The Brink and Back - Chapter 122 (Patreon)

Hello everyone! So, quick note, if you haven't seen it, I've posted a new Snippet this past weekend. In case you've missed it or forgotten, these are a monthly snippet releases that serve as a testing ground for new story ideas. This weeks snippet is a Warhammer 40k Chaos Gacha, but with a few major modifications.

These snippets will be around four chapters long and as they are potential future stories, your comments and likes really help me figure out which stories make it! So please, take a look and tell me what you think! Now enjoy the chapter!

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Unsurprisingly, with Frank's revelation about just how deep the rabbit hole went with ADAM and resulting plasmids, we both dove headfirst into the first experiments. While Frank hypothesized a lot about what was possible, that was very different from actually making things a reality.

The first step was to develop a more precise and comprehensive method for modifying and programming the ADAM into different plasmids. For that, we settled on a combination of the Fallout, Titanfall, and Halo universes. In effect, the Institute provided the framework for direct cellular manipulation and the process of doing that in a manner that was significantly more effective and complete than the Bioshock methods, while the Halo and Titanfall universes provided the know-how and technical ingredients involved with the process.

We abandoned the Bioshock method almost completely, as even refining it with new tech and understanding would have left a significant gap. It just wasn't efficient enough for our needs.

Eventually, by the second half of the day, we were producing pure versions of various plasmids. We were almost certain we had solved both the cellular unraveling issues and the cancerous growths, but we wouldn't know until we tested it on biological material. Thankfully, we had a way to make full, comprehensive, brainless biological dummies. Unfortunately, we couldn't just grab one of my existing organic doppelgangers and try the plasmid out on them, because we wanted a base human. So, Frank got the process going to produce around a dozen doppelgangers, but we would have to wait a day or so before they were ready for testing. 

While we waited, we continued working and researching, and by the time the doppelgangers were ready, we had reached several new conclusions about our new miracle liquid. 

First, it would be better to use plasmids in full, standard biological forms, i.e., untouched living creatures that did not have any cyberware or modifications. It wasn't necessarily dangerous to use on people with pre-existing cyberware or bioware, as long as the plasmid didn't compete directly with the body modification. The issue was that it was impossible to completely, one hundred percent match an existing alteration with a new plasmid alteration. Plasmids followed biological directions, while cyberware and most bioware followed the work of the ripperdoc. Variations in technique and natural deviations meant that cyberware and plasmids would never quite mesh perfectly. They would work together, especially if they were far apart, but plasmid-enhanced muscles, around bones replaced by a ripper, would never reach their full potential.

On top of that, it was impossible to calculate how adjacent plasmids would work with existing cyberware, as the deviations in play were microscopic.

This led directly to the second realization that this effect of poor meshing would likely persist across consecutive plasmid alterations. Plasmids could be easily made compatible with each other, but because the human body is constantly in flux, using multiple interacting plasmids would start to reduce their effectiveness in some way, depending on their interactions. That loss in effectiveness, however it presented itself, would likely compound, meaning that applying a dozen plasmids, no matter how stable they were, would likely yield seriously inferior results. Again, as long as they were well designed and properly allocated, there was no real health risk, just a loss of control.

Both issues were kind of like building with blocks. Even if you had finely milled precision blocks that all looked to be the same dimensions, when you built a large tower, even the slightest deviations would stack together to create major changes in the structure. It got even worse if you bought blocks from multiple brands, since they were never quite the same.

The solution for the issue was to create one massive layered plasmid regimen that modified someone from top to bottom, adding every ability they wanted, every modification they wanted, and then applying them one after the other. Such a process would put an incredible strain on the body, so the first step would be to reinforce your basic functions, like the heart, liver, lymph nodes, kidneys, blood-brain barrier, and several others. Then, immediately after, you could start doing whatever modifications you wanted. 

The person would be kept unconscious and stabilized manually, meaning their body would barely shift, both position-wise and on a medical level, allowing for maximum effectiveness of whatever changes you wanted to make.

