The Dropped Oxygen Tank

An oxygen tank fell to the floor below.

Twelve minutes before that happened, Saebyeok was unfolding the lower edge of his shield in the equipment staging area. The fold angle had come from something that happened in eight seconds, and he had not yet told anyone exactly what those eight seconds were.

There was one more thing he hadn't said.

On the first entry, he had frozen for three seconds. It happened the moment he heard the platform ceiling come down for the first time. Three seconds later he raised his shield and worked normally, and no one saw those three seconds.

Inside his shield was a maintenance sticker. The date on it was four years old, and beneath it was a six month gap. The ruling at the time hadn't said his hesitation was late. It said there had been a hesitation. That alone had pulled him off the front line.

So he'd made himself a rule. Fix your own problems yourself, first. For four years, the rule hadn't failed once.

"Saebyeok."

Igyeol came over with the floor plan. The skin under his eyes was damp. Not water. Fatigue.

"Re entry plan. Yura's treatment gear is still at the entrance of the eighth floor side passage. Oxygen, hemostatic agent, a splint kit. One bag."

"How much oxygen does she have left." Saebyeok asked without taking his hands off the shield.

"Yura's remaining supply is nine minutes. If we attach the tank in the bag, forty minutes."

Saebyeok calculated. Six minutes round trip, three minutes to spare. It worked out. Whenever it worked out, he always took his own body out of the equation.

"Roles." he asked.

"Same as yesterday." Igyeol said. "Saebyeok on point, I'll handle the route. Dohyeon measures from outside."

At "same as yesterday," Saebyeok looked at the plan. Same as yesterday meant he'd be on point again, and on point again meant he might meet those three seconds again.

"Any other option." Saebyeok asked.

"Dohyeon on point, you take the rear. That works too."

It was a spot where he could have just said it. There were three seconds. So put someone else on point. Two sentences.

What he calculated instead of saying those two sentences was the path that sentence would travel. Into Dohyeon's log, from the log into the agency report, and the report already had that ruling from four years ago sitting in it. Two sentences would not end as two sentences.

"We go same as yesterday." Saebyeok said.

Igyeol paused half a beat. It was the motion he made right before saying someone's name, but this time no name came out.

"Then let me confirm one thing." Igyeol said. "Yura's face. Can you describe it, as you remember it."

"Why."

"To cross check."

"Say what you remember first."

Igyeol folded the floor plan. The fold took half a beat too long.

"I remember the whole rescue order."

"I asked about her face."

"Gray work clothes, bandage on the left leg."

"Her face."

"...I was asking to make sure."

A blank space settled between the two of them. Saebyeok saw that blank space, and he knew he had one of his own. If he dug into the other man's blank space, his own would open too.

He didn't dig.

"Same as yesterday, then." Saebyeok slung the shield onto his back. He pressed the velcro twice as he did it.

Dohyeon came over with the sign off board. The re entry approval form. The "no variables" box was empty.

"If you sign here, I'm reporting there are no variables." Dohyeon said. He looked back and forth between the two of them. From Igyeol to Saebyeok, from Saebyeok to Igyeol. Twice each.

"No variables." Igyeol said.

"None." Saebyeok said.

Dohyeon signed. As he signed, he added two more decimal places. Remaining supply nine minutes twenty four seconds, round trip six minutes twelve seconds. It was a habit that surfaced when he wasn't sure of something.

The entrance to the side passage was narrower than yesterday. The two step width had shrunk to a step and a half.

There were two ways in. Left was the detour Igyeol had marked. Fourteen steps. Right was straight. Nine steps.

Beside the passage entrance, someone had painted a mark on the wall in white. Two lines and an arrow below them. The arrow didn't point into the passage. It pointed out.

"That's a halt marker." Saebyeok said. "The direction is reversed."

"Maybe whoever drew it got it backward." Igyeol said. "Was it there yesterday?"

"I didn't see it."

Saebyeok looked at the arrow two more seconds. By regulation, halt markers point toward the danger zone. An arrow pointing out either meant get out, or it meant nothing at all, just scribbling. He settled on the second reading.

"Left." Igyeol said.

"Reason first."

"I saw this wall yesterday."

"Saw it with what. Your eyes, or that."

"My eyes."

"Then look at it with your eyes again, now." Saebyeok said.

Igyeol pressed his palm to the detour wall. Then stopped.

Igyeol's hand came off the wall. He looked at his palm once, then pressed it to the wall again. Touching the same spot twice was something he hadn't done yesterday. Saebyeok counted the repetition.

"State your basis." Saebyeok said. His voice dropped. His pronunciation always got more precise when his emotions rose.

"...the left wall was less wet yesterday."

