The halls were silent, save for the occasional dripping that came from the leaking pipes that hadn't been maintained in who knew how long.
Alex kept his machine gun level as he stepped out of the pathway that led from medical's main pavilion and into the surgical foyer where Steinmen had holed himself up. After clearing out the rest of the sector he followed in the direction of the only place the doctor could be.
And since his name was pretty much all over the place in this wing of medical, it was a pretty safe bet that he was hiding out here somewhere.
The security door closing behind him, the former Ranger stepped over a pool of blood on the floor when he heard someone muttering from somewhere close by. Keeping his stance tense, he moved slowly around the lone wall that separated him from the main foyer, machine gun tight against his shoulder when he found a man in a doctor's coat scribbling on a black and white image with his blood soaked hand.
The sound of his boots on the tiles made the man's head snap up, "No! I'm not finished yet!" he shouted before leaping to his feet and taking off like a bat out of hell toward the open doorway behind him before Alex could get a shot off.
Throwing some kind of explosive over his shoulder, the blast collapsing the neon sign above and sealing it and making Alex growl in frustration. "Easy, lad." said Atlas from his radio. "You'll have to find some way to get through to surgery...and Steinman. Chin up, now. The Lord hates a quitter."
Before he could answer him, the former Ranger heard a faint whistling sound and looked up in time to see a sparking canister flying straight toward him. Every instinct screamed in alarm as he dove back behind cover. An explosion shaking the tiles under him from the homemade grenade that had been thrown at him.
Bracing himself against the wall, Alex leaned out and sprayed a controlled burst at the upper balcony where a lone splicer stood with a small crate in one arm and another explosive already lit in the other. The bullets tearing through the railing and the wall and making them flinch. The distraction being enough for the former Ranger to lean farther out and fire several more bursts that hit home, the splicer pitching over the ruined railing and crashing to the floor below.
Reloading his weapon, Alex approached the collapsed entry way and tried to find a way through. But the debris had the opening completely sealed. "Damn, gonna need some serious firepower to get through this."
He felt something rolled into his foot and looked down to see one of the explosives the splicer had been throwing at him. Picking it up, he saw that it was definitely homemade, nothing more than an old soup can fashioned with a fuse and filled with gunpowder. But with the amount in it, it could pack some serious damage.
Glancing at the dead man's body, he saw the small crate the splicer had was busted open and a half dozen more can-grenades laying around. An idea quickly forming in his head as he slung his machine gun over his shoulder and went about gathering the explosives. Piling them up next to the pile of debris before taking one with him to the opposite side of the room.
Hunkering behind a vending machine, he snapped his fingers and made a small flame dance in the air above them and lit the fuse. Tossing it toward the pile of explosives the moment the sparks started flying.
BOOM!
Sparks and debris flew in all directions. The former Ranger took cover behind the vending machine few stray pieces of debris shot in his direction, when he looked up after a few moments the pathway was clear again and he could move forward.
"Gotta hand it to these freaks. They got ingenuity." He thought out loud, stepping through the opening. On the other side, he was met with the sight of a dead woman in a wheelchair by the nearest wall.
Her head had been shaved bald and she was covered in stitched up lacerations. Blood soaking what was probably once a beautiful white dress as her dead eyes stared sightlessly back at him.
Shaking off the unease, he noticed another audio-dairy hanging on the wall. This one with Steinman's name on it like a few others he had found back in the main pavilion. Without thinking twice, he walked up, mindful of the corpse, and pressed play;
"Today I had lunch with the Goddess. 'Steinman', she said...'I'm here to free you from the tyranny of the commonplace. I'm here to show you a new kind of beauty.' I asked her, 'What do you mean, Goddess?'
'Symmetry, dear Steinman. It's time we did something about symmetry'..."
Alex cringed, "Christ, this guy's more cracked than the liberty bell." He turned and headed around the corner in the hallway. Finding a gate blocking the path, and at the far end behind it was the same man he had seen running before.
