Chapter Text
FUNCTIONAL
NAME: DR. ELISABET SOBECK
POSITION: ALPHA PRIME
NATIONALITY: AMERICAN
STATUS: ALIVE
“Elisabet, how are you feeling?”
Elisabet yawns, covering her mouth as she sits up from the cryo-pod, groaning as the stiff muscles in her body protest. God, she felt like she slept for forever. Gently, she moves her head around, groaning as her neck pops. She blinks her eyes open, slowly adjusting to her vision coming back to her.
“Hey, GAIA.” She greets her, smiling softly as she rubs her eyes. “Felt like I slept for eternity.” She jokes, before with slow movements pushes herself off of the cryo pod. “I’m feeling like I got some well-deserved sleep.” She stands and holds onto the pod until the numbness inside her legs left. Once she feels like she can stand, she moves to lean against the wall behind her. Closing her eyes, she takes a moment to relax and to take in the quiet.
She begins to remember how they came to sleep in the cryo-pods. After her team and Elisabet finished completing GAIA and the Zero Dawn project, they had thought, "Why can’t they see the future?" They were equipped with cryo-pods, given to them from Far Zenith (a deal that Elisabet had to negotiate to have in their possessions: the cryo-pods and the ectogenetic chambers for Patrick) and they can sleep until GAIA gives them the heads up. They wanted to see if their plan worked or not. Wait it out. Wait until GAIA finds an acceptable time so that they could be awoken, then they can go outside and find food, clean breathable air, when the earth was filled with life again. Elisabet estimated at least a century or two that they’ve been asleep.
She opens her eyes, tilting her head up. “How are you, GAIA?” Elisabet takes the time to look at the room she is in and frowns slightly when she sees around four cryo-pods unlit candles and flowers scattered around them.
Elisabet leans away from the wall, straightening up, as her mind begins to work. Did one of her team woke up before her? How were they able to get flowers? Candles, she can understand, they were stored in one of the many storage rooms of GAIA Prime, in case somehow electricity went out somewhere in the facility and they needed candles, but flowers? Unless, they were able to 3D print flowers, but it’s been so long. It’s strange.
Pulling away from her thoughts, she hears GAIA’s response. "I am well, Elisabet." God, she missed GAIA. Even if GAIA’s tone is fond, Elisabet can hear a hint of anxiety in her voice. “But before you ask any queries, may I suggest awakening the other Alphas as well?”
“Yeah, course.” Elisabet pushes herself off the wall before moving to Samina’s cryo pod, thankfully one of the cryo pods that aren’t surrounded by candles or flowers. She wipes a hand across the dust and smiles.
FUNCTIONAL
NAME: DR. SAMINA EBADJI
POSITION: ALPHA | APOLLO
NATIONALITY: BRITISH
STATUS: ALIVE
Smiling, Elisabet activates the cryo-pod and steps back as the pod opens, chilling air greets her and Elisabet wraps her arms around herself. “Rise and shine, Sam.” She grins, and watches as the woman groans softly, opening her eyes slowly.
Samina looks around for a moment before finally looking at Elisabet, and then a small smile spreads on her face as she gently extends her hand to Elisabet. “Good morning, Elisabet.” Elisabet helps her sit up and waits until Samina can support herself. She doesn't actually know if it's morning or not, but it doesn't matter as long as they are alive.
“How’re you feeling, Sam?” Elisabet asks her and the woman stretches out her stiff limbs as she sits up, and Elisabet winces as she hears the bones crack and a soft moan from Samina.
“Like I’ve slept forever.” Samina chuckles and Elisabet smiles at her, helping her down from the cryo-pod and checking that Samina can stand without help, she moves toward Margo, dusting off the pod as well.
FUNCTIONAL
NAME: MARGO SHÊN
POSITION: ALPHA | HEPHAESTUS
NATIONALITY: AMERICAN
STATUS: ALIVE
Activating the pod, she steps back. “Up and at ‘em, Margo.” The young woman groans, eyes slowly opening before she mutters, “Five more minutes,” and then proceeds to turn around. Elisabet chuckles, shaking her head before going toward Charles, doing the same as before.
Finding a small crack at the top of the pod, she worries a little, a small coil of dread creeping up inside of her and settling. She dusts off the pod with a trembling hand but is only to be relieved at what she sees.
So far so good.
FUNCTIONAL
NAME: CHARLES RONSON
POSITION: ALPHA | ARTEMIS
NATIONALITY: SOUTH AFRICAN
STATUS: ALIVE
“Good morning, Charlie.” Elisabet smiles easily as she activates the pod. Charles awakens with a jolt and gasps as his eyes snap open, his face one with surprise as he looks at Elisabet as if he couldn’t believe that he’s actually alive.
