Black Badger

“Is this that scientist?”

Igor muttered.

“The one with the weird hair color?”

I was standing there blankly, my palm pressed against the tank.

It took a long time before my mind came back.

Even after I barely pulled myself together—honestly, I couldn’t even be sure I truly had—the words didn’t come right away. A brain submerged in brightly glowing fluid. A brain connected to electrodes. A brain that was clearly not here of its own will.

Eve’s brain.

[Hildebert.]

White letters appeared on the black screen.

Igor cursed under his breath.

I took a step back and took in the entire screen.

[Hi. I missed you.]

My stomach churned.

Ignoring the nausea that felt like motion sickness, I lifted my chin. I tore my gaze away from the tank and fixed it on the screen. I needed to hear her out.

As much as possible....

‘Did you know, Hilde? Researchers at Yale succeeded in reviving a pig’s brain after euthanizing it and removing the body four hours later.’

A memory surfaced—Eve saying that with a grin.

‘Even though it didn’t send electrical signals associated with normal brain activity!’

“Eve. Is it really you?”

Even as I asked, I didn’t want to hear the answer.

“Are you alive?”

[Of course it’s me.]

The reply came fast.

[Why else would they go to all this trouble? Do you think they’d bother taking out someone else’s brain and putting it in a tank like this? Spending this kind of money? It’s me, Hilde. And look, that pitch-black inspection casing I always hated is here too.]

“Your way of speaking feels different.”

Igor voiced his doubt aloud.

“Weren’t you more restrained before?”

“Who did this to you?”

I didn’t have the leeway to answer my subordinate.

Even as I asked, I tried hard not to raise my voice.

“Eve. Who did this to you? You’re not here by your own choice, right?”

[No.]

My chest burned.

I’d expected that answer, but I still hoped I’d hear the opposite.

Words spilled rapidly across the screen.

[I was kidnapped. When I came to, I was like this. Well. Strictly speaking, I didn’t really ‘open my eyes,’ did I? I don’t have eyes anymore.]

“Did you see who kidnapped you?”

[No! But they came sometimes. They’d stand where the cameras couldn’t see, talk to me, and then leave. I don’t think it was the same person who cut off my arms. They laughed and said they were glad they could save you when you were dying.]

“What did they sound like?”

Horrified that the one who’d done this visited her from time to time, I pressed on.

“Man or woman? Their tone? When were you kidnapped?”

[I don’t know. I think it was a man, but the voice didn’t have any distinctive features. I don’t remember when it happened. As you can see, now that I’m just a brain, all I can do is think. You lose your sense of time like that.]

There was a camera attached to the screen. Like Martin’s light flickering at times, Eve’s camera—mounted on the display—glowed.

Hers was red.

[But what’s the point of finding out? Are you going to go kill them for me? I tried for decades to identify my kidnapper and learned nothing. It’s pointless.]

“Why did they bring you here? Have you been like this the whole time?”

[Yeah. I thought I was going to lose my mind.]

The red light blinked rapidly.

[Being surrounded by idiots, stuck without hands or feet I could move as I wanted—I thought my heart would burst! Well, I don’t have a heart anymore either.]

“What were they planning to do with you?”

[They were researching rejuvenation. I guess halting aging wasn’t enough for them.]

Ah.

[I get it. The ones funding the upkeep are probably too old to settle for just stopping aging. But it was never going to succeed! I played along for a long time, dropping hints, but this research is hopeless.]

“Then the people who were in this room—were they scientists researching rejuvenation with you?”

[More or less. Most of them are just pretending to do research while collecting funding. Do you remember the old lab director, Hilde? That stubborn bastard Greg? Thank god he’s dead. If he knew someone like me had wasted decades on impossible rejuvenation research in a place like this, he would’ve dropped dead from a stroke on the spot.]

“Was this scientist always this scathing?”

[That’s my story. You’ve heard it all, right? Hilde, let’s talk about you now. I’m dying to know how you came back.]

Just as Igor said, Eve hadn’t been this sharp-tongued before.

But her rapid-fire way of speaking was the same. Once she got going, she always poured words out in a rush. When she got started, she’d talk nonstop to the point Kyle would get fed up.

And once you got close to her, she’d show her brand of black humor.

Being trapped all this time must have twisted her personality a little....

“I don’t know either.”

In case she wasn’t really Eve, I chose my words carefully.

“I lost my memories and suddenly fell onto Earth. I still don’t remember how it happened. Eve, but can you contact the outside at all....”

[I can access the internet. I saw your videos. Read your articles. I went through all the reactions to them too. I was relieved—you looked like you were living well. Did you play the game I made?]

“I did. Thanks for making it. Thanks to that, some of my memories came back at the time....”

[That’s great!]

The camera lens flooded with red light.

[Then now it’s time for you to do what you have to do!]

I didn’t understand.

“What do I have to do?”

Can this even be moved?