"NO! GODDESS! HE'LL RUIN EVERYTHING! SEND YOUR HARPIES! TEAR HIM TO BITS!" he screamed before running off again. And in his place, two security bots flew out into the open and headed straight for the former Ranger with their guns blazing.
Pinning to the closest wall, he waited for the two drones to get close enough before jumping out. Both palms fired electricity, overloading both bots and knocking them to the floor. A shotgun blast to both ensured that they didn't reactivate again.
With the drones out of the way he opened the closed gate and began making his way down the flooded corridor that the deranged doctor had run down. A stationary turret at the other end kicked on and was about to open fire when an electro-bolt struck its frame making it seize up. A shotgun blast turned it to scrap as he walked past and down farther into the surgery wing.
Cracking the shotgun open and reloading fresh shells, Alex swapped to his machine gun as he stepped through a set of doors into one of the operating rooms.
Above the sounds of steam and water coming from the pipes, he could make out someone rambling to themselves from somewhere farther in. Gripping his weapon and easing his nerves despite the obvious trouble he was heading into as he followed the voice.
The sounds getting louder when he approached a viewing window that overlooked the main surgical room where he saw the same doctor he had seen running around working on a female-splicer...who was still awake and screaming in pain as he stabbed her body.
"What can I do with this one, Aphrodite? She WON'T. STAY. STILL!" He shouted at the ceiling, each word being punctured as he viciously stabbed her in the stomach which had blood spraying through the air and splashing onto the floor. "I want to make them beautiful, but they always turn out wrong!"
The lights behind him came on revealing women strapped to metal dias' hanging in the air, their bodies showing different forms of past surgeries which consisted of dried blood and crudely stitched incisions.
"This one...too fat!" he shouted looking at the one on the right.
"This one...too tall!" motioning to the one on the left.
"This one...too symmetrical!" Lastly, the one in the middle.
Alex felt his insides curl seeing the tortured, dead women hanging in the air like crucified lab rats as the man, which he could safely guess was Steinman, went back to his current 'patient'. "And now..." he looked up and saw the former Ranger watching him through the window. "What's this, goddess? An Intruder?! He's ugly! Ugly, ugly, UGLY!"
He reached down and pulled up his own machine gun, the former Ranger snapped out of his horrified daze and immediately dropped to the floor just as a hail of gunfire shattered the window and sent bits of glass raining down on him.
When the rounds stopped, he was on his feet and returning fire, forcing the doctor into cover as he leapt through the shattered window and landed on the tiled floor below.
"You're hideous! You need to be fixed!" Steinman exclaimed as he came around the corner firing his weapon, forcing Alex to sprint out of the way and slide behind a cabinet before any of the rounds could connect.
"You're not touching me with any knife, you crazy fucking scalpel jocky!" He fired back before leaning out of cover and shooting at the doctor. A few of his rounds hit home and made the man grunt in pain before he ran out of sight.
"I know I hit him," He thought while reloading. 'Why the hell didn't he go down?' Then he remembered what Atlas had said about Steinman not being 'human' anymore, not to mention what he had learned about the effects of ADAM.
"Fuck, he must be a spliced more than the others. There's not any other kind of explanation." he muttered as he scanned the room for any sign of the surgeon gone mad.
"THE GODDESS WILL HAVE YOU TOO!" Alex had about a second to react, rolling out of harm's way just before machine gun rounds began tearing into where he had been crouching a moment before. He spun around and leaned back when a scalpel blade came dangerously close to slicing his throat open.
Steinman cackled madly, machine gun in one hand and scalpel in another as he went after the former Ranger with reckless abandon. Shooting from the hip as his target used incinerate to throw a blast of fire to get some distance between them.
The surgeon bellowed as the flames burned through his blood soaked scrubs, stumbling back and allowing Alex to fire his own weapon, pumping an entire clip into Steinman's torso.
Not giving him a chance to recover, the former Ranger dropped the machine gun and charged. Spear tackling the madman in the stomach and sending them both toppling over an overturned equipment table. Raining blow after blow as hard as he could to Steinman's face, before drawing his knife.
