Chapter 446 Antenna Breakthrough

Wang Tiezhu slung the canvas backpack over his shoulder and tilted his body slightly. The left side felt heavier than the right; after taking a couple of steps, the backpack strap slipped off his shoulder.

"Director He, this thing is more awkward to carry than an electromagnetic rifle." He tugged the strap on his shoulder and took a few more steps. The microwave transmitter in his backpack was digging into his waist; the antenna was folded up and stuffed into a side pocket, swinging back and forth as he walked, like carrying a thermos.

Qian Zhiyuan squatted down and adjusted the backpack's carrying system. The nano-carbon fiber back panel was too stiff, pressing on his spine. "Twelve kilograms, it'll be better if it's distributed across the waist belt. Tighten the waist belt a little more."

Wang Tiezhu took a deep breath and tightened his belt. He steadied himself and tried to run a couple of steps. The antenna swung out of its side pocket, almost falling to the ground. He bent down to catch it, looking a little embarrassed. "In wartime, am I supposed to pick up the antenna before I start firing?"

He Yuzhu stood at the warehouse door, silent, watching Qian Zhiyuan. Qian Zhiyuan took the antenna, put it back into his side pocket, and added a Velcro strap. "Run now."

Wang Tiezhu ran again; the antenna didn't fall off, but his backpack bounced up and down, slapping against his lower back. He ran back, sweat beading on his forehead.

"Alright, let's go to the testing ground."

The testing ground was located to the east of the warehouse, accessible via a sandy path. Wang Tiezhu walked in front, followed by He Yuzhu and Qian Zhiyuan. Ma Yuejin had already placed ten dummies on the ground, dressed in standard US military bulletproof vests. Sensors on the dummies' chests were connected to cables in the monitoring room, which stretched across the sand like small gray snakes.

"First test, distance 200 meters." Ma Yuejin stepped back to the observation post.

Wang Tiezhu opened the antenna, and a disc-shaped nano-carbon mesh unfolded, half a meter in diameter, like a small pot lid. He aimed at the dummies and pressed the launch button. A sharp whistling sound came from the direction of the antenna, short and sharp, like someone choking a loudspeaker. The indicator lights on the chests of all ten dummies went out simultaneously.

In the monitoring room, Sun Maocai's voice came through the loudspeaker: "The paralysis effect is 100%."

Wang Tiezhu grinned. He Yuzhu didn't smile; he glanced at Qian Zhiyuan. "Second time, 500 meters."

Wang Tiezhu carried his backpack to the 500-meter mark and re-deployed the antenna. He pressed the button. This time the shrieking sound was weaker, but the dummy's indicator light went out just as decisively.

"One hundred percent," Sun Maocai reported again.

"Third time, 800 meters."

Wang Tiezhu walked further, leaving his footprints in the sand, some deep and some shallow. He stopped, caught his breath, and pressed the button. This time, the antenna emitted a strange sound—not a shriek, but a soft "pop," like air leaking from a balloon. Only seven indicator lights on the mannequins' chests went out; the remaining three remained lit. The curves in the monitoring room showed that the neural signals of those three mannequins only fluctuated slightly, not returning to zero.

Wang Tiezhu turned his head and looked in He Yuzhu's direction.

Qian Zhiyuan's face turned pale. "Three antenna elements are faulty, there are air bubbles inside the braided layer, and the beam is scattered." He squatted down to inspect the antenna, his fingers touching a protrusion on the reflective surface. It felt soft and mushy, unlike the hard surface around it.

He Yuzhu approached. "Can it be repaired?"

"Change to a spare antenna." Qian Zhiyuan took out another antenna from his backpack, unfolded it, and tapped the reflector with his fingernail. The sound was crisp and even. "This one has been tested at the factory and is fine."

Wang Tiezhu replaced the antenna with a spare, re-aimed at the three still-lit dummies, and pressed the button for the fourth time. The indicator lights on the three dummies went out, but slowly—the filaments dimmed, like candles slowly extinguishing. The monitoring room reported that the paralysis effect was 100%, but there was a delay of 0.3 seconds.

"That's enough." He Yuzhu called Wang Tiezhu back. "There's one battery left."

Wang Tiezhu glanced at the battery indicator on the transmitter; it was down to the last bar. "Director He, after five rounds, I need to come back and change the battery. If this were on a battlefield, and there were five or six enemies, I'd fire a wave, and then what? While I'm changing the battery, they'd be charging in."

He Yuzhu didn't answer immediately. He squatted down, looking at the palm-sized battery with a "High Voltage Danger" warning label on its surface. "Five men in a group, you disable five at once, and the riflemen provide cover while the rest change the battery."

Ma Yuejin chimed in from the side, "Wang Tiezhu, do the math. A squad has nine men: one microwave operator, two riflemen, and one spotter. If you take down five at once, and the riflemen take out two more, the remaining two won't escape."

Wang Tiezhu scratched his head and thought for a moment. "What if twenty people come from the other side?"

