At the thought of that, a small grin creased his mouth as he whisked across the gravel courtyard, stopping outside the huge double doors that were partially collapsed. He held up a hand, gesturing for the others to halt.
The three men looked at Ally first.
She turned to them and nodded.
They stopped, holding position behind her while she moved up to join Matt at the front entrance.
Leading with the muzzle of his weapon, Matt peered into the dark recesses of the hallway. When his flashlight flickered to life, it revealed the majestic scale and design of this place.
Ally’s eyes narrowed when two massive marble pillars in the hallway took form. They protruded towards the grand ceiling, looking like two long arms beseeching up to something Biblical in the sky.
In the courtyard, Dan’s face was a knot of anxiety as he kept his weapon trained on the tree line behind them. The air was noticeably cooler now. Shadows shifted, and a gentle breeze was beginning to stir a dormant fog. Dusk was fast approaching. “Can we get a move on?” he demanded, shooting Ally a terse look. “This place is already giving me the jitters.”
The moment Matt entered the building, Ally swung around and signaled for them to follow her. “Trey, stay on watch.”
Trey halted and gave her a nod. “Roger that.”
Inside, Matt led the way, inching along the hallway that was once filled with priceless antiques. The opulent tapestries and ornate chandeliers were all gone. Now ransacked and ruined, this place was once a repository of human history until Cromwell took it over. The deeper the four of them pushed, the thicker the air filled with rot.
Ally paused, her flashlight beam revealing the putrefied skeletons of Prescott’s guards. All five were stripped of their ghoulish flesh by animals long since dead. “Last stand?” she quizzed, her voice hovering just above a whisper.
“No. These guys were executed,” Matt replied. “I was here the night it happened.”
They carried on, eyes locked to the scopes of their weapons, their breathing getting heavier with each new step. The murky interior was starting to feel overwhelmingly claustrophobic.
Matt swung his torch around to inspect the source of some dripping water then continued along the corridor. “Stairs are this way.” Dan, Jensen, and Ally followed, awed by the vastness of this place.
The party crossed through what was once a great hall, regarding the water-stained wallpaper, plaster moldings, and cornices sagging from the ceiling. Underfoot, the remains of broken antiques and receptacles were scattered everywhere, crunching under their boots as they picked their way towards the darker recesses, flashlights cutting through the musty gloom.
Upon reaching the end of the hallway, an elaborate staircase opened before them. Hearing a slight rustling behind them, they whipped their weapons around, aiming at a malnourished rat scuttling across the floor. It quickly disappeared under some rubble that blocked the entrance into a grand drawing-room.
Matt swung back to face the twisting stairwell, took a deep breath, and began his descent. Here we go again, he thought. What remained of the stylish Rosecliff stone architecture, soon gave way to the featureless jet-black marble Matt was all too familiar with.
With quiet reverence, Ally, Dan, and Jensen followed behind him, the strange Wraith architecture taking form like some necrotized wound.
After what seemed like forever, the group finally reached the stairwell’s bottom landing and entered the cavernous underground chamber. The smoothly polished pathway was ruptured and no longer level, and the labyrinth of corridors that yawned beyond the black ziggurat and granite alter had collapsed in on themselves. Muddy water dripped through the entire structure, pooling in corners.
Dan and Ally shared a concerned look as Matt pressed closer to the ziggurat that was the centerpiece of the chamber, his footsteps splashing through putrid water.
Despite some structural damage, the alter appeared mostly intact, but the central urn-like device he remembered seeing was missing.
Jensen looked around, awed by the chamber that was clearly of alien design. He turned to Matt and asked the only question worth asking: “What the hell is this place?” But before he could receive an answer, he recoiled when a large black centipede slithered over his left boot. “Oh, fuck!” he yelled with fright, jumping back with shock.
When his startled voice ping-ponged off the bedrock walls, Ally and Dan whirled around and shoot him an annoyed look.
