We got up bright and early the next morning with ample time to prepare ourselves to catch a train to the Combine's regional supply depot.
Ben gave us his blessing before we set off back to the same railway line that Aaron had recovered me from. I was concerned about leaving him alone like this while we would be so far away and behind enemy lines, which made me empathetic to Aaron's persistent reluctance to carry out his plan before my arrival. Even so, I was assured that Ben knew to lay low, and would spend much of his time meditating in the vortessence, which I was told was a way for him to communicate with other vortigaunts around the world.
My interest in Ben's spiritual resonation continued to grow on the walk toward the tracks alongside Aaron, making me even more eager to know how the vortigaunts practised this elusive art that was only mentioned and not seen, yet I knew it was real and important. That only pushed me harder to bring back what would release his bonds. If only then would he be willing to show me what it all was…
Not wanting to get ahead of myself, I kept my priorities in line and made haste for the train tracks. Aaron had insisted we move further up the line to reach a siding that contained several rusting freight carriages that would give us the height to jump onto the moving train. Aaron had run out of nodes to temporarily short-circuit the train's engine after using them to break me out, so he said we had to get on the 'lone ranger way', whatever that meant.
We saw the train coming down the line only minutes after we climbed up atop the carriages, going at a speed that made me wary, but I had landed on the backs of Cloud Runners flying at a similar velocity in mid-air, so this wasn't anything I didn't conquer before. I wasn't sure about how Aaron would manage, though.
We kept our bodies flat as the tall, narrow razor-shaped engine approached as a percussion of it being manually operated as Aaron warned. Once it zoomed past us, we carefully timed our jumps and leapt onto one of the triangular-shaped carriages, grabbing onto the handrails that were welded along its collapsible walls. I was not only amazed to see that Aaron had made it on, but that he was gripping the cold metal surface with his bare hands. He was incredibly strong for one as old as he appeared. I wondered for a second if humans were naturally strong like him; if only I could meet more of them.
It took some doing opening the carriage up while trying to keep his footing on a high-speed moving platform, but Aaron soon managed to open up the corner of the collapsible wall and allowed me space to crawl inside. The dimly lit interior was a packed cargo hold filled with crates of all types and sizes and just enough space for me and Aaron to reside. Aaron closed the wall behind us and plopped down on his bum with his back against it, sighing with relief. "Welp…there's no turning back now," he sighed, both with relief and trepidation.
I sat down in front of him crossing my legs. "Are you all right?" I asked, concerned if his fatigue had anything to do with his age. His thoughts didn't allude to anything like that, though; they only echoed desires for something called a 'frosty'.
Aaron looked at me and smiled. "You know, I'm not as clumsy as Ben might think," he said, extending his legs out as he tried to get comfortable on the cold metal floor. "A little stiff, maybe, but I'm a lot better than I could have been otherwise."
"That was an incredible landing, my friend. There was no way I would have been able to open that up by myself."
"I figured so, little Miss Light and Nimble," he teased, gently shoving my shoulder, and I reciprocated with a playful shove back.
We were soon approaching the depot, just a little over fifteen minutes after we got aboard.
Aaron had been periodically poking his head out of the crumpled corner of the wall he made to get us inside to check where we were and told me to look outside after he confirmed that the depot was in sight. Off in the distance, though approaching rather quickly, was a dark, towering complex that stood out glaringly against the partly cloudy sky, especially compared to the vast, brighter urban areas that surrounded it.
Exactly how big this complex was I couldn't precisely see, but it was a foreboding sight, enough to fill me with dread just gazing up at it, only increasing in size as we neared it. Our train began slowing down substantially once we entered the urban areas, which was our cue to start getting ready to jump off. We did just that once our train slowed to a tolerable speed, landing on a ballasted rail yard that was filled with intersecting lines of track and lit signals positioned all around and pantograph wires above.
Aaron and I had to run after we jumped to keep our faces from hitting the ballast, and we ran even faster as we sprinted across the vacuous railyard, not wanting to be caught by any security that could be monitoring the yard. We were able to find cover down one of the streets of this town next to the railyard which was easy to access thanks to the chain link fence dividing the two had been smashed in by an unknown cause. We hid in an alley for a few minutes, both to catch our breaths and to make sure we weren't being pursued, which we thankfully were not.
