Hemorrhage 4.4
The Patriot was the only man on earth who could feel genuinely irritated while flying at dozens of Mach without any technological assistance. Not even the incredible force of the wind could cool the temper of the world's greatest hero. And since crossing from one end of the continent to the other took a fair amount of time even for him, there was at least opportunity to think.
He understood perfectly well how many headaches this whole incident would create — how many conferences, how many speeches packed with empty words he'd be forced to endure. And then there was that Superhuman Oversight Act on top of everything… A migraine without a cause. Not particularly crippling, just deeply unpleasant.
Of course, no one could control Him, any more than someone could give orders to a god. But to keep people from stopping their worship, he was forced to play along with the laws. Breaking them would be effortless — but, once again, it would only multiply the inconveniences.
The army and Vought's rejects — what he privately called every super other than himself — were nothing but sacks of meat to him, the kind you could turn to pulp with a single backhand. But who in their right mind wanted to spend time on that? He'd barely been seeing Madelyn lately as it was…
Within minutes, the Patriot glided over the smoldering ruins and hung in the air, taking in the scene. He looked it all over, rubbed his eyes with both hands, and let out a heavy sigh. Flame had swallowed an entire district, while in the distance the destruction left by something very, very large carved a jagged scar through the skyline. Less work was a good thing, he supposed — but it did nothing to settle his irritation.
What grated on him most right now were the screams. The crying. The moaning of people he picked up with his hypersensitive hearing — buried under rubble, on the edge of death, their sounds carrying a quality that was particularly… pitiful.
Scanning with his X-ray vision, he located the enormous, headless, decomposing body with a hole punched through its chest. Less work — good. But somewhere around here there had to be another source of annoyance.
In an instant, accelerating past the sound barrier, the Patriot shot toward a burning building where he had already locked onto his target.
He walked calmly through the flames, which were incapable of disturbing so much as a single hair on his head. He stepped across the burning floor, savoring the anticipation of meeting the first real "supervillain" he'd faced in some time. But, as always, reality served up disappointment.
"So who exactly are you supposed to be?" the hero asked, hands planted on his hips, a smile already in place.
What he saw was an Asian woman staring back at him with naked hostility, her lips pulled back in a slight snarl, her eyes filling with pure white light. With every passing second the fire surrounding her burned hotter and brighter, until the air nearby was hot enough to melt steel.
The man seemed not to notice any of it. He only shook his head with the slow, weary look of someone who couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.
"They pulled me away from an evening with Madelyn," he said, shaking his head with genuine disgust and rolling his eyes, "for *this?* Seriously?"
The woman had already raised her hand, a sphere of white fire condensing between her fingers — and then her arm snapped away from her body, severed cleanly by two crimson laser beams fired from the hero's eyes. She didn't even have time to register it before the beam redirected and cut her in two, painting the room red.
"All this trouble because of some…" the blue-and-red figure muttered, scanning the room for a new target on which to vent his irritation. But around him there was only the groaning of people buried in the rubble and the frantic shuffling of other garbage — running in every direction, whimpering from pain.
"Fine," he sighed, closing his eyes for a moment and giving his head a slow shake. "The job isn't finished."
He shot upward and turned toward the wounded, toward those who needed help. Madelyn had been drilling into him for weeks that his approval rating had dropped two percent — time to earn it back. And besides, who else was going to save these pitiful mortals?
***
Three hours of chaos — sirens, screaming, and the constant noise of a dozen overlapping conversations — was not an easy thing to endure. The heightened hearing that usually sharpened my work now felt like a curse. But after the first hour, I sank fully into the process and the outside world simply ceased to exist.
This was my first operation on a living human being, yet I felt no nervousness. Years of working with animals in the most difficult conditions had trained me to think with a cold head. There was a patient in front of me who needed to be saved — that was the sum total of reality. Everything else switched off.
The Nubian Prince's accelerated regeneration was an enormous advantage. My ability to halt bleeding, to see inside a body without complex instruments, and to track internal changes with impossible precision let me make corrections at the finest level — adjusting a dislocation here, a displacement there, ensuring that the recovery wouldn't breed complications down the line.
