Chapter six: Prototype

Kang Jungwan's office was quiet, too quiet for it to be totally normal. The young CEO glanced at his three customers in worry and he could see that they were trying to get their head around the shocking information he had just blurted out. He could understand, he had been surprised himself at first, when his scientists' team had told him about the events... He knew for sure that none of the people gathered in front of him had expected something like that. Sadly, they weren't done with the surprises yet... He still had a lot of things to explain to them.

The blonde teenager was the first one to react and Jungwan had to refrain from smiling: this boy seemed to be really attached to the humanoid, which would have been rather odd in any other circumstances, seeing that Jonghyun wasn't supposed to be human. But now... Well, his previous revelation could change many things - would it be for the best or for the worst, he didn't know.

"What ?" Kibum finally asked, his voice as cold as ice. "Are you ing kidding us ?"

Chin Hae didn't even think of scolding his angry son for his bad language: all he could do was gape at the man with wide eyes.

"I wouldn't dare to, lad." Jungwan answered.

"Then please, would you mind explaining yourself ?" Na Yung asked softly, even though her usually smiling features had been replaced by a severe and serious face. "What do you mean ? You said that Jonghyun is a prototype... But he has always been efficient so far, safe for that time he attacked my son's friend. I thought that the prototypes had been destroyed because they weren't dutiful enough."

Jungwan fidgeted, a bit uncomfortable under Kibum's piercing gaze; he wasn't one to feel threatened by a teenager but hell, he literally felt like the young boy was staring a hole through his body.

He bypassed his customers wordlessly, turning his back on them as he stood in front of one of the large windows. He let his eyes wander over Seoul's high buildings that he could see from afar, thinking of how different the city might have looked like, many years ago.

The progress... The progress was a terrible and amazing thing all at once. The humanoids were the symbol itself of this progress, the progress of science... Lots of people considered it as a wonderful evolution, which was true if you only took the citizens' easier lives in consideration. But deep under the shining name of Kang Jungwan's company, it wasn't that bright anymore.

The young man sighed and ran a nervous hand through his dark hair before facing the curious and impatient gazes weighing on him.

"You deserve an explanation, that's for sure." he said firmly. "But I would appreciate if you could keep it to yourself. No one but our scientists should know the truth behind the creation of the humanoids. It would create a scandal that no one wants to be part of."

Kibum had a hard time refraining from rolling his eyes: the man was beating around the bush, why couldn't he just grow some balls and tell them everything ? Was it that bad ? He wanted to know and he wanted it now. The faster the CEO would explain the situation, the faster he would be allowed to see Jonghyun - and if his friend was hurt, then the scientists and technicians better had not to be anywhere nearby him.

"Okay." Chin Hae finally said, closing his eyes while rubbing his temples.

He could feel the headache already. Whatever it was that Mister Kang wanted to tell them about, he knew that he wasn't going to like it one bit and to be honest, he was kind of afraid to find out what was going on with Jonghyun. He really hoped that it wasn't something too dangerous... He hadn't lied to his son: if the humanoid could be a risk for his family's safety, then they would get rid of him, no matter how much Kibum liked him and claimed him as his friend.

He opened his eyes again when he heard Kang Jungwan take the floor once more as he leaned his back against the white wall nearby the windows.

"You were right, Miss Kim." he said. "The prototypes of our humanoids have been destroyed under the pretext that they weren't obedient enough, but... Actually... This is just the official version."

So, there was a unofficial version, a real one ? Did it mean that the scientists and the government had lied to the whole nation ? To the whole world ? No surprise there... Every government had its own secrets and made its business behind the back of the population, Chin Hae and Na Yung knew it, just like many other adults. But Kibum looked genuinely surprised, which was probably normal for a thirteen-year-old boy who knew nothing about politics and important matters that were sometimes kept hidden from the citizens.

"I will explain everything to you." Kang Jungwan said hesitantly. "This is going to be long and I'm already sorry for this, but if you want to understand the situation thoroughly, I will have to start from the beginning."

"Which is ?" Chin Hae asked with furrowed eyebrows.

"The origins of the humanoids."

Jungwan could have laughed at the sight of his three customers who were staring at him without blinking, curiosity shining in their eyes; yet there was nothing funny in this situation, so he slowly breathed in before starting his story.

"As I said before, it was my grandfather who came up with the idea to create the humanoids. I think it was in 2015 that he really started to work over this project: he gathered several scientists and together, they tried to create the first humanoid. But it was harder than they had expected it to be and none of the few results they got was satisfying enough for their liking. Then, a scientist suggested that maybe, they could use real humans. He was convinced that it was the best way to carry out their experiments: turning a human into a robot would probably be easier than creating a robot from nothing and it would allow them to learn more about the human body or brain. Which was true and actually made possible the creation of real humanoids, after years and years of hard work."

