Writer's Note: Well, here's chapter 9!
To Blizrun: Errr, well… you're right about the tenses… whoops [embarrassed]! Actually it's because I've read a book that uses the present tense often before writing chap 8. I've noticed that I switched the tense accidentally, and corrected it. Or so I thought… apparently I've missed a spot… Oh, and it's very flattering to hear my humble story is on your favorites list! (well, the word "flattering" sounds like I'm a wuss or something, but I couldn't find a better word…)
To Ivan Alias: Ah, now I know what you mean! OK, I'll keep that in mind. You're right, after all, if you wanted to read a goddamn comics book, you would've bough one. In literature, events should be properly described. I'll limit my use of onomatopoeia (that's how it's spelled, BTW) in the future.
To Jetzer: Wow, thanks! When I started to write this, I never imagined I'd actually have FANS ^_^. That's really I nice boost to my ego (:^P) and I appreciate it.
To Hao: Thanks for reviewing. First of all, don't worry, there IS a plot underneath all the action. Everything in my story has a reason. Yes, there IS a reason for that gate which the demons protected, there IS a reason why the Xen creatures started to appear in Doom's world. There IS a reason why the G-Man sent Shepard to kill Freeman. There's a reason for everything. Don't worry, eventually, after a few more non-stop dumb action chapters (which are still quite fun, aren't they? ^_^) there would be more developments as well. As to your second remark, about the blood in HL – errr yeah, it is yellow… sort of… but it has a slightly green hue, and green is the traditional color for alien blood, so… consider it "very bright green" if you want :p.
Thanks to other reviewers as well.
Well, enjoy everyone! (Hopefully!)
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CHAPTER 9
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*BEEP!**BEEP!* -------------(errr, sorry, last use of onomatopoeia!)
The turrets kept beeping loudly, warning friends and foes alike of their deadly presence. For the last 5 minutes, Freeman was lying uncomfortably behind the small console, waiting for them to turn off. If they weren't programmed to turn off sometimes after their activation, it could be several hours before their battery runs out of power.
"Ah, screw it" Freeman said aloud.
He fell in the inner pockets of his suit a bit, until he could feel the coolness of the grenade's metal, even through the thick black rubber gloves.
He threw one, then two, then three grenades from behind the console, careful not to expose his hand to the turret's line-of-sight in the process.
The turrets, sensing the movement of the grenades, tried to shoot them down, unsuccessfully. Their targets were simply too small, and moved too quickly for them.
The grenades landed with a loud 'clank'. It took several seconds for them to go off. The explosion, in such a confined space, was deafening.
Freeman waited for the loud ringing in his ears to subside, and for his sight to return into focus. Then, he poked his armored boot out, and waved it. Nothing happened.
Apparently, the turrets were down.
After several more attempts to activate the non-existent turrets from behind his cover, just in case one of them was left intact, Freeman got out from his cover.
Observing the aftermath of his grenades, Freeman whistled to himself in concern. The explosions caused parts of the ceiling to collapse, exposing the wiring in the walls. It was a miracle that the ceiling didn't collapse on Freeman at all.
Now there was a lot more dust in the room, which made the trip-lasers look a lot brighter. These lasers, though, weren't connected to anything now. All that was left from the turrets was some metallic components, scattered across the room, even in unexpected places.
That was very good, because Freeman really did not feel like maneuvering around the lasers a second time.
While walking confidently through the maze, he must've triggered at least two dozens of separate silent alarms. Of course, with the turrets destroyed, Freeman couldn't care less.
Several seconds later, Freeman reached the ladder that led to the hatch.
Oddly, it was closed.
He knocked on it, and upon receiving no answer, tried to lift it.
His muscles bulged, as the heavy lid slowly moved. Freeman grinded his teeth, and kept pushing. He was thankful that he kept himself in shape before the accident in Black Mesa occurred. Has it been another, random scientist, chances were that they couldn't budge the hatch even an inch. Most scientists, too busy to maintain a healthy style of life, didn't bother with their bodies at all, preferring to develop their mind.
