Medical System Rising: Rise Of Joseph Briggs

CHAPTER 5. The Forbidden Rune

Basement Level 7, New York General Hospital

The elevator shuddered to a stop with a metallic sigh. Joseph stepped out into darkness.

Only one flickering bulb lit the corridor, revealing peeling paint and a sign half-buried in dust: “ARCHIVES / RESTRICTED ACCESS.”

He exhaled slowly. “So this is where they buried the truth.”

A voice echoed behind him. “You shouldn’t be here.”

Joseph spun. Vera Lin stood at the elevator doors, face pale. “They sealed this floor years ago. It’s off-record even for me.”

He met her gaze. “Clara’s file was moved down here. You told me the Syndicate erased it.”

Vera hesitated. “Then you already know what that means.”

“It means they’re hiding something.”

“And if you find it?”

Joseph’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Then maybe I’ll finally know what’s inside me.”

Their footsteps echoed through the dust-choked silence. Every door bore a golden seal burned into the metal, the serpent of the Syndicate.

Joseph ran his fingers across one; the rune on his wrist pulsed in answer, faint light seeping from his skin. Vera froze. “It’s reacting.”

He nodded. “It’s calling.”

“Joseph, stop. If those locks detect divine resonance.”

But the seal split open with a hiss, releasing a rush of cold air and the scent of ozone. A hidden chamber lay beyond.

Rows of ancient data pods glimmered in the dark, humming like heartbeats. At the center stood a single cylindrical tank filled with pale blue fluid, and inside it, suspended like a relic, a stone tablet etched in gold.

The same rune as Joseph’s wrist pulsed across its surface. He stepped forward. “That’s it. The pattern I saw when I healed Clara.”

Vera whispered, terrified, “That’s the Heavenly System Core. The Syndicate claimed it was destroyed centuries ago.”

He pressed his hand against the glass. The rune beneath his skin flared. Light erupted, searing through the chamber. “Joseph!” Vera cried, shielding her face.

The glass shattered outward without a sound. Fluid cascaded across the floor like liquid light. The tablet floated free, glowing, alive.

A voice filled the air, layered and resonant, neither male nor female. “Identified, Bearer of the Golden Pulse.”

Joseph staggered back. “What,  what are you?”

“I am the Heavenly Medical System. The Divine Archive of Life and Decay.”

Vera’s mouth fell open. “It’s… talking?”

The voice continued, echoing in Joseph’s bones. “Healer detected. Authorization incomplete. Initiate synchronization.”

Golden tendrils of light extended from the tablet, coiling around Joseph’s arm. He gasped. “It’s inside my blood!”

Vera reached for him. “Joseph, stop! It’s binding to your nerves.”

“Synchronization begun. Warning: human vessel unstable.”

Pain lanced through him. He fell to one knee, light pouring from his veins. Images flashed behind his eyes, endless operating rooms, patients healed by touch, cities destroyed by divine fire.

He screamed, “Make it stop!”

“To heal is to accept all pain.”

The light dimmed. Joseph collapsed to the floor, trembling. The tablet had vanished. Only the rune on his wrist remained, brighter, sharper, alive. Vera knelt beside him. “Joseph, look at me. Are you?”

He grabbed her wrist, eyes glowing gold. “I can see your pulse.”

“What?”

He stared at her chest, no stethoscope, no monitor, yet he saw the rhythmic flow of her heart, every vein illuminated. “Every cell. Every frequency.”

He let go, breath shaking. “It’s showing me life itself.”

Vera whispered, “That’s impossible.”

Joseph stood slowly. “No. It’s begun.”

High above, in a dim Syndicate monitoring suite, Inspector Dane Korr watched the live feed from Basement 7.

The screen flickered as Joseph’s glow overloaded the sensors. “Synchronization detected,” a technician muttered. “Unauthorized Heavenly System awakening.”

Korr smiled thinly. “So the legend breathes again.”

He tapped his communicator. “Alert the Council. We’ve found our Catalyst.”

The storm had broken. Lightning webbed the sky in veins of silver. Joseph stood at the edge of the roof again, coat plastered to his skin.

Vera joined him, voice small. “The System’s inside you now. You can’t hide that.”

He didn’t answer, staring at the skyline. In his vision, the city shimmered in gold, millions of pulsing threads connecting people, hearts, machines. Vera whispered, “What do you see?”

“Everything.” His voice trembled with awe and fear. “Every sickness, every dying light. The city’s heartbeat is failing.”

“And you think you can fix it?”

He turned to her, eyes glowing faintly. “I have to.”

Vera stepped closer. “Joseph, if the Syndicate learns what you’ve become.”

He interrupted, quiet but unyielding. “Then they’ll have to kill me before they cage me.”

Thunder rumbled across the skyline. Vera’s eyes filled. “You’re becoming something they can’t understand.”

He looked at his wrist, where the rune burned like a brand. “Maybe I don’t understand it either.”

For a moment, lightning illuminated them both, two silhouettes against a golden storm. 

Joseph whispered, “But I feel it now. Every breath, every wound, every dying prayer. The world’s asking to be healed… and I can finally hear it.”

Vera whispered, almost pleading, “And what if healing it destroys you?”

He smiled faintly. “Then I’ll die listening to its pulse.”

Twelve figures robed in white gathered around a holographic projection of Joseph’s glowing form. Maren Holt’s voice was calm. “He has bonded with the Core. The System chose him.”

Korr lit another cigarette. “Then we un-choose him. Before he rewrites the Code.”

Maren’s gaze turned sharp. “Kill him, and the System may vanish again for centuries.”

“Or worse,” another councilor murmured, “it might remember who killed its bearer.”

Silence followed. Maren finally said, “Send the Hunters. We’ll bring him back alive, if possible.”

The storm had passed. The city below glistened, reborn in light. Joseph sat alone at the window, bandaged wrist glowing softly beneath the gauze. 

He traced the faint line where the rune ended, whispering, “What are you turning me into?”

No answer. Only the faint echo of the System’s voice inside his mind: “Healer Briggs. Mission Protocol One: Stabilize the World Pulse.”

He looked out at the waking city, traffic lights pulsing like arteries, smoke curling like breath.

A slow smile, weary and resolute, crossed his face. “Then let’s begin.”

The rune flared once, and somewhere deep beneath the hospital, the shattered tablet glowed again, reforming itself, whispering in ancient code.

The world’s pulse had chosen its doctor, and the countdown to its cure, or collapse, had begun.