Welcome to frozen Hell Chapter 1, a horizon zero dawn fanfic

Part 1

Penultimate station - Terminus

They say that the way to hell is paved with good intentions.

For them, it has been all the way.

They say that souls cry out in terror as the abyss swallows them hole.

But the Alphas do not make a sound.

And their eleventh member, the result of frenzied 14 months of work, their last 14 months, is in no position to say anything right now, already secured at GAIA Prime inside the server room, silenced by the enforced com blackout. No sense painting themselves as obvious targets.

Ten humans. One AIs: The pilot for the military Vert, silent except regular status announcement about arrival times.

They all know that this is it. A moment of respite, to think.

Even Travis Tate, eternal loudmouth and speaker of inappropriate things at inappropriate times, is silent, his facial expression hidden behind the mask of his M2 combat suit. No sense in taking the masks off. The Vert is climate-controlled and pressurized, with its own set of recycler and environmental systems, but this way disembarkation and embarkation just proceed that much quicker.

And they can have their privacy for a time. So by silent agreement, the helmets stay on.

Elizabeth Sobeck looks out of the entoptic window of the Vert, towards the engines at the ends of the wings, how they minutely move in response to the outside air, and vibrate in tune with the motions of the airframe. Their exhaust is a just-visible scything blue.

Atmospheric plasma engines were cutting-edge tech before the swarm. Before… everything. Now they're a necessity. No oxygen in the air to burn anymore; regular combustion systems of any kind do not work anymore. So an expensive flywheel system and superconductive solenoids store enough power for this one last flight… the flight to GAIA Prime.

"So this is what is left", Charles Ronson remarks into the silence, staring down onto brown trees and the sickly orange-brown underbrush of suffocated, rotting fauna.

Even the decomposers have problems now; choking away without oxygen, they fail to catalyze a proper breakdown of the dead biomatter.

"And even that will go the way of the Dodo in four days", Tate remarks. "Enjoy our wayward parade guard while it lasts. But hey, you think the swarm will appreciate-"

"Travis…", Margo Shĕn cuts him off, at the same time laying an armored hand on Ronson's shoulder pauldron. The man looks about ready to snap out of his restraints.

"What? C'mon guys, it is the end of the world! 5 days to Zero Day, 18th of January 2066! One last big feast and then…", he raised his arms like a composer, "silence."

A few of the others make the effort to shake their heads, but the rest is too deep in thoughts. Crunching code in their heads, massive archives of cryogenically stored zygotes, seeds, and digitalized DNA, the intricate workings of facilities and machines that now lie underground, buried around the world. All sealed up, in low-power mode, synched through the fibre-optic network they somehow managed to lay down and make work in the early phases of the project.

But right now, in data quarantine, there's few ways to effectively work. Their work is going to finish at GAIA Prime… and their lives too.

Ronson especially has not been the same over the past hours. The man is clearly grief-stricken, that much everyone can tell. Elizabeth especially. Ronson always had a certain… liveliness about him. A concentration that bordered on the maniacal, a fanaticism of biological preservation.

Right then and there she decides she will talk with him. God in heaven and souls in hell know they will have the time.

Her own task queue has years of work ahead of her. So does Shĕn's. Tate will have his own piece of work ahead of him, and he knows. HADES is still incomplete; a rollback might sound easy, but "you can't create a human centipede without some good surgery", as Tate has put it in one more of his inappropriate moments. And especially inside HADES, nobody will be there to debug. Shĕn made some massive progress teaching HEPHAESTUS and through it, GAIA, coding and self-driven bug removal, but when GAIA is not in control, so are her damage-control skills removed.

And GAIA herself. Before today, the entire system was never integrated, never tested in full load and network sync. The next days decide whether their legacy lives… or dies, and all of earthen life with it.

No pressure.

[ZD_MF_DTP:2066.01. .3445.2355]

"Doctor Sobeck, you have a SecureCom call from General Herres, Priority Alpha-Plus", the voice of her personal assistance chimes inside her ears.

Her fingers stop on the keyboard, ZD# code implementation halted mid-method. Her eyes instinctively flitter to GAIA for a moment, physical QB-lattice craddle in front of Sobeck, her holographic avatar to the left, surrounded by the mesh of connections that indicates participation in simulations. Then she looks back at the code. The module is old, part of the Mk.1 series. Until now, there has never been a reason to re-implement it, but recent changes on HEPHAESTUS demand a change in interfaces. New ports, new protocols.

