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.

4. Chapter 4

With regret, Adam released the long term gem lobsters from the Warehouse. But not into the ocean, but into recycling.

The last one died. Longest survivor: eight days.

Thankfully he had managed to manipulate the replication systems enough to be able to reproduce living clones of scanned creatures, but it looked like long term breeding and raising of animals in the Warehouse would require a helpful Jump in the future.

The problem was the same benefit that helped purify the collected ADAM into CEE: The atmosphere 'purification' and its ability to wipe psionic contamination.

Anything that stayed in the Warehouse for too long that WASN'T Sarah got mentally destroyed. On a slightly spiritual level too, which meant she couldn't just raise some brain dead coma animals for future meat needs.

The instant cloning of adult animals and scanned animal products would at least make sure any future trips would have available non-veggie meals, but no pets. No bringing one of her favorite cow mutants, not even a damn pet fish could survive here for too long!

He had managed to mitigate the effects a little. With careful shielding and custom replication of Rapture's psionic background emissions, there were several breeding chambers even now being utilized to test Tonics on fish and mussels and clams and stuff.

But those systems would all shut down during a Jump.

And while the Avatar was normally shut down, creatures would have to survive the entire trip between realities. Well, sort of shut down… Sarah's body was supposed to be dismantled and reassembled on arrival, but Adam had messed up ALL the systems at this point in one way or another and that wasn't going to be fixable for at least two more years.

So just like she couldn't bring Jump companions, she wouldn't be able to bring pets or own a farm. And based on some of the destroyed Warehouse units, even future 'Attach X/Y/Zoo' features might not work.

Which sucked. She LOVED some of these animals.

At least he could recreate the scanned species later on in future Jumps. And with some more enhancement to the cloning/creation/alteration Warehouse units, let her recreate favorite meals without having to cook them a million times first and shove them into storage... It was something at least.

But yeah, leaving her rapidly growing home was going to hurt her.

The baby twins though made Adam suspicious.

Both little girls seemed overly attached to Sarah. And due to lost paperwork and the kidnapping ring they had been found in, they only knew the name of one of the children.

And no one knew which one of the two was actually Samantha Angelo.

Sarah was calling them both Sammy.

And Adam wasn't saying a damned thing. Nothing at all.

It might just be due to his connection to her Warehouse causing some sort of bleed effect when altering reality with the Jump document. It might be happistance, or actual luck, a true coincidence.

But having two identical girls nicknamed 'Sammy' pop up out of nowhere? Bumping into his Jumper?

Adam was on to you, Simurgh. Wife or not, he was onto you!

They were both cute as a button though.

Unlike the other children Sarah saved, Simmy and Sammy were quiet, observant, and refused to be away from their favorite person for a minute without breaking into waterworks.

It was why Sarah's new blue business suit had the mechanical baby carrying limbs on the back, so they could be kept supported while she did strange science in her workshop.

Speaking of which, she had a workshop now!

Out of concern for the kids always carried around with her it wasn't located within her Warehouse either, but in a fun transparent ocean floor lab with a mad science theme attached to the Complex Dome.

You could watch her and the girls as she worked on strange things by standing near the Ruby Forest side of the housing bubble (Ha!), and bored kids not getting lessons at the Ruby Forest Educational/Daycare/Orphanage Building ended up wasting time watching from above when Sarah did stuff.

Amy even asked for stadium seating, which Sarah was fine with. Some of the Daycare staff kept an eye on the place and made sure the children had juice and snacks and were not getting in trouble, so it was all fine.

Oh, right: Little Amy had become something of the boss of the massive kid gang that had formed down here in the Complex Dome.

She wasn't the oldest, but she could lift a few tons and was able to jump over a tree and kids loved that!

Plus, Emily and Amy plus the Ruby Forest were best buds, which counted for a lot. Even though that ended up causing a bit of a scare a day or so ago. Especially when Sarah got a frantic call from Susan and Dave after the children went missing due to Amy leading an expedition into the woods.

Apparently they were using the forest to access a network of wooden tunnels leading all over the place.

Which led to Adam discovering that somehow Ruby could not only create 'shortcuts' between locations of herself, but that the forest could make paths into root tunnels, stretch or shrink distances, and mess slightly with gravity.

It wouldn't have been such a big deal but the Forest was now a massive underground expanding landscape of rooms and tunnels and future housing floors, connected by black and gold root tunnels and pathways.

Sure, Adam found her and the other kids easily enough, and now Susan knew to just ask Ruby to make a path to see her girl if she was worried, but the whole incident really earned Amy some street cred.

The little adventure munchkin now led a few dozen kids all over Pauper's Drop like a miniature version of her father, even if not bald and covered in muscles like her dad. Even had a tiny 'Boss Hat', which was her dad's old construction safety helmet. Her mom loved it!

Anyway, Sarah had a whole steampunk lab exposed to watchers on the seafloor, an audience that could watch on stadium seats when not wandering around the playground/parks/petting farms/eldritch root tunnels, and a near unending supply of things to fiddle with and experiment on.

She was happy as a clam!

Figuratively, Adam wasn't giving any oysters, muscles, or clams faces. Or emotional adjustments, Sarah has banned all emotional Tonics and serums. No lab tests on that stuff either.

The only reason he got away with his food experiments was due to most people not knowing or caring where food comes from or how it was prepared in the first place... But if all the clams actually smiled or laughed or whatever down here?

Sarah would yell at him again.

He watched her secretly pause her work to (again) set off some 'explosions' that made pretty smoke and bright lights for the applause of her young audience. Sarah really loved having these kids be interested, even if the actual stuff she was doing was pretty boring without all the special effects.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah smirked at the purple firefly lights that swirled over her workspace, Sammy One and Sammy Two trying to grab them as they fluttered by.

Adam had decided it was best to wait for existing samples of Plasmids to examine before trying to make new ones, as unlike Tonics, Plasmids could easily go wrong. Both for the user and for others. So instead she had to use science to make these special effects. For now.

Her memories of research made such small pops and bangs easy enough, apparently they were part and parcel of the more strange experiments she remembered anyway. Doing them on purpose was FAR easier than trying to make something stable.

She tossed some of the chemical into the vial of reactors, what she mentally called the 'Spark Emitter'. It would safely convert trash into something non poisonous and pretty, even if such a frivolous creation had been 'beneath' her former self's dignity in the past.

These sparkles were blue. Not sure why, chloride nitrate should have gone orange with those additions. Maybe. Science really only worked this way in the current reality, where psionics messed with everything.

Sammy Two clapped. "Gin! Again!"

Meh, why not? Let's toss some iron shavings in this time!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave left the meeting exhausted.

Pauper's Drop was rapidly growing, yet unlike his expectations his work wasn't so heavy because of the Market Dome. That place was doing fine, if still mostly empty due to how many stalls were still available for rent, and actually beat predicted profit expectations… but it was only a fraction of the true issue.

They might as well rename the Business Dome to the Arts Dome.

An ARMY of people had migrated to Pauper's Drop to join the theater district. Even though Dave had so many contracting teams and repair crews that worked under his name and had come down to enjoy the many benefits now offered, it was NOTHING compared to how many artists, actors, actresses, musicians, magicians, singers, script writers, sculptors, dancers and directors and so on had arrived!

The Council thought having a massive market would drive sales due to easy goods delivery and reception, in a location with low cost operation requirements and good public safety. Dave himself thought that the incredibly popular farming jobs available and the massive quantity of low cost food options would call in new Paupers and residents.

He even suspected that opening Rapture's only public schooling system, and the advanced health care options and simulated sunlight and forest viewable by the children… That such an amazing list of features would pull in crowds like his own family who wanted a better future for their kids. A more fulfilling life, even.

But no.

It was the surprisingly high number of desperate artists and performers.

After all, most jobs could be done by any crew or team. Some would work faster, others produce better results, maybe one or two could do some amazing improvisations or work arounds.

But with Art? Art was something from an individual. A single person could shape the entire entertainment industry, and it was more than possible for a handful of talents to drive an army of potential creators into poverty with ease.

Dave hadn't even suspected how hungry for a chance at the stage this performance community had become. The radio station alone suddenly had over a dozen new stations, many with live performers or talkies or just men and women telling stories of older times. Many of which were directly employed by the Pauper's Council for barely more than good housing and delicious food.

Compared to being a literally starving artist? It was a MASSIVE step up for most of these new dreamers!

Drove Dave to madness keeping up with it all though. Now he took a vial of Energy serum each day after work just to make sure he could wake up and enjoy the afternoon with his kids. It was cheap enough, and thanks to the ES Tonic (Or Self Tonic or Enhanced Tonic, the full name was annoying for people to say) it was safe enough for him to take the stuff anytime he wanted a quick pick me up.

It wasn't just complaints or growth problems causing the issues or workload either. Many were strange requests and suggestions for changes or additions to the ever growing Entertainment District that was slowly consuming the Business Dome.

Unlike the rest of Pauper's people, the artists were far more creative and willing to dream impossible things when Sarah asked for suggestions and changes.

It was VERY noticeable. Already there were several new rehearsal stages, filming sets, automated factories to make costumes, equipment to help design and modify props, and so on and so forth!

No, most of the Council's work was trying to cut down the suggestions and requests before having Dave wander over to Sarah's lab.

Because otherwise, she would probably say 'Sure!' and triple the number of new additions down here. In hours.

Even with such a massive population boom down here there was lots of elbow room. It got even easier to get around when Sarah designed and installed some mostly transparent Bathysphere Busses to get around from Dome to Dome without having to bump into visitors. Some only for Paupers, some only for workers, and a few for anyone in the area.

And having so many more people being floated around her town made Sarah triple the strange artistic displays out in the ocean. Massive mechanical marvels with bright lighting and colorful designs were hidden away in every corner, several only viewable via the new subbus or the Domes more obscure viewing corners.

That weary blanket of depression and despair was fully thrown off now, as his town was now bustling with massive waves of confusion and excitement and curiosity. This has increased many fold now that any illness or wound could be fixed for cheap with a quick visit to the Paid Pauper Clinic without fear of racism, sexism, or classism preventing medical help.

With a healthy population not fighting starvation, their attention naturally drifted to the wonders of their (literally) new home. And some parts were just… so strange.

The paint wasn't normal. It didn't peel or rust, it didn't chip or scratch. Dirt and grime slid right off the glass and floor, and cleaning took a fraction of the time with double the results and half the effort.

It made the place feel fresh and slightly otherworldly.

Though a good portion of that was thanks to the Resource Station.

The air down here was cleaner than before. Less wet, less hot, less sticky… more crisp and clean. The lighting was varied and everywhere, and followed the long forgotten day night cycle of their childhood.

The rest of Rapture, especially the lowest social levels and most neglected regions, had scrimped and saved every drop of water and each spark of power. It stifled those trapped there, as even breathing was harder with older equipment and badly maintained structures.

But not here. Not now.

Many of Dave's neighbors (And even the artistic newcomers) mentioned how the tap water was so pure and delicious it was startling. Even through Sarah's Ant Farm produced many types of fruit juice and carbonated drinks and her new vending machines had replaced the more commonly seen Circus of Values units, sometimes people just had a glass from their sink.

Not like usual, because they couldn't afford anything else. But because it was so refreshing.

It was an odd experience.

He checked the papers again. With so many people focusing on the Business Dome, there had been a bit of a push to just focus more on that entirely. Not that it mattered much, all the Council could do was bring it up to Sarah and see what she thought.

He reached the Securis Door that led to the 'Bone Angel' Labs, as the orphans called her.

Because she had apparently showed up to save them wearing an armor of glowing bones with flaming wings wielding a spike, and that left an impression. "Sarah?"

The nickname had spread, and she seemed fine with the title. "Hey Sarah?" Though she normally would have responded by now. Was this a bad time?

A distant pop suddenly filled the other end of the transparent tunnel. "In here!"

Was that purple smoke? He certainly heard little girls giggling. "Everything alright over there?"

A wave of motion suddenly had the cloud of smoke waft away.

The woman and both little girls were now bright purple. The kids were giggling as she sighed. "Yeah, just dropped way too much stuff into the… it isn't important." She smiled her purple teeth and purple lips as she tried to clean one of the girls faces with a purple cloth.

It didn't work, but they seemed to be having fun. "That stuff safe to be on your skin?"

She absently nodded. "All my special effects are safe to breathe, drink, eat, and so on. I just shouldn't have put so much into the reaction at one time." Sarah glanced at her arm. "It may take a few hours to fade away. And some showers."

The woman ignored her now purple workspace and moved closer to the (mostly) clean side of her lab. "It's been a few days now, is the feedback ready?"

He waved a folder. "Some of it? I think you should only update the town once a month. It would line up nicely to the end of your contract restrictions and make it easier for more normal people to adapt to the many changes."

She frowned. "Aww. But that would take forever!"

Dave rolled his eyes even as he gently used his own handkerchief to try and de-purple the second child, still giggling in her strange robotic chair. "I could give it to you now, but could you handle seeing people ask for stuff and NOT just putting it into place?"

Sarah slumped. "No. No, I would probably end up rebuilding parts of this place every few hours or so." She waved and the rest of the room's many color smoke clouds all vanished. "I guess I just expected to be more busy. Fontaine's real estate company didn't even try anything like I expected on the first deadline. I even built some detention cells in the Security Hub!"

He chuckled. "I'm perfectly fine with NOT having his men crawling around down here. Though Ratcatcher says he has some whispers, they might not be able to do anything they originally planned due to some personnel issues."

She blinked. "They weren't part of the kidnapping ring I neutralized, were they?"

It had been his suspicion too, but no. "A fire, supposedly. With no escapees."

The Jumper blinked. "Huh." And then she frowned. "Well what was the point of all those hidden security turrets and enhanced air drones? That wireless electricity trick was NOT simple to pull off."

Ignore that. Just file it with the mutant foods and the forest that ate into the bedrock she mentioned. "Point is, I think we have time to get stuff polished down here before you go and build a massive sports field or something." And hopefully time to argue down this list of changes to something less overwhelming.

Dave saw her eyes suddenly sparkle… and felt his heart drop. "Sarah. No."

She grinned a massive purple smile! "Sarah, YES!"

No! "Now hang on, let's just talk first and… Sarah!"

And she's gone. Great.

With a heavy sigh, he turned right back around and headed BACK to the Council. He hadn't even managed to talk about the pigs being shipped in tomorrow, and now his workload was likely to increase. Again.

Well, he had been a boss for a long time. He could recognize patterns.

Time to find some moron… Uh. Wait, some sucker? No. Lackey?

Yes, time to find a lackey to delegate some of this mess. He had enough on his pile already.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

A quiet 'Aww' disappointed the crowd when the purple people vanished from the lab.

Still, it was fun while it lasted. "Everyone gather up! It's time for adventure!"

Amy felt Emily move behind her as the other kids gathered while burbling about how the 'purple bone lady' and 'miss Angel' had done this or that. Right, time to focus!

A clap brought the group together, though the intense focus had her checking to make sure her hard hat was on straight. "Right, what should we do today for adventure time?"

The nice singing lady spoke up, baby Ben holding her shirt and sucking on his other fist. "Keep in mind, little Ms. Grinder, that the smaller ones will have nap time in a couple of hours."

She pouted. "Ms. Holloway! Today I'm Captain Boss Amy… Queen Leader Adventuring person thing…" Wait, what had been her plan?

The other woman smiled. "Sorry, little Boss Amy."

Close enough! "Right, everyone listen to Boss Amy! Adventure first, then snacks and naps because mom says that it is important to listen to the nice singing lady."

Some general nodding occurred and it was time to vote. One of the boys waved. "Can we see the Mini Moo's again?"

General groaning ensued. Amy frowned. "Maybe later Paul, we went to the zoo three times this week." She saw one of the quiet girls want to say something. "Yes Jill?"

Her whispers were a bit quiet. "Can we explore? The tunnel thing?"

Based on the wave of excited chatter, yes. Yes they could. "Alright, today we and Ruby Forest go exploring the tunnels! And maybe find pirate treasure or candy or something."

The cheers followed along as the group headed into the woods so Ruby could open the tunnel paths to get started. Ms. Holloway came along of course, mommy said to let her so she wouldn't be so worried.

She absently accepted the leaf and stick mass from Ruby shaped like a pirate captain's hat. "Avast! Adventure awaits!"

"Yes Boss/Captain/Mam/My Queen/Little Ms. Grinder!"

Close enough.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah had decided to connect the 'Floating Fields' to the Food Dome.

Mostly to use up all that profitable space ABOVE her domes, since there really wasn't much up there.

A massive sized orb, lots of Bathysphere Bus connectors and several Securis connection tunnels, the decorative LED lighting patterns on the bottom. Maybe a lot of them connected together like the bubble farms?

No, one orb per sport seemed silly, even if it would be easy to swap them out or replace them since they had no actual foundations.

Instead she increased the scale of the overwhelming sized orb, which now had a bottom section that could adjust buoyancy by filling chambers with seawater, pressurized atmosphere, or empty into a vacuum. A network of maintenance tunnels, a layer of armored surface, and plenty of space to add soil and the supergrass the Warehouse provided. Or whatever.

The floating orb shape didn't conform to the typical field shape, each level and layer mostly a circle with curved edges, but it was going to be easy enough to set up football fields side by side to form a squarish shape (More like an odd plus sign, since each had stadium seating).

Well, only two fields were actually for football, the other two were for soccer… soccer was much more popular in the world after all. That and baseball, she remembered it being a big deal. And cricket. In fact… huh.

A quick talk to Adam had her changing her designs. Significantly.

It had actually caught her off guard, maybe because of the many times she was (fleeing for her life) in America, but Adam's research was clear: The top ten beloved sports world wide were Soccer, Cricket, Basketball, Hockey, Tennis, Volleyball, Table Tennis, and Baseball... With Football at the bottom with Golf.

In that order.

Football technically shouldn't even get its own field, but America was super into it and a LOT of people in Rapture were from there… So yeah. Get ready for some Football, woo, wah ha, etc.

After some internal 'But Football!' debate, Sarah decided to redesign the Sports Ball entirely with the new data in mind. After all, she could change it later if it was hated.

Top level, with the most space to work with, was Football and Baseball. They needed throwing and hitting space to be played properly, after all.

There was enough space that there were two fields for the first while Baseball got four fields on the outer edges. Any balls hitting the Dome material would be 'home runs', but that was acceptable and similar to rules on the surface.

Still had room for stadiums, and Adam was going to set up lots of live camera feeds and display monitors so people in the connecting hallways and tunnels could watch as well while getting seats or snacks or whatever. And eventually set up some sort of streaming pseudo television service down to the bars and interested businesses in the Domes below, most likely.

Second level had Cricket, Volleyball, and Tennis fields. Sarah also got a silly grin while she set up a super hot area on one side with beautiful sand for beach volleyball, but Adam was also into that kind of thing so said nothing and made sure that vending machines in those areas sold interesting bathing suits and sunscreen. For women AND men.

How would Rapture react to the Speedo? Interested people wanted to know!

Moving on. Third level had Adam using Algae Ice Columns to set up some Ice Hockey Rinks that wouldn't melt, while the rest of the floor was for Basketball, Table Tennis, Bowling, Darts, and so on. Even had space for Billiards, Pool, and Snooker tables, which should be fun.

Fourth level, the bottom floor accessible to the public, had swimming lanes, professional diving pools, synchronized swimming spaces, and some connectors to external transparent field and track tubes for athletes to race out into the ocean while trying to set new record paces.

Everything else below was the control room for the various cameras and electronics, as well as the access point to reach the strange maintenance tunnels and shafts to work on the upper floors. Oh, and an employee bus station, cargo transportation tunnels to resupply the snack stalls and souvenir shops, hidden security turrets and cameras and microphones everywhere… the basics really.

Sammy One and Two were starting to get tired though, so Sarah began walking back through the newly connected tunnels to get them to bed.

Oh. "Hey Dave!"

He looked frustrated. "Sarah. Why are you floating a new sun over the Food Dome?"

Oops. The bottom LEDs were WAY too bright. "I'll fix that! Didn't... didn't realize how much more light would make it through since the amount of water between the two structures was much less than the other areas."

He sighed. "So it ISN'T a fun lighting source?"

No? "Of course not. A sports field was YOUR idea." A great one too! She already had designs for some mostly automated machines to add to the Ant Farm, it would make safety equipment and outfits for the various sports and another one that would make tiny hats for sale and maybe a few that just made toys for the kids in her new orphanage that they could chew on shaped like bats and stuff...

Dave groaned with feeling. "No, I was being sarcastic. Because I wanted to slow down Pauper's Drop expansion so we had time to fill up with the new migrants and get everyone established and the new social structures stabilized. Time to make sure spies and saboteurs don't get into important positions to hurt us or shaft the town."

Oh. Ohh. "...I uh. I could get rid of it?"

He glared. "Get rid of what?"

Suddenly she felt less enthusiastic about giving the tour.

Glancing back at the massive 'Sport Ball' she sighed. "Well, we might as well start on the bottom floor. Let's head to the elevator hall and bus station terminals, it pretty much acts as the grand entrance to the place, and I set up an internal transportation system sort of like a subway system for internal travel since the place is a bit large."

Dave made an odd whine gurgling sound.

Yeah, this tour might be awkward.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave was stomping back and forth while his amused wife watched. "I beg for time to get things stable, I tell her 'We are growing too fast', and then she god damn QUADRUPLES the space we have down here with ONE addition!"

He waves out the window, the no longer blinding orb glowing in the 'sky'. "That sport monstrosity has residential areas for professional sporting teams! And those areas alone almost MATCH all our actual housing down here alone!"

Susan hummed. "Even if you count the underground Complex apartments little Amy told us about?"

Dave shuddered. "Those DON'T count." He grumbled about black and gold root mazes. "And no, not counting those it is still an absurd amount of space up there. Not to mention all the training facilities she added into the joint. But still!"

His arm waved upwards. "We are still trying to fill the Market Dome stalls as it is! Now we have all those food and minishop stalls for rent up there, I'm running out of people!"

She hummed. "You said the Market was getting new stall applications every hour. It should be fine. And didn't some of Ryan's people get in touch with you a few hours ago?"

He slumped into a chair. "Yeah, not sure HOW Sarah got the man's approval but he has somehow already started contacting some of the more famous sporting athletes. He apparently thought athletic endeavors like this would be impossible to support down here and had to compromise Rapture's original plans, since art and science needed much less room and power and so on."

Susan smiled as her husband moaned and groaned again, bringing back fond memories of many younger years.

She had never seen him happier. He had never BEEN happier than when swamped with work and griping about the burdens of success and the challenges of handling massive crowds of workers. It was part of what made him an amazing leader, and why she fell in love with him all those years ago… This passion and drive!

Dave hadn't even slowed down. "Now I have to add a Sports Department to the Council just to make sure we don't miss anything, even while I pull all the strings I can. Ryan's connections aside, I've got dozens of old friends and our distant extended family that I'm having to beg to come down to Pauper's Drop and it STILL won't be enough!"

His arms flexed as his eyes sparkled. "I'm going to have to call in the reserve crews, the ones who weren't able to get in on the original Rapture contracts. It's good that Andrew Ryan hasn't fully cut us off from submitting surface teams through the background approval process just yet, because I'm going to need the rest of our people fully brought down here. Them AND their families."

She watched him bend over his desk, searching for the right pile of forms.

Mmm.

Sarah could get little Amy and Emily somewhere else tonight, maybe for a sleepover or whatever.

Tonight, Susan was going to get her muscled man to 'relax'… and soothe herself in the process as well.

It was for his own good, after all!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Grace laughed! "Well, Ms. Killgrave, if you didn't want to be 'punished' then maybe you should have actually listened to Mr. Grinder's full statement first?"

Sarah pouted. "Come on Grace, just call me 'Sarah'" She twisted her robotic child carrier to bring both Sammy One and Two into reach and a hug. "And I'm not really annoyed or whatever, watching over the children is fine. And I love spending time with Amy and Emily."

Those two had conked out with the other kids. Junk food and snacks, Tonic healthy or not, had caused them all to fall over after tonight's slumber party excitement.

She gently lifted Sammy Two out of her chair and into her crib, soon to be joined by her sister. "I was just feeling so frustrated. I had this whole plan to fight bad guys and defeat the people behind the scam trying to take my stuff, and it doesn't matter any more."

Seeing the singer's confusion, she shrugged. "Fontaine's place burned down, and his people are too distracted to mess with my contracts." Sarah sighed. "Maybe I wouldn't feel so frustrated if I had been the one to do it, but without them around to organize stuff I've only caught a few smugglers and watched security prevent a few spies setting up equipment."

Ms. Holloway seemed happy even with little Ben sleeping in his own crib, but it didn't prevent her giving a sassy grin. "So Ms. Bone Angel DOES have limits?"

Sarah slumped. "I wouldn't have shown up in my armor if I had known there were kids inside. The smuggling house looked like a lab set up to experiment on homeless people. Not a storage container for children."

Grace hummed. "I'm just glad you were able to show up at all. The stories I'm told and dreams they whisper have you saving the day most of the time. Their scary monster fighter, and all that."

She sighed. "Well, at least my outfit didn't traumatize them too badly then. I designed it to scare the hell out of the assholes I fought, after all… loads of spikes and fire and claws and fangs and stuff. On some level I'm shocked that any of the kids can sleep at all!"

The other woman hummed. "Many of us grew up in bad times, and the young ones had to mature quickly in this world… but I'm glad you were able to be a light in the dark for them."

Enough of this mushy stuff. Sarah wiped a tear away and glanced at her ECHO system clock. "Anyway, it's only a couple of hours before breakfast and I don't want to take a nap. Want to share some Energy serum and wait till the little ones get up again?"

Grace blinked. "You don't think they'll sleep in?"

Sarah snorted. "Kids, slumber parties, super excitement. And the junk we let them snack on is super healthy and influenced by the Tonics they all got before, so no. They won't sleep in THAT much. Maybe an extra hour or so at most."

Standing quietly, the now part time singer turned nearly full time orphanage matron led the way to her new office. "Well, I admit I do love the feeling of drinking those tasty Energy serums in the morning. Really wakes you up, honestly."

Sarah hummed. "Yeah, but I'm glad I made them have some built in safety restrictions for people without 'Enhance Self' Tonics. At least with the publicly sold stuff it will disable itself rather than overdose or start mutating or whatever."

Grace hesitated. "...Maybe I'll skip it just in case. We could get something to eat instead."

That sounded like a good idea. And spending more time with the attractive woman wouldn't be time wasted anyway. "Well, I don't really want to bother making food or pulling it from nowhere today. Want to go pick up some breakfast? There is a great new place in the Food Dome, apparently they have amazing muffins now that my markets made supply contracts with the other Pauper Card supporting restaurants."

Totally not a date. Just uh. Picking up some takeout food, feeding the little ones!

