The three ran into the complex as fast as they could. The lone, desolate courtyard leading up to the main building was crumbled and had all sorts of foliage crawling out from underground. It was from there where they'd be able to enter the building and take the elevator to the underground control centre. The massive complex that sat beneath the entire facility.
As they ran in they noticed the massive doors they'd run through had jammed. It wasn't closing behind them properly. It kept making whirring noises, moving back and forth trying to close.
To their shock, it seems like many of the creatures were starting to filter through,
"H-hey, wasn't the Major meant to be taking care of those?" asked Aphrodite,
"There are thousands of them coming from every direction. Some were bound to get through." Ava growled, "didn't Mother say there's a really sensitive security system here in the building? If it goes into high alert-"
"The entire facility gets filled with molten wax, which hardens instantly. Apparently, the process would also cause the entire facility to collapse at the state that it's in now."
"Tch, in that case, we're gonna have to stop those bastards from getting any closer." Ava pulled out his baton, he activated a high electrical charge across it. His combat style was more suited against Evos, so he wasn't sure how he'd do in this situation, "you guys don't need me any more right? All you need to access the network is authentication."
"R-right. I think so," replied Sylvie,
"In that case head to the facility without me. I'll stop the remaining creatures from getting any closer."
"Are you sure you're gonna be ok?"
"I might have to go into overdrive for this. But it shouldn't be a problem." Ava flashed a thumbs up. Which was kinda cringey.
The two girls left him to it and ran to the building's main doors, they tried not to stumble over the cracked concrete and foliage as they rushed to their destination. It had become a time-sensitive mission, Ava and the Major wouldn't be able to kill every creature there, so eventually, the high alert would get sounded and any hope of accessing the network via the facility would be gone.
They reached the main doors of the building.
It was, as expected, linked to a biometric scanner again. Just the eye. Aphrodite walked up to the eye scanner panel to the side of the door and looked into it.
Nothing happened. She waited and waited.
Still nothing.
"Why won't it scan!?" she exclaimed.
"Is it working?" asked Sylvie,
The two examined the scanner.
No. The retina scanner was broken. There were cracks, and it was fogged up completely.
Even though the entire facility was protected by a shield, and the scanner itself was behind a sturdy panel, it still succumbed to the curse of time.
"It's the camera that's bitten the dust. The scanner itself still has power," said Sylvie, as she examined the device.
"Yeah, but what can we do? It's not like we can fix it now."
"...We can fool it into thinking it's scanning your eye anyway."
"What do you mean?"
"I'll scan your eye and transfer the digital information into the scanner directly. Bypassing the camera."
"W-wait. Doesn't that involve hacking? I thought you said you couldn't do that anymore!"
"No, it's fine. I'm not actually putting any effort into breaking any firewalls or anything. It's just basic data transfer. That should be fine." Sylvie smiled warmly,
"...You sure?"
"It's fine. Just trust me. And stay still."
Sylvie held Aphrodite's head in her hands and stared directly into her eyes,
"Wow. I forgot how deep and detailed the human eye was. If I didn't have human memories I can't imagine how blown away I'd be by looking at them." she said, while still staring deeply into Aphrodite's eyes.
"I've never really noticed what Serv eyes were like." said Aphrodite, "so uniform, so static, so-"
"Lifeless?" Sylvie muttered, "you're right. I agree."
Aphrodite felt uncomfortable. She could feel a slight resentment coming from Sylvie, she could see just a tinge of hate towards the Servs in those lifeless eyes. This Saori from the past, this person whose memories had bubbled up into Sylvie's consciousness, how much of her was influencing Sylvie at the moment?
It wasn't clear.
Sylvie finally stopped. She sighed and touched the scanner, her eyes were closed.
"The coding for this thing is so different what we have these days," she said while doing the transfer, "I doubt I'd be able to do this if I didn't have my memories unlocked. All of this would be gibberish to me." meaning Ava wouldn't have been able to do it either.
Eventually, the doors to the main building swung open.
"Yes! You're awesome Sylvie!" Aphrodite exclaimed,
"Haha... th-thanks," Sylvie smiled, she walked towards the doors but then lost her footing, thankfully, she managed to regain her balance before she fell to the floor. She held her chest.
