Chapter 321 The Ultimate Secret

After Schenkov was "interviewed" by people from the giant company, the trend within the Public Security Bureau quietly changed.

Although the newly formed disciplinary inspection department has not been abolished, under the direction of the city council, a number of people have been replaced.

From the original fresh blood with simple background and independence, they have been replaced by old fritters who have interests in various departments. From a functional point of view, they exist in name only.

The trend that had just begun to improve has also been cut off. Several violent attacks committed by border people have appeared in the inner city one after another, and a lot of rhythmic attacks have also emerged on the Internet.

The Public Security Bureau turned a blind eye to this and allowed the chaos to continue to ferment.

As the atmosphere between the inner city and the border becomes tense again, in another corner that usually no one cares about, an unprecedented undercurrent is quietly surging.

The Northern Industrial Development Zone is the industrial core area of ​​Crescent City. It is the backbone of various industrial production capacities and is also a sweatshop as cold as steel.

The place is filled with dense factories, with towering chimneys constantly spraying thick smoke, dyeing the sky gloomy and gray. A large number of sewage outlets spray industrial waste into the surrounding rivers, and the air is filled with a pungent chemical smell.

The most suffering people are undoubtedly the workers here.

Even though the world is technologically advanced, robotics technology is already very mature. There are many types of automated robots on the market that can replace humans in production operations.

But a very cruel fact is that for capitalists, using human power seems to be more "cost-effective".

Some of the workers working in the Northern Industrial Development Zone are inner-city migrant workers with decades-old mortgages and children at home who need to go to school. In order to support their families, they can only silently endure long working hours and pay wages that are not commensurate with the intensity of their work. salary.

There are also many civilians in the border areas who can't survive in the chaotic environment and are humble enough to beg for food. These people have even become involved in the situation and voluntarily do not receive wages, as long as they take care of food and housing.

In a huge city like Crescent City, there are people everywhere who are unable to make a living. The most indispensable thing is manpower, which can be exploited at will.

Imagine that you are a capitalist.

A human worker who will work obediently for you with 30 monthly coins per day for food, and can spend it casually with just tens of thousands of pensions after death.

And a "precious" robot that costs hundreds of thousands and requires regular maintenance and repairs.

Which one do you choose?

Therefore, except for those high-end industries that have high requirements on technology and efficiency, in most low-end assembly lines, humans are still the main force, and robots cannot get rid of these flesh and blood bodies.

Su Mo was currently in the western area of ​​the Northern Industrial Development Zone. This area was originally a core industrial area. Later, with the economic reform policy, a large number of factories moved eastward, and this area was slowly abandoned.

The past glory of the West District has been washed away by the years, leaving only a barren ruins. The tall chimneys no longer spit out thick smoke and stand dimly on the empty skyline.

The once bustling workshop is now extremely empty, with abandoned machinery lying quietly in the corner, so rusty that it can no longer make the roar of the past.

The dilapidated buildings are also stained with rust, the inferior cement floor has cracks, and the withered and yellow weeds are swaying in the wind. There are no traces of the once lively life.

Su Mo stood at the entrance of an abandoned mine, wearing a mechanical wristband on his wrist and performing various operations on the screen.

After the Club of Fools incident, he would bring the earth-exploring robots developed in the future here every day and arrange them into the drilling in this mine.

In the eyes of others, everything in the West District, including this mediocre mine, is just an industrial ruin that has long been eliminated.

But only Su Mo knew that beneath this seemingly barren land, there was a big secret that could turn the human world upside down.

During this time, Su Mo has invested hundreds of ground-penetrating robots here. This type of robot is small and can easily pass through gaps in the rock formations and send back high-frequency signals for all-round detection.

Whether it is detection accuracy or depth, these small robots developed by Future are far easier to use than ordinary ground penetrating radars.

Just when Su Mo was receiving the signal fed back by the ground-penetrating robot, a sneaky figure came behind him.

This is a waste picker. Such people are not uncommon in the West End. Some of them are unemployed workers who have been eliminated by factories. They have no place to go and end up living on the streets.

There are also people who come from the border areas over the mountains and ridges, hoping to pick up some good things here that cannot be found in the border areas.

