Готовый перевод Трансформация / Transformation: Глава 1.

It was an ordinary August morning in St. Petersburg. There were sixteen days till September and the end of the school holidays. It сould be nice to lie in bed until noon, but something was bothering him.

And it couldn't be because of his parents who were going to fly to London for three days and leave him alone. No, it happened a lot before. The sun was shining outside the window, and the azure sky was in a veil of cirrus clouds - everything was trivial. The day promised to be eventful for a fifteen-year-old teenager because his parents were leaving him for a long time. But some gloomy foreboding was disturbing Yaroslav.

‘Is it because of the castle appeared in London?’ Yar thought, ‘After all that it can be so.’ All international and Russian news agencies had been talking about it nonstop for two days already.

Everything was forgotten: North Korea, Syria, even all-powerful and insidious Russian hackers. Only the inexplicable, mysterious and magical castle was in trend, it appeared out of nowhere in the heart of the Royal Richmond Park. It was the only theme for the news and talk shows. In fairness, the journalistic community had a reason to tear up their veins. It was a breathtaking sensation. When else will they have such a wonderful opportunity to earn? Each newspaper, magazine or TV program was full of epithets ‘impossible’, ‘unthinkable’, ‘indescribable’. Even crazy freaks did not remain indifferent. They were standing on the streets holding posters with inscriptions. And the most harmless of them said: ‘The World is over.’

Where did all of them come from? Although there was something to think about.

The castle was incredibly beautiful, majestic and terrifying at the same time. So it was absolutely clear that it couldn’t be a fairy palace. It was easy to draw such a conclusion because the castle had incredibly high fortress walls of megaliths and huge battle towers. Even the Royal guards could not get to the walls. The entire castle was as if surrounded by an invisible force field, fragments of drones lying at the walls of the castle confirmed this fact. Surprisingly, but birds crossed the invisible barrier without any difficulties. Some independent agencies also claimed that the previous night, the ill-fated castle was struck by several cruise missiles, but in vain, the invisible barrier was as if invulnerable.

That time The Royal London Society of the Improvement of Natural Knowledge was urgently organizing the Symposium, and Yaroslav’s parents had been also invited.

Yar jumped out of the bed as a spring. He was a tall athletic young man whose appearance was dangerous for girls - the rare combination of jet-black hair and big blue eyes, regular features and a well-developed figure. While Mum was making breakfast, Dad, as he usually said, ‘was making a boy into a man.’

As far as the guy remembered himself up to his full fifteen years, every morning he began with Wushu and ended with hard Shotokan. The head of the family believed that this martial art suited more to Europeans. All his life the father was torn between two worlds: martial arts and quantum physics — but the science won.

‘Hey, gladiators, finish, it is time for shower and breakfast! Our flight is at 2 pm, and it’s 10 am already,’ they heard mother’s loud voice.

They got quickly to Pulkovo Airport, as there were no traffic jams. As usual the car was left in the parking lot near the terminal. The boarding was announced. While standing in the queue to the check-in desk, Yar got all necessary instructions from Mum and ten thousand rubles pocket money from Dad as well as an annual subscription to the shooting club, slight poke in the chest and the words, “Get it, Yaroslav Alexandrovich. Fancy! We have been so busy with all this stuff that nearly forget about the subscription to the shooting club! Be a man and don't lose your head here without us.’

Freed from kissing, he went to the open observation ground to see off the plane and plunge into adulthood. He could not believe it: he had three days for his own!

He looked at their plane. The snow-white MC-21 slowly taxied to the runway, stood a little and began acceleration. It broke away from the ground unnoticeably and sharply went into the summer azure, almost on a vertical line. Being confused with the flood of thoughts, Yar waved his hand automatically.

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