Broken Adventure: Arc 3: Jumpchain

by theaceoffire

A fragment of a powerful being is sent on further Adventures... And manages to crash right into one. A child, hurt and lost and alone needs help, and Adam {Name Redacted} is JUST the Warehouse to save the day! Godlike, Jumpchain, Dimensional/Universe/Fictional/Reality Travel.

3. Chapter 3

Sarah initially felt the thrill of the hunt!

She was going Sea Slug hunting! Be very very quiet!

...That sort of giddy emotion fell off rapidly after finding one. In less than five seconds of looking.

It was… kind of cute? In a slug sort of way. The things were transparent, had those tiny grinder teeth that tubes of goo like this used to slowly gnaw their way to victory, and could barely move. The most obvious discrepancy though was why it was so easy to find the things.

The slugs had a series of sacs or stomachs or nodes or something that glowed bright orange with ADAM.

Underwater.

In the absolute darkness.

It was… very noticeable.

Her enthusiasm for her task took another hit when she realized that there were over thirty of these things. Right here. Mere feet away from the outer wall of this section of Rapture.

A few were ON the outer wall of Rapture.

Well… at least this would be helpful. "Eenie meenie minie… YOU!" [[Harvest.]]

She grinned as a small section of seabed, the target, and some sea water vanished. Slug get!

Her grin froze as she felt the sea slug in her mind being scanned… then separated into individual organs and scanned again… then ripped into individual cells and scanned… and shredded into molecules and scanned… and evaporated into atoms.

And scanned.

...Oops.

A quick glance… ah. She should have used [[Capture.]] instead.

Damn it.

Right, round two! Which slug offended her the most?

She focused on the most stuck up and pretentious goo tube in the area (With those snooty antennae wiggles!) [[Capture.]]

Right, she should try to find what they eat and grab whatever seems to eat these guys too.

...After a bit more 'hunting'! [[Capture.]]

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam frowned. That was… disappointing.

Not only would these algae samples NOT be a great oxygen generation method, the stupid slime made things worse!

The bio-solar panels seemed to generate excess power only, rather than enriching the oxygen levels of the water as expected… more than that, they acted like a bottomless, hungry maw of avarice.

They absorbed nearly all wavelengths of light, making it look near perfectly black. They consumed any nitrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide dissolved in the water they floated in… which made it great for the environment, since the absent gasses created natural incoming flows of fresh 'air' for local sea life.

Which also got consumed when it arrived by the algae.

This black goo also absorbed heat. The stuff was damn cold, below freezing! Hell, the only reason it was even possible (And not ice) was due to the incredible pressure exerted by the sea above!

He was half convinced it was somehow consuming even that oceanic pressure… somehow!

When he tried to put the material in metal cubes with water, the whole mess would turn into a block of ice, which either broke the box OPEN or would drastically drop energy collection for external wiring. Not that this energy algae cared, it would apparently survive being frozen solid without a problem.

So Adam, being a mystical god egg Warehouse thing currently, thought: Oh, I'll just mess with the genetics! Maybe start a breeding program or whatever!

No.

Anything related to raising animals (And this slime COUNTED for some stupid reason) was broken before Adam took over the place. In retrospect, this explained why it was so damned hard wiggling around the restrictions on all the plant and fungus based food generation systems.

After all, Adam was cheating like a cheating cheater.

Normally, over 99.999% of the energy gathered by the Warehouse was to go to him, the Benefactor. He wasn't sure if this was done by the Kidnapper, or by the 'Parent' deity to prevent 'overfeeding' the 'baby' as Sarah grew up into godhood. But it was NOT normal to spend all this power trying to improve the Warehouse Avatar's situation like this.

This wasteful overspending was how he bent rules, expanded features, was able to generate advanced material composites and complicated structural designs for her repair work… by paying through the nose in energy use. And sort of not paying himself.

Even with all these tricks though, Adam hit a wall. Nothing would let him mutate these samples. Or speed up time finding alternatives by enhancing growth, breeding rates, or mutation percentages.

...Some of these restrictions should have even stopped him from being able to convert plant fibers into clothing. Huh.

Apparently there were a few GOOD sides to having so many broken parts. Best send those units and code to 'Research' and see if the boundaries can be pushed farther.

At least massive blocks of 'algae ice' that generated miniscule amounts of power would be useful on their own. Especially for food storage and so forth… maybe he could replace the alloys used with something that conducted heat better? Hopefully without exploding like a massive grenade.

He had managed to reduce the Algae Cube block size down to a column the height of a barstool safely when he felt Sarah poking him. {{Yes?}}

She looked frustrated. "Hey, I accidentally… uh. I mean, I looked into one of those power slug things we captured and I'm having an issue."

Adam reviewed her Skill activity logs. Heh, 'looked into' indeed. {{What's up?}}

She shared some data. "I can't figure out which part of these damned things actually MAKES the ADAM itself. These parts purify it, and I think this section somehow extracts a portion of the material from the overall composition, but none of these goo globs actually make the damn stuff. Unless I'm missing something."

Huh. That's strange. {{I did mention that the collection rates were horrible with the raw slugs. Heck, the rates weren't even that amazing after these slugs were inserted into hosts! During the Fall of Rapture, they even made these injector gun things so the girls, the 'little sisters', could more easily harvest the blood from corpses to get more ADAM to work with.}}

He nodded at her shock (Horror?) {{So the organ creating the stuff might be really tiny, or even several distributed parts working together. The scientists researching this stuff over multiple parallel realities never were able to solve the riddle.}}

Sarah took a calming breath. "That… all that mess aside, you know how I could choose what I would be a specialist of when picking my background? And how I chose 'Inventor' rather than something like chemistry or metallurgies or something?"

Adam felt a headache coming. {{...Yes?}}

She frowned. "It includes the ability to make intuitive leaps and connections between related facts… and my background is telling me that these sea slug organs are NOT generating stuff. They are refining material…"

A shared image. "And filtering it from their food."

...Was that ADAM sea slug eating some of the power panel algae!? The below freezing, sound absorbing, light absorbing, deadly Algae!?

{{...Let me borrow your sight for a moment.}}

In growing astonishment, Adam determined three things.

First, the algae used in these energy panels were NOT genetically modified. They were a local species. Far too wide spread, even trace amounts embedded deep in some of the rocks and coral reefs… it was here long BEFORE Rapture was built.

Second, in large enough volumes this stuff had a very VERY weak psionic field. Not enough to be sapient or make decisions or anything, but it DID explain why so many products made with the stuff DIDN'T just create super cancer and then kill their new host. When this stuff comes in contact with the weak 'I am me' field most creatures automatically generate, it adapts to it.

That was why dumb animals got 'Make me stronger, digest food better, live longer, heal me' and so on… while higher level consciousness creatures like humans got magic powers at a drastically higher energy cost. Something animals would avoid instinctively.

Thirdly, Rapture as a society had REALLY dropped the ball on this one. Tunnel vision most likely.

After all, the Slugs had large, easily harvested ADAM sack nodules that glowed. And one bit a dude on the dock and granted a healing factor (One time use or not). Why NOT assume they were the source of the powers? After all, feed them anything (From this area of the ocean) and they would 'generate' more ADAM for harvest!

God damn it, this was why it was possible to 'generate' more ADAM from consuming the blood of corpses. Because everyone down in Rapture was eating plants grown in water with trace amounts of the algae, or fish that fed on the stuff, or using products made from refined ADAM… and these sea slugs were SUPER EFFICIENT at collecting, purifying, and storing the stuff.

Hell, this explained why 'Vigors' worked so well even though you drank the stuff rather than injecting it. Because consuming this material was the natural method of gathering ADAM in the first damned place!

Theoretically, if these people had just stayed down here and ate local wildlife for a few dozen generations, they would eventually show the effects of Plasmids naturally.

Which… oh.

Oh shit.

That explained why the sea slugs were so compatible with Little Sisters… and had they even tested male children? Maybe some hormones clashed with production rates? Whatever.

The point was, these little girls were conceived and raised down here. Exposed to ADAM by the environment from birth… and had Rapture let them live and have more children, might have eventually led to an X-Man like wave of 'mutants' and superheroes.

Well. {{I think we just saved a LOT of time we were going to spend infiltrating places.}}

Why bother to steal years of research wasted on the wrong target?

Still. {{Keep gathering stuff, if nothing else we might find some neat bee shooting sharks or something.}} He looked over the power generation room just built (Full of Algae Ice Columns… sigh, they'd be useful elsewhere. Probably. {{Meanwhile, I'm going to redesign this mess.}}

After all, he had gathered a lot of nuclear material… and he had algae that absorbed nearly anything and produced electricity as a waste product.

Seal that mess into a solid block of metal with layers of shielding and not only would it work for millennia but no NEW nuclear technology would be introduced to this hell hole. Seriously, someone made the previous nuclear power generator after all, even if it was done badly and modified by a dozen following crazy people.

As for the rest of this room… Well, what low (Or preferably 'No') maintenance equipment could he set up here? Some energy capacitors would ensure the natural waves and spikes of power from the Power Algae (PA!) generator settled down. Some equipment to regulate how much energy to actually output to avoid explosions and stuff.

And cameras. And then layers of really thick defensive walls. And a VERY secure series of doors with mandatory alarms and notifications and delays… it would let anyone through, but not quickly, and not secretly.

To steal or sabotage stuff would now require them to be fairly straight forward with any attempts, which is honestly what Sarah would likely prefer.

In the first room, way outside of most defenses and with only a single layer of security, Adam quickly set up a massive modified water converter… And on the other side of the room, a huge air scrubbing system.

Both devices originally were designed to efficiently use standard Rapture parts, but stable and high levels of energy available allowed Adam to modify a few things.

The 'Sea water to Potable water' filtration system would separate out and purify the incoming oceanic flow, generating pure water while filtering out (and collecting) excess sea salt (because that stuff was too useful to toss), and then creating bricks of other waste material for disposal or later harvest.

As for the 'Air Scrubbing' system, Adam was (again) cheating. While Rapture apparently used an underwater tree park to help process air issues (Because crazy and impractical and why not), he decided to use the resources on hand: Seawater.

Basically, sea water naturally absorbs carbon dioxide. Which was a damned useful feature, and some basic technology was made a while ago to take advantage of it, tools and equipment that did not require a genius to repair it. Or ensure it didn't explode.

These gadgets were first designed in 1948, only a couple of years before Rapture was first being built. Researchers had found that air could be scrubbed without needing expensive consumable (And sometimes deadly) chemical resources by simply using one of the most readily available substances on Earth.

By pumping sea water through a tube filled with a series of complicated wire mesh circlets called Dixon rings and forcing used up air to flow in the opposite direction, you would end up producing carbon dioxide saturated seawater (That could be pumped back out to the ocean) and scrubbed air ready to deliver to the adoring public!

There were other complicated bits, like some of the pure water was split with electrolysis to get some extra hydrogen and oxygen and some nitrogen and other trace gases were gathered to ensure proper air composition for healthy people, but that was the important part.

Because these methods were much more stable, had far fewer moving parts… but needed MASSIVE electrical supplies to operate.

Which wasn't an issue now!

Adam was… really not sure how Rapture even managed to get itself established down here without cheating tricks like this Power Algae. But then again, this was a world FILLED with impossible mad scientists and strange universal rules… so meh.

Still. {{Right, Sarah. I need you to walk around the edge of your territory, or at least make sure we can access it all remotely for me to modify things. I want all external air, water, sewage and power to be intercepted by us and either sent elsewhere or disposed of before it is our problem. We can generate our own supplies for almost nothing, in better quantity and quality, and dispose of our waste with less loss and issue.}}

She absently waved him off. "In a minute, I found a rock lobster!"

...What? {{Are you hungry?}}

Sarah paused. "I mean, I guess?" She blinked. "Oh! No, I don't mean… Look, it is literally a lobster made from rocks. As far as I can tell, these are the only things actually able to eat the ADAM slugs and it did some WEIRD shit to them."

He viewed the shared data. {{Huh. Those are gemstones.}}

They both paused as 'Research' helpfully labeled the many materials used as an exoskeleton by the… dog sized? Labrador sized lobsters.

Coral, calcite, aragonite… layers of pearl? And that was just the organic formed stuff the Lobster used as the basic skin. The two Lobsters they were watching were currently eating stone. Just… rocks.

And from eating those rocks, these lobsters were apparently gathering non-organic material that was being refined and formed into strange crystalline growths. Like spikes.

Spikes of gabbro, serpentine, cassiterite, peridotite, olivine… and diamond.

Sarah had sparkles in her eyes! "So…"

Adam sighed. {{Yes, if you feed your pet Rock Lobster gems, it will grow that into spikes.}}

She grinned. "Thus?"

Well… might as well start learning how to build Farming features into the Warehouse at some point anyway. {{Keep looking for more of these lobsters, I'll make some habitats for them.}}

Filled with diamond lobster kibble, most likely. Because now they were both bond villains or something and needed Diamond Spiked Rock Lobsters to pet in their laps while laughing maniacally. Or something.

At least it would be worth the investment. Lobsters were one of the few animals that didn't die from old age… as long as they didn't get eaten, they would just grow bigger and older.

Huh. He bet feeding these things pure Algae ADAM would do something neat.

Something to think about.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave was tapping his foot while convincing himself, again, to not rant to the scary super powered mutant woman who should have already come back by now because his littlest girl was a WEE BIT energetic. Still.

After 48 hours.

As far as anyone can tell, little Amy wasn't in danger. She was healthy, could lift the couch without issue, jump and touch the ceiling even though it was over double HIS height, and land on one arm without even getting a bruise.

Which was a good thing, because watching her fall had damn near given him a heart attack.

And a bad thing, because it took FAR too long in his mind to convince her NOT to try jumping off taller things. In the end he had to sacrifice his little Emily upon the altar of 'Why not play with your sister' to keep the tiny one distracted.

With a sense of relief (And more than a twinge of frustration) he saw Sarah appear.

Literally, as in from nowhere, which should have startled him, but his field of fucks was empty and he had nothing to harvest. "So what was the situation?"

Her now relaxed smile fell into a dark frown. "Oh I can't believe how effed up this was… did you know your water was tainted?"

Fuck. "No."

She absently waved at him to follow her as she walked back towards his home. "As far as I can tell, there was something being added to the city's supply… Not sure what exactly it was supposed to do, but a few days ago the device fell apart and injected loads of crap directly into the main pipe."

Dave felt pure rage like lava, stifling his veins. "Was it Fontaine's goons again?"

She sighed. "No. It was there from initial construction as far as I could tell. Something similar to a contraceptive."

...His anger drained away to shock… then horror. "Susan had a hard time getting pregnant."

Sarah sighed. "It is almost an act of God she even MANAGED to do so. Still, I fixed it. And I can make sure to fix anyone in the community who lived here a few years drinking the stuff."

Right. Focus. "About that… what exactly WAS that stuff we gave Amy?"

She chuckled. "Something like an emergency super medicine. That stuff kept me alive, energetic, and stopped me from dying at a time when I was starving, dying of thirst, injured, sick, infected, hallucinating, and being hunted by dangerous enemies."

What the fuck!? "...Is it safe?"

Sarah snorted. "Not just safe but empowering. Stronger immune system, gets rid of cancer, cleans out impurities, enhances brain activity, can even regenerate lost limbs or damaged internal body tissue. Most of the stuff will wear off after a while… well, except the physical enhancements. It actually improves muscle quality, skin strength, that sort of thing."

She paused… "Actually, most of the enhancement features should have worn off by now."

A blur ran by. "DaddyI'mNotIt"

It blurred the other direction. "AndEmmyIsItINeedToHide."

Dave waved a hand in the rough direction the blur went. "No. It hasn't worn off yet."

Sarah was watching the blur run past in confusion… and then face palmed. "Ah. Right."

Well? The woman looked at Dave with a sheepish grin. "Right uh… I gave you a dose of super medicine for someone of my body weight."

A squeal ran by. "INeedABetterHindingSpot!"

The woman winced. "I weigh a lot."

Calm. He must be calm. "Are there going to be side effects?"

Sarah sighed, running a hand through her bone white hair. "It might have doubled her life span? How old is she?"

What? "She's six."

She winced. "Might have tripled it. Or more. But the super speed and unlimited energy should wear off in… a day? Maybe two? She'll probably need to drink water in a week or so, food… not sure. Wait until she says she's hungry."

The blur now had an older sister hanging on to her laughing as they were dragged along. "HidingNextToEmmyWasABadIdea!"

Dave just… couldn't handle this. "When will the super strength wear off?" It was hard to be a protective dad when your tiny bundle of love could juggle you.

Sarah put an arm around his shoulder and led him onwards. "She doesn't have super strength, That'sJustHerNewBodyNow. SO! Now that I fixed Pauper's Drop electrical, water, and air purification systems… let's talk about what to do next!"

Wait. "You did what?" No, hang on. "Back up, what was that about Amy's strength!?"

They were at his home, and somehow Sarah opened the door even though he KNEW it was locked when he left. "Yeah. Sorry. Moving on, Susan! I fixed the water problem and the pipes in the walls and stuff!"

The blur whipped into the room! "EmmySaysYou'reTheBlueLady!"

His guest winced as his love entered the room. "Also I might have accidentally given your child super powers. But they are mostly temporary!"

And the blur was gone with a 'BoredNow!' as Susan gave Sarah a dry look. "We might have noticed the super power thing."

His wife waved a hand at the kitchen… and the obviously brand new sink, faucet, backsplash, half the wall, and nicer countertop. "The plumbing changes were a bit noticeable too, when several portions of your home decides to dismantle and replace itself."

Sarah slumped in a chair. "Ah. Right." A pile of documents appeared out of nowhere and fell on the table. A table that was now brand new and looked WAY out of his personal budget range. "Man, I am terrible at being sneaky. Maybe I should ask Adam for help with this kind of thing."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

It was easier to get things done, Adam thought, when you could just hand wave the 'how' portion.

He set Sarah's (Now more productive) planning session with Susan and Dave Grinder to the side and focused more on ADAM and the sludge that generated it. Because what he lacked in superpowers and working deity level units and systems he made up for by getting creative.

Now that he wasn't trying to proverbially extract blood from a stone (Not even the RIGHT stone, no less!) Adam was sure he could make some actual progress.

It was time… time for SCIENCE!

...Right, not only was the Warehouse not set up with speakers or weather, but the chance of lightning at the bottom of the sea was very remote.

Though this Jump's version of Rapture certainly FELT like the kind of place to have narative lightning. Seriously, the mad science was silly down here, and was likely only possible due to the same strange universal laws that let the power algae exist.

Speaking of which, he needed to name this stuff.

ADAM was a reference to the first man spawned according to the Bible's creation theory. Eve, the first woman (Made from man's rib), was made from ADAM and was sold by Garden of Eden vending machines. And Andrew Ryan probably got an internal laugh calling this power juice ADAM since it came from sea slugs, ones that were now implanted as parasites (Or symbiotes) for production, since he considers large swathes of people to be leeches on society.

Seriously, at least 'Vigors' were called that because of how powerful they made you feel, while Adam expected that 'Plasmids' were just called that because the processed stuff Rapture churned out worked better when in the bloodstream… he could do better than that!

Uh. Maybe.

Honestly, Adam wasn't great with naming stuff anyway, and he couldn't make fun of other people after naming his computer systems (Holy crap long ago) with similar Biblical references.

Whatever, he'll call the stuff 'Chaos Extracted Excellence' (CEE from the sea!) and the algae 'Primordial Ooze', or Ooze for short. Not that anyone other than Sarah would know about Ooze if he had his way… and at least he wasn't calling the non-sea-slug goo 'Steve' or something like 'God Juice'.

He examined the ongoing experiments, the black sludge being separated and tested. One test unit duplicating the capture conditions for the sea slugs Sarah had collected (A baseline), then a bunch of units to get some damn data to work with!

Each line of testing was focusing on a single variable, hopefully giving him enough to pass onto 'Research' for results in a few days or so rather than centuries or something silly like that.

For example, this line experimented with pressure, since Rapture was 2096 meters under water or just over 1.3 miles down. That was around 200 atmosphere's worth of pressure or 2.9k psi and… anyway. Point was, Adam was filling units with algae and exposing it to baseline salt water ranging from the surface atmosphere levels down to… silly levels. Like, so compressed that the liquid was trying to solidify.

That line over there tested temperature, from as close to 0 Kelvin as he could get (Disturbingly close, it turns out) and all the way up to this seawater mix's boiling point. These lines tested changing the purity of the liquids used (From distilled water all the way to near solid levels of salt and stuff) while others were testing algae density, different speeds of exposed water 'currents', light levels, sound levels, and so on and so forth.

It was a LOT of testing. The only reason Adam felt like progress was being made was due to the size of his testing units (Aside from the 'density of algae' tests, most were the size of a small lunch box) and the Warehouse's ability to automate the process (SCIENCE can be surprisingly boring and repetitive).

Well, that and the amount of source material to work with.

He had literally absorbed tons of algae at this point, which was astounding when you realized that was AFTER removing the seawater.

And it wasn't even a percentage of the stuff out there.

In a way, Rapture was damn lucky… It was likely all the odd stuff they did down here stayed secret from the world because the strange signals and odd lights and so on and so forth were all absorbed by this naturally occurring black algae!

But at least this meant Adam had material to work with.

With a frown, he examined the experiments as they passed raw info for 'Research' to harvest. Better also add some electrocution experiments to this mix… There must be a reason this gunk generates it as a waste product.

Honestly it probably explains those powers that generated lightning strikes or messing up electronics now that he thought about it.

Though how that translated into hacking a turret into a friend, spawning bees in your arm that follow command, or controlling other people's brain (And making them kill themselves after automatically) he had no clue.

Anyway, more SCIENCE!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Susan was off distracting the terribly cute duo while Dave frowned. "Are you sure these measurements are correct?"

Sarah nodded. "We can easily reclaim a dozen meters into each wall without modifying much of anything. This whole area was built slapdash, a temporary measure that accidentally got left in when things moved along."

She pointed at one map. "This area had flooding, so they just sealed off a portion and ignored it. Those sections collapsed, but it was cheaper to cover the pile and build over it rather than move the mess. Basically they traded away floor space for speed of construction and short term gains elsewhere."

Dave grumbled. "I was just hoping to fix up the walls and stuff but this is almost a criminal waste of material. We could triple the apartment complex alone if we could use all that."

She snorted. "I'm going to redesign the whole mess, building by building. Bad and random wiring work, I already told you about the plumbing issues, more than a few 'alterations' done by tenants. Hell, half these walls aren't even structurally sound enough to handle a mild earthquake… Seriously, I'm shocked you haven't had buildings cave in."

He sighed. "Hang on." He shuffled the layouts and passed her a floor plan. "I moved these people out of this building a few years ago. Barely made it in time."

...It was just a pile of scrap metal and fragments. "Ah."

Dave frowned. "Rebuilding it would take a lot of work and time. Not to mention that you can't alter any contracts for most of these places anyway."

Sarah chuckled. Yeah, you would think so. "Actually, destroying a place or 'refurbishing' my property is explicitly allowed."

He blinked. "What?"

She grinned. "They want me to fail my scheduled contract timeline inspections. If I destroy my areas and someone somehow delays the actual build time or repair work? Oh no! Guess I have to give them everything."

Dave just… stared. "So you can't change the rules, or hire new people, or fire anyone…"

Sarah's grin grew malicious. "But I can destroy a business or building for an entire month and then 'rebuild' it a few hours before the due date. Not that anyone knows that second half."

He looked off in the distance… at the people who he couldn't fire, the groups who actively tried to bleed his family and friends dry, an 'unstoppable' series of businesses and sleazy jerks who knowingly helped his own attempts at fixing the place fail.

Dave's grin grew to match her own. "You know, while you are not allowed to move or transfer away any shops or buildings... I don't think these contracts explicitly state property lines. If we, for example, rebuilt a few stores at half their original footprint or smaller…"

The soon to be King and Queen of Pauper's Drop turned to the town's layout with a MUCH more critical eye.

It was a bit of an unfortunate oversight, one built on 'facts' like being unable to rebuild a town in hours or having limited resources and restricted movements.

So unfortunate.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Right, now that Adam had something to work with… more testing.

First, 'Research' had found three useful starting points with Ooze. Growth, Generation, and Goo.

The Growth starting point was a list of experiments that most assisted in Ooze reproduction. The power algae preferred bright light, distilled fresh water under high pressure, no electrical or audio stimulation, and a fairly low Ooze density. Adam would need to see how large breeding units could be before the rate of algae collection interferes with reproduction rates.

Meanwhile, Generation's starting conditions were hopefully going to maximize the electrical waste production rates… which was turning out odd, since it seems to be related to vibration levels. Screaming at it would generate sparks and stuff.

...Which might explain those fighting anime where the hero screams and suddenly looks like a lightning rod? Huh.

Anyway, the Goo conditions were simply to see how to maximize CEE production. Not surprisingly, optimizing this reduced electricity byproducts and he would need to do the whole reproduction and collection rate testing suite on this pile of raw results too… damn it.

At least, he had some initial values to get things started! All three needed testing and verification to ensure each recorded affecting factor doesn't interfere with the others… Or to discover if some would have exponential effects when used in certain combinations. Hopefully they would.

He was in the middle of testing methods to inject external energy and matter (And hopefully find out what Ooze loved to eat) when he noticed something odd changing in the collected ADAM samples Sarah got from her squished sea slug.

...It was slowly turning from glowing red.

To gold.

...Interesting.

His attention was called. {{Yes?}}

Sarah was grinning. "Hey boss, quick question… Now that we fixed up the resource station, can Pauper's Drop handle more buildings and stuff? A LOT of stuff is like only one floor with empty space leading up to the ocean skylight."

Adam couldn't hold back a snort. {{I don't just fix things, I build quality. Our new electrical grid could power half of modern day New York State without any strain. Similar for water and air handling, although we will need to adjust the connections to each area as we go… I do NOT trust existing material for the new rates if we decide to use them.}}

He enjoyed her stunned look. {{So yeah, have fun with design stuff and I can make sure it will be stable, water tight, safe, and easy to maintain.}} Not that hard, with 'Research' doing all the heavy lifting.

Ignoring his stunned Jumper, he went back to examine the altered ADAM.

CEE was of course a slightly psionic substance created by Ooze. But Ooze was just algae, and had literally no mind or instincts to taint the stuff.

Unlike a sea slug.

True, a sea slug didn't have MANY instincts… but hunger, avoiding harm, and defense were basic enough. Probably the 'heal me!' part too, now that Adam thought about it.

And as CEE got refined out of the consumed Ooze, the ADAM sea slugs were corrupting it… ever so slightly. Apparently.

Because according to 'Research', the only reason this sample of ADAM was changing color was due to him retaining it here, inside Sarah's Warehouse, outside of her Storage Deck and Warehouse Inventory system.

This was likely the first time ADAM had ever been exposed in an environment with literally NO psionic noise. Like everything else, the Warehouse prevented that stuff from polluting the god egg just like it would remove polluted air or poisoned water.

And without a psionic field to reinforce itself, the ADAM was reverting to a base state.

Neat!

Adam idly took some of the excess Ooze and used [[Harvest]] to separate out some pure CEE for comparison.

It was a bright, sunshine yellow gold. Pretty!

Though that had some disturbing implications about why the hell ADAM was glowing red. Hell, why was Eve bright blue?

Well whatever. Let's see if we can get these Warehouse modules to purify tainted ADAM and extract the corruption for possible use. After all, Vigors and Plasmids were documented as able to record memories or reflexes from past users… He should be able to do SOMETHING with that if he got ahold of it.

In the meantime, Adam could have Sarah's excess generated Eve dumped into these Ooze farms. Her avatar can only hold so much at a time (As enormous as her reserves actually were), so he might as well ensure additional energy generation isn't paused due to being 'full' and wasting a useful resource.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

*Ding*

Wha? OH! "Hello! Welcome to the Fishbowl Diner!"

Shit, no. "If this is about our resupply shipment, I'm afraid it's been delayed again, but we still have some of our famous stew!" Some. Hopefully enough for today.

Rachel blinked her blurry eyes… and sagged. Fuck. "Ah. Hey Mr. Grinder."

Suck it up girl, you are a grown woman! "I… we can't afford this week's payment. Edward helped me out with our savings but no one is willing to sell us supplies."

Poor Edward had tried. Her husband had dreamed of opening this diner, had invested damn near everything, but no one but Fontaine's people could reliably get supplies down to this hell hole.

So it was up to her, as the only one between the pair with a mind for business, to try and keep things afloat so deep underwater.

Dave 'Boss of the Drop' always had this look. His massive body and shiny head had always felt dependable and in control, but right now she felt like a stone was on her shoulders.

He, of course, was calm like usual. "I know Rachel, it's why I've been looking around for solutions… and I managed to find such a solution." He waved someone into the restaurant. "Mind you, it is a bit… unconventional."

A Lady (With a capital 'L') strolled into the small diner. A bright blue suit showed sharp curves and a sensual body, while her bone white hair framed her face and the pair of dangerous steel gray eyes watching… everyone.

Holy. Crap. "Hi?" *Cough*, suck it up! "I mean, Hello! Welcome to the Fishbowl Diner! I'm Rachel Gaynor, half owner of the place!"

She slid through the world like a shark as her soft hand shook hers. "Charmed. I'm Dave's new boss, Sarah Killgrave."

Damn that's a sexy voice. "Hi." Shit. "I'm going to get my husband, whom I'm married to and we only occasionally do the threesome thing and oh my god what am I saying I'm going to shut up now."

Sarah 'The Hotness' Killgrave thankfully ignored her blushing mess of horror and embarrassment and turned to Mr. Grinder. "I'm going to keep her."

A loud bang came from the kitchen as her Husband stomped out, apparently done listening in. "Now listen right here! Dave's boss or not, no one is going to be hitting on my wife holy crap how do you even fit INTO that!?"

Rachel waved her arms. "I KNOW! She's like sex in high heels!"

...SHIT that was out loud!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah grinned at the embarrassed couple before waving it away. "Do you two have somewhere we can talk?" She waved at the windows. "A bit more secure than this?"

Rachel coughed. "YES! Just… Let's move this to the kitchen."

The Fishbowl Diner was set up right past the standard Securis metal air locks leading from the Atlantic Train Station, a massive square one floor restaurant that only served customers on the front two edges. The majority of the place was, however, a massive and well cared for kitchen.

