Chapter 21: Interlopers
"Uh, Pyotr?" Quarir said uncertainly.
"Yes?"
"What the hell are we going to do?"
"We should remain where we are and hope it is soon distracted."
"Distracted?"
"Just do not shoot the Guard. Otherwise it will attack us."
"What the hell do you call this then?" Quarir snapped.
"It is merely testing the boundaries of this territory. The Antlions have not had the chance to inspect it for so long."
"It's headbutting the rock! I'm going to fall off!"
"Quarir?"
"What?!"
"Under no circumstances should you fall off."
The Domarians had some instance of psionic aptitude in their civilisation, but they were not all inherently psychic like, say, the Arcadimaarians.
But Vortigaunts had grasped telepathy so extensively that, arguably, they shared the same mind.
This phenomenon has never been properly explained, at least not by anyone else's science. The so-called Vortessence has been classified as everything from a particular type of psionic discipline to a transdimensional communication network.
Vortigaunt society had been built on telepathy, and they tended to speak only as a sign of respect towards less advanced races. Vortessence transcended mere words.
Vortessence was entirely impenetrable to even the most advanced psychic, and thus even empires as technological as the Combine had had difficulty in locating and subduing Pyotr's kind. Indeed, some of the biggest galactic powers knew nothing of Xen. Vortigaunts resisted psionic probing and physical torture with limitless willpower, and thus if a lone Vort fell into the hands of a hostile force they would learn nothing, as the unfortunate individual was in constant contact with his fellows, comforted at all times, told of his unending importance to their cause.
But this didn't stop the Combine from trying.
Adam couldn't quite recall why the humans had given him the name, but he was aware of its biblical importance and thus he and his fellows had found it quite flattering, taking it, of course, as a compliment meant for their entire society.
He dwelt on this as the CP official hooked up his free arm to a second terminal, and this time, when a hundred thousand volts crackled through his body, besting even his species' natural resistance to electricity, the pain only made him flinch. The first three times, his jaws had gone into spasm, and he'd broken a bone.
After a full minute of this, the officer grew tired and ordered his men to deactivate the machine.
Adam breathed in, looked up, and had his face smashed by a solid metal baton, almost popping his core eye from its socket.
His torturers had long since given up asking questions. They'd resigned themselves to the fact that he wouldn't talk. Now, perhaps, they were just doing it as light entertainment.
They'd been asking an awful lot of different questions, Adam realised, as they enthusiastically tried to saw his leg off with a thermo-scalpel, so things must've been getting the Combine down.
They want to know of Freeman? asked a Vort who had not been given a human name as he'd never contacted anyone outside of his 'Gaunt-populated settlement.
Yes, Adam responded, slightly irritated at all the blood covering his eye, but they also wish to know of Pyotr and his charges.
(Vorts would not, within the privacy of their own minds, ever refer to one of their own by a name bestowed by a human. But their names for each other do not lend themselves well to being written.)
Do we know of the Domarians? asked another. Our kindred within Colony 351 have had very limited contact with them, but they seem genuinely benign. They are identical to humans. It is just that they have had their destiny shaped by the Uclasion Artefact. Yes. The artificial mind. I suppose we should be glad that it fell into the hands of a worthy species. That is a point to debate. Because surely, if even the likes of the Combine had found it, perhaps they would not be so twisted and warlike? The Combine would not have let their destiny be shaped by a machine. They would have destroyed it, because they would have rightly feared it. But they would retain the Uclasion Construct, we are sure. No civilisation would pass up such a technology.
Angered at the fact that he hadn't provoked a stronger reaction, the CP removed the thermo-scalpel from Adam's kneecap, searching for a more potent device.
It is a pity that the Uclasions are an extinct race, Adam projected wistfully.
Perhaps they would have stopped the Combine rising to such levels of power. Perhaps they would have risen to take the Combine's place. We shall never know.
Rather surprisingly, the CPs decided to release Adam from the table, unshackling his limbs and dragging his broken body back to his cramped cell.
