- Leave Buck alone.
- Talk.
- Apologise.
- (Your own option).
Default Playable Character: Ferro, the Desperate Man in a Labcoat.
A month had passed since Buck Brody died in a blast of fire and shrapnel. A month since he’d been dragged back across the threshold of oblivion by a man who refused to let him rest.
The first week was a silent horror show of twitching limbs and forced breath to keep the decay away. But by the second week, something flickered back to life behind Buck’s dead eyes.
He learned to speak again. At first, it was a wet, choked rasp, the sound of a corpse trying to remember words. But the muscle memory of a lifetime of profanity returned with a vengeance. "Nnnghhh... wh..y... It... burns... Hell...!"
Soon, the lab was filled with the familiar sound of Buck Brody, the vulgar bastard, cursing the world, his metal guts, and the man who had built them.
The third week brought a new level of hell. Ferro had to explain the nature of Buck's new engine for a heart.
His new digestive system could barely tolerate "Undercity cuisine", but the introduction of crude oil was a nightmare. The moment the thick, viscous liquid hit his stomach, his body rebelled. He projectile-vomited the black sludge with a force that rattled his entire frame, the taste of rust and chemicals coating his tongue. "Get... it... away..." He gasped between dry heaves. "Get it away from me!"
It took days of this agonizing ritual. Days of Ferro patiently holding a cup to his lips, and Buck, through gritted teeth and a heaving gut, forcing it down. He refused to look weak in front of Ferro, and that stubborn pride, that refusal to be beaten by a machine—even one inside him—was the only thing that saw him through.
By the fourth week, a new, burning need consumed him: the need to move.
His first attempt was a catastrophic failure. He pushed himself up, his arms trembling, only for the crushing, unfamiliar weight of the engine in his torso to pull him crashing back down. The impact sent a jolt of pure agony through him, a symphony of grinding gears and protesting flesh.
Ferro rushed to help him, his face a mask of concern. Buck responded with a guttural, zombie-like snarl that was more animal than human, a sound that came from the deepest pit of his misery. He slapped Ferro's hands away. "Don't you touch me," he growled, the words scraping their way out of his throat. He had to do this alone.
It was a slow, agonizing process. He learned to accommodate the back-breaking weight, to shift his center of gravity, to use the bulk of his mechanical parts as a counterbalance. His back, which had been broken once in the explosion, screamed in protest. But he endured.
Finally, trembling, sweating a sheen of oil and grime, he took his first, lurching step. Then another. He was a monster, hunched forward against a weight that would never leave him, but he was a monster on his own two feet.
During one uneventful day, Ferro found him leaning against a wall, the engine in his chest thrumming like a seething heart. The dam of Buck's rage finally broke. “You have any idea fuckin' what this feels like?” Buck’s voice started low, a dangerous rumble.
He unleashed a torrent of fury, a long, furious rant detailing every second of his pain, every moment of his humiliation. He hated the constant, grinding agony. He hated the reek of oil that clung to him like a second skin. He hated the sight of his own monstrous reflection in a piece of polished metal. And most of all, he hated Ferro. Hated him for his weakness, for being there that day, for making Buck's sacrifice necessary, and for dragging him back into this "excuse for a life."
The silence stretched, thick and heavy, broken only by the steady thrum-hiss of the engine that had caused it all.
"So," Buck finally rasped, the rage curdling into a grim, humorless exhaustion. A bitter smile twisted his lips. "What's next on the agenda, you crazy bastard?" He gestured to his own stomach, the source of his next scheduled torment. "Time for my crude oil dinner?"
Ferro's options: