Fruit of Labor (2)
The judging room for the government-sponsored skills competition.
At the center table sat Sanin Heavy Industries CEO Choi Tae-jin, with Hankuk University professor Han Ji-hyeok and cybernetic authority Dr. Yu So-yeong beside him.
Titans whose presence alone elevated the prestige of the competition.
And yet, for all their authority, the quality of the entries was pitiful.
Professor Han Ji-hyeok gave a small sigh as he flipped through the judging documents in the hologram.
“The quality of these entries is dreadful. It would be lovely if the big corporations participated from here on out.”
“Professor Han, what possible gain would our company have from entering some domestic competition like this?”
Choi Tae-jin let out a scoff and rested his chin on a chrome-implanted hand.
“It’s a waste of time.”
His mechanical eyes scanned the next entry without interest.
Hm….
“That’s a base model of Deesang Robotics’ combat prediction module. The AI processing speed is worth a look, but… they ripped the source straight from somewhere else.”
“Exactly. How little they must think of us to submit someone else’s work with their own label on it.”
Dr. Yu So-yeong immediately brought up another hologram window and drafted a warning penalty notice.
“A lab like that should lose funding and be barred from submitting for at least five years.”
Even after that, the judges had no choice but to keep frowning as they examined half-baked works that merely copied existing technology and dressed it up with a few tweaks.
Choi Tae-jin clicked his tongue in irritation.
“These bastards are planning to show up with nothing but a flashy presentation again this year.”
“Need you even ask? They’re just trying to score points with a speech and pad their résumés with an award.”
Just as they were looking over yet another piece.
Hm?
Something entered Choi Tae-jin’s field of view that had little to do with flashiness.
A work combining beast hide and a metal frame.
“…What is this?”
Professor Han Ji-hyeok checked the submission form.
“An exoskeletal support device? For a natural user, maybe?”
With a chrome finger, Choi Tae-jin tapped the frame of the support device. Thunk, thunk.
A dull metallic sound. He let out a short laugh.
“You’d be a hundred times better off just getting an implant procedure. Why bother?”
“It was submitted by the Hunter Bureau’s Machine Upcycling department.”
Ah….
The three of them wore displeased expressions.
“Upcycling? You mean that scrapyard department?”
“Heh. Looks like the Bureau tossed this in as a joke.”
Unlike the other two, Dr. Yu So-yeong studied the piece carefully and said,
“We should at least evaluate it.”
“I’m an enhancement surgeon, and Dr. Yu and Professor Han are both cyborgs. How are we supposed to evaluate equipment for naturals?”
What Choi Tae-jin meant was that there was no way for him to experience a natural person’s weakness.
But….
“I’ll do it.”
“Dr. Yu? How are you planning to manage that?”
“I’ll just lower my cyborg power mode to make it fit the occasion.”
She pulled up her cyborg settings and adjusted the options.
-Reducing system power by 90%.
-Switching to energy-saving mode.
An AI voice spoke in her ear, and her body swayed.
Gravity suddenly pressed down on her.
Fortunately, putting on the support device itself wasn’t difficult.
No, the sensation of it fitting snugly against her body was rather impressive.
Unexpected.
She cautiously took a few steps.
Oh?
Her eyes widened slightly.
Her steps were light.
She bent and straightened her legs in place, then rotated her waist, marveling all the while.
There was no sense of discomfort at all.
More importantly, the beast hide minimized friction against her artificial skin.
Who knew beast hide could be used like this?
Dr. Yu So-yeong brought up the hologram and checked the submission form again.
“Suitable load: 200 kg”
Her brows furrowed.
She admitted it was comfortable.
But still!
Lift 200 kilograms with a support device like this?
Yeah, right.
Her gaze moved straight to a corner of the room.
She raised a hand and pointed at a test weight that weighed a full 150 kilograms.
“I’ll… try lifting that.”
“I think you’ve shown enough sincerity already.”
Choi Tae-jin tried to stop her, but she had already gone over, grabbed the handle of the weight, and braced herself.
She applied force.
Whirrrrr─.
As the load engaged, the heavy weight rose.
…Hm!
The eyes of the two men watching her widened.
She actually lifted it?!
To be honest, the person holding it was even more surprised.
Not only was it not difficult, the support device was still adding power in sync with her movements.
A little later.
When she set the support device back down, Choi Tae-jin and Professor Han approached.
“Where’s the power source?”
“To put out that kind of output… and the battery pack is this small?”
They examined every part of the support device.
Choi Tae-jin’s eyes fixed on the joint section.
His chrome fingers fiddled with the joint cover.
I’m curious about the actuator structure.
