Authors Note: Welp, I think I'm officially the *fastest* (quote quote) writer in the goddamn world.
Sarcasm aside, I've been REALLY busy with my exams and assignments and stuff as of late, (sadly a little too busy for my hobbies) but I'm back! And I'll be writing up stock chapters while my spring break lasts. I can't promise anything (don't trust me if I do), but hopefully I won't have another break THIS long from this story while it lasts. If you want to monitor my process (or creepily internet-stalk me) I've also created a Tumblr account where I'll be posting updates of my several projects, (including this fic) and SFM posters (and a possible animated video) for this particular story. The link is on my account page, if you're interested.
So guys, I hope you enjoy this Half-point chapter, and bear with me 'till the end of this rapidly growing story.
Alyx checked and re-checked the ammo of her shotgun as she toyed around with her familiar hacking devices, several of the limited number of tools she had been allowed to bring into Aperture.
Her preparations finished, she idly looked to her left as Igor, the assigned medic of the team, slung his backpack over his shoulder. In the bag were several 'precautionary' items they were told they 'absolutely wouldn't be safe without' – in which included a small collection of medical kits, grenades, and gasmasks.
Why they would even need to bring any of those objects, (particularly the gasmasks), in a supposedly completely untouched and abandoned facility was a mystery to Alyx. But Doug had insisted, and she hadn't worried enough to question him. Not just yet, at least.
Catching her gaze, Igor turned to her and nodded. He was ready.
At his cue, Alyx glanced to the far side of the large teleportation room. By the assortment of monitors near the teleportation device, Gordon and Uriah stood, the two having a rather one-sided conversation with the Aperture scientist, Doug Rattmann, who had chosen to stay behind.
On the other side of the screen, under the protection of the white forest base, Doug explained the mechanics of the miniature transmission device he had created along with the other engineers. Its shape akin to that of a small wristwatch, the small screen on the top of the wristband, (supposedly where the time would've been shown, had it been a normal watch), displayed Doug's face, who had been anxiously glimpsing back and forth from the transmitter camera to the big screen.
Though merely nothing more than a slightly advanced walkie-talkie, the miniature transmitter was a pretty handy device, allowing Doug to survey the surrounding area along with the search party, and give directions when necessary.
"Most importantly," – he'd added, an unmistakable tinge of paranoia to his words – "The radio waves used in this device aren't familiar to Her. The 20 year blank came with its penalties, it seems. As long as we keep out of Her eyes, She shouldn't be able to hear us."
Whoever this 'She' was, Doug was quite clearly terrified of her. Though who it actually was, or what it actually could be in a – and she couldn't strengthen this enough – facility abandoned for 20 years was an absolute mystery.
Now, useful as the transmitter was, only the two humans of the search party, (Alyx and Igor), had been given the device. Uriah had pointedly denied, strongly objecting to the notion of having mechanical bonds strapped around his arm – it apparently reminded him a tad too much of the period of enslavement of his kind. Instead, the third watch had been given to Gordon, who had been ordered to go to the City 26 base by Dr. Kleiner, for the lone fact the he – of the two humans and vortiguant that made up the search party – was the only person who still remembered how to drive a car.
No, though undoubtedly a fact that would surprise many people, Gordon was not part of the search party.
But why he wasn't part, Doug had explained to an objecting crowd of honestly-maybe-a-little biased group of scientists, was for very good reason.
Aperture despised Black Mesa.
Even after 20 years of its destruction, that still remained a fact of life.
Before the downfall, during Aperture's financial crisis, many bad rumors of Black Mesa circulated around the company – stories of stealing information, bribery of the police, unorthodox safety and radioactive waste management policies, as well as terrible tales of betrayal and unconventional headhunting methods following in its wake. GLaDOS was created, not only as an operating system to manage the testing facilities, but as a means to overlook the whole company, and of course, its security measures. It would be an understatement to say that they displayed a little bit of unlawful liberty in creating her – arming her with weapons, satellite control, and an (almost) complete, real time record of all known Black Mesa employees, including those who had just newly entered and the interns – all up to the year the facility came crumbling down.
