Half-Life 2: Decaying Reinstatement Chapter 3: Anticitizen One, a half-life fanfic

Shephard's eyes opened slowly and wearily... to find himself suspended in darkness, breathing steadily. As the haziness gradually cleared up from the corners of his eyes, a deep splitting ache coursed at once through his head. His left shoulder burned. His right leg felt like a knife was embedded into it. He grunted with the pain of it all returning, gritting his teeth, forcing himself to fight back against it. Heart racing in his ears. He tried to press his hands to his mask... to find his wrists were joined together, bound by warm metal. His fingers met the flesh of his face. He ran his joined hands upward and like the mask, the helmet was missing.

His fingers moved through hair, and to the source of the aching spot of his head, where a large painful bump had risen. He felt less weight adhering to him, paradoxically more free even as his hands were bound. He was sitting down, somewhere... disoriented and confused. He began looking around his surroundings carefully... for something, anything. For a moment he thought the place was merely dark and empty... but then he spotted a blinking, glowing green light somewhere above him. It moved back and forth, with a slow automated whine. For a second he thought it might be the glowing icons in the lenses of the mask's HUD coming back... and remembered it wasn't even there.

The icons had seemed such a permanent fixture, that he'd been used to them. The air in the place, and the temperature, was heated and dry... sweat ran from his face and was staining through his uniform. It was arid... nothing could live there... and constant heat was being circulated into the room from somewhere, keeping his throat parched and dry. He tried to stand, to move his legs, but they were shackled together, to the same spot he sat in. What the hell was going on? Where was he? Where had everyone gone? He groggily remembered the men and women dying around him. One moment he had been with them... fighting... machines. Conscripts. Frightened men in uniforms. And their glowing eyed masters beyond. The outpost falling apart... people being torn to shreds. Explosions. Fire. Then he'd closed his eyes, opened them... and he was here. Wherever here was. He tried and failed to remember... the blur of faces, recent and distant, and came up short. He stopped straining himself to remember, it only worsened his headache.

He continued to breath deeply, painfully, and he began to cough raggedly, before gradually getting a hold over himself again. The pain throbbed inside his skull, and was getting worse, the more conscious he became about his situation. He would feel fear, he was sure that would come back... but first and foremost, he felt pain distracting him from the fear. He felt and heard the slow steady throbbing of his pulse in his ears... there had to be some escape from the darkness... or had he been left to rot in the darkness? All he knew about his situation was that he was somewhere... and as of yet, he was alive. How long that might last was probably another story. Without warning, a sun flashed on overhead somewhere, blinding him... burning his eyes... and he grunted again painfully, shutting his eyes tightly. Only when the irritation faded away did he open them again... to find himself sitting a metal table in the middle of a concrete room.

The spotlight overhead shone down over the table and some of the space around it... and looking around again, he saw himself reflected in a large one way window along a wall beside him. He looked up towards the blinking green light again... to find it was a camera, watching him carefully all along. He stared back at it, long and hard for a few moments, and then over to his reflection in the one way window, silently daring whoever was watching on the other ends to try something. Even in his less than advantageous situation, he would rather deal with any of them than remain melting in the heat of the room. He wondered how many, and who lurked behind both the camera and window... what they had planned for him, and why. He looked down at his body at last, examining it. He'd been separated from his power armor, weapons and camouflaged BDU. Instead he was clad simply in his combat boots, blood stained camo pants, fingerless black leather gloves... and a taut olive green shirt, with five large black letters stamped on to the chest.

RECON

The moment he saw the word, more flashes came to him from another reality, holding him transfixed unblinking and staring straight ahead. His pulse quickened rapidly. He'd put it on somewhere far away, not long ago. He knew that, if he knew anything. In a place where he had friends. Friends wearing the same shirt... and the same armor he'd worn. A team. He'd put them on before something, a mission... a classified one that had changed everything. Torn his world apart. He'd worn it earlier, as he'd been trained in a camp... by stern faced shouting men, instructors in uniform. They'd trained him to use the power armor in hazardous environments... how to navigate the field, how to lead, hand to hand combat, obstacle courses, how to fire weapons... how to survive. There were two names that came with the stern faces... Sharpe and Barnes. Gunnery Sergeants. They'd been hardasses through and through, leading them through the exercises, through the long marches they'd been ordered to sing through... but there hadn't been better instructors.

