Half-Life: Paradigm Shift

Chapter 1

Silence. A rare phenomenon in City 17, a place littered with the constant flicker and flash of security cameras, and perpetual humming of city scanners as they hover dauntingly overhead. The entire city had been left to decay and deteriorate or be taken over by the alien, invasive and militaristic architecture of the Combine. For many, though, it was the sound of hope that was most disturbing. Or rather, the lack thereof. People had given up. They were the last generation of humans, at least with the Combine's suppression field up. Yet people still carried on with their lives, despite the oppression.

A young man took to his seat by his desk, one side of it cluttered with a myriad of official documentation, the other side being the place of his personal belongings; it was a far more modest sight, but neat and well-kept.

He knew he was part of that oppression, but he couldn't do anything about it. This was his job. He had to do it.

Pulling a notebook out from his personal belongings, he turned to the first page, putting pen to paper. He left it there for a few moments, ink seeping into the page then he wrote.

26th August

'It's my shift in about an hour. Got nothing better to do until then, so I thought I'd do this. Something to vent my feelings or whatever it is. Never been much of a writer before, so I guess this will probably be a trainwreck. Not that I really got much of a chance to try my hand at writing. I was so young that I barely remember anything from before the start of that bloody war. A couple of birthdays maybe. Cake, candles, friends. Don't know what happened to those friends. Probably dead, or worse. It used to be hard to imagine anything worse than being dead, but I found it, and I've doomed people to that fate.

People might look at me and hate my fucking guts but in the end, I'm still alive. I've done what was necessary to survive this hellhole, and I'll do it again. We're humans behind our masks, too. We want to survive just as much as everyone else. Some CPs take their power over the other citizens too far,yes, but that's just how life is now. At least we're still here to tell the tale, even if it is a grim one.

Two decades after the war...I'm sure it'll be an unpopular opinion, but Dr. Breen gave humanity another chance. A lot of people would say that they'd rather have been wiped out than be under Combine control. You know what they say, though: hindsight is 20/20. At the time we were desperate to survive and Dr. Breen saved us. I think he had humanity's best interests at heart, but I can hardly remember the first few years of the Combine's dominion. I was only a young kid at the time. Seven or eight? I don't know. Doesn't really matter now. Didn't realise that I'd be the last generation of humanity, though. Maybe...maybe the Combine's trans-human ideals aren't the worst thing. Memory replacement is pretty extreme, but there's not much worth remembering in this world anyway.

Here's humanity anyway. Surviving. Here I am, in City 17. Surviving. Not sure where I'll be stationed today, but rumour has it that we've located a part of the Resistance's intelligence network. Hopefully most of the Resistance catch wind of this before we arrive and most of them get out; I could do without sending people off to Nova Prospekt for once. It's no secret what happens to them there, but it's my job. I understand why the rebels are fighting, I sympathise with them, but it'll be hard for them to even make a dent in the Combine. I mean, Earth's entire military got torn to pieces in seven hours. For now, I'm just doing what I'm paid to do, and I'll shoot back at anything that shoots at me. I'm still alive. I want to keep it that way. Whatever happens to-'

There was a sudden rap of gloved knuckles on the steel door.

"Ethan! You there?"

The young CP officer slammed his notebook shut, the muffled thump of paper on paper drowned out by the clanging door, shoving it underneath some important, loose CP paperwork and firmly out of sight of prying eyes. He hastily stuck the pen on top of the book, forgetting to put the pen lid back on.

"Ethan!" The voice called out from behind the door once again, this time knocking louder.

"Y-Yeah, one sec, one sec." Ethan hesitated slightly, adrenaline pumping through his veins as he pushed himself out of his chair and stepped over to the door. It was an hour before his shift, why was anyone even bothering him? Heart still pounding, he swung open the door, smiling lightly. His expression softened at the sight before him: another CP officer, mask under his arm. The tag on his uniform read 'Officer McGregor'. The man stood just over 6 feet tall with short, brown hair, almost a buzz cut. His facial features were sharp, strong, and well-defined. He also had a slight, but nevertheless noticeable, tan to him. The product of one too many holidays in Spain on a pale-skinned Scotsman. It was still something he was proud of to this day. Being from England, Ethan understood that pride. Now that he was here in City 17, somewhere in Eastern Europe, it was going to be impossible to tan, especially under the CP armour.

"Matt, what are you doing here? We have plenty of time before check-in for our shift." He asked in a friendly, somewhat curious tone, pushing some hair out of his eye with his fingers. Of course, he recognised the voice; he'd known Matt since before they joined Civil Protection, but the reaction to him knocking was just because he was on edge. If any of the higher echelons caught him sympathising with the rebels, it'd be him going to Nova Prospekt.

"Aye, but I got told to come and fetch you by Captain Taryn. He wants to speak to ya." Matt gave a light shrug of his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. Ethan's heart dropped again, and he was thinking once more about all the worst case scenarios. His eyes fell to the dull, metal floor of the corridor for a brief second before flitting back up to his friend.

"You...didn't get told anything about what this is?" Ethan asked in a low tone of voice. He knew it was a hopeful question, and he got the answer he expected.

"Nope." Matt remained quiet for a moment, sensing the apprehension in the air before leaning forward and placing a reassuring hand on Ethan's shoulder. "Come on, mate, why would they be pissed at you? The number of damn rebels that you've sent to Nova Prospekt, I'm surprised that they haven't needed a bloody expansion to that place." He chuckled heartily.