Dave chuckled as he followed the restaurant owners into the back. "Edward, good to see you're still keeping strong!"

The blushing man shrugged as he moved away from the group, heading back to a massive stock pot. "Yeah. I'll just keep an eye on this, anything related to business my girl handles like usual. Rachel's my financial goddess, after all."

Sarah grinned at the other woman's dopey grin before examining the room. "Man this is big. Space is such a premium down here I'm shocked you pulled it off!"

Both of the others scoffed, and Dave also chipped in. "This place was easy to get approved since the Gaynor couple worked for nearly nothing in return for feeding the workers during the earlier days of construction. The posh seats were added for when the designers and overseers showed up every month or so." He slapped Edward's shoulder. "These heroes kept us going even in the roughest times. That's why I wanted us to help them first."

Rachel focused. "Right, so what's the plan? I even offered to pay 140% over our standard costs and suddenly my shipments vanished anyway. It's worse than when Mr. Grinder first got targeted."

Sarah hummed. "Not surprising, the people behind that situation are trying to off me now."

Edward jerked in shock. "Youse got Fontaine's guys after ya's!?"

Dave chuckled. "Not his direct attention, nor the main teams either. Just the realtor branch that I've been working against… they stumbled on Ms. Killgrave's investment potential and nearly bent over backwards to offer amazing deals and bargains."

The chef actually growled! "Fontaine's got his claws deep in the guts of Rapture. Fontaine Fisheries is the only provider of seafood allowed down in Pauper's Drop now, no one else dares to compete!"

Rachel frowned. "Not just seafood, they somehow have the capital to heavily influence Calci-O's sales… They are the major supplier for most non-alcoholic drink options in Rapture. Heard rumors about possible moves on both Beef-e Potted Meat distribution networks and Thanks-Mom's cake and snack vending machine deployment decisions."

Her face darkened. "Fuckers even going after the god damned Best Friend pet food networks. They shouldn't have the funding for this." Her glare was harsh. "No, they DON'T have the funding for this! And somehow, even after dumping cash like a river into that damn Fontaine Futuristics bullshit they STILL have the funds to lean on our suppliers!"

Dave nodded. "Rat Catcher says the man likely has a smuggling ring going somehow, but details are held tight and his mice that got into it all vanished. It's something shady alright."

Sarah however paused. "Hang on… give me one second."

Rachel's curious look dropped into shock and awe as a series of documents began fading into view, falling onto the massive work counter in the center of the square kitchen. "What the…"

Sarah pushed some over to Dave. "Right, so are these all the businesses Fontaine's people actually own?"

The bald man was stoic at his friend's bullshit powers and reviewed it. "Huh, I didn't know about half of these, but probably. I don't see any I know of missing at least." He pulled a pen from a pocket (Managers always seemed to need one) and checked some on the list. "Right."

Dave pushed the page closer to the women. "The checkmarks are all places publically owned by Fontaine, period. I put two marks next to the ones with the biggest investments that we know of."

Rachel frowned. "You missed two. Well, one I guess, since you wouldn't have heard about that stupid pet food monopoly deal that is going to happen."

He blinked. "Really?"

She pointed. "Fontaine Clinics are getting a huge boost. My contact for apples, Topaz Industry, he was trying to smooze me and let stuff slip about a big advertising partnership they were going into. For some reason, Fontaine's people are willing to pay above top dollar for new clinic locations and a massive ongoing blood drive campaign, and are going to do the big 'An apple a day' thing or something like that to drum up support."

Sarah frowned. "They must be getting ready to officially start offering Plasmids and Tonics to the public."

Dave blinked. "What?" Even Edward was listening in now.

She sighed. "Four or five companies are looking into it now." According to Adam's hacking and outside context knowledge, although she wouldn't share that. "I believe that aside from Fontaine Futuristics only Ryan Industries and Sinclair Solutions are worth being mentioned from the group, but all of them are trying to make super powers for sale using some special drugs."

Her bald friend tensed. "Like the stuff we gave little Amy?"

The shocked look from the restaurant couple was missed as Sarah chuckled. "Oh god no! The stuff I gave her has literally no down sides other than how incredibly expensive and impossibly rare it is."

Hell, you needed an outside of reality toolset and conceptual energy harvesting abilities at minimum to even begin to make the stuff Adam just handed out randomly. Not to mention how MUCH a single choice point spent was worth… More than enough to the point that her kidnapper risked having an unknown expanding number of gods bringing wrath upon everything to try and use her as a harvest opportunity.

Sarah chuckled. "No, this stuff CAN be made safe, but it takes money to do it. Money to research, money to gather more materials, money to advertise, money to sell, money to resupply, money to fix the unknown massive issues that you caused by NOT paying money to research it ENOUGH."

Dave sighed. "So… it COULD be safe, or it COULD be profitable?"

Sarah nodded. "Or fast. In this case, Fontaine is likely going for speed in the hopes that beating out his competitors to market will earn him enough money to cover up issues and establish a firm lead over the competition."

Both Rachel and Edward nodded. In Rapture, profit was king. Risk was literally part of every day life here.

Dave frowned. "So tell me about these Plasmids and Tonics."

Sarah waved a hand, making the papers float while ignoring Rachel's gasp. "Plasmids are powers. They range from simple stuff like tiny flames from your fingers to light a cigar all the way up to telekinesis, controlling electricity, whatever."

She then flexed, drawing appreciative looks. "Tonics can enhance the body or mind. Smarter, stronger, more resistant, even bizarre stuff like generating a mental effect to look invisible to others." After all, turning invisible or blending into the background shouldn't make your clothing do the same. Adam was pretty sure that was a notice-me-not or a not-in-my-back-yard mental effect thing.

Rachel's eyes were sparkling! "I want that! I could carry stuff and unload supplies and burn that asshole potato vendor and clean the house faster!"

Edward tried to calm her with head pats, fully ignoring his slow cooking food. "The way you say all that… what's the catch?"

Sarah shrugged. "Anything active like power needs lots of energy to use. You'd have to double your meal size at least. Theoretically, the most pure stuff wouldn't have other issues."

According to Adam, without mental corruption infecting the plasmids, you would end up with weaker powers in the end because the host's body would naturally limit itself to prevent self harm or overspending internal Eve supplies.

Which was likely why the marketing teams went with the much more powerful versions. "If you use the rougher, less refined stuff though it can get bad. Hallucinations, massive energy shortages and possible sudden starvation or dehydration, powerful withdrawal symptoms leading to insanity, sometimes unexpected ability or body mutations… the REALLY experimental shit can make you turn to sludge or explode. Yeah."

Again, addiction? Rapture LIVED to feed those. Cigars and cigarettes, drugs of every type and nature, prostitution, indulgences of every version and flavor. Hell, this place wasn't exposed to America's anti-addiction campaigns yet, even toys would have kids pretending to smoke like the cool dads.

She coughed. "So none of that in my town. And I think I can get away with my plans if I do this right."

Edward looked skeptical. "And why's that miss?"

She grinned. "Because every other asshole is hungry. They want more power, more money, more status, to conquer not just Rapture as a city but as a concept."

Her hands wave, blue flames flicker on her fingers. "I have power."

A number of expensive items she had scanned from the expensive playgrounds of Rapture were formed and floated in mid air, a dance of jewelry, rare foods, expensive gadgets, fine clothing. "I can easily get money."

Suddenly her body stood as a hunter, a sharp spike in one hand. "I have no need for status."

The items vanished as she smirked at the crowd. "And I already OWN part of Rapture, even if it was meant to be a scam to take me for a ride. After all…"

Sarah created a model of the future Pauper's Drop on the counter in the middle of the room.

Their future.

"Is a woman not entitled to the sweat of her brow?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

He studied the report. "Is she one of Augustus's experiments? I was unaware Sinclair Solutions had made any new breakthrough."

Wasn't one of Fontaine's people, not with her making moves down in the slums. Especially not when he was hearing reports of certain abilities, ones that even his best people were still doing trials for in the test phases.

His initial rage at the betrayal of his people and further corporate espionage had quickly been tempered as more reports came in.

She wasn't his. Not from his works. Not from anything that psychotic Dr. Yi Suchong had sewn together either, another sign that this wasn't another scheme of that lowlife Fontaine.

Her abilities were beyond any results that could have come from his hands, and the works she had crafted so far were of a standard Rapture hadn't seen in some time.

The manager shook his head. "Her background checks out. Multiple sources, although we did find some of her few friends who abandoned her on the surface… Before coming to Rapture, Sarah Killgrave had insisted that she was about to achieve something beyond amazing. It wasn't enough to save her labs or her financial grants, so she cashed out, burned everything, and came down here."

He looked over the notes. 'Burned' in this case was a literal statement. After her supporters tried to replace her with a wealthy investor's up and coming eldest son, apparently in an open display of nepotism as the moron had barely passed high school before ditching college, Ms. Killgrave left with an impact.

Ten labs looted, burned to the ground. And several of the financial supporters had suspiciously convenient bank withdrawals by the time she left shore… explains where her supplies were coming from, even if he had no damned clue HOW.

A small smirk couldn't help but grow as he read more.

THIS!

Defiant against the government, against those who would steal her work and bind her potential!

Diving into danger, leaping head first into impossible odds and accomplishing equally impossible miracles despite the world itself trying to keep her down!

THIS was his dream. One of his chosen people of Rapture, the scientist who not only defied the world but actually achieved real results in her work!

It was worth giving her enough of a grip on the great chain to see if she would climb to success or hang herself. "Stand down the enforcers and call off the operation, we'll let Fontaine Real-estate exist long enough to try and play its game. Keep me informed."

At least she didn't seem to be a parasite like that slimy conman Fontaine, those twisted schemes that always seemed to stay just beyond his own comeuppance. A woman who built, who created, and who sought to do so through her own purchased territory rather than coveting the works of others without the ability to claim them!

Though, Andrew Ryan considered, the fact that she was building new structures underwater WITHOUT sinking completed buildings like he did might be even more impressive than her impossible powers.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah looked at the crowd now filling the Town Square. Rachel and Edward were down there in the mix, along with Susan (Being slowly dragged around by little Amy as the tiny one fidgeted).

Dave Grinder was standing at the podium she had whipped together for this, as she had the stage they now stood on. "Right, that's about everyone who isn't on shift. And you guys will spread the word when they come on, yeah?"

A chuckle and weak 'Yes Mr. Grinder!' echoed through the open area.

From Adam's notes, it was actually less than 30% of the total population down here right now, due to how big a boom the slums had gotten recently… but representatives of each subgroup were here at least.

He nodded. "Good. And I see more than a few acquaintances, whom I've had various levels of polite discussion with in the past, have managed to find time to show up as well."

Some well meaning (And more than a few angry) boo's and hisses filled the air while others frowned or chuckled.

Dave smiled. "Right, this isn't a usual meetup as everyone probably guessed. Long story short, the people who gave me my 'opportunity' to help fix the place up back then have suckered another moron into giving it a shot."

Sarah's light slap to the back of his bald head got some stunned chuckles from the crowd… but there was now a weight in the air. He nodded. "Yeah, she's the one. And yeah, she knows how bad the situation is. Thankfully she was willing to come to me and find out what is REALLY going on down here rather than trust those lovely words and fine quality documents those kind lawyers keep giving to us."

There wasn't a hiss or a boo this time… but Sarah could FEEL the raw, cold fury that flowed in this crowd and the nervousness of some groups as that was focused their way.

After all, shafting Dave and his family affected not just his entire building crew, but most of the territory down here. While the rich people owning shops and such had profited while living elsewhere, the pawns and patsies down here had to suffer the after effects.

Dave gave a firm nod. "Right, let's get this over with. Everyone, please hear out our new Boss and Landlady, Ms. Sarah Killgrave."

Sarah gave a wry smile as she stood at the podium, some twisted part of her enjoying the skepticism and distrust this mob was sending her. Not so much the lecherous looks, but her background had years to adjust to such things. "Good afternoon everyone! This won't take too long I think, so pay attention because there is nothing anyone can do to change what is going to happen."

Well THAT had gotten their attention.

Her eyes met small groups in the crowd. "I'm sure some of you are wondering why Dave is putting up with my nonsense. About why anyone would invest in his housing complex, despite its terrible financial history and the dirt poor income level of this whole area. And I am sure there are many theories already going around, because in places like this talk is one of the cheap things that can be shared without restraint."

A few chuckles lightened the mood a bit as she smiled. "So I hope it will reassure you all to know I didn't purchase ownership of the housing complex."

She didn't bother to hide anything as a massive wall was brought in behind her, with an unclassified map of the town. Ignoring the gasps, she waved at it. "No, I bought it all."

The stunned crowd fell silent as she began to make piles of paper appear. "I own the connection tunnels. I own the train station. The market. The shops. The vending machine placements. The clinics. The hotels… Not just the buildings but the property they are built on, to top it off."

She grinned like a shark as the wall behind her was replaced with a zoomed out top down view of Pauper's Drop. "Hell, I own the seabed in that whole red circle there. I even own a surprising amount of the ocean above us as well, which wasn't expected but gives me some much needed room."

More than a few subtle (And even more very much NOT subtle) looks went to Dave who silently nodded.

Good, she was making an impression!

Sarah waved at the map. "The story of how I did this is funny but not important. And I'm sure at least a few of you are wondering how the hell I fixed up the Train Station, but I'm not bothering to explain that either." Seeing the confused looks, she sighed. "Yes, I'm the one who rebuilt the Atlantic Train Station stop. Now, pay attention."

She looked at the crowd. "The question most important to you should not be how, or when, or with what methods… but why. Why did I invest everything into this town, into an area that everyone else in Rapture was abusing and squeezing for any fraction of profit still left after all the abuse you survived?"

The grumbling in the crowd had gotten louder. "The answer is simple: Because I wanted to."

Aside from the confusion she saw more than a few people decide right there that she was insane.

That was fine. "Some people would tell you I did this for charity reasons. That isn't entirely wrong. Many would claim I am overstepping my abilities, that the legal shackles designed to keep me down would stop my plans before I could get anything done. Others would argue I am trying to gain political power, that I am about to promise you fame and fortune to make you die for my causes."

She chuckled. "I can at least address that issue: No."

Sarah grinned at the skeptical audience. "If you offered me control of all Rapture right now, I would decline it. If I was handed the ownership of the biggest companies under the sea, I would pass on the work to others and come back down here to get back on task."

She opened her arms. "I OWN Pauper's Drop. Me. It is mine. No one else's opinion matters, no other company gets a vote, no shareholder can alter my decisions. Mine."

Leaning forward, she grinned. "So let's focus on the changes that are going to occur down here. There are more than a few, and it would be fastest if I explained how I personally see the world, and how I plan to run my town."

The wall gained another large document. "First, rebuilding. This place is filthy, it is falling apart, the equipment and facilities are outdated, and there are severe structural issues and design flaws built into the foundation. I'm replacing all that, rebuilding most of it."

She took in the horror the people showed and chuckled as a couple yelled out about how she was a commie, a liar, a robber. "Now, now, did I say I was going to make YOU pay for this?"

The crowd simmered down in confusion. "Didn't I say it already? Pauper's Drop is MINE, why would I let other people pay for my changes to my place? I'm not allowed to change any contracts until the end of the month, but I CAN destroy and rebuild anything I wish during this time, and I want to rebuild almost everything."

After talking with Rachel and Dave, they had decided the level of changes she needed to make were just impossible to hide… so why bother?

Anyway, "Each building will close down access to the public for around two hours in the next few days, and you will be informed beforehand when I start. Stay out of the construction zones while I fix stuff or don't complain if there are issues. Like temporary flooding or whatever."

She carried on, the wall updating behind her as she swapped out the poster. "Second focus: Resources. I'm sure everyone noticed the power outage this morning?"

A few shrugs. Stability was not what the slums were known for, blackouts and brownouts were common.

Sarah nodded. "I've redesigned and replaced the Resource Station. There are going to be price changes now, significant ones."

Seeing Dave say nothing to contradict her, a cloud of depression started to take hold on his people. Clearly he believed her… and all previous changes to their bills had made life just a new level of hellish down here.

She sighed. "Oh come on! Do you think THE Mr. Grinder would stand there looking relaxed if I was going to price gouge my own damned town? This is MY place, why would I punish myself like that!?"

Documents were handed to Dave, who had his people begin handing them out. "Long story short, all utility costs will be dropping down to prices last seen down here a decade ago. And even cheaper than that when it comes to your air handling fees."

The mass of people clumped around Dave's people as the pamphlets were passed out. Disbelief and beyond cautious optimism began to spread.

A black woman stood at the front of the crowd, radiating suspicion. "And why would you do such a thing, Ms. Killgrave?"

Sarah looked over at the finely dressed woman. "And you are?"

She got a dry look in return. "Grace Holloway, I sing a bit down at the Limbo Room."

Ooh, sassy! "Well Ms. Holloway, do you want the official reason or the real one?"

Grace humped. "Surprise me."

Sarah grinned. "Well publicly, I would argue I am doing it for profit! The morons in charge down here were willing to bleed the people dry to get a few extra coins in their own pockets, as I am sure you noticed."

Several people in the mass growled in agreement. She continued. "I would argue I can earn more money when the people in my town can afford to buy food, drinks, and support their family. That you will all spend more money when you HAVE some damned money. Officially, by cutting the prices of my various bills, you will all become more valuable to me."

She grinned at the stunned look Grace was giving. "And as a side note, even at the dropped price rates Dave is handing out right now, I will STILL be making a profit. The amount of price gouging going on down here was bizarrely beyond too much."

Grace had by now been handed one of the sheets spreading through the crowd and seemed stunned at the lower bills her listeners would have to pay. "Impossible."

Sarah laughed! "This is Rapture! Impossible is a weekly event!"

The singer glared. "Well, now that your lovely words have been spent, how about singing a true song or two? What is the REAL reason?"

The Jumper spread her arms again. "Isn't it obvious? Pauper's Drop is mine! I built my own power generators, my own water purification systems, my own sewage treatment center, my own air scrubber! It is all mine, why should I charge me more money to use my own equipment?"

Dave chuckled when he got back on stage, gently pushing Sarah out of the way to the shock of the crowd. "Sarah is eccentric and does unbelievable things, but she isn't exaggerating here. I am involved in the reconstruction plan and trust me, even as cheap as these fees look, she is still going to be making money hand over fist."

A man stood from the crowd. "And what exactly is the plan for this reconstruction? Do we have no say in our own businesses?"

Dave whispered to her. "That's Harond Parson, he owns Books over on Skid Row next to the open air market. Good guy, but middle class unlike most of our people."

Sarah gave a quick nod and turned back to the man. "I have two big points planned for my town. Internal improvement and reducing external influence. Community backbone people like you and the Fishbowl Diner and so forth will have more options when I start changing stuff, outsiders better tread cautiously when I come to visit."

She waved at the map. "Maybe I can clear something up. Let me say this upfront: I am not a speaker or a political leader."

A wave of disbelieving looks. "It's true! I HATE doing stuff like this! I am a builder, an innovator, a scientist! Politics sucks, leadership sucks, and I am not going to waste my time bothering with that."

Sarah gave Dave a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Boss Grinder here on the other hand has a history. He knows who can be trusted, who is a backstabber, who helps others, and who stands by and watches atrocities for whatever reason. He knows which shops I should improve and which ones will be reduced in size or stay destroyed for a few weeks."

He nodded. "And I won't make such decisions lightly. We're going to set up a council down here, to handle stuff unless Ms. Killgrave say's otherwise. I'm getting people from our community, not outsiders, to represent our market, our restaurants, our housing, our businesses, and other future building plans. And we are making a membership card for actual residents of our town."

Dave gestured at Sarah who made more pamphlets for his people to pass out. "Card members can reach levels that range from Copper for newcomers that support us and outsiders that donate something worthwhile to the town's development, Silver for new residents or new businesses that join our territory, and Gold for our long term family and friends. Those who stay longer and invest in our community will get benefits, some listed on the pamphlets, but we will discuss those later in detail."

The Jumper suddenly held a massive bone spike in one hand, one glowing with bright blue fire. "Meanwhile I get the easy jobs: Building stuff and acting as Dave's muscle when someone tries to shaft Pauper's Drop or its people. I can also demote someone's card status or void it entirely, should someone try to abuse their power in my territory."

Sarah examined the crowd, and more than a few people quickly noticed her focus on the well known spies and co-conspirators for Fontaine and other big outsiders. Seeing them nearly faint was a big clue, at least.

Her smile took a hungry turn. "Long story short, don't fuck with my town."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah stood shamefaced as Susan tapped a foot.

Amy was running in circles. "AndSheSaidBadWordsWhichWeShouldn'tSay!"

Susan nodded. "I heard."

Sarah wilted. "I am so, so sorry! I was in the moment! There was this whole thing about defying establishment and being able to brag about my town and… and.."

Emily was riding her shorter sister's shoulders. "Momma says you shouldn't say bad words."

She was ALSO looking fairly dizzy. Daww. "Sorry."

Amy started running in circles the OTHER way, nearly tossing Emily in the process. "MommyGotMadWhenISaidItEarlier" Now she was jumping too. "ButSheSaidIt'sOKIfIDon'tDoItAgain."

Damn it. "I am SUPER sorry."

Susan sighed. "Well, it is Rapture and their father hangs out with colorful people. I'm afraid they've heard worse already."

The blur twirled. "SheIsABlueWoman!" Emily did not seem to enjoy that while being carried in circles. "SheIsColorful!" Wow that looked intense. "CanIBeColorful?"

Susan chuckled. "Of course you can, when your father gets done with his new council meetings. Which is apparently a thing now." Another raised eyebrow.

Sarah bowed. "So. Sorry."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Rapture was in many ways astounding.

Practicality was not one of those ways.

Adam examined the 'Housing Complex' that Dave's family lived in, the first major project to be rebuilt today. The place would have at some point been purchased wholesale and expanded into The Sinclair Deluxe hotel, after lots of refurbishing and expensive modifications.

Thankfully, construction was being left up to Adam since he had a bit of history when it comes to building stuff and Sarah had enthusiasm but not a good background in this. Instead, the Pauper's Council (Led by Dave Grinder) had a list of requests for Sarah (But actually Adam) to include.

It would normally take lots of time to even get started on a project like this. Warning tenants, arranging temporary housing during construction and site examination, actual construction time, and so on and so forth.

But again, Andrew Ryan's freed invisible hand on the market made this stupidly simple. Seriously, the town was dang lucky Sarah wasn't an ass, because she had god like powers over the area now that it was her property.

She didn't have to ask permission. Or protect tenant's owned items or furniture. Or care about most health and safety codes, though Rapture DID have many massive (Some lethal) penalties if her work damaged areas NOT belonging to her territory.

So Adam just [[Harvested]] the entire building. The connecting glass tube tunnels already had built in Securis metal air locks preventing any flooding or people trying to pass through to the work zone.

Everything was documented, stored, and had templates made. He would put stuff back into the new homes after they were constructed.

Next, the aluminum structures embedded in the local bedrock.

The original foundations were made with the best technology available… when Rapture was built. In November 1946. Even mad science couldn't fix EVERYTHING, and it was best to just [[Harvest]] the original stuff and make something more secure.

Pylons of advanced alloys dug into the bedrock, and Adam took the time to expand the floor space of the new apartment complex all the way to the edge of the seafloor that now belonged to Sarah.

Also, the outside was now a dome. Because rectangular buildings did not resist pressure as easily, and needed all kinds of extra structural support to keep Rapture from imploding building by building.

And if he was going to build something beyond possible, might as well go all out. He didn't have the ability to make Transparisteel like in the Star Wars Realm, but he had something nearly as good: Cubic silicon nitride, or c-Si3N4 to the cool kids.

Cubic silicon nitride was a transparent ceramic, the second hardest transparent material after diamond, but was able to handle much more extreme temperature levels. True, other people wouldn't be able to make this stuff in such large panels like Adam could, or at all likely, but he could just include a few dozen replacement sheets for if something horrifying happened.

...Nah. No one but him and Sarah could fix a place like this if it flooded.

Instead, Adam made three layers: A massive dome over a foot thick of this transparent stuff, a layer of impact dispersal gel (With the same index of refraction as the ceramic), and a layer of replaceable glass panels. Both on the inside and outside.

That way the structure could resist unreasonable amounts of damage but panels on the inside and outside could still be manufactured and replaced if someone scratched it or it got painted or something.

It was certainly the tallest space he had seen so far, and thankfully while the structure of the material was tricky as heck to manufacture the components were simple enough.

That said, there WAS a fairly large rock ridge in Sarah's territory that suddenly vanished for no particular reason.

Point was, she had more space to work with and Adam had materials to build with, everyone wins!

Anyway, he had space now. Lots of it.

But this was Rapture, so it was best to plan ahead.

The entrance to the redesigned Complex Apartments (Again, Adam sucked at naming things) led to a nice wide, easily defensible area. This being Rapture it was easy to find some turret to scan as free schematics, upgrade them a lot, and hide them in the area just in case Sarah couldn't get here in time during a crisis.

Camera nodes everywhere, connect the water, sewage, electrical, and air handling over to this facility… good.

Now, to build a home.

One thing that Rapture citizens missed, especially ones raised down here, was nature. Children could go their whole life without seeing a tree or sunlight.

And with his near unlimited power and pure water, why not go for something less than efficient? The dark ocean outside the dome felt less like the night sky and more like a dark blanket… more than a bit depressing.

Some organic light emitting diodes were easy enough for 'Research' to hack together (Pickles glow when electrified! Tell your friends and build the future!), although making them strong enough and emitting the correct light wavelengths to simulate sunlight took longer than expected.

Basic timers ensured a day/night cycle for the entire complex, and at night some blue OLEDs would light up the seafloor outside the 'glass' for kids to see the ocean.

Adam harvested holes close to the outside of the dome and began transplanting coral reefs, plant life, and some interesting 'wreckage' for children to spy out there, like a pirate ship and a biplane. True, hiding some power cables under the sand and rock to add neat lighting and stuff made the entire area feel more than a bit like Disney World, but little Amy should love it.

...It really made the orange glowing ADAM sea slugs stand out in the dark though, when it was so easy to see the ocean.

Let's start breeding Sarah's Rock Lobsters! A few thousand diamond rock lobsters would make this whole area really pop and cut down the number of slugs near by a huge fraction!

Yes, Adam knew he was treating Pauper's Drop like a massive reverse aquarium. No, he wasn't going to stop.

Should he put a life sized 'bubble diver' in the area?

...Fuck it, if he was going silly he was going all in!

Van sized fake clams that would fill with air super saturated sea water, replace all the rocks on the seafloor with materials that were pretty colors or would shine in the lighting, suck out all the sand, clean it so that it was absurdly white despite all the construction that had happened over the years, and make the area look like a paradise!

Increasing the habitability of the local environment should also encourage fish to hang out nearby, which would rock! And over there he would create an underwater park, a network of improved transparent walking tubes so residents can simply enjoy the sea and the fun stuff he puts there!

Add a bench here, some trash reclamation units there, a small rest stop at the entrance and another at the outer edge of the park with bathrooms and vending machines! ...Huh.

Note to self, design and build a Pauper Vending machine so that Sarah could sell stuff and not risk poisoning her people by trusting Rapture's manufacturing standards.

Sarah's giggle brought him back.

Oh. Right, he was supposed to be building housing.

It was so easy to get distracted!

Right, he now had a secure hallway to the massive dome with a fake day/night cycle, a beautified seafloor and park, and it was all defended and monitored.

Now for facilities.

Half the problem with Pauper's Drop wasn't just the high costs and low quality, it was the lack of opportunity.

Well, now Dave would need to start hiring.

First, on the side of the dome facing the sea park, an actual park. Soil was easy enough to rip from the seabed in Sarah's territory, and the silt was very good nutrient wise after Adam extracted the excess sodium and stuff with [[Harvest.]]

Grass was a bit trickier, but the Warehouse was eventually convinced that grass with roots attached would count as 'food', just more of a health food trend thing. Well, it was mostly grass… Adam suspected that some kelp had been spliced into the stuff along with some other plants somehow, as it registered as far too full of nutrients and vitamins than it should have. And the green color was almost offensively green.

This was even MORE infuriating because Adam himself COULDN'T splice plants like this. But the Warehouse could, somehow. Automatically. While improving the product.

It was frustrating! Maybe if she got some sort of biomancy Skill in another Jump he could fix this, but for now it was simple enough to plant a lawn. Flower samples were recorded from Marlene's Flower Emporium, who Dave was going to put in charge of all the plant care down here.

She probably wouldn't mind her most rare plants being available to the public in the park, considering her daily income was about to go through the roof being hired by the Complex. According to Dave, she was at risk of bankruptcy anyway at this point… Sarah could check with her to see if she wanted any changes done later.

Tree samples were hardest. Many areas down here were getting Lady Palm saplings, but the things only grew up to 14 feet and honestly looked more like a bush. Adam was using the things because they handled low light conditions the best according to the testing, and someone had a tiny sick one kept as a house plant in the complex when it was [[Harvested.]] Free scan get!

In the end, he had to go with the strange trees grown in Arcadia. They weren't anything Adam could recognize, but Sarah had been there anyway due to her rapid tour all over the public Rapture sectors, which she had done to ensure Adam could give her accurate maps in the future. Lucky!

Apparently enhancing trees with ADAM was a thing, but he didn't want to even touch that until he did a TON of testing first, so best to stick with the strange mutant sorta tree stuff Rapture already used for now.

At least they were pretty, even if Adam had to create massive pockets of soil under each one deep into the foundation to support the needed roots. Seriously, he had NO idea how using these things and making a god damned FOREST under the sea was more efficient than using technology. Maybe the produced wood grown rapidly with ADAM made up for all the hassle in profit?

Meh, he preferred his own method better. One machine the size of a small building and air wasn't a rare commodity anymore down here.

Note to self, find out where Rapture's hydroponic farms are and send Sarah to scan them. He could provide her lots of food for now, but her town NEEDED work and those places could provide it. A fish farm would be pretty simple to set up too, and if the rock lobsters were anything to go by, adding a bit of CEE to the food would let them reproduce like hyper mutant rabbits.

With potential lasers.

He REALLY needed to get testing on that stuff.

Well, if he couldn't risk using CEE on these widdle bitty tree saplings, he might as well go to each one and use a dose of juice like the stuff he gave Sarah to fix Amy up. Sure, it was made out of raw power and potential, but it should be fine, right?