Just when things were looking in his favor, the surgeon turned the tables. His arm snapped up and stopped Alex's arm before he could bury the blade into his neck, he shot his other hand up to stab with his scalpel.
Alex saw this and blocked with his other arm as well before it could reach its mark, but Steinman showed a bizarre amount of strength as the madman rolled to the side. Sending Alex's knife clattering out of reach.
Now hovering over the former Ranger, Steinman stabbed his scalpel down with both hands grasping the handle. Alex grabbing both his wrists and stopping the blade from piercing his throat, but strained as the doctor pushed more of his weight into their deadlock.
"The goddess demands perfection!" he ranted, forcing the blade down more. "Can't you understand?! You're an insult to her! You all are!"
The former Ranger grit his teeth, feeling the point of the surgical tool already starting to press against the flesh of his neck and drawing a bit of blood. He didn't have much time before he became another corpse in the insane doctor's little house of horrors.
Thinking fast, he channeled what little power he had left into his hands, sending a powerful shock through them and into the man trying to kill him.
Steinman screamed and began convulsing as blue electricity zapped through him. Allowing Alex to pull the knife away and headbutt the doctor hard enough in the face to knock him off. Rolling back to his feet, the former Ranger pulled out his revolver and slapped a speed-loader filled with anti-personnel rounds before wasting no time in opening fire on Steinman as he tried to regain himself. Each round finding purchase and knocking him back step after step until he was standing by a cluster of oxygen tanks against the far wall.
After stabbing an Eve-hypo into his arm, Alex glared at the doctor who was supporting himself against the wall. Blood oozing down his already stained scrubs as he looked up at him.
The former Ranger snapped his fingers, the whole room shook as one of the tanks was hit with incinerate and caused a chain reaction that set them all off. Alex dropped to the floor and covered himself as Steinman was caught in the blast and was sent sailing across the room.
When the blast died down, Alex stood back up and surveyed the damage. A large scorch mark was burned into the floor and the wall where the tanks had been situated and a few pieces of burning metal lay scattered about.
It took only a few seconds to find Steinman. The doctor's charred and broken form laying on the floor at the base of the far wall where he had landed. Most of his scrubs having been burned away in the blast as he laid immobile on the floor.
Wiping the small trail of blood from his neck, Alex quickly reloaded his revolver before approaching the downed form. Electro-bolt charged to one hand and revolver in the other as he stood over the madman in case he got back up.
Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly considering all that he had seen in Rapture so far, the bastard was still alive. His chest shaking with painful, uneven gasps as he tried to breathe into his burned and bleeding chest.
"A-Aphrodite?" He stuttered, reaching a hand out and grasping at the air at something only he could see. "W-Why have you forsaken me? Please...accept me into your embrace...as one of your angels."
Alex shook his head, "You're nothing but a monster, Steinman. With the things you've done, the last thing you deserve is paradise." Steinman's eyes glazed over as he continued to stare at the ceiling, his hand falling to the floor as his body slumped when the last of his life finally drained out of him.
After making sure he was really dead, the former Ranger let out a silent breath before holstering his pistol and began rummaging through the man's scrubs. Coming up with a couple of clips for the machine gun and a metal card-key with the doctor's name on it.
Pocketing the items, and gathering his dropped machine gun, Alex's radio went off when Atlas started to speak;
"You all right out there, boyo?"
Alex looked over at Steinman's corpse before picking up the device and answering. "Yeah...I got the key. Steinman's dead." he said as he tried to shake off the adrenaline from the fight he'd just been in.
"It was time somebody took care of that sick bastard." Atlas replied "Make your way back to Emergency Access. I'm making my own way to the backside of Port Neptune myself. We'll get there soon enough."
Clipping the radio back on his belt, the former Ranger sent one last look at the doctor before making his way back toward the medical pavilion's main foyer. Only encountering a couple of rogue splicers along the way that were easily dispatched before entering the same corridor he had come through to get to surgical. The cold dampness of the tunnel coupled with the sounds within the water outside filling the still air.
