Hello all!

One year after The End of the World was posted, I present the final chapter of Out of Cryo - Season 2, and probably (most likely) what is the end of what's been a REALLY fun series to write.

I apologize for this taking so long but I think it ended up being fitting that I end it exactly a year from when I started it.

Thank you everyone who has read, commented, favorited, and followed this series. It's been a joy writing it and I'm grateful for the lessons I've learned while doing so.

- Kite

"Just a second, guys." I brought up the interface with the console once more.

Aloy let her bow hang at her side. "What are you doing?" Her voice was laced with impatience. "Don't we have to get to the control center?"

I gave her a pointed look. I loved her to death but she could be more impatient than me sometimes. "Sure, but we should probably know where it is before we rush out there. I'm grabbing the schematics of this place. Which…" I gave a quick scan of the blueprints, "Huh, that's weird."

"What? What's weird?" Erend said, his grip on his hammer tensing.

I squinted, not sure what it was exactly that I was seeing. "There's something…I see where the control center is but there's something below it, too." I shook my head. No way to tell for sure unless we see for ourselves. "It's like a…a basement or something. But the blueprints seem incomplete."

"Can we figure it out when we get there?" Aloy asked. I winced, though I knew she didn't mean to sound as severe as she did. We were so close to finishing off these bastards, and possibly about to go into a fight. Of course she's stressed. "Who knows how many guards they have on their way right now, Becks."

I shut off the Focus. As curious as I was, I knew Aloy was right. "Yeah. Follow me."

"How big is this place?" Talanah asked, keeping her voice down as we shuffled down the long, well-lit corridor that so far had been devoid of guards.

"It's big, but nowhere near the size of GAIA Prime," I said, recalling the blueprints from memory. "They don't have a lot of people, either."

"How do you know?" Aloy said. I noticed she kept walking in front of me even though I was technically the one giving directions. It took me a moment to realize she was doing it on purpose to protect me. I wanted to talk to her – see how she was doing after the simulation. She'd been face to face with Elisabet, and even though I knew Aloy was aware that the version of Elisabet she'd met had not been real, I was all too familiar with the emptiness – the heartache that came along with leaving the simulation and all the people I loved in it.

But we had a job to do – hopefully the last one we would have to do for the foreseeable future. While there was still the matter of the apparent "thousands" that were in cryo somewhere, I wanted nothing more than to be done with Far Zenith, "Old Ones", and really, anything that had to do with my old life. Not because I hated my old life or anything, but because I had been trying so hard over the last year to move on without my family. Far Zenith fucking around with simulations, cryogenics, and the stability of the new world was not what Elisabet or the Alphas had imagined when they created GAIA – even I knew that despite not really knowing what Zero Dawn was before going into cryo. The time I'd spent with my family – even if they were fake – had been amazing, but being with Aloy – waking up next to her every morning, walking through the forests near her cabin – our cabin – and hunting together, even those cold winter evenings where we sat outside, shoulders touching, staring up at stars that I'd been deprived of seeing for so long without a word being uttered between us – those were the moments that made my life worth living now.

"When I was at GAIA Prime – after I woke up," I explained. "Sylens mentioned that most of the people here were scientists not soldiers. It's not a military operation."

"The weapons I saw them using before is enough proof for me that they're dangerous -soldiers or not," Aloy said.

"Hey. Up ahead." I saw Erend grip his weapon and nod ahead. Sure enough, muffled voices approached, followed by overlapping shadows.

I watched Aloy's expression go from worried to focused. She nocked an arrow in her bow. Talanah stepped in front of me and followed suit.

"I don't know if I'll have a good shot from here," Talanah said, her voice still low.

"I will," was Aloy's short reply.

Talanah raised an eyebrow as she cast Aloy an amused glance. "Still not lacking in confidence, hmm?" She looked at me. "Surprised she hasn't gone out and gotten herself killed yet. No doubt you have something to do with that."

I was about to reply with some snarky comment about Aloy not listening to me anyway when the owners of the voices ahead stepped into view and we found ourselves facing two guards, each holding a rifle. I recognized them from GAIA Prime – they had been guarding Branwell when we'd met him.

"Go!" Aloy ordered before she and Talanah both let loose their arrows before the guards had a chance to fire their weapons. I had to look away as the arrows broke through their throats, taking them both down immediately with a sickening thud.

"Not fair," Erend said, pushing one of the guards' bodies with his boot and rolling them over.

"Maybe you should try a faster weapon?" Talanah suggested, the teasing in her voice unmistakable.

But Erend just smirked and slung his hammer over his shoulder before picking up the fallen guard's gun. "Actually, I think this'll do just fine."

