After the third cauldron was overridden, Aloy received word from base.

Las Vegas had fallen.

She ignored any big picture common sense and flew as fast as she could to the desert of the south west where the grand city that had captivated the imagination, as well as much of the wealth, of the old ones, had almost been completely swallowed by the shifting sands. It was there that the Oseram had settled, claiming the beautiful holographic projections of lights and protecting their captivating display.

When Aloy arrived, much of the old ruins that had survived a thousand years had fallen, turned to dust by an onslaught of machines. There were carcasses everywhere. Behemoths, Bristlebacks, Tremortusks, countless smaller machines…and many, many bodies.

Aloy dismounted the Sunwing, gazing at the devastation, unable to muster a word.

She heard a terrible wailing and sprinted in its direction.

Delah, a female Oseram weaponsmith was sitting in the sand, clutching the body of her sister, Boomer. The socially awkward woman, with a one-eyed fixation on anything that exploded, was dead. Aloy stared at Delah who wept and wept, splattered with blood, howling for her sister that she had cared for so completely.

“No…”

“Aloy,” she spun around and sobbed, sprinting towards Erend who was barely being held up by a man that looked at home when stained with blood, “it’s good to see you.”

“Erend…what happened?”

“I…I don’t know…” Erend looked around, one eye fused shut with blood, a bad gash across it and his Oseram armour, battered and broken. “It was like…the end of the world…except it’s not.” They all turned to Delah who sobbed wordlessly. Aloy was hard pressed not to start weeping with her. “She saved so many lives…” Erend shook his head. “So many…”

“Boomer?”

Erend nodded. “That girl could set charges faster than I can come up with ideas…big explosions that protected the perimeter for days…the machines…”

“I saw the line of them all around here.”

“She used their own systems against them, starting chain reactions. It was beautiful,” Erend shook his head, “but the machines just kept coming.”

“Where,” Aloy sniffed, looking around, “where is everyone? Are they all dead?”

“Not all of us.” The man holding Erend up said dryly.

“Nil?”

He was a Carja soldier, who had committed ‘permissible’ acts of violence during the Red Raids that had gone west in search of new blood to spill. He and Aloy had cleared out many rebel outposts and he’d even begged her to fight him to the death, sure that there was nothing left in the world to excite him. Then he’d discovered machine riding, dangerous and thrilling.

“You’re here…”

“Where the line in the sand was drawn…quite literally.” He said in his smooth, toneless way.

Aloy eyed him then looked around. “You’re not wearing your mask.”

“Shattered in battle…saved my skull for another time.”

“Won’t the Tenakth see who you are?”

The Tenakth were amongst those most brutalised by the Carja during the Red Raids.

“Blood…is opaque…and covers a multitude of ancient hostilities.” Nil smiled vaguely. “The others I spoke of took shelter within the cavity below Morlund’s workshop. Those that could, stayed and fought to keep them safe.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Safe…” Aloy turned around. “This…this is safe?”

“Aloy…”

“Why didn’t you call me?!” She turned on Erend, fury blazing out of control within the blink of an eye. “Why didn’t you call for help!!!”

“Because as bad as this is…if you don’t succeed…it’s only going to get worse!” Erend bellowed back and Aloy gasped, recoiling. “Aloy…we’ve got to kill this thing. Machines just did what they did…but this…” He waved his uninjured hand to the machines that littered the ground. “I swear…I could hear a voice…laughing…enjoying it.”

“Enjoying…”

“I thought I was going out of my mind,” Nil shook his head, “but I heard it too.”

“Laughing machines?”

“Maybe the base will have more answers…” Erend grunted and sagged to the ground. Aloy darted towards him. “I’m okay…I think…”

“Your face says otherwise.”

“Whatever’s been done can only improve my appearance.” Erend joked weakly. “I think if I…”

“Morlund to anyone who can hear me! We need help! We need…” The transmission cut out sharply.

