Even when Annette Durand shut her eyes tight, she could still see. I need never be afraid of the dark again. Every sound came in amplified – the drop of a pin tingled in her ear longer and louder than it would have, sounding like a Euro coin instead of a thin strip of metal. The deep greens and purples of the Ethereal's vessel had gone from the watered-down hues perceived by her old eyes, to the almost shimmering shades before her now. Shades that she could still see even with her eyes shut.
Her mind reached out. Speaker Odessa Cubbage reached back from the bridge, but his own thoughts remained guarded behind a resolute shield – she would have to exert effort to feel as he felt, and there was no reason to intrude. Their fingers traced each other and then parted, Annette seeking other consciousnesses.
The sectoids remained furtive and suspicious, climbing over her thought only once it was clear that it was her and not one of the Elders. Jealousy seeped in through the holes between the minds. Jealousy at her strength, at the Elder's love, and at the homeworld humanity still clung to, however barely. Annette sent out a tendril of sympathy to the sectoids, but this brought only confusion. They scarcely recognized the sentiment, and none felt grateful for it. Annette turned away.
The alien soldiers, "mutons," grunted as they felt her mind on theirs. Their brains felt like well-trodden ground, long-used to receiving orders in as direct a manner as possible. They, at least, gave Annette what she felt was her due. Awe. Awe and compliance. They would never obey her command over an Elder's, but if she bid one of them to leap out the UFO while it floated through the air, it would not question her motives or judgment for a second. Such was their loyalty. Such was their obedience.
Of course, such thoughts were beneath Annette. These were the loyal warriors of the ADVENT who would serve as their bulwark and backbone in the battles to come. Humanity had a long way to go before it could reach even their level, and from what she was given to understand very few humans possessed anything close to her own capability. So, it will be a long and slow journey. She felt fortunate to have such companions at her side. She commended the mutons on their valor. They pounded their chests and roared, honored.
Then there was the Elder.
"You might be the New One," murmured the Elder, fingers scratching against the throne, sending shivers up Annette's spine at the sound … a sound which carried all the way from the other side of the vessel, over the hum of the reactor, and the ragged breathing of the mutons. "The journey is long, but it nears its end. Perhaps you will be the one to stand ascendant as the darkness approaches."
"You fear something more than the Combine," replied Annette. The Elder's mind was an iron cage; Annette was strong, yes, but her strength came from nature, not mastery. The Elder possessed both and wielded its psionics with an ease Annette envied. Yet Annette could still see between the slats of the cage. Inside, the Elder was running, running from something Annette could not see entirely. Just its breath. Each exhalation came out icy cold.
"We do not fear these Harvesters." The Elder seemed amused at the notion. "They are beings of the material and can only obliterate mind and body. We are not only flesh and bone, child. Listen. Feel for that other, that greater thing. The threads that bind us."
"The Vortessence?" asked Annette, remembering Sparky's words. The Elder issued forth a bark of mental laughter.
"To name a thing is to limit it. Something once defined has difficulty stepping beyond the boundaries of its title. It has no words. Feel beyond the thoughts and fear. Listen for the one-in-all."
Annette, not sure what to do, tried to look at the whole ship. A cacophony of jabber assaulted her mind's eye, and she almost winced at the noise. Narrow it down. She focused on the closest thing, the thing she understood best. Her own body, flesh and bone, yes, electrical impulses carried to and fro, up and down the nerves, making jumps over the synapses…
With each breath her blood roared louder, and her thoughts focused more and more on how she was thinking, much like the time her mother had tried to teach her yoga and meditation techniques. It had not worked then, and it did not seem to be working now. Her mind raced faster and faster, seeking for something that was not there, trying to remain calm as the frustration only mounted, making her heart pulse and squeeze just a tad faster … what would her mother have thought?
There. A tendril, luminescent emerald, surging forth from that hidden part of her brain that only the Elders had recognized the importance of. She thought of her mother again, and the thread thickened, reaching out for something, for someone, that Annette knew did not exist anymore. Where is it reaching? To who? Is my mother…?
