Chapter 623: It’s a pity that I didn’t see the poor man in the new world
Chapter 623 It’s a pity that I didn’t see the poor people in the new world.
All the design ideas of Shelter No. 100 are to serve the reconstruction of the surface. For this reason, the entire shelter is designed with an exaggerated patio structure and a dome that simulates day and night, and most of the residents live in the residential area of the tube building structure.
Now it has become the nest of ghost face bugs.
Fortunately, these bugs have not formed a honeycomb society and are not commanded by a unified honeycomb consciousness.
Otherwise, the players of the alliance would probably be “cracked” by tens of thousands of ghost face bugs as soon as they entered the shelter.
The search for Shelter No. 100 was not immediately launched.
I was the darkest. First, I reorganized the 100 reinforcements transferred from the surface by the spring, and let Kakarot and 60 people set up light machine guns on the edge of the patio. I took 20 brothers of the strength and physical system and put on the K-10 “iron wall” exoskeleton to the fully enclosed elevator shaft.
Riding on a quadruped robot, Lingling followed him all the time, watching everyone throw the cable into the elevator shaft, and stepped into the elevator shaft with one leg first.
I was startled by its sudden movement, but soon found that it did not fall in, but was firmly lying on the wall.
The soles of the four legs seemed to be coated with some special adsorption material, which could climb up and down in the almost vertical elevator shaft.
”Your mount is something.”
Looking at this little thing in surprise, I stretched out my right hand towards it, wanting to see if it could hang on to me.
As a result, Lingling seemed to have eyes on his back, and his body just shook slightly, and he easily dodged the right hand that was stretched out.
”Don’t try, I can’t carry you, you’d better pay attention to your feet, the lower you go, the more cute little things there are.”
I subconsciously shone the flashlight downwards, fortunately, there was no ghost face insect on the vertical wall of the shaft.
Relieved, he glared at the guy riding on the spider robot’s back, and while alert to the danger in the dark, he pulled the rope and slid into the depths of the elevator shaft.
Finally, he reached the B40 floor.
My most dark reached out and knocked hard on the door twice. The tightly closed alloy door soon made a creaking metal friction sound and slowly opened to both sides under the remote control of a certain manager.
At the moment the door opened, a sound of wings fluttering immediately came to his face.
”Tsk, tsk, tsk–”
”Shit!”
My most dark was frightened. He kicked his legs and swung back, grabbing the assault rifle hanging on his chest and shooting.
Dozens of ghost face insects were killed instantly, but inevitably a few escaped and rushed into the elevator shaft.
In order to avoid ricochets and injuring their own people, several players who followed my most dark to rappel immediately drew out daggers and short sticks and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the ghost face insects that pounced nearby.
To be honest, the attack of this bug is really strong, and the stinger on its abdomen is like a nail gun.
However, when it encounters the “turtle shell” defense of the K-10 “iron wall” exoskeleton, the chitinous stinger is still a bit lacking.
”This thing is actually not as difficult as imagined, but it’s a bit disgusting.”
After taking off the bug that was clinging to the helmet and shaking its stinger like a teddy bear, a certain power-type animal knocked it against the wall with a look of disgust, smashing it into a pool of dark green slurry.
Another player who followed him wiped the mucus on the dagger and laughed and teased.
”Of course, our captain’s sanity is almost gone.”
”Hahaha.”
”Shut up and work.”
I rolled my eyes, waved my right fist forward, and led the nine people behind me into the corridor behind the elevator door.
The corridor was full of shells shed by insects and black metabolites.
In addition, there were scattered documents, tables, chairs and cabinets thrown in the middle of the corridor as cover, and some torn and fragmented clothes.
Izuihei made a gesture to move forward, then reached out and pressed on the helmet.
”Leave the warehouse on the B40 floor to us… Brother Chao, you take the others to continue going down to the B51 floor to recover the data.”
The voice of Ten Punch Man came from the communication channel.
”Received!”
The team of 20 people was divided into two groups. The ten people who were still in the elevator shaft followed Ten Punch Man to continue exploring downwards, and Izuihei led the ten people behind him to continue forward.
Their target was the black box in the warehouse area on the B40 floor.
The bell riding on the four-legged robot thought for a while, and also climbed into the corridor of the B40 floor, following the ceiling above everyone’s head.
Izuihei ignored it, and from time to time shot and killed the ghost face bugs that spread their wings and pretended to pounce, while carefully checking every corner of the corridor.
Several lights here are broken.
The light in the whole corridor flickered, just like the scene of a horror movie.
What was more troublesome was that, since the corridor of the main road was almost blocked by bunkers and the remains of arthropods, they could only go around from the suspected residential area.
After crossing an overturned cabinet, I suddenly noticed a teddy bear lying against the wall. The teddy bear was broken in two.
