When fiction cracked
The Conquest
"Rise, and shine, Mister Freeman." The croaky and ancient voice of the G-man rang out. Oh so familiar, oh so welcome and yet unwelcome. The bearded scientist felt his eyes open once again, his limbs return to movement, his breath returning to his body. He was awake once again. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. They felt tired, old, as if closed for such a long time. Which may have been the case after all. He never could tell how long his mysterious employer kept him asleep. Days, months, years. They all blended together in a cacophony of wasted time. And here he was, once again, floating still in the empty blackness his "employer" addressed him from. He stood before him, as formal as ever in his pristine blue suit, his widow's peaked hair, his face, one that could have seen beyond the edge of the universe, but looked so simple. So subtle. His suitcase, ever present within his grasp, contents never to be revealed. The croaky voice drew his head up, as he prepared for the enigma's words.
"Can you remember how long…it has been?" he began, his unusual speech pattern only adding to that aura of anonymity. "Long enough, that you might forget. But you wouldn't... would you, mister Freeman?" Gordon raised an eyebrow questioningly, wondering why the G-man was bringing up his past like this. "It's just...well...events seem to have, changed..." Gordon began to see images behind him, ones he recognised. The war torn city 17, after he'd returned from the teleport with Alyx. The striders wrecking the world below them, the combine soldiers and the rebellion's forces opening fire on one another, crouching behind debris. Gordon could almost hear the rattling gunfire and the shattering explosions. But as he stared closer...something seemed off. The rebels were falling in far greater numbers than before...in fact, most of them were just charging toward the combine soldiers, instead of hiding and using the cover around them. How strange... he'd remembered them being far more intelligent than this. That was when he spotted him... a single figure, seemingly leading the rebel soldiers into battle. He looked like just another rebel soldier but... there was something off about him. He was flying over towards enemy combine soldiers, somehow managing to kill them with his bare hands, pulling guns out of nowhere. It was strange to watch him taking on the bulk of the soldiers, even as the rebels suffered further and further casualties.
"It seems, your job has been...stolen." the G-man continued. "The limelight shifts...and it has, caused some problems." Gordon raised an eyebrow a second time. Surely, even if this strange man has taken his job, how could it be bad? He seemed to be taking the combine forces down a lot faster than he ever had. Granted, the humans seemed to be losing a lot more men to this crusade, but that might just be necersary... that was when he spotted something in that mysterious space he floated in. A tiny, white, splinter in the blackness around them. The G-man noted his view, glancing at the crack himself.
"Indeed... this change, it just cannot...happen. The very world around us, it has begun to, crack..." Gordon's eyes widened as he stared closer at the crack...almost on cue with his employers words, the crack seemed to grow, splintering the blackness around them even more. "This new man...John, Freeman... he cannot continue. Lest, this entire world break...apart." Gordon felt an unnerving sense of fear as the G-man's words sank in. This was bigger than what he'd gone through before. The crossing of an alien world, and the combine's take over, none of that could be as large as this. But, how could he halt all of this? Killing this John Freeman seemed simple enough.
"Sadly... my employers have, informed me we need... more manpower..." he enjoyed a small chuckle at his own words. "Well...you will understand. For now... let's have a, change of scenary..." The area around them shifted and convulsed, as Gordon could feel them moving somewhere, flying across the land, oddly enough, over a cornfield, heading toward some strange derelict shed. The next thing Gordon knew, they were underground, flying through metal hallways and past strange churning machinery. Gordon wondered if this was another Combine base. It seemed more advanced than even the Combine was… that was when he heard the explosion.
The explosion wasn't what first awoke Chell from the bed she'd been placed in, courtesy of the mechanical hostess she'd fought back against for so long. What woke her up was the simulated scream that ran through the audio system as the giant machine was assailed by persons unknown. The ringing mechanical screech woke her up in seconds, her eyes widening and her hands shifting to cover her ears, as she noticed she was laying on her side. She pushed open the cover of the bed and rolled onto the floor, raising to her feet and looking around. The whole area had been wrecked, like a bomb had gone off. Glass shattered, walls stained with ash and holes. That little radio had survived though, droning away in the corner with a tune Chell had long since gotten sick of. The explosion had even been strong enough to blow a hole in the wall, revealing a long lost maintenance tunnel behind, which Chell promptly decided was her way out of this cell. She ran up the dusty corridor, looking around for whatever could have caused the explosion in the cell. The maintenance tunnel snaked and twisted around the facility, leading upward and left and right and down and such and such. Eventually, she happened upon a loose grate and was able to wriggle out of it, surprisingly enough into GLaDOS' chamber itself, the cylindrical walls rising high above her like an enormous funnel. Dangling from the center was the hulking figure of GLaDOS herself, quiet and still. Upon inspection, Chell noticed she had suffered a lot of damage. Wires were hanging off her body, her usual clean surface looked dirty with ash, no doubt from another explosion, and electricity was still sparking around her body, as if she'd been hit by some kind of electrical pulse. Chell rubbed her chin thoughtfully. She couldn't exactly say she'd miss the hulking machine, but it made her wonder what had attacked her. Last she remembered, she'd been leaving the facility with the companion cube… but looking at this, she was beginning to suspect she'd been lied to. Again.
