Ball Lightning

by Cixin Liu

  “What measures have you taken?” Lin Yun asked.

  “None. We’ve set up an observational perimeter at a distance, but we haven’t dared approach. They’ve put explosives on the reactor and can blow them up at any time.”

  “As far as I’m aware, these large nuclear reactors have a very thick and sturdy shell. Several meters of reinforced cement. How much explosive material could they have brought in?”

  “Not much. They only took in a small vial of red pills.”

  The colonel’s words sent a chill through Lin Yun and me. Garden of Eden may have hated technology, but they would use any means necessary to achieve their goals. It was, in fact, the world’s most technologically sophisticated terrorist organization, and a significant number of its members were top-flight scientists. The red pills were their own creation, enriched uranium, clad in some nanomaterial. Under sufficient impact force, fission detonation was possible without the need to achieve supercritical mass by other means of compression. Their typical method was to weld the muzzle of a large-bore gun shut, place several red pills inside it, and chamber a flattened-down bullet. When the gun was fired, the bullet would strike the red pills, triggering a nuclear explosion. When the Garden of Eden used this gadget to successfully break the world’s largest synchrotron, which was several kilometers underground, into three segments, it threw the world into terror overnight.

  Before the colonel led us into the room, he gave us a warning: “Be careful what you say in there. We have set up bidirectional communication.”

  After entering, we saw several military and police officers staring at a large screen displaying a surprising scene. For a moment I thought there must be some mistake, for we were watching a teacher leading a class for a group of students. Behind her was a wide control panel with lots of display screens and flashing instruments, probably one of the reactor’s control rooms. It was the teacher who caught my attention. She was in her thirties, plainly dressed, with a gaunt face that made the delicate glasses dangling from a gold chain around her neck look particularly large. A keen intelligence showed in her eyes. Her voice was soft and gentle, and it soothed some of my fear and anxiety to listen to it. My heart immediately filled with respect for the teacher, who had taken her students to visit a nuclear plant and maintained composure in the face of danger, and now was soothing them with a laudable sense of duty.

  “She’s the head of the Asian branch of Garden of Eden and is the primary architect and director of this act of terrorism. In North America last March, she assassinated two Nobel laureates in one day and escaped capture. She’s the third most wanted Garden of Eden fugitive in the world,” the colonel whispered to us, pointing at the teacher on the screen.

  I lost all grip on the world around me, like I’d been bashed in the head. I twisted around to look at Lin Yun, who didn’t seem particularly surprised. Looking back at the screen, I noticed something unusual: the children were crowded close together and were looking fearfully at the teacher, as if she were a monster who’d popped up out of nowhere. I soon discovered the reason for their fear: a boy was lying on the ground, the top of his skull shattered. His eyes, wide open, stared across the floor with a bemused expression at the abstract painting formed of brains and blood. The teacher’s bloody footprints were on the ground, too, and her right sleeve was spattered with blood. The gun she had used to shoot the kid in the head was lying on the control station behind her.

  “Now, children, my dear children. You have been very good in class, and it’s time for a new stage. I’ll ask a question: What are the basic building blocks of matter?” The teacher continued her lesson, her voice still soft and gentle, but I felt like a cold, supple snake had wrapped itself around my throat. The children must have been feeling the same thing, only ten times worse.

  When no one responded, the teacher said, “You. You answer,” pointing at a girl. “Don’t worry. There’s nothing to be afraid of if you’re wrong,” she said gently, a kind smile on her face.

  “A... atoms,” the girl said, in a trembling voice.

  “Very good. See: you’re wrong, but it doesn’t matter. Now I’ll tell you the correct answer. The basic building blocks of matter are—” She emphasized each word with a stroke of her hand. “Metal. Wood. Water. Fire. Earth. Good. Now repeat that ten times. Metal, wood, water, fire, earth.”

  The children recited the elements ten times.

  “Very good, children. That’s right. The world has been made complicated by science, and we’re going to make it simple again. Life has been raped by technology, and we’re going to make it pure again! Have you ever seen an atom? How do they have anything to do with us? Don’t let those scientists trick you. They are the filthiest, most foolish people in the world.... Now, please wait a moment. I’ve got to finish this lesson before negotiations can continue. I can’t let the children get behind in their lessons.” The last bit was evidently directed at us.

  She must have had a display there that allowed her to see us, since she glanced in a different direction when she spoke to us. Then something caught her attention.

  “Oh? A woman? Finally you’ve got a woman there. How wonderful!” she said, clearly referring to Lin Yun. Then she clasped her hands together in an expression of sincere surprise.

  Lin Yun nodded at the teacher, an icy smile on her face. I realized I felt a certain dependence on Lin Yun now. I knew that the teacher’s ruthlessness wouldn’t frighten her, since she was similarly ruthless, and had the emotional power to combat the teacher. I lacked that power, and the teacher had casually flattened my spirit.

  “We have a common language,” the teacher said with a smile, as if talking to a close friend. “Women are intrinsically opposed to technology, not like nauseatingly robotic men.”

