Aloy sneers up at the man as her mind teeters between disbelief and wonderment.
"Aloy!"
A shout had broken her train of thought, causing her to rapidly turn toward their way out from where that voice had originated.
"Don't tell them what I am!" The man hissed at Aloy pleadingly. "Please! I'm begging you!"
Aloy stares back up at him for a moment.
"Come on," she sighed while grabbing his arm and pulling him along.
They go through the door and arrive before the exit that Aloy had taken back when she was a little girl.
"Aloy!" The voice belonged to a young man.
"Down here! Gimme a moment!" She called back upon stopping, compelling the man to stop.
With more light to see clearly, Aloy is better able to see the self-proclaimed Old One. He is White with blue eyes and looks young. He has stubbly blonde hair on both his scalp, brow, and lower face. He wears his focus as an earring. His clothing consists of a green tunic with red edges on the sleeves, neck, and rim; green trousers; and brown slipper-like shoes. He carries a large packsack on his back along with a spear tucked vertically alongside it. The spear was a bit of a surprise to Aloy as the man had made no attempt to even defend himself, let alone any attempts to attack her.
"After we get out of here," Aloy stated in a low tone, "I'll be taking you someplace private and you are going to tell me everything."
"Anything you want," the man stated with a wave of his hands. "Just get me out of here alive."
"Come on." As she pulls him along. They stop underneath the opening and look up to the sight of Nora braves surrounding the pit.
"Are you okay, Aloy!" A Black teenaged boy with short dreadlocks shouted down.
"Yeah, I'm fine! As you can see, I got the intruder. Now don't hurt him! I'll escort him out of the Sacred Lands. He only came here looking for me, not to cause trouble."
"Just bring him up here already," a Nora woman said curtly. A Black woman with long straight hair with grey streaks in them.
"Okay, go," Aloy said as she shoves the man forward. "Don't worry, I told them to behave."
"Fine," the man fretted and walks over to the exit.
He begins climbing up out of the pit. Hands reach down to roughly grab and haul him up. A pair of braves firmly take ahold of the man by both sides and they hold their spears menacingly. The man feels his heart beating quickly as he looks down pleadingly at Aloy, who simply bounds upward and out of that pit in a couple of seconds to stand amongst the Nora.
"I can't believe an intruder got into the Embrace," that Black teenaged boy with the short dreadlocks said bitterly alongside his captive with his spear in the other hand.
"Indeed," that Black woman voiced as she walks up in front of the man to glower up at him. "Between the armies of the Eclipse and the Metal Devil's having taken its toll upon us, our numbers are now spread too thinly to properly guard against trespassers."
"I was only looking for Aloy," the man said as he holds his hands up defensively.
"And what do you want with the Annointed, outsider?" A White blond haired grey-eyed young man sneered at him as he is also the other one who has ahold of the captive's other arm.
"And I believe that I said that I'll be dealing with him," Aloy said dryly as she pries their hands off the man, then manually turns the man around and pushes him along. She soon resorts to pulling him along by his wrist, causing the man to take note of her strength.
"Wow, I heard your people were not found of outsiders but I never expected to come close to losing my life!" The man fretted.
"Well they do have a warning to outsiders not to trespass on the pain of death," Aloy answered as she still has a firm hold of him.
"So where's this private place you wish to take me for our talk?"
"It's called Devil's Thirst. They are ruins near the edge of the Sacred Lands."
"Can they be seen from a fort called Mother's Crown? I was told about that fort by the Carja stationed at Dawn's Sentinel. There was nobody up at that fort by the way."
"That's because the Nora had all pulled back into the Embrace, into All-Mother for now. And yes, that was Devil's Thirst you saw from there."
"What is this All-Mother?"
"It's the name of the mountain that is within the Sacred Lands, within the Embrace."
"The one with the Horus on it?"
Aloy stops and turns to leer back up at the man. "Yeah, that's right." Her tone suspicious.
"That mountain was known as Cheyenne Mountain to us. And within it is Eleuthia Cradle Number Nine."
Aloy's eyes widen as does her mouth.
"You really are an Old One!" Her tone was of silent awe. Then turns while tugging on the man. "Come. The sooner we get to Devil's Thirst, the better."
They walk in silence. Aloy eventually releases the man and he continues following after her. Two Broadheads are up ahead, along with a Watcher.
"Stay here," Aloy said as she takes out her spear.
"Hold on," the man suddenly said as if to reach out to grab her. "My machine blinder should cover us both.
"Your . . . machine blinder?" As she leers back at him.
"It's a device that a Harguess man was working on in a place called High Hopes. He may not have been an Oseram, but he was still smart enough to tinker on stuff. After the machines attacked and killed everyone else, I took it." The man takes it out to show her.
"That's a device used to call machines," Aloy said upon recognizing it as such. It was back when she went to Pitchcliff to stop Glinthawks from attacking the place and discovered such a device that a Carja had claimed to have gotten from a workshop up in the mountains. The other time was at an estate where a young man had told her to go and check up on his sister to discover it being attacked by machines. Then discovered that he had set her up, but got killed by a Glinthawk after pulling out another such device.
"That's what I was told." As he looks it over. "But its creator simply changed the signal so that instead of attracting the machines, it blinds them to the area the device is located within. Anyone within it might as well have turned invisible to the machines."
"Really!"
"Good, it didn't get damaged when I fell into that ruin." Then walks past Aloy. "Come, you'll see. But stay quiet though. It won't make you unhearable to them."
