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***

The city tour ended with a ride on the monorail. We went to the outskirts, looked at the whole city from above, and then returned to the starting point in the city centre. I must admit that the President liked the city very much. It is noticeable, after all, after the work of designers, Ekaterinburg slowly began to transform in the image and likeness of European cities. Old, dirty lorries and buses disappeared from the streets, buildings were restyled slowly, the streets were wide, there were a hundred and forty patrol cars, they were almost at every crossroads. No one blocked the road for the President's passage - there was enough space.

The final point of our journey was a children's park. We must admit that money does wonders. And now, having agreed in advance with everyone, I ensured a full house. About a hundred thousand people gathered in the park - there were a lot of people, the weather allowed. Half of them were children, who created a natural children's frenzy. The park was designed for half the number of people - the President's visit to the opening is an unusual event.

But here I was already puffed up with pride, seeing with what fervour the journos pounced on my pocket Disney-land. It was run by the Director as one of Abstergo's enterprises. In the centre, above the forest rose a natural looking castle so beautiful that you could not take your eyes off it. It combined features of the best European castles and palaces - Neuschweinstein, Dragon Castle, Hohenzollern Castle. At the same time, inside there were five cinema halls and a shop like Moscow's "Children's World". Yes, all the best for children. And also - it is necessary to teach children that they do not live in the worst country in the world and it is better to let them hang out here on weekends than to sit on the Internet, because "there is nowhere to go". Reality, which is more attractive than the virtual world, weans people from believing in illusions and all the social ills that go along with it. It took about half an hour to look round the castle. The patrolmen were still dressed in the uniform of Streltsy and Old Russian warriors, only their ringlets were made of titanium alloy and had hollow rings, and their helmets were titanium too. They were made at the aviation enterprise. Park trains were running in the park, moreover - shuttle trains, so that people didn't have to walk for a long time. People loved it. The most important rides were put a month ago and today they have completed the trial operation.

A special type of attraction was an industrial robot "ATLAS", to the manipulator of which was attached a chair, as in ordinary rides - with safety arcs. The robot was spinning a block with two chairs on its ten-metre arm. The speeds and overloads varied, from quite peaceful bobbing at altitude to four-unit overloads, rapid ups, tumbles, and downs. At the east end of the park stood the world's largest roller coaster. It wasn't hard for me, with my foundries and rail manufacturing shops, to make them. It wasn't hard to register a director. The height of the slide was one hundred metres and the total length of the track was five kilometres. Some sections of the track scared away potential visitors altogether, so they travelled half-empty. You bet - a triple ring or a place of steep fall is extremely cruel to the vestibular apparatus of a resident of the Urals - a man of a down-to-earth, not too hot temperament. But those who travelled could consider that they had already experienced a lot.

Some rides were closed - there was a sign saying that they would be opened in 2007... and there were more than thirty of them.

The President especially looked at only the slides, but refused the offer to ride them.

* * *

Reported to the president with special care. The mayor was especially favoured, and the governor second after him. Lazarev, of course, wanted to listen directly to the person who aroused such interest, not to the governor of the region from which people were travelling to Yo-burg for work.

It was my turn, too, when the self-glorification from the city officials was over. I must admit that they had a lot to praise themselves for and something to show off to the president.

I was sitting in the corner of the office, listening with half an ear, so I didn't immediately notice that my name was called:

- Hyarty! Are you asleep?

- Huh? No, I've been thinking about something else. I'm not interested in these city affairs, if not completely, then for the most part - not much.

- I see. Why is my assistant sitting in the corner? Come on, don't be modest. Make room.

I had to get up and go to Lazarev. He sat at the head of the table. I sat next to him, almost right next to him. As soon as I landed, he asked me:

- "Well, why so generous? You're seriously invested in the city, I see.

I shrugged:

- I think on a strategic scale. Ekaterinburg is the capital of my industrial empire. It's still small, but it's taking over new enterprises and markets every month. And somehow, Russia has a bad habit of stratifying its population along territorial lines. The further away from Moscow, the lower the social status. And a stamp in a passport is like a judgement. We need to slowly break the foundations and reorient ourselves towards the development of the whole country, not just three federal cities. It is necessary to break the foundations together with raising the standard of living, social security, education, reduction of alcohol and nicotine addiction and with intensive information work. Not to be unsubstantiated, I will say that I have invested five billion euros in Yeoburg in one year, free of charge. And almost all of this money is slowly going to the population, which has become much more nourished. Now people from all the surrounding towns and villages come here, where they were tractor drivers and got five thousand, here they get twenty thousand for laying tiles in the street or working on a construction site. And this is the minimum wage for a labourer.