'Heh, that's sure more helpful than muscles in Black Mesa…' Freeman thought, quietly laughing to himself.
Finally, the opening got wide enough for Freeman to barely squeeze through.
Standing up in the corridor, Freeman dusted himself up, but froze in shock as he raised his head. His gaze met a huge hole in the wall, large enough for a bus to drive through.
Realizing that something serious happened, Freeman stepped through the hole, to the other side.
Destruction. Lots of destruction.
Swirling clouds of black smoke and craters marked the spots where small explosions, like those of grenades, apparently went off. Additionally, Freeman noticed enormous footprints, engraved in the cement. The thing that went through here must have been very heavy…
Freeman, suspecting what Doom and Calhoun might've encountered, started to follow the trail of destruction.
Hopefully, it will lead him to his friends.
-
The bullet, accelerating away from Calhoun's Glock, smashed straight into the Slave's red eye. The slave, not having any time to react, dropped down like a fly. Doom and Calhoun ran past its silent body, still trying to put some distance between them and the alien hulk behind them.
"Crap, will this thing ever get tired?" whispered Calhoun breathlessly, while ducking to avoid a blob of potent acid hurled onto him by a Bullsquid.
"I don't know" Doom replied, gunning down the offending Bullsquid. "I faced one of these things back in my world" he paused briefly to shoot at the pack of Houndeyes who tried to chase them, "It chased me through half the city."
Calhoun gulped, then added: "Heh, if this sucker wants to race, let him bring it!, I run well enough to compete the Marathon, I'm telling ya!"
"Whatever…" Doom shook his head, while wasting yet another alien slave that appeared out of nowhere, "It also has a very good tracking ability…" he added.
"As I can see!" Calhoun rolled his eyes, listening to the huge footsteps that started to gain on them again.
Another Slave appeared in a green flash, not bothering to wait and immediately charging up its electricity.
"WILL THESE THINGS STOP APPEARING FROM NOWHERE ALREADY!!!!" Calhoun shouted in frustration while Doom killed the slave before it had the time to unleash its high-voltage assault. "Can't they see we're a little busy here, trying to not get shredded to pieces by a madman's parody on the Incredible Hulk!!?"
Doom did not answer.
"I think these dim-witted aliens don't have any sense of good timing" Calhoun added, watching as Doom shot down a bullsquid that suddenly popped right infront of his shotgun. "See? That was so f***ing stupid! Even the Demons are smarter than this!"
Despite still not being visible, the huge beast sounded a lot closer now. The two could hear it moan and roar, as it sensed its tired prey slowing down from exhaustion.
"Hmmm… Time to pick up the pace, Barney." Doom said. "Are you up to it?"
"Me? Up to it!? While of course I am! Just try to keep up, please!" Calhoun called, while pretending to be insulted.
'Only half an hour ago, this guard was nothing more but a scared man wanting to get to safety, and now he acts like the whole situation is a joke.' thought Doom. 'Sometimes, it's unbelievable how some difficulties can bring out the best and hidden qualities of a man…' Doom weighed this thought in his mind before breaking in a sudden sprint.
Calhoun then followed him, starting to feel a sharp pain slowly forming somewhere in his lower ribs.
When they rounded the next corner though, they found themselves in a large room, full of crates and barrels.
Unfortunately, it was also crammed with marines, who noticed Doom and Calhoun's quick entrance almost instantly.
The marines did not wait too long, opening fire on the fleeing men.
Doom and Calhoun cast a worried look at each other, frowning. For a brief moment, time seemed to slow down, the bullets whistling past and around their heads slowly. They saw each others faces clearly, determined not to fall down, not to submit to death.
Both quickly nodded, and jumped aside to different directions, seeking cover behind the numerous crates and barrels.
"Let's go! Blast 'em!" Calhoun could hear the marines shout.
