Aftermath

by Super Chocolate Bear

Breen is dead, City 17 is in ruins, the Citadel is collapsing, but the Combine is still powerful, and determined to survive. Then a scientist is found in the wreckage, and once again, everything changes.

11. Our Mutual Fiend

Disclaimer: I don't own Half-Life.

Aftermath

Chapter Eleven: Our Mutual Fiend

They were only alone in the room for a few moments before the garage door at the other end of the room rattled open, retracting into the ceiling. A cheerful rebel with a thin black goatee was on the other side.

"Alyx, Dr Freeman, you made it!" he greeted, throwing his arms out for a hug.

Gordon was initially confused and wondered if he should embrace the man when Alyx beat him to it.

"Hey Sam!" she said, audibly relieved as she wrapped her arms around him. "Boy, are we glad to be here."

Trying to convince himself that the unpleasant tingle in his stomach wasn't jealousy, Gordon was nevertheless relieved when they slapped each other on the backs in a friendly manner before separating. Dog slumped down against the wall beside him, legs crossed and his head moving from person to person as they spoke.

"Yeah, we heard you ran into a little trouble out there," Sam said, leading them through the door and into the tunnel beyond. They were in a sort of holding area, blocked off by a fence ahead of them. "Combine's been trying to head in the front door. I think they learned their lesson," he smirked, then hesitantly looked to Alyx, gesturing to Dog. "Mind if we keep Dog patrolling out here?"

Smiling, she held her hands up acquiescingly. "Not at all." She leant forward to talk to the disappointed looking Dog, hands on her knees. "You heard him, Dog. I'm going to see Dad. I'll catch up to you later." He whined, and Alyx patted his head. "Take care of yourself."

"I don't think Eli knows you're here yet," Sam said with sly smile, prompting the same expression from Alyx. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder and through the open gateway in the fence behind him. "He's in the Silo 1 access unit, right through here."

Alyx to turned to Gordon, eyebrow cocked. "Shall we?"

Gordon, however, was focused on the tunnel ahead of them that branched off to the right as well as proceeding further into the distance. Another fence closed off the tunnel that went straight ahead, where he could see rebels sat on crates and barrels that had been left against the walls. On the closer side of the fence, a series of old televisions and monitors had been erected in the upper corner of the wall on the left, giving the two rebels beneath them a view of the surrounding area of the base.

The other tunnel going to the right had a label on the upper section of the wall that read 'SILO 1 ACCESS', with an arrow underlining it and pointing to the right. A group of rebels had gathered beneath it, alternatively sat and stood in a semi-circle around an older resistance member giving them some form of lecture, pointing to his pulse rifle now and again.

"Gordon?"

He blinked in surprise, then looked over at Alyx. Sam and Dog were gone, though Gordon could still hear the robot's footsteps clanking behind him and back outside. "Hm?"

"Let's go, huh? I want to see my dad."

Embarrassed about drifting off, Gordon cleared his throat and nodded. "Yeah, sure. Sorry."

They moved through the gap and out into the tunnel beyond. Following the arrow on the wall, Gordon and Alyx moved toward a doorway at the end of the tunnel that led into a corridor going both left and right. As they passed the surveillance monitors, alarms suddenly blared and red lights flashed. They both ducked down, looking around first in surprise, then in resignation.

"What now?" a rebel sighed from the tunnel on the other side of the fence.

"Oh no," Alyx groaned, her hand hovering over her pistol. "What's that?"

The alarm abruptly cut out, replaced by the high pitched whine of microphone feedback. After tapping it a few times, Dr Magnusson's irritated voice boomed out.

"All right, back to work, everyone," the older scientist grumbled, "It's just another false alarm in the secondary silo."

With a vicious crackle, the transmission cut out. Gordon sighed. He wasn't looking forward to seeing him again. Alyx smiled up at the speakers attached to the ceiling, shaking her head.

"Same old Dr Magnusson," she sighed.

Gordon nodded tiredly before heading toward the door, slowing to a halt when he overheard the lecture being led by the old, stony rebel.

"So, you ever used an AR2 before?" he said, lifting the pulse rifle in his hand. Gordon frowned curiously. He didn't know it was called an AR2.

The only member of his audience wearing civilian denims answered, jutting out his bottom lip thoughtfully. "AR2? Nooo… now, an AR3, sure. Plenty of times."

Icy eyes studying the man, the lecturer simply said, "There's no such thing as an AR3."

The man smiled with faux-modesty, looking very satisfied with himself as he talked to a bemused female rebel beside him. "Well, see, in the city, the place was lousy with AR3s."

Becoming visibly irritated, the lecturer glared. "No it wasn't."

"Yes it was," the man said earnestly, nodding with wide eyes.

"No it w-!" the lecturer stopped himself, letting out a calming breath. "So," he continued slowly, ignoring the man for the moment as he scanned over the others, "do you know what the alternative fire method does on the AR2? It kills Hunters."

Gordon and Alyx nodded together, first to each other and then to the other rebels. "That's true, it does," they said in sync.

Relieved to have someone in agreement, the lecturer nodded at them before his gaze drifted down to the citizen disparagingly. "How did you city folk kill Hunters?"

"We sure as hell didn't use guns," he snorted, trying to look cool for the woman beside him but instead coming across as goofy. "We would just wrestle Hunters to the ground with our bare hands. I used to kill ten - twenty! - a day, just using my fists."

A suspicious look flitted between Gordon and Alyx, and the lecturer reached breaking point.

"Oh, so when you're out in the field, you're going to be punching Hunters?"

"Out in the field?" the citizen objected vehemently, his voice jumping up an octave. "I'm not going out in the field. I'm a radio operator."

The entire group groaned. Rolling her eyes, Alyx touched Gordon's arm, and nodded to the exit. A little troubled at how easily they had been sucked into the conversation, Gordon blinked and nodded.

As they left, Gordon saw the lecturer's head drop, sighing. The last he saw of the discussion was the lecturer jabbing his finger at the doorway, staring down at the citizen. "That's it. Leave. You don't need to be here, and I'm not going to continue the lesson until you leave."

"I'm staying right here," the citizen shot back defensively, their voices fading as Gordon moved through the doorway with Alyx.

"I am serious, leave."

Smiling at him, Alyx shrugged, and Gordon tuned out the rest of the argument. He looked up and down the corridor, seeing closed metal hatches and a window on the wall opposite looking through at an office with an old sofa. A man and woman on the sofa were entwined with each other, discussing matters that were mercifully unable to get through the thick glass of the window.

"Uh…" he looked up and down the corridor. "Where do we go?"

"Good question," she mumbled, looking to the right. "I'll check down there," she said over her shoulder, heading in that direction.

Gordon nodded his understanding, and headed for an open metal hatch at the end of the corridor on the left. It took him through into a monitoring station. A metal hatch the same as the others was on the right-hand side of the room. The left-hand wall was made up of small televisions, a citizen with a clipboard jotting down notes from the readings on the screens as she walked up and down the platform beneath it. An old computer console rested in front of the platform, where a Vortigaunt and someone very familiar was working.

Unable to hold back his smile, Gordon cleared his throat, and Eli looked over casually, clearly not expecting him. His face erupted into a wide grin, and he tossed his clipboard back onto the console, taking a few hobbling steps toward him.

"Hey, Gordon! Man, you made it!"

Opening his mouth to reply, Gordon stopped when Alyx appeared in the doorway, glistening eyes locked on Eli.

"Dad!"

"Alyx-" The elder man whirled on the spot to face her, and only managed to take one desperate step before Alyx had hurled herself at him, burying her face in his chest and wrapping her arms around his waist.

"I was so afraid I wouldn't see you again," she said quietly, and for the first time in quite awhile, Gordon saw her as Eli's daughter again.

With a grandfatherly smile that Gordon knew well from twenty years ago (just with less wrinkles), Eli stroked her head. He brought her face up so he could look her in the eye.

"There, there, sweetheart, we're together now. That's all that matters." His deep brown eyes flitted over to Gordon, and his kind smile became one of pride. "And look at you, son. I knew if you both stayed together you could get through anything."

Shrugging and adjusting his glasses, Gordon exchanged a smile with Alyx. "Well, it did go smoothly. Relatively."

She nodded with a satisfied smile, folding her arms. "Yeah, we make a pretty good team."

Hand brushing his chin, Eli smiled at them. "Yeah, well, that's good, because, well… now the suppression field is down…" He smirked at Alyx and winked at Gordon. "…we all have to do our part."

"Oh, good God," Gordon quietly gasped, mortified as he tried to look at anything else in the room except Alyx and Eli.

Alyx's previously clueless face dropped. "Dad!" she scolded, hitting her father on the arm before burying her reddening face in her hands. She turned away from him as he chortled away, very much enjoying the embarrassment he had wrought on his daughter.

"Can you blame an old man for wanting grandkids?" The last few words died in his throat, his smile vanishing when he saw the back of Alyx's jacket, and the two blood soaked holes the Hunter had left there. "What's… what's happened to you?"

Peeking up from behind her hand, Alyx turned to see Eli inspecting the wound, and waved her hands around dismissively. "Dad, it's not what it looks like," she said slowly. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" he asked quietly, his eyes whipping between her and, almost pleadingly, at Gordon. "Shouldn't we have that looked at?"

"Really, I'm fine," she insisted, as though it were only a scratch on her knee.

His voice shaking absurdly, Gordon adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat before trying to speak again. "She's okay, Eli. The Vorts helped her." He looked to the Vortigaunt working on the console for support, but didn't see any acknowledgement from the back of the alien's head. He sighed, shrugging helplessly. "But she is fine."

Eli was still unconvinced, and Alyx took the initiative before he could ask any more questions.

"Uh, where's Dr Kleiner?" she said quickly, pulling out the data packet from her belt and holding it in the air. "We should get this data to him right away."

"Um… okay. Yes," Eli said unsurely, blinking as though the thought hadn't even occurred to him. He looked from Alyx to Gordon, and back again. "Yes, we should. He'll be glad for a chance to get out of the silo." He limped to the hatch on the other side of the room, summoning Gordon with a wave of his hand as he went by. "This way, Gordon."

Alyx gave Gordon a relieved, wide-eyed look as she joined him in following her father.

He punched a code into the keypad beside the door, chuckling to himself as the door opened. "The way he and Magnusson have been going at it, you'd think they were still competing for grant money."

That sounded familiar. Gordon remembered silently watching some of their legendary verbal battles, usually with Barney egging them on when it sounded like the argument was dying down.

"Some things never change," Alyx sighed, rolling her eyes.

Eli took them into the diagonal elevator shaft in the room beyond. The elevator itself was more of a platform, surrounded by yellow metal bars surrounding the sides and top. He pushed open a waist-height gate and walked inside. As they descended, Gordon's eyes were focused on the currently closed metal door at the bottom of the slanted elevator shaft, only looking up when Alyx started speaking.

"Any word from Barney?" Gordon asked, surprising both Eli and Alyx with the abruptness of the question.

