The door opened to a poster advertising "cosmetic enhancements" hung above a sofa. The black and white tiles of the floor lacked the pristine shine one thinks of when they think of a medical facility.
"Now you've met Andrew Ryan. The bloody king of Rapture." The was nothing but contempt in Atlas' voice as the radio crackled. "Now find your way to Emergency Access."
"J.R Steinman… sounds vaguely familiar." Medic murmured, before the another Vita-Chamber and the posters on either side of it caught his attention. "Ah, finally a bit of an explanation. Introducing the future of medicine. Restore vigor and spirit with the touch of a button."
"So, what, its a spa day in a can?" Scout said, knocking on the glass doors.
"Ah, so much I'd like to study, so little time." The doctor lamented as he finally stepped back. Hesitantly turning away from the machine.
The sound of laughter was startling as they came around the corner, but the source turned out to come from a speaker from what seemed to be a vending machine of sorts. A bright mostly blue colored clown painted around the speaker, as if the clown had been the one laughing and welcoming them to its "Circus Of Values."
"Hey, this thing sells freakin booze an' bullets." Scout said, pointing at the pictures decorating the bottom below the dispenser bin.
"Somehow, I'm not surprised. Could be convenient. What calibers it say it's got." The Sniper asked, leaning over to look over the labels on the buttons.
"Ain't gonna work for me. Some sort of electrified buckshot, and .38. Might work for the spooks though. Oi, Jack, whats that little number you picked up carry. Give us a look." He said, holding out his hand. Once the revolver was in his hand he gave a quick look before he passed it back. "Well, you're covered, at least."
"Electrified buckshot? Sounds like something Engie would come up with." Scout said.
"I reckon I don't much need it now." The Texan replied with a small chuckle.
"Hey what was that stuff the guy on the radio said you guys would need to be takin' if you keep shootin' lightnin' everywhere?" Scout questioned.
"Ah, EVE, I think." Jack replied crouching slightly in front of the vending machine. "Like Adam and Eve, I suppose… Looks like this thing has em. I reckon we probably oughta get a few, huh?"
"Might be wise." The Engineer nodded, reaching into one of his many overall pockets. Pulling out a thick, beaten up leather wallet. "I suppose we ought to hope this thing'll take US dollars."
He slipped several bills into the slot on the machine and hit the button labeled for the hyperdermic needles a handful of times. It took the machine several moments, but finally a pair of syringes plopped down into the bin. "Well, better than nothing. I reckon if there's one there's more of these things lying around here. We'll pick up more if we need." He said, carefully tucking them into a pocket of his tool belt.
The doors to the Emergency Access were thankfully only a few feet away. The doors stuck in a cycle of opening and closing as they smashed into something wedged between them.
"Kinda looks like that thing that scared that spider sheila off." The Sniper said, earning a nod from the Engineer as he knelt down beside it. "I wonder if I can't get it moving again. Heavy, mind holding them doors still for a minute for me?"
The doors stopping, fidgiting in place as large, strong hands forced them to stop was his answer, and he pulled out a few tools from his belt.
"Huh, Looks like this thing runs on some sort of fluid. Pipes are all knocked to hell though."
After a few moments, the last pipe was fit into place, and with the press of a small button a teal liquid flowed through one end to the other, and with a sputter the propeller began to spin and it shakily lifted off the ground. "There we go. Now ain't that cute."
Obstacle in front of whatever sensor there was now gone, the doors slid open with ease.
Just inside the doors was a display, part of its glass broken. But on the unbroken side was another, dormant machine. It seemed somebody had tried to either steal the machine, or activate it.
The faint voice of a woman, apparently deep into conversation with what sounded like herself echoed from deeper inside.
They slowly crept further into the room. As they turned around, they saw her, bent over the corpse of a man lying on the floor. But from the stairs above came the sounds of a man, and the two seemed to argue a moment, oblivious to the trespassers among them as the woman charged at the man and a fight broke out. The sound of a shot rang loudly through the room, an a man in a dirty smock, gun in hand, waltzed down the stairs. The winner of the scrap.
Now he knelt before the corpse, poking about for a few moments before he stood. No one had moved, yet he finally seemed to take note of the unfamiliar and non disfigured faces. "Who's there!" He cried.
Not waiting for an answer as he leapt to his feet, spinning around and shooting blindly towards the group, sending men scattering for cover.
The flying machine apparently took offense, it's own bullets firing back at the man.
The man had won the fight against the woman, but he proved no match for the machine. And before the man had even fallen to the floor it dutifully returned to hovering beside the Engineer.
