It turned out that Ben had been secretly leading his own infiltration into City Three alongside mine.
With a little help from his fellow vortigaunts back at their sanctum, Ben had snuck into the city without detection and somehow managed to find me. I continued to be enamoured by this vortessence business. Even though Ben had been vague about the methods he used to track me, I knew it had something to do with that practice. Perhaps I truly would take him up on that offer he made me on the night we had climbed onto the roof of the estate, but that all relied on the dependency of escaping this city-wide crackdown, which I knew was going to be much more achievable now that I had my friend with me.
Ben had led me through the series of tunnels that lay beyond the chasm where I got ambushed. He had come through these networks before reconvening with me and saving me from drowning at the hands of that Combine soldier. These tunnels were practically indistinguishable from all the others she came through, but having a guide made the trek a little easier on my nerves.
Almost like he was following an invisible line on the floor, a line that only he could see, Ben glided along the puddled floors of the tunnels as I followed close behind him, meandering through diverging corridors for around three minutes. Eventually, Ben managed to lead me to a set of brick steps that led up to a single ladder close to the ceiling, which was supported by huge iron beams. The lights did not function in this section of the sewers, so I had to resort to using my staff as an alternative means of illumination.
"Our path leads us here," Ben announced, regarding the steps and the latter in front of us. "Utilize your gift, Krystal. Do you detect the presence of our enemies dwelling above us?"
I made a thorough telepathic scan of the unseen realm beyond the ceiling like a bat using sonar and came up with nothing, which was encouraging. "I don't sense any Combine units up there," I concluded. "Are you sure that we'll be closer to the airstrip up there?"
"Yes; it is from there I made my descent into these gamy catacombs," Ben informed. "It was deserted during my time of passage, though I cannot be certain now with so much unrest in the city."
"I see. My bad…" I said with a little shame, my ears folding inward a bit.
"Do not bewail, Krystal. You have done a noble deed in saving those humans in need."
While certainly a nice thing to say outright, I was honestly more surprised that he somehow even knew about what I had done to set off these lockdowns, and just looked at him with bemused astonishment. "Wait, how did you…?"
Before I could finish, Ben gently held my hand and gave me a semi-cheeky glint that could only be achieved through that bold vortigaunt gaze of his. "We are coterminous."
Ben said nothing more and began to stroll forward up the steps, leaving me puzzled in place for a second before I joined back with him. The ladder went up about fifteen feet before ending at what looked like an iron trap door in the floor of whatever building resided on top of us. I volunteered to ascend first, both because I felt I owed Ben for saving me, and because I had a weapon on hand.
I climbed up the ladder with my staff's shaft clenched in between my jaws for an easier ascent. Reaching the door, I grabbed my staff in my hand again and held it close just in case my telepathy had led us astray. There didn't appear to be a lock of any kind on this square door, only a small metal handle that swung on hinges, making me able to push the door open with my head.
Ever so cautiously, I raised the door to where my eyes could take a good peek and initially saw a cluttered environment, though no apparent signs of any boots belonging to Civil Protection walking around. This nudged me to take a greater look at my new surroundings, and what awaited me when fully opened the door took my breath away. I had emerged into a grand interior with a high ceiling that sloped on two equal sides that reached about ten or twelve stories high.
I stepped out onto the stone-plated floor to gaze in wonder at the cavernous building that enclosed us. Oxidized granite blocks made up the walls and ceiling, rising into intricate and expertly shaped spires and columns that served to aggrandize the interior design as well as serving as structural support. Stone sculptures of stoic-looking human figures could be seen high above, though many were missing their limbs.
Massive stained-glass windows lined the whole rim of the building just below where the ceiling had started, making the whole interior glow in a splendid array of colours. Although old and faded, I could see illustrations of various bearded human figures depicted in them, wearing crowns and robes of all shades―and many also appeared to have feathered wings on their backs. So much of what I was seeing felt reminiscent of the Krazoa palace on Sauria.
