"I can't watch this go on anymore, chief. I'm quitting the force, and I mean it this time. This job's never been easy, but there's a lot I've been willing to let slide. But when we start bringing in perps to Burns, and the next thing you know more Big Daddies than ever are on the streets? You might be fine with actin' like you don't know what's up, but I've had it. We're supposed to protect the people of Springfield, and if this is what we've done to them instead, then you can have my badge."
The Hack Tool is a weapon intended to hack security machines. It was developed by Frink Labs as a way to deal with defective security units, and it seems there is only one in existence.
Delta currently has the Hack Tool set to Auto Only mode since he doesn't know how to hack. However, in its normal setting, the Hack Tool accepts three kinds of ammunition:
Remote Hack Dart, which will initiate a manual hack.
Auto Hack Dart, which will automatically hack
Miniature Turrets, a small turret which will automatically fire at your enemies
Hacking can be a dangerous business, but the Hack Tool was designed so that the user may be able to hack in case of an emergency.
With that in mind, one who finds himself in possession of the Hack Tool should:
Stay behind cover or shoot from a distance from which cover can be quickly reached.
Not use them on Splicers or Big Daddies. It will have no effect and will only alert them to your presence.
Use them on moving targets. A stationary target, such as a security camera, is easy enough to hack manually, and it is important to save hack darts, which can be expensive.
Hack quickly to avoid a short circuit.
Also, it should be noted that Auto Hack Darts are most useful on safes, which are more difficult to hack.
Additionally, there are several different Plasmids that can make your hectic hacking experience a little easier. The recommended Plasmids for hacking are:
Electro Bolt
A bolt delivered to a security machine will stun it temporarily, giving you time to shoot the dart and get to cover.
Winter Blast
The freezing air from Winter Blast will freeze any security machine for even longer than the Electro Bolt and will also make hacking easier.
Decoy
A decoy will distract any security machines into attacking it instead of you. This has the added bonus of drawing the attention of nearby Splicers as well.
Security Command
Security Command creates a target that the security will be drawn to, distracting any security machines for even longer than the decoy. Targets can be painted on hostile Splicers, causing the security to attack them instead of you. Unfortunately, using this Plasmid will cause Splicers to attack the security machines, and they may end up destroyed.
Auto Only Mode, the setting Delta is using, sends an automatic signal to the main security office in the Springfield Power Plant, in which Atlas claims to reside. This features means that someone on the field could cooperate with someone in the security offices, letting the person in the security booth do all the hacking for the person on the ground.
"Frink, did I hear correctly that you've come up with some kind of anti-hacking device?"
"Oh, well, uh, yes I did, actually! See, I couldn't help but notice some design flaws in the-"
"Well, what were you thinking, man? How am I ever supposed to keep this town secure if every Johnny-come-lately can undo it all with the push of a button?"
[flustered] "Um, well, I, uh-"
"Don't give me excuses, just get rid of it!"
"Get rid of it! Right! Uh, there's gotta be someplace..."
"They didn't want me. That four-eyed freak told me I was too old to be a Little Sister, so they sent me away. I guess I should be glad. I wouldn't want to be a namby-pamby little darling anyway, with one of those lugs following me around... But, still. The juvie place didn't want me. The foster homes didn't want me. And... I thought he was different, but they didn't want me either. And now... Where am I supposed to go?"
"Smithers, once again, your concern for my health is both completely expected and completely unneeded. Yes, that's the third time I've broken that hip this week, and yes, ADAM does have incredible restorative properties, but I'll fill you in on a little secret that I've told no one else. And that secret is… I wouldn't be caught dead with one drop of that toxic sludge in my veins. That slime is for the ignorant sheep to use, not me. Who knows what kind of horrible, irreversible damage just one drop could do? Not me, as far as my lawyers are concerned. Yes, Smithers, this ADAM is pure poison."
You tore your eyes away from the words and began to pull yourself heavily up the staircase. Below you, madness still reigned on the bottom floor, the heat from the fiery blasts and the screams of the anguished Splicers mingling in the raw air. There was nowhere to go but up.
"Alright," Atlas was breathing hard, "I've had enough of this insanity. Let's just hurry up, get that hack tool, and get the hell out of here."
At precisely that moment, you were turning the corner onto the platform that opened up into the second floor corridor. For only a brief moment, a wide view flashed before you, a narrow path with a rail between two long paths of cells and a sea of bullets and propellers whizzing through the open air like a swarm of hornets. Immediately in front of the door was an untouched, pristine turret, which turned to point at you with a familiar whirr as soon as you appeared. You hastily turned on your heel and fled up the adjacent steps to the next floor, hearing the bullets ping against the stairs at your heels.
In your ear, your heard the sound of fingers clacking on keys. Atlas swore faintly under his breath.
