Is There a [Truck] in the House?

Shade and Diesel blended in among the cars in the parking lot. Across from them, a two-headed caduceus on a cross looked out at them from a large, white building. No, they weren’t in a high-tech fantasy world, but in front of a standard hospital in a metropolitan area.

The setting sun signaled for the end of the workday, so a stake out was planned to spot the target they were assigned. Soon, the staff would filter out of the building toward their cars. This time, they were eyeing a malicious doctor with quite the shady record.

Before long, the target named ‘Michael Bradley’ strolled right by them. A quick focus on his information told them everything they needed – malpractice, negligence of duties, back-door dealing.

“Checks out. What we’re given of this guy is that he’s the stereotypical crook that puts on a doctor’s coat to scam money out of people.” Diesel carefully checked the briefing.

“I hate these kinds of people! Let me go! I’m ready for carnage!”

“Hold it, Shade. We haven’t been given the green light yet on the meter. I know you have a thing against doctors but protocols. We have to verify his real intentions if we’re going to send the right person. A heartless person that seeks to spread pestilence is the type of villain requested.”

Even without a shift of metal features, the look of impatience was obvious on Shade. She had a real grudge against any doctors, having been sent on a wild goose chase, one after another. Each one of them had a different diagnosis, prescribing a cocktail of medications to try to ‘fix’ her symptoms. Eventually, the number of pills that she took grew so much that they ended up causing adverse side effects when combined. One day, her body just shut down as a result.

“What do you want to do in the next life, if you are granted another chance?” Kami-sama asked her, feeling pity for her situation.

“I want to travel the world and kick the ass of anyone who dares to profit off suffering in the name of providing aid. Hypocrites deserve being dragged out into the street and run over!”

The way that she died had fueled a thirst for revenge. And given that her body was too weak to travel, an urge to see the world became a strong drive if given a do-over. That was how she ended up as a Truck-kun. But because she was no longer chained down by a frail human body, her targets tended to get a wild and brutal trucking. The way she overcompensated for her past life made her a loose cannon.

But that was exactly the reason Diesel was skeptical about their current target. He was not so quick to judge the people before him. Kami-sama had given him requests that challenged how Diesel saw them. After all, those chosen for another world were often not normal.

Doctors, in particular, faced a difficult path. Diesel could imagine a common scenario plaguing Michael like many others.

He could be a guy making his way through medical school, probably doing it because of pushback from his parents, who hoped to leech off his salary after retirement. It was easy to say that doctors were in it for the money, but a significant amount of effort was required to hold onto their jobs, much more than given credit for.

Long nights being on call for critical patients, the worry of misdiagnosis, the stress of being unable to save those before you – given the number of patients they saw, a slipup could easily go through the cracks. And those slip ups could lead to some rather toxic grudges, like in the case of Shade.

Nope, I’m totally not projecting any parental expectations I once faced. Not at all!

In the briefing for the current request, there was word of a trial medicine being passed around that made people a lot sicker than they would have been otherwise. Hearing that, Shade was literally halfway through a portal before any other details were given. Kami-sama asked Diesel to go along, just in case.

The last thing that Kami-sama needed was a target that was so smeared across the environment that it took effort for the deity to clean up and send the target over.

One time, it got so messy that Kami-sama couldn’t distinguish brain matter over the meatloaf the guy was about to eat. As a result, the man was reincarnated as a pigcow in another world.

Another instance involved Shade sending an entire boy’s class to another world. Unfortunately, a flock of chickens was caught in the crossfire, resulting in them all being reincarnated as human-speaking birds in an otome game world. The one girl that was later sent there certainly had an interesting experience….

“Boooo, why are you holding me back, Diesel? It’s so clear he is guilty. Guilty! Let’s just get it over and done with!”

“Kami-sama isn’t going to be happy about that. Should we ask him to turn you into an ambulance?”

“What? Hell no! What a buzzkill. I’m going to sleep then. Wake me up when you decide what to do.”

In an instant, Shade fell asleep. Diesel sighed at that. Her personality was as polar opposites as one could get when it came to holding interest or not.

Meanwhile, Diesel edged toward Michael, slipping into empty spots periodically to keep him in sights. Eventually, a man in a dark suit, hat, sunglasses and briefcase approached him. The attire itself gave off warning signals of a shady character.

“Dr. Bradley, how is business, my friend?” The man tipped his hat cordially, but he only got a wince of disgust in return.

“What do you want? I already passed out those samples. They landed me in hot water, so don’t think I can keep blindly recommending them.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t we have a… relationship? Who was there to tend to your student loans? Who was willing to suck up and let things be interest free, as long as you fulfilled a few requests?”

“This is not a matter of swiping a few spare supplies for the underground practices. We are talking about unapproved supplements!”

The sleazy drug dealer flashed a grin.

“So what if they cause a bit of discomfort? All you have to do is arrange for a follow-up and prescribe some medicine to counteract it. Medicines are known to cause side effects, so a daisy chain of treating them becomes a win-win situation for all the suppliers!”

