The doctor who rushed out of the hospital after Luke was one of Luke's old classmates from college. He'd been the biggest fuck-up in the class, always partying, just scraping over the pass/fail line, and even missing large chunks of their practical modules. Luke and Tim, they'd never been close and didn't move in the same circles on campus, but this doctor standing in front of him was Tim, no doubt about it. Genuine surprise surged through Luke at seeing his old classmate. Not so much for running into him at that place and time, but more so for the fact that Tim had worked his way through medical school, passing, and had now become a doctor despite everything.

  What did that say about Luke himself?

  He cleared his throat. "Tim. Long time no see."

  "Yeah, man!" Tim said, his voice loud. "Long time no see!"

  He walked up to Luke and peered over his shoulder, perhaps looking for Belinda. "So. The emergency room."

  "Sorry about that," Luke said. "I really didn't think that one through. I swear I didn't just hurt that woman."

  Tim chuckled and adjusted his glasses. "We see our fair share of messes in there but that was quite the fuckup. What were you thinking? Talk to the staff first!"

  Luke winced. "Yeah."

  "Don't worry about it. But hey, man, about what happened in there. That woman in there."

  "Belinda," Luke said.

  "Sure, Belinda, whatever," Tim said. "Her screaming brought me into the emergency room so I caught the end of that. She said you cured her stomach pain?"

  "I did," Luke confirmed.

  Tim nodded, then breathed in, as if apprehensive. "So, what? You touched the orb?"

  Relief flooded through Luke. Tim didn't think he'd become some crazy person. "I did. You get to choose a class, and I selected a healer."

  "Figured that was it. I've been reading online about all this stuff, and there are some explanations about class archetypes. I was never really into gaming, but you know, I was thinking this would be the end of doctors, you know? If someone can just cast spells to heal people after going through that Tutorial Dungeon in a few hours, who'd want to sit through all those years of medical school and everything that comes after, right?"

  "Right," Luke said.

  "Right," Tim said. "Sounds like you lucked out then, yeah? With dropping out, I mean? Well, anyway. So we've had people whining about AI stealing our jobs for a while, and let me tell you there are some real advances happening there, but this would lead to a lot fewer peeps wanting to go into medical fields."

  "Maybe," Luke said.

  "Except it doesn't work."

  Luke blinked. "What doesn't work?"

  "Healing. Your kind, I mean."

  "I don't follow," Luke said.

  "Well, see. We had another Integrated come through the hospital yesterday. He was a healer, too. Can't remember what he called the class, but he said it was a type of healer."

  "Faith Healer?" Luke asked.

  Tim frowned, pursed his lips, and then shook his head. "No, that wasn't it. So, this dude got hit by a car right after surviving the Tutorial Dungeon. That's some shitty luck, right? Well, so, we asked him, you know?"

  "What?"

  "We asked him why he didn't just heal himself," Tim said, his expression intense all of a sudden.

  "And he said he couldn't," Luke finished Tim's long-winded explanation for him.

  "Right!" Tim said, pointing at Luke, almost sounding a little pissed off. "He couldn't! So, if he couldn't, why are you going around saying you can? If real medical conditions can't be healed, then doctors are safe, at least until the AI overlords take over the world."

  "My sister is a healer too," Luke began, unsure if Tim would buy his explanation. "She couldn't heal herself either. I could heal her, though. My healing is different from hers and, by the sound of it, different from your other patient's. Is he still here? I'd like to meet him."

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  "Different how?" Tim asked.

  Luke explained how his healing worked and how it differed from the other types he'd seen so far, finishing up with, "I'm not saying my healing is the only one that works that way, but the health and vitality types, which are more in line with what you expect from a healer, maybe, are the ones I've met, including my sister."

  Tim stood in silence for a moment, thinking. "That is an interesting theory. So this means you did heal that woman-"

  "Belinda," Luke reminded him, unsure why he cared so much about the doctor knowing her name.

  "You healed Belinda," Tim corrected himself. "Could you show me?"

  "Show you?" Luke asked.

  Tim rolled up his sleeve and without even a moment of hesitation, stabbed himself in the arm with a pen. It didn't penetrate far, but enough to draw blood. "There."

  "Yeah, sure," Luke said, walking up to Tim to grab his hand. A single stitch later, the wound had closed.

  "Amazing," Tim whispered. "It hurt quite a bit, but that is amazing. What did you say your class is called?"

  "Lifeweaver."

