Prologue

It was early in the morning when Griggs began to stir. He got up and stretched his arms and legs. He was still sleepy. This was mainly due to the fact that he had had multiple nightmares which prevented him from getting a proper night's sleep.

He tiptoed around his lumpy mattress, being careful so as not to wake up Sheckley, who was sleeping on the mattress next to his.

He sat next to one of the four tunnels in the atrium. Each cave had a mounted semaphore with sensors for detecting movement which in most cases would include an antlion attack. There were three lights. If one light was lit then there were only a few antlions present in the cave, however if three lights were lit then there would much more.

Yesterday there was the "incident" when the three lights of all four caves lit up. Thank God they had the help of the Vorts and Gordon Freeman.

"That Gordon's alright," Griggs thought to himself, "doesn't talk much."

Griggs was wondering if chickens could talk, what they would say when Sheckley started to get up.

"Hey Sheck," Griggs greeted him.

"How long have you been up Griggs?" wondered Sheckley while he put on his green beanie and his hand reached for his gun. In Sheckley's experience it was a good idea to always be prepared.

"Not long. Just thinking about chickens and such." said Griggs with a shrug.

Sheckley groaned. "Griggs do you ever realistically think about anything? Geez you're like a kid!"

"What am I supposed to think about? There's nothing to do here but think unrealistically about everything." Griggs said in a defensive tone.

"For one you could come here and help me fix the turrets that broke yesterday."

"Fine I'll go and do boring stuff then."

λ λ λ

Sheckley showed Griggs how to use a screwdriver to screw the screws back in place. Then he left to continue his own turret.

"Hey, this isn't so hard." said Griggs while he was happily screwing in a screw.

Sheckley took a look at what Griggs was doing and put his hand on his forehead in frustration.

"Griggs…" he began in a dull tone, "you're screwing them in with the wrong tool you idiot."

Griggs examined the tool he was working with.

"No I'm not," he said with conviction.

"Griggs that's a piece of― What is that?" Sheckley asked dumbfounded.

"It's a piece of an antlion. See it's just as hard as metal." Griggs demonstrated by trying to bend in half. "See? Virtually indestructible."

"We only have one screwdriver and I'm using it to fix my turret." Sheckley produced the screwdriver from his pocket.

"Lemme see that." Griggs said while snatching the screwdriver out of Sheckley's hand.

Griggs examined it for a few moments. "Ohhhhh, so that's a screwdriver. I thought it was an engraver."

"A what?" demanded Sheckley. He was shaking with anger now.

"An engraver you know….to engrave…things. Pffft Sheckley I thought you were better than that. Boy was I wrong."

"To hell with food or medicine," he said in a sarcastic tone. "I've got an engraver. Not to worry, if I ever get hungry it's good to know I have my engraver, you know, for peace of mind. With my engraver all my problems are solved. Listen to this Griggs 'Combine watch out…I have an engraver, to hell with your striders and hunters."

Sheckley was so angry he looked as if he was about to break the screwdriver in two. He held it up for a few seconds.

"Sheck?" asked Griggs, "what 'cha doing?"

"Counting to ten." Sheckley let out a long sigh. "I think I'm ok now. Go there and do whatever you want." Sheckley pointed to a corner with his finger. 'You'll be three times as productive, I guarantee it."

"Fine. Have it your way" Griggs dropped what he was doing and took his 'screwdriver' with him.

"Boy, Sheckley should just chillax." Griggs muttered to himself.