A loud droning whine pierced the air above him, and Gordon shrank back into the shadows of the building to his right, the crowbar clutched tightly in his gloved fist. That damn scanner hadn't moved for the past five minutes – and there was no way he could venture across the train yard with it hovering there. From his perspective in the shadows, he could see three Civil Protection officers moving along the tracks, handguns out. Two were moving away from him, but one was slowly and steadily approaching his general position. If he didn't move soon, he would be discovered.

He caught a flash of black and white some point to his left, and he ducked further into the concealing darkness, his teeth gritted. He had only seen it for a second, but there was no mistaking those pale masks. Another of the damn metro cops was out there. Gordon stealthily crept sideways in the shadows, looking fruitlessly for a way to dart from the shadows of the building across the train yard. One of the metro cops stopped for a second, his back to Gordon. He began to creep forward stealthily, the crowbar raised next to his head, as he gradually drew up behind the metro cop, who was muttering into a walkie talkie.

"E-592 reporting in. Still no sign of Anticitizen. Combing Sector 4, over."

"Roger that, E-592. Units in your area are to move to Sector 9 upon check completion."

"Affirmative."

The Civil Protection officer clipped the radio back to his belt and began to move off, away from Gordon. This was his chance. With several quick, fast steps, he moved in behind the office and swung the crowbar downward with all his might.

The two pronged tip slammed into the top of the man's skull. There was a sickening crunch and a soft pulping noise as bone cracked and flesh ripped, and the officer crumpled with a soft groan, his body as limp and flaccid as a sack of potatoes. Wasting no time, Gordon dragged the immobile body into the shadows, crouching down on his haunches to make sure the officer was still alive. He was, but the man's breathing was coarse and erratic, and blood bubbled at the hole in the top of his white mask. For a split second, Gordon considered setting the man's radio off so that someone would find him. At least then he wouldn't die…

But it's him or you. You set the alarm, and this officer lives. But they'll find you, and they'll kill you in a heartbeat.

Gordon stood abruptly. He could not afford pity. He could not afford it back at Black Mesa, and he could not afford it now, in this dark, grey apocalyptic place the world had become. Those who fight, win. Those who hesitate, lose.

Screeeeeeeech…

The scanner darted away into the shadows of another building. The way across the train yard was momentarily clear.

Go!

Gordon bolted out of the shadows, running as quickly yet as softly as he could, crouched low so as to prevent the metro cops from seeing him. There was no shouting, no blare of gunshots. Gordon ran, his boots crunching on the gravel beneath his feet, and then he was at the first train, a hulking, rust-red snake, stationary on the glistening tracks. Multiple compartments stretched before him, most of them closed up. His eyes roved desperately across the train, searching…

There! He darted forward, leaping toward the blackness that was an open compartment door. He landed with a metallic thud in the midst of a huge pile of wooden crates. They were nailed shut. The words "Biotic Specimens, Class 4" were stamped across the top of each box in blood red ink.

Gordon neither knew nor cared what Class 4 Biotic Specimens were. He cared about whether any Civil Protection officers had heard the noise he had made when landing inside the train. Quickly, he shuffled through the shadowed compartment, looking for the exit door. When he found it, he tugged at its handle with his gloves, and with a grating shriek, the door opened and light flooded in, blinding him.

Movement to his left, blurry in the sudden light. Gravel crunching under metallic boots. He looked up; multiple black dots were converging on his location.

Shit.

"Hey, you!"

Gordon whipped his head around; a tall, masked figure was running toward him from dozens of yards away. "Stop!"

Gordon ran.

"I've got him! I see him! Anticitizen in Sector 4, need backup!"

Suddenly gravel was crunching all around him as the pounding of feet resonated throughout the train yard. One of the scanners flew dangerously close to his head; he swiped at it with the crowbar, and the thing exploded in a shower of sparks. Up ahead was another train, this one grey. He ran in between the two metal monsters, their bulk pressing in on him. Gordon spared a glance back as he ran; CPs were flooding the space between the two trains in a seething mass. Up ahead was another open compartment door. He ran toward it.

