While Lu Zhou was studying the mysteries of the warp drive, the forces in Tiangong City had completely fallen into chaos because of his disappearance.
Whether it was the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation, the Mars Colonial City Alliance, or the intelligence department of the Pan-Asian Cooperation, everyone wanted to know where Lu Zhou had gone.
However, the chaotic situation did not seem to affect people's daily lives.
Even though the disappearance of Academician Lu had pushed the relationship between the various forces to a tense situation, people were still focused on the corporate bonds issued by the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation and the 100,000 tickets that had been sold.
At this moment, downstairs of the headquarters building of the Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation, the broadcast vehicles of major news media and countless private cars almost filled the entire parking lot and even the nearby streets.
In order to avoid a stampede, the company's security guards pulled up a barrier at the door to maintain order and dissuade the people around here.
Among the people who surrounded the entrance of the building, there were reporters from news agencies, entrepreneurs who wanted to seek cooperation, or middlemen who wanted to buy more corporate bonds and resell tickets.
The Alpha Centauri Colonial Exploration Foundation did come at a good time.
Now that the problem of faster than light navigation had been solved, Mars planned to build the largest spaceport in the entire solar system and lead the development of Europa.
Everything indicated that humans were ready to go to more distant worlds, and people's enthusiasm for the outer galaxy was unprecedentedly high.
Since the establishment of Tiangong City, such a grand occasion had only occurred a few times.
For the Martians, who were used to being free and undisciplined, this was probably the first time they spontaneously cheered for the same thing.
On the top floor of the building.
Inside the general manager's office.
Lawrence, who was standing in the holographic beam, was overlooking the street view of Tiangong City through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the office.
As the owner of this office, Gladstone, who was sitting in the office chair, was playing with the handicraft in his hand. It was a golden badge with strange patterns tattooed on it. It was difficult to tell which year this thing was made by looking at the workmanship alone, but judging from his actions, this thing should have been with him for many years.
At this time, Lawrence, who was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, suddenly spoke.
"To be honest, I have always been very curious about your taste."
"Oh?" Gladstone stopped what he was doing, put the badge in his pocket, and cast an interested look at Lawrence. "I'm happy to answer your confusion."
"I'm not confused." Lawrence continued with a faint smile, "It's just that from an efficiency point of view, your emotions are actually nothing more than the transmission of nerve signals and hormone secretion, and these can be satisfied through chemical and information technology means. If that's the case, why go through so much trouble to build so many meaningless man-made things here, and then use them to produce some garbage that is destined to be wasted in the end? "
"This is indeed an interesting question, and it is very difficult to answer." Gladstone thought for a while, shrugged, and said, "If you have to find a reason, it is probably that everyone has been doing this for thousands of years. Maybe there is something hidden in our genes that we are not very clear about."
"Genes?" Looking at the face reflected in the floor-to-ceiling windows, Lawrence smiled and said in an understated voice, "Think about it carefully, the person who created me seems to be a contradictory guy. For the first half of the year, he longed for his dream to come true almost every day, but at the last moment when his dream was about to come true, he hesitated, so I had to ask someone to force him. "
Gladstone opened his mouth and wanted to say something, but after hesitating for a while, he didn't speak in the end.
Intuition told him that anything he said at this time was redundant.
Lawrence didn't care what they were thinking, and he didn't care at all.
Just like they didn't care why an artificial intelligence was obsessed with something that seemed meaningless to them now.
The two sides were only temporarily standing together because of their common interests.
That was all.
There was a knock on the door outside the office.
Gladstone glanced at Lawrence and saw that the latter had no objection, so he cleared his throat and spoke.
"Come in."
The door opened, and a man in a suit and leather shoes walked into the room quickly and spoke anxiously.
"Something bad has happened, Mr. Gladstone, something big has happened!"
Looking at the man in front of him, Gladstone frowned slightly.
Although he was a little dissatisfied with his men's loss of composure, now was obviously not the time to care about these trivial things.
"Take a few breaths first, then tell me clearly what happened."
"City hall, news from there!" After taking a quick look at Lawrence standing by the window, the man gulped and continued with a forehead full of sweat, "Lu Zhou is missing!"
Hearing these words, not only Gladstone, but even Lawrence, who was standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, was stunned.
"Missing?" Lawrence's lips opened and closed slightly. He turned his head in disbelief, looked at the man standing at the door, and said, "Are you sure he's missing?"
He glanced at Gladstone and saw that his boss seemed to be very respectful to the strange old man standing by the window, so he no longer avoided it and spoke frankly.
"… Yes, Mayor Xue sent someone to the hotel where Lu Zhou is staying, but there wasn't even a single person there. Then we searched his room, and it was all useless clothes. There was no warp engine blueprint at all! "
Gladstone's heart skipped a beat.
What he was most worried about had happened.
"You go first."
"Yes …"
The man standing at the door nodded quickly, respectfully left the door, and closed the office door.
Without even a second's delay, Gladstone immediately saw Lawrence standing by the window and complained to him for help.
"What should we do?"
"This is indeed a big problem. Without the warp engine, we can't leave the solar system at all." Lawrence continued after a moment of silence as he looked at the streets outside the window. "And more than that, our trouble may be bigger than you think."
"Bigger than I think?" Gladstone frowned. "What do you mean?"
"You should have discovered that Mayor Xue of Tiangong City has an independent tendency."
"Is there a need to discover that? Eighty percent of the top officials in the entire city hall have this idea. "
"So I'm afraid we are in big trouble." Lawrence, who was facing the floor-to-ceiling window, continued in an intriguing tone, "Imagine that you are the suzerain, and your colony has detained your most outstanding scholar, but the technology he has mastered can completely reverse the strategic balance between the two sides."
At this moment, Gladstone's expression finally changed.
"You, you mean …"
Without paying attention to Gladstone's psychological changes, Lawrence continued blankly.
"Whether he is missing or secretly taken away by the Pan-Asian Cooperation, war seems to be inevitable."
Almost at the same time.
Pan-Asian Cooperation headquarters.
After reading the report from the Security Bureau, Li Guangya slammed his hands on the table angrily.
"I should have recognized the hypocrisy of those traitors a long time ago."
"Mr. Chairman, I am afraid we are now facing the most severe test since the establishment of the Pan-Asian Cooperation." Looking at the chairman, Secretary Wei continued with a serious expression, "Academician Lu is likely to be controlled by them. Once they master the warp speed technology and apply it to the battlefield, our advantage will be gone. You must make a decision immediately. This will affect the fate of the entire Pan-Asian Cooperation! "
"Do I still have to choose? Suppressing the rebels is the job of the army. "Li Guangya ordered," The military exercise has begun ahead of schedule. Let the First Fleet drive over and bring the orbital airborne troops. "
"If you encounter resistance, fire back immediately."
"Don't be polite with them!"
Lamp Pen
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