"It started after we got back from the Borealis. Well, I say that's when it started; the seeds were probably there all along, only people were too busy fighting and trying to stay alive. My dad must have kept it from me, to protect me…" Alyx gave a soft moan as she sat back onto the bed. Gordon didn't think she even realised she'd done it. He sat half-turned so he could face her, and gripped her hands gently in his; hating how cold they felt, and the complicated pain he saw in her face. He'd almost forgotten the presence of the others, but they piled into the room to hear Alyx's version of events. Gordon didn't think there could be anything more awkward than the sight of Dr Kleiner perching primly on the edge of the bed where he'd done things with Alyx that made his ears tingle a little even just thinking about them, but that was before Dr Magnusson sat down beside him. Barney leaned against the edge of the desk, as Alyx drew in a shaky breath and went on.
"So I was just coming down from checking on the people in sickbay when I heard them. People were celebrating the Borealis, talking about what had happened, I guess they were drinking… Jarrod started badmouthing you, and then this guy, he just… well, he said you'd saved his life Then he beat Jarrod pretty bad… he's in sickbay now too. We locked the guy up, but we had to use a store room, it's not like we have a prison, I mean we never needed one!" Her voice rose in despair, and he felt a sudden sizzle of empathy. His realization had come on waking up in City 17 after three days at Black Mesa, while hers had only just arrived; the realization that, after going through hell in an attempt to make things better, you were in fact still royally screwed, only in a whole different way.
Alyx's voice grew dull as she controlled herself and continued. "Then his friends got mad, I think he was a squad leader, and they started saying we didn't have any right, and it all just went…" She sighed, her face a picture of misery, and an ache went right through Gordon, leaving a heavy, dull feeling in the pit of his stomach that he recognised as rage. An unquenchable optimism about the future without the Combine had been a part of Alyx ever since he met her, and he felt a sudden desire to hurt the people who seemed to be trying to take it from her.
Dr Magnusson had been quiet for almost five minutes, and it appeared to be too much for him to take, as he promptly went into lecturing mode. "The Resistance has always been composed of three major strands. We Black Mesa survivors gradually formed links with the remaining scientific community across the globe. Simultaneously, we made contact with other groups, chiefly Special Operations and other military units who managed to remain outside the Combine's grasp." Gordon's ears pricked up at the mention of Special Ops. He remembered the carnage of Black Mesa after the Marines arrived; the young man with the thoughtful look in his eyes, who was all the more frightening because he couldn't simply be dismissed as a dumb grunt. It was obvious when he thought about it that the organization and the tactics of the Resistance fighters he'd seen would have had to come from somewhere, yet he still felt a shiver of unease. "Finally, there were the citizens local to the various Resistance installations, whom Eli insisted we liberate wherever possible, which I personally felt was drawing too much attention to ourselves… however, the benefits were undeniable," he added hurriedly as he caught sight of Alyx's glare. Gordon hid a small proud grin. Even Magnusson was scared of his girl.
"Initially, of course," Magnusson harrumphed as he went on, "the leadership of the movement was science-based, given our understanding of where the Combine had come from, and the failure of traditional ordnance in taking them down." There was a hint of smugness around his eyes, and Gordon thought he was remembering the Magnusson Device. "Now, however, we seem to be facing something of a military coup." He seemed to be uncertain how to continue, and as he glanced at Alyx once again, Gordon thought he understood. Disparate groups, with different opinions and attitudes and ways of life, held together only by their one common goal. Gordon would walk through fire for Dr Kleiner, but he knew his mentor was not the type to inspire confidence in fighting men. Conversely, Dr Magnusson was hardly likely to react well to orders barked in a military style. It would take a man like Eli to unite them all. Gordon groaned and shifted back in his seat, with a dull throbbing headache behind his eyes and a twist of grief in his gut
Barney snorted and leaned in. "I know these guys, Gordon. Been fighting alongside some of 'em. This is just… I dunno, people feeling uncertain. But, you know, Eli had a plan and we can just keep following it. Once you talk to them, they'll come around." Gordon felt something hard hit him in the back, and he realized it was the wall. He had scooted back across the bed as the realization hit him of where this was going. Magnusson was nodding his agreement.
"Yes, once the ever-popular Doctor Freeman addresses the masses, we should be able to get the program back on track." He stood, along with Kleiner. Even Alyx was smiling again and Gordon loved and hated the faith she placed in him. He shook his head furiously at Barney. Gordon had faked a toothache to get out of having to give the valedictorian address when he left high school. He'd been asked to teach a few classes as part of his doctorate, but after the incident with the balloon he'd swiftly been replaced, and even Dr Kleiner had never spoken of it again. Barney knew all this, and now he expected Gordon to somehow convince the entire base… and of what, exactly? Gordon didn't even know.
Barney reached out his hand. "Come on, Gordon." He grinned. "I dare ya." Gordon sat forward. He hated the current situation, but nonetheless, this couldn't be allowed to stand, and he followed Barney into the corridor.
"You still owe me from the last dare, Barney," he said, outraged.
