical experiments would come out of The Citadel, babbling, and useless, they would usually end up dying within a day or two. Last but not least, the slaves would go into the mines every day, mind the same brown dirt for countless hours, and retire back into their structure.

The only difference was that each time the sun rose, The Citadel was a little taller, the occupied territory was larger, and the mining tunnels were more cavernous.

Ian had now become close to Kleiner and Tonya, he listened to the stories Kleiner told of Black Mesa, the event that had started it all; about the mysterious “Gordon Freeman” who killed many aliens before apparently dying in the facility. Personally, Ian doubted the truths of this story; it seemed ridiculous, as if Freeman were a one man army. At least he could not see himself in Freeman’s shoes, not in a million years.

Tonya told him about her life before her parents died, and caught up with him on memories they had had together, but that Ian had already forgotten about.

As for a matter of treatment, hygiene and clothing, there hadn’t been many changes, good or bad, their clothes were replaced every now and then, but by the time they were replaced, they had always been made fairly dirty by the relentless work. Their shoes, however, were repaired and recycled regularly, as The Combine, in a twisted sense of compassion, didn’t want their slaves to get diseases that came from the oversight of good shoes, which would therefore result in the loss of their healthy workforce.

But they could hardly be called healthy. Non life-threatening diseases ran rampant in the unclean environment, and it wasn’t uncommon to get a visit from a combine doctor who would carelessly and painfully insert a needle with some unknown drug in it to cure you. The slaves’ skin had become calloused and pale from the constant work underground. They hardly ever saw the sun except for when it was dark, and during their ration, where they had to shield themselves from the sunlight they were once able to handle.

The general mood of the camp became mundane, with the slaves just moving from one place to another, following orders, and working. The only thing that kept Ian from becoming totally brain dead was his radio, which he had managed to hide from the Combine soldiers as of yet.

Every night, he continued to listen to the recordings of Father Gregori. He learned that things were changing in the world. Even though The Combine had now officially conquered every nation on the Earth, there was still organized resistance in some parts of Russia, south China, the Philippines, areas of the Middle East as well as in South America. Also, the climate of the planet was changing rapidly, caused either accidentally by The Combine, or possibly it was the purpose of the Citadels themselves.

The earth was cooling at the poles and heating up in the equator, at much higher rates than before. Water was freezing in the poles, and water was evaporating quickly at the equator. The sea was literally drying up. It wasn’t known how long it would take, but eventually, the oceans would be nothing but miniscule puddles. (Along with a lot of the oxygen, as most of it is produced by sea plants anyway)

However, these changes did not affect Europe in the slightest (yet) as they were in a temperate zone and resistance was close to nothing in the area, aside from Father Gregori.

So, the routine rarely changed, that is, until the day that Ian met the Alien Slaves.

It was like any other day; the slaves were told to go into the mines, as always, and they would slave away in the ever-increasing tunnel system, pulling out metals, and loads of dirt for The Citadel with their worn bodies and inadequate tools. Ian was working, as always, next to Tonya and Boris, doing his usual set of strokes, rests, and hauling of the material back to the roots of The Citadel.

However, on his third load back to The Citadel, Ian became lost in the extensive corridors. He had traveled this tunnel many times before, so he could not see how he could have gotten lost. It was fairly simple to find his way back, of course, because of the colored lights that led in specific directions, based on their color. Green, Red, Green led back to The Citadel, so it wasn’t long before Ian realized which path led back to The Citadel.

The dark hallway smelled of fresh dirt and human sweat, and gravel randomly fell from the ceilings. Even though Ian was following the correct past, he just became more and more lost. It didn’t make any sense.

After a while, Ian, carrying his load of minerals, came to a part of the tunnel that widened into a room, Ian thought that it must have been the entrance to The Citadel roots, so he sighed in relief.

Ian was wrong. The room was totally unfamiliar, it had strange green lights, and a strange smell; but the oddest thing about the room was not the room itself, but the workers.

Instead of human workers, this chamber contained Alien Slaves. Their three arms held familiar tools as they grudgingly worked in the same matter as the human slaves, grunting and speaking in their strange tongue, their red eyes glowing in the dark.

Immediately, Ian, turned to run, but he was stopped by the swift movements by one of the aliens. It slurped, and said something in its language, Ian backed away, trying to find another way out. His heart was racing a million miles an hour, and he was breathing heavily.

There was no way out, he was trapped, and the watchful aliens seemed to be closing in, he knew there wasn’t a chance of fighting out, so he covered his face and cowered.

Just as he thought he would surely die, Ian thought he heard a voice, but then he realized he wasn’t really hearing it, he was THINKING it.

“Do not be afraid, alien, we are not here to hurt you, you are enslaved by The Combine too, and any enemy of our enemy is a friend.” Ian looked around at the blank faces of the aliens, but he could not tell where the voice was coming from.

As if they were reading his mind, the alien said “Do not attempt to discern who is saying this, we communicate with our minds, and without knowing it, you are communicating to us as well, whatever you think, we can hear. We were the ones who changed the lights to bring you here, because we are sure that you can help us… you see, we have been looking into the thoughts of you aliens, and we have found that you are compatible with our mind speak. You can be very useful to us, because, even as we speak, there is organized human resistance planning on breaking into this place, and liberating you, but in the process, we fear that they will not take us along, for we are seen as hostile threats. We need to rely on you when they come, to put a good word in for us, so that we can take part in the resistance.”

Ian could barely believe what they were…thinking to him. He thought that that they were going to kill him and eat him on the spot, he thought of the Xenofauna as mindless, bloodthirsty beasts whose only intent was to kill mankind. He was shocked to find that they wanted to help the human slaves, but at the same time, it was logical to assume that there would be any other way. After all, the aliens were slaves of The Combine against their will too, why wouldn’t they want to help?

Some greenish drool dripped from the mandible of one of the spiny aliens. Ian decided to try to speak to them through his thoughts. “So, you are saying that if I help you, you will help me? The offer is greatly appreciated, but how do you actually know that the resistance is coming to our aide so quickly?”

 

[theotherguy]

The alien answered quickly, as if he were expecting that question to be asked. “Years ago,” he thought to Ian, “our species lived in peace, much like your own, we were the masters of our planet, and thought of ourselves as the only intelligent life in the universe, that is, until The Combine invaded us. We were immediately enslaved, and since we were peaceful, we put up no resistance. We spent years working for them without resistance, they brainwashed us and changed our minds to suit their purpose. It was many decades before the first humans arrived on Xen. A few of us that were captured by the humans were studied diligently, and I was one of the ones captured at Black Mesa. They implanted something into my brain that allowed them to communicate with me, and I was able to give this same method to other Xenians telepathically. When the humans destroyed our leader, the Niniliath, we were for an instant free of the calls of The Combine, and we could go about converting others to our cause. After we were recaptured by The Combine, we retained our beliefs, and sit and wait for the day we are liberated, for I know that we will be. When we were brought here by The Combine, a human mind spoke to me from somewhere, he told me that we would be liberated. This was not long ago, and I have learned to look for his mind. I have found his thoughts in this city, and they plan to liberate us very soon, but just how soon, I cannot tell.”

The story touched Ian, just like humans, the alien slaves had been invaded without warning by The Combine, just like them, the aliens wanted to be set free. Ian was extremely excited with the news about the resistance coming to liberate them, and even more excited that he was chosen by the aliens to help them.

“I’ll do it!” thought Ian. The aliens all seemed pleased at this. “You will wait for us to contact you again, it will be a long time, no doubt, but when we do, it means that we know with absolute certainty when the liberation will come for us, you must prepare for that glorious day; do you understand?” said the aliens. “Yes…” thought Ian. “Then it’s settled, you will wait for us.”

Ian returned to his work, and when they had gotten back to the structure to sleep, he gave them the news.

-Chapter 13-
Anticipation

“That’s amazing, simply amazing!” Dr. Kleiner was practically jumping up and down with excitement when Ian told him what the alien slave had said. Tonya and Ian couldn’t help but smile as well, because it was very good news indeed.

When Dr. Kleiner had calmed down a bit, he began to talk happily. “Ah, I knew that they would come for me! I knew it! After all, I was one of the only 15 remaining scientists from the Black Mesa Research Facility, I am absolutely sure it’s my government coming back to get me!”

Ian wasn’t quite as sure as Dr. Kleiner that it was the US government coming for the egotistical, balding scientist. What he was truly excited about was that he, alone was selected by the slaves to be their translator, it had been one of the most uplifting experiences in his life.

“How long will it take them?” Tonya asked, looking up at Ian. “I don’t know, but I’m sure that it must be soon, or else the alien wouldn’t have contacted me, he just told me to wait for him to contact me again, and that will be when these people, whoever they are, come to rescue us, or…err…Dr. Kleiner.”

Ian began fiddling with the radio, looking for Father Gregori’s broadcast. As always, the other slaves gathered around him to listen. Ian took this opportunity of fame to tell them what the alien slave had said as well. Upon telling them this, the ragged bunch was all smiles; and they listened to Gregori’s broadcast.

 

[theotherguy]

There was static, and then his broadcast appeared:
“Good Evening, members of the resistance of City 17, and the Czech Republic, This is father Gregori. The Combine, will, one day, I am sure, be destroyed. But it will be destroyed from the inside out, not by some other great nation. It may be tomorrow, it may be months from now, years, possibly even hundreds of years, but I guarantee to you, it will be destroyed. But, even if it takes many years, we can easily speed it up by resisting, comrades. We must stand up, even over a tiny bit of territory, and fight them at every step, to the last man! We must destroy their goods, and distract them from their goal! This is the only way… their fiery actions upon our people can only be extinguished by an ever-flowing river of blood. For those of you who are slaves, be patient, we will come for you one day, but your goal is the most important one. You must never give in to the combine’s way of thinking, you must never roll over and beg for their mercy, you must resist them in your mind above all else! This is all I can say without being traced. This message will repeat. Goodnight, comrades.”

The feed gradually faded out, and then repeated, as it would through the rest of the night. The broadcast seemed to confirm Ian’s story about people coming to save them, and they were very happy, and there was a lot of commotion, talking and laughing for a few minutes. Then, someone said that they should stop, for fear of The Combine becoming alerted.

Ian flipped off the radio, and hid it under the floorboards, while someone else blew out the orange, flickering candle. As Ian lay down on his familiar spot on the floor, surrounded by his assortment of odd things he had found at the camp, but that the Combine officers had let him keep anyway. The tarp off the top of a mine cart served as his bed; there were strewn bits of paper that he had found, most of them advertisements, as well as a broken flashlight, and the board that served as his calendar. He made a mental note to mark it in the morning.

As Ian went to sleep that night, he began having strange, alien dreams, probably incited by his encounter with the alien slaves. He saw a strange landscape in his dreams, dotted here and there by tentacle-like plants, and floating rock fragments everywhere. In his dream, he decided that this must be Xen. He would travel, but he never got very far, as he was constantly stopped, his mind turned blank, and in front of him floated an odd creature. In his dreams, every time, this creature would say something different, in a chanting-like rhythm.