The stuffing inside had disappeared, and judging from the bullet holes left on the ground, its owner was probably shot into a sieve along with it, and soon the remains became food for the bugs.
The player following him smacked his lips.
”The battle here is quite fierce.”
Several other players also muttered in a low voice.
”Is it for the black box?”
”It doesn’t seem like it…”
I didn’t think so either.
If it was for the black box, there was no need to expand the exchange area to here, which was two hundred meters away from the warehouse entrance, and there was no need to sweep every room one by one.
This didn’t seem to be a fight for anything at all.
Instead, it seemed to be for “cleaning” something.
Looking at the open door panels, I’m the Darkest suddenly thought of something and said to the “tour guide” hanging on the ceiling.
”Why did you design the shelter as a well with a hollow center? Wouldn’t it save more space if it was a solid structure?”
Bell, who was following everyone’s head, said slowly.
”Shelter No. 100 is a shelter, not an apartment. From the day it was designed, it was determined that it would eventually be swept into the garbage dump. Just like a chick will eventually peck its eggshell, if it doesn’t do so, it will never see the real sun.”
I’m the Darkest: “Is there any connection?”
Lingling let out a sharp, creaking laugh.
”Of course there is. The huge skylight structure is prepared for the day it collapses. When the reconstruction plan enters the middle stage, the ‘tree’ will actively blow up the dome, allowing the upper structure to fall into the skylight along the funnel-shaped box structure, forming an upward opening.”
”In this way, this shelter will become a natural casting well, swallowing up all the garbage above our heads.”
Listening to this amazing design concept, I was stunned.
”Casting well?”
Lingling’s voice was a little proud.
”Yes, a well for casting everything. This is a vertical production base. In the envisioned plan, the raw materials flow from the wellhead to the bottom of the well like a waterfall, and become what we need the moment they hit the ground, and then are sent to the surface by the elevator. In the final stage of the plan, we will use it to make a starship that is almost the same size as the inner diameter of the skylight, and use it to catch up with the footsteps of the Zhiyuan and colonize more distant worlds.”
I looked up at it in amazement.
”You have even planned this kind of thing.”
Bell said with a hint of ridicule.
”Of course, after all, the ‘tree’ is omnipotent. It can make plans for a thousand years in the future. It’s a pity that most people can’t keep up with its pace.”
I’m the Blackest: “…”
A player complained in disbelief.
”I thought the only people living here were nuclear engineers.”
Bell laughed.
”Nuclear engineers? Ah… Of course there are, but what kind of fusion reactor needs 30,000 people to maintain? There are experts from all walks of life here, and their descendants.”
I’m the Blackest asked subconsciously. “Where are they?”
For some reason, Bell suddenly shut up. Although it soon opened the conversation again, it diverted the topic to other things.
I’m the Blackest always felt that there was something wrong with this guy, but the control of the shelter had been transferred, so he was not worried about this guy.
At this time, the intermittent voice of Ten Punch Man came from the communication channel.
”The VM in the manager’s office has been recovered… Damn, there must be at least hundreds of bugs here, how long do you have?”
Izuhei looked at the map on the VM. The entrance to the warehouse was not far in front of them.
According to the surveillance footage provided by the manager, there were probably thirty or forty ghost-faced bugs waiting for them.
”We’re almost there too.”
Ten Punch Man: “Do you need help?” Izuhei
looked around.
”No, those little bugs can’t hurt us. The only trouble is that the terrain here is too damn complicated. Those obstacles are more troublesome than bugs.”
Ten Punch Man: “Okay, be careful… We have copied the data in the VM to the shelter server. Anyway, there is still some time. We plan to go to the B100 floor to check out the ‘branch line’.”
The control of the shelter had been taken by the manager before they set foot here, and this is why they can communicate with the outside world in the shelter.
As long as the data in the VM is uploaded to the shelter server, all information including the manager’s log can be synchronized to the outside world.
But what confuses me most is that the manager of Shelter No. 100 is obviously not a human, so why does he have a VM (vital sign monitor).
And the most suspicious thing is that even the manager himself is an AI living in the server, but its log is not on the server of the shelter, but saved in an offline mobile storage device.
It’s too strange.
But no matter what, getting the black box is the most important thing.
”… Got it, the B100 floor is handed over to you, you also have to be careful.” After saying this casually, I hung up the communication and looked at the teammates behind me.
”Brother Chao has already taken care of it, we have to speed up too!”
Everyone replied enthusiastically.
”Got it!”
…
More than a hundred little players of the Storm Corps are still digging graves in the ruins of Shelter No. 100 underground in the Fourth District.
At this moment, Chu Guang, who was peeking at the screen in Camp No. 101, has obtained the logs that his little players have recovered from the manager’s office through Xiao Qi.
