Disclaimer: I don't own Half-Life.
Aftermath
Chapter Four: Urban Flight
The elevator clanged to a halt on what Gordon presumed was the top floor, and the gate slid open. It looked like the entrance to an underground train station. Combine propaganda posters littered the walls, Dr Breen's domineering visage plastered across as many surfaces as possible. Old newspapers, food cartons and boxes were strewn about the floor. It was a miracle that the only thing Gordon could smell was something like stale bread.
Alyx left the elevator ahead of him and headed off to the right. Following, Gordon walked with her to a gate before a stairway.
"Thank God, it's still day," she sighed gratefully.
Looking through, Gordon could see bright, greyish skies above, though the clouds were taking on a pale, sickly colour. It was nice to see the sky again, though.
"Let's get out of here," Alyx prodded, and Gordon blinked himself out of his reverie. There was a wheel attached to the wall beside the gate, and Gordon got to work.
As he worked, he could make out a voice echoing from above, static crackling on certain words like a speaker with the volume set too high. Dr Kleiner. Though it was good to hear his voice again, Gordon was confused as to why he exactly he could.
"…if you find yourself still within the confines of City 17, you're well advised to leave the city at once by the fastest means available to you. We have restored service to much of the commuter transport system in order to carry citizens out of the city as quickly as possible. We have also established camps and triage areas in the surrounding environ. I repeat, you must evacuate the city at once. While there was certainly…"
Gordon tuned it out as the gate finally opened. Alyx ran up the steps and out into the open air.
"Finally, fresh air…" Her words died as Gordon came up behind her. And he could see why. The landscape ahead of them had been torn apart. Buildings were flattened, shattered and left in pieces around the impressively distant Citadel. That train had really taken them far. A Strider thumped its way past in the distance, looking a little aimless.
"Oh my God," Alyx gasped. "The Striders really tore the hell out of this place."
The destruction of the city only reached to the vista in front of them. As though an invisible line had been drawn, the buildings around and behind them were secure, awaiting destruction.
Dr Kleiner's voice faded back in again, and they both looked up to one of the huge monitors erected high above them, usually reserved for Dr Breen's smug visage. It was now Dr Kleiner's nervous torso that occupied the screen, awkwardly gesturing and adjusting his glasses between every sentence.
"…I repeat, evacuate City 17 at once, if not sooner. I cannot state this without enough undue emphasis. On a lighter note, if you are already in one of our…"
"I've never been happier to see Dr Kleiner," Alyx beamed, and Gordon nodded with a smile.
An ominous rumble from the Citadel drew their attention back to the task at hand. Alyx nodded her head towards the part of the city that remained standing.
"Okay, let's get to the train yard before the Citadel blows."
They moved around the subway stairwell and towards an alleyway behind a block of buildings. Sheets of corrugated metal had been nailed to the rudimentary wooden frame in front of the alleyway. The Gravity Gun took care of them fairly quickly, though pulling away one of the top sheets revealed two scanners, floating a frustrating distance away from them.
Alyx fired on the scanner on the left while Gordon pulled the right towards him, firing it into the wall beside him. Job done, Alyx moved to the smoking heap she had been firing upon, poking it with her boot.
"They're looking for something. Probably us."
Moving on around the corner and following the wide alleyway, Gordon struggled to see over the steps leading to a door on the right-hand wall. They approached the steps, side-stepping around a collection of barrels and trash cans spilling out of an alcove on the right.
Alyx suddenly pointed to sky ahead. "From the rooftops," she announced, and Gordon shot his gaze skyward.
Two soldiers further down the alleyway were rappelling down the side of the building, semi-automatics at the ready. A third soldier rappelled right down on top of him, turning just before he hit the ground and kicking Gordon in the chest, knocking him onto his back.
He faintly noticed Alyx diving into the alcove, taking cover among the barrels and trash cans as she took on the approaching soldiers down the alley. At the moment, however, his concentration was focused on bringing the Gravity Gun around and firing it at the soldier's machinegun before he had an opportunity to pull the trigger.
He half succeeded. The soldier managed to fire off a few shots, hitting Gordon in the chest and shoulder as he blasted the machinegun from his hand, tossing it over the soldier's head. Doing his best to ignore the gunshots coming from both Alyx and the encroaching soldiers, Gordon swung his legs through his opponent's, who toppled onto his side with a garbed grunt.
Suddenly wishing for his crowbar, Gordon heaved the Gravity Gun upward, pointing it at a used gas canister behind Alyx. Yanking it towards him, he swung it around and into the rising soldier's face. He froze, either puzzled or just shocked. Whichever it was, he was dead because of it. Gordon fired, the canister colliding with the soldier's head with a nauseating crunch. His head whipped back and collided with the wall before he slumped to the ground.
Gordon looked back at Alyx in time to see a grenade land on the ground between them, beeping ominously. He snatched it up with the Gravity Gun and fired it back in the direction it came from, seamlessly grabbing a barrel afterwards. Striding into the explosion with a new confidence and with Alyx by his side (he considered for a moment that the two could be linked), Gordon found the first soldier and crushed him into the wall with the barrel. Alyx had followed and quickly disposed of the second.
"Whew," Alyx gasped, and looked down to the dead bodies at their feet, troubled. "I was hoping we'd get a bit farther before they noticed us again."
He picked up a machinegun from the Combine closest to him. "Which way?"
Getting her bearings, Alyx looked up and down the alleyway before pointing down the alley.
"Uh… that way," she said, not sounding particularly sure of herself.
Gordon just shrugged and followed. As they got closer to the end, Gordon noticed the wall at the end was the same as those he had seen at Nova Prospekt and at the base of the Citadel; the Combine wall made of metallic teeth that gradually ate through everything in its path. The difference being that now it was retreating, as though realising that the Combine's hold on the city was at an end, and deciding it didn't want to be around to see how it would finish.
Groaning and creaking like thunder, the teeth moved back, opening up a path around a building on the right. The cloud of dust it kicked up obscured their view of what was ahead. They came out at the remains of a small roundabout, cars left to rust and rot against the surrounding buildings. Ant-lions were burrowing out from several points along the road ahead, distracting the soldiers that had been posted on the street.
They took cover behind a car, peeking through the now empty windows.
"So… run for it, let them kill each other?" he suggested.
She nodded. "I sure as hell don't have enough bullets."
Gordon blew out a grateful breath. "Just like Black Mesa."
That elicited a small laugh from her. "I guess so."