Whenever Ian saw this thing in his dreams, he suddenly felt safe and secure subconsciously, but fearful in his logical mind. It was a very strange feeling. “Comes another…..I am the last….you can never know the truth… not human… we are slaves, all their slaves” The thing chanted. Just when Ian felt that he could understand what the thing had said, he always woke up from his dream, and forgot about it.

That morning, when Ian woke up, he had a pain in his neck. It felt like he had slept at a bad angle, but it was a throbbing pain. It felt to Ian as if someone was barely tapping a needle into his spine, a slight pain, but always there. He rubbed his neck, sighed, and grouped with the others to go to the mine.

While they were being marched along, there was a lot of hushed conversation concerning the resistance and Father Gregori. There were rumors about air strikes, tunnels, nuclear bombs, strange diseases, espionage, and a host of other such strange maladies that the resistance might use against The Combine, and there was talk of how they would do what Father Gregori had said, and resist The Combine in their malpractice of mining, and resisting The Combine in their minds and habits.

Several of the slaves came to Ian and asked him “what it was like” to be “hooked up with an alien,” and he readily told them, but he told no-one about his strange dreams the night before.

The mob of slaves marched into the mine, and began their hard, dirty work. Today, Ian seemed to have more prestige, and people got out of his way when he was moving, and gave him nods or other signs of respect. Ian didn’t exactly enjoy the attention, all his life he had been a guy who just stood in the shadows…just the other guy.

The slaves all took their part in “Resisting”, and their work was overall more sloppy, and wasteful. The scanners made sure to inform them that they had only reached 80% efficiency. The Slaves, however, took this as a compliment, and now made it their personal goal to make this number lower. They didn’t want to make it too low, however, or the Combine soldiers would suspect something was up.

The Combine soldiers were constantly watching with their bug-eyed gasmasks and mean-looking weapons, breathing heavily, and chattering on their radios. One would never know where they were looking, because their gasmasks removed all humanity from their faces. Ian wondered if they even had faces.

Otherwise, that day was the same as usual, same work, same rations, no alien slaves. Everything was normal in City 17; or at least that’s how it appeared to The Combine commanders, who were going over the plans and relaying information to the base at Black Mesa, and at Xen.

“Ah…This is one of the finest human inventions I have come across…” Said the commander in his familiar voice with elongated S’s, lighting a cigar in the darkness of the Combine Citadel, his gasmask off, with a shadow obscuring his alien face. His Comrade stood in front of him, a highly ranked officer who had come to City-17 to “Check up on things”. “Don’t be so…how do you say… moderate with those, I hear that they are dangerous.” Sneered the officer, as he looked over the orange glow of a computer screen, examining the progress of construction, taking note of it. There was the dull thud of the pistons in the background, the constant heartbeat of the evil tower. The officer snickered, and began smoking the cigar anyway, the silvery smoke curling away from the red-orange glow of the cigar, slowly rising, and then going into a nearby ventilation duct.

The other officer stopped looking at the plans and then said “The progress you have made is nonetheless excellent, commander, despite organized resistance in the area, and a generally small number of slaves. We have made calculations, and when it is time for the full invasion, your Citadel will be directly in line with the Xen transceivers, so I want this place to be heavily fortified when the time comes… It is absolutely vital that this Citadel be at 100% on the day. Your progress has proven worthy; I would say that within the week, we will be able to teleport striders into your area, so that you can better… deal with the situation around here.” The commander smiled broadly. “I cannot express the gratitude toward you, comrade; thank you!” The other officer looked out of a window at the ruined city in front below, and at the setting sun in the west. “You know too much Czech, Commander; I hope you’re not beginning to love the enemy.”

He laughed. “Of course not, it’s just a habit of mine! Comrade, my guards will escort you back to the teleporter, and I assure you, we will be ready when it comes time for the full invasion.” Both men smiled, and the higher ranking officer was led away, his boots clicking on the steel mesh flooring.

Ian stood on the top of the sleeping structure; an entire week had passed since the alien slaves had contacted him with their telepathy. He had not heard them since, but he was not worried. He had expected this, he knew that he shouldn’t get his hopes up that the resistance was coming soon, but just that it was coming.

That day, there had been a large commotion about something called a “strider,” the commander had spoken to them in one of his usual speeches, and happily announced that the Combine Citadel was now able to support the teleportation of “striders” large military vehicles, and judging by their name, they apparently were able to … well, stride across the landscape. Ian didn’t know much, and Dr. Klein hadn’t heard of striders either. So, all the slaves were completely at a loss.

All day, people were taking wild guesses at what striders were, but Ian doubted any of them were right. He had found his way to the top of the sleeping structure in order to see the lights show that was going on around the Citadel, random green bolts were coming from it, and every once and a while there would be a bright flash, and Ian would hear a distant thumping, but then the thumping would recede, and there would be another flash. This continued throughout the night, almost until 1 AM, when Ian decided to go back inside the sleeping structure, and yet again had dreams of the strange creature. They were always the same.


That morning, the slaves were lined up, as usual, but this time, they did not go directly into the Citadel, but rather, they were put into the rows that had been used to shave their heads and brand them. The officers with loudspeakers yelled to them all to turn and face the Citadel, and they expected to hear yet another speech from the commander. But, instead of seeing the commander come out to his usual pedestal with a loudspeaker, the slaves simply stared at a very large blast door that had seemed to have appeared over night on the Citadel wall.

It was a very big metal door, perhaps 100 feet high, and had yellow and black caution marks in its center. The slaves waited nervously, staring at the door, afraid of what might come out of it. Then, after about 20 seconds, the slaves could hear a distant thumping sound, like the pistons of the Citadel, but much louder. Ian had heard these thumping sounds the night before.

 

[theotherguy]

The sounds grew louder and louder, until they heard a loud screech, and the thumping stopped. A Combine soldier yelled something on his loudspeaker in an alien language, and suddenly, the huge blast door began to slowly open, gears working against the force of gravity, making mechanical noises as the blast door opened ever so slowly.

And then, out of the smoky darkness of the Citadel came the gigantic figure of a strider, and the slaves gasped in awe. The resistance suddenly seemed much more futile.

-Chapter 14-
Liberation
The Strider, the vast and amazing war machine, stood at least 40 feet high, most of this height was attributed by its three long, mechanical legs, which were stationed around its body in a tripod fashion, taking long, loud strides wherever it wished to move. The body of the strider was small in comparison, perhaps five or six feet high. It was insect-like, and resembled greatly the cockpit of the alien gunship that Ian had seen his first few days at the camp. There was a very large gun mounted on the belly of the strider, and it swiveled around as the machine took its vast steps. It was like the famous novel, “War of the Worlds” had come to life.

“Oh, dear god!” exclaimed Dr. Kleiner, his eyes as wide as silver dollars, looking fixedly at the columns of striders marching out of The Citadel, there were perhaps twenty of them overall, all lined up in front of the slaves like obedient soldiers.

When all of the bug-like machines had come out of The Citadel, and were lined up in perfect order in front of the slaves, the commander spoke again. “It was by good fortune that we were able to attain these striders,” he hissed through his loudspeaker, “I have brought them here to show you just how pointless it is to resist us. But these are only a small fraction of what you will see when the full invasion occurs, mark my words.” He snickered. The commander was obviously getting better at Czech.
The striders were allowed to disperse, taking very long strides across the camp, and then, amazingly, stepping right over the walls and into the city, to face whatever foe might be out there. Ian listened as their thumping grew lower, softer, and more distant.

Ian could barely see the tops of their shining cockpits, as they strode through the city. He turned to the fearful Kleiner and said “Now I know for sure that we have to get out of here, there is no way we are going to survive with those things around. The resistance better damn well come, or we are going to have to break out of here by ourselves, God help us. I think this is winding down to a close, the way he said ‘the final invasion’ and how these machines are just showing up out of nowhere, they’re expecting something, I just don’t know what.”

Kleiner said that he hoped Ian was right, and wiped his brow, turning with the rest of the petrified slaves, to go back into the mine, back into the darkness, back into the mindless, mechanical life that defined them.

That day in the mines, many of the slaves had lost hope, crying out about how it was totally worthless to do anything now, not with those “things” out there. Others saw it as a good sign, a sign that there were still people out there, still a resistance; otherwise The Combine wouldn’t need such horrible machines to do their bidding. The conversation quickly turned to the slaves’ relatives, and if they were still alive, if they were still resisting, and how much they missed their families.

After several hours of backbreaking mining, Ian was yet again on the shift that made him push the cart full of earthen material back to the Roots. He pushed his cart along the tracks slowly, following the familiar colored lights that would most surely lead him back to the Roots. But, after a time of following the lights, he found himself going in somewhat of a circle. But, this time, he did not panic, but became greatly excited. He knew what this meant: the alien slaves were preparing to contact him, the liberation had begun!

 

[theotherguy]

Ian half-walked half-ran along the corridor. He had never felt more alive in his life. He didn’t care about the striders anymore; all he cared about were the alien slaves and what they would tell him. Surely enough, after several minutes of moving along the dark corridor, Ian discovered the familiar cavern in which he met the alien slaves for the first time. This time, however, it was much larger, and had several sister tunnels branching off of it. He followed the tunnel system with the right colored lights, and finally emerged in the new work chamber of the alien slaves.

There they stood, mining in their strange way, and communicating in guttural noises and hissing sounds. There was one standing in the center, gazing at him with its huge red eye. Ian instantly knew that this was the one that had contacted him to begin with. Just as he was contemplating this, the creature began its thought speak.

“It has begun,” the sound began in Ian’s head. “With the striders now in place, and the commanders mind elsewhere, the leader of the one whose thoughts we can hear has seen it fit to remove the slaves from The Citadel, as they will need them to defend against this new threat. We know not how they plan to do this, but we do know when… sometime tomorrow, the liberation will occur. It is absolutely vital to us that you tell the resistance to spare us as well, and we will help in any way possible.”

After it had “said” this, a smile spread across Ian’s face. He was overwhelmed with joy. If this all went as planned, he and his comrades would be going home, getting out of this mess, it had been so long since Ian had been outside, so long since he had any taste of human culture. Tomorrow, his wait would be over.

He thanked the aliens with his mind, and ran off quickly back to the work camp as scanners eyed him suspiciously. After Ian had reached the workplace again, he decided against telling the group as a whole, as not to incite mass hysteria, but rather to whisper the information quietly to Tonya and Kleiner. Both of them were noticeably excited, and Ian promised them that they would talk about it later.

At mid-day ration, Ian whispered the information to other slaves, who in turn whispered the information to their friends. Thus, in very little time, practically the whole camp knew that the liberation was coming the next day. All but The Combine itself, the slumbering giant that would get a rude awakening the next day. Ian smiled after thinking of this analogy; in fact Ian was smiling about everything today. Nothing he did, none of the work, none of the orders he followed, none of it mattered. He wished, he hoped, he knew that they would all be emancipated the next day, and he felt pretty good about it.

