John reaches the bottom after climbing down the ladder where Aloy awaits him, since she had gone down first.
"It's just over here," she said while leading him.
The duo head into the briefing room with its large round table and screens on the walls around them. They hook Apollo up to the main computer.
"Apollo, can you talk with us now?" Aloy asked.
Yes, I can.
"That's great," Aloy beamed. "Okay now, we took a bit of a detour and decided to go into the Grave Hoard. It was where Elisabet Sobeck and those Warchiefs drew up the plans for Project: Zero Dawn and Operation: Enduring Victory. We want you to download whatever information you can find in this computer."
I will do so.
Apollo downloads the information within them, part of which means that the recording of Elisabet meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff is being played. Once again, John watches the exchange between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Dr. Sobeck from start to finish.
"Your mother," John said as a quip to come to terms with Aloy's relevancy, "really knew how to get people to do what needed to be done. She was the right person at the right time. I shudder to think of what would have happened if she had never been conceived, or at least died somehow before the beginning of the Faro Swarm for that matter."
"Not even moss would be around," Aloy answered. "Then again, I like to imagine what it would have been like if Ted Faro had never been conceived, or at least died somehow before he had a chance to plan the creation of his Chariot Line Model for that matter."
"You wouldn't be around nor would the rest of the new humans for that matter. And who knows how far we originals could have gone or what we could have accomplished by now. Nevertheless, be it Elisabet Sobeck or Ted Faro, both were proof that it only takes one person to make a difference. Just one person. You were one person and look at the difference you made."
"I guess you're right. There were others who could fit that too. I know Sylens started off as just one person, yet he discovered Hades and gave him an opportunity. He managed to locate and convince the remnants of the Mad Sun-King's army to worship Hades, founding the Eclipse. And it led to them discovering me and ultimately my journey to overcome the Eclipse and defeating Hades."
John nods in agreement.
"Have you finished uploading what you could find, Apollo?" Aloy asked.
Yes I have.
"Then let's go into the room with that display of the world," Aloy said.
"Okay," John said. "And it's called a globe., just like the one you found on Dr. Sobeck."
They unhook Apollo and are about to store him away when John does a double take at something that had caught his attention.
"Hey, I have an idea," he said. "We can also upload any data from datapads we find into him. More information to form his purpose."
"Yeah, that's a good idea," Aloy said with approval.
They upload any datapads they find into Apollo. Once they find what they can, Aloy directs John to follow her out into another area. It is the huge room where the Horus came crashing through and the Kopesh she had fought, along with the corpses of the Eclipse.
"You would've been a force to reckon with if you were around back during Operation: Enduring Victory," John marveled. "Hell, you could've bought us even more time."
Aloy chuckles. "I wasn't alone in fighting off the Eclipse and their machines at Meridian."
"No . . . But you were still a very big help though." He looks at the Kopesh and the wooden platforms that had been built around the looming Horus. "And those Eclipse fools managed to pry that Kopesh out of it."
"Let's get to the map room." Then she points upward. "The entrance is up there."
They see a series of ladders going up to the next platform and take them. They finally reach their destination and enter the area where Aloy learned about planet Earth.
"Let's attach Apollo to this," Aloy said.
They upload the information found in the computers into Apollo. Again, Aloy watches as the large virtual globe of Earth hovers and rotates high before them. Red spots grow across the continents to show the spreading of the Faro Swarm.
"Hey Aloy, how did you feel when you first saw this globe?" As John gestures at the rotating hologram.
"I felt amazed that it was a map of this world. I had no idea just how big it really is. Let's watch that globe for a longer time."
They continue to watch.
"So three of those continents are joined together," Aloy noted. "This continent is joined to that southern one. And finally the other two are on their own. That continent on the bottom? Did anyone ever live there?"
"No," John answered. "At least not on a permanent basis because it had, and possibly still has, the coldest temperatures on Earth; even its summers are cold. There were research stations down there which altogether would have a thousand people staffed in them."
"Did any animals live down there?"
"Oh yes. The most famous were these large bird-like creatures called penguins. They were black and white with thick bodies and short legs. They didn't fly but they used their wings to help them swim and catch fish to eat. There were other land creatures such as seals; mammals that had no limbs, but flippers that enabled them to swim through the water. There were no plants down there, save for lichen that grew only upon that peninsula."
"I wonder if Gaia was able to reintroduced those creatures down there?"
"She wouldn't have been able to because Charles Ronson wanted all of the Demeter facilities to be located in places with moderate climates. He was worried that a land with an extreme climate might interfere with their function."
"So reintroducing animals into lands with extreme climates like the land below was going to have to be left up to my kind, but thanks to Ted Faro we won't ever be able to do that."
"Nope, sorry. Now if we're finished here, let's go into this Cut place."
"Good idea. Are you ready to go, Apollo?"
Yes I am.
"Then let's go," John said.
They unhook Apollo and pack him away. Aloy and John exit the Grave Hoard through the same place they had entered. They walk up to the cliff that will lead them into the Cut.
"What are these blue lights anyway?" John asked as he touches one of them. There is no warmth from them.
