Ant colony

The Arctic aurora floats over the tundra.The solitary weather station stands at the end of the world like a small ship in a gray sea.

There was a man who lived alone in this civilized desert for 20 years.All mankind has heard of her, but no one really understands her.

Before the Brain Network was built, people's views on her were polarized and vacillating.Some people say that she has made great contributions to the realization of the brain network, while others say that she is the chief culprit of the "2000 turmoil" that caused 2145 million deaths.It wasn't until the Internet of Brain that the debates about potential and fire were calmed down.Because now everyone can accept an infinite number of radically different points of view at the same time without any sense of conflict.

I have a certain connection with her.I once felt β-Qiu's strong yearning for her, and also felt χ-Summer's attachment and admiration for her.Since I am responsible for storing the historical records of City 501 in 2137, I also feel a lot of memories of her from that era.But I still dare not say that I understand her, because she is one of the few people in the world who stubbornly refuses to join the brain network, and I cannot directly experience her thoughts and emotions.

I came to the Arctic Circle to persuade her to join the brain network and leave precious data for human beings before the body dies.

The door of the weather station opened.Under the dim light, there stood a gray-haired, shriveled old man with a gloomy and serious face, who looked like a grave keeper in the Middle Ages.I know, this is her.

She is much older than the image we remember.After all, she has not appeared in front of anyone for 20 years, and only relies on a drone to deliver daily necessities regularly.

I suddenly wanted to experience her loneliness, which must be an emotion stronger than all the loneliness in human memory.

"Are you a muon?" She looked at me, "Your blue eyes really look like your mother."

"Hello, Delta-Jou." I smiled back.Because I haven't spoken for a long time, my tongue feels very stiff.

"Come in and sit down." She led me into the small room.Although I know that this weather station was built in the twentieth century and has experienced countless wind and rain changes, but when I really walked inside, I was shocked by its antiquity.

The concrete walls are mottled and gray.The wooden table against the wall was scarred and engraved with Russian letters. It should be a relic of a Soviet weatherman in the twentieth century.I don't know how many people it has witnessed go crazy in isolation and loneliness.And now, there was nothing on the table, just some strangely shaped white debris scattered around.

I walked over and picked up a slice with my fingertips.

"Puzzle." The word flashed somewhere in the corner of his mind.Although I've never seen such an item myself, I may have come across it in someone's memory, so it entered mine as well.

"Puzzle... picture?" I struggled to say this unfamiliar word.

"Yes. Very interesting game." She came over and put a cup of steaming drink on the table, "Come on, drink something. I'm sorry I only have synthetic coffee here, I don't know if you have had it."

I sat down and held the warm mug in my hand.

She sat across from me and said, "Aren't you used to talking face-to-face with people? I know, this way of communication is too slow for you, after all, it can't be compared with direct transmission of consciousness."

"Why don't you use brain networking?"

"I don't like talking to people."

"But humanity needs your memory, it's part of history."

"Ha, history..." She laughed inexplicably, "I heard that you are responsible for storing history, right?"

"Yes, I am one of the 501 people responsible for storing the memories of City 2137 in 1000."

"That's a really good job for you. Your grandmother conceived your mother that year."

Grandmother, mother, these are all ethical words that have faded out of people's lives today.When all human beings are integrated, there will be no need for ethics as a link between people.If I want, I can understand a strange boy in South America as much as I understand the χ-Summer who gave birth to me.

"Beta-Autumn and χ-Summer, they both miss you very much right now. It's really a very strong miss. They often relive all the memories about you."

"They must still be bitter about me abandoning them to the North Pole."

"They really can't understand. Humanity can't understand. Why did you suddenly resign from the Global Management Council and choose to live in isolation?"

"I really hate humans."

"But many people look up to you."

"There are a lot of people who hate me. They say that my choice in the '501 Incident' led to a series of tragedies later. Alas, I don't know whether everything was right or wrong at the time-children, you like life now?"

"I like it. I saw the tragedies that people in the period of independent minds had because they couldn't understand each other, and I feel that human beings are really lucky now."

"You don't think it's a pity to lose your independent mind?"

"We have not lost our independent mind, but we are no longer bound by boundaries. Now everyone is both an individual and a whole. It is both the past and the future. Our time is circular, but our consciousness is infinite."

"Well, that's really unimaginable to me."

"Then join the brain network and experience it."

"Let's forget it. My old bones can't stand this kind of torture anymore."

She was really hard to convince, and I could only come up with a solution provided by collective wisdom.

"We know you have some memories about α-Han."

