Chapter 1555 Fortress

Lunar Base - Strictly speaking, it is not a base, but what it looks like after the entire lunar surface is completely covered, reinforced, and armed. This natural satellite has been turned into steel after thousands of years of continuous construction. The fortress, suspended coldly in the vast universe, pointing in the direction of its home star with a forest of guns and heavy armor, this has to be said to be a kind of sadness.

The exiles who were expelled from their hometown have been looking in the direction of their home for thousands of years, hoping to one day return to the homeland where they once thrived. However, they have to live in this place hundreds of thousands of kilometers away from home. The local people are fortified and point all their weapons in the direction of their hometown, because their hometown - their hometown has become their enemy.

It is difficult for a survivor society established and maintained under such circumstances to have the vigor and vitality that a normal civilization should have.

The entire lunar base is a huge and well-disciplined barracks. Factories and barracks account for 70 to 80% of all facilities. On the continuous steel land, there are many mining supports and equipment used for assembling wars everywhere. The production center of the machine, and highly intelligent mechanical biochemical humans called "agents" are continuously manufactured in these factories, and after a short period of adaptive adjustment and preparation, they are sent to the Zenith Sea—— After a shorter period of time, half of them will be filled as consumables in the crusher on the home planet that can never be filled.

A representative like N-4 who has served for more than ten years is almost a miracle. More often than not, like N-6, they encountered a counterattack by the eldest son during a certain bombing mission, and were then easily shot down, crashed, and changed. A pile of fragmented wreckage on the mother planet.

If they hadn't met Hao Ren and his party, N-6's existence would have ended at that moment.

Carefully dodging a group of patrol planes flying over the avenue, N-6 poked her head out from her hiding place, but somehow these inexplicable thoughts came to her mind: about the world she lives in, about the agent. life, about her own destiny.

This was the first time she had thought about her own destiny. To be honest, Ms. Agent felt that this question was a waste of energy.

Perhaps this is the "emotional issue" often mentioned by those who have served for more than a certain period of time? N-6 curiously checked the operating status of her logic circuit. She knew that there would be a big difference between agents who had been in service for a long time and those who had just left the factory, even if the former had not downloaded new ones from the big think tank. Logic programs, this difference will also appear over time. N-4 once talked about this topic with herself, and the other party called it accumulation of experience and emotional development. However, N-6 has never been able to understand these things, and now she feels like she is about to understand.

It turns out that after surviving for a period of time... the logic circuit will start to generate some code that has nothing to do with the main program.

"There are automated things everywhere," Lily looked around curiously, her golden eyes reflecting the steel buildings in the distance, "It's deserted..."

"This is normal," Hao Ren nodded, "This society does not have any entertainment activities, nor does it need industries for people's livelihood. What we saw along the way were either factories or barracks. The newly produced soldiers and war machines were all stored in their respective In the warehouse, when the war goes out, it is sent directly to the front line by transport plane - it is difficult for me to imagine that such a society can have busy street scenes and pedestrians wandering around."

Vivian frowned: "But the agent actually has feelings...at least those like N-4 have rich feelings, and N-6 is actually not bad either."

Yzaks nodded: "Yes, they have the foundation to build a normal society, but they don't have the luxury."

Hao Ren did not continue this topic. He raised his head and looked in the direction where his group was heading: a huge "mountain" was in front of him. It didn't look very far away. It was the "fortress" that N-4 and N-6 mentioned. .

The fortress is a circular steel fortress. When viewed from the air, it looks like a round cake with regular edges and a slightly sunken interior. On the edge of the fortress are neatly arranged black cubic structures, with huge metal pipes and corridors extending from these cubes. Extending out from the middle, connecting to each other and pointing to the central structure of the fortress, where they meet, you can see an alloy cylinder hundreds of meters high. That dark cylinder with no doors and windows, like a prison, is where humans live. ——The final palace.

It does not look like a palace for the creator to live, but it is the place of faith and belief of all agents.

The black cubes neatly arranged at the edge of the fortress are actually part of the master brain. They are the upper structure of thirteen giant servers. Under the steel earth, these black cubes have larger bodies and more complex secondary servos. The server array, and all these things are centrally connected in the Final Palace. According to N-4, there is also a computer room inside the Final Palace, where there are also thirteen servers, which is where the main brain's interactive interface and control center are located.

Simply touching or destroying the black cubes on the edge of the fortress is useless. The destination of Hao Ren and his party is the core computer room of the Fortress of the End.

