Kim Ga-yeong’s eyes went wide as if she’d been struck by lightning, and she began writing. Employees from the three restaurants, research assistants and office staff, security guards… The man spoke as if he had been wronged.
“That bitch Belial Riley sent out the little brats and the disabled ones first.”
Kim Ga-yeong, who worked at the Undersea Pollution Center, saw my expression and quickly scrawled on the paper. Belial Riley, director of the Undersea Pollution Center. Hearing that, Yugeum said expressionlessly toward the door.
“Then that means you’re an able-bodied man who wasn’t prioritized for the escape craft. Was the freight elevator unusable?”
“It had stopped. Answer my question first. Why did you come here?”
Lee Ji-hyeon wrote to Yugeum, saying she had a good idea and to stall for time, then held it up. Then she started searching for something through Roaker’s pad. Yugeum looked at the three of us and smiled faintly. Then, looking back at the iron door, she erased the smile and answered.
“Do you know what was in the empty round tanks beside you? Jellyfish. Eleven research teams have studied them for thirty years. The things in that empty rectangular tank behind you were also studied for forty years by more than two hundred researchers, who wore away their money, intelligence, effort, and lives for them.”
Yugeum loosened her stiff shoulders and neck, rolling them, then began to explain.
“Originally… most jellyfish live for less than a year. But some jellyfish live forever. After several species of jellyfish were discovered that return to a young state before dying of old age or because the external environment becomes unfavorable, people judged that these traits could help extend human life. Even now, there are many people suffering from incurable or terminal diseases, so if there were a way to return those people to an infant state before they got sick, immortality wouldn’t be just a dream, would it? I couldn’t stand by knowing that six thousand jellyfish, which might have lived alongside Earth since 4.6 billion years ago, would all die because of actions I didn’t take. They live forever. If I hadn’t released them, creatures that would have lived immortally would all die simply because they were trapped here.”
Looking at the iron door, Yugeum spoke as if troubled.
“The team two labs over was researching coral reefs so they could grow even in severe ocean pollution. I saw a researcher who worked there dead in the fourth-floor corridor. I can’t open their lab door, so I can’t go in, but I can enter my lab and this one. Even if our efforts are small, future generations may one day live by taking nourishment from them. In fifty years—no, a hundred years after I die—the sea may look blue and transparent again. Do you know how many people, how much money, and how much time have been invested here? I came here because I hated the thought of all that just going up in smoke.”
Yugeum exhaled as if sighing, then continued.
“People like you probably won’t understand what I’m saying. You might think I’m wasting time more precious than gold, holed up in a lab just to release some jellyfish, when there’s no immediate benefit and my own life might be on the line. Or you might think one human life is more important than the lives of hundreds or thousands of animals.”
Lee Ji-hyeon, who had been listening, flinched, but did not react any further.
“You might think I’m uselessly wasting my life for resources and welfare that my own generation will never enjoy. I don’t want to spend my precious time trying to persuade people like you. In that time, I’ll do what I want without worrying about other people. My answer is finished, so now I’ll ask. Why are you trying to get into this lab?”
The man let out a short, irritated ha.
“Every last bitch has no sense of reality in her head. The more I hear what’s inside the heads of doormat bastards like you, the more disgusted I get. If you wanted to live like that, you should’ve had kids and spent your life volunteering nonstop. Why come into an undersea base and torment perfectly normal people?”
I couldn’t tell whether he was cursing Belial, Angela, or Yugeum. Lee Ji-hyeon, who had been looking at Roaker’s pad, kept sighing heavily and wrote, I can’t find it. It seemed the program displayed on Michael Roaker’s pad was a screen used by people with approval authority, different from the screen used by ordinary engineers like Lee Ji-hyeon. Lee Ji-hyeon gestured for me to give her one more pad, and I quickly pulled my pad from my bag and handed it over.
By the time I checked on the cat and the snake in my bag, Kim Ga-yeong was writing names in her notebook nonstop. She had even taken off the translator earring from her ear, and was tilting her head as she crossed out the names she had written, one by one from the top. Though Yugeum seemed dumbfounded by the other person’s words, she looked at us and answered steadily.
“I do a lot of volunteer work. I especially teach basic science to adults. Surprisingly, there are quite a few people over thirty who want to study science. And you still haven’t answered my question. Seeing the third and fourth floors, you’ve been hurting a lot of innocent people. …There’s no real need for you to come into this lab. My research can’t help you as you are now. It isn’t attacking you either.”
In the end, Lee Ji-hyeon seemed to have failed to find what she wanted on Roaker’s pad. “If you don’t have teeth, you make do with your gums.” After muttering that quietly, Lee Ji-hyeon logged out of my ID on my pad and logged in with her own. She entered the engineer system, submitted a leave request on behalf of Shin Haeryang, who was her approver, then approved it through Michael Roaker’s pad and sent him off on same-day leave.