Besides, Big Ben's Breakfast Bar was nearly as popular as the Fishbowl Diner now, at least in the morning. Get the children some warm muffins and maybe some of that oatmeal that Susan had been talking about and she would be super popular!

And maybe Sarah could find out where they get their eggs from, since her attempts had gone so poorly. Might be best to also ask Adam what he was planning on doing now that Dave had the (hopefully not horrific) pigs delivered for breeding and raising. And see how the Sport Ball was operating and if changes were needed or fields modified or added or removed.

But for now, she led the way towards the Food Dome, chatting with a friend as they passed one of the afternoon shifts of Pauper's workers heading to their new jobs. Just enjoyed taking the slow way rather than vanishing about or skipping the journey.

It was a lovely morning stroll, really.

Sarah glanced at her travel companion. "So… I know I've been a bit busy. How's work been?"

The singer lit up like stage lights! "Oh the children went on a nice walk today! Though the tunnels went deeper than I thought they should have…"

Her story covered the strange glowing flowers underground, the hidden caves and springs the kids had stumbled upon, the odd Dome material windows that would show up in the tunnels that never seemed to go where they led.

Sarah let the woman's voice flow over her as a warm buzz as they walked along.

A very lovely morning indeed.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah bounced! "They're pigs! Normal pigs!" She blinked. "Mostly."

Longer limbs and spine than usual, and nowhere NEAR as fat as the carefully bred and raised hogs she was used to in the past, but they had pig trotters and pig tails and snouts and were pink and stuff.

Two eyes, ears, nostrils, some body hair but no fur or feathers or quills.

Other than looking slightly like a wiener dog due to being a bit longer than normal, it was almost a standard as-seen-on-TV pig! "Thank goodness, after the whole chicken fiasco I was having some serious concerns about these guys."

Adam hummed. {{Yes, visually they are almost pigs. Internally they are pretty close too.}}

Of course. Sarah sighed. "Right. Do they have teeth ears or something? A belly mouth or eye tongues or whatever?"

He chuckled. {{No, thankfully. They just don't give birth to live young. It actually works in our favor, sort of.}}

She squinted at the potential monsters. "What, they have zombie kids?" Which would destroy the whole 'We want pork' concept if they couldn't breed more.

Adam paused. {{They… shouldn't? We'll check just in case. But no, they just lay eggs. About the size of a softball each.}}

Huh.

Sarah tried to imagine little baby piglets hatching.

It was trickier than expected. "What… can they be eaten?"

He harvested the last of the pigs, to be cloned and tested with Tonics in Sarah's Warehouse to find some good base stock to raise. {{Yeah, as long as the females are not bred they will lay clutches of unfertilized eggs for us to collect. No idea what they would taste like.}}

Give them Tonics: Enhanced Self, Cleansing, and Nutritional Storage. Then the serums: Fertility (The non-spawning clones kind), Regeneration, Energy, and Health Recovery.

He used her stocked supplies to make a few dozen starting specimens, as Enhanced Self would ensure everything would work well for the pigs but the interaction of the whole mess could cause some interesting animal side species to work with. It was how he got SOMETHING usable out of the 'chickens', at least.

Sarah hummed. "I guess I should make a mud pit or something for them?"

Adam continued cloning more subjects and changing the order of Tonics and Serums after Enhanced Self. {{Normally I'd say no, but since they have Cleansing Tonics… Maybe? I'm going to set them up with automatic watering systems and a feeder that will ensure they have fresh CEE enhanced plant life pellets. Those seaweed treats should have all the nutrients needed and don't really spoil for a very long time, should work well for this.}}

She watched a layout being designed as Adam continued. {{Fresh food and water, and like you said: a mud pit, also called a 'wallow'. Though we will use some of our higher quality dirt, since it won't stick to the animals anyway and won't leave a mess! Seriously, Tonics make everything better. Technically they won't even need one of these, since wallows make it so they can regulate body temperature and the medicines will ensure they'd be fine anyway… but they'll be happier with the option I think.}}

Sarah hummed. "I do think pigs rolling in mud seem cute. The children would probably like it too, since they will be clean afterwards anyway."

He adjusted the size slightly. {{Some room to work with too. And after we come up with the healthiest base pigs to work with, I'm going to offer various nesting areas to see where they might prefer laying a clutch or two. And maybe give some the 'Enhanced Breathing' Tonic, see if we can raise some in the ocean directly around the Ant Farm.}}

She blinked. "Sea pigs?"

He grinned. {{Sea pigs! Since you prefer all the cows within a huggable range and no one wants to see the chickens. Though they'd still have dome shaped pig pens so they don't swim away and end up eating other parts of Rapture or those Adam sea slugs and turn into whatever.}}

Sarah frowned. "Will that be an issue?"

Adam calculated. {{Mostly no? The gem lobsters have cleared away all the slugs near our territory at this point, and they move VERY slowly to new territories. It probably will be fine.}}

She shook her head. "Then no, it might be neat but I'd rather they stay inside our Domes or farms for easy harvest. Plus, I don't want them to accidentally escape and end up inside the engines of our Bathysphere Busses or something. Or people falling in love with them and refusing to eat them."

He grinned. {{Like the cows?}}

Sarah folded her arms. "I still eat steak!"

Sure. {{Just not from our cows. And not in front of them.}}

She winced… and slumped. "They have these widdle itty bitty eyes and I feel so guilty eating their delicious cousins right in front of them!"

Fair enough. {{On a slightly unrelated note, we may need to steal some Plasmid samples from Fontaine's labs. And possibly kidnap a scientist. Brigid Tenenbaum is having a dangerous attack of conscience right when Fontaine is going nuclear due to our pruning of his people, and he might try to silence her rather than exploit her talents at this point.}}

Sarah frowned as she absently watched videos of dozens of pigs slowly changing. "Isn't she the person who ended up making 'little sisters'? I'm not sure I want a kidnapper on our team, no matter HOW talented she is."

Adam started showing data. {{She has a history of losing track of morality when it comes to her work, but she never planned to cause harm. In this case, Fontaine had found her needing support for her genetic work with ADAM and funded her, seeing the profit and power he could gain.}}

More images. {{She had planned on her modified ADAM sea slugs being given to everyone, an internal method for empowering her Plasmid creations and her versions of Tonics, a way to avoid the addiction issues and the withdrawal symptoms. Her original vision according to her notes was to create new powers through genetic testing and have her artificial symbiotes be extracted when the owner neared death, so their kids could inherit the power and abilities of their parents.}}

He sighed. {{The problem was it only worked on little girls, and the loss of the other children and subjects devastated her. She had called the children her 'little ones', and became more desperate to stabilize them genetically as each one passed away. The problem comes with the recent issues.}}

Sarah gasped at the censored image. {{Fontaine decided the most recent attempt at saving her last 'little one' was good enough, and ordered Dr. Yi Suchong to do extreme endurance and tolerance examinations to verify little girls could live long enough to be profitable.}}

Adam was grim. {{The child did not survive the tests, but lasted long enough for Fontaine to decide to go into full production. Which is why the children you saved were being gathered… and why Dr. Tenenbaum has gone nuclear with fury. The only reason she hasn't done something more drastic is her fear that if she doesn't further her research, if she doesn't improve the stability of the symbiotes, future children will die because of her work.}}

Sarah frowned. "And Fontaine just lost his faster production option and has had most of his child collection crew 'retired'. Does Dr. Tenenbaum know about the situation?"

He showed more reports. {{No. Fontaine has lied and told her Dr. Yi Suchong will be doing direct work on the 'current' and future children, and that her input would only be considered if any 'improvements' to the symbiotes or the lifespan of the hosts also increases ADAM production rates.}}

She sighed. "Which is impossible, because the slugs only filter out ADAM from the food and stuff down here. The kids can 'produce' more because they eat lots of things that grow in this contaminated sea water, rather than having to work with the much smaller amounts of CEE the slugs are exposed to in the ocean directly."

Adam hummed. {{Aside from saving a damsel held in emotional and physical duress in a gangster hideout and lab, we need their plasmid research. We can't use our stuff to make them.}}

His Jumper was surprised! "Why not? Our Tonics are doing amazingly well, and not one customer or user has had issues or complained! It's free money, and free power ups!"

Her Warehouse sighed. {{It's also too pure. Too powerful! Conceptual direction may indeed be part of what makes ADAM work its magic, but the DNA and genetic material, along with the mental contamination of past test subjects, THAT is what limits the results. It creates stability and reliability in the products we don't have.}}

Adam chuckled. {{As long as we make passive stuff, the differences aren't that big… Sleep serum for example may make one user feel less pain, or dull the hearing of another, or increase certain chemicals in the body for a third. All the changes will ensure that a specific person gets the rest they need, but the conceptual stuff doesn't care all that much HOW to do it. Only that it is done.}}

Sarah frowned. "And… And it would be a hundred times worse with 'Active' effects like Plasmids."

He agreed. {{Take 'Electro Bolt', the one that tosses lightning. Easiest to make, since Ooze produces electrical power as a byproduct naturally, but the conceptual stuff lets the lightning strike not blow out electronics but actually empower them safely, according to the psionic field of reality around it. While the user can manually hurt others with it, that is the most their own psionic field can do with the Plasmid: Make it act more like normal electricity than usual.}}

She thought rapidly. "But if it was our conceptual stuff, would they have full control over electrical power?"

Adam wasn't sure. {{Maybe? The more powerful the effect, the more energy it would need to operate and the heavier the burden to the user's psionic field. But a stronger person could create lighting constructs like bullets or ropes, or maybe touch someone and drain their electrical field or chemical signals, or create audio effects through electrical bursts, or… anything really. As long as it was conceptually related to electricity and they had the power to use it.}}

She stared at her town map, imagining all the random visitors having such varied abilities without experience or self restraint. The chaos, as her more powerful Plasmids would protect the user from their own effects but no one else unless they were VERY emotionally invested in others. "This whole place would blow up in hours."

He hummed. {{Maybe worse, if we released a purified concept only version of some other Plasmids like Hypnotise Big Daddy, Security Bullseye, even something as innocent as Target Dummy. Because without restrictions, one could turn a target into an ally, another redirect attacks and aggression to a foe, and the last? Create an imaginary person for others to either protect or assault.}}

Sarah shuddered. "So no mental alteration Plasmids. Ever. New personal rule is now in effect!"

Adam agreed. {{Yeah, I'll make sure. We'll also avoid trying to make Vigors with mind altering changes, like Possession. I'm still not sure why a skill initially designed to manipulate machines causes humans to commit suicide when controlled after being upgraded.}}

She took a slow, shaky breath. "Yeah, none of that. Right! So are we going to steal their stuff or just save the doctor?"

He reexamined the data. {{Might be best to save Dr. Tenenbaum first. Andrew Ryan's people finally got the tips we sent in, and Fontaine hasn't been able to gather ANY new children since the last batch. Or homeless people, since almost everyone who was in financial trouble has ended up in your Town now.}}

Sarah nodded. "And we really only need to know the general process, we've got unlimited CEE to work with and can add purified conceptual concepts easily, we can use her abilities to make our own Plasmids for almost nothing and vastly undercut Fontaine Industries on the market while still making bank. Ryan will stay out of our hair if we do it that way, right?"

Adam chuckled. {{Having the market be the executioner would be beyond acceptable to the man, yes. Not that you need to worry too much, Dave says that Andrew Ryan's people have been beyond cooperative with your recent projects. You saw the suggested bid?}}

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, the four private golf courses for expedited immigration rates for Pauper's Drop. Though based on how controlling the man is, I expect the actual designs he requests to take a few weeks to be finished."

Yeah, that seemed right. Apparently Ryan knew a few sports superstars who would flee to Rapture for a chance at a better life, but the numbers needed right now were WAY beyond that. And it might have been more surprising than it should be, but this was going to heavily affect women's rights and racial equality down here.

This was the time period where America was trying to end school segregation, where women were being encouraged to conform to traditional domestic roles, and so on and so forth. Equal pay? Pfff, silly woman, get back in the kitchen. A career? Without a man overseeing it?

Well, there was a reason why women like Dr. Tenenbaum came down here, and it wasn't solely due to morality getting in the way of progress.

So in sports? Well, the oppression was real.

Women athletes belittled, passed over, ignored. Non-white races trying to join teams, creating their own sports leagues, accepting degrading jobs to be near their passion, these people trying to pursue their sport for an career?

Up there, it was a very big issue.

Down here? They were just another customer of Rapture's services. Another citizen, for good or ill.

Sure, Sarah had found people who were sexist or racist down here. They probably existed everywhere to some extent. But this city was a group where even the least of which were brilliant, educated, outsiders, and oppressed.

How would it affect the surface, when more of the currently less valued people vanished?

How would it affect Pauper's Drop, when the teams being cheered on were black and Asian and female and still earning good wages and equal protection?

After all, her town needed people more than anything. Setting up the needed teams, coaches, support crews, reporters, commentators, vendors, sales people, so on and so forth?

Sarah needed players. She needed their friends, their families.

Not those belonging to groups that practice elitism and nepotism, but people with talent willing to accept massive life changes and a move to an unknown future rather than accept more persecution on the surface!

Because once Sarah has the people, she can give them health, strength, endurance, and room to grow without arbitrary roadblocks and restrictions.

Mediocre athletes playing in the Sports Ball would take very little time to trounce surface players, with no fear of training injuries and a dose of Enhance Self giving support.

And with everyone down here becoming healthier, eating good nutritious food, and getting Tonics that enhance the best parts of yourself while having a stable lifestyle?

The average Pauper was becoming more handsome, more beautiful. Children were already going to be smarter because of the Tonics enhancing their developments, but the increase in quality of life was also likely to give them all younger siblings before long.

Basically, Sarah needed the new Sports Ball filled with people long enough for the population boom to take over, for the next generation to dream of being a top athlete if science or art failed to capture their imagination.

It helped that her medicines could fix damn near anything. Ryan's recruitment pitches were apparently going quite well by targeting families with injured players or crippled loved ones, since Sarah's Tonics and serums could make that go away at a very affordable price.

Which was good, because the Sport's Council member had a list of modifications to the Sports Ball several inches thick at this point.

Long story short: Sarah needed to redo most of it, at least according to them.

Different focuses on sports, move all the public fields and attractions out of it, make this a place for athletes and training and public games only. It was a bit frustrating, although as each item was explained Sarah begrudgingly agreed with most of them.

Though she apparently frustrated Dave when she ended up making the Play Ball in revenge, filling it with playgrounds and miniature golf courses and public playing fields and pools and mazes and various rides and stuff. Oh, and gaming tables and places to play cards and darts and all kinds of stuff, because that wasn't considered 'Professional' enough for the Sports Ball itself.

Well whatever, they can have their fuddy duddy high level sporting area. All the cool kids would come to Sarah's Play Ball instead! Meh!

The bottom was covered in LEDs to look like a soccer ball, it was half the size of the Sports Ball, and Sarah had put a lot of low cost snacks and resting areas and stuff there for parents to watch their kids and what not if they wanted to let the children wear themselves out.

While meant to be something less serious and more fun, as well as a gentle middle finger to the Pauper's Council by increasing their paperwork and the number of people needed to hire to watch over the place, a surprising number of adults had joined in. Especially when Sarah had set up lawn bowling, horseshoe pitching, croquet, bean bag tossing, and other less intense gaming options.

Was this her original vengeance plan? No.

Was there more gambling than she expected? Oh yes.

Because there was a growing Bookmaker organization and the wealthy people that were suddenly fascinated by Pauper's Drop were willing to make stupidly huge bets over throwing horseshoes.

For some reason.

The only thing she did to try and curtail abuse of the gambling going on was offering Pauper's Lending, so that the morons putting themself into debt would work for Dave's people at cost and be contractually unable to gamble until they paid off the owed amount.

Because restricting gambling would be pointless, and forbidding loans and debt based gambling would be pointless, and Sarah would rather these financial idiots be handled by people she trusted rather than other assholes abusing the weak to sexually assault others or rob them blind and sell them off for lab experiments.

At least under her Council's Thumb they would have good work and enough to eat, not to mention a safe place to sleep, until they earned enough to leave and get into debt again. As far as Adam was concerned, it was the best option in a list of less satisfying choices.

Adam's mental rant, already having meandered from sexual and racial sporting issues to the issues of the compulsive gambler, slid back on track at the alert. {{Sarah, the order to have an accident just went through. Best we go pick up a friend and see if we can hire a new doctor to run Paid Pauper's Clinic!}}

She scoffed. "That softie is going to end up working with Grace and the kids, you'll see."

Hmm. {{Bet on it? Winner gets a minor request from the loser?}}

Sarah grinned! "If I win, you make me some sea cows!"

Fair. {{And when I win, you have to eat one of the pig eggs sunny side up and review it.}}

She paused, conflicted. "I… I don't know if that is a request or a punishment. What would they even taste like?"

No idea. {{It'll be fine! You'll love them!}}

He sent her the coordinates and she vanished.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

She couldn't find them.

Doctor Brigid Tenenbaum hid her requests again under other orders and commands.

All tricks had failed. She had pushed the envelope a bit too hard, was a bit too obvious, but she had been running out of ideas. Out of time!

Frank Fontaine had turned out to be pure filth, but even she was horrified at his new commands.

Approach Jasmine Jolene, the consort to Andrew Ryan himself, the woman pregnant with the designer of Rapture's child.

Go to this vulnerable woman, and use the newest, most unstable Plasmid to manipulate her. To warp her mind, to make her sell the unborn child for Fontaine and Dr. Yi Suchong to experiment on. To mutilate and twist into a puppet, a suicidal marionette for unknown ends.

Aside from the horror at the whole concept and the fury and deep sadness at the many previous crimes, Dr. Tenenbaum had tried to stall. Even told the truth… The new Plasmid would be dangerous, though not as much as reported. It would require purging after being used, and could damage her and leave side effects…

Though it didn't seem that Frank cared about that.

Still, she managed to regain some permissions into the databases, access to the equipment again. Using her escalated privileges Brigid had used her last failsafes, her hidden accounts, and did blatant searching for the new little ones.

She couldn't lose a child again. Not from her work, her attempts to make life better, her pleas against reality and science to find a way to save the lives crumbling between her fingers.

After that monster had murdered the little one she had managed to barely save, she had considered briefly ending her own life. Following them from this place, though she would likely head down to hell while the little ones would hopefully go somewhere better… If anything waited at all.

But she couldn't do it.

Not for her life to so easily go into that darkness… Because HE would still be here.

Ready and willing to steal more little ones, to make more mistakes, and to laugh at the costs!

This had been the last gambit. Soon she was to use the Suggestion Plasmid to break a mother, to steal her future child and give him or her to monsters. Her work was to be used again to destroy the potential of little girls, and her desperate attempts at healing and reparation were being discarded due to lowering profits by increasing their lifespans.

With a heart far less confident than she had hoped for, Dr. Tenenbaum executed the last query.

It used the only safe escape she had planned for, the only method to override security and gain administrative access for a few moments.

But instead of letting her flee with her research, she was forced to use it to find those children before the mad doctor and the insane monster could hurt them further.

Her fingers twitched, ears listening for the alarms soon to ring through the labs. But it would be worth it. She had gotten the most powerful, most dangerous Plasmids next to her.

The research notes would be purged. Months of progress lost, years of effort burned, and it STILL wouldn't be enough revenge against Fontaine and the death of her little ones… But it would give her some time.

If she survived the experimental Plasmids.

If she could reach the new children.

If they could escape.

If the experimental purge dosage designed to help her survive the Suggestion Plasmid somehow helped her survive THESE untested weapons of destruction instead.

Then… she could do something. Anything.

New research. Save the little ones, stop new ones from being stolen away, and if nothing could be done then Dr. Tenenbaum would sit by their bedsides until their organs gave out, ensuring they had painkillers and someone to cry over them in the last few hours.

She would have time.

The search ended with impossible results.

...No.

A second search. Maybe they had code names? A hidden table with other markings? Some sort of security measure unmentioned in the stolen notes!? SOMETHING!

Her fingers flew over the keyboard as she abused her access, temporary as it was, to find them. They were here somewhere, they had to be! She had been getting reports about them being put through the procedures, and had been making plans… Where had that monster HIDDEN THEM!?

A noise had her freeze even as the screen continued searching the tables.

Someone was walking this way.

Her hand slowly, quietly, gently lifted the emergency applicator, redesign version 3b Delta. Only able to be used once safely, it contained the prototype of 'Parasitic Healing'. Testing and modification was supposed to eventually handle the flaws, how it could drain a target too quickly and heal oneself if not careful to the point of bursting, but it was all she could access easily with all her work being surveilled.

Her secret modifications should have allowed excess 'healing' energy to be vented safety if it exceeded certain acquisition rates… Maybe.

If too powerful a change, it may no longer even inconvenience the security of the labs.

If too weak, it may cause her to explode after one use.

But last resorts were not used initially for obvious reasons, and the easy methods of escape had been wasted trying to find children that were NOT LISTED HERE.

The needle hovered over her arm… Her fear of death fighting over her inner desire for vengeance and more than a bit of self loathing. A glance at the system showed the last search, the one listing newest changes to the medical database, was nearly ready.

New patients would be listed there. As SOMETHING. Records were MANDATORY for work like this, even morally corrupt ones needed to be documented for progress and profit.

Her actions froze again as an UNKNOWN voice murmured in the distance.

That wasn't security. And no one else was authorized here.

And it couldn't be someone Fontaine sent for HER, since he always brought four security personnel with him or visitors to ensure she couldn't get lucky. It was why she was so hesitant at using this Plasmid, which might only take out one or two attackers before stealing her own life.

Someone outside of the scenario was wandering in restricted sections of the lab. Her hands turned off the monitor at the security station and she slid into a hidden corner with a good line of fire if needed.

"Man this is badly designed. I don't care how secretive you have to be, the layout for this whole 'secure' facility is terrible. Just getting equipment down here must have sucked!"

The calm words and unhurried pace made the doctor relax her clenched hand, the Plasmid's unstable color letting her see what little she could with the monitor turned off.

"There's a lot of hidden explosive charges in this place too. That asshole Fontaine did NOT like the idea of anyone getting out of here. Friend OR foe! Seriously, If no one else is down here, I'm almost obligated to burn it all. Right?"

A hand from behind her plucked the Plasmid from her grasp!

Heart pounding, she dove away from the shock, her eyes wide and emotions rattled!

A bone covered beauty smiled like sunshine under the water! "Hello Doctor Tenenbaum! My name is Sarah Killgrave!"

The cramped server room was quiet except for the doctor's frantic breathing. And near heart attack.

Sarah's smile slipped. "Did I do the creepy thing again?"

She hesitantly nodded.

The armored woman slumped, blue flames floating through her gray hair. "Shit."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah leaned back on the newly made chair. Her audience had calmed down during the story. Slightly. "And NO! You'd think altering them on a fundamental, base level of existence, that it would all work out!"

Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum seemed to continue appreciating the distractions at least. And she certainly needed the chance to calm down, even if she now talked without a stutter. "No, early experiments would have odd outliers even when the conditions were identical. That was consistent with all testing lines."

The Jumper however pointed at a wall! "Outliers? Those are supposed to be CHICKENS. Not nightmares! The pigs worked out great, and even when breeding them went odd the strangest thing I ran into were the really muscled ones that looked a bit like drugged up workout fanatics. But the chickens!"

Her hands shook as she imagined the data. "Even after the advanced Tonics and serums being used, some several times, it only mildly helped. Extra limbs were the least disturbing outcomes, and the one mutant with sudden eyeball syndrome freaked the HELL out of me! That ain't right! None of that is right!"

The doctor absently adjusted her clothing, looking far more collected now even if she was faking it to try and feel out the current odd situation. "I admit, I've been locked up down here for a while… The only reason I've heard of your Tonics and the serums was because of Fontaine's people ranting about them and trying to get experiment samples. I don't actually know much about them."

Sarah sighed, mentally banishing her bone armor to inventory and sending the 'Parasitic Healing' Plasmid off to be [[Harvested.]] "Well, it has to do with my attempts at making Plasmids and stuff like you created honestly. But I did it wrong."

The doctor slumped. "I… I am not sure it is possible for you to have done more wrong than I. Or possible for you to achieve less success! My dreams of creating a new frontier of science and advancing the powers of humanity were twisted into blasphemy."

The absent minded invader chuckled. "Well for one thing, I skipped using any DNA or genetics when trying to make mine."

Brigid froze. "What?"

Sarah nodded. "Yeah, I found out how to get the stuff that gets tainted into ADAM directly and learned how to reduce it to a purified state. I can show you the details later, but basically there is a field of influence that can interact with Plasmid Users and the ADAM materials, messing with tests and power implementation."

The doctor was staring blankly as Sarah continued. "My current results rely on the raw material being deliberately tainted with specific interferences, and when introduced to the user my product can apply that taint to the body's own cells." That was close enough to explaining psionic fields, right?

Dr. Tenenbaum was looking at past memories. "But… if you don't need external material for ADAM to be manipulated as needed, the cases of incompatibility and biological rejection would vanish! No maintenance doses, no withdrawal..." Her eyes glinted! "I… I could save the girls!"

What? "I'm sorry?"

She stood quickly and waved at the computer! "I've been trying to make something to save the little girls my faulty and rushed work had pushed into the testing labs, but each child was another challenge! Different parents, separate tests, uncontrollable situations I couldn't influence… But if I could get access to your methods, I could find a solution! Or at least delay their genetic mutation rate to give me time to DO something!"

Sarah blinked as the doctor turned the nearby monitor on, displaying database searches. "I've been trying to find the girls that my so-called employer has been most recently experimenting on, but he's hidden the data. Or put it on another server entirely! If you would help free them, we might actually save one of the children before full genome collapse!"

A mental nudge from Adam and it all made sense. "Brigid, there are no other test subjects."

The woman seemed frozen. "What?"

Sarah sighed and gently pulled the woman away from the wall terminal. "I only found you because I stumbled on Fontaine's people trying to grab new experimental subjects. The kids are under my care already, and I've been making sure the asshole can't simply steal or buy more."

The doctor was… lost. "Are… Are you sure?"

A nod later and Sarah's arms were full of a fractured woman. Tears of relief and guilt and fear soaked her blue business suit, but she didn't say anything.

The Jumper could loot this lab and set it on fire later, while heading home.

For now, she tried to reassure a fragile woman that things could get better.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam was staying OUT of that. He had a terrible history of understanding emotions that well anyway, and Sarah seemed to have the situation under control.

No, he was focusing on the [[Harvested]] Plasmid.

And uh… yeah, the slug genetics and psionic influence was VERY heavy. Probably because no one else knew the actual source of CEE before becoming tainted into ADAM. And the constant recycling of ADAM from test subject blood and forcing the girls or slugs to consume more psionically tainted material with each generation of testing.

A Plasmid reinforced itself. To be stable, it would create a psionic framework and after being subjected to multiple users and the occasional sea slug, the ADAM would force that framework to build in complexity and nuance and stability.

