Disclaimer: I don't own the Half-Life franchise or its respective characters. Valve does.

***

Lost Contact

Chapter One: Extraction

"We've got another recovery call, Dr. Vance."

"Again? That's the second time this week. Barney says Civil Protection is starting to get wise."

"I'm just a radio operator, Dr. Vance. I can't control what comes over the airwaves."

"Well, who're we getting out this time?" Eli Vance asked as he kept watch on the monitors in the Black Mesa East communications room. The concrete walls, for the most part, were gray, speckled with bits of moss and pocked with missing pieces. A huge array of monitors and computers dominated the side of the room furthest from the door, where the Resistance kept a close watch on all that was happening in City 17.

"Station Two says they've got a civilian family. Husband and wife."

"Anything that justifies sending out Alyx on another recovery run?"

"The wife's nothing special, far as we can tell. The husband says he stole some data on Overwatch troop concentrations and movements." Eli turned to the radio operator.

"Where are they now?"

"Uhhh…last known location was en route to Station Six. Burris says they should be arriving there any minute now."

"Tell him to hold them at Six until Alyx arrives. We lost contact with Seven…two weeks ago, was it?"

"Mhm. Don't you think it's a bit risky, though, repeatedly sending her out as a guide ever since Seven went down?"

"She's the only one who's willing to go." Leaning forward, he pressed a green button and spoke into a microphone. "Alyx, come over to the communications room."

***

The voice that played over the PA system, rousing her from sleep, had a ragged and familiar edge to it. "Alyx, come over to the communications room."

Alyx Vance sighed and got off the couch that had served as an impromptu bed for the last – she glanced at a nearby clock as she made her way to the elevator at the far end of the common room – four hours. Tapping the button for the second floor, Alyx crossed her arms and leaned against the elevator's walls as the floors slowly passed by.

She fiddled with the duct tape on the right sleeve of her jacket, remembering the close call with the Manhack that had left her something to remember it by last week during a foray into the city. Right before she blasted it out of the air with her machine pistol, of course. She'd dropped by the supply office after that and bummed some duct tape off the ex-military man who ran it for some (what did he call it? "Field expedient"?) repairs.

The elevator doors creaked open. Alyx strode into the communications room and glanced up at the monitors. "Another recovery run?" Her father nodded. "That…doesn't strike you as just a little bit dangerous?"

"The risks are much higher this time. There's no denying that. But if we manage to get these two out, it could make a lot of difference." Alyx cocked an eyebrow in response. "This man claims he's stolen some data on Overwatch troop movements. Now this is, without a doubt, highly classified material. If we could get our hands on it and decode it, it'd go a long way towards leveling the playing field."

"So you want me to make sure nothing happens to him."

"If you could. But don't stop any bullets for him. You're all I have left. They'll be waiting for you at Station Six. Civil Protection's been patrolling the canals non-stop ever since that stunt you pulled three days ago, so you'll have to take the sewers. Got your knife?" Alyx removed a razor-sharp dagger from a sheath on her belt and displayed it for Eli to see.

"Your backup?" Alyx bent down and removed a blade from a sheath concealed in her right boot.

"Good. And your pistol?" Alyx opened her jacket, revealing a concealed holster in which her modified Colt .45 rested.

"Alright, the airlock's open. Be careful out there, Alyx," Eli cautioned.

"I will be," Alyx replied as she made her way back to the elevator and tapped the button for the first floor.

***

Eli watched with a heavy heart as the elevator escorted Alyx out of sight.

"Well, there she goes," the radio operator stated.

"I just hope she comes back in one piece. I don't think I could take it if she didn't." Silence enveloped the room, save for the electronic chirps and beeps of the computers.

"Over twenty years of work went into her, you know that? Twenty-three and counting. And to have all that amount to nothing in the end, all because of a bullet, a lousy piece of lead and copper. God, I don't think I could take it." Silence again, longer this time.

"You did a helluva job, Doc. One helluva job."

"I hope so."

***

The door to the elevator opened again, and Alyx stepped out, entering the airlock. The blast door slammed shut behind her.

"Quite the adventurer, aren't we, Alyx?" Alyx's blood boiled as Dr. Mossman appeared on the monitor. She hated that voice, hated its condescending, schoolteacher I'm better than you and you'll damn well acknowledge it tone.

"Let me out, Mossman."

"As you wish," was the reply as the blast door in front of her opened. The early evening sky was a pleasant mixture of cerulean, turquoise, and mauve, clouds dotting the heavens with flecks of pale white. A gentle breeze, cool and crisp, washed up against Alyx, embracing her as she pried off a nearby manhole cover and dropped in.

***

Alyx hated sewers. It hadn't been as bad as when she was younger, at least, not that she could remember. Back then, sewers had been forbidden netherworlds of filth and decay, but here, they were vital lines of supply and communication. Adapt. Adopt. Evolve. That was how you survived these days.

Alyx grimaced as the filthy water sloshed over her boots while she ran. Necessity might be the mother of invention, but that didn't mean said invention had to be sanitary. Her pistol was out, failing work lights strung along the sewers' length playing off the gunmetal. She paused at a T-junction. Station Six was…that way, she remembered, taking a left. A low moan reverberated throughout the sewer. Alyx halted, her hazel eyes expertly scanning the tunnel. A voice, muffled and throaty, reached her ears.

"Get it off me!"

More moaning.

Alyx shrugged and resumed jogging through the sludge. Zombies up ahead. No biggie. The sewers had become packed with them a few years ago, after some of Ravenholm's former inhabitants somehow managed to migrate to the abandoned tunnels. The moans became louder now, and a zombie shambled around a corner. It screamed through the headcrab perched atop its head as it slowly shuffled toward Alyx. She brought her pistol up, aligning the sights on the headcrab. There was no need to control her breathing at this range. She squeezed the trigger.

