Chapter 624: The Past of Shelter No. 100
Chapter 624: The Past of Shelter No. 100
Shelter No. 100, B40 Floor.
The team led by my darkest finally passed through the piles of obstacles and metabolites and arrived at the dust-free warehouse where the black boxes were stored.
Looking at the task coordinates on the map that were close at hand, all the players breathed a sigh of relief.
This straight-line distance of less than 200 meters is even longer than a one-kilometer cross-country race, especially those bugs that suddenly jumped out of the shadows and challenged their SAN values from time to time.
”I’m going to open the door.”
My darkest, who was leaning against one side of the warehouse door, made a gesture to his teammate on the other side, and then punched the mechanical button for manually opening the movable door.
Accompanied by a burst of leaking air, dry air blew out of the door, blowing the dust stuck to the door crack outward.
Several gun barrels quickly pushed into the door, and the flashlight light quickly swept every corner of the dark room. While confirming that there was no threat, a hint of surprise floated on my darkest face.
He originally thought that there would be strict protection here, and he was even prepared for a hard fight, but the actual situation was completely opposite to what he imagined.
Lingling, who was following behind everyone, teased without hesitation.
”Positive pressure sealing is the basic configuration of a dust-free workshop. I thought you should know when you see the wind blowing out that it is impossible for dirty things to get in here.”
After saying that, it crawled into the house on its own, operated the spider robot to stretch out a leg, and pressed the switch on the inside of the wall. The
white light illuminated the entire dark room.
I turned off the tactical flashlight awkwardly and pressed the muzzle of the gun in my hand.
Strange…
Where did the inexplicable feeling of uneasiness that had been going on just now come from?
However, the strange feeling in his heart did not last long, and was almost instantly replaced by the surprise that followed.
In the wide warehouse, near the side of the freight elevator, square black boxes of varying sizes stood out.
Seeing those black boxes, the eyes of the players following behind me were instantly green, and they shouted in surprise.
”Fuck! One, two, three… twenty-nine!?”
”Awesome!”
Although the current version of black boxes does not support private ownership by players, every time a new black box is recycled, all players on the entire server will benefit from it.
All the new gadgets produced by the black box can be purchased with silver coins, and the things that can be purchased originally will become cheaper or the purchase threshold will be lowered because of the newly unlocked black boxes.
Even if these effects on the overall strength of the alliance are put aside, individual players will also receive generous silver coins and contribution points for recycling black boxes.
The only uncertainty now is how many of these black boxes can be used.
The peak population of Shelter No. 100 has reached a peak of more than 80,000, and the consumption of materials is no less than that of ordinary settlements. A
dust-free working environment and professionally trained operators can extend the service life of black boxes, but the life of any black box is not permanent.
I am now just praying that these treasures of pre-war civilization will not be ruined by the residents of Shelter No. 100.
Otherwise, they would have nothing to waste!
Leaving five teammates to guard the door, I led the remaining four people into the warehouse and determined the function of the black box through the translator on the VM.
In fact, it doesn’t matter if you don’t use the translator.
The design concept of the black box itself assumes that the user is completely illiterate. Even a completely illiterate gorilla can make it work according to the instructions printed on the black box.
After a careful inspection, there are a total of 29 black boxes, and 22 of them can function normally.
However, what is surprising is that the broken ones are all small parts such as the dome’s light panels and the filter element of the ventilation system that are worthless and can be replaced, while the really valuable “big parts” are almost all left.
Among them, the most surprising thing for all the players is undoubtedly the black box for producing the fifth-style “light cavalry” and sixth-style “heavy cavalry” exoskeletons!
These two sets of police equipment are not only handsome in appearance, but also have excellent comprehensive performance. Although they are not suitable for high-intensity battlefields, it is not a big problem! Just
weld a steel plate on the chest and it will be OK!
Due to many advantages, these two sets of equipment have always been limited in quantity, and only a small amount is released each time the version is updated.
At present, only the Enlightenment faction in the entire wasteland has equipped these two pre-war equipment on a large scale.
I still remember the battle in the Great Desert before. The Alliance seized 200 sets of “Type 5” from the Enlightenment at one time, which made the administrator very happy.
If these two black boxes are moved back, won’t the favorability of the faction boss be brushed to the sky? !
Let’s see who dares to say that I have a bad face in the future!
However, the most surprising thing is not just the black box that produces the “Type 5” and “Type 6” exoskeletons, but the two big guys placed closest to the freight elevator.
One is a plasma engine that can produce 50 tons of thrust, and the other is an aviation-grade metal hydrogen battery that can produce up to 10 tons of hydrogen storage!
