Chapter 3: Rift
"Certainly, in the course of time, the splendid things will separate from the hateful."
—Werner Heisenberg
Gordon dreamed deeply and darkly of Alyx that night.
It began with him dropping past a splintered wooden floor into an ambush, into shadows, into hell.
He'd backed steadily into a corner, panting, MP7 clutched in creaking gloves while horrors too numerous to fight squirmed into life around him, pit-pattering the floor with droplets of blood and spent shells.
This can't be true, this can't be true because terrors like these were unreal—two turrets in a forgotten room with scarlet smears on dreadful yellowed wallpaper, the undead dragging their severed torsos to claw at him in the blinking lamplight, the corner-mounted Combine machinery that beeped indifferently over the din, and… and—
BOOM.
An unexpected explosion blew the crawling torsos aside to produce Alyx standing in the doorway, fixing him with that gleam in her eye as she smirked, "I had a feeling I'd find you here."
The sight of her condensed all other emotions into a single black dot, hovering dense and heavy in his chest, and he'd followed her ever since.
Now Alyx's pistol bobbed and her chest heaved as she crossed the threshold exiting the Slavic town square with a dropship's worth of soldiers on her tail. The gate she'd hacked open now shut closed, allowing both Gordon and herself a moment to lean against the nearest wall and catch their breath.
"Barely made it, huh?" she said, unfurling a breathy grin.
He nodded, a soft smile breaking through his own huffing.
The duo eyed the ravine that gaped across the street.
"Barney should be on the far side of that canal," Alyx said, straightening up. She sprinted towards the gap, stopped at the edge, and leaned over to check inside.
"Well… There used to be a bridge here." She smirked at the bad luck and raised her hands.
Her face tightened with determination as she eyed the closest building's pipes. "Let me see if I can scout a new path. Wait for me here." She grabbed a pipe, tested a foothold, and nimbly leaped upwards.
The wall proved no trouble. She skillfully swung onto windowsills and shuffled along each edge before finally pulling herself onto the rooftop. When her feet touched down on the solid surface, Gordon felt like he could breathe again.
Alyx leaned a little over the roof's edge and pointed into the canal where a dark archway hid beneath the opposite bank. "Looks like we can get through down there."
She turned towards Gordon and smiled. He bit the inside of his cheek: please come back down before you fall.
Then she frowned.
A sliver of ice pierced Gordon's mind. "Is something wrong—"
A Combine soldier materialized behind her on the rooftop, pulse rifle and dropship in tow.
The ice-sliver drew blood and morphed into a glacier.
"No! Get out of here, Gordon!" Alyx began to wave, but the soldier wrapped thick arms around her torso. She could only squirm in his grip. "Run!"
Gordon didn't realize he'd bared his teeth.
Hands.
He shouldered his MP7,
Off.
aimed at the soldier's head, bobbing in and out of view behind Alyx,
Her.
and pulled the trigger.
The bullet flew and flew and met its mark. Down came the body, tumbling off the rooftop until its head cracked open like a melon on the pavement. Brains sprayed and dust billowed to obscure the gory scene as their owner hit the ground.
Gordon stared at the body. He stared at it for what seemed a long while. Up on the rooftop, a self-satisfied chuckle filtered roughly through a vocoder. "You missed," said the Combine soldier as he brought a pulse rifle up to bear.
Gordon could not tear his eyes from the pavement, from the body that painted it red, from all the red on the… the red red red red—
The color screamed the sky screamed the earth all screamed at him and then silence smothered the view because gunfire grew muffled and a grenade flew 20 meters past him and blinded him with light and fire and showered him in dust for an instant but he did not brush the bomb-thrown dirt from his cheek because there was no reason left in the world to do it since the only color that remained was red and he did not like red, no, he never had liked red because red meant blood and death and he had caused too much of that already (for a good cause) but he couldn't have caused that red now lying in front of him, no, because he saved people, that's what he did, he saved his friends and the people he loved and the scientists back at Black Mesa (but that's not really true, is it? there was no red on the ground when you entered those hallways but there was red when you left them) but now there was this red, this ugly ballooning red lying on the ground before him here and now, and now, and now—
Something brittle snapped deep within his chest and suddenly he could hear everything. He heard the shaky breathing that flowed oceans of air in and out of a vocoder miles and miles above him, heard a single bead of sweat form and roll down the inside of a soldier's mask, heard the Combine half-man's (the bastard's, THAT BASTARD'S) corrupt thoughts as he readied his shot.
