Black Mesa

By Patrick Williams

Based on the storyline from Half-Life, a game from Valve Software and Sierra Studios. The Half-Life franchise is the property of Sierra Studios. All rights are reserved to Sierra Studios.

Chapter 8 – Questionable Ethics

Sector D – Classified Teleportation Laboratory

The main in the gray suit had supervised the evacuation of the labs and was convinced that the scientists had not left any traps for them. The soldiers had done a thorough job of clearing the area, and it was safe to begin using the teleporter.

The man contacted Major General Thompson.

"Mister Thompson, your men did a… satisfactory job clearing the labs down here. Their work here is done. Pull them back to the surface immediately."

"But they just–- Very well," came the confused reply.

The man in the suit watched the sergeant as he held his radio to his ear as the new orders made their way down the chain of command. The sergeant, in turn, relayed them along in his standard barking tone. The soldiers began shuffling out, confused as to why they had broken into this lab only to abandon it minutes later. The sergeant was the last one out, leaving with a quizzical look towards the man in the suit, who paid it no mind.

"How goes your quest to capture the Lambda Complex, Mister Thompson?" the man asked as he returned to his radio.

"We've captured two of the hazard suits and we think we can use them to get past the Lambda Complex's defenses."

"Ah, the old Trojan horse approach; an admiral plan, Mister Thompson. But tell me, what happened to the third hazard suit?"

"The third is being disposed of as we speak. Two hazard suits will be more than enough to get in and open the gates."

"Check your H.E.V. tracking console again, Mister Thompson. These hazard suits are not as easy to dispose of as you think."

There was a pause on the other end before a reply came. Muffled shouting could be heard in the background.

"The third one's still moving, and he's most likely going to try and rescue the other two," Thompson announced, tension gripping his voice.

"You know what you have to do, Mister Thompson. Your success here depends on you capturing those hazard suits. You would do well to supervise this operation in person."

"Very well. I'll get back to you. Over and out."

Dekker and his men arrived soon after the General's soldiers abandoned the lab. They wore their standard black jumpsuits and body armor, infrared goggles propped up on their foreheads. The soldiers were well armed, with OICWs, P-90s, and M-249s held at the ready. Dekker approached the man in the suit to report in with a salute.

"My men are ready to go, sir."

"Very good, Commander. You understand the importance of your mission. Begin teleportation immediately. There is little time to waste."

"Yes, sir." Dekker pointed to one of his men and gestured to the teleporter's control panel. The man nodded and hurried to activate the teleporter for their excursion to Xen.

Biological Research Laboratory

Freeman lay on the stretcher previously occupied by the dead Grunt. A sheet covered him, a poor disguise to be sure, but it was the best they could come up with given the circumstances. Calhoun wheeled the stretcher back through the hallways of the lab, getting more strange looks from soldiers on duty, but otherwise not being confronted. They both hoped the ruse held up long enough to get them out of the building. All they had to do was walk down the central corridor and out the front doors. Like most things, however, doing so was much more complicated than it seemed.

Calhoun pushed the stretcher into the lobby, immediately arousing the suspicions of the two guards standing post at the glass-walled entrance. Another guard sat behind the front desk, watching the security cameras throughout the labs. He glanced up momentarily, but returned to the screens. The two guards at the front entrance began to walk towards Calhoun and his stretcher.

"I thought you were sent here to dispose of that body. Where are you taking it now?"

"I just received orders from HQ. They want it taken back for further testing."

The soldier nodded slowly, obviously confused, but not willing to question any orders that came from HQ. He began to step away then paused, holding his hand to his ear. The soldier listened to his earpiece momentarily, then looked up at Calhoun with a start.

"Now wait just a minute!" the soldier exclaimed as he brought his MP5 up to face Calhoun. "HQ just ordered a lockdown of this facility. They said that the hazard suit was going to try to escape, and they warned of anyone trying to sneak anything out."

"They were right to do so," Freeman said coldly as he sat up on the stretcher, the sheet falling to the side. He raised his shotgun to bear on the soldier and fired, splattering blood on the glass wall behind him. Calhoun had his pistol out and killed the other soldier before he could return fire.

The guard behind the front desk ducked down and pounded the large red 'lockdown' button. Before Gordon or Calhoun could escape, large metal plates pounded down over the entrance, shielding the glass walls. Their escape route was effectively blocked off.