Anyway, the park is done. Now a large building with a daycare, elementary/middle/high school, and night class education facility. Parents at work could safely leave kids in safe care, older siblings could learn a basic education, and at night the more dedicated adults could improve their capabilities.

Other side of the dome, office spaces, council meeting rooms, and a couple of large spaces like the small theater/town hall, a gym for sports, and a dance hall (Still oddly popular down here).

The main point of the place however was to provide spaces for the Pauper Council basically, anything administrative for the town.

Farthest away from the entrance (And most defended), the actual apartments.

Triple the size of even the biggest home before the changes, heavily insulated with non flammable foam, vibration absorption material, and so forth. Air heating and cooling per room, designed to be much easier to provide now that each space was sound proof and heavily insulated.

Best keep the rooms simple though. Bachelor and Couple apartments had a kitchen, full bathroom, and a living room separate from the bedrooms. Family rooms had one master bedroom for the parents and two kid rooms, a larger kitchen and two bathrooms to help cut down on complaints.

All would have a utility room, one able to hook up a washer or dryer machine, or a deep freeze freezer, or an office, or whatever. Though for people on a budget, a dedicated and low cost laundromat was on the bottom floor next to a massive exercise room, the front desk, and the pool.

An underwater, in dome, in building, in 'ground' pool. With a transparent bottom, letting you see the pretty seabed Adam was designing down there.

Silly? Yes.

But Sarah chuckled at it, so who cares!

Idly Adam continued modifying things and installing wires, pipes, pumps, cameras, hidden turrets, houseplants, and so forth.

Sarah on the other hand was humming the 'Mission Impossible' tune while sneak-teleporting her way towards Rapture's hydroponic greenhouses and the canning facilities to gather some useful schematics for Adam to enhance.

It's nice they were both having fun!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Did she need to wear black and white striped clothing?

No.

Did this require a massive 'loot sack', with a black dollar bill sign on it, connected to her warehouse?

No.

Did Sarah Killgrave have a massive fake nose, a huge curly mustache, and sunglasses over googly eyes for a disguise?

Hell yeah! "Duh duh dun dah!"

Didn't matter that Adam kept her away from the cameras, or that most of this facility was automated to reduce costs, and she could track people through walls. She was a secret agent today! With a mental theme song!

BA DA DUH! BA DA DUH! DUN DUH!

Screw being mature! Rapture was depressing as hell at the best of times anyway! Now let's scan some slow moving, slow growing plants floating in a water bath conveyor belt for SCIENCE!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Susan was trying to keep Amy's hat on her head. "I'm just saying dear, an hour is hardly enough time to prepare for a new apartment." She frowned as the little one nearly lost the head covering again. "Not that I'm sure how much time WOULD have been enough, mind you."

Dave sighed. "At least I got her to scale things down a bit. Her original plan was going to replace all of Pauper's Drop at the same time! Talk about terrifying."

His wife winced as the blur ran off with a 'Whee!' "Well… THAT would have been an experience. What did the council come up with after the discussion?"

He snorted. "Since they didn't know Sarah's ability level, they just asked for more space and so forth. Stable power, I think Jim wanted soundproofing added because he has trouble sleeping… But Sarah seemed ready to go, so I just decided to trust the woman with the superpowers to know how to use them best."

Emily looked worn out, which was sort of the new normal nowadays. "She's nice. I asked Ms. Blue to add stuff since she was fixing things, and she was like 'Fine!'"

Dave hid his sudden feeling of horror. "Oh. Really." Please no ponies. "What did you ask for, sweetie?"

Emily sparkled! "Billy said he saw a real tree once! And a bush, which is like a tree but smaller!"

His super blur sped by. "IWantedToDance!" And she was gone with a 'Dancing'sAwesome!Woo!' down the hallway. He would be more concerned about her tripping and hurting herself if she wasn't able to rip apart metal with her fingers and touch a stove without burning herself.

Seriously, that had almost given them a heart attack! Don't touch hot things! No, it doesn't matter if it doesn't feel THAT hot, NO don't do it again! We don't CARE if it feels funny!

Raising Amy might end up being more of a challenge than they initially expected.

Susan leaned close. "You don't think… I mean, Sarah won't go overboard, would she?"

Damn. "She considered replacing all the pipes and rebuilding the generators for our town to be a minor activity. I don't even know what going overboard with her would even mean!"

Suddenly the Securis metal air lock leading home beeped and opened. Before either adult could react, a blur vanished into the distance.

Far away... "OhWowLookAtAllTheGreenStuff!"

Little Amy showed up and lifted a weary Emily in her smaller arms. "BeBack,BorrowingSis!"

And they were gone.

"IToldYou!LotsOfGreen!AndBrownStuff!"

"Yeah that's weird."

Susan huffed with amusement. "I'm afraid we are about to get a lesson in overboardness."

"Ooh!APirateShip!"

Oh dear.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Jim the Slim jerked when he heard a specific phone ring in his office, but that didn't stop him from dashing to answer it. "Boss! What can Slim do for yas?"

Shit, this was NOT a scheduled call. The realtor office wasn't getting checked for funding for two more months!

The other voice was grumbly like usual. "Frank has new marching orders. Since your department beens under the thumb of Dave the Slum King for so long, it might be faster to just split the department and bring you all back to the fold."

Double shit. "Boss, you know I've got your back, see? Always a friendly Jim in a time of need! But you can tell our friend Fontaine that it has all been handled! Funding will be in the black for a LONG time after this!"

His skeptical voice hurt Jim inside. Where was the trust, he wondered? "Jim, your scams were always razor edge to begin with. The Slum King nearly flipped the whole thing, and even then the costs to ensure his contract failure nearly wasted all the profit collected. We can use our assets better."

Slim chuckled. "No Boss, you don't understand! Jim's on top, you know I'm always keeping things spinning! And this time, I've gone big! Super big!"

Boss went serious. Dark, near emotionless, serious. "What did you do?"

He grinned as he looked at the reserve contract copies. "I went all in. All assets, the team's reserves, a golden loan… Hell, I sunk my OWN piggy bank into this one!" And he actually had, too. Jim had a nose for big events, good or bad, and whatever this Sarah was up to? This was big.

Boss now had a dangerous voice. "Why."

Slim couldn't help his smile. "When she falls, we will be in the black for seven and a half financial quarters."

He reveled in the stunned silence.

This was his biggest work of art, after all! He had sunk not just financial material, but his even more valuable TIME into this con job!

Even after that, he had gone out to make promises, call in favors, make a few deals between people who could otherwise have saved a lot of money if Jim didn't need to wet his own beak. If he actually got paid for off the clock nudges and wink wink say no more, his accounts would have doubled by now!

No one would sell to the broad, no business would fund this whale, his target would find every door closed and all windows nailed shut… and then the cash would flow, like all things, to Rapture. To Slim. And, like most things down here? Away from the rich, right to Fontaine.

Boss sounded FAR less annoyed. "Send me a copy of the paperwork and if it all falls out I'm sure Frank will show quite a bit of favor to yas Jim. Even enough to excuse delaying his current operation."

Fuck.

Jim didn't bother to rant about the lack of communication, the failure to give him time to prepare or how a warning would have prevented all this, his world didn't work like that. "Glad to be of service Boss! What ya need once this is all wrapped up? Everything should be fluid again by the end of the month at the latest."

Honestly the Killgrave dame would be underwater after a week when the first contract confirmations were due, but Jim wasn't no fool. Always leave yourself an exit, a bit of wiggle room! Slim always left a few emergency plans.

His Boss grumbled. "Frank probably won't mind a month or so, he needs time to get things together anyway." The focus intensified. "After the mark falls, you need to press HARD on the Drop. And pass us a couple of decent properties, if we don't just take them all to prevent anyone else moving in on the place."

Slim quietly began making plans and notes as his boss continued. "Fontaine Clinics will be setting up to buy blood down there, and we need them to bleed."

He frowned. Why? "When you say 'press hard'?"

Boss hummed. "DAMNED hard. Shut all contact down, if possible. Harass them if not."

That… that would put a massive target on his people. Even more so than now. "And the properties?"

Holy shit, did his Boss actually sound uncomfortable!? "Frank's setting up an orphanage. And a school for kids."

That didn't sound like Frank. "Uh… No problem boss? Slim's always happy to help the kids!"

Ironically, that was actually true. His heart didn't even falter when taking everything a man or woman owned, but he wasn't completely a monster. The only reason Dave the Slum King could get those little ones and their families OUT of Pauper's Drop was because Slim had pointed his watchers the other way and misfiled some paperwork.

Jim felt a bit warm inside. Never knew Frank had a sweet side! "Right, give me the names and I'll have people ready to set up the work to have the signs and such ready on day one!" With the funding from this big one, he could do it all up in style AND skim off the top!

Boss seemed to wince. Huh. "Right. He's going with 'The Little Sister`s Orphanage' and 'Little Wonders Educational Facility'."

Odd. "I… I didn't think Frank was that much of a Catholic. Or that Ryan allowed nuns down here."

Boss was solemn. "Frank isn't and Ryan doesn't. Fontaine just needs you to press hard enough on the town that they will send the girls to his place."

The warm feeling was gone. "Boss?"

The voice was weak. "Frank needs little girls, and we don't ask questions."

The click at the end of the call echoed in the silent office.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah was both fascinated and horrified. "Hey Adam?"

The distant humming paused. {{Yes?}}

She waved at the tubed up creatures. "I found mutant cows."

{{...What?}}

Sarah stepped from one sterile room to the next, not letting walls or distance get in the way. The strange creatures didn't even wiggle. "Yeah. Next to the hydroponic farms was an odd structure that had lots of kelp and stuff being sent down to, I followed it, and here we are! Mutant cows."

Each creature was the size of a bus. They were covered in glowing orange veins. Their udders were the size of cars, covered in nipples, all pumping milk through tubes.

Thankfully the milk looked normal. And the cows, strangely enough, seemed actually calm, relaxed, and happy. And slowly, mindlessly, and rhythmically drinking/chewing a dense mash of stuff mixed with kelp.

Adam seemed stunned. {{Huh. I guess this explains how a city that eventually cuts all access to the surface still was able to sell so much milk. And I thought the ADAM mutated trees were strange.}}

The what?

Sarah's attention was distracted when she discovered the breeding section of the facility. "...Why the hell are these baby calves so cute!?"

They had four eyes! That glowed red with eldritch power!

They were fat little poofy white and black balls the size of a tiny car!

She just wanted to smoosh their little cheeks!

Adam hummed. {{Get me to one of their systems, I'll look into it.}}

Sarah watched the bumbling baby cows exploring their (Surprisingly well cared for) animal pen.

And yeah, she was heading to the nearest computer terminal, but more importantly!

Fat poofy baby mutant cows!

This place better sell some of these to her, or she was going to take a few dozen!

She reluctantly focused and rested her hand on the nearest machinery.

Which was some odd stuff, even considering her inherited advantage when it came to Rapture Tech thanks to her Specialist background purchase.

She'd seen strange things before, after all! So far she and Adam had found machinery that used water pressure as artificial intelligence, electromagnetic wave oscillations that could be matched to gain advanced privileges in vending machines, even hardware that generated lightning pulses able to alter the 'friend or foe' data on flying turrets!

But these machines used milk.

Some to transfer current, other bladders used for calculations, heck, this security system over there even used milk when detecting intruders!

The only reason it HADN'T gone off when she was wandering about the place was because she hadn't bothered to use the doorways while teleporting around! After all, she didn't have any of the security milk breakfast blends needed for identity verification!

God, this whole place was strange.

It did explain why these massive building sized animals were so well cared for compared to everything else down in Rapture. Even the mood of these mutant heifers affected the resulting product, so best keep them cows happy!

Though now she and Adam had to figure out how to hack a database using an improvised milk interface so that her alternate dimension Warehouse could securely access the massive mutant baby cow data. For a potential cownapping.

Seriously, what the heck was her life!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Alter the pH levels, increase the calcium rates… and there. {{We're in.}}

Sarah was still stuck in her 'life is confusing' loop, so he moved on and started harvesting data.

...Hmm. Some shady deals here and there, but honestly compared to many places down in Rapture, this company Calci-O was practically a saint! Why was this so off brand for this place?

Though they did heavily water down the mutant milk they sold to the public.

Only a drop or so of this stuff was sold per bottle… and even that was enough to provide '32% of your recommended daily dose of calcium' and make a bottle of water nutritionally filling.

Holy crap.

They even have a fairly open policy when it comes to selling their 'cash cows' (HA!) to outsiders… because these mutant cows had a very strict, very classified diet.

So you pay Calci-O a ton of cash for a baby cow, the new farmer wouldn't know how to take care of it, and even if they DID find out about this expensive seaweed mash the things loved… no one else had the infrastructure to produce the feed at an economically profitable rate.

Half the time, Calci-O ended up buying BACK the sick creature others tried to raise, healed it up, and had it working at producing milk in a few months or so! Profit going out, profit coming in!

Oh, and these things never stopped growing. When they got beyond a certain size, the factory harvested them for meat and sold the portions not saturated in obvious ADAM to other companies for processing. Which was good, because when the things got beyond a certain size it became near impossible to even injure the things. Tank armor looked easier to get through.

Again, the company was fine with people like Sarah buying these guys, even the babies. If you wanted a pet, they grew too fast to keep. If you wanted a harvest, they cost too much to feed.

Only after having automated factories and hydroponic farms on this massive scale did it even become feasible… existing technology levels just made their hold on the market firm as hell!

Still, this was far too logical and reasonable to be the sole reason why no one was getting tased or eaten down here… let's look up the company's historical files.

Adam listened, stunned, at an old audio recording. {{Welp, that explains why this place is so cow centric. I half thought it was for religious reasons.}}

Sarah was knocked out of her self reflection. "What? What did you find?"

He just played the clip.

"{A weary sigh}, Lab test 115, test blend C39. Failure. Now testing C40. Half sample size to conserve materials."

A MASSIVE explosion!

"Ha? Mah HA HA! I KNEW IT! It HAD to be possible! They called Boyd Cooper mad, but what kind of mad man could make explosive milk I ask you!?"

Another, even LOUDER explosion! She could hear a door slam open. "What the HELL Dr. Cooper!?"

"Look you bastards! You said my dream was impossible! A fantasy!"

More shouting in the background. "Fuck, the milkman lost it. Get security here! NOW!"

"You can never stop the dairy industry! It's fortified with what the world wants. What the world deserves!"

Sarah and Adam stared blankly as the audio cut off.

Yeah, that sounded more like Rapture.

Welp. Adam ignored the permanently retired 'genius' related documents and went to check the recorded testing data on file, comparing it to their own scans. {{Yeah, the ADAM mutation is thanks to the kelp farm being exposed to the Ooze in the seawater they use. And it's why the cows can stay healthy even with such a simplistic food source.}}

No nutritional issues, their improvised version of CEE took care of that. No diseases, no muscle deterioration, no mental issues from being cooped up… the creatures didn't even need to be drugged to stay docile, they were just fat and happy. Literally.

And these massive building size mammals weren't rage monsters because this powerup process went from Ooze to seawater to kelp to cow, no parasitic mutant slugs involved. {{I wonder if Andrew Ryan even knows about how much 'ADAM' is being stored by these things? The factory clearly doesn't know what the stuff is, they just mix the contaminated super flesh they harvested after butchering the old ones into the plant growth beds to speed up the kelp farms.}}

Which then helps the kelp grow faster and purify the stuff before being ready to feed a new cow.

The circle of life, or something like that.

Sarah was pouting! "I wanted a bunch of baby fat cows for my town! I can't raise a bunch of Paul Bunyan sized giant cows taking up all my space!" A pause. "Well, I could, but they could step on someone."

Adam hummed. {{It is a self reinforcing loop. The kelp wants the concept of 'growth', the trace amounts of ADAM supports it, the baby cows enhance the effect due to eating it so young… they don't have enough of a psionic field to really overwhelm the mild directions the kelp has, and boom! Forever growing cows.}}

She frowned. "Can we like… keep them small and cute?"

What, like miniature cows?

Huh. {{You know what, maybe we can. I'll have to do a few steps first… Make a CEE body recovery Tonic first, so we don't accidentally make Monster Cow Armies or something, then a CEE micro sized Tonic to allow them to mature more compactly rather than growing up like normal.}}

He'd have to work on it. Might as well do some test trials with a few of the baby rock lobsters he was already raising. {{I'll get back to you on that. And we best wait till we got our place all set up first, or they won't have anywhere to live even if you buy or steal one right now.}}

She stepped back into the room with the (HUGE) tiny calf mutants, and poked the fat baby cow.

It went 'Moo?' and slowly rolled away. Like a less threatening version of the Indiana Jones boulder, but white with black spots.

Sarah burned with passion! "Why is their body hair so fluffy!?"

Adam blinked. Huh. {{Guess we should see if we can shear them too. Hey, we might not have to find sheep or build a separate farm!}}

She glomped another baby, slowly letting it's rolling body lift her up! "I would LOVE a blanket of this stuff!"

Adam hummed, warming up to the whole idea. If they stayed this round as baby calves, they wouldn't even need a fence… just make a bowl shaped pen filled with soft grass and they would roll down the sides if they tried a daring escape!

Farm efficiency was fun!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Their first thought was 'Where are the walls!?'

It was instinctive, years of being so close to a wall at all times had them feel unmoored when the Securis doors ground open and… sunlight shone over a vast open space.

An impossible space, that seemed to go up forever, that curved away from the door they just entered from. And again, sunlight. How long has it been since he'd last seen it? Especially as Andrew Ryan was considering whether or not to shut down access to the surface for security.

Just… so much space. It was almost scary.

Susan was speechless.

Dave wasn't much better. He gestured to the impossibility on the left. "That's a lot of trees."

Considering the fact that even the publicly viewable forest in Arcadia only paid for a few dozen of their products to be out on display for outsiders to walk through, 'a lot of trees' was a bit of an understatement.

After all, trees needed space, air, water, and three times as much dirt and room for roots as it took up with its crown of leaves. It was EXPENSIVE for a business to have four or five potted plants alone, much less the 'New Wonder' that Arcadia bragged about and used to draw in tourists.

And Sarah just popped what looked like a forest onto their front lawn.

Also, they now had a front lawn.

Susan hesitantly bent down and rubbed her hands on the grass. "It… it's been so long." He didn't comment on her tears, though he could sympathize.

However… "Was grass always this green? And I KNOW something is off with those leaves."

This stuff on the ground looked like it was a painting. A bit too perfect. And each blade of grass was a bright green that nearly glowed! The air had a sweet scent he didn't recognize, and the forest…

Dave sighed. "Seriously, what is up with those leaves?"

They were red. Not like autumn colors or anything. More like a master stone mason took rubies the size of dinner plates and got to work carving maple leaves or whatever.

And all of those leaves WERE glowing, enough to be noticeable at least. Gave off a strangely… soothing feeling to watch them. Calming. Probably where the smell came from.

Then the branches shifted and a path was visible long enough for little Amy to zoom by. "ThisPlaceIsGreatForHideAndSeek!"

And she was gone again.

He rubbed his forehead. Because of COURSE the tree branches would move BACK to where they were, now that his little one was done passing through.

Susan blinked after wiping her eyes. "Did that tree move?"

Dave glanced at… yep, there was now a path. A very lovely one, with small flowers growing on either side with green jade jewel leaves and brightly glowing gold metal flowers.

And not actual gold, he's seen lots of that before… no, these blossoms looked like storybook pirate gold shaped into roses and tulips and stuff. They'd all probably get stolen in an hour, tops.

The forest shifted again, a new path opening. "Can'tCatchMe!"

Then closing again.

Well, maybe they WOULDN'T get stolen after all. He'd warn the morons not to piss off the potentially magical forest. "Let's just… let's go take a look."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

While Sarah went off to record more and more raw schematics for Adam to work with, he began harvesting rock deeper and deeper below the Complex itself. It was time to make some room and build some new machines!

Because NOW he had some useful hydroponic factory scans! Huzzah!

However, half way through removing the rock and soil and sand from below the new housing, he paused.

Roots.

Strange black roots, striped with bright gold marks, that were growing THROUGH Adam's super materials, into the sea water, and then THROUGH the rocks and soil covering the bedrock.

And through the bedrock.

With growing concern he followed them back up. Found where they grew through the floor.

And where they connected to what could only be called a forest inside his new Complex dome.

Suddenly he felt a headache coming.

Right, he poured the super duper impossible body recovery optimization and enhancement juice directly on a bunch of mutant trees…

Mutant trees grown with psycho sea slug ADAM.

Thankfully, the 'cure anything' juice seemed to have fixed the psionic corruption in the new forest.

Not quite so good… the forest seemed to have networked together and become something like a hive mind of nature.

Not only were they far more durable and powerful than any tree should be, there were some odd things beginning to show up in the genetics now.

Yes the number of trees had massively increased… but worse? Some of those 'trees' were actually illusions. Others were just really big branches PRETENDING to be a separate tree, with fake roots and trunk and everything! Even the grass and flowers planted too close to the 'park' had been absorbed and added to the 'root' network. If you could call that strange black mesh of super material roots anymore.

Well. Uh.

At least there wouldn't be any fires? These things were beyond fireproofed now. And ax proof. And most chemicals wouldn't do jack squat to them either at this point.

Though may Sarah have mercy on anyone dumb enough to try and burn these things now. Or threaten the community the forest lives with. Or litter.

He should get her to warn someone about this. Eventually.

But then Sarah would find out sooner and he would get yelled at, probably.

...It should be fine.

Anyway, easy work around! Just dig out some massive underground chambers over there instead! Under the ocean floor walking park! Problem solved!

Next there would be two copies of his work made down here once Adam got the complicated stuff ironed out.

A hidden, fully automated farm combined with a fully automatic canning system for long term food growth, harvest, and storage. This place would be used to create an initial food surplus for Sarah's town and eventually store emergency rations for future use by Pauper's Drop.

Secondly, all need parts for a partially automated factory, where Dave's people can fully build themselves and then operate and maintain the systems and stuff. They would grow food and make sellable goods for shipment to customers outside Sarah's town, earning some actual cash for Sarah to use and spend with rather than having to rely on all these valuable products she can produce.

Eventually.

Adam had to redesign all this stuff first though.

The automated place, as mentioned before, would be hidden from the public. Only the metal input and product output are allowed to be interacted with by any future work teams. THAT secured and restricted place would let Adam use impossible materials, test CEE production enhancement combinations, and ensure safe products for future sales!

It should also ensure Sarah's town has a stable base to grow from and a reliable source of food.

The manual operation place would be adapted from Adam's experiments.

He'd need extra time to design the lines to be safe to construct, easy to improve and expand, and reliable to work with by normal humans WITHOUT losing fingers or having to hire children to wriggle their way through tight machinery. Then he could leave the components and schematics for Dave's people to handle!

Pauper citizens would get all the parts, and then be paid to construct the joint, test it, then run it.

The many products created by this would be used locally and sold to outsiders... This would gain profit for any future needs or expenditures and ensure many decent paying jobs able to provide a living wage for the locals.

Infiltrators and saboteurs would swarm over the publicly known facility of course, where Adam would make DAMNED sure everything would be made with Rapture level tech or lower ONLY.

No worries about someone stealing their tech and using Adam's super science to make exploding cows (Why Boyd? Just why?), not that it should be a huge issue anyway with Dave Grinder keeping an eye on the employees. That man was talented.

Sarah also had plans for profit expenditure and payments down here. All positions would have documented and published minimum wage incomes, enough to live in Pauper's Drop without an issue even at the Copper Pauper level. If you work ABOVE your minimum quota, you would gain a standard bonus with your paycheck depending on how much effort you put in, with an upper limit cap to overtime so no one works to death.

All other profit would be used to pay off the factory's costs, then get dumped into Sarah's Proper Pauper Fund (Little Amy liked the name, so woo!).

No one but Sarah and Dave would get to choose how to spend that money, but any expenditures WOULD be publicly listed. So yeah, she might buy silly things or whatever, but it would all be open and above board… no hidden research into whatever, no secret armies.

Did she have to be accountable for that money? Hell no! Rapture would be fine with her blowing it all on drugs and hookers (Male or female).

But hopefully showing all of her (good and bad) spending choices would instill a sense of confidence in her town people that she wasn't exploiting them for unknown reasons.

Just the known ones.

The fact that showing off blatant misuse of company funds would somehow make Sarah's businesses MORE trustworthy really exhibited how bad Rapture could be, sadly.

Though it would be funny when she bills herself construction money to make her cow habitats.

Because Sarah was NOT letting that topic go, and Adam agreed the things were cute.

Another factory down there was going to be a fish farm, sold as Pauper Plunder brand Fine Fishy Fresh seafood. Which was the name Susan came up with after little Emily suggested 'Freaky Fish Forever' and the older mother was suddenly worried that Sarah would agree.

THIS concept was a fun one to design though! Adam needed this one to have people involved because a couple of steps needed quality control. Plus, he didn't want fully sentient robotic equipment installed ANYWHERE near Rapture.

The end product would need to be built and maintained by Dave's people, but Adam wasn't going to bother trying to automate to nearly the levels like the vegetable farms were. Too much work, not enough payoff, and in the end Adam and Sarah wanted this place to operate even if the pair decided to wander away at some point for a few years.

Each fish species would be in a large breeding pool. During harvest, the water would drain down slit grates wide enough to let the young and baby fish swim away into the spill off tank, anything big enough to harvest would be unable to escape the workers once they were left on the dry pool bed.

Collect the adult fish, clean the breeding pool, let the younger fish back in, and then you can clean the spill off tank right afterwards! Rinse and repeat.

Keeping the species separate would let Adam design each fish farm to work better for their inhabitants. Having people involved would prevent young fish from being harvested too soon if they were too dumb to escape the main tank at harvest time, woo quality control!

And there were a LOT of unemployed fish handlers down here willing to take up a job they used to do before Fontaine Fisheries showed up. No complicated training required!

Anyway, while Dave's people constructed the unhidden factories and farms Sarah would pay them with free rent and free food for the first month.

Because UNTIL the first month was done, she wasn't legally allowed to offer any of these people work contracts. At all. Grumble!

The food she provided would initially come from Adam directly until the hidden automated factory setups were complete, and until then Sarah would help him find the best samples of living fish to scan and sell for now since they weren't going to try and build a hidden fish farm for now.

A few cloned fish to feed the people, then use the same clones as parents for the fish farms that Pauper's Drop sets up down there and operates… then Bam!

Adam will be off the hook providing food, Sarah would have actual money to pay Pauper's people because of the sold product made by these new businesses run by Dave's people, and food quality would go through the roof for all her friends and customers!

...Though normally a fish takes about two years to grow up. Farms get around this by having TONS of tanks and only harvesting a few at a time, so that at least some fish were ready at each collection date.

Sarah didn't have time for a two year startup speed, and Adam wasn't willing to build a thousand fish farms for each species of sea life to duplicate the rate of production that a massive sea harvesting empire like Fontaine Fisheries churned out.

Thus Adam's next experiments would be reliant on the end results of the Ooze tests, as well as treatment methods for the resulting CEE to become a 'Wellness' Tonic.

At least he had found a starting point when it came to directing the power results of his ADAM replacement. The hint had been all the electricity Ooze tossed out as a waste product.

Pump the CEE through a pipe surrounded by powerful electric fields a few times?

It completely DESTROYED all psionic traces in the liquid!

While this would allow Sarah to recycle raw ADAM and plasmids into purified CEE for future use and collection, it would ALSO strip out all useful contaminations like psionic memories, reflexes, and power implementation methods. Meaning the potential abilities being provided would be lost.

Which was fine, because that stuff was dangerous! Plasmids being tested right now were all mixed up and raw like that, spiced over with survival crazy sea slug psionics.

So stripped CEE it was!

Even better, apparently the 'Yellow Gold' color CEE collected from his Ooze was not as pure as this stuff was after being sent through the electric fields. Apparently? Even the mindless algae tainted the stuff ever so slightly, which was at a level so low Adam actually missed it at first!

But as a benefit, the super pure CEE that came out of this process, a 'Sunshine Yellow' fluid, was desperate for any psionic influence. Almost like a vacuum, it would accept a psionic concept far easier than the already handy experiments Adam had been doing in Sarah's Warehouse. It would then fiercely resist additional modifications! Very useful and much more stable than expected!

Although, exactly which psionic concept he should use was a tricky issue.

Adam first tried 'Purification' (As he knew it well), embedding the psionic field onto a very dense ball of osmium and wrapped in layers of metal so it wouldn't interact physically with the world.

Pass the CEE over the orb in a custom designed pipe after the electrical field cleansing, and bam!

A Deconstruction Tonic!

Because apparently CEE interpreted 'Purification' as 'separate this subject into the simplest possible parts and gather similar such parts together', which made the rock lobster being tested to fall apart into sorted powder piles.

Not perfectly sorted either, just small mounds of whichever elements were closest to each other. Tiny hills of carbon or iron or silicon and so on.

Which wasn't EXACTLY what Adam was going for, though it WAS interesting!

Next CEE orb was 'Cleansing', which was much more useful but not what Adam wanted. That rock lobster became super polished, mud and silt wouldn't stick to it anymore, and [[Harvest]] showed that helpful bacteria and symbiotic parasites were spared while everything else bad internally was consumed by the host as extra nutrients.

So Sarah could produce this stuff as a sellable product with little to no problem, and doses would certainly be added to the farms down here… but this was more a 'maintenance care' product rather than a 'cure issue' result.

So he went on to try 'Heal Self', which didn't end up being a permanent Tonic and more a single dosed drink which would ensure a super healthy lobster but not allow them to regrow lost claws or tails. The injured areas would heal over, leaving stumps or what not with healthy skin over it.

Now that he has determined the trick to making an active ability Plasmid, a passive Skill Tonic, and one use liquid serums? He ensured the next test 'Regenerate Self' would only be a one use serum, so he didn't accidentally make a Wolverine X-men Lobster.

Because making an immortal regenerating lobster to forever be harvested and consumed seemed pretty evil. Better be a one time recovery thing, like the 'Heal Self' Health Recovery serum discovered previously.

Anyway, this Regeneration serum would apparently ensure all the conceptual PARTS were there, but thankfully not grant a permanent healing factor or super cancer or whatever. So onto the future production list it went!

Finally, after a few hours of testing later (And one Sarah nearly bored out of her mind), Adam found it the needed concept!