Bupbupbup.

The zombie collapsed into the sewage, taking its headcrab with it. One down, I don't even wanna know how many to go. Alyx ran on, rounding the corner the zombie had come from. More moans echoed throughout the tunnel. She groaned as two zombies waddled towards her while a third stood up and joined its comrades. Aw, crap, more? She took aim at the zombie in the middle.

Bupbupbup. Bupbupbup. Bupbupbup.

Alyx surveyed her handiwork as she reloaded her pistol. Three bursts, three kills. You're getting better, Alyx. She resumed her jog through the brown water.

***

How long had it been since she had dropped down that manhole? Two, three hours? She didn't know, but however long it had been, it had been far too long. The stench of decaying waste was starting to get to her. Alyx covered her nose and mouth with one hand while keeping a tight grip on her pistol with the other, trying not to gag. I'll be surprised if I don't smell like shit for a whole week.

A beeping noise behind her caught her attention, and she spun around, pistol up and ready. A flash of light blinded her for a split-second, and she instinctively shielded her eyes. Her vision quickly recovered, and Alyx found herself looking directly into the eye of a Scanner. She wasted no time as she emptied half a clip into the machine while it beeped frantically and threw off sparks and smoke. Finally, it crashed into the water and short-circuited, the explosion deafening in the echo chamber that was the tunnel. Crap. Now I'll have to find another way back if I don't want every CP in the city on my tail. She paused for a moment, reflecting on it.

Screw it. They'll be all over the place anyway, especially after getting me on camera. This way's as good as any.

She rounded another corner. Daylight beckoned from the other side of a distant grate. Station Six, here I come. She jogged up to the grate and slipped through a break in the bars, hopping onto a nearby plank to avoid the green waste that slowly oozed along underfoot.

"Eugene? Kevin? Anyone, hello?"

"Hey, Alyx!" came the whispered reply. Alyx snapped her head to the left to see Eugene gesturing at her from behind a chain-link fence. He was a baby-faced man of average build with large, bored blue eyes, clad in the standard-issue blue "prison" garb and toting a submachine gun.

"Over here! I got your refugees!"

"Are they ready to go?" Alyx inquired, making her way over to Eugene.

"Yeah, just – whoa, where've you been lately? You reek!" Alyx rolled her eyes. Eugene always had been the shoot-from-the-hip kind of person.

"I had to come here through the sewers. My dad says they've been patrolling every inch of the canals ever since that whole…incident a couple days ago."

"Oh yeah. I heard about that. Where'd you get your hands on that much comp B?"

"I have my ways."

"Yeah, I'll bet. That took some serious balls, though." He paused for a moment. "Or in your case, ovaries." Alyx tried, and failed, to suppress a groan.

"You got 'em or what?"

"Mhm. This way," Eugene answered, opening a door. Inside was a room partially filled with storage crates.

"So…where are they?"

"Right beneath your feet."

"Oh, haha. You're a riot, Eugene."

"You think I'm kidding?" Eugene responded as he flipped open a hidden panel on the wall, revealing a circuit breaker. He flipped the two rightmost switches. A large rectangular portion of the floor slowly lowered down to form a ramp, accompanied by a whirr of hydraulics.

"Welcome to my own little happy place. It's stuffy, cramped, and God only knows what's in the water, but it's a damn sight better than the city."

"Yeah, I hear you. Anyone down there?" Alyx called into the chamber.

"Coming up!" came the reply. Two citizens, also clad in blue jumpsuits, clambered up the ramp. One was a man with short-cropped black hair, an angular face, and small, nervous brown eyes. The other was a woman with soft features, small eyebrows, and brown hair, pulled back in a ponytail.

"Alyx, meet Casey and Brian Henderson. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson, meet Alyx Vance."

"So you're our ticket outta here?" Brian asked.

"Mhm. Just follow my lead, and we should make it back safe and sound. You got the data?" Brian took a tobacco tin out of his shirt pocket and opened it. Inside were two microchips in a plastic case, flanked by a couple of lead weights and some cotton balls pressed up against the side of the case.

"It's so the weights don't rattle," he explained upon seeing Alyx's confused expression.

"Uhhh…excuse me, but is something decomposing in your jacket?" Casey asked, pinching her nose shut.

"No, I just came here through the sewers. And it's not like you're gonna smell any better after we get out of here."

"We're going back through the sewers?" Casey asked, mouth agape.

"It's either that or going through the canals and finding a way around the biggest concentration of CPs in the city. The way I see it, we can smell bad for weeks or rot in Nova Prospekt for years."

"But…" Casey started to protest.

"Look, we're gonna meet up with Metrocops no matter where we go. I'd rather fight them in the sewers than in the canals. We'll get a head start on them there, and they don't know the sewers as well as I do." She turned and made her way back to the grating, hopping from board to board. She looked back to see Brian and Casey hadn't budged.

"Well? You guys coming, or what?"

***

Author's note:

Here it is, my first long-term Half-Life project. Don't expect updates too frequently, i.e, you'll be wasting your time if you come here and mash F5 on a weekly basis. I'm focusing more on finishing up more oneshots like Aftermath right now, but my goal is to have a new chapter up every month or two. Well, "or two" might be stretching it a bit. But hey, these things take time.

Sorry for the complete absence of suspense and drama in this chapter. This is mostly setting the stage for later chapters.

In case you were wondering, "comp B" is short for composition B, an explosive much like C4.

Again, I'd like to thank my sister Katie and my friend Chris for beta reading this work.