Chapter Text
“So, you wanna tell me what the big plan is again?”
Kit Bodega stopped looking around the corner of the concrete wall that she was hiding behind to give an incredulous her robotic sidekick. “You waited until we infiltrated a highly guarded prison base to ask that now?”
“Well, we were a little too busy trying to dodge armed patrols to get into said prison base for me to ask until we could find a place to hide out.” Kaboodle was quick to retort back to his feline partner, making sure to keep his voice down. “Which, might I add is not the most secure location.”
“Kaboodle.” Kit let out an exhausted sigh at how cynical the little robot was being right now. She was about to remind him of the importance of the mission before he suddenly jumped onto her shoulder.
“Shh!” The one-eyed bot shushed the cat and urged her on to listen closely. One of her ears flicked as she heard the noise of heavy footsteps and was quick to retreat into the darkness of the concrete room they were in. Kit didn’t even risk breathing as she watched a figure in bulky military armor lean their head into the room. The face obscured by a bulky helmet that resembled a gas mask, complete with two red glowing eyes. The agent was tempted to get her arm cannon ready before she heard muffled radio chatter coming from the figure. The Nova Prospekt guard put a finger on his helmet and seemingly responded in a muffled deep voice before he left the room. Kit and Kaboodle waited for a full minute until they couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore before they both let out a sigh of relief.
“Thank god this game has guards with terrible perception.” Kaboodle muttered quietly while he hopped down to the ground and carefully peeked from the doorway. “Either that you they’re just stupid. No wonder that nerd is tearing through them like tissue paper.”
“Pretty sure he’s supposed to be an actual scientist, not just a nerd.” Kit noted about the Hero of this world that they had been tracking for a while now.
This was initially supposed to be a simple Farcade recon mission to the latest world that was detected. Dusk had been satisfied with the two’s recent espionage training and decided that they were allowed to go solo for this mission. It was simple enough: fly onto the planet, see who the Hero and Villain were, and fly out. Simple procedure.
Of course, Kit was about to learn how “simple” could quickly turn into “complicated”. Landing the ship into the bleak, brutalist cityscape that they later learned was called City 17 was the easy part. Then Kit and Kaboodle learned that blending in with the other NPCs with a change of outfits would be off the table when they were in the midst of a literal police state. Based on all the propaganda from posters and giant screens that played nonstop, the Combine Empire didn’t mess around. Citizens put on a strict regiment for work and rations, patrols of “Civil Protection” constantly roving the streets and bring the hammer down on anyone who disobeyed or just pissed them off. And the whirling security drones that constantly monitored the populus. That last one in particular made it rather difficult for the Farcade agents to sneak through the city. At least until the Combine had something else to divert their attention to.
“Yeah well, for a scientist, that guy sure knows how to run and gun. Not to mention what he did with that crowbar.” Kaboodle snided as he slowly emerged into the deserted hallway and gave a silent gesture for Kit to follow. The cat kept her wits about her as she emerged herself and slowly started to pace down the hallway with her partner.
“I mean, he is the Hero of the game. It’d make sense that he’d have some…extra skill sets.” Kit said as they rounded a corner and kept a watch out for guards. The cat had to silently admit to herself that slowly tailing the man in the orange suit as he made his escape from City 17. How…efficient he was at doing it too. More experienced than she would have expected with a guy who was supposed to wear a white lab coat for a living.
“Oh yeah, bashing in the face of a bootlicking grunt and then taking out three more with a pistol the next second totally just screams ‘I have a doctorate’.” Kit couldn’t see it from behind, but she had known her little buddy long enough to know he was rolling that one big eye of his.
Kaboodle held up an arm to signal Kit to halt when the pair reached another corner in the hallway. The robot peeked around and peered into the large room where two more guards were on their patrol. He was about to let Kit know that they’d have to pull the old “Distract the NPC with a Rock” routine before fate seemed to be kind when the armored figures made their way up the set of stairs in the room.
“So, back to my original question while we get deeper behind enemy lines.” The robot asked again as he and Kit quickly crossed through the room and exited through the other door. They were now going down a row of grimy-looking cells. Kit tried her best to ignore the cell that had a skeleton in it.
“You remember when that Resistance base was attacked and we lost track of Gordon in that Ravenholm place?” Kit asked her partner while he jumped onto her back in his backpack mode to watch her six.
“Pretty sure I won’t be forgetting that place for a good long while now.” Kaboodle groaned as he remembered that dreary place. “Being hunted down by creepy head-latching aliens and zombies that we couldn’t even shoot because of the damn System Lock was NOT part of the job description Dusk pitched to us way back when.”