Gordon saw nothing as he mechanically aimed his submachine gun, felt nothing as his finger slammed back the trigger, registered nothing as the soldier's head arced backwards from the bullet that entered his (no, its) brain from between glowing blue eyes.
The Kevlar-clad body slumped forwards and fell free of the rooftop, landing in a heap next to her.
Gordon ran.
Stepped over the soldier but not quite, tripping over its mask and cracking it with his stumbling boot. Threw himself next to Alyx, wading, wading into the blood pooling from her head.
There was… God, there was so much of it.
He bit at his knuckles.
Okay.
He sat down with legs flat and pulled her body onto his lap. He looked over her wounds, breathing hard. He mumbled and muttered and begged her to wake. He grabbed her limp shoulders and shook.
But her head lolled silently across his knee.
Okay.
He shook again. Slapped her cheek. Performed half-remembered CPR, running through the hazy steps fifty times. When he finished, he did it all again.
Did it all again.
Did it all—
Her wounds stained her jacket. Blood dripped onto his armored leg. Red replaced orange as drops collected within the cracks of his soldered metal plates.
Okay.
Gordon screamed.
The cry tore out of him so suddenly in this silence—this eon-spanning, universal, endless silence—that it hurt his ears to hear himself, it hurt his jaw to form the sound, it hurt his mind to comprehend it all, it hurt, it hurt, it hurt…
He lifted her torso up closer to his face. He patted her hair down, wiped the blood away from her cheek with his thumb. She smelled faintly of copper and gunsmoke.
Embracing her tightly, he buried his face in her blood-slick hair and wept.
Time passed. He did not know how many minutes had elapsed, or why no enemies had interrupted his grieving. He did not care.
He sat there counting breaths, cradling Alyx's body. His hands rocked her gently, lulling her back and forth of their own accord. They had nothing else to do.
Sometimes a burst of righteous anger slammed full-force into his consciousness, a metric ton of vile thoughts propelling him past his own feet to obliterate Breen's sorry ass and wipe that smirk from the City's screens, to drive his crowbar into the eye sockets of a thousand henchmen, to prevent those thugs from killing any more innocent people, innocent Vorts, young and innocent Alyx—
Alyx… who already lay dead at his feet, drained of vitality and life.
Hatred leaked from his thoughts and sucked the energy clean from his bones until nothing—no want or desire, no semblance of motivation—remained except exhaustion. Nothing, then, remained but a tired man in an expensive orange suit, a husk of something great, a newly-dead thing that mirrored the good friend who lay silenced in his arms.
So he sat there and stared at nothing in particular. Catatonic.
Around the half-hour mark, he knew he had to press on. He had a war to fight, she'd said. He had a people to save, she'd said. Get out of here, Gordon. Run.
So all he had to do right now was…
Just.
Get.
Up.
Pick up his rifle. Leave her body. Infiltrate the Citadel, defeat the Combine, save the world. His mind walked through the motions of standing—fold those heavy knees, push off splayed palms and flat soles, rise into open air—but nothing happened. He had no last lick of energy, no silent vestige of cellular ATP, no final wisp of a holy spirit moving through him to carry out any of those useless bodily functions like fighting, breathing, living.
Instead he shifted his position on the bloody earth and wondered.
How did he survive Black Mesa? How'd he live through the shock of mindless invaders, the shock of undead colleagues, the shock that he was the only one left who could make things right?
He closed his eyes and sought to remember what he'd tried so hard to forget.
That blasphemous May 16th was the day he'd bit his lip, cocked his shotgun, and focused on getting to the next goal, the next goal, always that next damn goal. The tunnel vision he'd forced himself to develop hid Black Mesa's monstrous secrets well—secrets that played at the corners of his sight, secrets not worth thinking about. He blocked that evil knowledge out (they knew about Xen, they always knew) because if he thought too much about it—if he'd ever parsed the scribbled lab notes left on dirtied desks, checked those haunted halls twice—then he would have lost time.
And if he'd lost time, he never would've escaped that underground circle of manmade hell. Those gory, alien-gurgled rooms would've been his to wander forever—forever until the nuclear bomb hit and blew the facility invisible, snowing toxic ash across a land of clear New Mexico glass.
