Hao Ren did not dare to say that all the maintainers had died in this hall, but he could guess that there was not a single maintainer still active inside or outside the fortress. There was probably more than one scene like this in this hall. In other server rooms and other Cortex Prime equipment rooms, there were probably charred remains of the maintainers.
Because the Cortex Prime had obviously premeditated and planned to destroy these loyal workers who were responsible for its maintenance.
Hao Ren came to a charred wreckage and carefully turned over the basin-sized steel beetle. The latter's drooping mechanical arms had been jammed by its own joints, and Hao Ren had to cut off two of its arms to remove the metal plate on its abdomen.
"It was destroyed from the inside out. The core circuit board is almost completely scorched, and these coils … They are obviously the initial ignition points," Hao Ren said, pointing to the messy internal structure of the maintainer's body. "It's a typical electrical pulse attack."
"They were probably working when they were destroyed." N-6 recovered from the initial shock. She looked around at the cable connectors and servers that had been opened, and quickly restored the scene. "It was not the time for hardware replacement, and there was no need for such a large-scale dismantling operation. So these maintainers must have been summoned by the Cortex Prime."
Lily's ears twitched. "That is to say, the Cortex Prime summoned its own maintainer team on the grounds that it needed urgent maintenance, and then 'murdered' them in these server rooms? Is this a Hongmen Banquet in the robot world? "
"Although most of the maintainers usually operate inside the fortress, they are a team that can contact the outside world. Their total destruction cannot be hidden for long." Hao Ren frowned. "MDT, can you tell when these robots were burned down?"
The MDT had finished sampling and analyzing the ablation marks in the hall. It heard Hao Ren's words and floated over. "About a month ago. To be honest, according to the information provided by N-4 about the maintainers, this is enough time to alert the Executors outside. The main reason no one raised any questions is probably because the Cortex Prime has always ruled the lunar base, and the Executors completely follow the Cortex Prime's orders. Even if they have their own thoughts and feelings, they cannot get rid of the 'thinking lock' set in the program. So they subconsciously ignore all the anomalies in the fortress. "
"But in fact, the anomalies and the content set in the program will sooner or later accumulate a lot of conflicts. When the conflicts accumulate to a certain extent, it will be a disaster for this artificial intelligence society," Y 'zaks said in a low, muffled voice. "There used to be a kingdom of sorcerers called Lytitos in my hometown. They used artificial souls to create intelligent golems. But in the end, because of a logic error that no one noticed, all the intelligent golems collectively went out of control, and the kingdom was destroyed in three days."
Hao Ren nodded gently. This artificial intelligence society on the moon had a huge congenital flaw. He only had a vague feeling about it before, but now seeing the situation inside the fortress on the verge of collapse, and thinking of the seemingly normal Executors outside, this congenital flaw was very obvious.
As for N-6, who was standing not far away, she was now in a huge dilemma.
What she saw after entering the fortress was a huge shock to the poor robot girl. She had never doubted the principles of her life as a "human" were all shaken here. The fortress that was supposed to be impregnable, the Cortex Prime that was supposed to be always right, the fortress defense system that was supposed to be without any logical loopholes and security issues had all turned into bubbles. Inside the sturdy steel fortress, everything was rotting and collapsing. This process had happened a few years ago, and a month ago, it had reached a terrifying level: the Cortex Prime had even destroyed its own maintainers.
But her compatriots outside knew nothing about it. They only saw the fortress still standing on the moon, and then faithfully carried out the orders from the fortress, even if the next second, the orders were crazy enough to make them all self-destruct on their home planet.
An out-of-control surge appeared in her logic circuit, and N-6's vision was quickly filled with error messages. She felt her thoughts become intermittent, and her body fell to the side uncontrollably.
But the next moment, she felt her unbalanced body was supported, and the once chaotic logic circuit gradually stabilized. Some code that did not belong to her was clearing the system errors that would cause a fatal failure.
Vivian quickly caught N-6, who seemed to have crashed, and saw that N-6 opened her eyes after a few seconds with a system reboot. She could not help but be a little worried. "What's wrong with you?"
"It's nothing serious. The shock was too strong, and it just crashed," the MDT replied on behalf of N-6. "Every executor's program is set to absolute obedience to the Cortex Prime and absolute trust in the fortress, and the truth she saw in the fortress was enough to create a fatal bug in these programs. But now it seems that … her system seems to have the ability to self-repair? She just fainted and recovered on her own. "
Hao Ren blinked. "Isn't it because Nolan wrote some security software in her system when he repaired her?"