BETA-testing a fully intelligent, permutating AI system with the most lines of total code ever written in human history has proven to be an entire nightmare in itself. Not helped by the way the Alphas and their teams keep rolling back codelines, writing new models, re-iterating now that the meta bahavior of Zero Dawn crystallizes.

And the time they have left to work… dwindles steadily.

The "Doomsday clocks" were there since Day 1. Life-updated with the latest sims and predictive models, the decisions by the Commanders of USRC and others. Up top, the clock until Zero Dawn goes terminal status and evacuates remaining personal to associated facilities.

Underneath that, close behind, Zero Day.

The time until re-population of the Earth was added by Day fourteen, when they Finlay felt confident in the timeline.

315 years, 10 days, 14 hours until human civilization restarts.

Hopefully.

"Doctor Sobeck." The hologram of General Herres is only really animated shoulders-up, she notices at once. That means he is still in his command seat. Not good.

"General Herres. How bad?" No point dancing around the point. They can hear the weapons fire at this point, the rumbling bass of the artillery railguns and the launch of the missiles.

"We just got the latest Keyshorts. We know where those Scarabs went; they regrouped and amassed with heavy elements in support, and giving their Titans time to catch up and replicate. The swarm is just about to launch a pincer attack on the eastern front. We've run the sims. 10^4, and they all say the same. The Salient will collapse within 48 hours at most. After that, 48 more hours, and USRC will be overrun. Another 24 hours until the swarm… rolls back the entire Zero Dawn Secure Zone." No fancy holographs; just words, and a stern face.

"As of this time, Zero Dawn is in the terminal phase. Pack up doctor, prepare to move. Contingency RUNNING START is in effect imminently. You have 24 hours to pack up. By 48 I want everyone where they are supposed to be."

Her mind imminently snaps into action, assesses consequences and necessary actions. The Ifs are right at the front. If, if, if. If she had not proposed Lightkeeper… If they had had more time to iron out the last kinks in the code… if only they would have to rewrite basic protocols at this point in time…

No matter. Focus. Decisive action. Squander no second.#

"Understood general. We're initiating RUNNING START imminently. Good luck on the front."

"And to you as well." They are about to sign off, then Herres comes back into focus, turns his eyes to her: "Is she ready?"

"Just about Sir. We could have had more time for the fixes, and we're gonna shortcut very likely, but… she's about as ready as we want her. The rest… we will make work."

Herres nods, and smiles: "You always have, Doctor. Don't let us down now. Everyone is counting on this."

Oh, why do you remind me? "I know Sir. Talk to you, excuse me now."

His hologram winks away, and the last embers of the kindling snap die out. The stress is getting to her. But no point in loudly arguing, or getting angry. They did not need it in the past, and they do not need it now.

"GAIA…"

"Yes, Doctor Sobeck?"

"Begin preparations for transfer. I'm gonna finish the protocol patch, then upload to you in… half an hour."

"Understood Doctor Sobeck."

"Alright. Focus, get me-"

GAIA comes back: "Doctor Sobeck… should I alert the Alphas?"

"Only the ones who ask why you terminate the Sims. They'll know in due time." The AI goes back to work without another word.

"Focus, get me Dalen in Logistics." She sits down at the terminal and quickly finishes the one line, adding the rest of the method and the variables. There, almost done. Implement the last few classes and their private methods, and the interface is finished. Text in the framework in 20, pull the last few bugs, then compile and upload into the patcher. Pint 30 minutes, they can pull the plug.

The connection dials for three seconds before Dalens answers: "Doctor Sobeck, what contingency?"

This is probably going to repeat itself a lot. Everyone expects some case or another to happen any hour.

"RUNNING START. Prepare the cargo vert, and alert GAIA Prime. GAIA moves in two hours. Get the robot up here in half an hour and prepare for packaging and loading."

"Yes Ma'am. We're on it. Should I kick the rest into gear…"

"Alert Williams if you could, yes. Excuse me." She cuts the connection.

Inside her dashboard, she calls up the Directorial Apps: Specifically the Public Announcement System. The facility-wide directorial channel is right at the top, and her hand reaches for the grey slider that opens it. Sobeck takes a deep breath. She's done this before, but… not like this.

