Gordon Freeman

The group of Milliways patrons earmarked for the pincer movement is ushered into City 17 without much ceremony. The streets here are cobbled, the buildings grey with age; the handful of cars in the street are old, old things, worn down with time and lack of care. They have the look of machines that were abandoned where their owners fell. This was a residential part of town, once. That was before the Combine- before the black thing on the horizon existed. In the distance it rises, visible down the eastward-facing streets: a tower of such immense size that its top pierces the low-lying clouds.

"Hey," calls a human voice- a Hispanic-looking woman, young of face but old of eye and attitude. She's dressed in dark blue and black, partially bulked up by the body armor of a fallen Civil Protection metrocop, and she carries a submachine gun. "Didn't see you guys show up. Are you part of the diversionary force?"