Disclaimer: We don't own Half-Life.
Sidelines
Year Three by BlindAcquiescence
"ETA Five minutes. Prep for HALO, ladies," the pilot spoke over the intercom.
The cabin of the old V22 Osprey glowed with dull neon green as the soldiers readied themselves for the covert skydive. Faces, obscured by helmets fixed with visors and oxygen masks, nodded to each other. The men lined up in front of the back loading door, which slowly opened.
"What's the situation on the ground?" the leader spoke into his helmet radio as the door opened to expose the black sky and clouds beyond.
"No scanner activity… yet. I can't guarantee they didn't pick up our heat sig, though."
The leader's helmet tilted in a disapproving manner. "Keep me updated. Nearest activity?"
There was a pause. "Nothing south of LA, we're clear down to Baja. Just like Command said, Charlie's left this area pretty much alone."
A grunt came from behind the squad leader. "Yeah, Command can be really reliable."
"Stow it, Marine," the leader snapped. He spoke into his microphone. "Alright Eagle One, see you in twelve hours."
"Good hunting, Colonel," the pilot said.
The Colonel looked up at the red light glowering down at him from the roof of the plane. For a moment the man almost hoped it wouldn't turn green, giving them the signal to make the final plunge into a possible ambush. But, right on schedule, the small light chimed and turned green.
"You're clear for HALO," the pilot spoke mechanically.
"I always hated this part," the Colonel's subordinate groaned behind him.
The Marines were off, each one tapping the other on the shoulder before they took the dive. The Colonel went first, sailing through the air like a bullet. Finally he reached terminal velocity, the speed at which his body's velocity ceased to increase, and simply let himself fall. Looking to his left, then to his right, he was able to see some of the other soldiers. They'd all been trained for this, sure, but this would be the first successfully executed covert jump since the Seven Hour War.
It was an odd feeling, shuddering in midair. The Colonel tried to push the thoughts of the first attempted jump out of his mind. He hadn't been there, but he'd seen the vid feed transmitted from one of the soldiers. They'd tried a rescue op into New York, with the hope of extracting the president and several other key scientists, but mid-jump the would-be rescuers were caught in the middle of one of the last recorded portal storms, and thrown horribly off-course. They'd landed in a hornets' nest, the middle of downtown New York, where they'd been torn to shreds by the Combine's Synth crabs.
Another shudder. He would never forget those screams.
He was dragged out of his reverie by the voice of his second-in-command. "I see the LZ…"
The Colonel strained to see through the blackness, but that was all he saw.
"I don't…" He stammered, but the Major cut him off.
"Team, switch to IR."
The Colonel cracked a wry grin, which sadly no one saw, since it was a rare expression for him. He tapped the side of his helmet, the small move creating a slight bit of air resistance, slowing his descent. The image on his visor suddenly shifted, and the small flares, which had been dropped off by predator drones the day before, shone like beacons in the night.
Taking back command, the Colonel spoke into his mic. "Get ready to land."
He heard each soldier acknowledge, then gripped the zip-cord, pulling it, and releasing the parachute. The sudden air resistance threw him slightly off balance for a moment, before he finally was able to right himself. He heard the other chutes deploy, and watched the ground as it came up to meet them.
He hit the dirt hard, kicking up dust. He heard, and saw, the others land close by, their chutes cascading around them like so many leaves dropping in fall. Immediately the soldiers were on their feet, weapons at the ready.
"Regroup," the leader spoke, and the men converged on his location, standing in a semi-circle around him. "Ramirez, McShane, put those IR beacons out, we don't want to signal our presence more than we have to." Two of the ubiquitously masked men nodded and took off. The Colonel slipped his M4 out of its protective sheath and slipped a silencer on the end, nodding at the others to do the same. "We're just due north of the target. I want a five meter spread, cut your radios." The masks all nodded, and the soldiers set out to the south, towards their objective.
The desert floor spread out beneath them, with little room for cover or camouflage. The wind had picked up and the cracked ground seemed to howl in protest as the twelve men quickly crossed the parched landscape.
