The car continued to drive north, Andy still felt some pain in his abdomen while driving, the strength of that big scorpion was really amazing, no wonder it was called a potato, such a fat yellow-shelled scorpion, if fully exposed to the sun, it does look like a big potato...

Here's a detail.

Speaking of which, there are no potatoes or anything like that, and this kind of plant left over from the pre-war period is so popular on farms in New California, because New California has a refuge that preserves pre-war seeds and scientists who can adapt them to a micro-radiation environment, and people here may never have had the opportunity to eat potatoes.

In other words, some of the members of the Black Scorpion, or at least the leader himself, were NcR people, the same people who had followed the eastward movement from New California to the Hoover Dam.

This is not unusual, as the NcR usually prides itself on being a superior and civilized side when dealing with the tribesmen, but in reality the individuals in the NcR are diverse; Because once the constraints of the system and the law are lost, people are like a bucket of stones poured on the beach, some round, some sharp, and in the extreme, the actions of individual people make many tribesmen cry out for barbarism.

"How's it going?"

Gillian looked at Andy's side face with concern, and Andy coughed to put away the inadvertent expression of pain.

"It's okay... It was soon healed, with a slight injury. ”

Gillian still had some worry on her face.

"Maybe it's better for us to leave Robin alone, everyone comes back with a blank look on their faces as if they had just seen a nuclear bomb explode, what the hell happened?"

Andy smashed his mouth and briefly summarized what had happened before.

"I thought it was just a bunch of ordinary marauders, but they seem to have built their nest around a cave infested with radscorpions, and those marauders used this scorpion-filled cave as a place of execution and a casino... Those guys also seem to treat scorpions as pets, and I... Go down to the cave and find Robin's brother. I found him and met some scorpions... There's also a crazy cannibal, and in the end I killed those monsters and got them out of there, and that's it. ”

"Anyway..."

He sighed, the episodes on the road were so quick and short, but they had some profound effects on him, when he faced the crazy cannibals and giant radscorpions alone in the dark caverns, and even when he was pinned down by the monster called the potato before finally leaving, he would unconsciously recall fragments of some events in his mind, those were fragments of memories of the dangers and even desperate situations he had encountered in the past.

This made him reflect, is he starting to swell a little?

When you think you can walk sideways, it may be the closest time to danger on the road of life.

He retracted his train of thought.

"Anyway, it's not a big deal, what really matters is what we do later, and when we leave Tibbetts Prison, we can go to Hoover Dam City to talk to the mayor of Dodge about building the railroad, and talk to the owner of the Three Brothers caravan about Big Bear... Oh yes, Robin agreed to my request, didn't he, I really hope he can fulfill the agreement, I think this trip was perfect, except that someone stepped on the trap at the end. ”

Gillian shook her head, her face a little dark.

"No, how can this be said to be no big deal, if others don't know how many times they have to die, just this encounter can become a capital that has been boasting for years when drinking with others.... You're amazing, Andy, not everyone is as brave and lucky as you, most of the people who exist in the wasteland are people who don't dare to leave the safe settlement for the dangerous wilderness all their lives, and some of the rest of the people go out and never come back. ”

The two were silent for a while, and Andy suddenly thought of something.

If people do not trade, people have to leave the settlements to find their own needs, if they go out to scavenge or trade, they will inevitably be attacked by murderous speculators on the way, and the people of the old world have the achievements of ending all chaos and building a great order, which is inseparable from the fact that they already have a stable and rich natural environment with sufficient resources. If the Hoover Dam agriculture is not limited to building small farms on the dam, people will no longer need to venture out to find opportunities, but only need to find a piece of land to cultivate and become self-sufficient, if the Hoover Dam can build more factories to make more wasteland needs, then people only need to enter the factory to participate in production in exchange for all their needs, brave and ambitious people may scoff at this and continue to go out to find the possibility of making them rich overnight, but, At least people don't need to be forced to be brave all the time.

Perhaps this is the true watershed between civilization and barbarism, and that is the abundance of choices that come with strong productivity, the number of choices that people can make in life, and the abundance of ideas that allow people to pause from instinctual inertia to think deeply and constantly push for self-innovation.

After years of vigorous development, New California has made a lot of achievements in the recovery of industry and agriculture, which is the source of NcR's strength.