The young man was about to add something but Chin Hae suddenly cut him off:

"Do you realise how bloody sick this is ?" he asked, his voice filled with anger. "They were humans !"

Kibum's eyes grew wide as he witnessed the way his father was slowly losing his temper and he felt a rush of affection sweeping towards his dad; so far, he had seemed to handle the situation pretty well, to the point that the teenager had even begun to doubt his father's fondness for Jonghyun, which wasn't the case anymore.

Jonghyun...

Jonghyun had been a human before. A real one, with feelings and emotions, laughs and tears, sparkles in the eyes and smiles, pouts and frowns, warm skin and tons of different expressions that were now nothing but a memory.

The scientists had destroyed his personality to turn him into a cold robot.

Kibum wanted to cry. Because Jonghyun could have been his friend, he could have cared for him, he could have laughed with him at silly things... They could have done many things together.

Jonghyun could have lived with him, instead of watching him live.

How cruel was that ? Which right did the scientist have to play with people's lives ?

As he stared at Jonghyun's picture that was still displayed on the screen in front of him, the teenager closed his eyes and tried to engrave the humanoid's smiling face in his memory, drawing the beautiful features in his imagination; he wanted to remember the way his lips were curling up at the corners of his mouth, revealing rows of pearly whites, he wanted to remember his face beaming with happiness. Remember and never forget how breathtaking Jonghyun had been as a human. Amazingly alive.

Kibum quickly wiped away the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and he tried to focus again on the discussion between his parents and the CEO, which he had skipped a little part of. He listened absently to Mister Kang who was trying to explain that he didn't have any responsibility in this affair and that it was the former generation of scientists who had come to this agreement, when a sudden question crossed his mind.

"Where did you find these humans ?" he asked a bit hesitantly, not sure that he would really like the answer.

What if they had abducted people to carry out experiments on them ? What if they had taken them away from their family, against their own will ? It would make everything worse than it was already.

But the answer was not one he could have expected.

"They volunteered."

"I'm sorry ?" Na Yung whispered, her wide eyes showing how much she was shocked.

This was totally unbelievable; who could even have been crazy enough to willingly do this ? Give up on their humanity and become a robot ? This wasn't the kind of choice someone would make carelessly, was it ? Then what was the reason behind Jonghyun's decision ?

Just like an echo of Kibum's thoughts, the CEO elaborated:

"Back then, we - I mean, the former team of scientists... They didn't think that many people would come and say that they wanted to be... Well, used for our experiments. But they did, for a good reason: the people who volunteered were... desperate. Most of them didn't know the meaning of life anymore, they just wanted to end it all and our project was a great opportunity for them, as cruel as it may sound. At that time, no one knew if it would be possible to create the humanoids, everything could happen to the subjects. Pain, death, memory loss, brain damage... Yet they all chose to try it."

Kibum snorted. Did they really choose it ? Or had they been forced to agree ? It wouldn't even surprise him to know that it hadn't totally happened as Jungwan was saying... The Kang clearly had some serious ethical issues.

"What about Jonghyun ?" the teenager asked. "Why did he volunteer in the first place ?"

"I'm not supposed to tell you, because of professional secrecy, but... I guess it doesn't really matter anymore, does it ?"

Jungwan didn't wait for an answer, he approached the screen and slid his finger across the surface in order to open an other file; Kibum and his parents stared in awe as he scrolled down a long list of names, until he stopped once he found a file named Kim Jonghyun.

"I'll let you read for yourselves." the man whispered as he tapped his fingertip against the screen in order to open.

Kibum's eyes widened. The file contained some information about Jonghyun - the teenager learnt that his last name was Kim, just like him, and that he was eighteen when he came to the firm as a volunteer for the humanoid project - there was also a few statistical graphics and scientific explanations that looked awfully complicated, and finally, the reason why Jonghyun had chosen to contribute to the progress of science.

The blonde teenager's heart sank in his chest when he read that part. Jonghyun's parents had died in a car crash, as well as his older sister; the boy had been left on his own but he couldn't find the strength to get over the tragic events and keep on by himself. And he had decided to give up on everything, unable to bear with the pain and sorrow any longer.

Na Yung wanted to cry. Who could have known that behind Jonghyun's cold face and blank gaze, there was once a happy boy whose world had crashed down around him all of a sudden ?

No one spoke for a while, as the Kim's were trying to take in the information and its consequences.