…Which would incidentally end up as the same year the rest of humanity would come to its downfall as well.
Either way, Aperture had decided to go through extreme measures to prevent stealing from ever happening again. GLaDOS's many unused, but still prevalent, functions included the automatic recognition and destruction of all foreign and unwanted Black Mesa employees, including, but not limited to, the Fast, Ubiquous Charcoalization Karmatic care, and the Yperite Orderly Uninhibition protection system, as well as several others the team could very easily imagine.
So, crossing off all direct employees of Black Mesa, (Gordon, Kleiner, Magnussson, Barney), crossing off all the people who were most likely prone to getting easily angered and a little too fond destroying things they shouldn't be touching, (machine-gun Cindy, a rather unsettlingly large number of the other resistance members), and including only the ones who could calmly follow orders and were willing to enter the depths of the unknown, Doug considered those he knew he could trust, and proposed the following three members: Alyx, Igor, and Uriah.
In the end, these were the two people, (and vortiguant), assigned to the search of the Aperture Handheld Portal Device.
Now, as the newly-shaven and noticeably cleaner Doug Rattmann finished his little informative speech, Alyx coughed quietly from behind the two facing the screen, successfully catching their attention.
"We're ready," she said, nodding towards Igor behind her. "I suppose it's time to go now. We don't really have much time to waste."
"Ah, okay," Doug replied, his voice fizzing faintly from beyond the monitor screen. "You remember the directions to the shack I gave you, right? In the wheat fields?"
"Yup. No problem at all," Alyx replied nonchalantly, nudging Gordon and the others out the door.
"Great. Contact me when you get there, I'll give you further instructions then."
"Gotcha." Alyx nodded. "See you later, Doug, we'll catch you at the drop off point."
…Now that it was all said and done, the team arranged, the team successfully teleported to the resistance base – and he'd heard about their terrible luck, (specifically Dr. Gordon Freeman's), with those clunky teleporters – the next step they had to take was to get there. Once they did, getting into Aperture and finding the portal gun should be easy–
That was, at least, until they needed to escape.
And escaping, Doug knew, was when the real battle would begin.
In the safety of the White Forest base, Doug Rattmann quietly cut the video feed, relaxing back into his wooden chair.
If he could be wholly honest with himself, he would've felt relieved that he wouldn't be going back into Aperture, back into the clutches of the forsaken facility he'd tried to escape from for so long.
But unfortunately for him, he wasn't that honest, and he'd let the team go with mixed feelings.
Doug knew, more than anything, that their safety was up to him. He, of all people, was the only one who still knew the pass codes and the back areas, the threats of the deep and the hidden, dark corners even Her eyes couldn't reach – he was their key to getting out alive.
And this time, he knew he wasn't going to let anyone die down there, alone in the depths of Aperture.
Beside him, Dr. Kleiner set up his own feed, apparently contacting another resistance base from the same location the search party was now in. A suburban area-based resistance branch this time, the initial contact request came from an odd place, (which Doug was pretty sure never existed before), called City 26.
Apparently, their mandatory status report was late.
For whatever reason, they were one of the last to give the main branch an update on their base.
Idly, Doug looked on as Barney, (whom he had first met via transmission feed several hours before), popped up on screen, connecting the City 26 resistance base to the White Forest communication system.
The man was rather young, (or so he seemed), with dark hair, and a blue and white military-esque uniform covering the top of his torso, the limit to which Doug could see from the monitor screen. He was a cheery man, as far as Doug knew him, always upbeat, even in the dullest of situations, (and trust him, there was never anything duller to a stranger than a group of scientists discussing quantum physics).
Apparently, prior to his role as an important resistance leader and connector between bases, the man acted as a double-spy for the resistance, working underneath the Combine government, in an armed force known as the 'Civil Protection'.
Though, dramatic as his tale seemed, stories like his were apparently 'just normal' in the Cities. How that could be possible, Doug didn't know.
Of a majority of the tales he'd heard from his fellow scientists, many came from recent events in a place called City 17. A place of seemingly never-ending terror, armed combat and futile resistance against aliens of all life forms, Doug had come to realize how fortunate he was to have met the resistance before anybody else.
