Great Power Heavy Industry: Rise

Chapter 333 The Dark Side of the Moon
The three of them followed Jack in the underground pipe network passage. Zhong Cheng recognized that they should be heading north, out of the city.

The channel has a diameter of ten meters, but there are a large number of various pipes distributed in it. The thickest one has a diameter of more than 3 meters. It is either a water or sewage pipe or an air pipe.

Xu Jiuwen is very familiar with these, and this is almost a replica of the sky ecosystem of Yuegong City. He explained to Zhong Cheng the composition of the underground part of the ecosystem.

In order to ensure the cleanliness of the surface city, the water and electricity supply pipelines of the ecosystem are built at a depth of 100 meters underground.

And in order to ensure the reliability of the system, the underground pipe network of each dome city is connected. If there is a problem with one dome, it can be supplemented by the system of other domes. If it is not possible, the population can also be transferred through the underground passage.

It is precisely because of these underground pipe networks that Jack can guarantee to send Zhong Cheng and his party out of the city that never sleeps, but after leaving the city that never sleeps, he has to find a way to find a lunar rover to send them back to Moon Palace City, which is very troublesome.

Suddenly, Zhong Cheng raised his hand to stop everyone, "There are people in front, there are many people!"

Xu Jiuwen looked at Jack in surprise. Jack turned his head and gave Zhong Cheng a thumbs up in admiration.

"There is an underground settlement 300 meters ahead. There are a lot of people. The noise in the passage is so loud that the husband can still hear it. It's amazing!"

The pipes in the underground passage made all kinds of sounds. Although it was not very noisy, except for Zhong Cheng, no one else could distinguish the sounds hundreds of meters away.

"Why are there still human settlements here? This is against the rules!" Xu Jiuwen still didn't understand.

Jack shrugged his shoulders, "I can't explain it for a while, you go and read it, and I'll explain it later!"

A group of people followed Jack curiously and continued to move forward.

Five minutes later, everyone came to a meeting point of the underground passage. This is a huge space with a total area of ​​thousands of square meters, but it is divided into small spaces by criss-crossing pipes.

These small spaces were built with four or five floors made of old iron sheets, plastic shells, wires, and iron rods, and connected to the top to form simple sheds. The widest passage between the sheds is only more than two meters.

As soon as Zhong Cheng and others approached the shed area, they smelled an indescribable stench, mixed with human excrement, meals, expired food, engine oil, rust, and plastic.

Jack thoughtfully gave each of the three a mask, "Put it on, no one can stand it for the first time!"

Zhong Cheng and the others didn't want to test their physiological reactions, so they put on masks in a hurry.

Everyone walked along the main passage of the shed area, and found that there were mainly old people and a small number of children in the shed.

If the people I saw on the ground of the city that never sleeps were a little bit too energetic, then the people here can only be described as walking dead.

Children are better. Although they are obviously malnourished, they can still walk between the huts. More elderly people are mostly bedridden, or curled up on both sides of the passage.

Occasionally, I saw a young and middle-aged man with a hunched back and a weak look.

This is a lifeless world, which once again refreshed Zhong Cheng's understanding of this world.

Zhong Cheng estimated that thousands of people lived at the intersection of the underground pipe network.

But Jack said that there are 78 such underground pipe network intersections in the underground of the city that never sleeps, and many of them are inhabited. The population of this underground world has already reached tens of thousands.

The three of Zhong Cheng were dumbfounded!
Most people on the earth think that the moon is heaven, and it is the right of the rich and capable to live on the moon. Who would have thought that there is not only heaven on the moon, but also hell!

Without waiting for the three to ask questions, Jack said: "Most of these people are workers who developed the moon in the early days. You think they are old people, but they are not very old. They are only 40 or [-] years old."

"Of course, there are also some adventurers who came to the moon later, and those who traveled to the moon were cheated out of their money, and their families on the earth were unwilling to provide them with money for return tickets. They were desperate and thrown in by the city guard."

"In the European and American Commonwealth, the application of intelligent robots is very limited, and the development of the moon basically relies on manual labor."

"The moon's gravity environment and harsh working conditions have left many workers prematurely aging and in extremely poor health, but the development companies are unwilling to treat them or send them back to Earth because it would be a huge expense. "

"They drove these people underground, and nominally gave them a job to maintain the underground pipe network and clean up urban garbage, but the salary was only enough to maintain the minimum living standards of food and drinking water. In fact, they were allowed to live here on their own. Self-destruction."

Zhong Cheng asked: "The officials on the moon don't care?"

Jack replied disdainfully: "Whatever it is, the administrative regions of the European and American Federation on the moon are managed by people from big companies. They didn't just dump these people into the wild, it's just a show of kindness."

"Moreover, they strictly control public opinion and forbid any relevant reports. In fact, even if someone reports it, no one will believe it!"

Zhong Cheng sighed, who would have imagined that what happened in the Age of Discovery 500 years ago would reappear in today's "civilized" society?

And this kind of news that goes against the main theme of social development, the three major federations will also strictly control it.

If anyone really wants to expose this matter, perhaps the first unlucky people will be these poor people.

These big companies on the moon will not hesitate to dispose of these people as garbage, and will not give any excuses.

It is extremely appropriate to say that the sky is high and the emperor is far away.

Human beings will have more and more alien colonies in the future. Human society has not seriously thought about how to manage these colonies.

Everyone walked through the settlement in silence and continued on their way.

After passing through five more settlements like this, after 2 hours, everyone came to an underground pipe network maintenance management center.

Ate here for a little refreshment.

After a friend of Jack delivered the luggage of Zhong Cheng and his wife, they set off again.

Dongyang boy had already woken up, he refused Xu Jiuwen to carry him, and forced himself to follow behind Zhong Cheng.

From the elevator in the maintenance management center, everyone returned to the ground, but they were outside the dome city.

Jack asked everyone to change into airtight work clothes, and passed through three airtight doors to a field work station on the ground.

This workstation is a site for the maintenance of the peripheral facilities of the dome by the urban ecosystem management center of the city that never sleeps. More than 100 people are stationed here, and there are more than a dozen lunar engineering vehicles.

This lunar engineering vehicle is a large-scale electric flying vehicle, but it is specially used to fly in the vacuum environment of the moon, which can provide relatively safe space for drivers and passengers in the wild.

After everyone boarded the lunar engineering vehicle, Jack introduced that to enter the engineering vehicle in the field, you can only enter and exit through the decompression chamber at the rear, otherwise the air pressure and temperature inside the vehicle cannot be maintained.

Most of the power of the power battery of the engineering vehicle is used to maintain the life support system, and the power consumption for driving on the moon is very small.

After staying in the car for more than ten minutes, Jack checked the time and said it was time to leave.

Judging from the schedule of the workstation, at this time, there should be an engineering vehicle going outside Tycho Crater to check several moonseismometers, which will not arouse suspicion.

He will drive along a northwest radiating pattern of Tycho Crater, pass through the sea of ​​clouds, and send Zhong Cheng and others to Flamarion Crater at the southernmost tip of Ocean of Storms.

There is the edge of the Moon Administrative Region of the Asian Federation, and there is an industrial base, so it is safe to go there.

There are more than 2000 kilometers in the middle, and it takes more than 3 hours to drive, but it is very safe, so everyone treats it as a trip.

(End of this chapter)