Aphrodite and Mother awkwardly sat in the living room. Ava and Sylvie had gone outside perhaps to ready themselves for the procedure they'd have to endure soon, or maybe just another bonding session, but either way the two humans were left on their own.
Mother didn't say anything, she was looking at her teapot on the counter silently. Aphrodite's eyes meanwhile, pointed squarely at Mother, her mother. She wanted to say something, but nothing could come out of her mouth. What could she say? There were emotions bubbling inside of herself that she couldn't put into words, ones that she'd never felt before, or even thought she ever could feel before.
Every minute or so she tried to push words out of her mouth, it was only after half an hour of sitting there did she finally work up the courage to say something.
"M-mother, you know, I-" she stammered quietly,
"Mother isn't my name you know." Mother replied,
But that's not why Aphrodite was calling her Mother. She wasn't calling her mother by name,
"O-oh. Of course not."
"Aphrodite isn't your name either." she chuckled, "I mean honestly, does that sound like a real human name?"
"Um. Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, right? Hehe, actually I did always wonder why you called me tha-"
"Schweitzer named the human cloning project Aphrodite. That was never your name. We didn't give you one yet. Every clone was meant to be an Aphrodite."
Every clone? There were more of her?
"Or at least, they were. You were the first one that survived. As you know, the disease made cloning a human almost impossible. We jumped through a lot of hoops, for generations and generations, to finally find a way to bypass the disease."
"So... how did you manage to make me then?"
"I said you were the only one that survived. I didn't say you were the first successful human clone. I've made so many changes to your biology that, I don't know, can you really be called human?"
"O-oh," that's right, Mother did say that. Aphrodite's intelligence, her learning ability, it was only a level far beyond the capabilities of a standard human apparently. The speed upon which she adapted was beyond the level of a standard human.
"But, you're adequate. Your biological traits on the outside at the very least are enough to fool the security systems."
"Is that really the only reason you made me? There wasn't some other way to farm something with your fingerprints and eye data?"
Mother was quiet, the reply she gave after several minutes of silence was less than adequate,
"No." Mother replied. A lie. "Your real name was going to be Filia you know," she added,
"Filia?"
"It means daughter. Adequate, yes?"
But not a name she was comfortable with,
"As for me. Well, it's been a while since I've been called it, but my name is..." Mother paused for a while. She furrowed her brow. "Um." did she forget!? "Emily, or Alice, or something like that. A standard boring name. Sylvie will probably remember before I do."
"Can I keep calling you mother?"
"It sounds odd hearing as a proper noun. But I guess there's no other choice."
Mother sighed,
"Anyway." she got up, "come on. I've been putting this off too long." she walked up to a large door near the foot of the stairway. There was a little panel with buttons on it hidden next to it. Mother pressed the buttons in a certain order and then a beeping noise confirmed that she'd put in a correct code. The doors swung open. "Go tell the two that you and I are going downstairs for a bit will you?"
"Wh- um. Ok." Aphrodite replied quickly.
Aphrodite rushed out to find Ava and Sylvie sitting on the grass outside the house. They were looking up to the hazy black clouds of Jupiter that were swirling around,
"Guys. Mother and I are going to the basement for a while. We'll be back in a bit ok?" she rushed back in before she could even confirm that the two had registered what she'd said.
She hurried to the door where Mother was waiting and noticed that it led to a relatively large and shiny elevator. Mother already had her finger hovering over the button on the side console. As she stumbled in, the doors closed behind her and the lights inside the elevator flipped on. It then started a lengthy descent far into the depths of the Earth.
"This is literally the only remaining physical entrance to the facility I'm taking you." said Mother, she raised her voice somewhat to be heard over the sound of the elevator, "It was an emergency exit for the cleaners. I built a house on top of it to make sure I'd be the only one who could have access to this place."
"No teleport stations in there?" asked Aphrodite,
"All the main entrances were destroyed simply due to the passage of time. Things happened. Anyway, facilities like this don't have teleportation modules that lead outside. Security risk. Thankfully there are plenty of internally networked ones inside. I wouldn't be able to make my way around if that wasn't the case." the elevator stopped and the doors opened wide open, "ah, excellent. You can take a look for yourself."
And so, Aphrodite did.
It was incredible. An underground complex with multiple levels going all the way down, a huge antenna going through the entirety of the facility that was glowing with energy. The antenna itself must have been hundreds of meters high, the bottom floor where it was rising from was far far below the floor where the elevator had stopped.
Surrounding the antenna were hundreds of huge doors on every floor.
"Every one of those doors leads to another complex with another huge antenna. And all those antennas protrude through the top of the facility where a portal teleports them to other locations in the solar system. For example, as you can see, this antenna is dug deep into the ceiling of the facility. Or that's how it looks. In reality, there's a huge portal on the other side of the ground which is teleporting the other several miles to a support station on Mars."
"...So that's how you send signals all the way through the solar system? You set up portals for hundreds of these things and configured them to be in all other locations. Transmitting data like that."
"Yes. It's the control system for the network. And I'm the only one left who can use it. This is what I used to control the Evos, to manipulate the Servs, to conduct my experiments and research. Everything." she turned to Aphrodite and put her hand on her shoulder, "but I didn't bring you here to show off. Come with me."