"Bring another microwave hand." He Yuzhu stood up, patting the sand off his knees. "If once isn't enough, then twice. If twice isn't enough, then three times. If five times isn't enough, change the battery."

Wang Tiezhu fell silent. He folded the antenna into an umbrella shape and stuffed it back into his backpack. His movements were more practiced than before, and he adjusted the shoulder straps to a comfortable position.

At the end of the dirt road, a jeep drove up, kicking up a cloud of yellow dust. The car came to a stop, and Yang Xiaobing jumped out of the passenger seat. The scar on his face was purple from the cold, his lips were cracked and bleeding, and the sleeves of his cotton-padded jacket were too short, revealing his frostbitten wrists. He walked with a limp, his left leg dragging, as he approached He Yuzhu.

He Yuzhu glanced at him. "You've lost weight."

"Twenty catties." Yang Xiaobing took out a sealed plastic bag from his pocket. Inside the bag was a crumpled piece of paper, like chewed tea leaves. The writing on the paper was blurry and the ink had smudged, but a few English words could still be made out.

"Rebel-7 Phase II neural link implant," He Yuzhu read aloud, his voice not loud, but everyone around him heard it.

Qian Zhiyuan leaned closer. "A neural connection implant?"

Yang Xiaobing nodded, his throat dry and his voice hoarse. "The US military burned documents at their Antarctic base, but they weren't completely burned and got buried in the snow. I searched through the garbage dump for three days and found this piece."

He Yuzhu sealed the plastic bag and put it in his pocket. "Anything else?"

"Yes, but I dare not pick them up anymore. There are people patrolling the base with dogs." Yang Xiaobing coughed a few times after saying that, and then bent over from coughing.

He Yuzhu told Ma Yuejin to take Yang Xiaobing to rest. He turned to look at Qian Zhiyuan. "If a neural chip is implanted in the human body, its electromagnetic shielding level won't be low. Can our microwave cannon be burned within 500 meters?"

Qian Zhiyuan hesitated for a moment. "The current pulse intensity is enough to deal with industrial-grade chips. But it'll be a long shot against military-grade, shielded chips."

"Then increase the pulse intensity. Double it. Triple it. Until it burns through."

Qian Zhiyuan picked up the broken antenna and touched the soft, bubbly surface. "To increase the pulse intensity, the antenna needs to be remade. Increasing the braiding density requires replacing the high-voltage module in the transmitter, and the battery life may be reduced to two transmitters."

"Two shots will do." He Yuzhu walked up to the mannequins and kicked one of the ones still lit up. The mannequin fell to the ground, raising a small cloud of dust. "If one shot doesn't penetrate, send in a second. If two shots still don't work, then have the soldiers retreat and get a vehicle-mounted one."

Wang Tiezhu walked by with his backpack, preparing to do a 5-kilometer cross-country run. Hearing this, he stopped and turned around: "Director He, how quickly will the one in the car arrive?"

"Almost there. Just make sure you can carry these twelve kilograms steadily."

Wang Tiezhu turned and ran, his backpack bouncing up and down on his back, but it didn't fall off.

He Yuzhu stood on the test field, watching Wang Tiezhu run away. The setting sun cast a long shadow of him, and his footprints on the sandy ground were of varying depths.

Yang Xiaobing got into the jeep, but the door wasn't closed properly, leaving a crack. He Yuzhu went over and helped him close the door. The car started and drove towards the dormitory area. The taillights lit up in the twilight, red and like two small dots.

Qian Zhiyuan squatted on the ground, sorting out the antenna and battery. He put the faulty side into a separate cardboard box and wrote the word "waste" on it with a marker.

"Director Qian, when will the automated equipment for weaving carbon nanotubes arrive?"

"Chief Engineer Liu said next month. Once it arrives, production capacity will increase tenfold, and the bubble rate will drop to below one percent."

"Reduce the failure rate to zero. If Wang Tiezhu had pressed the button a third time and discovered the antenna was broken, he wouldn't have survived this battle."

Qian Zhiyuan paused for a moment, then continued tidying up.

Night fell. The wind on the Gobi Desert died down, and the temperature plummeted. He Yuzhu returned to his office, turned on the light, took the plastic bag out of his pocket, and placed it on the table. The writing on the piece of paper was even more blurred under the light, but he remembered the words—Rebel-7, neural link implant. He picked up the phone and dialed the number for the Baotou Ordnance Factory.

Sun Maocai answered the phone. "Dean He, what is it?"

"Double the pulse intensity of the microwave cannon. The Academy of Military Sciences has a copy of the US military's neural chip; use that as a target. If it can't penetrate, just keep increasing the intensity."

Sun Maocai was silent for two seconds. "Dean He, doubling the power means the battery can only fire two rounds. What will the soldiers do if they run out of two rounds on the battlefield?"

"After two shots, switch to the second microwave operator. Two microwave operators per squad, four electromagnetic pulses, enough to wipe out a platoon of bio-warriors. If one isn't enough, then two squads." He Yuzhu didn't say much, but his tone left no room for negotiation.

Sun Maocai responded and hung up the phone.