The way Eli's eyes hit the floor didn't inspire confidence. "We're not sure. Last we heard his train was ahead of yours. But after the Citadel blew…" he sighed. "It's anyone's guess. But he's not stupid. He knows enough to keep moving away from the portal."

"Do we have any idea how long until the superportal's active?" Alyx asked, fidgeting with the data packet between her fingers.

"We don't know for certain," Eli replied slowly. "We're keeping an eye on it."

"And what about the Combine? Will we be able to launch before they attack?"

A frown creased his already wrinkled forehead as he thought about his answer. "It's going to be close. All it would take is one Strider to destroy our rocket. But we're ready for them," he growled, slamming a determined fist into his palm and giving Gordon a glimpse of the resistance leader Eli Vance.

Alyx clutched the data packet tighter. "I'm sorry we couldn't get here any sooner, Dad."

Smiling kindly, Eli waved his hand about to quiet her. "Don't worry, sweetheart, we're going to make it." He reached over and rubbed her arm. "I'm just so glad to have you back."

The tension seemed to ooze from her shoulders, a grateful breath escaping her. "I'm glad to be back."

A familiar voice echoed through the metal door as they approached. Dr Kleiner, lost in his own little world. "Everything seems to be in order… I only wonder…"

Another voice, this one familiar in a groan-inducing capacity, snarked back. "The last thing on my mind was submitting it for the Kleiner certificate of approval. Whatever troubles we might have had were the result of staffing and supply deficiencies."

The elevator clanged to a halt on ground level and changed to a horizontal track beneath them. They began moving forward, and the metal door opened.

"Oh my God…" Alyx gasped.

Gordon couldn't help but agree, agape at the sight slowly revealing itself before them. It was the missile silo He had shown him, back in the ant-lion caves. Kleiner stood atop the steps propped up against the left side of the nosecone, while Magnusson gesticulated wildly with his back to them.

"And get your cranio-conjugal parasite away from my nosecone!" he bellowed, storming off to a console tucked around the right-hand side of the walkway that formed a perimeter around the nosecone.

Said parasite, Lamarr, leapt from the hatch Kleiner was working on, landing in her owner's arms almost fearfully. Ducking down to grab the headcrab, Kleiner's glasses fell down his nose.

"N-now listen here, Magnusson," he stuttered, adjusting his glasses. "There's no call for … hurtful comments." His gaze settled on them as they walked into the silo, and he gasped. "Good grief! Eli! Why-" he stopped as he awkwardly struggled to pry Lamarr from his chest, finally managing to gently drop her to the floor, "-didn't you tell me they'd arrived?"

Eli put his hands in the air as Kleiner shuffled over busily. "Don't worry Izzy. They just got here."

With a wide smile that he seemed to be struggling to contain, Kleiner took Alyx's hand, bowing his head gracefully.

"My dear, what a relief – not to mention a delight – to see you here at last." He looked over at Gordon, who was having trouble prying his eyes from the rocket. "And Gordon, I see you and the HEV suit have taken excellent care of each other."

"Well-" he looked down at the HEV suit, only then noticing the thick layer of mud from crawling through the blockade outside Sturgess' base.

"Oh," Alyx laughed, smirking at Gordon. "They're inseparable."

He frowned at what his overwrought brain perceived as a dig, and was about to reply when Magnussons' booming voice made him literally jump on the spot.

"The data, people, the data!" he shouted, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Kleiner, are you going to sync up the satellite? Or should I postpone the launch to make time for a family reunion?" he said sweetly, wiggling his fingers about in the air.

"Oh, brother…" Eli groaned, accompanied by Alyx rolling her eyes.

"All right, all right," Kleiner said defensively. "I was just saying hello to Alyx and Gordon."

As impossible as it seemed, Magnusson's scowl became even deeper. "Oh, fine. No-one grants me a moment's peace, but by all means, unroll the red carpet," he said dramatically, throwing a hand in the air as he marched back to the console.

Sputtering and groaning helplessly, Kleiner looked desperately at them for support. "Good grief! I only meant they might-"

"I know, I know," Eli soothed quietly, almost under his breath.

Kleiner let his shoulders drop, adjusting his glasses in a manner that Gordon suddenly realised, to his horror, he had been unconsciously copying. Alyx noticed it too, and shot an amazed, mocking gape at Gordon with a subtle finger pointed at Kleiner. She mouthed 'It's you', which just made him scowl.

"Oh, never mind him," Kleiner sighed. "Now, my dear, where is this data packet you've been carrying?" Glancing over in Magnusson's direction, he ducked his head down, smiling mischievously. "If I delay a single moment, I'll never hear the end of it."

"You have my word on it!" Magnusson barked.

Raising his eyebrows in an 'I told you so' expression, Kleiner shrugged.

Grinning, Alyx tapped the data packet on her palm before handing it over. "It's right here, Dr Kleiner. We've got a ton of data. The strange thing is it was all attached to a transmission from Judith."

Previously content to merely listen, Eli suddenly sprang forward, eyes whipping from the data packet to Alyx. "Transmission? From Judith?"

Her head dropped, and she looked back to Gordon in disbelief. "Do you mean the message didn't get through?"

"We've got to see this right away," Eli gasped, snatching Kleiner's arm.

Nodding with a determination not commonly seen, Kleiner led the way back to the elevator. "Just let me start the decoding process, and then we can view it in the auxiliary control room."

Eli followed him quickly, struggling not to overtake the elderly scientist. "For God's sake, hurry."

"Yes, yes, of course," he said soothingly.

Alyx gave Gordon a worried look as they walked to the now occupied elevator. An alarm klaxon blared out before they had even taken a step, and they tilted their heads up to the source of the noise.

"Another alarm?" Alyx asked, incredulous.

"Oh, what next in the parade of constant interruptions?" Magnusson boomed, waving his arm in the air in a gesture that Gordon remembered from Victory, back in the mines. The irascible scientist stabbed a finger into the control panel in front of him. "Hello? Hello, is anyone there? Anyone?" Arms latched onto either side of the console, Magnusson's head dropped in exasperation. He looked up at them, shaking his head. "False alarms all day –damn crows have been nesting in the tracks. I do not know how I am supposed to concentrate with all this racket!"

That was when his gaze locked on to Gordon, and he couldn't help but sigh at the sentence that was inevitably coming.

"Freeman," he barked, before stomping toward him. "Freeman, you're not doing anything. Make yourself useful and find out what the hell is going on in there."

Gordon glanced back and forth between Magnusson and Alyx. "Uh, but…" The words that came to mind were 'But I really don't want to', but Eli's voice but a nix on that little idea.

"Uh, yes," Eli said reluctantly. "Gordon, if you don't mind, I'd feel better if you had a look."

"W- I-" The objections died in his throat, so he just groaned and nodded tiredly.

Shrugging, Alyx smiled and patted him on the arm. "Catch up with us when you're done." She turned to go, and Gordon watched her go a little sadly.

Magnusson grunted behind him. "Oh, I see you got rid of that idiotic ponytail. About time, too, you looked like an overemotional teenager," he shouted over his shoulder as he wandered back to the console.

Alyx froze, her back to him. Eyes clamped shut, Gordon's face scrunched up as tightly as he could manage. The pause was horrible, and quite possibly worse than any other experience in Gordon's life.

"Ponytail?" Alyx managed, voice shaking.

"…yeah…" he croaked, unable to find the courage to open his eyes.

"You… had a ponytail?"

A sigh escaped him as he finally opened his eyes, though he kept his gaze locked on the floor. "It was just a little one. I got rid of it before the whole… resonance cascade, end of the world thing."

"Freeman!" said scientist cried.

"I have to go," Gordon said quickly, whirling around and pacing as fast as possible to Magnusson.

Alyx was mercifully silent as she walked back into the elevator, though Gordon did catch what she said as the door closed behind her. "Twenty years of Gordon Freeman stories, and you never told me he had a ponytail?"

Gordon slowly turned his head to face Magnusson, who was bathed in the orange light of the console he worked on.

"Well, thank you for that," Gordon said, quietly.

"What? Oh, do pay attention, Freeman," Magnusson dismissed. "The blast doors will have sealed due to the alert, so you'll have to go through the bottom of the launch tube." He pointed to a hatch behind them in the walkway, a ladder leading down below. "I'll open this hatch to let you down," he said. "Now, once you're down there, I'll have Uriah let you into the secondary silo."

Magnusson pressed a button, and the hatch creaked open. Frowning, Gordon tried to remember if anyone had told him about an Uriah. Was he another scientist from Black Mesa, just one he'd never met?

Ducking his head, Magnusson looked up at Gordon with an arched eyebrow. "Well? What are you waiting for, Freeman? A hug? The situation is not going to investigate itself!"

He considered a retort, but remembered that such attempts never ended well with Magnusson, who just shouted louder and called you a moron until you gave up. Giving a pointed little salute to the seething older man, Gordon turned to the ladder and started climbing down to the next walkway down. He hopped off the bottom few rungs, the walkway clattering beneath his feet. There was an open elevator tucked into a gap in the wall on the right, and Gordon headed over there, his gaze on the rocket as he went. Steam hissed and metal clattered from below, and Gordon was instantly taken back to Black Mesa again, travelling on the rail, preparing the rocket for launch… Philips and Bennett.

He hoped they didn't suffer, in the end.

Shuddering the thought away as he walked into the elevator, Gordon pressed the down button, and watched curiously as it took him down to the bottom of the launch tube. It gave him a view of all the various areas of the silo, citizens running back and forth, lugging around crates and complicated pieces of machinery and mostly looking quite irritable.

This attitude only increased when the announcement system crackled to life, Magnusson's condescending tones echoing forth.

"Attention, personnel. This is Dr Magnusson. Since the secondary silo staff seem incapable of solving their little crow problem, you will be happy to hear we have put the indomitable Dr Freeman on the job. We all look forward to his remedy."

Gordon didn't appreciate the sarcasm.

"And I look forward to hearing the staff's excuses for why they couldn't handle it themselves! Thank you for your patience!" he spat, the transmission abruptly cutting out as Magnusson no doubt jabbed an angry finger onto the off switch.

The elevator clanged to a halt on the bottom floor, and Gordon stepped out. He was now staring at the engines of the rocket, the hiss of steam and the thrum of unseen generators surrounding him. Stepping forward into the corridor that ran around the rocket, Gordon saw that left simply led into the rocket chamber itself, and so he followed it to the right. At the end was a metal hatch, which was closed, naturally. A keypad on the left-hand side of the door didn't offer much hope, since no-one had told him any access codes.

Looking around the door, he saw the thinnest sliver of a window on the right-hand side, and walked over to it. Peering through, he saw a Vortigaunt in the room beyond, his back to him as he worked on a computer station on the left side of the room. And he was wearing a lab coat. Gordon guessed that this was Uriah, and knocked on the window.

Head slowly lifting up in response to the noise, the Vortigaunt looked in the opposite direction before rotating around and locking his red eye on him.

