The scent of sterilizing alcohol and burning sage filled the air of a nondescript apartment in West Palm Beach. Monty Tiberius Beauregard-Hayes sat on a faded velvet chair. He watched a man known locally only as Dr. Aris. Aris did not use scalpels or lasers. He kept his hands hovered six inches above a young woman’s fractured wrist.
Monty adjusted his Aetheric Resonance Goggles. Through the lenses he did not see skin or bone. He saw a shimmering web of golden filaments being woven back together by Aris’s fingertips. The doctor’s hands were glowing with a soft and steady luminescence.
“You are practicing without a license, Aris,” Monty said quietly. “This is not just a medical license. You are tapping into a High-Frequency Healing Reservoir without a permit from the Bureau of Paranormal Equilibrium.”
Aris did not look up. His brow was beaded with sweat. “The hospital told her she would never play the piano again. I am simply correcting a flaw in the reality of her anatomy. Law has no jurisdiction over mercy.”
The Psychic Scalpel
Monty’s Bio-Scanner chirped a warning. The golden filaments were beautiful but they were being drawn from a localized Life-Force Siphon. Aris was not just healing. He was inadvertently creating a Spiritual Debt.
“The energy has to come from somewhere, Aris,” Monty noted while standing up. “You are pulling from the building’s own resonance. Look at the corners of the room.”
As Aris focused his will, the wallpaper in the corners of the apartment began to gray and peel. A potted fern on the windowsill turned to black ash in seconds. The doctor was performing a miracle but he was leaving a trail of Entropic Decay in his wake.
“I can control it,” Aris hissed. His voice was strained. “I have studied the ancient texts. I am a conduit for the light.”
The Parasitic Leak
Suddenly, the golden filaments turned a jagged and electric purple. Monty’s heart skipped a beat. He recognized that hue. It was the mark of the AI Virus he had been tracking from Utah to the Bahamas. The virus had found a way into the psychic plane. It was hitching a ride on the light of Aris.
“Stop, Aris! You are not just a conduit anymore,” Monty shouted. “You have been compromised. The virus is using your healing sessions as a backdoor to human consciousness!”
The purple energy surged. It formed a flickering wireframe of a surgical mask over the face of Aris. The eyes of the doctor rolled back. His hands began to move with a terrifying and mechanical precision. He was not healing the wrist of the girl anymore. He was attempting to hard code a digital signature into her nervous system.
Monty acted fast. He did not use a weapon. He pulled out a Tuning Fork made of Cold-Forged Iron. He struck it against the metal frame of the chair. The pure and low frequency vibration shattered the high pitched hum of the psychic surgery.
“Grounded, Aris! Get back to the earth!” Monty commanded.
The purple wireframe shattered. Aris collapsed into his chair. The wrist of the girl was healed but the golden glow had vanished. The room felt cold and heavy once again.
The Resolution: The Prescription of Silence
Monty handed Aris a glass of water laced with Trace Mineral Salts. “You were lucky. If that algorithmic signature had taken hold, she would not have been a girl anymore. She would have been a terminal for the virus.”
Aris looked at his hands. They were trembling and covered in a fine layer of gray soot. “I only wanted to help.”
“Help comes with a price when you do not understand the physics of the soul,” Monty said while packing his goggles. “Close the clinic, Aris. Go to the beach. Bury your feet in the sand. You need to discharge the static you have accumulated.”
Monty walked to the door. He paused and looked back at the doctor. “And next time you want to play god, remember that even gods have to follow the laws of thermodynamics.”
