Sign

.9

At [-]:[-] a.m. on July [-], the trumpets for a comprehensive counteroffensive sounded over the smoky battlefield.

This is the worst battle since the official start of the military battle in the C22 theater.

Lin Xin felt a little cold.

In the crater where he and Shen Pei were, the residual heat left by the fierce exchange of fire was quickly dissipating bit by bit.

This is the most forward position after the entire team counterattacks.At the same time, it is also one of the areas that the other party has focused on since it launched a pilot attack.

The crude fortification equipment has basically been destroyed, and most of the armored vehicles have been burned under the strong firepower of the opponent.The electronic battle vehicles used to initiate information interference have been destroyed, and the remaining wreckage is scattered on the smelly and soft ground, one piece after another in dark black, like falling meteors.

Another series of bullets whizzed past his head.I don't know from which direction it suddenly sprayed out.

The upgraded combat artificial intelligence has corrected the previous way of fighting with both sides hurting. They have learned to hide in a certain corner for a long time, waiting for an opportunity to strike, waiting to give the opponent a fatal blow.

Compared with humans who need to eat and drink water, the advantages of artificial intelligence in terms of endurance and physical fitness are self-evident.

Shen Pei cursed, pulled Lin Xin's sleeve and pulled it back, both of them fell heavily to the ground.

When the bullet passed over his face, there was a wave of heat, and it seemed that even the tip of his nose had been burned red.

Lin Xin supported the ground with her hands, trying to sit up slowly.The wound on his waist made it a little strenuous for him to even do this kind of movement.

Then he felt his hand press against a sticky mass.Soft and cold.

He subconsciously grabbed the thing covered with black bullet ash, and suddenly, he realized that it was a piece of human body, made of muscles and fibers.Maybe it was a powerful part of a young soldier's body a few hours ago, maybe a leg, maybe a waist, maybe an arm...

Lin Xin's stomach convulsed violently, but apart from the gurgling of his throat, he couldn't spit out anything.

"Go!" Shen Pei, who was a few steps away, quickly returned a few shots, and then grabbed his sleeve and pulled him up.

Lin Xin followed behind him silently—they needed to take advantage of this short silence to rush to the core area of ​​the entire front line—and this silence was when they were fighting side by side in the same bomb crater a few minutes ago The little soldiers won it with a lose-lose style of play.

They were eventually held back by a deep trench.

With the trenches as the boundary, the front-end forces of both sides opened up a long and strong skirmish line.

The faces of the human soldiers confronting artificial intelligence have been blackened by gunpowder smoke, no better than those facial features made of metal shells.The firm posture turned them into human-shaped monuments that were inserted deep into the ground.

Solid, tragic, uncompromising.

The dead human soldiers used their bodies to pile up the last line of defense on the front line of the battlefield.

Shen Pei panted heavily, and suddenly pulled a soldier beside him who was aiming and shooting: "It's all like this, why are you still standing here and not retreating, where is your officer?"

Xiao Bing's gaze was a little straight, he just mechanically unscrewed the communicator next to his ear, and after a brief report, he lay down again and aimed forward.

A young second lieutenant with a baby face came from not far away.Lin Xin remembered him.At the combat meeting a few hours ago, the striker commander code-named C3 looked serious, but hardly said a word.

That kitten-like appearance made him a little distracted several times.He even wondered if the other party smiled, would there be that sweet dimple that he was familiar with in his memory at the corner of his mouth.

"Report to the chief, I gave the order!"

Lin Xin finally heard his voice, with a subtle childishness that was completely inconsistent with the current scene.

Shen Pei grabbed his collar, his eyes were spitting fire: "Why don't you retreat?"

C3 looked at him calmly: "The opponent's offensive is too fierce, all brothers are pressing here, there is no line of defense in the rear, this is the last line, we must defend!"

Lin Xin took a step back.

At this time, he suddenly realized that when the other party walked towards them, he staggered slightly.He moved his gaze down slowly, this time, he clearly saw half of the plank protruding from C3's left trouser leg.

It's that kind of rigid thing that has been barely supporting his body.

"Major, do you have any instructions?" The other party straightened the collar that was a little wrinkled by Shen Peila: "If not, I will go back."

Lin Xin shook his head, he realized that everything he said now was superfluous.

C3 saluted him with a standard military salute, then turned around.

The place where he stood just now was already black and red with the blood flowing from his legs.

But Lin Xin found that his steps were still firm and powerful.

Another round of intensive attacks was launched.

The cold wind whipped up the sand all over the sky, and the stern gunshots howled, as if it was a war song from ancient times.

