East 725 District, Thursday, November 7. Though it was not time for a regular meeting, the leaders currently in residence at the District High-Energy Center were still seated in the temporary command center's conference room, expressionlessly listening to the latest briefing.
In truth, few were listening seriously. More than half an hour earlier, everyone had already received the relevant intelligence through various channels, and by now it had even broken into the public news. After all, this was the first million-ton-class strategic nuclear bomb to detonate since the Third War, even if it had gone off in a sparsely populated mid-latitude region of the West Pacific Ocean.
By now, the mushroom cloud had already punched through the troposphere, creating a massive hole in the ozone layer and an ionospheric void while hurling hundreds of tons of radioactive material into the stratosphere. The contamination belt was rapidly spreading along global wind bands and ocean currents.
That was only the preliminary understanding. The climatic impact still needed to be calculated.
What was the point of calculating it?
No one knew whether the Reclamation Corps would drop another million-ton-class nuclear bomb, much less where it would land!
The atmosphere was frighteningly oppressive. Director Tang Li was not present. Aside from Deputy Director Mei Zhu, who was delivering the briefing, no one else could even be heard breathing.
Oppression did not mean concentration. Lang Jin, who was attending the meeting and taking notes, was somewhat distracted.
He covered his mouth and yawned. He had had many strange dreams last night, and his sleep quality had been awful. In the latter half of the night, he had simply been unable to sleep at all—and that was before he knew about this round of nuclear explosions.
Now, though... Hmm, should he take some annual leave and