When they had finished the work, the slaves were in good spirits, and were smiling and laughing randomly, and some jokingly winked at the guards, who stood sternly about them, their gasmasks constantly over their shrouded, alien faces. The slaves massed into their structure, in great anticipation for the next day. The lights were turned off, and the slaves could barely be seen in the moonlight of the night. All of them were whispering and making rumors, and all of them were filled with hope. So was Ian as he made speculations about the coming day to Kleiner and Tonya, and made guesses about what the resistance was doing at that very moment.

When Ian turned on his radio, Father Gregori was obviously making hints at the liberation. He spoke of “daring martyrs” and “salvation” and of how all of the slaves would not have to wait much longer for the resistance to save them. This only seemed to solidify what Ian had heard, and all of them were absolutely certain of liberation the coming day.

When the next day arrived, and the sun seemed to greet the slaves to their new promised freedom. All of them were even happier than before; most of them were looking around nervously, poised for the resistance to burst through the walls at any moment.

As they were walking across the camp to The Citadel, Ian could hear the massive crunching footsteps of striders around City-17. He still didn’t know how the liberation would take place, especially with all of the Combine war machines marauding around the city.

For an instant, Ian felt butterflies at the pit of his stomach, worried about what would happen to them when they got out, if they got out. This morning was unusually cold, even though the sun was up, and thick grey clouds were coming out of the West. The slaves were marching along the dusty grounds, as usual, their charade of melancholy obviously fooling the guards.

When the mass began heading to the entrance to the mines, gourds stopped them, and said “Hold it, we will hear a speech today from The Commander, no mines for now.” This was not quite an unusual occurrence; as they seemed to have to hear a speech every week or so. The slaves were not concerned, they never were. All the slaves cared about was the resistance, coming today, and all of them were hyped. As Kleiner put it:” Can’t they just get on with it?”

The slaves lined up in rows, lines of five, several rows deep, and began talking quietly to one another. The sun just began to rise, peeking out from behind the gigantic Citadel of dark metal, and blinking lights. The citadel was so tall now, that it’s top could not at all easily be seen, especially today, when it had begun to be shrouded in the cloud cover.

There was a swooshing noise, and the sound of speakers turning on. The crowds gaze was now fixated on the blast door that the Commander usually came out of. And there he stood, in his trench coat and gasmask, holding his loudspeaker up to his mouth, and standing confidently on the balcony several stories up the Citadel.

“There is a new plan, slaves.” He shouted to the rag tag group. “A couple of miles from here there is a building that was formerly used to hold prisoners. Our conscripts have taken the facility, and intend to use it as a secondary stronghold against the resistance, even though the resistance is so miniscule…” He trailed off, and then continued his snake-like speech. “There is much construction that is needed to make the facility suitable for our military use; so we have deemed it necessary to send you slaves to fortify the facility. Starting immediately today, slaves will be divided into 3 companies, two working here, and one traveling to the prison. You will begin construction immediately. The officers will now begin dividing you into companies.” The Commander turned of his loudspeaker, and stepped back into the Citadel.

Ian immediately got close to Kleiner and Tonya, he wanted to make sure that they were all in the company headed for the prison; he was nearly 100% sure that the company that was headed out would be saved by the resistance. “Tonya, Kleiner, if we’re in the company moving out to the prison, I know we’ll be saved!” he whispered. The others agreed, and huddled together as officers moved through the ranks saying “staying” or “going” to the slaves. The companies were forming into two massive groups at either side of the ranks.

Ian, his cousin, and Dr. Kleiner tensed up as an officer came near them. This officer touched a strong-looking man and said “You need to stay here for working.” The man looked sad, and sulked to the “staying” group. The officer swaggered over to Ian, touched his shoulder, and did something Ian would have never expected. The officer put the speaking hole of his gasmask up to Ian’s ear, and in a very human voice said “I know you’re goal, friend, you will be freed, along with the little girl and the old man.” Ian began to smile, he was overcome with emotion. “Do not show any emotion, they will know!” snapped the faux officer. Ian’s smile disappeared instantly. Then, the guard backed up, and in a very loud, extraterrestrial voice said “You, the girl and the old man, going, grab equipment, and move with the rest of the company. “Thanks” whispered Ian. The officer nodded, and headed on through the rows.

Ian watched him closely from the “going” group; he was picking women and children mostly, as well as a sizeable number of mid-aged men. Ian whispered excitedly to Kleiner and Tonya. “He knows! That officer, he knows! Thank God, we’re finally out of here, that officer is human, he is part of the resistance!” Ian exclaimed under his breath. “Is that so? This is fantastic!” said Kleiner. Tonya simply smiled.

 

[theotherguy]

Ian assumed that the officer had told the others in his group as well. There were exactly one third of the slaves in this group, just over 100 slaves, now supposedly on their way to the prison, but now possibly on their way to freedom. The air seemed fresher, the sunlight seemed sweeter, everything seemed better to Ian now. But he knew, deep down, that he would have to fight for his freedom, there was no way that The Combine would just let 100 slaves walk away from the facility.

The group that was going to the prison lined up yet again in rows, and each of them was handed a welder or a gravity gun. The familiar officer that had spoken to Ian before came up to him and pointed to his gravity gun. “That tool,” he whispered “has been altered; you can now easily use it against Combine troops, if we ever need it, while escaping.” “What about the alien slaves, are we taking them as well?” Ian asked. The officer responded “don’t worry; they have been taken care of.” Then, he backed off, and broke his science by yelling to the crowd. “This will do slaves, move forward, toward the North gate, stay within the perimeter of the guards!”

There were at least ten other guards, Ian suspected that very few of them, if any, were actual resistance members. Ian’s finger slid over the trigger, the active trigger that would allow him to take the lives of those who had ruined his.

The group marched off towards the North wall, each of them holding a tool, Ian knew not how many of them actually knew what the tools were capable of, and he hoped that they would not need to use them very soon. After just a bit of marching over the desolate remains of buildings that had been swallowed by the compound, they reached the massive, practically living North wall. It was making grinding noises, similar to The Citadel, as they were constantly inching their way over the terrain. There were snipers in towers on the walls, some of them facing outwards, some facing inward to the slaves.

One of the officers jogged to the wall, and instantly, seemingly from nowhere, a panel appeared to greet him. The guard mumbled something into the panel, and a very large portion of the wall slid quickly upward, to make an exit for the crowd to leave. In place of where the metal had slid up, there was now a shimmering, liquid orange force field, partially transparent, barring entry or exit from the facility.

Looking through this window was the equivalent of looking into another world for the slaves. There was a collective gasp as the slaves looked down the cobblestone road that led directly out of the compound. There were nicely preserved half-timbered houses, and brick storefronts, some still containing rotten food. There were popular corporate franchise signs, there were even rusted cars resting on the street, burned out and neglected. After three months in complete solitude from civilization, even a small remnant seemed like paradise to Ian.

While the slaves were standing there dumbfounded, the force field flickered off, and the officers gave the signal for the group to move. When about half of the slaves had made it along the sweet cobblestone road, a scanner zoomed overhead, and began frantically beeping. It stopped directly over the head of the insurgent officer that had spoken to Ian earlier.

“Officer 21273!” it buzzed in its electronic voice. “Your registration expired two days ago on grounds of ‘Officer 21273’ being killed in action!” Before the officer could speak, the scanner moved to three other officer and said the exact same thing. The first officer quietly pulled the MP5 from his holster, and said rather plainly to another officer: “Damn, I knew this would happen. Alright, well, I don’t think the idiots have fully figured it out yet, you two target the other officers around us, and I’ll take the snipers on the wall.” The other officers nodded, and took out their weapons as well, while the nonhuman soldiers simply stood around stupidly.

The lead insurgent lifted his hand high in the air, and Ian could see a tiny red dot appear on his forehead: the laser beam from a sniper. Ian had only a second to react. Just as the officer’s hand began its trip downward, Ian leaped for him. Time seemed to flow by slowly, the officer’s hand dropped, and Ian was midair, yelling at the top of his lungs. Right when Ian crashed into the insurgent, causing him to fall to the ground, he heard three shots, first from the wall, and then in two separate locations from a couple of the buildings immediately outside of the compound.

While on the ground, Ian caught a glimpse of the two outward-facing combine snipers falling to the ground from their walls, both of them had holes directly through their heads. “Thank you” the officer who was actually a friend managed to mumble to Ian, just as he was getting up, and aiming and firing his automatic weapon at one of the nearby enemy officers.

Ian took the cue, and got up as well “Might as well use this sometime!” he yelled, pointing his gravity gun at a Combine troop running towards the entrance back into the compound. Ian let his finger put pressure on the trigger, and his gun lit up in an instant, an excited pet waiting to be fed. The troop seemed to be grabbed by an invisible force, and he was lifted into the air, still pumping his legs hopelessly as his gun fell to the ground. Ian felt very happy and powerful at this moment, lifting the helpless troop into the air, and then dropping him headfirst onto the ground, the snap of the enemy’s neck letting him know that he was dead.

After Ian did this, the other slaves got the hint, and began firing at combine officers, some of the officers turning into human campfires from the heat of welders, others getting humiliated and killed by the unstoppable force of the gravity gun.

Obviously hoping they wouldn’t be killed by the slaves they were trying to save, the insurgents pulled off their masks, showing three human faces, unshaven and tired; The resistance.

Just at that moment, The Combine began to realize what was happening, a dozen flares let up from the walls, and an alarm went off. Instantly, the force field came back on, and at least 50 of the slaves that were still in the compound were trapped, beating helplessly on the orange, shimmering force field that contained them.

“Shit!” exclaimed the lead rebel in the clothes of a Combine officer. “Get out of here, split up, and just meet at city square, we have to get out of here before the striders and gun-ships show up!” he yelled. The slaves stood there for a moment, and then panicked running in all directions.

Ian lost Kleiner and Tonya in the confusion, and ran off down an alleyway; he could hear snipers on the walls firing, as well as from the surrounding buildings, probably from resistance snipers. He could also hear the hum of the rotors of an alien gunship, rising into the air to look for the prey that had run away from its lair. Ian knew now that he was a fugitive, that they were all fugitives, and even though he was free, his life now depended one hundred percent on his ability to run away, he just hoped he could survive long enough to meet with the others at city square.

-Chapter 15, Hunted-

 

[Reven]

I love this, keep up the great work!

 

[Brian Damage]

Very good... keep it up...

 

[theotherguy]

-Chapter 15, Hunted-

Ian ran at his fastest speed down the cobblestone alleyway, his footsteps echoing through the small alley. To the right and left were scorched and crumbling half-timbered buildings, partly white-washed and partly blackened by burn marks from previous battles. Just a few months ago, these buildings had been occupied, with Czech citizens going about their business.

As Ian reached the end of the alleyway, he felt the pressure of those chasing him, he knew they were after them, watching him, the sound of firefights echoed through the empty alleyway. Ian reached its end, and stepped out into the light of a small intersection, there were no Combine around. He put his back to the wall perpendicular to the alleyway and looked back into the slit between buildings where he had come.