It was the same as always. A silent countdown from three to one, and away they went, running, jumping, ducking, whacking and only very occasionally shooting. They managed to struggle their way into a derelict building on the right, the road ahead blocked off by a building on the left that had collapsed.
They slipped up a stairwell that brought them out into a bare room, the windows shattered and the top left corner of the ceiling all but gone. The groan of zombies elicited much the same reaction from Gordon and Alyx, and they looked at each other tiredly. Then they heard the tell-tale beep and squeal of a rollermine, and shared a smile.
With the Gravity Gun, it was simple enough to pull the two rollermines - once they had despatched the zombies, of course - towards them and let them loose, rolling ahead of them like over-excited dogs on a walk.
As they reached a stairway going down that sat opposite the missing windows, Gordon saw a familiar blue laser taking aim at Alyx's head. He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and forced her to the steps. She looked irritated for only a moment, quickly noticing the wandering blue laser above their heads. Snipers. They crawled the rest of the way, emerging cautiously into the room below.
A doorway at the other end of the room led out into the street that, inevitably, the sniper had a perfect view of.
Gordon ran over to the wall beside the doorway and cautiously put his hand out into the open. It was greeted by not only the solitary bang of the sniper rifle, but the angry thunder of a mounted machinegun. One of the bullets managed to hit his hand, and he snatched it away quickly. He hissed as he flexed and shook it in front of his face.
He noticed Alyx smiling and shaking her head. "Only person I know who can take a bullet and make it look like a bee sting…"
"Well," he offered defensively, "it stings."
"What does it feel like? Being shot in that thing?"
"Depends how much power it has." He thought about it a moment. "But it's… have you ever been paintballing?"
She gave him a patronising look, which, on reflection, he realised he deserved. "No, I missed the paintballing part of the Combine family vacation package."
"Good point," he conceded quietly.
Without another word, he dove out into the street and prayed there would be cover. He found it in the form of a pick up truck, and dove down behind it just as a shower of bullets blasted into the metal frame. Leaning against the wheel, he was about to take a peek round the corner when something bumped against his leg. He whirled around, machinegun at the ready. It was the two rollermines, nudging his leg like nagging children.
Gordon smiled.
He fired one over the truck, in the vague direction of the mounted machinegun at the far end of the alley. After a patient wait of about twenty seconds, he heard an electric crackle and the loud grunt of a Combine soldier being dispatched. Gordon peeked over the top of the truck and looked for the blue laser. It was coming from an open window above the alcove the mounted machinegun had been set up in. Comfortingly, it wasn't too far away.
Snatching up the second rollermine, Gordon leapt out and onto the ground, landing on his side with Gravity Gun raised. The blue laser of the sniper rifle came down to bear on his head, and he fired. It travelled in a wide arc through the air, distracting the sniper long enough for it to land inside the building.
There was a bright yellow flash, and a Combine soldier came flying out, roughly landing just a few metres in front of Gordon. Letting his shoulders slump, Gordon slowly got to his feet. He wandered back to behind the pick-up truck to fetch his machinegun as Alyx came over.
"Nice toss, Gordon."
He patted the Gravity Gun. "It's all in the wrist."
Alyx looked at him sideways like he was crazy. "Was that a joke?"
"Uh…" He cast his gaze over her shoulder, giving it serious thought. "Yeah, think so."
"Oh." She gave him a thumbs up. "Nice one. But… next time you're planning on jumping into the path of a sniper rifle? Be nice to have some warning."
He frowned, genuinely puzzled. "But… it's just me doing it."
She sighed and patted his arm. "Not anymore, Gordon. We're in this together, remember? Ringing any bells in there?"
Still not understanding, Gordon shrugged. "I'll tell you next time."
Alyx stared at him for a few moments while the distant rollermines bleeped faster and faster, signalling their overload.
"You still don't get it, do you?"
The rollermines exploded, masking Gordon's sigh.
"Not at all."
Hands on hips, she shook her head exasperatedly. "Okay, uh… ah, I got it. How would you feel if I did the same thing to you?"
Gordon felt that same frown return, irritated at his own lack of comprehension. "But you don't have a HEV suit. You could die out there…" The words faded away, and his mouth formed a big 'oh' of comprehension. "… you're worried about me."
"Well… yeah," she said plainly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. The 'Gordon is crazy' look was back again. "Did that seriously not occur to you?"
He shrugged. "Never thought about it."
He really hadn't. Most of the time people just pointed him in a direction and said 'Go, Freeman'. His personal safety never seemed to factor in to other people's views of him.
Alyx was still giving him the crazy look, though she almost seemed a little sad as she smiled at him. "Well… think about it from now on, okay?"
Gordon did a little salute with his machinegun. "Okay."
The strange expression still lingering, Alyx took a look around the immediate area before her eyes settled on a window at a right angle from the one the sniper had been settled in.
"Let me climb up and take a look at what we're walking into."
While she did just that, confidently clambering up wooden beams and drain pipes, Gordon surveyed the area himself. The entrance to the road was blocked off the way they came by more rubble and debris. A wooden wall had been hastily erected between the building on Gordon's right and the one the sniper had used. The fire escape from the building on the right stretched down and would have been a way for them to cross over the wall. The ladder, however, was still locked at the top, and much too high for him to do anything about.
Alyx, meanwhile, had entered the building and was looking out to the street beyond, over the wall.
"Uh-oh… they've got the street fortified up ahead." She disappeared into the building, and he saw he move into the sniper's room, take the rifle, and heft it back to the other window. He saw the tip of the rifle poke out, blue laser stretching out and over the wall.
Her bodiless voice echoed out. "You run point, okay? I'll cover you until you reach the far end. When the coast is clear I'll catch up."
He glanced back and forth between the window and the ladder, jabbing a vague finger in its direction.
"Could, you, uh…?"
"Oh! Okay, looks like I can get that ladder down to you. Let me shoot out the latch. Just bear with me, I might be a little rusty with this rifle."
There was a resounding bang, and Gordon had to fight the instinct to duck. The bullet hit the latch at the top of the ladder with a metallic clang, and it plunged down before jolting to a stop just low enough for Gordon to reach.
"Ha!" Alyx cried out. "Nope, guess I'm not."
Gordon walked to the ladder, clamping the machinegun between his teeth as he crouched down, swinging his arms behind his back before he leapt up. His legs kicked about in an embarrassingly wild fashion as he pulled himself up, struggling to clamber up the first few rungs before he could get a foothold.
Mercifully, Alyx didn't say anything. Whether she was being polite or simply had no idea what to say in the face of such unbridled athleticism, Gordon didn't know. Once on the fire escape, Gordon took the machinegun from between his teeth, pulling a face at the dull, metallic taste.