The experiment had only cost his life so far. That was all. The Black Mesa Incident only ripped away most of his colleagues, his life's work, everything he'd ever known. All that white-board physics and his lab-rat duties and that stupid crystal in the stupid cart led to Xen on Earth, led to the Combine, led to that ravenous blossom that blistered heat and light and blew apart a world no longer his own…
But today was different. Today was much, much worse.
Today, he'd lost her.
He looked down. She still lay in his lap, placid and unmoving.
None of this, he told himself, can be real. I must be either dead or asleep.
He tested the thought, turned it over in his head and poked it with careful hands, afraid to puncture it but too anxious to let it sit for fear it would scuttle away.
The thought held weight.
Of course! he continued, increasingly desperate. I'm only dreaming! Somewhere out there, she must be still alive!
He softly stroked Alyx's hair in his lap, fingers gently parting her bangs and brushing aside her headband. His hand came away sticky with blood after each caress.
But then why does this nightmare seem so real? Why hasn't anything here changed after this revelation?
He paused. A hollow wind whistled past, ruffling Alyx's hair past his fingers.
Unless this is actually hell.
He wondered why the wind didn't carry him off along with the dust swirling up the street.
Idly, he heard footsteps approach him, soft rubble-crunches that stopped once they reached his back.
"Dr. Freeman."
Gordon did not turn. A cold hand grasped his shoulder and squeezed. Frost seemed to spread from the touch and sink into the HEV suit.
"Dr. Freeman." The hand-shaped block of ice shook him. He finally whirled, his face now centimeters away from the man who–
Time stopped. Gordon glanced around frantically, understanding but not believing.
—placed me in City 17.
The corners of the government man's pallid lips jerked upwards in a strangely unbecoming smile.
Well done Dr. Freeman, the disturbing grin seemed to say. You truly are the best. I knew I'd chosen well.
Gordon stared at the man, and the man stared at Gordon, and suddenly Gordon's hand released Alyx's hair and clenched and flew and—
Blake had been warned about Dr. Freeman's reflexes.
And on another note, legend said that Dr. Freeman disliked being woken.
However, Blake failed to put those two small details together.
"Dr. Freeman," he called, shaking his shoulder.
So you could forgive Blake's surprise when Freeman's gloved fist shot out and connected with his cheek.
He reeled back, lost his balance, and fell sprawled onto the unforgiving gravel to a chorus of Woah's and hisses from the other rebels.
"Damn," Conrad muttered jealously from the back. "Hell of a right hook."
Blake slowly rubbed his jaw and eyed the groggy Freeman, stirring awake after his strike.
"What's happening?" Gordon mumbled as he rose onto his elbows. He blinked blearily at his surroundings, an aggressive frown fading from his features.
A ring of rebels—several randomly sitting, several squatting—stretched left to right across his vision. Their eyes all fixed directly on him, their gazes solid and unnerving. Gordon anxiously wondered why he was the target of their looks until he noticed Blake lying on the gravel before him, massaging his already-swelling cheek.
Gordon glanced down. His hand was still clenched in a fist and stinging from his dream, that dream where something horrible happened, something so unspeakably horrible that he couldn't remember exactly what it was, except that he punched—oh crap.
Things are not going my way, are they?
Blake spat blood from a broken tooth and colored a patch of rock light red—
red?
red…
red red red red—
"See what I mean?" Conrad yelled. He turned to the group and pointed a finger at Freeman, who stared intensely at Blake's blood.
"He's more of a danger to us than the Combine! It's like that old game people used to play—soccer! If you had a bad player, that person would just bring down the whole team. Time to exile him to the bench!"
"That's not soccer, you ape, it's football," Nigella muttered.
"Well my friend, cultural differences no longer matter thanks to our old pal Freeman here! So just embrace the oneness he's promoting and get with his program, brought to you by one Universal Union!"
Blake wiped the blood from his mouth with his sleeve and squinted at Conrad.
"What the hell are you—you know what, just shut your… Just shut up, I need to think." He rubbed the bridge of his nose, and glanced over to Freeman again, lying confused in his own little world on the gravel before him.
"Dr. Freeman, are you alright?" he ventured.
Gordon shook out of his stupor and looked up at Blake, gears grinding. He didn't understand. He'd just clocked this man in the jaw and he still only cared about Gordon's wellbeing. This was wrong. Something here was flawed. His behavior made no sense.
He felt sick.
