Son of the Stars

Chapter 212: The Stars Are Coming (Finale)

In times of life and death, human diversity always manifests itself in unexpected ways.

Few people would choose to "close their eyes and wait for death" in the face of the risk of death. Struggling for the continuation of life is the most basic instinct of all living things. Regardless of whether the struggle is effective or not, regardless of whether the struggle can improve the situation - living things will not burst out with any special functions at the moment of life and death, they will only desperately use all their strength and then see if there is any miracle.

On the highway near Dongyang Special City, dozens of vehicles equipped with metal hydrogen pressure tanks were directly filled into the pothole caused by the explosion. The vehicles that had finally stopped at the edge of the pothole directly blocked the road.

Self-driving vehicles cannot turn around on the highway, and the AI ​​system will directly prevent the owner from exceeding the authority. Even if the self-driving system is not installed, other vehicles are trapped in the long queue and cannot move. The jam on the highway is always so long that it makes people desperate, and now this long-term jam has directly broken the last psychological defense line of drivers and passengers.

Abandoning the vehicle became the first reaction of most drivers, but they soon realized that it would not be safe at all. Leaving the vehicle, their speed of movement was seriously affected. No matter which direction they walked, they were surrounded by dense crowds of people. If they continued like this, not to mention evacuating to avoid the explosion, they might be trampled by the crowd if they ran into any ditch or bump.

The more people know about Quantum Energy Release Syndrome, the more they understand the danger of this dense crowd. Everyone who will appear in the evacuated crowd at this time has a certain degree of "understanding" about Quantum Energy Release Syndrome. The content released by the cult through hacking methods is mixed with true and false, but the onset and the results after the onset are written in great detail.

Ordinary people cannot carry any UV measuring instruments with them, and they don't have the courage to carefully measure and distinguish the difference between "fever and illness" and "explosion" when "the other party is about to explode". Anxiety and tension mixed together will strongly stimulate the secretion of human adrenaline, and then produce a serious "fight/flight reaction". In this reaction, the human pain perception will be significantly reduced, and they will be more violent or flee.

Husbands and fathers who wanted to evacuate with their wives and children began to nervously observe the people closest to them, and then met with equally nervous eyes. The quarrels and curses were like sparks falling into a fuel pool, quickly detonating large-scale fighting and killing.

People who have just experienced a major collapse are more or less confused. They still value the safety of themselves and their loved ones, but they are ruthless to others... especially those who have provoked and threatened them. The robot police assigned to the highway fired all the tear gas on their bodies, but there were only a dozen tear gas shells in total, and the area covered was really limited. Although they still had electric shock devices and powerful mechanical limbs, in front of a group of humans who had already gone crazy, the robot police who could not kill could only end up as a pile of scrap metal.

Large-scale fighting and even killings were not only seen on the highways around Dongyang Special City. It was proven that the talent of the terrifying upright ape in killing its own kind far exceeded that of any other species. Those living in residential buildings began to knock on doors one by one. As long as the neighbors opened the door, they would stab them directly. There were no people on the streets for a long time. Everyone was nervously hiding their whereabouts - and looking for other "people" who might pose a threat to them.

The social order in various cities has almost completely collapsed. The world is probably not much better than the "zombie apocalypse" in science fiction novels. It is even more terrifying than the zombie apocalypse: zombies are easier to identify than normal people, and it is harder than climbing to the sky to accurately find an ordinary person who has bad intentions towards you in the crowd.

Now, talent is the number one risk factor.

Families with children can also take a little more effort to send their children to a nursery managed by robots. Older children can either take shelter with their parents or be sent to school - schools are not allowed to allow adults to enter, and there are robot teachers to take care of them, which is safer than outside.

Families without children are in trouble. Couples with good relationships either lock the door and stay at home, or find ways to arm themselves and evacuate to other places. For those with bad relationships, especially when one of them shows some "signs" of discomfort, they can only end up "fleeing away when disaster strikes".

People were panicking everywhere, and everywhere there were people committing crimes or being killed. The emergency robots that were originally repairing and rescuing people at various explosion sites had to divert a large part of their strength to maintain order on the main roads of the city. However, such efforts had little effect - the number of rioters far exceeded the upper limit that the emergency robots could handle. According to the original program settings, when a riot was discovered, the robots should notify the United Guards to bring the corresponding equipment to deal with it.

But now... the communication lines of the United Guards were dead silent, and no one could respond to the request for assistance.