Was it possible to get her out of here? I didn’t even know how to move her, and the thought that she might die if we tried made my stomach drop.

If Yun or John were here, they might’ve known what to do.

As I found myself missing the Science Wing NPCs, text appeared on the screen.

[You have to kill me!]

I stared at the screen in a daze.

I barely snapped out of it when I heard Igor’s voice.

“If you want to die, I’ll do it.”

[No.]

Eve spoke the instant she saw my subordinate step forward.

[No!!]

The letters grew larger and thicker, everything switching to all caps.

[I DON’T WANT TO DIE BY YOU!!! IF I WERE GOING TO DIE BY YOUR HAND, I’D HAVE DIED LONG AGO!!!!!!!]

We froze side by side.

Mouths open, unable to move.

I stared blankly at the sentence filling the screen and said,

“Calm down.”

The letters that had been growing gradually shrank back.

“Eve. I’m not going to have Igor kill you.”

The red light blinked once, as if in relief.

But the sentence that had returned to its original font size—‘I DON’T WANT TO DIE BY YOU!!! IF I WERE GOING TO DIE BY YOUR HAND, I’D HAVE DIED LONG AGO!!!!!!!’—didn’t disappear. Instead, like some bizarre PowerPoint effect, it began spinning clockwise across the screen.

Igor muttered a curse.

“Doesn’t she seem a bit off her rocker?”

After spending decades like this, it would’ve been stranger if she weren’t.

Watching the rotating text, I said,

“Eve. I don’t want you to die.”

[Why?]

The sentence vanished instantly, replaced by a single word.

I furrowed my brow slightly.

“Because I want you to live.”

[But I want to die by your hand.]

“Do you want to die, or is this about guilt toward me?”

[The former! But I don’t want to die by just anyone, and I don’t want to kill myself either. I want to die by your hand, Hilde!]

“You’re insane.”

Unable to hold back, I dragged a hand down my face. Igor spat out an assessment along with a curse in the imperial tongue.

“She’s completely lost it. Step aside, Commander. I’ll do it. Don’t get blood on your hands for nothing.”

[No!]

The font filled the entire screen.

[NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!]

“Shut the fuck up! Who the hell do you think you are, telling the Commander what to do?!”

“Eve.”

I placed my left hand on Igor’s arm as he tried to draw his gun from his chest holster.

Then I wiped my face with my right hand and lifted my head.

“You said you had a lot you wanted to ask me.”

Hadn’t she said that at the end of the Easter egg?

“That you thought you’d always be able to keep asking me questions.”

[That’s right.]

This time, a blue light shone from within the camera.

[I did write that. You remember? But I’m sorry. I’m just so tired now.]

I couldn’t bring myself to say that things might get better once she was out of here.

I didn’t know what kind of comfort to offer someone with no limbs.

[But still, I’m glad. I can finally meet you. I still have photos and videos from the time between when we first met and before everything went wrong. I wanted to give them to you. You might not want to see them, though.]

“Those files still exist?”

[Here.]

Whiiing—

A drawer slid open beneath the tank.

I stared at the card-wallet-sized drive resting inside the drawer.

[Take it. I kept it carefully. If Greg knew, he’d claw his way out of the grave to smash my brain, but he’s buried outside the Core, so he won’t be able to get here.]

“...I really don’t want to kill you, Eve.”

[Hilde. If you’d all grown old and died like normal humans, the Ice Empress wouldn’t have tried to end everything, would she?]

My hand, which had been reaching for the drive, froze when I read the question.

Eve now knew about the Ice Empress as well.

The Ice Empress. The woman whose life I’d ended with three bullets. Her dried rose-colored lipstick and the gray-blue suits she favored came to mind.

So did the words she’d spoken to me the last time we faced each other.

‘The yearning to overcome death is as old as human consciousness itself.’

Her office, perched at the top of the world, had been austere. Vast in space, almost empty of objects, like a gallery before its opening.

‘The disappointment of not being able to live forever permeates myths across the globe. Myths compensated for humanity’s disappointment. Reincarnation and resurrection. The fountain of youth. Nectar and ambrosia. Bodies that do not decay, bloodlines preserved through descendants. Immutable fame. Grand monuments. Vampires and zombies. All of them testify to mortals’ desire for immortality.’

‘And you obtained it through us. Now be satisfied, and step down.’

‘If you’d grown old and died, I wouldn’t have tried to wipe everything out with nuclear fire.’

Even with a gun barrel pointed at her, the Ice Empress smiled with elegance.

‘Then one of the humans would have taken care of you eventually. There is no such thing as eternal absolute power. But you don’t age like the gods of Olympus, nor do you die naturally. So how are we supposed to remove you?’

She had been a remarkable woman. A human who skillfully managed those madly devoted to her like Eric’s hounds, those who couldn’t flee oppression because of a single drop of hope, and even those bound to her by contracts.

A human who, more than anyone I knew, truly loved humanity.

