Midnight House Call
Doctor Marta’s house was nestled in the back alleys behind the dye works, just across the South Gate Canal.
By day, laborers queued outside her door. By night, the wooden shutters were barred tight. Even so, the name Orban was always enough to get the door unlocked.
I caught the rusted iron pull hanging beside the frame and tugged it three times. Clang, clang, clang.
A few moments later, a second-floor window creaked open, and a woman holding a candle poked her head into the night chill.
"Who is it? Huh? Which one of you bastards is yanking on my bell like you’re trying to rip the whole damn house down at this hour?"
It was Marta. A human woman pushing fifty. Half of her cropped brown hair had gone white, but the rigid intolerance in her sharp eyes and the collar buttoned obsessively to the very top of her throat hadn’t changed one bit.
A year ago, she was the very back-alley doctor who had stitched the torn flesh of my flank and left arm back together without a drop of anesthesia.
"Marta, it’s me. Sonya."
"Sonya? What’d you break this time?"
"I’m in one piece. We just caught ourselves a VIP guest who’s about two breaths away from bleeding out of a bullet hole."
The window slammed shut. Less than a minute later, the heavy iron bolt on the ground floor threw open with a sharp clatter. Throwing a coat over her shoulders and clutching a thick leather doctor’s bag, Marta marched down the threshold.
"Gunshot? Where?"
"Right below the right breast. Every time he breathes, pink froth bubbles out of the wound."
"...Whose patient is this?"
"The boss dragged him in."
Marta’s brow furrowed deep. She swept her gaze over me from crown to boot, clicked her tongue in disgust, and locked the door behind her.
"That slippery bastard... Lead the way."
The fastest route back to the office was the broad thoroughfare cutting straight through the South Gate Market. Instead, I led Marta past the market entrance, veering down into the foul-smelling, shadowed drainage paths along the South Gate Canal.
"Sonya. This isn’t the way."
"Just in case somebody’s glued to our tails."
Marta clamped her mouth shut and didn’t argue.
In the spy movies I’d watched in my previous life, the protagonists always shook off tails with dazzling lane changes through narrow streets, but doing it on foot just made the soles of my boots ache like hell. Feigning a casual pace, I watched the ripple of gas lamps mirrored in the murky canal water.
Two dyers crossed a nearby footbridge; a drunken orc was vomiting over an iron railing further down. Pausing before a pawnshop, I crouched down as if to retie my bootlace. The alleyway behind us reflected cleanly in the display glass. No one was tailing.
Not a single shadow matched our pace for more than three intersections.
That should do it.
Slipping through a narrow opening at the canal’s edge, I guided her around to the iron door behind the dry cleaner’s building. When I rapped three times against the cold metal, Orban, who had been waiting on the other side, drew the bolt.
Dark drops of blood trailed up the staircase like dropped coins. Gathering the hems of her skirts to avoid the crimson puddles, Marta took the steps two at a time.
Beltz lay stretched out atop the desk, his shirt shears-cut into bloody ribbons, drawing shallow, labored gasps. The moment Marta laid eyes on the silver crest pinned to the chest of the ruined black overcoat crumpled on the floor—the winged wheel flanked by three clasping hands—her boots stopped dead.
"...Orban."
"Can you pull him through, Marta?"
"This man is high-ranking ARC brass! If this goes sideways, they’ll string me up by my—"
"Patch him up first, then scream at me later. I’ll take the heat. Besides, if he kicks the bucket, you can’t exactly bill him for the visit, can you?"
Exhaling a long, disgusted sigh, Marta dropped her leather kit onto the desk with a heavy thud. The moment she popped the brass clasps, she shoved both of us out of her workspace.
She pressed two fingers firmly against Beltz’s carotid artery, checked his pupils, then pulled a short wooden monaural stethoscope from her bag and pressed it alternately against the man’s chest and back.
Beneath the right ribcage came an ominous, wet chafing sound, accompanied by the wet hiss of escaping air mixed with blood.
"Through-and-through perforation of the right lower lobe. The pleural cavity is filling with air and blood. Move exactly as I tell you, understand?"
"Give the orders."
"Light two more oil lamps and get a pot of water boiling. Tear up every clean rag you have. Sonya, pin his shoulders!"
I stepped immediately to the head of the desk, clamping my hands down hard on Beltz’s left shoulder.
"Not there! Wedge him between the scapula and the collarbone! If you press down on the ribs, you’ll snap the bone and puncture the lung even deeper!"
"Right. Got it."
