The Hospital Where People Vanish [2]

Yoon Soo-ah couldn't remember Baek Gong-ju.

No — to put it more precisely, it felt as though something was actively interfering with her ability to remember.

'...Did I even have a grandmother?'

It was a strange thing to say, when you thought about it. Unless a person was born from nothing, everyone has a grandmother. So if Yoon Soo-ah simply failed to remember Baek Gong-ju, the answer she should have given was...

'Baek Gong-ju? I don't know anyone by that name.'

'So she hasn't just lost her memory — an anomaly is twisting her perception in real time.'

It seemed the situation was turning out more troublesome than I'd expected. Honestly, it caught me off guard.

'Something actually happened to that hardcore old battle-axe?'

Baek Gong-ju was one of the most formidable psychics I knew. Under the condition that the fight took place in Seoul, even Gong No-sa couldn't have guaranteed a victory against that monster. So when the punk princess herself had hired me, I hadn't really worried at all. I had firm faith that Baek Gong-ju wouldn't lose to any anomaly she came across.

'If something like Baek Gong-ju could be taken down, this isn't some ordinary anomaly — it's urban-legend class, isn't it?'

In this case, my confidence in Baek Gong-ju had become a poison, making me slower to move than I should have been.

"Let's go over the details in person."

The place where I met Yoon Soo-ah was a café in Gangnam. When I sat down across from her — she'd arrived first — her eyes went wide.

"Um, I'm waiting for someone—"

"It's me, Doctor Kim."

"Doctor Kim?! But your face—?"

"I've gotten kind of famous lately, remember? So I changed my face with sorcery."

"Ah, right... you do see Doctor Kim's face everywhere these days, don't you."

Yoon Soo-ah smiled awkwardly, the consummate Bureau employee caught in an awkward position. "Well, I suppose it's not really my place to comment. Fight the good fight! I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠watch your livestreams, you know."

But then, a moment later, she laughed brightly and cheered me on instead.

"...Huh. Surprising. I figured you'd have something to say about it, what with last time and all."

"Hehe, didn't a certain someone tell me I've already died a few times and this life I should live for myself? I decided to take that to heart. Whether or not the Bureau likes Doctor Kim getting famous, I'm off duty today — it's got nothing to do with me."

Yoon Soo-ah winked as she said it. Hmm, it looked good on her, but something about it felt like ruining a perfectly diligent office worker, and I felt a strange flicker of guilt... Well, whatever.

Before getting into Baek Gong-ju, I asked a few things I'd been curious about.

"Is the Bureau planning any sanctions against me?"

There was no way the Paranormal Administration Bureau would look kindly on someone broadcasting about mysteries and anomalies right out in the open. Cosmos was supposedly shielding me, but I couldn't trust that a hundred percent either. Honestly, I was half-worried they were secretly drawing up an assassination plan for me as we spoke.

"Hard to say. They definitely find you distasteful. But Cosmos is running cover for you, and above all... the Bureau owes you so much that openly sanctioning you would look bad, even for them."

"The Bureau owes me?"

"Yes. The Four Great Urban Legends of Seoul — you put an end to three of them, didn't you?"

Handling anomalies of that scale was supposed to be the Bureau's job. But they'd produced no results in the Lostco and Suicide Train incidents, and in the Bukhansan Maneating Tiger case they hadn't so much as laid a finger on it.

"Well, we're short-staffed, so what can you do?"

Pfft.

Yoon Soo-ah shook her head with a bitter smile. "Those are all excuses."

"Oh?"

"However many hands you have, if an anomaly is big enough to spread among the public as one of the Four Great Urban Legends, you have to resolve it no matter what. Urban-legend-type anomalies in particular grow stronger the more the public fears them, so you have to respond even faster."

"...Then why have they been sitting on it all this time?"

"The higher-ups are using the Bureau as their personal bodyguards."

It was an obvious answer. These were the days when anomaly appearances had grown so frequent you could call it the end times.

"They may not be psychics, but celebrities and politicians — people in positions that draw public attention — get tangled up with anomalies easily too."

"So the politicians are using Bureau agents who should be protecting citizens as their own personal security?"

Nod.

Yoon Soo-ah gave a wry smile and dipped her head. "Most of the National Assembly members elected this time around are part of the pro-psychic faction, right? They know all the ins and outs of anomalies and the supernatural, so they know exactly how much danger they're in."

"...What a colossal waste of tax money."

So in other words — while the Bureau was busy playing nanny to politicians, I'd been doing the jobs they couldn't. That's why I stuck out in their eyes even though they couldn't genuinely hate me for it. Something like that, huh.

