After the Battle of the Alight, Aloy returns to the frozen depths of an inactive volcano in search of finding her next heading. She needed to stop the Derangement. She needed to rebuild GAIA. But how?

CYAN does her best to help by reminding Aloy that people, like computers, work best with a support network and like all things, all roads lead to Meridian.

Towards Erend. The first person she thought of when Aloy realised she needed help.

"You should be worried about the next big thing in your life after the Proving. Maybe you'd travel to Meridian anyway, the world is too big and the Sacred Lands are too small. Especially for you. You should be riding off into the sunset, causing bandits and Machines alike to wish they'd never crossed your path. Not this!" He gestured wildly around himself, "If this is what the Delvers say happened and a Machine really made the world and jez… That sounds far too religious for you and me." Erend cringed in pain, "I know you." Erend looked at Aloy square in the eye, "You're gonna do it. I don't need some Machine, this GAIA to tell you or me that you can and will do it. So I'll ask again. What can I do to help?"

ConCrit welcome.


Chapter one: The Sobeck Ranch.

A tear ran down Aloy's cheek as she regarded the remains of the woman before her. The body sat slumped and alone on a bench surrounded by beautiful iridescent flowers. She placed a hand on the lapels of the woman's environment suit and her Focus sprung to life. The glyphs read a name Aloy knew already.

Doctor Elizabet Sobeck PHD. Alpha Prime.

The face appeared through the visor, when Aloy's eyes focused beyond her own reflection on the glass, little changed. It was Elizabet's face. Aloy's face. Genetically identical in every single way.

Aloy still didn't know if she should regard Elizabet as her mother, but she couldn't help but feel some form of kinship with the woman who had given everything to create the world Aloy lived in. Was Sylens right to say that Aloy had two mothers; Elizabet and GAIA?

Something small in Elizabet's hand caught Aloy's eye. It was a small bauble on a chain. The Nora looked up at Elizabet's face once more, to ask for permission, before Aloy took the object into her own hand.

Her Focus lit up once more and the information appeared before her eyes.

A Globe. A spherical representation of the Earth with a map on the surface.

The Globe spun naturally in the dusty wind as Aloy held it up to examine it closer. It was a blue marble with green shapes etched onto it. Was this…?

The Focus scanned one of the larger shapes on the trinket.

A continent comprising the northern half of the American Land mass, connected to South America by the Isthmus of Panama. It connects Canada, the United States, Mexico and the countries of Central America.

The wind suddenly picked up and Aloy suddenly remembered where she was. The Sobeck Ranch was in a desolate stretch of land with little natural cover from the dust storms which seemed common in the area.

The sky had darkened considerably since Aloy had arrived, she would have to find a place to rest for the night, but where?

Beyond the bench were the rough shapes of walls and a collapsed roof. it wasn't ideal, but the picky die fast in the wilds. Rost had told her that, once.

Her Focus picked up something in the ground at the base of the building. It looked like a hollow in the ground with a hatch door. Aloy made her way forwards and knelt at the door and began to dig with her hands. Eventually, the Nora felt a seam in the ground and found a handle for the door just as thunder began to hum in the skies. Stale air rushed up to meet Aloy and she peered down to see a narrow rusted ladder.

Inside the room was what remained of a workbench; in the dim blue light of her Focus, it revealed a glimpse of what the room would have once looked like.

"Sylens would have been at home here." Aloy commented as she regarded the tools that had hung along the walls, on the bench and around the room. They all were not nothing more than rusted lumps amongst the dust. Aloy scanned places on the walls where documents had been pinned, the Focus downloaded something slowly as the Nora found something else on the ground.

The Handle was interwoven with synthetic textile and metal, it was light and flexible but as she lifted the object higher, the end uncurled and spanned at least 8 foot in length.

A Bullwhip. Formerly used by cattle drivers and teamsters.

Intrigued, Aloy stashed the coiled whip onto a clip on her side, just as the download completed.

A diagram of a person riding on the back of what looked like a Strider but it wasn't a machine so it must be a Horse but the person was sat on something which seemed to enable them to control it. Aloy zeroed onto the seat on the back of the Horse and her Focus downloaded another diagram of the seat called a saddle.

A wave of fatigue swept over Aloy; it had only been a few weeks since the Battle of the Alight. She had left immediately after HADES had been defeated. She hadn't stopped moving since. Aloy felt anxious as she wondered how everyone was doing afterwards. Aloy had ensured all of her friends were safe and alive but… She needed to leave. Aloy didn't have time to stop. Or rather, she hadn't made time to stop.

