Chapter 230: Rosaline (5)

“Uh... Oh my god.”

Kim Hyun-Taek’s wife put down the towel and toothbrush she was carrying on the table. She hurried over to Young-Joon.

“Hello, Mr. Ryu. I’m Lee Mi-Sook, Kim Hyun-Taek’s wife,” she said, bowing to Young-Joon.

“... Nice to meet you.”

“Then, I’ll be on my way. Please call me if there’s anything you need,” said the nurse, leaving the room.

Lee Mi-Sook, who made sure the door was fully closed, cautiously spoke to Young-Joon.

“What brings you here? You’re probably incredibly busy...”

Young-Joon felt like he knew what she was expecting.

“If he’s brain dead, he should have been declared dead already, but he’s been on life support for nearly six months,” Young-Joon said.

“... I know he did a lot of bad things, but he was a family man and a father,” Lee Mi-Sook said. “He was afraid of being hated by his family, so he didn’t talk much about his work at home. That’s why I didn’t know about the anthrax weapon and Cellicure until later...”

“I see.”

“I visited Doctor Song once, and I apologized to her many times. I should have visited you as well.”

Lee Mi-Sook bowed.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Ryu.”

“No, it’s okay. You haven’t done anything to me directly.”

Young-Joon stared at Kim Hyun-Taek.

“He’s been on life support for around six months now, right? How are the medical bills?” Young-Joon asked.

“Uh... It’s quite a lot, but we have some insurance.”

Lee Mi-Sook smiled bitterly.

“We sold our house, and we had some money saved up for retirement. We’re doing okay.”

“...”

“Oh my, you’re a guest and I haven’t gotten anything for you. I’ll go to the convenience store downstairs and get you something to drink. Just sit right.”

“Oh, it’s alright.”

“No, please. Give me a moment.”

Lee Mi-Sook hastily left the room.

Young-Joon stared at her for a moment, then pressed the button on the message window.

[Synchronization Mode: Brain Death]

“Ack...”

Young-Joon clutched his head. It felt like his whole soul was being sucked into the vastness of outer space. It was like someone was squeezing his brain in one hand.

“This is unbelievable...”

The Synchronization Mode Rosaline was using right now was the most complex she had ever used. In Young-Joon’s eyes, whose sight was completely merged with Rosaline’s consciousness, Kim Hyun-Taek was being perceived as a robot.

Kim Hyun-Taek’s liver, lungs, pancreas, and stomach were severely damaged. But it was his brain that was the most damaged. There were no electrical signals coming from his brain—everything was completely dead, including the midbrain, pons, and the medulla oblongata.

The brainstem contained the hypothalamus; it was the most complex central nerve that controlled the movement of the internal organs and blood vessels, and it also controlled the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system. As it was severely damaged, thermoregulation, endocrine metabolism, digestive activity, and cardiac function were all lost.

The patient’s pulse was maintained through life support, and homeostasis was maintained by fluids pumped into the bloodstream.

The three components of the midbrain were still dead but had a chance of functioning, like how engine parts of a broken-down car could still be used. There were some salvageable efferent nerve bundles in the ventral area, but the neurons near the spinal cord were almost hopeless.

Then, Rosaline stopped in the cerebellum, the space between the cerebrum and the medulla oblongata.

—The fourth ventricle.

A message popped up in front of Young-Joon’s eyes. He could already see dead adult neurons in the subventricular zone. The blood flow in this space was very low, but if they injected neurons in here...

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

—

Bleep!

The bed that Kim Hyun-Taek was lying on appeared in front of Young-Joon’s eyes. He exited the microscopic insight, where he was floating through each part of the brain.

—Synchronization Mode ended.

There was a message in front of his eyes.

“What?”

Young-Joon opened his status window.

[Fitness: 8.5]

He still had a lot of fitness left.

“Rosaline?”

Young-Joon scratched his head. He saw Rosaline standing across from him, with the bed in between them.

“Synchronization Mode turned off.”

—I turned it off.

“Why?”

—I found something interesting.

“Interesting?”

—...

Rosaline gathered her thoughts, looking a little confused.

—Alright, Ryu Young-Joon. We need to talk before we do this.

“About what?”

—I don’t think Kim Hyun-Taek is qualified as a scientist. This person got rid of Cellicure and created an anthrax bioweapon to sell to the United States.

“That’s right.”

—If we let this person live, he will do science again somewhere else. He may not be able to come back to A-Gen, but he’ll leave and become a university professor in some other country. He’s good enough for that.

“That’s most likely after he’s punished for what he’s done. Even if he can’t become a professor, he’ll teach biology or write a book or something.”

—Do you think that’s right?

Young-Joon smiled.

“Rosaline. You’re puzzled because of Doctor Ref, right?”

—...Honestly, yes

“But I’m not a doctor, and I’m not treating one person named Kim Hyun-Taek; I’m a scientist who is trying to find a way to treat brain death. And that treatment can save countless other brain-dead patients, not just Kim Hyun-Taek.”

