[Hey, did you know there's a Portal/Half-Life comic called Maybe Black Mesa on DeviantArt that's really cool? Because there is! Now you know, and you no longer have an excuse not to read it.]
AoE
The fog that had been threatening to engulf the valley all afternoon loomed like a white wall over the mountains. As the helicopter slipped in, the world below grew blurry and indistinct, and then disappeared entirely into a sea of clouds.
The four passengers sat in apprehensive silence. Marcus leaned, elbows on knees, on the portside bench. His toe was tapping rapidly. Sam sat cross-legged on the floor across from him, cradling her backpack in her lap and gnawing nervously on the butt of an unlit cigarette. The only sounds from the pilot's seat were the occasional creak of the collective or cyclic as Alyx focused entirely on flying.
"Seven kilometers," Marcus announced, his eyes on the panel in the wall; a pulsing red dot tracked the Advisors' signal. It looked like they'd holed up just a little ways south of White Forest. He eyed the fog nervously through a window. "Um. Will the weather be a problem?"
"We have a compass to keep our bearing, so it shouldn't be," Alyx responded from the cockpit.
"If anything," Barney said, "it's good cover." Although his posture was relaxed and his arms crossed casually across his chest, his eyes were sharply focused on scanning the fog.
A bright wail cut through the repetitive drone of the chopper: a gunship was approaching.
"Speak of the devil..." Barney straightened up in the copilot's seat. "Looks like the ceasefire's over, people! Get ready!" Barney rubbed his hands together and then grabbed the GShG's controls, which fit neatly in his hand like a joystick. His thumb circling the trigger, he announced a quick test fire. His expression flipped from cool concentration to uncertainty when the trigger clicked under his thumb and nothing happened.
"Uh-oh." He pressed it again. Firmly. Nothing.
The gunship's wailing grew louder, sharper, as it approached.
"It's not working."
Alyx's eyes snapped in his direction. "What do you mean it's not working?"
"I mean-"
The ship half-emerged from the fog on their starboard side, proton cannon firing wildly. The blasts ricocheted off the outer walls and left dents in the door. In the back, Marcus tapped the panel for the force field; the metal frame outside crackled to life in time to absorb the next line of shots with a barrage of dull thuds.
Alyx pressed her foot into one of the pedals, bringing the helicopter into a half-spin to face away from the gunship.
Barney clung to his seat in the spin. "I mean the big fricken gun isn't shooting!" he shouted.
"Well obviously!" She leaned forward into the cyclic joystick; they accelerated in a curved line to avoid the ship's fire.
In the passenger bay, Sam spat out the cigarette dud and hefted the rocket launcher onto her shoulder. She slid the missile down the shaft until it locked into place with a heavy, satisfying click. With one hand on the door lever, she waited. When the gunship paused for a moment, she slid open the door - a gale tore through the interior like ice water - and she fired.
The rocket flew in a clean spiral, but the gunship ducked to one side and shot it out of the air. As the synth started shooting again, Sam took cover behind the door. Barney, still trying to get the GShG to work, encouraged her, "Keep firing!"
"We don't exactly have unlimited ammo here! Wait." She pawed through another crate and selected which looked like a small orange magnum: a flare gun.
"The hell are you doing?" Barney asked.
By way of an answer, she ducked around the edge of the door and fired. A bolt of crimson light sliced through the air toward the gunship, which started firing at the strange projectile. While it was distracted, Sam nailed the ship with a rocket.
The explosion tore a hole through the synth's grafted armor and burnt the flesh underneath. Its moan vibrated the air while it shuddered under the impact. They were moving too quickly to smell the smoke that spewed from the tear, but they knew it would be of burnt plastic and charred rotten meat.
The gunship shook itself, disappearing momentarily behind the white air - then charged straight at them.
Alyx brought them into a nose dive so their tail fin barely missed a shave. The gunship soared seemingly inches above them; its slip stream sucked the helicopter tumbling through the air.
The four of them hung on for dear life as Alyx eventually managed to stabilize them. They hovered in place.
Alyx snapped at Barney, "Did you turn the safety off?"
He immediately felt like an idiot. Rubbing his forehead with exasperation, he groaned, "Where's the safety?"
Unexpectedly, the ship plummeted toward them from above, guns blazing. Alyx pulled the chopper into reverse at top speed - it narrowly missed them. Through her focus she could only shout, "Small! Silver! Switch!"
He glared at the dashboard, covered in hundreds of buttons and dials. "THEY'RE ALL SMALL AND SILVER!"
The gunship flailed around to face them. Still flying backward, Alyx reached over and flipped the safety switch beside the gun pod's controls; Barney aimed the GShG and fired at the synth. A deafening, ceaseless noise like a thunderclap erupted from the underside of the helicopter. Hundreds of bullets sent little pieces of shrapnel flying off the gunship's chassis, glittering into the air, and falling to the invisible ground far below.
Even at their decreasing distance, they could see the rotary cannon digging into the synth, revealing alien yellow gore. It shrieked - a sound that stabbed their ears - ducked down its head away from the fire, and barreled toward them in a deliberate zigzag pattern. Alyx started maneuvering up, down, all over the place. It was all she could to do evade the onslaught, let alone think about attacking; the seams and joints in the helicopter's construction groaned, threatened to buckle, under the strain.
"Alyx!" Sam called above the din, "You gotta get me a clear shot!"
"That's - not - ugh, easy!"
"Well I can't aim while darting around like -" An idea cut her off. Pulling a hand out of her jumpsuit pocket, Sam noticed she was holding her plastic lighter. "Alyx!" she restarted.
"Still here!"
