Chapter 1: Area Zero
The tram ride down to Area Zero seemed to go on forever as usual. It was Shaun's third trip to Test Chamber E-15/c this week and he was already tired of it. He set leaning up to an open window and enjoyed the slight breeze against his face.
'Maybe this time I'll finally get to test the-' Shaun didn't get a chance to finish his thought.
The tram came to a screeching halt, causing the two people inside to lunge forward a bit, and the doorway opened up. "Finally!" Shaun exclaimed with relief. After brushing an annoying strand of black hair away from his eyes he stood up and stretched a bit. "With all this fancy machinery and super geniuses around, you would think someone could make the trams a little quicker." He didn't even bother mentioning how uncomfortably hot it was inside the tram.
The only other person who had been on the tram rolled his eyes. "We would have arrived sooner but you refused to take the first tram that came by!" Of all the security guards in Black Mesa, Jack just couldn't believe he had to escort this annoying brat to the Test Chamber. If he had just kept his mouth shut when speaking to superiors he would've been sitting comfortably by a doorway somewhere with an air conditioner.
"I told you before, there's something… not right about Tram G6. It's evil dude." Shaun stepped off Tram G7 onto a large walkway that hung over a large empty space. The walkway led up to a large metal door with a guard sitting in chairs on both sides.
"You're seventeen, don't be such a coward." Jack followed Shaun off the tram and walked ahead of him. They both approached the metal door. Jack waved 'hello' to the guards as he approached.
Shaun looked to the right; about fifty feet away he could see into what appeared to be some sort of lab, though a large glass window. In a few minutes he expected to be looking at the spot he currently stood on from that location.
"Escort duty again?" one of the guards asked Jack as he approached, "You must have pissed someone off in administration." The two guards turned around to face their individual wall mounted retina scanners and looked into them. After the scanner gave the green light they both entered a five digit password. Immediately afterwards the metal doorway began to open up horizontally.
"At least I don't sit around the same spot all day," Jack told the other guard as he walked past the metal door. Even though Jack had tried to insult their job he really envied them.
As Shaun walked through the door he noticed a writing above it that read: "Area Zero: Government Supervised Projects". Shaun had never noticed that before but didn't think much about it.
Other then Jack saying "Hi" to a couple of scientists that passed by, neither Shaun nor him spoke. As they turned right, down one of the intersection of hallways, Shaun glanced down the hallway to the left: He had been wondering what was located that way after seeing a bright glow from that direction a few weeks ago.
Finally they reached the room Shaun had seen through the window a couple minutes ago. It looked like a lab but was more a less a place people waited in before heading to the testing chambers. The room was creepily clean and smelled a little like lemonade. Shaun enjoyed the smell.
As soon as they entered a scientist seemed somewhat relieved to see them. "Y-you two are very late!" His voice was filled with worry.
Shaun hated this scientist: He was always so nervous and shaky. The man always stuttered when he was nervious. Today however the scientist seemed extra worried, which, in turn, made Shaun hate him more.
Jack looked at the clock on the wall. "We're just a couple minutes late. No big deal." They were actually roughly twelve minutes late.
"No big d-d-deal!?" The man started to get angry. "We've got some very important p-people here t-today! They expect immediate results!"
"Sorry, sorry!" Jack really didn't want a pay reduction just because some stupid kid didn't want to get on the first tram, "We're here now, so take the kid and get started!
The scientist waved for Shaun to follow and the two walked through a door. Jack exited the room through a different door.
Shaun and the scientist entered a large room. There was a computer on the wall and a chair in the center of the room. A large machine hung on the ceiling above the chair. "Go take your seat," The scientist told Shaun, "This will be the fifth and final time you'll have to go through this ordeal."
Shaun sat in the chair. He was facing a two way mirror. The people on the other side included scientists, a few government people, and Jack. They all watched closely. All of them but Jack took notes.
"Would it be possible for this first part to work on a normal human?" One of the government guys, a short bald man, asked the scientists.
"We tried," One of the scientists told him, "The machine doesn't imprint onto a normal mind correctly. After the first test this kid showed more improvement in the use of fire arms and combat then any of our normal subjects did after ten tests."
"Maybe the kid already had skills in the use of fire arms and combat?"
"Before the first test he had never held a gun in his life."
Through the two way mirror the group watched as the scientist finished doing something on the computer and the machine above the chair began to move. A metal part extended down around Shaun's head. A jolt traveled through his body and everything around Shaun became a blur.
