(no subject)

The spybots, Gordon had decided, were rapidly moving to the top of his list of things about his world that needed to be changed ASAP. The flash on that last one had almost gotten him killed. If the rails hadn't started singing under his feet he would've never had enough time to dive out of the oncoming train's way. At least he'd been able to wreck the blasted thing without getting a faceful of shrapnel this time. Hopefully there weren't any others in the vicinity; the cinderblock-walled corridors he was creeping through were poorly lit, and a flash to the face would blind him for-

"No, please!" cried a woman's anguished voice from somewhere up ahead, around the corner. Gordon thought he heard a faint electrical crackle. "Stop! What are you doing?"

He flattened his back against the corridor wall and peered around the corner. Two of the helmeted riot cops- no, Civil Protection, he corrected himself- had a man on the filthy corridor floor. One held a pistol; the other, the sort of electrified stun baton he'd seen on the CPs at the municipal building. The woman who'd cried out was weeping against the opposite wall. The jumpsuited man on the floor wasn't moving in the slightest.

None of them were looking his way.

Gordon had never struck a human being with the crowbar before, except once in a hardware store in Espanola, and that had been meant to disarm, not kill. It showed. The CP swore in pain as the gun skittered out of his fingers, but nimbly twisted around to face his attacker. As for the other, he moved more swiftly; Gordon got an electrically amplified blow to his midsection for his pains. Gordon sent up a silent thought of thanks for the HEV suit and flung himself fully into the fight.

The two CPs crumpled after another strike or two each. Easier than the headcrab zombies, Gordon noted in some abstracted part of his mind; he was still panting a little from the adrenaline, and there was an odd ringing in his ears. The woman darted past him to the unconscious jumpsuited figure, touched two fingers to the groove of his neck.

"They'll be looking for you now," she said tearfully as she looked up. (Gordon wasn't entirely paying attention. The pistol the first CP had dropped looked like it was still in working condition. Wherever Eli's place was, he was going to need a lot more than the crowbar to get there alive.) "You'd better run. There's nothing else you can do here-"

Gordon's hand brushed against the CP's helmet as he retrieved the dropped gun. He paused, remembering the mask being torn off and Barney's face underneath. Way behind on my beating quota, Barney had said, and Working undercover with Civil Protection. What if this was somebody else he'd known?

"Get going!" the woman cried, snapping him out of the moment. Gordon nodded and set off for the stairs at the end of the corridor.

---

Somewhere there was a modulated female voice calling out to Unidentified Person of Interest. He didn't know where. He wasn't sure it mattered. He'd just brought down his fourth CP, and he'd had it confirmed for sure: that wasn't a ringing in his ears. It was the squeal of some sort of monitoring system going flatline before winking out with the last of their life.

Damn, that was unnerving.

---

The bizarrely tall, thin train whizzed by on the opposite side of the canal. It blocked the line of sight between the few remaining CPs and Gordon, but it wouldn't do so for long. The door in front of him must've been some sort of emergency exit- there wasn't a handle anywhere in sight.And for all his trying Gordon knew he'd never be able to jump high enough to pull himself up on the ledge overhead and get to the street. That left one option: the brown, stinking waters of the canal below. What he wouldn't have given for his helmet...

Crowbar in one hand, nose pinched with the other, Gordon jumped.

It was exactly as foul as it looked, but it had this going for it: nobody was trying to shoot at him down here. Mindful that the train would only offer shelter for so long (and wanting badly to get out of the stuff), Gordon made his way forward as swiftly as he could. The current was negligible, though the water was deep enough to drag at his legs, and several times he had to take a deep breath and dive under the surface for a while. At least it wasn't as bad as some of the swimming he'd had to do at Black Mesa, but honestly!

