Info on this: This is based on the mod "Life's End" for Half-Life by kingdaniel. If you somehow see this, please don't cancel Time's End, I'd buy six copies. Readers (who most likely aren't kingdaniel), I really really really recommend playing the mod. It's free (if you have a copy of Half-Life, which is only $15 on Ebay anyway) so there's no downside to it.
I originally wrote this sometime in 2015, but just got around to posting this. As such, Chapter 2 will probably be fairly different as this was the only one I wrote back then. However, since this gives me an excuse to play LE again I'll take it.
Anyway, to the content you wanted to see.
Doctor Luther Johnson, Ph D, forty something year old, and unreliably weakest link in the entire Sector, didn't know when he fell asleep, just that he did. He reminded himself that people have watches for a very important reason, but it always slips his mind before he is ever actually able to follow through with the whole 'getting a watch' thing. But the good thing about waking up now was that the tram doors aren't open just yet, so he could make a mad dash for the door and maybe, possibly, just a thought, get to his office on time for once.
Luther calmly made his way to the door, black briefcase in hand and watch absent from wrist, and as soon as it opened wide enough, made an absolutely crazy dash to his office. He was hopping, passing by people, and otherwise doing everything possible to speed himself up.
Before he realised he was going the wrong way. These corridors all look the same. The trek back was a brief, shameful one as he could feel the glares of the rest of the sector, confounded that Black Mesa could ever hire this idiot.
But nonetheless, he talked to one scientist, a man named Stuart Clark. He was white skinned with black, slicked-back hair and a stern face.
"Have you lost your key again, Johnson?"
"Hello. No, Stuart, I've got it right here," he said, patting his pocket.
"Do you know who ate all the doughnuts?" Stuart patted his belly at the thought, he didn't get breakfast because of whoever that was.
"No, sorry. Ask Drummond. Well, I've got to go, sorry for holding you up."
And Luther slid his key card into the slot next to the door.
Ahem, key card. Door.
Luther's eyes trembled. He left his card in the cafeteria. He ran like crazy to get it, he had to, jumping over at least one scientist and another four trash cans. In the cafeteria, the last table had it, next to a janitor's keys. He was probably going to get fired soon, but since he still needed money, he decided maybe not take the risk, actually.
Then, once he was sure he had everything, he made his way back, paying no mind to the scientists greeting him. He was probably going to be fired when he got in there. There was only one really fast way to find out. A scanned keycard, a hop, skip, and a jump later, and his expectations were met.
In his office was Dr King, his boss. He was old, white haired, and had that "Einstein" look that seemed so popular with the scientists around here. And the look on his face of an unprecedented volume of rage.
It wasn't long before he opened his mouth, spittle coming out with every word, decibel levels following along with his face.
"Look at me!" he screamed at Luther as he gathered his things. "This is the fourteenth time you've been late by over an hour! Do you know what time it is?!"
Luther didn't have a watch. So he resorted to looking at Black Mesa's clock.
"8:54."
Luther was trembling now. This day didn't seem to be going right at all.
"8:54! Get your shit and get out, because you're fired!"
Luther went back to rounding up his things when he heard a noise that sounded an awful lot like a TARDIS. Was the Doctor really coming here? He hoped that he wouldn't be here for him, but there wouldn't be a reason for that. Unless he needed a new companion. Maybe he wants an actual scientist this time. Well, biology wasn't his field, but he could use a physicist, couldn't he? Or did he train to be a physician? Maybe they're filming a new series, the last one ended a decade and a half ago, didn't it? Wait, maybe he needs a calendar, too, he forgot what year it was.
What yea—
A more important question was: what. Is. That?! An alien just burst into being, leaving a bit of green residue on the walls, and charged up a lightning attack, obviously trying to get Dr King through the trideca-paned windows.
He had no idea what that was supposed to mean either.