Annette thought of others – school friends she had seen trampled beneath the feet of synths in their blitz over France. Family long dead, their faces crossed off the old pictures with a black marker. Friends and comrades in arms, buried in unmarked plots that stretched across all of Europe. With each thought, another thread appeared alongside the first, shining. They reached, all of them, up and out, to somewhere Annette could not reach, that even only now she could begin to glimpse…
"These links can be made with the living," said the Elder, his voice as loud and clear as if he floated beside her. "But you see, don't you? The Combine can only offer a mechanical death, a subversion of the body's processes. And we are more than that. Something persists, even once life ebbs."
The vortigaunts had said something similar in the past, but always in a way that indicated it applied more to them than humanity. Our vortal inputs were impaired. Well, now they were being unimpaired, for those with a lucky batch of genetics. Still, her thoughts turned to Sparky, whom she had not seen for a few days now. I hope he is all right.
Another tendril, green like the others. But this one did not extend up and away, but instead down, where it … hooked on.
Something snagged the other side of Annette's probe and grabbed hold for dear life. Treachery! Infamy! A perversion of Vortessence! Annette gasped, lungs desperate to expand with air, but her throat locked tight. Something bubbled within a vat while pipes steamed overhead. Energy flowed in and around her, but she had no control over it. An Elder looked on through the tube she floated inside, gesturing with one of its four arms. Annette screamed.
A different death, a new death, a lasting death! We are undone and remade! They will cut our cords!
"That is enough," murmured the Elder. The tendril fell away to the ground and faded into nothing. "Breathe."
Annette sucked in a deep and wracking breath, then started coughing. She fell to all fours, her eyes finally opening. The world looked so much duller and so motionless through human pupils. Her stomach heaved as her coughing worsened, making her gag. Forgetting herself for a moment, she spat a glob of something sticky on the UFO's floor. Then she gagged again, her back arching. Damn this … I'm still only human.
Agony lingered in the back of her mind, but it was not her agony. The aftershock of … whatever she had touched, remained even after the coughing subsided. She wiped the drool from her mouth and stood unsteadily, brushing her sweat-slicked hair from her eyes. The Elder floated over her, arms tucked into its crimson robes, its masked face fixed on hers.
"Did you kill him?" asked Annette, voice hoarse.
"No. The vortigaunt is alive and in no physical pain." Annette pursed her lips at this. Something about the specificity of the wording.
"But I felt his pain, Elder," said Annette, a low anger beginning to curdle in the regions of her stomach. "I feel it still."
"It is the pain of indignity, of no longer being secure in one's place as the foremost psionic authority on the planet." The Elder's words came blunt and hard, like tombstones dropped from an airplane. "Long have they locked your potential from you, out of fear what they might create. Long have they sought to subtly throttle and manipulate, that they might wrest control of civilization out of the ashes of the Harvester's ruin."
"I don't believe it." Annette folded her arms. But she could not deny just a kernel of doubt nestling somewhere in the recesses of her mind. "I … we've fought alongside each other for so long."
"The callousness of these Harvesters forces otherwise unthinkable alliances." One of the Elder's arms swept out. A long-fingered hand made a dismissive swipe through the air at a leisurely pace. "Do you consider them heroes for electing to ally with humanity? What would have been their alternative? By the End War's close, you had already slaughtered many of them."
"Their … their powers have kept our facilities running, defended our lives."
"Powers that you know now they could have shared." The Elder's hand disappeared back beneath the robe. "How did these vortal warriors react as we reached out with the hand of friendship? With suspicion and dismay. Their own private agenda became threatened. Even now they tremble in fear and anger, seek to reconvene with the dark powers they make bargains with."
A green tendril reached forth from the Elder, but it did not point in any direction. It instead just burrowed in place, going somewhere Annette could not see. She shivered. The air suddenly felt cold, when before the UFO had been warm and welcoming. She swore she heard someone sigh from just behind her shoulder.
Then the tendril died, and the Elder One hung his head.
"Apologies. But one errant thought can lead us estray. Keep a careful hold on your mind. Forces unseen are watching. One day soon, you will understand why we hold the Harvesters in disdain. They can visit only a lesser destruction."
Annette glanced behind her. A thin man, pupils slitted, returned her gaze with cold interest. It inclined its head in a gesture of unnatural respect.
