"Alright, Langford, we've made it into the Farmer's Market. Any idea where we should head first?" Jack asked.

After a moment, the radio crackled to life. "Get the enzymes first, they are what is most important. And don't stop after you find just one either. We need multiple samples to be safe and make the solution as potent as possible. Try finding at least seven of them."

"Understood."

"Be quick, yet cautious. My security access does not extend to the farmers market so I cannot see you. More than that, I had no control over the security turrets and cameras. You're on your own."

"That's nothing new," Elizabeth mumbled under her breath. 'Then again, I guess I can't say I'm truly alone. I wasn't in Colombia, and I'm not here either. Not now, at least. Thanks for being here with me, Jack. And I'm sorry.'

For now, a mental apology was all Elizabeth could do. Hopefully, if they both survived, Jack would be willing to listen to an actual apology. For now, she pushed that thought out of her mind and turned her attention back to the task at hand.

Needing to collect such a large number of enzymes certainly complicated things, especially since there was no telling if that many samples had even been preserved. Still, if it was what the good doctor asked for, they would do their best to deliver. They needed to fix the trees, and whatever toxic gas Ryan had pumped into the air purified. As it stood, Elizabeth's head was already starting to pound. Her lungs were aching too, and she was constantly fighting the urge to start coughing. All of which was quite the annoyance because Liz was craving a cigarette right now very badly.

"Maybe you should take this opportunity to quit?" Booker said, from his place ambling alongside her and Jack. For a moment, he looked solid. For a moment, he looked as if he was actually there; he even had a sniper rifle slung across his back, and a Paddywacker hand cannon -not unlike her own- tucked into his belt. Just like she remembered him from back in Colombia.

For a moment, Booker looked like he could be alive.

But then he coughed and lake water spilled down from his mouth, down his neck, and splashed down onto the floor.

"I wish you were here," Liz wanted to say. "I could really use your help figuring out... Everything. Not to mention, you were one hell of a fighter."

And, because Booker is just a figment of her imagination, he turned to her and grinned. "That I was, for better or for worse. You got that from me. Everything else came from your mama though, and thank god for that. That being said, you shouldn't dwell so much on the past and what you don't have. I did that, and look what happened to me."

He gave her a small, tight smile. "I'm dead, Elizabeth. You drowned me in a lake, or something like that, and the world... worlds has been better for it. Don't doubt what you've done, just make sure you make the right moves in the future. Otherwise, you might not have one to look forward to."

Then, just like that, Booker faded away. Elizabeth wanted to say something more, or maybe even call him back. Instead, she bit her lip and followed Jack further into the corridors of the Farmer's Market.

To her pleasant surprise -and when was the last time Liz had had one of those?- they were able to find their first sample of the enzyme with more remarkable ease. It was literally just laying on the floor. Perhaps Elizabeth should have taken that as an ominous warning of how far the area had fallen into chaos but after having to fight tooth and nail to get anywhere and accomplish anything in Rapture, she just let out a sigh of relief.

"What are the chances we'd find our first one so soon?' Jack asked, sounding outright chipper as he shoved the enzyme container into his bag. "Maybe things are finally looking up for us."

"Oh, don't tempt fate like that," Liz said. "Let's take the win and move on. The quicker we move, the better chance we have of avoiding as many fights as possible."

Elizabeth's heart twitched as the grin fell from Jack's face. He gave a nod and she fell been stepped beside him, standing a little closer than technically necessary. Hopefully, that would mean... something to him. What that something was, not even Liz was sure.

The sounds of their footfall echoed through the corridors, was fighting the urge to wince every time her steel-toed boots spade an extra loud clank or clunk against the metal floors. She was happy she wore them, they protected her feet well, gave her kicks a little extra power, and were surprisingly comfortable. But stealthy they were not. Even the loafers Jack was wearing were better equipped for such a thing. Elizabeth was so focused on being quiet, she was startled by Jack's light touch to her shoulder.

