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Instead of responding, she turned and bolted down the hall, right towards the operating room where Iara was undergoing a potentially life-saving surgery!
<span class="mu-r">“Joyce! Stop!”</span>
You leapt after her, trying to snag her with a webline to the foot. And that was when you discovered just how hard it was to stop someone who not only shared your incredibly quick reflexes, motor control, and precognitive senses, but could use those very same abilities against you.
The webline that should’ve snagged her foot missed by mere centimeters, and you weren’t able to get another clean shot. There were too many people walking through this part of the hospital.
Before you could stop her, Joyce came bursting through the doors, only to stop dead at the entrance. By the time you caught up, you figured out what had her so transfixed.
You weren’t quite sure how, but the actual operating room seemed to be much bigger than the outside of the hospital suggested. There was an entire lab in here, filled with complex looking tools and devices that you couldn’t even begin to make heads or tails of. But what you did recognize was the person hovering just above the ground, surrounded by a pillar of light that was being projected by a disk installed in the ceiling. Or at least, you recognized <span class="mu-i">parts</span> of her.
For one thing, she was larger than you remembered her being. Her muscle definition had gone from being “impressive” to “sculpted from marble”. Her skin tone had also changed. Instead of it being dull, rough and gray, it was now dark blue with patches of teal, and sleek, like the chassis of a vehicle. It almost looked like metal.
Her nose was more pointed, like that of an actual sharp, and the gills on her neck resembled exhaust ports, rather than something belonging on an organic lifeform. Her hair, which had once been black, was now snow white, and had been tied up so that it wouldn’t interfere with all the instruments that were currently being used during this procedure.
And her arms were-
Oh God, her arm!
Past the elbow, Iara’s arm ended in a stump, with a metal socket where multiple cables dangled from. Several feet away, Ada approached Iara, carrying what you could only guess was an incredibly realistic cybernetic arm that was identical to Iara’s other arm. As she slid it onto her patient’s body and locked it with a <span class="mu-i">twist</span> and a <span class="mu-i">click</span>, Iara’s eyes fluttered open briefly. Her cybernetic eyes glowed whitish blue, but even without pupils, you got the impression that her gaze was unfocused and bleary.
(Cont.)
