Raven's World: New Rapture
Episode Five: Another Link in the Great Chain
"Questions, questions, questions...!"
"My patients are always asking me questions!"
"...Sometimes, I like to make up the answers...hmhm..."
A loud groan of open frustration bolts Raven from his forced sleep. His attention is at first limited to the screaming pain in the back of his head, and he wondered what he could possibly have been doing to cause such pain to himself. Then, of course, he realized once again that he was in Rapture, and his thoughts shifted to what he could possibly have gotten into a fight with to cause such pain to him. It isn't until a few moments of pondering later that he remembers specifically where he is in Rapture... He'd made it to Medical, but making it out of Medical would prove much more troublesome.
Unable to break free of his laying-down position, Raven simply cranes his neck, straining for the best view of the room that he could manage. In his pathetic surveillance, he notices an all-too-familiar imitation gold plaque lying on the floor. Chiseled into it, were the words "DR. J.S. STEINMAN". This plaque, he remembers, was crudely hanging on the outer side of the door of the room in which he now lay. The plaque is now dented and considerably banged up, almost to the point of breaking in half. There was also a small streamline of semi-fresh blood trickling down the pale golden surface, implying that it was used as some kind of blunt weapon. To Raven, it followed that the blood trickling down the front of the plaque had to be his very own, and that his assailant (presumably this J.S. Steinman fellow) had somehow followed him inside the office after removing the plaque from the door, then gave him a good one in the back of the head and restrained him. Though he was able to figure all this out just by examining the plaque, he still couldn't quite understand how he could figure anything out with the throbbing in his head straddling a thin line separating migraine from full on brain-damage.
Raven suddenly remembers the sound that he'd awakened to; a frustrated groan. Forcing himself half upright against his restraints on the surgical table, he tries to locate the source of the sound. Seated at a splintered wooden desk to his far left, was a man clad in a filth-spattered doctor's coat (which Raven presumed was originally white), and the traditional hospital surgeon apparatus; His thinned grey hair in twisted, dirty locks, swinging back and forth before his pale blue eyes as he typed furiously on the keyboard of a computer whose monitor had been broken wide open, and was now billowing with smoke. From his position on the belted table, Raven couldn't quite see the rest of the man's features, but a simple glance at the mutated skin on his arms was enough to establish that he was a Splicer, and nowhere near a normal one.
A weak belt on the table squeaks, and the Doctor turns immediately, with a stunned expression, his eyes half open and twitching violently. "Well," he says, standing at last from the broken console. "Look who's finally awake... I am the esteemed Dr. J.S. Steinman, and I'll be your active surgeon..." Raven's eyes widen at his words. "Active surgeon?", he repeats in alarm. "I think I would remember signing myself up for surgery!" Steinman walks beside the table, examining his rusted out, blood-stained tools and whistling. "Oh, but you didn't sign up for anything, my boy...," he says finally. "I did. I mean look at you; imperfections as clear as day, and they're everywhere!" Raven couldn't help but be the least bit offended.
"Don't worry though...," Steinman says, approaching the table with a scalpel. "I've been talking to Aphrodite again... Soon, your body will be as flawless as mine!" Perhaps it was a sign, or perhaps God just thought it would be worth a few laughs, but just as soon as Steinman makes this statement, his right eye begins to shift upward until he is able to see the inside of his own head. "Oh, just ignore that...," he chuckles in a sick sort of embarrassment, turning his back to realign his eye, the way one might turn away from a conversation to politely yawn. He turns back so suddenly that Raven has no time to register his movement, and simply jumps in confusion. "Now then, let's begin!" He leans over Raven on the operating table, scalpel in hand. Their faces are so close, that Raven believes he can smell the crazy on Steinman's breath. Steinman whistles the tune of Henry Hall's "Here Comes the Boogeyman" as he lightly prods an area just below Raven's eye with the scalpel; not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to make Raven reluctantly blink. "Ah, there we are. That's the starting point!", he exclaims, marking the spot below Raven's eye by etching an 'X' with his scalpel and confirming it by pressing his thumb against the center of the mark. Even with the surgical glove on, Steinman's body tempurature was shockingly low. "It won't be long now..."
Steinman returns to the table on which his tools sit at the ready and retrieves an electric surgical saw, then plugs it in and returns to Raven's table. "Right then.", he begins as the saw starts up, the rust-covered circular blade spinning in place. "This'll be over before you know it!" Steinman once again leans over Raven, lowering the saw toward the spot he'd previously marked. Raven struggles with every available muscle, but still, the bonds holding his arms and legs in place prove to be more durable than they look. Suddenly, a loud BOOM resounds throughout the operating, room, and the next thing Raven knows, Steinman is tumbling backward, his face bloodied, saw still in hand. He cranes his neck over a bit to see a figure in a dingy yellow sweater covered with blood stains. His eyes are dull and emotionless, and on both his wrists are tattoos of what seem to be chain links. He holds a shotgun in his right hand...
The barrel is still smoking...
"I thought I was the only one stuck down here...", the newcomer says blankly. "What's your story?" The newcomer holsters his shotgun at his waist and begins undoing the restraints keeping Raven bound to the table. The stranger just barely finishes one restraint (the one binding Raven's left wrist) before a scalpel comes flying by his face. The stranger grits his teeth and looks up to see Dr. Steinman standing again, one hand tightly clutching the surgical saw, the other clasped over his bleeding face. "Another patient?", he screams, his breathing becoming audible. "...And he's UGLY! HE'S HIDEOUS! I MUST OPERATE AT ONCE!" He charges the newcomer with surprising speed, and arrives at the operating table before the stranger has a chance to brandish his shotgun again. He raises the saw high and prepares to bring it down upon the newcomer's head, but Raven grabs Steinman's wrist with his free hand and sends a lethal amount of electricity through the Doctor's body. Steinman recoils and tries to pull his arm free, but the newcomer attacks with a plasmid of his own, knocking Steinman across the room with a fireball, generated from his left hand. Raven stares at the newcomer in astonishment. "You too...?", he asks sheepishly. The figure nods and quickly undoes the rest of the restraints. Raven sits up quickly, and the two of them turn to face the Mad Doctor as he stands yet again, clutching his face. "Got a weapon...?", the figure asks as Raven prepares an electrified fist. "I did," Raven replies. "But who knows what that whackjob's done with it...?" The stranger nods a confirmation and tosses Raven a Thompson that he'd been toting around on his back. "pay me back by not dying...", he says as Steinman charges at them, with an enraged shriek.