The enchanting space up above me had been soured considerably when I eventually looked down at my level to find all kinds of Combine machinery situated all around me. Computer terminals and hulking generators hugged the columned walls, humming ominously as large cables meandered all over the stone floor or haphazardly layered on top of things. Many actually led out of the building through demolished holes in the granite walls, leading outside, and even through a few of the stained-glass windows, where their shards laid askew across the floor and not even attempted to be picked up.
Tremendous irritation welled inside me as I looked around at all of this despicable desecration. It was evident to me that this was an ancient temple of some kind. A place of worship; an integral part of the city. The Combine were now using it as a power box to store their hardware.
Ben had now fully emerged from the depths and came up next to me, sensing my displeasure at what I saw. "A communal anchorage. A house of repentance," he stated, gazing up at wonders around us (what was left of them). "The humans have sought to rid their hearts of the evils that taint their beings. Many now insist that the Combine's presence is the direct result of the same hubris that they have tried to redeem themselves of. Such an outlook is sadly not as conjecturing as it may seem…"
It took me a moment to realise that we were likely standing on where an altar or podium might have been given the length of a formal communal area before us. I saw evidence of what may have been the remains of smashed wooden pews littered across the floor, and perhaps the temple doors were hidden somewhere behind the Combine's clutter. I took a brief look around the area behind me. It was full of cables and other Combine ironware, though, to my amazement, a stone statue seemed to have survived the defilement of the temple.
It was a life-sized statue of a sombre human woman mourning over a dead bearded man that she was holding tentatively in her lap. Many bits of the statue were chipped and had broken off such as their feet and a portion of one of the woman's elbows, but it was otherwise in good condition. I studied the scene it depicted for a good long moment. I somehow didn't require context to understand what it was trying to convey. A payment had just been made. A darker, more cynical side of myself began to suspect that maybe this payment had been voided in some bereaving way given Earth's cosmic misfortune.
The airstrip, as it turned out, was not far away from at all the temple we appeared in.
The radio tower that I had been trying to reach was already behind us as we made it to a long stretch of open land right next to a rocky cliffside overlooking the ocean. There was a tarmac runway that ran for half a mile down this stretch of flat grassy land with large rounded metal houses flanking either side of it, most likely hangers for Earth aircraft. It wasn't the largest area for aircraft I had ever seen, so it probably didn't used to be for commercial use, but now it had been converted into something much more sinister.
Those hangers had been overtaken by the fungal-like constructs that the Combine had planted around most human structures. Their additions to the airstrip consisted of large dark cranes that held aloft their synthetic arial hardware, at least twenty of them on either side of the tarmac. I could distinctly recognize a row of dormant gunships on our side of the runway suspended several stories above the ground, appearing to be undergoing routine maintenance.
Conversely, a row of amphibious-looking dropships was being looked out for on the other row of cranes. I had not seen these monstrous synths since exploring that abandoned town with Aaron. Oh, how things seemed so much simpler and arguably safer back then.
Me and Ben made our way closer to the airstrip as we sifted through fields of tall grass almost long enough to conceal us whole. I couldn't sense any units in the area, though the commotion emanating from the city behind us made me anxious. The Overwatch voice continued to announce orders to Civil Protection, an indicator that their attempts to locate and eradicate me had not relented in the slightest and perhaps became more agitated the longer they couldn't find me.
Ben planned to steal the pulsar receiver and retreat down the latch in the temple, which was situated relatively close to the fields that divided it from the airstrip. We had passed the radio tower that I had been striving to reach before initiating our infiltration of one of these hangers. There weren't any workers or staff mending the gunships; the maintenance being performed on these things appeared to be automated, something that was rather convenient for us, though we had to be extra wary of cameras or roaming city scanners. My obliviousness to one of those was what started this chaos in the first place.
A Combine occupied compound once again showed to be easy to break into; we snuck inside one of the backway doors of the first hanger we came across. The brightness of the warm sunny day had drastically shifted to cold and dreary as we entered the hanger. It took my eyes a moment to adjust, temporarily seeing nothing but sheets of green until I could see a large, dark interior illuminated only by two bright spotlights on two up corners of the room, casting the place in an eerie soft blue.