They'd taught him much... honed his instincts in combat. The fact he was still alive was probably more their doing than his. It had all been at a base, somewhere... the name of it was beyond his grasp. There were sweat stains all over the shirt... and more blood that was both his and someone else's. He looked wearily down to his left shoulder, to find the bullet wound peaking out at him from below the shirt. A piece of bloodied cloth had been fastened around it at some point and tied into a tight knot... whether by him, someone else, or whoever had taken him, he wasn't sure. His eyes lowered to his injured right leg, to the blood staining the camouflaged material, and he looked over the torn material and deeply torn flesh. He'd been cut by something with a fierce bite... as he thought about it, he heard beeping somewhere in his memory. The swishing of rotors cutting through the air. When he blinked, some images came back... but as flashes, nothing more of substance or comprehension. It had the sensation of a dream, slow and leisurely... but somewhere in the back of his head he knew it wasn't one... could not be one.

He felt trapped, between the two worlds of the present and the past. Dreams and reality. He wanted to know what it was... wanted to figure it out... but he was too tired and sore. His headache splitting. He gave up, lowering his throbbing head slowly down to his chest, and merely breathing. Closing his eyes tightly. Whatever was in store for him was not going to be pleasant... but whatever it was, he wanted it to happen already. Get it over with, one way or the other. It was the sitting around waiting in the heated room that was getting to him more than the other possibilities. His captors probably knew that too... that the heat was a weapon of theirs. His eyes glazed over slightly, and he looked down to the ground... to find long dried blood stains along the concrete that did not belong to him. How many people had been dragged into this room? Moreover... how many other than captors had exited it again alive? He slowly began to lapse with that thought, as though falling into a warm bath... and almost fell asleep, his haziness returning. Before he drifted away again, there was a powerful echoing bang of a door slamming open against the wall, the bustling of boots and armor, bringing him back to unpleasant consciousness.

He peered ahead of himself, to an outlined opened doorway submerged in darkness. But he found rather quickly he was no longer alone in the room. Two pairs of unmistakable glowing blue eyes set within white masks shone in the dark on either side of the open door, flanking it. They didn't need to say a word for him to know who they were... and what they were best at. They remained entirely still and silent, merely watching him back, as he did them... when a heavy trudging of boots redrew his attention back to the doorway. To find a massive, living shadow standing within it. The same shadow closed the door immediately after entering, the echo in the confined space loud. In contrast to the two blue eyed CPs standing still, no glowing eyes emanated from a mask... but there were a few glowing lights... red and green blinking buttons, somewhere in it's midsection. Shephard alone remained under the spotlight, entirely illuminated to them, and whatever audience they had outside watching through the camera feed and the one way mirror.

At their mercy. Assuming they had any.

It hadn't even started yet, but he was starting to imagine what was going to happen next. A hushed silence had encompassed it's self over the room... none of the three made a sound, or spoke a word, and neither did he. He narrowed eyes stared back at them defiantly. Flickering between the three. Unafraid. Waiting for them to get around to what they had planned. If they had thought the heat was going to break him down... or the pain of his wounds, they had another thing coming. The confusion he already felt... the pain, was more than they could ever cause. Even if he wasn't trapped in the room he was inside... he felt as though something inside him had been scooped out... and now he had to put up with intruders, interrupting his attempts to remember. A harsh, masculine, deeply guttural, automated voice came from the shadow in the middle... the obvious leader of the other two masked men. Shephard's attention immediately moved to this figure... he'd heard their synthesized voices before... but this one was of another configuration altogether. On a different level than he remembered the CPs having.

"Welcome back, Interloper. You're awake. Good. You can and will answer my questions. A question, an answer. That is how it will work. If I am not satisfied by your response, or lack there of, there will be direct and immediate consequences. You have been warned. You are a mystery. I cannot abide a mystery."

