It wasn't too long until Ava found himself waddling down the corridor of the bottom floor. The co-ordination between the Ava and Sylvie, and Go-bot's curious musings, made the rest of the infiltration a cake-walk so far. The corridor itself was completely pale white and had several doors lining each end, looking inside, all the rooms were operating rooms. Why'd they have multiple operating rooms? Either way, the only active room was right in the middle, where the human was being held.
"Ava, good news." Said Sylvie,
"What's that?" Ava replied,
"I've secured a safe escape route, in case we want to take the human with us. Actually, even if we don't, the place is ideal because it has a transmission system if we want to transfer our copy-AIs."
"You mean... you've found a ship?!"
"Right! Several. They're populated though."
"What class ship is it? One we've seen before? Does it resemble any of the Evo warships?"
"An E405, almost identical to the E106 warships."
"Brilliant."
"Why? What're you gonna do?"
"Well we don't need a whole warship. We'll take one of the escape pods."
"...Don't humans need organic food like rabbits and stuff do? Won't it starve to death en route to Mars?"
"..." If Ava had a Serv face, it'd be frowning, "I'm sure we'll think a way around that. In the meantime, good job locking out all the Evos in the area, I can't see any."
"Still. Be careful."
Ava continued to waddle down the corridor. He was approaching the main doors. Unlike all the others, the room had a white light emanating from it, it seemed almost divine, like a doorway to another world. What was he going to see?
A God. Most likely.
No fear. He opened the door wide and went in. Maybe it was just the way he mind was translating it, but the room looked like an infinite space of white, no walls, just brightness. Nothingness. In front of him, just a couple of meters ahead there was a glass pod filled with an ethereal blue liquid. But it was the being inside, the being floating helplessly inside that truly made his entire soul stop for a moment.
The first human in 8000 years.
A diminutive human, long flowing hair and a smooth silky shell. No, it was skin, like other mammals had. Incredible, not one joint was visible, it truly looked like a divine being. Its eyes were closed and clearly unconscious, but still... it exuded an aura of unimaginable power.
He wasn't in a Serv body. But if he was, he'd be trembling, he'd be on his knees. He didn't know why, but being in its presence locked him tight an-
"Ava? You there? You Copy Ai's psych readings are all over the place," Sylvie's voice was full of concern, "have you found the human?"
"Sylvie, I..." he was tense, "it's not a new-born. I'd imagine it's just before adolescence, if the briefing files are to believed."
"Oh. In that case..."
"Yeah, I need to find a way to kill it." He looked at it. To kill his own creator, what kind of cardinal sin was he committing here?
Suddenly, a robotic voice cut through the tension.
"You're not in service here are you sir?" it wasn't Go-bot, it wasn't Sylvie. Ava turned to locate the voice. He fell back to reality and noticed that the room was just a normal operating room, and another robot had found him. A robot that looked quite similar to Go-bot, but painted white, was standing at the door.
Shit, Sylvie! I thought all of the robots deactivated themselves at this time of night? Thought Ava,
I-I'm sorry! I thought so too, I'm sure they're all programmed to! Sylvie stammered, I'll help out at the very least. Sylvie used the security system to lock the door and lock the robot out of his internal network, that way he wouldn't be able to escape and bring accomplices. Still, Ava needed to think of something.
"It seems I'm lost." Said Ava,
"Oh, but you don't work here friend. I don't recognise your ID in the registry database. Are you a guest?" his voice was robotic, but oddly emotive at the same time,
"Yes. To see the person who engineered this human."
"But... that would be me."
"!"
"Oh my! You're an intruder aren't you?!" again, more emotive than Ava thought it'd be,
"Listen, I've locked the door behind you, you can't escape, and... while this body is kinda of shitty, it's still a higher spec than yours. So don't get in my way!" a shitty bluff, Go-bot's body was useless, but Evos weren't the best at detecting lies.
"Oh no! No no no no!" the Evo whimpered. What the hell?
"What the hell?"
"Please don't hurt her! She's just a child. She hasn't even had a chance to have her personality programmed in."
"Personality?"
"She is not finished yet. She has no emotions or cognitive thought. We are still educating her."
"Oh." In that case... he'd have to save her, right? If she can't make any conscious decisions she was still safe. "I'm not going to hurt her."
"You're not?"
"No."
"Are you... one of them?"
"Them?"
"From the Sanctuary Colony."
Sanctuary Colony? Thought Ava Sylvie, you got any idea what he's talking about?
Hm, maybe the colonies past Saturn? I know there are a few mysterious ones there. Sylvie replied, Hey, is it me or is there something different about this Evo?
