Chapter 348

“He’s still unconscious.”

Anna’s voice sounded exhausted. Lewis could feel her gaze on him from about two meters away, looking down at him. He pretended to be asleep. Remembering the acting lessons he had once taken on how to look like someone truly sleeping, he unfocused his eyes so the pupils would not move and tried to relax the muscles around them so his eyelashes would not tremble.

Then the blanket that had covered him up to his chest was folded down. His hospital gown was pushed up to his chest, exposing his bare skin. Someone carefully peeled off the tape stuck to his skin, then removed the dressing that had been pressing against the wound.

“His rate of recovery is astonishing.”

It was an unfamiliar voice. A dignified male voice that sounded well past his fifties. It was probably the doctor who had treated Lewis.

“There’s no swelling and no redness. It would normally take at least three or four weeks to recover to this extent.... And yet he has recovered this much in only four days. Good lord, truly remarkable.”

“If Lewis recovers, I think he could audition for Zero Warden.”

“Zero Warden?”

“He’s a popular comic character who recovered fast and got super strong after being injected with a super serum. I heard a studio bought the rights, so there’s a rumor they’re making a movie out of Zero Warden. Honestly, right now he really looks like the early experimental-subject version from the original, so I feel like he’d get cast just by walking into the audition room like this. Once he recovers, what do you think about recommending that he audition? It would be a waste for him to quit acting.”

That voice was unfamiliar too. It sounded like a young man in his late teens or early twenties. Lewis had almost let out a sound while wondering what sort of person would bring up such a socially inept topic of conversation, and what kind of people Anna had started associating with. Something cold swept lightly around his wound. He barely managed to stop himself from tensing his lower abdomen.

“His wound is healing quickly, so why hasn’t he regained consciousness yet?”

At Anna’s worried question, the older doctor answered.

“I’ll be honest. It has been some time since I stepped away from clinical practice. And this is not even my field.”

“So? What’s the conclusion?”

“According to the consulting specialist who examined Mr. Lewis....”

Ahem. The doctor cleared his throat and continued.

“They said it’s difficult to pinpoint a single cause. Yesterday, the inflammatory markers in his cerebrospinal fluid were abnormally high, and the MRI also suggested extensive damage. But in the repeat examination we did this morning, the inflammation levels had dropped back to normal, and the imaging findings had also returned to something close to normal. The recovery after injury is abnormally fast... hmm, I’ve never seen changes like this before.”

Anna asked in a frustrated voice.

“So it’s normal, right? Then why isn’t he waking up?”

“I don’t know.”

The doctor answered with a soft sigh.

“I would like to recommend that he undergo a thorough examination at a neurological specialty hospital, but under the current circumstances, that does not seem possible.”

After speaking at length about Lewis’s condition, the doctor changed the dressing on his wound and left the room. Sunk in a gloomy mood, Anna took Lewis’s hand in both of hers and slowly stroked his palm. He could tell her he had regained consciousness now, for the sake of Anna, who was grieving like this, but the moment he opened his eyes, her overprotectiveness would probably begin in earnest. The premonition was so strong that he would rather keep pretending not to know.

Perhaps sensing Anna’s gloom, the young man started talking about the drama Lewis had filmed. He talked mostly about Return to Bunker.

“I really loved Private Norman in Season 2 of Return to Bunker. I practically lived on Tumblr back then. Lewis just had to be so good at acting. He was right on the verge of breaking out as a rising star, and then, of all things, he gets into a car accident.... God, why is it that all the actors I like always....”

To Lewis, the time when he had filmed Return to Bunker felt as distant as something from a previous life. The two of them moved over to the sofa to have a more serious conversation. The young man who kept chattering nonstop beside Anna was named Daniel Park. It was a name Lewis had heard a few times through stories about Siron and Baekgyeong.

“I really liked Siron too. When he acted, it was like he went into a complete trance. Ah, you probably don’t know that expression. Basically, he just lost himself in it.”

“I’ve never seen Yoon Siron act. I don’t like watching foreign films with subtitles.”

“You get used to it if you keep watching.”

“I’m not that invested. Anyway, it’s a shame. Yoon Siron had to meet Baekgyeong of all people, and after that he couldn’t even keep acting, the thing he loved so much....”

“You know about what happened between Siron and Baekgyeong too, Anna?”

“Are you kidding? It comes up if you just search for it.”

Anna sank deeper into the sofa and asked the question as though she had made up her mind to pry.

“Why did the two of them end up in court?”

Anna had never been the kind of person who hesitated to pry into other people’s lives. If Baekgyeong and Siron were here, and the topic of their old scandal had come up at just that moment, she would have asked without any attempt to soften it, demanding to know the story of how the two of them had seen each other at their very worst.

“Baekgyeong... no, Baekgyeong nearly beat his cousin half to death right in front of Siron. And Siron testified in court about every last thing he saw—about how badly Baekgyeong stomped on him.”

“Wasn’t Baekgyeong’s cousin the one who exposed Yoon Siron’s scandal? Then why did Siron testify on the cousin’s side?”

