Calling the List of the Dead

The number on the first line of the list of the dead slipped off my fingertip like a name I had not saved yet. Before I pressed the call button I turned down the static on the vehicle radio. The oxygen alarm at Haneul Hospital had not stopped. A short, high beep sat stuck between the windshield and the dashboard.

The first number was not in service.

The second one laughed the moment he picked up. "If this is a phishing scam, that's a pretty old approach."

"Do not go anywhere near Haneul Hospital. The oxygen delivery vehicle is blocked, and the road in front of the emergency wing is about to be closed."

"Ah, sure. If you're police, send it by text."

The call ended. The cause of death column beside the name was empty. The empty column was worse. There was a date and a time, but it was not a record I had seen with my own eyes. Confidence C. Move people on a C, and all that's left when you fail is a frightened voice.

I made a small mark beside the first line. No connection. Beside the second line, warning refused. I had to write success and failure in the same handwriting. Write only the people I saved in large letters and the next judgment bends. The vehicle ran toward the hospital, and the wiper scraped once across dry glass. It was not raining, but the tires of the car ahead were throwing up water. That meant the drainage pumps in the underpass were already falling behind.

Jang Yura switched the radio channel. "Haneul Hospital site, can you confirm the oxygen contractor's position."

Someone answered behind the static. "Failed to enter the rear gate. Waiting in front of the emergency wing. Security says to wait for central approval."

"How many minutes do we lose waiting for central approval."

"No idea. The time on the panel keeps changing."

Yura looked at me without putting the radio down. "Do the calls on the list come before the hospital's oxygen."

"They're the same incident."

"Then connect them when you talk. Hold on to nothing but names and you won't move a person or a hospital."

From the passenger seat, Jang Yura looked at my hand.

"Who's the third one."

I folded the list. The folded edge of the paper pressed under my fingernail.

"Family."

"Then you should be saying it sooner."

Yura didn't wait for my answer and opened the emergency channel. "Approaching Haneul Hospital. Requesting the position of the oxygen delivery vehicle, whether the rear gate is blocked, and the number of security personnel."

Someone answered briefly behind the static. Two vehicles at the rear gate. Three security. No guidance from the main building. Those words attached themselves beside the list. Only when death on paper got translated into roads and security staff and oxygen tanks did it become an incident I could move on.

"What good is knowing a name." Yura said. "Without where that person is right now, what is going to kill them, and who can stop it, a list is the same as a threat letter."

"I'm not trying to threaten anyone."

"Then explain."

I looked at Seojin's number on the phone screen. If I explained, she might go even closer to the site. If I didn't explain, I would be leaving someone already close to it blind. Both choices had a cost. Instead of picking the cheaper one, I was picking the one that exposed me less.

I called Han Seojin's number. The line rang twice, and the third ring was cut off.

"Recording's on."

Seojin's first sentence was evidence preservation instead of a greeting. The old habit from her radio booth days was intact. Once a call starts, save the raw audio first. Her voice was fast and low.

"Tell me why you're calling at this hour, and start with your source. When my brother dials my number before dawn it's usually one of two things. Either there's something you can't tell Mom, or there's something you can't tell me either."

"Don't go to Haneul Hospital."

"You didn't answer the question."

"The oxygen delivery is running late right now. It's dangerous to be in front of the emergency wing."

"Source."

I pressed down on the list on my knee. The paper opened again along its fold. Han Seojin. Projected time of death, 07:48. The cause of death column was empty. There was no scene I had witnessed. It was a name that hadn't even been in the report's appendix. All I had was a name and a time, and the outcome that she died.

"Internal material from the Disaster Modeling Office."

"Document number."

"I can't give you that right now."

"Then it isn't internal material. It's just you talking."

The vehicle went in under the overpass near the hospital. On every concrete pillar a white information screen switched on and off. Network time was 07:13, my wristwatch said 07:06. It looked as though the 7 minute 12 second gap that opened at Myeongjin Station had spread onto the hospital displays too.

