Agora Nocturna — The Academy of the Black Web

Chapter 4: The Peer-Review Sanctum

For exactly four minutes and twelve seconds after the file finished uploading, an eerie silence fell over the auction chatroom.

Not one of the thirty-two connected attendees touched a keyboard. Only the packet-transfer graph in the corner of the screen thrashed wildly, indicating that Dr. Vesalius and the Black Web's three supreme administrators—anonymous luminaries known as the Triumvirate—were decrypting and auditing Do-yun and Professor Baek's proposal in real time.

Moments later, Dr. Vesalius's microphone clicked back on. Gone was his earlier leisurely, theatrical cadence; through the voice modulator came the ragged breathing of a scholar seized by feverish excitement.

"My God... `Neuro_Promethean` and `Phreno_Soc_88`. The raw patch-clamp electrophysiology data attached here for the `K-GBM-07` line... are these truly unaltered recordings? These glioblastoma cells go far beyond mimicking astrocytic calcium waves—they're reversing glutamate reuptake at the synaptic cleft to induce ultra-high-frequency gamma-band synchronization!"

Do-yun pressed his mic key.

"They are unaltered. Primary tumor tissue excised from an eleven-year-old boy at a tertiary hospital in Seoul; until shortly before death, the patient exhibited computational capacity beyond the measurable ceiling of the WAIS-IV and anomalous multi-sensory synesthesia. Implanted into an adult brain or murine model, blood-brain barrier disruption and acute cerebral edema kill the host within seventy-two hours. However, in a cranium-open, perfused fetal nervous system such as your 'Eunomia-19,' a Glioma-Neural Symbiotic Network can be established across the entire cerebrum without compressive necrosis."

The chatroom erupted instantly.

`[Mendel_Ghost]`: "Insane... using cancer cells as neural amplifiers! Yet the mechanism is sound. The tumor's infinite proliferative capacity via its TERT promoter mutation can forcibly sever the sensory-deprivation apoptosis loop trapping Eunomia-19!"

`[Evo_Devo_Kyoto]`: "Moreover, look at the accompanying 12.4-million-subject neural crest behavioral cohort submitted by `Phreno_Soc_88`. Between weeks 22 and 26, as the prefrontal-amygdala circuit consolidates, it supplies exact 3D coordinates showing where to micro-inject the tumor cells either to suppress aggression or, conversely, to maximize superhuman ruthlessness and pattern recognition."

Instead of striking a gavel, Dr. Vesalius clicked the bid-approval button in the center of the screen.

"Auction closed! Lot #9941-B is hereby converted into a joint research project with the Korean consortium (`Neuro_Promethean` & `Phreno_Soc_88`). I designate the codename Project Caligula-Prometheus."

A gold-bordered electronic contract materialized on Do-yun's monitor. It held no legal standing, of course, yet anyone within the Black Web who breached such a contract triggered the Academic MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) protocol—automatically dispatching every illicit research log, real name, and IP trace they had ever uploaded straight to their national law enforcement agencies, press outlets, and university boards of trustees.

The terms were simple:

1. Within 48 hours, Do-yun will dispatch two live vials of `K-glioma-07` via a Black Web cold-chain courier disguised as a diplomatic pouch.

2. Professor Baek Seung-hyun will synchronize full access to his private genomic-physiognomic-behavioral matrix of three million Korean and Asian infants, children, and adolescents with Vesalius's compute servers.

3. In return, Vesalius will ship one of the twin specimens currently under cultivation—Eunomia-19B (a sister clone derived from a split zygote, gestational age 20 weeks)—along with a compact artificial placenta bioreactor set back to Korea, and will stream the entire live 8K multi-omics feed of tumor implantation into the primary specimen, Eunomia-19A.

"We have a deal, Dr. Han."

Through the headset came Professor Baek Seung-hyun's low chuckle.

"Now we become first author and corresponding author on a paper that Darwin, Mendel, and Lombroso could never have dared imagine even if they walked out of their graves—even if that paper will remain locked forever inside this library of darkness."