The way ahead was blocked, he suddenly realized. A wrecked, red traincar sat in the water. Too low to get under, but not too high to get over; he could just make out a ladder along one side, and a gap in the bars that blocked the canals above water every few yards or so. A quick glance showed him that the CPs were nowhere in sight. If he could just scramble up on the roof of the car quickly enough and get over to the-

A panel in the roof gave way under his feet. Gordon hit the floor of the- no. Not the floor, the... mattress? It sure felt like-

"Guess those sirens are for you, huh?" Gordon pulled himself upright and turned to face the speaker: a dark-haired, bearded man in the same denim jumpsuit as virtually everyone else in the city. "Good thing you found us. You're not the first to come through here, by all-"

"This is the Freeman," said a voice like a sock full of gravel. "The Combine's reckoning has come."

Gordon half-turned, and froze. The speaker was- it-

It was one of the red-eyed aliens.

You can talk? wanted to come out. And it tried, too, but it ran headlong into Wait wait wait wait what? 'The' Freeman? What the hell?. He couldn't have spoken either aloud if he'd tried, so he turned to face the human instead. A flicker of sympathy showed on the man's face as he said, "Look. We're just a lookout for the underground railway. The main station's right around the corner. They'll get you started out of here on the right foot. Meanwhile, let my Vortigaunt friend here give you a jolt to get you going."

He jerked a thumb towards the alien. Before Gordon could so much as manage a 'wait, what?' aloud, the same green lightning Gordon remembered only too well from Black Mesa was streaking towards him- No. Not the same. There was no pain, no damage of any kind. In fact, there was another sound he remembered: the low, satisfied hum of his suit's batteries rapidly charging.

"That should keep the Freeman safe," the- Vortigaunt, was it?- said in a tone of considerable satisfaction as it finally lowered its hands.

"Be careful," said the human, who was pulling the side of the car open with the greatest of care. "If Civil Protection catches you down here, it's bad news for the whole railroad."

Gordon nodded; that, at least, he understood completely. He cast a glance at the Vortigaunt, still not quite able to believe what had just happened, but it only spread its two-clawed hands and said, "We serve the same mystery."

"You'd better get going," the human said. Gordon clapped a hand on his shoulder in silent thanks and dashed through the door into the wreckage beyond.

(no subject)

There had been a time when Gordon would never have considered the world an especially hostile place. Oh, sure, there were dangers- what was life without danger, after all?- but they came and went and life went on. But now-
( There's a lot of tension in this town- I know it's building up inside of me )
Radioactive rivers. Acidic, toxic slime everywhere underfoot. Helicopters rising over the city's buildings, guns madly ablaze. Shadows full of barnacle tongues, CPs frantically struggling in their grasp before the life was choked out of them. Flying robots that whizzed up out of the darkness and shredded anything in their path to bits. Zombie half-corpses, dragging themselves along by hands and hatred alone for one last chance at killing. Rockets full of headcrabs plunging out of the sky. . . it all added up, and what it added up to was a horrible feeling that things were only going to get worse from here. How, Gordon didn't know, but...
( I've got all the symptoms and the side effects of city life anxiety )
Steady, Freeman, he told himself, adjusting his grasp on the airboat's handlebars. The engine roared behind him, speeding the vehicle along over the surface of the scummy, off-smelling waters. You're not going to get anywhere thinking like that. Just make it to Eli's lab. You can think about it then.
( I could never understand why the urban attitude is so superior )
There'd been a map in the train car, back in the city, with 'Black Mesa East' marked on it. That was his only real clue about where he had to go. He did his best to call the image up without losing control of the boat; he was on the right course-
( In a world of high rise ambition most people's motives are ulterior )
"This is the Freeman. The Combine's reckoning has come."
( Sometimes I feel as though I'm running on ice, paying the price too long )
Gah! What the hell was that supposed to mean? He wasn't a 'the'. He was just- he was him, that's all, Gordon Freeman... Come to think of it, Dr. Kleiner had sounded awfully strange when he'd first said Gordon's name, and Eli too. And not just in an 'I haven't seen you in decades' way, either. He-
( Kind of get the feeling that I'm running on ice- )
-wait. Wait. What the hell. What the freaking hell. Up ahead on the river's right bank, out in front of that old red barn- HIM. The son of a bitch in the suit! The bastard was here!
( where did my life go wrong? )
All thoughts of titles and the definite article were shoved aside as Gordon pulled the airboat over, hard.

