I thought Hamilton would give a detailed explanation, but the other party just shook his head and replied with three words neatly.
"Not sure."
"This..." Ji Donghai and others were speechless.
Seeing the astonishment on everyone's faces, Hamilton swallowed the last piece of lean meat and added.
"The optical brain just gave the calculation results. If Jiayi goes to the Siming Mountain shelter, the Minkowski units will decline hugely."
"I see……"
Several people murmured, with a look of surprise on their faces, obviously knowing this slightly unfamiliar term in Hamilton's mouth.
"But, but old man! I want to go to the Siming Mountain Refuge. I want to find him!"
Sun Jiayi bit her lip, her face full of resistance.
She finally learned from Zhang Jike that Zhang Ning was still alive, and that there was a high chance that she would meet him at the Siming Mountain Refuge. But now she was told that she could not go there, which made her feel so happy.
"You're going to die. I won't allow that to happen."
Hamilton's expressionless face showed determination. He could accommodate the girl on other matters, but as long as danger was involved, he would only act according to the calculation results given by the optical brain.
Without exception.
"...Since the optical brain has given the calculation results, Jiayi, you should listen to the old man."
Ma Long thought for a moment and then advised him as well.
Although he had doubts about the identity of Hamilton, the bionic man, at the beginning, after getting along with him for a month, these doubts had long disappeared.
Although it is difficult to accept, the fact is right in front of us. The old man cannot be a technological creation that can be produced in this era.
So after the logic is smooth, the remaining trust becomes logical.
"But, but..."
The girl wanted to say something more, but tears had already blurred her eyes. As soon as she opened her mouth, big teardrops fell to the ground.
"You know Jiayi, the highest priority of the escort mission is engraved in the optical brain program. This is my innate mission and cannot be violated."
Sighing softly, Hamilton patted the girl's back comfortingly.
"Tomorrow I will restart the thermal power station and calculate it with the highest calculation rate."
"Yeah, maybe the calculation results given by the optical brain will be different tomorrow. After all, everything is constantly changing, isn't it..." Throwing the branches that had eaten all the meat into the fire , Ji Donghai wiped his greasy mouth and said smoothly.
Unexpectedly, Hamilton did not continue what the man said, but said in a serious 'science popularization' manner.
"For things that have already formed a development trend, the probability of a turning point is very small."
Hearing this, Sun Jiayi, who was already depressed, buried her head in her arms, as if she didn't want to see Hamilton's black face again.
"However, there is no need to write a story whose ending can often be guessed at a glance, right?"
Lao Zhang squinted his eyes, as if he had taken over Hamilton's words, or as if he was just talking to himself in front of the bonfire.
"What's happening around us is not a story." The black man raised his eyebrows and slid the sunglasses on his nose down a little, saying meaningfully.
"Well, that's right, it's not a script that has already been written."
Nodding slightly, Lao Zhang did not look at Hamilton, but stretched out his left hand and gently put it on Sun Jiayi's shoulder.
"Don't worry, we will meet each other if we are destined. Before that, we should follow the old man's advice and ensure our own safety first. If we meet Zhang Ning in the Siming Mountain Refuge, we will tell him that you are still alive, and there is someone to protect you. Safety."
"real?!"
The girl raised her head suddenly and asked with a pair of red eyes.
"Of course it's true. We and that kid can be considered 'comrades' who have lived and died together. Don't you think so, Xiaoma?"
While talking, Lao Zhang nudged Ma Long next to him with his elbow.
"Haha, Lao Zhang is right. When we first met in Lanyue Garden Community, Zhang Ning left a deep impression on us..."
The young soldier laughed and looked into the distance, as if he had thought of something interesting.
"At that time, he...hey!"
When Ma Long was about to retell the scene to the girl, he suddenly felt the flesh on his waist being pinched hard, and he let out a cry of pain.
"Lao Zhang, you!"
Ma Long, who looked suspicious, was about to ask Lao Zhang for an explanation, but he was beaten to the punch, "I just saw a fart bug on your lower back, and I strangled it to death. Don't say thank you, we are all old comrades..." "
Ma Long was stunned when he heard the words, and immediately understood, he immediately stopped talking and stopped talking.
It's just that Ji Donghai on the side reacted more slowly and picked up the dropped topic again.
"Hey, Brother Ma, keep talking. What deep impression did Zhang Ning leave on you?"
Ma Long first glanced at Jidonghai, then took a peek at Zhang Jike, and pretended to be mute very obediently.
"Brother Ma, why don't you speak, Brother Ma?"