Hoping Doom will be OK, Calhoun started to advance between the crates.
A marine popped from behind a nearby barrel, and was awarded with a shot into his eye.
He kept going, climbing on crates and taking down surprised marines from unexpected directions. From the gunfire sounds he could hear, Doom was doing the same.
This game of cat and mouse in the warehouse was dangerous, but so far Calhoun fared well.
Subconsciously, he still listened to the footsteps of the green monster, trying to determine when will it enter the warehouse room as well.
Eventually, Calhoun and Doom met each other successfully on the other side of the room.
There were some marines still left in the room when the gargantua stepped into the room. Forgetting about the two who slaughtered a large portion of their squad, they tried to take the giant down, failing miserably of course.
Doom and Calhoun could hear their screams of pain as they were fried alive by the burning jets from the gargantua's large 'hands'.
"Quick, over here!" Doom pointed to what seemed to be a small elevator. It was the only way out of the room, not counting the way they came from.
They climbed the stairs to a higher platform, from which they could access the elevator.
Unfortunately, the elevator cabin was not here. It was somewhere up the shaft, waiting to be summoned down to the warehouse.
Calhoun pushed the button of the elevator. Through the bars of the elevator door he could see the open cabin slowly descending.
"Come on, come on!" he shouted frustrated, hitting the button repeatedly. The elevator still was going down rather slowly. "Crap, Doom, this thing won't go faster! What do we do? Doom?"
He looked at doom after hearing no reply. Doom was frozen, his gaze focused on the other side of the room.
Calhoun traced his gaze, and froze in shock. For a moment, he was afraid he would wet his pants.
On this platform, they were higher than most of the crates, and had a relatively clear view of the entire view.
Right there, the gargantuan stood. His form was very still, not moving an inch. His green skin or hide was covered with large crimson spots of fresh blood. Blood was dripping from its huge mouth, when Calhoun could barely discern what looked like a severed hand stuck between its teeth.
The creature's eye was glowing very brightly, and aimed right at them!
Then, emitting a deafening roar, the creature started moving in their direction!
Hearing a silent clank Calhoun turned around, and saw the elevator was finally down.
"Come on!" he shouted at Doom, grabbing his hand.
At that moment Doom snapped out of his brief shock, and jumped into the elevator along with Calhoun.
There was only a single button in the cabin, and Doom punched it immediately.
The doors of the elevator closed.
Calhoun and Doom could still see the Gargantuan very clearly through the bars of the door. It was easily tall enough to reach the platform they were on, and it was plowing right through the crates, scattering them like they were weightless.
The elevator started moving slowly upwards.
"Come on, come on!" Calhoun folded his hands and started praying, despite not being Catholic. Doom just watched silently as the Gargantuan was rapidly closing the distance between him and the slowly rising elevator.
Finally, the gargantuan beast reached the platform. It slammed its huge hand into the shaft opening, crushing the bottom end of the shaft below them like it was made of paper. It then started to aim his cannon-like hands at the rising cabin, but then he disappeared out of view as the cabin reached past the ceiling and onto the next floor.
"We're saved…", Calhoun breathed in relief, as the hot jets melted a section of the shaft right below them.
They felt the cabin shake as the gargantuan monster raged in fury, destroying anything it could find in the warehouse.
Then, the shakes subsided. The frustrated gargantuan apparently left.
After an eternity, the elevator finally reached its destination several floors higher.
The moment the doors opened, the two filed out and fell to the floor, exhausted.
-
Freeman was following the destruction, fearing the worst, when he started to feel the earth trembling. Several moments later, he started to hear huge, heavy steps coming his way.
Looking around he spotted some nice cover, in form of a large section of the wall that was torn down by a grenade explosion.
Waiting several moments behind his improvised cover, he saw, from his position, what he expected to see – large green feet passing by, going back the way he came from. A gargantua, of course, just like he expected.
