The Aston Martin sports car slowed down and exited the high-speed interchange. Even with the world's most powerful computing power, it can't change the inevitable fact that gasoline engines consume fuel, and the fuel consumption of a sports car at a high speed of 260km/h is close to 30 liters per 100 kilometers, and at a distance of 20 kilometers from the GTC headquarters, the engine's six cylinders begin to break and work, and the exhaust pipe makes a crackling noise, which is an automatic emergency measure for fuel exhaustion, "Damn!" Realizing that the car had to drive into the gas station to refuel, Bartholomew angrily smashed his teacup against the windshield and inhaled heavily. "I'm sorry, dear father, but the time to refuel is calculated within the total time, and it only takes three minutes. The male synthesizer apologized, controlling the car as it drove towards the server auto-dispenser.

In Europe, which has long been dominated by clean energy, tankers are crowded with charging, hydrogen charging and inertial flywheel storage base stations, standing alone in the corner. Fifty-five euros per litre of petrol, a price that discourages many petrol engine enthusiasts, and the system shows that the last time a car was refueled was three days ago. Aston Martin stopped, the fuel filler popped open, the fuel gun automatically stretched out and began to refill, Bartholomew looked at the constantly beating numbers on the tanker, and his mind seemed a little dazed.

ChetBaker's MyFunnyValentine was playing on the stereo, a stunningly talented trumpeter playing a melancholy tune, and the grainy vinyl transcription filled the carriage. In contrast, the old man prefers the version played by jazz maestro Miles Davis, but ChetBaker's voice evokes a memory of him sitting in his study at home on that rainy night twenty years ago, when the visitors of the 'world' came to mind, sipping whiskey and listening to ChetBaker's records.

"It's a little louder. Brandon Bartholomew lowered his chair slightly and whispered.

Jazz rained down on the window of memory, and it took him two glasses of whiskey to warm up on a gloomy and cold night twenty years ago. The nine-year-old boy fell asleep in his attic room, with a floor-to-ceiling lamp lit in his study, and Bartholomew, sitting in an armchair, flipped through a book of Norse mythology, nodded lightly at the sight of a wonderful passage, and took a sip of golden wine from his glass. A gust of wind blew, and the branches whipped against the roof, and he looked up, thinking that he would find a worker to prune the branches and leaves tomorrow, the cherry tree was growing so fast that it almost covered the window of the attic room.

It has been nine years since the adoption of this Asian boy, and Bartholomew's relationship with him is deeper than that of his own father and son, but as he explores the boy's background, the doctor feels more and more that the boy is hiding some secrets. He couldn't tell how he felt when he first saw the boy in an orphanage in Israel, but now that he thinks about it, fate must have arranged for them to meet there. The boy knew how many times he had sworn to leave the past behind and no longer dwell on the origin of his adopted son, but curiosity hissed in his ears like a serpent in the Garden of Eden, forcing him to continue the search with all his might.

"Alas. With a sigh, Bartholomew put down his book and looked out the window at the night rain. As one of the twelve executive members of the first generation of GTC to launch Genesis, he is called "Father" by quantum computers, capable of doing anything for him if he wants to. But every time the boy's background is involved, the interactive interface of "Genesis" shows an awkward blank, "I'm sorry, dear father. Half a minute later, this line of handwriting appeared on the screen, with no answer, no explanation, just an apology without beginning or end. The Doctor knew that the quantum computer didn't take 30 seconds to think, and that it couldn't possibly have the complex emotion of 'sorry', but that something was preventing it from completing the search, some kind of instruction with higher privileges that conflicted with the core of the logic.

"Genesis" is not just a computer, but the sum total of all human wisdom throughout the ages, it has a huge database of all the information that can be bitified in human history, and it is truly omniscient and omnipotent. In order to prevent quantum computers from hindering the development process of human society, and to limit the expansion of the power of the GTC timing committee, the first generation of GTC members set up an "altruistic logic core" for computers, and the ethical rule of this logic core is "not to do anything that seriously violates the will of others and/or seriously harms the interests of others". Compared with Asimov's three laws, the boundaries of such rules seem quite vague, and there is no way to quantify their implementation, but since the start of the quantum computer in 2017, there has been no problem with the operation of the logical core, and the rule execution has been proven to be correct and efficient, and the basic rights and interests of the human race are well protected.