"How... How did you turn them into robots ?" Chin Hae asked.

Jungwan tried to hold back a smile, thinking that it wasn't the right time to show that he was relieved, it could be seen as a rude gesture. Yet he really felt relieved, because explaining science was something he was actually good at, while he wasn't that good when it came to emotional people he had to deal with - and he could see that Miss Kim and her son were pretty emotional at the moment, which frightened him beyond words.

"The very first method we tried didn't work out but then, we found something else. Do you know what cryonics is ?" he asked softly.

Kibum furrowed his brows. Kry-oh what ? Was that even a Korean word ? He glanced at his parents, who looked as confused as him.

"Cryonics is the same as cryopreservation." the CEO explained. "It means that we... We could say that we freeze a body at a very low temperature, in order to preserve it. This it what my predecessors did, since they wanted to keep a human morphology for the robots; they used this method to preserve the human appearance of the subjects."

This explained Jonghyun's cold skin, then. Although Kibum didn't know anything about cryo-whatever it was, he knew that a human couldn't survive under too low temperatures... Did it mean that the prototypes were... dead ? Maybe. Otherwise, Jonghyun would have looked alive, which wasn't the case at all.

The teenager shivered but he didn't have the time to ask any question: the CEO was still talking and Kibum was horrified to state that the man was quite excited as he explained his science to his clueless customers. The young boy could understand his excitement as he told them about the project his whole family had been working on for years but... Hell, they had taken human lives ! It didn't matter whether they had volunteered or not, the result was the same ! The scientists shouldn't even have thought of using humans for their experiments.

"We didn't really freeze the bodies." Jungwan said, unaware of the teenager's thoughts. "The humanoids are artificial, that much is obvious, and they aren't supposed to change as time goes by. So, basically, all we had to do was to use cryonics in order to keep the vital organs from working and to keep the subjects from aging. We put our volunteers in an artificial coma so they wouldn't realise that they were slowly... Well, they were virtually dying. I repeat, they all knew what could possibly happen to them and no one stepped back. So, we used some sort of needles to freeze the organs without damaging their bodies, and we stopped every biological process. Their hearts stopped beating as well and then, it was final: they weren't alive anymore and all we had to do was to program them and give them an artificial intelligence. Everything was perfect."

He went silent for a little while, waiting for his customers to fully understand everything. Chin Hae was still mumbling that it was sick, Na Yung was crying and Kibum wanted nothing but to see Jonghyun. Yet Jungwan still had a few explanations to give them.

"Now I should explain to you why our first humanoids had to be destroyed... You see, the program we used back then was a bit weak, speaking in terms of technology, and it didn't match well with the cryonics. The program itself began to freeze, which caused the prototypes' inner connections to break and have unexpected and dangerous reactions. So, it is true that they were inefficient after this, but I guess you all can see why we didn't give much details about the situation. My grandfather decided to get rid of these prototypes, since they weren't of any use anymore; the hard work we did as we struggled to create the first humanoids actually allowed us to enlarge our knowledge and we finally managed to create fully artificial robots. I didn't think there was any prototype left but... As you know, I was wrong. We all were."

Kibum snorted. Yeah, right. The scientists had been wrong from the very beginning yet it hadn't kept them from making more mistakes.

"So, what about Jonghyun ?" he asked and crossed his bony arms against his chest. "Are you finally going to tell us why you've kept him away from us for two whole weeks ?"

Kang Jungwan nodded and sat on the chair behind his desk, resting his hands on the shiny wooden surface. Kibum couldn't help but think that he looked too serious, like a doctor wondering what was the best way to tell his patient that he had an incurable disease; he fidgeted nervously, playing with his fingers to try and relax a bit - which was rather useless.

"As I said, Jonghyun felt the pain when the technicians carried out a test on him; since it was totally abnormal, we kept him in order to investigate a bit further and what we found is quite... Surprising, to say the least. We don't know how this is possible but Jonghyun is experiencing the total opposite of what happened to the other prototypes: instead of freezing, his program is actually warming up his organism."

"What do you mean ?" Chin Hae asked, knitting his brows.

"I mean that there is a crack in the ice around his heart. It's beating, this is a really weak and slow heartbeat but... It is beating, for real. And his heart might actually be able to warm up his other organs, since it has begun to pump blood again."

Kibum gaped at the man, wide eyes not blinking. Hope filled his heart as he heard the CEO's words and he exclaimed, almost beaming with happiness:

"Is he turning into a human again ?"

