1 Chapter 1

The gold watch, made in the form of a miniature Big Ben, showed exactly seven in the morning. The doors under the dial swung open, and a small toy man, dressed in a black suit, drove out. In his right hand a bell was clutched. The hand of the toy man began to move up and down, the bell rang quietly.

On a huge double bed with a scarlet canopy lay a little boy in white pajamas. The pillowcases and sheets were gold. The duvet cover on the huge blanket was golden and smooth on the inside, and scarlet and velvet on the outside.

At the sound of the bell, the boy turned on the bed. With difficulty, he slightly raised himself and immediately collapsed back onto the pillow. The blond hair was tousled and frayed. The boy tucked his head under the pillows and covered himself with them.

The toy man drove back into the clock, and from there another one exactly the same, but with a bugle, drove out. The bravura sounds of the bugle sounded quite loud.

Huge double-leaf oak doors, covered with brown lacquer, swung open. A butler appeared in the doorway, a man in his forties with his brown hair perfectly slicked to one side. He was wearing a perfectly fitted black suit, white shirt and black tie. The butler's posture was so perfect that it looked like he had swallowed a crowbar.

On the walls near the front door were electric lamps in the form of gold candlesticks with candles. On the right there is a rack with various balls, on the left there is a huge chest of drawers with toys for every taste and color. In a recessed niche next to the balls stood the full steel armor of a medieval knight.

The huge room was finished with brown wooden wall panels down to a height of two meters. Upstairs, the wall was painted a sandy color over textured plaster.

The butler passed the toys and armor and walked past the door that led to the bathroom.

Further, the room became wider. To the right was a huge fireplace, over which hung a full-length portrait of a blond, blue-eyed seven-year-old boy, depicted as a medieval prince in a luxurious green jacket (the same guy who was now lying on the bed). There was a golden chair by the fireplace. The floors were tiled with burgundy tiles with a gold pattern in the center.

The butler went to the boy's bed and said:

- Rise! It's time to get down to business, Mr. Richie, don't be lazy! You have a busy day ahead.

The butler walked to the window and flung open the burgundy curtains. Bright sunlight flooded the spacious bedroom.

- Oh, what a wonderful morning! The butler said in an exaggerated cheerful tone. - Get up, sir. Don't keep your coach waiting.

The boy pulled his head out from under the pillows, yawned widely, and suddenly opened his eyes. It seemed as if the eyes of the young man would crawl out of their sockets, he was incredibly amazed, as if for the first time he saw the butler and his place of residence.

- Who are you? Where I am? The child exclaimed.

The butler chuckled meaningfully and grinned.

"Mr. Richie, stop your tricks," he said. - Get up, wash your face and go downstairs.

The child, with an even more surprised gaze, sat up abruptly and began to examine his hands as if he had seen them for the first time.

- I'm a child?! He said in amazement. - My God! I'M A CHILD!

The boy thrust his right hand into his pajama pants, then exhaled in relief.

- Fuh! Well, at least a guy!

"Mr. Richie, this is not a funny joke," the butler said with a displeased tone in his voice. - It is useless to act out amnesia - it will not relieve you of your studies.

- Uh-uh ... - drawled the boy. - Are you my father?

"No, sir," the butler shook his head from side to side. "I'm John, your valet. Get up.

- Okay, I'm getting up.

The boy got up and began to look around the room with the genuine interest of a pioneer. Delight flashed across his face.

- My God, I'm rich! He said.

"Yes, sir," the butler confirmed. - But as your father says: "Even if you were born with a long silver spoon in your mouth, you should not eat only from it all your life."

The butler pushed aside one of the wall panels, revealing a huge wardrobe with an incredible selection of clothes and shoes. John took black shorts, white sneakers, a T-shirt and socks, and then handed them to the boy.

- Put it on, sir. Don't forget to visit the bathroom. The coach is waiting for you in the gym.

The boy looked around with bulging eyes for a bathroom. The butler thought that the child was fooling around, after which he sighed sadly and opened the door to the bathroom.

Richie went into the bathroom and froze for a moment. He had never seen such a luxurious bathroom, although there was an adult guy in the boy's body who had seen a lot. The room was larger than the kitchen in a standard apartment. White marble floors, marble sinks, walk-in shower, jacuzzi and toilet, next to which is a bidet.

"They got me! He thought. - Have I really become a classic hitman, as in the books ?! Or is it heaven? After all, I remember very well the truck, rushing at great speed right at me. They don't survive after that. But I am alive, although the body is not mine. I also speak English fluently, although before that I had taught him to waste in school and actually did not know ... I wonder where the owner of the body went and how did I end up here? "

John's stern look did not allow the boy to think too much, he had to wash and change.

