Freeman's Mind: The Novelization

by Rezalon

based on the critically-acclaimed machinima by Ross W. Scott

Chapter 1: Inbound

The date was May 16, 2003. It was a typical day at the Black Mesa Research Facility. Tests were being performed, new scientific theories were being discovered by the hour, eye-glasses were being lost in countless labs.

Gordon Freeman, PhD., was running late, again, for work. He forgot to set his alarm, slept in, and was about to miss the most important experiment of his career. He downed two shots of vodka before he left his dorm room, and began sprinting down the halls of the maze-like facility.

He had just reached the station of the Black Mesa Transit System, a series of railways of trams which served as living-on-site employees' only form of long-distance transport. The second-to-last tram had just left the station, and Freeman was waiting on the last one to arrive.

'For the love of all things holy, hurry up!', Freeman screeched, to the confusion of his onlooking colleagues.

The last tram finally came into site, and stopped at the station platform.

Freeman threw himself into the tram as soon as the automated door slid open.

'Come on, come on!', he said aloud to himself as he waited for the door to slide back shut, tapping his foot impatiently. The door finally closed, and the tram started to move.

'Ah, jeez, I'm runnin' late!', Freeman whined, now worried that he might be in serious trouble.

'Good morning-', a soft, female voice said above Freeman.

'Who said that?!', he yelled, startled.

'-and welcome to the Black Mesa Transit System', the voice continued.

'Oh, it's the intercom', Freeman sighed in relief.

The tram was continuing along the rail as Freeman spotted his best friend, Barney Calhoun, a security guard, standing on a nearby platform, banging on a large metal door. He looked just as sweaty and as anxious as Freeman felt.

'Ah, I'm not the only one who's late...', Freeman chuckled to himself. He stuck his head out of the tram's window and yelled 'SUCKEEEEER!' as the tram drove past the man in blue.

Barney turned his head and yelled back 'Gordon! I'll kill you!', shaking his fist in the air.

Freeman burst out into laughter. He felt a little better about running late for work. That was until he heard the intercom system again.

'The time is... 8... 47... a.m.', the intercom said in a robotic tone.

'Shit! I didn't know I was THAT late!', Freeman exclaimed, now worried about being in serious trouble again. 'Oh, man, 8:47... I am so dead. Shit! I need to buy a watch; I'm already on probation with the company. They could fire me!'. Freeman conceded; if this was the day he was going to be fired, this was the day he was going to be fired. 'Oh, well. What can you do?', Freeman thought to himself as the tram drove through one of the engineering departments ('Bzzt!').

The tram continued through the facility, and passed by what appeared to be a ready-to-go, fully fueled rocket.

'Oh! What's this?', Freeman asked to himself in utter confusion, as the intercom system said something about "high security". 'Yeah, "high security"', Freeman said sarcastically. 'That's why we leave armed missiles lying around for everyone to check out. It's part of the tour!'

The tram began to descend into the deeper parts of the facility, with the intercom system continuing to list off safety precautions employees must take, including not smoking, eating, or drinking on the transit system ('Fascists! I'll drink a 40-ounce up here if I feel like it!'), and keeping limbs inside the tram at all times ('Yeah, well I'll stick my arms out of the window If I- okay, maybe not', Freeman reconsidered as the tram drove past a big concrete pole).

The tram continued along the rail, where it opened up into one of the many small canyons that dotted the landscape of the facility.

'Hey, what's going on there?', Freeman queried. Inside the canyon appeared to be a make-shift landing pad, where a military helicopter was landing with scientists waving it down. 'I should have been a pilot...'.

The tram exited the canyon and re-entered the facility, where the intercom system was now reminding all personal to stay away from the electrified rails which powered the trams.

'Wow...' Freeman said bemused. 'Man, how dumb would you have to be? I mean, they're not gonna say something like that unless somebody's already tried to do it, right?'. Freeman was already aware that although his colleagues were indeed very bright, they did lack quite a bit of knowledge in the "common sense" field. 'I guess if I was drunk enough, I might climb out the window here and pull some hang-time on the electrified tram rail...'

The tram continued through the facility, passing through a warehouse filled with giant yellow four-legged, ant-like robot worker things moving boxes about ('Robots rule! Pneumatics rule!'), when the intercom system was now, yet again, announcing more reminders, this time about employment opportunities.

'I guess my cousin Jesse needs a job. If only he wasn't a sex offender, it would be so much easier to find something for him...'

The tram descended further into the facility, only for it to almost have a head-on collision with one of the robot worker-ants.

'Whoa... WE'RE GONNA CRASH!', Freeman screamed, bracing for impact.

However, the tram stopped in place, allowing for the robot worker-ant to continue on it's path. Freeman removed his head from his sheltering arms to inspect why he hadn't died yet.

'Oh, good, it stopped...'. Freeman breathed a sigh of relief.

He looked out of the corner of his eye to see that another tram had stopped on the rail to his left, with a man in a dark suit carrying a briefcase straightening his tie and eyeing up Freeman.

'What are YOU looking at?!' Freeman yelled out of the tram's window. The man in the suit just stared and smirked as Freeman's tram returned to moving along its rail. 'Freak...', Freeman muttered under his breath.

When he looked back to where the tram was going, he saw that he was now above a quickly-filling green pool of brightly-glowing green goop, which the giant worker-ant was trying to clean and repair.

'What is this? Jesus Christ, look at this place! This is a DISASTER! That's gotta be toxic. God, the EPA is going to tear us apart if they find out about that...'. Freeman always had little faith in Black Mesa's Health & Safety systems. 'Well, I'm not saying anything. I don't want to get called into court as a witness on this once the cat gets out of the bag.'.

The tram finally pulled up at the Sector C Test Labs & Control Facilities, where a security guard waited to open the blast-doors which served as the entrance to sector's service desk.

'Morning Mr. Freeman. Looks like you're running late!', the guard said to Freeman as he stepped out of the tram.

'Yeah, you know what? I don't even care anymore', Freeman complained to the guard. 'By the time I get suited up, I'm gonna be over an hour late. I figure I'm either fired, or I'm not... Yeah, I'm just gonna stroll in like I own the damn place. Take my time, maybe get some doughnuts...', Freeman thought on how he was going to go out with a bang.

The guard proceeded to enter a code on the keypad which allowed the blast doors to open. 'Say "hi" to Dr. Cross for me!', the hopeful guard asked Freeman.

'If I'm fired, I could probably jack some of the office supplies, or computer equipment, or SOMETHING on the way out'. Freeman muttered to himself, completely ignoring the guard. He walked through the blast doors, only for another set to halt him in his tracks.

'I could just stuff things in a big duffel bag, nobody's going to notice... Hmm... Y'know, Steve's never in his cubicle...'. The blast doors behind Freeman closed.

'I could just walk right up and take his laptop. Hell! I could grab that color laser printer from Accounting! That thing's NICE! That's gotta be worth a couple grand right there...'. The blast doors in front of Freeman began to open.

'Huh, I wonder if it can print money...'.