The 'Enhance Self' CEE orb Tonic.

The key here was stripping out all past user's psionic fields first before trying to use the stuff.

Without the definition of 'Self' including ocean water microbes, Ooze algae, sea slugs, and hundreds of test animals and screaming torture subjects (Seriously, What the hell Rapture?), everything turned out MUCH better than expected!

This stuff would passively use the body's resources to draw on the consumer's concept of a more perfect self as the baseline target, as well ensure the psionic fields of each individual body part would grow more powerful when 'enhanced' rather than weaker like when wounded or becoming more inefficient or twisted.

Theoretically, dose a patient with an 'Enhance Tonic', follow it up with some one time serum samples Regeneration and Health Recovery in this case?

The Enhance Tonic would ensure that the Regeneration serum didn't cause cancer or just randomly add wings or a unicorn horn, even if the customer is a kid with active imagination. It would make sure the dose of Health Recovery serum wouldn't seal over shrapnel or try to heal your mouth shut or something.

Neither of those results were LIKELY, mind you, but this Enhance Tonic would automatically prevent that ANYWAY. Should also prevent the worst side effects from using Plasmids provided by outsiders using those damned mutant slugs.

Adam glanced at Sarah. {{If you are so frustrated at waiting, why not talk to Dave about your cow project?}}

Her eyes lit up and she vanished from her idle wandering around the underwater city.

Good. Now he could dose up these Diamond Rock Lobsters with Enhancement and Cleansing Tonics and a couple of doses of Regeneration serum and Health Recovery serum without her judging him.

Adam just wanted some super healthy polished lobsters! He didn't need to be judged!

Also he needed to figure out how to conceptualize 'Tasty' and 'Nutritious' serums or Tonics. And make sure no humans accidentally drink either of them.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave sighed as he left his new apartment, Susan ecstatic over all the space and the high quality of the place. Emily was already taking (another) nap in her new room. No more sharing with Amy, she's a big girl!

Which translated to the two girls probably having sleepovers in each other's bedroom out of loneliness within an hour or two tonight. Assuming Amy actually goes to sleep.

He himself just needed some time to think about stuff.

First, he would have to confront Sarah about these construction designs. Head off some future issues.

What's done is done of course, but if even his reliable Susan had reacted that badly to so much ocean view… Well, any future improvements to Pauper's Drop buildings would best stick to the sea skylights Rapture citizens had grown used to living with. Make sure the business areas and publicly traveled sections had the expected sturdy walls and so forth, especially since visitors won't be around long enough to adapt to such a change.

Stll, maybe having future kids raised down here with nature and a 'sky' would be helpful. Even if the 'sun' looked more like a star constellation on the dome ceiling ramped up to max brightness… Maybe that would be healthy for them.

Expand their horizons, build some good childhood stories. It certainly brought back fond memories for both his wife and himself!

Between one step and another, reality unfolded!

Dave jerked backwards! "Holy SHIT!"

Sarah was just THERE out of nowhere, bouncing! "Dave! How much money can we get together!?"

He forced his heart to slow down. "What the heck, Sarah!?"

A blur came in, redirecting from heading roughly toward the direction of the Ruby Forest and now on target to hit Sarah at full speed! "BlueLady!"

His crazy boss absently caught the near invisible Amy and tossed her in the air ('Whee!') to his horror, though his girl was quickly caught on the way down. "AgainAgainAgain!"

Sarah was grinning like a loon. "Hey Amy! Guess what?" ('What?TellMe!' followed by 'WaitWhyAmIGuessing?) "I'm going to be buying big fat baby cows! And they are fluffy!"

Her little eyes got HUGE! "OHMYGOSH!" a… long pause. "What'sACow?"

Dave watched with growing dread as his new boss began to explain that a cow is normally like a dog but much bigger and it would make milk but that HER cows would be huge animals that look like plush toys and can roll like a massive ball.

Oh Rapture, his kid was going to want one.

Time for emergency protocols. "Amy! Why don't you go tell your sister about the Blue Lady's plan?"

And she was gone. He turned to Sarah, frustrated. "Why? Just… Why?"

She held up an image. "Look how cute it is!"

Was that a four eyed demonic cow?

...And yes, it was cute. "You can NOT show this to Amy OR Emily. Ever. Full stop!"

Sarah was ignoring him, of course. "How much money can we gather together? I want to buy several of these things, but Calci-O isn't just giving these away." She handed him a page with prices. "I'm hoping to get a few, if possible!"

He accepted the document… and winced. "With my personal funding, maybe two. If we can ask my friends… Well, we were targeted the most. I'm the only one really with any disposable income, and I only have that because I was saving up to try and buy medicine for little Amy, despite how much we are always overcharged down here."

His little blur ran by. "I'mBetterNow!"

Dave sighed. "Right, and she is better now."

Sarah hummed. "Do you know of people with money outside of your immediate circle who you wouldn't mind working with?"

Maybe a few. "Why?"

Her hands flickered, some gold looking metal Pauper cards in her hands. "We can consider this an investment into Pauper's Drop. Their donation would get them bumped straight to Gold status, even though they wouldn't gain any control over how I use the funding."

Hmm. He could work with that. The community Pauper cards had taken off like a storm down here, considering that they were a mark of status and didn't require a monthly fee to acquire or keep them.

That the cards already provided discounts on their monthly bills just showed their value! Gold Paupers had maintenance costs cut in half, Silver by 25%, and even Copper gave a 10% discount when paying for electricity, water, and so forth.

Many people who hadn't been instantly granted Gold Pauper status were already hungry for a chance to promote their status… Several people would leap at the opportunity!

Still, best be safe. "I'll get you some names, you do your power stuff and see if they are working for anyone I missed."

Sarah waved it off. "If they turn out to be assholes I'll knock 'em back to a Copper Pauper or take away their card all together."

Fair enough. Still. "Not everyone uses words when angry. People might try something."

Her grin was vicious. "If they try something like THAT, I'll take far more away than a discount card!"

...Right, best he focuses on picking people who weren't jerks and might be interested in investing in Pauper. Specifically, investment in demonic mutant ball cows. Sigh.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Shit! He missed another one!

Twelve more rock lobsters died suddenly, nearly invisible fields of energy destroying their minds instantly. Just in case, he dumped them all into the Warehouse's Inventory system.

Adam scanned the thousands of massive lobsters again.

Right, lessons learned!

Do NOT make a Tonic focused on reproduction.

Because it will mutate the creature if it is unable to find a mate for too long so it can asexually reproduce. And the traits pass down to the kids. The thousands of kids.

Adam metaphorically held his breath… but no other lobsters exploded into a baby pile.

...Good?

Good.

He sighed. It wouldn't have been so terrifying if he hadn't also tested the 'Rapid maturation' Tonic at the same time. Having thousands of lobsters reach maturity in under thirty minutes? And then start laying so many eggs? And not STOP!? Sheesh!

In fact, just in case, Adam was ending this whole testing chamber. He activated [[Harvest]] and had the entire packed testing room empty instantly.

From now on, both 'Rapid Maturation' and 'Rapid Reproduction' Tonics will be retired. Only one shot serums would be made of the damned things from now on, it was the only way to be sure!

At least it shouldn't have the same problem with humans. Yeah, 'Research' suggested that the reproduction one would encourage triplets, but the maturation serum should only cut down childhood by a few years or so if someone stole this stuff and drank it.

The problem was that lobsters mature in only seven years to begin with instead of the thirty needed for humans to 'fully' biologically mature. And lobsters don't die of old age, and THESE ones came from a breed that had fed on ADAM sea slugs for generations.

Instead of 'Speed up childhood' you got 'Skip it! We will do it live!' and that became a rampant issue QUICK.

He sighed and looked at the now empty testing pen.

Lobsters grew bigger as they aged.

The test tonics reduced the time needed to mature.

Their ADAM heritage made it all worse!

Even the smallest of these guys were biologically hours after birth but if judged by their 44 pound weight? They were supposedly 140 years old!

The biggest one theoretically was around 1,330 years or so. The thing was FAR too large, and Adam was going to have to harvest these things for meat just to clear up space for more testing!

At least Pauper's Drop would have their own seafood product. At this point, giving the future lobster population Enhancement and Cleansing Tonics weren't needed.

Because testing showed that the purified CEE Tonics were stable enough to be inherited for several generations before needing another dosage. Which was unexpected.

Though that might be due to how well the Regeneration serum and Health Recovery serum had interacted with the oldest generation, really. More testing was likely needed.

Still, the meat was safe to eat and beyond healthy. While his attempt at an 'Enhance Nutrition' CEE orb serum hadn't worked as intended, as it just made the lobsters able to better metabolize what they consumed, the 'Store Nutrition' serum finally got the job done!

Lobsters that produced meat STUFFED with nutrition and flavor, a real delicacy!

And it wasn't like the 'Enhance Nutrition' serum was a waste of testing time either. Turning that into a Tonic reduced how much food the lobsters needed and how much waste they produced (Nearly none now). Cheaper to feed and easier to clean, a wonderful combination really.

He could probably suggest making it available to Sarah, as Pauper citizens needing to eat and drink less often but getting the same energy results could really save some money for those with limited budgets! Maybe. After more tests.

Idly he wondered if anyone else in Rapture had stumbled on the idea. He knew the 'Extra Nutrition' Tonic would eventually exist down here, but that more or less boosted your recovery rate by eating… it didn't actually make you eat less.

After all, why would a business even try? If you eat less, you buy less!

Anyway, this would allow you to halve the sizes of each meal on average without feeling hungry or gaining less energy. Eat more than that and you end up needing the bathroom, not much else.

Hmm… Then again, this was Rapture. They should probably use these on the farm animals and test it on the hydroponic plants, but not release it as a product.

It was far too easy to see assholes forcing this stuff onto their employees (AND charging them double price for the privilege), then using the product as an excuse to pay workers even LESS since they didn't need to eat as much. Might even feed them even less than that to just above starving to save a few extra pennies. 'Full bellies make a slothful Billy', or something like that.

Dicks.

Yeah, it was concerns like this that kept him from making a sleep reduction Tonic or something similar. In the end, it might be for the best for Sarah to sell the one use serums publicly and offer a few helpful Tonics to Gold Paupers instead.

An incentive to invest in the community, if outsiders wanted to gain her 'Enhance Self' Tonics.

...Though selling the new 'Hygiene' Tonic that used the stronger 'Cleansing' one as a base might make the whole damn place smell better. This weaker 'Hygiene' Tonic would ensure clean insides, but wouldn't make mud and makeup and stuff slide off your body the way the stronger stuff did.

Humans would complain about that.

A lobster didn't care if all tattoos, eyeliner, blush, and hair dye fell off them, after all.

Though Sarah may want it. She was biologically pretty enough even without all the chemical touch ups normal people suffered under, though the 'Cleansing' Tonic might end up polishing her teeth and fingernails or something.

Meh, he'd warn her and let her decide later.

Another check had ensured all the compromised rock lobsters in the other labs were [[Harvested]] as well, which left him with several free testing pens to get back to working with.

Time to look into miniaturization… or if possible, growth through compression rather than expansion. The baby mutant cows were already huge, after all… smaller but enhanced would be better than 'Grow to mountain size' as an end result.

Absently Adam released a few thousand more Gem Lobsters from the 'finished product' breeding room into the local seafloor, mostly around the underwater park. After all, the diamond and gem CEE pellets he fed those guys made them SUPER sparkly, and kids loved anything covered in spikes.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Susan idly checked the clock while gently petting Emily's head as she slept from exhaustion (again) on their new couch.

Amy blurred by. "IWannaGoRunInTheForestAgain!"

It was close to bedtime, and Sarah had given Amy some sort of Tonic that was supposed to finish kicking in around now, something called 'Enhance Self'.

Blur in the other direction. "IBetICouldRunFasterIfIHadLongerLegs!"

The new liquid smelled like strawberries. She was even a bit tempted to drink it herself, and Sarah was fine with offering two doses… but her daughter came first of course.

And back again. " ,IDon'tFeelTiredAtAll!"

That, and the LAST gift they received from the woman had turned her child from a sickly invalid with years of medical issues into something like a tiny olympic athlete. With super powers.

She wasn't going to accept another gift until THIS one proves that it actually helped the situation. Though if her daughter ended up learning how to fly or something, she would handle it.

Somehow.

And again. "SleepIsForTheWeak!WOOooozzz…"

Susan blinked as her girl skid across the brand new carpet, tumbling without injury and snoring like a log.

Amy seemed… fine?

"Snurple… Zzz."

Yes, probably fine.

Susan got up and carefully began to carry her surprisingly heavy and muscled five year old to her new bedroom.

Though based on her child's new durability levels, Amy wouldn't actually wake up regardless of being jostled (Or tossed), it felt good to hold her little one in her arms again.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave sighed. "Just… for me?"

Sarah sighed. "FINE. I'll put up metal walls and keep the open spaces to a minimum." She waved a hand. "I'm STILL going to build my domes though. They are mandatory."

He groaned. "Why? Just, why do something this eye catching?"

She glared. "Safety." Seeing his confusion, she shrugged. "My new domes can handle multiple depth charges, being hit by missile launchers inside or torpedoes from without, and even tolerate massive heat or cold snaps without damage or collapse. The glass panels on the inside and outside are all weaker materials of course, but I made them replaceable and thick enough to handle bullets without issue or scratch. Hell, the impact absorbing gel layers make even sonic or vibration attempts pointless."

Dave blinked. "Huh."

Sarah grumbled, a model of the new 'Business Dome' showing in her hands. "Simple enough to fix I guess… I'll build a cube with an open top inside the thing, and the large sections of dome blocked off from the public can be decorated so it won't look so hideous to visiting people walking in the connection tubes. Add some maintenance Securis doors so our people can get in there, some ladders, tunnels, and walkways to move around and fix stuff without needing to shut down the shops…"

He sighed. Now he felt like a jerk. "Sorry Sarah, I just didn't think you realized how rough such a sudden change would be. Pauper's Drop is a rough place… big changes normally mean big problems. Fixing stuff up, expanding room? They'd love you."

Dave waved at the model. "Show them a massive dome made out of stuff that looks like normal glass? They'd be terrified. We KNOW how many corners are normally skipped during construction, we were the bastards forced to cut them by management!"

She slumped. "So, it's more a cultural thing… no, I get it. Even so, we are drastically increasing the amount of space down here." Sarah fiddled with the designs. "What about… a sort of compromise?"

The strange miniature collection of rectangular boxy buildings on a model seafloor shifted into the train station, and four domes in her hand. "Right, I'll make this center space the Food Dome. Move all restaurants there, along with the public face of our Pauper's Provisions vegetable market and Pauper's Plunder Fine Fishy Fresh seafood stall."

Dave couldn't hold back a twitch. Why Susan? Why suggest that name?

Sarah grinned at him. "Heh, yeah. Behind it will be the Business Dome, and I'll move all the businesses to the same place. Town Square in the middle, and the hotels and shops on the sides. I'll even include that jazz club, the Limbo Room… it deserves better real estate than being crammed down in the Skid Row market."

He hummed. "That place was originally only a pump access station for the Atlantic Express, it wasn't originally planned to be a full flea market thing like it turned into."

She nodded. "From the exposed wiring and damaged material, it didn't LOOK like it wanted hundreds of people walking around down there." Her map shifted. "Instead I'll move and modify it to the Market Dome. Tons of shop stalls for rent, with public bathrooms and benches and trash reclamation units everywhere…"

Dave blinked. "Trash what now?"

A familiar device appeared. "I don't want to pay people to empty these every few minutes. Instead, anything not alive gets processed, compressed, and sent to my recycling center! Once I finish building it, anyway. It's getting added to the Resource Station with the power and water stuff and all that."

She paused, holding a finger up. "Side note, I'm moving the Resource Station to below the Food Dome. The new spot is in a central location, and will be easy to get to if someone tries to break in the joint and do something we wouldn't appreciate."

Dave waited patiently as she held up a finger AGAIN. "Second side note, I'm moving most parts of Pauper's Drop that need maintenance down there to the same general area. Because I don't want a million maintenance shafts to fix stuff when most of the time it is only two or three parts that actually need care or modification."

He waited more.

...Was she done?

Good.

Dave pointed at the 'Trash Reclamation unit'. "That is a Pneumo Tube."

Sarah blinked. "What?"

Dave shrugged. "That isn't a trash can, that is a Tube belonging to the Pneumo system. Stands for pneumatic I think. For mail and stuff. It was meant to be a robust and easily repaired way to send supplies and small objects around Rapture. Andrew Ryan set them up."

She frowned. "Are you sure? All the ones I've seen were full of trash. I just assumed they were blocked because the design couldn't handle junk compression that well for collection."

He sighed. "Well yeah, it's Pauper's Drop. And Fontaine's people don't allow the crews to come by and fix the things. We kept them going down here for a while but ran out of parts to fix them."

Sarah turned back to her trash re… to the Pneumo Tube. "Huh. I did think they were a bit small for an average sized trash can, but assumed it was to save space for the reclamation tubes."

The image shifted, doubling in size and now clearly marked as 'Trash'. It was also now black, with blue and green stripes. "Right, blue for recycling, green for biological waste, and black means all other trash, right? It will all be going to our recycling plant anyway, but at least I will be following proper identification standards."

Dave shrugged. Not like he knew what colors trash cans should be. "I mean, can you fix up the actual Pneumo Tubes? We tried when we ran out of standard parts but had NO idea what half the stuff did."

She sighed. "I'll look into it. After some of the stuff I've seen down here, I just KNOW it will be something bizarre. If worse comes to worse, I will set up a mail center next to the train station."

Sarah blinked. "In fact, a mail and package delivery center right next to the Train Station makes a ton of sense! I'm going to add one one anyway. If I can't make heads or tails out of this Pneumo Tube transport system, we can just use other methods from the Letter Office."

Not that she doubted Adam, it's just… they found a computer network that needed milk to work. And it was almost as powerful as modern supercomputers! Who knew what they would find when researching these things. Mad science be mad.

Dave frowned at the new design. It looked amazing, of course, but… "What are we going to set up until then?"

Sarah was fiddling with the Market Dome designs. Some stalls would be bigger or smaller, these ones would have access to water and waste disposal if they wanted to be a food stall. Several transparent front elevators to go up market levels, the higher floor being fully exposed to the 'sky' ocean dome. "What do you mean?"

Yeah, the top level would be the expensive stalls. The only place outsiders with Gold Pauper status could rent for product sales. The layer below for Silver Pauper Outsiders, the ground floor for Copper. Priority would always go to Pauper's Drop towns people though.

He waved at it. "You can't move properties under contract for a month, what are we going to build while waiting for the time to pass?"

Sarah chuckled. "Ah, right. Here, look at this." She passed the documents to him.

Dave looked up a few minutes later. "This means nothing to me. Just more technical jargon."

She waved a copy of it in her hands. "After more research, you were right about them not specifying property lines very well. Not surprising considering how ad hoc construction was down here in the first place. Instead, it specifies locations by address. An absolute address, not one relative to other buildings or businesses or properties."

He turned that over.

Nope.

He did NOT see where she was going with this. "Spell it out for me, Sarah. Real basic like."

The blue suited woman grinned. "As long as the address is correct, the contract isn't invalidated."

She pointed at a back section of the Market Dome's Copper Floor. "And down there, clearly labeled, is a market stall for exactly thirteen businesses, two restaurants, and one 'hotel'. A hotel which, according to the contracts, does NOT require a specific number of rooms available to rent."

Dave stared at the floorplan. "Are you telling me that you are going to move a 3000 room capacity hotel into a single market stall with no renting space?"

Sarah waved the contracts. "According to paperwork I am!"

Holy crap. "What about their employees?" That was a lot of people, most of whom hated the poor working conditions and obscenely low pay… but any crumb was better than none. They didn't deserve to be shafted when their boss's shady deals came due.

She grinned. "You did say the people over at The Hamilton were good? The place that rents out cheap office spaces?"

He nodded.

Sarah chuckled. "How much would it cost for them to hire our people at a good wage? And how much would it cost normally when building them a free hotel with a massive footprint? Even with getting them to accept Pauper card discounts, how much would that be worth?"

Dave rapidly thought of several calculations, and the numbers were WAY one sided. "They'd agree to damn near anything. And still make a mint off it."

She grinned. "Most of these people were broke with money, their morality bent due to need… but under the sea? Space is far more valuable than a good cigar or brandy." And she was rich when it came to space.

Sarah went back to design work. "We'll hire the good, kick out the bad, and put the weak willed on notice. After a bit of shakedown, Pauper's Drop will no longer be a place for the wealthy to abuse the downtrodden. At least, not so easily."

He considered mentioning that most of those rich and powerful people were fair quick to turn to malicious help and violence when someone dared to resist any whims of the elite.

After a moment, he decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Based on her grin, she not only expected violence… but was eagerly waiting for it!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Slim hummed happily, ignoring the many ringing phones. Paperwork was being 'organized', some emergency planned documents would no longer be stored over here but filed over there.

Fraudulent? Nah, not Slim! Slim be a man of responsibility!

Some would say these files wouldn't matter soon, but he was a man who enjoyed perfection in his work.

Idly, he moved some more gas cans around his (former) coworkers. Move this arm, over there, tilt this older man to the side… very nice! Had Johnson been working out? Impressive!

Not everyone took time to put in to the Gym, get some reps in. Johnson clearly had some skill when it came to weight lifting!

Honestly, it was good to have pride in your talents!

Jim moved through the building one last time. These doors were bolted (Fontaine paid for good security at least), these documents would survive for a while, those would burn quickly (He had edited them just in case, he wasn't born a fool!).

Slim took the time to ensure no brain spray was left from the one worker who managed to almost run. Carlos was always quick on his feet.

Right, that seemed to be the last of it!

Whistling, Jim headed to the (very expensive) escape tunnel he had paid to be constructed. It had taken time, funds, and then executing the people involved… but Jim planned ahead.

Sucking hard on his cigar, he tossed it back behind him to bounce off the small pile of corpses and fuel.

Jim the Slim died in that office.

Big Ben however climbed down the escape tunnel, designed to quickly collapse from the incoming heat, and absently began deciding where to eat supper tonight.

He would have to eat at several joints before his new body weight would allow him to get rid of this fake belly padding. And Big Ben was always a man who enjoyed the larger things in life! Like portions! Oh ho ho!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Grace Holloway couldn't help but tap her foot. "Mr. Grinder, you've always been a good man to the people I've worked with, to me even… But we both know something is going on. Something big, and I've yet to see something big come around these haunts without squishing the little people involved."

She watched the clearly tired man chuckle. Muscled, bald, and yet full of vigor, Dave the 'Slum King' was a pillar… no, the backbone of Pauper's Drop.

It was the only reason she wasn't even more concerned.

Dave sighed. "I know Ms. Holloway. But I'm afraid if you are trying to find a logical explanation of everything by coming to me, you made a tactical error."

She frowned. "I can handle the hard truth, Mr. Grinder. I came up in Hooverville, raised in St. Louis Missouri during the worst of times. What I will NOT accept are lovely falsehoods while my friends are torn asunder by more powerful people."

He gave her a weary smile. "Ms. Holloway, I fully sympathize with that. And I don't mind going into any details you want! I'm just not sure how much it will help you, when it comes to making things logical."

The man paused, but his smile got a bit warmer. "First however, feel free to call me Dave. My people stopped calling me Mr. Grinder after they saw my wife was the real one running things."

Grace couldn't help a small smirk but stayed focused. "Tell me."

Dave sighed. "Let's talk and walk. Come see what Sarah did to my Apartment Complex."

She followed the man whom she had run into outside the Fishbowl Diner. Truthfully she was lucky to bump into him, the man had been going from shop to shop all over Pauper with that magic woman the people were still talking about. "Has she started making changes already?"

The man snorted. "She finished replacing the joint hours ago. I've been arguing with her to actually talk to people before she rebuilds the rest of the town."

She nearly stumbled. What? "I'm sorry?"

Dave slumped slightly. "I did warn you, Ms. Holloway. Explanations I can give you, logic however? Very little logic concerns Sarah Killgrave."

But… how? What happened to the complex? "What about my coworkers? My friends? Not everyone can live in the nicer hotels like we singers, Mr. Grinder!"

He absently nodded. "No concerns there. Everyone's stuff was moved to new apartments, they all have upgraded space and better security. My door's lock can actually keep someone out now, for example."

Her concern was cut off as they entered the Securis air lock, the door opening with twisting gears…

And exposing sunlight.

Sunlight!

In stunned silence, she gently moved into a dream. A wide field of bright green grass, a massive forest to one side, three large powerful looking buildings around a central path… and sky!

No… not quite.

It wasn't the actual sky. Just… bright light and tiny glowing stars far above!

There was so much space!

And the air! She remembered this smell, of the woodlands she walked in once as a younger lady. When all they could afford was the appreciation of nature, and not socializing with the better off children.

It was almost too much. "But… how?"

Dave chuckled. "Sarah asked what we wanted. Emily wanted trees, Amy wanted to dance and run and play hide and seek. My people thought she was going to paint the place or something, so asked for better insulation to make the rooms quiet."

He waved at impossibility. "So she put this together in around twenty minutes and went off to do other things. Because I was taking too long asking opinions, gathering data, suggesting stuff."

She absently began to walk towards the forest, not noticing Dave following alongside. "I've not seen actual trees this beautiful in my whole life!"

The man sighed. "Yeah, but I'm worried they might be a bit magical. Or dosed with plasmids or something."

Grace blinked at him in confusion, causing him to grumble. "Fine, but I'm only doing this once."

She watched confused as he walked to the nearest trees. "Good evening. Could you please make a path so my friend Grace here can see the Sea Park?"

Her words were caught in her throat as the forest SHIFTED. A wide, flat path was revealed in front of them both, leading off in the distance. Bright yellow flowers grew on the green grass on either side of the stone covered dirt path, and the leaves RUSTLED before settling.

Dave shrugged at her agog expression. "My daughters found out how to do this first, but I think that's because they talk to everything they see now just in case 'Ms. Blue' did something to it."

He frowned. "Although in my opinion, when it comes to Sarah Killgrave it's more concerning how often trying that trick works. Best be polite to everything super colorful over here, just in case."

She stood there as the man walked away, mumbling about jewel encrusted lobsters.

Well.

She got SOME answers.

What was she supposed to DO with them!? "One moment Mr. Grinder!"

She caught up quickly as he chuckled. "Dave, if you would."

Grace waved it off. "Dave then. You say Ms. Killgrave moved all this here? How!?"

He shrugged again. "No clue. Nor where it came from. Or how her powers that she uses to put it together works. Or any of that."

Dave walked along as he watched the tree branches moving out of the way like they were pulling a bubble through the forest. "I only know her general plans and overall motivations."

He drifted to silence as he remembered a slightly off topic conversation the two people had, as Dave tried to calm Sarah down before she gave that odd speech in the Town Square.

And he couldn't hold back a smile.

She waited as he continued. "Did you know? Sarah originally was going to open a homeless shelter."

The singer blinked. What?

He nodded. "I know! She heard a lot about what goes on down here in Rapture, and said she wanted to do something about it. Said something like how she'd been around a while and how she could 'Spend a decade doing something different', whatever that meant."

Dave shrugged. "I think she might be older than she looks… Lord knows her powers are odd enough, I wouldn't be surprised if she had something to fix someone's age. Anyway, while trying to find some cheap building to use for the place, she bumped into…" He waved around. "All this."

Grace couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Do you believe EVERYTHING she tells you Mr…" Seeing his look she sighed. "Dave?"

He chuckled. "My littlest one got sick because of something bad in the pipes. Poisoned, more like." His smile was heartwarming. "Sarah found out and fixed her in seconds."

Then Mr. Grinder frowned. "Mind you, now my little one can juggle muscle men and outrun a train, but Sarah said the new cure she made would fix most of that."

She couldn't help but frown. "So now she's peddling drugs?"

Dave nodded. "Not selling any yet, but it was something she used on the battlefield to save her own life. Regrows missing parts, prevents hunger and thirst, temporarily removes the need to sleep, heals sickness, you name it."

He ignored her stunned expression. "I'm not sure what ELSE she used on herself, but she promised that any future medication given to others wouldn't accidently make any other children into magic people or have demigod-like body power. At least, not by accident."

Grace couldn't help but object! "But if she can just… Hand out miracles like that, why doesn't she… Why couldn't she..." Her mind went back to the worst day. Her own regrets, her discovered inability to have children, a life of dreams lost at the doctors office...

Dave's hand on her shoulder brought back focus. "Look around."

Grace Holloway looked at the under ocean sun shining on a magical forest inside a sparkling dome of crystal. Made without workers, placed without effort, and designed without plans.

He gave a quiet chuckle. "You ask why she doesn't hand out miracles? To her, these are just side projects."

His voice seemed slightly hypnotic in the ruby leaf woods. "All this was just a small step in the process to make that one homeless shelter. We all just stumbled in her way."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah grit her teeth. "Adam."

Uh. {{Yes?}}

She pointed. "Why is there a blood forest in our Housing Complex?"

Fuck. {{...It's more of a ruby forest? Amy calls it that, or the hide and seek forest...}}

Her eyes however could see INTO the trees. "Then why are there organs pumping blood INSIDE them."

SHIT! He should have distracted her! {{Look, I had some mutated trees from…}}

Sarah glared at the forest. "Don't care where they came from. Why a blood forest?"

Yeah, Adam was in trouble. {{Look, I don't know why Rapture's mutated ADAM trees had animal parts mixed into them. It was only trace amounts originally, it should have been fine!}}

Really, only a tiny bit of strange DNA had been stuffed in there! {{I guess when I used 'Fix It' choice point juice on the things it healed all the plant and other parts into… this thing.}}

The eyes narrowed. "You… WHAT did you use on them?"

He coughed. {{That stuff we gave little Amy? I didn't want to use CEE Tonics or Plasmids on these things because of all the ADAM already used on the saplings. And I hadn't really gotten any testing done on CEE yet at that point.}}

She growled. "The same juice that turned a five year old girl into an unstoppable cuteness monster!?"

FINE! HE SCREWED UP! {{Look, I didn't know they would all merge together into a psionic hive mind forest/slug/fish/tree thing. It wasn't listed in the documentation when I hacked together that original cure that fixed you up.}}

Sarah did not look satisfied. At all. {{Uh. Sorry?}}

She pointed HARD at the forest. "No more creating new species until I am FULLY informed before each and EVERY attempt!"

