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.”