Machinegun fire made him duck his head, and Gordon looked down the street. Ant-lions infested the road, scurrying out of two burrows along the road. They were headed towards a Combine gate that blocked the end of the street, soldiers ducking in and out of cover from the top of the blue metal barricade. Behind the gate was a tall building that Gordon guessed was the way forward.
A makeshift mounted machinegun platform had been erected out of a building on the right, Gordon's view of which was blocked by corrugated sheets of metal. The only reason he knew about it was the shower of bullets blasting into the street below, punching holes in the ant-lions before they had a chance to scurry even a metre from their burrows. He was doing such an efficient job, Gordon was almost reluctant to get rid of him. But, if Gordon was going to make his way to the gate, the soldier would have to go.
Gordon gripped the guardrail of the fire escape and vaulted over, landing uncomfortably hard on his feet and plunging forward, rolling onto his back. He shook off the stiffness in his ankles and grunted to his feet. Machinegun tucked under his arm and Gravity Gun held high, Gordon pulled the sheet of metal directly behind the Combine soldier, revealing him to Alyx. The now welcome blue laser took aim at the back of the soldier's head, which promptly exploded in a cloud of red.
Shifting the machinegun into his hands, Gordon started moving to the gate, ducking in and out from behind the cars left to rot on the sidewalk. The gate was open at the moment, giving the soldiers inside a clearer shot of the ant-lions. A soldier stood atop the gate noticed him and waved to his comrade on the other end. A blue laser and a bullet interrupted him, and quickly moved over to the next soldier, who was looking around in panic and shouting something through his radio. Alyx fired, ridding Gordon of one more soldier.
Not one to overlook an opportunity, Gordon ran for the open gates, leapfrogging over a confused ant-lion and barrelling shoulder first into a Combine soldier. They tumbled into a heap on the floor, Gordon rolling off as quickly as he could, machinegun raised at another soldier behind the barricade. He fired through the soldier's head and neck and kept on rolling, putting distance between him and the quickly recovering soldier he had tackled.
Gordon backed up as the other soldier pointed his weapon at him. They were in a stalemate, and they circled each other slowly. At least, until Gordon manoeuvred the soldier so he was standing in the open gateway. The soldier didn't even see the blue laser aiming for his back. The impact from the bullet sent him tumbling forward, kicking up the slightest cloud of dust as he rolled along.
Blowing out a relieved breath, Gordon quickly reconsidered relaxing when he heard the incoming buzz of ant-lion wings. Tossing the machinegun aside for the moment, Gordon ran out into the road with the Gravity Gun and commenced shoving cars into the two burrows. One was closer to him, tucked away on the right, and was easily blocked. The second was further away, just slightly ahead of the platform the mounted machinegun had been placed on.
As he pushed the closest car across the street, he noticed Alyx leaping from the fire escape to join him. She covered him from incoming ant-lions as he diligently blasted the car over and over again, pushing until it was sinking into the burrow.
There were still more of the insect creatures left over however, and it was a fraught sprint to the gate as they did their best to avoid the panicking ant-lions. It worked pretty well, actually. Gordon blasted them onto their backs with the Gravity Gun, and Alyx finished them off with her pistol. Once through the gate, Alyx quickly doubled back to a console beside the open doors and slammed her hand down on a red button. The gates securely closed with a metallic groan.
"Phew," Alyx breathed, smiling. "Glad that's over."
A doorway in the building behind them was blocked by a force field. Fortunately, there was a console attached to the wall beside it, and Alyx was in front of it in an instant. She put away her pistol to work.
They both ducked their head at the sudden, earth-shuddering bang from behind them, the noise accompanied by a series of flashing lights that left them shielding their eyes. Looking to each other in shock, their collective gaze travelled to the Citadel on the horizon, drawn by the low rumble from the clouds.
"Oh, God. Looks like the reactor's back on track for a meltdown." As if to accentuate the point, the red storms swirling above the broken Citadel flashed and exploded three times, like a nightmarish bell tolling. "That transmission's going out after all." Visibly worried, she pulled the device from her belt and blasted the console, the force field blinking away. "I'd like to find another way around these buildings, but we really don't have time."
She sounded desperate, and Gordon walked back to one of the fallen Combine soldiers and took his machinegun. He nodded to her, and they proceeded into the darkened corridor. Searching through, they climbed up a flight of stairs leading into a Combine monitoring room. Well, as much of a monitoring room it could be with no soldiers inside.
Alyx cocked a cautious eyebrow. "Okay…"
They moved on through an open door, exploring down the corridor. The floorboards creaked beneath they boots as they crept along, the dingy yellow light barely giving them a view of the peeling wallpaper.
An explosion from the other side of the wall shook the light bulb, leaving it to swing wildly. Glancing back to Alyx, Gordon moved forward with just that little bit more caution, emerging out of the corridor and out into a dark metal booth. Sunlight bore down on them through three windows in front of them. There was a bare doorway on the right, revealing a brick wall in the distance.
Moving to the doorway, the explosions echoing through the windows made him duck down instinctively. There was a significant drop down to the ground below, and he spotted a broken ladder lying uselessly on the floor.
He looked back to Alyx, who was crouched beneath a window, cautiously peering through. Gordon moved over beside her, looking out into the garage below. It was a loading bay, the booth they were sat in designed for overlooking the workers that would have brought in the goods. Whatever the goods had been.
Through the open gate of the garage, Gordon could make out the shadows of whatever was giving the Combine a fight. A familiar roar echoed through the air, promptly followed by a Combine armoured van tumbling into the garage, landing on its side and screeching along the ground.
"An ant-lion guardian," Alyx breathed.
His gaze shot to her, and back to the window. "Oh, that's what they're called…"
"Why?" she frowned. "What've you been calling them?"
"Um…" He shrugged. "Big… ant-lions?"
Two soldiers flew into the garage, slamming into the wall beneath the booth with a surprisingly loud series of grunts.
Gordon moved to the doorway, stopped, and turned to face Alyx.
"Alyx," he said, loudly and clearly.
Seemingly more surprised by his voice than the explosions and gunfire coming from the street outside, she stared at him like she had no idea what he was going to do next. "Yeah?"
"I'm about to jump into the line of fire. Just… thought you should know."
Her head hung to the side, and she smirked. She walked over to him, putting a hand on his arm. "Gordon. I'm jumping into the line of fire with you. Just thought you should know."
"…oh. Okay."
She held a hand out towards the doorway. "After you."