"Seojin."

"Don't change the subject with my name."

"Don't go to the site. This isn't a request, it's a warning."

"A warning has to have grounds. Who you heard it from, what route you verified it through, and who takes responsibility if it's wrong."

It was an old way of talking. Back in middle school too, if I stood in front of her door and said don't come out, Seojin opened the door and came out. She demanded a reason before a prohibition. I was always holding the handle instead of giving the reason.

"I can take responsibility."

"No. You can hide things. And you called that responsibility."

The hospital security team's voice jumped out of the radio. Reconfirming access authorization for the oxygen storage room. No response from the automatic valve. The same words twice.

Seojin seemed to hear it too.

"That sound, is that a hospital radio?"

"Where are you."

"Rear gate of Haneul Hospital. I came after a tip about the delivery delay. The private oxygen contractor and the hospital's main building are busy pushing responsibility onto each other, and there's still no official notice."

"Get out."

"Do you have the authority to order a reporter to stop."

"I'm saying it as your brother."

"Which is exactly why I'm not listening."

Over the phone came the sound of Seojin handing someone a business card. Paper knocked against a plastic entry pass.

"I'm Han Seojin, a producer. I'm verifying a tip about a delay in oxygen delivery, and this call is being recorded. I won't broadcast anything before I get the hospital's official position. But if you push me out, the first thing I keep is the name of whoever pushed me."

Her words weren't for me. They were for the security officer on site. Her sense of danger might be lacking, but she knew how to hold a space with questions. Listening to that voice, I swallowed the words telling her not to go to the hospital again. Words alone couldn't move her. Protection with its grounds hidden always came down to locking a door.

Jang Yura held out her hand toward me. It meant give me the list. I didn't. She didn't withdraw her hand.

"Han Igyeom."

Seojin spoke from the other end of the phone. "That was another voice just now. Rescue?"

"She's next to me."

"Even better. Ask her too. To pull a reporter off a site, does disclosing the risk information come first, or does a family order."

Jang Yura took the list from my hand. She barely used any force, and the paper came away easily. She flattened the fold and looked at Seojin's name written under the line where her own name had been struck out. She looked at the empty space beside the time of death too.

"Why do you know this name."

There was no sentence I could answer with. Say I saw it in the future and there would be no end to what I had to open and how far. Say internal material and it was a lie. I tried to fold the list again.

Jang Yura pressed the paper down.

"Don't fold it. That's a person's name."

Seojin laughed shortly. "Thank you, whoever you are."

"Jang Yura. Rescue."

"Captain Jang, my brother is demanding I leave the site right now, and he's hiding his grounds."

"I was just asking him about that."

I heard the sound of two people becoming one side. I pulled the phone slightly away from my ear. Outside the windshield I could see the emergency wing sign. Under the sky blue letters, two oxygen contractor vehicles stood at an angle. One had its rear door open and had not been able to unload anything.

Silver oxygen tanks stood beside the vehicle. Tanks with the plastic wrap still on them. One security officer held a tablet, and a contractor worker gripped an empty transport cart by the handle and shook it. Waiting for central approval. On a site, that phrase always took the same shape. Someone hands off responsibility at the door, and someone else can't get inside even with a tank in hand.

Jang Yura looked out the window and grabbed the radio. "Clear the space behind the contractor vehicles. They're blocking the entry lane for patient transport."

"They say they can't move without security approval."

"If they don't move, the ambulances can't get in. Ask for the name of whoever's in charge."

Seojin spoke right away over the phone. "I'll ask now."

"You stay out of it."

"I'm already at the rear gate. If you want to stop me, give me grounds. An order to move and an order to stop both need grounds."

I counted the oxygen tanks outside the window. Six. It didn't match the number of patients inside the hospital. Even if the delivery arrived, if the automatic valve was shut, the line was blocked. Oxygen present and oxygen absent at the same time. That kind of disaster is the last one to be understood.