The corridor struck Richie to the core. It was so wide that it was possible to drive a car here if desired. The house itself looked more like a palace, it was obscenely large, with high ceilings and chic furnishings. Pictures hung on the walls, and niches were filled with marble statues and steel armor.

Going down the marble stairs, Richie and John reached the gym, which was full of exercise machines and sports equipment. The gym was divided into two parts: on the left side there are equipment and simulators, and on the right there is a spacious free area for aerobics with a mirrored wall.

Inside, a chic, athletic blonde was waiting in a tight aerobics suit: black leggings, a white one-piece swimsuit and sneakers of the same color.

The blonde smiled broadly and politely addressed the boy:

- Good morning, Mr. Grosvenor. Would you mind if I gave classes today instead of Arnold? My name is Claudi.

The boy surveyed the figure of the girl-trainer with a completely childish gaze. He almost salivated at the sight of breasts covered with thin fabric, which offhand pulled on a solid two.

"Good morning, Cloudy," Richie found with the answer. - Of course, I will train with pleasure.

The guy has not yet got used to the idea of ​​his hit, but decided not to advertise it. He did not know how it happened that after death, instead of heaven or hell, he managed to wake up as an eight-year-old boy. But since fate has given the chance to live life from scratch, and even in a rich family, it would be foolish not to take advantage of this.

The workout was regular aerobics. The butler took off his jacket and studied with the young gentleman. But the coach made a serious mistake, apparently due to her young age and lack of experience, or maybe from insidious motives, she performed the exercises with her back turned to the boy and the man. In the end, most of the workout boiled down to the fact that John and Richie were staring at Cloudy's tight ass.

The valet and the boy turned to each other, knowing smiles crept across the faces of both, after which the gaze of the boy and the man returned to the lovely hemispheres.

Richie still didn't know what was going on, but he definitely liked the hit. He thought it was his piano. No - a piano! After all, every stranger should have his own piano in the bushes. And he considered his piano a huge pile of money.

After completing the training, John accompanied the ward to his room.

"Mr. Richie, you should change for breakfast and school.

Richie's face twisted as if he had eaten a whole lemon.

- School, eh? Again?! He almost howled. - Nope! No no no! I don't want to go back to school!

"Sir, whether you like it or not, you have to," the butler said dryly as he entered the dressing room. From there he came out with a suit that hung on a coat hanger. - First in the shower, then breakfast, and then to school, - he stated. "In the meantime, I'll pick up a shirt and tie for you. What color does the master want today? Red speckled or classic black?

"Definitely not with Donald Duck," Richie said ironically. - Um ... John, tell me, do I still have to go to school for a long time?

The valet began to bend his fingers and mutter softly to himself:

- One is junior school. Five years and a couple more years at Eton if you don't take exams like you did in the first two grades. Or, after junior high, go to Ellesmere Boarding School in Shropshire. Hmm ... Sir, you have another eight years to study. You can, of course, go to college after that and become the first Duke of Grosvenor to graduate. This is another four to five years.

"No, well, you can still go to college," the boy drawled thoughtfully, rubbing his chin with his right hand. - There are young juicy nymphs who crave adventure for the second ninety ...

"Oh, how fast children grow up," the valet rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. - Mr. Richie, you are only eight years old, and already interested in girls. I am proud of you. But be careful, because there are always hunters for a wealthy man.

- Hate school! Richie muttered and trudged off to the bathroom.

As he walked, the boy reflected on the problems of the popes. They mostly had adventures, from which they always came out without loss. And instead of adventures, he could sit down at the school desk a second time.

After a shower, the boy dressed up in an expensive suit, clearly tailored to order, which perfectly fit the guy's figure.

Children grow up quickly, so it was hard for Richie to imagine how often he had to sew clothes. He estimated that the price of a black and gray three-piece suit was obscenely high. With this money, you can probably buy a used car in good condition in a third world country. And platinum cufflinks with black diamonds, if sold, will even allow you to buy a new car.

The valet helped the guy to comb his hair back and put it in a spray. The boy looked like a sleek little asshole.

Soon the stranger found himself in the dining room. The mahogany table was incredibly large, perhaps thirty people could have dined at it if desired. Despite its impressive size, only two places were covered on the table at different outermost ends. We can say that only at the head of the table were the plates and dishes.