Under this strict dictatorship of extraterrestrial beings, and this unending war of humanity and survival, he had had the luck to discover the right people to trust first.
…It was odd, to say the least, to picture other cities he might have once known, under these same conditions.
So when the dark-skinned, bespectacled bald man in uniform first came out on screen, Doug was nothing less than surprised.
"This is the resistance base City 26, we have received your message."
For a second, Dr. Kleiner frowned slightly, his discomfort apparent on his usually kindly face.
Dr. Kleiner knew, as much the other man should have, that spies shouldn't be contacting the central resistance base under any circumstances. To be found while sharing information would be a high price to pay for both parties, and what they contacted each other for was almost never worth the risk of being exposed – simple updates in particular.
That was – unless something had gone terribly wrong.
"…Affirmative," Dr. Kleiner returned, nervously fidgeting with his spectacles. "The White Forest base acknowledges your transmission. We are listening, go ahead."
"…" For a moment the dark-skinned man paused, as if carefully thinking of what to say next. "…As much as I regret to have to inform this to you, the resistance base of City 26 ceases to exist any longer. To the extent of my knowledge, I am the only resistance member still situated in City 26. All others are dead, or have already escaped to the nearest outpost."
At the weight of those words, a dull pang of shock hit the group of resistance members. Listening by the side, Doug unconsciously covered a hand over his mouth.
"But how…?" Dr. Kleiner replied hesitantly, questioning the man as calmly as he could.
"There was a successful 'hunting' today – two of my colleagues had discovered a resistance member while he was delivering the first batch of new weapons to the central resistance base, and they tracked him – he led the two straight into the base." The bespectacled man looked down briefly, as if bowing his head in shame. "…I couldn't stop them. I'm sorry," he murmured quietly. "Caught by surprise, what followed after was a massacre of 58 men – two-thirds of the resistance members in City 26. Everyone else evacuated to the nearest outpost, the forest base accessible through the wheat fields surrounding the City. They should be safe for now but…" the man fumbled quietly.
"…They don't have much time left. The Civil Protection has recently found traces of human activity near the wheat fields, and they plan on investigating it. With the escaped resistance members and the heightened tension within the City after the downfall of City 17, the hunt for survivors is bound to begin very soon. Hunters and a large number of other protection members have gathered for an assault on the forest station, and from what I've heard, they plan to jump at them while they are still weak and recovering from their last attack." The man paused, breathing in deeply before continuing. "Alone…they won't make it. Resistance base City 26 requests you to send troops from the White Forest base as fast as possible. This is an emergency."
Quietly, Doug's eyes drifted from the screen to Dr. Kleiner's face, where the scientist seemed to be considering his proposition very seriously.
Though the dark-skinned resistance member hid his emotions under a stoic mask, anyone who heard his words could tell – the man was desperate.
"…Understood," Dr. Kleiner finally replied. "We'll send in back-up troops as fast as possible."
For a flash of a moment, the man's face lightened up, and he almost gave in to a relieved sigh–
-Had it not been for the door that had opened quietly behind him.
…It only took a second.
Doug quietly slumped back on his chair, an overwhelming feeling of numbness and disbelief hitting him hard from the sudden recognition of the woman who had just entered the bespectacled man's room.
No...no…that can't possibly be right.
"…Oh my," Dr. Kleiner gasped quietly, his hand covering his mouth in surprise.
I know that face. I know her.
"Wha- Daisy?!" From beyond the video feed the undercover civil protection member spun back as he exclaimed, his shock clearly visible from the tone of his wavering voice.
Previously rock-still, the girl who had crept up from behind the man flinched visibly at the sound of her name, the clear alarm in her eyes betraying her stoic silence as she took a step backwards from the exit of his room, and turned to run.
Before Doug could exclaim, before he could even get the chance to confirm his thoughts, a frantic, incoherent voice, (the man's voice – there was no doubt about it), came from beyond the screen, and the video transmission was abruptly cut off. On the screen, the video feed had been reduced to a dull green background, and centered on it the words: 'connection failed'.
The worried commotion of the scientists surrounded Doug as he continued to sit there, paralyzed by the noise of his own whirling thoughts.
