Living Antiquity

~28~

Some time later, Teersa is excitedly swiping through art, old crafting styles, chatting a little too easily with Enasha and Alva both, all while somehow having found a way to get Beta to sit on the floor in front of her and let her fiddle with her hair.
Teersa eventually found a way to secure the timid ginger's hair up in a series of hanging streamer-like braids, out of her face and in a style that Beta seemed to find remarkably comfortable.
Given that Teersa had to be a grandmother in order to be a High Matriarch, I guess that'd mean she had experience with hair...
Eventually, more discussions resumed in the interim, calls being made, people greeting people from the Quen for the first time, and even hearing news of a troop of Quen civilians that had asked to come learn more about us and our goals.
Aloy and the others went over the possible ways of getting HEPHAESTUS back to normal amd rejoined with GAIA.
Eventually, I piped up, "Hey- The cauldron where the Desert clan holds their contest for Commander, and ritual battles- What can you tell us about it?"
"Cauldron GEMINI... From what I can see of the data available, it was fractured in an earthquake during the original building process, and as a result, two cores were made." Gaia says, swiping through data.
"If HEPHAESTUS is too big to contain both of you in a single core together, what if we take you to the cauldron, load you on one core,trap it on the other, and initiate the merge?" I ask.
"It would allow us to keep HEPHAESTUS still, in a manner of speaking... But we would still need to find a way ti distract the Zeniths, as the risk of detection is too great," Gaia says worriedly.
I crack my knuckles, "I may or may not have an idea for that. I was thinking about my hovobike. And Nisha," I grin, "Recent reports from scouts indicate she is indeed among them. And as horribly short tempered as ever. If we can find a way to break their shields, I can distract them til the cows come home. Give me an estimate on the time it would take to merge you and HEPHAESTUS, as you are now."
"Due to my heuristic matrix being at 68.72% capacity, i predict the merge to be possible within about fifteen hours, fourteen minutes, and thirty six seconds..." Gaia said.
"And... What if there were a clone of Elisabet Sobeck helping to run the merge and purge malicious data and code?" Beta says, looking up from her place of honor at Teersa's feet.
"Calculating... The result puts the merge at six hours, forty two minutes, and twenty nine seconds," Gaia offers.
"And with two clones of Elisabet Sobeck?" Aloy asks, "Working in unison?"
"Calculating... Seventeen minutes, fifty nine seconds."
"Kay then, we're not getting much better than eighteen minutes..." I say, leaning against the railing at the others nod.
"But that still leaves us dealing with the risk factor of the other Zeniths..." Stanley says, pacing, his chin in his fingers as he glares at the floor with narrowed eyes, "They will notice the power fluctuation. I don't know how long it will take them to investigate."
I stretch, thinking, "I might be able to at least distract the Vissers. As for the others... Shit, I don't know."
"You have our spears at your back, place us wherever you need," Hekarro points out.
"What if we create power fluctuations in other cauldrons? Use it as a distraction to split them all up?" Aloy points out, pulling up the map of the cauldrons.
"No," I shake my head, "They're more advanced, they'll see that coming. They may have even already figured out what we'll do, and especially if they know we have Beta and Stanley..." I pace, frowning, "Didn't you say you left the Specter carcasses at the mountaintop, when you guys were attacked retrieving ELEUTHIA?" I look at Erend, Varl and Kotallo. They had mentioned something about Specter machines attacking them during the ascent... The Zeniths had likely sent a scouting party to check the facility for anything useful...
"Yeah? Why?" Erend asks, putting a hand on his knee as he leans forward in his seat.
"I might be able to gut them and play around with the parts," I motion with my hands, "Reverse engineer a weapon that can punch through their shields even if it ain't shut down."
"Ah... what?!" Erend bolts to his feet, "You really think you can-"
"Yes." I say, holding up my hand, "I've been making focuses with my bare hands and scrimpy tools. I made my own fully functional hovobike from scrap and built the engine and hovopads my damn self. I designed and built the armor I've got, built Aloy's new armor- I can damn well play with some nanites."
"If you need help, do not hesitate to ask." Stanley points out.
I nod, taking a breath, and head for my room as Drakka follows me.
"I'm coming with you," he says quickly.
"I know."
"You know-"
"Yes, Drakka. Oddly enough, you're easy ti read when you're worried. You don't want the Zeniths to come looking for their dead bots. Which, considering both their lack of empathy and their selfish natures, whether they will or not is up in the air. So get your pack and come with me. Two spears are better than one," I look at him as he stops in the doorway, grabbing some things ti add to my pack, before walking back to him and cupping his face, watching him reach up and grip my hands against his paint and skin, leaning into my palms.
"... If we make it through all of this..." he says quietly, gripping my hands, "Don't..." he stops, frowning, "I can't..."
"Then don't say. Do," I point out, watching his facial expression dissolve into something I didn't quite recognize.
He sighs and lets go of my hands, switching to my face and pulling me so our foreheads were together again, watching me, before finally kissing me, his hands keeping my head still as he backs me into my room, the door shutting so we had privacy.
Neither of us really let up, until we had almost suffocated at least...
