the Sixteenth Surgeon

Chapter 1 "Easy Operation"

"My name is Antonio Diaz, I don't have a nickname yet, but I intend to.

The Year is 2037, in one of the last cities after the Great War. The city is called Amenthes, but nobody says its name, call it superstition. It used to be called Maebashi before the war, but since refugees piled into the remaining land that wasn't saturated with radiation, it grew to rival nearby Tokyo. Anyone in Japan who had a death wish ends up in Amenthes. I just started my life as a Surgeon, but not the kind of surgeon you probably think. In most cities, a surgeon fixes people, puts them back together...in Amenthes, a surgeon takes them apart. I guess nobody liked the word "assassin" used in general public.

I'm fresh and youthful, and everything is a bit overwhelming to me, but that's half the excitement. MedSchool has a new meaning here, it's where you train to kill. The Memory wipe is kind of rough; side effects include fuzziness and loss of clarity of past events. They say it's to reduce stress and make it easier to move on, I think it is to prevent past ties from getting in the way. If you have a grandma back in another city, and you remember her vividly...might make you more hesitant to kill someone, knowing they may have a granny somewhere as well. They never completely wipe the past, I remember fragments and general blur before the war, but the war itself is where the blurriness really starts to intensify. Of course we have history books and data files of the world before. Nobody is really sure who launched first but everyone soon joined in the fun and began pushing buttons and turning keys, putting missiles in the air and vaporizing cities. Most of Japan was spared of the damage and fallout, some of the north and west ends took heavy radiation, and the safe zone was fenced in quickly to give us a safe place to live. In the aftermath of the nuclear destruction, Humanity broke into 6 small sections and isolated each to govern themselves. The system is pretty good, no poverty, plenty of Government assistance so nobody goes hungry or without medical attention. Education is free, food is distributed well, but there is a dark side of things. Old governments didn't work, we knew that much from history, so 20 years ago when the smoke cleared, they tried something new.

Our leaders are not elected, or bought...they are trained and schooled and automatically moved up through the ranks. The corruption is rare because there is a system that keeps politicians and big businesses in check...it's called The Organization. The Organization has the green light to take down anyone who puts their selfish needs above the people, at the cost of the people. When a politician or leader breaks the rules, people like us put a bullet through their head. Sure it's crude and barbaric, but it provides incentive and keeps things running very well. Fat cats think twice about hidden agendas and sponging off the system when the consequences are no longer ignored or treated by impeaching and minimal fines. Their lives are on the table, so their decisions are better thought out and people with evil ideas often refuse positions for fear of living very short lives.

Last week, Senator Takofski was exposed for pulling food funding from the system for his front in research, for some disease he never intended to fund research in. He caught a bad case of lead poisoning; I would know...I gave him the dose. Suddenly the food bank had its funding back and the big gears under the city turned smoothly again. I don't feel sorry for them, maybe because I was selected specifically, or maybe because it makes sense. Needs of the many above the few and all...who knows. Truth is that I always had these dark impulses, this strange urge to lash out, and I was a problem child.

The Organization took me in when I was 16, taught me to focus those urges to something useful. I haven't had a single outburst since I became a Surgeon-in-training. You begin by being recruited to Med School, any of a dozen different ones, taught to vent your anger and violence and how to focus it where it is useful. Then you are taught to use weapons to do it better. Training is 3-5 years or so, depending on progress, before you get a nurses license. Nurses can perform kills or Operations, but only under supervision of a trained and experienced Surgeon. Mostly they just do legwork...drive people to places, clean and fine-tune the guns, sharpen blades and run recon. Surgery takes preparation but it's all worth it when you finally get that diploma and they add the letters for "Doctor" to your card. Your personal mentors decide when you are ready, and I got my card last week. Nothing quite as good as your first solo Operation, yea there are nurses doing your legwork and no surgeon operates without someone assisting, but when you get to make the decisions and pull the trigger when and how you feel it is right...it's a therapeutic rush like no other.