Chapter Text
Aloy exhaled, looking up at the sky.
The clouds had gathered into a single broad sheet across the expanse, turning it milky white. Thin, needle-like droplets of rain fell against her cheeks, washing away some of the grime clinging to her face. It had taken several long days riding atop a Charger to get where she was.
For all the time Aloy had spent away, Devil’s Thirst had stayed eerily the same.
Months had passed, worlds had shifted, and yet the place remained stubbornly untouched. The rusted carcasses of Old World buildings still towered overhead, hollowed-out and crooked in the same familiar ways. The mountains encircling the ruins, holding them in a snow-capped embrace, were just as unchanged.
It was early spring, and tiny yellow wildflowers were beginning to bloom through the soft layer of snow blanketing the earth. A feast for the bees.
Aloy turned at the sound of footsteps crunching over dry branches.
"I think I found it," Beta said with a small nod. "It’s buried about a mile beneath the earth under sediment that isn’t native to this region. Which means the facility was likely buried intentionally, not simply lost to the elements."
"Interesting." Aloy mused. "Why bury it?"
"It corroborates with that theory I told you about. But we should keep moving. The rain’s going to worsen soon, and traveling through mud will slow us down."
Beta slipped her thumb and index finger between her lips and whistled loudly, calling their overridden Charger over. She waited for Aloy to hop on first, then climbed on behind her, wrapping her arms around her sister’s waist. Aloy gave the machine a light kick at its flank, urging it into a trot.
The crumbling remains of Devil’s Thirst passed around them as Aloy followed the trail highlighted by her Focus. Somewhere nearby, hidden among the untouched ruins the Nora considered too tainted to enter, rested the long-lost headquarters of Metallurgic International.
Now they just had to figure out how to get inside. Otherwise, they'd be forced to dig the facility out of the earth.
Aloy silently hoped they wouldn’t have to resort to the second option. Boomer and Petra had already had more than enough fun excavating Gideon.
Metallurgic was among the companies Londra had identified as potential sources of technology that could be used against Nemesis. But where the other headquarters Aloy and Beta had explored had been relatively easy to navigate—places where the biggest obstacles had been locked doors and forgotten consoles—Metallurgic was proving significantly more troublesome.
The company had operated out of one of the towering skyscrapers overlooking San Francisco Bay, barely a Waterwing flight away from the Base. Convenient as that was, it ultimately proved to be of little help. After days of searching, probing, and setting off a few catastrophic Firegleam explosions, they reached the unfortunate conclusion that the facility held nothing of value.
The servers had already been wiped clean by the time the Faro Plague swept into California.
Beta's leading theory was that Metallurgic had deliberately concealed its work out of fear that the swarm might learn from their technology and evolve. As a result, Aloy and Beta were left with a single lead: a forgotten data log pointing to Metallurgic's original headquarters in Colorado Springs.
Present-day Devil’s Thirst.
"I know you don’t like being back here," Beta said, resting her chin on Aloy’s shoulder. "But you can’t deny it’s beautiful."
"It is," Aloy admitted. "But beyond these lands, to the west, there are places even more beautiful."
"The only place with snow I've seen in the west is Sky Clan territory. You need to take me to more places."
"Once all of this is over, you're getting the full tour. I promise."
"Hm," Beta snuggled closer. "When's Erend getting here?"
"He’s at Daytower taking care of something for the Carja. It shouldn’t take him long to catch up."
"If we do end up having to excavate the site, it would probably be best if Erend and his men were here to assess the situation first."
"Or," Aloy drawled, lifting one hand from the reins, "we stay optimistic and hope there's an entrance waiting for us."
"Oh! Right. Yes. Sorry. Optimism.”
Aloy led the machine into a clearing a few miles ahead and eased it to a stop. There was nothing about this stretch of forest that set it apart from the ground they had covered so far, except for how remarkably quiet it was. No machines roamed nearby, and with the nearest Nora settlements far down the trail, the only sounds were the distant footfalls of foxes and the muted whisper of rain.
Beta hopped down from the Charger, poking at the soil with her boot. "This should be the place. It’s supposed to be beneath the ground here."
"Are you sure? There's nothing here,"Aloy said as she climbed down from the machine. "And we seem a little far from Devil's Thirst."
"No. This is it. It's directly beneath us."