"Ah," he growled, shrugging his shoulders to keep the lab coat from dropping off as he walked over. He tapped at an unseen keypad on the other side, and, after an affirmative bleep, the hatch slid open noisily.

Gordon stepped through into the room beyond, which seemed to be an airlock of sorts, a hatch on each side.

"Well met, Freeman," the Vort praised, hands clasped together.

Checking the nametag on his lab coat, Gordon found that his name was indeed Uriah. Although the picture seemed somewhat redundant, he couldn't help but note. Shaking the thought away, he smiled at the Vort. "Thanks for opening the door."

Uriah bowed his head. "The Magnusson has instructed me to admit you into the secondary silo." He waved a claw to the open hatch on the other side of the room. "The secondary silo can be reached through here."

"Thanks," he said quickly, moving on through the door before Magnusson could complain again.

Alarm klaxons sounded as he moved through the door, turning left and through a maze of narrow corridors, eventually coming out at a corridor with an open doorway at the far end. There was a mound of steps halfway down the corridor. A rebel appeared in the open doorway, waving him over cheerfully.

"Hey, over here!"

Gordon decided to head that way just as Magnusson's delightful voice pounded through the corridor again.

"For God's sake Freeman, what is taking you so long? Oh, I cannot concentrate with all this racket! These feathered fiends are the most persistent I've ever… wait. What is this?"

Frowning, Gordon looked up, waiting for what Magnusson had found so worrisome while the rebel shouted over to him.

"An extra pair of hands. Magnusson must have sent you, eh?"

A Hunter burst into the corridor behind the rebel, dust and cement tumbling out with it. It slammed a hoof down on the rebel, slamming him into the ground and yanking him through the now closing metal door.

"Run for your life!"

Gordon sprinted for the rebel, arm outstretched, but only managed to hit the now closed metal door.

"Oh my God, oh dear. This is a breach! " Magnusson gasped, as though he couldn't believe it. "A breach! Attention, attention, personnel, this is Dr Magnusson! We are experiencing a breach of internal base defences. Please bear with us while we pinpoint the location of the breach."

Scrambling to his feet, Gordon tried to the metal door. Locked, probably like all the other doors, some automated security thing. Made sense, he supposed, even if it wasn't that convenient for him right now. Gordon moved back to the steps halfway down the corridor. There was a gap just beside the steps that he estimated he could squeeze through, that also looked like it led to a maintenance crawlspace that would take him left and beneath the wall.

Gordon crouched down and crawled through, nodding in satisfaction at the crawlspace that stretched out to the left. Magnusson's voice joined the sounds of alarms, gunfire and Hunter growls from the adjacent room.

Once he had crawled beneath the wall, gaps in the right hand-side of the crawlspace revealed a large storage room beyond, walkways snaking around the walls. It was a long room, stretching out to the left further than Gordon could see. He estimated he could only really see half of it. Huge metal storage frames were all over the place, divided into squares for… well, storing things. A dead rebel body tumbled along the ground past him, and a Hunter stomped into view, its back to him.

Other rebels in the room opened fire on the creature as Gordon increased his crawling speed. The Hunter snarled and fired darts, though Gordon didn't wait to see if they hit their intended targets, instead continuing his crawl through the cramped passageway that eventually took him to the right and into the other corner of the room. Once there, there was a large enough gap on the right for him to emerge into the open air.

Standing to his full height, Gordon found the room eerily quiet. Except for the blaring alarms, but they had become white noise by now. Pulse rifle drawn, Gordon moved slowly into the area. The Hunter landed behind him as he reached the middle of the open space, hooves thumping angrily against the ground. It must have been hiding on the walkways above. Whirling on the spot, Gordon was nailed across the chest by a might swing of the Hunter's front leg, releasing his grip on the rifle and tossing him across the room.

He collided with a metal storage frame incredibly hard before dropping to the ground. Groaning, Gordon adjusted his askew glasses in time to roll away from a barrage of the Hunter's darts. He was on his feet again by the time he heard them charge, eyes on the Hunter as it stalked around him. The darts exploded against the wall opposite, and the Hunter took that as a signal to charge at him.

Though he tried to leap to the side at the last moment, the Hunter caught his shoulder in mid-jump, sending him whirling in the air before tumbling to the ground in an awkward heap. Face pressed against the cool concrete floor, Gordon spied a car engine that had toppled from one of the storage spaces.

"Attention, Freeman! It is critical that you seal the overhead silo doors and stop this infiltration!"

"Busy!" he grunted through clenched teeth. The Hunter turned to face him, and he started rolling, coming to his feet with the Gravity Gun poised. Bringing the engine to him, he whirled on the spot, unintentionally catching the darts the Hunter was firing at him. He glanced down with a quiet 'huh' at the display of blue projectiles lodged into the engine before looking up in alarm at the quickly approaching Hunter.

Gordon dove to the ground, skidding along the floor with the engine held up in front of him, aimed at the Hunter. A thought occurred to him, and he waited for the deadly whine of the darts that foretold an explosion. He fired it at the Hunter, which was preparing another charge. The darts exploded just as the engine collided with the creature, and, with a blinding flash of light, the Hunter disintegrated, disappearing in a blur. It wasn't completely unlike the reaction from the secondary fire of the pulse rifle.

Speaking of which…

He scrambled over to his dropped rifle and scooped it up as he ran by, heading for a ladder on the far side of the room that led into a darkened, red-lit corridor. So. Seal the silo doors. Gordon nodded as he climbed the ladder, always feeling better when he had a goal. Even if it was a goal that he had no idea how to accomplish.

As he reached the ledge of the small platform jutting out from the bottom of the corridor, a Combine soldier came to a skidding halt at the end of the doorway. Gordon brought up the pulse rifle and fired just as the soldier looked down in his direction, noticing him for the first time.

The soldier tumbled forward past Gordon, and he clambered inside the corridor without looking back. Everything was bathed in a red light, and it only added unnecessary tension as he progressed around a corner taking him left, bringing him to a junction that could take him either straight ahead or diagonally left. A turret that had been erected at the end of the diagonal left corridor solved that little problem, and Gordon darted forward, away from a hail of bullets.

Both corridors led to the same room, also bathed in red light. A generator room, judging by the two semicircular machines connected by thick cables and pipes to the walls on the right. A thick water pipe on the opposite wall had ruptured, and water gushed out onto the floor. It was ankle deep at the moment. There was a door on the far side of the room, almost directly opposite from him.

Pressing his back to the left wall, Gordon slowly moved up towards where he knew the turret had been set up, having to make his way around a tall set of portable shelves. The wheels were pretty much useless in this level of water, so moving them wasn't an option. Finally, entire body crouched down, Gordon managed to sneak his way up to the turret, and blasted it over with the Gravity Gun before it could take much notice of him.

He sighed, and turned his attention to the door. As he sloshed his way through the water, he heard a familiar thumping coming from inside the darkened passageway, and instantly started to back up. A Hunter burst through the doorway, massive shoulders sending chunks of the wall flying where it wouldn't fit. Its gaze whipped over to him, and it snarled before firing off a burst of darts.

Gordon ducked to the right, the water slowing him down considerably. The Hunter's eyes followed him, not even waiting for the darts embedded in the wall to explode before ducking its head down and charging at him. It kicked up tall waves of water as it galloped towards him, and Gordon started firing with the pulse rifle, aiming for the muscular legs. All it managed to accomplish was a brief stumble, which was enough to give Gordon time to roll away from the deadly charge.

The Hunter turned quickly, bringing up a wounded leg and stamping it down towards him. Gordon shifted his body, and the hoof plunged down through the water, narrowly missing his side and cracking the floor beneath him. He started firing again point blank, wincing at the strobe flashing of the weapon in the darkened room. Snarling and wheezing, the Hunter tried to get away from Gordon, stamping its legs about and giving him a chance to dart forward and scramble to his feet.

Whirling around with rifle ready, he was greeted by a jackhammer of a kick to his chest, sending him up at and angle and back across the room, landing between the two generators. The Hunter's thunderous approaching spurring him on past any pain, Gordon leapt to his feet, and found to his horror that the pulse rifle was gone, lost beneath the flowing water. Eyes on the Hunter, Gordon pulled out the crowbar. He leapt aside as the Hunter reached him, clambering onto the generator in front of him as the creature slammed into the other, crushing much of it.

Sparks flew and smoke belched out from the machine. The Hunter stumbled back, dizzied by the impact, and Gordon leapt onto its back. It thrashed for just a moment before Gordon brought the crowbar down, stabbing the pointed end through the Hunter's top eye. Thick grey liquid spewed out, and the Hunter wailed, its legs wobbling for a moment before the whole creature collapsed to the ground, lifeless.

Finally allowing himself to breath, Gordon rolled off the body, splashing into an awkward sitting heap beside the dead creature. His head rested back and his eyes closed, he breathed deeply, struggling to accommodate his burning lungs.

Magnusson's voice burst into the few brief seconds of rest, making Gordon jerk his head back ever so slightly. "Freeman, I repeat, there has been a breach of the secondary silo by way of the overhead launch doors! I will trust you to seal the silo doors!"

Gordon groaned. "All right, all right…"

With a pained grunt, he angled himself to his feet. He swayed a little when he stood up, and frowned down at his feet, urging them to pick up the slack. Still gripping the crowbar for lack of anything else, he proceeded into the room beyond, which was in fact a diagonal elevator shaft, similar to the one he had taken down to the rocket with Eli and Alyx. Except for the lack of the elevator platform itself. Legs aching a little, Gordon lumbered up the passageway and out into a corridor, finally, that wasn't bathed in demonic reds and blacks.

"Okay," he sighed.

He followed the corridor along before he was blocked, stuck between two doors on either side of him. The ceiling had caved in, giving only the barest of glimpses over the top of the inside of the secondary silo. A low growl vibrated in his throat, only to pause when he heard the shuffle of Combine boots from the other side of the rubble. Glancing to the two doorways, he saw only the one on the left was open, and ducked inside.

He waited for the second soldier to pass before swinging the crowbar through his legs, flipping him onto his back and sending his shotgun sailing into the air. Dropping the crowbar for the moment, Gordon snatched it up.

"Thank you," he said quickly, firing at the soldier in front and catching him through the head in mid-turn.

A metal scrape made him turn to face the other soldier, who was now swinging his own crowbar down on him. Gordon held the shotgun up to block the blow. As they struggled, he stared up at the soldier's blank orange lenses in outrage. His crowbar. The soldier was attacking him with his crowbar.

This would not stand.

With a surge of energy, Gordon swung the shotgun to the left, slamming the crowbar into the wall. He followed it up with a kick to the belly that sent the soldier stumbling back a couple of steps, giving Gordon the time to cock the shotgun and fire it. He picked up the crowbar from the dead soldier, mouth wrinkled in distaste. He didn't care who you were. Never touch another man's crowbar.

That bit of unpleasant business taken care of, Gordon took to clambering over the debris, stumbling down into the missile silo as a quickly infuriating voice blasted out at him.

