Chapter 2: Scientist Ryu Young-Joon (2)

The one-month suspension flew by.

All Young-Joon could remember about how he had spent most of his time was drinking Chamisul[1]. He didn’t have a great alcohol tolerance, but the huge disappointment and heartbreak from the company made him an alcoholic. He drank at least three bottles every day from day one to twenty-seven of his one-month suspension. If he were to add up all the bottles he drank, it would be a few cases at least.

The reason he stopped drinking from day twenty eight was not to get ready to go to his new department; it was because he went to the hospital after feeling an excruciating pain in his abdomen. The doctor told him he had hepatitis and prescribed him medicine. He also warned Young-Joon that he could get cirrhosis and die if he didn’t stop drinking.

‘Life is shit, but it’s not enough to kill myself.’

More than that, the lives of his parents and brother would go wrong if he were to fall now.

From that point on, Young-Joon pulled himself together. And today was the first day going to his new department.

The Life Creation Department: this was what his new department was called.

“Hello. I’m Ryu Young-Joon from the Anticancer Drug Research Department.”

Young-Joon walked into the office early in the morning and introduced himself. However, the only person who was in the office was a man who lay back in his chair, sleeping. His feet were on the desk and he was blocking the light from hitting his eyes by covering his face with his jacket.

Not long after, Young-Joon walked over to the lab. It was a tidy and clean lab. Huge centrifuges and freezers were covering the walls and on the benches and shelves were all kinds of reagents, flasks, and pipettes. On the shared table was a kit for DNA electrophoresis and a Gel Doc.[2]

‘They have everything that’s needed.’

Young-Joon looked around the lab before moving further inward. A small plastic tube with a volume of 1.5 milliliters was reacting on a heat block, a device with slots for test tubes that allowed for precise control of the temperature. Looking closely, Young-Joon could see a milliliter of red liquid bubbling inside.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The alarm for the heat block suddenly rang; it meant that the reaction time was up.

“Oh...”

Flustered, Young-Joon took out the sample from the heat block. It was almost reflexive.

[Rosaline v4.87]

That was what was written on the sample tube.

‘Rosaline...’

The department Young-Joon was transferred over to was the Life Creation Department. What would they do in this department? Of course, they would create life. It seemed like fantasy, but they were actually studying that. They were putting chemicals such as fatty acids, nucleotides, and a few types of electrolytes together and attempting to artificially synthesize a living cell by giving the mixture the appropriate amount of stimulation.

This was the superficial purpose of this department; what was meant by superficial was that the Life Creation Department had a different, true purpose: it was to punish and exile people like Young-Joon, people who were cancerous to the company. Creating life was impossible, after all. Pressuring people to get results that were impossible and grilling them about it was basically the same thing as the company telling them to quit.

“An artificial cell...”

Now, Young-Joon really felt like he was in the Life Creation Department. He felt the strength leaving from his hand, which was holding the sample.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

‘Maybe let’s take a look?’

Young-Joon took the sample to the microscope and examined it. After focusing the lens, he observed a few circular cell-like things. However, they were disappearing rapidly.

“I think it needs more salt...”

Young-Joon added ten microliters of 10X PBS to the tube. For a moment, it seemed that the cells were doing better, but then, they began dying again.

‘What a failure.’

The moment he put his hand on the stage of the microscope to remove the sample...

“Ack!”

He felt a sharp sensation from beneath his fingernail. He had cut his finger on a broken glass fragment beside the stage.

“Ouch...”

Young-Joon held his bleeding finger and carefully removed the sample with his other hand. The cut stung.

“Why is there a piece of glass on a microscope?” Young-Joon complained. “They don’t take care of equipment properly...”

Young-Joon put the sample of [Rosaline v4.87] back into the tube and stared at it.

‘My blood didn’t go in here or anything, right..?’

He couldn’t even tell as the sample was bright red to begin with.

Young-Joon stared at the cut on the tip of his finger, and he could see some kind of white foam on it. He glared at the cut, clicked his tongue, then washed his hand under running tap water.

When he returned to the office, a few more people had shown up.

“Huh? We have a newbie.”

The man who was sleeping with his jacket on his face reacted as he saw Young-Joon.

“Hello, I’m Scientist Ryu Young-Joon from the Anticancer Drug Research Department.”

As Young-Joon introduced himself, the man slowly got up and held out his hand to him.

“I’m Senior Scientist Park Dong-Hyun.”

The position of Senior Scientist meant that he was basically a manager in terms of office titles.

Young-Joon shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you.” Dong-Hyun greeted.

“I look forward to working with you,” Young-Joon replied.

“You know what kind of place this is, right?”

“A department where we study creating life.”

“No. It's an exile. Let’s stick together as fellow outcasts. Otherwise, we won’t be able to endure it here.”

“...”

“So, what did you do, Doctor Ryu?” Dong-Hyun asked.

“I put myself up against Lab Director Kim Hyun-Taek.”

“Ah, are you the famous celebrity that cursed at Lab Director Kim?”

Dong-Hyun chuckled.

“I heard about that incident, too. You probably hate the company now, so how come you didn’t quit?”

“It’s because of financial reasons.”

“Are you married?” Dong-Hyun asked.

“No,” Young-Joon replied.

