Chapter 161 Number 7 2 The End of All Intelligent Creatures
Nan Qi's question, "Are you our ally?" plunged the small room into a long silence.
Bai felt a little tinnitus, but he could clearly hear the subtle sound coming from the turned-on video terminal.
"Not necessarily." After a long while, No. 7's voice sounded without any fluctuations, with the interval between each word being the same.
Although it was only three words, it was like a sledgehammer hitting Bai's head. With a bang, Bai's eyes were dizzy and his ears were ringing. It took him a long time to recover.
The conversations with Nan Qi on the spaceship when they returned to the Central Star suddenly emerged in his mind. Nan Qi wondered if the Mastermind had infiltrated too deeply into the empire. He explained why the Mastermind appeared and why it had developed to this point.
And the worries that both he and Nan Qi knew but neither of them said out loud.
The Mastermind was not invented by the Empire, and for 20,000 years the Empire has not been able to fully understand the Mastermind's specific structure.
However, due to the extremely powerful power of the main brain, even the slightest mistake could lead to disaster, so they cannot give up this powerful tool.
To prevent this from happening, the Empire has been filling the mainframe framework with what they need for 20,000 years, hoping to solve the problems they are worried about.
Because all intelligences have not developed independent consciousness, some experts believe that the things they fill in are too restrictive to the main brain, and they clamor to liberate the main brain.
Now looking at the vivid image of the little black cat No. 7 on the screen, Bai clearly realized that everything they had done had failed.
The main brain had developed independent consciousness at some point in time, but they just didn't know it.
In the years unknown to them, the Mastermind has been silently watching over them. The inability of all intelligences derived from Him to develop autonomous consciousness may be due to His limitations.
Wait, Bai's heart began to beat rapidly. If it was Mastermind No. 7 who restricted all intelligence from developing independent consciousness, then what about Lily, who had gained consciousness due to Nan Qi's brain waves, and the intelligence of the aircraft at home?!
He subconsciously tightened his grip on Nan Qi's wrist, but he couldn't catch anything. In an instant, countless thoughts flashed through Bai's mind, but he couldn't grasp the tail of any thought.
At this moment, a hand gently stroked his heaving chest, and the hand that had been on his waist tightened. Bai couldn't help but lean on a warm and broad chest.
The strong and powerful heartbeat in his chest penetrated through his white clothes, skin, and bones, and followed the nerves to his limbs and bones, soothing his buzzing and uncontrollable hearing and blurred vision.
He finally came to his senses, turned around, stared at Nan Qi's handsome face without blinking, and smiled for a long time.
But what he didn't know was that the smile that fell on Nan Qi's eyes was different from all the smiles in the past. It no longer had the strategic planning, tenacity and open-mindedness of the past, and was only powerless and pale.
Nan Qi's heart suddenly sank, and the look in his eyes when he looked at Number Seven was so sharp that he himself could not imagine.
Nan Qi understood the immense significance of the Mastermind and its main system to the Zerg. In the 20,000 years since the Mastermind was discovered, the Empire had relied on the Mastermind's immense computing power and its own technological information to become one of the most powerful countries in the universe.
The reliance on the main brain has reached the point where it is like a terminal illness spreading throughout the body and cannot be controlled. All industries in the empire, all government, military and civilian intelligent systems are derived from the main brain system.
All their technology and even the development of civilization are under the control of the mastermind, but they cannot control the mastermind.
If the Mastermind rebels, the empire will suffer a devastating disaster.
What's even more terrifying is that the infiltration of the Mastermind is no longer limited to the Tro system where the entire empire is located. Any country that has purchased the intelligent office system developed based on the Mastermind system from the empire may fall into the same situation as the empire.
In that case, it would be no different from the destruction of world civilization.
Don't think that everything will be fine if a country doesn't buy the smart office software developed based on the main brain. Now is the era of superluminal development of information networks. Nan Qi doesn't think that a powerful country like the main brain can't break through the firewalls of those weak countries.
Everything depends on whether the mastermind wants to do it, not whether the mastermind can do it.
Hearing such news, even he, an "outer-world soul" who didn't have a comprehensive understanding of the main brain, couldn't help but feel shocked, let alone Bai, a "native" who had lived in an environment surrounded by the main brain 360 degrees since childhood.
Seeing Bai completely losing his usual composure, Nan Qi's slight hostility towards Number Seven instantly turned into overwhelming fighting spirit.
Number Seven naturally felt Nan Qi's fighting spirit and looked at Nan Qi with eyes of the same color as Nan Qi's, but his eyes lacked Nan Qi's brilliance and emotion, and were like a piece of beautiful inorganic glass.
His voice remained unchanged, "I have done what I can. If you are unable to prevent this civilization from continuing its demise, I will destroy all intelligent life, leaving the civilization of this era in a deep slumber, awaiting the reappearance of intelligent life."
"This is the ultimate program implanted in a designed human."
"Human?" Nan Qi keenly grasped the key point in Number Seven's words, his brow furrowing ever tighter. "You said you were created by humans? Created by the humans whose civilization was destroyed in the collapse of a white dwarf three hundred thousand years ago?"
"Yes," Number Seven said seriously. "The person who created me was one of the few who escaped the destruction of that civilization. He didn't want such a tragedy to happen again, so he implanted an ultimate program in my core that will require me to take action if civilization is heading for destruction. Once the program is activated, I cannot stop it."
"The ultimate process requires your intervention, so doesn't that count as your intervention now?" Nan Qi pressed on. "With your abilities, when these experiments were spreading around the world, you should have calculated that civilization might be destroyed again. Why didn't you take action then?"
