7. POWER UP
A distant and low but still loud explosion filled the air, and G's briefing was interrupted while the entire squad rushed to defensive position.
*What the hell was that?*
*Richards, move in!*
*Roger that, sir.*
One of the scouts checked out the corridor, and then gave thumbs up, signaling an all clear while D fiddled with the map controls.
"Continue checking, people, and... Just what the hell...?"
*
"WHOOOOOOOOOAAAAH!
Gordon cried as he and Gina slid down to their apparent doom. Already explosions were audible from above, and things could only get worse.*BEEP* *BEEP* "Oxygen level dropping."
A redundant warning. He was trained in moving underwater in the HEV, and although he hadn't practiced in several months he immediately began following Gina to the surface.
Then a shockwave.
They were both slapped around in the fluid as dust and small pieces of rock tumbled down from the ceiling, and their entire surroundings were shaking as the suppressed sound of an earthquake rumbled them.
The instant the shockwave was over they moved again, while the water continued to tremble slightly due to the quake. Gina reached the ladder first, and began climbing up only to lose the grip due to another shockwave, thankfully briefer, which had her tumbling down again.
"What was that?"
"Hell if I know. But I fear that setting the fuel feeding to maximum wasn't a good idea, Gordon."
"What other choices did I have?"
"Well, you're a scientist, no? You could have found some trick or something. I though you guys were more resourceful."
"Calm down, Gina, he hasn't done anything wrong!"
"Listen, I'm having a bad and hard day, OK? I just want to get out of this mess and fast, so let's move."
"Yes... Yes, sorry, Gordon. I think the same goes for me."
Gordon climbed the ladder behind Gina and looked around. This section appeared to be some sort of sewage system; luckily, the waste wasn't radioactive, or their Geiger counter would have gone crazy by now - let alone their shield and their health. The ceiling was low, only about two meters over the sewage level, and the small platform they were now on, which was just barely over the level of the liquid, led to the only other way out of the room.
Another, slight, quake hit as Gordon's sight was attracted below the sewage level to identify a large black mass, probably the remains of the monstrosity they had killed just a few minutes ago.
"What would I give to have that thing under a microscope..."
Gina immediately looked at him with a bit of disconcert; they weren't exactly in a position for such requests but it was Gordon himself that was the most amazed.
Some interest, at last? Was his curse gone?
"I'll never get you science guys. Let's get going before everything crumbles to dust."
"...And going where?"
"Yes, going where?" she thought.
"Follow these tunnels. You'll find out." was the reply in her head.
"...Well, it can't be so difficult to find the train track, ain't it? Not many ways here, so let's go!"
*
*I still don't think that it was a good idea to send us here.*
*Shut it, Gherra. If the general hears that kind of...*
*But he cannot, since he and the rest aren't here. And this remains a bad idea.*
The duo had been dispatched to investigate the recent happenings in the sector; about an hour before, they had spotted something big crashing down about half a kilometer from what now was their temporary encampment, then ten minutes before something - something quite big - blew up. And now they were approaching the presumed site of the crash to investigate.
A low, but loud noise, distinctly non natural and definitely non human preceded a small earthquake.
*Convinced now?*
*No. Let's check it out and report ASAP.*
The two moved down the corridor, featureless except for the pipes that ran through its entire length. on the left wall, and the occasional valve accompanied by its incomprehensible, at least for the four untrained eyes that occasionally glanced at them, readout panels. They turned right at the following intersection, because they had noticed something different...
There was more light coming from that way - strange for a place that was completely and flatly neon lit..
The source was a large, about three meters wide, hole both in the ground and in the ceiling of that corridor. Looking up, Johnson could see that the afternoon desert sun was lightning the room.
And they were almost one kilometer underground.
*What the bloody hell caused THAT?*
*I'd say we run back before we meet it. If that thing can pass through a kilometer straight of super reinforced stuff like butter, there's no way we'll be able to kill or run from it.*
*No way. Our orders were clear: find out exactly what was dropped in. For all we know it's just a big, heavy, armored crate full of alien weapons ripe for the taking! Let's deploy the ropes and climb down. The floor doesn't look too far.*
*I still think it's a bad idea...*
*
"...And still, we're going to leave without the rest of the team. That's so egoistic, Gina, don't you think?"
"It is. It really is." Gordon found Gina's voice sincere. "But as I said, what other choice do we have? Going back to take them, when they've been probably been all killed by the government cleanup squad?"
