On the officer platform, a group of people gathered in front of the holographic projection, staring at the scene of the attack, the picture shows the scene of the engineering exploration plane being attacked, but how strange the scene looks: a completely indistinguishable model, as if several self-disciplined machinery are put together indiscriminately The "strange guy" is the attacker, it waved several of its working arms and struggled to drive our exploration plane, this is all the "attack" behavior.\\ Even the shipborne host that issued the alarm before seemed to be a little embarrassed at this time, Just shut up and say nothing.

Rolling her eyes and looking up at the ceiling at a forty-five degree angle, she didn't know what Lu Dao was thinking, anyway, as usual, she was the first to react when everyone was stunned: "Ah Jun, pick that one back?" ”

…… This girl's logic is a black box, and no one will ever know about the operation process, but the results are very fast anyway.

"There's a way to put that...... Did the monster bring it back? I asked the people in the monitoring team, and the person in charge of the latter immediately gave a positive answer: although the attacker looked strange, but the "combat effectiveness" was really worrying, and it seemed that its most powerful weapons were the two squeaky beam knives, and even without sending out soldiers, a few engineering exploration planes on the scene were enough to deal with this funny attacker. After receiving the order of the monitoring team, the engineering exploration planes that had been in a passive defensive state immediately turned from defense to attack, using their mechanical arms to control the movements of the "enemy", while the two engineering exploration planes specially opened the way in front, and used their own traction beams to forcibly drag the strange-looking attackers to the mothership, the scene looked really strange, as if a bunch of toy soldiers were fighting-although the combat power of this group of toy soldiers was enough if they were thrown to the earth.

Basically, as expected, the strange thing resisted very fiercely, and when it found that it was about to be dragged away, it burst out with a force stronger than the attack on the probe just now, those twisted and crooked mechanical hands waved in the air like the thousand-armed Guanyin, I could almost make up a series of waaaaagh from its movements, and shallow dragged a long voice for a long time, dragging my arm: "Ah Jun, is it protecting those suppression towers?" ”

"It looks like so." I'm also wondering where this weird thing came from. It looks like it was supposed to be an engineering autonomic machine, but it was later modified into this shape by a lame engineer who doesn't know how to do it, and it is very likely that it was one of the autonomous machines that worked here tens of thousands of years ago when this universe was not abandoned. There's probably no other explanation.

No matter how fiercely that weird thing resisted. In the end, it was dragged over by a brand-new probe that far outnumbered itself and was countless times more powerful than itself. A large group of intertwined autonomic machines pushed and shoved into the mothership's storage harbor, and by the time our engineers rushed over, they were still fighting fiercely: they were pounding each other with their working arms, and the attack was not even activated by the shields, but the movement was quite lively. Followed up by the blacksmith.

The engineers went to great lengths to separate the little guys (including one of the big guys), and finally had to use energy shock devices to paralyze both sides of the war. It is said that after the working arm was paralyzed, the strange-looking assailant was still hissing at his enemies, but alas. Its enemies are a bunch of mindless autonomic machines, and after completing their missions, they go back to the hangar for maintenance.

We re-sent a batch of engineering probes to recover parts from the suppression tower, and the strange thing was sent to the laboratory inside the research ship, and by the time we arrived, the scientists were already busy scanning it all over.

"It's based on a complete autonomic machine as the core, and a lot of miscellaneous parts are put together to make it like this," the technician in charge of examining the strange thing reported his findings, "These parts are very messy, and there are not only standard parts for autonomic machines." There are also backup energy slots for soldiers, processing modules for production lines, and it even carries a shield generator component for individual fighters on its 'back', which is almost a third the size of it. I really don't know how to get this modification. ”

I turned my head to look at the "captive", who was now bound by several energy-suppressing devices. Lying on the platform honestly, looking very listless, we finally had a chance to see what this guy looked like. A normal autonomic machine is the size of a child's torso, but its main body is almost the height of an adult. Coupled with those messy working arms, this weird thing almost takes up space the size of a car. Its "torso" is stitched together with a whole bunch of messy things. I don't know how to distinguish which is the core of its "original" from it, probably only the scientists present know how to distinguish it. Everywhere on its shell can be seen in the broken places, potholes, peeling coating, and even some places there are signs of melting, at the same time, you can also see a lot of repair marks on the shell, this is a self-disciplined machine that is seriously beyond the service life and working condition, but it still continues to work to this day after tinkering, and it may have been modified by a technically lame engineer, but also by a creative maverick genius. We now have a question that we don't understand: how does it survive in this environment?