For the first time in what felt like days of silence, the Companion Cube had spoken up.
Quietly, it whispered to him, its voice riddled with uncertainty and the undoubtable weight of something real.
"That was…Chell."
[Sector 1, City 26, 6:42 PM]
It was odd, maybe, Chell reflected as she blindly ran down the hall in panic from her supposed friend's room, how one part of her brain could so clearly and calmly reflect on the time of day while every other part of her was screaming profanities and hell bloody murder.
No. NO. I can't believe it! Why-why the hell was he talking with the enemy?
That fucking traitor!
The calm part of her rationalized with her anger. She obviously should've known something like this was going to happen, one day or another. Somehow, it always did. Every time she decided to trust someone, they'd turned out to be her enemies, out to get her, or just have generally terrible personalities. It seemed she was always a bad judge of character.
But still… Chell thought as she ran, painfully gulping down tears of shock. Selling us out when I finally get the courage to go out and say 'Thanks for all you've done'? You've gotta be kidding me.
What a great way to break someone's trust.
"Daisy! Wait!"
Behind her, Steve yelled breathlessly as he chased after the girl, running clumsily out of his room. In his panic, he'd cut off the video feed to the white forest base, but he hadn't shut the door.
As they ran down the, (thankfully), empty hallway, it wasn't long before the deceptively faster Steve caught up to Chell's nimble strides.
"Daisy, come on!" Steve said breathlessly as he stopped her in her tracks, roughly tugging her left arm to face him. "Listen to me, I-"
No. Chell whipped around, raggedly elbowing him in the face. Quietly, she heard something crack, and Steve toppled slightly, covering a hand to his injured nose as it began to bleed profusely.
Her enemy preoccupied, Chell turned quickly back to escape. But by the moment she realized where she was, it was all too late.
She'd been herded, led straight into the wall. There was no place left for her to run.
In front of her, Steve shakily wiped the blood off his nose, and with a blank, almost surprised gaze, he looked up to meet her eyes. Slowly, menacingly, he took a step towards her.
And gently, he set a hand on her arm.
"Daisy – I don't want to harm you."
Chell sneered quietly at those words, almost ready to spit on his face and make a run for it.
Yeah, right. Like I'm SO gullible to believe anything you say right after I see you selling us out to the enemy. Fuck, I never should've trusted you!
"I-I know you must think that I've betrayed you," Steve fumbled on, "and I have, I know that myself. I'm not denying it to you. But what I did, I did because I needed to."
"…Daisy, there's more than just our lives at stake here. There's more to this place than just 'protecting the people' from resistance terrorists, and defeating the 'bad guys', whatever Nick might say to you. So please," Steve pleaded on as Chell's resolve slowly began to crumble. "Please, listen to me. I can't let them – I can't let the Combine take anymore lives away. We've already lost too many lives in this war, and I…" Steve faltered. "I was never even able to save one."
Quietly, Chell looked down at the man she once thought was her friend, her bout of anger quickly faltering and dissolving into a dark pit of confusion and pity. Steve was an utter mess. And in a way, she was too.
Something was happening to her resolve, and though a stubborn, angry part of her still said that the only thing she ought to do was to shake the weak, crumbling man off her arm and run off to warn somebody about the traitor – Nick, without a doubt – she also knew that she couldn't do it. In a weird way, he was still a friend. Somewhere in her heart, she still trusted him, and she still believed in him. At least, she wanted to believe in him. After all, that was what friends were for, weren't they? And she couldn't just kick a friend away…right?
In the end, Chell chose to stay.
His grip weak on her shoulders, Steve bowed his head.
"…All I did was to give them a way to fight. I couldn't let them free – they had no other place to run. But now, they at least have a chance." Tiredly, almost as if in pain, Steve looked up.
"Daisy, we've already killed 58 men," he said quietly. "Don't you think that's quite enough?"
Paralyzed, conflicted, Chell couldn't find the heart in her to say no.
"All I'm asking of you–" Steve continued. "All I'm begging you to do is to keep this quiet to the others, to Nick."
Chell flinched.
