Chapter 977: The Power of Nature

Bruno had arrived in Saint Petersburg with his wife Heidi at his side. What was once an affair that requires days’ worth of planning and travel could now be achieved in a handful of hours.

They left in the morning, and by noon they had stepped onto the platform. The Continental maglev project was proceeding exactly as planned, and was perhaps slightly above time tables.

This meant that certain areas that had been prioritized above others were already completed, like the path between Berlin and Saint Petersburg.

And since Germany had built its own federal maglev system years before coercing the rest of Europe to join the project, this meant that Bruno could go from Innsbruck to Saint Petersburg without ever getting out of his seat if he so wished.

When Bruno and Heidi stepped foot in the city, they were not surprised to see that it had advanced significantly.

After all, many of the joint-research projects started in the 1920s between the German Reich and Russian Empire remained in place. Russia was the second most advanced and powerful nation on the planet, and it showed with its capital city.

It was a simple transition from the maglev station to a tram which took Bruno and Heidi to the Tsar’s Winter Palace, or I should say the nearest station.

From there, a car was waiting for them. Agents of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs safely drove Bruno and Heidi through the palace gates, where they were greeted by Tsar Alexei and his wife Tsarina Elsa, as well as their children and grandchildren.

It was not a formal greeting, in fact neither Alexei nor Elsa was dressed in imperial regalia, rather more simple day clothes as they exchanged friendly and familial greetings with their parents/in-laws.

Bruno couldn’t help but gaze at his daughter and realize something he had been ignoring for a long time... Time was passing by quicker than he thought.

Though his family had exceptional genes, especially in regard to aging. There was no doubt about it, the younger of his two eldest daughters was now in her fifties. And that made Bruno feel old.

Still, he couldn’t manage to pity himself as he became ever closer to the end of his natural lifespan. He smiled and hugged the woman, as she referred to him by the same moniker since her childhood.

"It’s so good to see you, Daddy. It’s been too long...."

Bruno chuckled as he released his daughter’s embrace and pat her on the head, memories of what felt like a lifetime ago flooding his head as he spoke to her as if she were still a child.

"Too long? We visited last week, you act as if it wasn’t until just recently that we only saw each other at annual gatherings."

Elsa giggled in response to her father’s statement, all while Heidi butted in.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about dear, are you perhaps going senile?"

Bruno simply rolled his eyes before reaching over and shaking Alexei’s hand. By now the man looked more like his father than the anemic, stricken boy that Bruno had once known.

So much so that Bruno couldn’t help but respond to his wife’s remarks with a wistful tone in his voice.

"Perhaps I am...."

Nobody commented on it, instead Alexei shook Bruno’s hand and welcomed him to his home.

"It’s good to see you again, please, come in, I hope the journey here wasn’t too dreadful."

Bruno laughed as he and Heidi followed Alexie and Elsa inside their palace. Remarking on the trip to Russia’s capital.

"I’ll leave complaining about such matters to the younger generations who have the luxury of never knowing the alternative."

Alexei nodded and shifted the subject slightly.

"It is indeed remarkable, it will only be a few years before your grand vision is complete, and Europe is forever changed in a way that benefits us all. I just hope that the final piece, the Trans-Siberian Maglev is completed at the same time, lest we may have to wait a few years before Vladivostok is connected to Europe."

Bruno waved the comment off, showing what amounted to supreme patience that he was otherwise not known for, shocking all those present to witness it.

"That is fine, what can’t be helped, can’t be helped. However, I will say if you are behind schedule, it might be best to check to see if anything is being wasted, God forbid a minor inconvenience out of your control is actually something far more sinister."

Alexei nodded his head, as if he were listening to ancient wisdom he had been instilled with since his birth.

"Of course I already had the matter investigated the moment I heard we were slightly behind our timetables. There has been no embezzlement, fraud, or anything of the sort. We may have mastered the atom, pierced the heavens, and bent industry to our will. But nature has a remarkable tenacity when it comes to throwing a wrench in our plans at its own will."

Bruno smiled when he heard this and shook his head. Gazing off into the distance, and the peak sunlight of the day captivating the noble city of Saint Petersburg, he couldn’t help but chuckle and mutter something beneath his breath.

"It really is remarkable isn’t it? No matter how much we think we have mastered the universe and submitted it to our own desires. Nature can still choose whenever it wants to swat us like flies? I suppose it is a testament to the hubris of man....."

Alexei said nothing, he simply smiled and nodded his head. Not because he disagreed with Bruno’s statement, but he too was in solemn solidarity with the belief.

Nature had its own way of handling things, and no matter how much mankind deluded itself into believing it was in control, in the end, it could either live parallel to the brutal reality that was the natural world. Or it could face the consequences of its own delusional attempts to remain above it.