After seeing Director Li leave, Lu Zhou took the elevator straight to the second basement floor of the main building of the Institute for Advanced Study, and entered the unknown third basement floor through the access control hidden in the sample room-

Namely, underground laboratories.

The remains of the system reward him are basically placed here, and Xiao Ai is in charge of taking care of them.

Almost as soon as he stepped into the lab, a quadcopter drone with a display screen dangling over and circling him twice.

Looking at Xiao Ai who was sticking up, Lu Zhou immediately got straight to the point.

"How's the situation with the 'crawler'?"

The so-called "Crawler" naturally refers to the "Crawler" all-terrain remote-controlled exploration vehicle, which is one of the samples that the system rewards when he completes the task in the previous stage.

Unlike the clothes woven from carbon nanofiber materials, this thing is obviously much more tech-high.

According to the description on the manual, its communication radius is theoretically as high as 3 astronomical units, even if Mars and the Earth are in the farthest relative position, the terminal on his side can successfully receive the signal from the "Crawler" all-terrain remote control exploration vehicle, at most the signal is weak, at most the delay is high, there is no way to control it in real time.

Very interested in its communication device, Lu Zhou tried to disassemble this thing, but unfortunately never found a non-violent means of disassembly, and the instructions also clearly wrote that there is a built-in self-destruct program, and disassembly may lead to unpredictable consequences.

Apparently this thing is probably the same type of thing as the Nitro Shield.

Either use the all-purpose scanner or you can only use it until it is scrapped.

Fortunately, unlike the non-rechargeable nitrogen shield, which is a one-time non-rechargeable device, according to the description in the manual, this thing can be charged with solar and geothermal energy, and will automatically enter low-energy standby mode when the energy is low, and wait for the environment to restart when the environment is suitable.

Considering that the lunar space station has been deployed, the resource exploration of the lunar surface is no longer an expensive thing, and this "reptile" was naturally used on Mars by Lu Zhou.

In this way, not only can you prepare for future colonization activities, but you can also go to the "ruins" of the New Virginia Colony Station to see what is happening there.

Xiao Ai: [We have successfully landed on the surface of Mars!] It's ready to start! (・∀・)ゞ】

Lu Zhou nodded: "Then start now." ”

Ai: [Obey!] (๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧】

The terminal of the "Crawler" all-terrain survey vehicle is a heavy laptop computer, and it is equipped with a signal transmitting and receiving device the size of a half-seat water tank. And the signal transmitting and receiving device has been installed by Lu Zhou next to the water tank on the roof of the Institute for Advanced Study, and it is quite well done in terms of covering people's eyes and ears.

But then again, even if someone thinks it's weird, they don't have the right to investigate here.

Even if you don't look at the important role played by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study in the fields of controlled fusion and aerospace, it is not easy to find out the secrets here if you take the brand of the key cooperative research and development institution of the Air Force and the Ministry of Naval Armament.

At present, the terminal of the "Crawler" survey vehicle has been connected to Xiao Ai's host.

Five minutes after Lu Zhou's order was given, on Mars, which was tens of millions of kilometers away from here, a pitch-black prismatic metal box made a sound of air leaking.

Immediately afterwards, the shell on one side of the box slowly opened, and a remote-controlled car with a size of less than half a person tall and an angular shape, rolling three and a half pairs of tires high, drove out, and under the preset command, faced the sandstorm that covered the sky and the sun, and drove towards the ruins of the New Virginia marked in the map.

At the same time, Lu Zhou, who was in the underground laboratory, first made himself a cup of coffee, then walked to the experimental table and sat down, and opened the control terminal of the survey vehicle placed on the table.

Quietly waiting for the countdown to be completed, a line of dialog boxes popped up from the screen as the signal drifted in from tens of millions of kilometers away.

[The "Lightning" escape pod is opened!] 】

["Crawler" wakes up successfully! 】

[The terminal connection is successful! 】

As the last dialog box popped up, a clear picture soon came from the screen, and Lu Zhou drank coffee while quietly watching the reptile advance against the harsh climate.

With a delay of several minutes, remote control is obviously unrealistic, this little guy has a simple "tool-level" level of intelligence, combined with pre-set instructions, basically can complete the inspection task in the task list under the condition of unmanned control throughout the whole process.

The person sitting in front of the control terminal only needs to look at the signal sent by the delay of several minutes or even more than ten minutes, and correct the "variables" that may occur in the investigation mission.

In fact, it is okay to leave this job completely to Xiao Ai, but Lu Zhou is not too lazy to this extent, not to mention that he is also very curious about what kind of hole is in the life support unit that embodies the top artificial biosphere technology in North America.

Without waiting long, the outline of the life support unit has been reflected in the field of vision of the main camera of the "Crawler" through the yellow sand in the sky.

Looking at the tragic situation of this "ruin", Lu Zhou recalled the concept map published by Space-X on the official website, and couldn't help but sigh for the Ares project for half a second.

When the escape pod was launched, the entire life support unit was largely in a semi-abandoned state. The remaining power is probably enough for the life support unit to standby for a while, but this time will most likely not last long.

The re-entry capsule takes away as much oxygen and methane as possible before leaving, and the ejected tail flame burns the life support unit's casing.

When the "reptiles" passed through the outer planting area, Lu Zhou could clearly observe through the side lens that the "vegetable greenhouses" spread out on all sides had basically been blown down by the high-temperature air current, and most of the plastic cultivation utensils were buried by sand.

But these are minor problems, after all, a few days after the sandstorm, after confirming that the sandstorm is global, the colonists have already recycled all the crops here, and the entire planting area is basically in a state of abandonment.

When I drove to the garage door, an antenna-like antennae touched the door control, and the program that was pre-loaded into the life support unit was quickly activated, unlocking the garage door.

As the door slowly opened, the reptile activated the lighting on the roof of the car and swaggered inside.

Through the screen of the terminal, looking at the unguarded life support unit, Lu Zhou couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

Although there is no direct evidence to prove that the CIA did it, the "Tinder" project was thwarted by unknown forces, but he did not expect that the artificial biosphere technology, which had stalled in research, would return to his hands in this way.

Perhaps, this is the so-called fate or reincarnation.

Although he doesn't believe in these things.

After passing through the warehouse area and going straight to the experimental area, looking at the domestic garbage tied up by plastic bags on the ground, Lu Zhou's mind probably restored the picture of the last few weeks here.

In order to save living resources and precious energy, the colonists have moved here from their living quarters, where they eat and live next to the only communication terminal that can communicate with the BFS spacecraft.

Thinking of this, Lu Zhou couldn't help but feel a little funny in his heart.

I don't know what kind of expression these refugees will look like when they get on the Xiaguang and find that they can still take a bath on the Xiaguang with the cabin.

Coming to the console of the laboratory, the antenna that was previously connected to the access control system poked out of the crawler's shell again and was pointed in front of the console's chassis.

Soon, the off-screen lit up, and rows of progress bars appeared on it.

With the completion of the progress bar, all the data that had been packed and waited for picking was taken over by reptiles and transmitted back to Lu Zhou, which was tens of millions of kilometers away.

After quickly going through the files presented on the control terminal screen, Lu Zhou gradually restrained the rash expression on his face, and a trace of seriousness appeared in his expression.

Even, a touch of surprise.

“…… It's kind of interesting. ”