"You are hurting him, though," said Annette. "The vortigaunts … we owe them so much."
"They owe you more. Particularly the one they call "Freeman.""
The lights flickered. Annette heard the rustle of cloth on cloth, another sigh, this time clearly that of a man. Yet only the thin man (who, frankly, was no man at all) stood there, his gaze now fixed on the Elder with an unearthly intentness.
"Yes. We have heard of this Freeman. We hope to hear more of him, of what he has accomplished, of when he will return. The vortigaunts owe their freedom to him."
"We all do, sort of," replied Annette. "He killed the Nihilanth, ended the Black Mesa Incident. He stopped the first alien invasion."
"But was absent for the second." The Elder looked down on Annette, expression and intentions inscrutable. "Perhaps he might be our New One. Perhaps, in the end, all of us will owe our freedom to him, this Opener of the Way." The Elder turned away, mask cast downward. "…but at what price?"
"Rise and shine, ladies and gentlemen!" proclaimed Cubbage, peeking his head from around the corner. "I have been informed that the razor train has just left the station. It is time we begin really giving the Universal Union a piece of our minds." He winked at Annette. "And I do mean that quite … literally."
"The Harvesters desire total control of this planet's resources." The Elder floated towards Odessa, heading for the bridge. "We will choke them of their prize. They will soon understand the limitations of their simplistic vision." The Elder crooked one long finger to Annette as he ascended. "Come, child. Bear witness to the beginning of your species' liberation. It is time to test our combined strength."
Cubbage smiled and gestured for Annette to join him. She did, still not quite feeling any affection for the man. He was not weak, not in the way the other people at NLO were, but his character … was it possible to be both powerful and cowardly? That had to be the height of cowardice, surely. To be capable and yet afraid. If anything, Odessa's mental prowess just made him more pathetic – all that power, yet he would never use it against a worthy foe.
Yet perhaps Annette was wrong. She strode side by side, if not quite arm in arm, with the man. They stood together on the bridge, looking down at the railroad below, one end stretching into a dark tunnel, an energy shield humming at its entrance. Two sectoids navigated the controls, all of which had been adjusted downwards to meet their limited stature. The Elder floated above them, his intentions hanging in the air like lengths of chain. A sharp purpose. A tested patience.
"Our fleet remains in orbit. The larger vessels are threatened by their Citadels." The Elder paused for a moment. "But we will risk one. Child, you will descend with the others once the train is halted. Quiet the resistance. We will bring the passengers to safety."
"On this ship?" asked Annette, glancing at the close ceiling and walls.
"No, child. You will see." The Elder lifted a palm to the heavens. "Go forth and test your new gift. Our enemies have stripped themselves of their capacity for fear. They will fling themselves before you. Demonstrate the foolishness of this approach."
Annette grinned. Yes, she had the power to make people see things that were not there, play with their eyes and their hearts … but she also had the power to manipulate flesh, to set things aflame. And that is something the Combine will learn to respect. She glanced to Cubbage, a smile still playing about her face.
"Coming with me, Colonel?"
"Erm, no," replied Cubbage, making the smile drop from Annette's face. "I lack your strength, Annette. I am their Speaker, not their, um, New One. My role is in the rear, for the moment. Elder's decree."
"Right," said Annette looking away from the coward and his stupid mustache. "The Elder's will be done."
Below, a familiar roar echoed from the tunnel below, making a chill run down Annette's spine. But I need not be afraid of that sound ever again. There is so little to be afraid of, now. I am filled with the Elder's light…
The steel best ripped free from the tunnel with a rush of air, its eye-watering speed even more apparent from the aerial angle. A sectoid gurgled something in its own tongue. Annette's perspective shifted as the UFO went from stationary to suddenly zipping alongside the train, all without making her feet shift at all. The sectoid gurgled again. Its brother made a sound that almost resembled a laugh.
Green light flashed from somewhere off to their side. The razor train's smooth, featureless driver's cabin burst into green and orange flame. The entire vessel screamed as the cabins behind began to slow beneath the sudden involuntary brakes. The driver's cabin remained on the tracks, its wheels untouched by the plasma blast, but at a greatly reduced pace. For a minute, they watched the slow-motion death of the train's momentum until, finally it came to a halt with a hiss of released pressure. At its stilling, the Elder's voice boomed within the entire craft.