"Hey, have you ever been to one of those?" he asked, pointing at a football poster. "They must have been crazy amazing looking under the sea."

"I wouldn't know," Elizabeth replied. "I wasn't interested in football before everything went to hell. Looking back, I do wish I had gone to at least one."

Jack scratched his chin, a patch of dried blood flaking off under his fingernails. "You know, back in the town I'm from, football is considered king. We just have a local team, but everyone goes all out for their games. I could take you to one if you'd like. Once we all get out of here, I mean."

Dueling emotions twisted inside Elizabeth. She was touched by his thoughtfulness, amused by the fact he was basically planning a date for the two of them, and sorrowful for the fact that it was entirely possible all of his memories of that little town and their love of football were false.

"I'd like to go to a football game with you, Jack," Liz said after a moment. It wasn't a lie, she reminded herself, just a carefully worded truth. She checked to make sure her gun was fully loaded and nodded ahead. "I bet I can find the next sample before you."

Jack's grin returned. "You're on."

Together they moved deeper into the area, clearing out splicers and defense turrets as they went. Before two long, they arrived at what had once been an 'outdoor' food court. Elizabeth wrinkled her nose at the smell of decaying food. You'd think that, after all this time, she'd grown used to it. Alas, every place in Rapture had its own unique aroma of rot -each able the turn her stomach in their own special way.

"You should have seen this play in its heyday. There would be hundreds of people -families, kids, farmers- all running around, laughing, and calling out to each other," she told Jack. "You could live off the free samples alone."

When Jack didn't answer, Elizabeth spun to face him. She didn't think a splicer could silently take him out but Elizabeth wasn't about to risk being wrong.

Liz let out a relieved sigh when she found him playing with an audio recorder. "What do you have here?"

"It says this is one of Andrew Ryan's. I want to see what it says," Jack said. Elizabeth paused, thinking it over. The noise could attract more splicers, but that might be helpful. The area they were in was narrow, it could be a decent bottleneck to gun them dead. They could also learn something useful.

"Play it," she said with a nod.

Silently, Jack hit the 'play' button, and Jack Ryan's voice filled the air.

"The children with their very long needles, their tuneless songs, their ghastly errands. Their ghoulish, Frankenstein fathers. But, we've all placed our hand on the Great Chain of endeavor. My hand is on it, Fontaine's is on it - We all pull it and are pulled by it. Yes, these children are an abomination. But it is not my hand alone on the chain that created them. No. Their little fingers were right there, next to mine."

"He sounds almost... guilty," Jack said with a frown. "Do you think... Do you think Ryan knows what he did? Like, do you think feels guilty about all the deaths, all the destruction?"

"Hard to say. He's a greedy asshole, but not stupid. Not completely, at least," Liz replied.

She thought back to things Langford and Tenenbaum had said about their past actions. Both women had more than their fair share of sins, not that Elizabeth could really claim innocence on that front, but they at least both took responsibility for what they had done, as well as their negligence in doing more. They were working to change things, to save what and who they could. Could Ryan say that? Liz doubted it. If she had to guess, Andrew Ryan would believe in his own genius and martyr until the day he died.

The two press on, narrowly avoiding another confrontation with a Big Daddy and a Little Sister, by ducking into a hallway and watching as it made quick work of some attacking splicers. Before long they arrived at the Silverwing Apiary, just in time to watch a man get stung to death.

'What a painful way to go,' Elizabeth thought to herself kneeling down to examine the corpse while Jack scavenged for supplies. The average human could safely tolerate ten stings per pound of body weight. 500 stings could kill a child, but it would take more than 1100 stings to kill a healthy adult. 'I wonder at what point your brain stops letting you feel the pain of each individual sting?'

"Hey," Jack called. "I found another audio recording. Looks like this one is from that Tenenbaum lady. You want me to play it, or should we take it with us?"

"Play it now," Liz replied. "We're already carrying around too much stuff as is. Pretty soon it's going to start weighing us down."