"-at least, until this 'hunt' is over. When everything is over, when it's all said and done, then you can say the truth. I already know what's going to happen to me if they find out. And even if you don't say it, the Combine will discover the truth, sooner or later. They're not stupid. And I know that. I'm prepared...Please, Daisy. I'm doing this for a bigger cause. It's not only my life at stake here. You know that fact, as well as I do. There were over 80 men in that resistance base, all of whom relied on me, believed in me to keep them alive, to keep them one step ahead of us. And I failed them. I can't fail again."
Desperation glinting in Steve's eyes, he looked up to Chell for the last time. "You of all people should know the weight of a life."
Chell's resolve crumbled.
But before she could look away, before she could even choose to nod or shake her head, the familiar rustling of quiet footsteps, and the loud, obnoxious static of an unknown masked protection member's voice rang in her ears. Her eyes widening, Chell looked over Steve's shoulder.
"Hey! You two over there! What the hell are you guys doing?"
Standing in the middle of the hallway, the man stood, waving at the two as he slowly approached them from the opposite side of the hall.
In a numb, detached, distant part of Chell's brain, the hourly alarm of the radio clock chimed, and she could hear the cold, static voice of an unknown female announcer.
[Sector 1, City 26, 7:00 PM]
The hour when the day shift ended, and the men posted nearest to the base returned quickly, flitting restlessly back to their dorm.
"Seriously, man, have the decency to go get a fucking room, will ya? Not everyone here brings their fucking girlfriend to work with them-"
In Chell's head, she could hear the echoing footsteps of several other people on the hard, bare concrete, and the faint laughter of men she didn't recognize.
"-What's this?"
The masked man looked into the haphazardly opened door of Steve's room, walking quietly in, and then out of the lonely dormitory room door Steve had left ajar in his panic. For a moment, the man was silent.
Then in an instant, he quickly snapped out his beating stick, and lunged at Steve.
Crack.
…It only took a second.
"…Ahem, test test."
As Dr. Kleiner's voice echoed from the small screen strapped to his wrist, Gordon tapped it idly, wondering exactly where the engineers had thought of hiding a tiny little camera on such a tiny little video transmission device.
"Well hello, Gordon, I'm pleased to see you've made it to the entrance of the facility." Dr. Kleiner smiled pleasantly, noticing the wheat fields and the small, barren shack behind Gordon's position. "Oh and do please stop fiddling around with the device, Gordon, your finger is obscuring my view."
Ah. Gordon nodded. I guess the camera's on top of the screen then.
"Well, Dr. Kleiner? You suppose it's alright for us to get in the shack already?" Alyx asked as she popped up beside Gordon, the other two members of the search party still leaning over the car, (or what was left of it), and feeling sick after Gordon's so-called 'driving' experience, (which in many instances would be more comparable to car abuse than actual driving).
"I don't see why not? Time is of the essence in all missions, but in particular, this assignment," Dr. Kleiner spoke as his expression turned grave. "I fear that there may be another battle on the horizon, possibly very near, if not on your exact location."
"Huh." Alyx nodded. "Gotcha."
"It should be several days before the enemy will begin their attack," Dr Kleiner scratched his chin, "But I doubt we can rely on our 'friend' in the enemy lines to keep us updated for much longer. He's been discovered."
Alyx's eyebrows rose, a small expression of surprise briefly running through her face. "How long do we have left?"
"Unfortunately we do not know. But you must get out of there before the battle begins," Dr. Kleiner said with a stern expression. "We're relying on you, Alyx, to complete the objective, as quickly and as safely as possible."
"I understand," Alyx replied.
"Oh, and Gordon," Dr. Kleiner said, turning to the other man, "If you may, please stay at your post until further instructions have been given. If need be, you may have to fend off the Combine from post 26 while we send in the back-up troops."
Gordon nodded.
Behind him, Alyx kneeled on the grass, touching around the edges of what seemed like the door to the shack, feeling around for a button, or a lever.
After several seconds of searching, a faint click sounded from within the building, and a white, almost pristine keyboard and screen slid out from a cleverly hidden crevice in the wall. On the device's screen where the dull orange words; please enter your username and password here.
