New Drug Development (4)
Nano World.
A cabin at the entrance of the cancer-cell dungeon.
I stared at the screen Illys showed me, full of admiration.
"Whoa. These cancer cells are no joke."
The recruit hunter cell had been brainwashed.
At first, it had clearly tried to fight the cancer cells. It had even held its own for a while. Then it fell under the cancer cells' mental interference.
Mental interference, followed by full brainwashing.
Illys nodded.
"That's why cancer cells are dangerous. They don't just know infinite division and the Life-Absorbing Technique."
"Yeah. What do we even call this? Brainwashing?"
"Exactly. They bribe the hunter cells that come to destroy them and send them packing. And if bribes don't work, they brainwash them. That's how they stay safe from the hunters' attacks."
Hmm.
I scratched my chin and thought it over.
Cancer treatment was no simple job. This wasn't a straightforward fight—it was a high-level operation. Deception stacked on deception. We had to find a way to neutralize the cancer cells' tactics.
Illys went on.
"And those aren't the only skills cancer cells have. Beyond infinite division, the Life-Absorbing Technique, bribery, and brainwashing, there are several more."
Not just those skills?
"What else is there?"
Illys listed the cancer cells' skills one by one.
"From what I've found, they can also camouflage and transform—make themselves look like normal cells."
"Oh-ho."
"There are different kinds of camouflage. Sometimes they disguise themselves as ordinary non-cancerous cells, and sometimes they play dead."
"Wait, they even play dead?"
"Yes, they do."
"Incredible."
"I also discovered a blood-vessel summoning skill. It transports food into their territory—self-sufficient base expansion, basically."
"There's a debuff skill too. They strip the surrounding oxygen and grind down the hunter cells' stamina. And as a boss skill, they can summon nearby cancer cells. In the footage just now, the moment one cancer cell was attacked, others swarmed in."
"Hold on. Isn't that way too many skills?"
"Yes. Cancer cells really are something else."
But how were we supposed to beat this?
Our bodies had hunter cells too. When bacteria or viruses invaded from outside, those cells went to war. Cancer, though, was no ordinary enemy—camouflage, playing dead, brainwashing, bribes, debuffs, summoning skills. And because cancer cells had once been the body's own cells, they already knew every trait of the hunter cells inside. At this point, it was almost miraculous that hunter cells ever won at all.
The recruit hunter cell on the screen. That one had tried to fight the cancer at first, hadn't it? Before long, it was brainwashed.
"Illys, you figured all of this out?"
"Baby Constellation helped me a great deal. All I really did was raise them and observe."
"Still, you worked hard. Head down."
"Ah—"
Illys flushed but tilted her head slightly forward.
"There, there. Full marks for you."
"Heh."
Now that we knew the cancer cells had so many skills, the next step was finding ways to counter them.
"If the support troops I showed you earlier can wake the hunter cells from their brainwashing, that would be ideal."
By "support troops," she meant the cancer treatment under development.
"It turns out sheer strength, agility, or stamina in a support troop isn't what matters most. More than raw attack power or sheer numbers, we need support troops that can resist the cancer cells' various skills."
"Do we have troops like that?"
"Nothing outstanding so far."
"Hmm. I see."
"Constellation."
"Yes?"
"From everything I've watched, what we need most is a support troop with mental immunity."
"Mental immunity?"
"Yes. The cancer cells keep deceiving the hunter cells. It's not that we lack forces—it's that the forces we have can't do their job. Hunter cells are powerful. If we had a support troop that could break their brainwashing, that would be perfect. Across all my observations, that ability looked like the highest priority."
"I see."
"Shall I try making one?"
"You, Illys?"
"Yes. Baby Constellation is here, and the protein structures have all been mapped out. I should be able to pick the molecules we need and assemble them."
"Whoa. You can do that?"
"I believe so."
"Then please do."
"Yes! I'll give it everything I've got."
And with that, the call with Illys ended.
Talking with Illys sometimes left me stunned by the sheer speed of things. This was one of those times. Having an AI, protein structures, and observations of cancer-cell behavior didn't mean a treatment just popped out fully formed. And yet, when Illys said she would try to make one, it somehow felt like she actually could.
On the TV screen, Illys had already hung up and was deep in research with her mages.
"Working that hard… I ought to give her something."
I switched on the computer.
Click.
Click.
"Maybe I should send her something tasty again."
Then again, I was the one feeding her. That was probably why she worked so hard.
Bzzzt.
A text came in.
Block Room wasn't far from JH Research.
A short while later, the Block Room owner arrived. He pulled something small from his bag.
"Sorry for the wait. I did my best to make it as small and intricate as possible."
What he took out was a tower about the thickness of a thick ballpoint pen—a precision structure built from nanoblocks.
"You won't see much with the naked eye. Here's a magnifier."
"Ohh."
I took the magnifier. The Block Room owner began walking me through the tower piece by piece.
"The foundation was laid with 3D printing. Not with anything we have in the shop—we outsourced the 3D printing to another company."
These days, even 3D printers could make things this tiny, apparently.
"After the 3D print, every detail was done by hand. One hundred floors in total."
About the size of a five-color ballpoint pen. I carefully lifted the tower.
"Oh, it's heavier than I expected."
Plastic, but not light.
"There's iron wire in the core, plus various metals mixed in. This isn't a simple plastic injection mold."
