It was dark as always, but what Aphrodite had decided to classify as "morning" for Ava. She was definitely a hurry, she didn't wait for the groggy Ava to wake up properly before she rushed him to one of the giant acid baths. From there she, Locke, and Ava managed to climb on top of one of the giant cranes and waited for it to lift them up through the clouds, up to the upper plates. Locke was just as creepy and stoic as he was the day before, and similarly Aphrodite carried with her a dark expression of deep emotionlessness. It was odd, because this emotionlessness of her was somehow, more emotional than anyone Ava had met before. There was a deep sadness in Aphrodite's eyes that Ava had so easily managed to catch when their eyes first met. Even now, with her googles on and face expressionless, the way she stood, steadfast and with closed fists, showed that she was a girl driven and determined because of something the troubled her deeply.
All three of them stood on the claw and looked out to the scrapyard city, as he rose higher and higher Ava started to gain a greater understanding on how massive the scrapyard was. It was a sprawling pile of junk that went on for miles upon miles, in retrospect the Evo colony was very tiny, no doubt easily hidden among the scraps.
"Hey, does Mother even know about this place?" asked Ava, "the colony of Evos here I mean."
"I don't know. I'm not Mother." Aphrodite was blunt, "This society has been around for years though, so even if she does know, it doesn't seem like she cares." She paused for a moment, "The heretics have only been here two years though, they came a little before I did. Mother knows about them." She bit her lip, "They might draw Mother here."
"Is that another reason why you want to take Mother down? Because you're worried she might come here and attack the Evos here soon?"
"Does it matter? Mother's evil, and now I've get a means to stop her."
Aphrodite's conviction had somehow managed to turn Ava's thinking around a little, he too, started to think about how evil Mother was, his hate, which was usually directed squarely at all Evos, began to focus, and became more targeted to Mother.
Yes.
It was Mother who was pulling the strings, wasn't it? Who knew what stopping her would do, what would happen to the Evos. But at the very least the Servs would stop being antagonised.
The claw started to pass through the dark clouds, Aphrodite instinctively covered her mouth and nose by lifting up the fabric of her body warmer from her lower chin. Ava failed to do so, and hence was greeted with a horrifically pungent smell as they rose through the blackness. Eventually though, they managed to pass through. Ava, once again, failed to prepare himself. Aphrodite touched her goggles and fiddled around with the settings while Ava did nothing at all, so when the crane was finally pulled through the hatch of the giant plate that floated above the clouds, he almost fell off his feet because of the blinding light of the sun.
Which actually wasn't blinding at all. He'd just increased the sensitivity of his eyesight to match the darkness below. I reality the surface of the floating plate was still quite dim, but there was a low light from the sun at the very least. It meant he didn't have to worry about using NVG as much, and could move around without straining himself. Either way all three of the riders had to jump off the crane the moment it exited the hatch... onto a pile of garbage. This was where the crane much have picked up the garbage from, before depositing into the scrapyard below into the acid baths.
It was largely just metal, nothing too gross, but the group then noticed a giant ship cast a shadow upon them. It was hard to make out what it looked like as it cast the shadow, but it was definitely circular, and it definitely had a hatch that was about to open. It didn't even take a moment for Ava to realise what the ship must have contained, without even thinking her leapt on to Aphrodite to shield her as the hatch opened up and piles and piles of metal scrap got dropped on them. He could feel the heavy chunks of garbage pile up on top on him and Locke while Aphrodite hid beneath. The meagre sunlight from before started to disappear as the group were completely pelted by the metal piles. By the time it had all stopped, Ava was certain he had almost a tonne of metal on his back. He was only able to manage carrying a fraction of that, it was only because of Locke, who had started to shield everyone with some large pieces of metal he had found, that everyone survived.
"Th-thanks Locke," said Ava, "Shit, didn't expect that. Aphrodite, you ok?"
"Yeah, thanks to you too."
"But now what? I mean, how are we going to get out of here without-" without damaging the human, without breaking its fragile body. Locke would survive well enough, Ava would get a little scratched and scuffed, but all these metal and junk would tear Aphrodite's flesh apart if she tried to push her way through.