Blam blam blam

Suddenly loud gunshots pierced the air and the gravel around his feet shot upward in huge wisps of grey. One stray shot whizzed by his ear, deafening him temporarily. It struck the train and ricocheted off with a loud ping. Gordon dove into the open compartment, immediately looking for an exit. Loud, angry voices were reverberating all around him. He couldn't see the door, too dark – but there was an open panel on the ceiling, leading to the roof of the train. Several boxes were stacked next to it.

Gordon was about to make a run for it when suddenly a shadow blocked the light from the open door. He whirled around, and a Civil Protection officer was in the doorway, stun baton at the ready. His eye goggles gleamed dangerously as the baton burst to blue, flickering life.

Gordon didn't think; he reacted. Before the officer could move he ran forward and stabbed the sharp end of the crowbar into the man's chest. It punctured the vest with a loud rip, and the man screamed in agony as blood burst from around the cold steel. Gordon brought his foot up and kicked the man away, dislodging his body from the crowbar. The bleeding form fell out of the doorway, convulsing.

Gordon leaped at the boxes and scaled them quickly. As he reached the opening and placed his hands on the hard roof of the train, two more CPs appeared in the compartment doorway. They levelled their guns and fired just as he swung his body out of the hole and hauled his legs up after him.

The gunshots bounced off the steel wall, uncomfortably close. Gordon sprang to his feet and kicked the open flap, sending it clanging shut loudly. He then began to sprint down the length of the train, heading for the edge of the depot. All around him, Civil Protection officers had gathered like maggots to a fresh carcass. He felt a stab of alarm. So many had come, and so quickly too – he couldn't even count them. Was he really wanted that badly?

The officers on the ground spotted his orange, loping form in the Hazard Suit and apparently decided they wanted him dead over escaped. In a split second, more than a dozen pistols were pointed at him and then a thunderstorm erupted around his head as bullets rampaged through the air.

Gordon ducked over as he ran, feeling the sharp pounding of his heart as bullets ricocheted off the train. Sparks burst near his feet as bullets drove into the harsh steel.

"He's getting away!"

"Quick, shoot him!"

"Aim for his legs, we can still take him alive!"

Like hell you can, Gordon thought. Up ahead, no more than ten yards away, on the other side of the train next to him, was a fenced in grassy enclosure and an open door that looked like it led to a maintenance or sewer passage. That must be a way to the canals! He put on a burst of speed, ignoring the bullets roaring all around him. He activated the Hazard Suit's long jump module, and then he gathered his courage and leaped into the air.

For a second he was suspended, weightless, in midair, and then he had bypassed the space between the trains. He landed with a jarring thud that rippled through his feet and coursed upward until he felt the shock of landing vibrate his teeth. He didn't slow down, but instead used the momentum of his first leap to jump again, farther this time. Then two things happened simultaneously. The first was that he cleared the fence surrounding the maintenance entrance. The second was that something small and hot suddenly drove into the back of his left leg. A sharp flare of pain bit through him and he yelped, twisting in midair and landing hard on the grass with a loud thump. His shoulder was the first thing to hit the ground, and he felt something wrench in his shoulder as the ground slammed into him. A split second later he felt sharp, agonizing pain drive through him. A cloud of dust fluttered around him as he rolled over, cursing.

"Warning. Minor muscle strain detected. Minor laceration detected. Morphine administered."

Gordon let his breath out in a long hiss as the pain slowly faded from his shoulder, and then from his leg. The on-board computer system within the suit indicated through his HUD that his health and vitals were all right. Gordon sat up, shaky and disoriented. He would have quite liked to simply lie down and sleep, but the shouts of the Civil Protection officers from behind the fence and the train caused him to spring to his feet.

"Where'd he go?"

"He jumped the fence!"

"Well, don't just stand there like an idiot! Assemble a team and go around to intercept him!"

Good luck with that, Gordon thought as he ran toward the open doorway, slipping inside and finding himself in a dimly lit hallway. A long staircase proceeded downward, and was lit only by weak, flickering light bulbs placed sporadically along the wall.

Gordon turned on the flashlight on his HEV suit, and suddenly a bright white beam flared from below his ribcage. It cut a swath through the darkness, illuminating the stairs. He descended quickly, his breathing quick and shallow from his dangerous sprint. His body was still tired from his long term in stasis.

As he neared the bottom of the stairs, Gordon heard faint voices. He crept forward, listening intently. One voice sounded rough and angry, the other fearful and desperate.

