Chapter 17.5.

 Before Dragovich could get out of the car, the door of the house opened and a short, strong man of about fifty appeared on the porch with a shaved face and, as far as the rolled-up knitted hat allowed, a similarly shaved head. He was dressed in warm pants and a down jacket, most likely not a civilian one, but some kind of military overalls, of which there were plenty around.

 The jacket was unbuttoned, and belts were visible underneath - apparently, the commissar had a habit of carrying a weapon with him - this usually happens, and not because there was some kind of danger everywhere - no, a normal commissar should be a danger himself.

 - Good afternoon! Come in, - the gloomy-looking owner of the house suddenly said quite casually, looking around at the newcomers: the approaching Zavirdyaev and the group getting off the bus. He said this first in Russian, and then in fairly good English.

 Lisette, dressed in a shapeless down jacket, from under which only elegant black boots could be seen, trotted after her boss, looking around at the slums spread out along the former boulevard.

 Then, in the house there was all this official part with a simple lunch, after which the filming and interview with the commissioner began.

 The "Mexican" left first. Dragovich initially decided to linger, but then also moved towards the exit. Walking to the car and figuring out how to roll up to this Lisette, Dragovich noticed how the "Mexican", sitting in his minibus, was waving at him through the side window.

 Dragovich headed for the bus. The roar of supersonic aviation was heard. Now five planes were flying in the sky almost in formation. Most likely, they lined up for no particular reason. Simply because they could and because it was beautiful. They were heading south, just like the first time.

 - They're probably making several passes, - the "Mexican" suggested when Dragovich was already in the cabin.

 - I thought they'd say something on the radio, but I haven't heard anything yet.

 - They'll tell you about the "day's results" one way or another in the evening, - the "Mexican" answered.

Dragovich shrugged and settled in more comfortably.

 - These are raiders and they're launching ballistic missiles at full speed, - the "Mexican" announced after a while, holding out his phone, which Dragovich couldn't make out, though. - People are reporting that they've seen launches.

 - I see, nothing unusual.

 - It's like the old MiG-31s, - the "Mexican" didn't let up, - we came up with this tactic over a hundred years ago.

 Dragovich was familiar with the name - he also watched videos about the technology from time to time, but apart from the fact that it was a powerful Soviet fighter, dating back to the times of the First Union, he knew nothing else.

 "The Mexican" began to tell how at the beginning of the last century in Russia they created a hypersonic missile, although it turned out to be ballistic. He, "The Mexican", loved everything that was connected with the military ambitions of the past - and now under the windshield of the minibus there was a book in a tattered soft cover with a characteristic preview picture - a healthy fellow in an old field uniform standing on the roof of a car crushed by some kind of technology, lying in the middle of a London street.

 - Science fiction? - asked Dragovich, nodding at the book.

 - Yes. What else? About how our Russian ended up more than a hundred years into the past, at the beginning of the inter-Soviet period.

 - And what happened? - Dragovich reached for the book.

 - What do you think? With modern technology... We defeated everyone back then, and there was no War.

 - The Asian Bloc of that time?

 - Don't pretend. We, Russia, defeated everyone, or rather led everyone. And we left "@enemy" with their rice fields without technology. Just right for them. Take it and read.

 - Is there anything about Serbia in there?

 - I don't think so. And why would we? You're our own.

 - The Right Bank and the Left Bank would definitely not have fought then, - Dragovich said, looking away from the pages and slowly looking around.

 - That's true, - the "Mexican" agreed.

 Dragovich breathed on the glass, after which he began to run his finger along the glass. There was nothing else to do. The "Mexican" looked at the glass with boredom. Noticing this, Dragovich wrote a classic Russian three-letter word on the glass.

 "Mexican" chuckled, then looked at his phone again.

 Dragovich erased the inscription and flipped through the book about halfway.

 On the pages of the book, two generals discussed how a mysterious visitor from the future could have known the war in Iraq in 2003 that he had described. In general, for such a thing, one would have to have specific knowledge, at least Dragovich would not have been able to do so.