"Get us above it!"
The gunship's pulse turret fired along the length of the chopper. The dark energy field easily absorbed the shots going for the glass windshield, but the rest left coin-sized dents in the metal.
Alyx could barely hear anything. "WHAT?"
"GET US RIGHT ABOVE HIM! I GOT AN IDEA!" She shrugged the rocket launcher to the floor and reached once, confidently, for something in her backpack.
Alyx tilted them downward so the gunship followed down as well - then deftly careened up and over it. "NOW!"
Sam unearthed a bundle of red tubes, lit the fuse with the lighter, and lightly dropped it out the door. For a moment, she watched it as it sank through the air. It struck the gunship full in the back and spectacularly exploded. The ship nearly cracked in half and fell, fell, fell to the earth and out of sight.
After a quick bout of cheering, everyone took a collective sigh of relief, but no one was relaxing just yet. Sam sank to the floor with a pale hand over her chest. She repressed the sudden, illogical urge to laugh.
Marcus regarded Sam with an almost accusatory expression. "What that dynamite?"
"Well... do you want to get technical?"
"No."
"Then it was dynamite."
With a glance at the scanner, Marcus said, "We're approaching the Advisor. Three kilometers."
The helicopter shuddered. "Uh-oh," Alyx said. "One of the rotors is damaged!" she shouted. "We're losing altitude!"
"Are we gonna crash?!" Barney gripped his seat.
"Uh - hold on, I -" Alyx flipped a few switches. One of the red lights stopped flashing and the chopper settled into a stable hover. "Whew! No, not yet. We're fine for now, but... Yeah, we're fine for now."
"Alyx?"
A short, tense breath escaped her. Warnings were flashing from at least two separate systems. Although she hadn't completely gotten back into the hang of flying, she could still sense the irregularity in the engine. "Simplest I can put it? If we land as we are right now, I don't think we'd be able to take off again."
He chuckled somewhat hysterically. "That's perfect! Yes, that is absolutely what I wanted to hear right now, just perfect - perfect! Okay, uhh..." He ran a hand through his hair, staring at nothing. Keep it together, Calhoun, an old voice reminded him. "Okay. Look, we don't have to land - hell, it's damn well clear the Advisors have some pretty serious guard, so landing and planting the EMP and getting out was a giant dumbfuck of an idea anyway. Sam?"
"Yeah?"
"Would the EMP still work if we dropped it?"
She clicked her tongue. "Well, it's not a warhead; if it hits the ground it's more likely to break than blow. It has a timer, remember?"
"But could we drop it?"
"Well... Pshh, maybe if you dropped it from really, really high up so that it hit zero just before it hit the ground?"
"Great, so that's what we'll do," he concluded. "Thirty seconds, right?"
"You don't get sarcasm, do you?"
He ignored her. "So guys, just how high do we have to be for something to take half a minute to hit the ground?"
Marcus and Sam just stared at him vacantly.
Alyx considered. d = v*t + (a*t^2)/2 = 0 + (10*30^2)/2
"4500 meters," she answered.
"Great. Get us to that altitude and keep us there. Brace yourselves, people," Barney warned. "The day's not over yet."
They heard the gunships before they saw them. It sounded like the rapid rhythmic thudding of a jet engine crossed with a strange melodic alien moaning, like the bellows of a whale. Then ever so slowly, the indistinct shadow of a gunship appeared straight ahead, soaring at them through the mist. Farther behind it followed a second.
"Marcus," Alyx said, her voice deceptively calm, "how much farther?"
"Two kilometers to go."
Barney leaned in close to her. "You sure you got this?"
The two ships were now near enough for their silhouettes to form distinct lines against the white. Their photon turrets started glowing.
Alyx half-smiled with what she hoped was a confident expression. "Definitely."
"Okay, Marcus," Barney barked, "you grab the force field and keep an eye on that scanner. Alyx, I don't care how you do it, just get us there. I've got the gun up front, and Sam?"
She looked at him.
His eyes flickered to the rocket launcher. "Blow shit up."
She smirked and cracked her knuckles. "With pleasure."
Alyx turned in the pilot's seat without taking her eyes off the gunships. She shouted, "Marcus!"
"Yeah?"
"Keep a close eye on those rotors! This thing does not have parachutes, you understand me?"
He gulped. "Got it."
"Okay," Alyx tightened her grip on the controls. "Everybody hold on!" She leaned her whole body into the cyclic and the chopper lurched forward with rapid acceleration.
The force field cast a blue film over the front windshield as it absorbed the fire from ahead. The impacts made muted, irregular percussive beats over the churning of the rotors. The gunships loomed steadily larger as they barreled forward in an obstinate straight line.
At the last moment, Alyx banked everything hard to port. The change of direction momentarily pinned the four passengers into the sides of their seats as two lines of fire, one from each gunship, pierced the space they had just been.
The chopper whirled around as it approached the leftmost gunship. The synth's proton cannon punched a fist-sized hole through the front windshield, missing Barney by inches before the force field could get there. Barney's GShG carved a long gash down the ship's side; it wailed as yellow blood seeped through the fresh wound. As it cringed away from the pain, they charged past, leaving it behind.
The other ship was now dead ahead by about two hundred feet. Sam launched an RPG at it, but the missile was shot out of the air before it could get close. When Barney shot at it, he found the GShG's line of fire widened out at a distance: although a few slugs hit, its spread was just too inaccurate.
He did notice, however, that the synth would dodge habitually to the right when it observed the GShG's fire. He smirked. A new strategy formulated, he motioned at Sam to fire again. This time, as the missile tore toward the ship, Barney waited until the last minute. When the RPG was almost at its target, he fired the GShG to the gunship's left. It dodged to the right - directly into the missile.
