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Chapter 69: The Conqueror of AIDS (3)

Young-Joon snickered in his head. He wanted to start the Parkinson’s and stroke clinical trials when the time was right. He looked through his phone and found Shin Jung-Ju’s number to contact her. When Young-Joon got up from his seat…

“Mala madata kara.” Ardip, who had been silent and timid throughout the examination, opened his mouth.

“Help me,” the translator said.

“Don’t worry. We will cure your glaucoma,” Young-Joon replied.

“My glaucoma is fine. I want to ask you for something else. I heard that you can easily fix any disease. Please, I beg you.”

“... Are you talking about your paralysis from your stroke?” Young-Joon asked. “Sir, we have treated Alzheimer’s during the clinical trial, but we haven’t conducted a clinical trial for a stroke yet. There are no treatments that have been commercialized yet. It’s not something that I can give you however I want.”

“I don’t care about the stroke or my paralysis,” Ardip said. “Doctor. Please cure AIDS.”

“AIDS?”

“The reason I came to Korea is to ask you about this. That’s it.”

Ardip suddenly stumbled to his feet, then bent his dull leg to bow to Young-Joon on the floor. Surprised, Young-Joon and Sung Yo-Han quickly picked him up from the floor.

“What are you doing!”

“Don’t do this!”

Ardip, who was getting back up, repeatedly begged Young-Joon with desperation and tears on his face.

“Please make a cure for AIDS. Please. I don’t have to be able to do anything. I don’t care about the glaucoma or the stroke.”

“Sir, are you suffering from AIDS as well?” Sung Yo-Han asked.

“... No.”

Ardip shook his head.

* * *

The price of living in India was cheap. But the quality of life was that low. Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra province, was the biggest city in India with a population of twelve million. Their international airports and trade ports accounted for one-third of India’s trades. Rich foreigners came and went, contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars were signed, and smart cities like Navi Mumbai were also born.

But on the other hand, the largest slum and red-light district in Asia was here. This place was dominated with human trafficking and confinement, violence and disease. In front of the sewer in the dirty alley that reeked of the smell of spices of multinational food and the stench of household garbage, Ardip was born. His mother, who carried all kinds of chronic diseases, died as soon as she gave birth to him. Ardip, who was born with misfortune, grew up by running errands for the gang members who managed the red-light district. Suffering daily from beatings, malnutrition, drugs, unsanitary conditions, and diseases, Ardip collapsed from a stroke when he was around twenty. He got a limp in his left as an aftereffect, and he was abandoned by the gang after losing his vision to glaucoma.

Then how was Ardip, who was born with nothing and was now disabled, able to survive in the slums of Mumbai? It was thanks to the help of the prostitutes in the red-light district. They were friends of his mother, whom he didn’t even know; they had fed him, bathed him, and raised him. Some were women his age who had been raised with him. Some were girls who were struggling to adapt because they were new. To Ardip, they were his mothers, aunts, significant others, and siblings.

Ardip, who was abandoned by the gang, went to the small home the women secretly made for him in the small corner of the red-light district. The women got a handful of food once a day; they each took a spoonful of their own food and fed him. They did it for six years.

That was until Ardip came out to the city himself after hearing that Schumatix India was providing treatment for free.

It was not because those women were extremely humanitarian or nice; it was because the weak who were on the edge had absolutely nothing. The only thing they had was someone who would hug and embrace their hurting bodies and kindness. The women didn’t think they could bear the loss they would feel if they lost Ardip. That went for him as well.

“They were the people who took me to a hospital when I collapsed from the stroke… They are family to me,” Ardip said. “But they are all suffering from AIDS. They don’t have a lot of time left. They haven’t received any kind of treatment. And I heard AIDS is an incurable disease.”

Wiping his face, which was already dirtied with tears, Ardip repeatedly bowed and begged Young-Joon.

“I am getting a lot of compensation from Schumatix. I will give you all of it. I have a lot of money. I don’t have it right now, but I heard that I am getting a lot. Doctor, please. You don’t have to fix my glaucoma. Please just do something about AIDS. You are a genius who can cure any disease.”

Young-Joon slowly rose from his seat.

“We are already developing an AIDS cure,” he said.

As soon as the translator delivered the message, Ardip’s expression brightened.

“But I’m afraid I won’t be able to live up to your expectations. It is still in preclinical stages, and it will take a long time because there are a lot of clinical trials to go through until commercialization.”

“...”

“And even if the cure is finished, it will take more time to be supplied because it will be very expensive.”

Ardip collapsed to his knees helplessly. There was a moment of heavy silence.

Young-Joon glanced out the window. He felt all kinds of emotions. Ardip didn’t move at all as if he just froze on the floor.

“You will receive treatment for your glaucoma. During that time, you may be encouraged to apply for a clinical trial treating paralysis caused by strokes,” Young-Joon said. “That is something separate from the glaucoma treatment, and it has nothing to do with the development of the AIDS cure. So, if you receive a suggestion like that, do not think about anything else and just listen closely to what that treatment is. You must fully understand it and think about it for a long time before deciding.”

* * *

“Is there a better way?”

Young-Joon, who returned to his office, undid his tie in frustration.

—What is the problem?

Rosaline asked.

“This is something I’ve thought about from a while ago, but curing AIDS using stem cells is too expensive. Even if we do the research as quickly as possible and commercialize it, the cure itself is too expensive,” Young-Joon said. “It’s the best strategy in that it can completely cure it, but it requires the best doctors and intensive experiments done by scientists. The process of harvesting a patient’s bone marrow, manipulating the genes, verifying that it was done correctly, and transplanting it back to the patient’s body is too difficult.”