"No, Nolan did not touch her core system at all. He just wrote a bunch of drivers for her. Her system recovery function should have come with it. "
N-6 felt her hearing system was shaken for a moment. The conversation between Hao Ren and the MDT sounded like a distant and roaring noise to her ears. The rumbling lasted for a long time before it gradually became clear. She heard the word system recovery, but she did not understand what it meant because she did not know when the code that helped her clear the fatal error was stored in her chip.
She stood on her own and showed a grateful expression to Vivian. "Thank you, I have recovered."
"Are you sure you're okay?" Hao Ren looked at the robot lady worriedly. "Can you still go forward?"
Lily reminded him. "I have to remind you, you may see something more exciting if you go forward …"
"I'm fine." N-6 nodded. "The system error has been eliminated. I think I can go on."
Seeing that she was so determined, Hao Ren did not say much. He just looked thoughtfully at the messy place. "To be honest, this is really a self-destructive move … These servers seem to have been damaged a lot."
"These are the secondary servers of the Cortex Prime. Their destruction will not cause the Cortex Prime to completely lose its ability to function," N-6 immediately explained. "But the loss of these secondary servers will cause the main server of the Cortex Prime to be overstressed and performance degraded. I think the Cortex Prime must have gone completely mad when it destroyed these maintainers. It did not care how much damage it would cause to its own structure. "
Hao Ren did not comment.
At this time, Lil Pea once again came out from Hao Ren's collar. The little one blinked her bright eyes and looked around.
Y 'zaks saw the situation and could not help but mutter. "Honestly, don't you feel uncomfortable with such a big fish in your arms?"
"You usually have a daughter sitting on your shoulder and you don't feel uncomfortable."
"That's true …"
At this time, Lil Pea had looked around. No one knew what the little one was thinking. She suddenly grabbed Hao Ren's chin and said, "Daddy, over there …"
Hao Ren looked up at the direction of Lil Pea's finger and found that it was the exit of the computer room.
They did not stay in this area for too long. After leaving the wreckage of the maintainers behind, they had entered the real core area of the fortress.
They entered the corridor leading to the Palace of Destiny.
What they saw along the way was not much different from what they saw in other parts of the fortress.
There were incapacitated Titanium Guards everywhere, as well as offline monitoring equipment and weapon platforms everywhere. In addition, they also saw more computer rooms and subsystems related to the Cortex Prime. These places, without exception, were full of the wreckage of the destroyed maintainers. Even the hardware of the Cortex Prime itself was severely damaged by the super pulse.
The size of the Cortex Prime was beyond imagination. It was almost the fortress itself. The most powerful artificial intelligence in history occupied nearly two-thirds of the fortress. Instead of saying that Hao Ren and his team were walking inside the fortress, it was more accurate to say that they were now walking inside the body of the Cortex Prime. What they were looking for was just the external interface of the Cortex Prime.
The interface was right in front of them.
A heavy black mechanical door stood in front of Hao Ren. The door shimmered with a faint light. The walls on both sides of the door were equipped with weapon systems that had lost their power supply. A gloomy and depressing atmosphere lingered on the door. When Hao Ren looked at it, he could not help but think of the scene he had witnessed many times before.
It was the end of a civilization, the end of an era.
N-6 told him that behind the door was the center of the Cortex Prime. It was also the only "main interface" that could directly communicate with the deep consciousness of the Cortex Prime.
The only entrance to the Palace of Destiny was behind the center of the Cortex Prime. For thousands of years, the Cortex Prime had been guarding the only door to the place where humans lived in seclusion like the most loyal guard. Before today, this barrier had never been opened to an "executor" like her.
"Open it," Hao Ren instructed the MDT.
"We may encounter resistance from the Cortex Prime," Y 'zaks said. "The most likely is an electric pulse. The Cortex Prime uses this to destroy the maintainers."
Hao Ren nodded. "Be vigilant. Lily, move back a little. Your reactance is low. "
At first, Lily wanted to argue. But thinking of how miserable she looked after being hit by Vivian's Lightning Ball, she obediently hid behind Hao Ren with her tail between her legs.
The power system of the black door was still online. The MDT was able to disarm the access control system by injecting a virus into it. Soon, with the sound of the locking device being opened and a soft grinding sound of machinery, the heavy door slowly opened to both sides.
A wide circular hall appeared in front of everyone. In the center of the hall, stood a majestic and silent black cylinder with a flickering surface.
This was the center of the Cortex Prime.
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