With the room clear, at least for the moment, several of them turned to the board of blinking lights behind them. "If this is a map of the place, looks like the whole place is locked down." The Engineer said as the Demoman and Soldier wandered over to the aluminum desk in the corner.
"Looks like one of em was makin' a stockpile. First aid kit, some machine gun rounds. Got another one o'those tapes here." The Demoman said, picking up the boxy little machine. The Soldier stashed away their finds in one of the pouches on his belt as the Scotsmans brought the tape to the others.
"Ryan and ADAM. ADAM and Ryan." A man began when the button was pressed. "All those years of study, and was I ever truly a surgeon before I met them? How we plinked away with our scalpels and toy morality. Yes, we could lop a boil here, and shave down a beak there, but… could we really ever change anything?" The man mused. "No. But ADAM gives us the means to do it. And Ryan frees us from the phony ethics that held us back. Change your look, change your sex, change your race. It's yours to change, and nobody else's."
"So it seems Andrew Ryan had at least one loyal supporter in who ever this was. A cosmetic surgeon, by the sounds of it." Said Spy as he motioned for the Demoman to set the tape aside.
"Could be that Steinman guy on that poster." The Scout said. "Sounds like he and doc would get along."
"Nonsense. I am interested in improving the man, not changing his looks. I could do so, but it's the inner workings I wish to perfect. What do I care if a patient has a beak of a nose or ears like an elephant." The Medic dismissed, pulling away from the group, striding towards the door with another emergency access sign above it. Set a few steps lower than the rest of the floor and flooded slightly. The doorway itself was blocked off by a grate. "It looks like we'll either need to find a control, or force it open."
"Looks like controls might be up their the Engineer said, nodding towards the bit of floor at the top of the stairs before he began to mosey up the stairs. Steel toed boots clanging against the metal steps. "I'm on it."
As he pulled the lever in the little console overlooking the emergency access door, the lights flashed red, and the set of doors behind him slid open. "Ah hell." The rest of the group tromped up the stairs to join him, and the radio crackled. "If you want to use the emergency access, You'll be needing Doctor Steinman's key. He's the one what runs this place. But I don't expect him to hand it to you out of the milk of human kindness. Steinman ain't that kind, and frankly, I'm not sure he's still human."
The door led into a small, skinny hallway that led out into a small, boxy glass walled room overlooking the entrance to the medical pavilion.
"Oh hey sweet!" Scout exclaimed darting forward to scoop up the machine gun laying propped up against the small console inside. "Doesn't look broken."
"It likely belonged to that man. He seemed to have come from this direction." Said the Spy, stepping up to the console. Neatly pulling back the lever set into the console. After a few loud, metallic squeals, the grate blocking the door at the top of the stairs opened, and moments later, the first splicers came pouring out.
"Now you've rattled the monkey cage." Said Atlas, barely heard as those with guns opened fire, and they ran, packing back into the tight hall as glass shattered. Scout tossed the machine gun he'd picked up to the Demoman, who'd thus far had yet to use the borrowed shotgun he'd held. Without a word the Soldier passed the man the case of ammunition they'd found on the table before charging out the door. The Pyro on his heels with manic, muffled laughter.
The Soldiers laughter joined his as the sound of gunfire and screams pinged off the walls as the pair charged down the stairs and out of sight under the floor.
By the time the rest poured out into the pavilion, only a handful of the crazed denizens of Rapture remained, half tucked behind receptionists desk nestled between the stairs.
The flying sentry moved forward, making itself a nice distraction as most of the remaining splicers turned their attention and gunfire towards it, giving the Sniper and Demoman the chance to slip closer, machine gun and sub-machine gun working in tandem to mow down the splicers the flying sentry did not.
Once it was clear, the Sniper bent down, picking up another tape player from the floor behind the receptionists desk. "Got another one."
He met the rest of the group between the two staircases, holding out the tape.
"Dr Steinman said he'd release me today. Ryan hasn't come to see me since the New Years attack. Not once." Began the woman from the first tape they had found. "But Dr Steinman was always very attentive. He told me that once the scar tissue was gone, he'd fix me right up. Make me prettier than any girl I've ever seen. He's sweet alright… and so interested in my case!"
"It would be natural he would be. If he was as loyal to Andrew Ryan as he sounded in the tape we found, then it's natural he would be especially interested in making sure Ryans lover was presentable." The Spy said. "Though it sounds like he was losing interest in the girl."
The floor through the door at top of the stairs was wet, water splashing down around a crooked sign attached to the fountain. The corpse of a woman slumped over in front of it was the only person to greet them.
The lights of the hall on the other side of the fountain flickered out as they walked down it, and Jack sucked in a breath as if startled. Paling as he stopped dead in his tracks.
