The Next Day…
Traversing the tunnel to get into New York’s ruins and the cauldron that was buried within its foundations took all of Aloy’s abilities. She had to fly on her Sunwing to a break in the chasms to find the tunnel entrance. When she said that HEPHAESTUS would not leave the cauldron unguarded, she had not realised the unpleasant reality of her words.
The chasms were filled with webs made of machine wire. They were stretched across the vast gaps, forming a network of impenetrable webbing. The smallest tweak and giant metal spiders were quick to descend.
“Well…they’re new.” Aloy had shuddered, turning the Sunwing away. In the end she had to leap from the back of her mount and drop towards the ground, guessing where the entrance to the tunnel vaguely was. Her shieldwing allowed her to coast to the ground. The tunnel entrance was below, dripping out of a chasm’s façade on the opposite side. There were remains of buildings embedded in the rockface, some on their sides, forming a precarious makeshift bridge.
“Earthquakes must have torn this place apart,” Aloy whispered, sliding down as carefully as she could, “it’s almost like the earth rose up and reclaimed what humans…whoa!”
Her foot slipped on the slick surface and she skidded towards the edge of the chasm, scrambling madly to try to find purchase before she went flying off the edge. In the end a tiny plant, clinging tenaciously to the edge of the chasm, was the only thing that kept her from falling into ravine. If she hadn’t been caught in the webs of the machine spiders, which she had dubbed Webslingers, Aloy’s body would have been crushed in the rushing water below from the waterfall upstream that emptied into the ocean.
She sat on the edge, her heart racing out of control. It took a few seconds of breathing calmly to slow its pace. When she was ready she stood up and jogged along the edge of the chasm, knowing the tunnel entrance was further up the stream.
Because of the fractured nature of the landscape, there weren’t many machines. Aloy could hear Clamberjaws chattering at each other where the forest was denser and the Webslingers clung to the rockfaces of the chasms, quiet unless alerted. Sunwings coasted overhead, forming a patrol pattern but there were no places that they could land and recharge their solar batteries effectively so they tended to stick close to the ruins of New York where they could perch.
The ruins were a wretched reminder of the FARO plague. Two of the HORUS class robots had wrapped their tentacles around buildings, their bulk strangling the city, frozen where MINVERVA’S signal caught them. Forest had overtaken as much as it could but in a city that had been built on foundations of concrete and metal, there weren’t many places for it to grow. Over time pockets of earth had formed in some areas and stubborn vines and plants grew from these yet it was still cold and bleak.
“What kind of a metropolis must it have been that a thousand years later, nature still hasn’t been able to reclaim it?” Aloy whispered. “There…that’s the…Holland Tunnel entrance.”
She used a fallen skyscraper as a bridge whose foundations were on her side of the chasm but had fallen and jammed its top into the far side. The metal creaked, the wind blew and the waterfall roared, calling her down. Her red hair flew about her face and she flicked it out of her eyes as she edged closer and closer to the tunnel. Of course the inevitable occurred and the building, that had lasted for hundreds of years, decided to start to fall. Aloy’s safe pace became a desperate sprint, along a building that was disintegrating beneath her. She slid down towards the far side, firing her pullcaster, the end lodging into the tunnel’s mouth, flying through the air and landing on the wet, slippery edge.
The building collapsed into the chasm, striking webs and waking Webslingers. Aloy peered out, watching their eight legs twitch and dart about as they went on alert, looking for their prey. But in the end the triggering of their webs was put down to the collapse of the building and after a while, they returned to their positions and shutdown.
Aloy let out the breath she was holding.
“Right.” She whispered, her voice echoing in the tunnel. “I’ll try not to do that again.”
There were abandoned cars and large, broken pieces of tunnel that littered her passage. There were also webs but Aloy couldn’t see any Webslingers. She slid by them, not trusting that they wouldn’t signal their creators. There were several times where she had to carve her way through or find different paths until she climbed out of the far end, leaning against an overturned car, surveying the ruins.