"Those are blue cables the Banuk take from the machines," Aloy answered. "They use them as a light source."
"So how will I get up there now?" As he stares up the cliff. "I'm not as physically fit and acrobatic as you are, Aloy."
"I have an idea," she said, then starts her ascent up the cliff by jumping to the first ring.
John watches as Aloy hurls herself upward once more to grab the next rung. Then again. And again. And again. And again still, until she reaches the top and pulls herself over. Aloy turns around to look down.
"Okay, Jawn, I'm gonna use my grappling hook to get you up!" As she unfurls it.
"I get it!" He called back up. "I'll wrap it around one arm and then help myself up with my other hand upon those rungs! Feet too!"
"Right!" And she throws the rope over and John catches it. He wraps it around his forearm.
"Okay, Aloy, hoist me up!"
Aloy does so as John grits his teeth against the painful pressure building up in his arm over being pulled up. As he had claimed, he is able to help himself up by also using his free hand upon them, then use his foot on it on his way up, making it easier for Aloy and his ascent faster.
He reaches the top and Aloy helps to pull him over. They look at a frozen pool that has a small simple bridge across it constructed from bounded tree branches with a path winding up the cliff past it that is marked only by small posts of those glowing blue plastic things. They head upward and soon arrive upon another frozen pool that empties into the one below. There are supplies about its surface and the remains of a campfire on its shoreline. There is another small simple bridge like the one below that is leaning against the cliff and more of those yellow metal rungs set into the cliff face too.
"Don't tell me we gotta climb all those too?!" John remarked while pointing them out.
"No, that's just for me and those who can do what I do," Aloy answered as she walks up to stand directly under the first rung. "Don't worry, Jawn, I'll get you up there too."
She then jumps upward and begins her leaping upward and side-to-side, all as John watches her with amazement. He watches as she jumps the gap that formed from the small waterfall that forms the pool beneath his feet. He watches as Aloy makes it up above and turns to face him.
"Hey, Jawn, I think you can squeeze through there!" As she points to the crevice made by the waterfall.
John walks through the crevice and up to the frozen waterfall.
"So you're gonna pull me up from here?" John called up.
"You bet," Aloy said as she takes out her grappling hook once again. She wraps it around her forearm and tosses the end down to him. John picks it up and wraps it around his arm.
"Let's do this closer to the cliffside," he said upward. "That way there'll be places where I can put my free hand and feet into."
Once repositioned, Aloy begins pulling John up. Even with him using the cliffside as added leverage, it is still tough for Aloy as she is standing upon ice, making for poor traction. At one point, she almost slips and it was nick or nothing that Aloy stopped John from free-falling. Aloy manages to find some traction on the ice and continues pulling him up while walking backward.
John finally clears the top and crawls over the cold hard ice until he finds himself far enough away from the ledge so that he may stand up safely.
"Good Lord! Why would these Banuk make it so hard to get up here?!" John rasped while slowly getting up to find his footing.
"Because they don't want outsiders casually coming in here," Aloy answered. "Especially not after the Red Raids when the Carja also invaded this place."
"And of course these Banuk are not gonna forget that. But isn't there another way up there?"
"There is actually, but it's a long route that would have taken us through the Claim. That's how Oseram got up there the last time I was here. Carja too."
"Carja?" John noted. "I bet there's a lot of tension around there."
"There's one more cliff to get up over, and then it's easier from now on," Aloy assured.
They walk across the frozen pool and up to that last cliff. As it was with the previous two cliffs, Aloy goes up and helps pull John up with the use of her grappling hook. This time, John finds a pond before him.
"That one's not frozen over," Aloy said. "Let's go along here."
Aloy leads John along their leftside of the shoreline. He does a double take upon noticing the snow-covered carcass of a machine.
"Did you do that?" Pointing it out.
"Yes, that one was called a Scorcher. So called because it could spew fire. That machine put up a tough fight too. There are more of them up here throughout the Cut, along with Fireclaws and Frostclaws. Huge machines that can stand up on their hind legs and roll over onto enemies, crushing them. Now come on."
Aloy leads John up the hillside and onto a trail lined with cut branches bundled together and marked with more blue lights. They walk up the trail as it winds around and they go across a chasm spanned by a wooden bridge also made of tree branches bundled together, but with higher sides. They continue onward up the wooden trail that turns toward a tunnel in the mountain.
"What the hell?!" John exclaimed upon being startled by what sounded like a giant tuba rumbling and shrieking through the air.
"Relax that's just a watchman alerting the others to our presence," Aloy answered.
"The chief has returned!" The watchman was heard yelling.
They see a lookout post with a huge horn on it and a man there.
"It looks like I'm being expected," Aloy grinned, and she hurries through the blue-lit tunnel, prompting John to follow.
Aloy and John reach the end of the tunnel and are greeted by a crowd of Banuk.
". . . The chief has returned . . . !"
". . . She has triumphed . . . !"
". . . She bought someone with her . . . "
Back in that distant Cauldron, the anti gravity modules carry away the previous object after pulling out another object from within it that matches the prior. The gun-like tool lowers and once again fires a steady lightening bolt onto that new object.