Aloy's gaze swept across the clearing before settling on the ground beneath her feet. There was nothing to suggest they were standing atop a ruin. The earth was smooth and undisturbed. There were no fractures, or rocky outcroppings to hint at an entrance. She slowly knelt on the ground, brushing the snow away to expose the dirt beneath.
She looked up at Beta. "If it really is here, I have no idea how we're going to get inside. Nothing here looks collapsible."
"The bedrock in this area is more porous than the surrounding geological formations. An explosive charge would most likely trigger a sinkhole large enough for us to gain access."
Aloy stared. "So your plan is to have me blow up the ground?"
"Yes.”
Well. Might be worth a try.
Aloy guided Beta and the Charger back toward the treeline before pulling a Spikethrower from her pack. She armed it and hurled it into the center of the clearing. It blinked for a few seconds before detonating, sending a plume of dirt and ash skyward that mingled with the rain as it drifted back to the ground.
Once the dust settled, Aloy approached the blast site with measured anticipation... only to find nothing. Other than a patch of charred grass and some churned-up earth, the spot looked exactly as it had before.
"Okay," Aloy sighed, dragging a hand across her forehead. "So that didn't work. More bombs, maybe?"
Beta tsked, stepping past her and testing the ground with her foot again. "Maybe. The facility is probably heavily shielded, so a few more explosives likely wouldn’t damage any of the critical infrastruct—aaaAAAAAAH!"
The seemingly solid bedrock beneath her feet suddenly collapsed, crumbling so fast that Aloy barely registered the sinkhole opening beneath them. The ground gave way again and again, tearing through the clearing and swallowing the snow-covered grass as it raced toward them.
"Beta!" Aloy shouted, lunging toward where Beta had been standing. "Beta, take my—"
But Beta had already fallen through.
"Shit!" Aloy hissed between clenched teeth. There was no time to come up with a plan. The next instant, she stumbled, arms windmilling for balance, before crashing onto her back and sliding helplessly into the darkness below.
Aloy reached for anything she could grab, but there was nothing to stop her fall. Every time she tried to call out to Beta, she inhaled dirt instead, coughing violently as she was dragged deeper into the earth.
It felt like an eternity before she slammed into a cold metal floor.
Aloy sucked in a ragged breath and pushed herself upright, biting back a groan as pain shot through her back. "Beta!"
She blinked rapidly, willing her eyes to adjust to the darkness. "Beta, where are you?!"
"R-Right here!" her sister’s breathless voice rang out from nearby. "I guess we found it?"
"Are you okay!?"
Aloy blinked a few more times until the darkness finally began to resolve into shapes. She forced herself upright and found Beta in the corner, hunched against the wall.
"I’m fine," Beta rasped, brushing the dust from her shoulders. "These Quen clothes are basically bubble wrap. I should probably thank Alva for that."
"Bubble... what?"
"Never mind."
After a careful inspection and more than a little unwelcome patting to verify her sister was still in one piece, Aloy turned her attention to their surroundings.
The sinkhole that had swallowed them was now little more than a pinprick of light far overhead. They were now in a classic old-world ruin: metal floors and walls, dusty with age, illuminated by the eerie, perpetual glow of purple holograms. A single long corridor stretched into the darkness ahead. There were no doors, no side rooms, no indication there was anywhere else to go.
"I guess the only way out is through," Beta said matter-of-factly. She reached for her Focus and raised her eyebrows at what it showed. "Huh. This is interesting."
"What is it?"
"This place isn’t as large as I was expecting. There are only three levels. We’re standing on what used to be the top floor. There’s a room at the end of the hallway, and then a shaft leading down."
Aloy nodded. "I brought some rope. I can lower you down the shaft."
"Right," Beta said with a grimace. "How thrilling."
—
The second level of the facility was a bit more promising than the eerie corridor they'd landed ass-first in.
Here, the halls branched and crossed in different directions, lined with doors. Aloy and Beta searched room after room, digging through dusty caches, probing long-dead consoles, and finding little besides dead ends. Despite the cold, stifling atmosphere, a thin sheen of sweat covered them both from the effort.
They were halfway through exploring what seemed to be an old storage room Beta suddenly threw out an arm, stopping Aloy in her tracks.
"Wait," Beta said urgently. "There’s something weird beneath us."
Aloy went still. "What kind of weird?"
"My Focus just flagged something..." Beta squinted, as though she could somehow force the overlay to reveal more information by staring hard enough. "There’s a room on the first level that’s... well, a void. Empty—Well, not actually empty, just invisible to the scan. The only thing my Focus can make out is a reinforced door."
