SWDnovel Chapter 271: Grand Slam (9)
Chapter 271: Grand Slam (9)
Chapter 271: Grand Slam (9)
“Is that related to Alphonse Lofair?” Song Ji-Hyun asked.
“Don’t try to find out. It could be dangerous. I’ll help you get the decontamination microorganisms a little while after you get back home,” Young-Joon replied.
“You said before that even if I signed a contract with Alphonse, the project would end up being canceled. You said there’s something wrong with him. By that, you meant that he’s responsible for the genetically diseased people in Nicaragua, right?” Song Ji-Hyun said worriedly.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay? I called and stopped you then because you’re a friend that I can trust.”
“...”
“We’re almost here,” said Kim Chul-Kwon.
As soon as Young-Joon entered the airport, he quickly checked in and went through the departure process.
“You dropped your wallet!” Song Ji-Hyun shouted.
She grabbed Young-Joon, who was walking hastily and handed him his wallet.
“Thanks. I’m in a bit of a hurry right now. See you in Seoul.”
Young-Joon took the wallet, put it in his pocket and went to catch his flight with the K-Cops security team.
Song Ji-Hyun stared after him for a long time. She didn’t have anything to do in the United States anymore, but she didn’t go up to catch the flight to Seoul. She spent the rest of the time in the lounge thinking.
She was anxious. Young-Joon was someone who had consistently stood up to big, unethical powers. And he had always won.
But this time, it felt different. Though she had only met him once, Alphonse Lofair didn’t seem like an easy opponent. His background was also unusual. After the Cold War, he negotiated an agreement with Russia to share the Mir Space Station with NASA. This achievement helped him quickly rise through the ranks at NASA, getting him to where he was today.
But he was originally a biologist—an embryologist specializing in genetics.
“...”
What did Alphonse Lofair do in Nicaragua for Young-Joon to be so aggressive? Was it even possible to track down evidence left in DNA? Should she really return home, leaving Young-Joon here alone?
“Phew...” Song Ji-Hyun let out a sigh and walked to the vending machine.
Her fingers froze as she was about to press the button for hot cocoa. She remembered the strange girl who had yelled about the bacteria floating on the cocoa because the filter hadn’t been changed.
‘Rosaline.’
Song Jong-Ho said he had seen her in his hallucinations. Rosaline had appeared out of nowhere when Song Ji-Hyun stepped out of the hospital room at the Next Generation Hospital for a moment, but Young-Joon didn’t explain where she came from. He also didn’t tell her where she lived in the States when she asked.
“I don’t understand...”
“Excuse me...”
Someone called Song Ji-Hyun from behind. It was an Arab man with a handsome beard.
“Hello,” Song Ji-Hyun replied, a little wary.
“Nice to meet you, Doctor Song. May I speak with you for a moment?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Yassir, a founding member of Philistines, a botulinum toxin pharmaceutical company in Egypt.”
“Philistines?”
Song Ji-Hyun’s eyes widened. The events that happened in the Middle East had become quite publicized. What happened to Doctor Ref, the violent terrorist who was captured, wasn’t covered, but it was revealed that she was connected to a company called Philistines, which the Egyptian government was investigating.
“... I thought your executives were being investigated by the Egyptian police right now,” Song Ji-Hyun said.
“We’ve already been investigated. It’s mostly circumstantial evidence, and I guess there was nothing ‘in Egypt’ that would prohibit me from leaving the country.”
Yassir shrugged.
“Well, we’re only guilty of illegally importing botulinum toxin through a woman named Isaiah Franklin. We have been studying the polyomavirus, but it’s just the CIA’s claim that we’ve released it somewhere. Besides, even if we did, it’s not a dangerous species in the first place. It’s a little... too much to ban someone from leaving the country just for smuggling some bacteria, right?”
Knock knock.
Someone knocked on his door. It was James Holdren, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He came in with a bottle of vodka and two classes.
“Holdren?”
“I’m retiring soon. How about having a drink with me?”
“...”
James poured some vodka into the glasses.
“You don’t look so good.”
“I’ve got a problem.”
“Is it Lofair?”
“...”
“There’s one unwritten rule for the President of the United States: don’t mess with the Lofairs,” James said. “The FRB, the central bank that produces our dollars, is a private bank. It’s basically owned by the Lofair family, and every president who has tried to nationalize it has been severely attacked, politically and physically.”
“...”
“President Lincoln, who rejected the central banking system and implemented Greenback, and President Kennedy, who tried to give the power to print money to the Treasury, were both assassinated,” James said. “President Andrew Jackson also rejected the central bank and suffered an assassination attempt.”
“It’s not a democracy,” Campbell said bitterly. “I was elected by the people, but there are too many people in this country to fear, of which Lofair is the scariest. This country is their kingdom.”
“What about Doctor Ryu?” James asked. “I told Doctor Ryu to not mess with Lofair and go back home, but instead, he called in hundreds of medical personnel from South Korea and marched into Nicaragua.”
“...”
“Those people, who are immersed in Doctor Ryu’s new technology and scientific revolution, are very loyal to him. You have to think of them as a very unique form of a private army. If they borrow a hospital from Nicaragua and just sit there, it becomes a sacred sanctuary.”
“I suppose.”
“They open the eyes of the blind, make the paralyzed walk, and cure genetic diseases. If he stays in such a place, no one can harm Doctor Ryu. Moreover, all eyes will be on him since it’s their first visit. In that situation, what do you think will happen if he brings up Groom lake?”
“But they said they covered up all the evidence. No matter how much of a genius he is, what would he find there?”
“You never know. How could we understand the mind of a genius? But Mr. President, I’m going to fulfill my duty as a friend who has served in your cabinet for a long time and as the advisor of science and technology policy to the White House,” Holdren said. “Stand with Doctor Ryu.”
James stared at Campbell.
“He never loses. Stand with Doctor Ryu and bring down Lofair.”
*
The Nicaraguan government welcomed Doctor Ryu and more than six hundred medical staff as a state guest. The treatments shipped by sea from A-GenBio using a cold chain seemed endless.
“Thank you so much.”
Mistega, the president of Nicaragua, shook hands with Young-Joon.
“We have renovated several buildings in the Kukra Hill area and prepared them to be used as hospital wards. They are not yet fully equipped, but...”
“As you know, this is not just a visit by our doctors but an academic exchange. We need medical staff from Nicaragua to join us.”
“Our doctors and nurses have been very eager to participate. They’re all waiting for you,” said Mistega.
“Thank you.”
With an introduction from Mistega, Young-Joon led the A-GenBio and Next Generation Hospital staff to the medical center in Kukra Hill. There, local doctors were already seeing patients. The patients, who had heard that Young-Joon was coming, had lined up two days in advance. So, the doctors, who were already there setting up rooms and waiting, had begun to treat them.
“There’s something I want to ask of you when doing blood tests for patients with genetic diseases,” Young-Joon said to the professors of the Next Generation Hospital. “When there is damage to the DNA, a few sequences are inserted or removed in the process of the body repairing it. These are called indels, and these marks are left behind when DNA is edited with gene scissors like TALENs or radiation.
“It’s usually very difficult to analyze them because they’re random, but A-GenBio can do it. Please extract the DNA from the blood sample and send it to the research team.”