Chapter 2 Chapter Two

As ever, the highway was full of normal crowds.Those without a seat stand on the lower floor, and those with privileged seats sit on the upper floor.Waves of people leave the high-speed road one after another. After passing through the narrow and long deceleration road, some people turn to the flat speed road that stops at every station, and some enter the fixed platform.After stepping off the platform, they walked through archways, crossed bridges, and entered an endless maze of urban areas.On the other side, there was an endless stream of people moving inside.They passed the speed belt and boarded the highway belt.

There is light everywhere, countless lights.Glowing walls and ceilings seem to be dripping with cold phosphorescence; flashing advertisements catch people's eyes. The "light worm" emits a dazzling and steady light, marking "the Jersey area goes from here", "follow the arrow to the east bank area to and from the loop", "the upper routes lead to the Long Island area". Noise that is inseparable from life is everywhere. The talking, laughing, coughing, calling, humming, and breathing of millions of people. Bailey couldn't find the directional signs to the space city.

He moved from one lead to the other with a practiced, leisurely pace.Almost all of them have learned to jump up and down on the moving belt since they were young.Bailey's pace picked up gradually, and the reflex jerk of acceleration was barely felt.He didn't even know that his body was leaning forward against the force of the acceleration.Within thirty seconds, he reached the last road belt with a speed of 96 kilometers per hour, and he could step onto the mobile platform.This mobile platform surrounded by railings and glass is the highway belt. Still no signs of direction to Space City, Bailey thought.

In fact, there is no need for a direction indicator at all.If you have contacts there, you naturally know how to go.If you don't know how to get there, it means you have nothing to do with that side. Twenty-five years ago, when the space city was supposed to be established, everyone regarded it as a model city, and it became popular all of a sudden, and countless New Yorkers ran in that direction.Finally, the outsiders took action to prevent the masses from continuing to flock to the space city.Politely (as they always are), with tact and uncompromising tact, they set up a blockade between Space City and New York City.They created a combined agency of immigration and customs.Anyone who wants to enter the space city has to show their ID card, let them be searched, undergo a health check and a routine disinfection procedure.

This naturally heightened the dissatisfaction of the masses.In fact, the discontent was exaggerated, but it was getting out of hand and eventually led to serious setbacks in the modernization program.Bailey remembered the mass riots that ensued after the outsiders set up a blockade.He also took part in the riots.They scrambled to climb the railings of the expressway belt, and sat on the upper floor regardless of the grading regulations.For two days they gathered outside the blockade of Space City. They chanted slogans and vandalized public facilities in a rage. If Bailey thinks back carefully, he can even remember the slogan song at that time.These slogan songs are all sung with the melody of an old song that everyone is familiar with.Among them is a passage "The earth is our home":

"The earth is our home, Never let you violate her, Outsiders, get out; disgusting outsider, dirty outsider, roll!roll!roll…" There are hundreds of verses to this catchphrase that follows the same theme, some of the lines are witty, some are silly, and some are obscene.Every song ends with the same "Disgusting Outerworlder, Dirty Outerworlder, Go! Go! Go..." Disgusting.dirty.This is a futile counter-action taken by the people of the outside world under their deep humiliation.People from outside the world firmly believe that people on earth are very dirty and full of viruses.

Of course, the outsiders did not leave the earth because of this.They didn't even need to use any offensive weapons to drive away the rioting crowd.Earthlings have long been self-aware that using their backward fleet to confront any spaceship from the outside world is undoubtedly hitting a stone with a pebble.At the beginning, when the space city was first established, there were planes from Earth that ventured above the space city for detection, but all those planes disappeared, and at most a small piece of wreckage was found. And even if the rioting masses were furious to the extreme, they would not dare to forget the war of the last century.They will not forget how powerful the hand-held sub-ether weapons used by the outsiders were at that time.

Therefore, outsiders do not need to take any action, they only need to set up blockades.This blockade line is their advanced technological product, and the earth people have not yet been able to break through.They just need to stay on the other side of the blockade indifferently, waiting for the New York City government to use hypnotic gas or vomit gas to suppress the masses.The riot was over, and the prison was filled with mass leaders, disaffected elements, and innocent people who happened to be watching.Before long, these people were all released. After a period of time, the outsiders relaxed their restrictions.They dismantled the blockade and entrusted the New York City Police to be responsible for the security of the space city.Most importantly, the formality of the health check is so watered down that it is almost unnoticeable.

