Half-Life: Collision

by DirtyBlue929

Unforeseen Consequences

“Man, this shit is something out of a sci-fi movie...”

Gordon and Officer Lewis walked down the lab hallway, an emergency flare in his hand, ready to be lit.  Lewis was a tall man, african-american, with a bald head and a lean figure.  He clutched his pistol warily, scanning the hallway for threats.  He had offered to escort Gordon to the front desk, hoping they would be able to call for help from there.

They had seen some messed up things along the way though.  Humanoid figures with crab creatures on their heads, whose wails chilled Lewis to the bone.  Worse though was their appearance- to his horror, they seemed to be wearing lab uniforms.

Lewis hesitated to use the word ‘zombie’, but it was what described the creatures best.  The way they lurched forward with their arms outstretched, wailing as they swung their claw-like appendages at anything the moved- there was no other way to describe it.  Those crab-things were turning people into zombies, people they knew.  Lewis wouldn’t admit it, but before Gordon had showed up, he had lost his lunch twice while avoiding them.

Gordon paused, turning to face the passage to the locker and break rooms. Soon after, a loud cry could be heard from inside, along with a loud clanging.

“Holy hell,” Lewis gasped, “someone’s still alive in there!”

“Let’s go,” Gordon stated, lighting his flare and running for the lockers, his companion close behind him.

The locker room was a mess.  Lockers were left open or ripped off their hinges, and bloodstains littered the floor.  Two zombies could be seen- one was slumped against a bench, seemingly dead, while the other feasted on the corpse of a scientist.

Lewis stared at the corpse, shocked.

“Oh God, Tanner...”

If he hadn’t already vomited up everything he had eaten in the past two days, Lewis would have probably spilled his guts all over Gordon’s suit then and there.  Instead, he simply averted his eyes, holding his head in his free hand while keeping his gun trained on the zombie.  After a moment, he turned around, gripped his pistol tightly, and fired four shots into the zombie’s head... thing.

“Chow time’s over, you bastard...” he breathed, still disturbed by what he had seen.

He turned to Gordon, who still held his flare defensively.

“Alright, Doc, grab what need, but don’t dawdle,” he said turning to watch the entrance, “I don’t wanna stay here any longer than I have to...”

Gordon nodded, heading for the charging stations near the HEV storage area.

Lewis sighed, trying to clear his head.  He had never liked Doctor Tanner much- he was way too cheery, and had this weird habit of staring at Lewis’s ass when he thought nobody was looking.  But seeing him like this...  He hadn’t been ripped up too badly, thank god, but Lewis doubted he’d be getting an open-casket.

As Lewis gathered his thoughts, Gordon went to check his locker.  Nothing of note- his jacket was still hanging from its hook, his Laidlaw novels were still on the top shelf, and his diploma- while face down with its frame cracked- was still intact.  His thermos had spilled, but that was the least of his worries.

He shut his locker, satisfied.  He wasn’t about to take any of his things with him- not while these monsters were running wild.  They’d be safer in his locker, anyway.

Suddenly, Gordon heard a soft shuffling from the bathroom stalls.  Cautiously, he moved towards the stalls, ready to jump back should something dangerous leap out.

“Someone in there?” he asked quickly.

It was silent for a second, before the shuffling occurred again- this time, accompanied by a voice.

“H- Hello?  Who... who are you? What are you?”

‘What am I?’  Gordon was puzzled.  It sounded like a science team member- likely scared out of his wits.

“Hey, what’s going on over there?” Lewis called from the entrance, growing curious.

Slowly, the stall door opened as Lewis approached, and Gordon moved around to get a better view of the occupant.

Gordon’s eyes went wide and he stepped back in surprise.  The stall’s occupant was science team, alright- but it wasn’t human.

It wore the typical lab coat and red tie of the team, but that was where the similarities ended.  It looked to be some sort of horse, absurd as it was, with a green coat and yellow mane, and a short horn on its forehead.  Realization struck Gordon as he recognized the creature- it was the same species he had seen in the test chamber; the one that had been wearing a hazard suit.

He only had a few moments to consider this.  A guttural wail could be heard behind him, along with a yelp of surprise from Lewis.  The horse-creature cried out similarly, slamming the door shut... somehow.

Gunshots rang out as Lewis opened fire, missing most of his shots as he scrambled away from the zombie, which had apparently only been playing dead.  Thinking quickly, Gordon ran up behind the creature, holding his flare up to its skin.  The tattered remains of the zombie’s lab coat quickly caught fire, spreading across the creature with surprising speed.  He jumped to avoid the flames, dodging a swing from the zombie’s claws in the process, and scrambled away.