"Government. Do you really think it's them?"
"What else could it be? They're surely not aliens, and I don't know who else would run an hi-tech place in the middle of nowhere like this."
"Well, now it's going to be a nowhere place after this invasion of aliens or something."
"Don't tell me. I still don't understand quite completely why and how I haven't freaked out completely by now... Just look at some of HOSTILE!"
She had her MP5 in hand in an instant, and squeezed a three round burst into the zombie behind the corner they were about to turn.
"This place is overrun too. We'd better move it..."
They had found signs before leading to the train track, but who knew when they would arrive?
*
The elder woman turned to face the intercom.
"...We have... the... report."
"Afraid so, ma'am. Pit eleven failed containment and detonated. We have lost any contact we had left with the entire sector E, and visual scans show extensive damage up to the surface. We believe even sectors D and C could have been affected."
The woman sighed. "They were already destroyed when this all began. Whatever damage has been done is irrelevant... Unless our target has been affected, and it's hardly going to be the case."
Pushing another button, the woman switched intercom channel to the development section.
"Report status."
"We have still some ground to cover, ma'am. I estimate about ten hours to completion, minimum."
"Good. Keep me posted."
And again, she shut off the connection and returned to her work.
*
"Sir, the ground looks clear..."
"I supposed so. Recall the squad."
"Yes sir!"
"What hasss happened?"
"I don't know," answered D to G's question while continuing to fiddle with the map controls, "but if I'm getting this thing, a 'blast pit eleven' has detonated or something. It's probably that."
"Posssible cause?"
"How the hell should I know, G?" he quickly glanced around the room, seeing everyone had returned uneasily at their place, and resumed the briefing.
*
*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* "Warning: high energy signature detected from moving object within thirty meters. Extreme caution advised."
Like they were in need of another warning. They've been hearing thundering footsteps for a while now, so loud the earth seemed to be shaking, although they hadn't classified the noise as footsteps before seeing the source - source which was now moving towards them at the fastest speed it allowed.
They had been moving around for half an hour or so, until they finally arrived at the underground train track which was close both to the underground offices, and to one of the main generators as they recalled. The room was large and empty, bar for the train and the five meters tall, three meters wide and seemingly two meters deep black, slightly rounded, smooth yet visibly alien beast which was evidently going for them. The lone, bright red eye on his (hers? its?) forehead spoke of anger.
The train was close to them, thankfully, and they were both on the two meters long roofless carriage while the creature was well more than ten meters away.
Gordon fiddled with the levers with no luck, and only then he noticed that the entire control panel was dead.
"Useless, there's no power!"
"Wait..."
Gina spotted a door behind the beast; in little more than a couple of seconds, he established eye contact with Gordon, pointed at the door, at herself, at the right, at him, to the left, and they both got ready to dash as soon as the creature was too close to catch them, burdened as it was by relatively poor agility.
Then, as the creature was now little more than five meters away, both Gordon and Gina noticed the small, shivering flame at the end of both of the creature's arms.
"NOW!" simultaneously, they screamed and dashed to both sides of the creature, leaving it seemingly dumbfounded for a second. Then it turned around, but the duo was already beyond the door - although this didn't appear to matter a bit for the thing as it began chasing.
"You think it can squeeze through that?"
"I don't know, Gina, for now..."
Gunfire erupted from behind the creature, which turned to face the threat.
"...Just run, OK? For safety's sake."
"Where to?"
"We have to turn on power, or something. The train track controls must be around here somewhere, a good place to start."
The small squad had descended the ropes for more than twenty meters to the floor below but what they saw wasn't what they expected - well, at least not what one of them expected.
*See? I told you! Let's report back NOW!*
*Just a moment, let me check a thing...*
Gripping expertly to the rope so he could both stay clanged firmly and fire his weapon with both hands, the soldier squeezed six rounds in the back of the enormous creature which immediately turned, much more bothered than hurt.
*Ineffective. Let's return.*
*Yeah. I doubt THAT thing can climb!*
Both began climbing back up at their fastest speed, when they heard a `whooshing' sound of sorts. Glancing down, although unnecessarily due to the heat that already was climbing through the hole, they noticed that the creature was attacking the ropes with two flamethrowers, each mounted on a arm.
*Fire away, sucker... You can't burn them!*
Then the flames stopped, the creature staggered back a couple of paces, and they both realized that the impossible feat was happening.
