Chapter 177: GSC (9)

—This is a

de novo

anthracis.

Rosaline said.

De novo

was a Latin biological term meaning “new”. It usually referred to the artificial splicing of DNA from scratch. De novo material was not reproduced from a pre-existing living organism; it was implied that it was artificially synthesized. The result was no different, but the word was used to describe the difference between the processes.

—It’s not quite an artificial life, but it is artificial in many ways. It’s different from A-Gen’s anthrax weapon, which was just a separation between evolved males and females.

Rosaline said.

—It kept most of the shell and organelles of anthracis, but most of the genes are different. Almost all of the genes are new and biosynthesized, and many are from other pathogenic bacteria.

“...”

It was a kind of chimeric variant. Chimeric organisms were harder to create as the organisms became more complex, but it was relatively easy for bacteria. Even so, manipulating anthracis to this extent was a daunting task for even the most experienced university professors. It would take GSC members like Michelle a year or two if she had a good team. It required an in-depth understanding of not only anthracis, but bacteria as well.

Ring!

A phone rang. It wasn’t Young-Joon’s or the office phone either. The sound came from the drawer.

‘...’

Young-Joon opened the drawer and took out a tacky-looking flip phone.

—Hello.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

A man’s voice came from the phone.

“Hello.”

—You have to throw this phone away after use. Why do you still have it?

“I will throw it away after this time.”

—The White House delivered some information that the CIA gathered to the Korean government, but I contacted you because I thought you should know about it as well.

“Thank you, Mr. Director. What is it?” Young-Joon asked.

James Holdren, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, said.

—After you stopped Ebola, our intelligence agents were in Africa with Doctor Michelle tracking the origin of the outbreak.

“Where was it?”

—It was an abandoned hideout for a terrorist organization on the border between the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It’s one of the places that the CIA found recently.

“...”

—Surprisingly, there was a research facility there. It was a very crude facility, but it had a lot of important information, like how they caused a genetic mutation in the Ebola virus.

“Are you saying that the Ebola virus infecting anthracis wasn’t natural evolution?”

—That’s right. That kind of evolution doesn’t happen in nature very often.

“But they artificially caused that evolution?”

—Some scientists are more evil than you think, Doctor Ryu.

“I’m not talking about character; I’m talking about competence. I can’t understand why a scientist with that kind of research ability would be in a terrorist organization,” Young-Joon said.

Evolving Ebola to infect anthracis was possible with a guided evolution experiment. But think about what that would take. Even the best scientists from the Congolese government could barely do it in a biosafety level four lab. The rebels obviously didn’t have such a lab, meaning that they did this experiment illegally in a much worse lab setting. There were probably people in those rebel groups who got infected and died from working with Ebola. That meant that there was a scientist among the rebels who could push for the experiment and produce results while controlling the spread.

—That’s why the CIA and other international intelligence organizations are in shock.

James said.

—We still have yet to identify them. Someone that talented would already be active in international conferences and things like that, so you’d think everyone would know their name. There’s no one among people like that who we can’t track down.

“...”

—We’re also guessing that they created the anthrax that is going around Africa right now.

“I see.”

—And we don’t know anything about them, but there’s one thing...

James said.

—There was a signature in one of the Ebola research records, “Rosalind.”

“...”

Young-Joon froze as soon as he heard that.

—Does that ring a bell or anything?

“... No,” Young-Joon said.

—There’s also another problem. Among the records they wrote, there was data about the schedule of the GSC International Conference.

“The conference?”

—Yes. Maybe the anthrax epidemic in Africa is nothing more than a decoy or a preliminary experiment. A terrorist attack targeting the GSC International Conference might happen. That’s why I’ve called, and I’ve passed it on to the Korean government.

“Alright, I will make arrangements. And I’ll ask Doctor Messelson and help track down the bioweapon since he’s the leading expert in anthracis and bioweapons.”

—Thank you.

After ending the call with James, Young-Joon called for Doctor Cheon Ji-Myung right away. He had been at the Life Creation Department the longest. When Doctor Cheon came up to his office, Young-Joon asked, “Doctor Cheon, do you know how Rosaline got her name?”

“Rosaline?”

“Yes. Rosaline was the name that was given to the artificial cell when we were at the Life Creation Department.”

“Oh, that.”

Cheon Ji-Myung nodded.

“There was an oddball who came to the Life Creation Department because they wanted to. It was a place of exile to everyone else, but she wanted to try creating life.”

Young-Joon had heard this from Park Dong-Hyun and Jung Hae-Rim.

“She was a huge fan of a scientist named Rosalind Franklin. That’s why they named the artificial cell Rosaline. And it started from there.”

“... And their name?”

“Elsie.”

“Elsie?”

“She was a Korean-American. She came into Korea with her mother and ended up getting a job at A-Gen,” Cheon Ji-Myung said. “And she was a really talented scientist, although she’s nothing compared to you, but certainly better than me... I was a newcomer with some good papers, but I felt like she was much better than me every time we worked together.”