"Hey, Jack, you good buddy?" Scout said, nudging the man with his elbow. No one else had noticed the Engineer had also stopped, his own gaze fixed on the doors of the end of the hall.
"This is a very odd place to go catatonic." The Medic said, his hand on his chin as he leaned in close.
As quickly as the strange episode came on, it was over, and Jack fumbled back a step.
"What had ya spooked, buddy?" Scout asked.
"You didn't see that?"
"I mean, we saw you look like you saw a ghost or somethin'." Scout replied, removing his hat for a moment to scratch at his scalp.
"I… think that might be exactly it." The Engineer said quietly. "I saw it too. There was a lady, banging on the door, screamin' that somebody promised to make her a beauty." He said, pointing towards the door. "She was… faint, like somebody tryna project somethin' on a wall in broad daylight."
"Dell and Jack are the only ones who saw a ghost? Ye don't suppose that has anything tae do with the plasmid stuff, do ye?" The Demoman asked, frowning.
"That's quite probable." The Medic replied cheerily. "Perhaps the genetic code that was modified after the injection of the Plasmids altered something that opens the senses to the other side, so to speak."
"Best not dwell on it. Ain't the strangest thing there is." The Engineer said, adjusting his toolbelt before he carried on, nodding the others on as he hit the button beside the door.
"Keep an eye out for Steinman." Atlas said. "The daft bastards set up shop in the surgery wing. You wanna find him? Just follow the blood."
"Well that should be easy." The Medic said, when the door opened to a blood soaked gurney. Large letters painted in blood spelling "ABOVE ALL DO NO HARM" signed with the Dr Steinmans name.
"Ey, look." Scout said, pointing out the familiar boxy shape hanging from the wall beside the gurney.
The Medic stepped forward, pulling it off the spike stuck in the wall it hung from.
"ADAM presents new problems for the professional." Began Dr Steinman, "As your tools improve, so do your standards. There was a time, I was happy enough to take off a wart or two, or turn a real circus freak into something you can show in the daylight. But that was then, when we took what we got, but with ADAM... the flesh becomes clay. What excuse do we have not to sculpt, and sculpt, and sculpt, until the job is done?"
"Guy was really obsessed with people being beautiful, eh?" The Sniper said. "Might as well toss that aside, Doc."
As they made to turn around the corner, the Heavy reached out, snatching the Medic by the collar of his coat, yanking the doctor back. The bullets pinging into the wall silenced any questions of why he's nearly pulled the man off his feet.
"Maybe we can short it out. Give me a chance to get close and disable it." The Engineer suggested. "Jack, think you can sneak around the other side? It can't fire at the both of us."
"….I think so, yeah." Jack replied, creeping back to the other side of the wall. Both men crouched and crept forward a little more. Sparks dancing between eithers fingers.
"Now!" Both men sent lightning from their hands around the corner, and there came a sparking sound from around the corner. The Engineer swayed on his feet for a moment as he leapt to them, but with a shake of his head he dashed around the corner pulling open a panel on the machine, and hurried to dismantle the inner workings of it.
"You alright there?" The Demoman asked when the Engineer stood up straight. "You looked half ready tae keel over there for a second."
"I'm fine, Tavish." The Engineer assured, tucking his wrench back into its loop on his tool belt. "Think I found out what it feels like when a battery runs outta juice."
"So… that means you gotta shoot up with that stuff from the vending machine if you wanna shoot lightning outta your hand again?"
The Engineer flexed his hand, producing little else but a few weak sparks. "Seems so." He reached into his pocket, pulling out one of the Syringes the machine in the foyer had dispensed. "I reckon you're itching to be the one to do this, eh, doc?" He said, offering the hypo to the Medic.
"You reckon correctly, mein freund." The doctor grinned. Uncapping the needle, he angled the needle against the Engineers arm, sticking the needle deftly into his skin. Much like they had when the Doctor had injected the plasmid, veins lit up like lights under his skin, but there was no show of sparks. The lights fading quickly after a second. "Oh, that looks good. How does that feel?"
"Feels… good. Like you ain't runnin' on an empty tank of gas." The Engineer replied.
"Surgery's that way," The Sniper said, pointing at the sign on the wall further back.
"And there's another sign of Dr Steinmans rabbit trail." Jack said, nodding towards the bloody words written on a wall: Adam denies us any excuse for not being beautiful.
Stepping up to the wall, he pressed the button of the recorder staked to the wall under the message.
"I am beautiful, yes. Look at me, what could I do to make my features finer? With ADAM and my scalpel, I have been transformed. But is there not something better? What if now it is not my skill that fails me… but my imagination?"
