Morning came without mercy.
The sky outside Kirion's apartment was a toxic blend of orange and gray, the sun barely breaking through the haze of industrial smoke. Neralis never truly woke or slept—it just pulsed, endless and mechanical. But Kirion sat motionless on the floor, eyes bloodshot, body stiff from a sleepless night.
The word father kept looping through his head like a glitch.
He hadn't even processed the idea of starting a family, let alone raising a child alone. Jena had always been enigmatic, unpredictable. But he hadn't expected her to vanish like data wiped clean. No call back. No location trace. Nothing. Just that one final message, and then digital silence.
Kirion stood, cracked his neck, and opened the grimy cupboard. No food. Just stimulants, protein packs, and a half-dead plant that somehow clung to life on the windowsill. His own little metaphor.
He pulled on his worn jacket and slung his med-pack over his shoulder. He couldn't afford a breakdown—not now. People needed him. He had clients who couldn't go to hospitals without being arrested. He had contacts waiting for meds that didn't officially exist. And now, he had a daughter on the way.
He stepped into the street, letting the noise of the city drown his thoughts. A girl hawked neuro-patches near the metro steps. A boy chased a rat with a boot knife. Holograms shimmered from tall buildings, advertising high-speed surgery and weaponized beauty treatments. And above them all, the symbol of the regime: the double-headed drone, its red lenses scanning crowds for resistance signs or "unauthorized sentiment."
Kirion sneered at it.
At the clinic, an older man waited with a bullet graze and a stack of crypto-credits. Kirion patched him up with steady hands, but his mind drifted. Every bandage, every stitch, felt heavier. What would he do when his daughter was sick or hungry? What if she needed more than he could give?
By noon, he had treated five more—none legally. Every one of them was someone society had decided didn't matter. And that was the problem.
At his workstation, Kirion activated a dusty AI assistant he hadn't used in months. Its voice crackled to life.
"Welcome back, Kirion. Scanning updates. Would you like to access—"
"Not now," he interrupted. "Open a new record. Title: 'Contingency Plan Alpha.'"
"Confirmed. Ready for input."
He took a breath and began outlining things he had avoided for too long: how to create a safe environment for a child, how to forge IDs, stockpile supplies, set up remote shelters, off-grid networks. He didn't know where or how he would raise her, but he knew one thing—
He would raise her. She wouldn't be abandoned like he was. She wouldn't beg the system for scraps. And she sure as hell wouldn't grow up thinking her father was just another forgotten name in the slums.
He paused, then added one more line to the plan:
"Teach her how to survive. Then teach her how to fight."
Reality had hit. Hard.
But Kirion wasn't broken.
Not yet.