Finally understanding the functions of these two black boxes, I muttered to myself with joy.
”Good fellow! This time, we have to open the eyes of Mosquito Brother’s little ass!”
Previously, the Alliance recovered the relevant technology of “big planes” from the wreckage of the Enterprise Orca transport plane, but until now, it has not been fully understood.
Even after the Alliance absorbed the engineers of Giant Stone Military Industry, the technological gap between them is so large that it is daunting.
With the production conditions of Giant Stone Military Industry, the maximum thrust provided by a single plasma engine is only about five tons, which is the same level as the helicopter propeller before the Prosperous Era.
As for the large aircraft with a take-off weight of over 100 tons like the Orca transport plane, there is no need to think about it. The plasma engines produced by Giant Stone Military Industry have to be connected in series with 20!
Now with these two black boxes, plus the electronic control system recovered from the Orca transport plane, the Alliance can at least put together a large plasma aircraft of its own!
It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most fruitful grave-digging operation of the Alliance from the ruins of the pre-war era after Shelter No. 79! !
”These two black boxes have hardly been used. After all, such high-power engines and batteries are not needed in the shelter, and there are not so many surplus materials. My master once optimistically believed that the future people who opened this coffin would collect it as an antique, but it seems… you are really not kidding. Not only do you not have a hundred colonized planets, you haven’t even flown out of the atmosphere.”
Seeing that I was the darkest man with an expression that had never seen the world, Lingling walked to his side and complained slowly.
But I was the darkest man and didn’t feel offended at all. Instead, he laughed and mocked back.
”What about you? You didn’t even leave the house.”
Bell chuckled.
”That’s hard to say.”
Seeing its weird smile, I can’t help but be slightly alert.
”What do you mean?”
Not paying attention to his alert expression, Bell said slowly in a storytelling tone.
”Didn’t you say before that you saw Gabang outside? That’s what you call the ghost face bug. This shows that they finally succeeded. Hahaha, they are really a group of persevering people. No wonder my master admires them so much.”
Bell seemed to be in a good mood.
If this AI has emotions.
I was stunned.
”Successful… What do you mean?”
”It means literally,” Bell said with a smile in a relaxed tone, “Although they didn’t open the door of the shelter, they still managed to leave this prison. It’s a pity, but my master is dead, otherwise he would have laughed out loud like me.” Didn’t
open the door of the shelter.
But left the shelter?
I looked at Bell, who was laughing like metal friction, incomprehensibly.
Is there another exit from this shelter?
”Can such a thing be done?”
”Why do you ask such a question?” Lingling chuckled, “They have lived in the shelter for more than 50 years! Most people have been in the shelter since they were born! They are familiar with every light bulb and even every screw here. Anyone who can read can recite the rules of the shelter by heart… For them, finding loopholes in this shelter is easier than breathing.”
I was speechless.
He thought that the defense of the shelter was absolute, but if you think about it carefully, defense and destruction are relative concepts.
How can there be something truly unbreakable in this world?
Even if it is a wall that can defend against nuclear strikes, it will take ten thousand years to drill through it with an awl. What’s more, the people here have a weapon sharper than an awl – knowledge.
Suddenly, he seemed to realize something, his Adam’s apple moved unconsciously, and the hand holding the rifle trembled slightly.
”You mean, those bugs…”
”If the window of the cell is not big enough, then saw off the arms. If sawing off the arms is not enough, then just send the heads out… ventilation system? What a ‘brilliant’ idea.”
Lingling clicked his tongue twice and talked to himself. However, the metal sound that was quite relaxed and happy a second ago now carried a hint of loneliness.
Or regret.
Listening to its monologue, I understood everything.
Why did this guy change the subject by talking about something else when I asked it before, where those people went…
To escape from this cage.
After they equipped “Garbang” with weapons, they also turned themselves into “Garbang”, and through unremitting efforts, they drilled a “crack” in the ventilation system of this shelter that was just enough for them to leave, and finally succeeded in escaping from prison.
They left this shelter many years ago.
The ghost face bugs active outside the shelter are the most direct evidence.
Although it is hard to say whether they can still be called them, and how much of the souls of the residents they carry is hard to say.
At least none of the bugs that I met outside looked like nuclear engineers or biologists.
Thinking of the honeycomb tower made of shed shells in the courtyard, I squeezed out a sentence with difficulty.
”So… the conflict in the past was won by most residents of the shelter?”
”Win?” Feeling a little confused by this sentence, Lingling turned around and looked at him, “Do you think anyone won?”
I took a deep breath and asked a different question.
