1. FADE TO WHITE

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Black Mesa Research Center, Black Mesa, Nevada
July 12, 2002
08:33 AM

"Alpha team, report status. Over." The radio crackled on, then "Status is negative, sir. Over." The man got instantly upset. That should not have happened. "Repeat, Alpha."

"Alpha, reporting negative. Primary target can not be acquired, over." The man began to get visibly nervous. "Damn it Alpha! Check again!"

The man was getting more and more nervous by the moment, as he walked in circles inside the nearly featureless gray room. Secrecy be damned! He shouldn't have come this far just to make sure everything was OK. He should have just charged in, guns blazing, as usual. And who cares if a few eggheads get in the way? The ends, first of all.

Then the methods.

"Ssir, you should calm down. Nothing can possibly go wrong now."

The skinny, pale and well-dressed figure was talking to him from a corner with his usual calm, reassuring, slightly hissing voice. And the figure was right. Nothing could have gone wrong. He inhaled deeply, exhaled and then settled down as the radio crackled on again.

"Alpha reporting, negative. Over." The big man stood immediately and swore badly, throwing the radio on the floor, putting a dent in it and bending the antenna.

"Ssir, may I suggessst...?" The large man looked coldly at the skinny figure "They may have hidden it, or set it somewhere else by missstake. If we set a recaller there, I could get in and out just before zero hour. The material is bound to be there at that time."

The man scowled; thought for a minute, inhaled and exhaled heavily again, then nodded. "Not many more options, are there?" Although angry, he realized that leaving any option untried could bring the anger of his superiors. He was in charge of the operation, and it was his fault if he screwed up.

And already he had screwed up once.

He bent and picked up the barely working radio. "Alpha, this is Hot Dog. Barter up. Over." *Alpha, bartering up.* One minute passed, as the two figures packed up their tools, then the confirmation *Alpha, bartered up. Moving to extraction point. Over and out.*

"Well, G, it's back home the normal way for us this time." The big man, still quite nervous, and the quiet, skinny, shadowy figure exited the room and entered the train station unseen.

*

*BEEEEEP* "Warning: haemorrage detected." *BOOOOOP* "Morphine administered."

That was bad. And he felt it. That thing had really put up a fight, and unless he found some medical supplies, his hemorragy was only going to worsen. But how could he find medical assistance for a human being in a place like this? He was lucky that the suit could surrogate the functions of his now broken left leg - but that will undoubtedly slow him down.

And the painkillers won't last forever.

He looked down below. It was a two story drop, but he was sure to survive. He floated, gently enough, down to the purplish surface, and touched down without a scratch.

His quarry couldn't have gone very far, and the opening in what seemed like a cave was the logical place to begin searches...

The sound of a bell ringing from above caught his attention, and he saw another of the ships, again appearing straight out of nowhere. Strange sound, but that wouldn't have made the ship less deadly. Its laser cannon muzzle began glowing, a deep purple mass forming in front of it, mass which soon would have turned into an anti-matter projectile. There was no time: he ran forwards as fast as his condition allowed him to, and dived behind a rock mere seconds before it was turned to dust by the energy blast.

The ship had passed him, though, and he knew he had about six to ten seconds to get inside before it could turn, charge up, and fire again.

There was no time to lose: he ran towards the opening, getting under cover just before the ship had fired, the blast barely missing him. He switched on the floodlight, quickly scanning the entire room for hostiles.

No one was inside. Then the ground shook; dust of the unknown material that made up the cavern came down from above, and he moved a second too late as the entire roof crumbled, one of the rocks hitting him and forcing him to the ground.

He tried to stand, but his legs were completely oblivious to his orders. He could look above as he saw another one of the ships, this one strangely hovering above his position, a much larger than normal cannon glowing in an eerie green. He had never seen things like that...

Distorted laughters from all around him made him know that he was surrounded. Five, no, ten, no, over twenty of them surrounded him, their disgusting green skin and single red eye betraying their nature as living beings, hidden as they were under near full-body metallic armors.

Then another blast. Pain was more than he could bear as he looked to his right arm to see it wasn't there anymore; blood, instead, was splattered almost everywhere, his MP5 now a contorted and fused piece of black metal.

*BEEEEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* "Warning: Major fracture detected. User death imminent."

He could barely understand that he was shrieking out very loudly. But then, his sight turned to blood red and he couldn't hear anything anymore...

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *DRRRRRRRINNnnn* "Come on, Gordon! You're late!"