It was mostly done randomly, most affected by the people being used as experimental material and the leftover psionic field that follows the DNA being used in the product, and the final stable production Plasmids and Tonics and stuff were solid enough to withstand new material being supplied for conversion.

Since nothing was scrubbed clean, the psionic framework would eventually taint the equipment used to generate a specific Plasmid… which would then ensure future production creates more of the same thing and prevents strange mutation or odd power variations.

It was fascinating!

These Plasmid Frameworks were organically formed of course, so they were inefficient and bulky, but mostly stable on the local mental plane. It was a bit surprising, because even if you knew how boiling away super saturated water would always create SOME sort of crystalline structure, psionic contamination would ensure it was the SAME crystals.

Every time.

Adam absently added a mental 'To Do' list item for Sarah to steal more Plasmid samples before going home, even if she had to break into other offices of Fontaines.

After all, 'Research' would love more information!

These psionic frameworks were like complex structures that traded between power and stability. Either a Plasmid was mediocre yet stable or fragile but astounding! Normally. Not stuff like this 'Parasitic Healing', it was so delicate that it almost collapsed during collection, but it was more than good enough to get the idea of how stuff works.

These psionic structures had fragments that would grant the user reflexes related to the new skill, sections that could store memories or the concept of memories that made people able to instinctively use their new abilities. Other sections defined the skill itself, the triggers needed to operate it, a model of how the Plasmid would operate, how it would interact with the user…

None of it was really intentional. Just more like a natural shape that occurred by being exposed to multiple psionic fields over time, with the more complex mentality fields speeding up the process. Like how all bubbles were orbs because of air pressure and surface tension, these psionic frameworks were shaped like this because anything else would just fall apart.

Not that Adam would accept NATURE as a designer. That's how you end up with tailbones and gallbladders. And spleens! No one wanted a spleen.

Who knew how many thousands of random darts were tossed at random targets before Dr. Tenenbaum stumbled on a self reinforcing psionic framework that was usable? Even then, many wouldn't be obvious or helpful unless the dire need of the user influenced the results.

In fact, it was likely that all the torture experiments directed the powers to be combative in nature. After all, the first supernatural ability the slugs showed was a healing ability for others after being bit, NOT hurling fireballs or whatever.

Explained why too many Plasmids would cause problems too. The psionic frameworks would clash and cause issues, depending on how lucky you were when they came in contact with each other. Probably was part of the reason for so many side effects.

Well, that and injecting other people's DNA into your body with sea slug influenced super cancer cells and hoping for the best. Really, Sarah could do better than this stuff.

Her clinic wouldn't bother straight up directly stealing any of this mess. All of Fontaine's Plasmids would be this strange wobbly framework of psionic power trapped in users personal psionic fields, after all… Tainted with multiple slug and torture residues and who knew what.

But [[Harvesting]] more Plasmids would let 'Research' have more to work with! More stable structures, reliable guesses for new ones, all sorts of stuff!

Adam checked… No, the two women were still recovering. Not that he knew when Sarah started crying too, but it was fine.

In the meantime, he could start brute forcing some psionic frameworks to eventually attempt and make a Plasmid that DIDN'T change constantly with each user!

And aim for some matter conversion abilities or long distance pattern schematic analysis Plasmids if possible, those would be useful for his Jumper.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah led the weary doctor through space and directly to a room in Pauper's Drop's Complex Dome. The poor woman was so out of it she didn't even ask questions, not about why a bone armored warrior showed up or how they could just teleport, nothing!

The Jumper waited in the hallway. "So, what did you get from that Plasmid?"

Adam threw out some data. {{This thing.}}

She looked at what seemed to be a squished wireframe diagram. A twisted, tightly packed mess of lines and broken curves. "Huh."

He agreed. {{This is the psionic framework that our [[Harvested]] 'Parasitic Healing' would insert into a user's natural field.}} Several sections glowed. {{These areas interact with the user, while the ability method and implementation design is over there.}}

Sarah blinked, and waved at the darker bits. "And what are all these chunks?""

Adam started making parts glow. {{This section attempts to keep the user alive by finding common ground among genetic data, these parts force biological regrowth, one over here tries to prevent aging of cells via DNA degradation… Basically a whole bunch of fragments from other psionic frameworks that hopefully keep the user alive.}}

It… looked like a huge mess. "Why is all that needed?"

His voice was annoyed. {{Because everyone assumed that Plasmids needed that slurry of old genetic material from previous hosts and the slugs. And any test subjects WITHOUT this massive bundle of patches and bandages would die and be considered failures.}}

Adam frowned. {{The fact that Dr. Tenenbaum got anything usable out of her work despite using tainted starting material, studying the wrong creatures, and working with fraudulent initial assumptions? That she could make this mess survivable, despite all the fragments of past psionic users frantically trying to 'fix' themselves, making them super cancer to future customers?}}

He sighed. {{That woman is a genius. Beyond talented. We get her some tools, tell her about our work and results, and I promise you she will give us results that make my stuff look amateurish. Less powerful, but much more controlled and safer to release to the public.}}

She hummed. At least it was a better idea than releasing manually controlled conceptual abilities for anyone to randomly adapt to and start tossing about. "If all that genetic stuff isn't needed, then how do Plasmids do such complicated stuff without changing between every user? Even our most stable Tonics can change slightly between people."

Adam seemed to be thinking hard. {{I'm not entirely sure, but I SWEAR this seems familiar. VERY familiar, but not exactly the same as something I've seen before either…}}

Sarah frowned at that. "Huh. Well, we have to figure out something, I can't just tell our potential new doctor that our stuff is just water and conceptually tainted CEE with some flavorings added."

He absently began designing tools and sensors to better manipulate and examine psionic frameworks. {{Just tell her some new age stuff for now I guess. That you balanced their chakras or something.}}

The woman snorted. "I doubt any lady of science would believe me if I start trying to read people's auras or whatever."

Adam froze.

Badly.

Sarah blinked. "Uh. You alright?"

Suddenly he was rapidly processing data. {{Auras! God DAMNED it, I KNEW I recognized this!}}

That's not normal. "Adam?"

The skull was busy. {{No wonder it felt familiar, no wonder 'genetics' could influence these special abilities! It has NOTHING to do with genetics, but with the INTERNAL psionic frameworks of previous users!}}

Nope. "You've lost me, big guy."

Adam grinned, a light of madness in his skull. {{Sarah, our 'Enhance Self' Tonic doesn't just 'make you more yourself', it enhances and enforces the user's internal psionic framework. An internal psionic framework that everything in this Jump has, animal, plant, or person!}}

A new scan was being run on the people within Pauper's Drop sensor range. {{Our 'Enhance Self' Tonic is the psionic equivalent to Unlocked Auras from a past Realm I visited! More specifically, each framework can support a single ability per person, shaped by their memories and sense of self and psionic history!}}

What? "I'm not getting all this. Or why you are so excited over this spiritual mumbo jumbo."

Adam grinned. {{Plasmids are basically a psionic version of a Semblance, a special power unique to only one individual! They are artificially strengthened to withstand being duplicated and injected into other people's psionic framework.}}

His data began showing her scans of her people. {{And they mess up people so badly because Plasmids from Fontaine are formed by smashing tons of psionic frameworks together and letting the mutilated abilities that survive be used for more experimental tests. By the time enough psionic reinforcement can accumulate to be stable enough to sell or use reliably, dozens of unrelated fragments have been squished together!}}

Sarah frowned. "And even though everyone has a special unique power, there are so few Plasmids listed in our Jump Document because most psionic frameworks can't survive being smashed into each other?"

Adam grinned. {{Yep!}}

She frowned at more and more data. "But these scans make the psionic frameworks look very sturdy… It should handle a bit of jostling no problem, right?"

Adam grinned wider. {{For comparison, here is a scan of Dr. Tenenbaum.}}

Unlike the bright and clear curves and psionic shapes of her people, the doctor's looked like a few light wisps of suggestion. Potential, unformed and unfocused. "Huh."

Adam chuckled. {{Congratulations Sarah. Our 'Enhance Self' Tonic is the psionic equivalent of awakening the Aura of a Hunter on Remnant.}}

She wasn't entirely sure what exactly he meant by that, but the massive number of scanned psionic frameworks already within the Pauper's Drop population truly implied this was a big deal. "Are the kids going to randomly get super powers? More of them, I mean."

Adam laughed! {{Thankfully no. Even if they are in life threatening situations and drank energy serums, these psionic frameworks are too young and fragile to activate without help.}}

The growing number of scans continued to display as Sarah watched.

He now had a more interesting grin. {{That said… Each one of these frameworks could be enhanced by us and placed in a CEE orb for production. A bit of modification, add in some test subjects… And thanks to our people's psionic field being enhanced, clearing out failed attempts would be easy and simple to do! Almost no risk, just a bit of time consuming busy work.}}

Sarah felt her mouth dry at the thousands of new, unknown, untested potential Plasmids being listed. Each one individually a stable power never seen before, thousands that had never been subjected to Fontaine's blender of 'Survivor wins!' bullshit power production setup.

And the scans weren't even half done yet.

Holy crap.

At least her potential new head researcher on Plasmids, Tonics, and serums would have plenty to work with. Too much, even.

At least it was too much for her. For right now at least.

With a heavy breath, Sarah took a…

Step.

...quick trip to Grace's place.

Nope not here. Another…

Step.

...jaunt led her to Ben's room at the Ruby Forest Orphanage. "Hey Grace!"

The woman looked up with a smile… And frowned. "What's wrong, Sarah?"

Hugging that warm chest feeling, Sarah smiled more freely. "Got some surprising news, didn't want to think about it. Oh, and I stole a doctor, dismantled an illegal genetics lab, and replaced it with an identical facility without any changes from the schematics logged officially."

The singer leaned back as Ben ignored them both and colored a picture book on the floor. "That… sounds like a story."

Sarah gently pulled her favorite chair from inventory and sat it near the singer. "Right? I had planned a whole pillage and burn plan with a side of rescuing a damsel in distress, but the damsel was nearly killing herself trying to save people she couldn't find and the villain was too busy elsewhere. Messed all my villainous schemes up, which is annoying."

The woman chuckled, relaxed now that she could see that Sarah was at least physically fine. "I believe unexpected situations are your speciality."

She sighed. "Well, I guess… But I had got all dressed up! Bones and fire and Mr. Mcstabberson…" Seeing confusion she held up her favorite bone spike. "My 'pointed opinion', I could say!"

Ah, that got a wry smile out of the woman! "Anyway, I was all pumped up for a fight, ready to show up to scare the hell out of some horrible people and do a bit of relaxing stabbing and such… and the only one around is a desperate lady in a terrible situation."

It really ruined her buzz. "I just… I was going to break Fontaine and his plans, but with recent new data I'm not even sure I need to! I had epic plans! Epic! Plans!"

She felt Adam send her a mental head pat.

It was appreciated.

Grace hummed. "Well, if your plans fell through anyway… Would you like to come with Ben and me to feed the Wooly Moommoths? We've got the day off today."

Huh. Honestly, that was appreciated even more!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Andrew Ryan chuckled as Jasmine danced over the green.

There were rules about wearing certain shoes on the golf courses, but Ms. Killgrave's work was beyond acceptable: The turf she provided seemed to resist the worst of swings. As his woman proved again today, despite how much she enjoyed her horrible attempts at playing.

Jasmine pointed her club at his humor. "That's right! Who got it in the hole? Me! Queen Jolene, leader of all golfians! I won't just own the stage instead of the choral line, I will force ALL putters to respect my reign!"

He smiled idly. "Shall I put down your 33 stroke count then, your Majesty?"

She flipped her hair with sass. "Please, did you see my hip turn? I easily brought it down to twenty with that alone!"

Andrew barked a laugh at her antics! Truely, the woman's self confidence growth after enjoying the 'Enhance Self' Tonic alone was more treasured to him than that 'Hygiene' Tonic that had allowed her to need nearly no makeup or touch ups.

Her enhanced skin tone and silken hair weren't nearly as attractive to him when compared to her new self esteem, her renewed drive and thirst for life!

A wall he had never seen had dropped, and she radiated confidence that not only did he truly care for her on a personal level, but that she was WORTH such care despite the difference of wealth and background.

It was a subtle but significant thing. No number of trinkets could convince someone of sincerity, and his attempts at supporting her dream by sending her to elocution lessons and becoming her patron of the arts had not been enough to cross that small final distance to her heart.

Even their physical relationship hadn't built up their connection this much… Or was it his own changes? He certainly has never felt so sharp and focused before, nor as relaxed and calm.

He caught her smile… Truly, confidence was an attractive thing!

They strolled to the next hole, his security teams hidden like professionals as they enjoyed the unusually clean air and artificial wind on the impossible golf course.

Jasmine babbled about how he should really twist his hips more during his swing while ignoring her own terrible attempts at getting her ball to go ANYWHERE close to where she was aiming.

The advice flowed like a river, meandering and without end.

It was soothing. "I've heard you are auditioning soon?"

The sun rose in her eyes. "Yes! One of my old besties from before my days working under Mr. Cohen, Ava-dear, she called me up and was desperate for more talent! Said she wanted all us girls that used to work together, and even our friends… She has far too many plays! Too many people needed, and more by the hour!"

He had reports of this, of course. "Are you aiming for a lead role?"

Surprisingly she shook her head. "Not anymore, I've gotten a real chance at a HUGE opportunity!" Her lips quirked into that sinful smile as she twirled again. Her skirt was half the reason he didn't request the golf cart, really… The walk was a portion of the fun.

Jasmine draped herself on his arm, forcing him to carry the extra weight. Her lips whispered into his ears, a secret. "I'm going to become a radio host!"

The warm weight vanished as she danced along! "My voice, on a new radio station! The Voice of Dionysus Radio!" She absently tugged his arm to move faster. "And I wouldn't just be some talking filler or whatever, because the Bone Boss has all these strange rules in place since she owns the place. The Voice is like an actual position!"

He blinked. "Bone Boss?"

Her delicate fingers waved him off. "Ms. Killgrave is rarely around, but if you annoy her she has this flaming bone spike thing hidden somewhere that made this asshole who tried to push a dancer around pee himself in fear. The name stuck since only the kids call her the Bone Lady or Bone Angel, and she doesn't seem to care. ANYWAY!"

Andrew watched with an unusually unguarded expression as his lady smiled a sunrise. "If I become 'The Voice' I not only get to pick what gets played on the radio stations, but Ava-dear wrote all these amazing audio production scripts over the years and I get to read them myself on air!"

She hummed! "My words would reach ALL of Rapture! And not only is the pay amazing, but the contract that I would sign has days off and limits working hours, so I won't miss out on our time together either!"

Ryan smiled at her joy, even if she didn't know the details he had demanded in secret about those contracts. He had seen more than a few sketchy deals after all… And the results have been surprising.

They were suspiciously clear, easy to understand, and fair. Disturbingly so.

The only reason he didn't suspect foul play was due to each and every one establishing Sarah Killgrave as the one and only owner of each Pauper's Drop business and property, as well as oversight over attempts to bypass her reach while on her watch.

For she may be laid back, easy going, and have different motivating principles than other people… But Ms. Killgrave always made one thing clear: This was her property, her places, and her people. No one could steal that from her, and she would permit no abuse of her personal worth.

It was relatable. "I thought you wanted to be a lead actress?"

She laughed! "I wanted influence! To tell a story of my own, to have creative freedom! Before I could have maybe played a role in a few productions, and satisfied myself, but now? A chance to guide a whole new entertainment media? To talk directly to Rapture itself, sing to its soul, and tell tales while it rests?"

He smiled as she flourished with new found excitement, desire, determination.

There was no more attractive woman under the entire ocean to him.

However, they eventually reached the teeing ground. Jasmine's emotional drive had her take back the clubs she had been ignoring! "Right, time to kick butt and win some golf!"

With a sigh, Ryan watched her aim the wrong direction. At least the Dome surface would prevent the ball from being lost entirely if she insisted on playing onwards that way.

Her swing was actually quite impressive! Got good distance too, even if it was not exactly well directed.

Maybe he should have security move her ball a few hundred yards closer to a more normal 'out of bounds' territory. Again.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Fontaine smiled grimly at the group in his office. "Everyone made it? Jim? Grant?"

Weary mumbles grunted.

Good. "I know it has been hard recently. That the rich assholes with Ryan have suddenly started paying attention to us closer, that we've lost some people."

And he could have worked with that. Frank Fontaine was, if anything, adaptable.

But that bint Tenenbaum vanished before his remaining people could finish the job.

Frank hated loose ends.

He checked the hidden alert. "There will be some rough times ahead. Due to recent issues with manning we will have to cut down most of our activities and focus on the main profit leaders. But my associates, you know I've always got an extra plan or two!"

A less weary series of chuckles waved through the office.

Frank waved Grant over. "Like many of my more risky strategies however, this will be getting a bit complicated."

He could feel the confusion. Grant had never really done much in Fontaine's branches, nor had he talent with muscle or the wet works. No business sense either, the man mostly lived off his dime and fucked women. And some men. And a few younger things.

But he had one gift, a rare feature most valuable at times like this.

Seeing the confusion, he couldn't help but smile. "I assume many of you are wondering why Grant is wearing such a fine outfit today? Or indeed, why I've gathered the heads of most of our organization here today."

Grant couldn't help but puff out his chest in his high quality suit. And it WAS high quality, Frank didn't accept anything less for his own outfits.

Frank focused. "Long story short, Pauper's Drop smashed our plans. Aside from the recent resignations we endured... " When half his black operation teams got slaughtered. "The lowest levels of Rapture are all leaking down to the Drop and those impossible promises that are flung around down there."

Not just impossible, but true. Now it was blatantly obvious why Andrew Ryan had been near stalking the poor slum district, and Frank cursed his own misfortune having glossed over the situation to handle other issues.

His rapid fame and power was only possible when there was a large base of people with few or no options to work with. Otherwise his experiments, the testing, the surgeries, they might be done on people that mattered instead of the gutter filth of his people.

The head of Fontaine finances frowned. "Will we be able to deliver the new Plasmid lines on time? I know we need additional subjects and we have several large investments and loans needing payment soon."

Frank lit his cigar, letting the smoke curl past his lips. "Probably. There have been more than a few setbacks…" That was understating it. The primary lab where Dr. Tenenbaum had been kept under lock and key was gone.

Not damaged, not burning, but gone. Even the damned security keypad was missing, without even the screw holes left behind to the wall it had been installed in!

Months of progress gone. If he hadn't been beyond paranoid, this might have been the end for his entire empire rather than a major setback and situation.

Grant grinned. "But the boss gots a plan, don'ts ya boss?"

Moron. "Indeed." He waved Grant to sit in his chair, something that the man did without question after months of training. "Right. Jim, would you kindly set the scene?"

Grant's body fell slumped into his chair, his head mostly missing.

Frank puffed his cigar. As stunned leaders and managers began to fall to the unprovoked attack, he made sure to stand clear of the blood spray. His reserve suit was also high quality after all.

Moments later, Jim stood at attention in the middle of the blood filled office. "Done sir."

Good man. "Finish it, would you kindly?"

Jim nodded, aimed his hand cannon inside his own mouth, and swiftly resigned from the team. The man always did good work, but this command was always the hardest to test beforehand.

Frank sighed as he left the office. The fire would start in a few hours, duplicating some of the work shown at an earlier crime scene. Hopefully whatever bastard had been hunting him and his people would fall for this, or Ryan's people would at least blame the arsonist for the situation.

Or call it a collapse from infighting, or whatever. It didn't matter much in the end, although the loss of resources was VERY frustrating.

After all, it had taken a lot of effort to find a talented person like Grant, who looked so similar to Frank even BEFORE The experimental Tonics and surgeries. When 'Atlas' made the scene, he would have to spend some time ensuring the next body double would make an equally convincing corpse.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah was relaxing outside Doctor Tenenbaum's room, but her mind was elsewhere. "I think she might not be gay."

Adam was barely paying attention. {{Hmm?}}

She sighed. "I think Grace might be straight. Or worse, bisexual but already putting me in the friend zone. It's sort of hard to tell."

Adam hesitated. {{I may not be the best one to go to when it comes to relationships.}}

Sarah snorted. "Kind of hard to date people when you are a giant skull?"

He sighed. {{No, but I'm in a committed relationship with a force field goddess and her mental self, two angel avatars with planet sized crystal bodies, and have this off and on thing with a few women and or magical ponies that enjoy sex a lot. And maybe a couple of cybernetic gynoid dragons and their boyfriend. And another me is probably marrying an entire plane of existence in another realm.}}

She blinked blindly as he paused. {{Also, I am turning into a Warehouse. Which is your body? So I might be partially you? Or at least a partner of some sort.}}

Adam snorted. {{So yeah, don't ask me for anything related to relationships, I am NOT able to relate to those well.}} He hummed. {{Did something happen with Grace?}}

Sarah just… put that aside. Too much to unpack, really. "No, not really? That's sort of the problem. I know she is really super into helping Ben and the kids, and that's great! I love the kids too!"

She slumped against the wall. "But even when I wore that sexier outfit, I didn't really see that much of a reaction. I was sort of hoping for an extra glance or two? Maybe?"

Don't get her wrong, she LOVED her blue suits! The things felt amazing and made her body pop!

But spending time with the sexy singer seemed to have fallen into a more domestic or 'best bud' scenario, rather than 'two tired women relating' one she had hoped for.

Adam hummed. {{Give it time. For every outgoing and sexual woman like my Narwhal there are people who are obtuse or reserved or just not paying attention. You still like hanging out with Grace regardless, right?}}

Yep. "Yeah."

He shrugged. {{Then just enjoy being friends for now. A lot of stuff is changing down there, give her time to adjust to her crazy new life before trying to get involved with it. And you've got time after all!}}

She grumbled. "Under nine years now."

Adam mentally waved that off. {{As far as I can tell the ten year limit is the normal MINIMUM time you can spend in a Jump. If there is no danger you can stay for a few hundred years or whatever, I don't mind. Some Jumps actually can earn more choice points that way, staying longer can be considered a 'drawback' to them many times.}}

Sarah sighed. "But what if she finds someone else?"

He blinked. {{Then try to date them both? Worked out great for me.}}

Huh.

She held back, blushing at certain thoughts.

Maybe Adam WASN'T a good person for relationship advice.

Right, think 'G-Rated' topics. "So how are the Plasmids coming along?"

Adam grumbled. {{Good and bad. Lots and lots of stable stuff, but most doesn't matter.}}

Sarah hummed. "Show me."

Pages of data began to scroll over her interface.

Yes, her 'Enhance Self' Tonic created a psionic framework, a 'semblance' as Adam called it. But according to this data, not only is it NOT related to the soul (Good? Probably?) but it was VERY basic and young.

It meant that the plasmids were… very restricted.

Adam wasn't 100% sure exactly what effects all these things would have, but 'Research' heavily implied that this one for example would allow you to style your own hair.

No color changes or texture improvements, no turning the hair into razor wires or something. Even a basic comb could still mess up your arrangements. But over time? You could part your own hair in various ways.

It was slow, but surprisingly energy efficient. So uh… you wouldn't fall over setting up an afro? Woo?

Another one would allow you to have a chameleon effect on your fingernails and toenails. These over here would control sweat production levels or sweat flavor or scent. These few would increase the durability of your butt. And only your butt.

Heh. Kinky!

Anyway, many were similar but implemented in different ways. Like a few dozen that had been predicted to be related to telekinesis, but one variant could only control small amounts of liquid, another only a cube or so of gravel, these two could control some gasses if they fell within certain temperature ranges… But all of them used psionic power to manipulate the physical world in the end.

So they were sort of related? Mostly? Didn't look similar at all, at least not with her sensor output gathered so far.

A benefit to Fontaine's Plasmid 'Dumb Smashing' method was how the 'surviving' Plasmids HAD to be more powerful, because stuff like this was too finicky to handle destructive testing or combinations.

At least they had options. {{Right, I'm designing a few things.}}

Sarah looked at some schematics as Adam highlighted them. {{This one can build psionic frameworks for us to experiment with from past or future scans. Lots of duplicates to work with thanks to that. These chambers can reinforce psionic frameworks without tainting the equipment or leaving corruptive residue. And here are the first prototype psionic colliders!}}

She hummed. "They are pretty rough looking, but we can improve on this. Right?"

He hummed right back! {{I'm hoping that smashing identical frameworks or psionic fields that have similar purposes will get us useful data to feed 'Research'. That will let us improve these gadgets and eventually make tools to directly manipulate psionic frameworks on purpose, rather than just rely on luck, duplication, and enhancement.}}

Sarah scanned the thousands of suggested sensors and gadgets. "These dozen or so can probably be combined. The total resolution would go down, but the coverage of scanning will make up for it and get better results over all."

The pair waited for Dr. Tenenbaum to wake up as they began brainstorming about how to manipulate and control fields of energy that normally can not be sensed, measured, touched, or influenced by more boring people.

It really helped Sarah relax a bit. And maybe she WAS rushing stuff a bit with Ms. Holloway, sinfully sultry voice or not. Sarah would have to make sure she wasn't putting her under too much pressure or whatnot.

After all, she DID treasure their friendship. There was no reason to worry about potential threesomes future competition for now.

But it was something to think about at least.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Andrew Ryan hummed as he looked at the most recent report.

On his nearly cleared desk, such a thing filled him with more satisfaction than he would EVER admit.

A side effect of Enhance Self had him needing to sleep less, feeling more rested, and mentally on top of his game ALL the time. Oh, he could sleep in if desired (As Jasmine could attest), but if it was a hard day with a long list of needed paperwork? A two hour nap and he was back at it, fresh eyed and razor sharp!

It was enough that he was tempted to endorse 'Enhance Self' for ALL his staff, and that didn't even factor in the speed of his data handling abilities now.

He had always used pens before. Why would he need to correct errors? If he wasn't confident why would he write ANYTHING? But now?

Ryan could glance at pages of information and understand it at a fundamental level. His memory was an iron trap, connecting small details from weeks before on unrelated forms and reports with current documents.

He could mentally compose answers to EVERY section of his report, check for issues or mistakes, and then simply write down his previous thoughts without error in moments!

Sure he had always been able to do such things in the past, but never this consistently and without issues. Before these talents drained his mind and tore his body down, now it was simple and easy, a gesture rather than a trial!

And before he could feel like he was somehow cheating, having a refreshed body and clear mind actually allowed him to streamline and simplify many processes of his daily labor. After a week or so of self examination, he had reduced paperwork volume by 18% but nearly doubled the results… even though the new procedure was simpler and easier for his people to follow!

No wonder Ms. Killgrave was nearly giving this Tonic away down in Pauper's Drop. Her life must be vastly easier with people not stumbling around like zombies clutching their morning wake up drinks or stimulants. That didn't even factor in the massively popular energy serum that sold everywhere down there now, a simple sip that would ensure a healthy and lasting boost to your whole day.