Shephard said nothing... and the figure threw something in his direction. It landed with a metallic clatter upon the table, and he looked down to it at once, blinking. His joined hands moved for it, and he began to turn it over... his lips parting in familiarity. Brows growing less crossed, eyes widening. A pair of dog tags on a chain necklace. His. Denoting his name, rank and number. His fingers enclosed firmly around them, and he closed his eyes again. His name, his rank and his number. What a soldier came down to, at the end of the day. The only things he couldn't forget. His date of birth was there too, blood type... but that was less important just now. Most likely he wouldn't have any blood left by the time this was over. The authoritative, synthetic voice spoke again, the force of it getting his attention again. He gave the shadow a cautious, speculative look, as he listened with weariness. Suspecting a trap, all the while. This one was clever, taking him off his guard as it had.

"These tags were found on you. As were antiquated pre war power armor and a uniform belonging to the former United States Marine Corps. The Hazardous Environmental Combat Unit out of former Arizona. Santego Military Base. Phoenix, Arizona. Involved in the Black Mesa Incident. Responsible for the murder of countless non combatants. Scientist and Security personnel alike. Maintenance workers. On the orders of the former United States Government, to clean the facility of humans and non humans alike. But you couldn't possibly have been there. How did you come into illegal possession of this uniform? Where did you locate the Powered Combat Vest?"

Powered Combat Vest... P.C.V. It had a name. He remembered it, the moment the synthesized voice had spoke it. He remembered his instructor, Sharpe, shouting at him about it. He remembered standing in front of a Marine in the same armor wearing a black balaclava and goggles, armed with a shotgun. He remembered the first time he'd been shot wearing it. He remembered the pain... but as his instructor had reminded him, he had not died. The base... it too had a name after all. Santego. Where he'd been trained... where he'd lived and worked, made friends. Brothers in arms. And there was Black Mesa, again. He'd heard of that before. The voice that belonged to the shadow gave him back pieces of himself... small, but genuine pieces. Unintentionally, most likely, but pieces all the same. And he found himself more focused on them, than he was the line of questioning. What was expected of him.

He suffered the consequences for it.

With a flick of the shadow's hand, the guard on the right of the door activated his stun baton, blue sparks bursting forth. He rapidly moved over to the desk, jamming it into Shephard's shoulder blade. The effect was immediate, he shook on the spot as the current ran through him, shocking his senses painfully. Agony coursing through his entirety. If it weren't for the fact his limbs were all joined together, they would have shook harder, as the chair shifted about under his weight. His teeth bared, and the pain in his head was such he thought it might explode. Turning off the stun baton seconds later, the CP slammed the stick into his gut next, knocking the wind out of him roughly... before drawing right back to the shadowed door swiftly as if nothing had happened, standing at attention again. Shephard gasped and breathed deeply at the suddenness of the attacks... keeping his head low. Attempting to get his air back. Gritting his teeth, he held on, and forced himself to recover gradually, forced himself not to retch. Forced himself to look back up at the shadow without blinking, daring it to come out of the shadows and hit him it's self. It remained where it was, going on as before.

"I asked you a question, Anticitizen. We can continue doing this the hard way, or you can end it with words. Do not push me. Do not find out how far I am willing to go for the truth. I do not want to be forced into that territory if I don't have to be."

Shephard said nothing. The voice from the shadows did not frighten him. Was that what it was trying to do? Make him afraid? Of what? His two CP henchmen? The same petty thugs he had torn through before? The idea of it almost wanted to make him laugh. But he was too tired, pained and pissed off. The Combine were going to have to try harder than that.

"Now... who are you, really? You are not the name on the tags, and you are not in the Marine Corps. Tell me who you are. How you came to acquire your... talents?"

He didn't answer. He didn't answer because he didn't really know. He only knew his name, and what little else he remembered. He was a Marine, but these people weren't going to believe him. And he sure as hell wasn't going to indulge his captors if he could help it. He merely lowered his head, and waited for his beating. Defying them. No answer would satisfy them. This time both CPs advanced on him. One forced his face up, while the other slammed his baton into it, without the electricity, splitting his lip instantly. Followed by a series of powerful gloved punches to his stomach... and as quickly as it happened, and as he endured it, they pulled back, leaving him slumped over the table, recovering his breath. Like before. The voice patiently waited for him to recover, and to look back up ahead, coldly glaring at them, before continuing.

"You are guilty of numerous counts of assault and murder of Peace Officers. Illegal ownership of military grade armor and weaponry. Evasion. Conspiring with Resistance members. Destruction of Civil Protection property, synthetic and organic alike. Terrorism. Treason against your Consul and Our Benefactors. Cooperate, and I may allow you to live. Why did you come to City 1? How did you get here?"