"Please, I swear, we don't know anything! We didn't –"

"Shut up, citizen, and get up against the wall!"

"Hey, take your hands off her –"

Bang. A loud gunshot tore through the silent stairwell. Then a loud, horrified, agonized scream:

"NO!"

Gordon burst around the corner of the stairwell and into a small hallway. Further down the hall, two metro cops were beating a young woman with their batons, who was screaming and crying. Another prone, unmoving body lay at their feet, covered in blood.

One of the metro cops turned as Gordon's footsteps drew neared. "Hey, it's –" the CP started, when Gordon interrupted him midsentence by swinging the crowbar into the man's throat. The man gave a choked gasp as the steel prongs ripped open his jugular; he crumpled, bleeding and twitching. The other CP pulled out a pistol, but before he could fire it Gordon slammed the crowbar down onto the man's gloved wrist. The CP screamed loudly, dropping the gun with a clatter and backing away, the fabric of his glove ripped away, revealing a flap of torn, bloody skin. Gordon moved forward and swung the crowbar again, into the cop's temple. He crumpled with a groan, either unconscious or dead. Gordon didn't care which this time.

"Oh, God," the woman whimpered, crawling across the bloody ground, not even paying heed to the blood dripping from her forehead. "No… no…" she crawled up by the dead body next to her. It had been a man once. Now the corpse's head had been blown away completely, rendering it unrecognizable.

The woman began to sob and rock back and forth, cradling the body in her arms. Gordon felt terrible. He had no idea what to say, or do. Then:

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," the woman sobbed. "Thank you… for saving me. But they'll be after you now… you need to run."

Gordon remained silent.

"There's nothing more you can do here," the woman whispered, tears coursing down her dirty cheeks. "I won't leave him. I don't care what happens to me anymore."

There was nothing else for it. He touched the woman's shoulder briefly in an act of silent comfort, and then jogged heavily toward a stairwell at the opposite end of the hall. He ascended quickly, mechanically. At the top of the stairs, there was only one exit: a doorway, bolted shut. He slammed his crowbar into the padlock, wincing at the loud noise. Soon, the lock broke, and Gordon kicked the door open.

The wind and greyish sunlight hit him in the face as he staggered out onto a rooftop. A loud grating noise was vibrating in the air, indicating that a helicopter was flying overhead nearby. Gordon ducked on instinct, heading to the edge of the rooftop and glancing down. A long railway track stretched out beneath him, vanishing into a tunnel to his left, and continuing onward toward his right. One of those strange blue energy gates was up by the tunnel, blocking his progress.

Now what? Gordon wondered as he looked around, thinking. Luckily, at that moment a loud, shrill horn broke through the air, and Gordon peered down the tracks. A train was rumbling towards him, screeching as it did so. Gordon glanced up, and saw a maintenance ladder on the rooftop across from him, stretching down in the air. As he saw the train, he got an idea. A crazy, suicidal idea.

The train let out another loud wail as it slid closer. Gordon tensed, ready to spring, when suddenly he heard footsteps behind him.

"What the –"

He turned. A Civil Protection officer had come from another door from another part of the roof, and had just spotted him. For a split second, neither moved. Then, Gordon sprinted toward the metro cop at the same moment the CP drew his pistol and fired.

There was a sharp blast of pain, and suddenly Gordon felt as though someone had thrown a brick full force into his left bicep. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain, swinging the crowbar at the CP. The steel tip bit into the man's ribs, causing him to stumble backwards, yelling in pain. The gun fell from his hands, landing with a snap at Gordon's feet.

Gordon grabbed the man with both hands and, with a surge of adrenaline-induced strength, hurled him sideways. The injured CP screamed loudly as the force of Gordon's toss carried him over the edge of the roof. The officer fell all the way to the tracks, landing on them with a sickening crunch, and then his screams were cut off abruptly as the train rolled over him.

Gordon turned away, sickened, as the train ripped over the dead CP. Luckily, the train's loud horn drowned out the noise of the man's blood splattering the building walls. Gordon leaned over and picked up the man's fallen sidearm, turning the small USP pistol over in his hand. He then shrugged and checked the clip, gloved fingers fumbling over the smooth metal. It had been so long since he had handled a weapon, yet his fingers seemed to remember the path as they ejected the clip.

