Everything - not just me, but the world itself - sort of seized up, went a dull gray. The faces of the people around me stopped, and then ebbed into a sort of dark stream of light. A face appeared, the same one from the drawings - way too close to me, but this was just another illusion. Then the face spoke.

"Hello again, Mr. Freeman." I was expecting it, but I still flinched - he was speaking right in my ear, yet from all directions at once. Talk about surround sound.

Then the face vanished, as the world streamed and started to resolve. I blinked - I was in my office.

Wait, forget that, was I really?

I tilted my head, and it was a strange sensation - like when one of those weird magic-eye patterns resolves into a clear image, but more so. This was all a fake - everything looked perfectly like my office, down to the last detail, but it was a facade, an illusion. If you're familiar with a place as I was with my office, you can notice if something is even the slightest bit off - but this was more intense, every instinct telling me that this wasn't real.

I reached out my arm, to touch the nearest surface. There was nothing there - I felt my finger touch the wall, but my arm was, somehow, invisible. I waved my hand in front of my face - a slight breeze, but nothing I could see.

"I believe you wanted to see me, Investigator?" My chair swiveled around - the man in the suit was sitting in it. "Sit down. I do apologize for your... incorporation, mmn? A necessary matter, you'll find, under the...circumstances." He spoke as strangely as he moved, the words halting and incorrectly stressed, his motions jerky and slow, as if he was carefully considering each minor movement before he made it.

I sighed - he was shaping up to be one of those enigmatic benefactor types. Honestly, see one vaguely inhuman guy with powers from beyond the pale, a host of plans and covert machinations, and a need for total secrecy, seen 'em all. I was going to have to be direct.

"Cut to the chase, three-piece. How much of 'who you are' are you willing to tell me?"

"Ah, yes. At the moment, Doctor, I feel this conversation would be more... worthwhile if directed towards...yourself, mmn?"

I grumbled. "Have it your way. Weaselly so-and-so. What am I doing here? That better?"

"Acceptable, yes. I do admire your...hubris, Mr. Freeman - a word which first meant 'to challenge the gods', did you know?" I shook my head, and he continued. "You are here for a greater purpose than you may realize. Ten years ago, an...Incident, mmn? - occurred, during which you considered yourself an...emissary of your race. Now, you are...reprising that role, and-"

I cut him off. "Oh, come on. Are you putting humanity on trial for its crimes? That is just..." I trailed off, looking at the man expectantly.

He looked quizzically at me for a few seconds, but then smiled. I've seen more inviting expressions from rattlesnakes. "Ah, I see. That is... one way to view it, Dr. Freeman. Would it put you at ease, if-" There was a flash of light, and the man was dressed in a certain futuristic, red-and-black, decidedly copyright-protected uniform, with his voice changed to match. "-we continued in this manner? It's all the same to me, you understand." He put his feet up on the desk, and chuckled.

I stifled a laugh. "No. It can't be. There's no way in hell you're really..."
"No, no I am not, and I never claimed to be. My apologies, if it...confused you." Another, identical flash, and he was sitting normally, back in his suit. "And, to move on to similar matters, I apologize for my...intrusion, mmn? On the deepest level of your...privacy."

I had to think about this for a while before I realized what he was talking about. "So, it was you. You...made it so I couldn't talk. How did you do that? And why?"

"Ah, here we are again. First of all, Investigator, I must explain that this compulsion is the...reason you are here. It was...rendered inoperable...at the moment you became aware of its existence. You are here because I feel I should impress upon you your continued need to, ah...keep quiet.

"You and I, Mr. Freeman, are rather more...alike than you may believe. You are a -" I had to laugh here. "No, no no no. 'We're not so different, you and I?' You're seriously taking that route? I'm not going to rule the world by your side, in case you're wondering. Don't go barking up that tree." At this, the man sighed, and moved a hand to his forehead. "This is twice, Mr. Freeman, that you have interrupted me. To be honest, my patience is wearing thin - and our...time here is short."

I was silent. "Thank you. Now, as I was saying, you consider yourself a..consultant, mmn? Servicing the will of your employer, independently, and performing work that is best...acclimated to your talents. In this respect, I am...nearly identical.

"In the specifics, however, is when our...professions begin to diverge. I service rather more...illustrious parties than the odd scientist or security officer, and to perform correspondingly greater tasks. I am currently...on the case, you might say, for one of my more...temperamental contacts. They demand the strictest secrecy, and thus, even the fragments of my...previous attempt that you had seen required my personal intervention."

I stopped while I let this sink in. I was beginning to fill in the blanks. "You said 'your previous attempt'?" When? What do I know?" The man stared into space for a while before he responded. "Surely you haven't forgotten, Doctor? Ten years ago, very near here..."

"The Resonance Cascade - that was you?"