Now, however, Bailey thinks things may change again.If the outsiders really think that Earthlings have entered the space city and committed murder, then the blockade may appear again.If things really evolve to this point, it will be troublesome. He climbed onto the expressway belt platform, squeezed through the crowd standing on the lower level, climbed up the narrow spiral aisle, and sat down on the seat on the upper level.In fact, a C-5 is not entitled to a seat east of the Hudson and west of Long Island.Even if there was an empty seat, if he sat, the patrol guard on the highway would come and chase him away immediately.

So Bailey didn't get his class ticket out and stick it in his hatband until the final stretch through the Hudson.The average person has become increasingly full of class systems, and to be honest, Bailey feels the same way as the "average person." The whistling air passed over the curved windshield behind the seat.This crisp whistling sound makes it very difficult for passengers on the expressway to talk.However, when you get used to the sound, you can still meditate quietly without being disturbed. Most people on earth can be regarded as medievalists to some extent.Back in the day, when the earth was the whole world, life was easier for Medievalists.But now, Earth was only one of fifty-one worlds, and a maladaptive one at that, Bailey thought.Suddenly he heard a woman's scream.He turned his head and saw that a woman had dropped her handbag.Bailey glanced at the tote just in time, and it fell like a pink dot far away on the gray strip.That bag must have been accidentally kicked in the direction of deceleration by a passenger who hurried off the highway.Now, the owner of the tote bag can only watch her belongings disappear.

