The first thing we had to do was generate the required amounts of antimatter, which was actually a lot more difficult than it sounded.
"So how do you produce antimatter?" I asked. "From my understanding, we need particle accelerators to generate antimatter. And even these can only produce miniscule amounts…basically in terms of nanograms, not even milligrams."
"And just as well," one of the physicists granted. "If you produce a significant amount of antimatter, you might end up destroying the world."
"We'll avoid doing that," I muttered.
"It's not just the production," another scientists added. "Even if we do manage to create antimatter, there's still the issue of storage. As you know, antimatter cannot be stored in a container made of ordinary matter. They will end up annihilating each other. We'll need to contain them in electric and magnetic fields. We will need to develop these fields in a device called the Penning's Trap."
Then another scientist beamed, delighted.
"You actually solved that problem for us, in a way."
"I did?" I asked, astonished. The scientists nodded.
"Your energy shield generator," one of them explained. "We aren't very familiar with the principles behind it because you're the one who invented it, but from what we know, it makes use of strong magnetic fields to construct a barrier, correct?"
"Simply put, yeah." I nodded. The scientists gushed in delight over it.
"Therein lies the clue to preserving antimatter for a long period of time. If we could just tweak your device, we should be able to contain larger amounts of antimatter."
"That's assuming we manage to produce great quantities of antimatter in the first place," another scientist pointed out, sounding cynical.
"We can split the tasks," an astrophysicist suggested. "One team developing the container, and the other team focuses on how to produce greater quantities of antimatter in a more efficient process."
"Yeah, let's do that." I nodded, already developing plans. "I'll handle the container, since I'm the one most familiar with energy shield technology. Maybe I'll ask a few of you engineers to join me, and one or two physicists to ensure we know what we're doing and we don't accidentally blow ourselves up."
I had to take note that I was literally playing with fire. Or a substance that was much more dangerous than fire. Like we said, just a kilogram of antimatter would be able to yield an explosion more powerful than any thermonuclear bomb built by men. Of course, that was assuming we would ever accumulate a kilogram of such stuff in the first place.
At the current rate of producing a few nanograms of antimatter everyday, we would only be able to get a kilogram of antimatter after many, many years. Millennia, even.
Fortunately, antimatter technology had improved over the last century, and by the twenty-second century, we were able to produce a lot more antimatter than the few nanograms a day that CERN used to do with particle accelerators. Using newer, updated devices, we could now produce several milligrams a day, as opposed to nanograms. Still not a viable option, as to produce even a gram of antimatter would take a year or so, and a kilogram would take a thousand years. Ugh.
Damn, this was going to take a long while…
*
In the end, it would take several years for us to get there, but in the meantime, I had to deal with CEO story drama. In other words, I couldn't forget about Lily Ling and her actress bullshit.
"Yeah, I won't lie to you. The entertainment industry is pretty vicious."
Lily sighed as she leaned against the sofa of my home, looking upset. I put a cup of tea in front of her before taking a seat, raising an eyebrow.
"What happened?"
"Sabotage, bullying, blackmail, scandals…you name it, you have it." She shut her eyes for a moment before opening them to stare at me. "How many CEO novels have you read? The ones featuring the female lead as an actress?"
"Um, a few, I guess?"
"Then you will have an idea. It's like that, except that it's happening in reality."
"Are you serious?"
The events that happened in CEO novels were pretty exaggerated. For no reason, every female character was out to kill the female protagonist. Like…literally, there was no real reason for them to resort to murder, but they did.
I mean, I found Justin Han's actions – as well as Country A – exaggerated and extreme, but at least they were sort of justified (?) in trying to kill me. There were billions of dollars at stake, an entire company was on the verge of losing its monopoly in one of the most lucrative sectors, and this would cost a lot in contracts in the case of Justin Han and his Han Industries. As for Country A, eliminating me would make the difference between total annihilation at the hands of a technologically superior foe and maintaining a slight gap between Hua Xia and them in the arms race. Assassinating a rival country's top scientists and researchers was historically a sound strategy to prevent the other party from having too much of an advantage.
