Half-Life 2: Premature Insertion Pg. 1

------------------------------------------------ Chapter 1: Security Measures --------------------------------------------

It was  about midnight in the alleyways of City 17's south apartment blocks, formerly boasting powerful lanterns of Combine origin before the Resistance destroyed them to allow more stealthed travel. After months of light vs. blight the civil protection officers simply stopped replacing them. One day, a group of three patrolling officers noticed something odd.

At the first glance it looked like a female adolescent was being chased by an officer of a neighboring route, his stun baton drawn. Out of sheer disbelief coherent to the presence of the embryonic suppression field, the group immediately set out after the pair and met up with the officer at an adjacent building. The group brandished their weapons and joined the chase upon noticing she was holding rations that were supposed to reach their commanding officers. About two minutes later all but one of the girl's pursuers had dissapeared in the alleys, at least that is what she had thought upon reaching the back of an old tattered warehouse in front of a boarded wooden fence. There were two paths on either side, the right one containing a roof access ladder attached to a fire escape from an adjacent brick building. She made a run for the ladder only to be blocked by a CP intercepting her from the left path, his stun baton radiating with white electricical currents as it subtly vibrated in his hand. He brought his arm back in preparation for a powerful and obviously personal swing. It was only moments later that the tip of his baton made a 20mph decent to her face, but to the other officer's surpise the stun baton changed it's course and met with his own.

Upon closer inspection the officer realized the girl had pushed the baton back with a narrow weapon. The hit officer's stiff corpse toppled to the floor like a statue released from its mount. His colleage took that as a signal to begin his attack, running toward her from behind. When he reached a proper attack distance, however, he noticed that the weapon she was holding beared striking resembelance to a crowbar with a straightened bottom edge. This was instantly confirmed when she had swung around and delivered a crippling blow to his head. Recoiling from the pain, he had no time to react to the second, more concentrated blow. He met with the floor almost immediately after.

Securing the crowbar to her person via a small ring on the back of her belt, she looked over him as blood began to seep through his face mask and slowly accumulate on the floor around his lifeless body. Then she began to wonder what had happened to the other patrols chasing her. The answer began to surface when a zombie shambled out of the right path. With a light chuckle, she attached the rations shipment to a backpack-like strap on her shoulder and walked toward apartment alleys. The zombie tried to attack her, but his slow hobble simply could not match her normal walking speed. A frenzied, inhuman scream could be heard from behind the fence, followed by a small group of zombies emerging from the alley and a resonant banging noise coming from the fence. At first, the girl readied her crowbar and was eager to fight them, but as more and more zombies revealed themselves she began to back away. Once the banging noise from the fence was accomponied by the crackling sound of the wood weakening, she lost her nerve and made her way towards the right end of the warehouse. The first zombie, however, was still there and blocking her path, raising its arms to slash at her. In a great feat of speed she grasped her left hand around the back of the zombie, stabbed each of its shoulders with the straight edge of the crowbar, and killed the controlling headcrab with a two-hand overhead swing.

With the zombies getting closer, she climbed up the ladder next to the fire escape to the top of the building next to the warehouse. She looked down at the zombies as they punched and slashed the ladder as if they had never seen one before, and couldnt help but laugh. Then she noticed another group of civil protection officers were attempting to surround the building with the addition of manhacks flying towards her position. She tried to escape through a ladder on the other side of the building, but there were two officers armed with pistols waiting for her there. But when the girl thought she was out of ideas, she heard the sound of wood breaking come from the fence behind the warehouse. The fence finally gave in and massive hordes of zombies, fast zombies, and poison zombies immediately filled the area around the building. As all the civil protection and manhacks in the area were distracted by this cataclysm and vice-versa, the girl quickly climbed down the ladder and made her escape without either side noticing.