*How the hell...*
Without letting themselves panic, as professional soldiers are ought to, they continued climbing the rope but to no avail as the flame, obviously - although unexplainably and seemingly impossibly - having picked up speed, streaked past them leaving both climbing cinders for the fraction of a second, then plunging them down to their doom.
The briefing was over, and the squad was unusually silent.
"...Questions?"
A soldier stood up.
"One, sir. What are the expected casualties of this operation?"
"That's a self-answering question, Major. The expected casualties are none. Then again, if you are so dimwitted and/or incapable as to underestimate what we're up against and/or to forget what's on stake, it's not my fault. Dismissed!"
D was already getting angry. This was really his last chance - and in more ways than one, if the squad continued to be as inept and inefficient as it has been so far.
Once again, the soldiers entered their assigned Chinooks, this time followed by both D and G, while a small group of soldiers was left behind to maintain ground.
`If only they knew', he thought, `that failure could mean much more than our death...'
*
The duo had been wandering for no more than a couple of minutes when they had a contact - an hostile contact, for a change.
"Two slaves, dead ahead!"
"Slaves. Damn, how the hell does he...? Ah, dive left and let me do the rest!"
How annoying did Gina find the voice when it made rhymes.
Gina dived left, and left control of her body to the voice. She always wondered how she could allow something like that - but she had come to accept it, albeit the sensation of doing something over which she had absolutely no control remained unpleasant - especially because she had to fight her urge to fight it.
Not exactly an easy thing to do; if she didn't concentrate
enough, she would find herself back in control - bad thing under these circumstances, as
she wasn't exactly a trained soldier.
If she concentrated too much, who knows what the voice would be doing?
One of the first times... She still remembered what she was almost going to do. It wasn't going to be pleasant, at least in her book, and though she had vowed not to let the voice do anything anymore with her, that was impossible: she needed the skills to work and, now, to survive.
While Gina rolled on the floor, getting her MP5 trained on the two beasts that had now noticed them and were prepping for attack, Gordon remained nearly motionless apart from his shotgun at ready.
Gina squeezed briefly the trigger of her machine gun just to see her bullets go to waste as several dozens of pellets punched through her target; she immediately moved to the next but was again too late.
Gina regained control and stood. This was really too much.
"OK, mister. You explain and you do it NOW." she said, quite angrily.
Gordon was reloading, and acted as if she wasn't there.
Then he finished, packed the shotgun away, and finally looked at her.
"YOU ARE IGNORING ME, AREN'T YOU?" she shouted.
"Hey! I'm not! Why the hell are you shouting? You want to attract more attention on our location?"
"YOU DIDN'T BOTHER TO ANSWER ME! YOU HAVE SOME EXPLAINING TO DO! AND... you..." she calmed down, although Gordon couldn't have known it wasn't just herself who was trying to contain her anger.
"STOP IT! I think I know why he did that, but there's no time for that sort of things now. Excuse and get going."
"But..."
"Look... I'm... sorry, Gordon. Just forget what I said, OK?"
"OK. There's really no problem, Gina. All of this is putting up way too much pressure on us."
Spotting some sort of sign ten meters away, over the two bodies, he pointed at it and said "Let's get going."
The General gave the last checks to their retreat. One of the few blueprints intelligence had gathered showed this place, about a kilometer underground, which they found an easy to defend spot and thus entrenched themselves close to some sort of generator control room.
They had placed low yield charges over the one kilometer long and twisting tunnel leading to the surface, and on every other access bar the main one, effectively securing them in; now, sentinels were setting up an advance base close to a bottleneck less than ten meters outside of the base, but of course most of them were guarding the wide room that gave access to the outside of their fort from two small service balconies on constant alert, and more were on the inside in case an intruder got past that relatively weak point in the fort.
Everything had been calm for a while now, since they had learned of a delay in reinforcements and he had sent a couple of guys to scout out the big detonation and any relationship with the big thing dropped a while ago close by.
He still remembers thinking, when looking at that big plane and at the big black thing below it with his binoculars, how alien yet somehow human made it looked. He couldn't for the life of him guess why it looked human made, but he dismissed it as a conditioned reflex - after all, he was used to seeing only human made things, and so he was stuck with guessing what the dropped thing was. Now, all he could do is to hope that it didn't get the scout squad...
