Dr. Pym's words fell into the stunned silence of the King's study like stones into a deep well. To Marie Antoinette and Dr. Lassonne, the proposal was not just radical; it was the incoherent raving of a madman. To take the very poison that was killing the child, cook it slightly, and then inject it back into his veins? It was a monstrous, ghoulish proposition, a violation of all medical and moral sense. Marie Antoinette stared at Pym, her eyes wide with horror, while Lassonne looked on with a grim, vindicated certainty that he was in the presence of a lunatic.
But Louis was stunned into silence for a different reason. He understood, with a sudden, gut-wrenching clarity, exactly what Pym was proposing. Autologous inoculation. Live attenuated vaccine. It was the theoretical basis for half of modern immunology, the foundation upon which giants like Pasteur and Koch would build their world-saving work. It was a concept so far ahead of its time that it felt like a message sent directly to him, Arthur Miller, across the centuries. It was scientifically, theoretically, the correct move. It was, he knew with a sickening certainty, his son's only real hope.
His HUD, which had been silent, flashed to life, processing this insane, anachronistic proposal. For the first time on the subject of his son's health, it offered not a grim certainty of failure, but a terrifying, razor-thin glimmer of possibility.
PROPOSED MEDICAL PROCEDURE: Autologous Attenuated-Pathogen Inoculation
Scientific Basis (21st Century Perspective): Theoretically Sound. High-risk, high-reward experimental therapy.
Practitioner Competence (Dr. E. Pym): High (Theoretical Understanding), Completely Untested (Practical Application).
RISK OF CATASTROPHIC FAILURE (Improper Attenuation/Contamination/Septic Shock): 60%
PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS (Inducing a Protective Immune Response): 40%
The numbers were a punch to the gut. A sixty percent chance of killing his son. A sixty percent chance that the "cure" would be an execution. It was a horrifying gamble. But as he stared at the flashing text, he focused on the other number. Forty percent. It was a terrible, desperate number. But it was infinitely, immeasurably better than the zero percent chance he currently had. It was a lighted doorway at the end of a long, dark, and closing corridor.
But then the other side of his brain, the cold, paranoid, political mind of the King, took over. He saw the Jacobin trap, not as a vague suspicion, but in all its perfect, diabolical beauty.
He rose slowly from his chair and walked towards Dr. Pym, his movements deliberate, his eyes fixed on the young doctor's face. His voice, when he spoke, was dangerously soft.
"This process you describe, Doctor. This 'attenuation' by heat. It is a delicate process, is it not?"
Pym, still caught up in the fervor of his own scientific breakthrough, nodded eagerly. "Extremely delicate, Your Majesty. The margin for error is almost nonexistent. A few degrees too hot, and the organism is killed entirely, rendering the sample inert and useless for inoculation. A few degrees too cool, and the organism remains fully virulent, as dangerous as the original disease."
"So," Louis continued, his voice dropping even lower, his eyes boring into the doctor's, "if a man were to, let us say, 'accidentally' under-heat the sample… if his thermometer were to be improperly calibrated, or his heat source were to flicker for just a moment… he would, in effect, be injecting the Prince with a fatal, concentrated dose of his own disease?"
The blood drained from Dr. Pym's face. The scientific excitement in his eyes was instantly replaced by a look of horrified understanding. He finally saw the political dimension of his science, the terrible implication of what the King was suggesting. "Majesty!" he gasped, recoiling as if he had been struck. "I would never! I swear on my life! I am a man of science! I am a healer bound by my oath! I would die before I would harm a patient!"
Louis looked at the young doctor's terrified, sincere face and believed him completely. Pym was not a conspirator. He was an honest, brilliant man. And that was the entire point. That was the genius of the trap. Pym was not the assassin; he was the perfectly crafted, perfectly deniable weapon.
The Jacobins did not need to corrupt Pym. They did not need to threaten him. They only needed him to be fallible. What if his equipment was subtly tampered with? What if, in the night, one of his glass vials was switched for another, identical one containing an untreated sample? What if one of his radical "friends" from the Condorcet salon offered to "assist" him in his laboratory and, with a moment's sleight of hand, ensured the process failed?
The Jacobins didn't need to kill the Dauphin themselves. They only needed the King's desperate attempt at a miracle cure to fail in the most spectacular and horrifying way possible. If the Prince died, screaming in agony, hours after receiving the King's radical new treatment, who would be blamed? The unknown English doctor, who would no doubt vanish into the night, spirited away by his political friends? Or the "tyrant King," the "mad father," the man who had dismissed the entire Royal College of Physicians and instead subjected his own son to a fatal, insane experiment? It would be the ultimate political scandal, a story of royal monstrosity so profound that it would destroy his reputation, his authority, and his life. He would not just be deposed; he would be reviled, a monster in the history books for all time.
He was faced with the most unthinkable choice of his life. It was a choice between his two identities, a choice between the father and the king.
Option A: Refuse the treatment. As a king, it was the only logical, politically safe move. He would avoid the trap. He would retain his authority. But as a father, it was an act of damnation. It meant sitting by and watching his son die a slow, agonizing, but natural death. It meant accepting the 0% chance. It would be a failure of love, a failure of hope.
Option B: Accept the treatment. As a father, it was the only choice he could possibly make. It was a 40% chance. It was hope. It was a fight. But as a king, it was political suicide. It meant walking, with his eyes wide open, into the most sophisticated trap ever laid for him, betting his crown, his legacy, and his life on the skills of an honest man being unknowingly manipulated by his deadliest enemies.
He stood there for a long moment, the silence in the room broken only by Marie Antoinette's soft, ragged weeping. He looked at his wife's despairing face. He thought of his son, lying so still in the next room. He looked at the HUD, at the terrible, beautiful 40% chance.
He made his decision.
He turned to Dr. Pym, his face a mask of cold resolve. "You will prepare the sample, Doctor. But you will not do it alone. I will be with you at every stage. I will watch you draw the sample. I will watch you cultivate it. I will watch you heat it. I will observe every measurement, every flicker of the flame. You will not be out of my sight for a single second until the procedure is complete."
The scene shifts. It is hours later, in the dead of night, in the small, makeshift laboratory. Pym is working under the intense, unblinking gaze of the King. The air is thick with the smell of alcohol and the heat from a small, precisely controlled spirit lamp. Louis stands over him, a silent, sleepless guardian, trusting his own 21st-century knowledge to be the ultimate defense against any 18th-century sabotage. He watches Pym draw the attenuated sample into a small, primitive glass syringe. The process is complete.
They stand there, the King and the Doctor, with the fate of the monarchy held within that small glass tube. Pym holds the syringe, his hand steady. Louis knows he has done everything he can. He has controlled every variable within his power. But he cannot be 100% certain. A flicker of doubt, a moment's distraction… was it enough?
He looks at the syringe, at the cloudy liquid that is either a miracle cure or a deadly poison. He looks at the door leading to his son's room. He has made his choice. He has chosen to be a father first, and a king second.
He gives a single, sharp nod to Dr. Pym. "Proceed."
He is betting everything—his son's life, his wife's sanity, his crown, his own head—on a 40% chance of a miracle. He has walked into the trap, and all he can do now is pray that his knowledge is enough to disarm it.
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