The order went out across every broadcast system and every secure radio channel. Flares were fired, message lasers shined out into space. From cities to outposts, polluted mining stations to lonely radio masts, the Combine Overwatch received their new orders.
Across the world, different orders arrived on the frequencies of Civil Protection. In the wake of the City 17 uprising and the new period of heightened Resistance activity, the resources – and the loyalties – of the organisation had been severely tested. This message from their Benefactors promised them new hope. Fresh weapons, supplies and a specialised training program from the Overworld that would help the collaborating humans to adapt had been set up in large camps, outside of the cities. Civil Protection officers were simply asked to leave behind all of their equipment and move to the camps. Thus began a mass exodus of Combine law enforcement from the cities, people who believed they were receiving an opportunity to finally make themselves useful to the Combine. Anything, they reasoned, to keep their families safe at home.
And in the streets they left behind, the Overwatch set to work.
For the first time in his life – the part of his life that he could remember – D-9 felt fear. As the last dregs of Stim left his nervous system, he experienced strange hallucinations. Bright lights. Pain. A machine, composed of hundreds of jointed arms, descending slowly over him. There were voices, too. Some indistinct and distant, echoing through the darkness of his mind, and some that seemed to create physical pressure when they spoke.
"Try...new"
"Dead?"
"Hmm...an unknown factor."
"D...9?"
"TOOL OF THE OPPRESSOR."
"Saved...life, Gordon."
"I will leave you be, for now."
"Dangerous...Alyx...careful..."
"STRENGTH IN COOPERATION."
"Coming...round...moved..."
D-9 opened his eyes. The ever-present beeping of alarms from inside his helmet had fallen silent. All gauges were filled, including Stim. He switched on his ocular lens, and peered out into the world.