Tomas folded his arms and shook his head. “No way. I am not getting on that thing.”

Aloy pointed at the Sunwing. “You’ve already been on it! I brought you here all the way from Los Angeles!”

“Half unconscious. What the hell was in that stuff?” Tomas demanded.

“Primitive pain killers that were clearly too much for your body and knocked you out.” Aloy retorted.

“Well, now that I’ve got my wits about me, I’m telling you, I’m not getting on it.”

Aloy pressed her fingers to her nose. Since Tomas had woken he had been argumentative, disagreeing with everything she suggested. The rejuvenation capsule had restored most of his health but, as Alva pointed out, it couldn’t put meat on his skinny frame that looked undernourished and weak. Tomas had rudely declined any of their food, showing them how the Zenith base used energy to manufacture food. Small pellets that looked wholly unappetising.

“Here’s the thing, if you don’t get on the Sunwing, we have to go the long way to the base…which means crossing a lot of ground, through tribal territory, risking bandit attack and exposure to primitive cultures.”

Tomas’ face, which Aloy struggled to see anything but Ted Faro in, pulled a look of derision at her. “Why go anywhere at all? Why can’t I stay here? I can look after myself here, better than I could at your base.”

“And leave you here to take off in the rocket back to the Odyssey?” Aloy rolled her eyes. “Just what kind of an idiot do you think I am?”

“The self sacrificing, can’t see the forest for the trees, kind.” Tomas retorted. “I’m telling you, Nemesis can’t be beaten!” He let out a whimper as she grabbed his scruff and pulled him close.

“So convince me…and I’ll let you go…but only if you come to the base.”

Tomas swallowed. “You won’t keep your word.”

“I left you in the rejuvenation capsule until you were completely healed, didn’t I?” Aloy asked. “I could have pulled you out half way and bribed you the same way Londra and Gerard did.”

“Just makes you more foolish.” Aloy balled her hands into fists, ready to hit him and drag him back to base, unconscious once more, if she had to. But before she could explode, Tomas sighed dramatically. “Fine…I’ll go…but I want to take a small printer matrix.”

“Why?”

“Because it can make things…like clothing,” he flapped his hands at his Zenith clothing, “which I’d love to get out of.”

“As long as it doesn’t weigh the Sunwing down.” Aloy warned. Thankfully it wasn’t large, like lamp with a shade on it. Tomas clutched at it, approaching the Sunwing cautiously. “I climb up first and you get on behind me.” Aloy saw his twitch. “Tomas?”

“I’m fine…” He said which didn’t convince her.

Aloy got onto the Sunwing and waited. A few seconds later Tomas clambered behind her, the angles of the printer jabbing into her back.

“I know you’ve got to hang onto the printer…but hang onto me as well.”

“Uh…yeah…”

“Ready?” Aloy kicked the Sunwing and it dropped from the platform for a moment before stretching its sun catching wings, pumping them strongly until it reached a gliding altitude. Aloy knew Tomas was still behind her because of the press against her back but he was completely silent. “Still with me?” She asked.

“I hate this!”

Aloy tried not to smile. “Come on, you’ve got to admire the view!”

“I’ve got my eyes closed!”

“You’re missing out.”

“I don’t care!” He was quiet for a few more minutes. “Talk to me!”

“What about?”

“Anything! I can’t handle this!”

Aloy licked her lips. “Uh…so…we’re passing over Tenakth territory that belongs to the Lowland Clan…”

“Primitive culture? That’s all you’ve got? What about quantum mechanics or biological enhancements?”

“Do you want me to talk or not?” She felt him clutch tightly to her tunic. “What do you want to hear?”

“I don’t know…what was your family like?”

“Huh?” Aloy started. “My family?”

“You had one, didn’t you? Even I did…sort of.”

“Beta didn’t. She had ‘benefactors’.”

“Did you just let go and do those stupid quotation motions?”

“Maybe…”

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“Just talk!”

“Okay,” Aloy sighed, “I…was created in a cradle facility far to the east after Gaia’s subordinate functions turned hostile and erratic by the signal from Nemesis. The matriarchs who govern the Nora didn’t know what to do with a baby that just appeared in front of a door that they called the ‘Womb of the Mountain’.”

“Stupid, foolish, superstitions…”

“It had some basis in truth. I mean…that’s where the original humans came from. I suppose it was a womb…sort of.”

“Go on…keep talking!”

“Well…seeing as they didn’t know what to do with me and couldn’t decide if I was a gift from All Mother or the child of the Metal Devil…”

“Are you serious? They created a religion based on their emergence from a cradle facility?”

“What do you want? They didn’t have APOLLO!” Aloy argued. “They were cruelly ignorant and did the best they could. And if you think about it, Gaia is kind of a mother, a nurturer of the earth so in a sense…”

“I can’t believe you’re defending these people…are we nearly there yet?”

“No.”

“What did they do with you if they couldn’t decide if you were good or evil?”

“I was raised by an outcast.”

“So you were an outcast?”

Aloy flinched. “Yes…”

“And you want to save these people?”

“I…you’re the last person in the world to be judging someone else, you know that? You got Quen killed…”

“And I suppose you’ve never killed anyone that didn’t deserve it?”

Aloy had a vision of blood stained sand and her veins turned to ice. “That’s not the point,” she argued faintly, “the point is you don’t seem to care.”

“Why should I? Why should you? I just wanted the chance to breathe properly.”

Aloy closed her eyes, unable to imagine what Tomas must have gone through. “It sounds terrible.”

