"Cicada Graffiti?" Number 43 effortlessly located the golden graffiti, a mechanical cicada made up of various golden circuits and standing seven or eight meters tall.
However, he found no door on it. Number 43 reached out to touch the left wing, only to discover that his hand easily passed through the wall.
"So it's Mimetic Camouflage, such a large area, the snakehead really went to some expense," Number 43 thought to himself.
He issued an auto-return command to his sister's unicycle motorcycle and after sending her a message, he grabbed Hopelily and walked in.
As soon as they entered the derelict building, they saw dozens of Graffiti Gang members, their bodies loaded with prosthetic limbs and their glowing fluorescent tattoos stark against the dim environment.
The gang members, who were casually spraying paint, marking their faction's territory, glanced up briefly before returning to their activities.
"Everyone's here? Aren't we leaving?" Number 43 asked someone nearby.
A gang member casually spoke while picking his teeth with a dagger, "Damn right we're waiting for more. You think we're gonna smuggle just the two of you? The whole damn Graffiti Gang would starve."
While the two waited, people gradually trickled into the abandoned structure, their appearances diverse, covering all the social strata of Metropolis.
Nevertheless, their classes couldn't be too low, otherwise they wouldn't be able to afford the smuggling fee.
No matter their original identities, they all had their reasons for now leaving Metropolis to start anew in a different city.
Many inquired with the Graffiti Gang about the cost of arranging false identities in the new city.
When roughly a hundred or so people had gathered, the Graffiti Gang led them down to the basement of the dilapidated building.
Upon reaching the basement, they were suddenly met with a vast open space, and all the smuggled guests' eyes widened in awe at the cavern beneath the ground.
Before them stood a vessel, at least as tall as a multi-story building, shaped like a submarine but unmistakably not one — no submarine sports a gigantic metal drill on its head.
After a quick scan, Number 43's system interface popped up with information on the device, the Feizo Industrial Prospector Shield Tunneling Machine Type 4.
"Smart, figuring out to go straight through the ground, this way the soil can block the intense radiation outside," Number 34 praised.
"That's not all. I've heard that over 2000 kilometers away, Gomorrah is a city built in a subterranean Dissolution Cave, and with this thing, we can enter Gomorrah directly," someone nearby added.
Number 43 gave him a glance and didn't reply; such common knowledge hardly needed his explanation.
Of course, he was aware that every city, due to its geography and its founders' intentions, as well as the difficulty of clearing radiation dust, had a unique location; he knew some cities were even built over water.
"Get in everyone, hurry up, and stop dragging your feet." Under the coercion of the Graffiti Gang, the group queued up to enter the massive tunneling machine.
With the heavy doors slamming shut and the faint vibration, the entire machinery began moving through the soil.
Though there were no windows, as the signal weakened, everyone was aware that they were gradually leaving the Metropolis behind.
The smugglers, out of boredom, started to play the system's offline games to pass the time, while Number 43 opened the open-source data from Sun Jack and began to study earnestly. If Sun Jack's digging was not going to work out, he needed to find a new job, and he believed that DNA was definitely the next big thing.
With this technology, he could find a job in Gomorrah and support Hopelily.
About half an hour into the trembling journey, Number 43 suddenly felt the vibrations stop. He closed the educational software and looked at the opening metal door, puzzled. "Are we there already? Impossible."
As the immigrants stepped out of the machine, they found themselves in a large Dissolution Cave, with over a hundred fully armed members of the Graffiti Gang. Holding various heavy weapons and flanked by combat machinery, they watched the new arrivals with menacing ease, instantly elevating the tension in the air.
"This can't be happening, this smuggling route has been in operation for at least ten years! How could there be a trap?" Number 43's face went pale in an instant.
"Sorry folks," a black man with a face full of Cicada Graffiti tattoos stepped forward from the Graffiti Gang, looking down proudly at the band of proverbial fat pigs.
"Since the last war started, we Graffiti Gang have stopped dealing in smuggling. Please cooperate, remove all combat prostheses, line up properly, and thank you for your cooperation."
"You can't do this! Let your Boss come out and see me, he promised----" Before the man could finish speaking, a laser pierced through his head, erasing his facial features and leaving a gruesome hole where his head had been.
That instant quieted the restless crowd.
Seeing the strength of their adversaries, Number 43 knew they were no match and was forced to comply with their demands.
As everyone was forcibly stripped of their combat prostheses and disarmed, robbed of all their valuables, purple chips with locks were inserted into their neural slots.
"Don't even think about pulling it out, it'll explode. Now, follow me, don't worry, we won't kill you, because your bodies are very useful to us."
Facing the black muzzles of guns, the anxious immigrants had no choice but to proceed into the depths of the Dissolution Cave, where they found rows of labs neatly arrayed, many of which were already occupied with people being tortured by mechanical arms, crying and screaming in a gruesome and terrifying scene.
The color drained from the faces of the immigrants, who started to fear they would never leave this place.
"Please go ahead and take a seat according to the number displayed on your system," explained the man. "Let me tell you directly, this is a DNA research facility. Our Boss believes DNA programming is a very forward-looking technology, so we need your help."
"Of course, rest assured, we Graffiti Gang value our reputation highly. Once you've assisted us for three months, we will let you go."
Each person was forced to enter, and as various injections began pouring into their bodies, a myriad of experiments were conducted to ensure the authenticity of the data Sun Jack had shared online.
With the injection of a certain fluid, Number 43 immediately felt that his body was distinctly different, but the next second, he felt cold, extremely cold. The numbers on the nearby monitor plummeted rapidly, and Number 43's teeth uncontrollably chattered against each other.