Ball Lightning(79)
“Was Jiang Xingchen captaining Zhufeng?”
“Yes. Did you know him?”
I didn’t speak. I was thinking more of Lin Yun now.
“We asked you here firstly because you are the most successful tornado researcher in the country, and secondly because the attack on Zhufeng was carried out by a meteorological weapon system code-named Aeolus. Our intelligence indicates it is related to your research results.”
I nodded heavily. “That’s true. I’m willing to accept responsibility.”
“No, you’ve misunderstood. We didn’t ask you here to assign blame. And you don’t have any responsibility. The Lightning Institute’s publication and transfer of the project’s results passed through multiple levels of review by the relevant departments and was entirely legal. Of course someone must be held responsible, but it isn’t you. We’re not as sensitive about the use of advanced technology as the enemy.”
I said, “The weapon can be defended against. All you need to do is link up the fleet’s missile defense system with our atmospheric optical detection system. I’ve seen how a missile shooting an oil firebomb can wipe out a tornado, but there’s an even faster and more effective method: use high-energy microwaves or lasers to heat up the descending cold air mass.”
“Yes, we’re putting all our energies into developing that kind of defensive system. And we’d like your full assistance.” The senior colonel sighed gently. “But, honestly speaking, it will probably have to wait until the next war to be used.”
“Why is that?”
“The loss of the Zhufeng carrier battle group was a huge blow to our sea power. For the rest of this war, we no longer have the ability to engage the enemy in a large-scale sea battle. We have to rely on shore-based firepower for coastal defense.”
*
After I left the Naval Warfare Center, shrill anti-aircraft sirens sounded in the air above the city. The streets were empty, and I walked through the emptiness with no particular destination in mind. A civil defense warden ran at me shouting something, but I pretended not to hear him. The wardens came over to grab me, but I shook them off unfeelingly and continued to sleepwalk along, and they left me on my own like the lunatic they imagined I was.
Now all of my hopes were dashed, and I ached for a bomb to bring my tormented life to an end. But the explosions remained distant. Nearby, the silence only grew.
After I’d walked for I don’t know how long, the sirens seemed to have stopped, and people gradually returned to the streets. In total exhaustion I sat down on the steps of a city garden, and realized that my empty brain was now occupied by a feeling, the feeling of understanding someone at last.
I understood Lin Yun.
I took out my mobile and dialed the number of the base, but no one answered. So I got up and looked for a cab. They were rare in wartime, and it took half an hour before I found one, then we drove off to the base at once.
It was around three hours later that we arrived at the base, only to discover that I had wasted my time. It was completely empty, personnel and equipment removed. I stood on my own for a long while in the center of the excitation lab, a shaft of weak light from the setting sun piercing the broken window to illuminate me, gradually fading until night descended. Only then did I leave.
After returning to the city, I made inquiries into the fate of the ball lightning project team and Dawnlight, but no one could tell me anything. They seemed to have evaporated from the world. I even dialed the number that General Lin had left, but there was no answer there, either.
There was nothing I could do but go back to the Lightning Institute and start researching the use of high-powered microwaves to dispel tornadoes.
Chip Destruction
The war dragged on, and another autumn arrived. People gradually grew accustomed to life during wartime, and air-raid sirens and food rationing, like concerts and cafés before them, became a normal part of life.
For my part, I threw myself entirely into developing a tornado defense system, a project overseen by Gao Bo’s Lightning Institute. Work went at a feverish pace, so for a while I forgot everything else. But one day, what seemed like an endless stalemate in the war was finally broken.
That afternoon at roughly 3:30, I was discussing technical details of shipboard high-energy microwave emitters with a few engineers from the Institute and the military. The device could emit a highly focused microwave beam of around one billion watts of power at frequencies from ten to one hundred hertz, frequencies at which the power could be absorbed by water molecules. Several of these beams added together could produce a regional power density of one watt per square centimeter, comparable to a microwave oven, that would raise the temperature of the falling mass of cold air in the egg and eliminate it in an embryonic state. When the device was paired with the atmospheric optical detection system, they would form an effective defense against tornado weapons.
Just then there was a sudden, strange noise outside, a little like the drumming of a squall of hail on the ground. Starting off in the distance, the sound grew closer, until it finally reached the room we were in. Then there were snapping sounds all around us, as close as the left side of my chest! As this was going on, something strange was happening to the computers: lots of objects flew out of the towers, but left their cases untouched. On closer inspection, they turned out to be complete CPUs, memory chips, and other chips. For a moment, the floating chips grew incredibly dense in the air. I waved a hand and brushed against several of them with the back of my hand, so I knew they weren’t an illusion, but eventually they all disappeared without a trace, leaving the air empty again. Then the computer screens changed, showing blue screens, or simply going dark.