Chapter 103 – Plug-In Prosthetic Body!
Maine left the lab with a wide grin stretched across his face, the two freshly forged chrome arms gleaming under the overhead fluorescents. They clanked lightly as he walked, the alloy still warm from the assembly line. From the way he beamed, you'd think he just scored a pair of Limited Edition Gorilla Arms off a corpo giveaway.
He looked like a kid walking out of a toy store with a brand new mech suit.
Lucy glanced up from where she was leaning against the lab's rust-streaked wall, a cigarette pinched between her fingers. She watched Maine go, then turned her sharp eyes on Arthur, who was bent over a table strewn with cybernetic parts and diagnostic screens.
She exhaled a stream of smoke and asked coolly, "Why are you helping me?"
Arthur didn't look up. He had just removed the nerve-accelerating spinal prosthetic from Adam Smasher's backup frame and dropped it into a tub of cleansing fluid, where it hissed softly.
Only after wiping his hands on a rag did he reply, "Isn't it obvious? You're hot, and I've got a weakness for tragic women with attitude."
He gave her a sideways grin. "I picked up a rare cockroach off the street and decided to keep it. Ever seen a gold-plated one? You don't just squish that—you mount it and show it off."
Lucy's eye twitched. Her grip on the cigarette trembled.
She managed to suppress the sudden urge to stab him with her fingernails and instead offered him a deadpan stare. "Your cyberpsychosis is clearly not cured. Come on, I'll walk you to the psych ward myself. Early diagnosis, early recovery."
Arthur thumped his chest proudly. "I'm not sick! My mind is sharper than ever. Clean bill of health. If I were any more balanced, I'd levitate."
Lucy rolled her eyes and focused on the half-dismantled prosthetic modules laid out across the table. "What are you doing with these, anyway?"