Calhoun and Freeman turned and ran to the desk with weapons held ready, but the soldier ducking behind it was in no mood to fight. He cowered before them, a look of pure terror imprinted on his face.

"Open that shield," Freeman ordered.

"I can't!" the soldier protested, "The shield can only be opened from outside. The lab is completely locked down now. That shield is solid steel. Every exterior door and window is shielded with it. There's no way out for any of us, now."

"You're not the brightest guy in the world, are you?" Calhoun asked, exasperated. This dumb grunt might have just killed them all. They might be trapped in this lab forever if they couldn't find another way out.

"I was just following orders!" the soldier gasped, as if he was explaining himself to the devil at the gates of hell.

Gordon had heard that phrase before, after one of the soldiers had murdered his friend, Walter Bennett. The memory brought back a rush of anger, and Gordon picked up the soldier by his collar, using the suit's strength to hold him in midair with little apparent effort. "You're going to get us out of here if it's the last thing you do. It very well might be. Now think, long and hard. Is there another way out?"

The soldier clawed at his collar, trying to ease the pressure on his throat. "All right, all right!" he gasped. "There might be another way!"

Gordon dropped the soldier back to the ground. "Go on," he urged.

"There's this experimental laser on the second floor, in the weapons lab. I saw them using it to cut steel when we got here. You might be able to use it to cut through that shield. Okay?"

"You'd better not be lying to us," Gordon said menacingly, "Otherwise we'll be back for you, and you'll wish we had killed you this time."

Gordon swung his shotgun butt at the side of the soldier's head, knocking him unconscious but not doing any permanent damage.

Calhoun looked down at the security monitors built into the desk. He saw many camera angles of soldiers rushing down halls, all of them heading for the lobby.

"Gordon, I think we need to hit the road!" he said as he gestured towards the monitors.

"I can handle them. I've dealt with worse odds than this."

Calhoun cleared his throat. Gordon understood. Gordon could handle these soldiers with his hazard suit, but Calhoun was much more vulnerable. They couldn't afford to separate in an unknown environment, and they couldn't afford to take any huge risks. Calhoun had saved Gordon's life, and Gordon didn't want Calhoun to have to lose his own in the process.

Soldiers approached them from the lab's central corridor and one of the side corridors. This left them with a third and final corridor to escape through. Gordon and Calhoun ran down it as the soldiers entered the lobby firing, their bullets tearing holes through the front desk and chipping the tiles behind it.

Rather than race down the hallway after them, the soldiers held their position in the lobby.

"Good job, maggots," the squad's sergeant complimented the group, "We've got them just where we want them. Private, man that console and get ready to unleash our little surprise."

The soldier obeyed, running to the front desk and finding their targets on the monitors. "I've got them, sir," the soldier reported. "They're approaching the specimen room now."

Calhoun and Gordon emerged in a room full of large glass tubes holding life not from this planet. Each of the tubes housed a creature from Xen. It reminded Calhoun of the menagerie in Superman's Fortress of Solitude that he had read about so much as a boy. One tube housed a group of Barnacles like the one that had killed Dr. Graham back in the sewers. Another housed a head-crab, bouncing against the glass tube trying to get to the newcomers. There was an alligator-like creature Gordon had seen before on Xen. Its tube labeled it a 'Bullsquid.' A tube held a creature neither of them had seen yet, a small dog-like creature labeled a 'Houndeye.' It seemed harmless enough, but they had come to realize that nothing from Xen was truly harmless.

The large glass tubes that ran along the edges of the lab paled in comparison to the large display in the center of the room. This tube dwarfed the others, as did the creature within. It was one of the Grunts Calhoun had encountered near Black Mesa's entrance.

The duo was so transfixed by the huge displays that they forgot they were being pursued by soldiers bent on killing them. Calhoun glanced at the hallway they had come from to see if they were still in danger but found that the doorway they had come through had closed behind them. Calhoun approached it and tried to open it but the door would not budge. They had been locked in.

Calhoun was about to tell Gordon when they discovered their problems were only beginning. Red lights flashed above the tubes throughout the room. Someone was releasing the creatures! The tubes hissed as they depressurized and began to rise from their bases.

"Gordon!" Calhoun called over the wailing klaxons, "The only thing that can dent that Grunt's armor is a grenade, and I wouldn't use one in such close quarters. We need to get out of here!"

