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***

All power to the robots!

This is how my robot factory can be characterised. Absolutely wild for this world, time and place, the pace of work and the pace of implementation. Electronics were made in-house and bought from third-party manufacturers. The same cables - I had a lot of trouble with them, but I made a completely unique system "Skynet" - for the fear of all terminatorophobes. Or rather, it was made by Bersi, with my active participation. Each industrial robot of my production had a small computer, low-powered, without a network it could only execute a given programme. The network was connected via RS-232, with a channel protected by maximum encryption. Accordingly, only some machines possessed the encryption key, to avoid, so to speak, industrial sabotage.

There were several robots. First of all - the most mass-produced one, the manipulator. It was a steel arm with three to six axes, consisting of tubular steel phalanges, with DC motors. Moves pretty fast, works fast too. Plus it was relatively versatile - any equipment or specialised mount could be inserted into the robot head mount. I also produced them - equipment and mounts, remodelling them from ordinary hand tools. Or rather, I bought a tool, watched all the details of its operation, and copied the working part. The tools were very different - laser and plasma welding and cutting, grippers for assembly, equipment for painting, drilling, sawing, milling, turning, boring and other complex metal-cutting operations.

I looked up the varieties of robots in the Xandar Industrial Encyclopedia, as I did a course of lectures on industrial robotics, as I did "bad advice" for the novice roboticist. Creating a titan droid was easier than an industrial manipulator, since I wasn't technologically limited in Titan and very much so here. The good thing was that Bersi made programming code for all types of robots.

For example, the loader robot is a unique machine. Six-axis, with a span of one and a half metres, which means that when stretched out, it was almost ten metres long. A giant that weighed eighteen tonnes and could lift twice its weight - it was intended for unloading trains, could work in metallurgy - to move vats of molten metals around the shop. I didn't have a similar one - the production was serviced by an ordinary robot, which was not required to work too hard.

The smallest robot was a high-speed conveyor assembler, it firstly - located strictly above the container, and secondly had many supports on which the working head was suspended. Thanks to this it moved very quickly and could do primitive work, such as placing electronic components on a circuit board very quickly, up to seven movements per second. Medium robots - simpler, replaced manual labour in the main area of work, they are more classic robots, having the ability to quickly change the working head, with a load capacity of thirty to fifty kilograms and with medium speed of work. But they were located, unlike the big and small robots, on an unequipped site.

The mass production of robots forced a halt in the production of tablets in my moon factory. In twenty-four hours, about twelve robots were being made, regardless of class. Some husks had to be purchased from the Xandar flea market. I wanted to buy robots there in general, but it was unlikely, they were too different from Earth's robots, thousands of years of difference. But motors and parts of joints I bought only like that - joints, bearings....

According to my calculations, a medium-sized enterprise requires at least a hundred medium-sized robots, at least one heavyweight robot, and the work of small robots, depending on the length of the conveyor. However, the heavyweight robots were also valuable because of their size. The length of the manipulator is long enough to work with, say, a bomber in the workshop. The first in line for modernisation was the aircraft industry - the production of engines and other aircraft parts, if they are made cheaper, the main problem of Russian aviation - resource consumption - is removed.

In addition, I had a number of projects of my own, but before that I had to reach design capacity. I did not tell the Minister that I already had the ability to create robots - so far I just made robots. I made eighty robots in a week. The advantage was the self-replication of the technology - robots could make robots, which in turn make even more robots - it all came down to the minor details of production - equipment, metals, site, electronics.

The problem with the site was solved quickly - I was allocated the territory of a former military unit near Ekaterinburg. They used to base missileers here, but then they downsized, all that... so for the good of the country, they gave it to me at a decent price - one and a half million greenbucks. That's the price of five medium-sized robots, so you could say I've already worked my arse off. Since the type of "workshop" building I needed was not available at the production site, I had to order its construction from scratch. The focus was on robotised production of industrial robots.

* * *

My second, but main focus was to be infrastructure. Electric vehicle manufacturing, complex, large and expensive. At first, I wanted to buy out some trolleybus production, but then I studied the material and I wanted more. At first I thought about electric locomotives, because not far from Ekaterinburg, in the south, there was a production of electric locomotives. Electric locomotive is undoubtedly more perspective transport - volumes of transported cargoes and efficiency are much higher. However, electric locomotive is not that again, though it is a good transport, I wanted something that would not drop the Abstergo brand to a standard factory somewhere in the Urals. So I decided to go and talk to the management of the plant, taking my developments for presentation. The best urban transport is a tram or a monorail, and that's where we'll start. Monorail is best. And automated, not with a driver....

The idea of monorail has occurred to many people, but there are some pitfalls. It is quite possible to solve them, if we use quality developments of galactic engineers, but without the desire of the factory workers themselves... we will not get any result. The production of monorails is a challenge, it will have to be scattered across large industrial plants. The production of the monorail itself...

