Two weeks passed after the chaotic spectacle at the Monaco Grand Prix. It was mid-June 2010.
Adrian arrived at the Upper River Hydroelectric Station outside Trnava in heavy work boots and a grease-stained canvas jacket.
Deep inside the dam's lower galleries, the cavernous turbine hall echoed with rushing water and the steady clanking of heavy wrenches. Three newly cast domestic alloy impellers, forged at the northern mountain base, sat suspended from overhead gantry cranes, their polished curved blades catching the fluorescent work lights.
Adrian climbed down an iron ladder into the secondary drainage pit alongside the facility's chief hydrologist. Crouching on the damp concrete floor, he took a pneumatic torque wrench and personally checked the bolt tension on the primary intake seals.
A young female apprentice from the Novi Grad Polytechnic stood on the catwalk above, clutching a clipboard and watching with wide eyes as the President wiped hydraulic grease from his knuckles.
"Don't look so nervous, Elena," Adrian said, looking up with a faint smile. "You ran the shear-stress calculations on these blades yourself, didn't you?"
"Yes, Mr. President," Elena said, descending the steps carefully. "On paper, the domestic alloy handles three times the hydraulic pressure of our old cast-iron turbines. But with the spring snowmelt swelling the river, I was worried the intake housing might suffer cavitation."
Adrian ran his thumb along the smooth milled lip of the intake bearing. "We ran the thermal tests past six hundred degrees. The alloy won't warp, and the seals won't leak. Once these three units spin up tonight, the provincial grid gains fifteen megawatts without burning an ounce of coal. You and your class did solid work."
Elena beamed, quickly noting the torque clearances on her manifest.
On Saturday morning, the cobblestone market square in central Trnava was packed with residents.
Pietro leaned against a stone pillar near an outdoor bakery, holding a hot plum pastry dusted with powdered sugar. Beside him, an elderly baker in a white apron argued good-naturedly with a vegetable grocer across the lane.
"I haven't had a single brownout in six months," the baker said, tapping his thumb against a ledger. "Under the old ministers, the flour mills would cut out mid-bake, and you'd lose fifty loaves of dough to the cold. Now the state power runs day and night. My electric ovens cost thirty percent less to operate, and I pay my apprentices full wages on Friday morning."
At a nearby espresso kiosk, a retired rail worker showed his comrades a crisp envelope of banknotes. "Paid on the first of the month, fully backed by the state treasury. No worthless foreign paper that loses value before you reach the butcher, and no waiting in charity lines. I bought fresh beef and butter for Sunday dinner without haggling."
A local traffic constable walked past, nodding respectfully to Pietro. Pietro offered a quick wave, noting the organized flow of refrigerated state delivery vans bringing fresh produce into the district without a single transport snag.
Across the square, Wanda stood quietly beside an arched doorway. Her mind reached outward through the crowd, feeling the pulse of the town. There was no undercurrent of dread, no simmering panic over winter shortages, and no resentment. For the first time in generations, the people looked at their future with absolute confidence.
That evening, Adrian returned to the private subterranean workshop beneath the Presidential Palace in Zubrovka.
Locking the vault doors behind him, he shifted his consciousness inward, opening the dimensional gateway to the World Seed.
The interior expanse remained a silent, vacuum-sealed valley of dark stone, untouched by atmospheric drag or prying eyes. In the center of the plateau lay thirty tons of excavated granite and dense copper slag.
Adrian raised his hands, letting his Transmutation Authority take hold.
Blue sparks rippled across the dark stone.
<< Sophia: Atomic restructuring initialized. Granite silicates and raw copper separated. >>
<< Reconfiguring lattice: Casting forty heavy conductive busbars and high-capacity dielectric capacitor plates. >>
The rock melted silently into a glowing fluid, cleanly dividing into dense copper conductor bars and mirror-polished capacitor banks.
Without needing to worry about foreign spy satellites or thermal reconnaissance sweeps, Adrian anchored the components into the stone floor, establishing the first closed-loop automated power circuit within the pocket realm. The foundation for an off-grid industrial fabrication facility was now firmly laid.
By early July 2010, the confidential terminal inside Adrian's private palace office blinked with a series of high-priority intercepts from the United States.
Sophia routed the decrypted military and media files directly to the secure screen.
<< Sophia: US military and signals intelligence alert. >>
<< Target: Anthony Stark. >>
<< Incident: Stark hosted an erratic, alcohol-fueled birthday gathering at his private residence in Malibu, California, operating the Mark IV armor in an intoxicated state. >>
<< Conflict: Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes commandeered the unencrypted Mark II prototype suit from Stark's basement workshop. A violent kinetic engagement destroyed the residential structure. >>
<< Tactical Movement: Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes flew the Mark II airframe directly to Edwards Air Force Base, surrendering the technology to the Department of Defense. >>
<< Procurement Contract: US Air Force procurement has contracted Justin Hammer of Hammer Advanced Weapons Systems to weaponize the prototype with conventional kinetic armaments, including heavy rotary cannons and specialized bunker-buster ordnance. Rebranded designation: War Machine. >>
Pietro and Wanda stood beside Adrian's desk, reviewing the recorded HUD telemetry of the Malibu brawl.
Pietro chuckled, shaking his head at the footage of the two armored suits smashing through glass living-room tables and sound systems. "The United States Air Force is celebrating because an officer stole a stripped-down prototype from a drunken party? That's their great technological triumph?"
"It's desperation," Wanda observed, her arms crossed as she watched Hammer's corporate engineers swarming the gray chassis on the monitor. "The American military realizes Stark's armor outclasses their entire inventory, but they still don't understand how the Arc Reactor works. So they hand it to a rival contractor to bolt heavy machine guns onto the shoulders."
"Hammer builds toys for defense budgets, not precision engineering," Adrian said, shutting down the secure monitor. "Those drones and retrofits will fail the moment they face real combat stress. But while Washington and Hammer fight over Stark's leftovers, the Pentagon remains completely blind to Europe."
A knock sounded at the office door, and Inspector Radovan entered, placing an official interior portfolio on the desk.
"Mr. President," Radovan reported. "The Upper River Hydroelectric Station has successfully synchronized with the central grid. Electrical reserves across all seven provinces have hit one hundred percent capacity two months ahead of our winter target."
Adrian pulled forward the state infrastructure decree and signed it with a firm stroke.
"Authorize the expanded rail electrification project between Novi Grad and the border valleys," Adrian said, handing the document back to Radovan. "Let America put on their armed parades. We build our own strength."