The concussion, unfortunately, was beyond my competence. The hero remained unconscious because of it, but given the complete absence of painkillers, that was honestly not the worst outcome.
When the operation was finished, I stood over the body in silence for a long time. Alive. Breathing. But not without flaws. Hemokinesis is nearly useless when working with bone, which meant the right leg — of what was most likely a former superhero now — had healed imperfectly from its compound fracture. On the surface everything would appear fine, but running would eventually become a problem.
*Hmm…* If I broke the bone again and allowed it to heal correctly the second time, he could, purely in theory, recover his full form. It would be agonizing. Brutal, even. But theoretically possible…
"He's stable and he'll live," I said evenly, doing my best not to let the relief bleed into my voice. "He'll need some recovery time afterward, but ordinary doctors can handle his care from here."
Nubia had sat beside me throughout the entire procedure, lips pressed tight, watching every step with barely contained anxiety. Only when I spoke those words did she allow herself to exhale — a long, slow breath that seemed to uncoil something deep in her chest. She had guarded me during the operation, keeping police, rescue workers, and any heroes who tried to enter from interfering. But no one had been particularly eager to test the wrath of the lightning queen.
"Thank you," she said, her voice tired but sincere. "We… just — thank you. If you ever need anything, you can always come to me."
I only nodded. Then I turned and listened to the sounds coming from outside the building. We were far from the fire, but close to the area the giant had leveled, and through the walls I could hear the rescue operation in full swing.
Without wasting time, I reached over to a table and picked up a magazine and a pen that had been left there. I wrote several lines across the cover and held it out to the woman, who accepted it with a puzzled look.
"Everything the doctors will need to know about your husband's condition is written there, along with my recommendations for his ongoing treatment," I said calmly. "I have to ask you to forgive me, but I need to go. There are a great many people out there who may need my help."
She nodded without a word, took the magazine, and walked to the Prince, taking his hand in hers. I turned around and walked out. Time to be a hero.
***
I got home about twenty hours later.
Endless work — injured people requiring emergency attention at every turn. And since even the most experienced doctors couldn't perform proper operations in the middle of the wreckage, I truly came into my own out there.
My primary role was reporting the condition of patients, locating people buried under debris by tracking their heartbeats, and stopping hemorrhages. I also determined blood types and helped identify potential donors. In short, I was occupied every single minute, and by the end I felt like a walking corpse.
Even though help was still needed, even my superhuman body couldn't sustain that kind of load indefinitely. My concentration was slipping, which meant I could no longer perform at the standard I required. Mistakes in a situation like that are unacceptable — better to step back in time than to prove your "heroism" at the cost of someone else's life.
And so, the moment I crossed the threshold of my apartment, I didn't have the energy to speak to anyone. I came to my room, stripped off the already-filthy suit, and dropped onto the bed, unconscious almost before I hit the mattress.
The next day wasn't much different from the one before. I put my studies and my shifts at the shelter on hold and devoted myself entirely to helping people. It was only once enough time had passed since the slaughter that the first questions about what I was doing began to appear.
I was standing inside a specialized tent that had been set up as a mobile hospital for the people being pulled out of the rubble. I was in the middle of working on a man in his fifties, coated head to toe in grime, dust, and dried blood, when the visitors arrived.
A gray-haired man in a gray-green military uniform. Behind him came armed soldiers and several physicians. I recognized a few of the doctors from the day before, but most were new faces — and judging by their expressions, they were not pleased to see me.
"I'm asking you to step away from the patient and stop doing whatever it is you're doing."
The lead man's voice was hard and unyielding, carrying barely concealed aggression. I exhaled slowly and listened. I had known something like this would happen eventually, and I had prepared myself for the conversation — but that didn't make it any less unpleasant to stand here and have it.
"Really?" I said, letting every ounce of my exhaustion and disappointment color my voice. "We're seriously going to do this right now? When we're talking about human lives, this is how we want to spend our time?"
He only frowned harder, burning a hole through me with his stare.