"No, cause you never actually completed the challenge. You didn't eat it."
"Well I was going to eat it, but the microwave broke. I was hardly going to eat cold casserole. And then… something came up."
"Oh yeah." Barney shook his head in mock solemnity. "There was that industrial accident…"
At that point, his face fell suddenly, as Magnusson's head swiveled and fixed them both with a glare as though all his worst suspicions had suddenly been confirmed. Alyx was looking back with a smile that was almost indulgent. She obviously enjoyed listening to them banter and bicker. Standing behind her, Gordon could see the rips in the back of her jacket, two puncture wounds surrounded by dried blood, beneath which the soft, vulnerable skin was miraculously intact once again…
The sight of them brought back vivid sense-memories, and so Gordon began to walk more quickly, leaving the little group behind him. He hated speaking in public; give him a gun emplacement to storm any day. And the thought of it was made ten times worse by the fact that he didn't know what he was supposed to be saying. The portal to the Combine Overworld has been closed? They knew that. There's still a whole bunch of Combine forces left to fight? They surely knew that too. As to what would happen afterwards, assuming there was anyone left alive, Gordon had no idea. He'd never paid much attention in history or civics class, preferring to hide his copy of A Brief History of Time inside his textbooks. Because funnily enough, he'd never expected to be involved in a situation where a society had to be rebuilt from scratch, let alone to be forced into some kind of leadership position. An absurd line from a cartoon he'd once loved had settled irritatingly into his mind, and was refusing to budge. "Oh look, John Hancock's writing his name in the snow…" It was the kind of thing he could imaging Barney doing, but it didn't really help. But he couldn't let Alyx down.
Gordon was a scientist and a researcher, and if there was one thing he was good at, it was gathering and interpreting information. He stopped as his eyes found the thing he'd been subconsciously seeking ever since he left the bedroom. Before the others could catch up to him, he swiftly inserted the curved end of the crowbar in between the vents of the grille set into the wall just above him, and pried it free.
"Oh, not this again…" Alyx sighed from behind him as he wriggled forward.
"I blame you for this, Calhoun." Magnusson's voice, quiet but full of venom, was the last thing he heard.
Gordon had a fairly good sense of direction, and he thought he'd seen the storage area that Alyx was referring to on his travels through the White Forest base. If the worst came to the worst, he though, he could just drop back down and go there on foot. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, he wasn't even certain what he felt, but there was one person he knew he wanted to talk to. Voices rose up from the rooms below, as he crawled through the tunnels and gaps of the old military base.
"…At first he was just standing around, and I didn't understand what all the fuss was about. But then he picked his gun up, and he just got this sort of masterful look in his eyes, and I was all like, Oh, Dr Freeman…" Gordon felt himself blushing, partly wishing that Barney had heard the conversation, partly relieved that Alyx hadn't.
"…I don't rate him, personally. Anyone could do what he does, hell give me a suit like that and I'd…" He scowled at this. If the HEV suit were not so precisely calibrated for him and him alone, right down to his eyesight and shoe size and the position of his brachial veins, he wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Yes, he reminded himself, you'd probably be dead instead.
"…If I never see another Strider again it'll be too soon. Good eating on 'em though…"
"…Did you see that guy try and punch a Hunter?"
"…Well I heard he lost someone, but I mean, that's no excuse…" This conversation was more interesting, but the sound of a door closing drowned out the voices from below. Eventually, he found the room he wanted and smashed out the vent. The man was asleep on the ground under a ragged blanket, but he leapt to his feet as Gordon landed beside him.
"What?" Astonishment warred with sleep in his face. He was thin and tough, but Gordon thought he looked exhausted. He stared at the locked gate, and then back at Gordon. "Gordon Freeman? How did you...?"
"I came in through the vent!" Gordon said hurriedly, gesturing at the gap in the ceiling. The last thing he wanted was some sort of ability to materialize at will added to his reputation. He stepped back and studied the prisoner, uncertain how to continue. "What's your name?" He asked finally.
"Name's Tomas. How did you… I mean, why did you come here? Just to talk to me?" He seemed thrilled by the idea. Gordon scowled at him.
"Yes to talk to you. I just…" He kicked the wall, awkward. "I want to know why you beat someone, because of me. I mean it's just… I'm having trouble understanding… why."
Tomas snorted. "That guy thinks he's a hotshot, but I showed him what's what, even if he is a pilot. He was trying to make out you don't know what you're doing." Gordon was torn between pointing out that this was, in fact, quite often the case, and letting him continue. "You saved my life, so I ain't having that. He wasn't in City 17, he doesn't know what it was like. I mean sure, his brother died at Lighthouse Point, but we had to get you into Nova Prospekt, we had to! Once you took out Nova Prospekt, the worst thing they could do to us was kill us, so there was nothing left to lose! But you try telling him that…" As he paused to take a breath, his eyes fell. "I guess I could have told him more tactfully." He looked Gordon straight in the eye, his face a mixture of shame and desperation and hope, and it made Gordon exquisitely uncomfortable, but he rallied himself. If he was going to get through this, for Alyx's sake, then he would learn to cope in situations like these, the same way he'd learned to cope when small aliens were trying to mate with his face. He thought for a moment, then nodded.
