Chapter 1,183: Hold On

On the officer's platform, a group of people gathered in front of the holographic projection. They were stunned with big eyes and small eyes. The picture showed the scene of an engineering exploration aircraft being attacked, but the scene was weird no matter how you looked at it: one could not tell the model at all, The "strange guy" that looks like several autonomous machines haphazardly pieced together is the attacker. It waves its working arms to drive away our exploration plane. This is the entire "attack" behavior. Even the ship-based host that had issued the alarm before seemed a little embarrassed at this time and simply shut up and remained silent.

Qianqian rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling at a 45-degree angle. She didn't know what she was thinking. Anyway, as usual, she was the first to react when everyone was stunned: "Ajun, put that Pick it up and bring it back?"

... This girl's logic is a black box, and no one will ever know the operation process, but the results come out very quickly anyway.

"Is there any way to bring that...that monster back?" I asked the people in the monitoring team, and the person in charge of the latter immediately gave a positive answer: Although the attacker looks weird, his "combat effectiveness" is really worrying. It seems that its most powerful weapons are the two squeaking and sparking beam knives. There is no need to dispatch soldiers, just a few engineering probes on site are enough to deal with this funny attacker. After receiving the order from the monitoring team, the engineering exploration aircraft, which had been in a passive defense state, immediately switched from defense to offense, using their mechanical arms to control the movements of the "enemy". The two engineering exploration aircraft were specially used to open the way in front, using their own The tractor beam of the belt forcibly dragged the strange-looking attackers towards the mothership. The scene looked really strange, as if a bunch of toy soldiers were fighting - although the combat effectiveness of this group of toy soldiers would be much higher if thrown to the earth. It's impressive enough.

Basically, as expected, the strange thing resisted very fiercely. When it found out that it was about to be dragged away, it even unleashed a force even stronger than the one that attacked the exploration plane just now. Those twisted robot arms were It was waving in the air like the Thousand-Hand Guanyin. I could almost make up a series of waaaaaaagh from its movements. It dragged out the long sound for a long time and tugged on my arm: "Ajun, is it protecting?" Those suppression towers?”

"It looks like this." I was also thinking about the origin of this strange-looking thing. It looks like it was originally an autonomous machine used in engineering. It was later modified into this appearance by an unknown engineer. It is very likely that it was working here tens of thousands of years ago when the universe was not abandoned. One of the self-disciplined machines. Perhaps our exploration machine's behavior of dismantling those abandoned suppression towers made this self-disciplined machine think it was vandalism, so it rushed out to protect its treasure? There is probably no other explanation.

No matter how fiercely that weird thing resisted. In the end, it was dragged over by a brand-new exploration aircraft that far exceeded its own number and was countless times more powerful than itself. A large group of fighting autonomous machines rushed into the mother ship's storage port, pushing and shoving. They were still fighting fiercely until our engineers rushed over: they were beating each other with their working arms, and the level of attack was fierce. Even the shield couldn't be activated, but there was quite a lot of movement. Followed like a blacksmith shop.

The engineers spent a lot of effort to separate these little guys (including a big guy), and finally had to use energy shock devices to paralyze both warring parties. It is said that after the working arm was paralyzed, the grotesque attacker was still hissing menacingly at his enemies, but it was a pity. Its enemies are all a group of mindless self-disciplined machines. After completing their mission, they go back to the hangar for maintenance.

We sent a new batch of engineering probes to recover the parts of the suppression tower, and the strange thing was sent to the laboratory in the scientific research ship. When we rushed over, the scientists were already busy scanning its whole body. .

"It is composed of a complete autonomous machine as its core and a large number of miscellaneous parts." The technician responsible for examining the body of the strange thing reported his findings. "These parts are very messy, not only There are standard accessories for autonomous machinery. There are also spare energy tanks for soldiers, processing modules for production lines, and it even carries a shield generator component for individual fighter aircraft on its 'back'. This shield generator is almost It’s one-third the size. I really don’t know how this kind of modification was done.”

I turned to look at the "captive", which was now restrained by several energy suppression devices. Zheng was lying on the platform, looking very listless. We finally had a chance to see what this guy looked like. A normal autonomous machine is only as big as a child's torso, but its main body is almost as tall as an adult. Coupled with those messy working arms, this weird thing occupies almost as much space as a small car. Its "trunk" is made up of a bunch of messed up pieces. I don’t know how to tell which one is its “original” core. Probably only the scientists present know how to tell. You can see broken places, pits, peeling coatings, and even signs of melting in some places on its shell. At the same time, you can also see a lot of repair marks on the shell. This is a sign that has seriously exceeded its service life and It is a self-disciplined machine in working condition, but it still persists in working to this day after tinkering. The person who modified it may be a technically poor engineer, but it may also be a creative genius. We now have a question we can't figure out: How does it survive in this environment?

