I, Superman, the Supreme Commander

Chapter 170 Extra: Electronic Death (Part )

Earth Era 2177.

"Officer Liu."

A man in a police officer's uniform entered the scene blocked by the Sheriff's Department's robots, and the police officers he met on the way saluted him.

Liu Xing used his personal terminal to look at the case report and check the on-site situation.

Deputy Captain Li Lei stepped forward to report: "No traces of a third party were found. The cause of death was the same as in the previous cases, due to the formatting of the quantum chip."

"Hardware inspection team, did you find anything?"

Li Lei shook his head.

Liu Xing looked at the unconscious man on the bed, sighed lightly, and helplessly ordered the team to withdraw.

[This is the 13th strange death of a citizen this month... Was it a natural death or homicide? ]

Since 2071, citizens have been dying mysteriously one after another on Earth. The dead are all humans who have undergone complete biochemical mechanical transformation, with quantum chips replacing their brains, which is actually equivalent to continuing to survive in the form of mechanical bodies after their natural lifespans have ended.

Flesh and blood are short-lived, and machines ascend. This is the fantasy of the old times.

However, these citizens who have abandoned their flesh and blood will suddenly [die suddenly] one day and at a certain time.

Afterwards, it was found that the quantum chips storing their digital consciousness and personality memories had been formatted for unknown reasons. After losing these data, these citizens were essentially dead, with only a mechanical body without self-awareness remaining.

At first, authorities thought it was a malfunction or defect in the quantum chip.

However, after careful examination of a large number of deceased persons, it was found that there was no problem with the chips of the deceased persons, and the theoretical service life of quantum chips was still far from over.

Later, the government suspected that the cause of death was murder - someone killed these citizens using electronic viruses, hacking programs, or something like that.

However, as the investigation deepened, the number of cases continued to increase, spreading from individual cases to groups, and this speculation was also broken.

First, there is no sign of intrusion or tampering on the deceased's consciousness chip, and there is no trace of any third party at present.

Second, there is no connection between the deceased, and similar deaths are becoming more and more common - the number of deaths in one day can even reach hundreds of thousands!

As for the similarities, there is nothing else except that the deceased all underwent different degrees of electronic mechanical transformation.

Therefore, this bizarre death is also called the "Curse of Digital Life" by the people. People believe that there is a certain rule or force in the dark that prevents humans from gaining eternal life by "taking shortcuts".

In fact, what supports this conjecture is that the vast majority of the dead were the first group of people to undergo mechanical transformation. In total, they all lived for about two hundred years.

Some people speculate that there may be some kind of existence similar to the "Electronic Death" that is reaping the lives of those humans who try to escape death.

The coalition government has adopted a large number of measures and methods to try to crack the mystery and solve this problem.

After years of extensive research, scientists finally made preliminary discoveries.

There is a scientific explanation for this bizarre death.

——This is not a curse from the god of death, but a disease that only occurs in digital life forms of humans.

The bizarre death of humans in digital life forms is not caused by hardware or program failure, nor is it an electronic virus murder, but rather a mechanism similar to natural human aging and death.

When humans continue their lives through mechanical or digital means, they will encounter such bizarre deaths after a long enough period of time. The specific mechanism is unknown.

But what can be speculated is that this may be some kind of innate destructive mechanism hidden in human consciousness - there may really be some shackles in the universe that limit the immortality of intelligent life.

If we can crack the secret, humans may be able to truly master the method of eternal life!

……

Earth, a busy street in Magic City.

A handsome little boy about ten years old, with blond hair and black eyes, a face of mixed Chinese and Western descent, wearing retro Chinese-style clothes, holding a lollipop in his mouth, strolling alone on the street.

"Boss, give me some grilled sausage! I want the authentic starch sausage!"

"okay!"

The little boy looked carefree as he ate and walked around, stopping occasionally to shop.

While petting a cat in a pet shop, the little boy suddenly raised his eyebrows, as if he noticed something, and then closed his eyes.

More than a thousand kilometers away, in an agricultural area.

"Brother Kun, good morning."

Li Zhi warmly greeted the old man with middle-parted hair who passed by.

"Good morning."

The uncle with the middle-parted hair had a blank expression on his face and responded in a lukewarm manner.

Watching the old man walk away, Li Zhi touched the back of his head in confusion.

[What happened to Brother Kun? I always feel like he's acting weird lately.]

Xu Kun came to the chicken farm, opened the mechanical equipment with an expressionless face, and operated it with an expressionless face.

Feeding, changing ingredients, collecting eggs, packaging. His eyes were blank the whole time.

It wasn't Li Zhi's illusion. Uncle Xu Kun had given other people the impression these days that he was... a walking corpse.

Swish.

Suddenly, a little boy appeared silently in front of Xu Kun. It was the boy who was walking in the downtown area before. Xu Kun's eyes subconsciously moved to the person who came.

Zhang Xiaomo walked up to Xu Kun, looked him over, and shook his head: "It's hopeless. Brother Kun, rest in peace."

After saying that, he waved his little hand, and Xu Kun suddenly became still as if the power button had been pressed, standing still like a puppet.

Zhang Xiaomo also disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Half a minute later, the life monitoring chip installed on Xu Kun detected that Xu Kun had lost his digital vital signs and automatically sent an alarm to the relevant departments. Official personnel soon arrived to deal with the situation.

"There is a person who was taken away by the [Electronic Death]..."

After completing the inspection according to the procedures and confirming the fact and cause of death, the person in charge waved his hand and asked the robot to collect the body.

Inside the pet shop, Zhang Xiaomo opened his eyes again, just a few seconds after he closed them.

"boom!"

With a crash, two cups of milk tea fell on the table, and a lively girl who looked about twelve or thirteen years old sat down opposite Zhang Xiaomo's table.

The girl looked a little unhappy and said angrily: "Okay, I'm working and you're hiding here playing with the cat!"

"The key is not to call me!"

Zhang Xiaomo smiled and said, "Don't be angry. The cat is for you."

He took the initiative to hand over the cat.

The girl snorted proudly, took the docile cat and started rubbing it fiercely.

"Tell me, when are we going to expand the enrollment? I'm working ten jobs by myself, and I'm dying of exhaustion!"

"How about I switch with you?"

"No. Fighting and killing are not for me."

"Okay then. Just wait. When I find a suitable candidate, I will send you an assistant."

The girl took a sip of her milk tea and said tiredly, "Xiao Mo, why do we have to interfere with the birth, aging, illness and death of digital life? Sometimes I always feel that I have overstepped my authority."

Zhang Xiaomo said calmly: "Tu Yaya, don't forget that this is the mission Mr. Zhang Hong left for us. What we do may seem cruel, but in fact it is all for the continuation of Earth civilization."