All homegrown vegetables and farming?
If that’s the case, then why has the Wanderer settlement shrunk so much in recent years?
Out of curiosity, Lin Miao asked Sol these questions.
Sol looked at Lin Miao strangely, "You really don’t know?"
Lin Miao shook his head, "No, I don’t."
The two sat on a rock on the slope outside the tunnel, while below, Adcardo people and players were carrying batches of supplies out of the tunnel.
Sol said matter-of-factly,
"This all started with... the birth of the Wanderer, old stories. "
"Adcardo rose from East Los Angeles, and ever since the end of the two Central American Wars, the United States’ military industry and finance collapsed comprehensively. The first leader of Adcardo, Juan, led over five thousand people out of the city to settle in the wilderness. They were the first generation of Adcardo, the first batch of Wanderers."
"Later, when a 8.5 magnitude earthquake happened in Los Angeles, half the city was submerged by a tsunami, millions died. We didn’t get the city reconstruction projects and had to migrate southward, to the U.S.-Mexico border to do line business. You know..."
Upon hearing about the line business, Lin Miao couldn’t help but chuckle.
Sol was somewhat puzzled, "Why are you laughing?"
"No... I just remembered something funny."
Lin Miao found it hard to hold back, for when the United States had already collapsed, both economy and military bloomed, yet there were still people doing line runs there.
"You guys didn’t have a hobby for making puffs, did you?"
Sol was baffled, not even knowing what Lin Miao was talking about.
"Never mind, continue."
"Later, Adcardo was handed over by Juan to Santiago. We no longer continued line running because, at that time, not many people wanted to come to the United States; even if they did, they’d only come to Night City or Texas."
"Under Santiago’s leadership, Adcardo grew bigger and bigger. Although I don’t like him, I have to admit that he’s very capable."
"Battling wolves, Brian who was responsible for planting and logistics, Griffin who was in charge of city scavenging, dozens of families worked together harmoniously. Back then, we were the strongest Wandering Tribe in North America, even Huang Ban wouldn’t dare to provoke us lightly."
"It was also during that era that the early Internet collapsed, bringing along a large number of enterprises and factories bankrupt, with more cities abandoned, and populations concentrated in big cities, small towns and villages all deserted."
"Do you know how much North America’s population declined in these fifty years?"
Faced with Sol’s question, Lin Miao recalled and said, "If I’m not mistaken, the official announcement was 130 million."
"That number’s been prettified; the real situation should be around 170 million. Many people weren’t counted because they were illegal immigrants or Wanderers, hence not included."
"Got it, the charm of statistics."
"Since that time, Wanderers had another major task: scavenging in cities."
"The threat of war, natural disasters, national division, economic collapse, deteriorating environment—companies and factories went bankrupt, they didn’t even have the money to move production equipment out of cities, couldn’t sell it either. Masses of migrants fled towns, and within decades, those cities with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people turned into deserted dead lands, leaving only big cities like Night City and San Francisco with millions of people."
"Those deserted cities stored many valuable things—technical data, production equipment, sealed food. Every deserted city was a treasure trove awaiting Wanderers to develop. We smuggled out the stuff inside and made a lot of money."
"But..." Sol shook his head.
"A few years ago, this work was forced to stop."
Lin Miao asked, "Why? Did the company send people to take over?"
Sol gave an unexpected answer,
"No... it’s the wandering AI."
Lin Miao originally thought it was the corporations, those cyber Sun Xiaochuan doing evil, but it wasn’t them?
It’s the wandering AI...
Upon hearing this name, a hint of peculiar color flashed in Lin Miao’s eyes,
"How do they interfere with scavengers?"
Sol retorted, "Have you heard of ghost cities?"
Lin Miao furrowed his brows, he indeed seemed to have heard of it, tried to recall.
"It seems to be... Busan? I heard it on the news, during the second Korean War, Huang Ban covered the entire city with poison gas bombs, killing hundreds of thousands of people. To this day, it’s still a dead zone. I also heard that robots were seen operating inside."
Lin Miao suddenly got goosebumps.
"Yes, just like you think, wandering AI are operating in the deserted cities. Those cities’ nuclear power plants have been running the whole time. Initially, we thought it was due to intelligent programs, but in reality, it’s those AI keeping the power going."
"They built factories underground in cities, initially producing rifles, later armored vehicles, even drones. More and more scavengers have been driven out of cities by robots over the years. Adcardo has also migrated multiple times; we were dragged halfway down and later settled outside Night City."
This news was simply astonishing to Lin Miao.
Has it entered the Terminator timeline?
Is Skynet going to revolt?
No... it seems they’ve already revolted.
"So, now you know why I want to collaborate with a big company."
Sol’s tone was very helpless,
"Not only are our planting lands being constantly encroached by companies, squeezing the living environment, soon this world will stir up a storm between AI and humans. Our boat is too small, one wave could capsize the whole thing drowning everyone."
"What about those big companies? They couldn’t possibly watch AI reach into the real land before taking action, right?"
"We talked, but no one believes the Wanderers, people in cities regard us as uncultured Wildmen. Companies suppress all information related to the wandering AI, they deal with anyone spreading these matters, claiming this is ignorant ranting without issues."
This made Lin Miao understand.
First stage, we announce nothing happened.
However, the truth is also well understood, North America is now fragmented, and just finished a unification war, with Huang Ban eyeing from outside, internal and external conflicts are intense, who has leisure to deal with deserted city matters?
Moreover, who will handle it?
You’re not a territory of the new United States.
Free State, aren’t you free?
Deal with it yourself.
How could the Free State government possibly pay to clean up every deserted city? Moreover, wandering AI is the enemy of cyber world transformers, only professional AI Hunters and Internet Supervisor elite Hackers can deal with them, they’d never be willing to pay the cost."
Since for years, we’ve acted like we didn’t see, why not continue doing so now?
As long as we pretend not to see, contradictions will self-dissipate; believe in the invisible hand!
But for Lin Miao — the future version is anchored.