Chapter 113 Hi
All members of the Dongfanghong Operation Leading Group are here today. This is the first time that all members have been here since the planning began. All deputy team leaders left their posts and gathered at the headquarters to witness history. People kept coming to the door since 4 pm. Bai Yang didn't know any of them, but they all came to shake hands with Bai Yang.
Zhao Bowen and Wang Ning introduced him. Bai Yang was dizzy and could only remember a bunch of titles. They all sounded very important. Uncle Zhao introduced that this was a professor, this was a director, and this was a director of a certain institute. Wang Ning introduced that this was at the deputy division level, this was at the deputy department level, and this was at the department level.
A director told Bai Yang that although this was the first time they met, they had been working together for a long time. Bai Yang was very nervous and wondered how he had become a colleague of the director for no apparent reason.
Bai Zhen was waiting while checking his watch.
He is counting the time, counting for now and for twenty years later. At seven o'clock tonight, the action will officially begin.
The coffee table and dining table were filled with laptops, cables were dragged out of the room, and the floor was covered with messy wires. You had to be careful when walking. All kinds of strange peripherals were flashing red or green lights. White screens were propped up against the wall, and the projector was on. The command center finally looked a bit like a joint operations command center. The only flaw was the lighting effect. Bai Zhen said that some blue cold light should be added so that it would look like the CIC of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
"Miss, is everything ready?" Bai Yang held the microphone, "OVER."
"All ready."
Banxia also held the microphone. So far, she has completed all the preparations. The Baofeng UV9R handheld radio was tied to the Yagi antenna and placed on the roof. The Celeron 3150 industrial control motherboard, connected to the camera, monitor and keyboard, were hung on the wall. These are two sets of peripheral systems, which can be switched through the microphone socket of Icom725. When Banxia connects Icom725 to the audio output port of the handheld radio, the satellite data transmission system is connected, and when Banxia connects Icom725 to the industrial control motherboard, the image data transmission system is connected.
Because Icom725 has only one microphone jack, two sets of peripherals cannot be connected at the same time and can only be switched.
Both systems will be tested tonight. The first is to test whether the reconnaissance satellite and relay satellite have successfully entered orbit and are operating normally. The second is to test whether the image transmission link can transmit pictures or videos.
If the two spacecraft successfully enter orbit, Bai Yang and others will be able to obtain the first telemetry image of Nanjing twenty years later.
If the image transmission link is successfully established, Bai Yang will be able to truly see BG4MSR, and the latter will also be able to truly see Bai Yang.
Banxia also held a pocket watch in her hand, and the current time was 6:45 in the evening.
“BG, how many photos did you prepare?”
"I took hundreds of photos this afternoon. I was so tired that my legs were broken from running. I must have the highest number of steps in WeChat Moments today. We have carefully selected 20 photos from these hundreds of photos and will send them to you later." Bai Yang said, "Anyway, the data link has been established. Just tell us what you want to see and we will take the photos for you. OVER."
"Do you have any photos of you?" the girl asked. "Yours, Uncle Zhao, Dad, Uncle Wang and the others, and everyone else."
Bai Yang was stunned for a moment.
"That's easy, let's go take a photo now..." He put down his hand, "Uncle Zhao! She said she wants a photo of all of us--!"
Zhao Bowen was adjusting the projector and checking the router. When he heard Bai Yang's voice, he stopped what he was doing, raised his hands and clapped his hands: "Comrades, guys, put aside your work for a moment, and let's take a group photo together!"
Lian Qiao took out her cell phone: "I'll take a picture for you!"
So everyone huddled together, with their backs against the curtain and the huge map of Nanjing. Bai Yang stood in the middle, with his father on the left, and Lao Wang and Lao Zhao on the right, as well as other members of the Dongfanghong leadership group, a total of eight or nine people. Lian Qiao was in charge of taking pictures. She raised her phone, stepped back a few steps, and included the people and the messy documents, computers, tables, chairs and sofas around her in the camera.
"Ready, smile, and shout eggplant!"
With a crisp shutter sound, time froze, leaving behind the only group photo in the entire story.
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Seven o'clock that evening.
Banxia took a deep breath, took the coin off her neck, and tossed it again. It landed on the front side.
"BG4MXH, BG4MXH, now cut off the voice call."
"BG4MSR, this is BG4MXH, confirming the disconnection of the voice call, OVER."
Banxia took off her headphones and unplugged the Icom725 microphone, freeing up the microphone socket. From now on, she could no longer talk to the other end. Instead, she used the audio output cable of the radio. She carefully plugged the audio output cable into the microphone socket. One end of the black cable was connected to the 725 radio and the other end was connected to the radio on the roof.
The handheld radio is tied to the Yagi antenna and is used to receive signals sent back by the relay satellite.
