LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 25: Weird Pony
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The tavern is unremarkable, but it's ancient - just awful. Rogers opened the creaky door and stepped inside. Everyone in the place stared at him, and especially at Peggy. Needless to say, tight jeans and a sweatshirt were not what girls wore in these places. The strangers had no weapons, their clothes were clean, as if they had just been sewn, and their faces were a little different from the locals, except for the noble ones. They were taken for what they were. A simple-minded fat man, the owner of the tavern, greeted the guests:
- "Come in, dear guests. What can I get you?
Steve Rogers approached the counter, with Peggy by his side.
- We'd like to know how to get to the capital from here.....
The bartender looked round the room:
- Will you be stopping?
- No, unfortunately, we don't have any money.
- How can you get to the capital without money? - Barliman Butterbur wondered.
- We'll get there," Steve looked at Peggy, who was silent. She decided to take matters into her own hands:
- Maybe you know where the nearest town is?
- Did you guys just fall out of the sky? - Barliman was even more surprised.
- Well... if you skip the details, yes. How much does it cost to stay here?
- Twenty farthings, forty with breakfast....
Peggy continued her enquiries with the barman, but was interrupted by a young man who appeared in the tavern. He was clearly not a local, for he looked very respectable. The bartender apologised and turned to the man:
- You again?
Stephen turned round, taking a quick look at the man who had entered. He was a man of average height, thin, wiry. He walked towards them:
- And don't you cough, Barliman. I'm here till tomorrow, are there any more rooms?
- There aren't many rooms nowadays, but there's one in the attic.
The tramp put a couple of gold roundels on the table: I'll stay a week.
- Then ale for you on the house. They just brought it in yesterday. Oh, it's good, good ale, you'll like it....
Shrugging his shoulders, the tramp moved aside and took a seat in the corner, where the entrance to the hall was clearly visible. There were a lot of people here, dozens of them, the inn was very lively. Steve looked around at them, then mentally asked the computer if there was any inventory in the spatial pocket. The inventory turned up - Captain America's Shield, a vibromach given by Hyarty, a Glock pistol with a zinc of cartridges, a Robin rifle, six cans of stew and ten cans of condensed milk, stale slices of bread and two hunting knives, for some reason three forks and a set of soldier's utensils - a thermos for soup, a flask. And money, of course - a plastic card and two handfuls of change. Stephen removed the change from his pocket without question:
- Perhaps you'd like to take this money? - Steve held out a handful of coins to the bartender. Each coin had a different pattern on it, as they were minted with a big difference in time. In America, coins from the sixties are still in circulation, and very much in circulation. That's why most of the coins have different designs. A bison, an eagle, Washington's face on the obverse of a quarter... The innkeeper's eyes widened:
- Silver?
- No, I'm afraid it's not such a valuable metal. Steel and zinc," Steve hesitated. Peggy poked him under the table with her foot, but to no avail; he refused to deceive the innkeeper.
* * * *
February. February has brought me more problems than benefits. After my memorable conversation with the new mayor, I began to realise my projects. And, no less importantly, to realise projects that should bring me money. Money was in short supply. Locomotive building had stalled at the stage of production of trial samples of vehicles. There was nowhere to produce them. As the first project they started to produce a wide series of electric locomotive "Granit", with significant qualitative and price changes, as well as renamed "Abstergo-EG-10". The unique in its capacity electric locomotive received numerous modernisations, firstly - a significant increase in the quality of assembly, secondly - new traction motors, which provided eight per cent more traction, with half the size, compared to the original. The mechanical part looked more like a high-speed train - all the parts had been drastically revised, all parts were covered with plugs, and the engine room no longer resembled an electric shop. Tidy compartments, covered with plastic covers, with signs. Finally, the electric locomotive was computer-controlled with a time- or event-programmable autopilot. This allowed each machine to be customised for the driver, right down to the elasticity and sensitivity of the control levers. Also, our Know-How is a comfortable cabin. The electric locomotive had a high, adjustable seat, four-zone climate control, a comfortable lavatory and kitchen for the crew, a separate video surveillance system with cameras located above the head end of the locomotive. Not to mention the fact that all the information needed by the driver was displayed directly on the windscreen, with the help of the built-in display, and the speed control handle was duplicated on the armrest of the seat, which allowed not to keep hands constantly on the remote control. The cockpit designer worked hard to make it look exceptional - all the instruments were where they needed to be. There were two types of gauges - classic arrow gauges - just in case, at the same time, when you pressed on them from above, they were digitally indicated on the windscreen, and the so-called "glass cockpit - three monitors that showed information from standard systems.
