Detonate Me, Granulate Me | BTS

Chapter 11

According to Namjoon, The Paradisus Institute was established fifty years ago when a group of scientists who discovered the DNA code to perfecting the human-animal hybrid sold their patent to a scientific corporation specializing in biological warfare. The Government of Asia had originally been against human experimentation, but after Paradisus supplied them with a squadron of Hybrida manufactured for attack, they changed their stance. Now, Paradisus is Asia's leading scientific corporation, with bases in seven countries, their products dispatched all over the continent.

"When you graduate, you're sold off to companies and wealthy families. The classes are nothing but price markers, categories for product quality, if you will." Namjoon nods towards Jungkook. "Jungkook, you're Class Primus. Class Primus fetch at least a million on the market. Secundus go for hundreds of thousands. Tertius are limited to private households, the cheapest of the lot. Still go for tens of thousands, though."

"But..." Jimin frowns. "What about the Class Quartus?"

Namjoon grimaces. "Paradisus calls those rejects. Faulty and defective, unsuitable for sale, usually because the animal qualities all the companies are after don't show up as much. Paradisus keeps the Class Quartus to work in their food farms, construction, in mines, manual labour jobs until they can't work anymore. Then they're disposed."

"There are companies who'll order a batch of Class Primus Hybrida each year and use them as sharp-eyes, guards, assassins," Yoongi cuts in. "But what each company wants depends—big fisheries go for Class Primus Selachimorpha or Delphinidae to guide fishing expeditions. Logging and mining cartels want the best Ursidae, for all the heavy lifting and labour. Brothels and escort businesses buy female Leporidae, the rabbit Hybrida. People call them 'sex bunnies'. I've seen them on the streets of the red light district, stationed outside dark buildings."

"It's disgusting," Namjoon finishes. "You're all treated as products, not people."

"How come they don't protest?" Jungkook asks. "If I was suddenly sent to work in a mine or a brothel after I graduated I'd... I would question it."

"That's because you don't see what they do to the graduates after the end-of-year ceremony they put on for you." Yoongi swipes the air, and the hoverscreen changes to show an image of a small vial and a chip, a series of number and letters next to it. "This drug. It activates the kill function on the microchip embedded in the Hybrida's necks and weakens resistance to orders sent to it. The buyers are given controls which they can use to send commands anywhere, anytime, and if they're not followed, they can send painful shocks through the microchips."

Jungkook lifts a hand to his neck, wincing as he feels the wound, barely healed. Someone's put a bandage over it and wrapped it up, but Jungkook's spine still tingles when he moves.

"You know Seokjin, the one who took out your microchips. He's our man on the inside. If you had those microchips still in, Paradisus would be able to track you, send a remote signal to activate the neural shock, and you'd be dead."

"Proof," Taehyung says, somber for the first time in his life. "Anyone could make this up. Do you have proof?"

"I've got a video to show you," Namjoon says, pulling a file up. "It's this year's Hybrid Bidding Wars, aired in March every year by all the broadcast channels in Asia. Representatives from companies all over Asia come bid at this event. You'll... You'll recognize it."

The video starts playing on the hoverscreen, and Jungkook's heart freezes in his chest.

The subject of the video is... Him.

Him, Jeon Jungkook, sweating profusely in a familiar arena he'd been standing in not a month ago.

A beeper sounds, three, two, one, and he's off, zooming through the obstacle course, swinging from the ropes, ducking past the metal shurikens, scaling the wooden wall and making his way across the monkey bars. The video cuts to a shot of important-looking men in suits, whispering among themselves, then one man raising a sign with a number on it.