Interloper
May. 12th, 2008 01:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acts_of_gordThe displacement energies from the teleporter in the spider-thing's lair flooded Gordon's vision with green.
"Done...what have you done..."
He found himself plummeting to the surface of another asteroid, its skies thronging with manta-like beasts and the same skinny-limbed, huge-headed flying things that had manifested in the teleport room at the very end. In places, pillars thrust themselves violently skywards; in others the ground irised open and shut, revealing gaping tunnels of darkness. A ridge up ahead gave the only sign of shelter he could make out. The instant his feet touched the ground he was off for the ridge like a shot, green lightning and seething balls of energy crackling at his heels. In the shadows, a pool shimmered with faint lavender-blue light: not water, but some kind of slippery substance that induced rapid healing in anything that waded out into it. He'd encountered a couple of them already. They'd saved his life during the spider fight. This one was big, and occupied by one of the red-eyed slaves, but even its healing powers weren't enough to repair two Magnum shots to the creature's head. He watched it fall, then scooped up a handful of the stuff and let it run through his fingers. The suit's self-repair mechanisms hadn't kicked in yet. There were still plenty of holes for the healing liquid to seep through, and he didn't dare go any further until it took effect. There'd been dead Lambda men and women scattered around the spider's lair.
"Their slaves...we are their slaves...we are..."
Gordon clung to the pillar with all his might as it lifted him skyward from the depths of the cave. The skies were thick with levitating horrors and silently rotating islands of stone; blue manta-beasts materialized in places, soared across the asteroid's surface on slow, leisurely courses, and vanished into who knew where. The only thing not moving in relation to the asteroid was a distant stone island, where a flame of blue-white energy gleamed. It had the same look as the device that had teleported him off the first asteroid and into the spider's lair. There was no doubt in Gordon's mind that it was his only way out. He just had to survive the trip.
He readied his crossbow and trained the sniper scope on the nearest of the levitating horrors.
"You are man...he is not man...for you he waits...for you..."
Gordon shook his head rapidly to clear it as he squinted through the shadows. The walls were almost organic in design here, more like something out of Giger than anything he'd been led to expect so far. Columns rose and fell in places, and vast barrels crossed the open space overhead on what he could only assume were conveyor belts. Where he was in relation to the main asteroid he didn't know; he'd been teleported straight into the place-
A low clucking noise caught his attention. Gordon whirled to face the source: one of the red-eyed slave aliens, not more than a foot away. It stared at him, its five eyes wide and unblinking, and silently raised its hands. Gordon had seen that gesture before- not here in Xen, or even at Black Mesa, but on a cashier in Espanola.
He couldn't bring himself to pull the shotgun trigger.
The creature's central eye blinked, a quick gesture of what would constitute terror in a human; Gordon shivered. "Listen," he said tensely. "I'm not here for you. I don't care about you. I've got a target, and you're not it. If you don't give me trouble, I won't give you trouble, all right? I've done enough killing today."
Whether it understood him or not Gordon didn't know, but it certainly didn't move to attack. Gordon nodded, and gave a brief, grateful salute before turning to make a run across the factory floor.
"The truth...you can never know...the truth..."
The levitating horrors made a noise like a red-tailed hawk when they died. It was starting to get unnerving. Every time he won a few more inches of ground- every time he pulled himself one level further up, or around one more corner- there they were, new ones, popping in out of nowhere and hurling their energy spheres at him, screaming. The slave creatures had started attacking on sight after Gordon spotted the first horror inside the building, a fact he almost regretted.
Almost. He didn't have the energy to spare for regrets just now. Above him, suspended in the center of a spinning, levitating ring, there crackled a vast green portal orb...
"The last...I am the last..."
... which dropped him onto a rock platform in a void of black skies and dead winds that blew from nowhere to nowhere. Nothing else moved here. Stone islands floated in that void, a disjointed, shattered path that led to only one place: a minor asteroid crowned in spikes, lit by the glow of a portal as red as the slave aliens' eyes.
It occurred to him, not for the first time, that nothing was trying to kill him here; he could stay where he was...
"Alone... not you alone... not you alone..."
There. There, he heard it that time, it wasn't just his imagination, it was real. Something was trying to reach him, trying to push his thoughts around. Something...
Something immense. Something powerful. Something angry and terrified and desperate all at once, pressing on his mind with the inexorable insistence of a broken-legged racehorse toppling to the ground. It wanted him to stop, to give up, to leave it in its last sanctuary. To put down his weapons, sit down on the rock, and-
"Die...you all die...you all die..."
He'd wondered about some of the corpses that he'd found. They hadn't looked fatally injured, or been in areas where a Houndeye attack could have harmed them inside their armor. They'd simply died on the spot, for no reason at all... save, perhaps, the voice in their heads, and the order from afar.
Willing himself to ignore it, Gordon fixed his gaze on the red-lit altar and started leaping from rock to rock. As his last leap brought him to the spike-crowned asteroid, he thought he could hear other voices through the thundering telepathic haze: voices from Black Mesa, the voices of the scientists he'd spoken to since everything began. Chattering, pleading, cajoling, cowering- oh, yes, he could hear them all, clearer than memory. Right down to Eli Vance's desperate plea for help, not for himself, but for his colleague...
"I'm coming," he said through gritted teeth. "Do you hear me, wherever you are? I'm coming, And this is going to end."
There was silence in his head for an instant. He leapt for the red portal.
