Ava and Aphrodite: The First Human in 8000 Years (Featured)

Chapter 2: The Firewall

An odd sensation, for a moment he lost all sense of self, he felt himself floating among the electric waves in the air, like he was sailing on a blisteringly cold ocean. He suddenly found himself in another body. Go-bot's body. His eyesight and hearing had become far sharper, but he'd lost many other senses, his sense of touch was much duller, no sense of smell or taste of dirt in the air. Really, the numbness made everything around him feel clearer, all the impurities in the air disappeared as soon as his detection of them did, even the cold wasn't a problem anymore.

Being in Go-bot's stubby body offered Ava very limited movement. He waddled onto the main street, the uniform nature the Evos walked in was hard to imitate, but necessary. They were hostile, and seeing anything that broke their pattern of monotony could set them off. Lack of empathy meant they'd scrap Go-bot the moment he showed a hint of malfunction, leave him as junk on the side of the road. That's what it meant to be an Evo, as long as someone was replaceable, it didn't matter if he died. A society built on Block-5 autonomy, a society built on the ethos that beings only mattered if they had a use.

Go-bot was so slow. So so slow. Goddamn. Even though the research facility was only a few roads down, it took almost twenty minutes to get there.

It was a monstrous building, a big black tower that was tall enough to touch the sky. The windows were only small slits in the wall, enough to provide light for Evos that relied on sight for movement. Ava waddled through the front door, the bottom floor was nothing but a cold, wide open space with a reception in the middle. The ceiling towered high above him – all buildings were like that, they needed to accommodate for robots of all shapes and sizes. Why was Ava given a dodo like Go-bot again?

The Evo at the reception was semi-humanoid, in the fact that at least it had a discernible head and arms separate to its torso. Still, it was vastly different from the humanoid Servs, it was made completely of metal, dead, glowing eyes, sharp features all over, slightly rusted. Eugh.

"You do not have a meeting here. You are breaking your protocol." said the receptionist Evo, with a surprisingly sweet voice, "We will call for security so that they can take you to the scrap yard." Shit, didn't the ID hack work? Ava was certain it did. Another Evo came up next to him, a titan of a robot, disproportionately large arms and cold, killer eyes. The receptionist robot talked to the new Evo.

"You do not have a meeting here. You are breaking your protocol." said the receptionist bot, "we will call for security so that they-" the titan grabbed the receptionist and crushed its head in its palm,

"Malfunction." Stated the titan. Oh, right, so the receptionist robot was on the fritz. Phew. Ava was worried for a moment. The goliath looked at Ava, or, from his perspective, Go-bot. Ava needed to tread carefully here, Block-5 autonomy meant he couldn't show gratitude because the titan was only doing its job. Block-5 autonomy basically called for lack of any real emotion. But... what should he say? The titan would kill him the moment he showed too much autonomy.

Then he realised. He had nothing to do with that titan, so there was no need to say anything at all. Talking would've been a sign of personality. Evos were robots, they had no personality. No, all he needed to make his way to one of the terminals.

And so he shuffled to the elevator at the end of the hall, trying his best to maintain his monotonous composure. He couldn't even walk diagonally, he'd have to walk perpendicularly to maintain the straight edge nature forced upon him. Was this really how Block-5 robots lived? How sad.

It's good for us sir Go-bot's voice,

Huh? Oh right, you're still in here Ava replied to the voice in his head, he'd forgotten that he'd let Go-bot maintain partial consciousness during the hack.