A Meteor Falls

"Quick, get your ID card!" a young lab worker in a white coat shouted to another worker rummaging through his shoulder bag. He kept peering through the glass window in the heavy laboratory door.

But the laboratory had a double-door setup, so the window offered only a glimpse of the brightly lit room inside.

"I'm looking." After rummaging without success, the chubby researcher being urged on dumped everything onto the floor.

"No, I can't find it. I—I remember now. My teacher borrowed my access card. He must have taken it inside."

"What? The teacher took your ID card too?" The researcher peering through the window stared in astonishment at the chubby man on the floor.

The chubby man looked ready to cry but had no tears. "Zhuangzi, the teacher asked to borrow it. Did I dare say no? You'd better think of something... This is the only place we haven't searched."

Zhuangzi's face twitched. He thought for a moment. "The teacher manages the access control system... At this point, there's nothing else we can do. Call the fire department."

"Huh?" The chubby man could hardly believe it. "But this is a shielding door. It's really expensive..."

"Is the teacher more important or the door? Fatty, you can't even figure that out?" Zhuangzi glared at him, pulled out his phone, and made the call.

A crew of firefighters arrived quickly, accompanied by the wail of their fire engine's siren.

Four firefighters stood before the laboratory's shielding door with their breaching tools—hammers, axes, knives, and saws—and looked at one another. One even reached out and felt the door.

"Good grief, that door doesn't look cheap. Are we really going to break it open?"

"Get it open. My teacher's inside, and his life's at stake!" Zhuangzi urged.

One firefighter looked at the heavy laboratory door, then at the breaching axe in his hand, and discreetly hid the axe behind his back.

The captain leading the crew sized it up and asked calmly, "Since your teacher is inside and has an access card, why don't you just call him?"

The chubby man scratched his head. "This shielding door is really good. Neither sound nor electromagnetic signals can get in or out."

The firefighter who had felt the door clicked his tongue.

"No spare key?" the captain asked.

"Our teacher has it on him," the chubby man answered honestly.

"All right, but the lock is inside the door. If we break it open like this, the door will be ruined."

"That's fine. Saving him comes first. My teacher is inside."

The fire captain went over, took a look, and estimated where the lock was. "A battering ram won't work. Get the cutter..."

Before long, the captain and a firefighter brought over a special cutter and operated it together. Sparks flew, and the deafening sound of cutting filled the laboratory building's corridor.

The firefighter who had said the door was expensive watched for a while, then asked, "Isn't your door a bit too sturdy? What if someone inside didn't have an access card? Wouldn't they be trapped?"

The chubby man hadn't heard the question over the tremendous noise of the cutting in the corridor. He paused. "What?"

"I said, what if someone inside didn't have an access card and couldn't contact anyone outside? What would they do?" This time, the curious firefighter raised his voice by two octaves.

The chubby man looked at him in bewilderment and shouted back, "You don't need an access card to open this door from the inside."

"That's some high tech, huh?" The firefighter's curiosity was satisfied.

"All right, stop embarrassing yourself. Don't normal doors all open from the inside?" teased the firefighter beside him, who had been watching the whole time without letting go of his breaching axe.

"Oh, right."

"Right, my ass. Come help." The fire captain had stopped cutting and happened to hear him mutter. "Bring the hydraulic cutters over and spread this section open..."

Under such a forceful assault, even a security door, let alone a shielding door, couldn't have held up. Once the lock mechanism was destroyed, the shielding door opened easily.

The moment Zhuangzi saw it open, he squeezed past.

The next door had no locking mechanism. He pushed it open and looked eagerly into the laboratory.

Then he froze, staring at the corner of the laboratory farthest from the door, his face full of disbelief.

The chubby man had some trouble squeezing through. Calling for people to make way as he pushed past, he too craned his neck to look inside the laboratory.

He froze as well.

The fire captain, who had been packing up the equipment, had just finished when he noticed something was wrong. The two young men had been staring blankly inside since he started putting things away, and they still hadn't moved.

They were trained at this, but it had still taken a while, hadn't it?

Curious, the fire captain walked up behind them and leaned forward to look inside. His expression changed drastically, and he shoved the two blocking the doorway aside.

"Why are you standing there? Call 120, quick!"

After listening to the medical personnel outside, a veteran criminal investigator among the police put on shoe covers with the help of those accompanying him. Holding a pair of white gloves, he walked silently into the laboratory.

The first thing he saw was Academician Tang, in the part of the laboratory farthest from the door. The lab benches around him were in complete disarray, and there were even parts on the floor.

The veteran investigator's steps grew heavy. If nothing unexpected happened, the nation would soon issue another obituary announcing the fall of a pillar of the nation.

But that wasn't what mattered now. Others would attend to that. He had a duty to perform: to determine the cause of this pillar of the nation's death.

As he drew closer, Academician Tang's appearance became clearer.

He wore a white coat and sat curled up on the floor, his arms around his knees and his head hanging slightly, unconsciously, like someone huddling against the cold in a snowstorm to keep the last of his body heat from vanishing into the frigid wind.

He still held a burnt-out cigarette butt. Small piles of ash lay around him, with a heap of cigarette butts and an empty pack to his right.

It seemed he had kept smoking before his death, and after finishing the last cigarette, he had remained in that position without moving again.

Some sheets of paper lay scattered around him, with something written on them in red ink. The investigator bent down to look. They were covered in writing made up of many sharp angles and curves, written in red ink. Other sheets were covered with circles that made one dizzy just looking at them.

With Academician Tang's head lowered, he could see exactly what was on the pages.

But the writing seemed meaningless.

The investigator suddenly realized that from where he was, he only had to raise his head to see Academician Tang's face, so he did.

He raised his head and saw a face full of pain and bewilderment, with faint traces of tears in his eyes.

He seemed pained by his inability to see clearly where civilization's path lay, and bewildered over where his civilization would ultimately go from here.

He had used cigarettes to rouse his spirits, but even at the end, when the last cigarette burned out, he still hadn't found the answer to the question in his mind.

The veteran investigator stood up in silence and put on his white gloves. Then he crouched down and carefully searched Academician Tang's clothes, afraid of disturbing his eternal rest.

Before long, he found what he had come for: the ID cards of some of Academician Tang's students, which the academician had taken from them.

They were crucial evidence. They would determine who else could enter and leave the laboratory.

The veteran investigator studied them intently, swearing in his heart to bring the culprit to justice.

Night fell outside the window. A crow cawed, like the sneering laughter of the mastermind behind it all.