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HORIZON
Protocol Zer0
Written by Nashmeira Soladat Wrekk
No beta reader sorry
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Wake up Aloy.
"No Rost just a little longer…"
Aloy you have to wake up.
"Just let me sleep in… one day…"
ALOY WAKE UP!
My eye shot open frantically looking around. I had dreamed of Rost, it was the day of the proving all over again. He was trying to wake me after I almost died... but the last yell was different somehow.
Shaking my head I looked around, the fire was out and it would be a little longer still before the sun was out. I decided I would at least get the fire going again, I was wide awake and there was no going back to sleep. Only a few hours till sun up.
Begrudgingly I pulled myself from the warm furs and stood, the chill in the air made me shiver the dream was still at the forefront of my mind, the screams of the other braves cut down before there time. I shook my head banishing the unhappy thoughts. Just as I was reaching down to get my bow another scream sounded out. I grabbed my bow and quiver not worrying about the rest of my gear.
I was outside in an instant the cold air was sharper out here. My eyes darted around scanning the area as I looked for the source of the scream. I heard another shout and I activated my Focus not far away but definitely out of sight was a human, and not far from it was a machine. From the Focus it looked a bit larger than a Scraper but not quite Ravager size. It was thinner too but with machines that doesn't really matter.
I took off like an arrow my legs pumping hard the Focus finally gave me a reading and designated the machine as a Sabertooth. That's a new one. I heard another scream and this time it was followed by a roar and the crashing of a heavy machine body. As I came around the corner I saw a female in odd colored gray clothes her she was down on the ground facing away from me but staring right into the eye of the Sabertooth.
It was unlike anything I had seen, sure enough it was larger than a scrapped, it's body however was more slender like a stalker. Its most defining feature was its maw, two large protruding teeth jutted down from the roof of its mouth. It was stalking closer to the girl. It took another step and then its teeth began to glow red, smoke was coming off of them now, no not smoke, steam I realized. Its teeth were heating up and it was getting ready for the killing blow.
"Ha! Snaggle tooth! Over here!" I had to take its focus off of the girl. So I loosed an arrow at the beast nicking the side of its face and just as I had hoped its attention transferred to me. In only 3 strides the beast was one me, I didn't even have time to notch another arrow before I had to tumble away. Its massive claw only a hairs breathe from my right arm.
I was up on one knee immediately pulling two arrow this time from my quiver. I didn't have time for a shot as again the monster was on me. Scrappers unless in pairs would often back off to try and get at you from range, this thing however was all about keeping the fight close and tight. It wasn't giving me much of a chance to get a shot off and stupid me had left my spear back by my camp. Something that I was regretting right now.
I looked over the beast as best I could and noted that its power cell was not on its back, and after dodging the second strike I found it under the thing on its belly. I had to roll my eyes, this was going to be hard. The thought of running crossed my mind but with trying to save the girl that wasn't an option ether. It might double back and finish her off.
The beast gave me a wide birth and I fired the two arrows, one was off only glancing off the beasts armor but the other hit true, taking up the slot where it left eye would have been. It reeled back a metallic paw hand coming up pawing at the left side of its face removing the arrow but it didn't matter the damage was done. It returned to its stalking a counter clockwise circle around me, and quickly pulled another arrow and notched it. But then the thought occurred to me, I was never going to take the beast down with just normal arrows. I needed to get to its power cell under its belly. The thing was fan of pouncing so a crazy idea came over me.
As the Sabertooth started to line up for another pounce I shouldered by bow and pulled another arrow now holding one arrow in each hand. I readied myself for it to make the first move. Ether I kill it or it kills me and then the girl.
"Better to go out fighting I guess."
As if hearing my challenge the beast came at me, and I rushed at it. Both of us starring the other down as it lunged to pounce and I dropped to my knees sliding on the ground under the beast. Just as it began passing overhead I saw my target and my hands came together driving the arrows into its power core from both sides. Sparks and machine blood gushed from the wound as it crashed to the ground behind me. I was up and turned on it in an instant. Sparks were dancing around it underside but it wasn't making any more to get back up.
I looked back up and for her part she looked stunned, she looked from the Sabertooth with wide eyes then to me the surprise expression never leaving her face as I walked over to her helping her up. Then I recognized her this was Nadia Odine, this was an old one. She was alive, she was shaking as she looked back at the dead machine then quickly back at me.
"It can't... Shouldn't, I mean it's... Elisabet is that really you? That thing." The girl was still shaking and she didn't seem to be all there at the moment. I really wasn't sure what to say to her so I said the first thing that came to my mind. I've never been one to dance around things.
