[Fic] Interference; or A Shaman's Guide to Quantum Mechanics (1 + 2/12?) PG-13
Title: Interference; or A Shaman's Guide to Quantum Mechanics
Pairing: Howard/Vince pre-slash, Jack/Adair (AU doppelgangers) established relationship
Fandom: Boosh/Half-Life 2
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Adventure/Romance
Summary: In London, Howard and Vince are trying to learn how to be friends again, but something else lies in store for them. A world away (literally), Jack and Adair are just trying to stay alive.
Word Count: 6000
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, ALIENS, ridiculous pseudo-science.
Disclaimer: Boosh belongs to Julian and Noel and Baby Cow, Half-Life 2 belongs to Valve.
Author’s Notes:
First of all, I would like to say emphatically that you do not need to be familiar with Half-Life to read this story. I’ve intentionally linked all world-specific lingo to relevant Wiki articles so that the story isn’t weighed down with exposition, too. It's up to you if you want to click on them to find out more info or if you would like to just learn about it as things progress.
Have you ever wanted to read a story in which Howard- and Vince-inspired characters are Resistance members inhabiting an alien-infested, dystopian parallel London ruled over by an intergalactic empire? And then have you ever wondered what shenanigans would ensue if our Howard and Vince were to meet them via some extremely shady interdimensional portal action? For the two or three people (overstatement) who have, this tale is for you.
Timeline Notes: All Boosh stuff takes place just after “The Chokes”. HL2 stuff is roughly concurrent with the events of Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
Edit: A quick and dirty intro to Half-Life for newcomers
HL is a first-person shooter video games series ... well, basically the plot is that, following an experiment-gone-wrong at a research facility in New Mexico (Black Mesa), the world was plagued by portal storms which dumped aliens from a dimension called Xen onto Earth. After that, a pan-dimensional empire, called "The Combine", used the storms to invade the planet. Humanity surrendered to the Combine after a "Seven Hour War", and the surrender was negotiated by the former administrator of Black Mesa, Wallace Breen, who was set up as a puppet leader of Earth afterwards.
The protagonist of HL (who will probably not appear in this series, except in conversation) is Gordon Freeman, a physicist from Black Mesa. At the end of the first HL game, during which he fought against the aliens and Marines who had been sent to clean up the mess, he met a very strange individual known as "the G-Man" (who we MIGHT see), who "offered" him a job, put him into some kind of stasis, and then, at the beginning of HL2, took him out about two decades later and put him on a train to City 17, telling him "the right man in the wrong place could make all the difference in the world". Gordon meets up with the Resistance and goes on to help lead an uprising against the Combine.
You can also just watch this:
Interference;
or A Shaman's Guide to Quantum Mechanics
by thickets
People generally live out their conscious lives on one branch of the lave of the universe, unaware of the other branches. But once we accept a radically conservative interpretation of quantum mechanics, we are haunted by the awareness that infinitely many slightly variant copies of ourselves are living out their parallel lives and that at every moment more duplicates spring into existence and take up our many alternate futures.
Frank Wilczek and Betsy Devine, Longing for the Harmonies
Gull:
Do you begin to grasp how truly great a work is London? A veritable textbook we may draw upon in formulating great works of our own! We’ll penetrate its metaphors, lay bare its structure and thus come at last upon its meaning. As befits great work, we’ll read it CAREFULLY, and with RESPECT.
Netley:
Uh, with respect, sir … I can’t read.
Alan Moore, From Hell
Chapter One: London
One week had passed since Howard had returned to the Nabootique.
Vince had thought many times over the past year that their friendship - if you could still call it that - couldn’t get much worse than it already had. The fighting, the dirty tricks, the resentment, and worst of all, the apologies that somehow wound up creating even worse offenses - but none of it, he realized was as bad as what they were now experiencing. The atmosphere in the shop was downright chilly. They just couldn’t talk anymore. Worst of all, it wasn’t out of anger, or at least, for Vince it wasn’t. It was as if they simply had forgotten how to speak to each other. Perhaps they had forgotten a long time ago. But now Vince couldn’t even fake it, and he was an expert at faking nearly everything.
The thing was, he really wanted to make things better. He’d convinced himself for months that he really didn’t care, but that brief span of time that Howard had been gone had been such a surreal experience. He’d felt as though he’d lost a limb. (Then again, maybe that had just been because it had taken ages for him to get the circulation back in his legs after the drainpipes incident.) Howard’s absence was bizarrely loud. Loud enough that he’d turn his music up to try to drown it out, hoping all the while that Howard would poke his head into his bedroom door to tell him to turn that electro-racket down, please, some of us had important works of literature to read. Instead he just got Naboo threatening to send him to the place lost socks went. He had nightmares for days after that he was being chased by a giraffe formed out of mismatched argyles.
When Howard had returned he’d made up his mind that enough was enough - he’d make amends, things could go back to the way they used to be, and Vince wouldn’t have to put up with another deafening lack of Howard, or stupid Howard-replacements who couldn’t crimp to save their lives. But when it came down to it, Vince found he didn’t even know where to begin, and Howard, surprisingly, did not seem receptive to any kind of apology. Instead they were locked in this strange standoff, and Vince didn’t know how to break it.
On this particular day they had spent their time, for the most part, pretending they were each the only person in the shop; except for first thing in the afternoon, when Vince had emerged from the flat into the shop, dressed in the unlikely combination of black fitted fatigues, a feather boa, Doc Martens, and a black and silver bolero jacket.
(“You look like a deranged bullfighter who has gone off to fight for Francisco Franco,” Howard had said, momentarily jostled into acknowledging Vince’s presence.
“Who’s he, then? Anyway, it’s the Glampocalypse look, it’s well fashionable right now.”)
Just after closing, Vince plucked up his courage and stood in the way of the stairs before Howard could disappear up them. Howard stopped and blinked. “What?”
Vince pressed his lips together tightly, trying to think of what to say.
“Vince, I’m very tired tonight. Would you kindly remove yourself from the doorway now?”
“Let’s - let’s go for a walk.”
“A walk?” Howard made a face like he had the time Vince had suggested they eat a dinner composed entirely of Wispa Golds.
“Oh … come on, Howard, please. Stop being so difficult!” Hearing the whine in his own voice and hating it, he sighed. “I just … want to talk to you, all right?” He looked down and noticed for the first time that he was twisting his boa in his hands so forcefully that he was in danger of garroting himself with it. He let his hands hang at his sides.
Howard was silent for a minute and then he huffed and said, “All right, let me get my coat.”
λ
They walked in silence for some time down the Kingsland High Street, Vince expecting all the time that Howard would start to nag him because he’d said he wanted to talk, only now he couldn’t seem to say anything; or ask him where the hell they were walking too, a question Vince couldn’t have answered because he certainly didn’t know. But Howard didn’t say anything. He just strode along, his hands in his pockets, his long legs setting a rapid pace, so that Vince had to double-time it, making him feel like a yappy little dog nipping at his master’s feet.
They were out of Dalston and well into Shoreditch when Vince felt the fog lift him and he finally stopped Howard with a hand on his arm. “All right, Howard,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
Howard shrugged away. “Don’t touch me,” he muttered, almost to himself.
“I … I’m sorry, all right?”
Howard quirked his eyebrow at him. “Pardon?”
Vince grasped the sides of his jacket and pulled it closer around himself; it had gotten chilly since they’d left the shop. “I’m sorry. About … Jurgen Haabemaaster … and the … Black Tubes … and giving up on the band … and eating your jazz record … and everything.”
Howard was still for a moment, a strange expression on his face. Then he laughed.
Vince stared at him, his face shifting through cycles of confusion and irritation. “What are you laughing at, you bumbaclot?”
“Sorry,” Howard said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I apologize, Vince, I really do. It’s just all this time I thought you were angry at me.”
“I was angry at you?” Vince repeated, pressing his palm against his chest in disbelief. “But … you were the one spending all your time brooding and sulking, zappin’ me with your negative vibes! Ooh, don’t touch me! Oooh, I think I’ll spend all day planning the urban revitalization of Stationery Village!”
“You were the one who kept pretending to be busy reading Cheekbone every time I tried to talk to you! Or sewing sequins onto eight different-colored eyepatches! I mean, who needs that many eyepatches? Captain Hook?”
