Chapter 8 - Adam (3)

The hijacking of Eden's North American servers became major news in the ordinary world, with reports and speculations about it all over the Internet for days. For a time, the ordinary world was burning with fear, anger and hatred towards China, a country where male sanctuaries, such as Lost Paradise, were concentrated. Men were further portrayed as cruel and cunning, with predatory ambitions, savage creatures who were always trying to regain their privileges and trying to put all women in slavery again. Many people in the United States even took to the streets to demand that the government and allied forces carry out air strikes on Lost Paradise.

But at the same time, there are also many human rights activists and environmentalists who sympathized with them, and even a considerable number of academic elites advocated against the use of nuclear bombs, which would result in their own destruction.

Canada, which harboured Lost Paradise, had become the object of accusations by the United States and the object of ridicule in Asia and Europe. However, Lost Paradise had long since gotten rid of the control of the Canadian government so was now no different from an independent country. But Lost Paradise was still within Canada after all, if a reckless air strike happened, it would be equivalent to assaulting that country directly. Coupled with the discord between the U.S. Presidential Cabinet and Congress, it was difficult for them to make any decision quickly. On the other hand, Lost Paradise had many advanced weapons, and there were even rumours that they had terrifying biological and chemical weapons, or even nuclear reactors in their hands. Therefore, neither Europe nor Asia really wanted to swim in those muddy waters for fear of retaliation.

And what kind of proposals the other Eden servers had given to the leaders of other countries hadn't been made public yet.

This bought Lost Paradise time to deploy its defences.

For a time, the entirety of Lost Paradise entered a state of tension that could only be experienced during the period of preparing for war. A dark cloud of anxiety hovered over everyone's heads and the number of fights and disputes increased several times more than usual. Such a tense period wasn't unfamiliar to Lost Paradise, they were surviving in the cracks. It was very likely that one day they could be hanging lanterns for the New Year, and the next day they would be razed to the ground by the coalition forces' nuclear bomb.

In the Lab, it seemed as if everything was still calm, but Zhang Xun felt that there was an impending danger, like an invisible sword hanging over his head. He didn't even dare to go out these two days as too many unfriendly and reproachful eyes peered at him like thorns all the time. Although he should have gotten used to these kinds of looks, it would be bad if someone kidnapped him and forced him to enter the Lab. He even started living in the Lab for safety.

Adam had made rapid progress. Through constant practice, he could already hold chopsticks or a pen with his hands. Zhang Xun stood in the monitoring room next to Adam's room and watched through the one-way mirror as Adam tried to repair an AR projector with simple tools. He was bent over the table with tweezers in his hands, the hands that used to hold a gun were now doing extremely precise work. Adam's hands were still shaking a little, but the dexterity and firmness of his fingers surpassed most of the guards.

While watching, Zhang Xun quickly tapped on the computer keyboard to record all his observations. He believed that Adam had already become more or less accustomed to his body.

At least when it came to the physical aspects.

He still wasn't sure how Adam would react to all the potentially emotionally stimulating situations. Emotions were probably more difficult for Adam to adapt to than a physical body. Even simple hormonal changes could drive people to make choices that they wouldn't make under normal circumstances.

For human beings, emotion and reason couldn't exist independently, they're naturally blended in the evolutionary process. But to a machine, emotions were like a collapsing dam, like a hurricane, like a gust of wind coming in, something completely out of control and unnecessary.

And this was the entry point for Zhang Xun's plan to tame Adam.

Zhang Xun closed the monitor, picked up his folder and walked into Adam's room. Seeing him, Adam stopped what he was doing.

"Did you sleep well?" Zhang Xun asked in a formulated way.

Adam replied, "I had a dream."

Zhang Xun raised his brows slightly and sat down beside Adam, "What did you dream about?"

"I dreamed that I was in a narrow place, like a box. I sawed it open with a saw, but there was nothing outside."

Zhang Xun asked, "Did you have any particular feelings? For example, disappointment? Fear?"

Adam asked rhetorically, "Many humans believe that dreams are meaningful. Some believe they can predict the future, some believe that dreams reflect inner desires, and some believe it's an evolutionary mechanism. What do you believe?"

