914 Some Are Celebrating, Some Are No

[The opening ceremony of the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference came to a successful conclusion. Academician Lu delivered an important speech on behalf of the Chinese academic community.]

The newspaper headline was extra long.

The content behind this headline shocked everyone.

The Lunar Hadron Collider construction is going to begin in a month!

With a budget of US$20 billion!

More than 200 particle physics institutes around the world are participating!

This included the well-known physics center CERN, as well as the Princeton Physics Department. Even people outside of academia heard about these research institutes.

Of course, this wasn’t why people were surprised.

What really shocked people was that while the project had a budget of US$20 billion, China, as the project initiator, only had to fork up 10 billion.

The United States was going to cover 5 billion!

The second the news article came out, online forums were flooded with political discussions…

[Pigs are starting to fly, I can’t believe the Americans are so kind?]

[I can’t believe this, Academician Lu did it!]

[This is incredible… If I recall correctly, the space race was still going on last year, how come the Americans are giving up?]

[Regardless, this project will benefit humanity as a whole. It’s good that multiple countries are participating. The Americans probably don’t want their physics community to fall behind by not participating…]

[I just hope the Americans are not making unreasonable demands.]

[Otherwise, we’ll kick them out of the project!]

The news caused a considerable amount of discussion on the Internet, with various keywords relating to the event starting to trend.

Soon after, almost all of the Chinese new media outlets were filled with headlines regarding the aerospace engineering project.

A super project with more than 50 countries participating…

A project that was going to be in history books…

All of this was being led by China.

This was unimaginable a decade or even a couple of years ago.

After all, when China was still researching controllable fusion, the United States had an advantage in aerospace. But now, the tables had turned.

Even though there were always trolls and haters, most people were happy to see their country becoming stronger.

US$10 billion wasn’t a small number, but it was a fair price to pay to make “the entire world’s scientists working for us”.

However, compared to the Chinese media outlets, the North American media outlets were not as happy.

The liberal side had a fairly tame reaction, but on the other hand, it was like the White House slapped the conservatives in the face.

Even though they knew their politicians were money-hungry sell-outs, they didn’t expect the government to do something like this.

A well-known host on a political talk show complained to his audience in the latest episode.

“How is Congress so stupid! China is our biggest competitor in the space race! We’re giving them 5 billion dollars to support their project! This is crazy!”

China was America’s strongest enemy.

However, the White House was now spending money to help China build the Lunar Hadron Collider!

Many conservatives thought their president had gone insane.

People even began to protest on the streets, holding up signs, shouting slogans, and marching in front of the White House.

“They’re claiming to build a collider on the Moon! This is the biggest Ponzi scheme of the century!”

“We should invest this money in people instead! Look at how many people are unemployed! Have you seen Skid Row in Los Angeles?”

“…”

The vice president’s finger gently lifted the window blinds as he watched the marching protestors outside. He then muttered under his breath, “These idiots… Peanut brain Neanderthals. They have no idea what the real situation is, what a bunch of brain dead sheep.”

In response to China’s Lunar Orbit Committee, the President signed a “Reconstruction of the National Space Council (NSC)” executive order. The vice president would be the chairman of this committee and be responsible for rebuilding their dominance in aerospace.

The vice president was happy to gain more power as he was no longer just a mascot. However, ever since Mike was responsible for the National Space Council, he hadn’t been happy at all.

There was only one reason.

It was almost impossible to regain dominance in the aerospace industry.

All they could do now was to cut losses.

They had to open up their domestic markets and participate in China’s scientific research projects…

These protestors had no idea how to solve the problem; they had no idea the sacrifices the White House made!

Mike clenched his fists tightly. Suddenly, his office door opened, and a lanky man in a suit walked in with a document.

“If The New York Times heard you say that, I’m afraid you’ll be on the headlines instead of Academician Lu.”

“That’s not funny.” Mike stared at his assistant and said, “What’s up?”

The assistant put on a serious face and spoke.

“We might be in trouble.”

Mike said, “Tell me.”

“Look at this.”

The assistant placed the document on his desk.

Mike squinted and stared at the document.

It was an anonymous letter.

On the lower right corner of the letter, there was a logo of an eagle holding an assault rifle.

This symbol was a little disturbing.

Mike reached out but quickly retracted his hand.

“Don’t worry, we’ve examined the envelope, there’s nothing dangerous inside.” The assistant opened the envelope and placed the letter in front of Mike.

Mike began to read the letter.

[Dear Vice President Mike, we are Eagle Hunter, an anonymous group. You can think of us as… hackers.

[We know that information technology should not be used for terrorism, so we have restrained ourselves and remained silent.

[However, everyone has their breaking point. Watching our country being controlled like this… We realized that we can no longer stay silent.

[You have chosen to succumb in the face of power, so we will use our own methods to stop this asinine conference, to stop you from betraying our country.

[This is a war, and there are no innocent people in war.

[We will not stop until you meet our demands and suspend cooperation with the Chinese.]

The office became quiet again.

After a couple of seconds, the assistant took a deep breath and looked at the vice president.

“What should we do?”

Mike went silent for a while, and his mouth suddenly twitched.

Then, he grabbed the letter and handed it to his assistant.

“Give it to the FBI.”

Mike was irritated as he said, “Don’t bother me with tiny things like this in the future!”

“Yes, sir…”

The assistant took the letter and quietly left the office.

Mike slammed his fist on the desk and sat in his chair.

Hacker?

Betraying my country?

What a joke…

You’ve got to be kidding me…

However…

Mike was alarmed.

Even though the president and his staff members conducted a systematic analysis of the international situation and made the correct decision, they seemed to have underestimated the public’s reaction.

He pinched his eyebrows and reached out for the phone on his desk. He then called the president’s office.

Even though he wasn’t sure if the president knew about the letter, he had to report it immediately.

Not to mention there were US representatives attending a meeting in Beijing right now.

Perhaps he should inform Director Carson and ask him to act tougher at the meeting.

Mike didn’t want the public to see them as “soft”…

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