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After leaving the Continental Hotel, Henry got into his old Cadillac.
He didn't drive off immediately. Instead, he remained seated in the car, secretly monitoring the hotel's reactions with his Kryptonian super-hearing.
He couldn't help it. The little schemes of that young lady in Los Angeles had made him overly cautious.
Sure enough, after listening in, he discovered that the trouble surrounding him had once again been stirred up by that same young lady.
Fortunately, the people in New York seemed far more reasonable. At the very least, their methods sounded much less crude than those used in Los Angeles.
After overhearing Winston Scott and Charon's conversation, Henry found himself genuinely surprised.
He had to admit that their attitude suited his tastes quite well.
The kind of people he hated most were those who acted overly familiar despite barely knowing you, forcing favors onto others and expecting gratitude in return. As if a tiny act of kindness entitled them to some enormous debt of obligation.
If a relationship were truly based on mutual benefit, Henry wouldn't reject cooperation outright. His needs were few, but not nonexistent.
Still, there was no need to rush into building connections.
In fact, considering the difficulties John Wick might face in the future, if Henry wanted John to seek his help one day, perhaps maintaining his status as a Continental service provider would give him a better opportunity.
But laying out a broad network simply to befriend a single person would cost him time—and might require helping people he personally despised.
That was why Henry had chosen to make a clean break from his old life as the Tinkerer.
After all, his original purpose had been to sharpen his medical skills and judgment.
It had never been about compassion for all mankind or a noble mission to save the world.
Perhaps he still lacked enough experience. Most of the cases he had encountered involved gunshot wounds and physical trauma.
But for Henry, he had already achieved the crucial breakthrough from zero to one.
If he encountered difficult illnesses in the future, he was ninety percent... no, fifty percent confident that he could cure them.
The sudden correction came because Henry thought of Ms. Katharine Hepburn's condition.
If her occasional confusion and absent-minded behavior weren't merely the quirks of old age but were instead caused by an actual illness, then it would be what ordinary people called dementia.
Dementia was a broad umbrella term.
Its symptoms, progression, and underlying causes varied widely.
Generally speaking, it involved cognitive decline and loss of function caused by the aging of the brain—a field where surgery could do little.
In other words, among the four major branches of medicine—internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, and pediatrics—Henry's expertise was only truly beginning in surgery.
His knowledge of internal medicine amounted to little more than what he had read in textbooks.
He possessed a superhuman brain, yet because of his lack of experience and confidence, he had missed the golden opportunity to treat Ms. Hepburn.
Though her life had ended on a fulfilling note, claiming he felt no regret whatsoever would be a lie.
Now another Ms. Hepburn had entered his life.
Was he really going to experience the same regret all over again?
Extending lifespan and restoring youth were concepts too shocking to contemplate.
Even if Henry could achieve such things, he had no desire to do so.
Medical technology of that nature would inevitably fall under the control of a privileged few. It would never become accessible to the majority of humanity.
Even if he used it only on those close to him, wouldn't that still be a form of arrogance toward life itself?
How would he differ from the powerful elites he so often criticized—the very people most likely to monopolize longevity technologies?
But curing diseases and allowing people to live healthy, dignified lives until the end—that was something he found far less objectionable.
Or perhaps it was simply that he had grown tired of being mistaken for other people and called by other names.
Once or twice could be amusing.
But after spending so much time around Katharine Hepburn, hearing her mistake him for people who were long gone and recount regrets from decades past, all Henry felt was profound sadness.
Perhaps every story she told would be considered sensational gossip to outsiders.
But after hearing enough of them, even the juiciest secrets lost their appeal.
What remained was only sorrow and sympathy for an elderly woman whose mind was slowly slipping away.
At present, dementia had no cure.
However, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors could help control mild to moderate cases and slow further deterioration.
Could he pursue treatment along that line of research?
Or should he seek an entirely different approach?
Having settled on a direction, Henry turned the key in the ignition.
The engine started smoothly and quietly.
There was almost no vibration inside the cabin.
Though the Cadillac still looked unchanged from the outside, Henry had extensively modified its internals.
As he drove back toward Turtle Bay, he reviewed everything he had learned from medical texts, including Kree and Skrull technologies.
Previously, when studying those alien technologies, he had focused primarily on their technological creations.
But among the knowledge stored by the Kree scientist Mar-Vell were also various medical techniques.
The Skrull encyclopedia contained entire categories devoted to medicine.
The problem with all such alien knowledge was always the same:
What exactly were the substances and materials mentioned in those technical terms?
Could equivalent substances be found on Earth?
Or at least synthesized?
Or replaced with something functionally similar?
Then there were the blood samples from three Eternal variants, still sealed away in his underwater laboratory, untouched since their collection.
It seemed that line of research would also need to begin.
Incidentally, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors were regulated substances in the United States.
One major branch of these compounds was classified as chemical weapons—organophosphorus neurotoxins more lethal than VX nerve gas.
In any case, by the time he drove home, Henry had already devised five or six possible treatment approaches, along with two medical strategies that incorporated alien technology.
Jumping straight to human trials was obviously impossible.
Nor could he use Katharine Hepburn as a test subject to determine which treatment worked best.
So...
The research would have to begin with lab mice.
Another question soon arose:
Should he work alone, or collaborate with others?
Any medication intended for legal sale required approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
That meant proving safety, efficacy, manufacturing compliance, and providing comprehensive documentation and clinical trial data.
The entire process typically took years.
Sometimes even decades.
Developing a new drug was painfully slow, but the system existed to ensure reliability and safety.
Unfortunately, the elderly lady by his side probably didn't have that kind of time.
And if he partnered with others, his hands would be tied.
The only real advantage would come later, when successful research reached the clinical trial phase and could finally be tested on actual human subjects.
After weighing the pros and cons, Henry decided to work alone.
If he eventually produced meaningful results and genuinely wanted to benefit the wider public, he could simply license the patent to a pharmaceutical company.
Those companies had plenty of methods for accelerating the approval process.
Until then, there was no reason to let conventional limitations slow his research.
As long as he avoided human experimentation, there were no ethical issues to consider.
The only question was whether he had enough money to support the work.
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