The first test plan is as follows:
The reconnaissance satellite was operating in a low orbit. When it passed over Nanjing, it turned on its synthetic aperture radar and conducted a telemetry scan of the area from Qinhuai District to Xuanwu District. The scanning method was strip imaging. This SAR telemetry satellite carried a one-meter-wide and ten-meter-long folding radar antenna. The scanning range was a huge rectangle of five kilometers wide and twenty kilometers long.
After the strip scan is completed, it will change to the beam imaging mode, locally magnify a specific area in this huge strip of one hundred square kilometers, and take a photo with a higher resolution. This photo will be the first picture sent back to the modern world from doomsday.
The relay satellite acts as a data bridge. The reconnaissance satellite will send all data back to the relay satellite, which will store and modulate the signal.
The relay satellite then sends the modulated signal back to the ground, where it is received by the Yagi antenna on the roof of Banxia.
The Yagi antenna receives the data and transmits it to the 725 amateur radio station, which then transmits the data back to Hyundai.
The signal sent back to 2019 will be backed up and stored by multiple parties and decoded at the same time - if the decoding is successful and a clear and identifiable photo is obtained, then the test is successful.
What kind of photos will be taken for testing?
Everyone tacitly and unanimously chose No. 66 Muxuyuan Street, Qinhuai District.
Plum Blossom Villa.
The first picture sent back from 20 years later, used to test the entire system, was an aerial view of Meihua Villa during the doomsday period.
Bai Zhen's palms were sweating.
Zhao Bowen was also sweating.
Everyone present was nervous, as if they were waiting for news of the Mars lander's landing. The lander was in a state of loss of contact before landing. It had to survive five minutes of death without anyone watching over it. The operation control hall at that time was exactly the same as the command center now. No one knew whether it would succeed. It could even be said that the chances of success were slim. If any one of these many links went wrong, the whole thing would fail.
It was all in vain. Not only did so much manpower and resources go to waste, but also the most precious time was consumed.
There was total silence in the command center.
"Is there any satellite signal?" Wang Ning asked in a low voice.
Zhao Bowen sat on the sofa, wearing headphones and staring at the computer screen. In fact, it is very easy to judge whether there is a satellite signal, just listen for noise. The relay satellite modulates the image data into audio and transmits it, which sounds like a crackling noise to the human ear.
"Is there any satellite signal?" Wang Ning asked again.
"Yes!" Bai Zhen suddenly said, covering his earphones tightly, "There is sound!"
Everyone present was shocked.
"So it worked?" Wang Ning was surprised.
"Don't be too happy too soon. There is a signal... but it's very weak. It may be that the antenna is not aligned. Look at this signal, it seems to be dying." Zhao Bowen frowned and pointed at the jumping broken line on the oscilloscope. "Yangyang! When is the next voice contact we agreed on?"
"Ten minutes!"
"The next time we have a voice call, ask her to slightly adjust the antenna direction! Just a slight adjustment will do!"
During the second voice communication, Bai Yang instructed Banxia to fine-tune the direction of the Yagi antenna, but no one knew which direction was the correct one, so Banxia could only lean left and right based on her intuition.
After the adjustment, the signal was completely gone and Bai Yang knew she had turned in the wrong direction.
The command center had no choice but to sit and wait for ten minutes, and during the third voice call, they asked her to change direction.
This behavior is no different from knocking on the TV. If the TV is broken, knock it hard. If the left side doesn't work, knock the right side. One side will always work. Banxia's adjustment worked this time.
“Got it!”
“Yes, yes, yes… I have the picture!”
“I have a picture!”
The image on the computer screen is being refreshed slowly. This is a test picture and also the first picture taken after the reconnaissance satellite entered orbit. If it can be refreshed completely, it will prove that the two generals can operate normally, and then the first phase of Operation Dongfanghong can be declared a success. Zhao Bowen's breathing became noticeably rapid. He bent over with his hands on the coffee table, his fists clenched tightly.
The effect is very similar to opening a web page on a computer in the days of dial-up Internet access, with the image pulling down bit by bit.
What was presented to everyone was a black and white photo, with snow and noise all over the screen. The image quality was quite poor, but people could still tell what the satellite had captured - the small squares were roofs, evenly distributed like chess pieces in the lush vegetation. They were all familiar with the layout of the residential buildings. This was Meihua Villa, half of the Meihua Villa community. Bai Yang sat in the room, staring at the image on the screen for a long time, speechless.
Everyone knew that she lived twenty years later, but this was the first time they actually saw that destroyed world.
“Oh my god.”
I don't know who was exclaiming in a low voice.
"Look." Wang Ning suddenly got a start, "Look there!"
Zhao Bowen's eyes moved in the direction Wang Ning pointed and he was stunned for a moment. His eyes behind his tortoise-shell framed glasses widened. Old Zhao had been frowning for a long time, and now his frown suddenly relaxed.
