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

Chapter 62: Tower Town

The outskirts of Zedek were a deserty expanse, extremely flat and hard to gain bearings of. Sylvie could see Zedek itself get smaller and smaller as the jeep she was in drove further and further out.

Koreh was driving her and Gobot to one of the satellite towers, one of the places that distributed network information across the city. From Sylvie's understanding, workers from Mars Central were being sent to the towers to repair them, in secret of course, and that's why there was still a divide between networked and non-networked Servs in the city.

The one she was driving to was deactivated, and the off-network Servs had no intention of letting anyone get it back online. Indeed, Koreh and his friends had created a small settlement around the tower to protect it from people who would try and fix the tower.

People who would take away his freedom.

It was a shame. Sylvie almost felt bad.

They wouldn't be able to protect the tower from her.

Koreh broke Sylvie's train of thought,

"So, it's a pretty interesting history you've got Sylvie. Almost hard to believe." he shouted over the engine of the vehicle.

"I understand if you don't believe me," Sylvie tried to keep in tone with the lie she'd told Koreh. She'd told him she used to be a Block-3, that she was repurposed to be a lower Block level. She told him that as a Block-3 she was a ruthless soldier, and that being taken off the network by accident made her remember that history. She told Koreh that she empathised with him and everyone else in his boat and that she wanted him to help her find herself. She could tell, he was an empathetic person, he wanted to help as many off-network people as he could. Sylvie acknowledged that it was scummy of her to manipulate someone's kindness. But she needed to.

Yes. Being on the network, ethically it was a terrifying thing. But Sylvie's secret mission was to investigate whether Mother really did have an influence on the network, it had nothing to do with the freedom of the Block-5s or Block-4s, as cold as that was. She needed to infiltrate that tower and find out.

"Koreh, doesn't it bother you? How much the city has fallen because of the lack of the network? Is your freedom really worth all the pain everyone is being put through?" maybe ignorance really was bliss,

"What!?" Koreh shouted over the engine of the jeep. He couldn't hear her.

That was probably for the best.

The tower, that was originally a speck, started to gain form. It was a metal frame that extended to the skies, it looked like it may even be taller than the skyscrapers in Mars Central. At the top there were clusters of huge satellite dishes pointing in every direction. The range of that thing must have been huge.

Keeping just that tower alone off network was probably enough to over the entire city, no wonder the Servs were trying their best to keep it protected from being repaired.

Although no-one really know what was wrong with it so, was there really any point?

The settlements around the tower started to become visible too. They were just a collection of shacks, some vehicles, it was more of a small fortification rather than anything else. Sylvie had told Koreh than her combat training as a Block-3 would come in useful, she wanted to help defend the tower with everyone else.

He believed her.

Actually the settlement itself was quite big, big enough that one would probably need a map to navigate effectively. This was probably also due to the fact it was so shabby though. The shacks were simple rooms made out of metal grating, none of them were used for actual permanent residence, moreso, they were used for when people were taking shifts to protect the tower.