Alone in the room, Luke sat down on a stool on wheels and kicked the floor, pushing off to make himself slide across the room. Weeeee!

  Tim, that bastard, lied about almost everything. But he was right about one thing: the ability to dull pain changed everything. With this, Luke could approach the Chief Medical Officer of the hospital and work something out himself. Perhaps a redo of this whole hospital healing thing was possible.

  It took the better part of an hour to find the right place and then another ten minutes to convince the secretary working there that he should get a little face time with her boss, but he was finally able to convince her not to turn him away.

  While waiting, Luke was shown to an empty patient waiting room with chairs lining the walls and an aquarium with small, colorful fish in it. He sat down with a thud and looked around for something to read. He had his phone with him, sure, but ever since he was a kid, he'd enjoyed reading the magazines in waiting areas. They were like a glimpse into the past, since they were always years old, no matter where you found them.

  A copy of PC Gamer from 2003 lay in a disorganized stack with different home improvement and relationship advice magazines. Luke reached for it, then stopped to look at his hand. Rather than grab for it, he concentrated. A thread of mana rose from his palm.

  Weaver's Grasp allowed him to use his threads outside a person's body. It reached a little farther than the first time he tried it. Still not far enough. Using multiple threads also meant each had to be shorter. Luke pushed the thread to its limit and reached about a foot and a half, then strained, forcing his will upon the thread. It grew thinner as it extended, but extend it did. Two feet.

  Sweat poured down Luke's face, and his pulse picked up. This took as much out of him as running, except the fatigue wasn't in his legs. Good thing that, after working with Vasilij, he hadn't had time to heal away the DOMS yet, which was just now setting in.

  Pushing himself, Luke saw the thread grow an inch or two more before coming undone. He took a moment to gather his breath and try again. At first, the range was the same, but when he pushed to extend it, the thread grew with less resistance, like a rubber band losing its rigidity.

  Over the course of perhaps 15 minutes, he worked on the problem, extending the thread more and more. It wasn't much, even after all that work, but he'd gained a few inches, enough to reach the magazine without getting up.

  Before, he'd used Threads of Mana to affect physical things almost on reflex, like the Flesh Golem's attack, or Curtis's sword, but he'd never made the concentrated effort of grabbing and lifting something on purpose.

  With his gaze fixed on the magazine, he held out his hand and pushed his thread of mana farther, going under the magazine, wrapping the thread around. Once Luke had the treasure in his grip, he used the Thread of Mana to lift the magazine.

  It floated over toward Luke's lap, then it tilted a little too much and slipped, falling to the floor. Grabbing and holding was sort of like lifting it with his hand, with the pain-dampening technique applied. No sensation. Difficult, but often preferred, Luke figured, especially in cases like with Curtis, when he used it to direct a swing away from himself. This would be useful. So very useful.

  Curious, Luke brought out his phone and set it on a table in front of himself and started a recording. He sat back down in the chair and brought out another Thread of Mana to the floor to pick the magazine back up. Once he grabbed it, Luke used The Healer's Moment. With time frozen, Luke found lifting the magazine a little easier, and he brought it over to his lap without it falling again.

  The Healer's Moment ended, and Luke stood and retrieved his phone. Watching the video was a little eerie. There he sat. The Thread of Mana showed up on the video, heading for the magazine. Then, in an instant, the magazine looked like it had teleported to his lap. This was no great surprise, but it was good to confirm that the skills worked like Luke imagined them.

  The secretary stepped into the waiting area. "Luke, the doctor will see you now."

  He was shown to an open door near the secretary's desk. Beyond was a rather small office filled with unwashed cups of coffee, stacks of medical journals, and thumbed-through textbooks. Working that hard on the medical side of things, even as the boss of all bosses, warranted respect. Luke sat down opposite the CMO, a well-worn desk between them, his gaze coming to rest on a plaque with this man's name on it. Crap.

  "You're Doctor Hastings?" Luke asked.

  The man was perhaps sixty but full of vigor, straight-backed and imperious-looking with only streaks of gray in his otherwise black hair and short, well-trimmed beard. His eyes, a spark of interest in them, regarded Luke. "That's not exactly a secret. Yes, I'm Hastings. Since you don't work for me, you can call me Robert."

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "Tim is your son?"

  Robert's face darkened a little. "What has he done?"

  "Nothing, I'm sure!"

  "I'm sure," Robert said with a sigh. "So tell me, Luke, why are you here?"

  "It actually has to do with your son, in a way. Did he speak with you about me?"

  "About you?" Robert asked.

  Luke leaned forward a little. "About healing. Integrated."

  "You're the young man with healing magic," Robert said.

  "Yes, and I'd like permission to heal your patients."

