Jack Spencer thought of those silver planetary rings, and the dense satellite debris encasing the entire Earth. He realized that war back then must have been incredibly brutal, with battles raging from the sky to the ground—even the moon had been blown away.

The loss of the moon and the resulting tidal changes would definitely have brought devastating blows to the surface.

"And then?"

"Then humanity gave everything they had to destroy all awakened AIs, achieved final victory, and began to build a new home on the ruins. The year of victory became the new era for humanity. After that, 721 years passed, you woke up and then activated me in the sky, and then we fell down from above."

"What the hell is all this?" At this moment, Jack Spencer felt utterly exhausted. Everything was happening too fast, and his mind was a mess.

The robot sat down beside him. "So, what do you plan to do next?"

Jack Spencer didn't answer, a trace of confusion in his eyes. Honestly, he didn't know what to do either—how had he ended up more than a thousand years in the future?

Would he never see anything from his past again? Was there really no way back? What had happened during those five missing years of his memory?

"That's it? You're giving up already? I really can't respect you then. Don't expect me to comfort you—I don't have that kind of program installed in my system." The robot reached out its metal hand and gave his shoulder a hard shove.

"Screw you." Jack Spencer cursed with a laugh, struggling to his feet. "Defeating me won't be that easy! At the very least, I need to figure out why I was put in the space station, and what happened during those five lost years."

Jack Spencer didn't want to live in such confusion. Even if he could never go back, he had to get to the bottom of what had happened to him.

Thinking of this, Jack Spencer's eyes suddenly lit up. He looked up at the robot. "Right, aren't you connected to the network? Search the records from the old era—see if you can find my name or face, maybe in missing person notices or accident reports or something."

The robot searched for a while, then quickly brought Jack Spencer some not-so-good news. "No data found. To prevent rogue AI data uploads, the old era's internet was completely destroyed—not a single byte remains. The current network is entirely new, even the protocols are brand new."

"All records of the old world are just retellings by the new world."

"Unbelievable. Whatever, just open the map for now. Let's find some people first. I'm really thirsty and hungry—I need a place to rest."

Looking at all the ruins around him, the exhausted Jack Spencer felt completely numb.

"Understood. User request received. Searching the map."

Jack Spencer sat on the ground, looking at the robot in front of him. As he stared, he suddenly burst out laughing. "Let me give you a name. Always calling you 'robot' doesn't feel right."

As soon as Jack Spencer finished speaking, he heard the other reply in a sarcastic tone.

"Ah. No need to trouble you. My wise and mighty master is giving me a name. 'I can't believe this is my name, what a hassle.' Look at this name—how wonderful."

After speaking, it even popped up a matching emoji on its eye display. "Wasn't it just an emergency earlier? How about this—your company seems to be called Tapai. Why don't you just call me Brian Carter?"

"Ah~ I think 'I can't believe this is my name, what a hassle' is better." Brian Carter put down its newly repaired arm, insisting stubbornly.

"Why are you so petty? I already said it was an emergency."

But this time, Brian Carter didn't joke around. Its tone suddenly turned serious.

"Jack, I'm afraid there's trouble. I just noticed the view count on this map is skyrocketing. Quite a few people know something fell from the sky—they're all navigating this way and will be here soon."

"Oh?! Isn't that a good thing?" Jack Spencer was overjoyed. He could finally meet people from this world—if there were people, he could be saved.

"I'm afraid it's not so good." The robot grabbed Jack Spencer and started walking.

"You mean they'll study me, a man from a thousand years ago? Dissect me?"

"No, they'll kill you. Forget about the old world—nowadays, the rules have completely changed. If we go by the old era's standards, the first mercenaries to rush over and scavenge are all cyber psychos."

"All psychos?"

"Yes, all psychos."

"Why? Are they really that dangerous? Can't we even communicate at all?" Jack Spencer asked, a bit unwilling.

"What happened in the last era made people of this age completely distrust AI. All AI intelligence is capped below strong AI level 3. That means some things that should be done by robots now have to be done by humans—for example, war."

"In the arms race, to enhance soldiers' abilities, some weapons that used to be only on robots started being installed on people. They call these things 'cybernetic bodies,' and they directly install neural systems in the brain for unified control. As veterans retire, this trend has gradually spread from the military to civilians."