The One Free Man
"I never feel right killing zombies," she confided to her partner when he dropped down the ladder beside her. "I was in Ravenholme, you know, before the Combine found out about it… so many of us were turned into zombies, its like, I don't know. They all used to be people, is there some little part of them still there?"
"Ze CPs are people, too," Pierre replied, peering into the dim light. "You do not seem to have ze problems with keeling them, no?"
"That's different," she protested. "People who are turned into zombies don't have a choice, where people volunteered to join CP and the Overwatch. Those traitors make me sick…" Her voice trailed off as a weird scream sounded from the darkness, raising every hair on the back of her neck. She was all too familiar with that sound – some poor soul with a headcrab eating his brain, sensing prey nearby.
Roxanne shouted a warning and flicked on the flashlight attached to end of her riot gun barrel. It was an old weapon, scavenged from a destroyed police station in the aftermath of the Seven Hours War, but was lovingly maintained and fully effective. When the first zombie emerged from a shattered doorway, the weapon thundered and the buckshot caught it square in the chest, blasting it to pieces and knocking it off its feet. She ratcheted another shell into the barrel of the gun and took out the second zombie, while Pierre caught a third in a burst of submachine gun fire that shredded its headcrab. The zombie, denied its master, took a single unsteady step and collapsed in the dust at their feet. She grit her teeth together, fighting down nausea.
Her companion, however, seemed entirely unaffected. "So," Pierre shouted, still mostly deafened from the shotgun blast in the enclosed space, "tell me more about ze One Free Man! You fought beside him in ze final push on ze Citadel, non?"
Roxanne pursed her lips in annoyance, and shook her head in an attempt to dull the ringing in her ears. Pierre was an experienced rebel, but a new member of the Black Mesa East cell. He was originally from City 6, all the way on the other side of Europe, and had recently transferred over from the cell there. City 6 was the first city to surrender to Combine rule, and as such, it had survived the Seven Hours War almost untouched – but it also was home to the one of the most active and violent Resistance Cells. Le Fraternite, as they called themselves, went into open rebellion after Freeman smashed Nova Prospekt.
They were extraordinarily successful, smashing clear through their Citadel's outer rings of defense and, using a fleet of APCs captured from a Combine outpost, led a direct assault into the bowels of their citadel. They managed to destroy the Combine Bulk Matter Transmitter and smashed the Citadel's Overwatch control node, cutting off the flow of alien reinforcements and sending the local collaborators into full retreat. The stunning victory at City 6 gave heart to the other revolutions sweeping through Europe. Using captured Combine bullet trains, Le Fraternite started sending reinforcements to other embattled cities.
Pierre apparently fought hard for the honor to be sent to City 17, and had done so in hope of seeing the One Free Man, the living legend, and fighting beside him. He was devastated to learn that Gordon Freeman was missing and apparently dead after the final battle of the Citadel, but he had joined Commander Vance and a few other optimistic souls in arguing that Freeman must simply have found another way to escape. Since his assignment he'd been talking to everyone who had ever met "the Free Man," wanting to know more.
"He wasn't 'the One Free Man,'" she said, putting two new shells into her riot gun. "His name was Gordon Freeman, and he was… ohmygod it's still alive kill it kill it!"
The headcrab had detached itself from the head of the first zombie and launched itself at her. Roxanne fired wildly, gouging a chunk out of the concrete floor, but she missed the little alien. The thing clawed at her head with its little hooked limbs, but she tore it off of her face and threw it in a corner where Pierre emptied the remainder of his magazine into it, tearing it to pieces.
"Thanks," Roxanne said, bringing her hand up to touch the wounds on her face. "That could have gone really badly for me."
"It was not a problem," Pierre replied modestly, reaching into his satchel for a fresh clip. "Le Fraternite used ze sewers of Paris," he pronounced it the old French way, Roxy noticed, 'Pear-ee,' "to connect our bases throughout ze city. Of course, ze Combine flooded ze tunnels with leetle aliens, so I am quite used to combating zem."
Roxy tried to smile, but the gashes on her face made the attempt painful, so she stopped. "Let's head back topside," she said, slinging her shotgun over her shoulder and pressing a gloved hand to her cheek to staunch the blood that was dripping off her chin on to her body armor and uniform.
"…and find a medic."
"Oui."