Our Benefactors, Part 1
Sep. 25th, 2008 01:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acts_of_gordIt might have been Gordon's imagination, but he was pretty sure he could hear Barney's final syllables over the inexorable clang of D0G dropping the Combine wall once more. But that was it; when the last echoes died away, the sounds of the world of men were gone. For all that there was no roof between him and the skies, Gordon was as cut off here, on the brink of a precipice deeper than he liked to think about, with nothing else around him except what the Combine had made.
At least, he thought as he picked his way slowly along the stony path in search of a way in, there were no damn floating islands.
There'd been an entrance on the tower's south side, little more than a sally port, and it'd been unguarded. That had struck him as suspicious at the time. Not now, though, not so much. Ultimately it only led to one place: a vast and almost endless corridor, stretching off into the dimly-lit distance on either side, plunging down hundreds of feet, and rising up probably nearly as far. There were no ladders into the precipice, no stairs on any side. No elevators offered a hint of the way to proceed. Not even so much as a seam in the black alien metal of the walls betrayed the possible presence of a door. All that could be seen moving, anywhere, were the pods: scores of them, hundreds of them, the same prisoner transport pods that they'd had Eli in at Nova Prospekt, clanking endlessly by, stopping and opening for a moment, and swaying as they continued along their way suspended from rails too far overhead to reach.
He couldn't remember any more whether this or Nova Prospekt was the scene from the nightmare vision he'd had just before awakening on the train. It didn't matter. The vision hadn't given him any kind of a clue how to proceed- and every moment he stood there staring was a moment neither Eli nor Alyx had to spare. There had to be a way...
The rails split over the mouth of the precipice, he noticed. Pods that were directed to the right passed through a brighter-lit zone that bathed them in a torrent of electrical current. To the left they rumbled onward into the semidarkness unmolested. If he wasn't too badly mistaken, there seemed to be a hint of something lifting in the shadows, as if the pods' rails rose to some other level of the Citadel. That would be a step in the right direction, at least- although not one he wanted to take from inside the pod. If another of those electrical baths was up there somewhere, he needed to be able to free himself quickly. So...
The pod in front of him snapped closed. Before Gordon could question his own sanity any further, he'd leapt up onto it, braced his feet on the tiny bottom lip that prevented prisoners from kicking at their captors, and just barely managed to wrap his arms around the thing. Now all he had to do was hold on.
... and, he discovered a moment later as the pod rattled forward on its journey, not look down for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER.
How long it took before the pod clunked to a stop in the high-ceilinged chamber Gordon couldn't possibly say. The ride had been alternately taken up with fascination, horror, and pure instinctive terror as he stared about him in a quest to do anything but think about how likely he was to accidentally let go and plummet to his doom. There'd been gunships hanging on the walls for maintenance, Striders marching through narrow passageways, units of troops, trains full of prisoners- all kinds of wonders and horrors alike. This was, after all, the heart of the Combine's military power.
The distraction it provided was only for the mind, though. His fingers and wrists were just about to give way. When the pod stopped and he realized there was floor under foot, he let go immediately. Landing on his ass was better than trying to hold on even one second longer-
"Section alert," said an all too familiar female voice. "Unregistered weapons detected. Confiscation field engaged."
The air lit up with a glimmering blue energy, and an intangible force ripped every last one of Gordon's weapons away from harness and hands alike. One by one, they fell to the floor in piles of blackened ash- pulse rifle, SMG, shotgun... even the crowbar.
There were no words. There were absolutely no words. Not even the profane ones would come to mind. Just a dull, solid clunk noise, like the last chunk of metal falling useless to- Wait, no, that was a real sound. Apparently the gravity gun didn't qualify as a weapon. The field had released its hold on the device as soon as its orange internal energies shimmered out of existence, replaced instead with the same blue that filled the air. Well... maybe it still worked? And it was better than nothing? Gordon grabbed it up and examined its tiny instrumentation, but nothing indicated what had just happened. He was going to have to find some way of testing-
The rhythmic thumping of booted feet caught his attention. Overwatch if he was lucky. Elites if he wasn't. Either way, unless he could pull the guns out of their hands, he was screwed; the gravity gun didn't work on organics and the post-human soldiers were still organic enough to qualify. Gordon swallowed and plastered his back against the nearest wall (funny how much easier that was without actual weapons in the way). Closer, now (it wasn't going to work), and closer (it had to work), and closer (it wasn't going to work)-
As the first Combine soldier rounded the corner, Gordon closed his eyes and pulled the gravity gun's secondary trigger. There was a startled squawk- and the sound of booted feet stopped.
When Gordon dared to open one eye, the lifeless form of the Overwatch soldier was dangling in the zero point energy field's grip. And when his finger twitched against the other trigger, the gun flung the corpse straight into two more oncoming Overwatch. Another twitch, and the energy bolts that'd only ever pushed metal and wood and stone around before were lancing out of the gun like blue lightning, striking the rest of the soldiers down...
