A/N: I wasn't kidding when i said I had a bunch of chapters all ready to be posted at a moments notice. Though after this one here I intend to take my time in posting so I don't burn out too quickly. Which tends to be a common issue for a lot or writers out there.
Regardless, I got another one for you guys right here!
X
Aristotle had once said; 'A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility'. However, such a quote wouldn't register with anyone when faced with the situation Alex was currently in.
The former Ranger stood in stunned silence, eyes gazing sightlessly at the model of Rapture standing before him as his mind once again tried to comprehend the gravity of the situation.
Going through a strange portal and finding a city at the bottom of the Atlantic was one thing, but being over half a century in the past? That was something so far beyond fucked up that Alex couldn't form a single thought in his head.
"Alex?! Answer me, Boyo! You still alive out there?!" Atlas' voice exclaimed from the dropped radio.
Shaking himself from the Irishman's panicked voice, he reached down and scooped up the device. "I'm here..." he answered. His voice sounding hollow and lost as he slowly came to grips with what has happened to him thus far.
Atlas sighed in relief, "Thought I lost you there, lad. What happened? Sounded like you were losing your marbles."
Alex rubbed his eyes, weighing his options on whether or not to tell the Irishman the fact that he was from the year 2020 and somehow fell ass-backwards into this place.
It wouldn't have sounded any crazier than what he had seen so far, but still…
"Just trying to settle everything in my own head. It's a lot to take in." he finally said after a while. Looking around him for a few seconds, he went back to the radio and clicked the receiver. "Atlas, if you're really going to be helping me, then you need to tell me what's going on in this place. I need to know what I'm going up against and how all of this started."
"You're really not from around here, are you?" the man said, sounding a bit confused about how someone knew so little about what was happening. "All I can tell you is that this place has been torn apart by war. Two blokes who wanted to run this place with different goals in mind who both gathered followers."
Remembering back to the bathysphere terminal, and all the picket signs that had been laying around. Alex figured out at least one of the sides that Atlas had mentioned, "Andrew Ryan was one of them, wasn't he?" he asked.
"Aye, lad. He was and still is." Atlas replied with a hint of avarice in his tone. "He built Rapture and is the head of Ryan Industries. The organization responsible for most of the creations out there."
The former Ranger looked down at his hand, feeling the electrical energy coursing through his veins. "Including these 'Plasmids' you were telling me about?"
"No, the Plasmids were created by Fontaine Futuristics and their head honcho Frank Fontiane. After this place was built, the scientists around here discovered ADAM. Some kinda wonder drug found in slugs here at the bottom of the ocean. I don't know the full specifics behind it, but I do know that it alters a person's genetics and grants them what you might call 'super powers' after it's refined. Fontaine found a way to make it into Plasmids and put his company on the map here in Rapture."
"But this was how the war started up. ADAM was highly sought out for what it was capable of. Everyone wanted the chance to be faster, stronger, and have all their ailments cured. Those folks you have seen so far, the splicers? They are what happens when you take too much of the stuff and still want more. Ryan's folks cracked down on the splicers, and used it to take down Fontaine and absorb his company. A good number of folks in Rapture took offense to that, things pretty much snowballed from there."
Taking all of the information in, Alex looked up at the balcony he had fallen from. The drop to the hard floor should have cracked bones and even given him a concussion. Yet he stood perfectly fine, not the worse for wear.
"That syringe...it had ADAM in it. It changed my body from the inside out." he thought out loud.
"Aye, Boyo." replied Atlas, "Though you don't have to worry about turning into one of those freaks. As long as you don't overdo it like too many people around here did."
"Great, stuck in a city filled with addicts hard up for a gene-altering super drug." Alex thought bitterly, recalling when he was partially conscious and the two splicers that were trying to loot him. He turned to look down the long, glass tunnel that had been revealed after he fired the electro-bolt into the door panel.
"As fucked up as all of this is, I'll figure the rest of it out later. Right now I should try to look for a way out of here and then figure out how to get back home." His mind made up, he picked up his radio again, "What's the next step?" he asked as he started down the tunnel.
"Keep moving forward. I'll help you out in any way that I can." said the Irishman, his voice from the radio echoing along the glass and metal walls around the former Ranger as he looked at the schools of fish that swam past.
