Chapter 2
Forced Heroism
William dreamed of being a hero, but it hadn't come out right. He didn't like it, it was forced. His hands were forced into submission by someone else holding a pistol to his head and there weren't any cops to help him. His arms relaxed as he patiently drove along the empty road. In the truck's windshield the ghost reflection of himself taunting his every twitch and slight hand movement. The figure imitating his thin cotton fiber gloves and the olive collars ending shortly thereafter with the beginning of the woodland camo hoody's sleeve. The hoody's faded colors showing the olive base color lightly through the brown and tan splotches. His jeans weren't in any better condition being covered with dirt and dried blood stains. The ends of his jeans tucked into his boots which were originally light brown but had turned into a much darker shade of brown by age. The only pieces of clothes that were clean and constantly changed were his underwear and socks, for very important health reasons.
The reflection also betrayed the light peach skin that William had. It's light tone contrasting with the thick black nineteen fifties nerd glasses that he wore. He had just gotten them since his eye sight was still getting worse. What the reflection didn't betray was his lifeless blue-gray eyes, dead from the fighting, the pain, and knowing he controlled his own actions but ultimately his actions were twisted into a destiny that was beyond his control. His emotions were controlled with a balance he learned from being surrounded by the monk like aliens known as vortigaunts most of his developmental period.
His body wasn't fit nor was it fat, there wasn't enough food on Earth to make anyone fat anymore. He was in the middle so there wasn't much to say about his body. The afternoon sun seemed to add a bright yellow glowing effect to his pale white skin and dirty blonde hair with shadows being the only break in the glow. His mouth and chin were surrounded by a light layer of facial hair that followed up along his jaw line connecting like an isthmus between a continent and an island. The sun also shadowed the scar that ran across his cheek from a nasty whack to the face by a headcrab zombie. An event which almost repeated itself nearly fifteen minutes before.
William was only a teenager, seventeen to be exact. His parents had handed him off during a mass civilian evacuation to a group of United States marines. He was only four at the time that his parents sacrificed themselves to let him live on, an act any loving parent would do, but rarely happened. William doesn't remember much from his childhood because he had pre-cached that memory for survival skills and knowledge. What he did know was information and stories told to him by one marine who didn't surrender and became one of the early rebels. That marine was named Adrian Shepard, or Dad to William and his two adoptive siblings Adriana and David. All three of them were rescued by this man when they were young, William being the youngest and earliest rescue. Adriana was the "middle child" and David was the oldest. All three of them were taught the skills to fight but they also learned their own individual skills. For William, those skills were in diplomacy and computers. He had learned at an early age the hypocrisy of sentient beings. Their primal need to survive and discharge their strength, but unlike animals they had a compulsive need to have a reason and when a being didn't have a reason, the others would look at that one being in disgust. While most meant good like William, they didn't know how to go about it. Some when for it in the wrong way like , the man who negotiated the surrender of Earth to the Combine and was rewarded with power by the conquerors, who decided the greater good of humanity was more important than humanity itself.
The truck's tires spun at that speed where the tires began to appear rolling backwards. The truck was originally from the nineteen fifties and had been heavily modified with pieces of Combine metal welded to the body like plates of armor on a knight's suit. The engine was replaced with larger one, with a built in overdrive for emergency situations. The suspension was the only un-modified part of the truck and it really needed a replacement. However unless the springs were about to tear up the tires or stop the truck from moving at all the mechanics didn't care. They didn't have resources to replace the suspension.
He groaned at the idea of having no chance of rest, his body was aching for a night of sleep. He had been awake for 3 days traveling too that last cache of weapons and ammo. Food was short handed, William had been told to use whatever un-opened canned food but there wasn't any and he had known it already. He brought a can of rations and a few bottles of water. He was on his last bottle of water today.