"These patients are too restless...", Steinman mutters to himself, caressing the teeth of his surgical saw, his fingers becoming redder and redder with each passing second. "I MUST APPLY A SEDATIVE IMMEDIATELY!" With his newly-bloodied hand, he projects a jet of intensely cold air. Raven tumbles backward, landing in a kneel beside the figure as the cold air hits the surgical table, encasing it thoroughly in ice in a matter of seconds. "Oh, how nice...", Raven groans with much sarcasm. "Should've known he'd be all spliced up." He steadies the Thompson in both hands and unloads, pelting Steinman with gunfire. Steinman seems more enraged than hurt, shrieking frantically and hurling blasts of icy wind all over the room. In no time at all, more than half the room is frozen over. Raven, who'd taken cover behind a stack of supply crates during Steinman's assault, takes the ceasefire opportunity to look around and locate his new ally, who was already charging at Steinman, shotgun gripped tightly in one hand. He leaps over the surgical table, kicks Steinman to the ground and preps the shotgun to fire. Steinman shrieks awkwardly and freezes over the barrel of the shotgun being pointed at him. With a grunt of frustration, the stranger withdraws, placing his left hand on the ice and using his plasmid to melt it. "Cover me while I fix this thing!," he barks to Raven, who gulps and reloads his machine gun.
Quickly sliding out of cover, Raven hurls a bolt of lightning at Steinman, who ducks beneath a desk to avoid the blast, then hops over it to take a frenzied swing at his attacker with his electric saw. "JUST BE STILL!," he howls. "I'M AN ARTIST! AN ARTIST! THE GODDESS TOLD ME SO HERSELF!" Raven lunges backward to avoid Steinman's assault, landing on his backside and instantly feeling a stinging sensation on his face. He runs his finger along his cheek, feeling the warmth of his own blood from where the saw had impacted. "Are you any closer to thawing that thing out?", he calls to the stranger with the shotgun. "He's getting considerably good at this...!" The figure groans and tosses the shotgun carelessly behind him. "No good, the ice is too thick...," he said. "We'll just have to go to plan B..." Raven rolls to his side and joins the stranger on the other side of the room. "Plan B?," he exclaims, training the Thompson on the rapidly approaching mad doctor. "What the hell is plan B?" The stranger points over to a set of surgical tools impaled into a poor nameless splicer in the corner. "Bring me one of those tools", he whispers urgently, searching for more cover, and finally finding it behind a large crate. "The sharper the better." Raven nods dutifully and rolls across the room to the splicer pin-cushion, retrieving a scalpel and tossing it to his new companion who catches it by the handle and lets it fly toward the mad doctor, pinning him right between the eyes. "These tools are metal!", he hints, instantly prompting Raven to fire off another bolt of lightning into the metal tool, causing Steinman to twitch and convulse violently before dropping to his knees and dropping his face onto the surgical table, pushing the scalpel in to the point where it nearly disappears.
"Son of a bitch...", the newcomer mutters, retrieving his shotgun and grimacing as he inspects the barrel. "Who knows how long this thing's gonna take to thaw out...? Anyway, who are you, and how'd you even get down here?" Raven sighs and slackens his grip on the practically empty machine gun. "Name's Raven.", he replies with a shaky grin. "And I'm not exactly sure how I got here, I woke up at a bathysphere hangar with the mother of all headaches... Who do I have to thank for interrupting the...'surgery'...?" The stranger holsters the shotgun and wipes his forehead with his sleeve. "Jack.", he says distantly. "I was on a plane that crashed in the ocean near the lighthouse... Couldn't find any other survivors..." Raven stiffens at Jack's words. A plane crash? Could the two of them have been on the same flight?
"What were you doing before Steinman got to you...?", Jack asks, breaking Raven's focus on his thoughts. He shakes his head quickly and manages to utter, "I was...on my way to Neptune's Bounty." Jack offers a single nod and suddenly starts off down a set of stairs behind the surgical table, stepping over the thoroughly fried doctor. Raven quickly stands and follows him, spying his wrench on a shelf beside the stairs and clutching it tightly like the hand of an old friend. "Where are you going?", he asks. "Neptune...", was Jack's blunt response. "Steinman isn't the only thing to watch out for along the way."
"Wait, you mean there are more like him?"
"More like him...?"
"Splicers that are stronger than normal ones."
"Oh. Yeah... Lots more."
"You're not exactly helping my confidence here..."
"Wasn't exactly trying to... Anyway, if we're gonna get to Neptune, we're gonna need to re-supply..."
"Right. Ammo comes first..."
"Sure, we could use more ammo, but I'm talking about plasmids and ADAM..."
Raven stops in his tracks at the mention of ADAM. "That red stuff all the splicers are killing each other for...? I thought only Little Sisters carried a decent amount on them at one time..."
"That's right...", Jack says with a grave nod. "We'll need to get a Little Sister..."
"Which means we'll have to-"
"Exactly. First, we have to deal with the Big Daddy that's guarding her..."
"...Fuck..."