The floor started shaking violently, Alex managed to stabilize himself but looked up in time to see a large chunk of metal zip through the water and crash through the reinforced glass for the tunnel and jamming into the floor. Water gushing in from the hole that had been made and filling the corridor quickly and already reaching the his shins, the door behind him slamming closed with a red light above it blinking 'Airlock Activated'.
"Fuck!" he cursed as he clipped the radio back on his belt and wadded his way through the ice-cold salt water toward the chunk of debris that damaged the tunnel. Crawling over the metal beam and becoming drenched once more, fighting with everything he had to keep upright on the slippery floors and rushing water that crashed into his legs.
Outside, the top part of another building collapsed and fell farther into the abyss. The shockwave shook the tunnel causing Alex to lose his footing, landing on his back and sliding down a row of stairs like a water slide. The steps bumping his back repeatedly until he hit the bottom. "Shit!" he cursed again, shaking the water from his frame as he staggered back up.
A door to his immediate right warped outward, the metal bending with jets of water shooting into the air meaning that whatever was behind it was inaccessible now.
Heading up another small flight to steps toward another door that slid open when he got close enough. He threw himself inside as it slid closed behind him and locked to keep the ocean from flooding the next building.
Alex took a few deep breaths, water dripping from his frame as he observed his new surroundings.
The room was dark with red emergency lights casting a disturbing glow on every surface, two sets of steps on either side went down into smaller rooms on either side of the main walkway. Providing plenty of places to hide for an ambush.
Bringing his crowbar to bare incase of another attack, he began searching the room for anything useful. Going past a large glass cylinder that glowed bright green with energy when he got close to it he started going through a couple of luggage containers. Finding clothes, a few personal items and a bit of money in the process.
"May not be ethical, but I don't think these folks will mind." he muttered while pocketing the handful of dollar bills he managed to find. Going through another suitcase, he found two hypo-needles resting on the bottom. Their contents glowing a soft-blue similar to the energy he had shot from his hand.
Curious, he reached for his radio to ask about them when he heard someone moving up behind him. Footfalls crunching on broken glass and small pieces of debris that were on the floor giving them away.
The former Ranger dropped low and rolled to the side just as a metal pipe slammed the suitcase he had just been rifling through.
Rolling to his feet with his weapon up, Alex pocketed the two hypos and glared at the female-splicer that had attacked him as she ran forward screaming with her pipe raised high.
Atlas was saying something from the radio, but it sounded miles away as the former Ranger stood at his full height and waited for the right moment. When the splicer got close enough, he dodged left, bringing his crowbar down hard on the back of her left leg.
A sickening crack echoed through the room, the splicer screamed as she collapsed to the floor with her leg now bent at an odd angle. Her arms flailed about, trying to hit him despite how she was sprawled out on the floor. Alex pressed his boot down on the back of her neck, pinning her down before bringing up his weapon and smashing it onto the back of the splicer's head. Doing so several times until she stopped moving.
Once he was sure the splicer was down, Alex shook the blood from the end of his crowbar before taking a shuddered breath. If the people in Rapture were as bad as Atlas had been telling him, then he needed to separate from his emotions like his old Drill Sergeants had taught him if he was going to get through more combat situations.
"Killing is making a choice. It ain't an easy one. But if it comes down to your life or theirs, then there should be only one answer if you wanna survive."
The words of one of his first instructors rang clear through his head. Even if he was more than happy to not take another life again, he needed to bring that old strength back if he was going to get through this underwater madhouse.
"Son of a bitch!"
Alex spun around and narrowly avoided a wrench aimed for the back of his head. A second splicer had managed to get the drop on him while he'd been lost in his own head. Cursing his own lack of focus, the former Ranger dodged another swing before delivering a spartan-kick to the splicer's back and sent them stumbling off a small flight of stairs and into a large pool of water at the bottom.
Electricity charging to his left hand, Alex fired a bolt into the water. The splicer immediately started to convulse from the power surging through their deformed body. Greatly enhanced by the water as they shook and shuttered violently, their flesh starting to cook from the inside out.
The energy flow stopped, volts still dancing along the splicer's body a moment or two longer before they fell face first into the pool at their feet.
Alex lowered his arm just before he heard the sound of the only available door in the room open, a third splicer charging inside wielding a crowbar of his own as he closed the gap between them quickly.
