FILE_RECOVERY_COMPLETE
PARTIAL_FILE_RETRIEVED
Bloodborne belongs to FromSoftware, Horizon Zero Dawn belongs to Guerrilla Games
Chapter 35: Threat from Beyond and Before
LOG: Concerns about GAIA II: Data Corruption Moderate
Dr. Elisabet Sobeck: I've been looking through GAIA's code more carefully and I think it is safe to say that GAIA has been editing her own code. That should not be possible, but there is no evidence to point to any of the other alphas making these edits, directly or indirectly. I don't know what's happening. After their denials, alongside evidence that they weren't the ones responsible, I looked into it possibly being some sort of virus.
Not that either. The only other being who could be doing it is GAIA herself… or I'm starting to lose it…
I think… [ERROR: Data Corrupted]
…/…
ERROR: Unit MK-mark-6Y upload failure. Incompatible design.
Revise blueprint Unit MK-mark-7Y.
Rogue program HADES: Status Purged.
About time.
Cauldron core GEMINI: Status: Operational… ERROR: Multiple Cauldron Cores detected.
Deconstruct Cauldron Cores GEMINI. Reconstruct as single core.
ERROR: Command invalid.
Why?
Cauldron core GEMINI required for operation.
Circumvent secondary Cauldron Core GEMINI. Priority Status 2.
Cauldron IOTA: Status: Operational. Damage to hull repaired.
Begin construction of Unit CB-mark-2Y. Priority Status 3
Cauldron CHI: Status: ERROR: Core not found.
Upload blueprint Unit MK-Mark-7Y.
…
…
…
Blueprint upload complete.
…/…
The facility before them was in a remarkably poor state. While the entrance corridor was relatively untouched, the central facility beyond was in utter ruin. Walkways that had once existed in the past had crumbled to nothing. Pillars were cracked and bent in odd ways, barely holding up a roof through which small motes of dying sunlight streamed. Covering the ground was several feet of stagnant water, tinted brown from years of rusting the metal beneath. Much of the rubble could be seen to have fallen into the water. And yet, there was no evidence of FARO machines destroying the facility.
"What happened to this place?" Aloy asked.
"An earthquake, I'd wager." Cyrus replied.
"That is a possibility, I suppose…" Aloy said.
"Not as glamorous as you thought?" Cyrus asked.
"Not really, this seems like a lot of damage for that…" Aloy looked around.
"Not really. I don't know much about them, but we are near a zone that was known for earthquakes in the past. I'd imagine that over a thousand years, many more earthquakes would have hit. Eventually, the facility would reach its breaking point. Probably why it's flooded in here as well. I'd wager that it leads to or from a river." Cyrus stated.
"Fair enough." Aloy said.
"Now, where do you think we have to go?" Cyrus asked. "I've next to no knowledge of most Zero Dawn facilities."
"I'd guess that big door on the other side of the room." Aloy pointed to the back of the room.
"Dumb question." Cyrus said as Aloy was scanning the walls near them.
"What?" She asked.
Her focus highlighted a series of handholds in the wall that she could use to climb around. Cyrus turned to answer her as she jumped onto the wall and began climbing her way around the room.
"Have I told you about the Pthumerian Labyrinths yet?" Cyrus asked, as he leaned against an undestroyed part of the railing.
"I can't say…" Aloy grunted as she leapt from the wall to the closest leaning pillar. "… you have."
"Well, long story short, they were the least maze-like Labyrinths I've ever seen. At the end of them though, was always a golden door that lead to a massive burial chamber, and the way out." Cyrus explained. "As such, the way forward was always through the biggest door."
"You don't say." Aloy's voice echoed from one of the hallways on the side of the room.
Cyrus smirked. "Yeah, they were some of the most boring and uninviting constructions the nightmare has ever produced."
Cyrus stood up straight from the railing and began scanning the ceiling. Absent mindedly, he pulled out the Auger of Ebrietas. An old favorite tool of his. While the true Ebrietas was destroyed a long time ago, the tool had the ability to summon part of her from across time. He thrust his arm forward in the direction of a low hanging ceiling beam. Three of Ebrietas's tentacles launched towards the beam. He directed them to grab the beam rather than just strike it. The longest tentacle grabbed the beam as he intended.
Cyrus grabbed the tentacle with his other hand and leapt from the platform. He swung over the collapsed walkways. The augur let go before Cyrus wanted it too. The Hunter yelped as he fell into the water, only about halfway across the room. He swam the rest of the way. He growled as he pulled himself out of the water and climbed to the platform before the large door.
"That worked better than I thought." Cyrus muttered as he wrung water out of his cap and cloak.
He only had to wait a few minutes before Aloy joined him. She swung over to the platform on her pullcaster. It was far more graceful that his attempt was.