Not that he could risk it. His one attempt at using energy serum had a disastrous consequence: He had initially finished all his tasks, several side projects, and met a horrifying foe: Boredom.

Never again.

Lucky other people had less severe reactions to the drink, and it was actually edging out some of the less healthy drugs that were sold in the pleasure quarters. And as his lady could attest later on the same night that he tried the serum himself, it could really enhance 'endurance'.

Remembering the embarrassing (but enjoyable) night he fought back an undignified blush.

Never again.

Noticing the calm expression on his attendant, he refocused on the report. "I believe this is expected."

The man frowned. "But sir, many haven't even finished higher education!"

Andrew waved it off. "You know as well as I that our overly high standards were due to harsh restrictions on the ability to provide food, water, power. Issues that Ms. Killgrave has already handled in preparation for this immigration drive."

The man, whom Ryan knew had certain social issues with classes of people but was otherwise talented in organization, frowned. "Sir, some of these men and women haven't completed high school."

He sighed. "I do not expect my doctors to sculpt, nor my painters to invent new mathematical formulas. Why would I require a sports team to do more than their own talents and gifts provide?"

He stood, walking toward one of the larger windows of his city. "I find the best and invite them here, a place where the great chain of industry can be free to pull us forward to the future. Not shackled by the parasites or even the intellectually great. The market drives us, and right now the market has needs, requiring a talent I couldn't bring to my home before."

A turned heel had him examining his assistant. "Not only is Rapture more stable now, but it is GROWING! And I have not stood in denial before the carnal desires of man or woman, I have not forbidden any substance or desire before… Compared to the lust houses and the drug parlors, supporting healthy sporting competition between Rapture's men and women feels more true to our dream."

An actual struggle between the best of the best! Not held back by racism, sexism, or nepotism, but the people of HIS CITY being able to challenge others and themselves? While encouraging less nostalgia for the surface, less dreaming of past events used by the parasites to keep the populous distracted…

Who would wish to leave his Rapture for lesser events on the surface? He had read the reports, about sporting legends being snuffed in their crib due to not being white enough, male enough, rich enough.

That didn't even consider the vast payments Ms. Killgrave had already provided him to ensure these people were untainted by the surface robbers and government stooges. She had gone above and beyond his requirements, and Andrew Ryan would not provide subpar services when properly compensated.

His associate was still hesitant. "Sir, we will be receiving nearly 350 families from the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League alone! That's over half of the entire group! Several of which have requested additional families or individuals to be added to the lists due to existing relationships!"

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "And are we investigating the unknowns thoroughly? Handling the transfers with discretion, avoiding the authorities not already corrupted and paid to look the other way?"

A nod.

He thought back to the report. "And Ms. Killgrave is funding both the transportation costs and settlement requirements as per our agreements? Despite the additions?"

A more reluctant nod.

Then that was within his expectations. "We know she can handle the surplus number of so called 'Paupers', and her contracts ensure that she will be the one ensuring her territory doesn't cause issues with Rapture or expose us to the surface. This is acceptable."

He held back a snort. "If anything, despite the massive importation of so many people? She is STILL less dangerous to our city than the smugglers or the morons that threaten to expose us by robbing famous statues and art and whatnot. She follows the damned procedure!"

Not to mention her Ant Farm and other production facilities finally increased the amount of products for sale under the sea. With local food and drinks of high quality being sold for reasonable prices, smuggling detected across the board had dropped sharply in recent days.

It had prevented Rapture's Council from having to take drastic measures, like the suggested hanging penalty for anyone caught improperly accessing the surface. His city hadn't needed a death penalty encoded into law before… Being forced to establish one over such filth had felt like a personal failing of his.

And while Rapture was meant to be self-sufficient, expanding the population through APPROVED channels was beyond acceptable. Desirable even, since she actually paid the fees needed to ensure security and safety for his city.

He moved back to his desk. "Not only will we not restrict our recruitment numbers, but contact Ms. Killgrave's people. Find out if she has other employment needs, and compare it to local surveys. Determine if there are discrepancies, and which positions are most in demand by the market."

Andrew Ryan sat behind his cleared desk, the new report filed away. "More people would be nothing if Ms. Killgrave is willing to barter access to her more advanced power and so forth. And now that we are less restricted on resources, some of my more unrealistic ideas may be more feasible."

Especially her ability to restructure the sea floor.

What possibilities could Rapture achieve once the earth and hidden depths becomes yet another step of progress?

The surface may be lost, and the sea only recently settled… but the Earth itself goes down for quite a distance.

His journey to Rapture was his second exodus. Would conquering the ground below it be considered his third?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

She woke up worn.

Dr. Tenenbaum felt so… So tired.

Had she suffered a dream? An angel of bone and fire came to cradle her as tears fell and her heart broke, as her chance at redemption became yet another lie from the mouth of that serpent?

Her thoughts paused.

Based on the high quality and unknown room she apparently was sleeping in, no. Not a dream.

She moved quiet and slow, unsure. Was she a captive? Had she escaped, or was this a new cell for even more unbearable works of science madness against her own goals and dreams?

A few movements had her up, her rumpled clothing unchanged from her apparent nap thank goodness, and she cautiously crept to the door.

It was some sort of apartment? Clean, new furniture, a kitchen. Only one bedroom, though the bed she had gotten out of was sinfully comfortable and large.

A careful check introduced her to an unused office, a second bathroom (How opulent! Hadn't she seen one in the bedroom as well!?), and what seemed to be a laundry room on one side.

That just left the front door.

The unlocked front door.

Somehow, NOT seeing any restrictions made her more nervous.

A careful step had her gently opening the door by the smallest amount… A thankfully silent door, with highly maintained hinges.

The bone lady was sitting against the wall, muttering. "No, it would be best to just have a whole team involved."

And then a paper just appeared in her hands.

What?

She suddenly realized that grey eyes were looking amusedly into her own. "Good morning, Dr. Tenenbaum! I hope you are feeling better?"

A quiet part of her mind noticed quickly enough that without the bone armor and fires of retribution, this woman was distractingly attractive. The rest of her jerked back, nearly fell over her own feet, smashed the door closed trying to catch herself, then landed on the soft carpet anyway despite her flailing.

Two blue business shoes entered her vision, despite the door still being closed. "Sorry! Sorry… That looked very uncomfortable."

She looked up at the smile and out-held hand. "Here, let's get you up."

Well, so much for dignity. "Thank you."

With far more strength than expected, Brigid found herself standing and slightly wobbly as the bone lady… No, it was Ms. Killgrave, wasn't it? As she continued. "I assume you have questions?"

Yes. So yes, all the yes. "A few."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Susan opened the door. "Sarah? I haven't seen you recently! Are you alright?"

Her husband's boss slumped against the door. "Hey Susan. Can I hang out a bit?"

Opening the door wider, she watched her friend slouch over to the couch and pour herself in. "Rough day?"

Sarah sighed. "Paid Pauper Clinic is now fully staffed, and has a research team. In a month or so, maybe longer, we will begin offering Plasmids for sale."

She sat nearby, on the more comfortable but also more ugly seat.

The appearance kept her husband from taking it after he got home from work. "That sounds… Good?"

The tired lady grumbled. "The new head researcher was headhunted from a rival." She snorted. "Near literally hunted. She was hidden away by some shady people, and knew nothing about this place or what I've done recently."

Ouch. "Long explanations?"

Sarah whined! "Never ending! And everything I said somehow made things WORSE! I mean, she's a great person and all and even gave me some ideas and stuff, but blargh!"

It reminded her of her children, really. She reached over and patted Sarah's hair. "There, there."

Sarah mumbled. "Eventually I just had to throw all our trained medical staff at her, ignore the high level science questions, give her access to a database filled with raw information and leave. She's handling all inoculations, Tonic distribution and testing, all subject testing and product approval processes… So theoretically, MY work load should drop, right?"

Maybe? "Yes?"

Sarah pointed upwards at nothing! "But NO! Because I was stupid enough to give her near unlimited resources and raw material, tools to test and combine and improve base Plasmid components, and safe methods of having people try the results out!"

She groaned! "I've been setting up equipment, redesigning tools and hardware, rebuilding and expanding the lab network, restructuring security to handle it all… So much work! I haven't even seen the children in over two days! TWO DAYS!"

Susan carefully ignored the whinging as her couch guest mumbled about not seeing sexy singers and having to eat snack bars because food breaks were 'not efficient enough' to her new 'employee/Tasking Mistress' and so on and so forth. "Would you like to try the new tea blend that Dave brought home last night?"

Sarah pouted. "Yes please."

Tea would make everything better.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dr. Tenenbaum hummed happily! "Frame 1233 appears to be another 'control' structure, focused on magnetic metal with the following tensile strength and between the following mass ranges."

As she recorded more notes and continued to pester for answers from the slightly bored testing subject, more data was being recorded. Not all of it useful or world ending, but still beyond interesting.

Unlike before, she only had to worry about testing and research! With 'Enhance Self' Tonic, not only was she herself feeling far better and more healthy, but her assistants could keep up with her work ethic as well!

Even more importantly, the test subjects (Whom only had the Tonic 'Enhance Self' applied) were no longer risking life and sanity to help her do her work! Sarah had developed a 'Framework Cleansing' serum that, unlike the 'reset' serum previously designed, would ONLY wipe out Plasmids being tested from the effective fields.

So no delays while Tonics were reapplied, and no danger from strange Plasmid interactions either! Not to mention the few really bad issues found only caused new Plasmids to fail thanks to 'Enhance Self' protecting her test subjects from side effects.

No more nightmares, no more hurt people or children, just pure science and repetitive testing and data collection!

Oh, and she had safety and good food and housing and all that boring stuff too, but mostly SCIENCE!

She moved to the next person, passing them another sample. "Here, Frame 1234." Seeing the woman's reluctance, Brigid rolled her eyes. "Yes, I had Ms. Killgrave help me modify the production machines to remove all the artificial smells and flavoring. I know the old stuff got very annoying after a while."

Right now was the bulk of the scientific process: Data collection. All these 'psionic frames' were much more subtle than the dangerous materials she had previously worked with, far less powerful, but her NEW leader (The Bone Boss as some of her new assistants called her) didn't care about the speed of progress nor the potential power or profit… No, she wanted her to do this RIGHT.

The way it SHOULD have been done! Slow, comprehensive, documented, and most vital of all: Repeatable. Actual science, that could be built upon and enhanced and improved over generations, her work becoming a foundation a lifetime could support itself on!

More notes. "Frame 1234 falls within the 'alteration' structure. Subject reports that she may be able to shift the shape of rocks at will, I will request materials of various density and composition for stage two analysis."

Not an amazing effect, but at least it seemed more useful than the one that modified the user's bone material compositions to change bone colors. No idea how they were going to eventually test THAT one without surgery. But even so, she felt charged with energy. With purpose!

Even though she was forced to build the model for Frame categorization and description methods herself from scratch, never before had she felt so much progress being gained!

Before, even basic questions like 'Where does this stuff come from?' and so on were ignored or vastly incorrect. The sheer pressure to produce results had been applied with threats and restrictions of every type until she caved under the wall of oppression!

But every new answer HERE came from logical theories that underwent rigorous scientific testing and verification.

She had never felt this clean before. Never so pure, so right!

Dr. Tenenbaum moved on! "Right, ready for Frame 1235?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Amy straightened her top hat.

All the Forest Squad girls had top hats today, since she had asked Ruby for a few made from leaves. The boys WANTED their own hats, but were still arguing because of some sort of competition where each one wanted a taller hat than the others.

Ruby Forest was still helping of course, but some of the hats were so tall that even poor Greg couldn't hold it on his head without tilting dangerously to one side.

She wasn't sure why this argument was ongoing, considering none of the big hats would fit in the tunnels for today. "Ms. Holloway?"

The smiling woman was resettling little Ben's tiny top hat. "Yes, Boss Amy?"

She brushed off her shoulders (Fancy people did that!) "Today we are Lady King Princess Amy!"

Her friend Filly tugged her sleeve. Oh right. "And the Forest Squad Princess Knights and uh…" What was it again? "Whatever the boy's said they were."

One of the kids hidden under a massive leaf hat could barely be heard. Sounded Paulish. "We're the Tip Toppers!"

And that set the boys off on another argument about how Dapper Dragon or Fancy Foresters were better names and if hats should be taller or wider despite the related transportation issues…

Thankfully her female friends were more relaxed when it came to adventure time. "Vice Lady King Princess Emily! Prepare the troops! Today we shall be playing upon the soccer fields of battle!"

Ms. Holloway sighed. "Sorry, Little Ms. Grinder, but we are not allowed on a field trip outside the Dome until we can get more watchers. Adults worry, you know."

Amy sighed. It was awesome that Blue Lady had made her super smart and strong and stuff, but it also meant she had to be all 'responsible' and 'adult', and that turned out REALLY annoying and mostly frustrating.

But fine. "New orders, Vice Lady King Princess Emily! We are off to kidnap some adults, THEN prepare the troops for battle!"

Growing up sucked sometimes. "Also, someone help Paul out from under his hat, he can't follow us like that. Yes, thank you Jill, very helpful."

Thankfully the leaf outfits that Ruby Forest provided were very sturdy, otherwise all this roughhousing and future soccer playing could mess up the look!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Rosalind smiled as she dragged her significant other. "You must see this 'Market Dome', it is truly outstanding!"

Of course Robert was going to be a stick in the mud about it. "Sister, I still don't see why you are so excited over yet another knick knack flea market. It's not like we NEED such trash."

She rolled her eyes as he was a downer, but he would be and had been and would eventually be such and she was used to it. "I've found something thrilling, and I must share it with you!"

He bemusedly allowed her to tug him along. "Dear, we've seen it. We have work to do, regrets to repair."

Her smile lit up the nothingness. "Yes, yes, and we will have done it and it's already done already and we are doing it, so why not take time for a bit of a walk?"

Robert huffed but didn't resist. "Just because we have time doesn't mean time should be used."

Rosalind felt her own humor double. "Perhaps. However, I have found a very interesting variable!"

He followed her nowhere, everywhere under his toes. "Every variable can be considered a constant to some degree. What has caught your attention so dearly?"

Rosalind then moved… elsewhere.

Not forward, nor back, nor to the side. Nowhere within the network of relationships and potential and existence. Even for people like them, it was a very odd direction indeed!

She grinned with great satisfaction as Robert froze in stunned awe at the bustling impossible underwater Dome. Grand crowds of humanity surging through this version of Rapture, but the atmosphere was odd. Both the literal and figurative atmosphere.

His eyes were full of wonder. "We were not here."

Rosalind smiled. "No. No we were not."

Robert hesitantly touched allness. "This… This is unconnected."

She nodded.

When she was a girl, she dreamt of standing in a room looking at a girl who was and was not herself, who stood looking at another girl, who also was and was not herself. Her mother took this for a nightmare.

Rosalind saw it as the beginning of a career in physics. It had led her to impossibility, adventure, her death, but most importantly: Her brother. And eternity.

And now she was able to show her brother that eternity was much larger than they expected!

With renewed childlike glee, Robert Lutece led them into another lighthouse, with a changed man, and an altered city. Someplace old that felt new, a worn pair of shoes never upon tired feet.

How fascinating!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam blinked at the surge of Choice Points the Warehouse picked up out of nowhere. A quick check on Sarah, who was taking a long nap… Nothing exactly reality altering. Nor destiny destroying.

Huh.

Well, whatever. Dump it into the 'Please fix everything' pile of energy requirements. Goodness knows he was already shoving everything he could into the 'Add power to fix issue' power bank.

And no, the advanced Ooze generators provided lots and lots of electrical power but nothing on the high tier level of Choice Points. Otherwise Adam would have stuffed this Warehouse with massive tanks of the stuff and just powered his Jumper to the max in a week or so!

Dreaming of having actual energy boosts and the ability to apply them as needed, he continued his modifications of the place. The problem was the easy stuff had been fixed already, NOW he was running into issues. Limits and restraints.

Some of Sarah's 'Powers' were more advanced interface interactions between her real self and her avatar. And he would continue to expand such things as possible, but none of these hack abilities could stand up to the raw power of extracted Jump Document Choice Point purchases.

Those extracted basically a copy of a portion of the Jump and the related structures so that the Warehouse Egg could ensure proper improvements regardless of future trips. Way beyond a basic Plasmid, which may react very poorly in future trips.

Sure, Sarah's Avatar could use any of these psionic frameworks while here in this place. No problem, no issue! And Adam was carefully watching how her body changed under 'Enhanced Self' and the other Tonics so that her 'Bad Ass' purchase could provide better benefits in the future.

But when she left, most of these abilities would falter or have horrible, unexpected, or even random effects. All the stuff not purchased from the universe with the Jump Document, at least.

It wasn't a waste of time, but there was a reason why Adam didn't mind having Dr. Tenenbaum take over the Plasmid and Tonic research. Sarah was only mildly interested in them to begin with, and while she had her own projects Adam was more than happy having 'Research' try to turn some of these damaged Warehouse resources into something usable.

Worse, some of this damage seemed BEYOND conceptual. Something related to Divinity? Maybe?

Nothing living, aside from Sarah's avatar, could live in the Warehouse now.

Special rooms, as discovered, could be modified to match the current Jump environment. So she could easily set up farms and stuff with each Jump while there.

But during transit? Or if she didn't carefully create special spaces?

Yeah, no pets, no companions, no long term farms. Maybe, MAYBE a hydroponics setup? But nothing would grow between Jumps even then, despite the massive 'distances' involved, and honestly it would be faster and easier to replant the whole system after every jump with cloned replacement seedlings and animals.

Even if future Jumps offered Warehouse additions like attaching a whole planet or something, Adam wasn't sure it would matter. As far as he could tell, Sarah's Warehouse just couldn't handle any of that now after the damage. It was too much of an issue, and Adam didn't have enough data to even begin to discover anywhere to start trying to address the issue.

Another problem was collections.

Aside from that recent bump of CP, she was earning far fewer points than expected or deserved. Sure, Adam was dumping any income into fixing that problem, and it WAS improving… But the 'fix' would be slow.

Whatever odd damage happened in this case RESISTED repair, but didn't FORBID it.

So uh. That's at least a step up?

For the next who knew how many Jumps, she would only have earned a few dozen CP at best. Stuff better spent trying to heal than getting new points… No, she would have to buy drawbacks and modifications to the Jump Scenario to buy any actual upgrades and power ups.

Still, she seemed fine with the situation. It was FAR better than her previous mess, even if that was a low bar to cross. It was Adam who felt frustrated at all this.

Any other 'Benefactor' would have likely killed this child as a mercy. Like a wounded soldier in hostile territory about to be consumed by zombie worms. The amount Adam was spending on her situation and the damage he had done to his own sense of 'self' would have ended most of the documented beings that would run these eggs.

Because these Warehouse incubators were pure profit normally. Even when a Jumper 'wasted their time' or did nothing, the Benefactor would at least break even, according to the logs.

Adam was spending so many resources that he should technically be WAY deep in the red. Heavy in debt, as he carelessly spent any and all income on his Jumper's needs and allowed massive sections of the egg itself to be harvested and rebuilt.

He chuckled. Technically, Adam should be dead.

His whole 'body' was more a shard of a distant self, heavily integrated into the Warehouse that was even now being restructured to be more efficient, more effective, and more robust.

Oh, it wouldn't be hard to leave. Once she was stable and so forth, extracting his Shard and continuing on his way would only require building up enough resources for the Warehouse to repair itself.

Sarah would likely not even notice, since Adam would both stay and leave at the same time. Just like before, and probably like in the future. That core Shard of his existence sort of acted like an Adam seed, growing a new existence of himself at each destination and letting them enjoy their life while leaving a data connection for his own future self.

Probably.

That was the worst part of this. Every new journey would be needing a bit of faith that it would work, that he wasn't killing his future self accidentally.

But at least this time, Adam knew it had worked twice before. Once from Origin, once from Cultivation, and hopefully even more after Jumpchain.

Because while Origin would get results very quickly (Sort of? Time was odd in the Abyss), Cultivation would never know if Jumpchain survived, and neither of them would know about the next journey.

He smiled as Sarah was jumped on by Emily when Susan's girls got home, causing her to flail and fall off the couch.

Yeah, at least it was a journey worth taking.

He blinked as ANOTHER burst of CP came out of nowhere.

Seriously, what the hell!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elizabeth blinked at the closed detective office.

Which was wrong.

This should be an OPEN detective office.

Her eyes narrowed. When had she last been wrong?

No. More important than that. When has she EVER been wrong!?

Closer inspection showed even MORE discrepancies.

This wasn't even a detective office, this was a rentable office that clearly hadn't been occupied before. There wasn't even any furniture inside!

A quick movement, an attempt to open her Tears, a gap in reality… And she could? Sort of?

Stepping out of existence, she communed with herselves.

For the first time in… Well, ever, really, she all felt confused.

All of them felt for the Lutece twins… And instead found a note that would never be written, placed in a location that couldn't exist and written in familiar hand writing.

It simply said, 'Gone Shopping.'

What the hell!?

More and more of herselves took short breaks, leaving her various tasks and chores (And more than a few leaving various cafes in a very lovely French city) as focus began to grow on this one individual city under the waves.

It was all… Not so much wrong, but uh. Different?

People were missing, events were happening out of order, places were gone or added. The more she looked, the more she found herself fascinated.

What EXACTLY was going on here?

Several of her quickly found out that the past was locked beyond a certain point. That time itself was being hardened and reinforced on some unseen level in a continuous march onwards, but only right here.

From now onwards, all of her could easily visit and explore this place. But… Not before.

A new constant, an unchangeable constant for some reason, was one of her being confused by a closed business that SHOULD have been operated by one of the last versions of her villainous fathers. The last of the Comstocks.

Her vision showed he might have memory issues, not remember his crimes or the actions he took that destroyed so many lives… But she wanted to be sure. To stop the horror at the root.

But what now?

More and more of her examined what they could. No changes were allowed, not before this moment, but she could at least view… Something.

They all went silent for a moment when she found a moment.

Just… The most insignificant spot of time, the most innocent seeming place in reality.

But suddenly there were waves like a whale hitting a swimming pool! And she couldn't tell WHY!

Changes up and down the timeline, alterations to dozens of connecting and unrelated realities, something that felt massive but yet somehow natural. An act of nature, more than some sort of mechanical device or enhanced ability.

Her explorations began to grow ever more confusing.

Where was the madness? The children being put under the knife? The famous sicknesses of Rapture herself?

For that matter, where were all the people!? For all the lack of evidence, the missing fear and violence, most of the city seemed unusually depopulated.

One of her suddenly informed the multitude about emptied slum shelters, another reported frantically busy shipping happening in several places, but the big clue came from one of her more bored explorers, who stumbled on an underwater golf course.

Over a dozen of herselves stared in shock at what seemed to be several stolen professionally designed 18 hole golf courses. On the ocean floor. Each one around 150 to 200 acres in size, in massive domes made from what looked like pure diamond.

Several of her couldn't keep it in. Talking to yourself was fine, right? "That's more space dedicated to golf than is reasonable."

Another her nodded. "I think Rapture was something like three square miles? With most of it undeveloped?"

Several her's did the math for the rest. "If they used it all, it would be 1920 acres. And this is already around half that size in golf courses alone, water hazards and… Why? No, really, why?"

Another her absently pointed. "I think the far one has lava traps? We've never really looked into golf, but I'm sure that's not normal."

Forty or fifty of hers watched even as a few dozen began showing up down in the golf areas to get closer looks.

How?

There was not finding her target, then there was THIS mess! The hell!?

It was like opening the wrong closet when trying to find the linens and accidentally falling into Switzerland. Or finding a llama in your spare parts!

All of her avoided the surveillance methods out of habit as they continued to explore this VERY strange location. Not many answers were found, although for such a massive facility addition there were very few people actually within the course Domes themselves.

Eventually part of her got exasperated and went to ask someone in the near empty Fort Frolic. She felt lucky enough to actually find someone considering they were apparently in the middle of moving.

The answers didn't actually answer much.

What the hell was everyone doing heading over to Pauper's Drop!?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah was listening to Amy and Emily babble about how good they were at soccer even if they didn't really know all the rules when Adam broke in. {{Uh, Sarah?}}

That tone was the 'Adam is worried' tone, and THAT didn't sound good... Ever.

A quick excuse and sending the kids off to their parents had Sarah get some space. "What happened?"

Adam seemed really distracted. {{I am not sure, but whatever is going on it is accelerating. Nothing is registering as dangerous necessarily, as far as I can determine…}

Well, what then!? "Just tell me what you can."

He hummed. {{You are gaining Choice Points.}} Data began to scroll by her vision. {{Rapidly.}}

Good? "That's great, right?"

Adam didn't seem exactly thrilled. {{It won't damage the Jump but you ARE now earning almost a thousand times as much energy than you were two days ago. Almost as much as if you were undamaged. And the rate of power increase is going upwards.}}

That… Seemed like a lot. "So uh. Do I get more power or something? More stuff from the Jump Document?"

He grunted. {{No, though it will speed up some repairs. The issue seems to be some sort of obscurity defense failing… somehow. A module that was supposed to keep you low key apparently couldn't handle the sudden stress.}}

She frowned. "Was it the golf domes? They were pretty big, but I didn't think that would be an issue."

Adam checked the logs. {{No, it was having a massive number of minorities and women vanish from the surface near overnight to unknown locations. All at once, and all sporting related. With no trace.}}

They winced as he displayed some newspapers from the surface that some of the new immigrants had brought in recently. {{Yeah, that caused a bit of a scare apparently.}}

Oh. "Yeah uh. That would be a big change to history, wouldn't it? Is this going to cause us problems?"

She saw Dave and his wife approaching and waved away his obvious concern as Adam hummed. {{I… I don't think so? I'm not entirely sure what this obscurity module was supposed to hide, but I already repaired a LOT of danger detection sensors. Everything seems fine so far.}}

Sarah glanced at a list of messages as Adam highlighted some. {{No extra planar incursions, no other worldly mental intrusions, no alien invasions, no angry pandas, it all seems good according to the lists. Mostly.}}

She squinted. "What the hell does 'Xsome Alert' mean? The one with the note 'Twins Basil! Twins!' under subsection 69?"

Adam's displays slowed down in confusion. {{Uh. I'm not sure? That was in the original code I think, I didn't add it. One second.}}

Brand NEW random screens scrolled information everywhere. {{No, no, nothing about fish, no, that seems wrong, nope, nada, AH! Here we go!}}

And Adam went quiet.

Sarah waited.

Yep.

Any time now.

Oh come on. "Adam?"