I cringed. Two more…gone. These people were bad guys – of course I knew that. But they hadn't killed anyone yet. The guards were just doing their jobs. Would they have even tried to kill us?

I knew I shouldn't feel bad, but I'd had enough death back when we fought Ted and Jenna at the Bitter Climb. Aloy must have noticed, because she turned to me and took my wrist in a gentle grasp.

"Are you all right?"

I sighed. I felt lame telling her the truth. These people had every intention of ending the world. But the casualness around killing that Talanah and Erend exhibited still bothered me. "I'm fine, Aloy. Just…these people are the last ones left like…like me. I want to stop them as bad as you do but…do we have to kill them?"

She gave my wrist a brief squeeze before releasing it. "I know, Becks, but you have to understand – I'll do whatever it takes to stop these people and get us out of here. After what happened I-I can't take any more chances. Especially not with you."

I nodded. She's right. I knew it. She knew it. It didn't make our already shitty situation any better. At least she's being honest with me.

I brought up the blueprints again – found the path. The blurry area that looked like a basement called my attention to it again. It was almost as though I was being pushed to look at it. Can't worry about it, now. "Come on. This way."

Thunder rumbled, reverberating throughout the compound and rattling the metal sheets that made up part of the building. I looked up, as if by instinct, and the others did the same.

"Well, at least it won't be too hot when we get out of here," Erend said.

"If we get out of here," I muttered. When Aloy side-eyed me (out of concern, no doubt), I forced a smile. "I'm fine. Just a dumb joke, promise."

We pressed on, following the route the blueprints had shown me until we reached a sealed door. The front panel emitted a dim red glow.

"Locked," Aloy sighed, but then perked up almost immediately. "Wait-,"

"Got it," I moved in front of her, hoping we shared the same line of thought. I fished the Master Override out of my pouch and lined it up with the panel on the door. The mechanism hummed for a few seconds before the light turned green and the doors slid open.

"Nice," Erend grinned as I retrieved the Master Override. "That little thing's been pretty handy."

"That's my hope," I said as we passed through the doorway, which led us into a massive, octagonal room walled with various panels and blue holographic displays. In the center was a platform that stretched out across most of the floor. There were some rails around it and on the sides were beams that the corners of the platform snapped into. A console stood nearby. We'd entered through one way but there were exits on the left and right sides of the room as well.

This was the most control center-ish room I'd seen so far and the blueprints seemed to agree.

I spoke first. "I think this might be it." We stood in silence.

"We'll take watch at the doors," Talanah finally said before she and Erend broke away from us. They each took a post at the exits on both sides of the room.

"There." Aloy pointed at the console. "Is that what we're looking for?"

"I don't know," I said as we stepped onto the platform, which wobbled slightly under our feet. I stopped. "Elevator?" When Aloy gave me a puzzled stare, I nodded toward the console. "Try to activate it."

I watched as she brought up the interface and pressed one of the buttons. There was a click and the platform jerked suddenly before starting to descend.

"Whoa!" I grabbed one of the rails as we passed through the floor and down into what appeared to be the basement of the facility.

"Stay there, you two," Aloy called up to Erend and Talanah. The platform continued to lower us until we were about 20 feet under the control center room, where it stopped and let out a long hiss, followed by puffs of white smoke on all sides. A gentle breeze blew, ruffling my hair a little. It wasn't super cold, but a shiver ran down my spine anyway.

The room was dark, with barely enough light to see directly in front of us. I couldn't really see much beyond where we stood - the platform took up most of the floor, save a small extension on the edge where an instantly recognizable shape was sprawled out.

"Over there!" Aloy rushed ahead, the urgency in her tone obvious. I jogged up behind her and gasped.

A skeleton – sprawled out on the floor with mid-21st century clothing hanging off of it. I let my Focus scan it to see if perhaps it could identify anything but it came back with "Human, Unknown – Deceased".

"Wh-who was this?" I breathed. "Why would they just leave them down here?"

Aloy knelt down next to the skeleton and inspected it for a moment. Her eyes lit up and she reached into its tattered pants pocket and procured a slim, metal card. "What's this?"

"Security pass maybe?" I looked around, making sure that we didn't miss Talanah or Erend calling down to us or worse, someone from Far Zenith sneaking up on us.

I watched as she scanned the card with her Focus. "This is interesting."

"What?"

"I don't recognize the name, but their title says 'Far Zenith Projects, Lead'." She looked back to me. "I thought Elis-the clone and Branwell were in charge."

I nodded. "So did I. Apparently, there was someone else involved."

