Deep in the middle of the asteroid belt lay one of the largest PC-class warships â It wasn't certain what the Evos called it, or whether they even gave it a name, but the Servs referred to it as The Eye. Aptly so, the ship was a giant orb with a giant collapsed circular chasm right in the "middle", or at least, it looked like the middle because the chasm was always pointed at Mars for some reason. This chasm was confirmed to be generating heat comparable to the sun, and indeed, looking into it, the entire thing was roaring with an infinite red fire.
So looking at it through a telescope really did look like you were looking at a red eye in space.
The data files Ava had stolen two years ago had given the Servs endless information that they had no idea of at all, including the basic layout of the insides of The Eye. The Serv had since found out that The Eye, while almost completely smooth on the outside aside from landing docks for small ships, had an extremely complex network of small corridors and rooms leading all the way to the centre of the ship, upon where there was a gravity generator that allowed the ship to act as its own little planet.
For the last two years, Serv researchers were having trouble figuring out how a race of robots that were barely Block-5 could create such a beast, however Ava's intel about, Schweitzer, the supposed Evo whose autonomy was on the level of 3 or above, had started to cause commotion among the very few people allowed to see his report.
Either way, it was a historic day, The Major and other Block-1s involved in the war were invited to the planet to have an audience with the Evo Mother Brain, who would be transmitting her thoughts to the ship via her home inside of Jupiter. They, along with several other ships filled with Block-3 agents, were landing on the north end of the ship, right before the split of where the Sun cast its shadow. They were being greeted by a giant red orb surrounded by crackles of electricity, and five bland looking Evo robots who seemed to be making sure the orb was being kept in good working order. While the situation seemed harmless, it was, in fact, a great gamble. Every Serv was a functioning autonomous body, no copy-AIs. That was part of the deal. If their bodies were destroyed, they'd "die".
The invitation had notified The Major that it was the orb she had gone to see, the orb was a giant transmitter that would allow her to speak with the Mother Brain in real time.
The Major et al flew in with their most impressive ship, ornamental to a point. It was a royal red, completely smooth, and needlessly large. After landing, all the Servs, aside from one, made their way to the Mother Brain Proxy. No greeting, nothing, the Evos that were attending mother brain simply looked at The Major and the Block-1s and then strolled to a terminal in front of the orb. They pressed some buttons.
"Mother Brain?" asked The Major.
No answer, just silence. They had deliberately chosen the only ship with an atmosphere on the outside so that they could communicate via voice but, everything was deadly silent, The Major wasn't even sure if anyone heard her.
"Are you there?" she asked again,
"We are establishing a link," said one of the Evos, "we will be finished in one hour."
"What!?" The Major huffed in an effort to come across surprised and outraged.
"You came early. Mother Brain told us not to shoot you down, otherwise we would have."
A gamble worth taking "It seems there was a communication error, we must have gotten the time wrong. Alright, we'll all take a break for an hour and resume after that." She looked at the other Block-1s, four military leaders who had started to become useless as they fell further into debauchery, but maintained enough status to keep the morale of the Block-3s up.
"Come now everyone, we'll return to our ships for the moment, one hour to compose ourselves" and then she focused You hear that Ava? You've got one hour to get in there undetected, we don't know how long the actual talks are going to be, so try not to take too long.
Roger! a familiar voice said in return
Sylvie, now that you've established a remote connection, I want you to stay in your stealth ship and relay him the map details of the PC. You have both read details of the brief, so I'm not going to go into any more detail. Just get that data, and destroy this ship.
Yes ma'am! two familiar voices said in return.
***
Ava and Sylvie's stealth ship had gone undetected as it landed several miles away at an entrance into the PC warship. Thankfully they hadn't been spotted and Ava had already made his way far into the depths of The Eye while Sylvie stayed outside to relay information.
The inside of The Eye was full of inactive Evos, they'd all gone to sleep for some reason. Ava was burning up a lot of battery energy in this mission due to his stealth activation and he'd wondered if he needed to. The tunnels were lined with pods in which the Evos lay and stayed still like statues, and larger areas like hanger bays were largely empty aside from some goliath Evos that were simply standing there, with their power off.