Adam winced. {{But…}}

"EVERY. ATTEMPT."

Sigh. Might as well pull off ALL the bandages at once then. {{I better talk about the Gem Lobsters that live in our sea park now, then.}}

Sarah twitched!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Paul was devastated, but not completely surprised.

His whole team had been given one of the rare construction contracts left down in Rapture, a remodeling of one of the higher class 'Gentlemen Club' joints. The pay was decent, the hours bearable, and the first few days had been going fine.

Work was on schedule, they were below budget, payment was coming in.

For someone in Pauper's Drop, this was the high life! He and his missus were even considering moving in with another family they were good with, and leaving Pauper's Drop to bad memories and older times!

Then the hiring Mistress pulls Paul aside for a 'conversation'.

Turns out, most of the remodeling was supposed to go to another crew. One not under Fontaine's unwritten restrictions when it came to hiring.

But she had seen him on the train, and wanted a new boy toy.

The job, the pay, the benefits… all of it was just to get him here for her to claim.

When he told her he was married, she just waved it off. Said 'some poor woman' couldn't compare to her wealth, beauty, and power.

And the worst part was, she wasn't wrong.

The Mistress was a dream, a stunning beauty. Her wealth was known in the clubs around here, and even without doing shows or even suggesting a 'good time' there were fans that paid just to be in businesses she owned, even when she might not even show up in person.

She was aloof but generally nice to everyone, even if she tended to ignore people she considered to be unrelated to her current focus or task.

But she wasn't his missus.

His wife may not be traditionally beautiful, and his family tried to point out her flaws to him in the past… but they stood together. She was loyal, kind, and a good person.

That was more valuable to him than a pair of tits or a pile of cash.

Worse of all, the Mistress actually approved of his statement. Suggested meeting up with him and the missus, and gave him a card… but that didn't change the underlying problem.

Now that they had accomplished her goals, the job was over.

Paul led his weary team back to the train stop, heading home to Pauper's Drop. A sweet smelling business card with lipstick in his pocket, an invitation to an impossible three-way with his missus, and no other work in sight.

How was it possible to hit so high and so low at the same time?

The rest of his crew, man and woman, were just weary. They had worked hard, did good service, and the mood was generally upbeat because (for once) they were paid wages for work done! Even on time and the amount owed!

Actually getting the reward for hard work was becoming a rarity when the workers weren't living at the right social levels. They were all top of their fields, everyone in Rapture had to be to even compete, but some jobs were just considered lower class than others. Implementers versus inventors.

But while his people were mingling idly and feeling a good worker's buzz, he had to face two unknowns. Telling his wife about his day (What the hell, really!?) and finding another job before his people missed rent.

Mr. Grinder was pretty good about that kind of thing, he even let a few days slide here and there, but normally Paul had four or five jobs lined up by now for the next gig. It was required, because three of them (Or more commonly, all of them) would fall through before work even started!

This time? Nothing.

The Mistress was the LAST employer willing to go against Fontaine Construction's ban on his crew. And she mostly did it for sexual thrills, not because his work was desperately needed.

His morbid thoughts slid onto a different path as the train neared the strange tunnels and Pauper's newly refurbished Atlantic Train Station.

Because it WAS new. New material, new structures. Everyone who knew or worked with Mr. Grinder's crew understood how impossible it was to get even necessary equipment and parts down here, so it was beyond jarring to see an entire train station get renovated in less than five hours.

The cynical side of himself knew it was bad news. The realistic side agreed and pointed out that people would start asking questions about this. And the depressed side suggested someone might try to torture his people for answers they didn't have. Again.

He'd have go to Mr. Grinder. Both about the job issue, and to have the Rat Catcher keep a mouse out so no one he cared for got jumped.

Hell, at this point he couldn't risk moving his wife too far out of the slum complex. Probably the only reason no one had attacked her already was Mr. Grinder's wife and how she 'handled' that one invader that failed to get in their home.

People learned quickly that while being a shorter woman, Susan Grinder could take an arm off with a spoon if you threatened her family. Kept the other women, children, and single apartment owners safe when someone tried something near the complex.

His darker thoughts faded as he reached the train stop… and came back with a VENGEANCE when he saw Dave Grinder HIMSELF standing at the front, waiting for them all.

Shit. This couldn't be good.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave waved everyone over. "Everyone who lives in the apartment complex over here! Trust me, this is going to directly affect you all!"

One of the more rough cut men, a macho man of muscle most called 'Posh Paul' due to his stylish goatee, grunted and had his whole work team move to the side. That man always ran a tight ship, compared to the meandering crowd of contractors and independents that were trudging their way over grudgingly.

Dave smiled. "Right! I'll keep this short, please hold all questions until we get done here… but basically my new Boss, Landlady Sarah Killgrave, has rebuilt the entire apartment complex."

He waved off the confusion. "Impossible, I know. Even if it WAS possible, it is too sudden and would require too much work to be done in a few hours. I know. Doesn't matter, I know most of you don't really care how, the important part is how it affects you."

His hands held up envelopes. "Line up, this has your new apartment number, where your stuff and your family have already been moved to, and your new house key. I also included a letter with basic information on what is changing, the new facilities available to our people, and how your rent and monthly fees have all gone down in cost."

Dave chuckled at the blank looks. "Come on, I got one of these for each of you. And I DO know everyone who lives in my buildings, so don't none of you hotel renters and posh types try to trick me into giving you a free place to sleep!"

A few tired chuckles didn't really clear up the confusion, but clear instructions were followed with minor complaints. People knew Dave, people trusted Dave, so people got in line and… Well, pretty much stayed confused.

Said confusion got worse when they eventually followed the directions through familiar walks and stumbled into an underwater paradise. It was so bad the first few people just stopped and stared.

Their mind was stuck in a loop. 'My home is this way', 'I should see my home', 'Where am I?', 'Where is it?' and so on.

It actually gave Dave time to finish handing out the keys and catch back up. "Keep moving! Everyone is now living in the big building in the far back, just get to walking down the middle pathway between the other two offices towards the courtyard with all the people!"

He began gently leading a few stunned people who were SURE they left their home here this morning SOMEWHERE. "The center courtyard has a big cookout my Boss set up, so make sure to grab some grub as you pass by. Most of your neighbors are down there too, and they know what is going on so they can answer some stuff if you don't fall asleep chewing."

Dave kept herding the weary masses.

The fact no one even commented about the massive magic ruby forest on the left really showed how long a work day Rapture pushed on the lower class.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah gently poked one of the core trees of the forest.

Thirty or forty branches poked her back.

She frowned. "Are we sure it won't drink people or something?"

Adam mentally shrugged. {{I mean, hopefully not? Shouldn't do it to people who don't mean this place harm, anyway.}} And with the amount of mental psionic power this place was developing, it would KNOW.

Sarah used her vision to observe the 'ground' below the Complex Dome. Or what had been metal plates, some layers of structural supports, and so on and so forth.

Now it was all black and gold roots.

The gold pulsed with a heart beat, while the black fibrous roots had replaced everything not needed for plumbing, electrical, water and sewage. Because Adam had somehow determined that the roots knew what was needed for the Complex Dome to function, and what was extraneous.

And then this forest animal thing ate the rest.

ALL the soil a few inches below the grass was eaten by the roots. All structural supports now acted as guides, as roots followed them down into the rocky depths. The majority of metal had been consumed, and neither she nor Adam was exactly sure where it went either.

Sarah sighed. "I can't believe this mess."

Adam was fascinated! But yeah, he wasn't using ANY more 'Fix Stuff' Choice Point juice out here. Or on any future jump, not if an alternative was possible. {{At least it isn't as bad as that temple I accidentally attuned to fundamental orderly and chaotic universal constants. That entire galaxy was sort of self aware, and I accidentally focused it all through a single place on one planet.}}

She glared. "What? No really Adam, Why!?"

He sighed. Yeah, that had all been terrifying. Fuck you 'The Force'. {{That was mostly an accident. I was younger, far less strong, and barely able to understand reality around myself. Every new Realm would mess with my memories and make it difficult to notice changes. THIS I did on purpose! Totally different things!}}

Sarah pointed. "You purposefully made a living underwater apartment dome?"

Her partner winced. {{Well, not specifically this then. But I wanted to make a forest, and boy howdy! Look at these results! A safe environment for the locals and a protector when needed!}}

She said nothing for a moment.

One hand suddenly had a plate holding an almost too large steak. Medium rare, still sizzling, stored in her inventory after a major cooking spree when she first regained access to animal meat after arriving at Rapture.

Sarah tossed it at the forest, and waved both arms at the wooden maw filled with sharp splinter daggers that appeared from nowhere and chewed it away instantly.

He sighed. {{I can fix that.}}

She sighed. "Just… look, the gem lobsters are awesome. They are slow moving, mostly safe to be around, look pretty, taste amazing, and you didn't make them able to explode an elephant at range with mind bullets or something."

Sarah saw the nearby flora seem to wilt and gently pet the nearest bush. "I actually love this forest you made, it is pretty and seems very nice, but not only is it incredibly powerful but, and I feel I MUST emphasize this, it was ACCIDENTAL."

Now that the bushes looked less depressed, she straightened her blue suit. "I really don't want us to accidentally make the rest of the city alive and sentient. Most of it will need to be torn up and repaired by outsiders, and we don't Rapture torturing something just because we weren't careful adding some flowers."

Adam knew she had a valid point. {{I'm testing everything carefully at this point. No lobsters show any sign of higher brain power, and we will ensure none of the farms accidentally create sapient life. I don't like the idea of screaming vegetables or depressed farmed fish being served up either, after all.}}

Sarah nodded as she walked down the forest path, which now led to the seabed park. Although the forest was using an unknown method to make the path longer than possible to further enjoy her company somehow. "Then I'll drop the topic. We can do something more fun, like plan some infrastructure some more while setting up some more background checks for the businesses."

The childcare service especially. Any adults involved were going to be CLOSELY watched.

She wasn't going to let any kids go through kidnapping, slug surgery, brain conditioning and/or torture. Not under HER watch!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave hummed. "Let's give these two places a second chance. They aren't fun to talk to, and neither place was exactly polite, but they DID agree to the card benefit discounts in return for some minor concessions."

More space, mostly. Though the ice cream joint wanted cheaper refrigeration fees… a major portion of each building's electrical bill was ensuring proper heating, which Dave was going to be able to cut down on anyway since the Dome's material and everything built within had amazing insulation properties. Or would after being rebuilt, that was.

Rachel hummed. "I suppose… They do pay their employees well, even if they are harsh to work with. But let's put them over here, in the back corners." She reviewed the new 'Food Dome' layout design. "I'm still stunned at how cheap you are going to be selling locations."

He chuckled. "Renting. Sarah is VERY serious about owning this place. Even so, you wouldn't believe how much was being bled from us down here. At these reduced prices, even for Copper Paupers or those without discount at all, the rent is lower than normal monthly maintenance fees other places charge."

She frowned. "But how though? I've done the financial work for the Diner for years, I know a lot about how things play out when it comes to cost."

Dave tapped the map. "The new building designs not only need less material for better stability, but they resist wear and tear, are cheaper to heat and cool, will have more reliable wiring, and most importantly have access to this: The Resource Station."

Rachael blinked at the point. "Yeah?"

He shrugged. "She made stuff to give us massive amounts of electricity for nearly no cost. Used that power to do something similar for water and air handling. And according to her, she has a design for a recycling plant that will abuse the cheap power to let us get free material for use or sale out of the junk people toss away."

Dave waved a hand. "Our costs are going to be damned near nothing. Yet we have to charge significantly more money for it so that we don't mess with Rapture's economy too much, get competitor's claiming socialism or communism or something to Ryan, or invite terrorists in to smash our equipment out of principle."

Rachel blinked. "Huh. How close to 'nothing' are we talking about?"

He chuckled. "Your electric bill last month alone would have covered any required maintenance fees needed for our new system over about six years."

She paused. "That… that is pretty damned close to nothing."

Dave nodded. "Mind you, we will need to get some additional radioactive material in a few centuries or costs might go up a bit." He rolled his eyes. "Our new boss's concept of 'future proofing' is a bit beyond standard."

Rachel frowned. "I didn't think you wanted to do more work with nuclear plants?"

He shook his head. "When I led the research teams on that stuff, they were doing some shady shit. Changing my designs, cutting corners, all kinds of crap! When Ryan's people contacted us I pulled my best men and women out and came down here to build something I had more influence over. The designers down here were far odder than I was used to, and the managers still forced us to cut parts and such that I didn't agree with… but I was able to keep my work up to my standards, at least."

Dave gently touched the designs. "Sarah's work makes my old masterpieces look like crayon doodles. Almost no moving parts, near perfect conversion of radioactive isotopes to electrical charge, complete shielding… I could eat lunch on the damned thing without worrying about a cataclysmic collapse or getting irradiated. It's a beauty."

His mind drifted elsewhere as Rachel hummed with a smirk. "So about the new food supplies? Edward loves Pauper's Plunder and the Fine Fishy Fresh seafood stall idea."

Dave groaned. "It didn't stop last night either. 'Hey honey, what about `Pauper Poppers` for the drug line' and 'We should go with `The Pauper Lady` for selling high class clothing'... I love my wife, but she's going to infect our babies with her humor at this rate."

Rachael rolled her eyes and poked him. "The food? Edward won't shut up about how amazing those gem lobsters are, after he figured out how to crack open those shells. Nearly broke out the sledge hammers."

He sighed. "Sarah's going to supply us initially herself somehow, but she has designed and provided parts for some stupidly advanced farm setups. I've already ended up hiring nearly all our work crews already to begin setting up the things, and it will still take nearly the entire month!"

She blinked. "That uh… I'll be honest Dave, that still sounds fast. Sometimes construction can take a year or more, even when people are just sinking buildings and hooking stuff up."

Dave grunted. "Sarah's damned near made stuff idiot proof. Even my most unqualified team members have worked on designs made by god-like geniuses, but these schematics could be built by high school kids without a problem… the issue is the scale."

He slid one of the other blueprints forward. "Look at this. If it only operates at 32% expected efficiency levels and for some reason our output is reduced to 78%? We would STILL be making a surplus. Pauper's Drop could use this to handle all our needs when it comes to potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, lettuce, carrots, turnips… there's even a design to handle silly crops like corn and stuff."

Rachael gaped at the plans. "What? All at once?"

Dave sighed. "No, each gets its own automated hydroponic system. But remember, the electricity to run it and the heated water needed to support the plants are basically free. And the plants we will be growing initially to start this whole mess are just being given to us as Sarah somehow makes the damned things beyond amazing in quality."

She nodded, remembering the astonishing quality of the free food served yesterday in the Complex Dome's courtyard. "Will Pauper's Provisions end up selling all food types then?"

He went back to the schematics. "Eventually, maybe. Though Sarah said apples were being a dick about it. She got several other berry and fruit trees to work, though she insists on planting them outside of the Complex Dome for some reason, but apples don't taste right when grown from their own seeds apparently."

Seeing her confusion, he shrugged. "Apple seeds grow up into new trees, not copies of their parents. And most new apple trees make crap fruit. All those crab apple trees out there were tasty apple seeds that someone tried to raise up and became those nasty things."

And she was apparently worried about trying to fix that. Something about 'But what if crab apple trees end up with ACTUAL CRABS as apples!?', which Dave thought was disturbingly possible.

On the other hand… He glanced at the trash can in the corner of the Diner's kitchen, overflowing with jeweled lobster shells.

Maybe seafood trees might not be so bad?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam hummed.

If he was going to have to make a separate Dome to handle plants anyway (Sarah did NOT approve of adding anything that people ate to the forest/plant/animal/thing), he might as well make it attractive.

Not to mention, these would not be part of the whole factory setup. Neither the underground automated stuff nor the publicly acknowledged Pauper run equipment.

No, Sarah needed places to plant berry bushes, vine stuff like grapes and kiwis and watermelons, and fixed versions of fruit trees. Plus whatever mutant things CEE Plasmids and Tonics did to interesting test plants.

For safety reasons (And in case of unexpected issues), Adam was going to have each tiny farmland placed in a floating 'bubble' made of Dome material. The entrance would have a Securis door and connections for the water, air, and electrical hookups.

Each bubble could adjust its buoyancy due to chambers that could fill with seawater, air at various pressures, or a total vacuum for maximum lift.

Then, if Sarah or Adam wants to add a new bubble farm, they can just adjust the connection tunnels rather than having to build more massive domes or having to shut down the existing ones for more construction!

They would also be cheap to replace if something went wrong, and no one would be living in them other than the plants so there would be no loss of human life if the worst occurred.

Then Adam had some fun! Just add some LED patterns on the soil covered floor of the bubbles, so people looking up at them would have an idea of what they produced, the lighting inside would be handled by the day/night cycle simulation program (Adjusted to simulate the most effective growth times of the year, with 'Research' helping to determine temperature and so on and so forth), and the bubble itself would have tinted glass used on the external layer outside the impact gel.

That way each farm bubble would glow different colors to outsiders, making it all look a lot more like Christmas ornaments! Which considering how anti-religion Andrew Ryan was, might be the first ornaments kids in Rapture ever saw.

Aww.

Moving on, Adam could get away with this design silliness pretty easily by adding some harvest Pneumatic Tubes next to each of the corridor hookups.

After all, none of the automated systems handled bushes, trees, or vines very well... they would all need to be hand harvested by workers ANYWAY, and the workers shouldn't care TOO much about a bit of extra walking as long as they can dump their heavy loads at the door instead of being forced to move all that junk back down to the Food Dome.

A quick check (Sarah approved the design!) and Adam started making a few dozen of these things. Most wouldn't have a specific LED pattern or plant in them yet, but he was planning for the future!

He also made the connection tunnel ready to hook into the future Food Dome, right into the back of Pauper's Plunder market. The odd tube was made with a pair of spiraling escalators (tricky to design), since this one spiraled upward unlike the standard 'turn 90 degree' design with stops at every level to connect to a specific farm bubble.

And add a big bubble at the bottom with a fun image of flowers and stuff on the bottom!

This one would be where the workers would receive the farm goods the upstairs harvesters sent down via the tubes, and would be where the workers could take their breaks and stuff.

...Oh, right. {{Sarah, don't forget to tell Dave that our businesses will be offering meal leave and paid breaks.}}

He felt her pause. "What? Of course we will, why… oh."

Adam hummed. {{Yeah, union changes like weekends, age limits for hard labor or dangerous jobs, mandated breaks or being allowed to stop working for meals… even sick leave? VERY much optional down here. Almost ignored or even discouraged actually.}}

She couldn't hold back a growl. "That's just bullshit. I don't want a sick employee shutting down the entire place because my policies force them to infect everyone else. Yeah, I'll talk to Dave." She paused. "Wait, does that mean they don't do 8 hour work shifts?"

He checked the hacked material. {{It varies. Some jobs only have three hours or so per shift, but that's mostly contracting work and not for full time employees. Down here? I'm seeing 12 hour shifts a lot. A few 20 hour ones with a half day in between, since day and night can be a bit tricky to track down here. One poor bastard has 36 hours on, 12 off… not sure how he is able to walk straight. Isn't even paid that much.}}

Sarah just… slumped. "Right. Well, we'll go with the three eight hour shifts for any 24/7 positions, and punch anyone who bitches about it. And I guess we can ignore sick leave if we just give them a serum to cure it… so let's toss in paid healthcare as a job benefit. A couple of Tonics and they'll all stay beyond healthy."

Adam held in a chuckle. 'Job benefits', right. Most of the jobs down here considered it a benefit if they chose to not fire you for getting sick or pregnant, much less offering any kind of medical care.

He had heard a few people call Sarah the 'Bone Angel' because of her spinning around that bone spike she loves when thinking, but she might end up being the 'Bone Saint' after this.

Adam paused, frowning.

With the curly connection he was designing, once it was hooked up and connected to the farm bubbles? The entire 'glass' structure would look like a cluster of gem covered grapes.

Huh. Oddly appropriate for something connected to Pauper's Plunder market and the Food dome.

Let's tint the spiral connection tube glass coating green!

And add massive fake glowing leaves!

Fuck yeah!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam waited while Sarah gathered the last of the notes.

And it was a lot… and incomplete.

Rapture as a whole was a skewed society. The population was around 20,000 or so people, plus or minus a few thousand of which were children. Which was more than one would expect, but less than one would think seeing the people located down here.

In America, around 2% of the population were considered 'upper class', with a disturbingly small amount of THAT with most of the actual wealth. Something like 0.1% had dominated the rest, depending on when you did the measurements and how good you were at finding hidden assets.

Rapture however, had skimmed the elite of the planet into a single city. Many of which looted their homelands to the ground before coming down here.

So Adam had the strange situation where even the poor and low classed people were top mechanics, amazing researchers, and brilliant coordinators and managers… just not as good as the ones at the top.

This meant that required education levels for the future generations would need to be FAR more inclusive and intense than for kids elsewhere. If a child couldn't blow the average college graduate out of the water at a young age, they would be bottom of their class here in Rapture when getting a job.

On the positive side however, Adam didn't need to build more slum housing once Pauper's Drop became popular. Just add some secure elevators and build UNDER the Complex Dome as required… and with those new floors embedded in rock, it was simple enough to add space as needed in the future without shutting the whole place down.

Although Adam decided to not mention to Sarah how the Ruby Forest had seen him making room under the place and decided to start carving out more floors on its own down there. It only needed a coating to protect the roots and provide the expected floors and walls and such, and a quick hookup to power and so forth… BAM, ready to go!

Thus if he needed to, Adam could easily open up a dozen floors underground for future Pauper residents. A couple dozen. So far.

Because the Rose Forest hadn't stopped digging downwards, preparing more and more levels for potential apartment complex levels.

Adam was ignoring that for now.

Right, anyway: Sarah had laid out a deadline of midnight tonight. All plans and requests had to be finalized by then, full stop! And she had made a ton of stops already, full of meetings!

Dave's people cooperated easily enough, and some of the more oppressed minorities respected the man and were willing to talk a bit… but Adam believed that many of the people oppressing the town weren't pulling their own weight on purpose.

Sarah kept bumping into issues. People trying to hold things back, be obstructionist. These groups and people would skip scheduled meetings, argue for hours without actually answering questions, and generally be dicks when Dave or Sarah politely asked anything.

Adam took notes and Sarah paid attention to them. She was polite, Dave was polite, and Adam was sure those morons felt very clever for delaying her planned changes and so on and so forth.

They expected her to cave. To come back and negotiate.

So! The new Market Dome was thus going to gain another four stalls if nothing changed tonight, eleven businesses would be getting new (and smaller) layout designs, and fifteen existing businesses were suddenly going to have double the room to work with!

He was sure they would all love that.

Dave seemed mildly amused at the situation, Sarah was checking her favorite Jakobs sniper rifle eagerly, already eager for the complaints!

It should be fun for everyone, mostly!

As data was collected though, Adam was fiddling with the designs.

He reviewed the plans. The new map had the Atlantic Train Station at the top, leading to the Food Dome where the restaurants, grocery store, letter office, and the new Paid Pauper Clinic location would be set up. It would hook up to the designed farm bubble vines and the other three Domes, while the Resource Station would be moved underneath.

The security station Dave requested for the strange guy called the Rat Catcher would be added down there too. Adam would still be hooked into everything, but that other guy had amazing organizational skills and a great network that only needed to be adapted slightly to cover Sarah's territory easily, giving him video feeds were no issue. A few wireless hookups and some basic electronic microphones for his 'mice' and he seemed happy with the plans.

To the right of the map was the already built Complex Dome. The connection tube was a bit longer than before of course, Adam wanted the room for when replacing the center area with the Fishbowl Diner when building the new Food Dome, but it wasn't that much of a longer walk really.

The Complex Dome had the Sea Park along the top edge, close enough to just see Sarah's section of the Train tunnels. Which were prettied up, of course!

Not transparent, that would terrify some train riders, but lots of pretty colors and bright LEDs added to the outside. Adam was probably going to include a Bathysphere automated tour ride at the train station to show off all the new changes, letting the mini submarine see all the neat stuff normally hidden to those living in the new Domes.

Note to self, add LOTS more seafloor decorations, lighting, and theme park like scenery.

Meanwhile the bottom edge of the Complex Dome went off a little to the above ground factories-to-be, which connected to the underground automated farms that Adam was already constructing. Well, technically it was mostly done at this point… He was just trying to automate more food variety down there, so it was an ongoing project for him.

That whole factory complex was going to be fun to watch actually, since Dave ended up hiring most of Pauper's Drop unemployed workers (A disturbingly HIGH number of people) and they were already setting up the many water belts and conveyor tracks and so on and so forth.

It would take a LONG time before it was ready (Two weeks at BEST estimate! Holy crap!), but Sarah was alright with that long development schedule and Adam was happy most of these people would be busy over THERE rather than over HERE where construction was going to happen.

Also, it felt like Adam's personal ant farm. But with people! And actual farms!

Note two, modify the decorations on the farm to look like an ant farm. He hadn't been sure what to put on the outside of the walls in the place, but Dave was pretty hard core about not having all the domes exposed to the ocean and Adam wanted to do SOMETHING with all that locked off space!

Anyway, back to the center of the map.

Further down the map from the Food Dome would be the Business Dome. Not just the shops and stores and such, but places like King Pawn pawn shop (Closest thing to a fair way to get loans that Rapture allows really), and even the clubs and hotels and such. Office spaces could also be rented down here, and at better rates than the existing joint trying to do so currently under Fontaine's influence.

Speaking of the clubs, Sarah had talked a bit with the people in The Limbo Room, the largest and most popular club formerly on Skid Row. She was still there now, though for other reasons.

Her trip had mostly gone as expected, a few suggested design modifications, better lighting and some stage equipment additions, higher quality makeup rooms and management spaces… but there were a few surprises.

The first one came from a business proposal.

A well known local actress, Ava-Marie Tate (She preferred going by Ava), was a lovely woman and movie producer… And unlike the other singers or town citizens, she was the first one who asked Sarah to do something most would consider impossible!

She had gathered all of her savings, promoted her talent, and spoke out a dream! And unlike many, Ava was willing to risk talking to a potential god-like mutant magic lady if a chance like this was being offered.

Sarah had been enthusiastic!

Now Adam checked the designs for the new Dionysus Theater, which would become THE place for the arts down here in the Drop. Yes, there would be a high quality set of movie theaters built using technology advancements not technically time appropriate for this planet. More than a few sets of advanced speaker and sound enhancing/dampening equipment applied too.

Maybe a bit more enhanced materials used than strictly needed as well. Which they may end up regretting.

Because yes, Adam knew SOMEONE would turn colored movies with sound into a weapon. Somehow.

But Sarah liked the idea of the actresses, actors, dancers and singers having somewhere to go down here without having to move on to the hourly hotels and dance bars. Art and Entertainment was a harsh industry, and those not at the top could fall VERY far.

So! Ten brand new major theaters, a full time filming set with some awesome adjustable scenery and props (Seriously, Adam could even make some Plasmids that would blow normal special effects out of the water!), and a full sized stage for plays and events and such.

The Dionysus Theater would pretty much be Pauper's Drop's face to Rapture, showing that even the 'lower class' could produce something astounding!

Yeah, it might mean that Ms. Holloway would no longer have a stage manager, but Ada seemed happy enough after hearing the passion she gave during her pitch, selling her dream… Yet the Jazz singer was obviously being distracted by something.

Which had led to this.

She and Sarah had gone into a room to have a 'private' discussion, and since his Jumper asked?

Adam was staying out of it.

Yep. Not spying on it. No matter how easy it would be to just listen in on… nope.

Adam sighed, and went back to the map. Again.

Right: Atlantic Train Station, Food Dome, Complex Dome to the right, Business Dome below, and the Market Dome to the left.

The Market Dome was going to be a three tiered permanent flea market, basically. Gold, Silver, and Copper floors for the public and Pauper's Drop to sell their wares!

Though after Sarah heard a few horror stories about low quality trash being sold at high prices and pure lies being hocked for top dollar? She had opinions. Strong ones.

Well, they wouldn't stop the scams. Couldn't really stop it if they wanted to, that would get certain people ALL riled up. But there WAS going to be a Pauper Seal of Approval available to anyone who got their products certified by Dave's Council.

It was a golden circle with a silver cent symbol on it, and hopefully it would ensure some confidence in shoppers. Any stall owner could apply for a product or service to undergo review, and if the service or product was approved by the Pauper's Council the symbol would be applied along with a statement about the item in question.

And Dave would crack down HARD if anyone tried to bribe the Council on this. Or tried to counterfeit the approval seal.

Brand certification only worked when everyone knew it was trustworthy… that kind of background could only build slowly and easily collapse with a few lies or missteps.

It was why only individual services and products could be approved, and not full businesses or stalls. And there would be monthly reviews of services, and investigations of any problem claims… if you earned the Seal, then your customers should be able to trust it.

And trust was very rare down here.

He again DIDN'T glance at the meeting. At all.

God damned curiosity.

Adam sighed and went back to experimenting on more Tonics. He was going to have a whole bunch of one use serums and helpful Ooze Tonics before Sarah's Paid Pauper Clinic opened. And maybe a few exclusive Plasmids for employed Doctors and Nurses on contract, though Adam was hesitant.

Every damned Plasmid could be used for combat! 'Oh, why not make a numbing Plasmid for the nurse?' led directly to 'I touch you, everyone falls down!' and so on and so forth!

At least he wasn't stupid enough to make something more powerful like biomancy or automatic material harvesting or long distance tickling or something. Hell, this place was so full of 'mad scientists', he was concerned about even the most harmless attempts!

Maybe he could build in really harsh limits? Something to ease pain only, to apply on people giving birth and stuff?

He frowned. No, if he only blocked pain you would still feel pleasure. And that could set off a whole wave of pleasure based torture and introduce generations of abusable kinks.

God damned mad scientist city!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah waved her arms and SOMETHING felt different. "We won't be heard now, Ms. Holloway."

Grace felt her mouth dry, and her clenched hands tried to relax. "I appreciate this, Ms. Killgrave."

The other woman slumped into a chair. "No, thank you! Your club has been a breath of fresh air compared to the hell I've gone through with the other places. You'd think someone offering 'anything' would be more appreciated, but I seem to have either terrified everyone into silence or convinced them I am a pushover to be taken advantage of… Very frustrating."

Grace's heart was beating hard. "I'm… I'm afraid I might be one of those hoping to take advantage of your generosity."