She opens the channel, waits for the chime and the initial sound que of the PA to run. Then the channel is hers.

"Attention all Zero Dawn Personal. Due to the approaching collapse of the Saliant, we are initiating RUNNING START, effective imminently. All teams, you have four hours at most before evacuation of all Gammas for Elysium begins; stabilize code and lock down your systems during that time. We don't need finals, we need stable Beta software. Support teams, prepare for the egress to Elysium, transfer of final components to GAIA Prime, and the lockdown of the Zero Dawn facility.

"This is it everyone. Let's finish our work and launch. Do not falter now, so close to our goal. Alphas, we will have a meeting in 40 minutes. See to your teams in the meantime."

With another motion and chime, she closes the PA.

The first calls come in not 3 seconds later.

Kareha from Medical is the first on the line: "Doctor Sobeck, I suppose that means…"

"Yes, Kareha. You… you should get ready for… dispensation." She can't get herself to speak about this straight. In some way she's dreaded it… all of this. But then, what is there to be done now?

Zero Dawn was always been their own final goal in life. Now… now there's only the terminus. 1 day, 10 days, 100 years… but none of them are going to survive.

This humanity is one way or another, done for. 99% of it are already dead; the rest… well, 100 years. At that point, simple lack of resources will kill those who somehow survived until then. And outside… I the swarm doesn't figure out what you are inside your suit, a M2 only has resources for two weeks at most. After that point… Terminus.

"Understood Doctor Sobeck. We'll be ready."

She plops down at the workstation in front of GAIA, holographs stringing out the intricacies of her baseline coding and architecture. 46 billion lines of code here alone, strung together from decades of AI experience, programming by other AI systems, Sobeck's work, and that of her team. The base is actually Teds work, well, in a way… he never touched code himself. A FAS AI hosting OS. Quite comprehensive, experience from dozens of AIs around the world strung into it, millions of classes and methods.

The end result of over 201,000 man hours in 14 months.

And still not complete.

Elisabet feels the need to cry rise up in her throat, sitting there like a stone. She closes her eyes and clenches her hands into fists, resisting the urge to bath the tabletop.

She takes the next call. It's security: "Ma'am, do you want us to inform the… retained candidates?"

"…Yes. They know that this was coming anyway. Make them the offers, then… proceed. And please, keep an eye on everything, the breakdown-"

"-will happen sooner or later. We're aware, Ma'am. And Ma'am, in case we do not have the time to speak anymore… it was a pleasure working under you. Finish Zero Dawn. Give life, give humanity a future after the end."

"…I… I will, Captain. Good luck."

Two calls in and already she feels like throwing up.

Shĕn is looking on the testing range of HEPHAESTUS when the call comes in. "Ma'am, this is Simulations?"

She looks up from two 3D printer arms working on a blue-blackish metamaterial panel, laser etching refining the printed surface structures as extruders lay down layer after layer of the phased array transmission system.

A last-minute test for the transmission tower material, implementing new refinements from MINERVAs transmission element group and ensuring they fabricate properly.

The remaining fab time is still… 3 hours. And we need at least two hours for the material tests…

"Focus, show me evacuation list for material test group, projected from now under RUNNING START."

The list printed out in seconds. Shit. Half my test team will be gone in six hours if-

"This is it everyone. Let's finish our work and launch. Do not falter now, so close to our goal. Alphas, we will have a meeting in 40 minutes. See to your teams in the meantime."

"-They'll be gone in six hours. Right."

Then the thought of the moment really hits her.

This is it. The point of no return, and-

-So much is not ready yet. So much code yet in Beta, or even Alpha base, so many interfaces still buggy or not tested in full interaction…

The fact are well-known, their consequence… obvious. They have to finish Zero Dawn. Launch GAIA with all her sub-functions fully intact, and able to do what no human will be able of doing.

And HEPHAESTUS… is the core, the master key to it all.

The facilities are all sealed already. Bunkerage filled up with bootstrapping material, fabricators, forges, future steel mills and rock crushers and washers and separators and chemical synthesizer and chip etchers and nanoassembler units and reactors… all primed and ready for that first moment 60 years from now, when MINERVA has finished her work and HEPHAESTUS will race to errect "The Spires" - The advanced transmission arrays that will shut down the Faro swarm for good.

