Go-bot had managed to place himself in a very inconvenient position. Somehow he'd managed to sneak into the corners of a radio station at the outer edge of the district. The radio station, essential for sending data between planets, was still quite far away from the research facility, but really it couldn't be helped, it was still the closest one Go-bot could find. Thankfully, as usual, the Evos didn't care for maintenance, the entire radio station was fully automated with absolute no level of cognition at all, hiding there was an ideal spot at least.
"I hate this, Go-bot's body is the worst thing ever." Said Ava,
"Don't complain, our bodies probably won't be able to handle this atmosphere anyway." Sylvie replied. She was right, the morning sun did little to alleviate the clear frost that was spread across the vast landscape of the district. As Go-bot shuffled out of the factory it was clear how much importance the Evos placed on their research. There were thousands of frozen Evo corpses being collected, mostly likely being taken away to the scrapyard. This was how they did things, worked the Evos to death in the blistering cold until their joints had frozen and their circuits burned out, and then replaced them with other Evos for the same purpose.
"This is what you call strength in numbers eh?" Ava joked,
"Right. I'm surprised you managed to survive out here Go-bot." Sylvie added,
"I only arrived here an hour ago Ma'am." Go-bot replied, "my body will be able to withstand the cold for a few months until I freeze and die."
"...You won't die Go-bot, jeez." Ava replied. Sylvie didn't say a word. "Let's get this mission over with quickly. Do you have the co-ordinates of the facility Sylvie? The quickest route too."
"Quickest route? Uhm... That's difficult to say. There's a magnetic tram that basically grabs all employees and takes them on a rail straight to the facility. But it'd probably be safer to go on foot. I mean, that's part of the mission brief."
"Let's go on the tram."
Sylvie didn't reply for a moment, "Ok, I'll put the route to the tram up on Go-bot's visual identifier. Just follow the arrows."
"Gotcha."
Just like last time, Go-bot was mind-numbingly slow. Ava regretted having full control of Go-bot's body, he would've preferred to have Go-bot in the driver's seat in all honesty, but that wasn't possible with the set up that had been made. Damn.
It took hours. And hours... but the three eventually made it to the tram station. Ava really didn't know what he expected when Sylvie had told him it was a giant magnet, but it certainly wasn't that. It was literally just a giant circular magnet held on to a rail. The magnet itself was slightly padded so that the Evos didn't get too damaged, but it was still a complete free-for-all.
"A train ride. Those are fun." Said Go-bot
"I didn't know you knew what "fun" was Go-bot," Ava replied,
"Hey, he's not a complete machine you know." Sylvie added,
"Too bad, both of you will have to take a back seat. I'll be enjoying the ride, it seems."
"How are you gonna get on that thing anyway? You need some sort of clearance ID, like the facility you entered the other day. We don't have that this time."
"..." Ava didn't reply. He turned to the building where all the robots were registering their ride ID, a two-storey registry office which was still in the middle of being built, cranes and the like surrounding it. Ava had his eyes on someone. A behemoth of a robot, bigger than he'd ever seen. Its lower abdomen was a giant dome with wheels, and its upper torso had four claw-like arms coming out from either side. Its head was nothing more than a small sphere, two big black eyes sunken into its face. Ava had no idea what purpose that sort of Evo could possibly have, but it was his next target. He waddled into the shadows and went around the building so that he was now behind the giant.
"Sylvie, can you scan that robot, does it have any hatches?" he asked,
"Sure, there's a really big one in its ass. Every Evo has a carrying hatch for personal items behind them. What do you- Oh."
"Right."
"But how're you gonna get in there?"
"I'll need your help. Is your AI strong enough to overpower a machine like that? If I cast it on him I mean."
"Sorry... afraid not. On a robot of that strength I'll be able to use its eyes and ears for monitoring, but that's it. No control."
"What can you control?"
"You really want me to control something? I was made for scanning, my AI isn't powerful enough to control another one."
"I believe ma'am's AI is strong enough to control basic automated construction equipment. Ones with adequate levels of computational power behind it." Go-bot said.
"...Hey that's perfect! I'll cast you on one of the cranes!" Ava exclaimed,
"Huh? How'll that help?" asked Sylvie,
"You can use the crane to knock over the giant Evo, throw him this way into the shadows. I'll climb in while it reboots."
"Ambitious! As expected of a Block-2!" Sylvie exclaimed. Wasn't that the same thing she said the other day?
"Heh, you don't seem that nervous any more Sylvie."
"...I was nervous?"
"Before we left."
"Don't be silly, Block-3 Servs don't get nervous, we do our mission and that's that."
"What?"
"Anyway, you gonna cast me or not? The terminal the crane is connected to is just inside the first floor."
"Sure..." Ava wasn't sure what had happened to Sylvie, did she forget the way she acted before her copy Ai was sent here? It didn't seem to be worth worrying about at the moment. He swiftly faced the building and shot Sylvie's copy AI into the computer.
"Wow. This is weird." Sylvie said to Ava over a remote connection, "I've actually got control over all these construction robots!"
"Ok but, we've got work to do Sylvie."
"Hehe, it's like I've got twenty limbs! Whoa!"