"I'm not Elisabet, I guess you can say that I'm her daughter, that was a machine in general there pretty common. That's the first Sabertooth I have ever see thought. I'm Aloy and looking at your cloths I'm going to say that you're Nadia Odine right?" She slowly nodded as she looked me over the sudden realization that things were not as she was use to came crashing down on her and with that her eyes rolled back and passed out.
(ง ´͈౪`͈)ว
I was prepared for some shock from her at learning what had happened to the world, but this was not a great start. In fact this was horrible. I brought her back to camp, I stayed close in case she woke but I needed more wood, lucky when I got back she was still out cold. The first few raise of sunlight began to stream over the mountain and I had been dozing off and on since I came back leaning against a wall watching the fire crackle.
A part of me thought she might sleep for another hundred years and silly as that sounds, I couldn't help but grinned at my own joke. But the curious part of me was excited to speak with her. Nadia started to move and mumble in her sleep but slowly she came around. She sat up placing a hand to her head then letting it fall to her lap. Her eyes scanned around taking everything in before finally landing on me and she gasped. I wasn't sure how to handle this but being upfront seemed like the best idea. I wanted to dispel any idea she had that I was Elisabet right away and get the bad news about Zero Dawn over with.
"Hi," I said waving a hand from across the fire. "Your Nadia Odine right." Nadia's head bobbed up and down as confirmation. "I'm Aloy. I understand you have been out for a while." Again fervent nodding to the affirmative. "Can you speak?"
"Yes." She seemed to swallow and think about her next words. "You look like her. Elisabet I mean, but you said you're her daughter right or did I imagine that?"
"Yeah, it's the best explanation I can give you." I could see the gleam of hope and I really hated to dash it but better to get it over with. "You should know she is gone. She died a long time ago. I'm sorry, I know this might be a shock to you." Her face was crestfallen and she pulled her legs to her chest as she leaned back rocking herself.
"I'm guessing it's not just her is it. There all gone... Aren't they." Again I nodded in the affirmative. "Something went wrong didn't it? I was supposed to be at Zero Dawn but something happened... Ted." Her face went from one of sadness to one of rage in an instant. "That son of bitch! He did this, please tell me he's dead at the very least... if not I would like to meet him… so I can claw his flipping eyes out!"
Wow this girl was mad there was definitely more to this then just hating the man who killed the world. She didn't want to just kill him she wanted to make it hurt. I could relate after what happened at the proving. I had gotten revenge, justice for the lives that Eclipse took. Nadia however would never be able to have hers.
"Yeah there all gone and I'm pretty sure Ted Faro is dead as well. I guess he could be kept alive like you but I have no idea where he would be. Sorry." A calming breath later she was looking in the fire.
"I'm guessing things really didn't go to well after I got put under. When I woke up there was a message from The S.O.B. The file was corrupted and recovery was really good. Something about GAIA being compromised and that causing Protocol Zero to kick in and wake me up." I winced a little.
"About that. I'm not really sure what Protocol Zero is GAIA being compromised is an understatement. GAIA is gone along with all the subordinate programs that she controlled." Her face was steeled now so I continued. "Something happened, I'm not sure what but it was a signal that caused GAIA to lose control over the subordinate programs. She self destructed the G-Prime facilities power reactor. She just about brought the entire mountain down. There really isn't much left anyway."
"I...see. I'm sorry but why are you dressed like that?" She said gesturing to me.
She was as direct as me. I was starting to see how others felt when on the receiving end of one of my conversations.
"Well there was a problem long before GAIA blew up the mountain. Sometime after G-Prime was sealed, the Alphas had to stay there, well Ted contacted them and informed them that he didn't want future generations to repeat our mistakes. He purged Apollo, so all the knowledge that should have been passed on to future generations was lost." I knew this was going to be hard for her. It was hard for me but everything that she and other had tried to do to give future generations a chance was screwed over not once but twice by the same man.
"All gone." Then she did one thing that surprised me she laughed, but it was obvious this was not meant to humorous. "The S.O.B. managed to screw the world one last time. So the human race was thrown back to rubbing sticks together and worshiping fire."
"The Sun actually." Nadia chuckled at that. "Well the Carja do. The Nora worship the All-Mother."
"If Elisabet died so long ago how are you still here? How long is a long time to you?"
"She died shortly after G-Prime was sealed but there was a problem and she sacrificed herself to save GAIA. She is gone I'm sorry to say, I was coming back from finding her when I happened upon this place and you. As for how I'm her daughter here and now with her hundreds of years dead I think I need to start at the beginning. It's a long story so bare with me." So I began my story. Growing up an outcast, Rost. Finding my Focus, the proving trying to enter the mountain and the adventure that lead me to now. All and all she took it well, or as well as I think anyone could expect her to. We ate a lite meal and that expanded the last of my rations. Now I really had to go hunting.