He saw several combine troops running by, their black uniforms and white gasmasks shining in the light of day. Apparently they hadn’t noticed Ian running into the alleyway. Ian didn’t want to sit around and wait to see if they would come down the alleyway, so he ran off in the direction away from the citadel. He looked back, and saw the massive citadel, and hoped that he would never return again.

Ian sped off again down a cobblestone road amongst burnt and rusted cars, his breath fast running out. He had no idea where the city square was, but he hoped he could find something or someone to tell him where to go.

Ian ran a few blocks more, and then darted into another alleyway. He had heard the sound of the Combine gunship, seeking the escaped slaves. The whirring engine gave off a mood of tension, growing louder as the gunship flew nearer. Ian ducked into the shadows of the alleyway, and looked skyward. Suddenly, the Combine gunship appeared, sunlight reflecting off of its beige hull. The animal-like flying - 35 - - 35 -machine slowly hovered through the air, its pilot looking from side to side for escapees. Ian crouched lower into the shadows of the alley. The gunship slowed, lowered closer to the ground, and waited for a moment, Ian hoped that it wouldn’t find him.

The gunship jerked, as if startled by something, and then sped away in the opposite direction, its engines making a high pitched whirring noise, leaving trails of simmering heat behind it, distorting Ian’s view. He breathed a sigh of relief, and then turned and ran down the alley. “If I lie low,” he thought, “And stay hidden in alleyways or buildings, the gunships can’t find me, God I hope that I can find out how to get to city square.”

Just as he was thinking this, fear stabbed into Ian’s psyche, there, right at the end of the alley, stood two Combine soldiers in the light, talking to one another, and preparing to head into the alley. Ian stumbled, and then backed against the wall. A door with a broken glass window caught his eye, and Ian instinctively grabbed the door handle, and went inside, fearing he would be captured by the Combine troops.

He closed the door silently behind him, and put his hand on his knees, breathing heavily. The mild temperature inside the building helped Ian relax as he locked the door behind him. The room around him was fairly dark, the only light coming from the very small broken window in the door. There was a staircase directly in front of him, which led off to the right towards the second story. Ian stepped further into the interior of the room; he didn’t want to be seen by the Combine troops that were now searching the alleyway. He looked about the room some more and noticed bloodstains on the ground. He stared curiously at the stain for a time, wondering where it might have come from, when another drop of blood splattered on the ground, falling from the ceiling.

Ian felt fearful, and then looked slowly towards the ceiling. Hanging there was a horrific alien. The thing, which stuck to the ceiling by some unknown means, looked like a giant red blob with an enormous mouth and gleaming teeth at its underside, blood slowly dripping from the incisors as they moved back and forth, chewing imaginary food. The creature must have been three feet in diameter, and had a small tentacle hanging perhaps a foot down.

As Ian looked around the ceiling, he discovered perhaps ten of these terrifying creatures. Startled, Ian jerked back. The creatures seemed to be excited by this sudden movement. Unexpectedly, the creatures convulsed, and made a sloshing sound, their slimy black tentacles suddenly extending far longer than Ian could have imagined, now touching the floor, and beating around looking for their next meal, glowing sensory organs at their end.

Now there were wriggling tentacles crossing the room vertically at all parts. Ian feared that he would be ensnared by one. He slowly and carefully began to move towards the staircase, taking care that he didn’t cross one of the searching tentacles of the red blob ceiling creatures. The tentacles snapped by his arms, Ian pulled away, almost getting caught by the frantic tentacle.

Ian’s foot hit the first stair step. Noticing that there were no tentacles on the steps, Ian began to run up it. But, just as he reached the third step, a randomly swinging tentacle wrapped around his arm, the slimy appendage cutting off circulation in his right forearm, and pulling Ian against the handrail. Ian screamed in pain, the tentacle pulling tight, and the blob creature making strange sounds as it tried to reel him in.

Ian pointed his gravity gun at the beast, and fired. The power of the gun began to noticeably pull at the creature, causing it to convulse, and stretch. Finally, the creature was sucked off of the ceiling, causing plaster to shower onto the ground. Ian let the thing fall; the tentacle fell lifeless from his arm.

Ian ran up the staircase, and came to the door at its peak. He opened the door hesitantly and stepped inside. The room, surprisingly, was lit by electric light. Ian saw a window that looked down onto the street ahead of him, and on the windowsill was a very large and menacing sniper rifle, attached to a tripod, and angled upward, its gunman not manning it anymore.

Just when Ian was about to step into the room, an arm came across his neck from behind, and covered his mouth. Ian yelled a muffled expletive under the gloved hand, as a boot kicked his arm, causing him to drop his gravity gun. The person who had grabbed him from behind whispered into his ear. “Shhhh, I could hear you down there like a circus parade, you must remain quiet; they must not find us.” The man spoke with a deep gravely voice most silently, and although he had grabbed Ian, he knew that this man was part of the resistance. The resistance man let Ian go, and picked up his gravity gun.

Ian turned to face the man, and saw his features; he had a whiskered and wrinkled face, a large nose, and dark hair. He looked to be in his mid to late forties, and stood slightly higher than Ian. He was wearing a green jacket and dark brown gloves, as well as brownish, frayed cargo pants and black boots, and he had ammunition and a small pistol holstered in a belt around him. He was undoubtedly one of the snipers. Ian couldn’t believe his good fortune.

“You scared me,” Ian whispered, “You’re part of the resistance?” The man nodded. “Thank God I found you, those things downstairs almost had me, what were those creatures?” The man was expressionless, and then explained “Those are barnacles, passive aliens, as long as you don’t make any sudden movements, they’re harmless.” Ian looked around the room for a second, and then asked “How long have you been up to this, I mean, how long has the resistance been going on, how many are there, what’s your name-“ the man cut him off “Calm down, boy; my name’s Harper, Ludwig Harper. I’m a resistance sniper, who are you?” Ian replied, “I’m Ian Olbowski, I’ve been enslaved by the combine for about four months now, we just escaped with the help of the resistance.”

Harper handed Ian the gravity gun. “Yes, I can see that by your poor condition, it is always a pleasure to rescue those who we are fighting for; it is not right for these aliens to enslave our comrades. You know, most of the city is not enslaved, but just under the harsh rule of the combine, just you unfortunate thousand or so were captured, the rest still live out their lives in the city, but we are closely watched by The Combine, they are always enacting strange new laws, and they are very harsh to us, they beat us randomly with shock sticks, and sometimes take people away for medical experiments or slavery, or even draft them into their terrible army. Mr. Olbowski, your freedom from the Citadel has brought you into the mess of occupation. We can easily remove your uniform and the barcode in your head, so that The Combine will have no idea that you once were a slave, but you must agree, with full respect to help the resistance, and fight to save humanity.”

Harper extended his hand, and Ian shook it, “Col. Harper, I will support the resistance with everything I have. I am not going to sit about and be pushed around by these aliens that have taken our homes; The Combine will pay for what they have done.” This was the first time Ian had actively spoken out against The Combine, and he did it without fear of being overheard, since he was now free.

 

[theotherguy]

Harper smiled. “Excellent, our first move will be to get to city square, it’s just a few kilometers from here, and it’s outside of the Citadel Zone, where The Combine takes all humans into custody. We must move quickly, and stealthily, as you probably noticed, The Combine is hunting for you, there is a sewer junction nearby, we will go into that to get out of the Citadel Zone, just stick close behind me, and do what I say.”

Ian agreed, and thanked the man for helping him. Harper got his equipment and gun, and put it all across his back. He looked out of the window cautiously. “No Combine in sight, Ian, I think we can make an escape to that manhole.” Harper pointed to a small metal manhole towards the center of the street. Harper then quickly moved over to another window, one that led to the alley, and then exclaimed that the two combine that had come down that way were now gone.

Harper slid open the window, and swung himself out onto the fire escape, his gun drawn, Ian hastily followed him, his feet clanking on the iron fire escape. Harper and Ian climbed down the ladder of the fire escape, and then jumped a couple of feet down onto the cobblestone. “This way,” said Harper; running with his head low towards the manhole. Harper looked either way cautiously, and then crouched down, and lifted the rusted cover of the manhole. Ian followed Harper as he climbed down the slimy ladder into the darkness of the sewer. When Ian had fully gone inside, he closed the manhole with a metallic thud above him.

Ian and Harper descended into the total darkness of the sewer, which smelled terrible, and had a humid feel about it. “Alright, we’re safe now,” said Harper. “Just stay where you are, Ian, while I get the lights.” Ian could barely see Harper as he waded over to the wall of the sewer, and opened up a fuse box. He pulled a switch, and yellow electric lights flickered on in the sewers. “Ah, that’s better,” declared Harper. Ian blinked in the new light, “How is it that these electric lights still work after the occupation?” Ian asked. “Well, like I said, everything outside of The Citadel Zone is still operating normally, there are workers still running power plants, there are still shopkeepers, there are still people working for money. The only difference is the new government that oppresses them. Frankly, the Combine soldiers don’t really care what the Czechs do, just as long as they stay out of The Combine’s way. So, really, any crime could be committed by the citizens, and The Combine wouldn’t give a damn. But luckily, that hasn’t really happened. The invasion and occupation merely served as a uniting force among the people, and there have been no real major crimes by the people besides looting.”

Harper began to splash through the dark sewer once again, and Ian was inclined to follow. They waded for quite a time before coming to an intersection in the sewer. “Alright,” said Harper. “We go left here for another six blocks and then right for another two…” He trailed off, mumbling the directions to himself. Ian had the urge to ask questions again. “How many are in the resistance?” he asked. “Perhaps around 400, most of us are able bodied men, but there are a few women as well, and I suspect that we will get a lot more members now that the slaves have been released, but it’s not really the men we need, it’s the equipment. The Combine has already stripped the city of most of the weapons, and we can only use what we find.” Ian contemplated this for a moment, and then asked “Do you have any idea why The Combine is here?” Harper replied “I was hoping you could tell us that.”

The two walked on for quite a distance, and then Harper heard something. “Stop,” He whispered. Harper pointed his gun into the darkness of the sewer, and then quickly backed against the wall, Ian followed, his back hitting the slimy wall. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Shhh!” Harper hissed; Ian could sense fear in Harper’s figure.

There, in the dim light of the sewer, something moved. Ian jumped back, startled; he had only seen it for a second, but he was able to see that whatever it was, it moved with fluid motion, cat-like. “Assassins,” Harper whispered. He violently looked around the room for the thing. “It knows we’re here, we can’t just sit here. Ian, whatever I shoot at, you do the same, ok?” Ian nodded, gripping the gravity gun in his hands.

Suddenly, a figure appeared on the ceiling above them. It was humanoid in form, but moved like some kind of beast. It had a gasmask on, much like the Combine troops, but it appeared to be grafted to its face. There were five metal spikes at the end of its long, bony fingers; there were scars all over its hairless, white skin. And it climbed, with utmost ease, up the slimy, curved brick wall of the cave.