She tapped her FOCUS. “Aloy to base.”
“We’re all here, Aloy.” Beta responded.
“I’m in New York.”
“We’re tracking your signal.”
“I’m trying to get the lay of the land…but there are so many ruined buildings…”
“Make sure you use passive scans only.” Sylens ordered. “Anything more might get you noticed.”
“I know,” Aloy said quietly, “I was at the briefing…” The ground thundered and she ducked down, a Tremortusk walking down the road with a company of Watchers scanning constantly. “Sunwings in the ruins, Tremortusks on the ground and Watchers…great…” Aloy sighed. “Gaia, this place is huge.”
“Aloy, Tomas and I have been studying APOLLO and collating what we were able to learn about New York. It seems it was sinking.”
“Excuse me?”
“It was. About an inch a year,” Tomas’ voice came through, “it was because of the weight of the cities but also because of the melting of the ice caps that was causing the ocean level to rise. You’re aware of the Clawback era?”
“Yeah,” Aloy started to jog along the street, her feet sloshing through water but remaining perfectly dry because of her bodysuit, “Ted Faro saved the earth before condemning it.”
“He was one of the main contributors to the restoration of the earth’s biosphere, yes. But I believe that was because of Elisabet Sobeck as she worked for him before she broke away on her own.”
Aloy blinked, surprised Tomas had acknowledged Elisabet Sobeck’s contribution so openly. “Elisabet always had a ‘save the world’ mindset to her work.” She murmured.
“Because of the restoration of the ice caps would take decades, a hydroplant solution was submitted to redirect the water.”
“Where did they send it?”
“Directly beneath the city. They stopped the water from flooding the city by sending it beneath, through tunnels and pipes, generating enormous amounts of power from the currents while keeping the ‘tide’ down.”
“Limitless hydropower…” Aloy nodded. “That sounds promising.”
“It was built in Central Park near a reservoir. I’m sending you the coordinates.”
“Thanks.” Aloy said and meant it. “I’m logging out now. I’ve got a ways to run and I don’t want my signal to be picked up so stay silent unless it’s necessary.”
“Understood.”
From where Aloy had come out of the tunnel, it was two hours trek to the start of Central Park. Perhaps she could have gotten there faster if it weren’t for the machine patrols she had to dodge or the debris in her way. Because they were now in possession of the APOLLO database, Aloy’s FOCUS was able to take what the city used to look like and overlay it across the ruins. She discovered the Empire State Building propped up by other buildings after it had slipped sideways due to pooled water damage from a broken pipe. Aloy scanned it.
“Built to be the tallest building in the world in a race with someone else constructing the Chrysler Building…managed to be the tallest for forty years…”
She shook her head at the pitiful sight of the building that was being barely held up by other buildings that were much taller than it.
“You were eclipsed…but at least you had something to lean on.”
She kept going, narrowly avoiding a Shellwalker Convoy with nearly a dozen Watchers keeping a look out. And then there were the Stalkers, completely invisible except for the small proximity detectors they used to mark their territory. Aloy nearly set one off and backed away hastily, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the dangerous hunter killer machine.
It was midday before she started crossing the park. Aloy had been looking forward to escaping the ruinous crush of New York but the parkland was the territory of Burrowers and they were impossible to detect unless they emerged from a burrow, their lithe bodies as at home in the earth and in water as they were on the ground.
There were no land cultivators to be seen so no Plowhorns or Grazers, no Lancehorns Longlegs or even their more violent and dangerous upgraded aberrations that HEPHAESTUS had unleashed over the years. However, the skyscrapers, even though they weren’t much more than ruins, were perfect places for Stormbirds and Dreadwings to nest and they could detect Aloy should she stray too close. And then there was the Tallneck, pacing around the outside of Central Park, all of them glowing with a purple burn that made them extremely dangerous and unable to be overridden.
She eyed it bitterly, wishing she could access its knowledge of the landscape.
