Six Words (Part 2)

1901, Vienna, Austria-Hungary. The Stahl-Ferdinand Research Institute was nearing completion in the heart of the slums.

Even though a year had passed, Archduke Franz Ferdinand's house arrest had still not been lifted. The imperial court had frozen his liquid assets to force him to reflect on his behavior, but he had somehow learned a new trick: recklessly issuing bonds left and right. Naturally, his confinement was extended.

And was it just the bonds? Terrified that he might cause another scene, the court had released the rental income from his private estates. But the Archduke immediately established a private foundation to funnel the cash straight into his own pockets, extending his house arrest yet again. It didn't take a genius to figure out who had given him that advice. ...Did I go a bit too far?

Consequently, the Archduke was, quite regrettably, unable to attend the institute's grand opening ceremony.

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"For over six hundred years, the plague has slaughtered tens of millions of human lives. Though we lack precise historical records, tuberculosis has surely claimed hundreds of millions more. But now, the day when humanity is finally liberated from these deadly pathogens is close at hand!"

"Whoooo!"

"Stahl! Stahl!"

"Yet, it broke my heart to see a reality where only the wealthy receive treatment while the poor die like dogs in the streets. And so, I made a decision. This institute will distribute penicillin entirely free of charge! We will not stand by and watch patients with incurable diseases simply rot away!"

It wasn't a losing proposition. After all, wasn't this a charity? Besides, a substantial amount of penicillin would be produced purely for research purposes anyway. Just as I had done during the initial clinical trials, I planned to distribute the experimental batches directly to the slums.

If you do good deeds and then make a single mistake, people criticize you twice as hard. If I suddenly started giving penicillin only to the rich and the nobility now, they'd all claim I've sold out.

Although a massive chunk of the Archduke's slush fund had been poured into this project, we still needed a steady stream of revenue. And that revenue, of course, would come from licensing.

"Because everyone deserves to benefit equally from penicillin, we will license it to pharmaceutical companies everywhere—Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and others—for a mere pittance!"

For comparison, licensing the production of Aspirin cost around fifty thousand Kronen. Granted, Aspirin was an established product with proven efficacy, easily mass-produced and highly stable. Even taking that into account, our upfront licensing fee for penicillin was dirt cheap: a mere three thousand Kronen. In modern currency, that was roughly equivalent to two hundred million Korean won.

It was ridiculously cheap for a drug that would change the world, but I had no choice. First of all, even if I worked myself to the bone, squeezing out my future knowledge and running this facility like a top-secret military lab torturing aliens, we could never match the sheer manufacturing scale of established giants like Bayer.

Second, could those established pharmaceutical companies actually make a massive profit off penicillin right now?

Not a chance with current technology.

While basic refrigeration and ice-making technology existed, a refrigerator that could consistently maintain a stable temperature between five and eight degrees Celsius was still at least a decade away. Want to make a fortune mass-producing penicillin? Go build a proper refrigerator first. Even after busting my gut, the best I could manage was preserving it for forty-eight hours using blocks of ice.

Thus, I had no choice but to keep the upfront licensing fee low. To entice companies to jump in under these conditions, a high-volume, low-margin strategy was best. But there was an advantage: because the upfront fee was practically a giveaway, we could negotiate highly favorable terms for the rest of the contract.

"A six percent royalty on sales seems appropriate."

"Six percent? That seems a bit steep..."

"In exchange, we will transfer all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of our research know-how to you. And to be perfectly frank, it will take at least ten years for penicillin to be fully commercialized in the field. Look at the long-term picture."

"Well, that's not a bad deal."

"Furthermore, let's agree that any mass-production technology developed for penicillin must be shared with us immediately."

"Pardon? That's a bit..."

"I am the sole patent holder of penicillin. Without my cooperation, you cannot legally manufacture a single drop."

"Aren't you basically asking us to do your research for you?"

"Surely you understand, Director. The pharmaceutical market is notoriously difficult to break into due to technological barriers."

"That is true, but..."

"Penicillin is a drug directly tied to national security. I am running this venture with the backing of His Imperial Highness, the Archduke. If you think you can handle the Austrian secret police knocking on your door over industrial espionage, by all means, feel free to decline."

