This take places a good bit before Milwaukee Junction. Adam’s well into the recovery phase of his surgeries, but he’s still no where near through.

In this case, Adam’s just had his first major OS installation. His eyes would obviously have been installed in the initial batch of operations, but I’m sure not fully activated above basic functions until weeks after that.

(And then trying to imagine the sheer volume of update notifications I ignore on my phone on a daily basis, but being applied to every day senses)

Also, I understand that the forehead wound would be the most heavily bandaged, stitched, and filled in wound in his body, but I project on Adam like little anyone else, so I wanted him to have to deal with bloody sheets every now and again dammit. I imagine that the joints and major flesh/prosthesis connections have a lot of fluid processing that’s still needing to balance out, which means a lot of build up and leakage around the seams (Adam has expensive tastes but has since resigned himself to cheap sheets and spare towels for the time being).

In a more refined pass on these page, I would love to really emphasize the bald spots on Adam’s head, but I’ll probably just leave that to its own illustration tbh. Regardless, you know Adam’s head was completely shaved over the course of those surgeries (what with his wealth of cerebral and even dermal implants). While most of it has grown back, there’s some areas that need to be routinely shaven over to give doctors access to the ports and nodes that still need regular, physical check ups.

While David has absolutely been a genuinely concerned/incredibly nosey staple in Adam’s life, Malik has had the common decency to give the traumatized convalescing out patient some space to recuperate. Honestly, probably a little more space than is genuinely healthy, but what is she supposed to say?

Faridah genuinely forgot about the Free Press Marathon until the morning of, and it definitely took her a good half hour to make it from the lobby of Adam’s apartment complex to almost talking herself out of it three times right outside Adam’s door.

As for the run itself, they finished in a personal record low for them, but neither would complain. Adam’s been relentless in his physical therapy, but there’s still a big difference between focused, controlled environments and open marathon surrounded by other people.

Geeze I would honestly love to visually explore a lot more on the run itself, but then I wouldn’t get around to posting anything.