Chapter 86: Lingchuan Underground Shelter City
Chapter 86: Lingchuan Underground Shelter City
“Do you feel nervous about boarding the train to the Lingchuan Underground Shelter City?”
“Not bad… I…”
People from many different places were brought together at a few similar spots through a huge intelligent traffic network.
This was one of them at that moment.
It looked like a train waiting area. After identification by the intelligent program,
people entered this waiting area. On the other side of the waiting area, the open exit
was indeed facing a few tracks.
About this place at that time, the people who planned the underground shelter city gave it a simple name, called the ‘Underground Rail Station’.
It was basically the start point from the ground to the underground city.
The tracks in front of the ‘Underground Rail Station’ were one of the main ways to the underground shelter city, the ‘underground rail’.
These underground rails went down a space like a tunnel, all the way to the underground shelter city.
Inside the underground rail station at that time, it was a bit noisy.
Some people looked around at the underground rail station, some watched the rails to the underground shelter city,
and others talked with each other. What they said didn’t seem to matter much; it was probably just to help ease each other’s worries and nervous feelings.
A young student from Lingchuan University, who had won a spot to move to the underground refuge city, was in the crowd.
He had just answered in a half-hearted way a question from a live smart reporter of the Huaxin News Agency,
when his eyes were caught by the train slowly coming into view on the tracks outside the underground rail station.
This train looked very much like an old-style high-speed train, but its purpose and route were different,
which led to changes in some details.
This helped the underground rail transit run more steadily on slopes.
“All people inside the underground rail station, please board in order. The train will restart when full.”
The noisy underground rail station became quiet again.
For a short time, including that young student from Lingchuan University, many didn’t know how they felt, but they started lining up quietly to get on the train.
New people kept coming to the underground rail station, joining the line behind the others.
Then, when the train was full, the underground rail transit shut its doors.
The intelligent program checked that all had fastened their seat belts, then started moving again.
The next underground rail transit followed right after.
The young student who had boarded sat in one of the carriages of the underground rail transit.
He noticed that the group, which had been noisy before, now talked little inside the carriage.
Of course, even he himself didn’t speak much; instead, he watched the sights outside the train window more.
But soon, the underground rail transit went into the tunnel.
There was light inside, but the tunnel walls had nothing to see; it was a waste to look.
At the same time, slowly, everyone in the carriage clearly felt the train start moving downward.
The slope was not too small either, so the seat belts started to help.
But very quickly, this downward move became steady and smooth.
Inside the underground rail transit, some talking started again.
“Hey, young guy, where’s your spot?”
The passenger in front of the young student turned around and asked.
“Area 01, Road 01, Path 02, Alley 689, Room 320.”
“Oh, I’m close to you. I’m also in Alley 689, Room 267.”
The whole carriage’s people shared their places and found they were almost all neighbors.
Clearly, the strong artificial intelligence had planned their arrival times at the underground rail station on purpose,
so people in one batch were mostly in the same area.
Because they were going to be neighbors for a long time now, they chatted a bit more warmly.
But the talking didn’t last much longer.
After maybe fifteen minutes or so,
this underground rail transit went from moving on a slope to being steady again.
Then, after another fifteen minutes or so, the train stopped.
“Esteemed passengers, the first group of immigrants to the Lingchuan Underground Shelter City: after leaving the train, follow the intelligent robots and signs to your homes.”
At this moment,
the first people to come to the underground shelter city saw what it really looked like.
Unlike what most people thought, the underground city was not very dark at all.
The lighting systems all over the space were on, making it bright as day everywhere.
This end station of the underground rail transit felt no different from a regular train station.
That young student from Lingchuan University walked with the crowd and the station signs to the exit.
Outside the underground rail station, everything was very different from what they knew on the ground.
Even though the designers had made a plaza-like space outside the station,
beyond the plaza, the view wasn’t as wide as it was above ground.
What blocked the sight wasn’t the rock layers around the underground space,
but man-made buildings.