He made it about halfway when the ground suddenly started shaking, a loud crash rattling the whole sector and forcing Alex to grab on to the wall to avoid falling over. "Sounds like another tunnel collapse," said his guide over the radio. "Welcome to Rapture, the world's fastest growing pile of junk."
"Hope this place holds together long enough for us to get the hell out of it." The former Ranger couldn't help but think as he righted himself and kept moving. Only to find the doorway he had taken before was badly damaged, the glass walls on either side cracked and spraying water into the tunnel.
"God dammit." He cursed seeing his exit blocked. "Now where-" A bellowing roar of pain from somewhere close by stopped him mid-sentence. Figuring it to be a threat, he forgot about what he had seen and raised his machine gun toward the third door in the tunnel that branched off. The entrance, having been locked before, was now open and revealed to be the direction the roar had come from.
A loud scream came from the same direction, one that sounded like a little girl. The noise alone had Alex running down the open pathway in time to see an explosion off to the side. A large body wearing a diving suit being thrown from a shattered window and crashing to the floor on the opposite side where it laid unmoving with flames still coating its form.
"That's a Big Daddy..." Alex said, seeing the hulking golem was similar to the one he'd seen back at the theater. "But where's the-" he was cut off by another scream and ran over to where the body had come flying out of.
Atlas said something over the radio again, but he ignored it when he stopped in the archway and saw a Little Sister backing away from a splicer who was holding a crowbar in his hand toward her as he stalked after her.
"It's just you, and me," he said darkly. "And all of the tasty ADAM I can drink." The Little Sister fell on her backside and tried to scramble away as he came after her.
Alex saw red and pressed the machine gun to his shoulder. "HEY ASSHOLE!" The splicer jumped and looked his way. "PICK ON SOMEONE YOUR OWN SIZE!" He opened fire without a second thought, peppering the man's body with rounds until he fell back dead on the floor.
Lowering the smoking barrel, the former Ranger looked over at the Little Sister. Her glowing eyes looking down at the now dead splicer with her tiny hands clasped tightly around an old doll that was covered in dirt with a torn dress.
When he took a step into the room her fearful gaze snapped his way and she backed up. "It's alright." he said, putting his weapon away and showing both his hands to her. "I'm not like them..."
The glow of her eyes unsettled him, but deep down he could see the terror shining through them.
In the light, he could make out her features much easier. She was barely a third of his height, wearing an old light-blue dress with what was once a white shirt under it. Her filthy, dirty-blonde hair was tied back in a loose bun and she wore no shoes. Her little gray toes pressed to the cold tiles beneath her as she stood there looking at him.
Her face was sunken in a bit, eyes a little hollow around the edges whether from whatever was done to her to make her this way or lack of food he couldn't really tell.
Kneeling down to her level, he smiled at the girl while she continued to clutch her doll. "I won't hurt you." he said, slowly reaching out for her.
A gunshot rang out making Alex flinch and the Little Sister scream. She took off running to the other side of the room by some old furniture while the former Ranger fell on his ass, looking up at the upper balcony where the shot had been fired to see a woman wearing a violet colored dress, blonde hair tied back in a loose ponytail as she aimed a revolver at him.
"Stay away from her!" she shouted down at him with a heavy German accent. "Or the next one is for you!"
Alex immediately put his hands up in surrender knowing that she had the advantage, but also wanting to show he wasn't a threat. "Easy now, Doctor...He's just looking for a wee bit of ADAM, just enough to get by." Atlas said over both of their radios.
"I'll not have him hurt my Little Ones!" she exclaimed, keeping her weapon trained on the former Ranger as he slowly stood back up.
"I wasn't!" he called up at her. "If you had been here a minute ago, you would have seen me saving her!"
The woman continued to glare down at him, but her aim seemed to lax a little after a moment or two. "It's okay, lad." The Irishman continued speaking over the waves. "That's not a child, not anymore it ain't. Dr. Tenenbaum there saw to that."
Alex looked at his radio before looking up at the woman in shock. Brigid Tenenbaum, he'd heard her voice in several places in the Medical Pavilion via audio-diaries. A science prodigy that was locked away in a German camp in her teen years where she developed her love for science.