I successfully slipped in a clause requiring immediate technology sharing the moment mass-production capabilities were secured. It was a bit of an aggressive demand, but dropping the Archduke's name made them fold instantly. This was why having powerful connections was so great. It made business incredibly smooth.

Of course, there's no way they'll actually honor this clause.

But it didn't matter. I only threw it in on the off chance we got lucky and stumbled into something useful. In any case, the grand opening of the institute concluded to roaring success.

Thanks to the heir to the throne generously pouring in cash and bonds, we now had a remarkably sleek research facility. The affiliated hospital would generate its own revenue, so funding wouldn't be an issue. We had even set up a night school where captured graduate students taught basic literacy to the locals.

From here on out, Vienna's 16th district would only become less miserable. It was practically on the scale of a twenty-first-century Korean planned city development. Now that the basic infrastructure of this new town was in place, what was left?

Real estate speculation!

In truth, this was going to be our institute's primary source of income. It was time to take the licensing fees we had pocketed and aggressively reinvest them into local ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠property! Channeling the spirit of twenty-first-century Korea, I planned to unleash all kinds of monstrous gentrification schemes upon the institute and its surrounding streets. Just you wait.

Ottakring, Vienna's 16th district, was a living testament to the grim reality of twentieth-century working-class life. Its residents had assumed that today, like yesterday, would bring nothing but misery.

Why do the streets look so bright today? Was it always like this? This place used to be nothing but choking factory smog and a perpetually gray sky.

Over the past few days, the sky had seemed strangely blue, and even the air smelled cleaner. Reinhardt, a canning factory worker who labored twelve hours a day and shared a cramped, seven-pyeong room with five other family members, tilted his head in confusion.

Perhaps the only reason Reinhardt remembered the sky as a dark, oppressive shroud was because he only ever looked up when it was cloudy, constantly worrying if their roof would leak. For the first time in years, he felt as though he was gazing at a truly blue sky.

The streets were still filthy, and exhausted workers trudged home after surviving murderous shifts. Yet, something felt fundamentally different. And soon, Reinhardt spotted the first tangible change.

"Help! A thief! If I lose this wage, my family will starve! Someone, please help me!"

Hearing the scream, Reinhardt merely felt a pang of pity and kept walking. If he got hurt trying to catch a thief, who would feed his younger siblings waiting for him at home? Everyone on these streets was in the same desperate boat.

But to his utter surprise, his expectations were shattered. A shrill, frantic whistle echoed from down the street.

"Stop that bastard!"

No matter how quick and nimble the thief was—and he had likely starved for three days trying to feed a newborn—he was no match for the stamina of a police officer who ate meat three times a day. The officer caught up and began to beat the thief to a bloody pulp.

"This spot is less than eight hundred meters from the Stahl-Ferdinand Research Institute, personally patronized by His Imperial Highness! How dare you commit a robbery in a place like this?!"

"I-I'm sorry! Please, spare me!"

"His Imperial Highness is visiting this area the day after tomorrow. Were you planning to rob people right in front of him too? We needed to make an example out of someone, and you just volunteered."

"Please, mercy!"

"Here, miss. Take your purse back. It looks important to you."

"T-Thank you so much!"

Police patrols had finally entered the crime-ridden slums. For many of the workers living here, this was likely the first time in their lives they had ever received help from the law. Once a criminal was beaten half to death on the spot, every other thug in the neighborhood would keep their heads down for days.

Reinhardt shuddered, recalling an incident from a month ago. A thief, beaten so badly he ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠could barely walk, had been forced to march through the slums with a wooden sign hung around his neck.

My younger siblings' main source of income is pickpocketing... Where on earth are all these police officers coming from?

The area immediately surrounding the institute was naturally a high-security zone, but this street was quite a distance away. Why were they patrolling here? Reinhardt, whose sharp eyes had been honed since the age of nine by surreptitiously relocating items from other people's pockets, scanned the street and noticed something peculiar: a framed wedding portrait of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Duchess Sophie Chotek hanging on a brick wall.

Within a five-hundred-meter radius of the institute, these portraits were plastered everywhere. Reinhardt squinted, slowly sounding out the words printed beneath the portrait using the literacy skills he had picked up at the institute's night school.