“We’re alive?” He asks her, frowning lightly as he sits up quickly but then regrets it instantly, groaning as his bones pop. Elisabet squeezes his forearm as he looks toward her then around them, his eyes taking in the room that they are in and his colleagues waking up from cryo-stasis before finally looking at her. His eyes are sad. “We are still in this shithole, I’m afraid.”
Elisabet nods. “Unfortunately.” She leaves him to awake Travis.
FUNCTIONAL
NAME: TRAVIS TATE
POSITION: ALPHA | HADES
NATIONALITY: AMERICAN
STATUS: ALIVE
“Get your ass up, Tate.” Elisabet says, rolling her eyes, not wanting to wait to watch him wake up before reaching Captain Okilo. She’s glad that he’s awake, but sometimes the man gets under her skin.
FUNCTIONAL
NAME: CAPTAIN AYOMIDE OKILO
POSITION: ALPHA | MINERVA
NATIONALITY: NIGERIAN
STATUS: ALIVE
“Wake up, Cap.” Elisabet says, and the woman takes a minute before waking. Once she saw Elisabet’s smiling face, she raises her brows. “How could you be this happy, Sobeck?” Elisabet shrugs. She is happy. Not only is she not alone but her friends are alive. They’re here with her. She doesn’t need to spend the rest of her life alone in this bunker. She leaves before nearing Patrick.
She notices unlit candles surrounding Patrick’s cryo pod and stops where she stands as she frowns. Her mind whispers that the reason that anyone would put flowers or candles around something is that someone died. The dread in her stomach grows, tightening roughly and she feels the all too familiar beginning of a lump forming in her throat, hands slowly becoming clammy. The thought lingers in her mind as she steps up to Patrick’s pod, and a heavy sense of fear grabs at her stomach. Her heart races in her chest. She suddenly doesn’t feel too well.
She doesn’t wanna find out if her friend survived cryo-sleep or not.
But she has to, she needs to see what went wrong.
Elisabet braces herself for the worse.
With a deep breath, Elisabet dusts off the cryo.
MALFUNCTION
NAME: PATRICK BROCHARD-KLEIN
POSITION: ALPHA | ELEUTHIA
NATIONALITY: FRENCH
STATUS: DECEASED
“What?” Her voice sharpens, and her heart thuds inside her chest as she presses her hands against the pod, only to see a skeleton figure inside the pod.
He’s gone.
A feeling of ice-cold shivers attacks her body. The lump in her throat grows and she struggles to swallow it down. Patrick had promised her he’ll return her book back to her. She remembers his soft smile when they shared a piece of cake they made together and some wine they had stored. She stumbles back, tripping over a candle before quickly going to Naoto. Fear begins to wrap itself around her and she hopes that no one else is gone. Fuck, she prays that no one else is dead.
MALFUNCTION
NAME: NAOTO BAJWA
POSITION: ALPHA | DEMETER
NATIONALITY: INDIAN
STATUS: DECEASED
A gasp escapes her and she could feel a pressure building up behind her eyes, tears beginning to form, and the knot inside her stomach tightens. No. This can’t be happening. Naoto had gifted Elisabet poems he had created. She remembers his nervousness around Captain Okilo because he had a crush on her and was too scared to tell her. Elisabet encouraged him to tell the veteran how he felt through his poems but it seemed like every time a poem reached Captain Okilo, she would discard it and go back to work. Naoto was her friend, but he had made an effort in telling Captain Okilo how he felt.
Shaking her head of memories long ago, Elisabet stumbles back and she reaches Antonio.
MALFUNCTION
NAME: ANTONIO GARCIA
POSITION: ALPHA | POSEIDON
NATIONALITY: MEXICAN
STATUS: DECEASED
Not Antonio too.
He was a quiet man. When his work with POSEIDON was done, Elisabet would often find him in the lounge room playing video games. Sometimes she’ll join him when the stress was too high and the fear kept her awake at night. They’ll play together, quietly, only speaking when a certain quest came up. It was nice. Video games easily made Elisabet forget her worries for a few moments, only focusing on looting gold, rescuing the girl, winning the war. Any deaths within the games were soon respawned. You’ll never die. Margo and Travis would join them as well. And for those late nights, they were knights in shining armor.
She’ll never get to play video games with him again.
A watery smile plays on her lips when she remembers the nickname they gave Antonio. Waterboy. Antonio had lived in the beaches of Mexico, and was always proud of showing his surfing trophies and his collections of seashells he had grabbed over the years.
With her heart thudding like a drum in her ears and a sense of emotions building inside of her, she hurries to the last pod, hoping that Dimitri was still alive. For fuck’s sake, they haven’t even finished playing their game of chess.
Dimitri owed her a chocolate bar.
MALFUNCTION
NAME: DIMITRI VOLKOV
POSITION: ALPHA | AETHER
NATIONALITY: RUSSIAN
STATUS: DECEASED
Dimitri was the oldest person in her dream team.