The current situation of the Great Southwestern Federation and other wasteland areas more distant is terrible, because the nuclear bomb destroyed everything, the soil of the farmland is full of radiation, the things that are grown are also full of radiation, the equipment of the factory and the knowledge of building the factory are all gone, and the way out is to recover valuable items in the soil or use two-headed oxen to pull the goods to other settlements to make a trade, and now the world has changed, NcR can bring immigrants and soldiers, but not those natural resources.

So what if there is a possibility that the world will change back?

He thought of the nursery, of the ruins of the huge factory entrenched by mutated plants.

"Gillian, have you heard of GEcK?"

"The Garden of Eden, you say?"

"yes, you're a Vault dweller, so you should know about that, right?"

"Yes, I know about the old-world high-tech equipment, but I've never had a chance to see the real thing, the Vault I was in didn't open according to the scheduled deadline, people just asked to continue living in the underground world, the GEcK distributed by Vault-Tech before the war was also mothballed, I've only seen descriptions of it in some books and promotional slides, it is said that using it can make it easy for survivors to complete the reconstruction work in the surface world, according to the Vault-Tech promotional video....' Reconquest'. ”

Andy spoke with some pride about what he knew.

"Not only have I seen more than one GEcK, but I have also visited the factories that produce GEcK."

Gillian's mouth opened in surprise.

"What?! No way, are you kidding me? ”

Andy smiled mysteriously, what happened to him at the nursery was still a dream when he thought about it, and even if he entered it before the war, most of them felt that they had stepped into the kingdom of God, right? Those technologies are so amazing that they can turn nature around and change the world.

"I'm not kidding, I have an idea that when this is all over I will go to a place where I have been to meet an old friend, and if I can succeed, I can give a lot of GEcK to the settlements in the wasteland, so that they can live and work in a difficult place, and then they will have a further influence on each other and make this barren land prosperous."

Gillian looked at him deeply, with a look of longing and disbelief.

"You know what? It's really fascinating when you say that kind of thing. ”

......................

The car stopped, and Andy and Gillian stood outside the car looking into the distance.

To the north of them, there stood an old automated building, the pale walls were already mottled and dilapidated, and within the huge walls was a building covered with a huge dome, Andy stared at the details of Tibbetts Prison, which was even worse than when he left, the hole in the wall that had been blown up by Prester with a group of strange NcR soldiers looked to have been repaired less than a third of the way, and it still hadn't been completely repaired for so long, which meant that the prisoners would not hesitate to escape if they found an opportunity.

Gillian stood by and looked at Tibbetts Prison with the same amazement she had seen Bloomfield Space Center for the first time.

"It turned out that this place looked like this from the outside, and when I escaped, I was so frightened by those robots that I didn't dare to turn back, and many people were killed by robots at that time, and many prisoners were completely crazy, and they started killing each other soon after escaping."

Andy felt a little uneasy, because the dilapidated state of Tibbetts Prison was very abnormal, as an automated facility that has been operating normally to this day, Odysseus can fully manipulate a large number of robots to carry out repair work, and it stands to reason that at least repairing the hole in the wall is more than enough, but as a result, Tibbetts Prison seems to be in a state of unmanaged abandonment, which is certainly not normal.

Many traces of the explosion still remain on the perimeter of the prison, but there are no corpses or destroyed robots left, and they are supposed to have been recovered.

According to what Odysseus said before, the prisoners sent back were released one by one by him after being injected with special drugs that could stop the spread of the virus, and since Andy announced in front of him in the nursery that the antidote hope fruit had been invented, Tibbetts Prison has actually lost the meaning of continuing to actively hunt down the infected in the wasteland, so what has Odysseus been so busy during this period of time that he has not even repaired the hole in the wall?

There was a beep boy, Andy raised his hand, and sure enough, it was Odysseus who used the remote connection to initiate the communication.

The familiar image of an old man with bearded and curly hair appeared on the screen.

"My commissioner, it's been a long time, but I recently found out that the telecommunications antenna at the Bloomfield Space Center was re-energized, so I read some feedback from the automated security system after connecting to the facility's computer, which pointed out that you and the prisoner triggered some capture programs that I had implanted into the robot a few months ago, and I could roughly confirm that the prisoner's position drew a vague semicircle to my south from southeast to southwest, why?"

