Chapter 39: All Clear at the Research Complex
Translator: ShutDoor
Even among infected people, a test came back positive if the virus had multiplied enough to be detected in a specimen. If it had not yet reached the detection threshold, the result came back negative.
It was therefore only natural that all the parents of the scientists in the virology research building had been admitted to the isolation ward, regardless of whether they tested positive or negative. No one knew when a negative result might turn positive.
I had absolutely no intention of letting my guard down and getting infected by a virus that controlled the brain like some kind of cordyceps fungus. I would rather die.
As I steeled myself, Ann reported on the current situation.
“The infected people, suspected infected people, and people without symptoms have all been separated and housed accordingly.”
We had secured a total of thirty-eight parents this time. The scientists in the virology research building had exactly thirty-eight parents between them, so the team had somehow managed to rescue every last one.
However, the conspicuous increase in public officials and police officers wearing protective suits on every road had delayed them far longer than expected, since they had needed to circumvent the surveillance network.
It had taken five days to bring in all 1,400 of the shelter’s current residents, whereas bringing in a mere thirty-eight people this time had taken almost three days. That alone should give some idea of how brutally difficult operating outside had become.
Some might wonder what kind of espionage androids took this long, but I could say with certainty that it had only ended this quickly because they specialized in espionage.
Any ordinary person sent out there would have come back infected, guaranteed.
An incident like the following had occurred during roughly one out of every three pickups in this transport operation.
—Are you Kim Ok-ja? We’re from the community service center to check on your health. Could you open the door for us?
—You’re public officials?
—Yes, that’s right.
—Then take off your masks. Let me see your faces so I can check whether you really are.
—Please, we’ll show you our government IDs instead. We can’t take these off just because we want to…
—I said take them off.
—Please…
—I need to see your faces, so hurry up and take them off! Right now!!
I will simply say that watching someone who would qualify for the old-age pension in two years suddenly fling open the door and charge at them had been shocking in more ways than one.
Of course, the external team led by Deputy Manager Lee Jun-su skillfully quelled these “disturbances” and brought the situation under control. With the infected population across the Korean Peninsula now over forty percent, they had never entertained the optimistic notion that only the researchers’ parents would be fine.
—Code C. Moving to subdue the target.
They restrained the “infected person” in an instant, administered medication to put them to sleep, and expertly loaded them onto a stretcher for transport.
Scenes like this had become almost commonplace in South Korea by 2027, so apparently no one even found it strange.
From the moment they were placed on the stretcher, infected people were given alternating doses of sedatives and sleeping medication. Their bodies were also securely restrained in case the drugs wore off. You could say every possibility of trouble had been eliminated at the source.
Still, it occurred to me that the entire process might look somewhat inhumane to their children watching. Their parents were being tied up and dragged away like patients from a psychiatric ward.
Fortunately, the researchers merely furrowed their brows or sighed deeply. None of them openly objected.
“I suppose no one understands the dangers of the NIV virus better than those researchers.”
True enough. They were experts in the field, after all. They must know far more than I did and feel a horror so profound it could not even be compared to mine.
They would also be aware that we were granting them an outrageous degree of preferential treatment.
Even so, I did not expect them to meekly accept the fact that their parents were being detained.
Humans were self-centered creatures in the end.
“…”
All I could do was hope they would not object too fiercely.
*****
Just as I had expected, the researchers in the virology research building were indeed horrified.
The problem was that the object of their horror was not “the unknown virus devastating the world”, but “the insane research institute director who had been studying that virus for days without rest”.
The researchers swallowed hard and secretly whispered among themselves as they stared at their director with looks of utter disbelief.
“…How long did you say the director’s been awake?”
“Today makes four days.”
“…That’s insane.”
Four days was a staggering ninety-six hours. The researchers here might have pulled all-nighters at every opportunity during graduate school, but even they had never gone without sleep for that long.
No, rather than saying they had never done it, it would be more accurate to say they could not.
After just three days without sleep, a person became a useless wreck who could do nothing but wheeze. Hallucinations began on the fourth day, and in extreme cases, sleep deprivation could even kill. That was probably why Marine Corps Hell Week training was considered insane.
If a person could endure four sleepless nights with nothing but caffeine pills in the first place, academic advisors everywhere would have started handing out unlimited supplies to their graduate students long ago.
It was clearly impossible. Unless the director was a robot, they should not have been capable of it…
“Why is everyone looking at me like that?”
“…”
With someone who looked perfectly fine despite staying awake for four days standing right before them, no one knew what to say.
Michelle Grace, director of the virology research building.
Grace was in their mid-to-late forties, but could easily have passed for someone in their early thirties.
Grace was a genius among geniuses, proficient in virology, microbiology, immunology, medicine, pathology, neurobiology, structural biology, and even pharmacology.