“Not a great time, yeah.” Kit deadpanned as they reached the end of the rows of cells. She hoped that they would come across some sort of computerized information system that the combined set up in this place. “Anyway, I picked up some radio chatter from the Combine after we got out of there, and it looks like they captured the Resistance leader, Eli Vance, and took him here to this Nova Prospekt. The plan is to find him before Gordon finds him.”
“And do what exactly?” Kaboodle asked, which did not fail to give Kit an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. “We can’t exactly ice him ourselves to because of the System Lock, so unless we can get one of those guards to use his gun to-“
“We’re not going to kill him, Kaboodle.” Kit was quick to cut off her partner from that dark thought before she quietly breached through the next door. “Once we find him, we’ll just….take him somewhere else to delay the Win Condition a little longer until we can think of something a little more permanent.”
Kit would then feel how Kaboodle would hop off her back and over her shoulder to land right in front of her path, giving her an incredulous look. “Got it, so murder is off the table. But kidnapping is A-OK.”
“It’s not kidnapping, Kaboodle! It’s….a word that’s nicer than kidnapping that I can’t think of right now.” The agent cringed a little as her tail ducked between her legs out of instinct. “Come on, he would be way better with us than in a literal gulag.”
“All for a recon mission.” The little droid just sighed and glanced at the dirty concrete floor before he looked back up at his partner. “Kit, you know I’m normally always down for that annoyingly heroic heart of gold of yours. But you know what Dusk told us about this gig. Sometimes we gotta do a little bad to do a whole lot of good.”
Kit’s immediate reaction was to tell Kaboodle that he was wrong, and they didn’t have to lower themselves to dirty tactics to stop the Win Condition. But the words didn’t leave her mouth. Because it would be speaking from her heart, not her brain. She knew what she was getting into with this job. Dusk had been crystal clear with her about what would need to be done for the greater good. That there would be times where enabling a perpetual stalemate in a game world wouldn’t be viable and that she would have to make some hard decisions.
Kit knew this and accepted this to be a field agent for the Farcade. Anything that she could do to stop the suffering caused by the Win Condition. Suffering she felt when she lost her home….
“Look, let’s just find him first and decide what to do later.” Kit steeled her nerves and advanced forward past Kaboodle and then heard him start to follow. “This game doesn’t have any side quests from what I gathered, so we don’t have much time before Gordon eventually gets here.”
Just as Kit said this, a large explosion could be heard a distance away and an alarm started to blare through the complex. The agents barely had a second to register the growing chaos before they started to hear a stampede of footsteps. Both Kit and Kaboodle had to act on instinct and jumped into vacant cells and did their best to take any cover that they could find. Kit herself held her breath as she didn’t dare to move an inch as she heard a whole patrol of Combine guards rushing down the halls, no doubt to go take defensive positions.
The agent remained in their hiding spots for a few minutes while the alarms continued to blare and distant gunshots and explosions could be heard until they were both sure that the coast was clear. They rushed back to meet in the hallway again, with Kaboodle quick to note the obvious. “Well, looks like pointdexter is storming the beaches, meaning our time is running short!”
“Come on, let get going! We gotta find some sort of computer console.” Kit didn’t waste another second and scooped Kaboodle up into her arms and started to rush down the hallways with stealth right out the window now. “The chaos should at least give us a good distraction.”
The Farcade agents were able to make faster time with most of the Combine diverting their attention to the outside. There were a few automatic turrets in their way, but there was no system lock on the inanimate objects that stopped Kit from blasting them with her arm cannon. She had to admit, after hours of intense stealth and espionage, it was cathartic to actually go guns blazing for a bit.
The deeper that the pair of agents got into the prison, the more derelict that the building seemed to be in. But that certainly didn’t stop the Combine from making good use of it. Kit was getting more and more perturbed by the old, dried bloodstains and scratch marks on the wall that painted a rather grizzly picture. The worst of it was when the feline stopped for a second to look in one room to find some one-eyed alien creature dead while strapped to some type of examination chair. Kit did her best to shake off the monstrous interrogation results and focused on moving forward.
Eventually, Kit and Kaboodle barged through the doors into a large cell block with multiple derelict cells that went down two additional floors below. Across it was what looked to be a control and observation center with a large window towards the cells. The cat and her droid quickly made their way across the large space towards the room in the hopes that there would be a map or something to help them navigate the complex better. The pair barged in and quickly scanned for any hostiles.