"Delta, listen," he said, "The warden's office is on the other side of the building, on the third floor. You're going to have to make your way across from the top."
You gnashed your teeth together. Of all things!
"Look, I'm sorry," snapped Atlas, "But I didn't see any way past those lunatics, did you?" He groaned, expelling a breath through his teeth. "This whole thing has been nightmare since we got here."
You continued to thunder up the stairs, feeling yourself charge ahead through the stale, salty air. The next platform was coming up and after that, a clear path to the top floor. You headed straight for it.
And you almost stumbled over the mass huddling against the wall.
You stopped, backpedalling as though you'd seen a snake. It was a pair of them, Splicers, with matted hair and welted skin. Their filthy rags clung to them like slime, and they were huddling against the wall, their arms entwined. They both seemed to be women, though the color of their hair and skin was impossible to discern in the reddish light and all their grime.
They had screamed a little, as you ran into them, and you sucked in a breath yourself before raising your spear gun to your shoulder, pointing the tip to the point where their faces touched.
Both women screamed and clenched inward, closer together. You stared, the point of the spear dropping a few inches. They didn't move from where they sat; they didn't even seem separate. They seemed welded together, like a ceramic statue, two people holding, incomplete if split apart. You could see, now, that one was older, with deep lines across her face, deepened by the ADAM in her veins. Her hair seemed dirtier than the other and deep scratches lay embedded in her arms. Her face was completely buried underneath her curtain of hair, and her shoulders shook. The other Splicer, though, looked almost to be a girl in her teens. Her skin was a little clearer, with fewer marks and welts, and she did not hide her face but looked up at you, and there was a shine in her eyes, a lucidity that you had not seen in the eyes of any other Splicer.
After a moment, you pointed the gun back up the staircase and turned your back on them. The third floor was just above you now.
Unlike the previous floor, here there was no turret to stare you down the moment you stepped above. But even up here, you could still hear the carnage. A security bot even zoomed into view as you watched, appearing above the line made by the top step and dipping back under, like a sea creature leaping up before returning to the depths below. You silently hefted up the spear gun and climbed the last few steps into the angry haze.
The view that opened up before your eyes was so vast it almost seemed to flash, to send out a spark of red light as you took it in. You hurried to the railing, across the narrow prison floor, gripped the edge, and looked across, your mouth agape.
From up here, the room appeared to be flooded like a sea of red. Writhing to and fro in the bloody waters were the security bots, sending out their sprays of bullets. The alarm echoed like a whale's song throughout the building. Below you, on the surface of the seafloor, the Splicers ran and hid and shot and screamed, a flurry of death agony, a futile race against a swarming predator. But the worst part, you noticed as you gritted your teeth, was that the activity seemed to be less than before, with many Splicers cowering or moving more weakly or simply lying still. You could see them, misshapen masses cowering behind stacks of trash and cots and metal skeletons. And on either side of you, both floors up, the same thing, Splicers hiding or shooting or scurrying, and the turrets and security bots pursuing them, an image as raw and harried as Bosch's vision of Hell.
Quickly, you focused your attention on the opposite side of the prison, directly across from you. There was a door, different from all the rest, not a gate of iron bars but a wooden door, solid and relatively unmarked. There! That must be the Warden's office. But how to get there? You looked to either side of you, seeing the narrow walkways, clogged with filth and turrets and security bots and blood-frenzied Splicers. No, impossible. You shook your head, irritated, and looked back toward the distant goal. There had to be another way.
You focused on the door, your brow furrowed. You noticed something that you hadn't before: a single square of yellow light, a bright beacon against the sea of red around you. To your delight, your eyesight seemed to be fantastic, and you could easily see the light clearly if you squinted. The light was coming from a window, narrow and rectangular in the door's surface. The window had evidently been broken, and the light streamed unobstructed through the jagged gap in the glass. And through that gap, you spied… a staircase? You blinked, refocused your eyes, and grinned. No doubt about it, that was a staircase, complete with a rail and a wall behind it, to signal its existence to those inside. You looked down to the ground floor, where a somewhat thicker door stood, windowless, but made of wood, like the door above it. So. You could enter from the first floor and climb up to the Warden's office. But how to get there, now that you were up here? You looked back at the floor below you. It didn't look good.
Behind you, through the ghostly echo of the alarms, you heard the familiar stuttered whirring of a camera. The red light around you suddenly seemed a little brighter.
Suddenly, you heard Atlas suck in a breath. "Delta," he said, "I think there's somebody behind you."
You whirled around in alarm. Your eyes darted back and forth, but you only saw empty cells.
"Right there!" shouted Atlas, "In front of ya, in the cell! Quickly Delta!"
Your eyes moved up. Directly above you and to the left was the bright light of the camera, located beyond the bars of a cell. The light was not pointed straight at you, but seemed to brush by your shoulder to point slightly downward.