 Judging by the first pages of the book, three people went to the past - two, apparently, SOps - fighters of the special operations unit of NaAmF, the army of Greater Russia, and one civilian specialist with glasses. They got to the past without any special tricks - they were flying in a flat-bottomed boat to an airbase to go to Africa, got caught in a thunderstorm, got lightning on their asses and got to the past. It was funny.

 Dragovich flipped through a few pages and the action was transferred to some market with some, one would think, Russian features of a hundred years ago. Having lost their equipment and, of course, their transport, the heroes could think of nothing better than to follow some small-time bandits collecting their small tribute. After leafing through a bit, Dragovich found out that they had ended up in 1994. God knows what was happening in the Balkans at that time, Russia was in the inter-Soviet period, and his, Dragovich's, great-grandfather, who had come from Russia, was still a kid in short pants.

 Dragovich looked away from the pages and out the window, behind which loomed the broken facade of an empty high-rise building. There was no movement near the commissar's house, that is, no people were visible. There was nothing to do except read.

 For some reason, the three time travelers dealt with the three gangsters too harshly and unceremoniously, seeing them, as they put it, as already dead. They managed with one cold weapon, fortunately, two SOPS were just for such things. Then came the complete crap, which could only be understood by those who knew the inter-Soviet period well. The average Russian, one would think, understood the subject - they could not help but watch a sufficient amount of video materials and documentaries during their adult lives, but for Dragovich such subtleties as the criminal appearance of the streets of that time were little understood. The aliens from the future were unable to embody their technical knowledge in metal, although they had the necessary "four-eyes". The team chose a different scenario for correcting history - in simple terms, they began to build an organized semi-criminal community, involving mostly retired and active military personnel. There was every reason to assume that if such people had met the Right Bank, they would have found a common language - the methods of self-promotion of these visitors from the future were too dubious. It would have been time for the real SOpS to be indignant. Dragovich scrolled to the very end and found there a rather naive description of the corrected future, that is, the present - the huge capital of the world Moscow with huge white-stone buildings with marble floors. China and the Chinese, who did not turn into "@enemy", Russian-American cities on the Moon and other comics. But on the other hand, what else could have been written? And what ending would have been more pleasant to read?

 Dragovich again glanced at the panorama outside the car windows. Indeed, it was quite natural that sooner or later people had a desire to amuse themselves with such stories and happy endings.

 Finally, he found the place where the aliens from the future-present finally deigned to tell the inter-Soviet Russians who they were and where they were from. It was already the summer of 1998 and the heroes, firmly established in a world unfamiliar to them, came across some billionaire Berezovsky. It was funny because on the right bank territory, very close to the rocket launch site, there was a town with exactly the same name. "Mexican", although in response to Dragovich's comment he explained that the billionaire's surname and the name of the town were pronounced differently, and that businessman was indeed a real person. " - What you're telling me, Sasha, leaves me speechless.

 - Treat it as my invention, that's your right. I have one question, have you seen many phones like the one I showed you? Do you know how tense we were when we needed to charge it? We did assemble the necessary device, after all.

 - Yes, your toy is impressive. So what are you saying, the Soviet Union has been reborn again? With our communists? Or have some other ones appeared?

 - It's not about the communists at all, Boris Abramovich. They used the purely external part - there was no sincere movement like in black and white films, although who the hell knows what they had in mind. This is the past even for your time. In general, everything would have been fine, only in 2083 a coup d'etat occurred in China. Not a revolution, but a coup d'etat. They threw all the communist tinsel into the trash. But it's not like us in 1991. We moved to the West, or it moved to us.

 - Are you talking about our time now?

 - Yes, about yours.

 - Let's not get confused. For you, our time will be "you" and yours "we". Do you understand? You are a guest from the future and you are telling us how things are there and giving examples of what we have. It will be easier to follow the thread that way.

 - Well, as you say. You and the West are on good terms now. That's for a while. We are too, after the collapse of the Second Union, but this is probably permanent. We have two, in your language, supercorporations. For us, it's in the West, not in Russia. You have conjectures and fabrications about a shadow world government, but for us it is already more obvious. In front of them, both you and I are on the same level. You understand what level. Not high. So, about China...

