"How did you feel when you looked around at all the life you saw?" Aloy asked.
"I felt," John began. "I felt proud. Pround of having done my part to help make all this happen. But most of all, proud that I got to live to see all of this come to pass. Even though I only worked on the Apollo Subroutine, the fact is that it was a team effort. It made me think about the whole terraforming process that was done. It was a complex complicated task to pull off, made all the more so when it was an artificial sapience involved. Cleaning the biosphere was one thing because while it was a very hard task it was at least a very simple one. Once the biosphere was cleaned, then Gaia could reintroduce life in a series of steps from bacteria all the way up to humans."
"So just how did Gaia reintroduce life after the world was cleaned up?"
"That was through Demeter and Artemis. Poseidon's duty was to clean up the waters, not reintroduce life into it. Hephaestus was even put to work too, to give them the machines necessary for their tasks. This happened both on land and in the water at the same pace. It was in a series of steps because each organism needed a long gap of time before the next higher organism could be reintroduced. It was to help them become fully established all over the world. Demeter was put to work first and the first life forms it reintroduced were bacteria. Those that are far too small to be seen with the eyes alone. They are what causes dead life forms to decompose, thus enriching the soil. Once established, then came fungi, lichens, grass, ferns, flowers, shrubs, and finally trees. Once the reintroduction of the Plant Kingdom was mostly complete, Artemis was next put to work reintroducing the Animal Kingdom. It started with invertebrates, animals with no bones, like insects. Not only that but Demeter could also reintroduce the insect-eating plants, but only when there were enough insects established. But back to the invertebrates, the first to be reintroduced were the plant-eating ones; once they got firmly established, the animal eating ones were the next to be reintroduced. Once all of the invertebrates were reestablished, next came the vertebrates, creatures with bones. This is where it started to get more difficult because vertebrates are more complex, meaning it took more effort to raise them. Now while Eleuthia had dealt exclusively with humans, Artemis had tens of thousands of various animals species to care for. Therefore, Charles Ronson decided that Gaia should only reintroduce wild animal species that have an individual adult mass of less than one hundred pounds. The rest were going to have to be reintroduce by you new humans, especially the domesticated ones. But Apollo would have taught you how to do that."
"And just how long did all that take?"
John looks upward in thought as he attempts to calculate that. "I'd have to say . . . over a," shaking his head slightly with shrugging and making a humorous frown, "three hundred year period, maybe?"
"Wow, I never realized just how much work Gaia had to put in to reintroduce life. But thanks to Ted Faro, we won't be able to reintroduce the rest." Her tone gruff.
"Maybe in a few hundred years when your people have rediscovered enough of your past. Anyway, I was wondering where I should go to next. After all it was still cold with snow and I wasn't dressed for it . . ."
John got out and closed the hatch, causing it to make a loud metallic bang, then sealed it shut once again. Snow got into his slippers as they were not meant for outdoor wear. He straightened and this time looked up at the sky. It was sunrise as he could tell by the clear sky, then stared around as he wondered which way to go. He stared out over a slope that rolled downward to below into more forested landscape.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of rustling nearby and looked to see a blue and silvery robot in the shape of a pronghorn deer, causing John to gape in astonishment at it. That was when he realized it was one of the machines that Gaia designed through her Hephaestus Subroutine to help clean Earth's biosphere. He scanned it with his focus and could see a trail of triangles all pointing in a direction. The robot animal walked along that trail and it became obvious to John that it was a path to it.
The robot stopped to stare at him. He could see that it had a large single blue light for an eye in its head. That blue eye changed color to yellow then to red and began making a metallic growl and stalked toward him. A sense of danger overcame John and he ran away before the robot could get too close. The robot did not give chase.
"You were lucky," Aloy said. "A Lancehorn's horn can easily puncture flesh."
"That was only the beginning of my troubles with the machines I encountered," John said. "Then there was the time of year and my dressed as if it were a warm Summer day. I was hungry too. What made it all the worse was that I didn't know where to go . . ."
John continued walking in a direction that he was unsure of. His hunger pangs began acting up and the hint of thirst began forming in his throat. That was when he thought to hook his focus up to a satellite relay and did so; only for the words, no satellite relay, to come up. That puzzled him because although the original satellites would have all fell back to Earth centuries ago, the new humans should have launched more satellites into orbit.