Of course, this was all to the effect of chasing fifteen to twenty percent of effectiveness or potency. Getting a few plasmid alterations, as long as they were designed to work with your existing cyber and bioware, was still perfectly safe, it just wasn't the best you could get.

The concept of stacking plasmids one after the other reminded me considerably of Frank Fontaine's attempt to achieve some sort of ADAM-fueled godhood at the end of the first Bioshock. Surprisingly, as insane as it was, he had likely touched on the best way to apply plasmids, namely all at once, having never done any of them before.

It was about halfway through the third day when the batch of doppelgangers, all of them based on me, obviously, were done. We quickly tested them, cycling through each one to confirm they worked. It was more than a bit strange to be inside a normal form again, but I wasn't in them for very long, so it was fine. 

When we were sure they were ready, we took one of them and set it up in the lab, hooking it up to just about every monitoring system we had and getting a comprehensive readout on it constantly. When that was all set, Frank brought out a pair of plasmids and held them out for me to take. 

Both of them were Electro Bolt, but they were both different versions. One was the cleaned-up, neatened version of the original, made with the new processes and techniques we hoped would eliminate cellular unraveling and microcancers. The second was a new and improved version, one that Frank had built almost from the ground up while I was sleeping and doing other research. It was experimental, and according to him, a bit crude and bulky, which was unsurprising considering the injector was nearly three times the size. The cleaned-up original would run on injections of EVE, while the new one would generate its own power. 

"Alright… all scans read normal," Frank said, reading over the various screens. "The subject is ready when you are." 

I nodded, and after taking a moment to push past the fact that the subject he was referring to was a recreation of me, I carefully injected the first, smaller syringe into its left arm, the plunger taking a while to go down completely. 

Immediately, the body started twitching, veins of lightning blue worming their way through the doppelganger's body, up and down its arm, over its shoulder and chest, and down its forearm, a web of glowing strands beneath its skin. As it reached its hand, sparks started to jump out, zaps of electricity arcing between its fingers.

Of course, the whole time this was going on, the body kept twitching, but nothing like the full seizure I was expecting. 

"Nerves are firing, body is under stress, but it's handling it well. Looks like the improvements lessened the effects…" I said, reading over Frank's shoulder. "I mean, I would hate to be feeling it, but according to the readings, it doesn't look unbearable."

"Do you plan on ever using them?" Frank asked, turning to look at me. "Your body is already considerably enhanced."

"Eventually, probably," I responded, with a nod. "I'll probably get everything removed first, then get whatever custom package we create. It's a tall order, but… well, I have a feeling that, unless I get a tech tree that contains an explicit cure for old age, plasmid research is probably going to end up a big part of any progress we make in that particular field."

"That… it would allow for considerable and active manipulation of cells…" Frank said, trailing off for a moment before continuing with a nod of his own. "I think you're right, plasmids could likely be used to reverse the major effects of aging, effectively curing it. Not easily, but it would be possible." 

"A project for another day," I said with a nod, patting his shoulder. "Let's focus on this one first."

With the first plasmid settled, I grabbed the second, much larger one, carrying it over to the other side. I slowly started injecting that one as well, noticing that there was just a bit of green glow floating around in it.

"Did you put Elerium shards in here?" I asked, looking at the robot in surprise.

"Yes, it was the easiest way to power it," he explained. "The plasmid will take the tiny shards and embed them along the organic capacitors." 

"That's not how the final product will work," I pointed out. "Elerium is too unstable to be shoved into people's bodies like that." 

"I am aware. This was simply a… rushed job. A proof of concept."

"Fair enough." 

We watched as the much larger dose of plasmid set to work, proving more and less dramatic than the first version. It was less dramatic because the glowing was much more focused, heading right down to its forearm and not rising up toward its shoulder at all. It was more dramatic because, after the glow faded, the physical changes were still pretty obvious. 