Looking all around, in the whole city, except for the roads themselves, buildings were joined together tightly, with no useless gaps,
reaching high and low, using every bit of space fully.
The roads in the whole underground city were also much busier than people had imagined.
Many intelligent machinery and transport vehicles kept moving back and forth on the roads,
the building of the whole underground city wasn’t fully done yet.
Just like when he was on the ground,
the young student walked alongside the crowd to the road.
Then a self-driving vehicle stopped in front of him on its own and opened its door.
He got in, and the vehicle started moving normally toward his place.
“Could you tell me what this whole underground city is like?”
After the vehicle drove into the underground city,
through the window, it was still very bright everywhere, with no dark spots.
But no matter where they looked, once away from the road, buildings all around blocked the view.
Above the road, there was also a height limit, making it feel like traveling through a very wide, multi-lane tunnel. The lighting system above illuminated everything around, but no city scenery could be seen.
“The entire Lingchuan Underground Shelter City is divided into two zones: the residential zone and the industrial zone.”
“Your activities within the Underground Shelter City will mainly be confined to the residential zone afterward.”
“To maximize space usage and house more people inside the underground shelter city, the entire residential zone, and indeed the whole Underground Shelter City, is actually a multi-layered structure.”
“From Living Area 01 onward to several other areas, they aren’t necessarily on the same level. These zones are connected through different ‘Roads’ and linked via ‘Sub-Roads.’ The final ‘Alleys’ are inaccessible to vehicles. You can think of the alleys as already inside the buildings.”
“Right now, we are traveling through Area 01, Road 01. We are now turning into Sub-Road 02.”
As the intelligent program on the self-driving vehicle answered, the vehicle veered off the wide tunnel onto a side branch road.
Overall, the scenery along Sub-Road 02 was almost identical to Road 01 before,
only with fewer lanes.
“The vehicle will stop at Alley 689. You may proceed to your room on your own.”
The vehicle, carrying the young student, ran for about half an hour before stopping again.
After getting off,
what appeared before the young student was another tunnel-like passage connected to Sub-Road 02.
Or rather, it looked more like a corridor inside a building.
It was about four to five meters wide and three meters high.
The ground was covered with a smooth, non-slip material. The ceiling resembled a standard one, but emitted natural light straight down from above,
neither dim nor harsh.
The young student walked forward along this corridor.
He soon found branch paths along the sides.
Signs clearly indicated which branch paths led to rooms with specific number ranges.
The young student found the branch his room belonged to
and turned into it.
This final corridor was much narrower.
Less than three meters wide, the ceiling height also seemed significantly reduced.
The young student felt if he jumped, he could probably touch the ceiling.
On either side of the corridor were doors, each marked with a room number.
When the young student reached the door to his room,
likely detected by the corridor’s smart system, the door slid open by itself.
“Welcome. For any issues, please notify this area’s smart management system via your terminal or the call device in your room.”
Following the voice prompt, the young man walked into his room.
Behind the door was a single room.
The ceiling height looked barely over two meters, and the floor area was perhaps only three square meters.
It was just large enough to fit a small single bed. At the bed’s foot, on the wall, hung a small cabinet where he could store his belongings.
On the bed, sheets and bedding were already laid out. The cabinet also held some basic daily necessities.
Beyond that, the room was completely bare.
However, once inside and sitting on the bed, the young man breathed a sigh of relief.
Compared to his expectations, this room was actually quite nice.
At least everyone had a relatively private space. They weren’t all crammed together like sardines in a can.
As for other things, before the Doomsday Crisis, they didn’t really matter much.
After the young student sat down on the bed,
his terminal immediately received a new message.
It was from the Underground Shelter City Management System,
informing him of the locations of the public washroom and cafeteria near his room.
Additionally, within this entire zone, there was actually a small park area.
That space was relatively more open, designed for people who might feel psychologically strained by the confined spaces, providing a place to relax.