Just as he tried to pry the cover off by force,
Professor Han, who had checked the documents, said,
“The joint section is registered under a patent.”
“……!”
Choi Tae-jin’s hand froze.
If a patent was on it, he couldn’t go touching it carelessly without the submitter’s prior consent.
Of course the presenter would explain that joint eventually.
But they’d strip out the core technology.
So….
Just as he tried to force the cover open, a cool voice stopped him.
“A corporate CEO shouldn’t cross the line.”
Dr. Yu So-yeong’s warning.
In the end, Choi Tae-jin pulled his hand back.
“Tch. So strict.”
He curled one side of his mouth and checked the name on the form.
Im Du-ho?
I guess I’ll have to see what this guy’s presentation is like….
Dr. Yu So-yeong looked at the two of them and said,
“If the global competition is the goal, that support device might actually make it.”
“It could, but, how do I put it? The presentation alone seems like it could use work.”
Professor Han shot back at her pointed remark.
Then Choi Tae-jin tilted his head.
Work?
“Professor Han, isn’t this better than the walking module you’re researching?”
“…!!”
Professor Han Ji-hyeok’s face stiffened.
The fact that he didn’t answer was answer enough.
Choi Tae-jin snorted, and for a while he couldn’t take his eyes off Im Du-ho’s work.
* * *
A week later.
Park Gyu-tae and Du-ho stepped into the lobby of the Korea Industrial and Science Foundation headquarters and both of them dropped their jaws.
The marble floor gleamed bright enough to hurt the eyes.
A glass ceiling stretched overhead as if it reached all the way to the sky.
Even the cutting-edge holographic signboards decorating the space with lavish flair.
Whirr, whirr.
As Park adjusted his tie, his cheap implant made a racket.
Man….
“Im Du-ho. We’re really allowed to come here, right?”
“We’ve got an invitation.”
Even as he answered, Du-ho himself felt himself shrink.
He steadied his breathing and straightened his shoulders.
I didn’t do anything wrong.
Out of all those entries, they’d made it to the finals, hadn’t they?
How dare they!
The fact that a human worse than a robot is judging Mechromancer-nim is wrong in the first place.
Honestly, what they were saying was strange, but even so, it was somehow reassuring in this situation.
Right. Let’s go.
He’d just focus on the presentation he’d prepared.
Du-ho sat in the front rows of the grand auditorium with Park Gyu-tae.
He kept glancing around.
Researchers, university professors, doctors—nothing but them.
He swallowed hard.
No matter how you looked at it…
This isn’t where we belong.
Du-ho looked down at his smartwatch and reviewed the presentation he’d prepared until now.
Park Gyu-tae looked at him and shook his head.
Even then, he’s only here to make other people shine….
He wanted to tell him not to keep dreaming, but he left him alone.
Then, at last.
The auditorium lights went out, and the host stepped onto the stage.
“Good day! We’ll now begin the presentations from the finalist teams of the 2069 government-sponsored skills competition!”
After that.
A technology showcase that felt like an academic conference unfolded before them.
Every time one team after another took the stage, Du-ho’s eyes widened.
Complicated formulas rendered in holograms.
A parade of technical terms so hard to pronounce they seemed designed to trip up the tongue.
Park Gyu-tae leaned in and whispered into Du-ho’s ear.
“I don’t understand a damn word of this.”
“Me neither.”
Du-ho played along.
Heh. I studied all this in the Garage, so I know every bit of it.
Besides, Isto had spent plenty of time cramming machine knowledge from university papers into his head, so there was no problem.
More than that.
He’d expected everyone to have submitted something amazing, but in the end most of it was just slight revisions of existing technology.
Isn’t this kind of ordinary?
The thought crossed his mind.
No, come on, that couldn’t be.
They’re all master’s and doctoral candidates.
And so, after several teams finished their presentations.
At last it was Du-ho’s turn.
He stepped onto the stage and took a breath.
Feeling the weight of the audience’s gaze, he opened his mouth in a calm voice.
“Good day. I’m Im Du-ho from the Hunter Bureau’s Machine Upcycling department.”
His voice trembled slightly with nerves.
When the stage lights struck his face, his mouth went dry.
Stay calm.
He brought up the hologram and looked over the presentation text packed with technical jargon for a moment.
Do I really need to present like them?
To be honest, the submitted works had been dressed up in theory, but in Du-ho’s eyes they kept looking like nothing special.
Dull entries that weren’t interesting and weren’t novel either.
Du-ho skipped over the complicated presentation material and brought up a holographic video instead.
A shabby work uniform.
His father, lifting over 100 kilograms of scrap rebar as he worked.