"Of course not - every single...step in the process was independent, and, even under the closest scrutiny, it would be impossible to connect certain...pivotal components of the conditions involved to a single controlling...force, mmn?"

I nodded.

"Quite so. It may surprise you to know, Mr. Freeman, that I harbor a deep respect for life, in all its...diverse forms. My current employers, however, are nowhere near as...upright. They agreed with me to spare your life after you so sabotaged the...first attempt at fulfilling their contract, but on the condition that it be impossible to do so a second time."

I thought back to the test chamber, just before I had been drawn here. "So, because I couldn't talk, I couldn't have stopped another Resonance Cascade?"

"So my employers understand, Doctor. And it appears they were...absolutely correct, mmn?"

"Right, right...so? What does that mean?"

"To my employers, Investigator, it means that I have underestimated you. I was... careless, and messy - leaving just enough...information to allow you to deduce your position, and my role in it."

I mulled over whether or not to admit to him that I still had no idea about that - before just now I had assumed he was just a red herring from Alyx Vance.

Then, as if he had been following along with my train of thought, the man spoke. "Did you, Mr. Freeman? Well...now. You appear to hold Miss...Vance in a higher esteem than she deserves. She is...resourceful, and intelligent, but nothing more than a child, as I am constantly reminded."

This was probably important, but I fixed on the fact that he was reading my mind. Hey!, I thought, as loud as I could imagine. You said you were sorry for messing with my head, now knock it off! In response, his voice came to me telepathically, as if from all directions at once:

I apologized, I never said I would stop. If you had been paying attention to me, you would realize that I would have kept your mouth shut if I could have. He paused, and though he wasn't mind-speaking, or whatever you want to call it (talking about telepathy is hard, by its nature), I could tell he was daring me to give a sarcastic retort. I denied him the privilege.

I will spell it out for you, if you insist: If you were the proverbial spanner in the works, Alyx Vance was the grease. She was my proxy, my enforcer, my pawn - and without her knowledge of it, too. She was the one who put this all in motion, and best of all, no one would suspect the girl - no one but you.

You, Dr. Gordon Freeman, Ph.D, P.I., were the linchpin of my plan, not to cause the cataclysm, but to prevent it. You would never have known about this matter had Alyx Vance not contacted you. You would never have contacted your colleagues had she not suggested it. And you would never have suspected her, had she not broken into your house. I was not entirely sure you had begun to view her as a player in the game before that, but afterwards you definitely suspected her, and - because of the blunt instrument of those dreams and those drawings - myself.

What you need to understand is that you and I are not here, as far as my employers know. To them, you have thwarted my nefarious plots once again, and I will be sure to get you next time.

Incidentally, you seem like an authority on such matters - should I actually fall down into a dark, bottomless chasm as I inform them of this?

I opened my eyes, and looked at him - he was on the verge of genuine laughter.

"Only if they'll get it - no sense wasting a good cliché."

He laughed, and it was a stirring experience. It would have probably sent Lovecraft off to write knock-knock jokes, to be honest. But I had seen some of the man's true nature when he had occupied my mind in plain sight - he was being straight with me. He was a good man saddled with a dirty job, one that he took pride in.

Projecting? Moi? Whatever, he was all right. There was still something I wanted to ask him, though, and I was a bit apprehensive as to his reply.

"So, what happens to me now? Mister Respect-for-all-life?"

"Something...drastic, I'm sorry to say. You will live, make no mistake. You will not, however, continue to...exist, in the way you are used to. I will have to...cut you out of the picture, as it were. You will be...contacted, and actualized, if and when your...time comes round again."

"So what happens to me? I become a ghost? Have some sort of weird half-life?"

The man winced and growled before he answered, for whatever reason. "For the time being, I...suppose. You will return to your customary state...imminently, I should think."

"When?" I asked weakly, slumping back in my seat.

"When I am done."

I won't deny I was scared - I guess I had always been at the man's mercy, but knowing it made it worse. I tried to appeal to him on my own terms, which he seemed to enjoy.

"This was a mystery! Everyone knows that a mystery ends when the detective gathers all the suspects in the sitting-room and explains it all! You can't end a mystery without that!"

"Are you so sure I have not, Doctor? May I remind you where we are, and why you were brought here?"

He stared at me, got up from his chair (my chair, really), opened the door to my ghostly gray office, and everything went white.

"Now, if you'll excuse me...this is where I get off."

There was, once again, darkness. In fact, all my senses were drawing a collective blank - like those water tanks that were popular a while back -as I recall, the effect was supposed to make you think clearer. Clear thinking probably wasn't much of a help in what I'm willing to bet was the ironic hell solipsists go to, but it couldn't hurt.

Here I was, the only thing in the universe, trapped in my own little world, and not able to do anything about it.

But I would think of something.