Jungwan hated himself for what he was about to say but he had to be honest:

"Don't get your hopes up, lad. Jonghyun's metabolism has changed a lot: his brain has begun to function but it is partly damaged, since it hasn't been fed with blood for years. This will lead to a severe memory loss, at least. His heart beats very slowly, it will probably take years before it reaches a normal pace and until that day, Jonghyun won't age like any other human. Plus, we don't know yet if his other organs will be able to work properly again... Sure, he felt the pain we cause him, which means that he's slowly recovering his sensitiveness, but what will happen next is a mystery to us. Actually, we think that the only thing keeping him alive, or kind of, is his program. His existence and his program are deeply bound together. He is, literally, a humanoid: not a robot with a human appearance, no, but half-human and half-robot."

Kibum heaved a sigh. Again, he was expecting too much. Jonghyun would never turn into a real human again, no matter what. Maybe he should try to get used to it already, so it wouldn't hurt anymore.

He was surprised when Kang Jungwan took the floor again:

"Finally... Regarding Jonghyun's attack on your son's friend..."

Oh. Right. The teenager had almost forgotten that this was the reason why they were there in the first place.

"Since his organism is slowly awakening, Jonghyun has begun to get back reflexes, instinctive reactions and also, emotions. This is not impossible that he attacked because of a sudden rise of anger, or a related emotion."

Anger ? Really ? Kibum clearly remembered that Jonghyun's eyes had seemed angry at that time, but he didn't want to believe it. Why would Jonghyun have attacked Taemin, who hadn't done anything to the humanoid ? Anger was probably not the only explanation to Jonghyun's reaction. Taemin and he were just playing together, nothing more...

But Jonghyun had witnessed them being close, physically close to each other, while Kibum was usually glued to the humanoid. Maybe it had angered him to see the teenager cling to someone else ? Maybe he had been... jealous ?

If so... Why ? He didn't understand. Jonghyun had never returned his friendship to the blonde boy, so he couldn't possibly be jealous for that. Unless the humanoid had been unaware of it and had just reacted without thinking ? Yes, this could be.

"Mister Kang..." Chin Hae said softly. "You have been very honest with us so far and I would appreciate if you could answer one more question with the same sincerity."

"What is it ?" the CEO asked, curious.

"If we bring him back home, do you think that Jonghyun could be a danger for my family ?"

Kibum crossed his fingers behind his back, fighting the tears that he wanted to let out as the thought of going back home alone crossed his mind. He stared at the young man in front of him with hope shining in his eyes and he watched as Jungwan visibly hesitated and then sighed, scratching his hair.

"To say the truth, I have no idea. A normal humanoid would never try to hurt a human but since Jonghyun isn't what we can refer to as a normal robot, we should be prepared and expect him to have such reactions a lot in the future. The emotions are coming back but they don't mean anything to Jonghyun anymore, I hardly think that he really understands them. They are foreign to him, which means that he doesn't know how to control his reactions: he just needs to let out everything. So... Yes, those raw emotions might put you in danger."

Na Yung's heart skipped a beat. That was it. Jonghyun wouldn't come back. She glanced at her son in worry, only to see his eyes watering. The poor boy had grown attached to the humanoid, maybe a bit too much. She had, too. And Chin Hae, despite how severe his words had been lately, really cared for Jonghyun as well.

She couldn't accept this situation and leave the humanoid behind. It was just impossible. Eight years ago, she had welcomed Jonghyun in their family; she didn't intend to give up on him right now.

"Is there any way to help him ?" Chin Hae asked, sounding tired. "Or at least, to avoid that danger ?"

The CEO hesitated again.

"Maybe." he finally said, chewing on his lower lip. "But I don't think you will like this idea very much, this can be quite shocking."

His customer sighed and answered:

"I don't think that it can be more surprising than our whole discussion. Please, go on."

"As you want." Jungwan said, nodding. "Since Jonghyun's heart is responsible for this whole situation, we believe that the process will be stopped if we take his heart out. Then, he would just be a normal robot without any emotions; in short, he would be what he was supposed to be from the very beginning: a heartless and harmless robot."

"What ?!" Kibum exclaimed, shaking his head. "No ! You don't have the right to do this !"

This couldn't be ! The teenager wouldn't let it happen: Jonghyun had been used enough for these scientists' sick tests, now they had to let him be. He wasn't theirs anymore.

"I won't do anything if your parents disagree." Jungwan said with what he hoped was a reassuring smile, before turning to Chin Hae and Na Yung. "As his owners, this is your decision. It is up to you."

Hello my dear readers ! Here's the sixth chapter~

I hope this was alright, explaining science in English isn't my favourite thing ever and I'm not quite sure I used the correct words... If there's any mistake, feel free to tell me ^^

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