After a moment's indecision, Gordon walked to the doorway and leapt down, landing feet first on wooden crate that cracked under his weight, throwing him onto his backside. Alyx landed in front of his dazed eyes with an ease that made him grumble as he clambered painfully to his feet.
They wordlessly moved to the wall beside the open gateway and peered outside. The parking lot in front of them stretched out to a road turning right, disappearing behind the building beside them. Three Combine soldiers desperately held to a mounted machinegun that had been set up in the middle of the turning in the road, aimed down the street. Ant-lions swarmed around them, stabbing and slashing at their legs. They held steadfast, however, firing at something else on the street.
The ant-lion guardian thundered in, swinging its head around in a low, wide arc that knocked the soldiers into each other, sending them rolling along the ground in a heap.
"What's the plan?" Alyx asked, crouched below him.
He looked down at her incredulously. "You're asking me?"
"Well, yeah. You've killed these things by yourself before, right?"
"Uh… no."
This time, she looked up at him incredulously. "What? But I heard that on the coast… and at Nova Prospekt…"
"I…" he cleared his throat. "I mostly… ran away from those."
Her mouth hung open cluelessly for a moment, then she looked back to the ant-lions as they finished off the soldiers.
"Okay. That… changes things."
A sudden change came over him, seeing Alyx's surprise and disappointment. He had something to prove now. He'd never needed to prove anything before. Usually he was trying to disprove the idea of him as 'The Opener of the Way' and 'The One Free Man'. Now, though…
His jaw set, he cricked his neck. "Okay. Plan. I'll distract it, you shoot it with the machinegun."
Alyx frowned up at him. "That's a plan?"
He shrugged. "If it works, it is."
Staring at him for a few moments longer, Alyx sighed and shrugged. "Three, two, one…"
They sprinted out into the open, Gordon firing his MP7 in a wide spray into the gang of ant-lions gathered around the mounted machinegun. The larger creature didn't seem concerned at first, only becoming interested when the bullets hit the smaller ant-lions. It then seemed to live up to its name as guardian and turned on him with a quiver-inducing growl.
Gordon rounded the corner and ran down the street, taking a look around as he went. A Combine blockade sealed off the road further down, the burning Citadel on the horizon emerging behind it like a spectre.
An ant-lion burrow had settled into the middle of the road, and two more ant-lions scrambled out, kicking up sand and dust as they came up to greet him. Gordon blasted them both away into clouds of yellow. The guardian took objection in the form of a solid blow to Gordon's backside, sending him sailing through the air and slamming sideways into the thick metal Combine gate. He hit the ground with a solid thud.
The guardian loomed down on him, ready to swing its head in another low arc and throw him across the street. High powered bullets thudded against its back, and it turned around with an almost indignant grunt. The spines on its back twitched and wobbled as it looked from him, Alyx, and back again. It finally decided on Alyx, deeming her the more immediate threat. Her bullets probably hurt more, to be fair.
Bracing himself against the metal gate, Gordon heaved himself to his feet, holding his side tenderly. He was fairly sure ribs had been broken. Thankfully, the HEV suit wasn't doing too badly at the moment, power wise. Well, he didn't think eighty percent was that bad, anyway.
More ant-lions emerged from the burrow, and Gordon started shooting. This once again grabbed the guardian's attention, and it thundered over to him.
And so it went, an odd game of piggy in the middle with perhaps the most unorthodox piggy ever conceived. Finally, to punctuate the end of the game, a rocket soared over Gordon's head from behind the gate, hitting the guardian's head with such force it whipped to the side, growling in a rather pathetic manner as its legs collapsed beneath it, leaving it to fall limply to the floor.
Alyx made her way around the body while Gordon busied himself blocking up the burrow with a nearby van. More rockets disposed of the remaining ant-lions as Alyx reached him.
"So it's a plan now," he stated, feeling justified.
She smiled, nodding. "It's a plan, Gordon."
The gates of the barricade opened, and they backed up, weapons at the ready. When nothing emerged, Gordon darted to the other side of the gate. There was nobody on the other side. After a shrug to Alyx, Gordon moved through to the other side. The road ahead had collapsed in on itself, appearing like a trench cutting across it. Gordon saw an entrance into the building on the left, made available by the crushed section of road.
"Hey, thanks!" Alyx called out, and Gordon frowned as he looked back at her. Her gaze was cast upwards to the building on the right, waving her thanks to the resistance fighter stood atop it. He did an awkward salute with his rocket launcher before disappearing into the building.
Gordon gestured to the door on the left with his machinegun, and she nodded her approval. They set off, exploring through the darkened basement and sneaking up an even blacker stairway. After some fairly clueless wandering, they emerged up some stairs in daylight again, coming out at the end of a long street. Behind them, Gordon could see the city-consuming metal wall blocking the road.
Explosions and gunfire returned his attention ahead. The street stretched down quite far, swooping down a hill before ending at a tall apartment building. The buildings on either side towered over them, and, casting his gaze down their pale, bleak brickwork, Gordon could see the makeshift bridges created by the resistance. Resistance fighters ran across from left to right, machineguns and pulse rifles blazing at the soldiers pursuing them.
A sudden, piercing zip noise clued him in to the two soldiers rappelling down the wall coming to a landing almost immediately in front of him. Gordon darted off to the side, hitting the first soldier with all the bullets he had. Which, after the guardian, ended up being about three. Both soldiers had their attention firmly lodged on him, however, and missed Alyx aiming at them from the safety of the stairwell. Two well placed shots sent them crumpling to the ground.
Gordon got to his feet and adjusted his glasses. "Thanks," he said, walking over.
She scooped up a pulse rifle from one of the fallen soldiers and handed it over. "Next time, keep an eye on how many bullets you've got left."
"I really do try," he sighed, following her along the road as they took cover behind vans, cars, and a surprising amount of debris spilling from a building on the left.
Though the south European lettering erected over the entrance to the building was incomprehensible to him, the red cross beside it clued Gordon in to the building's original purpose. He tried to think of the last time he had seen a hospital, but found he couldn't.
Then again, he was finding it hard to think amidst the bullets raining down on him from a Combine soldier further down the road.
Rockets from multiple rooftops hit the soldier simultaneously, tossing him around the air in one of the most severe cases of overkill Gordon had seen. That seemed to be the last of them, judging from the silence that followed. A citizen dressed in the usual denim garb emerged from a building further down on the opposite side of the road.
"Hey, over here!" he called, waving them over.