"Both sides are wet now."

"Still, left."

"Still isn't a basis."

Saebyeok listened to that answer. When a patient changes the location of their pain twice, it's one of two things. Either the pain is actually moving, or they're moving the location to hide it. In an intake exam, he always checked for the second possibility first.

That man is going through his own three seconds right now. That was his conclusion. The moment he reached it, he failed to notice why he'd rushed to reach it. Once he decided the other man was the one shaking, his own shaking dropped off the agenda.

"We go right." Saebyeok said.

"Saebyeok."

"Nine steps, four minutes round trip. Safe against the remaining supply. We can't spend two more minutes on a detour with no basis."

"The fourth of those nine steps is hollow."

"Basis for that."

Igyeol didn't answer. He opened his notebook to the plan he'd drawn yesterday, pointed a finger at one square, and froze there. The square he was pointing at had nothing written on it.

Saebyeok went in first.

The first three steps held. On the fourth, his right foot dropped two centimeters. He shifted his weight back immediately. By the book. The problem was the bag on his back, which kept moving forward on its own momentum.

The bag strap slipped off his shoulder.

"The bag!"

It was Igyeol who shouted. Saebyeok made no sound. He was leaning his body back, his right hand searching for the passage wall. Find the wall and one person lives. The bag wasn't a person.

Igyeol reached out. His fingertips touched the strap, and the instant they did, Saebyeok's left arm knocked his arm away. It was reflex. The motion that kept a person from entering the passage was already in his body, ahead of thought.

The bag dropped through a gap in the buckled floor. Below, metal bounced twice. The second sound was duller than the first. The sound of a valve breaking.

Outside the passage, Dohyeon heard it. He hit his stopwatch to record the interval. His was the hand that grabbed numbers before it grabbed people, and because of that hand, they'd be able to calculate the height of the fall afterward.

"Stop." Saebyeok said. He was saying it to himself too.

The two of them withdrew. Outside the passage, Dohyeon was watching Yura's monitor.

Yura's breathing intervals had shortened. The inside of the mask fogged only every other breath now. Saebyeok lowered the pressure a step and took her wrist to count her pulse.

"Down from nine minutes to four minutes thirty seconds." Dohyeon said. "Without the tank in that bag, this is as far as it goes. Margin of error fifteen seconds."

"Chance of recovery." Saebyeok asked.

"Two impact sounds, one point two seconds apart. It went all the way down to the floor below. Includes the sound of the valve breaking." Dohyeon turned the screen to show them. "Even if we recover it, there's no oxygen left in it. The hemostatic agent and splint might still be intact."

Saebyeok set his shield down. His knees bent a little. He thought no one saw that. But the future's camera had been aimed at the wall right then, and the red light was on.

"That was my call." Saebyeok said. "I chose the straight path. The loss is on me."

"We divide up responsibility later." Dohyeon said. He pulled out the sign off board. His own signature sat in the "no variables" box. "Right now I'm asking about something else. When the two of you signed this box earlier, was there something each of you didn't say."

Neither answered right away.

"Looks like there's one apiece." Dohyeon said. "I'm not asking what it is. Just whether it exists or not. I need to know that to decide where to start doubting the next measurement."

Saebyeok looked at his own hand. Eight seconds, three seconds, and today's fourth step.

"There is one." he said.

Igyeol looked at him. Then said.

"There is one."

"Then the next entry happens after the two of you say it." Dohyeon drew a diagonal line through the signature. "This one I signed wrong. It's going in my log."

"How far does that log go." Saebyeok asked.

"It doesn't go into the agency's forms. It's my personal log." Dohyeon capped his pen. "But I'm going to show it to both of you, every time. That's the condition."

Saebyeok accepted the condition. For four years he'd fixed his own problems himself, and this was the first time anyone had shown him the record.

Yura pushed off the blanket and sat up. She shoved the oxygen mask aside.

"Hey."

The three of them turned.

"Next time, can I be the one who says stop?"

Saebyeok tried to answer. The answer caught in his throat. Yesterday he'd been the one to tell Yura to push back, and today he hadn't given anyone the authority to push at all.

"Go ahead and say it." Saebyeok said. "What did you want to stop, back there."

"Earlier." Yura said. "When you said nine steps. I came out of that passage. The sound was thin at the fourth spot. I could have said something, but nobody asked me."

None of the three of them argued with that. Saebyeok adjusted her mask and wrote four minutes thirty seconds on the back of his hand. Igyeol wrote fourth step in his notebook and put a question mark beside it. Dohyeon made a new box below the crossed out signature. He labeled it what wasn't said.

Below them, the oxygen tank rolled once more.