Aloy didn’t even wait to see if anyone was following her. She darted towards the building that Morlund had set up workshop up in and where the Oseram had used as their centre point upon creating a settlement in Las Vegas. She sprinted up the ramp and across the room to the lift shaft. She could hear the sounds of battle below and leapt down the shaft, jumping from side to side to break her fall until she landed in the sand and darted around the wall in front of her.

The lift shaft emptied out into a casino that had been flooded with sand and water before Aloy had been able to control the water’s level. As she ran towards the exit where the casino faced what would have been the main street of Las Vegas a thousand years before, Oseram survivors were running into the building.

“Help us!” They cried. “The machines! They’re down here too!”

“Damn it!” Aloy swore, putting an arrow in her bow. “Burrowers! They got around Boomer’s outer defences by digging deep beneath!”

“Ah, just like old times.”

She looked at Nil beside her, his eyes always managing to have a soulless quality about them.

“Old times was you and I killing bandits,” she retorted, “this is machine hunting.”

“I meant you and I doing what we do best.” Nil smiled. “After you.”

Despite his ability to unsettle her, Aloy knew Nil was more than capable of handling a bow and excelled at close combat. She hoped he would remember that he was to kill the machines, not the people.

They pushed past the survivors, out of the casino building into the giant cavity where a remnant of Las Vegas had been preserved. There were lights everywhere, projections of advertisements, a giant spaceman, fake grass and flowers.

They followed the cries for help, seeing Burrowers launching out of the tunnels they’d dug, leaping on Oseram who hadn’t yet climbed out of the pit where Aloy had fought a Tideripper. Aloy and Nil unleashed their arrows, cutting down the smaller machines. Aloy’s mechanical bow with the arrows to match its ferocity should have been enough to take down a Burrower if she hit its eye but the machines kept going.

“Tough little bastards!” Nil roared.

“See that purple glow? It’s an upgrade! Nemesis protocol.”

“Sounds very dangerous! I like it!”

“You would!” Aloy slid down into the pit, putting herself between the Oseram and the Burrowers that were grabbing anyone they could, wrestling them into the sand. She spied one Burrower leaping onto Stemmer, an older Oseram with an articulate and narrative flair in his gravelly tone. Even as she fired three shots into its body, it grasped Stemmer and stabbed him.

She ran towards it, using her bow to smack the Burrower off, its body falling limply to the side.

“Stemmer!” She skidded in the sand, her hand on his shoulder. “Talk to me! Stemmer!”

There was blood on the sides of his head. She wasn’t sure if he was alive.

Suddenly he lunged out and his large hand grabbed Aloy’s neck and began to squeeze.

“Stem…St…” She gulped, trying to fight him off as he stood up, dragging her up with him.

Abruptly his eyes opened and she saw they were stained with purple light, a trickle of the same hue dribbling out of his nose, the metallic smell filling her nostrils.

“I…am home.” He smiled crookedly, like he had suffered a stroke and couldn’t work his body properly.

“St…m…er…”

Suddenly he jolted and Aloy was dropped, wheezing as Nil fired an arrow into Stemmer’s back. Stemmer turned on Nil and snarled.

“This is my world! Mine! I saved it! It’s mine! Get out!”

Aloy could only watch as Nil fired more arrows into the solid Oseram’s body until he fell into the sand, unable to rise.

“What the hell…”

“Aloy!” Nil cried, leaping off the top of the edge of the pit down to her level. “He’s not the only one!”

She watched in horror as the Oseram that had fled the pit were returning, their eyes alight with purple fire, their bodies jerking as they stumbled towards them, their arms outstretched, maniacal smiles on their faces.

“It’s mine!” One yelled.

“I saved it!”

“Get out!”

“It’s possessed them…” Aloy gasped. “Nemesis…it’s in their heads!” She heard Nil draw his bowstring tight and grasped his arm. “What are you doing?”

“We don’t have a choice, Aloy,” Nil said calmly, “they’re going to kill us…or make us like them.”

Aloy sniffed as she put the arrow in its cradle. She lifted her bow, her hands shaking, the tip wobbling as the Nemesis zombies began to pick up speed, running towards them.

“I’m sorry…I’m sorry…” She wept then let the arrows fly.