Finally, as they neared their objective, they could see the ghostly outlines of chain-link fences. At twenty-meter intervals the men saw signs warning that they were entering government property.
'BARSTOW MARINE CORP LOGISTICS CENTER' was emblazoned across the top of each sign with the warning 'USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED' against any and all trespassers written below. The fence, though, was withered with age, and the soldiers found a hole they could slip through, one at a time. Another thirty meters and they were standing in the middle of a large parking lot, with several derelict vehicles. The scene, though, didn't look like anything out of the post-apocalyptic reality they all lived in. it looked like the Marines stationed here simply left. Turned the lights off and got the hell out. The transports and humvees all seemed in pristine condition save the wear and tear of the desert landscape.
"Jesus," the Colonel heard someone said under their breath, "it's like they all just up and disappeared into thin air."
He nodded in agreement. If this was a military base, the defence distribution and air supply depot they'd been briefed on, it should have seen some action. Where were the barricades, or the artillery craters? Where the hell were the bodies?
The Colonel tapped his radio, breaking the silence. "The objective's inside," he said, pointing to the large building, flanked on either side by huge, half-moon, aircraft hangers. The soldiers made their way to the front door, a huge mess of reinforced steel and concrete. The Colonel pointed to the eye-scanner next the small guard station that sat beside it. "Ramirez, do your thing." The soldier pulled a small pouch from his black suit and unscrewed the panel next to it, uncovered several plug-in ports. Taking a USB cord from his pouch, he plugged it in and tapped on a small keyboard sewn into the pouch. The eye-scanner lit up, flickering, then dying out again, before finally chirping its approval as the screen glowed a bright green.
The soldier turned to his Colonel. "All right, I plugged your retinal scan in, you're good to go, Colonel Jackson."
Jackson slipped his helmet off and handed it to the soldier next to him. His scruffy gray beard poked out of the black turtleneck as he sidled up next to the scanner and leaned in. The machine took its reading and hummed accordingly. The door shuddered, hesitated, and slowly slid open, all-together louder than he would have hoped, but at least it opened.
The men slipped inside, their weapons at the ready. When nothing jumped out at them, Jackson gave Ramirez the order to close the door behind them.
"All right people, it looks like we're the only one's here."
The men each slipped off their helmets, exposing their own dusty and weathered faces. The man next to Jackson, whose face was nearly as black as the covert material he wore, grinned back at him.
"Looks like someone left the phone off the hook," he said, gesturing to the lit corridors.
Jackson grunted. "Emergency lighting, Tower, went on when the generators cut out." He turned to the rest of the squad. "All right people, you know the score. We're here to see if our benefactors have been through here, and if not, see if there's anything here we can use. I don't have to tell you that any fuel or aircraft maintenance supplies are first priority, weapons and medicine second, food last."
"Hey Colonel, we gotta eat don't we?" one of the men chirped. Jackson shot him a look.
"You eat when your ass is walkin' out of the debriefing room, in one piece, or not." There was a slight chuckle all around before the men finally got back down to business. "We split into two teams, Ramirez, Swan, Edgecomb, Brandish, and Franks, you're with me. Tower, you take the rest. I want you to recon the east side of the base, that's the east hanger and the infirmary. We'll take the west hangar, armoury, and barracks. Oorah?" The men responded in kind, and split up. "I want constant radio contact at ten minute intervals."
The men split up, each searching their respective part of the installation. Everywhere it was the same, no sign of any kind of combat. Jackson's team found the armoury completely stocked.
"Jesus, what did they think? That nothing was gonna happen? All this stuff is just sitting here," one of the Marines muttered, sifting through the inventory report.
Edgecomb looked up at his commanding officer. "We got enough to outfit a whole company."
Jackson nodded; glancing over a shelf stocked with several AT4 shoulder mounted rocket launchers. He grinned, something they could really use.
"This is Tower, we're in the hangar, and boy did we hit the jackpot. Enough fuel to last till judgement day."
Jackson frowned. "That's already come an' gone, my friend."