You saw it two seconds too late, but for a fleeting moment, you caught a glimpse of a pair of yellow eyes, winking in the darkness, and a thing, baggy shadow, wavering in the red dark.
But you saw it two seconds too late.
The cell door was open, and it didn't occur to you to move or close it or shoot or anything. You had just barely begun to see it. You heard it hiss, "You did this…" and the next thing you knew, you were struck hard in the chest by what felt like an entire wall, a charging elephant, and you barreled backward, against the rail.
For a precarious moment, you swung backwards over the edge, seeing clearly the ceiling above you, peeling and covered with grime with the red lights flashing over it, and feeling the nauseating swing of the entire world swinging up away from you. You flailed your arms in the empty air, feeling the yawning of a void of three stories below.
But in the next second, your arm caught the edge of the rail and your balance teetered forward again and you hoisted yourself back up with nothing but your strength and your arm, crouching against the rail with your arm still upon it, gasping.
You only had another second. That was all you ever seemed to have, seconds. Each movement or step like the ticking of a clock. Tick tick tick.
The shadow in the cell screeched and lunged itself at you. You shoved yourself away from the rail and roll to the side, trying to scramble to your feet. You heard a harsh, echoing clang as the shadow lunged at the rail, swinging what looked to be a long and rusted something, the thing colliding against the rail where you had just been hard enough to send sparks flying. The Splicer scraped the metal pipe against the handrail, listening to it shriek like ice, before swinging it down and banging it on the ground before her. She looked up at you through the breaks in the wild tangle of her bangs, and there was no fear in her eyes, only rage.
"We told you to leave," she said, "We warned you. But you're still here. And now look what you've done! You're one of them! You ruin everything!"
Her voice sounded rough and hoarse, as though she had been screaming her throat raw for her entire life, but her words were the clearest of any Splicer you'd heard, no stutters or stumbles or slurs, and her eyes were fixed squarely on you, showing the same lucid sparkle you'd seen on the girl on the stairs, only brighter. She was also quite young, the youngest person you'd seen who wasn't a little sister. She was thin and wan, with a slender form, and draped around her skinny frame was an orange jumpsuit, stamped with the number "9430" and obviously several sizes too big for her, and it bunched around her arms and legs and sagged down her body like a pillowcase. Her skin shone with layers of sweat and filth, and there was a single faded pink streak in her dark hair.
Still, she was obviously a Splicer. Her eyes were yellowed, with red veins swimming along the bottom, and her skin, while clearer than any adult's you had seen, was still covered in splotches and ugly welts. And there was no mistaking that murderous, blood-hungry flare in her eyes.
"I'm gonna open you like a can a' soup," she snarled, and she lunged at you again.
You saw the pipe come down like a shadow high in the red haze, and you acted instinctively. The pipe clapped hard into your outstretched hand, braced against your weight to spot it in its swing. The girl snarled and tried to pull it out of your grasp, but you tightened your fingers around it and felt the rush of fire burn up your wrist and into your palm, and soon the yellow flames licked around the end of the pipe as it slowly turned red. The girl shrieked and fell to the floor, clutching her hand, and you flung the pipe away from you, twirling it into the arena two stories below. You then raise your spear gun from under you, pointing the tip squarely at her as she looked up into your eyes.
The furious look in her eyes had not faded, but your hand shook. Slowly, the tip of the spear gun lowered.
The whole moment was another tick. I don't know if she even noticed you lowering your weapon. As soon as she looked up at you, she stretched out her hand, palms up, fingers reaching toward you, and you felt that same solid blast, barreling you backwards. The air flared up around the girl, blowing back her pink and black hair, and the dust and debris on the ground whirled about in a vortex.
Atlas rang in.
"Delta, listen!" he shouted, "It looks like she's got the Sonic Boom Plasmid. Stay away from the edge and try not to stand in front of her!"
Try not to stand in front of her. You couldn't even stand at all. You tried to scramble to your feet, but you felt another blast slam into you, and flipped onto your back and slid across the dusty floor. There was only another tick before you flew into the air, the air swirling beneath you, and slammed into the wall on the far side of the staircase. You leaned against the wall, gasping, trying to shake the stars out of your eyes, and focused on the girl, who was marching toward you, her stringy hair looking windswept.
She no longer had a weapon, and you could see, around the inside of her clenched fist, a red pulsing ring of raised flesh. There was a scrape, dripping blood, on her other arm. Her eyes were cold.
Not looking away from you, she raised a hand and pointed it to the cell beside her. A gust of air flared up inside, knocking the objects loose in a dance of fallen leaves. One spot in particular seemed to be the target: a pile of metal pipes, all different lengths and shapes, jarred into the air and swirled around the room. One in particular went higher than the rest and twirled over to her, and she looked up and caught it in her outstretched arm as though it had been thrown to her. She swung it over her shoulder and slammed it into the ground before her, letting the echo resound throughout the prison.
