The main entrance of the Heretic's city was a massive gate that stood at least thirty feet tall, it was most likely ripped off of one of the goliath ships and stuck to the colony's wall. It was odd for the colony to have a wall at all, what were they trying to keep out? There weren't any people to antagonise them on the plates, so there didn't seem to be any need for protection. The moment the group walked up to the door a booming voice started to speak:
"State your name and designation!" it said, a blunt and robotic voice buzzing through the air, Ava looked around, oh, there were cameras and speakers hastily attached to the sides of the doors. He didn't know what to respond with, Locke jumped in:
"We are not located on your registry as residents, we're in your guest registry. Aphrodite, the Queen of the scrapyard, and Locke, the caretaker." he said in an authoritative manner, the most colour he had in his voice all day.
There was silence for a while, as if the Evo on the other side (or maybe it was just an AI in the speaker?) was processing all the information.
"There is a third being with you," said the voice,
"Designate him as a guest please. As per our request." again, very commanding, as if he was so certain they'd listen to him,
"He's technically the owner of this planet," said Aphrodite to Ava, "they respect him no doubt!"
"Right." Ava acknowledged. Still, he didn't really like this lack of control, two Evos communicating with each other, both about to invite him straight into what could be a lion's den. Sure the Evos in the scrapyard seemed harmless enough, but the Heretics... and Locke himself. They all gave him an uneasy feeling. It was unprofessional of him as a Serv soldier to go this route, a Block-3 would've gone alone. No. A Block-3 wouldn't even bother rescuing Sylvie, it wasn't part of any mission directive.
"State your business here." the voice didn't show any hint of intimidation though. Actually it hadn't shown any emotion at all, that fit in with Ava's expectation of what an Evo would act like. Somehow this surprised him though. He was expecting some kind of difference, seeing as it was supposedly not taking orders from Mother.
"Your community apparently found some wreckage here, we'd like to investigate it. Can we talk to your-" Locke paused for a moment, didn't he know how this community's governing system worked? Come to think of it, how did they govern themselves without Mother? "Your leader."
"We will send a vehicle at the entrance for you to enter. We will take you to our leader from there."
So they had a governing leader too. Interesting. The discourse ended there, no thank you or goodbye. Just silence. And indeed, after a few minutes, the gates slowly opened outwards, making the group run back a few feet to get out of the way. Pretty badly engineered wall to be honest.
What greeted the trio inside was surprising to say the least. An intense heat, a barrage of sounds of crowds stamping and treads hitting metal, a gray haze in the air that so easily mixed with the ash fluttering down from the sky. All the towers were so tightly stuck together, ableit in a messy and almost primal manner, the roads were all distorted because of the damage caused from the city's amateurish construction. These Evos weren't guided by mother, they'd created this town for themselves with the little knowledge they had. But, it was quite a sad sight to see, because what they'd created was nothing more than a distorted recreation of the residential areas in Europa.
These Evos were having trouble letting go of their way of life. They'd left Mother, but they hadn't left the society that they were used to.
It took a moment for Ava to notice that there was indeed a vehicle waiting for them, a rather busted up looking tank that had its roof ripped open to be a makeshift passenger vehicle, Ava recognised it as an Evo drone he'd seen in skirmishes before. The same voice as before now came from the vehicle.
"Enter the vehicle, we will take you to our leader." it said. No time to see the sights, it seemed. No matter, he'd seen it all before, no need to see a distorted, nightmarish version of it.
The moment the three climbed in, it rolled onto the thin, tight space of a road and slowly drove through. The road itself which was crowded with other Evos and drone tanks, all moving in unison, all seemingly not going in any particular direction.
The slow journey through the crowd of lifeless Evos gave Ava and the two a chance to observe the rest of the city. It really wasn't any different, piles and piles of robotic Evos, towering skyscrapers made out of crumpled together starships, heavily polluted air. Hell. Aphrodite was trembling.
"Hey." said Ava, "Are you scared?" this was definitely because of the emotion known as fear, he'd felt it himself before.
"No." she was, "but I didn't know the Heretics lived in such a pitiable state. Even though the Evo of the scrapyard live in squalor, they are happy, I can tell. But these..."
"So you've never seen what Evo are really like then." Ava replied, "have you?"
"Really like?" asked Aphrodite, "what makes you think this is what they're really like? The Evos I know, they're what they're really like. I-" she paused, "When I met the Heretics before, when they came to the scrapyard to meet us, they weren't like this. They had more, how to put this, colour?"
