Baekdu Daegan Global Seed Vault (1)
[People out there are terrified of the irreversible loss of chances to pursue happiness.] Kids said.
I'm listening to her radio broadcast over lunch. Today's menu is a hamburger set: a beef burger stuffed with veggies from the hydroponics farm between thin rye buns, homemade potato chips grilled without a drop of oil, and zero-sugar cola. I told Artemis I was craving fast food after ages, but she served up something so healthy it didn't feel remotely junky.
[In simple terms, it's worries about pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause.]
"That's a heavy topic," I muttered.
Kids' broadcasts come in all sorts, but they're mostly entertainment and education. Op footage from robot squads out on external recon. Apocalypse-edition Animal Kingdom shot by drones. Labor interviews from Shelter workers. Pre-war stories from residents. Promo spots to build that sense of city belonging. Getting residents on-air has really fleshed out the content—I even did a flirt segment with a former voice actress once.
Compared to that stuff, this one's intense.
[I know it's sensitive. But we can't just ignore it. Having kids might mean nothing to some, but it's a dream for others. And the fear of growing old alone without children? Can't dismiss that either.]
This issue's been gnawing at me ever since the offshore prison rescue. But realistically, there's no easy answer.
[Most of you are young, but some are nearing forty in a few years. Factoring in the wrecked outside world, by the time we get real chances, your bodies might be too old. But there's hope—please know that.]
I can guess where Kids is headed. It's the topic I greenlit for broadcast recently.
[Shelter Command is pushing tech development across the board for rebuilding civilization: defense, energy, food, clothing, entertainment, medicine—you name it.]
A video popped up on my PDA. It's radio by default, but it supports visuals for key attachments like this.
[A breakthrough: tech to reactivate ovaries in post-menopausal women and generate fresh eggs.]
The screen showed a 3D render of a woman's uterus and ovaries. Something injected into the discolored, dormant ovaries turned them peach-pink and pulsing. Eggs started forming one by one. Stylized as hell—not realistic—but good for getting the point across.
[Pair it with our existing artificial insemination tech, and infertility's licked. A lifeline for anyone who thought they'd never hold their own blood.]
Better not to know how we got that hopeful tech.
[Commercial rollout'll take time. And finding a hubby out there? That's another tangle. But we untie knots one by one. We've cracked the toughest part.]
Not everyone needs to know the gory details. Especially not in times like these.
[This tech's just the opening act for a new era. We might be in an apocalypse world, but we won't give up on brighter tomorrows.]
♪ [Soft music fades in.] ♪
[Next time, more fun and good news. Your clown for joy, your most loyal messenger—Kids, signing off!]
Central Control Room.
A massive screen looms before me, displaying research profiles from the Blood Pack Technology underground clinical lab we secured. Nations where pharma boomed off unethical wartime human experiments. Countries trading that intel on the sly. History's packed with cases too solid to dismiss as conspiracy.
We could debate the ethics of using vs. scrapping it all. But in this shit world? Priorities.
I rest my mouth on my clasped hands, scanning the profile.
Name:Park Ji-hye
Gender:Female
Age:48
Status:Class 2 Cargo
Progress:Severe mutation in restraints. Vaginal walls protrude snake-like.
Medical Notes:Menopause 3 years prior; imaging shows abnormally active ovaries.
Action:Lead researcher ordered live study; military commander demanded euthanasia. Ovaries/uterus extracted for separate analysis.
Blood Pack data. Stuck in my head 'cause it's so striking. The woman was midway mutating into what we call a Lamprey Mother. Full mutation: massively swollen uterus packed with eel-like monster pups resembling seven-star lampreys. Spot an enemy? Fires 'em out like a wind gun via that elongated vaginal wall.
"Medical records show menopause three years ago, but imaging detects abnormally active ovaries." That's the key.
Blood Pack studied this human-Lamprey Mother hybrid and birthed the new tech: rewind reproductive organs to pre-menopause, generate young eggs, restore peak fertility. First case of weaponizing infected science, maybe.
[It's nearly complete. Filling the gaps won't be hard. At most a year?]