His thoughts were interrupted with an odd sounding alarm. It would beep twice and then take a break but it wasn't like a police siren. The sound was softer and more subtle for the unwary and over-excited to notice. William didn't get a chance to ponder because five seconds after he noticed the alarm a spray of bullets began to bounce and ricochet off the body of the truck. The sparks and dents caught William's unprepared mind off guard, his body tensing up immediately without a chance to warm up forced his arms to start to turn the wheel, forcing the truck to swerve a bit. His eyes widened as he tried to control the adrenaline burst that just shot through his muscles.
His arms twisted the truck's driving wheel which forced the truck to right itself. William's mind whirled in circles as worry and anger toyed with each other like two groups of elected officials who just tried to force each others' hand instead of helping to create a compromise. He began to make turns on streets and a shortcut, trying to lose whatever was shooting at him. He had figured out it was in the air so it was either a Combine Gunship or a Civil Protection Hunter Chopper. Both had fan blades to lift up into the air; however the sounds were distinct from each other. This fan blade sounded similar to an electronic burp repeated at a constantly quick pace so it was the hunter chopper. He waited for the sound of the machinegun because hunter choppers fired fifty caliber belts which sounded very much different from the eighty caliber belts that the Combine synthetics used.
What sucked about the suburbs, compared to the city, was that there were no tunnels that he could slide into to escape the chopper's crosshair. Another spray of fire rained down on him as he made another hard turn left. It wasn't the fastest way to his destination but it was the safest, the building became significantly taller as he raced closer to the city's huge moving walls. It forced the Hunter Chopper to lift up in the air away from him, the farther the better. His truck's tailpipe sputtered as it gained a shift, the engine switching for a high scream back to a low hum that everyone understood. He started to see rebel calling cards, the greek letter theta sprayed painted in a pine tree shade of green. The spray painted arrows jutted out and pointed in different directions to emergency caches and supplies. William made another hard left and began to travel on a narrow road with no room for maneuverability, the buildings becoming lower giving the chopper a chance to get closer and actually fly past him. It began to drop black metallic balls with red blinking lights on its side. Those balls were obviously explosives and they began to explode behind and in front of him. The situation wasn't spectacular to begin with, but when you added the explosives with a full cache of ammo and weapons, such as rocket launchers it became exceedingly deadly. The Hunter Chopper continued to float in front of the truck, which gave William a chance to lose it, he made another hard turn left and entered an old neighborhood street, the sound of the chopper became more distant as it tried to turn itself around, its own momentum working against itself. The distance between it and William grew centimeter by centimeter as quarters of seconds flew by. William took this chance to stop the vehicle in a driveway. He open the door slightly with the handle and kicked it open the rest of the way, the door swinging back and hitting his thigh as he was just starting to get out.
He yelled out of self inflicted stupidity and grabbed his thigh, "Fuck!" It never got to the -ck sound and instead it was just a elongated fu- sound out of rage.
That was going to bruise nicely and then he would have to explain why he was slightly limping to everyone which was always just so much fun. His mental whipping continued as he exited the truck CAREFULLY this time, holding the shotgun with his right hand between the trigger and the pump grip. Once on the ground he ran to the back of it and turned to see that the wooden boards holding most of the stuff was barely holding itself together. He climbed up and into the trunk, searching the spray painted labels for the RPG launcher containers. He found one and lifted up away from the rest. He carefully placed the stock of the shotgun on the wood lifted it up just as carefully and the slammed the stock into the wood making a loud crack sound as the wood split in half revealing the dark green metallic cylinders of two RPGs, he swiped the wood out of the way and grabbed one of the launchers, its thick cylindrical laser sight already gleaming the red light. In each box there was a pre-loaded emergency rocket launcher ready to be fired. William pulled the safety pin and hopped over the side onto the ground, his entire body stopping to listen for the thump of the Hunter Chopper's blade. The surrounding brush and buildings gave way to a high whistle from the