Mine was an existence of many layers. Father. Husband. Neuropsychiatrist. Musician. Animanga enthusiast. Gamer. Lapsed Angelical Lassedile. Panic-attack sufferer.

Transformee.

Over the next hours, I added another layer to the mix: Red Fred knock-off.

While I idolized Kosuke Himichi—both the man and the artist—and was obsessed with all of his works, my obsession was an uneven one. Red Fred wasn’t anywhere near as dear to my inner child as Catamander Brave, but, in working with Ani in violation of the hospital’s SPN treatment directives, I found that Red Fred and its titular character’s twisted tale had grown on me and taken on an extra layer of meaning.

Among Himichi’s works, Red Fred was unique (and, in some aficionados’ circles, infamous) for featuring his only major anti-hero protagonist. Fred was a brilliant physician, brilliant enough that his brilliance alone would have made him an interesting protagonist on its own. But Himichi would never do something so facile. Fred’s claim to fame was the Red Mask, a magical artifact he’d stolen from the semi-divine inhabitants of the secret Fearion Dimension after having learnt of the Dimension’s existence during a particularly challenging house call. The Red Mask allowed its wearer to travel through time. Driven by his unshakeable ideals, Fred made it his personal mission to use the mask’s powers to travel back in time to implement his unique brand of vigilante medical justice. He took the latest medical advancements of the modern age and used them to treat people in the past—people who didn’t deserve to die—and, in doing so, completely rewrote history time and time again. He’d right history’s wrongs one person at a time, and he wasn’t going to let anyone stop him.

I had to admit, going no-holds-barred and subverting our dysfunctional healthcare system’s cockamamie rules felt good. In between check ups with new or pre-existing patients, I surreptitiously snuck some of the worst high-SPN uninsured cases to Ani’s undocumented refuge. It was hard not to weep when I got to help an entire family, and bring them the care that the system denied them. It made the family guy in me feel just a bit better about himself. I wasn’t with my family when they needed them, but, at least I could be with these families.

Now, if only forgiveness and redemption could function just as vicariously as pleasure.

I kept thinking back to Pel and the kids, hoping they were safe, and wishing I could be with them. But then I’d list out in my head the reasons why I wasn’t with them. The reasons why I couldn’t be with them.

Fear of infecting them. Fear of seeing them suffer and die. It made it harder to ignore the awful, awful contradiction that, whatever dangers I was sparing my family from, I was doing so at the cost of subjugating my colleagues to the very same. Being very busy—and, high on denial—helped keep those thoughts at the edge of my mind, but still… it sucked. It really, really sucked. The sense of contradiction made every smile or thankful tear on patients’ faces bittersweet.

The bitterness, however, soon grew stronger.

In order to avoid arousing suspicion, Ani had been getting medication to use for the patients in the refuge in a roundabout way. Instead of entering the medicine requests in the consoles in the refuge, she placed the orders in the consoles of her documented patients’ rooms, ordering slightly more than what was needed. Thanks to the sheer number of patients Ward E was getting, it took no time at all for Ani to accumulate a sufficient drug surplus to start treating the undocumented patients en masse, especially when I joined her in her scheme as soon as she’d explained the method to me.

At the moment, I was carefully escorting a family of four to the refuge. I had them wait in some spare seats in one of Ward E’s halls while I’d gone about my rounds, seeing two more patients. I’d requested extra doses of antifungals, vasopressors, analgesics, but, when I got to my patients’ rooms to pick them up, it turned out the medications hadn’t been delivered. It was only when I tried to place another order that the mystery resolved itself.

If only it hadn’t resolved so loudly.

An error message appeared on the console screen, accompanied by any angry alert noise.

As a precautionary measure, due to expectations of high demand, all requests for antifungals must be filed in-person at a dispensary.

“Ugh,” I groaned, tilting my head back.

The phrase expectations of high demand was particularly unnerving. It looked like the near future was going to have a lot of walking in it.

Sighing, I left the patient’s room empty-handed, gathered up my four refugees and guided them to the E90s. It was hard to keep myself from staring at the father of the family of four—the Arnettes. Mr. Arnette kept staring at his arm, and—unlike his wife and two sons—he wasn’t coughing. If I asked, I was certain he’d confirm for me that he was suffering from Nalfar’s—which, of course, meant he was a Type Two case, like me. I knew someone was going to have to separate the man from the rest of his family, and the thought simply wouldn’t leave me alone.

As I opened the door to E93, I discovered something else that wouldn’t leave me alone. Someone else, to be precise.

Dr. Heggy Marteneiss.

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She stood a couple of steps away from the door, arms crossed, wearing the Heggiest of all expressions: angry sympathy. With a little more than a glance, the golden-haired matron could shoot you full with so much guilt, even a doe-eyed puppy would have bowed its head in shame. Ani stood next to Dr. Marteneiss. Dr. Lokanok looked more like a statue or a figure from an aged painting than a flesh and blood human being. Boughs of Ani’s long, black hair spilled down her face, like a veil, parting down the middle. She met eyes with me only once or twice.

I turned to the patients I’d brought with me.

“Please, could you, um… wait outside for a moment?” I glanced at Heggy. “There are some… sensitive… matters I need to discuss with my colleagues.”

They nodded, weak and tired, except for Mr. Arnette, who glared at me with suspicion—and, of course, he was completely right. I closed the door behind me as soon as the Arnettes had stepped out.

“Now, Dr. Howle,” Heggy began, “you know I like collectin’ more than the average gal, but… this is ridiculous.” Heggy pressed her fingers against the top of her PPE visor, as close as she could get to her forehead. She closed her eyes and shook her head. “If this keeps up, you’ll have a damn fire safety hazard on your hands!”

