Homo Sapiens

Darjeeling.

Amidst the towering mountains and precipitous ridges.

New Human security personnel who entered the area cordoned off city blocks one by one, then conducted a preliminary screening of everyone.

In a mountainous area about eight kilometers from Darjeeling City, the Foreign Affairs Division had established an underground base.

This underground base previously housed a total of 8,673 New Human employees, including the families of many who had not been transferred to the Hongsawaddy Branch.

Large quantities of supplies were being rapidly transported out of this base.

Darjeeling City was destined for abandonment. The Assam Branch had no intention of continuing to operate any surface cities; the surrounding mountains and underground were its true core.

The Foreign Affairs Division, having long since selected its locations, had several thousand prisoners assist with the work, beginning basic modifications on the chosen mountain villages.

A multi-legged mechanical unit draped in camouflage cloth arrived at one of the small mountain villages.

The 7th Squad of the Darjeeling Base’s logistics team had already deployed a 4,000-square-meter green umbrella in a hollow on the mountainside.

The multi-legged mechanical unit moved quickly along the mountain path, and soon it entered the area covered by the green umbrella.

Squad Leader Mao Xinsheng was inside a cave, one they had excavated using stratum-corroding bacteria, air pumps, and slurry extractors.

The artificial rock walls, constructed from genetically recombined coral polyps, made the cave’s interior extremely sturdy.

After all, this was a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes were frequent. As a permanent, inhabited underground facility, its earthquake-proofing had to be impeccable.

The Darjeeling Region was slated to become one of the logistics bases for the Siliguri Corridor, and all facilities had to be moved completely underground.

The front line was currently in the Siliguri Corridor, while the secret bases in the Darjeeling Region were focused entirely on constructing underground facilities.

...

Compared to the slow progress of modifications in the Darjeeling Region, the projects in the part of the Assam Region closer to Hongsawaddy were advancing very rapidly, thanks to the full support of the Hongsawaddy Branch.

Take the mountainous Manipur State, for example. It had a considerable area of 22,000 square kilometers, but a population of only 3.07 million.

Among the Seven States of Assam, this was a region with a relatively low population density.

And since people of East Asian descent made up about 90% of the local population, it was highly advantageous for the Homo Sapiens Company’s rapid recruitment efforts there.

The Foreign Affairs Division’s previous commercial survey activities in the area had been concentrated in the mountains.

An unknown underground tunnel stretched from within Hongsawaddy’s borders, extending 3.2 kilometers westward into Manipur State.

Now, with the secret establishment of the Assam Branch, construction here could proceed with even greater impunity.

After all, they previously had to worry about being detected by the people of Tianzhu and could only operate furtively. Now, the outside world could only observe via satellites and reconnaissance aircraft, which obviously couldn’t detect facilities deep underground.

Inside the underground tunnel, a large-scale pinning machine was braced against the rock face.

BOOM!

In the pinning machine’s barrel, a TNT propellant charge rapidly exploded, launching a cemented carbide needle as thick as a finger.

The carbide needle instantly penetrated nearly two hundred meters of rock strata.

Immediately, a technician in a work-type exoskeleton inserted a hose into the hole. Once the hose reached the end, they began to continuously pump in a nutrient-rich solution containing special corrosive bacteria.

Other workers used slurry extractors to suck out the rock face, which had been corroded into sand and silt, advancing little by little.

About 5.7 kilometers to the northwest of the tunnel was a secret underground base built by the Foreign Affairs Division—White Stone Base.

Inside White Stone Base, they were also digging toward the main tunnel, planning to excavate a branch tunnel to connect to it.

The scale of White Stone Base was among the largest of the Assam Branch’s assets.

Because it was very close to the Hongsawaddy Branch’s operational area and was one of the first secret bases to be established, its scale was naturally top-tier.

Currently, the base could accommodate 56,000 employees for long-term living.

After the secret establishment of the Assam Branch, White Stone Base, which originally had only 7,361 employees, saw its staff numbers climb rapidly.

Gan Lin’s family of six, who had been ”specially recruited” from Imphal City, the capital of Manipur State, were currently in a state of terror.

The various sectors within White Stone Base were not crowded together but were divided into seven distinct zones, each with its own function.

After emerging from the decontamination chamber, Gan Lin supported his mother while his wife held their young son. His twin daughters, around six or seven years old, clutched fearfully at their father’s clothes.

The fifty-odd people traveling with them were equally apprehensive.

The five New Human employees leading the group took them and some other temporary employees to the living supplies requisition office.

Walking through the corridor, it didn’t feel dim at all, but was instead very bright due to the presence of bioluminescent lichen.

Inside the requisition office, they each received three sets of everyday clothes, toiletries, and a temporary identification card.

A short while later, they arrived at a station.

After a wait of about six minutes, an electric train emerged from one of the tunnels.

Because the underground rock strata near White Stone Base contained oil shale, its power generation capacity was quite large—enough to supply the internal electric train system.

They boarded the small train.

The group of over fifty people was transferred to the residential area.

White Stone Base currently had three residential areas and one special district, all of which could be used to house residents.

With the chime of a bell, the train arrived at the station for White Stone Residential Area 3, 2.2 kilometers away.

Exiting the station, they found themselves in a compact plaza with a fountain.

On the domed ceiling more than twenty meters high, an artificial sunlight lamp was installed. It could move on rails and be obscured to simulate sunrise, sunset, and changing weather conditions.

Past the fountain plaza was a commercial street.

Gan Lin’s family looked curiously at the shops on both sides, peering through the glass display windows at the various goods.

Clothing, small hardware, small appliances, daily necessities, food ingredients, books, and toys—the base could produce a large portion of these things itself.

After passing through the commercial street, the guide led them on a tour of the food street and the entertainment street. It was clearly an orientation to help them get familiar with their new environment.

Finally, they were taken to their living quarters. The housing here was arranged like the layout of a high-rise building.

Gan Lin entered the unit assigned to his family.

It was a simple, 120-square-meter unit with a three-meter-high ceiling. The interior decoration was extremely basic, using cement and bamboo reinforcement wherever possible. The walls were coated with plain white plaster, and the floors were bare cement screed.

To conserve resources, there was no kitchen. This was partly to reduce the cost of laying gas pipes and installing stoves, and partly for safety reasons.

The beds were also very simple wooden planks. With the bedding and pillows they had received from the requisition office, they were ready for sleep.

However, when Gan Lin opened the glass door to the balcony at the back, he discovered a garden outside.

This was specially designed to combat claustrophobia. It also supplied some oxygen, and the building’s integrated ventilation system was set up within the garden’s corridors.

Gan Lin opened the back door of the balcony and stepped out cautiously. He found that it was real turf, and the small shrubs, flowers, and plants were also real.

Other neighbors also began to discover the garden behind their homes.

However, they were soon reprimanded by a New Human administrator, who told them not to walk on the grass but to use the stone paths.

The New Human administrators were well aware of the caliber of these temporary employees. It was clear they would require strict discipline in the short term.

After all, daily life in an underground base was very different from life on the surface. For example, cooking with an open flame at home was absolutely forbidden.