by Cixin Liu
She wore a white lab coat. The left breast pocket contained a flat object. The pocket fabric was thin enough that it revealed the shape and some of the details of the object within. It caught my eye immediately, and so I cropped that part of the image and opened it in another image program to try and extract more detail. I was fairly adept at this, due to my frequent processing of fuzzy lightning photos, and I soon exposed the outline and details of the object.
What I now saw clearly was a 3½-inch diskette.
It was not until the ’80s that 5¼-inch disks became widely used in China, and 3½-inch disks were adopted even later than that. It should have been a roll of black punch tape in her pocket.
I ripped out the computer’s power cord, but forgot that it was still powered by a battery, so I had to move the mouse with a trembling hand to shut it down. I closed the case immediately after I clicked the button. It felt like Zheng Min’s eyes were piercing the closed computer case to look at me, and the silence of the night clutched me in its giant icy hand.
A Bolt from the Blue
When I informed Gao Bo of my decision to follow him to the Lightning Institute in Beijing, he said, “Before you make your final decision, I need to make one thing clear: I know that your head is filled with ball lightning, and even though our starting points are different, I’m optimistic about the project too. But you ought to be clear that at the beginning, I can’t put a ton of the Institute’s resources into your project. Do you know why Zhang Bin failed? He buried himself in theory and couldn’t dig out! Still, you can’t blame him, given the limitations of his situation. If the past two years have given you the impression that I ignore experimentation, you’re wrong—I didn’t consider experiments for your PhD because they would have had too high a cost and would have been impossible for us to do well. Inaccurate or false results would have dragged down the theory, and in the end neither theory nor experiment would have amounted to anything. I recruited you so you can do ball lightning research—there’s no question about that—but you must acquire all the necessary experimental fundamentals before you can start in earnest. The three things we need now are money, money, and more money. You’ve got to work with me to get money, understand?”
These words showed me a new side of him. I now saw that he was one of those rare people with a nimble academic mind who was also grounded in the real world—perhaps a characteristic of people who came out of MIT. I was thinking along the same lines: establishing a basic experimental facility was essential for studying ball lightning, since artificially generating it would signify success. These facilities ought to include large lightning simulators, complex magnetic field generators, and even more complex sensing and detection systems, which would require a truly frightening budget. I wasn’t entirely stuck in my books, and I knew that realizing this dream would have to start with small steps.
On the train, Gao Bo brought up Lin Yun. It had been two years since Mount Tai, but she had never left my mind, although my focus on ball lightning had kept my thoughts of her well under control. The time I spent with her on Mount Tai was the most treasured of my memories, and it often emerged when I was fatigued, soothing me like soft music. Gao Bo had said once that he envied me in this state, enjoying an emotional life with the detachment necessary to avoid getting pulled in.
He said, “She told you about a lightning weapons system. That interests me a lot.”
“You want to do defense projects?”
“Why not? There’s no way the military has perfected lightning research, so they’ll look to us sooner or later. Projects like that have a stable source of funding, and a very promising market.”
Since parting, Lin Yun and I had had no contact. She had given me a mobile number, so Gao Bo told me to get in touch as soon as we reached Beijing.
“You’ve got to figure out the state of the military’s lightning weapons research. Remember, don’t ask her for details outright. You could ask her to dinner or to a concert or something, and then when you’re on good terms...,” he said, looking like a wily old spymaster.
In Beijing, I called up Lin Yun even before settling down. When her familiar voice came on the phone, I felt an inexpressible warmth, and I could hear that she felt pleasantly surprised when she heard it was me. I ought to have suggested meeting up at her workplace, as Gao Bo had instructed, but before I could bring myself to ask, she unexpectedly invited me over.
“Come find me at New Concepts. I’ve got something to discuss with you!” She gave me an address on the outskirts of the city.
“New Concepts?” What sprung to mind was L. G. Alexander’s English-language textbook.
“Oh, that’s what we call the PLA National Defense University’s New Concept Weapons Development Center. I’ve worked here since graduating.”
*
Gao Bo pushed me to visit Lin Yun before I’d even reported to my new workplace.
Half an hour’s drive beyond the Fourth Ring Road, wheat fields had sprung up along the highway. Quite a few military research institutions were clustered in this area, most of them plain buildings behind high perimeter walls with no signs on the gates. But the New Concept Weapons Development Center was an eye-catching, modern-looking twenty-story building that resembled an office for some multinational corporation. Unlike the nearby agencies, it had no guards at the gate, so people could freely go in and out.
I entered through the automatic door into a large, bright lobby and took the elevator up to Lin Yun’s office. The place was like a civilian-side administrative agency. Looking into the half-opened doors lining the corridor, I saw a modern modular office layout, with lots of people busy at computers or amid piles of papers. If they hadn’t been in uniform, I would have imagined I had walked into a large corporate office building. I saw a few foreigners, two of whom were wearing their own country’s uniforms, talking and laughing with Chinese soldiers in an office.