Lin Xin pulled away a little soldier who had been cut off half of his body and started to fight back.

Shen Pei pulled him and threw him back heavily: "Stand back!"

Lin Xin didn't seem to hear at all, she struggled and threw herself back.

Shen Pei roared fiercely: "Stand back! The higher ups didn't send you here for this purpose!"

His voice was quickly drowned out by the roaring artillery fire, and then Lin Xin felt a large piece of warm liquid pounce on his eyes.

The world suddenly turned blood red.Everything boiled suddenly.

A young soldier who could no longer see his true colors suddenly rushed out of the trench.Lin Xin saw that half of his arm that was barely hanging on his shoulder was shaking back and forth, almost relying on the strength of the fabric to connect to his body.

He has almost no way to shoot effectively - the damage to the combat artificial intelligence can only be a circular area three centimeters below the right breast, with a diameter of five millimeters.Now, no matter whether it is his overdrawn physical strength or his completely blurred eyes, he is unable to achieve such precise shooting.

He ran hard all the way, rolling and crawling, and rushed to the artificial intelligence closest to him.

The other side raised the gun in his hand expressionlessly, and soon a string of blood holes were screened in his chest.

No one knew what force made the little soldier continue to run without realizing it, as if his flesh and blood were made of real alloy.

Then, Lin Xin saw him forcefully hug the opponent, and pulled out a short knife from his calf.

In the end, he looked in the direction of his team, as if he was reluctant to part with him. Then, he let out a low growl, and inserted the short knife into the opponent's death spot before falling down.Everything is like returning to the era of cold weapons.

Lin Xin watched with trembling lips as more and more soldiers who had lost their combat effectiveness began to run out of the trenches, repeating this movement.He felt that Shen Pei's hand, which he was holding tightly, was gradually getting colder, but the roar of the other party before he left kept agitating his eardrums.

Can't move... Back off... The above didn't send him here...

Then he heard a little noise from his earphones, and he carefully identified it as the second lieutenant's voice with an immature tone: "Major, take care."

Before he could say anything, he saw that C3's body had already thrown himself out.

He staggered for a long distance on the blood of his brothers, and his target was the opponent's general who had grown significantly bigger.The scenes after that, in Lin Xin's eyes, turned into the muted scenes in the old movies.

He just watched in a daze as C3's limbs were broken and torn apart bit by bit by the opponent's arm made of fine steel.

The wooden plank attached to C3's left leg was thrown high up, and together with the flying flesh and blood, it bloomed in the sky.

Something crystal clear flashed in the cold sun.

Then Lin Xin heard someone yell softly through the noisy earphones: "Mom..."

As C3 fell to the ground dully, the expression of that burly combat artificial intelligence suddenly began to distort. [Friday making]

It slowly raised its left hand made of refined steel towards the sun.

On the stiff fingers was the last liquid from C3's eye sockets.It seemed to be getting a little restless, and it paced back and forth, making a screeching sound like metal rubbing in its mouth.

Other artificial intelligences seemed to be quickly sensed by this anxiety. Soon, the noisy metal sound became louder and louder, and the entire battlefield was soon filled with the mournful cries of artificial intelligence.

At the beginning, artificial intelligence quickly circled in place, or jumped high, and then slammed itself to the ground.

More began to beat their bodies heavily.There was an experience that had never been experienced before quietly growing out of their bodies, and then rapidly expanded to the point where they could not bear it.

They don't know how to excrete this stuff.

The growth of self-awareness makes this even more unbearable.

Finally, some artificial intelligence began to point the mechanical arm towards its right chest.After tearing it apart fiercely, there was a slight explosion of electric spark short circuit, and the extremely distorted metal face finally calmed down in this way.

K was woken up by the screams of metal noise after nightfall.

The whole battlefield seemed to tremble heavily with an inexpressible sadness.

He quickly put on his clothes and stood up, connected the phone number of the frontline adjutant, and there was great panic hidden in the incoherent report.All attacks were forcibly blocked, and all combat artificial intelligences began to lose control.

Unstoppable suicidal behavior, no trigger in sight.

Even the experts were stunned by the scene, which fundamentally subverted the basic laws of artificial intelligence laid down by Asimov.

K slammed down the phone and pushed open the window.He felt that he needed to calm down.

Then the artificial intelligence named Lin Cheng appeared in front of his eyes, hanging on the T-shaped alloy frame, staring at Lu Jian with a painful expression mixed with love and sadness.

He jerked violently, and he had vaguely caught something.He quickly picked up the phone again and got through to the command post.

"Order all the experts in the artificial intelligence R&D team to stop using Sign as soon as possible!"