---

Funny thing about the squeal the CPs' helmets made when they died: you couldn't hear it over the roar of the airboat's engine.

Given how bad they were at getting out of the airboat's way in time, that was something of a relief.

---

( I'm a cosmopolitan sophisticate of culture and intelligence )
What little he'd seen of City 17 was pretty flat and low-lying. Given how extensive the canal system appeared to be, Gordon really should've expected to run into flood control gates long before this. He stared up at the gates in frustration a moment, wishing for a couple of his old satchel charges. Then he sighed and steered for the right bank. Looked like he was going to have to deal with that CP on the platform after all, if he was going to get through those gates.
( The culmination of technology and civilized experience )
It helped- it always helped- that the masked man was shooting at him. It was damned hard to think of him as anything but a threat while the bullets were flying. Only the tone-shifting squeal of the death alarm reminded Gordon that he was dealing with a human being under the mask. The thought struck him: there was no one else around and no sign of other guards coming. He could take a moment to pry the mask off and see...
( But I'm carrying the weight of all the useless junk a modern man accumulates )
He almost did; but then he thought of the long road ahead of him, and of how many more of them he was likely to see as he tried to flee the city, and what he would have to do to get past them.
( And I'm a statistic in a system that a civil servant dominates )
He couldn't afford for them to have human faces. Wordlessly, he turned away.
( And all that means is that I'm running on ice, caught in the vise so strong )
The door behind him opened onto a dimly-lit room, blue-tinged light spilling weakly from a fluorescent fixture overhead and from an inactive computer terminal as big as the one Barney had used at the train station. Gordon eyed the terminal a moment, but it wasn't doing anything. There was a box of what looked like ammo for the dead CP's submachine gun on the shelves along the far wall-
( I'm slipping and sliding, cause I'm running on ice, where did my life go wrong )
"We now have direct confirmation of a disruptor in our midst."
( You've got to run, run, run... )
Crap! Gordon spun to face the terminal, gun at the ready. The screen had come to life with Dr. Breen's image. For one heartstopping moment he was sure Breen could see him- but no, the white-bearded man spoke blandly on. "-one who has acquired an almost messianic reputation in the minds of certain citizens."
( As fast as I can climb a new disaster every time I turn around )
No.
( As soon as I get one fire put out there's another building burning down )
"His figure is synonymous with the darkest urges of instinct, ignorance and decay. Some of the worst excesses of the Black Mesa Incident have been laid directly at his feet."
( They say this highway's going my way but I don't know where it's taking me )
Oh, no.
( It's a bad waste, a sad case, a rat race- it's breaking me )
"And yet unsophisticated minds continue to imbue him with romantic power, giving him such dangerous poetic labels as the One Free Man, the Opener of the Way-"
( And I get no traction 'cause I'm running on ice )
"WHAT?" Gordon bellowed at the screen.
( It's taking me twice as long )
Whatever else Breen said, he didn't hear it.He was too busy staring in horrified disbelief; people were calling him what?? Were they insane? How the hell did they- what did- where did they get that kind of idea from, anyway? What in the name of everything that had ever made sense made anyone think that one scientist in a fancy orange suit rated that kind of title?
( I get a bad reaction 'cause I'm running on ice )
... how did the people calling him these things even know who he was?
( where did my life go wrong? )
"I am not the goddamn Kwisatz Haderach," he muttered, and stormed away in search of the floodgate switch. It was a positive relief when the CP's around the corner started firing on him. At least their actions made sense.
( You've got to run, run, run... )