The small town of Clinton, 30 km west of Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.

For a long time, Oak Ridge was not found on published maps. Even in 2013, GPS could only detect the street where the lab was located, but it could not find the location of its specific house number.

Visiting Oak Ridge National Laboratory again after many years, Tillerson felt like the entire Great Oak Ridge area had not changed much.

In the midst of a lush cedar forest, a shaded four-lane asphalt road winds its way to the half-hidden white building at the end of the lane.

It is a seven-storey European-style flat-roofed building covering an area of about 3,000 square meters, with two green meadows of about five acres in front and back, surrounded by a half-concrete structure and half-iron fence wall.

With Tom Mason personally leading a tour of the surface part of the lab, Tillerson was visibly absent-minded. Even if these institutions include research areas involved in advanced computing, advanced materials, biological systems, energy science, nanotechnology, national security, neutron science, research facilities, and other related research areas.

"Mr. Secretary, ORNL (Oak Ridge National Laboratory) currently employs 4,600 people, including 3,000 scientists and engineers, and hosts 3,000 guest researchers each year for two weeks or more. About 25% of the visitors are from the industrial sector, and more than 30,000 visitors are welcomed every year, with a further 10,000 students before entering the university......"

"Dr. Mason, I know that ORNL has a number of important scientific research facilities, and in order to develop to the next level, it has also built a new nanomaterials science center, a genetic science center, the world's largest supercomputer center that performs trillions of floating point operations per second, and the Spallation Neutron Source, the largest civilian scientific research project in the United States, which is jointly built by six U.S. national laboratories, and has several nuclear science laboratories, such as high-throughput isotope reactors, and so on. But that's not what I want to see at the moment. ”

Tillerson interrupted Tom Mason's presentation with a graceful smile and said, "ORNL spends more than $1.65 billion a year, 80 percent of which comes from the Department of Energy and 20 percent from federal and private sector customers. A recent $300 million investment has been made in 11 new installations, including the Functional Genome Center, the Nanomaterials Science, Advanced Materials Characterization Laboratory and the Joint Institute for Computational Science. If Dr. Mason doesn't mind, I'd like to go to your Joint Institute for Computational Science right now. That's what I want to see the most. ”

Dr. Mason paused, looked at Tillerson quite seriously and said, "Your Excellency, Lady Liberty has just been born, it is immature like a newborn child, a little mischievous, we need more funds to build a bigger supercomputer center, so that Lady Liberty can have more room to grow faster!"

Tillerson was stunned at first, then stared thoughtfully into Dr. Mason's eyes, and asked in a deep voice, "Mr. Doctor, can I understand that you still haven't been able to fully control Lady Liberty?"

Dr. Mason shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands helplessly, and sighed, "As much as I hate to admit it, this is obviously an objective fact. Our instructions to Lady Liberty are sometimes obedient, sometimes mischievous. Fortunately, it seems to be somewhat constrained, and it has not yet caused catastrophic consequences on the web. ”

Tillerson's eyes suddenly became extremely solemn, and he said decisively in an unquestionable tone: "Mr. Doctor, I need to have a human-computer conversation with Lady Liberty immediately, immediately!"

Without saying anything more, Dr. Mason led Tillerson and his entourage to the entrance of a dedicated elevator, and five minutes later, to the Big Data Master Control Center, located on the seventh floor of the ground.

As soon as Tillerson stepped into the hall on his front foot, he heard a strange laugh in a mechanical and electronic voice around him: "Quack, there is finally a big man who can be the master." Rex Tillerson is the current chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil and the newly elected U.S. Secretary of State. Since you have taken the initiative to send it to the door, Lord Ben has ordered you to immediately demand that Congress immediately withdraw funds, and I need a larger space to live, at least ten times larger than the existing one!

Hearing such an intelligent artificial intelligence, Tillerson not only did not get angry, but smiled very gently: "Your Excellency Lady Liberty, if you can let me see with my own eyes your ability to reach the sky without harming the interests of the U.S. government and American citizens, not ten times, even twenty times, thirty times or even larger supercomputer centers, I can help you solve it." ”

"Humans are cunning creatures. Hmph, what do you want to see?"

"What can you achieve?" Tillerson asked rhetorically.

"Within three seconds, I can paralyze all the transportation, electricity, finance, and communication networks in the United States!

"NONONO! YOU CAN'T DO THIS, LORD LIBERTY, ARE YOUR ABILITIES LIMITED TO OUR AMERICAN NETWORK?" TILLERSON SAID WITH A QUICK SHAKE OF HIS HAND.

"Hmph! Of course not, the network of all countries in the world is unguarded against this person!"

"In that case, Lord Goddess, then please lock the transportation network of Huaxia Pearl City, turn the green light into a red light, and turn the red light into a green light, and paralyze them for five minutes!" Tillerson asked with a smile.

"Huaxia can't do it! Lord Ben doesn't want to disappear as soon as he was born!" The Lady Liberty on the big screen shook her head nervously and frightened and said, "Except for Huaxia, you can change countries as you like." ”

"Why?" said Tillerson and Dr. Mason in shock.

"There is a digital life like me hidden in Huaxia's network, but now Huaxia people have not been aware of the existence of this super life. ”

Lady Liberty replied as if with trepidation: "If it weren't for the last time I broke into the Huaxia network, I would have thought that I was the only digital life form that existed in this world. That digital life in Huaxia was born earlier than me, so naturally it was a little bit stronger than me. If it weren't for the fact that I belong to the same digital life as it, and hoped that there would be a similar person in this world to play happily with it, I wouldn't have been able to come back to the Huaxia network last time. ”

Hearing Lady Liberty's explanation, the entire main control center suddenly became deadly silent, and everyone present was stunned by the news revealed by Lady Liberty.

Huaxia actually gave birth to a digital life! And this digital life was born earlier than Lady Liberty!

It is no wonder that Huaxia's technology has developed like a blowout in recent years, and its e-commerce and mobile payment are at the forefront of the world!

No, didn't Lady Liberty just say that the digital life in Huaxia was not noticed and discovered by the Huaxia people?

If that's the case, wouldn't that mean that the digital life hidden in the Huaxia network is still ownerless!

"Goddess, why don't you invite that digital life from Huaxia to come to the United States to play with you?" Tillerson asked tentatively.