“Why would I be angry with you, anyway?”
“Because I left!”
Vince stared at him in amazement for a minute, and then, suddenly possessed with a powerful sense of frustration - hell, Howard was so thick! - reached out with both hands, grasped each side of Howard’s stupid pork-pie hat, and pulled down as hard as he could. “You’re such a freak, Howard Moon! A great big jazzy freak!” And then he gave him a thump on the head for good measure.
“Ahhha!” Howard shouted, waving him away, “don’t ever touch me!” But when he stood up, Vince could see that he was smiling, really smiling, even in his eyes, and he felt a huge relief wash through him.
They looked at each other for a moment, both enjoying the sudden lack of tension, and then Howard said, “Let’s go get a drink.”
λ
“Oh, not here, Howard,” Vince whined as they stood outside the White Hart. “You wouldn’t go to any of the fashionable places in Shoreditch but you want to go here? This place is a tourist trap. It’s probably full of Americans and Japanese eatin’ ploughman’s lunches.”
“Come on, in you get,” Howard said, herding him inside, and Vince went, mostly because he was rather pleased that Howard was still in a good humor despite Vince’s complaints.
It wasn’t all as bad as Vince had thought it might be, though it was pretty unremarkable and old-fashioned; actually, it was a bit like Howard himself. And Howard looked relaxed, at least, and so Vince supposed it was worth it. They spent some time comfortably bickering over what each other should drink, and then did a quick crimp about the outlandishly bizarre bendy straw Vince had begged the barmaid to put in his drink, and Vince had filled Howard in on the ways in which Adam had totally failed at being Howard. The way Howard had puffed himself up and preened at this validation of his utter superiority at being himself filled Vince with a warm, fond feeling. After all, it was true. There was no one quite as good as being as generic and Howardy as Howard. And what would he do without Howard?
They were just about to leave the pub and head home when Vince started to feel a bit strange. He couldn’t quite explain it - one minute he was smiling, happier than he’d been in a long time, really, and then he started to feel something tingle at the back of his neck, and then slide down his spine like a cold finger. He stopped in his tracks, a perplexed expression on his face, thinking, “Oh. Is this what I think it is?” and then he turned to Howard, who, surprisingly, had an identical expression on his face.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” they both said at the same time, and blinked in surprise.
And then the world went crazy.
Later, Vince was at a loss to really describe it, at least in a logical order. Howard, also, though he always claimed the event was “etched in his mind henceforth” was incapable of really explaining how it happened. They were aware of a flashing of light, and a droning sound that seemed to fill their whole heads. They grabbed on to each other - for once, Howard not warning him not to touch him. The thing that later stayed with Vince the most was that all around them, people moved around them as if nothing were the matter. They were the only ones who seemed to be aware of what was happening.
At some point he passed out, or at least everything went black and sort of murky. When he became aware of himself again, he was hunched over on his knees on the ground. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious for (minutes? hours?), his face pressed uncomfortably to the floor, but his hair definitely felt extremely unattractive.
And he was alone.
“Howard?” he whispered, and then he began to take in his surroundings.
He was on the dirty floor of a darkened room. Dreary light crept in through broken-paned windows, but not enough to really illuminate much around him. He stood up shakily, and called a little louder, “Howard?” Nothing. “Oi, squinty eyes! Stop knockin’ about, where are you?”
When there was still nothing but silence, he finally managed to force himself to move, and crept over to the window. Outside he could see badly decomposed buildings, piles of rock and twisted wire … yet something about it looked strangely familiar to him. As if he’d seen it … very recently …
At that moment, he heard something in the distance that sounded an awful lot like an explosion, causing him to flinch. Then the air was filled with a strange sort of siren, wailing repeatedly. Presently he realized he was also hearing the sound of a helicopter hovering somewhere in the sky, out of his line of sight. Then a woman’s voice, carefully modulated and rigidly robotic, erupted out of nowhere.
“Attention, community. Your citizenships have been revoked. Failure to comply with Civil Protection will result in permanent off-world relocation.”
“Oh … shit.” His hands half-raised as though to ward off an invisible attack, Vince began to slowly back away from the window. “Shit, shit, shit, shit. Howard, where the hell are you? Where the hell am I? Ahhh!” He backed right into some sort of counter that the dim light hadn’t allowed him to see earlier. He followed the line of it in the dark until he reached the end of it, and then slipped around the corner and crawled behind it. He sat there, holding his knees, for some time, his eyes tightly closed, all the while hoping that when he opened them again, he’d be somewhere familiar.
He lost track of time, hiding there, doing something almost like praying, he supposed, but soon there was the sound of footsteps in the street outside. At first he thought “Howard!” but he then realized there were two sets. He stayed where he was. They approached the door and there was a hushed murmur of conversation, and then the door was kicked in.
A woman said, “I think we’re safe here.”
Another voice, also female, spoke: “Yeah, it looks like we lost them.”
Vince peeked over the side of the counter as carefully as he could. One of the women was digging in her pack; she pulled out a radio transmitter. Meanwhile, the disembodied voice continued her announcements, much of which seemed completely incomprehensible to him:
“Attention all Ground Protection teams. Autonomous judgment is now in effect. Sentencing is now discretionary. Code: Amputate. Zero. Confirm.”
The woman was speaking into her transmitter. “… them off, but we’ve got some minor injuries. We’re half a mile from the river in Ward 4. Building called the ‘White Hart’.”
“Yeah, I know where it is,” said the voice on the other end, so scratchy it was barely audible; but there was something weirdly familiar about it. “I was there a few days ago. Hold up there and I’ll send some people to help you, so sit tight.”
However, both Vince and the two women were only marginally aware of this response, because just as the words “White Hart” was spoken, Vince jerked in surprise, hitting his head with a loud thump on the side of the counter, and letting out a sharp cry of alarm. Of course the street had looked familiar … because it had been Bishopsgate, hadn’t it been?
“Who’s there?” one of the women called, and cocked her gun loudly, a sound Vince was pretty sure he’d only ever heard in police dramas.
“It came from over there.” Oh, Christy … here we go.
He stood up. “Er, hello,” he said, with a little wave. “Please don’t shoot me. I don’t think blood would really complement this outfit.”
Chapter Two: City 14
It had been a week and there was still no word from them.
Everyone at the base was talking about it, and yet no one would admit it. They'd whisper about it in furtive groups, only to stop, guiltily, if someone else wandered by. It was as though they thought that, were their fears given substantial form, they would come true.
Adair just ignored it. On the odd occasion someone brought it up to him, he just wandered away. It didn't happen too often, as after the second day had passed since they were supposed to return, he'd spent most of his time in the garage, working on one project or another, the radio delivering up a near constant explosion of static, waiting for some kind of message. If he let his mind wander enough, he could pretend that buried in the static was music, and that life was almost normal. He didn't let himself imagine Jack's voice erupting through the filter of fizzes and beeps. He didn't want to mistake the real thing for fantasy, if it happened.
In the end, there was no message; after eight days of waiting, they simply turned up, hammering at the main entrance of the base. Four of them were missing. Donna and Jamie were carrying Ricky, who had said goodbye to consciousness some time ago, from the look of things, and Jack pulled up the rear. Jack, who had a long, weeping slash across the side of his face, bisecting his eyebrow, the headcrab having just missed his eye. He came over to stand next to Adair as the others concentrated on taking care of Ricky, snatches of conversation - "the wound’s septic" and "the leg will have to go" - drifting over. Finally, Jack started unsnapping the holsters from around his torso, and Adair smiled vaguely at him and said, "All right, Jack," before wandering off to pinch a needle and thread and some alcohol.
λ
Part of the nasty, home-distilled liquor went into a basin, along with the needle, for sterilization; part of it went on the wound; and the rest went to Jack, who took a quick sip of it and gagged, but only a little. Adair set to work stitching up the gash, while Jack filled him in on the week they'd been missing.