I don't know if roasted pig eggs can really lower the emotional intelligence value. Ji Donghai didn't see the strangeness at the first time and continued to ask like a curious baby.
"The deep impression that left on us at the time was that that boy talked too much. Just like you, he kept babbling..."
Zhang Jike cast a sidelong glance at Jidonghai as if nothing at all, and there was a hint of coldness in his slightly narrowed eyes.
"Uh...that's it, haha, that's it..."
No matter how slow Xiaoshi Jidonghai was, he understood clearly under the hint of this eye strike. A slightly embarrassed smile immediately appeared on his face, and he chuckled twice.
Fortunately, Sun Jiayi did not realize the deep meaning in the conversation between several people. When she heard Zhang Jike's description of Zhang Ning, she immediately burst into laughter.
"Indeed, he is always talkative. He talks endlessly every day. He must have caused you a lot of trouble at that time..."
Ma Long coughed lightly, "On the contrary, he helped us a lot..."
"Don't worry, live well, and when the disaster passes, you will eventually meet again..."
Zhang Jike stood up from the ground and stretched a lot.
"It's getting late. I have to get up early tomorrow and rush on my way. I'll go to bed first."
Before he even finished speaking, the middle-aged soldier stretched out his right hand and pinched the back of Jidonghai's neck.
Then, like lifting a chicken, the tall and strong man from the iron tower was easily lifted up.
"Let's go to sleep together. You help me stay awake for half the night, and I'll help you stay awake for the rest of the night..."
"But it's only seven o'clock now, it's still very early..."
"You said in the afternoon that I was coffin flesh, so why don't you go to bed early?"
"It's obviously Captain Zhang who said it yourself..."
"Um?"
"..."
In the swaying of the flames, the two people gradually moved away until they disappeared into the darkness.
A night of silence.
Early the next morning, when most of the survivors in the settlement were still asleep, several figures had been standing at the door of the thermal power plant for a long time.
It was none other than the three people from Ji Donghai who were preparing to leave, as well as Hamilton and Sun Jiayi who came to see them off.
"Be careful on the road."
Putting a bag of dried pork into Jidonghai's arms, Sun Jiayi spoke.
"Don't worry, as long as I'm here, Captain Zhang and Brother Ma will be fine."
Jidonghai, who planned to open a dyeing workshop after getting some color, smiled, his face full of confidence.
Zhang Jike and Ma Long looked at him speechlessly and did not speak.
"After arriving at the shelter, take some time to recuperate, and don't rush to take on the mission."
Hamilton, who was standing behind Sun Jiayi, suddenly spoke and said something incoherently.
"oh?"
The three people who were about to get in the car stopped and turned their heads curiously.
"Old man, did you just make a divination for the three of us?" Ji Donghai asked in a joking tone with a shy face.
He knew that Hamilton had a technological creation in his body that was far ahead of this era - a third-generation optical brain, so usually everyone would listen to this bionic man's words as an accurate prophecy.
"Not really." Hamilton's face was expressionless, obviously hearing the joke in Jidonghai's words.
I saw him slowly extending his index finger and tapping his head slightly stiffly.
"Think with your brain. What you taught me yesterday, that sentence just now, is just a product of the formation of part of the brain tissue in my skull."
Jidonghai looked surprised, then gave the old man a thumbs up.
"You learn really fast. I believe it won't be long before you become a real person."
Perhaps it was the overly unrestrained smile on Ji Donghai's face that irritated Sun Jiayi, causing the girl, who was still worried a second ago, to immediately change her face, thrusting her waist into her waist and feeling uncomfortable.
"Big stupid pig, this old man is a human being of flesh and blood! If you keep talking nonsense, I won't let you eat the dried meat!"
"Hey, okay, okay, don't tell me, thank you for the dried meat..."
Raising the bag in his hand, Ji Donghai opened the car door and got in first.
"Then let's go." Zhang and Ma nodded at Hamilton and got into the car.
Facing the morning sun, the car engine started and drove slowly towards the main road.
Sun Jiayi waved her hands desperately in the direction of the car until she could no longer see it, then reluctantly put it down.
Sighing slightly, disappointment appeared on the girl's face. After a long silence, she asked reluctantly.
"Old man, are we really not going to the Siming Mountain shelter?"
"Well, I can't go." Hamilton didn't look at the girl, still looking ahead.
"Is it just because the optical brain calculated that my Minkowski units will decline by a huge amount?"
"Yes, but not entirely."
This time, the black man lowered his head and glanced lightly at the girl beside him.
