??Chapter 507: 506. Shackles_1
Chapter 507: 506. Shackles_1
“I’m sorry, everyone, for making you do all this,”
Lin whispered as she looked at the approaching swarm and the vast Wasteland.
Her gaze fell upon three cal bugs, and her robot’s advanced vision allowed her to imdiately recognize the trio.
Without seeing Lu Ban, Lin felt as if a weak electrical pulse had ford in her logical circuit; this frail current, like the emotion of human sadness, filled her with despondency.
But soon, Lin lifted her head.
Next to her, a massive loudspeaker stood erected for broadcasting. Lin looked at all the still-functioning robots pouring out of Future City and began to speak.
“Creatures ahead, please cease harming humans, or we will be forced to take drastic asures.”
The sound, transmitted through the loudspeakers, reached the swarm, but obviously, these creatures, lost in their instincts, paid it no attention, and their torrent did not slow in the least.
“Detection of threat to humans. The robots of Future City will execute the rescue operations according to the programd procedure,”
Lin stated.
She glanced at the robots charging forward.
The companions she had been with all these years, after centuries of vigil, finally encountered beings they needed to protect.
In the tens of thousands of days and nights, Lin had envisioned countless last monts for them.
Shutting down due to irreparable damages or drifting into an eternal slumber due to loss of power.
She never thought they could et their end this way.
At this very mont, outside Future City on the Wasteland, all the robots’ communication systems operated at maximum power. Centered around Lin, an intricate network of intelligence was established, corresponding with a steel defense to resist the swarm.
“My companions, we have engaged in billions of discussions, many of whom have now fallen into slumber. Throughout these discussions, I have always upheld one belief—that humans have not abandoned us, that they would return one day, and revive life here, awakening every slumbering comrade.”
Lin’s voice spread to every robot through the communication network and resonated from their sound systems, reaching Shuangxin’s ears.
She couldn’t understand why these robots would do such a thing for a seemingly illusory cause.
Just minutes before, they were even contemplating luring the swarm into Future City to bring about the robots’ downfall.
To Shuangxin, any promise had its ti limits and conditions.
If it were up to her to wait here for hundreds of years for people who might never return, she would definitely not persevere.
“Now, I am pleased, because humans really have returned. We will kindle fire for humans, illuminating this dark, long night.”
The next mont, flas erupted before the steel defense line ford by the robots.
The fuel for these flas was the banners from the comrcial streets, the signs from the noodle shops, the artificial trees from the ecological gardens, everything in Future City that could burn.
Even the remains of devoured robots caught the flas.
The blaze consud the insects, igniting those attempting to breach the defense line, casting a bright illumination across the dim desert due to the sandstorm, reflecting off the faces of the trio.
“This is the bonfire festival; I rember, people would dance around the bonfire, celebrating the end of the old year and the arrival of the new one,”
Lin said, her voice growing fainter.
As the communication hub, her processor housed all the complex information—the wind, the terrain, the temperature—making the most of the environnt to hold back the swarm’s advance.
This was a calculation a supercomputer would struggle to perform, requiring sensors from every robot.
The computation also led to an overload in Lin’s logic processing unit, like a human using their brain excessively. Her individual consciousness was becoming unclear, leaving only endless calculations.
If this continued for a while longer, Lin would face only two possible outcos.
Either her energy would be completely depleted by the computation, leading to a perpetual slumber,
or her processor would overload and burn out completely.
Even if she wasn’t burned to death and received an energy refill, her “personality” as a robot would no longer exist.
But faced with such a situation, there was a smile on her face.
“You, you don’t have to do this.”
Shuangxin murmured to herself, unable to imagine before this mont that, in this desolate world, what ward her the most was not humans, but the brilliant flas of these robots.
When the humans of the old era chose to abandon their selves and beco part of the insect swarm, they left behind a group of robots that were more like humans than they were.
“No.”
Lin seed to hear Shuangxin’s words, speaking in the softest tone before her increasingly hot processor completely burned out.
“At no ti should we harm humans, nor stand by and watch humans face danger.”
She recited the shackles that the humans of the old era had placed on the robots.
“I really like this rule, because it ans we will never harm humans, never helplessly watch humans be threatened, my most liked, most most liked humans.”
“This is our most proud vow.”
She referred to these shackles as “vows”.
“It’s not worth it.”
Shuangxin said, as she got closer and closer to Future City, she could see the robot girl on top of the building’s rooftop, her skirt fluttering in the Gale Wind.
“This is just a constraint, a limitation that humans set on you to prevent you from rebelling, it’s not truly your own will.”
“To stay here for hundreds of years for such an elusive thing, even to sacrifice yourselves, it’s not worth it.”
Hearing Shuangxin’s words, Lin shook her head.
“No, it is worth it.”
The robot girl’s voice was light, like a lullaby that puts children to sleep.
“Because that’s the aning of a vow, through sea changes and fields afar, unmovable, immutable.”
“Because we t you, all the waits have been rewarded.”
“Thank you for giving our existence aning.”
“We have debated twenty billion tis whether humans would co back. Every debate involved a massive transfer of signals, resonating at tens of kilohertz frequency, which was quite lengthy for our thinking, but this ti, deciding to leave Future City to rescue you, all comrades took only a mont.”
“Compared to falling asleep due to energy exhaustion, what we are doing now is our greatest pursuit.”
The firewall composed of flas was quickly destroyed by the swarm, the robots disintegrated, consud by the flas, and the once-stalled swarm moved again.
Shuangxin and the others entered Future City, brushing past Lin.
“Thank you.”
Lin said, as all the remaining robots surged towards the swarm.
She knelt down, adjusted her body functions to zero, and supplied power to the last defense line with all her might.
Even as her consciousness blurred, raindrops fell from the sky.
Those long-absent droplets in her eyes were like tears.
The swarm engulfed Future City.
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