1 Prologue 1: Bit busy today.

"Much thanks for the fix-up Sammy, my boy!" The burly, old man hollered. To say he was old was factually correct, however, the man's stout build and booming voice made for compromise. The cast iron and oak-wood mixed prosthetic arm only added to his already intimidating outward appearance.

It wasn't too hard to notice he was a frequent of this shop. He was calm and knew what to expect when it came to the servicing of the mechanical limb.

One can only imagine a child's first reaction to the disassembly of a limb, mechanical or not. Grotesque, messy, maybe repulsive and sickening... would be reactions more fitting to the child's mother perhaps. A child wouldn't know any better, watching with pupils bigger than an owl's at dusk. Curiosity greater than any cats'.

The old man's eyes were quick and sharp, spotting for anything new around the place. But alas, there was nothing new. It's the same familiar view he's had for the several days he's come in requiring some sort of specialized attention with regards to his almost vintage-looking limb. He wouldn't be expecting much if it had only been yesterday he had his last service, but these occasions were split apart by months.

Dust filled the same spots, on top of the stacks of newspapers, the chairs piled up in that one corner of the shop. Around the shelves in places not currently occupied with a heap of screws, nuts, bolts or springs among other tools and equipment laying about.

Any sane person would immediately assume that the establishment was a mechanical workshop rather than a facility for the creation of artificial limbs. Anything dealing with the human body, medically speaking, would have to be done in a sanitary, spotless environment. And this environment was anything but that.

A small chuckle left the old man, enough for Sam to hear.

"Have you got something on your mind Alfred?" Sam asked monotone, packing the tools he used on the man.

"Nothing much Sammy, just thought you did a bloody spectacular job as per usual. That and this place needs a little bit of work done." Alfred gesturing at the filth accumulated in some places of the shop, letting out a short, hearty laugh.

"Yea I know it does, been putting wiping the place off for a while..."

"I think it needs more than just a wiping down mate." Alfred points at the heap of chairs with his newly serviced and tuned prosthetic. As if willed by the shop, the chairs which were in somewhat of a neat stack before, fall into a now pile of debris. Dust released by timely fall of chairs spread across the room, legs broke from the pile and found their way across. One landing just short of Sam's foot.

"Putting it off just for a while eh?" Alfred looks at Sam, a cheeky grin visible on his bear-esque facial features. His beard barely hiding it.

"Yeah, perhaps a while is an understatement" Sam replies cursing the timing of the unfortunate event.

"You bloody reckon?" The bear-man jokes. "Well, it's about time I head off Sammy. Be dropping by again soon mate, take care of yourself. And before you say it, yes I'll go easy on the old thing's springs." Tapping the makeshift shoulder made of oak, Alfred leaves out the front door. The noise outside audible for a little more than a moment.

'Bit busy out there today.' Sam thought to himself. Recognising the sound of a couple of the engines from the vehicles that passed by in that short instance of the door being open. Shortly getting an afterthought of 'I want one of those...' later on.