There was no one left alive in that part of the Citadel to hear Gordon suddenly start cackling. It was probably for the best.
At least, he thought as he picked his way slowly along the stony path in search of a way in, there were no damn floating islands.
There'd been an entrance on the tower's south side, little more than a sally port, and it'd been unguarded. That had struck him as suspicious at the time. Not now, though, not so much. Ultimately it only led to one place: a vast and almost endless corridor, stretching off into the dimly-lit distance on either side, plunging down hundreds of feet, and rising up probably nearly as far. There were no ladders into the precipice, no stairs on any side. No elevators offered a hint of the way to proceed. Not even so much as a seam in the black alien metal of the walls betrayed the possible presence of a door. All that could be seen moving, anywhere, were the pods: scores of them, hundreds of them, the same prisoner transport pods that they'd had Eli in at Nova Prospekt, clanking endlessly by, stopping and opening for a moment, and swaying as they continued along their way suspended from rails too far overhead to reach.
He couldn't remember any more whether this or Nova Prospekt was the scene from the nightmare vision he'd had just before awakening on the train. It didn't matter. The vision hadn't given him any kind of a clue how to proceed- and every moment he stood there staring was a moment neither Eli nor Alyx had to spare. There had to be a way...
The rails split over the mouth of the precipice, he noticed. Pods that were directed to the right passed through a brighter-lit zone that bathed them in a torrent of electrical current. To the left they rumbled onward into the semidarkness unmolested. If he wasn't too badly mistaken, there seemed to be a hint of something lifting in the shadows, as if the pods' rails rose to some other level of the Citadel. That would be a step in the right direction, at least- although not one he wanted to take from inside the pod. If another of those electrical baths was up there somewhere, he needed to be able to free himself quickly. So...
The pod in front of him snapped closed. Before Gordon could question his own sanity any further, he'd leapt up onto it, braced his feet on the tiny bottom lip that prevented prisoners from kicking at their captors, and just barely managed to wrap his arms around the thing. Now all he had to do was hold on.
... and, he discovered a moment later as the pod rattled forward on its journey, not look down for ANY REASON WHATSOEVER.
How long it took before the pod clunked to a stop in the high-ceilinged chamber Gordon couldn't possibly say. The ride had been alternately taken up with fascination, horror, and pure instinctive terror as he stared about him in a quest to do anything but think about how likely he was to accidentally let go and plummet to his doom. There'd been gunships hanging on the walls for maintenance, Striders marching through narrow passageways, units of troops, trains full of prisoners- all kinds of wonders and horrors alike. This was, after all, the heart of the Combine's military power.
The distraction it provided was only for the mind, though. His fingers and wrists were just about to give way. When the pod stopped and he realized there was floor under foot, he let go immediately. Landing on his ass was better than trying to hold on even one second longer-
"Section alert," said an all too familiar female voice. "Unregistered weapons detected. Confiscation field engaged."
The air lit up with a glimmering blue energy, and an intangible force ripped every last one of Gordon's weapons away from harness and hands alike. One by one, they fell to the floor in piles of blackened ash- pulse rifle, SMG, shotgun... even the crowbar.
There were no words. There were absolutely no words. Not even the profane ones would come to mind. Just a dull, solid clunk noise, like the last chunk of metal falling useless to- Wait, no, that was a real sound. Apparently the gravity gun didn't qualify as a weapon. The field had released its hold on the device as soon as its orange internal energies shimmered out of existence, replaced instead with the same blue that filled the air. Well... maybe it still worked? And it was better than nothing? Gordon grabbed it up and examined its tiny instrumentation, but nothing indicated what had just happened. He was going to have to find some way of testing-
The rhythmic thumping of booted feet caught his attention. Overwatch if he was lucky. Elites if he wasn't. Either way, unless he could pull the guns out of their hands, he was screwed; the gravity gun didn't work on organics and the post-human soldiers were still organic enough to qualify. Gordon swallowed and plastered his back against the nearest wall (funny how much easier that was without actual weapons in the way). Closer, now (it wasn't going to work), and closer (it had to work), and closer (it wasn't going to work)-
As the first Combine soldier rounded the corner, Gordon closed his eyes and pulled the gravity gun's secondary trigger. There was a startled squawk- and the sound of booted feet stopped.
When Gordon dared to open one eye, the lifeless form of the Overwatch soldier was dangling in the zero point energy field's grip. And when his finger twitched against the other trigger, the gun flung the corpse straight into two more oncoming Overwatch. Another twitch, and the energy bolts that'd only ever pushed metal and wood and stone around before were lancing out of the gun like blue lightning, striking the rest of the soldiers down...
There was no one left alive in that part of the Citadel to hear Gordon suddenly start cackling. It was probably for the best.