Shephard spat up blood on the floor. His burning eyes locked with the shadow. The only answer he returned, knowing at once he'd pay for it.

It was worth the price.

The CPs kicked out his chair from beneath him and began beating him in unison with their batons on the concrete floor. Ears ringing, Shephard took it all and then some. He tried to go away inside. He felt the volts of electricity shock through his body again, and his limbs, all shaking wildly now with the increasing voltage. Through all of it, however long the beating lasted, longer than the others, Shephard's fingers tightened on his tags, and he closed his eyes tightly. He felt every blow, unable to fight back on many levels. Only able to resist the pain mentally... focusing on the ringing in his ears, and not the grunts of exertion from the CPs. He felt each blow, and the fresh blood trickling down his face. Eventually, the beating stopped, and he heard the CPs moving back to their positions near the doorway. There were a few second's of silence, in which he refused to open his eyes, struggling to breath, when the harsh automated voice spoke again, like the grinding of metal.

"Pretty warm under these lights, Anticitizen. They can get warmer. Perhaps you require more time alone in the dark. To think about what you've done. Your crimes. The gravity of your situation. To get your story straight. Whenever I choose to return, you will have an answer for my questions. Or the beatings and electrocutions will continue. The isolation will continue. Worse. Think long and hard. However strong you believe you are, I am stronger. I am prepared to break you if I must. Do not force my hand."

Shephard heard the boots of the CP Officers filing out first. The heavy mechanical boots of the shadow went last, about a minute after the CPs. In that minute, he knew it was watching him lie on the floor. Lie among his own blood and sweat, unable to get up and move. He refused to open his eyes and look up at it, to give it any satisfaction. The shadow, what it felt, and what it wanted was unfathomable. For all it's words, he knew nothing he said, true or made up, would satisfy it. Why did it ask anything of him? Why had it not executed him yet? When the door slammed shut after the shadow, and he heard a series of mechanical locks activating, sealing him in... only then did he open his eyes. He lay in pain, unbearable heat and exhaustion... on the floor next to the table and turned over chair. The light streamed down on his bloody face, illuminating it for those watching beyond the camera and window. Forcing him to keep his eyes half closed... and a few moments later, the lights turned out, leaving him once more in darkness. Accompanied only by his own pained breaths. Another bloody image returned to him at some point, in the darkness.

A friend of his... a Marine. An engineer named Jackson. Lying bloody and badly beaten, tortured, inside a makeshift interrogation room. A garage. He'd killed Jackson's captors... black masked and armored men, and brought a medic to him, before it was too late. He wished the engineer could do the same to his own captors now. He wondered if Jackson had survived... and was somewhere out in the devastated world now. Shephard had not been tortured before... he could only imagine what trauma Jackson had experienced. The engineer had never told him before they eventually parted ways... and in truth, there hadn't been time to ask. Perhaps now, at the hands of Civil Protection, he had some idea.

Feeling himself slowly dying. A second at a time. Weakening.

He wasn't sure how long he lay there... seconds felt like minutes, minutes hours and hours days. He zoned in and out, now and again, too sore and stiff to move off the damp floor. And even if he could, go where? They had him where they wanted him. Wounded and entrapped, at their mercy to do with as they wished. Was this another of their tortures? Isolation? Combined with sensory deprivation, and the heat... he could see where it might eventually succeed where the beatings would fail. Again he wondered... how many men and women had seen the inside of this room? How many had gotten out of it? And those who had gotten out... what had become of them? How many had been executed in this room? Shot through the head, beaten to death... or more likely, left to starve and dehydrate... and rot?

Had he been in here before, tortured before and had forgotten? Were they playing tricks on him? Was it really his first session with them? The more he thought about it, the more it mushroomed and expanded into a hundred other possibilities separate of the first. His eyes closed again, and he passed out... for a time. He half slept... and half woke, as he heard a distant series of locks unshackling themselves... and he heard shoes tapping on the floor towards him. A bright light shone down on him, waking him painfully... but it was not the light from the ceiling. It was a light from a smaller source, a flashlight, flickering over him. He felt hands, gentle, cool and soft, press to his face, and he jolted with shock where he lie, breathing loudly. The tip of a bottle was pressed to his cracked lips... it's temperature cold against his heated flesh. He couldn't see it's owner... but he heard her voice, distant to his ringing ears, but familiar. Unmistakable.