Then another video appeared.
Inside the workshop, Jang Mun-seo was endlessly forging metal with a heavy hammer.
“The topic I’ll be presenting is a support device for naturals.”
Plain, simple equipment.
He showed a repeated video of it in use.
Park Gyu-tae’s face turned red.
You said he’d prepared well….
“What the hell is that?”
He was about to get up, mortified, when the atmosphere in the audience felt strange.
The scholars in the hall couldn’t take their eyes off the video.
And soon.
They began to murmur.
“How is that even possible?”
“The efficiency is absurdly good, isn’t it?”
“How stable does that support device have to be for it to handle forging?”
The people who knew what they were looking at watched Du-ho’s video as if enchanted and started analyzing it.
Only then did Du-ho introduce the smart actuator, leaving out part of the core technology.
Listening to his presentation, people had the same thought.
Shouldn’t that smart actuator be unveiled as a next-generation technology by a global corporation, not at a venue like this?
Reading the mood in the room, Du-ho moved into his closing remarks.
“If we mass-produce the support device, the unit cost could be brought down to 500,000 coins.”
He paused to catch his breath.
Every eye in the audience was on him.
He relaxed a little and said what he’d really wanted to say.
“I’m sure some of you are wondering who would even buy something like this, and why I’m talking about mass production. But… 60 percent of the population in South Korea, and a huge portion of the world, are naturals.”
He finished by saying there was demand, so why wouldn’t it be possible, then bowed to the audience.
Silence.
And then, a moment later, applause broke out.
Looks like he’d held his own.
Park Gyu-tae looked up at Du-ho on the stage.
The presentation was rough, and it had none of the usual flash.
And yet Du-ho looked cool.
After all the presentations were over.
Not long after, the awards ceremony began.
Prize-winners were called one by one, and with cheers the recipients went up onto the stage.
Park Gyu-tae let out a long breath as he watched them.
I figured he’d at least get a prize….
“Well, that’s a bust.”
“Pardon?”
“You saw it. Even someone worse than you got a prize.”
Park Gyu-tae looked awkwardly at Du-ho, who had nodded at him.
From where I’m standing….
“Your presentation was better than those people’s.”
At that moment, Isto’s and Hoguai’s voices rang in Du-ho’s head.
-Huh?! That idiot’s lost his mind, has he?!
-Mechromancer-nim. Park Gyu-tae, that human. Looks like it’s about time he died.
Just then.
“And now! Only the grand prize and the gold prize remain!”
The host whipped the atmosphere higher.
“Then, the two teams up for the honor of the grand prize are…!”
The auditorium fell silent.
“First, the research team from Hankuk University!”
Thunderous applause!
The master’s and doctoral candidates from Hankuk University cheered and leapt to their feet.
With five teams still remaining besides Du-ho’s.
Park Gyu-tae gave a bitter smile as he looked at them.
So that’s how it is….
“Hey, Im Du-ho. Let’s go.”
“It’s not over yet….”
Damn it.
“Stop standing around as filler and let’s go. You know the remaining teams are better than us, don’t you?”
At Park Gyu-tae’s irritated words, Du-ho was just getting ready to leave when—
“The other candidate for glory is! Im Du-ho from the Hunter Bureau!”
Thud!
Park Gyu-tae, who had been rising, sank back into his chair.
Du-ho moved toward the stage as if spellbound.
Park Gyu-tae’s cheap implant hand trembled.
Hold on, hold on.
That bastard Im Du-ho.
Even if he falls here, he still gets gold, doesn’t he?
“No way!”
He hurriedly called someone with his smartwatch.
On the hologram, the face of Hwang Bong-sik, the head of the transport department, appeared.
-Yeah, Park Gyu-tae.
“Manager, I’m at the awards ceremony right now!”
Park Gyu-tae looked up at Du-ho, who was standing there blankly on stage.
Manager Hwang asked,
-Did something happen?!
“No, it’s just that Geum Du-ho is, is… gold…”
-Geum Du-ho? Did you drink at lunch, Park Gyu-tae?
“Agh! Just wait!”
Park Gyu-tae pointed his smartwatch camera toward the stage.
Through the hologram, the host’s excited voice burst out from the stage.
“The grand prize of the 2069 government-sponsored skills competition is…!”
Breathless silence.
Hwang Bong-sik’s eyes in the hologram went wide.
He must have seen Im Du-ho.
Hey, hey!
-What the hell is going on here right now?!
With his question came the host’s roar shaking the entire auditorium.
Congratulations!
“Im Du-ho of the Hunter Bureau’s Machine Upcycling department!”