I found Lin Yun in an office labeled “System Review Dept. 2.” When she walked over, wearing a major’s uniform and a glittering smile on her face, she rocked my heart with a beauty that transcended fashion, although I was aware at once that she was in the military.
“Different from what you imagined?” she asked me, after we exchanged greetings.
“Very. What is it that you do here?”
“What the name suggests.”
“What are new-concept weapons?”
“Well, for example, in the Second World War, the Soviet army strapped explosives onto trained dogs and had them slip beneath German tanks. That was a new-concept weapon, and an idea that still counts as a new concept even today. But there are lots of variations, like strapping explosives to dolphins and having them attack submarines, or training a flock of birds to carry small bombs. Here’s the latest thing—” She bent over her computer and pulled up an illustrated article that looked like a page from an entomology website. “Attaching tiny sacks of corrosive fluid to cockroaches and other insects so they can destroy the circuits of the enemy’s weapons systems.”
“Interesting,” I said. Looking at the computer screen, I stood close to Lin Yun and caught an elusive fragrance: a scent stripped of all sweetness, a comfortable, slightly bitter scent that reminded me of a grassy meadow under the first sun after a rainstorm....
“And take a look at this: a liquid that, when sprayed on roads, will turn them slippery and impassible. And this: a gas that can kill the engine of a car or tank. This one’s not very interesting—a laser that can scan an area like a CRT’s electron gun so that everyone in that area is temporarily or permanently blinded....”
I was a little surprised that they seemed to allow outsiders to see anything pulled up from their information system.
“We’re producing new concepts. Most of them are useless, and some might even look ridiculous, but one in a hundred, or one in a thousand, may become a reality, and that’s what’s significant.”
“So this is a think tank.”
“You could call it that. The job of t
he department I’m in is to figure out which of these ideas are workable, and to conduct preliminary research. Sometimes this research can advance quite a ways, like the lightning weapon system we’re just about to discuss.”
That she brought up Gao Bo’s topic of interest so quickly was a good sign, but I still wanted to ask her about something I was very curious about: “What are the Western officers doing here?”
“They’re visiting scholars. Weapons research is an academic discipline, and it requires communication. A new-concept weapon is very far from practicality. In this field, we need nimble minds, huge quantities of information, and the clash of a range of ideas. Exchanges are beneficial to both sides.”
“So that means you also send visiting scholars to the other side?”
“When I came back from Mount Tai two years ago, I went to Europe and North America and spent three months as a visiting scholar at a leading new-concept weapons development institution called the Weapons Systems Advanced Evaluation Committee. How have you been the past two years? Still chasing ball lightning every day?”
I said, “Of course. What else can I do? But right now my chase is on paper.”
“Let me give you a gift,” she said, mousing through directories on her computer. “This is an eyewitness account of ball lightning.”
Dismissively, I said, “I’ve seen a thousand of these things.”
“But this one’s different.” As she spoke, a video clip appeared on screen. It appeared to have been shot in a forest clearing with a military helicopter parked in it. In front of it stood two people: Lin Yun, wearing an Army training uniform, and the other, evidently the pilot, wearing a light flight suit. In the background were several air balloons in mid-rise. Lin Yun said, “This is Captain Wang Songlin, an Army Aviation Corps helicopter pilot.”
Then I heard her voice in the recording saying, “Tell it again. I’ll record it for a friend of mine.”
The captain said, “Sure. I said that what I saw that time is without a doubt the thing you’re talking about. It was during the Yangtze River flood of 1998. I flew out toward the disaster area for an airdrop. I was at an altitude of seven hundred meters when I carelessly flew into a thundercloud. Totally a no-fly zone, but for a while I couldn’t get out. The air currents in the cloud buffeted the aircraft like a leaf, and my head kept bumping against the hatch. Most of the instruments were jittering randomly, and nothing was clear on the radio. It was pitch black outside. Suddenly a bolt of lightning lit up, and then I saw it: about the size of a basketball, giving off orange light, and when the bolt appeared the static on the radio grew even worse...”
“Listen carefully to what he says next,” Lin Yun told me.
“...The ball of light floated around the craft, not too fast, first from the nose to the tail, and then vertically up through the rotors, and then back down through the rotors into the cabin again. It floated for about half a minute, and then it suddenly disappeared.”
“Wait. Replay that last part!” I shouted. Like Lin Yun had said, this eyewitness account was unusual.
The video rewound, and after it replayed that section, it continued with Lin Yun asking the question I wanted to: “Were you hovering or flying?”
“Could I hover in a thundercloud? Of course I was flying. Speed at least four hundred. I was looking for an exit from the cloud.”
“You must have remembered incorrectly. You must have been hovering. It’s not right otherwise.”
“I know what you’re thinking. That’s what’s so weird about it. The airflow had no effect on it at all! Even if I’m misremembering, or had the wrong impression at the time and I really was hovering, the rotors were still rotating constantly, and that airflow was enormous. Besides, wouldn’t there be wind? But the fireball just turned very slowly around the helicopter. Taking relative speeds into account, it was moving very fast, but it wasn’t affected at all by the air.”
