Countless times, Arthur wanted to throw a punch. Though he didn't understand why he was here, everything he experienced felt like it was happening to him personally.
Damn it, the feeling of someone else's fists landing on you couldn't be faked; it was no different from Arthur himself being beaten.
But his consciousness seemed blocked by something. No matter how frantically he willed his arm to move, this body didn't respond in the slightest.
Arthur was like a fierce beast locked in a cage, and outside the cage was a pack of yapping, noisy lapdogs.
Until—
Led by that "father," a group of people burst into his home, pinned him to the ground without a word.
They took ropes, tied him up like livestock, then blindfolded him, intending to take him who-knows-where.
After a long, jostling journey, his surroundings fell into prolonged silence.
"Who is this guy? So tall, but looks like he doesn't have two ounces of meat worth cutting off."
A sudden conversation started, then the thing covering his eyes was ripped away.
From Arthur's perspective, a guy in a white lab coat was standing with his back to him, busy with something.
"Furl, you're one sick fuck, always taking the hog meat home. Don't think we don't know what you use it for."
The reply came from another person near Arthur. This guy was large, with a brutish face full of flabby flesh and a balding head, like a fattened pig farmer.
"Sick? Boye! You have the nerve to call me sick?
The anesthetic drugs approved by the higher-ups, you skim every single bottle you can.
How many hogs have had muscle spasms from the pain during harvesting, ruining good parts because of it?"
"Save it. The bosses don't say anything.
My son needs to get into a corp school. So what if I need some extra eddies?
Every damn soul in Night City knows how expensive those fucking corp schools are."
The fat man named Boye stood in front of a machine, his complaint unconcealed in his voice, his hands applying extra force to the controls.
He impatiently cut off Furl, raising his rough voice again.
"Goddamn it, shut your fucking mouth for now.
Look at this guy!
Almost all original, factory-standard parts. We've hit the Jackpot this time."
As he spoke, he turned around, and Arthur finally saw his face.
A cruel smile spread across the fleshy face, revealing yellow, buck teeth, the veins at his temples and forehead bulging.
Even more disgusting were his eyes; the sockets were hollowed out, replaced by a pair of black, malformed cybernetic eyes.
Their design and installation were crude and shoddy.
Messy, black metal even protruded from the sockets, accompanied by dark red wiring that dug deep into the flesh of his cheeks.
"Hurry! Anesthetize him. This guy's body is mostly original stock. Not doing it would be a waste."
If a hog's body was full of cheap, low-quality cyberware, violent removal wasn't an issue, but the value of Arthur's current body was much higher, so it needed careful handling.
He seemed to see a large pile of cash waving at him.
In this era, cyberware was rampant. Corporations used these things to control the middle and lower classes, loudly promoting the convenience of implants.
They told you to sell your organs and replace them with better, more useful cyberware, even getting a large sum of money for it. It sounded like a deal where money was just handed to you.
But the corps never mentioned the maintenance of cyberware, or the immense burden it placed on the nervous system, especially the brain.
Thus, the more widespread cyberware became, the more the world couldn't escape corporate control.
In contrast, the price of healthy, original organic parts kept skyrocketing.
The wealthy would continuously replace their own parts with young, healthy originals, delaying aging, indulging in life freely.
"Working on it, he's not going anywhere. What's the rush?
Hah, eager to take your useless son to Clouds to pop his cherry?
He's an adult this year, but he's still a complete waste and an idiot."
On the other side, the pervert who liked taking meat home came over to Arthur, holding a silvery indwelling needle.
Seeing him approach, the red lights on Boye's cybernetic eyes flickered rapidly a few times.
"If you mention my son again, I'll rip your disgusting face off and stick it to the wall."
His tone was icy. As he spoke, the grip of a gun tucked at his waist was briefly visible, nestled in the fat of his belly.
"I surrender, I surrender. My mistake."
A sneer hung on Furl's lips; he clearly didn't take the threat seriously.
His words were dripping with sarcasm as he thrust his head forward provocatively.
