The day began like any other: rationing out powdered formula, checking the solar cells on the roof, stitching up a local mechanic's burnt hand. Then the message came—encrypted, pulsing red on his backup terminal.
A name he hadn't seen in years: Dr. Emrick Solas.
One of Kirion's former mentors. A revolutionary mind in neural medicine. Disappeared after publicly condemning the government's citizen-classification experiments.
The message was brief.
> "They're testing neural compliance implants on street kids. Sector 12. I need your help."
Kirion's blood chilled.
Neural compliance.
It was once theory—controlling behavior with targeted stimulation, inducing obedience without visible force. And now, it was real.
He had a choice.
Stay with his daughter, safe.
Or walk into a trap for children no one else would save.
He left her with Mara, a trusted mechanic who had once soldered a broken drone while being shot at. Gave her a burner chip, five sets of instructions, and a kiss on the forehead.
"Be good," he whispered. "Daddy'll be back before dark."
He knew he was lying.
Sector 12 was a hollowed-out nightmare. Half the homes were razed; the rest lived in fear of becoming next.
He found Dr. Solas in the basement of an old freight station, hunched over a terminal with a look that mixed genius and desperation.
"We have twelve children so far," Solas said, not looking up. "Two have seizures. One can't speak anymore. The others... follow every order like machines."
Kirion scanned the files, stomach churning.
The implants weren't just crude—they were rushed. But functional enough to turn orphans into obedient workers, or worse... soldiers.
"This isn't research," Kirion said. "It's mass behavioral override."
"It's state-sponsored trauma."
They worked for hours—carefully removing the devices from three children using makeshift tools, outdated imaging tech, and raw intuition. They saved two. Lost one.
Solas broke.
Kirion didn't.
He couldn't afford to.
But just as they prepped for extraction, the black-armored strike team arrived.
Fast. Quiet. No sirens.
Kirion grabbed a scalpel in one hand and a discarded neural jammer in the other. Solas went to protect the data.
It wasn't enough.
They were outnumbered.
Kirion fought like a man on fire. Not to win—but to buy seconds.
He took a rifle butt to the shoulder. A stun round to the leg. But he got the kids out—shoved them into a maintenance tunnel, sealed the hatch, and passed the drive to a courier with one word:
"Run."
When he woke, he was zip-tied, bleeding, and half-conscious on a concrete floor.
But they didn't take him to a prison.
They left him in the street.
A message.
A warning.
A declaration: Stay out of our operations—or next time, we don't miss.
Kirion limped home three days later.
Bruised. Hunted. Changed.
His daughter ran to him, arms outstretched.
He dropped to his knees and held her close.
"I thought I could stay on the edge," he whispered. "Help in the shadows. Protect without provoking."
He looked out the window at a city eating itself alive.
"But there is no edge anymore. Just the line you choose to cross."
That night, he buried the last of his caution.
And began drawing a map of resistance.
Not to join someone else's war.
But to lead his own.