Chapter 233

Translator: Dreamscribe

The air was cold and still,

Seo-ha slowly turned around to face him.

“Been a while.”

It felt strangely unfamiliar.

A place that was neither dream nor reality. Could this be somewhere within his own subconscious?

Ducky was still wearing that grotesque mask, leaning against thin air. Around him, the protein structures of cells and shapes from multidimensional geometry floated like shards of a broken mirror.

“The data was a complete mess.”

Snap!

Ducky snapped his fingers, and the floating shapes burst into flames and vanished.

“Medicine is ultimately nothing more than the traces left by imperfect living creatures struggling to survive without even understanding the principles behind their own bodies. Why are you wasting time on something like this?”

Seo-ha turned his head and looked around.

‘Is this the deepest part of my consciousness?’

No, that probably was not it.

Seo-ha knew neuroscience. There was a reason his sensory organs had recently begun taking in more information than before. His brain's filtering had become looser.

The brain did not process every piece of information that came in. For the sake of efficiency, most visual, auditory, and tactile information was filtered out at the unconscious level.

The Frontal Lobe, where Ducky had once resided, played a role in suppressing impulses, sensations, and associations. Ducky had not simply let the information sent by Seo-ha's sensory organs slip past him. That was probably because seeking rules and order was part of his nature.

However, as Seo-ha's consciousness expanded its territory, Ducky had been forced to descend deeper. If so, where was he residing now?

Several possibilities came to mind, but there were not enough clues to make a judgment. And right now, Seo-ha had something he needed to do.

Seo-ha looked at him and said.

“What I'm trying to do isn't medicine. You know that too, don't you?”

“....”

A pattern that seemed almost within reach, yet remained just out of grasp.

Seo-ha felt frustrated. Ducky was probably just as frustrated.

“You're a part of me. I know what you want. Hurry up and keep your end of the deal!”

Ducky stared at Seo-ha suspiciously with his arms crossed.

“You're not trying to erase my existence, are you?”

Seo-ha had thought about doing that before. But at least for now, he was not.

“Life is mysterious. Billions of neurons exchange signals however they please, and from that emerges a single phenomenon called consciousness. Once we understand life better someday, we might be able to reconsider what exactly you are. Until then, let's help each other out and coexist.”

Ducky uncrossed his arms and shouted at Seo-ha.

“There’s no need for that. I am the sum of all the possibilities you abandoned!”

Rrrrrumble-

The surrounding space distorted.

Countless threads of light spread out from the darkness. A colossal pattern intertwined like a neural network. It was formed from the patterns of the cells Ducky had observed all this time.

It was a sight the human eye could never comprehend.

Trillions of connections.

Cells constantly split apart and merged together.

Crackle-

Electrical signals and chemical reactions intertwined as they multiplied explosively.

‘Ah!’

Seo-ha thought he knew where Ducky was.

The Parietal Lobe.

The region of the brain responsible for spatial cognition. Ducky had been spreading out the patterns Seo-ha had allowed to pass him by in that place.

Seo-ha's eyes trembled.

The reason he had fallen into those dazed states. At times, it had felt confusing, almost as though dimensions were overlapping. He had assumed it was merely a side effect of his senses becoming sharper.

Ducky had gained a new ability here.

Space.

Patterns.

Structure.

He was amplifying functions the brain normally performed only to a limited degree into their most extreme forms. All the way into realms the human consciousness could not withstand.

Seo-ha's senses merged with Ducky's.

And at last, he was able to take the final remaining step.

“Well? Satisfied? Starting to think you should treasure me a little more?”

Ducky spread both arms wide and spoke boastfully.

Seo-ha slowly raised his head.

“...Yeah. I like it very much.”

He heard Ducky laughing beneath the mask.

***

Vrrrrr-

The Rockfish supercomputer was running at full force, pouring out tremendous heat. The low-frequency vibrations produced by the servers resonated through the floor of the research building.

“That's an incredible amount.”

Sri stared at the screen in amazement.

It was the data that the team and the Johns Hopkins researchers had worked together to integrate over the past several months.

Clack-clack.

When Stern entered a specific value, the relevant information streamed down the screen. A satisfied expression appeared on his face.

“Looks like it's working properly.”

“It looks incredibly convenient. Let's keep using this format from now on. It'd be great if we could apply it to other hospitals too....”

Clara's eyes shone as she moved closer to the monitor.

The Johns Hopkins researchers looked proud. Killian, who had participated more enthusiastically than anyone, added supportively.

“At this level, it might even change the standards of the entire medical field. All anyone has to do is input the data into Sri's program.”

While everyone else was excited, Theo was watching Seo-ha.

‘Is he in that focused state?’

This could not yet be considered an achievement. All they had done was convert the data into a usable form so they could search for the answer.

Billions of cells, trillions of interactions.

Analyzing that vast complex system in its entirety would take years even with Rockfish. ST Compression could be considered the weapon that would allow them to overcome that obstacle. After all, it should be able to predict the whole without error using a sample of barely 1 percent.

Conversely, that also meant it would be useless if they could not understand the operating mechanism of cancer cells.

The tool was complete.

‘The problem is finding the key....’

No matter how long Theo studied the data, he could not identify a behavioral pattern in the cancer cells.

Another ecosystem that had adapted to extremes for the sake of survival. Could there really be any discernible causality within it?

‘But if it's Seo-ha.’

Theo let out a long breath.

At that moment.

Crack.

Seo-ha's finger moved.

With his eyes still closed, his index finger moved through the air as though he were writing something.

Theo edged closer to him and asked.

“Seo-ha, do you need a board?”