“Alright, there’s gotta be something here that tells us where Eli is being kept.” Kit said as she started to head to some filing cabinets and started to rile through it. She looked over her shoulder and saw how Kaboodle was looking over the archaic computer monitor on the counter near the window, along with the other electrical controls. “Got anything from the console?”
“Jack shit!” The robot swore as he quickly typed on the keyboard for the console and grunted in frustration. “This operating system hasn’t been touch touched in decades, Kit! Whatever surveillance or record keeping system these Combine dolts have, they’re definitely not using the prison’s internal systems.”
“Dammit…” Kit groaned at hearing that while she was busy rifling through the stacks of old papers in the cabinet. Outdated prison records, tax reports, stupidly detailed stuff for something that main character wouldn’t bother rifling through. She closed the cabinet door in frustration and looked to the exit. “Alright, let’s just head deeper and see if we get lucky.”
“Wait, hold up. Think I got something!” The little robot stopped Kit from leaving and gestured her over to the console. The screen was now on and was cycling through some live black-and-white security footage of the prison. “Managed to get into the old prison security system. It’s old as shit, but it’ll give us better eyes on where we’re about to go.”
Kit smiled at her reliable partner before her ears perked up more at the sounds of explosions outside, this time closer than before. She knew that they didn’t have much time and focused her attention back on the screen. Kaboodle continued to cycle through the different feeds, going from more abandoned cell blocks and the occasional unused break rooms. Kit was about to lose hope when they finally hit paydirt. Security footage showed a tram system that looked more like Combine technology, meaning it was probably installed after their takeover. On one of the cars was looked to be a rack of what Kit could only describe as harnesses that were probably meant to hold any prisoners. And one of those harnesses was holding someone.
“Is that him?!” Kit exclaimed as she brought her face closer to screen. The resolution was terrible on the old camera, but she was able to make out that it was an older gentleman with a beard. Before the agent could confirm the identity, the train he was on started to speed off. “Dammit! That had to be him! Where’s that train going?!”
“No clue. Cameras don’t reach that far deep. But if I was a betting bot, then he’s being taken deeper for higher security.” Kaboodle said while that big eye of his darted back and forth from the screen to the levers and buttons on the counter. He typed a little more on the keyboard and pointed to one of the levers. “Okay, that should open us up a direct route to the tram area.”
“Then there’s no time to lose!” Kit said as she rushed over to the level and put her hand on it. She took a deep breath and centered her thoughts. She didn’t have a solid plan, and she was working on pure instincts right now. But she had to find Eli and stop Gordon from finding him first. She had to stop the Win Condition….by any means necessary. “Let’s go save the world!”
Kit then threw the lever down….and nothing happened.
“Huh?” The cat tilted her head when she didn’t hear the sound of prison doors opening. She looked at Kaboodle, who looked equally confused, before she looked back to the lever and tried to activate it again. “Come on, work!”
“Kit.”
The cat heard Kaboodle say her name, but she was too busy trying the other levers, with no results. “This place can’t be this run down!”
“Kit….”
Kit again ignored the little robot as she started to pull the first lever again and again. The feline was so focused on the level that she didn’t even notice that the explosions and commotion outside had stopped. Or how the blaring overhead alarms had also stopped. Everything had gone eerily silent, save for Kit still trying to fiddle with the lever. “Work, you stupid piece of fu-“
“KIT!”
“What Kaboodle?!”
When Kit whipped her head to the little robot, her expression softened when she saw the dangerously serious expression that Kaboodle had as he pointed a claw out towards the observation window. The cat looked to where her partner was pointing, expecting to see a line of Combine guards with all their guns pointed right at them. Or even worse, the spectacled Hero himself, crowbar in hand and ready to save the day.
It turned out to be neither, and what she saw only served to confuse Kit even more. All the way across the large cell block at the double doors that the agents had breached earlier was what looked to be an extremely ordinary-looking man. Standing ramrod straight and dressed in a very formal blue suit and red tie, the figure merely stood there while he held a plain-looking briefcase.
“Who….Who is that?” Kit could only say and took a step back. He didn’t look like a guard or prisoner; he didn’t even look like he belonged in this location with how out of place he looked. Kit couldn’t pinpoint the reason why, but she felt a growing sense of anxiety from the pit of her stomach with how the man was just….looking at them.
