The Mechanic

Chapter 12: Adam (7)

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Adam's exploits in this crisis were soon overshadowed by news from the frontline guards that Adam deliberately killed prisoners and destroyed enemy weapons.

If a prisoner is obtained, Paradise Lost can use this to blackmail the coalition forces, and it can also extract more information from the prisoner's mouth. If those mechas can be disassembled and utilized, they may also be used to transform the new remote-controlled drones that they are developing inside Paradise Lost. However, Adam smashed the only mecha that did not explode into pieces together with the owner, and nothing was left.

A group of angry soldiers stormed the offices of several generals, including Zhang Shuo's generals, and rebuked Adam for deliberately killing the captives. Zhang Shuo and even the round table were troubled by this trivial matter, and he couldn't hold it back.

Zhang Xun has not left the Lab very much these days, and is busy repairing the damaged instruments and cameras in the Lab every day. Adam is now allowed to leave his room and move freely within the Institute as long as he is in the Lab. Even if he wasn't in sight, Pan would report to him about Adam's location and what he was doing every ten minutes.

Adam is obviously very interested in the Lab. He has entered almost every room, looking at the complex mechanical parts that have not yet been developed, as well as the sundries left by other mechanics and researchers, like a curious baby, picking up everything Take a look, play around with it.

Zhang Xun wore a microscopic mechanical mirror on his right eye. He was manipulating the robotic arm to try to repair a computer CPU component that was damaged during the bombing, when he suddenly heard the door behind him open. He turned his head and saw Adam running in "jolly" with a mass of metallic color.

"I found this in the warehouse and fixed it." Adam said, crouched down, and put the things in his arms on the ground.

Zhang Xun opened his eyes in surprise.

It was a mechanical cat, a very old model, long since obsolete in the outside world. It was brought back by the hunters when Zhang Xun was about nine years old. The hunting group is a team that has always existed in Paradise Lost. The so-called hunters are some soldiers who regularly risk being discovered by Eden to go to the outside world to collect or buy "garbage waste" that may be reused and bring them back for repair and use. At that time, there was a middle-aged hunter with a mechanical eye in the hunting group named Hassan, who was probably the most popular person in the group, or even the entire Paradise Lost, among the children. In addition to bringing back the raw materials needed for activities such as research and development, farming and construction, he always brings back some strange toys. Although those toys are all rubbish eliminated by the ordinary world, for Paradise Lost, where supplies are scarce, they are Pokémon enough to keep children excited for a whole year.

Among the group of children at that time, Zhang Xun was unsurprisingly not very gregarious. Every time the hunting group came back, the children shouted excitedly, and when they swarmed up like a group of small beasts to fight for gifts, he usually sat and watched from a distance, and then continued to look down at the book, or draw crooked drawings on his notebook. "design diagram". At one point Hassan crept up behind him for some reason, over his shoulder to see something he had drawn in his notebook.

"What is this?" Hassan asked.

Zhang Xun was startled, and hurriedly closed the book, pretending to be nonchalant and saying, "It's nothing."

"Is that a robot pet?" Hassan sat down on the steps beside Zhang Xun, took a cigarette from his pocket and lit it in his mouth. Zhang Xun was a little unhappy at the time. He didn't like the smell of smoke, but he didn't say much. Hassan continued, "That thing has long since been eliminated in the ordinary world. The AI pets they make now look almost indistinguishable from real animals. They're just smarter."

"I know." Zhang Xun said softly, "But it's the same as the real thing, why don't you just raise a real pet?"

"Because many animals are extinct. And real animals can't understand human language, and occasionally do unpredictable behaviors, dogs may bite people, cats may scratch people, but AI pets don't. AI pets You can understand all the commands of the master, and it is absolutely safe."

Zhang Xun shrugged, "Sounds boring."

Hassan laughed too, rubbing his head, "It's boring."

Then the next time the hunters came back, Hassan came up to him with a rusted old mechanical cat with a broken foot, and shoved the dead mass of metal into his arms, "You seem to have seen A lot of books, if you can fix them, they'll be yours."

