50 dollars and some ADAM.

The bartender never looks up once as the man sits down and says to keep the Old Harbinger on tap. He never looks up once as the crisp bills are slid across to him over the counter. It's probably some big shot down on his luck after the Kashmir stocks slumped. A good terrorist attack never fails to keep the stools full and the taps dry.

The man nods into his drink for a while and mutters.

"Hey, pal. You hear about that shit at the Kashmir?"

The man says nothing and cringes deeper into himself.

"Hey, buddy! You have friends that were there?" The bartender realizes that he may have been tactless.

The man still says nothing.

"Right, I understand. It's hard, what they're doing. Hits us all...you especially, I bet."

The man's head jolts up. "How do you mean?"

"Well, only I figure you were hit hard by that. Big restaurant, big cash flow for someone like you, yeah?"

"What?"

"You a big shot?"

"A big shot?" The man recoils invisibly.

"Yeah, one of them execs what invest every last dollar into whatever scheme or business they figure could use a little how-do-you-do. McDonagh does alright for himself without 'em, but I figure you mighta had some connections with the Kashmir."

"No no no, no connections. No money."

The bartender is confused. "Then what's that you been passing across the counter? Funny money?"

The man leaps back off the stool. His eyes shift rapidly between the patrons of the bar.

"Hey, buddy! Calm down! No one's accusing you of nothing! I just figured that with that sort of crisp on you, you'd be a high roller for sure. I'm sorry!"

The man remains cautious but returns to his seat. "No worries."

The bartender relaxes. The customer doesn't seem to want to cause any problems. He pulls out a box of Nicos and offers one to the man.

"You smoke?"

The man shakes his head imperceptibly and bangs on the counter for another beer.

The bartender shrugs and fills up another stein. He snaps his fingers once to produce a single orange flame at the tip of his fingers and lights his cigarette.

"What the fuck are you doing that for!" The man jumps back from the counter, aghast.

"The hell? This is a smoking establishment, I can do this."

"Why the fuck are you snapping your fingers? Why the fuck do you have Incinerate?" The man is breathing harder and faster. His legs are shaking.

"Because I saved up my fucking money, you ass. I can buy whatever fucking plasmid I want, you understand? Now let me smoke my Nicos and I'll let you have your crazy on the stool there, yeah?" The bartender stands behind the bar, daring the man to do something.

The man is motionless except for his knees, shaking and shaking. He stands there a long time. "W-where can I buy that plasmid?"

"What, Incinerate? Hell, any bathtub plasmid joint will hook you up with it for enough money. A little more and they'll even throw in the ADAM you'll need. You want that Ryan stuff, though, you gotta head through the right channels."

"Fuck Ryan."

The bartender looks nervously around. "Hey, hey, hey! We don't need nobody saying that around here. Ryan's got his eye on McDonagh as it is, we figure. Got his eye on everyone."

"Fuck Andrew Ryan."

"Hey!" The bartender is angry now. "We've got the right to do whatever the hell we want with the people in our establishment. Free market. Now, if you keep on like that, I will blow your head off."

The man stares at the bartender. His hand drifts towards his pocket.

"I'm not joking, I will kill you where you stand. Call it a terrorist attack foiled by the heroic bartender. Call it whatever the hell you like. I will kill if you start talking like that 'gainst Ryan, and Ryan'll make me a fucking hero for it."

The man's hand rests on his pocket. "Just tell me where I can buy plasmids."

"Any fucker short on cash and common sense will sell you a bottle of Incinerate for more than his life's worth. Probably find some right outside if you look under the docks hard enough."

The bartender raises his hands back up to the level of the bar, away from the shotgun. The man seems ready to leave.

The man senses this, too. He retreats to the door and looks back once at the bartender before pushing his way out to Port Neptune.

"Crazy bastard." The bartender returned to his glasses. The patrons returned to their beers. If some crazy exec wanted to hop himself up on moonshine plasmids, let him. The raid caused more than a few to lose his mind, and he wouldn't be the last to try and drown his sorrows in plasmids that could burn him up from the inside out.

It wasn't about the ADAM, not really. Any bloke could find ADAM if he really tried hard enough. Get a job as a fisherman and pocket a bit. Chase after a Little Sister and rip it out of her godforsaken belly. Making bootleg plasmids and pawning a little ADAM off the suckers who bought it was hardly worth it. Not really. It was more the notoriety. The fame. The little bit of personality injected into each bottle sold.

Anybody could shoot Ryan's blue bolts. But it took a special touch to get a hold of Rogue's orange. Or Colonel's red. In the world of black market plasmids, color was king, and it didn't take a fool to figure out that when the sparks started flying, the color on top would be kingpin. So it wasn't about the ADAM. It was about making a name. It was about getting the right products to the right people. And maybe a little ADAM on the side wouldn't hurt.

So when a high to-do comes strolling up under the docks, it doesn't need much thought to know that this is a sale ripe for the picking. Any mark like that with a lump of cash in his pocket and that sweet smell of the juice on him isn't just another dumb grunt. He's a somebody. And it's the somebodies that count.

So at first, it's the pitch. Selling the product without seeming to. He's here for a reason, but he can't know that anyone else knows. He can see the wares, the pumps, the little hand-labeled bottles. But he can't know that they're there just for him. Ruins the whole thing. He has to think that he's the one doing the favors. Poor bastard.

The procedure itself is never complicated. Ryan touts the self-application angle, but the effects are so unpleasant that hardly anyone does it. A trained professional, on the other hand, is a welcome sight. A simple anesthetic, an injection of the acquired ADAM, and Bob's your uncle. Instant genetic rewrite. From there, it's a simple matter of squeezing the rest of the juice into a rainy day, patching in the plasmid, and letting the bloke wake himself right up. Clean as a whistle.

Some of them what don't have the right body for it, they might jerk around a bit. Scream, cry, beg, same as the self-applicators. Incinerate does it the worst. Beg for water until they're practically licking up their own piss. Poor bastards. And tomorrow, they'll be back in their high-rise, banging the secretary and sealing their million dollar deals. But for one night, they will beg on their knees at the mercy of the underdocks.

And then they're patched up and on their way home, fresh with a new set of Orange or Red or Green or whichever brand they have decided to supply themselves with. They're broke men. Right broke. And they'll never know it, not one.