*
Damage in the sector was heavy, but they were too far from the resonance cascade for that being the cause. The shockwaves from the detonation and the alien infestation were much more probably the culprits.
They had been wandering around for another five minutes of relative calm, although much more 'relative' than 'calm' given the infestation levels. They were jogging at a moderate pace to make sure whatever was in that room couldn't chase them - because while the door frame wasn't large enough to let it pass, the corridors beyond might have been.
"One!"
Gina followed the phrase with a well aimed 9mm double tap directly to the forehead of an headcrab, sending it motionless after its characteristic feeble shriek.
"Those headcrabs are everywhere, and seeing how many slaves, houndeyes et al are around, it's no wonder there's such a mess around here..."
Why the small yellow `zombie head', the thunder shooting alien and the small `inverted fingertip' green ultrasonic dog were called respectively headcrab, slave and houndeye, Gordon could somehow imagine - but why he knew they were called that way, he had simply no idea. Still, he continued walking across the slightly twisting corridor with Gina as he had done for the past five minutes, wondering if the offices were really close.
"Gordon, I think we should talk a bit about your knowledge of things around here..."
"As I said from the beginning, I woke up this morning and I knew everything. There is simply no other explanation I have found."
"But, let me ask you..." She stopped and turned to face him. "How does it work? Do you have... another voice inside your head that sort of takes control, and tells you what is what, or...?"
"Not exactly. Well, something takes control of me, but sure as hell there's no voice in my... But you're just kidding me, aren't you?"
"Believe me or not, I'm perfectly serious. Go on."
"Well, there's not much else to say really. Sometimes I just see the world in slo-mo, or at full speed, randomly apparently, but I can't control my actions no matter how hard I concentrate. Then, when I see one of those things I know its name, most of its weak points, and I have the feeling I know much, much, more."
"Just the feeling of knowing more?"
"Yes. Just the feeling. And I know that `more' so well, that the very thought of trying to get any of those things analyzed gives me waves of pure disinterest, as if I knew them by memory so perfectly I unconsciously refuse to try and see them just once more."
"Strange. Very strange..."
"Don't tell ME. I'm at least as strange as HE is."
"Anyway, we should be almost there if this sign is correct..."
They came close to a staircase when they heard a clanging noise, like someone banging a wrench on the floor or something. The staircase had a middle floor, then winded back to its destination; and on the middle floor a slave was thumping his arms on a pipe in the floor, floor which he had ripped off - seemingly with just his hands.
Why the beast was trying to pull that pipe off, neither of them could have cared as Gina fired a couple of well-aimed shots, bringing an unforeseeable fireball in play.
Ted expected some noise; laughter, maybe some boos. Instead, he got silence. A silence he had never thought possible had fallen over the room, a silence that only the death of a reporter there a year ago had moved.
The unnatural silence was soon broken though, as his director began shaking his head, then speaking:
"I won't ask you how the hell you can have those proofs, Ted. You've never been positively proven wrong, and your articles and editorials have always been part of the success of this paper, but this is insanity. A research complex in the middle of the desert where aliens are being held? That's a bit too much."
"I can't fund any expedition, exactly. The Daily Globe is not a low scandalistic newspaper, so, unless what you say is indeed proven true - and thirty years of journalism taught me it cannot be proven true - there's no way I could publish that."
The room returned to the normal, frenetic buzz. He expected that reaction, but still, he hoped and tried. Now the only option was to do all by himself... It was going to be the scoop of his life - if he arrived, got proof, and departed before the place was ground zeroed.
*
The pipe was evidently part of some sort of flammable gas conveying system, and a spark from Gina's bullets ignited it. The already dead slave was incinerated and most of the middle floor was scorched badly; still, the pipe held, bent, with a two meters flame over it. The gas flow had to be very fast for a flame of that length.
"Well, I suppose I couldn't know that would happen, no?"
"Just as I couldn't know that setting the fuel feed to maximum would blow up the pit. Well, let's get moving and hope nothing else was influenced by this."
The heat had already risen around there, but both suits didn't falter when adapting their internal temperature. They moved, carefully avoiding the flame jet, upstairs only to be welcomed by more slaves. They ducked back to the stairs and quickly dispatched them, Gina with her MP5, Gordon with his shotgun.
Moving again, they finally found their destination: a boarded up door, with a sign beside it saying `Track control'.
