Biordnance
Knock, knock.
“U-uh-hm. Come in.”
I opened the door, stepped inside, and sat straight down in front of Ms. Dietrich’s desk, where she was doing her best to look composed.
The moment she saw my face, hers went bright red all over again.
“I already said I understood. It was the adrenaline.”
“…It would’ve been so much better if the film had just cut out the way it does with alcohol.”
Trying to get a sample, she had picked up a charcoal-black arm and given herself a light burn in the process. She had bounced around like a kid at the sight of the various injectables we found in the warehouse. In the end I pulled her off transport duty because I was sure she would cause an accident—and even then she had spun in circles around us, making a complete spectacle of herself.
“I-I’ll say this first: the me of that moment wasn’t me.”
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?”
“Dr. Jekyll—you make it sound like I’m some mad scientist. I’m a veterinarian. Of course, Dr. Jekyll was… a doctor too, but… at least I deal with animals.”
The words didn’t exactly sound confident as they left her mouth.
Her expression was complicated as well.
“Fine. I’ll be honest—I never knew I had this side of me either. At first I was terrified the second I saw those creatures… but once the adrenaline wiped the fear away, only curiosity was left. Still… I never thought I’d actually say those things out loud.”
Hands resting on her knees, Ms. Dietrich jiggled her legs restlessly.
This is starting to feel like a confessional.
That wasn’t why I had come.
“Honestly—”
“Angela Dietrich.”
Whether in Korea or the West, calling someone by their full name the moment you open your mouth is a reliable way to get their attention.
It’s usually what you do when you’re about to scold them.
And the German woman in front of me was no exception.
“We all agreed to understand and move past that, didn’t we?”
“…That’s right.”
“Then that’s that.”
“Is… it?”
“You’ll still feel self-conscious about it. Probably deeply embarrassed, and flustered too. But—we already tied that knot.”
The flush that had filled her pale face lingered a long while before it slowly drained away.
At the same time, Ms. Dietrich nodded.
“…Yes. I understand.”
“Then—”
“Thank you for understanding, Hyunwoo. Honestly… Nazis are famous for human experiments, so—”
Human experiments?
What was that supposed to mean?
“Where did Nazis even come into this?”
“Mr. Curtis…?”
“Did Curtis say something about me when I wasn’t around?”
“N-no, nothing like that. It’s just… the time I spent working for the Zeroth Reich, and… there are enough elements that make one think of Nazis…”
“Aren’t you overthinking this?”
“I did do a lot of things that would make someone overthink it, didn’t I…? I still remember the things I said. ‘Opportunities to get samples like this don’t come often,’ ‘So this is what happens when you fuse a person and an animal,’ ‘human centipede—’”
“Stop. Just stop.”
“…I’m sorry.”
I had meant to rein her in and somehow only fanned the flames instead.
Better to change the subject before those lips opened again.
“The drugs we brought back—have you finished analyzing them?”
“Ah, the drugs… right. I figured you’d be curious about that.”
The gloom on her face suddenly brightened.
Ms. Dietrich pulled a bag out from under the desk and lined the bottles from inside it up in front of me one by one.
Opening several bags and setting out one of each different type—eight bottles in total.
“Most of them are antibiotics and vaccines. Flu, tetanus, hepatitis… enough to mount a proper response to the major infectious diseases.”
“What do you mean by ‘proper response’?”
“Ah, sorry. I was speaking in Zeroth Reich terms…”
Ah?
“So the amount we’ve secured now is…”
“Each vial is 5 mL. The standard dose is 0.5 mL per person. So one vial is ten doses, and each bag held eight vials.”
“Eighty people per bag…”
“And allowing for booster shots, 160 doses for eighty people is a comfortable margin—and for each type of vaccine there were five bags in storage.”
“….”
“That’s what I mean.”
Vaccines traded for extremely high prices.
They were directly tied to whether people lived or died.
Antibiotics required a higher level of medical technology just to isolate the blue mold and extract the active compound.
And yet here we had four hundred doses of antibiotics and four hundred doses of each vaccine without having to manufacture a single one.
“However, the problem is… and the drug you’re probably most curious about is this one.”
Clack.
On the desk sat the syringe we had first encountered.
“The vaccines and antibiotics you saw a moment ago were all made by a pharmaceutical company called Biomed. But… this one was different.”
I picked up the injectable and looked at the sticker on it.
Biordnance
“Maybe I’m being oversensitive, but I find it a little strange that a warehouse papered with products from the same company also held a single product from a completely different one.”
“Do you know what kind of drug this is?”
“…No.”
But the appearance was familiar enough.
The kind of enhanced-human injectables you could only get your hands on very rarely.