Such an arrangement of food seemed strange to Richie, but he remembered that they did not go to someone else's monastery with their own rules, so he let go of the misunderstandings. At the moment, the guy was interested in something else.

On one side was already occupied, there was a solid elderly man of about sixty years old. He was also dressed in a business suit, but in beige. He was not wearing his jacket, he was hanging on the back of a chair. The man was wearing only a burgundy vest over a white shirt.

Richie studied the man with whom he was going to have breakfast. He noted the same blonde hair, slicked back and drenched in varnish, like his. On a round face, elongated platinum-rimmed glasses covered dull gray eyes. Few wrinkles betrayed the man's age. The boy noted the height of the man and the slightly prominent belly.

"Good morning, son," the elderly man nodded. - How are you?

- Um ... Good morning.

Richie was confused. He thought that since he is now eight years old, this man may be his grandfather, but in fact it turned out that this is his father. It was also strange that the child's mother was not there.

"Bon appetit," the boy said, and then sat down at the table. - Why are we sitting so far from each other?

"This is the way it is in the Grosvenor family," the boy's father replied. - This is how my father raised me, and his grandfather, your great-grandfather.

Since the stranger did not know how to respond to this, he decided to pay attention to food.

At breakfast the gentlemen were served by a maid. The valet disappeared for a while. Apparently he went to breakfast with the servants.

The food was to match the surroundings - three courses of food that tasted like three Michelin-starred restaurants.

In order not to betray his hit, the boy followed the rule "when I eat, I am deaf and dumb." Although he wanted to ask others about a lot. For example, why hasn't he seen a single holoprojector or at least a littered old flat-panel TV until now? And the presence of archaic radiotelephones with retractable antennas in every room even made him suspect that he had fallen into the past, as if not even into the twentieth century.

After breakfast, the father approached the boy and said:

- Have a nice day, Richie. Do you remember that on Sunday we need to go to the annual charity event that the royal family will be attending?

Naturally, the stranger did not remember this. He was greatly amazed.

"The Royal Family?! My God! Which country am I in? If there is a royal family, an English language, a butler and a daddy a duke ... Is it really Great Britain? "

There was something to be said, so Richie blurted out indistinctly:

- Yes…

"Don't disgrace me, son," the man said.

The young gentleman's valet entered the dining room.

- John, - the master turned to the servant, - has anything become known about yesterday's earthquake?

The valet immediately replied:

- Sir, scientists at Queen's University said there were no earthquakes in the UK. Presumably, under our house there is a forgotten dungeon, in which something exploded. Therefore, the house shook yesterday.

It's the Great Britain of the past, after all, Richie thought in his mind.

- Nightmare! - the gentleman was indignant. - John, hire builders, let them investigate the basements. I don't want anything else to explode and harm my family!

"It will be done, sir," the valet bowed. Then he turned to the boy and said: - Mr. Richie, you have to go to school.

- Yeah ...

All the boy's thoughts were busy digesting the news he had heard. He wondered if the explosion in the basement and his falling into the body of a child from the past could somehow be connected?

While thinking, Richie did not notice how he ended up on the street. He turned back and surveyed the house in which he lives. It really was a huge palace. At least fifty meters long, with arches and marble columns, the walls are lined with white stone. Huge windows indicated that the house was built much later than the Middle Ages.

Home is not so bad. To the left was a Gothic tower, which was almost a complete copy of Big Ben in a slight decrease, there was even a clock there. Further construction began, most likely stables, a garage and cottages for service personnel. Many bushes and trees were planted, which at this time of the year were covered with snow. There were lawns everywhere, which could not be seen due to the snow, and neat footpaths.

Throwing on their coats and walking along an alley lined with trees and bushes, after fifty meters, Richie and John reached a parking lot, on either side of which a wide road diverged. On it, if desired, four cars could disperse.

A beige vintage Bentley Eight was waiting in the parking lot. A thought flashed through Richie's head:

"Just think - a petrol Bentley! This is a rarity! He's probably still from the eighties of the twentieth century. Oh, I hope that I just live in a family of crazy antiquity lovers and soon I will get to a normal holographic communicator with an exit to shout. "

Beyond the road, there was a view of a huge rectangular pond, more like a pool. It was about a hundred meters long and about ten meters wide, which made it seem narrow. Behind the pool pond, a large oval pond stretches perpendicularly.

Richie's rich imagination gave him a view from above. It turned out that two ponds form a penis with testicles. Because of this, a smile crept across the boy's lips. The jokes of the architects are not always obvious, especially given the scale.

- John, remind me how big our yard is? Richie asked, ostensibly casually.