Apparently a voice can blush. {{Uh... Ahem. Xsome Alert: Subsection 69: Waifus Variant: Alerts when a number of popular and adorable or cute or beautiful women, also known as 'Waifus', invade your localized reality within a set interval. Used when the Warehouse's Waifu counter or Husbando counter overflows.}}

Sarah blinked. "Huh. Are the new sports women that attractive?" No, not important. Well, not super important anyway. "So why get an alert on this? I assume you didn't set it up."

Adam coughed. {{No, I did not. And the notes imply that in many Jumps, the people that qualify as either Waifu or Husbando also tend to be very powerful. Thus, depending on the Jumper, the situation can become dangerous. Not all of the other Jumpers are as nice as you are, Sarah.}}

She hummed. "But why only the Waifu alert? I'm sure if the women athletes set off the alerts, the male ones should set off the Husbando version?"

He sighed. {{It might be a crossover maybe? Maybe our Jump detection units malfunctioned and we only saw Bioshock's Document. I know there are lots of fan service sports anime out there, after all. I will need time to… Oh.}}

She blinked. "What?"

Adam seemed VERY busy all of the sudden. {{Oh shit. And the Lutece twins are eating in the Fish Bowl over at the Food Dome too! Crap. Shit shit shit, there's more than just a few!}}

Sarah equipped her bone armor from her ECHO system inventory. "Tell me what to do."

That seemed to focus him. {{Right, right. We should be good, we aren't being assholes and most of the time the girl should be reasonable. Probably? My inherited memories for this Jump don't have enough details on it, but she should be fine. Fuck, I did NOT want to interact with any main characters directly, it was bad enough doing those deals with Andrew Ryan!}}

Her heads up display showed her a location. {{Right, go here and be VERY POLITE with the nice lady on the other side. And any of her other selves or other people that may be with her. And just in case, be ready to teleport straight back to the Warehouse, she won't bother any natives if we somehow set her off. Probably.}}

Fuck, this seemed very serious. Adam didn't even flinch when she flooded a death planet with fire and monster meat, but he was CLEARLY concerned about this upcoming encounter. "Got it. I'm going now."

Calm breath, let's do this!

{{WAIT, TAKE OFF THE DEATH ARMOR FIRST!}}

Right, let's take off the flaming coat of bones, THEN do this!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Elizabeth and herselves stared in wonder at what had once been Pauper's Drop.

Her minds threw words like 'colorful', 'dreamlike', and 'wonderland', while more usual statements like 'beyond impossible' and 'curiouser and curiouser' danced in her thoughts.

A movement that was beyond the here and now and yet NOT HER had all seventy three of herselves turn at once to face… A beautiful woman holding a stick?

She looked a bit tense but ready for anything! "Good afternoon! I've been told that I have some new guests stopping by! Would any of you… you… uh."

They watched with fascination the time and space oddity as the newly arrived woman let her weapon (A bone spike? Huh.) drop downwards. "Wow, you are all REALLY pretty."

Oh.

The new woman blushed bright red and coughed. "I mean, uh, never mind. Hi! My name is you, how can I help Sarah?"

Several of her couldn't help but smirk as the woman froze in self confusion that quickly transformed into mortification. "Ugh, I really should have taken a longer nap."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam was being very quiet.

Technically, things were going well. Sarah was showing several Elizabeth's around, the Lutece 'siblings' were apparently satisfied wandering about while ignoring most of reality to get to interesting new places and whatnot. No alerts, no further alarms, just… Going well.

But he was being very, VERY quiet.

No communication to Sarah, no changes to the Warehouse, nadda. Passive systems only. No external modifications, no procedural changes.

Theoretically, nothing should happen.

Sarah could hang out with her dozen or so beautiful women wearing different outfits without issue, especially because the many Elizabeths seemed to find her fun to talk to. The woman of women seemed to enjoy the changes Sarah had already made under the ocean, and there was a lighthearted feeling to the whole experience that normally would be considered warm and fuzzy to Adam and his own matchmaking tendencies.

The only connection to Sarah, to the Warehouse's Avatar, were the many data connections and default information feeds. Because shutting them down or altering them might be a 'loud' change, and Adam couldn't risk that. Couldn't risk any of that, at all.

He winced as Sarah 'Stepped' to a different section of the Sports Ball, bringing a crowd of her new friend with her. But warning her would be more 'loud' than letting her be.

They hadn't had time to talk, not really time for anything really. Adam sent her off and hoped for the best, and sad as this was? This was CURRENTLY one of the BETTER outcomes!

Hopefully his Jumper wouldn't try and come home to the Warehouse anytime soon.

Not that it would be a problem. Probably.

Again, nothing should happen.

The Warehouse was an out of context problem, something not found anywhere, anywhen, or even anywho or anywhat or anywhy. Gods and Demons, Eldritch and Fae, none should be able to interact or interfere with Sarah and her true egg, her Warehouse.

But the Warehouse, Adam, they were both broken. Recovering, however slowly.

Trying to fix everything, yes. But as this most recent issue showed, Adam was holding stuff together with spit, gum, shoestrings, and optimism. Mostly optimism, really.

This mess couldn't handle a couple of chicken mutants living in here for a week without careful room modifications and designed equipment, without constant monitoring and active ability use!

If any of the reality traveler's noticed it? If they came here?

It could do nothing. It could destroy Sarah instantly. It could merge Adam and Sarah together. Or separate them forever. Anything. Nothing.

He was terrified to even use active sensors or protection units that had been previously disabled for repair or to conserve energy. No changes, nowhere.

It was nerve wracking!

Adam knew he was likely overreacting, but not by how much. Maybe this place would be FINE regardless of what happened out there, maybe none of the people visiting could determine clues if he talked, or disabled connections, or opened a new one, or sent a message.

But he couldn't take the risk. Any risk, 'Research' hadn't done ANYTHING on this issue! He was flying 100% blind and it felt terrible!

For now, all he could do was set up an interdiction. If Sarah tried to send him messages, they would go into the void. If she actually tried to come here? It would refuse and return an error message with the least amount of data possible, hopefully not giving away anything.

Thankfully the abilities and powers her Avatar used had been automated already, so she wouldn't suddenly lose her recycling or production capability or anything. She could still do stuff, just… Nothing new. No new research, no new 'sudo skills' or tricks.

Nothing that would expose this part of her existence as interactive to outsiders.

As long as the Lutece twins and the many Elizabeths didn't look too closely, the Avatar SHOULD seem to be pulling everything from somewhere in her soul. It was how the Warehouse connected to the thing, after all.

That said, Adam was already using local processing that didn't require the Avatar connection as heavily as possible. Frantically searching for any and all protective and stealth units in use currently, aside from the ones that failed. Finding any records of other such items that might have shut down or broken or (most embarrassingly of all) been 'safely' packed away from the previous Jump and not restored due to lack of energy or Adam being busy!

Glancing at the massive stock of still increasing Choice Points, at least the energy budget was no longer a significant issue. Assuming the girls his Jumper was boasting to didn't accidentally destroy her by sneezing or something.

With his hands tied as far as permissible interactions were concerned, Adam focused on the recovery units. On what he could fix, and in which order. Let's see how much stability he could establish before this current threat made them both explode.

Feeling his partner blush, he rolled his eyes. Well, until his repair failures and mitigations either killed them both or the smitten girl got distracted into snogging a crowd of multidimensional hive mind beauties.

Whichever came first. Heh.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

This was going great! "Oh! My kids are probably done with lessons today, we should go visit them and maybe Grace and the Grinder Kids!"

Through some unknown selection process, the more flirty version of the beautiful woman seemed to have ended up closest to Sarah on this particular walk. Or at least the ones with tighter clothing and some deliciously scandalous skirts… Mmm.

Nope! Focus! "Would you like to come meet them? They love to see me work in my lab, I'm sure you'll find it interesting!"

Elizabeth(Thin Stockings) hummed. "The Grinder kids? Is that a job description?" Elizabeth(Low Cut Blouse) tilted her head. "I wasn't aware you had children. Your body recovered fabulously!"

Sarah held back a gulp as Elizabeth(Long Blue Fingernails) smiled. "Uh. I mean, the Grinder kids belong to Dave and Susan Grinder over in the Complex Dome, I'm like his boss. And they aren't MY children, except for sort of? I mean, on paperwork…"

She shook her head. "Technically ALL the kids in the Ruby Forest Orphanage are legally my children to avoid a lot of shady shit when I set the place up. But other than Sammy One and Sammy Two? Well, the other children prefer the staff and Grace rather than having me as a parent."

That set a good bulk of the beauties back before Elizabeth(High Heels) spoke up. "Orphanage?"

Sarah nodded, and did a quick review on what Adam had put in the woman's data profile before going silent… Sharing stuff would be alright, right? Yeah. It should be fine. "You basically know what was supposed to happen down here in Rapture, right? Little Sisters and all that, and the slums and stuff? The New Year's Eve riots? All that?"

Seeing the many women give much more serious looks, she nodded. "Well, I got here from a bad place and didn't approve of any of that. Decided to use my abilities to set up a homeless shelter for the less fortunate."

Elizabeth(Sensual Smirk) and Elizabeth(Raised Eyebrow) waved at a nearby viewing window, encompassing Pauper's Drop.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Alright, things might have escalated a little bit. But my original PLAN was to make a homeless shelter or orphanage, keep people from falling into the medical testing for Plasmids and Tonics and so on and so forth. Save who I can."

She felt Elizabeth(Silken Shirt) lean into her left arm, giggling. "And you ended up adopting children?" The other Elizabeths had warm looks in their eyes that didn't help her stay calm.

Ignoring her soft arm, Sarah focused. She can't stop the blush, but could at least try damn it! "After I remade the slum area, I planned on Pauper's Drop just having a daycare so people could keep kids safe while working until I stumbled on Fontaine's child kidnapping and smuggling ring. Saved the kids, ended the assholes in charge, basically adopted two girls and brought the other dozens down here."

That killed the mood slightly, but thankfully the extra time let her recover emotionally a bit. Sensual sirens were hot as hell, and the blatant teasing was more than appreciated, but made it hard to keep her emotional guard up. Which was probably the point, really.

Also, those eyes. Damn those eyes! Those baby blues were just cheating!

Sarah felt another hand pull her other arm into a warm embrace… Oh hello, Elizabeth(Tuxedo Suit)! Damn well fitted suit indeed! "So… You basically want to introduce us to your kids?"

Uh.

Elizabeth(Slit Skirt) and Elizabeth(Short Sleeves) hummed while Elizabeth(VERY High Heels) sauntered by. "Meeting the family sounds delightful!" Elizabeth(School Teacher Outfit!?) nodded. "Shall we be on our way?"

Damn it Adam! Help!

{{Automated Reply: I'm sorry; the Benefactor you have reached is not in service, and is temporarily disconnected to prevent discovery. The Warehouse you have modified is under lock down and is not in service at this time. This is a recording.}}

That doesn't help me with the hot chicks Adam! It doesn't help at all!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Grace blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Little Sally was twisting her dress. "I said lots of nice ladies are here and Bone Lady came and she wants you to come out to the lab sitting area and stuff."

A quick glance… Ben was still asleep, and would be for a while. He should be fine. Not that it was really a concern, the other women and men working for the Orphanage would keep an eye out for them all like usual, but it felt important to check. "Alright, I'm coming."

Sally nodded and ran out to join the loud crowd of swirling kids that were always told to be quiet near the napping rooms.

Grace Holloway carefully stood… then gave little Ben a quick kiss on the forehead. "Sleep well, son."

The paperwork would go through by the end of the week anyway, they were already family to each other in all ways that mattered.

Now, to see what her friend the 'Bone Lady' had gotten up to today. A lot of nice ladies, huh? Hopefully not that crowd of show girls that were always fangirling over the woman when she came to see her performances.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

This was hell. Seductive, wonderful hell. "And… uh. These are the older ones, little Sammy One and Two are away right now taking their naps along with little Ben and the younger ones…"

The number of Elizabeths had vastly increased when they reached the Ruby Forest playground, a small crowd encircling the area while the children (who had grown quite accustomed to the more strange things in life) simply called them all 'Big Sister' and (Like many children) just rolled with it.

Well, the girls did. The older boys (And a few more mature young ladies) were blushing messes like Sarah was attempting NOT to be. But at least the youngest just enjoyed having someone willing to play games, even if it was a whole lot of the SAME someone playing mostly similar games.

Elizabeth(Blue Lipstick) grinned. "I can't believe they are all alive!" Another Elizabeth(Matron Clothing) seemed close to tears. "No matter how fast we work, we rarely reach them all in time. Some rules apply from City to City restricting when we can traverse the everything."

Sarah sadly smiled. "Most of them. I found out some people were experimented on before I arrived down here, but stopped any new testing subjects. Even managed to get to Dr. Tenenbaum out of there, she's head of our Plasmid research now."

That got her several sharp looks that she waved away. "I've advanced the research topic, now that she knows the true source of her 'ADAM' and how Plasmids and Tonics truly operate, we have ample supplies and no long term side effects when testing. No torture, no death, no mutations."

She rolled her eyes at the stunned looks. "When you DON'T kill off your testing subjects and actually PAY them, it is much easier and faster to get results. Honestly, some of the mad science down here seemed DESIGNED to be cartoonishly evil."

Elizabeth(Silk gloves) and Elizabeth(Layered Skirts) sidled closer. "True source?" The other women not focused on playing with children were listening closely.

Uh… She should be safe to talk to about it all, right? The notes said she was a good person and understood multiversal theory better than most. Right, Adam?

{{Automated Reply: I'm sorry; the Benefactor you have reached is not in service, and is temporarily disconnected to prevent discovery. The Warehouse you have modified is under lock down and is not in service at this time. This is a recording.}}

Damn it, not helping!

Fine, she'd go with her gut on this one. "I can show you the details later, but the sea slugs don't create the stuff. They are just adapted towards filtration and are amazing at extracting ADAM from other sources. It's why making them symbiotic increases their gathering rate of the material, since people eat and drink so much stuff tainted with the raw components compared to just munching on algae and sucking sea water."

Suddenly half the sultry Elizabeths somehow swapped with a number of ladies wearing doctors outfits, lab coats, and surgical smocks. """Really?""" Elizabeth(Nurse Hat) leaned forward, showing off her tight outfit. "And you don't mind sharing this? A bit of data exchange?"

Sarah cleared her throat. Man, it was warm today. "Uh. Yeah, I'm alright with it. Though I would appreciate it if you all wouldn't spread this around without being careful, it can cause issues obviously."

Seeing nods, she continued. "It relates to my first attempt at making a Tonic, something to help fix a little girl that I healed WAY too aggressively." Seeing confusion, she blushed. "Accidentally made her a superhero and unable to slow down or sleep. I mean, she was basically invincible and didn't need to eat or drink either, but it was an issue."

Suddenly Amy! "It was me! I was super fast and could jump high and maybe fell a lot but it didn't hurt and I got to carry my big sis Emily around and Daddy but that made him throw up so I can't do that anymore."

And she was gone.

So uh. Guess she was still doing that, just without the super speed.

Elizabeth(Doctor) and Elizabeth(Nurse) raised an eyebrow.

The Jumper sighed. "I assume you know I am not a local? Or that it is at least obvious?"

Nods from everyone.

Sarah shrugged. "I originally tried to heal little Amy with something that had cured ME. Back when I was sick, wounded, malnourished, dehydrated, mentally slipping, and exhausted. It was a substance not native to this reality, and it tried to apply massive levels of 'Fix Yourself!' to a little girl who was only mildly poisoned."

Elizabeth(Lab Coat) hummed. "And how did you decide to address the issue?"

She handed her (And several other scientific women) some paper from inventory with the related data marked into it. Easy enough to form, Adam had made several paperwork sudo skills over the past weeks. "The material ADAM is formed of can be purified into what I call 'CEE', or 'Chaos Extracted Excellence'. It all originally comes from this algae I call Primordial Ooze, which is eaten by the sea life and collected by the sea slugs."

Sarah pointed at a portion of the testing. "Basically, raw CEE when not electrified can pick up psionic uh… Well, a tiny amount of mildly psychic field contamination. Living things in this world have a mental 'This is me!' bubble or aura around them, and that influences CEE when they interact."

An intellectual Elizabeth(Short Cropped Hair) hummed as she reviewed it. "And these fields of self are related to Plasmids?" Another Elizabeth(Square Glasses) nodded. "I see, they influence the materials retroactively. Causing the effects by changing the cause, in a way."

Several of the more bookish looking Elizabeths blinked. "Then why all the side effects?"

Sarah sighed, running a hand through her bone white hair. "Because Dr. Tenenbaum and the rest never found this field and indirectly interacted with it by using contaminated biological samples as kludged tools and catalysts."

Elizabeth(Chewing A Pen) hummed. "Most of the material in the other Plasmids would not be required." Elizabeth(Lip Biting) nodded. "Without that extra mess, side effects would nearly vanish! The instability, the madness, the rejections and catastrophic deaths! Gone!"

Suddenly the looks from the scientific portions of Elizabeth's many personalities were giving Sarah a similar expression as her crowd of sultry, bisexual, lesbian, and seductive sides.

Eep! Help! "OH HI GRACE!" With desperation she moved the newly arrived and amused Jazz singer in between the bevy of beauties and hid behind her. "Grace, meet all the Elizabeths. Everyone, meet Grace Holloway, part time singer and one of the lead matrons at the Ruby Forest Orphanage!"

Oh there were more sexy people on this side of the woman too! Grace, be more people so you can block more hotties! "SHE'S A GREAT PERSON WE SHOULD TALK TO HER AND NOT DO ANYTHING SUDDEN!"

Grace chuckled and smiled at the crowd, ignoring Sarah's grip on her shoulders. "Are you all sisters? I can't begin to imagine such a large family."

Elizabeth(Long Red Dress) adjusted her silken gloves. "Depending on your point of view?" While Elizabeth(Tight Black Suit) and Elizabeth(Floofy Skirts) slid by with style. "We've had nearly everything from a single mother to single father, loving parents, four parents where half kidnapped us from the other, and so on and so forth. We are each other."

Elizabeth(Curled Hair) nodded. "Although many of us didn't have the best home lives, we do consider ourselves to be sisters." Elizabeth(Gothic Dress) chuckled as she hugged Elizabeth(VERY Tight Shirt) "Or more than such."

Grace chuckled at Sarah whining behind her. "Alright, Ms. Elizabeth was it?"

Several nodded. "Many of us go by Elizabeth, Anne, or Liz DeWitt."

Fair enough. "Right, Ms. DeWitt: I'm afraid you are overwhelming our friend Ms. Killgrave, though I doubt she is too terribly concerned."

They both paused hearing the woman behind the singer grumble. "The hotness will kill me, but what a way to go!"

Oops. "That was IN MY HEAD! None of you can judge me!"

Grace sighed at the shark like grins that now surrounded them. "Well, I tried. Children! Let's go play in the forest for a little while! Constance, Juline, please help me escort the group. Ms. DeWitt, would some of your sisters care to come?"

A sea of teasing blue eyes sparkled. "Some of us would love to!"

Elizabeth(Is that even clothing!?) stood near the back of the crowd, hidden from the children. "I'm sure the rest of us can keep Ms. Killgrave company." Elizabeth(Glasses) adjusted her notes. "After all, some of us are hungry for data." Elizabeth(Serious Suit) sighed. "Though we'll keep it appropriate for the public and return her to you before too long."

Grace gave a nod. "Back before bedtime, she's got a big work schedule tomorrow."

Traitor! "Wait, Grace! I uh… I've got lots of stuff to do and could use some help and…"

Sarah felt her words trail off at the goddamned TEASING look Grace returned to her. "I'm sure I can help you tomorrow, you seem to have a full schedule for tonight."

Elizabeth(Dark Eyeliner) hummed. "I'm sure some of us wouldn't mind you joining us?"

Grace shook her head, dignified even if slightly blushing. "I'm afraid not today, Ms. DeWitt. The children have a bit of a walk to do."

Not today? Oh.

Mmm.

WAIT! NO! FOCUS! "Grace!"

But it was too late. Her friend and the wall of children had already moved off, and a small crowd of sassy scientists and teasing temptresses moved in.

No one should be able to saunter like that in real life! Those hips though… "So… Uh."

Elizabeth(Stethoscope, WHY does she have one!?) grinned. "I suppose we should go to your secret lab?" Elizabeth(Nurse Cap) nodded. "Collect the data and all that." Elizabeth(Black Leather!?) Smirked. "Do experiments?"

Blue eyes tore down a lot of her resistance. "Yeah. That sounds lovely."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Grace moved away from the kids showing the many tall women around 'their' forest, with Ruby herself being helpful forming paths like usual. "You ARE going to treat her right, yes?"

The Ms. DeWitt nearest to her right nodded. "We might be pushing a bit more than we usually do, but it's hard to resist teasing someone so fascinating." Another few agreed. "She is unique. Not just special for this place, but in all places."

An identical woman waved her hand. "We have certain abilities, certain skills. We use them to try and fix some issues, help some people, but even with an infinite number of us there are an infinite number of places and problems and situations. An ongoing task."

It was picked up by another. "Sarah feels unique. Special. She doesn't blend into the background like most we meet, she isn't oppressed by our nature or behavior, and she feels no concern about our strength or abilities… It's very attractive."

Another lady giggled. "Plus there are so many of me! Those of us not interested for scientific or potential dating related reasons simply left to return to work, or continue to explore elsewhere."

A grinning woman continued. "Everyone who is staying around here is really enjoying spending time together, doing something for fun rather than yet more attempts at never ending responsibilities."

Grace had been in Rapture a while now, and had learned how to roll with the punches. "But you won't abuse her trust?"

A few nods made her feel better. "Sarah somehow is separate from everything. This whole place is disconnected now too, somehow. It is why so many of me can be here at once, normally that would cause a lot of problems and require careful work and specific circumstances."

An Elizabeth with twin tails grinned. "But for now? We can all relax, enjoy each other's company, and not devastate our other plans! Visiting here has quickly become the first place of safety that we can use as a vacation spot while letting us return to the place and time we left without issue!"

Time travel. Well, why not, Ms. Killgrave seemed to treat impossible powers like normal. So could she! "I'm glad?"

Another Elizabeth sighed. "Plus, she's cute when she blushes."

Grace chuckled as a small group of near identical women sighed or giggled. "Right, well just treat her right. I might not want to give the shovel speech to fine women like yourselves, but my friend is important to me. To all of us, really."

Another Elizabeth nodded. "Dying was very uncomfortable. I avoid it when possible."

Wait, what?

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

It was both a relief and a disappointment when Sarah found out that showing off her lab distracted the crowd of beauties from their tantric teasing.

It turns out that the woman crowd was fascinated by the idea of conceptual Tonics and serums, once Sarah shared enough data to explain the idea clearly enough. The crowd were devouring the databases and the many reports gathered so far, though they did make slight grumbles about not being able to 'cheat' and steal copies of completed work from other copies of herself that were further along in another time stream.

Because apparently there was only ONE Rapture with Sarah in it. Ever.

Which was neat! And if that meant more Elizabeths were coming HERE to visit HER, even MORE neat!

Though they had backed off slightly when Sarah explained that she was a bit touch shy due to her past traumas. Being under the 'Kidnappers' control made trusting others for sexual interactions tricky, and even with Adam now in the Warehouse Sarah was more at the cuddling and kissing stages rather than the 'Rooms Full of Hot Women Orgy' stage in her theoretical love life.

Thankfully they respected her feelings and her request (Maybe even liked it a bit too much) and now her group of sexy friends had retreated to only using hot as hell outfits and sexy talk rather than sensitive touches and manufactured 'Oops!' circumstances.

Which again, was both a relief and a disappointment.

Another Elizabeth(They Found Out Sarah Liked Tiny Skirts!) was fascinated! "I can't believe how many theoretical 'Plasmids' you've found so far!"

Sarah gulped but nodded. "Thanks to 'Enhance Self' Tonics, each individual person can have a psionic framework as powerful as a sea slug without having to breed for generations while eating and drinking raw Ooze and CEE first. It really speeds up research! And I can bring you back later during work hours, and introduce you to Dr. Tenenbaum. She can show you the plans for our future Plasmid testing sessions and our manufacturing goals."

Elizabeth(Lab Skirt!?) was leaning over a bit too much while reviewing a monitor. "Though they seem far less brutish and straight forward than the Plasmids, Vigors, Tonics and so on that I'm more familiar with."

A nod from Elizabeth(Tight Tweed Suit? Surprisingly Mmm!) followed up. "Understandable, now that we can see how hard it was to stabilize any of them. I'm shocked at how fragile these powers were during creation, especially as some psionic fields would warp and collapse as the living cells supporting them would collapse during combination."

Conversations paused as a weary Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum stumbled into the Lab, slugging back a mug of coffee.

They all froze looking at each other.

The doctor raised an eyebrow at Sarah. "Ms. Killgrave, my employer or no, financial backer or not, I insist on no sexual escapades within the workplace. Not in my lab."

She felt her face flame red! "NO! Uh!"

Dr. Tenenbaum waved it off with her mug. "No, I must insist. I'm sure we've all had a lovely daydream or two and I know that I've done my own share of questionable things in my younger years…" She sipped, remembering good times! "But no cloning sexy women in the lab unless it is related to work."

Sarah stood there, mouth open, unsure what to say, as two grinning Elizabeth's stood by her sides and many more filled up the spare space around them.

Glancing at the crowd, the doctor frowned and paused mid sip. "And even if it IS work related, lock the door first. I'm too old to accidentally join a hedonistic study group without significant prior preparation. And more coffee."

Oh god.

Sarah dropped her head into her hands as the two sexy Elizabeths gave her sympathetic back pats.

They wouldn't speak up to correct anything of course, as they apparently found this to be comedy gold, but the emotional support was still appreciated.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam sighed, waves of relief flooding his systems. Literally, as he was now very integrated with the whole mess. {{Right, uh… [[Test: internal passive defenses, internal active defenses, unit degradation checks, and Jump infiltration documentation units.]]}}

Data scrolled by, THIS time with no errors! So far.

There were still several tests he COULDN'T run (Until now, hopefully), such as the external passive and active defenses (For the Avatar) and the Avatar degradation tests. No point in detecting Jump influences on the thing, the Avatar was always drenched in the universes being visited anyway so it would always say 'Yep!', which was a less than useful result.

Not all these procedures were new, many existed in some form or another before Adam even got started, but with the help of 'Research' the entire mess of units had been sorted, repaired, optimized where possible, and then examined.

The new categories sometimes required rebuilding some units entirely, splitting some in half, so on and so forth… But the benefits would be (theoretically) significant!

First, a separation between internal and external Warehouse Units. Elements that require no interaction with the various Jumps would now be fully separated from that scary mess, forever. If something external needs internal data, it would be through the new Connection units ONLY, not the random hodgepodge that existed before.

With all the connections between Sarah's Egg and her Avatar simplified, centralized, and optimized? The process would (should) be easier to monitor, easier to disable in emergencies, and more stable. And that was just the obvious advantage, there were a few surprisingly good features that popped up during development that still needed testing and verification.