"Chell?!" shrieked a voice from behind her, causing her to spin on her heels in surprise. Another woman had entered the chamber, looking suspiciously similar to Chell, but her features seemed more exaggerated, as if she were a caricature of herself, to imply a false sense of beauty, especially in the chest. Chell briefly wondered how her back was faring. She was dressed in the same jump suit as Chell, and she was armed with the portal gun. Was she another test subject? Chell had never seen her before…and how did she even know her name? "OMFG Chell, wot are u doin here, my retorded sistah?" Chell raised an eyebrow to her words. Sister? Chell didn't exactly remember much about her life before the facility, but could she really have a sister? A sister who was also a test subject? This all seemed so sudden and strange…and what exactly did 'retorded' mean? Suddenly, the woman looked upset, and carelessly dropped her portal gun, taking out a pistol from out of seemingly nowhere and pointed it at Chell. "I'm sorree Chell, but u is retorded, so u must die!" Chell's eyes widened and she ducked, as the gun fired and only just missed her, the hot bullet burying into the wall of the room. Chell looked up and glared slightly, feeling a sense of déjà vu with someone trying to kill her. The only difference this time was it was a human who was after her. But human or robot, she wouldn't let this psychopath kill her. Not now, and not here, not after her struggles before.
"Stopp moving!" Marissa shouted as she reloaded her pistol, running at Chell. Chell thought fast, running to the left of Marissa and circling round her, ducking and rolling as Marissa took another shot. Once she'd finally made it behind her, she snatched up the discarded portal gun and blasted a portal high up on the wall, and another underneath Marissa's feet, sending her through and flying down from on high. Chell hoped that would be enough to kill her…sadly, Marissa began to fly in midair for no reason whatsoever. She flew toward Marissa, gun aimed to fire again, but Chell thought fast and shot another portal at her feet, sending her further away from the gunshot, landing back on the floor. Chell knew she wasn't safe yet, so she shot a portal close to the door and leapt through the same one on the floor, just missing another shot. Once at the door, Chell ran out of it, along the crooked corridor she'd crossed so many times. She could hear Marissa flying after her, shouting at her to stop running and something about Wheatley. Using her portals, she was able to keep ahead of the psychotic shooter, but her flying was far faster and Chell could never actually escape from her. She had reached that enormous room, where the turret ambush has been set up. Marissa was right behind her, and Chell knew of only one way out, as she skidded across the ground and into the trench. She frantically searched for the hole, running through the wet trench as her time ticked down. But, to no avail, Marissa dropped down in front of her, gun pointed at her head.
"Gudbai sistah!" she shouted, as she prepared to take the shot and end their chase. But, just as she squeezed the trigger, Chell shot another portal at her feet and sent her a ways away, apparently she hadn't learned from the chase. Chell clambered out of the trench, shooting another portal high up and then jumping back into the trench and through her portal, launching herself high, onto one of the walkways. She heard an explosion below her, which was incentive enough to run for the door across the walkway. She was back in some of the observation rooms, overlooking test chamber 12. She kept moving, opening door and running from room to room, looking for anywhere to hide as she could hear the screaming Marissa behind her. Eventually, she was forced into smashing one of the test chamber windows, and leaping into the chamber itself. Turrets had been set up, oddly enough, so this gave her an idea. With the help of her portals, she managed to pass them by, and waited further away for Marissa to enter. As the screeching ball of angst flew in, the turrets began to rattle with machine gun fire, bullets flying like angry bumblebees at the mad woman, who simply laughed at their attempts.
"Ha! I hav bulet sheeld!" she lolled, and shot another bolt of arc lightning, blowing up the turrets on the spot in a short mechanical cry. Chell looked shocked for a moment, before she was moving again…and found the elevator doors were stuck. She tried with all her strength to pry them open, but it was no use, as Marissa closed in on her.
"I gotchu now sistah." She sniffed and pointed the gun at her for the last time. Thankfully, luck was not smiling on the mary sue, as a mysterious void opened beside Chell, and an arm came out, grabbing her by the arm and pulled her inside, as the shot missed and hit nothing but the wall. Marissa O mouthed as Chell vanished before her eyes and looked around the dead end. Nowhere she could've gone.
"Oh well tiem to go gt Whatley!" and with that, she took off for the roof and crashed a hole in it, flying towards the skies.
Inside the void, Gordon managed to pull in the jumpsuit wearing woman, just in time before she was shot. She stared at him curiously for a moment, raising a single questioning eyebrow. Freeman gestured toward the G-man, who was smiling at the new arrival.
"Good… But there are, still more." The G-man told him, straightening his tie slightly. "We will, neeeed...as much, manpower...as we can muster...Mister Freeman." he continued, as Gordon nodded solemnly. He could feel them shifting again...this time, not just to another part of their world, but to a different one entirely.