Gnashing his teeth, the former Ranger snapped his hand out to zap him...but nothing happened.
"What?" He said looking at his hand in shock before having to bring him his crowbar to block the splicer's. Bringing his foot up and nailing the man hard in the chest and staggering him back and allowing him to swing his weapon in a wide arc.
The resounding crack of the man's skull echoed through the room as his head snapped to the side. "That hurt you fucking bastard!" the splicer shouted, head still lolled to the side as he attempted to swing his own crowbar again.
Grabbing the arm, Alex twisted it to the side and drove his other elbow into the splicer's face.
Breaking his nose and distracting him enough to drop his crowbar and take out his knife and drive it through the splicer's eye socket.
The deformed man kept trying to fight, until the former Ranger slammed him into the nearest wall and drove his blade all the way to the hilt. The splicer stopped moving almost instantly.
Once he was sure the threat was finally over, Alex let his recent kill drop to the floor. Taking a moment to gather himself before pulling his knife out of the splicer's head and picking up his crowbar where he'd dropped it.
"Nice work down there, Boyo. You're a natural at this." Atlas' brogue floated up from his radio.
"Yeah...kinda wish I didn't have to though." Alex replied, shaking the blood from his knife before slipping it back where it belonged. "My powers aren't working for some reason, what's up with that?" he asked while looking at his left palm and the lack of glow it now had.
"Easy fix. Try and find yourself some Eve." said the Irishman. "ADAM doesn't work without it. The stuff isn't hard to find, just look for hypos with a glowing blue substance in them."
Alex reached into the pocket where he had stuck the hypos he had found and pulled one out. Finding the label on the side with an apple on it reading 'Eve' in the faded light. "Of course these guys would get biblical when it came to their miracle creation." He couldn't help but think.
Holding out his left wrist, he jammed the needle into his flesh and injected the fluid into it. It still stung a bit, but not nearly as much as it had been before. Seconds later, he felt the energy running through his veins again as his powers kicked on.
"There, now you're back up to full." said Atlas. "As gruesome as this sounds, you may need to get into the habit of looting the bodies of any splicers you take down. Better you to have their supplies than another abomination."
Taking the man's advice, Alex began picking through the three corpses he had left laying around. Coming up with two more Eve-hypos, a few dollar bills and a small tin marked 'First Aid'.
Curious, he opened the container and found a small capped syringe inside with a familiar glowing red substance inside. A small notice on the lid of the container identified it as "Medical ADAM", which acted as a painkiller and healing accelerant.
"Where the hell was his shit when me and my squad needed it." Alex couldn't help but say as he closed the container, and quickly realized that he wouldn't be able to carry everything with so little pocket space.
Going through the luggage in the room again, he managed to coming up with a slightly worn, leather backpack buried under a bunch of suitcases.
After dumping the contents and finding another Eve-hypo and first aid pack, the former Ranger put his collected items and money into the pack and slung it on his shoulders. Satisfied with the fit and making sure it was secured, he turned toward the door the last splicer had come through.
Taking out his crowbar, he walked cautiously up some stairs that were on the other side.
"Don't do that! It's gonna-" A man's voice was cut off by an explosion somewhere up ahead. A fireball fell toward the ground of a partially ruined hall resulting in a second explosion just as Alex entered what had once been a lobby.
The door ahead of him opened and a man on fire came sprinting out straight for him. "Don't fucking touch me!" he screamed before an electro-bolt struck him, volts dancing across his form just before Alex's crowbar struck him and sent his charred form crashing to the floor.
Shaking his head, the former Ranger moved up through the door the splicer had run through and found a wall of elevators waiting.
Most of them were dark and without power, one was on fire with the lift nothing more than a mangled pile of salvage. Most likely the explosion that he had seen on the way up.
One remaining elevator looked to still be functioning. Seeing no other way, Alex stepped inside, slamming the up button with his fist, the gate closing and the lift slowly starting to ascend. Each level that passed slowly showed signs of damage; water running down from broken walls, fires burning in several places along with chunks of walls and columns scattered all around.
"Christ, what the hell's keeping this place together." He thought, seeing the destruction.