In your helmet, you heard Atlas whistle.
"Get up, ya pansy!" she snarled, "You wanted to mess with us so bad? You get up!"
Clenching your teeth, you hoisted yourself up and reached out your left hand. Orange flames sprouted from your palm. The girl held out her own hand, and a hurricane whirled past you, blowing back the flames from your hand until they spiraled around your hand like the petals of a rose. She continued to walk steadily towards you as she did this, and the flames only curled back further, flaring with the intensity of the wind.
She walked all the way up to you like this before knocking her pipe twice against the heel of her foot and swinging it hard against your wrist. Your arm shook, the vibrations making it feel as hollow as the pipe, and it fell to the ground. The girl was standing right above you now.
She reached up the pipe and tapped it twice against the side of your helmet. "Let's see who's under that mask," she said, and she swung it back…
Snarling, you swung your right leg under her and swept out her feet from underneath her. She fell onto her forearms, directly in front of you, cursing. Her face was right next to your left hand. You lifted up the spear gun and she froze, her eyes wide. Slowly, you pointed it to her face, and then down to her side, poking the tip through the dangling orange fabric hanging off of her arm. She looked up at you, realizing what was about to happen, and you grinned in a friendly way and pulled the trigger.
She immediately flew back several feet, the force of the spear pulling her along. With a heavy crash, her feet skidded over the top of a bunk, and she slammed, shoulder first, into the corner of a cell, sliding down until her feet were touching the ground. She snarled, seeming more irritated than in pain, and tried to lunge after you, but the end of the spear had stuck clean through both layers of jumpsuit and was buried deep into the cement wall. She reached up with both hands and yanked furiously on the end of the spear, but she didn't have the strength, and it wouldn't budge. She was completely pinned.
You rose to your feet, rolling the kinks out of your shoulders, and sauntered over to the cell where she was now stuck. "Damn you!" she screamed, and tried to send another blast after you, but you just stepped to the side, out of her view, and the air blew past you, barely brushing the fabric on your suit, like a futile roar from the mouth of a caged animal.
You leaned back over to where the cell was and, with a grin, slid the cell door shut. Your turned to walk off.
"Hey!" she shouted, her voice cracking from sheer effort, "Where do you think you're going! Get back here, you goddamned monster!" Her voice rose in volume. "You going easy on me because I'm a kid? You think you're doing me some kind of favor? LOOK AROUND YOU! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!" Her voice broke. "Why? Why wouldn't you just leave us alone?"
You stopped in your tracks, listening to the blaring of the alarm, suddenly so distant, and went back to the cell. Slowly, you tiptoed over to the cell where you had shut her in, peered past the corner where the wall met the bars as it folded away, and looked in at the girl.
She had both her hands up, one with the burn mark that you had given her, and she was rubbing shakily into her eyes, soft little sniffles and sobs escaping through the arms muffling her mouth. She wasn't looking up at you and didn't seem to know that you were still there. Her tears sparkled on her lashes, like jewels. Suddenly, the alarms seemed so far away, distantly echoing, a mere backdrop, not important in the slightest. You knew you were witnessing something you weren't meant to see. You knew this was sacred, a secret and private moment that you were profaning with your presence, but you couldn't move.
Atlas rang in. "Delta, we have to get moving," he said. "If you've dealt with the Splicer, then let's go."
You wanted to pull the spear from the wall, but you knew you couldn't. She would only try to kill you again. Atlas was right. You needed to leave. You turned away, past the staircase, back to the row of cells where the girl had been lurking. The gap was still in front of you, the Warden's office still so far away, the problem exactly the same as just a few minutes ago.
But now, everything was different.
"Hey, Delta," said Atlas, suddenly. "What's that there?"
You turned back to face the camera, where it hung on the wall inside the cell. The camera was pointed away from you, toward the corner behind the bunk. Cautiously, you slipped inside the cell and looked around. The place was pretty cluttered up. Only one bunk lay before you, the other seemed to have been ripped from its place, the frayed edges of his legs where it had been torn away still standing above the gray and moldy sheet below, and had been thrown against the wall, where it leaned in the corner. Around you on the floor were strewn wrappers, more orange jumpsuits (all with the same number, "9430"), and another mess of jumbled pipes, apparently ripped from the floor, as there was a deep cavern to one side were several broken pipes had been stretched out like stubborn weeds.
You walked over to the corner where the camera shone and saw what Atlas had seen. Stacked there against the corner and leaning against the mangled bunk were a series of thick, hollow cylinders, with different colored rods embedded in a ring around it.
You picked one up and examined it. You recognized the rods inside without much difficulty. They were spears. Each of these cylinders contained a different kind of spear. The ones in your hand were painted red. Your turned the cylinder over in your hands and came across the words, "Caution: Flammable" stamped onto the side of one.
