CHAPTER 7
So, maybe the Faro Plague had been defeated, but the metallic screeching of an obviously combat oriented machine no more than a few hundred meters from Samina and me sent me hurtling down the rabbit hole of a panic attack.
I was young when I left Faro Automated Solutions with Lis. Elisabet was my idol, even then, and when her crisis of conscience led to her departure from the company she basically dragged into the future with her own hands, following her out the door was the easiest choice I ever made. So when she died I was distraught in the daylight hours. When I was asleep however, I was entirely at the mercy of the machines. They ran rampant. They always killed her in my dreams. In those nightmares, Elisabet Sobeck died screaming. Torn apart at the molecular level as Faro's monsters ate her.
So when a loud, piercing, and malevolent shriek of machine cut through the air, I lost it. My breathing became erratic, and I sunk to the cold, cold floor. Tears fell as Samina placed a hand each on my own, to try and stop my shaking. Luckily, it didn't last long.
Or at least I didn't think it lasted too long. It lasted long enough for my world to shift. Samina was standing in front of me, looking at the door.
There was someone else standing there. I looked up, and gasped. There was a girl standing in the door. Hell, she looked like a deer in headlights, eyes all wide. The three of us just stood there for a minute, observing each other.
"Hello," the girl spoke quietly with a small wave. English. She spoke English, thank the heavens for small mercies. "If you control your breathing, your fear will fade," she said, as she peered around Samina at me.
"Thank you," I manage. I took a moment to look at her. She was wearing a hybrid of armour that was around during the Fall and clearly tribal colors. She had a hood pulled over her face, masking her hair. But her eyes shone bright in the dim room. But the thing that really caught my attention was the glint of metal rested on her temple. "You use a Focus."
She reached up to lightly touch it, an almost self-conscious gesture. Hmm. Maybe it was a new development? "Aloy found one for me."
Aloy. The elephant in the room. "Is she here?" Samina asked.
Ikrie looked at Samina oddly for a moment before replying, "She's fending off the machines below. You don't speak like anyone I've ever heard before." Now, I'd heard people snip at Samina about her accent, about her religion, her nationality. But Ikrie looked genuinely curious, but with a distinctly positive light in those eyes.
Samina seemed taken aback as well. The fact that this future girl–Ikrie– would probably never meet another person from another continent. That Samina's homeland was something she'd never see again either. "I was born on another part of the Earth. Thousands and thousands of miles from here," Samina spoke softly.
Ikrie cocked her head, "I may not know the pain of losing my homeland. But the people who were home to me…are my home no longer. So I found a new home with Aloy."
'Found a new home with Aloy'? That was… weirdly intimate phrasing. This chick was either some kind of fanatic dedicated to the clone. Or there was some romantic situation going on. I only just held back a grin, I knew Elisabet wasn't totally straight. Hypothosis confirmed! That was assuming the sexuality and gender identity of clonse was something that mirrored their progenitor.
"What is making you panic?" Ikrie asked. Again, with no judgment in her tone, just curiosity.
"I hear metallic shrieks like that in all my nightmares." I responded honestly. Lying really didn't serve a purpose. Besides, Samina would be furious if I tainted what could be a monumental and potentially historic moment with dishonesty.
Ikrie nodded, "I do too." And I believed her. Her experession changed gfor only a moment, but the vulnerability she displayed for that short amount of time told me very much. This girl was at least ten years younger than me. But there was death in her eyes. Not the fiery light of revenge and violence, but the look of so many of the soldiers I'd seen near the end: sheer loss.
"How are we getting out of this place." Samina asked softly.
Ikrie shook off her morose expression and grinned. "How do you feel about flying? I assume if you could climb your way out of here, you would have done so after you woke."
Samina nodded. "I'm not too keen on flight, but if it will get us down to the ground, then it'll do."
Ikrie looked at me, I shrugged, standing up. Ikrie was short. Now we were at eye-level, she seemed more…human. I shudder ran through me as her expression seemed to indicate the same thought passed through her head about me.
"Follow me then." And we followed her to a gargantuan construct. It was one of the machines of AETHYR. It was mine and HEPHAESTUS' simulation come to life. Ikrie marched right up to it and climbed aboard its back.
Samina was understandably hesitant. I was on the other end of the spectrum. I was vibrating with excitement. I was lightly hopping up and down. We did it. Well, of course I knew Zero Dawn worked. GAIA showed us limited images from the new world. Ikrie was also proof, obviously. But for me? Seeing the real life incarnation of something I had drawn up with Elisabet was divine. There was nothing else like it.