—That’s the problem.

Rosaline interfered.

—Your science benefits everyone and gives everyone a chance. It allows people like Kim Hyun-Taek to come back to life and do science again. When you think about the problem that Doctor Ref raised, don’t you think that we’re missing some sort of safety mechanism?

Young-Joon understood what Rosaline was thinking.

“We can’t guarantee it, but we can’t put off developing new technology because of that,” Young-Joon said. “If Kim Hyun-Taek comes back and tries to do something bad again, it will be science that stops it.”

Rosaline frowned.

—... I don’t know.

Rosaline dropped her head.

—When we developed the glaucoma treatment before, we used a mechanism where the stem cells injected into the eye would aggregate and self-destruct, remember?

“Of course.”

—I think we need something similar to that: a technology that puts constraints on people who do unethical things, like destroying Cellicure, trying to harvest organs from living people, or stealing someone else’s research data.

Young-Joon understood what Rosaline was talking about.

Rosaline was different from humans; she was an extremely rational and logical creature. She would only be satisfied when she could calculate and control all possibilities herself. She didn’t like to rely on vague hopes, like trusting people or hoping that better laws would be developed.

“... But realistically, something like that is difficult.”

—Then I’m a little skeptical about saving Kim Hyun-Taek.

Rosaline seemed doubtful.

—Like Elsie said, humanity’s science was like an immature boy who just got bigger, and it still is. You don’t know for sure that Kim Hyun-Taek won’t make another mistake after he wakes up, and you have no device to prevent him from doing so. But you are sure that you want to bring him back to life?

“Yes.”

Young-Joon was adamant.

“I see what you’re pointing out, and it’s a reasonable argument. It’s also true that I don’t have the answers to the questions Doctor Ref raised, but I’m still going to bring Kim Hyun-Taek back to life because I know that’s the right thing to do.”

—...

“If Kim Hyun-Taek wakes up and does something bad again, it’s because society didn’t have a system in place to stop him, not because we saved him. Do you understand what I mean?”

Young-Joon stared at Rosaline.

“I’m going to bring him back, and I’m going to help his family, who sold their house to hold onto him for six months and keep him alive. And I’m going to make sure that he gets the punishment he deserves in court for developing biological weapons and trying to destroy Cellicure,” Young-Joon said. “I think that’s the right thing to do.”

—...

Rosaline was quiet. They glared at each other for a moment.

—Fine.

Rosaline gave in.

—Honestly, I don’t understand it fully, but I get what you’re talking about. I’ll accept it.

Rosaline stood beside Kim Hyun-Taek.

—To me, Ryu Young-Joon, science and ethics aren’t all that important. The fact that three million people are being held in Xinjiang or that Kim Hyun-Taek destroyed Cellicure is not that big of a deal. The reason I cared about those things is because you cared about them. You are my world, and you are more important to me than all of humanity on this planet.

[Synchronization Mode Activated]

A message popped up.

—So, I will do as you please, as long as you don’t get hurt or lose anything.

Rosaline moved to the subventricular zone of the fourth ventricle in Kim Hyun-Taek’s brain.

—I told you I found something interesting here earlier, right?

“What is it?”

—It’s a fragment of the pathogen I destroyed.

“It’s in there?”

—It’s completely inactive. There’s no movement. But it’s difficult to say that it is dead.

“You said you completely destroyed it?”

—I did. But we’re digging into the concept of death, right? We can’t use it here if we don’t even know what the word means.

“True.”

—We might be able to regenerate the brain stem if we inject stem cells here and promote differentiation. But we can’t be sure how this fragment of the pathogen will react.

*

“Is it possible that this will conflict with religious organizations?” Cheon Ji-Myung asked. “Doctor Song, if a brain-dead patient is medically dead, it means that they are coming back to life right?”

“It’s the opposite. If we succeed in bringing them back, Kim Hyun-Taek was never dead in the first place,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “We declare brain death as death because there’s no way to reverse it right now. But if we can, the criteria for death would become clearer.”

“Hm...”

“So reviving Kim Hyun-Taek could put a lot of psychological pressure on the doctors who used to remove the respiratory device from the brain-dead patients and harvest their organs, or the people who received those organs,” Jung Hae-Rim said. “Honestly, I don’t know...”

“Don’t be afraid. We’re doing the right thing. Science is not just a tool to be used for the development and convenience of civilization,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “Do you know this saying: ‘Science allows us to understand the world accurately. Science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated.’ My favorite scientist said this.”

“Is it our CEO?”

“No!”

Song Ji-Hyun shook her head, surprised.

“It’s a scientist named Rosaline Franklin. She thought that science was not a tool for the development of civilization, but the process of human beings understanding the world correctly. Our understanding of death needs to be more accurate as well if the brain-dead people are not actually dead by the intricacies of biology,” Song Ji-Hyun said. “No matter what kind of pressure and resistance there is, we have to do this research, because that’s what science is.”