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The alarm that sounded when Henry collapsed was actually part of the care system he had designed for Katherine Hepburn.
Whenever he wasn't nearby, if anything happened to the old woman, the alarm would alert the neighbors so they could provide immediate assistance.
At the same time, his alarm system was connected to the police and ambulance emergency networks through computers and telephone lines, allowing those two legitimate emergency services to be notified as quickly as possible.
Even if it turned out to be a false alarm, the neighbors would probably be understanding. After all, it concerned a woman who was nearly a hundred years old.
Besides, Katherine Hepburn wasn't exactly unpopular, and Henry had always made a point of maintaining good relations with the people around him. Sometimes, even if the interactions between neighbors were merely superficial, that little bit of goodwill might be enough to make a difference when it mattered.
More importantly, if something like this happened and the neighbors refused to help, it could potentially affect property values!
People always said that no one was willing to fall out with money. And the old-money residents of a neighborhood like this hadn't gotten rich because money simply fell from the sky into their laps.
So, with Henry having given the neighbors advance notice, they weren't likely to refuse even the most basic act of looking out for one another.
As for the police and ambulance services, those were even simpler. Money could take care of such matters. Making a wasted trip was better than failing to show up when needed. As long as Henry didn't set off false alarms so frequently that he became like the shepherd boy who cried wolf every day, there wouldn't be a problem.
Who could have imagined that the first time this system came in handy, it wouldn't be because Katherine Hepburn had collapsed, but because the young Henry Brown had?
It was the same alarm, the same immediate notification to the emergency police system, and the same procedure for summoning the police and an ambulance.
All because Henry had installed an identical sensor in the pink cartoon watch on his wrist.
Originally, he had only intended to use it to test the system. Once the system officially went online, he had been too lazy to remove it—and eventually forgot about it altogether. Today, it had happened to prove enormously useful in a rather unconventional way.
Without the alarm device's deafening volume and the neighbors' concern, those military personnel conducting a covert operation against him might not have been frightened away.
As a matter of fact, Henry really did need help now. Resisting the Master of Illusion's mutant abilities in an unfamiliar mental battlefield had proven even more difficult than he had imagined.
And his super brain had played the role of an accomplice in making things worse. Even so, it had been indispensable in helping him break free in the end.
One could say that a considerable portion of Henry's current predicament was self-inflicted damage caused by the Kryptonian's own abilities, rather than something entirely orchestrated by the Master of Illusion.
Judging by the speed of the American military's withdrawal, they certainly deserved to be called well trained. At least from the moment they appeared to the moment they left, they had barely allowed anyone to notice their presence, let alone confirm their identities.
The police, meanwhile, followed their usual routine, arriving fashionably late—after the incident had already been resolved.
The ambulance, by contrast, arrived much faster. The paramedic who came was a familiar face Henry had encountered several times before: Cathy Webb.
Carrying a first-aid bag, Cathy Webb hurried to the floor where Katherine Hepburn lived and quickly examined Henry, who was lying collapsed outside the door.
She checked for external injuries, measured his pulse, and examined the whites of his eyes. Her hands never stopped moving as she asked, "What happened? Does he have any relevant medical history?"
With Skye supporting her, Katherine Hepburn stood anxiously near the entrance, watching the group gathered around Henry.
"Henry is very healthy. I've never seen him get sick before. This is the first time."
As the two women spoke, the Kryptonian continued convulsing on the floor, foam spilling from his mouth.
Seeing this, Cathy Webb immediately took out an injection kit from her medical bag.
"He appears to be having a seizure. I'm going to administer an intramuscular injection of midazolam."
The old woman hesitated, wanting to say something, but ultimately allowed the young paramedic to proceed.
Cathy Webb rolled up Henry's sleeve and prepared to insert the needle.
However, it was as though she were trying to pierce cowhide. The needle simply wouldn't go in.
The determined paramedic gripped the entire syringe and gave it a forceful jab!
The result was entirely predictable: the needle bent. On closer inspection, the tip had even curled over.
Only then did Katherine Hepburn say helplessly, "Well, I suppose this boy still can't behave himself, even when he's unconscious."
"He's...?" Cathy Webb asked, completely dumbfounded.
"He's one of those mutants."
"Which kind? Oh, right. One of those."
Giving up on searching her first-aid bag for anything that might work, Cathy Webb turned and called to her partner.
"Ben, go get the stretcher. We'll take him to the hospital."
The other paramedic immediately returned to the ground floor, retrieved a folding stretcher from the ambulance, and brought it back upstairs.
With the help of the police officers who had arrived to provide assistance, the group eventually carried Henry downstairs on the stretcher and loaded him into the ambulance.
Katherine Hepburn wasn't exactly in a position to climb stairs quickly, so she arrived on the ground floor a little later with Skye supporting her. She then called a taxi to take them to the hospital.
Kitty, of course, had to stay home. If that tabby cat went to the hospital, it would probably give half the people there a heart attack.
By the time the old woman and the young woman arrived at the hospital, a group of doctors were already standing around Henry, completely at a loss.
The patient they had received wasn't an ordinary person. He was the sort of man who could afford a lawyer and sue a hospital into complete chaos, so the doctors and nurses didn't dare administer treatment recklessly.
Moreover, Henry had no relatives. The doctors only seemed to find someone to rely on when Katherine Hepburn, his employer, finally arrived. They immediately turned to the elderly woman for guidance.
"So, what do you recommend?" the old woman asked the emergency department director.
The doctor spoke seriously.
"Mrs. Hepburn, although we have experience treating mutants, this particular situation is a first for us as well. Given Mr. Brown's condition, we can propose several options."
"The first would be to apply to the police for a mutant-suppression device. Hopefully, it would reduce the expression of Mr. Brown's mutant abilities enough for us to carry out medical treatment safely."
Katherine Hepburn interrupted him.
"Would that guarantee that you could treat him?"
Her question was not without reason.
The mutant-suppression collars currently in use could, at best, suppress a mutant's abilities. They couldn't reduce those abilities to zero.
Furthermore, the actual purpose of these collars was to use electric shocks—or even explosives—to punish the wearer or send them to the afterlife when the device detected the activation of mutant powers.
They belonged in the same category as handcuffs, shackles, and other instruments of restraint, and were highly controversial even within that category.
The hospital didn't keep any on hand. They would have to apply to the police to obtain one.
But what worried Katherine Hepburn even more was whether such a device would work on Henry at all.
"What is the other treatment option?"
"Mr. Brown has no obvious external injuries, and his seizure symptoms have improved since he arrived. So, we could administer oral medication through a nasogastric tube. That would eliminate the need to suppress his mutant abilities."
"Would that work?"
"Actually, given Mr. Brown's condition, all we can really do is place him in a hospital bed, give him some glucose and other intravenous fluids to replenish his nutrients, and wait for him to regain consciousness naturally. And there's something else..."
The doctor took a completely black X-ray film from a nurse and held it out.
"Mr. Brown's abilities are highly unusual. We can't even use our equipment to see clearly what's happening inside his body. Conservative treatment is our only option."
"Then that's what we'll do."
Katherine Hepburn made the final decision.
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