//------------------------------// // 2. Tour // Story: Nueva-Delhi and the Snow Catastrophe // by oranzinispegasas //------------------------------// Near the factory, tourists crowded in anticipation of the tour. Jessica was late again. It seemed to be one of her harmful habits. Nueva-Delhi boredly moved away from the crowd and looked through the black bars of the fence at the towering, huge white factory building. White smoke billowed from the randomly protruding pipes. Could those be clouds? And were there snowflakes in them? Behind the fence, workers crowded. They were mostly felines. They wore clean white work clothes, and some of them held signs. They were shouting something. This seemed very strange to Nueva-Delhi. What made the workers gather together and revolt? The factory seemed to be functioning, and the winters of the past years had been the same as always. Were they paid too little? That was a reasonable guess because they should be working right now, but instead, they were causing some kind of commotion here. Finally, Jessica arrived. She again mentioned something about Richard, who had delayed her. However, Nueva-Delhi already understood that Richard had nothing to do with it, but she saw no point in getting upset with the absent-minded horse. Nueva-Delhi approached the group of tourists. "So," said Jessica, "is everyone here? Then let's go." She approached the fence and swung open the gate. With a terrible creak, the gates slowly parted, allowing everyone to see the full picture. The factory was incredibly huge. The eye couldn't fully grasp its bulk and grandeur. "Welcome to our famous 'Snowflake' winter factory," Jessica solemnly announced, ushering the tourists forward. Nueva-Delhi entered the factory grounds with the crowd. She looked around with surprise and excitement at the white building emitting whistling and buzzing sounds. But then a ginger cat jumped up to her and yelled furiously: "You won't replace us! Manual labor is irreplaceable!!!" Nueva-Delhi raised one eyebrow in confusion. However, supporters joined the ginger cat. They began to shout together some nonsense about artificiality and manual labor. Jessica hurried over to Nueva-Delhi. "How did they get here again?!" she wailed. "Who let them in?!" Jessica turned to Nueva-Delhi. "I'm sorry. We'll sort this out now." After saying these words, she shouted loudly, "Security! Security!" Following these shouts, menacing white bears in black uniforms appeared. The sight of them made the angry crowd of workers uncomfortable, and they backed away. "Don't let them near the guests!" Jessica commanded sternly and turned to the crowd of tourists. Some of them were already taking pictures with keen interest and bright flashes of workers and security. "Don't disperse! Stick together! The factory is very large; we wouldn't want anyone to get lost there. Let's go." Everyone followed her again. Nueva-Delhi had a somewhat unpleasant feeling after this small incident. She didn't know why, but she felt that something was wrong here. She didn't like how Jessica spoke to the workers. Nueva-Delhi lowered her head sadly and slowly followed everyone, but after a few steps, she turned around. The rebellious workers looked at her with predatory, malicious glances. They clearly weren't pleased with the guests. "There's not as much interesting stuff there as it seems," shouted the ginger cat to Nueva-Delhi. "Soon there'll be nothing worth seeing." "They've completely gone mad," said Mila to Nueva-Delhi. She, too, was looking at the workers. "They've overworked, apparently. Where have you seen civilized creatures throwing themselves at ordinary citizens for no reason?" "Don't worry," Nueva-Delhi replied calmly. "He didn't even touch me." *** They all found themselves inside the factory. The vaults soared high, and even if you raised your head high, you couldn't see where the ceiling ended. There were galleries everywhere, and cats-workers scurried about them. The factory was extremely lively now. Huge mechanisms creaked, pipes emitted cold steam, and somewhere water bubbled loudly. "Don't disperse!" Jessica shouted again. Bright flashes of cameras flickered again. Restless tourists began to photograph everything. Alen approached a huge water tank closely. He seemed to want to take an impressive shot, but a gray striped cat stopped him. He descended on a rope right in front of the lens and waved a hammer threateningly. "No-no-no," he said. "Don't cross the line." The cat nodded his head towards the red line drawn on the floor. Alen was standing right on it. After the warning, he stepped back. "Please observe safety protocols," the cat said displeasedly. "Otherwise, disaster is inevitable." "I understand," Alen replied fearfully and hurriedly stepped away from the reservoir. "Please gather everyone together," Jessica's displeased voice was heard. The tourists obediently huddled together. Jessica ascended to a raised platform so that she could be better heard. "Dear guests," she began again in a solemn tone. "Today marks the two-hundredth anniversary of our greatest factory, and you've all gathered here to commemorate it. Allow me to tell you the story of how this production came to be." The crowd