Bailey's mouth twitched.If the woman was smart, he figured, she should hurry onto another, slower-moving speed bump.As long as no one kicked the bag around again, she still had a chance of recovering the tote bag.But Bailey would never know the end of the woman's engagement with the hand.Speeding forward on the highway belt, the image of that scene has already fallen one kilometer behind. Judging by common sense, it is more likely that the woman will not be able to recover the handbag.According to statistics, every three minutes on the highway in New York City, something falls off and cannot be returned to its original owner. The Lost and Found department is a massive institution, and that's just another complication of modern life. Life used to be simpler, Bailey thought.Everything is simpler.Medievalists are all about simplicity. Medievalism comes in many different forms.For the unimaginative Julie Enderby, the approach he took was archaic.Glasses!window! For Bailey, however, it is an exploration of history.Especially the discussion of social customs. Take this city as an example.New York City, the place to live and live, is bigger than any city except Los Angeles.Its population is second only to Shanghai, and its existence is only three centuries old. Of course, there used to be something called "New York City" in this geographic area as well.The original settlement of human beings lived here for three thousand years, not three hundred years.The point is, it wasn't really a city yet. There were no cities at all, only human settlements, large and small, exposed to the air.The buildings of that era were a bit like the igloos of the Outer Worlds, but of course they were not much alike.These settlements (the largest populations approached 10 million, but most never reached a million) were scattered across the planet and numbered in the thousands.By modern standards, such colonies are economically inefficient. With the increasing population on the earth, efficiency has to be emphasized.If the standard of living is lowered, the planet can sustain two billion, three billion, or even five billion people.However, when the population swells to eight billion, everyone is only half-starved.Inevitably, human civilization must change its face.Especially when the outer worlds (a thousand years ago, they were only colonies of the earth) have taken measures to limit alien immigration very seriously, human civilization must undergo a drastic and decisive transformation. The result of radical change was the birth of cities.Over the last millennium or so of Earth's history, these cities have gradually taken shape with transformations.Huge scale means efficiency.Even in medieval times, human beings have understood this truth, maybe they just don't know it.Home industry was replaced by large factories, and large factories by intercontinental industry. Think about it, 100,000 families live in 100,000 houses, or a residential area with 100,000 units?One set of film books per household, or one set of film books per settlement?Each household has its own set of TV recorder or central system TV recorder?Compare the differences between them, and you'll see which one is less efficient. By the same token, it is not only wasteful but also foolish to repeatedly manufacture kitchens and bathrooms, and it is far less efficient than regional restaurants and private rooms in urban civilization. As a result, villages, towns, and so-called "cities" on Earth gradually died and were swallowed up by real cities. Even in the early days, under the threat of nuclear war, this trend was only slowed down, but not stopped.After the invention of the force field shield, it became even more menacing and unstoppable. Urban civilization means the most appropriate distribution of food, the extensive use of yeast or hydroponics.New York City covers an area of ​​5,000 square kilometers. According to the last census, the population of New York City exceeds 20 million.There are about 800 cities on the earth, and the average population of each city is 10 million. Each city is a semi-autonomous unit, fully independent and self-sufficient economically.It can wrap the top of the building, can surround the surrounding area, and can also drill into the ground.It becomes a steel cavern, a gigantic, self-sufficient cavern of reinforced concrete. Its structure is very scientific.The large-scale administrative unit office area is located in the center, and the orientation of the complex residential area has been carefully designed. In addition, there are criss-crossing high-speed road belts and flat-speed road belts.On the fringes of the city are factories, hydroponics, yeast tanks, and power plants.In this messy system, there are water pipes, underground drains, schools, prisons, shops, power lines, and communication systems. There is no doubt that cities represent the acme of human conquest of the environment.The ultimate manifestation of human beings conquering the environment is not in space travel, not in colonizing the fifty colonized worlds that are now independent with arrogance, but in cities. People on Earth, practically no one lives outside the cities anymore.Outside the city is the wilderness and the open sky. Few people can face this environment calmly and comfortably.Of course, land preservation is necessary.It provides the water that people need, the basic raw materials and wood needed to make plastics and grow yeast. (Oil is long gone, and oil-rich yeast is a poor substitute.) The land between cities still contains minerals that most people don't know about, and it's still used to grow food and raise livestock.Although the land is not productive, there is still a market for high-priced products such as beef, pork and grains, which can even be exported. Mineral and ranch operations, farm development, and water irrigation do not require much manpower.All this work only needs to be monitored remotely.In this regard, robots can do more work than humans with fewer demands. robot!This is really a big irony.The first to invent the positron brain is the earthlings, and the first to use robots to do work is also the earthlings.These things were not the first to appear in the Outer Worlds.However, the attitude of the outside world always regards robots as products of their civilization. It is undeniable that robots are economically exploited to the highest degree, the results of which are manifested in the outer world.On