The Wasteland Of Rapture

Chapter Five - My First Kill In Hell

We got out of the submarine and with a clunk the door closed behind us. I looked around and saw something that reminded me of home. A corpse lay dead against the wall, a cut across it's throat and blood spilling across the floor. The cut looked fresh and it seemed like the man, if you could still call him a man, didn't have a hope in hell of surviving. His face was oddly shaped and deformed, almost like someone had beaten him to a pulp before killing him.

In his hand clutched something like glowing blue and had a needle pointing out of it. When I picked it up I saw it had a label on it, it was called an EVE Hypo and had the slogan "Plasmids running low? Use this to boost it to a hundred and ten percent!"

I showed this to Rachel and she held it gingerly.

"Sorry, I don't like needles." She said.

'Probably why she's still sane,' I thought to myself. 'And what the hell is this place. It didn't even look touched by the bombs, so why was everyone killing each other? They probably had the best place to stay in the world!'

We moved out into a hall of some sort, it was trashed, just like the previous hallway we were in. It looked quite horrific as there was many blood splatters and the occasional body littered around the place. The only thing that reminded me we were still in Rapture was the glass window which held the view to the rest of the city and a school of fish.

We began to walk through the hall, listening quietly as most of our company were dead or rats, feasting off the human flesh. I heard a noise behind me. I spun around and saw that Rachel had tripped over something. I helped her up and held the object. It looked like a big version of something I saw in the museum. I think it was called a "tape recorder".

My Pip-Boy suddenly started to beep as I held it, so it put it under the scanner and it began to read the box like thing. My Pip-Boy finished downloading and I selected the audio file it had downloaded. Suddenly a voice rang out; it sounded like the voice of a woman, but we couldn't tell as it was old and scratchy.

"If you are hearing this you have been chosen to do some work here in Rapture. Well done, as this is the first step of re-doing what you have done wrong by coming here. The first thing you will have to do is to kill one of Raptures citizens. This may seem odd at first, but once you see what has become of them, you will see why. Go to any one of the security cameras and show it the head of one that you have killed. Then await for further instructions."

Confused by the sudden hostility, we began to do as the voice had asked. I began to quickly and quietly search for one of the citizens, but only finding more bodies with their throats slashed. I began to walk up to one of the doors, Rachel following in tow, when it opened we walked into something surreal.

We walked into a glass tube of sorts, and above us we could see the expands of the ocean, from starfish on the rocks, to a whale that swam straight over us. It was almost like we were able to breathe under water. We then looked to our right and saw more of the city. I had only thought that Rapture was a small settlement, but it turned out otherwise. I had seen pictures of pre-war cities like London and New York, but the effect of it being under water, you could see for miles and miles, every light and every advertisement. It was breath taking. The corral and sea bed were below us, and we saw all sorts of aquatic animals and plants, some glowing red, pink, green or any colour in the spectrum. It was all quite a sight. I remembered I had packed a camera so I summoned it from my Pip-boy and took a few photos.

We kept on walking through this glass tube, gazing at the wonderful sights that surrounded us. That's when we ran into our first encounter with a Splicer.

"GIVE ME YOUR ADAM!" The Splicer screamed. I stood still, remembering what the Gene Tonic had done to my DNA. Rachel however ran at the crazed junky and proceeded to stab him with an overly long dagger. I looked at her, realising why she was chosen by him to 'help me'.

She looked at me, gave me a sheepish grin and said "What?" It would have looked cute if she hadn't had a twelve inch dagger covered in blood clasped in her hand. I shrugged and made a mental note never to piss her off.

As it was her kill, she was the one who had to take the head off and carry it. Being a raider, I suspected that she was used to limbless bodies, but it came as a surprise when she cringed and gingerly decapitated the corpse. I laughed and she shot me a look of annoyance. We took off, trying to find the nearest camera.

A thought occurred to me as we walked the blood splattered halls. 'If we were sent off to do this by these people, than what are Moira or Jabsco doing?' This thought really worried me; I was responsible for Moira, not only as a companion, but as one of her friends. I thought about the type of work she could be doing and relaxed a little as I knew that with her mind, as long as she's not facing any Splicers, she would be ok.

