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Private Notes
Russell manages to rescue Alyx by destroying the transport taking her to be interrogated and they meet up at his lab where he reveals Eli will most likely be taken on a train to Nova Prospekt and that she will need to intercept the train by going through the Quarantine Zone. He gifts her with special gloves that will allow her to pick up objects from afar, dubbed “the Russells”, as well as a pistol. Alyx then boards a hacked train that will take her through the zombie-infested Quarantine Zone.
The train is stopped just outside the Zone due to the Combine shutting down the area, forcing Alyx to make her way on foot and fight through the various forms of Xen wildlife that have overtaken the buildings. Along the way she encounters a brain-damaged Vortigaunt named Gary, who cryptically warns her that her father is fated to die and that she will not be able to prevent it on her own. He also informs her that the Combine have many of his kin trapped and that she needs to rescue them and that she will need to follow “the Northern Star.”
Alyx continues through the Quarantine Zone, where she acquires a flashlight and fights off various headcrabs hiding in the dark tunnels. After fighting off some Combine soldiers she arrives at the junction where she can intercept her father's train, but discovers the controls are broken. She then uses a nearby switch to stop the train by leading it to a dead-end, derailing it. Inside she finds her father, who she nearly loses when he falls into a pit, only to be rescued by Gary, who had followed Alyx. Eli explains that he and Russell discovered images of a building containing what appears to be a Combine superweapon, contained in a massive ship called “The Vault” floating above the Quarantine Zone. He sends Alyx to disable the Vault while Gary reminds her to follow the “Northern Star” and escorts Eli back to safety.
Alyx makes her way through the subway tunnels again while trying to get to the so-called “Northern Star.” Along the way she encounters several more zombies and headcrabs, along with Combine forces who are now hot on her tail. She sees the Vault for the first time, outside a window. Eventually she discovers the “Northern Star” is actually a hotel called The Northern Star which contains a substation for the Vault. She makes her way inside.
Traveling through the headcrab-infested building, Alyx soon encounters a new enemy: an electrified headcrab-like creature that has the ability to climb into corpses and reanimate them in order to attack her. According to her description, Russell dubs the creature “lightning dog”. She manages to fight off the creature and reaches the top of the hotel, where she discovers the Combine is using trapped Vortigaunts at each substation to power the Vault. She frees the Vortigaunt trapped there, who pledges to help her by freeing his brothers at the other power stations. Alyx then starts making her way to a nearby Vodka distillery where she can access a tunnel that will take her directly to the Vault.
Alyx makes her way to the distillery, fighting through the streets of City 17 through increasing Combine forces, who employ manhacks to track her down.
After facing off with more Combine forces, Alyx heads inside the distillery where she encounters another human named Larry, who warns her to look out for a blind zombie dubbed “Jeff” that is extremely sensitive to sound and will attempt to destroy her without hesitation. Alyx manages to trap Jeff in a trash compactor before opening the path to the tunnel.
Alyx fights her way through the Antlion-infested tunnels, where she also finds an old zoo infested with more Xen wildlife. She finds evidence that the Combine is unable to control the more alien-infested areas of the City. Eli then reports that the Vault may not actually contain a superweapon but in fact something that the Combine is trying to keep imprisoned. Alyx decides to continue on, reasoning that perhaps whatever it is inside the Vault could be used to the Resistance's advantage.
Alyx makes her way through Antlion-infested tunnels and emerges just as the Vortigaunts destroy the last power station keeping the Vault afloat. However, the Vault is prevented from crashing down by the intervention of a tractor beam from a backup generator. While looking for a way to shut down the tractor beam, Alyx overhears a conversation between an Advisor and a Combine scientist who claims the Vault is a prison for someone who survived the Black Mesa Incident and subsequently disappeared. Alyx, Eli, and Russell conclude this must be Gordon Freeman, and that it is now imperative that they rescue him from the Vault. Alyx fights through more Antlions and Combine forces through several abandoned buildings as she heads to the Vault's dock.
After fighting through more forces, Alyx makes it to the Vault's dock, where she attempts to shut down the tractor beam. However, this results in the Vault crashing down to the ground, destroying numerous buildings. Alyx survives, and fights through more surviving Combine forces and zombies before confronting a Strider, which with extreme difficulty, she manages to destroy. She then starts to enter the Vault, just as Eli realizes something is wrong and tries to warn her before communication is cut off and she loses all her weapons.
Inside the Vault, Alyx finds the remains of the building the Combine trapped within the Vault in order to capture their prisoner: however the building appears to defy reality itself, with numerous rooms being oriented differently and the objects within them defying the laws of gravity.
The G-Man offers his services to Alyx in return for her releasing him, but when Alyx asks that he remove the Combine from Earth he turns her down. He then shows her a vision of the future: her father's death at the hands of an Advisor in the hangar at White Forest in five years' time. He then rewinds time to just before Eli's death and gives Alyx the chance to save her father. Alyx uses her gloves to destroy the Advisor and free Eli. However, the G-Man explains she has proven herself a worthy successor to Gordon Freeman, whom the G-Man is disappointed with for failing to follow through on his directions. Despite Alyx's pleas to let her go, he places her into stasis.