Granted, they only(?) held three actual doctoral degrees, in virology, immunology, and medicine. But they were so extraordinary that it seemed obvious they could have earned doctorates in the other fields as well if they had only had the time.
Grace was, perhaps, one of the biggest reasons the elite researchers here firmly believed this underground facility was a “classified government facility”.
Anyone who had participated in even one large-scale research project knew that the more capable the principal investigator was, the easier life became for everyone working under them. It was the same principle by which an advisor handing you a good research topic set you up for life, while being handed a shitty one ruined it.
Research Institute Director Michelle Grace was both a “genius” and an exceptionally capable “leader”.
The researchers here were elites who had been considered exceptional even in graduate school, yet Grace was so competent that they could not help thinking, “Of course someone like that would be made director of a classified government research facility.”
At that very moment, however, the researchers began to feel that Grace’s overwhelming ability might not stem solely from innate genius.
“…Director, don’t you ever rest?”
“I’ve rested enough, so I’m fine.”
Grace was an extraordinarily hard worker. It was not merely a matter of coming in earliest and leaving latest.
They simply never left work.
Even the researchers here would sometimes be preparing to shuffle home after groaning like zombies until the early hours of the morning, only to be startled by the sight of Grace still sitting in the director’s office and collecting data.
At that point, it had honestly gone far beyond what anyone could call “hard work”.
How should they put it? It seemed closer to a “sense of duty”.
“Um, Director. Most people wouldn’t call closing their eyes for one minute ‘resting’.”
“I know.”
“…”
“…”
“…”
Grace seemed to notice the subordinate researchers staring and added with a look of resignation.
“If you’re that concerned about my condition, I’ll take another caffeine pill. Then it won’t interfere with the research—”
“D-Director!”
“Go ahead.”
“Y-You’re seriously going to collapse at this rate! You need to sleep now!”
Although they had not known Grace for very long, the people in the virology research building had been completely captivated by Michelle Grace.
What researcher could possibly resist a superior who was capable, diligent, and cared for their subordinates (by letting them use the research equipment however they pleased)?
That was why the researchers could not bring themselves to complain to their superior, Grace, even though their parents were restrained inside isolation rooms.
Grace personally was devoting more effort to the vaccine research than anyone else.
If the leadership intended to use their parents as experimental specimens and discard them, would Grace, the person in charge, approach the research with such dedication?
Of course, Grace might simply have possessed an unusually powerful sense of duty, but brief conversations with researchers from the other research buildings revealed that this was not necessarily the case.
—I’m sure they can’t compare to the director of our aerospace engineering research building, but the director of the virology research building must be quite remarkable too.
—Still, don’t you think the director of our mechanical engineering research building is more impressive?
—Hmm, that may be true, but our chemical engineering research building is clearly…
—?
—?
They had gotten into a petty argument over whose research institute director was better, but that was beside the point.
All the directors in this research complex seemed to be true leaders with exceptional senses of responsibility and duty, even if they were not quite on Grace’s level.
And if such people had gathered in one research complex, its purpose must surely serve the public good as well.
“I have a doctorate in medicine, so I know the condition of my own body very well. I went through worse than this when I was younger.”
“B-But—”
“You may not realize this, but the leadership had to make an enormous effort to bring your parents here without causing an outcry.”
“…”
The researchers fell silent. They had suspected as much themselves.
They had never been outside and did not know the situation firsthand, but having personally studied the NIV virus, they could roughly imagine how badly the world must have fallen apart if something like this was spreading.
And amid all that, their parents were receiving priority treatment in a state-of-the-art facility like this solely because they were related to researchers?
The backlash would not have ended with criticism from the public. Accusations of preferential treatment, inequality, and unfairness of every kind would have erupted.
(They hadn’t.)
They were all highly educated people of renown, so they understood on some level how many concessions the leadership must have made to other government departments to bring their spouses and children here instead of politicians and other influential figures.
(They hadn’t made any concessions.)
Had the parents with relatively mild symptoms not said as much when the researchers briefly spoke to them through the partition in the isolation ward? They had said they had taken the most remote roads possible, so it must have been to avoid the press.
(It was to avoid the government’s surveillance network.)
Regardless of the grand flights of fancy unfolding in the researchers’ minds, Michelle Grace continued.
“And to have your parents brought here before anyone else, I also had to make many concessions to the research center director and the other institute directors.”
“…!!!”
The researchers were aghast, as though that possibility had never even occurred to them.
Then again, no matter how noble its purpose, this was a massive research complex comprising no fewer than twenty-three specialized research institutes. With brilliant elites everywhere, how could there not be internal politicking and struggles for control?
“W-Why would you go that far…?”
“Because if your parents are healthy, you’ll be able to devote yourselves to developing the vaccine without any distractions, won’t you?”
“…!”