"Dr. Freeman?" Blake asked. "Dr. Freeman, are you—"
"Please stop calling me that," Gordon raised a hand weakly. His title reminded him too much of the dream he didn't care to remember. "Please, just…" He sighed. "Just Gordon's fine."
"Okay… Gordon. How are you feeling?"
Gordon sat still and thought.
How am I feeling? But more importantly, why do you care?
He inhaled to speak. "Well—"
"Blake," said Nigella, "I'm not agreeing with Conrad or anything—God forbid—but I think Freeman's punch might have dizzied you a tad because he should probably be asking how you feel."
"Yeah, that's right!" Conrad added. "You know, I'm getting tired of all this 'Follow Freeman' crap. I'd say it's high time we followed our own survival instincts because they've kept us alive this long, and they'll keep us alive longer than he will. We're just expendables to this rebel wannabe. Pure trash! How about 'Follow Conrad' for once? Why don't I ever hear that? I'd keep you all alive."
"Because Conrad, we—" Blake started.
"Actually, how about we have a vote. Right here, right now. Who would rather follow me—a fellow rebel, see? Not an alien, no tentacles anywhere, promise—and stay alive because of good, old common sense? Or who would rather follow Freeman and his band of mystical Vortigaunt prophets to victory over the Combine by using the power of hoping really hard?"
"Conrad…"
"Anyone? Who says 'Follow Conrad?' Hands, I want to see hands!"
"Hey, this war is not about you!" Blake said. "Gordon's not here to save you specifically, and we aren't either! You put in your work, your hours, your battles fought, and then we get to talk about what you do and don't deserve."
"Deserve?" Conrad crossed his arms. "And what exactly do you deserve, Blake? You think sucking up to Freeman makes you more deserving of respect? I would've thought kissing his ass did the opposite."
"Now listen here pal—"
Nigella cleared her throat with a rough ahem. "Boys?" she asked. "How about we go back to talking civilly to each other, or you'll both find yourselves with a bootprint in your backside."
Conrad continued unfazed. "I've been digging through the trash in this City for years, scavenging scraps from CP raids like a dog! Now I don't exactly call that living the life, but ever since Nova Prospekt went to hell, EVERYTHING went to hell!" He shot Gordon a judging look.
Blake stared, dumbstruck. "Why would you dig through trash? We had decent rations—"
"You think I'm happy, Blake? You think trash for dinner makes a man like me happy? And yet, that was pure bliss compared to now!"
"Of course you're not happy, Conrad! Do any of us look happy?"
Conrad rolled his eyes and harrumphed.
Blake slapped the ground, taking Conrad and the nearest rebels aback. "Do you even remember Jack, you bastard? Poor guy ended it all after that Strider killed his wife—and that happened on YOUR watch! And what about Tina? How do you think she feels?"
On cue, everyone turned their heads. Tina shifted uncomfortably, twisted away from the conversation, and gazed out towards the blurred dawn sun peeking over the sunken rooftops.
Conrad fidgeted on the gravel. "Yeah, well..." he drawled.
"'Yeah, well' what? Some of us have learned to deal with the world as it changes. Others…" Blake eyed him up and down, "haven't. So quit this clowning around—this messing with people's minds and taking advantage of them when they're afraid. You think that makes you any better than the Combine? No, smartass! That's what makes them disgusting!"
Blake turned to the rebels.
"And you all! Can't you think further than this? So far, I haven't seen a single shred of self-reliance since I've been here! One loudmouth is all it takes for you to shake the good sense from your heads and drop your personal beliefs, your opinions, your own hopes and dreams in this war?"
The rebels eyed the floor. One medic traced slow circles in the gravel with the tip of a threadbare sneaker. He peered up at Blake, looking as if he were about to mutter something, but then he dropped the comment as he caught Blake's eye.
"We're the ones who started this revolution," Blake continued. "Who else besides you will come afterwards to see it through?"
"Yeah, yeah," said Conrad, "we've heard this spiel before—'Only YOU can help the Resistance!'—but what exactly do you want from us, Blake? All you do is preach, and we still can't tell what for!"
Blake sighed. "Look everyone, Gordon's got to reach the Citadel. The Combine's keeping the Vances up there under lock and key, and every moment he wastes here becomes another moment they suffer and another moment we lose at regaining our advantage in this war."
Gordon glanced at Blake, thunder-struck. How on earth did he know? Did he eavesdrop on—
"But first," Blake went on, "we need to find Calhoun. Gordon's been wanting to reach him for a while."