Yoon Soo-ah gave a little devil's smile as she mocked the Bureau. Wait, aren't you one of those Bureau people yourself? Is it okay for you to be talking like that?

"I can't speak for everyone else, but if that old woman Baek Gong-ju had been there, she'd have managed something."

One of only two Special-Grade shamans in all of Korea — and as far as I knew, one of the strongest psychics alive.

"......That person is my grandmother?"

"That's right. Anything coming back to you?"

"...Well, the thing is..."

Trailing off, Yoon Soo-ah handed me a single sheet of paper. It was a certificate of family relations.

"After hearing what you said, I thought I'd take a long shot and filed it under my late mother's name, and..."

There in the mother's field, the name Baek Gong-ju was printed in crisp, unmistakable type.

Which meant...

'Even though she's been erased from people's perception, she hasn't vanished from the paperwork.'

Finding this out was a significant breakthrough.

"Good work. This should make things quite a bit easier."

"It w-was nothing."

Yoon Soo-ah mumbled the words, her face oddly flushed. I considered for a moment, then made a suggestion.

"Could you ask around the Bureau — anyone else who might know about Baek Gong-ju?"

"Already did."

"Nice. And the result?"

"Most of them couldn't remember her."

"Most of them? So someone did remember?"

"Well... the Director only half-remembered."

Yu Dong-cheol, Director of the Paranormal Administration Bureau. With family and every other Bureau employee having forgotten Baek Gong-ju, he alone still remembered her.

What could that mean, I wondered...

"What did this Director have to say about Baek Gong-ju?"

"He... swore at her."

"...Swore?"

"Yes. Something like — if she's going to ignore what he says and act unilaterally, why doesn't she take the director's seat herself; if she's so committed to following the rules of public service, why's she squatting in a team leader's position... He had a lot of complaints, that kind of thing."

Well, that was an unexpected wrinkle. The Director of the Bureau — an organization I'd assumed was Baek Gong-ju's one-woman show — actually disliked her?

Or... maybe that's exactly why he disliked her. He might resent the fact that while he technically held the director's seat, Baek Gong-ju lorded over things as a team leader and the real power behind the scenes. Worth keeping in mind, at any rate.

Either way, if she was erased from perception but still on record, the story was simple.

"As we've confirmed, Baek Gong-ju is your grandmother, and right now she's caught up in an anomaly — which is why she's been wiped from everyone's memories. But she's only been erased from perception; the electronic records are still there. I want the Bureau to use them to track her down."

"Understood."

Yoon Soo-ah picked up her phone. "Hello, Team Leader Kang In-hyuk? There's something I'd like to ask you to look into, if you have a moment."

The result came back quickly. however spineless the Bureau might be, it was still a top-secret government agency. In a South Korea saturated with surveillance cameras on every corner and computer systems woven into daily life, tracking one person was nothing at all.

"Cosmos Medical Center... Her last recorded hospitalization was there. After that, her vital signs vanish completely."

"A hospital?"

It was the single most incongruous place imaginable for that hardcore old battle-axe.

"Apparently she had chronic arthritis, and her disk problems were severe too, so she was receiving regular treatment... According to her examination records..."

Yoon Soo-ah spoke as if she were talking about a complete stranger. Arthritis and bad disks, though... well, no matter how monstrous the old woman, age waits for no one.

At any rate, we now had our lead. Time to start pounding the pavement.

After that, Yoon Soo-ah and I headed straight for Cosmos Medical Center, and on the way I asked Lee Ha-ram to dig up information on the place.

"Whoa, that's way too much TMI..."

It went on for another twenty lines, but the long and short of it was that this was the finest hospital in Korea.

Meanwhile, Yoon Soo-ah was scrolling through the album on her phone, looking over photos of Baek Gong-ju. Since the electronic records had survived, so had the photographs.

"Wow... this is my grandmother?"

Yoon Soo-ah gaped at the image of a muscular giantess of a grandmother topping 180 centimeters.

"That's her."

"She looks incredibly strong..."

"She's even stronger than she looks. Damnably so."

As we chatted, we arrived at Cosmos Medical Center. The real problem started now.

"First, we need to meet the doctor who last examined Baek Gong-ju..."

According to the treatment records, Baek Gong-ju's attending physician was one Professor Baek Dong-sik. The problem was that Baek Dong-sik was one of the crown jewels of Cosmos Medical Center, and his schedule today was completely booked. To be precise, it wasn't just today — his appointments for the next month were already solid.

"Leave that part to me."

"You, Soo-ah?"

"Yep."

Yoon Soo-ah answered confidently and walked over to the reception desk to speak with the staff. And then...

"All set. They say we can meet around one o'clock this afternoon."