The electric locomotive, although the most powerful, became twice as expensive, but thanks to the new engines the service life increased. The director first sold a batch of sixteen electric locomotives to America and four to France. Russian Railways were also interested in modernisation of 2ES10, but they were somehow not satisfied with too posh cabin. They were not used to spending a lot of money for drivers' comfort. And what about me? A driver should be attentive, the less tired he is physically and mentally, the better.
My plan was to create a truly unique battery electric locomotive, for which the battery is the main source of energy. This is exactly what our monorail was planned to be - the main source of energy on it was the battery, the contact rail was only in the depot, where the trains were recharged before going back into service. At night, accordingly, they were fully charged, which should be enough for two hours of travelling - at each pass through the depot, the train charged the batteries for another hour of work, and when travelling, it spent about half of the charge.
In general, electric locomotives could be divided into three main types - contact, contact-battery and battery. Contact - contacted with the power grid, cost the cheapest, but had no energy reserve. Contact-accumulator - recharged the batteries and went along the contact network, if necessary travelling up to several hours between sections on batteries. And battery electric locomotives - recharged only at a specialised depot and had a separate battery 'tender', and could travel up to twelve hours between charges. The battery ones cost the most, but were also the most economical. They did not require the creation and maintenance of a power grid, while charging in one to two hours. Combining contact-battery with battery was not cost-effective. If the train runs where there is a network - there is no reason to spend money on expensive super-capacity ionistors, and if there is no network - there is no reason to put pantographs into it, because it would also need a transformer, and a charging system from the power grid, which is not designed for charging batteries....
I needed money for further activity. Yes, the director was actively buying up enterprises in Ekaterinburg, including them in the subdivisions of the group of companies, moreover, he was constantly modernising and improving them, which also required money. After the commissioning of another line of my main factory in mid-February, the production of smartphones increased even more, and the production of Geos wristwatches with navigator also increased. My calculations turned out to be correct - simplified to the level of a compass with an arrow pointing to the right place, the navigation system became much simpler and clearer, it didn't require constant gawking and poking at the map. Watches went for a thousand dollars a piece - quite a decent price for a device. Five hundred devices a day - already half a million, of which thousands of three hundred dollars - the daily net profit.
The second stage was at the stage of completion - first I made money, then I began to modernise local enterprises, slowly buying them up one by one... Instrument factory, optical-mechanical, automation factory, united in a single robotics centre "Abstergo Robo" were engaged in the development of new industrial robots and tools for the Ministry of Defence. As part of the contract between us, my employees have already started to make close contact with the factories and companies of the military-industrial complex. The tool, optical-mechanical, machine-building, composite and other factories and design bureaus could not create an industrial robot separately. It is even strange that being within the same city, they did not do it.
Sometimes I went to the local shops. At the end of February, I did just that. I took my trolley with me and went to see what I could find. The shelves, to put it mildly, were bursting with food, everything was in abundance. I didn't even know what I wanted to get, so for a while I just walked around the hall, studying the assortment and thinking about my own. In the hall, as in many decent shops, there was a wide counter, where they sold ready-made dishes and sausages, cheeses, still alive fish. I took a bucket of salad, a stick of good sausage, a loaf of fresh bread and two bottles of lemonade from these dishes and gave them to the driver who was waiting for me outside. It was much more interesting to see the range of technical shops. It might have given me an idea of where and how I could make money. Unfortunately, money is such a thing - you never know what will be successful and what will bring only losses. My watch turned out to be a successful project, while my tablet turned out to be a loss. Unlike a smartphone, people were not in a hurry to buy it, as they used desktop computers for games, and for everything else ordinary tablets and even smartphones were enough... As a result - I went into a minus, several thousand unsold tablets accumulated in the warehouse... Production had to be cancelled.
I seriously considered capitalising on the sale of electric cars. An electric car with ionistors cost about five times as much as a classic battery car. But the ionistor had a lifespan of several decades. The electric motor had a much longer service life than the car, and structurally such a car was simpler - there was no transmission, as the motor was located on the axle, there was no gearbox, as the electric motor does not require it. Theoretically, one could go to Ulyanovsk, to UAZ, or to VAZ. I trusted Ulyanovsk more... Theoretically, I had a possibility to produce the car myself - with the help of existing enterprises, if I could load them with the production of components. But industrial automation was a much more profitable business. And it fitted into my scenario of state development, which is equally important.