Andy had a look that was indeed the case.

"Of course, all of this is necessary to be done in the process of arresting the prisoner, Warden, anyway, I brought back the last prisoner for you today, this is the end of the hunt game, and you are ready for the reward you said, right? This time, it's going to be all cashed in! ”

Odysseus on the screen stood motionless for a few moments as if he had died, and finally responded when Andy was about to lose his patience.

"Indeed, this game is finally coming to an end, come on, bring the number to me, and I will fulfill all my promises."

The screen went black and returned to normal after a few seconds.

Gillian bit her lip and grabbed Andy.

"I... I don't know why I'm a little flustered, it seems to be due to some kind of intuition, do you trust women's intuition? ”

Andy hugged and encouraged her.

"I believe, and I believe you can overcome your own cowardice, it's all here, and there's no reason to back down, isn't it? A woman told me a long time ago about similar concerns, but what can we do? Gone? The return to Tibbetts prison is not to put the shackles back again, but on the contrary, to lift the shackles from us once and for all, and from now on we will no longer be prisoners. ”

The two of them walked towards Tibbetts Prison after a moment, they walked to the gate, the door was not open at all, and Andy had no way to take the initiative to contact Odysseus, so the two could only walk towards the big hole in the wall that was blown out during the Tibbetts prison escape incident, and after climbing over the wall, they were surprised to see that there were many robots in the facility that were turned off.

These robots are military-grade killing machines that slaughtered escaped prisoners during the Great Escape, but now they lie motionless on the ground like scrap metal, and some even have some rust.

Andy suddenly stopped, because he saw a special robot at the moment.

The huge body is like a moving building, it is so large that it is intimidating to look at, and Andy has seen it move many times, it has appeared in front of salvages in the red dust of Dog City, and it has wandered the outskirts of Hoover Dam, the great creature of the pinnacle of old-world robotics is now lying in the open like its own kind.

Argos.

The most powerful fortress-class robot in Odysseus' robot unit is its most powerful robot jailer, a large mobile signal repeater, and a personnel capture device that can move quickly over difficult terrain.

If Odysseus had the heart, such a super robot might not be able to resist the city of Hoover Dam, and it would use its powerful laser cannon to dissolve the city gates and lead the army of robots like a wave to wipe out all living things, but until then, this may have been stopped by Andy.

But why? Why is it even turned off?

With this question in mind, Andy led Gillian all the way forward, they walked through the familiar cold white corridors, passed by the cells that were stained with dried blood, and saw some bored prisoners who were still imprisoned, maybe they didn't leave out of fear during the Great Escape, maybe they were captured by the robots sent by Odysseus after leaving, or maybe they were newly captured by Odysseus in the wasteland after the Great Escape, anyway, they just stood up curiously and leaned over the observation window to watch the two walk by.

No active bots were seen along the way.

It wasn't until they walked through the open automatic security door and entered the huge computer room that Andy finally met Odysseus again after a long time, the cables and chassis that constantly flashed blue light were still like blood vessels, but a closer look could see some problems, the blue light turned red as if there was an error from time to time, and only returned to blue again after a while.

Gillian covered her mouth and didn't want to scream, but it was difficult, she was the first time she met Odysseus, the warden of Tibbetts Prison, who separated her from her companions and indirectly caused her to become a slave in the wasteland, the culprit of the ordeal, but she couldn't get angry, because Odysseus, the pre-war super AI, was housed in the structure of the supercomputer that was unreservedly displayed in front of her at this moment, and the magnificent structure and the pinnacle of electromechanical design had made her fascinated and even obsessed.

On the screen, Odysseus's face appears there.

"Nice to meet you, prisoner, Andy Arendall. It seems that you have finally found time in your busy schedule to complete the task I have given you, and until the last moment before my patience is completely exhausted, I can hardly blame you, because your mastery of time and the gradual achievement of the goal point have become an art in your hands. ”

Andy smiled a little awkwardly.