"The environment here is extremely dangerous. There is an energy storm above and the Gate of the Abyss below. Although the degree of pollution here is relatively low due to dynamic balance, it is still an absolutely polluted area." I felt very puzzled. "Such a small 'How can a robot survive in this place for tens of thousands of years with its protective capabilities?"

"Perhaps it will hide in those suppression towers when it is on standby," the Xiling technician next to it guessed. "The suppression towers are devices specially designed to continue to operate next to the gate of the abyss. Their working life in the abyss environment It is super long, and there is a certain amount of space inside for temporary observation equipment or personnel. Perhaps this autonomous machine has found a suitable shelter for itself. Its energy problem is probably solved there: it is equipped with There are too many extra components, and its own power core can't support so many devices, so it probably has a 'charging' place."

"Then go find it." I connected to the command hall and ordered them to send more detectives to search all the suppression towers to see if they could find this weird guy's "den". "Okay. This is really It's surprising to meet such a... guard. Now I'm completely interested in it."

The strange thing that surprised everyone was lying on the platform, and occasionally it gathered all its strength to twitch, as if it was resisting the scanning of it by nearby scientists. I ordered not to dismantle it hastily for the time being. Don't do any damage either. Because it is likely to hide a terrible secret, and looking at it from another angle... I think this is a dedicated guard. Although it is a bit strange to put such an adjective on an autonomous machine, I still think so It's more appropriate to say.

At this time, Qianqian took advantage of people not paying attention. He got close to the scanning platform and was scratching at the shell of the "strange thing" without knowing what he was studying. After a while, he suddenly shouted: "Ajun, Ajun! Look at this, look at this! This is new!" of!"

Everyone came closer to take a look, and it turned out that Qian Qian was referring to an obviously non-original protective plate, which was located in the center of the main body of this magically modified autonomous machine. In my opinion, there is no difference between this protective plate and the surrounding patches and parts, but Qian Qian pressed it lightly with her hand and said firmly in a cold voice: "It was modified two years ago."

"This is..." Father God gave me a puzzled look.

"She is gifted so that she can observe the flow of time." I waited for Qianqian to return to her usual appearance and then knocked her head and looked at the scanning platform again. "In other words, this machine has been repaired recently. ! I always thought it was some engineer who modified it before the stationed scientists of this universe evacuated. Now it seems that..."

This pieced-together engineering robot actually shows traces of recent modifications and repairs! There are only two possibilities for this, either the person who modified it into this patchwork appearance is still alive, or... it modified itself into this by itself!

Everyone looked at each other. Everyone can think of this simple reasoning, but except for Father God and Bingtis who are not experts and may not understand how strange this is, everyone else is very clear: self-disciplined machines do not have this ability.

Apparently. There are countless mysteries about the magically modified autonomous machine in front of us, but the more obvious one is. The other party cannot communicate. As soon as the energy supply is restored, it will immediately start tossing around and want to return to its job. Therefore, we decided to change the method to explore the secret of this strange thing: directly connect its core to the data reading device.

The technicians adjusted the output of the restraint device and the energy suppression device to the maximum to prevent the target from suddenly resisting and causing unnecessary damage. Then they began to carefully cut the opponent's protective plate: the reason for taking such primitive means to dismantle it was Because the technicians discovered that the protective panels all over the messy modified body were welded together using crude methods, and the locks originally used for disassembly and repair could no longer be used. As layers of worn-out protective panels and weird, non-original parts obtained from God knows where were removed, the shimmering light of the Magically Modified Autonomous Machine (is this already the name of this weird thing?) The core was gradually exposed in front of us. The assistant technician next to us immediately connected the prepared data interface to the processing module near the core and began to try to synchronize the access rights of both parties.

The working arm of the weird autonomous machine shook a few times, which was considered the last resistance. However, as its core was shielded into an isolated operating environment, the guy finally calmed down, and the slight sound of the mechanical parts in the body completely disappeared. , the flashing lights on its surface gradually extinguished, as if it were dead, but only its trunk was "dead". Its core has been placed by external equipment in an operating environment that is far more efficient than its original processing substrate, and It started running quickly. Looking at the scene in front of him, he lightly scratched his hair: "Ajun, why do I feel so like an alien?"

Me: "..." Forget it, let this girl think whatever she thinks is what she thinks. Studying logic with her is like asking Dingdang to study for a master's degree and a Ph.D. The world view is full of crazy irrationality...