"It's ok, Shephard.", The girl they had called 'Rae' murmured from the shadows above the flashlight. He felt the bottle pressed closer, along with her hands, moving over his flesh comfortingly. Some of the cool liquid within trickled and ran down his mouth and over his chin. "It's me... just... drink. I'm not letting you die in here."

Shephard stared up blindly in her direction. Uncertainty, followed by anger. He had trusted her. Saved her. What the hell was she doing here? Had she been working for The Combine all along? What kind of trick or torture was this supposed to be? What was in the drink? A voice came back to him, from far away. A warning. Not to drink the water. They put something in it... to make people forget. Had he already drunk some of it before? Had she already given him some, and was doing it again? Was his mind being wiped over and over every time until he gave the answer they wanted? Was there a memory distortion, fake memories, in the liquid? Which memories of his were real, and which weren't?

The more he pondered it, the more he felt his panic growing, paranoia building. He didn't know... he didn't know anything really... but he knew that it felt cold... and refreshing against his flesh. He had the will to resist the beatings... maybe even the intense prolonged heat... he did not have the will to resist the drink. He reached up and held it close to his face, as she did the same, tilting it back and drinking heavily. He never tasted better water... that he could remember. He didn't care if she was lying to him, or any satisfaction this might be giving someone... he was lost in how good it tasted, and felt... the first good thing in a long time. If it was damaging his memories, it was a worthwhile tradeoff. He'd already lost most of them, what good were a few more? It was a large bottle, but he went through it all in no time... and lay back on the floor, breathing heavily, trying to recover. His thirst was quenched, and the heat became a bit more bearable, though he sweated all the same. And the deep aching pain all over went nowhere. He closed his eyes. It was a start. He hoped.

"Good. Now, let's get you off the floor."

He felt her press into him again, exerting effort, her arms wrapping around him. Trying to help him rise. She did it with difficulty... and he remembered she'd been shot in the side. He heard her wheeze with pain, now and again. Nevertheless, she was here, and trying to help him. And he had his own poor condition to deal with. With a low, pained breath, he forced himself to stand... unable to separate his legs and wrists from one another. He stood on his own, dizzy, while she retrieved the chair and set it back up for him in front of the table. When it was up, she helped him over to it, and gently pushed him down into it. He felt her hand enclose upon his, opening the palm, and taking something that had been there. He looked up into the light, to find the chain of his dog tags dangling in front of him. She tenderly rose the necklace, and slipped it down over his head, the tags falling down against his shirt and remaining there.

Her hand moved to a kit she had brought with her, opening it and revealing the green glow of a syringe inside. It's contents clear and not dissimilar to the substance in glow sticks. She prepared the syringe in front of him... and his mind rushed again. Truth serum to get all the answers out of him? Sweat out all the fluid he'd just received again? No... it couldn't be... or they would have started with that earlier. The green substance was familiar anyways... and when she inserted it gently into his arm, he remembered her doing so before. The outpost. He watched as he had then the glowing fluid enter his veins, vanishing from the container. He didn't feel anything... not even the needle going in... no difference... but knew it would take time for it to work. Tucking the spent syringe back into the medical kit, she closed it up and moved her hand to his chin, tilting him slowly into looking back to her, glimpsing her pale, troubled expression in the shadows. Her face leaned in a bit closer, and her lips began to murmur for him alone. Beseeching.

"Listen to me very carefully, Shephard. That was all I was permitted to do. I am not allowed to answer your questions and I can't stay here. Or come back. I'll try to get you out of here... but the only way this can stop, is if you talk. You need to speak, whatever it is. Tell them the truth. Tell them what you know. Anything. Tell them what you believe is true. If you don't... the answers will be chosen for you. You don't deserve this... you are a good man. You're not like the others who were brought here. Give them what they want, and it will end. Please."

Shephard continued to peer back at her for a time silently, speculatively. What did she get out of all this? What was her angle? Was this just a matter of good cop, bad cop, or did she really care? He didn't know. She had been kind... and they had fought together. But he didn't know her. Didn't know this world. And he didn't trust her. Even if the water wasn't poisoned somehow, she'd been in on this. She was in on this. Collaborating. Some kind of manipulation. After he'd saved her life. Even if this was a genuine caring gesture, she was only appeasing her own guilt.