Both the pointer and middle finger had been modified, as they were no longer functioning fingers with joints. Instead, they were bony-looking tubes, each as thick as a quarter and looking just as crude as I imagined they would. The physical change merged with the doppelganger's hand, the palm of which glowed green just enough to be barely visible. 

"Wow… that is certainly proof of some concept." 

"It was difficult to get working," Frank responded defensively. "I spent most of the night figuring out how to generate as much light as possible, the rest was spent perfecting reflective mirrors."

"What are the chances this just blows up when we activate it?" 

"... twenty percent?" 

I turned, looking at the AI biology expert. For a moment, I weighed the odds before eventually nodding. 

"Good enough for me."

After confirming the biological cyberware was stable and had formed correctly, I grabbed a chair and set up in the corner, using my interface to control the modified copy. As usual, stepping into a copy that was in the same room with me was on the trippy side, especially since after using doppelgangers for so long, I could somehow tell that the version of me sitting in the corner was the original. 

"How do you feel?" Frank asked, unstrapping my restraint, letting me sit up on the edge of the hospital bed. 

I looked down at my hands, one looking normal and the other looking more than a bit disturbing. Despite that, the most I felt was alive, like I drank too much coffee. 

"If you can believe it, I feel like I have lightning in my veins," I said, chuckling at his unimpressed look. "I feel like I'm wired- wait, no, that one was unintentional."

"Energized?" He suggested.

"Yeah," I agreed with a nod, sliding to my feet, giving a harsh exhale, and bouncing on the soles of my feet. "Grab some EVE, we need to test this out." 

Frank nodded, putting some glowing blue syringes into a bag before following me out of the room and through a teleporter. After a quick pit stop to grab some clothes, and send some spares down to the lab, we headed over to the massive scale construction room, the place I had used to assemble the huge UNSC starships, which we then converted into the testing and training ground for my Spartans. When we arrived, nearly a hundred Spartans were running around doing drills, newly created hive controllers working out the kinks in their systems. 

We headed directly to a large firing range, the Dumb AI systems watching curiously as we set up in one of the booths. Frank pulled out one of the injectors of EVE, and I gave him my arm, nodding in confirmation when he gave me a look.

Injecting the EVE was a strange sensation, a cold weight that spread through my body but seemed to settle in my left arm, which made sense, as that was where the plasmid had created the organs required for Electro Bolt. I could feel the potential, and as I raised my hand, it started to glow.

Now, through the many tech trees I had accessed over the last few months, I had run into a lot of deviation from the source material and the actual tech tree. As you could imagine, with how Bioshock was, this concept continued to be true. Quite a few of the plasmids that were seen in the games were very different from their real-world counterparts. Some of them didn't even exist at all.

I was very happy to say, in terms of effects, the original Electro Bolt was not one of them. 

As I activated the plasmid, like tensing a muscle I didn't even know I had, my fingertips began to glow harshly. I could feel the skin of each finger vibrate as it created a swirl of ionized air that pushed invisibly forward from my hand. As that happened, the organic capacitors in my arm began to fill with electricity, causing the same glowing web Frank and I had seen earlier to light up again. Finally, when I could feel that the charge was finished I released it in a burst.

The powerful blast of electricity dumped itself from the capacitors in my arm, down to my fingers. It arced between them, and then it followed the path of least resistance created by the ionized air my fingers had created and pushed forward.

A bolt of electricity fired across the range, crackling until it hit the target twenty feet down the range. It sparked and snapped, burning a neat hole in the plastic target before lighting it on fire. It was sudden, dramatic, and impressive, but in total, the whole process took just under two seconds. That, of course, did not include the ionized air projection.

"Fucking Hot Damn," I said, looking at my glowing hand and arm, watching as it receded, the light fading completely after a few seconds. "Well… I would call that a success." 

"How do you feel?" Frank asked. "Any side effects?"

"I… don't think so," I responded, examining my left hand. "No pain, no soreness. I can feel that I used about a fifth of my EVE.. maybe a bit less."