"Freeman! Freeman, have you heard a word I've been saying? It's up to you to seal the launch doors!"

"I'm doing it!" he shouted to no-one. Peering up the silo, he saw several walkways that formed rings around the cylindrical shape. Ladders led from one walkway to the next until they got to the top. Sunlight poured in from the open launch doors, reflecting off the water just below the walkway Gordon was standing on. The silo must have flooded.

The shadow of a dropship loomed over head, and Gordon moved quickly, heading for the ladder closest to him. It reminded him of the rocket test chamber at Black Mesa. Minus the three headed monster, obviously.

Gunshots chipped against the wall above his head.

Although whether the Combine soldiers were deadlier was up for debate.

Taking cover behind a pillar, Gordon managed to take out two of the soldiers on the top floor that were attacking him. He couldn't see any others higher up, but the shotgun wouldn't be of much use against them at this distance anyway.

Reaching the top with only a few bullet bruises to show for it, Gordon was greeted by a burst of incredibly painful bullets in the back, hurling him to the floor. He skid along for a moment before rolling away, his back burning from every turn of his body. Reaching the safe haven of a tone pillar, Gordon hissed as he straightened up. Peering around, he was quickly dissuaded by the blinding spotlight and surge of high powered bullets from a mounted machinegun. From what his brief glance could tell, they had set up in the observation booth on the opposite side of the silo, the machinegun poking through the narrow window.

Which would mean him running for his life as he tried to reach a probably locked door. Great. He removed the Gravity Gun from his shoulders, requiring speed for this. Gordon crouched down behind the pillar, and launched himself out in a sprint before he lost his nerve. He curved around the pillar to the right, heading for the next. A blast of gunfire hit him in the side, sending him whirling and tumbling behind the pillar, his head smacking against the floor.

"Ow…" he moaned.

"Is anyone still alive in there?"

His head whipped up at the indignant voice. Gordon had the solution. Simply channel all of his anger with Magnusson into attacking. No-one would be able to survive that. Gordon would be able to take on a Strider barehanded with that kind of fuel. Launching to his feet, Gordon sprinted out into the open again with a near-insane battle cry, running straight for the machinegun with shotgun cocked.

A burst of gunfire hit him in the ribs, but wasn't enough to stop him diving through the hole that had been smashed through the window to make room for the gun. He barrelled shoulder first into the soldier, both of them crashing to the ground in a heap. Gordon smashed the shotgun across the soldier's helmet, shattering his blue lenses across the floor. This disoriented him long enough for Gordon to spring back, climbing to his feet and firing a blast through the soldier's head.

Dropping the weapon, Gordon turned on the spot to inspect the controls. There were three main levers that attracted his attention. Two were locked upwards with a red light beside each one. The lever in the middle, however, was pulled down, and the light green. Gunshots from the soldiers above the silo doors chipping away at the glass and cement protecting him, Gordon thrust the lever forward. With a low groan, the door slowly began to close.

Peering up through some of the undamaged glass, Gordon saw the recognisable shape of an Advisor, floating above the soldiers. A flash of red made Gordon stumble back, clutching his head as he collapsed to the floor. The silo doors closed, and the alarms disappeared, fading along with Gordon's Advisor induced headache.

"This is Dr Magnusson," the elder scientist said calmly and eloquently, "and I am pleased to announce the secondary silo has been sealed." He sighed."Well, back to work!"

The transmission cut out, and Gordon slapped a hand down on his knee, pushing himself back to his feet. Clambering out through the window, he realised he had left the shotgun behind, but didn't particularly care. He noted three figures on the other side of the circular chasm, peering down into the silo. They had emerged from an open metal hatch on the wall behind them, from what looked like another of the diagonal elevator shafts. Gordon slowly made his way around, holding his sore ribs while he waited for the HEV suit to do its work. It was Alyx and Uriah, joined by a rebel Gordon hadn't met before.

When she saw him, Alyx broke out in a relieved smile, slipping her pistol away. "Gordon. Thank goodness you're okay."

Unsure of that last statement, Gordon tilted his head a little. "Glad that's over," he grunted, reaching down for the Gravity Gun he had left beside the pillar.

Alyx did it for him, gently lifting the Gravity Gun over his head. She left her hands on his shoulders for a little too long before letting them drop limply to her sides. "We couldn't get in until you sealed off the silo and the blast doors opened up."

"Regrettably true," Uriah sighed.

"I'd better let my dad know you're all right," Alyx said, walking to a keypad beside the open elevator shaft door. She tapped a few buttons before speaking. "Dad?"

It suddenly struck Gordon how strange it was to try to contact someone and have them answer straight away. So much had been a struggle for him in the past few days, it was strange to be around technology that worked and didn't short out when you pressed a button.

"Yes, Alyx, is everything okay?" Eli said quickly. "Is Gordon all right?"

A goofy grin Gordon didn't care about crossed his face as the morphine from the suit finally hit, his shoulders drooping.

"Yes, he's fine," Alyx deadpanned, smiling and shaking her head. "And thanks to him, the base is secure."

Gordon couldn't help but notice that she was really pretty. He sighed. Thanks, morphine.

"Good, good," Eli said, sounding distracted. "We're about to watch the transmission from Judith."

Her expression becoming far more tense, Alyx lifted a hand to the pad to end the transmission. "We'll head right over."

"If you would take the Freeman from here," Uriah cut in, hands clasped together reverently, "I can return to my place of honour at the side of the Magnusson."

Alyx nodded, glancing back at Gordon like she was concerned for his sanity. "Sure thing. Thanks for the help." She turned to Gordon, and waved for him to follow as she walked up the elevator-less elevator shaft.

Gordon did so, the exertion of stretching his legs up the ramp speeding up the departure of the dizzying morphine.

"Your head out of the clouds yet?" Alyx asked with no small amount of amusement.

"Uh…" he frowned, and shook his head. Blinking, he focused on her, and found he could without his mind drifting off on random tangents. "Yeah, sure. Did they tell you anything about where Judith is?"

Lips thinning as they passed through the doorway and into the bright corridors beyond, Alyx shook her head. "Dr Kleiner told me that Judith headed north in a helicopter right after they got here, but he wouldn't tell me why."

She led him to a metal hatch at the end of the corridor, which opened for them almost magically. Dr Kleiner waited for them on the other side, and nodded politely before returning to the screens on the other side of the room. Mossman's message filtered through as Gordon walked with Alyx, both of them taking up positions on either side of Eli.

He realised that he was standing on an old rug, ornate and spreading out across the room. A sofa on his right looked familiar, and he noticed the window on the left that looked out into a corridor. This was the sofa he had previously seen the two rebels, uh… conversing on. On the left of the sofa was a corridor going off to the right, leading who knows where. On the right was a table littered with stacked books and paper, a readout machine on the right-hand corner buzzing and scraping out jagged lines. Shelves on the wall above the table were pretty bare, making the photo of Eli and his family stand out all the more. It must have been rescued from Black Mesa East.

Kleiner worked on one of the control panels lining the walls beneath the grid of nine television screens hanging from the ceiling. Mossman's face was spread out between them, only the bottom left screen consumed by static.

"I'm fairly sure I've pinned down the location of the project. It's hard to say how much of it might have survived intact, or if there's anything remaining that could compromise our work, if it were discovered by the Combine. We'll need to take a close look at it, of course, but I should be able to give you a better opinion in a few hours. If the site is where we think it is, then it should be no more than-"

Gordon expected the dull explosion this time, and Mossman looked off to the side in surprise.

"I'm going to cut this short, we may have been spotted."

Eli's face was painful to behold, and Gordon considered reaching out to comfort him when the camera was knocked over, revealing the Hunter that ended the transmission. The elder scientist hobbled away from both Gordon and Alyx, fists clenched tightly at his sides.

"I should never have let her go."

"There was no stopping her, Eli," Kleiner sighed, suddenly distracted by something else on the control panel in front of him." Wait a moment... there's something else here."

The picture on the screens flickered uncertainly for a few moments before coalescing into a view of… a snowstorm? Judith was in arctic conditions. Was she showing them her location? Gordon struggled to discern what was up there, and shuffled his feet about to get a better look.

Colour filtered through the white of the blizzard onscreen. He could make out shipping containers within the blizzard. And then something more revealed itself. The hull of a ship, and a circular logo Gordon hadn't seen in twenty years. Or about a week, depending on how one measured his timeline.

Aperture Science. Black Mesa's on-again-off-again rival. They originally manufactured shower curtain rings before becoming a research institution and a pretty bitter rival of Black Mesa. Most of their experiments and discoveries were either failures or too dangerous to even contemplate usage in the real world. Not that Black Mesa could talk. But the Borealis… the Borealis was the stuff of legend. Blueprints flashed across the screen, filled with numbers. And suddenly, Gordon felt an excitement like no other. He felt like a scientist again.

Dr Kleiner was equally excited, agape at the display above them. "It's… the Borealis!"

"Good God," Eli gasped, sounding like his chest was seizing up on him.

"Incredible!" Kleiner enthused, waving his fists about in the air.

"What?" Alyx breathed, looking between them slack-jawed. "The Borealis, it's real?"

"Oh yes, quite real, despite its almost legendary stature," Dr Kleiner nodded, adjusting his glasses to talk to her. "Our… peers at Aperture Science were at work on a project of some promise, but in their rush to beat Black Mesa for funding, they must have compromised ordinary standards of risk." He ducked his head down like a child telling scary stories. "We heard their research vessel had simply disappeared. Vanished! With all hands! And even part of the dry dock!" Shaking his head, Kleiner turned to face the screen. "Few believed the Borealis would ever be seen again…"

Eli, however, was having none of it. "It should have been lost forever."

"Ah," his peer said, still marvelling at the Borealis, "but now that we've found it, we can use it against the Combine!"

Excited and curious, Alyx looked to Dr Kleiner thoughtfully. "Did you ever-"

"Use it?" Eli repeated, his stunned gaze firmly on Kleiner. "That thing has to be destroyed!"

Unbridled optimism spilled out of Kleiner as he gestured to the screen. "But think of the advantage for humanity! We can't simply waste all that potential!"

Eli's voice rose as he stormed over to the older scientist, grabbing him by the shoulders. "Hasn't Black Mesa taught you anything? There's no controlling that kind of power!"

Both Gordon and Alyx moved forward, exchanging an unsure look. Alyx's hands were up in front of her helplessly, ready to calm any argument that could erupt.

"Well, yes, there's always a risk, Eli," the older scientist admitted quietly, though clearly not hearing Eli's words. "But my goodness, we have co-ordinates, blueprints, hailing frequencies! Quite ingenious of Dr Mossman to hide it all in the carrier wave…"

A penny dropped in Eli's eyes, and his hands dropped from Kleiner's shoulders, whipping to the ship on the monitors. "Well, that means she's still alive up there!" His face dropped abruptly, staring off into space in horror. "But if the Combine catch her… they'll tear out everything she knows. There'll be nothing left of her."