Overall, it was a circular tower. The exterior mostly kept a smooth, rounded curve, and through the windows you could see the interior.
"Boss, I built this so it would still be standing five hundred years from now."
I looked up at him, startled by the number.
"Plastic lasts about that long, they say."
"Ah."
"And I didn't say that lightly. See these ridges?"
The building's exterior was rounded overall, but five small ridges ran vertically down its length.
"In Korea, people start talking about rebuilding apartments after thirty years."
"That's true."
"European apartments last fifty years as a baseline—sometimes a hundred. The difference is the plumbing. Concrete itself is sturdy, but who wants to live in an apartment pouring rusty water from the taps?"
"So even if the cement is solid, the pipes don't last?"
"Exactly. An apartment's lifespan is decided by its pipes. You can't live with rusty water. That's why, after thirty years, redevelopment talk starts."
"Couldn't you just replace the pipes?"
"Not with Korean apartments. The pipes are buried deep inside the structure. You'd need major construction—the cure costs more than the disease."
"Really? Why not design them so the pipes are easy to service?"
"Precisely. That's what this magic tower is. People say European buildings last a hundred years, right? It's because they run the pipes on the outside. Swap the pipes every thirty years and the concrete will go another hundred."
"And this magic tower is plastic, with pipes designed for easy replacement—so five hundred years?"
"Exactly that."
"Nice. You really took to heart the request that people would be using it for a long time."
Encouraged by the praise, the owner launched into even more detail.
"Floors one through three are the lobby. We raised the ceiling height for a sense of openness, so visitors walk in and immediately feel the space open up."
I peered at the lobby floors through the magnifier. They really did look taller than the rest.
"The entrances are curved on both sides, and the lobby uses the circular building's strength—a ring corridor so you can walk all the way around. Right in the center is the core column, and we left room for an elevator."
Leaving space for an elevator. That had been part of my request as well.
The overall structure of the building would be built; the finer fittings would be filled in later with dwarf-made goods or by the mage Illys herself.
"Boss, floors four through forty are officetel layouts—work spaces, essentially. To fit rooms inside a round building, a fan-shaped layout is the most efficient."
"Looks good."
"Every room also has a light-refraction panel for the windows. When real light hits them, it refracts and spreads softly all the way inside."
I squinted at the model. The rooms really did flow into one another with natural ease.
"Floors forty-one through seventy are research labs."
His voice gained energy here.
"This section is built sturdier than anywhere else. We didn't just raise plastic walls—we sandwiched thin copper plates between plastic panels. You mentioned you might run blast experiments."
"I did."
"These lab floors were made under that assumption."
I nodded. A reinforced laboratory. Satisfying.
"Floors seventy-one through one hundred are mixed residential."
"Ohh, residential."
"From a human perspective, think of it as roughly two-hundred-and-sixty-square-meter high-rise apartments. We put various designs into the curved walls, and the light wells are twice the size of the lower floors."
A place even I would want to live. It looked tiny to my eyes, but I wondered how it would feel to the nano-people.
"And the very top of the hundredth floor is a dome structure. That one gave me some trouble."
A round, transparent dome sat at the summit.
"What's this for?"
"It's a light duct. It gathers natural sunlight and feeds it downward through optical cable."
"A light duct? What's that?"
"When sunlight hits the ceiling, that light is sent straight into the building's interior below. So even indoors, you can get natural sunlight."
"Oh. That's clever."
"Yes, sir. We put a lot of work into it."
A hundred-story tower with lobby, officetel, research, and residential floors, each with its own character. Natural lighting carefully considered, external plumbing designed for five centuries of service. No elevators or furnishings yet—but a tower faithful to its skeleton and structure.
I looked at the owner and said,
"I'm thoroughly satisfied."
This would make a more than adequate surprise gift for Illys.
Nano World.
Outside the cancer dungeon.
While working on the cancer treatment, Illys kept up a constant debate with the Nano AI.
"Baby Constellation, how does the cancer cells' bribe skill translate in the Constellation's world?"
"In Earth's medicine, the cancer cells' bribe skill is a strategy of spraying immunosuppressive cytokines, yom. There are immunosuppressants like TGF-β and IL-10, yep."
"So when a hunter cell gets hit with that, it starts thinking the cancer isn't an enemy?"
"Mm-hm, exactly. Immunity gets suppressed, so the hunter cells—T cells, that is—have lower activation, yong."
"Then we should spray something that can directly neutralize those immunosuppressants?"
"That's right, yom. If we spray a substance that suppresses the immunosuppressants, the hunter cells will wake up again and attack the cancer cells."
"Good. What would work as a bribe blocker?"
"I'd recommend a two-track approach: anti–TGF-β plus anti–IL-10."
"Can you show me the protein structures of both substances?"
"Yeng."
The Nano AI brought up the protein structures on the screen.
"Ohh, so that's how you build them."
Fiddle, adjust.
This way and that. Illys began synthesizing the proteins.
"*cough*"
Then the Nano AI coughed.
"Hm? Baby Constellation? Are you all right? Sounds like you caught a cold."
"Hnnngh… my body feels weird, yom. I'm shivering, cold, and I think I have a fever too…"
"Then isn't it that? I learned this from the Constellation. The symptoms match what I was taught."
"What is it, yom?"
Illys spoke in a worried tone.
"Could you be infected with a virus?"