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

Chapter 42: Dreams of a Non-Existent Past

Hours had passed, Aphrodite was now asleep and the two Servs were left to their own devices. They walked out of Aphrodite's factory still rather energised, their charge from a few hours ago still hadn't run out.

It was Ava's idea to take the Sylvie to the Evo town square, a place which they had started to frequent quite often in recent days. He'd never thought it'd happen, but both he and Sylvie had started to make friends with the locals, and they'd thought it'd be nice to say hi to their friends in the area.

Of course it was just a collection of small shacks and huts made from metal scraps, but every place was clearly built with love and care, each one indivdually designed in their own way. It was odd to think, there was, somehow, more colour in this little town square than the massive metropolises on Mars, and much more variety than the black pillars that polluted the skyline of Europa.

There was a small stall in the middle of the town square which the two liked to frequent, it was owned by a "mother" who had two very likeable "children" (Ava still hadn't figured out how this family unit thing worked, especially with beings that didn't even reproduce). It largely sold trinkets, unique bits and pieces that were found hidden among the waste heap known as the scrapyard. This included vanity items, oils, things that could be used as toys, some replacement parts like lights and so on.

The mother was at the counter, waiting for customers. Tall and cylindrical, quite rusted and wearing what looked like an apron made out of thick foil. She had modified her body to look... motherly, a stereotypical human mother according what Ava had heard from Aphrodite, as if she'd been a mother her whole life. She noticed the two walking towards her shop.

"Oh, hello Mister Ava, Missus Sylvie." she was extremely polite, well, they all were. Similar to Gobot in that sense.

"Hi, how you doing?" Ava looked around, "the kids doing ok?"

"Oh they're doing very well, I hope you both are doing well, would you like some oil?"

"Thanks, hehe, have I really become that predictable?" Ava chuckled. He never thought he'd be this comfortable around an Evo.

He fiddled around in his pocket to find his trade item.

"You need this stuff right?" some dye he'd found in the outer areas of the city, "is this enough?"

"Oh that's more than enough! Isn't there anything else you want?"

"Hm..."

Ava looked around. He then noticed Sylvie, who was being pretty quiet this whole time. She was eyeing something. There was something on the back wall of the shop. Ava recognised it from his experience in battle, it was a small metal hoop that was used to reinforce the turret of a certain S-class Evo tank. Purple.

"You want that?" asked Ava,

"Huh? Oh um-" Sylvie seemed unable to say yes,

"The purple hoop. How much is it?" Ava asked the Evo,

"Oh, this thing is pretty rare, it's purple after all, I don't know if the dye is enough I'm afraid" purple was a very rare colour in the scrapyard. This was no double meant to be an expensive vanity item. After all, it was repurposed to have a clasp at the back.

"Ok, one sec." Ava reached into his pocket and pulled out a few premium batteries. It was pretty much gold in the scrapyard,

"Whoa!" said the Evo,

"Ava, you don't need to-" Sylvie started. These things held value even on Mars, plasma charged, they lasted a long time and provided extreme mental stimulus when ingested. Actually the batteries were worth even more for Servs because they needed to undergo conversion to work with their power units before they were effective.