"Easier said than done, Odysseus, as far as the result goes, I didn't delay anything, and even saved more people, didn't I? If you simply physically isolate all the infected people, in exchange for not necessarily the eventual subside of the new plague, but you will definitely get the corpses of the sick and dead stuffed in prisons, I don't think that's what you want to see, right? ”

Odysseus's screen suddenly trembled a few times, and large snowflakes and continuous noise appeared in front of the two of them, and it took a while to return to its original state, which made Andy finally can't help but ask Odysseus what all the anomalies Andy has witnessed since entering Tibbetts Prison, and why it looks like this place is about to end in his eyes.

"Odysseus, what the hell is going on?"

Some melancholy men on the screen asked strange rhetorical questions.

"Where do you mean?"

Andy stretched out his hands and looked around.

"All of it, what's wrong with Tibbetts Prison? Do you feel like you've lost the point of continuing to act, so just... Is it rotten? ”

Odysseus did not answer this question.

A robot slowly walked over, and it shot a scanning light that scanned Gillian's beep boy.

"Containment confirmed."

Andy glanced at the robot and continued to ask Odysseus.

"Hey, Odysseus, why didn't you answer?"

Odysseus remained silent, and after a few moments, the screen suddenly went black.

Deafening sirens rang out from the speakers throughout the facility, and a large number of red warning lights were frantically and intermittently shooting red bright lights in all directions, leaving Gillian and Andy stunned for a moment.

"What's going on?!"

Gillian was so frightened that she hugged Andy and almost cried, Andy put her arms around her and looked around, there was no army of robots rushing out to attack indiscriminately, at least this was to confirm that the surroundings were still deserted, only the noisy sirens and siren lights were noisy.

The screen suddenly turned back on, and the picture appeared to be a neat office, with the logo of a turnip man printed on the wall of the office, and the man sitting behind the desk sat there with his hands folded in a tower shape, wearing a strange green suit, a gorgeous and complicated hairstyle on his head, a pair of delicate gold-rimmed glasses, and several precious stone rings on his fingers.

The man looked seven or eight points similar to Odysseus.

Andy asked the screen in confusion.

"Odysseus? What are you doing here? Costume change for the celebration? And what's going on with these alerts? ”

The man on the screen didn't move, just spoke suddenly.

"Whoever sees this footage, allow me to introduce myself to you at this crucial moment, hello, I'm the CEO of Derek Greenway, Greenway Hydroponics, the chief designer of Tibbetts Prison, a defense contractor with a series of contracts with the SA Environmental Protection Agency, and the developer of super artificial intelligence, including ZAx and Odysseus."

The sound of the video was transmitted through the speakers so that even the inmates could hear it clearly, and in the rooms of their cells, there were also projection devices that projected the video onto the walls.

"You must have a lot of questions in your mind, about why you were arrested and held in this facility, about why the alarm is going off at this moment, for humanitarian reasons, I have prepared this video to answer all the questions in your mind, then please keep your ears up and listen carefully, I guarantee that all your questions will be answered satisfactorily here, this is the only thing I can do for you."

Andy stood in Odysseus' computer room, and an indescribable bad feeling gushed out from the bottom of his heart.

He dragged Gillian straight to the route he had come, but luckily the security door was unlocked, and the sound of the video was synchronized by the speakers scattered throughout Tibbetts Prison, following the two men who tried to escape like a ghost.

"The birth of the new plague is a nightmarish obstacle created by mankind itself, and its birth is a direct manifestation of the self-destructive side of mankind, which will come earlier than nuclear war, and its impact will inevitably be more far-reaching and lasting than what nuclear war can cause. Even if, according to my predictions, the third major outbreak will be interrupted by a nuclear war, after a long time, everything will still be inexorably returned, and then humanity will understand what true despair is, and this is the fateful trap that humanity itself has set for itself, and the bullets fired at will eventually shoot at itself in the end. ”

"I've seen too much, too much of this rotten and dirty darkness, and during my time at Poseidon Energy, I served those crazy and cold-blooded politicians all day long, so I finally chose to get rid of it, just like Odysseus fought against the Poseidon who prevented him from returning home in the epic Odyssey, I must do my best to find a path that does not betray my own ideals and original intentions, and I will do whatever it takes to protect the environment around us, because it is to protect ourselves and our future generations."

"For this, I had to start making decisions that affected them on behalf of others, and I, hereby, am deeply sorry."

Andy dragged Gillian around Tibbetts Prison, and he had never felt so frightened.