And So the Possessor Found a Way (1)

After Principal Researcher Park Jinseok died, I cooled my head and thought. Raging for a hundred days wasn't going to put a single scratch on those Blood Apes' system. Not in the state I was in.

This is a long game. A marathon. Sprint till my dick falls off just because I'm pissed, and the only thing I drain is myself.

No need to make it complicated. Blood Apes are creatures that drink other people's blood. Flip that over, and they're creatures that starve to the bone without it — bound by the world's most solemn law. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Blood magic, blood arts, call it whatever you like. All of it is paid for by shaving down their own blood and mana. Too hard to take the whole mass head-on? Then do it the way salami tactics do. Slice the problem one piece at a time, and finish the pieces one by one.

And it was time for first-principles thinking. That notion the electric-car boss, Rocket Man, used to keep in his mouth while he ran it every other day about going to Mars. Strip off the whole rind of tradition and myth everyone else has been hauling around, and break the problem down to the physical facts at the bedrock.

For thousands of years the elder bastards had recited useless eighth-grade edgelord verse and gaslit everyone beneath them. Curses, the destiny of blood, lords of the night — bullshit, every word of it. Peel the romance away and look from a purely biological angle, and the essence is simple enough to feel bleak.

What is a vampire? A defective organism that burns up in sunlight, and whose brain only keeps turning if you pour someone else's blood into it on a schedule. Strip the rhetoric off and what you have is a patient with a peculiar condition.

So why did they have to hide inside human society and live like slaves under a clan? The answer was obvious. They can't move by day, so they can't get a job, and since the only thing they can eat is blood, they can't even buy groceries. Locked out of the human economy, they are bound for a basement life more wretched than a refugee's.

The real reason they had lived leashed to the blood and the hideouts the elders tossed them — lived as slaves — was that biological defect and nothing else. Until now there had been no method and no technology, so of course they had crawled, and endured.

But what if someone erased the defect? The moment they stop burning in the sun and can take their nutrition from food, a vampire can go back into society as an ageless, deathless model citizen who pays taxes on the dot and tears into fried chicken on the weekend. The elders' protection becomes unnecessary. So do the clan's rules.

Make a drug that overcomes the sun and treats the urge to drink blood, and give it away free to vampire society across the world. In that instant the Masquerade — a regime held together by blood and fear — comes down in one piece, from the foundation up. And if, while I'm at it, I sever the Upper Bloodline's blood-bound domination, it would be perfect.

Vampires are cursed creatures? Wrong. They're pitiful organisms that tried eternal life once and have been stuck with a miserable bug for thousands of years. Bugs exist to be fixed. And to fix this one, I had to occupy the institute.

The politics inside the place were no different. Don't overthink it. Solve them one at a time. First, I had to become the one in charge.

How do I get to the top?

Up came the director and the team leader, the ones who chewed us out whenever they were bored. Knifing them on the spot was an amateur's move. I had to become an irreplaceable bottleneck and take the real power. And right on cue, an opportunity rolled in on its own two feet.

I was passing the corridor outside the director's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠office when shouting leaked through the gap in the thick soundproof door.

"What are we supposed to do, Team Leader Go! The day after tomorrow is Argentari headquarters' regular audit! If we can't turn in the third neurotoxin sample and the final clinical data report, the two of us are getting tied up and shown the sun!"

"Th-then you might have stopped Lord Cornelius when he was rampaging! He formatted all of it — what do you expect me to do!"

"You think I had the clout to stop him? You bastard! You're the team leader! You were supposed to restore it yourself!"

Director Jo Taesik and Team Leader Go Jinwoo were screaming at each other.

What the hell are those assholes throwing a fit about now?

Normally the two Blood Apes swaggered around in neck braces and treated every subordinate, human or vampire, as dogs and pigs with perfect fairness. Right now they were raving in the inner office.

The inside story writes itself.

The regular report Argentari wanted — Argentari, the real money behind our institute — was nearly due, and it concerned the Anti-Werebeast Neurotoxin. True to vampires who lose their minds over cash sooner than over purity of blood, they were more flexible than a psycho like Edward. Break the contract and chew into their profits, though, and they dispatched an auditor. Worst case, an execution.