"Remember," Shaun heard the voice of the scientist but it sounded weird and distant, "For you to get the full effect you have to open your mind and allow the machine to do its part."
On the other side of the glass everyone but Jack wrote notes. "How do psychic abilities help in this process?" The bald man asked the scientist to his right.
"Since he has much more control of his mental capabilities he can open his mind to the experience, and basically help imprint the information into his own mind… Well, that's the best way I can explain it."
"Oh, I understand," the man lied. He wrote down something into his notepad. "I heard you had two psychics in this facility? Does the other go through similar tests?"
At this point in time the machine around Shaun's head started making a light "svooo" noise. Shaun tensed up and groaned slightly. He was clearly in some sort of mental pain. Only Shaun could see the faint image of a girl who was close to his age. "It's almost over, don't worry!" her voice sounded distant but still cheered him up.
"No," a scientist told the man regarding the other psychic, "We have a lot of trouble with the other one. She doesn't cooperate well. She's been here almost two years and we've barely gained any information from studying her. He's been here half a year and has allowed us to really learn about the special properties of the minds of psychics."
"Why don't you just get rid of the other one then?" The man asked the scientist.
"We have learned some through her. Not to mention both of them are better at different things. He shows more promise with telekinesis. The girl on the other hand is much better at getting inside peoples heads, sensing surroundings, and the such."
"Getting inside peoples heads? That could be very useful for the military."
"You can't have her," The last subject the government got a hold of, a man who after multiple experiments showed highly increased strength and agility, was sent into deadly combat mission after mission until his death two years later. They weren't going to allow them to do the same to some teenage girl. The scientist did feel sick thinking that they might be doing the same to the boy in the other room though. All of them hoped the tests would show enough promise to get more funding, but not so much as to give the government a reason to take Shaun into combat.
"We'll see about that," The man mumbled too quietly for the scientist to hear.
Finally the machine quit making a noise and the entire thing folded back onto the ceiling. Shaun sighed in relief and put one hand on his head. He had a horrible headache. The image of the other psychic smiled then faded away.
Shaun stood up. "To the shooting range, right?" He had grown accustomed to this pattern. Shaun just hoped this time he could test the suit. The very thought of testing the suit put a smile on his face. The only piece of technology he wanted to get his hands on more then this suit would be the experimental energy cannon he heard they were testing in a canyon somewhere. He had been told very little about the suit, but what he had been told excited him.
The stuttering scientist led him to another room. The people on the other side of the glass had to follow a set of stairs to a new room to continue watching the experiment.
The new room Shaun was in was actually a shooting range. He already knew the routine and grabbed the pistol lying on the table. He shot at the multiple moving targets until the gun was out of ammo.
"I'm not impressed," Another one of the government men told the scientists. This man was medium height and muscular. The seriousness of his face and the anger of his eyes made all the scientists afraid of him. This was the first time he had spoken since he had entered Black Mesa. His voice frightened them too.
"You must take into consideration that the only time he's fired a gun is immediately after these tests," One of the scientists explained to the man.
"If this process was cheaper and quicker I might have been impressed," He wrote down a few more notes. One of the scientists near him glanced at his notes. The scientist managed to see "unimpressed" and "waste of money" written down.
"Follow me," the scientist that Shaun hated commanded, "It's t-time." He walked over to a wall at the far end of the room that was mostly covered by a large panel. Shaun's face lit up with excitement.
'Finally!' Shaun thought. This was the day he had been waiting for. Today would be a wonderful day and nothing would ruin it for him.
The scientist looked into a retina scanner on the wall and typed a password on a number pad below it. A happy sounding "beep" filled the room and the panel slid open revealing a small closet like area. Inside was the suit.
Until now Shaun had only been told about the suit. He had never actually seen it. It was the coolest thing he had ever seen. The suit appeared to be multi layered but was still thin. Most of the final layer was strange silver colored plates that covered the majority of the suit. Shaun wasn't sure what the plates were made from but it looked a little like thin crystal, but of course it wasn't. The layer below that, which he could only see in-between very thin gaps in the plates, looked like a very light blue fabric.
The helmet was the most interesting part to Shaun. When worn it would cover his entire head, and there didn't appear to be any eyeholes or glass to see through. It was very smooth and had a small dome around the ear area.
"Suit up," the scientist told Shaun. After about ten minutes Shaun had everything but the helmet on. The psychic teenager had no idea what the inside of the suit was made of but it was the most comfortable thing he had ever put on in his life.