Startled by her sharp rebuke, which stung like a slap to the back, I quickly shifted my grip. When we rolled him onto his side, an exit wound the width of a thumb gaped open between his ribs. The bullet hadn’t lodged inside; it had torn cleanly out through his back. That, at least, was a sliver of luck in a disaster.
Taking a pair of boiled, sterilized forceps, Marta plunged straight into the wound without hesitation, wrenching out torn scraps of clothing that had been sucked into the cavity. Even unconscious, Beltz arched and convulsed in agony, violent spasms racking his torso.
Without thinking, my augmented grip tightened hard on his shoulder, the tips of my fingers sinking white into his flesh.
"I told you not to crush him, you hulking she-bear! Are you trying to pop his shoulder out of its socket?!"
"He was thrashing around..."
"Use your forearms to brace his spasms, don’t try to snap him in half!"
Swallowing the barrage of nagging, I adjusted my stance. Holding back ninety percent of my strength was a hundred times more exhausting than letting it loose.
While Marta worked, I held Beltz still as directed. Soiled, crimson rags piled up in the washbasin. Even after binding the tight compression dressings in place, she kept the wooden cylinder against his chest for a long time. His breathing gradually sounded far more even than before.
Under the desk, the tin basin used to catch the runoff had turned black with clotted fluid. The room hung heavy with the copper stench of spilled blood, the stinging vapor of rubbing alcohol, and the oily soot of the lanterns.
A year ago, when I opened my eyes on that very sofa, the world had smelled exactly like this.
Washing her bloodied hands in a basin of clean water, Marta straightened her back with a dry crack of her spine.
"The bleeding is arrested for now. But he isn’t out of the woods. If his fever spikes or he starts vomiting blood during the night, come get me immediately."
"Is there anything else we can do for him?"
"Depends on how he holds up. Right now, your only job is praying the man’s thread of life is thick enough."
Stripping off her blood-soaked apron, Marta glared daggers at Orban.
"And Orban."
"I’m listening."
"You’re paying me triple my usual rate. What I just laid eyes on is dangerous enough to get people buried in unmarked graves."
Orban didn’t argue. Opening the small iron safe, he scooped out five or six heavy silver coins, wrapped them in a piece of cloth, and pressed them into Marta’s hand. After quietly counting the weight against her palm, she shoved the coin purse deep into her coat and gathered her medical bag.
"As far as I'm concerned, I never saw a patient here."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"Save your thanks until that bastard wakes up and pays you back."
Once Marta slipped out into the alley, a suffocating silence settled over the office.
Beltz lay transferred onto the sofa, drawing thin, shallow breaths, while Orban silently emptied the basin of bloody water down the drainage pipe. I grabbed a mop and a bucket, headed down the staircase, and scrubbed the drying stains between the floorboards with rubbing alcohol until the wood shone bare.
When I returned to the second floor, Orban was sitting by the desk, methodically wiping Beltz’s blood-smeared, cracked spectacles with a clean handkerchief.
"Where did you find him?"
Orban’s hand paused. He stared out into the pitch-black void beyond the windowpane.
"Warehouse at Pumping Station Four. South Gate Canal."
"What was he doing there?"
"That was our designated drop point."
Orban drew the heavy curtains entirely shut and collapsed heavily into the chair across from me. Exhaustion was etched deep into the lines of his face.
The job went back four months. Beltz had approached the Orban Agency in secret, commissioning an off-the-books investigation into the land compensation ledgers along the Northern New Line.
"On the ARC Central Branch ledgers, compensation was marked as fully disbursed to every landowner along the rail expansion. But out on the ground, the farmers and miners in the planned construction zones were screaming bloody murder that they hadn't seen a single copper."
If the branch auditing team had moved openly, whoever was skimming the funds would have turned the evidence to ashes before an inspector could even set foot on the train. So Beltz hired Orban—an external fixer whose name appeared nowhere on the company’s payroll.
The target list comprised forty-two households. Of the twenty-three Orban had visited in person, eight had received only a fraction of their money, while five hadn’t received a cent. There were even records showing compensation claimed in the names of men who had been dead for years. The remaining claims had been corroborated through written statements and copies of receipts collected by a local village representative.
"Somebody high up inside the Central Branch is running a massive, organized embezzlement ring."
"And tonight was supposed to be the night you handed over the findings?"
"Yeah. By the time I reached the warehouse, the shots had already been fired. Director Beltz was bleeding out between the coal sacks. The bastards must have assumed he was dead and hauled ass."
Orban tapped the inside breast pocket of his coat.