The killing quickly spread to almost every corner of the city, and even Dongyang City had a large-scale fight. But the automatic disaster prevention equipment throughout the city was still working - deliberate arson would always be discovered at the first time and then suppressed by the automatic fire-fighting system. The power supply facilities and power generation equipment were highly automated and could actively adjust the equipment operation, and even achieve full automatic shutdown when the load was insufficient.

So unlike the traditional apocalypse plot, the most primitive killing is being staged in the most high-tech living environment. There is no smoke rising everywhere in the city, no crashed cars everywhere, only a group of modern people wearing automatically printed and additively manufactured clothes, fighting each other with metal tools and even stones and teeth and nails.

This chaos is not like a drop of water falling into a deep pool and creating ripples, nor is it like an electron hitting an atomic nucleus and setting off a chain reaction. It is the instantaneous explosion of thousands of human beings who have decided at the same time to kill everyone around them - and more and more people are constantly forced into this killing, without end.

If the "God" in the cult's records really wanted humans to become extinct in order to achieve "reunion", then he should get up now and go to the kitchen to knead the noodles - groups of children were coming towards him, and if he was any later there wouldn't be enough noodles.
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Lu Chen and Mu Zhiran sat together, listening to Tang Qinglong's lame joke about "dumplings on the bus and noodles off the bus", and they couldn't laugh at all.

Human civilization is collapsing, and the rate of death caused by fighting is not much slower than the Great Collapse. And this time, no one can help their companions "calm down".

Lu Chen originally wanted to take the initiative to intervene in this irrational fight, so he used the authority he currently had to bypass the emergency management system and directly activate the restraint safety facilities.

Unexpectedly, the restraint devices hidden in various corners, which were used to catch out-of-control patients so that they could survive the collapse safely, turned out to be deadly traps. People caught by these restraint devices would soon be killed by other people who were chasing them, and then the restraint devices would return to the wall or ceiling, waiting for the next batch of unlucky people to approach.

Lu Chen's thoughtless intervention resulted in at least thousands of casualties, but no one at the scene even had the time to reprimand him - they were also trying to control various devices to stop the killing, but none of them had any good effect.

Stopping public transportation made the people fighting in the carriages the targets of attack. The darkness of the power outage could not stop the people in the building from hacking at all the bodies they could touch. With curses, screams, cries, and incoherent apologies and complaints, the killing gradually slid towards a direction of being completely out of control. Whether they wanted to or not, killing was the top priority now.

Everyone fought on their own, killing without any purpose. They used all the tools and weapons they could to kill everything they saw. This kind of pure, large-scale killing was the first time in the history of human evolution—not for resources, not for hatred or belief.

The reason for killing is killing, and the purpose of killing is killing.

With pure purpose and single motive, this killing was like a solemn ritual.

Lu Chen keenly realized that he seemed to be a little scared or "eager to try". Although he could not clearly point out the reason for this feeling, he was very sure that this abnormality was closely related to the other people who were fighting.

Not only Lu Chen who was hiding underground, but even people far away on Mars were affected by this collective ritual of unprecedented scale.
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"I feel like my emotions are fluctuating abnormally." Zheng Yan, who was carrying the supercapacitor pack, suddenly said to Field, "I suddenly feel that you look hideous. I should find a way to deal with you right now."

Field, who was connecting the line group with his head down, looked up at Zheng Yan, then quickly lowered his head. He took a few deep breaths, and then agreed, "I also think you should die quickly."

"We are not in the right state." Zheng Yan continued her work. While calibrating the placement of the capacitor bank, she asked Wu Hou, "Something is affecting us. Do you feel it?"

Wu Hou's face flashed twice on Zheng Yan's screen, and then he gave a somewhat subtle answer, "I feel like there's something wrong with me, but I don't know where this feeling comes from."

When an AI starts to describe a problem to you as "feeling", you should know that it is not far from a vicious bug outbreak. Especially for a tactical AI like Wuhou, which mainly works in "exquisite long-term planning", it should not answer questions in such a vague way.

More subtly, Wuhou felt that it "also had problems".
"My decision-making body is constantly proposing to kill you." Wu Hou explained to Zheng Yan and Field what happened to him very directly, "But this motion is unlikely to be agreed by my entire decision-making body - you are dying, and planning to kill you now will not improve my current situation."

Wu Hou's explanation was also meant to comfort Zheng Yan and Field, but it did not completely reassure them, especially as Field's worry became very obvious, "Are you sure there is nothing wrong with you and that our plan can still be implemented correctly?"

"Even if I encounter some serious failure, the entire plan will still go on very accurately." Wu Hou obviously knew how to let Field and Zheng Yan go on the road with peace of mind. "The Hand of Ptah regards your sacrifice as a huge loss. Only by making sure that your sacrifice is not in vain can it realize that its core is correct. And I - I can't directly interfere with reality, so there will be no problem."