"But, don't you think it's too late for this order?"

In the darkness, someone suddenly laughed softly, in the kind of lazy tone he was familiar with: "I have already visited the headquarters in advance."

K turned around almost gritted his teeth.Someone leaned against his door and watched him quietly, his black pupils were clear, just like when he first saw him on the battlefield.

Lu Jian.

This is the second official meeting between the top commanders of the two warring parties on the front line of the war zone in less than a month.In a sense, it will also be the last time.

Different from the previous meeting, the purpose of this meeting is very clear - as the supreme commander of the defeated party with a combat loss of more than 90.00% five, K will express unconditional surrender on behalf of his country, and finally sign the relevant armistice agreement Historic seal.

If there is any other change that attracts attention, it is Lu Jian's position.

The artificial intelligence commander who was lazily standing behind K a month ago has now changed back to his original military uniform, carrying the shining lieutenant colonel rank of the victor with two bars and two stars, and joined the young major , sitting side by side in front of K.Lin Xin still had a calm expression on his face.

It's just that when K faced the clear battle damage numbers on the armistice meeting, he could no longer easily ignore the slender fingers on the other side's back gently flicking all these, and the calm, seemingly A handsome face that will never get out of control easily.

He sighed, raised his head from the pile of armistice agreement materials, and his eyes stayed on Lin Xin's face for a long time: "I seem to have underestimated you all the time."

Lin Xin looked indifferent: "Thank you."

K turned his gaze to Lu Jian: "As for you... I can only say that trying to keep wolfdogs around is always a mistake... It is right to kill them all as soon as possible."

Lu Jian raised his eyebrows: "It sounds like you are still not convinced."

K shook his head: "Can I ask a few questions?"

Lin Xin and Lu Jian exchanged glances: "Say it."

K also laughed suddenly: "To be honest, until now, I'm still wondering how things got to this point."

Lu Jian looked at him: "I thought you had already figured it out."

K pondered for a while: "Mostly... there are a few key points that I haven't figured out yet. For example..." His eyes fell back to the number of battle losses on the armistice agreement that he still couldn't believe. : "How did the self-destructive behavior of the upgraded combat artificial intelligence come about?

"Our experts have been trying to make a remedy since the self-destructive behavior. They have repeatedly tested the design of Sign no less than [-] times, but they haven't found any technical flaws so far. In other words, I can't figure it out. Where did you move your hands and feet..."

"Technical mistakes..." Lin Xin smiled softly, "Of course you won't find such things..."

Lin Xin looked out the window slowly, as if in the golden afterglow there were still pieces of human remains and the noisy flames of war falling.

He stood up, paced lightly, and said in a low and clear voice: "If the First World War was called a war between chemists, and the Second World War was called a war between physicists , So today, where do you think the decisive factors of war are? Electronic information warfare? Nuclear energy? Anti-submergence technology?"

He finally stood in front of K, pointed to his heart, and shook his head: "All technical things are just derivative auxiliary means, and the key to modern warfare is here."

K's eyes were full of confusion.

For a commander who advocates technological warfare, Lin Xin's words are not something he can quickly digest.

Lin Xin seemed very patient: "You must have repeatedly studied the design of Sign with your experts many times. I don't even doubt that after you apply it to combat artificial intelligence, it will be even better than mine in terms of combat power improvement." Derived more, thought better.

"You can maximize the use of artificial intelligence on the battlefield with self-awareness and self-judgment, but you probably haven't paid attention to the emotional awareness that self-judgment brings to artificial intelligence."

K moved his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but held back.

Lin Xin had already grasped his reaction keenly: "Do you want to say that emotional awareness will not affect their understanding and performance of strategies and tactics, let alone affect the accuracy and speed of their bullets when they shoot? Do you care? What is that for?"

K shrugged.

Lin Xin paused for a moment: "Have you ever cried?"

K was listening to his explanation intently, and was a little dazed for a moment: "What?"

Lin Xin seems to be talking to herself: "When you are sad, when you are happy, when you are depressed... when you need to vent your pain..."

K coughed, noncommittal.

Lin Xin casually picked up an orange placed on the conference table. "This is the fragile heart of human beings..."

A sharp Swiss Army knife slices along the thin surface towards the inner core little by little.

"It's all strong feelings..."

The irresistible posture allowed the sharp piercings to wreak havoc, and the orange in front of him gradually revealed a sad expression.

"When they slammed into each other violently, these feelings needed an outlet, and the common way for humans is to cry..."

The viscous juice gushes out faster and faster along the broken seam, one drop after another.

"Unfortunately, in the design of Sign, I didn't give artificial intelligence the ability..."