"I hear that. What about on your end?"
"All's quiet on the western front. The armoury's fully loaded, it's almost too good to be true."
There was a long pause before Tower finally spoke, albeit quieter. "It usually is, talk to you in ten."
"Affirmative." And with that, the men returned to their careful search.
Not five minutes later, Jackson's radio chirped. That was odd, he thought, Tower's early, and that never happens.
"What is it?"
"We got problems."
Jackson's blood ran cold. "What kind of problems?"
"Twenty foot high problems," Tower said once the other team finally joined him in the large lobby connecting the hangar to the infirmary. "I thought it was odd that while the hangar and the armoury were completely intact, the infirmary was totally ransacked. Well, I thought it was odd, until we found this."
The men stared up in stunned silence in front of the large metallic blue door, the material ubiquitous of their Combine overlords. And emblazoned across the front was that damned circle, that jagged spiralling image that they'd only seen in the visions caught by Vortigaunts who were captured, and taken inside Citadels for questioning… or worse.
Jackson's throat was dry, and it made a cracking sound as he finally found the courage to speak. "Christ, Tower… why the hell do you think they put it here?"
The black Marine shrugged his shoulders. "I'm more concerned with what's behind it."
Jackson nodded and looked at his watch. "We got six more hours till evac." He looked hesitantly up at the looming doorway. "Just what the hell are you bastards hiding down here?" he whispered to himself. Walking up to the doorway, he let his gloved hand slide down it. Dust streaked and his hand instantly felt cool, a peculiar feature of this type of alloy.
"The door looks like it hasn't been opened in over a year," Ramirez shrugged.
Jackson stepped away, though never taking his eyes off that symbol; it had a hypnotizing effect on him.
"Can you open it?" He asked the Tech officer. Ramirez walked up to the glowing red light to the side of the door and pulled his pouch out. This time he took several wire cutters out and snapped a few tendrils of wiring free from the locking mechanism, connecting several of his own. A moment later the small red light blinked green.
"Ready?" he asked Jackson, who nodded to the others, who took up firing positions outside the door. With a shriek the door almost cascaded away as it broke up into smaller sections, which either slid into the floor, or were drawn up above it.
Always with the theatrics, Jackson thought.
Beyond the gaping threshold, the corridor was as alien as the doorway that concealed it. A slanting ceiling with several odd blue lights hanging from it, crawled downward at an angle, deep into the ground beneath the base. When a platoon of Overwatch didn't crawl out of the darkness, Tower nudged Jackson, who in turn ordered the squad to move out, down the hallway. Tower and Jackson brought up the rear.
"You never were very good at this whole command thing, were you?" Jackson grunted.
Tower didn't respond right away. "Yeah, well you play the cards you were dealt, eh?" The hallway curved, and Jackson got the feeling they were following something akin to a spiralling staircase.
"You think you're going to find something about him down here, don't you?" Jackson asked.
Tower nodded, watching the men in front of them cautiously moving towards a visible light in the distance.
"You don't believe he died back in that shithole, do you?" Jackson said, his voice patronizing.
"Do you?" Tower threw the question right back at him. Jackson was silent. "You heard what the Vort's said, he's coming back."
Jackson had a hard time believing what the Vortigaunts had told them, even Sherlock, Jackson's close Vortigaunt ally. A single grunt, a lone jarhead, spearheading an alien attack, and making it out alive? Not likely.
Deciding to change the subject, Jackson observed that the corridor was slowly opening into a larger chamber. "Tower, take point, two meter spread."
Tower nodded and jogged up to the front, leading the rest of the soldiers.
The glaring fluorescent lighting of the chamber left spots in his eyes, but as they adjusted, it was easy to make out that this was unlike any Combine installation he'd seen. Equipment tables and alien technology lay scattered all over the floor. Printed readouts, largely uncommon in any Combine technical station they'd raided in recent memories, padded they feet as they spread throughout the large room.
"They sure up and left in a big hurry," Tower mumbled, shuffling some of the papers around with his boot.