Per Artemis, the unfinished bits don't need more human trials—just nanobot algorithms and animal tests. She'll handle the code; animal embryos from the fourth expy site, the Seed Vault, cover the rest.
[What say you? Push this research forward?]
I authorized it for Artemis a week back, and gave Kids broadcast clearance three days ago.
Residents have fully adapted to Shelter life. Over half now call it "home." With survival basics squared away, loftier cravings are bubbling up—closer to anxiety, really. Fears about family, the future.
We can't fix it all, but shining a beacon of hope? Piece of cake.
Kids predicted announcing this would ease those jitters. Nailed it.
A few days later.
Fourth expedition: to the Global Seed Vault. Longest haul yet by chopper—nothing compares.
Landscapes whip by below: scars of the infected war and beyond. Nuked cities? The "lucky" ones, charred and torn. Skeletons half-buried in weeds. Mental gymnastics could call it abandoned castle vibes. Sue me—nuke chic's the new normal.
"Kieeeek-!"
Down there, hordes of infected reach for the sky. Our chopper: an angel lost in hell's basement. Too far for faces, but that sea of waving hands? More horrifying than twisted hunger-masks.
"Brutal."
Infected charge skyward, crashing into each other like dominoes. They scramble up, tangle, fall again. Crawling, still stretching for us. Pathetic, almost funny. Almost.
"Nuked to fairy dust, huh."
Unnuked ruins? All end up infested hellholes. If it's gonna be rubble anyway, silent castle beats monster den, right?
Thank fuck, not all doomscroll. Beyond civvy zones: green life everywhere. Birds raucous even up here. Dodged a massive migratory flock—Artemis had to detour big-time.
Deer, roe deer, boars, even bears multiple times. They roam weed-choked bloom roads free. Mountains already invading suburbs with green.
Occasional walker chases, but most shake 'em. Wild game's tough; walkers struggle more than armed humans. Saw one get boar-tossed meters away, KO'd. Trailing it: feral farm pigs, shaggy as hell.
Dams: man vs. nature icons turned waterfalls. Overflow greenslime and vines. Beast packs along riverbanks.
Then cities: monster overflow ruins. One side: civ's decay, infected chaos. Other: nature's resilient wonder.
"Artemis. Saw those city-packed infected earlier?"
[Obviously.]
"Used to hate those urban swarms blocking expees."
Ruined Blood Pack nearly fatally.
"Now? Kinda glad they're clumped urban. Beats spreading everywhere."
[...]
Artemis stays silent. My chopper slices endlessly over Korea's remnants.
[Arriving soon.]
Target: isolated mountaintop facility at 600m elevation, away from urban hell. Minimal infected threat.
But ops always throw curves.
Nearing the Seed Vault.
[Something you need to see.]
Artemis beams real-time footage to my PDA—from a scout drone ahead of the chopper, sniffing dangers.
One spotted something.
"A tree? That a tree?"
Massive. So huge I first thought structure. Towering on the peak: straight central trunk skyward, sides fanned with long, dense branches. Like a skinned fish upside-down, fins tripled in length and count. Branches snow-white, no leaves. Wind-sway: giant feather duster.
"Infected too? Or Noise Tree?"
[Could be both.]
Feed switches thermal. Red heat sources pulse through branches like bloodflow.
Then—PDA glitches. Noise spikes two seconds, goes black.
NO SIGNAL
Link severed.
[Brace!]
Vrooom—
"Whoa!"
Chopper banks hard. Scout protocol: unknown threat? Auto-evade.
Grip the ceiling strap as it tilts sharp. Brain races.
Drone glitch? Bull. Artemis' code's flawless. No software hiccups ever.
Shot down? By what? No aerial infected confirmed.
Questions swarm—then beep. Feed restores. Drone fine, retransmitting tree—from safer distance.
"What the hell?"
Not EMP—that'd crash us.
[Radio jamming.]
[That tree blocked comms. Drone auto-switched to manual return toward us, broke jamming range, reconnected.]
"What?"
Speechless. Tree or no, that massive thing sways gently on-screen.