The Underclass - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Hearing this, Galaxy calmly removed the hood of her hazmat suit. The female researcher's eyes lit up, but she maintained a relatively restrained tone as she asked, "I don't think I've seen you before. Are you new here?"

Galaxy nodded. "Yes, I just joined. I'm Number 8927."

Recalling the name tag on the researcher who had led them inside, she said calmly, "Number 7603 is my mentor, but right after we got inside, she said she had an urgent matter and rushed off. She just pointed me down this path and told me to follow everyone to broaden my horizons."

The female researcher flashed her own name tag. "I'm 8824. It's very nice to meet you."

Galaxy shook hands with her. She felt the hand, bearing a thin layer of calluses, subtly stroke her palm, as if conveying some sort of hint. Feigning ignorance, she lowered her eyes. "Can I ask what this is? This should be tyap-j, right? With everyone taking off their suits like this, aren't you afraid of radiation poisoning?"

8824 gave her a meaningful look. "It seems your mentor hasn't had the time to properly brief you on how things work here."

She leaned in closer, dropping her voice. "This is one of our biggest secrets. The tyap-j here has long been completely purged of radiation. Or rather, I should say this is the sum total of all the radiation-purged tyap-j collected over the thirty years since it was introduced into the mines of District C."

Tyap-j is highly malleable, so usually, only a small amount is needed to support an entire tunnel. Once a tunnel is tapped out, the material is reclaimed and reused in the next. Over thirty years, less than twenty tons had actually been put into use.

8824 led her forward. "We were in such a hurry because there was a scan today that detected radiation fluctuations in this area. And tyap-j has another characteristic—infectiousness. If a single piece regains its radiation, the rest will quickly become radioactive again, rendering the purified essence of the last thirty years completely useless."

"However, one of our directors just checked and didn't find any new fluctuations, which is why we're allowed to take off our suits. After all, the hazmat suits are incredibly uncomfortable to wear and can easily cause asphyxiation."

Galaxy frowned, sharply catching the flaw in that logic.

If there actually had been a radiation leak, they should have evacuated the area. Why would they order everyone to rush toward it?

Given how deeply the Federation valued high-quality genetics, how could they possibly send their people to die?

Thinking this, she voiced her question aloud.

Hearing her ask this, 8824 couldn't help but laugh out loud. The way she looked at Galaxy even carried a trace of pity.

"Do you know how the numerical rankings here are assigned?"

Galaxy guessed, "By the order in which we joined the institute?"

8824 shook her head. "It's not that simple. From Number 1 to your current number, 8927, they are all active numbers, but there aren't actually 8927 people here. Normally, it is sorted by entry time, but the ranking shifts after the first hour, adjusted based on a person's genetic strength and rarity."

"The further back your number is, the lower your genetic value, and the lower the priority to protect you." 8824 said. "Look, the people who were called here this time are all numbered after 8000, like you and me. Your mentor, 7603, would absolutely never set foot in here. She would only be on standby in the command room outside. Unless our entire batch is sacrificed, they won't come in."

"Sacrificed?" Galaxy's eyes widened.

8824's words confirmed a premonition she was already feeling. An indescribable chill crept up her spine. She shuddered involuntarily, almost wanting to stop 8824 from speaking the rest of her cruel words.

But she didn't. She listened in silence as 8824 revealed the truth that every researcher learns upon entering this facility.

"All tyap-j radiation can only be purged by human bodies," 8824 said calmly. "And the method the Federation came up with was to use the miners for the purification. Underground mines are sealed environments, preventing the radiation from spreading outward and causing further chaos. SAR is a radiation disease, and it's incurable. For thirty years, we haven't found any way to resist it. But purifying tyap-j is something we must do, so we can only continuously rely on human lives to accomplish it."

Galaxy's heart sank to the very bottom. "But those miners don't know the truth."

They just wanted to make a living, and they placed so much trust in the Federation! Yet, in reality, it was the Federation pushing them into the abyss!

"Sometimes, ignorance is a blessing." The look in 8824's eyes was currently as placid as still water. The words spilling from her mouth didn't sound like they concerned the tens of thousands of lives sacrificed over thirty years to purify tyap-j; they sounded like a baseless gust of wind that just brushed past her eyes without causing a single ripple. "Their sacrifice for the Federation has purpose. That purpose will benefit their descendants. This is the supreme glory."

"And we, for the sake of this glory, can also be sacrificed," 8824 continued. "If a true radiation leak occurred here, our group—with the lower-ranked genetic sequences—would be the first ones sent in wearing hazmat suits to absorb the radiation."

The hazmat suits had bionic breathing vents that could absorb a portion of the radiation, but once the suits hit maximum capacity, the rest had to be absorbed by human bodies. Their purpose in absorbing it, however, wasn't for anything noble; it was to buy time for the top 6000 researchers with superior genes to safely evacuate, preventing irreversible losses to the Federation.

Galaxy felt these people were utterly insane.

She stared at 8824, shuddering again and again.

If her genetic sequence hadn't been ruined, would she... would she have eventually become like this too?

Become this blindly loyal and trusting of the Federation? Become someone who no longer treated the lives of the lower classes as actual human lives?

When life is reduced to a materialized metric, how terrifying of a reality does that become?

Yet, no one here thought there was anything wrong with it.

She had to figure out exactly what this tyap-j was for.

Get instant access to all chapters now.

Previous Table of Contents Next