Gordon turned to Blake, frown already deepening, words forming on his lips—
Conrad snorted. "Right. And you know all this… how? Mr. Talks-a-lot never took us through his agenda bullet point by bullet point."
"First of all, you never actually gave him the chance to speak." Blake leaned back onto his palms and crossed a leg over the other, smiling quietly at an inside joke. "But sometimes, you just look at another man's face and you know, Conrad."
Conrad glared at Blake, hands like stones in his lap. "You're kidding me."
Nigella snickered. "Yeah Conrad, why can't you do that?"
Conrad grew red. "Because Freeman ain't a man! He's a lousy caricature, a washed-out fairy tale, a selfish, lying bastard—"
The rebels murmured in dissatisfaction. Here we go again.
"Oi, enough with the insults, Conrad!" Nigella massaged her temples. "We can only stomach so many!"
Conrad spoke over her, "—who hit me IN THE HEAD with a frickin' brick! I am the one who's injured, but noooo—" he pointed at Gordon, "HE must be pleased! You all sit here, peeling him grape after grape, while I'm in danger of dying in the next few hours from head trauma!"
"Well hurry it up then!" Nigella raised her hands. "It's been ages and nothing's happened to you yet! Honestly, it's impolite to make us wait this long."
"Shut your trap, medic," Conrad said, threatening her with an index finger, "and show me some respect."
"Respect my backside, pillock."
Blake clapped his hands together to signal the end of the conversation. "Oh-kay Conrad, you've had your say." He began to stand. "Now let's get going because we don't have much—"
"Why can't you all see that he's only helping the Resistance to get to Alyx Vance?" Conrad moaned.
Another sigh from Blake. "See, that's kind of the point. She's being held hostage—"
"And she completely FELL for his act! She fell and broke her NOSE on it! That's why she can't smell the orange-suited weasel! 'Ooh, Dr. Freeman, I've been kidnapped and trapped in the big, bad tower! I need you to rescue me! Would you like me to let down my hair, or would you rather fly?'"
Gordon coolly gazed at Conrad. Thoughts of murder sprang to mind the longer he gazed, the longer he watched this, this… brat—this dumb-as-a-doorknob, regular old schmuck—snivel and whine, chirp insults at him and his friends, shamelessly pound his own stupidity into the heads of other rebels. No, no, the danger here did not lie in sneers. This coward aimed to drag down a whole group of running, thinking people—blatantly normal souls currently fighting for their lives. He gave them unnecessary pauses to doubt truths they did not have the time to doubt right now, because every moment hesitated meant death through a million different forms.
If, Gordon thought, I put those doubts to rest right now, then these running, thinking people might have a chance.
He stood up.
All eyes turned to him, and Conrad paused his rant.
Gordon stepped towards him.
Conrad's expression lost several degrees of smugness with each step Gordon took closer to him, closer to his face, closer to his precious head...
"Now hold on a minute here, I don't think—"
"Yeah," Gordon said, nearly wistful. "I know you can't think. That's why I'm here to help." He pulled out his crowbar.
Blake's eyes widened and he flew forwards to block him. "Woah, hey Gordon, don't—"
"Not now, Blake." Gordon gently pushed him aside.
Blake caught Gordon's eye as he sidled past, and he recognized that expression immediately.
Oh boy, he thought.
It was a dead-set face hungry for something to happen. A drastic, very justifiable something, but also the very wrong something for this situation.
Gordon turned his head down and took several more deliberate steps closer to Conrad—crunch, step, crunch—sloooowwly trailing his crowbar over uneven ground, the lazy scrape of iron on rock grating louder, louder, as his armored form crept towards the man of the hour.
He finally stopped at Conrad's knee, and Conrad looked up at him.
Gordon methodically lowered himself onto the ground, roughly grazing Conrad's leg with an iron-toed boot (maybe by accident, maybe not) and crossed his own legs. He picked up a fistful of gravel and let the pebbles sift between his fingers. Then he cast his eyes earthward, watching the stone fragments fall and spatter onto Conrad's leg.
"Have I not made it clear for you to stop calling me Dr. Freeman?" he asked quietly, his tone nearly bass. "Haven't we made it clear that we're moving out right now so we can save lives?" His eyes locked onto Conrad's again, and they flashed like ice, green as a glass forest. A sort of unidentifiable energy hovered within them, barely restrained, waiting. For the first time in his life, Conrad felt an unfamiliar sense of self-doubt slither into the back of his mind.