Gordon rapped on the boards, saying out loud "We're with the science team, can we get in?"
From inside, there was no answer. "Maybe there's no one inside - no one alive, maybe. Let's find some tool to pry these boards away."
"No need to, Gina, I have one right here." With that, he produced his still bloodied crowbar.
"Well, it seems you haven't used that thing as it was intended to, isn't it?"
"I know, I know... Any tool is good for self-defense."
"God, he can kill with a CROWBAR? I haven't seen anyone doing that in quite a while..."
Then, from somewhere not too distant, the thundering steps of the enormous black thing they saw earlier thundered. Was it close? Or maybe already on their tracks? Still, Gina simply watched as Gordon pried off the planks, revealing a dark room inside. They both switched on their breastlights, and had it immediately trained, along with their weapons, on the source of a low, ranting noise.
They relaxed as it revealed to be a security guard - a badly hurt one, they noticed since he was laid on the floor, his back to a wall, with burns and blood almost everywhere.
"Ooooooooh... You've come to... kill me... isn't it?"
"No, we're with the science team. Really. How bad is it?"
"Too much... I'm not going to make it..."
"Nonsense... Gordon, you're a doctor, no?"
"Doctor? No."
"No? But..."
"It's too late... anyway... But you must stop that thing somehow..."
"That thing! Do you know what it is?"
"No... But I fear you might have to... ...hnnn... to take it out if you want to escape..."
"Then the train track does lead to the surface!"
"...Yes... and no... it's powerless right now... follow the generator signs, turn it on... if it's still possible... there's no... other... way..."
Then, the man was motionless.
"Damnit, Gordon! You are a doctor! Why the hell didn't you do anything?"
"I'm not a doctor! I told you!"
"Then why do you go by `doctor Freeman'?"
"I'm a Ph.D. in quantum physics, that's why!"
"Doctor... in quantum... something. Oh. Sorry... And I even knew..."
"Nevermind, let's get going."
As the two turned around, a low but loud and flat toned metallic growl preceded thumpings on the wall opposite the door. They stopped for a second, then ran away as fast as they could as soon as they saw a black metallic arm, with a pilot flame at the end of it, smashing through a steel window like cardboard, the other quickly following about two meters to the right as the wall was torn down.
*
"Ma'am? We might have yet another problem"
The woman sighed. "Go on."
"A journalist has been making inquiries in the last few weeks. We are taking out his informants, but the press may bicker with all the attention Black Mesa is going to be given after the president's announcement tomorrow."
"The press? I doubt it. Have this man followed, just to be sure but don't take actions unless he's got in and he's trying to get out."
That effectively meant to take no action at all.
The elderly woman once again dismissed the agent, as she returned monitoring the progress of all his other troubles.
*
"Still no news from Johnson and Gherra?"
"None, sir!"
That was bad. He didn't expect for them to take more than a couple of minutes, but it had been more than half an hour since they had left. The General again hoped whatever was that they saw crashing down - or something else, he thought with the beginnings of a shiver - hadn't got them.
"News from reinforcements?"
"Yes, sir. The first chopper wasn't delayed, we might get a squad of thirty or so within twenty minutes. ETA for the rest remains unchanged."
At least that was good news.
"What about the advance base?"
There was silence for a second, then gunfire in the distance followed by what seemed to be thundering footsteps.
"They're not answering our hails, sir!"
"Maybe they're having hostiles. Try again after the firing's over."
*
"...Damn. As if government agents weren't enough... Now we'd just need to know who are these."
"And I'll be damned if I know."
"I don't know. But what tells you that they're not government agents - if indeed the others are government agents anyway, Gina?"
"Well, their suits. They're different. Plus the fact that they don't transmit on the same radio frequency."
"Same frequency? Wait a second, you mean you can hear them?"
"I thought..." She slapped her forehead. "Stupid me, I forgot. You need to enable toggle number seven five oh."
Gordon thought about activating it, and it happened. As usual, the suit picked up his neural impulses and acted accordingly.
"Just turn wheel seven five seven to scan the frequencies, or just go to..." She paused for a second "...five hundred fifty megahertz for these guys and three hundred and fifty two for the others."
"...Done."
*Rabbit to Carrot, Rabbit to Carrot, come in Carrot. Over.*
"Uh-oh, you're thinking what I'm thinking Gordon...?"
"Well, it's not us who's killed these two. In fact, we took out their killers! Maybe, just maybe we might have an ally?"
