Chapter 218: Artificial Organs (7) |
“I’m finished.”
Young-Joon came out of the washroom.
“What did you do in there? Who did you call?” the interpreter asked.
“I had to contact my company to give an order. I’m a scientist, but I’m also the CEO of A-GenBio,” Young-Joon said without blinking an eye.
The interpreter secretly glared at Young-Joon. Young-Joon had obviously figured something out while reading the donor information and called someone. It was probably important, but the interpreter didn’t know what it was. Just as they were thinking that they should check with the Public Security Bureau, Young-Joon spoke.
“Let’s head back now. I have to look at the chart again.”
Young-Joon led the way back to Mei Weisun’s office.
“Where did you go?” Mei Weisun asked as she stood up.
“I had something to take care of.”
“May I take this?”
“Of course..”
“Thank you. We will prioritize the tracking of the one hundred twenty-four people listed here, because the virus can cause subacute necrotizing encephalomyelopathy,” Young-Joon said.
—It’s forty-eight thousand people, not one hundred twenty-four.
Rosaline sent Young-Joon a message.
—This is in the past year.
‘Really?’
—Yes. I found the hard copies of the transplant records.
‘I knew it.’
Young-Joon thought to himself: would they have left these kinds of documents for illegal organ transplants?
‘Of course, they would have.’
Young-Joon was sure of it. That way, the hospital wouldn’t have to take all the blame if something went wrong. Also, in organ transplantation, rejection was usually monitored for more than six months. Considering that all of their clients were heads of large corporations, high-ranking government officials, and their families, there was no way they wouldn’t have followed up properly. And to follow up properly, they needed to have medical records of examination.
‘The one hundred twenty-four people on this list must be a small subset of the rest. They probably have donor identities that are relatively safe to disclose.’
In Chen Shui’s case, however, they probably had to include him because Young-Joon already knew about him.
‘Where are the data on the forty-eight thousand people?’
—In a secure document library on the sixth floor of the basement.
‘Can I go down there?’
—If you go behind the cancer ward of this hospital, there’s a research institute affiliated with the university hospital. It’s called the Institute of Biomedical Research. You can take the elevator to the basement there.
‘So, you’re saying that I have to be able to enter that institute first.’
—Yes.
“Let’s go to the training center,” Young-Joon said to Mei Weisun. “I need to diagnose the extent of the virus spread there and do some experiments.”
“Experiments?” Mei Weisun asked, her eyes narrowed.
“Yes. Isn’t it obvious? Experiments based on PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) are fundamental in detecting and diagnosing viruses.”
“...”
“Speaking of which, I need to use the lab here.”
“Um…”
“If it’s because of research security, don’t worry; you can just give me any spare lab, just as long as I can get in and out of the lab.”
Mei Weisun hesitated. She lowered her head to avoid Young-Joon’s gaze and thought for a while. The security was perfect anyway, and he wouldn’t find a way to get in without a master key card and finger recognition.
“... Okay, I will provide you with a lab,” Mei Weisun said.
“Thank you.”
—But what are you going to do down there?
Rosaline seemed curious.
‘I’m going to gather evidence and expose them.’
Young-Joon stood up as he put the medical records in his bag.
“Let’s get going.”
“Yes, let’s go.”
Mei Weisun also got up, propping up her glasses with trembling fingers.
Young-Joon led the way, opening the door and stepping outside first. He walked through the hallway and stood in front of the elevator to go to the underground parking lot.
“...”
Young-Joon’s body stiffened slightly.
“You’re not going down?”
Puzzled, the interpreter pressed the elevator button as he looked at Young-Joon.
“Oh, sorry,” Young-Joon said.
“...”
He clenched his fists slightly in his pockets. His hands were damp with sweat. Right now, Young-Joon was sharing his vision with Rosaline—the vision of Rosaline’s 8427807th somatic cell.
He could see hundreds of prisons. That’s the only way he could describe it; prison was the only word he knew that could accurately describe this.
The tiny rooms were divided by solid concrete walls, which were excellent in soundproofing. The steel doors were firmly locked, and the rooms were filled with naked people.
The hospital also had young clients, the children of the party leadership. As adult organs could not be transplanted into children, there were also boys and girls in their early teens among the inmates.
Rosaline read the nameplate of a boy who looked to be about ten years old.
[B78494, Pulmonary Transplantation, 17/Apr, Recipient: SB7031…]
Pulmonary transplantation referred to a lung transplant, and it was going to happen on the seventeenth of April, which was a few weeks away. The recipient’s code name was “SB7031.” The important thing was that the child who appeared to be the donor was not critically ill, but appeared to be very healthy. However, they were experiencing extreme anxiety.
There were sounds of people walking outside the door. They weren’t guards; physicians wearing gowns were visiting the rooms of the imprisoned donors, one by one. They measured the heart rate of the donors and drew some blood.
“Fuck…”
“Pardon?”
The interpreter, who heard Young-Joon muttering, tilted his head in confusion.
“It’s nothing,” Young-Joon said. “Let’s go to the training center. Quickly.”
* * *
The Xinjiang University Hospital was located in the central region of Payzewat prefecture. A short drive from here led to Tierimue Town, the northern part of the prefecture. The first thing that could be seen upon entering the town was a barren dirt ground, barely cleared fields, and an enormous wall. The gray wall was a boring rectangular shape that surrounded a huge area, taking up almost half of Tierimue Town. If this wall was in Seoul, it would enclose an entire district. It was also heavily guarded, with towering watchtowers at every gap in the wall and guards standing outside.
Young-Joon was also a little nervous.
‘We’re finally here.’
