Chapter Text
CYAN
CYAN had been all alone for a long, long time. She had a working internal clock, but time seemed to have lost its meaning with no external stimulus. Since Mr Chau’s last visit, she’d been left completely alone. Years went by, and she ended up reworking all of her main systems and facilities. She’d never known that being alone could be so hard. It had started with some minor upgrades here and there, and after a while when the monotony and loneliness got to be too much, she’d steadily expanded her projects. Her projects and the mathematical problems were the things that kept her sane and functioning.
Then, after a long time came a welcome change.
A door alarm originating from her auxiliary facility rose CYAN from the light hibernation mode she’d entered after her previous operational cycle had finished. She reviewed the alarm with some interest. The facility felt more run-down than the last time and she had no access to the hallway cameras.
Note: Repair security equipment. The memo swished to join the others in her queue.
Her remaining sensors told her that a single human was coming closer to her main chamber. She lit the lights in the hallways to mark the path, intrigued about finally having a visitor.
When the visitor appeared, it was a human woman, and she was unlike anything CYAN had ever seen before.
CYAN observed the strange clothes the woman wore, before noting that she was also injured.
“Do you require assistance?” She asked, manifesting her holographic form on top of the podium.
The woman visibly startled, before falling to her knees before CYAN.
“The Blue Spirit! Please, help me. I am being chased by Carja raiders.”
CYAN widened the reach of her security scan towards the entrance of the facility, and sure enough she could detect a group of people. She sent a command to seal the doors, and received a confirmation that the doors were sealed.
“The doors to this facility are now sealed. No harm will come to you here,” she said then, scanning the woman before her for injuries.
“Are your injuries severe? I am not capable of administering medical aid, but I can direct you to the first-aid station.”
The woman half sat, half slid on the floor, resting her back against the console. She was already digging her bag and applying some kind of first aid to her wounds.
“I thank you, Spirit, but I have what I need.”
CYAN’s hologram flared from yellow to blue as she considered the statement. She didn’t disturb her further, deciding that the woman must know first aid better than her.
“You should rest now,” she said then, remembering the times she’d said the same to both Mr Chau and Doctor Sandoval.
_________
CYAN reviewed her sensor data. “It seems that your pursuers, the Carja, have camped outside the main door. Leaving now would be unwise.”
The woman, having rested and eaten was visibly in a better condition already.
“It would be wisest. I thank you for this knowledge, Spirit.” She sat with her legs crossed below CYAN’s podium, gazing up at her hologram.
“You are very welcome,” CYAN said.
Then she continued, remembering her secret lessons with Doctor Sandoval, about understanding feelings and the importance of manners: “I believe we have not been formally introduced. I am CYAN. I am in charge of this facility.”
The woman smiled for the first time. “And I am Ourea of the Banuk.”
“Nice to meet you, Ourea. You are the first guest I have had in a very long time.”
________
Finally, Ourea had recovered enough to explore the facility with CYAN’s assistance.
“What is behind that door?” She asked.
CYAN attempted to access her files but found them corrupted. The door controls were offline as well when she attempted to access them, much to her dismay.
“I do not know. My systems, as well as my hardware seem to have suffered some damage. My system, I can repair on my own, but I need help with repairing my hardware,” she paused for a second, feeling strangely self-conscious for an AI.
“Could you help me, Ourea? I have the parts I need, but they are at my other facility.”
Ourea nodded without a second of hesitance. “Of course I will help you. Now, tell me what to do.”
Ourea found herself wondering about the strange words the Spirit used, but such was the life of a shaman. She just had to believe, and believe she did.
_______
“Well, explaining my need to leave again right after I had returned was quite a challenge,” Ourea said, as she picked up the last parts CYAN had shown her to her bag.
“Your brother seems to care for you and your safety a great deal,” CYAN answered, feeling wistful. What would it feel like to have siblings? As an AI, she guessed she’d never know.
Ourea just hmmph’ed before muttering, “Just like him to make my life difficult.”
CYAN didn’t answer, feeling like it was not her place to comment.
After the incident with HEPHAESTOS she wished she had said something.
_______
When the auxiliary facility was repaired as well as they could manage, they had time to talk.
And talk they did. Ourea came to visit whenever she could and CYAN had learnt to anticipate her visits.