- Labouring for the local population is good, of course....

- Plus now I'm on deadline - there are not enough experienced and even inexperienced turners for CNC machines, simple electricians - and those are not enough. I'm not talking about such professions as test pilot, programmer, high-speed train driver... according to my calculations, Abstergo would be absolutely full of personnel if we hire another ten thousand people of high qualification and complex, real professions. I don't need crackpot managers, and there are mostly them. And how are we going to raise Russia from its knees - are we going to drive trains and aeroplanes ourselves and lay power lines?

For many of those present, my somewhat reproachful tone was a shock, because it was SAM. Comrade Lazarev himself was not embarrassed in the slightest:

- The personnel problem is a serious matter. Very serious, but nevertheless, I did not get an answer to my question.

- And there isn't one. I wanted to and I could. That's the whole story. I wanted to help the country, so I did. Why exactly Ekaterinburg - it's because I don't like the territorial caste system that has developed in Russia. With my support and under the leadership of the current mayor, a very active and honest man, Ekaterinburg will soon fall far behind Moscow in terms of living standards and comfort. Besides, we are focused on internal labour migrants, not on guests from warm countries, and recently there have been five times fewer of them, and with the help of my sponsored police there are much more patrols on the streets. During this summer season Ekaterinburg has become one of the world's top three cities in terms of safety - after Luxembourg and Bern. There were two domestic murders and one rape, six thefts and eleven robberies in the city over the summer. At the same time Moscow in this rating is somewhere near the end, among criminal capitals like Baghdad and Chad.

- It's already fantastic," the president disagreed, "you can build a beautiful city, but you can't change people so quickly. It takes years, decades!

- Are you familiar with the Stanford prison experiment? It's a rather curious study in which it was proved that the human psyche easily adapts to the environment, making people act accordingly. If the city is shitty, the roads are like Russian slides, and the inhabitants are mostly poorly dressed and uncultured, people will behave accordingly. If the city is ennobled, people have jobs, money, prospects for the future - the psyche will adapt to it. According to a survey of janitors, for example, we found out that in renovated and beautified neighbourhoods there is virtually no rubbish thrown on the streets, and the crime rate has fallen gradually but steadily. I must confess that when I came to Russia I was amazed by your people....

- And by what? - asked the president. The others also listened, because I had never told them about such deep motives and methods of my work before.

- People's flats are clean and tidy. But when you go to the entrance... it is soiled, written, and no one, no one at all will even come out and clean it. No one repairs it, no one paints over the inscriptions... Everyone hopes for some mythical miracle-worker, curses the authorities, but at the same time they do not even think about doing something outside their own flat. Not for themselves, for everyone. For cleanliness. Though just to clean up is if residents of one entrance spend an hour of their time and work. And that's it, everyone will feel better at once. This mystery of the Russian mentality still occupies me. It's not like that in Europe or even America, except in black neighbourhoods. In white neighbourhoods, in every entrance, townhouse, private house, the inhabitants take care of both the interior and the exterior. Here... - I spread my hands, - it's mysterious Russian indolence. And for some reason, residents of Russian cities think that Europe has clean streets because the authorities there are better. Although, it must be admitted, their claims have an ironclad basis.

- И? - asked the mayor.

- And. We will change the mentality of Ekaterinburg residents. And after him - the mentality of other cities in the Urals, and after the Urals - other regions.

- So the project is more serious than just a city?

- It is part of a general, comprehensive project to modernise the country. The last time Comrade Stalin did this, he simultaneously developed industry, raised the level of people's everyday life and culture," I hinted at him, "then we were a hundred years behind and had to cover this distance in five to ten years. Now we are twenty years behind and have to run this distance in two or three years. Otherwise, the result will be the same. We will be crushed economically, ideologically, politically. And the nineties will continue - debts, dismemberment of the army, sale of natural resources for glass beads, mafia, and a drunken president and genocide through alcohol, drugs and hunger.

It made everyone think, and seriously. Yeah, seriously.