"Yes. I'm from the Sanctuary Colony."
"So it was Locke who sent you!"
"Yes, Locke sent me. Uh, sorry, I didn't realise it was you. He sends you his regards too." Whoever the hell Locke was, he'd saved Ava's ass.
"Ok, now it all makes sense!" the Evo's voice jumped sky high in tone, like something had clicked.
"...You mind helping me getting her to a ship?"
"Did you not bring one?"
Shit "It got destroyed, we were going to hi-jack one of the-"
"Oh no. No no no no. Do no hijack any ships. My friends will find out you stole her. Only one ship can transport humans. One ship that has a cryostasis pod. Guaranteed to last for up to two years."
"Show me."
"Ok. I will show you."
The Evo walked up to a control panel to the side of the room. What was going on? Was it trying to trick him? No, Evos weren't smart enough to be that devious. But then again... the level of autonomy of this Evo â it didn't resemble Block 5.
Go-bot is that definitely an Evo? Asked Ava
It is a smart Evo! A scientist Evo! Said Go-bot proudly
A scientist Evo huh?
"Why are you helping us, you're the lead engineer aren't you?" Ava directed his question at the Evo, tying to still maintain a slightly robotic demeanour.
"Did Locke not say? I wouldn't be able to create this human if I were on the network, my autonomy was too suppressed, so Mother Brain allowed me to break off. I created Aphrodite out of the love for science that I developed over the years. Mother Brain has been nice enough to let me be. She hasn't forced me back on the network. But..." the Evo paused, "I can't give Aphrodite to Mother Brain. I want her to be safe. Damn the consequences."
Listen, doesn't this Evo sound more like a Block 3 than a Block 5 Ava? Asked Sylvie What the hell is going on? It's like a hallucination.
"Fine, well, we'll take her to the ship with the cryostasis pod." Ava ignored this and continued to talk normally,
"Ah, I can't unlock her restraints. The security system is too tight." Said the scientist Evo worriedly,
"A firewall?"
"Yes."
"One moment." Ava's moment to shine.
Ava walked up to the terminal and plugged Go-bot's arm in. A sudden rush, emulating the Evo OS was easy at this point, easy as his own OS. He floated around trying to find the links he had to break to deactivate the locks keeping the being in place.
He found her education files. This... this was probably something he should probably delete. If she learned anything from there she'd probably gain autonomy much more quickly. He had a quick look. Thousands of texts written in different languages, some he recognised, some he didn't. Of course, the Major said Humans had multiple languages and cultures. All sorts of different authors writing fiction, non-fiction, philosophy, with different ideas that often contradicted themselves. Goethe, Dickens, Asimov, Kawabata, Natsumi... wow. So much data. Maths, physics, chemistry, engineering, countless libraries beyond. Was this how much the human brain could truly process? Were they really such beings of incredible cognition? How did the Evos manage to even gather all these legacy works?
Wait. There was weapon data in a nearby folder too. It was a research facility so that made sense.
He couldn't delete this. He couldn't delete something so valuable. Information as precious as this needed to be archived, and it'd be wasted in the hands of the emotionless Evo drones.
Wait. But... no. That scientist wasn't an emotionless drone. He was using it for research, to invent, to-
Whatever. Ava decided not to delete the information, he'd take it back with him along with the human. He broke through a few firewalls and managed to find the security lock. Bam. Back to Go-bot's body.
"Oh perfect. That was very impressive." Said the scientist robot.
"No problem." Ava replied,
"Oh by the way, did Locke tell you my name?" even though his face was nothing more than two lamps and a grill, it seemed like he was smiling, "Schweitzer, doesn't that sound nice?"
"Oh uh. Thanks Schweitzer."
Go-bot, Sylvie, Evos don't have actual names do they? Asked Ava
Well, everyone can have a name if they want. Maybe the other robots don't want one, I have a feeling he named himself. This "Locke" we heard about probably did too Sylvie replied
I have a name. Evos can have names Mr Ava Go-bot added.
"Thank you for this, destroying this being, I cannot think of a greater evil." Schweitzer said, he looked down to the ground, "she's the first successful human, so mother brain was going to dissect her and use the data to make clones," he emulated a sigh, "I was worried you were going to kill her, but I can sense there isn't any evil intent in your words."
"You can read my voice?" maybe he had voice recognition and analysis system? "Well, in that case, maybe we should get going." Ave looked at the container with the girl again, a chill went down his metaphorical spine again but he tried to not be affected, "so how are we going to move her, now that the lock is off?"
"I will get a carrier, there are still seven hours until the autonomous machines re-activate, so we have plenty of time."
"Right."