“Hiss... Is the flesh turned out? Can you take a look for me, is the cut big?” As soon as he heard his supervisor getting anxious, Brian Carter couldn’t be bothered to think about the person from his dream anymore. He climbed down from the lounge chair while reaching up to touch his right ear. The moment he touched it, what had felt normal before suddenly flared up with a burning pain—it was clearly not just a small cut, but a big gash!

  “Oh wow, that’s really not small at all. Why does it look like something bit you? Did you run into a wild animal?” Director Walker bent down, turned Brian Carter’s head to the side to expose his ear, and took a closer look—he couldn’t help but gasp. From the front, it had looked like just two small notches, but flipping to the back of the ear revealed the injury was far more than that. The entire lower half of Brian Carter’s ear showed a semicircle of bite marks, and the worst part had bitten right through the earlobe.

  “Are there wild animals around here? I don’t remember... I can’t recall. Do you have a mirror? I need to take a look!” Hearing what Director Walker said, Brian Carter immediately panicked. If it really was an animal bite, he’d have to get a tetanus shot right away—who knows what kind of bacteria an animal’s mouth might carry.

  “...You’ve been drinking again, haven’t you? And not a little! You really are a handful—going fishing alone by the reservoir in the middle of the night, and drinking on top of that. Don’t you know you always black out when you drink too much? If you’d rolled into the water, no one would even know if you died! What’s the point of looking in the mirror, you’re not a doctor. Hurry up and pack your things, the pickup is coming soon, let’s go to the hospital together and have a doctor take a look!” Taking the opportunity while examining Brian Carter’s ear, Director Walker took a deep sniff and understood everything. This usually sharp-as-a-monkey young man had suddenly become muddleheaded—he was drunk.

  Even though this young man had only been at the company for just over half a year, everyone knew about his drinking habits. At every holiday gathering, he was always the most boisterous one, and the one who came up with the most tricks to get others to drink. Unfortunately, except for the first couple of times, he was always the first to go down, and once he did, there was a high chance he’d enter a state of memory loss—what Beijingers call “blacking out.” It seemed he’d blacked out last night and lost part of his memory from that time, so he couldn’t answer any questions clearly.

  Brian Carter didn’t have much to pack. His fishing gear was all kept in his own locker and he usually didn’t take it home—this set was just for sneaking out to fish while on duty, and he had a better set at home. Now he just needed to roll up his bedding from his bunk and stuff it, along with his toiletries, into another empty locker he’d claimed. There wasn’t much else to take. Unlike others who liked to carry a bag, whether it was winter or summer, unless absolutely necessary, he preferred to keep his hands free.

  As for his workplace, it was a semi-confidential unit—let’s just call it the Satellite Company. It was affiliated with the Ministry of Aerospace, but not a direct department—more like a third-tier company. Its main job was operating a ground satellite station. Specifically, it used a leased channel from the Asia-Pacific Satellite Company to relay several satellite TV programs from CCTV and local stations, with the main one being CCTV-4, which broadcasted globally 24/7. These relay tasks had no economic benefit and were purely political. In addition, the company helped some stock exchanges upload real-time stock data—this was the most profitable part, accounting for a third of the company’s revenue, even though it used less than a tenth of the leased transponder bandwidth.

  The Satellite Company also jointly developed a small civilian antenna called a flat-panel antenna with several Russian partners, intended for use on buses and trains. If successful, in the future, all that would be needed on top of buses would be a metal mesh antenna the size of a floor tile—no need for bulky, highly directional, and unstable dish antennas—to receive satellite signals. This way, buses could have real-time TV signals too.

  Some might ask, who has the mood to watch TV while squeezed on a bus? Besides, a bus ride isn’t two hours long—whether it’s a TV show or a movie, you miss the beginning when you get on and the end when you get off, so what’s the point?

  There is a point. The original intention of developing this system wasn’t for people to watch TV shows or movies—there’s no economic benefit in that. Even if you enjoy watching, are you going to buy an extra bus ticket? This mobile satellite receiving system is specifically for playing advertisements. Occasionally, it might show clips from popular movies or TV shows, but that’s not for free—it’s advertising for those movies and shows. You watch for free, but the broadcast is paid for.