Struggling for words, Kleiner reached out a reasoning hand to Eli. "But… we don't know for sure-"

"I won't take that chance," he affirmed, pointing an authoritative finger to the ground. His gaze hit the floor for a moment as he thought. Then he started walking toward the exit, stating simply, "I'm going after her."

Worry lining her smooth features, Alyx stared at her father in disbelief. "Dad!"

Gordon stepped over, moving into Eli's way. A challenging glare almost made him falter, but Gordon held his gaze. "Eli. Think about it."

Anger seemed to rise in those deep brown eyes before settling back down again, and Eli sighed through his nose, his previous defiance replaced by sadness and resignation.

Tentatively stepping forward, Dr Kleiner held up his hands as though hesitant to even touch his friend. "Now, Eli, the only thing worse than Judith falling into their hands would be if they should get a hold of you! She may know the particulars of the Borealis, but you… you know everything about the resistance!"

Nodding, Alyx manoeuvred her way around to Eli's side, gently taking his hand in hers. "Listen to Dr Kleiner, dad. Gordon and I are more than able to handle this," she said, glancing at Gordon, who gave her a confirming nod. She returned her solid gaze to Eli, whose gaze was firmly concentrated on some void in the distance. "We'll get her back."

Magnusson's sudden bellow over the announcement system made everyone but Eli blink out of the silence that followed.

"Kleiner? Where are you? Why isn't the decoding finished?"

"Oh fie. The code," Kleiner said quickly, before tilting his head up. "Yes, Magnusson. It just needs a little bit longer."

"If you're waiting for the Combine's go-ahead, there'll soon be here to give it to you in person!"

"I'll hurry it along, Magnusson," he sighed. Adjusting his glasses, he looked to Alyx and Gordon, trying to catch Eli's eye but failing. "I'll be back as soon as I finish."

They were all silent as Dr Kleiner left the room, Gordon and Alyx watching Eli with no small amount of concern as he pressed two fingers to his temple, slowly shaking his head. The transmission showing the Borealis had ended, replaced by fizzling white static that silhouetted both Alyx and Eli.

"Dad, are you okay?" she asked softly, hands clutched together as she watched her father cross to the table on the other side of the room.

"Not again," Eli chanted quietly to himself, resting forward on the table. "I can't let it happen again. Not another Black Mesa…"

Gordon wished there was something more he could do, wished that he was good with words in any capacity. The sadness in Alyx's voice was difficult to stand. Suddenly, a low hum echoed through the room, and initially, Gordon thought it was feedback from the announcement system. Alyx seemed to notice it, too, putting a troubled hand to her head.

Then Gordon saw Him, like a ghost, imprinted on the screens. Staring out at them, briefcase in hand. And then, just as abruptly, He was gone, taking the low hum with Him. Alyx's head slowly rose, and she walked past Gordon and to her father.

Eyes on the screen, Gordon pointed. "Did you see…" The words died in his throat when he saw Alyx's eyes, blank and lifeless.

"Dad," she said, her voice flat. Eli turned to face her, and she continued. "Prepare for unforeseen consequences."

Eli's skin turned several shades paler, his eyes wide as he stared at Alyx, who was clutching her head uncomfortably, as though waking up. "What did you say?" he breathed, a wave of dizziness forcing his good leg out from under him.

"Dad!" Alyx cried, grabbing Eli even as Gordon rushed forward to help. "Dad, it's okay. Just lean into me." She practically had to force his arm over her shoulders; he almost seemed catatonic. Slowly, she guided him over to the sofa and lowered him down onto it. "Let's get you off your feet."

Gordon was still trying to process what had just happened. Unforeseen consequences. That was what He had told her to say. And yet… she didn't seem to be in control of her own body, so… she didn't know about Him. But what was so important about unforeseen consequences? And what did it mean to Eli that he would react like that?

Said elder scientist was putting on an unconvincing smile for his daughter, waving her concern away. "Thank you baby. I'll be fine in a minute or two."

It didn't really work. "Okay…" Alyx was wringing her hands now. "Do you need anything?"

Eli's eyes flickered over to Gordon almost imperceptibly before he raised his eyebrows at Alyx hopefully. "Actually, Alyx… would you… would you mind getting me a cup of tea? There's a hot plate in the old staff room," he said, pointing a thumb to the corridor behind them that Gordon had spied earlier.

Happy to be helping but clearly worried sick, Alyx smiled and nodded. "I'll be right back." She tilted her head towards Gordon, keeping her voice low. "Gordon… keep an eye on him?"

"We're not going anywhere," Eli said loudly, hammering home that he wasn't so old that his hearing was failing him. "Thank you, baby."

They both watched her go, and Gordon even followed a little to make sure she closed the door behind her. Slowly, eyes on Eli, Gordon walked back into the room, unsure of where to stand or what to do. He was looking at a man he had considered his friend and mentor with a newfound suspicion.

"So," he ventured. "Unforeseen consequences."

A heaviness descended on Eli, and he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "Unforeseen consequences… the last time I heard those words was back at Black Mesa. You had just stepped into the test chamber when he whispered them in my ear." He looked up at Gordon, fixing him with a stare that made his stomach drop. "You know who I'm talking about. Our mutual 'friend'."

All breath left Gordon as he watched Eli heave himself up from the sofa, moving to the table and leaning against it. His throat was dry. His eardrums pounded. He felt like he was falling, that he could throw up. He needed to hold onto something, and staggered as casually as he could to the armrest of the sofa, unable to do anything but listen as Eli continued to talk and reshape his world.

"When he brought in that crystal, I knew I…" Eli trailed off, his eyes moving up to the cracked family portrait on the shelf.

Gordon just stared at him. "You knew?" he managed, voice trembling with rage and panic and confusion. "All this time, and you knew? You knew what would happen?" Bowing his head to combat the wave of dizziness that flooded over him, Gordon rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. "All this time… I thought it was my fault…"

"I know. And…"

Slowly raising his head, Gordon found Eli looking right at him, eyes tired and so very sad.

"…I'm sorry, Gordon. I should have aborted that damn test," Eli said, his voice thick. There was no attempt at defence. No recriminations. He knew what he had done. "But… I didn't. The whole world went to hell that day. And now…" Delicately, Eli reached out and lifted the picture from the shelf, tracing Alyx's face with his finger. "…now he's using my little girl. Putting words in her mouth."

Eli's voice was shaking now, and he took a deep breath. Forcing a strength he didn't feel he had, Gordon pushed down on his knees, getting to his feet to join Eli at the table.

"God… damn it," Eli gasped quietly, closing his eyes to shut off the tears that were welling there. He stared down at Alyx's smiling young face. "I should have known when he rescued her it was for his own damn reasons."

Ducking his head, Gordon watched agape as Eli put the picture on the shelf. "You knew about Alyx, too?" he breathed.

Head bowed in either shame or fatigue, Eli slowly nodded.

"W… does anybody else know about him?"

"No. It's just us," he sighed, turning to face him and putting his hands on Gordon's shoulders. "Gordon… there's so much I need to tell you." A familiar determination knotting his forehead, Eli slammed a fist into his palm, giving Gordon the smallest anchor in this whirlwind of insanity. "Between us we may finally have a chance to-"

"Here you go," Alyx said as she emerged from the kitchen. For the first time in his life, Gordon wasn't happy to see her. Eli's face transformed before Gordon's eyes, becoming the kind father figure again. He moved around Gordon and lowered himself into the sofa, where Alyx joined him, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea.

Numb, Gordon's eyes followed the limping scientist as he went. So much made sense now. Eli, back at Black Mesa East, telling him that the resonance cascade wasn't his fault, asking him how much he had been told about City 17, about the world… his disbelief that Alyx had found him in the wreckage of the Citadel… and earlier, when Breen had spoken about his contract. Eli's face…

Smiling and frowning at the same time, Alyx glanced between Eli and Gordon as she handed over the tea. "Is… everything all right?"

"It's nothing, honey," Eli said quietly, with a pleasant smile and a wave of the hand that made Gordon realise just how good the man was at hiding the truth.

A slew of emotions tightened in Gordon's gut, and he rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, eventually clenching it into a helpless, angry fist. What else could he do? Eli was the only one with the answers he needed. It would be so easy to press him for answers, to force them out of him.

But then he saw Alyx, her deep eyes full of concern and love for her father. Eli must be hiding these things from her for a reason, probably to protect her from Him. But she was already His pawn. Surely she deserved to know?

The door to the room clanged open, and Magnusson strode in, all vigour and purpose. "All right people, change of plans. There is no way we can launch before those Striders are-" He stopped himself when he saw Alyx and Eli on the sofa, and scowled. "Oh, excuse me if I'm interrupting tea time. I'll just step out until you're finished if that's more convenient."

Alyx seemed ready to pounce from the sofa when Eli put a calming hand on hers.

"It's all right, honey," he soothed, and her shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Well, Freeman," Magnusson announced, as though Gordon should be honoured he was talking to him. "I believe I've found the perfect use for you."

He whipped his head up to glare at the elder scientist, his jaw set and eyes reddened.

Magnusson seemed a little taken aback by the intensity, but quickly recovered, turning to the exit and summoning him with a wave of his hand. "Follow me, quickly."

Feeling even more helpless than before, Gordon watched Magnusson go and then looked back to Eli.

Glancing over at Alyx unsurely, Eli smiled up at him, trying to look reassuring. "We'll talk later, Gordon."

His face frozen and staring at Eli, Gordon glanced over to Alyx, clueless and innocent to everything that was silently happening in this room. "I'll hold you to that," he muttered, his lips barely moving.

"I'll catch up with you in a bit," Alyx said.

Gordon smiled and nodded before he strode out of the room, his reaction far more terse than she deserved. He needed to get outside. This place was making him feel closed in, he couldn't breathe. He'd never been claustrophobic before, but the thoughts that were swirling around his mind, the motions churning within him were almost suffocating. He needed some space.

Magnusson, ignorant to his need (not that he would care anyway) was waiting at another hatch on the right wall of the corridor. Trying to shake himself out of it and return to what passed for normal for him nowadays, Gordon stopped beside Magnusson and raised a questioning eyebrow.

He took a breath like he was getting ready to deliver a rehearsed speech. "Freeman, Striders are coming. A single one of those damn things could shoot down our rocket." He tapped away on a keypad beside the door, and it opened noisily. "We don't dare launch until all Striders are destroyed," he said, leading him through the doorway and into the room beyond.

There was a hatch on the wall opposite, and another on the right-hand wall. A whiteboard beside the keypad for the right-hand door had a rudimentary sketch of a Strider scribbled onto it, with a dotted line arching up from the ground before landing on the creature's head. Magnusson continued talking, and Gordon blinked himself away from the drawing to listen.

"Now, you've proved yourself capable, and the staff seem to respect you," he said offhandedly, conveniently avoiding eye contact as he spoke. "Therefore," he announced, taking a breath, "I'm putting defence of White Forest - and this ingenious new weapon of mine - in your hands."