"Sylvie!"
"Oh, sorry, yeah. Uhm... crane D14 is the one I need to move I think." And indeed, the required crane started to move, it raised itself up a little and aimed itself behind the giant robot. The crane's arm hobbled back and forth a little like a person about to swing a bat, "oh man... I hope my aim is good. I'm not very precise here."
"You're in a good position. Just slam it!" said Ava enthusiastically,
Sylvie complied, and without any remorse swung the arm of the crane towards the giant.
BANG
The force of the attack was enough to send the bottom-heavy robot tumbling onto the ground.
"Shit. I didn't kill it did I!?" asked Sylvie,
"You're the scanner." Ava replied, his voice was blank and kind of unimpressed,
"No, I can sense it rebooting. This thing's reboot time is about twenty seconds, so you better get in quick. Oh, and cut the remote connection and bring me back into Go-bot too. The Evos are already dismantling the computer I'm on because they think it's malfuncti-" there was a buzzing noise, "-oning" Sylvie paused for a moment. "oh, I'm back in Go-bot. Nice one Ava."
"No worries, nice one to you too." The two congratulated each other as Go-bot opened up the giant robot's ass and climbed inside...
...
It was an annoying ride. Hiding tightly in the ass of a giant tank that was tumbling around on a magnet was troublesome, Ava had to spend the hour-long journey constantly making sure Go-bot's body wasn't damaged as the tank moved around erratically. This problem didn't really go away once the robot reached its stop.
It was a hugely bumpy ride as it rolled through the front gates of the research facility.
"Sylvie, create a virtual map by scanning all the security systems on the building..." said Ava with an annoying grunt,
"Already on it man. And hey, cheer up. It was a bumpy ride but we got there without a hitch." Sylvie replied,
"I agree, no hitch was to be had." Go-bot added superfluously.
"Anyway, here's the map..." her voice lowered with disappointment, Ava could see why. The outside of the research facility looked like nothing more than a flat one storey storage facility. No... it was as the recon had said, underwater, in the ice oceans below, that's where the factory lay. And it was massive. A huge complex labyrinth with the prize located squarely at the bottom.
"Perfect..." said Ava,
"What's perfect? The place is a maze... And it's so big!"
"Didn't the briefing files say that all the colonies we used to live on used to be human colonies?"
"Yeah."
"This must have originally be created by humans, all the rooms and corridors are the exact right size for Servs to fit in... too small for more dangerous attack robots. Once Go-bot gets inside, this mission shouldn't be too difficult."
"Whoa. Nice brain wave there Ava!"
"I know." Ava said smugly.
"That must mean this robot is going to park soon, it won't be able to get in.
it seems like these security systems have low level autonomy, if you cast me I can probably take control of them and turn them off stealthily."
The giant robot stopped outside of the main entrance. It then turned around, faced forwards, and deployed two cannons on either sides of its body. It was a defence system after all. But that wasn't what was important, the alarm system, that's what mattered, Ava would need to hack into it to break any firewalls, then cast Sylvie so that she could systematically turn off choice security systems as he travelled through the complex.
"This is gonna take ages." Said Ava as he opened up the robot's ass and clambered out.
"You are being quite loud sir." Said Go-bot
"Don't worry, that thing's engine is loud enough to mask any noise. Man, it's lucky its exit is on the back."
"Ava, there's a terminal right outside the front door. The Evos use it to scan themselves in."
"Well that's lucky isn't it?"
Ava waddled over to the terminal and began hacking, once again he had to set up a virtual OS to make himself compatible. He'd have to maintain the virtual OS remotely too once Sylvie was inside, seeing as she didn't know how to do that. Trust him to get the tricky stuff huh.
"Ava?" Sylvie interrupted his hacking,
"Yeah?" Ava didn't mind, her voice seemed to be beckoning,
"We're descendants of humans, right? So are the Evos actually."
"Yeah, they made us. Or at least, introduced the large scale reproductive system that churned us out."
"So... are we real?"
"Whaddya mean?"
"We don't consider copy-AIs real do we? They're just backups." Funny of her to say, seeing as she was speaking as a copy-AI at the moment,
"Oh, right. I suppose from their perspective that's what we were. Intelligence that was inorganically made. But we've been around longer than humans were, we've established ourselves as being real."
"So, what, this human in the lab. Is that a fake? Does its intelligence count as AI?"
"Probably. I don't know." Ava was having trouble concentrating, those were some interesting questions, but hacking, emulating a foreign OS for remote use and maintaining a conversation was difficult.
"Miss Sylvie, I don't think any intelligence is artificial, how could it be?" said Go-bot,
"What? I mean in the sense that it isn't real." Sylvie replied,
"What would you define as real intelligence... I don't understand. Intelligence is intelligence. How can one be real but the other not?" Go-bot couldn't make the distinction. For a moment there, Sylvie realised she couldn't either.
"...I don't think we're going to have a good time when we meet this human." Ava groaned. "Anyway, it's done. I'm gonna cast you Sylvie, after that I'm relying on you to unlock all the doors as I make my way to the bottom floor."
"Roger!" Sylvie replied.