"Why is it any different from the other rooms we've been in?"
"It's like this one was designed to be concealed. Apparently the doors are... reinforced with lead." Beta frowned deeply, turning to Aloy.
Aloy instantly connected the dots.
"Lead. Radiation shielding. It's a bunker door."
"Exactly. And there are several transmission lines running straight through the floor into that room. Whatever’s inside was important enough to warrant its own dedicated power grid."
It was Aloy's turn to frown. "There’s still power running after all this time?" she asked.
"Apparently, yes. There has to be a generator somewhere, or a room storing enough power cells to keep it running. But we need to find out what that power is being used for. With this level of redundancy and a blast door protecting it, my best guess is a supercomputer."
Aloy’s expression softened with relief. "So, exactly what we’ve been looking for."
"Maybe." Beta started down the hall. "We can only hope."
—
Following another unpleasant trip down a shaft to the first level, Aloy and Beta now stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing at the familiar red overgrowth engulfing the bunker's doors.
The back of Aloy’s neck prickled as she took in the structure before them. She had only ever seen doors this large in two places: LATOPOLIS... and Thebes. Both were ruins that, on her personal scale of ruins—from intriguing exploration dives to "please, never again"—fell solidly into the second category.
Her mind was getting unwelcome flashbacks.
"Well, I suppose the Firegleam certainly simplifies the ‘getting through the big, impenetrable door’ part," Beta shrugged. "We'd be in some trouble otherwise."
"Stay back," Aloy warned, reaching for the spear on her back. "I'd rather not have to pick this stuff out of your hair later."
She plunged the combustion module into the Firegleam and jogged back to safety. It crackled and hissed before erupting in a loud bang, hurling chunks of metal and rock into the air amid a cloud of red dust.
While the explosion didn’t completely destroy the doors, it blasted a hole large enough for both of them to pass through without squeezing.
"I guess it worked," Aloy said, wrinkling her nose at the dust cloud. "Not exactly a clean job."
"It certainly seems that way," Beta snorted, fanning a hand in front of her face. "After you?"
"As if I’d ever let you go in first."
"I’m trying to loosen you up. You’re too on edge."
Aloy huffed, a little thrown by being read. "I’m fine."
The chamber waiting beyond the bunker doors felt unnervingly familiar.
The room was perfectly circular, its walls lined with monitors that reminded Aloy far too much of the Lyceum in ELEUTHIA-9. Here, however, there were no tiers or amphitheater-like platforms. Instead, there were two racks lined either side of the room, mounted on rails, presumably because they were too heavy to be moved by any other means.
Beta tapped her forefinger against her temple to trigger a Focus scan. Her eyes widened immediately. "Oh, wow."
Aloy instinctively did the same. The overlay sprang to life, brighter and denser than anything she had ever seen, highlighting the racks in yellow. She recoiled a step. "There are—"
"At least fifty thousand power cells, stored in these walls." Beta breathed, her voice tinged with disbelief. "That's enough power to keep an Old World building operational for centuries."
"What would require that much power? That computer you mentioned?"
"No computer in recorded history would require anything close to this."
Aloy reached for her bow. She didn't like where this train of thought was headed.
Hoarding that much power sounded too familiar. Londra had used it to revive a Horus. Faro had used a private generator to cling to life long after he should have died. The uneasy prickling at the back of Aloy’s neck spread through her body.
"You reaching for your bow just made me ten times more nervous." Beta narrowed her eyes. "I'm not sure if you're trying to reassure me or if you're just as unsettled as I am."
"Walk me through your theories," Aloy said. "Please."
"I’m pretty sure it's the same thing you're thinking."
"There’s not enough space for a Horus down here, is there?"
"Sometimes I really dislike how often we arrive at the same worst-case scenario."
Aloy took a steadying breath, forcing herself to regroup. She couldn't afford to let her mind wander.
"These terminals have to be operational, right?" she said. "Power clearly isn’t the issue. We should look for a hidden doorway or a ventilation shaft—something that hints at what all of these cells are being used for."
Beta gave a solemn nod. "You search the room. I’ll see what I can find on those terminals."
"Call out if you need anything. What weapons do you have on you? Did you lose anything when we crashed in here?"
"I still have my bombs, Aloy. I’ll be fine. Now go. The sooner we solve this, the sooner we’re out of here."
