American comics: Starting with Luke the Maker

"How is it?" Luke asked with a smile, watching Snoke take off his helmet.

"Brought back some bad memories." Snoke's voice was a little low.

Luke shrugged. "Although you've already signed the contract, there are some things I think I should ask you again."

Hearing this, Snoke raised his eyes to look at Luke, who had walked up to him.

"What did General Evra tell you?" Luke placed a [dark chocolate] bar in his hand, signaling him to eat it. "A product from my lab. It tastes like chocolate but can alleviate the after-effects of surging memories."

Snoke didn't refuse Luke's kindness. His only intact left hand took the [chocolate] Luke handed him, and he skillfully bit open the wrapper with his teeth. Almost stuffing it in, he shoved the entire ten-centimeter-long, half-an-adult-hand-wide [dark chocolate] bar into his mouth. While silently chewing, his eyes looked at his own incomplete right arm, the expression on his face as if he were reminiscing.

"He just said that you might have a way to restore me to normal."

"He didn't mention the risks?"

"I don't care about those." Snoke swallowed the chocolate in large gulps. Perhaps it was a psychological factor, but he felt that his churning mind had indeed become much calmer, allowing him to think more. "For me, being able to return to normal, I don't care about those risks. And they don't care either."

Snoke was referring to those of his kind outside who had signed the same contract as him.

"You crave the battlefield?" Luke asked, glancing at a file of information compiled by the White Queen.

Snoke was silent for a moment, then nodded.

"Why?"

"Besides the battlefield, I don't know what else I can do." Snoke said very calmly. He had seen many retired soldiers, and a considerable number of them couldn't find a new way of life. The skills they brought from the army also turned them into thugs for gangs or mercenary groups. And those like him, who retired with injuries and had no family, could only drown their sorrows in alcohol every day, except for finding some odd jobs as repairmen.

"I've seen some information about you. After retiring, you didn't give up on yourself like many people outside. On the contrary, you're very disciplined." Luke said, observing Snoke, who was silently looking at him. He smiled with satisfaction and didn't pursue or probe further. Instead, he said directly, "If you crave the battlefield, crave combat, then perhaps we can re-sign a new contract."

Snoke remained silent, seemingly waiting for Luke to continue. However, Luke had no intention of continuing. He quietly instructed the person next to him to take his place and conduct the selection for him. He beckoned to the standing Snoke, signaling him to follow. The two of them passed through the crowd, through the rooms, and arrived at another place similar to a laboratory.

The number of access controls and cameras along the way increased. With Snoke's experience and eyesight, he didn't find any blind spots. Luke led him through by scanning his face all the way, stopping at an elevator that went directly to the third basement level. The elevator doors opened to both sides, and the scene that came into view made Snoke, with the composure he had honed on the battlefield, couldn't help but lose his composure!

A mechanical creation as tall as ten meters, with a wild and rough barbarity, crashed into and filled his entire field of vision! Snoke's eyes could no longer see anything else except it. Although it looked ugly, with various mechanical parts and densely packed lines that made one's scalp tingle, like a semi-finished product within a semi-finished product, this didn't hinder Snoke's first impression of it at all.

"What is this? Some kind of mechanical armor?" Snoke took the initiative to ask Luke for the first time. He pointed at the behemoth in his eyes, his eyes full of it. He even saw a muscular man with a similar temperament to him, who should also have been a soldier, bare-chested, being constantly fitted with some equipment by several researchers. It looked like one of his arms was fitted with a mechanical arm sleeve.

"You can think of it that way." Luke glanced over there casually.

Mecha is a man's romance. This sentence is correct.

But he had seen too much of this romance in a certain world, and his heart was already calm. What's more, in his understanding, the sentence 'Mecha is a man's romance' should be corrected to: all metal creations full of mechanical beauty and violent aesthetics are a man's romance.

"What are they doing?" A rare look of interest appeared on Snoke's face.

Seeing him like this, Luke simply turned around and led him over. "It's just an experiment. You can take a closer look."

Snoke, who stopped near the railing of the test area, carefully watched the experiment not far away. When he saw the test subject with the mechanical arm sleeve clenching his fist, and the huge metal creation that he had been paying attention to also raising its metal arm and clenching its fist in synchronization, his eyes were about to shine with intense brilliance.

"The combination of a somatosensory system and mechanics results in an almost synchronized synchronization between man and machine. How does it feel?" Luke took the initiative to explain, as if he knew what Snoke was thinking. Of course, he didn't explain in detail what technologies were used, etc., which were unnecessary for Snoke.

"Is this the technology that can restore me to normal?" Snoke turned to look at Luke, his eyes burning.

"Of course not." Luke directly denied Snoke's guess, and continued under his stunned gaze, "Do you know how high the cost of manufacturing a somatosensory system is now? Ordinary limb defects don't require this kind of technology. To put it bluntly, the price of ordinary smart prosthetics alone would already put pressure on ordinary people."

"Of course, you are different." Under Snoke's gaze, whose enthusiasm had cooled down a bit, Luke reminded him, "New contract."

"New contract?" Snoke chewed on the words in his lips. He knew that this new contract might have some harsh or other conditions, but he didn't care. At the same time as seeing that big guy, he had a lot of goodwill towards this place.

"Just a long-term security contract." Luke was very straightforward. "I need you to help me build a strong elite squad. This squad will only obey me. You can choose your team members, of course, preferably members who are in the same situation as you. I can provide you with the best armaments, the most powerful equipment, and maintain updates for a long time.

What you have to do is help me solve some hidden troubles and enemies, and verify the equipment data and usage experience you use."