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After getting the HEV Suit at the start of the game, Gordon Freeman can open his work locker nearby and collect a battery to power up the suit. A picture of a newborn baby can also be found in the locker, but contrary to popular belief, this is not his child. The game's manual includes Freeman's Black Mesa job acceptance letter, which reveals that he is "unmarried and without dependents". The real identity of the baby is Isabel Teasley, the daughter of Half-Life artists Harry Teasley and Yatsze Mark born in January 1998. Teasley originally hid the picture on a broken desk in a ruined office on a completely different map as a personal Easter egg. However, level designer John Guthrie discovered this, and decided to replace a pin-up poster Teasley put in the locker with the picture. Teasley recalled the birth of his daughter as a very difficult time, as she was born with a developmental disability and needed to be fed through a tube in her stomach every two hours, while the last year of Half-Life's development when she was born was dominated by crunch work. Series writer Marc Laidlaw stated in an email to a fan in 2006 that the writing team had no reason to elaborate on who the child is supposed to be in-game, but because the intention of putting the picture in the locker was to show something that had personal significance to Freeman, he suggested she could probably be his niece.
Half-Life 25th Anniversary Documentary (50:36 and 56:12):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto
Game manual (page 2 in the manual):
https://archive.org/details/halflife1998ownersmanual/page/n1/mode/2up
Game footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyc1DjLbt90
Harry Teasley Reddit comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/o16il/comment/c3dkvjf/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/o16il/comment/c3dlda0/
Marc Laidlaw email:
https://www.valvetime.co.uk/threads/info-received-from-valve-only-no-questions-discussion.1298/post-2012223
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbZ3HzvFEto
Game manual (page 2 in the manual):
https://archive.org/details/halflife1998ownersmanual/page/n1/mode/2up
Game footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyc1DjLbt90
Harry Teasley Reddit comments:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/o16il/comment/c3dkvjf/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/o16il/comment/c3dlda0/
Marc Laidlaw email:
https://www.valvetime.co.uk/threads/info-received-from-valve-only-no-questions-discussion.1298/post-2012223
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