”Then… what about the supervisors here? Where did they go?”
Lingling smiled and said lightly.
”Ah, them, except for my master, the supervisors who survived the disaster returned to the embrace of the tree. I didn’t see them later. Maybe they are still reminiscing about the past on some circuit board, or maybe they have left here like those bugs. Who knows? I’m just a tour guide in the museum.”
I looked at it blankly.
”The embrace of the tree?”
Lingdang said in a teasing tone.
”Yes, they believe that they come from the great tree and should be buried under the roots of the tree… This may be difficult for you to understand. In short, they uploaded their minds to the server of the shelter, gave up their bodies, and merged with this shelter forever.” ”
But my master doesn’t think they succeeded. He thinks that they are more like collective suicides out of fear of crime after leaving a memory, and he chose to end his life in a human way.”
At this point, Lingdang opened up and told everything that happened more than a hundred years ago.
Because of the scarcity of resources and the uneven distribution, the contradictions between the “tree people” and the “worker ants” have accumulated for a long time. Even though the living standards of both sides are continuously declining, the tree people, as part of the distance “tree” sensor module, will still decline at a slightly slower rate.
The fuse of the crisis was the climate recovery event in the 50th year of the Wasteland Era.
In the fifth year after the dissolution of the War Construction Committee, the wasteland gradually showed signs of climate recovery. The residents of Shelter No. 100, with their enthusiasm for rebuilding the wasteland and their yearning for a better life, revived the thoughts of the prosperous era. While preparing to return to the surface, they formed an industry committee of workers and engineers, intending to say goodbye to the past after returning to the surface and put everything in Shelter No. 100 into a coffin and bury it in the soil.
However, the sixty-three-year deadline has not yet arrived, and the behavior of the worker ants has made the tree people panic.
They have been carefully pruning the branches and leaves of this great tree all their lives, fulfilling their responsibilities as defenders of order, and blocking the “ant holes” drilled by the worker ants on the trunk.
Even if the fate of the tree’s final collapse was set from the beginning, it will end the mission of the shelter after fulfilling its shelter duties and become a casting well to continue to contribute to the rebirth of human civilization. However, the tree people do not want their mission to collapse with the tree.
They tried to consult the worker ants, hoping to keep the tree for all its hard work over the years.
This is not difficult. There are loopholes in any man-made rules. As long as you look for them patiently, you will definitely find them.
To activate the dome’s self-destruction program, one condition must be met – that is, the number of detectable residents in the shelter must remain below 5,000 people per day for 180 consecutive days, or below 3,000 people within 24 hours.
Only in this case will the Great Tree decide that the residents of Shelter 100 no longer need to rely on its guidance, that they are already capable of living outside of their own sensors, and that it will use its remaining resources to send the children on their final journey.
However, they can also use this in turn.
As long as the worker ants stay with them and ensure that at least 5,000 people live in Shelter 100, Shelter 100 will think that its children still need it, and then it will not leave them.
However, this request, which carries the meaning of an order, was ruthlessly rejected by the worker ants who were just happy.
Almost all the autonomous committees refused to communicate with the tree people on this matter.
This is a matter of course.
The worker ants have endured the cold and ruthless orders of the tree for too long. Even if they know in their hearts that it is a necessity for survival, they have no reason to keep it after everything is no longer needed.
Let it die with this shelter.
Becoming a casting well is also part of its destiny.
The shelter should not be the end of human civilization. The ultimate fate of any shelter is to be demolished and used as raw materials for reconstruction.
As for the tree people, if they are so reluctant to part with it, then they can just go down with it.
Perhaps the tough attitude of the worker ants made the tree people feel threatened by the liquidation. The tree people interfered with the spontaneously formed organizations of the worker ants, including but not limited to cutting off water, electricity and supplies, and did their best to create trouble for the activities of these organizations within the scope permitted by the rules.
Although the conflict between the two sides intensified, they were still restrained so far. What
really ignited the fuse was an incident outside the shelter. In
the 52nd year of the Wasteland Era, the climate recovery lasted for two years, and the ice of Xizhou Lake loosened before the gate of Shelter No. 100.
The melted snow and the spreading lake water poured into the deserted urban area of Xizhou City, and even poured into the underground transportation tunnel.
The triumphant worker ants showed a trace of panic. Although the climate recovery is a happy thing, if the ice cap and snow on the surface continue to melt, perhaps before the 60th year of the Wasteland Era, their shelter will be soaked in water.
Some people thought that the door should be opened immediately, at least some people should be allowed out, and the area where backflow might occur should be reinforced.