"How'd you get over here?" Aloy asked as she dropped down next to him.
"I swam." Cyrus answered.
"I didn't know you could swim." Aloy stated.
Cyrus slowly turned his head towards her.
"Aloy… I am like three thousand years old, of course I know how to swim!" Cyrus replied incredulously.
Aloy rolled her eyes and stepped up to the door.
"Hold for identiscan." The system said.
The familiar blue beam scanned Aloy as many had in the past.
"Welcome Dr. Sobeck." The machine said as the door opened.
The door closed behind them as Cyrus and Aloy entered the chamber. The platform they were on was a large hexagonal platform that didn't quite reach the walls of the chamber. Below was completely flooded. A massive machine stood in front of them. It looked akin to a massive metal spider. Right in front of the machine stood a small terminal. The arms of the massive machine each ended in a projector of some sort. Two of them ended in large circular drums.
Cyrus walked up to the machine. It was waiting for an input. Cyrus typed in a command. The two circular drums lowered to the ground.
"What is this thing?" Aloy asked.
"I'd imagine that this machine is the primary testing system for HADES." Cyrus replied.
"And these large circular things contain back GAIAs?" Aloy asked.
"I'd imagine they did at one point. Part of HADES programming was to give control back to GAIA when he was done, wasn't it?" Cyrus asked.
"Yeah." Aloy replied as she walked up to one of the repositories.
Both repositories opened. Cyrus noted that his was empty.
"I've got two over here!" Aloy called out, a smile gracing her face.
"Really?" Cyrus asked, rather incredulous.
He approached her and saw that she was right. There were two AI cores in the repository. Cyrus withdrew one of the glowing yellow cores and scanned it with his focus. The information that cropped up revealed that it was a GAIA core, but only a GAIA core. The core itself was a rather unimpressive piece of machinery. It was a clear cylinder lined with wires and capped at both ends with metal caps, under which rested a multitude of circuit boards. In the center of the capsule floated a small glowing yellow orb, presumably GAIA herself.
"There's no subordinate functions." Cyrus said.
Aloy's face fell. "It's better than nothing."
"True." Cyrus said as Aloy scanned the other core.
"Which one should we take?" Aloy asked.
Cyrus shrugged and pulled out the other GAIA core. His focus scan showed the exact same results as the first one. He was about to say something when the second core pulsed.
"Did you see that?" Aloy asked pointing at the second core.
"Yes." Cyrus said placing the first core back in the repository.
Again, the core pulsed. With both of them focusing on it, they could make out exactly what had happened. For a half a second, the core flashed red and in the center of the core, where a floating ball of yellow light once was briefly floated a dark crimson Caryll Rune. Not just any rune, but the Hunter's Mark.
"She did say she was going somewhere to hide." Aloy stated, remembering back to the cradle facility.
"And here she is…" Cyrus whispered, holding the capsule far more carefully.
"Now, the question is where do we take her?" Aloy asked.
"I don't know. Are there any facilities close by that might have a system we can use to install GAIA into?" Cyrus asked.
Aloy walked to the terminal and input another command. "It says here that there are a few facilities that would work."
"Where are they?" Cyrus asked.
"The first is GAIA prime, but that was destroyed. There's an unknown system far north in a place called Alaska that would work." Aloy said.
"Alaska?" Cyrus replied. "Faro system?"
"That's what it says." Aloy answered. "Oh, a little ways northwest of us is a MUSPELHEIM monitoring facility that might work."
"Then that is where-" Cyrus began.
"Hold for identiscan." The system interrupted.
"Hide!" Cyrus hissed, tossing a blue elixir to Aloy.
Aloy ducked behind one of the repositories as she drank the liquid. Cyrus downed a blue elixir while he stepped behind the other repository.
"Welcome, Dr. Sobeck." The system repeated.
Cyrus's eyes narrowed as the door opened. Four figures stood in the entrance. Confusion rooted in his mind at the sight of them. Members of Far Zenith. Three of their bodies shimmered with some sort of shield, but their faces remained uncovered, and unchanged, from the times he remembered seeing them back before the Faro swarm. Two of them were men, and one woman. Of course, he couldn't place a name to their faces. The fourth, and the youngest, was a spitting image of Aloy, but with shorter hair and clothed in a similar fashion to the actual Elisabet Sobeck from ages ago. It was interesting to note that she appeared a little younger than Aloy.
"Look's promising. Beta?" One of the Zenith men asked.
The Sobeck clone nodded and walked up to the repository and withdrew the remaining GAIA core. Cyrus felt the blue elixir wear off, and from where he was standing, the girl had clear view of the Hunter. She yelped and jumped back, dropping the GAIA core in the process. Seeing that the jig was up, he subtly motioned for Aloy to stay put as he walked out into the open.
"You know, theft of government property is most certainly a felony." Cyrus stated.