When the gargantua disappeared, and the tremor died down, Freeman got from behind his cover and resumed following the destruction, in hopes of finding Doom, Calhoun and Rosenberg.
Finally, he reached a warehouse. A former warehouse, to be precise.
Remains of barrels, crates and human bodies (marines, judging by the torn uniforms) were spread around everywhere – the aftermath of a Gargantua assault.
'This must be the location where the three ended up in', Freeman thought.
He searched for any indication of a familiar body, but the bloody remains of some were impossible to recognize. Others were killed by bullets though, bullets that could only come from his friends weapons.
Perhaps they're still alive…
Suppressing the growing hope inside him, Freeman looked around, and quickly spotted the elevator on a platform on the other side of the room.
He climbed to the platform, called the elevator, watched it go down, entered and started going up.
He did not know what to expect, but either his friends were dead, or alive.
If it were the latter, he would certainly find them somewhere there, at the elevator's destination…
-
A huge silvery Minigun was pointing down an elevator's shaft. Behind it, Doom's concentrated face could be seen, frozen and without emotion. His hands held the bulky weapon steadily, the huge barrels of the metallic monster of a weapon pointing directly at the rising cabin of the elevator.
To his side a little further away, Calhoun waited with his pistol as a backup.
Half a minute ago they were resting, backs leaned on a wall, when the elevator through which they came here started to go down.
That alerted both of them.
They stood up immediately and wondered what should they do, when the elevator started going up again. Something was coming up, that much was clear.
So Doom decided not to take any chances. After all, he couldn't tell who (or what) was in there, because the contents of the open cabin weren't visible from above it.
Now that he didn't have to be mobile, Doom decided it will be wise to use the most dangerous weapon in his limited arsenal. So there he stood, waiting with a deadly greeting in his muscular hands for the elevator to arrive.
And it did. But Doom did not fire.
He and Calhoun were shocked and happy at the same time, for Freeman was the one they saw stepping out of the elevator.
"So, you have decided to rejoin us" Doom said, lowering the bulky Minigun.
"Hey, Gordon, it's you!" Calhoun said, laughing. He then remembered to holster his pistol, and approached Freeman to pat him on the back, before remembering something else. "Say, Gordon… Is Alex waiting down there or something?"
"What?" Freeman frowned. "I thought he was with you?"
"The scientist never emerged from the hatch. Not that we saw, I mean." Doom added. "You see, we had to run from a large beast at some point…".
"I know I know, I saw the destruction and the Gargantua!" Freeman interrupted.
"So where the hell could he go!?" Calhoun cried out, alarmed.
The three exchanged short versions of their stories, before deciding what to do next.
Calhoun refused to keep going. He wanted to go down and search for Rosenberg, then use the blast door they've opened to get to the surface.
Doom voted to keep going and explore their immediate surroundings. After all, that green creature was still somewhere down there. To get down and try to reach the blast door wouldn't be very practical, as they have just barely escaped death by the hands of the creature. Freeman, who had some experience with this kind of creature before, explained that it is possible to hide from it if it hasn't spotted you. On the other hand, once it did, it would be locked onto your infrared signature, and no place would be safe safe, except for ones that are hard-to-reach for a being of that size, of course.
"It is still a too great of a risk" Doom persisted.
Freeman opted to explore this level too, but for different reasons than Doom. Freeman was confident that because they ascended several floors higher via the elevator, they must be very close to the surface now, and it would be wiser to seek an exit from here instead of going back, to a lower level of the compound.
Despite Calhoun's demand to go back and find Rosenberg, the other two weren't so inclined to follow their buddy's pleads.
"You must quit deluding yourself!" Freeman said at one point, putting his hand on Calhoun's shoulder. "He was alone for what? An hour? If his only weapon is that toy pistol of his… be realistic. We can't help him by getting killed ourselves."
"But… you don't know that! He could still be alive! Maybe if…" Calhoun said, looking like he would break in a moment.