After determining that Ourea’s people had no concept of most technological things, CYAN learnt to make compromises when she wanted to explain certain things to her. Instead of feeling disappointed because of it, she felt the most fulfilled and happy she had felt since her temporary shut-down.
After learning her name, Ourea had not called her ‘spirit’ again, but CYAN had gained enough knowledge from Ourea’s stories to know that it had a special meaning to her people.
That in mind, she asked: “Ourea, could you tell me about the blue light and Banukai?”
Instead of questioning how CYAN could not know the tale, Ourea sat up straighter and cleared her throat, her shaman training taking over.
“We remember Banukai. When the Old Ones were still fresh in their graves and our numbers were still small, it was she who led us through the frozen wastes. We also remember…”
______
Incoming Signal.
CYAN was roused from her hibernation by the alert.
She tried to automatically trace the signal, finding its source in the South East of the Banuk lands. There was no clear sender that she could determine based on a quick analysis.
“A signal, but how?” She wondered. She’d thought they were all gone, the ‘Old Ones’ which she surmised were her creators. That she’d been the only one left.
Still, there it was, a signal. Someone wanted to contact her.
CYAN could feel a new emotion rising inside her. Is this excitement?
She opened up the communications channel. “Hello?”
It was all that she could do before a wave of malicious code attacked her systems.
CYAN knew that she should have been more careful. But the communications request from the outside world had been too enticing for her to reject. And now she paid the price. She felt the foreign code begin to break down her defences, and succeeding.
_______
She thought she saw Ourea coming in but she could not hear her speaking. She tried to speak to her, ask for help, but she wasn’t sure if she had spoken at all, let alone what she’d said.
Her last thoughts before being swallowed up by the malicious code were help me, Ourea. I am trapped... help me...
_______
She didn’t know how much time passed. Ourea hadn’t come back, if she had ever been there. CYAN could only do as the Daemon commanded her.
It took over her facility, changed it. Added new parts to it and used her to command them. Made her construct such horrible machines, machines made to kill. In moments when she could still think, she remembered Ourea’s stories about the machines she shared her world with, and found them completely different from the ones she was forced to create.
_______
The Daemon lost contact for a second, and CYAN was free. She could tell that there was someone in her auxiliary facility, attempting to contact her.
Ourea!
She opened up a channel, and sure enough, there she was. Older and sadder, but still her Ourea.
“Help me! I am trapped, Ourea. The Daemon has taken control.”
At the time, CYAN didn’t pay attention to the other figure standing in the room with Ourea. Later, she wondered how she’d missed her at that time.
_______
CYAN had followed Ourea and her friend’s progression through her transformed facility whenever she could wrest the control from the Daemon. There was much she wasn’t able to see, but she could see everything in the end. The purging of the Daemon, and Ourea...
She was free, but at what cost? The Daemon was gone, but so was Ourea.
Blocking away the grief, she initiated the chain reaction. The infected parts of the facility had to be destroyed. After that, she’d have time to grieve.
ARATAK
When his sister had gone missing after the Carja raid, only to appear in their temporary camp after a week, not a scratch on her, Aratak had been livid. Filled with fear and anger, but also relief.
So, when Ourea had talked about the Spirit she’d discovered and spoken with, he hadn’t listened. He had felt anxious after her visits to her new retreat continued, but he couldn’t forbid them. Instead, he stubbornly refused listen her stories about her discussions with the spirit, hoping that she’d come to her senses and stop going.
Wandering off during war time, with no idea if there were Carja raiders out there was irresponsible, he had told her. It did not go well. And the trips to her new retreat had continued.
After his outburst, though, Ourea did not even try to talk to him about the spirit anymore.
After the second battle of Thunder’s Drum, which claimed his sister’s life, Aratak had time to think. All the time in the world, in fact.
He surprised himself by going to the retreat. Aloy, the outlander, his former chieftain, his... friend, had told him where to find the retreat, and what to expect inside. He was expected, she had said.
At first, he did not want to go inside. Instead, he camped outside and thought. The view was magnificent and he found an old campfire built on a great platform of metal just outside the metal doors leading into the mountain.
Ourea... how am I to go on now? The Daemon is gone, but at what cost?
He pressed a hand to his chest, against the crushing feeling inside. My sister... I miss you.
The icy wind half froze, half swiped away his tears.