"HA!" he whooped. "Don't think it'll fall for that again!"
The scanner flashed more and more rapidly in the wall beside Marcus. The numbers at the bottom trickled down until finally - finally - finally they hit zero. The scanner shone a clear, steady red.
"NOW!"
They all sprang into action. Alyx slowed the helicopter to a hover, Marcus's fingers flew over the control panel to keep them under cover, and Barney kept the ships at bay as best he could. Meanwhile, Sam unceremoniously shrugged the rocket launcher to the floor and knelt beside the EMP by the door.
She briefly brushed her thumb across a small red button on the side and tapped it. The panel on top of the EMP started counting down in red digital numbers: 00:00:30.
With a firm tap of her foot, the EMP tilted off the edge and tumbled through the white fog just as the counters hit 00:00:29.
"GO, GO, GO!" she shouted.
Alyx pushed into the cyclic and pulled on the collective, taking the chopper into a hard acceleration onward and upward. The two gunships fell into a last charge toward them. The one with the long scar was too far away to be accurate, but the nearer one's photon cannon smashed through the circular windows one by one along the starboard wall.
Sam's hand patted the crate of ammunition but found only bare plastic: they were out of RPGs. She raced through the crates of supplies. Still glowing ominously in the back sat the dark energy reactor. As she dug, her mind raced: no more RPGs, out of "dynamite", grenades impractical...
The force field was a blue window over the starboard door. The gunship was a mere ten feet off the side and inching nearer. The GShG roared, but it was caught on an angle so its fire could only just graze the gunship's belly.
Sam got an idea. She hastily grabbed three inactive hopper mines and stacked them in her arms like dinner plates. They had been painted either orange with a Lambda, or yellow with a smile on the bottom.
The synth thrashed its body; it pressed its flank against the force field - the whole helicopter tilted. Sam stumbled and fell off her feet, but with a panicked flailing of arms managed not to drop the hopper mines. A sharp grating sound came from out the door: the force field's metal railing was warping under the pressure.
With a tap of Marcus's fingers, the force field started sliding away, but jammed halfway across the door. Sam selected the topmost hopper mine, flipped a small circular switch on the underside, and tossed it through the half-open door.
In midair it activated - its light flashed blue - and it flew backward under the wind speed, but managed to dig its three spiked legs into the flesh of the synth. The gunship didn't even seem to notice. She hastily repeated the process for the next two mines.
The blue lights indicated the mines were neutral, so they wouldn't detonate on their own. They just sat there as the gunship leaned against the helicopter again; Alyx made a sound like panic as her hands flew over the dashboard to keep them airborne.
Thankfully, Barney was watching. He tugged from his holster his pistol and aimed it through the hole in the windshield. It was near impossible aiming in that wind, but taking quick aim and squeezing the trigger -
POW! the first hopper mine blew, and then so did the other two in rapid succession. The ship beside them wailed and burst into a fireball of orange flame; the force field slid back to cover most of the door but didn't have time to block the upper corner. A jet of fire curled along the chopper's metallic ceiling; it flew right over Sam's head by a foot but nailed Marcus. The dark, dense mop of hair burst into flame. He yelped with more surprise than pain; instinct taking hold, he collapsed to the floor and beat at his scalp until it stopped smoldering.
He tried not to think about the wine-red bits that clung to his hands; adrenaline buzzed in his ears and dulled the pain. With a frantic pawing under his seat, he injected a medkit into his neck, and then stumbled back to the force field's controls. His scalp prickled as the skin healed.
The engine audibly strained. The freezing wind screamed through the cracks in the windows and tore through the hold straight to the passengers' bones. The last gunship was catching up. Its movement through the air was worryingly reminiscent of a shark chasing down a stray fish. The rhythmic thumps of the photon cannon on the dark energy shield grew louder as the gunship grew closer.
And then, somewhere far below, a timer hit zero.
They saw the explosion before they heard it. Far behind and beneath them was a flash of orange, smothered through the layers of fog like lightning behind a cloud. The shockwave cleared an enormous sphere of fog, and then came a muffled noise like a distant sonic boom.
Barney made a low whistle. "I would not like to be down there."
But the most promising sign came from the last gunship following them, the one with a long yellow slash down its side. It slowed to a hover, and so did they. The synth glanced to the left, then right in a distinctly animalistic fashion. It then moaned far deeper than they'd ever heard a gunship - so low it vibrated the metal around them - and then soared away into the fog out of sight.
"It - it worked..." Alyx said.
Four pairs of eyes flashed to and from each other's faces as though waiting for confirmation.
Alyx's face broke into a wide smile. "We did it!"
The four of them broke into cheers.
"I can't believe it!"
"Who's the greatest?"
"That'sgottobethemostincredible-"
"YES!"
"I am!"
"-thinganyone'severdoneand-"
Still smiling, Alyx gazed through the windshield. The ground still wasn't visible, but a thin column of black smoke marked the spot the EMP had fallen. And, she knew, a crater where an Advisor or two had previously been.
Alyx, one hand maintaining their hover, turned in her seat to face the back as Sam lugged the door closed. "Is everyone in one piec - whoa." She caught sight of Marcus. I knew it smelled like burning hair in here. She smirked. "I, uh, like the new look. Mismatched eyebrows suit you."
"Misma -" His eyes widened and his fingers flew to his face. "Am I missing an eyebrow?" He patted the strangely smooth skin over his right eye.
Sam, bursting into laughter, nodded mutely.
