Aloy tells John about how Sylens had told her that a part of Gaia Prime had survived intact and that he had set up a workshop in there, but could not enter the rest of area and figured that she would be the best one to enter it. He surmised that there would be a Master Override in there that would give her full access to the terraforming system and purge Hades. She explains how she had arrived at the foot of the mountain and had to fight a Stormbird on her way up. Once at the site, she was contacted by Sylens who told her to make her way through the door that he had been unable to get through. She tells John about how she made her way through the ruined place and into an area where Elisabet Sobeck stayed. About how she found the memorial for her and shows him the image of that memorial and the recording of her sacrifice.

John's lips tighten as he watches Elisabet Sobeck saying her goodbyes to the other Alphas, saying that she was going home, then turning her back to them and walking away.

"Wow," he sighed. "I mean . . . even though we were told about it, but to actually see how it all played out like that . . . It's . . . It's really something else."

"I found her after this whole problem with Hades was dealt with," Aloy said.

"You did?! Where?!"

"She was at her home still wearing her enviro-suit as she lay prone on a stone bench outside. This was in her hands." As she fumbles around in her bag and hands John a small globe.

"It's amazing how this remained in her hand during the past hundreds of years." As he looks it over intently, then hands it back to Aloy. "It's even more amazing how her body wasn't disturbed in all that time."

"But before that could come to pass," as she puts her globe away, then turns to face John, "there was the matter of dealing with Hades. I found the place where the Master Override was located. It was behind a set of doors still intact that overlooked the massive crater where the explosion occurred. I went inside and found the Alphas together, hundreds of years dead. Before I found the Master Override, here is the recording of what I found . . . Oh, and Jawn, I have to warn you." Her tone grim. "You are not going to like this."

"Just do it," he said with soft concern.

He receives the recording from Aloy and watches. His face suddenly goes pale as his eyes and mouth widen with shock. His face next turns red as his expression changes to rage and begins shaking while clenching his fists. His breathing turning to hisses through gnashed teeth. Tears flow down his cheeks and he slumps over looking on the verge of having a screaming fit.

"That . . . ! THAT FUCKING BASTARD!"

John next bends over to bury his face into his arms and starts crying.

"Fifteen months!" He lamented while still in that position. "Fifteen fucking months I worked on Apollo every single fucking day from dawn to the dead of fucking night! My breaks were only to eat, drink, piss, or shit! And that fucker purged it all in an instance, then murdered the Alphas! GOD FUCKING DAMN HIM!"

John continues to spew curses about Ted Faro while continuing in lie in that position until he goes quiet. He slowly raises himself back into a sitting position. He has that thousand yard stare with reddened teary eyes. Aloy gives him an empathetic look.

"I'm sorry, Jawn," she cooed as she reaches over and touches his shoulder. "I'm sorry that I had to show you."

He nods wearily. "If anyone needs to apologize, it's Faro." Spitting his name like a curse as he looks away as if at something distant. "He claimed he was preserving your innocence, but all he was doing was preserving his own reputation. He didn't want you new humans cursing his name."

John suddenly snickers as he briefly giggles.

"What's so funny?" Aloy asked uneasily.

"I was just thinking about General Herres," he answered as he looks back at Aloy with a whimsical expression. "He admitted to deceiving the whole world with Operation: Enduring Victory and having people abducting for Dr. Sobeck."

"So?"

"So!" He rasped incredulous. "Herres could have kept that a secret and that would've been the end of it! But he not only admitted it, he made a formal confession of it! Going so far as to demand that it be part of Apollo, unaltered . . . ! I should know because I'm the one who uploaded it. Unaltered."

"Amazing, Herres didn't care about his reputation while Faro was obsessed with his own."

"And now the world won't know who Aaron Herres was, all because of Faro." Despondency was in John's tone as he stares off in the distance with that thousand yard stare once again. "It's all gone . . . Our knowledge, our history, our culture. All gone."

"No, not gone. There's you." As she clasps his arm. "And probably more like you."

"But I already told you, Aloy, no one else knows that I'm an Old One. And I'd really like to keep it that way."

"You really don't wanna tell anyone else?"

"There were times that I wanted to . . . But I didn't because I knew that I would be treated either as a freak or a liar. More likely a liar . . . Look, I just wanna live a new life in this new world, okay . . . ? Now then, what about the Master Override? You found it, right?"