Still cautious of further attacks, Gordon and Alyx emerged from behind the rubble and ran over as briskly as they could. The man, who had thin black hair and eyes that seemed to indicate that very little surprised him, nodded his greeting to the both of them. Much to Gordon's relief, he didn't make any extra fuss of him than of Alyx. To him, they just seemed to be two people on the run from the Combine. Suited Gordon just fine.
"What are you still doing here? Everyone should clear out of the city!" Alyx said desperately, reminding Gordon of why she was so respected amongst the alliance; she actually cared about all of them. Being the daughter of Eli Vance, she could have hidden away at the lab and remained safe from the Combine. Instead, she was here, making sure they were all okay, and not thinking of herself as anything more than just another member of the resistance.
Though Eli probably would have preferred the 'hidden away at the lab' option.
The citizen shook his head gravely. "The Combine's not making it easy. We're trying to get enough people together to force our way through to the train station. People are meeting up in a safe-house nearby."
"Can you take us there?"
"You bet," he answered, a little breathlessly. "This way."
He promptly took off through the door he had emerged from. Gordon put out a hand for Alyx to go first. With a smile, she did so, and they both followed the citizen through a maze of corridors and steps, emerging into a yard and proceeding up to secure a metal door. Only a slat at eye level indicated that anyone resided inside.
The citizen rapped a fist against it. "Hey, it's me, open the door."
Almost instantly, the slat opened, and a young female voice replied, "What's the password?"
His shoulders tensing in a manner that said he had been confronted by this many times before, the citizen raised a lecturing finger. "I'm not even going to tell you to shut up."
"Come on in!" the female voice cheerfully said back, as though he hadn't even spoken. She closed the slat and opening the door.
The citizen led them inside and quickly left them to their own devices, instead focusing on the girl that had been at the door.
"I've been back and forth with evacuees every ten minutes, you don't have to ask me for the password every time."
As the pair argued about proper procedure, Alyx and Gordon moved into the room tentatively. Odd that they were more confident moving through a zombie infested underground tunnel than they were a safe haven.
A makeshift living room had been set up for the moment, a television in the corner projecting Dr Kleiner's broadcasts. Two rebels leant back on the sofa opposite, while another leant against the wall in the corner of the room, chewing a toothpick. One more rebel was sat on a backwards chair. Squinting, he was pointing from the television to Alyx, and back again.
"You're… Kleiner's daughter, right?"
She smiled politely, as though she got this all the time. "Uh, no. My Dad's Odessa Cubbage."
An eyebrow rose on Gordon's face, but he said nothing. He wondered where Cubbage was now. Was he evacuating? Or was the coast far enough away to be unaffected by the blast from the Citadel? Not that it mattered. Little weasel.
"You idiot, she's Eli Vance's daughter," one of the rebels on the sofa said, before excitedly leaning over his sleeping comrade, a woman, to talk to them. "But hey, Dr Freeman, I heard you were there when Odessa Cubbage took down the first gunship!"
Gordon looked at the man sideways, frowning. "Uh, actually-"
"Wow. That must have been a real honour for you. I am proud to say that I met someone who knew Odessa Cubbage."
Keenly aware of the amused look Alyx was giving him, Gordon took a breath to respond when the previously asleep woman on the sofa spoke up without opening her eyes.
"I met Odessa Cubbage one time. What an idiot."
It was said with such a definitive tone that no-one saw fit to argue.
With wide eyes, Gordon blinked and shook his head, and Alyx visibly stifled a laugh. Looking past her, he saw Dr Kleiner smiling widely as he spoke.
"On a lighter note, if you are already in one of our designated safe zones, I feel obliged to point out a more fortunate side of the reactor's destruction is the complete removal of the Combine's reproductive suppression field. Previously, certain protein chains important to the process of embryonic development were selectively prevented from forming. This is no longer the case. For those so inclined, this would be an excellent time for procreation. Which is to say, in laymen's terms, you should give serious consideration to doing your part for the revival of the species."
A heavy silence fell on the room, though Dr Kleiner continued on quite cheerfully, talking about the Combine and Dark Energy as though he hadn't said anything remotely embarrassing.
Mortified at the words he had never wanted to hear from his mentor, Gordon stared at his boots.
"Uh…" Alyx's voice was unsure, very much following Gordon's state of mind. "…is Dr Kleiner really telling everyone to…"
He looked up, curious to see how she would summarise such a horrific chunk of information.
"…get busy?"
"Oh, yeah," the Cubbage enthusiast said, his voice unnaturally low as he leant back, resting his arm along the back of the sofa and behind the sleeping woman's head. "Dr Kleiner says we can mate now." He glanced to the woman, then to Alyx, adding quickly, "Not that I needed his permission."
Giving the citizen a look she usually reserved for Dog when he did something inexplicable, Alyx suddenly turned to Gordon, smiling pleasantly.
"I… think we should find whoever's in charge."
"Upstairs," the sleeping woman said tonelessly. "Quickly, they'll only get worse."
They moved out into the stairwell, and ahead of him, Alyx stopped at the bottom step to take a deep breath before heading up the steps. Gordon tried not to eavesdrop on the snippets of conversation he heard as they ascended.
"-might call them crabs, but I tell you what, they don't taste like crab-"
"-sometimes I think everybody's a doctor but me-"
"-hear they put babies in those Striders-"
"-don't miss Dr Breen. But I do miss his show, remember when he had the jugglers on-"
"-oh no, the Kleiner speech is starting again… CAN'T SOMEBODY MAKE IT STOP?"
It was only a couple of flights up before they were walking down a corridor with a slatted door at the end that was similar to the one that had been outside. Alyx and Gordon looked at each other unsurely before she rapped a cautious finger against the door.
Silence.
Then the slat opened, and a familiar face shone through. A little grubbier and with heaver bags beneath his eyes, but still… familiar and shining, simply from the grin that broke out on his face.
Barney Calhoun looked between them. "Gordon? Alyx? I don't believe it!" The slat closed and he opened the door, backing up to allow them inside. "How the hell did you get out of the Citadel?"
It was a small room, a section of the wall in the far right corner removed to allow access to one of the Resistance drawbridges, which was pulled up at the moment. A rebel was acting as lookout at a window behind Alyx. Another citizen closed the door behind them, resting against it as she watched them talk. Weapons crates were piled up against the left wall, and Gordon eyed them curiously.
"We're…" Alyx looked to Gordon, as though he would help her find the words. "…not exactly sure. All we know is the Vortigaunts had something to do with it. But what about you, Barney?"