  “I’m not opposed to technology. I am an engineer,” Lin Yun said evenly.

  “I was too, once. But that doesn’t prevent us from seeking out a new life. Your major’s emblem is very pretty. It’s a remnant of ancient armor, that, like humanity, has been so eroded by technology that there’s only a smidgen left. We ought to treasure it.”

  “Why did you kill that child?”

  “Child? Was he a child?” The teacher looked with frightened eyes at the corpse on the ground. “Our first lesson was about life guidance. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, and do you know what the little idiot said? He said he wanted to be a scientist. His little brain was already polluted by science. Yes, science pollutes everything!” Then she turned to the other children, and said, “Good children, let’s not be scientists. Let’s not be engineers or doctors either. Let’s never grow up. We’re all little herders riding on the back of a big water buffalo playing a bamboo flute as we traipse across the green grass. Have you ever ridden a water buffalo? Have you ever blown a bamboo flute? Do you know that there was once a purer and more beautiful age? In those days, the sky was so blue and the clouds were so white. The grass was so green you’d cry, and the air was sweet. Every brook was clear as crystal, life as leisurely as a nighttime serenade, love as intoxicating as the moon... but science and technology stripped away all of that. Now ugly cities blanket the ground, the blue sky and white clouds are gone, the green grass has withered, the brooks have turned black, and the buffalo has been penned up on a farm and turned into a robot making milk and meat. The bamboo is gone, and there’s only maddening rock music played by robots.... What are we doing here? Children, we want to bring humanity back to the Garden of Eden! First, we need to let everyone know how vile science and technology are. And how can we do that? If you want to make people realize how disgusting a boil is, what do you do? You cut it open. Today we’re going to cut open this technological boil, this huge nuclear reactor, and spill out its radioactive pus. Then people will see the true face of technology—”

  “Can you grant me one request?” Lin Yun cut in.

  “Of course, my dear.”

  “Let me be your hostage in place of those children.”

&nbs
p; The teacher smiled but shook her head.

  “Let me replace just one of them.”

  Still smiling, the teacher shook her head again. “Major, do you think I don’t know what you are? Your blood is as cold as mine. After you come in, in point five seconds you’ll have taken my gun, and then you’ll put a bullet through each of my eyes, point two five seconds apiece.”

  “From the way you talk, you really do seem like an engineer,” Lin Yun said with a chilly laugh.

  “All engineers can go to hell,” the teacher said, still smiling. Then she turned and picked up the gun from the control station, trained it on the camera, and advanced until we could see the rifling inside the barrel. We heard half a gunshot, which the microphone picked up as a hiss, and then the camera cut out and the screen went white.

  I left the room and let out a long breath, as if I’d just come up from a cellar. The colonel briefly explained the structure of the reactor and control room, and then we returned to the conference room, in time to hear a police officer say, “...If the terrorists had proposed conditions, we would have agreed to everything for the safety of the children, and then figured something out. But the problem is that they haven’t given any conditions. They came to blow up the reactor, and the only reason they haven’t done so yet is because they are attempting a live broadcast to the outside using a small satellite antenna they brought with them. The situation is already critical. They could blow it up at any time.”

  Noticing us coming in, the operational commander said, “Now that you know the situation, I’ll ask my second question. Can your weapon distinguish between adults and children?”

  Colonel Xu said that it couldn’t.

  “Can’t they avoid the control room where the children are, and only attack the reactor area? That’s the section where the terrorists are working with the bombs,” a police officer said.

  “No!” said a PAP senior colonel, before Colonel Xu had a chance to reply. “The teacher brought a remote control with her.” Apparently they had already adopted the nickname “teacher” for this terrible monster of a woman.

  “It wouldn’t work, in any case,” Colonel Xu said. “The reactor and the control room are part of the same structure, and the weapon attacks the structure as a whole. Walls don’t stop it. Given its size, no matter where the weapon is aimed, the entire structure will be in lethal range. Unless the children are brought out and taken far away from the reactor structure, they’ll definitely be injured or killed.”

  “What is that weapon, anyway? A neutron bomb?”

  “I’m sorry. I can only provide further details after authorization from GAD leadership.”

  “There’s no need,” the senior colonel said, turning to the operational commander. “It looks like it won’t work.”

  “I think it will work,” Lin Yun said, speaking out of turn and making me and Colonel Xu nervous. She went over to the operational commander’s desk, placed her hands flat on the surface, and directed a scorching look at him. He met her stare with a calm face. “Sir,” she said, “I think the present situation is as clear as one plus one equals two.”

  “Lin Yun!” Colonel Xu snapped.

  “Let the major finish speaking,” the operational commander said, unperturbed.

  “I’ve finished, sir.” She dropped her gaze and retreated to the back.

  “Very well. Apart from the emergency command center personnel, the rest of you comrades can wait outside,” the commander said. He dropped his gaze too, but he wasn’t looking at the blueprint any longer.