Earth, robots have been used only for mining and farming.It was not until twenty-five years ago, at the urging and encouragement of outsiders, that robots gradually infiltrated the cities. The city is very nice.Everyone but medievalists understands that cities are irreplaceable.There is no reasonable substitute.The only catch is, they won't last forever.The population of the earth is still increasing.There will come a time when all the cities, even if they do their best, will not be able to maintain the minimum level of heat that everyone gets to survive. And, because of the presence of outsiders, it's even worse.These descendants of the early colonization of the earth live in a sparsely populated and robot-infested outer space world, enjoying a luxurious life.In order to ensure their own spacious and spacious world, they not only lowered the birth rate, but also refused to accept the immigration of earthlings who were facing population pressure.And this space city has arrived! Bailey came to his senses and realized that he had arrived in Newark.If he didn't get up again, he'd be heading south into the Tetons, through the hot, musty heart of the sourdough. It's just a matter of timing.So much time to walk down the spiral ramp, so much time to squeeze through the moaning crowd standing on the lower level, so much time to scurry over the railing to get through the exit, so much time to jump onto the speed bump. After passing through these checkpoints, Bailey stood accurately at the exit of the fixed platform.He never deliberately calculated the speed of his steps.If he did, he would probably make a mistake instead. Baley, standing on the fixed platform, found himself in a strange semi-isolation.It was just him and a policeman on the platform.Except for the whistling sound of speeding along the highway, there is no sound here, which is uncomfortable. The police came towards him, and Bailey flashed his badge impatiently.The policeman raised his hand to let him pass. Passing through the narrow area, I turned sharply left and right three or four times.This design is clearly on purpose.The mob of earthlings could not gather in the passage smoothly, nor could they launch a direct attack. Bailey is grateful for the arrangement to meet his partner in this way.He doesn't need to go into a space city.Although the immigration health check was notoriously courteous, he had no desire to undergo such a check on his way out of New York City. There are several doors in the direction of the wilderness area and the space city dome construction area, and the words of the exit are marked on the doors.There's an outsider standing there.He was dressed in terrestrial clothing, with trousers that fitted well at the waist and were wide at the bottom, with a colorful band along the side seams.His upper body was a plain blend shirt with an open collar, a pull front, and hemmed cuffs.Yet he is an outsider.There was something special about the way he stood there.His jaw was set high, and his broad, high-cheekboned face had cool, indifferent lines.His short copper-colored hair was combed back meticulously, without parting.All these make him completely different from the native earthlings. Bailey walked towards him blankly, and said in a flat tone: "I am a plainclothes detective of the New York City Police Department, man, Elijah Bailey, C-5." He showed his ID and continued: "I have been ordered to see you. R. Daniel Oliva, the rendezvous point is at the entrance to Space City." He checked his watch. "I'm a little early. Could you please let me know that I've arrived?" Bailey hissed coldly.He is more or less used to the robots on Earth, but the robots in the outer world should be different.He'd never seen a robot from another world before, but he'd heard rumors circulating among the Earthlings. They often discussed in private how massive and frighteningly numerous the robots that worked like supermen in the far, shimmering outer world were.Bailey felt that his teeth seemed to be chattering. The outsider, who listened politely to him, spoke up. "No," he said, "I've been waiting for you." Bai Lai raised his hand involuntarily, then lowered it slumped.His long chin also hangs down, making it appear longer.He didn't speak.Everything he was about to say froze. The outsider continued: "I should introduce myself first. My name is R. Daniel Oliva." "Really? Did I hear you wrong?" Bailey said. "Your first short name?" "That's right. I'm a robot. Didn't they tell you?" "They told me." Bailey reached up his sweaty hand to touch his hair, and pushed it back unnecessary. Then he held out his hand. "Sorry, Mr. Oliva, I really don't know what's wrong with me. Hello. I'm Ilya Belle, your partner." "Hello." The robot reached for him, tightened naturally, allowing the palm to convey a comfortable friendly touch, and then eased the grip. "I sense an uneasy reaction from you. May I ask you to be honest with me? In a partnership like ours, it's best to spread everything out and let each other understand. The habit in our world is, Workmates address each other by first name, which is a bit more cordial. I believe this will not violate your customs, right?" "You know, you really don't look like a robot," Bailey argued hastily. "So you feel wrong?" "I guess that shouldn't bother me, Dan Daniel. Are they all like you in your world?" "Not the same, Elijah, they are as different as men." "You know, our robot... er, people can tell it's a robot at a glance. And you, it looks like an outsider." "Oh, I see. That's why you looked so taken aback by expecting to see a crudely formed robot. Still, it's reasonable to say that our humans, wishing to avoid unpleasantness, have used a robot with recognizably human characteristics to perform the task, isn't it? "Of course. Letting a recognizable robot running around the city can quickly cause disputes." "That's right," Bailey said. "So, Ilya, let's go." They turned back to the highway and took them away. After R. Daniel understood the function of the acceleration belt, he quickly ran around on it proficiently.Bailey was moving at a steady pace at first, but finally he had to speed up in exasperation. The robot actually kept pace with him, and it didn't seem to feel any difficulty at all.Bailey even wondered if R. Daniel slowed down the speed on purpose.He arrived at the side of the endless car on the expressway, and climbed up with a bold move.The robot easily followed up. Bailey