The request came through three different channels.
The World Health Organization.The U.S. Department of State.A private consortium representing eight countries.
All within twelve minutes.
Dr. Lim stared at the screen in her office.
"They want him," she said quietly. "All of them."
Glassman folded his arms. "Figures."
Shaun tilted his head. "Statistical inevitability."
Elias reviewed the messages in silence.
None of them asked if he would help.
They asked how soon.
"They want to deploy you," Lim said carefully. "Disease zones. War-torn regions. Pandemic-level intervention."
"They want control," Celeste said over speakerphone. Her voice was calm, precise. "Framed as collaboration."
Elias didn't react.
"I will not be deployed," he said.
Lim exhaled in relief.
Celeste continued, "They're offering immunity, funding, facilities."
Elias looked at the list once.
"I don't need money."
Celeste smiled slightly on the other end. "I know."
The first crisis hit before negotiations finished.
A rare hemorrhagic virus appeared in Eastern Europe.
Mortality rate: 87%.
Airports closed.
Borders locked.
Media panicked.
The WHO issued a global emergency alert.
And every expert said the same thing.
"There is no cure."
Elias watched the press conference in the diagnostics wing.
Shaun stood beside him.
"Incorrect," Shaun said flatly.
"Yes."
Celeste flew in that night.
She didn't waste time.
"They're going to try to compel you," she said the moment she entered Elias' office. "Emergency powers. International health law."
"They can try."
"They will fail," she corrected.
She placed a folder on the desk.
Inside: legal countermeasures, jurisdiction traps, preemptive filings across five nations.
"I'll buy you time," she said. "You decide what you want to do."
Elias closed the folder.
"I'm going," he said.
Celeste blinked once.
"On your terms," he added.
She nodded. "Then we do it correctly."
The field hospital was chaos.
Protective suits. Screaming monitors. Bodies lining hallways.
Doctors moved like ghosts—exhausted, hopeless.
Elias walked in wearing standard scrubs.
No suit.
No hesitation.
"Who is that?" someone whispered.
"He shouldn't be here."
"He's going to die."
Elias ignored them.
The virus unfolded itself before his eyes—replication pathways, hemorrhagic triggers, immune collapse mechanisms.
He stopped at the first patient.
A young man, barely breathing.
Elias placed a hand on his chest.
"Begin supportive monitoring," he said calmly.
The cure took shape in real time.
He corrected the viral structure at the cellular level—neutralizing replication, restoring immune function, reversing damage already done.
The monitors stabilized.
Then improved.
Then normalized.
The doctor beside him froze.
"What did you do?"
"I cured him," Elias said.
He moved through the ward.
One patient at a time.
No fatigue.
No error.
No limit.
Within six hours, mortality dropped to zero.
Within twelve, the virus was functionally extinct.
The WHO issued a statement that night.
"Global emergency resolved."
They didn't explain how.
They didn't need to.
The world already knew.
Back home, Elias returned to work the next morning.
Same hospital.
Same scrubs.
Different reality.
Outside, crowds gathered.
Inside, silence followed him.
Glassman shook his head. "You ended a pandemic overnight."
"Yes."
Shaun processed that. "That changes everything."
"Yes."
Celeste joined him in the hospital garden later that day.
"They can't force you now," she said. "You proved something."
"What?"
"That you don't need permission."
She met his gaze.
"You're not a resource," she continued. "You're a constant."
Elias nodded.
"That will terrify them."
"Good."
Celeste smiled—genuine this time.
"You know," she said, "the world will try to make you a god."
"I am a doctor."
"And that," she replied softly, "is why they'll never control you."
Somewhere else, far from the hospital, doors closed.
Agencies met.
Power shifted.
Plans were drawn.
Not to recruit Elias Murphy—
But to survive him.
End of Chapter 9