Chapter 34
So.
What do we have.
One unconscious city heroine bleeding out on the laboratory floor.
One genius under the Potion of Intellect, frozen in total stupor.
And one me, who is beginning to seriously suspect I have become some kind of magnet for universe-scale trouble.
"Coincidences are not coincidental," as the old turtle said.
Looking at this scene, I was inclined to agree.
I walked over to the open window she had fallen through.
A quick look at the frame revealed a small, precise file mark on the latch, allowing it to be opened easily from outside.
Her personal entrance.
"Alright," I said quietly into the ringing silence, more to break the trance than to make a statement.
"W-what is alright?!" Peter cried out, voice cracking.
I turned slowly and met his eyes.
"Peter. You are under the Potion of Intellect. No need to play dumb. You understood everything the moment it happened. The only question is what we do about it."
He understood that I understood.
Whether he had known her identity before or figured it out just now did not matter.
Without any agreement, both of us chose to avoid names, respecting her secret.
"Help her! We help her, obviously!" Peter exclaimed.
The stupor broke, replaced by emergency response mode.
His enhanced brain processed the situation instantly and produced an action plan.
He crossed to one of the cabinets and pulled out a first-aid kit stocked far beyond standard regulations.
Yet another piece of evidence that this lab was not being used strictly for its intended purpose.
"Good. On this I trust you," I said, stepping back.
"If you need help, I am right here."
Bullet wounds were completely outside my area of competence, and this was not the moment to learn on the job.
I would have to ask Frank later whether he ran any field medicine courses.
For now, the best I could do was trust Peter.
His broad knowledge, amplified by the Potion to peak efficiency, made him the most capable person within several kilometers.
"Yes, I have what I need..." His voice went calm, cold, and unsettlingly focused.
The first wave of shock had passed, and his mind had fully engaged.
"First thing: I need to clear the wound of costume fibers. They are jammed inside and blocking her regeneration."
He took out a sterile scalpel and dropped to his knees.
His movements became incredibly precise and economical.
Millimeter by millimeter, he worked the tiny, blood-soaked threads free.
Then, after assessing the costume material, some kind of durable elastic polymer rather than ordinary spandex, he made one calibrated cross-shaped incision around the bullet hole.
Folding back the four petals of fabric, he opened full access to the wound.
It was not a clean sight.
A ragged tear, blood flowing steadily.
The edges had already begun closing as her regeneration fought to work, but the bullet lodged inside was acting like an anchor, blocking everything.
Peter took a bottle of chlorhexidine and flooded the wound with it.
Gwen let out a quiet groan, her body jerking, though she did not wake.
"John, light here," he commanded, not looking up from the wound.
I pulled up my phone's flashlight and aimed the beam directly at the site.
Peter then began carefully probing the tissue with two fingers.
I watched his eyebrows move slightly as he mentally constructed a three-dimensional model of the damage.
After a few seconds, he gave a small nod to himself.
"Found it. Lodged under the latissimus dorsi muscle, roughly three centimeters from the entry point." He swore under his breath.
"Her regeneration has already started wrapping it in fibrous tissue. Ripping it out straight would tear everything to shreds."
He looked up at me, his eyes sharp and cold.
"John. There is going to be more blood in a moment. Be ready to press here the second I say so." He pointed to a spot just above the wound.
"There is an artery there."
"Understood," I answered, picking up several thick sterile gauze pads with my free hand.
Peter took a slow breath.
His hands stilled over the wound, completely steady.
Then he carefully guided the forceps tips into the wound channel.
I watched him not push but rather let the instrument find its own path, moving around nerves and vessels by feel.
His hand stopped.
A barely audible metallic scrape sounded.
"Get ready..." he murmured.
With one smooth but firm pull, he extracted the foreign object.
A quiet wet sound followed, and dark blood welled up hard.
"Press!"
I bore down on the wound with my full weight, feeling the hot liquid soak through the gauze pads.
Peter set the bloodied, slightly deformed bullet into a metal tray and turned his attention back to the bleeding.
