etraya | un: romano

[ After meeting Finch at the library and having his shitty arm looked at, he makes his way to the Pub. The more people he talks to, the better, even if it feels like he's stepping in the middle of a civil war between these people.

Walking into the pub is a bit like stepping into a Where's Waldo? book. All he knows is that Waldo is someone with an artificial limb. ]

[ Thankfully, Etraya simply doesn't have enough people for the place to be crowded. There might be, at best, two or three others around, not including any of the companion bots working behind the bar. It means that Sevika can be spotted quickly enough; after all, she's the only other one here lacking a whole arm with a mechanical one laid out on her table, alongside all the pieces and panels she's taken apart with her tools.

She has been keeping an eye on the door, though, and when he walks in, she'll look eye to give him a judging look, sizing him up. She figures that's probably the guy and gives him a nod before resuming whatever she's fiddling with — in this case, removing a series of hydraulics from the arm that have seen better days. At least whatever liquid meant to keep them running is long gone, so it's hardly a mess. ]

[ Robert is 5'6" but he takes as much space as he can. He walks straight up to the scary lady, ordering a drink as he goes. His arm is... well, garbage, even fixed it's decades behind what Sevika has, it needs to be worn with a harness and while it has an elbow, wrist, and finger joints, it can do very little other than grip things poorly. ]

SV, I take it?

[ He holds out his good arm for a handshake. ]

Doctor Robert Romano.

That would be me. SV is short for Sevika.

[ She's sure at least one of the bozos who flooded his DMs mentioned her name somewhere, but they don't matter right now. What matters is arms and hands, and she shakes her head at the offered handshake. There's half a chance she currently doesn't have the right hand attached to return it. ]

Sit on down and let me see what we're working with here.

[ Although if he's already wearing his, she's likely figured out which and finds the fake skin shockingly ghoulish. Like, who wants fake skin? Ever? ]

Edited 2025-02-22 04:02 (UTC)

[ It is absolutely a terrible arm. ]

Finch fixed it up for me, not that there's much to do. It's garbage.

[ He takes it off and sets it alongside Sevika's. He doesn't think there's anything to be learned from it, but he's not a mechanic. ]

Talis said he'd make me a new one.

[ And Talis being on the side that doesn't have children with bombs makes him a safe candidate. Plus, the man seems to want to help just to help.

But Sevika seems... well, not naive, for one. ]

[ There's a snort at the mention of Talis. Of course. He would. ]

Let me guess. Using Hextech? [ Unless he hadn't specified, but she can't imagine otherwise. ] Be careful with that. He likes to think he means well, but he has the same knack that Jinx has for making things dangerous.

[ Albeit his methods are more clean-cut and less covered in graffiti. Well, even if he might end up with a new one, she'll still set her tools aside and look Robert's arm over. ]

Guess where you're from hasn't gotten out of harness suspension yet. This skin shit is creepy as fuck, though. Your people prefer to hide that you're missing something?

He didn't say, but I assume he'd use the technology he knows.

[ Hextech sounds like... magical nuclear power. Something like that. He's not sure he trusts it, but if the man can get him an arm that works he's not going to be all that picky about the power source. ]

Amputees aren't that common in my world as they're in yours, so yeah people tend to prefer to hide it.

I don't care, personally, as long as I get an arm that works.

[ Her arm looks a lot more functional than his. ]

[ Oh, that's exactly what it is, although Sevika doesn't have the words to describe it that way. ]

Well, you'll certainly get something. [ The real question will be what exactly he ends up with. ] You'll want to grill him on how he plans to attach the thing if nothing else.

[ She'll wave her hand over her own mechanical arm. It's not functional currently, but with all the panels off as she works on it, it shows just how complicated it is. ]

This is chemtech. We've worked to get prosthetics down to an art in the trenches since we tend to do all the hard labor, which means plenty of limbs taken off in factory accidents or crushed in mining cave-ins. Mine connects directly to my shoulder. I do use a suspension strap for my other arm, but only because it's a hell of a lot heavier than this. [ Of course, before he can ask to see that one, she adds, ] That one isn't here.

[ That one also has a flamethrower, on top of a lot more, so, yeah. ]

There's a surgical portion to getting a chemtech limb. The part that connects your muscles and nerves to the limb is a permanent addition. Obviously, that doesn't restore any sensation since it's all metal and machinery, but it allows fine motor functions. I can do everything I could do with my arm and then some.

Talis said he'd look into a neural connection. It didn't sound like he'd ever tried that, but I don't mind being a guinea pig in this one case.

[ He studies the arm on the table without touching it. He'd switch his heap of garbage for something like this without any question. ]

How heavy is it?

[ That's another factor, he's a small guy, something too heavy would give him trouble. ]

[ There's a scant few seconds there at the mention of 'neural connection' that makes her give him what could be, if anything, translated into some vague look of concern. She won't say anything, however. She can't. This is probably fine, but she begins making a mental note to, perhaps, babysit Talis through the process. ]

About fifteen pounds now, twelve back when it was originally made.

[ Which means she's added on since then. ]

The one I had from Jinx was about twenty-five, but that one is... [ Wow, what's a good word for her Other Arm? ] ...unique. Parts can be made lighter if you aren't using the tech for combat. You have an idea of what your remaining arm weighs?

About eleven, twelve pounds?

[ The prosthetic one is considerably lighter than that. He can't actually imagine lugging around something heavier than his actual arm. ]

How much does your good arm weight?

[ How badly is a heavy arm fucking up her spine, he wonders. Not that there's anything for him to do about it. ]

Around twelve or thirteen pounds.

[ See, there's a reason she requested the broken arm from Aurora over the bigger, scarier one. This one was closer to equal to her real arm. ]

Have you given Talis any specs like that yet, or are you waiting for him to come up with some wild plan first?

I assume he'll hit me up with blueprints after spending anywhere between twenty-four and seventy-two caffeine-induced sleepless hours obsessing over it.

[ He's had one single text conversation with Talis, and yet he's pretty sure that's the type of person he is. ]

He might want to see this junk first, [ he nods at his arm on the table. ] not that it'll help him much.

I wonder if he even needs the caffeine. I'd say he has way too much energy already.

[ All the energy in the world to be nosy, find trouble, pick fights, argue ceaselessly until he gets his way... Of course, she may also be very, very biased.

She gives his arm another look, trying to gauge if there would be anything from it that would be useful, but no. The doctor's right. ]

Could always let him see if to know what not to do, I suppose, but whatever he makes you isn't going to be even remotely like this. If they end up being anything like those damn gauntlets of his, you can expect something closer to mine, just a lot more blue. Probably a smoother casing, too.

Anything that works better than this will do, it's a low bar.

[ So far he's been slowly getting more useful arms. If Talis gives him something he can actually use as anything other than a coat rack, he'll be better off than he has been in years. ]

Not going to argue with you there. Just consider yourself forewarned. Those Hextech guys keep making stuff that they mean to be helpful, but so far, it's all either been weaponized or has ways to be weaponized.

[ There may be no escaping the bomb arm, doctor. They're all bomb arm makers. ]

But even then, it's all good engineering work. You'll definitely get something useful.

un: romano | text

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