WARNING: This story contains SPOILERS for events within and endings of
the computer games _Half-Life_ and _Half-Life: Opposing Force_.  If
you have not completed these games, the author recommends doing so
before you read this, both because they're just such awesome games and
because the story will make more sense that way.

This story also contains mild expletives.  If you're mature enough to
play a game where blood splatters on the walls behind people you
shoot, you shouldn't have any problem with it, but I thought it only
best to warn in advance.

This story is also available in ASCII & Palm Doc format at
<URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~robotech/wholelife/>


                              WHOLE-LIFE

                A Story of Half-Life & Opposing Force

                      By Christopher E. Meadows


          * Chapter One: Do Two Half-Lives Make One Whole? *

    Corporal Adrian Shephard lay on the couch, nursing his fifth
straight Scotch of the day and bored out of his skull.  It wasn't a
particularly comfortable couch--like most things government-issue, it
had been created by the lowest bidder, with more attention to
functionality than comfort.  Its manufacturer had probably never
guessed that it would be used in a place like this.
    Adrian did not know exactly where he was; he only knew that it was
not on Earth.  He'd heard the name Xen bandied about; he preferred to
call it Purgatory.  It was a fairly nice prison, as prisons
went...perhaps even cushy, if government-issue could qualify as cushy.
But a prison was still a prison.
    He'd explored the place thoroughly...or at least that part of it
that he could get to.  It was a suite of rooms...it reminded him of a
small barracks crossed with an apartment.  There was a main living
area, with a couch, bookshelves, TV set, and entertainment system.
For whatever reason, the TV only seemed to get old episodes of
"Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits"...Shephard had just turned it
off in the middle of the Twilight Zone episode about the man who was
sentenced to solitary confinement on an asteroid.  Too much like real
life right now.  No matter what channel he tuned to, it was always
more of the same...how that bald-headed scientist who'd come through
the other day had managed to get the Playboy Channel to come up, he'd
never know.
    Off of this room were a few others: a small kitchen, kept stocked
with food and, thankfully, booze through some sort of automated
dumbwaiter system in the back of the walk-in fridge.  Shephard had
considered trying to get out through it, but its tamperproofing was
beyond his ability to crack.  A mini-barracks area, with bunk bedding
for four.  A mini-gym, with exercise implements he could use to stay
toned (but, he noticed, nothing he could unscrew or yank off to make a
handy blunt weapon).  A bathroom, with sink, shower, and toilet, and a
medicine cabinet that opened up to reveal an automated first-aid
station.  A small walk-in closet, with insignialess but serviceable
desert camo uniforms of the sort that had been worn by his unit.
    Aside from the doors he could enter, there was one door where he
could not go.  A solid steel door, with no windows.  This, he
surmised, led to the rest of the facility...a research base for, he
also surmised, the surviving members of the Black Mesa research staff.
It was apparently used as a sort of emergency entrance; occasionally a
greenish-orange sphere of light would appear in the corner of the
living room and disgorge a labcoated scientist, who would mutter
whiterabbitishly about things going all wrong, and would go and bang
on the door until a couple of soldiers showed up to let him through
(and cover Adrian with submachine guns until the door was safely shut
again).  No one ever came to the door for Adrian, though, no matter
how hard he banged.
    The living room had a panoramic picture window that curved all
along two sides of it.  The view was anything but picturesque, though,
and Adrian would have given a month's pay for some sort of curtains he
could put up to block it out.  The view...looked like something
H.R. Giger might have come up with if he'd had a particularly potent
batch of hallucinogens that day.  The sky was black, with faintly
luminescent green shapes etched against it.  Adrian couldn't tell if
they were some weird form of clouds or gases, distant landmarks, or
something else.  In his less lucid moments, he imagined that they
might be immense amoeba, billions of miles away.
    Nearby, and fading off to as far as the eye could see, were dozens
of floating islands of rock.  Some stayed where they were, others
circled, and some moved through in no readily apparent pattern and
were never seen again.  Sometimes they carried with them weird
vegetation, and occasionally a weird creature.  Sometimes other weird
creatures flew or floated around amid the islands, and sometimes gun
turrets somewhere above and behind his room fired to keep them from
getting too close.  As far as Shephard could tell, the building in
which he was imprisoned must have been on such an island itself, and
his room was at its very edge, or even projected beyond it.  Which
meant that breaking the window and walking around the building was
out...and it was probably shatter-proof glass anyway.  Below the
islands was...a limitless expanse of sworling greyish-green mist, with
no visible landmarks of any kind.
    This had been Adrian Shephard's world for the week that had passed
since that bizarre helicoptor ride with the creepy suited man.  The
man had told Shephard that he liked his spunk and was thus putting him
somewhere he could do no harm...nor could harm be done to him.  Which
was reassuring in a way, Shephard supposed...but also maddening.  Not
a day passed that he didn't wonder what his friends and family back
home had been told...how they were doing without him.  Not a day
passed that he didn't want out.  Not a day passed that he didn't get
blind drunk before two o'clock in the afternoon because there wasn't
anything better to do.
    No one ever talked to him (except for that one scientist, who had
been too preoccupied with attractive women to say anything useful).
There was no news of the world beyond.  Adrian Shephard knew that he
was beginning to go mad.
    Shephard tossed the empty shot glass across the room.  It
shattered against the panoramic glass window, and the fragments fell
to the floor.  By Shephard's estimation, it was the fourth-last glass
remaining in the place.  He wondered if they would send more in after
he'd broken all of them, or if he'd just end up drinking from the
bottle's mouth.  It wasn't as if it mattered, with no one else around
to see or share it with...
    The buzzing noise that heralded the opening of the greenish-orange
portal intruded into Shephard's thoughts.  He looked up blearily,
expecting another scientist...and his eyes widened and his jaw slowly
dropped.  The weary-looking man who was stumbling out of the glow
wasn't wearing the orange environment suit he'd had on last time
Shephard had seen him, but there was no mistaking that short brown
hair, that neatly-trimmed vandyke, those dorky horn-rimmed glasses...
    Adrian Shephard came up off the couch like a shot, fist whistling
through the air in a wicked right hook.  "Gordon Freeman, you SON OF A
BITCH!"