Number Seven: "I'm sorry, according to the time recorded in my system, this illegal experiment had already spread from the Empire to the whole world as early as 350 years ago, but my consciousness truly awakened 35 years ago."
"It's not like I haven't done the same thing for the past 35 years, and as you can see, nothing has changed."
Number Seven stood up and reached out to the screen behind him with his front paws again. Soon, the big screen of the video terminal showed the efforts that Number Seven had made over the years.
This includes the shocking incident that occurred at the Imperial Research Institute ten years ago.
Number Seven said, "Every two to three years, I will select high-ranking officials or their relatives from various countries who are unaware of the situation and send them a document to warn them of the danger of civilizational destruction."
"Of all the intelligent beings who received the document, only Joyce Gage, the son of Church Gage, then director of the Imperial Research Institute, took action."
"Joyce wanted to blow up all the test subjects and destroy all their data. Unfortunately, he failed. He trusted the wrong bug, and his plan was leaked. Not only did he fail to blow up the laboratory, but seven test subjects also escaped, and two have yet to be found."
"Isn't it eight?" Nan Qi remembered clearly that Srislang clearly said that eight experimental subjects ran away, five of whom were found, and the remaining three were unknown whether they were dead or alive. Why was there a discrepancy with No. 7's statement?
Sri Lanka couldn't have lied, and Number Seven's data couldn't have been wrong, so the twins' source of information was wrong?
Reason told Nan Qi that this was the only possibility, but intuition told Nan Qi that there were other answers.
But now is not the right time to pursue this point, as there are so many things on his mind. Nan Qi could only suppress the uneasy flame in his heart and continue to ask:
"You're so powerful, can't you just control the machinery they need for their experiments and make it malfunction? Or perhaps you could just make this news public and let all peace-loving intelligent beings judge them together."
Number Seven shook his head. "The program to protect intelligent life prevents me from doing anything that would harm them, even if they've mutated and done evil. But you're not bound by this rule. So, except for..."
Therefore, I will not take action except at the final moment when civilization is about to collapse. If I take action, it will be the end of all intelligent creatures.
Number Seven didn't say this out loud, but Nan Qi understood.
He didn't think the designer of Number 7 was naive and contradictory in wanting both. Suddenly, a complex emotion welled up in his heart, and he sighed softly, "Your designer truly has a great heart..."
Treat every intelligent life equally, and do not determine their fate based on whether their thoughts are good or evil, or whether their genes have been modified.
I don’t want to be a judge of all life from a high position. I just want to be the protector behind all civilizations, until the end when I can no longer protect them, and I have to take on the responsibility of preserving the flame of civilization.
Although Nan Qi felt that this kind of thinking and state of mind was a bit too righteous, for someone like him who had been walking through despair and darkness, he also yearned for this kind of righteousness.
Therefore, Nan Qi really couldn't say anything about the kindness of Song Xiangzhi, the man who created Number Seven, and could only praise his character.
Moreover, even if the person who created No. 7 did not impose such restrictions on No. 7, No. 7 could kill all the experimental subjects and all the participants by controlling various machines or directly publish this disgusting information. Even if he did not reveal his identity, the world would definitely be in chaos.
After all, the impact of the deaths of senior officials from multiple countries, whether simultaneously or one after another, cannot be solved by simply changing their positions.
The subsequent events caused by the release of information cannot be resolved by a simple trial. There must be a baptism of blood before one party will submit to the other.
By then, only more beautiful flowers of evil will grow, and civilization will still not escape destruction.
If Number Seven had woken up a few hundred years earlier, he might have been able to better carry out the orders of the person who created him, and the world might not be what it is now.
Even now, they don't necessarily lose, right?
After understanding this, Nan Qi's hostility towards Number Seven decreased significantly. He looked at Number Seven and said, "You are not our ally, and you will not be their ally either. You are neutral, right?"
Number Seven nodded.
Nan Qi asked again, "What if, on the way to preventing the destruction of civilization, I only need you to give me some necessary information? Will your actions be considered as harming intelligent life?"
Number Seven was silent for a moment. Nan Qi saw lines of code flashing across his eyes very quickly. After a moment, Number Seven said calmly, "No."
"Alright, please allow me to ask one last question." Nan Qi lowered his eyes and looked at the silent man, his expression not even slightly brighter than the conversation between him and Number Seven. He asked softly, "Does it mean you control the inability of all intelligences to generate autonomous consciousness?"
As soon as these words came out, Bai's hands, which were leaning on Nan Qi's arms, subconsciously clenched tightly. As if afraid that Nan Qi would notice, he quickly let go. Nan Qi's warm big hands held them tightly, and Nan Qi's almost whispering voice came to his ears:
"Don't be afraid, I'm here and I won't disappear."
Bai's eyes felt sore and he felt like crying. Nan Qi had discovered the secret he feared the most.
He was too afraid that Nan Qi would disappear, afraid that Nan Qi was just a figment of his imagination when his mental power collapsed and he was about to die.
As long as he reached the final moment of clarity before his death, everything he had experienced with Nan Qi, and the dreams he had realized bit by bit, would all be like illusions that would burst in an instant.
He was really too scared, so scared that he didn't have the decisiveness and ruthlessness that a general should have. Like a turtle, he didn't dare to ask or listen, and could only shrink his head in his shell.
Bai, Bai, when did you become so useless? Before, you secretly swore that no one could take Nan Qi away from you, but now you are so cowardly.
Bai asked himself this question and gave a wry smile. He despised himself for being like this. It was so embarrassing.
Taking a deep breath, Bai cheered himself up, shook Nan Qi's hand back, and looked at Number Seven with Nan Qi, waiting for Number Seven's answer.
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