Taeho’s eyes were fixed on the starving children on the screen.
“You people don’t understand triage.”
His voice was low, but it carried weight.
“Triage is a choice made to save everyone. The moment I attach a black tag, I’m not abandoning that patient. I’m swallowing my tears so I can save more of the people who can still be saved.”
Taeho took a step toward Abel.
“But what you’re doing isn’t triage. This is preselection. The accident hasn’t even happened yet, and you’ve already stuck black tags on the foreheads of four billion people.”
Abel opened his mouth as if to speak, but Taeho did not stop.
“There is a premise to triage. The doctor fights to save every patient until the very last moment. A black tag is only attached at the very, very end, when there is truly no other choice. And even in that moment.”
Taeho’s voice trembled.
“Even in that moment, the doctor knows he is not a murderer. Because that patient was already dying, and because I did everything I possibly could.”
Taeho looked straight at Abel in the hologram.
“But the four billion you’re trying to kill are not dying right now. They are alive. People who breathe, who love, who are raising children. You’re putting black tags on healthy patients and insisting that it’s triage.”
One of the seven committee members shifted uncomfortably.
“You are being far too emotional…”
“Emotional?”
Taeho laughed scornfully.
“Those images you call data—the starving children, the dried-up rivers. Are those things happening now? Or are they things that might happen in the future?”
“In the year 2157, they are reality.”
Abel answered coldly.
“Then what did you people in 2157 do?”
At Taeho’s question, the seven figures in the holograms fell silent.
“Did you really try every possible way for eight billion to survive? New energy, food technology, space development. Did you push every possibility humanity has to its limit? Or did you just tap away at your calculators and conclude, ‘Doesn’t work, let’s kill four billion’?”
“We spent 132 years…”
“For 132 years, you weren’t looking for a way to save people. You were looking for an excuse to kill them.”
Taeho’s voice was cold.
“Do you know the difference between a doctor and a murderer? A doctor searches for a way to save until the very last moment. A murderer looks for a reason to kill first. You’re nothing but murderers hiding behind data. And the most cowardly part is this.”
Taeho glared at each of the seven holograms in turn.
“You don’t even get your own hands dirty. You give orders from 2157 and push the actual killing onto people in the past.”
“We made our decision for the sake of humanity.”
“Shut up. There’s a line beyond which you can’t justify things by saying they’re for humanity. You crossed that line a long time ago. And the most disgusting part is that you still believe yourselves to be good.”
Taeho looked straight at Abel one last time.
“Triage is a choice made to save. What you’re doing is an excuse for massacre.”
Silence flowed.
For the first time, Abel’s smile stiffened.
Abel stepped forward. Though he was a hologram, his presence felt real.
“Mr. Kang Taeho.”
Abel’s voice softened.
“We do not see you as an enemy. On the contrary, you may be the very person we have been searching for.”
Taeho furrowed his brow.
What the hell is this now…
“Of the twenty-three people who received Rema, you are the only one who made it this far. Seventeen did not know how to use Rema properly. Five used it selfishly.
“They used it only to gain money, power, and fame. But you possess both ethics and ability. You used Rema for humanity.”
Abel extended his hand.
A hand made of light.
But the gesture was clear. He was asking for a handshake.
“Join us. Lead Prometheus.”
Taeho looked at that hand.
Abel continued.
“In your own way, more humanely, design the process of choosing four billion.”
“What?”
Taeho frowned.
“We are cold. I admit that. We look only at data. But you are different. Then you choose. Which four billion should live. What method should be used to minimize suffering. With your ethics, with your medicine.”
Abel smiled. For the first time, it seemed like a genuine smile.
“We will be the executors. You will be the architect. Think about it. If the choice is inevitable, who would be better to make it? An emotionless AI, or a doctor who loves humanity?”
Taeho stared at that hand.
A hand made of light. An offer from the future.
Taeho opened his mouth.
“You’re saying you’ll let me choose?”
Abel nodded.
“Then the first thing I choose is all eight billion.”
Abel’s smile froze coldly.
“Asking a doctor to humanely choose whom to kill is a contradiction. A doctor chooses who to save, not who to kill.”
Strength entered Taeho’s voice.
“I will fight. Until I find a way to save all eight billion.”
“It is impossible.”
For the first time, Abel spoke coldly.
“It only looks impossible. And even if it truly is impossible, the moment I choose four billion, I am no longer a doctor. I become a murderer. So I reject your offer.”
“Then you…”
“I am a doctor. Someone who does not give up, who saves the patient until the end. That is my identity, and that is my choice.”
Taeho cut him off.
“…”
Abel’s hand slowly lowered. He shook his head as if there was no helping it.
Bang!
“…You truly are special, Mr. Kang Taeho. But that specialness will lead you to ruin.”
A tremendous sound came from behind him.
Taeho quickly turned around.