“...”

“I often wondered what was going on in her head that she was coming up with these experiments.”

“Do you happen to know where she is now?”

“No. She worked here for about three years before going back to the United States. I don’t know what happened to her after that.”

“And you don’t have her contact information?”

“Hm... I’m sure there’s a number somewhere, but I don’t know if that number or email will still work.”

“Could you please still find it?

“Alright.”

“And did she do any dangerous research or anything like that when he was at A-Gen?”

“Dangerous?”

“I’m asking whether they worked with anthracis or Ebola.”

“Hahaha, nothing like that. She got frightened easily, and she was also nice and innocent.:

“Really?”

“Yes. I took over all her experiments after she left, and I looked at all the lab notes, too. There wasn’t anything dangerous in there.”

“Alright, thank you,” Young-Joon said.

* * *

Messelson, who arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo, met with Michelle.

“Thank you for coming all this way.”

After briefly greeting Messelson, Michelle led him to the meeting room. There were seven men with great physique waiting for them. They were too intimidating to be doctors or scientists.

“They are from the CIA,” Michelle explained.

“The CIA is in Congo?”

“Yes. Our government gave them permission.”

“Hm... I see. I heard from Doctor Ryu that a few governments in Africa and the CIA would be working together.”

“It hasn’t been revealed to the public, but it’s standard for the ECOWAS and the Arab League to deal with this terror in Africa.”

“ECOWAS?”

“It’s the Economic Community of the West African States.”

ECOWAS referred to the organization of West African countries. They shared the fact that they were politically unstable due to religious conflicts between Islam and Christianity, economic imbalances between member countries, and civil wars over resource exploitation.

After civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the organization created the multinational army of the West African Union, with inviolability protocols and anti-terrorism policies to ensure regional security.

“We can’t have the UN army come in because of the issue of intervention,” said Robert, a CIA agent. “Once we find the terrorist organization’s hideout, ECOWAS and the multinational army will destroy them, but finding them is what we’re here for.”

“I see.”

Messelson nodded.

“Did Doctor Ryu give you any hints? He said that he was sending them with you,” Michelle said.

Messelson opened his email. It showed almost all the information about anthracis that Young-Joon had written in a day.

“What is this?”

Robert tilted his head in confusion, but Michelle’s jaw dropped to the floor in disbelief.

“This... This is...”

“Exactly what you think. It’s the DNA information about the anthracis that is going around right now,” Messelson said.

“Oh my... All the ORFs are written down, and all three thousand of the alternatively spliced enzymes... Even their quaternary folding structures... How did he do this?”

“When I first got this, I thought Doctor Ryu made the anthrax bioweapon,” Messelson said.

“How old is Doctor Ryu?” Michelle asked.

“About thirty?”

“Then, unless he started working on this when he was an elementary student... Even the real developer probably doesn’t have this data...”

“Yeah.”

“Wait. The promoter here is a TAC, right? Then, they inserted foreign DNA in this part, right?” Michelle said as she read the data.

“That’s right. There are dozens of areas like that. This is a

de novo

bacteria,” Messelson said.

“There’s the P6K20 gene!”

“It’s from cholera.”

“And M2?”

“It’s inserted as a TRC promoter. Doctor Michelle, this is where the apoe genes that increase the respiratory infectivity of anthracis show up. You’ve seen this gene, RF0012, recently, right?”

“Oh!”

Michelle clapped.

“Red mold!”

“This gene name appeared in Doctor Ryu’s latest paper on red mold. The terrorists transplanted some of the genes that red mold uses to make spores into it.”

“Wait, I know why Doctor Ryu sent us this.”

Michelle smiled brightly. Messelson nodded and said what Michelle was going to say.

“Let’s track down the genes that were inserted.”

“Robert,” Michelle said as she looked back at the CIA agents.

The agents, who were staring into space, came back.

“Oh, yes. You’re finally including us in the conversation now? I was drifting off for a moment. I was wondering what language you guys were taking in,” Robert said playfully.

“Sorry. Robert, the anthracis has a lot of genes that originate from different organisms. And I doubt a scientist from a terrorist organization would have obtained these from a broker far away.”

“Since the more of them there are, the more likely they are to be caught,” Robert said.

“So, let’s track the information that came from universities in Africa,” Michelle said.

* * *

“Hello everyone,” Young-Joon greeted as he walked into the grand conference hall on the second floor of A-Bio with the commissioner of the KDCA.

There were about thirty scientists waiting for him. They all stared at Young-Joon calmly.

“The commissioner will explain the details, but first...” Young-Joon said. “I would like to sincerely thank everyone here. I can’t tell you how touched I am that you’re willing to stay and devise a defense strategy instead of running away from this place full of terror threats.