She pocketed the card. "But why leave them for dead here?"

"Or kill them?" I suggested.

Aloy stood up and rolled her shoulders back. "I don't think there's anything for us here. Let's go back up and figure out how we can shut this place down."

Figuring out the controls to go back up was easier, and moments later the two of us were back on the platform heading up to the control center. Erend and Talanah left their posts to greet us.

"Anything?"

"A dead person. Not sure who it is, though," I said before glancing around the room. "There has to be some interface that the Master Override can connect to."

Erend seemed hesitant. "Uh… you probably know what that would look like better than us," he said, making Aloy smirk.

"Speak for yourself," she replied.

I looked at them. "Is everything a competition for you people?"

"Yes," all three of them answered immediately.

Laughing, I held up the override to show them. "We need to find the console that controls the operations of this place. I'll use this to get into their system and-,"

I would never finish. Explosions fired off into the room, the feedback from the gunshots echoing countless times as we ducked out of instinct. I couldn't help but allow the fleeting thought that I was getting too accustomed to being thrown into deadly situations.

"Down!" Aloy yelled, grabbing me by my shirt and yanking me to the floor behind one of the metal consoles.

"They're in here!" I heard a man shout, no doubt one of the guards who fired their weapons at us. I heard scuffling nearby and saw Talanah, bow in hand, start to climb to her feet to counterattack. But Aloy got her attention before she could.

"Don't!" she hissed. "Stay down. They'll kill you before you can get there."

Talanah seemed to disagree but she relented and stayed where she was.

I was about to look to Aloy to see what we should do next when that familiar voice rang out. The anger that bubbled up in me was immediate as soon as I recognized who it was, which I had become very good at lately.

"Hold fire! I said hold your damn fire!" Sobeck's clone ran into the room. From my limited view, I could see she had her hair pulled back and actually carried a spear on her back, though it looked much more advanced than what myself or Aloy carried. The metal looked less like it was built from machine parts and more like it had been custom designed just for her.

The guards let off their triggers and stepped back, letting Sobeck pass by. "I swear if you broke anything here with your goddamn bullets I'll have your heads." She paused. When she spoke again, her voice was much calmer. "Becks, I know you're here. Come out, surrender, whatever you have to do – and we can make this right. Just like we talked about."

I glanced over at Aloy, who raised an eyebrow – obviously unconvinced – and tried to assess our situation. Our shitty situation. We're surrounded by guys with guns and a crazy clone. There's no way out of here except-

Up.

I had an idea. It was crazy and possibly suicidal. But if I'd learned anything, it was that I had come a long way from being the scared, helpless teenager I was when Aloy found me in the cryo tank.

Of course, Aloy would never allow it. But I didn't need her permission.

I leaned into her, pressing up against her to the point where she gave me a puzzled look. "Be careful," I murmured before kissing her on the cheek.

Aloy's eyes widened. "What are you-," she started, but I stood up before she could finish.

"Hey!" I yelled out at Sobeck as I stepped out of our hiding place, my spear in my hand. "I've got something you want."

I wanted to laugh when I saw Sobeck's brow furrow, as it was literally the same face Aloy would make at me whenever I said something weird (which was admittedly often). It would have been funny if we weren't all possibly seconds away from dying.

She glared at me. "How did you get in here?"

I patted my belt pouch. "Like you haven't figured it out yet. Same way HADES got taken down. All I have to do is hook up this thing into one of your consoles and I can pull the plug on this whole shit show."

Sobeck scoffed. "You wouldn't."

I kept a straight face and stepped onto the center platform. "Try me," I said, taking one step closer to the elevator console.

"Becks, I will only ask once," she warned. "Give me the override."

"We can take her down clean, ma'am," one of the guards said.

I glanced at the console. The holographic interface popped up – both up and down arrows blinking at me.

"No!" Sobeck snapped. "If anything gets damaged it could jeopardize the entire operation. Becks, give. Me. The override."

I grinned. Here we fucking go. "Sure. You have to come get it, though!" I slammed my fist on the up arrow and the platform did its usual shifting before starting to rise.

Sobeck looked up at me in bewilderment before snapping out of her trance and ran toward me. She easily leapt onto the platform and pulled herself up on it.

Shit. Shit. Shit. What was I thinking? I could barely hold my own against Aloy in training. Judging by her muscular form and the confidence with which she grabbed the spear from its resting place on her back and held it up, it was clear this Sobeck was trained in combat, even spear combat.

"You're making a mistake, Becks," she said as we continued to rise toward the roof, which was automatically opening as a blast door pulled apart up top. The sky was dark and cloudy. I could feel a cold wind from where we stood, as well as the spray of water droplets on my forehead. "I don't want to kill you. You don't belong with these people."