He didn't know what expression to use, but he couldn't help smiling.
Everyone in the command center was stunned. Wang Ning was also laughing, but his eyes turned red as he laughed.
"She's talking to us." Bai Zhen murmured.
At this moment, in every agency, department, and command post, everyone who is looking at this photo has noticed that one thing—
That was a small greeting.
A little "Hi".
In an inconspicuous corner of the photo, on a lawn in Meihua Villa, this word was pieced together with stones, bricks and concrete. The resolution of the synthetic aperture radar beam imaging mode can reach up to one meter. In the photo with a resolution of one meter, the word is less than one centimeter long. Its actual area should be dozens of square meters. Everyone knows who left it, but the girl has never mentioned it to anyone.
At some point, she quietly used bricks and stones to spell out a huge word on the ground.
There has never been such a moment that made Zhao Bowen, Bai Zhen, Wang Ning and everyone else feel that the girl is still alive. She is alive. She can jump and run around. She lives in the radio signal and in the satellite camera. You can seem to hear her voice.
In the satellite telemetry images, she silently shouted to the world twenty years ago:
Hi——!
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The first satellite data transmission test was declared a success.
The two generals Heng and Ha overcame numerous difficulties and successfully entered orbit with their unbeatable luck. This was simply the third milestone in the history of human space flight after Yuri Gagarin's first entry into space and Neil Armstrong's first landing on the moon - the first successful entry into orbit after the destruction of mankind. The comrades of the Dongfanghong Operation Leading Group excitedly went downstairs to celebrate and drink. They said that drinking was not allowed during work, but this time they made an exception.
The first test lasted half an hour, and the relay satellite transmitted about 60M of data to the ground radio station. The original image data obtained by the synthetic aperture radar scanning of the reconnaissance satellite is extremely large, and it is impossible and unrealistic to transmit all of it. Therefore, it has to go through screening, compression and modulation at the relay satellite stage, but compression will cause a lot of information loss - data quality and transmission efficiency cannot be achieved at the same time. There is no way, the satellite's signal transmission speed is only so fast, and lossy compression can only be accepted. The final image decoding and restoration depends on the computer group's algorithm.
The computer team said they had the ability to restore blurry images to high definition. When training the algorithm, they turned all the cavalry photos on the market into infantry photos.
Banxia set up the camera, adjusted the direction of the lens, and aimed it at the desk and the window.
The satellite communication test was a success. After the satellite communication equipment was removed, the second test will be carried out in full swing. After so much hard work, the PSK signal modulation data transmission link that was painstakingly developed is finally going to come in handy.
She was finally going to see the person on the other side.
The two sides have been communicating via amateur radio for three or four months, and the first video transmission will be carried out tonight.
"BG, BG, you first or me?"
"You first!"
"Okay, I'll go first!"
Of course, Icom725 is a damn half-duplex radio. Real-time chat like WeChat video calls is impossible. Data can only be transmitted in one direction. Either Banxia watches Baiyang's performance, or Baiyang watches Banxia's performance.
So the two parties agreed that each video transmission would be five minutes, five minutes for Banxia, five minutes for Baiyang, five minutes for Banxia, and five minutes for Baiyang. The image data transmission link could not transmit sound, only images, so the two parties communicated by writing on cardboard with pens.
Banxia used a flashlight to unplug the audio transmission cable of the Yagi antenna UV9R handheld radio in the dark and replaced it with the audio transmission cable of the Celeron 3150 industrial control motherboard, switching the two sets of peripherals seamlessly.
She decided to send the other party a video first, and performed a backflip first.
However, he didn't dare turn on the lights so late at night. The room was dark and no one could see his back flip performance. Banxia thought about it and gave up the idea.
On the other side, Bai Yang was a little nervous.
"This is a female online friend we're meeting." Lian Qiao said teasingly, "What if she's not pretty?"
"Go away, comrade counselor, we are facing a powerful enemy, and we should put the overall situation first." Bai Yang said righteously, "Don't say these nonsense."
But although he said so, when the meeting really came, he was the most nervous one in the command center.
"Why are you so nervous?" Dad was busy debugging the software. "Aren't you already very familiar with her?"
"Old Bai, you don't understand. We used to call each other, but now we are finally meeting in person. How can it be the same?" Wang Ning was tightening the fixing nut on the tripod. "How can you, a half-buried person, understand the psychology of adolescents..."
"You're only half buried in the ground."
It was a quarter past eight that evening.
The software debugging is completed and the signal is connected.
Bai Yang sat upright on the sofa in front of the coffee table. He knew that the other party couldn't see him, but he still couldn't help but quietly combing his hair, buttoning his collar, and controlling his expression.
It didn't seem like he was going to meet a female netizen, but rather he was about to have some business negotiations.
