Alejandro Arredondo is a broad-shouldered man with deep umber skin that carries the scattered shine of old bioluminescent ink — a cosmetic mod from his twenties that has faded unevenly, leaving constellations of dim gold light across his forearms and collarbone. His hair is close-cropped and salted at the temples, and he wears magnifying lenses that flip down over his eyes during procedures, giving him the look of a very calm insect. He smells perpetually of antiseptic and bitter karité tea. His hands are impossibly steady.

Tobi trained two years of a proper surgical residency at Aurochs Medical Complex before a licensing dispute with Helix Biosystems — they claimed he used proprietary gene-threading techniques without a corporate contract — ended his formal career. He does not speak of this with bitterness anymore, at least not where anyone can hear. He is meticulous, unhurried, and prone to explaining exactly what he is doing and why, as though every patient is also a student. He charges what people can pay and writes the rest off in a ledger he keeps but never balances.