Adrian shepherd felt like falling over again, but the general feel of the place told him that in this city, he would receive no help. Asides from the towering construct in the centre of the city, areas were walled off, and guards patrolled the square. If nelson had though of this happening to Trafalgar square he would throw up, shepherd thought. The guards wore gas masks of some kind, and black uniforms. All of them carried guns or batons. After staggering around, Adrian found a bench. He almost fell on it; all the disappearing had depleted his energy. He was helpless as two of the guards ran towards him and dragged him away.
Earlier…
Anthony sighed; it was the same every day. Beatings, execution, the combine police were far too brutal. Normally, no-one would be able to see through the combine camera systems, but the police had been lax here lately. This, combined with Harry's hacking abilities, had allowed the unit access to the combine network, in Britain, anyway. Then, something new, a man… in his uniform staggered out into Trafalgar square, the man did not don the unit's gas mask, but it was definitely his uniform. Even without zooming in he could tell who it was. Anthony picked up his radio, and yelled into it.
"All HECU units! The shepherd is amongst his flock! Repeat! The shepherd is amongst his flock!"
Usually, seeing a man dragged through the streets was a common sight. When that man wore military uniform, however, it could attract quite a crowd. Flocks of civilians followed the police, curious as to why someone had been rebellious enough to dress up as a human soldier of old. The police were obviously none too keen on attention, and activating a stunstick was well enough to scatter the crowd. Instead of taking the prisoner to the local checkpoint, the two police dragged shepherd behind an old barn. Shepherd gathered the strength to talk and pulled his head up. "Where…are you taking me?" he groaned, he was close to fainting, the shock should have passed by now. If what had happened in the alley was anything like what he though it was, he should have been immune to pain from it by now. One of the men looked around, checking for anyone who might see or hear anything. Satisfied that there were no witnesses, he turned back to Adrian. "Its ok corporal, you are in safe hands" the cops' voice was hard to hear, he was obviously using a radio. Corporal? Adrian thought, no-one outside of the military would know his rank or details, unless…
One of the two men thumped the door silently, taking care to leave varying space in between each hit. "Password?" a voice questioned from the other side of the door, Adrian could not be certain, but he felt sure that he heard a gun cocking on the other side. The man looked around again; he was clearly taking no chances with security. "Xen" he whispered, still looking for anyone who might overhear him. "Ok, open the door" the voice grunted approvingly. The men pulled shepherd in and slammed the door shut as quick as they could manage. One of them removed his helmet. "Target retrieved" he announced, before turning to shepherd "welcome back sir" he smiled. Every face in the room turned to face Adrian, three of them he recognized. One of them was his drill instructor Dwight T Barnes, who nodded a greeting to Adrian. And the other two shocked him beyond measure. They were alien's he had faced in black mesa. One of them peered towards him with a red eye; its greenish-brown skin seemed slimier than when he had faced its kind back in black mesa. He knew full well of the damage it could do, despite its lack of a weapon. The other one shocked shepherd even more. It was similar in build to the red-eyed alien. But it was grey skinned, and its eye was roughly orange in colour. The other noticeable difference was that it carried a weapon. A blue beetle crawled around its back; shepherd had seen these before at black mesa, handling one of the beetles himself. They were powerful weapons, and they generated their own ammunition. Even if one of these grey aliens did not have a beetle with it, it would still be an able combatant. The red eyed alien waved a greeting to shepherd, "greetings shepherd. You have returned at last…as was" it began; Adrian cut it off mid sentence. "Shut it! I will not fall to this trick!" he yelled, black mesa burning back into his mind. "I understand the shepherds' feelings. In black mesa, many of your kind were felled by mine…" shepherd cut it off again, this time by kicking it in where he assumed its stomach was. The memory of that cursed place returned his strength. A few of the marines reacted, but not many. The grey alien, however, snapped its arms into firing position. The beetle crawled into the creatures cradled arms. "Leave him alone! you didn't exactly spare us at black mesa" it shouted, it had a point, shepherd was anything but merciful to its kind. But why would it speak English now, why negotiate with humans after the horrors of black mesa instead of during. Adrian sighed, "I'm sorry, but why now?" after a few seconds pause, the alien looked around with its one eye. "Err… I'm sorry, what?" it said, confused. Adrian responded "why do you speak my language now, why do you try to calm the situation instead of frying it with a lightning throwing beetle…thing?" he was calmer now, and helped the green alien back to its feet. "we just didn't think back then…and he is not a beetle, he's more of a roach" it shrugged, the green alien stepped in, "the shepherd has been away for many years, and he will need information on the years stolen from him." It explained, recovering quickly from Adrian's attack. Stolen? Years? Adrian thought, no one but he and the man in the suit would know of his imprisonment. Perhaps these aliens were clairvoyant; they certainly were capable of performing glowing lights. After pondering the situation, Adrian asked for a full briefing on what had happened during his absence.
After several hours of talk, Adrian understood most of the key events he had missed. After black mesa, xen aliens had randomly begun teleporting out of nowhere, and humanity retreated to the cities. After several year of safety living in the urban areas, another race now known as the "combine" had appeared out of thin air in all the major cities and declared war on man. After seven hours, humanity was under combine control. They could no longer breed due to suppression technology, and the entire population was living in fear. Yet brave individuals resisted, and combined with the now free Vortigaunt's, as the green aliens were known, an effective resistance was hampering the combine where they could. The grey aliens were known as race X, but were only known of by the Vortigaunt's and certain parts of the resistance. It comforted shepherd to know that, despite the odds, a few of his comrades had survived. He was told by Barnes that in Britain and America the marines numbered at approximately three thousand troops. Adrian smiled, if these marines were veterans of black mesa like he was, the combine were at a disadvantage. These men had fought aliens before. Race X numbered only a few thousand troops, but thousands of civilians underground. According to the race X trooper, who was known to his kind as "Xar", the X had a unique allergy to Xen teleports; it caused them to revert to a primal and animalistic state. Millions of them were pulled into black mesa by the resonance cascade. Their basic instincts told them to build up biomass reserves, study the local creatures and find a way home. Their instinct also told them to flee from the nuke before it destroyed the complex. This was why so many of them survived the detonation. After black mesa, the effects of xen teleportation wore off and they regained sentience. One other major event had occurred during Adrian's absence: the scientist he had witnessed jumping into xen in black mesa, Gordon freeman, had led the resistance in Eastern Europe and destroyed two combine strongholds. The citadel of city 17 and nova prospekt, somewhere shepherd somehow knew not to ask about. The marines knew that it fell to them to rally the British resistance and do all the damage they could to the combine in Britain. With so many marines, trained resistance soldiers, Vortigaunt's and X, how could they possibly fail if they used guerrilla tactics? Xar told shepherd that he had not seen the best bit yet, and he (it appeared to be male) lead shepherd into a repair pit area of the marines stronghold. He punched a code into a rusty key panel and a hidden steel door opened. Xar ushered Adrian inside, in the garage area was a large vehicle covered by a large sheet in the absence of tarpaulin. Xar tore the sheet off the vehicle ceremonially. "Ta-dah!" he smiled. Adrian stood there, grinning.
"You've got a tank. You've got a bloody tank"