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

Chapter 6: The Weapon Known as Man

It was morning, Ava and Sylvie made their way to HQ. A huge monolith of a building surrounded by scanner gates that fried anyone who wasn't authorised. Truly a fearsome building. While the rest of the district was quite bright and cheerful, there was always an aura of dread around it. It was during work hours, so Sylvie and Ava were both forced to wear their standard body frame. Naked, basically.

"We're both heading to the briefing room today. Just us two. It must be pretty important if its only us." Said Sylvie. She tried to act a little more professional now that it was work hours, but that spritely personality of hers was still struggling to get stifled,

"You finished your report, right?" Ava replied,

"I compiled it last night when I was charging. It took all night..."

"Well I'd imagine it would, that's pretty irresponsible, doing it when your body is charging. Your mind needs charging too you know."

"Don't be so stuffy. How long were you digging around on the network for? You think I couldn't tell? I heard you gasp and shake for ages." She frowned, "God knows what you were looking at."

"Wait... what're you trying to imply?"

"I'm just saying it's better to sync with friends, that's all."

"Hey now listen!"

"Man, you're easy to tease."

"Not it's a good idea to tease your only friend Sylvie," Ava smiled,

"Whu-what? You're not my only friend Ava!"

"You're easy to tease too." he chuckled.

The two stopped their banter when they saw the Major at the main doorway of the building. It was odd for her to greet people in person.

"Hello, both." She said in a surprisingly casual manner, "come with me." She turned around and walked into the building, "I trust you had a good evening last night?"

"Yes ma'am! We synced for hours ma'am!" Sylvie replied, Ava immediately stiffened. Block-3s man...

"Very good operator. Looks like you're good at something at least."

"Thank you ma'am."

"Don't look so red Ava. Synchronising is essential for jobs where you're carrying someone's AI-copy on you. I thought doing it naturally would be better than forcing you two."

"...You asked Sylvie to sync with me?" Ava replied.

"No, it's something built-in to operator units. They're built specifically to sync easily with people. Like I said, it makes the job easier. You probably didn't learn about it in your training but synchronisation, while not standard military procedure, is considered essential for bonding and developing empathetic connections. It means transferring copy-AIs is more comfortable and missions in general move more smoothly because both minds are more compatible. I used to be an operator myself so I knew Sylvie would be forward about it.

"Usually we build in a high-sync drive into field-units like you too but... well, you're a special case of course. Your architecture obviously looks at syncing differently from us."

"Oh... right."

"Speaking of which we can sync after this meeting for a few hours." The Major said casually, "if you wish."