And something vaster than his senses could comprehend bellowed his name in a voice dreadful enough to shake the heavens asunder.
"Done...what have you done..."
He found himself plummeting to the surface of another asteroid, its skies thronging with manta-like beasts and the same skinny-limbed, huge-headed flying things that had manifested in the teleport room at the very end. In places, pillars thrust themselves violently skywards; in others the ground irised open and shut, revealing gaping tunnels of darkness. A ridge up ahead gave the only sign of shelter he could make out. The instant his feet touched the ground he was off for the ridge like a shot, green lightning and seething balls of energy crackling at his heels. In the shadows, a pool shimmered with faint lavender-blue light: not water, but some kind of slippery substance that induced rapid healing in anything that waded out into it. He'd encountered a couple of them already. They'd saved his life during the spider fight. This one was big, and occupied by one of the red-eyed slaves, but even its healing powers weren't enough to repair two Magnum shots to the creature's head. He watched it fall, then scooped up a handful of the stuff and let it run through his fingers. The suit's self-repair mechanisms hadn't kicked in yet. There were still plenty of holes for the healing liquid to seep through, and he didn't dare go any further until it took effect. There'd been dead Lambda men and women scattered around the spider's lair.
"Their slaves...we are their slaves...we are..."
Gordon clung to the pillar with all his might as it lifted him skyward from the depths of the cave. The skies were thick with levitating horrors and silently rotating islands of stone; blue manta-beasts materialized in places, soared across the asteroid's surface on slow, leisurely courses, and vanished into who knew where. The only thing not moving in relation to the asteroid was a distant stone island, where a flame of blue-white energy gleamed. It had the same look as the device that had teleported him off the first asteroid and into the spider's lair. There was no doubt in Gordon's mind that it was his only way out. He just had to survive the trip.
He readied his crossbow and trained the sniper scope on the nearest of the levitating horrors.
"You are man...he is not man...for you he waits...for you..."
Gordon shook his head rapidly to clear it as he squinted through the shadows. The walls were almost organic in design here, more like something out of Giger than anything he'd been led to expect so far. Columns rose and fell in places, and vast barrels crossed the open space overhead on what he could only assume were conveyor belts. Where he was in relation to the main asteroid he didn't know; he'd been teleported straight into the place-
A low clucking noise caught his attention. Gordon whirled to face the source: one of the red-eyed slave aliens, not more than a foot away. It stared at him, its five eyes wide and unblinking, and silently raised its hands. Gordon had seen that gesture before- not here in Xen, or even at Black Mesa, but on a cashier in Espanola.
He couldn't bring himself to pull the shotgun trigger.
The creature's central eye blinked, a quick gesture of what would constitute terror in a human; Gordon shivered. "Listen," he said tensely. "I'm not here for you. I don't care about you. I've got a target, and you're not it. If you don't give me trouble, I won't give you trouble, all right? I've done enough killing today."
Whether it understood him or not Gordon didn't know, but it certainly didn't move to attack. Gordon nodded, and gave a brief, grateful salute before turning to make a run across the factory floor.
"The truth...you can never know...the truth..."
The levitating horrors made a noise like a red-tailed hawk when they died. It was starting to get unnerving. Every time he won a few more inches of ground- every time he pulled himself one level further up, or around one more corner- there they were, new ones, popping in out of nowhere and hurling their energy spheres at him, screaming. The slave creatures had started attacking on sight after Gordon spotted the first horror inside the building, a fact he almost regretted.
Almost. He didn't have the energy to spare for regrets just now. Above him, suspended in the center of a spinning, levitating ring, there crackled a vast green portal orb...
"The last...I am the last..."
... which dropped him onto a rock platform in a void of black skies and dead winds that blew from nowhere to nowhere. Nothing else moved here. Stone islands floated in that void, a disjointed, shattered path that led to only one place: a minor asteroid crowned in spikes, lit by the glow of a portal as red as the slave aliens' eyes.
It occurred to him, not for the first time, that nothing was trying to kill him here; he could stay where he was...
"Alone... not you alone... not you alone..."
There. There, he heard it that time, it wasn't just his imagination, it was real. Something was trying to reach him, trying to push his thoughts around. Something...
Something immense. Something powerful. Something angry and terrified and desperate all at once, pressing on his mind with the inexorable insistence of a broken-legged racehorse toppling to the ground. It wanted him to stop, to give up, to leave it in its last sanctuary. To put down his weapons, sit down on the rock, and-
"Die...you all die...you all die..."
He'd wondered about some of the corpses that he'd found. They hadn't looked fatally injured, or been in areas where a Houndeye attack could have harmed them inside their armor. They'd simply died on the spot, for no reason at all... save, perhaps, the voice in their heads, and the order from afar.
Willing himself to ignore it, Gordon fixed his gaze on the red-lit altar and started leaping from rock to rock. As his last leap brought him to the spike-crowned asteroid, he thought he could hear other voices through the thundering telepathic haze: voices from Black Mesa, the voices of the scientists he'd spoken to since everything began. Chattering, pleading, cajoling, cowering- oh, yes, he could hear them all, clearer than memory. Right down to Eli Vance's desperate plea for help, not for himself, but for his colleague...
"I'm coming," he said through gritted teeth. "Do you hear me, wherever you are? I'm coming, And this is going to end."
There was silence in his head for an instant. He leapt for the red portal.
And something vaster than his senses could comprehend bellowed his name in a voice dreadful enough to shake the heavens asunder.
