It was raining heavily on the dilapidated and narrow street. A group of special forces in black combat uniforms was lurking behind the curtain of rain, quietly waiting for the appearance of their prey.
This was Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
Since the operation three years ago, this area had been incorporated into China's sphere of influence.
With the intervention of China's forces in the regional situation, the militants and extreme forces entrenched in the northwest region had evacuated to central Africa. With the departure of those vultures, the world-famous city of chaos also ushered in a rare dawn of order.
However, poverty, backwardness, and ignorance were always the best hotbeds of violence and terror. Just like how light and darkness were always in a balance, violence and bloodshed had never truly left this place, only moving from the surface to the underground …
Just like the rainwater that poured down the slope into the sewer.
In the distance, a flash of headlights passed through the rain, outlining a long and narrow silhouette in the night.
As if avoiding something, an old Ford slammed on the brakes and stopped on the side of the road. The door was slammed open, and the two young men sitting in the car pulled down the brim of their hats, hurriedly got out of the car, ran to the door of the old apartment on the side, and slammed the door with their fists.
"Open the door! Quick! "
Soon, the rusty iron door was pushed outward by a small piece of iron. After confirming the identity of the two people outside the door, the iron door was completely opened and the two people outside the door were let in.
The rain in the sky seemed to suddenly become heavier, and the sound of the rain hitting the ground became more mournful, like the cry of a baby.
The sound of boots stepping on the cement road quietly flowed through the puddles on the street. Silent figures holding rifles drilled out of the rain like sharp blades and surrounded the Ford and the apartment building next to it.
For a moment, the originally spacious street actually became crowded.
In the darkness, the man who took the lead waved his hand and made a neat gesture.
Then there was the sound of glass shattering.
With a dazzling flash and a deafening roar, the rusty iron door was blown inward.
The special forces waiting at the door filed in, and with a few crisp gunshots, the silence of the night sky was completely broken. Together with the flames that pierced the darkness from time to time, it weaved a symphony of death in the rainy night.
The nearby residents huddled up in their homes, pulling the windows tightly shut.
No one dared to poke their heads out, much less take a glance at the street. They were afraid that they would see something they shouldn't see and bring about the calamity of death.
The battle did not last long.
When the last soldier fell in a pool of blood, Wang Peng neatly inserted the pistol into his tactical belt, stepped over the corpse expressionlessly, and walked toward the messy office.
It was obvious that these people wanted to destroy the evidence after they were attacked.
However, they were still a step too late in the end, and they didn't even have the time to react before they were wiped out.
After carefully fumbling on the desk for a while, Wang Peng skillfully removed the booby traps and fuses hidden under the drawer. Then, with the power of the kinetic skeleton, he forcefully unlocked the locked drawer.
There was a loud noise, and the whole drawer was thrown on the table. Wang Peng reached out and searched inside. He quickly found something that looked like a mission briefing.
It recorded all the information including mission objectives, weapons used, and the number of people involved in the operation.
Through this information, they not only thwarted an attack that had not yet taken place, but they also put an end to the bombing that occurred in City M a few months ago.
"The evidence is all here … It has been confirmed that they are the perpetrators of the City M bombing."
Standing next to Wang Peng was the partner the organization arranged for him in this operation. His name was Chen Tao, and he was a young man in his mid-twenties.
Looking at the mission briefing in his hand, Chen Tao couldn't help but speak.
"Fu * k, why are they doing this?"
"Maybe it's to stop the Shanghai Economic Cooperation Conference to be held in City M and the Pan-Asian Economic Integration Agreement to be promoted at the conference."
Wang Peng didn't know the specific situation. He only heard that the Pan-Asian Economic Integration Agreement was very important to the countries in East Asia. It was closely related to a series of cross-regional cooperation, including cross-regional power grids, transnational maglev tunnels, etc.
"But, this is a bit unreasonable … Only the Americans can do such a big case under our noses, but now their relationship with us is in the honeymoon period, so there is no need to take such a big risk."
"It's not necessarily the Americans."
Even if it was, he wouldn't be surprised.
"You mean … the remnants of a group of Somali pirates caught us off guard on the streets of City M?"