A curtain of dusty earth fell down from the hatch door. The wind hadn't let up outside at all.

"Looks like this is me for the night, I guess."

Aloy looked around for a likely place to lay her bedroll out on, she had slept in far worse places before. As she looked over towards a reasonably flat space, Aloy stumbled over some debris to reach the spot when a datapoint caught her eye.

Aloy shook out her bedroll and sat on it before she downloaded the data and a hologram flashed before her eyes,

"It's bad Mom. Really bad." It was Elisabet, speaking to an older woman.

"You can contain it though, right. Ted must have come to his senses –"

"He did but it's too late."

A man stepped forward, similar in age to Elisabet's mother, "Too late? So that means, that's it then? There's no hope?"

"No. I mean yes it's too late but I have a plan. A horrible, horrible plan. It would mean we have to give up on the world as we know it but it could mean that we would still have a future."

"What, like the human popsicles the news keeps talking about? Are you planning on freezing people so they can thaw out once those machines stop –"

"What about that thing on the news, what was it called honey - far - something."

"Far Zenith." Elizabet corrected, "No Dad, that's not something any normal person can get a ticket to."

"Another billionaire-bunker? Ah."

"It might as well be. It would take years for that to be a viable choice. We have months left before the world-" Elisabet stopped as she hitched a breath and looked down.

Elizabet's mother placed a hand on her daughter's shoulder, "Elisabet." Her mother asked, "What do you plan to do?"

Elisabet lowered her shoulders, her face looked pinched and tired. "I'm going to kidnap the greatest minds on this Earth. I'm going to make them design, and create a terraforming AI which breaks the Turning Act so it can think and act for itself. I'm going to preserve a selection of fertilised eggs and seeds for the world's flora and fauna and tell the AI to birth the eggs when the planet is safe and ready for them. I'm going to tell those scientists the truth of our imminent death, give them the option of work themselves to death comes or choose euthanasia."

After a long pause, her mother asked, "And Ted?"

"I'm going to make Ted pay. Literally. He's bankrolling the whole thing, he caused the Faro Plague, and he can pay to fix it."

"I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation, Liz." Her father mused, he looked at his partner beside them and they shared a look.

"There's a place for the families of the people on this project. It will be a safe place for them to live the rest –"

"Liz." They said in unison.

"I was born here. I want to die here, with your Mother."

"Save our spots for people who might have to choose between their spouses or their kids, honey. We've lived good lives and raised you; our pride and joy."

Elisabet gasped and closed her eyes as she bowed her head, "Mom, Dad, I don't know if I can."

"Use that big brain of yours to fix this problem." Elizabet's Dad added, "We always knew you would change the world Liz; serve life, not death. Heal this world and do your best to stop this happening again, so that someday, in the future, no one will have to face this problem again. Or make this choice again."

Her mother said. "You're not alone on this one. If I know you, like I think I do, you already have a few names for people who would be the first ones to ask to be on this project. You weren't one to have many friends but you always had a few good ones."

Elisabet, still with her head bowed down, nodded.

"Well then, remember. They, like you are going to have to make these decisions, make the same sacrifices, leave what they hold dear behind also. Lean on them, trust them. You are not alone. Don't let them feel like that either, okay." Her Mom finished.

"Kiddo, I never thought we'd get grandkids but the more I think about this, we're gonna get a few million more than even I hoped for." Her Dad said with a chuckle, after a moment, they all laughed.

"They're not all going to be mine, Dad, none of them will be –"

Her Dad enveloped Elisabet in a hug, "Just give me this one, okay."

The hologram ended as they all embraced.

Aloy didn't get much sleep that night.


Morning light crept into the room Aloy had made her home for the night, she stretched stiffly as she considered her next steps. Aloy had hoped that in coming here, she would have found some answers.

"I'm never that lucky." Aloy said to herself with a sigh and collected her things to head off once more. To where?

She needed advice and ideally from someone who already knew what was at stake. She needed to rebuild GAIA and stop the Derangement once and for all.

"I'd rather fight HADES again than speak to Sylens again." The man had made it abundantly clear he felt no remorse for his actions with the Shadow Carja, his crimes and lack of remorse for them were unforgivable. He wasn't even sorry that he had been caught out for them when Aloy had confronted him.

No.

"Who else?" Aloy asked herself as she climbed the ladder and pushed the hatch door open.

The wind kicked up the dusty earth as Aloy pulled herself out from the cellar, it almost reminded her of… how fresh powdery snow can get blown by the wind.

Aloy knew where she needed to go next.