I'm a Good Doctor

He heard the engine of a taxi idling on the road outside the clinic.

He heard a stray dog licking a puddle two blocks away.

He heard the creak of a mattress as someone on the third floor rolled over in bed.

Every sound was impossibly clear.

Smell.

Disinfectant, blood, the metallic scent of stainless steel on the operating table.

The faint smell of ozone from the fluorescent lights.

The mold spores coming from the mildew-covered tile in the corner.

The traces of Daredevil's fight clinging to him—gunpowder, concrete dust, someone else's sweat, the scent of hormones released by fear...

Twenty-three different smells.

No, more.

He could distinguish at least thirty different odor molecules in the air.

Touch.

His fingers rested on the instrument table. He could clearly feel every tiny scratch on the stainless-steel surface that was invisible to the naked eye, down to the depth and width of each one.

But those were only appetizers.

The real transformation came the moment Super Senses and Super Intelligence came online at the same time.

Before, Super Intelligence had been a supercomputer, but its information input was limited to his eyes and basic human senses—its bandwidth was limited.

Now, Super Senses had blown that input bandwidth wide open.

He could hear someone's heartbeat, and Super Intelligence could analyze their heart rate, blood pressure, level of nervousness, and whether they were lying—all in the same second.

He could smell the traces of drug metabolites on someone's skin.

Super Intelligence could immediately infer what medication they were taking, the dosage, and whether their liver and kidneys were functioning normally.

He could feel the vibrations of someone's pulse with his fingertips, and Super Intelligence could analyze the waveform's frequency to determine the elasticity of their arteries, the function of their heart valves, and even their approximate blood lipid levels.

No instruments needed.

No equipment needed.

He was the most precise diagnostic instrument of all.

Lynn closed his eyes, then opened them again.

The world hadn't changed.

But the person looking at it had—once again.

The clinic was quiet for about twenty minutes in the early hours of the morning.

As Lynn put away the instruments, he heard fabric rustling on the operating table.

Super Senses clearly picked up the signal—Daredevil was moving.

Matthew Murdock slowly sat up.

His first instinct was to test his senses. He tilted his head, as if listening for something. Then his lips parted slightly.

"I can hear." His voice was soft, trembling with disbelief. "The pipes in the next building are leaking... someone's walking down the street below... He's wearing rubber-soled shoes..."

He took another deep breath and smelled the air.

"Disinfectant. Iodine. You used povidone-iodine, at about ten percent concentration. And... your coffee is black, no sugar."

His fingers pressed against the surface of the operating table and rubbed it for a few seconds.

"Stainless steel. Medical-grade 304. There are about forty signs of wear on the surface, and the deepest one is roughly 0.02 millimeters."

Then he turned toward Lynn. He had no eyes.

But all the sensory information was coming together in his brain to form an image more three-dimensional than sight.

"It's clearer than before." There was an emotion in Matt's voice that he wasn't quite used to—

Like someone who thought he'd never hear music again

suddenly hearing every instrument in an entire symphony orchestra.

"How did you do it?" he asked.

"Surgery." Lynn washed the iodine stains from his hands at the sink.

His tone was calm. "Your sensory nerves were burned out by the sonic weapon—more than sixty percent of them. I repaired them one by one with microelectrodes. The core pathways are already restored. Your body will slowly regrow the small number of nonessential pathways that remain."

"Even Claire said it couldn't be repaired."

"Who's Claire?"

"A nurse. She used to treat me whenever I got hurt. She said nerve damage was irreversible once it passed a certain point... You did it. How?"

"Because she didn't know the precise structure of your sensory system." Lynn dried his hands and turned around.

"She judged it by the nervous system of an ordinary person, so of course she thought it was irreversible."

"But you're not ordinary. Your sensory nerves have an independent repair mechanism. It was just blocked by the damage from the overload."

"I didn't rebuild anything. I cleared the blockage and let your own repair mechanism start working again."

Matt was silent for a few seconds.

He was probably using his senses to analyze Lynn's heartbeat as he spoke—to determine whether he was telling the truth.

"You're not an ordinary doctor," Matt finally said.

"I'm a good doctor," Lynn said. "And my clinic just opened, so I need to build a reputation. Once you've recovered, if you think I did a decent job, tell your friends about me. That'll cover the bill."

"What's your clinic called? Where is it?"

"Miracle Clinic. On the west end of 49th Street in Hell's Kitchen."

Matt nodded.

He didn't give his real name, but he didn't use a fake one, either—

He simply accepted the treatment in silence, then slowly climbed down from the operating table and tested his legs.

"Your vestibular system was just repaired. Your balance might take a few hours to fully recover," Lynn reminded him from behind. "Don't go roof-hopping tonight. Take the stairs like a normal person."

Matt paused. There was a lot of information packed into that sentence.

The mention of roof-hopping suggested that Lynn knew how he usually got around.

But he didn't ask.

"Thank you, Dr. Lynn." Matt's voice was sincere.

Then he left.

Lynn stood in the clinic doorway, watching the figure in the torn red suit disappear into the darkness before dawn.

He knew what Matt would do when he got back. He'd carefully test each of his senses and make sure they were all restored.

Then he'd remember the name "Miracle Clinic."

Word of mouth among superheroes was like underground water. You couldn't see where it flowed, but sooner or later it would surface somewhere you'd never expected.

A system notification chimed in his mind.

[Reputation Points change: +150 (Healed Daredevil—superhero-level treatment).]

[Current Reputation Points: 250.]

Lynn locked the clinic door and went upstairs.

He lay down on the hard folding bed on the second floor.

Super Senses let him hear everyone in the building breathing. Someone was snoring, someone turned over in their sleep, and the old woman downstairs got up to use the bathroom.

So noisy.

But it made him feel safe, too.

Within this radius of awareness, no unusual sound could escape him.

Lynn closed his eyes.

For the first time since arriving in this world, he didn't have to worry that he might not wake up after falling asleep.