He was a man who had a wife and two daughters. He only knew little English and told Elisabet to teach him English so that he can speak to the other Alphas. He was such a caring man, he was like a father to them. Their games of chess were quiet. The board game stretched out in front of them, their pieces being moved to the blocks. If they won or lost, it didn’t matter. No one died in chess. You can come back and rethink your strategy in chess. At the end of each win or loss, they’ll exchange the prize. A book here. A movie there. Some ice cream. Elisabet almost won their last game of chess with the reward of a promised chocolate bar from Dimitri.
“No.” She whispers, her chest tightening, squeezing the air out of her lungs and horror wraps itself around her stomach. “GAIA, what is this?” Did she even sound like herself? God, her friends are dead. Gone.
They won’t come back.
They’ll never come back.
“I regret to inform you that the cryo-pods of Patrick, Antonio, Naoto, and Dr. Volkov have malfunctioned. They passed away in their sleep.” GAIA pauses and Elisabet could hear the sadness and guilt behind her voice. “I am sorry, Elisabet. I couldn’t have saved them.” The regret in her voice is upsetting.
Elisabet turns around slowly, looking at what’s left of her team. They are standing and stretching and smiling as they quietly ask each other how they are doing, oblivious to what Elisabet has found out. Half of her team, gone. Dead. She swallows thickly, before pushing her hair out of her face and looking at them.
“Guys,” her voice cracks only for a brief moment, and they look at her, stunned to hear a different tone of her voice. Samina walks over, seeing the look on her face and her friend is concerned as she places a hand on Elisabet’s arm. “They’re dead.” Her tongue feels heavy in her mouth.
“Bullshit.” Travis scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest as he shakes his head. “You’re fucking with us, Lizzy.”
“Impossible.” Charles stated as Margo gasps, and Elisabet watches as they do the same as Elisabet, checking their pods. Once they see the skeletons inside the cryo-pods, their faces drop and all smiles are gone. Elisabet leans against the wall, knocking over an unlit candle, and she feels her heart squeeze inside her chest. Elisabet doesn’t have to look at them to know what they were feeling.
“My apologies, everyone. They have passed away in their sleep. I was not able to save them in time.” GAIA informs them, her tone regrettable and sad. “My deepest condolences to all of you.”
“No,” Margo whispers, and covers her mouth with her hands, tears running down her cheeks.
“How long have we been asleep for, GAIA?” Captain Ayomide asks, and Elisabet looks up from her position. The Captain is standing beside Margo, a comforting hand on her shoulder, and she sees the carefully neutral look on her face.
“You have all been asleep for 975 years,” GAIA responds.
Almost a millennia.
Elisabet buries her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking. She couldn’t believe it but she did. Her friends are dead but she’s ashamed to admit that she feels a small sense of relief. Glad that it wasn’t her. She’s still alive. It wasn’t her. She didn’t die and she’s here. Jesus Christ, she feels like a dick. But who wouldn’t want to be alive? Oh, if only she could switch with them, give them the chance to live again, she’s done everything. She has no regrets. They should be here. With them. They all should be here.
At least, they didn’t suffer any pain once they passed. A painless death. It is a small mercy.
“Jesus Christ,” Elisabet mutters, shaking her head. These people are her colleagues, her friends, her team. Her family.
She closes her eyes shut but isn’t able to stop the tears from coming. Samina is with her, embracing her, and she could feel Samina’s grief as well as she quietly cries beside Elisabet.
After they mourned and grieve for the losses of their friends and once Elisabet feels as if she cried enough, she stands, a little unsteady. Even though she’s incredibly sad about their deaths, she’s grateful that she has gotten the pleasure to know these people, and the honor to be their friend and colleague. But she supports herself and helps Samina to stand as well. She needs to be strong for her team. They have to be strong for each other. “Let me guess, was Zero Dawn a success?” She questions, clearing her throat as she shuffles near to the door of their bunker.
“Why don’t you all see for yourselves?” GAIA tells them and Elisabet looks back to her team, who are making themselves stand, tears gone. “But before you leave, there is someone who is eager to meet you.”
Elisabet frowns. Who could possibly want to meet them? Opening the door while stating her rank, it opens and she’s immediately blinded with light. Scowling, she hid her eyes behind her hands and waits until her vision adjusts to the light of sunshine. It’s been so long since she has gone outside. Hell, it’s almost been a millennium. She could only remember the steel interior walls of the facility.
Lowering her hands, Elisabet blinks her eyes rapidly before looking forward.
The first thing she sees is… herself?
A teenage version of herself?
What the fuck?
Thoughts muffle and clash together as she looks at a version of herself, a younger her, and a series of emotions pass through her. Confusion. Shock. Realization. Deniability. Understanding.