"Got it." Alyx grinned to herself.
Swiftly, her fingers flew across the keyboard, inputting the username and password she had been given to prior to her departure by the Aperture scientist, Doug Rattmann.
Username: test_subject
Password: thr_wll_b_c4k3
After a small pause the codes disappeared, and the screen flashed a dark green.
Welcome to Aperture Science: Test Subject_
In a second, the screen and keyboard slid back into its hidden crevice, and in front of Alyx, the previously closed door opened slowly, revealing a small, clean space of a room illuminated with a single light above it, and a glass, odd-looking elevator as it opened its doors with a cheery sounding 'ding'.
Step number 1: getting into the facility, check.
"…Hmm, that was easy. Maybe even a little too easy," Igor the medic mumbled sluggishly as he appeared behind Alyx, a hand still clutching his emptied stomach. "I wonder if Mr. Rattmann's got anything to say about this."
"He is there, isn't he Dr. Kleiner? He hasn't spoken a word to us yet."
"Well…" Dr. Kleiner faltered. "It seems he is a little…'hard-hit', you might say, by what he saw in the transmission we received earlier."
"Ah, you mean the SOS message you received from City 26?" Igor inquired. "The spy who got caught?"
"Precisely." Dr. Kleiner nodded. "I suppose he didn't know what to expect. Poor lad… he must have had a home there, once. He's been displaying… slightly 'odd' behavior, since he viewed the transmission."
"Huh? What do you mean, odd behavior?" Igor asked, a natural, altruistic part of his personality popping up at the mention of a friend's problem.
"…Well, 'anxious' may be the most fitting term. Maybe 'paranoid', even." Dr. Kleiner looked away nervously. "He's been… talking to himself."
Oh. Gears clicked in Igors head at those words, little bothersome thoughts and tiny details he'd noticed of the Aperture scientist piecing up and forming a larger picture.
Oh no.
"…So what you're saying is that he can't talk to us now." Alyx said flatly from beside Igor, impatiently tapping her foot. "That's fine, we can just contact him later when we need his directions. First things first, let's not waste anymore time."
"Come on, guys." Alyx pointed towards the elevator. "The door's been open for some time now."
Igor, an odd, mortified look on his face, didn't reply. Behind him, the Vortiguant, Uriah, nodded slightly, speaking up for the first time in their conversation.
"I am of the same mind as – we have not time to waste."
Gratefully, Alyx smiled in agreement. Herding the two into the elevator, she too stepped in, turning back once to look at Gordon and the transmission of Dr. Kleiner, still watching her supportively from Gordon's strapped wrist.
"See ya later, Gordon." She waved at him. "See ya too, Dr. Kleiner. Hopefully the next time I have another lengthy conversation with you, it'll be in the flesh."
Quietly, Dr, Kleiner chuckled. "Good luck, you three."
As the heavy door shut before them with a quiet, final click, as the three squished tightly into the small, confined space that was never meant to fit three people, (or at least, two people and an alien), as Alyx idly noticed Igor pale quietly, and the elevator begin its swift descent, she thought she heard one last quiet sentence. Though where it came from, though who it came from, she never could quite tell.
"May the odds be ever in your favour, Ms. Vance."
A disturbance in the dark.
Amongst the thousands, maybe millions, of small yellow lights glowing in the dark, one small bulb flashed red, blinking frantically in the dim, cool room of endless monitor screens.
From staring tiredly at the countless test runs of the recurrently-failing cooperative imbeciles of her creation, GLaDOS idly snaked her large 'head' to the source of the disturbance: camera #36.
"I swear by the name of Science, if you don't to show me anything worthwhile, I will personally take it upon you to destroy yourself and every one of your back-ups," GLaDOS growled quietly at the beeping system.
The blinking red light faded, and above it, a small, dusty monitor blinked into life.
Slowly, the crevice of GLaDOS's optic widened, and with it, the feeling of a faint, intangible tingling of anticipation running through millions of electrical neurons in her digital brain.
If GLaDOS could, she would've smiled.
It's been a long time.
"…And such has been the legacy of our world-renowned dietary repulsion gel."