Well, that's my mission accomplished. It's time to go see Rogers and Peggy. It wasn't that I was against their unexpected holiday-they deserved it as much as anyone, it was just that it was no longer possible to work on two fronts-as Aegis and as Hyarti. Even the iskines couldn't take the strain off me.

Judging by the sensations in the force - they're fine, they're fine, they're in good health and quite happy with their lives. Most likely, the portal threw them into one of the nine worlds, or rather, the eight remaining worlds. And it's not a fire world. Asgard? It's possible. Anything's possible.

* * *

* * *

Rivendell.

The travellers entered the city of the elves, tired and aching. The night's attack had exhausted them, so they had to walk all day awake and hungry. Oh, and the information throw-in from Peggy had made them think more actively, which was quite good for the road. The road went through the elven forest - the going got easier at the end of the journey. They had already taken the last steps when the elves greeted Gandalf.

All travellers were immediately escorted to their quarters - they were separate rooms in elegant wooden houses. The Hobbit Sam was especially happy to meet the elves. He was literally glowing with happiness, while his friend Frodo wanted only one thing - to lie down in a soft bed as soon as possible.

The newcomers surprised their companions by going straight to bathe, washed themselves for a long time in one of the lakes, and only an hour later flew into the city, straight to their quarters. The noise of the engines of their flying armour was hard to confuse with anything else. The elves, awakened, watched as the two guests flew around the city.

Peggy and Steve piled into the room, tired but satisfied.

The morning began with breakfast for all the guests - the elven maids arrived at the rooms of the arrivals, looking at the guests, however, with undisguised pride in themselves and some disdain. They took turns informing everyone that breakfast would be in an hour. Steve only mumbled something in Old Elvish dialect and went to bed, deciding to skip breakfast. Peggy was also tired from the evening, so they skipped breakfast. Their absence, however, was tactfully overlooked by all their friends.

Peggy walked leisurely through the elven city - a high gallery, high above the ground, carved out of wood. The smell of fresh wood wafted around, a light autumn breeze rustled the leaves of the forest. Local customs treated the elves more exclusively than Steve and Peggy were used to treating anyone, so they frankly unnerved the elves with their indifference. Normally, humans at least consider Rivendell to be a paradise on earth, a realm of beauty, grace and grandeur. Against the background of human settlements it was indeed so, but the guests from the other world appreciated both beauty and grace. Appreciated and rejoiced for the elves, nothing more.

Peggy and Steve flew between floors to shorten the way. Soon they reached the place where they were supposed to have lunch. It was a platform, there were big tables, lots of plant food - "a vegan's dream" and at the table were already sitting hobbits, Gandalf, Aragorn, as well as a few elves.

* * *

Calculating the coordinates of the jump required long calculations and careful study of the teleport mechanism. It worked by means of the Great Force and space distortion. I was fooled at once - it would be possible to pass through the portal not before it accumulated energy, and for that it would be necessary either to restore the native mechanism exactly, or to wait for it to draw energy from the nuclear reactor. The efficiency of such a "natural charge" is an order of magnitude lower, but otherwise - there is a chance to completely ruin the device.

Swearing through my teeth, I put a nuclear reactor in the Australian temple and connected it to the portal, slowly accumulating energy in the capacitors of the temple began. A languidly slow wait. And anything could meet me on the other side, so I prepared properly. I returned to the moonbase and started packing, taking all the subspace pocket devices.

I took as much with me as if I were going to war. It was like that - who knows, it might come in handy. I'd been taken by surprise once before on a peaceful planet, and it couldn't happen again!

The Blind Maiden ship fit in one pocket, and sixteen titan droids in the other. And a dozen regular saboteur droids. I also took a wheeled vehicle with me. In view of the situation with repulsors and accelerated particle engines, it was better to be safe. I made the car right away, in the process, so to speak. And it wasn't exactly a car - I took a tank as a model, enlarged it, put in powerful electric motors and reactor, and also removed everything inside - now there are two rows of seats, a driver's seat and a turret with two KPVT machine guns. Their hitting power was sufficient, and ammunition... just in case you shouldn't have relied only on electromagnetic weapons. There's a whole container of ammo in the spatial pocket. And there was still the transition from tracks to wheels - it didn't cause any special difficulties. I ran through Moscow shops - took some food, both simple and expensive tinned food, as well as two centners of ready meals, a la Olivier, only different. Cutlets there, chicken wings from Rostik's and aesthetic Swiss cheeses and a quintal of chocolate. It's precious under any circumstances.