flushed.He slobbered twice and said, "I'll stay with you below." "Under there?" The robot obviously didn't care about the noise on the highway and the rhythmic shaking of the platform. "Am I mistaken?" he said. "They tell me that a C-five is entitled to the upper class under certain circumstances." "You're not mistaken. But I can go up and you can't." "Why can't I go up with you?" "Only people with C-level five status can go up, Daniel." "I know." "You don't have a C-5 status." Bailey tried not to speak too loudly, but there were fewer windshields on the lower floor, and the whistling air friction was even louder, making it really difficult to speak. R. Daniel said, "Why shouldn't I have a C-5? We're mates, we should be equal. They gave me this." He took a rectangular identification card from his shirt pocket. The card was true, the name on it was Daniel Oliva, the most important initials were missing.Class is C level five. "Then go up." Bailey said blankly. Bailey sat down, staring straight ahead.He is very angry with himself.The robot was actually sitting next to him, and he missed twice.The first time, he didn't recognize R. Daniel as a robot; the second time, he didn't expect that R. Daniel must have a C-level five status to be reasonable. The problem is that he is not, of course, not the undercover detective of folklore.He will be startled, he will not be able to be neutral, his adaptability will be limited, and his comprehension will not be as fast as lightning.He had never imagined himself capable of such a thing, and he had never regretted it.But now, he regrets it. To his great regret, it was R. Daniel who embodied the legendary undercover detective skills. Of course he can, he's a robot. Bailey began to find reasons for himself.He was used to robots like R. Sammy in the office.He had expected to see a monster with dead white skin and stiff body made of smooth plastic.He had expected the monster to have a constant smile, which seemed hollow and false.He had expected the monster's movements to be comical and silly like cramps. R. Daniel was not like that at all. Bailey took a quick look at the robot beside him. R. Daniel also turned his head at this moment and met Bailey's eyes.He nodded gravely at Bailey.When this robot speaks, its lips move naturally, unlike the robots on earth, which just open and close their mouths.Baley could even see his articulating tongue moving. Bailey thought: Why does he have to sit there so calmly?These things should be completely new to him!noise!light!crowd!He stood up and brushed past R. Daniel. "Come with me!" he said. Leave the highway belt and walk onto the deceleration belt. Bailey thought: God, what am I going to tell Jessie? In order to deal with the robot, he hadn't had time to think about how to explain it to Jessie, but now, he was starting to worry, and that feeling made him uncomfortable.As he thought about it, he walked towards the flat speed road leading to the entrance of the southern Ronks district. "You know, Daniel, this whole thing is a building," he said. "Everything you see, everything in this city, is in a building. There are 20 million people in here. The freeway is constantly The speed is 96 kilometers per hour, and the total length is 400 kilometers. In addition, there are hundreds of kilometers of flat-speed road belts." At this point, Bailey can't help thinking: Do I have to figure out how many tons of yeast food are consumed in New York every day?How many liters of water did you drink?How many million watts per hour is the energy generated by the atomic furnace? "I know," Daniel said. "They gave me all this and stuff like that when they did their briefings." Bailey thought: These data probably also include food, drinking water and electricity.Why should I show off to a robot? They walked to East 182nd Street, and at most another two hundred meters, they could reach the elevator at Bailey's house. Of course, those elevators not only lead to Bailey's apartment, but also transport the residents of the reinforced concrete apartment on each floor. Bailey was about to say "this way" when he stopped suddenly.The ground floor of the apartment unit in front of me is a row of shops, including a brightly lit retail store that seems to be out of order.A crowd of people gathered outside its invisible pressure door. Without thinking, he immediately asked the nearest person authoritatively: "What's going on?" The man being questioned was looking into the crowd on tiptoe. "I don't know, I just came here," he said. Someone nearby chimed in excitedly: "They've got some crappy robots, and I see these things are going to be thrown out. Wow! I can't wait to smash them!" Bailey looked at Daniel nervously, but Daniel's expression remained unchanged, making it impossible to see whether he understood or heard these words. Bailey charged into the crowd. "Get out of the way! Let me in! I'm the police!" Everyone made way.Loud words came from behind Bailey. "...Take it apart! Screw by screw... Slowly disassemble, pry along the seams..." Someone is laughing. Bailey suddenly felt a little frightened.This city is undoubtedly the highest expression of efficiency, and the citizens must also give something.They must live an extremely regular and orderly life, subject to strict and scientific control.However, sometimes the string is stretched too tightly and it will break. He recalled the riots at the Space City blockade. Anti-robot sentiment has the potential to turn into riots.When those who have struggled half their lives face the prospect of being relegated to the lowest echelons of society, they may attack the robots and take their anger out on them. One cannot attack something called "policy" or slogans such as "increasing productivity with robotic labor." The government says it's growing pains.It shakes its collective head mournfully, assuring everyone that after a period of necessary adjustment, they will all be able to live a new and better life. However, more and more people were demoted, and the medievalist movement became more and more vigorous.People have become desperate to jump over the wall.The line between emotional dissatisfaction and behavioral insanity is sometimes easy to cross. At this moment, it is often only a few minutes before the dividing line between the hostility of the crowd and the sudden outbreak of bloodshed and destruction. Bailey twisted his body desperately and squeezed to the pressure gate.