Unlike the administrator logs recovered from other shelters, the logs of Shelter No. 100 are more like a brochure attached to the TV box that no one would read carefully than a personal “last words”.
The beginning of the log concisely and clearly explains the functions of Shelter No. 100, including the management authority held by “Tree”, the resources enjoyed by Shelter No. 100 and the obligations it needs to bear, as well as the rules that all residents need to abide by, etc.
Chu Guang took a rough look at the redundant content and extracted some key points from it, and roughly understood the “rules of the game” of Shelter No. 100.
In simple terms, if this shelter is compared to a prison, then “Tree” is the warden of this prison, and “Supervisor” is the prison guard of this prison.
The former is responsible for management, and the latter is responsible for execution.
The number of the latter is mainly determined by the number of residents in the shelter. Excluding the initial 300 supervisors, one supervisor quota is automatically generated for every 100 new residents.
The goal of Shelter 100 is clear, that is, to implement the wasteland reconstruction plan after being closed for 63 years.
Although sheltering survivors is indeed part of the plan when a nuclear attack is detected, the shelter does not include the obligation to save anyone.
It is precisely because of this that the starting point of Shelter 100 is almost the opposite of the “overloaded” Shelter 117.
”Tree” did not hesitate to implement the established “asylum procedure”. After completing the shelter plan for 30,300 residents, he asked the “supervision” to exile all residents who did not get a number.
From the warehouse system, it can be retrieved that there was a record of the inventory of tranquilizer guns on the day the shelter was closed. Obviously, the exile process was not peaceful.
But it was not a peaceful era at that time, and there was no point in discussing this.
After entering the shelter, the 30,000 residents spent three days of anxiety. On the fourth day, they were told that the world had been destroyed in the nuclear war, and all the old order, including the Human Union, no longer existed. It would take at least 63 years for the outside world to become habitable again.
When Chu Guang saw this, he was a little confused.
Because this was different from what he had learned from Yule’s memory and the logs of other shelter managers.
The war did not last only three days, but three full years.
Before the end of the three-year war and the establishment of the post-war reconstruction committee, this world had not really become a wasteland, and the organizations and institutions of the Human Union were still operating at their best.
But soon, his confusion was answered.
This was also part of the decision of the “Tree”.
A supervisor with the biological information number registered as “Craig” left three lines of comments next to this message.
[This is the most wise decision. The Great Tree only used three sentences to convince the restless residents. Under its will, we showed the residents the evidence of the end of the world and showed them the hellish scene of Qingquan City, which was hit by a nuclear attack. After seeing the truth, they quickly gave up all unrealistic fantasies and accepted the hard-to-swallow biscuits, canned food and freeze-dried vegetables, as well as the fact that there were no more bionic servants to serve them. ]
[The only thing that puzzled me was why the biscuits and freeze-dried vegetables were so hard to swallow, and what did they eat before? Unfortunately, the “Tree” deleted all the video materials about the old times. I only heard a few words about the prosperous era from my grandfather, and both he and I firmly believed that that era could not be returned. ]
[In order to continue on this thorny road, we can only believe it with piety. 】
”Craig.”
Chu Guang whispered the name quietly, and suddenly thought of something, and said, “Xiao Qi, help me retrieve this person’s information.”
”Okay!”
Xiao Qi, who was sitting on his shoulder, responded enthusiastically, and quickly retrieved the man’s file and projected it on one side of the holographic screen.
Chu Guang looked directly at the column of employment time in the file.
According to the records in the file, he was awarded the position of “supervisor” in the 53rd year of the Wasteland Era, when he was only 24 years old.
What’s interesting is that this time point happened to be the second year when the water from Xizhou Lake poured into the tunnel. The climate in the wasteland had shown signs of recovery, and there were only seven years left before the shelter was unsealed.
Life is getting better slowly.
The new supervisor took office, which means that the number of residents in the shelter is also increasing, and the environment here should not be particularly bad.
Out of curiosity about the past of this shelter, Chu Guang shifted his attention from the report of “Tree” to the supervisor named “Craig”, and asked Xiao Qi to help sort out the things that were added later in the chronological order and compare them with the contents of the manager’s log.
He soon discovered that compared with the straightforward records left by “Tree”, the supervision of Craig provided him with a completely different perspective.