He glanced at the Little Sister who hid behind the furniture she had run to, "Please! Bitte, do not hurt her! Have you no heart?" Tenenbaum pleaded.
"Aye, that's a pretty sermon coming from the ghoul who cooked up them creatures in the first place. Took fine little girls and turned them into that, didn't you?" Atlas snipped back.
The revelation had Alex paling as he looked up at the woman. "You...You did this to them?" Memories of him seeing what the girls did in Rapture flashed in his thoughts and had him gritting his teeth and clenching his fists in anger.
Tenenbaum lowered her weapon and looked down at the floor. Whether in regret and shame he wasn't completely sure. But he was far too pissed to think about that now that he knew what she had done to the Little Sisters.
"Listen to me, boyo." said Atlas, bringing him back to the situation at hand. "You can't survive without the ADAM those...things...are carrying. Are you prepared to trade your life, the lives of my wife and child for Tenenbaum's little Frankensteins?"
Turning back to the Little Sister, he began to make his way over to her when Tenenbaum called out to him again. "Wait!" He looked up to see her holding a Plasmid jar in her hand. "Here! There is another way." she threw the jar into the air, Alex snapped his hand out and caught it. The label on the jar reading; 'Cure All'.
"Use this, free them from their torment." she reasoned.
"How can I be sure that this isn't poison?" he asked, not taking his eyes off the concoction in his hands. "Especially with how ADAM has turned everyone else into psychotic mutants."
The scientist kept her gaze on the former Ranger before speaking, "If you are serious about saving the little ones...then you have no reason to fear. All I ask is for a little bit of your trust. Please." she said with her tone imploring and filled with sorrow.
Looking the jar over with calculating eyes, he looked back up at Tenenbaum before taking out the empty hypo needle. Filling the syringe with the glowing red substance, he hesitated a moment before injecting himself with it.
If this stuff really could help the Little Sisters…then it would be worth the risk this time.
The sensation of the ADAM filled his body, but unlike the last few times, Alex felt a calming warmth fill his body. From the center of his chest to the tips of his fingers and toes.
Turning back to where the Little Sister was hiding, he made his way over to find her sitting on the floor against a large storage trunk, hugging her little legs tight to her chest with her face buried into her knees.
She looked up when she heard his approach, whimpering softly with tears gathering in the corners of her glowing eyes as she tried to shy away from him more.
Kneeling down, Alex smiled at her gently. Seeing her doll on the floor close by, he picked it up and held it out for her. "Everything's going to be okay," he said gently.
Hesitantly, the Little Sister stood up and reached her smaller hand out. Expecting the former Ranger to snatch it away from her again or to grab her. But when she managed to wrap her fingers around the arm of the toy she brought it to her chest and hugged it.
With her now distracted, Alex moved forward a bit until he was within reach of her. His larger hand went out to her, white glowing veins spreading along his arm and hand as he stroked the top of her head.
The Little Sister looked up at him and gasped before similar veins spread across her face and body. A flash of light blinded the former Ranger like a camera flash. The child gave a sharp yelp which made his heart stop thinking that he had hurt her, but when the light finally faded he couldn't help but gasp.
Standing before him was the little girl, only now she was no longer the color of stone. Her skin now a healthy peach color, her once glowing eyes were now a bright-blue that looked up at him in innocent wonder.
Taking a slow step forward, the girl reached up and wrapped her small arms around his neck. Burrowing her face into his chest as a tiny voice reached his ears. "T-Thank you..." she said softly into his shirt.
Alex couldn't help but smile again, his own arms going around the child as he hugged her. "Happy to help." he said, moving himself back, running a hand through her dirty hair and making her giggle.
Up on the balcony, Tenenbaum watched the exchange with a soft smile on her haggard features. She had never thought she would encounter someone who would be so careful and caring about the Little Sisters. There looked to be something special about this young man.
The girl suddenly made a face, one of her hands going to her stomach looking like she was in pain.
"What's wrong?" Alex asked with concern flowing through him.