Rest assured, Pyotr said, we are in close proximity to Nova Prospekt. The Domarian is heading there for reasons unknown. Even we cannot guess the plans of the Artefact. But we shall rescue both you and Eli Vance, Adam.
A noble sentiment, said some newcomers, but we must tell you this: Freeman has passed through our base. He has claimed the 'bugbait', and he storms Nova Prospekt with an army of righteous Antlions.
The Antlion was dimly aware that some unidentifiable life form sat atop the rocky outcropping, and thus the bulky insect was attempting to dislodge it: for fully a minute now it had charged the unmoving mound, eagerly seeking to drive the interloper from its territory or at least ascertain what the thing was.
Quarir considered shooting the beast, but he recalled Pyotr's advice and stayed his hand- the bug was livid enough as it was, and considering its powerfully built frame there was every chance that a shotgun blast would merely anger it further. As for his Mercenary-made plasma rifle, his trophy from the Domarian assassin... well, enough said. Powerful as it was, it was likely to have every scanner in a ten mile radius zooming towards its energy signature.
Nuri subconsciously edged away from the Antlion Guard as it butted their stony throne for the umpteenth time, and tried to keep an eye on the events within the Combine-garrisoned settlement.
The surviving CPs had given up all pretence of resistance. They ran for their lives, heading to their only chance of outrunning the insectoid predator: the second APC, parked on the outskirts of the little shantytown.
From out of his peripheral vision, Nalore spotted something black-plated shifting into his view. With a speed he didn't know he possessed, he forcibly pushed Annie's hand down. She'd been about to fire the Sentinel plasma pistol.
"What?" she shouted defensively, aware that she may well have done something wrong but too highly strung to face up to the possibility.
"Firstly, we've all agreed not to shoot that thing," Quarir snapped hoarsely, hand still clamped around the woman's wrist. "Secondly, and most importantly, that's a Sentinel. It's Security's standard issue sidearm, and it's got more defensive mechanisms in it then the average mansion. Do not try doing anything with it!"
Annie looked at the chunky gun as if she'd only just realised it wasn't of her world. "Well," she hazarded, sounding almost apologetic, "do you want it?"
Quarir reared back as if the proffered handgun was a venomous snake. "Hell no! It'll probably explode or burn a hole in my hand or worse!"
Annie pouted. "I'm not holding onto it if it's dangerous..."
"Don't put it down either!" Quarir had backed away so far that he was in danger of toppling into the forgotten Antlion's path.
Pyotr chose to make his contribution at that point, fortuitously distracting Nalore long enough to stop him moving any further. "Quarir Nalore, surely it is safely disarmed if it has not yet shown any sign of activity? Annie did manage to pick it up."
"Look, I know this technology," Quarir stood forward again to waggle a disciplining finger at the group, much to everyone's relief. "It can work even if you take it a million miles from home. It'd be weaker, sure, but just as—"
At that moment, the much-reduced CP squadron started up their only operational APC. The team's Antlion antagonist skidded to a halt mid-charge, and started galloping towards the noisome vehicle. Its crew roared off towards the horizon, ploughing through several lesser Antlions in their desperation.
"Well, at least they've cleared a path for us," Nuri piped up, although she was cringingly aware that the Antlions had merely replaced one danger with another.
"We must await their withdrawal," Pyotr told them solemnly, "and pray that we do not ourselves disturb them."
Quarir licked his lips with a sandpaper-dry tongue. "It still leaves us stranded. I was counting on stealing that APC, but it just went and died."
The control console, nothing but a tiny glowing speck from this distance, flashed from red to golden, and then quietly switched to green, showering tiny, almost imperceptible yellow sparks. The APC at the settlement's centre inexplicably chugged back into life, and its attached thumper ponderously rose into the air with a groan.
The Antlions seemed to know what was coming. They started to flee from the construct before it was even in full flow. But when the thumper's heavy piston slammed into the earth, they squealed in shock and even the Antlion Guard flinched visibly.
On the second blow the Antlions turned tail burrowing back to their nest in a terrified tempest of sand. In a few short seconds, every one of the insects had disappeared, leaving only the repetitive rumbles of the Combine's thumper.