"Then what's the other reason?" Sun Jiayi was curious as to why the old man's statement was different from last night.
In the face of her questions, Hamilton remained silent and seemed to have no intention of telling the truth.
Seeing the other party's performance, Sun Jiayi's face suddenly darkened. She unconsciously raised her voice and asked again in an almost harsh tone.
"Hamilton! As your escort target, I order you to tell me the truth!"
As soon as these words came out, a twitch could be seen on the black man's body, and then he turned his head blankly and responded mechanically.
"The results of optical brain calculations show that not only the Minkovsky units guarding the target Sun Jiayi have declined significantly, but also the other Minkowski units that are potentially close to the target have declined..."
"What?!"
The girl's eyes widened and she looked at the man in front of her in disbelief.
"In other words, Uncle Zhang and the others were right in their guess last night. Not only was my life in danger, but something happened near the Siming Mountain Refuge!"
"Yes, I lied."
At this time, Hamilton's eyes had recovered and he apologized slightly to Sun Jiayi.
"No! I'm going to tell them!"
Anxiety appeared on the girl's brows. If Hamilton hadn't been pulling him, she would have chased him along the road.
"It's too late, they've already gone far, and with your running speed, it's impossible to catch up."
"You obviously knew it, why didn't you tell them in advance!"
After struggling for a while, Sun Jiayi half-knelt on the ground, her voice choked with sobs.
"They will die! All because you didn't warn them! It could have been avoided, you know what could have been avoided!!"
At the end of the story, the girl became hysterical. Her voice was loud, but there was no deterrence at all.
On the contrary, in such a hoarse shouting, her weakness was highlighted even more.
"According to the first of the Three Laws of Robotics, I cannot witness the danger to an individual human being and remain inactive;"
"However, the disclosure of key information greatly affects the development trend of the incident. After analysis, it is not conducive to completing the escort mission."
"To sum up, in order to meet the first priority mission, I chose to abandon some human lives."
Hamilton's face remained expressionless, like a cold-blooded machine, and he spoke calmly.
Hearing this, the girl completely knelt on the ground, and her whole body felt as if her strength had been drained away in an instant.
"You shouldn't be like this, old man..."
"My highest priority is you. Other lives will just have to take their own course. This is what is meant to be."
"Including Zhang Ning?!"
Raising her head in disbelief, Sun Jiayi looked at Hamilton like a stranger.
This time the black man did not answer immediately. He met the girl's gaze in silence for a long time, and finally nodded slowly.
"Including Zhang Ning."
"You bastard!!"
Sun Jiayi suddenly stood up from the ground, raised her fist, and hit the man's chest randomly.
The latter did not dodge or dodge, letting the weak fists fall sporadically.
After fighting for a while, perhaps because she felt that her attack had no effect, the girl wiped away her tears bitterly, turned around and walked towards the thermal power plant.
Hamilton tilted his head and followed silently.
Silent all the way, Sun Jiayi soon arrived at their temporary residence and began to pack food and water.
"What do you want to do?" Hamilton stood at the door and asked in confusion.
"I'm going to save them! I'm going to the Siming Mountain shelter!"
"You can't drive."
"I'll walk!"
"There will be many dangers on the road, and your probability of death will skyrocket."
"Then just die. Living alone in this terrible world is not fun!"
After saying a cold word, Sun Jiayi started packing her luggage, as if she would never speak to Hamilton again.
After that, the old man tried to persuade him a few more times, but received no response from the girl. It seemed that in Sun Jiayi's eyes, he had become an almost transparent existence. Except for bypassing necessary paths, Sun Jiayi almost no longer looked at him seriously. .
In the end, Hamilton seemed to give in and sighed heavily.
"If you really want to go, it's not impossible."
Hearing this, the girl finally stopped moving and looked over with a pair of red eyes, aggrieved.
"You're not lying to me?"
"I'm not going to lie to you, but to keep you safe, I have to do another full power calculation."
Hamilton made the final compromise, which was also the result of the confrontation between his 'humanity' and 'calculation'.
After all, if he had completely followed the guidance given by the optical brain, it would have been impossible for him to take Sun Jiayi to the Siming Mountain shelter.
Machines can stay sane forever, but humans can’t.
"Okay, let's hurry up!"
Not in a hurry to pack up the things in her hands, Sun Jiayi stepped forward and hugged Hamilton's arm.
"Hurry up to the steam turbine to charge it, and then turn on full power calculation..."
The rising sun climbed over the hills, indicating that a new day had begun. The breeze blew through the town, bringing with it a patch of slightly hot sand.