“I’ve gotten used to having a map in my head.” Aloy muttered as it walked past her hidden location. “I don’t know what I’d do without a FOCUS now.”
There were some ruins that looked out of place against the backdrop of New York. They were arches made from stone that had a lakeside view and inside there were diamond tiles on the walls in even more arches and a large basin that had once been a fountain.
“I like these ruins.” Aloy put her hand against them. “They’ve lasted better than all the metal and concrete of Faro and Sobeck’s day.” If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear the sound of history and wondered what the ruins could say if they could talk.
No doubt they had seen countless humans come and go.
She had to skirt around a lake that was filled with Snapmaws and Widemaws, each faster than she in the water and with very powerful jaws. On the other side she fought her way through the undergrowth, struggling through swamp like conditions until she came across another structure, built as a fortress on a stone foundation above the water’s reach. At least, it had been. Now it was half flooded.
“I don’t think the pipes are working as well as they ought.” Aloy whispered, risking a quick scan. “Right, that’s the reservoir over there…I can see the pipes beneath…drawing water through, diverting it from the city…wait…” She groaned. “The blasted entrance is beneath the water.”
She turned and eyed the land, the reservoir and lakes swarming with machines.
“I might have to use the invisibility function of the suit. There’s no way…wait…” She eyed the stone fortress that was half submerged. She used her FOCUS to overlay the structure’s original blueprint. “Well…look at that…you’ve got flooded basements where no machine will fit…and a pipeline on the other side of firegleam. Now that I can do.”
Thankfully Aloy had her diving mask because Belvedere Castle, as she discovered, had a maze of basements and collapsed walls. She managed to break her way through to a cavity where there was some firegleam, a combustible crystal formation that she could ignite even under water. Aloy risked the explosion being noticed, igniting the crystal. The hole in the wall immediately connected to the pipeline and she was sucked through the hole, into the rapid flow. It was pitch black and she was bumped and banged about until her body was thrust into a large, underground reservoir and the current eased off. She kicked her way to the surface and grasped the edge of a platform only to see a Watcher staring down at her, dumbfounded. Before it could raise an alarm she stabbed it through the neck and pulled it into the water. Once she was sure it wouldn’t betray her presence, she clambered out. She squeezed the water from her hair as she looked around.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Yep…it’s a cauldron.” She whispered, her voice lost in the roar of the water that echoed across the walls. She tapped her FOCUS then tapped it back off again, studying what she’d managed to scan. “Beta was right…the core of this place is giving off more energy that all the other cauldrons I’ve ever come across…combined!” She stood up, unhooking her spear. “This really is it…HEPHAESTUS’ hideaway…”
She checked her override module. No longer able to override machines that had the deadly Nemesis upgrade, the module had been modified to carry a destabilising virus Tomas and Beta had written. Gaia had given aid in the form of MINERVA, her code cracking subfunction, repurposed into writing a virus. If not for the three of them combining their talents, Aloy doubted the code would be effective.
Reassured that it was ready to do its job, Aloy hooked her spear onto her back and began to make her way through the cauldron.
It was a nightmare to navigate. She could only risk light taps of her FOCUS to illuminate the path ahead, highlighting any machines that were lurking. Everything was wet, slick and precarious. Each cauldron tended to have its machine preferences based on its location and the type of machine it was designed to primarily produce.
Because this cauldron had repurposed the hydroplant and its facilities, the machines tended to be water based. Snapmaws swam through water flooded pipes and Widemaws guarded vault entrances and exits. Burrowers darted here and there, going from water to land without nary a pause and were on high alert like hyperactive children. In the larger tanks were the Tiderippers and all of their bodies glowed purple.
Aloy had intended on using her five minutes of invisibility time to ambush HEPHAESTUS but she couldn’t override vault doors. She had to wait for machines to come and go and couldn’t risk being seen. She tried finding other routes, squeezing through vents, climbing across chasms over veins of lava that bubbled far below, heating the water so that it was almost too hot to swim through. By the time she had made her way to the cauldron’s core, she had used four of her five minutes of invisibility to sensors.