He walked over to the left-hand side of the room, where an open corridor was closed off by a fence. A group of civilians were gathered inside, sat around on too many crates for Gordon to count. On the right-hand side of the room glowed a strange tower of a device, a couple of heads taller than him. The middle section of the red and grey device was missing. A crackling blue energy fizzled in the gap, connected to the top and bottom.

Magnusson, meanwhile, was gesturing to a large display case on the right-hand side of the corridor entrance. A device about the size of a basketball rested inside, though two grey metal pads on either side made it look like it was wearing huge headphones. The central white ball of the device had metal slats cutting across its surface, allowing a view of the blue energy that flickered inside.

"We call it the Magnusson device," he said proudly, tipping up on his heels with a smile. "Not my chosen label, you understand-"

"No, course not," Gordon mumbled.

The comment made Magnusson pause for a moment, and he gave Gordon an irritated sideways look. "…but it seemed to please the personnel." He whirled on the spot, banging against the fence with his fist. "Look lively in there! Warm up the delivery port!"

"Ya vol," one of the civilians grunted back. He leapt to his feet, marching over to the Magnusson device with a saluting arm held up in the air. Once he reached the device, however, the impression disappeared, and the man pressed a button beneath the blue glowing core of the delivery port.

Gordon tried to hold back his amusement as Magnusson excitedly talked about his new weapon. "Now, what it is, is a sort of sticky bomb, although cleverer than that makes it sound. From your point of view, you merely pitch the device at the Strider's hull, then blow it up."

"Ah," Gordon mumbled, now understanding what the diagram on the wall was about.

"I've struggled with a mechanism for launching the device, but…" Magnusson stopped to make a grumbling noise, as though the next few words hurt to say. "Well, your Zero Point Energy Field Manipulator clears up that little problem. Follow me and we'll let you get in some practice while we still have time."

Cricking his neck like the admission had injured him, Magnusson walked to the hatch on Gordon's right. He tapped speedily on the keypad beside the hatch, and it slid open with a groan. It led outside to a small patch of grass between buildings, a stairway on the right leading to another hatch. Tucked beside the steps in the right corner closest to Gordon was a green ammo crate, two handguns resting upon it. One of the Magnusson delivery ports was against the wall opposite, where Uriah waited for them. And on the left…

Gordon physically leapt into the air, backing away from the Strider towering over them.

"Don't be alarmed, Freeman," Magnusson said tiredly as he crossed in front of him, heading for the delivery port. "This Strider's days of impaling your friends are a thing of the past."

Studying the creature in more detail, Gordon realised the Strider was being held up by a rickety wooden frame. The frame was attached to a platform that seemed to be on a rail that extended far out in front of Gordon. Letting out a breath, he returned his attention to Magnusson, who was pointing to the delivery port.

"Now, out in the field, we'll supply you with all the Magnusson devices you'll need through delivery ports like this one."

He pressed a button, and two metal bars that were previously tucked behind the blue core began to spin, quickly gathering speed until they were nothing but a grey blur. A high pitched whine culminated in a miniature version of the effect Strider cannons had when they were about to fire; light pulling towards the device as it shone a brighter and brighter white. Finally, with a flash, a Magnusson device was suddenly sitting amid the swirling blue energy.

Uriah gestured to the device as Gordon peered down at it curiously. "For the safety of the base, these devices are deactivated. They cannot explode like those you will find in the field."

"Go ahead and take the device out of the dispenser," Magnusson urged impatiently.

Gordon glanced up at him with a look he hoped said 'don't rush me' before backing up, Gravity Gun drawn. He pulled the Magnusson device to him, and couldn't help but raise his eyebrows in worry at the smoke that fizzled from the blue core within. The delivery port activated almost instantaneously, quickly replenishing with a new Magnusson device. That would come in handy.

"That's right," Magnusson said, pleased. "Now toss it at the main body of the Strider."

He did so, the device leaving a trail of brilliant blue behind it as it arced through the air, and Gordon winced as it looked like it was going to miss by inches. That seemed close enough for the device to work, however, and it yanked itself to the Strider, attaching to the hull with a mechanical whine. It made an ascending, high pitched noise like a small generator charging, yellow light flashing out.

Smiling, Magnusson nodded, his eyes locked on the device. "Good. Now take out the firearm of your choice and shoot the device."

Reaching for his revolver, Gordon reconsidered at the last moment, realising that his ammunition would run out pretty quickly if there were as many Striders as Magnusson was implying. He went back to the ammo crate, swapping his revolver for a fully loaded USP pistol. Held in one hand, he aimed the weapon and fired, hitting the Magnusson device with his second bullet.

The device exploded with a negative beep, shattering into a cloud of neon blues and yellows. The Strider was unaffected, and Gordon couldn't help but wonder what the effect would be on the live equivalents.

"There you go," Magnusson said quickly, hands behind his back. "Not too difficult at this range, is it? Gets a bit harder when it's moving about and firing at you, of course. But still… magnificent device, isn't it?"

Looking over, Gordon saw that Magnusson was admiring the device that now rested in the delivery port. Glancing over at Uriah, he saw the Vort close his eye and shake his head in a 'I know it's weird, don't say anything' gesture. Nodding, Gordon cleared his throat, and Magnusson sprang up again.

"Had enough?"

Gordon looked back at the Strider, then shrugged. "Enough of practicing."

Nodding, Magnusson led him up the steps and to the hatch at the top. "Your car is fuelled and ready to go. Now, every building in the valley has its own dispenser port, so you'll have an ample supply of explosives." Stopping at the keypad, Magnusson puffed out his chest. "Now I must get back to my rocket, Freeman. I'm relying on you not to squander my trust… or my Magnussons."

He made it sound like the Magnussons were more important.

Rather than say anything, Gordon just offered a mute, solemn nod.

Apparently satisfied by this silent vow, Magnusson turned to the keypad, only for his finger to whip back from the buttons as he looked back at him. "Oh, and Freeman, if you pull this off, I might just forgive you for that debacle at Black Mesa." Head bowed, he peered up at Gordon ominously. "You know the one I mean."

Gordon scowled incredulously. Really? He was still holding a grudge about that, after all this time? It wasn't even his fault. Other people certainly had a hand in it.

"Involving a certain microwave casserole," Magnusson finished, his voice a low growl.

He sighed, stepping through. "Wasn't even my fault…"

Stupid Barney telling him it was his stupid casserole and that he didn't stupid want it anymore and that he should turn up the heat on the stupid microwave…

"Hey, Doctor Freeman, over here."

Blinking, Gordon realised he was in the tunnel that had been his first glimpse of White Forest. The fence beside the surveillance television screens was still closed, the other side leading down another tunnel and to an open door at the end, which in turn led outside.

Sam was waving him over from beside his car, which was facing the open fence. Gordon felt an absurd amount of joy upon seeing the vehicle, walking over and running his hand over the yellow trunk.

"I've taken a few liberties with your car," Sam said cheerfully, and Gordon froze, unsure if he liked the sound of that. Not that he would have been able to do anything to it, but still… it was his car. People shouldn't just go… adding things to it, surely.

"Like what?" he said slowly, cautiously.

The rebel grinned, and leant forward over the back of the car, pointing to the rear bumper. "Check it out. I added a rack for Magnusson devices back here."

Backing up, Gordon saw two metal hooks extending out from the bumper, close enough together so the 'headphones' of the Magnusson device would rest on it quite comfortably.

"I also added an onboard radar," Sam continued, moving to the passenger side of the car. Gordon moved to the other, leaning on the chair to better see what Sam was pointing to. He had attached a screen to the dashboard. It was a green grid, several thick concentric circles moving out from the middle, giving it the appearance of a radar. "The Combine will show up red on the dashboard unit, plus, it'll send a homing signal to your HEV suit in case you get separated from your car."

"Oh," Gordon managed. "Sounds good."

"No need to thank me," Sam joked, waving a hand through the air. He nodded to something behind Gordon, backing up out of the car and standing to full height. "Now, check this map."

Turning around, Gordon saw a large diagram tucked into the corner of the room, next to the controls for the gate. The green paths resembled a cowboy's lasso, though thicker, and splitting off at the top in three directions. Three grey wavy patches were in the middle of the lasso, which Gordon took to be landmasses - hills, mountains, that sort of thing.

Vague diagrams had been printed at different points on the map, with scribbled notes in red pen on a few of them. Two cranes were printed on either side of the leftmost tendril coming from the top of the lasso. At the middle of the upper section of the lasso was a saw, 'Sawmill' scribbled and underlined in red pen beneath it. A water tower was on the far right of the green path, and two large warehouses were closer to the bottom.

Two smaller houses had been printed even further below, just before an image of a radio tower with a rocket beside it that grew from the bottom of the map. Just next to the image was the word 'Base', circled with a trail leading off the border of the map to the words 'you are here'.

Sam pointed to the words. "We're right here at the south end of the valley. Rest of the gang's up by the old sawmill here," he said, pointing a finger at the image of a saw. "Head on up there, and they'll fill you in on the battle plan." Arms folded, he nodded to the monitors behind him, and Gordon also noticed the radio equipment on the table beneath them. "I'll be staying here to watch the field and send status updates."

Gordon nodded, taking in the map, the monitors, and the car. He smiled at Sam. "Thanks."

"No problem. All that 'One Free Man' stuff aside, Alyx seems to like you, and any friend of hers is a friend of mine."

It was pleasant to find someone who was judging him on something other than the fact that his name was Freeman. Made a nice change from messianic worship and dying without question in his name.

Gordon held out a hand, and Sam took it. "It's been good meeting you, Sam."

"Pleasure's all mine," he said, smiling and waving the sentiment away. He pressed a button on the gate controls, and it slid aside with the slightest of rattles. "Good luck out there."

Taking a breath, Gordon checked he had everything he needed. Crowbar, check. Pistol, check. Gravity Gun, check, check. Suspecting he would need to use it pretty swiftly, Gordon just let it dangle beside him out the side of the car instead of looping the strap over the back of the seat. He didn't need blowing up by a Strider because he was having some awkward tug of war with a leather strap.

He started the car, and revved the engine therapeutically. After one last grateful nod at Sam, Gordon punched it, the car roaring through the tunnel and out into the open air once more. He was in a holding area, another rebel beside a gate that would release him into the battleground.

"You'll find the sawmill at the far end of the valley!" the rebel shouted, pointing a finger in the general direction of the sloping area behind him.

Trying to remember the map Sam had shown him, Gordon set off into the valley. He remembered the sawmill being more or less straight on from the base, and went in that general direction.

"Perimeter's clear," Sam announced, voice fizzling with static and echoing incessantly within the valley from the speakers mounted all over the place. "Still no sign of incursion. Keep alert."

After passing a small shack on the left and mounting the slope ahead, Gordon headed through a small canyon. It brought him out at what he assumed was the saw mill. Neatly cut logs were stacked and strapped to the wooden platform that made up almost the entire mill. Half a dozen or so rebels were gathered on the ground next to the steps that led up to the platform, listening intently to a rebel pointing to a map. A Magnusson dispenser port waited for him just next to the steps.

