Story code: ST-000771
Part 3: The Algorithm
The heavy rumble of the diesel engine vibrated through the sedan’s floorboards, rattling against Elias’s ribs like a physical blow. He kept his calloused hand clamped firmly over Director Jenkins’s mouth, using his sheer mass to pin her awkwardly beneath the line of the dashboard. The stench of unburned diesel fumes seeped through the car’s ventilation system, mixing with the sharp, metallic tang of blood welling from the scratch on his cheek.
Through the windshield, the blinding yellow beam of the security spotlight swept over the silver hood. For ten agonizing seconds, the light filled the cabin, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the freezing air. Elias’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his sternum. Every muscle in his core seized, the sharp, twisting cramps in his abdomen flaring with a vengeance that threatened to make him black out. He gritted his teeth, locking his elbow to keep Jenkins completely still. Beneath his palm, he could feel the rapid, terrified flutter of her lips and the hot bursts of her breath. She was trembling violently, her eyes squeezed shut in the glare.
The patrol truck’s tires crunched over grit on the concrete. The engine roared slightly as the vehicle turned down the next aisle, the spotlight dragging its beam away into the subterranean gloom. The shadows swallowed the sedan’s interior once more.
Elias waited until the red glow of the taillights vanished against the far wall. Slowly, his muscles quivering from the exertion and the cold, he loosened his grip. He pulled his hand away from her mouth, bracing himself for a scream, ready to grab the heavy flashlight if she bolted.
Jenkins didn’t scream. She didn’t lunge for the door handle. She pushed herself up from the center console, gasping for air, and slumped back against the driver’s side window. Her tailored wool coat was bunched up around her shoulders, her hair a disheveled mess. She stared blindly at the steering wheel, her chest heaving.
Elias forced himself upward, falling heavily back into the passenger seat. His vision swam with gray spots. He pressed his left forearm deep into his stomach, trying to hold the broken pieces of his insides together. With his right hand, he picked up the cheap ballpoint pen from the floor mat and placed it back on top of the crumpled VA authorization form resting on the gearshift.
“Sign it,” Elias rasped, his voice barely a whisper. “Please.”
Jenkins looked down at the pen. Then, she looked at Elias. The sheer panic in her eyes was slowly being replaced by something else. A brittle, glassy exhaustion.
A harsh, broken sound escaped her throat. It took Elias a second to realize she was laughing. It was a wet, hysterical noise that chilled him more than the freezing air of the garage.
“You think this is about ink?” she choked out, wiping a streak of mascara from beneath her left eye. She grabbed the authorization form and shoved it back toward his chest. “You think my signature fixes this?”
Elias flinched as the paper hit his jacket. “It needs a Director’s approval. You’re the Director. The pharmacist said-”
“The pharmacist is an idiot!” Jenkins snapped, her voice suddenly echoing with a desperate, jagged edge. “It’s not a piece of paper, Elias! It’s a closed-loop algorithmic system. If I sign a physical form that contradicts the system’s rejection code, it triggers an automatic regional audit.”
“Then let them audit you!” Elias roared, the sudden burst of anger tearing through his abdomen like a hot knife. He doubled over, gasping, spitting a drop of blood onto his lap. “I am dying. My organs are shutting down. I don’t care about your paperwork.”
“I care!” Jenkins yelled back, slamming her palms against the steering wheel. Tears were spilling down her cheeks now, cutting tracks through her makeup. “Because if they audit me, they see I’m breaking the quota! Thirty-two percent, Elias. That is the mandatory denial rate imposed on my desk this quarter. We have to find errors. We have to reject them. If we fall below thirty-two percent, we are placed on administrative review and terminated.”
Elias stared at her, the sheer cruelty of the numbers failing to compute in his pain-addled brain. “You’re killing people to keep a desk job?”
Jenkins let out a ragged sob, her anger shattering into pure devastation. She leaned over the console, pointing a shaking finger directly at his face. “My husband has stage four pancreatic cancer! He’s at Memorial Sloan Kettering right now. He has two hundred thousand dollars in experimental treatment debt that my federal insurance is barely keeping at bay. If I lose my job, I lose the insurance. If I lose the insurance, David dies.”
The silence that followed was absolute, save for the distant hum of the elevator shafts. Elias looked at the terrified, weeping woman in front of him. The monster he had imagined, the faceless bureaucrat he had stalked and ambushed, dissolved into the shadows. In her place was just another hostage, bleeding out in a different kind of trap. His fingers slowly released their grip on the manila envelope. The heavy flashlight sitting in the cupholder suddenly felt like a sickening joke.
Jenkins looked at his pale, sweating face, at the way he was physically folding inward from the pain. She let out a long, shuddering breath, swiping both hands across her cheeks.
“God forgive me,” she whispered.
She reached into the footwell and hauled her heavy leather briefcase onto her lap. The brass buckles clinked as she flipped them open. She pulled out a thick, government-issued laptop and flipped the screen up.
“A physical signature does nothing,” Jenkins said, her voice dropping to a hollow, mechanical monotone as she booted the machine. “The pharmacy won’t accept it if the system says ‘Rejected’. I have to log into the federal portal over the cellular network and manually override the denial code on your digital file.”
The laptop screen flickered to life, casting a pale, bluish glow across the interior of the sedan. Elias watched, holding his breath, as her fingers flew across the keyboard. The pain in his gut was a roaring fire, but a tiny spark of hope flared against the darkness.
“Accessing patient ID,” she muttered, staring at the screen. “Thorne, Elias. Claim status: Denied. Reason: Missing Signature.”
She navigated the cursor to a small dropdown menu in the corner of the screen. “I’m pushing the override. When this goes through, you have to go straight to the pharmacy. David’s insurance audit won’t hit my desk until Monday. I’ll… I’ll figure something out.”
Elias let out a ragged sigh, his shoulders slumping against the cold leather seat. “Thank you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I-”
A harsh, digitized beep cut him off.
The blue glow of the screen instantly snapped to a glaring, blood-red warning box. Jenkins froze, her hands hovering above the keyboard.
Elias strained to see the screen, his vision blurring. “What? What is it?”
Jenkins didn’t answer. Her face had gone completely slack, the color draining from her cheeks in the red light. Her eyes were locked on the glowing text.
*ACTION DENIED.*
*High-Value Medication Override.*
*Level 4 Biometric Supervisor Authorization Required.*
Jenkins frantically tapped the trackpad, clicking the ‘Dismiss’ button. The red box stubbornly flashed, refusing to yield. A small, square fingerprint icon pulsed at the bottom of the prompt.
“No,” Jenkins breathed, her fingers trembling as she clicked again and again. “No, no, I’m the Director. I have regional clearance.”
“Jenkins, what does it mean?” Elias choked out, a fresh wave of agony seizing his ribs.
She slowly turned her head to look at him, the red light reflecting in her terrified, brimming eyes. “They updated the software,” she whispered, her voice completely broken. “They locked me out. I can’t save you.”