Jackson bent down and scooped up several documents. "'Host subject FXY12 confirms earlier suspicions that non-native DNA cannot co-exist without prior genetic predisposition…'" He sifted through the pages, picking another one out. "'To replace expended test subjects, more natives will be transported from internment camps to the north, as per request of the administrator.'" Jackson looked up at Tower, understanding in his eyes.
"That son of a bitch, he was using this place for a testing ground." Tower cursed. The rest of the men looked on uneasily.
"What the hell is project 'Victor'?" one of the grunts said, as he handed a bunch of pages to Tower.
"Not any project I've ever heard of before the war…"
"That table," Jackson pointed. "Prop it up. McShane, three of you start collecting all this stuff. The rest of us are going to recon." The Marine nodded and tapped two others, who began collecting the scattered intelligence.
"What the hell were they doing to people down here?" Tower grunted angrily to Jackson as he walked through the chamber and into the next room guarded by an unlocked door. He waved a hand over the green, motion sensitive eye and the blue door slid sideways. Tower heard an intake of breath, and he pushed his way into the next room.
"This."
The room was filled with orange glowing cylinders, bubbles slowly oozing their way up in the viscous fluid. There must have been over twenty in that room alone, and Jackson could see another door beyond. But it wasn't the cylinders themselves that were so horrifying, but what they contained.
Men and woman, or what used to be them, hung lazily in the embryonic fluid. Their flesh was desiccated, pulled tight over their forms. They had been left like this for some time. As they passed the rows of display tubes, they saw how their human forms had been overrun by hard, alien plating, how limbs and appendages had been added or subtracted, seemingly at random, in an attempt to create something more horrifying than the one that preceded it.
Though the amount of limbs and eyes may have differed for each individual, the rough skin and practically bullet resistant armour plating could be seen to have clawed its way across each person's body. Jackson saw faces frozen in terror, some weeping, and others seemingly frozen in a murderous glee. In some places, the organic armour didn't quite cover every inch, and surgically implanted limbs or muscle enhancements could be seen.
"Ubersoldaten," Tower muttered.
Jackson could turn away from the faces in the tubes, but was able to mutter, "What?"
"Hitler tried to experiment with political prisoners during the war to create a soldier that couldn't be stopped. He did it to women, even children. But this… this is so much more terrible…" His hands clenched. "Breen… you bastard."
"You saying these… people are some kind of weapon?"
"Maybe they were the first attempt at the Transhuman arm of Overwatch?" Jackson heard Ramirez offer as he walked by the cylinders coolly, as if it didn't bother him. "Maybe this project 'Victor' experimented with them here, before they put it into standard practice at the Citadels and Camps."
"But why did they leave so suddenly?" Tower wondered.
Jackson led them through to the next room, which resembled more of an observation concourse at an insane asylum than anything else. Rows up rows of glasses observation ports lined the hallway.
"Jesus, look at that," Ramirez said in disbelief. He walked up to the nearest window, and found it nearly cracked in half. "This stuff is bullet proof, bomb proof, hell I bet it's even Shephard proof, and something on the other side of this thing nearly busted it wide open."
The glass was tinted black, and could only be turned otherwise by use of one of the control terminals. Jackson looked around and saw one on the opposite wall. There was still power, so all he needed to do was find the right control. He found it surprisingly easy to navigate, and he realized this place must have been staffed by a rotation of…
Forced labour. His mind called out. Jackson couldn't bear to think of people experimenting and helping others experiment on innocent people. He found the control panel and ordered the station to turn off the window tint.
"Christ!" He heard both men shout behind him. Jackson turned and saw that behind the window was a creature that resembled a man only in that it had two legs and two arms. It head seemed to have shrunk down into its muscular shoulders. The behemoth lay against the wall opposite the window, a large, dried blood gash where its forehead should have been.
"That thing head butt the glass!" Ramirez moaned. "It's got to be stronger than anything the Combine use for CQC."
Tower nodded, staring intently at the monstrosity. Overwatch was strong, stronger than most of the men in their squad. Close quarter combat was usually out of the question.
