Chapter 10: Control and Escape
"What the hell just happened?" Nuri gaped.
"Who knows? Malfunction. Yeah," Quarir babbled hastily, delaying an explanation for as long as physically possible. "Obviously. Come on!"
"But the door is still sealed!"
"Not for long. It'll probably go too. Yeah."
"What? It doesn't look like it's about to—"
"There we go," Nalore interrupted, gratefully diving out the room as the door jolted open with a shower of golden sparks. "Told you so. Just like when I was hitting those buttons, haha. Which, wait, means they were also… lucky coincidence. Haha." He sounded manic.
Nuri, nevertheless, followed him. "Look, Quarir, what's going—?"
"Who knows? I damn well don't. I never do! Let's just go in here, shall we?"
Nuri examined the door that had opened for Quarir as if he'd been a Combine officer and not an extraterrestrial trespasser. Rather than being a native door with an added magseal, it was yet another of the hulking alloy hatches that the Combine used to seal off their most important property. The markings above it reminded her of the storeroom back at the City 11 Town Hall.
"This is an armoury?" she asked aloud, already knowing the answer, which was just as well as Quarir gave no indication that he'd even heard her.
The walls were lined with the utilitarian weapon racks that the Overwatch favoured. Each and every one of them was stocked with a pulse rifle. Ammunition practically overflowed from sizeable wall sconces, and the mounted medical units that the CPs interfaced with in case of injury were in abundance. The place is a goldmine, she thought hungrily. I just wish we'd found somewhere like this before they broke up the cell back home…
But Nalore ignored the amassed equipment, heading straight for a small table surrounded by freakish machinery and serpentine cables. A dim ceiling light illuminated a shining object, about a cubit long. And there was good reason for that, because as she approached, Nuri realised it was a cubit.
"That's the Zealot's arm!" she exclaimed in disgust.
"Nah, there's nothing inside the gauntlet," Quarir assured her, although he still peered inside it to check. "Either it vaporized along with him or he decomposes real quick or the Combine scraped all the flesh out—"
"Stop that! Urrgh. What could you possibly want it for?"
"Because," Nalore said, circling around the complex examination table in an effort to find an opening, "it's a psionic amplifier. You saw what he did with it!"
"Yes," Nuri acknowledged, shuddering at the memory. "But it's an amplifier, so doesn't that mea— what the hell are you doing?"
"What?" Nalore said irritably, tentatively poking the gauntlet and its attached bracer.
"Isn't there a security system or something?" Nuri asked, baffled at how easily Quarir had removed the only Arcadimaarian test sample on Earth.
"The amplifier's got no self defence mechanism, it would've died with the Zealot. They're linked, you know," he explained sagely.
"I meant that Combine scanner," Nuri continued tiredly. "How come it doesn't care that you've removed it?"
"Oh," Quarir stopped in his tracks, conceding that she had a point, "Well…"
The alarm went off again, the siren returning to its wailing with its usual gusto. Nuri looked on in abject horror as the alluring racks, every single one of them, locked down, vanishing into the impenetrable walls alongside the recharger units and the medical stations.
"Oh, thanks a lot!" she bellowed. "Those would've been really— what the…?"
Wondering what could have possibly distracted her from her favourite hobby of Quarir-baiting, the Domarian swivelled round. She was staring, in surprised delight, at a second examination counter.
"My .357! What the hell is that doing here?"
"They must've thought it was special since he had it," Nalore sniffed. He wasn't entirely sure why the antiquated revolver was so precious to her.
Nuri eagerly grabbed the firearm and cradled it emotionally.
Nalore rolled his eyes. "Oh for the love of... marry it later, we're in a hurry! Let's go!"
Flushing, Nuri hurriedly holstered the gun. "You wanted to stop here," she said accusingly.
"Hey, I just grabbed this amplifier," Quarir said, steadily jogging alongside her as they made their way through the former-government-owned office block, "I'm not planning to sleep with it. We're not that attached, but man, maybe with some work, this glove and me might have an enduring relationship..."
Nuri ground her teeth. "If you don't learn how to blow up buildings with that thing," she said warningly, "I swear I'm going to shoot you."
"You already did."
"Next time I'll keep trying until it sticks."
"Touché."
"How come all the doors are still open?" Nuri asked Quarir, knowing full well that he'd either rebuff her or claim ignorance.
"Must've blown a fuse," he said vaguely.
"It's just that the racks back at the armoury sealed up when the alarm started, but none of the doors have shut."
"Maybe the Combine just have shit security systems," Nalore muttered, waving a dismissive hand over his shoulder as he moved forward. "How should I know?"
"Wait," Nuri shouted suddenly, dashing forward to stop him, "I think that's a—"
"What?" he asked irritably, negligently passing his foot through a low-lying beam of light.
A different alarm sounded briefly, and two suspiciously large tiles on either side of the exit shot upward, exposing the mounted guns beneath them. For a millisecond they did little more than project a cone of pale light towards the two escapees, but then they shuddered into action and began pouring pulse rounds towards the pair.
Fortunately Nuri had some experience with Combine defensive systems, and thus she'd managed to pull Quarir to safety behind the baroque outcropping that bordered two tall windows.
The sentry guns let loose another deafening salvo, as if they making doubly sure that their target had been eliminated, and then went deathly silent.
Holding the miffed Quarir back (because she was absolutely convinced he would do something as stupid as triggering the turrets again) Nuri slowly leant around the edge of their shelter, prepared, at any time, to dive backwards to avoid another burst of fire.