Ms. Killgrave rolled her eyes. "Are you going to ask me to stop hiring women because they might not want to be 'slutty prostitutes' anymore?"

And her nervousness was gone. "The HELL you say!?"

She snorted. "I KNOW! Dave and I shafted that place HARD. I'm not letting asses like that run anywhere in MY town. Fuck em."

Grace took grip on her emotions, but still… It wasn't the first time she heard such statements, but they still tore up some wounds inside.

She glanced at the strange new owner of her worn down town. The beautiful woman was at least far more relaxed in private, if nothing else. "No, nothing that… Nothing offensive like that."

Sarah chuckled. "Then I doubt very much you will be taking advantage of me. No one can force me to do anything if I wish otherwise, and I won't get offended as long as people aren't jerks when making requests."

The impossible woman waved a hand. "Mind you, I can and will say no if people pester me or whatever. Just won't smite anyone for something silly like that."

Grace took a hesitant breath. "I heard you can grant miracles."

The other woman winced, causing a weight to sink in Grace's stomach. "Sort of? Depends on the miracle."

Momma said you had to reach for your dreams. "I… there was a drug you gave Mr. Grinder's family? He said it could cure everything?"

Sarah grunted, slumped inelegantly in her chair. "Not everything. Can't handle brain death, soul absorption or destruction, changing things that are technically correct but biologically not what the patient desires… It fixes a hell of a lot though."

Grace reached. "I need a cure." She reached hard. "I… I can't have children."

Her one chance blinked and sat up, looking serious. "Could I hold your hand?"

That… That wasn't a no! Her face was locked as her heart jumped in hope!

Sarah's hand felt hot as fire and cold as ice. Her eyes burned with silver fire, and her hair floated in some wind outside of this room. "Hmm."

She couldn't hold it in! "Can I have that drug?"

Her heart crumbled at the head shake. "No." Sarah turned her hand over. "It wouldn't be a good idea."

Grace felt her dream leaving again. It burned. "Please?"

Sarah hummed. "No, that stuff is far too powerful. And can act odd, if Dave told you anything about what it ended up doing to his little girl. It would be best instead to just heal you up with something far weaker, and safer I think."

THIS WAS IT! "I would do ANYTHING for this. Please."

The woman smiled and the world felt warm. "No need for anything special, this is simple enough. I was planning on doing some basic health fixups for most people down here anyway, Pauper's Drop isn't great for anyone's constitution."

A bright green liquid appeared in a glass vial. "Right, let's start you with 'Enhance Self' Tonic, it will make sure the follow-up stuff won't do odd things like make your hair uncuttable and keep your fingernails from carving up glass."

What? "I'm sorry?"

Sarah ignored her. "Let's see, 'Cleansing' Tonic? Yeesh, way too strong, where was that other one… Ah, here we go!" A vial of apple cider? "'Hygiene' Tonic! And if it ends up too powerful I can use that 'Purge' Tonic and start over, though that might be disgusting."

Suddenly the green vial was in Grace's hand while Sarah seemed to be fiddling with even more liquids in more containers. "The final products will be in very lovely glass casings, but the automatic factory for those hasn't been built yet. Also, the future versions have safety restrictions that prevent you from drinking more than one Tonic a day so we can catch any issues."

Grace looked at the strange liquid.

It smelled like green apples.

Sarah blinked. "Ah, don't worry about it! Drink up! These were made specifically for you, so there won't be any issue."

She hesitantly lifted the vial to her lips as Sarah juggled more strange liquids and seemed to argue with herself about whether or not the 'Regeneration' serum would be needed or if a general 'Recovery' serum would be enough.

...It tasted like pear juice. Still smelled like apples.

A wave of cool refreshment began to spread inside her body, sweeping through her limbs and forcing her to gasp!

Sarah grumbled as she made a pink vial vanish. "No! Why would I even HAVE a 'Cuteness' Tonic!? That is weapon grade shit right there!"

Grace Holloway should probably pay attention to that, but she just felt too relaxed right now.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

"Hmm." He hit the intercom. "Stacy?"

The voice hummed over the dairy line. "Yes Mr. Dranish?"

Best handle it all at once. "Bring in the whole case order for Mr. Grinder. And do set up a quick summary, I need updating."

Most of his paperwork was high leveled anyway, the full reports were all massive.

He had people to do that.

She walked in, stern like usual. Folders were added to his desk next to the others. "Purchase request #3320, for a Mr. Grinder, as requested."

He looked over the new data as she continued. "This is the first breeding contract requested in over two years, normally the high price and the published low success rates for calf growth, maturation, and breed rates prevent any actual interest."

Not to mention that the breeding contracts sold also got rid of the discounts other customers got when selling their new pets BACK to Calci-o. Didn't matter how often they told people, they didn't listen. 'What do you mean, this cute thing becomes the size of a house?' and so on and so forth. "How much initial stock is being purchased?"

She doesn't even glance at the papers. "Two males, four females. Before being informed of the possible purchase of the lifetime breeding contract, it was three times that amount."

Well, they made that contract damned expensive for a reason! Not that anyone else could raise these things without their specialized research and equipment. Nor feed them, as the diet was enormous in volume and specialized in content.

Hell, that breeding contract had been a quick profit scheme thought up by the financial department. Mostly because even Calci-o had issues breeding new cows, even with their years of research and the (forcibly) passed Dr. Cooper's brilliance!

If THEY couldn't get better than a 53% impregnation rate and 22% successful live birthing statistic, good luck anyone else getting anything close!

Still. He hadn't gotten this far in life by taking chances. "Limit sale to half that, and increase the breeding contract fees to cover the other funds offered." Better safe than sorry, even if he was being beyond cautious here.

With only one male and two females, even if all three survived puberty the chances of them not being sterile were very remote. Hmm. "Make that three females, but only if they remove the buyback discount options from the purchase order contract entirely. In fact, add a processing fee if they decide to pull out later."

A swift nod had her leaving. "Yes Mr. Dranish."

After all, while the male calves were the hardest to raise, the females ate the most. No reason not to have their happy customers bankrupt themselves feeding the damned things while also earning more money when buying them back later.

He leaned back into his heavy workload again. Right, and best check in on R&D in an hour or so.

It was a habit, basically a custom and tradition belonging to every Calci-o owner at this point, to check R&D after remembering or mentioning Dr. Cooper.

Especially considering the cost of failing to do so that one time.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah sat in Dave's new living room, watching the clock on the wall tick down.

Susan was back from checking the children's room again. "They both still look fine."

Adam's Jumper nodded. "The 'Enhance Self' Tonic wouldn't hurt them anyway. It mostly just ensures any changes or odd effects applied to them will manifest in helpful ways. Amy's back to normal then?"

Dave sipped his whiskey as Susan laughed. "No, but she does seem healthy." Her smile was a bit infectious. "Though she is sad that she isn't able to be super fast anymore, she seems happy enough to no longer run into things."

Super speed did not equate to super reflexes. The little girl's power up helped, of course, but if it wasn't for her enhanced biology and super durability she would have been covered in cuts and bruises from hitting all those walls and such.

Sarah hummed. "I didn't expect any problems, but the delay between Tonics is going to be a standard thing. It will prevent strange interactions between different ones and ensure no possibility of overdosing, if that can even occur."

The clock ticked closer to midnight.

Dave sighed. "At least they taste good."

She nodded. "Normally, my Tonics taste like nothing. The raw material after being modified has no smell either, it's all too odd to work with human taste buds. And if I have to add both flavor and aroma to this stuff anyway, why not pick something enjoyable?"

Susan sat on the chair nearest Dave. "Do we need to refrigerate the 'Hygiene' Tonic until we can drink it tomorrow?"

Sarah waved that off. "The stuff is shelf stable, it doesn't expire. Just in case, the glass containers have a thin layer of electrical shielding embedded in it, so the stuff won't get affected by anything."

A pause. "But don't boil it." Because that would stop it from working. Hopefully. Or apply it to everyone in the area.

Yeah, best make sure the people she cares about gets access to 'Enhance Self' quickly. At least it would prevent some terrorists from vaporizing the 'Insect Swarm' Plasmid in a building and having everyone start sprouting bees over their bodies.

Adam? {{Yeah, I'll test that. Pretty sure boiling won't work if the Plasmid is that dispersed, the psionic field would be overwhelmed by ambient background noise when that spread out… but better safe than sorry.}}

Even closer to time! "We could start now. What are the chances that anyone else would actually show up this close to the deadline?" She looked at the table covered in collected notes, requests, and ideas. "I'm pretty sure these are the last changes we need to consider."

Dave sighed, leaning into his wife as she rubbed his shoulder. "I know, I know. But keeping to your word builds up confidence and trust. Start at midnight, like we said."

They quietly watched the time tick closer to 'go time', with Sarah trying not to bounce in place.

This was going to be so fun!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam examined his workspace. His canvas.

Some deep valleys and cracks, coral mountains and ridges, actual mountains. Pretty standard terrain down here, really.

This was the reason for some of Rapture's more odd design choices. Andrew Ryan had to bring down Aluminum foundational anchors, then build and sink buildings and bring down workers to connect up everything with tubes and tunnels and drain the sea out of it.

Considering the speed of construction? His attempts at secrecy, no matter how successful?

To save time, Rapture followed the landscape.

It had to! They didn't have the budget or time needed to do a lot of seascaping down here, they needed a foothold on the seabed to continue construction on everything else!

Sarah wasn't as restricted. Nor as limited.

With her and Adam's attention, they [[Harvested]] most of the seafloor in the location for the future Market Dome. Along with the top layers of silt, mud, vegetation, and sand.

After all, Sarah wanted construction to be done in a beautiful (yet flat) location and Adam wanted to build an underwater theme park styled sea floor. He carefully filled in the new pit with maintenance tunnels, hidden ocean access ports for later workers to handle future changes, and of course the foundational supports and structures needed to secure the Dome.

Coat all that with picture perfect white sand, anchor in some of the collected (And cleaned) coral reefs, toss in WAY too many LEDs, spotlights, and then all the decorative elements. The Market Dome's theme was treasure, so Adam had lots of 'gold' coin piles (connected inside so bits wouldn't go everywhere if someone smacked into the thing), massively oversized treasure chests stuffed with LEDs, highly oxygenated water pumps to attract sea life, and cartoonishly large gemstones and diamonds.

Kind of ironic that it was easier to just use actual gems rather than the costume stuff, but whatever works. Just in case, Adam coated everything in a transparent protective layer of cubic silicon nitride (Dome 'glass' for the win!) to prevent dirt gathering and stop moss from growing on the stuff.

And prevent people trying to steal it, but whatever.

With a large space cleared, and an underground path to connect over HERE, Adam then did the most annoying part of the build!

Moving the Resource Station.

Pause all services, [[Harvest]] that building segment, [[Harvest]] the end of this new underground path that ends directly under the future location of the Food Dome, dig DOWN farther than people would expect, and build!

Layers of armor and gel and sensors, dozens of meters thick. Not specifically required, but Adam was building the new power station designed by 'Research' with Ooze containers optimized to produce power this time from the new nuclear material, since Adam was swapping out the old stuff entirely.

Liquid fluoride thorium was actually not that costly to synthesize, and unlike this… stuff… Adam could easily test and work with it. Whatever mad scientist material the original nuclear core used, it was NOT stable. Or secure. Or based on known laws of science.

Fluoride thorium on the other hand was easy enough to get from Earth without needing entities like Adam or crazy magic science like… whatever that stuff was. Worked great, was easy enough to utilize with the new reactor design, and Adam could increase the power loads available to Sarah's town!

This new cluster generator setup could theoretically power half of the United States. For centuries.

Even at dozens of times the expected power use of all of Rapture, this baby could supply the power needs without issue for a LONG damned time.

Hell, at some point Adam was sure the surface would eventually connect up to it, if Rapture ever returned to the rest of the world someday. Likely over Andrew Ryan's dead body, but still! Nice to have the option.

The output was going to be limited obviously, don't want to freak out the rest of Rapture too much. But at least down here, under the future Food Dome, power would NOT be an issue.

A secured elevator connection to the security hub (Still below ground), and Adam cleared out some space, added in more shielding, and began setting up the massively up scaled water purification systems, air cleansing engines, and a stupidly MASSIVE recycling/reclamation station.

The recycling system was a bit robust. After draining most liquids, grind it all to mush. Extract the rest of the non-solids, handle the liquid filtration over there. Take the new powder, filter out what was collectible here. The rest of this mess? Dump it into the plasma torch.

It would separate the slag into gas (Some burnable, some not) and particles. This baby could handle nuclear waste, Plasmids, mutants, biohazards and plagues, even paper towels!

The original design collected the burnable materials and gases to help fuel the plasma generated, but power wasn't an issue at this point so Adam just collected that stuff and condensed it. Pauper's Drop could one day sell the stuff, but until then Sarah's Warehouse would have an automated routine set up to teleport the contents of the collection bins for her own [[Harvesting]] and personal use.

Connecting the Complex Dome and the foundation to the new Market Dome was simple, though he did take the time to connect the pipes to the Ruby Forest through her roots.

And paused.

Because the Ruby Forest had already shifted several of the connection pipes (Now made of black and gold roots) to be laid out in a more efficient pattern.

And she was somehow directly connected to the power line.

Well. Alright then. She had this covered! Less work for Adam!

He ignored Sarah's pang of concern over that issue as the two focused back to the Market Dome. An access tube with Securis doors, to be connected to the future Food Dome. Four elevators for stall only floor access, not for general public use: The closest lift was limited to Pauper card members only; the next two were express elevators heading for Gold and Silver floors; And the farthest elevator was for freight, heavy goods transportation. The last one even had a dock for external shipments when a stall needed to bring in lots of goods, if needed.

And the floors themselves!

Sarah had decided against having a square layout for the internal Dome walls. Too much wasted room! Instead she made each floor an octagon, which would leave eight much smaller wedges of unusable space for each level rather than four massive ones.

It also meant that the bottom floor was the largest in floor space and the top was the smallest, but since the highest floor didn't NEED walls (It could see the sea! Woo!) it reclaimed about as much floor space as the middle Silver Level.

Four grids of stalls extended from the walls to the center, where Adam set up a large set of eight transparent elevators that the public could ride, Four wedges of stalls to fit in between the other sides, and evenly distributed public utilities (Bathrooms, resting areas, vending machine locations).

It left some fairly wide walking paths between the eight total segments, but having moved a massive chunk of mountain and rock to make room for this place? Yeah, Sarah had lots of space to work with.

Even so, there were tightly packed and low cost rentable stalls for the ground Bronze Level, which would be the location where the many existing 'salespeople' that currently filled Skids Row' shifted to. And if Adam ensured the air would be kept cool and HEAVILY filtered to cut down on smells? No one was likely to complain.

Next floor up, the larger sized stalls for Silver Paupers and card owners. This level also offered every stall not just the electrical outlets like down on Copper, but water and waste hookups for people planning on selling food or drink. Or those services that may have biological waste, like hair cutting or animal selling stalls.

But the top floor? The Gold Market broke the design on purpose.

The top of the Dome would have a series of rings, every stall would have all the hookups that normal housing and business would have, each would have back rooms for surplus supplies and stock, and several stall locations were instead allocated to miniature parks and flower gardens.

Not sentient ones though. Sarah was VERY careful about each plant they modified, examined the data after adding each Tonic, and ensured that they couldn't accidentally connect to Ruby Forest and potentially hurt her.

That said, Adam had enhanced the things with dozens of new Tonics. They smelled lovely, couldn't cause allergic reactions if consumed, didn't grow larger, didn't generate spores or pollen, couldn't reproduce, were able to regenerate, needed reinforced tools to even scratch their leaves (Which didn't 'fall' or replace themselves), and they were all annuals now.

It was his attempt at the perfect, NOT mentally aware house plant!

And although he hadn't intended the aroma to mentally soothe people in the area, he wasn't going to tell Sarah that. She was a bit jumpy about letting Adam test stuff with plants at all, which was a bit unfair.

The gem lobsters turned out great!

Except that one lobster that was used to test the 'Grow smaller and more compact' Tonic. Which he had lost for a while after it got rice sized while he was doing other tests.

Point was, it died, no other big problems showed up during testing, and he was WAY more responsible when it came to testing out creatures and plants with genetic roulette!

Anyway, the eight wedges exposed to the Dome surfaces facing the sea were given maintenance hatches (Hidden of course), and Adam added some fun activity scenes for later viewers. A dragon lair with a mound of treasure and a sleeping model on top, a haunted treasure ship stuffed with rare art and a few skeleton guard statues, a rainbow ending in a pot of gold, he had some fun with it!

Though he did get tired of gems, gold, silver, and even copper near the end. The last scene was filled with expensive cigars, rare drinks, and an oversized chair next to a massive fireplace, as if someone had just left their study or something. And yes, the person sized bottles of rare drinks had dozens of gallons of label accurate alcohol inside. Because why not?

Just in case, the fire was an impressive looking combination of curtains, lighting, and air current. Adding an open, unattended fire near actual shelves of alcohol seemed a tad risky, so best not even taunt Murphy.

With two Domes done, Sarah pulled their focus toward the future 'Food Dome' location.

Which was basically all of Pauper's Drop, really.

Sigh. {{There are still people there.}}

Sarah grumbled. "Of course there is. Dave might have set up that massive party in the Complex Dome with the help of his people, and a lot of the nicer groups showed up since we told them work needed to be done…"

She waved at the map Adam generated. "But these were the assholes. Mostly. These people over here just might have ignored everything going on, and this area is open at all hours… if they didn't come to work they'd get fired."

Adam hummed. {{How traumatic do we want to do this? Knock them out or just send them all elsewhere while we work?}}

Sarah sighed. "Not much of a choice, is there? We need to get this done. But I don't want to risk the vaporized sleep serum, if one person gets too much they won't wake for days. Just move them."

Adam mentally shrugged.

[[Collect. Harvest.]]

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave paused as hundreds of people suddenly fell onto the lawn. People in work outfits, men and women in suits, and more than a few dozen in sleeping wear.

Or less.

Damn it, Sarah! "Susan, can you get some clothing for our less prepared guests?"

His wife's eyes were twinkling, even if they were both glad their daughters were asleep long ago. "At least this explains why Sarah gave us all those oversized 'I Do Not Listen!' shirts." She moved to the nearest box and yelled loudly. "Anyone currently less dressed than they wish over here! We have free shirts and shorts, just over here!"

It was pretty easy to hear her, since the several thousand party guests had all gone quiet in shock seeing the crowd of surprised visitors drop in. Though the ensuing gossip, giggling, and general laughter didn't take long to start up.

Seeing several dark expressions, Dave stood tall.

And after that stuff Sarah gave him, when he stood tall it was NOTICED.

Before, he had been fit. Muscular, if not as toned as his younger years. Distinguished.

But now? Even with only taking 'Enhance Self' Tonic the difference was subtle but significant.

His skin was toned. His abs could grate cheese. His muscles were the definition of definition.

As his stunning wife put it, Dave's body was twenty pounds of MmHmm in a five pound 'Why not snuggle' box.

She had experienced changes too, but since he already thought she was the most beautiful woman in his life it wasn't much of a change really. Though apparently she appreciated the compliment. Mmm. Good memories.

Point was, before Dave was a big man with political power. He stood up and people listened.

After 'Enhance Self'? He stood up and people stopped.

Half of the more violent targets of his attention gulped.

The King of the Slums didn't need a throne in his home. "I'm sure some of you got things you want to say." Silence swept around him like a breeze. "And we can talk about it later. For now, get your people clothed, grab some shirts and pants if needed yourself, and get comfortable."

He waved an arm at the sealed Securis Door. "The connection tubes are closed during construction. It won't take long before they are opened, but there is nothing you can do about the situation until then. SO!"

Dave's clap made several people flinch. "Until then! The food is free and plentiful, so feel free to mingle if you wish! But keep things civil. Understood?"

A shuffling 'Yes, Mr. Grinder' came out. "Good."

Susan's hot breath tingled as she hugged his arm and whispered. "Do that voice again. Later."

Ignoring his poleaxed expression, she smiled at the crowd! "Again, clothing over here! And yes Jason Mills, we all see how proud you are, but please put on the shorts anyway."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

And [[Harvest]] and [[Harvest]]. And clear out the murky top layers of rock and grit and gunk and add some beautiful sand and lay out some power for the lighting and good!

Above the exposed Resource Station's surface Adam added the Security Station for the Rat Catcher, with lots of monitors and doodads and gadgets and so forth. Another layer of armor and defensive material, and THEN the maintenance layer! This was directly below the Food Dome, and would have the equipment and pumps that originally were scattered throughout Pauper's Drop.

Also, this was a central maintenance travel hub. All the original access tunnels and maintenance paths would start from here and connect back up to the tunnels that the Atlantic Train Station needed, not to mention hookups to the underground passages to the other Domes and future expansions.

Though a bit of a walk and some ladder climbing would be required, Rat Catcher's mice could go from this security station to ANY of the other sections of Pauper's Drop. And through this secured door over here was a heavily armored and weaponized path that eventually split into connection tunnels and tubes leading to all the OLD smuggling paths, tunnels, and external accesses.

Spies needed to get out somehow, but there was no reason Sarah had to make it easy for outsiders to get in with their own!

ALL these tunnels were riddled with visible and hidden microphones, cameras, and sensors. Some sections were kept at specific temperatures, which would change if anyone opened them or tried to pass through even if they had some freaky Plasmid trickery going on. Other paths were kept slightly over or under standard pressure levels, with alerts to Security only when accessed.

Adam ensured that all that data was duplicated and passed to 'Research' to check for improvements or needed modifications. The data would also let Rat Catcher determine where work might be required within Pauper's Drop WAY before an accident occurred, not simply detect sabotage or intruders or hardware failures.

Walkie Talkies didn't really exist down here, but it was easy enough to modify some shortwave service radios to be much smaller and have far better coverage in town. Wi-Fi didn't exist yet, nor did the internet… but at least wireless communication could be simple enough for Dave, the town, and the Rat Catcher's mice.

Which brought up the topic of Rapture Radio, the number one (Only) radio station under the sea. {{Sarah, should we set up a radio station of our own?}}

She was busy designing the layout of the Food Dome, but paused. "Huh. I mean, would that cause problems?"

Who knew? Meh. {{Not sure, but I'll set up the hardware when we get to the Business Dome. There are no permits required at least, so if nothing else we can ensure background music for the Market Dome.}}

It would also be a bit more advanced than just letting anyone with a radio tune in. Setting up a few encrypted channels for Dave's people, another for the Rat Catcher… simple really. Just needed the right hardware on either end.

Sarah hummed. "That's fine then. I was a bit surprised when Dave played their family radio earlier tonight anyway. Way more advertising than expected."

He wasn't sure why she was surprised. Billboards and posters were near everywhere in normal Rapture, even if the rebuilt Pauper's Drop walls would mostly just have detailed maps, directions, and public assistance phones.

It was a bit of an experiment, as those landlines led to an office over in the Complex Dome. That way the Pauper Council's phone room could answer questions while also letting Sarah hire a few more Paupers… There were a lot of people to employ, after all.

Still. {{Ava-Marie Tate would likely LOVE to add town music to her Arts platform. Or even radio versions of her movie scripts and plays.}}

Adam watched Sarah get distracted by the idea as he refocused on the work.

The new Food Dome would have a square of restaurants moved to the center of the dome, all with much nicer kitchens and supply rooms. A single Securis Door on one wall would lead down to the Security Station and Maintenance Hub so people could work down there, and the center of the Restaurant Square had another freight elevator, a hidden one with an underground tunnel leading all the way over to the Market Dome's cargo dock.

External supplies wouldn't have to be brought in through the public areas this way, and it was useful enough that Adam modified the existing designs to include a cargo transportation network under the other Domes too. With strong security checkpoints between Domes and tons of monitoring and scanning equipment to catch problems early.

It wouldn't be FAST transportation thanks to this, but it would be both bulk and convenient. This would also allow Adam to avoid building any docks near the other Domes, letting the Market Dome (Where no one lived and business stalls were temporarily owned) take any fallout if someone tried to invade or attack the docks as a weak point.

The farms could ship food out to the Market Dome, just as Sarah could move out future Tonics and serums being sold from her medical front Paid Pauper Clinic.

And moving it all away from the public would make security FAR easier!

Good, now set up the slightly out of place non-food stuff offered in the Food Dome.

The Post Office, which would be able to use the shipping tunnels to send mail to the docks along with a future Pneumo Tube hub for small stuff if Sarah or Adam could figure those out. Mostly needed a mail and package sorting room and some front office stuff, as well as the elevator access for shipping.

The aforementioned Paid Pauper Clinic. Two waiting rooms (One for sick patients, one for healthy returning for checkups), several emergency rooms, many examination rooms, and patient consultation rooms for those who can't just walk out in five minutes with a few serums.

And yes, Adam may have built in some more advanced sensors into the examination equipment, and he might have added a secure room that could produce (Fully automated by an underground and HEAVILY armored machine) the Tonics and Serums in their full and proper packaging… but the rest was mostly standard stuff.

People could sniff around, but Adam seriously doubted most would be able to dig down the delivery shaft deep enough to find the reinforced Ooze CEE generating units with their electronic psionic neutralizing tubes and the Tonic/serum conditioning orbs.

And if they DID somehow try to do so ANYWAY, it would be a loud process and be happening really close to the Security Station.

Sarah would handle it.

Next? Pauper's Plunder market and the Fine Fishy Fresh seafood stall. Plunder was basically just a grocery store, with the second floor having access elevators down between shelves for restocking and the back nearest the Dome wall connected to the Cluster Grape Farms vine that Adam had been building all this time.

The market would also get additional supplies from below the store in the Transport Tunnels from the Complex Dome's Ant Farm, where the Automated Farms below ground were already pumping out packaged products and Dave's people were working tirelessly per each shift setting up the public production machines and equipment.

As for the next door Fine Fish Fresh seafood stall, Adam simply used the Ooze Ice Columns (heavily modified), which ensured any power outage (Very unlikely) wouldn't affect the seafood kept fresh on ice.

Some fish from the farms would also be flash frozen thanks to a modified conveyor belt system (Yes, he added sensors so gangsters couldn't toss someone or a body inside), which should freeze any food passing through at a fast enough pace to prevent frost damage while preserving the product for shipment or sale.

That said? Until the Ant Farm gets constructed, the only thing being offered in the seafood store so far was a bunch of gem lobsters. Adam hadn't set up any automated fish farms after all.

Meh, it should be fine until the other farms get installed and production is ramped up.

Until then though, Adam set up the entire front of the seafood store to be a massive water tank aquarium. Dome material instead of glass, filled with fancy gemstones and gem lobsters, lots of LED lighting and funny bits and pieces… these lobsters were also ones dosed with 'Growth Stability' tonic, so they wouldn't get bigger and would stay small (a foot or so long or less) and cute (No, he still wasn't allowed to give ANYTHING that Tonic) for all time.

And once Adam had those fish farms going, he would add some near immortal and modified samples of THOSE to the tank too! With 'Cleansing' Tonic the things wouldn't even make much waste so the tank wouldn't need cleaning that often. Best pets ever!

Maybe dump a vial of 'Nutrition' serum once in a while to keep them from eating each other too.

Just in case.

That stuff was a bad idea for a Tonic, 'Nutrition' reacted oddly to several things, but in a single dose it would keep most creatures 'full' and not require food for about a week or so, depending on how enhanced the test subject was. It was sort of like Eve, but less stable and didn't just empower Plasmids but normal body cells too.

Note to self again: When Eve sales went public, Adam was going to pester Sarah to buy several doses for examination. There had to be a way to make his 'Nutrition' more stable.

Because again, the Tonic version of it went odd QUICK, but so far the single serving tests had gone fine. And no one would be eating the tank example seafood critters anyway, unless things went REALLY wrong at some point in the future… it would be fine.

Adam left the rest to Sarah, as she went from schematic to schematic making the planned changes for each of the other restaurants and sitting eateries that would fill up the Dome. And it didn't seem to take long before she decided to get creative.

There was only so much room a single place could take advantage of after all… too much space would mean bad customer service and overworked staff.

Since she couldn't just add multiple floors or fill up the Food Dome with other stuff easily? Sarah had gone a bit artsy.

Ramps, spiral staircases, and transparent elevators led up to a network of semi-transparent walkways and paths within the Food Dome. The walls Dave had insisted on having her include ended one layer below this, while the top area had a few elevators connecting visitors to a lovely sky path.

Walkways that were designed to look like clouds with lighting within, 'cloud' supported picnic areas and small areas for dates and rendezvous… The clouds had lighting on the bottom to not cast shadows down below, but on top?

Some were covered in the enhanced grass (Just TRY to tear this stuff!), while others had artificial but soft foam that had fun patterns and colors. The winding paths connecting these clouds could be reached by elevator, ramp, or stairs while still seeming to have no structural support thanks to discreet connections to the Dome itself and the ABSURD material being used to build this stuff.

While Sarah moved and shifted the 'cloud' platforms around into something she felt appropriate, Adam did the more repetitive work: The Business Dome.

And his thoughts went naturally to determining a theme.

After all, the Complex Dome had the underwater theme park motif and the Market Dome was surrounded with depictions of wealth and riches. Sarah was even now setting up fake nature scenes and oversized fruits and food and stuff all around the Food Dome, but that left the Business Dome for Adam to do SOMETHING with.

After some debate and mental arguments giving push and pull, he decided to focus on 'media' for the general overall tone.

At the center of the new Business Dome, a massive old fashion Radio Tower. With lettering declaring that this belonged to Dionysus Radio, free publicity for the local theater which Ava Tate was likely going to love.

The back would have the hotels set up, only needing a minor amount of redesign after reading Sarah's notes.

In the center, the Penny Drops Hotel would be an entirely new place owned by the Pauper Council. Only those people sponsored by a card carrying Pauper would be allowed to even try to rent a room here, and Adam was making it BEYOND luxurious. Posh beyond posh!

Because even with permission to apply? You needed to be sponsored by a certain level of Pauper or your money wouldn't be enough to get these spaces. Because while the Copper Drop rooms were amazing, the Gold Drop rooms were just absurd!

The additional restrictions and quality should really pull in the more fancy of snobs, while the results would be worth the high prices they'd pay.

