The notification in the bottom right corner of the screen is still flashing: [Insufficient storage space, we recommend an expanded solution]
Chen Hao stared at the line of text for three seconds, then reached out and crossed it out. He turned to look at Nana, who was standing in front of the terminal, her optical lens slightly rotating, as if she were flipping through something.
"Not again?" he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “The dual-storage system last time could only alleviate the problem, not cure it.”
"Is our machine getting Alzheimer's? It's trying to remember too many things, and its brain can't keep up."
“The analogy is inaccurate,” she replied. “It’s not that it forgot, it’s that it couldn’t contain it.”
Chen Hao looked down at the resin notebook in his hand. The cover read "Don't forget when planting vegetables," and the edges were worn. He drew a square on a blank page and wrote a line: "Make a hard drive that can never be filled."
I felt a little silly after I finished writing it, but I didn't erase it.
Nana suddenly said, "There is a theoretical solution."
"What?"
"Rare metals extracted from new mineral veins can be used to construct quantum entangled state storage arrays."
"Wait a minute." Chen Hao raised his hand. "The 'quantum' you're talking about, is it one of those things that sounds incredibly expensive and explodes at the slightest touch?"
"Theoretically stable."
"Who wrote the theory? You or the book?"
"Knowledge base records".
He sighed: "Then read the book title to me so I can remember who I'm going to insult later."
Nana ignored him and pulled up a dusty technical document. A small window popped up when the interface opened: [Data source: 'Fundamentals of Quantum Information Science (Fragment)' - Entry time: Seven years before the cataclysm].
"This thing is older than my junior high school diploma," Chen Hao muttered.
"Availability was verified at 87.3%."
"What about the remaining 12.7%?"
"It may fail or cause unpredictable effects."
“I knew it.” He leaned back. “We’ll have to try new things and take the blame.”
"You just wrote down your goals."
He looked down at his notes: "I was just writing this for fun... Oh well, the vegetables didn't die and the house didn't collapse, so causing a little more trouble won't hurt."
The two began dismantling the circuit boards of the discarded communication array. This pile of scrap metal had been soldered three times before, the interfaces crooked and twisted. As Chen Hao pried at the parts, he said, "Can we stop relying on scavenging for a living?"
“Resources are limited,” Nana said. “The recycling rate has reached 91%.”
“I know, I know, saving is a virtue.” He tossed a charred chip into the recycling bin, “but I dream that one day I can buy some new ones.”
Rare metal powder was poured into the petri dish, shimmering with a pale blue light. Chen Hao reached out to poke it, but Nana stopped him.
"Unencapsulated materials may undergo ionization reactions upon contact with air."
"Does that mean my hand will go numb?"
"It might be burnt."
He withdrew his hand: "You high-tech people are so hard to please."
They used a circuit board as a base, arranged metal particles in a specific pattern, and then covered it with a hand-soldered shielding layer. The whole device looks like a pieced-together cookie with a cooling pipe inserted in the middle, connected to the residual heat outlet of the biogas digester.
"Can this thing be used?" Chen Hao asked.
"Probability 38%"
"You still dare to drive if the success rate is less than 40%?"
"If it doesn't start, it will always be at 0%."
He paused for two seconds: "This sounds so familiar, like something I would say to myself before an exam."
The first power-on test took place late at night.
Nana pressed the start button, and a faint glow illuminated the inside of the device. The display screen flickered a few times before showing the message: "[Initializing... Quantum state generation in progress]".
Then, all the lights in the base flickered.
It's not the flickering kind; it goes out for half a second and then comes back on.
Immediately afterwards, the alarm went off.
It wasn't a structural alarm or a temperature control anomaly; instead, all the red lights on the perimeter defense system came on.
"What's going on?" Chen Hao rushed to the monitor screen.
The footage shows a flock of mutated ptarmigans frantically ramming the electric fence outside. With a wingspan of nearly two meters and hooked beaks, each ramming causes the fence to shake.
"Are they crazy?" he said.
“Electromagnetic interference.” Nana quickly retrieved the waveform. “The device is releasing low-frequency pulses, with a frequency close to that of bird migration navigation signals.”
"So you're saying that turning on the hard drive is like telling the birds 'this way'?"
"That's one way to understand it."
"Then turn it off!"
She cut off the power, but the residual field strength continued to spread. More and more thunderbirds gathered, and several were already scratching at the edges of the protective netting with their claws.
Chen Hao turned and ran into the locker, taking out a herb diffuser. He poured in a mixture of mutated mints—leftovers from the last time he treated his insomnia.
"This thing can scare away birds?"