He grabbed the helmet and stared at it. He had the strangest feeling that his life was about to change forever. The scientist stared up at a clock on the wall and Shaun realized he had paused far too long. He put the helmet on.
The entire front of the helmet was see-through from Shaun's view. Almost like a two way mirror but made of some strange material.
"This is the hard part," Shaun could barely hear the annoying scientist with the helmet over his head. "To turn on the suit you have to connect with it mentally, l-l-like with the machine earlier."
Shaun focused all his attention on the suit but wasn't sure how to connect with it. The machine in the room earlier started the connection and Shaun just amplified it. Now this annoying geek expected him to start a mental connection to the suit all on his own.
"Focus on the helmet," the scientist tried to help him out, "It's especially built to pick up your mental wavelength." This didn't help Shaun out at all.
"How does this work?" The bald man asked to no one in particular; at this point he expected one of the scientists to answer any question he asked.
"It's extraordinarily complicated," One of the scientists standing in the back told him, "The easiest way for you to understand it is to think of his suit like the internet, and his mind has wireless access to the internet."
"Does that mean outside sources could hack into the suit?"
"Doubtfully. The suit is built to work only for his mind. It's like the suit is password protected and only Shaun knows the password."
The bald man wrote down a note immediately, shaking his head slightly. Jack knew the rest of this experiment didn't matter. The government assholes had probably already made up their mind. There wouldn't be anymore funding for this project.
Finally Shaun got results: The first few moments were horrible. It felt like his mind had been ripped apart. He put his hands on his head and let out a loud moan.
By the time he had looked up the annoying scientist had already pulled the trigger. Shaun hadn't even realized he had pulled out the pistol and wouldn't know why he would shoot him.
Shaun felt it hit his chest. He was in pain but not quite the pain he expected. He grabbed at his chest. "Shit!" he yelled out angrily, "What the hell is wrong with you!?"
"Don't be a b-b-baby!" The scientist didn't seem to care about his pain, "That suit protected you from most the damage. It uses your own mental power and focuses it into those plates." He realized Shaun, and the government guys beyond the mirror, would need a better explanation to understand. "B-basically, it uses your psychic energy to spread the force of the bullet across the entire plate. The plate itself is extremely durable and can easily withstand the spread out force. How well the suit spreads out the force is b-based on you though. If you concentrated enough you could probably even completely negate the force of a single bullet from a small weapon like this."
"What about the helmet? There are no plates on it?" Shaun didn't like the idea of his head being the only part of his body exposed to attack.
"The helmet was d-definitely the most expensive part of the suit for multiple reasons. It is b-basically a large three piece plate." Shaun just now realized that, while before the suit was activated he could barely hear, now his hearing seemed better then ever.
"The suit has a few other useful pieces of technology built into it as well, like-"
"They left," a voice said over the intercom. "The military guys. They aren't interested."
The stuttering guy ran towards the door waving for Shaun to follow. In the next room they saw the government guys starting to leave. "W-w-wait!"
The men stopped and turned to face him. "We were expecting a lot better… Especially from you Cooper."
"B-b-but! You haven't seen anything yet! We-We-We have much more!"
"Listen you stuttering fr-" The lights went off and came on a few seconds later.
"Th-that's odd."
Shaun didn't know what had just happened but right before the lights went out he had felt a strange presence... a horrible presence that flooded his senses for a few brief moments.
"Did you feel it?" he heard the voice of the girl psychic. Their strong psychic bond allowed for them to occasionally exchange thoughts back and forth. They were currently so far away that the voice sounded extremely faint. She was much better at 'getting inside of peoples heads' though, so it was impossible for Shaun to send a message back from this distance.
As the scientists tried to convince the government men to stay, Shaun felt another presence. He turned his head to the right lightning fast. His psychic abilities had allowed him to catch the first glimpse of something truly horrific.
There was a bright green flash of energy. To Shaun it felt… otherworldly. Then something materialized instantly from the energy. Everyone in the room had turned their head towards the direction of the glow and had all managed to see the creature materialize.
The creature looked like a small theropod with two short legs. It was about three feet tall and six feet long. It had a tail with a hooked claw at the tip. What Shaun first noticed about the creature were weird short red tentacles that ended in teeth. These tentacles surrounded what appeared to be the creature's mouth. It was a light brown color and had dark spots. Both sides of its head had a slit-pupiled black eye.