I didn't like it, but I could understand their motives.
However, the actresses, stepsister and managers that Lily had to deal with were…well, to put it mildly, they were either mentally deranged or utterly deluded. There was absolutely no reason for them to murder Lily at all, no real justification other than "I hate her, therefore she must die." Why did they even hate her in the first place? Apparently they were jealous of Lily because she was a better actress than them, or because she was more beautiful, or because the man they were in love with was attracted to Lily. All sorts of nonsensical reasons that could only be dreamed up of by an amateur writer who penned CEO novels for a living.
Just to create cheap drama.
"Sometimes, it feels like we're stuck inside a trashy CEO novel," I grumbled. Lily sighed and nodded, placing a hand over her forehead.
"I feel the same. I honestly don't understand it too. Everyone hates me for no reason, and is out to kill me or make my life difficult just so…I don't know, I can slap their faces later when I take revenge and humiliate them."
"So you plan to take revenge?" I asked. "Do you need my help? I don't know what I can do, though."
Unlike CEO fiction, this was reality. I couldn't just conveniently throw money at the problem and buy out managers or whatever. I didn't have the connections, and honestly, not everyone could be bought out. They had integrity.
"Don't worry. I'll take care of this myself. I don't need to rely on anybody." Lily waved a hand. "I can handle this just fine."
"Uh, okay. Don't push yourself."
I watched her, wondering if she was a little too stressed out by what was happening to her. She took another deep breath before snorting.
"You know, for some reason, they think I'm involved with Dick Lee."
"Dick Lee? The famous director?" Even though I hardly watched movies, I had heard of Dick Lee before. He directed quite a few music videos and a movie.
"Actually, he's more of a musician," Lily corrected. "He writes his own songs and perform them."
Oh, right. I was mistaken. He wasn't a director and he didn't direct a movie. He starred in one, though if I recalled it correctly, it was a musical.
"Anyway, a few of the actresses on the studio, they are in love with him. Even though he's a dick." Lily giggled. I shrugged because I didn't know the guy and I believed in giving people chances. I doubted he was as bad as Lily was making him out to be (she was probably just joking). "Unfortunately, because he chose to talk to me and offer me a role beside him in a musical, they started to get jealous. Suddenly, you have three bitches working together to frame me and produce a scandal, so that they can ruin my reputation and kick me out of the industry."
"That's…bad." I didn't say that it wasn't as bad as being targeted for murder, though. Of course, this was still a serious problem, but at least I didn't have to hire bodyguards to protect Lily from assassins. At least that was what I thought until I heard the next line.
"It gets worse." Lily scowled. "Accidents happened on the set. Someone replaced the special effects with real explosives in order to burn me. A bridge that I was supposed to cross during filming suddenly fell apart while I was on it. Fortunately, I reacted quickly enough and hung onto a suspension wire that was nearby. Then…a few days ago, when I was on my way home, a truck almost crashed into my car."
"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered, my eyes wide. This was really unfolding like a CEO story drama. "Are you sure this is all caused by those three actresses?"
"I don't have any evidence, but…yeah, I'm sure. It's too much of a coincidence. Don't worry, I have my agent, Arnold Ang, on the job. He'll investigate it. Once he finds evidence, I'll destroy those three bitches' careers. Forever."
"Uh, this Arnold Ang is an agent, right?" I raised an eyebrow. "How will he be able to investigate? Does he have a license or something?"
"Don't be silly." Lily giggled. "Of course he won't do it himself. Arnold has a lot of connections. He knows a few private investigators and firms. He'll be able to figure something out. But that's where you come in."
"Me?" I sounded surprised. Lily nodded, putting on a cute face.
"Sorry, Mr. Moneybags. As you know, I've been kicked out of my home, disowned by my family and had my allowance severed. I even lost my job in my family's company. I'll need your help with this." She raised her hands and cupped them. "Could you lend me some money so that I can hire those private investigators?"