Are We There Yet?

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"

Garth and Thompson made their way out of the bathysphere station and up a staircase leading them into a lounge. Looking around, Garth saw a model of Rapture to his left, and on the right was a table with snack bars, a bag of potato chips, and a bottle of mineral water. He suddenly realized how hungry he was and walked over to the table. Normally he wouldn't even think of eating something as unhealthy as what lay on the table, but he was willing to eat just about anything at this point. He picked up the snack bar and looked at it, then turned to Thompson.

"Is this thing safe to eat?" he asked.

"No clue, my friend! 'Course, I eat them all the time anyway! Food tends to be a bit scarce the days, I'm afraid" answered Thompson.

Garth looked again at the snack bar he held in his hand. Well, at least it was still wrapped he thought as he opened the packaging and bit down on the tip of the bar. Too sweet he thought as he finished off the bar and moved on to the chips. Once he had finished eating he drowned the meal down with the mineral water and looked around again to find that Thompson had disappeared.

"Thompson? Where'd you go?" he called out.

"I'm up here, sir! You should come up too, there's something quite useful up here!" Thompson's reply was followed by an explosion and a burst of black smoke.

Garth looked for the stairs and dashed up them to find out what had happened. At the top of the stairs was an entrance into another smaller room filled with black smoke. "You ok in there, Thompson?" he asked.

"*Cough, cough* Just fine, sir! Thanks for asking!" Thompson shouted as the smoke began to fade away. Garth could see Thompson sitting in front if the remains of a Gatherer's Garden with several vials, many cracked, scattered around him.

"What are those vials on the floor for?" Garth asked.

Thompson stood up and brushed smoke and dirt off his suit before picking one of the vials up. "These are Plasmids, my good fellow! They allow us to perform acts never before thought possible! I suggest this one," he said as he handed Garth a glowing yellow vial.

Garth read the label, "Electro-Bolt?"

"Go on, sir, just be careful not to lose it when you first splice up!"

Why am I doing this? Garth asked himself as he placed the tip of the needle from the vial against the vein in his left arm. Shoving the point in, he flinched as he shot the liquid into his bloodstream. Finishing the injection, he dropped the vial and could hear it crash into the floor. He vision went blurry as everything went hazy.

"Hang tight, sir! Just the side effects of your first splicing experience!" reassured Thompson. However, something happened next that not even he had expected. A surge of electricity began to build up in Garth's left arm and black-colored bolts of energy ran across it. Garth pointed his arm at the wall next to Thompson as an involuntary discharge shot out from his palm, creating a hole in the wall.

"That was quite unexpected" said Thompson as he helped Garth back up. "Shall we try another?"

Garth was more or less out cold when Thompson asked him, and unknowingly replied with a "s-sure…"

"Goody!" shouted Thompson, "Let's do this one then!" He picked up a light blue vial with the words "Winter Blast" on it and injected it into Garth's arm. Garth's arm began to freeze over and several black-blue spikes broke out of the skin on his arm. Thompson waited to see if anything else would happen, but nothing did.

"Well, at least I wasn't nearly killed that ti-" his mouth was froze shut as Garth slowly tried to stand up.

"Shut up, Thompson" he told him as he held his head with his free hand. He studied his new arm covered in icicles and frost and experimented with his new powers, including switching between the two and swapping them between arms. He found that while he could switch the arm that used the plasmid he couldn't call up more than one at a time. By the time he had finished experimenting, the ice around Thompson's mouth thawed and melted, allowing him to talk again.

"You didn't have to go and freeze my mouth like that! It's quite rude, you know!" he shouted at Garth.

"Just forget it, Thompson. It's not like I meant to do it anyway…I think." Deciding to ignore Thompson's further complaints, Garth looked for the door to the next room. He saw one on the other side of the room so he headed down the stairs and tried to open it. It was locked.

"Thompson, how do I open this door?" Garth asked.

"Well, normally one could simply unlock the door using the panel next to it, however…" Thompson pointed to the broken panel box next to the door as a few sparks shot out of it.

It only took a moment for Garth to find out what to do. He charged up Electro Bolt and zapped the broken control panel with a blast of black and yellow electricity. The panel overloaded and burst as the door shot open.

"Whatever works, I guess," said Thompson, "Though I do believe that your body has somehow altered the original genetic makeup of the plasmids you took to better fit your body. I daresay I'd enjoy taking a look at your own genetic makeup once we reach my lab, if that's alright with you."

