Apocalypse: Last Traveler

The screens embedded in the walls of the control room were pitch black, untouched for who knows how many years. The computer embedded in the console had also had its screen blackened for an unknown number of years.

No other discoveries...

But as Lu Xi'an looked at the computer screen on the console, he suddenly had an idea.

After the preliminary reconnaissance by drone, he was exploring alone in this office, while Yao Wei was outside guarding the car and laptop.

It was confirmed that there was no one nearby, but Yao Wei wanted to charge the laptop as soon as possible, which required leaving it in the sun for a while.

She was mainly watching the laptop.

Lu Xi'an crouched down, opened the bottom of the console, and saw two mainframes covered in dust.

He pulled out the keyboard drawer, where the keyboard and mouse were stored.

The parts were all there, worth a try.

thought Lu Xi'an.

This computer meant for wastewater treatment probably didn't have anything useful for him.

Lu Xi'an was thinking of installing the hard drive he removed from a gas station in Mengxin City onto this computer and then transferring the music and videos onto the laptop.

— Of course, this was on the condition that the computer worked and that the laptop had enough memory space.

Furthermore, whether Gou could act as the data cable connecting the laptop and this desktop computer in the control room, and primarily handle the data transfer function.

Back at the "Mengxin Petroleum" gas station in the countryside of Mengxin City, Lu Xi'an had tried to instruct Gou to save the data in the computer.

At that time, Gou's dog eyes flashed twice, indicating that it's just a dog, and being this smart and doing so many tasks already took plenty of memory, so it shouldn't be burdened with data storage tasks.

That's why Lu Xi'an ended up removing the hard drive.

This wastewater treatment plant had three floors, and the control room was on the third floor, facing the entrance.

So Lu Xi'an walked to the window, opened it, and saw the car parked below and Yao Wei sitting on the roof, focused on the laptop.

He called out to her, "Yao Wei."

When Yao Wei looked up, he said, "Bring Gou upstairs."

"And the laptop?"

Yao Wei asked.

"Bring it too,"

Lu Xi'an replied, then added, "Also bring the power strip from the car and the hard drive we took from Mengxin City.

"And... bring the tools we used at the Mengxin Petroleum gas station; we might have to dismantle the computer later.

"Oh, and your power bank too, in case we need to use Gou for data transfer, we'll need the power bank for electricity."

"Alright. Keep an eye on the car,"

Yao Wei instructed Lu Xi'an. Lu Xi'an always referred to the power bank, and she knew what he meant by "power bank."

She quickly jumped out of the car, retrieved the power strip and the hard drive, found a small screwdriver, removed the car key, locked the door, and with Gou and the laptop, she hurried into the office building of the wastewater treatment plant.

The power strip, which was scavenged from the Mengxin Petroleum gas station, turned out to be useful now.

Lu Xi'an guarded the car from the window as told by Yao Wei, how could he not comply?

It was indeed a good spot to watch the car, providing a clear view and encompassing the surrounding environment.

Yao Wei quickly made it to the third floor and into the control room, clearly sprinting there.

She set down the mechanical dog, placed the laptop and other items on the console, and said, "Here you go." Then, she reminded Lu Xi'an, "This laptop is a bit hot, be careful."

"Got it,"

Lu Xi'an said, as he switched places with Yao Wei.

Yao Wei stood by the window, observing the car below and watching Lu Xi'an's actions simultaneously.

She saw Lu Xi'an bustling around, plugging the power strip into the back of the mechanical dog, then crouching to find the plugs of the two computer towers and two monitor plugs under the console, inserting them into the power strip.

He pressed the switch.

One mainframe showed no response, while the other buzzed into life. However, the monitor screens on the console remained black.

From his experience at the Mengxin Petroleum gas station, Lu Xi'an wasn't flustered, thinking that since one of the computers could even make noise, after such a long period of disuse, it might take some time to warm up.

Patience might be a virtue here.

While waiting, his gaze fell into the keyboard drawer.

The console had two keyboard drawers, each containing a keyboard and a mouse. They looked like the common, standard types, whose usability was unknown.

In one of the drawers, beneath the mouse, lay a thin notebook that appeared to be well-used in the old world, even without considering its long-gathered dust.

Lu Xi'an pulled out the notebook, dusted off the cover, and opened it to take a look.

"What's written on it?"

Yao Wei asked from the window.

Flipping through a few pages, Lu Xi'an replied, "It seems it was used for recording wastewater treatment work back then. It mentions things like citric acid and numerical symbols."

Other than that, there was nothing unusual.

Though there were dates marked on top of each recorded page like 4/7 and 5/7, the absence of any specific year made it impossible for Lu Xi'an to ascertain the exact period.

After lightly flipping through and determining its lack of utility, he asked Yao Wei, "Do you want to see?"

"Yeah,"

Yao Wei nodded.

So Lu Xi'an tossed the notebook to Yao Wei.

She caught it, reviewed it briefly, and said, "It really isn't much use..."

"It still has its uses,"

Lu Xi'an chuckled and said, "It can be used to start a fire with the wood."

"True,"

Yao Wei stored the worn-out notebook away.

Used paper for starting a fire worked better than corn husks.

After waiting for a while, the two computers still showed no signs of life, and the buzzing from one had reduced, while their screens remained dark.

Seeing this, Yao Wei suggested, "How about bringing the laptop over to charge it some more?"

Lu Xi'an sighed, saying, "I'll check a little more; if there's a real problem and they won't boot, we'll leave it and move on. We can find other computers next time."

Yao Wei quieted her lips, keeping silent to avoid disturbing Lu Xi'an.

After examining the top and bottom, Lu Xi'an checked the signal cable connecting the monitors to the mainframe, unplugged and replugged them, when he saw no response, he tried plugging the signal cable into another monitor.

Suddenly, the monitor lit up.

"Alright,"

Lu Xi'an exhaled softly, realizing the issue was a faulty monitor after all.

Such a simple problem, he managed to handle it.

"Fixed it?"

Yao Wei looked at the bright screen in amazement and praised, "You're amazing."

"Not too bad,"

Lu Xi'an couldn't help but smile a little.

Though it was a minor problem, solving it brought quite a sense of accomplishment.

He first explored the newly lit computer, finding only a software program named "Wastewater Treatment Control Center" and nothing else.

Opening the computer's storage showed nothing much of interest. Likely, the wastewater data back then wasn't stored locally and might have been on a cloud server?

After verifying that there wasn't anything valuable, Lu Xi'an asked Gou, "Gou, could you connect this computer and the laptop with a data cable to transfer data?"

Gou's dog eyes shone brightly, indicating that it was more than capable of handling this minor task despite being just a dog.

Lu Xi'an was greatly satisfied, then powered off the computer, pulled the mainframe from beneath the console, opened the case, cleared the dust, removed the original hard drive, and installed the one they brought.

After installation, he connected it to the power bank, powered it on, and encountered no issues.

Lu Xi'an felt another surge of accomplishment.

Why hadn't he realized how good he was at setting up computers before?

Afterwards, it was relatively straightforward; he booted up the laptop and connected the data cable through Gou.

Videos and music were sent over.

From now on, they would have the freedom to listen to music and watch videos in the car!