His face sagging, Barney rubbed the back of his head, which was something he did when he didn't know the correct thing to say. "I'm doin' okay, just goin' crazy tryin' to-"
"They've found us!"
Everyone turned to the rebel at the window, his small machinegun firing away at a Scanner floating in front of him. It exploded promptly, but not before managing to cast its gaze across everyone in the room with its red eye. Gordon could have sworn that it lingered on the data packet attached to Alyx's belt.
Eyes rolling, Barney sighed at Gordon, like this was something he did all the time. "Ah, hell, Gordon! Were you followed again?"
An indignant, high pitched whine escaped him. "W- I didn't…" Words failing him, he pointed at Alyx.
Saving him from any further verbal fumbling, Alyx pulled out the data packet. "We stole some information from the Citadel on our way out," she explained, handing it to Barney. The ex-security guard held it between gloved hands, studying it with the same badly hidden bafflement he used to give Dr Kleiner's notes back at Black Mesa.
"I don't know what it is yet, but it's important enough that they've been hounding us the whole way here."
With a sigh and the shake of a head, Barney handed the data packet back. "Well that puts the pressure on… look, we gotta get movin'. You guys know about the evacuation trains, right?"
"Yeah," they both said, eliciting a smile from Barney. Gordon knew that smile. It was an 'I have ammunition with which to embarrass Gordon in the near future' smile.
"Yeah, well," Barney said slowly, looking slyly between them, "we've been planning to make a push on the train station. Now it looks like we're gonna have to cut a path through every chickenshit Metrocop who's having second thoughts about defending City 17."
Alyx nodded thoughtfully, slipping the data packet back into her belt. "If Gordon and I took a separate route, we could draw the Combine away from you. That'd give you a chance to get the trains filled up before we get there."
A wince was the reply, Barney once again rubbing the back of his head. "Really? I mean, it's a dangerous route, and-"
"It'll be fine," Gordon said, eyes on an ammunition belt resting on the crates beside him.
Still dubious, Barney shrugged tiredly. "Well, if you say so." He waved them over as he walked to the hole in the wall leading to the bridge. "Now, come on, look over here."
Following along, Gordon was having trouble figuring out how to wrap the ammo belt around his waist and/or leg. These things were needlessly complicated. He glanced up at Barney as he spoke, his eyes drawn to something wedged into the wheel attached to the ropes of the drawbridge. A crowbar. It troubled Gordon how emotional he got seeing it. Spurred on by the sight of it, he finally figured out the belt, one strap going around his waist and the other his thigh, the holster for the gun (crowbar) attached between the two. He decided to use his right thigh, as that was the leg he was used to for his crowbar.
"Okay, across this bridge and over the rooftops is a safe path to the station." Barney leant over and yanked out the crowbar, leaving the wheel to spin wildly. The bridge tumbled out behind them, landing with a clatter on the ledge of the building opposite. "You two head that way. I'll hit the streets and round up everyone who's been waiting. We'll meet you there."
"Sounds good," Alyx nodded, summoning Gordon over with a tilt of the head before she ran across the bridge. "Let's go."
"Hey, Gordon, before you go," Barney said, putting a hand on Gordon's arm. He waited, eyes glancing at Alyx as she disappeared into the building beyond. Looking to Barney expectantly and trying not to look down at the crowbar, he couldn't help the small smile as his old friend brought the tool up to bear.
"I was gettin' tired of carryin' this around." He lowered it down into Gordon's waiting palm before lifting it back up again cautiously. "Listen, I don't have too many more of these. So try not to lose this one, okay?"
"Yes, mother," he muttered, snatching the crowbar from him and slipping it away.
"No, seriously. I kept that other one for twenty years, Gordon. You know how awkward a crowbar is to pack? You have it for, what… a week, and you lose it?"
Pushing up his glasses, Gordon cleared his throat. "Technically it was three days. Slow teleport from Nova Prospekt doesn't count."
"That's even worse, Gordon."
"…ah. Right you are." He saluted with the crowbar. "I'll look after it this time."
"Okay, good." Grinning, Barney put his hands on his hips and nodded to the building opposite. "So go on across, Gordon. She's waiting for you." Grin melting into a smirk, he winked. "You lucky dog, you."
Gordon shook his head, mortified. "Oh, no, it's not-"
"Huh?"
"There's nothing like that-"
"I'm sorry?"
"I-"
"Can't hear ya, what?"
His shoulders slumping, Gordon sighed. "I hate you sometimes."
"Sorry Gordon, really can't hear ya over the beating of your lovesick heart. You're like a couple already, talkin' at the same time…"
Jaw clenched, Gordon pointed an objecting finger in Barney's face. "You…"
"Hey, did ya hear what Dr Kleiner said about the suppression field?"
"Oh, good God. I'm leaving now." He started walking.
"Little Freeman babies, I'm tellin' ya."
He started running. "Can't hear you!"
The grin evident through his voice, Barney shouted after him. "See you at the station!"
Alyx was waiting for him in the building opposite. She let out a little laugh when she saw the crowbar.
"Ah, you've got a new crowbar!"
He wasn't really listening, and was trying to concentrate on not blushing. "Oh, yeah, I uh… like it. The crowbar. I like crowbars. This crowbar."
She smiled at him with the slightest of frowns.
"Everything okay?"
"Yeah, yes, of course," he said entirely too quickly as he bustled past her, heading through the building and out onto a rooftop beyond. "I mean, fine. It's all fine. Everything's fine, and Barney's… fine."
Alyx caught up with him as he released the brake on the wheel for the next drawbridge. He ignored the way she was studying him, instead concentrating on a strange rumble emanating from below. Looking down, he saw a Gunship soar between the buildings, moving surprisingly low and beneath the bridge as it clattered to a halt.
"Oh, crap," Alyx muttered, following Gordon as he sprinted across. It brought them into a darkened building with a stairway ahead of them. Clambering up with the thunder of the Gunship circling around them, they entered a corridor that turned off to the left at the end. High on the wall, silhouetted through a large window, the Gunship hovered up ominously.
High powered bullets blasted through, showering them in glass as they moved through into the next, long corridor. The gunship hounded them as they moved forward, and they took cover behind an archway a third of the way down the corridor when they spotted the Combine soldiers in the middle of a struggle with a horde of zombies. They seemed to be doing quite well for themselves, ducking slashes and responding with quick blows to the headcrab and deadly shots from their weapons.
They looked at each other. A count of three, and off they went, blasting away at both the soldiers and the zombies and managing to catch them all by surprise, leaving them in a messy heap behind them. Spotting them through the windows of the corridor high above them, the gunship opened fire, blasting glass down on everyone concerned.