"Hey, you ok? I thought you said transferring would be ok for you?"
"Don't worry, it's a little bit of pain but that's it. Nothing to worry about," she kept that smile painted on her face, but it was a worrying one. Way too obviously fake for Aphrodite's tastes.
The two looked back, Ava had gone into overdrive and was doing his best to take out as many of the creatures as he could. Piles and piles of corpses had gathered around him, but countless more were making their way in.
"Come on. We need to be quick about this," said Aphrodite, she held Sylvie's arm and ran inside.
***
Thankfully, all the biometric scanners on the inside were working perfectly. Thanks to the infinity engines, the entire facility was still working at full power, and the insides, in general, were spic and span.
While the building was extremely large, finding the array of elevators that led to the control centre underground wasn't too difficult.
Aphrodite's understanding was that the control centre was underground for the same reason that the one Mother had access to was. Apparently, the roof of the underground structure was littered with giant portals, and there were an array of pylons that were positioned in space through said portals.
Just like the facility Mother had access to, it was absolutely massive. Huge corridors, vast expanses with countless computers (most of which weren't running anymore), teleportation stations which led to hundreds of areas in the facility... It was difficult to put into words the scale of the place, but then again, it wasn't much of a surprise. This was where an entirely new species was born and raised, where a whole new ecosystem was researched, developed, and maintained. The Serv robots and Serv network was one of mankind's greatest projects, no wonder it was such a marvel. And no wonder it was under lock and key like this.
The two managed to make their way to one of the main teleportation stations, it was an array of pods that overlooked a chasm that dug deep into the ground. There were various doorways and balconies that surrounded the chasm, and a huge pylon in the middle that penetrated the ceiling. Again, very similar to the areas Mother had access to.
"Where do we go? What are we looking for?" asked Aphrodite,
"...Let me think for a moment. I remember this place in great detail but it's still pretty difficult. I mean, I know this place, but the exact area we go to is..." Sylvie frowned, "it's definitely the main control room. That shouldn't be too difficult to find. Everything leads there."
And she was right. Taking the teleportation pads led them straight to a room with a huge control panel and several comfy chairs, the main wall was made of glass and faced what looked like the insides of a supercomputer. The main control room was right next to the heart of the network. The supercomputer was unfathomably large, from what the two could see, looking through the window, it too went deep into a chasm down below. Who knew what the machine was processing.
"To be fair," said Sylvie, "this thing has millions of backups and a lot of this is to make sure it protects the computer from external damage. That's why the security system fills the facility with hard wax. No matter what happens, the computer will survive."
"No matter what eh?" said Aphrodite,
"You could scorch the planet with a thousand nuclear bombs and this thing would still survive." Sylvie said, "remember, the Servs were essentially the new human race. Damaging this would essentially kill us all."
Aphrodite walked up to the main panel,
"Then the fact that I can gain access to this so easily is kinda unbelievable," she said,
"Are you kidding? Mother had to spend thousands of years creating you as the key to unlock this system. You're a password in physical form, and you took eras to make." Sylvie's words hurt a little. To reduce Aphrodite to nothing more than a means to access this machine was demeaning. That's how it felt anyway. Looking on the bright side, it could be said that she was created to be the key to saving the Serv, and human race.
And yet somehow that didn't really seem like it was enough for her. She wanted to know that she was created to be herself.
She sighed. She wasn't sure why she was thinking about something so inane right at the moment.
Aphrodite examined the control panel. The entire thing was turned off, but she noticed a square pad right in the middle of it all. She put her palm on the pad and instantly felt the warmth of the scanner booting up and then analysing her fingerprints.
Everything lit up, multiple screens that sat at the end of the control panel switched on. Every screen had the same message blinking on them,
Loading External Access System....
A logo appeared and disappeared, with a little jingle indicating everything had booted up, and then the screens stayed stuck on a password screen. Username and Password... Sylvie's.
Sylvie walked up to the keyboard,
She wrote the username, SaoriTenkawa.
She wrote the password: PurpleDiamond
To her horror the computer responded with a message that ground the mission to a halt:
Username does not exist, please try again