Ian yelled out, frightened, and Harper aimed his gun carefully and began to fire. The assassin dodged nimbly, jumping from one wall to another, a trail of bullets following it from Harpers constantly firing pistol. The sound was deafening as bullets ricocheted off the surrounding walls.

Unfortunately, Harper ran out of ammunition, and began reloading his pistol hastily, searching for a clip. At this moment, the assassin leaped from the wall toward Harper, hissing, and spreading its claws wide. Ian pointed his gravity gun and fired, the energy sound penetrating the air. Luckily, he didn’t miss, and the assassin was stopped in mid air, struggling to get closer to Harper with its claws frantically batting at the air. Ian couldn’t help but laugh.

“That thing can come in handy, Ian!” said Harper, “Thank you.” Harper jammed the clip into his pistol and fired a few shots into the creature. Ian let it splash lifelessly into the sewer. “C’mon Ian, there are probably more of those things in here, we’re not far from our destination.

Ian and Harper quickly left the creature where it lay, and waded into the darkness. “What was that thing?” Ian asked. “We call them assassins; they are the products of the medical experiments going on in The Citadel. I’m sorry Ian, but we probably just killed one of your comrades. Rest assured however, that they are not really human anymore, and that they do not think for themselves.”

Ian was shocked by this revelation, and he thought about it momentarily as he slowly trudged threw the disgusting sewer. Those few of his compatriots that had become medical experiments had been turned against their will into those… things. Ian hated The Combine with a hatred that only a long-time enemies can have, he knew, with every bone in his body, that The Combine represented absolute evil, there was no denying it, these aliens had to be stopped at all costs, and he was proud to now be a part of the organization devoting to stopping the spread of their evil tyranny. But somehow, he expected the fight to be much larger and longer than anything the world had ever seen.

The two came to a ladder in the middle of the sewer. Harper motioned for Ian to stop and then said, “This is it; this ladder will lead out of the sewers just outside of the Citadel Zone. We’ll have to meet with the others in city square, and then we’ll have to get you to Eli’s lab so that he can get you all fixed up, no more barcodes or brands or whatever little things that they put on you in the past three months.” Ian was grateful. “Who is Eli?” asked Ian. “Oh, Dr. Eli Vance, he’s the brains of the resistance, along with his daughter Alyx, both of them came here from the US after the Black Mesa Incident along with Dr. Kleiner.” Harper replied. Ian told Harper how he had met Dr. Kleiner, the strange scientist.

Harper and Ian climbed the rickety ladder up towards the manhole above them. Harper lifted the heavy metal cover slightly, looked around, and then said that it was safe for them to come out.

Harper flipped the manhole cover to the side, the light from outside seeping in and illuminating their faces. The two crawled out of the repulsive manhole, and brushed themselves off in the middle of the cobble stoned street. For the first time in over three months, Ian was outside of the Citadel Zone, and inside the Free Zone. But he was still not truly free. He would never be truly free again, without the worries of The Combine, the aliens that had come and changed his life forever.


Chapter 16, The Resistance

 

[Brian Damage]

I liked the bit with the barnacles...

 

[theotherguy]

Chapter 16, The Resistance

“Welcome to occupied Prague Ian, city-17,” said Harper with a sigh. Ian looked around in the light. It was a large square, with a great stone monument in its center, depicting a rider on a horse. Ian had been here many times before to do business in the city. There were several tall office buildings and apartment complexes in this area, as well as smaller, more modest shops. It was just like it used to be, before the attack. Ian nearly cried with joy upon seeing it. He would have if it weren’t for one fact: The streets were totally abandoned.

“Damn, looks like they have the city under quarantine again, all the citizens are locked up in their homes while the officers do their duties that they don’t want the rest of the citizens to see. No doubt it’s because of your daring escape. We must move quickly, Ian, or else they will surely spot us.” Harper said with urgency, walking towards the center of the square.

Ian looked again slowly up the stone monument of the rider, only to discover something very strange: right where the rider should have been, there was now a huge, glowing television monitor, like a glowing beacon, smooth, curved, and with the face of a man projected on it. The man whose face beamed down from the monitor appeared old, and had a grey beard, and was balding. He had a calm demeanor and a cool smile about his face. Such a combination drew Ian to the man’s face, but nothing was more luring than his smooth, charismatic voice, which boomed over the loudspeakers.

“My fellow citizens, it is a fine day indeed. Unfortunately, however, there have been some…problems with our enemies who have been justly imprisoned in the citadel, but it is nothing to be alarmed about. There has been a curfew issued, and we would kindly ask you all to stay in your homes while our benefactors take care of the fugitives, fear not, friends, they pose no threat to you, but please report to the nearest officer if you see anything suspicious.”
The charismatic man on the monitor smiled, and repeated his message again, over and over.

“Who the hell is that?” Ian asked, confused, to Harper. “Ah,” he grunted, “don’t listen to that drivel, it’s the propaganda that The Combine spits out, they made up this fellow called Dr. Breen, he’s on every goddamned TV channel, and every radio station, save of course old Father Gregori. We all think he’s some kind of publicity stunt to give The Combine some kind of a human face, something we can relate to. Don’t listen to him, we all learned not to long ago.” Harper led Ian across the square, looking for Combine soldiers all to the background noise of the soothing voice of Dr. Breen, the man that haunted every media outlet in city-17.
Ian and Harper came to a small alleyway in-between some of the larger buildings, and crept into the shadows of the dingy alley. Everything was quiet, there were no people on the street, no Combine officers, no scanners, nothing. Ian saw a half-full shopping cart sitting on one of the sidewalks, the person pushing it long since abandoned it. Harper came to a blue, horrendous smelling dumpster that obviously never got emptied. “Stand back,” he said to Ian.

Ian backed off as Harper pushed the dumpster to the side with a metal-on-stone screech. “Right here,” he said “Is one of the entrances into headquarters.” Harper felt around in the semi-darkness, and felt around, his hand landing on the cold rusted metal of a wooden door on the ground. He pulled, and the door swung open with a squeak, and thudded on the cobblestones. Harper motioned for Ian to follow him, and then climbed a ladder down into the square hole. Ian followed, and shut the wooden door behind him.

Ian and Harper climbed down the ladder into a musty and dark room, their feet echoing as they hit the concrete floor. “This used to be an old cellar, it’s nothing but a disguise however, as headquarters is far below the ground. Just walk in the same direction as me, and watch your step.” Harper echoed in the dark cellar. Harper moved into the darkness, and began going down some concrete stairs. Ian followed him, his hand gripping the handrail of the concrete staircase so that he wouldn’t trip and fall in the darkness.

They reached the end of the staircase, and Harper felt along the wall for something. Harpers hand fell on a small panel, and he pressed a button on it. An electronic beep rang out. “Who is it?” the voice over a small speaker said. Harper replied, “Its Col. Harper, I’ve got one of the escaped slaves, I’ve brought him here for Eli to have a look at.” The machine chirped again “Very well, Colonel, you are one of the last to arrive here, most of them got in with Calhoun. Just step into the elevator.”

Suddenly, there was a flash, and lights appeared in the dark cellar, revealing a sliding door that Ian hadn’t seen before. There was another beep, and a hiss, and the doors slid open. Ian and Harper stepped into the cool, air-conditioned interior of the metal elevator. The elevator was rather small, and it was not a closed elevator, so that you could see out of it easily.

Harper pressed a small red button labeled DOWN, and with a small lurch, the elevator began its descent. “Headquarters extends at least ten stories beneath the surface, most of this space is used up for Eli’s lab equipment, and storage for everything from The Combine that we have captured,” Said Harper, looking out at the moving wall. After going for some time, the elevator slowly came to a stop. There was a ding, and the doors slid open quickly.

The room outside of the elevator shaft was huge, and quite impressive. “Welcome to headquarters!” exclaimed Harper. The room was well lit by fluorescent lighting, and there were machines buzzing against the walls in all places of the room. There were also people, most of them dressed in blue jumpsuits with the number seventeen on it, or white lab coats with green pants, most of them looked to be young, and all had a look of business about them.

One man, an African American man with a balding head, and a grey beard began walking towards them. Ian noticed instantly that the man’s right leg had been amputated, and had been replaced with a smooth metal strip with springs, an artificial leg. “Good to see you Col. Harper, so it looks like you brought one of the last of our friends to HQ?” The man smiled a friendly smile. Harper responded, “Yes, I pretty much saved this man, I don’t know if he would have made it if it weren’t for me.” Harper had a much more serious tone than the smiling, warm older man. “Well, it’s a good thing that you brought him here, then, Harper, go get some rest; I’ll talk to the boy.” The old man paused, and allowed Harper to move into the room to go about his business.

The man then turned to Ian, smiled and said, “Hello, son, my name is Eli Vance, and if you haven’t already heard of me, I’m the local scientists around here, the only MIT graduate for miles, what with Kleiner not showing up, and old Gordon Freeman disappearing… Anyway, if Harper brought you here, that means you pledged to The Resistance, which means we are pretty much family now in this cruel world we live in; in that case, could I have your name, son?” Eli asked. “My name is Ian Olbowski, I am sixteen years old, and have been a prisoner of The Combine for just over three months now, I don’t really know how long, it was kind of hard to keep track of time in there…” Ian trailed off; he seemed to be forgetting about how long he had been imprisoned. Eli comforted him, “Don’t worry Ian, I wouldn’t expect you to, we all know nowadays that they have a few…tricks to make you forget things… I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s been quite a bit more time than you think. Say, when were you captured, Ian?” Ian told him all about his capture. “Well, if you got imprisoned by The Combine the day the invasion began, then…well, I’d say it’s been three years, not months, since your capture.”

 

[theotherguy]

Ian was shocked. “Three Years!?!!?” he exclaimed. “Yes, it’s the year 2010, and that makes you nineteen years old, Ian. As I said, they have tricks. Mainly it’s what they feed you, the water is flooded with toxins that erase your memory, sometimes you could lose entire months at a time, it impairs your logic, makes you think differently. I’m sorry, Ian, we all had that shock at one time or another, but we now know not to drink the water, trust me, don’t drink it. But don’t worry, a few day s off of it, and you’ll remember everything.” Eli smiled, but Ian was still in shock, he could have sworn it had been only three months since his capture, he had marked off the days, and he counted them all out…or had he? He couldn’t remember. Ian looked over himself, and then realized that he seemed noticeably older. But he had thought that he had always looked that way, or at least, that’s what he remembered.

Eli could obviously see the torment that Ian was going through, and then said. “Don’t fret. It doesn’t pay to think about these things, Ian, you are safe now, and you don’t need to be brainwashed anymore.” He smiled, and then put his hand on Ian’s shoulder. Ian found comfort in Eli Vance’s assurances. “C’mon, son,” he said, “Let’s go and get that barcode off the back of your head.”