“Maybe he’s like some sort of random event in the game?” Kaboodle said as he jumped back onto his perch on Kit’s shoulder, his big eye focused in the new character in their midst. “Think it would be best if we keep our dista-“
Before Kaboodle could even finish that thought, the control room went completely dark. That immediately put the two agents on edge and both their sights whirled directly forward on instinct. The pair watched in awe as the overhead lights in the cell block started to shut down one by one to cast the place even more pitch-black darkness. All until one singular light shone down on the lone man. The figure used his other hand to adjust his tie, before the final light went out.
Kit could feel her heart hammer against her chest as she stood there in the abyss of darkness. Not even her naturally keen night vision could help her see. It was almost like all of the light in the room had been sucked out. Were it not for the comforting feeling of Kaboodle’s weight on her shoulder, Kit would have felt completely lost.
“You….are not supposed to be heeere.”
A shiver shot up Kit’s spine when she heard that voice echo so close to her ears. She took a few steps back out of habit in an attempt to save her personal space. Something that she felt would be easier said than done when she heard footsteps slowly echo towards her.
“What the hell is this…” Kaboodle whispered in a strained voice as it was apparent that he was as tense as the cat was.
The agent was too stunned to respond as her eyes were wide open in a desperate attempt to catch any hint of light or movement. She would eventually get what she was looking for, but she almost wished she didn’t. Two glowing pinpricks peeked from the darkness before a sourceless light illuminated the upper portion of the man’s stature as he stepped right before her. His face was somehow simultaneously unassuming and uncanny, almost like something that was attempting to pass as normal but just missing the mark for it.
“Wouldn’t you agree?” He spoke while he looked down at the shorter cat woman. Kit was so flabbergasted that she almost didn’t catch that he was referring to the first statement she heard from him. The agent steadied her nerves and tried to talk her way out of this confrontation.
“I-I….I got lost hiking in the wilderness. I wandered in her looking for help but didn’t know that this was a prison, at first.” Kit tried her best to come up with an excuse off the bat. Kaboodle opted to stay silent for now, not wanting to have to think of an explanation for the existence of a one-eyed robot unless asked.
“Hmmm, I suppose I can-not fault you for your…aaattempt to circumvent the question.” The stranger said and breathed out what could have been a mirthless chuckle. The way he spoke his words in a broken, uneven rhythm only added to Kit’s anxiety. “However, I think we both know that I am not referring to this particular locaaation.”
The cat was really weirded out from how insistent this NPC was being. Was he actually a major supporting character of the game world? An ally of the Hero, perhaps? If it was the latter, this could be just some elaborate rouse to distract her while Gordon infiltrated the complex. She looked up at the suited man with a more determined expression. “Look, uh, I should probably get out of here before the guards come back, so you don’t have to worry about me trespassing here and-“
“Oooh, I believe that we are well be-yond that, Agent Kit Bodega….”
In that one instant, it felt like the atmosphere had turned ice cold. Kit could only stare at the figure, her pupils shaking in sheer disbelief and wondering, begging, that she had misheard this character use her full name. but one good look at how his expression didn’t shift in the slightest convinced her brain that there was no mistake. And that was enough to get Kit to raise and aim her arm cannon at the man.
“….How…When did you overhear my name!” Kit demanded from the stranger while her weapon was still drawn. Of course, she was well aware that there had been no point where her last name had been uttered since stepping onto this world. But there had to be some reasonable explanation as to how that NPC got that knowledge.
The man did not respond to her question and remained motionless before the two agents. It was starting to annoy Kit before that annoyance shifted to primal fear when she felt an icy cold touch to her other shoulder. She whipped her head around was way baffled when she saw that it was the man. She quickly turned her head forward, only to see that he was no longer in front of her. Just a black empty void with tiny specks of light speeding by in her peripherals.
“That infor-mation, hmmm, was gathered long before this encounter, Miss Bodega.” The stranger spoke to the agent as he continued to rest his hand on her shoulder from behind.
“Hands off of her, creep!” Kaboodle piped in protectively while he lunged a claw at the man’s hand.
He was lightning quick to retreat his hand from Kit’s shoulder before the robot could so much as touch him. The man proceeded to give the closest thing to an actual expression since the encounter; hints of annoyance and even disgust etched into his features as he looked down at the protective robot on her shoulder. However, the man was quick to return to a more neutral expression as he adjusted his tie with his hand again.
"Gathered?" Kit repeated what the suited man had said as she kept her eyes trained on him as he ever some slowly circled back to her front. It was then that the cat started to realize how the room that they were in felt less like a room and more like….black empty space. She could feel the solid ground on her feet, but at the same time it felt as though she was hovering right over an inky abyss.
