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

Chapter 70: To Jupiter

Ava was piloting the ship manually, he was traversing through an unknown region of space, a place with no recorded history, the most fearsome place in the galaxy. Jupiter.

It floated through the brown and yellow clouds, occasionally passing through beautiful spots of white and pink. It was an eerie and silent sea of chaos.

The ship was mostly silent. The Major was sitting on one of the beds, he eyes closed and legs crossed, she looked like she was in a zen-like state. Although there was a slight furrow in her brow, so there was definitely something on her mind.

Aphrodite was curled up in her bed, far away at the end of the ship. She had to leave her father behind on Jupiter after just meeting him. She was worried Jupiter would be too dangerous for him, so she had no choice, but it was clear that she missed him greatly.

Sylvie, who hadn't come up with a new name for herself yet, sat next to Ava and watched him as he piloted.

She tried to break the silence,

"Isn't it amazing?" she said,

"What is?" Ava replied,

"That Evo robot, what he said about Jupiter."

It was. When the group originally asked Schweizer where Mother resided, he told them it was right at the core of Jupiter. Aphrodite instantly rebuked that comment claiming it was impossible for a gas giant to be inhabitable, especially deep inside the core. She blathered out an encyclopedic level of knowledge about the planet and its composition, about how unbelievable it was that any sort of being could survive.

She'd also shown worry of her own ability to survive there if they were to actually leave the ship, due to temperature, gravity levels, toxicity and so on.

What Schweizer mentioned after that was mind-boggling:

He told them that Jupiter was an artificial planet.

The original planet was destroyed by a miniature black hole bomb thousands of years ago and was replaced by a completely different planet constructed from the ground up.

Why?

He didn't know. All he knew was that humans created this "new Jupiter", it was indeed possible for Aphrodite to survive there. That was where his knowledge ended, he didn't know what the insides of Jupiter looked like, or what Mother looked like, for that matter. In the end, he had the information the group needed though. Her whereabouts.

And so Ava was spending hours, days navigating his way through the clouds, trying to find his way to the core of Jupiter.

"Humans really are pretty damn incredible aren't they?" said Ava, "Well, isn't Aphrodite proof? Their knowledge, their creativity, and their... destructive capability. It goes beyond reason. Truly fearsome."

"Aphrodite isn't fearsome though." Sylvie replied, "I couldn't imagine anyone nicer actually."

"Yes well, humans have this odd thing called," he paused for a moment, "individuality. Like the Block-1s do but to a greater extent. So they're all different and unique in their own way at the same time. That's what I was told in my original briefing file anyway.", that was such a long time ago. It felt like a lifetime.

"That's unique to humans?"

"Uh, yeah. I mean, us Servs don't have as high-level autonomy. I mean, we're built to certain Block levels but we can't be made to Block-0 like-"

"Stop." The Major interrupted, "You're not Built to be certain Block levels. You're not born whatever Block you think you are." she opened her eyes but stayed motionless

"What?" Ava swiveled his seat around to face her,

"I only just recently found out," she sighed, "and I haven't really explored the depth of the implications this has. But... the Block system is a limiter. That's all."

"A limiter?"

"You're all built the same, and then the network imposes a limiter on your autonomy, assigning you to a certain Block level after that."

"That means-" Sylvie jumped in, "a Block-5 could be a Block-1 if the Network allowed it to be?"

"Hell, I don't think the Block system is actually a thing" The Major continued, "You get told you're a certain level and then you just accept it, assuming that the way you are is what your Block level is meant to be. What if there are Block-5 Servs out there who never do anything more than sweep the streets because they've been made to believe they're Block-5s, when in reality they have enough autonomy to be on par with a Block-3?"

"I'm confused," Sylvie sounded dejected,

"Well it's just a theory, even if I'm wrong, imagine having the autonomy of a Block-2, your level, but not being allowed to use it because the network was refusing to let you. That's even worse, isn't it? Knowing you're capable but not being able to."

"Wait wait, where is this all coming from. What are you telling us Major?" Ava said,

"The Block system is a lie. Servs and humans, I don't think we're as different as you think. Ava, Sylvie, I've met thousands of Servs, none of them like you two. You both were uninfluenced by Serv culture, you followed your own paths and ended up being completely different from the others I know."

"So you're saying-"

"Servs can have individuality. I'll prove it to you when we meet Mother. Then you'll see the full story."

"But-"

"I'm going to take a nap for now. Don't bother me." the Major stopped him abruptly, she lay down on the bed and faced away from him.

Dropping a bombshell and retiring just like that.

As expected of someone like her.

But she was just theorising, right? It was just empty talk.

Wasn't it?

Ava was having trouble processing what she was saying.

"Ava," Sylvie put her hand on his shoulder, "forget about it. This isn't about the Block system, this is about saving our race, we can't worry about this stuff right now."

This version of Sylvie, of course, had never actually spent any time with other Servs. Her motivations were quite unclear. But she was right, none of this philosophising about humankind and the Servs was going to help.

"I guess you're right," he leaned back in his chair and stretched,

"You've been piloting for almost a day now, you should probably recharge Ava. Let me pilot for a while."

"It's best if I do it," Ava was piloting via a remote hack of the ship, sitting in the pilot's seat was just for show. In reality, his Copy-AI was swimming around in the ship deciding which direction to push it, and Ava was controlling said Copy-AI manually. "You still can't hack can you?"

"Your Copy-AI will listen to me won't it?" Sylvie smiled cheekily.

And it was four days of the two alternating control of Ava's Copy-AI that finally carried the ship to the destination.

Jupiter.