The day after the battle with Yang Jin-Mu, Alice went to Yang Su-Hyeon for a check-up.
Yang Su-Hyeon had advised her to visit regularly, since many of the functions built into Alice's body had yet to be identified.
When she lightly tapped Alice's knee with a metal hammer, Alice's lower leg jerked upward on reflex.
"Wait, Doctor. Aren't you normally supposed to use a rubber hammer for that?"
"...Why would I have something like that at home?
More importantly, isn't this result interesting? Why would a robot like you have reflexes at all?"
"?"
"There's a classic experiment in which the neural network of C. elegans—a tiny nematode—is transferred directly into a robot's body.
You might be something similar: an entire human neural network reproduced inside an android body."
"Who would go to all that trouble... and why?"
"You said you're Seong Yu-Hwa.
The only person with both the technology and the authority to do something like this to Seong Yu-Hwa would be President Seong Dong-Hyeon."
"...!"
Her father had done this to her?
That kind and wise father had deliberately shoved her into a robot body?
Alice was thrown into confusion.
"But I can use magic! That means I'm real and have a soul, right!?"
"Who knows? Scientists aren't particularly fond of terms like 'soul' that are mainly used to attract public attention.
The prevailing hypothesis is that any entity occupying the role of an observer in quantum-mechanical terms can use magic.
According to that theory, there would be nothing strange about a robot using magic—or a neighborhood mutt, for that matter."
Alice thought Yang Su-Hyeon was being rather too cynical about it.
"Any questions?"
"...Do you know anything about Yu-Han's past?"
At the question, Yang Su-Hyeon bit down hard on the cigarette in her mouth.
"I meant technical questions. Why are you asking something like that?"
"We went to capture a terrorist named Yang Jin-Mu, and he said Yu-Han had killed him before.
But that jerk Yu-Han refuses to say a word, so I've been asking other people instead."
"How would I know?"
"But you both have the surname Yang. Aren't you related?"
"Oh, for science's sake. People surnamed Yang make up one percent of the entire population.
Do you think everyone named Yang knows each other?"
"When I first met you, your expression changed when Yu-Han said he was going to kill Yang Jin-Mu."
"That doesn't prove anything..."
Yang Su-Hyeon tried to deny it to the bitter end, but then she noticed Alice staring straight through her with eyes full of curiosity, suspicion, and absolute certainty.
"Fine. Forget it. You look like you've already made up your mind anyway.
It'll be easier to tell you and get this over with."
"What was your relationship with Yang Jin-Mu?"
"He was my biological older brother."
Yang Su-Hyeon lit a fresh cigarette and began a long story...
///
As children, the siblings Yang Jin-Mu and Yang Su-Hyeon both loved science.
At an age when other children were still reading fairy tales, the two of them worked through calculus textbooks for fun.
///
Alice looked horrified.
"Ugh... That's a dream I really can't relate to."
"Don't interrupt whenever you feel like it. Besides, plenty of children dream of becoming scientists."
Yang Su-Hyeon added,
"Though once we grew up, it turned out we had to do both physics and chemistry anyway."
///
After studying abroad and completing their doctorates at record-breaking ages, the siblings became incomparable prodigies.
They even developed a device called the "High-Output Energy Barrier," an invention destined to leave its mark on history.
However, Korea's professors, conglomerates, and bureaucrats were not about to leave them alone.
They used their influence to seize every last result of the siblings' research and pass it off as their own.
Even Yang Jin-Mu's anguished cries in court did nothing to change the situation.
Korean law existed to serve the powerful, after all.
We'll just have to continue our research on our own.>
We burned away our lives for that pure research, and now it's only lining those bastards' pockets!!>
///
"Rather than grit his teeth and live with it, my brother chose to become a terrorist.
He tracked down the people behind it one by one and killed them.
He didn't care in the slightest who else got caught up in it..."
"..."
"And around that time, a man approached me.
Given how this story has gone so far, you can probably guess who it was."
///
Let's fight to the bitter end with everything we have!>
Yu-Han encouraged the despondent Yang Su-Hyeon and did everything he could.
He gathered evidence, tried to expose the truth through social media, and pursued every other method he could think of.
Every attempt was obstructed, so little came of his efforts.
Even so, they were more than enough to draw the two of them closer.
And now that I have you, I'm all right.>
He might know something...>
<...My brother is a terrorist. You know that, right?>
<...I'll try contacting him.>
///
"H-he called you Noona!?"
"Looking back on it now makes me sick... I was such an idiot back then.
I never should have let him meet my brother so carelessly...!"