After looking around the corner and discovering that we were not being followed, I took a deep breath and readjusted the silver diadem around my forehead. "That was a nice and clean dash," I said, looking up at my large friend. "I'm pleased that you were able to keep up with me."
Aaron made a winded smirk. "I can be kinda fast when I want to be, lassie. Don't let these little tree stumps for you," he said, lifting one of his legs. After another moment, Aaron straightened his jacket while I tightened the shoulder strap that was looped around my MP5K.
"Well, we better not hang around here for too much longer," Aaron advised, looking up towards the rooftops. "City scanners might be flying about looking for scavengers."
"I thought you said that the areas around the depot were abandoned," I recalled.
"They are. Mostly," Aaron said. "When the depot was first erected here, the Combine gradually herded the citizens out of this town and scattered them wherever they could, but a few or more stayed behind. They occasionally stir up trouble in areas that the Combine can't have trouble in, like these vital rail lines for instance. Measures of numerous kinds have been dispatched to quell and discourage mischief in these parts."
"What kind of measures?" I asked, already getting an uneasy feeling.
"I don't know, so let's hope we don't cross paths with any, yeah?"
Unlike the village near the estate, I was able to sense many beings lurking all around this desolated urban jungle, though their thoughts weren't complex enough for me to immediately register them as threats.
I figured these to be the thoughts of animals, for I too could read theirs like I could sapient beings, but they still made me wary. Though helpful in avoiding trouble, it is easier to wade into enemy territory when you think you're alone for the moment. Besides, these cerebral signals felt identical to what the cremators put out, so I had to assume that these were more Combine units.
Aaron and I kept our heads low as we navigated the empty, brick-laid streets as scraps of litter blew in the light breeze by our feet. The off-puttingly colourful buildings around us were tall and eclipsed the sun, cloaking us in their shadows. He also advised that we keep close to the walls should anything spot us wandering out in the open, specifically emphasising snipers, which did little to encourage me—not that it was meant to.
Unlike the village we explored yesterday, the Combine's presence was blatantly obvious and was easy to distinguish between their architecture and native Earth constructs. Angular, asymmetrical structures made from cold and dark metal were outfitted around certain sections of buildings, and large cables for unknown uses could be seen either linking together between the rooftops of buildings or dangling above the streets. Some sections of buildings had been completely blown out just to make room for them with no attempt made to repair it.
I didn't know if all of this had been done while people were still here, but it was clear that the Combine were indifferent to this city and anybody who might have dwelled in it. I guessed that this was merely a taste of what the Combine's reign was on Earth and dreaded to see people be subjected to it. There were also plenty of clear propaganda images plastered around the walls of the buildings, conveying various "unifying" messages alongside strange alien glyphs, and one face was attached to most of them. An older-looking human man, maybe a little younger than Aaron, with short white hair and a short white beard, though it was difficult to see what may have been his true pigment behind all the desaturation.
"Who is that face on all of these posters?" I asked quietly after having seen enough of them already.
"That would be Doctor Breen," he informed, jogging my memory of that name from yesterday's conversation.
"Black Mesa's administrator," I said. "That's right, you told me the Combine had put him in charge of Earth after he had managed its surrender. It would seem that he doesn't spare a chance to make that known."
"Oh, tell me about it," Aaron said with no affection. "You haven't even seen those godless broadcasts he's started playing on loop endlessly every day. We call 'em 'Breencasts'; fluffy, underbaked glow-up pieces about humanity's evolution peeking with the Combine's leadership. He sits up in his ivory tower while everyone below it withers away into an augmenting nightmare that his benefactors have instilled in his dying world."
Aaron did little to hide his bitterness towards this bureaucrat who sold out his home and race to these alien oppressors, and I could not be more understanding of it. "Where does he reside? Is he still on Earth?"
"Yeah, he's on Earth," Aaron said, keeping his pace as we stayed along the sidewalk. "Breen resides in City Seventeen's citadel, and that one is said to be the worst one of them all."
"There are more of these citadels?"
"Yes ma'am. Every remaining major city has a citadel; towering monolithic eyesores that completely overtake the skyline in whatever city they're in. The one in City Seventeen is said to be the biggest one built on Earth; it was a big deal when they finished construction about five years ago. It's tall enough to touch the clouds I've been told, and it was made just for Breen—or so I have also been told."
