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Justify the MeansPart 4: The great escape.

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Carl smiles as he walks past the same woman he had seen before protesting that she is going to kill the other refugee who left his stuff in her space. He thinks to himself that something in the air makes him really thirsty and makes his way to an old vending machine, walking past a rebel telling another refugee about a thing that just sat there, screaming and grunting but never said shit, not even when the boss started going to work with the pliers. The rebel adds that the boss just wanted to know where it patrolled and what precinct he was from but he never answered. Doc, sitting with them, asks where is it now. Meanwhile, the captive Combine soldier is still tied to a chair in a room. Outside the door, two rebel guards comment with each other that the thing gives them the creeps. One of them tells the other not to worry as they only have five more minutes in their shift, to which the other replies that they just gotta keep on their toes. Just then, the Combine soldier silently gets up and moves about the room. One of the guards says no one is getting past them and they're too damn good, plus too damn nervous to let their guard down. He suddenly overhears something and looks to the side, asking what the noise was. The Combine soldier hits him in the head with a chair, dropping him to the ground. The other guard screams holy shit as the soldier jumps at him.

The guard that was hit by the chair tries to crawl towards his rifle as he bleeds from his head, but the soldier tosses the chair at his head again, killing him. The Combine picks up the rebel's assault rifle and leaves. As Carl drinks a bottle of water and walks through a corridor, a broadcast starts sounding ordering all security guards report to their posts and that all civilians report to safety areas. Carl drops his water and curses to himself, wondering what now. Doc then appears, telling other rebels they gotta go, and they rush past Carl, who is sarcastically glad they don't let him be on their way. Carl figures if the nice guys with guns are heading that way, he is heading the other way. As he walks, a rebel is suddenly thrown through a window right in front of him. Carl thinks to himself that, in retrospect, he has had better ideas as he sees the rebel fall down the stairs. Carl screams oh my God and tries asking the rebel if he is okay, but he doesn't move or speak. As Carl asks if he can hear him, the Combine soldier sneaks up on him. Carl turns around and, shocked at the sight of the soldier, wonders aloud where he came from.

The Combine soldier holds Carl up by the throat. As Carl chokes and coughs, the soldier asks him where the radio room is. The soldier angrily repeats the question and Carl groans that he doesn't know where the radio room is and says he can't breathe. The soldier declares him useless and throws him away like a ragdoll. Carl hits his head on the ground. As he bleeds from the head, Carl moans repeatedly that he doesn't know where it is. He tries crawling away from the advancing soldier, then mentions that there is a radio in the workshop. The soldier orders that he show him. Meanwhile, somewhere else on the base, Adams is asking a rebel how the hell it escaped. A rebel replies that they don't know but the two guards were found dead, one with his back broken, the other punched in the ribs until they punctured his lungs. Adams asks where the soldier is and the rebel tells him they don't know, the security cameras lost power two minutes after it escaped. Adams orders they take fireteams and search every room, plus double guards on all exits, then issues a final command that they find it. Meanwhile, at the workshop, Carl is tossed to the ground by the soldier, his head like a beating drum and his vision getting blurry. Carl notes that, quite frankly, it's a bit of an improvement, while nearby the soldier uses the radio.

Carl flashes back to the war, noting they came out of nowhere, Citadels just emerging in the center of the city and those things storming out. As he recalls soldiers and tanks shooting at Combine striders, he remembers thinking at first that they couldn't be worse than the zombies, bullsquids, gargantuas or antlions. Carl notes to himself he might have been wrong, while, in the past, he lays on the ground next to dead bodies and sees a Combine elite approaching. In the present, Carl regains consciousness as rebels shout that it's down and to make sure he's dead. He looks to his side and sees the Combine soldier lying on the ground next to him. A rebel realizes that Carl is alive and another tells him to take Carl to the doc. Later, at the infirmary, Doc mentions that Carl is gonna be okay but the other four rebels weren't so lucky, adding grimly that the fifth is still on the way, they're trying to find his feet. Adams notes that five are dead all because of one Combine soldier. Another medic, Sarah, notes it could have been worse, the soldier could have reached the generators and killed the power to the thumpers, then everyone on the base would have been killed. Doc thanks God for that, adding that more people could have died because of that guy.

Adams angrily corrects Doc for the last time that that is not a guy. Sarah retorts, with all due respect, regardless of what he might have done, the soldier is still a person. Adams shouts at her that no, it's not, it's a thing, not a person, that it used to be a person but it's not anymore, it lost the right to be a person when it joined up to be one of them. Adams calls it a piece of captured military equipment, like a dropped rifle or a Combine APC, not a person, then asks Sarah if that is clear. Sarah replies yes, sir. Doc mentions that they were gonna get around to burying those four fellas and asks Adams if he wants them to bury the Combine soldier somewhere else. Adams replies that burials are for people and, as he walks away from the stripped Combine soldier on the table, tells Doc to toss it back in the ocean where it came from. Doc replies yes, sir. At that time, in City 17's border monitoring station 7, a Combine Civil Protection officer tells his superior that there is a signal coming from outside the network. A Combine elite soldier asks what kind of signal and the officer explains that it's one of theirs and that it was cut off but was broadcast on an Overwatch frequency with last week's code prefix. The elite soldier examines the code and notes that it came from the wastelands, pointing out there is no unit dispatched there and no activity for years. The elite soldier declares they send a recon unit to see what's out there. End of part 4.

Next comic:

Part 5: The sum of our experiences.

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