Gordon nodded, tossing his shotgun to Calhoun and moving to the doors at the far side of the room. They had little interest in going back into the waiting arms of the soldiers in the lobby, so the only way left for them to go was deeper into the labs, hopefully coming across the weapon labs and the laser within. Gordon pushed his gloved fingers into the tiny crack in the far doorway and used all of his suit's strength to pull the doors apart. The door's hydraulic pistons groaned in protest, but slowly gave way, pulling apart at a painfully slow rate. It would take a few precious seconds for Gordon to get the door open wide enough to escape through.

Calhoun stood behind Gordon, shotgun held ready. The tubes continued their slow rise as the first of the creatures escaped. The head-crab leapt towards them only to explode midair after absorbing a blast from Calhoun's shotgun. Calhoun fired again as the houndeye bounded towards them. He felt a pang of guilt at the pathetic whine the creature gave as it died, but he doubted the creature had been running to give him a big sloppy puppy kiss.

Calhoun looked up again and saw the face that would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life. The grunt's face reminded Calhoun of the beast from the Predator movies. The claws surrounding its face clicked together with anger as it looked at the two intruders before it. The grunt made a noise that could only be described as a laugh at their futile attempt to escape. It swung its powerful arm around to bear on them, ready to fire its deadly hornets.

Calhoun knew he wouldn't survive the attack, but wondered if Gordon's armor would withstand the continued drilling from the hornets. The hazard suits could withstand the damage from small-arms fire, as the nanites could quickly repair the damage from bullet ricochets. However, these hornets did not bounce off like bullets. They would stick in and keep drilling, possibly quicker than the nanites within the hazard suits could respond to the damage. These might be the creatures that had destroyed the hazard suits on Xen.

Calhoun's suspicions would not be confirmed just yet. As the grunt prepared to fire, something splashed against its armor from behind. The grunt turned with a start and saw that the bullsquid had escaped from its tube and taken out its frustration on the first living thing it came across. It had spat something from its squid-like mouth at the grunt, and when the grunt turned to face the new threat they saw that the spit was burning away at the heavy armor. The bullsquid's spit must have been a highly potent acid, and if it did that to the armor they did not wish to find out what it did to human flesh.

The grunt unleashed its anger on the bullsquid, filling its alligator-like body with tiny drilling hornets.

"GO!" Gordon shouted as he held the door slightly open for Calhoun. He jumped through and Gordon followed close behind as the door slammed shut a split second later. The heavy door pinged from the impact of hornets from the grunt's weapon. The door was not heavy enough to insulate the grunt's inhuman scream of frustration. It had escaped from one prison only to be trapped in a slightly larger one.

Back in the lobby, the soldiers had revived the unconscious trooper they had discovered behind the front desk. He had joined his fellow soldiers around the monitors, watching the battle with as much interest as the rest despite his pounding headache. The soldiers had been watching the spectacle as if it had been a boxing match on television. They had booed loudly when their prey had escaped through the heavy doors.

"They got away, sir!" the soldier manning the controls announced.

The sergeant in command came over and inspected the monitors. "Open the doors, Private. We'll see if that alien can finish them off, then we'll go pick up the pieces ourselves."

On command, the far doors rose and the alien grunt quickly bounded through to newfound freedom. It smelled its prey up ahead and closed in to collect its kills.

Gordon and Calhoun emerged from the hallway into another lab designed for studying creatures from Xen. In the center of this room was a pen that could hold a creature for testing. Suspended above the pen was a spidery device with electrodes dangling out from it on all sides. Gordon recognized the device's purpose. It would fill the room with extreme electric current powerful enough to kill any living thing trapped inside. The pen had been set up to study the effect of extreme electricity on the creatures from Xen.

There was another door on the far side of the room that would lead on through the lab. They walked towards it to continue their search for the laser when they heard the loud pounding footsteps approaching from the hallway behind them. The grunt had escaped from the menagerie and was coming to finish the job. If they were going to get rid of this monster, this room would be the perfect place to do so.

Gordon looked around the room, spotting the controls behind a plastic wall designed to protect the operators from the powerful electric currents that would flood the room during an experiment. Gordon and Calhoun raced behind the plastic wall, Calhoun nervously peering through a plexiglass window as Gordon worked to prepare the device for firing. The device became fully charged just as the grunt rounded the corner and cautiously entered the room. Gordon and Calhoun ducked for cover, waiting for the right moment to fire the electrodes.

