Medtech

"I've been fixing what's broken since I was young. The first time was when the front of our Kombi smacked into a bird on the way through the Los Angeles ruins. We were traveling alone, and my old man, knowing I was sensitive to that sort of thing, stopped the rollers and let me out to collect the carcass. Turned out it was a live red-tail hawk. I splinted its busted wing and nursed it back to health. Mom saw what I did and apprenticed me to our Pack's healer. Now I'm the healer. No, I don't have initials after my name, but I can still fix that mangled arm of yours. Or you can lose it. Your choice."

You’re an artist, and the human body is your canvas. You’ve got the best tools the Time of the Red can offer, and you know how to use them. If you’re lucky, you got to attend one of the real med schools scattered around the wreck of the Old United States. And after the War, military hospitals were everywhere and the few doctors on the war front needed helping hands to hold down screaming patients and splice cyberware back together. So, maybe you learned that way.

And there’s always an old ripperdoc or two out there who hearken back to that old science fiction story called The Bladerunner—not that old flatscreen vid, but the really old sci-fi book about renegade doctors who performed illegal street Surgery in one of the first dystopian novels. Maybe one of those guys trained you. Maybe that’s where you are right now, patching up the wounded, mending up the sick, and keeping the locals alive. For love, commitment, or maybe a just a fat payday on the side.

If you’re really lucky, you’ve scored a berth in the local Trauma Team franchise. Trauma Teams are groups of licensed paramedicals who patrol the city looking for patients. You operate from an AV-4 Urban Assault Vehicle, redesigned into an ambulance configuration, and armed with a belly-mounted minigun. It’s the best of the best—Trauma Team charges some heavy subscription fees to save its clients, and that translates into new medical toys, faster AV ambulances, and hefty salaries for the best surgeons around. It doesn’t matter how you got here. What matters is that you’re here, on The Street, doing the job. And you’d be doing it no matter what the reason. It’s what marks you as a Medtech.