As he walked, he encountered more of those animal robots, and more varied than the one he had encountered back there. All of them were blue and silvery with a large single blue light for an eye. Some were shaped like ungulates, with some resembling cape buffalo, and some were shaped like small dinosaurs. One of those dinosaur like robots took notice of him with that cyclops eye that suddenly went from blue to yellow to red as it made a loud metallic squeal. That dinosaur began stalking toward him with its head low and making a metallic growl as well. John ran away from it and came to an understanding that not only would these robots not allow people to approach them, but will also attack them too.
He kept running, wondering if he will be found before he succumbs to hypothermia.
John was exhausted upon arriving at another hill. He crested it to see more of those silver and blue robot animals mulling around, with some of them "grazing".
"That's when I began wondering why Gaia's robots were still functioning after all this time," John said.
"Why did you wonder about that?" Aloy asked.
"Because the Plant and Animal Kingdoms are now thriving along with you new humans. It means that Project: Zero Dawn was more or less a success. One of Gaia's protocols was that once the first new humans were fully educated, she was to order all machines to return to their nearest Cauldron for decommissioning. Anotherwords, the machines were to be scrapped. Gaia's robots are not needed anymore."
"Then . . . Then it must mean that when Apollo was unable to educate us . . . Gaia decided that we could make use of the machines to help us survive. So Gaia permitted us to hunt the machines."
"That's what it seems. Otherwise if Apollo had been functioning, the new humans could have easily had the Cauldrons reconfigured to help them recreate the machines that we once used to recreate our civilization. Now then, where was I?"
"You stopped upon losing your breath as you were up on a hill and wondering why Gaia did not have the machines recalled."
"Oh yeah. Now with my hunger pangs still acting up, I kept walking . . ."
After an hour of walking, John was beginning to feel thirsty and kept a sharp lookout for a brook to drink from. He even used his focus for the task. No wind meant no wind chill factor, so he was not going to freeze to death, at least not right away.
That was when John heard something and stopped to listen. He heard it again; they were thumps that repeated themselves every couple of seconds. Not wanting to stand around and think that it was something coming to attack him, he continued onward at a more brisk pace. He came upon a dirt trail before him devoid of snow but made muddy. He felt hopeful that it was going to lead him somewhere, maybe to a civilization of some sort. He walked down that dirt trail while staring down at it and could see a multitude of large hoofprints in the dirt. Whatever made them was huge and apparently used this trail frequently. He began noticing that the thumping got progressively louder.
John noticed something moving through the trees up ahead. Something huge and it was coming toward him. Once it got close enough and away from any tree cover, he could see that it was a huge robot animal walking down the path toward him that was in the form of a giraffe but with a flat head like a disc. He was quick to get out of this robot's way as its footfalls made the ground vibrate, but the large animal robot casually walked past him and paid him no more attention than if he were an ant. John scanned the robot and discovered that it really did make this path as the arrows looped back to it, meaning that it never deviated from this route.
John sighed with relief and continued his journey.
The morning became progressively later as the sun rose higher. It even got a little warmer. He hoped the sky would remain clear until he found help, and that it would still remain daytime. He came upon a brook and scooped up handfuls of water to drink. It was sharply cold and bland, but he kept drinking handful after handful until he felt sated. That and his hands started growing numb from the cold. It also aggravated his hunger pangs. He continued on his way, managing to cross the brook upon rocks at a shallower point.
The day continued progressing and still no sign of civilization. He encountered more of Gaia's robots, and again he had to avoid them. The warmth melted the snow into patches.
It was the afternoon when John emerged from a clearing and saw a dirt road. He gasped with relief and hurried over to it. More of Gaia's robots were nearby engrossed in their directives. John studied the tracks and wondered if it was made by one of those giraffe robots he saw back there. The road was long and relatively straight and he would not have to walk through any snow as his feet were already cold and wet.
John looked up and down the trail to see if such a robot was coming or leaving, only to see none. But he did see someone walking up the road, as in away from him. He felt both amazed and relieved to learn that the Eleuthia Subroutine was a success.
John hurried up the trail toward the person in question. Perhaps they could help him. As he continued getting closer, he began noticing more detail about them. They had a basket on their back. Their manner of walking suggested a woman.
"Excuse me!" John called out to her.
"That's far enough!" the woman shouted as she whirled around to face him with a knife in hand held aloft and ready to stab.
"I don't blame her," Aloy said dourly. "You really shouldn't try to approach someone from behind, especially when they're travelling alone."
"Hey, I didn't know that you new humans were living that way," John countered.
