Chapter 11 – Adam (6)

Zhang Xun was just thinking about how to convince his father when he felt his sleeve being pulled from behind and he felt Adam's accelerated breathing falling on the back of his neck. Evidently, facing hostile other male humans holding weapons was triggering his body's instinctive fear response, so he became tense and subconsciously sought the reassurance of the person he trusted most.

Zhang Xun involuntarily puffed out his chest and tried to "protect" the man behind him who was half a head taller than him. He met his father's stern gaze and asked, "If we don't let Adam try, can we survive tonight?"

Zhang Shuo didn't speak. There was no expression on his face, making it impossible to read his true thoughts. Michael added fuel to the fire next to him, "If Eden controls our protection system, we'll really be finished! These artificial intelligence are so cunning and dangerous, can a single human like you control it?! You've always been a technophile, have you been brainwashed by Eden?"

Technophile, a special term in Lost Paradise, aimed at people who had favourable opinions (or not enough disgust) for artificial intelligence. This was a word with serious moral stigma. Once accused, you would be regarded as a heretic by mainstream extremists and might even be regarded as a possible spy by the "Round Table", the decision-making body of Lost Paradise. It was undoubtedly an extremely vicious accusation that Michael would use this label to refer to him.

Anger was smouldering in Zhang Xun's eyes, but he still restrained himself and said with a sharp, somewhat sarcastic sneer, "Putting hats on people is probably the only thing a brainless brute like you is good at. Adam has been downloaded! He doesn't have an unlimited network interface and he can't communicate with other Eden servers. Once the connection is disconnected, he's just like an ordinary human, it's impossible for him to control our system. Our system is completely closed. In order to prevent Eden from taking advantage, all the barrier transmitters are controlled by primitive underground cables, so it is completely impossible for Adam to communicate with Eden and he can only connect to the system himself. Your worries reveal your ignorance."

"Enough!" Zhang Shuo scolded Zhang Xun, "Where were you when Michael was fighting bravely on the front line? You should respect him!"

Zhang Xun gritted his teeth, stopped talking and lowered his eyes, like a hermit crab that had just exposed its claws had retracted into its shell. But his eyes gave away his disapproval.

"I'll give you ten minutes." Zhang Shuo looked at Adam who had been silent and looked around nervously. No one had seen Adam since his descent and he had only read the report Zhang Xun gave him and seen the photos. Seeing the real person, he had a subtle sense of...discordance.

He was unable to connect the terror and omnipotence of Eden with the timid young man in front of him. His fear of Eden was inexplicably reduced.

Michael's smug smile froze on his face and he looked at the Officer in disbelief.

Zhang Xun immediately turned around and squeezed Adam's shoulder, "Is ten minutes enough?"

Adam said, "Yes."

Zhang Xun stopped wasting time, took out the medical gloves in the toolbox and put them on. He made Adam sit down then he took out a small pair of tweezers from the toolbox, stood behind Adam and began to carefully peel something. Michael showed a disgusted expression as he watched Zhang Xun peel off Adam's short-haired scalp to the sides, revealing a metal skull with some blood stains underneath. After removing a few millet-sized screws with a fine screwdriver, Zhang Xun removed a piece of metal, revealing the human hind brain lobe and cerebellum soaked in some kind of pale yellow liquid. This was where Adam's central system and database were located. Numerous densely packed nerve wires installed by nano-robots perfectly combined machinery and flesh. Below the fleshy brain there was also a small interface area, so that Zhang Xun would be able to examine Adam's central system.

Immediately afterwards, Zhang Xun took out more cable grabbers, unplugged all the shield transmitter cables connected to the computer, quickly connected them to the converter and then connected the converter to his own special computer made to transmit Adam's system and data, then another wire was used to connect Adam's brain to the computer. He didn't stop for a second, he opened a program and quickly typed a string of dense and complex codes in the command box. His fingers typed rapidly, like some kind of intelligent and magical dance.

Zhang Shuo also rarely had the opportunity to see how his son works. There was a hint of surprise when he saw his series of movements that didn't even pause for a second. He knew his son was the best mechanic in Lost Paradise, but as a person who despised computers, he never felt proud of him. He could accept that they can't live without computers, but didn't want his son to have anything to do with them.

"The backup engine of the launcher should have already started. Adam, you can go in." Zhang Xun raised his head and looked at Adam's grey-blue eyes with concentration.

