"Humans" died.According to Hao Ren's definition of humanity, the humans on this planet were actually extinct at least a thousand years ago, and when they lost the ability to reproduce, lost the aura of intelligence, and could only be stored in a culture vessel like a mass of cell samples, they were already extinct in a racial sense.But for the stubborn mastermind and the entire society of surrogates, humanity is dead today.In the cylindrical culture vessel, various electrodes and catheters used to deliver nutrients are slowly detached from the liquid surface under the control of the main brain, and the wriggling pieces of meat tremble violently immediately after losing the maintenance of the machine, and in just a moment, large and small cracks appeared on their surfaces, and dirty red liquid and bubbles gushed out from between the meat pieces, and the original pale pink nutrients became blood red in the blink of an eye.Hao Ren couldn't tell if these pieces of meat could be considered a whole organism - because almost every cell it contained was completely different.The lethal mutations allow these cells to produce entirely new genetic sequences after each division, and biologically impossible for these cells to survive today.For a long time, they have been forcibly combined and maintained by the main brain by technical means, and the entire maintenance system has to filter out the large amount of toxic substances produced by these pieces of meat every day to prevent all cells from being killed by their own metabolites.But today, this never-ending suffering can finally come to an end.After removing all life support systems, the flesh can still survive for a short period of time, and the cells will die in large numbers, but until the containers are depleted of nutrients, they will continue to undergo deadly and toxic physiological activities, and according to the brain's calculations, it will take a few hours for the last cell to die completely."
Is that okay?"
Hao Ren frowned, staring at this "human funeral", in addition to the group of "outsiders" he led, the only people who witnessed this funeral were the main brain and N-6, "I thought there would be a more solemn ceremony." ”"The age of humanity is over, and we are going to see them off in our own way," the Mastermind's voice echoed through the hall, "and this day should have come a long time ago......
It took me too long to complete all the calculations. ”Hao Ren sighed: "It's too difficult for your hardware architecture to complete these calculations. ”"But only I can do it."
The mastermind and the agent are not the same.Although they are also artificial intelligence, they have a very different mission.Human beings have created surrogates by endowing them with as many characteristics as possible that are similar to human beings—from their appearance to their thinking—so that they have richer feelings and flexible ways of thinking, both of which give them greater self-learning and development abilities; In that turbulent era, they had to ensure that the potential of civilization could not be wasted in the slightest, so the design criteria of the mastermind were precision, strictness, rationality, and absolute obedience to primitive instructions.The Mastermind is the supreme commander of the Agent, but at the same time, he is also the babysitter of the Agent.The use of an accurate and efficient computer to manage the fledgling society of surrogate did ensure the survival of the flame of civilization in the earliest eras, but the day will come when humanity will leave, and when humanity leaves, no one will be able to come to the mastermind's console and press the button that can make the ultimate judgment.Perhaps human beings have thought about this problem in the past, and have designed various judgment mechanisms to help the main brain determine when this decision can be made, but the long war has destroyed so many things, even the big think tanks have lost half of their data, and the judgment mechanism designed by humans has long disappeared from history.So when the day finally comes, the Mastermind will have to go through the difficult process on its own.As a rational and logical artificial intelligence, the main brain thinks hard, thinks with all his might, it burns more than half of its servers and all its defenders in its thinking, and after paying the price of near destruction, he finally accepts this fact in many contradictions and conflicts: "human" is dead.He then ran the last program that his creator had left for him, which was the short piece of code, the code that represented "adulthood" to the agent - N-6 was its first user."
Now, there's only one last thing left."
The mastermind's voice echoed through the hall, still the same emotionless electronic synthesize.N-6 looked up a little sluggishly: "What's the matter?"
”"Acting after 'adulthood' does not need a mastermind."
N-6 didn't seem to understand what the other party meant, but Lily thought of what the mastermind wanted to do first, and she suddenly exclaimed, "Hey, you don't have to do this!"
Although the human race is gone, there are still so many people waiting on the moon ......"
"My work is done," the mastermind didn't care about Lily's words, but continued quietly, "The age of humanity is over, and so is my time, a civilization that grows up doesn't need guardians. ”Lily was still very anxious: "But ......"
