"I saw you were bored, so I bought this for you. It's Military Science's latest product. I don't really understand this stuff, but it's popular with young people. It should help pass the time."
Taking the handheld console, Chris rolled out of bed, revealing the black metal right leg beneath his hospital gown, which had also been replaced with a prosthetic... No, it could already be called a cybernetic limb. Wearing slippers, he sat across from Brad, glanced at it a few times, and promptly lost interest.
"Where are Jill and Barry?" he asked.
"Ha, Chris, you're recovering pretty well. Looks like you'll be back on the team soon." It was old man Barry. With an unlit cigar hanging from his mouth, he entered the ward carrying bags and packages of food containers.
Chris noticed the part beneath Barry's left upper arm: the seams in the artificial skin, the fingernails, the unnatural gaps between the fingers. Clearly, it was a prosthetic limb covered in flesh-colored synthetic skin.
Noticing Chris's gaze, Barry merely laughed a few times. He set the food boxes on the coffee table in the ward and sighed. "Military Science's prosthetic technology really is incredible. Damn it, why does this thing feel even handier than the one I was born with?"
"That's because your hand had old injuries from your SEAL days. Anyway, unless absolutely necessary, I would never cut off a perfectly good hand just to replace it with a prosthetic... That's insane. I seriously can't understand those people who went crazy after Military Science released its new-generation prosthetics..."
It was Jill.
She held a cooler full of ice, lifted the lid, and shook the chilled low-alcohol drinks inside. Chris was still a patient, after all. She wasn't some reckless drinking buddy determined to go wild with