"I think this guy might just be even more nutso than you, Doc." Scout teased, poking at a pile of ice a broken vent had made, blocking the door that led to a funeral home, according to the sign.
The Pyro clasped onto the Engineers arm with one gloved hand, tugging at him as he pointed to a door way with a bowl of fire over it and a Crematorium sign beside it. "Pyro, we ain't got time to mess arou- ah hell." The Pyro let go of the Engineers arm with an irritated sounding mutter, dashing towards the doorway of the Crematorium.
An explosion from inside stopped the Pyro in his tracks. The body of a woman flying into the wall. A man in a heavy white coat followed after, only laughing as his gaze turned to the group. Reaching inside of the box he held. "Get bloody back!" The Demoman cried, sprinting forward to throw the Pyro to the floor as the man threw something. The little object missing the pyro and landing further away, exploding in a small burst of fire. The Demoman leapt to his feet, swinging the small bottle of liquor he'd taken from the Restaurant before. Glass shattered over the mans head, and it gave the Scotsman a chance to pull his borrowed shotgun from his back, blasting the man away. Snatching up the box he'd carried before it could hit the floor.
"Well, I suppose we might as well give the place a gander." He said, taking a look at the boxes contents. Stowing them away in his container.
The room the man with the explosives had come from was made of dark woods and the walls were decorated with heavy velvet curtains. Yet it was a sparsely decorated room. A few cushioned benches lined the walls, and a heavy desk sat in the middle of the room, a door set into the wall behind it. On either side there was a small alcove with an easel. One was clearly the portrait of a deceased man, but the other had been messed with. Pieces of different portraits had been cut and glued together.
"It seems the Doctor was the one responsible for this… artwork." Spy said, stepping over to the strange portrait and carefully over the Drs name painted in blood on the floor, pressing the button on the recorder left carelessly leaned against the easel.
"When Picasso became bored of painting people, he started representing them as cubes and other abstract forms. The world called him a genius! I've spent my entire surgical career creating the same tired shapes, over and over again: the upturned nose, the cleft chin, the ample bosom. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I could do with a knife what that old Spaniard did with a brush?"
"For that Diane lady's sake, I hope he didn't get those ideas in his head until after he was done with her." Jack said.
The Pyro stepped up to the door, and it slid open easily, revealing what must have been the true Crematorium, though water leaked from a broken pipe, leaving a fair stream of water on the floor.
But it did not seem to curb the enthusiasm in the gas masked man.
But before he could step too deeply in, the Heavy held out an arm. "There is camera." He said, nodding to a large, bulky thing fixed upon the wall deeper inside, swiveling back and forth.
"Security Camera. Ryans eyes and ears all over the city." Atlas' voice came from the radio.
"I'll take care of it." The Spy said, fiddling with a dial on his watch, and vanished.
A few moments later, the camera erupted in a shower of sparks, and hung limp from the wall. "Childs play." The Spy said as he reappeared besides the Soldier.
"I'll take Pyro up. Let him get it out of his system so we can go." The Engineer said, waving on the Pyro. The Demoman also fell into step with them. The trio going single file around the stream of water pouring from more broken pipes above the stairs.
A shot rang out, and then the Engineers voice came from above. "Was just one! It's clear!"
"Parasites wander the halls!" The sound of Andrew Ryans voice a few moments later, echoing from speakers had everyone at attention. "We rebuild our city, and the doubters send a fly to spoil our ointment. One thousand ADAM to the man or woman who pins their wings!"
Yet no one came.
Or so it seemed, until several different voices screamed out in agony from above, and the rest of the group ran up the stairs, just in time to see a pool of flames covering much of the floor begin to fizzle out. Leaving only a few flames licking at a handful of charred corpses surrounding the little office.
The trio came out from a vent hole in the wall of the office, the Pyro laughing madly as he pointed to the scorched floor and charred bodies.
"Pyro found another one of those Plasmids. Shot himself before that dinner bell even rang. Some fool had knocked over that oil barrel when they came dropping outta the ceiling." The Engineer explained, and the rest of the picture painted itself vividly.
"All roads in rapture lead to Ryan." The radio crackled, "The security, the splicers, the Big Daddies, the Little Sisters: He pumps some kind of chemical scent into the air. Pheromones, they call it. Makes them all dance to his tune."
"I suppose that explains why they are all so eager to follow orders." The Spy mused.
"Wait, wait," Scout said, holding up a hand. "So your tellin me, Pyro can just. Make fire with his mind now?" A palm sized ball of fire at the Scouts feet was his answer, jumping back with a high pitched curse.
"Enough fooling around." The Spy scolded. "If you're all satisfied, I suggest we move on."