After all, this used to be an industrial area. You can find a lot of scrap metal by digging and shoveling. If you are lucky, you can even pick up some intact machine parts, which can be sold at a good price.

The scavenger, with unkempt hair and a big bag on his back, poked his head behind Su Mo and grinned, showing his yellow teeth: "Brother, are you opening the treasure box here?"

"Opening the treasure chest" is a joking name for picking up rubbish.

You never know whether the garbage you dig through is waste or treasure. It's full of excitement and is very similar to the behavior of opening treasure chests in games. It can also be regarded as a kind of ridicule for these down-and-out people on their own lives.

Su Mo had nothing to do while waiting for the signal, so he smiled at him and said, "Yeah, how are you today? Did you find any gorgeous treasure chests?"

The scavenger waved his hand: "There are no gorgeous treasure chests these days. They have been opened long ago, and the rest are broken treasure chests. It would be good to pick up some copper and iron."

He looked at the abandoned mine in front of Su Mo, his tone became wary, and he reminded in a low voice: "Brother, you can open the treasure chest outside, but you must not go in here."

Su Mo: "Oh? What should I say?"

The scavenger said mysteriously: "Don't you know? This is the entrance to hell!"

"This happened a long time ago. I heard from my grandparents that the industrial department of the city council conducted scientific research drilling operations here. They drilled down for more than 10,000 meters and finally drilled into a suspected The underworld of hell.”

"I heard that they heard human howling underground. The entire drilling team was frightened. The authorities immediately stopped drilling and sealed the well. No one has ever come here again."

Su Mo couldn't help but laugh after hearing this.

What the scavengers said was not untrue. It happened about seventy years ago, when the Crescent City authorities indeed launched an unprecedented drilling program in preparation for exploring the center of the earth.

At that time, human civilization had been rebuilt for more than 80 years. It relied on the technology obtained from exploring the ruins of the old era to flourish, and technological leaps were being made every day.

The purpose of this drilling plan is that some people speculate that there are more secrets of the old era buried deep underground and want to find out.

The scavengers were right. The Crescent City authorities did drill more than 10,000 meters down from this mine, setting a record for the depth of drilling in the human world.

Later, drilling and sealing of the wells was indeed stopped, and the plan was discontinued.

Of course, it was not because of digging up the hell space, it was purely because some people made it into an eye-catching urban legend for the sake of traffic.

The real reason is that Crescent City authorities feel that the project will bring little profit.

Because the deeper you drill, the harder the formation becomes and the higher the drilling cost. It costs a lot of money to drill one meter down.

Correspondingly, the project did not bring any returns. Even if they drilled to more than 10,000 meters, they did not find any so-called "relics of the old era buried deep in the ground."

Therefore, for the sake of economic efficiency, the project was discontinued, leaving only some strange stories fabricated by future generations.

But the most ridiculous part of this matter is also here.

Have Crescent City authorities dug up the legendary ruins?

No.

Are there actually ruins underground?

have.

Why didn't the authorities find it?

Because they didn't dig deep enough.

While Su Mo was chatting with the scavenger, the mechanical wristband on his hand suddenly sent back a large number of signals, dense like an electronic ocean.

His pupils dilated slightly and said to himself: "I found it."

The doomsday war that destroyed human civilization 153 years ago has always been a mystery to those who came after it.

The first post-war survivors have passed away one after another in more than a hundred years.

According to the information handed down, no one can explain the cause of the doomsday war.

According to the descriptions of the survivors, things happened without any warning. One day, sirens suddenly sounded all over the place. Under the command of the army, everyone hid in underground shelters and completely lost contact with the outside world. No one knew what happened.

Over a long period of time, as supplies gradually depleted, humanitarian disasters such as hunger, disease, violence, etc. occurred in various shelters.

And when the door of the shelter was reopened, those who had experienced the tragedy returned to the surface and suddenly found that the world was completely different.

Endless smoke and dust remained in the atmosphere blocking the sun, and the surface was shrouded in severe cold. The once prosperous cities were reduced to ruins, with war debris and broken corpses everywhere, buried under the vast ice and snow.

There is no living person found in the entire surface world, and these humans who walked out of the shelter became the last survivors.

This is the story of the first year of Shuguang.