"Come with me."
He pounded on the storage door. The two guards who opened the door looked irritated, but their expressions changed to one of amazement as Gordon swept through, not speaking, just focusing on where he wanted to get to next. The stairwell, the corridor, and then he turned the corner into sickbay. Jarrod's eye was blackened and his arm was in a sling, but Gordon was relieved to see that he was sitting up in bed, evidently deep in conversation with a few companions. He turned to Gordon and made to speak, but Gordon raised his hand to cut him off. He was surprised and rather pleased when the men fell silent at his gesture. He focused his attention solely on Jarrod, and spoke quietly.
"I'm sorry for the loss of your brother. I wanted to go to the prison to save my friend, because he was my friend, and because he seemed to be so… important, now. So much changed while I was away, I had to rely on going where I was sent. I didn't realize I was going to be followed. I didn't realize people like your brother were going to get attacked. I do now though. I'm sorry."
"Wait a minute." Jarrod was frowning. "You were 'away'? Where did you go?"
Gordon sighed. This was so not the time to mention the Grey Man. "After I was at Black Mesa, there was an accident. A physics accident."
Jarrod looked scornful. "You're telling me."
"No, I mean after that. I was trying to teleport and I… wound up in City 17."
"Huh. So you're not one of those interdimensional demons that the Vorts worship?"
"No." That one was interesting though.
"And you're not the next generation of Combine soldier, disguised to look like us so you can undermine us from within?"
"No!"
"Show me your hair."
"What?"
"He wants to check for scars," Tomas broke in. "The paranoid idiot wants to know if you've had the Combine brain surgery."
Gordon pointed at the small scar on his cheek. "I fell off my bike when I was six, but I think that's it."
"So you really are just a lab nerd who got lucky with a suit. Why didn't you tell anyone?"
Gordon was literally unable to speak with exasperation, but he had a pretty good idea you could tell from his face.
"Ok, ok!" Jarrod continued. "So you just showed up in City 17. And people just… send you here and there."
"Pretty much. It's something I'm trying to change, though."
Tomas sounded appalled, almost hurt. "So you're not the guy who got nearly everyone out of Black Mesa, freed the Vortigaunts, and then killed the Combine Administrator of a whole alternative universe?"
"Well, I did, but-" He wanted to say it didn't matter, that he didn't even understand why they cared with the Combine still on their doorstep, when Griggs burst in. For an alleged medic, Gordon felt, he seemed to spend very little time in sickbay.
"Guys," he gasped, and then "Freeman! Come outside, we need… you have to see this. Oh God…" He gulped and then ran on, down the corridor. The whole base was filled with an atmosphere of tension, and as he burst into the courtyard outside, Gordon could see why. Two Striders were visible through the treetops, still distant, but everyone knew that they were more than close enough for their awesome destructive capabilities to destroy them all. His face fell as he ran over to his companions.
"What's going on?"
"Not sure," Barney replied. "They just seem to be… waiting. For something."
"I'd say it's entirely obvious what they're waiting for," Magnusson interjected. "The portal back to their Overworld was closed, and the means of creating the portals was destroyed, along with the Citadels. Then, they failed to acquire the Aperture technology that would have enabled them to reopen it from this side." He spoke of it in the passive tense, Gordon noted, like a lab report. No acknowledgement of his and Barney's involvement at all. "Their only remaining option is to recreate that technology. And for that, they need the only remaining expert on the subject who hasn't either been lobotomized or else transported off-world. They need, not to be too modest, myself. And, of course, the invaluable assistance of my esteemed colleague." He indicated Dr Kleiner. "And Freeman, probably, for the menial labor and heavy lifting."
"Wait a minute!" Sheckley was studying the approaching forces through a binocular style device. It was the same as the one Gordon had looked through on Highway 17, but this one had evidently been liberated from the Combine some time ago. "SEE the Grand Canyon!" had been painted on the side, and someone had even drawn a little slot for a quarter.
Gordon pulled his glasses off and peered through the sights. Focusing in, he could distinguish the legs of the Striders from the surrounding trees. Troops were coming and going, including a large number of Elites. He counted at least two large tanks that looked as if they might contain Advisors, and a shiver ran down his spine. There was also a metal pod of the kind used to transport prisoners. The lid had been flipped back, and within the pod, clearly visible, was Judith Mossman.
AN: sorry sorry sorry about the massive delay! I got a bad case of writers block, combined with becoming really busy academically... I also got a little distracted by getting into Fallout (I almost feel like I'm cheating on Valve). But anyway, here it finally is, the next chapter! I've tried to go into the idea of postapocalyptic society, and factions within factions (maybe it's the Fallout influence), and I'd be really interested to hear what you think of this. There are a ton of readers and writers out there who's opinions I really respect, so please review.
Speaking of other writers, thanks once again to KRSON-Mar for betaing. You should all have read her amazing story, Touch. If not, then what are you waiting for! Go read it! (after you leave a review of course ;)