Lian Qiao quickly got to work helping out. Her first task was feeding discarded documents into the paper shredder.
The specific process went as follows: Bai Zhen sat at one end of the dining table, organizing the discarded materials. He would push the sorted documents to Old Wang at the other end of the table. Old Wang’s job was to stamp the document covers to mark them as waste paper, then straighten them up and align them before passing them to Lian Qiao. Lian Qiao stood by the coffee table, transferring the waste paper from Old Wang to Zhao Bowen, who would finally feed them into the shredder.
A rough estimate showed that the distance from Bai Zhen’s seat to the shredder on the coffee table was no more than five meters. Within these five meters, the waste paper passed through four people’s hands, averaging one meter of responsibility per person. Director Wang glorified this as “procedural, regulatory, and systematic,” with a clear division of labor and team cooperation, representing an internationally advanced level of administrative management and project implementation.
With this, the staff complement of the Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Command Center for Reversing the Future and Saving the World headquarters hall grew from five registered personnel to six.
Wang Ning precisely inserted this additional position between himself and Zhao Bowen in the waste paper throwing process (Old Wang sighed that adding a position was truly difficult in this environment of staff reduction). Later, in his weekend summary report to superiors, Director Wang reported it this way: After careful consideration by the command center, adopting a practical attitude and democratic voting method, gathering broad opinions, and formulating location-specific plans, Captain Liaison Officer and Counselor Comrade Lian Qiao has decided to take the position of Director of the Document Transfer Office for the Emergency Communications Command Center for Reversing the Future and Saving the World. This is a crucial hub position, a core position, a vital position, serving as the bridge connecting information flow throughout the command center, the key to ensuring document and information security, the foundation for normal command center operations, the driving force pushing forward humanity’s great mission of salvation, and the source of determination and conviction in winning this battle. We have reason to believe that with Comrade Lian Qiao’s strong assistance, all of humanity will take another step closer to final victory!
Lian Qiao: But I’m just passing paper?
At such moments, Wang Ning always lamented that his superior administrative management skills were wasted on merely being a section chief.
“Has Changchun Institute of Optics called?” Zhao Bowen asked.
Old Bai glanced at the four phones lined up on the coffee table.
“No.”
“What about the Eighth Academy?”
“No.”
“The Fifth Academy?”
“No.”
Zhao Bowen scratched his head. In these desperately urgent times when they needed to be whipping things along at full speed, two days without calls meant something was wrong.
“I’ll call and ask.”
Old Zhao decided to personally inquire about the space team’s progress.
He casually picked up a phone, scrolled through the WeChat contacts, and dialed.
“Hello? This is Zhao Bo—”
Old Zhao couldn’t finish his sentence.
“What happened?” Everyone else looked over.
“They hung up.” Zhao Bowen switched to another phone and tried again.
“Hello? This is Zhao—”
Hung up again.
“Old Bai, you try calling,” Zhao Bowen asked Bai Zhen. “I’ll give you the number.”
Bai Zhen dialed the number.
“Hello? This is Bai Zhen from the Nanjing Command Center…”
“Did it connect?” Zhao Bowen asked.
“Yes.”
“Ask for Teacher Sun, see if he’s in his office,” Zhao Bowen said.
“I’m looking for Teacher Sun, is he in his office? Oh… he is? Alright, alright, please ask him to come to the phone…”
Bai Zhen passed the phone over.
Old Zhao took it without ceremony and got straight to the point: “Hello, this is the Nanjing Command Center, Zhao Bowen speaking. Please put Teacher Sun on the line.”
“Teacher Zhao, you… please wait a moment.” The voice on the phone suddenly became timid. “I’ll… I’ll go get the teacher…”
Next, Old Zhao heard a soft “tap” as the phone was placed on a desk, followed by someone faintly shouting in the background: “The Iron Hand of Doom is here! The Iron Hand of Doom is here—! Run, you foolish children, run—!”
After a while, the terrible news came: Teacher Sun, while preparing to come to answer the phone and leaving his office, unfortunately, caught his fingernail in the door. The injury was severe; he had fallen unconscious, was in critical condition, barely breathing, and had been rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment. Therefore, he was unable to take Zhao Bowen’s call. They were sorry and deeply regretted the situation.
“Bah!” Zhao Bowen cursed and threw the phone onto the sofa. “Deserters! Can’t even make a satellite! What use are you!”
Space Team: Damn it, let’s see you try to make one.
The space team’s work was the foundation for the next phase of the plan. Zhao Bowen had hoped they could launch a telemetry satellite twenty years into the future to conduct precise mapping and optical reconnaissance of the Qinhuai, Gulou, and Xuanwu districts of Nanjing. They particularly needed to pinpoint the Big Eyeballs’ positions and track their movement patterns. If they could collect enough data on the Big Eyeballs, the computer team might be able to build a predictive model of their behavior. People desperately wanted more information about the Big Eyeballs – everyone knew they were responsible for humanity’s extinction, yet all knew so little about them. Understanding the Big Eyeballs was urgent, but they couldn’t send BG4MSR forward into the risk zone for close-range reconnaissance. Satellites were currently humanity’s most powerful and covert reconnaissance tool, a pair of eyes stationed two hundred kilometers above, with vision perhaps no less acute than the Big Eyeballs themselves.
That was Zhao Bowen’s reasoning.
But in the space team’s eyes, Zhao Bowen was just a layman talking nonsense. The difference between satellites was greater than that between humans and dogs – a small CubeSat was a satellite, and so was something like the American’s Keyhole flying aircraft carrier, but how could they be the same? Do you want to rapidly scan the combined 180 square kilometers of Qinhuai, Gulou, and Xuanwu, and construct urban GIS vector maps, while also capturing dynamic targets like Big Eyeballs at scales under ten meters and analyzing their behavioral patterns and movement trajectories? Do you know what kind of field of view and resolution you need? Do you know how big and heavy this satellite would be? Do you know that anything with a lens can’t be light? Do you know the saying “photography makes three generations poor”? Do you know how much lift capacity you need to get something like this into space?
Most outrageous was that you want this thing to leave Earth for twenty years, then come back and precisely enter orbit, all autonomously completed in a completely uncontrolled state. Holy mother of god, this is fucking ridiculous – what do you think this satellite is, some kind of spirit?
The Changchun Institute of Optics was so angry they broke into the Northeastern dialect.
Zhao Bowen: I’m not listening to your turtle’s chanting, I don’t care how you complete it, you just have to complete it, that girl is still waiting.
Lian Qiao watched in a slight daze.
Old Bai kindly reminded her: “Standard procedure, you’ll get used to it. Just normal conflicts between client and contractor – how can you call it cooperation without arguments?”
“Couples fight at the head of the bed but makeup at the foot,” Old Wang said. “Relationships are built through arguing, arguing makes things healthier.”
Lian Qiao nodded.
At this moment, the sound of unlocking came from the door. With a “creak,” it opened – it was Yang Yang returning. He wore long pants and a black hoodie and was about to change his shoes in the entryway.
“Yang Yang’s back?”
“Where did you go this afternoon?”
“Went to help He Leqin fix his computer. The screen on his Dell G15 gaming laptop was coming unglued and cracking…” Yang Yang took off his shoes and stuffed them into the shoe rack, put on slippers straightened up, looked around the living room, and suddenly froze.
His gaze fell on Lian Qiao, and he stepped backward:
“Y-y-y-y-y-y-y-y-you…”