“So he walked to the police station himself?” Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“Yeah.”

Young-Joon nodded.

𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

“What a strange life,” Park Joo-Hyuk said. “He was doing all kinds of bad things as a big pharma executive and was living his best life. Then one day, some monster appears out of nowhere and beats the crap out of him. He collapses and becomes brain dead, but gets treated and comes back to life.”

“It’s all over now.”

“But no one knows why Kim Hyun-Taek collapsed like that, right?”

“...”

Young-Joon flinched.

“I remember the news talking about it being divine punishment because there were no signs of infection,” Park Joo-Hyuk said.

“Yeah, but it’s not divine punishment or anything.”

“Do you know something?”

“No, not really.”

The reason why Kim Hyun-Taek collapsed was that he had absorbed a fragment of Rosaline’s DNA during his visit to the Life Creation Department’s lab. However, he avoided answering Park Joo-Hyuk because it was too difficult to explain convincingly.

“Now that I think of it, it’s kind of weird,” Park Joo-Hyuk said.

“What is?”

“No one really cares about what caused Kim Hyun-Taek’s brain death, right? I haven’t seen much news about it.”

“It just wasn’t on the news. There was a lot of debate about it in the medical community.”

“Really?”

“There were a bunch of reports analyzing how his heart, lungs, and brain became extremely damaged in a short period of time and later collapsed after he stopped by Lab Six.”

“And still no one knows about it?”

“Yeah…”

“Hm, well, biology is super mysterious. It’s fascinating that there are still diseases that remain elusive, even in the age of reviving the brain-dead.”

“That’s why we do so much research.”

Young-Joon shrugged.

“Are you still working on research these days?” Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“Of course.”

“There’s a rumor that you brought some kid here to play.”

“Uh…”

“Do you have a hidden daughter or something? Be honest.”

“It’s nothing like that. She was a relative, but she went back.”

“You have a relative I don’t know about?”

“I do, man.”

Park Joo-Hyuk glanced at Young-Joon with a doubtful expression.

“By the way, what happened with hiring a professional CEO to run the company so you can focus on research? Do you want me to look into some for you?” Park Joo-Hyuk asked.

“It’s okay. I’m thinking of asking Director Kim Young-Hoon to do it.”

“Director Kim?”

“Actually, he’s already running a pretty big portion of the company pretty well. He did a great job when I went to China, striking a deal with Tanya Manker and everything. He’s in Africa right now, and…”

Ring!

Young-Joon’s phone rang. It was Kim Young-Hoon.

“Yes, Mr. Director.”

—Doctor Ryu, I arrived in Jerusalem now. I’ll meet with the prime minister and hear about the patient, as well as ask about Philistines.

“Thank you.”

—Mr. Ryu, there was a proposal I was working on before I got here, and it was to support biotechnology and stem cell research at ten universities in Korea. Could you please take care of it? I couldn’t finish it before I came.

“Yes, of course.”

—Thank you. I’ll call you once I’m done.

Kim Young-Hoon hung up.

“Director Kim is such a hard worker,” Park Joo-Hyuk said.

“See that? He’s giving me work to do,” Young-Joon said.

*

Kim Young-Hoon met Prime Minister Felus at a prearranged hotel. It was not a very nice hotel, and the prime minister arrived at night with a plainclothes security team. He was wearing jeans, a jacket, and a hat. Kim Young-Hoon realized right away that it was a very private meeting.

“I wanted to meet Mr. Ryu in person, but I guess that was too difficult to arrange,” said Felus, the prime minister of Israel.

“Mr. Ryu is incredibly busy because of the brain death clinical trial project,” Kim Young-Hoon said. “As you know, that clinical trial is not finished yet; it needs more follow-up and management, and he has to write a report on the results. Of course, Doctor Song Ji-Hyun, the first author, will do most of it, but Mr. Ryu needs to review it as the project manager.”

“I understand.”

Felus nodded.

“Is your family or a head of state brain-dead right now?” Kim Young-Hoon asked.

Felus was hesitant to answer.

“We can only help you if we know the details. Right now, recovering brain death is in clinical trials right now, and it hasn’t been commercialized. We can’t give it to just anyone,” Kim Young-Hoon said. “I will only report this to Mr. Ryu, and I promise to keep it strictly confidential.”

“... Yes, I understand. The brain-dead patient is my son,” Felus replied.

Kim Young-Hoon nodded. Unlike Young-Joon, who was a pure scientist, he was a thorough businessman. He researched every detail about the other person before coming to a meeting like this. That’s why he understood why Felus was so secretive.

“Is a child born out of wedlock?” Kim Young-Hoon asked.

He asked because Felus didn’t officially have a son.

“He’s an adopted son.”

“Adopted?”

Kim Young-Hoon tilted his head in puzzlement. It was because it was the first time he had ever heard of Felus having an adopted son.

“Not on paper. No one knows I adopted him because… because he is Palestinian.”

“...”

The history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was extremely old and deep. The Jewish people were driven out of Palestine by the Romans more than two thousand years ago, and the Arabs settled in their place and have been living as Palestinians ever since.