*This is it. Base on total alert! Blow away anything and anyone without our insignia that gets within eyesight! Nothing and no one will prevent us from blowing this place up!*
"I think that answers my question. Now, we just need to hope that their main base isn't between us and the generator."
They glanced down the cylinder of the toxic waste that was leaking slowly from above, close to where this advance base was set up before the 'bullisquids', or the tentacled dog-like monsters, broke from cracks in the walls and attacked the soldiers stationed there.
Their black chaser was still there, avoided rather narrowly. But up there they hoped they were safe...
Yet again their hopes were shattered and they ran when they saw the thing being slowly lifted by a jetpack. And they didn't even get much far.
*MOVEMENT!*
"Oh great!"
Gordon picked out the MP5 machine gun he had salvaged from the downed soldiers, just as Gina did with her, and set it to full auto - even if he knew that three round bursts were already too much for him to handle. At least normally, as he found himself again moving without direct control.
He sliced the corner to a fairly large room in the middle of which a crude barricade had been set up, and fired a four round burst square in the protected face of the soldier stationed there a millisecond before he could train his weapon on him and do the same.
He dashed forward, dived and rolled as he had barely noticed an object being hurled towards him and explode harmlessly two meters behind, and then aimed slightly upwards and squeezed the other trigger, less than ten centimeters from the primary, as a grenade shell took out the enemy grenadier hidden behind a wall, all while running and the finally jumping behind a wall of sacks.
He again turned around and missed squeezing his trigger by a little as Gina's burst ripped through the face of another soldier only for him to readjust his aim and take out another would-be sniper.
Then he swiftly abandoned his position and went up the steps which led to the inner corridor, throwing himself into the door firing to another enemy on his right while rolling, then immediately taking his shotgun in his left hand to quickly emptying half of its clip in the midst of another group of soldiers, killing one and scaring the remaining two to cover.
Meanwhile, the black monster had closed in and stopped at the door frame, way too small for it to fit through.
Gordon didn't notice as he replaced the shotgun as he stood, fluidly, and resumed his submachine gun aim. He also didn't noticed that Gina had entered beside him and covered the opposite sections as he took out a grenade, removed the pin with his teeth and flung it in the room, sending one of the already tensed occupants out of his cover, showing panic as his life was taken away by Gordon's spray of bullets to his chest, interrupted only when the magazine ran out.
*I surrender! I surrender!*
A woman stood up, hands raised, and Gordon took her down with a shotgun shell square in the face without even so much as blinking.
"GORDON! WHY THE BLOODY HELL...!"
He turned, his machine gun aimed to her head, then he felt it heavier than he had before. He was again in control.
"FREEMAN, YOU'RE A BLOODTHIRSTY SON OF A BITCH! SHE HAD SURRENDERED FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, MISTER?"
She was yelling at him, but he could do nothing else than drop his weapon and drop down again.
"YOU DON'T TRY FAKING A CRY ON ME, LITTLE FUCKER! IN FACT, I THINK I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU... Down... myself..."
She calmed as she saw he was really crying.
"Gordon... You didn't... want... to kill her, didn't you?"
He shook is head, trying hard to control his sobbing.
"Then WHY DID YOU?"
He just took a long breath.
"I told you. I told you." His voice was shaky but rather straight. "I don't know how I have done this all. I wasn't in control. I'm not myself! I can't control my actions anymore!"
She sat down beside him, trying not to look at all the fresh blood and corpses which lay all around them.
"Gina... There's only one person that I've ever seen in my life fighting that way. He was the best of the company, well, he would have been if wasn't completely insane... That kind of stunt was his signature. He may be like us - somehow at least."
The voice was right - or at least, she wanted to believe it was right.
"OK... OK. Let's suppose I believe you. Let's suppose it's all true, and all we both want to is to get out of here as quickly as possible..."
Gina looked for a second at the enormous black monster that was still inactively trying to find a way to bypass the way too small door frame.
"OK, it's stuck but we know it won't last long. Let's hurry!"
*
"Good to see you sir!" shouted the man over the roar of the powering down Chinook helicopter engine.
"It's not too good, unfortunately!" he shouted back. "The rest of the team is a loss, how many men have you got so far?"
He tried to sound calm, as if the fact he'd just summarized didn't bother him at all. But it was untrue. He had just lost over half of the best and finest men and women detachment Delta had to offer. And to three monsters. Both words both scared and angered him at the same time: they were just three, and they were definitely not human.