"Do you still need me to clarify the matter?" Gordon asked.
"No! I mean, uh…" Conrad licked his lips. "That ain't necessary. I-I mean, come on… buddy! We're all friends here, right!"
He gestured around at the sullen rebels.
"I was just, um, joining the fun! All I did was offer up a personal opinion before we headed out! Y-you know, for discussion on the road. After all, only true friends can take criticism without wanting to, uh, hurt the critic."
Freeman didn't budge.
"End of discussion." He poked Conrad's chest, pushing him back with an index finger. "Now move."
Gordon rose up to his feet and swiveled on his heel, preparing to walk back to his blanket for his pulse rifle.
"Sure, sure! Right! Definitely." Conrad followed suit and stood up as well… but he lingered back, hands in his pockets.
"You're the man, Freeman. You're the man. What you say goes. Everyone's got to be worshipping you for a reason, right?"
Gordon hesitated, but shook the statement off and kept moving towards his blanket.
"It doesn't matter if the rebels are high up on the totem pole or if they're lying in the dirt. You've got them all folded up neatly in your back pocket, don't you?" Conrad turned his back towards Freeman and leisurely paced away. He kicked at a stone.
"They can't wait to take bullets for you. They can't wait to be kidnapped for you. 'Oh look, a grenade! How about I jump on it while Freeman's looking!' Don't you get it? They're all foaming at the mouth, HOPING for a chance to sacrifice their petty, useless lives for you."
Conrad stopped pacing and glanced at the rebels. They finally listened to his words.
His chest swelled with confidence, and he became just a little bit braver.
"It doesn't matter if it's Blake—the poor, brainwashed bastard—or if it's the Vance girl, fiddling with radio dials to yip your praises to an entire city full of people already dealing with their own shit. It doesn't matter that you've got the higher-up's playing cops and robbers with my life—with all our lives! And all because that stupid girl's fallen head over heels for you. She used to be a semi-respectable Resistance leader, you know. Used to get things done sometimes, and she never looked all that bad either… But now, heh, no more of that! Now, she gets to push aside her responsibilities in keeping us safe, not caring that our body count rises while she's all googly-eyed and gaga over the great Gor-duhn Free-muhn!"
The crowbar came out of nowhere, trailing a fine arc of red after-image with a silver tip, its blunt end whamming straight into Conrad's back.
"OOF!"
The impact knocked Conrad onto his stomach, sending a USP Match flying from his holster and his arms spinning. He lay flat on his face, wind knocked out of his chest, groaning with limbs splayed, until he slowly rolled onto his back. His eyes squinted open towards the shattered rooftop, and Freeman's calm yet frightfully determined expression appeared directly above his face.
Conrad felt a massive orange boot push into his chest. He laughed nervously and pointed at it.
"Hehe, yeah, that's nice—" the boot drove deeper, nudging into his ribs, "GAAAH would definitely be nicer if you didn't bury it in my chest yeeoOOW, that HURTS!"
The boot stopped shifting. Conrad panted. He waved his arms wildly in Freeman's general direction.
"This… this right here is an intimidation tactic, people. Means I struck a nerve!"
Conrad looked up just in time to see Freeman raise his filthy red bar.
"OOOHHH-KAY, OKAY there buddy, you can stop now! You've made your point! We all understand you're angry, but how do you seriously expect me to respond to your complaints with my head split open like a piñata!"
Freeman hesitated in split-second thought, then he smiled. The bar rose higher.
"Huh? WAIT—"
The crowbar began its forceful descent towards Conrad's skull when a two-fingered hand grabbed it.
"The Free Man must focus on the greater enemy."
Jonathan had appeared, or rather materialized, behind Gordon and placed another hand on his shoulder. A dizzying sense of deja vu almost slapped the crowbar out of Gordon's glove—but he fought the feeling and held onto his weapon more tightly.
"Fine, I'll focus," he said. "But let me take care of a distraction first."
Conrad shut his eyes and whimpered underneath Gordon's boot.
Jonathan tugged hard on Gordon's shoulder, beginning to pull him away from Conrad. Gordon grit his teeth, steeling himself and holding his ground.
With a growly Tarrr, Jonathan yanked him back with inhuman force. Gordon tumbled backwards, hitting the gravel hard. He looked up at Jonathan as he lay sprawled in the dirt.
