"Error: interface incompatibility detected."

Shit. Nice going, rookie.

"What? What's that mean?" Erend asked.

I sighed, frustrated. "It means that my program won't work on ARTEMIS." I looked at Aloy. "I wrote it based on the output you got from the cauldrons. Apparently, it's not universal among all the subsystems."

Aloy bit her lip. I could tell she was disappointed. Not sure if it was at me or just at the situation. I cringed inwardly. Regardless of what had transpired between us and the awkward state of our friendship, I didn't want to let her down. Maybe it was because if we failed at this then I was somehow failing…who? Myself? My family? The Alphas that had died trying to make sure that the world would be a viable place to live for future humanity? I honestly didn't know anymore, but I knew one thing. We couldn't fail.

I couldn't fail.

"There has to be a way," she said, her tone hard with determination.

Thunder rumbled above us, sending a dark echo throughout the bunker. The pounding of heavy rain on the roof started shortly after.

Erend glanced upwards. "Well, that won't be fun to walk home in."

Aloy ignored him. "What else can we do, Becks? I know you can figure this out." She gave me a pleading look; her voice having gone much softer. It was the first time in days she had spoken genuinely to me and I couldn't help but be somewhat grateful that I had the old Aloy back, not the austere, stoic one that I had been dealing with since we kissed.

I knew I had to try something. "Um…I'm not sure. I'm sorry – this tech is really complex and I'm still figuring it all out. Maybe if there was some other way we could directly interface with it that wasn't voice-based." Oooh. The light went on.

I turned to the Watcher behind us. "Heph, you think you could give it a shot? We don't speak ARTEMIS' language but you might, right?"

HEPHAESTUS let out a series of rolling clicks. "SYSTEM WILL ATTEMPT TO INTERFACE WITH SUBSYSTEM ARTEMIS ON ALPHA PRIME'S COMMAND."

Aloy's hazel eyes lit up for the first time in days. "Yes, try it!" she ordered before looking back at me, a grin slowly forming on her face.

"ACKNOWLEDGED. PROCEEDING." Heph hopped over to the console and stared at it for a moment before its light turned from blue to orange.

"I hope this works," Aloy whispered. She seemed nervous and I understood. If we couldn't interface with any of the other systems, then GAIA couldn't be restored and this would all be for nothing.

It wasn't these people's fault that the planet was fucked up and had to be rebuilt. It also wasn't fair that Aloy had to be the one responsible for making sure this all worked. I realized at that moment that I wasn't being a very good friend, despite my offer to help. Romantic feelings or not, the very least I could do was show her the same kindness she had shown me since I woke up.

I nodded and took her hand in mine. The roughness of it reminded me of her strength and resilience. But even walls need support. "Me, too. And if it doesn't, we'll figure out another way."

Aloy's eyebrows raised in surprise at me. She gave my hand a light squeeze. I decided I would talk to her later when we were back in Meridian.

Another clap of thunder shook the room.

"ALPHA PRIME. INTERFACE WITH ARTEMIS HAS COMPLETED. SUBCORE WILL EJECT FROM ADJACENT CONSOLE."

"You got it!?" I was thrilled and from the combination of shock and relief on Aloy's face, it was clear she was, too.

"CORRECT. ALERT – EXTERNAL WEATHER CONDITIONS HAVE REDUCED VISIBILITY AND TRACTION."

"Hah! It tells you the weather, too. This thing's more useful than most people I've met," Erend said, making the rest of us laugh nervously while the Watcher clicked at us disapprovingly.

The console to the right of the one Heph had interfaced with sat on a wide metal cylinder that came up to my waist. It emitted a loud bang before the top of it slid open with a hiss, letting out thick clouds of dust and steam. We waited a few seconds for the clouds to dissipate.

The subcore rested on a small platform inside the console.

Aloy grinned at me. "Another one down. We did it!"

"That's what we were here for? A little chunk of metal?" Erend said, scratching his head.

I carefully picked up the subcore and handed it to Aloy, who put it in her pack with the other one. "This chunk of metal is what's going to allow us to reboot GAIA." We began walking back to the entrance of the bunker.

"And we gotta do that with all of these things? How many are there?" he asked. Thunder sounded again, this time much louder and closer than before. Aloy reached out to the door console to open it. The doors slid open with a screech, revealing the stormy weather outside that we would now have to walk in all the way back to the city.

At least we don't have to deal with the fucking heat anymore. "Well, let's see. We've got two down and-," I started to answer but was shoved aside suddenly by Aloy, who screamed, "Get down!"

A flaming arrow narrowly missed Erend and ricocheted off the rusted doorway.

