NR2

"Turns out, there ain't any fire down here. Just water. They built the town 70 some years ago, but the town went into anarchy. But now, it's been sold to the devil, and he wants to turn it into hell." Said Arnold.

I looked at the man and said "So, tell me about that…thing…"

He said "That's Athena. She's a Big Sister."

Confused, I asked "A what?"

He said "The sisters used to be human. Then, they were turned into ADAM gatherin' machines. Big Sisters are just the older variety."

Only more confused, I said "What's ADAM?"

Arnold tossed me a syringe filled with a glowing blue substance. "It's the Andrew-Ryan DNA Acceleration Microbe-or, just ADAM for short. The science behind it is kind of complicated, and to be honest, I really don't get it. But what it does is it modifies the DNA of any organism who uses it. Just…don't inject yourself with more than one at a time. A great deal of men used to regret that. They became splicers. But, the splicers be mostly dead these days. They could never reproduce, and the rest of us knew better than to go messin' around with that stuff. But, you should be fine if you only use one at a time. Try it."

I wasn't sure if I could trust this man or not. What if this was some sort of poison? On the other hand, who gives a damn? I'm not going to make my situation much worse by using this. I injected myself with it.

I immediately thought it was poison. My veins begin to burn like crazy, and my muscles wouldn't stop spazzing out. I knew I was probably going to die, but to my credit, I was probably going to die anyways. The pain wore off, though.

Athena was on one knee, hovering over me. She helped me get back up. I wasn't able to breath for the whole time, so I was gasping for air when it was over.

Arnold said "I would of worn ya', but that would only have made the pain worse. Let me tell you, the Devil I mentioned, he runs the show down here. His name's Suchong. You've got navy experience, yes? I can get you out of here, but we're going to have to take him down first. We got a deal, son?"

I thought about it. One way or another, I had to obey him. He could shoot me right now if he wanted. Besides, maybe I'm just being paranoid and he really does want to help me. It was worth a shot. I extended my hand to seal the deal, but when our hands met, sparks came out of my hand! He let go immediately and said "Careful there, son. You're liable to hurt someone. Just stay calm and your hand'll go back to normal"