The surgical lights were too bright.
Ken lay on the narrow table in a private clinic overseas, the thin hospital gown already pulled aside and folded neatly at his hips. The air smelled of antiseptic, cold metal, and something faintly chemical that clung to the back of the throat. Far from home. Far from every person who had seen his humiliation. The room was quiet except for the soft beep of a monitor and the occasional rustle of paper as Dr. Wan reviewed a tablet. Outside the sealed windows the city continued without him. Inside, time had narrowed to this single, irreversible hour.
The table was harder than it looked. The thin pad did nothing to soften the pressure against his shoulder blades. A blood-pressure cuff sat loosely around his left arm, waiting. Somewhere behind him a machin