Mother led Aphrodite through multiple corridors, multiple internal teleportation stations... most likely multiple planets. Was she really taking the most efficient route?
It took almost quarter of an hour of solid walking for the two to get where Mother wanted.
A small lab with the walls lined with humanoid bodies, attached to wires that seemed to be supplying power to them. There were also multiple teleportation modules scattered about. The humanoid bodies themselves seemed to vary in terms of technical mastery. Some looked almost indistinguishable to the real thing, while some really did just look like robots.
There was a massive collection of computers and panels at the end of the room. Mother walked up to them and logged in. Instantly, every screen showed maps to different locations in the solar system.
"Where are we?" asked Aphrodite, her mouth was still agape,
"Why bother asking me that question? You can figure it out yourself can't you?" Mother replied,
"Locke... you built Locke here?" Aphrodite muttered, "all of these are different versions of him."
"Every map displayed also keeps track of the Lockes which I've distributed across the territories."
There were a lot of them. At least twenty. Somehow Aphrodite had only come across three of them, but it looked like Locke was actually his own little army of helpers that Mother had made for herself.
"Why did you bring me here Mother?" Aphrodite asked,
Mother looked uncomfortable, her voice was sullen, "I was going to say, it was to help you. But I suppose it doesn't count as 'helping' if I put you in the predicament in the first place huh?" she replied,
"What do you mean?"
Mother messed around with the control panel a little longer. She pressed the final key and then all the screens flashed to a new image. The image of a person Aphrodite loved dearly.
It was Locke.
Her Locke.
He was sitting at home reading a book. Completely oblivious.
"There's a little delay on this image. But the camera on the flies we have planted on The Sanctuary are impressive aren't they? Extremely sharp." said Mother,
"Oh oh my god!" Aphrodite rushed up to the screens, "Locke! It's him! Oh, I haven't seen him in so long!" tears started to stream down Aphrodite's face.
"Aphrodite, I don't know if I can claim to truly be your Mother. But I know that I don't want you to hate me. So please, forgive me." said Mother,
"Forgive you for what?"
"For what I did. To the sanctuary. To Locke."
Aphrodite's mind went numb. She was sharp, so she instantly knew what that sentence meant.
"Y-you..." Aphrodite couldn't bring herself to say it, she didn't want confirmation,
"All the events on The Sanctuary were orchestrated by me. Your attachment to Locke was what I wanted to use as the catalyst to make you come back to me. I needed to make The Sanctuary a place you couldn't bear to live in anymore. And I needed you to want me to fix Locke."
Aphrodite could feel her knees get weak.
"Locke isn't suffering from any sort of trauma. You fixed him. But I've been manipulating his brain for the last few months. I broke him mentally. To make you hate me. To make you want to come here and kill me."
Aphrodite couldn't believe what she was hearing. This woman that she was hoping she could learn to love. This woman who she wanted to develop a bond with. This woman she was irrationally feeling a connection to. The true final human. Her mother.
She was a despicable monster.
"You... you tortured Locke." Aphrodite gasped. Why? Why did someone she was so drawn to, someone she felt so instantly attached to, why did she have to be such a monster? "I can't believe you'd do this."
"You can't? You don't even know me, Aphrodite."
"I really thought I could call you my mother. But, I don't want to have anything to do with you. Not at all."
"I know. I'm quite cruel, aren't I? But that's what mothers are like. Sometimes to push their children in the right direction, they need to be cruel."
"This is beyond cruel," said Aphrodite, through grit teeth,
"Aphrodite. I didn't bring you down here to confess anything." said Mother, "You want Locke back yes?"
Aphrodite perked up, her eyes widened,
"I just need to disable the mental lock I have on him. He'll be back to normal instantly. Well, it'll take a while for the data to travel to Saturn, but it'll fix him instantly."
"You mean it!? You'll fix him!?"
"I mean, he was barely broken in the first place. I simply placed a limiter command on him, similar to how the Block system reduces the autonomy of the Servs, or how the network reduces the independence of the Evos. All I need to do it deactivate it." Mother leaned over the computer console and tapped on the keyboard for a little while. The screens all turned into a logo of an antenna, writing beneath it saying "transferring command... please wait..."
After a minute or so the message changed to "transfer complete" and the image went back to Locke. He was still sitting on his chair, but he was now deactivated.
"W-wait! Why isn't he moving!?" asked Aphrodite
"I've put him to sleep temporarily. The limiter is gone which means he won't have any hallucinations of the fake humans and you around."
"Oh... you don't want to shock him."
"Yes. When this mission is over, you can wake him up. You'll be the first person he sees."
Aphrodite's tears hadn't subsided. But the hate she was feeling for Mother was overtaken by the happiness that Locke was fixed. She was at an odd place emotionally. Mother truly had shown her the burden of being a human. The rollercoaster of feelings she was experiencing was overwhelming.
Mother walked up to Aphrodite and looked her straight in her eyes.
"I'm a very cruel person," she said, "but I don't want you to hate me."
And Aphrodite. The stupid, lonely girl that she was.
Didn't.