When familiarising myself with this mode of transport, I first of all opened galactic encyclopaedias, and then Earth encyclopaedias. So, monorail is an obsolete type of urban transport, which has a number of advantages over surface or underground transport. It is much faster than underground, does not interfere with traffic, good visibility, average speed. At the same time, monorail was not particularly widespread on the ground - the operators cared about every penny, and in this monorail lost to more traditional modes of transport. It is also worth mentioning that all galactic railways are exclusively automated, there are no drivers anywhere. The linearity of the traffic makes it possible to automate transport relatively efficiently. The most common transport in the galaxy was the maglev, a high-speed train levitating on a magnetic cushion. Moreover, its tracks were similar to those of a monorail - this could be used to create transport infrastructure. But it was a matter of money. Humans, unlike robots, demand money.

The negotiations were short - I was already a personality in Ekaterinburg - a celebrity of the first magnitude. I made a phone call, and half an hour later a Mercedes with the director of the plant pulled up to the front door of my factory. How convenient it is to live in Ekaterinburg! There are so many different factories - you can even find the production of devils with horns.

The director of the electric locomotive factory was a middle-aged man with a beard. He was escorted to me by a guard.

- Good afternoon, - he smiled broadly.

- And good day to you, Alexander Stepanovich. You probably know me... - I met him in my office, - come in, have a seat, make yourself comfortable....

Alexander Stepanovich immediately took advantage of the invitation:

- Everyone knows you, Hjarti Nicholson, our electronic celebrity. I repent, even I bought your smartphone... A miracle, not a smartphone.

- Really? So, let's skip the life stuff and get straight to the point. I've got ambitions to enter the transport market. Electric transport, and the most untapped niches...

He arched an eyebrow:

- I think we've had it all for a long time. But still. - he stopped talking, giving me the floor.

- I'm talking about two rare forms of transport. The monorail and the Maglev. As you have correctly noticed, I'm good with technology, so I'm unlikely to be frightened by the technical complexity of these modes of transport. I have a good suggestion for you - to start manufacturing monorails and then maglevs.

- Shall we buy them from the Chinese? - he asked businesslike, - or the Japanese?

- I have my own projects. Somewhat more... cost-effective.

He was already interested in that:

- Well, maglev is an expensive toy. I remember in the Soviet Union, they even started building it, but never finished.

- I can make it cheaper. A lot cheaper, but it's a matter of technique. First we need to master the production of more technically simple rolling stock and monorail tracks, and then we can smoothly move to maglevs. However, according to my information, your enterprise can't cope with such complex trains....

- Nonsense, we will, - the director of the locomotive plant waved away, - where have we been?

- No, this is not the way things are done. Either there will be a defect or the assembly will be like Lada-Kalina. I am aware of your production capabilities, but you have to realise that there are a lot of subtleties. And maglev is a thing on the level of space shuttle, so I offer you my business plan.

- I'm all ears," he raised his hands.

- I have a production of industrial robots of the widest purpose, turning and milling centres, electric smelters... here I offer you - to create a joint venture. I'll take the controlling stake, industrial robots, machine tools, all the most expensive and high-tech equipment from me, plus transport specialists from your side. We'll train someone, bring them up to speed. We will set up production on the site of your current plant, modernising it to a level higher than that of Swiss factories. There is a technical possibility...

- It's a tempting offer, of course... but a controlling interest.

- The controlling interest in your company is worth three hundred and twenty million. And the equipment I'm talking about is worth three billion. We have capitalism, as it is, you will get your money in the form of fourteen per cent of shares not in a small locomotive-building enterprise, but in the form of shares in a subsidiary, Abstergo-Transport. And these shares will grow in value as the company develops. For your shareholders, this is a chance to receive significant dividends... To approximately double their capital.

The director, as they call it, bit his teeth:

- Fourteen per cent?

- Fourteen per cent of Abstergo Transport, the highly robotic production of modern monorails and maglevs.

- That's something to think about... Do you have a clear plan?

- I have everything. A plan, prototypes, industrial robots and machines, and the ability to put in my own power station. All we need is specialists to help build the machinery and the tracks.

- We need to hire outsiders, our people have nothing to do with the tracks.

- So we'll hire them," I shrugged my shoulders, "I would suggest building the first monorail in Ekaterinburg. Twenty-four kilometres across the city, from Ordzhonikidzevsky District to Leninsky District.

* * * *

The undoubted advantage of robotised production is the speed of modernisation. It takes months to train people to do the right thing, until they get excited, until they get hot... Usually in European factories, a change of technology means months of work - until people get trained and master the technology, while in Russian factories it takes years - until they get excited, until all the idiots are removed from the machines, until the product is of high quality....

For the factory workers the decision to re-profile the plant was a shock. They were not used to changes, they were making locomotives and they did it. And here - instead of them they put soulless machines, and all the idiots, drunks and fools were kicked out, leaving two hundred people out of the previous one and a half thousand....