The grunt moved very much like a human soldier, sweeping its weapon from side to side looking for an unseen threat. It could smell its prey close by but it could not see them. As soon as the grunt was clear of the doors, another klaxon sounded as the doors slammed shut behind it.

The grunt turned with a start, threatened by the sudden loud noise and flashing lights. Its instincts screamed for it to escape from this place, but its efforts were futile. It had found a new prison, and this one would be its last. The electrodes lowered from the ceiling, and the grunt could feel its metal armor begin to tingle with an electric charge. The grunt's armor made for a fine conductor for the electricity that erupted from the device. A large visible bolt of electricity erupted from the grunt's armor, arcing through the air to an electrode tendon on the device. The grunt roared in pain as its internal organs were scorched from the heat. The grunt was held upright by the bolt of electricity for several seconds before the device finally powered down. As the electrical charge within the device faded, the grunt fell to the ground face first, smoking like an overcooked steak. The smell almost made Calhoun gag.

A chime announced that the charge had dissipated and it was clear to come out from behind the plastic shield. The doors on both sides of the room opened again, clearing the way for Gordon and Calhoun to escape.

The soldiers had watched the daring escape with a sense of awe. They had really kicked that alien grunt's ass! The soldiers had actually cheered when it died, but had stopped quickly when they realized that they were cheering for their targets.

"Come on, maggots," the sergeant growled, "We've got a job to do before we can get out of here."

The soldiers raced down the hall after their prey, eager to report to their superiors that the hazard suit was destroyed so they could give the 'all clear' signal and leave this godforsaken place.

Gordon and Calhoun emerged from the second hallway into a room that could best be described as a battle arena. The large rectangular room was much like the examination room, with holding tubes scattered around the room featuring a wide variety of Xen fauna. The center of the room featured various obstacles and targets scattered around haphazardly. The room seemed to serve as a testing ground for the creatures, to see how they performed in various combat situations. Above the testing grounds, a control room looked down on the arena. This must have been the highlight of the tour for any visitors important enough to gain access to this facility.

Once again, they heard something approaching from behind them. These footsteps were human, but somehow the army boots slapping the linoleum tiles were more intimidating than the sounds the grunt had made. The soldiers had decided to come finish the job themselves.

Gordon and Calhoun raced up a ramp to the control room and found that they could control all of the arena's capabilities from there. The soldiers had thought it might be entertaining to watch them get torn to pieces by aliens back in the specimen room. It would be interesting to see if they found the situation just as entertaining when they had a dose of their own medicine.

The soldiers poured into the arena, quickly fanning out around the room in search of their targets. As soon as the last soldier entered, Gordon began pushing buttons on the controls. The doors to the arena slammed shut, as did the door to the control room. Two specimen tubes began to open, releasing two very angry grunts eager to take their frustration out on the soldiers in the arena.

The soldiers clustered in the center of the arena in an ad-hoc defensive formation behind the limited cover of a low barricade. The soldiers had been trained for situations like this, and they had quickly identified the best defensive position in the arena. It was much like a situation they had faced during basic training, only then they had been facing enemies with paintball guns or blanks, not bloodthirsty aliens bent on tearing them to shreds. Nonetheless, their training kept them from overreacting or panicking.

The alien grunts had also been well trained. They approached the defensive formation from opposite sides. One emerged from cover and fired a few hornets at the soldiers, hoping to draw their fire and give the grunt behind the formation an opening to flank and catch the soldiers off of their guard. A soldier was hit in the neck by the hornets and fell to the ground clutching at his gushing throat. The soldiers felt the urge to turn to the threat and unload their weapons, but they were trained better than that. The soldiers remained in their formation and spotted the grunt trying to approach discreetly from the rear.

"Fire in the hole!" a soldier called as he unloaded a grenade from his M-203 grenade launcher. The projectile exploded at the grunt's feet, killing the alien. The other grunt saw that its tactical advantage had been lost and charged. It fired hornets wildly as it approached the formation without abandon.

The grunt killed all but two of the soldiers before it succumbed to a grenade like its former comrade.

The two surviving soldiers readied themselves for another wave of attacks.

"Throw down your weapons and you can walk out of here with your lives," Gordon called over the public address system in the arena. "Enough blood has been shed already."

"I'm afraid we can't do that," the sergeant shouted back. "We have orders to kill you, and we can't leave until we've done so."

"This is your last chance. We can kill you with the push of a button from in here. We don't want it to come to that. We know of another way out of here. We're going to use the laser in the weapons lab upstairs to cut through the walls and escape. That's what we all want, after all: to get out of here alive."