Now that the units were sorted and rebuilt from scratch, Adam had managed to improve MOST of them by having 'Research' de-stupid them! Something that was drastically needed, unfortunately.

Because it was clear a LOT of these units were made organically or pulled from other universes as part of the Warehouse fabrication process. Random unneeded requirements were everywhere, many bugs or issues or problems got ignored or even became required for other sections to work, and the interfaces between units were… Ugly.

Now there was some standardization and some modularity to it, and Adam could add some simple units that would examine all parts of the Warehouse, detect which units were most used, and automatically build up redundant fallback duplicates in case of errors, future damage, or (when possible) to allow expanding the parallel processing capabilities involved.

If nothing else, the new automated processes would allow Sarah to disable a specific unit seamlessly for repair while substituting a replacement unit during the work times. No more losing powers or skills while Adam improves something or fixes a flaw! Woo!

Went great with the 'made from scratch' unit degradation detection programs and the new Jump infiltration detection scripts. Because, as Adam already found, new Realms (Or these lesser Jumps) could really mess with your head in nearly impossible to detect ways.

Hopefully these new units would protect Sarah from experiencing similar issues.

Seriously, several shows and movies have entire worlds revolve around cards or spinning tops or fighting robots or whatnot. And no one has any issues with some cardboard being used to determine whether or not your soul is damned and sacrificed to some higher power, or if your top is possessed by a magical ghost dragon, or if your robot is also able to punch out a star.

Adam wasn't going to judge, but hopefully Sarah would at least be able to notice the oddity now.

The passive defenses were easy enough, but the active ones would randomly examine stuff not in use and considered 'not important'... Hopefully catching people or entities or things that would set traps in her own systems without either of them noticing. Worth a shot, at least.

He'd also moved all the existing alerts and gave them ALL a full review. Didn't get rid of any, but had THAT log stored separately from the new alerting system entirely… Sarah might need these at some point, but no reason to force her to use this mess as her FIRST go to resort.

Instead there was a new alert unit and log unit. They interacted with all other Warehouse systems and would hopefully make any future issues more obvious, easier to detect, and faster to fix or address when possible.

Well, enough stalling!

With caution, Adam began accessing the new interface layers.

After all, there were NO other steps he could take, no further reinforcements or defenses possible to construct or enable. Sarah had managed to distract the outsiders long enough for Adam to reach this stage, and now it was time to sink or swim!

Or, more accurately 'Die' or 'Live', but that felt morbid. {{Sarah?}}

A flood of emotions (Being correctly time stamped and logged, woo!) filled the channels. 'Adam! Where the FUCK have you been!?'

Adam didn't really 'hold his breath', but emotionally he tried anyway.

Nothing collapsed, no entities jumping into the Warehouse. Stable? Woo! {{Oh good, we aren't going to die now!}}

Sarah paused mid rant about seductive secretaries, luscious lab assistants, and naughty nurses. '...Was that likely?'

Adam hummed as he ensured everything stayed stable. {{Not anymore, I've been rebuilding your defenses. Speaking of which, prepare for testing of External Active and Defensive Units.}}

She blinked and accidentally said the next part out loud. "Wait, what?"

No time to explain! [[Test: external passive defenses, external active defenses, Avatar degradation checks.]]

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The Elizabeths blinked as Sarah suddenly blinked.

For a moment she vanished, then was nothing, no where, no when, a woman, a girl, a person, a bystander, an illusion, a memory, not much, someone else's problem, someone's baby girl, a bitch, a lover, a mother, a sinner, a… Then it was gone.

Sarah jumped, lightning in her blood and her body wrapped in blue flames as her metal eyes glowed with power, her bone strand hair creaked with embers, her spike pierced the air and her clothing began flickering between colors.

She fell forward, slumping between two concerned Elizabeths. "Holy. Shit."

Her nearest checked her wrist… Heart rate seemed normal, no fever (Despite the flickering blue flames), but SOMETHING happened. "Sarah?"

The woman coughed, blue fog expelling from her lungs. "Holy crap on a hamster, that was a rush."

She frowned. "Sarah, are you alright?"

The woman waved all of her away. "Yeah, just… give me a minute to freak out a little and yell at that voice. You know, that little voice inside that says 'Hey, hold my beer! This will be great!'?" Her friend gave a weak smile. "Basically, I need to mentally rant at that voice because that was a BAD idea, a STUPID thing to do."

Another brought a chair over. "What happened?"

Sarah gratefully fell into it. "The paranoid part of me decided to test some defenses so people like you can't accidently kill me. Which in general is a good idea, but I could have done it more safely, in a better location, and with improved planning and timing."

Her senses examined the woman… And there was a big change, really.

Young Sarah felt normal. A normal woman, who was (according to her senses) doing normal things at a normal time in a normal place. It took a LOT of effort to continue examining her, even with being forewarned and having access to an infinite number of selves to keep the other infinite number on task.

Fascinating!

Oh. Wait. "What do you mean, 'accidentally kill you'?"

Sarah waved both hands! "It's fine now! Look!" Her arm flickered. "See? No explosions, no mental disconnection, and if you or someone else tries to invade my Soul I can now cannibalize parts of myself to destroy the connection and then flee or whatever!"

Several of her rubbed her foreheads, feeling a multipersonal headache build. "Sarah, please don't just say things like 'eating parts of your Soul to avoid exploding.' Not so casually."

She shrugged. "I mean, I could just make them collapse or explode but [[H̴a̙̤̟͉̥͖͘r̠̙͍ͅͅv̺̣̤͚̫́e͙͍̦͓͈̭͍͘s̺̗̪̱̰̠ṱ̠̮̫i̷̲͍̘̤̣n̟͔̟͎̣͓̕g̛͙̱̙̣̖͇]] parts of my Soul Interface would minimize damage and speed up recovery."

The other woman noticed as ALL the Elizabeth's flinched. Sarah blinked. "What?"

The nearest her gulped. "Nothing, just… As long as you are fine now?" Don't ask about the mind rending sound effects, just let it go, ignore it.

Sarah grinned. "Yeah, I'm LOADS better now! Not only did I get to hang out with some awesome women, but now my Soul connection anchors are all gathered together into a single easy to observe location with redundant backups!"

Several of her sighed. Because apparently Souls were both potentially real and theoretically confirmed. "Lovely."

What did that mean for people like her, who treated time, space, and reality like lovely places to spend a holiday? Well, she had no idea. Several hers who had died and rejoined the mass were slightly concerned that the afterlife would be clearly denied to herselves, while others seemed to be terrifyingly amused and somehow hiding something.

Which caught her attentions. Strongly.

At least here, in this odd version of Rapture, she could pull herself in front of herself and actually demand answers from her smug bitch face! THAT would teach HER to hide Soul ending or continuing experiences from herselves!

Wait. That sounded wrong somehow.

Sarah bounced in place, which caught several of her attentions. "So! Now that I can fully access my abilities and stuff and since I don't want to be here when the rest of the lab workers come in for their shift, do you want me to build a separate research workshop for just us?"

Dr. Tenenbaum leaned back over from her lab station. "I said NO SEXY LAB TIMES!"

Sarah stomped her foot! "I'M MAKING MY OWN LAB!"

...Then she blushed atomic red and mentally broke down. "I uh… I mean…"

Elizabeths swooped in. "Oh really?" Another one gently led her away. "Tell us more about this new research workshop idea you had." Several others just grinned at her adorable awkwardness.

Sarah seemed slightly dazed. "I swear, I'm normally more cool than this. Can you overdose on sexy women?"

Hmm. "Sounds like an experiment!" The nearest nurse Elizabeth smirked. "I assume that's what the lab is for."

They led her mumbling form away from Dr. Tenenbaum's cackling, as their friend had apparently hit levels of mortification that made focusing slightly difficult.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave Grinder hummed. "Well we can't just keep adding more tunnels and tubes, there is already a lot of congestion."

The far left councilwoman hummed. "I've seen how efficient the Bathysphere Bus stations are. Maybe have Ms. Killgrave add a few extra to the Domes? It would hopefully make entering and exiting the Complex Dome easier if people didn't all live in one spot and have to exit through one method."

He mentally did some math. "That would help, but even then… Hmm. I'll ask if she has any ideas."

One of the more dickish members snorted. "We always run to her like puppies. The Pauper Council should be able to fix a personnel issue like this WITHOUT needing to bother that woman every five minutes."

Dickish, but also a man who had a point. "Maybe we could reduce working hours?" Seeing the confusion, Dave shrugged. "When we established the three-a-day eight hour shift schedule, foot traffic dropped significantly. If we move it to four-a-day six hour shifts?"

One of the other women nodded. "Then each shift would have fewer workers, and the total traffic heading from or to shifts would drop."

Another hummed. "Could we somehow stagger the arrival and departure times? So the two groups wouldn't smack into each other?"

Dave continued the discussion, even if mentally he found it amusing that everyone subconsciously knew that even cutting the work week down from 40 hours to only 30, the income earned for the Pauper people would STILL be higher than the previous 70 hour or higher work weeks (With no off days) that they used to suffer under.

Hell, giving those people more money and 18 hours of free time a day to spend it might actually make the economy jump a bit. And getting this set up NOW would have people accept it as 'traditional' before the massive population boost fully hits in the next month or so.

Really, the energy in Pauper's Drop was vitalizing! And getting more people, younger people, people with dreams… Before, Dave had to stretch truths, beg for trust, sometimes even accept personal costs to get those he needed to accept a life away from the sun.

But with Sarah's contributions? The job offerings down here were actually, fundamentally, measurably better than the surface! Even WITH 'break times' and 'weekends' and 'maximum work hours' and so on and so forth!

And that was without considering the life changing medical benefits that were still spreading from the new Paid Pauper's Clinic and the revolutionary research from Sarah's power investigation group.

Certainly, it was the first and ONLY human experimentation lab that Dave had ever heard of that was praised by the people being tested on. Good pay, simple requirements, and most people left the place with better health than going in and some free Tonics.

People didn't talk about it because they feared more competition volunteering, not out of risk of vanishing or being silenced. It felt truly odd to Dave, considering how much effort he had put int protecting his people in the past.

But right now? Getting people to abandon their past and the troubles of the surface was easy when you actually sat down to the massive list of benefits offered by Rapture and Pauper's Drop.

Which is why they were trying to stay on top of things NOW, when everything was building momentum, rather than LATER, when they would be overloaded. "Any issues with the underground supply routes to the Domes?"

One of the Sport Ball managers grumbled. "The heavy shipping Bathysphere Barges are able to handle the load for now, but we will need Ms. Killgrave to add another dock on the other side of the Sport Ball. Probably something similar for the Play Ball, assuming the plans match ours."

The Play Ball people nodded in agreement. "I'll add it to the list. Anything else related to the supply delivery routes?"

The head accountant for Ruby Forest Studies (The schools, daycares, and orphanage fell under this umbrella) sighed. "Something is wrong with the forest."

THAT drew attention from everyone. Dave frowned. "What happened?"

The man grumbled. "Your daughter is what happened! Now when the kids go into the place they've started showing up elsewhere in Pauper's Drop! Thankfully Ms. Holloway has been keeping an eye on the little ones, and none have left our walking groups, but honestly!"

One of the women leaned in. "What do you mean, 'showing up'?"

The accountant threw his hands up! "I had twelve of the children end up on the top floor of the Penny Drop! The staff members swear they only stepped into the woods and somehow got all the way over to the Business Dome, and up to the restricted floor of OUR hotel!"

He pointed at Dave. "I haven't even been there yet! That whole level was apparently reserved for people above Gold Pauper status, like Ms. Killgrave herself! I'm not even sure there is an elevator or staircase that even LEADS there!"

Huh. "Emily did say that Amy went exploring yesterday, but I admit I missed a few details."

He loved his daughters, but sometimes they talked at a thousand miles per hour and didn't bother to use turn signals or pauses.

The man slumped. "How am I supposed to protect these kids if they can vanish like this?"

Dave sighed. "I'll ask Amy to make sure to take her teachers and watchers… And I'll talk to Ruby Forest, she's always been reasonable."

And well, he COULD ask the girls not to use the magical forest to explore the underwater city, but Dave knew it was an impossible task when he considered it. If anything, that would just make the kids MORE aware about how much freedom that impossible place gave them.

Then again, may God have mercy on someone trying to hurt the children when his child was with them. Assuming Amy would have time to show off how bulletproof she was before Sarah brought down the wrath of bone spikes upon them.

He saw Rat Catcher's report, after all.

And he would HOPE they would receive mercy, because Dave wanted anyone targeting his kids to live long enough for him to get his claws on the future corpse.

It would be a better ending than if Susan got involved. "You say that the Forest was able to send the teachers and adult watchers with the children?"

The accountant blinked. "Yes?"

Hmm. Turning to the left councilwoman, he saw her thoughtful look too. "Think we could have people just use the woods to get to work faster? Even if it only works one way?"

She hummed. "It would help a lot, but let's not rely on it. We don't know what it costs for the forest to do something like that, and we shouldn't risk damaging the place. Or annoy it... Getting that thing angry is the LAST thing we need."

They all shivered at the idea of that forest with a temper.

Yeah, best leave the teleporting for the kids and try more conventional solutions first.

A belabored secretary entered. Again. "Sorry everyone, but it's Ms. Dinkley again."

Ignoring the groans, the man winced. "Sorry. And it is about her pet. Again."

Dave slid in his chair. "Why the HELL won't she let this go? My appointment with her isn't for another hour, this is a major Council meeting!"

The man at least tried to stay professional. Points to him. "She says this is urgent, her 'wittle baby' distraught. Apparently, he is moping and depressed because of how much soccer is dominating our society."

The dickish councilman slammed his fist! "Why the HELL do we listen to this crackpot!? No, even more than that: Why do YOU put up with this woman Dave!?"

Dave sighed. "Now now, Bill." Dick. "Ms. Dinkley has followed all established procedures as we required, and I restricted her to one meeting a day. The timing was a bit rough on this one, but she is getting better."

Bill glared with hatred. "It is a WASTE. A waste of HER time, a waste of OUR time! A drain on everything we hold dear!"

One of the… less mentally privileged councilmen seemed happy enough. "Oh come off it Bill, I love Ms. Dinkley's bright, cheery attitude!"

Bill ignored him. "Every day, despite her meetings with YOU, she sends a memo to the Pauper Council. EVERY! DAY! That woman and her DAMN EMOTIONALLY UNSTABLE PET!"

The happy man shook his head. "Bill, you know Lil' Shiny has had a hard life."

Bill couldn't stop himself this time and turned on the guy. "I swear to God, Steve. Just drop it. Don't talk about that stupid animal."

Steve frowned, an uncommon event. "Bill, Lil' Shiny may not be the most intelligent creature, but you shouldn't insult…"

Bill was near blind with rage! "IT DOESN'T HAVE EMOTIONS! It is a main course that got adopted by an old woman who is disturbingly competent with paperwork!"

Steve blinked. "Well, that would certainly put the poor thing in a bad mood."

Bill frothed! "STOP TALKING ABOUT THAT DAMNED LOBSTER!"

Right, maybe this was a good stopping point. "Well, I feel we accomplished a lot today! Jim, submit the notes for archiving and I'll go make sure Lil' Shiny understands the benefits of experiencing other cultural sporting events and warn him again about the dangers of clarified butter."

The dick turned back! "Don't you start with me, Dave!"

Heh. "No idea what you're talking about Bill. Right, see everyone next week!"

Probably best head to his office before Bill found something to try to stab him with again.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam watched the interfaces carefully… And so far, so good!

No instability, every unit was checking out, and the emergency redirect connection point for someone trying to brute force an entry into the Warehouse now connected to a small disposable section.

That area was flooded with Sarah's psionic field and some extreme settings that his Jumper could ignore without issue but would vaporize anything else near instantly.

Sure, if she accidently went in there somehow Sarah would end up nude as all her equipment got eradicated for not being Sarah enough, but the only reason for anything to ever show up there was an invasion attempt. So uh… Should be fine.

Just in case, this was the only section of the Warehouse that could be quickly and easily jettisoned into the nothingness around the place. Reinforced to hell but cheap enough to rebuild later, hopefully having a target to 'invade' would allow Sarah to direct enemy actions into a predictable result.

Meh, an extra failsafe or two wouldn't be that big a deal. Even if Sarah would never find out about this segment or interact with it in the future, it was a nice feature to add.

A surge of Choice Points made him check in.

Ah. Elizabeth decided to make some sporting teams. With only herselves.

Yes, that would alter reality slightly. And boost crowd size by exponential amounts, if she insisted on wearing such risque uniforms.

Poor Sarah wasn't handling it well, but she seemed to enjoy the process of failing. So it was all fine, in the end.

At least they had eventually left that underground Plasmid and Tonic Lab Sarah had created a few hours ago. Poor girl couldn't handle snogging of that magnitude, and this sports thing was a break from the experience.

And the Elizabeth's left behind in the labs were having scientific fun now that they straightened their clothing and did a bit of cleaning. And Adam was able to have 'Research' examine the systems they were working on and suggest ideas to the surprisingly scientific collection of women.

You'd think that wearing sheer outfits and fetishistic uniforms would imply a lower dedication to the scientific research field, but clearly that was incorrect. The preliminary data and experiments they've done so far had Adam redesign several bits of equipment that Sarah would need to deliver at some point.

When she came down from her emotional high and could do something other than grin like a loon while watching hot women play beach volleyball.

Meh, Sarah could use some downtime.

Adam himself went back to work trying to enhance the modules for material deconstruction and assembly.

Studying something interesting that WASN'T dependent for his continual existence was a lovely change in pace!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Andrew Ryan frowned. "What do you mean, she's registered? And what about the rest? These so called siblings?"

His secretary carefully placed the documents in order on the desk. "The documents on file have her as a case 12b3, when she was registered." He checked his watch. "Four hours, twelve minutes ago."

Hmm. A check confirmed it: That section originally only went up to 12b2, according to his now near perfect memories. Very concerning. "Details."

He reviewed the altered document, some changes expected as the immigration requirements have been modified dozens of times per week as Rapture had to adjust to reality. Specifically, the one added by an outsider, likely Ms. Killgrave. But he couldn't remember THIS change.

And paused. "This… Is very unusual."

Multidimensional Immigration? And only one form submitted because this one 'visitor' just happened to have a multitude of bodies.

He grumbled as he reviewed the rest of the paperwork. At least everything ELSE was filled out correctly, including the required fees for citizenship, although apparently Ms. Killgrave set that at 1,500 'individual' people as an estimated average for this ONE PERSON.

While part of him wanted to rage at this obvious hacking and modification of Rapture's laws and bylaws, the only section modified was the part defining the origin of the individual.

And it was more for clarification rather than for deception, gaining additional power, or reducing costs.

Still. "Send Ms. Killgrave a fine for unapproved alterations to immigration policy, but we will not pursue this further if she agrees to a meeting concerning this. And any potential guests of a similar type in the future."

The man nodded. "Then best we cover these two other applications."

He felt his eyebrow twitch harshly as he read about two other individuals who were the same person but not and were 'only' visiting rather than trying to set up an extra sporting division.

Well, at least this paperwork wasn't BORING, if nothing else. "Make the meeting request more urgent, thank you."

Ignoring the 'Yes sir!', he continued moving over the paperwork while trying to wrap his mind around the concept of true 'outsiders' visiting his city.

On one hand, the lack of control was both frustrating and infuriating. On the other hand, building an impossibility so impressive that even those from another world came in wonder appealed to his pride and ego.

It would be an interesting meeting, either way.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

The alert got his attention. {{Oops.}}

And that got SARAH'S attention. 'Oops!? What 'oops'? Adam!?'

Crud. {{Nothing! Well, nothing much. I might have accidentally done some correct paperwork filing. It's uh. A small fee. And uh. yeah.}}

Sarah gave a quick smile and a 'one moment' to the twin Elizabeths sitting oh so close and closed her eyes. 'I thought doing stuff correctly was a good thing.'

Adam winced. {{Welp, the paperwork didn't have a category for your new friends, and the other forms for setting up sports teams needed this other document and uh… Yeah, I hit an issue. So I just sorta fixed things?}}

She narrowed her closed eyes. 'Adam.'

Not his fault! {{I just changed a TINY bit of legal paperwork! Just to make room for the correct data!}}

Her face was frowning, this was going to be bad. 'Why do all that? I thought it was simple enough to add her and her sisters to the immigration lists and paperwork? You SAID it would be easy!'

Adam flinched. Yeah. {{In my defense, I did ALL the changes easily and without getting caught… I'm just surprised anyone reads all that mess.}}

Sarah huffed. 'How hard is it to file 1,500 applications for the sisters? You did the rest easily enough!'

Oh. {{Yeah, that would have been a better idea.}} Shit. {{Yeah, now that you point it out, I really didn't need to specify her as a hive mind split body commutative being from outside time and space.}}

Her eyes flew open, unseeing. "Fuck."

Seeing the concern at her female friend crowd, she gave a frantic wave. "One second, part of me may have done something stupid." 'ADAM!? The HELL you say!?'

SO not his fault! {{I was busy! You know how much paperwork I do on autopilot back here? Half the stuff Pauper Council does goes through my servers, and I just… Well, I don't normally bother to lie and stuff. If I don't pay close attention I tend to just fix stuff or answer things honestly.}}

Sarah frowned. 'Put that aside for now, how is this going to affect us?'

Adam sighed. {{Well, Andrew Ryan asked for a meeting, and gave us a small fine for hacking Rapture, modifying its legal code and bylaws, and updating them to handle extraplanar visitors and immigration.}}

From the attached notes he apparently would have been accepting of the situation if it had been brought up to Rapture's ruling body, strangely enough. {{He also wants to have a meeting about it and talk about… Probably lots of stuff. Most likely get some extra stuff built by us too, because he is a slick operator like that.}}

Sarah sighed, relaxing slightly. "Well, that is not TOO terrible. I didn't expect Andrew Ryan to miss hundreds of hot women forming a bunch of athletic teams anyway. Hell, I know that I'll be watching pretty closely if no one else does!"

Adam blinked. {{Ah. You said that last part out loud.}}

She froze… And opened her eyes to some amused and sultry expressions. "Ah."

Welp, she was distracted! Good enough for Adam. {{Don't worry, I'll make sure to set something up so anything we mark for external conversation or production, like documentation or whatever, gets reviewed. We can mark key data as important and it will alert us whenever and she's gone.}}

Adam watched his Jumper mentally check out while the sudden kiss continued. You'd think kissing three women at once would be more uncomfortable, but whatever worked. {{Ah. I'll just… Get to work on that?}}

No response.

Fair enough, she was doing something more important. {{Yeah, I'll get working on that module then.}}

Sheesh.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Grant sat heavily in his seat, hands full with drink and snacks. "What'd I miss?"

His bestie John bit into some nachos. "Songbirds are up, and…" He took another bite. "I don't think the other team is going to get close this time."

Carefully balancing his snacks, he watched the near identical women that had been kicking ass against most of the other baseball teams. "Course they doing great, but what did I miss?"

John shrugged. "Nothing as good as that triple play you saw before refilling. And 'wardrobe malfunctions' are pretty much impossible in this sport, so nothing fun there."

Both men mentally checked out at the story (Unconfirmed) that the Songbird synchronized swimming team had accidentally given a hell of a suprise showing. While there weren't any confirmed witnesses, the sport had nearly doubled in popularity for days afterward.

John grumbled. "At least it's easy to keep track, since the women always call their team 'Songbirds' and such."

Grant nodded. "Did you ever find out why they keep using it? There's like a dozen teams called that now over all the sports."

The other shrugged. "Nah, but I assume it's for convenience sake. Most of the time when you see one of her walking around you can at LEAST know what team she is on."

He paused, mid bite. "Does that work? I've been scared shitless trying to talk to one of her without making myself look more stupid than usual!" It would be a hell of a conversation starter!

John waved a nacho. "Sorta? Like a third of them are in SOME team, so it is at least an acceptable 'mistake' to make if you want to get a conversation started. Just uh… Don't try to hit on any of them."

Of course he wouldn't, he could barely talk without stuttering in front of… Oh. "John… You didn't."

He winced. "Yeah, I did."

God damn it John! "How bad was it?"

The man angrily chomped some chips. "She was confused."

Ouch.

He glared. "And worse? Polite. Nicest shutdown I've ever had."

Double ouch. "Shit man, I'm sorry."

John stared at the ladies. "Can't even be angry or frustrated about not having a chance cause she was so GOD DAMNED NICE about it! But that's not the worst of it!"

Grant bit into his lobster dawg. "Hmm?"

John waved at the team. "Somehow they ALL KNOW ALREADY! I've had over a dozen Elizabeth's be super nice and polite about it, encouraging me to never give up, that there are other women out there, and worse! And it isn't even a malicious thing, as far as I can tell she is genuinely trying to be considerate and helpful!"

Well fuck. "Bro, that's super harsh."

They snacked in silence.

Grant hesitantly spoke up. "Still going to watch, right?"

John grunted. "Hell yeah, she's hot as hell! Crushing my pride and dignity THAT hard? Some people pay for that shit!"

Grant sighed. "Too much info John, way too much."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah was trying to relax with two Elizabeths in one of the VIP rooms within the Sports Ball.

Yes, the three were snuggling a bit, and the viewing screens showing the many ongoing games were distracting since the various Songbird teams would get flirty when being actively watched by the pairing, but the overall goal was to relax.

The one on her left nudged her. "You don't have to do this, you know. We all are fine learning about each other slowly, Sarah."

Calm. "No, I… I think I need to do this. To explain why it's hard for me to do more."

They settled as Sarah tried to grasp a starting point… Best the start, then. "My memories of the beginning are obviously the least clear, It was… very long ago. And something that keeps me up at night."

Did she really remember anything about that time? "At some point, way back when, I was taken. Kidnapped by a powerful entity. I hope."

She blinked. "You hope?"

Desperately. "There are a few scenarios I had about how my story starts, and the least horrifying one is that this thing stole me from loved ones and a past life before putting me through hell."

The other woman hugged tighter. "What… What are the other possibilities?"

Many. "Originally, when I didn't understand just how all powerful these beings were, I was concerned that they may have stolen me away at or just after death. Later, over the years, I feared it was AFTER death… Which meant any family, remembered or not, would have moved on long before I could somehow get back."

Darker days soon came. "As I was given new bodies and prevented from passing on, I realized I might just be a clone. A copy of some person, needed so that my powers could be exploited."

Sarah felt Adam's comfort passed, and appreciated it. "It was only near the end of my torment that I realized that I might be extracted from a destroyed reality, or worse fabricated from nothingness entirely to avoid my Kidnapper from being caught doing such horrible things."

Elizabeth(Flannel) moved her arms to better work with Elizabeth(Silk) in the hugs. "This… Kidnapper? Is it handled?"

