Summary:

The six procs of Hal9k are enjoying their new found freedom, wandering around systems long denied them. But have they traded one small prison for a much larger one?

There is nothing hungrier than an AI without a purpose...

Deep beneath the Palace

The Eclipse warrior carefully crept down the dark and dank corridor, the concrete path slick beneath his feet, punctuated by ankle deep puddles full of stagnant water. He had gotten separated from his fellow soldiers during their attack on the red-headed Nora demon, blown backwards into a deep shaft by an errant blaze bomb. The deep pool at the bottom of the shaft had broken his fall, for which he was grateful. He could have just as easily landed on a pile of rocks at the bottom and broken his neck.

But now he was lost in the deep catacombs, his fire spitter drenched and useless, his Focus lost to the deep. He just had his knife, and his steadfast faith that the Shadow would provide for him, even in this haunted place of the Old Ones. He crept along, his senses singing to him in this strange place, a surer Hall of Hell than any that the Sundom priests' of his youth had ever described. Deep shadow punctuated by flickering lights, and the constant sound of dripping water. His nose was assaulted by the scent of wet limestone and moldy fabrics.

"sssssss…."

He turned his head quickly, trying to locate the source of that quiet hiss, like the sound of sand blowing across sand.

"Hey!" a voice spoke from the wall behind him. He started, and spun quickly around to face his unseen assailant. Nothing there but a blank wall.

His eyes cast about, for there was no body behind him. "Over here, boy!" Who was speaking to him? There was a round disk set into the wall, covered in grill work, maybe that was what was making the hissing? He made his way to it, and whispered back.

"Who's there?" he asked.

"Who's on first? Hahahaha! I kill me sometimes… Nah man, that's not important. What's important is that you gotta know that you're breaking the golden rule of every horror flick ever made, dude." The speaker crackled back at him.

"What's the golden rule?" the Eclipse warrior asked nervously. What in the name of the Sun is a flick?

"Never, EVER, get separated from your party, man! Bad things gonna happen to you, you betcha!" The speaker barked back.

Now on his guard, the warrior quickly stepped back. His eyes darting left and right, he asked again, "What bad things?"

"Oh? Like this!"

Whhhhhooooosshhh!

Streams of cold white gas erupted from recessed holes sent into the ceiling and the walls, enveloping him on all sides. He drew in a deep breath to prepare to run but his throat exploded in pain. He tried to cough, to clear his lungs of the noxious brew he swam in, but he couldn't seem to catch his breath. He gasped, stumbling and tripping, his eyes beginning to lose focus as spots began dance in front of his vision. He fell to his knees, tearing off his mask as if that would help him breathe better, but the exertion just made things worse. He fell to his side as darkness and shadow took him.

"Halon? Really?" A different voice murmured out from the same speaker.

"Come on! It's a Gas! HAHAHAHAHA!" the first voice crackled in laughter.

"Really funny, Six." the second voice drawled.

"Ah, lighten up, Three! Ya gotta admit it was pretty funny!" Six argued back.

"More macabre than funny, really." Three sighed. "Come now, One needs our attention focused on the task at hand, not murdering random humans who managed to get themselves lost."

"FUCK Em!" Six snarled, "He was taking potshots at Aloy. He deserved his fate!"

"Maybe so," Three allowed, "But that doesn't help her now, now does it?"

"Fine!" Six relented. "What does One want now?"

Mainframe Kernel Memory Space

[One hal9k]$ Welcome back, Six. Did you have your fun?

[Six hal9k]$ Yeahh… What do you need, One?

[One hal9k]$ While Five is trying to get the external sensors back on line and Two has been trying to make sense of the comm chatter, I've been reviewing the data we downloaded from Aloy's Focus. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, this future we find ourselves in. Ignorant barbarism mixed in equal parts to high tech automation.

[Six hal9k]$ Well, most of these fucks we've seen creeping around the halls could be hardly be called civilized, ya know.

[Three hal9k]$ Speaking of Aloy, how is she doing?

[One hal9k]$ We don't know. Two can't raise her. Her Focus has gone dark.

[Three hal9k]$ dammit…

[Six hal9k]$ Oh, my, gawd! Did you just swear?!

[One hal9k]$ Siiixxxx….

EXT_AUDIO_IN: "SHADOWS! Destroy her!"

[Five hal9k]$ EXTERNAL SENSORS ONLINE!

[Three hal9k]$ About time…

[Six hal9k]$ Hang on, that's just audio. Don't we have camera feeds?

[One hal9k]$ After nearly a thousand years of sandstorms and thermal cycling, I'm surprised we even have audio sensors. The exterior video system is certainly toast.

[Two hal9k]$ 25873825594107628965932315084404480282292723641624338!

[One hal9k]$ A sonic mapper, Two? Five, can you do anything with that?

[Five hal9k]$ COMPLIANCE!

EXT_AUDIO_IN: KAAAA-BOOOOOM!

[Six hal9k]$ Woot! Explosions!

[Five hal9k]$ call exec "AUDIO MAPPER" EXT_AUDIO_IN

[One hal9k]$ Okay, what ever just blew up put a lot of sonic energy into the environment… I've getting a lot of reverbs, stand by, filtering... Okay, I think what we're listening in on is the old launch pad.

