Chapter 77: Hospital Check-Up?
The waiting room had the particular energy of a place that never fully slept — chairs occupied at irregular intervals, the overhead lighting doing its flat, indifferent work, a television mounted in the corner cycling through late night programming nobody was watching, because this wasn’t why they were here.
Liam checked in at the front desk and presented his ID. The woman behind the counter processed him with the efficient warmth of someone who had done this ten thousand times, and when she pulled up his records and confirmed his insurance coverage her manner shifted by a single, almost imperceptible degree toward attentive.
Money talked in hospitals the same way it talked everywhere else. Just quieter.
He took a seat and ran the numbers while he waited.
$210,260.
He had started the week with twenty thousand dollars, a bruised face, no job, and a system he hadn’t yet confirmed was real. Six days later he had cleared two hundred thousand and the beginner bonus still had a couple of weeks on it.
By any reasonable measure that was extraordinary.
It wasn’t enough.
Not for what he was building. Office lease deposits, licensing fees, staffing costs for the first quarter, the gap between setup and first billing — he had run those numbers enough times to know that two hundred thousand bought him a foundation, not a firm. He needed a multiplier. A single transaction large enough to change the category of what he was working with.
He thought about Rachel. About Sophia. Both good women, both genuine — and neither of them operated in a world where large financial gestures landed naturally.
He could manufacture something but they would see through it, and more importantly he didn’t want to do it that way. After Sara, leading with money as a primary instrument felt wrong. These women had given him something real and he wasn’t going to cheapen it. And if things went wrong, it would do more damage as they could easily check the prices of things if he did lie about it. The internet existed after all.
Mrs. Harriet was a different calculation entirely.
She arrived at restaurants in a Rolls-Royce Ghost. She wore jewellery that was easily the price of a car.
She existed in a financial register where significant gestures weren’t interpreted as attempts to purchase affection — they were simply the language of the world she lived in.
And crucially, he had insurance. Her own interest, confirmed by the system.
He was still working through the mechanics of it when a nurse appeared at the waiting room entrance with a clipboard.
"Liam?"
He stood and followed her through.
-
The doctor was a man in his mid-forties — methodical, wire-framed glasses, the unhurried manner of someone who had been doing this long enough to stop performing urgency unless it was genuinely warranted. He shook Liam’s hand and gestured to the examination table.
"What brings you in tonight?"
"Chest heaviness. Eye fatigue. General — off feeling. Nothing I can point to specifically."
"How long?"
"Noticed it in the car about an hour ago."
The doctor nodded, making a note. "Any history of cardiac issues?"
"None."
"Sleep pattern recently?"
Liam thought about the last six days. "Irregular."
"Stress levels?"
"Elevated. Situational, not chronic."
"Physical activity?"
"I started a new training programme this week. Fairly intense."
The doctor looked up from his notes. "Fairly intense how?"
"My trainer is built like a geological formation and has no concept of appropriate progression."
The doctor’s expression didn’t change but something behind it did. "I see. We’ll run a full panel. Blood pressure, ECG, bloods. Likely nothing serious given your age but worth ruling out."
He left briefly and a nurse came in to set up the initial readings.
She was young — early twenties at most, with quick efficient movements and the focused manner of someone still building their clinical confidence. She set up the blood pressure cuff without unnecessary conversation, which Liam appreciated.
Then she looked up and their eyes met.
She held it a second too long before looking back at the equipment.
Liam looked at the ceiling as the older doctor walked in to retrieve something and Liam played with a thought.
"What if the system didn’t only recognize women?" Liam quickly pushed that thought out of his head.
Then from somewhere down the corridor a phone rang — loud, jarring, a standard ringtone — and Liam’s entire nervous system fired at once.
[Ding!]
He flinched visibly.
The nurse looked up. "You okay?"
"Fine." He exhaled. "Thought I felt something." Liam was horrified and the older doctor left right away.
She checked the cuff reading and made a note. "Blood pressure is slightly elevated but nothing alarming."
"Reassuring."
She smiled briefly and moved to prepare the next reading. She was attentive throughout — efficient, thorough, checking in at each step with the quiet professionalism of someone who took the work seriously regardless of the hour.
"Twenty," Liam thought, watching her work. "Maybe twenty-one."
The system stayed silent.
He exhaled with a relief he didn’t fully examine.
She helped him through the ECG setup with a steady hand, explaining each step without being asked, and Liam found himself genuinely appreciating the care even as he noted that his interest extended no further than gratitude.
Some lines didn’t need a system to tell him not to cross.
The doctor returned twenty minutes later with the initial results, reviewed everything methodically, and looked at Liam over his glasses.
"Your heart is fine. ECG is clean. Blood pressure will normalise with rest." He set the clipboard down. "You’re physically healthy, Mr. Liam. But your body is telling you something your schedule apparently hasn’t."
"Which is?"
"Sleep. Consistently. More than four hours." He handed over a printed summary. "Hydrate properly. Eat at regular intervals." A pause. "And have a conversation with your trainer about progressive overload."
"He won’t listen."
"Then find a new trainer."
Liam folded the summary. "Easier said than done."
The doctor shook his hand and left but not before telling Liam to come for a follow up examination the next week.
The young nurse reappeared at the curtain to help him with discharge paperwork, moving through it with the same quiet efficiency as before. She handed him the final sheet and smiled.
"Take care of yourself," she said.
"Working on it," Liam said, and meant it in more ways than one.