We held pressure for several minutes.
Her accelerated metabolism was working fast.
The blood clotted visibly.
When the bleeding had nearly stopped, Peter gave me a nod.
I lifted the soaked pads.
He flushed the wound one more time and looked satisfied.
"The channel is clean. Her body will handle the rest," he said.
A trace of human fatigue had crept back into his voice.
"No stitches needed. Her regeneration will close this better than any surgeon. The main thing now is to keep it clean."
I watched Peter finish his work.
He packed the wound channel with several sterile dressings, explaining that this was to prevent cavities and abscesses from forming.
On top went a large absorbent bandage, held firmly in place with several wraps of elastic bandage around her midsection, right over the costume.
"Done," Peter exhaled, stepping back and wiping sweat from his forehead.
His voice carried the professional fatigue of a surgeon after a long operation.
"Now her body can put everything into healing without fighting a foreign object or an infection."
Gwen was still unconscious, but her breathing had evened out and deepened.
The worst was past.
I was not entirely certain the worst had ever truly threatened someone with her regeneration, but either way, I was glad we had been able to help.
"I wonder who worked her over like that," I muttered, looking at her still form.
"From what little eyewitness footage exists, she can dodge a hail of bullets. Her spider-sense is supposed to be her ultimate trump card."
"It does not matter who," Parker answered, sinking tiredly into a chair and covering his face with his hands.
"What matters is what we do next. She had no idea anyone besides me was here. And now you know."
"Do not worry," I walked over and placed a firm but reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"Same as you, I know how to keep a secret. How she reacts to my being here, we will find out when she wakes up. She will not sleep forever."
For her, that was not even a concern.
But for us...
I felt the invisible flywheel of fate spinning faster, and Peter and I were standing right at its center.
"But still, John, her identity..."
"No buts," I cut him off.
"You are worrying about the wrong thing. Right now we should be the concerned ones, not her. Think about it: what if she was followed? What if whoever shot her is tracking her trail right now? Professional mercenaries? Other metas? She brought danger straight to the door of our lab. So let us stop chewing over the question of trust and get back to our project. Back to what will give us the strength to handle exactly these kinds of surprises."
"Yes... yes, you are right," Peter muttered, taking a slow breath.
The Potion might have been muting his emotions, but it had not switched them off, and now, with the surgical tension released, his brain was returning to its work.
"As for the Potion... the call is yours. There are two realistic paths right now."
And with this, things had gotten a bit more complex.
Peter, in his peak intellectual state, had laid out two immediate options and two long-term ones that were currently out of reach.
I ran through his calculations mentally.
Option one: "Catalytic Anchor." Extension of effect.
Peter proposed engineering a complex polymer molecule that would act as a bodyguard.
It would seek out Phantasmine in the bloodstream and coat it, making it invisible to the enzymes that broke it down.
The result?
The effect of the original, full-strength Potion would be extended from a measly couple of hours to ten to twelve hours.
An entire workday in genius mode.
The key drawback was that Phantom Orchid would still be required.
I immediately decided I would create this version from the four remaining flowers I had.
This would be my personal divine mode.
Option two: "Phantasmine-Simulacrum." Synthetic analog.
Here Peter had truly outdone himself.
He had managed to decode and recreate the portion of the Phantasmine molecule responsible for all of its biochemistry: receptor binding, ion channel activation.
This synthetic analog, Simulacrum, could be produced from accessible precursor chemicals.
But the magic, the quantum vibration of the original molecule, remained beyond reach.
The result was a Potion that worked, but at a twenty to thirty percent reduction in effectiveness.
Not the same total acceleration, not the same instant memory access.
Yet the central advantage outweighed everything else: no more Phantom Orchid.
This would be a fully laboratory-synthesized product, scalable to any quantity.
Our NZT-48.
Even accounting for a stronger and longer headache as a side effect, this was a legitimate commercial product.
Something capable of changing the world.
I glanced at Peter, then at the motionless Gwen.
The choice was clear.