Aloy follows the man closely as they carefully walk up to the machines. The Watcher even stares right at them but does not react to their presence as it should have. Aloy glances at the man with a dumbfounded look as they continue walking.
"That's pretty amazing," she whispered to him once they got far enough. "But watch this."
The man watches as Aloy walks up to a Broadhead and suddenly lunges at it, not to stab it but to press the end of her spear against it for a few seconds. He watches as a blue light travels over the metal beast's neck. Aloy next pulls away from it with a flourishing twirl of her spear. She is quick to approach the other Broadhead before it could turn hostile to the other, and vice versa, and does the same thing as well.
"Could you turn off that machine blinder?" Aloy asked the man. "Don't worry, they won't attack us."
"Okay." And he does so. True to Aloy's word, the Broadhead do not attack them. "Wha-What did you do to them?"
"I overrode them with this device," As she hefts the end of her spear up to show him. "I took it off a Corruptor, or should I say a Scarab. Hades had these planted on them to give life to them once again."
"My focus is interacting with it." As he scans the device at the end of her spear.
"I know, that's how I found out about it. Now come." And she mounts a Broadhead.
"Wa-Wa-Wait! You want me to ride this?!"
"Yes, there's yours." As she points at the now tamed Broadhead. "Now get on it and follow me."
The man gets on and Aloy urges her Broadhead into motion. The man also urges his Broadhead into motion by saying giddy-up, following after Aloy as he just barely manages not getting thrown off and needing to hold onto the rim of its chassis in time. He sucks his lips between his teeth due to the bumpiness of the ride and the hardness of its cold metal back. His struggle to keep up with Aloy is his struggle to prevent himself from falling off the Broadhead.
They arrive at Devil's Thirst sooner than if they had gone on foot. Aloy stops her Broadhead and the man does so as well, even though it had been sloppy as he had pulled back on its chassis while hollering, whoa.
"Whoa! Now that was an experience!" the man gasped as he slides off and struggles to remain standing as his legs wobble. "And you got that thing off a Scarab to override them?! Does anyone else have one of those?!"
"No they don't," Aloy said.
"Then that thing is going to become very valuable to others."
"I know. I had a run in with an Oseram who was a little too interested in my spear."
"Nevertheless, domesticating these machines should really aid you new humans."
"Dom-est-eh-kay-ting?"
"It means to tame an animal as a pet or as livestock."
"I've seen the Carja do that with turkeys, ducks, geese, and boar."
"Yes, though in this case it will be domesticating the machines as beasts of burden so that you could use them to pull carts, or even ride upon, to get to places quicker."
"That's interesting. Now follow me. There's a place where we won't be interrupted."
The man follows Aloy into Devil's Thirst, or Colorado Springs as it used to be known. They walk past skyscrapers and other buildings that had long since been reduced to barely standing husks or piles of rubble, along with wrecked rusting automated vehicles to be found as well. And all of it now overgrown with grass, trees, and other plantlife. There are also puddles of water about the place. Machines prowl the ruins and a Tallneck can be seen moving amongst the buildings up ahead.
"Colorado Springs," the man said.
"What?" Aloy asked.
"This was once a city called, Colorado Springs."
"Kall-oh-rad-oh Springs?"
"Yes."
"Anyway, let's head up there." As Aloy pointss up at the top floor of a building, or what is left of it.
"You want us to go up there? That's gonna be a tough climb."
Aloy runs up to the building and gracefully climbs up. She disappears over the top then turns around to look down. "Come on up."
"Ah, do you have a rope for me instead?"
Aloy responds by throwing over the rope of her grappling hook. The man takes ahold of it and wraps it around his forearm. He wonders just how he is going to climb up since she might not possess enough strength to lift him up; only to grunt in surprise upon being pulled up with ease and is soon at the top floor. He struggles to pull himself up with Aloy helping him. They sit away from the ledge and face each other.
"Wow, you're stronger than you look!" The man marveled. "But I guess that must be from years of running, climbing, and hunting machines."
"This place is outside the Sacred Land," Aloy said. "That means it's off limits to the Nora, so we'll have our privacy here. Now then." Her tone turned serious. "Since you know who Elisabet Sobeck was, does that mean you know what Project: Zero Dawn was all about?"
The man stares back at her in thought for a moment.
"I have a better idea," he said. "Why don't you tell me what Project: Zero Dawn was all about, then I'll let you know what I know."
"Fine. It was back when those machines that had rose up from the ground were destroying all life on Earth. An artificial intelligence named Gaia was created before then that would shut down those machines after they had killed off all life. Then, it would begin cleaning up the world and reintroduce life from plants all the way up to humans, of whom the first generation was grown in glass vats."
The man stares at her with a poker expression, but blinks repeatedly as his blue eyes shine with incredulousness.
"Well now," he finally said in a slow casual tone that hints at his awe underneath. "You clearly know more than you appear to know."
"That I do," Aloy said, then leans toward him with an intense expression. "Now tell me. How is it possible that a person whose kind is now long extinct be sitting right here before me?"
"In order for me to tell you that, I will need to start at the beginning. I should warn you though, it's a long story."
"We got time, now go ahead."
"I'll start by giving my name. It's John Aaron Casey Xavier Smith."
"Ah, that's a lot of names."
"You can just call me, John."
"Okay . . . Jawn."
"Now then. It all started one Fall day . . ."
Note:
Because Old One names would be lost, spelling John as Jawn is to show that the people of Zero Dawn Earth might end up believing it be spelt as it sounds to them.