"ADAM acts like a benign cancer, destroying native cells and replacing them with unstable stem versions. While this very instability is what gives it its amazing properties, it is also what causes the cosmetic and mental damage. You need more and more ADAM just to keep back the tide. From a medical standpoint, this is catastrophic. From a business standpoint, well... Fontaine sees the possibilities."

'I bet you did too, eh Tenenbaum?'

Elizabeth liked the woman well enough, admired her genius, and was thankful for being saved, treated, and protected by her. That didn't mean she ignored the blood on her hands.

"However, from what has been observed, certain subjects are able to withstand and adapt to the changes ADAM brings far better than others. If possible, I would like to look into what causes this variability in reaction. My leading theory is that the subjects' DNA is the deciding factor, with some DNA being more compatible with ADAM's anatomical structure than others. Only further study can prove this theory true or false, yet I have observed that individuals with AB-negative blood seemed to show the strongest resilience. Then again, that blood type is so rare that it is hard to study against a larger pool."

'What?' Elizabeth's head snapped in the direction of the audio recorder. 'Could that be the answer?'

Elizabeth had spent a decent amount of her free time in Rapture studying plasmids, especially in their relation to vigors. She studied them both in hopes of understanding their effects better. with knowledge of what was coming as a result of ADAM and the use of plasmids, the idea of no thy enemy was strong in her mind.

From what she was able to tell, the only difference between plasmids and vigors was the implementation method: vigors were ingested orally, while plasmids were injected. Liz's main observation, however, was that plasmids came with grotesque side effects that were rarely seen in those who had used vigors. She had theorized as to why this was often enough, coming up with a number of solutions such as vigors being more stable for the simple fact that they hadn't been available to the public long enough for any side effects to really start to show. For all Elizabeth knew, vigors would have doomed Columbia just as plasmids had helped doom Rapture, if she and Booker had not aided in its downfall first.

After all, it wasn't like side effects as a result of vigor usage had never been seen. Overusing Shock Jockey had caused Slate to grow crystals out of his skull. The bodies of Firemen constantly burned, their temperature in their bodies having risen to unnatural levels. And part of the reason Zealots donned long thick robes was that overuse of the Murder of Crows vigor had left their skin swollen, changed, and sensitive as hair follicles started to grow feathers.

And yet... Despite spending all their time running around Rapture sucking down vigors like they were milkshakes, Booker had never shown any ill effects; aside from, according to his own grumbling, slight nausea after ingesting a new one. True, he only had them in his body for a short period of time before he- before he couldn't use them anymore, but Elizabeth also had multiple plasmids and vigors in her system and also had not shown any side effects in the months since ingesting them.

'I know I'm type AB negative blood, at least according to the Luteces' notes, and since blood type is often inherited from the parents then it's a good chance Booker was Type AB negative as well. I wonder if the same could be said for...' Her eyes slid over to her companion. "Hey, Jack, do you happen to know your blood type?"

The young man blinks at her. "Uh, no. I've never had to go to the hospital or anything, so I never had a reason to get it tested. Why? Do you think I'm like what Tenenbaum mentioned in the recording? Someone who has more compatible DNA for ADAM?"

"It's possible," Elizabeth replied with a shrug, hoping to seem as nonchalant as possible. "You've got what, half a dozen different plasmids in you at this point? And you seem to be holding up just fine."

"Let's just hope it stays that way," Jack replied. "And what about you? You don't use them as much, but you've had to undergo your fair share of plasmid injections too."

Elizabeth looked down at her arms, cringing at the sight of the puncture wounds that lined her veins. Watching Booker inhaling salts had never looked pleasant, but she would have preferred it to with constant injections she had to endure to keep her EVE levels up. "What can I say? I've always been a very special girl."

'Could that be it? It's small, but maybe that can be a way to save Rapture. Maybe I'm finally starting to understand why I'm still alive.'