“At the time, Vile Pharmaceuticals was just about to be listed on NASDAQ, so they were extremely sensitive to anything that could turn into a negative issue. So I guess Baekgyeong’s mother manipulated public opinion against Siron behind the scenes. And because of the malicious reporting, the damages Siron had to pay grew even bigger.”

“So in the end, he turned his back on him over money.”

“More than that, it was probably because he felt betrayed. And Baekgyeong probably wasn’t exactly kind to Siron either.”

“Baekgyeong? It’s hard to imagine that now.”

“Baekgyeong back then and Baekgyeong now are two completely different people. Back then, he wasn’t right in the head.”

Anna answered in disbelief.

“Being ignorant doesn’t make people go around beating others up and spewing abuse.”

“No, not like that. I mean his head literally hurt. He had a tumor right in the middle of his brain, and it was in a bad location, so he couldn’t think rationally. The way he is now, he’s much more of an actual person.”

“So this is him after getting better?”

Daniel answered without a trace of a smile.

“It definitely is.”

“What do you mean, it definitely is?”

“I’ve never actually met Baekgyeong in person.”

Silence fell for a moment.

“So the two of you are... internet friends or something.”

“It’s more that I ended up getting his support while helping him with one thing or another. ...Oh, wait. Since I’m thinking of it, let me check my email.”

After Daniel left the hospital room, Anna turned on the TV right away. She watched one news channel for a moment, then immediately switched to another. Like someone waiting for a specific report, she checked several channels one after another. A short while later the door opened and Daniel came back in, and the sound of something being set down on the table rang out softly. But Anna paid no attention and kept changing channels.

“Why is nobody covering it anywhere? I thought the world would be turned upside down. Is the government suppressing it?”

“If that were the case, the posts people uploaded online wouldn’t still be up.”

The sound of a drink can being opened rang out, and Daniel, hurriedly wetting his dry throat, continued.

“The appearance of a new human race is a pretty absurd story, though. If you go onto any urban-legend forum, there are tens of thousands of stories like that piled up already.”

Speaking with open cynicism, Daniel deliberately added in a lighter voice, as though trying to ease the sunken mood.

“Still, it’s becoming a modest topic online, especially on social media. I mostly skimmed past it and ignored it, but I’ve gotten quite a few interview requests in private messages too.”

“Interview requests?”

“Mostly from occult or mystery magazines. I didn’t look at them closely, but... well, they’re probably all the same.”

From the conversation that followed, Lewis learned that the method for manufacturing Rut Suppressant had been released on the internet. But it did not seem to be causing the kind of reaction they had expected, the kind that would overturn the world.

At some point, the topic had shifted to the death of the Police Commissioner. Lewis unconsciously drew in a shallow breath. His pulse became so distinct that it felt like it was pounding behind his ears. Ted Stone, who had always been an irritating obstacle to him, came to mind. And now they were talking about the death of his father. As Anna continued offering her own guesses about the Police Commissioner’s death, Daniel abruptly cut in and interrupted her.

“Oh? Wait a second. I just got an email from Baekgyeong. Let me check it.”

The sound of laptop keys being tapped filled the room, and a moment later Daniel spoke.

“Baekgyeong... no. Baekgyeong sent something to Anna?”

“To me?”

“Look. ‘Please pass this on to Anna McCarthy.’ That’s the subject line.”

Lewis heard Anna shift and sit up straighter. She slowly read down the message on the screen.

“Download the attachment onto an external storage device, store it in an offline environment, and set a password immediately.”

Anna drew in a short breath and muttered almost to herself.

“...Set a password immediately? ...Then it must be material that absolutely can’t leak. Daniel. Do you have a spare USB drive?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Ah, damn it. I need to go get one right now.”

“What about downloading it onto the laptop first and checking it?”

“No, it says to download it onto an external storage device. There must be a reason he warned us this strongly.”

Anna sprang to her feet.

“I’m coming too.”

“Suit yourself.”

After the two of them left the hospital room, a little over ten minutes passed. Lewis removed the various patches and needles attached to his body and shifted himself out of the bed. Without falling onto the floor, he was able to plant both feet on the ground and stand, supporting his own body. In that moment, a vague memory came back to him—of collapsing onto a tiled floor, helplessly flailing in misery because of paralysis in his lower body. But the memory soon scattered away like something he had experienced in a dream, and pain like fire took over all his senses. Lewis gripped the head of the bed and stood there, waiting for the pain to sweep through his entire body and pass.

Once the pain had subsided to some degree, Lewis began to move in slow steps. The place he headed for was the table near the sofa.

A phone was lying there charging. It was an old smartphone, already three years out of date. It was not the one Anna usually carried. But when he drew the lock pattern Anna always used on the start screen, the phone unlocked. Lewis searched online for the incidents and accidents that had occurred in Baggers City on October 20. He wanted to know whether the accident in the drainage tunnels had become public.

There was nothing.

He had expected that, but it still felt as though an immense emptiness had trampled over him and passed on.

The Designer, Isaac Bazelli, whoever had survived. It felt as though the whole world was denying that any of them had ever existed there at all.