Hurrying back to Bloomfield, Andy uses Gillian's help to reconnect with the strings of the Great Dome of Colorara far northeast using the adjusted Bloomfield communication antenna.

"You've got to help ZAx, I can hear it moaning in pain every day..."

Andy soothed the strings that looked like he was about to cry, and was about to talk to her slowly, but this time before he could say a few words to her, the communication authority was snatched away by a big bald head.

Andy pouted, he didn't want to see this guy at all.

"Dr. Goddard, I want the chords to continue talking."

The tall man in the white coat with a big bald head still had the same gloomy eyebrows and eyes as before, and a sneer on his face.

"Oh, I'm sorry to bother you guys to play a show. However, in my opinion, although Xian is an excellent young scientist, her empathy and compassion for artificial intelligence are a bit too overflowing, and this emotion will seriously affect the accuracy and efficiency of her description of this urgent matter, so after my calculations, I think it is more reasonable for me to replace her in describing this matter quickly and accurately. ”

Andy sighed helplessly.

"Then tell me quickly... I can also see that Xian's mentality is indeed a little flustered. ”

Dr. Goddard coughed twice, and recounted in a very serious tone.

"Andy, not long ago, we confirmed that we could no longer afford to keep the Big Dome AI, the pre-war supercomputer with the model ZAx, running normally, with its free memory space reaching its limit and the amount of redundant data generated by the tasks of large computing projects continuing to grow. Once we can't solve the problem before the final moment comes, the computer will start to delete data indiscriminately, interfere with the operation of individual labs, and eventually crash irreversibly. In other words, it would be over in a few months, and it would be the end of the Dome as well, and everything would be permanently closed, and the pre-war designers had programmed all the doors of the Dome to open automatically in order to prevent people from being trapped in this situation, and we would have to abandon the Dome and leave the place at that time. ”

Andy didn't quite understand the scientific terms that came out of Dr. Goddard's mouth, but with his current intelligence, he could at least easily discern some of the key parts of the matter.

"That said... ZAx has been calculating something, and the results of these things are about to fill its head, so why not let it stop? ”

Dr. Goddard sneered.

"Got smarter, huh? But you're still far from it, just listen to me. There are two ways to keep this old computer from crashing, one is to expand its memory space, and the other is to reduce its computational load. We've been working on the previous thing for a long time, which is to collect holographic cartridges and some storage media for ZAx expansion, and our hired drivers have made a few trips to Dog City to buy these things, but now it's a drop in the bucket, and a plate of emptied holographic cartridges will be filled up with junk data created by ZAx in a matter of seconds, and we can't buy enough to get back. ”

Andy frowned and pondered, since this problem had arisen very early, wouldn't Dr. Prester, who had discovered the Great Dome first, care about the bad outcome of this problem? He remembered that there were many scientists in the dome who had been tricked into the freezer, and that the facility seemed to mean a lot to him, and that he had been very unhappy when he found out that Dr. Goddard had taken the place.

"Didn't Prest do anything about it?"

Dr. Goddard scoffed.

"The last time he came back to the Dome, he brought something with him called a data tank. The storage capacity of such a device is staggering, and theoretically it could greatly delay the problem of ZAx, but guess what? That idiot actually got the wrong model, and the data tank he brought couldn't dock with the ZAx, haha. ”

As expected, Andy vaguely remembered hearing Dr. Goddard muttering about it when he was in the Great Dome before, Dr. Prester summoned a large number of NcR scientists to the Great Dome and sent them to the freezer I don't know what he was trying to do, but he would definitely not give up easily for such a big effort, and it was normal to bring the data tank to rescue ZAx, but after that, he suddenly left the Great Dome and went elsewhere, making people completely confused about what he was thinking.

Dr. Goddard continued.

"We've calculated, ZAx is still a hundred days or so away from a complete collapse, and during this time I need you to go to two places to do something, the first is a place called Grand Canyon, and the second is a place called Eagle Rock Town, and the map coordinates have been sent to your beep boy."

Andy looked down, the Grand Canyon didn't say, isn't the location of Eagle Rock Town the remains of Burnham Springs? The environment of these two places is worse than the other...

"Dr. Goddard... You may not be sure, but these two places are now purgatory-like realms, and why I am going, and I hope you can explain why. ”

Dr. Goddard opened his mouth and said in a categorical tone: "You have to go, Andy, if you don't go, the big dome will be completely finished, so many precious scientific research data and scientific assets here and those living people who can't be released in the freezer for a while will be finished, and the strings, she can't see ZAx crash, you ask why you want to go, okay, I'll explain it to you, listen..."