She found a disused storage space and paused to catch her breath.
“No idea where I am in New York.” She panted. “I’m so turned around…I suppose it doesn’t matter, though. Once I wipe HEPHAESTUS from existence, Nemesis won’t be able to use it to control the machines. Hopefully my override function will be restored and I’ll be able to catch a ride the moment I climb out of here.”
She was tempted to tap her FOCUS to get her bearings but that was habit which was ingrained in her body. The truth was, she didn’t need it. The last hour of circumnavigating the cauldron had always brought her back to the same metallic stink and conduits that glowed purple.
They flowed into the cauldron core. Aloy hadn’t been able to breach the cauldron’s core without gaining attention but through painstaking searching, she found a crack in the outer shell and squeezed her way up through it. As she climbed, she heard something screeching furiously, echoes of it bouncing off the walls, drowning out the roar of the water in the pipes. She shut it out, trying not to think about it as she found her way into a horizontal ventilation shaft. She leaned into the crack and retrieved her bow and quiver and her spear, strapping them all back on, unable to ignore the artificial bellows.
“I wonder what machine HEPHAESTUS has in the core,” Aloy whispered, “given that this is its safe zone…what if it’s a Slaughterspine?” She shuddered, imagining the ferocious machine with plasma firing spines down the frill on its back possessed with the Nemesis virus. Slaughterspines were extremely dangerous to begin with, let alone empowered by Nemesis. “Or a Frostclaw…or Fireclaw…” She closed her eyes. “Not a giant Webslinger. Please, not a giant Webslinger…”
Her only consolation was she’d never heard Webslingers make any noise other than hissing…so she hoped it wasn’t a Webslinger waiting for her.
As she crawled along the vent, the metal tunnel vibrated with the screams of a furious machine.
“Maybe I can find a way around it,” Aloy murmured, “I have a minute of invisibility to sensors left. I can’t risk being detected. Not now…not this close…”
She found a grate in the vent tunnel and pried it off, sliding her body out onto a gantry that ran around the top of the cauldron core. The gantry was enclosed but some of the panels of frosted glass had been broken or knocked out. She kept her head down as she shuffled to the closest broken panel, the roaring of the machine so loud it was hurting her ears.
Aloy reached the gap, grasped the edge and peered down.
It looked a great deal like every other cauldron core she had ever seen, a large circular space with a domed ceiling and activation pedestals against the interior wall.
However, there were no sentry machines patrolling the core construction area where the automated arms would be assembling a brand new machine to release. Instead of a dome of light which was the forcefield that protected the new machine while it was constructed, there was a sphere of light, blue and green with little red markers dotted all over it. And in the centre, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, was a pillar of technology with coils in the middle that flashed red and white, sending out violent sparks of light…and it was screaming!
It howled wordlessly, red tendrils of angry light lashing out as if trying to break free as the arms that were used to construct machines stabbed the central core column coils.
“What…what is this?” Aloy breathed.
She had to risk a tap of her FOCUS, her vision instantly enhanced.
“That’s HEPHAESTUS?” She gasped. “That’s its core?”
She cowered, the metallic voice of the machine that had chased her, threatened her and tried to kill her on numerous occasions, howled and the glass in the panels of the gantry trembled violently. She clapped her hands over her head, trying to force it out but the sound went straight through her.
“It’s…in pain.” Tears streamed down her face as she looked back at the machine assembly arms, her FOCUS showing her the deepening purple hue. “Nemesis…what is it doing?”
As she watched, the arms stabbed into the core again, purple light pulsing from them, streaking into the coils and the voice of HEPHAESTUS screamed again. And then Aloy’s blood chilled. On the depiction of earth made of light that surrounded the core, the red pins marking, what she guessed were cauldron locations, started turning purple.
“Nemesis…is absorbing HEPHAESTUS.” She gasped. “It’s killing it!”
“Aloy, what the hell are you doing?”
“Sylens,” she slapped her FOCUS, ducking her head, “I said no contact!”
