Medical System Rising: Rise Of Joseph Briggs

CHAPTER 4. Franca’s Ultimatum

Rain tapped the windows like an impatient heartbeat. The city’s lights bled through the glass, fractured and cold.

Joseph slipped through the door, soaked and exhausted. His ID badge flickered red, “Access Under Review.” The silence inside was heavier than any reprimand.

On the counter sat untouched dinner, cooling beside a tablet still projecting a Syndicate broadcast. Franca wasn’t in sight.

He dropped his bag, running a hand through his damp hair. “Franca?”

Her voice drifted from the balcony, calm but distant. “You missed dinner again.”

He stepped closer, hesitant. “Emergency case.”

“Always is.” She turned, the faint glow of citylight outlining her face, composed, tired, beautiful in its restraint. “Did they suspend you?”

“Not yet.”

She gave a small laugh, brittle, unamused. “Then they will. They’re erasing your records already. The Syndicate doesn’t forget disobedience.”

He met her eyes. “I didn’t disobey. I healed.”

Franca looked at him for a long moment, then set down her tablet. “My father called. He wants to meet you tomorrow.”

Joseph stiffened. “Why?”

“Because he thinks he can save you.” Her tone softened, almost pleading. “Please, just hear him out.”

The rain intensified outside, drumming against the glass. The world itself seemed to hold its breath.

He nodded slowly. “Fine. Tomorrow.”

…

Glass and marble, silence and wealth. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic and power.

Dr. Victor Harrington, Franca’s father, sat behind a desk large enough to serve as a judge’s bench. The skyline shimmered behind him, New York glowing like a living network of veins.

He rose when Joseph entered. “Mr. Briggs. Or should I say Doctor, before the Syndicate revokes it?”

Joseph inclined his head politely. “You know why I’m here, sir.”

“Yes.” Victor gestured toward the seat opposite. “To save you from yourself.”

Franca stood at his side, hands clasped. Her eyes begged Joseph to sit. 

Victor poured wine, his movements precise. “You’re talented. Brilliant, even. But brilliance without restraint is a flame in a library, it burns knowledge instead of adding to it.”

Joseph met his gaze. “You mean it threatens control.”

Victor smiled, calm and cutting. “Control preserves civilization. You’ve seen what happens when people worship miracles. Faith turns into chaos.”

He slid a folder across the table. Inside: an offer letter bearing the Harrington Medical Technologies seal. 

“A director position at our research lab. Six figures, full immunity under corporate law. You could pursue your studies freely, as long as you abandon that… mystical acupuncture nonsense.”

Joseph closed the folder. “Patients aren’t data points.”

Victor’s smile faded. “And martyrs aren’t healers.”

Franca’s hand trembled slightly on the table. “Please, Joseph. Take it. You’d be safe.”

He looked between them, her love, her fear, her father’s cold certainty.

“Safety,” he said quietly, “is just another word for obedience.”

Victor’s tone hardened. “Then you’ll lose more than your license.”

Joseph rose. “Maybe what I lose doesn’t matter if I save what you’ve all forgotten.”

Franca’s voice broke the silence as he turned to leave. “You can’t heal a world that doesn’t want saving.”

He paused at the door. “Then I’ll heal it anyway.”

…

The rain hadn’t stopped. Franca was waiting, hair still pinned from dinner, eyes red but steady. 

The lights were dim, just enough to see the distance between them. “You walked out on my father,” she said quietly.

“I walked out on a transaction.”

“You could’ve at least pretended to listen.”

“I did. I listened to him sell your soul in exchange for mine.”

Her voice sharpened. “This isn’t about pride. It’s about survival!”

“No,” he said, eyes bright with restrained fury. “It’s about surrender.”

The air pulsed between them, love fighting itself to stay alive. “You think the Syndicate cares about your ideals?” Franca’s voice cracked. “They’ll destroy you. And when they do, no one will remember your name.”

“Then I’ll heal until they have to.”

“You can’t fight them!”

He stepped forward, close enough for her perfume to mix with the scent of rain. “If compassion is rebellion, then I’ll rebel every day.”

Her eyes filled, trembling. “You sound just like my father before they broke him.”

Silence stretched. His anger melted into regret. “Franca…” he whispered.

She turned away, voice barely audible. “I can’t watch you become him.”

When she walked toward the bedroom, the sound of her heels on the floor felt like finality. On the counter, her wedding ring gleamed under the pale light.

Sleep came like drowning. Joseph stood in an endless desert of glass, beneath his feet, golden veins pulsed across the ground, connecting stars to the earth.

A whisper surrounded him, neither voice nor thought: “To heal one life is to disturb a thousand pulses.”

He saw Franca in the distance, reaching for him. When he touched her, she dissolved into golden dust, scattering into the wind.

He fell to his knees, screaming into silence. The ground split open beneath him. From the depths rose a vast rune, the same mark from his wrist, expanding until it covered the horizon.

Lightning streaked across the sky, forming a halo around the sigil. The whisper deepened, almost tender: “Every choice is a diagnosis. Every loss a cure.”

…

Joseph woke gasping, the sheets twisted, his wrist burning. The golden mark glowed faintly, not as a line, but as a living pattern spreading under the skin like veins of fire.

Franca stood by the kitchen counter, already dressed for work. Her expression was empty, the look of someone who had already decided.

She spoke without turning. “My father’s willing to clear your name if you sign with him by the end of the week.”

He sat up slowly. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll be erased.”

He smiled faintly, pain flickering in his eyes. “Then I guess I’m already gone.”

She set her ring down, again, deliberate this time, beside a cooling cup of tea. “Then I’ll choose my path.”

The door closed softly behind her.Joseph sat in the stillness, staring at the golden veins pulsing under his skin. The storm outside began to rise again, faint thunder echoing like a heartbeat.

Rain poured in silver sheets. The skyline shimmered like a thousand veins of light. Joseph stood at the edge, soaked and unflinching, his white coat clinging to his frame.

Below, sirens cried, lights flickered, life continued as if nothing had shattered. He whispered to the storm, voice barely audible: “If compassion is forbidden, then I’ll become the heretic they fear.”

Lightning split the sky. His wrist flared gold. For the first time, the glow wasn’t pain, it was resolve.

He raised his hand to the sky, rain cascading off his sleeve, and whispered to the pulse that burned within him: “Show me how to heal a world that forgot how to feel.”

The clouds responded with thunder, low, distant, alive, and as the lightning carved its veins across the heavens.

Joseph Briggs, the golden apprentice, the heretic healer, swore his vow not to any master, or law, or love…but to the pulse that refused to stop beating.