Rule Strange: Urban Legends That Don't Exist

[Apocalypse] has arrived again.

That night, when the wall on top of the mechanical hive was damaged by freezing snow, the sleeping people in the hives in the four areas from W to Z were frozen in the dreamland forever without any awareness. middle.

No one knows why the temperature dropped sharply overnight, from more than 30 degrees below zero to more than 110 degrees below zero.

After the mechanical hive sank under the ice, the last three of these four areas were originally used as transfer stations with the outside world.

These three areas not only store some materials that need to be transferred into the mechanical hive, but also station some important surface workers.

——When extreme low temperatures hit, everything slumbers in a violent freeze.

The extreme low temperature not only destroyed the mechanical hive, but also destroyed the island chain under construction and the fragile industrial ecology that was recovering on the island chain.

Overnight, the lighthouses on most of the islands were destroyed, and dozens of islands lost contact with the mechanical hives.

Nearly 80% of the transportation channels built between the island chains are completely paralyzed, and because the number of workers has dropped sharply, it is not even possible to find the necessary maintenance personnel to repair the paralyzed transportation channels.

The United Group held emergency meetings and formulated new survival plans overnight.

In this meeting, no one interfered with the progress of the meeting out of selfish motives, because the first person to question the surface conditions and find ways to obtain the vacant power was strangled by Chen Yan on the round table in the conference room.

The corpses scattered on the table made the rest of the meeting go smoothly, and everyone was finally able to work together to put forward practical suggestions for the problem.

Before dawn the next day, a notice was posted to the United Group's website.

Most of the survivors inside the mechanical hive heard the loud noise last night, and their uneasiness was finally answered at dawn.

"United Group Emergency Announcement:

The temperature outside dropped sharply last night, reaching minus 5 degrees Celsius at 31:118 this morning.

The W, X, Y, and Z areas of the mechanical hive are divided into frozen areas. Please do not approach them.

We will urgently evacuate the people in areas U and V, reallocate hives in other areas according to the number of people, and maintain the original hive specifications...

The United Group will launch an emergency recruitment. We urgently need various talents to help prevent the invasion of mechanical hives by extreme low temperatures, as well as maintain and repair industrial facilities in the surface island chain...

We will concentrate the supply of materials to families that can provide labor. The specific measures and distribution specifications are as follows...

We will ensure the supply of materials for school students and arrange paid internships as soon as possible. Please cooperate with parents. We will give students the qualifications to work and get paid in the form of contracts, and encourage students to participate in the reconstruction of the mechanical hive..."

By the time most people read this, they are so desperate that they can no longer read.

Regarding the paid internship for students, anyone with a discerning eye can see that it is because the United Group is completely out of ideas——

They didn't even stipulate the age for students to participate in paid internships in the announcement, which means that even the youngest children in compulsory schools may have to participate in the reconstruction plan of the mechanical hive.

What people don’t know is that the reality is worse than the announcement makes it seem.

According to the survey after early morning, 86% of the entire industrial construction team of the Mechanical Hive had gone in——

The proportion of casualties even exceeded the proportion of damaged materials and infrastructure!

Even most of the smart people sitting in the United Group conference room are despairing of these numbers.

But there is still a small group of people who are not discouraged. They believe that everyone needs to continue to persevere. They encourage everyone. If you don't try hard, how will you know that there is no hope at all?

"Everyone."

At the end of the meeting, Chen Yan said something to everyone, which also appeared at the end of the United Group’s emergency announcement:

"We are about to face the most difficult challenge in human history.

We must unite to survive in this frozen hell and overcome all difficulties until we can be self-sufficient.

We will do whatever it takes to rebuild our home until the apocalypse realizes it has nothing to do with us.

Each of us will work hard to rebuild our homeland, because we know that after we fall, someone will take our place and devote all our efforts to the future of mankind.

We would head into the dead of winter and beat the cold.

We will rebuild all infrastructure on the surface until there is enough energy to support the mechanical hive for three hundred years.

