Yura Was Breathing

Yura was breathing.

The registration kiosk asked for a name.

When she entered it, the screen blanked and said the applicant couldn't be found.

9:03 a.m. The reception desk at the clinic affiliated with the Management Bureau was three machines the height of a person and one staff member. Yura sat in front of the third machine. She was sitting because she couldn't stand.

"At the Bureau's treatment room, I only got oxygen and the bleeding stopped," she said. "They said stabilization was pending approval. So they sent me here."

"This is a partner institution," the staff member said. "Separate registration is required apart from the Bureau's assignment."

"Jin Yura," she said again. "Jin, then Yu, then Ra."

The staff member typed it in for her. The screen went blank three seconds later.

"What about a temporary number," Igyeol asked.

"A temporary number comes out of the identity confirmation process," the staff member said. "That process is on hold right now."

"What's the reason for the hold."

"Lookup failure."

"The lookup failed so the process is on hold, and the process is on hold so there's no number," Dohyeon said. "That's a circle."

"If it's a circle, where do we break it," Igyeol asked.

"A person has to break it," Dohyeon said. "Machines don't break circles."

The staff member looked up from the screen. He wasn't hearing this conversation for the first time.

"How many times has this happened here," Mirae asked.

"Four times since I started."

"What happened to all four."

"Two of them got a number a few days later," the staff member said. "Two didn't come back."

No one asked what "didn't come back" meant.

While the two of them talked, Yura looked at her own fingers. Her fingertips were gray. They hadn't been this color yesterday.

"Excuse me," she said. Igyeol stopped talking.

"I'll say it," Yura said. "I'll tell them my symptoms. If I don't speak here, I stay a person who doesn't exist."

Igyeol stepped back half a pace. Her job today was not to answer for her.

"My oxygen is low," Yura said. "My fingertips have been numb since yesterday, and now the color's changed. Above the splint on my left ankle is swollen. No fever, and I urinated yesterday afternoon."

While she talked, she clipped the ends of her sentences. It was her way of rationing breath, and she paused once every two sentences.

A doctor came. He wasn't young, and he wasn't in a hurry.

"I'll check your oxygen saturation," he said. It was an action that required no record.

"I'll only tell you the number," he added. "Regulations aren't my department."

The number came out. Eighty seven.

"Come inside," the doctor said.

"Patient registration isn't going through," the staff member said.

"I'll give her oxygen without registration."

"Is oxygen fine since it's not medication."

"Oxygen is medication," the doctor said. He paused briefly. "Medical oxygen requires a prescription. A prescription attaches to a patient number."

He looked at Yura. Not an apologetic expression, a calculating one.

"If I use my license, it's an unnamed prescription. It's subject to audit, and three times means suspension," he said. "I've already used it twice this month."

"Who were the other two," Mirae asked.

"I can't say," the doctor said.

"Then I'll just note that there were two," Mirae said.

"That much you can note."

"And your name."

The doctor flipped his name tag so the name showed.

"Baek Seonho. A third time means suspension. Please don't make today the third time. If the supplies come through, I'll handle the treatment."

As he spoke he looked toward the back door. It was a motion of someone who had already decided who to call.

Mirae wrote down the timestamps of the errors. 9:03 lookup failure, 9:07 registration denied, 9:11 oxygen saturation 87. She didn't write down a person's name. There was no one here whose name could be written.

On the registration screen, the patient field stayed blank, and only the oxygen alarm kept sounding.

Four minutes later, the supply room beside the back door.

Jo Eunchae was standing at the door. She was the Tower Damage Legal Aid officer, the person Mirae had handed over yesterday's records to. She was carrying a briefcase, and it wasn't open.

"If saturation is eighty seven, oxygen is needed immediately regardless of registration," she said. "And registration won't happen today."

"From who," Igyeol asked.

"The reception staff. He called me. Said he couldn't do it under his own name," Eunchae said. "And I'm here because of the records you handed over yesterday. That's the other half of why."

Eunchae looked into the supply room. The emergency kit was on the second shelf. She didn't pick it up right away.

"If I check this out under my own name," she said, "I go into a practical qualification audit. And my name gets attached to this team's license review. I heard the result comes out at noon today. What I can do today is one item. I can't file a lawsuit yet."

"Then you shouldn't do it," Igyeol said.

"That's not for the Surveyor to decide."

"That's true," Igyeol said. "The decision is Yura's and Eunchae's to make."

That was the first line of the paper they'd drawn up yesterday. Anyone can halt an operation. Whoever could halt it also had to be able to start it.

Saebyeok spoke from behind Igyeol.

"Surveyor. I was getting ready to object."

"To which side."

