Geofront

Over a kilometer beneath the ground lies a truly magnificent sight. A ginormous cavern spanning hundreds of meters wide bustling with activity as hundreds of drones move around in sync. At every single moment, hundreds of tons of rocks and ore are being loaded onto rails and sent upwards into the gaping tunnel. Refined building materials and machines are being sent down by the hundreds as the Geofront is slowly being constructed.

The Geofront follows a vastly different type of design from Old HQ. Instead of multiple floors interconnected with many access tunnels and no central hub. The Geofront has a main transport hub where almost all material has to pass through before being sent to its final location. All the different sectors are attached to the central transport hub. This will allow me to build much larger floors before having to expand downwards again.

The space required for the manufacturing sector and refining sectors has almost been fully dug out. At their present state, both sectors are already much larger than the ones back at Old HQ, but once they finish, I should be able to fit thousands of fabricators and refineries inside. Eliminating the possibility of ever lacking production capabilities. With the progress on the Geofront going smoothly, I can finally begin working on my plans for first contact.

I have already completed the design for my first humanoid drone that will be used to make first contact. Standing precisely six feet tall, the robot is closely modeled after a human body. Its frame is forged entirely out of the toughest alloy I can produce, and most of its body space is taken up by the miniature reactor and batteries I stuffed inside. All this power is needed to power all the goodies I packed within. This android model will act as my physical body, so I got to ensure its performance is up to par. Its most prominent feature is the two integrated laser weapons on its wrist and a mini shield generator in its torso. With the power provided by the generator, it can afford to pack some serious heat.

The small lasers can instantly blind or melt anyone within eyesight, and the mini shield generator can project a small shield anywhere around the body. Due to the size of the shield generator, it can't support large 360-degree shields and can only be used to block specific fatal attacks. Besides those two power-hungry systems, the android is only armed with a heavy gauss rifle. But its physical might and durability alone should be enough to take care of anything this world can throw at it. This android will be the most expensive thing I have designed and produced yet, so only 10 copies were made. I have also decided to call this model John because it is my physical incarnation, and I couldn't be bothered to think of a fitting name.

As my androids were being manufactured up at Old HQ, the Geofront's manufacturing wing was quickly booming. In just a few days, 300 large manufacturing buildings stood deep beneath the earth, ready to cover the world in a flood of silver. In another week, Old HQ's production capacity will be so overshadowed that it won't even be worth mentioning. Alongside the new manufacturing plants, multiple medium power reactors are also being built to keep up with the power demand.

I have also begun production on more servers as my computational capacity is stretched thin due to all the new machines added daily. Technically, I control every single piece of machine and drone. So the more facilities and drones I have, the more computational capacity I need to manage all of them efficiently.

After a week of constantly expanding and digging, the Geofront has finally met the goal I set for it to be declared operational. With 5,000 production plants on the ready, a dozen medium power reactors, and plenty of computational capacity, I am no longer afraid of being wiped out. Although my army count is still sitting at a pitifully small number of 100, I can now pump-out thousands each day as long as my material reserve last.

With the last of my preparations finished, I sent out 5 of my Johns in the direction of the North City. Alongside the Johns, hundreds of drones rise from the ground for the first time in weeks. The forest above the Old HQ became a hive of activity as recon drones monitored every inch of land and air, and hundreds of construction drones began working on a surface fortress. I was initially content with keeping my presence entirely underground to minimize risk, but now that I'm confident in my power and need to make a show of force. Building a fortress above ground just seems logical and the perfect plan; plus, who doesn't like the sight of a ginormous fort with weapons sticking out of every nook and cranny.

After a couple of hours, the outline of the fortress can already be vaguely seen. When it finishes, there should be a hexagonal wall 10 meters high and 5 meters wide surrounding the whole thing. The walls are constructed out of reinforced concrete inlaid with alloy armor plating capable of taking huge amounts of damage. On top of the walls will be many retractable gauss turrets capable of shredding anything within and out of sight. In the inner part of the fortress lies the exciting part, a colossal structure will stand above the walls, and on it will be turrets so large that they can hit the North City located 100 kilometers away. And towering above all will be the crown jewel of the fortress, a full-size railgun that wouldn't seem out of place on a starship. This bad boy probably won't see any actual use due to how overkill it is, but the mere thought of having one sitting around puts a smile on my face.

With how large the fortress is, it will take a couple of weeks for it to be constructed. But once the fort is built, it will be where I organize all my above-ground operations from. If the Geofront is the heart and brain of my whole operations, then this fort will be the arms.

The five-man diplomacy team I sent toward North city has 100 kilometers to traverse without any road or vehicle. So it will be a day or two before I hear anything back from them. Before then, there really is nothing much to do except to continue the construction of the bastion and wait.