Eli led Ian through the room, greeting members of the Resistance as he went by their stations. Eli and Ian came to a door at the far end of the room, and the old man pressed a few keys on its side, and the door beeped, then slid open with a hiss. The room inside was, as usual, well light, and looked to be old, with water stains on the walls, as the entire complex looked to be. There was what looked to be a red leather dentist’s chair in the center of the room, with lights, scalpels, and a few strange instruments next to it. Eli told Ian to sit down in the chair and relax. “This won’t hurt a bit, Ian, we just need to get this off so that you aren’t given away by any of those nasty scanners, and thank god you haven’t met one yet.”
Eli told Ian to lean forward in the chair and keep his head very still. The old man took a strange glowing device from the surgical table, and pressed a button that made it whirr strangely. “This is a low power laser,” he said, holding it so that Ian could see it. “It will give you the equivalent of mild sunburn, but the radius will be such that it will remove the tattoo easily.” Eli pressed the cold metal device to the back of Ian’s bald head, and then pressed the button to make it whirr again. Ian felt a slight sting, but then it was gone. “All done, Ian, the barcode is gone, and your hair will probably grow back again,” Said Eli cheerily. Ian was surprised at the swiftness of the procedure, and he was certainly happy to have his hair grow back after three…after three years of being completely bald at the will of The Combine.

“Thank you, Dr. Vance,” said Ian. Suddenly, Ian felt concerned. “Have Dr. Kleiner and my cousin, Tonya showed up here yet?” He asked Eli Vance. Eli frowned. “I don’t know about your cousin, but I haven’t seen old Dr. Kleiner since….oh around 1998, in Black Mesa, New Mexico.” Ian was worried. “Well, you can go upstairs one level, that’s where all of the liberated slaves are staying right now, talking with other members of The Resistance, most of them followed Barney Calhoun in, one of the insurgents who helped you escape. Barney, however, has moved back into the city of more slaves, as we are missing quite a few who are not officially dead.” Eli explained. Ian nodded, and headed out of the room. “I hope you find them, Ian, it’s nice to have another fighter for humanity.”

Ian exited the room, and came out into the buzzing, glowing huge room that he assumed was headquarters. “Good morning, sir.” Many of them said, smiling, looking at him, his bald head, and his slave uniform. He passed many white concrete pillars that held the ceiling up, and walked over the smooth tile to get to the metal elevator. He stepped inside, and pushed the red button labeled UP once, there was a beep and a lurch, and the elevator rose up one level to the room that the liberated slaves were staying. The elevator buzzed, and the doors opened, allowing Ian to step into the room where the former slaves sat around and talked, using supply crates as tables and chairs, all of them bald, but without a barcode on the back of their heads. The room was just about half as large as headquarters, and contained many ammo and supply crates, stacked practically to the ceiling, all of them stamped with alien symbols and the huge C symbol of The Combine.

It was ironic, Ian thought; that the people who were once captured and misused by the oppressive Combine were now lounging on the crates that had been stolen from The Combine, in clothes that their former masters had paid for. Ian recognized many of them, but there were unfamiliar faces as well; the resistance fighters and scientists. But he did not see Dr. Kleiner, nor did he see Tonya.

Ian moved next to a group of laughing young men that had been acquaintances of his for the past three years, but whom he didn’t really know. “Ah, feel free to have a seat, Olbowski,” one of the said with a friendly tone about him, so Ian sat down on one of the boxes. “We are all free men today! Your acquaintance with those aliens certainly paid off, we knew pretty much exactly when they were coming for us!” The man laughed. “It feels great to be free again, I worked in this very square, I used to sell car parts here, it wasn’t very successful, and now I hope that I can do that again, but sadly, they say that none of the citizens are allowed to drive without a good license from The Combine, but they say that it is very hard to get, so nobody drives. Instead they are going to re-assign me to the building just above us. You know what this place does? It’s a munitions factory, at least above ground; it makes the bullets that go into The Combine’s guns!” The man exclaimed.

The men talked for a time. “It is so incredibly strange that we don’t remember how long we were in there, all of us had different ideas, but none of us expected three years had passed!” the men grunted in agreement. “The first thing I’m going to do, I tell you, is to go and see if I can find my wife and kid, they weren’t captured, I just hope they weren’t killed, or worse, brainwashed.” The man stared off into the distance, his mind flooded with memories. “My kid, he’s got to be seven now, seven years old without a father, I hope he will recognize me…I hope he still loves me.”

The other men told their stories, insurance salesman, construction worker, student, a telemarketer, a science teacher. They had all been at the wrong place at the wrong time. Either they were trying to get across the border, or they were just too close to the blast site, saw too much, and were forced to forget through slavery. One of them was arrested just a few days before, but oddly, he couldn’t remember a single thing about why he had been thrown in there, or how he got all the scars on his face, or even what life was like before The Combine had changed him from citizen to slave.

The men murmured a bit more, and then were cut off by the yelling of a woman scientist in a white turtleneck sweater, and the uniform green pants. “Attention, friends!” she shouted. The former slaves all quieted down to let her speak. “Hello, my name is Dr. Mossman, and I am very glad to have you all here, you are what we are fighting for, and your liberation today was a great victory for us a great victory indeed!” she turned, to make eye contact with everyone, her short red hair bobbing. “We are also terribly sorry that you were captured, and that up to three years of your life has been lost. Your goal, now, as members of the resistance, is to fight The Combine, and take back the life that they stole from you. The first step is of course liberation. A step not many of us had to take, and are not likely to understand, being already ‘free’ these past three years. The second step: understanding why you are fighting, which is what the rest of us have learned already. The third step is revolution, which we are all participating in right now. The glorious finish line is of course freedom. All of these things will take time, and hardship, and quite a few of you will die. But for those of you who don’t, these experiences in the resistance will make you stronger.”

Dr, Mossman took a small device from her pocket and pushed a button. A large screen and projector unfurled from the ceiling, and nearly reached the floor. “This video that I am about to show you is the propaganda that The Combine has been feeding our children. Most of it is not true, for it is nothing but propaganda, but I will tell you what is false, and what is true, for this video is the best educational tool we have to tell you about the past three years.” She said, pressing another button on the device.

Ian nervously twitched in his chair as the lights went dim and the projector turned on. Some very loud, major, cheerful music began to play from speakers stationed at some unknown point. Slowly, the screen faded from black into the beaming face of Dr. Breen, smiling in all of his smugness, his huge face showing the details of his graying beard and hair, his wrinkled forehead. Behind him in the video was a picture window, showing all of City-17 at sunset. It was obvious that he was in the Citadel. Dr. Breen paused for a moment, and then began to speak.

“Welcome to City-17, you have chosen, or have been chosen, to relocate to one of our finest remaining urban centers. I have come to enjoy City-17 so much, that I elected to establish my administration in The Citadel so thoughtfully provided by our benefactors. I did this simply because; it’s so much safer in City-17. So, relax, and watch as I explain just how this place came to be, and what a great city it really is.”

 

[theotherguy]

Dr. Breen smiled as The Combine logo and the words “Educational Video, History I.” appeared on the screen. He then began to speak again. “This city is called City-17, because it is the site of the seventeenth citadel ever to be established by our associates, The Combine. All in all, there are thirty-two urban sites, but none are finer than our home, City-17! The purpose of the Great Protection Communities is to protect, and house the residents of the country in these trying times. Outside the city it is terrible. There are aliens and monsters, and marauding gangs, and many terrible things that are far too dangerous to live amongst.”
The screen faded to show deformed head crab zombies, and many strange alien creatures, most of them graphically devouring humans. “These aliens were brought here by the wicked governments that once oppressed you all. Fearing that these aliens would destroy another peaceful race concerned our friends, The Combine. So, they used their superior technology to come here and save us from the evil beings. Thankfully, The Combine is now in control of most of the world, and their Protection Communities provide adequate housing and protection to most all of the world’s citizens!”
Lively music began to play as the screen showed videos of City-17, and other cities, most of them looking extremely beatified, with smiling, happy people, and Combine officers helping citizens. “So, in return for the great favor that The Combine has bestowed upon us by saving us from the aliens, we must remain good and loyal citizens, obey every law, and always help our friends, The Combine, when they are in need. Otherwise, you will go here:” The music turned into terrible, sad music, showing many sinister looking people locked up in chains, digging under The Citadel, wearing striped uniforms, with guards standing by peacefully. Obviously, it was a depiction of the slave gulag inside the Citadel Zone. Dr. Breen began to speak again.
“That concludes this section of History One. I, Dr. Breen, a citizen just like you, will continue to inform you throughout your education and every day life, just go to your nearest television, don’t worry, I’m on every channel! I encourage you to watch, and I encourage you to be an active member of your community. Thank you, friends; I hope that you will all be active, and happy citizens from now on!”
The screen faded to black, and the lights turned back on.

The slaves were all in awe, staring at the blank screen, soothed by the whole experience. Dr. Mossman returned in front of the screen, and spoke again “The only thing in that that was true is that there are several cities like this one around, that there are aliens outside of the city, and that The Combine doesn’t take to kindly to citizens who don’t obey the law; even though nobody is quite certain what the law is these days.” Dr. Mossman had a disgusted look on her face. “However, most of the students that this video is fed to believe Dr. Breen one-hundred percent, even though it is believed that Dr. Breen is just made up. Now, the second step is partially over. I would love to have you all be able to stay here, but sadly, we don’t have enough room, or even food to allow you to stay. So, we have forged some papers for all of you, we let you all keep your original names, but you all have new professions, and new homes. These papers should get you by until we actually start to really fight. Just get in line here, get your papers, new set of clothes and a temporary wig. Then, just go to the place where you supposedly now live, go up to the apartment and just show them your papers, tell them you lost you key, and they won’t care, we already registered you for these tenement buildings. Good luck comrades and I hope to be working with you all in the future!”

There was a murmur from the crowd as they all slowly moved towards the resistance men who were carrying their new identities. Ian didn’t care where he lived or what job he received, just as long as he was free. He now understood that it would be a long and slow resistance, but it was better than slavery. He continued down the line of the former slaves and stood wondering what his job would be.

Tonya and Kleiner were still yet to be found.

-Chapter 17, Occupation-

 

[Brian Damage]

That was interesting... So this is set before Gordon arrives at the hideout/headquarters?

 

[theotherguy]

Yes, about three years before the arrival of gordan, Right now hes still in hypersleep. The resistance doesn't officially start until his arrival, and thats about when the two scientists (Eli and Kleiner) get seperate ideas about what to do.

The next few chapters will probably skip ahead alot (nine months later, one year later, etc.) but will eventually get to the part where gordan shows up and rallys the resistance.

 

[Brian Damage]

Ah, cool.

's he gonna talk?

 

[jabberwock95]

Just finished reading it. Absolutely brilliant. It really would make a brilliant mod.

I can't wait for more chapters, I wan't gordon to turn up. Is he going to talk? I don't really mind either way, but i'd expect him to be the silent type, only speaks when necessary, etc.

Love everything about the story so far, but I wan't a nice detailed description of gordon (and his hazard suit) please! I love reading stuff like that....

Keep up the good work!! :cheers:

 

[Brian Damage]

Yeah, I love descriptive stuff too, but only if we already have somewhat of an idea of what the thing in question already looks like. And we do, in this case. So... yeah...

