“We also tried, on the Canada and New Zealand side, to use psychological testing to assign people with severe racial prejudice to team leader positions, but it didn’t produce particularly meaningful results. Haley dislikes poor Asians, but in Team Leader Richard’s case, he had an extreme hatred only for Chinese people.”
“······You handpicked only people like that, and the engineering team still functions properly?”
Could work possibly get done in a situation where hatred and violence by the majority toward the minority existed openly? Michael laughed as though my question were foolish and said,
“Even if there is severe discrimination and inequality, things tend to run smoothly as long as you satisfy a certain degree of superiority. That is why you need me, the one holding the scales, to adjust it. You side with white people over Black people, and with Black people over Asians. You side with men over women, and with full-time employees over contract workers. The rights and wrongs of the incident don’t matter. If the situation is so unfair that the scales are seriously distorted, you simply take care of them just enough for them to barely survive. Those who can’t endure it will resign. If there is someone more miserable than themselves, people tend to feel somewhat satisfied, even if they themselves are included within an unfair structure, because of their sense of comparison.”
“Were the researchers and employees hired for special positions like me under that kind of control as well?”
Michael said regretfully,
“Researchers and special positions are not under my jurisdiction. Their salaries are low and the place is fairly stressful, so I imagine they would have been easier to break down. What a shame. Instead, I understand that believers of the Church of Infinity have separately entered the research center side or are in the process of recruiting people there. The only personnel under my management are the sixty engineers staying at the Fourth Undersea Base. There used to be over a hundred, but many have left now due to resignations.”
They had said the undersea base was created so that people could live based on cooperation and reconciliation, transcending race, nationality, gender, and age. What would it have been like if they had upheld the founders’ intentions? After hesitating, I asked Michael.
“Why······ did you do that? It seems like you set out to make the undersea base into a hellish workplace. Mr. Roaker, you could have tried to make the undersea base a better place.”“So the Savior is one of those people who believes the world ought to get better.”
Hearing my question, Michael looked at me as if he had never seen such a naive fool, then poured alcohol into his empty glass.
“Why should it become a better place? Humans are easily addicted to hatred and negative thoughts, and they enjoy them. If you provide the proper place and situation, they are bastards who like to split into sides, abuse each other, and kill. It is true that the Church of Infinity opened a path for infiltration, but all I wanted was for the undersea base to become a place closer to human nature.”
“······Your thoughts are very different from mine. I suppose that’s why you seem to be taking the lead in tormenting employees through the petty authority you obtained at work.”
You may be the general manager of the undersea base engineers here, but elsewhere, you’re nothing. The hand playing with the glass stopped. Seeing Michael’s expression, I suddenly thought I needed to end the conversation and run from here. But my mouth, like a flowing river, did not stop and poured onward.
“What I learned after facing disasters at the undersea base is that, unexpectedly, people try to consider and help one another without expecting anything in return. There are some who can’t help because circumstances don’t allow it, of course.”
Kevin Wilson of Engineering Team Ma is always dead in front of Baekho-dong. Because he slipped from the impact of the torpedo while running to find the child said to be in Baekho-dong. On the door of Room 77 in Jujak-dong, there are countless handprints. Because the researchers who stopped at Kim Gayoung’s voice asking for help tried to open the door from the outside before giving up.
Through my repeated lives, I had met countless people at the undersea base, and aside from Arthur Goodman and the people of the Church of Infinity, I had yet to meet anyone who liked abusing and killing others. There might be more. There may be some among the people I haven’t met. But even among the believers of the Church of Infinity, there were quite a few who disliked shooting people with guns and pretended not to see us or did not participate. Is what you know as human nature not people like that?
“What you call human nature, I think, is probably just you not wanting to admit your own ugly self, so you wish everyone else were as broken as you are.”
I gave up on the idea of snatching the bottle and smashing it down on Michael’s head.
“The number of people in extreme poverty in the world continues to fall, and education levels continue to rise. The oral health of people around the world is far better than it used to be. Those who fail to make moral and ethical judgments are being condemned, and people keep walking forward in order to live kindly. Even if someone like you appears and trips them, you can’t stop that flow. Of course, because of people like you, Mr. Roaker, they may be disappointed and despair, and the speed may slow a little. But no matter how long the night is, the sun rises. When times are hard, people will help one another, and in difficult situations, they will try their best to make ethical choices. That is the human nature I have seen.”
Michael, who looked as though he was debating whether to throw the glass at me or drink from it, seemed to choose not to waste the precious alcohol and put it into his stomach instead.
