[Rise of a Fallout Star] 3 – First Contract Part 2

Every day for two weeks, I had John come into my workshop where I hooked him up to a machine that scanned both his brain and the damaged nerves of his arm. In the meantime, I also used what remained of my funds to get the medicine, utinicles, and a room furnished for surgery.

I also had to purchase custom-made tools and a few machines for John's surgery to get his new Prosthetic Arm installed. John was not only getting paid to be the Patient for this Prototype, but with his experience in the army, he'd be a tremendous help in adjusting and tweaking the basic cyberware to mimic the functionality of a real human arm by 70% to maybe even a perfect 100% or more if I get the calibration right the first try. The only thing the arm would lack would be the complete dexterity expected from a fleshy human hand.

I had everything I needed to start the surgery and implant the arm into John’s body, but I was not expecting him to arrive at my newly created med-bay in one of the spare rooms of the warehouse until tomorrow, as I still needed to make my preparations.

First, I sterilized the entire med-bay, spending a few hours scrubbing every inch and making sure not even a speck of dirt lay in the room. Then, I moved on to assorting the tools and machines I would need for the operation.

I estimated the surgery would take around six hours, as I would need to make in-depth scans of John’s nervous system and assess the damage done to the nerves that connected to his now missing forearm. Depending on the damage, I would either need to replace some of the nerves with my artificial ones, then delicately connect the nerves to the Prosthetic. After I connected the arm, I would need to start calibrating the arm to his brain.

Typically, a highly experienced Doctor or an Advanced Auto-doc is only used in some of the most advanced Hospitals and Medical Institutions across the states. However, due to the knowledge I had gained, I had the experience necessary for the operation, but there would be some risks.

For one, if I messed up during the connection process, I could accidentally damage John’s nerves further or cause an infection that could very well lead to more of his arm needing to be removed. If I had the capability of making some of the immune boosters and suppressors, the chances of a successful surgery would skyrocket, but I just did not have the infrastructure or the money to build such a supply line at this time, hence why this Operation was so important and delicate.

...

The next day, near noon, John finally arrived at my warehouse. While he had reservations about undergoing surgery in a warehouse, I eased his worries by avoiding his question. Instead, I started explaining what would happen after inserting the setitaves into his bloodstream. Explaining to him in detail how the operation would go and what the expecticted complications, if any, would occur, I also showed him that I had everything I could need if something went wrong, from a Defibelator, morphine and other medicine, to a land-line to call for an Ambulance if the situation became critical.

However, while John may have been a bit worried, I was not. I've made every preparation and taken every measure possible to ensure that even if something went wrong, I would be able to get everything back on track.

Guiding John to the med-bay, I laid him upon the operations table, and started some small talk to distract his mind from the IV drip I inserted into his other arm. Once I opened the drip, John's eyes quickly began to droop before stopping completely, his eyes slightly opened but dilated.

Giving it a few more minutes for the sedatives to circulate in his bloodstream, I began strapping his body down, more specifically, his arm, while also setting up his vitals. Once a few minutes passed, I started by inserting a tiny optic camera to get a closer look at the nerve endings that were buried beneath the stump of his arm.

Much to my luck, the nerves looked intact, if a bit raw at the tips, and while I'd need to surgically remove the tips so that the Prosthetic could slot around the nerves, I knew that this surgery would be a cake walk, especially with the health and fitness of my patient.

...

Much to my luck, my earlier jinx proved to be ignorable, as the surgery was a total success, the only problem that occurred during the surgery being that one of the nerves in John's arm was more deteriorated than expected, requiring an artificial replacement. The Prosthetic came in two parts: the metal connector that was slid over the stump of his arm, and the arm itself that would connect to the metal stump through a set of cables that snapped into place and could be easily removed with a push of a button.

In the future, when I have the machinery and tools that any self-respecting Ripper-doc and Doctor of the Cyberpunk universe would expect to have at their disposal, I could make a much better prosthetic. One with artificial nerves that could be removed easily, instead of needing to be removed through more complex methods.

He would not be able to remove the metal stump without another surgery, as I would need to disconnect the nerves from the small metal platform but for future cyberware models, he'd easily be able to switch out limbs whenever he wished, but I estimated that the metal platform would need to be replaced by the end of the year, when I expected to have developed more sophisticated prosthetics and have a much better infrastructure for the company.

When John began to stir from his slumber, I made sure that his vitals looked okay and gave him another dose of a potent painkiller in his arm, as his nerves would likely feel raw and quite painful for the next couple of hours. After that, the pain should be significantly less.

After giving him a few minutes to wake up, I helped him to his feet, and he looked down at his new arm.

"You won't be able to move it for the next couple of hours, but when you start regaining feeling in your arm, it should move with a bit of difficulty. With time, your mind will become more accustomed to moving your new arm, and from there, it should feel natural, with a slight thought moving the arm when intended. Sometime next month, I should have the haptic feedback figured out, and you'd get a phantom feeling of touch, temperature, and pressure, but for now, it will feel a bit strange," I started explaining when he gained full clarity, his eyes not leaving his new limb that resembled his other fleshy arm perfectly.

Now, to make sure that his body doesn't reject its new limb.