And wouldn't you know it. The core of that project had been Senior Park, and that Blood Ape Edward, under the excuse of scrubbing out contaminated thought, had factory-reset Senior Park's computer.

There was backup data on the institute servers, sure. But the director and the team leader, doctorates or whatever they claimed, had brains that had long since set. Worthless parasites, sat in these chairs by politics and parachute appointments. Of course they couldn't make sense of any of it.

And the one who can...

was me. During work hours, Senior Park and I had been the ones mainly on that part. In this entire institute, the only person who could put the data headquarters wanted straight into their hands was me.

I drew one breath and knocked on the shut door of the director's office. Knock, knock.

"Who is it! Have you no sense of timing, right now of all—!"

"Director. Senior Researcher Richard Kim. I came because there's something I need to tell you, urgently."

The door flew open. The team leader bared sharp fangs and threw a fit.

"Hey, Kim! You not seeing this? We're busy enough to die, and some mongrel comes barging in from—!"

Says the mongrel.

It pissed me off, the way he strutted just because somebody had bitten his neck back in the Yushin era. For now, though, I ducked my head.

"I came because I have something to say."

"What! You know what happens if it's useless, right? Huh?"

"The catalyst reaction scheme for the werebeast neurotoxin. I can restore it."

Time stopped inside the director's office.

Both old hardliners' red eyes locked onto me at once, as if they might burst out of their heads.

"...What?"

Director Jo Taesik shot up from his chair like he'd rolled off it and came at me as if he meant to seize me by the collar.

"Y-you... what did you just say? Restore it? How the hell would you know?!"

I ducked hard, put on my best sweet, harmless junior act, and pulled a crumpled notebook from my pocket to explain.

"W-well, as you know... Principal Researcher Park and I were co-leading that project, weren't we? So I handled the data labeling and assisted with the catalyst tests. And before the data was deleted, I memorized the molecular structures and the materials."

Color came back into the director's face.

"I can have it out within forty-eight hours."

"For real? You can actually do it?!"

I walked to the whiteboard, took up a marker, and wrote out the neurotoxin's precursor synthesis stages and the reaction scheme in one long sweep — leaving out, of course, the most critical ratios. If I wanted the bottleneck in my fist, the important parts had to stay in reserve.

"Up through here is the stage-two process. The final activation step is encrypted on my personal computer."

"What? Perfect! Then we start right—"

"About that..."

I stalled on purpose. Both superiors' faces went red, then pale.

"What? Answer me!"

"The process is so finicky it won't work on anything but the equipment Principal Researcher Park used. And I don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even have Gamma Band access..."

The director and the team leader studied the board, and their expressions changed at once. It wasn't the finished product, but these were men with old bones in the field. One look at those equations and they knew it was real.

"Good! Good, very good!"

The director crushed my shoulder in his grip and sprayed spit.

"As of today, you run Lab 3! The project Park Jinseok was on — you take all of it! I'll file the paperwork with headquarters naming you acting principal researcher!"

"Th-thank you, Director! Then... you'll open sole security authority for Lab 3, and the Gamma Band API, on my account. Correct?"

"Take the lot! Tokens, reagent-ordering rights, I'll approve all of it — just have the packet for headquarters in order before noon the day after tomorrow!"

Bingo.

A reliever had walked in to pitch him out of the jam. Of course the director felt good. I felt good too. Thanks to him, Senior Park's authority was in my hands in five minutes flat.

Beep. I touched the newly issued keycard to the door of Lab 3.

Over the desk that had lost its owner, a faint lemon scent of spicy chicken sauce and soda water drifted like a ghost.

"Senior Park Jinseok. I'll borrow the room."

I offered a short moment of silence, then dropped into the chair. I turned the monitor on and logged in under my administrator account.

Done.

I could use Gamma Band properly now. And that wasn't all. I had final sign-off on ordering reagents and whatever other materials I needed.

"Lucky."

Tapping at the keyboard, I started picking carefully through Pentax Bio's internal systems and personnel regulations. Now that I was a principal researcher, I could reach higher-clearance information and internal rules that I hadn't even been allowed to view before.

That was when a grotesque clause caught my eye as I scrolled.