The route to the fort is clearly mapped, but approaching it unnoticed is not that easy. Although the eldest son (the planet devourer in the mouth of the agent) has never implemented complex tactics such as dispatching spies and internal sabotage, the humans who originally designed and built the lunar base still followed their habits and set up layers of checkpoints and checkpoints around the fortress. patrol team, and these designs were inherited and carried forward by the mastermind who subsequently took over the management of the lunar surface.

Hao Ren and the others saw a lot of patrols and sentries along the way: there were Agent guards in small combat vehicles, there were also electronic monitoring stations fixed in certain places and constantly scanning the surroundings, but most of them were a kind of The little things called "patrol planes" are disc-shaped intelligent aircraft. They are only the size of a basketball. They are usually in groups of three or six. They are distributed all over the moon, especially around the fortress.

They are the eyes and ears of the Mastermind.

It is not difficult to eliminate these "eyes and ears". A well-trained husky and a brick that can attack from far and defend near can kill all the sentry posts, but this will inevitably cause a riot in the entire lunar base. By then, the overwhelming army of agents might be enough to completely swamp the small team led by Hao Ren.

It is true that Hao Ren leads all gold-medal thugs, but gold-medal thugs are not invincible in this place. Even if Vivian can stun a hundred ordinary agent soldiers with a little bat, she will not be able to defeat a million-strong army. There are not ten thousand little bats to throw away...

Therefore, Hao Ren was very cautious along the way. The N-6 could guide the team to bypass the main monitoring equipment, and the data terminal constantly sensed the patrol troops wandering nearby and issued an alarm in advance. With these two major assists, they were able to To get so close to the fortress without any risk.

Hao Ren originally wanted to try to let the data terminal fly a certain distance and then take everyone away through space transmission. However, the moment the terminal activated the space equipment, it sensed at least seventy radar signals concentrated on it, so this idea could only be rejected. give up.

Obviously, although the agents have not been able to point out the time and space jump technology, their radar is not blind. The abnormal energy fluctuations and electromagnetic radiation before the space door is opened are enough to arouse the vigilance of the master brain. Considering that after the space transmission is completed, Temporary dizziness and sensory disturbance will reduce everyone's combat effectiveness. Hao Ren must give up this too risky method of traveling.

But thankfully, the "good show" arranged by Hao Ren in the Zenith Constellation had its due effect. The mastermind's attention was almost entirely attracted to the battle in space - and was also attracted to it. There are also a large number of remaining troops on the lunar base. Although there are still a considerable number of Agent Corps stranded on the moon to maintain the necessary force for this base, their numbers have been greatly reduced.

Hao Ren and his party crossed the road to the fortress without any danger, and the dark steel building finally appeared in front of them.

"The fortress was built based on a crater. It was originally just an underground bunker with an alloy shield excavated at the bottom of the crater." N-6 looked at the towering black barrier in front of him with pride in his tone, " But it has undergone countless large and small modifications and enhancements over thousands of years. Now, except for this circular outline, it is basically unrecognizable from its former appearance. Its outer shell is covered with the sensors and electronic eyes of the master brain. , the entire black city wall is made of activated metal, and any contact with the outer wall will be transmitted to the mastermind in real time - how do you plan to deal with this thing?"

Yzaks looked at the black wall not far away: "In the air or underground?"

N-6 shook his head: "There is a repulsion shield in the air. Although it is not as good as your shield technology, the repulsion shield itself is 'sentient'. The mastermind can also use the shield to sense what has entered it." The fortress is not feasible underground, because the entire underground is wrapped by a hemispherical activated metal shell, making it impossible to sneak in quietly."

Vivian thoughtfully said: "It sounds like the entire fortress is wrapped in a barrier... This structure gives people the feeling that it can break away from the lunar base at any time."

N-6 glanced at her and said after two seconds of silence: "You guessed it right, the entire fortress was indeed designed to be an independent structure that can be separated from the moon at any time. This great project was completed three thousand years ago, and subsequent improvements and modifications continue intermittently to this day. It is designed to preserve the last lights of survivor society when the situation is extremely critical and irreversible: if the moon base falls and the Zenith space station is destroyed by Galactus, then the fortress will rise Sky and fly to the universe, becoming a new 'Zenith Ark'. Human beings and the Mastermind still have a glimmer of hope to find a place to live in the vast universe.

"At the same time, the agent has buried an annihilation reactor inside the moon that is enough to push the entire planet out of orbit. If the day comes when the fortress really has to flee its home again, the agent will detonate those annihilation reactors after the fortress lifts off. Reactor, the moon will then change its orbit and eventually crash into the parent star. We don't know if this will ultimately destroy Galactus, but at least... we can go home."

This plan made people gasp, and Lily's eyes widened: "Are you crazy?"

"We just want to go home."