Their side effects were uniformly grotesque, so you never used them except in the most extreme situations—and even then only when you were about to die.
Of course, I had only seen them a handful of times myself, and almost never had reason to use one, so I had either left them sitting or sold them off to wandering merchants.
Still, learning the company name… this wasn’t the first time, I thought.
Was this the owner of the “research lab” that the hardcore players used to mention when they ran out of things to do and started compiling the game’s lore?
My memory was hazy.
“There’s no way we can analyze the composition, and finding someone with that kind of knowledge will be hard. I think it’s best we store it until someone who knows something turns up.”
As she packed the injectables back into the bag, Ms. Dietrich handed the whole thing over to me.
Still, we had obtained a mountain of essential medicines—and ones that would later sell for a high price…
“Thanks to you, I know how to use them now. Appreciate it.”
“Shouldn’t I be the one thanking you for trusting me?”
“I didn’t try to bring you out of the Zeroth Reich for nothing.”
“So this is what they call headhunting. Pfft.”
Because someone who knew how to use them had been standing right in front of me.
That bought us a little breathing room.
“Would it be all right if I asked what the Omen family is up to right now?”
“They’re all in the warehouse we fitted with air conditioning. They were thrilled to cool the sweat off for the first time in ages.”
James in particular had taken the heat badly, but after we stripped everything useful out of that warehouse his symptoms improved almost at once.
Right now he was sprawled in a room with the AC running, even wearing long sleeves.
“Air-conditioning sickness is a problem too, you know.”
“He stood in front of the flamethrower for a long time. And he kept making trips over to that monster’s corpse now and then.”
“…Heh.”
Even with her hand over her mouth, the corner of her lips was visible.
And the corners of her eyes curved as she looked at me.
“What?”
“No, just… I find this situation amusing.”
“If this is about the adrenaline—”
“No, no, it isn’t. That story’s over, isn’t it?”
She pushed the bag toward me, leaned back comfortably in her chair, and looked at me at her ease… it was an atmosphere I had never seen from her before.
Back in the Zeroth Reich she had always looked like she was stretched thin.
“Until not long ago I was worrying about how we’d survive tomorrow, who might die next—and now I’m fretting over an elderly veteran’s air-conditioning sickness. And I’m a veterinarian.”
“Situations change.”
“…In that sense, I consider meeting you good fortune.”
Resting both arms on the desk, Ms. Dietrich nodded to me.
“From a refrigerator that can store vaccines, to drinkable water that comes out the moment you turn the tap—enough to make you forget there’s an apocalypse—and hot water that can warm a body. For the record, the hot water at my old place took forever. Because of the water bill.”
“At least I’m a merciful landlord who doesn’t collect water fees?”
“…Not a wicked employer who refuses to pay wages?”
The pointless joke made the corner of my mouth lift before I could stop it.
Ms. Dietrich, looking at me, was the same.
“Hyunwoo… how old are you this year, if I may ask?”
“Twenty-seven. Why the sudden question?”
“Twenty-seven. East Asians really do look young for their age.”
“And how old is the doctor herself?”
“…Asking a woman her age is rude.”
“You asked first?”
“Fine. It’s… um, twenty-nine.”
She was older?
I had sensed a certain poise in her, but twenty-nine.
“Do I look a little older?”
“Not in appearance.”
“…Are you saying I look old right now?”
“Huh?”
“Pfft. I was teasing you.”
Whatever tension remained seemed to have melted away during the conversation; Ms. Dietrich looked even more at ease.
Those once-square shoulders seemed rounder.
Her gaze softer somehow.
Is this what it feels like to grow closer?
“Ms. Dietrich.”
“You call Sara by her first name.”
“There are three Omens.”
“How about Angela?”
“Angela.”
“We’ll be seeing each other often from now on. We can get a little more comfortable.”
True enough—she would be the doctor responsible for a great deal going forward.
I nodded, picked up the bag, and was about to rise when Angela’s hand pressed firmly down on it.
“Busy?”
“Just wrapping up the last of the work and then heading to bed.”
“Urgent work?”
“Everyday work.”
“Busy every day, then.”
“Something like that.”
The hand on the bag stayed a moment longer, then lifted away.
After that she gave me a small wave, ears perked.
“Well, everyone has their own work to do.”
“That’s right.”
In that strange atmosphere I picked up the bag and was about to leave when the iron door burst open.
Speak of the devil.
It was Sara.
“…What were the two of you doing?”
“Explaining the medicines and a little… counseling. Right, Hyunwoo?”
I nodded at the sky-blue eyes looking my way.
“Yes, Angela.”
“Angela?”
Sara’s face suddenly stuttered.
“That’s my name, after all?”
I looked at Ms. Dietrich as a quiet smile settled on her face.