It had started off pretty simple -- escort a group of refugees, people from City 14 and the surrounding area who'd been handed a relocation ticket to Nova Prospekt, to the next stop on the Railroad, which in their case was pretty tricky, as it involved entering the long-in-disuse Channel Tunnel. It was cluttered with old train cars, piles of garbage, and your everyday violent pests -- barnacles, headcrabs, zombies. There was also the occasional cave-in, and in fact, the Eastbound Tunnel had been essentially impassable for the last five years. The only good thing about it was that Civil Protection stayed out, trusting the Tunnel's normal inhabitants to provide a significant deterrent. Nonetheless, there were two stations set up along the stretch of the Tunnel. They'd gotten pretty good at making their way across it.
However, things hadn't gone according to plan this time. The first warning flags had sprung up as they entered the service tunnel, because it was pretty damned obvious someone had been down there ahead of them. The place was littered with zombie corpses and gutted-out barnacles. Still, there was the possibility that a group from another station had had to make an impromptu run through the Tunnel, so they'd kept going.
When they reached the first station though, they knew immediately what had happened. It was a burnt, abandoned husk. At first they'd thought that there might be Combine still hiding in the ruins, scoping them out ... and then they'd tripped the first wire, and they realized it was a trap, because scattered amidst the ruins of the burnt out base were several headcrab shells, which immediately burst open.
Adair didn't really need to know much more to imagine what had happened. After they'd dealt with the headcrabs, having lost most of the refugees and their own crew, they'd tried to escape from the tunnel, only to find the Combine had been aware of their entrance and were staked out, waiting for them. They'd spent several days holed up, trying to think of way to get out, when, without warning or discernible reason, the Combine suddenly picked up and left.
"You're gonna have a wicked scar here," Adair said, after he'd finished sewing up Jack's wound. "You'll look well evil."
Jack handed him the bottle of alcohol, which Adair turned away. He slid a hand under Jack's arm and pulled him up; the other man was a bit shaky on his feet. "Wanna go see my new toy? I got a lot of work done on it while you were off playing peekaboo with the Overwatch."
λ
Afterwards, when Adair had demonstrated his new gizmo -- something that could, supposedly, short out Manhacks -- and shown him the latest car he and the other mechanics had scavenged -- they ate some food and Jack drifted off into a fitful sleep, the only kind he ever got anymore. He couldn't have been out for very long before he was awoken by some sort of commotion. He sat up like a shot, Adair coming to next to him and rubbing his eyes. The base was buzzing with conversation, and people were gathered around the staticky monitors, arguing.
They both wandered over, and Jack overheard someone arguing that they should go outside. "What's going on?"
"Portal storms!"
Both of them froze, blinking in disbelief. Portal storms? There hadn’t been any in... ages. Jack found himself remembering the first time he'd seen one -- back when all of this had started. He was still in school, and the whole class had gathered at the windows in wonder, as beautiful blue streaks of light spread out from the center of the city like the aurora borealis fallen to earth, ripping up buildings and trees and cars in its path. Terrible things had emerged, monsters which had seemed like something from a fairy tale, but these days were just a part of normal life.
But since the Combine had invaded, the portal storms had leveled off, and had mostly disappeared.
"I heard a rumor," Adair said, suddenly. "Supposedly they're rioting or something in City 17."
He had heard this rumor too; it had started up just before he’d left last week, from the closest radio contacts they had on the continent, but there had been nothing but silence from them since then and no one’d had the heart to put too much faith in such impossibly wild dreams, that there might be an armed uprising in the headquarters of Dr. Breen’s administration. It took Jack a moment to realize why a rumored rebellion might be relevant. "You think ... you think this is because of that?"
"Maybe," Adair said, shrugging his shoulders. "The Combine made the storms stop, maybe they can make ‘em start again. Or maybe ..." he went quiet for a moment, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he should continue. Then: "Maybe the Resistance there is winning, and they've done something really bad to the Combine."
The idea was as scary as it was exciting. Most everyone here had lived much of their adult lives under the Combine; and even though they loathed it, they'd gotten used to it. If a full-scale rebellion started up, what little bit of home they'd managed to make would probably be gone forever.
Jack eyed the monitors with some trepidation. "We should go," he said, finally. "Send out a few groups, spread out in different directions. Find out what's going on. There might be people out there who need help, and this might be a good opportunity to get some supplies …"
In the end they decided on sending out five groups of two or three people each. The rest would stay behind and watch over the base, as well as any people who couldn't look after themselves. Jack found Adair, who'd disappeared partway through the discussion, in his workshop, packing up some of the various devices he'd created over the years. He swung his bag into the vehicle they were taking and then wandered over to the car he'd just brought in and gave it a pat on its bonnet. "See you around, girl."
Jack smirked, and out of the corner his eye, saw that Adair had left the Manhack device on his work table. “Don’t forget this,” he said, picking it up.
“I thought you didn’t think it would work.” Adair shrugged on his jacket, an old and faded but much-loved red and black leather parka, with a fur-lined hood.
“What? As if I would doubt the expertise of Sandy “Sparks” Adair,” he said with relish, referring to the awful nickname the other mechanics had given Adair.
Adair wrinkled his nose, and took the device from him, sliding it into his jacket pocket. “Don’t call me that.”
“What, Sandy, or “Sparks”?”
“Neither. Both. Makes me sound like somebody’s plucky sidekick.”
“Aren’t you mine?” Jack responded and climbed into the passenger seat, his shotgun laid across his lap.
Adair took the wheel. “In your dreams, old man.”
λ
They cut across old, disused railway tracks and pulled onto the nearest main road. City 14 stretched out before them. In the distance, they could see the occasional flash of a portal storm. The sky was dark and dreary, and it was nearly impossible to judge what time of day it was based on its color lone. The ground shook periodically; to the southeast, there was a peculiar, eerie light, but it was much too far away to see properly. Could it be coming from City 17? Jack wondered. Could they possibly see something from so far away? There was a thick tension in the air. Yet, besides this, the city looked the same as it had the day before. The crumbling buildings of the old city bumped shoulders with strange, smooth, black Combine architecture. The landscape was dominated by the City 14 Citadel; and the sky was abuzz with Scanners. One zoomed up to them, flashing and clicking, and Jack smacked it away with the butt of his shotgun. It stuttered and lurched off, beeping in distress.
Once they got deeper into the center of the city, they began to encounter more and more people, flooding out into the streets to try to observe the portal storms. A few had climbed up to the flat rooftops of the tenements and blocks of flats to get a better view. Surprisingly, Civil Protection was nowhere to be seen; maybe they had holed up in one of the Combine-controlled buildings because of the storms. Likewise, they also realized that they couldn’t hear the Overwatch Voice, and that was a near constant presence these days.
They finally made a stop at a busy intersection, near an old church, and a building which still had the words “WHITE HART” written in brass over the windows. They found an abandoned Combine bunker nearby and Jack and Adair started dragging supplies into the car. It was almost full when Jack suddenly felt a chill go through him. All of the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he became aware of a sort of droning noise that had risen, slowly at first, and then rapidly, soon overpowering any other sound. All the air seemed to go out of him, and he realized what was happening just as the ground started to shake forcefully. He grabbed Adair by the back of his jacket and pulled him down against the car.
Just then, there was a brilliant flash of light, and a noise, not like an explosion, but like an absence of an explosion. And then the portal storm swept towards them.
People screamed and ran for cover. Jack and Adair huddled together, shielding their eyes against the bright light. Around them, beneath the drone of the storm, they heard the sound of buildings’ foundations shifting and rumbling. The car shuddered. Something in the distance, Jack couldn’t determine how close or far, thundered to the ground. And then, just as quickly, it was over.
Jack opened his eyes. They were both panting heavily as if they had been running. Adair stared at him, his large blue eyes wide, and then blinked and shook his head, and pulled himself up against the car. Jack rose as well, surveying the damage.
There was rubble everywhere. One of the buildings which people had been standing on was a pile of stone and steel; there were several people already combing through the rubble, looking for survivors. Jack and Adair ran over too, and helped them pull a girl out from beneath a concrete pillar.
It was clear she was going to need to be driven back to base, but there wasn’t enough room for three people plus all of the supplies, and so they turned over their vehicle to one of the other bystanders and sent them off back to the base. After they’d taken off, Jack started to follow them; there were droves of people who, shaken by the recent storm, were making their way to the base for safety, too. Adair grabbed him by the arm. “Let’s look around some more first.”