“I want all of you to continue devoting yourselves fully to these research facilities. If that requires me to stay awake for five days or ten, I will. That is my duty as the person responsible for the virology research building.”
With that, Michelle Grace calmly returned their full attention to collecting data on the pathogen.
…Oh.
This person really was different.
In truth, they were still confused.
They could not understand what kind of virus could affect the human brain and nervous system, and it was difficult to believe that the outside world had fallen into chaos in less than a month.
No matter how much news they watched or how many online outlets they checked, it was difficult to accept that any of this was truly happening.
Looking at their parents asleep under anesthetic, their limbs bound so tightly that red marks had formed around their wrists… They knew intellectually that it was the best option, yet they still felt stifled and angry.
But watching their director remain absorbed in the research even now, swallowing caffeine pills while working, made them believe that at least none of this had been done with malicious intent.
Just as the researchers steeled their resolve and prepared to focus on their work again, one of them tossed out a remark.
“Still, restraining people in poor health that tightly seems a little…”
Thud. Thud.
Before the researcher could finish, an impossibly massive soldier approached from the corridor across the way, each step producing a heavy metallic clang. Apparently, it was time for a shift change.
Early on, there had been considerable debate among the researchers over whether these beings were autonomous robots or elite soldiers wearing powered armor.
But there was no chance modern science and technology could have produced a robot capable of such precise, agile movements, so they had eventually settled on the tentative conclusion that the guards were “elite special forces soldiers wearing powered suits”.
Granted, powered armor was every bit as unrealistic when they thought about it, but believing it contained an elite soldier felt far more comforting and plausible than believing it was a fully autonomous AI robot with a mind of its own.
Anyway.
The soldier approached slowly, radiating an oppressive aura befitting that massive frame, then stopped directly in front of the researcher who had just muttered the complaint and silently looked down.
Apparently, the soldier had heard what the researcher said.
Far from threatening the researcher, the soldier merely stood there in silence and stared down at them… but with a physique like that, simply looking down at someone was enough to constitute a threat to their life.
Gulp.
Crushed beneath the instinctive fear that any living creature would inevitably feel, the researchers lowered their eyes. Then they nudged the complainer in the ribs with their elbows.
“!”
Finally coming to their senses, the researcher broke out in a cold sweat and hurriedly finished “the sentence left incomplete earlier”.
“…I-It does seem like a bit much, but considering the extraordinary circumstances, it really is unavoidable!”
The moment the researcher finished, the others beside them hastily chimed in.
“T-That’s right!”
“W-We can’t make exceptions just because they’re family!”
“When we checked their condition earlier, they fortunately showed no abnormalities besides a slight fever!”
Gulp.
“…”
“…”
After all that, shouldn’t the soldier be leaving by now?
They would have felt better if the soldier had said something, anything. Instead, the guard had done nothing but stare down at them in silence this entire time, and it was driving them out of their minds.
They could not begin to understand how the lunatics in the robotics research building threw themselves at these soldiers every time they saw one, begging to touch them just once. Was that place staffed entirely by madmen?
As the researchers trembled so hard they forgot even to breathe, Michelle Grace casually turned their head.
“Major Kim, if you’re finished with the handover, please head back.”
“…”
“Can’t you see that you’re making my researchers uncomfortable?”
W-Was it really okay to say that so openly?!
Research Institute Director Michelle Grace went one step further and even patted the soldier’s thick heavy armor plating with their palm.
“!”
At a complete loss, the researchers all closed their eyes as they imagined the horrific bloodbath about to unfold.
Astonishingly, however, the soldier simply stared down at Michelle Grace, nodded, and obediently turned around to return to their post.
Apparently, Michelle Grace outranked that soldier called “Major Kim”.
“It’s about time everyone focused on their work. I’ll finish collecting this batch of data, then go and rest.”
“!”
At that moment, the researchers in the virology research building withdrew all their support for Michelle Grace.
They were no longer mere supporters. As far as they were concerned, they and Michelle Grace were now one.
“Y-Yes!”
“W-We’ll put our faith in you and follow your lead!”
…The more they thought about it, the more certain they were that their director was the greatest of them all.
*****
“The researchers’ objections were apparently less severe than expected.”
“…Really?”
“Yes. The researchers also have a very high degree of trust in their institute directors.”
So there had been a reason the virus research had been progressing by leaps and bounds over the past few days.
It seemed Deputy Manager Lee Jun-su had handpicked elite researchers who were far more capable, rational, and reasonable than I had expected.
I certainly had not expected them to accept the situation without complaint when their parents had been bound and shut inside isolation rooms…
In any case, it was truly a relief.
Thanks to that, we could now begin developing the vaccine in earnest.
And we would be the fastest in the world.
⚬──────────✧──────────⚬
Join our discord server: https://discord.gg/96hMXymzMP