"Sir, let me remind you that this family estate of Eaton Hall is four and a half thousand hectares.

Richie froze in a stupor. The boy's eyes widened to his forehead. He could not even imagine that one person could own such an amount of land.

While the boy was digesting the news, he was put into the car in the back seat. John sat in the front passenger seat next to the driver. The driver himself was unremarkable, an ordinary cap, a black suit, an unremarkable appearance.

As the car pulled away, Richie peered between the seats and examined the dashboard. The car was moving smoothly, as if it were floating. Trees were planted on both sides of the mirror-flat road, with a beautiful view of the snow-covered meadows and ponds behind them. There were lanterns along the road. He noted that the car drove out through the gate after a little over two miles. Three, damn it, kilometers in a straight line, just to leave the territory of the estate !!!

At this point, Richie's right eyelid started twitching (nervous tic). He sat in a chair, pale, gripping the leather armrest tightly.

"Three fucking kilometers to the highway! Where am I? Is this "little yard" really mine ?! " Richie thought.

It was half an hour to go to school. Richie looked at the cars along the way, all of them old and running on hydrocarbon fuels. The boy began to realize that he was probably in the past. After all, everyone around cannot be so rich as to drive vintage cars and pay insane taxes for the use of non-ecological transport. Moreover, all cars were right-hand drive and from the same era, approximately the seventies and eighties of the twentieth century.

The guy expected to see a cool elite school, but his expectations collapsed. It was an ordinary British public school. True, there was no uniform. From the holopedia, he remembered that in England schoolchildren always wore a uniform uniform.

To plunge into the world of elementary school students was terrible. Richie was happy about one thing - all his classmates were a couple of years older than him - ten years. He turned out to be the smallest in the class. The other kids tried to stay away from Richie. Apparently, the children were aware of the gap between them and the heir to a huge fortune. Plus, at their age, the two-year difference seems like a crazy abyss. Or, before being hit, the boy behaved in such a way that he scared off his classmates. Richie was diligently ignored and did not seem to notice. Perhaps, for a child, such a vacuum would be a terrible blow to the psyche, but an adult did not care. He, on the contrary, was glad that he would not have to communicate with this noisy crowd of children. And he was also glad that he had a couple of years less to study.

Richie finished off the computer science lesson the most. The children were brought to the classroom with computers. These were the ancient ancestors of holographic communicators. They didn't even have a plug and play graphical interface. A small pot-bellied monitor, to which the wires from the box of the system unit were drawn. To start the computer, you had to insert a huge magnetic floppy disk and enter commands manually! It's just insane. This techno-necromancy scared Richie, he didn't know how to handle such a technique. No wonder he got a low grade for the lesson.

After class, Richie was greeted by the same Bentley and valet John. The boy was taken to the fencing section. He, who had never held a sword in his hand, was ready to scoop out the full program, but during the sparring he was surprised to notice that his body was acting on hammered reflexes, as if he had been fencing for several years. At first, the guy really lost a couple of fights, but soon he got used to listening to the sensations of the body and began to fence quite passably for his age. He even won several sparring matches.

The day ended with a return home and dinner, after which the boy collapsed into bed and fell asleep.

A very busy day. Not a minute of free time. Such a schedule was unusual for a hitman. He even had no time to find out his biography and look for information.

Soon the guy was woken up by the valet and forced to do his homework. Richie wanted to sleep, but had to sit down to do his homework. He cursed the school. Richie knew he had to do something about it, but he couldn't think of anything yet. The word "external" was spinning in my head, but how to do it?

The first problem with passing exams is that he studied at school for a long time and according to a different program. He does not remember much, he does not know even more. Moreover, he cannot be called an excellent student. And to pass exams as an external student, they admit the best of the best, that is, to comply, you will have to pass everything perfectly. This means that you will need to learn a huge amount of educational material.

The next day, everything was repeated: aerobics in the morning, breakfast in a strange environment that can hardly be called a family environment, classes at school.

Richie had no time to think about his hitting, it was necessary to get used to the role of a boy. The guy didn't want to be revealed.

The difference from yesterday was the trip home. Richie's hopes of resting were dashed like a wobbly heap of junk. Instead of training in fencing, he planned additional classes with a finance tutor.

On this day, Richie was surprised to find that he had a private office in the adjacent room from the bedroom with luxurious antique furniture and a comfortable, modern office chair. There was also an ancient computer on the table. No, by modern standards it was the most sophisticated and expensive personal computer, but it was not much superior to school technology. The only difference was the presence of a graphical shell in the operating system, with which it is more convenient to work.