Gordon could hear the clatter of a magazine hitting the floor as Lewis reloaded, firing two shots into the withering torso of the zombie, which collapsed with a final gasping moan.

Breathing heavily, the two paused to breathe.

“Now...” Lewis gasped, “Now like I was saying, who’s in there?”

“SHUT UP!” cried the voice from the stall, terror in its voice, “Just shut up, you- you FREAK OF NATURE!”

“Freak of- what?” Lewis replied, exasperated, “Look, buddy, I’m with security; I’m tryin’ to help you!”

“I don’t care what uniform you’re wearing!” spat the voice, “You are NOT with the security team, you- you CAN’T be!”

“What are you... Look, pal, I know things are crazy right now, but I-”

“I don’t CARE!” yelped the frightened voice, “I am NOT leaving with you, and that is FINAL!”

Lewis groaned, rubbing his head.

“Okay, you wanna be that way, fine.  If you change your mind- and you better, if you wanna make it out of this mess- I’ll be at the front desk trying to call for help, alright?”

The stall’s occupant offered no response, save for a whimper of fear.  Lewis turned around, moving for the locker room’s entrance, and Gordon followed suit.

Lewis turned to Gordon, noticing the bespectacled scientist eyeing the occupied stall.

“He’ll come around,” Lewis assured him, “and if he doesn’t show at the front desk, I’ll come back for him.  I ain’t leaving anyone behind.”

Gordon nodded, understanding Lewis’s sentiment- though he doubted the security guard was fully aware of the situation.  That horse-creature was clearly intelligent, and it seemed afraid.  It could have been an innocent victim, a civilian from wherever the crab-creatures were coming from.

That didn’t explain how it spoke english, though.  Or why it was wearing a science uniform.

Phase Ray was tired.

She walked forwards with Atom Smash, the guard-alien’s pistol in her lab coat pocket (Smash had insisted that she take it) and the pipe she had taken downstairs levitating in front of her.  She had killed two crabs that had come dangerously close to her face with that pipe, and now clung to it like a foal and its blanket.  She had even killed one of those... crab-ponies with it.

Crab-ponies.  Former co-workers, acquaintances, friends, that had been taken by the crabs.  Where their head should have been was one of the crabs, and their bodies had been hideously mutated.  A large mouth-like cavity cut from their neck down the their ribcage, and where their forehooves had been, claws had burst from their skin.  Smash simply called them zombies, but Phase despised the term.  It belittled them, reduced them to a stock horror movie monster.  Those things had been ponies once, before those horrid little monsters had taken them.  They deserved better than to be mocked like that.

She didn’t say this aloud, of course.  Now wasn’t the time to start an argument with Smash.  They had to keep their attention firmly on survival.

The two friends had reached the front desk, only to find more bodies and crab-ponies.  A few bullets and a rather unorthodox use of emergency flares had taken care of the former employees.  As they had quickly come to expect, the phone lines were down, and the tram platform had collapsed.  So, the two smashed in a ventilation duct and headed in the next best direction- Materials Storage.  There was an elevator to the Sector C offices through there, and they hoped they could find help there- or, if worse came to worst, an escape route.

They clambered out of the air duct to find themselves on the other side of the labs, just outside of Materials Storage.  The duo advanced, weapons at the ready, to the Storage airlock.

“Think things’re any better up there?” Smash asked, breaking the silence that had fallen upon the pair.

“I don’t know,” Phase replied, exasperated, “I just don’t know.”

Smash slowed his pace, giving Phase a concerned look.

“Phase, we gotta make it outta this mess.  Don’t matter what happens, we have to get help.  If we don’t find any in the offices, then we’ll keep goin’ up.”

His gaze drifted, as if he were unsure of his own words.

“We can’t give up, Phase.  Folks’re countin’ on us.”

Phase nodded solemnly, understanding his meaning.  She just wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince- her, or himself.

They rounded the corner to the airlock, and were greeted by a dead unicorn security guard.  There was a crab-pony slumped on the ground nearby, the crab itself having been dislodged slightly from its host.  Phase tried not to look at where the pony’s head should have been- the brief glance she had gotten of its mangled cranium made her sick enough already.

Smash let out a muttered curse, briefly checking the guard for any sign of life. Nothing.

He bowed his head, muttering a quick prayer before reaching his head down to undo the guard’s holster.  He pulled it off, carefully removing the magazines before placing it back on the ground.  Wordlessly, he offered the bullets to Phase, who reluctantly placed them in her lab coat’s pocket.