“What, and get caught in another portal storm?”
“Come on, something’s going on. You know it. Let’s get closer to the city center and see if we can find out. It’s excitin’, innit?” Adair winked at him and grinned. Jack wanted to protest, but he had to agree. Now that they’d made it through their first portal storm, his trepidation for some reason seemed to have lessened. Something clearly was going on, and he did want to know what.
“Let’s go and see if we can find a Breencast. I think there’s a screen not far from here, on that big columny thing … near the river.”
After about ten minutes they found the column Adair had mentioned. It was terribly high, and a massive screen was affixed to it at the top, just below the tarnished golden urn at its peak. It was indeed transmitting a Breencast, with a large crowd surrounding it. Except, to their surprise, it wasn’t Dr. Breen doing the ‘cast. It was an old man in a white lab coat, wearing impossibly large glasses.
“Who is that?” Adair asked someone.
“Dr. Kleiner - he’s in the Resistance in City 17!”
“What’s left of City 17, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked.
“The Citadel there is gone,” one woman whispered.
On the screen, Dr. Kleiner continued. "To those of you who live outside of the bounds of City 17, if you can hear this message -- the destruction of the Citadel here seems to have substantially damaged the Combine's ability to communicate with each other and with their superiors in the Combine's homeworld. It is very likely that this has also had a negative impact on the Citadels in your own metropolises too." He adjusted his glasses and pointed at the screen. "Therefore, this may be an opportune time for you to take control, if you have the resources available. If not, we advise everyone to leave your respective Cities at once and report to the nearest Resistance base you can find, or if it is within your means, to come to White Forest itself." White Forest was pretty far away. Jack wasn’t actually exactly where it was; somewhere in the northern Outlands. How the hell would they get there, especially with the Channel in the condition it was in? This damn island was so cut off, and there were so few people left on it … maybe if they could get in touch with the Resistance in White Forest they could get some help, but Jack had the feeling they were pretty much on their own. And the Combine definitely weren’t under as much pressure here as they were in City 17 … although …
“There’s not a lot of Combine around, where are they?” he asked.
“They’ve all gone nuts. They’ve been shipping a lot of them over the Channel to go deal with the rebels in City 17. And now that Breen’s administration is in tatters and they can’t get in contact with … you know, our benefactors, Civil Protection has totally lost it. We haven’t seen them in about a day.”
“Jack,” Adair murmured, and quietly reached out and squeezed his hand.
“We should head back to the base,” Jack said to him, a flutter of excitement going through him. “We have to tell them about this. It might be our chance.”
“I know,” Adair said, grinning. Something caught his eye over Jack’s shoulder and his grin stretched wider. “Wait a second!” he said and let go of Jack’s hand, running in the direction he’d been looking.
“What?” Jack called, turning around to see what he was talking about.
Adair was running up to a yellow poster attached to a nearby building. It was one of the many propaganda posters that were plastered all over the city; Dr. Breen’s oh-so noble visage occupied most of it, the Combine’s symbol was in the corner. Adair reached up with one hand and grabbed a hold of one corner of it; and then in a dramatic gesture he ripped it off the wall, tore it in half, and let each piece flutter away in the breeze.
The whole crowd let out a cheer and Jack went over and wrapped his arms around him.
“And let me just add to all those that can hear me now: welcome back to the fight.”
“Now we can go,” Adair said.
λ
It took about an hour to retrace their steps back to the base. They made a brief pit-stop again at the abandoned Combine outpost, which Adair insisted on investigating once more. Jack found a stash of weapons, some of which he took and others he handed out to those making their way to the base. Adair started stripping out monitors and other tech with a sort of manic glee, and after enlisting a few willing citizens as his packhorses, left the place bare and empty.
When they reached the base, the doors were open and a mass of people were wandering around; clearly it was full to overflowing. Considering the situation, it didn’t seem so important to stay hidden anymore. Jack and Adair made their way inside and Adair started dumping the tech he’d scavenged and inventorying it, while Jack drew some of the other Resistance members aside to tell them what they’d learned.
Before long they were involved in a fierce debate over what the best way to proceed was, the conversation getting more convoluted as more and more people involved themselves in it. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack noticed Adair standing up from his ill-gotten treasure and wandering outside; after awhile, he drifted back in and started rooting around in the tools. He went out again after a bit, carrying a hammer and a bucket of nails. Jack excused himself and followed him.
Outside, he found Adair struggling with a long, rusty white metal sign, which he was trying to prop up against the outside wall of the base. Jack rushed over and grabbed one side, pushing it against the wall. The sign read “DALSTON JUNCTION.”
“Oh,” he said, lamely. “Is that what this place’s called?”
Adair took the nail he had between his teeth and shrugged. “Guess so,” he said and started hammering away.
λ
Bonus Scene
In which Howard and Vince meet Gordon Freeman, chronically silent theoretical physicist-turned-superwarrior and savior of us all.
Howard: Why, hello there, sir. It’s such an honor to meet you. My name is Howard Moon, Howard T. J. Moon … Man of Action.
Gordon: …………………………………………………
Vince: That’s a very shiny suit you’re wearing. Do you mind telling me the name of your tailor?
Gordon: *picks up an RPG, runs off to kill some Striders*
Vince: What a nice guy!
Howard: I feel an inescapable urge to grab a gun, follow him, and hand him a medkit.
Me: Nooooooo don’t do it, you’ll get shot! Your Combat AI sucks!
λ
Ridiculously lengthy notes
Locations
First off, I should mention I have never been to London. So I had to be content with what I could learn off of the internet. Originally I was going to keep everything pretty vague, but that felt kind of unsatisfying to me.
"City 14" - London
In HL2, it’s pretty hard to pin a “real world” location on any of the places Gordon visits, and City 17 is the only major metropolis we have been shown. A “City 14” is mentioned by someone in the train station in “Point Insertion” as being their former residence, but it doesn’t appear as a destination on the City 17 railway. I reasoned this was because it wasn’t accessible by rail, and so London seemed to me like a good bet. It’s implied in HL2 that the Combine has been gradually pushing humanity into a smaller and smaller concentrated region; so I imagined that they would keep England populated until they had sufficiently drained its resources and then gradually start to shift the populace to City 17 and/or send it to Nova Prospekt to be “processed”.
City 14 Resistance Base - Dalston Junction Railway Station
I chose this as the site for the Resistance’s main City 14 base for a few reasons. The first one is obvious, because it’s Boosh. The Dalston Junction station was closed in 1986 and was left abandoned until just recently (2005), when they cleared away the ruins and began reconstructing it for use in the 2012 Summer Games. There's also more information about it here (that's where I got the picture from).
The White Hart - Corner of Bishopsgate and Liverpool St.
I happened to notice this place as I was following Google Street view down the High St/Bishopsgate to the river and it just stood out to me. White harts/stags are used a lot as symbols of the beginning of an adventure or also of the gate between the real world and the underworld -- so I thought it was a pretty fine place for the portal storm.
"The big columny thing near the river"/The Broadcast - Monument to the Great Fire of London
I was looking for some kind of monument or obelisk to stick the monitor on and this was perfect in anyway, both for its location and of course, its meaning, as a symbol of London rebuilding itself out of the ashes.
The route from Dalston to the monument.
Other notes
The Overwatch Voice is the source of the weird announcements which Vince hears in City 14. You can hear what it sounds like here.
Portal Storms -- if you'd like to see what one looks like, take a peek. Note that it's not the big, column of light at the beginning (that's the superportal above the ruins of the City 17 Citadel, and is probably the source of the portal storms).
Adair's jacket -- I shamelessly stole it from Mello, of "Death Note". It's basically the coolest jacket ever. I wish had one in real life.
Kleiner's broadcast -- in HL2:Ep 1, Kleiner sends out a broadcast specifically to the residents of City 17, warning them to vacate the city. However, he promises to try to make future broadcasts in the future. So this would be one of those, and it's tailored to a broader audience. However, I recycled the closing line from his original 'cast, because it's so cool. You can see the Ep 1 broadcast here. Lamarr is his pet, domesticated headcrab by the way. XD I love Dr. Kleiner.