That struck a nerve. I dropped the coolness I had been struggling to keep up in front of my fear. "These people saved me and gave me a home here. You talk about remaking the world, but you're no better than the people that destroyed the world in the first place!"

"Enough! I don't need to be lectured by some kid."

"Perfect. I was tired of trying to reason with a shitty poser clone, anyway."

I should have been faster, honestly. I stood there long enough to see Sobeck's right eye twitch and the next thing I knew, her fist had smashed into the left side of my face, sending me to the metal floor where I rolled, grunting in pain.

By the time I pushed myself up, we had reached the rooftop, which was lit up by blinding floodlights with streaks of rain falling in front of them. My hair and clothes were quickly soaked.

I stood up and held my spear out – trying to remember the positioning Aloy had taught me. Thunder sounded, shaking the metal grate beneath us.

"Last chance, Becks!" she shouted.

I took a moment to feel for my belt pouch before focusing on my stance again. "Let's see if you actually know how to use that spear."

She laughed. "Probably better than you. You think I don't know about your little trick? We've had machines monitoring you for quite some time and-,"

Holy fuck – they really do monologue. I charged, throwing all my strength into my attack. She blocked me with her spear but only just – she skidded back a few inches as she took the full force of the power GAIA's modifications gave me.

"Not bad," she said and pushed back against me. I stepped back and swung at her again, trying to ignore the pouring rain and surrounding distractions as we began dueling. My skills were no match for hers but I made up for that in raw strength. Still, I didn't know how long I could hold out for.

"BECKS!"

Other ways. Have to be. The blade was pressed against my throat.

"No more, Becks. It's time."

Has to be another way.

"I'm sorry." She drew the spear back – just enough to give her the room to drive it through me.

A powerful roar. The building shook as the floodlights flickered. She stumbled – looked confused. It was all I needed.

I rolled - yelling out as my knee exploded in pain again – and pushed myself up. With the rest of my remaining strength, I grabbed her arm and tried to throw her to the ground. She resisted, and I was weak enough that I lost my balance and went down with her as we tumbled off the edge.

Hold! I reached out just in time with my left arm and grabbed the edge of the metal grate. The sharp edges cut into my palm and fingers and my arm and shoulder, despite the implants, ached in protest as the pieces inside were tested. Sobeck clung to my other arm.

The implants were the only thing preventing us from falling to our deaths on the rocky crags below.

"Hold on!" I cried, the pain almost overwhelming. I could feel her hand slipping down my arm – my soaked sleeve making it worse.

Sobeck looked up and met my eyes. I almost pitied her – almost. I think she'd been lost before she even had a chance in this world. The fact that she was insane and wanted to destroy the world didn't help, either.

Her hand slipped again – it was unrecoverable. I watched in shock as she lost her grip on me and plummeted into the darkness below.

Strain. After the fight, I could feel my arm weakening. I couldn't hold on much longer. The rain blurred my vision and my hand ached from the metal as I felt it begin to slip…

"Becks!" Aloy's arm shot out and grabbed me. I was disoriented but I knew I was being pulled up. Next thing I knew, I was in her arms – sitting together on the edge of the rooftop. The rain was still coming down hard but neither of us cared.

"You're all right," she whispered, kissing me on the top of my head.

"That's…because I'm amazing," I said, definitely feeling as weak as I sounded. I looked up at her. "The override…?"

She reached into her pocket, where I had stuffed it earlier before heading up the elevator with Sobeck. "Back where it belongs. GAIA's back to normal and she's having the machines hold down the guards and whatever other crazy people are still here." She sighed. "I can't believe she's really gone."

"No," I said. "She was never here. She was gone a long time ago."

"I know…I know that." Another sigh. "Well, Erend and Talanah are waiting for us."

I buried my face in her chest. I didn't want to move and my knee definitely agreed with me. "Let's just stay here."

She chuckled. "Or we could leave this awful place and get you out of those wet clothes."

I kissed her before giving her a crooked smile. "Is that a proposition?"

Aloy shook her head in dismay before helping me up – allowing me to put most of my weight on her. "Come on," she said. "Let's go home."

Two weeks later

"…and this guy?"

"The original lead coordinator of this Far Zenith project. Dr. Branwell and Elisabet's clone were responsible for his death unfortunately. Their visions and goals did not align."

"Unfortunate. This could have been a wondrous opportunity. To have met and understood the Old Ones…such a pointless waste of life."

GAIA spoke again. "I am inclined to agree with you, Sun King Avad, though I should remind you that Becks is also an 'Old One'."

