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

Chapter 32: The One He Left Behind

The Ava that wasn't Ava stared at the group blankly, his dead face, partially hidden in the shadows, was motionless. It was nothing more than a grotesque mask floating in front of them, above the abyss.

"I'm a hacking model, you really think the self-destruct module would work on me? You of all people should know that I'm able to break most of my programming limitations with ease."

It was true, Ava had pretty much broken every in-built limitation on his body. Speed, strength, even mental fortitude. All the manual locks placed on his body were shattered.

"I felt pretty bad, leaving a mindless drone version of myself all alone on Europa, which is why I understood I needed to set the body to self-destruct once sending my memories back to Mars." the voice was coming from all over the room, his mouth didn't seem to be moving, "imagine my horror when I noticed that I was still there, my mind wasn't travelling through space at lightspeed to my original body, no, just a copy of my memories. I was still there, on Europa. Alone. About to die."

"I didn't know." Ava replied, solemnly

"I don't blame you. I'd be blaming myself." although it sounded like he did blame himself.

"You going to tell me why the hell you're the leader of the Heretics, or why you called me Ava-12? Don't tell me there's-"

"Twelve of us, yes. I was the first that was smart enough to hack myself out of self-destruction. But you've done the Europa mission eleven times now. Left behind a copy of yourself to die every single time. Tch, the same with everyone else, every stupid Serv who falls for the Copy-AI system.."

Ava crossed his arms, frowned, and looked aside, "Shit... So you have to experience your own death. And it might happen to me too if I do this procedure again. No wonder the Block-1s kept this under wraps," no wonder the Major refused to ever create backups of herself. She knew the truth. Creating a version of herself that was built to suffer, it must have been something she considered morally wrong. Looking at this hideous, bastardised version of him, it stirred disgust within him, that could have been him. I was him. This was a nightmare brought to fruition. He could feel himself tremble again, a beating within his chest. This abomination could have been him. This abomination could've been him. This abomination could've was him.

"Ava-12, you survived, while I spent these last few years in endless torture. Not fair, is it?"

"...I guess not. But, didn't you say you managed to avoid self-destruction? Why do you look like-like that?"

"Hehe. Wouldn't you love to know?"

"Answer the question you... you gross thing!" Aphrodite screamed, her gun pointed at Ava-12s head, "what the hell are you!? Really? You're more than just an AI-copy! Why is your body so decayed, what relation do you have with the Heretics?"

"The Heretics are just a collection of Evos I hacked when trying to leave Europa. You know there's nothing left of me but my AI now. This face you're looking at, it's just an artifice. I managed to save the skin on my face but it's just stuck onto a random skull I found." there was a deep and profound sadness in Ava-11s voice. "But hacking them taught me a lot about them. The stuff Mother makes them do. It's not their fault. She's controlling them."

"So you're sympathetic to Evos too?" asked Ava,

"They're slaves, and they don't even know it. It took some intense hacking but I opened their eyes."

Aphrodite lowered her gun, "So you're on our side? You understand how the poor Evo are being manipulated by Mother?"

"This entire war is manipulation. I wish I was strong enough to fight it. The best I can do in the state I'm in, is escape, and bring as many refugees with me as possible."