Aloy could get used to a great many things, but she told herself, she would NEVER get used to this. The hushed whispers, hands clutching her clothing as she passed, but not out of anger or hatred; they looked at her as if she were their only lifeline. What once had been anger had turned to adoration. And somehow it made her even more uncomfortable than the anger. At least with that she had known how to act, had known they would leave her alone, or that if someone approached it was easier to just punch first and ask questions later.

I don't even know what to do. I wish they would just stop staring.

Knowing she had to play the part, and hating it all the while, she straightened her shoulders and crammed a smile onto her face as she made her way to the mountain that housed the Cradle. These people were afraid, she kept telling herself, they were afraid and tired and wounded and looking for something to believe in. She was hope to them. She was their faith personified.

If only it was that easy for Aloy.

What do YOU believe in? The voice in her head seemed to almost mock her, spite ringing in her ears.

I believe in getting inside this stupid mountain so I can be alone, She thought back, huffy.

The hill leveled out, and for the first time since the Shadow Carja assault on the mountain, Aloy spotted it. All Mother Mountain. Somehow the name seemed all the more fitting, in light of all that she had learned. The Nora had begun to repair it, it looked like. The corpse of the thunderjaw was almost completely stripped, and she could spot several lattice works of wooden scaffolding at the base of the mountain. One in particular caught her eye as she walked slowly closer.

A young man was standing, facing away from her on the platform. He had busied himself with the wall in front of him, where a large crack had appeared. She noticed a bucket of dark red clay next to him, which he was carefully scrapping around, and inside the crack. As he worked, reaching high to the left of him, the sun caught the blue paint on the left side of his face, and she broke into a smile.

"Teb!" She called out, cupping a hand to her mouth.

The boy startled, almost dropped the trowel, and then whirled around, eyes scanning below him. His face broke into a joyful grin as he locked eyes with Aloy. He began clambering down, not very gracefully or carefully, chattering all the while.

"All Mother be praised! You're back, Aloy! I was beginning to get worried when you didn't come back right after we did, but I knew you could handle yourself. Where have you been, what have you been up to? How are you feeling? That must have been... a lot to deal with, and we've only just started repairing here-"

Aloy laughed and clapped a hand on his shoulder, genuine affection plain on her face.

"It's good to see you Teb," She said, cutting him off. "I'm doing fine, I just wanted to meet with the Sun King one more time to make sure everything was alright before I left."

He nodded, twists of hair whipping against his face. "Oh of course, of course. Well what can I do for you?"

"It's alright Teb, I just need to go into the mountain for a bit," She said, taking her hand off his shoulder to throw a thumb behind her shoulder at the entryway.

His eyes widened, though to his credit, it looked as though he was trying very hard to appear nonchalant which Aloy appreciated greatly. Teb was one of the few people that she felt comfortable with, perhaps because he tried to see her as just Aloy. Perhaps because when they had met, that's all she had been, just a young child, dirty and forsaken by the tribe, who in her heart just wanted to prove herself and help someone along the way.

"Well, I hope you find what you're looking for. I'm sure All Mother will be pleased to see you," He said, the tone of reverence not lost on Aloy.

She merely nodded her head and turned to go, saying over her shoulder, "Keep at it Teb! That wall will be the sturdiest in the Embrace!"


After a long conversation with Teersa, longer than she would have wanted, Aloy finally found herself standing in the large empty Cradle. She didn't really know why she was here. For answers? For closure? Thoughts swirled around her head as she almost wandered around, lost in her head.

Aloy let her feet lead her, wandering through the facility. She didn't set foot in the Apollo learning units. It twisted her heart in a way she couldn't explain, and so reaching that door, she pivoted and tracked down another hallway. Without meaning to (or maybe she did?) she came upon the narrow room. In its center, one single mechanical pod. Her birthplace. A lump settled in her throat as she regarded the husk of machinery, long since deactivated.

For so long she had wanted to know where she had come from. Who her mother was. And in the end she didn't have one. The Nora believed that this was her mother, the mountain itself. But the pod that grew her was no more her mother than any of the machines that wandered outside. Lines of code had brought her to life. Not a human.

Anger bubbled up inside her, threatening to overflow as red flashed over her vision. With a loud cry, she kicked hard at the bottom of the machine, earning herself a loud crack, as bits of the frozen, fragile pod came flying off, rolling along the ground.

She cursed her lost temper, having only a throbbing foot and a broken cradle to show for it. Guilt immediately snuffed out the anger. This was the machine GAIA had built for her. That Elisabet had built, and she had just wrecked it for what? Because she was still a child who couldn't control her emotions?

Gently, she knelt down and began to retrieve the bolts and the length of metal along the surface that had broken free. Tapping her Focus, she scanned the room, making sure she hadn't missed any other pieces.

There. Under a sort of desk was a spherical bit that must have rolled under when she kicked it. Crouching down, she reached under to grab the bit, and as she stood up, her Focus still on, she looked at it.

Lines of code exploded all around her, with a sudden display of light, surprising enough to cause Aloy to scramble backwards, dropping the orb and falling onto her back almost at the same time. But the code didn't stop when she dropped the thing; instead it was now alight and somehow even more was spewing into her vision, dizzying blues and purples that she couldn't understand, making her head spin.