Gordon examined it. 17 bullets left. He clipped the pistol to his waist holster before turning back to the tracks. The train had come to a stop. Without pausing to wait for more CPs to find him, Gordon dropped noisily onto the metal roof of the train. He almost slipped off, and he hunkered down immediately, gripping the metal tightly with one hand, and bracing his feet. The ladder to the other roof was only two meters away.

That's nothing compared to some of the things I did at Black Mesa.

With that cheery thought in mind, Gordon took a deep breath, activated his suit's long jump module, and leaped off the train. His fingers hooked into the slick metal of the ladder rungs, and he tightened his grip as the rest of his body slammed into the unforgiving stone of the wall. Gordon grunted at the impact. His fingers loosened from the shock, but he gripped harder, the crowbar and the rungs clenched in his iron grip. Then, with a loud, corrosive grunt, he hauled himself upward, his feet scrabbling against the wall until they found the sweet relief of the rungs. Gordon shimmied up the ladder and hauled himself onto the next rooftop, gasping for breath.

Fucking stasis did a number on me…

There was no time for rest. Sighing, Gordon got to his feet, looking around. The building he was on was much longer than the one he had just jumped from. It stretched out for a while, running parallel with the tracks. He supposed he might as well follow it until he could find a safe place to jump down.

Gordon began to walk along the roof. The roar of the chopper overhead gradually faded into the distance. For a while there was relative quiet, apart from the distant sounds of vehicles rolling through the streets, and the whirr of the city scanners as they floated overhead in black clouds. The roof was lined by a large metal fence, along which large plates of sheet metal were propped up. They glinted in the grey overcast.

There was a flash of black and white at the corner of his vision. Gordon whirled around, pulling the gun from its position at his waist. Four CPs flooded onto the roof across the tracks, pointing at him.

"There he is!"

"Report in!"

"Get him!"

Gordon dove behind one of the plates of sheet metal just as the barrage of gunfire peppered the walls around him. Chips of stone flew out, spiralling in the air. He could hear loud pinging sounds as bullets dented the sheet metal. Gordon checked quickly to make sure the safety was off, and waited for a lull in the gunfire. The second it died down, he sprung upward, aiming across the rooftops.

There was a Civil Protection officer to his right, taking potshots at him from the cover of three barrels and a stack of wood. The officer swivelled to aim at him, but Gordon was already squeezing the trigger, once, twice, three times. The officer screamed as bullets ploughed through his armoured vest, and dark red holes burst across his chest. The officer fell from the rooftops to the tracks below.

Another cacophony of gunfire spit around his head and Gordon ducked back into cover. He peeked out around the left end of the sheet metal, and caught a glimpse of a CP ducking behind a huge blue shipping crate. He waited for the officer to stick his head out, and the second he did, Gordon pulled the trigger. The CP's head exploded like a ripe melon in a sharp flare of pink and white.

One of the remaining CPs began to run along the rooftop, aiming for the cover of another crate on the roof. Gordon got the officer in his sights as he ran, aimed, fired. The man's kneecap spouted blood, and he screamed and collapsed over the side of the roof. Only one more.

The last CP ducked back into the shadows of the rooftop until Gordon could no longer see him. He stared vainly across the tracks, pistol in hand, swivelling it all over the roof, but there was no sign of the officer.

Maybe he ran away?

If only.

Suddenly there was a whistle of air as something small and dark was lobbed at him from the other side of the roof. A small cylinder, looked like a...

SHIT!

Gordon turned and ran like a madman, legs pumping in a blur, just as a tremendous explosion split the air. A searing wave of heat and air pummelled him from behind, lifting him off his feet and hurling him at the fence lining the roof. The force of the blast send him smashing right through the fence, and it creaked and snapped before beginning to peel off the roof. Gordon tumbled off the edge of the roof, crowbar in one hand, gun in the other, as the sky flipped over above him. By sheer, dumb luck, the tip of his crowbar hooked around one of the chain-linked pieces of fence, and then there was a horrible tug as his arm seemed to be yanked right out of its socket. Gordon yelled in agony, and almost released the crowbar, but instinctively he clutched it tighter in his searing, aching arm. The fence continued to peel away, drifting toward the ground, and he was carried with it through the caught crowbar.