On to Chapter 3
Pairing: Howard/Vince pre-slash, Jack/Adair (AU doppelgangers) established relationship
Fandom: Boosh/Half-Life 2
Genre: Sci-Fi/Horror/Adventure/Romance
Summary: In London, Howard and Vince are trying to learn how to be friends again, but something else lies in store for them. A world away (literally), Jack and Adair are just trying to stay alive.
Word Count: 6000
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, ALIENS, ridiculous pseudo-science.
Disclaimer: Boosh belongs to Julian and Noel and Baby Cow, Half-Life 2 belongs to Valve.
Author’s Notes:
First of all, I would like to say emphatically that you do not need to be familiar with Half-Life to read this story. I’ve intentionally linked all world-specific lingo to relevant Wiki articles so that the story isn’t weighed down with exposition, too. It's up to you if you want to click on them to find out more info or if you would like to just learn about it as things progress.
Have you ever wanted to read a story in which Howard- and Vince-inspired characters are Resistance members inhabiting an alien-infested, dystopian parallel London ruled over by an intergalactic empire? And then have you ever wondered what shenanigans would ensue if our Howard and Vince were to meet them via some extremely shady interdimensional portal action? For the two or three people (overstatement) who have, this tale is for you.
Timeline Notes: All Boosh stuff takes place just after “The Chokes”. HL2 stuff is roughly concurrent with the events of Half-Life 2: Episode 2.
Edit: A quick and dirty intro to Half-Life for newcomers
HL is a first-person shooter video games series ... well, basically the plot is that, following an experiment-gone-wrong at a research facility in New Mexico (Black Mesa), the world was plagued by portal storms which dumped aliens from a dimension called Xen onto Earth. After that, a pan-dimensional empire, called "The Combine", used the storms to invade the planet. Humanity surrendered to the Combine after a "Seven Hour War", and the surrender was negotiated by the former administrator of Black Mesa, Wallace Breen, who was set up as a puppet leader of Earth afterwards.
The protagonist of HL (who will probably not appear in this series, except in conversation) is Gordon Freeman, a physicist from Black Mesa. At the end of the first HL game, during which he fought against the aliens and Marines who had been sent to clean up the mess, he met a very strange individual known as "the G-Man" (who we MIGHT see), who "offered" him a job, put him into some kind of stasis, and then, at the beginning of HL2, took him out about two decades later and put him on a train to City 17, telling him "the right man in the wrong place could make all the difference in the world". Gordon meets up with the Resistance and goes on to help lead an uprising against the Combine.
You can also just watch this:
Click to viewInterference;
or A Shaman's Guide to Quantum Mechanics
by thickets
People generally live out their conscious lives on one branch of the lave of the universe, unaware of the other branches. But once we accept a radically conservative interpretation of quantum mechanics, we are haunted by the awareness that infinitely many slightly variant copies of ourselves are living out their parallel lives and that at every moment more duplicates spring into existence and take up our many alternate futures.
Frank Wilczek and Betsy Devine, Longing for the Harmonies
Gull:
Do you begin to grasp how truly great a work is London? A veritable textbook we may draw upon in formulating great works of our own! We’ll penetrate its metaphors, lay bare its structure and thus come at last upon its meaning. As befits great work, we’ll read it CAREFULLY, and with RESPECT.
Netley:
Uh, with respect, sir … I can’t read.
Alan Moore, From Hell
Chapter One: London
One week had passed since Howard had returned to the Nabootique.
Vince had thought many times over the past year that their friendship - if you could still call it that - couldn’t get much worse than it already had. The fighting, the dirty tricks, the resentment, and worst of all, the apologies that somehow wound up creating even worse offenses - but none of it, he realized was as bad as what they were now experiencing. The atmosphere in the shop was downright chilly. They just couldn’t talk anymore. Worst of all, it wasn’t out of anger, or at least, for Vince it wasn’t. It was as if they simply had forgotten how to speak to each other. Perhaps they had forgotten a long time ago. But now Vince couldn’t even fake it, and he was an expert at faking nearly everything.
The thing was, he really wanted to make things better. He’d convinced himself for months that he really didn’t care, but that brief span of time that Howard had been gone had been such a surreal experience. He’d felt as though he’d lost a limb. (Then again, maybe that had just been because it had taken ages for him to get the circulation back in his legs after the drainpipes incident.) Howard’s absence was bizarrely loud. Loud enough that he’d turn his music up to try to drown it out, hoping all the while that Howard would poke his head into his bedroom door to tell him to turn that electro-racket down, please, some of us had important works of literature to read. Instead he just got Naboo threatening to send him to the place lost socks went. He had nightmares for days after that he was being chased by a giraffe formed out of mismatched argyles.
When Howard had returned he’d made up his mind that enough was enough - he’d make amends, things could go back to the way they used to be, and Vince wouldn’t have to put up with another deafening lack of Howard, or stupid Howard-replacements who couldn’t crimp to save their lives. But when it came down to it, Vince found he didn’t even know where to begin, and Howard, surprisingly, did not seem receptive to any kind of apology. Instead they were locked in this strange standoff, and Vince didn’t know how to break it.
On this particular day they had spent their time, for the most part, pretending they were each the only person in the shop; except for first thing in the afternoon, when Vince had emerged from the flat into the shop, dressed in the unlikely combination of black fitted fatigues, a feather boa, Doc Martens, and a black and silver bolero jacket.
(“You look like a deranged bullfighter who has gone off to fight for Francisco Franco,” Howard had said, momentarily jostled into acknowledging Vince’s presence.
“Who’s he, then? Anyway, it’s the Glampocalypse look, it’s well fashionable right now.”)
Just after closing, Vince plucked up his courage and stood in the way of the stairs before Howard could disappear up them. Howard stopped and blinked. “What?”
Vince pressed his lips together tightly, trying to think of what to say.
“Vince, I’m very tired tonight. Would you kindly remove yourself from the doorway now?”
“Let’s - let’s go for a walk.”
“A walk?” Howard made a face like he had the time Vince had suggested they eat a dinner composed entirely of Wispa Golds.
“Oh … come on, Howard, please. Stop being so difficult!” Hearing the whine in his own voice and hating it, he sighed. “I just … want to talk to you, all right?” He looked down and noticed for the first time that he was twisting his boa in his hands so forcefully that he was in danger of garroting himself with it. He let his hands hang at his sides.
Howard was silent for a minute and then he huffed and said, “All right, let me get my coat.”
λ
They walked in silence for some time down the Kingsland High Street, Vince expecting all the time that Howard would start to nag him because he’d said he wanted to talk, only now he couldn’t seem to say anything; or ask him where the hell they were walking too, a question Vince couldn’t have answered because he certainly didn’t know. But Howard didn’t say anything. He just strode along, his hands in his pockets, his long legs setting a rapid pace, so that Vince had to double-time it, making him feel like a yappy little dog nipping at his master’s feet.
They were out of Dalston and well into Shoreditch when Vince felt the fog lift him and he finally stopped Howard with a hand on his arm. “All right, Howard,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
Howard shrugged away. “Don’t touch me,” he muttered, almost to himself.
“I … I’m sorry, all right?”
Howard quirked his eyebrow at him. “Pardon?”
Vince grasped the sides of his jacket and pulled it closer around himself; it had gotten chilly since they’d left the shop. “I’m sorry. About … Jurgen Haabemaaster … and the … Black Tubes … and giving up on the band … and eating your jazz record … and everything.”
Howard was still for a moment, a strange expression on his face. Then he laughed.
Vince stared at him, his face shifting through cycles of confusion and irritation. “What are you laughing at, you bumbaclot?”
“Sorry,” Howard said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “I apologize, Vince, I really do. It’s just all this time I thought you were angry at me.”
“I was angry at you?” Vince repeated, pressing his palm against his chest in disbelief. “But … you were the one spending all your time brooding and sulking, zappin’ me with your negative vibes! Ooh, don’t touch me! Oooh, I think I’ll spend all day planning the urban revitalization of Stationery Village!”
“You were the one who kept pretending to be busy reading Cheekbone every time I tried to talk to you! Or sewing sequins onto eight different-colored eyepatches! I mean, who needs that many eyepatches? Captain Hook?”