As the elevator passed another level, Atlas' voice drifted out in the small space. "Listen, Alex, I'm in no position to be asking any favors. But I got no one else to turn to right now." he sighed. "I got a family. I need to get them out of here. But the splicers have cut me off from them. If you can reach them in Neptune's Bounty, then maybe, just maybe..."
The former Ranger could feel the desperation in the man's voice, it pulled at his heartstrings a bit as he thought of his own family that had been lost. "I know you must feel like the unluckiest man in the world right now, but you're the only hope I'll ever see my wife and child again. Please..."
Alex sighed, closing his eyes as he tapped the receiver. "I'll do whatever I can, Atlas. But you gotta promise you'll help me get outta here too."
"You gotta deal, lad." said the Irishman sounding relieved. "Head over to Neptune's Bounty, find my family. But be careful, splicer's know you're there now and will try to head you off." The elevator stopped and opened up at the top most level above the hall.
Stepping out, Alex kept his crowbar in hand when he heard a distorted woman's voice singing out softly from somewhere up ahead. "When you daddy's in the ground, mommy's gonna sell you by the pound. When your mommy's up and gone, you're gonna be a lonely one."
A shadow on the wall in the archway labeled 'Kashmir Restaurant' showed a woman fussing with a baby carriage. He began to tread that way listening as the woman continued to sing sadly.
"When you are the lonely one, no one will be there to sing this song. Hush now...mommy's gone...and daddy too. Wait...this is happening before and not...why aren't you here? W-Why is it today and not then when you were warm and sweet? Why can't mommy hold you to her breast and feel your teeth? Oh no, no no no no..."
The woman was starting to sound more and more deranged, grief filling her tone and filling Alex with tension as he silently edged around the corner and saw the woman hovering over the carriage, the light from the nearby wall to her right casting the shadow.
Charging up his plasmid ability, he took a step closer. "...Ma'am?" he called out softly. Not being
sure of whether or not she was a threat. The woman's back went ramrod straight, hands clenching at her sides as a low growl emitted from the back of her throat.
"You've woken up my child...How dare you! How fucking dare you!" the woman screamed as she spun around, revealing a warped and tumor infested face and blood soaked clothes.
Alex didn't give her a chance to attack and blasted her with an electro-bolt and swatted her with the crowbar with a bloody crunch, her body crumpling to the ground like a puppet with the strings cut.
With the splicer dead, the former Ranger chanced a look in the carriage. Mentally preparing himself for a gruesome sight...only what he saw instead made him grin.
Nestled among the blankets was an old school revolver with a speed loader of rounds laying next to it.
Slipping the crowbar into his belt, he picked up the gun and looked it over with careful eyes. Testing the weight in his hand and opening the breach to check its inner workings over to ensure it was in working condition.
The weapon fired six .38 caliber rounds, a couple steps below a handcannon in terms of power but still packed a hell of a punch. And was able to reload relatively fast thanks to the speed load system it had.
Slipping the spare speed-loader into the front pocket of his jeans, he aimed his newly acquired sidearm forward with his left hand glowing with electricity. Ready for combat at a moments notice.
"Plasmids changed everything around here." Atlas said suddenly. "They destroyed our bodies, our minds. We couldn't handle it. Best friends butchering one another, babies strangled in cribs. The whole city went to hell."
"And Rapture was supposed to be mankind's salvation?" Alex stated rather than asked as he turned to the door leading into the restaurant. "Sounds more like something out of a horror movie."
"You have no idea how right you are there, Boyo." The line cut out as the door in front of him opened revealing what had once been a very fancy place to eat. Blood, dirt and rubble littered the carpeted floor, party hats and masks similar to what the splicers had been wearing scattered across several surfaces.
The two most noticeable things were the two signs that Alex saw when he entered completely. The first being a poster with an image of a man wearing a rabbit mask promoting a masquerade ball to celebrate the new year. The second was a large, round neon sign on a lower landing several feet away that proclaimed 'Happy New Year: 1959'.
Shaking his head as he was reminded of the fact he was thrown into the past. The former Ranger heard the sound of someone yelling from close by. Moving about the room, he found a flight of stairs leading down to a lower level of the restaurant where a man was pounding on a locked door.
"You really did it this time Brenda! I'm not some sap! You want this ugly or do you want this nice?! I can do it either way! Open the damn door!" the male-splicer shouted through the door.