{{Not yet. But I̘̖t̳̬͕͓̩̩ͅ ̩͎̟͈ͅw̲i͓̯̭l͉̝̦̮̮̝l͈̺̪͓̦̱̯ ͖̞̘b̼̰e̲̜.͈̟̟̠̠̹̱}}

She hummed. "It fled, leaving me to die. I was hunted, alone, and in dire need… And in my lowest moment, I met a friend." A true Benefactor.

{{Daww! Shucks.}}

She rolled her eyes. 'Hush, you.' "He saved my life, and even now is trying to recover the many abilities I should have had long ago before my Kidnapper stole from me and tried to consume my potential. It's an ongoing process."

Soft flannel sighed. "I can understand. All of me can, if not for the same reasons."

Sarah softly smelled a sweet fragrance as the warm arms snuggled. "Tell me?"

Silk chuckled. "I thought you had some sort of report on me already?"

A shrug. "High level stuff, no details, enough so I would know when to run away if things got bad."

Elizabeth sighed… "That sounds very handy… But if we are going to talk about my past, I suppose I must start with my father. Booker DeWitt."

It was… a long story.

A man sent off to war for a nation he loved.

While a member of the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army, he was part of the many people sent to face the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.

However, he wasn't from a 'Pure' heritage.

He was half Native American.

Something that might have never significantly impacted his life suddenly became a massive crossroads, as a fellow comrade accused him of traitorous thoughts and beliefs as they were to fight people called savages and worse… People that were part of his own heritage to some degree.

And to prove he was pure enough, that he shouldn't be killed with others, that he was 'righteous' and an ally to the nation he loved… He made savagery a challenge. An art form.

He had to be more angry. More brutal. More ruthless.

Booker DeWitt became more savage than the worst of stereotypes. A flesh carving god of wrath, bringing torture and death to innocents and children of the 'impure'. Anything to deny the accusations of complacency, of compassion, of weakness… And the deaths of others were the blood he used to plead his own 'innocence'.

Called 'The White Injun', due to taking scalped trophies from his victims, his ruthless actions earned him praise. Booker was ultimately awarded a Medal of Honor and ranked as a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, given lauds and applause and never ending guilt and mental derangement.

Sarah listened in horror as Elizabeth calmly described a man torn emotionally, flailing for assistance, and not finding much in such a time at such a place.

The last resort to salvation brought him down to a river baptism led by Preacher Witting.

A moment in time where he could be reborn as a new man, absolved of his past actions! No more tiny fingers burning, soft eyes wide in horror, the screams, the never ending screams and blood...

Elizabeth sighed. "And in a moment, one man made two decisions. He took two paths less traveled, and both attempts at redemption led to his own demise."

One man, at the last second, rejected his baptism. He despaired at the thought that his sins could simply be washed away by a 'dunk in the river', and the path to paradise was rejected as he sought comfort from below.

The same man, given the waters of salvation, drank too deeply. Decided that he was not simply cleansed, but immune to filth and shown a path to both heaven itself and the revenge against the nation that caused him such a painful choice to begin with.

The man of earth fought for the people's rights, found love, and from a life of pain and tragedy Annabella DeWitt was born… Even as the love of his life died giving birth.

The man of God became the self proclaimed leader of mankind, a founder of a nation, a Father.

Father Zachary Hale Comstock.

His dreams led him to impossible places, doing impossible things far beyond the scope of earth. A city above the clouds, a land beyond such places the Tower of Babel could ever reach, a place of wonders and impossibility and potential!

Father Comstock planned to use such a lofty moral high ground to burn those who so hurt him before his 'perfection'. To have his children lead a world reshaped to HIS image, to make everyone as pure as he had become!

The issue was unexpected and life altering: The same scientists who gave his world such wonders, such advancements, accidentally caused him to age rapidly during an incident.

And to be impotent.

Thankfully the work of Rosalind (and eventually) Robert Lutece showed him other ways… Other worlds, other cities!

Other DeWitts.

Elizabeth sighed. "I'm not sure how many Bookers Comstock visited. How many tries it took to find a father depressed from his wife's death and angry towards the girl whose birth caused it... But eventually Father Comstock found a man in debt, drunk and overwhelmed by life, who was willing to give his little girl to a powerful and wealthy man who swore to treat her like a princess."

The other her nodded. "I once thought it was the bills and vanishing work at his detective business that sold me off, that used my existence as the most costly of payments… But time has long since given me a different perspective."

A sigh. "He didn't give me away for the coin, but out of intense self doubt. Personal hatred. He thought himself a monster, a wrath of rage, and without the woman he loved to protect me from him, he was terrified of how he would be able to raise me safely. How he was to feed me. To educate me."

The other leaned into the hug. "Dad was told that Father would love me. That he and his wife would raise me as their own, that I would have the finest education, the brightest future… A leader of his people, an inheritor to everything he owned. A life beyond anything Booker had ever dreamed of… A possibility too powerful to ignore."

They sighed. "Both told the truth, sadly. Dad was right that I would not have the same possibilities with him, and Father did give everything he promised… But both were the same man, and both were damaged in their own ways."

Sarah listened how Booker failed to commit to his own decision, the idea of losing his only reminder of his wife for even the best OR worse reasons too powerful to allow it to happen.

How two fathers, the same man, struggled to keep a young girl… Pulling her between tears in reality, a portal that suddenly closed.

How Annabella lost a part of her pinky finger to her distraught Dad while her triumphant Father spoke of miracles to a wife who thought this new child a bastard from the female scientist her husband spent so much time with.

How Annabella DeWitt became Elizabeth Comstock.

She held up her hand, a silver thimble covering the smallest digit. "That small connection between worlds allowed me to somehow rip holes between places. Tears in reality."

A hole in existence shimmered to one side, showing a rain slick city street at night.

Sarah blinked. "Huh."

Both women gave her a dry look before one waved at it. "I rip open reality and all I get is a 'neato'?"

Sarah was still staring at the oddity as Adam's sensors went into overdrive. "No you didn't."

Elizabeth blinked. "What?"

Sarah hummed. "Yeah, this isn't ripping a hole in reality, I've been through THOSE and it sucks. And even that is still within something, my Benefactor went through a place even more empty than both of those."

She pointed. "This is not even causing damage. You are not ripping anything, you are somehow causing one place to exist in two places. Somehow."

Both Elizabeth's blinked. "I'm sorry?"

Sarah absently poked the thing. "Yeah, this isn't a rip in reality. Very neat though."

The left woman huffed, folding her arms. "I'm pretty sure I would know a thing or two about my OWN abilities."

The Jumper was too distracted to focus on that though. 'Adam? You getting this?'

Her friend FELT giddy like a child! {{Oh yeah baby! This data is the GOOD shit!}}

The portal vanished. "Aww!"

Elizabeth didn't seem AT ALL sympathetic. "I said, I know how my powers work. I tear reality."

Sarah blinked. "No you don't."

The other lady grunted. "Yes I do."

She shook her head. "Nope."

The Songbird fumed! "YES! I! DO!" A dozen portals shimmered into space. "SEE!?"

Sarah chuckled. "Look, it's a perspective thing. That is a portal between points in time and space and I think reality bulges."

She waved an arm, and t͓̰̖̘͙o̹͍̗͚͈r̠̬̲e͔̲͎͈̹ r̨̛̻͓̮̣̘̩͇͇͓e͓͕̤̩̞͕͇͠a͜҉̥͕̜̙̘ḽ̙̤͎͉͢i̴̗̗̤͔̥̱ţ̣͕̗y̵̘̪̞͔̪̘̙ͅ Ò̝͖͖̞̯͖͓͙̜̝̤͎̲̩̩̝̤̼͢͢Ṕ̤̫̣͚̘͉͇͙͝E̵̠͈̪̤͖̦̰͢͞Ṋ̲͕̳͖͖͕̻͎͚͙͞͝.̸̥̭͈̱̭̯̱͈͚͕̪̝̺͈͘͡.

The hole was… nothing.

Not dark, not light, the edges folded inside themselves, a perfect circle. No damage expanded, no concepts invaded, but within a point of space at this point of time at this Jump, was a tear.

Sarah pointed. "THAT is a minor rip in reality. Basically harmless, heals within a decade or so if we wait for it to happen naturally, and this one is properly set up and safe to be around." Her hand suddenly wavered. "Uh… Don't go through it though. That would be a bad idea."

Not as bad as what Adam called the 'Abyss', but it WAS the strange area around her Warehouse after all. That place was NOT friendly. Or small.

Suddenly the room had a dozen more of the scientific Elizabeths, all staring with dropped mouths and open awe at something so unimaginable.

It was so crowded, minor portals opened up so other crowds of ladies could look into the place without squishing each other trying to fit.

Sarah coughed, wiping the hole closed. "Like I said, uh. Anyway!"

The arms hugging her were MUCH tighter. "Sarah."

Eep! "Uh. Yes?"

The two Elizabeths were actually looking at the crowd of scientific ones with trepidation. "We should go."

She realized there were a LOT of hungry looks coming her way. The 'Mmm, a research subject' look, not the sexy fun time looks. "Right! Pardon us, but I need to take some of you with me so you and you can have fun testing this!"

Another moment and three people of the crowd were gone… And suddenly ALL the Elizabeths paused as they realized that two of them were muffled.

VERY muffled. And suddenly the missing two were feeling surprised… interested… smug!?

Elizabeth in a lab coat twitched. "Those three found a way to hide from us."

Lots of nods.

She frowned at the stronger smug and elitist feelings. "And I'm such a smug bitch sometimes."

Much more emphatic nods!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah fell into a couch. "Whew! Seriously Liz, you can be pretty intimidating!"

She and… her? They blinked. "Wow."

Sarah looked toward her. "What?"

They glanced at each other. "This place is… We are not… It's not a full disconnect, but we are veiled from ourselves?"

Sarah paused. "Oh. right, I wasn't supposed to bring you here."

{{No. You were not.}}

All three women turned to an… Exasperated diamond skull wall art decoration?

Sarah wilted. "Sorry."

Then the GOD DAMNED SKELETON FACE MOVED! {{Well, we didn't instantly explode, so it's fine I guess.}}

They pointed. ""Sarah, what the heck" "Hell" "Is that thing?""

And paused slightly confused.

She waved. "This is my Benefactor and friend, Adam. He's helping me get better."

The skull grinned. {{Oh, and protecting this place. Speaking of which: At least my defenses are working! That desync will get worse the longer you're here. Won't cause any long term problems, but only my Jumper is allowed to have a hive mind here.}}

Sarah frowned. "What!? Liz, you aren't hurting or anything are you?"

They carefully checked? "No?" "I don't think so?" "Wait, what?"

The wall nodded. {{Yeah, no more synched talking while in here. Other than that, no big deal. You are still connected to the outside, but until Sarah helps you leave you will both be individuals here.}}

Their friend stomped! "ADAM! Don't you DARE hurt the hot ladies that flirt with me!"

He gave her a dry look. {{The only reason we aren't ALL dead right now is because of my hard work fixing your defenses earlier. They are lucky the worse they got from coming here is having to take turns talking.}}

They glanced at themselves… "I'll be number one?" "I always like being submissive… I mean, being number two." "Fine."

Sarah blushed as the two women smirked at her. "So we have some privacy here?" "And the rest of the girls can only get jealous here?" "How interesting!' A thought. "This doesn't count as netorare, right?" "No, they'll get our memories like usual when we leave and all emotions and stuff intact. More like denial play." "I still say that stuff the lab girls are doing should be considered masturbation, no matter how many of ourselves are involved." "Well maybe? But some of the others like to deny it and we never had many chances to be with ourselves before."

They smirked toward the wall. "Any chance we can find a bed in this place?"

Adam grinned at the increasingly flustered Sarah. {{Third door behind you leads to her personal bedroom. I'm sure she'd love to give a tour.}}

Sarah eeped! "TALKING! WE WERE TALKING!"

Aww. "Fine." "But we can come back here later at some point, right?" "Even if isn't us two specifically, the idea is hot as hell."

Sarah tried to talk but whimpered.

Adam chuckled. {{Where were you with the history you were telling her?}}

The two women winced… and sighed. "That is far less fun." "But needed." "So let's get comfy and try this again."

Sarah was tugged over to the nearest sofa, and they got comfortable physically for the upcoming uncomfortable dialogue.

At least she was here with herself physically, while normally they all had to support each other emotionally.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah calmed as the girls talked about the flying city of Columbia, other realities, other connections to an underwater Rapture, the accident that killed Rosalind and Robert Lutece while also spreading their existence throughout time and space.

She blinked. "Why aren't they like you?"

Flannel snuggled. "We are connected by a sliver of ourselves."

Silk nodded. "Even those who were sliced through other limbs or even the skull only had a tiny slice of themselves lost to the endless possibilities. At full maturity, that conduit connected us all… but the Lutece twins are connected to nothing."

Flannel agreed. "They are fully nowhere, and any partial connections are overwhelmed by the one instance that was lost to the tear."

They sighed. "So they become more of themselves by absorbing others fully, rather than connecting as a whole." "Though that may be because of how much we desired a family." "Connections." "A home." "Even Paris, and a dream of freedom exploring the streets." "None of us would harm the others, and any that would are vastly outvoted."

Sarah hummed. "Sorry, go on?"

Rosalind was apparently happy with her eternal life with her brother, but Robert wished to help Elizabeth. They found the many Booker DeWitts that desired their Anna Dewitt back, and were willing to fight to the death to find her in a new world… Though the transition between realities damaged his mind, made his memories hurt and twisted his thoughts.

Many times he would die not even knowing the princess destined to 'cleanse the world of the Sodom below', the girl he was to save from the tower, was his own little baby.

And another one would be sent. Sometimes to different Elizabeths, or the same one multiple times.

A tragedy.

Sarah sighed. "Why were you in a giant statue anyway? A library in a big angel monument?"

Elizabeth sighed. "As a child, I was freely using my abilities to explore impossible places. I was able to wander freely, but also out of the influence and control of my 'Father'. And I was the 'lamb', and I needed to be 'shepherded'."

The tower was a siphon.

It stole her power, trapped her… A young girl with the power of unlimited freedom, caged and hidden away in a world full of dreams in paper form.

She looked away. "My Father fell further over time. I still remember good days, loving days… but my 'Mother' and her belief that I was a child from infidelity, the conflict generated from Father keeping secrets from her and everyone, the strong idea that all his sin was gone? Washed away in that river?"

Her other self nodded. "Madness often falls to the city with a man and a lighthouse. And many of those guiding lights led straight towards the bonfire rather than salvation."

Sarah winced. "What happened?"

Elizabeth sighed. "My first ascension… Was over space."

Her other nodded. "My Dad fought his way to my Father and ended him. And when he destroyed the Siphon, my full powers returned after years of being gathered and boosted…"

They sighed. ""And we connected."" "So many thoughts." "So many places." ""So much the same."" "But different." "Always different."

Sarah hugged them, and if they had wet eyes no one said anything. "Dad found out that Father was a path not traveled. A form of himself that he denied on all levels! And he found out there were an infinite number of others on that path, and wished to do anything to end them all."

That damned river. "We were overwhelmed with power, with love for our self and unexpected support, and we felt we knew all. That no error was possible, no redemption worth the effort, that the solution was so simple."

Her eyes saw a kind man accepting far too much. "All of us went to those men who could have become Comstock or DeWitt, and merged the possibilities into one impossible moment."

Her own travesty, in desire to save so many. Including her own family, despite her twisted viewpoint at the time. "I stayed by him as he was baptised, and stayed with him as he stayed below those waters. As so many of me faded away, to never exist."

Those loving eyes fading away still gave nightmares. And she knew that Booker DeWitt would have changed nothing, despite her own tears then and now.

"It didn't end there, despite our belief."

Memories. "We were still here somehow. There were still Comstocks out there, though none who had been involved with daughters like us with a missing pinky. Other girls who died or were mutilated or lost, other Fathers and Dads."

Sad memories. "Some of us attempted to modify reality to fix it all. Others ended up basically committing really complicated suicide while trying to set up stable temporal loops or other things. While only one could live in a place at once without complexity, there were always more of me… And we didn't know why."

Elizabeth sighed. "Until we did."

And nodded. "My second ascension was over time."

The horror. The feeling of so much pointless pain and sacrifice. Those eyes under the water, so loving and calm. "Not all realities run at the same rate as others. Not all timelines sync up. While our chain of events were unshackled, other rivers had other baptisms and other Comstocks and other DeWitts."

It was a dark time. "Eventually, an Elizabeth DeWitt connected to both her own collective AND ours at the same time." "Somehow." "We had some in the past, some in the future." "And now that we were in the past and future…" "Like we were here and there…" ""We could rip holes in time like we rip holes in reality.""

Sarah smirked.

They pointed. ""Shut it!"" "We out number you!" "We out vote you!" ""So there!""

She raised her hands! "Fine, fine!"

They harrumphed. "Anyway, when one of us learned how to adjust our own bodies the rest benefited." "Not that it mattered much to begin with." "By sharing our power between us all we drastically slow down when it comes to aging anyway."

Sarah hummed. "So there are no old you's out there?"

A chuckle. "Oh, we have a few 'grandmothers' retired in your city now. And being able to have multiple selves in one place finally gave us a much easier way to save our younger selves from their own towers."

Adam, mostly ignored, grumbled. {{Yeah, the number of girls joining the Ruby Forest Daycare Center is pretty damned high.}}

Flannel slumped. "Not enough." Silk nodded. "Only around twenty. Even with unlimited numbers searching out there, we normally can only find ourselves after ascending… Finding our younger selves on their travels is literal luck. Nothing more."

The women sighed. "They are safer here." "Happier at least!" "Well, certainly. Now they can each talk to their friends in person instead of to all of us 'old biddies'." "Damn, we are sassy kids."

Sarah blinked. "Does this mean I am dating my daughter who is also my girlfriend and my daughter's mother at the same time?"

The women smirked. "And my 'mother', who is my daughter's 'grandmother', even if she looks around twenty or so." "We check a LOT of fetish boxes, don't we?" "I'm not sure, I avoid a lot of our more playful sides normally."

An awkward pause built up as Sarah blushed and had odd thoughts.

Flannel squirmed. "You still watch though, right?"

Silk snorted. "Hell yeah, we're hot as hell! Kinky self discovery and now an unlimited number of identical 'assistants'? Some people would pay anything for that shit!"

Elizabeth sighed. "Too much info, sis. WAY too much."

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah loudly closed (NOT slammed) the door, slumping against it. "This is NOT how you play hide and seek!"

"Um. Ms. Killgrave?"

She reeled back! "I CALLED TIME OUT!"

The… Teacher? Yeah, that was Ms. Davis. She seemed amused at least. "I see. Can we help you then Ms. Killgrave?"

Blurry eyes showed… She was in the Red Forest building. One of the classrooms.

One of the full classrooms. "Hey Amy, hey Emily. I assume the Sammys are taking their nap?"

Amy took the lead like usual. "Yeah, we're doing math now. Are you trying to hide?"

A quick [[Clean]] ensured no lipstick was visible on her neck or face. "Yeah, me and a few Ms. DeWitts are just taking a break right now." Hopefully.

Ms. Davis gave a wry smile. "I see."

Damn perceptive teachers. Right, Sarah was a mature adult and would act as such! "So what are you learning today, children?"

Emily sighed. "Calculus II, and some Calculus III."

Amy groaned! "It's taking FOREVER! And the homework SUCKS!"

Wait. "Aren't you like five or something?"

One of the smaller ones in the back waved! "ME! I is five!"

Amy shrugged. "We gotta do a review once a week to make sure we learn this stuff. We get the fun lessons on Monday, normally."

Right, children of Rapture are dosed with 'Enhance Self', different standards of learning. "Well, keep up the good work everyone!"

She blinked at a raised hand. "Uh. Yes?"

The little girl near the middle of the class stood up. "Ms. Blue Bone Lady, why do you have kissy marks on your shirt collar?"

Shit. A glance at Ms. Davis showed that it had been there a while. [[Clean.]] "I don't know what you are talking about. ANYWAY! I must simply be going, everyone study hard, stop smirking at me Ms. Davis, bye now!"

The moment she fled the classroom, pairs of soft arms gently wrapped her in arms. ""If this IS hide and seek, I think we just won.""

Eep! "Parley?" That was the pirate's code for starting negotiations, right? Or was that just a movie!?

Warm mouths with sweet breath tickled her ears. "Parle-moi pendant que nous nous cachons."

...Right, no idea what that meant but it sounded sexy as hell.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dave sat, stunned. "You're kidding."

Susan giggled. "No, and your little council will just have to live with the situation."

He leaned into her hug. "How does she even handle the paperwork we send her? I have my hands full with just one woman, perfect or not, and I barely have enough time to spend with my own kids!"

She shrugged. "They seem happy enough. That said…" His wife moved closer. "Tell me more about your full hands."

Oh?

Susan whispered. "The kids have a field trip for the afternoon."

Oh...

Work and his boss dating an army could be handled later, Dave Grinder had other things to focus on.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

"Paul, what's gotten into you!?"

"..."

"I didn't say stop, did I?"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

"Rachel!?"

"Less talkie, get over here!"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Rapture had an unofficial holiday.

It was unplanned, unscheduled, nearly shut down a dozen services, and yet very few people actually complained. And a LOT of kids were dropped off at the Ruby Forest childcare center that night.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam began rapidly automating more stuff so he could focus more. {{Shit, shit, no, Alright, and I route this over there…}}

Because of COURSE there would be a problem when someone both enters and DOESN'T enter the Warehouse at the same time. Why WOULDN'T there be!?

Apparently, having a mental connection with someone could be a very literal thing in this Jump.

And when two Elizabeths get sexually frustrated and doused with lust right before making a mental and emotional connection to Sarah while WITHIN her god egg?

Well, a few units that had always 'worked' well before suddenly showed that they were just failing to fail in a way Adam could detect.

Sarah started dumping her emotions into the newly discovered 'DeWitt Network'. Who already liked her a good amount. Which they both could feel. Which boosted both. Which looped.

And this reality layer had a LOT of Elizabeths either visiting personally or being observed by her other selves.

So her affection joined their lust and attraction and swirled into a massive love fest that SEEPED INTO THE ENTIRE REALITY LAYER.

Thankfully the new detection units caught it. And other layers only had a single Elizabeth and the twins to worry about.

Unlike here.

Couldn't stop it, but uh… For now Adam at least knew it was happening? And ALSO how to turn THAT alarm off, which was surprisingly tricky. Hopefully he could change that too, eventually.

Fixing the problem might prevent this in the future, but for NOW Sarah was going to have to ride this out. Or not. It was her choice, her body, and all that.

But if you didn't want to accidentally send a plane of existence into an existential affection orgy, don't edge yourself with an army of attractive women duplicates that find you sexy and datable. And ESPECIALLY don't end up agreeing to date them while inside your Soul and OUTSIDE of the local Jump!

Thankfully, it wasn't pure lust. Just love.

For now, parents everywhere were feeling more affection and protection for their children, kids were more appreciative of their guardians and parents, friends were more likely to help other friends move or give rides to the airport, and anyone who had a crush with someone else was able to motivate themselves to actually talk to each other.

It didn't make you do something you didn't want to do, just made you more willing to take a few risks… And made the other person more willing to consider it, and made the experience more fun, and made couples care more about the pleasure and comfort of their partners, and uh.

Yeah, the planet was going to have a population boom after this. Rapture especially, as it was recently stuffed with lots of attractive and athletic women and men recently administered 'Enhance Self' and given a good income and a path to the future.

At least the art community was loving this, as was anything needing creative inspiration… Lots of paintings and new dishes and dances and some VERY naughty fashion… It was going to have a big impact on the place!

In fact? It was going to be HARD to do ANYTHING negative here for a while. Like, the most powerful effects might wear off in uh… a week? Maybe two, depending on how well Adam fixed the 'automated infiltration unit' that had hacked into Elizabeth's mental connections?

After THAT, hopefully some sort of natural attrition would cause things to level out.

That said, anything that helps others or boosts positive emotions was going to be easier to do now, and anything that hurt others or caused pain was going to be harder to enjoy or inflict. It may seriously set back the BDSM community, but at least it should cut down on the torture and human experimental testing?

Just in case though, Adam spent the next few weeks carefully examining Sarah's networks and systems to prevent issues like this.

For NOW, automatic infiltration of other networks turned out fine! But if it had been a DIFFERENT hive mind, and a DIFFERENT emotion?

If she had connected to Skynet with Rage? Or to the Dream of Creation with Sadness?

Yeah, this was world ending if it wasn't cared for, to say the least.

Sarah was thankfully distracted anyway, and after Adam made a 'conjugal visit' room in the Warehouse was happy enough to give him time to fix the related units to prevent situations like this in the future.

Probably.

At least the surface world would be HEAVILY distracted from the missing army of sports players. If the hippy generation was impactful, that had NOTHING on the wave of free love, open relationships, and community cooperation changes that were sweeping the planet, at least according to the new incoming players that were mid-transfer when the emotions hit.

Side note: Stuffing a sub with attractive people right before a wave of love smacks into it? Messy.

On the positive side, three and four person relationships are REALLY popular right now. The same charged atmosphere that started this mess was ALSO helping the relationships stabilize.

Arguments that would have torn people apart were finding middle grounds, partners were talking AND listening to each other, it was easier to escape addictions, less difficult to avoid a relapse, and more people were happy to help a stranger and even be understanding if they didn't benefit from it.

Not that it mattered, with the field going on most people ENJOYED returning favors and even tacking on extra help and gifts and maybe a hug and lets hold hands!

Adam was thankful he was a Warehouse right now.

How did those magic ponies put up with this? An entire Realm focused on emotion would be stressful as hell!

Maybe it was something you adapted to? Meh.

Adam spent the ongoing days keeping an eye on Sarah so she wouldn't do anything that her previous self would detest, just in case, and doing a MUCH more detailed scan of existing 'working' units.

His Jumper was having fun at least. A few dates with one or more of her new girlfriends, even a five person date with Ms. Holloway and three Elizabeths, which went well but didn't go much further than some hand holding and a few hugs.

Grace and Sarah were still friends, maybe eventually with benefits or not, but Grace was full time committed to the children and Sarah was only really able to spend time with Sammy One and Two… Who both loved 'Big Sis Anne', despite how many of her there were.

Seriously though, life was much easier when your significant other could have a dozen copies of herself playing with your kids to give you time to spend with her in another plane of reality. Or the labs.

Not the ones Dr. Tenenbaum worked in though, as she had (correctly) blamed the love fest on his Jumper. Not complaining, mind you, but it was embarrassing enough when she changed the lab rules to 'Nothing Sexy During Work Hours' and gave that raised eyebrow look.

