В этом месяце, после долгого перерыва, я вновь решил написать Марку Лейдлоу. На этот раз в письме поднималась тема владельцев исследовательского комплекса Black Mesa:
Цитата:Greetings, Mr.Laidlaw.
You may remember this from a series of emails you had received several years ago. We were interested in a number of facts regarding the story of Half-Life, and you were kind enough to let us in on some never previously disclosed information. We have since then found a number of other points of interest, and would like to continue this cooperation.
The first thing we would like to know is something that had been mentioned previously in our communications, but never got the spotlight — the question of Black Mesa's official ownership. Was Black Mesa entirely owned by the government, or was a portion of it technically private property? If so, whose was it?
We hope that you would find our curiosity worth sating.
Thanks in advance.
От Марка мною был получен следующий ответ:
Цитата:I think it was always supposed to be a government lab. Governments do hire some private contractors, as we’ve seen lately, but not sure how much of that was going on back then.
Как следует из ответа Лейдлоу, в сюжете всегда подразумевалось, что Black Mesa является полностью правительственной лабораторией. Соответственно, и основана она была, скорее всего, где-то в начале второй половины XX века по распоряжению правительства США о превращении ракетной базы (которой тогда, судя по всему, была Black Mesa) в многофункциональный исследовательский центр.