Yang Su-Hyeon's hand trembled with rage as she spoke.
///
The moment Yu-Han met Yang Jin-Mu, he changed completely.
Before either of them could say a word, his carbon-coated blade punched through Yang Jin-Mu's abdomen.
Yang Jin-Mu's eyes slid shut.
I'm actually a sanctioner.>
I had no idea where Yang Jin-Mu was, and he wasn't the kind of man who lowered his guard easily.
So what else was I supposed to do?>
You deserved to die too, for hiding a terrorist.
I'm letting you live because I grew attached to you, so you should be thanking me instead! Pfft!>
///
"He's complete garbage...!"
"..."
Yet Yang Su-Hyeon, the person who had actually suffered through it, did not agree with her.
"Anyway, I became a sanctioner to take revenge on that bastard and the people behind the theft.
But strangely enough, every one of those people had already been killed by someone.
It was obvious who had done it."
Yang Su-Hyeon took a deep drag from her cigarette and released a long sigh.
"Do you still intend to take revenge on Yu-Han?"
"I gave up.
Now... we just have a business relationship, and I can't stand the sight of him.
Besides, his magic is—"
"That's enough."
The door suddenly opened, and Yu-Han appeared, cutting the conversation short.
"Dr. Yang. You seem to enjoy blabbing about other people's trade secrets more than I expected.
I suppose even a high IQ can't do much to change a woman's habit of gossiping behind people's backs."
"Ghh..."
Yang Su-Hyeon ground her teeth.
Alice stepped forward and stood in front of Yu-Han.
"I heard everything Yang Su-Hyeon C told me. Apologize."
"What if I don't?"
Alice suddenly slapped Yu-Han across the face with a resounding smack.
Yu-Han held his stinging cheek, yet his expression did not change in the slightest.
"This is between her and me.
What do you think barging into it will change?"
In response, Alice slapped his other cheek.
"Great. Does that make you feel any better?"
"No! Not even close!"
Alice began slapping Yu-Han back and forth across both cheeks.
Yu-Han silently allowed her to hit him for a while, but eventually he could endure no more.
"Quit hitting me already, you tin can!!"
"Then say you're sorry!"
"I'm not!!"
"Say it!!"
Alice tried to slap him again, while Yu-Han now scrambled desperately around the room to avoid her.
As the two of them ran back and forth, Yang Su-Hyeon's house rapidly descended into chaos.
Both of Yang Su-Hyeon's fists began to tremble.
"Stop wrecking my house and get the hell out, both of you!!"
Yang Su-Hyeon kicked them both in the backside and drove them out of her home.
Even after being thrown out, Alice and Yu-Han kept up the same childish argument all the way back to the Cheong-Am Center.
"Why are you so incapable of apologizing!?"
"Because I'm genuinely not sorry.
I merely eliminated a terrorist in the most efficient way possible."
"You little..."
Still growling at one another, the two entered the Cheong-Am Center.
Inside, however, they found another pair of people engaged in an equally childish argument.
"Ya tied a lady up and just left her there! Apologize!!"
"You looked like you weren't thinking enough, so I tied you to the Thinking Tree for thirty minutes. That's all."
"Say you're sorry!"
"No!"
While Yi Rang and Lee Sang-Deok continued their furious argument, Kim Ga-Eun approached Yu-Han and Alice.
"Yu-Han C! Alice C! Please stop those two!
They've already been at it for thirty minutes!"
Watching the two adults bicker like children forced Yu-Han and Alice to reflect on their own behavior.
"Yu-Han. Grown adults acting like that are really embarrassing.
Let's not be like them."
"Agreed."
After her noisy guests had gone, Yang Su-Hyeon sat alone in her house, leafing through old photo albums.
The albums overflowed with memories of her brother, but there were also plenty of photographs of her and Yu-Han.
In those photographs, Yu-Han was smiling happily, infuriatingly so.
"Haah... That bastard really hasn't changed at all."
A hollow laugh escaped Yang Su-Hyeon before she realized it.
Then she remembered a conversation she had once shared with Yu-Han.
///
So there'd be no point in saying it.>
All you have to do is hate me.>
///
Yang Su-Hyeon looked at her own face beside Yu-Han's in the photograph.
Back then, when she had known nothing, she had been smiling happily too.
It was every bit as infuriating.
Elsewhere, a man stood on the rooftop of a building, staring toward the villa where Yang Su-Hyeon lived.
It was Yang Jin-Mu.
"..."
He watched with lingering attachment in his eyes.
Then Lee Nam-Yong and the others appeared, and he joined them, disappearing into the darkness of the city.