73: Chapter 73 Dr. Green's Despair: We've Become Blind!

California, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Dr. Green was intently analyzing the latest batch of interstellar medium data transmitted back from the Voyager 2 deep space probe.

This data might help humanity better understand the mysteries at the edge of the Solar System and served as the spiritual pillar that helped her recover from the blow of the successful "Golden Crow" fusion.

The complex waveforms and spectral lines flowing across the screen were a world she was familiar with and could control.

Suddenly—

The three high-performance research screens in front of her went black instantly, as if their power had been cut off simultaneously!

It wasn't just her terminal; the entire laboratory, and even the entire NASA Deep Space Network control center, all computer equipment fell into a deathly silence at the same time!

The lights remained on, but those "brains" that carried humanity's dreams of exploring the universe had collectively stopped working.

"What's going on?! A power failure?" Dr. Green stood up abruptly, looking around in shock and anger.

But the emergency lights did not turn on, indicating that the power supply was normal.

"It's not the power! It's the network! All external connections are cut! The local servers have also... also crashed!" an assistant researcher shouted in panic. He tried to restart a workstation, only to find that even the basic system could not load, and the hard drive emitted an abnormal clicking sound.

Panic spread through the laboratory like a virus.

Without a network, they could not receive probe data, conduct large-scale computational simulations, or even share information and collaborate with other observatories around the world!

They were like being thrown back into a primitive era without radio!

Dr. Green rushed to the window and looked outside.

The streets, usually bustling with traffic and brightly lit, still had vehicles moving, but many of the buildings' LED billboards had gone dark, and the traffic lights were in chaos.

An eerie silence, devoid of a digital pulse, enveloped everything.

She tremblingly took out her smartphone; the screen displayed a "No Service" icon.

She tried using the laboratory's landline to make an outside call, but there was only a busy signal in the receiver.

"Global... this is a global network outage!" she muttered to herself, a chill running up her spine to the top of her head.

She immediately associated this with the recent intense cyber confrontation with the Dragon Kingdom and the Dragon Kingdom's unfathomable technological breakthroughs.

"It's the Dragon Kingdom... It must be them..." Dr. Green returned to her seat, soul-lost, and slumped into her chair, staring blankly at the pitch-black screen.

The blackness of the screen seemed to reflect the endless darkness within her heart.

Regarding the "Golden Crow" fusion, she could still barely comfort herself with the excuse of an "accidental breakthrough in materials science."

But this precise, fatal, global network silence covering key nodes required more than just technology; it required a near-godlike understanding and control of the underlying network architecture!

This was definitely not an effect that any cyber warfare method she was familiar with could achieve!

"They have not only completely surpassed us in energy... but also in the information domain..." Dr. Green's voice was hoarse with despair. She could almost see, in the distant East, the Dragon Kingdom's scientists continuing their research, their exploration, their... sea of stars, through some absolutely secure network she could not comprehend.

Yet she and her colleagues had become blind and deaf, trapped in the digital ruins!

They had lost contact with deep space probes, lost communication with global peers, and even lost the ability to access the latest scientific research data.

The lifeline of scientific research had been forcibly severed.

An unprecedented sense of powerlessness and fear engulfed her.

This was not just technological backwardness; it was the cognitive collapse and future despair brought about by having the entire path of civilization development forcibly overtaken on a curve.

She buried her face deep in her hands, her shoulders trembling helplessly.

The laboratory was left with only the panicked shouts of other researchers and the suffocating silence left behind after the equipment fans stopped spinning.

Do we really still have a future? This thought, like the coldest viper, coiled around her heart.