  Robert checked three different coffee cups, smelled the contents of one, wrinkled his nose, and grimaced at the smell of it before setting the cup down to turn back to the conversation. "My son can be boneheaded when not getting his way, but I'll still tell you what I told him. That's not happening."

  "If it's about the pain, I've found a way to stop that."

  That seemed to give Robert pause for the briefest of moments, but then he shook his head. "I'm sure that will have interesting ramifications for medicine in the long run, but it won't make a difference today."

  Luke blinked. "Why not?"

  "Insurance."

  "Insurance?"

  He nodded. "That's right. Insurance. Lawyers. The medical system might be a mess, but it is designed in a way to limit our liability if something happens. How do you think a patient's family will react if a healer comes in waving his wand around and their husband, wife, or child dies because of it? Then there's the question of ethics. Societal change is sometimes slow for a reason. I'm not saying it's right, but that is the way of things."

  Luke sat there for a moment, thinking. He couldn't refute the arguments. "I understand."

  "More mature than my own son, at least," Robert said with a scoff.

  "About Tim," Luke said, with some hesitation in his voice.

  "Hmm?"

  "He's heading for the orb. Said he was going to become a Lifeweaver, like me."

  "That doesn't surprise me," Robert said. "He was never able to take no for an answer. That boy has given me nothing but headaches since I hired him."

  "So there is no ward waiting for him?" Luke asked.

  Robert laughed. "Ward? Of course not." After that, he gave Luke a searching look. "We would still be interested in having you come here and give a talk about your abilities."

  "I can do that," Luke said.

  Robert stood, leaned over the desk, and held out his hand. Luke took it and shook.

  "If everything Tim tells me is true," Robert said, letting his hand fall to his side. "We could really use you on staff for diagnosis. We'd still have to confirm your results the old-fashioned way, of course, but you could really help a lot of patients this way."

  Luke shook his head. "Sorry. But I just don't have the time for that. I'm looking for people to heal, not just diagnose. You can call me for special, hard-to-diagnose cases if you want, and I'll pitch in, but it can't be something like a job. At least not right now."

  "I'll take what I can get," Robert said, and they exchanged numbers.

  "On that note," Luke said before leaving, "you have something wrong with your thyroid. Can't tell what exactly, but you should probably get it checked out."

  Robert blinked and showed a thin smile. "Thank you, Luke. I hope we'll be seeing a lot more of you in the future."

  "What about Tim?"

  "My son will not be allowed to use his Integrated powers at this hospital. If he tries, I'll make sure he's stripped of his already rather tenuous medical license. That goes for the doctors he's convinced to go with him as well. I wish it didn't have to be this way, but I have no choice."

  "I understand," Luke said. "See ya."

  So, that was a bust. The hospital didn't want his help. It was understandable, of course, but in the end, that meant no healing grind. At least not here. He'd have to figure something else out. Perhaps Lilly was right. How better to reach a whole lot of people with illnesses and injuries than with social media? Luke shuddered. He didn't want to go that route.

  Still trying to work out the problem of how to reach willing people to heal, Luke went out to get a much-needed wardrobe upgrade. Well, perhaps upgrade was too strong a word, since all he bought was a big stack of white, black, and grey t-shirts, a 30-pack of boxers and socks, and more black workout clothes. The cashier gave him a brief look that said she didn't approve of his fashion choices, but that disappeared when she realized how much he was spending. Back home, he dumped his purchases in a pile before heading out again. It was running time.

  Exercise would clear his head, Luke figured, but the problem was a tough nut to crack. People would be lining up for healing once word spread, but the big question was how to get to that point. The more he thought about it, doing something with Lilly seemed inevitable.

  It didn't take long for the running to get to that point where his mind sort of shut itself off, or at least drifted to the back of his brain so that he could focus on nothing at all. Meditative almost. His phone buzzed in his pocket, but he ignored it, trying to get back into the groove of running, but the disruption ruined it.

  As he continued up and down the busy streets of Chicago, Weaver's Eye kept assaulting him with information about people who were ill or walking around with injuries that he could help them with, if only they let him. Most non-Integrated would be skeptical at best, so perhaps that wasn't where he should start. Integrated. That was it. If word spread of his abilities through the Integrated community, that would be a springboard to reaching more people, and the pain-dampening worked on Integrated, he knew that much at least. Other people, he wasn't so sure about. This was something he needed to test as soon as possible.

  Luke slowed a little, brought out his phone to do some research on how to reach Integrated while he ran. The notification from before popped up front and center, and Luke cursed under his breath, checked both ways, then crossed the street, heading toward Lazarus Park.

  The text was from Johanson: "Your friend Ray was spotted entering the park near the orb."