SHIELD Team Seven has been sent to investigate Ayers Rock, Australia, where Aperture Science is rumored to have moved into an abandoned Nod base. But while Maria "Captain America" Vincennes, the ninja version of Maya Ibuki, and Fujiko Mine are investigating the situation, Jeff "Joker" Moreau is left alone. And is soon forced to survive alone against a legion of the undead, and a homicidal AI.
And then things get even worse...
Cline: Op: Ghost In The Machine
is a one-shot story that is part of the Coreline Shared Universe.
Currently under construction. Please add tropes as you see them!
This story has the following Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: Unlike the previous stories featuring SHIELD Team Seven, the focus is entirely on Jeff "Joker" Moreau and his fight for survival.
- Fictional Videogame: Joker passes a short time entertaining himself with a Mass Effect handheld game early on.
- Great Offscreen War: The operation to wipe out the Brotherhood of Nod when it appeared on the Core Timeline and went on the offensive (called Operation: FIRESTORM officially, but labeled on the street as "The Tiberium War" (and by some of the more knowledgeable/pedantic about C&C lore, "The Fourth Tiberium War") is mentioned as the reason the NOD base is currently abandoned.
- Handicapped Badass: While Joker is still hindered by his Vrolic's Syndrome, he doesn't let it stop him from being the hero of this story.
- Land Down Under: The whole story occurs on the Tiberium-irradiated hellscape that is the depths of the Post-Vanishing Australian Outback.
- Powered Armor: A downplayed version. Joker outfits himself with a hydraulic support frame (more of an endoskeleton, actually) that will assist him with moving around before running into the NOD base.
- Undead Horse Trope: In-Universe: The first Portal's "The Cake Is a Lie" meme-GLADOS mentions having heard about it so often that she says about actually learning how to make and putting a real cake at the end of the testing areas (which is a pretty obvious lie) to make people stop using it.
- Unholy Matrimony: The Wham Line at the very end insinuates that GLADOS and freaking CABAL are (at the very least) on the "dating" stage of this trope. Their literal PROGENY (as in, it is the A.I.'s actual name) makes an appearance on Operation: ENDGAME.