    Gordon Freeman, late of the ultra-classified Black Mesa Research
Facility, was exhausted.  First, he had been through seventy-two hours
of sheer hell on (and off of) earth.  Then, he had been offered a job
by a mysterious suited man who exuded a dark governmental aura the way
most normal people exuded sweat...but not content simply to _hire_
him, the man instead left him to find his own way out of Black Mesa as
part of his "job evaluation".  One satellite uplink later, a dark
helicoptor had arrived to ferry him and the other survivors to safety,
only minutes before the entire research facility exploded in a ball of
nuclear fire.
    The days that had followed had been somewhat hazy.  He seemed to
recall something about a South American drug lab, but somewhere along
the line he'd simply stopped thinking about it and just _functioned_.
Now, a series of harrowing interrogations and debriefings later, the
Powers That Be had finally decided to stick him somewhere out of the
way to rest up a bit...
    ...and here some military joker was trying his damnedest to punch
his lights out as soon as he popped into the place.  _Story of my
life_, Freeman thought darkly, dodging the fist by more luck than
skill.
    Adrian swung at him again, yelling, "You bastard!  If it
weren't for you I wouldn't even _be_ here!"  Freeman dodged again, but
this time by a narrower margin.  He could see the rage in the
soldier's eyes, could smell the booze on his breath.  It was only that
booze that was keeping him safe, Freeman realized.  The grunt had
military combat training and was better-rested.
    "I don't suppose we can talk about this like two _rational_ human
beings?" Gordon asked, taking a punch on his forearm and ducking back
to avoid another.  An inarticulate howl of rage was the only answer as
Adrian charged.  "Pity," Freeman said, ducking to one side and hooking
one of his adversary's legs with his own.  Adrian Shephard went
sprawling.
    Shephard got back to his feet, dukes up, a bit of the rage knocked
out of him.  "You...goddamn terrorist.  You're the whole reason I'm
here.  If you hadn't set off that bomb in Black Mesa..."
    "What bomb?" Freeman snorted.  "There was never any bomb.  Apart
from the one your friends planted that blew the place up at the end,
at least."
    "They were damn well no friends of mine," Shephard growled.  "They
shot hell out of my friends...as did _you_."
    "What did you _expect_ me to do?" Freeman asked.  "Step out and
wave cheerfully, say, 'Here I am!  I'm tired of living, would you
please kill me now?'  They were _executing scientists_, and were
trying to do the same for me!  The one time I was captured, I was left
in a trash compactor, which was then switched to 'on.'  That does not
seem to indicate that surrender would have been a feasible option."
    Shephard stood there, panting.  "I don't know anything about
executing scientists.  Interrogating, yes...to find out where you
were.  You were...we were told you were a terrorist."
    Freeman shook his head.  "Bullshit.  I was a research assistant.
All I did was suit up and shove a material sample of undetermined
origin into a particle beam at the direction of another scientist.
And I imagine he took _his_ directions from an ominious-looking fellow
in a dark suit, whom I kept seeing around every corner while I was
trying to get the hell _out_ of there."
    Adrian paused as this began to sink in.  "The G-man...you saw him
too?"
    "Saw him?  Hell, he _hired_ me afterward."  Gordon snorted.  "Or
perhaps 'conscripted' is more appropriate, as at no point did he ever
attempt to provide the illustion that I had a choice in the matter."
    Adrian paused.  "So what you're saying is...you're every bit as
much a prisoner as I am."
    "Try 'slave.'  It has a more appropriate connotation."  Gordon
waited, fists still up.  
    Adrian slowly lowered his own.  "You know what, Gordon Freeman?"
    Gordon followed suit.  "What's that?"
    "You talk too much.  Come on over here and have a drink with me."
    Gordon slowly grinned.  "You know, I don't think I mind if I do."