The men walked along the corridor, following the windows and Jackson felt as though they were following the progression of the project that had once gone on here. The further they followed, the more the creatures stopped resembling monsters and began looking more like their former selves again, albeit slightly more enhanced. Synthetic muscles, metal grafted to exposed bone, all of it sought to build a better warrior.
They watched in numbed silence until they came to some of the last observation ports. What looked like finished products of the experimentation were laid on surgical tables, and each one seemed to be in the middle of having white armour grafted onto their reinforced skin. Jackson shuddered at the sight of the glittering armour; Breen and his quest to build a super soldier had perverted the innocence inherent in the choice of colour.
The corridor ended at what looked like an office room. The door had been left ajar, and inside they found only a desk and a computer console on the opposite side of the room, sporting a large monitor. Jackson set his rifle down on the desk and immediately began rummaging through it, but found that it had already been hastily cleared out.
"What about the computer?" he heard Tower mutter.
"I doubt it's got anything useful on it," Ramirez grunted. "Assholes probably wiped the memory core before they split."
The terminal powered on as Jackson flipped a series of switches on the side. The last three years that they had spent spying on the Combine had afforded him knowledge of their computing technology. Ramirez was right, though, as at first glance it seemed that the data stores had all been erased. Jackson searched through history files and message dumps until he came across several damaged, although still operable files.
"I might have something." His voice seemed to quaver. "Bringing it up now."
The blue screen fizzled, a blue static covering the monitor.
"Damnit," Jackson growled, "looks like this is only going to be audio."
"When was the message sent?" Tower asked.
Jackson checked the timestamp at the bottom of the screen. "Not too long after the War… nine months, a year, I think…"
"…though I've not had time to adequately go over security footage myself, the after-action report suggests that your ability to control your test subjects has deteriorated beyond acceptable limits."
"That's Breen!" Tower cracked angrily.
"I applaud your recent progress in attaining a viable subject host, but the rate at which the flawed subjects are damaging sensitive material, I have, in concurrence with our benefactors, decided that testing and all inquiry related to project codenamed 'Victor' should cease, and all test subjects should be terminated, effective immediately. You are to gather all sensitive information and evacuate the installation."
The blue static promptly cut out, ending the transmission.
Ramirez stood, transfixed on the black monitor. "So the test subjects were beginning to get out of hand, they didn't respond to orders. It seems like Breen didn't think the project was worth it. But what's this about a viable host subject?"
Suddenly Jackson's radio chirped. "Sir, this is McShane. I've got something I think you should see."
Jackson rolled his eyes. "Jesus, what next?"
Back at the office, McShane laid several pieces of paper on the desk in front of Jackson. "This seems to match up with what Breen was saying. They couldn't control their test subjects. The alien DNA they were trying to graft onto the human genome didn't just affect the physical appearance, it altered their mind. 'Enhanced Aggression' and 'Uncontrollable Violence' are thrown around a lot in the reports." He raised a finger. "Except, in one case." He flipped to a section of papers. "Subject KF7-Delta, who they refer to as subject 'K', responded to the treatment with minimal cellular degeneration, and without the enhanced aggression side effects." He set the paper down. "This guy's cellular makeup seemed to match up perfectly with what they were trying to accomplish. He would have been stronger, faster, and smarter than anything we've seen the Combine pump out of their camps and factories."
Jackson sat back in the large chair. "Christ…"
A frown crossed McShane's face. "That's not all."
Jackson rubbed his face wearily. "Of course it's not," he muttered under his hands.
"This guy, Subject K, he was at Black Mesa." There was an awed silence. McShane picked up the stack of papers and read off several lines. "Subject K has shown little recollection of his life previous to selection for project Victor. What little information that has been collected indicates that said subject was involved in the Black Mesa Incident. His body type and physical skills are indicative of either military or private security training."
Immediately Tower snatched the papers from him. "Give me those," he growled. He scanned the page, and looked up at Jackson. "You don't think…" His eyes grew wide with terror.
"Tower…" Jackson began.
