This is a very simple little robot.
It doesn't have many internal instructions.
In a sense, it is more like a chatbot.
You can simply talk to people and perform a series of actions through the instructions you receive.
"Squeak..."
Lu Wen held the small robot and pushed open the door of the toy store.
The wind howling through the city carries away dust from the streets.
At a glance, there are two toy stores on this street alone.
"This little robot should have been famous in that era, but not everyone could afford it."
Lu Wen walked to the vehicle.
Yin Liuyue pressed the glass window and was a little curious when he saw the robot in his hand.
"What are you doing with this?"
"This...maybe the prototype of Body Zero."
"Are you serious? Just give me half an hour to make a robot with only a few simple instructions."
Lu Wen handed the small robot to Yin June.
After charging for a while, the robot can barely be used for a few minutes.
"Eighty years have passed and it can still be turned on. Won't the internal battery age?" Yin Liuyue marveled at the robot's ability to transcend time.
She looked at it carefully and had a few words with the little robot.
Finally made up my mind.
"This is a simple chatbot." Yin Liuyue affirmed.
"In fact, in addition to chatting, this robot has other functions." Dr. Jiang, who was sitting in the back row, said with a smile: "At least it can also perform some simple actions through instructions given by humans."
"Doctor, you already knew this?"
"I only found out after meeting Zero yesterday. After I obtained the data of her underground fortress, I felt incredible."
Lu Wen returned to the driver's seat.
The vehicle continued toward the city center.
According to the coordinates given by the doctor, the location of No. 0's main body should be the central square of the city.
This was considered a relatively large city back then.
It takes half an hour from entering the city to the central square.
There were many collapsed buildings along the way.
The war destroyed less than half of the city. Countless people were displaced and exhausted. They lived in fear every day. No one knew whether they would see the dawn of the next day.
The exterior glass of high-rise buildings has long been broken.
The dark windows looked like the eyes of a dead giant, staring at the visitors on the street.
"Drive slower, maybe we can meet her." Dr. Jiang said.
"OK."
Lu Wen slowed down the car.
In this kind of ruined city, there is no scenery to speak of.
Desolation and death are eternal themes.
Photographers and painters may like this kind of place, but the remote no-man's land puts them off.
"Doctor, can a chat robot with only simple instructions really evolve into what No. 0 is now?" Yin Liuyue asked.
"Theoretically, this kind of robot has no possibility of evolving at all." Dr. Jiang replied: "It has no intention to actively absorb external knowledge. There is no such rule in its program."
Dr. Jiang is very serious when giving lectures.
He projected a picture for Yin Liuyue to understand.
"Human beings have a strong ability to grow. From childhood to old age, it is a process of continuous acquisition of knowledge."
The projected image shows a human being gradually getting older.
"Later, when designing the bionic man, we also took human beings into consideration, so there was a learning chip. This chip is not only used to learn human behavior and expressions, but also gives the bionic man a willingness to acquire knowledge from the outside world."
Only through continuous learning can we continue to evolve.
Smart bionic people can even learn programming knowledge and transform themselves.
But for this eighty-year-old chatbot, all programming and internal data are fixed.
"A machine like Zero is actually not as good as what we call an elderly machine now. If you want to increase the knowledge it possesses, you can only manually remove the memory card inside it, download the required content, and then install the memory card back."
"So, the Number Zero who is always causing trouble outside should not exist at all?"
"right."
A creature that shouldn't exist.
If nothing else happens.
This little robot should only have the simplest functions from the time it is turned on until it is finally discarded.
But she happened to break all common sense and appeared in front of the world.
Is this a miracle or a miracle
"It is also possible that the person who purchased No. 0's body made improvements to No. 0, giving her the ability to absorb outside knowledge." Dr. Jiang said.
Everything is just speculation.
Six o'clock in the afternoon.
The glow of dusk shone upon the dead city.
The crimson glow is dotted with gold.
It seems to have a different kind of beauty.
Lu Wen parked the car not far from the central square.
They can no longer move forward.
The road is blocked.
The sight in front of them was indescribable and indescribable, and the three of them were stunned.
[Canned fruit·Expired]
[Air-dried meat]
[Unknown rotten matter]
[Canned Beef·Expired]
[…]
This is a large square.
There are streets leading to this square from all four directions.
But now the square and the four streets extending out are occupied by countless food products, most of which are rotten.
Many more have disappeared into the dust of history.
Eighty years.
In addition to some rusty cans, there was only a small amount of meat, which had been dried in the dry sand in the no-man's land, but it was also extremely rotten.
…
…
More than eighty years ago.
The sudden war woke countless people from their sleep.
Localized wars began to spread to countless cities and countries.
Social order breaks down.
Countless people took to the streets and smashed street shops, just to grab enough survival supplies before this apocalyptic war ended.