"I'll do what I want Charlie! It's my ADAM! I earned it!" A woman's voice shouted back venomously from the other side.
Alex took a look around and quickly came up with a plan. Keeping in mind the incident with the woman by the baby carriage moments ago, and the multiple encounters with splicers leading up to this point, he knew that trying to reason with these people was a worthless venture.
Keeping his revolver at the ready, he crouched low and slowly made his way down the rest of the stairs. Making himself as small and as quiet as possible to avoid detection. Though with the way the man was pounding on the door and shouting it was pretty easy, along with the fact there wasn't anyone else in the restaurant.
Reaching the bottom floor, Alex remained low and moved along a nearby counter. Drawing his knife along the way, he came up behind the splicer who was still bellowing at the woman on the other side.
The former Ranger gave a soft whistle. The splicer stopped what he was doing and turned around only to have a hand forced over his mouth and a steel blade stabbing into his throat. Severing his voice box and jugular as he knife went nearly all the way through, the tip of the blade coming out the back of his neck.
Once he was sure the splicer was dead, Alex dragged the body behind the counter and checked his pockets. Finding a few spare rounds for his revolver and a couple dollars but not much else.
"Charlie? Charlie, where ya gone?!" The locked door opened and the female splicer stood at the
threshold holding a pistol of her own with a cat mask over her face. "NO! Charlie!" she screamed when she saw the Ranger crouched over the other splicer.
But she was silenced when an electro-bolt nailed her in the chest, Alex drew his revolver and fired a round through her head that sent her flying back. The weapon kicked pretty good, but his training in firearms had him keeping the weapon steady enough to make the shot count.
Getting to his feet, Alex slowly approached the downed splicer. The .38 round had punched through just above her right eye, shattering her mask and revealing the ghastly image that was the woman's face.
Seeing this, in addition to how the other splicers had looked, the former Ranger couldn't help but think of how much ADAM it had taken for the people to lose their minds and for their bodies to essentially start to break down.
And also had him wondering how much of this stuff he should be putting into his own body…
Shaking his head, Alex checked the dead woman for anything useful before entering the room she'd been holed up in. Finding the restaurant's kitchen that was charred on multiple surfaces around the stoves. The lights flickered on and off as he trekked slowly along the tiled floor, finding another corpse located in the back that had been burned beyond recognition.
Finding a medical kit, some Eve and a couple more rounds, Alex had also managed to get his hands on a few bags of chips, individually wrapped snack cakes and a couple bottles of water that he packed into his backpack.
He didn't know how long he was going to be trapped in this place. Any sustenance that could help was better than nothing at all.
Taking a moment to polish off a bottle of water to quench his thirst. Alex made his way back into the restaurant..and immediately paused when he heard voices nearby.
Kneeling beside the counter, he peered around and caught sight of three more splicers wading through knee-deep water on the other side of the room. Lowering his pistol, he formed an idea and crouch-walked across the floor. Staying out of sight as he got close enough and brought up his hand crackling with energy.
One of the splicers looked up and saw him, but by then it was too late as he fired an electro-bolt into the pool they were standing in.
The water lit up like a christmas tree, energy coursing through it and through the three splicers. Frying them from the inside out until the electricity stopped and they all fell into the water and floated belly-up.
"Gotta love science." Alex said smirking, waiting until it was safe as he stepped into the water to check the bodies. Heading over to a small table off to the side, he found another Eve-hypo that he quickly injected himself with to refill his powers along with an old tape-recorder. Curious, he pressed the play button and listened as a woman's voice came from the small speaker on it;
"Another New Year's, another night alone. I'm out, and you're stuck in Hephaestus, working. Imagine my surprise. I guess I'll have another drink...here's a toast to Diane McClintock, silliest girl in Rapture. Silly enough to fall in love with Andrew Ryan, silly enough to..."
Explosions and gunfire could be heard in the background along with people screaming.
"What...what happened...I'm bleeding! Oh, God...what's happening..."
The recording ended, Alex just stared at the device for a few moments as he wondered what had happened.
But whatever it was, it seemed this place started falling apart around New Years. Making his way out of the pool, he examined the rest of the restaurant. Finding a few candy bars under a counter and another Eve-hypo before heading back up to the first floor and heading in the direction of the bathrooms.