Backs pressed to the wall, they managed to move along relatively quickly before they followed more stairs up to a huge warehouse of an attic. Looking through the bullet holes in the wooden floorboards ahead of them, Gordon could see they were on the top of two floors. Looking ahead, he could see the body of a rebel draped over a green crate beside a wooden support beam. A rocket launcher rested on the floor beside the rebel, and Gordon started for it before stopping and turning back.
"I'm about to run into gunship fire now, Alyx." She rolled her eyes, and he put a finger up to silence her. "Just me, this time."
"Gordon," she admonished, hand on her hip, "I was going to say, you can take this one. Gunship fire tears people in half. You've got a HEV suit. And besides, you were there when Odessa Cubbage took one down. I'm guessing you picked something up from watching him, right?"
Leaving him a little speechless, she slapped his arm and slipped through one of the holes in the floorboards, dropping to the floor below.
Sighing once more at how little he understood that woman, Gordon charged out into the open, keenly aware of the holes in the wooden ceiling and the incoming drone of the gunship. He skid to a halt at the crate, and rolled the body off.
"Sorry," he mumbled, scooping up the rocket launcher and opening the crate.
The gunship roared as it spotted him, opening fire and demolishing another section of the roof, raining wood and splinters down on him. Gordon loaded the rocket launcher and tried to aim through the haze. He fired, and the gunship swerved around, trying to turn the cannon on its front to catch the missile. It was too slow, and received a rocket to its midsection. It writhed through the air, roaring in pain before it gradually managed to right itself.
Gordon loaded the next rocket as the gunship moved overhead, his view blocked by the roof. The gunship bullets pounded through wooden planks above and behind him, hitting him in the side and leg as he turned to face it. A pained cry escaped him as he dropped to his knee. Dropping onto his back, he took cover behind the crate.
Snarling in frustration, the gunship fired continuously, demolishing the roof as it circled around the building. Groaning, Gordon heaved himself to his feet and started running towards the doorway they had entered from, his view of which was obscured by a wooden support beam directly ahead of him and just a few metres from the doorway itself.
The gunship's bullets followed him along, nipping at his heels insistently. Gordon grabbed on to the pillar as he reached it, whirling around it like a pole dancer and emerging on the other side with the rocket launcher drawn and aimed at the gunship. He fired, and it soared straight ahead before hitting the gunship's head, which whipped back severely from the impact.
He ran back for the crate, fishing out another rocket and fixing it in place. The gunship's bullets shattered the wooden floorboards on the opposite end of the room, firing off in seemingly random directions. Ducking his head down to peer up through a hole in the ceiling, Gordon saw the gunship writhing about in the air, as though dazed and trying to shake stars from its eyes. If gunships had eyes. They must do, though. How would they see, otherwise?
Gordon blinked the thought away as a spray of bullets hailed down towards him. He dove forward and turned as he leapt, landing on his back. The wooden planks creaked in protest, already cracked and straining from the downpour of fire from the gunship. He thrust the rocket launcher back through the wood, giving him room to aim it straight up through a hole in the ceiling.
The gunship went overhead, and he fired, trailing the rocket towards the propeller at the rear of the alien creature. It shattered the metal blades, sending the gunship into a lurching dive, roaring and moaning as it fell almost straight down, arcing ominously towards him as it belched smoke and fire.
Eyes wide, Gordon started rolling towards a gap in the floorboards, finally falling down below as the gunship smashed through the roof and crashed down into the wooden planks. Gordon thumped down to the ground chest first, and looked up to see the head of the gunship wedge itself into the floor beside him. Slowly rolling over onto his back, Gordon saw that the body of the gunship had become stuck, awkwardly woven between the various support struts and beams.
The crate of rockets had been knocked to the ground, resting just a few meters down from Gordon. It was on its side, rockets spilling out. He got to his feet with a grunt of effort, putting his hand in front of his mouth as he coughed.
Alyx came up beside him, her head whipping from him, to the gunship, then back again. Her hands were waving about by her sides, as if they were helping her articulate her thoughts.
"Wow!" she cried, mouth agape. "Holy cow, that was-! Jesus, Gordon, you're a real terror."
He frowned. A 'terror'? Was that good? She was smiling. So… that meant it was probably good.
Gordon shrugged and adjusted his glasses. "Thanks."
Amused beyond belief, Alyx's gaze travelled over to the gunship. "Think it's dead?" She looked over to him and nudged him with her elbow. "Maybe you should whack it with the crowbar just in case."
"Uh…" he looked down to the crowbar at his hip, then the inert gunship. "Okay…"
He slipped out the crowbar and walked over to the dead alien creature. He was about to bring the crowbar back for a good swing when a beep interrupted him. Frowning, he looked back to Alyx, who had pulled out her pistol.
She was looking behind him. Following her gaze, Gordon saw two locked doors on the far side of the room, the Combine lock beeping, the red light flashing and getting faster with every passing second. Alyx ran to a pillar and took cover.
"Where's your rifle?" she hissed.
Gordon patted his sides as though he would find it in some imaginary pocket before he remembered and pointed to the doorway on the floor above them. "I dropped it when I went for the rocket launcher- oh, wait."
He turned quickly and found the rocket launcher. Picking a rocket at random from the overturned crate, he shoved it into the launcher and walked straight into the line of fire opposite the double doors. The beeping reached fever pitch, and the doors exploded off their hinges. Gordon waited for the first glimpse of the blue glow of the Combine eye-pieces and fired. The rocket hit the group of four dead centre, sending them flying off in different directions, colliding with walls, pillars and some just tumbling along the floor. All of them were still, either dead or unconscious.
"Oh," Alyx said, her voice low. "Well, that works too."
On the other side of the doors, Gordon could make out a cramped stairway heading down. He looked at the rocket launcher on his shoulder and reconsidered, tossing it to the ground. One of the soldiers had considerately left his small machinegun by the door when Gordon had fired a rocket at him. He would have said thank you if he knew which one it was.
They came out into an empty, echoing hallway. The pale, hard floor gave nothing under their boots, and Gordon didn't look forward to falling onto it. It was sad, he thought, that falling over had become such a certainty of life. As they moved through, it became clear where they were.
"Hey, a hospital," Alyx said, pointing out an empty surgery through double doors on the left. "Keep an eye out for medical supplies."
He nodded his understanding as they reached the end of the hallway, turning right into a small junction of a corridor that had been transformed into a Combine outpost. A force-field fizzled away in front of the next corridor, bathing them both in a cool blue light.