"You, your son… you'd never go to Clouds. Because you're both spineless cowards."
It was clear his status was above the fat man Boye; Furl wasn't afraid of escalating the conflict.
The red lights on the fat man's inferior cybereyes flashed madly, but he ultimately forced himself to hold back, and the eyes calmed down.
"Hmph!"
Furl snorted coldly, then roughly shoved the indwelling needle into the wrist of Arthur's body.
He then looked up, took out a bottle of yellow liquid, and connected it to the port above the needle.
The memories Arthur had received, though frustrating and dark, and the original owner of this body had pitifully little normal contact with the outside world, still contained basic common knowledge.
Like now. That so-called father had clearly sold him out, sold him to a bunch of Scavs.
The huge profits from organs and cyberware had bred these dirty rats.
They hid in the city's corners, usually targeting society's dregs, like junkies who had fried their brains.
But there were exceptions. Rich kids out looking for thrills, or middle-class folks caught in an economic crisis…
In short, everyone was a potential target.
No matter who you were, if you fell into their hands, you'd be dismantled for parts immediately, your pieces flowing into the black market.
Arthur could only watch it all happen. The yellow liquid in the bottle was dripping down the tube, drop by drop, into this body.
He struggled like a madman in his mind, but it was all futile, confined to the realm of thought, unable to truly affect this body.
God knows how many years he had been tormented by this state – able to see, able to feel, but fucking unable to do anything.
Just then, the machine near the fat man suddenly let out a piercing alarm, so loud it even made the anesthesia bottle connected to Arthur shake.
"Fuck! What's happening?"
On the small screen of the instrument, the display abruptly turned red. The three waveform lines representing this body's heart rate all converged into a single, flat line.
"His heart just stopped! All physiological indicators are dropping fast!"
The fat man's voice became urgent too, as he frantically operated the controls.
"Damn it, what did you inject him with? All his organs are failing!"
Furl frowned, looking at the machine near Boye, then looked down at the medication bottle.
It should be fine!
The boss paid good money for this guy. If something went wrong, he wouldn't come out of it unscathed.
Gritting his teeth, Furl pulled a pneumatic injector from his pocket, hoping this high-efficiency emergency stim could keep the body stable long enough for them to finish the job.
Aiming at the chest of Arthur's body, he pressed the injector down hard and triggered it.
A sound like a deflating basketball hissed out. Both men watched the instrument screen expectantly.
No change. The line representing the heart rate was flat as a dead fish.
The air fell into a deathly silence. Dead organs were worthless, less valuable than a dead pig.
The boss would definitely strap them to this very table and harvest them like hogs to compensate for his loss.
After a long silence, Furl's voice broke the heavy atmosphere, but plunged it into an even more tense state.
"You're responsible for this, Boye. It's your problem."
His tone brooked no argument. He was putting on his squad leader demeanor again.
"No, Furl! It's the drugs!
You!
It was you!"
Boye's flabby face trembled, his head shaking so fast it looked like a seizure.
"Wrong, Boye. It was you. No matter who you ask, you did it, you can't shirk the responsibility."
Furl wore a sincere expression, like a supervisor comforting a subordinate who'd made a mistake.
"Don't worry, I'll put in a good word for you with the boss."
Usually, Boye had made few friends with his stinginess.
You have to understand, they were all monsters in human skin, but Boye, oddly, actually cared about his useless son, giving himself an extra burden.
Boye's whole face crumpled. The red light of his inferior cybereyes dimmed.
He pleaded.
"Please… I… I have a son… Please, don't pin this on me."
If they both shared the blame, they'd both suffer, but there was a chance to survive.
If they both insisted it was the hog's fault, and given that Furl, as a low-level leader, had some standing with the boss…
It would mean Furl trading his prospects and status for their lives.
But the other man clearly wasn't willing. The sincerity on Furl's face didn't fade. He said in a serious tone:
"Don't talk nonsense. Whoever made the mess has to clean it up. We all have to be honest."
Furl wouldn't sacrifice himself for others. That's something a person would do.
He didn't consider himself a person.