Along both sloped walls were rows of long identical metal containers with a series of ridges on their sides and curved undersides that tapered upward towards their backs. Ben had mentioned that these were troop carriers that would be rolled out to be hitched onto a dropship. I had thought these looked familiar; the cremators in that abandoned village were transported in a carrier much like these.
Remarkably, there didn't seem to be any cameras in here either, which allowed us to more freely explore the vacant hanger, though we were still plenty cautious. "Where would a pulsar receiver be? In one of these carriers?" I wondered, keeping my voice low and my staff closely drawn.
"I hope that you remember what one is?" he queried. He didn't sound doubtful of me but simply asked to make sure.
"Heavy Combine weaponry utilizes this component for renewable pulse ammunition," I recollected. "Do these transports possess such firepower?"
"Indeed," Ben said. "For defence and for clearing landing sights of enemies. Observe the selection that abounds us."
Getting more up close and personal with these idle transports, I saw that just off to the side of their latched bay doors, each carrier had a large, long-barrelled cannon retracted into a holstered state. "Any of these will do," Ben said, standing next to me as we tried to settle on one of these cannons to strip from. Once he did, he took a step closer to it, cranking his head up to get a better look at it. "While quite possible to dislodge with your tool, it would be an untidy process. We do not want to risk damaging the prize we seek. Abide for a moment, Krystal; this should only take a moment."
Ben began to raise his clawed hand at the retracted cannon. He began to emit a low growl just before his palm then began to glow a bright green, producing a field of energy that enveloped his whole hand, casting the whole room in a soft, aethereal green glow. I watched in amazed disbelief as Ben maintained this sequence, humming harmonically as the cannon on the transport began to shutter.
Green tendrils of energy flickered from Ben's glowing hand before fully concentrating on the boxy fit right behind the cannon's barrel. Before my very eyes, the whole assembly was coming undone as small parts started removing themselves and began floating in the air. It looked to be a bit of a struggle for Ben given his straining expression, but it relented once he dislodged a boxy module with a strand of cables dangling from it.
Ben appeared satisfied with what he found and proceeded to recall it to him with a reeling motion of his fingers. It obediently floated down to him. It was a sizable piece of hardware, looking no bigger than an average screen projector. It looked like it could fit rather snuggly in my backpack, especially now since it was mostly empty for this outing.
Ben, looking rather spent by this mystical stunt of his, cancelled his mystics and caught the piece in his hands while the other discarded parts fell to the ground as the room returned to that cold blue again. Ben grunted when he caught it, sinking considerably in his stand though did not fall over. The pulsar receiver evidently appeared to be much heavier than it looked, though Ben did not seem surprised by that focused gaze of his.
"This was half of the reason why I chose to follow you, Krystal," he said with a strain in his voice, heaving the boxy component higher over his chest―and even the little arm in between his pectorals (quite literally) lent a hand in stability. "This crucial component yields a taxing mass that I wager could not be carried so easily by you."
A worrisome thought then crossed my mind when Ben said this. What if the chief of the Limpiadores somehow knew this and sent me out here to retrieve this thing anyway? His thoughts were devious ones and certainly willing to undermine me at my own expense, though I had not sensed such deception initially. Regardless, this was disconcerting enough that it managed to air itself vocally.
"I wonder if the Chief knew that I couldn't carry it…" I said, looking at the retrieved pulsar receiver with distrust.
"Unlikely," Ben said reassuringly, shifting his shoulders as he held the component. "The chief of the Limpiadores has little experience with the more advanced variants of Combine hardware. I doubt he would have sent you for this if he had known."
I considered that, though I still concluded dishonesty in the chief's mission. Even still, I was relieved to know that it compelled Ben enough to come all the way out here just to help me carry it. "Okay," I shrugged, looking more closely into the red eyes of my vortigaunt friend. "What was this second reason for your involvement."
Ben smirked. "I owe you and the Aaron Beuford many things in return for freeing me from my eternal bonds, Krystal," he said. "I wish to help you in any way that I can. And, all the same, I regrettably missed out on a rousing adventure with you while I was housebound. I seize my chances when I see them."