This was the server room. It was not a suitable place to write anything down. While Theo wondered what he should do, Seo-ha opened his eyes and spoke.

“No, I think I'm fine for now.”

What humanity had seen until now was only the surface-level information of cells.

It was like trying to infer a multidimensional form from a two-dimensional shadow. There was no way they could have found the answer except through the occasional lucky accident.

Life was a flow.

It was also structure, interaction, and something like a vast network spread throughout all of space and time. Within the space Ducky had expanded, Seo-ha could see the topological structure of the entire cellular network. There was not enough information to understand every process of life, but when limited to Pancreatic Cancer, it was more than enough.

“Dr. Stern.”

“Hm?”

“Could you choose one case that was deemed incurable?”

The room fell silent.

Clara cautiously asked him.

“Don't tell me you're going to analyze it right now?”

Seo-ha nodded.

“We need to see if it's possible.”

His tone was calm.

But the moment everyone understood what his words meant, their expressions stiffened.

“I..I will! I'll find one.”

Clara hurried over and placed her hands on the keyboard.

Clack-clack.

“...Here it is.”

A patient's information appeared on the monitor.

[PATIENT ID : P-1042]

-Diagnosis : Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer.

-Extensive metastasis to liver and peritoneum.

-FOLFIRINOX chemotherapy failed.

-Gemcitabine, nab - paclitaxel combination therapy failed.

-No response to immunotherapy.

-Transferred to hospice, deceased.

“The cause of death was multiple organ failure.”

A few lines on a chart compressed the patient's agonizing life into mere fragments of text.

Seo-ha nodded.

“Theo, extract the data related to the patient's symptoms.”

“Okay!”

Theo hurried over and entered the command.

Vrrrrr-

An enormous volume of medical data flooded across the large screen mounted on the wall.

CT, MRI, blood tests, tissue slides, gene expression, proteomics, immune response, metabolic pathways. And the key variables extracted through ST Compression were being displayed in real time.

Twitch.

Seo-ha's finger traced through the air once again.

The data shown on the screen was nothing more than a two-dimensional shadow. When he linked it with the multidimensional cellular structure in his mind, the network of life, an enormous three-dimensional structure unfolded before his eyes.

A vast ecosystem connected like a neural network.

‘I can see it.’

Pancreatic tissue.

Blood vessels.

Lymph.

Liver.

Immune cells.

Trillions of interactions formed a vast topology. And at its center, the cancer cells continuously changed form.

Ssshh.

Like a single ecosystem.

No, it was as though he were looking at a living civilization.

Seo-ha's gaze shifted elsewhere.

The moment the anticancer drug was administered, part of the cancer-cell network collapsed. But another pathway immediately opened.

Rerouting metabolic pathways, redistributing blood flow, disrupting immune signals.

As though they had anticipated the human attack, the cancer cells instantly altered their structure and adapted.

‘What should I do? A way to stop their activity.’

Countless lines branched across his vision once again.

Possibilities in which the patient survived.

The conditions that had to be avoided were an immune overreaction, sepsis, and liver failure.

Countless simulations were generated and vanished within his mind.

During that process, Seo-ha realized something.

The goal of cancer cells was not proliferation.

It was survival.

Paradoxically, the cells were regulating the speed of the host's collapse in order to survive. But their energy efficiency was tragically poor. They consumed far more energy than normal cells. That was why they had constantly exploited the surrounding tissue.

‘Hm?’

Seo-ha noticed an anomaly.

‘So even you weren't completely unconstrained.’

Although the cells appeared capable of mutating without limit, they maintained a certain topological structure every time they created a new pathway.

‘What if I collapse this part?’

Seo-ha strode over to the keyboard.

Clack-clack.

Vrrrrr-

Rockfish's CPU usage rose sharply.

31%

57%

82%

The entire server room began to vibrate.

‘What's happening?’

Everyone gathered around the monitors and watched the simulation.

What appeared on the screen was the geometric structure of Pancreatic Cancer, mathematically reinterpreted. Once the command was entered, the cancer-cell network began to transform rapidly.

At first, nothing changed.

The cancer cells bypassed the metabolic pathways just as they had before.

Increased glucose consumption, activated fatty-acid metabolism, maximized autophagy.

But around seven minutes later, the center of the network suddenly shook.

The web-like connections had begun to break apart.

“Huh? Is it dying?”

Killian leaned in until he was almost pressed against the monitor.

No bypass route formed.

No, one could not form. The energy balance itself had collapsed.

Crack!

The cancer cells within the simulation collapsed in a chain reaction.

“Reactive oxygen species are increasing.”

Orson, who had by then learned the language of the mathematicians, murmured as he stared at the screen.

And-

Immune cells began surging into the cancerous tissue. The tumor microenvironment, which until then had been sealed shut like an iron fortress, had collapsed.

Ding!

The results appeared.

[Simulation Complete]

-Existing survival period : 3 months.

-Estimated tumor collapse rate after applying virtual treatment 98.7 percent.

-Probability of immune system normalization : 89.1 percent.

-Expected 5-year survival rate : 92.4 percent.

The server room fell silent.

What had he done? Did this truly mean Pancreatic Cancer could now be treated? Questions filled the doctors' minds.

Just as Stern took a step toward Seo-ha to ask what he wanted to know, there was a thud beside him.

It was Clara.

She was on her knees, one hand clamped over her mouth.

“Clara?”

Stern called out to her in surprise, but Clara could not answer.

A moment later, her fingertips pointed toward the monitor.

[PATIENT ID : P-1042]

“Mom....”

Her voice sounded as though it had been wrung out from deep within her chest.

The very first case Clara had used to create the data had been her own mother.

*****

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