He raised his hand to shield his eyes, squinting from their powerful flashlights. “Oww. Guys— come on.”
“This was how Cromwell was moving through time,” Matt said, panning the muzzle of his weapon through the gloom. “This alter was some kind of inter-dimensional device. It was the Wraith’s answer to the Emissary...” Matt trailed off, not finishing his words as something caught his attention overhead.
Among the baroque columns of black marble, something new had been added to their corners. It was a network of bizarre, encrusted structures, consisting of muddy pipes and partitions, crudely reminiscent of the brood chambers of an insect hive.
Eyes wide, Matt immediately paled and started to backtrack; his weapon still trained upwards. “We might need to cut this short.”
“Way ahead of you,” Jensen replied, eying the chambered hive that stretched above him like the marrow of some giant dinosaur bone.
“Yeah, think I’m done with our little road trip,” Dan added, turning to retreat, his rifle held tightly. “What did I say, Ally? I knew it. Coming here was a bad idea.” He spun around to Matt, furious. “Thanks, man. Nice job.”
Jensen kept his eyes locked on the hive structures above with a mix of dread and fascination, his light erratically dancing over the ceiling. The stale air now bristled with thick tension. Vague shadows shifted, and water continued to trickle louder into puddles, making the entire chamber suddenly seem alive. “Ah… Ally… can we leave now, please?”
When Ally did not respond, the three men spun around to see her ascending the strange-looking ziggurat in the center of the room, its polished black stone gleaming invitingly under the murky subterranean light. Entranced by the alien beauty and strangeness of it, she was only a few feet away from making contact, her arm outstretched to touch the altar.
“Ally! Get away from it!” Matt sprang into action and bolted across the room to reach her.
Dan and Jensen watched him take off like a Cheetah, not noticing the small area at the base of his neck pulsing dimly with a red light. Being this close to the ziggurat had somehow activated the shard that was still affixed to his vertebrae.
In another corner of the chamber, Dan’s attention shifted to someplace else, still directed upwards, but fixed in a frozen stare. He heard the frantic commotion taking place behind him, but he suddenly had bigger fish to fry.
Much bigger.
Across the ceiling, through a network of brown muck, white shapes glistened inside placenta-like sacks.
Ashen and confused, Dan’s mouth opened to warn the others, but only a vacant gasp managed to escape his lips.
A hideous, spindly, milky-white creature emerged from a tear in its nesting sack, dropping to the ground with a wet thud. With its head bowed, the hairless creature began to emit a low, heavy seething, as if its lungs were stirring with air for the very first time. Its shoulders shuddered and its spine jerked bizarrely. Then, the creature raised its head and slowly rose to its feet like some grotesque newborn colt. The Afflicted had not only mutated into Whitescreechers, they had evolved to a point where parts of their body were now armored.
Dan took aim and pulled the trigger. The rapid pulse of his assault rifle shook his body as a stream of plasma rounds struck the dense plated chest of the Whitescreecher. The creature violently twitched as the salvo of rounds peppered its armored body.
The room suddenly erupted into a battlefield as blue fire arced through the darkness. Dan and Jensen were now shooting in all directions as more Whitescreechers dropped from the ceilin
g, panic overtaking the two experienced soldiers as the creatures rapidly closed in on them.
At that very same moment, Matt had reached the top of the ziggurat, shoving Ally aside with both his hands. She landed hard on her shoulder and slid across the ziggurat’s platform.
But before Matt could distance himself from the object, the black fur of Wraith embryo began to engulf him, spreading over his body like some hideous mold on a block of cheese, the filaments solidifying as the air stirred around them. Matt screamed at Ally to get up and start moving, but his plea was instantly drowned out by the surrounding chaos.
And then, within the blink of an eye, he disappeared from the room.
With deafening screams and gunfire all around her, Ally lay there, shaken, and dumbstruck, her eyes wide with terror and disbelief.
Her father had vanished into thin air.