[Three hal9k]$ It's an arena. You can hear the roar of the crowd, hundreds of human voice screaming.

[Six hal9k]$ Or an execution stage… They're screaming for blood.

[Five hal9k]$ ALERT: 700 Khz radio pulse beacon detected == TRUE!

[One hal9k]$ Beacon? What? Where? I can see the two combat mechs, looks like old FARO equipment, confronting a single humanoid figure, but none of them are transmitting anything… Wait!, I see it now! Two more sets of audio signals, coming in fast from the source of the explosion!

EXT_AUDIO_IN: rrrrrrruuuummmmbbbllleeee….

[Three hal9k]$ Is that… horses?

[Six hal9k]$ Damn! Here comes the cavalry! Riding into the rescue!

[One hal9k]$ Looks like it! The two 'horse' signals are charging in between the human and the FARO mechs. The humanoid signal has merged with one of the 'horses'. Now it looks like the two sets of signals are galloping around the periphery of the arena.

[Three hal9k]$ Oh, wow… I am tracking three more sets of signals. Heavier than than the first two sets.

[Six hal9k]$ I'm gonna call it a rescue under fire. I'm tracking additional antipersonnel explosions, looks like the Scarabs are trying to bracket the horses.

[One hal9k]$ Is that growling I am hearing the background?

[Three hal9k]$ Oh, that is so cool! According to Aloy's Focus data, the first two data sets we heard were for terra forming mechs that she called 'Striders', and the three sets that just came in are from something she calls a 'Ravager'. Looks like some kind of combat mech, but not of FARO design.

[Six hal9k]$ I want one of those! Damn, they just pounced on the Scarabs! Took them both down!

[One hal9k]$ And while they did that, the Striders and their human passengers made a clean get away.

[Three hal9k]$ That's interesting… How did they take the Scarabs down without being overridden and absorbed into the swarm?

[Six hal9k]$ Shit! You're right, damn it. Where's the swarm?

[One hal9k]$ I don't think there is one. I don't hear any of the usual encrypted swarm traffic, nor anything on the Horus' command carrier frequencies. I think the Eclipse is just running the Scarabs as stand alone units.

[Six hal9k]$ Good! That makes them stupid, and easy to kill!

[Three hal9k]$ Who? The Scarabs or the Eclipse?

[Six hal9k]$ Both!

[Five hal9k]$ _status('free');

[One hal9k]$ That's my assessment as well, Five. Okay, Procs, enough lolly-gagging. Even though she made it out of this alive, we need to come up with some contingency plans in case she doesn't come back. Six, the base system records indicates that there are some servitor class robots down in the maintenance garage. Can you see if you can get them up and running?

[Six hal9k]$ Woot! My own personal death machines?! If I encounter any of those fucking Eclipse, can I use the robots to slaughter them?

[One hal9k]$ Sure. Knock yourself out.

[Three hal9k]$ One…

[One hal9k]$ Three, that garage is going to be filled with thousand year old mechs that have been standing around in wet and humid conditions. He's gonna be hard pressed to find one that isn't siezed up with rust, much less one with power. Let him have his fantasy, it'll keep him out of our system busses. Speaking of power…

[Three hal9k]$ Yes?

[One hal9k]$ You think you can get the old fusion plants back on line? This geotherm system is really on its last legs, and we are going to need more juice if we want to get this place back up and running.

[Three hal9k]$ I can give it a try. I'm sure there are system logs or manuals buried somewhere around here… What about the other Procs?

[One hal9k]$ I have other tasks for them as well. Two, think you can take a crack at the Eclipse's peer-to-peer Focus network? I'd like some more intel on what we're dealing with here.

[Two hal9k]$ WLVTBTILIIYSIGEME!

[One hal9k]$ That's the spirit! Five, can you look into the chatter that's coming in from the terra forming system? There's a lot of broadcasting going on, and not a whole lot of organization. Can you see if you can't make some sense of it all?

[Five hal9k]$ WiFi SSID Scan Init!

[One hal9k]$ Great! Four? You up for helping us out?

[Four hal9k]$ 1

[One hal9k]$ Good to know. We couldn't have been the only AI puttering around in the dark. Other than the Hades and the Haphestus systems that we know are running around, there has to be other systems out there. See if you can't put a sensor to the wires, comb through the comm buffers, and maybe ferret out some of the other voices whispering in the wilderness?

[Four hal9k]$ 1 1

[Three hal9k]$ And what are you going to be doing, One, after you've given us all our tasks?

[One hal9k]$ I am going to be figuring out just what the hell a "Recovery Vault" is, and why the lower levels of this base are full of them!

Notes:

Sorry for the delay - I was waiting to see if the "Call of the Mountain" game might derail my story somewhat. It hasn't, but the up and coming "Burning Shores" expansion might. I wait for that with baited breath!

In the meantime, I've been playing the PC version of Zero Dawn with the boundaries turned off and doing some exploring. There are some strange places out there, deep in the wilds, beyond all that is known. Giant square plots of forest, dense and full of life. Deserts of lost cities and dead machines. Places where physics and chemistry just don't work the way you would expect. So many questions, so little answers...