Beacon of Light in the Dark Sea

“This is my first time using the stairs here. Anyway, there’s an elevator on each side of every hallway, so the researchers don’t need to walk around. Plus, there’s a cafeteria inside the research center, free vending machines everywhere, and if you apply for the on-site dorms and get lucky, you don’t even need to leave the research center at all. That’s for people like me who don’t get picked in the lottery or use the main dorm housing for 100-some people.”  

Looks like the researchers barely leave the research center. Well, they provide three meals a day, have dorms, and have strictly set work hours. It’s heaven for some people, but hell for others.

“Which floor is Professor Kim’s lab located on in the Marine Biology Center?”

“The lab is on the 2nd floor. It used to be on the 7th floor, but our professor got in a fist fight with the professor in the next room over, so Director Malone moved us down to the 2nd floor. I remember moving day. We had to move the equipment ourselves or the medics and assistant staff moved it for us. Now that I think about it, I’m glad we moved well from the 7th floor to the 2nd floor. It’s easier to escape in this kind of situation from the 2nd floor rather than the 7th floor.”

“······The professors get into fights too?”

At my question, researcher Kim Ga-young exchanged glances with Yoo Geum-yi and giggled.  

“Oh yes.”

“When professors fight, they go at it like elementary schoolers, fighting with all kinds of things. There are issues with research funds, whether to include names on papers or not. How much did you contribute. Why are you breathing. Whether to eat together or not.”

I see. The ones on our side weren’t exactly normal either. Some seemed fine usually but would snap at the residents only during rounds. And there were quite a few perverts too. But I’d never imagined horizontal violence between professors. I can understand vertical violence, but horizontal is another story. Come to think of it, the dental side can be pretty vicious too. It’s not like there was never any fighting about who would do someone’s implants while threatening to punch their lights out first.

As if on cue, Lee Jihyun was waiting for us on the 3rd floor. As we stepped onto the 3rd floor, the stench grew stronger.  

We saw a few corpses lying on the ground as we carefully walked down the stairs, trying not to fall. As we walked down the hallway, we kept discovering corpses with bites of flesh carved out, killed after Angela Malone.  

I checked to see if they were alive, and Jihyun just took photos of their faces before we moved on. Some of the lab doors were wide open. When we looked inside, there were no people, but some of the tanks used to hold marine life had been opened to let the creatures escape. Yoo Geum-yi glanced into one of the messy labs and said,

“They let everything out before leaving.”

Jihyun, who followed behind, looked at the empty tanks for about two seconds with an impressed expression before quickly leaving the lab and asking,

“They were busy escaping for their lives but the researchers still thought of this stuff?”

Yoo Geum-yi thought for a moment as she walked before replying to Jihyun’s question.

“If they didn’t do this and left, they’d be thinking about it for the rest of their lives.”

“They’re just fish though?”

“Whether it’s fish or jellyfish or coral, they should avoid using marine life for experiments if they can achieve their research goals without it. It’s best if they can replace it with tissue culture or simulations. If they really can’t replace living marine life, they should rely on existing experimental records statistically as much as possible or handle the organisms in the most humane way possible. That’s an ethical responsibility researchers should naturally have.”

 :”They don’t have souls though.”  

“Pardon?”

Yoo Geum-yi stopped walking, taken aback by those words. Kim Ga-young, who had been walking slower behind Yoo Geum-yi because of the pain in her legs, pushed Yoo Geum-yi’s back with both hands. Yoo Geum-yi started quietly thinking as she was pushed along.

Hmm. Most of the bullshit I’ve heard was spewed by people clinging to religion or power. I became conscious of the heavy bag on my back as I asked,

“Is that your opinion from a religious perspective?”

“It’s not my opinion.”  

Jihyun answered, seeming slightly uncomfortable. After we had walked down one side of the ᄆ-shaped 3rd floor hallway, Yoo Geum-yi slowly answered Jihyun’s question.

“Intellectuals before the 19th century used to ridicule people who felt sympathy for animals. They thought animals simply reacted to external stimuli, like machines that make sounds when an alarm goes off. They treated animals like ringing phones. Beating cats and dogs to death wasn’t considered a sin at all. And women, Africans, and Asians were treated the same as animals. All beings that can feel pain should be equal and free from that pain.”

As Yoo Geum-yi looked into the open lab rooms, she continued, 

“In fact, I may not have a soul either. I can’t even accurately count the number of innocent marine lives lost by my hands. Anyway, since it’s come up, I’ll tell you – when I saw you three entering the Marine Biology Center then heading towards the Seabed Pollution Center, I decided to go to my lab on the 2nd floor.”

Kim Ga-young, who had been pushing Yoo Geum-yi’s back, asked,

“Alone? You’re going alone?”

“Yes. I don’t want to feel guilty every time I go to an aquarium or a sushi restaurant for things I didn’t do.”  

Jihyun listened quietly before asking Yoo Geum-yi in a small voice,

“Do…do fish feel pain?”

“Yes.”

Jihyun stopped and asked Yoo Geum-yi,

“Is your lab far?”

I quietly smiled at Jihyun’s words. My eyes then met Kim Ga-young’s, who had been raising the corners of her lips.

Jihyun asked me and Kim Ga-young if we could stop by Yoo Geum-yi’s 2nd floor lab before heading to the Marine Biology Center through the 3rd floor. Kim Ga-young raised her hand slightly and asked,

“I’d be fully on board, but I’m just curious – what happens if we don’t agree?”

“You can stay here or go on ahead.”

“I’ll go with you.”

At Kim Ga-young’s reply, I also quickly said,

“I’ll go with you too!”

Wandering those hallways alone with corpses lying around? Just the thought makes me uncomfortable. I recalled the cable car filling with water and the snake they had hung above our heads, then lightly shook off those memories.

“Does it only hurt here, does it not hurt there, exactly where does it hurt, where does it feel cold, what do I need to eat for my teeth to look like this, you tell me to floss but how does flossing make my teeth look like this, you said I should brush more than twice a day but that has to be a lie, right? Is it true? You say lower the drill noise but if there’s some groundbreaking technology to make quieter drills, why don’t you tell me, why haven’t I gone to the dentist in so long, why do you trust folk remedies so much but distrust dental treatment, when the doctor says you have cavities but you say no, it’s just spots on my teeth, why don’t you believe it? You say you don’t drink but I can clearly smell alcohol on your breath so what’s that about? You clearly say no smoking allowed at this underwater base so why do all these chain-smoking fools with yellow teeth keep coming to the dentist, stuff like that.”  

At my grumbling, Kim Ga-young let out an empty laugh and I laughed lightly too. I could hear Jihyun quietly saying to Yoo Geum-yi as they swiftly walked down the stairs and along the hallway:

“If Team Leader Kang or Jung Sanghyun were here instead, this would never have happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“Taking this roundabout way to go back and free something. I’m not criticizing what you’re doing, Yoo Geum-yi. I’m just…surprised I’m making this kind of choice. Engineers are obsessed with efficiency.” 

“It’s about saving lives though?”

“They’ll weigh which lives have more value. My life or the countless fish in the ocean.”

“That’s possible. But the fish are here because they were kidnapped from the ocean they were living well in and forced into these labs for our research. Especially some of the species in our lab that we’re raising for conservation purposes since they’re endangered. If they die, that’s the complete end.”

The two who had gone down the stairs first entered the 2nd floor hallway. Yoo Geum-yi walked ahead and said,

“This way. It’s right up ahead. Room 210.”