There was a large group of people behind him, including Dad, Old Wang, Old Zhao and Lian Qiao, who were all there, poking their heads out from behind Bai Yang's shoulders.
They were all curious too.
I wonder what this girl who lives alone in the apocalyptic world looks like.
However, the video playback window on the computer screen was pitch black.
"Why is it still black?" Wang Ning asked, "What went wrong?"
"There's no problem. The signal is connected, and the lines are all good..." Dad checked the laptop's port and plugged it in tightly. "At least there's no problem on our side. It could be her... Hey hey hey hey hey hey! It's moving! It's moving! There's light, there's light!"
The dark video playback window suddenly lit up, as if a flashlight was shining on the camera, and the people sitting in front of the computers suddenly became excited.
"It's alive! It's alive!" Wang Ning was overjoyed.
"What bullshit are you talking about, Lao Wang? Of course it's alive." Bai Zhen said.
At this time, they all understood that the video was dark only because the lights were not on in the other party's room, not because of a problem with the line. The video transmission was successful.
The girl was still adjusting the camera lens. The people in the command center could only see a flashlight swinging back and forth. Occasionally a hand would appear in the beam of light, twisting the camera back and forth. The wrist was dazzlingly white against the pitch-black background.
Bai Yang looked at the hand and wondered what kind of person she was. A boy of seventeen or eighteen was at this stage. Just by showing him a hand, he could imagine the whole face of the other person. It was not that Bai Yang had never imagined what the girl looked like, but imagination was just imagination after all. Now that he was about to see the other person in person, he became nervous for no reason.
"Why doesn't she show her face?" Wang Ning said.
Why is this guy more anxious than Bai Yang?
"Why are you in such a hurry? She's still adjusting the camera."
Zhao Bowen leaned back on the sofa and adjusted his glasses. The image in the video window was still shaking. The other party was indeed adjusting the camera. In the extremely dim light, they could vaguely make out some things - such as the desk that flashed in the flashlight beam, and the curtains above the desk. It was obvious that this was in the room.
"Once she's adjusted, she'll be able to..."
The cell phone in Zhao Bowen's pocket suddenly rang.
Before he could answer the phone, within four or five seconds, the phones in Bai Zhen and Wang Ning's pockets rang. At once, all the communication tools in the command center rang rapidly.
"Hello, it's me. What...what did you say?"
Zhao Bowen's expression suddenly changed.
He walked around the sofa, leaned over the coffee table and turned on the computer. The second photo that the computer team had decoded and restored was sent over. It was still a photo of Meihua Villa, but it was of the other half of the community that was not included in the first photo. Bai Zhen, Wang Ning and others also came over. They only took a glance and their faces changed drastically.
"Fuck."
"This... this is fucking..."
A huge, black, fuzzy spider was lying on the roof of a residential building. Its limbs were extremely long. It was lying on the roof of the building, and its long legs could climb onto the outer wall of the building next door.
Bai Yang poked his father.
Bai Zhen turned his head and saw that his son's face was pale.
Bai Yang pointed at the computer screen.
There was a red light in the video playback window, and the room that was originally so dark that one could not see one's hand in front of one's face was slightly illuminated. Through the curtains, the person on this side of the computer could see a huge, glowing, blinking red eyeball moving horizontally, appearing outside the window, stopping, and then slowly approaching, so close that one could not see the entire eyeball even through the entire window. The bedroom seemed to be illuminated by a huge red laser pen directly outside the window.
What the satellite took were just static pictures, but a live broadcast was going on in the computer. Bai Yang stared straight at the screen, his body too stiff to move. He was actually looking directly into the big eyes.
Even after twenty years, the people in the headquarters were oppressed to the point of suffocation.
Banxia held her breath, hugged Grandpa Huang tightly, and curled up under the desk.
She was not adjusting the camera just now, but was chasing away Grandpa Huang. Grandpa Huang had slipped into the room at some point and was spinning wildly around her feet. When Banxia bent down to catch him, she noticed a red light reflection on the glass lens of the camera facing the window. She didn't have time to think about it, so she grabbed Grandpa Huang and immediately rolled under the table, leaning against the wall with her back, not daring to move or make a sound.
The red light outside the window became stronger and stronger, so strong that it could illuminate the bedroom through the curtains. Soon Banxia heard a "clicking" sound, which was the sound of big eyes crawling on the outer wall of the building.
Bai Yang on the other side of the video could only see the image but could not hear the sound. If he could hear the sound, he would have a deeper understanding of the horror of the big eyes. Ban Xia hid in the darkness and shivered. She closed her eyes and buried her head in Mr. Huang's warm and soft fur. She heard the shrill, laughing, woman-like voice again. It was just outside the window, separated from her by a wall:
"Come out—where are you—where are you—"
"Give me the fruit—"
(End of this chapter)
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