The "strange rock" that had lain in the forest for a week finally moved.
Early in the morning, the small animals living nearby were alarmed by the strange noises coming from the crater. After a while, they confirmed that it was not a sign of a new explosion. So some of the more daring animals sneaked across the forest and bushes, lying on the edge of the crater to watch the "strange rock that fell from the sky". They saw that the culprit who had smashed the crater in the forest had taken on a new look. Its once black shell was now shining with a silvery-white radiance, and a beautiful halo was floating on its shell, just like the ripples on a lake in the forest. It was a beautiful sight to behold.
And a strange buzzing sound came from the belly of the strange thing, like a gust of wind in a cave.
A few small animals with grayish-white pointy ears grabbed the tree branches to occupy a higher position, hissing at the big silvery-white stone that was glowing and making strange noises. They angrily remembered that their former home, a beautiful and grand tree hole, was smashed by this thing that fell from the sky, and now its remains were under the strange thing's belly. The little beasts grabbed onto the branches and roared at the thing that was lying in its nest at a distance that they thought was quite safe. Just like in the past, they tried to chase away this uninvited guest.
But this time, they seemed to have succeeded.
That was because after the silvery-white monster continued to buzz for a while, it actually began to slowly float up. There were a few long gaps in its back that emitted bright blue light. Some of the gullies in the middle of its waist were also emitting bright light. Under the effect of these lights, the seemingly heavy monster seemed to have lost its weight. It floated lightly in the air, and flew higher and higher, farther and farther away ….
This damned strange thing finally flew away.
The small animals in the forest looked at this incredible scene, and then finally began to cheer — or just run and howl after being frightened. A few small animals with grayish-white pointy ears grabbed the tree branches and looked at the big crater left after the silvery-white strange thing flew away from the crater, trying to find the beautiful and grand tree hole in the deep crater, but to no avail.
They chattered and exchanged their opinions, and finally decided that this place was not suitable to settle down. They decided to move to the forest, where there were many shelves and stone trees, and were ready to find a beautiful and grand tree hole there.
"How does it feel to fly again?"
Hao Ren looked at Nolan, who was standing next to the projector in the center of the bridge, checking the data of the spacecraft with a high-spirited expression, and asked with a smile.
"Super awesome!" Nolan put her hands on her hips, and her silvery-white ponytail swung behind her head. "I thought I really had some kind of flying disorder, and I was worried for nothing for a few days! It turns out that I was born to love flying — the feeling of being in the air is simply too good!! "
"That's good." Hao Ren smiled and nodded. The shipgirl had been lying sick for a week, and today she finally recovered, which was really something to be happy about. "How's the spacecraft?"
"It's even better than I expected!" Nolan looked really happy, so much so that she used a holographic projection to create a bunch of fireworks and colorful lights next to her as she spoke. "The power furnace is running, the shield is stable and strong, and the weapon system is as powerful as if it was newly installed! Although the main cannon still seems to be a little problematic, I think it will be able to blast anything in front of us in a few hours! "
"Okay, okay, okay, I understand how happy you are, but it's better to focus on piloting the spacecraft now." Hao Ren waved his hand at Nolan, calming the ship girl who was a little too happy. "We still have to be wary of the divine storms in this sector. Although the latest monitoring data from the droid swarm shows that the divine storms are only active in the deep space region, and they have mostly calmed down now, you may taunt them again if you are too cocky."
This sentence was quite effective. Nolan suddenly jumped like a startled rabbit, and then looked around. It was as if she could reduce the presence of her spaceship, which was hundreds of meters long, in the universe.
Hao Ren nodded with relief. Compared to the "Grey Fox mercenary" who was brought out of the dream world of Zorm, the current Nolan was much more lively. Perhaps this was the "real personality" that the AI lady was set up at the beginning?
The spacecraft quickly left the planet's atmosphere, but it did not accelerate too much. Instead, after activating various interference and stealth devices, it approached the high orbit at a moderate speed. In front of it, the miracle space station built by the planet's original inhabitants, the Zenith, was shining in the afterglow of the sun.
Hao Ren turned his head to the two robot girls sitting not far away: N-4 and N-6.
The other "Executors" were also on the spacecraft. After N-4 and Hao Ren reached an agreement, the ground forces led by N-4 (including those who had escaped before) also became temporary passengers on the Petrachelys under the command of their commander. Now they were all in standby in the cabin of the spacecraft, while N-4 and N-6 remained on the bridge as representatives to answer some questions from Hao Ren.
