Kirion's hands had once been celebrated—praised by professors for their precision, envied by classmates who came from wealth and connections. Back then, in the marble halls of Central Medica, he was known as the "ghost hand"—fast, unshaking, clinical. It was a title that came with admiration… until someone pulled his records.
He had watched it unfold in real time: the shift in glances, the withdrawal of invites, the absence of internship offers.
It didn't matter that he had graduated top of his class.
What mattered was his origin code.
Born in the lower sectors. No verified lineage. No elite ties. Raised by a dying aunt who'd stitched their lives together with sweat and unpaid electricity bills.
His loyalty score had always hovered dangerously low—not because he was a criminal, but because he asked questions. Dangerous ones. Like why medicine was a privilege, not a right. Or why the wealthiest families had private gene clinics while entire blocks died of airborne viruses.
He applied for over fifty licensed positions after graduation. Silence followed each one. Then came the last: a faceless rejection from the National Surgical Authority.
> "Loyalty standing insufficient. Application denied. Future attempts discouraged."
A system that judged potential by submission, not skill.
He didn't break that day—but he changed.
He sold his formal scrubs and bought used field gear. He smuggled his diagnostic equipment out of the university labs under false repair orders. And with the help of a sympathetic lab tech, he duplicated key training modules onto black drives.
Then he disappeared.
He resurfaced in the underground, where he built a name among the forgotten. The wounded. The desperate.
Kirion's clinic was never in the same place twice. One week it was behind a fake water filtration warehouse. Another, beneath a decommissioned metro tunnel. Patients found him by word of mouth, by symbols etched into corners, by whispers passed between the dying.
He didn't take pride in what he had to do to survive. But he took pride in who he did it for.
He healed people the state had deemed unworthy. He saved those branded "unviable."
And now, he'd be doing it for someone else.
That night, he looked over his med-synth units, ran checks on the mobile scanner, and sterilized his blades. The light flickered above him, powered by a rigged battery that had been banned for safety violations.
He didn't care.
He was building his own system now—one cut, one code, one act of defiance at a time.
His daughter would never beg this world for a future.
He would carve it open and give it to her himself.