…and as we approach the fifteenth anniversary of the arrival of our Benefactors, I feel compelled to allay the irrational fears of our populace. Yes, irrational. Because make no mistake, fear is irrational. Once, as we peered out into the dark, we were rational in fearing what lay beyond the cave. What lay outside the glow of the fire. But as our eyes turn to the stars, what do we behold but light? Are we to fear the glow of new suns? Are we to fear the destiny that awaits us? Are we to fear our Benefactors, who have at last given us a world without fear? Fear's time has come and gone. Fear is the enemy of all sane men. Fear is the mind killer, the scourge of reason. Fear is the siren song of dirt and sand, beckoning us to return to both. Fear is the mindset of a child, who sees our protectors and affords them not the respect that they deserve, but enmity! Fear sets man apart from man, and fear, if allowed to flourish, will return us to the dark days of the past. I speak to you now, as a man, wholly unafraid. And why not? Because knowledge is the antidote to fear. Wisdom is the gate by which fate is kept out. Knowing what lies beyond fear is what allows me to surpass it. And in time, one and all, as we walk as one to the world beyond the cave, fear will become a thing of the past.

Wallace Breen, 15 AC

Blessed Be the Children

As she sat on the swing, Alyx Vance reflected that being at sixteen years of age, she was one of the youngest people left in the human race.

She knew there was a time when these swings, indeed, this whole playground was used for something. Where children could have just been children, where the worries of their parents didn't go beyond food and rent, when the people of this city didn't have to look up at the sky in anticipation of a portal storm. There was a time where City 17 had an actual name, when it was among hundreds of cities scattered across the globe, rather than just one of a few dozen remaining holdouts of a crumbling civilization on a dying world. And there was a time when this city wasn't dominated by a massive spire, reaching up to the sky like a dagger protruding from the flesh of the Earth.

People around her had known of those times. They'd tell her of what life was like before Black Mesa. Where the world was one of plenty. Where it was one of freedom. They'd tell her stories about the world that had once existed, even if the number of storytellers declined year by year. Because even as the Resistance gained recruits, humanity's numbers were only going one way. And these days, a lot of the people that were left remembered less and less of what life had been like before lights had appeared in the sky. Before alien creatures were unleashed upon the planet, and after that, an alien army.

"Ah, Alyx. You're here."

Russel wasn't one of those people. Russel was one of the people who could tell her about the 'good ol' days.' Problem was, Russel being Russel, he just wouldn't stop talking.

"Sorry I'm late," the old man said as he came to sit on the swing beside her. "Got a breencast. Old man was going on about something. Think it was fish. Or trilobites."

"Fascinating…" Alyx murmured.

"Yeah. It's actually kinda weird, how evolution works like that. I mean, when you compare it to the weird shit that's out in the wastelands, makes Earth seem positively tame. Though there doesn't seem to be that much variety of species from beyond the storms."

"Yeah, that aside, I-"

"I mean, there's antlions, and head crabs…hey, does Klein still have that crab pet? I've always said that-"

"Russell," Alyx hissed. He shut up and followed her finger. "Pigs."

"Oh. Right. Pigs. Of course. Gonna go quiet. Like…" He trailed off, seeing Alyx's glare. "Quiet now," he whispered.

Alyx hoped that the pigs wouldn't spare a second glance at a sixty-something year old sitting on a swing beside a girl a fraction of that age. Even if the pigs were the scum of the Earth, she suspected, or at least hoped, that they had enough humanity left in them to understand the yearning that came with sitting on a swing. Of dreaming of being able to use it, and of seeing a new generation emerge to use it as well. But whatever the case, Alyx suspected that she'd find out soon enough, as an APC rolled up on the street beside the playground she and Russel were sitting at.

"Oh, this is bad," Russel whispered. "This is really, really bad."

No, really? Alyx wondered.

"Think we got to-"

"Russel," Alyx whispered, grabbing his wrist. "You run, they chase."

"Yeah, and? I can still run." His eyes darkened. "Well, sort of."

"We haven't done anything," Alyx said. "We sit, and they go on their way."

"Come on, you know innocence doesn't mean anything for pigs."

Alyx didn't respond, unable to find fault in that argument. But as she rocked back and forth on the swing, grasping the chain with her right hand, she told herself that the pigs weren't necessarily here for her. Oh sure, she was a member of the Resistance, and the daughter of Anticitizen One, but the pigs didn't know that, right?

"Deploying now."

Right? She wondered.

The pigs were getting out of the APC, all of them clad in black Kevlar, carrying stun batons and rifles, and wearing their tell-tale white masks. To the layperson of City 17, they were "pigs," and not only because of the masks they wore. To the individual who cared about proper terminology, they were Civil Protection. A term that Alyx knew to be ridiculous, because the pigs didn't provide protection for anything outside the Combine's interests, and they sure as hell weren't civil. She'd seen them pull people aside for no reason. Question them. Beat them. Shoot them. Sometimes, do even worse.

"Unit One-Fifty identified."

"Apprehend."

"Weapons authorized if subject resists."

"Ravage Team available."

"Standby."

