Chapter 47: Superpowered Doctor
"However..." Coulson paused, then continued, "This is the part we need to pay special attention to."
"He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, sharing the rent with two roommates—one his childhood neighbor, the other that neighbor's colleague. His clinic is on Seventh Street in Brooklyn."
"Seventh Street?" Melinda May exhaled softly, folding her arms tighter across her chest. "The Upper West Side is where the elite live; Seventh Street is gang and dealer territory."
"Choosing to live in the safest neighborhood while running a clinic in the most dangerous one to make money... is that smart, stupid—or just coincidence?"
"I can't figure that out either," Coulson said, rubbing his chin and offering a practical hypothesis to resolve the contradiction.
"Maybe it's financial? A newly licensed doctor can't necessarily afford a place on the Upper West Side; sharing is normal."
"But on Seventh Street in Brooklyn, he could at least buy the clinic and own his business—and that's exactly what he did."
May's fingertips flew across the control panel, pulling up property records and area-surveillance reports, her eyes coolly scanning the data.
"That logic doesn't hold, Coulson." She swiveled the screen toward him, displaying the clinic's property info and district comparison. "He took out a loan to buy the Seventh Street property, yet rents with others on the Upper West Side. That's not the financial decision of someone who 'can't afford' a place."
She pointed at the low-coverage surveillance zone marked in red on Seventh Street.
"Look at the contrast: his chosen residence, the Upper West Side, has dense, near-flawless camera coverage."
"Seventh Street, on the other hand, has sparse cameras and sluggish police response. The law exists there on paper, but nobody feels obliged to obey it—in other words, it's more 'free'."
She deliberately stressed the last word.
"For his residence he picks order and surveillance; for his 'business,' chaos and shadows. It's not a contradiction—it's a deliberate strategy."
As if struck by a thought, May quickly tapped the screen. "There's another anomaly: in the months since he opened on Seventh Street, he's never once called the police—no law-enforcement contact at all. The only clinic-related call was a week ago?"
"How come? Are the locals unusually tolerant of the clinic?"
"Do they all treat it as neutral ground? Petty criminals, dealers, gangs—they automatically steer clear?"
Coulson pulled up that incident: "Location: Brooklyn Rayne Clinic. Caller: passerby, reporting someone lying outside the clinic."
"Police notes: Mary Mason, the clinic's doctor, was attacked late at night—stabbed, escaped on her own, and self-treated."
May glanced over. "She's a surgeon; professional training explains the self-treatment."
Coulson clicked, playing several surveillance clips side by side.
In the footage a woman exits the clinic and locks up. A second later a man lunges from the shadows, stabs her in the abdomen, and clamps her neck with his forearm.
Pinned down, she wriggles a small scalpel from her clothing and drives it backward into his side.
The attacker collapses; she loses balance and crawls toward the clinic door.
For dozens of minutes no one enters or leaves.
The video jumps to a later segment.
A man rushes into frame—no pause to look around, no call for help or to police—he simply pushes straight into the clinic.
Cut again: bystanders gather and one phones 911.
He slapped several timestamps onto the screen.
21:17—Mary Mason attacked.
21:18—Mary dials for help; call answered by Ethan Rayne.
21:49—Ethan Rayneappears and enters the clinic.
22:33—Bystander notices something wrong and calls 911.
22:44—NYPD patrol and ambulance arrive.
Coulson pulled up crime-scene photos, cycling through them.
Blood loss, spatter patterns, scene outline—all documented.
May studied them a moment, her brows knitting slowly. "With that much blood loss, a major artery must have been nicked; survival odds are nearly zero. Crawling inside wouldn't change the outcome."
Coulson's tone stayed level. "Yet she survived, and post-recovery showed zero complications."
"Impossible," May shot back, skepticism sharp in her voice. "A normal person can't live after losing that much blood. Does she have enhanced abilities?"
"No enhancements." Coulson answered. "Hospital tests show she's an ordinary human—no abnormal indices. No one else was on scene—only her... and Ethan Rayne, who arrived thirty-two minutes later."
He tapped the timestamp. "By blood-loss rate, she would have been dead twenty minutes before Ethan reached the clinic."
"But when NYPD arrived she was alive, already sutured and bandaged. Only one wound—deep but non-lethal, as if the vitals had been deliberately avoided."
May stared hard at Coulson. "A no-name doctor, in an under-equipped little clinic, snatches someone back from certain death."
"Are you suggesting he brought her back to life?"
Coulson: "I'm just presenting the data. What happened is for us to investigate and determine."
May spread her hands. "Fine. So far it sounds like a harmless doctor who might have supernatural healing abilities."
"So are we going as bodyguards to protect him, or dragging him back to the Sandbox to be studied?"
"There are a few other items." Ignoring her sarcasm, Coulson called up the next set of records.
May glanced: they were reports of small-time thugs harassing, burglarizing, even vandalizing Rayne Clinic.
She skimmed them. "Nothing odd—this is daily life on Seventh Street, Brooklyn."
Coulson: "Keep reading."
May realized instantly: the clinic had never reported anything, so where did these records come from?
She read on—and found, bizarrely, that every one of those thugs had voluntarily walked into an NYPD precinct and confessed.
There was even a hardened killer fresh from a shootout, treated at the clinic and walking out in good shape—only to head home and commit suicide.
May stared, voice turning cautious. "Confessing? Suicide? Why—were they intimidated, blackmailed to that extent?"
She looked up at Coulson. "Or did they experience something we don't understand?"
Coulson shut off the screen; the room sank into half-light.
"That's what we're going there to find out."
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