"We are doing," he said, deliberately stressing those last words, "*this*, precisely to preserve as many lives as possible. We cannot trust the health of our citizens to some oddball doing God-knows-what to them. For all we know, you're making things worse and obstructing the real doctors. Do you have a medical degree? A first aid certification, even? Don't bother answering — I already know you have nothing of the sort. Which is why you'll be coming with us to answer some questions about your little… *practice.*"
I simply shook my head and stepped back from the patient. It didn't really matter to me whether I worked from a foot away or a couple — but at least the soldiers relaxed slightly.
"All right," I said easily, giving a small shrug. "In that case, I'm asking for one phone call — so that someone can come here and explain to you exactly what I'm doing. I promise you, it'll save a great deal more time and lives than whatever comes next."
I glanced over at the man lying on the surgical table. He still looked rough, but his breathing had evened out considerably. The military officer caught my meaning and, without arguing, fell silent and pressed his jaw shut. I pulled out my phone and opened my contacts. The only thing that mattered right now was whether they picked up.
"Hey, Margo, hi… No, everything's fine… Yes, yes, I'm fine, not a scratch on me… I know, I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. But you have to understand how busy I've been! Anyway — someone came up to me asking for a medical license, otherwise they won't let me keep helping people here… Yes, thank you so much. I'll see you today, tomorrow morning at the latest."
I finished the call and put the phone away, raising my eyes to the man who had tracked every word of the exchange with careful attention. Judging by the tightness in his jaw, he already understood which way the wind was blowing. One of the advantages of working with Vought — if your actions help them polish their brand, even somewhat illegal matters have a way of becoming perfectly acceptable overnight. Especially when the company is in the middle of a crisis tied to recent events.
"Let's wait just five minutes and the people who can explain everything will be here," I said. "You don't mind, do you, sir? And as a side note — I'd recommend cutting back on fatty foods going forward. Your vascular system isn't in the best shape. Just a friendly suggestion."
The soldier said nothing, fixing me with an unbroken scowl. I held his gaze without looking away.
Fortunately, the standoff didn't last long. A new arrival appeared, and though I had known Vought people would be sent, I hadn't expected the man who actually walked through the entrance — a thin, white-haired man somewhere around forty, who stepped inside wearing a wide, radiant smile. I knew him, if not personally. Ezekiel. The local elongating man and founder of the organization known as "Samaritans for Christ."
For the past two days I had been completely absorbed in helping the wounded, paying no attention to who was circling around me. But of course the representative of the largest superhero charity organization in the country, and the leader of one of America's biggest religious sects, would show up somewhere like this. He needed to preserve the face of his new religion — the one that claimed all supers possessed a divine nature. Even the ones who had burned this neighborhood to the ground and slaughtered people in the streets just days ago.
And when I thought about it that way, of course he would have taken an interest in the first superhuman healer…
"Greetings, friends, all of you!" He spoke with a constant, beaming smile and eyes that practically glittered. "I've already been informed of this most unfortunate misunderstanding! Well, I've come precisely to clear it all up!"
His voice was high-pitched in a way that became grating within ten seconds. Even so, I kept a pleasant expression on my face. For now I needed to play along and quietly agree with every word my new "ally" said.
"You see, Mark is operating here as a representative of Vought," Ezekiel said, smiling pleasantly. "And under the Hero Possibility Act, he is legally permitted to intervene in the lives of those who need assistance if the use of his abilities would save their lives. There has never been anyone with quite these particular capabilities before, but what is healing if not the saving of lives? As for the paperwork — that matter has also been resolved. My organization has already issued him a certificate to provide emergency medical assistance. And he is, himself, a rather well-educated young man — isn't he?" The smile never wavered.
The soldier held Ezekiel's gaze for several long seconds, then exchanged a glance with the physicians behind him, who offered only a tentative shrug. Without another word, he turned sharply and walked out of the tent.
The moment he was gone, the "messiah" turned to face me.
"Well then! Now that we've put all the difficulties behind us, I'd very much like to get to know you better — and to discuss a few other matters."
He extended his hand, and I shook it without hesitation.
"I'd be glad to take a short break," I said, with an easy smile. "Just let me finish with my patient and I'll be ready to talk."
It seemed like I had just figured out how to get inside the Samaritan's Embrace — without having to start another massacre.
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