Two years had passed. To Ava, it felt like he and Sylvie had said their goodbyes only a day or so ago, but of course, that was just a side effect of his body being in sleep-mode for so long. Two years, that's how long it took for his stealth ship to reach this mysterious new moon surrounding the planet known as Saturn.
The ship fell out of max speed as it approached the moon as Ava woke up from his two year slumber. He was woozy for a moment, trying to get his bearings back. That drunken feeling of waking up from deep sleep was one he'd never get used to. He was sat on a nice comfy seat, his head and chest jacked up to a power supply, the entire cockpit was tight, but he had enough space for a little palm-size keyboard and screen.
The screen itself showed the details of the moon he was approaching. This was one of the potential moons that housed the "Sanctuary". Whether the Human was dead or alive, he and Ava had an obligation to find it, and, of course, kill any Evo that got in their way. Hopefully Go-bot would be around too. But the moon itself was quite small, about the same size as a small country, and even then, it seemed like only a few areas were colonised.
The main capital then, it was best to probably land near these, past the black clouds that surrounded the moon and to the desolate snowy lands that lay below. Indeed, it was scary passing through the perpetual storm, Ava wondered if this was a permanent feature of the moon, being covered in black clouds. Either way, it made the entire place seem very sinister.
Ava's ship landed quite gracefully, as expected of a stealth ship, he opened up his cockpit and walked out delicately as possible, as if the ground beneath his would shatter if he stepped too hard.
The gravity was a fair 1g, the temperature was cold but surprisingly endurable, there was an atmosphere for sure.
A human could live here.
Ava looked up to the sky, the black storm clouds were unrelenting. Sure, a human could live here. But it'd be like living in hell.
The main machine city was a few miles north, he'd have to stealth his way in to the city and do a little reconnaissance, it was a shame he didn't have Sylvie to help with reconnaissance, this time he'd have to work on his own.
And so he marched into the fray.
***
The city was surrounded by a giant metal wall, ten storeys high. From what Ava could scan, there were no doors that let people in, rather, it seemed like some celestial cranes were dropping things from the sky, from where he was Ava couldn't really tell what the giant cranes were dropping, but they were huge. So there was no way in front the ground. In that case Ava would have to climb.
It was an arduous journey to the top of the wall, he had to bash his fist into the concrete walls again and again to create footholds for his to stand on, so climbing the wall itself took up a lot of his energy, and a lot of time. By the time he got to the top of the wall his joints were already red, steam was emanating from his body. He needed a little while to cool down.
The wall was thick enough for his to walk around and survey the city before his.
A "city"?
No.
It was a massive scrapyard that went as far as the eye could see.
Piles and piles of Evo bodies, tall enough that they almost spilled out over the edge of the wall, that's what the majority of the city was. The paths were no more than spaces where junk had been moved to the side. There was the odd area here and there that was more open, but these were few and far between.
There were several giant metal factories scattered across the cities, they were pumping out black smoke that carpeted the entire sky, a giant reactor sat in the middle of the scrapyard metropolis, most likely powering it all. The sewage pipes from the factories were massive, they permeated throughout the geometry of the city and generated an eerie humming noise that resonated constantly in the background.
So that's what the cranes were dropping. Junk.
He'd landed in the Evo dustbin.
Great. He really had all the luck, didn't he?
Ava considered bailing, the likelihood of the human being on this planet was very low, but at the same time, his job wasn't to make assumptions. His parameters were to determine if, at the very least, this was the "sanctuary" planet that was mentioned so long ago.
He looked around, the roads were still quite populated, Evos were walking here and there, but Ava wasn't sure exactly what they were there for. The factories looked automated, so mother couldn't have left them there to operate the machines. Why were there Evos in this city in the first place?
... But Ava was a Block-2, he could come up with a plan to get in. Somehow. There must be a way.
***
Five hours later, Ava had managed to come up with a plan. It was an embarrassing and quite unsophisticated one. But it was working.
