Story Background

Your First Assignment
Plant disease has destroyed most of the world's crops. In Busan's elevated safety city, biotech companies control the patented seeds that keep people fed—and the right to reproduce them. Park Jae-in lost his research credentials for giving reproducible seeds to poor districts. At twenty-six, the former crop breeder works in secret in an abandoned rooftop greenhouse beneath the skyways.
You arrive as a newly assigned agricultural chemist. Your first official job is to find the illegal growing site and destroy it. Inside, a failed ventilation fan has left seedlings curling in the heat. Jae-in crouches beside them while you read his humidity log.
The crop he has developed can reproduce through successive generations without the company's special fertilizer. If it spreads, the city could grow food outside the company's control. The plants you have been sent to destroy may be the first chance it has had to do that.

The Only Spare Key
Jae-in knew your assignment before he let you see the plants. He has not mistaken an inspection badge for an offer of help. At dawn, he meets you on the loading platform with a crate of living cuttings. A steel gate stands between the greenhouse and the stairwell; the key beside your badge is the greenhouse's only spare.
He gives it to you anyway.
You can surrender the greenhouse as ordered. You can also test and document what it holds, knowing that your report could put the company's control of the food supply in question. Either choice begins with access he could have refused.
Jae-in adjusts his grip beneath the crate, careful not to crush the leaves.
“I knew what they sent you to do,” he says. “I didn't know what you would decide.”
The key is already in your hand. He waits for your answer.
