"Stop! Stop!!! Don't do this!" Ava-11's voice resonated through the room, sparks were flying everywhere, "I'm sorry! You've misunderstood! You can't kill me! You can't!"
"I can."
"B-but killing me achieves nothing for you! Why are you doing this!?"
"It's the morally right thing to do." Locke replied blankly, "You are causing many to suffer, and are living a life of suffering yourself."
"No!" Ava-11 continued to scream.
Aphrodite got back up onto her feet, although she was having trouble gaining footing because of how much the ground was shaking.
"Locke!" she yelled, "Locke what the hell are you doing?!"
"I have disconnected the locks for the pillar that connects this plate to the satellites in space. This plate will fall, and it will kill everything. All the Evos he is torturing here will be released. Don't worry, this plate has already passed over the Evo colony in the scrapyard, they won't be harmed."
"But-"
"Get in the ship already."
"You're not gonna come?"
"There's no need."
"Oh... right. I forgot. You're networked." Aphrodite looked forlorn. Ava stared at her the whole time this exchange was happening. It looked like she actually cared for Locke. That was funny, because there seemed to be quite a disconnect between them earlier, almost like she resented him. But the look of anguish on her face, it looked like emotions long since hidden had risen up from inside her. "Ava, let's get in. Locke has spare bodies so we don't need to worry about him."
"Right." Ava looked at the emotionless head that was still floating ahead of them. No, don't think about it. Pretend he doesn't exist. Pretend this never happened. Just survive.
"Take your friend's remains with you." said Locke,
"Sylvie? But why?"
"She is fixable. Aphrodite can fix her." Locke's words caused a warm swelling in Ava's heart, the chaos around him, the shaking ground, the imminent danger, it wasn't affecting him anymore. The knowledge that Sylvie could be revived, it-
"Why are you just standing there!?" Aphrodite yelled, "let's just get her parts and get in the ship!" That's right, the ship was made to withstand impact damage from space. This would survive the fall.
Ava scurried around and helped Aphrodite collect all of Sylvie's parts, it was difficult seeing as one of his hands was quite damaged, but he'd managed to in time to rush in with her. The two squeezed inside the ship, packed in without any space to move, Aphrodite was visibly in pain but she was hiding it well enough. Once the ship was closed, it was impossible to see anything. No windows.
Aphrodite shifted around and hugged Ava's body. She mouthed something to him but he couldn't make out what it was. Tears were falling down her face but he wasn't sure why. Didn't she say Locke had spares? Why was she sad about leaving him behind?
The two could feel it, crumbling more and more. More and more. Rolling around. Bashing back and forth. It was definitely falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Black.
***
Ava woke up, back in the darkness of the scrapyard. He could feel himself moving up and down. Was he riding something? He sat up and turned on his night vision. It was that Spider from before! He was on her back! She was carrying him back to the scrapyard. He looked around. The amount of debris was colossal, remains of the plate were scattered back  far into the distance. Did she pull him out of the wreckage? He was surprised at how flat her back was, and how gently she was able to walk. His tense body relaxed a little when he noticed Aphrodite's body lying next to him, and behind, the Spider's two back legs were clamped onto the stealth ship that had crash landed, Sylvie's remains were neatly tucked inside.
Aphrodite was breathing, but it didn't look like she'd be waking up anytime soon.
"Are you awake?" the spider spoke! It had a surprisingly cute and feminine voice, "you're moving back there aren't you?"
"Uh, yeah. Are you taking us back to the scrapyard colony?" stupid question, he could see it in the distance, "How did you find us?"
"Locke told us. One of his other bodies went to the main town square and told us where you were. He sent me specifically. I'm the only one equipped to pull you out from the debris and carry you back"
"Oh." wow, "thanks." that was really nice of her. He didn't know what to say. "I mean, after I did all that damage to your face and. I made you cry didn't I?"
"I cried for a little. But I can always find more pretty things to wear." said the giant spider, "it's ok."
Still, it was awkward. Ava felt bad.
"Our Queen is hurt. She needs medical attention."
"You can tell?"
"Can't you see? She has a cut on her arm, and Locke said she'd probably have some broken bones. Oh. You don't have any lamps, so you can't see her in detail."
Ava looked more carefully at Aphrodite's body. Yes, her suit was torn in several places, and there was indeed a dark line across her arm, that was probably the gash the Evo was talking about. Shit, didn't carbon based lifeforms get infected if stuff like that happened?
"Can you try and cover up her cut area? I'm not delicate enough to. I was hoping you'd wake up soon so you could do it. We would all be very sad if we'd have to amputate her arm." said the spider Evo.
