“Doctor Ryu, may I have a word?”0

Messelson took Young-Joon outside.0

“You heard that I participated in the movement against biological weapons, right?” asked Messelson.0

“Yes,” Young-Joon replied.0

“The weaponization of anthrax was the issue back then,” Messelson said.0

“...”0

“I have a lot of ties to anthrax. The first time I decided that we shouldn’t make biological weapons was at an anthrax manufacturing facility, and there were some things that happened in the former Soviet Union.”0

“In the Soviet Union?” Young-Joon asked.0

“A place called Sverdlovsk. Have you heard of it?”0

“No.”0

“It was probably before you were born, Doctor Ryu,” Messelson said.0

It was the 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax leak. Sverdlovsk was a small city that was one thousand three hundred seventy east of Moscow. It was a peaceful town with the Pyshma River running through it.1

Then, in 1979, at the height of the Cold War, two thousand residents suddenly developed high fevers and coughs, along with cold symptoms. Before long, sixty-four people had died.0

The cause of death was anthrax. Soviet authorities announced that the cows were infected...0