Suddenly, you had an idea.
You lifted up your spear gun and loaded one of the other spears, painted green, into it. You slid out some other spears, whatever you could carry, and stored those away for later. This done, you stepped out of the cell, reloaded, and walked back toward the rail.
"Alright," Atlas was saying, "Now that that's done, I guess we need to work our way over there. But for the life of me, I have no idea how… Delta?"
You were leaning over the rail, the scope of the spear gun pressed against your helmet, sweeping the floor below. The chaos below had lessened considerably; many of the Splicers who were still alive had retreated, shivering behind half crumbled barricades and crouched in the corners of cells. But the alarm was still blaring, and the security bots had note gone away, but continued to fly back and forth across the floor, sweeping the area with their lights, the red bulbs on their propellers winking. The crosshairs in the scope moved over a turret, closer to the side where you were and far to your right, before sweeping up to the northwest corner of the prison. You pointed the spear gun there, focusing on the point where the two walls met with the floor, and pulled the trigger.
The spear flew from the tip of your gun, twirling the long line behind it like a fishing lure. It landed and embedded itself in the corner of the wall, just above the floor, leaving a long, blue, flashing trail. You detached the end of the tripwire from the end of your gun and fastened it onto the handrail below you.
"Um, Delta?" Atlas began rather flatly, "Are you thinking of zip lining down there? Because… I can think of a few reasons why that won't work."
You ignored Atlas, rolling your eyes a little at the silly head, before opening your spear gun and clipping another spear into it, this one red. The camera pointed at your back curiously.
"Delta…?" said Atlas slowly, "What are you…?"
Before he could finish, you clicked the spear gun shut and pointed it down at the turret you had located earlier. You twiddled your fingers against the handle for a moment, taking a deep breath to brace yourself, before pulling the trigger.
The red spear zoomed away from you and landed square in the wiring of the turret. There was a pause as the turret jumped and slowly looked around, sweeping for the scoundrel who had hit it.
Then it exploded.
The rocket spear fired, the blast careening from the side of the turret, and it screamed, it actually screamed, so loud was the scraping of the gears rapidly firing within it, all jumbled up, all wrong, and it skidded across the prison floor, pushed along by the force of the rocket, randomly firing at a rapid pace, so overwhelmed it was, so unprepared for this sudden assault that rendered its entire world violent and smoldering and nonsensical. The bullets pinged everywhere, cracking against the walls, throwing up bits of oil and water in the piles of junk, ricocheting off of the other turrets, the other security bots.
Perfect.
"Delta!" Atlas cried, "Delta, what have you done?" You weren't listening. You were hoisting yourself up onto the rail, one foot at a time, teetering, but propelling yourself forward in your hurry. "Wait!" cried Atlas, and he cried the name they had given you again before you threw yourself off the balcony and landed, you legs folded under you and with a mighty boom that shook the walls, on the floor two stories down.
You had no time to waste. As the camera behind you followed you, you pulled yourself heavily to your feet and sprinted after the turret. It was on fire now, the flames wreathing it as it shrieked, peeling its paint, popping small gears off of it. It raced across the floor, much faster than you. But that was okay. You didn't want to catch up with it. But you needed to be close.
In the light of this obvious and dangerous target that had suddenly turned on them, all the security bots and all the turrets were not firing at the made, fiery turret that raced past them, ignoring the other Splicers and Delta entirely. They crowded so close together and fired at such a rapid pace that they sometimes accidentally struck each other, and then a fully melee broke out. The security, perceiving itself as a threat, began to attack itself. Bullets from bots pinged against bots. Turrets turned and faced each other, pelting away, their capsules of lead tearing away piping, belts, motors. Behind you, something exploded. You didn't care, didn't even slow down. You couldn't. The corner was coming up.
The blue tripwire still flashed above your head, and the space lowered and narrowed the closer you got to the Warden's door. The door was still shut, but if all went according to plan, that wouldn't be a problem. Right?
The turret kept going, aflame, sporadic, and mere inches away from the silver end of the electric spear. Knowing that you had less than a second, you ducked where you stood, your hands over your helmet. You didn't have to wait. As soon as the turret hit the electric trip wire, it rattled within its flames and exploded, throwing its molten parts through the air like a burst meteor. One empty part flew over your head, landing to smolder on the ground behind you. You quickly rose to your feet again and raced toward the door, grinning. The door was wide open, having been thrown loose by the blast. It had actually worked! Before anything else could go wrong, you leapt the last couple of feet and landed, with one step, into the bright yellow space beyond.
There were a few seconds of silence from over the radio. Then: "That… was… brilliant, Delta!"
You swept your leg behind you and bowed.
Atlas laughed. "Go on up, you crazy son of a bitch!" he said, "Let's get out of this god-awful place."
