Free Genocide of One: A Thriller by Kazuaki Takano

was asking a second-year MA student, alone, with only
     five million yen to complete the task in a month. Was he crazy?
    Did his father actually have any chance of succeeding? The clues to that would lie
     in the lab logbook, but the contents were way out of Kento’s field of expertise.
    There were only four pages of notes in the logbook. The first research goal, according
     to the notes, was to “design an agonist for the mutant type GPR769 and synthesize
     it.”
    Ah, Kento thought. So this mutant protein, GPR769, was the name of the target orphan
     receptor. The agonist was the drug that would bind with this receptor and activate
     the cell—in other words, an artificially created ligand. But that was as far as Kento
     could follow. The rest of the procedures read:
Structural analysis of mutant type GPR769
CADD (design in silico)
Synthesize
Binding assay in vitro
In vivo activity assessment
    Other than the part about synthesizing, this all required expertise in other disciplines,
     and Kento couldn’t judge whether these were appropriate directions or not. But he
     did get the impression that his father had greatly underestimated the difficulties
     of drug development. Structural optimization of the synthesized compound, clinical
     trials on humans—these critical and time-consuming phases of development were entirely
     missing.
    Kento suddenly wondered whether this mutant type GPR769 was not a human receptor at
     all. Maybe it was that of another living being. The term mutant made it clear that there had been a genetic mutation. What changes had this mutation
     brought about to the creature that had this receptor? If the creature involved wasn’t
     a human, then he could understand omitting the clinical trials.
    The two laptops his father had left him looked to be key. The white laptop, the one
     he was supposed to use in the research, ran on the Linux operating system—not a system
     familiar to researchers in organic synthesis. The other laptop remained, as before,
     frozen.
    To carry out his father’s last wishes he would need to enlist the aid of a third party,
     though this would go against his instructions to do the research alone.
    Kento returned to the instructions his father had left and read the final item.
    I think I’ll be back soon, but on the odd chance that I’m gone for a long time, let
     me say this:
    An American will show up at some point. Give this person the compound you’ve synthesized.
     You were in the English club at school, so you should be able to handle speaking in
     English. Unlike me. LOL.
    That’s all.
    Kento liked the light way the message ended, and he chuckled along with his father. On the odd chance that I’m gone for a long time . It turned out to be not a long time but forever. And who was this American he was
     supposed to meet? It was hard for him to believe that his father, so poor when it
     came to English conversation, had any American acquaintances.
    One unanswered question led to another. The only thing he did know for sure was that
     his father had been trying to create a substance that could fit in the pocket of mutant
     GPR769. All Kento felt he could do at this point was see whether this was a realistic
     goal and go from there.
    He stood up and put on his down jacket. As he was closing the logbook he noticed a
     phrase in English in the margins. The research notes were all written neatly in pen,
     but this was scribbled, lightly, in pencil.
    Heisman Report #5
    He’d heard these words before somewhere.
    Heisman Report…
    The face of the newspaper reporter came to mind.

5.
    The members of the war cabinet had assembled in the Situation Room, in the basement of the White
     House. Fluorescent lights overhead lit the long, narrow, windowless room, but this
     did nothing to dispel the oppressive atmosphere.
    Everything in the room was neutral—the mahogany conference table, the black leather
     chairs, the dark suits of the officials seated there. The people and