Secondly, in the next room there was a classroom, in which, for some reason, there were two walnut desks and the same number of chairs. In front of the wall was an ordinary blackboard, next to it were an ordinary chair with a back and a teacher's table. The room was at least twenty people in the classroom. Cabinets lined the walls with books, retorts, and chemicals. In the corner is a plastic human skeleton.

An elderly man of about sixty was waiting for the boy in the classroom. He had gray hair and a neat beard. Round glasses covered her brown eyes. The man had a solid build, medium height and a broad cheekbone face. He was wearing a gray suit with brown leather patches at the elbows.

- Well, well, - said the tutor. - Good afternoon, Richard, have a seat at the table, we will have a lecture on finance today.

- Good day.

Richie nodded in greeting and sat down at the nearest table.

- So, what are we waiting for? - tilting his head, the tutor looked at the boy over his glasses. - We open the desk drawer, take out the writing materials and prepare to record the lecture.

- Yes, wait a second.

Richie did not know that he would need to write something, but after the words of the tutor he looked into the drawer. There I found a pack of thick notebooks and writing materials.

The tutor began to draw charts with chalk on the blackboard and began the lecture in a rather boring voice:

- Last time we finished on tasks. Let's look at example number twelve. Your company is crashing. Sales were down fifty percent due to high prices. Revenues are falling and shareholders are demanding your immediate resignation. So, the question is - how to win over the board of directors to your side and avoid bankruptcy?

Richie freaked out from such problems for an eight-year-old boy. He tried to think of at least something, but fell into the abyss of despair. The boy's eyes glazed over.

"Richard, I'm waiting for your answer," said the tutor.

- Uh ... - drawled the boy. - I probably would have given a bribe.

- Will not help! - typed the tutor. "Richard, think again.

"Um… Maybe hiring detectives and digging up dirt on the directors and blackmailing them? And you also need to hire killers to kill the most intractable directors.

- Richard, firstly, it is unethical, and secondly, this will be followed by criminal prosecution. In a civilized society, such methods are not used. Moreover, it will not help in the fight against bankruptcy. Let's take the following options.

- Well ... - Richie scratched his head, tousling his slicked hair. - I think it's worth starting rumors that our company is merging with a large company, and when the shares rise in price, quickly sell them.

"Richard, this is also unethical and unacceptable," said the tutor. "In addition, for such machinations, you can also go to jail, and they do not always work. Next answer.

Richie was not a financier before hitting, so this task was incredibly difficult for him. But the guy graduated from a higher educational institution, he taught economics in his second year. He tried to remember something from there, but could not. As a result, the brain gave birth to something.

- I know! - he said. - It is necessary to restructure, optimize the logistics and reporting schemes of the company, cut staff and look for suppliers with lower prices in order to reduce the cost of production.

Richie breathed a sigh of relief and thought his answer was perfect. But the tutor had a different opinion.

"On the one hand, Richard, you're right. But in a crisis situation there is no time for restructuring and optimization of schemes. In addition, during the reform period, which is at least three years, the market can go so far ahead that the company, having overcome the old problems, will face new ones and in the end will still go bankrupt. What other suggestions will there be?

Richie began to recall real companies and how they got out of this situation. I remember one firm that came out of a deep crisis and became incredibly successful. The boy immediately rushed to voice his thoughts, based on the article read in the holopedia:

- In such a situation, you need to build a strategy not on solving immediate problems, but on working with the expectation of the future.

- Well, well, curious, - the tutor perked up, he obviously liked the answer. - Continue to develop this theme.

- It is necessary to create alliances for the production of the most modern products in order to release an advanced and demanded product in the future. For example, everyone now uses computers with a graphical shell as much as possible. It is necessary to invest money in the development of a pleasant and easy-to-use operating system and plug-and-play programs, to create a base for programs with their own processors, boards and the like. And although the company will have huge loans, it will not only come out of the crisis within a few years, but will also become very successful.

- Great answer, Richard, - the tutor gave the boy a warm smile. - I am glad that our lessons were not in vain and something lingered in your head.

- Um ... Teacher, can I ask a question?

"Of course, Richard, that's why I'm here to answer your questions.

Richie wanted to find out about his financial situation and found the moment very successful. He asked:

- Sir, are you familiar with the state of my family's financial affairs?

- Yes, of course, - answered the tutor. - I am still a professor of economics, and your family is one of the ten richest in the UK.

- Sir, can you tell me about my family's business?

- Why not? The professor shrugged his shoulders. - Can.