Aloy circled the room with her bow drawn, searching for the familiar outline of a vent or the telltale yellow of a collapsible ladder. But her search turned up nothing. Even her Focus wasn’t much help. Aside from the staggering number of power cells hidden within the walls, the room was as ordinary as any other ruin.
But the unease lingered.
There had to be something important enough that the Old Ones had locked it away behind a blast door. Ideally, it was data on weaponry. But something felt off.
She couldn’t explain it. It wasn’t logic. It was a primal, very un-Elisabet-like gut feeling.
Aloy sighed heavily, slinging her bow back over her shoulder as she returned to her starting point. She worried her lip between her teeth, weighing her options, until her gaze landed on the two racks built into the walls. They looked just like the ones in the Greenhouse, so long ago.
Her Focus confirmed that they contained nothing but power cells. There were no signs of rust or corrosion. The room’s airtight seal had preserved them surprisingly well.
But while the rack on the left bore scratches and signs of wear from being moved along its rails, the one on the right remained pristine, as though it had never been used. Her face wrinkled in confusion as she inched closer. She cautiously gripped the lever and gave it a tentative tug.
Nothing happened. The rack remained firmly in place.
Frowning, she pulled harder, nearly losing her balance when the rack suddenly swung open. It pivoted like a book, revealing a concealed door hidden behind it.
What the…?
The door wasn’t a blast door like the one they had destroyed to get here. It was just a regular Old World metal doorway, a glowing holo circle in the middle pulsing an inviting green, as if welcoming them in.
As if Aloy and Beta hadn’t needed to solve a dozen puzzles just to reach it.
"Beta!" Aloy called over her shoulder. "I found something!"
"I’m coming!" Beta shouted back from across the room.
Aloy lowered herself to one knee and traced the metal seams with her fingertips, studying the structure. The longer she examined it, the less it made sense.
She couldn’t tell whether the bunker had been built to keep people out… or to keep something inside.
"Well," Beta said, halting mid-stride. "That explains a lot."
"Did you find anything?" Aloy asked, getting to her feet.
"Yes! There’s an enormous directory of files on those terminals. It’s far too much data for me to sort through alone, so I sent everything to GAIA to begin processing. But I’m almost certain this is what we came here for."
Aloy should have been relieved, but something in Beta’s tone suggested there was a catch.
"And what else did you find?" She asked, narrowing her eyes.
Beta’s face turned pensive. "The last command entered into one of those terminals was a power distribution override. It instructed the system to divert all available power to a room called EC:01 in the event of a catastrophic emergency. Possibly the Faro Plague reaching this location."
She pointed at the secret door. "I think you just found it."
"Do you know what’s in there?"
"No. Everything related to room EC:01 was purged from the system. Not redacted, not archived… just erased. Someone went to great lengths to cover their tracks."
Maybe it was her newfound instinct to keep her sister safe that stopped Aloy from charging into the room. Or maybe it was the caution that came from brushing against death too many times. Either way, the familiar urge to explore just wasn’t there. Her jaw tightened.
"What are the odds someone did the same thing Ted Faro did?" Aloy asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
"If you’re asking what the odds are that we’re about to walk into an incoherent tumor, then I’m afraid that isn’t a mathematical calculation. It’s guesswork." Beta said flatly. "And I sincerely hope the odds are low."
"Stay back. We’re going in."
"I’ll be right behind you."
Aloy released a slow breath, her hand already moving toward her spear. The moment the doors parted, a blast of pressurized air rushed out from the chamber, slamming into them and forcing both sisters to throw up their arms.
"Stay close!" Aloy warned.
They stepped into the room uneasily, moving with the caution of hunters sneaking through a bandit camp. The place was large, sterile, and circular, empty enough to look more like a storage space than the heart of a highly classified project.
Then Aloy saw what was waiting at the far end.
The lingering unease that had been gnawing at her surged forward.
"This... is what they needed the power for," Beta whispered, staring ahead in disbelief. "No. It can't be."
"How…" Aloy’s voice died in her throat.
There was too much to say, and not enough words to say it.
The first few moments were silence. Then came the rhythmic clack of Beta's boot against the metal floor as she slowly walked forward, drawn by the invisible pull of curiosity.
Aloy followed her sister more out of instinct than conscious decision. Her thoughts were as unsteady as her footsteps, drawing her farther into the room until she came to a halt beside the large ectogenic chamber embedded in the floor.