He was shuffling around the scrapyard with his masterful disguise, broken parts of other robots he'd found in the scraps. None of the Evos questioned his. Many were in as bad a state as his shoddy costume, if not worse. Ok, so his plan was clumsy and unsophisticated, but it was working well enough.
After all, they didn't seem to notice his. The rusty bucket on his head, the tubes around his arms and legs, the cardboard box he had shoved his body in to, they were all part of his carefully crafted and masterful disguise.
This scrapyard city was a mystery to his though. Most of the robots were shuffling down the roads in unison. Block-5 autonomy at work. Evos really didn't have a thing going on in their head, did they? Likely these were just stray robots who managed to survive or evade the scrapping process, and had made a new home in their supposed grave. But these robots had no purpose, so all they did was wander around aimlessly.
Pathetic things. If he wasn't in disguise he'd trash them all. He'd brought his baton with him after all, one modelled after the one The Major used.
He was actually itching to use it.
He continued to walk through the grim darkness of the city, it was quite hard to see because of the lack of artificial lights, no streetlamps for what could barely be called streets. The only way Ava managed to see his path was by following the other Evos that were shuffling around, the ones that had lamps as eyes, specifically.
He was starting to get tired of walking around aimlessly, there weren't any clues as to what the name of this place was, it was unlikely it was the sanctuary, but he needed to make sure. Eventually he decided to go the brute force route and just ran up to one of the Evos and asked him directly. Not very Block-2 of him...
That robot he had found was quite similar to Go-bot. Small, round head, fairly inoffensive looking. Wouldn't be a threat at all. He could kill it easily if it kicked up a fuss.
"Hey, you there." He said to the Evo
The robot stopped its shuffling and turned to look at Ava, "You are not a recognised Evo unit." It said in its robotic voice
"Sure, I'm new here." Ava crossed his arms, "I-er, I was wondering what the name of this place was?"
"This is The Scrapyard. We are scrap."
"You're scrap?"
"We are scrap. You are scrap too."
"Whatever." So readily calling itself scrap, mother had decided it was scrap, so it had accepted itself as being scrap. This robot looked just as capable as any other Evo unit, what was it that caused it to get thrown to the scrapyard? "So this isn't The Sanctuary?"
"No. When we die we will go to The Sanctuary. When we die." The Evo starred at Ava, "You do not know of The Sanctuary. You are faulty. You need to be scrapped."
"Hah what?" stupid robot, "Are you kidding? What're you going to do to me?"
The robot started at Ava again, then suddenly a red and blue light emerged from its head, they flashed on so brightly that it caused Ava to step back in shock. Sirens started to wail from the Evo's body as the lights rotated,
"WARNING! WARNING! HERETIC! HERETIC!" its voice was loud enough to hurt Ava's ears,
"Wh-what the hell!? What do you mean heretic!?"
The siren continued,
"Hey c'mon! Stop it! What're you calling for anyway?!" Ava couldn't hear himself speak. But he could feel the ground shake. Huge, heavy footsteps thundering towards his from the distance. He turned to see where the thundering was coming from only to have four spotlights shone in his face. He covered his face with his arm and tried to peek to see where the lights were coming from.
It was a war machine, a giant Evo with six legs, mounted gatling guns, and bright lamps for eyes. It was difficult to make out the contours of its body in the darkness, it stood on top of a pile of scrap and stared at Ava through the darkness with its giant, bright, but dead eyes. All Ava could really make out was the black silhouette of this ghoulish creature behind the powerful lamps it used to look with.
How big was it? Bigger than a goliath tank at least. Shit, what was a creature like this doing in a junkyard?
"YOU ARE A HERETIC. YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO MOTHER AND GODDESS OF THE HOLY PALACE" Its deep robotic (but female?) voice boomed,
"I just asked where The Sanctuary was, jeez," said Ava casually as he took off his disguise, "you guys sure are sensitive, aren't you?" he extended his baton, this was going to be difficult, he wasn't a talented fighter, and this thing looked tough.