"M-My tummy...hurts..." She lurched before throwing up on the floor. Green bile expelled from her mouth and pooling by her feet. And in the center of the puddle, was a flailing slug that looked otherworldly.
Roughly six inches in length and a couple inches thick with brownish-black skin covered in a slimy film. An array of yellow luminescent spots lined both sides with larger ones for eyes near the head which had a suction cup for a mouth.
"The fuck is this thing…" Alex said in almost horrified awe as he rubbed the little girl's back.
"ADAM slug." The former Ranger spun around, drawing his revolver and keeping himself in front of the little girl, finding Tenenbaum standing behind him. She looked to be at least ten years older than himself, but her haggard and worn features made her look much older. Though there was no doubt that she would have been rather beautiful.
"They create the ADAM. Placed into the little ones, they form a symbiotic relationship. Allowing them to produce more ADAM over time. The plasmid I gave you is the only known way to separate the two without killing the little ones." she explained.
Alex stood slowly, keeping his weapon trained on the doctor. "Why? What possible reason would you do this to them?" he asked, his tone sharp and grim.
Tenenbaum sighed sadly, "Once, I believed that I was doing something good for the world. My discoveries and innovations making life easier for others. Only for my countrymen to use them for war and death. Coming to Rapture, I was promised a chance to continue my work without fear of it being taken from me and used nefariously."
"When we discovered ADAM…there was so much it could be used for. It's genetic alteration ability making for something no one ever thought possible. But once Fontaine began making the plasmids…the demand for it became too much. The Little Sister program was created to handle such a demand."
The former Ranger stepped forward and nearly had the revolver pressed against the doctor's head, "That's it? Profit? Meeting the demand for a bunch of fucked up addicts? That's all these girls were worth to you and the assholes in this place? What kind of fucking monster are you?!" he demanded.
Tenenbaum didn't meet his gaze, looking past him at the girl he'd saved who was hiding behind his leg and looking up at her. "One that hopes to fix her mistakes…"
Alex kept his aim, but he could hear the regret in her tone and the broken look in her eyes. Whatever she had done in the past, it seemed she was trying to redeem herself in the present. Further proven with the plasmid she'd given him to heal the girl of her affliction.
He didn't trust her, but he had too few allies on his side at the moment. And if Tenenbaum really was intending on helping the Little Sisters…then maybe there was a chance.
Lowering his revolver, he gave her a sharp look. "You have a safe house?"
"Ja, it is well hidden where I keep the other little ones I have managed to save." replied the doctor.
Nodding, Alex turned to the little girl. "Do you have a name?" he asked gently.
"Sally." the girl said, looking much better now that everything was out of her system.
"That's a pretty name. My name's Alex," The former Ranger glanced at the doctor who continued to watch silently. "Listen, Sally, I have to get going. Can you go with the nice lady here? She'll take you somewhere safe."
Sally nodded, still holding her doll as she made her way over to Tenenbaum who smiled and took her small hand into her own.
"The path of the righteous is not always easy, yes?" she said after a moment.
Alex scowled, "To some, yes. But I was raised better than that." he pointed at her. "If you really are the one behind what happened to them, then you better be telling the truth about keeping them safe. Or else you and I are gonna have serious problems down the road."
The doctor nodded seriously. "You have my word, Herr Alex. And the rewards for your choice will become clear in time...just be patient." she reached into a pocket and pulled out an empty hypo. "The slug contains the ADAM you seek. Drain it now while it still lives."
Taking the syringe, the former Ranger nodded as Tenenbaum and Sally left the room. The little girl looked back at him one last time before they disappeared out of sight.
"Tenenbaum's playing you for a sap." Atlas' voice broke the silence. "Those things may look like wee little girls, but looks don't make it so. You'll need all the ADAM you can get to survive."
Alex picked up the slug which was looking much weaker now that it was separated from its host, and stuck the needle into it. Pulling back the plunger and drawing a green substance from the creature.
He picked up his radio and hit the transmission button, "And if it was your child, and their life was in someone else's hands, what would you say then?" he asked evenly, not liking how the Irishman could disregard the life of a child, no matter what experimentation had been to them.