As the saying goes, there are two chairs, and I intended to sit in both.
I needed the exclusive, maximum-strength version for myself and my key allies, and the mass-produced, slightly weaker version as the foundation of my future enterprise.
As for the long-term options Peter had sketched out on the board, those were not just ideas.
They were roadmaps to the future.
The first path involved building a quantum resonator.
A device capable of copying the quantum signature of Phantasmine itself and imprinting it onto a stable nanostructure.
This was the path to complete control.
To creating the ideal, full-strength, completely safe version of the Potion.
There was one critical obstacle: it required equipment that did not yet exist.
A kind of quantum spectrometer.
The moment I had heard that detail, a ghost of a schematic had surfaced in my mind, courtesy of "Technological Modernization."
Vague and incomplete, but present.
I could build something in that direction eventually.
Not now, not with the resources I had.
But eventually.
This became my long-term scientific horizon.
The second option was even more audacious.
A bio-integrated symbiont-resonator.
A harmless protein, taken once, that would permanently integrate into your neurons and wait for activation.
A trigger word, a flash of light, even a dose of vitamin C, and you would turn into a genius for hours at a time.
This was not just technology.
This was a full-fledged tool for creating super-humans.
But the risks were enormous.
A single error in the protein sequence and anaphylactic shock.
One miscalculation in the integration and permanent psychosis.
This was the path of gods, and gods, as is well known, have a habit of falling from Olympus.
"So here is where we stand," I broke the silence, summarizing for Peter.
"Either we go for DURATION, making the original Potion several times more effective in terms of how long it lasts, while staying dependent on Phantom Orchid. Or we go for INDEPENDENCE, giving ourselves an unlimited source of a slightly weaker but scalable version." I paused and smiled.
"And I choose both."
"Ha," Peter leaned back in his chair, and for the first time in a while a genuinely relaxed smile crossed his face.
"As I expected. That is the only logically correct decision. One option is exclusive, for personal use and critical applications. The second is scalable, a strategic asset."
"Exactly. I need updated formulas for both. And we can start on the first batch of synthetic Potion today. By the way," I gave him a sideways look, "is it possible to produce this in tablet or capsule form?"
"Hmm..." Peter tapped his finger on the table thoughtfully.
"Yes. Lyophilization of the active compound and compression with a neutral filler. It is possible. The synthesis process becomes more complicated and time-consuming."
"I do not care. We make tablets," I said flatly.
Liquid in an ampule is medicine.
A tablet is something else entirely.
A tablet is a symbol, in the spirit of NZT-48, and yes, Limitless existed in this world.
While Peter, armed with his genius, set to work calculating the Simulacrum molecule, I decided I had a small window to use.
"By the way, when it comes to testing, we will not need to look for mice," I said casually.
"What do you mean?" Peter asked without glancing up from his calculations.
"Skipping animal testing is dangerous, John."
"Not for me. My metabolism neutralizes any negative side effects from things like this. I would be the ideal test subject. Fast and effective."
I saw him freeze for just a moment, but he did not push back.
He simply nodded.
He had already grasped that I was not quite ordinary, and had accepted it as a given.
Meanwhile, I mentally opened the System.
It was time to do something about Uncle Ben.
Arcanum recipes.
Therapeutics discipline.
I immediately passed over something listed as "Wonder Drug," understanding that a real panacea would probably require a star's heart and a griffin's tear as ingredients.
Fortunately, there were plenty of other options, and each now carried a short, almost poetic description.
"Breath of Mind: For those whose memories have faded or whose spirit is bound by infirmity. Restores lost paths of thought and heals wounds invisible to the eye."
Hmm.
Alzheimer's?
Nerve damage?
And wounds invisible to the eye sounds like psychosomatic conditions.
Too vague.
No guarantee this would touch kidney failure.
Moving on.
After scrolling through the list several times, I settled on four finalists, each promising a miracle of its own kind.
"Essence of Primordial Being: Returns to origins, correcting errors laid at birth. Rewrites the distorted blueprint of soul and body, returning it to primordial harmony."
