Chapter 6: Miracle Line
I stood outside the Rodriguez family's room at 6:47 AM, clutching Carlos's imaging results and trying to quiet the storm of notifications flooding my vision.
[SYSTEM ANALYSIS COMPLETE] Patient: Carlos Rodriguez, Age 6 Condition: Rhabdomyosarcoma - Stage IV Survival Probability (Standard Treatment): 3.2% Survival Probability (With Current Abilities): 31.7% Survival Probability (With Recommended Upgrades): 87.4%
The numbers were a cold slap of reality. Without spending System Points, this little boy was going to die. The tumor had wrapped itself around his heart like a malevolent vine, making surgical removal virtually impossible through conventional means.
But virtually impossible wasn't the same as actually impossible. Not anymore.
I knocked softly and entered the room. Carlos was awake, a small figure dwarfed by the hospital bed, his parents flanking him like guardians. The boy looked up at me with curious brown eyes that held no understanding of his mortality.
"Dr. Graves?" Maria Rodriguez stood up, her husband close behind. "You're the surgeon Dr. Webb mentioned?"
"I am." I pulled up a chair, keeping my voice gentle. "I've been reviewing Carlos's scans, and I wanted to meet him before we discuss anything."
"Hola, doctor," Carlos said, his voice carrying that particular raspiness that came from the tumor pressing against his airways. "Are you going to fix my heart?"
The directness of children always caught me off guard. No medical terminology, no dancing around the issue. Just pure, honest hope.
"I'm going to do everything I can," I said, meaning it more than they could possibly know.
His father, Miguel, stepped forward. "The other doctors... they said there's nothing they can do. That we should make him comfortable."
[EMOTIONAL RESONANCE DETECTED] Patient Family Stress Level: Critical Recommendation: Activate Enhanced Empathy for optimal communication
I dismissed the notification. Some things didn't need system enhancement.
"I've seen the other opinions," I said carefully. "And they're not wrong about the complexity. But I'd like to examine Carlos myself, if that's okay."
What followed was the most controlled examination of my medical career. Every instinct screamed at me to activate my enhanced diagnostic abilities, to see through flesh and bone to the tumor's exact boundaries. Instead, I relied on conventional palpation and auscultation, feeling for what I already knew was there.
But even without supernatural enhancement, my level 2 abilities were impossible to completely suppress. My hearing picked up the subtle irregularities in Carlos's heartbeat, the way the tumor was gradually restricting blood flow. My enhanced perception noted the slight bluish tinge to his fingertips that indicated increasing cardiac compromise.
"How long do we have?" Maria asked quietly while Carlos was distracted by a tablet.
The question every parent dreaded asking. The one that made doctors feel like gods and failures simultaneously.
"Without intervention, weeks. Maybe a month."
She closed her eyes, and Miguel's hand found hers.
"But," I continued, "I want to look at this from a different angle. Sometimes a fresh perspective can find options that weren't apparent before."
Hope flickered in their eyes, dangerous and desperate.
After the examination, I retreated to the imaging review room and finally allowed myself to truly see what I was dealing with. The tumor was massive – a 4.2-centimeter mass that had insinuated itself between the right atrium and superior vena cava like a parasite. Conventional wisdom said you couldn't remove it without stopping the heart for an impossibly long time, and even then, the risk of hemorrhage was catastrophic.
But conventional wisdom didn't account for what I could become.
I opened the System Store and stared at my options.
[CURRENT SYSTEM POINTS: 110]
[RECOMMENDED UPGRADES FOR CARDIAC SURGERY] Disease Pathology Sight - 60 SP
See tumor boundaries and blood vessel involvement with perfect clarity
Time Dilation (Minor) - 100 SP
Slow perceived time during critical moments
Master-Level Technique - 75 SP
Surgical precision beyond human capability
Miracle Worker Fragment - 50 SP
Passive bonus to impossible procedures
The math was simple and terrible. I could afford two moderate upgrades or one major one, but not the combination that would guarantee Carlos's survival. Every System Point I didn't spend was a percentage point reduction in his chances of living.
But every point I did spend pushed me further beyond what Dr. Webb would consider humanly possible.
