The smell of folic acid permeates the air in the bunker everywhere I go as the American and Russian militaries continue clearing out the bunker of ant carcases, dragging out the ones that are still intact enough to move and bringing in other equipment for the carcases that are in less than intact condition. The smell is overpowering enough to warrant gas masks still be worn, but luckily for me, I can simply turn of my olfactory sensors.
While the operation to clear the bunker finished up several hours ago, I'm leading a team of scientists down into the depths of the bunker to the egg chamber in order to verify that the queen for this hive has been destroyed and would not be able to establish another hive of such monsters again. I pass a lot of people working on the cleanup. Many teams of my cute subordinates were able to work together with the russians and the army in order to complete the operation with minimal fuss.
I shall have to find some sort of way to reward them for their performance.
In any case, I also need to find the records storage room and the main computers room so that I can properly wipe everything away. No doubt the Russians were instructed to swipe everything that they could when they first entered the bunker to clear it out, but I'm not going to persecute them for it. I'm just going to clear out the records so that whatever research was being done to create these monstrosities will need to be done over, and by then humanity would probably be ready for whatever is going to happen.
I'll probably leave eventually, but when I do, I'll be sure that my country and the rest of the world is at least well prepared for whatever might come in the future.
While the scientists are poking around the Queen's dead carcass and I scan a stack of printouts, I turn my attention to the moon base on the far side of the moon.
Already there is significant construction including a large central command citadel overlooking several large sealed domes dotting the landscape of the lunar regolith, each containing a self sufficient, sealed habitat complete with enough life support and other amenities to keep a small permanent population relatively happy and healthy. The large central command citadel is itself a sealed habitat and capable of sustaining a population, but it also contains a large command center like the ones I'm building on earth and various other things like a mecha bay to build and maintain the automated mechs that man the facility, as well as hydroponics to grow food, large solar panels to generate electricity, and stores of compressed air and other materials to allow for repair and repopulation of breached areas.
I make sure that while I use construction nanites in the construction of the moon base, the actual day to day functions do not require nanomachines. Even constructing mechs and vehicles in the Mecha bay is done on an assembly line with robots.
The command citadel also has a huge american flag draped over the top of it, specially treated in order to make sure that the sun is unable to bleach the flag white.
I also found the original flag that Niel Armstrong had planted but knocked over with the lander's orbital boosters and after a quick dustoff, I replanted it and restored the colors that had been bleached out by the sun's radiation, thereby claiming ownership of the moon for my country. Murica fuck yeah. Not that I'm going to tell anyone just yet.
Back on earth, I've finished reading through all the printouts I could get my hands on, and the scientists have confirmed that there is no longer any threat from this bunker any longer. It's just about time to leave.
I hijack the computer and boost it a little bit, searching for the relevant files, and then moving them all to a high capacity floppy disk for safekeeping, namely by me. It takes a while since the computer is so damn slow, so while that's happening, I photograph all the printouts and research notes with a small portable camera.
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"So . . ." President Morgan mulled over the notice I had given him. "I'm not really going to stop you, but are you sure?"
I had checked over everything, done background investigations on the highest parts of my organization, and made the final preparations to let the post office finally run completely by itself without interference from me at all. The sorting plants were under capacity at 10 percent, and the infrastructure was approximately trained to handle at least a 500% surge at a time. All that's left for me to do is to let it run its course.
At the same time, I can also get to work on the Primarch project that I had been going on about for however many chapters already, though I wouldn't exactly know unless ROB decided to give me some indication.
"Positive." I reply.
"And you also want me to fill in the paperwork for 15 additional children to be considered natural citizens of the United States?"
"That's right."
"I thought you identified as male. How are you going to get children?"
"That's easy, I'm gonna make them."
"How?"
"Well, I'm making fourteen of them from egg cells I harvested from this body and the last one I'm using a donor egg that I'm going to genetically modify."
The look on his face is hilarious, and I snap a quick picture just for giggles. I'm pretty sure he thinks of some part of my plan as immoral or something, but right now, I really don't care all that much. I've been planning this for months, and I'm not going to stop just because somebody objects. Besides, Drich has a companion. Why can't I have one?
"You know, it's fine, I'll get on it." He says, resigned.
I quickly thank him and leave the oval office, but not before I leave a card on the table that would allow him to buy the super special coffee normally only offered on holidays and whenever the Post office is doing good enough that it is noteworthy. He scrambles for it as the door closes on my way out.
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The Primarch project is my project to shackle the AIs that had developed from my automated piloting algorithms, originally meant to pilot QF-4 Phantom IIs, or in other words, Galm squadron, and Yellow squadron. They were joined by Hive Base Australia's SR-71 Blackbird-chan before I was able to clamp down on the problem of my dumb AIs into actual AIs. Fortunately, I didn't have the heart to terminate them and they appear to view me as some sort of paternal figure.
So I decided that it would be necessary to shackle them to some sort of hardware that they cannot leave by simply downloading themselves into another body, and so I decide that rather than stick dozens of shackles on them that would restrict their free will, I decide that the best and most interesting way to contain them would be to do to them what was done to me. I will stick them in a human body, though heavily optimized, augmented, and able to survive vacuum.
This is why I'm currently lying in my very comfortable bed at home in Los Alamos, hooked up to the network and focusing all of my efforts on the bio-science lab present in the laboratory citadel structure just up the road and located where the lab used to be before it was nuked all to hell.
I use gametes harvested from my current Avatar, and donated genetic material in order to produce two viable Zygotes that I quickly run through my pre prepared gengineering in order to purify the cells of any genetic disorders and optimize development, though I leave the physical appearances relatively untouched. Fortunately, changes are easy to make and after those are done, a down to the atom scan of the Zygotes allow me to construct six more of each one. From there, I will need to wait for a while for the embryo to develop before I am able to add any augmentations.
Blackbird-chan however, is different. For his body, I use totally donated material, that I managed to get from somewhere in Japan, though this time I modify the male gamete, replacing it with my own DNA, and making much more extensive modifications, most notably modifying my own genetic information to change an X to a Y and then running that through several simulations in order to determine viability.
While I wait for the embyros to develop, I ponder on the fact that paradoxically, this will make me both a mother and a father at the same time. I'll be a mother for Galm and Yellow squadrons and I'll be the father of SR-71 Blackbird-chan. Already, I can see the expressions of anguished confusion on the faces of President Morgan and academics everywhere, though only President Morgan will actually know. Also future presidents after him.
Everyone else will just know that I have 15 kids without all the actual details unless somebody decides to look at the census records.
I think that's been filed already. I need to check on that.
Also, it's been a while since I had coffee. Why ROB decided to include caffeine withdrawal symptoms as part of what this avatar can feel eludes by, but it does make my first course of action clear.