“We were made aware of the subfunction’s status the moment you scanned it.”
“Shut up.” She held fast, sure Nemesis must have heard or seen her but the wailing screams of HEPHAESTUS overcame everything. They were alarmingly close to knocking Aloy out. “Nemesis is absorbing HEPHAESTUS.”
“That was our conclusion too. Now is the time to strike! Before HEPHAESTUS is absorbed completely by Nemesis and we lose any chance of regaining control of the cauldrons!”
Aloy activated what remained of her invisibility and, without hesitating, flung herself out of the gap in the gantry, slinging her rappel line to catch the grating and drop her safely to the cauldron floor. She looked at the core, the arms that were stabbing it and marvelled for a moment that she was unseen even as she stood on the barren floor without cover concealing her.
She jogged towards the centre, unhooking her spear and readying the module. She passed through the sphere of light, causing the projection of Australia to ripple, more and more red markers turning purple as if Nemesis’ purple blood was soaking into the earth.
The arms continued to stab and probe, the ground humming with power felt through Aloy’s bodysuit boots. She felt her teeth chatter and clamped her jaw shut, ready to end HEPHAESTUS existence. At this point, from what Nemesis was doing to it, its death would be a mercy.
She raised her arms, ready to jam the end of her spear into the core, eradicating the subfunction of HEPHAESTUS…and hesitated.
“Aloy…what are you doing?” Sylens demanded.
Aloy’s eyes darted from the core coils where HEPHAESTUS was being tortured, violently being stripped of its existence by Nemesis that was darting about, stabbing here and there…and she realised with a chilling revelation that Nemesis was…prolonging the torture.
“Aloy. You’re about to be visible to sensors!”
She was frozen, her heart twisting in her breast as HEPHAESTUS wailed, its wordlessly cries speaking to her soul.
“You’ll never have this opportunity again. Strike while it’s weakened, and you’ll erase HEPHAESTUS once and for all!” Her fingers tightened on the spear as tears of pain trickled down her face as the screams shredded her mind. “Ten seconds! Now, Aloy!”
“Argh!” Aloy activated the virus…and stabbed the Nemesis controlled arm that had dropped close enough to her for her to reach. She felt the thrum of connection and the pulse out of the spear, her FOCUS recording the uploading of the virus that streaked into the arm, searing Nemesis with white light. She heard a high pitched scream, different to HEPHAESTUS’ voice. It was so powerful Aloy couldn’t stop the automatic reaction of dropping the spear and clapping her hands over her ears.
It didn’t matter. The virus was gone from the module, sending a violent purge through the cauldron.
Her bodysuit gave a small spark and Aloy stepped back, aware she was visible. Before anything had time to react a pulse exploded out of the core and the two seams of colour, red and purple, drew back in the blink of an eye, the sphere of the earth disappearing and the cauldron was blanketed into darkness. Immediately there was a powerful rumble beneath her feet which she felt rather than heard, her ears ringing.
“You fool, Aloy!” The FOCUS spoke directly into her head, bypassing her eardrums. “You’ve condemned us all!”
Abruptly the room began to shake and a series of explosions knocked her from her feet. Aloy spied the core entrance crack open, machines screeching, fighting each other to try to get in first and kill her.
“Run, Aloy!” Beta’s voice cried.
She ran to where her rappel line was hanging just as the core door was torn open and three Snapmaws and a dozen Watchers and Burrowers sprinted towards her, claws sharpened and spewing ice in her direction.
But before she could reach the line, the entire core rocked as the earth quaked and the metal panels squealed as they tore apart. The floor broke into great chunks, tossing the machines one way and Aloy, the other. She clambered to her feet, still wiping tears from her eyes, her blurry vision making it impossible to see anything.
“A self destruct sequence has been activated. Aloy, you must escape!”
“I can’t see!”
“Right! There’s a small access panel!”