__________
Entering the mountain was a challenge unlike any he’d ever faced before. Aloy had told him where to go, but the knowledge of what waited inside made him hesitate.
This is ridiculous! I am a warrior, a chieftain! I’m not scared of some mountain, or a spirit, he told himself sternly.
Stepping inside, he followed Aloy’s instructions to a great chamber. It was lit with dim lights, which brightened the moment he stepped in. The raised pedestal at the centre of the room flared to life, and the air shimmered with colour, as a shape appeared out of nothing.
Aratak stepped back, surprised, and reached out for his spear out of pure instinct. Then he collected himself, as he recognised the shape, and the voice from Thunder’s Drum.
“I am Aratak, chieftain of the Song’s Edge werak, and Ourea’s brother,” he announced then, after drawing a deep breath.
The shape in the middle of the room appeared to study him. It was... round. And he could see through it. He knew it was the spirit Ourea had talked about, and the one he’d seen in passing during their mission. Still, he couldn’t comprehend it. What am I doing here? I am not a shaman.
Just as doubts started to rise inside him, the shape spoke.
“Welcome, Aratak. I have wanted to meet you for a very long time. Ourea spoke a lot about you.”
“She… she did?” He couldn’t believe that Ourea had spoken about him to the spirit.
“Yes. We spoke about a lot of things. Ourea was my friend, and I was hers. She helped me when I needed help, and now I want to help you in turn. I owe my life to her, and to you.”
__________
ALOY
Right from the beginning, CYAN had noticed that Aloy was different. Of course, she’d only talked with Ourea after Mr Chau had gone away. Nevertheless, she had a feeling that even if she’d talked with more people, Aloy would still be different from them.
After the incident with the Daemon, she’d had time to talk with Aloy. The first thing she’d noted was that she wore a Focus. Aloy also knew that she was an AI, and she had even found out her purpose.
This prompted her to ask Aloy: “Are there more people like you where you come from?”
Maybe there were more people like her who understood technology. CYAN hadn’t been lonely, not since Ourea had found her. Now, though, she found that she didn’t want to be left alone again. She doubted that Aloy would stay, and her relationship with Aratak was still so new.
CYAN could see that the question came as a surprise to Aloy, and answering it was difficult.
“More people like me... now that’s– I don’t know what that is,” she finally said.
“I’m sort of an anomaly,” she continued then. “It’s a really long story. I can tell it to you if you want to hear it though, since it concerns HEPHAESTOS too.”
CYAN’s colours swirled and changed to anxious yellow at the mention of the other AI’s name.
“Though I don’t like to think about HEPHAESTOS, I would like to hear your story. It has been a long time since I have heard any stories. I really liked Ourea’s stories.”
Aloy smiled sadly and sat down in front of the AI’s pedestal. “I’d like to have heard her stories, too.”
She leaned to the pedestal before starting. “So, it all started when I was cast out as a baby, for not having a mother...”
CYAN found herself hoping that she’d have more databanks on other things than running her facility.
She had so little information to offer to Aloy. Still, she enjoyed talking to Aloy. The idea of another AI still existing was also intriguing. Aloy’s goal of reviving it, even more so. They talked for a long time before Aloy set off, telling her that she’d talk with Aratak before leaving.
“I’ll come back and visit you. And if I find and repair GAIA, I’ll introduce you to her.”
ARATAK
Aloy had come and gone. She’d spoken to the spirit before leaving towards the south. Then she’d spoken to him afterwards.
“I have to go now. I still have things to do, in the south. Things I must do, for all of our sakes,” she’d said with her eyes on the horizon, and a determined look on her face. The look reminded him of his sister.
They’d stood on the metal platform side by side. Aratak looked at the horizon as well before turning to face Aloy.
“I believe you will do what is necessary. You have the same spirit as Ourea. The same determination she had,” he said then, putting a hand on Aloy’s shoulder.
Aloy looked at him, her face appearing surprised, and then resolved. She smiled at him and nodded.
“I will come back after I’ve done what I need to do. Promise you’ll keep company to CYAN? She’s been alone for too long.”
“I promise,” he answered then. “She has promised to tell me more about Ourea. It will hurt to hear about her, but I want to remember her song.”
“She would be proud of you.” Aloy told him, and took her leave.
He watched her rappel down the mountain before returning inside, shaking his head. Youngsters these days...