Volume 5, Book V, Chapter 14, The Ghost in the Mirror (V), February 2119

Four months later, Air Force One, conference room:

President Reagan has a lot more gray hair, although in the eyes of others, he is not much older than he was two years ago - when he was young, President Reagan was a teenager with blond hair, and from a full head of blonde hair to a full head of gray hair, almost no one can perceive the change.

In the conference room, the ministers and generals were already present, everyone had serious expressions, and the coffee in the cup in front of them was either drunk the whole cup of coffee because of anxiety, or because of anxiety and did not move: two days ago, the army of country A made a major mistake in the battle against unknown creatures, Las Vegas was captured, and 30,000 people were killed, wounded, and missing.

This was the heaviest loss of the army of country A, mainly the Western Corps, in a year. As early as September 2117, in the misfortune of the "Swain" incident, only 20,000 people were killed and wounded. After the successful defense of Las Vegas in December 2117, Las Vegas was built into a solid fortress by the Western Corps, with a large number of stand-in robot operators assigned to work in the city, and a mechanized cluster of the army also assigned to defend the city, with 200 tanks ready to hedge against the possible army of Cerberus. The soldiers were looking forward to seeing if it was the tank's hard tracks or the Cerberus's hard bones.

But none of this happened.

In this battle, which is the third defense of Las Vegas, the intelligence of the Cerberus has obviously increased by several levels, and it can be seen from the battlefield video replay that they consciously attack and cut off the tracks of the tank, causing the tank to lose the ability to move.

On the outskirts of the city, a motorized line of defense consisting of clusters of tanks was quickly paralyzed. After the motorized defense line on the periphery of the city was paralyzed, judging from the satellite video of the battlefield, the black torrent of Cerberus did not directly attack the city, they seemed to know the traps in the city. They flocked to power plants on the outskirts of cities, destroying power plants and transmission grids at very small cost.

After the power outage, Las Vegas lost its last line of defense, the infrasonic tower. Infrasound is not a new weapon, and its use on the battlefield has been recorded for a century ago. The infrasound tower is the most powerful of all infrasonic weapons, the most endurance of the weapon of mass destruction, after being developed, dedicated to dealing with the black torrent of Cerberus, when the infrasound tower is activated, people hide in the infrasound shielding room, protect themselves from harm, those creatures that are not in the shielding room, their brains and internal organs and infrasound have a strong resonance, the five organs are torn apart, seven thieves and bleeding, miserable. In Las Vegas, when the infrasound tower was first tested, tens of thousands of rats in the city were spared...... However, strong power and endurance require a strong and continuous power supply, and once the power is interrupted, the tall infrasonic towers in the city will become a sight to behold.

After a power outage. The black torrent of Cerberus poured into the city, ransacking every building, every room, and the city was in shambles, littered with the stumps of combat robots.

"So, they may have discovered our weaknesses." One of the generals said, and the president and the crowd nodded, knowing what his weakness was — electricity. Everyone fears that Las Vegas is just the beginning of a rout, and if the Las Vegas infrasonic towers are out of action, the same could happen to the infrasonic towers in other cities and barracks.

The infrasonic tower is a perfect defense system, because in the United Nations carbon finance conference a few months ago, the country reduced the amount of robot exports to country A, resulting in a shortage, originally, according to country A's calculations, this part of the shortage was handed over to its allies in the country, the silver country and the continent for production. Unexpectedly, these useless liars, after four months, the number of robots produced did not keep up with the plan, and there was a serious shortage of combat robots.

Fortunately, the infrasonic tower began to be deployed in the main military stronghold in the western part of country A half a year ago, otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable. But, as the general said, electricity is the weakness of the infrasonic tower, and this weakness has now been apparently discovered by the owner of Cerberus.

"Even if we have enough troops to defend the power station, we will not have enough troops to defend the transmission network in the west." One general voiced President Reagan's greatest concern. In the previous battle plan, some contingency plans in the event of an attack on the transmission network were also mentioned, but they were not taken seriously. Because, no country has the ability to defend the entire country, a large area of the transmission network. Human society in the 22nd century is as fragile as it is in the 21st century, and nothing can be done without electricity.

In fact, in previous meetings, President Reagan has been inclined to resume negotiations with country C and country R, country C continues to provide robot warriors to country A, and country R sends some soldiers to join the team of robot operators, whether it is operating on the other side of the ocean or in country A, it doesn't matter, and it is best to operate locally, in order to reduce the transmission pressure of satellite communication lines, and at the same time, there is not so much delay, so that it can be more efficient operations.

There are no more than ten million soldiers capable of operating robots worldwide, and the number of Cerberus is significantly higher than that.