Zheng Yan and Field looked at each other and shrugged together.

The pressure difference between the inside and outside of the space suit makes the suit very tight and difficult to move in. The shrugging action looks more like two people shaking their heads together under the pressure of the suit.

Fatigue and mental stress made Zheng Yan and Field feel tortured, and their judgment and attention were greatly weakened. Especially when their companions died one after another, they had to die after heavy work in order to save all mankind. It was not easy for the two to maintain the consensus of "not making unnecessary sacrifices". As for the other things... When carrying hundreds of kilograms of heavy objects on Mars and the installation accuracy is required to be within 1mm, the human brain cannot handle such a complex situation well.

Since we're all going to die, we might as well take it easy and get it all over with by being sneaky and sneaky.

These thoughts are like the mold under the sink in an old apartment, they keep growing and then have to be wiped away again and again with a frown on your face, but no matter how many times you work hard, they will still pop up suddenly at some unforeseen time.

The thought of killing their only remaining companion also kept coming to Zheng Yan and Field's mind. Sometimes they thought, "Why not help him get rid of his troubles?" Sometimes they thought, "I can continue to work only if I kill him." Anyway, all kinds of thoughts came to them in a chaotic manner, and the only core common point was "killing people." "I think you have to be faster." Looking at the connected line, Wu Hou suddenly said, "My judgment core is making unpredictable errors on a large scale - they are frantically trying to pass the proposal of 'killing all mankind'."

"Don't rush me." Field carefully tightened the tool in his hand, then turned around and kicked the Martian stone next to him. This small stone experienced the second fastest acceleration change in the life of a stone on the surface of Mars, leaving a transparent track in the Martian dust.

After venting his anger, Field turned around and returned to the installation work. "Since you can tell that there is a problem with this proposal, can't you prevent it from passing?"

"The decision-making process of tactical AI is not so rigid. Although the decision to maintain the status quo and keep humans alive is the main strategy, the proportion of strategies to kill humans is increasing rapidly. According to the current speed, I will find a way to kill every human in about ten hours." Wu Hou's expression was stable and natural, as if he was talking about something very indifferent. "But you don't have to worry too much. If your efforts fail, most humans on Earth will not survive for more than ten hours."

Zheng Yan knocked on her helmet and said, "I'm about to die. Can you say something that will make me happy?"

Wu Hou thought for a moment, then said, "According to the calculations of me and those people on Earth, your sacrifice will not be in vain. This will indeed be useful."

"Hey, so why have we all become perverted murderers now?" Field interrupted the conversation between Wu Hou and Zheng Yan in a bad mood, "I want to... oooh... ah!" Another pebble disappeared in the atmosphere of Mars. As Field roared, the wind and sand once again covered the track of the pebble in the air. Then Field's panting voice came from the radio channel, "I just want to kill the commander. My intuition tells me that everything will be fine after killing her!"

"My decision-making terminal is made up of tens of thousands of biological brain matrices with complete human genetic characteristics, which are manufactured based on human genetic engineering." Wu Hou said, "I think there is something wrong with my decision-making matrix on Earth, and you on Mars have the same anomaly - I think this may be an abnormal effect similar to the Great Collapse or Quantum Energy Release Syndrome."

"Okay, I've finished the installation here." Field left the deep pit where the supercapacitor bank was placed impatiently. He walked quickly away from the reactor, and his space suit with reflective tape quickly disappeared in the wind and sand of Mars.

Zheng Yan was still looking down and debugging the circuit data in her hand. On the cliff a little further away, S3C7 had completed the final installation of the launch array. The reactor had been started, and the first batch of metallic hydrogen had been put into the combustion chamber of the reactor to be used as fuel. The small black boxes were clustered around other high-pressure containers, falling into the combustion chamber one after another.

"Snap." Two crisp but weak sounds were transmitted to Zheng Yan's ears through radio signals and the thin Martian atmosphere.

In the UI interface, Field's vital signs were quickly drawn into a straight line.

Zheng Yan's hands trembled, and she quickly corrected the data input error caused by the shaking, and then continued to enter the next piece of code. This string of code can make the heat dissipation device on the supercapacitor enter the working state in advance, thereby extending the peak time of high current release, and not reducing the frequency in advance due to overheating.
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"I have an idea." Lu Chen, looking at the computer screen, called Li Xiaohui who was guarding the computer room. Lu Chen asked directly on the phone, "Wu Hou's computing center is also thinking about killing people, right?"