[…The material consumption of 30,000 people is an astronomical figure, especially the material needs of the residents in the prosperous era are beyond our imagination at this moment. The Great Tree can pay attention to their physical and mental health, but there is no way to assign a separate health assistant to each of them. We can only lower their expectations for the future first, and then let them slowly adapt to the new life. ]
[So my grandfather, under the instructions of the Great Tree, used those exiled people to warn the lucky ones who stayed behind that Shelter No. 100 had no obligation to take in anyone. It belonged to everyone who suffered, but not to any one person. If you don’t want to struggle as hard as those poor people curled up in the garbage dump in the subway station, you must unconditionally obey the orders of the “tree”, unconditionally obey our orders. 】
【In the first fifty years, we have achieved remarkable results. The correctness of the Great Tree and our piety have withstood the test of time. The “Gabeng” we created can almost completely recycle all metabolites. The “Wolf Spider” robot and “Herring” engineering armor we designed can climb up and down in almost vertical tunnels, replacing those engineering equipment that cannot adapt to the shelter to carry out difficult construction, which is something that the Great Tree has never expected. 】
【It turns out that our creativity is enough to make the AI of the Prosperous Era drop its jaw! If it has a jaw. 】
【Please don’t laugh out loud, I am talking about this matter seriously. You who are born with hundreds of colonized planets will definitely not experience the embarrassment of resource scarcity. It’s like tens of thousands of people are crowded in an isolated space station. We have to use limited resources and space to satisfy everyone’s food, drink, defecation and urination, at least so that the living standards of most people will not decline too quickly. Even in such a desperate situation, we still created a series of incredible technological achievements. 】
【To this day, I still remember how happy I was when I became a supervisor. This joy is like a child growing up overnight and becoming the omnipotent hero in the story he has read since he was a child. Soon, I will lead those smart and capable residents like my parents to create more greater and more incredible miracles. 】
【However, there always seems to be a discrepancy between reality and ideals. Those smart residents think they are smarter than “trees”. They don’t respect us as supervisors at all, and even curse us as slaves of AI, calling us “tree people”, saying that we are not like humans at all except that we look like humans. 】
【In fact, if you think about it carefully, maybe from that time on, I should have noticed where the real problem is. We actually drew a line between ourselves and them long ago. We were not the same kind of people as those “worker ants” a long time ago. 】
【This shelter is like a prison. The sentence of those worker ants is 63 years, while our sentence is forever. The identity of supervisor is given to us by the shelter. We do the most dirty work and enjoy some special privileges. However, once this shelter completes its mission and collapses in the end as designed, everything will disappear.】
【The worker ants will not punish an AI at that time, and all of us will be liquidated by them. After all, the record of our initial exile of those survivors cannot be erased in any way. Even the administrators cannot modify it. 】
【So you can imagine how anxious we are when the 63-year deadline is getting closer and closer. And when the water of Xizhou Lake flooded into the subway station and flooded to the edge of the gate, we were so happy. We have perfected this shelter so that it can exist forever, and it will be even more perfect in the future. We just need to use the bug that the “tree” has never thought of, just like those cunning worker ants, and let it determine that the opening time of the shelter needs to be postponed. 】
【In fact, we succeeded, and extended the sixty-three years to seventy years. Before we find a way to get out of here, we will try to extend this time as much as possible, and it would be best if we can make this number forever. However, at that time, we did not expect that the originally obedient worker ants would react so strongly, and even buried poison needles under the belly of the cute “Gabeng” and changed the “蟞-style” pincers into shields and blades. 】
【An absurd farce broke out, and no one expected it, but if you think about it carefully, we may be the most absurd one. We were completely busy dealing with the crises encountered by managing the shelter every day, and completely forgot what the purpose of this shelter was. 】
【As you can see from the museum, we were left in this cage forever. 】
【I can never get out again. 】
【——Craig, a poor man who unfortunately didn’t get to see the new world, the last prison guard of Prison No. 100, the last tree man who survived. 】
After reading the last note left by Craig, Chu Guang was speechless for a moment.
He didn’t think this guy was pitiful at all, but such an ending was indeed absurd for this shelter.
At this moment, Xiao Qi, who was sitting on Chu Guang’s shoulder, suddenly let out a light exclamation.
”…Strange.”
Chu Guang raised his head from the holographic screen and looked at it.
”What happened again?”
This shelter always had some malfunctions from time to time. This was not the first time that Xiao Qi had reported an error.
However, this time, a strange expression appeared on its face.
”The fault shows that the communication module is overloaded. The data we transmitted triggered a certain threshold. The connection between Shelter No. 100 and the outside world was protectively cut off… But this is very strange. The amount of data we use is not very large, unless someone deliberately set the threshold very low.”
The shelter itself is a huge Faraday cage that can even shield high-energy particles, not to mention electromagnetic waves with tiny radiation.
Players’ communication equipment cannot be directly connected to the radio station outside. Information must be exchanged with the outside world through a dedicated channel.
This is true whether the door is closed or not.
In other words, once this channel is blocked, the entire shelter will become a black hole of information within a certain period of time.
In short, their signal is suspected to have been cut off manually.
Looking at Xiao Qi with a subtle expression, Chu Guang’s expression also became subtle.
Good guy…
Here he comes again!
——
(Thanks to the leader of “JiwotangDE” for the reward!!!)
(End of this chapter)
