UU/MPF/:5849 couldn't remember the last time he'd slept soundly. Everything had gone to shit when the Rebels of the Lambda Resistance launched that rocket into the forming Super Portal. Victory had been so close then; despite the loss of City 17. Now, Earth was back to being a living hellscape, and his future as a collaborator for the Universal Union, or Combine, was in mortal jeopardy.
There had been talk when the news came down and the refugees had poured into the far east, talk of desertion, of rebellion, of resistance. The Local administration that remained did their best with what they had. With the Citadel gone, any connection to The Benefactors was unlikely, and the faintest of whispers spoke of such a connection being gone forever. 5849 didn't care, he never had.
It was a funny thing to come so far into the Civil Protection. He could remember every access port from the Central Nexus to the Outlands Access terminals, but never the names of the faces that danced through his mind like a haze. A pain longed inside of him, longed to return to those days where he remembered. Whether it was the mental conditioning he had received with his promotions or the last stoic vestiges of his previous self, 5849 knew there was no point in holding onto the past. So, he looked to the future, one he would help carve out of what remained of the Universal Union's scant holdings on earth.
With the destruction of the Citadel and the sabotage of the Super Portal, the remaining city administrators walled themselves away within their cities. One by one, the Resistance cells awoke, or Armies of Rebel Fighters battered down the gates. One by one the Urban Centers fell. Then, just as it seemed like the Rebels would come and claim the last of them, they began to infight.
The Leadership of Eli Vance crumbled away with his death, and the unifying figure of Gordon Freeman vanished without a trace. It was by their hands that the Resistance Cells had blossomed, but without their presence the gradual decay of unity had finally run its course. Splinter groups began to form, each with their own idea of how humanity should rebuild. With each differing ideology, conflict arose, Warlords grew in size and dominion.
The opportunity had finally arrived for the Remnants of the Universal Union to strike out from The Last Nexus they controlled. A City far to the east, beyond the Ural Mountains of Old Russia. There, where once the city of Chelyabinsk sat, The last realm of the Universal Union began to enact their plan. There, in City 79.
5849 gave an adjusting tug to his standard issue Civil Protection Mask and collar piece as he placed the former over his face. While fashioned from similar counterparts, the mask itself linked to what remained of the Combine Intelligence Network (CIN), allowing him a direct line with City 79's dispatch as well as a means to monitor his vital signs should he come under threat.
He had been instructed to report to the Nexus immediately, for what reason he was unsure. He understood that the Metropolice Force, otherwise known as Civil Protection, were to assist with the reclamation efforts in some capacity, but to what capacity he did not know. He remembered quiet discussions regarding the new Overwatch Units being unable to process Battle Information now that the Overwatch AI had been lost following the Super Portal's destruction. He figured, begrudgingly, that him and his protection teams would have to pick up the slack, which would be a hard sell to the dwindling supply of loyalist recruits.
As he understood it, Overwatch Soldiers could still be produced in their varying roles, however after the loss of the genetic memories stored at the Citadel in City 17, all they had were backup copies and nowhere to store new information. Which meant, in Layman's terms, when an Overwatch Soldier died out on a mission, all of the experience they had built up couldn't be transferred to the next shell. It also meant that his eventual promotion to the Overwatch Forces was on indefinite hold.
"So," he had mused to himself quietly beneath a muted vocoder. "They're a little more mortal now."
-This Chapter is still being written, please check back later-