Chapter Text
All she could hear was ringing. Alyx Vance had just blasted her way through countless Combine reinforcements to infiltrate the Vault. She had no idea how long she'd been fighting; her sense of time felt distorted, now. However long it had taken her to reach these deranged halls... did not matter. She would find and rescue Doctor Gordon Freeman. This had become of her mission.
The ringing gradually subsided, only to be replaced with rhythmic surges of harvested energy- Vortessence? Alyx turned over her gloved hands, the Russells. Sockets riddled the Vault's interior, and she would soon find she could supercharge the Gravity Gloves at any of them, effectively arming her to deliver a fatal blow to anyone- or anything. Now, however, she saw something else: the quiet room she stood in.
It was of an apartment that had been seemingly torn up from the Earth, whole. She'd lost contact with Russell and her father, Doctor Eli Vance, upon boarding. They would be her eyes and ears, and she felt small without them. The last she'd heard...
...sounded bad.
Well? No turning back now...
Find Gordon. Escape. Find Dad.
Alyx assessed the room again, focused now, and knew the way forward was here. She did not need the others to report that. Something about this place gave her a gut feeling- or a pit in her stomach. Moving slowly, as if too sudden a movement would trigger something terrible, she crept the broken building.
* * * * * *
The laws of physics were forsaken here. Alyx carefully made her way through fractured space, observing impossible features. She felt weary; weary of fighting, weary of her constant state of preparedness for anything to jump out from behind every corner, and weary of the temperamental gravitational forces that seemed to behave of their own accord. Furniture and debris floated weightlessly through the air while she scaled the walls into upside-down-mirrored rooms.
The sight of another, captured in place, stole a beat from her heart. Russells ready, she slowly moved around the unlucky resident, unable to look away. Whatever fate their consciousness now faced, she did not dwell on, for too long. At last, the halls gave way to pristine corridor of the Vault. She moved into it gladly, praying this was the last of horrible apartment she would ever see, again.
She crept on. Familiar, squawking soldiers stood between her and a door in her path. Without hesitation, she hurled grenades into their center until all were dead but two, of which she blasted both to an instant death with each glove. She could not help but crack a smile at her own work, wishing Russell or her father could have seen, before turning to her next problem. Readying her Multi-Tool- designed by yours truly- to hack the lock, Alyx thought this door looked colder, somehow, than its surroundings. She reached out to touch with her free hand, but it abruptly slid open- unlocked.
* * * * * *
There it was. Alyx knew this was the place the Combine built this entire cursed floating ship for. This was the place all of those dead soldiers died protecting. This was where they were keeping him. The door had opened to a massive chamber, empty save skeletal stilts cradling a large, bacteriophage-shaped cell in its center. Robbed energies were all channeled here.
Why..., she wondered absently, observing a narrow bridge stretched before her. It was the way to the cell, yet, she found herself biding her time. She grew increasingly aware of an unwillingness to proceed- but she was the Resistance. Step by step, she drew closer. The cell was larger than initial perspective afforded. It hummed, radiated, pulled... The silhouette of a man- Gordon! Alyx squinted, searching through thick, glass-like panels. Something wasn't right. Was he even moving? Was he stuck, like the other? Regardless, she would free him.
"Alright, Gordon... Let's get you outta here...," she analyzed foreign levers, thinking to compromise the cell's integrity using her supercharged gloves, feeling rather vulnerable-
The cell exploded. Metal warped, panels shattered, and blinding green light burned her eyes, but she could not look away from imminent death. She had prepared herself to die. Or else, the weight of the world would've crushed her long ago. Alyx contended with her final feelings of terror. At least she would die freeing the greatest hope for the Resistance. Her death would mean more than her life if it brought humanity closer to liberation. She thought of her father.
All in half a moment, everything slowed. Alyx had been holding her breath and let out a gasp. Shards of shrapnel hung suspended in the air, just before her body. Then, every scrap fell.
She looked up. Inside the cell was a room of horrible apartment that had been singled out and contained, here. Someone stood at the far window, untaken with current events, with hands clasped casually behind himself. She wondered for a moment whether he could move until he turned. She watched, forgetting to wonder how the explosion had been neutralized; how time had stopped. He looked pleased. He turned, possessing a black briefcase, when a doorway materialized from nothing. Before she could think, it expanded around them, swallowing them up into alien light.
* * * * * *
She was in darkness. Alyx blinked at soft, white particles traveling past. Were they close or far away? They were the only things confirming her eyes were, indeed, open and seeing. She waved the Russells to illuminate the area, but there was nothing to reflect their light. She jumped violently when a voice from nowhere invaded the emptiness.
"...Impressive work, Ms. Vance...," the voice spoke, slowly, unnaturally, and too close for comfort. Alyx looked but saw no one, her heart still swallowing adrenaline.
"Gordon... Freeman...?"