And now, having thrown mines on top of that, a couple of SAMs and a few drones with high-speed electromagnetic machine guns attached to them, I could responsibly say that I was ready for surprises of any kind.

The portal charge was still going, and I was already packed and ready for battle. But for now, I removed all my spatial pockets and went to think about what else I might need. As a hoarder, I had a lot of stuff. The rest of the packing was like trying to take something with me, purely for ballast, so as not to leave a lot of empty space in the spatial pockets. Namely, a heavy experimental reactor quadrocopter was taken for ballast. This supermonster was the result of an experiment to create a cargo-carrying, spacious air transport - one hundred and five metres long, a plane-type fuselage - like a heavy cargo plane - ten metres wide and two tier-decks - the lower one could hold ten tanks, or cargo containers - twenty pieces - two rows of ten containers. The upper deck had room for the troop carriers. Since the super-heavy helicopter was not intended for the battlefield, but for moving men and cargo to military bases, it was armed with only six defensive minigun machine guns, on the sides, designed for self-defence in case of an unscheduled landing. I first stuffed everything I had previously taken in containers into the helicopter's cargo hold, and then with difficulty, but stowed it in the massive space pocket. That left two empty "container" pockets. Without thinking long, I stuffed two more forty-foot containers with provisions and slipped them into the pocket. The provisions are simple - cans of meat, ham, various cereals and even a barrel of milk in the stasis chamber. A stockpile doesn't drag on the pocket...

Plus I took a special armour, developed on the ground. The armour differed from the previous one by a larger armour, more powerful built-in armament - it was a real turbolaser, capable of cutting all living things, as well as by orders of magnitude more powerful engines. Such armour could lift many tons of cargo into the air, besides me and myself. And more autonomy.

* * *

Before leaving for Australia, I warned everyone that I would be away and gave instructions to the iskines, as well as recharged the holocron of the Captain, with whom I sometimes communicated and to whom I told and showed the results of my work. While I'm gone - the Captain for me, and then, when the charge will run out - the Captain will think of something. Either hand it over to the Earthmen or hide it. I don't think there's any place in the galaxy my ship can't slip out of.

* * *

The hyperspace journey was a most unpleasant experience. Yeah, and I was thrown over the mountains. Good thing I was ready and took off immediately, or I would have fallen to the ground. I landed hard on a mountain ledge. It's an oil painting! A huge plain, an ancient, protected forest, and the foliage is already golden, a river crossing it all and a mountain ridge separating this area from the mountainous one... The colours are bright, birds are flying above the forest, sensors pick up their chirps....

- Yes, now I see why Steve and Peggy don't sweat it... - I muttered, - I wouldn't mind to live in such a paradise place....

- Atmospheric analysis complete. Type Xandar, oxygen content in the air is one per cent higher. No harmful elements detected. I recommend sampling elsewhere before removing the mask..." said Bersi immediately.

But I took off the mask and breathed in, feeling nothing dangerous. The blue of the sky, the green of the grass, the gold of the protected forest... I immediately took a picture of it, several times, and then asked Bersi to put me in touch with Peggy.

* * *

Peggy Carter sat in the elf library, devouring book after book. Next to her was Arwen. The girls had become good friends - especially since Peggy had a lot to tell the elf, both about herself and about life on earth. Suddenly, one might say suddenly, music played in Peggy's pocket. Carter almost jumped with surprise, Arwen recoiled. Carter's musical tastes hadn't changed much over the years and she still liked the classics. Mozart, Moonlight Sonata. The sound of the smartphone was loud, and Peggy charged the battery from the armour reactors - after all, the smartphone had a camera, which she sometimes used to take pictures of her surroundings, and a book reader, and even a film projector, which she hadn't used yet.

- This can't be... - Peggy excitedly pulled out the phone. Hjarti was calling.

- Hello? - She answered.

- Hi, Peggy. You should tell your bosses when you're going away for a long time. Okay, I'm not offended," Hjarti didn't say a word, he said, "I'm being kind today. I take it you're not used to letting droids get ahead of you yet. Where are you stuck in there?