Your turned to go, a feeling like a warm balloon in your chest, confident and bursting with well-earned pride.
It hadn't occurred to you to close the door.
Something else in the chamber behind you exploded; you didn't see what it was; It didn't matter, and something large and sharp and metal flew through the air and struck you just above your knee. You gasped and leaned forward, digging your palm into your leg, reeling from the pain. From within your suit, something warm and sticky began to trickle down your leg.
"Delta!?" Atlas cried, "What happened!? Are you alright!?"
You were still shuddering. Your leg was soaked. You felt the back of your leg with shaking figures. No, nothing was torn. So how?
"Was it your leg?" asked Atlas anxiously.
Yes, you tapped. You reached behind you and closed the door, feeling a pain like a hatchet in your leg at every step.
Atlas was breathing heavily. It was almost as if he had been the one who had been struck. "Can you walk?" he asked.
Yes. But it hurt. You reached over and closed the door, shutting the noise out, and strung two tripwires across the door in an "x." You were still gasping.
"Well," said Atlas, "Hurry up and find the hack tool, then. And, please, be careful."
You looked around, taking in your brighter, quieter surroundings. The carpet in here was green and plush, the walls unstained. Nothing here was cluttered; nothing was disturbed. The stairs opened up directly in front of you, covered with felt, turning only one in their helix formation up to the third floor.
You hauled yourself up them, slowly.
You reached the top, your head poking over the green, speckled floor. You saw the broken window ahead of you, in front of the backboard that indicated there were stairs here. Red light streamed in through the ugly hole in the glass. There were several rooms in here, several winding corridors. You looked around, trying to decide.
"Take the one to the right," said Atlas, "That should be where the Warden's office is."
You headed to the right, dragging your right foot behind you. You looked up and saw a security camera. But this one did not hum to life like all the others. This one simply hung, its head down, its light dark.
"I'm sorry, Delta," said Atlas, "But none of the cameras work in here. Keep your eyes peeled alright?"
You didn't raise your guard. This place was too quiet, too pristine. The Splicers were afraid to come here, you realized.
The door to the office was open, so you walked right in. There was a desk in here, and a window. The light coming through the window wasn't any kind of light at all, just more shadows, more gloomy blue fog. You could see some rivulets of sunlight, wafting in the current, but that was all. You looked around. You didn't really know what you were looking for.
"It should be around there somewhere," said Atlas. "You're looking for a kinda… black strap thing… that fits over your hand. And there should be these, like, rings on the top, and a little place to clap the darts.
You checked in the desk drawers, but all you found were some papers that didn't interest you and a small granola bar, which you wolfed down. You went over to the closet and opened it. Several canisters of gas rolled out, but you didn't see any hack tool.
"Um," said Atlas, "There should be some other doors further to your right. Take the one directly in front of the entranceway. That should be the Security Room."
You wondered if Atlas knew that you could read. You saw the black letters on the clouded up window, "SECURITY ROOM," clear as day. Still limping heavily, you grasped the doorknob and pushed in the door.
You blinked your eyes a few times, to adjust to the darkness. Compared to the warm, yellow lights in the rooms before, this room was pitch black. The only light came from a series of monitors, displaying fuzzy gray images, that wavered back and forth as if in a snowstorm. Nearby, something was whirring and humming, but you couldn't tell what it was. You closed the door behind you, shutting out the intruding light, and gradually the scene opened before your eyes.
You were in a large, round, monitoring room with rows and rows of monitors above you, all displaying the prison from different angles. You recognized the cell where the girl had been crouching with its ripped off bunk and the main floor where you had danced with the burned Splicer. Seated before the monitors was a wide control panel, all the different buttons and knobs and switches upon it. And sitting on top of it was…
You reached down and grabbed it, slipping it onto your arm. The words: "FRINK LABS Hack Tool," were emblazoned across it. You saw several other devices that resembled light bulbs stacked unevenly on the console. Those most have been the darts. You clicked one onto the device on your hand and looked up.
Sitting before the control panel was on of the strangest things you had ever seen. It seemed to be a turret, sort of, but it had no gun and no bullets. Several thick cables spidered out of it like the legs of an octopus and were entwined into the control panel. The machine softly hummed, with the sound you had come to associate with autonomy. Stamped on the side of it was the number, "WA-R10."
Your turned your attention back to the hack tool and examined it. Near the base was a tiny switch with two options: "Manual" and "Auto." The pointer was currently on "Manual." With your finger, you flicked it over to "Auto."
Below the switch, another panel opened, one so thing you had to squint to properly see it. Underneath the panel was a row of tiny white wheels, each with the letter "A" printed on them, nine wheels in all. You scrolled the first wheel and other letters appeared, "B," "C," "D," and so on. You frowned, stumped, and looked around the room.