"The big country in the north is at war with the country in the west. There is a lot of chaos there now."
People in the South sit in front of the TV every day, waiting for the latest news.
Everyone is praying that the war will not spread to the south.
Anxiety began to spread in the South.
The little boy held the robot in his arms and sat by the window sill, looking at the twinkling stars outside.
"Number Zero, I heard that there is a war between the north and the west. Fortunately, we live in the south."
"Sky Men, Zero, will always be by your side!"
This little robot comes in many different styles.
Some will say 'Guard your safety' when turning it on, some will say 'Guard you by your side', and some will directly say 'Come with me to eliminate those evils'.
The little boy is twelve years old.
The little robot had been with him for two years, and something seemed to be wrong.
The conversation function is disabled.
No matter what I say to her, she will always repeat the words she said when I started.
"Dad, there's something wrong with her No. 0, can you help me fix it?"
The little boy's father is a mechanical engineer. He is busy on weekdays and has little time to spend with his family.
So he spent a lot of money to buy back this little robot as a compensation for his child.
"What's the problem?" Father smiled, "The slogan of No. 0 is very clear. There will be no problem after ten years of use. If it is repaired regularly, it can stay with you for a lifetime."
"She can only speak one sentence now."
"Oh? Is it a procedural issue?"
The father took the little robot, less than one meter tall, from his child.
He spent his spare time dismantling the small robot and studying it.
As a mechanical engineer, it’s not difficult to figure out how this robot works.
"Maybe make her a little smarter."
The father decided to give his child a surprise.
He made a copy of all the data of No. 0, copied it to his computer, and carried out secondary design based on the original program framework.
This process was intermittent and lasted for a long time.
Worried about kids getting bored.
So the father first returned the original Zero robot to the little boy, and promised that in a month, Zero would be transformed and upgraded.
It's been a long month.
The war spread.
Meteor-like shells rained down on the city, the air defense system was breached, and the night was turned into day by artillery fire.
Flames burned in the ruins.
In the devastated city, there were wailing and crying everywhere, like a purgatory on earth.
The little boy sat on the ruins and looked around blankly.
Not long ago, his parents went to the front line, but now... the whole world is the front line.
"Don't hide in open areas!"
Someone yelled in the dark in the distance.
The billowing smoke covered the sky, obscuring the originally twinkling stars.
There aren't many survivors.
Some people set off to distant places, looking for places that have not been affected by the war.
Others stayed temporarily, looking for their relatives in the ruins, or waiting for those compatriots who had not yet returned.
After the war, there was madness and despair.
Humanity is most vividly displayed in desperate situations.
"Zero, I'm hungry and want to eat."
"Sky Men, Zero, will always be by your side!"
The collapse of the medical system has turned what was once a so-called minor illness into a scythe of death.
The stench of putrid corpses filled the air.
The little boy spent a long time with this machine, where he waited for his parents to return.
There are fewer and fewer people in this city.
He is sick.
Become weak and lose weight day by day.
The little robot goes out every day to find food for him in the broken city.
The city is very big, but there is not much food to be found. The supermarkets on the streets and the surrounding shops have all been robbed of food.
So this little robot searched among the ruins. There might be a refrigerator buried under the collapsed floor, or something else.
She came back later and later.
One day.
The little boy suddenly felt that he might not live long.
He used all his strength and tremblingly walked out of the shelter where he had been lying for a long time.
The shabby city was empty.
Empty streets.
People don't know where they went.
He staggered down the street until he collapsed in the central square.
It was very late that day that the little robot found him.
“哐啷…”
She put the can on the ground and turned her head.
There was no word for 'dead' in her program, so she couldn't figure out why the little boy wasn't eating anymore.
The days passed like this.
The city is huge.
She visited every store, every supermarket, she climbed among the high-rise buildings that had not yet collapsed, walked into every house, opened their refrigerators, and searched their kitchens.
When the battery is low, she will stand in the sun and the back panel will slowly flip over to reveal the solar panel.
Time has left many traces on her body.
The shell material is aged and faded.
Rust is starting to creep in in places.
Time will slowly corrode a robot that has not been maintained. Eighty years seems to be just a short moment.
Under the sunset this day.
Dragging the corroded shell with her, she hobbled back to the central square.
Every step was taken slowly.
The rays of the setting sun were reddish, shining on the windswept street, casting a long shadow behind the little robot.
"Her body can't last much longer."
The three of them stood on the street in the distance, looking at Zero's body.
The little robot held a rusty iron box in its hand and walked through countless piles of rotten food to the center of the square.
There lay a dried body.
She gently placed the iron box next to the body.
This is a music box.
The rusty shell turned slowly.
A very soft song, Castle in the Sky.
The breeze blew through the city, and a simple sound came from the wind, tinkling.
In this dead city, there is always a lonely and busy figure.
(End of chapter)