"At first glance, it wouldn't seem that way. The colony was for research."

His home city is an expanse of green and monumental architecture. It was all very impressive, and conveniently covered the 'downtown' of the old city sitting beneath it all. Concealing all the messy grime and grunge of the machinery that kept the upper part of the city afloat.

"Nueva York is very structured, even with all the companies like Alchemax vying against each other. Actually disrupting the order of things gets you trouble, and people are messy. Even the most advanced algorithm will have things that slip through the cracks. The volunteers probably felt it was a way to escape."

The same way an alternate dimension might be an escape.