“Our Savior is quite an optimist. ······To think someone like you was chosen as the Savior of the Church of Infinity. It seems you were a type of person difficult to satisfy within the church. If I were to point out one thing among what you said, time can flow backward. It can also be made so that night lasts forever. It said that the Savior spent most of his school days in a wheelchair. Before receiving an artificial eye transplant, you also spent quite a long time with sight in only one eye.”
How on earth did they find out something like that? Do they run background checks on everyone who joins the company in order to make them enter the Church of Infinity?
“That’s not in the résumé I submitted to the undersea base.”
Michael quietly stared at my artificial eye and said,
“Based on external information obtained by the Church of Infinity, we judged that a dentist named Park Muhyeon would have a very severe inferiority complex. We thought you would hate those with healthy bodies, loathe the world, and absolutely want to return to the point when the traffic accident happened.”
You thought that because I had no money and was disabled? You pieces of garbage. Was that why I was hired? I hate things like cults and drunk driving that stole my father from me. I don’t hate the world or healthy, normal people. And although I do sometimes think I want to go back to the past, compared to the desperation of the Church of Infinity believers I had met in the undersea base so far, it wasn’t something I truly desired.
“I’m afraid I can’t live up to your expectations. That is prejudice too.”
For some reason, I suddenly remembered the puzzled look Elliott had given me when he counseled me, saying I was extremely mentally healthy.
“After listening to interviews with those who visited your dental clinic, I did not hold great expectations for the Savior, but it is a shame that you are not the kind of person I, or the Church of Infinity, hoped for.”
“What kind of person did you want to become the Savior of the Church of Infinity?”
I don’t want it to be me. Judging from Elizabeth being among the Savior candidates, it didn’t seem like the Church of Infinity wanted anyone particularly decent. I had the thought that they wanted someone half-mad. What about the other candidates, Jamal and Ronald? Michael clicked his tongue as though displeased with me, then continued.
“To tell the truth, I had bet money thinking it would be Jamal, so it is regrettable. But it can’t be helped. It seems only Elizabeth, who won the wager, will be taking the money.”
These Church of Infinity bastards, irreverently enough, seemed to have gambled money on who would become the Savior. Even though I wasn’t religious, hearing this left me dumbfounded.
“······Then who did Elizabeth bet on?”
“Elizabeth said that someone none of us knew, other than the three chosen as Savior candidates, would appear.”
A chill ran down my back. Why hadn’t Elizabeth bet on themself?
“Did Elizabeth perhaps say the name of the person who would be chosen as Savior was Park Muhyeon?”
“There was no such statement. If you meet Elizabeth, ask directly. Elizabeth possesses the jewel prepared for the Savior, after all. It was prepared to be the most beautiful, largest, and most splendid thing in the world. A rare and enormous diamond, like this liquor bottle.”
I remembered the enormously large diamond I had seen in the exhibition hall of the Second Undersea Base. Perhaps it was still being displayed there now, or else Elizabeth was carrying it around. What did that have to do with me?
“What does a jewel have to do with becoming the Savior?”
“I am not a Savior candidate. I understand that only those who possess the jewels can have their wishes granted.”
Michael tapped the triangular bottle placed beside him with his fingertips.
“It seems the Savior thinks of our Church of Infinity as an absolutely dreadful terrorist organization and an insane cult.”
“Yes.”
At my categorical answer, Michael closed his mouth for a moment. It was probably not the answer he had wanted. Michael suddenly downed his drink in one shot, then answered me through gritted teeth.
“I will not deny that to some extent, but to some extent, you will have to reconsider. At present, we are developing the North Pacific Ocean, building undersea bases, and living there, but in truth, even that is not very easy.”
Michael fired off questions in an irritated voice.
“What did you think while living under the sea for about five days? Was it comfortable to live here, happy and pleasant? Did you not feel as if you were trapped inside a giant fish tank? Did you not feel like you would go mad missing the stirring wind and the air outside the sea? These undersea bases are nothing more than leaking masses of steel-frame concrete that require constant maintenance. They are not comfortable, stable dream paradises where humanity can live for a long time. They are merely shelters where we are temporarily living because of the ruined climate on the surface.”
At those words, Michael looked like an undersea base engineer to me for the first time. Michael sneered at me and said,
“With the project to advance into space having completely failed as well, the only true place humanity can now take refuge is not the sea, but the past. The seabed is not a safe place. Look at this undersea base. It leaks water from the slightest impact, doesn’t it? If a fire breaks out and you cannot extinguish it or escape, you will inevitably burn to death or suffocate. No one but the engineers knows just how fragile this undersea base is.”
Just then, there was a sign of someone outside the door.