N-4 and N-6 had been looking at the place curiously. They were amazed by this almost incomprehensible spacecraft built with unknown technology, especially after she took off.
But Hao Ren was watching them.
Curiosity — another trait that was extremely close to human.
Although the original inhabitants of this planet did not make much progress in aerospace technology (one of the evidences was that they had not yet created the key equipment such as the jump engine), it seemed that they had outstanding talent in the field of artificial intelligence. These so-called "Executors" not only had a near-perfect emotional function, but also had the ability to develop independently, such as curiosity and learning habits. This was really a remarkable achievement.
Because this meant that they could self-evolve.
N-4 had said a lot about the abnormality of the Cortex Prime, and now Hao Ren had a general grasp of the whole thing.
It sounded like the Cortex Prime did not malfunction suddenly, but there was a gradual process, and at the beginning of the process, no one noticed it.
Since a few years ago, the huge artificial intelligence began to produce some contradictory instructions. At first, the number of these wrong instructions was very small, and almost did not involve important decisions. It could be seen as a minor malfunction during the operation. The Cortex Prime itself had a mechanism to correct these malfunctions. Its 13 servers were like a voting body, and only a few of them produced wrong instructions. The normal servers would directly eliminate the problematic code — at least in the beginning.
But the situation had been deteriorating since then.
For some reason, the error log of the Cortex Prime was hidden by itself (perhaps the most fatal of all malfunctions), so the maintainers in the fortress did not realize that the Cortex Prime's servers were accumulating more and more wrong instructions. In the beginning, there were only one or two servers producing wrong instructions, and the frequency was only three or four times a month or two. But then the problem became more and more serious. As the wrong instructions appeared more and more frequently, the number of servers producing these wrong instructions increased, and the number of normal servers that could eliminate these wrong instructions naturally decreased.
The Cortex Prime's server was not unmaintained, nor was it lacking in updates. In fact, as the most important decision-making machine in the survival society, the Cortex Prime's main board and main logic circuits would be replaced once every hundred years. The other hardware would be inspected and maintained every year, and the system's self-inspection process was so frequent that it would be done once a day. According to N-4, the current motherboard and logic circuits of the Cortex Prime had actually been replaced less than 20 years ago, and were far from the state where they could malfunction.
But the malfunction just happened inexplicably, and the moment the ratio of normal servers and faulty servers was reversed, the Cortex Prime's error was finally exposed.
The Cortex Prime had issued two completely opposite orders, and one of them was inexplicable: the first order prohibited the circulation of information about the unknown spaceship on the home planet, and forbade anyone from approaching the area where the spaceship "crashed". The second order was sent directly to a dozen Executor soldiers, including N-4, and ordered them to investigate the unknown spaceship.
At first, N-4 did not realize that the two commands contradicted each other. She thought it was a secret instruction from the Cortex Prime, but when she routinely sent the instructions back to the Cortex Prime's lower servers for confirmation, it triggered a serious warning in the system.
The Cortex Prime believed that she and her temporary team members were acting without orders.
The Cortex Prime then sent her a transport to complete the mission as soon as possible, and at the same time sent a bunch of messed up system logs into her memory …
And then, Miss N-4 and her temporary team came before Hao Ren in confusion.
"Don't you think it's impossible to do this job?" Hao Ren looked at N-4 and felt that it was unreasonable. "Messed up orders, completely blank mission details, and when you go back, you will most likely be listed as' out of control 'by the Cortex Prime … Can't you first report to the maintainers of the Cortex Prime?"
N-4 said with a straight face, "The orders of the Cortex Prime must be executed, and this is the fundamental reason why we can survive until today."
N-6 also said with a straight face, "The orders of the Cortex Prime must be executed, and the maintainers will naturally complete the maintainers' work."
Nangong Sanba listened to their conversation and could not help but put his hand on his forehead. "Different worldviews really make it hard to communicate …"
And as they spoke, the Petrachelys had slowly approached the giant space station floating in space — the Zenith.
Its silver-white egg-shaped shell glowed on the holographic projection, and this behemoth was like a small moon occupying everyone's vision.
"Nolan, get the tractor beam ready." Hao Ren gently tapped on the console and exhaled. "Get ready to work."
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