“Why would I be angry with you, anyway?”
“Because I left!”
Vince stared at him in amazement for a minute, and then, suddenly possessed with a powerful sense of frustration - hell, Howard was so thick! - reached out with both hands, grasped each side of Howard’s stupid pork-pie hat, and pulled down as hard as he could. “You’re such a freak, Howard Moon! A great big jazzy freak!” And then he gave him a thump on the head for good measure.
“Ahhha!” Howard shouted, waving him away, “don’t ever touch me!” But when he stood up, Vince could see that he was smiling, really smiling, even in his eyes, and he felt a huge relief wash through him.
They looked at each other for a moment, both enjoying the sudden lack of tension, and then Howard said, “Let’s go get a drink.”
λ
“Oh, not here, Howard,” Vince whined as they stood outside the White Hart. “You wouldn’t go to any of the fashionable places in Shoreditch but you want to go here? This place is a tourist trap. It’s probably full of Americans and Japanese eatin’ ploughman’s lunches.”
“Come on, in you get,” Howard said, herding him inside, and Vince went, mostly because he was rather pleased that Howard was still in a good humor despite Vince’s complaints.
It wasn’t all as bad as Vince had thought it might be, though it was pretty unremarkable and old-fashioned; actually, it was a bit like Howard himself. And Howard looked relaxed, at least, and so Vince supposed it was worth it. They spent some time comfortably bickering over what each other should drink, and then did a quick crimp about the outlandishly bizarre bendy straw Vince had begged the barmaid to put in his drink, and Vince had filled Howard in on the ways in which Adam had totally failed at being Howard. The way Howard had puffed himself up and preened at this validation of his utter superiority at being himself filled Vince with a warm, fond feeling. After all, it was true. There was no one quite as good as being as generic and Howardy as Howard. And what would he do without Howard?
They were just about to leave the pub and head home when Vince started to feel a bit strange. He couldn’t quite explain it - one minute he was smiling, happier than he’d been in a long time, really, and then he started to feel something tingle at the back of his neck, and then slide down his spine like a cold finger. He stopped in his tracks, a perplexed expression on his face, thinking, “Oh. Is this what I think it is?” and then he turned to Howard, who, surprisingly, had an identical expression on his face.
“I got a bad feeling about this,” they both said at the same time, and blinked in surprise.
And then the world went crazy.
Later, Vince was at a loss to really describe it, at least in a logical order. Howard, also, though he always claimed the event was “etched in his mind henceforth” was incapable of really explaining how it happened. They were aware of a flashing of light, and a droning sound that seemed to fill their whole heads. They grabbed on to each other - for once, Howard not warning him not to touch him. The thing that later stayed with Vince the most was that all around them, people moved around them as if nothing were the matter. They were the only ones who seemed to be aware of what was happening.
At some point he passed out, or at least everything went black and sort of murky. When he became aware of himself again, he was hunched over on his knees on the ground. He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious for (minutes? hours?), his face pressed uncomfortably to the floor, but his hair definitely felt extremely unattractive.
And he was alone.
“Howard?” he whispered, and then he began to take in his surroundings.
He was on the dirty floor of a darkened room. Dreary light crept in through broken-paned windows, but not enough to really illuminate much around him. He stood up shakily, and called a little louder, “Howard?” Nothing. “Oi, squinty eyes! Stop knockin’ about, where are you?”
When there was still nothing but silence, he finally managed to force himself to move, and crept over to the window. Outside he could see badly decomposed buildings, piles of rock and twisted wire … yet something about it looked strangely familiar to him. As if he’d seen it … very recently …
At that moment, he heard something in the distance that sounded an awful lot like an explosion, causing him to flinch. Then the air was filled with a strange sort of siren, wailing repeatedly. Presently he realized he was also hearing the sound of a helicopter hovering somewhere in the sky, out of his line of sight. Then a woman’s voice, carefully modulated and rigidly robotic, erupted out of nowhere.
“Attention, community. Your citizenships have been revoked. Failure to comply with Civil Protection will result in permanent off-world relocation.”
“Oh … shit.” His hands half-raised as though to ward off an invisible attack, Vince began to slowly back away from the window. “Shit, shit, shit, shit. Howard, where the hell are you? Where the hell am I? Ahhh!” He backed right into some sort of counter that the dim light hadn’t allowed him to see earlier. He followed the line of it in the dark until he reached the end of it, and then slipped around the corner and crawled behind it. He sat there, holding his knees, for some time, his eyes tightly closed, all the while hoping that when he opened them again, he’d be somewhere familiar.
He lost track of time, hiding there, doing something almost like praying, he supposed, but soon there was the sound of footsteps in the street outside. At first he thought “Howard!” but he then realized there were two sets. He stayed where he was. They approached the door and there was a hushed murmur of conversation, and then the door was kicked in.
A woman said, “I think we’re safe here.”
Another voice, also female, spoke: “Yeah, it looks like we lost them.”
Vince peeked over the side of the counter as carefully as he could. One of the women was digging in her pack; she pulled out a radio transmitter. Meanwhile, the disembodied voice continued her announcements, much of which seemed completely incomprehensible to him:
“Attention all Ground Protection teams. Autonomous judgment is now in effect. Sentencing is now discretionary. Code: Amputate. Zero. Confirm.”
The woman was speaking into her transmitter. “… them off, but we’ve got some minor injuries. We’re half a mile from the river in Ward 4. Building called the ‘White Hart’.”
“Yeah, I know where it is,” said the voice on the other end, so scratchy it was barely audible; but there was something weirdly familiar about it. “I was there a few days ago. Hold up there and I’ll send some people to help you, so sit tight.”
However, both Vince and the two women were only marginally aware of this response, because just as the words “White Hart” was spoken, Vince jerked in surprise, hitting his head with a loud thump on the side of the counter, and letting out a sharp cry of alarm. Of course the street had looked familiar … because it had been Bishopsgate, hadn’t it been?
“Who’s there?” one of the women called, and cocked her gun loudly, a sound Vince was pretty sure he’d only ever heard in police dramas.
“It came from over there.” Oh, Christy … here we go.
He stood up. “Er, hello,” he said, with a little wave. “Please don’t shoot me. I don’t think blood would really complement this outfit.”
Chapter Two: City 14
It had been a week and there was still no word from them.
Everyone at the base was talking about it, and yet no one would admit it. They'd whisper about it in furtive groups, only to stop, guiltily, if someone else wandered by. It was as though they thought that, were their fears given substantial form, they would come true.
Adair just ignored it. On the odd occasion someone brought it up to him, he just wandered away. It didn't happen too often, as after the second day had passed since they were supposed to return, he'd spent most of his time in the garage, working on one project or another, the radio delivering up a near constant explosion of static, waiting for some kind of message. If he let his mind wander enough, he could pretend that buried in the static was music, and that life was almost normal. He didn't let himself imagine Jack's voice erupting through the filter of fizzes and beeps. He didn't want to mistake the real thing for fantasy, if it happened.
In the end, there was no message; after eight days of waiting, they simply turned up, hammering at the main entrance of the base. Four of them were missing. Donna and Jamie were carrying Ricky, who had said goodbye to consciousness some time ago, from the look of things, and Jack pulled up the rear. Jack, who had a long, weeping slash across the side of his face, bisecting his eyebrow, the headcrab having just missed his eye. He came over to stand next to Adair as the others concentrated on taking care of Ricky, snatches of conversation - "the wound’s septic" and "the leg will have to go" - drifting over. Finally, Jack started unsnapping the holsters from around his torso, and Adair smiled vaguely at him and said, "All right, Jack," before wandering off to pinch a needle and thread and some alcohol.
λ
Part of the nasty, home-distilled liquor went into a basin, along with the needle, for sterilization; part of it went on the wound; and the rest went to Jack, who took a quick sip of it and gagged, but only a little. Adair set to work stitching up the gash, while Jack filled him in on the week they'd been missing.