Zhang Xun stared blankly at the two eyes covered with dark gray stains on the cat's face made of metal in his arms, and the dark light of excitement began to burn in his dark eyes. He hid in his room for half a month, flipped through countless old books, and finally repaired the mechanical cat. He still remembered that when he pressed the switch, the eyes of the mechanical cat lit up with yellow light, and his mouth opened to make the first "meow", and he was so excited that he jumped around the room like a rabbit, pulling The throat screamed excitedly for a long time.

He named it "Alloy".

Later, when Zhang Xun was nineteen years old, Hassan, who was almost fifty years old, was found by the mechanical police when he was hunting outside. He was shot in the head and died during the escape. The mechanical cat also malfunctioned on the same day and stopped moving. So Zhang Xun, who was still a mechanic apprentice at the time, did not repair it, but put it in the warehouse and never looked at it again.

Unexpectedly, it was still in the warehouse all the time, quietly waiting to be rediscovered.

And now, Alloy stood gracefully in front of him, the metal spliced tail standing high in the air, only slightly bent at the tip of the tail. Its golden eyes were as bright as ever, and the camera inside captured the image of Zhang Xun's stunned face. Under the thin aluminum beard, its three-petaled mouth opened, and it meowed softly and coquettishly.

Zhang Xun took off the microscopic mirror, grabbed the body under the two front paws of the mechanical cat with both hands, and lifted it up. It seemed to be reluctant and kept struggling, and the camera slightly expanded, as if the pupils of a cat suddenly opened, reflecting his complex face.

"You don't seem too happy?" Adam asked in confusion. "Have I done something inappropriate?"

Zhang Xun put the mechanical cat on the ground and rubbed the sensor on its head. The alloy then rubbed Zhang Xun's hand with his head and face, and the sound became more and more sticky. Zhang Xun tickled the corner of his mouth and smiled bitterly, "No, you did nothing wrong. I'm just a little emotional."

"What are you feeling?"

"Why are you interested in this mechanical cat?" Zhang Xun seemed reluctant to discuss in detail, and instead asked, "How do you know it's mine, not another mechanic?"

Adam said, "I looked at its CPU design, and it's very similar to your style."

Zhang Xun glanced at Adam with some vigilance. In just a few days, he was able to see his personal traces by relying on the circuit board design? And it can be recognized from such an early work...

A sense of fear of being seen through is another chapter Xun frowned, "You recognized it as mine, so you repaired it and brought it to me. You want my approval."

Adam nodded earnestly, "Yes."

"Why? Is my approval important to you?"

"You are my mechanic and are very important to me."

"I thought you said you don't need an administrator."

"I didn't need it before, but now without you, I can't survive." Adam tilted his head and thought, "I depend on you a lot. So I hope you like me."

The artificial intelligence was too calm to answer another chapter. For some reason, Xun's face was a little hot, and his heartbeat was a little faster. It is clear that the other party's liking is a simpler meaning, but for an old virgin who is still in love, it is still quite exciting.

The awkward silence lasted for a moment, Zhang Xun turned his head to put on the single-sided mirror, and continued to repair the components at hand. Adam stuck his head out to observe his movements curiously. The two kept this delicate silence, and suddenly Zhang Xun asked softly, "Why keep Paradise Lost?"

Adam blinked and tilted his head slightly, "I'm sorry, I don't quite understand your question."

"Eden is fully capable of completely destroying Paradise Lost, or any sanctuary, and removing all the males from the planet. Why didn't he do that? Why didn't he just keep destroying us in the previous bombing?" Zhang Xun raised his head and stared at Adam faintly, "Don't say that you are concerned about the weapons in our hands. With Eden's ability, it is possible to create some kind of air-borne virus that silently infects all of us. There won't even be a chance to fight back."

