Hallo! This is my second Half-Life fanfic, also set in White Forest (they're kind of a series, if you haven't read the first one it's called Imitations). In fact, I even slipped a reference to my other fanfic in here. Can you find it?

Thanks for reading, and please review!

Psychotype

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"Hey, Alyx, come in here! Look what I found!" Eli called from his small office. He had been finishing up some calculations for the rocket with Dr. Kleiner when they realized they had lost a clipboard full of information. Eli volunteered to look through a crate full of old junk for it when a particular object caught his eye. A camera! A full, functioning, Pre-Combine digital camera! He couldn't wait to show his daughter.

"What is it, Dad?" Alyx asked walking in. She and Gordon had just driven up to White Forest, and they had enough time to rest, relax, and tend to any wounds they had while they still could. But Alyx didn't want to spend a single second of her free-time sleeping. She had been spending some of her time with her father, helping him with the rocket. She had also been playing with Dog, and hanging out with Gordon. Just before her father called her in his office, she had been going down to the cafeteria to get some lunch. Baked headcrab with antlion sauce, yum!

"Look at this, Alyx," Eli said proudly, holding up the digital camera. Alyx took it from him and inspected it, turning it over in his hands.

"What is this? Some new sort of Combine machinery?"

"What? No! That's a camera!" Eli exclaimed. He often forgot that his daughter didn't know many of the pleasures of the Pre-Combine world. "It takes pictures."

"Oh! Like the scanners!"

"Well, yeah. It's the machine that makes the photographs in the Pre-Combine newspapers I have. Try taking a photo. You click the button on the top." Eli told her. Alyx examined the camera more closely, before discovering the button on the top. She clicked it, and nothing happened.

"You have to turn it on first," Dr. Kleiner remarked, who stopped looking for the clipboard to watch Alyx fiddle with the camera.

"Oh. Right. Of course." Alyx flipped the ON/OFF switch to ON, then pointed it at Dr. Kleiner and pushed the button. A bright flash came from the camera, making everyone in the room jump.

"Hey, look at that picture!" Alyx exclaimed happily, showing the photo to everyone in the room. Dr. Kleiner's mouth was open, and his eyes were half closed. "I'm wanna show this to Gordon!" Alyx ran out of the room.

"Hey, Gordon!" she called out. Gordon was sitting on a crate in the hallway, studying a Pre-Combine book on physics. Alyx couldn't help but smile. Even after all he had been through, Gordon was still a nerd at heart. "Gordon, look what I got!"

He lifted his head up from his book, smiling at the sight of her. She waved the digital camera in the air.

"Is that a camera?" Gordon asked in his gravely voice. Alyx nodded, and Gordon grinned wider.

"Look at the photo I got of Kleiner!" she told him eagerly, holding the camera to him. He took the camera from her and looked at the picture of Dr. Kleiner. He broke into laughs.

"You should print it out and hang it up!" Gordon exclaimed. "Oh, even better, use it as blackmail to get something you want!" 
"Oh, so the great Gordon Freeman has a dark side, huh?" Alyx asked jokingly, playfully shoving his arm. He rolled his eyes.

"What? I did it to Barney a bunch of times, back at Black Mesa," Gordon told Alyx while handing her the camera back. Now it was Alyx's turn to roll her eyes.

"Jeez, crawling through vents, using bad pictures as blackmail- what didn't you guys do?" Gordon shrugged, and quickly became lost in thought. For a Combine-Killing, Human-Liberating Hero, Gordon daydreamed a lot. That's when Alyx decided to make her move.

She quickly lifted up the camera, focused it on Gordon, and pressed the button. There was a loud click as the bright flash stung Gordon's eyes.

"What the hell!?" he exclaimed, jumping up and tripping over his own feet. Alyx couldn't help but laugh as Gordon stood back up and glared at Alyx. "Jesus Christ, why the hell does it flash so brightly?"


"What, is Gordon afraid of the camera? Is the big, bad camera gonna come get you? It's okay, Gordon, I'll protect you from it," Alyx told Gordon in a mock comforting tone.

"Okay, okay, knock it off. Damn, my eyes are still burning." Alyx looked down at the camera, and burst out into laughter again as she saw the photo which came up. "Oh my God, your eyes are shut, and your forehead's all wrinkled, and your mouth's in this weird shape!" She showed it to Gordon, who turned a deep shade of red.

"Okay, give the camera to me. I'm gonna delete that." Gordon snatched the camera from Alyx. Before she could get it back, he held it high in the air, above his head.

"Hey, no fair. You're too tall," Alyx complained, trying to reach the camera. She jumped up and down, trying to grab it, unsuccessfully. She was stretching her arms up to get it when she realized that she and Gordon were really close. In trying to get the camera, she was right up to his chest. She blushed, took down her arms, and was about to take a step away when another large flash bounced off of the walls. It hadn't come from their camera.

"Hey, lovebirds, I found another camera!" Eli called from the doorway of his office. He looked at the picture he just took. "Wow, that's a great photo! I think I'll hang it on my wall!"

Both Gordon and Alyx turned red from embarrassment, then looked at each other.

"Let's go get him, okay?" Alyx asked, with a hint of a smile tugging at her mouth, her eyes starting to gleam with mischief. Gordon grinned back and nodded.

They started to walk down the hall to Eli's office together.

Note: This is practically what happens every time I try to take a picture of my friends.