"The original records I compiled were tucked inside my coat, so they didn't get their hands on the proof. But the second they realize Beltz is still drawing breath, they’ll come back to finish the job."
"...Which is why you didn't take him to an official ARC clinic."
"I have no way of knowing how far their tentacles reach inside the company. Right now, this office is the only place I can trust to keep him breathing."
Well, shit. Talk about a mess.
Without a word, I turned on my heel, entered my room, and shut the door behind me.
Reaching beneath the bed frame, I pulled out my tin money box. Eleven silver coins. Only four more, and I’d have enough to buy my permanent citizenship papers. But if this office was raided and burned to the ground, every single copper would be gone. My proof of continuous residence, the guarantor backing my papers—everything was anchored here.
Citizenship was precious, but it wasn't worth more than my life. Even back in my past life as Kim Yujin, whenever the debt collectors’ harassment reached a fever pitch, my very first thought had been pulling the deposit on my studio apartment and vanishing into the night.
I shoved the silver, a spare shirt, and a loaf of rye bread into my canvas rucksack. Lastly, I packed a tin of black powder and a pouch of percussion caps. That was everything I owned in this world.
Just as I pulled the zipper shut, two soft raps echoed against the door.
"It’s me."
Orban. Opening the door a crack, I saw the boss’s gaze drift over the bulging rucksack sitting behind my boots. A bitter, weary smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he leaned his back against the wall.
"Sonya. You can take refuge over at Bram’s gun shop. I already cleared it with him."
"What about this place?"
"The head of an agency can’t abandon his own office. As for your citizenship, I’ll head down to the municipal registry first thing in the morning and get your one-year residency record notarized separately. Even if things go south for me, I’ll make sure your application goes through without a hitch."
There was no hesitation in Orban’s voice.
"...When the hell did you have time to plan all that?"
"The moment I was hauling Beltz up the stairs on my back."
"Always playing the noble martyr..."
"This isn't your fight."
Orban patted my shoulder lightly and pushed off the wall.
"Think it over until morning."
He trudged back toward the main office, his footsteps heavy.
I stared down at the rucksack. Slithering out the window would take all of two seconds. This city was vast enough that the boss would never find me even if he spent the rest of his life looking.
Yet my boots refused to budge. Orban was the man who had set a hot meal in front of me and asked if I knew how to work. He’d asked that before he ever bothered to ask where I had been bought from.
God damn it. A deadbeat like me has no business growing a conscience. It only ever makes life miserable.
Shouldering the pack, I pushed the bedroom door open and walked into the office. Dropping into the armchair beside the sofa, I let the heavy rucksack thump onto the floorboards by the entrance.
Orban’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at me.
"You’re not going to Bram’s?"
"The doctor said to keep an eye on the patient."
"I can watch him myself."
"Right. Because you’re doing a stellar job keeping watch with your eyelids drooping halfway down your nose."
Orban let out a dry, helpless laugh, shaking his head as he scratched the back of his neck. Settling back, I laid my revolver across my knees and folded my arms over my chest.
By the time the eastern horizon began to pale into a cold, slate blue, a faint tremor ran through the thin fingers of the man lying on the sofa.
"Ugh... Nnh..."
Without his spectacles, Beltz’s clouded eyes drifted across the ceiling, searching blindly for focus. As I stood up and brought the oil lamp closer, Orban, who had been dozing lightly, sprang upright like a coiled spring.
"Director Beltz? Are you with us?"
"Wh... Where... is this...?"
"My office. You're safe here. Don't try to move."
Beltz winced violently, his brows knitting tight as he fought the tearing pain in his chest, his dry lips trembling. Yet his first words weren’t about his own life.
"The... surveyor... who was with me...? What happened... to Martin?"
"When I reached the warehouse, you were the only one there."
Beltz’s eyelids fluttered weakly. Clasping a trembling hand onto Orban’s forearm, he forced out a dry, raspy wheeze.
"Did you... notify the company...? Did you tell ARC?"
"Not yet."
"Whatever you do... do not contact them...!"
Orban’s eyes narrowed instantly.
"Did you see who shot you?"
Swallowing back a wet surge of blood, Beltz forced the words past his teeth as if tearing them straight from his chest.
"When the bastard’s coat... fell open... I saw it..."
"...!"
"Pinned to his chest... was an official badge... from the ARC Central Branch Security Division."
Orban tightened his grip on Beltz’s trembling hand. The equation had just changed completely. Now, we had to rethink who we were supposed to report this to in the first place.