  We came to the roof of the guesthouse, where the other Dawnlight members had convened. Two thunderball guns had been set up on the edge of the roof, each covered by a green tarp. Near them were four superconducting batteries, two charged up for the immense power required to excite ball lightning, and the other two containing two thousand anti-personnel macro-electrons.

  Two hundred meters away, the huge column of the nuclear reactor stood quietly under the sun.

  When the PAP colonel left, Colonel Xu said to Lin Yun in a low voice, “What are you up to? You’re well aware that the main risk of ball lightning weapons right now is that if there’s a leak the enemy can easily build effective defenses against it. Then where’s our battlefield advantage? With tensions as high as they are, the enemy’s surveillance satellites and spies have their attention focused on anything unusual in any part of the country. If we use it—”

  “Colonel, this right here is a battlefield! The reactor has a volume ten times that of Chernobyl. If it’s blown up, you’ll have a no-man’s land hundreds of kilometers in diameter. Hundreds of thousands of people might die from the radiation!”

  “I’m fully aware of that. If the higher-ups gave the order to use ball lightning, I would resolutely carry it out. The problem is that you shouldn’t have overstepped the scope of your position to influence the director’s decision.”

  Lin Yun remained silent.

  “You really want to use that weapon,” I said, unable to hold back.

  “So what if I do? There’s nothing abnormal about that attitude,” Lin Yun said quietly.

  Then we all stopped speaking. The hot wind of early autumn blew across the roof, and the sound of cars screeching to a halt came up from the foot of the building, closely followed by the rapid footfalls of soldiers exiting the vehicles, and metallic clashes of weapons against armor. Apart from a few short commands, there was no talking. But within these sounds I sensed a terrifying deathly silence overwhelming all the other sounds striving madly to escape, and crushing them in its giant palm.

  Not much time had passed before the PAP colonel came back. Everyone on the roof stood up, and he said simply, “Would the military commander of Dawnlight please come with me?” Lieutenant Colonel Kang Ming stood up, adjusted his helmet, and followed. The others barely had time to sit back down before he came back in again.

  “Prepare to attack! We will determine the number of shots ourselves, but we must ensure that all living targets inside the reactor structure are destroyed.”

  “Let Major Lin decide the number of shots to fire,” Colonel Xu said.

  “Two hundred dissipative shots, one hundred from each gun,” Lin Yun said, evidently having thought it over already. All of the macro-electrons currently loaded in the weapons were dissipative. Once all of the targets in the structure had been destroyed, the remaining ball lightning would drain their energy in the form of EM radiation, going out gradually, no longer destructive. Other varieties of ball lightning would release excess energy as an explosion, causing random damage to targets other than their selective target type.

  “First and second shooting teams, come forward,” Lieutenant Colonel Kang said as he pushed through the group. He pointed ahead and said, “The PAP squad will advance on the reactor, up to the hundred-meter safe line. They will stop there, then we will commence firing.”

  My heart seized up as I looked out at the huge nuclear column reflecting the blinding white light of the sun, preventing me from looking at it directly. For a moment I heard voices, as if the sound of the children was being blown over the roof by the wind.

  The tarps were taken off the two thunderball guns, and the metal shells of their accelerator rails gleamed in the sunlight.

  “Allow me,” Lin Yun said, taking the shooter’s seat at one of the thunderball guns. Lieutenant Colonel Kang and Colonel Xu exchanged a glance, but did not oppose her. I saw in her expression and movement an excitement she could not suppress, like a child finally getting her hands on a coveted toy. It gave me the chills.

  Down on the ground, the PAP’s skirmish line had started moving toward the reactor. It already seemed tiny against that massive structure. The line moved quickly, rapidly approaching the reactor’s hundred-meter safety line. Then the thunderball guns ignited the excitement arcs in their accelerator rails, the crisp crackle turning heads down below the building, and even causing the PAP troops to glance backward.

  When the line was a hundred me
ters from the reactor, they halted, then two lines of ball lightning flew off the roof toward the reactor. The deadly hurricane whooshed across two hundred meters. As the first ball lightning struck the reactor structure, more ball lightning was issuing in an unending stream from the accelerator rails, joined into a continuous thread by fiery tails that connected the guesthouse and the reactor with a river of flame.

  I watched a video recording afterward of what happened in the control room.

  At the time the ball lightning flew in, the teacher had already stopped her class and was stretched across the control station messing with something, while the children, still clustered together, were being guarded by an assault-rifle-wielding terrorist. The ball lightning was unobserved for a short time after it entered the structure and entered a probability cloud state. By the time the reappearance of an observer caused the probability cloud to collapse, the ball lightning had lost its speed and now drifted slowly on a random path. Everyone looked up in fear and confusion at the wandering fireballs, which screamed the cries of a multitude of ghosts as their tails painted a complicated, shifting picture in the air. In the images recorded by the cameras in the control room, the teacher’s face was the clearest. Her glasses reflected the yellow and blue of the ball lightning, but, unlike the others, there was no fear in her eyes, only confusion. She was even smiling, perhaps to let herself relax, or maybe because she genuinely found the fireballs interesting. That was the last expression she wore in this world.