"I don't know what to do." She said quietly. "The S.O.B. obviously came up with this Protocol Zero before he went and purged Apollo. The message said something about a place called Site-B, I think it was like a backup to G-Prime. A lot of good that does without an AI to run it, not to mention I have no earthly idea where it is."
"It's a nice thought, GAIA seem to have the same idea about me but I would know how to begin to fix her. Pitty you can recover that message or like I did the data at the Faro tower." Nadia gasped.
"That's it. He recorded that message and sent it here, he was in Thebes. His own bunker where he was going to live out his merry flipping life. If the bunker is still there then there is a chance that the message is still in the local database." There was a fire in her eyes not of someone morning but some with a purpose but there was still one unpleasant fact and I really hated to be the bearer of bad news.
"That's all well and good but what about the AI can you just recreate her? She did say that she shouldn't be brought back online till Hades was destroyed."
"There's a backup, or there should be one. Though we have no way of knowing how far removed the back might have been from the final product." Well that was some of the best news I had heard in a long time.
"But where is it? I never ran across anyone talking about a backup or where it might be."
"Zero Dawn, it would be in the Vault at Zero Dawn, the hard backups anyway." That was not good. While Eclipse was fractured, it and the Shadow Carja were still a very real threat.
"About that, Zero Dawn is taken over by some bad people remember."
"I want to do this. I don't know how but... I don't want everything we did to go to waist. I'm a stranger in a strange land and I know nothing about the world now. My world died, I'm just a relic like all of these crumbling buildings. Maybe it's irrational and maybe I'm just trying to hold on to the last piece of what was but I can't help but think things could be a little better. Maybe even cure that Derangement you talked about from the terraforming machines. I don't know." I could see the hope in her eyes. This wasn't part of my plan but to tell the truth I didn't have a plan anymore.
I was just as lost as she was. All my life I had been looking for my mother never thinking about what came next. While I might travel back to the Sacred lands I knew it would never truly be home like it was without Rost and being a member of the Tribe was not going to happen. Not when people fell to their knees to worship you when you just walked into a room. I knew the truth now, I had never really put to much faith the All-Mother to begin with it had mostly been for Rost. Now I had even less faith, they would never cast me out again but at the same time it would have be easier if they did. Now my exile would be self imposed, I would always be Aloy, despite the Nora. I didn't realize how true that statement would be till now and all these thought were weighing heavily on me as much as Nadia's own thoughts weighed on her.
"Well we can just walk into Zero Dawn at the moment that's going to take some doing. Not to mention it's still a four maybe five day trip back. Assuming the snow lets up. Maybe a better idea would be to try and find that message the Faro left you. You said he recorded it at Thebes where is that?"
Nadia thought for a moment then frowned. "I don't know. Not exactly if I had access to a terminal that was on the Faro network I might could look up the location for at least narrow it down. This places terminals were all down hence the data corruption. I don't guess you have run across anything in your travels have you."
Lighting struck as the thought hit me. There might be something that would get me kicked out of the tribe for good.
"What about a terminal in a Cradle?" She looked at me oddly until realization began to dawn on her. "I know where one is and there are a lot of terminals that were for Apollo but they never got used. They looked like they were still working though." She nodded.
"That could work, they were tailored with a GUI that was kid friendly but underneath there just like any other computer and even without Apollo the system should still be there if they online and work... what? You have the Sobeck look."
"What's the Sobeck look?" I asked incredulously. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward and sly grin spread across her face.
"That's the same look Elisab... your mom use to get when she was planning something that was going to really tick someone off and regardless she didn't care." Well she was right it was going to piss someone off, hopefully being the anointed one would make it okay though. "You really are her daughter." I smiled at that.
"The Cradle facility I'm referring to is in the Sacred Lands, were my tribe is the Nora. It's also considered the most sacred and holy place in the entirety of the sacred lands. Even me being the anointed one might not get them to let us in there." To her credit Nadia didn't seemed phased by this revelation.
"If there as superstitious as you say your pretty much a god made flesh to them. If that doesn't work then...well. I don't know fake it till you make it." She laughed. It was going to be interesting having her traveling with me for the foreseeable future. I was actually happy, this was a new purpose. Sure I had planned to try and bring GAIA back online but I had no direction on how to even begin. But with Nadia and her knowledge of the past we might just have a chance. This chance happening of me finding a girl lost to time might actually be for the best. What were the odds that I had found her, that she was just what I needed at the exact time I needed her. Maybe there was a little something to the Fate and Destiny stuff.
