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"That speed is unbelievable," Ryan said, looking at the newly completed base in front of him with open surprise. "But I love this speed."
Before him stood the finished new base.
One hundred meters tall, no more and no less, enough to force anyone to crane their neck. After several design revisions, its footprint had been finalized at sixty thousand square meters.
The base's exterior carried many of the hallmarks of steel-structure construction. Structural components braced one another, and coiling lengths of steel were visible across the outer walls, which inclined and undulated slightly as they rose, like a giant standing before you.
And on its front face, the side facing the sea, an unimaginably enormous door had been installed.
Ryan figured this had to be the largest door in the world. It stood ninety-four meters tall and forty meters wide.
In the original preliminary design, the height had been set at eighty-four meters. But later, everyone considered that the mech would be standing on the transport platform when it left the base, which meant the platform's height had to be added. So the engineering corps talked it over and revised the figure to ninety-four meters, and made the transport platform semi-subterranean, with only half of it rising above the ground.
That way, Crimson Typhoon definitely wouldn't bump its forehead.
Ryan turned and looked toward the sea. A long concrete channel extended out from inside the base, running all the way to the water.
That was the transport corridor.
"Let's go." Patricia beckoned to Ryan behind her, while notifying the engineering crew inside to open the base's main door.
A low warning tone sounded from inside the base, and the enormous retractable door on the front face slowly opened.
The base's full interior was exposed to everyone's view.
At the center position behind the main door, at the end of the transport corridor, was the mech's hangar berth. Just like in the films, skybridges and elevated platforms were erected around it, allowing close access to any part of the mech from the high platforms. With the main door open, the berth was visible from outside.
Walking in, hugging the walls and rising level by level, were research labs, one after another. Directly opposite the berth, at the very top of the base, above the main door, was the facility's master control room.
Standing in the control room and looking down, you could see the entire ground situation of the base. On either side of the berth were the mech's component zone and assembly zone.
The component zone consisted of rooms of various sizes, with different placards above the doors according to the parts stored inside.
The assembly zone was for the mech's assembly and maintenance. An enormous installation and maintenance platform sat there, with several giant gantry cranes overhead, large enough to hold one of the mech's arms or legs. After expansion, it could even hold the mech's torso, fully satisfying repair and assembly needs short of catastrophic damage.
But all of that was for later.
Right now, aside from the assembly platform, most of the base's equipment was still in transit. The whole facility was as empty as a haunted house. A fair number of workers were still inside performing inspections and maintenance, and the sound of welding rang out from time to time in the cavernous space, piercingly loud.
"When is the rest of our engineering equipment expected to arrive?" Ryan asked Patricia, putting on a hard hat. Behind the two of them followed members of the engineering corps.
"Soon," Patricia said. "Everything will be delivered within a week, including the modified transport platform."
She pulled out her notes and checked them. "Also, the Crimson Typhoon components that have passed testing will be shipped here within two weeks. Once they arrive, the base can formally begin work."
"And the engineers and technicians?"
A mech this large was absolutely unworkable without a technical corps and engineers.
"Tomorrow. They arrive tomorrow."
Patricia handed her notes to Ryan as she spoke. "Over the following week, eight thousand people will move into this project. A month from now, the total headcount will exceed ten thousand."
Ryan took the notes and scanned them. Of those ten thousand people, roughly three hundred were engineers, three thousand were technicians, and the rest were the various research teams.
Among them were teams for deep-submergence sealing, for the engine group, for materials, for electronic engineering, for integrated circuits.
Every field Crimson Typhoon touched had sent at least one research team, and every team was at minimum world-class within its own field.
There were also plenty of teams that could only be reached remotely, like the vector engine team from before. They wouldn't be moving in on-site.
It was fair to say the roster in those notes was a dream team of the industrial and research worlds. Most countries on Earth, never mind building a Crimson Typhoon, couldn't even assemble an all-first-rate team like this if they tried. There simply weren't enough people to find.
Even the technical corps' engineers and technicians carried enormous engineering experience, having been forged across many different large-scale projects. Their depth and skill were beyond what ordinary teams could compare to.
The next day, exactly as Patricia had said.
From early morning onward, buses kept driving into the new base.
Busload after busload of researchers and technical personnel were dropped off at the base's entrance, and everyone who looked up at the magnificent facility before them let out exclamations.
"This is where we'll be working from now on?"
"This is too sci-fi. I'm starting to think I'm a character in a science fiction film."
Before heading to their assigned dormitories, people set their luggage down at the base's entrance and stepped into the facility for the first time.
Walking in, the cavernous emptiness inside stunned them even more. It was like standing inside an enormous temple, a space that washed the spirit clean.
Except this "temple" was consecrated to a mech.
At the thought of working in an environment like this, everyone's mood soared.
Ryan stood in the master control room, watching the researchers below. He couldn't hear their voices, but from their exaggerated gestures he could feel their excitement and astonishment.
Standing behind him were the newly arrived project engineers, the ones responsible for Crimson Typhoon's physical assembly.
Though this was their first meeting in person, these people had seen each other across uncounted online meetings. They were no longer strangers.
Ryan called out each of their names in greeting, then began confirming Crimson Typhoon's assembly plan with them on the spot.
The system gave technology, not engineering plans. How to assemble the heavy mech was something they could only determine for themselves.
Fortunately, the country had no shortage of engineers who had directed large-scale projects, even if assembling a seventy-six-meter robot was a first for every single one of them.
With the groundwork of so many prior megaprojects behind them, the engineers quickly worked out a viable plan. First, assemble both legs, providing the support points for the complete machine. Then, on that foundation, erect the mech's torso. After the armor went on, install the arms on both sides. And finally, install the head and its cockpit.
That was only the rough sequence. Execution held countless details demanding attention, and it would be an enormous test for the engineering team.