“I’m forcing myself to tolerate this place because of my wife and kids, but it’s really difficult. It would be better for you to go to a different company now, Doctor Ryu. Even if you don’t get your salary for a little bit until you get a new job, it’s better in the long run.”

“Is that so?”

“There are a lot of small companies that pay as much as these guys. The merit of A–Gen is that they give you a lot of performance bonuses, but it doesn’t apply to the Life Creation Department, which cannot perform.”

Young-Joon nodded. What Dong-Hyun told him was true; their pay had indirectly decreased because there was no performance to be rewarded for, and their will to come to work decreased the more the superiors grilled them. On top of that, the other employees in the company either smirked at or took pity on them, as being part of the Life Creation Project Team came with a certain... image. Not a lot of scientists held out long under that kind of humiliation.

“Just let me know whenever you want to quit. It’s fine. I think there were around fifteen people who came in and disappeared while I held out here.” Dong-Hyun smiled bitterly. Then, as if he had just remembered something, “Oh right! Did you see the sample in the heat block?”

“Oh, I took it out and looked at it. I added some 10X PBS because it looked like the cell membrane kept bursting.”

“Oh, how smart. You’ve probably never done an experiment like that. I see that we’ve received a great scientist,” Dong-Hyun exclaimed.

“Haha...” Young-Joon laughed awkwardly.

“It’s surprising that they sent a gifted person like you into exile just because you defied them. These A–Gen assholes...”

“But the cells still died even with PBS.”

“Did they?”

“Yes.”

Dong-Hyun shook his head.

“Well, what can you do? It’s not like it’s the first time we failed. It’s okay, even the superiors don’t expect this project to succeed here in the first place.”

“Is that so?”

“They come down and give us an earful every week about not having results, but just sing a few songs in your head and ignore it.”

“...”

“Well... The year-end seminar coming up soon is a little important, but...”

Dong-Hyun clicked his tongue as he thought about the company-wide year-end seminar.

“

Sigh

, how am I going to tolerate it this time?”

“...”

Dong-Hyun glanced at Young-Joon and tilted his head in confusion.

“Doctor Ryu? Are you alright?”

“Pardon?”

‘Now that I think of it, I was a little dizzy before.’

“Doctor Ryu? You’re completely pale. It looks like you’re breaking out in cold sw...”

The last part of Dong-Hyun’s sentence was silenced by the sound of wind. Everything in front of Young-Joon was going dark as he fell to the ground on his side.

Thud!

Young-Joon lost consciousness.

“Woah, Doctor Ryu!”

Dong-Hyun shook his shoulder in surprise, but Young-Joon did not respond.

“Hae-Rim! Call 119!”[3]

The young woman that was sitting next to Dong-Hyun called 119 in shock.

~

Soon, paramedics arrived. Young-Joon was transported to the emergency room right away. However, his condition was extremely strange. His brain activity appeared to be completely suspended, as he was unable to answer any questions.

Even at Stage 4 on the coma scale, people were able to respond verbally if asked something repeatedly. Being as unresponsive as Young-Joon was usually correlated with Stage 5—total loss of consciousness—or even worse. However, all his reflexes were intact. This was odd. Even in Stage 2, a mild lethargy, reactions to stimuli were bound to be slow, but Young-Joon’s pupils constricted very rapidly when shone with light, and he was extremely sensitive to very mild pain and loud sounds. In fact, in terms of reflexes alone, he was doing better than a normal person.

In cases like this, unconsciousness was usually determined to be just deception. Sometimes, criminals summoned to the police station or court faked being sick and were taken to the emergency room.

The doctor at the emergency room swung Young-Joon’s arm and made him slap himself on the face. No matter how limp one made their hand, they were bound to control the power in their hands without intending if they were conscious. However, Young-Joon ended up hitting his cheek really hard. Then, he twisted his body and wrapped his hand around his face as if he was reacting to the pain he inflicted on himself or was fighting back against someone that was hitting him.

Young-Joon acted the same even with multiple tests. He slapped himself hard enough to make his cheek quite red, then reacted to the pain. It really did seem like he was unconscious.

As the confused doctors were about to do some more precise tests, Young-Joon opened his eyes.

“Hello? Are you awake?”

The young doctor asked as he shook Young-Joon’s shoulder.

“... Yes... I think I’m okay.” Young-Joon put his hands on his throbbing temples and raised his head.

“Do you have any chronic illnesses?”

“I was diagnosed with hepatitis four days ago.”

“Hepatitis.” The doctor nodded.

“Hepatitis can sometimes cause anemia. You should stay and get tested more precisely.”

Young-Joon did not reply. The doctor tapped him on the shoulder.

“Sir?”

“...”

Ryu Young-Jun stared into space with a black face.

“What is this...?

“Pardon?”

“Something is floating in front of my eyes.”

It was a turquoise, translucent, rectangular window. On it were some sentences.

[Creating life is God’s domain.]

[You have created an artificial cell and have become the first ever Player of Life in human history.]

1. A brand of soju. ?

2. A DNA electrophoresis is a method used to separate DNA fragments based on their size and charge. It is usually done in a type of gel, like agarose. A Gel Doc is a lab equipment that records and analyzes the results of a gel electrophoresis. ?

3. 119 is the emergency number in Korea. It’s equivalent to 911. ?