Turning back to the cockpit, Alyx caught her breath. "Okay..." She gave an exhausted laugh, mopping sweat from her face with the hem of her sleeve. "Let's not do that again."
Barney, for his part, once again had on his old goofy grin. "Alyx, I get the feeling you make a habit of tempting fate." He tossed her a headset and placed another pair over his own ears. "Whiskey-Foxtrot Mike-India-Eight to White Forest, Whiskey-Foxtrot Mike-India-Eight to White Forest," he said into the headset's microphone, "This is ex-Officer Barney Calhoun, better known as Professional Ass-Kicker Extraordinaire. Do you copy?"
"More like Professional Ass-Kisser," Sheckley's gruff voice growled through a thin layer of static, "though I've never seen anyone do it to themselves with such gusto before."
"Look in a mirror, buddy."
"Alright, alright," Alyx gently chided, speaking into her own headset's microphone, "don't make me separate you two." Changing gears, she said, "How are things on your end?"
"Well, our northern flank is -"
"Improving immensely!" Dr. Kleiner's enthusing voice jumped in. "Without that Advisor at the reigns, our foes are now as benign as ichthyosaurs with anodontia. And right in the nick of time, too. I say, my dear, you have nothing if not a sense of punctuality."
She smiled. "I'm just glad you're doing okay, Dr. Kleiner."
"Yes, yes, we're all pleased to hear from one another." The voice belonged to Dr. Magnusson, to the surprise of no one. "But there's no time to waste. You must return at once: I've just finished putting together -"
"Now Dr. Magnusson," Kleiner hissed. His voice was considerably harsher than they were accustomed to hearing from the normally gentle scientist. His words were somewhat muffled, as if he were speaking off the microphone. "I've told you it's unnecessary."
"You know as well as I what's at stake," came his equally indistinct reply. "They should at least know their options."
"Unnecessary and - and dangerous!"
Barney and Alyx shared a confused glance. The former clicked his headset microphone. "Whoa, docs, what's going on?" he butted in.
"Just return to base at once, Mr. Calhoun, Miss Vance," Dr. Magnusson replied. He turned away from the radio. "And we'll let them decide."
"Oh, fie. Alright, then."
Then the connection flashed once more with static and the radio fell silent.
Barney shook his head and unceremoniously tossed his headset to the floor. He leaned back in his seat with his boots on the dashboard and his hands folded complacently behind his head. "Heh. Dontcha just love how completely straightforward and un-vague the docs are?"
She rolled her eyes at the term 'un-vague', but didn't say anything. "C'mon," she said, "we have to go back to patch up the rotors, anyway. We might as well see what they're arguing about." With the push of a few levers and the flick of a couple switches, the helicopter's nose pointed north in the fog.
As the four of them flew back the way they had come, Alyx told Barney, "By the way, nice work with the gunpod. You use one before?"
"Nah, but it was nothing. Guns have what I like to call a 'point-and-click interface'. And that was some fan-tas-tic flyin' there, Alyx. A magician's nothing without his lovely assistant, right?"
"Watch it, Barney," she warned him.
"What? I meant Marcus."
Within a few minutes Alyx and Barney had met up with Magnusson and Kleiner, and they were all sitting comfortably in the control room. Sam and Marcus were away, helping a few other rebels patch up the helicopter back in the hangar, as well as stock up on more supplies.
The control room itself bore scars from the battle not too long ago. Through its shattered edges, the tall window overlooking the secondary silo let in a breeze, oddly calm and warm when compared to the high altitude atmosphere Alyx had just experienced. It didn't look like there was a single piece of hardware that wasn't burned, chipped, or on the opposite side of the room in hundreds of little pieces. A red dribble of blood stained the floor beside Alyx, while a pool of yellow, the larger of the two, was in another corner. She wondered, not for the first time, whether Uriah had made it out or not.
They were all scattered around the control room. Alyx leaned against the console, one hand absently tracing the dents where the hunter had fallen into it earlier. Barney stood with his hands clasped behind his back: a habit from his security guard days he'd never broken. Dr. Kleiner sat in a steel chair beside his colleague, who stood behind a small table with his back to the window and looked every bit like a professor about to launch into a lecture. With an air that said he was fully aware he was the center of attention, he gestured to a small, featureless metal device on the table which was roughly the size and shape of a deck of cards.
"This," Magnusson began slowly, "I believe, is why the Combine organized today's assault." He paused to let that sink in. After a moment, he explained, "Although rather unimposing in appearance, this ansible allows us to control the satellite array which is preventing the formation of another superportal."
Alyx leaned forward, eyes wide. "Are you serious?"
Dr. Kleiner nodded solemnly. "Quite, I'm afraid. My colleague and I have reached the conclusion that their intention was to destroy this device, and thereby seize the opportunity to open a gateway to the Combine homeworld. Presumably using one of their smaller bases of operation around the world, of course."
Barney softly whistled.
"My god..." Alyx slowly shook her head.
"Y'know, I hate to be 'that guy'," Barney said, "but why don't the Combine just launch a coupla missiles at the satellite? I mean, don't the evil, invading aliens have spaceships?"
Alyx knew the answer to that one. "Because it's not just one satellite they'd have to take out, but the whole array," she explained. "It has dozens of satellites, maybe a hundred or more. And all of their orbital coordinates were at old Black Mesa, which-"
"- which is a radioactive glass crater in the middle of the New Mexico desert," he finished for her. He subconsciously rubbed the knuckles on his right hand, grimacing at unpleasant memories. "Yeah, I remember."