"The environment here is extremely sinister, there is an energy storm above, and the gate of the abyss below, although the pollution level here is relatively low due to the dynamic equilibrium, but it is also an absolutely polluted area," I felt very puzzled, "How can such a 'small' robot survive in this place for tens of thousands of years with its protective capabilities?" ”

"Maybe it's hiding in those suppression towers when it's standby," guessed the Xiling technician next to him, "The suppression towers are specially designed to operate continuously next to the abyssal gate, they have a long working life in the abyssal environment, and there is also a certain space inside for temporary observation equipment or personnel, etc., probably this autonomous machine has found a suitable shelter for itself." Its energy problem is probably solved there: it has too many extra components on it, and its own power core can't support so many devices, so it probably has a place to 'recharge'. ”

"Then go find out," I answered the command hall and ordered them to send more probes to search all the suppression towers and see if they could find the weird guy's "nest," "okay." It's amazing that such a ...... could happen Guardsman. Now I'm thoroughly interested in it. ”

The strange thing that surprised everyone lay on the platform, occasionally concentrating all its strength and twitching, as if in rebellion against the scanning of it by nearby scientists, and I ordered that it should not be dismantled hastily for the time being. Don't do any vandalism either. Because it's likely to be hiding a great secret, and look at it from a different angle...... I think it's a dutiful guard, and while it's a bit odd to put such an adjective on a self-disciplined machine, I think it's more appropriate.

At this time, shallow takes advantage of people's inattention. Approached the scanning platform, picked at the shell of the "strange thing" and didn't know what to study, and after a while, he suddenly shouted: "Ah Jun Ah Jun! Look at this, look at this! This is new! ”

Everyone came up to take a look, and it turned out that shallow refers to an obviously non-original protective plate, which is located in the center of the main body of this magic reform self-discipline machine. In my opinion, this protective plate is no different from the surrounding patches and parts, but with a light touch on it with his hand, he said in a cold voice: "Retrofit two years ago. ”

"This is ......" the Father looked at me puzzled.

"She's gifted enough to observe the flow of time," I tapped her head after waiting for Shallow to return to her usual appearance, and my eyes fell back on the scanning platform, "which means that this machine has been repaired recently!" I always thought it was the resident scientist of this universe who gave it a modification before it was evacuated. Now it seems that ......"

This patchwork engineering robot has traces of recent modification and restoration! There are only two possibilities, either the person who converted it into this patchwork is still alive, or ...... It was it that modified itself into this!

Everyone looked at each other. Anyone can think of this simple reasoning, but with the exception of God the Father and Bingtis, who are not experts and may not understand how strange it is, everyone else knows very well: autonomic machines do not have this ability.

Apparently. There are countless mysteries in the self-discipline machine in front of us, but it is more obvious. The other party can't communicate, and as soon as the energy supply is restored, it will immediately toss and want to return to its work, so we decided to explore the secret of this strange thing in a different way: connect its core directly to the data reading device.

The technicians maximized the output of the restraint device and the energy suppression device to prevent unnecessary damage from the target's sudden resistance, and then they began to carefully cut the opponent's protective plate: the reason why such a primitive method was adopted to disassemble it was because the technicians found that the protective plates all over the body of this messy modified body were fused together in an inferior way, and the locks that were originally used for disassembly and maintenance were long gone. As layers upon layers of worn-out protective panels and bizarre, god-god-evident non-original parts were removed, the magic changed the self-discipline machinery (by the way, has this become the name of this strange thing?). The glimmering core was gradually exposed to us, and the assistant technician next to him immediately connected the data interface that had been in place with the processing module near the core, and began to try to synchronize the access rights of both parties.

The working arm of the strange autonomous machine shook a few times, which was the last resistance, but as its core was shielded into an isolated operating environment, this guy finally quieted down, the slight sound of the mechanical parts in his body disappeared completely, and the flickering lights on the surface of the body gradually went out, as if it was dead, but it was only its torso that "died", and its core had been placed by external equipment in an operating environment far more efficient than its original processing substrate, and began to run rapidly. Looking at the scene in front of him, he scratched his hair shallowly: "Ah Jun, why do I feel so much like an alien?" ”

Me: "......" Forget it, this girl thinks that what is is what, and her study of logic is the same as letting Ding Dong go to a master's and doctoral study, from the perspective of the world, it is full of madness and unreasonableness......