“The resources, at the disposal of my employers has given me information of your….Farcade organization long before your arrival to this world.” The man coldly explained while looking Kit dead in her eyes with his cold ones. Kit couldn’t put her finger on it, but it was like something meaningful was missing from them.
“What are you….” Kit started to ask, before she had a spark of realization. The mention of employers and knowledge of the Farcade could only be because of one reason. Kit got her arm cannon out again and started to charge up a shot as she pointed it at the stranger. “Nice try with all the magic tricks. But you Syntax lackies don’t scare me or my partner here!”
Despite the threatening glares that Kit and now Kaboodle were sending his way, the stranger had no reaction whatsoever. Neither to the accusation of Syntax affiliation or the fact that the cat woman was now deadest on shooting him. The man simple stood there and kept that cold, emotionless expression on his face. Kit was about to throw caution to the wind and fire before he took a straight inhale to speak. “Ah, I believe I see where the con-fusion lays now. The Synnnn-tax that you speak of has no affiliation with our intelligence gathering. Merely, another variable to keep track of.”
Kit wasn’t buying it. No way that this stranger knew so much about her and the Farcade. He had to be Syntax! He was probably distracting her while some other goons were helping Gordon save Eli. The agent wasn’t going to let that happen and was ready to jump into combat before she was interrupted by his voice again. “Perhaps…a demonstration is in order for you to…see clearly.”
With those last two words, a blinding white light started to shine from behind the man. So bright that both Kit and Kaboodle had to cover their eyes for a brief moment. But that moment was more than enough for the agents to be utterly shocked by what they saw next. With the little droid only able to speak in awe. “Holy shit….”
They were definitely not in the prison anymore. Kit could only look around as she was now standing in mid-air over what she could only describe as outer space. Or rather, space was really the closest description that she could really give it. It was like the emptiness of space with any tiny pinpricks of stars, save for one nearby sun that gave off a dim glow that acted as the area’s only source of light. The space wasn’t completely empty. Amongst the sky were whisps and ever-spanning clouds of dust that were colored in a mix of green, orange and shades of blue. Below, the cat could see floating islands of rock and land, some of which had tall, towering spires.
“….What the hell is this?” Kit eventually managed to regain her focus on the man that was still standing across from her and aimed her weapon again. She was still convinced that this was just some messed up Syntax trick to screw with her head. “What part of the game world did you take us?! A-And how?!”
“This location…is of the most impor-tance. More than you would initially assume, Miss Bodega.” The stranger said, answering in the vaguest way possible as he walked on the invisible ground below while looking around the space himself. That was before he looked to the feline and her robot before gesturing his hand in one direction. “I believe what you’ll see here, will enlighten you.”
Kit’s head slowly turned in the direction. She couldn’t explain why, but there was a building sense of dread that was building up inside of her at the mere thought of what the man wanted to show her. Her eyes looked up and they immediately went wide and her ears flattened against her head. She didn’t know how she missed it before, but there looked like there was some sort of portal or opening in the sky. One that opened into what seemed to be a typical depiction outer space.
But that wasn’t all she saw. The giant portal displayed a dull colored planet. The same planet that Kit and Kaboodle had scanned in orbit while in the Nimble. It was the Game World. Somehow, this stranger….this game NPC, as Kit was slowly realizing with great dread and fear, was showing the Farcade agents would should have been an impossibility.
The Gameoverse….
The cat’s head whipped back to look at the stranger in a panic, only to see that he was still standing where he was before and looking at Kit with that same observing expression. This made no sense. None of this made any sense! Kit remembered what Dusk had drilled into her head during training. If any Hero, Villain or NPC were made aware of the Gameoverse, the Game World would cut away any intrusions and at worse, self-destruct as a whole. Why wasn’t there any Static right now?!
While Kit was still shellshocked by this revelation, Kaboodle was far more assertive. The robot had leapt off of her shoulder to stand in front of her in an almost defensive manner as he questioned the stranger. “Alright, what the hell is going on here, chump?! You’re showing us the Gameoverse here and you seriously still expect us to believe you’re not Syntax?! Right now you oughta be frozen and we should be Float by now!”
“So one would think.” The man in the suit coldly replied, not even slightly intimidated by the robot. Instead, he focused that icy gaze back Kit and spoke more to her. “And yet, the reality of the situation seems to speak differ-rent, wouldn’t it, agent?”
“Hey! Anything you got to say to her, you can say to me too, you lying sack of-“
“I don’t think he’s lying, Kaboodle.” Kit interrupted her partner as she took a few steps to walk past Kaboodle and towards the stranger standing at a distance. She tried her best to keep a bold face before him, but her nerves were still rattled by all of this. This was well past her typical training. “I doubt anyone from Syntax would even know my first name, let alone my last name.”