wind, masking over the ambience of gun chatter and explosives. William stood up straight and began to walk up to the end of the drive way, no sounds just wind. His face contorted to a puzzled look as he continued to scan the sky. There was nothing. William began to head back to his truck, when his ears heard the radio chatter that was distinctive to the Combine Overwatch soldiers. He turned around just as the garage door across the barren street went poof in an explosion. Out of the smoke streamed out four to five Combine soldiers, their guns pointed up at William. They began to fire in short controlled bursts, one soldier covering the other like a team. William launched the rocket, using the laser guide to point it to one of the soldiers on the far left who quickly had his entire top half of his body blown off in a bloody mess. His lower body just fell to the ground like a ragdoll while one of the soldiers yelled shit as he continued to fire on William. He tossed the RPG out of the way and lifted up the shotgun and aiming it at the closest soldier, firing once at the soldier. He flinched back a bit and groaned as his shoulder felt the pain all the while the machine part telling him to keep going. William began to walk back slowly, pumping and then firing again, the buckshot doing less and less as he backed up. A soldier leapt out from the front of one of the houses and threw a grenade at William. The cylindrical grenade made a blip sound as its red tracing light flew in the air leaving a fading red trail behind it. Every time it bounced it made another blip. William kicked the grenade at a wall and watched it blow a medium sized hole into the wall. William took his chances and continued to shoot at the soldiers as he desperately ran for the hole. One of the soldiers attempted to cut him off but he quickly had a chest full of buckshot, his entire body lurching forward in pain. William jack rabbited into the hole in the decimated wall, with his ass slamming into the concrete hard. He decided to ignore the pain and looked for the stairs leading upstairs. An old creaky set of stairs were in the corner, they were barely holding themselves up. William tilted his shotgun over as he began to reload it, filling it to six and then pumping the shotgun. He tried to quietly walk upstairs, the door creaked open letting sunlight glow through the crack. He carefully placed each foot up, hearing the combine chatter amongst each other about what their next move should be. William rammed through the door and fired into the three of them standing and talking, the one closest to Will grabbing one of his comrades as he fell to the ground, the other began to open fire. William fired again shooting one of them in the head, tearing the entire head to shreds, his arms launching up to his head as the searing painful death came to its finale where his body walked backward into a wall and then fell over. The last soldier made a break for the front door.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" bellowed out of the bottom of William's angry throat as he ran at the soldier and knocked him over, shooting the poor bastard in the back of the head. The last soldier's head exploded with bits and pieces flying through the air like shrapnel, a few landing on William. William panted heavily as he walked out of the front, turning towards the truck, he picked up rocket launcher he threw on the ground at the beginning of the fire fight. He unzipped his hoody down the middle and checked his personal combat vest's power level which read 12%. He hadn't heard the soft compassionate, yet robotic male voice that his suit came equip with to read off warnings and power level readings. He grunted as he threw the rocket launcher onto the back of the truck, still walking towards the door of the truck in two actions at the same time. He opened the door to the driver's side of the truck and climbed in. For a second time he reloaded his shotgun and then placed it on the large shotgun shaped holster next to him which was next to his AR2, the contrasting black metal shotgun and the bright gray metal of the AR2 brought up images of choice between good and evil. William turned the key inside the ignition and set the truck to reverse, pulling out cautiously and timidly. When the truck was completely out of the driveway he turned the while hard to the right and shift the truck back to drive, and just as cautiously as before, began to travel along the route he was given. The day's light quickly being extinguished by the waters of night. As the truck gained speed the houses, the brush, the shrubs, and everything else that made the unique fighting environment of the suburbs began to blur into painting. The shadows from the environment overlapped the truck and distracted William several times. Shadows were the like triple XL pants; they fit everyone a little too much. William made another right and then a quick left onto the trolley tracks.