She thought aloud, just to make sure she understood. "So if they want to phone home for reinforcements, it would be a lot easier for them to just go through us and destroy that remote... for now, at least." Her eyes flashed to Dr. Kleiner. "Did I get that about right?"
He nodded. "Perfectly, my dear."
"That's a good theory," she said, and she meant it. But something was keeping her from celebrating just yet; their explanation seemed off, somehow. "But there must be more to it."
"What do you mean?" Dr. Kleiner asked.
"Well..." She thought back, tried to pry at the feeling of uncertainty. "Here, in the control room earlier. There was this hunter, and it seemed to - I could have sworn it went directly for the EMP, as if it knew what we were planning."
"There was that shield scanner," Barney put in. "Maybe it was floating there five minutes, heard our whole conversation."
"Can shield scanners hear things? And twenty feet away, through a sheet of glass?"
"Just brainstorming."
"And there's something else," she continued, remembering, "someone told me before we left that the ambush came from the lower levels of the base - from inside. I don't even understand how something like that can happen."
Dr. Kleiner clarified, "Oh yes, we've just received word on that: while you were gone, a scout team discovered an abandoned supply tunnel from a basement floor, its door broken open from the other side."
"Right," Barney added, voice hollow and eyes far away, "it opens up on the other side of the hill..."
"And how did the Combine find out about the tunnel?"
The old scientist just sighed, resigned.
"I hope I'm not interrupting your little game of Twenty Questions," Magnusson resolutely launched back into his lecture, "but back to my point. A few hours ago, I had the ingenious idea of how we might double our chances." He produced from his lab coat a similar device to the one on the table. This second one was slightly larger, though not by much. It, too, was a simple, buttonless metal box with only a single outlet for a plug. "In what little time I had available today, I managed to scrounge together a very simple quantum circuit."
"Yeah. Real simple," Barney remarked.
Magnusson just glared at him and continued. "As I was saying, these two devices are now entangled via a quantum relay. In layman's terms, the only way the Combine would be able to disrupt the resistance's control over the satellite array would be to destroy both these two ansibles."
"Hey, that sounds great." Barney nodded his approval.
"Yeah, I agree," Alyx said, turning to Dr. Kleiner, "so why were you two fighting earlier?"
His lips pressed into a hard line without response.
"Well, it's obvious, isn't it?" Magnusson answered. "There's not exactly any point in having two ansibles if we'll keep both here, is there?" He held out the new device to her. "Quite simply, it's far safer to put as much distance between these two as possible; and you and Mr. Calhoun here are headed to a rather remote corner of the world."
"Hold it," she digressed, "you want us to take it?"
"A ridiculous idea, I agree!" Kleiner said as he snatched the device from Magnusson's hand. "Surely we can just give it to someone else!"
"To whom? A traumatized refugee? A doddering old scientist like yourself? Some random rebel we've never met before who might very well be a double agent - I don't think so! Now you just tell me what's the point of Alyx and Barney being the resistance's top agents if we don't use them for important missions such as this!"
Kleiner glared at him over the rim of his glasses. "And I maintain this plan of yours will only draw more attention to them! I'm sure Daniel or Noriko will turn up soon enough and we can just ask them when they arrive - their mission is dangerous enough as it is, and you intend to -"
Alyx stood up straight and spoke over him, "Dr. Kleiner, I think we should listen to Dr. Magnusson."
"What?"
"We shouldn't put all our eggs in one basket. We'll take the ansible as far as we can then leave it in a safe location, where it won't be found by the Combine; you know it'll be in good hands 'til then. And besides, they won't even know we have it, so they'll have no reason to follow us. Barney, back me up on this; what do you think?"
Barney's eyes flickered to her but then settled back on Kleiner. He leaned forward and said in a surprisingly gentle tone, "Doc, it'll be fine; Alyx knows what she's doing. You know that."
"I..." He wrung his hands. His eyes met Alyx's, almost pleadingly. "Are you quite sure, my dear?"
"I don't see anyone else leaving here as quickly as we are." Without realizing it, Alyx's fingers went to the pendant around her neck. She gave him a soft, reassuring smile. "Don't worry."
He searched her face a few more moments to detect fear in her expression, but then finding none he looked down at the ansible. With a reluctant nod, he wordlessly handed it over to Barney.
"Oh and also," Barney added, "docs? While we're all here, I'd pretty seriously recommend evacuating the outpost. I mean, yeah, it's served you well, but with, what - two major attacks in under two days? It's pretty goddamn clear the Combine know where you are."
"Yes, an excellent suggestion, Barney," Kleiner agreed. "It's certainly been made abundantly clear that White Forest is a safe haven no longer. As soon as I've seen the two of you off, I shall make another bulletin organizing the exodus which is sure to ensue."
Alyx nodded. "Yeah, I know there are a lot of people who need medical attention, not to mention the destroyed barracks and sawmill. Plus," she added, rubbing her arm awkwardly, "I'm pretty sure the water tower's busted."
Magnusson cut in, "Alright, then! Now, I believe the only matter left is who should take the original ansible. This one, at least, must stay with our scientists so we can retain control of the array."
"Perhaps you should take it, Arne," Kleiner suggested. "It is, after all, your device."
"On the contrary, I believe it should go with you." He once again paused for dramatic effect. He put on an air of light martyrdom and said, "Objectively speaking, you are free to move about willy-nilly to a safer locale. I, however, will need to stay to get my work here organized for the trip, which will no doubt take a few days. White Forest is my lab, after all, and I have no intention of leaving my research behind."
"Fiddlesticks. Very well."
Magnusson handed the small, compact ansible to Kleiner and said, "Watch it. It's heavier than it looks."