The alien was brown, covered in something halfway between skin and scales, and had six red eyes, each of which were segmented in quite the same way as an insect's eyes might have been. It also had green, metal shackles on its limbs and neck. Considering green wasn't anywhere else on its body, it was safe to assume they were artificial.
Shackles. Arms. Legs. The legs were hooved and spindly, and the arms—all three of them, must be easy to use three handguns like that—were clawed. It also had a bolt of lightning just come out of them without any burns or rubber feet. The shackles told Luther all he needed to know—its enslavement. Or that aliens had a different idea of fashion than humans. Really could be either.
Interesting.
Dr King was at this point cowering in the corner of his office, standing on a green growth thing that looked like a solid pile of dirt. The alien was clawing the window, trying to break it in and kill the white coat.
A quick-fingered security guard drew and fired three shots into the alien's head, killing it almost instantly. For once, he could say that killing the alien on sight was justified. Normally killing them immediately was just asking for the business end of a vaporising ray, but that alien was already attacking. No qualms here.
Luther stepped out of the office, completely and utterly thingless, and made his way over to the body to gawk at it. "Cool," he said in a breathy voice, "it's an alien!"
That was before more aliens happened. They showed up in the room he was just in, the one Dr King was still in. Luther ran as fast as he could—very fast, you know—back inside, but by the time he got in there, Dr King wasn't alive. Imagine, all that intellectual potential…and Luther didn't feel as bothered by it as he most likely should have. The alien started to charge up before Luther ran out of the room as quickly as he could.
When he turned the corner, the security guard was waiting for him. Over the loud, annoying, completely uncalled for, but harmless window clawing the aliens were doing, the security guard motioned Luther over. His ID card read Arthur Dickinson, 37, high access.
"There's a spare suit in here, and if you're lucky some weapons. Go ahead and take them, I honestly sincerely doubt that Black Mesa will need them now." To prove his point, he raised his CB radio volume, drowning out their conversations with screams, gunfire, and panicked speech, of varying ages. As though Luther needed to hear it right then.
The room, for lack of any other use, seemed to be there just in case this one event ever happened, all the boxes seemed to not have been opened since at least the nineties. In the very back was an open box with not one, as Dickinson implied, but three orange H.E.V. suits, mark IV. He took one and pulled the guard over to another. "Go ahead, Arthur, you'll need it if you want to get out of here alive."
On the floor next to the box was a crowbar, overly shiny and with a red handle but otherwise unremarkable. Inside the other boxes, open after Luther swung the crowbar like an axe at them, a very fun thing to do that you should most definitely try, was magazines of handgun ammo, which Luther shared with the guard. Except for one box. In it was a cache of handguns, nine millimeter, .38 special revolvers, you name it.
He took a Glock pistol, and gave Dickinson two revolvers. "Right," he said, "we'd better get going. We at least have a chance of getting out if we leave."
Luther broke a weak glass pane in the broken door Dickinson was standing in front of, and taking advantage of their new-found metal suits, crawled through. They emerged, Luther crowbar and Arthur revolvers in hands, to find another of those brown aliens teleporting in.
Bang, bang.
One single brown alien dead on arrival. He had to admire Arthur's quick reaction, wondering what must have happened for him to react so quickly. Probably a war? He was old enough to have fought in the Gulf wars, most definitely.
Bang, bang.
The cafeteria that the key was sitting in was weird, weirder than he was. Pound sterling prices? Seemingly future predicting posters? Even worse, pixelated ones that looked like they were drawn by an eight year old?! The key took his mind off the illogical room and he forgot soon after about the mental strain of the posters.
Honestly, the aliens by now are getting annoying. Almost as annoying(ly loud) as these metal grates. Somehow the idea of prying them off didn't occur to him, so he simply broke them in.
He wiggled his way through the conveniently large vent, only to fall after a few inches into an elevator shaft. Not only that, but on the roof of an elevator car. Arthur followed suit, and they dropped down into the elevator, guns ready.