Not sure what I was trying to say up above...

You could always make Gordon a mute, theotherguy...

 

[theotherguy]

Hmm, I think Im going to have alot of problems with gordon, I dont want him to sound too cocky, or too wimpy, and I dont want him to have stupid catchphrases, and I dont want him to be a mute. I guess I'll just figure it out when the time comes. Anyway, the next chapter...

-Chapter 17, Occupation-

Ian was shoved to the front of the line. There was a table there that had many papers and clothing strewn about it. There were members of the resistance sitting there, and sorting through them, handing papers and clothing to the former slaves.

When Ian got to the front of the line, the clerk there said “Name?” Ian told him. The clerk then said “Olbowski…Olbowski… ah, right here, Ian Olbowski.” The clerk handed him a folded pile of clothing, and a paper containing personal information. “Thank you, sir” said Ian, as he headed off into the room to check out his new possessions.

Ian sat down on one of the boxes, and unfolded the clothing. It was a simple blue jumpsuit, made of some type of durable material. It seemed like it would fit him exactly. Everything was normal about it except for a white emblem sewn onto the left breast. The emblem had the insignia “C-17” embroidered onto it. There were pockets lining the chest, and the pants. There was also a matching blue hat, to hide his baldness. Throwing the garments aside, Ian checked the papers they had given to him. It seemed to contain the personal information he would need for his new life in occupied City-17. It looked as if it were an official Combine document, Ian read the document.

-THE COMBINE DEPARTMENT OF CITIZENSHIP-
IDENTIFICATION PAPERS

Protection City #: 17 (code 530017)
Administrator: Breen
Identification Code: Citizen, (code 173842-9)
Name: Olbowski, Ian, J.
Age: 19
Sex: M
Height: 6’0 (estimate as of 2007)
Weight: 170 lbs. (estimate as of 2007)
Family Unit Classification: Single, one dependant
Occupation: Factory Worker, level 3, United Combine Ammunition Facility
Education: High school
Law Infractions: None
Residential Facility: 2237 Yokovitz Drive, Inner District, Tenement 315, room 5-B.
Vehicle License: No
Vehicle Registration: No
Travel Pass: No
Security Clearance: level 0
Dependants: Legal Guardian of Barovitz, Tonya, A. (Code 123844-9)
Medical Conditions: None
Special Conditions: None

___________________________________________________________________________________________

 

[theotherguy]

Ian didn’t bother to read through much more of the papers, it was just a nicely forged, dry paper filled with facts. So the resistance had given him a clean record. He felt a wave of sadness as he read that Tonya was one of his “Dependants” and he hoped that he would be able to find her. He even wished that Dr. Kleiner would show up at any moment.

Ian picked up his clothes, and walked to an old door labeled “MEN”. Ian stepped inside to find many other men changing, so he as well changed into his blue jump suit, and threw his old slave uniform in the trash. Ian exited the bathroom, and walked among the new blue-suited former slaves.

Ian could see that many of them had sat down and were talking about their new jobs and places of residence. Ian was about to sit down when he realized that Dr. Vance had appeared in the room. The older, one-legged black scientist was conversing with some of his fellow scientists. Ian decided to go over and talk to him.

“Have my cousin or Dr. Kleiner shown up yet?” he asked Eli Vance expectantly. The man’s face turned grim. “Have patience, Ian, they have not shown up, and neither has Barney Calhoun. But I am sure they will appear sometime, just don’t worry, my friend, under the guidance of Calhoun, they are in good hands.” Ian continued to be worried. Just then, one of the scientists Dr. Vance was talking to said “Hey, I recognize you! You were the slave that saved Barney Calhoun when that Combine sniper was about to get him, you deserve some credit, friend, that was quite a feat!” Ian also recognized this scientist as one of the men who had dressed up as a Combine officer in order to save him, so Ian shook the man’s hand and thanked him for this.

Dr. Vance then said:
“Yes, son, you are certainly to be credited for that, you are certainly of value to our resistance. I suppose you’re wondering why all of us old American scientists have all ended up here in Prague. Well, most of us, after escaping Black Mesa, began doing research for the US government on The Combine. After the US government dissolved, we fled to Europe to continue our research here. Most of us came to the conclusion that the real reason The Combine is here is to extend their borders further into space. Their goal is simply to strip the planet of all resources, as they certainly had done on Xen. The planet of Xen, where we first encountered them, was nearly completely bare, merely isolated pockets of life on floating planet-fragments, and of course, massive living Combine space stations, even a few Citadels. However, to achieve this, they need near complete terra-forming of a planet to strip it completely bare. They seem to be having trouble terra-forming this planet, and to achieve such a feat they need much more power to teleport devices and troops from Xen. We believe that the purpose of the Citadels is to act together as a giant teleporter, and to teleport all of the materials needed from Xen. We have picked up from Combine channels that this transfer will happen three years from now, in this very location, since City-17 will be perfectly aligned to the Xen teleporter at that time, just as Black Mesa was in 1998. So, we old scientists have come here and attempt to stop this, before it’s too late.”

After reciting such a long explanation, Dr. Vance breathed, and was lost in memories of Black Mesa, where he had lost his leg. Ian could now see why City-17 was so important, the entire future of the human race rested on this resistance, and he had no idea what Vance had up his sleeve in order to defeat The Combine.

Ian talked for a short while with Dr. Vance, when suddenly there came the booming voice Dr. Breen on the loudspeakers: “My fellow citizens and friends, the situation is now safe, all of the fugitives have been captured and have been justly returned to their facilities, and will be punished fairly. The curfew is now over; you may go about your business.” Many of the slaves gave a cheer, and then slowly began to get up and move towards the stairs and elevator to go to the surface in order to go to their new homes and jobs, and begin their official career in the resistance.

Dr. Vance, however, had a sad look on his face, and put his hand on Ian’s shoulder. “I’m sorry son, but that probably means that they aren’t coming back.” Ian couldn’t believe what he had heard. Just before, Ian had heard Eli Vance say not to worry, and now he was sure that they were dead or captured. Ian nearly fell to his knees. The world was spinning around him.

But just then, bursting out of the elevator doors was someone. All of them looked in the direction of the elevator. It was Barney Calhoun, wearing a blood and dirt stained Combine officer uniform. And, Ian noticed, behind him were none other but a frightened looking Dr. Kleiner and Tonya. Ian was filled with joy.

“Ah, thank God you’re here, Calhoun, fashionably late as usual, but at least you made it!” exclaimed Dr. Vance. Barney smiled. “I went though hell trying to get old Dr. Kleiner here, he was hiding in a dumpster, as usual, with this little girl here “keeping watch,” I mean, seriously, and this man lacks morals. Luckily, the can he was hiding in happened to be the one right over the hidden doorway up there! Turns out, he got in just after I left. I was searching the whole damn city for him, and he was right under my nose!” Dr. Kleiner nervously laughed. “Well, at least you made it, friend.” Eli then looked over to Kleiner. “Dr Kleiner, come over here! Man, you haven’t changed one iota since I last saw you, old man, how long has it been? Twelve years?” Kleiner sniffed. “Hardly, that was in 1998, it’s 2007 now.” Vance laughed. “Actually, it’s 2010!” Dr. Kleiner’s eyes went wide; seeing this, Eli Vance said. “I’ll explain later.”

Suddenly Tonya ran over to Ian, and hugged him. Ian smiled. “I thought I would never see you again, cousin, I’m sorry that I could not protect you while we were apart…” Tonya smiled as well. “No problem, Ian, just please never ever leave me with Kleiner again!” Ian nodded in agreement. “Don’t worry, I won’t, I’m just glad you’re alive.”

The group exchanged survival stories as the crowd of former slaves shuffled onto the elevator slowly, one at a time. Calhoun went to go change into clean clothes after a while, and Tonya and Kleiner went over to get their ID papers. There was nothing unusual about either of their papers. It was clear that Tonya would we living with Ian, and would be going to school down the road at some place called “The Compassionate Breen Education Facility” which was the only public school available for all children in the city.

Ian allowed Tonya to get dressed, and then they went back though the lab to get on the elevator. Dr. Vance, the one-legged scientist stopped them and said “Ian, I heard that you spoke to the alien slaves that were in the mines. This is extremely important; they are a very powerful factor that we need on our side. Sadly, we were not able to liberate them from The Citadel, as they are forced to stay in the mine at all times. However, we have concluded that they are digging a tunnel directly into a major sewer line, and we have hopes to liberate them there, in the sewers. For now, you should just go to your apartment building, and rest, tomorrow afternoon, come back down here for more of a briefing. We have hopes of taking you along with us to save our alien friends. Good luck, Ian, just stay low for tonight, don’t mingle with the Combine officers if you can; but if one of them pulls you aside, show him your papers. Most importantly, you must remember not to drink the water; although you might begin to go through withdrawals.”

Ian nodded, thanked Dr. Vance, and walked towards the elevator with Tonya. So it was settled, he would have to save the alien slaves the next day, and he owed it to them. He was excited to finally be part of the resistance that he had longed to join for the past three years. They stood in the line of blue jumpsuits, leaving Dr. Vance behind to talk with Kleiner. The two of them came to the front of the line where the door to the elevator was, and came to a resistance man who was controlling who got onto the elevator. “Wait a few seconds,” he said, “the last one just left the lab, we don’t want it to look too suspicious…” so Ian and Tonya waited for a short time, and then the man said “Alright, go.”

Ian and Tonya stepped into the now familiar metal elevator, and pushed the “UP” button. The elevator screeched, and began to rise slowly. Suddenly, Tonya turned to Ian. “Ian, that man, Barney, he made me pledge my life to the resistance, does that mean that I will have to fight them?” she asked, Ian thought about this for a moment and then said, “I should hope not.” Tonya looked disappointed. “But I hate The Combine so much, I want to fight.” Ian was surprised. “We’ll see.” He simply said. He remembered his own parents, now dead, when they used to say that exact same phrase; it seemed like it was only yesterday when he was in the same position as Tonya, hopeful for the future, always hopeful.

He sat and wondered this as he rose slowly, ever so gradually to the surface, where the alien army of The Combine had taken his home, and made it their own. He would have to live secretly in the city above him; he would have to live a lie. But it didn’t bother Ian, just as long as in the end, he would get to fight them, The Combine, in the end, he would have the last laugh.

The elevator slid into darkness as it reached the top floor of the lab, the abandoned cellar, and the doors opened swiftly with a small mechanical beep. Ian and Tonya stepped into the darkness. “Take hold of a hand rail,” he warned her, as he grabbed onto one himself, and began to ascend the stairway. The two reached the top of the stairs, and Ian told Tonya to be quiet.

 

[theotherguy]

Cautiously, and quietly, Ian pushed up the small hidden wooden door, and looked around for any signs of danger. The city he saw outside at this time was much transformed from when he had come through this alleyway to get inside of the headquarters. There were now, where there had once been abandoned streets, people of all sizes, shapes and colors, all moving about in their blue jumpsuits, most of them with sad looks on their faces. None of them, however, were in the alleyway. Also patrolling the streets were combine officers, with their weapons strapped to their backs, and carrying what looked like electric riot clubs, with sparks of electricity flying off of them. There were also APCs patrolling the roads, and the football sized scanners flying through the air, stopping every now and then to take pictures.

