Chapter 624: [Extra] Boundary Stone - 3 - The Doctor Outside the Wall

Stone looked at Miller.

"Officer, have you ever seen a drug dealer stay up all night in this god-awful weather for a fifteen-US Dollar profit?"

"That’s not my concern," Miller said coldly. "Scalping is scalping. You’re breaking the rules, and you’re creating a hole in Pittsburgh’s finances."

"A hole?"

Stone took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.

"Officer, look behind you."

He pointed to the convenience store’s floor-to-ceiling window.

The glass was dirty, a layer of frost flowers blooming across it.

"Look outside."

"See who’s out there."

Miller frowned.

He kept his gun raised, but he turned his body slightly, glancing out the window with his peripheral vision.

When he’d first come in, he had been focused on observing his surroundings and hadn’t paid attention to the parking lot outside.

Now, he saw it clearly.

The empty, barren lot of the gas station was filled with cars.

All of them were junkers.

Rusty pickup trucks, sedans missing bumpers, and even a few vans with windows held together by duct tape.

The license plates were a motley collection.

Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky.

There were even some from as far away as Indiana.

The cars were full of people.

They were wrapped in thick blankets, huddled inside their vehicles. Even on a blizzard night like this, they hadn’t left.

"Those are my clients."

Doctor Stone’s voice sounded from behind him.

"Car number three, that’s a miner from Wheeling. He broke his leg, couldn’t afford surgery, and it led to complications. If he doesn’t get antibiotics, he’ll be dead by the end of the week."

"Car number five, a single mother from Youngstown. The child in her arms has Type 1 diabetes. In Ohio, one vial of insulin costs three hundred fifty US Dollars. She only makes two thousand a month, and her rent is fifteen hundred."

"She can’t afford it."

"All she can do is watch her child convulse at night."

Doctor Stone put his glasses back on.

"You’re in Pittsburgh. You have the Red Card issued by that young Mayor. Medicine only costs you thirty-five bucks."

"That’s great. It really is."

"But, Officer."

"Once you cross that state line."

"Once you leave the circle that Leo Wallace drew."

"The world outside is still hell."

Doctor Stone walked up to Miller and pressed his chest against the muzzle of the gun.

"These people, they aren’t from Pittsburgh. They don’t have the right to vote, no Union, no damn Mutual Aid Alliance."

"They’ve been forgotten."

"Their only hope is to drive four hours through the snow to get to this abandoned gas station."

"And buy a bottle of medicine from me for one hundred fifty US Dollars that will keep them alive."

"That one hundred fifty US Dollars is the absolute most they can scrape together."

"And it’s the lowest price I can offer."

Doctor Stone looked into Miller’s eyes.

"I make a profit on the transport cost, that’s right."

"But I’m saving their lives."

"Tell me, Officer."

Stone’s voice suddenly turned stern.

"Who is the criminal?"

"Is it me, the old man making a fifteen-dollar profit?"

"Or is it Leo Wallace, the man who drew this boundary line and left a path to survival only for the people of Pittsburgh?"

Miller’s finger stiffened.

The muzzle was still pointed forward, but he felt the gun suddenly become incredibly heavy.

He was a cop.

Throughout his career, the world had been black and white.

A life for a life, a debt for a debt, prison for dealing drugs.

These were ironclad laws.

But now, in this abandoned gas station that reeked of disinfectant, he was seeing shades of gray.

He looked out the window. A car door opened.

A woman holding a child got out. She braved the wind and snow, walking toward the convenience store.

The child was crying.

The woman’s face was a mask of anxiety and humble desperation.

She was here to buy a life.

Miller looked at the woman, then back at the old man in the filthy white coat before him.

He recalled what Leo Wallace had said at City Hall: "We must build a fortress. We must protect our own."

Yes, Leo had protected his own people.

But he had also created a wall.

Inside the wall was heaven; outside was hell.