Gordon pulled up beside them and hopped out of the car, leaving the engine running. He nodded to the rebels gathered around the map. The man whom Gordon presumed was the leader of the group grinned.

"So, they've sent Freeman, have they? Good man," he said emphatically, his voice almost a parody of grizzled. He pointed to the top of the map. "We've got Striders coming in just north of us. Our job is to keep them from reaching our base to the south. If they get close enough for one good shot at the silo, the whole launch is a bust. And in case Striders aren't bad enough, recon indicates they're being escorted by packs of Hunters."

Frowning, Gordon looked around the battlefield, and raised a hand. "Can I just ask… where's Dog?"

"Guarding the other entrances," the rebel said quickly, looking eager to move on. "Some of those Striders I talked about are circling around, coming at us from different directions. Now, what I want you to do-"

The radar in Gordon's car beeped, quickly followed by Sam's urgent tones.

"Attention! Perimeter breach! We have a Strider approaching from the cranes!"

Gordon's gaze whipped back to the rebel leader, who just jabbed a finger to the canyon on the left. "GO!"

Not needing to be told twice, Gordon used the Gravity Gun to snatch the Magnusson device resting in the dispenser port and brought it around to the back of the car. It slid snugly onto the hooks, and Gordon ran into the rumbling driver's seat. With a powerful series of pulls and shifts, Gordon got the car ready and roared off towards the canyon, following the red blobs on the radar until he could see the tip of the cranes over the top of the cliffside.

Emerging out into the open, Gordon saw two Hunters galloping out from the right, followed by a lumbering Strider, none of which were aware of him just yet. He lined up the car with the two Hunters and hit the turbo. The first remained unaware of him until he had mowed it down, the second turning towards him in time to be crushed by the front bumper of the car. In the time it took him to do this, the Strider had lumbered past him, heading in the direction of the base. Gordon moved the car a little closer, being sure not to get in front of the Strider where it could see him.

He leapt out of the car and ran to the back, pulling the Magnusson to him with the Gravity Gun. Whirling on the spot, he brought it up, aiming for the Strider's head. He shrugged. Here went nothing.

Gordon pulled the trigger, the Magnusson arcing through the air before attaching to the hull of the Strider with a magnificent screech. Dropping the Gravity Gun, Gordon whipped out the USP and took aim, hitting the Magnusson with the first shot. The Strider seemed to burst, the separate segments of its shells flying in all directions and the legs tumbling down like collapsing trees. A shower of grey liquid hit the ground ahead of Gordon, and he sighed when he realised that it was only a matter of time before he would be drenched in the stuff.

Another bleep from the radar, accompanied by Sam. "We've got another Strider coming in from the sawmill!"

He leapt back in the car, driving as quickly as he could around the canyon and toward the wooden building. In his haste to get out and grab a Magnusson device from the dispenser port, Gordon almost fell out of the car while it was still moving. Glancing over as he moved to place it on the rack on the back of the car, Gordon saw the Strider approach. It was charging its main weapon, light bending and pulling towards the glowing tip. Helplessly, Gordon tilted the Gravity Gun up and fired the Magnusson up through the air.

A familiar sound blasted through the air, and Gordon saw a hail of darts from a Hunter slice through the Magnusson, demolishing it before it had got even remotely close to the Strider.

Gordon clenched his jaw. "Oh, really?"

The Strider fired, and the sawmill exploded, blasting a cloud of dust and splinters over Gordon as he leapt across the back of the car, trying to find cover. His ears ringing but no worse for wear, Gordon clambered to his feet, squinting through the beige cloud.

"My God, the sawmill!" a rebel gasped. "Is nothing sacred?"

Sighing in frustration, Gordon also noticed that the dispenser port had been destroyed by the blast. Which meant no Magnussons right now. The other rebels, meanwhile, were busy firing uselessly on the Strider. It ignored them, lumbering towards the narrow canyon Gordon had initially travelled up to get to the sawmill. The Hunter accompanying the Strider slammed into the rebels, tossing them like rag dolls across the field, some skidding along while others collided painfully with walls or trees.

Gordon swung the Gravity Gun around, spotting a chunk of log that had been thrown free by the blast. He sucked it towards him before swinging it in the direction of the Hunter, now playing with the limp body of a rebel.

"Hey!"

It looked up at him and got a face-full of log, cracking its smooth dark surface and sending it rolling around on its back. Back on its feet in a moment, it was greeted by a second blast from the same log, this one killing it with a loud wail. Nodding to himself, Gordon ducked back into the car, heading towards the water tower and around the mass of rock and mud that made up the canyon the Strider was now coming through.

Following the road around, he passed a large water tower that was based in a deep canyon on his left. Continuing on, he came to an old wooden house, the weak, faded look of the wood belying just how big it was. The opening of the canyon was almost directly opposite the house, if just a little bit further on. He could hear the Strider's thumping feet as he approached.

A medic waved him over from beside a doorway at the far corner of the house. "Magnussons in here, Freeman!"

Sounded good to Gordon. He pulled up just in front of the rebel, who looked at the car appreciatively. "Sweet ride!"

"Yeah, thanks," he muttered, launching himself from the car and through the doorway. It was a storeroom, shelves on the right full of medical supplies and ammunition. A dispenser device was on the left of the shelves, and Gordon yanked the smoking Magnusson to him. He ran outside in time to see the Strider emerging from the canyon, attention focused on the base in the distance. Gordon blasted the Magnusson over, pulling out the pistol while the device was still flying through the air. It barely had a chance to screech once it attached itself to the hull, and the Strider was in pieces within a few moments.

"Nice shot, Freeman!"

He blew out a relieved breath, cheeks puffing out as he bobbed his head to the side. Without a word, he went back inside the house and grabbed another Magnusson, latching it onto the back of the car.

The car's radar went off. He leapt into the driver's seat, checking the radar. One big blob of red, and two smaller blobs. A Strider, and two Hunters, behind him, coming in from-

"Now they're coming in from the water tower!"

Cricking his neck, Gordon tore the car around in the other direction, heading down the road he had just used. The Strider was still thumping up the slope from the water tower's canyon below, the two Hunters escorting it moving much more swiftly. One turned in time to see the car slamming into it, crashing over it unevenly. The other feinted to the right before leaping to the left, leaving Gordon on a collision course with a tree. Gordon quickly turned, the car colliding sidelong with the tree. His radar abruptly beeped.

"We've got another Strider coming in from the cranes!"

He groaned, exasperated, before leaping from the car to avoid the darts that lodged themselves in the leather seat of the car. Rolling, he brought himself up with Gravity Gun raised. The Strider lumbered past, heading down the road while the Hunter distracted Gordon. Growling in frustration, Gordon pulled a large boulder toward him, blocking another spray of darts. As he had with the Hunter in the base, Gordon waited until the darts were about to explode before firing the boulder back. The creature's wail faded into nothingness as the white energy burned it away.

Gordon bounced in the melted seat before doing the quickest three-point turn in history, skidding to a halt just behind the Strider. He scrambled out of the car. In a series of motions that were quickly becoming second nature, Gordon grabbed the Magnusson, fired it, and blasted it with the USP pistol.

The legs of the Strider were still tumbling as Gordon drove through, heading for the large house opposite the canyon opening.

"Hi," he said breathlessly to the medic, who watched him run into the house and emerge with a Magnusson in the space of a few seconds. Gordon leapt back into the car, seeing the Strider emerge from the other side of the valley. Standing up in his seat, he leant over the back of the car and pulled the Magnusson to him with the Gravity Gun. He let it drop in the seat beside him before slamming his foot down on the accelerator. He headed for the Strider, which was now side-on with him. Keeping his feet on the peddles, Gordon took his hand off the wheel and yanked the Magnusson up with the Gravity Gun, firing it straight up at the belly of the creature as the car sailed between its legs.

Grabbing onto the wheel, he turned the car until it came to an abrupt halt, leaping to his feet and pulling out the USP. It took only two shots to get it right, and the Strider exploded before it had even reached the slope leading down to the base. He collapsed back into the chair, pistol held limply in his hand.

"Looks like that was the last one!" Sam descended on the valley, except for the distant cheers and whoops of the rebels.

Gordon frowned, tilting his head up. Really? That was it? Not that that was particularly easy, but still… that was the end of the Combine's attack? Maybe Dog had more to deal with than they did.

"Wait a minute," Sam said suddenly.

Sighing, Gordon waved a tired hand in the air as he dropped back in his seat. "Of course…"

"Get ready, everyone," Sam announced, an element of tiredness in his voice. "We've spotted more dropships carrying even more Striders. We have about a minute before they arrive, so gear up! This is gonna get ugly before it's over!"

With his hands clasped on the wheel, Gordon bowed his head with an exhausted groan. Slamming the car into gear, he took it back to the large house guarded by the enthusiastic medic. He gathered a rocket launcher and a spare rocket from inside, wedging them between the passenger seat and the dashboard. Going back with the Gravity Gun, he fetched a Magnusson and took it back to the car, letting it cosily rest on the rack.

Gordon hopped into the still running car, waiting for the radar to sound off. Nothing happened. The medic slowly moved up beside him, nervously flexing his fingers along his MP7.

Adjusting his grip on the wheel, Gordon glanced over only to catch the medic's eye. He smiled politely and nodded, awkwardly returning his gaze to the grassy path ahead. Still nothing. Gordon actually found himself wishing for Striders. That would be easier than this. It wasn't like he could just drive away; there wasn't anywhere to go right now. But staying here was just… painful.

"So, uh…" the medic said slowly. "What's wearing glasses like?"

The radar beeped. A Strider at the sawmill. Thank God.

"Sorry gotta go," he rushed, slamming the handbrake down and roaring toward the canyon that would take him to the sawmill. The radar beeped so quickly Gordon started to wonder if it was broken.

"There's a Strider coming from the sawmill… and the cranes… and the water tower!"

"Oh God, they're coming from everywhere!" the medic shrieked from behind him, matching Gordon's reaction.

Taking a breath, he calmed himself. This was just one more obstacle. One more task for hm to complete before he could get what he wanted. And what he wanted at the moment was to sit down and have a nice, long, one-on-one chat with Eli. Possibly over tea. God, he would love some tea right now. He shook the thought from his head as he approached the Strider coming down the narrow canyon at him, two Hunters crowded behind its legs.

Instead of even trying to stop, Gordon dove straight forward, swerving neatly through its legs before colliding with one of the Hunters, killing it on impact. Gordon skid to a halt, scrambling through the passenger seat and snatching up the rocket launcher as he went. The Hunter fired a barrage of darts, and Gordon dove to the floor, landing on his side with rocket launcher aimed at the creature. He fired, and the snarling beast didn't even have time to move before the rocket blew up the head in a violent flash, sending the legs tumbling through the air.