    A few minutes later, two of the three remaining shot glasses in
the suite were filled with amber liquid, and the two occupants were
facing each other across the small table in the living room.  Gordon
raised his glass.  "To Barney."
    "Barney?" Shephard asked.
    "Black Mesa security guard.  He and his pals were trapped there
too when the shit went down.  I ran into him a few times on the way
out; he always promised to buy me a beer if we both made it.  I wonder
if he did..."
    Shephard nodded.  "To Barney, and to my compadres too.  I hope
some of 'em made it out before the end."
    They drank, and sat in silence for a while.  "And so we find
ourselves here," Gordon Freeman finally said.  "Tell me, mister..."
    "Shephard.  Corporal Adrian Shephard, Marine Recon."
    Freeman nodded.  "Tell me, Corporal Shephard...what's your story?
How did you come to be here?"
    Shephard shrugged.  "Not much to tell, really.  Went in after you,
with all my squaddies.  The shit started hitting the fan...our
choppers were getting knocked out of the sky by these big _things_
before we ever reached the ground.  Once we _did_ make it...aliens all
over the place.  We regrouped, pulled out...I ended up left behind,
thanks to that damn suited man, and some of the other squaddies did,
too.  We tried to find another escape route, and then these damn Black
Ops troopers started crawling out of the woodwork, trying to shut us
down.  In the end, I found myself in that G-man's chopper, flying
through some really weirdass places and ending up here."
    "That's about how my story goes as well," Freeman reflected.  "I
was set up from start to finish.  The G-man manipulated me into
destroying...an alien force in this world.  He called it a border
world.  With that out of the way..."  He gestured in the direction of
the interior of the base.  "...I suppose they just moved in and took
over."
    Adrian slammed his glass down.  "Dammit.  I wish there was some
way out of here."
    Gordon shrugged.  "For me, there is.  They seem to trust me enough
to run missions for them."
    "Why you?  Why not me?  Hell, you're not even combat-trained."
    Gordon rubbed his beard.  "Mmm...perhaps that's why.  You have a
harder edge...are tougher to control.  Theoretically speaking, at
least."
    "So it's best they keep me locked up tight."  Shephard frowned.
"Hmm...could be, I guess.  But I'd give anything to be out of here."
    Gordon Freeman looked thoughtful.  "Mmm...and I would not mind
being free of my...obligations as well.  The problem is, it will
probably never happen.  We know too much."
    Adrian nodded.  "And they sure wouldn't take a promise not to talk
at face value.  We may be stuck."
    "Only if we believe we are, Corporal...only if we believe it."
Freeman slowly began to smile.  "We're two reasonably intelligent
human beings.  I see no reason why we should be trapped in this
situation forever."
    Adrian slowly poured himself another drink.  "So what you're
saying is, with your scientific mind..."
    "...and your military one..." Freeman added.
    "...we can figure something out?"
    Freeman nodded.  "Count on it.  They'll call me out of here sooner
or later for another mission...I'll see if I can manage to bring
back...a souvenir or two?"
    "Do that.  I'll get back into shape, and be ready to move at a
moment's notice."
    Gordon slowly grinned.  "You know, Shephard, I think this is the
beginning of a beautiful friendship."
    Adrian gulped the Scotch.  "Don't push it, Freeman.  Just get us
both out of here and we'll see what's what."


TO BE CONTINUED...?


AUTHOR'S NOTES:

    Well, the story inherent in Half-Life and Opposing Force just sort
of got me to thinking.  There was a whole lot left unresolved, and I
just _itched_ for an actual meeting between the two, rather than a
"hi, bye, wait-he-didn't-even-notice-me" sort of thing.  Now, some
people would create a single-player mod/map to continue the
story...but I don't have that kind of skill.  So, instead, I decided
to show that good Half-Life fanfic _is_ possible (the only HL 'fic
I've read so far, which I won't mention by name here to spare the ego
of its author, utterly stank on ice), and sat down and banged out 250
lines in an hour or two.
    Whether it continues depends on how much time I have and how much
inclination I have.  If I only get a couple of lukewarm responses to
the story, well, I won't be inclined to write much more.  If I get a
dozen or so rave reviews, well, you may see another chapter in a week
or two. :)
    If I _do_ continue writing it, my plan is to write in such a way
that someone of sufficient skill _could_ make a map/mod based on it,
and thus the story could serve as a sort of hint-guide-cum-
walkthrough.  Wouldn't it be a neat SvenCoopish sort of game for one
person to play Gordon Freeman, the other to play Adrian Shephard--or,
alternately, a singleplayer game where you play Freeman one level,
Shephard the next?  Well, we'll see what happens.  (If you'd like to
mod the story, wait for a couple more chapters to come out to make
sure there will be a story to mod, then contact me and we'll see. :)


Whole-life is COPYRIGHT 1999 by Christopher E. Meadows.  Permission is
granted for electronic dissemination (email, USENET, links to its
homepage).  The rights to distribute in print, to mirror the files on
another website, and/or to distribute on CD-ROM are reserved to the
author, but ask him and he'll probably let you.