"...Huh?"

The hand on the mouse stopped dead. I read the clause again, and again. This was a designated-survivor provision, wasn't it? The sort of rule where, if the president is assassinated, acting authority passes to the prime minister or a minister.

So this is why, in the original, the company never came straight down every time hunters cleaned out a branch.

The reason for the bylaw was sound. In this world under the red moon, scheming and assassination were everyday business even among vampires themselves. Drink one another's blood and you grow stronger, and the time you can endure beneath the sun stretches longer. On top of that, hunter terror blew up as regularly as mealtime, so from Argentari's side of the table the clause was indispensable if their countless subordinate organizations were going to keep running on their own.

But the current order of rank at the Pentax Bio Korea branch was this. First: Institute Director Jo Taesik, holder of a proper biochemistry degree taken fifty years ago. Second: Principal Researcher Park Jinseok, deceased. Third? Me. Acting Principal Researcher Richard Kim.

Team Leader Go Jinwoo? Nominally he sat higher, but that bastard was a greenhorn who had climbed on politics.

What if the director and the team leader dropped dead on the same day, at the same hour? In that instant, under Pentax bylaws, every authority in this institute would fall to me.

Of course I was only temporary. Whether headquarters would simply leave me in the director's chair a few months from now, or send some other bastard out, was anyone's guess.

Even so, those two have to go. No exceptions.

I couldn't give them a pass as the tragedy of middle management or whatever else. Even on ordinary days they pecked at people and ground them down, and when their own stress spiked they bit the human staff — always stopping just short of turning them. If they ever found out about the research I meant to attempt, they would put a knife in my back without a second thought, then lean on the higher-ups and gorge on richer blood. Counting on Blood Apes locked inside their own worldview, unable to imagine anything better, was idiocy.

Anyway, a way through had opened.

How I take them out can wait.

First, how to bring the people who actually did the work over to my side.

Even during work hours, the institute was quiet as a dead mouse.

In a shaded corner beside the vending machine, two low-rank vampires sharing a cigarette leaned against the wall and spoke low.

"Light it properly. Why are your hands shaking like that? You got Parkinson's?"

"Wouldn't yours shake, if you were me? After seeing that yesterday?"

"Keep your voice down. What if somebody walking by hears..."

"Let them hear! I'd rather—"

The man couldn't get the rest out. He ground a butt burned down to the filter into the floor and let a dry, empty laugh slip.

"Fuck... You saw it. That little girl... The whole family..."

"I know! I know, so shut your mouth! Please!"

The air on the side where the human staff worked was no different.

Crash. Somewhere down the corridor, glass broke. An employee passing with documents must have missed his step and dropped a beaker.

"I-I'm sorry...! I'll clean it up right away!"

He went corpse-pale and hit his knees before he did anything else. He swept the shards up barehanded and split his palm open, but there was no room to feel the pain.

A vampire manager, coming out through a lab door, stopped. He sniffed. The employee shook like an aspen and jammed the bloody hand up his sleeve. The manager clicked his tongue and went on by.

Everyone was at their psychological limit.

Which means now is the chance.

I couldn't run an institute this size alone. Say I cleared out the director and the team leader. Say I got lucky and put Edward down too. If the people who did the work wouldn't cooperate, I was finished. Let one unlucky internal report bring an auditor down, and it would all be over.

Walking the halls, I took in the faces that snagged on me. Researchers who could only stare at the senior's empty chair. The supervisor in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the computing room, gone limp with depression after carrying out the order to format the drives. A few others besides — decent people in decent seats. What they shared was simple. They had been close with Senior Park, and this mess had shocked them until they were sick to death of the insane system.

But this was a game with lives on the table. I couldn't go poking around on feeling alone. Corner a person and they'll sell out a colleague to survive. Scratch the wrong itch and I'd be informed on, and the first neck cut would be mine.

When I came out onto the dark first floor, the blinds drawn, a man was standing blank against the wall. The security chief. With his own hands he had swept up a whole family's ashes and cleared them away. He was someone who used to split a cigarette with Senior Park now and then, easy with each other. Now he couldn't even manage his shift. He only stared at the marble floor.

One step at a time.

There was time. I would tell the jade from the stone.