The Vortigaunt clutched at his white shoulder and shook his head sadly. "Regardless of whether the Free Man's anger is warranted, he must learn to control it."
Conrad felt Gordon's boot leave his chest and decided it was safe to open his eyes. He sat up, surprised to see the young doctor on the ground opposite him. Then he smiled.
"Hey pal, our ability to support your bloodthirst has its limits. People might see you as a savior, but that doesn't excuse you from slaughtering the innocents among us. Even Jonathan is telling you to behave, so that's saying something."
Gordon's eyes snapped to Conrad, glaring murder.
No one breathed.
Conrad brushed himself off, directing his gaze anywhere but the vicinity of Freeman's face. "Now watch him, he might even plow through the Vort to shut my big, fat mouth. Is that it? You don't like it when people talk truth. You like to see people drown in your tall tales."
"Conrad," Blake said slowly, "you should choose your words very carefully right now."
"No, you know what should be chosen carefully? Our leader. Will it be—drum roll please—this butcher who just can't wait to go at me in an alley somewhere because he doesn't like it when I disagree with him? This bastion for the Resistance one day and grimy Combine poster boy the next? Or will it be me, someone who actually wants to put aside petty arguments like these? Someone who's willing to FORGET about the crimes Little Miss Jealous here tries to commit against me? Someone who can instead move past these attacks and put together a plan for the sake of our SURVIVAL?"
Nigella burst out laughing. "Conrad, do you know what the word 'forget' means? You aren't using it correctly! As for surviving with you, I'd rather take my chances with an antlion guard. However, Gordon would be a great improvement over the antlion, so logic tells me that—"
"Yeah, yeah medic, you've talked enough," Conrad waved her off. "But don't all you see that Freeman can't control himself? If you disagree with him, you're dead! You offer a separate opinion—BAM, brick to the head, crowbar to your spine. Today it may be me getting pummeled, but tomorrow it might be you lying here in my spot with half your bones broken as you drown in your own blood!"
"But you provoked—"
"Lookie there, you remarkable dumbasses," Conrad gestured disgustedly in Freeman's direction. "You have all the evidence you need before you. For further clarification, I can point you to"—he pointed to Freeman's face—"Exhibit A, and his friend"—he pointed at the crowbar—"Exhibit B. You all got that? Great."
The rebels sat quietly and mulled over Conrad's words, periodically glancing at Gordon for any sudden movements. Finally, a few figures lifted up their down-turned heads with new determination and slowly shuffled towards Conrad.
"Yes, yes! See? Results! Actual thinkers!" Conrad pounded his chest with a fist. "Survivors!"
"All of you better think hard about your decision," Blake said evenly.
"Ha! Got your undies in a bunch, Blake? Your savior Freeman's lying on the ground before you, not budging an inch to help you. He's over there, held back by the Vortigaunt like a rat, glaring at this down-here spot because he wants me aaalll to himself. Ain't that right, Doctor? Oh surely, our good man only lifts a finger to help the downtrodden and the innocent when they all happen to look and smell just like him! I mean, can't you see he only attacked me because his itty-bitty feelings got hurt?"
"Bloody hell, Conrad!" Nigella cried. "How much horsepower does that jaw have? Have you really learned nothing?" She jumped up and threw her hands outward. "You know what? That's it! Enough! Blake, have you got any final words?"
Blake shook his head. "I heard Gordon say 'End of discussion' a while ago. That's pretty much when I stopped listening."
He stood up. "Alright people, for real now, let's move out. Conrad, if you decide to join us later on when you're done blowing off steam, then too bad. Maybe down the line, one of us will take pity on you and let you back in if you ask nicely…. But that will depend on how Gordon feels about it." He smiled at Gordon, but Gordon still glared at Conrad through Jonathan's silhouette.
"Let's go!" Blake called, picking up his shotgun. Nigella bent for her first aid kit.
But no one else moved.
Blake frowned and let the muzzle of his double-barrel drift towards gravel. "Come on, we don't have all day. There won't be much of Calhoun or the Vances left to save if we rest our asses any longer."
No one spoke. Several seconds passed, and everyone's heart pounded just that much louder in the surreal silence.
"Are you implying," a rebel said in the sudden quiet, "that we haven't thought this through?" He hefted himself off a rock and strode towards Blake.
