So I actually missed my shot at the titlecard for "Apprehension," but it's basically just this-

The words just comes up when you step onto this fancy tram car. So just imagine some white letters saying "Apprehension" in the middle of the screen, and you're set.

Apprehension

AKA, the chapter in which Freeman gets cocky. He's been running around, beating up baddies, and he's getting pretty comfortable with all these death defying feats. Nothing's stopped him so far, and nothing's going to stop him moving forward. People are starting to get to know him, starting to expect great things of him. He's thwarted everything the military and the aliens have thrown at him. Nothing can stop him now.

Or can it? (Of course it can.)

This is the chapter where the high and mighty hero gets his rear handed to him, where he learns to keep that attitude of his in check, learns that just because he may be the protagonist of this story, he's not still invincible.

But that's a ways in the coming, so we'll get there soon enough.

Which nozzle do you turn to put out a fire, the gas line or the sprinkler line?

This is actually a really mean trap. There's a fire just around the corner, and if you turn the wrong wheel, it'll cause an explosion, collapsing the hallway, making you go a much more difficult way around. You have to put out the fire by turning on the sprinkler system, but unless you're actually looking up, you'll miss the sprinkler line nozzle, and go straight for the gas line- because this game isn't one much for tricks like that usually, so most people don't even look at what it says on the pipeline, and just go and turn on the visible nozzle, the gas line, causing the explosion. I admit this got me the first couple times I played this lol.

But once you get by that, you come to a flooded room, just in time to see

An alien shark lunge out of the water and drag a scientist back in!

And if you head up to the observation room,

"They claim it was hauled from the Challenger Deep. But I'm positive that beast hadn't swam in terrestrial waters until a week ago! ... There's a tranquilizer gun in the shark cage, but I'm not sure it would work on THIS particular species! You're more than welcome to try your hand. ...Be careful! The creature has developed quite an appetite for... raw meat... since its arrival. ... You can fire that crossbow underwater.

Excuse me?!? My crowbar is iconic. It's served me just as well this entire time as any gun- better even, since crowbars don't run out of ammunition!

I do love the fact, though, that Freeman's reputation has expanded beyond simply a survivor-turned-hero to a crowbar wielding hero. He's being recognized not just for his combat prowess, but for his combat prowess with his crowbar. Iconic indeed.

But anyway, time to jump into a shark cage suspended shakily in midair

in order to grab the crossbow

so that once the cables holding the cage give out and I fall in the water,

I can shoot an alien shark in the face!

And if you choose to climb back up to the observation room,

"Now with that beast killed, you can continue forward! Once through the flooded portion of the facility, you will practically be upon the Lambda Labs doorstep."

Which brings me to something else I want to talk about- the flooded portion of the lab.

I mean, it clearly is pretty badly flooded. You can see there's a lot of stuff underwater that implies it wasn't intentionally flooded, either. But here's the thing I don't think is consciously realized- the flooding wasn't caused by resonance cascade damage. It's been flooded for a while- a week at least. For one thing, they had enough time to set up the shark cage over the water. For another, they had enough time to realize the need for a shark cage- having a beast that's been around long enough for them to claim the ichthyosaur had been pulled from the Challenger Deep. The scientist also says he's sure the beast "had t swam in terrestrial waters until a week ago." Meaning it was here before the resonance cascade.

This is the first instance we see of Xenian creatures being on earth before the resonance cascade, though it's particularly easy for this one to go over people's heads.

But, proceeding on through the flooded portion of the facility as suggested, we find-

Hey you stop walking away from me get your rear back here I have some questions for you!

(And then he proceeded to walk away anyway.)

Ah yes, your classic "have to jump across giant moving pistons once they're high enough to get across but before they crush you" platforming section.  What fun!

Farther on, you come across this guy at the entrance to some deep freezer storage unit or something.

(You also get the subtitles for the Vortigaunts' idle noise, too lol)

"The Science Team has been tracking your progress with the Black Mesa security system. Unfortunately, so has the military. That suit of yours is full of tracking devices! Still, it's better than going naked in this place. ... It's cold in there, so you'll have to hurry. It could sap your suit power in a matter of moments! If you're bent on reaching the Lambda Complex, then you'll want to keep to the older industrial areas where the security system is full of holes. It's worked for me, so far..."

So first, more people recognizing Gordon, calling him by name. Also the fact that more people are paying attention to him. People are now not only hearing about him, they're actively tracking his progress to the Lambda Complex. There are people watching for him, waiting for him, cheering him on.

This also explains how the military always seems to know where he is now, and how they're able to set up so many ambushes for him. Everyone is watching him.

(Even the vortigaunts, really, though their only experience of him is a crowbar, coming at them down a steel corridor...)

Also, while on the topic of the deepfreeze room, it always used to give me a bit of trouble on account of how quickly it drains your suit power and health, so here's my strategy for running through it-

-hold sprint key
-equip shotgun
-run through the room
-only fire on enemies that physically block you, and deal with them with an alt-fire shot to the face. You get up close, a double shotgun blast should explode any vortigaunt almost immediately
-ignore all enemies off to the sides, even if they start attacking you. Just keep running forward.

I'm usually able to make it to the ventilation shaft on the other side without losing more than 40-50 battery percent, and much less health.

But anyway, making it to an elevator, we find at the top,

"I got a message for ya!"

*proceeds to get shot from behind and killed by an assassin, never telling Gordon the important message about how he has to make sure he doesn't do something important*

The assassin fight is another one of the places that might take me a few tries to win. They just move so fast, and they're so hard to see! They shoot so quickly and run so soon that by the time you realize where you're being shot from, they're already gone. My strategy is to usually hole up in a corner somewhere where they can only come at me from one direction, then use the assault rifle's grenade launcher to hit them as soon as I see them.

But here's one of the assassins' bodies, and

Not only are the assassins ladies,

But HMMMM

THAT DESIGN LOOKS AWFULLY FAMILIAR

ALMOST LIKE CHELL'S KNEE BRACES IN PORTAL, AND HER LONG FALL BOOTS IN PORTAL 2

DID THE ASSASSINS GET THEIR GEAR FROM APERTURE SCIENCE?

Another fun fact for you is that the assassins can't be gibbed. You can beat them up however you like, shooting them, beating them with a crowbar, exploding them as I do, but they will never break. I guess they're just too incredible of ladies to have their corpses ripped apart, sending bloody chunks of their bodies flying in all directions.

But anyway. That's not quite the end of "Apprehension," but I want to add a lot of screenshots of the end of it, and I want them to all be together, so that's the end of this part. Considering that, asof writing this, I'm actually almost done with the chapter "Lambda Core" and just have to finish writing stuff out for the screenshots, these chapters will probably be posted a lot more quickly lol, so expect that next chapter up pretty soon.