Hearing a guttural seething behind her, she snatched her crossbow and whirled around to see a Whitescreecher approaching her curiously, its hungry white eyes fixed on her. This thing was an absolute vision of hell - its sickly pale flesh rippled over knuckled bone as it scuttled towards her, its gaping maw, dripping with thick ropes of translucent saliva.
Matt came to, winded and in shock, sucking air like a grouper. As the lingering remnants of pain dissipated through his body, he wailed with anger. Where was he this time? he thought as he pulled himself up, grunting on the verge of hyperventilation. Once again, he had been painfully ripped through the fabric of reality and placed in some godawful timeline. That fact alone did not necessarily concern him. It was the fact that he had abandoned his daughter for a second time, once again, leaving her to fend for herself.
As he stood, he could feel the base of his neck throbbing. There were strange sounds all around him now; ratcheting clatters that rose and faded like a rattlesnake warning. These sounds circled him as if patiently watching him, like predators circling a soon-to-be-dead man. It was dark and cold, but from what his bleary eyes could make out, he was surrounded by a never-ending sea of mechanical intestines. Inside their translucent tubing, they surged with energy. It did not appear electrical, but something else. Some unknown source of power. Something beyond human knowledge.
He looked up to see no discernable sky or ceiling, just a grumbling of sooty storm clouds. Then he realized he was standing inside a shallow pit. It was some kind of cabling trench that stretched on for miles in either direction. If he could find a way to climb out of it, he would be able to reach higher ground.
With his breath caught in his throat, he gingerly reached out to touch the nearest coil. It was warm, but not hot, and the power that hummed through it vibrated smoothly against his gloved hand. He climbed on top of it and began to feel his way up, rising from the pit. After each cautious and well-placed step, he managed to heave himself out, crawling belly-first onto a vast metallic surface.
From what Matt could see, the walls of this space were many miles away, shimmering with the same weird energy as the piping below. And out there, just beyond the edge of view, was a brilliant source of light glowing crimson against the flat and featureless horizon of seething darkness. It was a towering, needle-thin necropolis, built out of black metal. A dark, otherworldly nightmare of industrial design. A spire of metal that seared endlessly into the cloud canopy, with strange esoteric glyphs soldered into its surface, like some three-dimensional circuit board. Nothing about this object seemed to be built with function or form in mind, but rather, a testament to some highly advanced power.
Suddenly, the ground surrounding Matt began to rumble, and from below, an enormous black obelisk split through the surface and rose to face him.
Matt steadied himself, looking up at the object, overwhelmed by the alien design of its non-reflective surface. Unable to contain his terror any longer, he collapsed to the ground, skittering away from the object as it majestically towered over him, still and silent.
“Where am I?” he wailed hoarsely as if expecting the object to somehow respond.
To his surprise, it did.
“Kneel before the Combine,” boomed a loud and toneless voice inside his mind. The burst of sound exploded with brilliant pain, causing Matt to pinch his eyes shut. “Kneel before us,” the voice repeated sternly.
Knowing he was now at the mercy of something far beyond mortal understanding; Matt knelt and bowed his head. “Why am I here?” he asked, in a humbled and terrified voice.
“By direct violation. We did not summon you, and no human has ever been permitted to enter our sacred realm, therefore you must face molecular dismantlement. The Combine has spoken. It is final.”
“Wait— it was my shard. I never meant— I got too close—” Matt suddenly convulsed, his body writhing, gripped in a painful contraction as the shard at the base of his neck began to throb again. “Wait! Please!” The rattling pain spread through his body like wildfire, causing him to arc his body unnaturally. For some reason, he knew deep within, that this was the eternity that now awaited him. An eternity of unbearable pain.
Once again, he had Cromwell to thank for this.
“Wait— I have a proposition for you — Cromwell — I know he disobeyed you and is planning a revolt… Wait! Please!”
“No one disobeys the Combine!” the voice thundered inside Matt’s mind.
“Then let me finish him for you!”
“We do not require the assistance of an insect, so why would we need you?”