"As it should be," Kleiner responded, grasping it firmly. "It carries nothing less than the weight of the world."
They spent little time wrapping up a couple more loose ends before the meeting broke and they all started heading off to the hangar.
Kleiner pulled Alyx off to the side of the control room as the others continued to the platform. "This will take but a minute, my dear. I merely wanted to give you this." He presented to her an old, faded, black-and-white photograph. She immediately recognized the mother, father, and infant in the picture.
"Oh..." She struggled with indecision for a moment, but then gently pushed it away. "No, Dr. Kleiner, it might get lost, or damaged, or -"
"Yes, that is a distinct possibility, and precisely why I neglected to offer it to you previously. But while you were fighting out there, I-I realized something. The only alternative would be to keep it here, with my own old self, and - well..." He glanced off to the side window. For a minute, Alyx got the feeling they were seeing the same scene: the day before, all of them gathered here in joy to watch the rocket launch. Her dad, vibrant and hopeful. "... And that just wouldn't be right, now would it?" He placed the photograph in her hands and clasped his own over hers. "Regardless of what could happen, you should have it."
Slowly, she took it from him. "I don't know what to say," she admitted.
"Oh, just do be careful out there, Alyx." His worn, familiar face bore traces of paternal worry. He fiddled with his glasses as he said, "I... well, I just wouldn't be able to bear it if you - or if something were to... What I mean to say is -"
She just smiled and leaned forward to plant a kiss on his bald head. "I love you, too, Uncle Kleiner."
It was a nickname she hadn't used since she was a child, and he clearly remembered it. He gave her a tearful smile and wordlessly patted her hands, and then turned away to face one of the consoles.
"Be with you in a moment, my dear," he said, waving her on.
Alyx understood. She gently folded the photograph along the worn seams and tucked it into the inside pocket of her jacket.
Through the door to the landing pad, she could see Barney waiting for her. His face broke into a mischievous grin as she was emerging from the control room.
"Hey, Alyx," he said in an unconvincingly innocent tone.
"All right, what have you got plann-OH MY GOD!" She leapt back three feet in horror when she saw a strider standing not twenty feet away from the landing pad. Adrenaline hit her system like a wrecking ball and her hand flew to her pistol. Her mind sprinted: there's no cover it's going to open fire soon everybody run for your lives - wait why is everyone... laughing?
Alyx held a hand over her pounding heart and looked more closely at the strider. It was upright, but perfectly still; after a couple stunned moments, she noticed it wasn't standing, but hanging limp from one of the trees. It was dead, she realized. Its three legs didn't even reach the ground. It was exactly the opposite of the dummy strider from earlier, she noted.
Two rebels in bloodstained gear were sitting high up in the air on a branch of the same tree. "Can you believe it?" one of them laughed. "A gunship actually just dropped this sucker right out of thin air - it was awesome! I swear, the buggers just went nuts after that bomb went off."
"Yeah," Barney gloated, brushing his fingernails on his lapel, "I don't want to brag, but it was a remarkable act of heroism. Should be remembered for the ages."
"Oh please, Calhoun, climb off that stick up your ass."
"Hey, I'm not the one sitting on a tree. Though I gotta admit it was worth it just to see this kid's reaction!" he said, jerking a thumb in Alyx's direction.
She was about to retort, but the man in the tree beat her to it.
"Don't look so cool and collected," he said. "When you saw Cat you shrieked like a five-year-old."
"Yes, well..." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I was attempting to communicate with it in its native tongue."
"Sure."
"Wait, wait, wait..." Alyx backtracked. "Cat?... You named it Cat?!"
"Well it's in a tree! And what the hell else were we supposed to call a strider, Dave?"
Alyx wordlessly groaned and made a beeline for the hangar. As she marched past Barney she shoved him. Hard. "That was not funny."
"It was a little funny."
"Not. Funny!"
He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck as she walked away. "Alyx," he called. She turned in the door to the hangar. "Sorry, kiddo. Shoulda warned you."
She only nodded in response, but seemed to accept.
He leaned against the railing and admired the view. It was late afternoon by now, so the valley was one big green and gold glow. There were a couple slate grey smudges marking smoldering buildings and the burning carcasses of synths; from this distance, humans were just ant-sized specs, but it looked like things were winding down. He breathed deep of the fresh air and soaked up the wide open sky, the fog finally gone.
He should probably cut the kid some slack. Losing a parent was never easy.
In the hangar, Alyx and Dog made their goodbyes. His electronics made a high-pitched whimper as she told him what was going on.
"... so I need you to be a good boy," she finished. "Take care of everyone while I'm gone."
She bumped her forehead against his optical lens and held him there for a few long seconds. Finally, she broke the pose. "Stay safe."
She hopped into the helicopter to find the repairs completed; inch-thick plastic sheets had been screwed over the smashed windows, and the rotors and engine had been tuned, among other things. Sam, only barely visible in the back behind the piles of crates, had clasped across her eyes a pair of plastic laboratory goggles and was scribbling down on a notepad everything they'd stocked. Barney was up front in the cockpit, duct taping the ansible to the underside of the dashboard. Marcus was nowhere to be seen.
Alyx reached underneath the starboard passenger bench and pulled out her rucksack. She admired the photograph for several long moments. There was herself as an infant in the arms of her mother: the woman who wore the same pendant that now hung around Alyx's neck. And behind them both stood her father. She'd always teased him about looking stiff in this picture; he'd always said it was because the photographer had tried to take that picture for ten minutes but a certain young lady would never look at the camera.