His destination was actually located at what used to be a major transportation terminal before the Black Mesa Incident. It was the last station for the Railroad, which was created to help civilians escape from City Zero Four's clutches, into the joint hands of the rebels. The rebellion itself was started by survivors of the Black Mesa Incident. They made up the command structure which was haphazard and suited best for defense still, offensive capabilities were extremely limited until the Overwatch Citadel was destroyed. The foot soldiers were mainly refugees who chose to fight and could handle it, the small few who couldn't handle it or didn't want to left the station to survive on their own. William remembered a Japanese girl, a refugee who had escaped City 04 and arrived, who was too traumatized to fight after watching both of her parents sacrifice themselves to let her daughter escape. All three of them had been together since the portal storms. The people at the base empathized with her, tried to keep her there at the station but she escaped the night afterward. Two weeks later William found her torturing a rebel with blue eyes that was her justification for killing that poor bastard, because his eyes looked like an Overwatch soldier's goggles. Her brain had slipped so far down the hole of insanity anything blue eyed set her off into a raging frenzy. What was even worse was that the man had saved her from antlions and started to take care of him. It was too late though, she had already lost it. She saw William's blue-gray eyes, her eyes filled with fear and anger as she charged at him with a tire iron. William just shot her in the gut forcing her to cry in pain as she hit the floor and started to ask him why William shot her. Begging for an answer William shot her again trying to make her death as quick and painless as he could. He knew there was nothing to help her with. They didn't have any psychologists, there was no way they were going to help her. He understood the pain that poor girl had felt, but he didn't need it, he didn't need a reminder. He closed her eyes and left, letting the memory fade to black and in the back of his head forever, however his own personality didn't like leaving memories locked up. During his mental wandering the scenario had played out in thousands of ways. Some scenarios played out to a good ending and others with a similar ending.
His foot pressed harder on the gas pedal, the constant rattle of the truck tires bumping on the trolley tracks keeping him in check and awake. He sighed as the direction signs for the rebel base came into view and passed by him. His body began to defrag the stress like a computer, his body completely unprepared for the rain of bullets to hit his truck again.
"God damn it! Don't you Combine have something better to do?" He blurted out angrily.
His entire body had turned around to see it was a hunter chopper. He couldn't tell if the black demon from hell was the chopper from before but he didn't care. As a intersection between track and street came closer he noticed a sliver glint of metal. He hit the gas; it could only be a Combine half track. William was right and the half track moved in front of William trying to stop him. The rebel half track rammed into the Combine half track at full speed, the Combine half track spinning on its rear tires ninety five degrees. The cockpit and left front tire came clean off with the right front tire inverting itself toward the bottom. William's truck continued moving, continuing to swerve back and forth trying to dodge the Combine machine gun. His truck cutting metal signs right off of their base and flinging them to the side. Combine soldiers were on roofs of garages and homes overlooking the trolley tracks. Explosive barrels being pushed in-front of him and blew up. William watched a barrel blow up next two soldiers from the careless fire of their own allies. They didn't care how many lives were lost unless the job was done, even if it's their own men. One of the limbs hit the front shield of his truck, the blood spattered across like an insect with the limb bouncing off into the Hunter Chopper behind him. The top half of the chopper's windshield became covered in blood as the limb ricocheted off the windshield into the propelling blades, which began to wobble like ruler being held down on a student's desk. Add that with the wind resistance of the Hunter Chopper moving forward and the wobbling became more violent till it tore itself off and took the other blades with it. Curling off into long strands of shrapnel the Hunter Chopper's body lurched forward and hit the ground, slamming and hoping back into the air flipping, its tail fin came snapping off as it hit the ground the second time slowing down the crash enough that once the cockpit hit the rails, it was only fast enough to skid across the tracks, sparks spreading out from the crash as it came to a metallic sheared scream of a halt. All of these actions seemed to happen at once with William just watching in awe of the Hunter Chopper's fall from grace.
In that one spectacular moment everything seemed to come to a resting close. William drove forward into the base, parking behind a line of rebel trucks. His body climbed out the truck with his gear on him, his hands holding the AR2 while the shotgun was folded up and attached to his waist. He watched a few refugees run over to his truck and start to unfold it. William watched them curiously as he slid of his glasses and inspected them, fogging them up with his breath and cleaning them. He began to slide his glasses back to his face at an angle with the angled ends brushing through his hair and between the top lobe of his ear and the rest of his head. The glasses were then tilted up right and nudged so the bridge was pressed against the scallion.
"Will! Up here!" an overly eager voice echoed through the station.