And there was the noise as well, she reflected. That constant, all-encompassing noise. When the pigs talked, the people of City 17 heard. Some theorized it was a quirk of Combine technology, that their radio waves translated into soundwaves immediately upon transmission. But having spent years as a runner, Alyx suspected that it was intentional. The pigs wanted you to know they were coming. They wanted bystanders to hear them. They wanted people to know that they were everywhere, and that they didn't care what they heard. The Combine owned this world.

"Slave Team moving in."

Alyx let herself breathe slightly easier as the pigs went into the nearby apartment block. One of them gave her and Russel a glance, but it was one that only lasted a few seconds before the pig joined its fellow swine in whatever the hell they were doing. She wasn't aware of any Resistance members in this part of town, so either someone had taken matters into their own hands, or the pigs were doing a usual show of force. But soon, the pigs were out of her sight, if not out of mind, and she let out a sigh.

"Well," Russel said. "That was fun."

In spite of everything, Alyx laughed. In spite of how her right hand was still gripping the swing's chain like a drowning woman. And how her left, without her even realizing it, had clutched her mother's necklace. The one thing she had left of Azian Vance in this world. A world that Azian Vance had never seen.

Maybe you were lucky, Alyx reflected. She let her left hand take the other chain. You didn't see what happened after Black Mesa. Didn't see what dad and I had to do.

"Y'know," Russel said. "By my reckoning, we should hear the shouts in three…two…"

Someone screamed. There was a 'thump' sound and a burst of gunfire.

"Ah, there we go."

Alyx winced as events folded in the building opposite her. She let herself swing back and forth, trying to drown out the sounds of the pigs' radio chatter. Of the screams, and begging, and protestations of innocence. There was a pit in her stomach, and not just from lack of food. The belief, the knowledge, that even if no-one had been around to tell her how things once were, that there had to be a life better than this. That this aching in her bones wasn't natural. That the lack of children wasn't natural. That the constant lies she heard coming from every street corner wasn't the best a society could achieve.

"Alright," Alyx said. "Let's have it."

Russel glanced at her. "Shouldn't we-"

"Do it," Alyx said. "If they find it, better it's on me than you." She forced a smile. "I'm the runner, remember?"

Russel, uncharacteristically silent, looked around, before taking out an OSD from his coat. Alyx snatched it and shoved it into her right boot.

"All on there," Russel said. "Force deployment, weapons research, troop numbers…everything the Resistance needs to have a chance."

"A chance?" Alyx murmured. "That's a bit pessimistic."

He nodded up towards the apartment. "You tell me."

The pigs were coming back down to the street, heralding their return with the constant thump of their footsteps. And beyond that, the radio chatter.

"Suspects apprehended."

"One resisted. Terminated."

"Conditions?"

"Active."

"Precinct Twenty-Three is ready. Transport subjects for interrogation."

"Ravage Team redeploying."

"Slave Team en route to Twenty-Three."

The chatter continued as they arrived back on the street. Six pigs with three captives. Two of them were walking. One of them had blood trailing from his forehead. The other was being dragged along like a piece of meat, blood pouring out from half a dozen bullet holes in her chest. The APC's rear hatch opened up, and the corpse was thrown in like a piece of meat. The other two followed in, though after one was hit in the back with the butt of a rifle for good measure.

Precinct Twenty-Three, Alyx reminded herself. Maybe Barney knows something.

One of the pigs looked at them again. She could swear it was her imagination, but she felt it was the same one who'd looked at her earlier. And while she knew it was her imagination that it was reading her mind (for all the abilities of the Combine, mind reading wasn't among them), she got the message all the same. Civil Protection could do this. This was what Civil Protection existed for. They were allowed to see such displays of brutality, because the displays were the entire point. And inside men or not, rescued subjects or not, it made no difference. Civil Protection didn't need to hide anything from the masses living in the shadows of a dying world.

The APC rolled off. As soon as it was out of sight, if not out of mind, Alyx got to her feet. "You should go," she said to Russel.

"What, can't a man sit on the swing for a bit?"

"Sure there's many things you can do," she snapped, before softening her gaze. "Sorry."

"Ah, no worries. Believe it or not, with these old bones, not that much I can do these days."

Alyx didn't doubt it. Her father could claim that he was still young, but he was approaching his sixties. When she'd been born, that had been on the verge of retirement age. In this world, few lived long enough to see that figure. Heck, with all the close shaves she'd had with the pigs, she knew that she'd be lucky to make it to twenty. She was the best runner the Resistance had, doing runs to the safehouse outside the city, even helping people use the Underground Railroad, but she wasn't stupid. Sooner or later, her luck would run out. Or she'd get really lucky and salvation would land right in front of her. One of those things.

"See you around Russel," she murmured, before scampering off. Giving the man one last glance for courtesy, and the park one last glance for yearning. Dreaming of what had once been, and fearing what might never be.

…and as we approach the fifteenth anniversary of the arrival of our Benefactors, I feel…

And trying to keep the words of Doctor Breen out of her head.

A/N

So, Half-Life: Alyx is a thing, proving that while Valve still can't count to three, they can use the alphabet. 0_0

And a bit of an admission, the Breen transcript at the start was originally in the body of the oneshot itself, but it felt forced. It's arguably forced by being an epigraph, but thought I may as well keep it, though, admittedly, it's way short of Breen's actual oratory skills.