“Astute, Miss Bodega. Logical deduction such as that makes you quick amicable for field work.” The stranger complimented Kit, who didn’t exactly get warm fuzzy feelings from the distant praise.
“So, you’re from this Game World. And you know about the Farcade and you know me…” The cat slowly listed out the bizarre facts before her in an attempt to ground herself. Feeling Kaboodle hop onto her back again also helped calm her nerves. “How do you know about the Gameoverse? Every world immediately induces Static to protect the status quo…”
“In normal circum-stances, correct. The universal rules of the….Game-overse, as you call it…are strict in its proceedings. An order strict to the point where outside interference results in….harsh reactions.” The stranger mused while he started to slowly pace back and forth. “However, influences from my employers allow me ex-exceptions to these rules, in order to perform my responsibilities with eeeease.”
“And are these “employers” part of the Game World like you are?” Kit asked in the hopes of getting more information. The man stopped his pacing and fully faced the cat once again.
“Ah….I am afraid that is on…a need-to-know basis, my dear. A veeery short short list that outsiders such as yourself are….not privy to.” The cryptic answer didn’t fail to make Kit huff a tiny bit in annoyed disappointment. Though her partner wasn’t afraid to offer up his own thoughts.
“Pssh, yeah, sure. All we’re trying to do is save your world from blowing up in glowing red sparkles, but that totally doesn’t put us on a “need-to-know” basis.” Kaboodle snided out loud, not caring if the stranger heard him.
“Sorry, but…my friend has a point there.” Kit then said while trying to ease the robot’s rude behavior. “If you know about the Gameoverse, then why didn’t you reach out to us sooner? If Gordon is getting closer to the Win Condition, then we should be working together to sto-“
“Your assumptions are….unneeded, Miss Bodega.” The stranger’s alien voice froze the words right out from Kit’s mouth. He was giving her a look that was still blank as usual but with a shadow of repressed agitation. He adjusted his tie once again and continued speaking. “As are any outside intrusions that would inter-feeere with carefully laid plans beyond your comprehension. I would….suggest you restrain your sense of freedom in unfamiliar territory. If my employers were so inclined, you would have been…ejected from this world the second to stepped foot on it.”
This managed to get Kit to wince and her ears to flatten. She was able to pick up the veiled threat coming from the icy monotone voice. Were the entities that this stranger was working for that powerful? Kit didn’t want to believe it, but given the current circumstances, perhaps it would have been smart to take him for his word.
“Still, as I gesture of polite professionalism, I opted to suggest for a face-to-face interaction. A change not to offer a warning, but a re…assurance.” The second part the man mentioned was what made Kit’s ear perk up again.
“Reassurance?” Kit asked with a tilt of her head. A word that was the polar opposite to the vibe that this stranger had been giving off this whole time.
“Your goal in preventing the….Win Condition for the presser-vation of this world is….feasible without your interference. As it is a….s-shared objective that my employers wish to achieve.” The man explained as he took a few echoing steps across the vast empty space of the alien dimension towards the cat.
“Stop the Win Condition…” Kit repeated the proposition that sounded too good to be true. The quiet scientist with the orange armor and crowbar flashed in her mind and she slowly teased out what the man was suggesting. “So, you’d actually use this power you have to…stop Gordon Freeman was winning the game. Is that what I’m hearing?”
“Gordon Freeman…..” The suited stranger would slowly say, speaking in a cadence that spoke of familiarity with the name. “Dr. Freeman is a….determined man, as you’ve no doubt already seen for yourself. An anathema to impossibility that you could hardly comp-rehend. As such, I have been observing him more as an…asset during his travels through City 17 and other locations. I do not intent on…hmmm, providing hinderance more than what is required.”
The questions kept piling up in Kit’s brain the more the man spoke. He spoke about wanting to help stop the Win Condition, and yet he saw the Hero as an asset and wouldn’t stop him? It was contradictory and yet the stranger was speaking it with a straight face. He seemed to have noticed how the gears were turning in her head and hummed in thought. “Your confusion is….evident, Miss Bodega. Another piece of evi-dence of how this mission assigned to you is beyond your….a-abilities. “
“Hey, just because I don’t understand your plan doesn’t make me a bad agent.” Kit got a bit defensive at the off-handed insult to her skills. She was new, sure, but she had the motivation for the job to make up for it. Motivation from rather painful memories.
