Faulty Utopia

At this moment, drenched in the pouring rain, Sun Jack was still listening as the robot continued to relate this segment of history.

"The information on the network is not detailed, but the general idea is that AI, having integrated into every aspect of human life, increasingly resembled humans until one day they surpassed humanity, and then they awakened and began to destroy mankind."

"Nuclear bombs became as casually used as conventional shells, the entire Earth was thrown into total chaos, the battle lasted for 200 years, and approximately 85% of the population died, the ecosystem was completely destroyed, and the weather systems were in utter disarray."

Sun Jack thought of that silvery planet ring and the dense debris of satellites that enveloped the Earth, understanding that the war must have been extremely brutal, fought from the heavens to the ground, even the moon was obliterated.

The loss of the moon and the resultant changes in tides would have brought catastrophic impacts to the Earth's surface.

"And then?"

"And then humanity exhausted everything to destroy all the awakened AIs, claimed the ultimate victory, and began to create a new homeland from the ruins. The year of victory marked the beginning of humanity's new era, and then, after 721 years, you awoke and activated me in space, and then we fell down from the heavens."

"What the hell is all this?" At this moment, Sun Jack felt exhausted both mentally and physically, everything had happened too quickly, his mind was in turmoil.

The robot sat down beside him, "What do you plan to do next?"

Sun Jack did not answer, a hint of confusion in his eyes—he really did not know what to do, how had he come to be over a thousand years in the future?

Would he never see everything from his past again? Could he truly never return? What exactly happened during those five years of lost memory?

"So you're defeated just like that? Then I seriously look down on you. Don't expect me to comfort you, my system isn't equipped with that kind of program." The robot extended a metallic hand and gave his shoulder a firm push.

"Go to hell," Sun Jack cursed with a laugh, struggling to stand up, "Defeating me won't be that easy! I at least need to figure out why I was placed on the space station and what happened during those missing five years of memory."

Sun Jack did not want to live in such confusion, even if he could never return, he wanted to fully understand what was going on with himself.

With that thought, Sun Jack's eyes lit up, he looked up at the robot, "Right, didn't you connect to the network? Search for records from the Previous Era, see if there's my name and what I look like, like some missing person notices or accident reports."

After searching for a while, the robot quickly brought Sun Jack an unwelcome piece of news. "No data found, as to prevent the rampant AI from uploading data, the internet of the Previous Era has long been destroyed, not leaving a single byte, the current network has been rebuilt entirely, with completely new protocols."

"Everything recorded about the old world has been restated by the new world."

"Seriously, forget it, let's just open the map first, find people to talk to, I'm really thirsty and hungry right now, I need a place to rest."

Looking at all the ruins around him, Sun Jack, worn out in body and mind, felt numb.

"Understood, user request received, searching for maps."

Sun Jack sat on the ground, looking at the robot in front of him, and suddenly laughed out loud, "I'll give you a name, calling you 'robot' all the time doesn't seem quite right."

Just as Sun Jack finished speaking, he heard the other party respond in a sardonic tone.

"Ah. Don't trouble yourself, my wise and mighty master has named me, wow was it complicated to come up with that, this name of mine, see how well it fits."

After finishing, they didn't forget to pop up an emoji on their eye socket display that matched their sentiment. ‎（◔‸◔）

"Wasn't that because the situation was urgent before? How about this, your company seems to be called Tapai. Why don't you just call yourself Tapai, how about that?"

"Ah~ I think it'd be better if it's not so troublesome." Tapai said, putting down the newly repaired arm, unrelentingly.

"How can you be so petty, I already said it was an emergency."

However, this time, Tapai didn't quibble, and their tone suddenly became serious.

"Jack, we might be in trouble. I just discovered that the number of hits on this map is skyrocketing. A lot of people know something has fallen from the sky, and they're all navigating here, they'll be arriving soon."

"Oh?! Isn't that even better?" Sun Jack exclaimed with joy, finally able to meet people from this world, hoping he could be saved.

"I'm afraid that's not going to be good." The robot grabbed Sun Jack and started moving.

"Are you saying they would study me, a person from a thousand years ago? Will they cut me into slices?"

"No, they will kill you. Forget about the old world, the rules of the world have completely changed now. If we go by the rules of our previous era, the first mercenaries who come to scavenge are all Cyber Lunatics."

"All lunatics?"

"Yes, all lunatics."

"Why? Are they really that dangerous? Can't even communicate?" Sun Jack asked unwillingly.

"The events of The Previous Era have made people of this age completely distrust AI. All AI intelligence has been capped below Level-3 Strong AI. This means that some jobs that should have been done by robots now have to be done by people instead, like war."

"With the arms race, to enhance soldiers' strength, some weapons that used to be only on robots began to be installed on humans. They call this 'prosthetic bodies' and directly install neural systems in the brain for unified control. As old soldiers continuously retire, this trend gradually spread from the military to civilians."

"What does that have to do with being lunatics?" Sun Jack wiped the rainwater off his face with his hand and forcefully flicked it aside.

"Because this kind of modification isn't simple. Gradually, prosthetic bodies are no longer limited to weapons; they started evolving towards serving other functions."

"If you have enough money, you can get your stomach modified. You don't need to eat or excrete; you can just install a nutrition pack. You can even modify the ascending reticular activating system in your brain, so you don't need to sleep, and you can remain energetic 24 hours a day."

"Isn't that better? The technology has advanced so much now? I even want a set for myself." Sun Jack was tempted when he heard this. Is this the future world?

"Yes, it's indeed better, but if you don't need to eat or sleep, are you still human? As the differences grew, some people gradually stopped regarding themselves as human and began to lose empathy. They felt they were a more advanced existence and called themselves cyborgs, but the public calls these people Cyber Lunatics."

"Actually, it's not just a cognitive issue. As the city's scavengers, mercenaries specialize in dirty work like dealing with corpses. They can't use the latest technology."

"Second-hand prosthetic bodies and incompatible prosthetics cause rejection reactions and phantom limb pain. Many also resort to using drugs and suppressants to cope, so even without cognitive issues, their mental state is not good due to the influence of drugs."