At this time, the host in the laboratory had successfully established a connection with the autonomous machine and began to quickly crack the other party's not-so-advanced firewall. Synthetic Voice began to announce the progress of his work: "Access rules are being synchronized... 10%, 30%, 70%...100%, the target processing core has been cracked, and data reading has begun...Data environment identification is completed, xl-z-12j engineering modified self-discipline processing core, the system version cannot be determined. The basic database integrity cannot be determined , unable to determine the integrity of the logical system - ignore all authentication errors. Conclusion report: The processing program has mutated, there are traces of recompilation, and there are signs of self-evolution."

I thought for a moment and tapped the nearest technician on the shoulder. Then he pointed at the main computer in the laboratory: "What is that? Can you let this person say something that I can understand?"

"That is to say, the operating system it uses is not the original version," Viska came over and said, "If it is recompiled, it should have been modified by the outside world at first. Then it started to evolve on its own."

If I had said this earlier, I would have understood.

At this moment, the external reading device seemed to read new data from the core of the autonomous machine, making a weird squeaking sound. The operator in front of the terminal looked at the data displayed in front of him and said strangely : "The core is still running autonomously? It's strange. It has obviously been switched to a pure read-write state, so it stands to reason that the logical output has been lost..."

"Does it want to talk?" I suddenly had this idea, and the more I thought about it, the more likely it was, "No matter what the core outputs, it will be translated according to logical language."

The laboratory host translated the mutated basic language very quickly. Soon, a line of words appeared on the data terminal: "... Patrol, maintain, repair... Protect the suppression tower... Return to work. Suppress the gate. …”

Just such a sentence, recurring from beginning to end, I thought about it: "Is this its only thought?"

"It seems so," the senior technician nodded, "its owner set these work instructions. It has been carrying out the task to this day. As for these messy modifications, it should be to complete the task and extend its working life. It carried on on its own.”

"Leave such a heavy responsibility to an autonomous machine?" I felt unbelievable. "Don't they have any other advanced equipment?"

"If the original order only requires evacuation time for local garrison personnel, it is still possible..." The senior technician was only halfway through his words when he was suddenly interrupted by a communication from the command hall. It turned out that the person who had just been sent out was The explorers who were looking for the "nest" of this autonomous machine made a discovery. They found a small workshop in a nearly extinguished psionic energy suppression tower. There were a large number of scattered parts in the workshop, as well as clumsy modifications. According to the recording equipment found in the small workshop, that place is the "nest" we are looking for.

Soon, the workshop that the "weird thing" in front of us regarded as home, and even the entire psionic energy suppression tower were packed and dragged to the research ship's garb. The various parts and workbenches in the workshop were It was transported to the laboratory, and then the technicians on site found the remains of several autonomous machines that had been dismantled into pieces, as well as the memory cores of these wrecks.

After piecing all these things together, we finally found the original order left behind when the old empire's local personnel evacuated.

Because the stability of the Gate of the Abyss has dropped to a critical value, this world has lost its deep diving environment and decided to evacuate according to the instructions from superiors. Twelve autonomous machines and an unmanned engineering mothership were left behind to continue controlling the Gate of the Abyss. They will come to take over after the second phase of the test project begins.

The above is the original abbreviated version of the order, which is stored in an autonomous machine that only has its core left.

"It turns out that the people who evacuated here left behind a total of twelve autonomous machines and one unmanned ship," I said to myself. "It seems that there was originally a second phase project. This universe is not It was completely abandoned and was only temporarily deactivated. The autonomous machinery left here was responsible for continuously controlling the Gate of the Abyss, waiting for the personnel from the second phase of the project to receive it - but in the end, the people from the second phase of the project did not come."

"Why?" Qian Qian asked blankly.

"Looking at the time, something happened to the empire around that time," I sighed, "and then this place was forgotten."

I can probably guess what happened next. Without personnel to receive it, the autonomous machines and the engineering ship left here will naturally continue the initial order until they are all scrapped. In this way, the mystery that the Gate of the Abyss suddenly erupted at some time during those tens of thousands of years and was immediately suppressed can be explained: it must be the efforts of these self-disciplined guards.

"It looks like it's the only one left in the end," Bingtis looked at the "weird thing" lying on the test bench. "I probably know where the parts on it come from. Most likely, they were made by me." After the partners were scrapped one by one, it disassembled and installed it on itself. It seems that it was on routine patrol just now, and then thought we were attacking the suppression tower - this guy's recognition ability must be gone."

I felt a lot for a while. What I didn't expect was that an autonomous machine could do this. Yes, it was just an autonomous machine. It was not even a war puppet. It had no personality or intelligence. Perhaps even if it reaches this point, it still fails to realize the existence of "self". Everything it does is just to complete the task, plus a little bit of unknown mutation, to persist until today. In any case, its mission has been completed. The Gate of the Abyss is still under control, and it has waited for the response personnel who were 70,000 years late.

It's time to evacuate, there's nothing left to do here.