“As it may be, you lack the forethought and planning I’ve prepared for this en-deavor.” The stranger emphasized as he now stood right before the shorter cat woman. “Specifically, a way to….stall the fate of this world in an indefinite stale-mate.”
“How do I do that?” Kit immediately asked after hearing the prospect. The ability to do something like that would be a godsent for her current and all future missions!
“You….are going to leave this place….and let this plan take its course.” The man said, almost ordered the cat which made her back up a little.
“If….If you’re trying to intimidate me, it won’t work.” Kit stuttered and tried to stand her ground. But she then started to notice that her surroundings were starting to get brighter. She looked around wildly and then whipped her head back to the suited man standing as calm as ever.
“Mmmmm, intention, agent. Not intimid-ation.” The stranger emphasized calmly as the light was starting to become blinding now. Kit felt like her vision was swimming and her brain was starting to hurt. And yet no matter how much she tried to shield her eyes from the light, she could still made out a shadow of the man’s face. “And my instructions are clear. Remove yourself from this world and do not return. Failure to do so will invoke….consequences.”
“WAIT!” Kit yelled out to the man as the lights only got brighter. The pain in her head was becoming overwhelming and she collapsed her knees.
“Kit!” She was able to hear Kaboodle call out from behind her, but already she was getting her senses were getting overwhelmed. Yet despite all that, the man’s voice was still clear in her mind. And she was able to hear one last thing before everything whited out.
“I will be in contact, Kit Bodega…”
…………………….
………….it….
“KIT!”
Kit woke up with a yelp and sat up from her slumped position against the console. She hyperventilated as her eyes erratically darted around to take in her surroundings. She was no longer in that weird alien dimension or even back in the prison. She was back on the Nimble, sitting in the pilot seat as a matter of fact with everything appearing to be as they were. The cat then looked out the window and beheld the Game World that they were just on. Looking at the dull blue planet with the receded oceans helped calm her breathing and calmed her nerves.
“Kit! Down here, okay?”
Kit looked down at where the familiar voice was coming from and her eyes landed on Kaboodle. The little robot was standing on the dashboard next to the ship controller and looking up at her with concern. “Easy, I’m right here, okay? Breathe through your nose and out your mouth and all the crap. Take a minute to just-“
“Kaboodle!” Kit immediately scooped the droid up and hugged him close to her chest. She was finally getting grounded again as she embraced the closest friend she had left in this cruel universe. She didn’t say anything for a minute as she just took the opportunity to just hold onto the metal sphere.
“Okay, dude, I get it! Glad your safe too, just quit it with the hugging!” Kaboodle squirmed in in the cat’s grasp until the she eventually set him back down.
“Sorry, I’m just….glad your safe after….” Kit started to apologize before she slowly looked around the ship again. Her memory was a complete blank after that light blinded and incapacitated her. SHe no clue how the both of them got back to the ship or how the ship made it back into orbit. The agent looked at her friend. “Wait, how did we?.....Did that just really happened?”
“….It did.” Kaboodle growled in annoyance with a glance to the ground. “I was this close to hopping off your back to sock that suited bastard and then that light messed with my systems. Next thing I know, we’re back on the ship.”
“That can’t be possible.” Kit could only say as the droid confirmed the events that transpired. She thought of something and then started to type some things in on the computerized console. The ship’s voice read out the information that she had requested.
Calculating time since start of mission: 24 hours 47 minutes 37 seconds….38 seconds….39 seconds…..
“Okay, that matches up for the time we spent down there. Meaning that there are no time shenanigans….” Kit noted out loud. She then tried to track the ship’s movements from the start of the mission and see if she could figure out how they all got back into orbit.
Calculating return path from planet surface….Calculating…….No idea lol
“Top of the line Farcade tech we got here.” Kaboodle made no attempt to hide his sarcasm as he hopped into the other seat and started to punch in some landing coordinates. “I’ll see if I can get us close to the prison again, though odds are Dr. Crowbar To The Face has already broken out the resistance leader. We can at least look and worse case, we can head to that Citadel and-“
“Wait!” Kit got Kaboodle’s attention before he could finish. “Is it really a good idea to go back down after…you know…”
“What?” Kaboodle raised the one brow he had before he realized what his partner was talking about. “Oh my god, we’re not seriously going to listen to that creep, are we? Kit, we can’t let every weird game character encounter scare us off from our missions. Dusk would kill us if he found out!”
“Kaboodle, do you seriously thing that he was just some normal game character?” Kit argued back as she stood up from her seat. “He knew about the Gameoverse. He knew about the Farcade. He knew about me, for crying out loud!”