"Where is this…City Seventeen?" I wondered.
"Nowhere near us," Aaron said. "City Seventeen is on the other end of the continent. The closest city that's actually 'thriving' is City Three―everything else is no-man's land for miles all around."
I pondered on this information for a minute. Like most things on this gloomy planet that I had yet to still see, I was especially curious about this tyrant's place of dwelling. Even though any means to point me back to the Cloud Runner had been lost, I knew I had to find it eventually and get what I needed to repair it. I had no reason to start believing that I could somehow make a huge difference while stranded on this planet, yet my ambitions grew nonetheless. I began to wonder if the Combine had a sturdy air defence force.
If they didn't, and I reacquired my wings, perhaps I would find a chance to visit Doctor Breen. Of course, this was just my hopeful imagination; there was still plenty of work to do before I could even hope to fly again. And likewise, it was best I did not rush things too quickly should all the subjugated people of this world pay dearly for any thoughtless blitz ensued by me.
I followed Aaron for a little while longer as he took us down streets that led us closer to the depot, which was always in near-constant view at street level even with the buildings obstructing it, getting larger and larger with each corner we turned down. Our progress was abruptly halted once we came across a Combine blockade; a large, dark metal wall with an entryway, though a blue energy field of some kind prohibited any kind of access.
"Damn. I was worried that security would get tighter the closer we got," Aaron said, scratching his head underneath his cap.
"Should we try another street?" I asked, watching Aaron's back while he kept to the front.
"We could, I reckon our luck will be similar with this street. These are security checkpoints after all. Nobody except personnel can go through."
"Looks like we'll have to improvise," I said, wary of our predicament. Aaron seemed sensitive to the tone I must have conveyed in my voice.
"How are we looking on baddies? Any close by?"
"I'm…not sure, Aaron," I admitted. "I do sense mind waves in the area, but they're a little different. They're less focused. Almost…vapid."
Aaron looked at me a little nervously, unsure of what to make of my assessment. "Are there any of those vapid thoughts beneath the streets?" he asked, shuffling us away from the view of the blockade in case it would be monitored.
"Yes. Quite a few," I relayed. "But if all the streets from this point on are blocked off, I don't see much of a choice than to head down below and find another path forward."
"I see…" Aaron said, looking up at the rooftops of the surrounding buildings. "Unless you're able to jump from building to building, you could make some headway on your own until I can find a way to catch up."
"I could if I had some good distance to jump," I replied, "but I would feel proficiently better if I were with you."
Aaron smiled just a little bit. "All right then, back to the sewers it looks like. Hope you're up for a little skirmish if one happens."
"I'm always ready for anything."
Most of the time, I felt like I was ready for anything, but I was nowhere close to being ready for what we came across when looking for an entrance to the sewers.
We came across an empty intersection a couple of blocks away from the blockade, and there we found the harrowing scene of four bodies lying lifeless in the street. They were humans, smaller than Aaron, wearing muddy shoes and dirty clothes, which were further solid by all the blood that soaked them. Evidence of a violent confrontation was abundant; pockmarks in the surrounding walls suggested a shootout with firearms, which essentially told us the whole story of what happened to these poor humans caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The sight was so ghastly that I stopped in my tracks, short of breath as the scene seemed to whisk it right out of me. "Oh no…" Aaron said, removing his cap solemnly for a moment. His voice was low and layered with grief and concern. "They weren't careful enough. Which means we have to be smarter than them and get out of the streets."
"Their wounds are recent," I noted. I was too disturbed to investigate the bodies themselves, but the lingering scent of burnt explosive powder tickled my nose. "I don't sense anything too close by, but we need to keep moving quickly should the perpetrators return."
"No need to tell me, lassie. Keep to the walls."
Minutes later, thankfully, we found a disk-shaped metal cover in the middle of the street the next block over and took our chances with it. Aaron lifted it with little effort and insisted I jump down first. I was too fixated on the image of the bodies to worry about the filth that I may have been jumping into. The Combine were truly merciless to any that undermined them, and I knew must have deliberately left those bodies there as an example to any more potential snoops that might try following their example. I didn't wish to meet these murderous enforcers, yet that seemed inevitable now.