"That was... a pretty convenient malfunction," Nuri hedged, clearly wary.
"Uh, yeah," Quarir grinned nervously, "lucky us."
On the thumper's lone display panel, Maintonon's cyclopean icon flashed into existence for a nanosecond. Then it went the way of the Antlions, vanishing as if it had never been there.
"We have a problem."
"Extrapolate," Forty requested. You could have called his manner cold but the Benefited no longer possessed mannerisms. They were one and the same. They treated even the video communication units as an extension of themselves.
"Freeman has already breached the outlying fortifications of Nova Prospekt," said Thirty-Eight. "He has deactivated the pest dispersal units and we believe him to be directing Antlions through improvised use of their pheromone systems."
Thirty-Eight was the latest of the Combine Elites to be upgraded to the rank of Benefited: an earlier "recruit" than Forty, but his poor performance had made him the latest of the upgraded transhumans, while Forty had been amongst the first. Thirty-Eight was currently posted as a glorified logistics officer, as even with his upgrades he was not considered combat-ready. If he could have felt pity or smugness, Forty would've felt them both.
"The relevance of your statement is not apparent," Forty responded.
"Freeman is already storming the facility. He has downed two gunships. We do not have the means to stop him."
"Then we will execute Eli Vance?"
"That is not for us to decide," Thirty-Eight replied. If a listener hadn't been aware of his emotionless nature, they might have mistakenly thought him to be snappish and reproachful. "This fact is relevant as it causes an objective shift. You cannot reinforce Nova Prospekt in time. You no longer have clearance to dispatch Freeman. You have been reassigned."
The words struck a chord, a deafening chord that reverberated throughout Forty's warped being. Even his implants reeled at the failure. He'd lost his chance. Freeman, the only challenge worthy of him, would not be his to eliminate. The human would advance unimpeded by the lesser "Elites" that dared to consider themselves Combine.
"That cannot be," he said, and his own statement confused him. Of course it would be. The upper echelon had commanded it, and he would obey. And yet he was furious. But he couldn't be furious, it was a logical impossibility. He was incapable of it. He'd undergone the final processes. It was impossible…
"Your secondary objective has changed priority. Your goal is to locate the Domarian and determine the veracity of his claims. Eliminate him if it proves necessary."
With that flatly delivered instruction, Thirty-Eight severed the connection. The communicator went dark, and Forty felt that, for a moment, he could see his own reflection in the blackness of the dead screen. A reflection that stripped bare mere exoskeletons and laid his innards out for all to see.
He had no concept of metaphor: he was instructing his self-diagnostic systems to prepare a report, as he always did, as he always had to, whenever given new instructions.
Despite the lingering packets of data that could only be called doubts, both his mental and physical analyses described a member of the Benefited who was in peak condition. There was no component degradation, no lasting damage despite his brush with a payload of rockets.
He examined the horde of dead that littered the twice-reclaimed Resistance bunker. Struck down by some sort of plasma weapon. An inefficient device that was nevertheless more advanced than this pathetic civilisation's best offerings.
The Domarian's trademark killings? Perhaps the mediocre empire he claimed to represent truly wished to form an alliance?
But Freeman was Freeman. Freeman! Gordon Freeman! An unstoppable juggernaut, humanity's messiah!
Quarir Nalore was merely a Domarian lackey, unworthy of the smallest of attentions. This was a task for a diplomat, not a warrior. Damn multitasking! A member of the Benefited was not needed to stop a humanoid with second-rate augmentations!
In that moment, Forty resolved to ignore the Domarian interloper. Oh, he would deal with him eventually. Even in his current state Forty acknowledged the importance of a potential interspecies alliance. But he would go to Nova Prospekt regardless of what he'd been commanded to do.
If he met the Domarian en route, so much the better- he could interrogate and kill him within a few short minutes, leaving him time enough to reach Freeman. And if Thirty-Eight or one of his lessers had orders to stop him... then he'd kill them, too.
Forty, after all, had been built to be the best that humanity could offer. And humanity had offered history a constant stream of efficient, ambitious murderers.