The hospital didn't hum with machines so much as with held breath. Midnight had thinned the voices to intercom whispers and shoe squeaks. Outside, helicopters orbited like impatient stars over Los Angeles County Medical, their rotors thrumming through glass and drywall. Down on the first floor, a bored police cordon kept reporters behind the red line. Security stayed in the control room, "monitoring." The rest of the building pretended to be asleep.
Room 617 was the one the city wanted. Reinforced bed. Privacy blinds half‑drawn. Cardiac monitor casting slow blue across the walls. Mike Tyson lay under a tangle of wires: EKG leads on his chest, a pulse‑ox on his finger, a single IV dripping saline and anti‑nausea meds. No sedatives—the order set flagged him for neuro checks q2h. Soft restraints circled his wrists with two‑finger slack: policy more than prison. If he woke in a rage, everyone knew the rails wouldn't matter.
Eleanor Hartley had nearly gone home. Ten minutes earlier she'd been in the locker room, keys missing, scrub top half untied, swearing under her breath in the careful way posh girls learn to swear. She'd finally found the keys zipped into a pocket she absolutely, positively had already checked, looked up, and caught her own reflection: the tidy blonde bob, the pink scrubs, the gym‑kept waist and hips, the face that made uncles at weddings say have you thought about modeling? She had, in dark moments, thought about OnlyFans. Then she'd thought about her father, and about Florence Nightingale, and closed the tab.
That was when Mia crashed through the door: "Heather's down with diarrhea. Dr. Belmore asked for you on Tyson."
Eleanor had stared at the keys in her hand as if fate had a sense of humor. "Splendid," she'd said, and the vowel had been so clean you could eat off it. "Because of course."
Now she stood at the foot of the bed, reading a face she'd watched on television an hour earlier. She'd never watched boxing before tonight; she'd watched this because everyone did. It had been a circus—blood on the ropes, cursing—and somewhere in the fifth Tyson had changed, lisp and stutter uncoiling like old ghosts. He'd snarled white boy at a YouTuber, tried to bite an ear that wasn't his to bite, and the ringside refs had yelled for police while Jake Paul—God help America—knocked him out clean.
Now the world was normal again. The problem was Mike.
Beneath Tyson's bruised lids, his eyes tracked as if fighting something only he could see—fast left, fast right, reset—REM saccades with malice. His lips moved. The monitor ticked along, satisfied that a human heart was still doing its job.
Eleanor pulled a small penlight from her pocket, smoothed the hem of her pink top, and made her voice calm and posh and in charge. "Mr. Tyson, it's Nurse Hartley. I'm going to check your eyes."
The eyelids twitched harder. He murmured—fragments, nonsense: trumpets… fire… judgment… host… Words the break room had laughed about when the commentators replayed his collapse. She stepped closer. The smell was antiseptic and sweat and the faint sugary tang of an energy drink some tech had spilled hours ago.
She set a gloved thumb gently against his brow and tried to lift the right lid.
The muscles refused.
She tried the left—
Both eyes blew open.
He sat up like a trap springing. The bedframe answered with a metal scream. Velcro strained. The IV line yanked. For a heartbeat his gaze wasn't even on her—it was somewhere past her, past the ceiling, looking at something that wasn't in the room.
"Mr. Tyson?" Eleanor said, already stepping back.
His focus snapped to her. The pupils were huge. The voice came out hoarse, lisping, convinced:
"I… I'm the Son of Man."
"Pardon?" Eleanor managed.
The growl became a shout that filled the room. "I AM THE MOTHERFING FIST OF CHRIST!*"
The right restraint sheared the bedrail screw with a dry ping. Leads flew off his chest and the monitor went from calm beeps to a screaming chorus of LEADS OFF. He swung his legs over the side—older, yes, but big, and the stupid hospital gown chose this moment to stop pretending it was tied. It flapped open in back. The city of Los Angeles and Nurse Eleanor Hartley were now acquainted with Mike Tyson's bare arse.
She yelped despite all her upbringing and sat down hard, tailbone to tile, clipboard skittering under the bed.
"Listen," he said, suddenly quiet and awful, s's whispering at the edges. "You don't put me in chains. I'm the one. I ain't your patient. I'm your judgment."
The door banged. Dr. Arthur Belmore shuffled in, white coat, clipboard, and a pre‑drawn syringe he really should not have had. He smiled with that papery, whistling warmth that made people forgive him things they shouldn't. "Now now, champ," he breathed, "let's not make a fuss. Just a teensy bit of sleepy time. Dark outside means beddy‑bye."
Tyson turned his head. Considered the man. Disliked the idea.
"You tellin' me what to do, white‑boy grandpa?" he asked, almost conversational. "You talkin' to the chosen like he's your kid?"
"Sweetheart," Belmore cooed, stepping in close, "no one's cross with you. Arms nice and still—this won't even sting—"
The slap was so clean it sounded edited. Tyson's palm cut air; Belmore went up and back, elbowed the linen hamper, and vanished into it with a gasped "oh!" The cart rolled into the corridor with him inside like a tragic parade float.
Eleanor's body finally remembered the big red button. She crabbed for the wall and mashed it. "Code Grey! Room six‑one‑seven!" her voice cracked over the intercom. "Patient out of restraints!"
Footsteps answered from the nurses' station. The monitor kept braying. Tyson stood, tore the second strap free on a slick of sweat and sanitizer, and rolled his shoulders like a man about to meet a decision head‑on.
"Where am I?" he called toward the door, not shouting now, just announcing. The helicopters turned overhead. "Where my people at? Come follow me. Listen to the truth."
Eleanor stayed on the floor because standing would have been a kind of lie. She pinched the bridge of her nose, felt the heat in her cheeks, and thought—very clearly, very calmly—I could have married a dentist. I could have started an OnlyFans and called it Pink Nightingale. Instead I am about to chase a naked heavyweight down a public corridor.
Tyson stepped over the fallen pulse‑ox wire, ducked the door header, and strode into the hall.
The world, normal as ever, tried very hard to keep up.