"I can't let you do that. I won't disobey my orders. I'm no traitor!" the sergeant exclaimed. He opened fire on the control room with his sidearm. His subordinate joined in, firing his MP5. The bullets bounced off of the bulletproof glass with little effect.

There was no way to get out of the control room with the soldiers loose down there. They had no choice.

Gordon sighed resignedly and pressed a button. They would never defeat these aliens so long as they were busy fighting each other. These soldiers' lives had been wasted.

The remaining grunts were released from their tubes. It was a matter of seconds before the two soldiers laid dead from the hornet assault. Their bloody, hole-riddled bodies fell to the ground like rag dolls. The grunts gave a victorious war cry as they looked down on the dead soldiers.

"I don't see how our situation has improved," Calhoun observed. They had a room full of grunts to deal with instead of two soldiers.

"They designed this arena well," Gordon replied soberly, "Cleaning up after battles is as easy as a push of a button."

From the ceiling of the arena, a familiar device emerged. It was a much larger version of the electrode device they had used to kill the first grunt. Once again, klaxons announced the impending danger to anything loose in the arena. The electrodes fired, leaving a room full of smoking dead bodies.

The soldiers had died in battle, which struck Gordon as fitting. Gordon hadn't been willing to use the electrodes against the soldiers. No human deserved to die like that, burned to death from the inside out. It would be like the electric chair without the luxury of the wet sponges. His compassion had fallen short of protecting the alien grunts from that fate, however.

Their way was clear now. Every remaining soldier had been killed during the battle, and every alien grunt had been killed by the cleanup. Gordon and Calhoun found little pleasure in their victory. They were both numb from all of the violence and killing. They knew that before this day was over they would have to kill many more or face death themselves. That grim fact weighed heavily on their minds.

For now, they were granted a much needed intermission from the violence. There were a few creatures loose in the weapons lab, but none posed a serious threat. The laser laboratory was a labyrinth of mirrors and targets. At the center of the maze was their goal, just as the soldier at the front desk had described it. The laser was aimed at a prism which would send the beam towards several of the mirrors spread throughout the room. A large "Wear Goggles At All Times" sign on the far wall brought a chuckle from Gordon's lips. This laser was powerful enough to puncture through solid steel. But don't forget your goggles!

The laser was mounted powerfully in place to prevent the beam from misfiring and killing a scientist. Gordon used his suit's strength to tear the laser out of its emplacement and he held it like an oversized mini-gun. If all went well, Gordon would cut a hole in the wall big enough for them to escape through.

"Jesus, Gordon," Calhoun exclaimed. "You look like the Terminator holding that thing!"

"You'd better wait in the hall, Barney," Gordon warned. "There's no telling what this laser will do now that I've tampered with it. Besides, you forgot your goggles."

Calhoun happily obliged, and went to guard the hallway while Gordon prepared to fire the laser.

The power of the laser surprised Gordon. The laser had no recoil, but the blast tore through the cinderblock wall and its steel shell as if they had been made of paper. It was a matter of seconds before Gordon had carved a decent sized hole in the wall. When Gordon was finished, he tossed the laser aside. It wasn't designed for portability, and would be useless without the power cable running from its stand.

Gordon went through the hole first, making the one-story drop without missing a step. The suit eased his landing, cushioning his vital parts as they hit the ground. Gordon dragged a metal dumpster over for Calhoun to jump into. Calhoun didn't know what was in the soft, plastic trash bags that filled the dumpster, and he didn't want to know. After seeing what went on in the bio lab, he didn't want to think what kind of trash they generated.

"Where to now, Barney?" Gordon asked. He was unfamiliar with this part of the surface complex. Most of his time here had been below the ground.

"The garage where they've got Gina and Colette isn't far from here. It won't be an easy trip, though. I passed a pretty serious military checkpoint on my way down here. They bought my story about bringing the grunt's body to the bio lab, but it won't be as easy getting past them with your hazard suit, Gordon. We might have to fight our way through. They've got tanks, Gordon. Not even your hazard suit can stand up to that kind of firepower."

"Don't worry, Barney," Gordon said reassuringly. "You've still got your uniform, and I've still got my hazard suit. We might be outnumbered, but we'll find a way to outsmart them."

Calhoun couldn't help but grin. "They won't know what hit them, sir."