The bullet's location and angle, along with the three-dimensional structure of the surrounding tissue, all hovered in his field of vision, highlighted in translucent colors.
He first used local anesthesia to clean the surface of the wound.
Then, with a long hemostat, he followed the optimal path marked by the system, bypassed the radial nerve, and precisely clamped the bullet lodged in the bone.
"This is going to hurt for a second."
"Obviously, just—hiss!"
The bullet came out.
The intact 9mm Parabellum Bullet landed on the stainless-steel tray with a crisp clink.
Then came three bone fragments, each no bigger than a grain of rice. If left inside the body, any one of them could cause a serious infection.
Stop the bleeding, clean the wound, stitch it up.
The whole process took eighteen minutes.
"All done." Lynn took off his gloves.
Murphy sat up on the operating table and cautiously tested his left arm.
His eyes widened.
It didn't hurt.
Not "less"—it didn't hurt at all.
And his arm was even more flexible than before the injury. He clenched his fist and rotated his wrist.
"Your technique..." Murphy stared at his arm, unable to find the right words. In the end, he blurted, "That shit's downright freaky."
He pulled a wad of cash from his pants pocket, all hundred-dollar bills bound with a rubber band.
He counted out five bundles, ten thousand dollars each, and laid them neatly in front of Lynn.
Lynn put the money in the safe under the table.
He did it naturally, neither refusing nor thanking him.
Murphy got dressed and prepared to leave.
He paused at the door and glanced back at Lynn.
"Is this place safe? Hell's Kitchen isn't exactly peaceful. I got patched up here, and if the other guys find out, they'll probably come after you."
"No need to worry about me." Lynn smiled.
Murphy gave a snort, shook his head, and left with his three bodyguards.
The clinic fell quiet again.
Lynn sat back down.
A system notification flashed through his mind—
[Ordinary human healed. No special talent detected. Saintly Hands Copy not triggered.] [Reputation Points change: +10. Current Reputation Points: 340.]
Ten points.
Lynn looked at the number and mentally sorted out his accounts again.
Ordinary people meant cash flow.
Ten or twenty Reputation Points here and there—hardly worth mentioning.
Metahumans were the core resource.
A single treatment could earn him over a hundred Reputation Points, plus a chance to copy an ability that might change everything.
He needed to pursue both paths at once.
But his priority was clear.
He needed more "special customers."
Lynn turned to look out the clinic window. New York's skyline glittered in the afternoon sun.
This city was full of heroes and villains.
They got hurt. They bled. They needed a doctor who could work miracles.
All he had to do was wait.
Or let his reputation spread farther, reach higher—high enough to touch those who flew through the sky.
Lynn glanced down at the news story on his phone about Tony Stark's "mild cold."
That fish would bite sooner or later.
But before then, he had a more immediate matter to deal with—the remark Murphy had made before leaving.
"The other guys."
Healing a gang distributor meant taking sides in Hell's Kitchen's underworld.
Whether Lynn liked it or not, those "other guys" now knew the Miracle Clinic existed.
Super Intelligence ran through several possible threat scenarios and responses in the background.
Super Senses kept listening to every sound within two hundred meters of the clinic.
Everything was quiet.
But Lynn knew the quiet wouldn't last.
It didn't last long.
Three days after Murphy left, Lynn went out to buy coffee at seven in the morning.
He stopped when he reached the clinic.
The sign was smashed.
The four dark-blue characters spelling "Miracle Clinic" had been broken in two, with fragments scattered across the steps.
A line of red V-Spray paint had been sprayed across the floor-to-ceiling window. The handwriting was messy, but the message was clear: "Dog doctor, get out of Hell's Kitchen if you don't want to die."
Lynn stood at the entrance, holding the black coffee he'd just bought, and looked at the debris and graffiti.
He wasn't angry.
He'd finished his analysis within a second of seeing the graffiti.
V-Spray paint, bright red, shade 612. There were four hardware stores in Hell's Kitchen, but only the one on the corner of 49th Street, Jack Hardware, sold that shade.
The paint had been sprayed at an angle, slanting up from left to right, at a height of five to five and a half feet. The person who sprayed it was probably around five foot eight.
But the graffiti hadn't been done by just one person. The handwriting on "Dog doctor" differed from that of the sentence that followed.
The first part had been sprayed with the right hand, with even pressure.
The second part showed clear signs of being sprayed left-handed. The thumb had pressed the nozzle from the opposite direction.
Three people.
One of them was left-handed.
The sign had been smashed with a blunt object, not kicked. The cracks radiated outward from a single point of impact. They'd probably used a baseball bat or an iron pipe.
Super Senses picked up more details.
Three different sets of footprints remained on the steps, along with their scents: chemical residue from the rubber soles of two pairs of cheap sneakers, and a pair of leather boots.
The boot prints were deep. Their owner weighed over two hundred pounds.
One last clue: a cigarette butt was wedged into a crack between the tiles beside the broken sign.
Camel, unfiltered.
Saliva on the cigarette butt contained a high concentration of methamphetamine metabolites—a user.
Three people. One left-handed, one weighing over two hundred pounds, and one meth addict.
They were from a gang that had a grudge against Murphy.
Lynn took a sip of coffee.
Red Ghost.
Murphy had hinted at the name before he left.
Another drug distributor in Hell's Kitchen, Red Ghost had been fighting Murphy over territory for more than half a year.
After word got out that Murphy had come to the Miracle Clinic for treatment, Red Ghost would naturally assume Lynn had sided with Murphy.
Lynn hadn't sided with anyone.
He'd treated a patient and collected fifty thousand dollars.
But under Hell's Kitchen's jungle law, "you helped my enemy" meant "you're my enemy."
The logic was as crude as a schoolyard squabble, but knives and bullets didn't care about logic.
He cleaned up the broken sign and wiped the paint off the glass with alcohol.
Then he sat back down in the chair behind the front desk and opened his phone.
He wouldn't call the police.
It was no use. The cops in Hell's Kitchen wouldn't bother with this kind of petty vandalism.
Even if they did, Red Ghost would be out of custody in twenty-four hours, and then the retaliation would escalate.
Nor would he ask Murphy for help.
Going to Murphy would mean truly taking sides, and he'd never be able to get out of it.
Lynn needed a clean solution.
One that left no trace, revealed none of his abilities, and kept Red Ghost too busy to come after him.
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