"Did she attack you?"
"No, but it was going to take time for her to gain my trust . . ."
"Whoa! Whoa! Take it easy! I'm not gonna hurt you!" John exclaimed with his arms spread wide and hands open as he slowed his walk.
The woman in question was actually a teenaged girl. She was tallish with a slender build and had a fair blue-eyed elfin face framed by long light brown hair held in a low ponytail slung over one shoulder. She wore a green long sleeved shirt covered in chain-linked embroiderment and with a slit going slightly down the front neck to make putting it on easier. She also wore a necklace with what looked like white metal links on a string, along with another that resembled a cord. The shirt came down to her knees just above a pair of knee-length boots that looked like bindings and held in place with a wide belt made of braided neon blue plastic. Her knife was a dagger and the blade looked to be a few inches long. John noticed that she was not wearing a focus.
"What do you want?" the girl demanded as she continued sizing him up with a glare.
"To ask for directions to the nearest town. I got lost."
"There's a town nearby. It's called High Hopes. I live there."
"W-Well, seeing as we will be heading in that direction, I was wondering if-"
"Walk ahead of me." As she circles around him with her dagger still pointing at him.
"Okay, ah, th-thanks." As he walks ahead of her.
They walk in awkward silence with John at the front and the girl close behind him with her dagger still held aloft. A wind blows briefly and John shudders from the chill of it.
"Why are you dressed so lightly for the cold?" the girl asked.
"I got lost," John replied.
"Where are you from?"
"I just got outta cryogenics this morning."
"Cry-o-gen-eeks? Never heard of the tribe."
"Tribe?"
"You know. Your family, kin, and people who all share the same things with you."
"That was when I began to feel that something wasn't right," John said. "With the help of Apollo, you new humans should not only have leapfrogged from the starting point that had been my world's latest advancement, but also politically to the point that tribes would not have been able to form. Hopefully you would've had a world government by now."
"A world government?" Aloy mused.
"We Old Ones had yet to advance to that point but it would have meant that the whole world would have been ruled by a single government."
"How would that even be possible?"
"Technology. The more advanced a people become, the faster communications become and the faster and more cheaply they can travel from point A to point B. If we had advanced to the point of a world government, then it would mean that almost anyone could have been able to communicate with somebody halfway around the world as readily as if they were only a few feet away, and also be able to travel halfway around the world nonstop as quickly and as easily as it would take an able-bodied person to walk from here and back to those ruins you found me within."
"Anotherwords with one of those heliplanes your people once had," Aloy said. "I saw one of them intact up in a place up in the Cut when I went to look for something for a Banuk Shaman."
"Air travel hadn't advanced to that point yet, but at least you understand. Anyway, to continue . . ."
John stroked his bald scalp as he sighed for an answer. "I . . . don't know how to answer that."
"Well, does your people all wear that type of garb or only the men?" the girl answered as she gestured at his outfit with her dagger.
"That's . . . complicated. I'll need to know certain things first before I can possibly tell you what you need to know."
"Fine then. What is it that you would like to know?"
"Well for starters." As he stopped and turned to face her, prompting her to stop with dagger at the ready with grim expression. "How about your name? My name is John. John Aaron Casey Xavier Smith." And held out his hand to shake hers.
The girl instead stared between his hand and his face repeatedly as if wondering what he was up to. She tossed her dagger into her left hand and slowly extended her right hand; only to bypass his hand and clasp his forearm.
"The Oseram greet others this way too," the girl answered in a more relaxed manner as she sheathed her dagger. "But we merely greet others like this." As she bought both of her hands up to her chest to cross over her heart and extend them towards to him.
"Um . . . I see," John said over both her strange greeting and wanting to know who these Oseram were.
"And my name is Gearo. Thraen Merei Gearo."
"What sort of names are those? Spanish? Italian?"
"What tribes are those? And what kinda name is Jawn? It don't sound Oseram. And besides, Thraen is my father's name and Merei's my mother's name. And those other names you gave me, what were they again?"
"Aaron, Casey, and Xavier. Those are my middle names. Smith is my surname."
"Really, the Oseram have surnames too. I'm not sure about . . . middle names."
"Does the names Gaia or Apollo mean anything to you?"
"Never heard of them. Are those tribes as well? Personal names even?"
"Elisabet Sobeck? Ted Faro?"
"Never heard of them. Are they suppose to be chiefs?"
"Project: Zero Dawn?"
"What is that?"