Chaos took over. Through the cascade of rain, I could see a group of Eclipse outside the bunker, no doubt where they had been waiting for a while. They knew where we were. We had been followed somehow. But how?

"We're being tracked!" Aloy yelled as the three of us took cover in the doorway, arrows hailing around us.

"How the fuck are they doing that?" I winced as an arrow just narrowly missed my leg.

"I don't know! The only time that's happened is-," Aloy's eyes went wide with realization. "Oh, no." She readied her bow and nocked a few arrows in it. Erend had his hammer in both hands.

"Time to smash some faces in!" he announced.

Aloy shook her head. "No, Erend. You need to get Becks out of here. Now!"

The Vanguard captain immediately began to protest. "What? No, you can't take all these guys alone!"

I reached for my new spear, the one Aloy had made for me, and gripped it nervously. I didn't want fight. These guys could shoot flaming fucking arrows from a distance and I could barely hold my own in a training spar.

"SYSTEM DETECTS ALTERNATE UNIT FOR DEFENSE," HEPHAESTUS stated, its tone no more alarmed than it had been seconds ago before the attack. The light on the Watcher went dark and the machine collapsed on the metal floor.

"Are you kidding me? You're taking a nap now?" Another arrow. Then three more – all close enough to make Aloy wince, which was not good. Panic was quickly taking over and it took every bit of focus to not hyperventilate and start crying for my mom.

"Ugh! I need an opening," Aloy groaned. "As soon as I go, Erend, you and Becks run for it. Got it?"

But Erend shook his head. "I already told you, I'm not leaving you, Aloy!"

"Argh! Don't question me, just do it!" she snapped.

Another hail of arrows.

"We're pinned down here!" Erend yelled, gritting his teeth with every impact the arrows made on the ground.

Aloy inhaled sharply. "I'm going to have to make an opening then."

I realized what she was implying and grabbed her arm. "They're everywhere and will shoot the shit out of you if you go out there now!"

Before she could argue with me, the cluster of trees closest to us were knocked down with such violence and force that the ground beneath us shook. A Ravager leapt from the kicked-up dust and debris and landed on the dirt hard before letting out a booming, metallic roar. It took one look at the stunned Eclipse fighters and attacked, using its teeth and claws to rend the fighters to bloody pieces. The panicked Eclipse turned their attention to the beast, giving Aloy the time she had been asking for.

"Now, Erend! Go! Go!"

"But-," I started. This was crazy. We needed Aloy. Without her we couldn't complete the mission.

We need…no, I need her. Mission or not, kiss or no kiss, friends or otherwise – I couldn't lose her. Not now.

Aloy matched my gaze and gave me her signature (and now beginning to be a source of frustration and excitement all at the same time) smirk. "I'll be fine, Becks. This is nothing."

I hesitated. Erend took my arm and began to pull me away.

"We gotta go, Becks!" he urged. I took one last look at the redhead, who had taken her opportunity and run out into the clearing beyond the bunker to unleash her arrows on the distracted fighters. Erend and I began running through the forest with him ahead of me, hammer in hand, and me barely clutching onto his arm as we trudged through the mud and rain-soaked ground cover as fast as we could.

Aloy.

"Keep running! Pick up your feet – come on!"

I wanted to go back. Something didn't feel right. The Eclipse had wanted me alive. Somehow, they had tracked us not just to Heph's cauldron, but to ARTEMIS as well.

"The only time that happened is-,"

"BECKS!"

Impact. I slammed into something solid, causing me to bite own lip so hard I tasted blood. My vision immediately blurred as I hit the ground hard. Coughing and sputtering, I struggled to regain my bearings so that I could get up but a lancing pain in my ribs knocking me flat on my back. I tried to cry out for Erend or Aloy but I couldn't get enough air in my lungs to form the words. Thought my vision was blurred still from the impact and the rain, I could hear someone screaming my name over the thunder in the distance, and then two dark figures looming over me.

"You fucking idiot, why did you do that? That's her!" one figure, a female, said. I couldn't place the voice – it was low and rough but the inflection was familiar, almost from a memory. Everything around me was blurred and muffled anyway though, so it was impossible to know.

"She's not dead. Stop complaining so much. I don't know why you were allowed to come in the first place," the second figure, a male, retorted.

The female sighed. "Enough. Leave the other one. Let's go before the redhead sees us."

"She's going come to her senses eventually," the man said.

"Leave that to me." I watched through pained vision as the woman knelt down next to me. "Sorry about this."

A cloth was roughly placed over my nose and mouth and held tightly against my face. I immediately went into panic mode and tried with all my strength to free myself of the firm grip against me when I blacked out.