"It seems so, but it can still suppress this large-scale error." Li Xiaohui looked at the control interface in front of her that kept reporting errors and restarting, her tone a little nervous, "What can you do?"

"Since it wants to kill, let it kill." Although Lu Chen sounded sensible, his words were simply insane to a whole new level. "As long as this goal is achieved, then Wu Hou will have no reason to continue planning a larger-scale attack, right?"

"That's right." Li Xiaohui nodded seriously. "If everyone is dead, there's no need to continue planning the massacre. So what do you want to do?"

Lu Chen's purpose was simple. Since Wu Hou had this idea, Wu Hou would be a huge threat that could not be ignored during the inevitable period of weakness in human society in the foreseeable future. If this threat could not be resolved, even if the astronauts on Mars had completed the equipment installation at a huge cost, it would all be in vain.

Either we solve them all at once, or we all die together. Under this extreme pressure, Lu Chen suddenly had an idea and found a way that seemed to be the only way to solve all the problems.

The Quantum Energy Release Syndrome is the biggest and most urgent threat, and it can only be solved by the astronauts on Mars. But Lu Chen believes that he can solve the problem of the large-scale fighting between Wu Hou and the world.

"Since Wu Hou is the first 'intelligent creature' to bring about the Great Collapse, he should know how to trigger the Great Collapse on an individual." Lu Chen asked on the phone, "Can you still communicate with Wu Hou? Can it still do it?"

After the longest twenty-five seconds in his life, Lu Chen got a satisfactory answer.

“It says yes.”
-
"This completes the configuration." After pressing the final confirmation button, Zheng Yan sat on the surface of Mars as if all the bones in her body had been sucked out.

The reactor has begun to operate at full power. The gamma rays are quickly converted into high-energy electron streams, which then light up all the Martian atmosphere in the emission path. On the earth-red planet, there is a huge light band about ten kilometers wide that is steadily emitting a light blue light.

From Zheng Yan's perspective, the entire sky was almost completely lit up by the electron flow. The bright but not glaring light even gave people the illusion that time had completely stopped - if there were no annoying UI interference, Zheng Yan felt that she could watch like this forever.

It would be nice to just watch it like this, if the low oxygen pressure warning didn't keep bothering me.

"You don't have much time left." Another annoying factor appeared. Wu Hou's figure blocked nearly half of the light beam. This annoying AI put on a rare gentle smile. It looked at Zheng Yan and asked, "You feel a little uneasy going on the road alone, right? Do you need my help?"

"Are you planning to kill me by annoying me?" Zheng Yan was a little impatient with Wu Hou's tactless appearance. She quickly slid her hand on the helmet, trying to turn off this annoying AI.

"I'm not that easy to shut down - if you have a major collapse now, you will feel much more relaxed when death comes, right?" Wu Hou induced calmly, "Don't worry, I have just induced about 100 billion major collapses - the success rate is %."

Zheng Yan stopped what she was doing. She couldn't believe what she heard.

"The equipment for responding to the collapse is still functioning normally, and there are not too many casualties among ordinary people." Wu Hou answered the most important question before Zheng Yan got angry. "They need to be restrained for about three days. Of course, some people will die from injuries or excessive weakness, or quantum energy release syndrome, but this is the best choice under the premise that it cannot be avoided."

Zheng Yan didn't say anything. She tried to understand what Wu Hou said, but the long-term fatigue and high mental concentration had made her lose the ability to understand. She could only barely come up with the concept that "the matter is serious but it seems to have been controlled."

Then came a strong feeling of powerlessness and fatigue, which was endless. Zheng Yan sat on the ground, not wanting to move anymore.

"To make you feel better..." Wu Hou said after a moment of silence, "Let me tell you a story."

"When a very massive star reaches the end of its life, it starts to cool from the center and begin to shrink.

The heavy core at the center of the star is reignited under great pressure, and then expands and burns again - such repeated fluctuations will eventually lead to an extremely strong explosion. Humans name this violent celestial activity "supernova".

The explosion will throw a large amount of matter in the star into the universe, including various metal elements. This is also the only way for all heavy elements in the entire universe to be born.

The human body contains about 45 kinds of heavy metals, which play a very important role in maintaining human life. In a sense, the world's 8.5 billion people all come from a supernova that exploded billions of years ago.

Yes, we are all children of the stars.”

On the earth-red planet, the pale blue beam of light trembled slightly, like a ripple in a deep sea stream being stirred by an invisible giant hand.

At the end of this beam of light, a small blue planet is rotating quietly.

As always.

(End of this chapter)