For the several minutes since the descent began, Alyx, Igor, and Uriah stood together in awkward silence, nobody really sure what to say about the tight, uncomfortable space between them, or the blaring, cheery voice of an unknown male announcer that had been spewing random, (and rather curious), facts of Aperture history since the ride had begun. If the thought of going far down the surface of the earth without any more support than the help of the other two people in their team, and the one scientist they still didn't know they could trust, was bad enough, the faint, annoying elevator jazz that had also been playing behind the announcer's voice ever since god-knows-when was just making matters worse.
In each person's mind, their own thoughts were spinning. Tension built up between them, and a suffocating feeling of nausea was soon replacing even the curiosity of seeing what was inside the illusive Aperture facility. But even amongst the anxious three, the voices in Igor's head were brewing a storm.
Now it makes sense.
That one thought echoed in the medic's mind louder than any other, and the more he thought about his predicament, and the scientist, Doug Rattmann, the less he knew he wanted to be here. Down underground, where his only reliable means of escape was to trust the scientist who'd been there before him.
The paranoid, schizophrenic scientist.
Ugh. He mentally slapped himself.
My career experience at the pharmacy was a goddamn joke. To think that I'd finally understood what his 'request' meant, to think that I'd only remembered what 'Ziprasidone' actually was, right after I stepped in to the point of no return.
Nervously massaging his temple, Igor inhaled deeply. Just. Great.
Beside him, Alyx noticed idly as her wristwatch flashed into life, and Doug Rattmann's pale face, (paler than usual?), blinked on screen.
"…You've made it in. Good, good." Doug said shakily, his breath slightly catching on his words.
Alyx raised an eyebrow. "Are you okay?"
"M-me? I'm fine, why would you ask that?" Doug replied a little too quickly.
"…Well okay then." Alyx shrugged nonchalantly. "As long as you don't go freaking out on us when we need you to be calm, then we should be completely fine."
Doug let out a weak chuckle. "I just… came here to warn you," Doug started quietly. "I can't talk much right now, under Her eyes. Luckily, she can't hear us in here, but I know she's watching. She always is. If you show her any sign that I'm here, she may try to kill you on the spot."
"Wait – Mr. Rattman, I mean – Doug," Alyx stuttered. "Who exactly is this 'She' you've been talking about? What is this 'She'? Is it a threat?"
"That is…hard to explain, actually. Sorry, I'm running out of time. But, well, you'll meet her, soon enough." Doug shrugged, his finger itching to end the transmission as fast as possible. "Oh, but to answer your last question, She is definitely a threat. Whatever you do, do not believe a word she says."
And with that, Doug abruptly cut the feed, leaving Alyx to mutter crossly at an empty monitor screen.
"…Goddamnit, Doug, what do you mean, 'soon enough?! That doesn't answer anythi-"
The elevator light blinked once, twice, and then stabilized. With it, the male announcer's voice sputtered briefly as it soon faltered and disappeared. Even the elevator jazz stopped, replacing any sound in the confined space with an empty, foreboding silence.
The three glanced at each other. Whatever it was, this was it. No more thoughts of returning, no more thoughts of getting out alive without the portal gun.
Whoever the 'enemy' may be, they would have to stand up and fight.
Once more, the speakers came to life, and with them, a low, forcefully expressionless mechanical voice boomed into the elevator space.
"Hello, and Welcome to Aperture Science Computer Aided Enrichment Center."
This time, it was the voice of a female announcer.
Random story fun facts:
1. The appearance of both Igor (full name Igor Karlsson) and Cindy (full name Cindy Pace) are based on Half-Life characters. Igor is based on Citizen 7 (Think John Freeman), while Cindy's appearance and personality is (loosely) based on one of the two main characters of the expansion pack Half-Life: Decay - Colette Green.
2. Originally, Atlas and P-body where to have a much larger role in the story, as well as Wheatley, who was to be a main character. That idea became obsolete when I completed Half-Life episode 2.
3. The (F)ast, (U)biquous, (C)harcolization (K)armatic care, and (Y)perite (O)rderly (U)ninhibition protection system are both not-so-straightforward messages from Aperture to Black Mesa.