"Remarkable," Frank commented. "And my version?" 

"Yeah, yeah, hold your horses," I said, shaking my head. "I want to set up a quick disconnect in case the hand explodes. I don't want to get stuck in here because I'm too stunned to pull back."

After a minute of fiddling with my interface, I raised my modified right hand, pointing the two malformed fingers down at the now extinguished target, a new plastic sheet covering it. 

The activation sensation of pulling a muscle I didn't know I had was more or less the same, but that's where the similarities of firing the prototype ended. Where my left arm and hand had glowed a web of blue, my right hand pulsed green, as the Elerium hards inside generated energy. In a split second, my middle finger heated up enough that if I could feel it in any way, shape, or form, it would have likely felt like sticking it in a pot of boiling water. It burned my ring finger before I could pull it away.

Before I could even react to that, however, there was a loud snapping sound, as the plastic target, which was now around thirty feet away, suddenly had a tiny little hole burned into it. It happened so fast that the plastic didn't even have time to catch fire.

Then lightning leaped out of my top finger and jumped down the line of ionized gas left behind by the invisible laser I had just fired down range. It was considerably more powerful than the perfected original Electro Bolt had been, with the crack of it impacting the target enough to make my ears ring.

All of this happened in a split second and had no appreciable drain on my energy, nor did it leave me feeling like I had been emptied of something. 

Then my hand exploded. 

The pain had barely registered before I was back in the lab, letting out a gasp and jumping up out of my chair, shaking out my hand, a feeling of phantom pain tingling in my fingers. I was barely out of my seat when Mary popped up in a nearby projector.

"Jackson, are you alright?" She asked with concern in her voice. 

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," I assured her, letting out a bracing exhale. "That was intense. Could have done without the explosion but… Damn, I was throwing lightning!"

"Well done," She said with a smile. "Frank's on his way back with your doppelganger, should be back any moment." 

"Thanks, Mary. Everything good?" 

"The city is still reeling, but it seems to be settling," She replied. "I'm not seeing any signs of activity from Arasaka either. I have also confirmed that Saburo is back hiding in his estate. For real this time." 

I opened my mouth to respond, but Frank walked in from the hall, a pair of Spartans carrying the pale doppelganger, its stub of a hand capped with green biofoam. I quickly said goodbye to Mary as I stepped in to help, hooking the doppelganger up to various sensory equipment. Besides blood loss and the obvious damage, it wasn't showing any issues, though the complete destruction of its hand meant any issues there were now splattered along the gun range.

Still, the real test, to check the effects of the new and improved plasmids on the human body, was still perfectly valid. We would continue observing the doppelganger for a few days, but the first tests showed no signs of any plasmid-related issues. According to my understanding, they would have started to show up already, even just in small, minor forms, so the results were encouraging.

Despite how interesting and full of potential ADAM and plasmids were, there were other things in the Bioshock tech tree that I was interested in. On top of that, while I was very tempted to keep playing with the biological wonder, refining the control methods and expanding the range of materials we could manipulate, I did have other things going on and other things to build. After spending the rest of the third day messing around with the possibilities, I left the exploration and foundation building in terms of Plasmids to Frank. 

I would have time later to dive in and start working with them.

Though I would still need to produce ADAM for him. 

On the fourth day of the tech tree, I pulled away from my building and tech development to make some public appearances, first at Gemini Towers, then at some of the other projects going on in the city. The first one, and potentially most impactful, was the citywide clean-up effort. 

The program, something we wouldn't have been able to do without controlling the government and influencing the NCPD, was part PR, part necessary fix, as well as an effort to fill the gap for jobs. We needed to show the citizens that we would be making a difference in a way the old government refused to do, and cleaning up the trash from around the city was a great start.

The program was still under development, but it started with a hundred garbage trucks patrolling the streets, gathering and compacting trash. Each truck was staffed with five humans, who would drive them around the city, monitored by a Dumb AI. They would gather huge amounts of trash using the truck's various bits of attached equipment. The trucks would then compact that trash as much as possible, which was considerable with the tech I had access to, before stabilizing it with advanced polymer sealants. They would then deliver the trash chunks to a facility on the edge of the badlands. 

