Three weeks passed after the disastrous collapse of the Stark Expo in New York. It was mid-September 2010.
Adrian arrived at the newly expanded Novi Grad Heavy Locomotive Works wearing dark canvas trousers and a rugged wool work jacket. The massive assembly hall reverberated with the rhythmic clatter of pneumatic riveters and the hiss of arc welders sealing heavy structural joints.
Alongside the plant's chief mechanical engineer, Adrian climbed an iron stepladder onto an electric locomotive chassis suspended over the primary assembly pit. He leaned into the wheel-truck carriage, taking a digital torque wrench to personally verify the tension on the domestic alloy suspension bolts before running his hand along the thick insulated conduit housing the copper motor windings.
"Thermal insulation on the main stator core holds firm at two hundred degrees," the engineer reported, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. "The domestic alloy casings run thirty percent lighter than standard imported steel while tripling torsional resistance."
Adrian stepped down onto the concrete floor, stopping beside a former Cold War munitions lathe operator named Dragan, who was supervising three young polytechnic apprentices milling high-pressure brake valves.
"How are the apprentice teams holding up on the shift rotations, Dragan?" Adrian asked, nodding toward the young machinists.
Dragan wiped a film of cutting fluid from his hands with a cloth, smiling broadly. "The boys are sharp, Mr. President. And every hour of overtime is recorded on the state ledger and credited directly to our accounts on Friday. No missing vouchers, no empty promises, and full protective gear at every station. We're building forty electric freight units before the first frost, and every man on this floor is proud to sign his name on the delivery plates."
"Good work," Adrian said, clapping the older machinist on the shoulder. "Keep the tolerances tight. Our southern harvest trains depend on these engines."
Outside the plant gates, a bustling open-air café sat beside the newly paved tram loop. Off-shift machinists and assembly technicians sat around round wooden tables over hot mugs of chicory coffee and fresh pastries.
"My rent in the district apartment was locked at five percent of base wages," one young assembly worker told his tablemate, laying his state bankbook down on the table. "And the municipal district heating plants ran a test cycle yesterday morning—the radiators were piping hot in five minutes flat. No chopping scrap wood this winter."
Nearby, an elderly woman buying fresh plums from a market stall spoke with a neighbor, her voice full of emotion. "Ten years ago, my older boys fled across the border to keep from being forced into street militias. Yesterday, my youngest daughter received her state acceptance letter for the mechanical drafting program at the polytechnic, fully funded by the ministry. The city has a future again."
Down at the central rail depot, Pietro reviewed the freight manifests with the yardmaster, ensuring raw iron ore and bauxite from the northern mines bypassed passenger loops and went straight to the heavy foundries without transport snags. Across the district, Wanda monitored the community welfare registers and school nutrition hubs, her psionic awareness confirming that food allocations and medical stipends reached every neighborhood without administrative skimming.
That night, Adrian retreated to his private workshop beneath the Presidential Palace.
With the heavy steel vault locked from the inside, he shifted his awareness inward, stepping through the dimensional fold into the World Seed.
The interior realm remained a vast, silent valley of dark stone, vacuum-sealed and completely isolated from external reality. Stacked in the center of the plateau were eighty tons of excavated mountain granite, hauled down from railway tunnel expansions.
Adrian raised his hands, exercising his Transmutation Authority.
Blue sparks rippled across the dark expanse, quiet and controlled.
<< Sophia: Atomic restructuring initialized. Granite matrix deconstructed into refined lithium plates, structural quartz insulators, and pure conductive copper conduits. >>
<< Stress analysis: Second-tier automated fabrication bench aligned. Zero electromagnetic emission detected. >>
The jagged rock liquefied and resolidified under his command, locking into place as high-precision automated assembly platforms and heavy-duty tool gantries. In the total vacuum of the pocket dimension, Adrian established the second stage of his closed-loop industrial facility, completely invisible to foreign orbital satellites and high-altitude reconnaissance flights.
By mid-October 2010, the confidential terminal inside Adrian's palace office chimed with a critical priority alert from the United States.
Sophia routed decrypted military communications and live New York emergency video feeds straight to the private screen.
<< Sophia: High-priority tactical emergency: Harlem, New York City. >>
<< Program: US Department of Defense black-budget bio-enhancement project under General Thaddeus Ross has collapsed into catastrophic urban combat. >>
Grainy news helicopter footage cut into the monitor.
A monstrous, mutated humanoid covered in jagged bone spurs—Captain Emil Blonsky, transformed into the Abomination—was tearing along 125th Street, hurling police cruisers through storefronts and swatting military personnel carriers aside like cardboard.
Moments later, Bruce Banner dropped from an incoming military helicopter, plummeting toward the pavement and transforming into the Hulk before impact.
A savage, earth-shaking brawl erupted through the streets of Harlem. Concrete shattered, burning rubble rained down across entire city blocks, and shockwaves shattered windows for half a mile until the Hulk subdued the monster with a heavy steel chain and vanished into the shadows of the urban night.
Sophia brought up intercepted tactical chatter from the aftermath.
<< Intercept: S.H.I.E.L.D. cleanup teams deployed under Director Nicholas J. Fury to quarantine biological evidence and manage media suppression. General Ross has been ordered into emergency closed-door Congressional hearings. >>
Pietro and Wanda stood beside Adrian's desk, staring at the smoldering footage of Manhattan's ruined avenues.
Pietro shook his head, pointing at an armored vehicle split in half on the asphalt. "First rogue weaponized drones tearing up Queens at the Expo, and now giant experimental super-soldiers leveling Manhattan. What is the American military actually doing?"
"They keep trying to manufacture gods they can control," Wanda said, her arms folded as she watched military cordons close around the ruins. "And every time they try, ordinary civilians pay for their arrogance."
"Arrogance always creates blind spots," Adrian said, powering down the secure monitor. "General Ross and the Pentagon will spend the next six months burying their bio-weapon research from congressional investigators, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is stretched thin managing the aftermath. That leaves our board entirely clear."
Inspector Radovan knocked and stepped into the room, holding the interior ministry's fourth-quarter national audit.
"Mr. President," Radovan reported, presenting the portfolio. "The autumn harvest is officially complete. All national grain elevators are filled to one hundred percent capacity, and the electrified rail lines now cover eighty percent of the country's industrial hubs. Domestic factories are operating entirely on internal materials."
Adrian signed the executive decree, stamping the seal onto the document with a calm, decisive hand.
"Keep the watch steady and the borders secure," Adrian said. "Let the foreign powers chase their monsters. Sokovia is ready for the winter."