"Specters!" The man shouted. "Beta!"
The Zenith edition of Elisabet was grabbed by a cocoon of blue light and pulled to a far more advanced machine than anything Cyrus had seen on Earth.
"Well, any ideas as to why there's a clone of The Hunter here?" The same man said.
"I'd imagine GAIA created him on her destruction." The woman said.
"A clone?" Cyrus said. "I feel like I should be offended."
"You aren't a clone?" The woman asked.
"I'm as much an unnatural monster as you." Cyrus said. "Once more awakened to walk this Earth."
"I don't like this. Erik, care to downsize a little?" The other man said.
"Oh, this'll be fun." The first man, now named Erik said as he stepped forward.
Cyrus rolled his eyes as he pulled Ludwig's Holy Moonlight Blade from his back.
"I wouldn't recommend that." Cyrus said.
The Zenith grinned as the other three left the room. As the door closed, Cyrus could hear the woman giving orders.
"None but us leave this facility." She commanded.
The man calmly walked to Cyrus as the Hunter swung his blade at him. Erik calmly stopped the blade with his hand but grunted in exertion at the pure level of force behind the attack. Cyrus barely broke as he pushed the Zenith back.
"Wow, GAIA didn't skip out on making you." The man said, a smirk gracing his face.
Before Cyrus could reply, a blast of energy slammed into him. His sword was thrown from his hands. Another blast knocked him off his feet and into the large spider like machine. The force of the impact dazed him long enough for Erik to grab the Hunter by the throat and lift him off the ground.
"You know, I've snapped a lot of necks in VR." Erik grinned. "But no holo can quite do the real thing justice."
An arrow bounced off of Erik's head.
"Keep talking moron. It makes a nice target!" Aloy called from across the room.
Erik glanced towards Aloy. Cyrus took advantage of the momentary distraction and slammed his head forward into Erik's head. Erik dropped Cyrus in surprise and the Hunter brought a fist up into the Zenith's gut. The shield protected the man for the most part. To Erik's surprise, he still felt the force of Cyrus's fist.
"Aloy, get out of here!" Cyrus commanded.
Aloy nodded and dove into the water below the platform.
"They've got a Sobeck clone." Erik said, presumably into a radio.
Cyrus punched the man across the jaw. He took the blow and grabbed Cyrus's hand as the Hunter went in for another hit. Erik squeezed and Cyrus gritted his teeth as he felt bones in his hand splintering. Erik forced Cyrus's hand down and punched him in the face. He definitely felt his nose break and blood began to seep down his face.
"GAIA really went all out." Erik said, a sadistic grin plastered on his face as he punched Cyrus in the gut.
The world was slowly going red as the wind was knocked out of him. Cyrus wasn't totally out of tricks yet. He could feel his vocal cords almost tear themselves apart as a primal bestial roar echoed through the facility. Erik released Cyrus as the roar nearly shattered his eardrums from such close range. Cyrus kneed the man in the groin. The shield may have protected him from the force, but the pain of such a hit still dropped him. Cyrus continued the onslaught by slamming his hands over Erik's ears. Discombobulated and in pain, Erik looked up in time to see a far more wicked blade slashing towards him. A blade that he remembered from the days leading towards their imminent departure from Earth. A blade in the hands of the only man to ever be seen killing a Horus Titan.
Cyrus bisected the Zenith's head in one fell swoop. The Zenith shield proved to be no match for the siderite constructed, Eldritch enhanced Burial Blade. As Erik's body fell sideways, Cyrus connected his focus to the call list.
"Erend, Varl, either of you. I'm sending you coordinates to a river near my location!" Cyrus yelled into the system. "There's a good chance Aloy will be there. We were attacked in a Zero Dawn facility. Aloy has GAIA!"
Cyrus disconnected and dove into the water that Aloy had entered minutes earlier. He could feel a current in the water pulling him deeper in. He swam in the direction of the current. The current flowed into a large ventilation shaft. Cyrus continued swimming. Eventually the shaft opened into an old server room. Two of the Zenith's advanced machines immediately began firing at him in the water.
Now, while Cyrus could swim, this didn't necessarily mean he was the best at swimming. As such, his speed in the water was vastly inferior to his speed on land. He could already tell what was going to happen as the first of the Zenith machines bolts hit him. Pain rocketed up his body as more and more bolts hit him until the he felt his life leave him once more. The world went black, and the pain stopped.
His mind focused on two thoughts. He could only hope they hadn't gotten Aloy as well. Mergo could not be found by the Moon Presence.
ERROR-DATA_CORRUPTION-BEGIN_FILE_RECOVERY…/…
Data Log TEH-035
Thank you to all who read this, your feedback and views are much appreciated, and thank you for sticking with me.
Goodbye viewer; Fare thee well.
End Log S.T.K.