The juice drained away, leaving the twisted rind of the orange, but the sharp blade continued to churn endlessly.

"So, in such a situation where there is no outlet for repeated intense stimulation, their hearts should be like this..." The broken oranges were pulled out with long cracks, the tangled orange-red petals, Struggling for the last gasp.

"Do you understand?"

Lin Xin coldly threw the twisted orange in front of K.

The cracked inner flesh is red, like a heart that has been exploded after being overwhelmed.

"What I do is actually not difficult, it's just an emotional amplitude meter. For human beings, inducing emotions may belong to the work of psychologists, but if it is based on Sign, things are much more stylized... "

He paused slightly: "Then, as you can see, once the inducement appears, the emotion generated by the artificial intelligence will be amplified geometrically through the amplitude meter, and then the artificial intelligence will become a machine full of Airtight cup for water.

"When the water is in a calm state, the cup will not have any reaction, but now, due to the influence of external forces, the water starts to vibrate, and the amplitude is getting bigger and bigger, but there is no way out. In the end, the cup just burst."

Having said that, he sat back down again, panting slightly.Then he felt his hanging hand being gently held by Lu Jian.

His skin, which was clasped together with sweat, trembled inexplicably.

He knew that he and Lu Jian both thought of the same thing at this moment.

K stared at the twisted orange in front of him for a long time.

Lin Xin waited for a while, and calmed down her heartbeat a little: "Do you have any other questions?"

K seemed to have never heard of it, just raised his eyes and scanned the familiar meeting room, and said slowly, thoughtfully: "So... your counterattack plan actually started a month ago in this meeting room gone."

He paid attention to every subtle change on Lin Xin's face: "In the previous negotiation, your purpose was not with Lu Jian, but to make us aware of the existence of that artificial intelligence with self-awareness..."

Lin Xin nodded: "That's right... As a sniper's artificial intelligence, its shooting accuracy and speed are controllable. Before the negotiation, I specially adjusted the relevant parameters to the maximum value beyond the limit of human physiology. Based on your war experience , Naturally, he will be suspicious soon and attract attention. However, if there is no reason, even if you notice him, you will probably guess my purpose for doing this, so I will use Lu Jian to distract your attention. "

K looked at Lu Jian slowly: "Then, did you follow suit and bring back the design of Sign?"

Lu Jian squinted his eyes: "Don't say that...were you happy when you got the picture?"

K thought for a while: "I'm curious, when exactly did you reach trust? We monitored you all the way, and none of your actions left our eyes, including..."

He coughed, swallowed the second half of the sentence, and just turned his eyes to Lin Xin: "Basically, Lu Jian has no chance to show you anything, because any abnormality in his behavior will cause alertness, so His subsequent behavior will no longer be trusted, and all arrangements will be meaningless.

"But I think if you are not sure about your trust in him, you probably wouldn't bet like this... How on earth do you know that he is on your side?" [Friday Productions]

Lin Xin slowly curled the corners of his mouth, this time, he really laughed.

Then K heard his clear and powerful voice, even with a little pride: "The tacit understanding between two people, sometimes a look is enough, why do we need any extra explicit hints?"

When he said this, he couldn't help turning his head to look at Lu Jian.It happened that Lu Jian also turned his head around.

The two couldn't help but looked at each other and smiled.

At that moment, K suddenly felt a little strange.

His nerves, which had been highly tense, suddenly felt tired and soft. For the first time, he noticed the layers of clouds in the distant mountains, and the fine dust in the meeting room bathed in golden sunlight.

He remembered that he had followed his father's expeditionary army to Paris when he was young, and he saw the eyes of Mona Lisa for the first time in the world-renowned art palace in the center of the city.

His father was standing behind him and asked him if he was interested in taking this famous painting that conquered the world back to his home. He just shook his head coldly. In addition to the flood of emotions of usefulness, it is not as practical as the effect that a bullet can bring to the army.

That was something that had nothing to do with his dream.

But now, he saw another world from the gaze of the other two.

Unlike the long space-time flooded with metallic luster that he had experienced before, that world was rose-colored.

In that world, communication doesn't even require words.

K felt himself in a trance for a moment, but it was only for a moment.

Soon, he seemed to think of something—he had seen Lin Xin look at Lu Jian before.

He has been immersed in life and death too many times, and his vicious and sharp eyes quickly found a fragile gap in that rose-colored world.

He was keenly aware that if the gap was torn open, the world would no longer only be soft and bright.