 - So wait, is the Second Soviet Union the same as the first? The collapse?

 - I'm telling you, everything is tied to 2083, to China. Now they are so peaceful and cautious. And they will be like this for almost another hundred years. And they will get stronger. Now you have a computer made... although there is still some of that stuff there.

 - No, Sasha, give me the big picture now, let's discuss such details as technology secondarily. We will discuss them, but not them first.

 - Okay, I get it. The Second Union had its own socialist camp. It was called the Confederation. When China took off its mask, the entire old world began to crack at the seams. Our socialist camp began to disintegrate in 2084. The Czech Republic was the first to do so.

 In September 2089, your 1991 happened in the Second Union itself. The following year, privatization started, only it was no longer carried out by locals or Russians. I don't know the details of your entire privatization, but ours was carried out directly by the West. By Constellations. Basically, the GBA is one of those two supercorporations. The second one is called AEX.

 - It sounds like you've been conquered. And our near-communist cattle are still unhappy with what's happening here.

 - These are all minor details, believe me. These are domestic squabbles between our own.

 - And what, the population took it all so calmly?

 - Yes, calmer than yours would have. People change, mentality changes. Things were already heading towards War back then.

 - War with whom? Of course, I already have an idea with whom, but I want you to voice it yourself.

 - With "@enemy".

 - Sasha, express yourself more clearly.

 - The Asian bloc. China, one by one, subjugated all the countries and nations of the region except Japan. Even South Korea, we, the West, have given up."

 Finally, it came to a topic more relevant than a primitive lesson on the history of the last century. Dragovich may have heard something about Russia's internal affairs, but those nineties of the last twenty-first century, the privatization of the post-Soviet legacy, all these troubles that accompanied the dissolution of the confederation and the Union itself, as well as the invasion of this whole history into the distant twentieth century did not cause any special emotions. How would modernity be seen there, that is, the War - that's another matter.

 "- How serious was the War? I mean nuclear weapons.

 - How could it be without them? They began to use them back in the Pre-War.

 - In the Pre-War?

 - This is a local War for Indonesia. At the last moment, the West came to its senses and began to contain "@enemy". The Asian region, however, by that time already belonged entirely to them. It's about like the Germans in the twentieth century. Well, the Third Reich. They wanted all of Europe and Russia up to the Urals. Well, swap one for the other and you get what you get. And yes, "@enemy" was doing pretty well, unlike the Germans. The hammer and sickle went into the trash can and they started pumping up their people's commitment to their fucking thousand-year-old history. Confucius, dragons, silk rags, hieroglyphs, all that stuff. And they came up with it all. The rest of the surrounding nations are younger, well, read inferior. In general, if you dig even into their books from five hundred years ago, for you five hundred years ago, it was all there. It was Hitler who supposedly gave birth to his stinking struggle himself, but these guys had and have everything ready, just take it. And they took it. I'm talking about ideology and all that. Then they took the neighboring countries. It was a play on words.

 - Really? The last moment - when? You said that at the last moment the West came to its senses and began to restrain them.

 - You mean the beginning of the Pre-War? It's 2107.

 - And you arrived…

 - 2116.

 - So that's a serious interval. A nuclear war lasting eleven years?

 - The Pre-War began as a conventional one. For the most part, all the civilians didn't care at all. They lived as they lived. Then in 2111 the first bombs began to fall.

 - Where did they drop them?

 - Yes, it was there, in Indonesia. Jungles and bridgeheads. Nothing special at all, there was more talk. You generally have such an attitude to this that it's simply surprising. When the War began, everyone felt it, even those who were safe. Stress, depression.

 - When was that?

 - In 2113. September 5th. But it's not like in your films. "The Terminator", by the way, is still remembered by us. It's a classic.

 - And what, you lived all these years in the conditions of a nuclear war?

 - Well, as you can see. I'm telling you, this is not the kind of war you imagine."

Then the SOPS guy started telling the billionaire, the oligarch, as they called him, the details of the post-Soviet conflicts that took place in those, not so close, nineties of the twenty-first century. Some kind of boring began.

 Suddenly there was a knock, probably a palm on the side of the car.