"'Gordon... Freeman...?'" the voice chuckled back. The voice's imitation of her uncertainty made her feel very, very small. Out of the darkness, two glowing eyes illuminated a face as it approached her from the void. The pit in her stomach she had actively ignored since boarding the Vault collapsed into a black hole of dread. The one in the cell stood before her now, visible in a slightly overlarge navy suit and dusk tie. Despite his professional stature- and human appearance- she was paralyzed. He smiled back through lifeless, lambent eyes. "Ms. Vance... You wouldn't need all that to imprison... Gordon Freeman," he mused.
"So... who are you?" Alyx disguised her fear, but watched in horror as a copy of himself stepped from his place to circle her. Both grinned sickeningly at her question.
"Perhaps, what I am is not as important as... what I can offer you in exchange for coming all this way...," everything he said made her feel worse. She tried keeping eyes on his copy, but lost track of which was what in the dark.
Then, they were someplace else- someplace she should not have been able to be. Comets and dust billowed around them. He went on. "Some believe the fate of our worlds is... inflexible," what little color he had drained from his person as enthusiasm crept onto his face. "...My Employers disagree." More copies paced around them, disappearing into- for lack of Alyx's better knowledge- the dust. "They authorize me to... nudge things, hm?" he posed excitedly, "in a particular direction... from time to time..."
Darkness. Alyx realized she was hyperventilating and attempted to calm herself while processing what was happening, but was thwarted when he spoke again, suddenly by her side. "What would you want nudged, Ms. Vance...?"
She wished he would stop saying her name. She turned to see his fingers pressed together with anticipation, eyes piercing. The hair on her nape stood. She could not take another moment of his eager gaze.
"The Combine off Earth. I want the Combine off Earth," she answered, true in heart and mind. His expression fell. He paused, as though listening for a distant sound, and haunting distortion passed through him.
"Ah...," he began tentatively. "That... would be a considerably large nudge. Too large, given the interests of my Employers..."
What kind of interests did his employers have in mind? Anger made her forget her fear.
"Well, you asked," she snapped. Regret filled her instantly, unknowing of who- or what- she was dealing with. He stopped.
"What if... I could offer you something you don't know you want...?" Watching closely, he offered his briefcase and released his grip.
It drifted lazily across the void. The only thing to do was to see. Alyx took the case.
* * * * * *
The sight before her stunned her resolve. The man in the suit and his briefcase were gone, replaced by a vision of Alyx herself, clutching her father's body in her arms. Alyx watched helplessly as vision-Alyx wept, covered in her father's blood.
"...Dad?" she stammered in disbelief. "Dad? What... I-Is that me? What is this? What's happening?"
"We are in the future," he said in one ear. While she saw her nightmare, he circled in the void. "...This is the moment where you watch your father die...," he said in the other as he paced. He watched her heart break, observing her take in the moment he had given to her, all the while taking in the moment he had given to himself. "...Unless...," he could not help himself.
"What? Unless WHAT?"
Willful... as always. Where predecessors erred... As for Ms. Vance, his Employers could, as some say, have their cake and eat it, too.
"Unless... you were to take matters into your own hands," he brought her to the moment before Eli's death and watched through her eyes. Her father hung in the grip of a Combine Advisor. Poor thing was trembling badly... "Release your father, Ms. Vance...," he encouraged, as though offering words of comfort. He felt her shift from dread to contemplation to commitment. There was nothing quite like the human being; certainly, nothing like this human being.
Alyx raised shaking hands up to the alien. The Russells grew bright with energy as she prepared to release a fatal blow to her father's would-be murderer. Only, the pit in her stomach she had so mistakenly ignored lurched now to argue something was deeply, terribly wrong... but Dad.
* * * * * *
The vision faded; all but Eli and the Advisor's body. Alyx, drained, saw the other return to commend her with disgusting satisfaction,
"Good." She did not feel commended. She felt used, like a tool- like a weapon. "As a consequence of your action, this entity will continue," he nodded toward Eli, who appeared to have survived the attack. He faded from sight. "...And this entity... will not...," he looked down at the lifeless creature with contempt before it, too, faded away.
"Right... so... he's okay, right? He lives. My Dad lives," she pled to the wrong person- the only person- whatever he was. He ripped his gaze from the ordeal to focus on Alyx once more, reveling in her participation.
"...You are aware that you've proven yourself to be of extraordinary value...," he indulged, his voice dripping with excitement. He drew closer, possessing a crowbar from the darkness they stood in. "A previous hire has been... unable- or unwilling- to perform the tasks laid before him."
He passed the crowbar to another, who emerged from the dark.
* * * * * *
There was someone else here. Someone human, not another copy of... him.
Gordon?
"We have... struggled... to find a suitable replacement... until now."
Alyx registered the words and hyperventilated once more. She looked desperately to Gordon, but he did not look up, already fading from view.
"No!" she cried, but the man in the suit turned to walk away. "I- I- I just want to go home," she panicked. "Send me home!"
He stopped for a moment and turned his head slightly; just as when she'd first laid eyes on him.
"I'm afraid... you misunderstand the situation, Ms. Vance..."
"Wait! Please, wait, wait, wait!-"