"Well see when we get there, let's move on for now" replied Garth. He walked through the door to find himself in a glass-tube walkway that connected to two different pathways. "Which way should we go; straight, or to the left?" Garth asked Thompson.

"I'd suggest the straight path, I don't know much about the left one" Thompson replied.

"Straight it is" said Garth as he carried on down the pathway. As he did, he looked all around him, taking in the majestic sight of the underwater city. He wondered how such an impressive place had come to be as ruined as it was. Upon reaching the door he turned his attention back to his task at hand: getting out of the place. He opened the door and stepped inside, followed by Thompson. The room they had stepped in was modeled to look like a waiting terminal despite the fact that it was not linked to any stations or anything similar to one. The first thing to catch his eye was a corpse lying against the glass wall to the right of the entrance. He walked over to it and took a good look at it.

"Poor fellow, didn't stand a chance" said Thompson as he walked up to the corpse, "Looks like he was killed while he slumbered. Hello, what's this…?" He reached for a glowing blue vial that lay between the corpse's feet. "Looks like his misfortune is our good luck! This here is an EVE hypo, quite useful for when you're running low on plasmid power!" explained Thompson. "He must've been splicing too much and overdosed."

"EVE? Is that what lets me use those powers earlier?" asked Garth.

"Close, EVE is the energy consumed when using those powers. The powers themselves are caused by the plasmids you injected yourself with, my good fellow" Thompson explained.

After Thompson's explanations, Garth searched the rest of the room and found several useful items such as MedKits, another EVE hypo, some food, and a pack of cigarettes. I could use a smoke right about now thought Garth as he stuck one of the cigarettes between his lips and lit it using a nearby lighter. He inhaled deeply and let out a puff of smoke as he thought about what to do next. His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door being opened and of metal being scrapped across tile. We're not alone Garth realized as he reached for the nearest thing that could be used as a weapon; an artist's easel lying amongst a pile of luggage.

"It's a splicer…" whispered Thompson.

"Splicer…?" asked Garth.

"Nearly became one myself, they're a nasty bunch of people who've spliced up too much with plasmids, rotted their brains out. They're part of the reason Rapture is what it is today" said Thompson.

Garth had more questions about splicers, plasmids, and Rapture itself, but they would have to wait until after they got to a safer location. The splicer who had entered the room was humming a tune about finding mice and killing them for soup when Garth took the initiative and attacked before the splicer could find him. He silently leapt out of the shadows and swung the easel in an upwards motion from his side only to be surprised to learn that the splicer had actually been expecting this and was looking straight at him. The splicer raised his lead pipe to block Garth's swing and splintered the easel with a loud 'crack!' The splicer brought his face right up to Garth's, his uneven eyes and twisted nose almost touching his own, as he whispered, "Hello, my pretty!"

Garth kicked forward with his foot and sent the splicer flying backwards as Garth took a look to see what condition the easel was in. It was already bent and splintering and most likely wouldn't take more than one or two more blows. His mind was racing as to what he should do when Thompson shouted out from the shadows, "The Plasmids! Use the Plasmids already!" Garth nearly kicked himself for not remembering before that he had supernatural abilities now. The splicer was stumbling to recover his posture while Garth dropped the easel and concentrated on bringing out his Electro Bolt instead. Black-red sparks and electric currents began to run up and down the length of his arm as he kept his aim steady with the other. By the time the splicer noticed what Garth was up to it was too late. He scrambled to get out of the way of Garth's Electro Bolt shock as Garth fired a black-red bolt of electricity at him, striking him in the back. The powerful electric current ran all along the splicer's body and Garth rushed forward to deliver the final blow: a punch to the back of the head, rendering him unconscious.

Garth breathed heavily as he looked down upon the limp form of the splicer. "Good show, sir!" shouted Thompson as he crawled out from his hiding spot, "Aren't you going to finish him off?"

Garth turned to face him. "There's no need. Unnecessary violence will only lead to more violence" he told him.

"Can we at least take his stuff? Supplies are hard to come by down here" asked Thompson.

"That's fine with me" said Garth. After confirming it was ok, Thompson proceeded to dig through the unconscious splicer's pockets, finding a pep bar a few dollar bills. Once he had finished looting the splicer, Thompson remembered something and told Garth, "I say, you detest killing, right? I think I may have just the weapon for you in my apartment. It's just up ahead, let's go!"

End Chapter 2