After Director Li left, Lu Zhou took the elevator and went straight to the second basement floor of the main building of the Institute for Advanced Study. He passed through the entrance of the sample room and entered the third basement floor.
Which was, the underground laboratory.
The debris rewarded by the system was basically placed here, and Xiao Ai was responsible for guarding it.
Almost as soon as he stepped into the laboratory, a quad-rotor drone with a display screen flew over and circled around him twice.
Lu Zhou looked at Xiao Ai and immediately went straight to the point.
"How's the situation with the Crawler?"
The so-called "Crawler" referred to the "Crawler" all-terrain remote-controlled exploration vehicle, which was one of the samples rewarded by the system when he completed the previous stage of the mission.
Unlike the clothes woven from carbon nanofiber material, this thing was obviously much more high-tech.
According to the description in the manual, its communication radius was as high as three astronomical units. Even if Mars and Earth were at the farthest relative position, his terminal could successfully receive the signal from the Reptile all-terrain remote-controlled exploration vehicle. At most, the signal was a little weak, and at most, the delay was a little high. There was no way to control it in real time.
Lu Zhou was very interested in its communication device. He tried to disassemble this thing, but unfortunately, he couldn't find a non-violent way to disassemble it. The manual also clearly stated that there was a built-in self-destruction program, and disassembly might lead to unpredictable consequences.
Obviously, this thing was probably the same type of thing as the nitrogen shield.
He could either use the omnipotent scanner gun, or he could only use it until it was scrapped.
Fortunately, unlike the single-use, non-rechargeable nitrogen shield, according to the manual, this thing could be charged by solar energy and geothermal energy. When the energy was low, it would automatically enter low-energy standby mode and wait for the environment to be suitable to restart.
Since the lunar space station was already deployed, the exploration of lunar resources was no longer expensive. Therefore, this "Crawler" was naturally used by Lu Zhou on Mars.
This way, not only could he prepare for future colonization activities, but he could also go to the "ruins" of the New Virginia colonial station and see what happened there.
Xiao Ai: [Successfully landed on the surface of Mars! Ready to activate! • • • • •) • •]
Lu Zhou nodded. "Then let's start now."
Xiao Ai: [Yes, sir! (́ • ́ • ́) و ́]
The "Reptile" all-terrain reconnaissance vehicle's terminal was a heavy laptop. At the same time, it was equipped with a signal transmitting and receiving device the size of half a water tank. The signal transmitting and receiving device had been installed by Lu Zhou next to the water tank on the roof of the Institute for Advanced Study. In terms of concealment, it was quite good.
But then again, even if someone found it strange, they had no right to investigate this place.
Even if the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study didn't play an important role in the fields of controllable fusion and aerospace, just the fact that the Air Force and the Navy were key research and development institutions meant that it wasn't easy to find out the secrets here.
At present, the terminal of the Reptile was already connected to Xiao Ai's mainframe.
Five minutes after Lu Zhou gave the order, on Mars tens of millions of kilometers away, a pitch-black prismatic metal box made a leaking sound.
Then, the outer shell on one side of the box slowly opened, and a remote-controlled car that was less than half the height of a person and had a sharp design rolled out with three and a half car high tires. Under the preset command, the car faced the sandstorm and headed toward the ruins of the New Virginia that was marked on the map.
On the other hand, Lu Zhou was in the underground laboratory. He made himself a cup of coffee and sat down at the experiment table. He then opened the control terminal of the reconnaissance vehicle on the table.
He quietly waited for the countdown to complete. Soon after, the signal came from tens of millions of kilometers away, and lines of dialog boxes popped up on the screen.
["Lightning" escape capsule activated!]
["Reptile" successfully awakened!]
[Terminal connected successfully!]
After the last dialog box popped up, a clear image quickly appeared on the screen. Lu Zhou drank his coffee while quietly watching the Reptile move forward in the harsh weather.
It was obviously unrealistic to remotely control this thing with a delay of several minutes. This little guy had a simple "tool-level" level of intelligence. Combined with the pre-set command, it could basically complete the inspection mission on the mission list without anyone controlling it.
The person sitting in front of the control terminal only needed to look at the signal sent after a delay of a few minutes or even ten minutes. This person could adjust the "variables" that might appear during the inspection mission.
In fact, this task could be completely handed over to Xiao Ai, but Lu Zhou wasn't that lazy. Not to mention that he was curious about the life support system that was the epitome of the most advanced artificial biosphere technology in North America. He wanted to see what was inside.
Lu Zhou didn't have to wait for long. The outline of the life support system was reflected in the Reptile's main camera.
Lu Zhou looked at the miserable state of the "ruins" and recalled the concept map published on the official website by Space-X. He couldn't help but sigh for half a second.
After the escape capsule was launched, the entire life support system was basically in a semi-abandoned state. The remaining power was enough for the life support system to standby for a while, but it probably wouldn't last for long.
Before the escape capsule left, it would take away as much oxygen and methane as possible. The exhaust flame would also burn the outer shell of the life support system.
When the "reptile" passed through the outer cultivation area, Lu Zhou could clearly see through the side camera that the "vegetable greenhouses" had basically been blown away by the high-temperature airflow, and most of the plastic cultivation utensils were buried in the sand.
However, these were all minor problems. After all, as early as a few days after the sandstorm occurred, after confirming that the sandstorm was global, the colonists had already recycled all the crops here. The entire planting area was basically abandoned.
When the Reptile drove to the garage door, an antenna that looked like a tentacle touched the door. Soon, the program that was pre-loaded into the life support system was activated, and the garage door was unlocked.
As the door slowly opened, the Crawler activated the lighting equipment on the roof and swaggered in.
Through the screen of the terminal, Lu Zhou looked at the unprotected life support system. He couldn't help but feel emotional.
The "Garden" plan was thwarted by an unknown force. Although there was no direct evidence to prove that the CIB did it, Lu Zhou didn't expect the artificial biosphere technology to return to him in this way.
Maybe this is the so-called fate or reincarnation.
Even though he didn't believe in these things.
After passing through the warehouse area, he went straight to the experimental area. Lu Zhou looked at the garbage on the ground and imagined the last few weeks here in his mind.
In order to save living resources and precious energy, the colonists had moved from the living area to here. They ate and lived next to the only communication terminal that could contact the BFS spacecraft.
Lu Zhou couldn't help but feel a little amused.
He didn't know what these refugees would think when they boarded Starlight and found out that they could take a shower on Starlight.
Lu Zhou walked in front of the laboratory console. The antenna that was previously connected to the access control system once again popped out from the shell of the Reptile and pointed at the console case.
Soon after, the screen lit up, and a progress bar appeared on it.
After the progress bar was completed, the data that had been packaged was all sent to Lu Zhou, who was tens of millions of kilometers away.
Lu Zhou quickly looked through the documents on the control terminal screen. He gradually put away the frivolous expression on his face, and there was a hint of seriousness on his face.
He was even a little surprised.
"… Interesting."
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
