acts_of_gord | Emerald City Blues

Gordon's unvoiced fears about his suit's weight to the contrary, the Aperture Science Emergency Vehicular Evacuation Vehicle neither punctured nor sank when he got in. The small inflatable may be the single safest and most reliable non-lethal device Aperture has ever produced, which of course probably means it was originally intended for something else.

He's trying not to think about that, though. They're quietly puttering closer to the shore, and very soon they'll have to get out. Unfortunately, right now Gordon is remembering one of the History Channel specials his father was so fond of in those rare times when Bill Freeman was actually at home. It was, he recalls, the life of Douglas MacArthur.

He's not going to say 'I have returned' when he gets out of the boat. He's not.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

acts_of_gord

"Huh?" Gordon glances up, blinking. "You know..."

It is getting darker; the rays of the setting sun are slanting heavily in from the west. There really ought to be at least some concession to the gathering dark by now.

From:

smelltheashes

"Maybe this is a depopulated part of the city," offers Donna. "Or something."

"Wouldn't we have heard Striders by now, though?"

"Maybe. I dunno, I'm just spitballing..."

From:

acts_of_gord

Gordon generally avoids saying things like 'it's quiet- too quiet', but when you are walking through the husks that are all that remain of your native city, and there are no lights, and there's no faint background hum of electrical transformers struggling to keep up with local demand, and no cars are stirring or planes puttering by overhead... then yes. yes, dammit, it is too quiet.

Something is very, very wrong, even by this world's standards.

From:

smelltheashes

They continue onward, deeper into the city.

It's all... surprisingly intact. Oh, there are more than a few collapsed buildings (mostly where trees have fallen over at some point) and the ones that are still standing look like they haven't been used in years, but it's no worse than City 17 had been when Gordon first arrived there. Which makes the quiet all the more unnerving. Even their footsteps seem eerily quiet, there being plenty of vegetation around to muffle the echo of rubber hitting asphalt.

From:

acts_of_gord

Gordon always thought there was something vaguely disturbing about a summer-empty school. A building made for a purpose, interrupted in that purpose, and standing empty... that just never sat quite right with him.

This is a summer-empty school writ large, and the effect is magnified and multiplied with every utterly idle building they pass. The overall effect is like walking through row after row of neatly stacked bundles that just might turn out to be body-bags if one looks too closely.

"This doesn't even feel like a trap," he finally murmurs aloud.

From:

smelltheashes

"Freeze!"

The shout comes from directly behind the three rebels. It's accompanied by the all-too-familiar sound of guns being cocked.

"Hands in the air. All of you. Now."

From:

acts_of_gord

Well... at least it's a human voice?

Gordon raises his hands, slowly- mostly to give him a chance to start to turn around. Or at least to turn his head enough to see who's giving the orders.

From:

smelltheashes

Donna and Chen do the same. When the turn, they see four people, all in heavily patched clothing and all leveling pulse rifles. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" says the lanky, clean-shaven Caucasian man on the far left.

From:

acts_of_gord

You know, getting that question's actually kind of refreshing for Gordon. "We're Resistance," he says. "Looking for supplies, trying to figure out what's going on here. There a problem with that?"

They don't strike him as collaborators, whether he can see any lambdas or not.

From:

smelltheashes

"There aren't any other Resistance outposts within a hundred miles of City 08," says the lanky man. "How did you get here?"

"It's a long story--" begins Donna, but Chen cuts her off.

"Oh, come on, don't you know who he is??" he says, nodding toward Gordon.

The lanky man stares hard at Gordon. "Maybe. Maybe you'd care to tell us." It's not exactly a request. No, scratch that, it's not a request at all.

From:

acts_of_gord

"Teleportation accident," says Gordon firmly. "During an attempt to get some pre-war prototype technology up and running again. My name's Gordon Freeman."

He's aware that he should probably have some kind of follow-up to that sentence, but honestly, there's nothing coming to mind. Just wait, and see what the response is.