Noticing the airlock’s retinal scanner was broken, Phase stepped toward the door, raising her pipe and bashing in a glass panel, clearing the way ahead.

Lewis sighed in relief as he and Gordon dispatched the last of the zombies in the lobby, stepping behind the front desk.

“Okay, I’m gonna try to call for help and see if I can get anyone else to safety.  You keep heading for the surface- there’s gotta be someone up there who can fix this.”

Gordon nodded in agreement, tossing his burned-out flare to the floor.

“Good luck,” he offered, ducking down to a nearby air duct.

Pulling the grate loose, Gordon crawled through the vent, emerging inside the lab’s local network room.  It was chaos inside- consoles had exploded and burst into flames, and there was a large hole in the wall that led to the Materials Storage airlock.  He could see zombies through the plexiglass wall of the side room he had emerged in.  One had been a scientist, which now wandered in circles and moaned, and the other a security guard that seemed intent on banging its head against the plexiglass until he willed it out of existence.

Gordon turned to the door of his side room, which sparked and sputtered slightly.  It was trying to open for the nearby zombie, unable to differentiate living staff members from dead ones, but was held in place by a blunt red object- a crowbar, on closer inspection.

Gordon looked back at the vent he had come out of, which was now just out of his reach.  Only one way forward.

Moving to the door, he grabbed the crowbar with both hands, wrenching it free from the door.  He quickly backed up, hoping to avoid the zombies.  He was already formulating a plan in his head- the advanced hazard course, which science personnel rarely bothered with, had included a section on self-defense in addition to the usual obstacle course- a section that included improvised weaponry.

Gordon stepped back raising the crowbar into a striking position as the zombies lurched forward...

… only for a nearby piece of equipment to explode, lighting them on fire and crushing one underneath the debris.  Within seconds, both zombies went still, smouldering on the ground.

Gordon stared at the bodies for a moment, surprised by his own luck, before heading through the hole in the wall to Materials Storage.  The whole way, he clutched his newfound weapon defensively.

Phase Ray and Atom Smash stood at a crossroads.

On their left was a burning hallway that would lead them further into Materials Storage, while directly in front of them was an elevator shaft to the offices, the car hanging precariously about halfway down from the shaft door.  The elevator was powered, if the bright lights inside were any indication, but one of the two cables holding it aloft had been knocked loose, and was creaking slightly.

If they climbed into the car as it was, they ran a significant chance of plummeting to their deaths- but on the other hoof, the alternative path was on fire.

Phase and Smash exchanged glances.  Their choice was obvious.

The loose cable lit up with an orange aura, reattaching itself into its proper position.

Phase smiled, in spite of the slight strain the task put on her, as the elevator car gave a positive-sounding beep and rose back into its proper position in the shaft.

“Good thing Ah got you with me,” Smash chuckled, “Imagine havin’ ta go all the way through Storage just to get upstairs!”

Gordon scrambled out of the collapsed elevator car, thanking whichever higher power was watching over him for flooding the bottom of the shaft.

Breathing heavily, he scampered out through the open door on his floor of the shaft.  He had climbed into the broken down car in a fit of desperate stupidity, lacking any other way of progressing forward that wasn’t on fire.  Naturally, a cable had come loose, and the whole thing plummeted to the bottom floor.

Wiping his glasses dry, he looked back at the shaft in disdain.

Somewhere out there, someone must have found a working elevator to the Office Complex, whoever that lucky person was, they were almost assuredly laughing at him.

Phase once again found herself smiling.  She supposed that most ponies would consider that odd in a situation like hers, but as a famous earth pony once said, sometimes you just have to giggle at the ghosties.  Admittedly, the childish turn of phrase probably didn’t include parasitic alien crabs that turned ponies into monsters in its definition of ‘ghosties’, but the point still stood.  Being able to see the bright side in the situation was going to be essential if Phase wanted to stay sane.

The elevator hummed to life, pulling them upwards to the Sector C Office Complex.  The two friends breathed easy for a moment, counting their blessings.

Smash turned to Phase after a moment, his expression becoming more serious.

“So, Phase, ‘bout the surface...”

“What about it?”

Smash sighed, clearly having trouble figuring out what to say.

“You and Ah...  We been lucky so far,” he started, “but we don’t know how long that’ll last.”

Phase’s expression fell, her eyes showing a mix of fear and sadness.