She turned and bolted yet the cauldron was not done yet and the floor ripped itself in two, sprays of magma spurting up in the gap, splashing the machines, several falling into the angry lava flow. The flat surface turned into a slippery slope and Aloy slid past the core coils as they splintered and shattered, tumbling head over heels as the floor sank into the lava.
She unhooked her pullcaster and fired it at the ceiling above the gantry, yanked into the air mere inches from being burned alive, dropping onto the twisted, unstable metal platform and sprinted along its length, making for the vent. The crack she’d squeezed through was now a giant gash in the cauldron. She risked her shieldwing, coasting to the ground, the cauldron shaking and quaking as though it was a plaything for a child and it was trying to break it open to get at what was inside. She ignored the machines that hollered for her death and tried to chase her through the disintegrating cauldron, making impossible leaps and finally catching a lift on one of the transportation carriers that followed a path dictated by a railing through the assembly levels of the cauldron. Her FOCUS spied an exit and she dropped from the carrier to the ground, diving into a broken pipe, slamming her diving mask into her mouth as she was sucked along its length, her body twisting this way and that until she was suddenly spewed out of its mouth like a bullet from a gun, tumbling head over heels.
Her descent was slowed when her body struck Webslinger webbing and she managed to grab hold of a strand. All the air evacuated her lungs and she stopped falling. She braced her feet on the strand below, wind whistling around her, trying to throw her off her precarious perch. The pipe had emptied into a chasm which was littered with webs. Aloy was not far from a waterfall that had been dammed, probably for the benefit of the hydroplant.
Her arms shook, her ribs were possibly cracked and she was nearly two hundred feet from the trickle the waterfall’s flow had been reduced to. Aloy’s hair was whipped wildly about as she started to inch across the webbing to the nearest chasm wall. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to climb it but a fall from this height would kill her.
The webbing jolted, nearly flinging her into the air. She clung tightly to the machine wire and looked behind her. A rather large Webslinger was clambering along the wire with its eight legs, its head filled with eyes that locked on her and its fangs clacked together, easily powerful enough to snip her body in two if she wasn’t fast enough.
She tried to move faster, to get to the other side of the chasm yet she knew she was dead. The Webslinger mightn’t catch her in time but it could easily climb the chasm wall faster than she could. A moment later her weak escape plan was thwarted as another Webslinger leapt along the webs, landing on hers, blocking her path.
Aloy looked back and forth, her options severely limited.
Then there was the round of the earth tearing itself apart once more and the thunderous proclamation as water reclaimed the path that had been denied to it. The hydroplant, which had regulated the flow, was no more and the river bashed itself against the dam as if it wasn’t made of stone and steel. It cracked its enormous façade, splintering it down to its base, great sprays gushing from its cracks a split second before the dam collapsed and a wall of water cascaded towards them.
“No, no, no…” Aloy’s eyes darted about then she heard a screech at the edge of her ability to hear and looked up. Sunwings were flying overhead. She fired her pullcaster. It missed but it got the Sunwing’s attention and it turned back, the others in its flock following suit. She gritted her teeth and fired again, striking the lead Sunwing. It immediately pulled up and she was yanked from the webbing, dragged through the air, clinging to the pullcaster whose anchor in the Sunwing’s wing was weak at best.
She heard the water roaring beneath her and looked down. The giant wave had reached where she’d been hanging, tearing the Webslingers from their metal webs. The rush of the water was so powerful it sent a spray up that struck her as the Sunwing pulled away. It flapped wildly, trying to throw her from its body. The other Sunwings snapped at her and beat at her body with their wings. She clung on as best she could until one Sunwing sliced at the wire, tearing it out of the wing of her ride and Aloy was thrown into the air, tumbling down faster and faster, out of their reach. All she could see was ground, sky, ground, sky…
She fumbled madly for her shieldwing, activating it but it had been damaged in the escape and it flickered and sparked, unable to stay on. She tried to aim for land but the shieldwing simply gave up and blinked out of life…
…and Aloy dropped like a stone into a chasm, her body striking water so hard she completely blacked out.