"Descend. Descend and visit destruction."
Annette leapt to the rear of the craft. She rounded the curvature of the halls and stopped only to pry her soon-to-be-defunct pulse rifle from a weapon's rack. It looked so small next to the muton's plasma rifles. They pulled their own weapons free with a grunt, pounding their gun on the side once it was secure in their arms. Three of them stood on either side of Annette, dwarfing her stature … but not her being. They know. To them, I am a colossus!
Annette sprinted forward to the shimmering purple energy of the craft. Her feet flew free of the UFO's confines, only for a purple beam to fly out and capture her. With a burst of light, it flung her to the ground, yet her body did not shatter on impact. She landed with the grace of a panther, one hand on the ground, another gripping her rifle. The train extended before her, an uncoiled steel snake. Already, Combine radio chatter filled the air. Annette reached out … and gasped.
This is what it feels like. It was like biting into what you thought was an orange, ripe and juicy, only to find the insides empty. There was nothing – nothing – left in these soldiers. When she reached for Odessa, assuming he let her in, she could feel his anxieties, his doubts, and of course, that overriding impulse for self-preservation. The sectoids were simple, yes, but even they had ambitions. And they, too, were cowards.
The mutons? Dumb muscle, certainly, but brains drove them. Pack loyalty bound them. Their arms were thick with sinew and tattoos, remnants of tribes many of them no longer knew the name of. Were they simple? Certainly. But, given time, she would be able to distinguish them, perhaps even give them names, if they wanted any.
The Overwatch … an empty silence only interrupted by the staccato of a pre-recorded order, flashing across the brain like a neon "Open" sign. Just pre-destined movement, dictated by inflexible wire. And the Elder believes this kind of death is not the worst? Well, Annette was technically forced to agree simply due to the existence of stalkers, but – oh God. God, merciful God, please don't let this be a stalker car.
Her consciousness reached out tentatively, hoping against hope it would not brush against those tortured beings. Instead it found … people. People in the dark, afraid, suspecting that the worst had already come to pass, but now hoping that rescue was at hand. Annette wished she could teach their hands, each of them, meet their gaze and let them know everything would be all right. I am going to give myself that chance. I am ready.
"Allons-y!" screamed Annette. Mutons fell to earth behind her like angry meteors. They pounded their chests, each thud punctuated with a guttural roar.
The first Overwatch soldier appeared at the top of the closest carriage, head popping up as he apparently climbed a ladder from the other side. Annette reached out and pushed, looking for what little flesh remained. Kevlar and metal ripped open in a great gash as the soldier's left leg came apart at the thigh, unleashing a spray of blood. He cried out as he fell atop the roof before rolling off it, falling about eight feet on to the gravel of the railroad below, leaving his severed leg behind.
"Overwatch, sector is not controlled."
"Confirmed, designate target as Shadow-One."
"Confirmed, Razor Nine-One sweeping in."
"Fix on Shadow-One and three biotics, also designate as Shadow; range thirty, bearing twelve. Go sharp!"
Annette darted to the closest coupling between rail cars. Sure enough, a hail of gunfire peppered her footsteps, making her heart sing. Yes, here we go!
The mutons held their ground and returned fire. Another rush of heat and light heralded yet another carriage catching fire. Empty, that one. Annette wiped her brow.
"Razor Team be advised, biotics are enacting a febrile response. Direct the stimulus away from the train."
Annette slipped around the other side of the train. Three soldiers stopped and immediately readied weapons. Annette hastily backpedaled the way she came, knowing the soldiers would be reaching for their grenades. She felt for the heat, the contained pressure of the explosives…
"Razor Three, extractor away, sharp zone." Annette suppressed a giggle. She dug in, sending a shard of heat and pressure into the pin. The bang came immediately. Under it, the death screams of the Combine Overwatch.
"Three duties vacated, harden that position!"
"Overwatch, sector is not controlled. Requesting reserve activation."