"What we lack now is not just robot ......" said the Minister of Defense, and glanced at the Minister of Economy, the meaning of the look is very clear: population, population is also in your charge, population is also part of the economy, and now there are 30,000 people less, robots are not enough, and now, even the number of operators operating robots is also declining.

"In a short period of time, we have to ensure that the infrasonic tower is working properly." President Reagan said that this statement is absolutely true, but it has no practical implications. He looked around at the crowd, hoping that they would have a good proposal for this meeting.

Everyone looked at each other, and finally, the Minister of Economy raised his hand slightly to the president, signaling that he had something to say.

"Kevin Green has developed a new generation of masterbrains that are more efficient than existing ones, and if there are not enough operators, the robot can be operated by the mastermind." After speaking, the Minister of Economy handed the documents to the President. The president quickly read the information, thought for a while, and then asked questions.

"As far as I know, the mastermind provided by Feiyun Company in C follows the procedural logic of the 'three-power system', which is like China's 'three-power separation system' political system, and the purpose of this is to ensure that artificial intelligence cannot exceed human authority and pose a threat to human beings, but, in this information, the ...... provided by Green Company "The president glanced at the information, "It's called" Green's mastermind', this new mastermind, does it still follow the logic of 'three-power system'? “

The Minister of Economy looked embarrassed and did not immediately answer the president's questions.

At this time, a scientific and technological adviser raised his hand to speak: "Mr. President, Feiyun's mastermind, because it follows the program logic of the 'three-power system', it is very inefficient, and it can generally only be used to control machine workers, but not to control robot warriors. “

"Well," the president paused, "even so, we still need to put safety first, and the first thing to ensure is that the robot warriors fight for humanity, not become enemies...... This proposal will be discussed later. “

The president once again turned his gaze to the Minister of Economy, and there was some reproach in his eyes. The Minister of Economy did not speak, looking a little aggrieved, after all, he was still trying his best to find a way to solve the problem.

The crowd was silent for a moment to digest the topic. After a while, the Minister of Energy decided to speak.

"I propose to enable a new energy source to power the infrasound tower, reduce our dependence on the grid and remote transmission, and guarantee our defense of cities and strongholds." The energy minister said his sights were firm, so the president speculated that he had found some kind of "new energy source."

"New energy?" The president touched his chin and said, "I hope it's not something extremely dangerous." ”

But energy is generally flammable and explosive. "We've got it under control." "If you want, you can go to the lab now." The energy secretary said and looked at the president, and the president looked at everybody. Everyone's expressions showed that they didn't have much hope, and they didn't want to see any flammable and explosive ghosts.

Twenty minutes later, twenty stand-in robots appeared in a secret laboratory in Los Angeles in the west of country A, and twelve minutes before they were all in the conference room of Air Force One, and in fact, they were all still in the conference room of Air Force One: the president, generals, ministers, and staff officers operated the stand-in robots from their laptops.

"That has radiation, but only a small amount of radiation." Several experimenters guided the group from the stand-in robot mooring room through the hallway to a laboratory. The experimenters were real people, wearing radiation suits, and the president praised them for their dedication.

There is a transparent cube box on the lab bench in the lab, and inside the box is another cube, which is a black crystal.

"Let's name it for the time being, Sombra, in fact, in terms of its physical properties, it should be called, Omni-Angle Cube."

Sombra is quite well understood, black crystals. But what is an all-angle cube, this fresh name intrigued President Reagan, who walked around the cube on the experimental bench, and then, he understood the concept of an "all-angle cube".

At first, he thought he was dazzled. After a while, the other visitors also saw something, and then whispered to each other.

"An all-angle cube, no matter which angle you look at, is a cube," the experimenter explains, "I know it sounds a little awkward, but perhaps, it should be said that we can never see the sides and the back of the cube, it will always only show us the side that looks like the cube." Or, "you can say something like," the experimenter said, taking out a mirror and placing it on the opposite side of the cube, "Look, we can see the back of it in the mirror, but I can never get to the back of it." ”

The experimenters changed the angle of the mirror, and everyone saw the side and back of Sombra through the mirror, but when they tried to walk to the side of it to look, they couldn't see the side.

"Oh my God! What the hell is this? President Reagan exclaimed in his heart.

"It's in a macroscopic quantum state, and if it is defined by quantum mechanics, its spin is one, the ......same as a photon," the experimenter explained to the crowd at a deeper level, and a scientist nodded and explained to a minister next to him. The rest of the people are confused about the "macroscopic quantum state".

President Reagan himself was confused, but he quickly guessed one thing: the "omni-angle cube" was by no means a natural creation.

The president once again turned his gaze to the Minister of Economy, and there was some reproach in his eyes. The Minister of Economy did not speak, looking a little aggrieved, after all, he was still trying his best to find a way to solve the problem.

(End of chapter)