"No, I don't want to say that they did these things on their own, but I want to say that someone else provided them with assistance … This reminds me of the robbery three years ago. If it weren't for the orbital airborne brigade on standby, they might have succeeded with the support of the British special forces. "
From the bottom of the drawer, Wang Peng took out a notebook made of cowhide. He held it in his hand and casually flipped through it.
Soon after, his brows furrowed.
"… I might have found it."
"This is?"
"A 'missionary manual' … But it's not a local Somali religion." Wang Peng looked at the familiar symbol and frowned.
The Spirit of The Universe Foundation.
I didn't expect to see this name here.
After flipping through two pages of the notebook, he suddenly discovered that on one of the pages, there was a torn piece of newspaper.
"The hypothesis of four-dimensional space debris in the Martian ruins."
Wang Peng looked at this inexplicable title and the lines of strange calculations in the text. He gradually began to realize that the hidden story was probably far more complicated than he had imagined …
"I'm going back to China tomorrow."
"You're going back to China?" Chen Tao was taken aback. He looked at him and said, "What about the rest of the work?"
Wang Peng reached out and patted him on the shoulder.
"I'll leave it to you."
…
Two years ago.
Since the disaster on Mars, Wang Peng was transferred back to Earth from the Mars scientific research base.
The organization did not punish him because of Academician Lu's death. After all, in the face of a disaster of that level, the power of an individual was always insignificant.
He did his best to bring back the relics of Academician Lu. However, even if no one blamed him, the deep self-blame still lingered in his heart. Even though two years had passed, he still hadn't recovered from that disaster …
Office of the National Security Bureau.
The door was pushed open, and Wang Peng walked in.
"Director Yang, you were looking for me?"
"That's right." Director Yang sat up straight from the office chair and threw the document he had just finished reading on the desk. He said, "I found the source of that newspaper … This thing isn't a newspaper at all, it's torn from an academic journal."
Wang Peng picked up the document from the desk and frowned as he flipped through the contents.
After a long time, he gave an evaluation.
"… Interesting."
This academic journal was one of the top three academic journals in the world — "Nature".
The piece of paper that was torn off was the research results that were highlighted on the cover of the issue of Nature published last month.
Simply put, Professor Aubrey and Professor Schulz claimed in their research that the earthquake that occurred on Mars two years ago was not caused by geological movements.
The real reason was that the collapse of the four-dimensional space fragment caused the distorted space and boundary to be repaired, thus triggering the structural collapse of the entire ruins.
It was like the load-bearing wall of a building had been smashed.
Although it sounded a bit awkward, through some samples collected from the Martian ruins, as well as based on their subjective feelings and mathematical inferences, they finally proved this in theory.
Because this paper seemed a bit weird, it caused a lot of controversy in the academic community.
Perhaps it was out of the hope that this matter would trigger a larger discussion, Nature quoted this research result and marked it with a highlight label.
Seeing the surprised expression on Wang Peng's face, Director Yang continued.
"You should be familiar with the identities of Professor Aubrey and Professor Schulz. They participated in the diplomatic mission to Mars two years ago and survived that disaster."
Wang Peng nodded.
"I remember."
Director Yang continued, "According to their recently published paper and the description of the existence of four-dimensional space fragments, our intelligence personnel came to an inference after consulting relevant experts.
"In the ruins of the Martian civilization, there should be some kind of special mechanism. That is, the technology that all of us do not understand yet, and this technology is so powerful that it is enough to affect the space around us and even the dimension itself."
"Under the influence of the four-dimensional space fragment, they were trapped in a circular space, like hamsters on a wheel."
After listening to his superior's statement, Wang Peng opened his mouth slightly in surprise. After a moment of silence, he gave his own evaluation.
"This sounds a bit like a science fiction movie."
"It's a bit, but this is the most likely explanation so far. There used to be a civilization far stronger than us on Mars. Their technology was unprecedentedly developed, and that ruin is evidence. "
Looking at Director Yang, who wanted to say something but hesitated, Wang Peng spoke.
"Just be direct, what do you need me to do?"
The office was quiet for a while.
Director Yang, who was sitting behind the desk, seemed to hesitate for a while, but in the end, he made a decision.
"Let's not talk about The Spirit of The Universe Foundation, which we have been investigating for more than two years, and let's not talk about why they are targeting the ruins on Mars. What really concerns me is how the technology buried there may have a subversive impact on the current international situation."
