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

Chapter 19: A New Mission

The next morning Sylvie and Ava once again found themselves in the private meeting room with The Major. They sat nervously in their seats as The Major looked through the report files they had written the night before. Was she angry? They'd been insubordinate, body modifications, technically, that was completely taboo in the Serv Military, it could get you decommissioned instantly.

"You realise I'm going to have to make this document highest level classification to cover your backs, don't you?" said The Major. To cover their backs? So... she was letting them go? "Don't look at me like that, what kind of monster do you think I am. Even though you self-modified your body without permission, you did save my life."

"Thank you Major," said Ava and Sylve in unison,

"In the end you were made to think on the fly Ava, and you were made to be his support Sylvie, it's no surprise you'd pick up better techniques in time. But I'm afraid other block Servs don't see it that way. Our society understands that stability is earned via learning in controlled environments, because it means we're set on a stable and controlled path. To a degree I can see why that makes sense. But it's not an absolute rule. It's a shame people can't see that."

That's what The Major did, wasn't it? She was who she was because of self-improvement, she went from being a Block-3 to a Block-1 after all. But why was it such a rare trait? Why was it frowned upon? Ava didn't understand. He looked to Sylvie, her face was sweating and it was clearly confused. She clearly didn't understand the concept of "self-learning", as a Block-3 maybe that was bound to be the case. Still, Ava had managed to persuade her to integrate her current learning and knowledge to help him use the Autonomy Transference ability he used to save The Major thanks to Sylvie's compliance.

"Still, I'll have to destroy this report and come up with a feasible replacement for now. That technique you learned. We'll make it officially known by pretending it was learned in a controlled environment. Does that make sense?"

"Yes ma'am!" said both Ava and Sylvie.

The Major frowned, "At ease. You idiots."

The two stopped being so tense around her. To be honest it was clear she wasn't angry at them.

"We unzipped and analysed a lot of the files your managed to recover Ava. Not all of it is very detailed, but there's enough there to give us an overview of many things we have no knowledge of before. Things that are truly eye opening."

Like what? What was she going to tell them?

"Our technology will increase incrementally because of these files, and we've learned of other Evo colonies because of this." The Major continued, she was being vague. "And, well, I'm sure you know this already. But we've found out two possible locations where the 'Sanctuary' is. Both are moons of Saturn, camouflaged by some sort of giant solar mirror. Almost impossible to detect. We'll predict its location using knowledge of it's orbital path, of course."

"So we'll be going there blind? That sounds like if we're off by even 1% we'll miss the colonies completely!" said Ava,

"0.0001% percent actually," The Major replied. "Don't worry, it's fine. Don't you trust me?"

Sylvie and Ava both felt awkward, they trusted The Major but...

"Anyway, we've learned more about The Human too. In fact it seems like our prediction of the being was wrong. In which case we don't need to worry about it."

Ava and Sylvie gulped,

"You've both read the files right? There are two reasons: Her education isn't finished, she was raised with Evos and never met any Humans in her life. We're not sure how it works but the blueprint for her mind was that of an Evo, organically grown with the human genome. She identifies as an Evo. Furthermore, she's not a fully grown adult yet."

Here we go thought Ava,

"So there's no need to kill it, the data we'll gather from her body will be invaluable. In the state she is now, identifying as an Evo and not fully educated, she won't slave us instantly."

"Now that she's out they'll probably kill her. Won't they." Said Ava,

"They only need her biological data. It was Schweitzer who was programming her to having a human mind. But you stopped that from happening." The Major continued, "They were waiting until she reached adolescence so that they could incubate more children somehow. We already know from what Mother said that there's been a kill order on her."

"Things really turned on its head didn't it," Sylvie chuckled, somewhat inappropriately, "Wasn't the situation completely different before? I mean, isn't it ironic?" was she using the word ironically correctly? Sylvie wasn't sure.

"Not really a laughing matter though operator," said The Major, "this will be your most difficult mission yet. Frankly I don't even really want to send you on it. The mission will take four years, you'll both need to work separately, and you won't be using Copy AIs. The risk of this mission is huge but- we need to get her before the Evos do."

"Oh right, you mentioned there were two colonies. So they're on different moons of Saturn?" asked Ava,

"Yes, we'll be separating you both. Sylvie you'll be given a modified combat orientated body for the mission."

"...Will I have time to vanity it?" Sylvie asked meekly. "Or at least ask for one in purple?" The Major frowned in return. "Sorry! I guess not!"

"Ava there's not much we can do to your body without an overhaul, you'll always be a hacking Serv. I know you've unlocked all your limiters," the frown didn't subside, The Major's piercing stare cut through the air like a razor sharp spear, "but don't use your body's maximum power. We put those limiters on you for a reason. Your body will tear itself apart if you push it too far, we can't afford to let you die."

"Sure, don't die. Got it." Ava replied,

"No lip!"

Ava realised how what he said might have sounded kind of smarmy, "Sorry! I didn't mean like that, I mean I'll make sure not to do anything life threatening."

"Ok. Good." She finally smiled, "I expect to see you in four years with the human. I know you can do it." The door of the conference room opened up. "I've sent you detailed files of the mission. You'll be leaving first thing tomorrow. Relax until then."