The sound of sirens was no longer unfamiliar.On the wall of Truck City's central control room, the entire city was spread out like a single map.One red dot blinked.
"Industrial zone,"the controller said."Forklift rollover. Reduced consciousness."
Song Jaemin was already standing."Doctor Truck No. 2. Deploy immediately."
The engine's sound was low and heavy.It didn't slice through the sky like a helicopter.Instead, it took the road.Paved roads. Dirt roads. Narrow alleys inside the industrial complex.People lived on the ground.So did life.
The site was chaos.An overturned forklift. Scattered materials. A man collapsed on the floor.His helmet had come off.His breathing was shallow.
"If we wait for transport, he won't make it,"the nurse said.
Song shook his head."We do it here."
The side of the truck opened.An operating table. Monitors. Oxygen. Lights.A space that had been a vehicle minutes ago became a hospital in ninety seconds.
A pulse returned.Oxygen saturation climbed.
One of the workers nearby muttered,"Before… people just died like this."
"Waiting for an ambulance."
The words stayed in the air.
At the same time, in a conference room in Truck City.Kang Doyoon was looking at numbers.
Doctor Truck dispatch counts.Lives saved.And an old category: Arrived, but too late.
"This number has changed,"the TF team leader said."It's no longer 'those who could have been saved.'It's now recorded as 'those who were saved.'"
Doyoon was silent for a moment.
"Then,"he said,"the people who will call this illegalare the same oneswho called a system where people diedlegal."
Someone chuckled quietly.It was a joke with weight.
The evening news began.
"Doctor Trucks save 127 lives this month alone…Mortality down 32% in emergency-room overcrowded areas."
International media followed.
"A hospital that moves.""Not faster helicopters, but closer medicine."
Song Jaemin stood before the cameras.
"Medicine isn't a matter of technology," he said."It's a matter of distance.""We only shortened that distance."
Comments flooded in.
"Why did it take so long to do this?""While doctors were striking, these people were running.""So trucks save more lives than helicopters now?"
There was hostility too.
"Disrupting medical order.""Doctors are being devalued."
Song smiled as he read them.
"What's really losing value,"he said,"is authority that used human lives as collateral."
Late at night, Doyoon remained alone in the control room.One by one, the red dots on the map faded out.
He thought.
This city hadn't built buildings.It hadn't torn down a system.
It had simply endedone way of dyingthat had been treated as normal for far too long.
Doyoon murmured,"We bought homes.""And now… we've bought time."
Then the control room lit up again.A new call.
Someone elsestill had time left to live.