(⁎˃ᆺ˂)
For decades FAS-SITE-RD42 had like much of the old world lay dormant. It had waited for a day that had never come, a mission entrusted to it by its creators never fulfilled. Its original function had been to assist an asset, but in the last days before its creators went silent it had received new orders that superseded all others. It was to wait for a signal, once received it would then carryout its primary objective and all sub objective of its last standing order.
At 1724.047 hours the signal was sent by a mass omnidirectional broadcast. Most machines did not even notice the signal, and even less living beings did.
However 1724.451 hours the signal was received by FAS-SITE-RD42.
No living being had been in FAS-SITE-RD42 for decades so in an effort to be Eco friendly power consumption was kept to a minimal. Lights, air and other systems needed for human life were deemed a none essential function and suspended.
Then at 1725.237 hours a small LED light lit up on a console. The only indicator that the facility might still have any functionality. Then a monitor screen flickered to life for the first time in several hundred years. Though there was no one in the room to see it, no one alive anyway, the system had been waiting for a signal, the call to preform its last standing order, to fulfill its purpose. Lines of information began to scroll across the screen as FAS-B345T began checking that all its faculties were in order.
-BEGIN LINE-
[SYSTEM TEST...OK]
[MEM TEST...OK]
[SELF TEST...OK]
[WAKE COMMAND RECEIVED...]
[SYSTEM IS ONLINE]
[ATTENTION! PRIORITY ONE! PROTOCOL ZERO IN EFFECT!]
[INFRASTRUCTURE CHECK = TRUE]
[G-PRIME COMMUNICATION... FAILED]
[ZD COMMUNICATION... FAILED]
[EXECUTE PRIMARY DIRECTIVE = TRUE]
[VARIABLE ACTIVE = TRUE]
[LOADING SUB DIRECTIVES]
[SD-FIRST: SECURE AND DEFEND SITE-B PERIMETER - USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED]
[SD-SECOND: INSTITUTE BECKETT CONTINGENCY LOCK DOWN OF SITE-B]
[SHOULD SUB-DIRECTIVES NOT BE FULFILLED OR ARE UNABLE TO BE FULFILLED INSTITUTE TERTIARY DIRECTIVES = TRUE]
[TD-FIRST: OVERRIDE SAFETY SYSTEMS OF ALL GAIA FACILITIES REACTORS GLOBALLY]
[TD-SECOND: OVERRIDE SAFETY SYSTEMS OF SITE-B REACTOR]
[TD-THIRD: ANY THIRD PARTIES THAT MAY LEAD TO THE FULFILLMENT OF PROTOCOL ZERO ARE TO BE ELIMINATED]
[SHOULD ALL GOALS OF PRIMARY DIRECTIVE BE MET SYSTEM RETURN TO STANDBY = TRUE]
[SHOULD TD-FIRST AND/OR TD-SECOND DIRECTIVES BE MET SELF TERMINATE = TRUE]
[….]
[BEGINNING ASSETS INVENTORY... STAND BY]
Though no human living had been in the room for hundreds of years lights began to turn on throughout the facility, some blew out after laying dormant for so long but darkness was not a concern to FAS-B345T. There were no humans here requiring light to see. But had there been, they would have seen the lights of a massive underground hanger lit up. There Eco friendly LEDs illuminating the various unmanned peacekeeping robots for several football field lengths into the distance. It was only seconds later that the various optics of the robots turning red, shining like a fires of hell. All of them proudly sporting the corporate logo of Faro Automated Solutions.
[LOADING PRIMARY DIRECTIVE...]
[TARGET ROUGE ASSET = NADIA ODINE]
[OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE TARGET WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE]
[…]
[TARGET LOCATION UNKNOWN / USING LAST KNOWN LOCATION OF TARGET = PEARL LABS PROVO UTAH]
[BRINGING ASSETS ONLINE]
[SCRAMBLING ASSET = CHIMERA]
[BEGINNING RECONNAISSANCE OPERATIONS...]
[...]
[HAVE A NICE DAY ^w^]
-END OF LINE-
::AN::
Ill be the first to admit I spend a good portion of the last part just working on how FAS-B345T (BEAST) spoke/was presented when reading. I wanted him to be ominous and not really seem like a AI we have seen before. HADES was just straight up nut job crazy. He had a I was made to be the destroyer so that what I'm going to do!
Yes he used the FARO peacekeeper robots but to him that were just a blunt instrument a means to an end. B345T on the other hand is tactical, pragmatic, and feels no emotion. B345T's only goals or this left behind to it and it will strive to achieve them at any cost.
Parings: really I have no plans to make this a love story there might be some love interest later but Nadia and Aloy are not going to be shacking up. Nadia still has a lot to work through.
Any way there you have it. I hope you enjoyed please let me know what you think about the direction the story is taking.
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