On the screen, Dr. Goddard lifts up a metal can.

"This is the data tank that Prester brought the big dome before, a precious storage media device before the war, its model does not match ZAx, we found something interesting in the database of the big dome, Poseidon Energy and some mysterious forces secretly built a scientific research base in the mine of Eagle Rock Town in the west, I don't understand why they chose the site like this, but it is certain that according to the list of materials, there should still be an intact data tank inside, And the model of this data tank can be matched with ZAx. ”

With that, he put the jar down.

"Secondly, why do we need you to go down to the Grand Canyon, I said before, in addition to expanding the storage of ZAx, we also need to find a way to reduce its amount of computation and reduce the speed of the generation of those garbage data that is constantly accumulating, according to our investigation, the three main projects of ZAx operation and calculation are the infection and spread path map of the new plague virus, the simulation of the development of the new plague vaccine, and the landing point of .m.b-002."

Andy still thinks it's normal when he listens to the first two projects, after all, one of the main scientific research projects of the Great Dome was to target the first outbreak of the new plague in the nearby city of Denver, so it is necessary to simulate the spread of the new plague and vaccine development, but what about the third one?

"You say.m.b-002? One of the creations of the SA nuclear space station project? Why does ZAx count as this? And where do you say the drop? Does that mean it is already possible to determine that the space station has crashed? ”

Dr. Goddard raised his brow without eyebrows, somewhat unexpectedly.

"Well, you kid knows a lot now... Wait a minute. ”

He glanced sideways at the other screens around him.

"You're supposed to be at the Bloomfield Space Center, where there should be a record of .m.b, no wonder you know that. That's fine, so I don't have to waste my tongue explaining to you that the word doesn't refer to a bomb, so listen, in the database we found the last signals that .m.b-002 sent to the ground before it went missing, and these signals are very complicated. To put it simply: the station was severely damaged by some unknown attack, it lost its ability to stay in orbit and crashed towards Earth, and in order to facilitate recovery and avoid casualties, the autopilot caused it to fall towards an uninhabited area close to the launch site. ”

Andy understood a lot of things at once, about what the big fireball that the Buraku people saw falling from the sky into the Grand Canyon many years ago, and the bottom of the Grand Canyon that inexplicably became extremely harsh, so it was actually .m.b-002 that fell into the bottom of the Grand Canyon, its nuclear reactor must have had a big explosion after the crash and triggered a reaction in the surrounding uranium mines, plus the river water at the bottom of the valley made the situation even more complicated, and... Wait, why is b, .b-002, which is suspended in low earth orbit after the war, still "attacked"? What did it attack? Or who can attack a target in space now? Why the attack?

Before he could come up with a reason, Dr. Goddard's words came again.

"Hey, are you listening? Don't waste time, okay, the reason why I want you to go to the bottom of the Grand Canyon is to find the wreckage of .o.b-002, we need to get its positioning calibration code, so that the calculation of ZAx can naturally come to an end, its other two calculation items have been aborted by us, and now there is only this one left to do it, you only need to get close to the main wreckage of .m.b-002 for a distance to automatically get it, theoretically..."

Andy scratched his head, not quite happy with the last adding.

"What do you mean in theory? That hellish place has complex terrain, explosive radiation, toxic smoke, unbearable heat, and monsters everywhere, but it's not a tourist attraction that you can go to if you want to! Wouldn't it be funny if I went for nothing! ”

Dr. Goddard waved his hand nonchalantly.

"Then you can go in the wreckage and find something to come out, anything with a special identification signal, and then use the beep boy and the remote communication antenna to send the signal to us, in short, we need to prove to ZAx that its calculations are meaningless, just like we transmitted the sample analysis data of Hope Fruit to it to confirm to it that it is no longer necessary to continue to calculate the transmission path and vaccine development."

"You can choose one of these two things to complete, no matter which one is completed, it can help us, if you are busy with things and don't have time for the time being, you can go to the Grand Canyon first, and let ZAx stop calculating the landing point of the space station, so that the countdown of one hundred days can be greatly eased, I see that your current location is not far from the Grand Canyon, and it is not too late to find a chance to go underground in Eagle Rock Town after you are done, once you send the data tank, the matter will be completely solved, and all of our Great Dome scientists owe you a great favor."

The corners of Andy's mouth twitched a few times, and Dr. Goddard's words were as easy as going to two places to deliver letters, and he didn't talk about the bottom of the Grand Canyon, although he hadn't been to Burnham Springs, but he had heard the general situation from the Dodge Mayor and the other survivors, since the NcR's battle with the Marauders caused the mine to ignite, it had become a scorched earth, and in this case, he had to go "underground" to find the data tank....