The workshops were simply closed, all locomotives, including the unfinished ones, were taken away from the plant along the rails. And the infernal show began. Specialists from Abstergo arrived early in the morning, at six o'clock. First of all, they inspected the existing facilities. These were already obsolete pieces of equipment, most of which were scrapped the same day. The workshops were cleared of everything, leaving only a small amount of equipment. Large-scale laying of power lines from the Abstergo plant to the locomotive building plant began. While the power lines were being erected, magic lorries started arriving at the plant - in their bodies they found boxes with new production equipment. Lathes, robots, robots, robots, robots... two hundred different robots, from Lilliputians to Gullivers. They were immediately installed by specialists from the Abstergo factory. On the fifth day of work, the production line was ready, which included machine tools operated by robots, an electric induction furnace, which was bought in Chelyabinsk and robotised in Abstergo, storage equipment - forklifts and robotic carts, on which a locomotive could be placed and on which it could be quickly moved around the shop.

The test run took place immediately. No lengthy commissioning work was carried out - the smelter was set up, scrap metal was thrown into it, and the robots did everything else themselves. At the end, steel cylinders were cast, which were transported by conveyor to the rough processing shop. There they were cut into billets of the required length by a robot using plasma. From here the blanks were delivered by a transport robot, a low but wide trolley with a computer. The trolley took the part further and the robots loaded the steel cylinders into the machines. Thirty minutes later, a rather complexly shaped part was delivered.

The specialists of the former locomotive building company who were watching the process crossed their hearts - there had never been anything like this in their backwater. The work on modernisation of production continued. Rolled steel from neighbouring cities - Nizhny Tagil and Chelyabinsk - was received relatively cheaply.

Mastering of the first monorail train in production was postponed for the time being - the first train assembled by robots was 2ES10, which was produced at the plant and for which there were a lot of components. The workers did not yet wonder how the robots knew how to make this train - they were not yet familiar with the technology. And Bercy didn't educate them, he just did. It took two weeks to robotise production. Another two weeks were needed for the robots to cope with the company's backlog of orders for six months. After that Ural Locomotives officially became known as Abstergo Transport.

The matter was left to the local reinforced concrete plant. Abstergo specialists went there as well, but there was almost nothing to robotise there. The factory was relatively well equipped and organised. They undertook to make monorail supports according to the sent drawings, and not as expensive as Hyarty feared - only about three hundred thousand for one double-track support. This was on condition that Hjarti would pay them in the form of new equipment.

He had to retrain himself from industrial robots to automation equipment for reinforced concrete production. The main and most sophisticated industrial robot was the concrete mixer, which made the most complex concrete with aggregates. The process of making such concrete is jewel-toned and required robotisation in the first place. This was done, plus robots were put on the set, welding the formwork. The supplied equipment, priced at forty million dollars, significantly expanded the capabilities of the plant - that's all they needed. They were not offered money from the very beginning, but concrete... they started making concrete supports three days after receiving detailed drawings and step-by-step instructions with programmes for the robots. The concrete was mixed by a robot, the formwork was assembled half robotically - people were still present, but the robots did the work much faster. One would bring the rebar, the other would weld it to the formwork and the assembly would continue.

* * *

- Mr Mayor, - I entered the office of the local mayor, - Mr Mayor, I have a business proposal for you.

The mayor looked up, recognised me:

- Hyarty, good to see you! How are you?

- Wonderful, - I sat down to his desk without asking permission, - I have a proposition for you, a good one.

- Well, if it is... - the mayor was obviously not in the mood for work, - what can I do for you?

- Transport. I've been doing some thinking, I've re-equipped Ural Locomotives - now they're called Abstergo Transport, I've robotised the Reinforced Concrete Factory....

- Great, - the mayor even jumped, - what did you do?

- Yes, I gave them industrial robots. All of them. Now about the main thing - I with my partners in AT would like to build a trial monorail in the city....

The mayor's interested:

- Trial?

- Well, experimental. The technical part has been worked out, rolling stock and supports are already in the process of production. If you authorise it, construction will start in March, and by August monorail trains will run through the city.

- Well, well, stop, - he raised his hands, - the technique is licensed?

- Yes, here," I laid the document in front of him. The mayor read it, but not for long:

- Good. Prepare the documents...

- I came with them, - I shrugged my shoulders, - everything is ready, sign it and let's discuss the route....

The mayor shrugged. He agreed to the route I suggested without question. It went from the north to the south of the city, through the railway station, right over the railway tracks. The mayor promised to sort things out with the railwaymen who owned the area.

I left him satisfied and immediately mentally liaised with Bercy and the Director, giving the go-ahead for production to begin. Six hours later, the first monorail train began production at the locomotive factory. An old, long forgotten type of monorail on Xandar, but a well-established one. Long-lived. Simple materials and technology, with quite a lot of speed and durability. Reinforced concrete plant, accordingly, was already producing supports - there were already a dozen, and the road required one thousand one hundred and thirty-eight.