"EC:01," Beta enunciated, pausing as the pieces fell into place. "Ectogenic Chamber Zero One. All those power cells… weren’t for the archive. They were maintaining this pod until someone returned to retrieve it. They didn’t know when that would be."
She brushed her hand across the viewing panel, clearing away the dust to reveal what lay inside. Aloy forced herself to lower her gaze to the window.
It was just a woman.
A woman sleeping peacefully, untouched by the centuries that had passed. Not a monster like Faro.
The dust on the glass and the dim purple glow of the holograms bathed her in an uncanny light. She looked young, perhaps no older than Aloy. Her long, sleek black hair framed her square jaw and spilled over her torso, reaching nearly to her waist. Her skin was so pale it had taken on a faint bluish tint, with frost clinging to her eyelashes.
"Is she…" Aloy swallowed hard. "Alive?"
"Depends on your definition of alive," Beta said. She moved her hands along the pod, checking the systems for faults. "Wait—there’s an ID file attached to it."
ECTOGENIC CHAMBER EC-001
PROPERTY OF NINMAH RESEARCH LAB
ON LEASE TO: OA8IS FILTRATION SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL
NAME: Seyka Chen
AGE: 27 (at time of cryostasis induction)
CRYOSTASIS INDUCTION DATE: December 1, 2064.
MEDICAL HISTORY: Severe anaphylactic reaction to bee stings. Epinephrine auto-injector prescribed. No additional known comorbidities.
BLOOD TYPE: AB+
DO NOT AWAKEN IF FARO PLAGUE REMAINS ACTIVE.
Aloy’s thoughts reeled.
Too many scenarios were racing through her mind, spinning like plates she was failing to keep in the air.
"She’s... one of the Old Ones." Her voice came out hollow. "How is that possible?"
"More importantly, why is she here? How did this pod end up in this facility? And who exactly is she?" Beta blurted, her words tumbling over each other. "Do you have any idea how scarce these pods were in the 2060s? Only a handful of people had access to—"
"Beta," Aloy cut in, holding up both hands. "Slow down!"
Beta paused. "Right. Sorry." She drew in a deep breath. "I’m just… aghast, really."
"You and I both!"
"Okay. Let’s take this one step at a time.”
"I know it’s a lot," Aloy said slowly. "But we need to start with the basics. Is she alive?"
"Like I said, it depends on your definition of alive. According to the ectogenic chamber's readings, she's alive in the medical sense, but there's no precedent in recorded history for a person remaining in cryostasis for this long." Beta explained, pacing nervously. "She may still be exhibiting vital signs thanks to the stasis system, but I find it difficult to believe she's genuinely alive in any meaningful sense."
Aloy nodded, trying to keep up. Her eyes drifted to the glass. "It says Ninmah Research Lab. So this is the same technology they used in ELEUTHIA-9, right? Didn't they design these things to last?"
"When these systems were designed, researchers were concerned about the effects of a few decades in stasis, not nine centuries. Even assuming the pod functioned flawlessly the entire time, we have no data on what that might mean for her musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, or neurological health."
Aloy didn’t have time to dwell on the sobering possibilities. "Do you think you could wake her up?" she said flatly.
Beta stopped pacing and stared. "Didn’t you just hear me!?"
"I did. But I also know that if there’s anyone who can do it, it’s you. If she’s here, she knows something about Metallurgic that we don’t, and we need every piece of data we can get."
"I’d need GAIA’s help to devise a plan that minimizes the risk of harming her. But I seriously wouldn’t get my hopes up."
Aloy folded her arms, trying to force herself to think rationally. The woman inside looked so completely frozen in time that it was difficult to imagine her as someone who had once walked and breathed.
"How did this thing even end up here?" Aloy murmured, more to herself than Beta. "I thought these chambers were restricted to the Zeniths and then… well, Zero Dawn, after Elisabet struck that deal with them."
"With the tools I have back at the Base, I could probably access the chamber’s systems and trace the ownership records back to whoever authorized placing her in cryostasis," Beta said. "Or maybe... I don’t know. She stole it and sealed herself inside."
"I don’t know if that would be smart or reckless."
"She was frozen just a month into Enduring Victory. Can you imagine? She was awake for the beginning of the end."
Aloy didn’t even know where to begin sorting through everything her sister had just told her.
"So what do we do?" she asked. "Haul this entire thing out of the ruin?"
Beta nodded solemnly. "It’s time Erend and his men got down here. We’ll need help."