Three hundred years later, our descendants will return to the surface and gain true freedom. 》

It takes three hundred years to restart a generation. Therefore, three hundred years is the deadline set by Chen Yan for the human survivors in the mechanical hive.

The senior management of United Group obviously knew that it was impossible to generate electricity for love, so at the end of the announcement, United Group formulated detailed incentive measures and a more detailed contract——

The content of the contract is to use present and future materials in exchange for people's current promises.

At this moment, Chen Yan's hard work finally got some rewards——

The United Group has accumulated the people's trust in them because of justice and order, and this trust plays a big role at this moment——

On the night of the announcement, United Group had already received the first batch of applicants.

This group of people are not unprofessional laymen, but onlookers during the previous infrastructure restart plan——

They are the "silent majority" in the mechanical hive.

Their professionalism is not inferior to that of the previous exploration team that rebuilt the island chain, or even more so. Since Dais Island was previously a logistics and industrial product processing center, people who came here did not only do business, but also the rest. That’s people working in various industries.

Previously, in the chaotic period after the tsunami, Chen Yan had almost killed all the business people. Most of the remaining people were ordinary workers, more or less with a certain skill. In the previous environment of the empire, there was no special skill. , they simply don’t dare to come to a place like the island chain with a fiercely competitive environment to make a living.

The first batch of applicants put on the remaining thermal insulation suits and performed emergency treatment on the four WXYZ areas on the top floor of the mechanical hive.

The infrastructure in these four areas has been completely destroyed by the extreme cold and cannot be used at all. Therefore, people transformed these areas into semi-enclosed environments as isolation cabins to isolate the extremely cold environment on the surface.

In the mechanical hive, various materials that can be used in extremely cold conditions are being consumed rapidly. If it weren’t for the Chen Yan component exploration team that previously restarted other islands in the island chain and brought back a large amount of materials, only the remaining materials in the mechanical hive would , I’m afraid they can’t even get out of the mechanical hive’s door now.

Workers began to repair the transportation channels of the first island chain. These channels were originally built with insulation materials, and the degree of internal damage was not great. Moreover, because the original design took into account the repair structure in extremely cold environments, Therefore, thanks to people's efforts, most transportation channels were open again in just one week.

The transportation channel is open again, but the industries on the island cannot be completely repaired - for example, most processing plants that need to create a liquid environment are unable to create a corresponding liquid environment due to extreme low temperatures, and the infrastructure in the factory is due to the extreme cold. Various degrees of damage were caused, which were almost impossible to repair.

Quite a few places in the first island chain have been damaged, and almost half of the various factories cannot be restarted, which means that the remaining productivity will be greatly reduced.

The extreme cold did not damage raw material mining plants as much as processing plants, but considering the lack of labor and too dangerous outdoor operations, people are very cautious about the next mining, which leads to a greatly reduced mining efficiency.

Another week passed, and there was a food distribution crisis inside the mechanical hive, but people inside the mechanical hive did not think that workers outside were taking up most of the resources. ——Not only because people know the dangers to their lives when working outside, but also because it is their husbands, their wives, and their children who work outside.

The light industrial processing plants on the island chain were severely ice-blocked and their productivity dropped drastically. Women and younger children used their hands to make cold-proof clothing and make simple and portable meals for their families working on the front line.

Everyone is working hard to survive.

……

In the second month after the third apocalypse, the experimental fields at the bottom of the mechanical hive began to reduce production due to low temperatures. Coupled with the pollution caused by the freezing and cracking of the fertilizing facilities, famine appeared in the mechanical hive.

……

In the fifth month, people had to transport the hungry people out of the mechanical hive, because too many dead people led to a moderate plague. Fortunately, with everyone's efforts, the plague was contained, and people once again struggled to survive. survived.

……

In the eleventh month, after food and vegetable production stabilized again, and the factories that had been restarted on the island chain finally ran smoothly, the United Group counted the number of survivors——

13 people——

Since the tsunami arrived, more than half of the survivors of the mechanical hive have been reduced.