He passed by a strange vent with a round port-hole at the top, only to stop when he saw something moving within it. Moving closer, he swore that he had seen a pair of glowing yellow eyes peering out at him before they disappeared into the darkness.
Thinking that he was just seeing things, he turned and headed into the restrooms when he felt an odd pressure on his mind.
His vision became cloudy and grainy, a ghostly image of a woman walking past him and into the woman's section while she spoke.
"I'm too spliced up, too spliced up...now nobody's gonna want me..." The image slowly disappeared and his vision returned to normal seconds later.
"What the hell..." Alex wondered while shaking his head as the pressure he had felt faded.
"Something up, Boyo? You've been silent for a while now." said Atlas, bringing him back to the present.
"I saw...something. Is Rapture haunted by any chance?" He asked looking to where the image of the woman had been a moment ago. "Cuz, I think I just saw a ghost walk by me talking to herself."
"Rapture is haunted, in a way. But these ghosts aren't from the afterlife. What these ghosts really are, are leftover memories of someone else who previously used one of the Eve-hypos you have used. By using the needle, some of the previous user's memories were passed on to you through genetic sampling. Essentially, you'll relive their past when you go near places or items that they had been near at one point." the Irishman explained.
Alex looked at his radio with a weirded out expression. "Fan-Fucking-tastic...here not even a few hours and I've contracted some fucked up, supernatural STD from sharing needles." he muttered while rubbing his eyes. Deciding to just let the situation lie for the moment, since the ghost he had seen didn't appear to be dangerous.
But making a note to be sure the needles he was gonna be injecting himself with were cleaner.
He turned toward the men's restrooms and looked among the stalls. When he reached the one on the far end he found the wall behind it completely blown out, leading into the building that was next to the restaurant.
Smiling at his luck, he moved through the hole with his pistol leading him. Finding himself on the upper balcony of a theater. Moving up to the railing that overlooked the bottom floor, he found a large glassed-in seating area and stage, but what really caught his eye were the two figures down below him.
One lying facedown on the floor, unmoving and most likely dead. The other was much smaller and kneeling close to the first, doing something that he couldn't see from that angle.
Seeing a bunch of scaffoldings overlapping in the air to his right, the former Ranger moved over to it and began to slowly take one step at a time along them. Moving out above the floor and getting a better look.
His eyes nearly fell out of his head when he did.
It was a little girl. No older than five or six wearing a dirty purple dress and no shoes. Her gray skin almost glowing from the spotlight shining down on her as she held a wicked looking tool with a long needle that she was stabbing into the body at her feet in several places as if testing it.
Alex swallowed the dry lump in his throat. Memories of when he was fading in and out of consciousness after injecting his first plasmid coming to mind.
The little girl holding the same tool with her 'huge friend' as she loomed over him talking about 'light in his belly' and 'angels'.
"Careful now..." Atlas almost made him jump when he spoke softly through his radio. "Would you kindly lower that gun of yours for a minute?" Alex slipped the revolver into his belt as he kept himself stable on the rafters.
"It's a little girl...what the fuck is she doing?" He asked as he watched her continue to stab the body on the floor.
"You think that's a child down there? Don't be fooled. She's a Little Sister now. Somebody went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster. Whatever you thought about right and wrong on the surface, well that don't count for much down in Rapture." Atlas explained. "Those Little Sisters, they carry ADAM. And like I said before, everyone wants it, everyone needs it."
The Ranger cast one last glance down at the little girl, who was singing softly to herself as she continued about her business. Moving along the scaffoldings until he reached the other side, he took the stairs down the glass viewing area and got a much closer look at the Little Sister.
She had long, dark-brown hair done up in a messy bun to keep it out of her glowing yellow eyes. The long tool in her hand looked almost as big as she was, looking like it was crafted from a rusty gas-pump handle with a long shaft ending in a foot long needle. On the top of the handle part was a glass chamber that resembled a baby bottle, nipple and all, that was filled with a familiar red-glowing fluid.
"ADAM" Alex thought wide eyed. "She's harvesting it from corpses!"
After a while the Little Sister stopped her stabbing, taking a quick look around before bringing the bottle part of the syringe to her lips and gulping it down like a man dying of thirst in a desert.