Avad turned to me, an apologetic smile on his face. "Of course. Forgive me, Becks, I've only known you as Aloy's companion and nothing more. Until now, that is."

"Don't worry about it," I said, taking a moment to register what was happening for the third time since we arrived. After stopping Far Zenith, Aloy had tended to me before reporting to Sun King Avad immediately.

She told him everything. Her journey. Finding me. Our journey together. Everything. And oddly enough, he listened. Then he declared that he wanted to see the facility for himself.

Now, we – Aloy, Avad, Erend, Talanah, Vanasha, and I as well as some of Avad's men and Erend's Vanguard – stood in the basement of the Far Zenith facility, where GAIA asked us to convene. GAIA had even done us the favor of using the machines to herd the remaining Far Zenith scientists and security into holding cells, similar to the one I had met Sylens in.

It all seemed like a lifetime ago.

Now we were back here again. My knee injury was not too severe – Aloy had fashioned a brace for me and I had mostly stayed off it the last couple of weeks.

"So, what is it you wanted to show us?" Aloy asked.

GAIA's soft voice pierced the quiet room again. "I took the liberty of educating myself on the original vision of Far Zenith. Their goals were not too unaligned with Elisabet's and the Zero Dawn project. While I believe Zero Dawn was mostly successful, this facility has achieved something remarkable of its own."

"Like what?"

"One moment. Activating platform. Please stand near a railing."

We began to descend into the depths of what was apparently a very, very deep room. Small white lights on the side beams of the elevator lit the way for us as we slowly dropped. After a while, I noticed something that I couldn't remember seeing before. They were all around us.

"Wait! Those green lights…are those…?"

"This is Far Zenith's cryo chamber."

I didn't understand at first. My brain couldn't seem to comprehend it. Even Aloy's strong grip on my arm wasn't helping me register this news.

"Becks…" she breathed.

"Activating lower level lighting."

"By the Sun…" I heard Avad gasp.

One light flickered on. Then another. And another. Each cryo tank had a light under it, no doubt to assist whoever was interfacing with the paneling to open the tank.

"GAIA, are they…are they alive?" I asked, my voice so quiet I was surprised GAIA could hear it.

"Cryo chamber sensors indicate that 98% of the subjects here are showing positive vital signs. Most have survived, Becks. Like you."

Like you. Reacting was beyond my capability. I could only stand there, clinging to Aloy as my eyes welled up with tears.

"Who are they?" Aloy wondered.

"According to facility records, the majority of the subjects were relatively normal citizens, most of whom either had the means to afford a cryo tank here or were made eligible for Far Zenith's experimental program."

"They're regular people, Aloy," I exclaimed. "They-do you know what this means?"

More lights flicked on. There were hundreds, no – thousands of tanks. Green lights, everywhere.

Aloy put her arm around my waist. Her eyes were bright. "I think it means we're going to have a lot of work to do." It was the truth of course, but she didn't seem upset about it at all. If anything, she seemed excited.

While the others were taking in the sight before them as GAIA was explaining more about the facility to them, I took a moment to bring up my Focus interface and took a look at the data that had mysteriously synced when we'd come out the simulation. My heart skipped a beat when I opened the folder and saw its contents.

Messages, audio logs, music, movies – all compressed, with the date suspiciously stamped with one from the 21st century. How is this possible?

But I knew. I guess I had known since we woke up. Dennis.

One audio file stood out to me – the timestamp several months after I was born. I opened it and played it back, making sure the volume was low enough that only I could hear it.

I heard Mom's voice.

"-okay, just leave that there. Rebecca…Rebecca, look at me! Come on, sweetie…annnd she's not looking…what the-Robbie, you can't distract her like that! I'm trying to get her to look over here so we can have at least one good picture to send to my sister." I could hear Dad laughing in the background before the audio cut out.

There were several other files dated around the same time, and dozens more after that. The tears streamed down my cheeks, now. I would watch more – all of them – eventually. Maybe even some with Aloy. If our discovery told us anything, it was that we were going to be very busy for a while.

My recovery wasn't over – far from it. I was learning to cope, yes, but the ghosts that followed me would continue to do so. The hole that my losses had left in me would never be filled. Mom, Dad, Dennis – my world was gone. Jenna was gone. No simulation could bring them back.

I looked up at Aloy, and my heart soared at the sight of wonder in her eyes. I knew no matter what challenges awaited us, we'd overcome it. Not as me depending on her, but us leaning on each other. We were a team now – we were us – and I'd seen firsthand how willing I was to fight for a world where we could have that.

And I was very okay with that.

THE END