[DAILY QUEST UPDATE] Master of Restraint - Progress: 1/3 Current Objective: Complete Carlos Rodriguez consultation without revealing superhuman capabilities Stealth Bonus Available: Appear to reach conclusions through conventional reasoning
The system was asking me to perform a magic trick in reverse – to find a miraculous solution while making it look mundane.
I closed my eyes and made my choice.
[PURCHASE CONFIRMED] Disease Pathology Sight - 60 SP Spent Miracle Worker Fragment - 50 SP Spent Remaining System Points: 0
The world exploded into new dimensions of perception. Through the walls, through the building itself, I could suddenly see the slow dance of disease and healing playing out in dozens of bodies. But more importantly, I could see Carlos Rodriguez's tumor with perfect clarity – not just its position, but its blood supply, its growth patterns, the microscopic fingers it had extended into healthy tissue.
And in that crystalline vision, I saw something the other surgeons had missed.
The tumor wasn't as integrated as it appeared. It had grown in a specific pattern, following the natural tissue planes, and there was a surgical approach – narrow, dangerous, requiring impossible precision – that could work.
But it would require technique that would make my cholecystectomy look like child's play.
I spent the next three hours creating the most detailed surgical plan of my career, cross-referencing anatomical texts and drawing on every piece of medical knowledge I'd ever absorbed. When Dr. Webb found me in the conference room at 2 PM, I had seventeen pages of notes and a three-dimensional model of Carlos's heart constructed from imaging data.
"Ethan." He studied the papers scattered across the table. "Please tell me you're not about to propose the impossible."
"Not impossible," I said, pointing to my anatomical drawings. "Just extraordinarily difficult. Look at this approach vector – if we come in from the posterior aspect of the right atrium, following the natural tissue plane between the tumor and the vessel wall..."
For the next thirty minutes, I walked him through every step of the procedure, carefully explaining how conventional techniques could be pushed to their absolute limit to save Carlos's life. I made sure every insight seemed to spring from meticulous research and anatomical knowledge rather than supernatural vision.
Dr. Webb listened in silence, occasionally asking probing questions that tested the boundaries of my reasoning. Finally, he sat back in his chair.
"The approach is sound," he admitted. "Innovative, even. But the margin for error is essentially zero. One wrong move and the child bleeds out on the table."
"One wrong move," I agreed. "But if we don't try, he dies anyway."
"The parents understand the risks?"
"They will."
He was quiet for a long moment, studying my face with those sharp eyes that had seen through forty years of medical lies and half-truths.
"Your surgical plan is brilliant, Ethan. Graduate-level cardiovascular work. The kind of innovative thinking I'd expect from someone with a decade of cardiac experience." His voice was carefully neutral. "How exactly did you develop this level of expertise in pediatric cardiac surgery overnight?"
The question I'd been dreading. The one that could unravel everything.
"I didn't sleep last night," I said, which was technically true. "I pulled every cardiac surgery textbook we have, reviewed every similar case in the literature. Sometimes desperation makes you see patterns you missed before."
"Desperation." He repeated the word like he was tasting it. "Or something else."
Before I could respond, his pager buzzed. He glanced at it and frowned.
"Carlos Rodriguez just went into acute cardiac distress. His condition is deteriorating rapidly." He stood up, his eyes never leaving my face. "Looks like we're going to find out just how desperate you really are."
[EMERGENCY QUEST ACTIVATED] Save Carlos Rodriguez Time Limit: 6 Hours Before Critical Organ Failure Difficulty: S-Rank Warning: Patient condition deteriorating. Surgery now required immediately. Bonus Objective: Complete surgery within normal performance parameters
The notifications blazed across my vision as we rushed toward the pediatric ICU, but all I could think about was a small boy with curious brown eyes who had asked me to fix his heart.
Time to find out if I could perform a miracle while pretending to be merely human.
The impossible had officially become inevitable.
[CHAPTER END] [XP GAINED: +20 for surgical planning breakthrough] [TOTAL XP: 211/200 - LEVEL UP AVAILABLE] [WARNING: Emergency surgery required. All stealth parameters under maximum stress.]