"I can have a squad of twenty ready in minutes. There's over a hundred coming around in the next six hours, with enough air support and firepower to level this place without detonation!"
"Good." The roaring had finally subsided to a background whirr, and he saw a squad dropping out, one after another, and forming a neat line while snapping to attention.
Reinforcements had arrived, finally, but until the last he had hoped they wouldn't need them. A small, stealthy squad, get in prime get out without pauses. He had underestimated his enemies - something that he had never done before. But before, he recalled, he had only human enemies...
When it looked like they were all out, he studied them briefly noticing that they were all professionals at the peak of their fitness - as expectable for a mission so crucial - in their for this mission usual black-gray assault suits, complete of anti-toxin masks. He immediately began briefing, the remains of his squad, rather battered, standing behind him.
"OK, people, no need to dance around this. Situation here is utmostly critical; the entire compound has been overrun by alien entities." Some faltered even so very slightly.
"Yes, you've heard right, whatever sort of experimentation they're result of, they are not human, repeat, not human. And they've been created to kill, and they've been created well because three of the bastards just annihilated our best squad. We were not taken by surprise, yet they managed to wipe most of us out. I want those things dead. We can't allow them to run around anymore, or we won't stand a chance in there."
Apart from the initial one, there was now not the slightest sign of faltering in the squad's posturing. Excellent self control too, he noted, dismissing the first signs as disorientation.
"Good. First one is a large, metallic black thing with single bright red eye. Slow and cumbersome, but bullets seem to be deflected by its armor; pick up an extra round of grenades and as much demo charges as we can carry comfortably. Seems to have one flamthrower fitted at the end of each arm, so stand clear. Second and third are similarly armored blue and orange things, with black finishes over articulations. They have respectively a woman and a man's head, but don't be fooled - they aren't human. They fight better than some of our best, so don't take them lightly at any time. Questions?"
The crew remained motionless, as they had for the last few minutes.
"Then grab your gear and get moving!"
*
Gordon spotted an open weapons crate and ran towards it, filling quickly his suit to the maximum he could as Gina did the same. He then glanced quickly around the room they were in, spotting a sign to the power generator pointing to an elevator platform just as Gina dashed for it. He followed, pressing the button as they slowly and noisily moved down.
Some of the neons crackled and sparked but still lit the corridor below, just a little bit larger than the elevator, but over five meters tall and over ten long before going into a bend. About a meter above the ground, which was for some reason covered with a rather thick layer of water, which still let the concrete below show, was a rather thin catwalk, barely enough for a single man to pass through, which connected to the elevator's landing point whose shaft was signaled by the four column that ran from the ceiling to the ground next to each of its corner.
Gina was looking upwards, probably fearing that the black monster was already on chase, as Gordon noticed a 'houndeye' closing to their position over the catwalk. He took out his MP5 and instantly trained for the kill but stopped.
He had noticed that on each of the four pillars was a small, rectangular black box. And the houndeye was just a meter from where they were, with the elevator itself but a meter from the catwalk.
"JUMP!"
He pushed Gina slightly, to no avail as her suit completely prevented any such thing, as he dived off the left side. Gina was in no place for arguing and did the same followed.
*BOOP* *BOOP* "Minor gyroscopical damage received. Recalibration not necessary."
Gordon had stood immediately after the fall and was running towards the opposite end of the room, as Gina did the same but was soon instinctively forced to the ground as behind her the room shook violently from the explosion of several high powered explosives.
When all had returned to normal, she stood and looked at what was left of the elevator, her ears never ringing due to the powerful automatic attenuators in the suit's shield.
"I won't even ask you how you knew it was booby-trapped, Gordon. Owe you this one, I guess."
"Never mind. Let's just get out of here."
He turned the corner and spotted a ladder which he quickly climbed, stopping midway only to fire a quick burst into a houndeye that was trying to be sneaky on them.
"I hate it when I do this."
"Really?"
"You have no idea how much." He scanned the following room, MP5 still at ready.
Inside was a seemingly deserted oval room, slightly taller than them and as long as the previous one, but with a large pit dominating the middle. Gordon glanced down, and saw a corridor running between several machines, all lifeless, lining the rest of the circular room below. Two egresses at both of its sides.