"Overwatch, aerial contagion detected. Recommend immediate MCM in this zone."
Annette headed back around the side of the train, pulse rifle in her arms. Useless thing. Just so much metal. Gunfire and plasma blasts rattled from the other side of the train, and errant bolts of green light vanished into nearby clouds with every miss.
"They are calling for their Citadel," whispered the Elder's voice. "The process must accelerate. Bear witness, child. Look to the skies above."
Annette paused, looking up. Something small and dark hung in the air, well beyond the cloud layer. It grew larger with every passing second. And this one did not move with the silence of the Elder's UFO. It announced its arrival with a shriek, building like a tea kettle. Annette watched with tears in her eyes as she realized that the Elder's spoke the truth about the fleet in orbit.
A ship, hundreds of feet long, its exterior long and angular instead of circular, like something mankind might build had it ever truly reached the space age. Its size extended on the z-axis as well; as it drew nearer, it became clear that it looked at least two stories tall, ladders running along the outside to assist the crew with movement. The vessel, dull purple in coloration, drew alongside the train with a howl. Its sudden halt as it landed in the gray wastes felt unnatural to Annette's eyes and ears. Yet here they are. Our saviors.
"Outbreak, outbreak, out- argh!"
The final soldier fell to a blast of plasma energy. Annette felt what was left of his mind switch out like a broken lightbulb, the ember fading all too quickly. She rejoined her bloodied companions, green fluid leaking from their shoulders and chests. Yet they kept their heads unbowed. They will wear these scars with pride.
The rear of the craft opened. More mutons rushed out, none of them carrying weapons. They grunted, pointing to different cars. One bade Annette to follow.
Metal containers lay racked inside each car, each one carrying a small and scared mind. The mutons forced the doors open and then reached inside, pink muscles bulging. With a cry, they wrenched each container free, one by one, prompting yelps from the interior of the prison.
"Calm them, child," urged the Elder. "You are both shield and sword. The Ethereal Ones will hold them close. Let them know this."
Wishing she could see their faces in person, Annette kneeled in the gravel. The worst is over. You are saved. You are destined for the stars now, not Nova Prospekt. You are in good hands. She sent warmth. She sent love, the same love she felt for all the weak and wounded. You will be healed. You will be made strong.
The citizens quieted within their cages. None of them fully understood what was going on, no, but they had heard the deaths of the Overwatch outside. They had felt the train that would have carried them to their doom burn and halt. Now they heard her voice, not with their ears, true, but still recognizably human. Annette let her hand drift over one of the containers as the mutons dragged it by. She knew that a hand pressed back.
From above, the Ethereal drifted from his UFO to a graceful landing. The UFO promptly vanished into the sky with a soft hum, rising up, up, and up out of sight. Merde, those things go fast. The Elder now floated before her, two visible hands outstretched.
"Child, my child, you have done well. In time, your strength will grow, grow to perhaps even match the Ethereal Ones … and not as we are now. As we were, once." The Elder watched the mutons slide the metal tubes across the dirt and up the ramp of the larger craft. "Their destination is ours; the home fleet. It is time you bore full witness to the power we bring to bear."
The Elder followed the line of mutons and rescued humans to the craft. Annette followed, knowing her place, wondering what the Elder meant. As they were? Were they stronger, once? What prompted this voyage fantastique?
Inside the ship, crates lay stacked high in shelves. Yellow material glowed inside metal cylinders that rotated in place. Annette detected no psionic energy from them, but she did feel strangely drawn to the chiming sounds they made. And now, in the empty spaces between the existing cargo, the mutons erected the citizen's containers, and set about trying to open them by hand.
Behind, the last of the containers scraped its way up the ramp, which began to close. The floor rumbled. Soon … soon Annette would see the stars as no human had in so long. Magnifique.
Something knocked around to her right, making a crate jump from side to side. Annette took a step back, nervous. She reached out, and something hungry, something cold and ravenous stared back at her. The crate rocked a little more. It knows. It wants me.
Lengthy fingers clasped around Annette's shoulder. A chill settled down her spine.
"Fear not, child," said the Elder, its voice full of ugly promise. "Those are not meant for you."