"Well... Well, I'll look for a chance to do it... Anything else? It's okay, I have something else to do here. ”

At this time, the string's face suddenly came out again, and his face was full of tears, as if he had just cried.

"I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, Andy, I know it's going to be hard, but I can't really think of anyone else who can do this, please save ZAx, I can hear it screaming at night... It's like a human suffering from hyperamnesia, whose brain is on the verge of collapse because it can't forget anything. ”

Andy's dissatisfaction vanished in the face of the string's crying.

"Okay, okay... Don't get excited, strings, don't you know what I'm capable of, these are... Well, it's all a piece of cake for me, and since there's still three months or so to go, I'll make sure I'll go down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and send you the .m.b-002 signal before the countdown is over, and then I'll go find the data canister. ”

The string took a few deep breaths to calm down, then remembered what the general general suddenly began to lower his head to operate the terminal.

"We can give you some help now, Andy, a few days ago when I was helping ZAx with redundant data, I accidentally saw a record, the SA Air Force military planned to develop a special air force power armor before the war, this armor is temporarily stored in the warehouse of the Bloomfield Space Center according to the record, it should not have a chance to be transported to other air bases for further experiments before the outbreak of the war, you should be able to find it."

Andy's eyebrows moved, this is good news, power armor can greatly improve his combat effectiveness, the knight benefit he received from the Iron Brotherhood - a set of T-45D power armor has fallen into the quicksand on the reserve and cannot be fished out, and it was thrown away before it was hot, this time since he has the opportunity to obtain another set of power armor, then he will definitely not let it go.

"Thank you for telling me the news, Xian, don't worry, I will definitely take what you explain to heart, wait for me, I will go back to the Great Dome to reunite with you in the near future."

The two chatted for a while, and the communication was finally closed.

Gillian had a somewhat complicated complexion.

"So, is that your girlfriend?"

Andy let out a casual hum.

"I hope so, but it's been a little slow, and she says she likes smart, handsome men."

Gillian glanced at Andy a few times.

"I think... By the standards of the wasteland, you can still pass both. ”

Andy smiled wryly and shook his head.

"She's an NcR like me, and the environment there is much better than here, and I used to be a mercenary, and she's a graduate student at a prestigious university, a future scientist, and if it weren't for the steel plague and a series of messy things, we might never have had access to it in our lifetime..."

"But maybe it's an opportunity?"

Andy shook his head, nothing was solved, where would he have time to think about this at this time.

"Forget it, let's be serious, is there anything in the Bloomfield storeroom?"

Gillian had an uncertain look on her face.

"It's not been long since the energy here has been restored, and a lot of places have only recently reopened, well... We'll have to look through Blomfidel's database and go to the warehouses. ”

Andy nodded, explaining that she would focus on the matter first, and then he left the control room of the communication antenna and ran to find the Big Bear who had been with Sid, where a group of Rocket Gang members were testing weapons.

The large musket modified from a rocket engine was activated, and the terrifying flames were instantly spewed out, and the tongue of fire extended dozens of meters away, and the powerful effect made the onlookers scream in amazement, if this thing was pointed at people, even hundreds or thousands would be burned into ashes in an instant.

Andy was also witnessing this from a distance, and it seemed that Sid had finally succeeded in developing it, and the musket did not explode, and it was more powerful than expected.

He walked over and conversed with the bear in the midst of a cheering crowd.

"How many people can we get out now?"

Big Bear was a little surprised, and couldn't help but ask a few more questions.

"If you want to ensure that the base is not seized by any external forces, in addition to the defenders, there are more than a dozen people who can be sent, recently Sid and I have found all the arms stocks in the warehouses that can be opened and put them on the small ones, and he has used machine tools to renovate a lot of weapons and ammunition, and in terms of troops, it is okay to fight skirmishes, what's wrong, boss? Did anyone mess with you? ”

Andy looked around solemnly, no matter what, this battle couldn't be avoided.

"I've found a new trade route in the Grand Canyon to the north to help us connect to the settlement trade network, but the town there may have recently been attacked by a group of Phoenix marauders, and if we can help them, it will definitely be good for the future."

Big Bear thought for a moment and agreed.

"So... Yes, I also think it's necessary, if those Phoenix guys take control of important trade hubs, they don't need to guess what good things they will do, there are a lot of people on our side who have come out of Phoenix before, so I know their way of doing things. In any case, it can't be occupied by them, and since we have decided to transform into a settlement in the future, we can no longer think like a gangster, and we must take action this time. Don't worry, boss, give me a little time to assemble the team, and we'll be off right away. ”