joyfully started cheering. Everyone was eager to hear the story. Jessica smiled and gestured for them to quiet down. "Allow me," she said and began descending the stairs slowly. "Can you imagine that there was once no winter?" Negative responses echoed in reply. "Of course," Jessica chuckled. "We're all accustomed to the fluffy snow falling from the sky. We've seen it since childhood and can't imagine life without it. Yet it's only been two hundred years since Aaron Agatov invented his first machine, which turns water into snow and ice. That's where it all began." Jessica turned and pointed to a portrait hanging on the wall, depicting a white horse with lavish gray whiskers. "If it weren't for Aaron, we would have never experienced all the joys of winter," Jessica continued, approaching the portrait. Underneath it, mechanisms were arranged, cordoned off with red ropes on chains. Tourists immediately rushed over to photograph them. "Yes, here you can see examples of his early works and clay molds of his first snowflakes." Nueva-Delhi also approached to take a look. Clay rectangular hollow forms with imprints resembling not very intricate snowflakes were stored beneath thick glass. Some of them had stickers with dates underneath. "But Aaron's main problem was that his machine produced critically little snow," Jessica said. "It wouldn't have been enough to cover even one city. Aaron was extremely dissatisfied with this. But then his works were noticed by Victor Vetrov. It was the most momentous encounter in our city's history. Victor, wealthy and affluent at the time, financed Aaron's project, and after years, this huge factory grew, and now snow falls every year all over the world!" The crowd erupted in joyous applause. Jessica solemnly bowed, then called for silence once more. "Since then, the factory has been sustained by these two families: the Agatovs and the Vetrovs," she concluded. The crowd burst into joyful applause again. Jessica laughed. "Well, let's go," she remarked. "It's time to explore the greatness of this factory." The tourists began to excitedly chatter. Everyone followed Jessica. Initially, they were each given a white robe and a cap for their heads. One interesting thing Nueva-Delhi noticed was that both the cap and the robe were insulated inside. However, this was logical. After all, workers needed to handle snow and ice. The first workshop they visited was the craftsman's workshop. Mechanisms with small, delicate fingers crafted neat, intricate patterns of snowflakes on plates. The mechanisms consisted of tiny gears that rotated slowly, activating the fingers. Passing by several machines, Nueva-Delhi noticed that they were producing suspiciously similar snowflakes. "Here you can see the latest technologies created by our best designer-engineer, Vladimir Dubov," Jessica said. "They've significantly simplified the work for our workers and multiplied production speeds." "But I remember," interjected the haughty Rita, indifferently examining the snowflakes, "that according to the latest statistics, the implementation of these technologies has been detrimental to the factory, and lately, it has been experiencing financial difficulties." Jessica couldn't find a response to that, and Rita was soon surrounded by a crowd, happily posing for photographs. "Well..." Jessica trailed off. "It's still early days. We'll get used to it, and production will speed up..." Everyone moved to the next workshop. It was a room for producing clouds. Surprisingly, it wasn't as cold in this room as in the previous one. The temperature here was quite warm. Clouds emerged from large pipes. Cats gathered them into piles using ordinary rakes. Pegasus helped them with this task. When they managed to compact one large pile, they sent it into a large tank and sealed it tightly with a lid. As Jessica explained, these tanks are sent to the warehouse to settle, and from there, they go straight into the sky. The remaining workshops all looked quite similar to each other. In reality, the factory was quite monotonous, and Nueva-Delhi was glad she didn't work there. She noticed that half of the production had been replaced by machines, but there were still plenty of cats and horses in their work uniforms. By the way, Jessica explained that in the future, they planned to install machines throughout the entire factory and use as little manual labor as possible. Soon they circled around the entire factory and returned to the water reservoirs. Then, shelves with souvenirs were brought out, and everyone immediately began to go through them. Nueva-Delhi stood aside. She was not impressed by what she had seen. And she didn't like those discussions about technologies at all. She began to suspect that the rebellious workers and these very technologies were somehow connected. Nueva-Delhi approached the reservoir and looked thoughtfully at her reflection. And then she noticed a small crack. She touched it, and more cracks appeared. Nueva-Delhi stepped back from the reservoir, sensing trouble. Soon the entire reservoir was covered with a web of cracks. "Jessica!" Nueva-Delhi shouted. A thick layer of unbreakable glass shattered into pieces, and a huge stream of icy water rushed out.