"I'm SICK and I'm TIRED of you two fighting! Conrad rants during the day, and you rant to each individual about hope in the night. We've had enough of your rivalry day in and day out for the past week, and I just can't TAKE it anymore!"
The rebel stopped just short of Blake.
"At least Conrad's got a point. Freeman's pretty unstable! How can we trust a guy like that to protect us after what we've seen here today?"
Blake stared at the rebel and said nothing.
"Even with all that evidence," the rebel continued, "you still sit in the sidelines and praise Freeman as if he's somehow better than us. But we're not afraid like you are. We won't sit around hoping for Freeman to save us. We don't need a hero. We're done being afraid. Instead we want to fight for ourselves, and Conrad will help us do that."
Blake's eyes lingered on his face. The rebel held his gaze steady.
After several more seconds of silence, Blake finally shrugged. "You know what?" He turned to the rebels. "If all of you feel that way"—he jerked a thumb towards Conrad—"then join him. I won't stop you."
The rebels glanced amongst themselves nervously.
"But you better make it quick. Gordon and I aim to find Calhoun before sundown, and we don't want to be near any of you trigger-happy eggheads. We're going to need stealth, not a red carpet with machine-gun fanfare. So stay out of our way."
He cocked his shotgun, shells clacking loudly inside.
"If you want to be cannon fodder, go right ahead. Never say I didn't support your choices."
Blake turned abruptly and snatched a supply backpack. He gestured to Jonathan (stand down, Jonny) and then tapped the seated Freeman on the shoulder. "C'mon up, Gordon."
Gordon looked up at him. Blake offered him a hand.
Gordon grabbed Blake's arm and hefted himself upwards.
"My God, Gordon, do you really need that crowbar?" Blake said once he was done tugging. "Ramming into anyone with this suit is enough to kill them."
Gordon very nearly smiled. "I guess so," he said softly, his mind wandering elsewhere.
Blake patted him on the back. "Go ahead pal, we're right behind you."
Gordon cast one last glance around. This odd assortment of rebels—several leaning against piles of masonry, a few of them cross-legged on the ground—all scowled at him, their desire for him to leave flashing neon on their faces. Tina, surprisingly, had gotten up and shuffled over to Gordon's side next to Jonathan. Otherwise, no other person joined his group.
He chanced a sidelong glance at Conrad, who lay on the gravel and smirked victoriously, drumming his fingers happily onto his leg, eyes boring into his with malicious satisfaction—
Gordon whirled and started trudging over the rubble into the open street. Blake, Nigella, and Jonathan followed closely, with Tina scrambling to match Gordon's sudden stride. The group grew smaller as they plodded into the distance.
"Wait, why's Tina going with them?" the rebel in Conrad's party asked. "Tell her to get back here!"
"No, let her be," Conrad said detachedly. He laid back on his elbows and watched the stragglers leave.
"But she might get killed going with Freeman! Why aren't you stopping her?" The rebel slapped Conrad's shoulder.
Conrad stared back, annoyed. "'Cause I said so, dumbass! It's too late now. She's already chosen her way."
Tina continued to trail Jonathan and waited several minutes before looking back towards camp. Conrad caught her eye, subtly pointed at Gordon, and swung two fingers from his eyes towards Gordon. She nodded.
Her gaze returned to the path just in time for her to trip over a fallen beam, for her foot to get caught in a splintered—
A hand steadied her.
"Everything alright?" Gordon asked, suddenly beside her.
She forced a nervous smile at him. "Yeah, definitely."
He nodded politely. "That's good."
Silence.
"Um, and you?" she ventured. "How are you?"
Gordon looked away, thinking of Alyx.
"Okay."
A/N: Thanks to Peanut Butters and the guest reviewers "Doc" and "Google translate" for the kind, helpful words! I'm glad people are enjoying my narrative with a slightly different take on Gordon and the rebels within the HL2 Revolution.
And a special note to Peanut Butters (and other reviewers): don't apologize for writing long, specific reviews! Those are the best kind! It means a reader appreciated my story enough to tell me what they liked and how to improve it. I see it as a win-win situation when I'm told what works (i.e.—"Loving character X because of reason Y! More of that character please") and what doesn't (i.e.—"Urgh, such-and-such word did not belong in this conversation… please avoid saying that"). Your reviews help me produce something of quality: a fic that I'll enjoy writing and one you'll enjoy reading.
Cool? Cool.
Alright, enough small talk. Up next, more action and character studies!