It-She made a good point. Ava crawled up to Aphrodite's body. She was definitely in pain, that screwed up look on her face while she was lay there unconcious. It was clear she was feeling it. Ava tore off the fabric of the body suit, the entire forearm. It was stretchy but sturdy, should work well. He wrapped it around her wound as tightly and delicately as he could, enough to make sure nothing would get into the wound. He wasn't very sure about human biology, not sure if that'd work, but it was the most logical way to do things. She was still frowning, incredible, this girl showed so much more emotion than any other creature he'd seen. He'd only known her for a short while, yet he'd already seen her angry, sad, scared, happy...
But his emotions, he didn't know what they were at this moment, what should he feel? He was overloaded, so many things had happened, that grotesque version of himself, he wished he'd never learned it existed. The very knowledge of the flaw of the Copy-AI system terrorised him to a level that he couldn't register it. And Sylvie's death.
When he first saw her corpse, his entire body stopped, he'd felt like he'd lost all meaning in his life. And that emotion too, was too much for him to stomach.
Did humans succumb to these emotions? Did they feel them? Was it normal that his body became numb when things became too much for him? He wasn't sure.
He looked at the ship carrying Sylvie's body parts. In all honesty the only thing that mattered to him at that moment, was fixing her. He'd forgotten all about his mission, whatever it was. So many things had happened and he'd lost sight of why he was even where he was. All he wanted to do was bring Sylvie back to life. Seeing a fellow Serv in such a state had never affected him in such a way before.
***
Another Locke was waiting for the two when they reached the gates of the scrapyard city. Same mind, same memories, same brain, the AI of Locke simply siphoned off to another body. He didn't seemed to bothered about what he had done, more worried about the state of Aphrodite's body. This odd, cold, eerie machine was both stern yet caring at the same time, as evidenced by his desire to help Aphrodite, as well as the way he was so kind to the Spider Evo.
He escorted the two back to the centre of the city, where Aphrodite lived, and then lay Aphrodite to rest in her chamber. She lay on her sofa naked and unconscious. Locke was stitching up her open wound.
Ava was simply standing there, right next to Locke. Fascinated by the repair process.
"You've been quiet this whole time," said Locke. It was odd seeing him start a conversation first. "Is something wrong?"
"A lot of stuff is wrong." a hell of a lot, "can you fix Sylvie?"
"I need to repair Aphrodite first. She has several internal wounds that need seeing to. She's more versed in medicine than I am, so once she's awake I can get to work on using the medical kits she brought from the paradise planet to fix her other wounds. Using her guidance."
"Why her first?"
"Biological creatures deteriorate quickly without maintenance. If she's ever ill, or injured, I have to see to her immediately. Once she is fixed I can get around to fixing your friend, with Aphrodite's help."
"Aphrodite knows how to fix her!?"
"She has cognitive reasoning beyond my own. I'll need her diction to be able to make some of the correct choices when repairing your friend."
"I see. You control this whole planet but you still look up to her? See her as your superior?"
"I cannot deny such a fact."
"So how long will it take? For her to recover I mean."
"I haven't made a full diagnosis but several of her bones are broken. This wound also needs to heal up fully. It may take quite a while." a vague answer.v"Perhaps it'd be better if you went into deep sleep until then."
"No. I want to watch this. I want to watch you repair Aphrodite." It was interesting, he couldn't help but be curious, the insides of this creature were so different from that of a Serv or Evo. There was a machine with a screen scanning Aphrodite's body, a white and slender arm that the was flashing bars of light over her body, it seemed to be taking photos, but the pictures that turned up on the screen attached weren't usual photos. They seemed to be pictures of the inside of her body, her "skeleton". There were clear fractures in places.
Ava had no idea what it must've felt like to have those injuries, or what sort of damage it must have done to her psyche. He'd imagined a human would react quite differently to Servs when it came to getting damaged, but Aphrodite was put in some sort of coma-like state, Ava was curious as to what a human looked like in pain when concious.
"Either way," Locke interrupted Ava's train of thought, "you'll need to recharge. I hope you don't mind if I don't escort you to the charging station. I'd like to remain working on fixing Aphrodite. It'll give you time to think about this huge crisis you are no doubt facing."
"...Crisis?" Ava wasn't sure what he was talking about,
"Have you forgotten, about your Copy-AI system?"
"What?" Ava had mostly been thinking about Sylvie and Aphrodite,
"All your leaders have lied to you, all your friends have died a million deaths, you yourself have been stuck in an endless cycle of death, and no-one knows about it because the Copy-AI system means you never have any knowledge of your deaths. That doesn't bother you?"
Ava, somehow, had forgotten this detail entirely. He honestly was too distracted, "I don't know what to think about it." he turned to face the exit "It doesn't matter right now."
Ava walked off, that stuff was too heavy to think about. Too large scale. He'd have to weigh up his options. His leaders were liars, his mission alone was probably a lie. His enemies weren't even really enemies.
His other self just tried to kill him.
And.
His other self had hacked into him back in the Heretic city. Copy-AIs couldn't be deleted.
His other self was probably still in there. Still hiding in his brain.