She hid a small smile behind her hand at the memory. But soon the happy thought reminded her of the deep pain in her chest and she buried her head in her arms. A knot constricted painfully, like she was a spring being wound tighter and tighter until her whole body could do nothing but tremble. She felt like crying but she couldn't - it just hurt.
So she forced herself, like earlier, to breathe. The breaths wavered, but cleared her head a little. She furtively glanced over either shoulder to see if anyone had noticed her. To her relief, Sam was still in the very back and Barney was lounging in the cockpit.
Moving quickly now, she slipped the photo flat into a small plastic bag. Just as she was about to tuck it into her rucksack, she kissed it.
She'd never had anything of her mother but stories, her necklace, and this picture. But at least she'd had one hell of a good dad.
Marcus appeared a few minutes later carrying four parachutes. He wordlessly deposited them in the cargo hold and strapped himself into his seat with a mildly smug look on his face.
With his appearance, they were all ready to get going. He and Sam sat on either side of the passenger bay while Alyx entered the cockpit again, this time to find Barney once again reclining in the copilot's seat with his feet up. She settled into the pilot's seat.
Barney greeted her with: "Hey, kid. Before it's too late, you remember our conversation in the control room?"
She forced her tone to be light. "Which one?"
"You know which one."
The images drifted back to her: panicking about the Combine, the things he'd said, the weight in her chest momentarily pulling her under. She looked down at her hands in her lap.
"You given it any more thought? 'Cause right now, it's now or never."
She took her time, counted her breaths. In the early, dark hours of the morning when she hadn't been able to sleep, her seams had been threading apart. She'd confessed as much to Gordon, and accidentally exposed it in the control room, but had kept it under wraps the rest of the time. And what had she done since then? Only fought an invasion in a battered jalopy. Only survived a collapsing water tower. Only dug her way through an entire army, reverse engineered alien technology, and successfully piloted an aerial battle. Only done her damn job. Maybe she was falling apart, but even that didn't seem to be able to stop her.
"Listen," she finally decided, choosing her words as they came out, "I know I was freaking out a bit earlier, but it's on the back burner now, I promise. You know, despite all that's happened? I still think everything's going to be okay. People need me, and I can focus on that." Through the widening hangar doors, humanity milled about, just like this morning before the attack. There were a few less and some were injured, but they were still there. "So you'd better not bring it up again," she jokingly threatened.
"You kidding?" He smiled at her - she might have been imagining it, but it looked a little like pride. "I was a mole for fifteen years; I think I know how to not bring something up."
She smiled and began checking over the dials. White Forest was safe. Now all they need to do was fly north... And find Gordon. And save Dr. Mossman. And destroy the Borealis. If she weren't so tense, she would have laughed. There was always more work to do.
A small party of people gathered outside: Dr. Kleiner, Dog, Dr. Magnusson, Sheckley, a smattering of other rebels, vortigaunts, and scientists, and -
"Uriah!" Alyx cried. Sure enough, there was a vortigaunt among the group in a slashed, yellow-stained lab coat - though he didn't appear to be injured at all. "You're alive!"
He raised a two-fingered hand as the helicopter rolled out onto the landing pad. Most of the group waved or shouted good luck as the rotors hacked through the air. Once they'd started gaining altitude and left the smoky air above the outpost behind, the radio fizzled awake.
"Ahem, testing? Testing?"
"Still hearing ya loud an' clear, doc," Barney said into his headset.
"Do you know where you're going to go, Dr. Kleiner?" Alyx asked.
"Ah, well, after a modicum of consideration, I have decided to set off toward the south. We hav - did you hear Tamika has turned up in one piece?" he interrupted himself.
A smile spread across her face. "Oh, good!"
"Yes, well, she arrived to inform me that the resistance has seized the southerly Klearbruk train track, for the time being at least. It's been suggested I strike out for the Athenian branch, in the city's ruins. It didn't seem to have too poor a laboratory, from what I can recall," he added stiffly.
"That's perfect. Dmitrius is sure to help you out after the whole Rusalka debacle."
Barney laughed once, humorlessly, at the memory. He abruptly interjected, "Do we have coordinates for gas-up stops?"
Dr. Kleiner responded, "Of course. We've radioed ahead to AEsir Base, so they'll be ready for your arrival by the time you've crossed the Baltic."
"Thanks," Alyx said. "After that, I was thinking Vanir Outpost, then Gota. I suppose we'll just have to play it by ear after that, though we'll do our best to avoid City 29 - and Lamant." The name made her shudder. "We're not exactly sure what we'll be passing over, so expect radio silence from us for a while. We'll talk to you again when we land. Take care."
"Alright then. Best of luck to you all, and such." With a soft click, the radio switched off to static.
She called over her shoulder to address everyone. "We've got the coordinates for Adlivun Electric, so I'll start making the route north. We'll have to stop for gas a few times, but other than that it shouldn't take us too long: about a full day of flying."
She once again faced the front windshield. The fog was thinning as they were leaving outland airspace, so the path ahead appeared clear for now. The ground was far beneath her, but visible: it looked like the fog had cleared up. She watched as the familiar forested mountains gradually smoothed out into long-abandoned crop fields and shanty towns. Eventually, even those made way for the craggy, noxious desolation manufactured by the Air Exchange and mining factories. From here on out, the only scenery would be the flat, cracked wasteland of a drained sea. Occasionally, a marooned freighter stood out rust red against the salt like a little flag in the white, urging her on.
Activity relaxed as the minutes passed and the world rolled by. With a sidelong glance at Barney, she caught him in a pensive mood. He was staring out the window without seeing anything, deeply lost in thought. His eyes were pinched together with exhaustion; he looked like he had gotten just about as much sleep as she had last night.