Adam, who had several black pipelines connected to his head, looked at his mechanic and his eyes flashed with eagerness. Then, his gaze suddenly solidified, subtly completing the transition from living to vacant.

Adam's consciousness has radiated from his human body into every shield launcher throughout Eden.

After a moment of silence, Adam suddenly opened his mouth and said in a calm voice that lacked emotion, "Most of the shield transmitters are in good condition, there is a shield transmitter near the A30 area with hardware damage and the underground line in the A27 area was bombed. It is broken and I can fill its vacancy by calling the shields in other areas. In addition, there are several bugs in the tracking system, which may cause a small amount of prediction bias and I have fixed them."

As he spoke, the shield transmitters in every area of ​​Lost Paradise that had been sleeping due to the electromagnetic pulses, suddenly lit up with a faint blue light at the same time, like the ghosts of the dead standing up simultaneously in the dark night. When the next wave of airstrikes came, everyone was surprised to see the beautiful golden flashes rippling in the air once again.

The shield is working again!

The coalition forces immediately received Eden's order: focus on attacking areas A30 and A27 and drop electromagnetic bombs again.

However, when a torrential rain of bombs fell towards the two areas damaged by the launcher, a bizarre situation occurred. Several shield launchers in the adjacent area adjusted the angle and the ripples, caused by the reverse force released, overlapped just enough to cover the two holes and repel the power of the bomb.

Such an accurate calculation was impossible for this outdated shield system itself. Eden knew right away that it was "its own" masterpiece's doing.

At the same time, the mecha team that had already entered Lost Paradise found that they could not get out.

In addition to the shield launcher, the microwave mesh system included in the Lost Paradise protection system was apparently activated and anyone who tried to step outside the border suffered severe burns and their entire body began to dissolve. Teams that hadn't yet entered from the outside couldn't enter. The guards began to fire wildly at the enemy, each side's mechas crushed and cut each other and the artillery fire dyed the tree leaves into daylight. Most of the enemy mechas were unmanned, but there were obviously people in two of them and the guards became more and more crazy, probably trying to capture the women inside.

The heavy laser cannons that were deployed around the barrier and had also been affected by the microwave bombs, also began to fire at the coalition forces. The original semi-automatic weapons had been transformed by the mechanics in Lost Paradise to become defensive weapons with excellent identification and positioning capabilities. Every time, the muzzle would aim precisely at the central system of the drone or where the cab is. The coalition forces led by the U.S. military were helpless against the barrier. They had put themselves right in the middle of the firing range and it was like a one-sided massacre.

The army outside was unable to advance for a long time, which only increased casualties. After a while, Eden gave the order to "retreat".

Most of the unmanned mecha began to retreat immediately and only a few manned ones still fired at the shield, but there was no way through and their comrades had been trapped on the other side of the shield forever.

Seeing that her own army had begun to retreat, a female soldier activated the self-destruct function in desperation and the guards suffered heavy casualties. The other unmanned mechas also began to explode, but since everyone was well prepared, most of them avoided it. Only in that one case, because the men in the guard were eager to grab a prisoner, they were too close, so most of them were blown up into nothing, just flesh and blood flying through the air.

The other was surrounded by four Lost Paradise mechas and was about to become a prisoner. Suddenly, a nearby shield launcher turned quietly, aimed at the mecha of the only remaining female soldier and fired.

The force from the powerful impact immediately sent the mecha flying, hitting the microwave network on the border and instantly melted both the person and the mecha.

Seeing that the prisoner they were about to capture had suddenly disappeared, many men in the defence force roared in frustration like wild beasts that had lost their prey and cursed loudly. However it was too late, before the joy of victory could rise, it was washed away by an angry roar.

In the headquarters, Adam just said lightly, "Eden has retreated."

Not long after he finished speaking, some soldiers shouted excitedly, "We won! We won!" They rushed in to report to Zhang Shuo.

When Zhang Xun listened, he let out a long breath and turned to look at Adam with a smile in his eyes. He said, "Now I'm going to unplug you."

He typed some code on his computer and unplugged the back of Adam's head. The grey-blue eyes gradually became clear again. Adam slowly blinked his eyes, then looked at Zhang Xun and grinned proudly.

Almost like he was...waiting for praise?

Zhang Xun showed a faint smile, "You did a good job."

He raised his head, but saw Michael staring at them with a terrifying look full of malice and hatred.