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seconds. The doctor told her to leave and not to disturb them, and shut the door again. In a leisurely way, he took a seat in Tarek’s leather chair, engrossed in the X-ray and ignoring Tarek, who remained where he’d been standing in front of the door. The man took everything out of the file and then nodded, satisfied. He carefully removed the X-ray with a single word—“Excellent”—and then left the room.
    Despite having suffered a nearly unbearable level of humiliation, Tarek kept silent until the man had left. Even if he’d been given a chance, he wouldn’t have dared to object or question the doctor—he knew full well that the visit had something to do with the Gate of the Northern Building. Tarek would have been a fool to think there wouldn’t be consequences if he crossed a man like that, especially in such difficult and uncertain times. A few hours later, he heard that the new X-ray machine in the basement had severely malfunctioned, and Sabah mentioned that she’d seen a Gate car with tinted windows take it away to be inspected and repaired. Yehya returned to the hospital two or three days later, utterly exhausted. The wound that Tarek had stitched up with his own hands was bleeding, and the man looked like he was about to pass out. Yehya introduced himself, though he didn’t need to, and asked if Tarek could help him start the hospital-admittance procedures. He wanted to proceed with treatment to have the bullet removed, he said, and had left Zephyr Hospital to come here because the doctors there couldn’t conduct the surgery heneeded. After so many other injured people had arrived, they had told him his condition was relatively stable compared to the others, and had postponed the operation.
    It made Tarek uneasy to remember how it hadn’t felt like the right time to tell Yehya about the official visit he’d received from the doctor who had been interested specifically in his case, despite all the other injured patients. He knew he wouldn’t be able to hide it forever; he knew Yehya would go looking for the X-ray when he came back, that one way or another he would discover it had been taken to Zephyr Hospital against his will, and that he wasn’t likely to see it again. The scene that followed flashed through his mind: the empty room to which he’d helped Yehya walk, the door he’d made sure to close so no one could eavesdrop, the cabinet from which he’d taken the yellow document, the same one that had stopped him from performing the operation when Yehya had first arrived, injured. He recalled how the papers felt as he flipped through them for the first time so they could read what it said together, and he remembered the look on Yehya’s face as he softly read aloud from the page in front of him:
    Terms and Provisions Issued by the Gate on Conducting Work in Medical Facilities .
    Article 4 (A): “Authorization for the Removal of Bullets.” The extraction of a bullet or any other type of firearm projectile, whether in a clinic or a private or government hospital, from a body of a person killed or injured, is a criminal act, except when performed under official authorization issued by the Gate of the Northern Building; parties excluded from the above are limited to ZephyrHospital and its auxiliary buildings, which are direct subsidiaries of the Gate
.
    Sanctions Imposed on Those in Violation of Article 4 (A): Anyone who violates Article 4 (A), deliberately or inadvertently, shall be penalized as follows: First, s/he shall be banned from practicing their profession; and Second, s/he shall be imprisoned for a period to be determined by a judge. After the period of his/her punishment has ended, s/he shall not be allowed to return to the same position or occupation, except after s/he undergoes a rehabilitation program, the length of which shall be specially determined by the Gate of the Northern Building; and s/he shall be required to undergo a periodic performance review, at a minimum of once