Neither of us really said anything, grabbing gear and heading out the west door, able to hear the chattering upstairs and in the commons as we passes, Drakka gripping the hand that wasn't on my pack strap as we head outside and down the mountain, keeping a not normally possible.
He was afraid of possibly losimg me to either my tinkering, or to the Zeniths... and thats not even taking NEMESIS into account yet...
I never thought I'd be neck deep in a relationship in the far future with a tribal leader, nor chasing down advanced robot parts, let alone fighting off the very people that were thought to have fled the planet ages ago and died...
It all catches up sometimes, and I have to remind myself I crawled out of the tube months ago, and its real...
--
A day of walking, followed by four hours of riding when Racer and Piglet caught up to us from Thornmarsh, and we were at the cliffs leading up to the ectogenics facility.
I take a breath, climbing the cliff face, and look back at the landscape behind us as we climb back to even ground, frowning.
"Hard to imagine that those fuckers built this before they even realized they could be nasty level selfish and make themselves immortal," I said, looking back at the mountain, "And it looks like they punched a hole for themselves, only to realize Eleuthia was already gone."
"Yeah. Makes me wonder if they knew where any of the others were..." Drakka frowns.
"Oh probably. I'm willing to bet they want to wait until we make Gaia whole and then steal her and kill us. But that," I smirk, pulling out a tool and pointing to the pile of swirling snd chirping loose nanites by a Specter endoskeleton, "Is going to let me make leaps and bounds. I'll find a way to pierce their shields and pick them off," I kneel by the pile, but jolt up and take aim as footsteps come out drom behing a boulder, "By the cadence and weight, I say hello, Silens. Lemme guess- here for the same purpose as us?" I say in a chipper tone.
"As astute as Aloy, and by that voice... Ms Y/n, I believe the preferred surname is Tate," he says coldly, coming into view as Drakka also takes aim at him, "I see..."
"Lets get a couple thongs out of the way: One, we already know you stirred up the Oseram extremists and the Tenakth rebels. We'll work on un-stirring that mess when we get there. Two, I do personally understand why you stole HADES, and I support that you tortured his little ass into oblivion, however, lying to Aloy was not the intelligent way to go about it. Three, I called Aloy as soon as I got up here and saw blue. She's fuming at some of the shit I'm saying, but I don't really care- useful information was useful information. But the means you've been using aren't exactly your best work. Your current choices are leave, join us, or burn," I smile, watching him quirk an eyebrow, "We know some extra stuff that might interest you, and we have the APOLLO database. Join us and you get access." I helpfully point out, seeing him stop dead, and sigh.
"Oh? And how is that possible?"
"A Zenith defected with Beta, the other Liz clone. A sweet kid, but very skittish and unused to human interaction. Can't blame her, she was trapped in a holographic learning booth her whole fucking life," I point out, "Our goals are currently to re-acquire HEPHAESTUS, kill the Zeniths and prepare for further war with unwanted visitors from space."
"I assume you mean NEMESIS."
I nod, "Which you'd tortured HADES to the point if forgetting, by the way. Stanley told us about NEMESIS," I watch him carefully.
"Well... It seems the records your brother left are accurate in terms of your personality," He says, stepping forward, "I assume you're here to retrieve Specter parts for tinkering and experimentation."
"Yes. And if you found a data cache from Trav, I's like access to it ASAP... I want more data with his voice..." I say quietly, putting my bow away and scooping up a handful of nanites, sitting and fiddling eith pieces of endoskeleton.
"I can arrange that. As for dealing with the Tenakth and Sons of Prometheus-"
"Aloy's gonna deal with the Oseram extremists. I think we'll be able to deal with Regalla and her... trigger-happy morons soon after. Especially if we can nip Regalla's wings before they bud." I grin and find the command that coalesces the nanites onto the skeleton, "Ah we're getting somewhere... Show me your secrets, tin sand man..."
Drakka leans against a rock nearby, no doubt giving Silens a stare colder than anything I've seen on his face before... Not that the "Banuk" would care much. He wasn't easily fazed. We might need that.
"If I can... oh? Ahhh," I smirk, corrupting the Specter's command data with my own, repairing the mechanisms that draws the nanite shell together and tells it what shape to take, "Cute. So then its..."
"That was... unnaturally fast..." Silens raises a brow.
"Meh, they did some shoddy ass design work. If I tweak this programming, tighten the form and have it... yeah!"
A claw strikes out, smashing a boulder with enough force to turn it to sand and blow a small hole in the mountaim behind it, golden sand-like nanites returning ti the shell and squealing against each other from the cold.
"Its damaged but still functional, and I bet the nanites can hack their shields if I program them right. Your name's gonna be Ghost." I pat the new exoskeleton of nanites, the machine turning to look at me, twitching and jerking about, "A bit glitchy, but don't worry, I'll clear out the corrupt code and get you up to par soon enough."
It warbles and stumbles to its side almost drunkenly.
"Ah- stop trying to use navigation systems. Navigate by sight," I order.
It stops and does a full three sixty, before standing upright, stretching all of its robotic limbs and settling back down, shuddering like a dog shaking a bit of water from its fur as it looks at us.
I opened up the menu in my focus and raise a brow, checking the influx data feed from Ghost.