……

In the twenty-fifth month, the first batch of students who graduated from the Mechanical Hive Compulsory School joined the workforce. Their joining made the United Group's extremely burdened work organization much easier.

The oppressive environment was relieved by the participation of young people, and people were more or less relieved.

……

In the thirty-sixth month, the mechanical hive experienced its first severe hypoxia. After measurements by the outbound exploration team, people learned the cause of the hypoxia - the atmosphere was stagnant due to excessively low temperatures, and Because photosynthesis by the plants at the bottom of the mechanical hive is reduced, there is no longer enough oxygen left for the remaining people to use together.

……

In the fifty-fifth month, the number of people in the United Group conference room has decreased by more than half. Most of them died on the front lines of work, and a few committed suicide because they saw no hope at all.

Even if Chen Yan used telepathy and psychological suggestion, even if Chen Yan transformed them into quantum clones, he could not prevent these people from committing suicide.

……

In the seventy-eighth month, the United Group Laboratory announced that a talented boy who graduated from a compulsory school had successfully reproduced the element recombination technology.

As long as there is enough carbon, food can be continuously produced, and the food pressure on the mechanical hive is reduced.

But people don't feel very relaxed, because they know that the reduction of food pressure is not just because of this new life-saving technology, but also because there are less than 100,000 people left in the mechanical hive.

……

Chen Yan did not give up.

For seventy-eight long months, he was by everyone's side non-stop.

He encouraged them and used the knowledge in the logistics center server to work with them to solve their work difficulties.

He always told everyone at meetings about the bright future that he could not see at all, and he was impassioned every time he mentioned his vision for the future.

No one knows why he has so much spiritual energy.

But everyone was indeed infected by his spirit, perhaps because his synaesthesia spread to everyone's heart, allowing everyone to understand what he was thinking and feel his yearning for the beautiful world that might exist in the future.

People persisted, struggled, and struggled to survive in the frozen purgatory.

……

Finally, finally, on the one hundred and thirty-sixth year, a material balance finally appeared in the United Group's warehouse.

People who learned the news burst into tears.

Everyone did not relax their vigilance because of this. The doomsday gave them a strong sense of crisis. They knew that if they wanted to survive, they must not relax in the slightest, nor show any arrogance because of the "achievements" in front of them.

People keep trying.

Trying to survive in the apocalypse.

Until the day when the sun comes back.

……

It was also on this day that Chen Yan's one hundred and thirty-six months of fatigue broke out. He fell to the floor of the office and fell into a coma-like sleep.

In the dream, Chen Yan met his wish.

Desire's eyes were still so bright. She looked at him and said to him:

"I'm going to tell you something now. It's very important. I hope you can be mentally prepared."

Chen Yan nodded to her.

Wishes said to him:

"I hacked into the company's database and discovered some secret files:

A long time ago - probably in the year 3024 in the real world, the company had not yet made a fortune.

At that time, a great disaster occurred on the earth. Because of the nuclear war, the sky of the entire planet was obscured by radiation clouds, and sunlight could not penetrate. As a result, everything withered and the world entered an ice age.

The company was lucky to survive the cholera before the ice age, and led the remaining humans, mostly employees of the company, to survive in the apocalypse and finally survived.

At that time, the company's operating structure was very scientific and fair. The company's employees would be rewarded for their efforts, and they were willing to regard everyone's ideals as their own ideals——

They work hard together for the ideal of living.

Although they suffered heavy losses, they succeeded in the end - they really resisted the doomsday that lasted for three hundred years, and their descendants returned to the surface of the earth where all things revived after the doomsday!

As for the company becoming what it was in later generations, that is a story for another day.

I found photos of the company at that time. "

Wishes took a faded old photo and showed it to Chen Yan.

I saw that in the middle of the tall building in the photo, there was actually a big [Z] composed of pure white light panels.