At this time, the host in the laboratory has successfully established a connection with the autonomic machine, and has begun to quickly crack the other party's not-so-advanced firewall, and the synth voice begins to announce its work progress: "Access rules are being synchronized...... 10%，30%，70%…… At 100%, the target processing core has been cracked and the data is read...... The data environment identification is completed, and the XL-Z-12J engineering modified autonomous processing core cannot be determined. The integrity of the underlying database cannot be determined, the integrity of the logical system cannot be determined - all authentication errors are ignored. Conclusion Report: The processing program has mutated, shows signs of recompilation, and shows signs of self-evolution. ”

I thought about it for a moment and patted the shoulder of the nearest technician beside me. Then he pointed to the host in the lab: "What then." Can you please say something I can understand? ”

"That means it's not using the original operating system," Viska said, "and if it was recompiled, it should have been modified by the outside world in the first place." Then start self-evolution. ”

If I had said that, I would have understood.

At this moment, the external reading device seemed to read new data from the core of the autonomous machine, and made a strange squeak, and the operator in front of the terminal looked at the data displayed in front of him, and said strangely: "The core is still running autonomously?" Odd. Obviously, it has been switched to the pure read/write state, and it stands to reason that the logical output has been lost......"

"Does it want to talk?" The more I thought about it, the more I thought about it, the more it became, "Whatever the core outputs, it will be translated according to the logical language." ”

The laboratory host translated the basic language after this mutation very quickly, and soon, a line of words appeared on the data terminal: "...... Patrolling, Maintenance, Patching...... Protecting the Suppression Tower...... Back to work. Suppressing the gate ......"

It's such a phrase that loops from beginning to end, and I thought, "That's the only thought it has?" ”

"So it seems," the senior technician nodded, "and its master has set these work orders. It has been carrying out the task to this day, and as for these messy modifications, it should be to complete the task and extend its working life. It does it on its own. ”

"This burden is given to an autonomous machine?" I was incredulous, "Don't they have any other advanced equipment?" ”

"If the original directive was only to provide evacuation time for the local garrison. It's still possible......" The senior technician was only halfway through his words, and was suddenly interrupted by the communication from the command hall, it turned out that the detectives who had just sent out to find the "nest" of this autonomous machine had made a discovery, they found a small workshop in a ghost suppression tower that was about to be extinguished, and there were a large number of scattered parts in the workshop, as well as a charging card slot that had been modified with clumsy methods, according to the records of the recording equipment found in the small workshop, that place was the "nest" we were looking for.

Soon, the workshop that was home to the "strange thing" in front of us, and even the entire ghost energy suppression tower were packed and dragged to the research ship's Gnaku, and the various parts and workbenches in the workshop were transported to the laboratory, and then, the on-site technicians found the remains of several autonomic machines that had been dismantled into pieces, as well as the memory cores of these wrecks.

After piecing all these things together, we finally found the original order that was left behind when the old empire's garrison in the area was evacuated.

Due to the stability of the Abyss Gate dropping to a critical value, the Realm of the Abyss has lost its deep diving environment, and it is decided to evacuate according to the instructions of the superiors. Twelve autonomous machines and an unmanned engineering mothership were left behind, responsible for the continuous control of the Abyssal Gate, until the second phase of the test project began, and came to receive it.

The above was an abbreviated version of the original order, stored in a self-disciplined machine that had only the core left.

"I see, the people who evacuated here at that time left a total of twelve autonomous machines and an unmanned ship," I said to myself, "It seems that there was originally a second phase of the project, this universe is not completely abandoned, but only temporarily suspended, and the self-discipline machinery that stayed here is responsible for continuing to control the abyssal gate, waiting for the personnel of the second phase of the project to take over - but the people from the second phase of the project did not come." ”

"For what?" Shallow asked in a daze.

"Chronologically, the Empire was probably what happened back then," I sighed, "and then the place was forgotten." ”

As I can probably guess after that, there were no personnel to take it over, and the autonomic machines and the engineering ship that remained here would naturally continue the initial orders until they were all scrapped. In this way, the mystery that the Abyss Gate suddenly erupted at some point in those tens of thousands of years, and then was immediately suppressed, can be explained: it must have been the efforts of these self-disciplined guards.

"It seems that there is only one left after the worst," Bing Tis looked at the "strange thing" lying on the test table, "The concubine probably knows where the parts on its body came from, and nine times out of ten it was dismantled and installed on herself after her own partners scrapped one by one." Looks like it was on a routine patrol just now, and then thought we were attacking the Suppression Tower - this guy's ability to recognize must be gone. ”

For a while, I felt a lot, what I didn't expect was that a self-disciplined machine would do this, yes, it was just a self-discipline machine, not even a war puppet robot, no personality, no intelligence, maybe even if it reached this point, it didn't realize the existence of the "self", everything it had was just to complete the task, plus a little bit of unknowable mutation, to persist to this day. Regardless, its mission was accomplished, the Abyssal Gate was still under control, and it waited for the responders who were 70,000 years late.

It's time to evacuate, there's nothing left to do here.

!