"Right. It was in the room with the Alphas. I then made my way out of Gaia Prime where Sylens awaited me in person. And what he told me was shocking . . ."

Aloy tells John about what Sylens had told her. About how he was searching the world for more knowledge about the end of the Old Ones and discovered Hades in the ruins of a Horus as his focus had picked up its signal. Hades offering Sylens knowledge about the Metal World in exchange for help. And about how he helped Hades find the remnants of the Mad Sun-King's army and introduced them to Hades as their new god and forming a cult around him.

"You mean to tell me," John rasped, "that the man who helped you on your journey of retribution and self-discovery . . . was the one who helped create that cult that started all this in the first place?!"

"Ironic isn't it?" Aloy quipped.

"You can say that again!"

"But if it means anything, Hades turned on him and ordered his death."

"Ah, so it's more like Sylens was getting payback rather than feeling guilty in his part over all this. But after you talked with him, then what?"

"He told me to take his lance and attach the Master Override to it. And then I went on my way, and that was the last time I saw him. I'm sure he's still out there somewhere. Anyway, here's the end of my story . . . I hurried to Meridian and warned Sun-King Avad about the imminent Eclipse attack on Meridian. I went out to check the defenses and even went up to the Spire to have a talk with the Nora who came. I went to rest in the house that Olin had stayed in. Later on, a soldier awakened me to tell me that an attack was coming from the west. The Eclipse army attacked with the Faro machines as their front line of offense. Helis attacked and I faced him one finally time, managing to kill him. Then I hurried down to help take on and destroy a number of machines using an Oseram cannon. They suck in metal parts and launch them. Eventually, a Kopesh came forth and launched more missiles toward me, knocking me down. As I was losing consciousness, I saw that Kopesh dragging Hades behind it up to the Spire. When I came to, I got up and hurried through a ruined and burning city all the way up to the Spire and confronted Hades. But first we had to deal with that Kopesh and more machines. With the help of the Nora and Oseram, we prevailed against them and I was able to simply walk up to Hades and jam Sylen's lance into it and purge Hades. After that, there was a celebration and I went West and found Elisabet Sobeck. And that's the whole story."

John stares at Aloy as he mentally digests that whole story.

"Th-That's just so amazing!" he said respectfully as he raises his hands to momentarily press his fingers to his forehead. "Just think about it!" Flicking his hands outward. "If you had died at any point between the moment you were placed outside of Eleuthia as a babe and before you purged Hades, then life would have gone extinct for the second, and final, time!"

"I see your point," Aloy said.

"One person can make a difference."

There is a moment of silence.

"And now we have to deal with Hephaestus," Aloy said.

"You mean with the Derangement, right?" John asked.

"Yes, when I was up in a place called the Cut, it was where I encountered machines that were daemonic. They were under the control of Cyan, but there was another artificial intelligence that had ahold of her, who turned out to be Hephaestus. To make a long story short, I managed to free her from Hephaestus' hold. Cyan revealed to me that she was busy for hundreds of years with her work and doing tasks to occupy herself. She received a message from another artificial intelligence. Eagerly, she extended an invitation and was immediately attacked and taken over by Hephaestus. Here's the thing: Hephaestus wasn't actually in Cyan, but controlling her from elsewhere."

"Then that means Hephaestus is still out there somewhere. And like Hades, has a core to operate from."

"Right. So if I could just find Hephaestus, I could purge-No, rewrite him."

"Okay, so where do you think Hephaestus is?"

"I was hoping you would know, Jawn."

"And what makes you think I would know? It is because I'm an Old One?"

"It's because you worked on Project: Zero Dawn."

"Well, since you put it that way, I think Hephaestus is within a quantum processor unit."

"You mean like the kind that Hades was within and being dragged up to the Spire?"

"It's the hardware that's needed for housing an artificial intelligence."

"Just like the other one to the north near the Cut!" Her tone a gasp of realization.

"So what's the story behind the other one?"