Against the far wall, you noticed a series of large, scrawling words, apparently spray painted in black upon the wall. Puzzled at the presence of graffiti here, where nothing else was disturbed, you cast the lights from your helmet across it. The words came fully into view. "i am not but a MARIONETT," they read.
You stared, wondering why only the word, "MARIONETT," had been spelled in all caps. And you didn't know it, but the word had actually been spell incorrectly. You turned back to the hack tool and scrolled the little wheels on it, until the wheels all spelled out, "Marionett." The panel flipped back over the wheels and the hack tool beeped. Something within it seemed to loosen. You flexed the tool on your hand, then pointed your fist toward the whirring machine, "WA-R10," and squeezed.
The dart struck the machine, and the whirring ceased. The end of it dropped slightly, and all the monitors switched to black with a final electric song. Behind you, you heard a camera whir to life, and the room was flooded with the red light.
"What?" asked Atlas, "What is this place? Where's the Warden?" The camera looked around and focused on the serial number painted on the side of the machine. "WA-R10," he read, "War-Ten. Warden. Ah."
You stepped away, clipping another dart into the hack tool."
"But… I don't understand," Atlas went on, "Where's the real Warden? There's got to be one around here somewhere."
Over against the fall wall, next to the writing, you noticed another door you hadn't before. This door seemed to be half ajar. You dragged yourself over to it, curious. There were no lights inside, and the white light from your helmet slipping into the cracks, filled the spaces.
Atlas rang in too late, "Wait, Delta!" he said. "I don't think-!"
The door swung open.
You stared, your light casting across the thing you had just seen, illuminating it like a puppet in a show. A shadow appeared over the wall behind it, the shadow swinging slightly, rotating.
There was a beat. Then: "Close the door, Delta," said Atlas softly.
You closed it. Twice. Twice in one day had you seen something you weren't meant to see. Or, perhaps, you were meant to see. We can never know. The sight of a pair of shoes, stripped pant legs, swinging in the air, turning this way and that, is an image that is always meant for someone to see.
I just wish I hadn't.
"The world's a darker place than it used to be, Delta," said Atlas.
There was another moment of silence. Nothing hummed. "I am not but a marionette."
"Well," said Atlas, "You've got the hack tool. Best be on our way."
As you walked back out the door, down the stairs, all was silent. The alarms were off. There was no red light, no light at all except from your helmet, sweeping over the bodies and rubbish all around. The security bots had fallen, dropped on the ground like dead beetles, their lights dark. You didn't run into any Splicers, but around you, you felt eyes, watching you. Heard them scurrying. Occasionally, you thought you saw one looking, you it ducked out of sight as you looked, shivering beneath where it had taken refuge. Some cradled each other. Some wept. All watched you as you passed.
These people weren't your enemies, you realized then. None of them were. Not the Splicers. Not the Warden. Not the security bots; hell, those didn't even have thoughts. You had no enemies here. Oh, you would have to fight them. You would even have to kill them. That was the way of this place. But they were not your enemies, and you were not theirs.
No, there was only one enemy. One person had caused all of this. He was everyone's enemy.
"Christ, I don't even know what to say. I can't go back to the house to vent to Ned; one of the kids might overhear. But I just... I feel like I need to say something or I'm going to scream."
[more heavy breathing]
[pause]
"I'm scared. Okay? I'm legitimately scared. I'm terrified, actually. I don't know what to do. I mean, this city was never exactly the Garden of Eden; I know that. Everyone knows that. But now? Now it's a rathole, and it's getting worse everyday. Everyone's so goddamn spliced up, you don't feel safe walking down the street. Hell, people have started splicing just to take the edge off. I was almost tempted to get a tonic or two myself, but luckily Ned snapped me out of it. It'll be a chilly day in Hell before anyone in his family takes drugs, he said. Heck, I think that was the first serious fight we've had in a while, but now I'm grateful that he stopped me. He's right. I can't be like them.
"The worst part, though, is what's happening to the girls. The number of girls over at the school has dropped to less than half. Either they're being snatched or the parents are pulling them out. Honestly, I hope it's the latter. They're even starting to pull the boys. I guess they've got this idea that if they run out of girls to grab, they'll start going after the boys. God, if anything were to happen to Rodd or Todd, Ned would just... God, I just can't do it..."
"Springfield's gone to Hell. And we all know who's to blame, goddamn Monty Burns. After everything he's done, this tops it all. He owns all of our asses, and he knows it, damn him. I hope he drowns in the bay."
((Okay, technically the one year anniversay of this blog was a few weeks ago, but I just got around to finishing this tonight/this morning. But still, it's the first belated birthday of Springfield Bioshock! That's reason enough to celebrate.
((Sorry for the extended haitus, but I'm proud to announce more Bioshocky-goodness very soon. Thanks so much to all of my followers who decided to stick around. I truly love you all.
((Let's hope for another year of awesomeness! Stay tuned!))