Audiovisual navigation activation successful_
Specter Drone ready for combat/assistance, awaiting order input_

That's promising...
I started typing, humming.

Ownership transfer/:True
Ownership/: Y/n Tate
Recipient Status/: Zero Dawn Zeta Prime Clearance recipient.

"Uh, what?" I tense.
"Hm?" Drakka looks over at me.
"What in the actual fuck is Zeta Prime Clearance?"
"Ah... I had been wondering that myself," Gaia pipes in, "I believe that is part of the gift Travis and Elisabet left you: clearance access to the Zero Dawn systems, in case you ever needed it for anything. Travis likely predicted your affinity for maintenance and repair due ti your prior history. As he and the others were Alphas, and Elisabet Alpha Prime, he likely poking fun at the fact you would be the only one with Zeta clearance and named it Prime."
"So then I had a backdoor we couldn't use this whome time cause the data that was supposed to tell me about it was corrupted?" I ask, frustrated.
"Correct... I believ if you use this clearance when overriding my machines, it will allow for further use of their range of skills," Gaia points out.
"Right, guess I'll keep that in mind... Watch me completely forget it exists," I say, returning ti reprogramming Ghost.

Mission parameters/: Guard and protect all allies of the terraforming system: True.
Command/: Override rogue Specter drones: true.
Distance Parameters/: Not set.
Target Parameters/: Far Zenith members.
Stanley Chen/: False.
Erik Visser/: True
Nisha Visser/: True
Tilda van der Meer/: True
Paraneters/: Zenith uniform/: True.

"Clever. You don't know who the others are, so you set it to hunt their uniforms down while infecting other Specters with its own programming..." Silens paces around it, "While recognizing Focus wearers and others as allies of your group?"
"Correct," I crack my knuckles, "Ghost, for now, infection only. I'll call when its time for seek and kill. Find ones that are alone or in groups of two. Once one's infected, the other follows quickly.

Orders Received.
Parameters/: Ones and Twos.
Affirmative.

---
A really busy day even though its my day off from work- I'm super tired and could barely type- this took my six hours on and off as opposed to the normal.
I did some editing the next morning and will be continuing soon!
Hope you guys enjoyed!