Still, as a precaution, Ava had to do it all, mask his body heat, activate his optical camouflage, turn on his sonar and infrared, and put his tension up to maximum levels so that he'd react to any sort of disturbance instantly. His body had already gone under a lot of modifications since his first mission, the ability to silently kill enemies in an instant had proven useful in recent missions.
"There's still thousands of Evos to pass before you get to the first high security terminal Ava, you'll need to keep this up a while longer but, don't take too long. The Major won't be able to stall forever." Sylvie said frankly,
"I know, I'm doing my best," the most important mission he'd been on so far since the one he failed two years ago. He needed to get this one right, his ego still never recovered, he needed to make sure he justified his status as a Block-2, overcome the humiliation of being one of the only Servs ever to fail a mission assigned to them. The first Serv ever to let a comrade disappear into space and, despite the best of his efforts, never find him again.
"Ava, what's up with that tone in your voice? That Block-2 emotion again?" stated Sylvie, "C'mon man, let it go for now."
"No, nothing emotional. Don't read into it." Stop calling me a Block-2 thought Ava.
"Well, as long as you're ok. This is one hell of a mission. We're not even using Copy-AIs this time, so everything is on the line!"
"The shield around this place that delays data transfer like that is the exact reason why this place exists. Same with the false atmosphere so that sound can travel. It was all done so that Mother Brain and The Major could communicate as organically as possible. I guess it's meant to be symbolic or something?"
"Well yeah, The Major could die here, seeing as she didn't send a copy. Loads of people could." Sylvie's voice tightened, "Grrr, these rotten Evos better no try anything funny!"
"You mean like how we're doing something funny?" Ava tutted, "Breaking in and stealing all their data."
"Hey, it's not funny when we do it. In fact this is no laughing matter! I still can't get over how much more advanced our stuff is because of the data we gathered."
"No kidding," the advancements Ava's body had gone through were substantial to say the least, although that's not to mention all the secret hacking tricks and advancements he'd learned by himself over the past two years too... "We never really discussed it did we. Not us two anyway, maybe the higher ups did."
"Discussed what?"
"The fact that an Evo that was smart enough to, you know, create new and more advanced things existed. I mean, to create something advanced from something that's not advanced. Isn't that crazy?"
"You mean Schweitzer? I just kinda decided that he was an anomaly." Sylvie was quick to reveal that she'd avoided thinking about it, "You don't think he's the reason they have such incredible warships do you?"
"Or it might be ancient technology from humans that they recovered. Who knows? We don't know anything about these things. That's what this mission's about." Ava noticed the corridor getting tighter, eventually he had to get on his knees to keep progressing, "um, are you sure you're sending me the right way Sylvie?"
"The easiest to get to terminal is for cleaning machines, I told you this, how big do you think the cleaning machines are?" asked Sylvie, "they're itty bitty things that just crawl around the ship making sure no dirt gets anywhere, they don't need a lot of space when they log into their system."
"Bleh," said Ava as he crawled through the corridor, which was now pretty much just a chute, "well, at least it isn't dirty." Not as dirty as the tactics he was employing. But then again, that was to be expected from a hacker unit.
***
The hour was up. The Major, the other Block-1s stepped out of their ship, the fifty Block-3 Servs they brought with them were waiting outside.
Sylvie, an update on Ava's situation. The Major reconnected to Sylvia via remote connection, she made sure her voice was firm over the connection,
Oh, sorry, he's just made it to the terminal said Sylvie
In that case we'll have to play for time. I don't think the firewall for this entire space station will be so easy to crack.
Don't worry Major, Ava jumped in I'll be done in no time, no need to stall.
Alright The Major had confidence in Ava Get it done. And... don't forget about the second part of the mission, ok?
I wont The section part of the mission. Overload the gravity engine of the ship so that it crushed itself from the inside. Taking down one of their biggest ships while right under their noses would be a great way to show the Evos that the Servs weren't to be underestimated.
The orb activated. A soft, red light emanated from the inside.