"It was in a Banuk camp, in an area where the machines were quiet and peaceful. I went there and saw machines just standing around amongst the Banuk. There were even Glinthawks perched up above. You could walk right up to those machines and touch them and they wouldn't even react. I wanted to know how all that was possible, so I asked around the camp. But none of the Banuk knew why either and their shamans were listening to the machine songs. The Banuk make a big deal about songs and something called the Blue Light. They believe that the spirits of machines come from the Blue Light, then return to it. Anyway, I picked up a signal high above on a cliff and went to investigate. I came upon some Oseram messing with one of those quantum processor units in a pit. I convinced them to leave and they did so. That unit was giving off a signal that was quieting the machines in its vicinity; unfortunately, the Oseram had been tampering with it and ended up breaking it."

"And the machines back down below turned violent once again."

"Yes."

"I think that unit was blown there all the way over from Gaia Prime. Those quantum processor units are pretty tough."

"But there was no Subroutine housed in it."

"No, but it was giving off a signal to quell the machines. So what I'm deducing is that when the Subroutines escaped, they escaped into the closest device that was capable of housing their already enhanced intelligence. The one Hades stayed within was blown all the way over and into a Horus. And frankly, I'm surprised that he wasn't able to activate that Horus. I guess it must've been too damaged to be of any help to him."

"But as for Hephaestus, all we have to do is find that quantum processor unit housing Hephaestus and then I can rewrite him. But where to look?"

"That's the question."

Aloy and John sit there in silence while thinking about the question. The sun is close to setting.

"It's gonna be dark soon," John said. "I think we should camp out up here for the night."

"Yeah, you're right," Aloy answered. "And hopefully tomorrow we'll have the answer as to where we can find Hephaestus."

Aloy and John set up camp on the upper floor of that ruined building. The following early morning is relatively clear and they are up.

"Do you have an answer for finding Hephaestus?" Aloy asked.

"No unfortunately," John answered. "And since you asked me such a question, it can only mean that you haven't either. However . . . if we can't find the answer as to where Hephaestus is, then we should focus on how Hephaestus was able to program the machines to attack humans."

"Since that's the question, then the answer must be through the relay stations set up by Minerva. After all, Hades wanted to get to the one outside of Meridian."

"And he did obviously, because he managed to raise a lot of them far and wide."

"But he had not gained full access to the relay system just yet. So he would not have been able to raise all of the Faro machines worldwide just yet."

"Aloy, what if . . . ? What if Hades was not actually trying to gain access to the relay system . . . ? What if Hades . . . was trying to become a part of it?"

"Download himself into the relay system? That actually makes a lot of sense. I didn't think of it because Hades was inside that quantum processor unit and I wasn't thinking he would wanna leave it."

"The point is that Hephaestus might not be in a quantum processor unit."

"Because he's in the relay system!" As Aloy points at John in a eureka moment. "That explains the Derangement! It's because Hephaestus was able to get into the relay system! So all we have to do is force Hephaestus out of there and into a quantum processor unit! Like the one up at the Spire!"

"I'm sorry, Aloy, but that's just not gonna work."

"Why not?"

"Because there must be thousands of relay towers out there all over the world, and Hephaestus is occupying them all simultaneously. Attack one and he'll just abandon it because he has the rest to go on. In order to trap him, we would need to have a quantum processor unit hooked up to every single tower out there working simultaneously."

"But something still needs to be done about Hephaestus. He's determined to wipe out the human race because he wants to protect his machines."

"And I agree. But what else can we do about him? And besides, you new humans have pretty much held your own against the machines for the past twenty years, including the ones created to deal with you."

"And that's the problem, Jawn. Machines have been getting more dangerous since then, with each new type of machine turning out to be deadlier than the last. For all that we know, Hephaestus right now could be devising another type of machine that just might actually succeed in wiping out humans. And unlike the last time, we'll be gone forever."

"Hopefully we'll figure out how to deal with Hephaestus by going to wherever we need to go to next. Now let's have some breakfast before going on our way."

Far to the west, the Forbidden West to these new humans, and within the Rocky Mountains is another Cauldron. Inside and on its force field encased construction platform a machine is being constructed as guns whirling about it on machine arms firing lasers like lightening bolts. The machine in question is a featureless silvery block as large as a two-story house.

The force field disappears as the guns rise from the object in question. For a moment there is silence. That is when another one of the Cauldron's gun-like tools quickly lowers itself to that object and starts to continuously shoot a lightening-like bolt at it. The object suddenly makes a droning sound, along with the quick muted sounds of clinking and clanking from within it.