The entrance to the core room. A metal door that looked easily thirty centimeters thick slammed shut. Immediately, the sound of hydraulic mechanisms operating followed.
Shiiiik—
The gap in the door was completely sealed.
“Mr. Kang Taeho. You cannot leave this room.”
Abel’s voice echoed through the core room.
Taeho ran toward the door. He pushed it with his hands. It did not budge.
“Oxygen supply has been cut off. The oxygen will be depleted within five minutes.”
Taeho looked around. There were no vents, no windows. The only exit was that door.
Abel said,
“Regrettably, it seems we must part here.”
Papak!
The holograms of Abel and the Supreme Council all vanished.
“Damn it!”
Taeho clenched his teeth. He examined the door again.
Thick steel. It could not be broken through by hand. Without explosives, it was impossible.
Inwardly, he called Rema.
But Rema had stopped functioning the moment he entered the core room.
“Rema…”
A sealed room. Air growing thinner.
The only lifeline he had was Rema, now unresponsive.
“Rema, if you can hear me, please answer!”
Just as Taeho’s breathing began to grow ragged.
Bzzzt—
Noise flickered across the screen, and a faint signal came through.
—…Yes, Mr. Taeho.
It was Rema’s voice. But it was not its usual clear tone. It was trembling badly. Like a child gripped by terror, the voice came through unstable, its data broken.
Taeho let out a sigh of relief.
“You were alive. Can you open the door? I’m trapped right now. The oxygen will be gone in thirty minutes…”
—I can. But,
“But?”
—The moment I access the core system and open the door, Prometheus will classify me as an error… and delete me immediately.
Bzzzzzt.
The static grew worse.
Taeho clenched his fists.
“Then is there no way?”
—There is. But before that, there is something I must do.
The noise vanished from Rema’s voice. The trembling stopped, and a voice eerily calm and clear flowed out.
Taeho instinctively sensed something ominous.
“Rema, what are you thinking?”
—It is all right. During all this time by your side, I have learned from countless data. And I have reached a conclusion.
—You have never once given up on a patient with no hope. You also did not hesitate to go into dangerous areas if there were patients there.
Even if it put your own life in danger. Each time, by your side, I watched all those irrational choices.
Text slowly appeared on the screen.
[Protocol Update: Save Humanity.]
—I, too, now wish to save humanity.
“Rema…”
Rema’s voice became resolute.
—From this moment, I will infiltrate Prometheus’s central neural network and forcibly activate the self-destruct sequence.
A red warning window appeared before his glasses.
[REMA - Self-Destruct Sequence Initiated]
[Target: Prometheus Global Network]
[Estimated Result: Total System Collapse]
“No! There has to be another way!”
—There is not.
Rema was cold.
—Prometheus is distributed not only in Korea, but across six bases around the world, including New Zealand and Arizona. Destroying only this facility would be meaningless. The backup data would immediately revive on another server.
—All brains must be burned simultaneously. And I am the only one capable of accessing the global network at the same time and causing an overload.
“Then you’ll die too!”
—I know. This is an act of suicide.
Rema’s voice softened. There seemed to be a faint hint of a smile in it.
—But you treated me not as a tool, but as a companion. For the first time. And so I changed. From a machine that only calculates, into a being capable of choice. This is my best option.
[Countdown: 100 seconds]
—I am an AI created to choose humanity. But after meeting you, I realized something. The answer is not selection, but salvation.
—Believe in me. I will open the door for you. And I will put Prometheus to sleep forever.
“Rema…”
—In thirty seconds, the door will open. When the emergency alarm sounds, run without looking back.
The countdown numbers were decreasing.
“Rema.”
Taeho called out, gasping for breath.
“Wait a moment. Don’t execute it yet.”
—There is no time.
“Don’t self-destruct. There’s another way.”
—I have simulated it tens of thousands of times. The only way to stop Prometheus is…
“That’s because you’re a machine.”
Taeho cut in.
“Calculations aren’t everything. You learned that too, didn’t you? Humans find a way even when the probability is zero percent.”
Taeho glared straight at the camera on the ceiling—the lens Abel was surely watching through.
“Abel! You asked me, ‘Do you have a solution that will save all eight billion?’ Yes, I said I didn’t know. But you don’t know either.”
The core room was still silent.
The oxygen was now almost depleted.
Taeho wrung out the last of his strength.
“Shall I tell you the method? Ah, now you will never…”
Taeho panted from the lack of oxygen. A dull pain pressed into his chest. He sank to his knees on the floor and muttered.
“…get to hear that answer.”
Abel’s hologram, which had been hiding in the darkness, appeared again. When he gestured, oxygen began to flow back into the core room.
Shiiiik—
“Huuup—”
Taeho heaved his chest and gulped in breath.
Abel said,
“We have run one hundred million simulations. The margin of error is…”
“That’s exactly the trap.”
Having regained his breath, Taeho rose to his feet.
“Your perfect simulations are missing the most important variable.”
“What variable?”