"...How did you manage that?"

"How did I manage what? I just put in a cooperation request in the name of the Bureau, that's all."

According to her, Bureau agents' official cover identity was as National Intelligence Service personnel.

"We don't have any legal coercive power, but if you tell people it's an NIS request, most of them will make time for you."

"Ooh. Something about you seems different today."

"Are you falling for me?"

"No."

"Tch."

After exchanging that bit of nonsense, we spent the time we had left looking around the hospital. True to Lee Ha-ram's research — true to its title as Korea's finest — it was bustling even on a weekday. The facilities were all state-of-the-art, and the building's modern architecture let the sunlight pour in. The doctors striding through the corridors wore their pride in their own skill openly on their faces, and even the resident trainees trailing after them brimmed with passion. It was a sight perfectly befitting the title of Korea's best hospital.

Except...

"You don't look too pleased?"

"...I've never much liked hospitals."

No matter how cutting-edge the equipment, how crowded the halls, how bright the atmosphere, a hospital always carries that particular... feeling about it. And no matter what I did, I could never bring myself to like it.

As we wandered the hospital, our appointment time arrived. The place where we were to meet Professor Baek ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dong-sik was his private research office.

"A pleasure. I'm Baek Dong-sik."

Professor Baek Dong-sik was a middle-aged physician who had neatly arranged his salt-and-pepper hair with a dab of pomade.

"Yoon Soo-ah, with the National Intelligence Service."

"I'm Kim Ji-woo."

After the brief introductions, we got down to business.

"Do you remember a patient named Baek Gong-ju, whom you treated a week ago?"

"Hmm... I see so many patients in a single day, I'm afraid I..."

"She's been coming in for regular visits once a month for three years now. And you don't remember her?"

"No... to be honest, that's the first time I've ever heard the name Baek Gong-ju..."

"...Then let's have you check the treatment records."

At Yoon Soo-ah's urging, Baek Dong-sik reviewed the records. "...Well, she does appear to exist."

Baek Dong-sik nodded with a listless expression.

"And yet you still don't remember her?"

"No. As I said, I see a great many patients in a day..."

Yoon Soo-ah pressed him with a few more questions after that, but Professor Baek Dong-sik's responses never changed. He seemed entirely incapable of remembering any human being called Baek Gong-ju. A frustrated Yoon Soo-ah even showed him a photograph of Baek Gong-ju and told him to try harder to recall — but the result was the same.

"I simply don't know. According to the last treatment record, it was a routine checkup — I prescribed her usual arthritis medication and that was the end of it."

Perhaps because Yoon Soo-ah's interrogation had grown too relentless, Professor Baek Dong-sik began to show his irritation quite openly.

"Haah. Let's stop here. I squeezed time out of a schedule that doesn't have any because you said it was an NIS request. Isn't that enough?"

"We thank you once again for your cooperation. However, as this is a matter of great importance, if you could just once more—"

Tap.

I put a hand on Yoon Soo-ah's shoulder as she tried to repeat her broken-record questioning. She squeezed her eyes shut and then bowed her head.

"Thank you for your cooperation. Here — this is my number. If anything comes back to you later, I would be grateful for a call."

"...Yes. If I think of anything, I'll let you know."

Tap tap.

"Let's go."

"......Yes."

And with that, we left Professor Baek Dong-sik's private research office.

"...What do we do now...? Our only lead, and the professor can't remember anything..."

"He's lying."

"Excuse me?"

"That man, Baek Dong-sik — he remembers Baek Gong-ju."

"What?!"

"Think about it. You saw the photos yourself, so you know. Is your grandmother Baek Gong-ju anything like a normal grandmother?"

"That's... true, I suppose."

"Even with her memories lost, Baek Gong-ju is someone who made her own granddaughter gasp at the sight of her. And what did Baek Dong-sik do?"

"Ah... ah!"

If I'd been Baek Dong-sik, I'd have been startled by the height and weight in the treatment records alone, no photo required. An elderly woman standing over 180 centimeters with rock-hard muscle mass pushing her weight past 90 kilos is not exactly a common sight. And yet Baek Dong-sik had shown no reaction whatsoever — not to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠treatment records, nor even to the intimidating figure of Baek Gong-ju in the photograph.

"He was probably trying not to give anything away, but that just made him look all the more suspicious."

And in fact...

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Just as I thought."

At the voice reaching me through the Heaven-Ear Transference Spell I'd secretly planted just before leaving the research office, I broke into a knowing smile.

Baek Gong-ju had vanished here, inside this Cosmos Medical Center. And as it happened, among the Four Great Urban Legends of Seoul there was one that closely resembled this exact situation.