Most importantly, it was another business the Pauper Council could use to employ the people of Sarah's town. Because with her actions, Sarah was basically going to transform most of her people to the service industry… they would need cleaners and staff and maintenance people and painters and so on and so forth.

Anyway, more building!

Clubs over there, The Limbo Club over here, this side would have the rentable offices and the more boring businesses… And now the entertainment district! One of the few in Rapture without lots of prostitutes and strippers! For a few days at least.

Sarah wasn't going to BAN those vices. Again, certain people would complain. The mandatory quality of life requirements and improvements however would at least have those men and women selling their bodies a certain level of safety down here.

You want your club to have strippers? Then you better pay them enough to live off it and not allow customers to beat the shit out of them.

Can't or won't pay for that? Then get out of Sarah's town.

Period, no exceptions.

Anyway, the theaters, the filming stages, the rehearsal stages (A couple of previously existing hotels had REALLY pissed Sarah off, so there was more room to work with than expected), and some real progress was happening here!

A little bit of historical research had Adam putting up massively oversized posters and advertisements for Dionysus Theater and Ava Tate's past film work high up in the air. A few more previously published ads for the businesses that actually WORKED with Dave and Sarah, but in bright colors and lit up by hidden LEDs… It gave a bit of Vegas vibe to the area. Very nice!

Instead of boring metallic walls like normal, the dividing sections hiding the dome in THIS area were designed to look like red curtains, stage spotlights the size of houses acted as lighting, and it didn't take much for Adam to add a control station to the Dionysus Theater's management office so that they could do something flashy when new plays were released or if they wanted to push a big event!

Maybe a few more controllable lights to act like fireworks? And some for color tinting...

Adam absently made ALL the lights able to change saturation and brightness levels and colors, controlled by the Security Station. Businesses could contact the Pauper Council and apply to have them changed or ignore the day/night cycle… In fact, let's make this a thing for ALL the Domes!

Some Market Dome stalls might want to do odd colors depending on their products or services after all, and since it required Council approval it should avoid the more horrendous colors and patterns.

Hopefully.

He was in the middle of making the lights have adjustable angles based on interval timers when Sarah broke in. "Adam?"

Hmm? {{Yes?}}

She was in the Security Station. "Why is there a room down here marked 'Light: Business Dome Subsection 4c'?"

Well duh. {{Because the hotel district might want different lighting conditions based on the average temperature of the mean body heat of its customers.}}

She seemed frustrated. "Adam, there are over thirty rooms like this."

Huh. {{Good thing I simplified stuff, that saved a lot of space!}}

Sarah pointed. "This one control room has four floors. Four whole floors of levers, dials, buttons, and switches." She squinted. "And I think I see some pull ropes and a punching bag."

He mentally nodded. {{Yeah, Rapture doesn't have any advanced artificial intelligences so I made some workarounds. Then some stuff conflicted, so I made do.}}

She just… glared at it. "Why? Why all this."

He explained.

Her glare didn't change. "No."

Adam gawked! {{But! But what if someone wants to have a bright red light next to a blue soft shimmer under a green highlight!? Do you expect someone to just put up with cyan like a plebian!?}}

Sarah pointed. "Get rid of all of this. Now." She threw her hands up! "It's just silly! It's more complicated than your security center!"

It wasn't silly! SHE was silly! {{Oh come on!}}

Her foot was tapping as her arms crossed. "You can let the theater control those special spotlights. Maybe. If you restrict it down to a color choice wheel and brightness levels."

Adam was aghast! {{But! The lack of fine detail!}}

Her eyes narrowed. "And it must have less than five inputs. And output results that make sense to ME, not just to your super brain."

Oh this was just unreasonable!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Fontaine was going to kill him.

He sat in the crowd, and like most of the spies and conspirators was silent as the rest of the party oohed and awed. Everyone stood or sat near the edge of this impossible 'Complex Dome' and watched a distant (And brand new, somehow constructed) Dome light up as massive spotlights appeared out of nowhere on the heavily modified sea floor.

On some level, he WANTED to join in. Every moment something magical was happening out in those formerly dark waters, and landmarks everyone down here knew by heart had vanished without cause to make room for it all.

Large models of food dishes and farm goods near the new Food Dome, something glittering way off in the distance surrounding the Market Dome, now this beyond ostentatious Business Dome that was looking more and more like a massive stage about to put on a play with each added decoration…

But all he could hear was the steps of Fontaine's men. The same people who had offered him bloody money for dark deeds were MORE than happy to turn their knives on him for even the smallest slight… and this wasn't going to be a small issue.

He had followed orders. Frantic orders passed down in odd ways, since something had really gone wrong with the command chain apparently, but he had listened.

No cooperation with Ms. Killgrave. Done.

Delay and stall her plans until Fontaine's people could fix whatever undefined issue had popped up in middle management. Required a few favors from other people as shifty as himself, but done.

But he was beginning to believe no one understood the size of the metal block they had all metaphorically kicked.

He couldn't help but glance at Mr. Grinder, Dave's massive body somehow more intimidating than usual and subconsciously pulling the people towards him like an ideological magnet. The man seemed to be using some sort of modified service radio to argue with someone about… fat cows?

No, no help from there.

It was honestly big enough of the man to not have him or his associates vanish. Clearly this new Boss had the capability to do so, if she could steal a bloody underwater mountain or two!

Those few days of planning, then today's announced deadline… he thought back to all those wasted meetings and canceled appointments. Times allocated to help this outsider 'plan building modifications' and all that jazz.

Plans that Fontaine's people assured him would never go into effect, that even if all of Rapture joined hands in unholy communion would still require thirty years or more to put into place.

Working for the winning side had seemed obvious and easy when the other group was talking about fairy tales and magic wishes.

The crowd gasped in awe again as massively oversized theater seating filled up the seabed outside the Business Dome, ready for giants to sit down and enjoy some future show.

He squinted. That monster had somehow added wooden floor planks below the invisible audience too. Planks so large that it would require redwood trees by the dozens if real and years of careful treatment to avoid warping and issues.

Just for a decorative touch, because what even was his life anymore?

With a mental slump of defeat, he began waving to his people in the crowd. His actual people, not the ones he worked with and helped push into Fontaine's way.

They'd have to become Rat Catcher's mice. At least that would keep cheese on the table when the goons came to collect, and ensure someone actually cared if they began disappearing.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah was adding fake theater programs (a couple of people tall) to the underwater seating for decoration when Adam called her attention. "Yes?"

The big baby had pouted badly after she made him redesign almost ALL the control interfaces in the Security Station and elsewhere. {{The big stuff is done, and I've moved all the personal goods to people's new hotel rooms and managerial offices. Well, all the stuff not sent to the outcast Market Dome stalls.}}

Yeah, he was still a grumpy pants. "Are we good for power and all that?"

Adam grumbled. {{Not even using a fraction of percent of available power. Nearly zero work load for water and air as well, considering no one is in the other Domes yet.}}

Which was of course impressive. Because the biggest energy cost down in Rapture was ensuring proper heating of the facility, as this deep in the ocean was bloody cold! "Good. Let me finish this up a bit and we can go to Dave and the party and hand out the maps for the people we kicked out to get back to their apartment or job."

Well, except for a few businesses that physically had nowhere to return to. Sarah was NOT happy with the groups that had clearly volunteered to be the stuck up nails, and this would hammer them down nicely now that their facilities were consolidated into tiny shop stalls in the Market Dome.

Adam seemed to perk up! {{Hey! We got approved to pick up those baby mutant cow babies!}}

Sarah grinned as her body floated in the Business Dome, her mental telekinesis letting her focus on underwater decoration. "What'd we get?"

He reviewed the documents being filed on Calci-o's servers. Not that anyone but Sarah knew that they had kept a link to those things. {{Only a single bull calf and four heifer calves. They tried to limit you to three females, but Dave made a counter offer to drastically make the contract worse for us in return for the extra.}}

She frowned. "That... doesn't seem like enough for a stable population."

Adam snorted. {{Don't worry about that. Dose them with 'Enhance Self' Tonics and a few others and we will be golden. The important part is Dave got us a breeding contract… not only are we permitted to raise our own herd of these things, but we can mutate and modify the animals without restriction or complaint from the parent company.}}

Sarah blinked. "That… That seems overly generous. Right?"

He chuckled. {{No, the offer Dave agreed to and the numbers of initial animals almost ensure normal people could never get a second generation of these babies. Literally impossible through current Rapture level equipment and abilities, if we ignore the random Mad Scientists that seem capable of doing literally anything.}}

She hummed as she added a fake stage to the outside of the Business Dome. "But we will be able to raise our own cute fluffy balls now, right?"

Adam absently agreed. {{Ignoring that breeding serum that can asexually reproduce animals, I've already designed some Tonics to ensure high quality wool and the ability to lactate without needing to breed first. And one to keep them the same shape and size as they are now instead of growing bigger forever.}}

Sarah jerked. A WHAT serum!? Adam missed it. {{Since I assume you don't want to butcher these creatures, the Tonics and serums I designed should keep them as huge balls of poof, with super clean wool and producing highly nutritious milk. 'Enhance Self' will also prevent them from feeling uncomfortable if they are not constantly being drained of milk, unlike normal cattle, so we don't have to keep them hooked up to milking machines at all times.}}

Nope, go back. "What exactly is this breeding serum?"

Ah. THERE was the 'Oops, caught' expression she was expecting. {{It isn't anywhere NEARLY as bad as the Tonic version! And I would have tested it safely like I did the gem lobsters!}}

Sigh. "It's fine, I'm assuming it was to ensure the farms populated quickly?"

Adam's relief was palpable. {{Well honestly it was to let other people control their fertility like you can, it was just WAY too effective during testing trials and I'm still looking for a weaker version that ensures pregnancy but doesn't just start popping out babies and clones or whatever.}}

Huh.

No, she was going to unpack all that later.

Focus on 'G rated' fun stuff for now, not the sudden 'You can have unlimited safe sex' comment. "Can you modify the corn automated hydroponic farm to prepare a percentage of the product for popping? I feel the theater district would appreciate high quality snack food."

Adam seemed equally happy at the topic change. {{Yep! And we can see about using enhanced butter once the demon eyed baby cows are delivered!}}

She absently wondered if the cows would still have four eyes after being dosed with all the 'fix things' Tonics they were going to shove into the creatures. But that was an issue for later, for NOW her inventive instincts wanted to design some street carts that could sell popcorn and seafood dogs and fried bread and stuff!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave sighed in relief when the Securis exit door changed to 'unlocked', and it rolled open to show Sarah's beaming face as she strutted into the Complex Dome.

Ignoring the crowded party area, she beelined over to him and Susan. "Dave! I saw the contracts for the cows you made! Well done!"

He blinked. What? "I only finished arguing over the line with Mr. Dranish's lawyer a half hour ago."

His Boss shrugged. "Yeah, I was too busy to come right over when it happened, but this is perfect! Thanks to the breeding contract you bought, I can do WAY more modifications to the cutie patooties than I planned!"

Visions of flying cows danced in his head. Crud. "Just… don't do anything too weird?" Sure the demon eyed things were cute NOW, but look at what she had done to normal lobsters!

Susan laughed and accepted Sarah's hug. "I'm glad you are so happy about it."

His friend grinned like a shark. "Now let me hand out some directions and a few hotel keys, send off some of the more grumpy people to the train station, and we can go on a tour!"

Three people Dave had missed suddenly vanished from behind Sarah, one's hand still raised with a knife that fell to the grass as he disappeared.

Not that the knife would have done much. Hell, his daughter could have crushed it and she wasn't NEARLY as powerful as Sarah was!

The murmuring crowd helped him focus. Right, best organize this mess. "Tour? It's a tad late for that. Just give me the stuff to hand out and make sure I don't miss anything. We can go on the tour in the morning when the girls wake up."

Susan chuckled as Sarah dropped a massive PILE of envelopes and documents into his arms, which immediately dropped them.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Eventually even the late night owls had to get some sleep and those who still had places to stay went to their various hotels and apartments. A number of 'helpful citizens' also vanished as they fled the wrath of their bosses, knowing that sharing bad news could be nearly as deadly as CAUSING bad news.

That said, it actually took around a week for news to spread outside of Pauper's Drop to the average Rapture inhabitant. Despite the expensive and somewhat odd purchases Sarah established through the Pauper's Council, only the minions delivering livestock and materials even saw the massive improvements and the well developed loading docks at the Market Dome.

It was too big a change, and too sudden!

The few tales and rumors were waved off as fever dreams and drunken stories, and only the desperate and most adventurous people bothered to show up in person to see if any of it was true.

Which coincidentally enough, was the target demographic that Sarah wanted to join her town! Those with nowhere to turn and people with impossible ideas and vision!

That said, this was still Rapture. The kinds of crazy ideas and adventurous investors generated by THIS place went beyond nuts.

The Business Dome, despite expanding by so much, was quickly filled with applicants and out of luck singers and dancers and actors and actresses. It was a harsh career to be an artist even down here, especially if the fickle public reacts to your life's work poorly.

People passed over because of gender or race, individuals who DIDN'T know the right groups or swing in the necessary circles, well… life was toughest on them first. At least the construction crews down here got low level maintenance and refurbishment jobs before Fontaine's people started stomping them.

So the individuals and families who had the tightest finances, who had the worst luck, many of which had already considered Pauper's Drop or places similar to it as a last chance to survive… they were willing to take a chance on it. On the potential lies, the possible trick and trap.

The population of the Complex Dome nearly doubled in that first week alone! Especially as Dave's people and their social network brought back families that had fled, and spread the word to friends who were also in tough times.

Still, the word spread slowly. Much more slowly than Sarah or Adam expected really.

This was partly due to the massive increase in space that Pauper's Drop now enjoyed.

Any individual Dome was larger than ALL of the town's previous living space. And now there were four of them, which gave massive amounts of room for all kinds of additional facilities without even mentioning the extra additions like the transparent Bathysphere Tour Subs added to the Atlantic Train Station and the Ant Farm.

With all that space and all these highly polished new buildings and jobs? A worker's shortage was only expected! Sarah NEEDED these outsiders!

So people were flowing in down here in waves and finding beyond affordable housing, low cost food, affordable health care with beyond top class results, and employment. Gainful employment with a livable wage!

If it weren't for concern about their other relationships outside of the town, most of the new Pauper's Drop citizens wouldn't even bother taking the train back to the other areas of Rapture. Not quickly, not with so much to do down here!

Dave Grinder and the Pauper's Council used this small window of opportunity the best they could. Rapid purchases, using Sarah's ability to move around unseen to move product and resources around the city to the town... But Sarah didn't forget the original reason she came down here.

Thus the educational daycare building inside the Complex Dome was modified slightly, and the Council building across from it had an office set up as the official Ruby Forest Orphanage headquarters!

With full documentation filed Dave was able to have Sarah visit the other slum areas of Rapture and the unofficial homeless shelters using whatever strange methods of travel she could do. To not just search for those stuffed into crowded shelters and lost alleys, but the search Rapture as a whole for kids in danger.

And without her or anyone else being traced coming or going from Pauper's Drop, not many noticed when the youngest and most vulnerable children of the city vanished from dark corners and trash filled hideaways.

Not many cared when a number of poor families and supposed orphans were suddenly reunited and began working under Dave Grinder's guidance.

But some did.

Fontaine just hurled his cigar away. "What do you MEAN the kids are gone!?"

Tobias Riefers grunted. "The temporary shelters we set up to try and gather the kids are all empty. Since they weren't official yet and we didn't own the joints we can't do much officially anyway, but it's worse than that."

Mr. Riefer was always a trustworthy man, he wouldn't fib on this. "Tell me."

Tobias frowned. "The supply point was hit. Not just the girls, but the boys we rejected, even the few parents who were pressured into giving them up or were forced to for financial reasons… they are gone. Just gone."

He pushed forward his report and Frank frowned as he reviewed it.

Quickly searched homes, or more accurately small areas in maintenance shafts and abandoned work tunnels, emptied completely. Those who lived together, missing. In some cases whole communities had vanished!

The kids were gone of course, but so were a list of contacts and people in the know, as it were. Far too many. "This doesn't track. Andrew Ryan's been hounding us but this isn't his style."

This was the absolute WORST timing! The last child being tested on with the new implanted ADAM slug mutation had passed away last month due to Fontaine rushing the study, this new shipment of children was to allow full production of the new Plasmid lines! Well, the girls at least. The boys were to be used as exploratory research fodder, to find some method of hopefully making future test subjects better able to survive the slug implantation processes. Maybe save some money.

What, would they have to limit their production quantity of Tonics and Plasmids to those damned slow growing slug farm rates!? He needed ADAM, damn it! He needed it yesterday!

Fuck!

It had taken weeks of arguing with Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum to get that woman off her high horse and work with Dr. Yi Suchong to even get the initial testing subjects to stay alive, and she was even MORE horrified when Dr. Yi Suchong included kids in his private work and experimentation, even if it did work in the end.

Kept going on and on about finding some sort of symbiotic method of ADAM harvesting and production, one that would at least not injure the incubators. Damned bleeding heart! That would cost time AND money!

If she wasn't so valuable she would have had an accident already.

Was she involved with this? With the kids missing? Unlikely, considering how many informants he had watching the woman. He'd have that looked into anyway, better cover the bases.

Frank Fontaine stood and began to pace, thinking hard. "Can't be Ryan. The man would rather watch this place burn down himself than try to 'defile' it with 'petty' morality rules and social laws… He might not approve of us taking children, but this is too strong a response!"

Tobias nodded. "No, It wasn't any of them. Not Ryan's people or the big man himself. Some contacts on the inside say he's distracted over something unrelated, some science bitch who he has high hopes for or whatever. In fact, Ryan's actually pulled back a few investigations and is focusing elsewhere entirely."

With clenched teeth he pulled out a new cigar and snipped it, preparing to light up. "If it ain't Ryan, then it ain't a problem. Some new scumbag wants to block my plays, get on MY turf!?" They'd learn QUICK that he doesn't allow such things! Not on his watch!

A moron ran in before he even got a full puff from his own damn smoke! "WHAT!?"

The full body flinch was at least satisfying. "Boss, we found our missing people."

About damned time, maybe he could get some answers. "Then where is their god damned report!? I've got heads to claim and bodies to bury!" These lower level thugs might not be worth much but they were HIS disposable pawns! And if they had betrayed him… Oh yes.

His happy thoughts of applied consequences were disrupted by the uncomfortable look on his minion. "What."

The lackey shook again. "Boss, they… none made it boss."

Fontaine was unaware he could even FEEL this angry.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah felt like she was herding cats. "No! Stay together, remember the buddy system! Everyone hold hands!"

Children were easy enough to move around when scared and hungry and stuff, but take them away to a magical forest and give them 'Health Recovery' and 'Nutrition' serums? Except for the few kids being held by still crying parents, the rest were just bouncing with curiosity at this point.

She needed help! Like an hour ago! "I need someone! Someone good with kids!"

Dave was busy, Susan was busy, getting either of their kids wouldn't help and might get her yelled at, she wouldn't trust Rat Catcher with ANYONE'S kids… Who else!?

Her eyes widened! "Ms. Holloway!" She waved at everyone! "Alright, stay together and I'll be right back!" Crap, the youngest twin sisters looked like they were going to cry again, THINK QUICK! "EVERYONE GETS A RUBBER DUCK!"

She dropped soft squishy cartoon styled ducks on the entire group in the forest and…

Step.

...Appeared at Grace Holloway's apartment door. She should be off today, right? Even with the Limbo Room's massive boost in popularity, her schedule should have this be an off day.

Sarah almost pounded the door and paused.

Right, don't be an asshole.

She knocked VERY FIRMLY but politely.

And waited.

Come on. "Adam?"

He chuckled. {{She's in there, and she's coming. The kids are confused but fine too, you have time.}}

This was SO FAR outside her comfort zone! Come on come on come on…

The door opened, and Sarah hadn't seen a woman this beautiful (And hopefully able to help!) in quite some time. "Yes? Oh, Ms. Killgrave!"

She leaned forward HARD. " ! 'mBusy,ButQuickQuestion!"

The singer blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"

Breathe in. Out. Calm.

Meh, close enough. "You like kids, right?"

The black woman seemed hesitant. "...Yes?"

Good! "Great! Let's go!"

Ignoring her 'Go where!?' she took her hand and…

Step.

...Returned to the forest. "I'm back everyone!"

Dozens of children and a few confused adults were still staring at where she vanished from.

Some of the more adaptive kids had collected several yellow duckies, while the most lost adults and children had a few still balancing on their shoulders and heads.

All the ducks that had hit the forest floor had been taken by the Ruby Forest for some reason.

But that was a future problem. Current problem! "This is my good friend who is totally going to help me (Please Grace, I'm super serious) and we are going to help everyone get settled down at our new Ruby Forest Orphanage!"

The woman next to her froze. "Oh my. Hello?"

A tiny cutie pie wandered close enough to glomp her leg and Sarah saw the singer visibly have her heart melt at the little boy. "Oh."

Sarah had backup! "And don't worry, I won't keep you from going outside or talking to other people like the last places did! Also you can eat lots of good food and have soft beds!"

Grace looked shocked at that concept and its implications even as that got a bit of a cheer from the younger ones. Seriously, Rapture kids were emotionally hardy things! Though she did make sure to pick the twin girls up since they had been retrieved (saved) at the very last minute and needed some extra support. Plus, they liked her for some reason.

She didn't mind being their emotional anchor either. After all, it didn't matter if the people trying to sexually assault the children were now disposed of, that kind of thing could be terrifying. "Ruby, a path to the playground?"

The forest shifted while the flowers chimed like fairy bells, a wide and pretty path opening up to a well designed playground just outside the Complex Daycare and Educational Building. She let the crowd burble in fascination while trying to move the mass of kids along. "Everyone walk this way! Hold hands, buddy system! Adults too, this way!"

These were unfortunately the only parents left. Most of the kids were either actual orphans, left to Fontaine or less horrible places because their mom or dad couldn't afford to feed them even when starving themselves, a few were kidnapped, and the remaining just had shit parents.

The kidnapped kids were simple enough to return, Adam had infiltrated a LOT of security systems over the last few days so it was easy finding people. The poorest adults she had found and brought down to Pauper's Drop today, and based on the ongoing heavy tears and whispered words more than a couple of them had tried to get their kids back after scrounging enough money and were denied.

As for the parents who had eagerly abused and or sold their own children or nephews or nieces?

Well, none of the kids saw what happened. And if the morons tried selling children again in the future? Well, the body pile of kidnappers and rapists could always be a little taller. She had the ammo for it, free bullets for all assholes!

Her eyes caught movement. "No! Just smell the flowers, if you try to pick them you could hurt yourself!"

Seriously, this Ruby Forest would laugh at someone trying to use a knife on any part of it, much less care about being damaged by a little girl's hand… but they could accidentally give one heck of a paper cut! "Grace, I am SO glad you are off duty today."

The woman seemed so lost and confused, but was already carrying the little boy in her arms.

He was Benjamin, right? Went by Ben anyway, according to the stolen (and later burned) paperwork. "What…"

Feeling the boy twitch, she gently patted his back and whispered. "Ms. Killgrave, what is going on here?"

A glance ensured that none of the children or confused (and abducted) parents were being left behind so she took time and whispered right back. "Mr. Grinder got the Ruby Forest orphanage established. We got special rooms set up in the daycare, and I went all over Rapture moving the kids from those crap holes to here. Somewhere the kids can get good food and a future. An education, if nothing else."

Not all of the shelters were actually bad, two of the orphanages (More like shelters) that Sarah cleared out were run by really good people despite the many issues they faced. But none of the places had enough finances, and the shit places were BEYOND happy to accept big bribes to let her take custody of the 'little leeches'.

Dicks, but not actual abusers or slavers so whatever… they lived for now.

As for the four decent people, Sarah had already moved them down here and had Dave hire them to help run the daycare and orphanage in the Complex Dome. The newcomers were under surveillance and there were many volunteers keeping an eye on the place, but it was going well so far.

Then today happened. "In the middle of searching Rapture for any homeless kids missed by the system and other places they might be hiding, I found what was basically a kidnapping ring."

Grace gasped and Sarah nodded.

It WAS a kidnapping ring too. Unofficial location, goons with heavy weaponry and no documentation, the actual kidnapper that she had interrogated and got information from… and the 'former' henchmen that had tried to abuse these two little girls in her arms.

Deep breath. Stay calm.

The kids need you to stay calm. "I returned the kids that still have families, and brought a few of those parents with me if they needed a job and a place to stay, but the rest of these little ones will be staying with us."

Grace absently hugged Ben. "These poor dears."

Sarah sighed. "Everyone else I am friendly with is currently busy or on a mad artistic high right now." Ava-Marie Tate had jumped on having access to her OWN radio station with both feet, and combined with her theater work? She hadn't stopped to sleep a full night since then. "I really appreciate you putting up with my oddness, especially if you can help me get these children settled."

The woman gently stroked Ben's black hair and sighed. "Of course I'll help. I already signed up to spend time helping at the daycare in a few days anyway, this can just be some additional experience. Dave shouldn't mind me working a bit early."

Thank goodness!

Wait.

Oh crap! "Anne, don't stop holding hands! I don't care if Jerry has cooties, we are doing the buddy system!"

Just… Just get to the damned playground already!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave blinked as he left the meeting room, ignoring the streams of people passing by. "Sarah… Why are you carrying kids?"

They were adorable little girls who appeared to be Puerto Rican with curly brown hair, but both were sleeping on Sarah's hips while the woman hugged them. "Ignore them."

Really? "It is a bit hard to ignore you toting around twins."

She sighed. "They've had a very bad day, were almost attacked, and are traumatized. They calm down when I hold them, so just let it go for now."

Damn. "But you got there in time?"

She frowned. "Before anything more happened, and the girls weren't touched physically… but it was close. We got lucky."

Damned right they did. "Yeah, thank goodness you got there to stop that. You need my people to take care of someone?"

Sarah sighed. "I handled it. And left a bit of a message. But I'm not just talking about how I stopped this one assault."

A folder with documents floated to Dave who ignored the passing rabble gawping at super powers. He rifled through a few pages before freezing. "They were being shipped off? Is there another orphanage we need to raid?"

She growled. "No, that isn't an address to a residence or business. That was a laboratory location."

No one alive there either, it wasn't fully set up yet.

Nice place to leave the bodies though. She was sure Fontaine appreciated seeing his people again.

Dave's grip twisted the papers. "That... " He simmered, but forced external calmness. "Are we keeping an eye on that?"

Sarah nodded. "Got inside Fontaine Futuristics, a few other places. Kept a light touch there, didn't want to risk any big waves, but I'll know if they get a hold of more children. Also filed some hidden tips with certain people, it will be tough for the sleeze to make a move like this again unseen."

Ironically, Andrew Ryan would allow people to test and sell goods that could cause insanity, death, addiction, and so forth… But kidnapping customers? That wasn't free will, and free will was his personal heaven and salvation. No, this kidnapping ring was firmly in the parasite category for the eccentric underwater city creator, and he would stomp HARD on it.

Not that Sarah would permit it to be an issue at this point. "I couldn't do much else without risking them changing operations and then possibly missing some kids… And I didn't bother to take any of their research or data."

Because she could just buy the final products and let Adam experiment with them. These scientists had to work with tainted Ooze CEE sources and using genetics and D.N.A. to influence a psionic liquid field, and compared to using conceptual modification it was much more primitive and limited.

And a bit more impressive. 'I used chopsticks to build a car out of olives' impressive: Still not the best tools for the job or even good materials to work with, but the fact it even runs at the end was an achievement.

Dave walked along reading as Sarah carefully kept the girls from being jostled. "How many kids did you save?"

She sighed. "Thirty five. Not counting the other kids we gathered earlier this week."

That was… a LOT of orphans. He read a line and frowned. "I thought Fontaine wanted girls only?" He double checked the two children were asleep… good. "For that slug thing I mean."

Sarah grumbled. "The girls were needed for ADAM production, the boys would have been expendable testing subjects for unstable Plasmids."

He looked into the distance. "Can we just… handle Fontaine?"

She slumped slightly. "Not yet. Preferably not directly either. I'd prefer that Pauper's Drop become a bastion of stability for Rapture before that crazy mess hits us… And the best thing for our people and the kids is to not rock the boat too soon."

Adam had done some research. Sarah COULD flip the table, but right now she was only messing with HER property and HER town, as far as Rapture knew. Most would support her even as they covet her products and services, but it wouldn't destabilize anything.

But if the big players died or vanished? This city would crumble.

Her people didn't need that. A lot of bystanders would be crushed in the process.

Dave pulled her attention. "Right, any updates about that whole… Demon baby cow ball things we bought you?"

Her eyes lit up even as she hugged the twins a bit tighter! "Oh, you haven't seen the petting zoo yet!"

The man blinked. "The what?"

But it was too late, and a moment later the hallway was slightly less crowded.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave was concerned.

Sarah was vanishing and appearing around the new pastures, a series of mini-dome bubbles connected by tunnels she apparently setup on the seafloor around the seapark with grass covered floors. "We are calling these ones 'Mini Moos'! Because while not what I wanted they were far too cute to just get rid of."

Her two child tag-a-longs were sleeping somehow as she vanished closer to a herd of VERY TINY fully grown adult looking heifers.

They still had four eyes, but they were glowing gold instead of demonic red.

The tallest was only a half foot tall. "Sarah?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah, no idea why the small ones look so normal."

Suddenly they moved again to a new pasture dome. "And I'm not sure what happened with these ones, but they REALLY adapted well to the 'Wool' Tonic!"

The woman hummed. "They might be related to Highland cattle maybe? They don't seem Scottish. Anyway, thanks to the 'Hygiene' Tonic and some enhanced strength serum they all seem clean and happy, so I decided to keep them! Remember when the children come out to visit they shouldn't pull or tug too hard."

Dave stumbled slightly and then just stared at the dozen random piles of wool on the grass. A couple were shuffling in random directions, bumping into the walls or each other, then snuffling whatever they hit.

She grinned and lifted a pile of whatever it was. "I'm calling these Wooly Moommoths. They are sort of ball shaped under all this, but since you can't see that it doesn't matter."

The man felt a headache coming on. "Sarah, we only had four baby cows a few days ago."

His hand swept over the dozens of varieties. "What the heck?"

Sarah moved the twins out of the way while slowly pushing a Moommoth with her foot. "I made some medicine that speeds up breeding and baby growth. Don't worry, I tested them all extensively: They are safe to work with and their milk and wool and stuff is fine. Better than fine in several cases!"

