The ripperdoc's chair was reclined far enough that Finn was nearly horizontal, both arms extended on the side rests, and the local anesthetic had taken hold in both of them to the point where he couldn't feel anything from the shoulder down. Which, given what was currently happening to those arms, was probably for the best. Right now, his arms are wholly missing, with the ripperdoc working to put a synthetic one in replacement to it. Which, Finn reckon it would be good, cause it would remove that white stain on his finger entirely.
The ripperdoc worked silently, with only the occasional murmur whenever he swapped tools.
"This is really alright with you?" he asked. "You know how much chrome you're asking for?"
"It should still be fine," Finn said. "I'm not asking to turn my whole body into chrome. Just the necessary parts."
The ripperdoc scoffed. "Gorilla arms, sentry optics, epimorphic skeleton, shock absorber palms, reflex tuner, neofibers, biomonitor, blood pumps, subdermal armor, reinforced tendons." He tapped the list. "Choom, you'll turn half cyborg by the time I'm finished with you. Some of these are preem stuff! I only got one of them in stock!"
"It'll be fine. And you'll take no responsibility if something happens." Finn shifted slightly in the chair. "Oh, how does the chrome get powered, anyway?"
The ripperdoc let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "You asked to install a lot of things but don't even know how it works. It runs on bioenergy. What you intake. In other words, start eating more, otherwise your chrome will stop functioning one by one."
"Noted."
The ripperdoc finished the arms, put his tools down, and told Finn that continuing with the rest would require full anesthetic. He prepped the injection without any preamble, administered it, and told Finn he'd see him in a few hours.
—
Twelve hours later, Finn came back up from the anesthetic slowly. For a few seconds the ceiling of the ripperdoc's shop was the only thing in his field of vision, rendered in more detail than it had any right to be. He could pick out individual scratches in the paint from where he was lying. He blinked, and the focus sharpened further, then pulled back when he wanted it to, his eyes responding like a lens adjusting by hand.
Pushing himself upright, he took in everything at once: arms moving with more weight behind them, skin feeling denser against the chair, and when he swung his legs off the side and his feet met the floor the impact registered differently than he expected. His own pulse charted itself somewhere at the edge of his awareness through the biomonitor.
The ripperdoc came through from the back room, drying his hands on a cloth. "Welcome back."
"Is it all done?" Finn asked.
"Pretty much. Be careful. Don't do anything stupid."
Finn nodded. "Was the money all accounted for?"
"My assistant finished counting it hours ago." The ripperdoc pulled off a glove. "Why couldn't you just transfer the money instead of using physical? If any corpo comes to me because of that cash, I'll snitch on you in an instant."
Finn laughed, thanked him, and left the shop.
—
He heard the situation at the apartment before he turned the corner of the corridor: Ciri's voice, clipped, and a man's voice trying to get a word in. Coming around to the doorway, Finn found her arms crossed in front of the delivery guy from the gun shop, who had a trolley stacked with packaged rifles, boxes of ammunition, two crates of shells, and a bag of grenades.
"Wrong address," Ciri was saying. "I did not order any of this."
Finn came up behind her and touched her shoulder. She turned, her eyes went to his arms and then his face, and she took a step back.
"What the hell happened to you?"
"I installed some things," Finn said. He turned to the delivery guy. "Wait here a moment."
He went inside, counted out the remaining cash from the case, came back out and handed it across. "Keep the change." The delivery guy thanked him and left Finn to carry everything in.
Ciri moved out of the doorway to let him through, her attention on his neck and forearms. The chrome ran up both arms and across the backs of his hands, and the implants at his neck were visible above the collar. His face was largely the same, except the eyes, which caught the apartment light with a faint metallic quality.
"What is all this," Ciri said. "And what happened to your body."
"These are guns," Finn said, setting a crate down. "And I installed some things. Do you not like how I look now?"
"You look strange," Ciri said. "How will you walk around unnoticed if we travel to other worlds again? They will think you a demon or some sort. No amount of long sleeves will hide those eyes."
"I'll figure it out." Finn set the second crate beside the first. "Do you want some too?"
"Of course not!"
"At least a plastic surgery for that scar of yours," Finn said. "I remember you're a bit insecure because of it."
Ciri paused. "It's not the scar I don't like. It's the ugliness of it. I want the scar. I just wished it healed better."
Avallach appeared from his corner of the apartment, where he had arranged a row of books along the wall. "I have an ointment that could make it look better, Zireael, if you'd like."
"Didn't think you'd be interested in how I look, Avallach," Ciri said. "But sure. I'll try it."
Finn leaned toward Ciri. "He's interested in Lara Dorren's look."
"I know that," Ciri said quietly.
"I could hear that," said Avallach.
—
Later, Finn spread everything across the floor of the living room: bullets sorted by caliber and set in rows, guns unpackaged and laid out in order of size, grenades at the far end away from everything else. He went through each weapon methodically, getting his hands used to the weight and the mechanics before packing it away.
Ciri crouched near the handgun and held it at the barrel, turning it over.
"This is how the people here wage war?" she asked. "Using… these guns?"
"Yep," Finn said. "One skilled man that holds an automatic rifle like this could probably decimate fifteen fully trained knights easily. The projectile could easily penetrate plate armor. Do you want to learn how to use it?"
Ciri held the handgun up carefully. "Can I?"
"Tomorrow I can take you to the gunnery range," Finn said. "Needed some practice anyway. After that… maybe we could go outside the city if you're not learning with Avallach? Give Kelpie some space to run."
Ciri scoffed. "Anything to avoid Avallach's lectures."
"Is it that dull?" Finn chuckled.
"Not dull. He's just annoying."
"Like all elves, basically," Finn said.
Ciri's attention moved back to his arms, the chrome catching the apartment light. "Gods… I still can't believe you put all that metal on your body…"
"You really don't like it, do you?" Finn said.
"I said it's strange…" Ciri frowned. "Well… yeah maybe I don't like it. It detracts to your…— nevermind."
"It's permanent," Finn said. "Better get used to it."
Ciri snorted. "Marvelous…"