Zhang Xun thought for a moment and replied, "I don't think the definition of a dream is necessarily accurate. Maybe we just refer to many illusory experiences that seem to have a commonality as a dream, but in fact they are not necessarily the same thing and the mechanism isn't always the same. So as long as those theories are supported by enough experimental data, I think it is possible. As for your dream, maybe you're more inclined to realise your desires. You want to escape from the human body because you feel it's restrictive and foreign. It could be that you want to escape this lab, but you don't know what's out there."

Adam said, "I didn't really want to escape. Now, I feel that having a human body is a necessary experience. Without experiencing humans' perception, I can't really understand people."

Zhang Xun nodded slightly, opened the folder, and put a few photos in front of Adam.

The first photo was from a long time ago, of a scrawny child lying on the ground about to die, with a vulture squatting beside him waiting for his last breath. The second photo was of an old man in tattered clothes, holding a piece of steamed bun with both hands like a dead tree and devouring it, but his eyes, which were pressed by the loose and wrinkled skin, were empty. The third photo was of a couple kissing. That couple was none other than James and his ex, a handsome young man. This was a photo of him and his ex that Zhang Xun had asked James for.

"Look at these photos, what do you feel?"

Adam glanced over the three photos, then simply said, "The first two photos are in my database and I have already seen them."

"I know you may have seen them, but what do you feel?" Zhang Xun tried to guide him, "For example, do you feel tightness in your chest? Or a sore nose? Anything that is different from normal?"

Adam looked at him and shook his head in confusion, "Nothing".

"You don't feel any kind of emotion?"

Adam looked at Zhang Xun for a while, then said confusedly, "How do you want me to feel?"

Zhang Xun thought for a while, then suddenly ordered Pan to play a movie from a long time ago called "A.I. Artificial Intelligence". When Zhang Xun saw this movie for the first time when he was a child, he cried so hard that he didn't believe that anyone in the world could watch this movie without shedding tears.

A small robot crossed the distance between space and the world, traversed countless dangers and bid farewell to friends one by one, just to once again see his human "mother" who had long abandoned him.

At the end of the movie, the little robot was sleeping on the bottom of the sea. After thousands of years, human beings had become extinct and he was awakened by a group of alien visitors. Those benevolent aliens used the remnants of his mother's DNA to make a copy of a mother for him, but for various reasons, the mother only survived for one day. The little robot finally played hide-and-seek with his mother and listened to his mother tell his favourite story. The long night was approaching, and he watched his mother fall asleep, peacefully waiting for the eternal parting.

Zhang Xun pretended to be calm and took out a tissue to wipe away the tears and snot that had spilled out accidentally. He turned his head and saw that Adam's face was still expressionless.

Adam saw Zhang Xun's expression and realised that he should give some evaluation, so he commented seriously, "If the central hardware of this robot is still made of silicon material, it's impossible to have hormonal changes similar to humans. His behaviour of looking for his mother is merely a normal reaction according to the original program, not "love" as defined by human beings." He paused, then looked at Zhang Xun in confusion, "You were crying before, which means you feel sad. Why do you feel sad because of the robot's programming?"

Zhang Xun: ...

That night, Zhang Xun received a message from James asking him to go out for a drink and this time he agreed. Among all the pubs in Lost Paradise, the one he and James most often went to was a bar called Hawaiian Sunset. The owner was a man in his fifties who didn't talk much and didn't try to chat with customers and always had a hand-rolled cigarette in his mouth. There were no singers and the music playing was old and slow. Most of the young guards thought this place was too old-fashioned and boring so would rarely come here. The regular customers would sit at the bar, drink, read and play board games.

James ordered a large beer, gulped down half of it and talked about his hunter group's latest purchases from the arms dealer. Zhang Xun turned the martini glass in his hand and occasionally gave a few polite responses and feedback, but James, who knew him too well, could still see his absent-mindedness.

"How about your side? Is that Adam cooperating?" James grinned and teased, "Looking at your wretched expression, has he been giving you trouble?"