Dave glanced at the most recent creature. "And the appearance? These don't even LOOK like cows."

It was a bit hard to focus honestly while ignoring her new backpack/harness/mechanical monstrosity holding up the twins. She had it set up with baby seats attached on complicated robotic arms to her back now, probably to make it easier to cuddle her cow mutants without putting away the tiny human cuties she was carrying along.

She hummed. "Well, the Adams Family and Cousin It aren't exactly well known locally… Well, not yet at least. But basically these guys looked a bit like a character from a story series I loved as a child. Plus this is high quality stuff when shorn!"

Fine, whatever. "What about the udder things? From two pens ago?"

Sarah winced. "Ah, the Butter Udders. That was… well, we just won't have that section of the pasture available to the public."

Seeing his concerned look, she sighed. "Since our contract lets me breed all kinds of varieties I thought it would be smart to make cows to meet our various needs."

She gently lifted a pile of floof. "Easily grown and collected wool. The spike covered Bull Horns that drop and regrow their horns for us to collect. And those Butter Udders! The udders with faces might look odd but they produce an amazing quantity of milk and the stuff is outstanding in quality."

He shivered. Nothing covered with so many teats should have a face like that. Ever.

Sarah saw his look and waved it off. "Look, I know they may not look like normal cows." A pause. "Except for the Mini Moo's, and I'm not sure why forcing them to grow super small undid most of their mutations. None of the others did that." And she seemed back on topic. "But you should really give them a chance here!"

Dave snorted. "It's fine, I'm able to handle this. It helps that I gave up trying to apply logic to you days ago. From our first meeting, even."

He sighed. None of these beasts were aggressive or poisonous or whatever. "Fine, you can open these petting zoos to the public. But I have to approve the varieties on display personally!"

Sarah perked up! "Thanks Dave! I know Susan would have given me this look if I had just let the kids play with the baby cows again without checking with you guys first."

Wait. "Again?"

She shrugged as a tiny pile of wool tried to floof onto her feet. "She asked me to get your opinion after I told her about the Bounce-a-Bulls. And I was still making these variants and making sure they wouldn't explode into babies or something, so I didn't mind waiting a bit until I could show you all of them!"

Susan must have helped name these things. "Bounce-a-Bulls?"

Her hands flickered and what looked like an inflated cow with a near perfectly spherical body was resting happily in her hands, four tiny hoofs on its surface and two mini horns above the nearly flat face.

The woman dropped the creature, and caught it as it bounced back to her hands with a 'Meep!'. "Yep! Honestly I made most of the rest to justify the existence of these things. Near completely useless unless you want something fuzzy to hug or float in the bath or something."

Yeah, he had a headache. And Susan HAD to have named it, because this sounded EXACTLY like her kind of humor.

At least the ball creature seemed satisfied as his so-called Boss began bouncing it around with various 'Meeps' and 'Moops'. "Wasn't there something more important for us to do?"

She sighed, the Bounce-a-Bull vanishing. "I'm trying to stay away from the general public. Apparently my big construction project terrified several people and I need to wait for your guys and gals to finish setting up the farms and machinery anyway."

The robotic arms gently moved the sleeping girls back to her arms, and she hugged them as they snuggled. "The kids I saved are being settled in, and the staff we hired thought it best if I wait a bit for them to calm down and get centered before I go off exciting them more. Except for watching over these two cutie patooties I've been doing mostly out of the way work."

Dave hummed as he knelt to pet the pile of floof that was bumping into him.

They WERE cute. "What kind of work?"

She hummed. "Building up stockpiles of usable and saleable Tonics and serums, setting up vending machines throughout the Domes and making them restockable from the maintenance tunnels below, dismantling what remains of that child smuggling ring and eliminating key personnel managing it, helping Complex residents change their apartment layouts and room colors and stuff. Lot's of busy work."

His mind hardened. "Talk to Rat Catcher if you need any additional intel."

She nodded. Likely she had better information gathering options available anyway, but he supported her motivations in this regard and he knew Rat Catcher did as well.

Right, Dave should change topics. "I heard something about Sea Dogs?"

Sarah brightened! "Yeah! I couldn't really get into the idea of making any of my cows for meat butchery or harvesting, but I'm not nearly as emotionally invested when it comes to the gem lobsters. I've made some equipment that can grind their meat for sausage! It's not quite real hot dogs, not really, and the casing is artificial and not made with intestines like usual, but I've got several Pauper's working on the seasonings and trying out new blends and mixtures of different types of seafood and veggies… Some tasted really good so far!"

He hummed. "What about the bun?"

How long had it been since he had a hot dog? They did have ketchup and mustard down here thanks to Sarah already. Even relish and onions!

She waved a large blueprint. "It is still waiting to be assembled, but automated wheat farming with hydroponics is possible and on your to-do list for construction!"

The woman slumped, gently putting the twins on one of the piles of floof. It didn't seem to mind. "Well, sort of. I'm using enhanced wheat, and it is barely better than just normal farming techniques really. In fact, even with my enhanced stuff? It is barely more efficient than just adding a few more grape bubbles to the grocery farms."

She grumbled while putting one floor pile on the twins like a blanket. "Seriously, it was WAY harder to set up than the rice or corn was, even after I modified the natural growth height of the stalks."

Sarah saw him raise an eyebrow and shrugged. "I like the hydroponic growth farm designs. And yes, this is technically no longer wheat, but more a mutant CEE enhanced wheat-like creation now, but on the OTHER hand I don't have to redesign my stuff and can make a LOT of bread with it."

Neat. "Having cheaper bread means I could have sandwiches again…"

Peanut butter and jelly was possible, not to mention veggie burgers (stupid cute mutant cows preventing Sarah from making cheap beef!) and all those baked goods and even a BLT… Wait.

His mind glitched slightly. "If I can get some pigs, can you avoid getting emotionally attached to them? And maybe chickens?" Fried Chicken? Bacon?

She shrugged. "Sure." Bacon!

Dave nodded. "I'll call my people, send me down to Security so I can talk to Rat Catcher."

BACON!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Grace had cut down the hours at the Limbo Room, which was easier than she expected since the number of singers applying to work there had gone up. It even seemed like the owner thought it would help her career, making her a rare treat rather than a nightly attraction.

It didn't matter all that much to her, compared to holding little Ben in her arms.

They had clicked, the tiny boy filling a hole in her life that her years of effort had only grown. After her tragic doctor visit, that emptiness had seemed banned against ever filling.

But thanks to Ms. Killgrave, she not only COULD have children, but she had found a child that needed help and wanted her to be there for him. And her job was stable and her pay was beyond sufficient… It was like a dream!

It had taken almost no effort to transfer from Ruby Forest's Daycare staff down to the Orphanage crew. The fact that she was friends with the 'weird magic lady' and respected down in Pauper's Drop smoothed the process significantly, and let her be heavily involved down here with these poor children much faster than she expected.

Taking care of these young ones was stressful, and dirty, and sometimes she cried herself tired while holding little ones against the dark and bad memories. Her hours were lengthy, her time always demanded, and sometimes when she went onstage to sing the world felt oh so heavy on her shoulders it hurt.

It was amazing!

Nothing had ever felt as fulfilling. Nothing.

She checked the sleeping rooms again, just in case, while little Ben rested in her arms. Ms. Killgrave had apparently given all the children some of the magic drinks Grace had already consumed when rescued.

Less powerful stuff, they didn't have the same issues the singer had after all, but something to ensure they would be rested and healthy. That they could recover from trauma faster and with less long term issues.

As far as she could tell? It had worked.

Also, like all the staff, the kids got a dose of 'Reinforce Self' to ensure proper health and fitness… A drug which thankfully tasted MUCH better than the normal medications she grew up with. It was sold to the town at a very affordable cost like the other Tonics Sarah advertised, with Pauper Card members getting even bigger discounts depending on the value of their card… But the kids? Every one of the orphanage children got their Tonics and serums as part of the service.

It had warmed her heart to see the children slowly settle in, even if she had to hold away cold waves of anger when a little one marveled over missing scars and being full at night. The anguish in her heart fueled her motivation further with each tear she dried and every lullaby she whispered.

To be honest, after being healed by Ms. Killgrave? She had felt lost. Adrift.

Grace hadn't had an active sex life or love life before she knew she had been barren. Her career, her music, her plans… It had always been a dream, eventually an impossible one, but the process had always been planned for the future. An 'Eventually I will' story she would go to sleep with every night.

Once her plans were possible again, she felt overwhelmed!

After all, she wasn't going to just jump some random man to get a child. Her standards might not be as simple as the storybook 'Rich, Handsome, and Pliable' that some people looked for, but finding a good man in Rapture could easily be a lifelong quest.

And she didn't want a quick lay or a good night, she wanted a family. To invest her heart in the future! A child just represented that most clearly to herself, a part of the whole and not just an excuse or something to achieve and then toss away.

Then Sarah swept into her life like another tornado, and helped her find a lost one who needed a family just as badly as herself. Someone who already knew how rough life could be, how unfair… but who would have guidance.

Unlike some of her darkest times, she would be here for her child. For her family.

Looking at the dozens of rooms, she chuckled. Maybe a much bigger family than initially expected, but family nevertheless.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

These were NOT chickens. {{Sarah. The fuck are these?}}

She shrugged even as she kicked the things into the portal. "Dave called them Winkens. Because of all the wings on these… Uh. Chickens."

Probably because these 'chickens' had twelve wings. On each side. Asymmetrical wings, no less! {{What the HELL Rapture, just what do you DO to things down here!?}}

Sarah kicked another flapping monster thing into a portal. "They were accidents, apparently. Unplanned supposedly, though I think the place was trying to make fried wings cheaper for sale. Which worked out for us I guess, since Dave got them cheap. The pigs on the other hand are still being argued over, but uh… well, yeah. Freaky."

They had no head. Just a massive torso and wings everywhere. No feathers, just naked skin… It WALKED on wings, there were no chicken feet! {{How does it EAT!?}}

She paused mid kick. "Huh. I don't know."

Hesitantly, she manifested Mr. McStabberson and rolled the 'chicken' over.

They both recoiled at the odd maw of what seemed to be fangs. {{"Holy Crap!"}}

Sarah waved her hand and the other dozen vanished! "Take them! Take them all!"

Adam tossed them into the breeding pens for temporary storage. {{What the HELL, Rapture!? No eyes, no neck or skull, just a torso and wings and a digestive tract. I think.}}

She walked in a small circle as she [[Harvested]] all the evidence. The transportation crate and supplies vanished as she muttered. "Gross, gross, gross. If the pigs are like that I am making you use something to make them less horrifying."

It should be better after some Tonics. Probably. Most likely?

He grumbled as he [[Harvested]] one of the Winkens. {{At least the cow mutants were cute. I didn't realize how much effort Boyd Cooper put into those things. Compared to these, he was an artist of the highest caliber!}}

Sarah just stared at where the things had been. "Why does everything like that have sharp teeth? It was bad enough WITHOUT sharp teeth!"

Adam hummed as he reviewed the data. {{Well good news then, they aren't teeth.}}

She didn't seem satisfied with that. "Then what ARE they!?"

He winced. {{Bones.}}

They were quiet for a moment.

Sarah sort of held a nasty sound. "So. Why was its mouth full of bones?"

He sighed. {{To chew. Which it apparently hurt to do, what with it having no gums or… And it all just sort of falls into the digestive tract later and… Damn it.}}

She felt something pulse as her mental readouts of the experimentation rooms were finally and thankfully blocked from her awareness.

Adam hummed. {{Let me work on this. Fix them with some Tonics, get something less… This, whatever it is, and see what I can do. Maybe I can at LEAST make the skin look healthy.}}

Because the monsters were all kinds of strange colors in no real pattern. Brown and pink and green and gross.

Sarah sighed. "Thank you. And make sure they can eat and go to the bathroom without pain." She winced. "I can't believe I have to say that about ANYTHING, even future breakfasts."

Adam grumbled as she went on to do less horrifying things.

Forget feathers. He wasn't even sure these damned things laid eggs!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

He tapped his fingers upon his chin, his mind going places they once have been. "A theater?"

Mimi Tabor nodded. "Yes, Mr. Cohen."

Sander Cohen was nodding along. His plans were beating upon this song. "Wondrous!"

So unexpected, so new, how queer! In a land of water, such a place now here?

She spoke with a frown. "I've heard that Ava-Marie is heavily involved. That woman should have bowed before your brilliance! Showing herself now on the stage again. Anna Culpepper was supposedly going down to Pauper's Drop too! They both deserve each other. Bet they fail before opening night, that would serve the hack right! Humph."

This youth, his audience, was unaware. This wasn't just a war, it was Theater! "Art isn't that simple. There is no king, or winner, or leader of art… Just us fools upon the stage with stories to tell."

Who acted alone, performed alone, and lived alone? The lonely, the lost, and those without tone. "My vision isn't made grander when my fellow creators vanish, but when I can feel that connection… the touch of my audience, as my mind displays greatness!"

Mimi quickly nodded. "Yes, Mr. Cohen."

Gently he laid down his brush, his work on pause as his mind took flight. A new stage was quietly bestowed upon the watery city, a place of future dreams and might!

While his artistic rivals fled his spotlight towards the Drop, this should not mean that his own plans should stop. A stage, a new play, a grand theater unseen! What wonders would be shown, what new phases of the dream?

How long had he stayed in his debauchery and creations, his stability unshaken? When last did he risk, did he leap, the unknown he sought and potential taken?

No more he claims! "We shall visit this 'new Fort Frolic' of the Paupers."

Once more, towards fame! "Gather the crew, for a bit of a tour."

Towards glory… Or shame.

His crew knew too: It was time to move. "Yes, Mr. Cohen."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam had made some progress. Sort of.

Pauper's Drop would now have three new breeding farms: Wormkins, Drumkins, and Wingkins.

Sarah was refusing to even be involved. And that was AFTER a lot of serum and Tonic work… And Adam couldn't blame her.

All three new species could eat near anything now, had 'healthy' pink skin, and were clean and symmetrical. Theoretically, that meant beautiful, right?

Not so in practice.

First, these creatures didn't lay eggs. He now knew what they DID do to reproduce, and now sincerely regretted knowing. He didn't tell Sarah, he WOULDN'T tell Dave's workers, and instead had set up some Breeding Pods designed to hide ALL of that from reality.

And that was the end of THAT topic. Forever.

Secondly, Adam could NOT get them to grow feathers. At all. All three species were just skin, no hair or fur or feathers or scales anywhere. And no level of 'Enhance Self' seemed to fix it.

Not without cheating and designing a brand new Tonic that would grow ANYTHING some feathers.

So he did. 'Feathered' Tonic. Might even let people buy it, because why not? Going bald? Why not have some feathers, people!

It went well. Almost too well!

Sarah had ended up preferring his test 'Pinion Minion' cow mutant creations over all of his attempts with these 'chicken horrors'. She really liked the color variety too! White feathers, black ones, rich reds, relaxing browns, and she even loved the strange black and white oddity (And other combinations) on the several patterned feathers!

On these artistically mutated cows, even the strange feather colors covering the creatures made pretty patterns and were attractive to look at!

Dr. Cooper was beyond his time, seriously. Or he planned for feathered cows from the beginning. Either/Or.

So Sarah accepted the new species of mutant cows (Pinion Minion for the Win-ion!) covered in harvestable feathers and added them to the petting zoo. With their Tonic cleaned feathers that could be painlessly plucked and regrown, there wasn't even a need for a separate feathering station or whatever.

The workers could collect right there without even causing them stress! Not that there was a huge market for feather pillows and bedding down here. Not yet.

But after his new Tonic made her some cute cow mutants, the woman threw Dave and the Pauper Council everything related to these so called 'chickens'. Washed her hands of the whole mess, really… She'd eat the new meats, but did NOT want to be further involved than needed.

His Jumper didn't even wait to hear the other issues, just had Adam make some notes and then passed them on to the slaughter house teams so they could raise/butcher these things easily and safely.

On one hand? Adam felt a bit down that she was avoiding his work, even after all the effort he put into these things. Trying to make them less horror movie, more creature feature… It was tricky!

On the other dozen limbs, he saw her point. These things were disturbing. Even Dave's crew took a while to adjust to the creatures, and they were VERY sturdy men and women.

Anyway, with Dave's people gathering feedback and passing it to Sarah (Who ignored it and had Adam collect the stuff instead), work sped up on the other issues.

The Wormkins were tubes with a maw. Enhanced with concentrated nutrition filled muscles, good fat content, and able to fully enjoy the seaweed fodder grown in the automated farms in high quantities, the workers eventually complained the things were too lazy to live.

Literally. The things just sat there, and farm hands had to push food in their mouths or they would eventually starve to death.

At least they were super efficient when eating, so bathroom needs were not required, but the work was annoying for the crews.

So Adam made some feeding stations near the specialized Breeding Pods. Dump two Wormkins into the pod, collect the babies from the other end until the parents get too lazy to orgy, send the adults to be butchered and hook the tiny worms to their new feeding tubes.

An adult was the size of a fairly thick log, had almost no bones but a ribcage, and if anything seemed SUPER happy to not have to move or shift its whole life. Even the psionic sensors (Important to have near any mutant creatures previously dosed with CEE) registered contentment as the meat tubes slowly ate and grew in the darkness.

Not like they had eyes or ears or whatever, and the dark environment seemed to sooth them, so whatever. That black room made odd noises though, which was creepy. Workers avoided it when off shift.

At least the setup was easy to operate, had a fairly high production rate, and resulted in meat with so few bones and connective tissues that these animals were VERY easy to turn into steaks and other cuts of meat.

Their high fat content and near zero body movement meant the muscles were super tender and very flavorful, and even the most creeped out handlers enjoyed the end product enough to not complain too often.

Though Adam had been surprised at how easily the taste testers accepted the new dishes. Apparently the steaks still tasted like chicken, so… good? Or maybe Rapture citizens were just able to accept unusual dishes more easily than other people.

At least the Drumkins and Wingkins were less depressing to care for. Still ugly, very dumb, but they DID enjoy stumbling about. And walking circles, mostly.

Both had the strange maws and were beyond happy to not do much other than wander around their pens and eat the kelp mixture from the farms. They still didn't have eyes or noses or ears or whatever, but since they had WAY too many limbs the creatures seemed to enjoy a bit of exercise, not to mention time in the breeding pods.

Though he wasn't sure how the things were ABLE to find the food troughs they ate from. Again, no sensing organs. Maybe psionic abilities? Very mild ones, if anything.

The big issue was Adam's confusion and frustration at their limb designs.

Normally? A chicken 'drumstick' and 'wing' were BOTH part of the same chicken. The tip of the wing was used for soups and stock and so forth, the next segment was the traditional 'wing' everyone loved to fry up, and the drumstick was the connection from the bird's joint down to their foot. Biologically, there should be one creature with several feet and several wings attached.

Logically.

So it was BEYOND odd for the Tonic work to create TWO species, one with only the Drumsticks making them look like an odd kind of hedgehog, the other covered in flapping meat wingtips.

They didn't even walk right! All those socket joints that were connected into the tubular skeletal ribcage thing were perfectly fine, but the creatures ended up 'walking' while rolling or moving diagonally or whoknew and whatnot.

Not like they knew where they were going either. Or where they were. Unless they were hungry, at which point they instantly found the seaweed pellets. Somehow.

Sigh.

So Sarah was staying out of the whole chicken facility section of the Ant Farm. And ignoring all the related data and studies he did on the things. Fair enough.

At least the fish farms were starting to be assembled over there. Adam was mostly going to be offering Halibut, Cod, and Snapper down here to be raised. Or at least, that was what the farms were designed for after the specimens had been enhanced for nutritional value, cleanliness, reproduction rate, and so forth.

So now Pauper's Plunder will be adding chicken (Fresh or Frozen) for sale next to Fine Fishy Fresh seafood stall with its new products! Though just adding several new options besides the still popular Gem Lobsters being sold should help out a lot and increase sales significantly.

Comparing the full produce section next door, selling only lobsters was a bit sad for a seafood market. At least a few fish options would be available now. And the dried seaweed sheets, snacks, pet food pellets, and so forth, but that shouldn't count.

Hmm. How easy would it be to start a mussel and clam farm? Maybe he could involve the lobsters and make a Gem Muscle Mussel variant, Susan and Sarah would love that!

Was Adam ignoring the (literally) brainless 'chicken' horrors? No, he was just SUPER busy!

There were some clams on the seafloor somewhere just WAITING to be scienced on!

He mentally lowered the amount of monitoring on the Wormkin farms. On all three farms in fact.

For no specific reason.

Please Rapture, please don't let the pigs be like this.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Andrew Ryan indulged in one of his more personal liquors. One of the few he allowed himself during the better times.

His eyes however drank a far richer vintage.

Images and reports, notes and meetings. Recordings and interviews.

Each a treasure, exposing some new fascination, some greater gift unnoticed!

His fingers traced the images.

The decaying scum of his city, having pooled and gathered in the slimy depths as expected.

A domed impossibility, a display of art and beauty and culture targeted beyond just his people. Not just a show to those of Rapture, but to the sea itself!

Only through the redesigned submersibles could some of these images be taken. Yet each note had further reports expanding and discussing and debating. Each frame of potential was carefully cradled and twisted and turned!

He wished for an artist.

His eyes examined the diamond domes that sparkled under the water! What is this but art? But expressionism? Raw emotions!

Pride! Pride in self, in what was hers!

Even the smaller things, the tiny details… all had been discarded, removed as filth as her hands and strange powers allowed miracles under the sea.

And unlike the parasites, there was no hidden barb.

No promises of riches while taking one's coin, no sworn immortal future at a short term financial or intellectual cost, no restrictions on her scope… If it was hers, she improved it!

He waved, one of his assistants changing the paperwork on the second table with more details.

Andrew Ryan after all was NOT a man who took things on faith, or due to trust.

He verified.

His inspectors, both those known and hidden, had filled Pauper's Drop. Had seen and recorded the heavy changes, the new policies, the whispers.

There were certainly whispers. Not actually driven by an agenda, as far as he could tell… No.

Mostly driven by wonder and confusion.

And it was the confusion that brought forth the most relief to Andrew's heart.

If this woman wished, she could have gripped the soul of these people with whispered lies or delivered promises. It would be beyond simple, and even HE would have issues arguing against her abilities or potential!

But instead, she continued to build impossible things while DOING impossible things.

The most unexpected and interesting action was the published works. Her spilled secrets, valued gems of data hurled before swine without concern.

And why SHOULD she feel regret or worry?

His people took the documents handed away free to tourists and reviewed them. Asked this Pauper's Council for technical designs and structural plans and such were provided without deceit or delay. The rebuilt materials were described in beyond needed detail without concern, as were the enhanced panel segments, the transparent additions and improved hardware.

The eggheads managed to duplicate the work. To a degree. Enough to see how little they actually knew, how impossible this place was!

Yes, by now many people in Rapture were studying this 'cubic silicon nitride' material with dreams of cornering the hungry market. And for a moment, Ryan thought Ms. Killgrave had made a fatal flaw of telling too many too much. Like he had, once in his younger years!

But no!

It was but a sacrifice, a small loss for a greater impact!

Could his labs make this material? Easily.

In such quantities? With such clarity? With such shapes? With such thickness!?

How much must those potential parasites cry as they stare at the few crumbs of valuable material they scramble together as Ms. Killgrave silently stands above all with her brilliant works?

If only he had done similar in his time.

It was much the way of the stage magician, but rather than having his confusing tricks and illusions dispelled when the greedy public demanded his secrets… The hidden parts made the overall effect even more impressive and impossible!

But while Andrew Ryan had vision and ability, his greatest feature was always his mind. And he knew that covering one's flaws by finding others with greater talents was a skill all alone. His most developed talent.

He wasn't a surgeon. But he found the best in the world and brought them to his retreat! He appreciated art, but convinced the greatest to build and perform under the waves!

And he couldn't do impossible things in moments like this strange woman, but suddenly the works of these so-called Tonics and serums seemed MUCH more valuable. Worth the investment, no less!

He looked at the odd containers on his desk. Sold, in machines and by the clinic down in Pauper's Drop like some mint in the store, like a trifle. A bauble of no matter, rather than an impossible good being offered to the grand market, to the customer!

Did Ms. Killgrave simply consider such things another cog in her machine, a simple link in the great chain rather than the end product of lesser men and women?

When that slime Fontaine began advertising powers and abilities, Ryan had looked into those too of course. Once verified it wasn't more snake oil from the drifters, at least. But those samples were rare, and promises were large and mostly undelivered.

But these new products, these serums, were sold for less than a cup of coffee. Even cheaper if you joined that strange card club, using discounts to encourage loyalty rather than empty promises or demanding dues like the leeches above.

A thin red vial of 'Recovery Serum', with its white label and a red cross upon it. A portable, liquid first aid kit.

Strangely bubbling blue 'Energy Serum', the blue label having a white triangle upon it for some reason… The best hangover cure and 'wake me up, pick me up' ever seen by his researchers! Safer than several more usual chemical alternatives to such too, so far.

If you went to the Clinic and were approved, you could get access to 'Sleep' serums for insomnia and fertility enabling/disabling options, and more! The place seemed to have a cure or solution for any ills that a patient may have, at least so far. Ones that had demonstrable effects and near instant results no less!

His physicians suspected Tuberculosis might vanish entirely from Pauper's Drop within the month.

And the Tonics! Beyond astonishing! But still...

It was just odd.

No marketing advertisements or campaign, no secret flaws or drawbacks, just small descriptions of impossible results that seemed far too basic for something so life changing. After being bombarded by all the constant information about products down here in Rapture, the change in tactics was startling by comparison.

His eyes drifted again to the most interesting of these so-called 'Tonics', this 'Enhance Self' vial.

Ryan had heard of Fontaine's Plasmids, but those offered many strange abilities, like baubles for the people to covet… Assuming you survived the injection and maintained a regular supply of the material. That one didn't go mad or explode or what have you.

But this?

The high cost for non card members was still affordable. Unlike the serums, Tonics cost significantly more but were a permanent alteration for the customer rather than a one-time change. An investment valuable for life.

The supply was sufficient. When his agents requested the ability to purchase a larger number of units, the clinic simply asked 'How many?' and was able to supply the demand. Easily able to produce the amount requested without delay, unlike Fontaine's attempts at commercialization, or even his own!

And Ryan had purchased a substantial amount of both Tonics and serums for testing.

He had expected more lies. More scams.

Instead, and as seemed to be natural for Ms. Killgrave, he was faced with the impossible.

Men and women who consumed these Tonics became MORE.

The cleansing one ensured no strange smells, clean teeth, the many minor beautification processes somehow done automatically after a single tasty sip.

And the 'Durability' Tonic prevented injuries and made it much harder to bruise or tear the skin, while the 'Enhanced Breathing' Tonic would allow one to handle contaminated air, ocean water, or even heavy smoke or chemical fires without choking or suffocating.

Not to mention holding your breath for thirty minutes or so, depending on how fit you were.

These odd powers sold quickly and continuously, both men and women enjoying the results even if the most filthy test subjects experienced an… Impactful initial clean side effects.

They were the hands on workers, being able to safely handle construction under the sea, handle the pressure if exposed to the water and hold breath until saved, while staying clean? Well, it was worth the price even WITHOUT the heavy card discounts.

But this?

'Enhance Self' didn't just make you fly or be able to spew fire, they did something MORE valuable.

They made a person more stable. More 'themselves', as vague as it was stated. And it would somehow alter the way you interacted with the world to better support your needs.

If you ate too much? The excess would go towards muscle growth rather than fat. But not everywhere, and not all of it... No, only where you WANTED it to go. If you injured yourself? Now your wounds recover in a more logical fashion, the most annoying issues handled first even as the most difficult damage could eventually be recovered without additional aid.

These were the easiest examples to give when people try to explain what this Tonic would do, and most customers didn't care about the rest.

It sounded the least interesting. It didn't steal the imagination like enhanced durability and so forth.

It sold for the cheapest cost at the Paid Pauper Clinic and at the vending machines of the same brand.

It offered the least number of changes.

But his researchers found something more. Something unexpected and beyond valuable…

It synergizes with all other body Tonics and serums.

The animal subjects and volunteers (And there ended up being an unusually LARGE number of volunteers for this run) showed good results, expected and REPEATABLE results, when testing the serums and other Tonics.

But with 'Enhance Self' Tonic, that was dialed WAY up!

With 'Enhance Self', the Recovery serum worked on the most dangerous or annoying issues first. Not just randomly like normal. Energy serum would only give you a boost when trying to achieve something, but if you finished your task it would ramp down without leaving the test subjects testy or jittery. All the serums had slightly more effective effects like this.

And any future consumed Tonics became strangely helpful. More than expected, more than advertised.

One tester who was horrified at filth found out the boosted Durability Tonic could now affect his clothing. He was slightly easier to injure, but his clothing wouldn't wrinkle.

The researchers had started to mark it as an outlier until they discovered that the one smoker subject, after being boosted with Enhanced Breathing Tonic, could now alter any smoke they inhaled into their favorite brand of cigar vapor.

A woman somehow had Hygiene Tonic keep her nails polished AND colored her favorite shade, a man was able to use the Durability Tonic to drastically increase muscle growth during his daily workouts, the odd and specialized effects became more noticeable with each trial held and with more data being gathered!

These modified passive powers lowered the overall strength of the initial Tonic's ability to handle their original purpose… but every individual was beyond thrilled with their individualized 'special' effects. Not one was disappointed by the unexpected modifications. A statistical anomaly.

Ryan had been watching this all closely.

Every subject was checked for dependency, for withdrawals, for instability of the mind or body.

Not only had there been no issues, several subjects taking 'Enhance Self' improved over their initial scores. Mathematically so. Even BEFORE taking the healing serums!

Andrew Ryan held up the strange vial of what looked to be liquid sparkling glitter.

It never really felt like a hard decision. If he could have any power or skill, enhancing his base self would be all he ever truly wished for. The only temptation that could really make his iron will falter.

He had done his research.

He had tested his own assumptions.

Experts had verified his opinions and projections.

Andrew Ryan was a man of industry. Of Capitalism!

He would accept the consequences of his actions.

In a high quality office in an underwater city, a glittering vial of 'Enhance Self' was opened.

Rapture saw a man choose.

Hmm.

Smelled like apples, but tasted like pears.

Fascinating.