"It has an inhibitory effect on the nervous system," she said, "provided the concentration is sufficient."
He lit incense and opened the ventilation vent. Pale green smoke drifted slowly outwards.
After a few minutes, the thunderbirds slowed down. Some hovered in the air, while others simply landed on the ground and took a nap. The last one flapped its wings twice and flew away.
Alert lifted.
Chen Hao slumped in his chair: "I will never believe the phrase 'theoretically safe' again."
“The problem has been located,” Nana said. “A defect in the shielding layer structure caused leakage in a specific frequency band.”
"Can you fix it?"
"Yes. A resonance absorption layer needs to be added."
“Then I’ll fix it.” He waved his hand, “but I have one condition.”
"What?"
"Next time, test it on a mouse first."
"The base does not use any live organisms for experiments."
Do I count?
"You don't count."
"Look, you robots always say such hurtful things."
The second renovation took six hours.
They added three layers of cross-conducting mesh inside the shielding layer and changed the cooling system to a more stable circulation method. When the new device starts up, the current noise becomes smooth, and the progress bar on the display screen advances steadily.
[Quantum state successfully established]
[Entanglement duration: 0.3 seconds]
"Only 0.3 seconds?" Chen Hao frowned. "It takes me longer to sneeze."
"Data write failure rate is 97%".
"That means it's basically impossible to write anything in."
"It needs optimization."
Nana proposed using a dynamic error correction algorithm, which utilizes redundant qubits to verify information in real time. It sounds abstract, but in practice, it involves the system checking itself as it writes, correcting errors immediately.
Chen Hao was in charge of reinforcing the cooling pipes. He connected the cold vent of the biogas digester and added two more cooling fans. When he finished and straightened up, his shoulders ached, but he didn't say a word.
Before starting the third attempt, he asked, "What if we attract birds again this time?"
"An automatic power-off threshold has been set," she said. "If the radiation level exceeds the safe level, it will be shut off immediately."
"Okay." He nodded. "Then go ahead and press it."
The button is pressed.
The device operated quietly, and the data stream on the screen began to scroll. One second, five seconds, ten seconds... the entangled state continued to rise.
[The entanglement lasted for more than 60 seconds]
[Write success rate increased to 99.2%]
Then, a new message popped up on the main control screen:
[Quantum Storage Array Deployed]
Available space: 1000 times that of the current system
Chen Hao froze for a few seconds, then suddenly stood up from his chair: "Really?"
"Real data."
He rushed to the screen, his finger swiping across the parameter list. The agricultural model, historical logs, structural monitoring data, and all backup files had all been successfully migrated.
"Now... I'll have enough snacks to keep a record for a hundred years."
"It is recommended to prioritize backing up the defense protocol."
"Why are you always thinking about serious matters?" He sat down, catching his breath. "Can't you let me be touched for a moment?"
She didn't answer, but continued monitoring the operational indicators. The optical mirror glowed with a pale blue light, like the surface of a lake at night.
Chen Hao picked up the resin notebook and wrote on the latest page: "Quantum hard drive launched, capacity increased a thousandfold."
After finishing writing, I paused and added: "Warning: Turning on the computer may attract birds, use with caution."
The wind was gentle outside, and the base was quiet. On the monitoring screen, all the data remained stable. There were no alarms, no cracks, and no red pop-up notifications indicating accidental file deletion.
He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes for three seconds, and then opened them again.
"Nana".
"exist."
"If this thing breaks, do you think we can fix it?"
"Theoretically, yes."
"Another theory."
"But this time there are blueprints."
He smiled and said, "That's alright."
She brought up a new interface, which was the maintenance manual for quantum storage. The first page had a clear title: [Daily Inspection Procedure].
As Chen Hao looked at the document, he suddenly said, "Actually, I've always felt that all the things we do are to prevent even the smallest things from becoming the last straw that breaks the camel's back."
She turned to look at him.
“For example, if you delete the wrong file yesterday, your hard drive will be full today, or you’ll be stuck with a bird hitting the wall tomorrow.” He shrugged. “We’re upgrading like crazy, not because we want to become more powerful, but because we’re afraid that one day we’ll suddenly be unable to keep up.”
“That’s a correct understanding,” she said. “System stability and fault tolerance directly determine the probability of survival.”
“But look now,” he said, pointing to the screen, “we’ve actually made something that can never be filled.”
"At present, yes."
"So, at this moment... does it count as a small victory?"
She paused for a second: "Okay."
Chen Hao grinned and reached for his water glass. The glass touched the edge of the terminal, wobbled, and spilled a little water, which slowly spread across the table.
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