Six days earlier…

Aloy called a meeting of the core command group but left the door open for any of the new volunteers if they wanted to join. As well as nearly twenty humans and the shining form of Gaia, Aloy contacted Cyan, an AI that had been created to stop a volcanic eruption in Yellowstone National Park. Cyan’s matrix had formed the basis of Gaia’s own operating system, allowing Sobeck and her team of Alphas to create the saviour AI well before it should have been possible.

Cyan didn’t have an anthropomorphised form like Gaia. Instead she was a ball of blue that looked a little like she was made of metal with rivets and electrical linkages. Her colour changed according to her mood and her speech, while perfectly understandable, didn’t have the same fluidity as Gaia’s.

“…and we’re receiving reports of human settlement wipe outs across country.” Alva explained. “Thornmarsh was just the first. Tide’s Reach has been destroyed.”

“More Tiderippers and Snapmaws…” Kotallo murmured.

“And it isn’t just the settlements close to the water.” Eamon added. “I’ve been in contact with Talanah. She said the Hunter’s Lodge in Meridian has been inundated with requests from humans within the Sundom, Behemoths flattening settlements, killing hundreds.”

“Did Talanah give any details or was she told anything unusual about the machines?” Aloy asked urgently.

“She said something about their having an unusual colour. Purple light and a strange smell.”

Aloy turned to Cyan and sighed. “This is sounding horribly familiar.”

“Yes…it is.” Cyan responded.

“You’ve seen this kind of deformation before?” Zo asked, sitting on a chair as her back was playing up.

“In the Cut, amongst the Banuk.” Aloy looked at Naltuk. “The towers…the Daemon…”

“Ourea…” He breathed. “Machines, ferocious hunter killers were being released, more deadly than any other we’d ever seen before. And towers, almost like serpents stretching into the sky, sending out pulses that changed normal machines into stronger and more dangerous ones.”

“The Daemon,” Aloy nodded, folding her arms, “was an outworking of HEPHAESTUS. It got into the caldera where humans created an AI to stop a volcanic eruption that would have decimated much of the natural beauty of the old world.”

“How?” Erend asked, puzzled.

“By enslaving…me.” Cyan said quietly. “I received a signal…and believing it to be the first sign of life outside of my isolated existence…I answered. This proved to be…a catastrophic…mistake. A malware daemon infected my matrix…and forced me to comply…”

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“HEPHAESTUS could not manipulate the caldera as it did not exist within the cauldron network,” Gaia explained further, “however, once it had control of Cyan, it used the facility to manufacture a deadly line of machines, infected with the Daemon software.”

“Which glowed purple…” Naltuk shuddered. “It’s the same…”

“How?” Alva looked around at their faces. “Nemesis only just made it to earth. How could it be responsible for the malware?”

“Nemesis sent the signal that woke HADES,” Tomas explained bluntly, “but knowing its vindictive nature, I doubt it was willing to leave it at that.”

“You think Nemesis sent HEPHAESTUS the malware Daemon?” Beta frowned. “But the daemonic corruption didn’t appear until a year or so ago.”

“It could have sent it enroute to earth,” Tomas shrugged, “or it could have sent it initially but the original Gaia’s self destruction slowed down HEPHAESTUS’ ability to use it until it regained some form of substance.”

“Using all the cauldrons to make it too big to absorb into Gaia and so scattered we can’t hope to pin it down…” Aloy grunted.

“This is all very well,” Sylens spoke and immediately everyone tensed, “but let’s not lose sight of what needs to be done. Within twenty four hours of reaching the Odyssey, Nemesis has already linked with HEPHAESTUS and is using machines to wipe out humanity. We don’t have time to wax the lyrical about how it happened.”

“So what’s the plan?” Erend asked. “What do we need to do?”

Aloy looked at Gaia. “Unfortunately I think we’ve run out of time to capture HEPHAESTUS and merge it back with you.”

“I believe that window has closed.” Gaia nodded.

Aloy paced, feeling all eyes on her. “The time has come to destroy HEPHAESTUS.”

It was so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.

“Excuse me,” Silga raised her hand, her shy manner coupled with quiet stubbornness meant she was uncomfortable being the centre of attention…but she was willing to weather it to do what was necessary, “but isn’t HEPHAESTUS needed to keep the earth’s environment from spiralling out of control?”

“With her other subfunctions restored, Gaia’s projections went from a couple of months to six.” Aloy explained. “So, at best, we have…”

“Four months remaining.” Tomas announced.

“So the big question is,” Aloy turned and looked at Tomas and Beta, “will you two be able to build an AI, a HEPHAESTUS mark two?”

“We’ve already started.” Beta admitted. “We knew the odds were not in favour of merging HEPHAESTUS with Gaia…”

“But even with our head start, I doubt it’ll be ready in time,” Tomas eyed her with his pale blue eyes and Aloy only just resisted clocking him, “and even if it is, an infant AI won’t have the power to take on HEPHAESTUS.”

“We have to wipe it out.” Aloy nodded.

“There is the added advantage that, without HEPHAESTUS using its machines to destroy the earth’s environment, we might gain a few more weeks, even months.” Gaia pointed out.

“So sooner rather than later…”

“There’s something I don’t understand,” Teb asked, “HEPHAESTUS is the subfunction that was designed to make machines to look after the earth…why is it using them to kill humans and destroy the earth?”

“HEPHAESTUS was never meant to operate on its own,” Aloy explained, “it’s a small part, snapped off…doing what it thinks is right in its own eyes…for its own best interests.”

“Without Gaia to give it the ‘big picture’ as it were,” Alva added, “HEPHAESTUS reacts to what happens to it. Humans hunt machines for parts, it starts building Sawtooths. Humans turn into machine hunters and it builds Thunderjaws.”

“Then Aloy comes along and it makes Scorchers, Frostclaws and Fireclaws.” Erend raised his eyebrows and Aloy sighed.

“Something like that. So…we need to eliminate HEPHAESTUS…but how when its spread across the cauldron network?”