K cleared his throat and slowed down his speech: "Lieutenant Colonel Lu Jian, I have something else I want to ask you." His smile crept up to the corner of his mouth gently: "When did you start to regain consciousness? I don't know. Thinking that you can lie to me for so long under my nose... At least before the last negotiation, you were very happy to have such a strong opponent as Major Lin Xin."

Lu Jian narrowed his eyes and didn't answer.

K's smile deepened, and he lowered his voice and leaned closer: "It's really...to my surprise, I always thought that you would not use that sniper as a bargaining chip. In the end, you were really willing to send him to your door, let him Our comprehensive monitoring has achieved trust in Sign, and finally promoted the upgrading process of the entire combat artificial intelligence..."

"It was just an accident." Lin Xin's voice trembled slightly: "I never thought he would come here alone..."

In fact, it's not that he didn't make the kind of plan described by K, and even in the previous negotiation, he had come here with this purpose in mind.Especially after reaching a tacit understanding with Lu Jian, after pretending to betray him and leaving, he had a thousand ways to lure Lin Cheng into the opponent's jaws.

But in the end he didn't say anything.

I just remembered that Lin Cheng was squatting beside his bed, feeding him medicine one mouthful at a time.

The water was too hot, so the other party blew it very carefully.He felt tired. On the one hand, he was concerned about the complex and huge plan that was about to be implemented. On the other hand, he was also worried about the various possibilities that Lu Jian would face when he went back.

He covered his eyes a little irritably and said, Lin Cheng, go back to sleep and let me be quiet for a while.

Then he felt that the other party hesitated, stepped forward and hugged his shoulder, and whispered in his ear, Lin Xin, don't be sad, the captain will not be what you think, he will not lie to you.

At that time, he was a little surprised. He didn't know why this artificial intelligence had such great confidence.He suddenly realized that their heartbeat rhythms were surprisingly similar that night, maybe they were both thinking the same thing.

The artificial intelligence's lips were soft, and he finally fell asleep quietly in the other's gentle breathing.

Later, when the news came that the combat artificial intelligence had been upgraded, he should have activated the amplitude meter immediately.

He knew that it was an irreversible process, once the instrument was turned on, it would affect all artificial intelligence.

Inexplicable worries made him wait for more than thirty hours.

And the cost of these thirty hours was the dead bodies of thousands of soldiers.

In the end, on the day when the amplitude meter was officially activated, he stood in the deepest night of the day, feeling bone-chillingly cold.He felt as if he had returned to the day when he heard that Lu Jian had completely disappeared when he was still at the base of the DC team.

It's just that at that time, there was still a slight hope for everything, but this time, he was able to clearly see the end of Lin Cheng.

K took one last look at the armistice agreement spread out in front of him, then slowly pushed it away and stood up.

"Two, my father once told me that as long as the earth is not destroyed, everything is not over. Victory or defeat is only temporary. Only war is the eternal accelerator that pushes the world forward."

He smiled mysteriously, his pupils were astonishingly gloomy: "I will not sign this armistice agreement, because for me personally, there is only death in battle, not defeat..."

His voice became a little hoarse here, and black blood slowly seeped out from the corner of his mouth.

"Lieutenant Colonel, how does that artificial intelligence taste?" The voice of breathing had already begun to choke, but K finally moved to Lu Jian's ear: "Suicide by poisoning is a great shame for soldiers, but... I Will be back again..."

K's body fell straight down in the lingering sound of the sentence, all exposed skin turned black and blue, looking a little scary under the silent sky light.

Lin Xin's gaze stayed on the corpse for a while, then he sighed softly.

Then he turned around and hugged Lu Jian tightly.

It was obviously a nearly perfect warm moment, but there was always something choked up and made it hard for him to breathe

"How is Lin Cheng..." Lin Xin asked softly.

"I put him in a coma for a while, and staggered the time when the amplitude meter vibrates the most, he should be waking up now..." Lu Jian's voice slowly paused: "Lin Xin, is there a way to prevent him from self-destructing? "

Lin Xin shook her head: "You know, once the device is turned on, the whole process is irreversible. To prevent him from self-destructing, he can only temporarily take out the Sign in his brain cavity, but..."

"But what?"

"Once the Sign is taken out, all his memories except the original settings will disappear...he will change back to 41, an artificial intelligence that can be copied at any time..."

When he said this, he gently broke away from Lu Jian's hug and raised his head.

In the sky outside the window, the setting sun sinking in the sea of ​​clouds seemed to be melted, and the blood of the sun diffused in the sea of ​​clouds and the sky, reflecting a large piece of magnificent blood red.

"This is the sunset of artificial intelligence..." Two lines of hot tears slowly rolled down Lin Xin's cheeks: "Nothing can be spared."