Locke was simply staring directly ahead, he had nothing to add to the conversation. Even though he lacked emotive face anyway, it certainly seemed like he was thinking about something.
"These are Evos as I know them. These are what the Serv have been fighting. This blank and emotionless nature of theirs is what we need to face in every battle. They have no fear, death has no meaning to them."
"Stop it! Evos are more than just a collection of nuts and bots! They're more than lifeless machines! I know they are!" Aphrodite growled. It was evident that she now regretted following Ava. Her understanding of what the colony was going to be like was subverted, it was in fact, a society she'd never seen before, a society without emotion, without purpose.
"No. There's definitely something wrong here," said Locke, he'd broken his twenty minutes of absolute silence, "we should find your friend and leave as soon as we can. I fear for Aphrodite's life."
Maybe Ava had made the wrong choice.
***
As the group moved further in it became clear that the centre of the city was located exactly at the pillar that connected the plate to its satellite in space. No-one really know what they expected to see, at least, Ava and Aphrodite didn't.
Eventually however, the tank managed to make its way to the entrance of a huge facility located right at the base of the pillar. It was almost as tall as the skyscrapers, it had no windows and was completely black, ominous, but nothing that worried Ava, not yet anyway. It was only when the automatic doors of the facility slid opened and the group found themselves driving all the way in when things turned for the worse. The tank stopped in a small parking area .
"This is as far as we Heretics can go, you will have to meet our leader on foot. He is already waiting for you. Please follow a straight line from the main hall." a voice from the tank said. The group carefully got out and found themselves on stiff and even concrete, not the smooth metal of the plate outside. Of course, this facility was probably made a long time, by humans. Probably a place to aid in the construction of the pillars or something. Once the group got off, the tank quickly sped off back outside.
Ava felt someone cling to his arm,
"Whu-" he said,
"It's pitch black. Even with these goggles I'm finding it hard to see. So you'll have to guide me," it was Aphrodite. She really was having trouble admitting she was scared. Was it such a big deal to admit to such an emotion?
"Fine. It's still quite a walk, but I can sense the beacon from the ship is here. Their leader definitely knows about it if he's keeping it so close by." he turned away from the entrance and looked at the corridor that exited the parking area. So that's where they had to go to see their leader. He gulped. "Come on."
The group walked through the long, wide corridor for what seemed like an eternity. Ava noticed there were rather large, gated doorways on the sides every now and then, and while he was curious to see what was inside, now wasn't the time. Aphrodite kept hanging to his arm tightly, and all of their footsteps (especially Locke's) echoed through the walls.
Eventually the corridor ended, the door opened automatically, as if it were beckoning the group to enter. As they did all the lights in the next room turned on, the trio almost fell back in shock, none of their eyes ready for the brightness. It took a couple of minutes for them all to recover.
When Ava finally regained his senses he looked around. He was standing on a very large platform, it was suspended above a chasm that was difficult to see, seeing as the lights only really highlighted the platform. From what he could see the room itself was rather big, but he had no idea how deep the chasm was. Before them far off the front edge of the platform was... what looked like a head. It was definitely a head, connected to all corners of the room with thin and sparking wires. There were thousands of them, all causing the head to suspend in front of the group, although rather far in the distance. It was hard to make out what the head looked like because, again, the lights were largely simply focused on the platform.
"Ava-12. I never thought I'd see you in person." a voice, it was coming from the head. It echoed through the room, a deep buzzing and crackling as it spoke. But, Ava sort of recognised that voice, sort of. Who was it?
"The hell?!" said Aphrodite, "who are you? Why do you have the same voice as Ava!?"
"What!?" Ava exclaimed, of course, it was his voice! Why didn't he recognise? Oh, of course, no-one really knew what they sounded like did they? But, wait a minute. Why did their leader have his voice, "who are you? Why are you emulating my voice?"
"I'm not emulating your voice, you're emulating mine." said the voice, "you pathetic copy-AI," it said with a venom in its voice. Ava shuddered. It couldn't be...
"Wait, you can't be... Didn't you self-destruct!?"
The lights turned on to reveal the head that was connected to the walls. It was as Ava had assumed. It was indeed his own head. Or rather, the head of his previous self. The one that went on the first Europa mission. The one he regretted leaving to die all those years ago. Shit.