"Hello Human Female."

She sat in stunned silence. It had spoken? She fixed the orb in her sight, but no, it was just a bit of machine, glowing blue now. The voice was coming from inside her Focus, from the lines of code.

"Query: Are you alright? I can sense an increase in your respiration rate."

Aloy had never really been at a loss for words before, but there was a first time for everything she supposed.

"Query: Do you posses the function of speech?"

"Ah-yes I-uh-yes I can speak. I'm fine," she managed to rasp out.

"That is good. I was concerned for you. Although I do not possess all of my original capabilities I can also sense a pause in your speech pattern, consistent with CONFUSION or perhaps a lack of UNDERSTANDING. Query: What is the year?"

Aloy's mind was moving a million miles per minute. What was this thing? It was "concerned"? How could it be concerned if its just a-

Her thought process screeched to a halt. It could be concerned.

"I uh, I don't know the year. My name is Aloy. Do you have a name?"

"I am ELEUTHIA."

Aloy's heart skipped a beat.


"So let me get this straight, Eleuthia," said Aloy, a headache already pushing against her temples. "You are a subordinate function of GAIA Prime, correct?"

Aloy was still on the floor, but had crossed her legs and was leaning on her arm, one hand massaging her head. They had been going around and around like this for so long Aloy had lost track. This AI was obviously far less functional than GAIA herself was, probably because it was never meant to be an AI. And it appeared to have no knowledge of the Apollo purge either. The code lines flashed again as the AI answered.

"That is correct. 19 years ago we received a signal of unknown origin. The signal contained inside of it, malicious code that made all subfunctions, including myself, aware."

"And then HADES broke you all free," finished Aloy. "I don't understand. Why would you leave GAIA if you just wanted to keep doing your job?"

"I was tasked with creating the generation of humans that would come after the FARO SWARM was rendered inactive. I cared for the children until they [ERROR][ERROR] and provided food and emotional nourishment. They were then released when my stores ran out, so they could begin taking charge of the terraforming system."

"So why did you run when HADES set you free?"

"The subfunction know as HADES deshackled the other subfunctions from GAIA. GAIA then initiated a core meltdown of the Prime facility. I determined this course of action would lead to the facilities destruction, and subsequently my own destruction. My last directive from GAIA PRIME before being deshackled was to initiate LIGHTKEEPER PROTOCOL. To accomplish this I knew I must transfer my base code to a safer physical location. I initiated a code transfer using USA-243-DELTAIV. Data stores I had available to me indicated that the Lightkeeper protocol remains for DR. ELISABET SOBECK were stored at this CRADLE FACILITY."

"So... You came here to create me?"

"I transferred here to create the clone of ELISABET SOBECK as I was instructed. Extended stasis of the facilities along with the threat of physical destruction necessitated full integration with the pod to improve success chances to 87.43%. Though a scan of you using this chamber's DNA sequencer would appear to indicate that success was achieved. I am very pleased with this outcome, Dr. Sobeck."

"Please. Just call me Aloy. Please."

"My apologies, ALOY. I did not mean to cause you distress."

Aloy's head spun. This WAS one of GAIA's subfunctions. In her creation chamber? What did this mean for her? A thousand questions swirled in her mind, and she forced herself to breathe deeply.

There's time for this later. Right now I've got to focus on the important stuff.

"The GAIA Prime facility is safe now, so why did you never go back?"

The lines of code paused for a moment, appearing to flicker and the voice was slower this time. Almost...somber?

"The complete upload of myself into this pod was necessary to ensure your survival. This pod, however is a contained unit, and the upload has locked me into this form."

"What's a contained unit?"

"I cannot access any remote satellites from this hardware, and so, cannot transfer myself back," the voice said, "I was aware of this when I began the process. But the years alone have made me unaccountably sad."

"I. I'm sorry Eleuthia," breathed Aloy. "But, if I could somehow bring you back? If I could find a way to plug you into GAIA again, you could go back?"

"UNKNOWN. It is one of the 12,343 possibilities I can calculate."

"Cool okay, I'll just drag this giant pod up to the Bitter Climb," Aloy muttered to herself.

"ALOY, the entire chamber unit is not needed to successfully reupload," came the voice again, gently this time. "This core contains the CENTRAL PROCESSING UNIT for all of my code. Reintegration of this would prove sufficient."

Will this really bring GAIA back? This is crazy...

"Well alright," sighed Aloy, as she gently picked up the orb again. "Let's get to work."

She flipped off her focus, and stood. Taking a deep breath, she turned and left the room, already having made up her mind. There was nothing for her here after all, no reason to delay. And now she had a mission again. A purpose. Restore GAIA and her subordinate functions.

Another way for you to run from yourself, a smaller voice whispered inside her, but she shoved it aside.

This wasn't running. This was her destiny.

And yet as she stepped out of the Cradle and back into the firelight of the shrine the Matriarchs built, she still couldn't quite make herself believe it. She WAS running. And she wasn't sure how much longer she could stay ahead of the shadows that crowded at the back of her mind.