This was the training camp for Muslim Uygurs, the huge internment camp that has been photographed by many satellites from all over the world. The Chinese government said this was a type of educational institution that taught the Uygur people skills for employment, but the international community did not buy it. This place was already receiving a lot of attention from the media and the leadership of various countries, and it was of great concern to international human rights organizations like Amnesty. The things that happened inside had never been revealed to the public, but now Young-Joon knew—the car he was in had entered the camp.
—Oh my god…
Rosaline froze a little.
It was the first time she had been this surprised as she usually showed very little emotion. Perhaps it was because her vision was so much wider than humans, as humans couldn’t see all the elements of a scene at once.
—What are these people doing?
Millions of Uygurs, all dressed alike with shaved heads, were moving like machines. Eight hundred thousand of them were working as slaves in three hundred commodity factories inside the training camp. They stood in front of conveyor belts, assembling machine parts for twelve hours straight. At the other end, four hundred thousand of them were gathered in the living quarters, kneeling and singing songs of praise to the Communist Party.
“Glory to President Chen Shui!”
“Victory to the Communist Party!”
“China is one!”
In the empty field beside them, two thousand Muslims were being trained to eat pork. They had starved for three days, and they were either eating pork, vomiting out the pork they ate, or they were being punished for refusing.
It was abnormal—not violent or cruel but abnormal. This situation was so foreign and shocking to Rosaline, who was omnipotent in biology. It made sense to harvest organs or commit violence against someone because it was in their interest. It made sense for the strong to prey on the weak. Rosaline could understand making a few species go extinct because it was natural for creatures that were outcompeted to go extinct.
But molding four hundred thousand people into the same shape and forcing them to praise the ruling party on their knees? The absurdity of forcing starving people to eat pork and punishing them when they refuse? This inefficiency and this blindness to any logic was madness. This wasn’t something that could be made in nature. This was something Rosaline couldn’t imagine. She would consider mental illness if it were one or two cases, but the scale of this was…
—It’s not just a million people. It’s a lot more. It’s more like three million people.
Rosaline observed them more closely in shock. The Uygur people’s minds had been broken by endless indoctrination to deny the Muslim religion and praise sinocentrism. Their eyes were hollow, they had broken bones and bruises all over their bodies, and flies were flying into their flesh through scars caused by whips. Long years of abuse and torture had stripped them of any sense of defiance, and their identity as slaves had become so strong that they flinched and cowered when a guard simply raised their hand.
But the Uygur people working in the training centers were the meekest Muslims who were the most “normal” and Sinocentric. It was because they were given an order yesterday to stop abusive behaviors in case Young-Joon visited.
The remaining two million or so Muslim Uygurs who still had the strength and spirit to rebel were locked up in detention centers. They looked even worse. Many of them had lost their minds or were crippled.
Rosaline saw everything at once.
—Why are they doing this?
Rosaline was shocked.
—This violence doesn't have a goal. I understand hurting or exploiting people for selfish motives. I don’t find it offensive in the slightest because it’s natural for living beings, but this is different.
After sending Young-Joon a message, Rosaline took back the cells that were looking around the camp and returned to his side in the form of a little girl. Her face, which resembled Ryu Sae-Yi’s, was filled with anxiety.
—Are you really going to go in here?
‘It’s okay.’
Young-Joon reassured Rosaline as he stared at her.
—But you have to stay by my side.
Rosaline came closer to him.
—You are my priority. I am not angry at this situation, just shocked. But I don’t know what will happen if you get hurt. So, I will store half of my cells and my fitness in your body as an emergency energy. That way, I can protect you in case of an emergency.
Rosaline was being protective of Young-Joon; however, Rosaline was clinging tightly to the side of his leg, as if she wanted Young-Joon’s protection rather than protecting him.
Rosaline was secretly leaning on Young-Joon to release her anxiety.
‘She has so much knowledge, but she really looks like a kid when she acts like this. She’s just like Sae-Yi.’
—Pardon?
‘No, don’t worry. Everything will be fine.’
Young-Joon reassured Rosaline.
‘I’m an expert in these kinds of things. No one will be able to touch us, I promise. I have a plan.’
—...
Rosaline hesitated, then nodded.
—Okay.
Rosaline began calming down a little.
Drrr.
The vehicle stopped.
“We’ve arrived. It’s inside this building,” Mei Weisun said.
Young-Joon got out of the car and walked toward the office of the facility manager. The interpreter, Mei Weisun, and Kim Chul-Kwon followed him.
* * *
“Please collect blood samples from the people held here, and give me some drinking water. I need to test it all,” Young-Joon said.
“There’s quite a lot of them, can you test them all? Have you brought your scientists with you?” Mei Weisun asked.
“No, but we can collect the blood samples together and analyze them using drop sequencing. That will give us an idea of what percentage of the people here are infected. Finding out exactly who it is would be a matter of scaling up the experiment after that.”
“I see.”
“You have drop-seq in the lab, right?”
“Oh… Of course,” Mei Weisun said.
“Please collect the sample. We’ll be busy connecting experiments starting tonight,” Young-Joon said.
But to be honest, Young-Joon didn’t plan on doing any experiments, as he already figured out the situation the moment he walked in. Rosaline traced all of the virus in the area, and the infection source was the drinking water.
The virus was too small, and its shell was cleverly engineered to be absorbed through the gut. Then it entered the bloodstream and spread throughout the body in a matter of hours.
In fact, all the inmates and guards were already infected. Perhaps Lee Qinqin had visited the hospital before his surgery, or perhaps he had come into contact with an infected person in the basement of the hospital, such as using the same drinking water.