A shiver ran down Reinhardt's spine at the thought of the Archduke—a figure as distant and lofty as the heavens—watching over him. Right next to the portrait, someone had scrawled a sentence in paint.

The person who wrote this probably wanted to show off what they learned at the night school too, Reinhardt thought. Intrigued, he read the graffiti.

Reinhardt had heard that Uncle Wilhelm, who lived next door, had even gone to confess his sins to Mr. Stahl. Honestly, Mr. Stahl is far better than any priest.

Priests promised to save them from going to hell. But Reinhardt, who had survived the back alleys since childhood and committed every petty crime in the book, knew all too well that this slum was far worse than any hell. He had stopped attending church long ago.

In any case, sacrificing his precious sleep to attend the night school had paid off. A proud smile spread across Reinhardt's face as he realized he could actually read these words now.

"Wait, hold on! Today is the lottery drawing!"

Dammit. His younger sister was coughing up blood at home from tuberculosis, and here he was, daydreaming! Reinhardt tightly clutched the thirty-Heller lottery ticket tucked safely in his pocket and sprinted toward the charity hospital affiliated with the research institute.

The ticket only cost as much as a single mug of beer, so it was no financial burden. If a brother couldn't even skip one beer for his dying sister, he didn't deserve to be called a brother.

A massive, suffocating crowd had gathered in front of the institute. One of the night school teachers, a young man around Reinhardt's age, was sweating profusely as he tried to calm the restless mob.

"Please, please don't push! Someone is going to get trampled to death!"

Reinhardt chuckled softly at the teacher's frantic warnings. He had heard that the brightest students in the night school could become teaching assistants and earn a small stipend. If he could land a job like that, he wouldn't have to worry about where his next loaf of bread was coming from.

"How many doses of penicillin did they make this time?"

"Five! I heard they have enough for five people this time."

"My god... Last time there were only two doses, right?"

"Apparently, the lottery sold so well that they used the surplus funds to hire a few more researchers."

"Well, it's a blessing for us either way. We can save a life just by skipping a beer or a pack of cigarettes."

"Alright, the lottery drawing is about to begin! Everyone, quiet down and pay attention!"

Instantly, the murmuring crowd fell silent, every eye dropping to stare intently at the tickets in their hands.

"Wait... what does this word on my ticket mean?"

"Good grief! You buy a ticket every week to save your sick wife, and you still haven't learned how to read?"

"What choice do I have? My wife is dying!"

"And yet you never miss a night at the pub? Here, take this. It's a study sheet from the night school. I'll at least teach you the words printed on the lottery tickets."

Instead of numbers, the lottery tickets featured combinations of words. You had to be literate to know if you had won. Because of this, workers with sick family members desperately carved out time from their grueling schedules to attend the night school and learn to read. Furthermore, winners were required to sign a written pledge, making literacy absolutely essential. Reinhardt himself had only started learning to read because of this very lottery.

"We will now draw the winning words! Please note that the order must match exactly. The words are: Sky, Stahl, Medicine, Liberation, Ferdinand, Revolution!"

"...What?"

Reinhardt froze, wondering if his ears were playing tricks on him.

"I will repeat them once more. Sky, Stahl, Medicine, Liberation, Ferdinand, Revolution!"

"Aaaahhhhh! I won!!! I actually won!!!"

Reinhardt collapsed to his knees, screaming toward the heavens.

"Sky, Stahl, Medicine, Liberation, Ferdinand, Revolution! Sky, Stahl, Medicine, Liberation, Ferdinand, Revolution! Thank you, thank you so much...!"

Tears streamed down his face as he sobbed, repeating the words on his ticket over and over as if to convince himself it wasn't a dream.

Of course, the process wasn't entirely finished yet. He still had to stand before the doctors, repeat three times, "I will never forget the grace of His Imperial Highness and Mr. Stahl," and then sign a formal pledge.

But Reinhardt would have gladly proclaimed his gratitude a hundred times over, even without any such requirement.

Sky, Stahl, Medicine, Liberation, Ferdinand, Revolution! Reinhardt knew he would never forget these six words for as long as he lived.