"Seojin, from now on you have one job. Don't go inside the main building, and keep telling me your position and the time."

"Change it from an order to a request."

"It's a request."

"I'll write it down. Two conditions. First, don't cut the raw audio I send. Second, disclose the source later, document number or whatever it is."

"I can't disclose it now."

"Later?"

I looked at the list pinned under Jang Yura's hand. Two lines were drawn beside Yura's name. The name of the person who survived hadn't been erased from the paper. The struck out line was clearer.

"Later, we decide the scope of disclosure together."

Seojin's breath came close to the phone. The sounds around her shook, as if she was running. A glass door opening, wheelchair wheels, someone calling out an oxygen saturation number in the distance.

"First time I've heard you say we'd decide something together."

"It's being recorded, I assume."

"Yeah. That's why I'm not backing off. This promise is evidence too."

I looked again at the first number I had thought was disconnected. A dead line, a man who laughed and hung up, and a sister who turned on a recorder. The list of the dead reduced people to one line each, but the phone calls produced a different resistance on every line. Find that resistance annoying and the list turns back into an answer key. It wasn't an answer key. It was a debt.

Jang Yura said quietly. "You have to give people as much choice as you know of their name."

"And if they die because I gave them the choice."

"They die if you hide it too."

"All right. I'll send you the raw site audio. The hospital's internal radio and the contractor's radio are mixed together. There's a strange rhythm in it."

"Don't interpret it. Just send the original."

"Now that I like."

The file arrived. `HJ_0709_raw.wav`. When I hit play, broken words passed between the radio static. Oxygen. Valve. Central. Standby. In between them a short clicking was wedged. I magnified the waveform. A small block of the same length repeated.

I didn't copy the file. I made a hash of the original first. It was a procedure slow enough that Seojin would hate it. Still, if you don't separate the original from the copy, later you can't tell which part is memory and which part is evidence. The size shown on screen was small. The repeating section was exactly 41 bytes. It had no meaning. For now it was only length and repetition.

Seojin asked. "What is that."

"Length confirmed only. I don't know the meaning."

"That you don't know got recorded too."

"I need that."

She didn't answer. Instead she sent one more file. This time it was a short conversation with a security officer at the hospital's rear gate. The phrase waiting for central approval came up three times. All three times, a different noise was attached behind it.

Jang Yura asked.

"Is it code."

"I don't know."

"If you don't know, write that you don't know."

I wrote it in my notebook. Han Seojin raw audio. 41 byte repetition. Meaning unconfirmed. Source preserved.

The hospital radio sounded again.

No response from the storage room's automatic valve. 43 minutes based on remaining ICU supply.

Seojin's file kept repeating the same 41 bytes.

Last, I looked at the empty cause of death column on the list. The empty space was still empty. But now there were items I could newly write beside it. Oxygen vehicles at the rear gate, waiting for central approval, Han Seojin's position on site, 41 bytes of raw audio. I still didn't know the cause of death. What I had instead was a few of the routes leading toward it.

"Captain Jang." Seojin said over the phone. "I've got the name of the security supervisor. I'll send it as the original site recording. I'm not broadcasting yet."

Jang Yura answered in my place. "Good. Hold your position. Do not enter the building alone."

"That I'll follow. Since it isn't my brother's order."

With the call still open, the sounds of the hospital's rear gate kept coming through. Someone dragged an oxygen tank and swallowed a curse, and the security tablet gave out an approval failure tone. My wristwatch said 07:09. The hospital display jumped to 07:16. Two different times hung over the same site.

I wrote one more line in the notebook. Cause of death unconfirmed, not disclosed to Seojin. Risk of information monopoly. Renegotiate source scope on next call.

Yura read that line.

"Not on the next call. Before the next choice."

I stopped my pen. She was right. Not at the next fire or the next door, it had to change before the oxygen problem that was open right now. For family, for rescue, and for the person who had been going to die.