The young student carefully read through this information and let out another long breath.
Truthfully, the state of this young man at that moment was probably a reflection of what the first group of people relocated to the Underground Shelter City felt like.
Under the coordination of the Strong Artificial Intelligence,
the relocation process was completed very efficiently without much delay.
The migration of the entire first batch of twenty million people underground was finished.
Most of the arrivals actually had no complaints about the relatively harsh living conditions they faced for the period ahead.
The vast majority had long been following the progress of the Underground Shelter City’s construction,
so they had sufficient expectations for the living environment inside.
Besides, moving into the Underground Shelter City was about survival, not vacation.
For most people, the priority was fitting as many people as possible into the city; living conditions came second.
During the process of relocating the first group of qualified people to the underground city and the period shortly after,
many people online were also closely following and discussing it.
“…Can anyone tell me what it’s actually like living down there?”
“It’s pretty good. I feel very safe here, hadn’t slept well in ages. My first night here, I passed out as soon as I hit the bed.”
“Also, although the room is tiny, the soundproofing is great. Heard they used some materials developed by the Negentropy Research Institute’s Materials Research Institute?”
“So jealous! When does the registration for the next batch of spots open?…”
Online, the discussions about the Underground Shelter City remained lively.
Amidst this buzz,
during the same month, in another place,
the Negentropy Research Institute’s Materials Research Institute reached the final critical stage in its most urgent research project: the new superconducting material.
Led by Qin Yu, the Materials Research Institute focused its efforts on the last possible direction.
And on this day, research into that final possibility made its last step forward.
Following Academician Qin Yu’s requirements and guidance,
the research team at the Materials Research Institute successfully synthesized the substance predicted by Qin Yu’s theory.
Right now,
aimed at this substance,
a group of researchers from the Materials Research Institute were conducting analyses.
Although the results were objectively determined –
the composition and properties of a synthesized substance rarely changed due to analysis itself –
it felt like waiting for exam results. The researchers couldn’t help but feel tense.
It was almost like awaiting judgment.
If this synthesized substance failed to meet the theoretically expected material performance and effects,
it would mean a devastating failure for the entire research into the new superconducting material.
It wasn’t that the recent efforts were wasted; whatever result the substance showed would still yield valuable information.
But, meeting the critical deadline for completing the Helium-3 Fusion Reactor might become impossible.
At this moment,
Qin Yu was present, along with the core research team of the Materials Research Institute.
In this era, researchers didn’t need to perform specific experiments manually;
during this tense period, the lab’s Intelligent Machinery directly conducted the analysis experiments following the workflow designed by the researchers
on the synthesized material.
The researchers were merely focused on the results generated by the various analyses.
Qin Yu, however, wasn’t as tense as the others.
As the research progressed to the later stages, he had already been able to foresee the outcome to some extent.
And indeed,
just as Qin Yu expected,
at that very moment,
the core researchers in the lab erupted in loud cheers.
“Perfect match, the data matches!”
A core researcher stared intently at the data, unable to hold back his voice.
At this moment, multiple analytical results showed
that the finally synthesized substance perfectly matched Qin Yu’s earlier theoretical predictions.
It was a
new superconducting material capable of achieving superconductivity at room temperature.
Its overall performance far surpassed that of the superconducting coils previously used in Deuterium-Tritium Fusion Reactors.
One core researcher trembled all over looking at the results, gripping the hand of a colleague beside him tightly.
“We did it! Amazing! Absolutely brilliant!”
Throughout this period, the research team at the Materials Research Institute had been under enormous psychological pressure.
The key to the High-Power Laser Weapon lay in the Helium-3 Fusion Reactor, and the key to the Helium-3 Reactor rested on their research into this superconducting material.
A responsibility so heavy it was almost suffocating to imagine weighed on the entire Materials Research Institute.
Even though Academician Qin Yu bore most of the pressure, every researcher had piled significant mental stress on themselves.