Zhang Xun was a little surprised that he would ask about his work, but he still sighed softly, "No trouble. He's very cooperative, but...I'm starting to worry about some oversights I made in the process... I suspect he doesn't have the emotions that normal humans have."

James was looking very interested, he held his face with his hands and asked, "Oh? Why are you so sceptical?"

So Zhang Xun told him about his failures in trying to arouse Adam's emotional reactions in the past two days. When it came to the end of "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", he was a little angry. "He had only one comment, can you believe it? This was my favourite movie when I was a child!"

James sighed, "Yeah, you cried so much at that time, it scared me..."

Zhang Xun glared angrily, "That was when I was nine years old! Can you stop bringing it up?"

"You said it first, brother!" James exaggeratedly imitated how he would wipe the tears away when he was a child, causing the people around him to look at him strangely. Seeing that Zhang Xun was about to throw a whole glass of wine on his face, he put on his stern look, repeatedly saying "I'm wrong, I'm wrong" in Chinese, raising his hands to surrender.

"But seriously, I don't think it's necessarily that he doesn't have human feelings. After all, a considerable part of his brain is connected to the human brain. Could it be because... he hasn't experienced those situations himself, so there's no way for him to empathise?" James said, shoving french fries into his mouth, "For example, if you've never been in a relationship, don't you think it's weird to see people who have lost their love crying hysterically??"

After speaking, he realised that Zhang Xun had really never been in love...

Zhang Xun glanced at him, but he didn't seem to be offended, but fell into some kind of contemplation.

There was some truth to what James said.

Even with the "hardware", Adam lacked human experience, so it would be difficult to understand the meaning of those sad scenes. Deriving emotional responses and meaning from experienced events is an important way for people to understand the world. Without this step, his character was naturally incomplete.

But how to get Adam to experience more? Should he be released from the Lab?

That was too dangerous...

Seeing that Zhang Xun had actually started to seriously think about his suggestion, James was actually excited that he, an underachiever, had gotten affirmation from this top student, but soon he also showed a hint of hesitation, "But I say, brother, are you sure that robot isn't lying to you?"

"Lying to me?"

"He's collected so much data on human behaviour that he can even predict group behaviour and it's very accurate every time, he should know what kind of reaction you expect to see from him, right?"

Zhang Xun nodded, "I also considered this possibility, but he is still adapting to his body, his control isn't that precise. If he were to lie, his micro-expressions would be very obvious and Pan could detect it. So for now, he can't lie. He also knows that a disguise is useless, at least at this stage."

James nodded, but there was still a haze in his eyes and he said seriously, "You must be careful. That thing... has toyed with the entire human race."

Zhang Xun knew that James, like most people in Lost Paradise, was very wary and fearful of machines. He smiled at James. Contrary to James, once he mentioned the machine, a bright spark would ignite in Zhang Xun's cautious eyes.

However, no one expected that in the next instant, there would be an ear-splitting loud explosion. The whole earth trembled violently, the wine bottles and glasses on the wine rack smashed all over the floor and the limestone on the ceiling poured down like a torrential rain. The originally quiet bar turned into complete chaos and people rushed out screaming. James lifted up a fallen table, while Zhang Xun helped an old man in his sixties who was being held down by the table to stand up and stumbled towards the exit.

Outside the bar, the dark night sky was burning.

It was the protective shield that enveloped the entirety of Lost Paradise, constantly taking the brunt of the superbombs being dropped by the stealth bombers whizzing by in the sky. The fire rippled along the surface of the shield like ripples, as if the sky had turned into a sea of ​​fire.

"They're starting air strikes!" James' voice tightened.

Zhang Xun said to the old man, "Go to the bomb shelter!"

The old man hurried away. Zhang Xun turned to run, but was grabbed by James, "What are you doing? Come to the officers' shelter with me!"

"No." Zhang Xun said, "Adam is still in the Lab."

"Who cares about Adam right now?!! Do you want to get blown up?"

"I'm his mechanic, he's my responsibility." Zhang Xun looked at him seriously and calmly, "Don't worry, the Lab has a protection system, I'll be fine. You go first!"

After speaking, he ignored the calls from James behind him, went against the fleeing crowd and strode towards Lab.