Repurposed 14.4

Interval 14.4
January 8, 2015
1800, City 10
Outlands / Exact Location Unknown




He was the single most annoying person that Isabella Wong had ever met, and he was among the only people she knew that she could trust right at this moment. She and the other refugees had been hiding for weeks now, running around just like she knew everyone else around the world had been doing in the last eight months.

Odessa Cubbage stood before them with a stiff upper lip and all that: whether he was actually a Brit was something she questioned. He had a ruddy, blotchy face complete with a scruffy red beard, bad teeth, and that stocking cap that he constantly wore made his short hair look even dirtier than it was. He played himself off as a Colonel but … there was absolutely nothing about him that said he had any military training, let alone a rank like that. Besides, his jacket said merely 'security' in faded, dirty white letters.

"We are poised at the brink of disaster, but do not fear!" He thrust his finger into the air, "if we are vigilant, brave and coordinated, we shall be victorious!"

The others gave a half-hearted smattering of applause, Bella merely sat and looked out the crusted-over window. Even now, in these bizarre days of attacks from the sky and beyond, Bella would rather have been flying. The skies were far too dangerous for her to do so, of course. Plus, the people she was with didn't even know she could do that.

They were mostly students, she'd fit in with them for two years before all this horrifying mess started and had made some friends. Oh she was from America, what was it like in their Cities? Where did you go to school? Did you know that Armacham had offices here too?

Of course she knew. She had cover stories, kept them straight, but mainly Bella kept her distance and kept her answers simple and vague. If she'd ever mentioned the words Enrichment Center they would doubtless have too many more questions.

City 10, once known as London, had been ravaged so many times in its history, that the Portal Storms sweeping by it several years ago were shrugged off just like any wartime bombs or industrial-era fires. She did have to respect the folks here: they simply kept plodding on, getting their work done, getting their city rebuilt time and time again. Bella understood now, how there were such expressions as stiff upper lip and nose to the grindstone… Because that was all these people did. They plodded along.

They hardly ever looked up.

Cubbage conversed with the others, talking a lot, saying nothing. Many of the students that had been around her when the Combine first came were transfers from other countries, like herself, but there were a few from the local area as well. She noticed they stayed well clear of Cubbage, but never raised any objections whenever he started babbling. Sometimes, it looked as though they would argue a point with him, but the defeat in their eyes told Bella that they'd had enough arguing for one lifetime. She knew that feeling all too well herself.

So even if he wasn't a real Colonel, and even if he wasn't really a Brit, they let him drag them around. He'd kept them safer than they might have been, Bella knew that a couple of these fellows would have tried rushing out to the streets and fighting the Universal Union off by hand. Once they sobered up, perhaps that might not look like such a great idea. They were never, ever sober. How those two guys had found alcohol… it was like a sixth sense.

The City itself had been the target of the Combine's 'protein suppression' field, they'd barely started to figure out what that meant, but at least Bella and the rest had been outside at the time. Not for lack of trying: the Combine forces had begun rounding people up long before New Year's, trying to herd them into the City.

She'd once loved this City, too. There was so much to it. Nightclubs and bookstores and history and culture that just never existed where she'd grown up. Her subliminal training had been in full use for a while, too, as she inserted herself into the student body and helped keep track of certain people for Aristide. Bella never much cared why she was there; she did her duties, and then enjoyed herself. She flirted with the professors, pretended to fall in with the bad elements, redeemed one of them, moved on.

So now that they were once more in hiding, in a crumbling old structure with untold dangers outside, Bella wondered why it had all worked out like this. Why it had to come back to running around like rats, fighting to survive. She wasn't a fighter. She was an infiltrator, a seductress, a spy.

And she was alone in this group of people, some twenty-odd individuals, not one of them had any spark of Vortessence in any way. When she slept, she dreamed of the walls shaking, she remembered. Bella wished that she could forget. Wished that of all the things that she'd had to do for Armacham, having her memories erased could have been among them.

If she didn't have those memories, she'd be free. They didn't drag her down, they served only one purpose: to show her what she truly missed. It wouldn't be so bad, she thought… If she could be hiding with them, she knew they'd be vigilant. Brave. Coordinated. Victorious.

Isabella woke, there was rain pattering the dirty windows and there were the sounds of distant battles. No one expected her to fight, they hadn't handed her a gun. She knew how to handle them, she was better with knives though. She could have played herself off as that kind of Asian kid who grew up in a mythical, imagined Yakuza: that's why she knew how to play with knives, obviously! They'd believe anything she told them. They would never believe her if she told them the truth.

"We're moving out," someone said, nudging her shoulder gently. "It won't be safe here long, they're coming this way."

Bella gave a sniffling yawn, sat, looked up at Patrick. "They'll find us no matter where we go," she said bleakly. And instead of bucking up and pretending everything was fine, Patrick's brown eyes darted away, he said nothing more.

She could have flown off, in that cold midnight rainstorm. She knew where she could have gone, up into the City's tower, the citadel here still rose above the clouds. But she didn't know who resided within it, any more. She'd heard that the Administrator here had been killed, wasn't even certain they'd bothered to replace him. Why should they? When all they really wanted was to capture and transform everyone into their own amalgamated 'life form'?

Bella felt a bit betrayed. By everyone, actually – by Armacham specifically, because of course they'd put her here and then she got nothing from them when she tried contacting Aristide. She 'no longer had clearance'. Even after all the work she'd done, there was no convincing the people here of her worth to them. She wondered if they knew more about her than they let on though. That was a theme she'd known about with Armacham all along: there was always more to everyone. She played dumb sometimes, because they would ask questions and she knew the answers would betray everything she held dear.

She'd never gone back on her promise to Paxton, though, she'd never let them know anything more than 'they were alive'.

She wondered, was their network still up? Did Black Mesa still take in their strays? Or had the place been bombed into oblivion? Bella considered: the Vortigaunts might know. As she and the others gathered their meager rations and gear, slunk out of their hiding place and into the wet, frigid night, Bella decided she would try and find one. Somewhere. There were few here, luck of the draw perhaps. The portals that brought them to Earth might have dropped them into the ocean or icecaps, how horrid a fate that would be.

Of course it was pretty horrid right here, in this place. Maybe if it hadn't been raining, if she'd seen the green landscape and the beautiful farms, low stone walls that had stood for hundreds of years… She'd have appreciated the view.

But just now, all she saw was Patrick's silhouette as he was burst into small, shiny pieces by a Combine mine. It was late at night, she had been exhausted when they woke her to move out. She'd been dreaming of home. Bella could only remember, how much it was like that moment in the Coolant Shaft. So many parts, so many shining, glistening parts scattering into the air.

She fled to the skies.