Wondering around the halls, we found ourselves stopping by an abandoned machine. I looked at it and suddenly it came to life. It started to play music and light us. When I took a step closer a voice came out. 'Welcome to the circus of values!' It said. I looked at it in more detail and saw that, although it was riddled with dust, it was a dispenser of some kind. I saw that it only took pre-war money, so I pulled up wad from my Pip-Boy looked at the collection of stuff it had.

It ranged from food to ammo to EVE Hypo's. It had something odd about it though, it had one option not lighted up, and next to it, it had scribbled next to it 'not available until hacking'. This was a bit odd; the machine was asking to be hacked. I lifted the top off the transmitter module and saw that it had a scale next to it and three sections, a big yellow one, a smaller red section and a even smaller blue section. There was instructions next to it;

'Get the needle in the green section the set number of times according to the number below. Do not get into the red, otherwise it will manually stop the hacking process and give you a nasty shock for your troubles. Get into the blue section to receive a random item from the machine. Good luck!'

I rested my gaze on the scale and pressed the start button. I quickly got the first one, but hit the red on the next.

"Ah!" I said as it gave me an electric shock

"Let me do it." Rachel said, apparently looking over my shoulder. I let her, also agreeing to hold the head, and she quickly did it, each time hitting the blue dead on.

"How did you do that?" I asked as I picked us the items the machine had given us, a pep bar and an EVE Hypo.

"Hacking comes naturally to me." She shrugged. I again began to look at the options the machine gave me, also noting the difference between the prices. I quickly found out that the item I had hacked for was a first aid kit, which I brought plenty of, as they didn't weigh a thing I had only packed ten Stimpak's. I also brought a bunch of EVE Hypos, in case we ran out.

Feeling that we had hit a dead end, we turned back still trying to find a blasted camera. After about a five minute walk, we managed to find one.

"Good, he was beginning to rot." Rachel said as she brought the head of the first crazed citizen to attack us. The camera zoomed into the head and seemed to be satisfied with the results. It began to whir and make a mechanical noise before going back to its original sweeping pattern. A sudden ping next to us made us jump, and we saw a small round can like thing open up its hatch and show us yet another one of these big tape recorders. I downloaded it and it began to play.

"Well done. I regret to inform you that, that will be not be the first drop of blood you will have to spill in this place. My next 'job' for you is you to go to go down the corridor to your left and wait further instructions. This may seem easy, but the certain corridor is home to a number of Splicers, all armed with deadly weapons and Plasmids, so be prepared."

I looked at Rachel and shrugged. I tossed her an EVE Hypo and she, very reluctantly, injected herself with it. I did the same and felt a warm sensation flowing through me. The point where I had injected myself healed over, and I was ready to go. Loading my Chinese Assault Rifle, I nodded at Rachel and we agreed to go in guns blazing, giving us the element of surprise. We went up to the door, and, as one, ran through it.

The Splicers, though, seemed to know we were coming as they had their own guns out and were pointing them at us. Three Splicers, two armed with magnums and the other one with a buckshot, looked at us with hunger in their eyes. They yelled at us and started to fire. I managed to dodge the first round sent at me as I sent one back, it hitting his left leg and crippling it instantly. I realised that ravel was nowhere to be seen, and all eyes were ne me. I managed to hold them off while I thought of a plan. I managed to take one of the crazed druggies with a shot to the gut and the butt of my gun hitting the back of his head.

But by the time I had taken down the first, the other two had gotten so close, only if they blind could they miss. I knew I was screwed, so I lit my left hand on fire and started to hurl fire balls at the two, enough for them to forget about me and try to find some way to stop themselves be eaten alive by the flames.

Suddenly a stream of icy cool air hit my face as I saw a current of ice hit he two Splicers dead on and manage to freeze them on the spot. I turned around to see Rachel walking toward the now frozen addicts and when she got up to them hit them with a hammer she had. She laughed an icy harsh laugh as the two statues shattered. 'Maybe she is as raiderish as he others.' I thought.

Shaking it off, I followed her as we went through the door, and into the first real challenge we would face in Rapture.

.~.~.~.~.

AN: I'm really sorry for the delay, I have no excuse, except... Nope I got nothing. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll try to update sooner! Thanks again for Sarcasticrocker86 for being my beta and putting up with me.

Till next time,

Umbra Luna