—You can do it easily at the next-generation hospital.

“You can. But that next-generation hospital doesn’t exist in poor countries. It doesn’t even exist in developed countries right now.”

—That’s right.

“That method is the best choice, for sure. But is it also the best that we can do?” Young-Joon said. “Only rich patients of developed countries with good health care will be able to get the cure. But where would the women from the red-light districts that Ardip was talking about get bone marrow transplants? The other name for AIDS is the Disease of Poverty. Most of the patients are poor people living in poor countries.”

—That’s right.

“I was originally going to get support from their governments and partner with the WHO to treat it extensively,” Young-Joon said. “But to be honest, that will take a long time as well, and I don’t know if governments in places like Africa will actually respond.”

Young-Joon sat in his chair with his fists clenched. He was almost angry at the feeling of helplessness and defeat.

Destroying a disease like AIDS wasn’t easy even with the help of Rosaline. It wouldn’t be difficult if his goal was to treat a couple people, but could he be satisfied with bringing people from developed countries to Korea, curing their AIDS, and getting a lot of money from it? The ultimate goal of this treatment should be to cure all AIDS patients, resulting in the extinction of the human immunodeficiency virus; eradicating the virus forever in human history, just as smallpox was eradicated. But the method they had right now was too difficult and time-consuming.

—Then let’s look for a different way.

Rosaline said.

“A different way?”

—Let’s run a few different simulations. Although you have to consume fitness in order for me to provide it to you.

Young-Joon thought for a moment, then asked Rosaline after thinking of something.

“You’re not going to suggesting anything weird this time?”

—Something weird?

“Something like putting the officials into a vegetative state in order to gain the cooperation of African governments, or making a bacteria that makes oil and threatening them with it.”

–Because you don’t like those kinds of methods.

“That’s right.”

—But it’s odd. You mentioned those methods first even when I didn’t suggest them.

Rosaline said.

—You wouldn’t have even imagined it in the past.

“Maybe we’re getting more similar to each other as we are getting synchronized,” Young-Joon said with a chuckle. “To be honest, the things you said before don’t sound all that crazy anymore. I don’t know if it’s because I’m crazy or if it’s because the world is crazy.”

—You are not wrong.

Rosaline said.

“But you said I was frustrating before?”

—In the past, yes. But now I don’t think that. There is something I felt from the Schumatix incident. It is something that I analyzed before, but…

“What is it?”

—Humans are not originally animals that can accept me.

Rosaline said.

—Imagine if Luca Taylor had me.

“Ugh. It’s horrific just thinking about it.”

—From that day, all the executives from pharmaceutical companies will die. And someone like Luca Taylor would artificially create a fatal virus, spread it, and then monopolize the cure for it. He would rule the world in three years.

“Someone like him is fully capable of doing something like that.”

—I am searching for the reason for my creation. And why a second Rosaline cannot be created in the same way. That moment is a mystery to me.

“It’s a mystery to me too.”

—The vast amount of ATP in your blood created me, but I am starting to think that it might have not happened if it wasn’t your blood.

“...”

—A frustratingly extreme and obsessive sense of ethics. Maybe it is not possible to balance out this power without a sense of morality like that.

“... Thanks, but to be honest, I have corrupted a lot. I’ve felt it for a while. I put pressure on politicians when catching Ji Kwang-Man, and…”

—I think that is probably because of your synchronization with me, but your current sense of ethics is still far superior than the average human’s. If you let go of all of your ethics that are limiting my power, the world will face a great upheaval. I can even prevent humans from dying.

“Holy…”

—But what if only the top 0.1 percent of wealthy people will be able to live forever because that procedure has astronomically high prices? What if they live for three hundred years, monopolize the immortality technology and dominate the world? What if there becomes a life gap instead of a wealth gap? Can humanity right now accept that kind of society?

“I, for one, am worried.”

—If I present that technology, someone like Luca Taylor will not hesitate to fast-forward that society because he is part of the top 0.1 percent. But you won’t. You will think so hard about it in your room that your head will explode.

—I think that the reason or purpose of my existence may be connected to that.

Bleep!

A message popped up.

[Synchronization mode: Analyze eighty-two treatments for AIDS. Fitness consumption: 4]

“What is this?” Young-Joon asked, baffled, as he read the message.

—At my level right now, the only option to cure AIDS I can see right now is marrow transplantation.

Rosaline said.

—But life-sustaining treatment is possible. Some drugs are available at a much lower price compared to bone marrow transplants, so they can keep AIDS patients alive. It’s just like a diabetic patient getting insulin shots.

Bleep!

[Synchronization Mode: Analyze seventeen HIV vaccines. Fitness consumption: 4.4]

—And you can also make vaccines. You will be able to stop the spread of AIDS by vaccinating people with this. Since it is useless if AIDS spreads to two people while treating one patient with a bone marrow transplant, you can vaccinate people without HIV to make them immune and start from there.

—You can use prevention, life-sustaining treatment, and a cure all at once. With a strategy like this, you might be able to eradicate HIV through international cooperation. It also doesn’t violate our ethics.

“...”

Young-Joon felt kind of moved.

“I never thought I would feel moved by a cell.”

—If you’re grateful, just take a shot of ATP after.

“What does it feel like when I take it?”

—I get a little buzzed and I feel good.

“... Alright then.”

Young-Joon pressed the message in Synchronization Mode. He began to write an email as he looked at the chart floating beside him.

[Plan for the Eradication for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus project.]

The recipient was Tedros. They had exchanged business cards when they met at IUBMB. He was the Director-General of the World Health Organization.