Chapter 12.7.

 From somewhere in the cattle rows, a shrill pig squeal was heard. Dragovich turned his head and saw a rumpled-looking man trying to stuff a kicking piglet into a bag for a waiting customer, who had rolled up along one of the central roads of the market on a motorcycle with a sidecar.

 - A good thing! - said Flaxen-Haired.

 - What are you talking about? - asked Dragovich.

 - I'm talking about a motorcycle. They've been driving these for two hundred years. An eternal machine. In the village, drunk, and through the shit at full speed, an-an-annn! - Flaxen-Haired imitated the sound of a motorcycle.

 - Why through the shit?

 - You don't understand anything, - answered Flaxen-Haired, - by the way, they sold a motorized jerk around here somewhere, I think. And it definitely has to be a smelly one, gasoline, and not an electric one, which is on this hydrogen paste.

 - On gel?

 - Well, yeah.

 - Do you want a motorcycle?

 - I have one in my parents' garage, I just need to fix it and put it back together... I just need to get busy...

 Somewhere in the distance, the song "with a rifle and a grenade" began to play - it was played on the radio every hour.

 Flaxen-Haired meanwhile was moving along the shopping arcade with a very specific goal - to the "food stand" - a place over which smoke curled and the smell of fried meat spread. It must be said that the food situation in the region was quite tolerable - at least, heading off on his journey-escape, Dragovich was prepared for the fact that it would be much worse, and in terms of food, if not the first year of the War, then something more meager than what was currently at home awaited him here.

 In the first year, or rather in the first months, people learned that you can freeze bread in refrigerators - first you stand in line, get a few loaves and preserve them for a couple of weeks. Then you defrost and cut them. There were also food cards - entries in accounts, which were called cards by analogy with what was in past centuries. In addition to this, there were all sorts of reserves of cereals and pasta in cabinets and nightstands - such reserves often spoiled. Then, somewhere around the fifteenth year, everything got better.

 In the SSSF, there was now a steady flow of food, including from Russia itself. The Super Federation as a whole and its ordinary citizens in particular had the money for this - the SSSF on both banks unexpectedly acquired an original source of income - foreigners. Dragovich was not one of them, but somewhere in the suburban settlements there was a significant number of rich dodgers.

 Surprisingly, at home, being wealthy did not guarantee that a person would not be drafted. A skilled metalworker had much less chance of attracting the interest of a draftee than a once carefree rich kid. As luck would have it, the system of transactions and all this financial business took on real discrimination, making transactions to such neutral countries as India or Iran extremely difficult. In the Super Federation, everything worked as if nothing had happened.

 Some of the current residents of the Super Federation, from the visitors, lived on interest - such people did not have to do anything at all - transactions from home banks came here without any restrictions, so these profitable "guests" only had to keep their asses here and regularly spend money.

 There were not so many people in the eatery located in the middle of a crowded market that they had to look for another "snack". Having taken a shawarma, both sat down near the edge of the awning. The autumn sun warmed my back pleasantly here.

 In the central part, not far from the counter, there was a plasma panel showing some European channel - the usual choice. All-Russian ones, which you could watch as much as you wanted in private, were not shown in public places - in such cases, the screen would often say rather unflattering words about the Super-Federate. Now something was on TV about American affairs, as it became clear a little later that it was about the upcoming elections next year, or more precisely about Harlington. Everyone in the city and in the region already knew that the senator would be arriving at the SSSF here any week. And Harlington was on TV too. Maybe the US Senator will say something about the SSSF too...

 - I have repeatedly stated that it is high time for us to do something about the situation in our rear, - the Senator's voice sounded, - while President Oppenheimer is trying to push the War into space, we are watching how the administration of our rear is in a certain sense degrading. I sincerely do not understand those who, when considering the rear, talking about the problems of the rear, see only its military-industrial component...

 The surrounding area was filled with the abrupt sounds of a siren. Dragovich's phone also responded and burst into the same sound, as did several phones nearby. The background of the crowd suddenly died down - it was somewhat reminiscent of the behavior of a noisy flock of birds that saw or heard a suddenly emerging source of danger. Flaxen-Haired glanced left and right, and then stared at the phone. Dragovich took out his glasses, put them on, and then began to look around. The white lantern on the mast installed on the roof of the building with the cut-out piece went out, but there was no red signal either. There, on the eastern side, two white threads shot upward.

 - "Amalgam," - flashed through the crowd.

 Immediately, the human hum began to increase.

 - Everything is normal, then, - Flaxen-Haired said with some relief and continued eating.

He did not look at the rockets, which had now changed their trajectory to a flatter one and were rushing away to the east - from a safety point of view, this was correct - Flaxen-Haired for some reason neglected the habit of having glasses with him - he preferred a cap with a visor turned down. The launch terminals that were part of the GBA AMALGAMA system were scattered all over the continent, but here, in the SSSF, there were especially many of them. This one, which had just launched a couple of anti-missiles, was located thirty kilometers away and it was on the territory of the RBSF, which, however, meant nothing - in relation to the confrontation between the left and right banks, the bloc's forces existed as if in a parallel world, if you do not count the demarcation contingent, but it, in turn, did not belong to the strategic forces. Half a minute later, Flaxen-Haired finally turned around and began to examine the white traces blurring in the autumn blue. The anti-missiles by that time had moved away from the launch site by a good hundred kilometers, if not two, and were probably already approaching space, in the mesosphere. At least they were far enough away and a possible flare was now safe. The white light began to blink again - now GBA AMALGAMA was defending some remote sector, the activity in which did not affect the sector in which SSSF was located.

 - The leader of the right-bank sector of the region that had partially gotten out of control, dismissed in disgrace from the Army, the so-called "Callsign Moscow", aka "Kom.batt", declared his readiness to take part in the negotiations, - a strangely muffled voice sounded from the screen, - A similar statement was made by his, so to speak, comrade from the left bank, known as "Doc", aka...

 The provocative speech was drowned out by another clear voice, which said the same thing but in quite decent tones. It turned out that the European channel had inserted, or rather quoted, a Russian report, which is why such a funny thing happened.

 In general, Dragovich had noticed this before, although when a picture from an all-Russian channel appeared, the sound could disappear completely. The audio was apparently being jammed by some local AI filter. This time, this filter was distracted. However, no one really cared. If something from the right bank appeared on a public screen, it would resonate. But their broadcasts freely passed the river, as did the return signal from KANAR. Dragovich caught the right bank on his device from time to time, and he was not the only one.

- The settlement of the confrontational process currently taking place in the Super Federation region will definitely add points to Senator Harlington, who appointed the SSSF Super Federation as the starting point of his, so to speak, tour of the problematic regions of our rear, - the voice from the screen continued, - The Kuznetsk Region, a region of Russia that is in a state of internal confrontation, is, among other things, in a state of uncertain status and frozen confrontation with the central authorities of the country. Despite the fact that the leadership of both parts of the Super Federation declares their resolute rejection of any form of separatism, the speaker of the parliament of the Russian Federal Republic Lebedev...

 - They are talking about us, - Flaxen-Haired said with a satisfied intonation, - we still have a long wait, we should get some beer...