“Alright, I admit that was….really messed up.” Kaboodle admitted and gave a long sigh. “But can we really risk it? The more Game Worlds that get destroyed, the more Float the Syntax will have for their evil plans and crap.”
“I know. But he said that there was a plan to stall out the Win Condition.” The cat recalled the stranger’s cryptic allusion to some plan that his employer’s had. Kaboodle hardly seemed convinced still.
“Oh yeah, bet that “plan” is completely foolproof like how his suit is tacky.” The droid rolled his eye and folded his arms. “Look, maybe he’s far from an ordinary NPC. But I’m telling you, Kit. That guy is giving me bad vibes, and not just from the way he talks. He’s got some agenda that we don’t know, and it’s gonna lead to some bad shit.”
Kit didn’t have a very good argument against that. She knew exactly what Kaboodle was referring to, it did seem like the man was thinking three moves ahead of everyone else. The cat girl leaned against the pilot seat and looked out at the planet and the vastness of space. As horrible as that Combine Empire was, she still wanted to head back down and try her damnedest to save the Game World. Even if it meant going against Gordon Freeman. She had to prove herself as capable agent. To prevent a similar tragedy to make up for the one she caused all that time ago.
And yet….the stranger’s words echoed in her mind. The warning he gave if they were to return. There was just something about the word he used that made Kit feel an uneasy feeling building up inside of her. Spoken so formal, so lifeless….and yet that one word was carrying so much weight.
Consequences.
“Come on, let’s set a course back to HQ.” Kit broke from her trance out the windshield and sat down in the pilot seat to get the ship ready for a jump. And as expected, she heard some protests from her partner.
“We seriously going to run back to Dusk with our tail between our legs?....Or I guess your tail in between your legs?” The short droid corrected himself while he continued to brood at the decision. “Just seems like we’re throwing in the towel over a Hail Mary here.”
“I know you don’t like it, Kaboodle. But I feel like I need to go with my gut here. It just…..feels correct to head that guy’s warning.” The cat sighed as she swiveled her chair around to look at the little robot in the other chair. “Well report back to Dusk that Gordon was some lengthy side quest and that we destroyed some mcguffin to stall out the Win Condition even further. We’ll check now and again if this Game World is still around for a few weeks and if it is, we’ll know that he was telling the truth. Just….trust me, okay?”
Kaboodle looked at Kit, still not looking convinced with the plan. He let out a sigh and the cat’s ears flattened on her head. Then, the bot let out a groan of defeat and threw his claws up. “Fiiiine. We’ll back off and listen out if this world ends up going kaboom. And we’ll go with your story for our report.”
“Thanks, Kaboodle. You’re the best, you know that?” Kit flattered the robot before she turned back to the controls and started to set the coordinates for home.
“Yeah yeah, just remember that this is the second time you owe me now.” Kaboodle relented as he typed at his own console. “Don’t think I forgot about how I saved your ass from that creepy headcrab thing from turning you into a zombie.”
“You’re just mad that it immediately tried to latch onto you after.” Kit couldn’t help but giggled at how petty the robot was being with that embarrassing event.
“I’m a head-shaped orb with arms and legs, Kit! I’m basically like a juicy steak to them!” Kaboodle snapped back.
“A steak made entirely out of metal.” Kit quipped back.
The ship was filled with the cat’s laughter and Kaboodle’s good-natured scoffs as the ship was flown into position and began to speed off away from the Game World. Kit found some comfort with the familiar banter that she shared with her best friend. It brought her more at ease with the plan that they were going for, putting all of the alien empire tyranny and oppression in their rearview mirror. And at the very least, the distance would help keep her mind away from the confusion and unease that stranger gave her. Those last words….surely they were just scare tactics, right? Kit hoped that the increased distance would help with convincing herself of that.
But if only she knew of what she was leaving behind. For on that dull planet, a man in a well-tailored blue suit was watching up at the sky as he adjusted his tie. Or rather looking at the tiny dot of a ship past the invisible barrier around the world that kept all of the inhabitants of this Earth ignorant of the truth. But he could see past it, and he could see as the cat he spoke too earlier was heeding his advice. One less wrinkle to worry about.
But before he had to be off and make more small nudges in the right direction, something strange happened. The far-left side of his mouth curled upward by a mere centimeter, giving the mysterious man a ghost of a smile. A rarity that he scarcely let himself have. But he allowed it this once, for he was thinking about something. Something about that cat that he saw potential in for the many plans and back-up plans that always required the same thing.
An asset.