Chapter 3

Leona spent more than ten days straight at the hospital looking after Bastian.

Jonas did not call her either. He simply kept up with his rehabilitation exercises, day after day.

One night, the burns on his face became inflamed, and a low fever kept him from sleeping. He got up to go through some old research in the study.

When he pushed the door open, he found Leona sitting at his desk, going through the research folder he had kept encrypted for ten years.

"What are you doing?"

Leona's fingers stilled, and she turned to look at him. She looked embarrassed for only a moment before her expression settled into something completely unapologetic.

"Good timing. I need this data of yours."

It held ten years of clinical data from his brainstem surgeries, along with the neural signal decoding algorithm he had never published. He had poured countless days and nights into every line of code and every case file.

"This is my life's work." He looked at Leona. "What do you want it for?"

"Bastian started a medical foundation. Your data can help him make a name for himself quickly."

She pulled out the hard drive. "Your hands are ruined, so you'll never be able to finish this research. Bastian can use it to help more people and build his reputation in medical philanthropy."

She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Jonas felt his throat tighten, and the burned skin on his face grew hot. He could hear his own voice shaking.

"Leona, this data hasn't gone through full clinical validation, and the algorithm still has flaws. If you hand it straight to Bastian and it ends up being used on patients, people are going to die."

She frowned at him, her eyes full of impatience. "Jonas, don't be so petty. I know you don't like Bastian, but this is about helping patients. Your research will finally be put to real use. You should be happy."

"I'm not being petty!" He raised his voice. "This is science, not a game! The algorithm's fault tolerance in the third stage is only 72%. That's a 28% chance of a wrong call! If it's used in surgical navigation or a diagnostic system, it's going to kill people!"

Leona stood and looked at him with cold superiority.

"Enough." Her voice turned icy. "You're always like this. You question everything, and you're always standing in the way. Bastian just wants to do some good, and you can't even tolerate that."

She picked up the hard drive and turned to leave.

Jonas grabbed her arm. "Leona, at least let me fix the flaws first—"

"Let go." She shook off his hand. She looked at the sorry state he was in, and something complicated flickered in her eyes, but it vanished just as quickly. "The foundation is holding a press conference next week. I've already given the data to Bastian. This conversation is over."

With that, she left.

Jonas stood there without moving for a long time. The burns on his face hurt more and more, as if they were on fire. When he raised a hand to touch them, his fingertips met rough, scarred skin that was burning hot.

…

Three days later, the news broke.

The headline read, 'Northcott Medical Foundation Unveils Revolutionary Neural Algorithm Poised to Transform Brain Care.'

Bastian stood on the stage at the press conference with a gentle smile. Behind him, a giant screen displayed the core framework of Jonas's algorithm.

A reporter asked, "Mr. Northcott, how were you able to complete such complex research while you were ill?"

Bastian looked into the camera. "All those years I spent lying in a hospital bed, I kept wondering if there was a way to make sure more people suffering like me could get a fast, accurate diagnosis. This algorithm is something I built little by little, out of pain and hope, over countless sleepless nights."

The audience broke into thunderous applause.

Jonas sat on the living room couch, watching it all on TV.

His face was covered in ointment, and gauze was wrapped from his left cheek down to his neck. The wound had become infected, and he was running a low fever that left him shivering.

He thought back to the early morning many years ago when he had completed his first brainstem surgery. When he walked out of the operating room, dawn was just breaking, and the first light of morning was spilling through the window at the end of the hallway.

Leona had been waiting at the door, and she had pulled him into a tight embrace. She had told him, "Jonas, you're like the dawn. You bring light to other people's darkest nights."

Now someone else had stolen his dawn, and the thief had not felt a shred of shame.

On TV, the press conference reached its high point as Bastian announced that the foundation would roll out the algorithm system to its first ten partner hospitals.

Jonas turned off the TV.

The room fell silent.

He leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. The wounds on his face throbbed, and the fever sent waves of chills through his body.

The maid, Edna Dorsey, walked over and asked carefully, "Mr. Kimball, would you like some dinner?"

Jonas shook his head.

Edna hesitated. "Then... should I call Mrs. Kimball and ask her to come home? You've been having a fever for three days, and she hasn't come back once to check on you."

"No need." Jonas opened his eyes, his voice calm. "She's busy."

Edna sighed and walked away.

Jonas called each of the ten partner hospitals one by one. Every single one of them thought he was a scammer and told him to go drop dead.

With no other choice, he called the lab and asked them to issue a statement right away to stop the rollout.

However, Bastian had been the first to present the algorithm publicly, so it would be difficult for Jonas to prove that the work was originally his. Stopping the rollout would take time.

All Jonas could do was pray that the system would be slow to reach patients.