After hours of work, Hamilton adjusted all the power generation equipment, the steam turbine started running, and his hands were holding the cable, ready to insert it into his chest to power the optical brain.
However, at this juncture, there was a rush of footsteps outside the factory!
"Chief, chief, it's not good, it's not good!"
Hamilton, who was about to plug in the cable, frowned and cast his gaze into the distance.
The person who came was the woman who brought the wild vegetables last night. She was in her thirties, with an average appearance but a hot figure.
"What happened."
Hamilton put aside the cable in his hand temporarily and asked.
Although he does not admit that he is the leader of the temporary settlement, but adhering to the three laws of robots engraved in the optical brain, he cannot watch human beings being endangered and do nothing.
As long as it does not conflict with the escort mission, he will still try his best to protect the safety of those around him.
"A strange man came. He claimed to be looking for his parents and wanted to enter the residential area behind the thermal power plant!"
The woman was out of breath, but she still managed to describe what happened.
"You want to enter the residential area behind the thermal power plant? Didn't you tell him about the dangers there?"
"We said it! But he just didn't listen. Seeing that we wouldn't stop him, he started to force his way in!"
"Forcibly breaking in? Isn't he afraid of death..."
Sun Jiayi blinked, seemingly puzzled by the strange man's behavior.
"Perhaps his mood is exactly the same as yours now."
Hamilton glanced at the girl next to him with a complicated expression and said.
"Take me to see it."
"Hey, don't you want to recharge?"
Seeing that Hamilton was already walking out with the woman, Sun Jiayi immediately reacted and followed her at a trot.
"Let's wait until this matter is dealt with to avoid causing unnecessary complications."
Hamilton frowned. Obviously, he had not improved the calculation rate of his optical brain at all. It was still part of the brain tissue in the cranial cavity that controlled the behavior.
This is also the behavior pattern he has learned in the past month. After all, using the optical brain requires energy, but using brain tissue to think, the biological energy supply in the body is completely sufficient.
The three of them soon arrived at the entrance of the power plant, and from a distance they saw a large group of survivors huddled together in a noisy manner.
Although it's not a group fight, it looks pretty much the same.
Everyone was working in one direction to stop the uninvited guest in the center of the crowd.
During this period, there were constant shouts from survivors, either anxious or worried, or angry.
"I told you that there is no one alive there, why don't you, a young man, just not listen to me?"
"There is a monster in the building, you will definitely die if you go there!"
"I understand your eagerness, but your parents are really not in the building. It's useless if you go there. You will only lose your life in vain..."
"Stop talking nonsense with him, just knock him out and tie him up! If we really let him enter that building, if those monsters go crazy, we will all die!!"
"Yes, yes, yes, knock him unconscious. You must not let him enter the building. If you don't want to live, we still want to live! Don't drag us into the water..."
I don't know who noticed Hamilton's arrival and roared.
"The leader is here!"
"The leader...the leader is here..."
The crowd that had been noisy before immediately stopped making noise, and everyone consciously stepped aside.
The crowd dispersed, revealing a thin young man among them.
At this time, he was curled up on the ground, and it seemed that he had been 'served' by the survivors' fists and feet.
But despite this, he still had unchangeable stubbornness in his eyes as he struggled to crawl towards the residential building.
Taking two steps forward, Hamilton was half-kneeling, blocking the man's crawling path.
"There are no living people in the residential building. It will be in danger if you go there."
Hamilton's tone was flat.
"You are lying, you are lying!! My parents are there, I want to find them, I want to find them!"
The young man raised his head, and bruises appeared on his thin face.
I don't know if he was beaten by the gang of survivors or if he did it himself on the way here.
Because Hamilton found that the man's clothes were also in tatters, especially the hands and feet, which had been broken into strips of cloth, completely losing the function of the clothes.
Even the most down-and-out homeless person will show a certain degree of sympathy when they meet him.
Moreover, the man's skin was also covered in scars. It was obvious that his journey was not easy.
But what made Hamilton curious was that this man, who had turned into such a ghostly appearance, could still reach Yunlong Town alive, and could still pass through the town safely and arrive at the thermal power station to the west.
Simply a miracle!
Resisting the idea of using his optical brain, Hamilton continued to speak calmly.
"I'm not lying to you. Although it's hard to accept, your parents are really not in the building. If you force your way in, you might kill everyone here."
As soon as he finished speaking, there was a chorus of responses from around him.
"Yes, yes, your parents must not be in the building..."
"If you piss off the monster inside, you will kill us all..."
"My condolences, young man..."