“Please— just hear me out. If you don’t approve, then do with me whatever it is you must.”
After an agonizing beat, they replied. “Speak, human!”
Matt took a second to regain his composure. Wherever or whatever this dimension was, the air was harsh and dry, making it difficult to breathe. Something also told Matt he wasn’t the first sentient being to find himself here begging for his life, nor would he be the last. These beings were the puppet-masters behind the entire invasion and the subsequent war that followed. If he could somehow cut a deal, there was a slight chance he could end it, while also saving his daughter’s life in the process. “Cromwell is hiding— he’s on Earth."
“You are foolish to think this is something we don’t already know.”
“If I could just find him, I could finish him. Let me put an end to his plans.”
“Again, you have not answered us. Why would we need you to do this on our behalf?”
“Think of me as an expendable ally. An operative of the Combine. A loyal soldier - someone working to advance your agenda.”
“The Combine is absolute. We have no use for allies.”
“Look, whether you accept it or not, Cromwell is still planning to attack you. He wants revenge for what you did to his species. That was the entire reasoning behind his coup and his release of the Scourge. Earth is simply a base of operations. Somewhere he can lay low while he creates his army. He can also reach this place whenever he chooses to do so, and believe me, he will. It’s not a matter of if, but when. I’m sure you know what he’s capable of with that virus. He could—"
“Enough! What is it you propose?”
Matt almost exhaled a sigh of relief. He had their curiosity. Now it was time to close. “Cromwell has not only wrought havoc upon my species and destroyed my world—"
“Your world?”
“Forgive me, I meant your world. Earth. The place I call home. He has also disrespected your… he has blatantly disobeyed your absolute rule on this galaxy. So, all I would ask, is that you permit me to restore that respect.”
“How?”
“You initially allowed the Wraith to create a device that enabled them to move through time and multiple dimensions, correct?”
“Correct.”
“Then I would require a similar device – one that only I can access.”
“For what purpose?”
“If I could go back, just before Dr. Rossiter managed to mutate the virus, I could stop him.” The cold silence throbbed in Matt’s ears as he stood there, chest heaving w
ith anxiousness. The slightest inkling of doubt among them would spell the end of him.
“Continue.”
Matt exhaled. “After Cromwell took Rossiter, I know he would have replicated that virus and kept large stockpiles of it somewhere, possibly off-world, ready for deployment once the mutation was successful. Rossiter would have only needed to add this new genetic material or a new protein to each sample. Something that would nullify the virus’s effects on Cromwell, while making it deadly to humans... possibly even to yourselves.” Matt’s words echoed into the excruciating silence. He gulped and summoned the courage to continue, hoping that last comment was not enough to enrage them. These inter-dimensional beings had some serious ego issues. “If I can find his location in the past and take control of his supply, I could destroy his time device and jump forward, leaving him stranded. Then, using the payload he was planning for Earth, I could attack the Wraith on the eve of their invasion… or… I could just find him and kill him. Either way, he ends up dead.”
“You would seek to infect the entire species on Epsilon?”
“Yes, to stop the invasion of Earth from ever happening. Think of Epsilon… think of it as a bad investment.”
“Epsilon is a dense, mineral-rich world. It provides for us, as all our worlds do. We are not willing to destroy it for your benefit.”
“Why would you care? You own many worlds, and you continue to acquire new ones. What’s one world out of hundreds?”
“Not hundreds, human. Millions.”
“Right, millions. My apologies.”
“And if you fail?”
“Then Earth is lost, and you will have to face Cromwell with another species that you control. But, if I’m successful, the only thing I ask is that you leave my home in peace. No more proxy invasions, and no more wars.”
“That could never be a reality on your world. Human history is one of turmoil and violence. You people lust for war.”
“You’re right. But we could at least have a future. One without Cromwell. One without any… outside interferences. With your blessing, we could also be free from any long-term desires you may still hold with regards to acquiring us.”
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