“Your childhood wasn’t a picnic either.” They had passed over the Lowland Clan territory and were just shy of the tops of the mountains that descended into the Desert Clan land which was all rock, sand and grey grasses. She turned the Sunwing’s head in a more northerly direction, still heading east but aiming for the western entrance to the base which was on the slopes of another mountain range.

“At least Rost took care of me and gave me the tools to survive.”

“Let me guess, spear, bow and arrow and the ability to make fire…sounds like a neanderthal to me.”

Aloy wasn’t sure what Tomas meant by that but his tone was anything other than complimentary. “Rost had wisdom that you wouldn’t begin to understand,” she snapped over her shoulder, “and despite living apart from the tribe, he never harboured bitterness or anger…and always looked out for others despite being shunned.”

“Sounds more foolish by the second.” Aloy ground her teeth. “So what was his wisdom? Never eat poisonous berries?”

“No,” she grunted as they flew over a Tallneck and she could see Scalding Spear, the Desert Clan capital glinting in the distance, “he said I might never need the tribe, but that didn’t mean the tribe wouldn’t need me one day.”

“Rhetorical nonsense.”

Aloy went to bite his head off when she recalled that she had thought something similar at the time. That Rost was still so blindsided and brainwashed by the notion of All Mother that he tried to install that false hope in her too.

But he was right.

In the end the Nora needed her…and not just the Nora but all tribes on earth. No matter what she did, she couldn’t keep herself disconnected from it. She felt a stab of irony, that she, who reviled her tribe and its primitive ways, was defending them to a boy who embodied a man that she hated more.

“Whoa, what are you doing!”

“We’re descending to land.”

“Can’t you do it less steeply!”

“The only other way is to jump and shieldwing it down…want to try?”

“No!”

They landed on the short shelf of rock outside the base’s western door and Tomas slid off the Sunwing and collapsed on the ground. Aloy dismounted, giving him a withering look.

“Really?” He was pale and shaking, his eyes still closed, his arms wrapped around his printer. “Come on, get up.”

“I…I just need…” He turned and vomited, the pellets he’d eaten at the launch tower a cloudy white colour. “Ugh…my heart…it’s pounding so hard.”

“It’ll slow down.” She promised, recalling how hard her heart had pounded when she’d first flown on a Sunwing. Though she offered him a hand, he refused it stubbornly, clambering to his feet, swaying lightly. “Come on in.”

He followed her into the base and down the curved passage to the common room. Tomas was none too pleased with the tribal décor that Zo and others had added to the dull grey walls and floor.

“You’ve turned what was half decent into primitive…what’s with all the plants?”

“We eat half of these.” Aloy retorted.

“I won’t. The texture…ugh!”

“Aloy?” Beta appeared at the bottom of the steps to the control room. Her face lit up and she sprinted across the common room and wrapped her arms around her in a show of affection that Aloy was unaccustomed to, giving and receiving but allowed Beta to do so. “You didn’t say you were coming back!”

“I had other things on my mind…” Aloy cringed. “Beta…this is Tomas.”

Beta stared at the young man who, physically, looked as old as she was.

“He…it’s…”

“Ted Faro’s clone, I know…” Aloy cleared her throat. “Did Gaia not fill you in?”

“I guess…she was waiting for you to…” Beta was understandably shaken. “You…were you created on the Odyssey?”

“About ten years ago.” Tomas shrugged and nodded at the same time.

“Then you’ve experienced significant…”

“Growth acceleration, yes.”

“Didn’t that have physical repercussions?”

“Genetically flawed,” Tomas grasped the printer, “somewhat restored but its bound to bite me in the ass later on in life.”

“I see,” Beta pressed her lips together, “is that a small printer matrix?”

“Capable of creating anything up to a meter wide and as long as the energy holds out.”

“But isn’t it fed the same way as Spectres? Through biological conversion?”

Aloy jolted, having watched the conversation from the side, slightly amused…until this moment. “You didn’t mention that!”

“I knew you wouldn’t let me bring it if I did.”

“For good reason! The FARO plague consumed the earth with that kind of ability.”

“It’s limited to whatever we feed it and needs certain inputs to manufacture certain things,” Tomas retorted, “it can’t make metal out of plants but it can make machine parts, microchips and even cutlery out of metal scrap.”

“Aloy,” Beta put her hand out to her, “I know this makes you uncomfortable but the printer matrix isn’t like the FARO robots. It has no AI in its programming. It’s purely human controlled and extremely limited. But it will help manufacturing certain parts we need that we can’t get while Gaia doesn’t control HEPHAESTUS.”

Aloy chewed the inside of her mouth. “Well…as long as you say it’s safe.”

“My word not good enough for you?” Tomas asked dryly.

“No.”

“Here,” Beta gestured, “why don’t I show you where you can put that and we can set it up…and maybe use some of the plants in the base to make you some clothing.”

“As long as it isn’t tribal.” Tomas looked over his shoulder. “I have my standards.”

Aloy rolled her eyes and let the remark go unanswered. She knew he was just trying to get a rise out of her. Instead she headed up the steps to the control room and felt a great sense of relief to see Gaia, golden and bright, waiting for her.

“Aloy,” she greeted warmly, “it is good to see you unharmed after the events of Los Angeles.”

“So you know?” Aloy gestured to her FOCUS.

“Yes,” Gaia nodded. “However, given the sensitive nature of certain aspects, I did not inform Beta or anyone else of the details…”

“Thanks Gaia.” Aloy pushed her hands through her hair. “Uh…you mind listening? I…feel like…I need to talk it out.”

“Of course.”