It had started off pretty simple -- escort a group of refugees, people from City 14 and the surrounding area who'd been handed a relocation ticket to Nova Prospekt, to the next stop on the Railroad, which in their case was pretty tricky, as it involved entering the long-in-disuse Channel Tunnel. It was cluttered with old train cars, piles of garbage, and your everyday violent pests -- barnacles, headcrabs, zombies. There was also the occasional cave-in, and in fact, the Eastbound Tunnel had been essentially impassable for the last five years. The only good thing about it was that Civil Protection stayed out, trusting the Tunnel's normal inhabitants to provide a significant deterrent. Nonetheless, there were two stations set up along the stretch of the Tunnel. They'd gotten pretty good at making their way across it.
However, things hadn't gone according to plan this time. The first warning flags had sprung up as they entered the service tunnel, because it was pretty damned obvious someone had been down there ahead of them. The place was littered with zombie corpses and gutted-out barnacles. Still, there was the possibility that a group from another station had had to make an impromptu run through the Tunnel, so they'd kept going.
When they reached the first station though, they knew immediately what had happened. It was a burnt, abandoned husk. At first they'd thought that there might be Combine still hiding in the ruins, scoping them out ... and then they'd tripped the first wire, and they realized it was a trap, because scattered amidst the ruins of the burnt out base were several headcrab shells, which immediately burst open.
Adair didn't really need to know much more to imagine what had happened. After they'd dealt with the headcrabs, having lost most of the refugees and their own crew, they'd tried to escape from the tunnel, only to find the Combine had been aware of their entrance and were staked out, waiting for them. They'd spent several days holed up, trying to think of way to get out, when, without warning or discernible reason, the Combine suddenly picked up and left.
"You're gonna have a wicked scar here," Adair said, after he'd finished sewing up Jack's wound. "You'll look well evil."
Jack handed him the bottle of alcohol, which Adair turned away. He slid a hand under Jack's arm and pulled him up; the other man was a bit shaky on his feet. "Wanna go see my new toy? I got a lot of work done on it while you were off playing peekaboo with the Overwatch."
λ
Afterwards, when Adair had demonstrated his new gizmo -- something that could, supposedly, short out Manhacks -- and shown him the latest car he and the other mechanics had scavenged -- they ate some food and Jack drifted off into a fitful sleep, the only kind he ever got anymore. He couldn't have been out for very long before he was awoken by some sort of commotion. He sat up like a shot, Adair coming to next to him and rubbing his eyes. The base was buzzing with conversation, and people were gathered around the staticky monitors, arguing.
They both wandered over, and Jack overheard someone arguing that they should go outside. "What's going on?"
"Portal storms!"
Both of them froze, blinking in disbelief. Portal storms? There hadn’t been any in... ages. Jack found himself remembering the first time he'd seen one -- back when all of this had started. He was still in school, and the whole class had gathered at the windows in wonder, as beautiful blue streaks of light spread out from the center of the city like the aurora borealis fallen to earth, ripping up buildings and trees and cars in its path. Terrible things had emerged, monsters which had seemed like something from a fairy tale, but these days were just a part of normal life.
But since the Combine had invaded, the portal storms had leveled off, and had mostly disappeared.
"I heard a rumor," Adair said, suddenly. "Supposedly they're rioting or something in City 17."
He had heard this rumor too; it had started up just before he’d left last week, from the closest radio contacts they had on the continent, but there had been nothing but silence from them since then and no one’d had the heart to put too much faith in such impossibly wild dreams, that there might be an armed uprising in the headquarters of Dr. Breen’s administration. It took Jack a moment to realize why a rumored rebellion might be relevant. "You think ... you think this is because of that?"
"Maybe," Adair said, shrugging his shoulders. "The Combine made the storms stop, maybe they can make ‘em start again. Or maybe ..." he went quiet for a moment, as if he wasn't sure whether or not he should continue. Then: "Maybe the Resistance there is winning, and they've done something really bad to the Combine."
The idea was as scary as it was exciting. Most everyone here had lived much of their adult lives under the Combine; and even though they loathed it, they'd gotten used to it. If a full-scale rebellion started up, what little bit of home they'd managed to make would probably be gone forever.
Jack eyed the monitors with some trepidation. "We should go," he said, finally. "Send out a few groups, spread out in different directions. Find out what's going on. There might be people out there who need help, and this might be a good opportunity to get some supplies …"
In the end they decided on sending out five groups of two or three people each. The rest would stay behind and watch over the base, as well as any people who couldn't look after themselves. Jack found Adair, who'd disappeared partway through the discussion, in his workshop, packing up some of the various devices he'd created over the years. He swung his bag into the vehicle they were taking and then wandered over to the car he'd just brought in and gave it a pat on its bonnet. "See you around, girl."
Jack smirked, and out of the corner his eye, saw that Adair had left the Manhack device on his work table. “Don’t forget this,” he said, picking it up.
“I thought you didn’t think it would work.” Adair shrugged on his jacket, an old and faded but much-loved red and black leather parka, with a fur-lined hood.
“What? As if I would doubt the expertise of Sandy “Sparks” Adair,” he said with relish, referring to the awful nickname the other mechanics had given Adair.
Adair wrinkled his nose, and took the device from him, sliding it into his jacket pocket. “Don’t call me that.”
“What, Sandy, or “Sparks”?”
“Neither. Both. Makes me sound like somebody’s plucky sidekick.”
“Aren’t you mine?” Jack responded and climbed into the passenger seat, his shotgun laid across his lap.
Adair took the wheel. “In your dreams, old man.”
λ
They cut across old, disused railway tracks and pulled onto the nearest main road. City 14 stretched out before them. In the distance, they could see the occasional flash of a portal storm. The sky was dark and dreary, and it was nearly impossible to judge what time of day it was based on its color lone. The ground shook periodically; to the southeast, there was a peculiar, eerie light, but it was much too far away to see properly. Could it be coming from City 17? Jack wondered. Could they possibly see something from so far away? There was a thick tension in the air. Yet, besides this, the city looked the same as it had the day before. The crumbling buildings of the old city bumped shoulders with strange, smooth, black Combine architecture. The landscape was dominated by the City 14 Citadel; and the sky was abuzz with Scanners. One zoomed up to them, flashing and clicking, and Jack smacked it away with the butt of his shotgun. It stuttered and lurched off, beeping in distress.
Once they got deeper into the center of the city, they began to encounter more and more people, flooding out into the streets to try to observe the portal storms. A few had climbed up to the flat rooftops of the tenements and blocks of flats to get a better view. Surprisingly, Civil Protection was nowhere to be seen; maybe they had holed up in one of the Combine-controlled buildings because of the storms. Likewise, they also realized that they couldn’t hear the Overwatch Voice, and that was a near constant presence these days.
They finally made a stop at a busy intersection, near an old church, and a building which still had the words “WHITE HART” written in brass over the windows. They found an abandoned Combine bunker nearby and Jack and Adair started dragging supplies into the car. It was almost full when Jack suddenly felt a chill go through him. All of the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he became aware of a sort of droning noise that had risen, slowly at first, and then rapidly, soon overpowering any other sound. All the air seemed to go out of him, and he realized what was happening just as the ground started to shake forcefully. He grabbed Adair by the back of his jacket and pulled him down against the car.
Just then, there was a brilliant flash of light, and a noise, not like an explosion, but like an absence of an explosion. And then the portal storm swept towards them.
People screamed and ran for cover. Jack and Adair huddled together, shielding their eyes against the bright light. Around them, beneath the drone of the storm, they heard the sound of buildings’ foundations shifting and rumbling. The car shuddered. Something in the distance, Jack couldn’t determine how close or far, thundered to the ground. And then, just as quickly, it was over.
Jack opened his eyes. They were both panting heavily as if they had been running. Adair stared at him, his large blue eyes wide, and then blinked and shook his head, and pulled himself up against the car. Jack rose as well, surveying the damage.
There was rubble everywhere. One of the buildings which people had been standing on was a pile of stone and steel; there were several people already combing through the rubble, looking for survivors. Jack and Adair ran over too, and helped them pull a girl out from beneath a concrete pillar.
It was clear she was going to need to be driven back to base, but there wasn’t enough room for three people plus all of the supplies, and so they turned over their vehicle to one of the other bystanders and sent them off back to the base. After they’d taken off, Jack started to follow them; there were droves of people who, shaken by the recent storm, were making their way to the base for safety, too. Adair grabbed him by the arm. “Let’s look around some more first.”
