"Humanity" is dead.
According to Hao Ren's definition of human beings, the human beings on this planet were actually extinct at least a thousand years ago. When they lost the ability to reproduce, lost the aura of wisdom, they could only be destroyed like a group of cell samples. By the time they're kept in culture containers, they've become racially extinct.
But for the stubborn mastermind and the entire agent society, human beings are dying today.
In the cylindrical culture container, various electrodes and catheters for transporting nutrients are slowly leaving the liquid surface under the control of the master brain. Those wriggling pieces of meat immediately trembled violently after losing the support of the machine. In just a moment, their surface Large and small cracks appeared, and dirty red liquid and air bubbles spewed out from between the pieces of meat, and the originally pale pink nutrient turned blood red in an instant.
Hao Ren couldn't tell if these chunks of meat could still be considered as a complete organism - because almost every cell contained inside it was completely different. The deadly mutation caused these cells to produce a new genetic sequence after each division, and it is biologically impossible for these cells to survive to this day.
For a long time, they were forcibly combined and maintained active by the mastermind using technical means. The entire maintenance system had to filter out a large amount of toxic substances produced by these meat pieces every day to prevent all cells from being killed by their own metabolites.
But today, this endless suffering can finally come to an end.
After the removal of all life support systems, the flesh and blood can still survive for a short period of time, and the cells will die in large numbers, but until the nutrients in the container are exhausted, they will continue to carry out deadly and toxic physiological activities, according to Mastermind According to calculations, it will take several hours for the last cell to completely die.
"Is this all right?" Hao Ren frowned, watching this "human funeral". Apart from a group of "outsiders" he led, only the mastermind and N-6 witnessed the funeral." I thought there would be a more solemn ceremony."
"The age of human beings is over, we have to see them off in our own way," the voice of the mastermind echoed in the hall, "this day may have come a long time ago... It took me too long to complete all calculation."
Hao Ren sighed: "For your hardware architecture, it is too difficult to complete these calculations."
"But only I can do this."
There is a difference between a mastermind and an agent.
Although they are both artificial intelligence, they have completely different missions. When human beings created agents, they endowed them with all the characteristics as close to humans as possible—from appearance to thinking. Therefore, agents have richer emotions and flexible ways of thinking. These two characteristics make them more powerful. The ability of self-learning and development; while human beings are designing a precise manager when they create the master brain. Strict, rational and absolutely obey the original instructions.
The mastermind is the supreme commander of the agents, but at the same time, he is also the nanny of the agents.
Using a precise and efficient computing machine to manage the faltering agent society has indeed ensured the continuation of the fire of civilization in the earliest ages. However, human beings will die one day. When human beings leave, there will be no one People can come to the console of the main brain and press the button that can make the ultimate judge.
Perhaps human beings have thought about this problem before, and designed various judgment mechanisms to help the main brain determine when it can make this decision. However, the long war destroyed too many things, even the great think tank lost Half of the data is lost, and the judgment mechanism designed by humans has long since disappeared into history.
So when the day finally comes, the mastermind has to go through the difficult process by itself.
As a rational and logical artificial intelligence, the main brain is thinking hard, thinking with all its strength, it burned more than half of its own servers and all its maintainers in the process of thinking, and after paying a near-destruction price, He finally accepted the fact amidst many contradictions and conflicts: "human beings" are dead.
Then he ran the last program left to him by his creator, that short piece of code, which represented "adulthood" to the agent - N-6 was its first user.
"Now, there's only one last thing left." The mastermind's voice echoed in the hall, still the electronically synthesized voice that lacked emotion.
N-6 raised his head dully: "What's the matter?"
"A proxy after 'adulthood' doesn't need a mastermind."
N-6 didn't seem to understand the meaning of the other party all at once, but Lily thought of what the main brain wanted to do first, and she immediately shouted: "Hey, you don't have to do this! Although humans are 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 mankind is over, and so is mine. An adult civilization does not need a guardian."
Lily was still anxious: "But..."
"Forget it," Hao Ren pressed Lily, who was a little excited, "he has already turned off the phone."