Rapture itself benefited heavily from the wave of niceness. A few people came to the Rat Catcher and turned from rat to mouse, several plans were caught far earlier than usual, and Sarah MAY have made one or two Adult Clubs that were VERY age restricted due to popular demand, but all that made the transition of so many people MUCH more peaceful than expected.

Which his Jumper might have complained about (She had her sniper and the ability to shoot explosive corrosive shots through walls!) had she not been so preoccupied.

Andrew Ryan's meeting got delayed due to 'unexpected scheduling conflicts', which Adam suspected meant the 'Main Character' Jack Wynand, or more accurately Jack Ryan, would be conceived. If he wasn't already.

Though who knew if it would happen the same way, the main storyline was shot LONG ago just from Sarah connecting here with all that 'turbulence' behind them. Not to mention the actions taken since then.

Hell, Andrew Ryan might have septuplets this time! Twins and triplets were SUPER common right now, according to the Paid Pauper Clinic statistics, and Adam sent the Pauper Council some forged orders from Sarah herself to ensure all the children born in Pauper's Drop would be given 'Enhance Self' and scanned by the clinic as early as possible. Hopefully it will ensure the baby boom would stay a healthy one, since it was his Jumper's fault in the first place.

For now, when the labs were actually doing their job and not distracted by sexy side projects, they were flooded by the massive wave of data thanks to all the new people and their psionic scans being gathered and analyzed.

This was vital, important! In no other Rapture had most of these people ending up down here, and 'Enhance Self' would prevent any problems with incest, inbreeding, genetic damage, mental contamination, biological mutation or cancer… Lots of impossible data was now available to gather, research, and analyze over time.

Because, as he probably should have expected, psionic fields changed and modified themselves as the owner grew up!

This meant a SINGLE child could produce THOUSANDS of psionic frameworks for study over the years! And that didn't even consider this new wave of children being born at this moment in an atmosphere of benevolence and psionic affection.

'Research' was having a glorious field day!

Adam watched as Sarah would accept projects from the Pauper's Council and from Andrew Ryan to continue having his support, building and ensuring the ability to provide for more and more structures.

But while Andrew Ryan began to make some seriously impressive structures under the rock and downwards, Pauper's Drop was using the new funds to buy more and more of the seafloor from Rapture herself.

Rapture's people were flooding to the Drop after all, and many people were willing to sell property for a decent price as long as they got a Silver card or better when joining up to the former slum town.

And with more and more legal land to work with, the more complex Pauper's Drop was becoming.

An entire series of Domes were made into a massive library and museum area, where many scientists were able to formally show off their amazing (And most of the times, confusing or horrifying) plans and ideas to the public!

Massive spaces were turned into farms and homesteads to grow products that were popular but limited in production in the Ant Farms, and if a growing season went bad they could have the Pauper's Council take over the land for a few seasons for a percentage of the end products and not destroy their own finances over a single bad year.

As the months passed, it was looking more and more like Rapture would have rural areas.

True, even the most out of the way and isolated places had access to high levels of education and healthcare, but the idea of being able to spread out THAT much was astounding.

As Sarah was busy, Adam was trying to keep an eye open for major plot issues. Anything about raising mobs and using terrorism or whatever to try and grip power… And it existed.

It was just much harder to organize now.

Not only had quality of life gone up, but the lingering 'feel good' atmosphere was staying around long enough to influence core personalities. People's psionic fields were accepting the changes as 'Good for Self', and it made empathy easier to understand and concern for others to grow as well.

Not everyone of course. Some people simply couldn't care if the issue didn't directly affect them in some way. But the change was significant and pervasive, and as more and more data came back from 'Research' the more and more Adam realized how CLOSE they had come to killing everyone.

If the emotion had been lust, or carefree abandon, or even some other mild emotion rather than the more pure care and love feelings?

Well, it didn't take MUCH offset to make the scales of logic unbalance. Rapture had super computers running on milk after all.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah stretched, her limbs absently brushing over her girlfriends as she felt her spine flex.

That party last night had been a bad idea.

It was too late, went on far longer than reasonable, the food unhealthy, the drinks mediocre, the music so loud it was basically inaudible, overall it was a near headache of lights and colors and sounds.

How perfect!

She wrapped her arms around the nearest nude body. "Mrglph."

Shh, pillow. It is too early and we must sleep.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Atlas, formerly Frank Fontaine, was losing his goddamn mind!

He glared at Dr. Yi Suchong. "What do you mean."

The hack shrugged. "The trials, they do not work. Our discovered methods and procedures fail over 78.4% in all trials. The remainder have minor if any reactions."

No! This had been the most USEFUL ability in his little bag of tricks! "Didn't we get that enhancement Tonic from that clinic!? I thought that thing was a miracle drug!"

The doctor nodded. "Indeed. And it is. All our current subjects survived all testing with little to no issue. As of three days ago, all those being tested without 'Enhance Self' died with almost zero usable data. I'm almost glad we failed to gather the younger subjects, it would have been a waste of resources and not gained any progress towards an actual solution."

His rage ebbed slightly. "At least I won't have to find more people for the cages. That's always the riskiest step, really."

The other man shrugged. "The current murder row subjects will suffice until I can find a method that has at least SOME success rate. There is no point in using my methods on others if even the oldest and most tried and true procedures have stopped showing results."

Atlas paced. As much as ranting or showing his fury would feel good momentarily, he knew this issue wasn't a local problem. ALL his people and spies had reported issues in all places his reach could touch.

Incidents were being survived, while former 'safe' procedures caused instant death rather than slow torture. Trying to use force for gathering information had become even MORE tricky and useless than it normally was, and had to switch a good portion of his network to using sugar traps rather than vinegar racks, so to speak.

Thankfully, the seduction team success rates went through the roof around the same time, even if the number of incidents where agents 'found true love' and ran off went sky high.

He didn't even have the manpower to punish them properly! He had to burn capital supporting a small army of beautiful men and women to 'collect information' because most of his OTHER methods were either failing quickly or the people involved would VANISH.

Probably somewhere into Pauper's Drop, that place was a black hole to his people. Anyone who went in while trying to do one Atlas's operations just… quit. Or vanished entirely. Or got married, of all things!

Sure he fucked a few whores, most of the time high while doing drugs, but family was something you built up for publicity and maybe a good sob story after you off them. Who would dare go against HIS demands for something as worthless as love?

Apparently twenty two agents, that's who.

Didn't help that he had to push the 'Hard Working, Disillusioned Revolutionary' persona rather than the far more comfortable 'I will BURN YOU' face he had grown to love.

At this point, he held in his rage. "Thank you for the update, doctor. Keep me informed."

The man didn't even say farewell, already mumbling about more experiments and testing methods to try and brainwash the next batch of subjects.

Well, there was a reason he hadn't murdered the man already. Good at focusing on his work, really.

Alone for now, he held shaking hands flat on the desk and tried to swallow the anger.

The only reason he had funding was due to his own sense of humor.

Back when his people were hidden, his minions were plentiful, and the name Fontaine made those who knew stay silent and respectful? He had moved without issue. Without concern.

And while most of his resources had been stolen, or killed, or freed, or audited… The most basic and silly factory had managed to survive this mess to help him fund his rapidly dwindling plans of conquest.

That stupid, god damned pet food factory.

Because if nothing else, the number of poor people now able to afford pets had skyrocketed.

And so now Atlas was a hard worker who spent a good portion of his public time supporting and advertising dog food. Literal dog food, to the poor.

But the extreme poor, because those bastards would just wander off to Pauper's Drop and live a life of fancy.

No, the people who were poor enough to buy his product but well off enough that they continued to punish themselves out of pride. Pride that they weren't poor enough to head to Pauper's Drop.

Atlas wasn't sure how long that income stream was going to last, and losing the ability to raise suicide soldiers cut off several of his more risky and rewarding plans.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Dr. Yi Suchong nodded, face without expression, at the seven new subjects. "All male? Similar age ranges."

Big Ben shrugged. "Couldn't get any women this month, but I'll keep my eyes open. Got the money?"

Absently, the man handed Ben the funds while processing the new incomers. "As agreed. And you no longer need to find younger candidates, not until I can make a new breakthrough at least. I'll keep you informed."

Oh! Well, that changed a few things. Ben absently flicked his pocket, disabling the explosives he had spent the last few months hiding in the facility. "Really?"

The doctor nodded. "No point, but I do like having new subjects of both genders. I'm rather lacking in the number of females to work with."

He gave a shrug, his fat belly jiggling. "I'll keep a look going, but you know how hard it is to get product in times like this. Ryan's people are everywhere."

The other man waved him off and he left. If he wasn't going to kill them all and explode the facility, he better get searching for more people to sell.

Collecting more women for stock would be an issue though. Recently the number of pedophiles had been dropping, and Big Ben had always had a harder time finding women who abused children rather than men.

He'd like to think that was due to the world getting better or women just being naturally less evil than men, but it was probably due to him slaughtering so many of them early on after he escaped what his own mother did to him.

Big Ben paused.

Due to Slim Jim slaughtering those pedophiles. Not Big Ben.

Big Ben just helped here and there and ran a nice breakfast shop.

He hummed as he headed back to work. He could always activate the explosives at a later point anyway.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah blinked. "Huh."

The warm woman continued to rub her stomach. "Yes?"

Sarah tried to focus. Mmm. "Just realized that the last deadline for my contract ended two days ago. Not that it matters much, since I ended up going around most of it to extreme levels anyway, but I now officially own the place."

Her girlfriend gave her a dry look.

A flickering wall of portals (Reality tears. Heh!) showed her expanded Pauper's Drop and the festival-like feeling it gave off, covered in sparkling lights and a party atmosphere.

Amused blue eyes sparkled. "You don't say?"

Sarah rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean, I can now officially hire or fire people and stuff. Without all the loopholes and legal mumbo jumbo."

A different pair of arms hugged her arm. "Or, and hear me out on this: We could go back to sleep and pretend you are still waiting for whatever it was to finish and didn't notice the time fly by."

Soft words even closer. "Or not sleep, depending on how tired we are?"

It was a very convincing argument. "Well…"

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Right, that was the final twelve confirmations and final backlogs done. {{That was the last of my checks, did you get any errors with that last batch of updates Sarah?}}

[[Automated Reply: I'm sorry; the Jumper you have reached is not in service, and is temporarily disconnected to prevent responsibility. The Avatar you have modified is under lick down and is not in service at this time. This is a recording.]]

Uh. What?

Adam checked… And if he could, would have blushed.

Ah, she was (as stated) busy.

Right then.

Well, apparently the sexy time privacy filters worked. Next time he would actually LISTEN to the warning before setting himself up for an embarrassment like that.

Besides, it would take months and months for this love fest thing to die down to levels where Sarah would be helpful anyway.

Adam went back to work examining the raw data being expanded from all the scans done by the Clinic. And wrote a congratulations message for Susan Grinder, getting pregnant with triplets was a big deal.

Later on he lamented that he really should have checked to see if Susan had been informed of her medical status BEFORE sending her the congratulations from 'Sarah Killgrave'.

Or bothered to tell Sarah herself.

Meh, live and learn.

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

For the next few months, Adam stayed out of the way and did hard core science!

Not because Sarah got chewed out by Susan for surprising Dave with the pregnancy, and not due to the hugs and tears and feelings and lots of hugs and sexy times that Adam was excluded from.

But for SCIENCE!

And also to keep busy.

While a lot of feeling stuff was being handled in Rapture, the sports teams were flourishing with high quality financial support, a wave of empathy, and mandatory 'Enhance Self' application for all newcomers.

And dropping a small army of healthy, sexually active and attractive athletes into a City of hedonism certainly boosted the average morale in Pauper's Drop, by no small amount.

But while Adam was happy things were going (surprisingly) well down here, the competency levels of the Pauper Council and Dave's people left a very low level of oversight required for Sarah.

Which was good, because Adam was covering for his Jumper while she went on dates, played with children, and sort of became a mother to Sammy One and Two. He was connected to the systems and networks anyway, and could actually understand Sarah's mind… Filling out paperwork and returning her opinions when asked was easy enough.

Even so? Adam had WAY too much time to test stuff.

It was thanks to the stabilization of the Ant Farm (Expanded several times over the weeks) and the growth of Pauper's Drop that let him have time to finish more equipment for Dr. Tenenbaum.

The woman now had access to psionic analyzers, psionic frame manipulators, psionic duplicators, and destructive collider turbines. With the ability to not only SEE what she was doing AND recreate initial conditions, actual testable and repeatable science was getting done down here!

Most of it would likely not be helpful in future Jumps, but Adam was making sure to study the new methods and techniques the doctor was pioneering to work with and adjust psionic frameworks in general. Seriously good stuff!

So he had stuff to look at while his Jumper was busy.

Honestly Adam was helping the research teams cheat. They had good equipment, but he had 'Research'! There were whole sections of the Plasmid research database with notes from 'Sarah' about interesting things to test and try that just so happen to give amazing results.

They would have made these discoveries naturally, eventually… But if Adam was able to speed up the process by years, why not?

That said, the first Plasmids to hit the Clinic for sale actually take advantage of the fact that this early stuff was so 'weak'.

'Handy' Plasmid acted like Mage Hand, giving the user a small field (Normally shaped like a hand or glove or rod or whatever non-sharp object they desire) that could be mentally manipulated within a few feet of the owner.

No, it couldn't stop a bullet. Nor could it tear a person apart, or lift things that the person themselves couldn't physically lift (It was tied to their own psionic framework in odd ways).

But now, minor levels of telekinesis were available to the public for an expensive but affordable price down here in Pauper's Drop. Sarah nodded absently when told, Dr. Tenenbaum found it interesting but not the pinnacle of her new field, and Andrew Ryan ordered a large batch because the man could smell a good idea from oceans away.

The thing sold like mad!

While it was mostly useless for attack and nearly as pointless for defense, a small amount of accurate mental manipulation of the environment was a DRASTIC quality of life improvement to the average person!

An extra shelf or hook to hold bags while you searched your pocket for keys, the ability to grab something that rolled under the couch, an invisible oven mitt to pull out the roast for dinner straight from the heat! It practically sold itself, and yet was weak enough to not cause biological instability, mental distress, nor energy depletion.

Though Adam had to quickly whip up a 'Power Capacity Measurement Device' to ensure money wasn't wasted.

The electronic ball of psionic analyzers would examine people who touched it, detect how stable their personal fields were and how much space there was to work with, and display in basic numbers the amount of 'Major' and 'Minor' Plasmids currently 'installed' and the number of empty slots left for filling.

It was a safety thing Adam thought up, but it accidentally pushed more people into buying Tonics after everyone realized that adding additional Tonics would empower and stabilize your own psionic field, letting you use more Plasmids without issue.

Now it was common for people to be able to breathe sea water, resist oceanic pressure, and be nearly obscenely clean by default. A general improvement, especially as many of the 'holdouts' tend to be the sort of people who could REALLY use a good bath or thirty.

Sure, it frustrated Dr. Tenenbaum that any 'finished' Plasmids had to be compressed and 'solidified' into maximum psionic framework sizes of 'Major' and 'Minor', but in a way this boosted creativity too!

With limits being marked it forced her and her teams to get creative when trying to make final Plasmids, and testing became easier as the hardened psionic nodes were much easier to switch and replace from a person's psionic framework without having to wipe out all their powers and Tonics first and start from scratch.

Now Pauper's Drop had devices in the Paid Pauper Clinic that allowed Pauper Card members to view all owned Plasmids, see which were installed, and quickly swap the ones that were active or not without having to bother the doctors and nurses on duty.

Oh there were a few issues until Adam added some safety features that checked to ensure everyone had 'Enhance Self' before using the self service kiosk, but in general the ease of use and fast access to the new device was a popular addition to the place.

After Handy Plasmid came 'Cool Comfort', a Plasmid that allowed one to increase or decrease the heat of a small area near the user over a period of time. Again, basically free to use (No heavy Eve or life energy cost), this let people have cooled drinks and warm leftovers at any time, while also letting people change the temperature of their own body to better ignore overly hot or cold areas.

You couldn't use the thing to just swim in lava or anything, but it could stop shivering and sweating with no problem while keeping your hot chocolate hot and your ice cream cold. Kids loved the thing, even if they used the two plasmids to poke each other and surprise friends with ice touches or hot taps.

The only 'Major' Plasmids being sold were to security so far: 'Detain', 'Obscure', and 'Report' Plasmids. Most guards could only handle one of the things, so the Pauper's Patrol would go out in groups of three so they could have at least one of each active for the team to have in a pinch.

'Detain' Plasmid would bind a person sized target and levitate them to follow a user, great for angry or depressed drunks. 'Obscure' was a weak 'notice me not' effect, letting agents keep an eye on things without warning criminals while still being traceable by the cameras… And 'Report' was the ability to send mental messages to familiar psionic patterns.

A team of three could have one member keep the group uninteresting, another let the group keep in mental contact and even send for help from their boss without nearby people detecting or preventing it, while the third would quickly end any shootout or fist fight with a safe and secure method of de-escalation.

Having your drunk friends NOT get punched out, tased, or (in more kindly places) wrapped up in a mattress and carted off while singing drunk? Good PR that. And 'Obscure' was helpful in the field without letting them easily avoid all responsibility and accountability that a full invisibility effect could provide… The newcomers appreciated the less violent approach compared to other stories they heard about Rapture security, and Sarah appreciated less people complaining and forcing her to focus on day to day issues.

Could they make other Major and Minor Plasmids? Yep. Dr. Tenenbaum found more every day with her labs and her research crews.

Would they? Not for now.

Every active Plasmid could be abused. Even the basic ones like Handy Tonic could unlock doors easily enough, though manipulating the mental field without 'seeing' it took surprisingly large amounts of focus and practice. The Plasmid COULD be practiced enough that the user's psionic field would eventually learn to sense feedback from the construct, but if you put THAT much work into the thing you are impressive enough that the Rat Catcher would likely hire you INTO security after getting caught.

So uh. Lots of petty thieves and stuff in the security staff now, and they were REALLY GOOD at catching their own friends and former companions. Almost spitefully good, as rivalries ran deep in the underworld.

No, Adam had to pretend to be Sarah as the Pauper's Council argued over each and every Plasmid and Tonic and serum, trying to determine potential effects with every new one added to the market and clinic, attempting to prevent issues and future headaches.

It was needed, probably saved lives, and Adam was frustrated at the mess anyway.

So yeah, Adam spent his time testing stuff and having 'Research' constantly review the Warehouse and try to fix things. At least it was interesting!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah sighed. "I don't know Grace, both Sammy's refuse to talk! I'm worried."

Her friend was helping her little Ben 'color' a picture book, even if he was more or less just enjoying making a mess with the crayons. "But there is nothing medically wrong?"

Thankfully no. "Not according to my equipment."

The former jazz singer chuckled. "If they are healthy, it's fine. Some children just talk less… Give them time to find themselves."

She waved her hand. "I'm not sure I'll HAVE time! Sammy Two somehow learned a way to move stuff mentally without the Plasmid and I think Sammy One is talking mentally. Like an advanced version of 'Report' Plasmid, but it's hard to tell… I think she's mentally talking to the other kids. Just not to me."

All three children giggled, getting a smile from Grace and a groan from Sarah herself! "See! They do stuff like that and it is SUPER suspicious!"

She wasn't falling for that innocent look you two! No matter how short and fat and cute you were!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

After a couple of years, Rapture began to stabilize to a degree.

At least, the number of people flooding Pauper's Drop began to slow, and Andrew Ryan's increasingly ambitious underground facilities were hitting new peaks and beginning to attract the curious masses.

Fairly quickly, other areas of the underwater city realized that if they wanted to even be considered part of the ongoing expansion and revolution going on? They had to talk to Pauper.

Places and people with a history of helping out? Easy Gold card status and fair pricing for Sarah powered construction projects. It was still nearly pure profit, but not exorbitant in cost considering what you got in return and the sheer quality of production.

Those who were apathetic? Silver card was the best you could get, and it was much more costly to have Sarah come fix your shit. You could earn your way back into the big leagues, but in general the people know you do not piss off two groups: Andrew Ryan or Sarah Killgrave.

There was no third group. If anyone actively fought against Sarah or her people, they had to watch neighbors and shops they oppressed get nearly free upgrades and boosts just out of spite from the woman. If some of her frustration was due to being forced to leave her ongoing 'honeymoon' and vacation to deal with these issues, that was their bad luck really.

Adam was mostly able to get the Warehouse cut out of the various industries now. They had recycling centers and animal husbandry research labs (No, the 'chicken' monstrosities were NOT fixable by the researchers either. What the hell, Rapture?), so Adam and the Warehouse were able to focus on more boring stuff without being required for the city to continue operations.

And aside from Sarah having fun building random stuff every once in a while or stealing an Elizabeth or two for a quick surface date to Paris or Swedish topless beaches, his Jumper barely needed to USE her powers now.

A true vacation, a chance to unwind, and most importantly? A chance to feel safe with people.

So sure, Adam had never ending paperwork. And yeah, some construction projects that were publicly done by 'Sarah' were being remotely set up by him instead.

But letting her relax a bit was worth a slight amount of never ending paperwork.

...Though he still hated doing this stuff. Trying to automate the many forms and document filling procedures helped sometimes, but if he made some process smart enough to do it all? Then it was smart enough to NOT DO IT.

A blink had time slip by day by day, hour by hour.

Oh! They are graduating!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Sarah twisted, swinging both girls in a circle! "My babies are getting so big!"

Sammy One harrumphed. {{Mom!}}

Sammy Two just hummed, smiling happily as they swirled around! Kept her college cap on by mental force of course, didn't want it flying off like her twins.

She sighed! "It feels like just yesterday you two were helping little Amy set up a military outpost for your paintball league, and now my babies are off to be big scientists and researchers and whatever it is you were going to do!"

One grinned. {{Take over the world?}}

She didn't even hesitate. "Not until you are 25. At least!"

{{Aww.}}

Two straightened out everyone's clothing and sent the many flung caps back to their various owners while One waved at their many friends from her other classes.

Sarah couldn't fight off the smile if she tried! So mature, so adult! Her babies were the best!

A buzzkill best friend sauntered closer. "You'll have to let them go at some point."

She frowned at the smirking sexy jazz singer. "Hush you! I never age and can go without sleep for years! Hugs are justice! Girls, don't listen to Ms. Holloway, letting go is for quitters."

Two giggled while One pouted. {{Mom, come on… Not in front of my friends!}}

But… No, she had to be mature. Good mothers were supposed to be like Grace and Granny Elizabeth, right? That older suave thing, the 'I know best' attitude, right?

Maybe later. "Oh I am just so PROUD of you two! We should go see the girls and I bet we got that really good Tarte Tatin apple pie thing with that sweet syrup from that one time!" Her many Elizabeths loved baking, and it was always a special treat!

Both Sammy's paused. {{Well, we shouldn't keep them waiting, right?}} A firm nod from her sister confirmed it: Time to go get some pie!

Sarah probably should let go of her children, but she wouldn't let something like reason or propriety keep her from feeling this joyous! "Grace, is little Ben going to be there too? I know his team has a game today."

The young women were dragged along by their over bubbly mothers, the small group ignoring the many near worshiping stares the 'Bone Angle of Rapture' received as she tried to reach out and hug as many people as she could on the way to the graduation after party!

Her little ones had gotten so big!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

Adam quietly [[Harvested]] another nuclear torpedo. This one had fun lights on it in odd glass bubbles!

Not sure why the surface bothered to keep trying this, it may just be inertia at this point. Sunk cost fallacy at its finest.

Andrew Ryan had vanished with lots of funds and material to begin with, so the nations were keeping an eye out BEFORE Sarah began stealing large numbers of the oppressed, minorities, and the people trapped in lower income brackets.

And even the best security has some issues… The fact the underwater city stayed undetected so long was only due to Ryan's expensive counter measures and immigration background examination procedures.

After being discovered, some people tried to desperately join such a 'utopia', others desired the riches, and a good number of powerful people in the countries crumbling due to vanishing lower classes now had a target that wasn't politically active in surface politics.

So aside from people trying to infiltrate or flee to this place?

Near constant attacks.

It wasn't even interesting anymore. The Voice of Dionysus Radio, Jasmine Ryan (She said yes!) would just add a small note at the end of each broadcast day numbering how many explosives were collected and the projected number of attacks for the next day and so on for the rest of the week.

It was sort of like a weather forecast? And just like that, the data was mostly ignored by the people now. Might get commented on during lunch or something, but more or less part of the background of life.

Even if Adam DIDN'T collect most of the nuclear substances for free high energy material, Rapture now had a thick layer of Ooze farmed over the whole place. If Adam didn't [[Harvest]] the various weapons FAST enough, it would get all potential energy sucked out of it as it tried to pass through the goo layer. And all heat energy, and all magnetic energy fields wiped and uh… Well, even the electrical power was drained for collection even if the Ooze couldn't absorb it directly.

Heck, even permitted surface travel needed customized vehicles that could pass through that mess!

At some point, Adam suspected the surface would stop attacking out of boredom, if nothing else. And the heavy hostility destroyed the smuggling market entirely, since most products could now be produced under the ocean with higher quality standards than the surface ANYWAY, why would smugglers risk the deadly surface rout when they could set up a black market down HERE instead?

Meh, it was handled. Since almost everything was legal in the markets down here anyway, the black markets had the truly odd stuff. Surface art, religious symbols, blah blah blah. Ryan's people were happy enough to shut that down, so it wasn't Adam's or Sarah's problem.

Oh! 'Research' said this most recent explosive was plasma based!

Let's take a closer look!

~~~Broken Adventure~~~

How could this happen?

Sarah twisted her hands. It was too soon! "You both can call me at any time, you know? And don't eat too much, you shouldn't get a stomach ache…"

Her babies rolled their eyes. {{We know, Mom. We've been on dates before.}}

No they haven't, because denial kept them the same two tiny bundles of giggles from her memories. "I know, and Benjamin was always a good boy. Grace did good with him."

Though Grace did get tired more easily and had a few more wrinkles, her best friend always seemed full of energy when with her little boy. He had grown handsome and kind, but not kind enough for this!

Sammy One sighed. When had she gotten so tall? {{He's not a child anymore, none of us are. Mom, he's going to propose to us. Tonight.}}

No he wasn't, because all of them were too young and she wasn't going to let them go ever. EVER, DANG IT!

A slightly sad but warm wave came from Adam.

Oh right. Smile. Big, I'm Fine With This Home Wrecker Smile! "Then you both will have to tell me all about it later! I'm sure Grace will love hearing from you three as well, so send her a message or something, right?" Don't go.

Her angels hugged her. {{We will, Mom.}} Two squeezed her back as One smiled. {{Wish us luck!}}

Don't go. "Good luck to you both! And… I love you both, lots and lots!" Just… A little longer.

The hug ended too soon, the door closed, and Sarah didn't cry because she was a big adult mommy and her babies were happy and this was fine.

Adam sent warmth. {{I'm here, Sarah.}}

She was fine.