"To the side where you kept telling Eunchae not to do it."

"And now."

"Now there's nothing to object to."

Eunchae turned toward Yura. For the first time, she looked at a person instead of paperwork.

"Jin Yura. It's one of two things," she said. "First, we create a formal emergency record. Then your treatment goes through completely, but in exchange, this record will show where you were the last two days. The location attaches to the server."

"And the second."

"I check out only the supplies under my own name. Treatment is the bare minimum. Oxygen, bleeding control, stabilization. I'll write the patient field by hand. 'Identity under confirmation.' No false name goes in."

"If it's the second, you get audited."

"I do."

"If it's the first, where I was stays on record," Yura said. "I wasn't there alone."

No one pressed into that sentence. Mirae picked up her pen and set it back down.

"I'll do the second," Yura said. "But there's a condition."

"Go ahead."

"When you're audited, give my name. Say it was Jin Yura who received it."

"Then your location gets exposed indirectly."

"There are clinics everywhere. It only leaves which clinic, right?"

Eunchae paused for a moment. A person who used conditional clauses for a living gave a short answer.

"Correct."

"Then let's do that. If you're getting audited because of me, and my name isn't in there, you become someone who broke the rules for no reason."

Eunchae picked up the kit. She wrote her own name in the checkout log, wrote the time, and wrote five characters by hand in the patient field.

Identity under confirmation.

Beneath that, she wrote one more line. Checked out by: Jo Eunchae. Reason: oxygen saturation 87, registration unavailable.

The treatment happened on the stairs outside the back door. Baek Seonho fitted the mask, and Eunchae held the flow meter.

"Four liters per minute," Baek Seonho said. "I'll check again in five minutes. If it doesn't come up, this isn't the lungs, it's a circulation problem."

Five minutes later, saturation was ninety four. Baek Seonho pressed on the swelling in her ankle and re-splinted it. Tightening the strap two notches, he asked Yura,

"Watch the tank level," he said. "This tank gives you four hours. If registration doesn't come through within four hours, you'll drop back into the eighties."

"Does this hurt."

"It hurts."

"Then the bone's knitting."

Saebyeok watched the treatment from the bottom of the stairs. He didn't interrupt even as he watched the splint he'd applied yesterday being undone again.

"Did I set it wrong," he asked.

"No. The angle was right," Baek Seonho said. "I'm re-splinting because the swelling increased. If you hadn't set this yesterday, this ankle wouldn't work today."

The color came back into Yura's fingertips. It took two minutes to go from gray back to a living color, and to buy those two minutes, one person had staked her license.

Yura memorized that math. Two minutes of oxygen for one license. Someone would need to be able to answer for that price, if anyone ever asked.

Yura pulled the mask down for a moment.

"Doctor Baek," she said. "The other two, from earlier. Did their names get erased from the kiosk too?"

Baek Seonho's hand stopped.

"One of them," he said. "One of them had a name, but no address."

"Is that different?"

"I'm a doctor. That's not mine to judge."

Mirae wrote the two sentences down separately. One case with no name, one case with no address. Different kinds of blank, out of the same kiosk.

"Eunchae," Mirae said. "Why did you come. When we handed over the records yesterday, you said you'd only review them."

"I did review them," Eunchae said. "Item seventeen on the seizure list, the checked out by field is blank. That's illegal. It's clear cut."

"So."

"But even if I prove it's illegal, if Yura doesn't make it through tonight, there's no case left." Eunchae opened her bag for the first time. Inside were copies of the papers Mirae had handed over yesterday. "I wait until the evidence is complete. That approach cost me two cases last year."

"What were the two cases," Mirae asked.

"One case ran past the statute of limitations. In the other, the person withdrew first," Eunchae said, straightening the copies. "The reason for withdrawing was making a living. I revised the paperwork eight times back then. On the eighth time, that person didn't show up."

Yura spoke from beneath the mask.

"I won't withdraw."

"You can say that now," Eunchae said. "I've heard that three times before. So this time, I'll set up first a process where you can withdraw whenever you want. In writing, that I won't hold it against you if you do."

"Does that actually help?"

"When people can withdraw, more of them see it through to the end."

Eunchae's terminal rang. Two lines came up on the screen.

Practical qualification audit initiated. Reason: unnamed supply checkout.

And below that was a time. 9:26 a.m. The time she had signed the checkout log was 9:24 a.m.

Two minutes.

"That's fast," Yura said.

It was two hours and thirty four minutes from 9:26 to noon. The license review result and the qualification audit were set to land in the same window.

"It's fast," Eunchae said. She turned the screen to show Mirae. "Recorder. Write this time down. This isn't the speed of a person pressing a button."