Bartholomew had previously encountered a rejection of a directive, a protective judgment made by the core of logic, and the computer would give a complete ethical analysis as a reason. The boy's life story is completely different, the awkward performance of "Genesis" makes the doctor feel that it is not just the core of altruistic logic that is at work, he feels that the computer itself has a desire to talk, but is choked by a big hand from behind his back, and he can't make a sound, this kind of struggle happens in silence, and the final result is an inexplicable "I'm sorry". Bartholomew began to try to find a way to bypass the obstacles and find clues, and when the boy was nine years old, he finally stepped down from the matching committee, and he could spend a lot of time and energy on the search. Every time he saw the child's bright and lively face, the doctor always felt guilty, but he couldn't stop, the truth was getting closer and closer, and only a thin piece of paper remained.

On this rainy night, after a week of patience finally got to grips with the hunger that jazz, whiskey, and books could not fill, Bartholomew opened a drawer and pulled out an envelope from the previous week's investigation, a secret report of all the nine year-olds. It took a hundred days of the complex programming system that bypassed the logic core to finally come to the conclusion that at the moment of output, the terminal caught fire due to overload, and the entire quantum network in the east wing of the GTC headquarters was paralyzed. Every step of the snoop erased all traces of his own path, and the Doctor did not believe that he was exposed, and whoever was protecting the boy was only unconsciously threatening.

Nine years of hard work turned into a piece of printer paper. Bartholomew didn't know whether to read the paper or not, hesitated and repeatedly, and the envelope was opened and closed countless times, and the edges had become burr. "No, no. He muttered to himself suddenly, threw the envelope on the table, and gulped down the whiskey from his glass. He felt that this was not just an envelope, but a door to the unknown, and curiosity and fear were at war in his heart. "Ding-dong. At this time, the mobile phone rang, and his entanglement was relieved in time, which was a report from the project team: "At 23:01, the operation state is unstable, and there is still 15% of the space from the limit value, and the team leader on duty judged that the evolution speed is too fast, and slows down the evolution speed to 240:1 according to the operating procedures, and then makes observations." If things don't go well at night, I'll call you, don't sleep too deeply, doctor. - Night shift, Mardele. ”

Bartholomew groaned for a moment and replied, "It doesn't matter, as long as you don't reach the limit, you can continue, it's been so long, no one can afford to restart, can you? I'll go to bed later." ”

Although GTC announced that the development of the "world" would not take more than five years, in fact, the world evolution model had been launched as early as 20 years ago, and 1 billion personality threads were injected into the virtual world in batches. The idea of "building a world" stemmed from a conversation between the Doctor and Wu Tianlan, who was then in her early twenties as a psychotherapist at the headquarters of a medical organization stationed at GTC, and she and Bartholomew met by chance, and because of their mutual experience, knowledge, and charisma, they became friends with some ambiguity. Wu Tianlan's father was a theoretical mathematician, and she became radical and obsessed with a nervous breakdown during the dark ages when science hit a wall. In a chat, Wu Tianlan proposed the "Skinner box" theory, pointing out that if a world model is built to observe the actions of those virtual personalities within the walls of rules, it will definitely help the future of mankind. Bartholomew was so shocked that he came home in the evening and thought about it, and the next day he came up with the idea of the "world."

Putting down his phone, Bartholomew decided to have another drink and go to bed, watching the late-night broadcast of the football match while waiting for news from the World Project team. He tucked the envelope back into the drawer and took a sip of whiskey, when his mind suddenly felt a dizziness that had been going on for a day, and it seemed that drinking had no effect on the dizziness. The doctor rubbed his eyebrows and stood up, put on the blanket and walked slowly to the bedroom, when suddenly a faint voice sounded in his ears, like someone whispering behind him. He jerked around, grabbed his ashtray and looked around. No one was there. There was only himself in the study, the sound of music, and the rain outside.

"I'm coming, people from outside. ”

Suddenly, the voice became clear, not from the outside world, but ringing in the head. A burning pain came from his heart, and the doctor staggered to the ground, clutching his chest with horror on his face.