Deep in the Arctic, a large crater flattened a cornice into a silvery pond of melted ice. Nothing bore witness to the flash that birthed it except for lifelessly howling winds.
In a place as barren as this, even the most extraordinary phenomena faded into the background. An impassable cloud wall marched in after him to extinguish sunlight from the skies.
When it first came, hail trickled here and there, hesitant to unleash the violence to which the tundra was predisposed. Slowly, darkness smothered the nets of light floating over the snow-capped ridges. Hail then poured down as if it had no other choice—beating the earth's scars, making them crack afresh, cementing the twin trenches dragging away from the site of teleport.
At trail's end, an automated voice chided its motionless user.
Warning: core temperature dropping. Electrical stimulant administered.
The suit bucked, jolting the body ensconced inside with a flash of heat.
His muscles stimulated, a watery gasp wrested free of his throat. He coughed up phlegm, blood striking a thick pound between his temples. Icy air pierced his larynx as he lifted himself up. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the dark, squinting through dew-studded glasses at an unfamiliar gray.
The Vortigaunts had disappeared. Either the precipitation covered their tracks or they'd done as he'd told them and returned to White Forest. No matter the case, there was little love lost between them.
Gordon's ears popped as hail continued to plunge. The suit's plates deflected pellets in dull clicks and thuds. He felt them drum his scar into a numb swell and covered the exposed flesh with his glove, but otherwise paid the brutal weather no special heed. Several pellets crushed between chinks in his shoulder rivet as he slowly moved his other arm, conspiring to reach for the metal sticking out of the snow.
He heard a distant sound grow nascent, a soft crunch. His muscles tightened. His protective hand slipped away from his scar to grip a nearby rock. He coiled into a defensive crouch as footfalls approached.
He couldn't tell her expression, wrapped in this dim. She picked up the crowbar lying just inches from his grasp and wiped the frost that encrusted its surface. He watched her idly turn it over, contemplating it but sparing him no passing glance. Sliding a hand along its body, she caressed its every gouge, rut, and scar under her fingertips.
He wanted to break the ghastly, wailing silence. He craved for his hoarse vocal cords to gather the strength to call her name. He wanted to confess, Look at me, I'm here. I heard you in the dark. I'm back from the precipice. Kleiner's doing. Yes. I don't know how the hell or why, where this is headed, God, please tell me, tell me it's all just another dream: Alyx, I'm sorry.
But he was a creature of honed instinct, which prevented him from forming such dangerous words for anyone to listen. He surrendered his wishes to the silence, let his impulses dissolve. The truth would make itself known soon enough.
A passing break in the cloud wall lifted the darkness just enough to illuminate the gleam on her cheek. Tears? Perspiration?
Blood. It coated her, splashed ragged strokes over her white parka.
Alyx raised the crowbar.
"Don't."
The whisper died during the passage from breath to sound. He half-expected the swing to cut him down, hoped to barter his life with a hallucination.
How pathetic: next came the telltale whisk of air that he reflexively jerked aside to avoid, eyes clenched shut. Stinging ripped his earlobe, bringing a smattering of crimson droplets onto the snow.
The crowbar toppled, clanged emptily against his shoulder-plate. He panted, relaxing his braced arms to see nothing and no one. Yet the blood remained. The borders between illusion and reality wavered.
God help them.
"God does not attend these matters as much as believed." The businessman stood abreast of him. Fewer labors to breathe plagued his voice. He tucked his arms behind his back, his oiled dress shoes unmarred by a single pellet. He watched the hail batter the landscape around him with a bemused smirk curling his lips, as though he expected the clouds at any moment to suffer a bout of conscience and instead kiss the tundra with gentle flakes. "Would it surprise you to know that I also have a god?"
Gordon crawled forth, the gash in his ear dripping warm pearls of blood.
"Make no mistake, Doctor Freeman, I do not bend the knee to such an entity. That one's god merits unthinking devotion is a thoroughly… human concept." A scowl gripped him, his brief lapse corrected by a snap of jacket lapels. "Over the course of your work, as you'll no doubt learn, deicide becomes less of a sin and more of a necessity."
He smiled at the pile of metal and flesh struggling at his feet.
"I'm boring you. Fair enough; I admit this is a discussion better reserved between Ms. Vance and myself." Using the side of his heel, he nudged the crowbar toward its rightful owner. "Onward, Doctor Freeman. Let's not keep her waiting."