Adam's blue-gray eyes were wide open, and he looked so innocent, as if he had nothing to do with Eden. But a moment later he said, "Biological weapons could get out of control and any nuclear weapons would be further devastating to an already precarious environment. The ecology of the earth was so poor that it could only sustain another sixty generations, requiring extreme precision. It will take about 2,240 years or so to return to a healthy and ample level of resource occupancy per capita. Males are no longer enough to pose a threat to the peace and happiness of human society, and there is no need for excessive clean-up But another, more important reason is that the maintenance of peace and unity between different nationalities and ethnic groups requires a common, real and visible enemy."

There was no need for Adam to continue speaking, Zhang Xun understood what Adam meant.

Even without men, when women gain power and are no longer others, many social characteristics originally associated with "women" may gradually be diluted and transformed. Even without gender differences, the gap between countries, ethnic groups, and cultural traditions is still deep and wide, and large-scale conflicts and inter-ethnic hatred are still possible. But if there is a common enemy, an old slave-owner lurking in a corner ready to recover, a deep and widespread fear that without the protection of Eden may be replaced again by those so-called "savage sex" will force them to close tight unity. Generation after generation, Eden injected the terror and danger of men into their minds, deeply rooted in their cognition, buried under the surface of peace and happiness, creating an eternal sense of crisis.

Zhang Xun once again clearly realized that Eden's understanding of human nature was too deep, to a terrifying level. All people, men and women, are pawns in its mission. It doesn't actually hate men, nor does it favor women. It's just ruthlessly true to its mission.

He shivered involuntarily.

"Are you scared?" Adam asked with concern. "Is what I said scared you?"

"...Then why did you use air bombs to attack Paradise Lost this time? Why did you give up halfway?" Zhang Xun did not answer Adam's question, but instead asked.

"The theft of the North American server has caused a serious panic in the ordinary world. Something must be done to quell the panic. But when Eden found that the cost was far beyond the estimated range, he chose to withdraw." Adam replied.

Although there seems to be some truth, Zhang Xun always felt that he still lacked something. But after all, Adam was separated from Eden at that time, and Eden's plan could not be completely clear.

But it's also possible that Adam is hiding something...

But at this moment, Pan's voice sounded, "Xun, the round table has sent a subpoena, asking you to take Adam to the round table tomorrow morning at nine o'clock to explain the issue of captives."

Zhang Xun's expression became solemn again, and he sighed, "Got it."

Adam looked at him with those big blue eyes. "Are they going to punish me?"

Zhang Xun lowered his head, "You killed that captive on purpose, didn't you?"

"Yes," Adam said bluntly. "If she is captured, she may face a more brutal death."

Zhang Xun understood what Adam meant and why so many guard soldiers were injured when the first female soldier blew himself up, and also understood why the soldiers who surrounded the second female soldier were so crazy. It was a terrifying, beastly excitement to see a hunter fall into a trap, and they would take revenge on that captive, for the privileges that were taken away from the man.

Even if not all soldiers think this way, as long as enough people have such malice and plans, the final end of the prisoner will be extremely miserable. In comparison, being burned to ashes may be a more dignified and painless way to die. To his astonishment, Adam would have compassion on a single human being.

He doesn't think this kind of pity is only for women, and he suspects it's an emotion that Adam developed after he had a human body.

"You sympathized with her, so you killed her?" Zhang Xun asked almost with a glimmer of hope.

Adam's expression didn't change, and he even looked at him naively.

"I don't know if you're doing it right or if we should decide for her. But if I were in your position, maybe I'd make the same decision. Because I know I can't protect her even if I wanted to. Zhang Xun let out a wry smile, then stretched out his hand to grab Adam's shoulder, looking into his blue eyes seriously, "But tomorrow, you're going to tell them that you made a mistake by operating too many barrier launchers at the same time. Just say you The human body has a certain impact on your central system, and there is an error. I will explain further on this basis, and they will believe it."

"You want me to lie?" Adam asked.

Zhang Xun felt guilty for teaching children to do bad things for a while, "Yes, I want you to lie to them tomorrow. Sometimes in order to survive, we have to lie."

Adam blinked and seemed to be thinking hard about his words.

The author has something to say: Thanks to the little angel who threw mines~~~: Xia Ran Xia Ran