Mentioning the name α-han made me cry uncontrollably again.Although this great prophet, magician, and mother of the brain network cleared all his life records before the "May 501 Incident", in the one year from his arrest to his execution, he still inevitably left massive amounts of neural data.I have felt the data.Back then, those researchers who wanted to find out her "anti-humanity" motives tried every means to interpret the clues in her thinking.The excruciating pain, the gradual loss of dignity, reason, and finally consciousness, has left an indelible scare and sadness in my personal memory.Of course, it has also become a scar in the collective memory of mankind.

It is a pity that researchers have published thousands of papers and put forward various hypotheses, but in the end they have not found any convincing evidence. α-Han's reason for doing those things has become a historical mystery.

δ-rou handed me a piece of paper with a calm expression. "I only met her once, and I don't know her well."

"But a large proportion of α-Han's neural data is about you."

"This is impossible."

"It is true that Ikuro suspected that you were involved with her back then, but the system could not find any evidence; the Institute of Neuroengineering did not mention you at all in her interrogation records. But do you know why?"

"do not know."

"Through the research on the legacy architecture of the social management system in 2138, we found that she had modified the system algorithm so that her neural data was input into the system synchronously when it was recorded, and became a part of the system. And her interrogation records were made by According to the system analysis report, the system concealed all the content about you from the Global Management Council."

She remained unmoved.I know that for so many years, she must have been thinking hard about the reason why she was not arrested at that time. Maybe she guessed a little bit, or maybe she just pretended to be calm to cover up the shock in her heart.Alas, such is the abomination of the physical shell - it envelops our minds and makes us spend countless hours and energy reading each other until the brain network makes everyone's consciousness crystal clear.

I had no choice but to use words to test: "The system protected you. It can also be said that she protected you."

She gently clenched her skinny hands, and stared at the wall with cloudy eyes.After a long time, he let out a long sigh.

"What's the use of telling me this?"

I said: "All the data of the system has been integrated into the brain network. That is to say, she has also entered the brain network, and she may even be the first human being to enter the brain network. Although this is only a part of her, don't you want to Want to feel her presence again?"

Her hands trembled a little, but she still used an airtight shell to cover up her true emotions after all.

"I don't want to. Let me tell you, we did have a relationship, but I would like to forget all about her."

"It seems that you still hate her. It's a pity that love is easily eliminated by nerve drugs, but hatred is difficult. What you oppose will eventually be integrated into your mind; and the object of your hatred will eventually be integrated into your soul. You want to refuse This kind of data entry, but there is no way to do it. You must have suffered for a long time for this?"

She became angry as expected: "Little devil, if you talk nonsense again, I will issue an order to evict the guest!"

"I'm sorry, but I just want to remind you that there is actually a way to relieve pain. As long as you truly experience all other people's feelings, thoughts, and memories, you will understand others as you understand yourself, and it will be impossible to hate them. This is actually It has long been predicted in the calculation results of the '501 Incident', you should understand."

"Enough, I don't want to experience her last..." She finally couldn't control herself and turned her face away.

"Few people want to experience this again, the data has been sealed in the crowd mind to prevent accidental contact. But you should really feel her feelings for you. If you know, how much time she has spent in her short life Come to know you, maybe you will forgive her."

She fell silent.Then told me she had to think again and give me an answer tomorrow.

In this wilderness, I can't connect to the brain network, I can't report the situation to the group mind, I can only make some short records in my own consciousness, and then let my body go to sleep.

When I woke up, it was still dark outside, with a snowstorm blowing.And she was gone.

Later, we found her frozen body on the tundra.

The collective minds of all mankind were shaken.Doubt, surprise, regret, these emotions are like tsunamis after waves, howling and boiling in the collective consciousness.No one blames me, because everyone can feel my helplessness and sadness.People were just actively looking for an explanation for this incident, and in an instant, 1532 million conjectures flooded into my mind from every corner of the world.

Some people thought it was just an accident, and Delta-Jou just went to relax on the tundra, but forgot about the storm warning.More people think it is suicide, but there are different opinions on the reasons for suicide.It may be that my words brought out her most painful emotions; it may be that she hated all mankind, so she deliberately died with the memory we want from her; Before I arrived, my spirit had already collapsed... But in short, conjectures can only be conjectures.She is like the dried-up leopard on Mount Kilimanjaro, and no one will ever know what she was chasing before she died.

In this way, history has added another unsolved mystery.

The author has something to say: The Leopard on Mount Kilimanjaro: A classic image from Hemingway's "The Snow on Mount Kilimanjaro".A leopard was dried and frozen on a high mountain. No one knew what it was looking for in such a high place.