Letting the smoking rocket launcher drop for the moment, Gordon swung the Gravity Gun around and picked up the Magnusson. The Strider, just a little bit further down the canyon, hadn't even bothered to turn around, instead lumbering on towards the base. To be fair, it probably assumed that the Hunters would take care of him.

Assumptions about Gordon Freeman were dangerous things to make. Within seconds, the Magnusson device was attached, and a bullet promptly pierced it, demolishing the Strider. Grabbing the rocket launcher, he tossed it back into the passenger seat and clambered over the front of the vehicle as he had seen Alyx do many times before. He put his foot down, and the engine roared between the narrow canyon walls until he emerged beside the medic's warehouse.

Gordon leapt out, ran inside, grabbed a Magnusson, and emerged once more, loading the car and bouncing inside with only the slightest of nods to the medic.

"Go kick some ass, Freeman!" the medic cried, actually managing to pump Gordon up for the next confrontation.

He drove quickly around the small mesa that made up the canyon, emerging from the left-hand side and meeting the Strider and Hunters that had come from the cranes. Both Hunters leapt away as Gordon charged at them, leaving him to frantically swerve to avoid a large boulder. The car collided side on with the rock, jolting Gordon around roughly. The Hunters snarled and moved in. After grabbing the rocket launcher and the spare rocket, Gordon leapt from the vehicle. He rolled along the ground awkwardly, Gravity Gun and rocket launcher collectively making it very difficult to move swiftly.

Gordon loaded the rocket and fired, hitting the leftmost Hunter dead on and blowing it to pieces instantly. A slew of darts blasted toward him, and Gordon raised the rocket launcher instinctively to the protect himself. The darts pinged noisily against the metal of the launcher, lodging themselves there. Opening his eyes and bringing the launcher down, Gordon inspected the whining darts before blinking and realising what was about to happen. He grabbed the bottom of the launcher, holding it like a baseball bat as he charged at the Hunter.

Unaccustomed to enemies charging straight at it, the Hunter backed away warily, but not fast enough to avoid Gordon's swing of the rocket launcher. It connected just as the darts exploded, consuming the Hunter. The energy also spread back across the rocket launcher, and Gordon quickly dropped it and stumbled back, watching as both were burned away into nothing. He blew out a grateful breath.

A grinding klaxon blared out through the valley, and Gordon's head whipped up.

"Alert! Alert! A Strider is getting close to the base!"

The Strider was indeed making its way down the slope, lumbering down the final stretch that would take it to the silo. Groaning exhaustedly, Gordon whirled on his heel and started running, only to trip over the Gravity Gun, which was now on the floor. He cursed as he noted the broken strap; it must have been severed by one of the Hunter's darts. Gordon snatched it up and ran for the car, tossing the Gravity Gun in the passenger seat, his hand slipping on the gear-stick before he finally managed to get it right, hurling the car forward and just behind the Strider.

Stumbling out of the car with Gravity Gun in hand, Gordon noticed the third Strider, this one even closer to the base. It must have come from the water tower. Which meant…

The medic's supply warehouse was in ruins, and Gordon could make out his body, buried in planks of old wood. He clenched his jaw. Pulling the steaming Magnusson to him, Gordon aimed it at the current Strider and fired, following it up with a shot from the USP that blew the alien creature in five different directions.

There wasn't any time to grab another Magnusson; he'd have to think of something on the way down. Once more in the car and tumbling down the slope towards the base, Gordon still hadn't thought of anything by the time he reached the two Hunters guarding the Strider. The towering behemoth was approaching the gates, probably wanting the most accurate shot it could manage. A small red shack was quickly approaching Gordon on the right, and he only hoped there was a dispenser port inside.

The first Hunter was distracted by gunfire from the rebels on the roof and in the watchtower beside the base, and was easily disposed of by the car. The second, however, leapt aside and fired a spray of darts across the front of the car, the majority sinking into the engine.

"Crap-" Gordon breathed urgently, swerving the car around the incoming shack and toward the left leg of the Strider, which was now preparing to fire. Sound and light refracted towards the tip of the weapon hanging from its belly as Gordon punched the turbo and leapt from the car, the whine of the Hunter's darts ringing in his ears. He rolled along the ground and came to a halt in time to see the car explode magnificently against the back of the Strider's leg, interrupting the firing process and annihilating the lower half of its spear-like limb. It tumbled down with a load roar of protest, its head askew. Black smoke billowed up from the flaming wreck of the car, and Gordon felt a great well of sadness in his heart for the vehicle.

He clambered to his feet and ran for the shack behind the Strider. The Hunter hopped out from a tree on the right, blocking his path. Gordon backed up, reaching for the Gravity Gun-

Only then realising he had forgotten to grab it from the car before blowing it up against the Strider's leg. He looked back to the flaming wreck, then to the alien creature looming over him. Slowly, and with no other recourse, Gordon put a hand on the crowbar and another on the USP pistol, knowing both were useless right now.

A loud rocket rushed past him, slamming into the Hunter face first. The resulting explosion made Gordon stumble back, and he looked over his shoulder to see a rebel saluting him from atop the base, rocket launcher resting on her shoulder. With a wave, Gordon scrambled to his feet and ran for the shack again. There was a stunned young rebel inside next to the dispenser port, MP7 shaking in his hands.

"Magnusson, Magnusson!" Gordon cried, throwing his hands out.

The rebel just stared with wide eyes. Behind him, Gordon could see the Strider rising again, managing to take aim at the base even with half a leg missing.

"COME ON!" he screamed.

The desperate cry seemed to knock the rebel out of his funk. Letting the MP7 clatter to the floor, the rebel grabbed the device from the dispenser and tossed it through the air. Gordon had to leap up to catch it, and continued on a mad run for a fir tree beside the shack. It was only as he clambered up the bending, slippery branches that he realised he had just played football, if only a little bit. In fact, that was one hell of a catch.

Who's the spotty nerdy four-eyes now, Eric Collins in 10th grade?

Well, it was still him, but still… it was an awesome catch. Gordon managed to awkwardly reach the top of the tree, close enough to the roof of the shack that he would step over. The tiles slipped beneath his feet, and Gordon struggled to keep his balance with one arm extended and the Magnusson tucked under the other.

The Strider aimed its cannon.

Gordon sprinted down the sloped roof of the shack, leaping off from the ledge and landing on the shell of the monster. He slammed the Magnusson device down, the shriek it emitted so loud at this range it made Gordon wince.

The Strider charged its weapon, and Gordon brought out the USP, pressing it against the Magnusson.

He fired, and the Strider exploded, sending him hurtling back and into the fir tree, his glasses and gun tumbling away from him. It bent back from the force of the impact, suspending Gordon up long enough for a wall of grey liquid Strider innards to hit him like a shockwave. The tree then whipped back upright, propelling him forward and into the wooden wall of the shack. Gordon smashed straight through it, hitting the floorboards and smacking into the opposite wall.

Frozen, Gordon opened his mouth, if only slightly. "Oooowwwww…"

Silence reigned.

Then, suddenly, the valley erupted into cheers, whoops and hollers, ecstatic voices echoing out from all around him. The young rebel who had tossed him the Magnusson was crouched beside him, concerned.

"Are you okay?"

Gordon groaned. "Yeah, just… explosion… tree… pain…"

"I found these," he said earnestly, holding out a blurry black object that could only be his glasses.

He took them and slipped them on. "Thanks."

"Yeah, well… that was AWESOME!"

"Okay," he grunted, forcing himself painfully to his feet.

He checked the stats of the HEV suit. Fifteen percent. Not bad. Not great, but not bad. Then again, every single part of his body ached, which was more bad than great. Limping out into the open, Gordon peered through the fading smoke from the car and saw rebels jumping up and down with guns raised in the air, some even firing theirs in celebration. As Gordon walked over to the smouldering wreck of his car, Sam's celebratory voice boomed out all across the valley.

"We did it! We held them off! Good work, everyone! Attention, attention, the Striders have been defeated. All personnel return to the base, repeat, all personnel return to the base immediately!"

Gordon sighed. He couldn't even touch it to say goodbye. "Thanks," he said wearily, barely able to make out the car amid the smoke and flames.

Closing his eyes and groaning loudly, he remembered that the Gravity Gun had been-

"Dr Freeman!"

It was another rebel, unarmed and grinning inanely. Well, unarmed except for the scorched Gravity Gun he held tentatively. It must have been thrown free by the explosion. The rebel's hands were wedged beneath his shirt, using it as protection while he held the device up to Gordon reverently.

A ridiculously wide smile emerged on Gordon's face upon seeing the device, and he snatched it up happily. Though a little burnt, it still looked like it was in working order. The strap had been completely removed, but what the hell; he could carry it. He slapped the rebel on the arm happily, feeling like a hug but not wanting to burn the man with the steaming metal of the Gravity Gun.

"Thank you," he said, genuinely grateful. This thing had been his most faithful companion; it would have been devastating to lose it now. Well, most faithful besides the crowbar. And the HEV suit.

Okay, so it wasn't the most faithful, but it was definitely up there- ah. There was the morphine.

Smiling contentedly, Gordon walked past the charred wreck that was his car and through the front gates, rebels cheering from the roof of the base as Gordon moved inside.

Rebels lined the walls of the tunnel, high-fiving and hugging abound. On the left, Gordon spotted Sam, who was chatting to another rebel. He double-glanced at Gordon, and, suspecting a fuss was about to be made, Gordon tried to slip by.

"Hey!" Sam called out, grabbing everyone's attention as he ran over to Gordon. He held out his hands and waved them towards Gordon as he looked to the rest of the tunnel. "Gordon Freeman!"

A wave of cheers echoed down on him, and Gordon just stood there, unsure of what to do. Sam shook his hand vigorously, and Gordon felt his head wobble up and down from the strength of it. It took him awhile to sift through the crowd of congratulatory rebels, but eventually he stumbled out the other side, waving with an awkward smile. He tried not to look too obvious as he hurried out of the tunnel and back into the main section he had entered with Alyx just a few hours ago.

Sighing, Gordon let his head drop, and rubbed the back of his stiff neck as he walked to the entrance to the silo. Another figure emerged from the doorway, and Gordon was about to wave another happy rebel away when he recognised her.

Alyx looked at him with a mixture of awe and… no, it was pretty much just awe. "Wow, Gordon, you were… " she stopped, shaking her head. "…you were amazing out there."

Gordon shrugged and adjusted his glasses. "It did feel amazing…"

She laughed, and Gordon felt better.

"Come on," she said, rolling her eyes as she grabbed him by the elbow and pulled him through into the corridor beyond.

A grin slowly melted onto his features. He didn't know where they were going, or what was going to happen next, but for the first time, Gordon started to think that maybe, just maybe, things would be all right.

Maybe then he could put his lab coat on again.

---

(A/N: Hey, thanks for your patience, everyone. As you can imagine, this took a while to write. It's the longest chapter, page-wise, that I've written, ever, so that's something. Well, only one more to go, then I'm out of your hair (until Episode Three, I suppose)!

As always, please review! Negative, positive, they're all welcome.

Next Chapter: T-Minus One)