"Forget it," Hao Ren pressed Lily, who was a little excited, "He's turned off the phone." ”Sure enough, the mastermind's voice never sounded again, and the data terminal detected that the various mechanical structures within the fortress were activated and began to operate automatically under the control of some pre-set underlying program.Hao Ren had already guessed that the mastermind would eventually make this decision, and he guessed this when he saw the charred maintainers in the secondary servo room: the mastermind burned out the maintainers on the one hand as a result of its own failure, but on the other hand, it also represented the choice made by the mastermind's "subconscious".He is seeking to self-destruct – because his mission is over.Even if Hao Ren forcibly intervened, things would not change much: most of the mastermind's servers had actually been destroyed one by one in the past few years, and his remaining consciousness had been transferred to the control center, which was not enough to carry the huge amount of data of the mastermind.Therefore, the mastermind that Hao Ren and they see today is the last operation of this ancient artificial intelligence in this life.There was a low roar from the depths of the fortress, some kind of huge mechanical structure was working, and Hao Ren felt the entire building shaking slightly."
Let's get out of here," Vivian pulled Hao Ren, "there's nothing to do here." ”"Stop looking, let's go," Lily reached out and tugged at N-6, who looked a little sluggish, "There's a lot of work ahead of you." ”N-6 stumbled a step under Lily's heavy pull before she came to her senses, her dull eyes quickly regaining their brightness, and after one last glance back at the culture vessel that was constantly emitting bubbles and blood mist, she turned to keep up with Hao Ren's group."
Goodbye, human."
Everyone left the fortress at a much faster speed than when they came, all the passages along the way were open, even the floodgates that were originally locked and needed to rely on data terminals to inject viruses to crack were all open, the lights in the fortress were all activated, and the roar of machinery came from the depths of the building, as if a beast that had been sleeping for a long time was about to wake up.They rushed out of the gates of the fortress, and Lily pointed in surprise to the distance: "Landlord!
What is that?
”Hao Ren looked to the place where Lily was pointing, and he saw the surrogates, many surrogates, human-looking synths coming out of the factories and warehouses, standing blankly on the road, staring in the direction of the fortress.They must have also seen Hao Ren and his party who had just rushed out of the fortress, but they didn't react to this, just kept a motionless posture and stared at the fortress that was constantly shaking.The mastermind that has supported and guided the society of agents for thousands of years is coming to an end."
Why didn't they move?"
Doudou poked his head out of Hao Ren's collar and looked at the agents in the distance with a look of surprise on his face.Hao Ren pressed the little guy's head: "They are adults." ”A moment later, Nolan's voice sounded in Hao Ren's mind, with some doubts: "Boss, I don't know what happened......
All the troops in the constellation Zenith suddenly came to a standstill, and I received a guidance signal to the moon......"
"This is the end of the matter, come and pick us up," Hao Ren interrupted Nolan, "Let's go back to the home planet, there is still work to be done." ”Yes, there is still work to be done.The departure of humans and masterminds is only an internal problem for the Agents, but the greater deadly threat they have to face is on their home planet, the "Planet Devourer" still exists, although because of a meteorite rain that year, this "planet eater" has lost its active aggressiveness, but as long as he is still entrenched in the home planet for a day, the civilization on the moon that has been reborn from the fire is not really safe.At least at this point, Hao Ren felt that he could still find something to do.After returning to the spaceship, Hao Ren and his party flew straight towards the vibrant planet, and N-4 learned from N-6 that the human race had died.N-4 and her team accept this fact uneventfully as the mastermind updates the code in each of the agent's logic circuits ahead of time, but N-4 and N-6 are at a loss when it comes to the "future".In other words, until today, the word "future" has never been considered by the agents of consumables.N-6 took the initiative to find Hao Ren who was staying on the bridge and confessed his confusion."
We never thought we'd have to deal with these problems on our own," the robot girl said, "what are we supposed to do without orders from the mastermind?"
”"The mastermind should have selected and set up a management group with permissions among the agents before leaving," Hao Ren had some general understanding of these matters because he had been scanning the signals sent by the fortress with the data terminal, "It won't be long before this new management team will contact you, and you will know by then." ”N-6 frowned humanely, "So what are we going to do now?"
”Hao Ren raised his head and looked at the large holographic projection in the center of the bridge.In the projection, the blue-green planetary earth is rapidly magnifying."
Let's go to the deepest part of your home planet together."