“What, and get caught in another portal storm?”
“Come on, something’s going on. You know it. Let’s get closer to the city center and see if we can find out. It’s excitin’, innit?” Adair winked at him and grinned. Jack wanted to protest, but he had to agree. Now that they’d made it through their first portal storm, his trepidation for some reason seemed to have lessened. Something clearly was going on, and he did want to know what.
“Let’s go and see if we can find a Breencast. I think there’s a screen not far from here, on that big columny thing … near the river.”
After about ten minutes they found the column Adair had mentioned. It was terribly high, and a massive screen was affixed to it at the top, just below the tarnished golden urn at its peak. It was indeed transmitting a Breencast, with a large crowd surrounding it. Except, to their surprise, it wasn’t Dr. Breen doing the ‘cast. It was an old man in a white lab coat, wearing impossibly large glasses.
“Who is that?” Adair asked someone.
“Dr. Kleiner - he’s in the Resistance in City 17!”
“What’s left of City 17, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked.
“The Citadel there is gone,” one woman whispered.
On the screen, Dr. Kleiner continued. "To those of you who live outside of the bounds of City 17, if you can hear this message -- the destruction of the Citadel here seems to have substantially damaged the Combine's ability to communicate with each other and with their superiors in the Combine's homeworld. It is very likely that this has also had a negative impact on the Citadels in your own metropolises too." He adjusted his glasses and pointed at the screen. "Therefore, this may be an opportune time for you to take control, if you have the resources available. If not, we advise everyone to leave your respective Cities at once and report to the nearest Resistance base you can find, or if it is within your means, to come to White Forest itself." White Forest was pretty far away. Jack wasn’t actually exactly where it was; somewhere in the northern Outlands. How the hell would they get there, especially with the Channel in the condition it was in? This damn island was so cut off, and there were so few people left on it … maybe if they could get in touch with the Resistance in White Forest they could get some help, but Jack had the feeling they were pretty much on their own. And the Combine definitely weren’t under as much pressure here as they were in City 17 … although …
“There’s not a lot of Combine around, where are they?” he asked.
“They’ve all gone nuts. They’ve been shipping a lot of them over the Channel to go deal with the rebels in City 17. And now that Breen’s administration is in tatters and they can’t get in contact with … you know, our benefactors, Civil Protection has totally lost it. We haven’t seen them in about a day.”
“Jack,” Adair murmured, and quietly reached out and squeezed his hand.
“We should head back to the base,” Jack said to him, a flutter of excitement going through him. “We have to tell them about this. It might be our chance.”
“I know,” Adair said, grinning. Something caught his eye over Jack’s shoulder and his grin stretched wider. “Wait a second!” he said and let go of Jack’s hand, running in the direction he’d been looking.
“What?” Jack called, turning around to see what he was talking about.
Adair was running up to a yellow poster attached to a nearby building. It was one of the many propaganda posters that were plastered all over the city; Dr. Breen’s oh-so noble visage occupied most of it, the Combine’s symbol was in the corner. Adair reached up with one hand and grabbed a hold of one corner of it; and then in a dramatic gesture he ripped it off the wall, tore it in half, and let each piece flutter away in the breeze.
The whole crowd let out a cheer and Jack went over and wrapped his arms around him.
“And let me just add to all those that can hear me now: welcome back to the fight.”
“Now we can go,” Adair said.
λ
It took about an hour to retrace their steps back to the base. They made a brief pit-stop again at the abandoned Combine outpost, which Adair insisted on investigating once more. Jack found a stash of weapons, some of which he took and others he handed out to those making their way to the base. Adair started stripping out monitors and other tech with a sort of manic glee, and after enlisting a few willing citizens as his packhorses, left the place bare and empty.
When they reached the base, the doors were open and a mass of people were wandering around; clearly it was full to overflowing. Considering the situation, it didn’t seem so important to stay hidden anymore. Jack and Adair made their way inside and Adair started dumping the tech he’d scavenged and inventorying it, while Jack drew some of the other Resistance members aside to tell them what they’d learned.
Before long they were involved in a fierce debate over what the best way to proceed was, the conversation getting more convoluted as more and more people involved themselves in it. Out of the corner of his eye, Jack noticed Adair standing up from his ill-gotten treasure and wandering outside; after awhile, he drifted back in and started rooting around in the tools. He went out again after a bit, carrying a hammer and a bucket of nails. Jack excused himself and followed him.
Outside, he found Adair struggling with a long, rusty white metal sign, which he was trying to prop up against the outside wall of the base. Jack rushed over and grabbed one side, pushing it against the wall. The sign read “DALSTON JUNCTION.”
“Oh,” he said, lamely. “Is that what this place’s called?”
Adair took the nail he had between his teeth and shrugged. “Guess so,” he said and started hammering away.
λ
Bonus Scene
In which Howard and Vince meet Gordon Freeman, chronically silent theoretical physicist-turned-superwarrior and savior of us all.
Howard: Why, hello there, sir. It’s such an honor to meet you. My name is Howard Moon, Howard T. J. Moon … Man of Action.
Gordon: …………………………………………………
Vince: That’s a very shiny suit you’re wearing. Do you mind telling me the name of your tailor?
Gordon: *picks up an RPG, runs off to kill some Striders*
Vince: What a nice guy!
Howard: I feel an inescapable urge to grab a gun, follow him, and hand him a medkit.
Me: Nooooooo don’t do it, you’ll get shot! Your Combat AI sucks!
λ
Ridiculously lengthy notes
Locations
First off, I should mention I have never been to London. So I had to be content with what I could learn off of the internet. Originally I was going to keep everything pretty vague, but that felt kind of unsatisfying to me.
"City 14" - London
In HL2, it’s pretty hard to pin a “real world” location on any of the places Gordon visits, and City 17 is the only major metropolis we have been shown. A “City 14” is mentioned by someone in the train station in “Point Insertion” as being their former residence, but it doesn’t appear as a destination on the City 17 railway. I reasoned this was because it wasn’t accessible by rail, and so London seemed to me like a good bet. It’s implied in HL2 that the Combine has been gradually pushing humanity into a smaller and smaller concentrated region; so I imagined that they would keep England populated until they had sufficiently drained its resources and then gradually start to shift the populace to City 17 and/or send it to Nova Prospekt to be “processed”.
City 14 Resistance Base - Dalston Junction Railway Station
I chose this as the site for the Resistance’s main City 14 base for a few reasons. The first one is obvious, because it’s Boosh. The Dalston Junction station was closed in 1986 and was left abandoned until just recently (2005), when they cleared away the ruins and began reconstructing it for use in the 2012 Summer Games. There's also more information about it here (that's where I got the picture from).
The White Hart - Corner of Bishopsgate and Liverpool St.
I happened to notice this place as I was following Google Street view down the High St/Bishopsgate to the river and it just stood out to me. White harts/stags are used a lot as symbols of the beginning of an adventure or also of the gate between the real world and the underworld -- so I thought it was a pretty fine place for the portal storm.
"The big columny thing near the river"/The Broadcast - Monument to the Great Fire of London
I was looking for some kind of monument or obelisk to stick the monitor on and this was perfect in anyway, both for its location and of course, its meaning, as a symbol of London rebuilding itself out of the ashes.
The route from Dalston to the monument.
Other notes
The Overwatch Voice is the source of the weird announcements which Vince hears in City 14. You can hear what it sounds like here.
Portal Storms -- if you'd like to see what one looks like, take a peek. Note that it's not the big, column of light at the beginning (that's the superportal above the ruins of the City 17 Citadel, and is probably the source of the portal storms).
Adair's jacket -- I shamelessly stole it from Mello, of "Death Note". It's basically the coolest jacket ever. I wish had one in real life.
Kleiner's broadcast -- in HL2:Ep 1, Kleiner sends out a broadcast specifically to the residents of City 17, warning them to vacate the city. However, he promises to try to make future broadcasts in the future. So this would be one of those, and it's tailored to a broader audience. However, I recycled the closing line from his original 'cast, because it's so cool. You can see the Ep 1 broadcast here. Lamarr is his pet, domesticated headcrab by the way. XD I love Dr. Kleiner.
On to Chapter 3