His voice became frantic. "He's the only one who coulda survived that thing. You know it."
"Tower, you can't possibly believe…"
"You heard what the Vorts said, he made it out alive."
"Plenty of us did, it could be anyone."
Their voices were raised and Ramirez and McShane looked awkwardly on. They know these two men had been friends of the Great Shephard, someone they had only heard stories from the Black Mesa veterans about.
"You don't know that!" Tower yelled.
Jackson stood silent. He turned to the other two men. "I need you two to step outside. Now."
The soldiers promptly left the room. Jackson walked around Tower and locked the door behind them.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" He breathed evenly, deeply. "You're becoming obsessed, you're forgetting your duty."
"Duty? Don't you dare explain 'duty' to me. We left him back there." Tower's eyes were wide, and Jackson could see a hint of moisture cloud them.
Reality dawned on Jackson. "You blame yourself, don't you?" His voice was soft now. "You think if you'd stayed behind he'd be with us right now."
Tower turned away, towards the blank monitor. "We had him on the radio, I heard his voice, we could have done something…"
"We had a responsibility to get out of there and warn the rest of the world. Adrian understood that."
Tower sighed, his shoulders falling. "It doesn't make it right."
"It also doesn't mean he turned into one of Breen's sick experiments."
Tower didn't reply, he simply shrugged his shoulders.
"We don't have a whole lot of time left here. Evac's in ninety minutes. Let's copy what we can from the memory core and get out of here, this place is giving me the creeps." Jackson's fingers again ran across the terminal's keyboard.
Tower heard his superior grunt in surprise. "What?"
"Looks like we might get a look at ol' Breeny after all."
He punched a key and the monitor fizzled once more. This time there was no blue static, and administrator Breen's face was all that filled the screen. He looked haggard, a pair of old glasses perched uncomfortably on his nose. He sighed and took them off, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
"I received your last communication, and frankly, Aldrich, I don't know if I agree." He sighed once more. "But, our regional advisor has told me that our benefactors are in agreement that this 'Subject K' is extremely promising, and have suggested I move project 'Victor' to a more secure location."
His tone changed, and an air of truthfulness shone through his constant stream of bullshit. "I hope you're right. The council of advisors is on your side… this time, Aldrich. You have your pet project. I have, though, gone over K's subject profile, and I must say I find it interesting that he should have survived that traumatizing incident, though it doesn't seem as though he came out of it all in one piece. During his psyche-evaluation almost every answer he gave the proctor had something to do with… Gordon Freeman."
There was a long pause as Breen leaned closer to the screen. "Since you've been given authorization for this… I want you to do something for me. This… innate hatred that K seems to have for Freeman. I want you to exploit it."
Another long pause as Breen assumed his dictatorial stance, running a hand through his thinning white hair, his tone more professional. "Codename 'Victor', along with Subject K, currently has Overwatch's Transhuman sector's top priority for research. We'll be moving it to a secure location inside my base of operations in City 17. I trust you'll have no objections. Simply remember that all of your efforts are furthering mankind's prosperity." As Breen uttered the last line, the file began to skip, replaying 'Mankind's Prosperity' over and over again. Jackson found it a fitting tribute to this den of ghouls.
"Aldrich… That name sounds familiar," Jackson muttered, making a mental note to check their files back at the base.
"They moved the project to City 17. Jesus, isn't that in Eastern Europe?"
Jackson nodded.
"Well what do we do now?"
Jackson slipped a disk into his vest pocket, containing what little files they could glean from the terminal.
"This information is over two years old. Who knows what kind of progress they've made. We need to get this back to command, see what the eggheads make of it." Tower's superior picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder. "But until then, we do what we've been doing. Survive." He slapped Tower's back. "Besides, doesn't someone owe me a shot?"
Tower grinned. "Yeah, if you call that sludge Wilkes distils out of his toilet water whiskey."
The two men left the office, passing the rows of observation ports, and the horrifying reminders of what exactly was at stake.
(A/N: Thanks for all the reviews so far! Keep it up!)