60 years. It feels almost… painfully close. Shĕn is young enough to maybe witness that event, that fatefully moment when the Faro Plaque finally dies. She has the genes for it; and inside the controlled environment of GAIA Prime, with a state-of-the-art medica facility stocked with everything in the human power to repair the human body, originaly fitted for the Lightbringer protocol, and an AI to watch her back… The thought is overwhelming. Strange, even. How is she going to feel after 60 years, well into her 90s? Will she even hold out that long, as her colleagues die around her?

For her, for everyone at Zero Dawn, the project has been everything. A last fleeting moment of purpose in the face of oblivion and annihilation. But now, with Zero Dawn shutting down and everyone evacuating to Elysium… and GAIA Prime… half of her team will have peacefully died in the last sleep of Euthanasia in 48 hours. Held only by the thin thread of Zero Dawn, the Damocles sword plunges, and takes its people into oblivion… and into peace.

Shĕn has no illusions about her own end - She's not going to Elysium. She's not gonna be standing in a row in medical, waiting for her turn, holding the hands of people. Her family… ma and Shu… they're gonna be safe. They'll have their space in Elysium, they already have. Most likely they're just getting the call by Admin. The hab's sealing up the same time GAIA Prime, ARTEMIS-1, and DEMETER-1, the last facilities remaining inside the perimeter. Surface access hidden away, sealed tight to mask every electronic signature, the surface complex… demolished. Stripped bare, the swarm will think nothing of it. It's stupid like that, thankfully.

Safe… for a time.

She snaps back to the present with a buz of her Focus. A small App she's used since her adolescence, to keep herself from drifting.

"Right." She raises her voice. "Alright, you know the gameplan. Testing, pull the fabs inside 3 hours, feed them into testing. Get them tested rigorously. Note down everything, especially the Gammas as you'll be evacuated first.

"Uuuh… we're gonna be racing the clock there on the active components," someone shouted, hidden away behind the bulk of a standard industrial control console matted to a less-standard ZD fabrication chamber.

"Then push it."

"That's gonna skew…"

"-What exactly do we have predictive AI-supervised modelers for if we do not use them? C'mon people this is not the first time we cut short, use that knowledge of yours! Pull and test, and do it inside the timeframe. I'd like to push our final HEPHAESTUS Beta iteration while we still have the team together to do just that!"

"We'll be on it, boss."

"Software…"

"We'll get to it. Gonna call Sobeck in a bit, get the final bits on that interface issue filed out with th other teams, then we implement and test that."

"Don't forget, they'll move GAIA. So use the Simulators and Test iterations."

"Ooooh. Yeah, will do."

She re-keys her Focus, letting her PA guide her selections. Someday they wrote protocols for this day, and the AIs have kept an eye on it, modifying them, adapting them. Charles from Fabrication Coding is on the line: "Ma'am, what about the Resource Allocation Beta?"

"Stabilize it. Work the code for another two hours, then freeze the neural networks and package it up. We don't need perfect now, we need working first of all. The rest… will be seen to."

"Shĕn, will you…"

"Charles, you know the numbers and options as well as I do. We'll finish GAIA. One way or another."

"…We'll be on it, Shĕn." Charles voice is suddenly sombre, and she can hear how he is edging towards tears.

"Charles, given the impeding hectic… it was a pleasure working with you."

Now the voice is tear-stricken: "With you as well, Ma'am." Then it steels for a final word: "Let's finish this."

A/N: Welcome To Frozen Hell started off as an experimental writing project, a way to clear my headspace from the work on different projects (including the story Ghost in the Shell: Ascendance, which I co-write with NickBana.) Then it turned into a one-shot shared among friends and fans of the series.

At this point, I think Frozen Hell can be shared on a wider basis. The world of the Old Ones, and Project Zero Dawn and its people, always has had a peculiar fascination for me. Welcome To Frozen Hell is an experiment, one among several I write on but the first go be published, to try to get into the heads of these people. What drove them? What defined them? What did Zero Dawn lock like in detail, especially during these final days?

I don't think I will get all the answers. Certainly not the canonical ones. We can only extrapolate. But I hope Welcome To Frozen Hell is a decent shot at doing just that.

As this is a side project, Welcome To Frozen Hell will update intermediately, and always in larger update bundles.

Feedback and constructive criticism about everything is always welcome! And feel free to discuss what you think about the story, and the people of Zero Dawn!