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"Sixteen years old, and the National Science Progress Award. This really does remind me every single moment that I'm a waste of space..."
"From now on, the people questioning whether building mechs wastes money can shut their mouths. This project is a major scientific and technological advance recognized by the state!"
"I'm sixteen this year too. Why am I still sitting in my first year of high school..."
"I bet the university and high school students who went to watch the ceremony, looking at the person up front accepting the award being younger than they are, must have been dying of secondhand embarrassment, haha!"
"You say that as if we older people watching from in front of our screens aren't embarrassed. Sobbing.jpg"
"Honest question. Am I the only one who looked at the deep-dive exploration mission marked on Crimson Typhoon and started daydreaming a little?"
"The Bureau of Strategic Deception: Crimson Typhoon is indeed a deep-sea exploration-type mech. Everyone present, please refrain from overthinking it."
"..."
Tonight, Ryan filled everyone's field of view, at home and abroad alike.
In ordinary times, which scientist the country's science awards went to was a matter almost no one abroad cared about, let alone something the media covered.
And even when there was coverage, it was only because someone had found an angle to smear.
But this time was different, because this time there was Ryan.
Within a few hours of the national broadcast, news of Ryan's award had already spread across the entire country, and the news, as a matter of course, traveled outward along the communication cables beneath the ocean, spreading abroad...
Foreigners just out of bed, foreigners preparing for a midday rest, and those in time zones near enough to be readying for sleep, all of them were stunned by the sudden report.
"Sixteen. One of the nation's top science prizes!?"
"If it were anyone else, I'd suspect a publicity stunt. But the moment I saw the winner was Ryan, I chose to believe it without the slightest hesitation!"
"This is a night that belongs to miracles! A country's highest science and technology prize, carried off by a young man not yet eighteen. In a certain sense, that's harder to believe than the one who won the Nobel in Physics at twenty-five, or the one who took the Peace Prize at seventeen."
"Bear in mind, what he won is a science and technology award, and the man himself hasn't even taken a bachelor's degree yet!"
"And not only him. The entire award-winning team is young. The oldest of them doesn't look sixty. Their scientists keep getting younger while ours keep getting older. Our competitiveness is being whittled away!"
"This moment belongs to all humanity!"
There were also those who posted their objections under the news of Ryan's award:
"Our country is in the middle of an economic war with theirs. I don't see this as something worth celebrating!"
Very quickly, people lined up in formation to answer him:
"Because this is a moment that belongs to all humanity! This is progress for all of mankind!"
"Science has no borders. What Ryan represents is humanity's future!"
"I'm telling you, only a god can crack controlled nuclear fusion and lead humanity into a new era!"
And the various intelligence agencies were every bit as stunned by the abrupt news.
"WTF? They handed one of their country's highest science awards to the Crimson Typhoon project?"
Sitting at his own desk, intelligence officer Arthur was drinking his coffee when the latest news loaded, and he sprayed the entire mouthful straight out.
Nor was he alone. The others in the office received the news moments later.
"What is going on here?"
"Am I still asleep?"
"An award decided like that has no rigor at all. He's sixteen. What qualifies him to win anything?"
"There's something shady behind this. Guaranteed!"
Arthur's colleagues piled on the accusations one after another.
Ryan could likely never have guessed that the voices opposing and questioning his award would rise from places like these.
Arthur watched his colleagues, and every man in the room understood perfectly what lay beneath this telepathically unanimous condemnation.
Think of the technology riding on Crimson Typhoon. Then think of that award ceremony across the water. It was plain that this looked far more like a demonstration aimed squarely at them.
It amounted to announcing through a giant loudspeaker: the technology on Crimson Typhoon truly exists. It has even taken a top prize for it. Now, do you believe it or not?
Did they believe it?
They didn't know either...
In any case, they were entirely unwilling to believe the plain fact that Crimson Typhoon had already won.
And right then the phone on the desk rang, and out of it came the voice of team leader Davis:
"Everyone on the team, conference room, meeting!"
That disgusting fat man...
Arthur hung up the phone and pointed his watching colleagues toward the conference room.
"Hey! Hell! I knew something was going to happen!"
"Our easy days are over!"
"I haven't slept one sound night since I joined this team!"
The group filed into the conference room with their faces in their hands, and waited for team leader Davis to arrive.
Sure enough, while the man himself was still outside the room, his cursing came through the door ahead of him, riding on his hurried footsteps:
"How am I even supposed to describe you pack of useless pastries who rank below dog dirt? Lay you out across a table and not one person alive would work up the slightest appetite..."
Davis, shaped like a ball of meat, rolled into the room, spent a good several minutes cursing the assembly first, and only then dragged himself around to the main subject.
"You have all seen the news by now!"
"The Crimson Typhoon project has been granted one of their country's highest science awards. That is official confirmation of the project's results. And your infiltration of that project has produced not one single thing!"
Davis gestured wildly as he spoke. "You can't confirm whether their technology is real or fake. You can't obtain their materials. Your performance so far is a pack of blind men groping in circles through a maze!"
Arthur raised his hand. "We did obtain the official model they put on sale. There may be some kind of clue on it."
BANG!
At his words, Davis hauled an enormous packaging box printed all over with the other side's language out from under the table and slammed it down flat.
By its face, it was the packaging box of a Crimson Typhoon model, and the official edition at that.
Davis pointed at the model and opened up on the room with a chain of questions:
"Do you think this is a nuclear submarine?"
"You think they'd let us take advantage of them through this? You think they're that stupid?"
"You think scrambling to buy a publicly sold model is something to be proud of? Should I be presenting all of you with an award as well!?"
"The Black Friday Panic-Buying Progress Award! If you people have one single talent, it's the panic-buy. You could rush-purchase any scarce commodity on the face of the earth!"
Facing team leader Davis's cascade of questions, every head in the room went down.
"We've already sent out a great many carrier pigeons, but not one of them has managed a safe landing. Even the pigeon coops get cleaned out almost immediately. That has never once happened before..."
At this, the assembled intelligence officers were every bit as helpless.
The moment their pigeons flew out, they hit the bird nets, and the other side would trace its way to the coop in short order.
All the training those pigeons had ever received seemed to count for nothing at all.
Under conditions like these, keeping the other side from ever finding the letters tied to the pigeons' legs had already taken everything they had...
More than once, had they been half a step slower, the other side might well have come away holding proof.
"I don't care what the difficulties are. If there are difficulties, you go up. If there are no difficulties, you go up all the harder. I want to see results, and fast! Do you understand me?" Davis said, seething.
Arthur and his colleagues all sighed in their hearts.
"Understood."
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