From:

smelltheashes

Donna speaks up again. "Please, we need help. We have a ship offshore and there's a man on board dying from headcrab venom..."

"Mmm," the lanky man grunts. "Alright, hands on your heads. You're comin' with us."

From:

acts_of_gord

Gordon glances at the others. They don't really have a choice, do they? Other than doing something extraordinarily stupid. So he nods once, interlaces his fingers on top of his head, and waits to see what happens next.

Edited Date: 2009-09-16 05:33 am (UTC)

From:

smelltheashes

The lanky man lowers his gun and gestures to his compatriots, who each move to cover one of the three newcomers. They move on in a single file, the lanky man in the lead, and with each White Forest rebel surrounded by two disgruntled residents of City 08.

From:

acts_of_gord

Given the current state of City 08, it'd be more of a surprise if they were actually gruntled. Gordon's more happy to see people than anything else, although that fades somewhat after a long enough walk in silence.

"How much further?" he finally inquires.

From:

smelltheashes

"Oh, we're gettin' there."

They're approaching a large building that looks like it was glass-fronted once upon a time, though now there are only a few shards left clinging to the frames here and there. The structure has collapsed in on itself and looks wholly uninhabitable.

So, of course, that's where they're going.

From:

acts_of_gord

"Good to know."

Hm. The old parking garage... well, there's worse places. Could be that Gehry nightmare, the Experience Music Project- that one looked like it'd come out second against the Combine since the day it was built.

From:

smelltheashes

Just inside the building are two guards armed with rifles.

"Halt! Who goes--" The woman on the left stops when she catches sight of Gordon. "Oh," she says, in the tones one might reserve for a door-to-door salesman or evangelist.

"Yeah," says the lanky man. "Takin' em to see MacIntire. After that... we'll see."

From:

acts_of_gord

Gordon glances over towards his companions a moment, to see how they're doing. There's not all that much he can accomplish right now, especially if these are people who blame him for their current situation, as they seem to be.

(He can't entirely fault them on that. Alyx did a few times, after all- and unlike Alyx these people have no reason to change their minds or think otherwise, at least not at the moment.)

From:

smelltheashes

Donna and Chen are standing stiffly, glancing back and forth at each other and their captors in stunned bewilderment. What is going on here?

From:

acts_of_gord

"Just roll with it," Gordon murmurs. "If this is what it takes to get antitoxin and the other supplies, this is what it takes."

From:

smelltheashes

They nod mutely, and proceed onward. And downward. Mostly downward, actually.

Unlike the last underground parking garage Gordon visited, this one has no zombies or antlions. Just armed rebels and jumpsuited civilians crowded into whatever space is available on the crumbling lots. Everybody seems on edge.

From:

acts_of_gord

"Is this everybody from this part of town?" Gordon asks. "What's going on up there, anyway?"

Not that he expects to get told until he's been vetted, but it's worth a try, right?

From:

smelltheashes

"This is everybody in every part of town," says the lanky man. "As far as we know, anyway. The chief'll fill you in. Probably."

Speaking of which, they're approaching the lowest level of the garage, which seems to be the Resistance base proper. It's just as crowded as the areas up above, but the space feels lived-in, with rough walls made of brick and sheet metal and various manufactured and improvised furnishings.

Nobody asks what they're doing. Some of the rebels look like they're about to ask, but stop when they see the man in the orange hazard suit.

From:

acts_of_gord

They evacuated City 17 because the Citadel reactor was going to blow, Gordon thinks; that's not the case here, or these people would be somewhere else by now. Even if it was only running as fast as their feet could take them. So...

... he's drawing a blank.

He's never been all that comfortable with people staring at him, neither before Black Mesa (thesis defense- urrgh) or after. Unfortunately, the HEV suit makes hunching his shoulders and trying to look inobtrusive rather hard, and he can't really turtle into the suit no matter how much he'd like to. The best he can do is keep an eye on the lanky fellow and where they're going, and hope that Donna and Chen are all right.