A child's nose reveals a deadly hospital plot, tying a doctor's present crime to her father's past death at Ascension Medical.
The hum of the old library computer offered little comfort as I stared at the screen. My fingers, still sticky from the orange soda I’d bought, hovered over the keyboard. I was here on a mission. Dr. Finch’s hushed phone call, the words “critical patient data” and “funding shortfall,” had been a cold hand reaching into my father’s memory. I needed to see his medical records. I needed to understand what Finch was hiding.
I navigated to Ascension Medical’s patient portal, my heart thrumming against my ribs. This was it.
I entered Dad’s old patient ID, a sequence of numbers I’d memorized from his insurance card. Then his birthdate, a familiar rhythm of digits.
A moment of buffering. The cursor blinked.
A stark, red message flashed across the screen: “ACCESS DENIED: ARCHIVED RESEARCH DATABASE. HIGH-LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUIRED.”
My breath hitched. I blinked, rereading the words. *Archived Research Database*. Not just “records inaccessible” or “incorrect password.” This was specific. This was deliberate.
I tried again, meticulously re-entering the information, double-checking each digit. Maybe I’d made a mistake, my nervous fingers fumbling.
The same message, cold and unyielding, returned. “ACCESS DENIED.”
A knot tightened in my stomach. This wasn’t a mistake. This was a wall. A very tall, very solid wall built around my father’s last days.
I leaned back in the creaky library chair, the faint smell of old books and stale coffee doing little to calm my racing mind. He had been an experimental patient, I knew that. But “archived research”? That sounded like something locked away, not something for a grieving family to access. It sounded like data, not a person.
I thought about calling Mom, but I knew what she would say. She’d tell me to let it go, that obsessing wasn’t healthy. She’d say Dr. Finch was a busy man, and hospital systems were complicated. She’d say I was being a child, imagining things because I missed Dad so much. And I did miss him, more than words could say. But this felt different. This felt real.
The librarian, a woman with spectacles perched on her nose, walked past, tidying a shelf. “Everything alright, dear?” she asked, her voice soft.
I quickly minimized the window. “Just… some homework trouble,” I lied, my voice sounding thin even to my own ears.
She nodded sympathetically. “Technology can be tricky. Don’t let it get the best of you.”
I offered a weak smile. It wasn’t the technology that was tricky. It was the truth.
Later that evening, while Mom was still at work, I walked back to Ascension. I told her I was going to help clean, as I sometimes did. But my real destination was the small bank of public terminals near the main lobby entrance, usually used by visitors checking in or looking up room numbers.
The sterile hospital air, thick with the scent of antiseptic and something vaguely floral, did nothing to ease my tension. I found an empty terminal and sat down, my backpack heavy on my lap.
I tried again. Same website. Same patient ID. Same birthday.
Same red message. “ACCESS DENIED: ARCHIVED RESEARCH DATABASE. HIGH-LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUIRED.”
My shoulders slumped. It wasn’t the library computer. It wasn’t a glitch. It was a deliberate blockage. Someone had moved my father’s records. Someone didn’t want them seen.
A faint reflection caught my eye in the polished floor. I looked up. Across the brightly lit lobby, near the coffee shop, Dr. Evelyn Reed stood, nursing a cup. She wasn’t my father’s doctor, but she was a kind face, someone I’d seen in the halls many times. She had a gentle way of smiling, even when she looked tired.
Her gaze met mine. It wasn’t accusatory, not exactly. It was… observing. Like she was watching a play unfold, or perhaps, a puzzle being pieced together. A flicker of something in her eyes, something unreadable, passed between us. A knowing, yet cautious, expression.
She didn’t wave. I didn’t wave back. We just held each other’s gaze for a silent moment, a connection made without a single word. Then, she turned, took another sip of her coffee, and walked toward the staff elevators.
Her presence, her silent acknowledgment, was a strange mix of chilling and empowering. It told me that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t entirely alone in sensing something was wrong. But it also told me that if someone like Dr. Reed, an adult doctor, was only watching, then she couldn’t or wouldn’t help directly.
This was my fight. My father’s fight.
The frustration burned within me, hardening into a cold resolve. They had blocked the digital path. Fine. I would find another way. I would find a physical path. A hidden path. Because somewhere, buried beneath all this secrecy, was the truth about my father. And I was going to unearth it.
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