  "Lifeweaver," Tim repeated, nodding to himself as he watched his now healed hand. "And you want to do more of that in there?" he asked, nodding to the hospital.

  "I was hoping to," Luke answered.

  Tim wet his lips, excitement shining through his expression. "Wait here."

  Almost thirty minutes, Tim returned. It looked like he'd been running.

  "Let's go," he said, panting.

  "Go where?" Luke asked.

  “Pediatrics.”

  “Just like that?” Luke asked.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got some sway around here.”

  Luke blinked. "Thank you."

  Tim laughed. "It's for the patients. And I want to see more of what you can do. You can fit so many patients in this thing, you wouldn't believe."

  "Right, of course. Let's go," Luke said.

  Tim and Luke walked deep inside the belly of the building, having passed through the emergency room again. It was a little weird being back in the hallways, the smell of cleaning supplies in the air, the occasional patient walking around looking lost, and the support staff cleaning, emptying trash cans, fixing doors and wiring, carrying the whole place on their shoulders.

  “So, you want me to heal a kid?" Luke asked.

  “Well, yeah,” Tim said. “Is that a problem?"

  "The pain," Luke said. "Also, I don't think I can treat every illness and injury under the sun."

  "Children are often better at dealing with pain than grown-ass men," Tim snorted, walking back up to Luke. He put an arm on Luke's back, giving him a small shove forward. "Why don't we take a look at what we've got, and you can tell me what, if anything, you can fix."

  "Don't we need parental consent?" Luke said.

  Tim laughed. "You let me deal with that. That won't be a problem, I promise. With the types of cases they deal with in there, most parents will leap at any opportunity to improve their child's life."

  Luke nodded and started walking again. "I can see that."

  They made it into pediatrics. Stuffed animals sat on chairs and tables, and bookcases were lined with children's books. Bright-orange fish swam around in an aquarium in one of the waiting areas. It was subdued in there around the children and their parents waiting to be seen, and the medical staff armored themselves with masks of carefree joy, perhaps hoping their cheer would rub off on the patients, but resigned to the fact it wouldn't. Ignoring Weaver's Eye as he walked took more focus and effort than even healing Belinda earlier. Just walking past that room made Luke want to roll into a ball on the floor and cry.

  Luke followed Tim into an administrative room for doctors. It was just desks with desktop computers on them, and piles of papers scattered about. The only other person was an older doctor who was talking into a microphone, dictating medical notes. Tim looked up at a TV affixed to the wall. It showed the patients waiting to be seen.

  "Let's see. What do we have here?" Tim muttered.

  Luke drew in a deep breath and swallowed hard. So much suffering on a single screen. Hydrocephalus, an excess of brain fluid, cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that messed with fine motor control, among other things, and a host of other horrible diseases and issues, like JIA, an autoimmune issue Luke didn't know much about, and Cystic Fibrosis, a genetic disease that messes up your lungs and makes you prone to infection. Most of these either led to a quick, horrible death or lifelong issues with pain and immobility.

  "Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy," Luke said.

  Tim turned to him. "You can cure DMD?"

  It was a genetic disorder that caused muscle degeneration, leading to a premature death when the lungs and heart couldn't function anymore. At Luke's current skill level, curing it was out of the question. He didn't know if it would ever be possible for him to affect genetics since he'd have to work on the molecular level, but reversing the effects? That might just be possible.

  "I think I can treat the symptoms, at least," Luke said, hoping he wasn't promising too much.

  "That would be a miracle in its own right," Tim said.

  They headed out of the room, ignoring the doctor's glare, and then crossed the corridor into an examination room. A withered little boy in a wheelchair sat by the window on the opposite side of the room. His father, a heavy-set man with dark rings under his eyes, read to him from a children's book, but stopped when Luke and Tim entered.

  "Who are you?" the father asked. "Where is Dr. Monroe?"

  Tim walked up to the father. "I'm Dr. Hastings. We have an offer for a new, uh, let's say, experimental treatment."

  Luke explained and showed what he was capable of a third time, this time on his own arm. The healing hurt worse than the stabbing. Soon, he'd need to find a way around that. This couldn't go on. The father gave Luke a look, then turned back to his son before nodding. "Please."

  Luke cleared his throat and stepped up to the boy. Judging by his appearance, he was far gone. People with DMD often made it to around late 20s or early 30s with the advancements in modern medicine, but this little one wouldn't even make it to 10 like this.

  "Hey, there," Luke said, he too adopting the cheerful tone of the medical staff. "How are you feeling?"

  The boy just stared at him through lidded eyes.