After the civilization was rebuilt, judging from the various technologies excavated from the ruins of the old era, human technology in the old era was more developed than today.

Blood codes, prosthetic bodies, spiritual brains, and various high-tech products. The most advanced technologies in the world today all come from the technology of the old era.

So people nowadays can't understand how human beings with such powerful power were destroyed by what kind of war?

In today's universities, there is a subject called "Doomsday Archeology", which studies the causes and processes of the Doomsday War.

After various researches on the relics of the old era, the current mainstream view is that the old era was a multi-polar world, with super giants similar to the current joint ventures, the Iron-Blooded Alliance, and the Black Domain Group.

Due to the uneven distribution of interests, the opposition between the giants intensified. In the end, in order to compete for global hegemony, they launched an unprecedented war. In the end, various destructive weapons led to the destruction of human civilization.

There is no problem with the first half of this statement. The world structure at that time was indeed like this.

But in the second half, there are deeper secrets about the reasons for the destruction of civilization.

And a corner of this dark secret is buried more than 100,000 meters underground in Crescent City.

Su Mo looked at the data transmitted back from the mechanical wristband and said to himself: "The positioning is complete, let's start the layout."

The scavenger poked his head around and asked, "Brother, what are you talking about?"

Su Mo suddenly asked, "Have you ever been to the inner city?"

The scavenger nodded: "I've been through the sewers a few times before, and I was caught by the sheriff once and almost treated me to a set of Crescent Moon Iai. What's up?"

Su Mo put away the mechanical wristband and left without looking back. He only left one sentence: "Find a way to get to the inner city in the next few days. If something big happens on the border, many people may die."

The scavenger smiled casually and said, "Look what you said, there are no more dead people in the border area. I have long been used to it."

Su Mo didn't say anything, shook his head and left.

After returning to the Edge Building, Su Mo immediately found KK: "KK, please organize the manpower in the logistics department and replenish supplies."

KK was stunned for a moment and said, "I looked at the supplies a few days ago. There are plenty of things in the warehouse, enough for everyone to consume for more than a month."

Su Mo: "It's not enough. All backup warehouses have been activated and filled with supplies, mainly all kinds of medicines and food. Don't buy those snacks. Buy more high-calorie foods such as compressed biscuits, instant noodles, canned meat, etc."

These all sounded like emergency wartime supplies. KK couldn't help but become nervous: "Brother, what happened?"

Su Mo shook his head and said, "I'll explain it later. Let's do it first and fill up the warehouse."

"Okay, I'll do it." KK didn't ask any more questions and left in a hurry to organize logistics manpower.

Su Mo went to the laboratory to find the future and said directly: "In the future, I need an earth spaceship."

Future asked doubtfully: "Earth spacecraft? You mean the kind of manned equipment that can shuttle between strata?"

Su Mo: "Yes."

Future: "Why do you want that kind of thing? Go to the Borderlands to look for relics from the old era? The relics discovered so far are all in the shallow layer of the earth's surface. The deepest ones are only more than two thousand meters deep. There is no need for an Earth spacecraft of this level." Equipment."

Su Mo: "But this time I am going to a location more than 100,000 meters underground."

Future's expression became even more confused: "It's more than 100,000 meters underground. It's all in the mantle layer, with a temperature of thousands of degrees, and it's all made of silicate rocks formed under high pressure. I don't think there are any ruins there."

Su Mo: "Just leave these things to me. You only need to be responsible for making things."

Future held his chin and pondered for a moment, then said: "Ground navigation technology has not yet become popular, and major companies do not pay attention to it. The ground navigation spacecraft on the market are just toys that can only travel through superficial strata."

"If you want to dive more than 100,000 meters underground, you can only buy a prototype and then have me modify it. This will take about more than a month."

Su Mo: "Okay, stop all other work on your side and concentrate on this Earth spacecraft. This is very important. It is more important than anything before. You must not make any mistakes."

Future: "Don't worry, when have I ever had a technical glitch?"

After she finished speaking, she went to find someone to hand over the work at hand, and then immediately started planning Su Mo's earth spacecraft plan.

Su Mo looked at the computer room on the other side of the laboratory.

Next, is the key to everything - the black virus that Qi Ling is studying. (End of chapter)