"It's fine. I didn't want to have to use this but-" in the darkness Ava noticed Aphrodite pull out a mysterious looking weapon from inside her thermal bodysuit. It was a gun, but there was a glowing circular ring around it, "guys stay back." Ava wasn't entirely sure what she was going to do, but Locke seemed to, both moved out of the way, with Locke making sure the ceiling of the cavern he had made was stable before he moved. Aphrodite aimed her gun upwards and pulled the trigger. For a couple of seconds nothing happened, but then the barrel started to glow, a whirring sound started to circular the weapon, and then-
BANG
An explosive beam of red hot light blasted out of the gun, it burned through the entire pile of metal and created a pillar that ascended far into space. Ava couldn't help but recoil in shock, and even Locke, who seemed to be expecting the shot, seemed in awe.
Aphrodite's face was blank though, perhaps a tad annoyed from the look at the furrow of her brow, but definitely not shaken. It was as if the fact that she had almost died didn't bother her in the slightest. She put her gun back into her bodysuit.
"Haven't you seen one of these?" she asked Ava,
"No, not guns that shoot light. The ones I've seen shoot bullets using magnetic railings. What the hell was that?"
"I can't protect myself with a gun like that, no bullets. This is a rechargeable miniature version of the nuclear cannons the Evos have on the PC-class warships." She looked at the gun, "I mean, I don't know if I fixed it correctly, seems like it's a bit too powerful."
"Are you kidding me!?"
"Yeah I was joking. The power is adjustable." She smirked while she got back on her feet, "you Serv don't have a sense of humour do you?"
"We do, it just seems like you humans aren't very good at being funny," Ava threw an annoyed frown at Aphrodite, although it was one that was sated by the little smile he teased along with it.
"Huh, speaking of which. Now seems to be as good a time as any. I mean we're finally out where the network can reach us. Locke, can you pass me the mirror, and a torch?"
Without saying a word, Locke pulled the two out from inside a compartment in his backside. Evos sure were gross. He passed them to Aphrodite in as procedural a manner as possible. It was weird, he practically owned this whole moon, yet he acted like Aphrodite's butler. Did she mess with his programming or something?
Aphrodite illuminated her face with the torch and looked at herself in the mirror. There was a stillness among the group and she stood and did this for several minutes. Nothing happened. Eventually, she handed the mirror and torch back to Locke. She smiled, her eyes, despite hidden in the dimness of the light, were brighter than Eva had seen so far, she looked at him,
"Thank you!" She said with passion in her voice, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"H-hey, it's ok, no worries." Ava wasn't used to seeing this level of emotion. What should he say?
"Now that she can't control me, I'm free to do what I want." Aphrodite clenched her fist, "I tear Mother to pieces! And you'll help me. Right?"
"As long as I can trust you yeah," he didn't trust her very much "so, you're sure none of her orders will affect you now?"
"There's a solar-system wide command order sent to all networked Evos, all asking for them to kill any adolescent female human with short dark hair, on sight. Me. Seeing as I have Evo architecture wired into my brain, the command worked on me. I had to change my appearance so that it wouldn't work whenever I looked on any shiny surfaces... because then I'd try and kill myself."
"That sounds like a complete hassle."
"Right, but also a good way of testing whether she still has control over me."
"Now that she hasn't, I guess we can put your plan into place."
"Right, to be honest all we need is a ship to leave this moon for a little while. The Heretics should have plenty."
Ava was about to acknowledge what she had just said until something suddenly got picked up by his sensors. It was definitely something that was niggling him on the back of his head since he had surfaced to the plate, now that he'd focused on it, he was sure it was there. A crashed Serv ship in the distance. He could detect it with complete clarity now.
Ava scrambled away from his spot in the garbage and jumped down to the actual plate itself. The smooth and shiny surface that went off far into the distance, padded with small rubbish deposits here and there, was all he could make out. But his sensors picked it up loud and clear, it was a stealth ship, similar to his, it was damaged and sending out a beacon only detectable by Servs. Damn.
"Hey, you ok?" Aphrodite asked, she jumped down from the burned piles of scrap along with Locke, "what're you looking at."
"There's a Serv ship two miles from here, on this plate. Not too far. We should go investigate."
"A Serv ship?" Aphrodite frowned, "it's your friend, right? Sylvie. You didn't bring some other evil Serv with you did you!?"
"I-it should be. I didn't bring anyone with me, so it could only be Sylvie," even though that wasn't her ship.
It wasn't her ship. It was his. From his first ever mission.