"Oh, Becks, hey. You're home. How was class?" Dad was in the kitchen when I walked in the door. I had done my usual route – drop my bag off in the foyer to return for it later and head for the kitchen where there was food. He was never home this early in the afternoon, though.

"Hi…Dad?"

He must have seen the confusion on my face because he chuckled. "Wow, that's some "hello" you've been practicing there. Way to greet your old man. Really makes me feel welcome in my own home." He pretended to sob. "It's fine. I shouldn't be upset that my only daughter doesn't want to say 'hi' to me."

Oh, for fuck's sake. I rolled my eyes obvious enough for him to see. "Sorry. Hi, Dad!" I exaggerated and gave him a hug. He laughed and squeezed me tightly, more so than usual, and held on for much longer.

"Uh…everything okay, Dad? Not that I'm not happy to see you, but how come you're home so early?" I said when he finally let me go.

Dad smiled, his blue eyes twinkling under the LED lights. Mom always said that Dad and I had the same smile, especially when we were hiding something. It was impossible to keep anything from her. She even knew about my feelings for Jenna and had not pushed me in any direction other than just telling me that I would know what to do when the time was right.

"All right, Dad, what's up? What did you do?" I grinned. "And does Mom know?"

It was a line I said often to him and usually ended with him telling me he had bought Mom a trip somewhere or had managed to get Dennis a new video game before it had been publicly released. Dad really liked surprising us with stuff like that. I think he hoped it would make up a little for all the times he had to be gone on business trips.

"No, nothing like that, Becks. And yes, of course your mother knows but…there's um…there's something I need to talk to you about." His smile had vanished and for the first time I could remember, he looked old. Like he hadn't slept in days. Something was obviously weighing on him.

"Yeah," I said, taking a more serious tone. "What did you want to talk about?"

A shadow hung in the air between us. Something was wrong. That much I could tell.

"Is…did something happen? Are Mom and Dennis okay?" I asked, getting more worried with each passing moment.

Dad nodded. "Yes, they're fine. Did you want to sit down in the living room? Maybe we could-,"

"Dad, just tell me already!"

Dad's eyebrows arched up in…sadness? What the hell? "Sweetheart…Rebecca, um…you know about the Chariot line that…that the company sells, right?"

I leaned back against the quartz countertops. "Yeah, what about them?"

Dad took a deep breath, but his voice came out in a shaky whisper. "There's been a glitch-,"

I opened my eyes slowly. White-hot pain burned in my side and chest. An intense pressure in my head made any kind of light or sound agony to experience. It helped a bit that the pillow my head rested on was soft and-

The fuck?

I sat up and gasped, holding my side as the pain shot through my entire body. Okay…note to self: don't ever fucking move again. The room was small, smaller than my bedroom at home for sure. The walls were painted a bright white and the room was warmly lit with designer lamps on the nightstands and dressers around the room. The bed I was in resembled the one I had back in my bedroom very much. The sheets were clean and the comforter smelled freshly laundered. There were no windows but the room was…comforting.

With the exception of the giant fucking glass wall that looked out to a long corridor. Where am I? Was this a hospital or something? Why would there be a hospital here anyway?

Everything that had happened prior rushed back to me. Meridian, ARTEMIS, the subcore, the Eclipse, HEPHAESTUS taking control of a fucking Ravager to save us, Erend and I running through the forest…

Aloy.

I had to find her. I had to leave whatever this place was and find her. I attempted to push myself out of the bed. My injuries would not allow me to move without excruciating pain, however, leaving me a whimpering mess on the bed.

I rolled over to face away from the glass wall. I wanted to cry. I had been awake for less than ten minutes and I was already terrified. The only person in this world I trusted was missing and I had no idea where I was.

"Hey, you okay?" A young woman's voice. She sounded a bit like the woman in the forest. I could feel the end of the bed depressing as she sat down. "You've been in and out of it for a few days. I'm sorry about your side. You've got a couple bruised ribs." A hand stroked my hair. I slapped it.

"Get away from me."

The woman giggled. "Becks, seriously? A thousand years later, and that's how you say 'hello'?"

No.

I slowly rolled over, trying my hardest to ignore the aching in my ribs. I was thankful I was already in bed because I nearly passed out again. Short, straight blonde hair, though she had always kept it long. Her skin, once fair and delicate, was pale and covered in dirt, scratches, and scars. She seemed…older. We were the same age, but something about her face told me that it…something had changed. Her eyes were the same as they had always been – a vibrant bluish green that always caught the stares of every person in the room in every class we had together.

How?

"Surprised to see me?" she asked.

I had no words except her name. "Jenna?"