"No 'ifs', no 'buts'. Our lives are just as important as his." Freeman let go of Calhoun's shoulder. "If you want to go alone, I won't stop you" he gestured towards the waiting elevator. "But for best chances of survival, we should stick together. There are enough hazards…" he flinched at the sound of very loud gunfire, very close by.
"Don't worry, I took care of him!" Doom said.
Freeman turned his head to see Doom lowering the smoking barrel of his Minigun. He observed his work – a dead, completely torn apart, alien slave.
"Like I was saying" Freeman went on "There are enough dangers here as it is. We can't split up now, even to save another friend. We are at war, and that's the way war is. Sometimes people go, and we can't bring them back…"
"Actually" Doom interrupted, "Normal war is very different from all this…"
Freeman's murderous gaze forced him to cut off his sentence, as Freeman continued his attempts to cheer up the dazed security guard, whose earlier bravado seemed to fade and leave behind it a very vulnerable person.
'This man has merely lost an acquaintance, and he is already torn from within…' thought Doom, while Freeman kept talking to Calhoun, who started to shake. 'I, on the other hand, lost the entire human race. Many of my closest friends and family, or at least their possessed bodies, were killed by my own hands.' He cast a gaze at the blue and orange suited men. 'Would I even care if I'd lose these two allies?'.
To his surprise, he realized he would. He would mourn the loss of Calhoun and Freeman, if that will ever occur. He even mourns the apparent loss of Rosenberg at this very moment, just like he mourned every single friend he had lost during the Invasion and its aftermath. But he mourns him his own way, deep within, not showing anything to the hostile world outside. Disclosing emotions might disclose a weakness to the enemy. That's what years of practicing 'survival of the fittest' in a 'jungle' of stone and glass, or more precisely, a graveyard of stone and glass, does to a man.
-
It took Calhoun some more time before he managed to get a hang of himself, before they went on, searching for a new way out.
Calhoun would attempt to leave Black Mesa alone now, while Doom and Freeman would attempt to reach Black Mesa.
And Calhoun would make sure to make some kind of memorial for Rosenberg, when he'd get out.
When they'd get out…
-
Gunfire was erupting from all sides.
Blood, both red and green, was flying like rain, flowing like a river.
Shepard walked through the chaos of Man and Alien fighting, unfazed. He knew his squad could handle the fight well. After all, these monsters are merely animals. At least, some of them appeared to be as dumb as ones.
From time to time Shepard raised his Desert Eagle and popped a precision shot, always scoring a kill.
It wasn't a challenge, Shepard reflected. It is not even a worthy practice for his squad before they'll have to face Freeman.
Freeman… a wonder of a man. Shepard had studied the files regarding Freeman closely, after the administrator handed them to him.
One day Freeman is a peaceful scientist, the other day he is a gun-wielding psycho, the number one threat to the Marines in Black Mesa.
Shepard couldn't figure out how could such a radical change take place in such a short time span, but he wasn't stupid enough to underestimate Freeman.
Perhaps in time, when he faced this man, he would find out his secret…
"Sir, area secured!" his aide called, saluting.
Shepard resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. He could see that very well, for he was standing right in the middle of the aftermath of the battle. He lost several troops, but he wasn't worried. His squad was quite large and numerous. Besides, considering the size of this alien force, he might even consider it a fair trade to lose a few troops in return.
They marched several more minutes silently, and finally reached their destination.
Shepard saw an elevator. Correction, the remains of an elevator cabin. The remains were charred from an explosion, and there was some kind of unrecognizable chunk of charred meat in the middle of it, that might or might not be human.
Actually, judging by the smell of the charred flesh, Shepard was inclined to believe this was in fact an alien…
"So, this is their last reported position…" Shepard said aloud.
He pondered some more, before talking quietly into his portable radio.
He listened to the response, before acknowledging, and turning to face his soldiers.
"Let's go." He said simply. "They're long gone by now. Might get lucky next time."
With these words, Shepard turned to walk down the nearby corridor. His squad followed.