Gordon Freeman woke up by abruptly on his bed.

He was sweating, his heart pounding as he sat, trying to calm down from the fading images of his nightmare still sweeping in front of his eyes.

His right arm was still in position. His legs were still working. He wasn't bleeding.

And he was in his room, alone, as usual.

It was not the first time he had this kind of nightmare. So real they were, he could swear he was actually there a few moments ago...

"Come on, Gordon! You're late!"

He slapped his palm on the alarm clock with automated wake up message, still dizzy. The fog of sleep slowly clearing, he glanced at the time. It was 8:40 AM. He was about to lay down again when he realized that today wasn't sunday.

And that he had to be in Anomalous Materials... well, about twenty minutes ago!

Hit hard by the realization, he quickly stood and rushed to his bathroom; after quickly cleaning his teeth - hygiene, before all - he returned back to dress.

He couldn't find his tie, so he decided to skip for today.

His chemise had a stain, but he figured that after all his dressing wouldn't matter when he got to work.

And he could not even find one pair of matching socks, so he had to make do with two different ones.

He almost forgot his glasses as he ran out of the room.

The dormitories train station was less than two minutes running from his room, and from there, a ten minute ride to the Anomalous Materials Test Labs.

He ran through the nearly empty corridors, not suprising since everybody would have been already at work at this time except the night shift guards.

The train station was a large room where dozens of tracks ran both on the roof and on the floor. His was the one for Sector C, and was the closest to the entrance. He slid his security pass into its slit on the train, and hastily climbed aboard. Sensing no more passengers queueing, the train slowly started towards its destination as the soothing, but annoying, automated pre-recorded speech kicked in:

"Good morning, and welcome to the Black Mesa transit system. This automated train is provided for the security and convenience of the Black Mesa facility personnel. This train is inbound from Level 3 Dormitories to..."

*

"Subject: Gordon Freeman, male, age 27. Education: Ph.D., MIT, Theoretical Physicsss. Position: Research Associate. Assignment: Anomalous Materialss Laboratory..."

"Get to the point G. Why do you think this egghead is in any way important to us or to the agency?

"Well, sir, our intelligence says that he has some... peculiar characteristics, shall we say?

*

Gordon sat in the train, oblivious of his surroundings as the train descended through one of the caverns that made up this section of the complex, while the train message system went on and on, seemingly forever, about how the compound was kept at a comfortable heat at all times, which was hardly true, about all the security measures, most of which were so secure their details were classified, and about the HEV decathlon that had to take place that night.

Strange. It had taken place the night before, and had been the main reason for Gordon waking up late. The people who had to change the message must have been in the same condition as him.

The train suddenly came to an halt: a shuttle appeared in the train's path, a load of crates in tow. Gordon sighed: those shuttles took strangely long to move; he always wondered why they couldn't take faster ones. After all, it's not that they didn't have the money.

Nevertheless, his wasn't the only train delayed by the shipment; across the shuttle's path there was another train, almost empty like his...

He stood, curious, trying to see who could be moving that way at this hour. One distinct, well dressed guy was... pointing at him? No, the trains were too far to distinguish things too clearly, and his dizziness from the abrupt awakening didn't make matters any easier.

Gordon dismissed his paranoia, hoping that the dizziness wouldn't turn into yet another splitting headache, and returned to his seat a moment before the shuttle had cleared the trains' paths, which both began moving.

*

D looked at the person G had pointed as the two trains came closer.

"It's HIM? No, I can't believe it. There's no reason for them to..."

"Yet our latest intelligence hints to this man."

D looked again at the man. It was far, but he could see clearly enough. It was a scientist, and a quite mellow looking one. Undoubtedly capable of aborting a weapon experiment if a fly got in the test chamber... No. Surely incapable of even doing a weapon experiment at all.

"Hints, you say? And you know how reliable our intelligence is when they hint that something may be right! Already forgot the incident four years ago? Our intelligence had hinted that this man was harmless, and we almost lost an entire squad!"

"I... Sorry, ssir."

"Anyway, you really sure that our `toy' will be in the materials storage on time?"

How many times had he asked him? Ten? Twenty? And his answer had never changed.

"Yes, ssir."

"Hmph. You know, G, someday I'll have to get you a better translator, I'm quite tired of your hissing around."

G readjusted his tie and straightened his grip on his briefcase as the train moved towards its destination. It was going to be a tough day for both of them.

But especially tough for someone else...

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