Thankfully, so far, the sewers seemed to be free of Combine units—at least as far as I could sense. The murky thought patterns that I could sense continued to make me anxious, for they were also not potent enough for me to judge their relative distance from us, nor was it clear whether or not they were above or below ground. That was the tricky thing about 'less complicated' thoughts; they might not have been intelligent, but that didn't mean they weren't a threat.
The pipelines were pleasantly cleaner than the ones underneath the village, for the water was still flowing. Aaron and I had been following the arrows along the walls under the assumption that it was leading towards something central, which we discovered to be true after a few minutes of walking. We came across a large pit where the flowing water fell into a larger pool a few stories down. Another tunnel could barely be seen thanks to a red light above its crest peeking through the mist created by the waterfall.
There was a lengthy gap between our platform and the one on the other end of the pit, about fifteen feet. Further adding to our inconvenience, there was a large elevation as well, which was about nine feet higher than us. We both stopped and studied what we could of our dead end, feeling no more thrilled about this than the other.
"Fiddlesticks," Aaron muttered in frustration. The sound of the fall was loud enough to drown that out, so his thoughts filled in the blanks for me. "Now what do we do?"
"I don't think it's wise to jump down into the pit," I stated, speaking louder than I was normally used to compete with the roaring water.
"Well, that much is crystal clear," Aaron mused. I sensed the deliberation in his choice of words, which managed a smile out of me. I looked up, where a third platform could be seen a level above the one in front of us which was closer to the ceiling. The grate on the ceiling allowed for sunlight to cast down on it, revealing something I knew would help us if somehow reached. "Look up there," I pointed, directing Aaron's attention to a service lift that was stationed just off of the third platform. It was yellow in colour and was labelled with cautionary warning signs. It was suspended by four sturdy cables on its corners, and the winches on the ceiling indicated that it was meant to lower and rise between these three levels on this section of the city's sewer.
"Good eye, lassie," Aaron complimented. "Those upper levels should make it easier to run through. The only question is how we get up there…"
It didn't take me long to conjure an answer, though it couldn't be realised without a compromise. "I can jump the ledge over to the higher level in front of us," I announced. "I'll look for a way from there to get up there to the highest level and hopefully operate that lift. There's bound to be some kind of control module up there."
Aaron nodded in silence, pursing his lips. "Okay, better than nothing," he considered, looking down at me. "Are you even able to climb that wall? Yeah, it's got some leverage with its lumpiness, but it looks a little wet with all this condensation."
"A good grip is all one needs," I said, tapping my clawed nails on the handrail next to me, creating loud metallic dings. "And having a few of these helps too."
Aaron thought favourably, though there was a twinge of worry for my sake. Nevertheless, he shrugged and allowed me to let my idea play out. "All right, lassie. I'm confident that this isn't the worst jump you've ever made."
"It's not," I assured, which seemed to be enough to make Aaron feel a bit more eased. Without speaking, Aaron seemed to know what to do by backing up against the wall to give me as much room as possible, which was just enough. I retreated further back into our tunnel right before it turned and stopped, eyeing the ledge before working up my nerves.
Without dedicating too much time to that, I made my dash and worked up a good speed before I soon came to the edge and leapt across it, holding my breath. I dug claws as hard as I could into the wall once we met; had I not been wearing my boots I would have had a much firmer grip with my clawed feet, so I had to climb quickly before I would wear my grip out—and climb quickly I did.
The leverage the wall provided thankfully was enough to aid me in my climb. I could sense Aaron watching me with awed amazement as I ascended towards the second-level platform, swaying my tail in the necessary directions whenever my balance was wavering. I luckily reached the platform's handrails with no problem and hoisted myself straight over them in an acrobatic flip. The rush it gave me was always necessary to keep my head from getting too dizzy from unnerving climbs.
I turned around to gaze back at Aaron, who was now below me on the other end of the pit—while also providing me a scale of the feat I pulled. "Ben was right!" Aaron hollered over the falling water. "You are the lightweight we needed!"
That made me laugh. I knew I was going to greatly miss his company in just a few short moments. "I'll be back real soon, I promise!" I called him before he gestured to me that he understood.
"Gotcha. I'm waiting right here for ya!"
Out of an old habit, I gave him the two-fingered salute I gave whenever piloting my Cloud Runner before turning around. I took a hefty breath before I braved the darkness ahead of me.