“This isn’t really funny, Dr. Marteneiss,” Ani said, averting Heggy’s gaze as she spoke.

Shaking her head, Heggy raised an eyebrow at Dr. Lokanok. “I’m entirely serious, Dr. Lokanok,” she said. “I’ll spare you the slaw.” Heggy glanced at me briefly. “You’ve been requisitionin’ supplies without prior approval—and not just any supplies, but reserved ones, for Angel’s sake. Not only that, you’re neglectin’ high-priority patients in favor of the uninsured, and out of SPN order, too. The law is like a big red guard dog. Just make sure you mind your manners and watch your step, and you got nothin’ to worry about. Course, y’all now gone and kicked the dog right in the face. Management and the Billings department are going to come down on y’all hard once they find out.”

“What are you saying?” I asked.

Heggy turned to me, smiling wryly. “As for you, Dr. Howle, I know bein’ in a leadership role is new to you, but I’d hoped you’d know well enough to keep from aidin’ and abettin’ this kind of medical malpractice.” Heggy closed her eyes and shook her head. “Well, no, that’s a lie. I expected pretty much exactly this sort of thing would happen.” She winked at me, and then pointed at both of us, one at a time. “Anyhow, y’all are lucky I found out first. Not everyone would be as forgiving as yours truly. Now,” Heggy gestured toward the other end of the long room. “Take these good folks back to where they’re supposed to be, waitin’ for treatment in line like everyone else. As long as you do that, nobody needs to know ya’ll went and splurged precious resources on unauthorized causes.”

Ani sputtered. “Medical malpractice? Really, Dr. Marteneiss? That’s what you’re going to call this?”

“By the letter of the law, that’s what it is,” Heggy said. “Facts don’t care about your feelings, I’m afraid. The law is the law. Order is all we have to keep everything from topplin’ like a house of cards. What you’re doin’ here is unbalancing Billings’ checkbooks, and it’s a pretty slippery slope from unbalanced checkbook to cock-ups as far as the eye can see.”

“Heggy—well, you probably already know this, but…” I started to speak, but then bit my lip, paused, and took a deep breath. “I’m going to say it anyway.” I locked eyes with Dr. Marteneiss, not wanting there to be any ambiguity about where I stood on the matter. “I don’t regret helping Ani, not for a second. But…” I pivoted to Ani, nodding in acknowledgement of the awful truth. “Dr. Marteneiss is technically correct, Dr. Lokanok. But, just as importantly,” I added, “you’re too good of a physician to yank you off the stage for an infraction against a stupid, stupid law.” Heggy narrowed her eyes at me. I knew how important the law was to her, but in this situation, I had to be true to my convictions. “Ani, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve already proven yourself to be a valuable member of this team.”

Tears glistened in Ani’s eyes in response to my words. She knew I didn’t give praise lightly. It got me choked up, too. I sniffled.

Gosh, I’m just a leaky sack of emotions today, aren’t I?

“I heard how you helped Jonan stabilize all those patients after his immunostimulant treatments went belly up. And, I mean… only a little while ago, you single-handedly saved a baby girl from asphyxiating. If that’s not what medicine’s about, I don’t know what is. Besides,” I smirked, “somebody’s got to carry scruples for Dr. Derric.”

Ani laughed and did a poor job of hiding it. It wasn’t easy to bring your hand to your mouth when you were fully decked out in PPE.

Leave it to the neuropsychiatrist with the red-spotted lucky yellow bowtie with a savior complex to try to play peacemaker in a rut like this.

“Well put, Genneth,” Heggy said, with a nod. She played a good sport, though the way she tapped her foot in agitation suggested she felt otherwise. “Come on, now, Dr. Lokanok,” Heggy said, putting her burly hand on the lithe woman’s shoulder, “let’s put everyone and everything back in their lawful places.”

It was very, very difficult to refrain from obeying requests when Heggy put them like that, with her matron-energy firing on all cylinders.

Nodding, Ani walked off, sighing and shrugging, but then she grabbed hold of the foot of one of the beds and looked back to face Heggy. Ani kept her head low at first, but then raised it up more and more, looking Heggy in the eye. Her grip on the bed tightened.

“Just laws lead to justice, Dr. Marteneiss,” Ani said. “I’m not going to walk past people in need.” Ani closed her eyes. “I’m not going to let lonely moms and fever-stricken kids sit in the waiting room for hours on end until they keel over from cardiac arrest or drown in their own fluids before anyone bothers to even look at them. A person’s life should be worth more than a good SPN.”

“Yes,” I said, “it should.” I sighed.

According to the laws—or, rather, the courts’ interpretations of it—money was speech, even though it wasn’t. Corporations were people, even though they weren’t. Power didn’t make a person right, even if it did give them license to cut in line and skirt around the laws, legally or otherwise. But that’s what you got when conglomerates ran the world.

Heggy bent forward and quietly clapped her hands together. “Now that we’re all hopefully on the same page, we need to start movin’ these folks back to their proper places before anybody else finds out.” She sighed. “I’ll go out and try to keep any staffers or folks from upper management from snooping around here for as long as I can,” she smirked, “even though I probably shouldn’t. That should give y’all time enough to clear out these rooms. I’ll be back as soon as I can to help discreetly transport the patients.” Heggy then briefly glowered at Ani and I. “But, so help me, if I come back and find y’all haven’t ceased and desisted like no one ever ceased and desisted before…”

I saluted her. “You don’t need to tell me twice, Heggy,” I said.

Nodding approvingly, Dr. Marteneiss saluted me right back, and then left the room, giving folksy “howdy”s to passerby as she walked back to the battlefields.