And the old man before him was the one who had chiseled a hole in that wall to secretly pass water to those in hell.

He was committing a crime.

He was undermining Pittsburgh’s financial security, stealing assets from the Mutual Aid Alliance.

But he was also saving people.

Saving the people Leo Wallace had abandoned.

"This is theft."

Miller’s voice was a bit hoarse. He was trying to maintain the last vestiges of his dignity as a lawman.

"I know."

Doctor Stone nodded.

"That’s why I’ve never considered myself noble."

"I’m a thief."

"I steal from that young Mayor."

"But, Officer."

Stone pointed to the woman knocking on the door outside.

"Can you confiscate this medicine right in front of her?"

"Can you tell that mother: ’Sorry, but because you don’t live in Pittsburgh, your child has to die’?"

"Can you pull that trigger?"

Miller looked at the woman.

She was pounding on the glass door, her mouth forming the words: "Doctor! Doctor!"

The desperate plea in her eyes was like a sharp knife, piercing straight through Miller’s bulletproof vest.

He couldn’t do it.

He had arrested drug dealers and murderers. He had even fired his weapon during a riot.

But he couldn’t bring himself to enforce the law on a mother holding her child, nor could he arrest an old man dispensing medicine to the poor at two in the morning.

CLICK.

Miller holstered his gun.

The crisp sound announced the failure of his operation.

He had lost.

Lost to the absurdity of reality.

"This shipment."

Miller gestured to the insulated container on the table.

"I didn’t see it."

Doctor Stone showed no sign of elation.

He just gave a calm nod and turned to open the door for the woman.

"Thanks."

Miller stood frozen, watching as Doctor Stone expertly took the prescription from the woman’s hand, retrieved the medicine from a cooler, and accepted a few crumpled bills.

The transaction was complete.

The woman left, thanking him profusely.

The next patient came in.

’This isn’t a black market.’

’It’s an emergency room.’

’This place is a pustule squeezed out by the wealth gap between two worlds, and also the only air hole.’

Miller turned and walked toward the door.

"Doctor."

Miller paused at the doorway.

"You can’t keep this up for long."

"Pittsburgh’s auditing system will find the discrepancy."

"When that day comes, this door will have to close."

Doctor Stone was bandaging the wound of an old veteran with a broken leg.

"I know."

He answered without looking up.

"I’ll save who I can, while I can."

"As long as this door is open, I’ll be here."

Miller pushed the door open and stepped out into the blizzard.

The cold wind hit his face, but he couldn’t feel it.

He only felt a profound sense of powerlessness.

He was a compliance investigator. His job was to plug the leaks.

But he had just let the biggest leak of all go.

He got into his car and lit a cigarette.

Smoke swirled around him.

He took out his phone and dialed Ethan’s number.

"How’d it go? Did you get him?" Ethan’s voice came through the line.

Miller looked at the gas station, its lights still on.

He looked at the long line of people queuing in the snowy night.

"No."

Miller lied.

"The trail went cold."

"The ringleader is cunning. He never showed."

Ethan sighed on the other end of the line.

"All right. Keep an eye on it."

"We can’t let that medicine get out."

"Understood."

Miller hung up.

He started the engine and turned the car around.

He was heading back to Pittsburgh.

Back to that warm, safe, privileged fortress.

But before he left, he took one last look at the old man they called the Doctor.

The old man was hunched over a broken table, writing a prescription for a patient.

’What a joke.’

’A doctor who’d lost his license, in an abandoned gas station, using smuggled medicine to maintain the last lifeline in this wasteland.’

’And Leo Wallace, the man everyone saw as a savior...’

’...had personally drawn the line between life and death.’

’Who is the criminal?’

Miller asked himself.

He had no answer.

In this torn nation, law and justice had long since parted ways.

The car drove into the darkness, its red taillights disappearing at the edge of the blizzard.

Leaving behind only the lonely gas station, casting a faint glow in the long winter night.