It would end, she said... he imagined it would at some point. But in what fashion of an 'end' was she talking about? Him being blindfolded, taken out back and shot? Her fingers tenderly ran along his cheek, slowly tracing his split lip. She retracted at last, drawing back away from him. Standing again, she reluctantly picked up the medical kit, turned and walked back into the darkness, reaching the door and opening it, passing back through. He could feel her looking back, before the door closed. There were another series of electronic clicks as it sealed behind her, sealed him in... and he was alone in the darkness and silence again. Alone in his cell.

But not forever.

The shadow and CPs returned again to visit him at some point... several times. Over the course of what seemed long, agonizing hours. Coming and going as they pleased, at unpredictable intervals. Each time with questions. New variations of the same questions. Each time with beatings, when he refused to answer. They kept their word every time. The girl, Rae, also kept her word, unfortunately. Through it all, she did not return. He took the hits... and in between them and their visits, he had time to think. They were pulling their beatings. There was no denying how much it hurt, he felt all of it... but they were being more careful now with him.

The first few times they'd attacked him had been vicious, to try and prematurely break his spirit, fool him into believing that every beating would be the same... but it grew steadily clear that was not the case. It took him awhile to notice it... to focus on it, their movements, their actions, instead of merely the pain it's self. The last thing they wanted, at least at this time, was him dead. He began to piece together what he could... and came to the conclusion that in an interrogation, the most valuable person in the room was the captive. They were good at what they did... not amateurs. But he could tell gradually, that his silence, his defiance, was starting to frustrate the shadow in charge.

Even through the unchanging synthesized voice, he could detect something, each time the shadow entered the room. Each word growing more terse... there was even a touch of hesitance now and again, among the two blue eyed subordinates... as though they were growing more uncertain how to proceed. How best to proceed. More and more, he could feel the power shifting in the room, each hit nailing the point home. He took it all... it was all he could do. He would not give them the satisfaction of anything. So long as he could help it.

Then came a different sort of question, that did seize his attention. That did take him off guard, as his dog tags had. It drew his eyes back to the leader sharply.

"Where are the locations of the other Resistance Outposts and Metro Stations? Where is The Hive? Where is Anticitizen One?"

As far as they were concerned, he was a member of the Resistance. That was all he was to them. Not a Marine, not a soldier... a rebel. A Resistance member. An Interloper. An Anticitizen, like the only one they were more obsessed with finding than him. He remembered their leader... their Consul, ranting on the television set Sam had shown him. Before they had either beaten him to death, or took him away to a room like the one he now occupied. Sam... wherever he was. Tough old man that he was... how long could he possibly last under these conditions? Like Anticitizen One, they reduced him to something without a name or a face. A past. An identity. Robbed of humanity. Each time he had been questioned from the start, one thing was a constant about the question's the shadow posed.

They never acknowledged him. Never said his name. Not who he was and what he was. The shadow denied his identity. His individuality. His humanity. Refused to acknowledge who he was. It tried to make him believe, accept, he was whatever it told him he was. An accomplice. A collaborator. A second in command of the Resistance. A secret weapon. A mindless follower and appendage of Anticitizen One. A faceless criminal. Nobody. He felt the flame of anger burning brighter as it went on, a steady anger through all of it, helping keep him sharp and focused. But it grew at the questions he was posed. And deepened at his realization. His breathing grew deeper, teeth gritting unconsciously. He wondered how self satisfied that voice would be, if he was able to lock his handcuffs around his throat.

This was what it wanted... the effect it wanted to have on him. To make him lose concentration. To grow angrier. Emotional. He might have been succeeding in the short term by refusing to speak, but they were playing for the long term. They wanted to make him lose control. They wanted him to give everything away. They wanted him to tip his hand, through torture, trickery and manipulation. Through carefully chosen language. Branding him with titles... slander and lies, reshaping him in front of his own eyes. By now, he had to give them something. Something on his own terms, not something they had tortured out of him. Something denying their hold over him. Something denying their power. He watched the shadow give the hand signal for the CPs to beat him again... but as they approached, he rose his bloodied face and stopped them right in their tracks.