And then it clicks. The person who is standing before her is a lookalike, a doppelganger even, but much younger.
She is Elisabet’s clone.
She’s the Lightkeeper protocol. Living and breathing, made of flesh and bone. Standing before her.
GAIA activated the Lightkeeper protocol. But she had scraped it.
Elisabet had eliminated the project, not wanting a second generation to become child soldiers. Their clones would only be brought up to continue to work with GAIA, making sure that everything went according to plan. Elisabet didn’t want that. They would have no real childhood to speak of.
So why did GAIA activated it?
The person smiles widely, before doing a small wave. “I’m Aloy.” She introduces herself. “You are the Alphas of Zero Dawn. I know a lot about you all.” The girl shuffles from one foot to the other, unable to keep herself still.
Elisabet clenches her jaw.
“A mini Lis?” Travis asks, before laughing as he pushes a hand against Elisabet’s shoulder. “You got yourself a clone.” He’s grinning, amusement palpable on his face.
“Do not call her a clone.” Samina’s voice is sharp behind Elisabet, who could only stare at Aloy. Holy shit, she looks so much like her. “It’s dehumanizing.”
“Not only dehumanizing but cruel and rude. She’s a person, like us.” Margo adds, before stepping up closer and offering Aloy her hand. Aloy looks uncomfortable but glances down at Margo’s outstretched hand before slowly placing her hand in hers. They awkwardly held it there for a moment before Margo laughs, telling her that they should shake hands and then let go. “I’m Margo Shên, Alpha of HEPHAESTUS.”
Aloy apologizes. “I’m not all that too familiar with your culture.” She says, and then glances over at Elisabet. Elisabet is feeling weird. Her existence alone leaves Elisabet feeling as if she’s done something wrong. Something must’ve happened for GAIA to activate the Lightkeeper protocol, and it must’ve been an emergency if not otherwise. Why is she here?
Something went wrong.
Something went extremely wrong that it made GAIA go against Elisabet’s wishes to activate the Lightkeeper Protocol.
Anger grows at the pit of her stomach, and her hands clench behind her body, her mind thinking of all the ways that everything and anything went wrong. She stows the anger away, at a later time, when she’s alone she will let it out. Not in the accompany of her team, and certainly not in front of Aloy.
“Are there any others, GAIA? Of us?” Charles asks, looking upon Aloy, observing her. His lips are pulled down in a small frown.
“No, only her.” GAIA responds to him. “She is the only clone.” At that word, Elisabet can see Aloy visibly flinch before shrugging it off, smiling wider at the Alphas. She doesn’t move closer to them still, keeping her distance.
Charles hums before nodding at Aloy. “Charles Ronson, Alpha of ARTEMIS.” He introduces himself.
“You may address me as Captain Okilo, Alpha of MINERVA.” Captain Okilo says, giving a small bow to Aloy who does the same in return.
“Travis Tate, Alpha of HADES, darling. Do you mind if I call you mini Lis?” Travis grins, and then he slings an arm around Aloy’s shoulders who gives him a glare. He backs off, chuckling as he raises two hands. “I’m joking. Just kidding.”
“Samina Ebadji, Alpha of APOLLO. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Aloy.” Samina introduces herself, bowing her head in greeting toward Aloy. She smiles at her.
Aloy looks toward Elisabet. When nothing is said, she feels an elbow nudging into her ribs and she shoots a glare at Travis. Clearing her throat, she found her mouth has gone dry. “I’m Elisabet Sobeck, but I’m sure you knew that.”
Aloy smiles at her, but it’s small. “I do.” And then she looks at everyone before motioning to behind her. “You should all say your final goodbyes. It’s not safe to stay up here for long and night will come soon.”
And that’s when Elisabet tears her eyes away from Aloy to look around them. It’s… GAIA Prime, but in ruins. She turns around in circles, and realize that almost everything is destroyed. It had seemed like a bomb was dropped here and left everything in destruction. But why is it destroyed? How was it destroyed? What did GAIA do?
But in the distance, Elisabet can see mountains and a setting sun. It’s cold, and there’s actual snow falling on them. Remembering the cold winters when she visited the north, she tilts her head back and lets a snowflake drop onto her tongue. It melts quickly in her mouth and it reminds her of her childhood. Snowball fights, making snowmen, forming snow angels in the snow, or her mother pushing her down a hill on a slide, laughing behind her.
She shivers, pushing those thoughts away and wraps her hands around herself, and looks back at Aloy. The girl reaches down and grabs a bundle at her feet before offering them. “These are clothes, you should all change into it. I hope they fit.”
Elisabet accepts the bundle of clothes and nods. “Come on,” she says, before looking at her team. “Let’s go say our goodbyes.”
Elisabet enters back into the bunker.