Ian made sure that nobody was watching, and then pushed open the cover into the cellar, and crawled out, making sure to keep his hat secure on his head. He helped Tonya scramble up out of the hole, and then shut the door below him. “Stay close,” he told her, “we just need to make it to the apartment building.” The two of them walked nonchalantly through and out of the alleyway, avoiding the citizens in blue jumpsuits and especially avoided the gas masked guards carrying shocking sticks.

Ian walked along the sidewalk with Tonya, looking at the other busy, miserable looking citizens on the sidewalk while the massive monitor in the center of the square droned on with Dr. Breen’s voice about returns of ore, wheat, ammunition and armor being higher than expected, and congratulating them, then speaking of rations and other such boring matters.

Suddenly, he began to hear an unmistakable thumping sound, like the beating of a heart, and then realized it was the sound of the pounding feet of a strider. Ian felt a wave of fear as he backed against a wall. He heard another noise, the sound of a radio, coming from the direction of the pounding feet. “…Step aside citizens or risk being impaled!” garbled the radio operator, distorted by the sound of the electronic loudspeaker. The other citizens hurriedly got onto the sidewalk, and got against the wall, fearing the thumping strider. The officers got in front of the citizens, and stood with hands clasped, facing them.

Just then, the gigantic yellow strider turned around the corner, and quickly pounded its way over the cobblestones with its twenty foot legs, kicking aside everything from paint cans to abandoned cars, the loudspeaker pouring out warnings. The deafening strider turned another corner, and disappeared. The officers backed away, and the crowd, along with Ian and Tonya slowly sifted back into the streets. Ian’s heart was racing, he was just glad that the strider was not in action, coming for him.

Ian and Tonya continued their watchful walk, looking for some place where they could find out where to go to get to their apartment. They came to a portly man selling what appeared to be newspapers, and Ian had an idea. “Excuse me sir, we are new to City-17, and we don’t have the slightest idea where to find “Yokovitz drive” where our apartment is. Could you perhaps direct us there?” The portly man looked confused, as if he didn’t know what Ian was asking, and then he replied, “Newcomers, eh? We’ve been getting so many lately, everyone comes, nobody leaves, I’d like to know what it’s like on the outside… Anyway, kid, you can find Yokovitz drive down that ‘away, the way that strider came, just go down that road, make a left at the first intersection, then a right on the second of that street, and you’re on it.” The man pointed in the direction and signed with his hands the directions.

“Thank you,” said Ian, as he took Tonya by the hand and headed off in the direction that the strider had come. Ian and Tonya traversed the crowd, and crossed the street, always keeping to the sidewalks and away from Combine officers (or “cops” as the citizens called them.) But as Ian was walking along the sidewalk, and trying to avoid a couple of officers who were walking in the opposite direction, one of the officers purposefully walked toward him, and pushed him against the wall with a dull thud.

Ian felt the pain of the concrete wall as the officer spoke to him. “You, citizen, something is different about you, you have no hair, show me your papers!” The officer took out his shock stick and threatened Ian. Ian hastily fumbled for his papers. “Of course officer,” he mumbled, handing the folded sheet to the cop. The gas masked and black clad officer unfolded the paper, read it and shoved it back in Ian’s face. “Ok, that will do, citizen!” The officer unexplainably and unexpectedly jabbed his shock stick into Ian’s stomach. Ian felt an intense burning pain through his whole body, and it made him vomit as he fell to the ground. The officer laughed, and kicked Ian lightly, then continued on his way.

Ian was in a world of pain with the taste of vomit in his mouth; the taste of occupation. Tonya was concerned, and helped him up, “Are you alright?” she asked. Ian got up, “Fine,” he said, “now I see just how they treat us, and never fear, we will have our justice over them, one day, we will have our justice.” He continued along the sidewalk, with Tonya in tow, following the directions that the shopkeeper had told them.

Dr. Breen’s voice droned on loudly over the speakers and monitors, explaining that only twelve fugitives had escaped from The Citadel, and that they had all been captured and thrown back into the mines. It made Ian sick.

The two turned onto Yokovitz drive, without any further problems from the officers. He and Tonya then checked the apartments around there for the address numbers. When they found number 2237, they looked up, and saw a run-down five story apartment building, square and brick, with dirty windows, much like the apartment Ian had lived in before the attack. It would be good enough for them.

Ian opened the cast-iron gate, and walked into the yard of the apartment, the gate screeching behind him. A man wearing the traditional blue jumpsuit was hurriedly walking out of the apartment, and he lifted his hat in greeting, Ian did the same as the man came out of the gate and turned the corner. The yard in front of the apartment was not very well kept, and was covered in weeds, and there was a rusted bicycle decaying under one of the few trees on the yard. Ian and Tonya walked the short distance from the gate to the large, oak door to their new home.

Ian placed his hand on the cold brass knob, and turned, opening the door inward to the lobby of the tenement building. The lobby, which had drab beige carpet, and plaster walls was just as in bad shape as the yard. There was a ceiling fan slowly squeaking, and aerating the room, as well as a small TV on the wall that was covered with the image of Dr. Breen’s face, charismatically talking about his ideas for the city. There was a large desk at the left side of the room with square, open cabinets behind it, labeled with the numbers of the rooms that they corresponded with. Behind the desk stood a man in a blue jumpsuit with sleeves that were rolled up to his biceps, he had a shaved head, and a goatee, and was absentmindedly staring at the TV with disinterest, with a burning cigarette in the ashtray in front of him.

Ian came up to the desk and said to the man: “Hey, I’m new; my papers said I’m supposed to live in this apartment complex, but they never gave me a key.” The man didn’t wait for Ian to explain further, and spoke with a low, Eastern European voice. “Room number?” he asked. Ian checked his papers. “5-B,” he said. The burly clerk leisurely turned to the cabinets, and hanging on a nail under the cabinet labeled 5-B, there was a small copper key. The man took it off of its nail, and handed it to Ian. “5-B, don’t loose it,” he said without interest. “Rent is due one month from now, pay directly to me, in cash.” Ian agreed, and put the key in one of his pockets, going into the room and looking for stairs with Tonya following close behind.

He was surprised at the easiness the clerk had, asking no questions, just giving him the key. Ian decided that this sort of thing happened a lot, and that the man had become jaded by the whole occupation. Ian looked around, and found a dirty concrete staircase. He and Tonya ascended the staircase, holding onto the handrail, and ascending the worn-down stairs up to the second floor.

There were lights hanging on the ceiling, dingy, green things that produced a sulfur-yellow glow. When Ian and Tonya reached level B, they turned and entered a long hallway. There were people wandering about the hallway in their blue jumpsuits, obviously wondering where they were going. Many of the rooms down the dark hallway had no doors, which was an odd sight, especially in such a dangerous city.

 

[theotherguy]

Ian and Tonya gradually strolled down the hallway, and came to a room labeled 5-B. “Well, here we are, Tonya, our new home.” He said to Tonya. He took the key out of his pocket and jammed it into the lock on the peeling wooden door, and turned. With a squeak, the door opened into their new apartment.

The room was small, smaller than even Ian’s old apartment; it had wooden floorboards, and red peeling plaster walls. There was a bed with nothing but a mattress in the corner, and there was an abandoned and worn-down couch at the left side of the room, facing a small television that seemed to always be on, always showing Dr. Breen, spouting his propaganda. Ian didn’t have any idea if they could ever be turned off. There was an open door on the right, revealing a half-bathroom. There was also a closed door on the left side, that appeared to be a closet, but there wasn’t much point in it, seeing as both of then only had one pair of clothes that they could legally wear.

On the wall directly parallel to the wall, there were four windows overlooking the street below them, where there were citizens milling about their business. He could also clearly see The Citadel from here, in the dim light of the evening, churning away, its mechanical parts moving, and probably making very loud noises. The sight of it was ominous, that giant black skyscraper that Ian had spent the last three years of his life near, slaving away.

When Ian was finished looking about the room, he said to Tonya, “You get the bed, I’ll sleep on the couch tonight until we can find another bed, I will take you to school tomorrow morning, if you’re ever in here alone, never answer the door for anyone unless it’s me, stay away from the windows unless the blinds are closed, and most importantly, do not drink the water here.” Tonya nodded, understood all of this and went and sat on the couch, flipping the channels of the TV and coming up with only Breen, all the time.
Ian walked over to the closet, and tried to open it, but it was locked, thudding as he tried to pull it. He decided to try the key that he had in his pocket, and luckily, as he turned the key in the lock of the closet, it clicked, and the closet door opened. Inside the closet, it was very small, but in the wall of the closet there was a safe with a padlock on it, there was also a small, plugged-in refrigerator. Ian decided to try his key on the safe, and fortunately, the key worked again. The padlock fell to the ground, and Ian opened the safe.

Inside the dark interior of the safe, there was a small, silver handgun, several clips of ammunition, and a note written on yellow paper. Ian picked up the handgun, felt its cold grip, and with the other hand, picked up the yellow note, and read it. The note said:

We provided this for when the time comes, and if you should need to use it, it will always be here. The ammunition should last you the life of the gun, as we don’t think you’ll be using it much. Always keep his safe locked. In the small refrigerator, there are several bottles of pure water, drink this when you are thirsty, DO NOT drink the tap water, or you’ll find yourself without any memories, and nothing but a love for The Combine. You can turn off the TV, but it will make the cops suspicious, and they will come for you, so I don’t suggest it. Good luck, comrade; we will see you tomorrow at the munitions factory above headquarters. –Eli Vance
Ian put the gun and the note back into the safe, and closed and locked the door. “Don’t turn off the TV…” he told Tonya, just as she was about to. Ian opened the refrigerator, and took out two cold bottles of water, opening one for him, and giving the other to Tonya to drink.

As Ian drank the cool water, he checked his watch, it was 7:30 PM, evening. The next day he would have to take Tonya to the probably terrible school, and go to work in the Combine munitions factory. The next day would be a long one, and after all of that, he would participate in the liberation of the alien slaves that had helped him before.

Ian and Tonya sat on the couch, made fun of Dr. Breen, and talked about their experiences in the past three years for the next few hours. Tired, Tonya decided that she would go to bed; so she went to the sheet-less mattress, and lay down, complaining of insects that had made their home in the bed, and of the TV, which was rather loud, so Ian turned the volume down to 0, and sat on the couch for the next couple of hours, watching the moon rise over the occupied city, under the shadow of the ominous citadel. “Good night, City-17, some day you will be your own…” he thought, as he lay down on the uncomfortable, musty couch, and drifted into sleep.

That night’s sleep would not be a good one.

-Chapter 18, Withdrawl-

 

[Brian Damage]

Keep it rollin'!

 

[Duracell]

This is great! I love it