Although the turrets hadn't retreated back into their departments beneath the floor, they still appeared to be active; their sensor beams patiently combed the tiles ahead of them, waiting for something to kill.
"Damn," she swore under her breath, "I don't know how we're going to get past."
There was a jarringly loud smashing sound, followed by the unmistakable tingling of falling glass. She turned round, horrified— but not surprised— to find that Quarir had smashed the delicate window to pieces, resourcefully using the Arcadimaarian gauntlet to cushion his hand from the impact.
"We've got to get out of here sometime," he said by way of explanation, "won't be long before those Elites get back." With that, he threw himself through the jagged opening, conveniently clearing away the remaining fragments of razor-sharp glass.
After a small intermission, there was a thud, and a shocked grunt.
"We're on the first floor," Nuri called down.
"Yeah, I just realised," Quarir replied hazily, "but this rib was already broken, no problem…"
"Are you really all right?"
"Yeah, of course. C'mon down, I'll catch you!"
"If you're sure…"
"Hey, I've already broken everything else, breaking your fall won't be any trouble."
Nuri did not suffer from vertigo but she decided, there and then, that she'd just diagnosed herself with the first recorded case of being-caught-by-Quarir-phobia. But it was either that or waiting for the Combine to kill her, and so she steadied herself and jumped—
—and landed heavily, managing to twist her ankle.
She gritted her teeth as she tried to concentrate on anything other than the wrenched joint such as why the hell Nalore hadn't lived up to his promise. There was an acid remark on her lips when she looked up from her foot… and found Quarir wrestling with a headcrab.
If the creature in question hadn't been a brain-dissolving body-controlling parasite, it might have been a comical sight. The small creature— who possessed four sharp, clawed feet and a flesh tone not dissimilar to a roast chicken— was doing an admirable job of grappling with Quarir, who was uttering a constant stream of profanity while the 'crab squeaked and chirruped urgently.
Eventually Nalore managed to disentangle himself from the Xenian, and he flung it as far as he could. It landed on its back, but righted itself quickly, and then slowly but frantically began crawling back towards him, front claws waving in the air as it dragged itself along on its back legs.
"Shoot the thing!" he urged Nuri. "Urrgh."
She needed no second bidding. She took aim with her revolver, and her first shot hit home, flipping the parasite's pitiful corpse skyward with a spray of oily blood.
Quarir shuddered again. "Sorry about your landing."
"It's okay. It's barely sprained, I can still walk."
"Good, because there are more of the things," Quarir informed her.
"I can see that."
The allotment to the rear of the ex-government facility was a vast expanse of concrete, although it was difficult to tell whether it was a parking lot, a reclaimed town green or the site of a now-demolished building. Refuse of all kinds, from burnt out cars to piles of plastic gunk, filled the area. Everywhere around them the headcrabs were steadily working their way between the heaps of garbage.
"I've only got five rounds left now," Nuri announced depressingly, "and it'd be a waste to spend them on headcrabs."
"Agreed," Quarir nodded, opening the unresisting boot of an immolated car. "Need to improvise! Ah, perfect."
The boot contained a lump of ash and malformed rubber that might've once been documentation and a flashlight…. and a rusty, but intact, tyre iron.
"What about that glove of yours?"
"It's damn uncomfortable, and this isn't the best time to try it out," Quarir confessed, bundling the jangling mess up and hanging it off his belt.
"You'll be attracting 'crabs for miles with all that noise."
"Hey, better that they jump out than lurk around waiting for us to turn our ba—"
"Gragaaahhh!"
Quarir's heart leapt into his throat and he quickly dispatched the zombie, fear lending weight to his already formidable blows. It sunk to the floor, several dents in the 'crab clamped across its rotting skull.
"We have got to get out of here!"
"There are scanners, keep down!" Nuri hissed.
They lay beneath a corroded van for a minute, waiting for the three humming sentry drones to move on, gaining height to soar above the office block.
Quarir brushed himself off and snorted. "Why would they be scanning a shithole like this?"
"This was a Resistance base," Nuri murmured. She bent down to the odorous corpse of the zombie: a brightly-painted lambda was on the former citizen's arm. "That's why they set up that headquarters nearby, and why there are headcrabs everywhere. They infested this place and then forgot about it."
"The Combine does that…?"
"They use the 'crabs as biological weapons. Zombies are a lot less dangerous than armed, loyal rebels, but even then they declare a cull every month or so. Keeps the 'crab population down, and eventually all the zombies and Resistance members get killed off."
"Pretty damn good siege weapon, then."
"It's sickening," she scolded him.
"That too. So there's an old base somewhere amongst all this crap?"
"Somewhere, yes," Nuri scanned the acre-or-so of debris. "But it'll either be stripped bare or packed full of zombies."
"Likely to be a lot of ammo inside, right?" Quarir said, licking his lips. "Lots of unneeded supplies and probably a tunnel network…"
"Have you got a plan?"
"Well, no. But checking out this base, even if it's empty and full of our mutant chum's family, is probably better than trying to go round the front. I reckon the Elites will be back by now."
"You've got a point, but the entrance is likely to be hidden."
"Gra-gaaah! Hurrghh!" cried some distant monstrosity.
"We just follow the screams. More zombies closer to the entrance, right?"
"Maybe you're right…"
"Plus, it'll get us away from the three behind me. Let's go."