There was a sudden widening of Ethan's eyes and a dilating of pupils. It was only for a split second, but he hoped that Matt hadn't noticed his discomfort, and it was quickly replaced with a smile and a nod of the head. He'd never known Matt to be the type of guy to pick up on those subtle things anyway. The thought lingered in his head, of being the one responsible for so much suffering. Death, he could deal with. He'd seen so much of it that he was pretty much desensitized. But Nova Prospekt was something much worse than death. Honestly, he couldn't remember a damn thing about a lot of those people he sentenced to hell. It was probably best to distance himself from that.

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Ethan replied softly, glancing over his shoulder back at his desk as he pushed thoughts of Nova Prospekt out of his mind . He'd tried to keep it tidy, but whenever he did tidy it, it only got even worse over the following week. An untidy desk was also a good hiding place for notebook, and he couldn't see it from here, which was always nice. The room itself was quite small, but it was an en-suite, and actually rather stylish now that he came to think of it. Whoever the Combine had hired for interior design certainly had his approval. Compared to how normal citizens had to live, this was heaven. The perks of the job were definitely nice.

"Hey, when have I ever been wrong?" The older man smirked jokingly and leaned back onto the wall opposite to the door, crossing his arms. Ethan just shook his head, smiling, and grabbed his mask from atop his desk before stepping outside and locking the door with his ID.

"Eh, probably that time that you almost got on the train to City 7 rather than City 17. The look on your face when I pulled you off that train was un-for-gettable!" This time it was Ethan's turn to chuckle as he started to make his way down the corridor. If there was one thing that he could call Matt, it was stubborn. Ethan wasn't sure if he would have survived this world as a kid if it wasn't for Matt and his stubbornness. The guy was basically his mentor.

"Oi! You cannae blame me for something that was poorly signed!" Matt retorted in his relatively thick, Scottish accent, muttering something incomprehensible under his breath. "Anyway, I'll see ya down at briefing! I've been hearing about something pretty big."

Well, he wouldn't be seen if he'd been reprimanded by Overwatch for something...

Ethan turned back to Matt and threw out a casual, two-fingered salute. "Will do, mate." He then watched his friend disappear around the corner, carrying on with his own journey a second later.

He hoped that it was only coincidence them calling to see him and him starting that diary thing. Honestly, he wasn't entirely sure why he had started that. It was just some kinda thing to pass the time, really. And it was liberating, in a sense.

Before he knew it, Ethan was standing outside Captain Taryn's office. Saying that it was intimidating certainly did not do it justice. He couldn't imagine anyone willingly wanting to be here. On either side of the door were two busts of roaring lions tucked into large indentations, staring endlessly out into the corridor, almost as if they were keeping guard and daring anyone to even enter. The eerie silence made the situation no better, and the Combine logo was emblazoned almost everywhere he looked. He was used to that now, but this felt different. Steeling himself, Ethan walked inside and took a few steps forward before coming to a stop, both hands behind his back with said back straight as possible.

He couldn't help but notice the large banner hanging above the Captain's large desk which was decorated in a minimalistic blue, white and black colour scheme. It read: 'Sapientia intra immortalitas.' Something to do with immortality. Not surprising. That did seem to be the Combine's ultimate goal. He couldn't imagine that it was something the Combine would have bothered with originally, so it was probably commissioned by the Captain herself. It sure did help to give the place a feeling of authority and formality. Ethan honestly sympathised with the whole trans-human thing, but...memory wipes definitely weren't his thing. That was why he had no intentions of ever rising up in rank past the CP unit. He might as well be dead without memory or free will. And survival was his priority.

"Officer Holt."

Ethan snapped to attention once again, blocking out any other possible distractions, focusing entirely on what was in front of him. Captain Taryn had swung around on her chair and was now leaning forward with her elbows on the desk. Her jet black hair was military-grade short which worked to highlight the upper-left part of her face especially. She had willingly volunteered for augmentations from the Combine a few years ago, and that seemed to include replacing a part of her face, including an eye, with robotics and synthetic components. No matter how many times he saw it, It was unnerving, and she made no attempts to hide that part of her. Taryn smiled at him, but Ethan didn't know what that meant now, and he didn't try to interpret it in any way. Her glowing blue synthetic eye seemed to bore into him, looking for any sign of weakness.

"You're nervous. Don't be." She finally broke the silence that had been lingering for a few seconds, but what felt like hours. Her voice was tough and very much no-nonsense. The captain inhaled deeply through her nostrils and then exhaled, typing into her terminal until a blue holographic screen popped up in front of her. "Now, I know you have a briefing soon, so I'll make this quick." Taryn remarked, now leaning back on her chair. Ethan swallowed what felt to him like boulder. "Your commanders have been in contact with me recently..." She trailed off, pressing a few more keys on her terminal. This time the rotating image of a uniform came up. Ethan noted it to be the Combine soldier's uniform which was...odd. He was Civil Protection after all. "They recommended you to me for a promotion based on your aptitude in the field."

Ethan took in a short, sharp intake of breath. A wave a relief flooded over him, but then he noticed the soldier uniform again. That wasn't the next rank up from his.

"I have no reason to doubt them-" Taryn proceeded, giving Ethan that casual yet eerie smile of hers again. "-so your physical and mental augmentations including memory enhancements at Nova Prospekt are planned to begin in one week. Until then, your duties as a Civil Protection officer remain. I'm sure your skills will be appreciated by the City 17 trans-human force. Congratulations, Officer Holt. Dismissed."