…What was she doing? Now Lee Ji-hyeon was submitting an approval request under her own name regarding the electrical systems of the Deep-Sea Life Center. With Shin Haeryang, the approver, absent, she was able to send the approval request directly to Michael Roaker. Lee Ji-hyeon wrote her approval request document extremely simply. On the other hand, below that text, the electronic system was demanding an enormous amount.
Approval Request: a
Reason for Approval Request: a
When she submitted the approval like that, a window popped up telling her to enter at least five characters, and I could feel Lee Ji-hyeon silently swearing at the pad. After clenching her jaw once, Lee Ji-hyeon wrote again. Surely the engineers didn’t all write documents like that, right? She was just busy, right?
Approval Request: aaaaa
Reason for Approval Request: aaaaa
And when the approval request went up to Michael Roaker, Lee Ji-hyeon used Roaker’s pad to press the approval button on the approval document she had submitted. Once it was properly approved, Lee Ji-hyeon let out a sigh, then held my pad and checked the approved approval details. The man was speaking to Yugeum in an annoyed voice.
“I thought you came from the Main Operations Building. I figured if you got in, there’d be a way out too.”
I looked at the bottle of hydrochloric acid between Kim Ga-yeong and me and wondered whether I could take it in my bag. I also thought about what benefits I could gain by taking it and attacking someone with it. But because I didn’t even want to imagine the terrible things that would happen if it broke, I only thought about it briefly and then gave up.
Before I knew it, Kim Ga-yeong was narrowing her eyes and circling one person’s name several times with her pen. Then, noticing my gaze, she wrote to me.
[It’s probably this bastard.]
Arthur Goodman. After writing down and crossing out the names of countless men, Kim Ga-yeong put the translator back in her ear. Then, with a scratching sound, she wrote with her pen.
[He works in the lab two doors over. White, curly brown hair, tall and thin, with an ordinary-looking face. I think he does waste-related research like us.]
Lee Ji-hyeon glanced at what Kim Ga-yeong had written, but immediately turned her head back toward Roaker’s pad. Then Lee Ji-hyeon bit her lip once and wrote in the notebook with her pen.
[I can turn off all the lights in the Deep-Sea Life Center. And I can raise the bulkhead leading to the third-floor Undersea Pollution Center. If what he said is certain, there probably won’t be an escape craft, but wouldn’t it still be better to take the elevator? Going to the elevator is an extremely dangerous choice, but probably unless someone operates it—]
[I trust you!]
Kim Ga-yeong blocked Lee Ji-hyeon’s pen with her own and wrote. Lee Ji-hyeon looked at me once, then looked at Yugeum and nodded. Then Lee Ji-hyeon pressed the bulkhead section on Roaker’s pad.
[Would you like to open the sealed bulkhead?]
It was a message I had seen before. I had chosen it when coming from the Main Operations Building into the Deep-Sea Life Center. After pressing the [Yes] button, Lee Ji-hyeon confirmed that the bulkhead disappeared from the map screen, then pressed her finger on the pad again.
[Would you like to seal with the bulkhead?] The [Yes] and [No] buttons appeared, but Lee Ji-hyeon pressed nothing and turned off the pad screen. Now Lee Ji-hyeon was looking at the buttons located below the document approved as aaaaa on my pad. I put my bag back on my shoulders. Kim Ga-yeong wrote one last thing in the notebook.
[The power’s going to go out. When that happens, come to us!]
I lifted it and waved it at Yugeum. When Yugeum nodded, Kim Ga-yeong gathered up the notebook and pens and scattered them back on the researchers’ desks. Yugeum let out a long sigh, then spoke leisurely to the other party.
“You should know my personality from the conversation we’ve had so far, but I’m not someone who acts by calculating gains and losses like that. And even if I could help you, I’m sure you don’t think I’d help a person killing people in a situation like this.”
“Don’t you think a situation like this is exactly why you should kill more? You can use this chance to kill the bastards you didn’t like or the things you didn’t like in everyday life. If the undersea base collapses or whatever, the fish will eat the corpses anyway. Stop being fake and think carefully. You must’ve had plenty of people you didn’t like too.”
Yugeum frowned. Then, putting strength into her stomach, she shouted.
“Hey, you selfish bastard. I’m different from you! That’s why you’re trapped in here! Because when other people reached out their hands, you were the kind of bastard who only looked for a chance to bite off their fingers! You can’t get out because Angela lowered the bulkhead and broke the pad as she died, can you?! While the researchers left here risked their lives to find their own labs, all you thought about was killing them!”
The man beyond the iron door fell silent for a moment. I took one of Lee Ji-hyeon’s hands. Then Lee Ji-hyeon placed one pad on her forearm and spread out my fingers, using them to press the buttons for the approved contents. …It seemed turning off the lights of an entire research center was not an easy thing.
Kim Ga-yeong held one pad. Kim Ga-yeong, Lee Ji-hyeon, and I stood in a long single file in that order. I closed my eyes and reached out toward Yugeum. The man’s bored voice rang out.
“I don’t need you anymore.”
In the darkness, I felt the sensation of a hand taking mine. It seemed she had unfolded her arms.