A3-05 Paralyzed by Indecision

Your finger hovers above the button.

One centimeter.

Your brain is screaming. Two voices howl simultaneously inside your head:

Press it. Press it now. Wade was right — hesitation equals surrender. Every second you hesitate, the droplets draw closer to the antennas. If the antennas are destroyed, you will have lost the chance to press it forever. Don't press it. Will you destroy two worlds? Billions of humans. Countless Trisolaran lives. All turned to ash. Because of your single finger. What right do you have? Who gave you this right?

The countdown ticks.

Ten minutes.

Your breathing is so rapid it borders on hyperventilation. You can feel your heart slamming inside your chest — not normal beating, but spasmodic, irregular impacts.

You think of Luo Ji. He sat in this position for sixty-two years. How did he manage it? Every day — every hour — he was prepared to press the button. That sustained pressure over sixty-two years did not break him.

But you are not Luo Ji. You never were.

Eight minutes.

On the screens, the droplets' trajectory lines extend. Their speed is staggering — Trisolaran technology so vastly exceeds humanity's. These droplets — compact probes made of strong-interaction material — once destroyed humanity's entire space fleet during the Doomsday Battle at inconceivable speeds.

Now they are hurtling toward your last line of defense.

Six minutes.

An image flashes through your mind: a mother holding a child, standing in a city park. If you press the button, that child — and every child on Earth — will eventually face a cleansing strike from the universe. But if you don't press, the Trisolarans will invade Earth, and those children's fate will be equally uncertain.

Two kinds of death. You are choosing between two kinds of death.

Four minutes.

The alarm grows more shrill. The AI voice sounds again: "Droplets' distance to nearest antenna: four minutes. Antenna lock status: evasion impossible."

Evasion impossible. The antennas are massive structures fixed to the ground. They cannot move, cannot hide. When the droplets arrive, the antennas will be destroyed.

Three minutes.

Your finger trembles above the button. You can almost feel the warmth of the red button's surface — the temperature left by Luo Ji's finger over sixty-two years. You close your eyes.

You see Yun Tianming's face. That quiet boy who loved you. His brain is drifting somewhere in space. If you press the button, the gravitational wave broadcast will expose Earth's coordinates — and he, somewhere in the cosmic deep, might hear the signal. He will know what you did.

What would he think?

Two minutes.

Your hand —