milliways_bar | (no subject)

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The apparition that has been haunting the bar for the past several days is still present. Those who can sense it directly, however, will notice it's been getting... vague. Its edges are blurred and ill-defined; its interior is murky. However, it is still definitively a Presence, milling restlessly around Milliways in search of something or someone to hold on to.

[ooc: Again, read the back room before tagging. Open for tags until it falls off the page.]

[tinytag: Alyx Vance, Annabelle Newfield]

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Ray's been holed up in Room 2342 for most of today, fiddling with the beacon and his PKE meter until he got readings he actually liked. Not that he's not still nervous, but this is, after all, the second or third time he's worked with the machine in his lifetime. The details started to come back after a while. He was more concerned with getting it to work properly than getting it to work without exploding.

This may tell you something about Ray.

Anyway, he hurries into the main bar area with a complicated assembly of wires and metal casings and what might reasonably be referred to by a certain generation of geeks as das blinkenlights, and immediately migrates towards one of the tables towards the back with it. This thing's gonna have to run for a while without him immediately present, and it's best if he puts it well out of the way.

She knows that person. That gaping hole in the pattern is unmistakable. This person was going to help, wasn't he?

She observes him but makes no move towards him or his device. Yet.

The device isn't doing much at the moment, certainly nothing outstanding enough to be worthy of notice. That may change shortly, though. Ray sets it down on one of the tables, pulls out his PKE meter, scans the area, and says to no one and nothing in particular:

"Alyx, if you can hear me, and I'm aware that this may not be the case, I'm about to fire up the PKE beacon set to your pattern. Let's run this sucker up the flagpole and see how it flies."

He leans over and flips the rocker switch. There's a faint hum, the lights start blinking, and a very small dishlike antenna quivers briefly- but that's all anyone not holding the PKE meter can see.

...it's calling out to her. Not by name, or even in words, but calling out to her, specifically. To her whole self.

She's drawn inexorably towards it, like iron to a magnet.

Ray's just going to back away from the device now and watch the PKE meter. His ability to determine anything else whatsoever about what's going on is pretty much nil, after all.

He'll observe a PKE signature all but identical to the one being given off by the beacon. It soars straight across the room to the beacon and seems to curl up around it like a cat sleeping on a hot air vent on a winter morning.

Ray smiles a little at that. "Well," he says, "it's a start. Alyx, if you can hear me, I'll be keeping an eye on you periodically, and the next time I find Annabelle I'll ask her to translate for me."

She can't hear him, as it happens. But any psychically sensitive entities in the vicinity will be able to 'hear' the wordless gratitude radiating out of her.

Eventually it comes to Steph's attention. Being dead herself helps, and she's also once spent time as a vague Presence, although she found herself restored when she got back to the Bar.

"Hey," she says, stopping near the blurry apparition. "Hi. Are you OK?"

She turns toward the other woman. are you talking to me?

"Yep." Steph nods firmly, offering a hand to the spectral girl. "Can I help you at all?"

Annabelle is eying the weird machine that Alyx seems to be huddled around. "Is that the machine that Ray was going to build?"

yes. it's safe here.

Annabelle is projecting relieved at the moment. "Good. I suppose that it's just a matter of waiting for things to get fixed back in your own world, then."

Annabelle sets her liberated Combine body armor and a stack of paint chips on a table near the machine.

i hope so. i'm tired. i want to go home.

"Hopefully you won't be stuck here for too much longer. I wish I could go back with you and lend a hand..."

me too.

Then a disturbing thought occurs to her.

i hope i can figure out when it's safe to leave.

Annabelle frowns, "You might get yanked back to your body when it's fixed, rather than having to choose to leave."

"I'd have paid more attention to the legends about that sort of thing if I've known I was going to need it later," she mutters, disgruntled.

...there's legends about this sort of thing?

If so, she hasn't heard them. (Except for the obvious one, which isn't all that relevant here.)

Edited 2009-01-17 02:08 (UTC)

"Not exactly this sort of thing, but there's people who've nearly died and claimed that they were hovering over their own body and the like."

"Then there's something called astral projection, which is basically turning your 'self' loose from your body and traveling through something called the astral plane. I'm afraid I don't understand much about it how it's supposed to work..." Annabelle shrugs helplessly.

She shivers. this is not something i would do voluntarily.

"Nor I." Annabelle agrees. Annabelle frowns at the paint chips, "Does the Resistance use any particular colors or designs on their gear?"

It's a little worrying how long it takes her to call up the appropriate mental image.

lambdas. in orange or yellow. why?

"I acquired a set of Combine body armor when I was in City 17. I figured it would be a good idea to change its appearance before I went back to your world wearing it."

She grins, "No point in having the Resistance waste bullets on me that are needed for killing Combine."

A wince. don't even joke about that.

"Sorry," Annabelle replies, chagrined. There's a definite feeling of apology being projected.

"Gray and orange it is, then. If the Resistance that was with my team managed to loot the Combine soldiers I killed, Gordon may end up setting a fashion trend. "

oh, he'd love that, she says wryly. he still doesn't get that he's a celebrity.

"I suspect he's not used to being the center of attention at all, never mind being set up as some sort of saint."

but he still tries to live up to those expectations. There's a dreamy smile on her face. he's stronger than he thinks he is.

Annabelle nods. "He's been tempered in fire, but it's given him strength rather than causing him to break."

he still amazes me. always.

"I suspect the feeling's mutual," Annabelle says with a grin.

A huff of laughter. what have i done that's so special?

"I suspect Gordon would say much the same as you," Annabelle says with a laugh of her own.

"You are special, you know. You've been tempered in fire and held fast. You'd follow Gordon into Hell and help him kick the Devil in the teeth if he needed you to, but that's not the most important thing."

Annabelle is very serious when she continues, "You love Gordon Freeman. You don't see the myth, a messiah, when you look at him. You love him for himself, love him enough to cling to existence without your body here at the End of All Things. I don't think there's anyone else in any Universe that could do that."

Her memories aren't coming to the surface as readily as before. This one, though, is clear. Standing in the Bar just before returning to their world, trying to calm Gordon's fears about the battle to come...

"You're not 'the One Free Man.' I understand that. But I believe in you. I know you well enough to understand what that really means."

She has nothing to add to that in the here and now. What else is there to say?

Annabelle doesn't have anything to add either, so she just smiles.

(OOC: Do you want to fade? Thanks for the thread!)

[ooc: Sounds good to me, and thank you!]

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