For a brief moment Shaun wondered if it was something created in Black Mesa or if it was an alien creature. He didn't have time to think about this because it opened its mouth and spit some sort of green glob of strange stuff at them.
The glob struck the side of the bald mans face. He let loose a dreadful scream and grabbed the side of his face as he dropped to the ground.
Jack took immediate action. He reached for his magnum while taking a couple of steps to the right to take some cover behind a table.
Everyone but Shaun and Jack ducked behind objects to hide from the creature.
The creature ran at Shaun, its closest target. Shaun, completely underestimating the strength of the creature, headed straight at it. He dove at the creature and wrapped his arm just below its head-like area. Since it didn't really have a neck he wasn't sure if his suffocation idea would work. To make things worse the creature thrashed about, and was much stronger then Shaun.
Jack wanted to take a shot but was worried about hitting Shaun. Shaun wanted to give Jack a shot but was worried the creature would maul him if he let go. He focused all his attention and felt his arm tighten more and more.
"F-focus Shaun!" Cooper told him. "If you focus your psychic p-power through the suit you can amplify your strength for a short amount of time!"
Shaun concentrated all his mind and body on suffocating the monster. It was giving him a bad headache but that didn't stop him. The creature's hooked tail smacked against his back with a lot of force but Shaun ignored it. The tip of the hook caught between two plates and cut into the suit enough to graze Shaun's skin.
The creature made a couple of weird groaning noises. Shaun knew that if the creature could groan then it could still breathe. This meant he needed to concentrate more, though his concentration was momentarily broken worrying that this creature may not even breathe like humans.
"You can do it!" In his head he heard her cheering him on as usually.
Finally the creature stopped making the groaning noise. Ten seconds later its entire body collapsed. Shaun let go of it and backed away from the dead... thing. Jack shot a single shot through its head. "Just in case," he explained.
Shaun looked down at the bald man lying on the ground. The side of his face was gone and he didn't move at all. "Shit." Shaun couldn't even comprehend what had just happened.
The government man that frightened the scientists, but clearly not as much as that creature had, chuckled. "Now I'm impressed." He and the other government agent walked off to a corner and he called someone on a cell phone.
"Wh-wh-wh-what… What was that!?" Cooper said looking around to make sure there wasn't any more.
All the lights in the room flashed red twice. In Area Zero's specific warning system this generally meant 'We're all fucked'. The intercom turned on and someone, who sounded like they may have seen something similar, could be heard. "There seems to be… something… happening and we need everyone in the area to remain calm. All of you should remain where you are until we can get some help. We've lost connection to the rest of Black Mesa but before we did a message was sent here. Apparently an experiment in Sector C has caused some… problems." The intercom turned off.
"Ok everyone," Jack decided to take control of the situation as the only nearby guard, "You heard the man. No one leaves until help arrives."
"This is bullshit!" Everyone heard the scary man say to whoever he had been talking to on the phone, "Reroute one of your H.E.C.U. teams this way to retrieve us immediately!"
"Screw this," The other government agent said, "I'm getting out of here!" He left the room alone. The rest of them never saw him again.
Everyone, other then a couple of scientists examining the creature that would be known as a Bullsquid in the near future, found places to sit.
Everyone was quiet for a couple of minutes. Suddenly a loud noise interrupted the silence. Shaun thought it sounded like a bomb had gone off around a metal structure. The sound made everyone in the room jump.
Shaun ran to the large window and looked out. A corner of the building blocked his view of the tram but he could see person walking across the walkway. It was a strange man with a brief case. He glanced briefly towards Shaun as he headed to the unseen tram. Something about the man wasn't right. It reminded him somewhat of the feeling he had, right before the creature appeared, but different.
Jack walked up to the window just as the man disappeared from sight. "See anything weird?"
"No," Shaun lied, "It sounded like that explosion came from that direction though."
"Sounded like something crashed," One of the scientists told everyone his opinion. A couple of others agreed.
Shaun and Jack went back to their previous seats. "What do you think it is?" Shaun asked looking at the beast.
"I don't know," Jack still couldn't believe any of this. "I just hope to god there isn't anything else like that running around Black Mesa."
Note(s): I hope someone out there enjoys reading this as much as I did writing it! I plan to make at least 5 chapters. Maybe more depending on how bored I get and if anyone likes it.
This was more or less the introduction chapter. Everything after this will be a lot more violent and action packed!