[BioLock]

A radio crackles and that makes me jump a little, because that's a noise that is deliberate and aware of my existence, which I had comfortably assumed no one was.

“Would you kindly pick up the radio?” A honeyed voice asks. A little bewildered and a lot curious, I locate a short-wave radio on the wall of the sub and tuck it into my belt.

“Hi there.” The voice greets and I figure it is a man, mid thirties to early forties, possibly Irish descent. “Now I don’t know how you managed to survive that plane crash, but I’m not one to question providence.” He has a point, how did I survive? Sure I had my flotation device but I couldn’t have been the only one. Nevermind, people are more important.  “Oh, I’m Richard. Richard Brook.” The voice added hastily. “And if I have any say in it, I aim to keep you alive. Let’s get a move on, you need to get to higher ground. Now take a deep breath and step out of the bathysphere.” I hesitate, thinking that that is a really strange thing to call the apparently-not-a-submarine I am in. “Go on, I won’t leave you twisting in the wind, Johnny.” I scrunch my nose at the name, scoffing. “Oh that was the man who just, um, bit it… I figure the name’s too nice to let die.” I shrug, I don’t care what this stranger calls me anyway. It isn’t like I have a name.

Shouldn’t I have a name?

Why can’t I remember anything before I was in this bathysphere?

Nevermind, movement is more important. I wouldn’t want that crazy monster of a woman to find me before I find her. I step out of the bobbing bathysphere and onto the stone steps descending from where it’s parked. The room is cavernous, empty, surrounded by glass that reminds you of your isolation and mortality with water just beyond, and a stony floor, which has another one of those age-dirtied red running carpets leading the way. A venomous giggle echoes from somewhere I can’t see, around a bend and maybe up some stairs.

The man on the radio, Richard Brook, tells me “We’re going to need to draw her out of hiding, but you have to trust me.” I’m dubious, but this man seems to be the only sane person around and his voice is sweet anyway. Most people with sweet voices are actually consistent with that description.

Aren’t they?

Shouldn’t I not trust this Richard Brook?

Nevermind, safety is more important. I follow the red carpet, since it’s the only actual direction to go anyway, all of my path so far has felt pretty laid out for me. But I don’t really care about how much free will I have, and that’s almost more disconcerting than the changing scenery around me.

Signs litter the floor, protest signs. They say “Mycroft Doesn’t Own Us!” and “Rapture Has Fallen!” and “The East Wind Takes the Great Chain!” Lights flicker intermittently before falling entirely dead, luggage and blood clutter the floor, the place is-- obviously-- deserted.

Except for that creepy woman who whispers “I’ll wrap you in a sheet…”

“Just a little more, Johnny.” I step in front of a small doorway, it seems to open upward and is stuck half-closed by debris. The ‘it’ is in between me and the door. I’m prepared to fight my way through that hag, because frankly that seems the familiar course of action.

Wouldn’t that get me killed?

Why do I feel like I’ve lived my whole life to fight this creepy thing?

Nevermind, the fight is more important. I square my shoulders but see a bright green spotlight illuminate my foe and she is riddled with bullets even as she tries in vain to climb a wall. “How do you like that, sister?!” Richard Brook cries triumphantly. The little turret-bots he appears to be controlling fade into the shadows and fly away.

I take a few wary steps forward to the stuck door. “Would you kindly find a crowbar or something?” Brook asks, I search the ground as he continues. “Bloody splicers sealed Johnny in before they-... Goddamn splicers.” Apparently that crazy lady wasn’t the only sorry-excuse-for-past-human that Rapture had to offer. I find a wrench on the edge of the pool of light one dim bulb allows.

The rubble in the doorway gives easily under the solid weight of the wrench and my unexpected but entirely known upper body strength. The door drops shut before opening up with the audible sound of damaged gears turning. A stairway awaits me, with a burning couch perched at the top. Now I’m not claiming to be anything close to intelligent, but I’m pretty sure couches don’t spontaneously combust, and especially not in underwater cities. I dodge just before it tumbles down the stairs and then rush the man behind it. Beating his crowbar with my wrench is easy, especially because this ‘splicer’ is a little too on the crazy side to do more than swing wildly and hope he hits. He doesn’t. I crack his skull like an egg, loot his corpse for anything useful, and proceed to inspect the room.

There’s the glass walls and ceiling that seem to be the style of Rapture (and why not show off the underwater aspect of your underwater city at any chance you get? It’s certainly pretty), and a metal door on one wall. Through the glass I can see a wholly-glass hallway beyond the door, but the sensor panel isn’t working, so no option there. Instead I turn to see a staircase in the crumbling room and follow that. An advertisement blares through the speakers of a pink vending machine, it speaks in the voice of the two girls statued on either side.

“My daddy's SMARTER than Einstein, STRONGER than Hercules and lights a fire with a SNAP of his fingers. Are you as good as my daddy, Mister? Not if you don't visit the Gatherer's Garden, you aren't! Smart daddies get spliced, at the Gardens!”

There is a syringe there, waiting for me in the open slot of the ‘Gatherer’s Garden’, all better judgement tells me that this is a bad idea for multiple reasons, that someone was going to yell at me for this.

Who knows who used this syringe before me?

Should I really be ‘splicing’ when the crazed denizens of this watery dystopia are called ‘splicers’?