She was suddenly reminded of that mysterious sheet of paper he'd hidden earlier, passing it off as 'Making sure we're prepared for the trip'. The memory of how absent-minded he'd seemed, how quickly he changed the topic, how he had yet to speak a word of what he'd been up to since the Uprising, struck her in full force. She'd learned long ago to trust her instincts, and as her panic and adrenaline dulled in the calm of the flight, they were definitely speaking up.
Barney had lied.
Negotiations
A force of nature sat, deliberating, in a dark cocoon of twinkling lights. Its thoughts came slowly but with great force, like a front of cold air coming off a sea. The creature's kind was accustomed to the slow march: they could wait generations or eons for a fault line to buckle or a civilization to ripen before striking - but when they did strike, it was with unmatched speed and precision. Theirs was an efficient process, honed by millennia of trial and error. It was, in fact, almost perfect.
The metal shell was sealed shut for the journey, partially to shelter the creature from the toxic oxygen-rich atmosphere, and partially to allow it the isolation to think. The interior was punctuated by the gentle ebb and flow of pinprick, multicolored lights that flickered or waxed or waned in only a facsimile of random movement; they were really mimicking the thought pattern of the creature. Now, they shifted slowly but with great purpose. It did not regard them with wonder, and did not compare them to stars.
The creature now found itself in the unfamiliar position of contemplating the recent... setbacks. The assassination of the Administrator. The collapse of the central City. The shutdown of the dark energy communication network. And most recently, the failure to acquire the control system for the satellite array.
A fault in the railroad track jostled the pod, and the massive, oozing burn on one side of its grub-like body screamed under the motion. A wordless aura of anger thrashed the air outside the shell, and a few soldiers were thrown off the bridge. The injury had come from that sickening little device those parasites had dropped from the sky; the other Syndicate member was obliterated in the blast.
The pain it felt was a weakness of the flesh easy to disregard and easier to disdain. That agonizing rake across its nervous system which tied its brain to its weak, limpid body was a reminder of its own imperfection: imperfection that needed to be cauterized, amputated, corrected. Except in one place far away, Imperfection was everywhere.
Imperfection was in the inefficient, rusted railroad tracks the creature and its convoy migrated down. Imperfection was in this entire tiny blue planet from its pockmarked ozone layer to its cooling core, but particularly in its bipedal indigenous species. So the very concept that a few thousand of these unaltered, non-augmented animals were capable of gaining a foothold, however temporarily, was not worrying or irritating, but inconceivable.
And the creature intended to ensure the foothold was temporary.
The lights danced as the numerous little bumps in the tracks faded into white noise.
Deep in the recesses of memory, there was protocol for this situation, as degrading as it was to go to a lower species for help. There were only a few variables that needed ironing out.
The creature extended its proboscis, shimmering with slick, gelatinous fluid, and wormed it into a hollow slot in the wall. Three long, needle-like tools extended from the hollow, surrounding the slot like corners of an equilateral triangle - and at once they clamped down into the tentacle hard enough to pierce the skin.
With a few quick instructions fed through its proboscis, the walls melted away into a program, a sort of virtual astral projection. The interior of the pod dissolved away and another room took its place.
It was empty and dim except for the floor, which was clear enough to seem nonexistent. The planet miles below was covered by a forest of black spires; giant whale-like creatures flew between them, swirling the orange smog into little eddies and spirals.
And in the room dimly lit by the smoggy glow of an orange atmosphere, another force of nature was waiting.
This being was different. He was careful, very careful, to allow only a sliver of his form be visible - to allow only a single, hollow facet of his true appearance to attend the meeting. Communication with him was like speaking into a void: you could feel your words disappear across time and space, and then a response echo back through that same vast distance, translated through a puppet in a manner easiest to understand.
He was an agent, a broker of deals, and he was very good at his job.
"Now, I knew we could come to an... acc-ord." His accent picked at the words like foreign objects. "Petty disagreements will get us nowhere in times like these."
The creature responded with a long, grating sound: an accusation.
"I wasss merely fulfilling the obligations of a prior con-tract; Mr. Breen knew from the beginning the cost of his usurpation." The agent then smiled, but it held no emotion: just the movement of cold flesh beneath dead eyes. "And as for my terms, khhh I hope you found them ve-ry clear."
A dissatisfied, animalistic groan shook the air.
"Surely the timeframe is of no con... sequence to one such as yourself."
The large, grub-like creature circled him. In the program it was uninjured, unencumbered by life support, no more and no less than exactly what it was supposed to be: a perfect cog in an unstoppable machine. It made a short query.
"My c-colleague will be of. No. Import. I have made certain of that." His cheek twitched, like a corpse's face receiving an electric shock. His fingers shifted the briefcase at his side and he changed the topic. "There is still the unsightly issue of payment? Your request does not come cheap, so I am afraid I will have to insissst on collecting be-fore-hand."
The creature's temper flared with primordial impatience, enough for a few glitches in the program to appear. Patches of void flared into and out of existence like baubles of distortion suspended around the space.
"Hm... Very well. After. Will that be all?"
It didn't respond immediately, but turned its focus through the floor at its home world churning away. Down among the black spires, there was no use for the broken or flawed; perfection, contribution, was the only option.
The Advisor agreed.
The hand of the broker - who was in reality no more than an empty, three-dimensional frame of light given the semblance of standing on the floor - grasped the knot at the base of his throat, and gave it a tug which matched the self-satisfied smirk sitting beneath two reptile-green eyes.
"Then it's a deal."
In a dark cocoon rolling down a railroad track, multicolored lights began to quicken.