During World War I, the British promised the Palestinian Arabs independence in order to gain their military cooperation. At the same time, they promised the Jewish people the city of Jerusalem in Palestine to establish a Jewish state.

The British made two contradictory declarations at the same time.

Eventually, in November of 1947, the United Nations allocated about fifty-six percent of Palestine to a Jewish state and forty-three percent to an Arab state. Naturally, the Arabs, who had lived there for over two thousand years, rejected the partition. However, the Jewish people entered Palestine and founded the state of Israel with Jerusalem as its capital.

This was similar to the Japanese moving into Seoul and declaring it an independent nation.

Neighboring Arab countries were angry and attacked Israel, leading to war in the Middle East, which Israel continually won. This was because Israel had the United States backing them. As a result, Israel now occupied most of the Palestinian territories.

“And the Palestinians who were driven out created the Palestinian Popular Liberation Front, which has been carrying out terrorism,” Felus said. “Director Kim, I heard that the terrorists who attacked the GSC were key members of that organization. They must have had a lot of bottled-up anger at the destruction of Palestine while the West, including the United States, fully supports Israel.”

“Hm…”

“The conflict is still going on. I saw the Israeli army carrying out a massive bombing on civilians in Gaza. I found a Palestinian child who survived, and I secretly brought him with me.”

“You secretly brought him?” Kim Young-Hoon asked.

“I wasn’t the prime minister at the time, but I was a powerful politician. For a politician to adopt a Palestinian child in that situation could only be interpreted as a political act, not a humanitarian one.”

“...”

Felus looked quite exhausted. Then, he let out a long sigh.

“Do you have any idea what kind of attention would be drawn to him if he was my officially adopted son when I became the prime minister?”

“That’s why you don’t have a child on paper.”

“I wanted to raise my son independent of all the problems on this land, so I hid him in Afula[1]instead of Jerusalem, and he grew up there.”

“I understand why you’re sensitive about revealing his identity. Now, let’s move on to the medical part: how did he end up brain-dead?” Kim Young-Hoon asked.

“It was a disease called progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML),” Felus replied.

“That’s a difficult name.”

“I’ve never heard about it either, and I never thought I’d memorize it.”

Felus smiled bitterly.

“PML is caused by a virus called polyomavirus. It is hard to treat, but it is still possible. There are good treatments for the symptoms, and recently, a drug that stops the infection itself was developed.”

“But how did it get to brain death?”

“The treatments couldn’t be shipped to Afula,” Felus said.

“They couldn’t be shipped?” Kim Young-Hoon replied.

“Yes.”

Felus nodded.

“PML is a relatively rare disease. And because the treatment had just been developed by Colson & Conson, the hospital didn’t have any in stock, so we had to buy it directly from the company. However, the drug was pretty unstable, so it had to be stored at or below minus seventy degrees before use. If the temperature goes up, it denatures.”

“Minus seventy degrees Celsius…”

“They said it would be too big of a loss for the manufacturer to transport drugs for one person from the U.S. to Afula while maintaining that temperature. The shipping costs would be too high,” Felus said.

He added, “If it was shipped in bulk, we could have adjusted the unit price to some extent since the proportion of the drug costs compared to shipping fees would increase, but this was difficult because the disease was rare. We were searching for a way to import it by sandwiching it among other drugs stored at ultra-low temperatures, but we lost too much time.”

*

Young-Joon visited Jungyoon University for the scholarship and research grant agreement. Kim Young-Hoon was working on this project with Yang Hye-Sook and Ban Du-Il. A-GenBio was going to fund scholarships and research grants to train biological technicians and scientists who could work with stem cells.

“Nice to see you again,” Young-Joon said, happily greeting Ban Du-Il.

“I heard that Congresswoman Yang Hye-Sook is pushing for an amendment to exclude brain death from the criteria for death, thanks to you,” Ban Du-Il said.

“That’s great, since now we have a way to revive the brain-dead.”

“But it’s not easy to commercialize such a difficult procedure that involves sticking a fine needle up the nose like you did with Kim Hyun-Taek. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

Even Miguel, who was arguably the best doctor in the field of neuroscience, had problems with some of the stem cells regurgitating during the procedure. Obviously, they needed a more stable and easier method for commercialization.

“I can develop that technology further. But even though we keep hiring scientists and doctors who can create artificial organs, and induce stem cell dedifferentiation and neuronal differentiation, there are never enough. The Next Generation Hospital is facing a labor shortage as artificial organs are becoming commercialized,” Young-Joon said.

“It will stabilize in a few years because a lot of students are going in that direction.”

Ban Du-Il walked with Young-Joon to the front of the engineering building. There was a huge banner hanging there.

“What’s that?”

Young-Joon glanced.

“It looks like the electrical department is having some kind of seminar today.”

Ban Du-Il shrugged.

“I don’t know the details,” he added.

Young-Joon read the banner.

[Alternative Power Seminar: Focusing on Solar Energy]

1. a city in Israel ?