Nevermind, progress is more important. I stick the needle into my arm and wince when the whole limb goes tingly. Then I feel something like pins and needles, and I groan just a little. My radio buzzes to life as the pain ramps up to struck-by-lightning, and I can see my veins being electrocuted through the skin and I scream.

“Steady now!” Richard Brook calls desperately from the speaker in my belt loop. “Your genetic code is being rewritten– just hold on and everything will be fine!” And for the sake of not vomiting I grab at the railing of the staircase with white knuckles, but I’m shaking so even when I try to slide to a sit I fall over the edge and land unconscious on the floor below.

My consciousness flickers like the lights.

On.

“This little fish looks like he just got his cherry popped!” A sick, slimy voice. I would move away if I could. I try and then--

Off.

On.

A roar of thunder, or the groan of something massive and metal.

“Hear that?” A smaller voice, sounds like a centipede with less legs. “Let’s bug.”

The slimy one screams after the receding figure. “WEAK! You’re a weak chopper!”

Footsteps stop in justification. “This little fish ain’t worth toeing it with no Big Daddy.” The centipede mutters.

The slimy one taps his pipe on the ground. “Yellow. Always have been.” He grumbles. “You’re no better off with the metal daddy, little fish. See you floating on the briney…” Both sets of feet leave me and the way they ran scared makes me want to get up and leave too, but trying to raise my head again is just--

Off.

On.

The footsteps are huge this time. I open my eyes now. Something giant and metal-ish and mostly anthropomorphic looms. One hand is a drill and it’s face looks like a diver merged with the front of a submarine. I would be scared if I had the energy to be, but all I can think is ‘Please God, let me live’ and then--

Off.

On.

“Look Mister Bubbles, an angel! I can see light coming from his belly…” The voice sounds like the ghost of a little girl, joyful and hollowed out. The echo across a canyon of drug-induced fervor. I crack my eyes and see a ghastly little girl, skin all grey and eyes glowing yellow. She wears a tattered little excuse for a dress and no shoes, her hair is done up in a ratty ponytail but so much of the hair is falling out that the styling has ceased any function it could have possessed. She is smiling at me. “Wait a minute, he’s still breathing.” She takes a few steps back, her smile falters before returning. “It’s alright, I know he’ll be an angel soon.” Both monsters leave in the same direction of the splicers from a minute ago.

Bloody hell am I glad to still be alive.

Off.

On.

Now I can rise, slowly albeit, without blacking out. My radio buzzes in and Richard Brook’s soft voice sounds like a smirk. “You alright there, Johnny-boy? First time plasmid’s a real kicker, but… there’s nothing quite like a fistful of lightning, is there?” I finally make my way to a stand and flex the hand that offended me with such pain. In my palm, lightning crackles.

This gives me cause for a grin, because there really isn’t anything like a fistful of lightning.

Is there?

Why does this remind me of a pair of icy blue eyes?

Nevermind, the door is more important. The door with the broken sensor panel is the only viable option of exit I’ve seen and after trying to electrocute the door a few times, I finally get it right and strike the fritzing panel on the side. The door snaps open and I waste no time debating the options before I follow the glassy tunnel beyond.

This is a mistake, but I only realize it when the tail end of a plane crashes through the glass walls and the hallway begins to flood. Knowing the way back holds no alternative routes, I wade through the torrents of water and dodge the streams beginning to spit through cracks in the glass and barely notice other hallways being decimated by similar debris outside before I make it to a working doorway (for once) and instantly put it between me and the water behind.

The room I find myself in now is worse lit than where I came from, with tiled floors and solid walls, as well as rooms branching on either side holding the usual Windows. There’s another door in front of me too, but it says ‘Airlock Active’ and won’t open when I approach. Debris and water cover the floor thickly; in the room on the right a leak of water falls slowly to a shallow pool, where a corpse looks on idly; in the room on the left there’s a glowing green chamber and a folded-over mattress and another splicer.

I sigh.

The splicer notices me, drags his claw-hands across the ground, throwing up sparks. I zap him with my lightning hand and club him with my wrench hand. He has a first aid kit and a blue bottle labeled ‘Eve Hypo’ that I take from his corpse. He won’t be using them anyway.

Only now does the door open-- to reveal another splicer no less. He has a crowbar and screams “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!” as he attempts to maul me to death. The crowbar strikes my arm, but I still bludgeon his head before he can do anything further.

Behind him is stairs, which I ascend to a room with another golden, chiseled man hanging in a corner behind an abandoned desk. The ground rumbles beneath me as several pieces of something are dislodged from the ceiling and fall before me. One of which is a man, who is on fire and trying to attack me. I shock him to death in moments. He drops another ‘Eve Hypo’, and I take it before exploring the volatile room. There are overgrown planters of ferns that give everything a jungled look and a few locked off areas with displays lined up like a souvenir shop. One of the rooms I can enter holds elevators and-- without any real objective except ‘move’ I step inside one that is suspiciously lit up.

Why am I suspicious of this?

Why don’t I care about where I’m going?

Nevermind, the headache is more important. I see just a few brief flashes: tea, a coat billowing, a beer bottle crashing against a wall. Then it’s all gone as soon as it came and I’m back in the elevator feeling more than a bit confused.