"The leaders of the Serv military union. It's nice to finally meet you," the voice boomed from the orb, but at the same time it was quite elegant and motherly.
"It's a historic moment. A conversation between a Block-1 and The Mother Brain for the first time in all history. You know, some people even doubted your existence." The Major replied,
"It's a side-effect of being hidden in the core of Jupiter, I can't really move from where I am I'm afraid," The Mother Brain was frank, it spoke casually as if they were having a conversation over coffee, not at all like the Evos,
"Indeed. I hope we'll come to an agreement at the end of this discussion," The Major knew they wouldn't, the Evos weren't smart enough to be devious, but The Mother Brain was, she was smart, even smarter than the Block-1s. But the existence of Ava was a secret, so there was still a good chance she'd slip up.
"This discussion isn't to suggest any truce to the war I'm afraid," The Mother Brain said somewhat sympathetically, "you are all still too dangerous to keep alive. We intend on destroying you eventually."
"I see." The Major couldn't show any weakness, she couldn't falter, even though she was talking to, essentially a Block-0, she needed to maintain composure. She didn't need to look around, she knew the other Block-1s were having trouble. Thankfully, despite being the equivalent of a Block-0, The Mother Brain wasn't an actual human, so she didn't have any control over her, or the soldiers she'd brought with her. "That's a shame."
"It seems you're the only Block-1 who is bothering to speak."
"I'm the leader of the military, I'm the representative. The others are here as an act of good will," if she could, she would've gone alone. But that went against protocol, she couldn't break that. "and none of us are copies."
"Oh, that really is honourable of you, it definitely sets you above all the others. That sort of trait, honour, determination, it's what defines a person as someone with high autonomy, am I right?"
"I suppose so, yes."
"It's a shame your entire race aren't as cognitively aware as you are Major."
What was Mother Brain talking about? The Evo race was full of mindless drones, who was she to talk!?
"...So if this meeting wasn't to call a truce. What was it for?"
"You have my human. I want her back, along with the agent of yours that took her." The Mother Brain's voice lost its sympathy, the darkness of her words overtook any sort of warmth they used to have.
"We don't have your human. Yes we were aware of it, yes we tried to steal it. But we don't have it. Our agent is gone too." No point in lying, Mother Brain would see through her, and she wouldn't gain anything from lying anyway. Technically it was all truth, the agent she sent was Go-bot. Technically.
"We know you succeeded. My top researcher told me you forced him to help you release her."
So that Schweitzer that Ava was referring to sold them out. That made sense, but why'd it take two years for the information to get out?
"We lost her in space. She probably dead now, I'm afraid. The same goes for our agent."
"You're lying."
"I've no reason to lie. If we took her back here we would've dissected her and killed her. But we obviously didn't, did we?" confidence, The Major was speaking as confidently as she could, The Mother Brain knew that if the Servs managed to extract all the required data from the human's body, they'd be able to cause havoc on the Evo race.
"Every PC warship of ours has enough destructive power to reduce a city to ash. If we co-ordinated our attack we could destroy your planet in an instant. So please be truthful. Do you have her?" The Mother Brain didn't falter, but The Major already knew about the danger those warships posed, and she also knew why they'd never used their full power on Mars. The amount of power required to fire those weapons would deem all of them inactive for years, if they missed, then they'd be completely wide open. The Major didn't relent.
"I've already said. We don't have her and we don't have the agent, is this the only reason you decided to meet with me? To hope that I'd give you back a being that could potentially enslave our entire race, a being that could, if used wisely, could potentially destroy you too?"
"The human is ours. What we do with it is our choice." A pause, "But, it doesn't seem like you're lying."
Mother said no more. A silence covered the land, the air become thick. The Major felt tense, she started to tighten up, as if her body subconsciously knew that something bad was about to happen. The negotiations weren't over yet.
Author's Note: Hi guys, an abrupt ending to this chapter I know, this is actually one chapter split into two parts I'm afraid. But hey, would you like to find out what happens next? Show your support with a vote and maybe some comments! What do you think the importance of the fact that The Major and Mother Brain chose voice based conversation is?