“Smash,” she replied, “we can’t-”

“Ah know, Ah know,” he interrupted, “Ah ain’t sayin’ we shouldn’t stay positive, but...  Look, if somethin’ happens, and we get separated...  Ah want you ta keep goin’.  Ah can handle mahself, and Ah know you can, too, so...”

He paused, unsure of where to go from there.

“Look,” he continued, “whatever happens, one of us has to get to the surface.  If that means y’all gotta go on without me, Ah don’t want you to think twice about it, y’hear?”

Phase was silent, considering what she had heard.  She knew that their best bet- everypony’s- was to get to the surface and call for rescue.  But she wasn’t sure if she could leave a friend behind to do that, especially not Atom Smash.  Still, Smash was right- he could handle himself, better than most ponies she knew.  Leaving him wouldn’t be easy- or pleasant- but it wouldn’t mean the end.  He could always find another route, or if things came to it, shoot his way out of a sticky situation.

“Smash, I...” she started, “Let’s just deal with these things as they come, okay?”

Smash sighed, conceding defeat.

“Alright, Ah won’t worry ya ‘bout it,” he replied, shaking his head, “But we’re gonna hafta deal with it eventually.”

“That’s assuming we don’t find help in the offices,” Phase replied, “Which we will.”

Smash wasn’t so sure about that, but he didn’t say anything.  Phase was stressed enough as is, and he needed her to stay collected (if not calm) if they were going to survive.

The elevator dinged as it lurched to a stop, opening to reveal a surprisingly pristine Office Complex hallway, branching into two similarly clean hallways.  Smash was surprised, to say the least- maybe things were better up here.

That sentiment was crushed under the cruel hoof of fate as they stepped out.  Immediately, a loud crash was heard down the corridor to their left, the lights flickering out and being replaced by the now unnervingly familiar red glow of emergency lights.  Fire alarms rang throughout the hallway in a shrill cacophony.  Smash instinctively hunched down slightly, raising his hoof the trigger of his harness.  Phase began to raise her pipe to a swinging position, but Smash quickly instructed her to use her pistol instead.

“Close quarters now,” he explained, “Best ya keep your distance.”

Phase was in no place to argue- he was the Hazard Course expert, after all- and nervously levitated her pistol, holding it so the sights remained in the center of her vision as the announcement system chimed in with its own opinion.

“Fire detected in... Sector C Office Complex.”

‘How insightful,’ she snarked to herself, staring intently at the corner into the smoking hallway.

The seconds ticked by, and it became clear nothing was going to come screaming out of the inferno any time soon.  Cautiously, Smash began to creep towards the source of the smoke, instructing Phase to watch the second hallway.

“Hello?  Anypony alive?”

No response came.  He rounded the corner, finding the hallway blocked by burning debris.  It seemed that some sort of pipe or electrical system had blown, and taken the ceiling down with it.  Smash sighed, turning back around to regroup with Phase.

“Well, we ain’t gettin’ out through there, tha-”

A wave of intangible green energy swept through the room with a thunderous crack, causing the ceiling lights to fluctuate and the two ponies’ vision to flash and take on a green tint.

Phase opened her mouth to scream.

She and Smash disappeared with a flash.

Galloway was in a bit of a pickle.

Admittedly, that was the understatement of the century, but it was still technically correct.

The young security officer hung precariously from a dangling piece of catwalk on what used to be the Sector C tram platform.  He wasn’t sure what was going on- his radio had fallen into the pit below during the first earthquake- but he could tell help wasn’t coming any time soon.

He groaned as he once again tried to hoist himself up onto the debris he clung to.

‘Come on...’

He pulled with all his might, his hands squeezing the metal with the strength of a boa constrictor.

‘Just...’

His elbows began to bend.

‘... a bit...’

His arms burned from the strain as he hoisted his torso further up.

‘... fur-... -ther....’

With a gasp, his arms gave way to gravity, dropping him back to his original hanging position.

“Shit!”

Galloway breathed deeply, desperately attempting to stay calm in spite of his perilous situation.  He had tried calling out for the guys at the front desk a while ago, but nobody answered.  Things were not looking good.

‘Shit, where the hell is everybody?!  For f-’

Before he could finish his thought, a wave of green... something flashed through the cavern, shaking the already crumbling catwalk more than Galloway was comfortable with.  For a moment, he was blinded by a flash of green.  Then everything around him looked green.  Then his vision started fading into green.

In his panic, Galloway slipped off of the catwalk, falling into the abyss below.  He supposed he should have been making prayers, or seeing his life flash before his eyes, or just screaming every profanity he had locked away in his dirty little mind.

Instead, he found himself wondering why his death had to be green, of all colors.