The Ice Empress loved humans. If she lost to us, she intended to burn everything on Earth—that was her way of loving them.

‘Live under your mercy? Like the miserable Greeks who left the Olympian gods in the sky? I can’t bear to watch that.’

‘So you’d blow away even the humans who could’ve lived peacefully, along with nuclear fire?’

The Ice Empress replied with a suffocating smile.

She wasn’t exceptionally beautiful, yet many who loved her ended their lives.

That was the kind of person she was.

‘Of course.’

There could be no one above the Ice Empress.

‘I lost. Hilde, it’s been fun. Goodbye.’

“That’s probably true.”

I answered honestly as I slipped the drive into my pocket.

“Probably.”

[But if you hadn’t possessed immortality, you would’ve been wiped out in the first clash. It was a double-edged sword.]

The communicator crackled, and Leonard’s voice came through.

[Portal device destroyed.]

I didn’t reply, keeping my eyes on the screen.

[My research became a double-edged sword for you too. I finally understand it now, Hilde. When I was young, I believed scientific progress itself could never be a sin. But once I became a brain in a tank, able only to think and read, something finally dawned on me. That peace was broken because I succeeded. But because I succeeded, you were able to blend into society under the guise of Black Badgers.]

“It’s all in the past, Eve. There’s no retreat from progress. Society never returns to what it used to be.”

I couldn’t tell why she was bringing this up. Was she apologizing? Making excuses?

Or simply sharing a realization she’d come to?

I replied in a tired voice, and the blue light flickered wildly.

She seemed to be smiling.

[You’re right. Talking about it now is pointless.]

The drawer holding the drive slid shut, and another drawer opened beneath it.

I widened my eyes when I saw what was inside.

A handgun.

[And the foolish me back then wouldn’t have listened even if you’d asked me to delay completing the research. I justified it as saving humans suffering from aging. I’d abandoned everything to pursue this research. And above all, I wanted to stick it to the scientists who looked down on me.]

“I don’t resent you, Eve.”

[You can’t say you like me either.]

“I never managed to hate you.”

I murmured, unable to take my eyes off the handgun.

“You were someone who didn’t even understand malice.”

The sounds of people arguing drifted in.

It sounded like several people were fighting over something. I didn’t have the capacity to care.

Eve laughed again.

[Thank you. You’re such a good person that I keep getting spoiled. To be honest, for a while, living like this as just a brain wasn’t entirely unpleasant.]

“I’m glad. I mean it.”

[Yeah. But now I’m just so bored.]

The words appeared neatly, and they felt sincere.

[So will you grant my final request? I want to end everything by your hand, with that gun.]

“Why are you so obsessed with dying by the Commander’s hand, you insane brain?”

[Ancient warriors used to say this, didn’t they? ‘We do not wish to become like cattle. We wish to live with human dignity. If our lives are short, then make our names great!’]

Blue light flickered as footsteps moved across the ceiling.

[Of course, I’ve already lived long enough. I’m so unbearably bored that I only long for death. Still, I want to die ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) with some meaning. In the most meaningful way a brain in a tank can die.]

“You want to die the same way as Adam? Fine. Then I’ll fire exactly three shots. I’m a much better shot than the Commander—I’ll hit three precise points, just like before. Heart, throat, forehead.”

[No. It has to be Hilde. Your epithet is Prometheus, after all.]

I bent down and picked up the handgun.

[In a fifth-century Athenian tragedy, Prometheus confessed that he gave humanity another gift along with fire. He gave them ‘blind hope that they would continue to live,’ taking away their ability to foresee their own deaths. Because of that, humans could fight on without yielding.]

“You’re completely out of your mind.”

[I want that ability back.]

Fine.

I couldn’t understand her twisted desire, but I understood that she believed she’d lived too long.

I knew that feeling myself.

I chambered the gun.

It felt heavy, fully loaded.

“Hilde.”

Igor called my name heavily.

“There’s no need to do this.”

“It’s her final request. I should grant it.”

I answered hoarsely.

“It’s not that hard.”

I aimed the gun at the brain in the tank.

The weight felt familiar. It seemed to be the same model I’d trained with before.

Sig Sauer. Three heavy shots.

[Thank you.]

Eve’s face overlapped in my mind, eyes closed.

[I had so much fun, truly.]

Forehead. Throat. Heart.

Three shots.

[Goodbye.]

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The tank shattered.

The bullets struck the brain dead center.

Liquid, glass shards, and brain matter exploded outward. Some of the cerebral fluid splattered onto my cheek at close range.

My face grew wet.

I didn’t bother wiping it away, staring instead at the soaking floor and the brain slumped like a dead jellyfish.

I kept my eyes on her until those startled by the gunshots rushed into the central room.

Eve’s end.

Another human whose life I ended with three bullets.

***

Yehyeon asked the moment he saw Hildebert’s face upon his return to Center Core.

Forgetting that subordinates were standing nearby.

“What happened?”