However, it was useless for the residents of the shelter to do so alone. The tree people had to convey this request to the managers of the shelter, that is, the AI named Tree.
Of course, the tree people could not do this. The lake water pouring into the tunnel did not cause them to panic, but made them overjoyed. Even
if some supervisors thought that they should cooperate with the residents to fill the gap that anyone with a clear eye could see, most supervisors still made a decision that suited their own butts – weakening the crisis that might flood the shelter into a trivial rain.
As long as the “tree” believed that its designer had considered the possibility of water from Xizhou Lake pouring into the tunnel, and there was no need to make any superfluous supplements to the already perfect rules, it would continue to implement the original plan according to the established rules. It
could even be used in reverse to make the tree mistakenly judge that the speed of climate recovery exceeded expectations, and then make wrong decisions based on wrong feedback factors, and continue to extend the closure period.
Thus, sixty-three years became seventy years.
Although it was only seven years, for the first generation of residents who were already 90 years old, this would mean that their funerals would be held in the shelter, and they might never see the day when the gear-shaped giant door opened.
For the young residents of the shelter, these seven years might mean that their youth would be exhausted in the shelter, and the life plans and preparations for rebuilding the wasteland in the past few years would become a mess. After all,
the shelter for 80,000 people was too small, and the space in Shelter No. 100 was too crowded. Any slight emotion could become explosives stuffed into the powder keg.
The first riot happened soon, and ended with the death of 879 ordinary residents and 37 supervisors.
The blood calmed everyone down temporarily.
All the bodies were put into the nutrient recovery device and turned into fertilizer and nutrients for the ecological cycle.
Although there were residents of the shelter who died naturally in the past, and their bodies would be recycled by the ecological cycle system of the shelter, this was undoubtedly the most.
So that most people who were originally unwilling to understand were forced to understand where their food came from.
Later, rumors spread that the bodies of the supervisors were not sent to the nutrient recovery device, but were secretly cremated by their families.
No matter how much the tree people denied it, it was meaningless.
Under the development that everyone could foresee, the contradiction between the tree people and the worker ants was further intensified. In
the 56th year of the Wasteland Era, the lake water almost submerged the gate of the shelter. Just when the tree people were planning to let the shelter sink into the water forever, the second organized uprising broke out.
The engineers of the biological research station spent three years modifying the genes of the gabons, and the staff of the breeding farm released them through deliberate illegal operations, attracting the attention of the tree people. While the tree people jumped up and down to eliminate the bugs, all the workshops in the entire shelter launched an uprising almost at the same time.
Because a large amount of mechanical equipment and even biological weapons were invested in this battle, the aftereffects of this riot exceeded everyone’s expectations.
A total of more than 77,000 people disappeared or died in the riot, including 645 supervisors.
In the end, only 111 supervisors survived, and the owner of the bell, the supervisor named Craig, was among them.
The battle between the two sides was not limited to gunfights and scuffles over engineering equipment, but also included a series of rule-based weapons.
For example, during the battle, the tree man tried to use the power of the tree to release hypnotic gas into the densely populated residential area
of worker ants to suppress the riots. However, their plan was discovered in advance by the worker ants responsible for repairing the exhaust pipes, and they used a few milligrams of ozone to deceive the air detection device in the residential area, passively activated the ventilation system of the shelter, and discharged the gas into the wasteland.
Seeing that all hope was about to be lost, the worker ants also tried to use the power of rules to transfer some residents to the cold storage for food storage, trying to deceive the life detection device of the shelter, and achieve the dome self-destruction condition of “less than 3,000 residents in the shelter within 24 hours” without going out, and lift the roof of the shelter.
However, their plan was soon discovered by the tree man.
Seeing the detectable life signals in the shelter decreasing at an incredible speed, the tree people frantically unplugged the power supply – using the loophole they discovered a long time ago but did not fix, the fusion reactor in the shelter was automatically overloaded and stopped.
I am afraid that the designers of Shelter 100 did not expect that people would play such a big game more than 50 years later.
However, thanks to this trump card, Shelter 100 did not become a reservoir in the 56th year of the Wasteland Era.
However, it was precisely because they cut off the power supply that more than 50,000 residents who did not die in the battle eventually died in the cold storage.
There were less than 3,000 residents surviving in the entire shelter. The tree people could not start the reactor, which would cause the entire shelter to collapse within 24 hours.
And the survivors could not quickly reproduce to 5,000 people within 180 days. Even if they abandoned ethics and common sense for survival, it would take ten months for a newborn to be born.
Not to mention that the chemical batteries were only enough to keep the ventilation system running, and the crackling that spread throughout the shelter was squeezing out their only survival resources.