The scenario felt familiar. Diesel had heard the exact thing from Shade’s past life, but deliberately causing symptoms to force feed remedies was a new one to him.

“Not for the patients that have to deal with having to take them all the time. A body can only tolerate so much medicine. It’s unnatural!”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that.” The drug dealer wrapped an arm around Michael. “These people are on the decline anyways. What’s wrong with sucking up a bit of money in the process? The insurance companies are the ones that pay the majority of the fees. And your bosses will be happy with the continuous revenue flowing in.”

Michael batted the arm away, growing further annoyed by it.

“I don’t care what the higher ups want. My job is not to make them happy. Now, if you’ll get out of my face, I’m leaving.”

Michael moved to get in his car, but a firm grip held the door ajar. Undoubtedly, the drug dealer was giving a death glare behind those sunglasses.

“I see. Then, I will have a word with Mr. Stuart. We’ll see what he thinks about a rogue doctor profiting off pills that have no FDA approval. There’s a reason why he overlooked the inventory paper trail regarding those supplements.”

With a cheeky smile, the drug dealer patted the door before walking away, leaving a flustered Michael looking lost. He punched the dashboard in anger.

“Yo, have you got the green light yet? Can we truck him, can we, can we?” Shade popped up suddenly, surprising Diesel.

“What, no! You’ve got it all wrong!” Quickly, Diesel explained how a shady guy was manipulating the doctor all along. All that time, Shade was silent until a conclusion was formed.

“So… does that mean we should truck the shady dealer?” Shade said, already turning toward the guy, talking on his phone in a car.

“There’s no green light above him, and I believe the requested villain needed to be a doctor of sorts. He’s probably not a candidate.”

“Drat, got me riled up for nothing.” Shade gave off the aura of someone setting down a raised pitchfork in mutiny.

Diesel didn’t like the result either. If something wasn’t done, then this doctor would get all the blame after being treated as an errand boy and discarded.

“Wait… I have an idea, but the target that I’m thinking of is a bit harder to get out in the open. Let me radio Kami-sama for advice.”

Diesel hailed his boss, who responded moments later. Wondering what was up, Diesel hatched his plan.

“Can we request for some helpers for this job? I think they may prove more useful in this scenario.”

Kami-sama took a moment to ponder. “Do I have to call her-, you know what? If it gets the job done, I shouldn’t be complaining.” Diesel could still hear the nerves across the radio. Somewhat silly coming from a divine being.

v

The next day, Shade wondered why the two of them were parked right in front of the emergency room entrance, rather than waiting at the parking lot.

“You’ll see. I was looking up some records while you were asleep. They show an Orville Stuart as the director, but he stays couped up in his office. Not easy to lure out into an open area. We can’t exactly raid the hospital trying to pin down the new target.”

The two of them peeked inside with x-ray vision, finally coming upon an older man, strapped onto an operating table. He looked around nervously like he had woken up in a trap, trying to find the perpetrator.

“This is not funny! Who did this to me and why?! I am the director! You won’t get away with this!” It was comical how he was making threats that he couldn’t really act on.

Information came up on a dashboard that showed why he had been placed in such a situation.

=====Orville Stuart=====

[Occupation – Hospital Director]

[Claims – Illegal distribution of good from unlicensed pharmaceutical companies, bribery, blackmail, money laundering]

Once Kami-sama locked in on this new target, a slew of claims had been confirmed by his daily activities. The originator of the shady deals had been covering his tracks by using others, his cushy position allowing him to purge any signs of disruption to his masterplan. There was quite the long paper trail that could be seen by divine eyes above.

“By the way, I got the okay from Kami-sama for you to truck that drug dealer too. He can be the villain’s loyal minion or something. I set you the coordinates for his location.”

“Oh, sweet! Thanks for the arrangements! Shade, moving out! Woo hoo!”

Before Diesel could say anything else, the other Truck-kun made herself scarce. Less than thirty seconds later, the sound of a horrible cry echoed just outside the hospital grounds. Diesel looked up to see a body hurled into the air. Immediately after it fell down, another thud sounded, the same body being pitched back into the air. It seemed like Shade was playing around with her target for some extra hangtime before ending it.

Diesel hardly felt anything towards them, especially after all the pain that they willfully inflicted. Turning back to the operating room, Diesel silently grinned as some white birds marched around the table. This request had been deferred to the geese squad, with an agreement to share the karma gained.

Three geese hopped up on the surgery table, much to the director’s surprise. One had a scalpel in its beak. Another had a syringe. The last one wore a medical mask over its beak, bringing its beady eyes right before the man’s gaze. Fear began to cloud over Orville Stuart. He had no idea what was going on anymore. But something told him that it wasn’t going to be pleasant.

“HONK HONK HONK HONK!”

Diesel turned away with a flinch. He never did like that moment when sharp things penetrated. He didn’t need to see what was about to happen. The painful screams gave him a good idea of it anyways.

Kami-sama had conveniently directed the hospital’s staff away from that wing, so no one would be coming to save him. The geese would have plenty of time to ‘play’ with their target however they saw fit.