Chapter 36: No hero
The days that followed were uneventful. The only shocking thing was 9/11.
America's World Trade Center was attacked by Laden's terrorist organization. The moment the two towers collapsed became a scene on television screens around the world more harrowing than any Hollywood blockbuster.
For a time, opinions about the incident circulated endlessly around campus. All Su Can heard were discussions of it.
The School of Economics discussed the coming effects on the Dow Jones index and the impact on global stock markets. The School of Management paid more attention to the computer data belonging to the giant corporations that had suffered losses in the World Trade Center, and what had been stored in the minds of their leading figures. The School of International and Public Affairs analyzed coming adjustments in crude oil prices and the aviation industry. The School of Chemistry calculated the explosive yield of the aviation fuel that had destroyed the buildings' supporting columns. The Department of Physics discussed when the four planes had been hijacked, down to their headings, the sequence of events, and the pressure as the buildings collapsed floor by floor. There were always detail obsessives tirelessly analyzing and discussing it all at length. Rational and astute, it was very much the impression this university gave people. Su Can remained silent, powerless to do anything.
This was already beyond what he could handle. Ultimately, he was only someone who had been reborn. He could take the pulse of the times, but he could not dictate the world's order or development. Any warning he offered about this would place him in a desperate situation, while the chances of changing the outcome were vanishingly small.
He was no saint. Caught between a terrorist organization and the coercive apparatus of a world superpower, an