The ground was rapidly approaching. Gordon jerked his arm, ignoring the loud protest of pain that his arm voiced, and freed the crowbar from its caught position. He dropped like a stone for the remaining ten feet to the ground, thinking oh shit this is gonna hurt and then he landed on his back in the midst of a pile of wooden crates. Wood splintered and boards tore all around him as pain ripped through his back like a surge of lightning. Warmth began to spread all across his back, and he knew it was blood. The air was forced from his lungs, and he lay, winded, amidst the pile of splintered wood atop the cool, hard earth. Gordon choked, desperately trying to squeeze air into his beaten lungs as the HEV suit slowly began to fix his injuries. All he could see was the grey, emotionless sky overhead as it stared into his face, and the burning wreckage and flaming fence at the edge of the roof.

The pain, sharp and biting, slowly began to fade away. He could not see the Civil Protection officer, but he knew he was there, looking for him, trying to see if he had survived. Gordon willed himself to remain motionless.

A sharp crackle, radio flare, from the rooftop a distance away. He heard indistinguishable noise, then:

"No, I got him. Hit him with a nade, and he fell off the roof." Silence, followed by: "what the hell are you talking about? I saw him fall. He's done." More quiet, only the wind spoke. Then, the voice again, grudgingly: "all right, I'll get a team and go get his carcass, if it makes you happy."

Footsteps receded, and then he was alone. "Time to go," Gordon muttered to himself. He fumbled around until he felt the ground under his right hand, and he pushed himself to a standing position. His crowbar was lying several feet away, partially buried in the wooden wreckage. The pistol was a couple meters away from it. He collected both items and began to jog down the train tracks, following the gleaming silver rails until he was swallowed into the darkness of tunnel.

Gordon began to slow down, struggling to control his breathing as he moved stealthily through the tunnel. There seemed to be multiple outposts or stations that lined the edges of the tunnel, providing refuge in case trains came by. Several shadows were moving around through the glass window of the first outpost, and Gordon caught a glimpse of another white mask.

Fuck, they're everywhere!

He looked around. Many red, flammable barrels lined the edges of the tunnel. A slow smirk grew on his face as an idea formulated in his head.

BOOM

"What the fuck was that?!"

"Go outside and secure the area!"

Gordon ducked into the shadows as a group of CPs thundered into the tunnel, gaping in awe at the flaming mess that used to be a barrel. Gordon charged up behind them, firing. Four of the officers went down with cries of pain. The last one was in the midst of turning when Gordon's bullet slammed into his left eyepiece, and a burst of red shot out and stained the mask. The officer fell.

Gordon quickly examined their bodies, liberating them of all their spare ammunition and clips. Since he didn't have any way to carry the ammo, he hurriedly removed one of the CP's utility belts and fastened it around the orange and black waist of his Hazard Suit. He reloaded his handgun, placed all the spare clips in the magazine pouch on the belt, and then started to run off. As an afterthought, he returned to the dead CPs and stole one of their radios. Might as well know what was coming rather than be taken by surprise.

Gordon looked down the tracks, and to his dismay saw another blue energy gate blocking his path. He turned and sprinted up the steps and into the outpost office, looking hurriedly for a switch to disable the gate. He didn't find one.

God damnit!

Loud voices suddenly drifted down the tunnel. "Units down! Freeman must be here somewhere!"

Don't they ever give up? Gordon raged inwardly as he saw a small maintenance stairwell leading upward in the corner of the room. He took it, finding himself on a long metal catwalk that stretched over the train tracks. Suddenly gunfire split the air and bullets began to knock into the catwalk under his feet. Gordon didn't stop to see where it was coming from, and instead booked it across the catwalk, descending the stairs at the other end and ending up on the opposite side of the energy gate.

He looked down the tracks and immediately saw four Civil Protection officers running at him from a distance away, firing at him. They were coming from where the tunnel opened up into the world again. Gordon ducked back, aiming his pistol. The officers were not paying attention to where they were running, and they carelessly passed right by a flammable barrel. Gordon fired.

There was another roar of air and fire as the barrel exploded, drowning out the sounds of the officers' screams. Several charred, flaming bodies were hurled through the air, colliding either with the walls or the railway tracks with sickening crunches. Gordon took advantage of the clear path to run down the tracks, finally coming out into daylight again.