"So much for medical supplies," Alyx sighed, moving to a rack on the wall. "I found shotguns."
He turned to face her upon hearing the word, and promptly found said weapon being thrown into his arms.
"Hold on to that one, all right?" she asked with some amusement, walking past him to get to a console on the wall.
Resisting the urge to grumble (he was grumbling a lot these days), Gordon found a box of shotgun shells and loaded up. Once Alyx was done at the console and the force-field winked out of existence, he handed the box to her. After loading up, she stuffed as many shells as she could into the pockets of her belt. Gordon did the same with the ammo belt he had awkwardly wrapped around his thigh to accommodate the crowbar.
"Okay," she said, pumping the shotgun, "let's go."
Gordon nodded, thinking how odd the weapon looked in Alyx's hand, and how small it made her look. They moved out into the corridor, covering each other as they slipped further down. Two double doors on the left suddenly burst open, a Combine soldier flying through. Several more backed up, firing into the out of sight corridor.
As he cautiously approached the corner, Gordon heard the moans and cries of zombies. He hung his head and sighed.
"Enough with the zombies already," Alyx sighed, and Gordon nodded his tired agreement.
Then, on the count of three, they launched themselves into the fray, taking out first the distracted soldiers, then turning their attention to the zombies and zombines groaning and slashing at them.
Gordon managed to stay away from most of them, back-pedalling the swipe of their claws and responding with a shotgun shell to the headcrab. Alyx did much the same, though any zombies that did get too close were dissuaded by various kicks and elbows that pushed them far enough away for her to get a clean shot.
And so it went, moving through the corridors and stairwells of the hospital blasting, kicking and sometimes bludgeoning zombies, of which there were far more than soldiers. The Combine truly was losing control of the city. Hopefully that would mean their forces would be too busy to bother them.
He sighed as he followed Alyx around another corner. Why did he torture himself with these thoughts? When Alyx had started to think optimistically, their train had crashed. Who knew what would happen if he gained a positive outlook?
They were forced to navigate their way through an old operating room. The shrivelled, burnt husk of what Gordon assumed was a citizen lay on the operating table. Cables dangled down from the lighting fixture above, sparking and twitching against the body.
"What kind of hospital is this?" Alyx whispered.
Rather than think about the answer, Gordon gently pushed her onwards and out the door.
The sound of gunfire and zombies erupted from down the corridor, and Gordon ducked down with Alyx. Carefully, they crept along until they saw a junction ahead, zombies emerging from a waiting area on the right, bullets from unseen Combine soldiers in the corridor on the left. Blocking, or at least obscuring their view of the soldiers was what was once a nurses station. Big, tall windows ran along the wall and around the corner, giving them a view of two white figures, cornered in the corridor.
Elites.
Gordon pointed to the soldiers and then tapped his chest. She nodded her understanding, pointing towards herself and then the zombies. Holding up his fingers, Gordon counted down from three, and then crept into the nurses station. The Elites were too busy with the zombies to notice his quiet form moving to the admittedly filthy and dusty window beside them.
He cocked the shotgun and fired with both barrels, the shot crashing through the glass and tearing into the first Elite's head, sending him crumpling to the ground. Gordon charged forward and leapt through the now fragile sheet of glass before him, shattering it and rolling out into the corridor in front of the Elite.
In an awkward kneeling position, he whirled his shotgun up to face the Elite, who promptly kicked the weapon up and out of his hands. Gordon yanked the crowbar from his thigh and swiped out in a big left arc, knocking the rapidly drawn pulse rifle out of the Elite's grip and into the nurses station beside them.
Gordon swung for the Elite's head as he jumped to his feet. The soldier caught his wrist easily and held it out to the side as far as it would go. His free gloved hand latched onto Gordon's neck and slammed him into the wall. The Elite started to squeeze. Gordon couldn't move his right arm, and his left batted ineffectually against the soldier's white armour. Dropping to his side, his hand limply touched the Gravity Gun.
Glancing out of the corner of his eye, Gordon saw his shotgun lying further down the corridor. Alyx was just a little further up at the junction of corridors, ducking a slash from one zombie before whirling on the spot and firing a blast up through the headcrab of another.
He latched onto the Gravity Gun and pulled the shotgun to him. Tilting the Gravity Gun up towards the Elite, he fired. It collided with the soldier's head with a ferocity that released his grip on Gordon and sent him stumbling back. Gordon the shotgun out of the air by the reloading mechanism, and pumped it roughly. He brought it to bear on the soldier, who launched himself at Gordon with a frustrated, kamikaze roar. Gordon fired, blasting the soldier into the wall behind him.
Then his body seemed to realise he had nearly been choked to death, and he started coughing madly. Looking over through watery eyes, he saw Alyx wedging her shotgun nozzle underneath the headcrab of a fast zombie and firing.
A little breathless, she cast an enquiring look in his direction, and he nodded and waved her concern away. Taking one last deep breath, Gordon walked over to her, blinking away the water that had gathered in his eyes from the coughing fit.
She lugged her shotgun over her shoulder. "You good?"
Gordon pumped the shotgun. "I'm good."
They didn't have to go far. Just around the corner was a curiously blank door leading out the back of the hospital. Alyx opened it first - much to his chagrin - and smiled, looking back at him.
"Yes! The train station."
He followed her through into the small room beyond. A doorway on the right had been blocked by wooden planks, nailed onto the frame. Gordon set aside the shotgun, resting it against the wall, and pulled out the crowbar. As he got to work, he heard a camera click, and spotted the surveillance camera in the top corner of the room at the same time as Alyx.
A monitor beneath the camera sprang to life, the green Combine slug creature flickering onscreen and getting a good look at both of them before disappearing.
"Uh-oh. They're on to us," Alyx muttered, eyes on the screen as she came up beside him, holding his shotgun in her free hand. He wrenched the last plank of wood free and took the weapon from her with a grateful nod.
"Better find Barney and get moving," she said confidently, moving assuredly through the doorway and out into the wide outdoors.
Gordon cast one last glance at the monitor the Combine thing had appeared on. He half expected to see Him staring back, silently observing with that satisfied smirk. But, instead, it was just a blank screen. He wasn't being watched. No-one evaluating him for their 'employers'. This was new. This was different.
He had real chance at freedom.
And as he followed Alyx, Gordon was determined to get it.
(A/N: Nothing much to say, except that the gunship section in the warehouse is so much fun in the game.
Keep those reviews coming, everyone!
Next Chapter: Exit 17)