He disappeared in a flash.  Of green, naturally.

Suddenly, Phase and Smash were back in the hallway.

Phase was panicking, but she couldn’t move any more than squirming in place.

“SMASH!” she yelled, struggling to be heard over the electric cackle of the energy field, “WHAT’S HAPPENING?!”

Smash was similarly trapped in place across from her, struggling to move.

“SOME KINDA HARMONIC REFLUX!” he yelled, clearly just as surprised as Phase, “BUT AH’VE NEVER SEEN ONE ON THIS SCALE!”

Another flash encompassed Phase’s vision, but she hadn’t moved yet.  She could see the energy intensifying around Smash, growing brighter and brighter.

“PHASE- PHASE, REMEMBER WHAT AH TOLD YA!” he yelled, looking her dead in the eyes, “GET TO THE SURFACE!  NO MATTER WHAT!”

“SMASH, NO!”

Another flash.  This time, Smash had fully disappeared, leaving the bright field of energy behind.  Phase couldn’t even bring herself to scream.

Her closest friend on the science team, gone- just like that.  In a harmonic reflux, he could wind up anywhere.  Literally anywhere.  As in, every possible place in the universe and then some.  Phase was no astrophysicist, but she knew the number of places in the universe that were safe- let alone survivable- was soul-crushingly insignificant.

Smash was dead.  He had to be.

Atom Smash yelped in shock as he found himself in another Office Complex hallway, a pair of panicked screams coming from behind him.  Desperately looking around for Phase, he found himself staring at something else entirely.

Two aliens stood in the hallway, similarly trapped by the force of the harmonic reflux.  They were similar to the one that he and Phase had seen outside the test chamber elevator- though these were wearing clothing similar to the business casual uniform of scientists and office workers, as opposed to a security uniform.

“NO, NO!  STAY BACK!”

“HELP!  OH GOD, SOMEONE HELP US!”

The two aliens screamed in fear, both at the sudden reflux and the appearance of Atom Smash, trying to scramble away in spite of the force holding them still.

Suddenly, the force that restrained Smash and the aliens lifted, and the two parties tumbled over from the sudden shift in gravity and balance.

Smash stood up and backed away slightly, his hoof rising to the trigger of his harness.  He glanced the two aliens over- then noticed a new shape had appeared behind them, with tentacles and an elongated, horizontal body.  The two bipeds whipped around, stumbling backwards in terror, unsure which creature they should take their chances with.

“NO!  I DON’T WANT TO DIE!”

“WE’RE TRAPPED!”

Suddenly, the aliens’ screams clicked something in Smash’s head.  His instincts took over, and he barreled forward, coming to a stop between the bipeds and the tentacle beast.

“GET YOUR DAMN HEADS DOWN!” he hollered, his slamming the trigger of his harness as he maneuvered himself to aim at the beast.  The bipeds obeyed, shocked into a state of terrified obedience, dropping to the floor and cowering.

Smash scowled, continuing to fire into the beast, a reptile of some sort. Alien or not, those bipeds were intelligent- and they were terrified.  Smash wasn’t about to abandon them, not when they were in danger like this.

Besides, if they could talk, maybe they could give him some answers.

Galloway fell, and the green grew brighter.

He wondered if he should have any last words- not that anyone would hear them.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”

Yeah, that’d work.

The green flashed, encompassing his vision until it went completely black.

Phase felt the force around her fade, gravity taking hold of her once more.  She offered no resistance to the downward force, her hind legs collapsing underneath her as tears welled up in her eyes.

“Smash...”

He had told her this might happen.  That they might be separated.  But she didn’t think it would be so sudden.  So final...

Just as she was about to vomit for the third time that day, another green flash lit up the hallway.  An orb of energy just like the one that had surrounded Smash grew across from Phase Ray, crackling with electricity.

“-AAAAAHHHH!”

A scream filled the room as the flash intensified, before suddenly disappearing.  Where the orb had been, a lanky blue-and black body appeared, falling flat on the floor with a soft, yet painful-sounding thump.

Phase stared in surprise, recognizing the new arrival as another one of the primate aliens she had seen outside the elevator in the labs.  It, like the one before it, wore a security uniform, and its skin was a similar shade to the previous one’s, with a slight hint of brown.  She cautiously stepped forwards, levitating her pistol defensively as the guard-thing moaned, turning its head towards her.  As she grew closer, she could hear it croak out a few words.

“I... h- hate... green...”

With that somewhat unusual statement, the creature went limp, its chest movements being the only indication it was still alive...