The Healer's Fortune

Chapter 3— The Run

Rain still hammered St. Dawn Hospital, washing the red lights across the glass like blood. Dr. Adrian Kane pushed through the service corridor, soaked, heartbeat steady.

Behind him, the alarm shrieked in waves“Code Silver”but he moved with the calm of someone who’d already lived through worse.

He ducked into the stairwell. A pair of guards charged up from below, radios crackling. “Sublevel breach! He’s heading east, repeat, east corridor!”

Adrian slipped through a side door just before they rounded the landing. He found himself in Records Storage, rows of old paper charts and dust-covered monitors. The perfect maze.

He exhaled once. “Think, Kane. Think.”

He grabbed a lab coat from a rack, shrugged it on, and stuffed his ID badge inside the pocket. His reflection in the glass case looked like any exhausted intern. Ordinary. Forgettable.

A voice echoed behind him. “Adrian Kane, you’re making this worse.” Dr. Lang. Of course.

Lang’s reflection appeared in the opposite row, walking slowly, phone pressed to his ear. “You’ve stolen classified data and assaulted security personnel. That’s ten years minimum. But I’m generous. Come out now, and maybe the board won’t press charges.”

Adrian stayed hidden, watching him through the gaps in the shelves. “You should’ve picked a quieter place to lie, Lang.”

Lang froze. “You’re still here.”

“I never left.”

Adrian stepped out, calm, wet hair clinging to his forehead. “Funny thing about autopsy authorizations, you forgot the time-stamp layer. You signed mine after the file was locked. Rookie mistake for a man who worships procedure.”

Lang’s jaw twitched. “You can’t prove that.”

“Oh, I already did.” Adrian lifted his phone; a blinking icon on the screen showed an active data sync. “Security logs back themselves up to the central archive every thirty minutes. And guess what? We’re five minutes early.”

Lang’s composure cracked for the first time. “You don’t understand what you’re involved in.”

“I understand enough.” Adrian’s tone turned razor-sharp. “Project Pulse, Holt’s synthetic implants, the missing patient, your department signed off on human trials. Tell me, Lang, when did St. Dawn become a weapons lab?”

Lang took a step forward, voice low. “You think you’re the hero? You’re a relic of a failed experiment. We cleaned up your mess once. We can do it again.”

Adrian smiled slightly, cool, surgical. “Then you’ll need better cleaners.”

He hit SEND. Lang’s phone vibrated instantly; the message mirrored across every active terminal in Records, project files, falsified signatures, financial links, all projected on the wall like a confession.

“You just broadcast your crimes to the entire hospital network.”

Lang lunged toward him, fury breaking through the polish, but Adrian sidestepped, letting him crash into the file rack. Paper rained down around them like snow.

The door burst open. Two security officers rushed in, tasers drawn. Lang pointed, panting. “He attacked me! Arrest him!”

Adrian raised his hands, calm. “Check your monitors first.”

The officers’ radios crackled with an incoming message: “Attention all units. Dr. Lang is to be detained for questioning regarding data falsification and unauthorized human trials.”

The younger guard blinked. “Sir?”

Lang’s face drained of color. “That’s, impossible.”

Adrian offered him a thin smile. “There’s your face-slap.”

The guards moved toward Lang. One reached for his wrist. Lang twisted, shouting, but the older guard read the order again, louder. “Director Lang, please accompany us.”

Adrian slipped past them quietly, disappearing into the hall while Lang’s protests echoed behind him.

Outside, the storm had softened to a gray drizzle. He crossed the ambulance bay, hood pulled low. The city hummed beyond the fence, neon, sirens, and the smell of wet asphalt.

His phone buzzed. Unknown number again. He hesitated, then answered. “You’re persistent.”

A woman’s voice this time calm, precise. “You handled yourself well, Adrian.”

He stopped walking. “Who is this?”

“You still don’t recognize my voice?”

The world seemed to tilt. “Aurelia…”

“It’s been a long time.”

He glanced back at the hospital, where lights flickered as systems rebooted. “You signed Holt’s order.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he wasn’t supposed to die.”

Adrian’s grip tightened on the phone. “You’re behind Project Pulse.”

A short silence. Then: “No, Adrian. I created it. And someone just hijacked it.”

The line went dead. Adrian stared at the screen. A single new text appeared beneath the call log: If you want answers, follow the pulse. Pier 47. Midnight.

He looked up toward the skyline, where the harbor lights flickered through the fog. His reflection in a puddle looked different now, eyes faintly glowing with the same pulse he’d seen under Holt’s skin.

Somewhere deep in the city, a siren wailed, blending with the thunder.

Adrian whispered, “Guess I’m not done yet.”

He turned toward the street, coat whipping in the wind, unaware of the black sedan idling half a block behind him, headlights off, engine silent.