"Chief Wiggum, regarding the recent crisis with the prison, which, uh, I have to say was truly shocking to all of us..."
"Quit beating around the bush, Smithers, it was the biggest breakout the city has ever seen and your lousy Plasmids caused it!"
"Uh... Anyway, as soon as Mr. Burns heard about the accident, he was deeply troubled."
"Hmm."
"You see, I'm here representing Burns Corp. in the effort to round up the escaped criminals and help make Springfield a safer place."
"Oh, really? And how exactly are you gonna do that?"
"Well, we heard word that you had nowhere to put the escaped prisoners once you've caught them. Now, I'm sure that you fine men have been working around the clock, but if you run out of room in the jailhouse, well, quite frankly we're all very uneasy at the thought."
"Actually, we've already run out of room in the jailhouse, but so what?"
"The company would like to help you, Chief, in the only way we can. We have such large facilities, you know, and very secure. You and your men could simply bring any escaped prisoners you catch to us. That would include all of the convicts currently in the jailhouse, of course. We could take them off your hands for you, save you a lot of stress."
"Well, I'll be darned. You'd really do that?"
"Uh, I don't know about this, Chief. It seems kind of fishy to me... Um, if you'll pardon the expression."
"Oh, shut up, Lou. It'll be fine! It's about time they started pulling their weight. We accept your proposal, Mr. Smithers. We'll bring the crooks we already got over right away."
"Great! Then it's settled. Um, just one more thing. This is a male prison, right?"
The Incinerate! Plasmid uses genetic engineering through ADAM to enable users to start fires simply by pointing. I don't really get how that's possible, but it works.
The slogan for this particular Plasmid is "Fire at your Fingertips!" and they mean it.
Whenever they sell this product, they always have a little disclaimer at the bottom that says, "Fire spreads." That's cute and all, but that doesn't really emphasize enough just how uncontrollable this Plasmid can be. The fire spreads like, well, like fire. It gets everywhere; not only will it ignite your target Splicer, it will also spread to any person they touch, any plants, animals, wood paneling, nearby turrets, security bots, Big Daddies, you.
Be careful with this stuff, is what I'm saying.
The flames start off hot, but with subsequent upgrades, they can get even hotter.
Here's what the user's hand looks like after Incinerate! is first injected:
And here's the same hand under the effects of the final upgrade:
These photos were from the lab and weren't released to the public. I stole them from some file cabinets I found.
It's pretty stupid to create something lethal like this. It's even more stupid that they used the fact that you could light a stove to market it.
I mean, these flames can get up to a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Who wants to cook their chicken that much?
But you want to know what the dumbest thing of all is?
Well little tape recorder, it's been a long few days, but now it's finally complete. I present to you... the Frink Labs Hack Tool! Wahey! The controls are very simple. All you need to do is strap the device onto your wrist like so..."
[click]
"And fire any one of these 'hack darts,' as I call them, into any Burns Corp. security machine. The darts will then send a remote to the hack tool on the user's wrist, which will allow the user to hack the machine from a distance. Now, allow me to demonstrate using this harmless tennis ball launcher. You just line up the scope here, and..."
[thwack]
"Wahey-glavin!"
[pause]
"Okay, I somehow managed to shoot the dart into my own eye. It's very painful. Uh, theortetically however, someone with much better aim than me could hack that machine from a large distance. Now that my eye has stopped leaking fluid, perhaps I could try it again. Let's see now..."
[thwack]
[distant] "Ow! My eye! I'm not supposed to get hack darts in it!"
"Sorry! About that... I really need to remember to close that door."
So, for your information, I thought it might be beneficial to talk about some of the tonics that I think were used in the last chapter:
Armored Shell:
So, I'm pretty sure the Splicer in the prison was using this, the Armored Shell Tonic. Um, here's the tagline:
"Useful in any hazardous situtation, Armroed Shell offers fantasic protection against life's bumps and bruises. Don't be a softie - use Armored Shell now."
So, as you might have guessed, this tonic boosts a user's resistance to physical attacks from piercing or bludgeoning wounds. As you might have guessed, this is why the Splicer that fought Subject Delta was resistant to bullets, at least to a certain extent. Most Leadhead Splicers, I've found, use this tonic, as it becomes very helpful in fire fights. You know... The things they're always getting into?
Next, there's the Sports Boost tonic.
"In today's dangerous times, it never hurts to be a little faster, a little quicker on the draw. Remember, you don't have to outrun the crazed Splicer - just your neighbor!"
Awfully sensitive of them to mention Splicer and mental illness in their ads...
Anway, this tonic increases speed and agility, letting user's move faster and attack quicker. This is why the Splicer was able to, to some extent, maneuver around Subject Delta and beat him to the draw. This particular tonic is also very popular among athletes, or, at least, that's what all the newspapers used to say...
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