"Lad, it's not...(sigh) Alright, you've made your point. Regardless, you got yourself a bit of ADAM to help get you by. You probably noticed that its green instead of red, thats cause its unrefined, but still very potent. If you come across another one of them Gatherer's Garden machines make sure that you load up on a new plasmid or even a tonic or two. If the price ain't too dear of course..."
As if Atlas' words were the trigger, the wall on the left side of the room raised into the ceiling. Lights snapping on and illuminating several ads surrounding a Gatherer's Garden that had been conveniently placed.
Tilting his head, Alex just decided to roll with it and approached the machine. Finding an audio-diary sitting on the floor beside a suitcase, he picked it up and hit play, Steinman's voice filling the room;
"Not only are those little girls veritable Adam factories, they're nearly indestructible. They regenerate any wounded flesh with stem versions of the dead cells. But their relationship with the implanted slugs is symbiotic."
"If you harvest the slug, the host will die."
" 'So you see it's not like killing.' Tenenbaum said. 'It's more like removing a terminal patient from life support'."
"Fuck that." Alex growled. "No amount of ADAM is worth killing those girls." He tossed the device aside and looked at the Gatherer's Garden before him.
Unlike the other vending machines that he had come across, this one didn't take money. Instead there was a dispenser on the side where ADAM could be injected. Taking out the syringe of ADAM he had collected from the slug, he inserted the needle into the proper slot and injected it into the machine.
A counter underneath the panel flickered until the number '80' appeared. "Alright, let's see what we got." he muttered before going through the selection the machine had.
There wasn't a whole lot he could afford given the amount of ADAM he had. Eventually he found a couple of tonics that looked useful.
Pressing a button labeled 'Armored Shell', a small syringe filled with a green substance popped out of the opening. From what he read, it was a tonic that made the user physically stronger against attacks.
The second one he hit was one called 'Sport Booster', this one increased the physical capabilities of the user while increasing speed, strength and endurance.
A biological armor serum, and a body enhancer. Both still had ADAM laced in them, but it was smaller in comparison to the plasmids.
"Well...bottoms up." he said, taking the first needle and injecting it into roughly the same spot as his previous injections. The response was almost instant, he could feel his bones, muscles, even his skin strengthening from the genetic alteration almost like a growth-spurt cranked to the max.
When everything settled in, Alex injected the next one much to the same result. Once it was done, he took a moment while trying to adjust to the new changes in his body. Feeling strangely…better than he ever had before. Almost like he could take on the best athletes in the world and come out on top.
The former Ranger violently shook his head, "NO! Don't think like that!" he chastised himself. The only reason he was doing this was to give himself an edge against the splicers. He was not going to get himself hooked on this shit and become like the freaks roaming around Rapture.
Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself as best he could. Reminding himself of who he was and his goal to get out of this city.
Done with the machine, he unslung his machine gun and exited through the door under the balcony where Tenenbaum had been before. Idly noticing his pack was much lighter than it had been before as he reloaded his weapon and prepared to throw himself back into the furnace once again.
X
A/N: Steinman's dead, Tenenbaum's been encountered, and Alex has saved the first of many Little Sisters.
It took a bit of research in regards to the ADAM slugs to understand the bonding between them and the Little Sisters. And since they never really discussed exactly how the character received ADAM while saving the girls I figured I'd use a bit of my own imagination involving the results.
And honestly, in the 20 years since Bioshock was released, I've never once harvested a Little Sister. Video game or not, I draw the line hard on killing kids. And I think a lot of other people will agree with me on that.
Alex has also added some tonics to his body for more of an edge, but his inner conflict regarding splicing is still cranked to the max. Though how long will it last until his hand is forced?
All the chapters I had stored have been posted, and the next installment is already partway done. I'm gonna try and update once a week, maybe twice if I can really get the ball rolling. But I'm finding a lot of inspiration for this story and I'll keep rolling with it while i still have the momentum.
Keep the kudos coming, and I'll keep writing.