"Tear of Divine Guardian: Finds corruption that nests in the very essence of flesh. Separates healthy from sick, granting purity through ruthless eradication."
"Living Blood: A substance that teaches flesh to forget wounds. Heals even the deepest cuts and burns, granting life force in place of what was lost."
"Elixir of Ash and Dawn: Reverses the flow of time inside the vessel. What has withered will be reborn, and what has failed will know its dawn."
I went back through the four recipes that burned in my mind.
Four paths.
Four miracles.
The choice had to be made now.
"Essence of Primordial Being." Returns to origins, rewrites DNA.
That sounded like playing god, and despite all my cynicism, I was not ready to cross that line.
Too many unknowns, too much risk of reducing a patient to formless protoplasm, even with the system's supposedly vetted recipe.
Rejected.
"Living Blood." Perfect for a battlefield.
Seal a wound, restore strength.
I would give a lot for a couple of doses for myself or for Blade.
But for Uncle Ben, whose condition was not a wound but a slow withering, this was useless.
Rejected.
Two finalists.
"Tear of Divine Guardian," a high-precision weapon against corruption, theoretically ideal for cancer.
And "Elixir of Ash and Dawn," total renewal, promising to revive what had withered and failed.
After brief deliberation the choice became obvious.
The Tear was a scalpel.
The Elixir was a full rebuild.
Why treat one disease when you could overhaul the entire system?
"Come what may. Elixir of Ash and Dawn. Unlock."
Two hundred OP was deducted from my balance.
This time the knowledge did not arrive as a fiery stream but as a thin, icy needle of pain.
One second of it, and then there it was.
Knowledge.
Incredible, beautiful in its brutal elegance, knowledge.
I had made exactly the right call.
This was not medicine.
This was a biological full reboot protocol.
A single-phase, self-regulating elixir that over twenty-four hours performed a complete audit and restoration of the organism.
Its full workings unfolded in my mind:
Targeted apoptosis, the Purification phase: Upon entering the body, the elixir identifies and marks all aberrant cells. Cancerous. Mutated. Infected. Senescent. Then it triggers in each of them a program of clean, controlled self-destruction. No inflammation, no collateral damage to healthy tissue. Perfect removal.
Stimulated regeneration, the Rebirth phase: Simultaneously, the elixir activates dormant stem cells, driving them to replace the cleared tissue with new, ideal copies at an accelerated rate.
The entire process took exactly twenty-four hours.
In the first hours, a gentle warmth and tingling sensation.
Then came the phase that gave the potion its name.
Ash: the heaviest stage, lasting ten to twelve hours.
Intensive restructuring.
Profound weakness, fever, body aches resembling severe flu.
That was the price.
The price of total renewal that any sane person would pay without hesitation.
Dawn: the final five to six hours.
The fever subsides.
The body completes its regeneration.
The weakness lifts and is replaced by a surge of energy and a sensation of incredible lightness and clarity.
Old scars fade.
Chronic pain disappears.
The patient wakes up feeling, quite literally, newly born.
I scanned the lab around me.
Bioreactor, sonicator, centrifuge, chromatograph, cryo-chamber.
Yes, all the necessary equipment was here.
Peter could manage this.
Especially given that the recipe, while complex, did not demand anything extreme, except for one component that the System labeled as "meteorite iron with high content of rare earth isotopes."
I would have to hope that Lucas had access to suppliers of cosmic debris as well.
A wild thought flickered through my mind.
How much would a dying billionaire pay for a potion like this?
It did not just heal.
It granted renewed youth.
It could not regrow lost limbs, but rolling back biological age by ten or twenty years?
Entirely plausible.
I was thinking about the wrong things.
I needed to brief Peter.
He might find ways to refine the process.
At that moment, Gwen's body, lying motionless on the lab table, jerked.
A quiet, strangled moan broke the silence.
I went still.
Even Peter, buried in his calculations, pulled away from the equipment and appeared at her side in an instant.
//==============//