Gina went for the only other opening in the upper room, and Gordon followed as they descended a cramped flight of stairs and found themselves in the same corridor he saw from above. They proceeded to the other end, and descended another flight of stairs, this one for some reason much larger - Gordon justified that when he saw what seemed a small cargo forklift going from the upper room to down here - and proceeded down the corridor and found themselves but a few meters in front of the generator.
It was quite large, towering the still not very tall room, featureless except for the two frames on the sides. Gordon went for the right one and Gina went left, and they were looking in identical empty rooms, over ten meters tall and five wide , with a fan covering most of the floor.
"Ventilation pits. Mined halfway through... Strange. Well, what are we waiting for, Gordon? There should be some sort of 'on' switch here..."
Then, the room trembled as they realized they had to be very close to their black chaser...
*
The descent back to the temporary base was short, little more than a few minutes since it comprised a ride on a cargo elevator, but still treacherous as some mines weren't easily spottable from this side. So, they had to equip a scout with a detector and clear the corridors as quickly as possible. The elevator was then too small for all of them, and they had to split into three groups.
Still, the squad of twentyfive plus the General had now entered the hot zone, spreading to a fan and clearing the leftmost of two parallel rooms, adjoined by a corridor which had the entrance to the inmost and larger room, also visible from two terraces accessible from the third exit of each room - the second being for the first the surface access, the other a mined elevator heading down, smoke coming up from it.
*No need to check closely to see that elevator blew. They may have bought it down there... Get the ropes anyway, I want to check it.*
Then, heavy footsteps thundered the room, heading away.
*What the hell was that?*
Some sort of inhuman, metallic growl almost scared part of the team, although it seemed clear that - at least in human terms - the growl wasn't of anger or frustration... The squad split, heading to all three accesses to the internal room, the General going for the nearest.
Then metal smashing metal as the being went down one of the two ventilation pits, followed by a loud explosion as its descent triggered the wall mines and causing severe structural damage along with a short quake.
There was silence for a long second, then a second growl - again seemingly not of anger - answered the unasked question about its survival, followed by more smashings of concrete as the monster opened his way forward.
The General dashed for the elevator.
*Get the explosive, the best demo expert and the ropes. We'll blow the sucker to kingdom come!*
*S...Sir...*
A weak voice over the radio didn't stop the assigned personnel from completing their tasks, but the General's hopes went up: had somebody survived? He walked and glanced around.
*I'm here. Where...*
She was there, below the radio table, badly injured but still alive. At least a broken leg, possibly even more internal damage, but unless hemorrhages she was going to make it.
*Here... Sir...*
She had obviously difficulties breathing.
*DOCTOR OVER HERE! OK, Jones, don't press yourself. We'll nail the bastards who did this.*
*Sir... I've heard them... The two guys... They are... human. They went into some... sort... of bickering... About him... He was... *cough* too bloodthirsty for her... or something... His name... Freeman... Gordon Freeman... Don't know about hers... I heard them... chatter... after the... elevator... blew... *cough* They're still down... there!*
While the soldier rambled, the doctor from the first squad approached and swiftly kneeled, opening his medical sack in a single motion.
*Just relax.*
He gave her a shot, probably of tranquilizers and painkillers. Another one came, and helped the doctor put her on a portable medical bed, and moved to get her back to the helicopter where they would try to get her back in shape.
Meanwhile, the ropes were deployed and the entire team quickly rappelled down to the remnants of the elevator and a catwalk where they immediately spotted a blue and an orange anthropomorphic things running towards them.
*
"Oh, great! Now what?"
Turning on the power was easy, the flick of a couple of switches on the secondary generator - the main one was for some reason not responding. But the instant power came up, their mysterious chaser went down to their position. They fled, the mean killing machine not so hot on their tails due to its massive bulk and to the structural limits, but as they came to the elevator chamber the problem of finding a way up was not simply on a time limit as they had expected, but solved: they couldn't go that way as a squad of twenty or so soldiers had immediately began firing at them.
They were too many to fight, so they turned back, only to see that the black thing wasn't going to idle every small door frame, and that it was more or less on their position - had Gordon had time to think about it, the behavior of their chaser would have resulted as nothing less than illogical.
"We won't like it, Gordon... But between the two evils, I'd choose the dumber!"
"OK, and what then?"
The metallic monster was little more than six meters away.
"...I've got another idea."
With that, she dashed for the black thing as he followed.