A chopper was flying by overhead, some point to his left. On his right there was a huge canal, with a large pile of sewer water flowing down next to the tracks. The passage led all the way through a rusted, parted set of long iron bars, to a huge red train car, abandoned in a pile of refuse several hundred yards down the canal. Gordon looked down the tracks and saw several of the huge grey armoured cars screaming towards him. Deciding filthy was better than dead, Gordon took a deep breath and jumped off the tracks.

He hit the water with a loud splash, sending a geyser of the grimy greenish grey water into the air. Gordon submerged, and then the entire world grew quiet. The stench was incredible, and pieces of garbage drifted past him as he began to swim up the river of sewage, lips pressed tightly together as the cold, murky water pressed against him from all sides.

He swam for as long as he could, until his lungs were bursting and on fire. The HEV suit's air gauge listed his oxygen at one dangerous red bar, and Gordon quickly broke the surface, gasping.

Luckily, there appeared to be no CPs on the upper ridge. The whipping of air as helicopter rotors beat across the sky was still present, though. Loud alarms were droning in the air above him as scanners with searchlights flew overhead. Gordon looked furtively around. Taking a deep breath, he submerged again.

As the greenish haze of water slugged against his face, Gordon suddenly became aware of a rushing noise. He whipped around, eyes straining through the water, but he could see nothing but darkness and muck. Then, something long and slimy brushed against his leg.

Gordon recoiled, bubbles escaping from his mouth in a long stream as he jerked his head left and right, searching for whatever had touched him, but he could see nothing through the water.

There it was again! Something sharp, slimy and yielding had touched his foot! Gordon surfaced, gulping in air. CPs or no CPs, he was getting out of there. He had no intention of drowning due to some sick water-dwelling –

Something slimy wrapped around his foot and yanked, hard.

Gordon was sucked underwater with a choked cry. He squirmed and fought, but whatever was holding him had his ankle in a death grip. His pistol was still in his holster, but even so, the gun wouldn't work underwater. His crowbar, however, was still in his right hand. Gordon swung it sluggishly, stabbing into the slimy thing that had seized his leg.

The hold abruptly loosened, and his foot was free. Gordon began to kick toward the surface madly, lungs screaming. The shimmering light of the surface was so close – three meters – two – one –

Gordon's face broke into the stinging air, but he only managed to gulp in one breath before something else wrapped around him and pulled. Gordon felt something cold surround his waist, his left arm, and both his feet. Panic made him dizzy, and bubbles of air were forced out of his lungs as the invisible thing squeezed.

Help me! Gordon tried to scream, but then something sickening and slippery slapped right over his mouth, muffling his cries. What the fuck is this thing?!

Then, he got an answer.

Light suddenly blazed out of the murky sewage swamp, coming in long, tendril-like flashes. Bright, purple dots gleamed in the dark water. Long, whipping blue things fluttered in the water before his face, tapered to points. Gordon's eyes widened as he realized what he was seeing.

They were tentacles.

The things that had grabbed him were luminous, neon-blue tentacles. They were fat and supple, as round and thick as his arm, only infinitely longer. The glowing, gelatinous tentacles were slightly translucent, and the purple light he was seeing were... organs, clearly visible within the clear sheen of the blue tentacles. Each tentacle coiled and waved in the water, their ends thinning until they formed needle-sharp, deadly points. He couldn't see what they were attached to; the tentacles were so long that they simply vanished into the dark water.

The unseen creature wrenched him deeper, pulling him away from the safety and comfort of land and air. Gordon struggled vainly, trying to free himself, but his arms were seized, his legs captured, and a tentacle was coiled around his waist, limiting his movement. Meanwhile, dozens more tentacles were slithering around his fighting form, their sharp tips aimed directly at him. Then, as his heart contracted with fear and pain, the ends of the tentacles opened up. Each point suddenly split wide open, like a peeled flower, revealing strange, miniscule, dagger-like appendages that he knew with a surge of fear were teeth.

Help me! Gordon tried to scream again, but it was useless. Water thundered around his ears and turned his world black as the tentacles surged forward, mouths gaping, ready to swallow him whole.

A/N: Thank you to those who have reviewed so far, I appreciate it. The Gordon-Adrian meeting is coming soon, never fear. However it may seem, I will not be directly following the Half-Life 2 storyline, although it will be close. I'd like to hear what you think of this chapter. Click the review button!