Sure enough, the voice of the main brain never sounded again after that, and the data terminal detected that the various mechanical structures in the fortress were being activated and began to operate automatically under the control of some pre-set underlying programs.
Hao Ren had already guessed that the mastermind would eventually make this decision. He guessed this when he saw the burnt maintainers in the second-level server room: the mastermind burned those maintainers on the one hand as a result of its own failure, but On the other hand, it also expresses the choice made by the "subconscious mind" of the main brain.
He's seeking self-destruction - because his mission is over.
Even if Hao Ren intervenes forcefully, things will not change much: most of the mastermind's servers have been destroyed one by one in the past few years, and his remaining consciousness has been transferred into the control center, which is not enough To carry the huge data volume of the main brain.
Therefore, the mastermind that Hao Ren and the others saw today was the last time this ancient artificial intelligence was running.
There were deep rumbles coming from the depths of the fortress. Some kind of huge mechanical structure was operating. Hao Ren felt the whole building shaking slightly.
"Let's get out of here," Vivienne gave Hao Ren a hand, "We have nothing to do here."
"Don't look at it, let's go," Lily stretched out her hand and tugged N-6, who looked a little dull, "There are still many things waiting for you."
N-6 staggered a step under Lily's huge force, and then she came to her senses. Her dull eyes quickly recovered, and after looking back at the culture container that was constantly emitting air bubbles and blood mist, She turned around and followed the pace of Hao Ren and his party.
"Goodbye, human."
Everyone left the fort at a much faster speed than when they came, all the passages along the way were open, and even the gates that were originally locked and needed to be cracked by injecting viruses from the data terminal showed a wide open appearance , All the lights in the fortress were turned on, and the roar of mechanical operation came from the depths of the building, as if a beast that had been sleeping for a long time was whispering that it was about to wake up.
They rushed out of the gate of the fortress, and Lily pointed into the distance in surprise: "Landlord! What is that?"
Hao Ren looked at the place Lily was pointing at. He saw agents, a lot of agents. These synthetics, who looked no different from humans, came out of various factories and warehouses. They stood blankly on the road. , watching the direction of the fort.
They must have also seen Hao Ren and his party who had just rushed out of the fort, but they didn't respond to this, they just kept a motionless posture, watching the constantly shaking fort.
The Mastermind that has supported and guided Agent society for thousands of years is approaching its end.
"Why aren't they moving?" Doudou poked her head out of Hao Ren's collar, looking at the agents in the distance with surprise.
Hao Ren pressed the little guy's head: "They have grown up."
After a while, Nolan's voice sounded in Hao Ren's mind, with some doubts: "Boss, I don't know what happened... All the troops in the Zenith suddenly stopped, and I also received a guide to the moon." Signal… "
"The business here is over, just come and pick us up," Hao Ren interrupted Nolan, "We still have work to do when we return to that home planet."
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, "Planet Galactus" still exists, although because of an incident that year Meteorite Rain, this "Planet Devourer" has lost his aggressiveness, but as long as he is still entrenched on his parent star for a day, the civilization reborn on the moon is not really safe.
At least on 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 to the vibrant planet, while N-4 got the news from N-6 that human beings had died.
Since the mastermind updated the code in the logic circuit of each agent in advance, N-4 and her team members accepted this fact without incident, but on the topic of "future", N-4 and N-6 both seem to be very dazed.
In other words, until today, agents of consumables have never considered the word "future".
N-6 took the initiative to find Hao Ren who was staying on the bridge, and confessed his confusion.
"We never thought to face these problems by ourselves," said the robot girl. "Without orders from the master brain, what should we do?"
"The mastermind should have selected and set up a management group with authority among the agents before he left." Hao Ren had a general understanding of these things because he had been scanning the fort with a data terminal to send and receive signals. It won't be long before the new management team should contact you, and you'll know by then."
N-6 frowned in a humane way: "Then what should we do now?"
Hao Ren raised his head and looked at the large holographic projection in the center of the bridge.
On the projection, the blue and green planetary land is rapidly zooming in.
"Let's go to the deepest part of your home planet together."