"Why the fuck would someone do this to a child." Alex said in disgusted horror as the girl wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before going back to harvesting the body again.
"ADAM was the primary source of everything down here in Rapture. Even plasmids fade over time, unless you keep the flow of ADAM going. There wasn't enough of the stuff to go around to meet the demand. Even more so when folks wanted it more than air to breathe. So the eggheaded ghouls in this place created the Little Sisters to gather more ADAM." Atlas answered. "Those things are literally walking ADAM factories…any splicer would die tryin' to get their hands on one."
Before much else could be said, the door out in the theater opened and a splicer entered. Glancing around the room briefly before setting his sights on the Little Sister whose back was to him. He looked around again before slowly making his way toward the girl from behind.
But the girl spun around and saw him. The splicer made a 'shushing gesture' with his hand, as if hoping that the girl would listen to him but it was in vain as she let out an ear-piercing scream that echoed even through the glass that separated Alex from the room.
The former Ranger felt his anger spike when he saw the man leap at the girl and strike her hard with the butt of the revolver in his hand. He was about to reach for his own weapon to kill the splicer when the whole room vibrated from a brutal roar that shook him to his core.
A roar that sounded like something out of a person's nightmares.
Up on the balcony above the stage,, a mass of red lights could be seen barreling into the room. Jumping through the air and slamming on the ground and rattling the whole theater like a small earthquake.
The thing that was illuminated, a hulking form wearing a heavy metal and leather diving suit that was rusty bronze in color. A large oxygen tank taking up space over the left shoulder. The spot that could have been the head was encased within a hemispherical helmet with eight glowing portholes that were lit up like the fires of hell.
But the most dangerous feature on the monster was a massive power drill that took up its entire right arm from hand to elbow.
The splicer spun around, seeing the beast and fired two rounds from his pistol which bounced
harmlessly off of its metal carapace. The monster swatted a chair with its drill-arm and sent it crashing against the wall forcing the splicer to dodge.
Watching this all unfold, Alex saw the Little Sister spring up from her spot on the floor. Running over and hiding herself behind the hulking creature's legs. Seeing the situation out of his favor, the splicer decided to make a run for the door he had come through.
He barely made it four steps when the beast charged him, moving at speeds that should have not been possible with its body size and slammed the splicer with its free hand and sending him crashing back into the wall, causing spider-web cracks to spread along the concrete.
The monster didn't give him a chance to stand as it powered up its drill and drove it into the man's chest. Blood sprayed through the air and across the wall as it chewed through the splicer's torso.
Yanking the weapon out, the beast grabbed its victim by the head with its other hand and smashed him against the reinforced glass with bone-crunching force. Doing so repeatedly until a hole was punched through it. The man's badly broken and bleeding corpse slung over the low wall like a rag doll.
Alex stood completely frozen as those terrifying red portholes turned and looked at him. The beast emitted a deep groan, standing protectively in front of the Little Sister as if conveying once simple message;
'Back. Off'.
Being smart, the former Ranger raised his hands and took five long, slow steps back. Being as less threatening as possible lest the monster turn its drill on him. "Easy big guy..." he said, whispering with sweat dripping down his forehead, his heart rate spiking as he prayed that his fate wouldn't be the splicer's.
Despite his training, Alex knew damn well he had no hope in hell fighting something like that with what he had on him. It was better to back away instead of trying anything.
The lights of the portholes changed to a soft yellow as the beast turned around, the Little Sister skipping out the open doorway with the giant lumbering behind her. Alex let out a breath he had been holding when the two were out of sight.
"That's the Big Daddy. She gathers the ADAM, he keeps her safe." Atlas explained after everything settled.
Alex said nothing. Moving over to the dead body and taking a couple of spare bullets from it before turning to the gate on his right that was locked with a rusty chain and padlock. He took out his crowbar and quickly bashed the obstruction off, opening the gate and slipping through.
Wanting to put as much distance from where the Little Sister and the Big Daddy had been and himself as possible.
X
A/N: Looks like Alex's quest through Rapture has already reached a new level.
A few folks have been asking about where this story will be heading in the future. And as much as I want to give you guys a heads up and spoilers, I'm gonna keep a few of the finer points to myself for the time being. But don't worry, a lot of your answers will come sooner than you think.
I'll probably update again within the next week, till then stay frosty folks!