As Lingdang said, no one won this war, and it didn’t even end at all.
After suffering heavy casualties, the tree people had given up reconciling with the worker ants, and the worker ants did not expect the tree people to sacrifice themselves to fulfill them.
Both sides moved in their respective controlled areas, truce in complete silence, licking their wounds, waiting for the other to lose their last breath.
Until the 61st year of the Wasteland Era, the last life signal that matched human characteristics disappeared from the shelter, and the shelter completely became a “cracking” world.
And the last life signal that disappeared was Craig.
That is, the owner of the bell.
”…My master entrusted me to bring this absurd memory to you who have entered the interstellar era. I hope you can use it. Don’t be foolish to think that everything will be fine if you hand over the problems that you can’t solve yourself to AI, but unfortunately you haven’t entered the interstellar era, so it seems that it can’t be used.”
”So… some of the residents here turned themselves into bugs, and some turned themselves into data?” Standing next to my darkest, the grave chaser who hadn’t walked out of the story couldn’t help but complain, “This is not a prison, it’s a fucking mental hospital!”
My darkest had a look of deep agreement on his face.
He thought so too.
Everyone here is crazy.
The supervisors contemptuously called the residents “worker ants”, and the worker ants in their mouths called them “tree people”.
In order to keep the shelter running forever, the tree people did their best to buy time for the lake water that flooded the door. In order to take a look at the world outside the shelter, the worker ants did not hesitate to turn themselves into real insects and tear the future that could still be endured into pieces.
They chose all the craziest options that could be chosen, so that in the end no one walked out of this shelter intact.
At this moment, a shrill alarm suddenly sounded outside the warehouse, suddenly pulling my darkest back to reality.
”What happened?!”
Looking at the surprised people, Lingling said with a nonchalant look.
”This alarm sounded familiar, it seems to have happened before… Ah, I remember, I should have told you before that in order to thwart the plan of the ‘worker ants’, the ‘tree people’ took the initiative to shut down the fusion reactor, but you turned it on again, didn’t you? Maybe the life monitoring program and the dome self-destruction program have been restarted, it’s not a big problem.”
Hearing this, my darkest face instantly turned green.
It’s okay if it’s not a big problem…
It’s not more than a hundred years ago now!
The self-destruction program that was just enough to make the upper structure fall into the courtyard more than a hundred years ago, who knows what impact it will have today more than a hundred years later!
Let alone the tower that the ghost face worm built in the courtyard, it might be buried by the pouring earth!
”But why didn’t there be any problems when the fusion reactor was started?” The grave ghost immediately realized that something was wrong, staring at Lingdang and asked anxiously.
Lingdang just laughed, still with that expression of indifference.
”What’s so strange about this? After the mission of the tree was over, you have already taken control of this shelter. It is not difficult to terminate the dome self-destruction program with the administrator’s authority. This kind of thing is as simple as you pushing open the door of the shelter.”
I was confused for a moment.
”Wait, since the control of the shelter has been transferred to us, why would the self-destruction program be triggered?”
Lingdang looked at him jokingly.
”Maybe your boss wants to silence you? Haha, of course, this possibility is too small. I am more inclined to think that you triggered an unfixed bug in this shit mountain of bugs, causing some settings to roll back to before the rule modification. This is a common trick used by tree people and worker ants to fight. They often need to cover the eyes of the trees when they resolve personal grudges.”
Izuhei first ruled out his own problem. After all, he just touched the black box a few times.
Then he immediately thought of the Ten Punch Man who quickly passed through the manager’s office on the B51 floor and ran to B100 to do a branch line.
Not daring to hesitate, he immediately reached out and pressed on the helmet, and shouted loudly into the communication channel.
”Brother Chao! What’s the situation over there? Brother Chao?!”
There was a burst of electric sound in the communication channel.
There was no response!
His face changed slightly, and Izuhei immediately gave a look to the grave-head ghost-catching next to him.
”I’ll go down!”
”OK.”
Immediately understood his plan, the grave-head ghost-catching gestured to understand.
Without wasting any time, Izuihei turned off the safety of my rifle, put it aside, lay on the ground, closed my eyes and logged off.
Looking at this guy who was yelling at the communicator one second and fell asleep on the ground the next, Lingdang circled around him in surprise.
”Amazing, you can actually sleep?”
Izuihei, who had already logged off, naturally had no reaction and ignored what it said.
Looking at this AI making a fuss, the grave-catching ghost guarding nearby laughed.
”What a big deal, just basic exercises.”
(End of this chapter)