"You should know why we have our current status in the world. And if we lose our technological advantage, what will we face? "
Wang Peng nodded, indicating that he understood.
Director Yang stared at him closely and continued.
"At present, our excavation of the ruins of The Gates of Hell has only reached a depth of 50 meters. With the existing technical means and the wired conditions on Mars, it is impossible to continue to dig down. If we want to dig an artificial tunnel down to a depth of 1-3 kilometers, forget about 10 or 20 years, we may not even be able to do it in this century.
"However, no one can guarantee that when we have enough ability to excavate the ruins, our system and execution will still be the same as today, and we will still place the same importance on this matter and be vigilant against potential threats."
"People are forgetful, not to mention a few generations apart."
"Unless there is a comrade who is loyal enough, remembers the mission, is good at learning, and has a strong execution ability, to remind our compatriots."
As he spoke, Director Yang looked at Wang Peng with a hint of approval in his eyes.
"Your loyalty is obvious to all, and you are the only one I can trust.
"For the sake of the future of the Republic, I need you to perform a mission."
"… What do you mean?"
Wang Peng vaguely guessed what Director Yang wanted him to do.
Director Yang looked at him solemnly and nodded.
"It seems that you have guessed it.
"Yes, I want you to go to the future."
…
Princeton.
There was a burst of cheers in the library activity room.
It wasn't until the sound of the librarian knocking on the door that the cheers stopped.
"This is definitely a miracle in economics, sociology, human behavior … and even in the history of physics and mathematics!" Professor Albert, who was standing next to the table, said in a low voice, "This is definitely a miracle in economics, sociology, and even physics and mathematics!"
On the computer screen, 40 pages of calculations had been compiled into a beautiful programming language.
The exquisite parameters were like gears with fine workmanship. Under the control of the formulas that corresponded to the social behavior and economic activities of human beings, they constituted an enormous machine.
It was the pinnacle of big data theory!
At the same time, the size of the sample could be said to be unprecedented!
It took them a full four years to complete this great project, and now it was finally time to test their results.
Professor Krugman couldn't help but rub his hands together. He couldn't wait to speak.
"Come and try it, I can't wait."
"Wait a minute, I've already applied for supercomputer access, it'll be ready soon …"
The program import didn't take much time.
Because the preliminary preparations were almost complete, all that was left was to import the sample parameters they collected one by one, then use the supercomputer's computing power to solve this complex equation, and then get the result they wanted.
They didn't have to wait too long. In just an hour, they successfully obtained the raw data.
With the joint efforts of the two, it took them an entire day to finally complete the data sorting.
However, something unexpected happened.
After seeing this result, Albert and Professor Krugman showed strange expressions on their faces.
The silence lasted for about ten minutes.
In the end, Albert was the first to break the silence. He spoke in an uncertain tone.
"… Is there something wrong?"
"Impossible." Professor Krugman pushed the glasses on the bridge of his nose. He was extremely confident in his research results. He said without hesitation, "From a computational point of view, our results are extremely correct … Although the results may be somewhat different from what we imagined."
Ε represented the growth rate of technological development, which was related to λ, which represented the gross domestic product, as well as the urbanization rate and education index of major countries.
According to their calculation results.
If the current trend continued, the technological development speed of human civilization would reach its peak in the 50s of the 21st century. Then, it would rapidly decline in the second half of the 21st century. Finally, many positive indicators would fall to a low point, corresponding to the great stagnation of social development, which would lead to a serious global economic crisis.
Not just that, but in the second half of the 21st century, the global political situation would also usher in a huge change.
And this change would change the lives of everyone on Earth …
In short, the situation was quite bad.
Professor Albert gulped and spoke in a quiet voice.
"… To be honest, I was shocked by our research results."
Professor Krugman nodded solemnly. His expression was not much better.
"We should publish this result and find a way to expand its influence. At least, give people some warning … "
"I'm very skeptical, will this really work?" Albert looked at Professor Krugman and said, "Once a trend is formed, unless there are unexpected variables, it is almost irreversible."
After a moment of silence, Professor Krugman sighed softly.
"It doesn't matter if it works or not …
"We have to try."
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