Booker had succeeded in removing the needle from Elizabeth's spine, given her the message the older version of her had given him, and possibly managed to convince her that he would be the one to take Comstock's life. Now, they were both catching their breath, gazing wearily at each other.

"What WAS that thing?" she asked finally. He ran her through what happened in the room just outside, leaving her just as confused as he felt.

"Didn't your mother ever teach you not to take gifts from strangers?" Elizabeth asked with a small smile.

"What can I say, I liked the cut of their gib." he muttered dryly.

"Do you really think they were gods?"

"They were true to their word about the rest of it, so...I don't know."

"Maybe they were restless spirits, like the Luteces."

Booker frowned. "Makes my brain hurt almost as much as my back does to think about all this."

"I don't think I can carry you to the airship, Booker. But there's bound to be something around here we can use to help ease the pain."

"I just need to walk it off. Save whatever you can find for yourself; you look like you need it."

"I...all right."

They made their way in silence out of the operating room and up the stairs. "I wonder what happened to all the guards Comstock had waiting for you." Elizabeth said as they rounded the corner.

"If they had any sense in 'em, they'd have started running when I started screaming." Booker replied. "I've never felt anything like that, even with all those Vigors I've got in me. Must be what you feel like every time you open a Tear."

"Not exactly. I just feel this rush, almost like when I got on the skylines for the first time. But with you...it sounded like you were barely in control, like...you were an animal or something."

"Maybe I was. I can barely remember at all now; it's just gone dark. Hey, think you can take care of this lock? I think I saw something on the desk in here when I was walking into the room down below."

"No need. You could just jump across from one of the monitoring stations."

"Hnnh. Good point. You want to wait here? There's a bench over there with your name on it."

"I'd rather come with you; I kind of missed you."

"And back in Finkton, you could barely stand the sight of me. Okay, I'll take you up to the booth, and you can wait there. I'd rather you didn't do any jumping or anything for a good long while."

"I can live with that. Lead the way."

Booker was right. There had been something on the desk; two things in fact. An Infusion, which after some deliberation he chose to apply to his endurance, and a voxaphone which he played right there. When he came back across to Elizabeth, however, he was shaking from head to toe. "Booker, what's wrong?" she asked worriedly.

"You don't want to know. Come on, let's take that elevator and get the hell out of this place." With that, he stormed down the two sets of stairs and towards the lift. She hurried after him. "Whatever it was, it can't be any worse than what happened here. What was on that voxaphone?"

Booker couldn't even look at her as they waited for the elevator to descend. "It was Powell. That creep who 'took care' of you while you were here. He said they were going to..."
"I KNOW what they were going to do to me Booker. They didn't even try to keep it a secret." He said nothing, but pulled the voxaphone from his pack and scrolled through it until he got to the very end.

"Pavlov made a dog salivate. We'll make this one weep."