“This is really important information!” I said. “There’s evidence of this in lots of previous records, like eyewitness accounts saying that when ball lightning entered a room through a window or door, wind was blowing in, or other accounts that straight-out describe ball lightning as moving against the wind, but none of them are as believable as this. If the motion of ball lightning really isn’t affected by air currents, then the plasma theory is untenable. But that’s what the majority of current ball lightning theory is based on. Can I talk to the pilot?”
“Impossible.” She shook her head. “Well, let’s get down to business. First off, I’d like you to take a look at what we’ve been doing the past two years.” She picked up the phone and seemed to be arranging a tour. Evidently Gao Bo’s mission would be easily completed. I took a look around Lin Yun’s desk.
The first thing I noticed was a group photo of her and several PLA Marines wearing blue-and-white marine camouflage. Lin Yun was the only woman, and she looked quite young, with a childish face and a submachine gun clutched in her arms like a puppy. A sergeant. Several landing craft were on the water behind them, and there was residual smoke from explosions in the vicinity.
“You went from the army to university?” I asked, and she nodded, still on the phone.
Another photo caught my eye, this one of a young navy captain, handsome, charismatic, against the background of the carrier Zhufeng, which appeared so often in the media. Immediately I had the fierce desire to ask Lin Yun who he was, but I held back.
She had finished her call by this point, and said, “Let’s go. I’ll take you to see the non-results we’ve come up with in two years.”
As we left and took the elevator downstairs, she said, “We’ve put tremendous effort into lightning weapons these two years. Two subprojects, neither successful, and now the project has been canceled. This weapons system went the furthest and had the highest funding out of all of New Concepts, but it ended badly.”
In the lobby, I noticed lots of people smiling at Lin Yun and greeting her, and I sensed that her status exceeded that of an ordinary major.
Exiting the building, Lin Yun took me to a small car. As we sat in the front seats, I caught another whiff of that bitter aroma of grass after the rain, so carefree. Yet this time there was a more ethereal aroma, like the last wisp of cloud in a boundless clear sky, or a fleeting chime in a deep mountain valley. I sniffed once or twice to capture it.
“Do you like this perfume?” she said, glancing at me with a smile.
“Oh... don’t they stop you from wearing perfume in the army?” I played innocent.
“Sometimes it’s allowed.”
Wearing that charming smile, she started the car. A small ornament hanging from the windshield caught my interest: it was a piece of bamboo. Two segments, finger-thick, with a length of leaves attached. Quite a fascinating shape. What intrigued me was that the segments and leaves had yellowed, and there were several splits in the bamboo from the dry northern air. Evidently it was quite old, but she kept it hanging in such a prominent position that there must be some story in the bamboo. I reached out to take it for a closer look, but she caught my wrist, her slender white hands surprisingly strong, a strength that disappeared once my hand was pressed back down, leaving only a soft warmth that set my heart beating.
“That’s a land mine,” she said calmly.
I looked at her in surprise, then looked at the seemingly harmless bamboo in disbelief.
“It’s an anti-personnel mine. The structure is simple: the lower segment contains the explosive, and the upper section contains the fuse, which is a flexible striker and a length of rubber band. The bamboo deforms when stepped on, and the striker bends down.”
“Er... where did it come from?”
“It was seized on the front line in Guangxi in the early eighties. It’s a classic design that costs as little as a two-bang firecracker, but it’s highly destructive, and since it contains little metal, ordinary mine detectors won’t notice it. It’s a real headache for engineers, since its exterior is subtle enough that it do
esn’t need to be buried. Just scattering them on the ground is enough. The Vietnamese spread tens of thousands of them.”
“It’s hard to believe that something so small can kill someone.”
“It won’t usually kill, but the explosion can easily take off half a foot or a leg, and a wounding weapon like this can sap the enemy’s combat strength far more efficiently than lethal weapons.”
It gave me a funny feeling that the first woman I felt something for talked so calmly of bloodshed and death like other women her age talked of makeup. But who could say for certain whether this was an indispensable part of what had attracted me to her?
“Can it still explode?” I asked, pointing to the bamboo.
“Probably. But the striker’s rubber bands may have decayed after so many years.”
“What? You’re saying it’s... it can still...”
“That’s right. It’s still set, and the striker’s taut, so don’t touch.”
“That’s... far too dangerous!” I said, staring in horror at the bamboo as it swung beneath the window glass.
She calmly looked straight ahead. It was quite some time before she said in a soft voice, “I like the feeling.”
Then, perhaps to break the awkward silence, she asked me, “Are you interested in weapons?”
“I was when I was a kid. My eyes would light up when I saw a weapon. Most boys are like that... but let’s not talk so much about weapons. Do you know what it feels like for a man to seek information about weapons from a woman?”
“Don’t you think they have a transcendent beauty?” She pointed at the mine. “What an exquisite piece of art.”
“I’ll admit that weapons do possess an indescribable allure, but it’s built on top of murder. If this bamboo were just bamboo, that beauty would no longer exist.”