Story code: ST-000059
Part 2: Section Four, Paragraph Eleven
The frosted glass didn’t just break; it exploded inward. Arthur threw his arms up, crying out in shock as sharp pellets of safety glass rained over his neatly combed hair and pristine shoulders. The hollow-core door buckled completely off its hinges, hitting the linoleum floor with a deafening slap. Standing in the ruined threshold was the applicant.
The man was a towering mass of physical trauma and unhinged fury. His clothes were melted to his skin in several places, and a dark, wet mixture of blood and soot smeared his face, making his wide, bloodshot eyes look unnervingly bright. A horrific, rattling wheeze tore from his throat with every intake of air. It was the unmistakable sound of severely compromised lungs-the exact biological failure the denied respiratory machine was meant to mitigate.
Arthur scrambled backward, his polished loafers slipping frantically on the scattered glass. He collided with the edge of his metal desk, the sharp corner digging painfully into his lower back. “You cannot be in here!” Arthur yelled, his voice cracking into a high-pitched register he barely recognized. “This is a restricted federal workspace!”
The veteran didn’t answer with words. He lunged across the small room with terrifying speed. A massive, heavily blistered hand grabbed the front of Arthur’s starched collar, twisting the fabric so tightly it instantly cut off the adjudicator’s airway. The man hoisted Arthur onto the tips of his toes, slamming his back against the plexiglass window. The flimsy wall of the temporary trailer groaned under their combined weight, the eerie orange light of the wildfires outside casting long, distorted shadows across the office.
“Code 8A,” the veteran rasped, his breath hot and reeking of scorched copper and ash. Blood dripped from a fresh, jagged gash on his forehead, landing directly on Arthur’s trembling cheek. “You sent a text. Said my claim was insufficient.”
“Please,” Arthur choked out. His hands frantically gripped the veteran’s thick forearms, trying desperately to pry the fingers away. The man’s skin was radiating an unnatural heat, like a furnace left burning out of control. “It’s… it’s an automated notification! I just process the matrix! You didn’t have the secondary field verification!”
“My house is gone!” the veteran roared, shaking Arthur so violently the adjudicator’s teeth clicked together. “My wife is in a triage tent breathing through a plastic tube! I need the dressings! I need the machine!”
“Section four…” Arthur gasped, unable to stop his bureaucratic conditioning even in the face of imminent death. “Paragraph eleven… natural disaster claims require… photographic evidence or a FEMA cross-reference! I can’t just… I don’t have the authority!”
The veteran let out a guttural scream of pure, unfiltered frustration and hurled Arthur aside. Arthur crashed into his desk chair, sending it spinning before he crumpled hard to the floor. He gasped for air, massaging his bruised throat. Above him, the veteran was tearing the office apart. He swept his massive arm across Arthur’s neatly organized desk, sending the VA Adjudication Manual, the mechanical keyboard, and the metal outbox flying. The red ‘INSUFFICIENT’ rubber stamp hit the wall and bounced away, leaving a smear of ink that looked sickeningly like fresh blood.
“Look at me!” the veteran demanded, pointing a trembling, blistered finger at his own ruined body. “Does this look insufficient to you? Does this look like I’m trying to cheat the government out of a damn bandage?”
Arthur crawled backward until his spine hit the bottom of the filing cabinet. He looked at the man, really looked at him, and saw the horrific extent of the burns wrapping around his left arm. The flesh was raw, weeping clear fluid into the filthy rags tied desperately around it. But instead of empathy, Arthur’s mind desperately sought refuge in rigid protocol. This was a massive violation. Assaulting a federal employee was a felony. The man was destroying government property. If Arthur could just get to the silent panic button mounted under the desk…
“Sir, if you calm down, we can file a provisional appeal,” Arthur stammered, trying to project a tone of calm, institutional authority while his knees shook uncontrollably. “Form 10-10EZ. I can print it for you right now. It only takes thirty days to process an expedited review…”
“Thirty days?” The veteran’s voice dropped to a deadly, quiet hiss. The wet wheezing in his chest grew louder in the sudden silence of the room. Outside, sirens wailed in the distance, a grim symphony to the apocalyptic sky pressing against the window. “I won’t make it three days without an infection. Neither will she.”
The veteran reached into his ruined jacket. Arthur flinched, throwing his hands over his face, fully expecting to be shot. Instead, the man pulled out a blackened, melted chunk of plastic and metal. It took Arthur a second to recognize the charred, useless remains of a CPAP motor. The veteran slammed it down onto the only clear space left on the desk, right next to Arthur’s surviving computer monitor.
Then, the veteran reached down, grabbed Arthur by the leather belt, and hauled him effortlessly back to his feet, shoving him roughly down into the rolling chair. He kicked the back of the chair forward until Arthur’s knees slammed into the desk.
“Fix it,” the man commanded, bracing both of his heavy hands on the armrests, trapping Arthur completely. The metallic smell of the man’s blood mixed with the eucalyptus ash in the air, making Arthur deeply nauseous.
“I… I can’t,” Arthur whimpered, staring at his monitor. The screen still showed the locked claim profile, the glaring Code 8A denial frozen in place. “The system already generated the denial. It’s hardcoded into the network. I need a supervisor’s physical override key to reverse an 8A.”
“You’re the one who pushed the button,” the veteran growled, leaning in so close his bloody forehead nearly touched Arthur’s temple. “You push whatever buttons you need to push to make it say approved. Right now.”
Arthur’s hands hovered over the keyboard he had managed to pull back onto the desk. His mind raced through the rigidly memorized VA operating manual. There was exactly one way to bypass the supervisor lock on a denied claim. He would have to log in using the emergency administrative backdoor-a code strictly reserved for catastrophic system failures, one that bypassed all verification checks. Using it to alter a claim without authorization was a severe federal crime carrying a mandatory prison sentence. It would flag his employee ID immediately to the Inspector General.
“I’ll go to federal prison,” Arthur whispered, tears of absolute panic pricking his eyes. “It’s a felony. I will be prosecuted.”
The veteran suddenly reached across the desk and grabbed Arthur’s heavy, cast-iron tape dispenser. He raised it high above Arthur’s head, his jaw set in a rictus of desperate, unyielding violence.
“Approve it,” the veteran said, his voice stripped of all humanity, “or you won’t live long enough to worry about a prison cell.”