Well, it was the start of a facility, as it was still under construction. When it was done, however, it would be home to a series of several industrial-sized mass recyclers, huge versions of the near-perfect recycling machines that I got from the Titanfall tech tree. The facility would be capable of handling Night City's entire trash output and would eventually feed it into various factories elsewhere. 

For now, they were just working on getting rid of the horrific amount of trash clogging the city's alleyways and streets.

The workers were ecstatic with the job, as not only did we pay them exceedingly well, but they also received bonuses for each of the trash chunks they brought in. We also offered special bioware that allowed them to turn off their sense of smell, which almost every single one of them took.

At the same time, we planned on going through the massive dumps located around Night City. Unfortunately, that was a project that required a bit more of a delicate touch, since it was a dumping ground for bodies on a horrific scale. Both the public and the NCPD seemed rather blasé about it, but considering how often our old recycling teams found bones or bodies, there were many more hiding beneath the mountains of trash. 

In the end, we decided to use fully robotic teams to tend to the massive, overflowing landfills. We were just starting to build the teams to do so, but the idea was to have the same garbage trucks compacting trash into blocks, but have incinerator trucks following them around. MRVN units assigned to the incinerator trucks would take any bodies or remains found, record whatever data they could from them, before incinerating them and putting the remains into urns. A Dumb AI would then use the extracted data to notify next of kin, spouses, or friends if it could.

This was in no way a perfect system, and a lot of urns would inevitably be filled and labeled as Jane or John Doe, but it was honestly the best we could do.

Beyond the trash clearing, I also visited several of the parks being created, or re-created, around the city. They would follow the same style we used in Rocky Ridge and at the Gemini Towers, meaning small spots of real growing trees, which could be brought underground. Some of the parks were old city land that had been ruined by gang activity, trash dumping, and neglect. Others were being built on land that had housed buildings of various businesses that had run as we took over the city and set new rules for acceptable business practices. 

So far, Sable was happy with the progress being made on that front, but it was honestly too soon to see even the start of results. While Tinkertech and our group might be able to make large-scale moves over a weekend, the various corporations that still wanted to work in Night City could not. 

The final visit for the day was to a few of the many apartment complexes being built all through the city. Almost all of them had been under construction since before the takeover, some even before we stomped out the Tyger Claws, so they were at various levels of completion, but each of them was important. Night City was in desperate need of more humane living space, as well as more stable and well-built buildings. By creating more affordable housing, we could clear people out of old buildings, knock them down, and rebuild them. 

We would have to work with local landlords, who had their own list of new rules they had to follow, things like reasonable notice time for kicking out tenants and similar concepts. 

We would not be re-creating the insane conditions that let things like squatting happen legally, but protecting tenants from being screwed over was a must.

It was a long list of changes happening throughout the city, now that we had control over its infrastructure and the ability to make unilateral decisions about projects and new developments. 

Of course, there were also projects going on that the general population didn't know about. Some of them were projects that weren't ready to be revealed yet, like how we were overhauling the abandoned megabuildings or cleaning out the city's frankly horrifically piecemeal infrastructure systems. Night City was originally built with high standards, but those standards had long since been abandoned, so there were a lot of things in the background that needed to be fixed. Some of those would be advertised as they were completed, but some of them would never see the light of day, simply because they would spread too much panic. 

Nobody needed to know just how close two of the megabuildings were to collapsing. Even if one of them wasn't populated, it would have assuredly killed thousands if it were to fall.

Other projects were being actively carried out in secret. For one thing, I was setting up an emergency teleport network, spreading teleport pads out all over the city. They would function as a rapid-response system in case of emergencies, allowing me to send people in or pull them out as necessary should things go south. We were also installing shield projectors in various buildings, though that was slow going because it was difficult to do in secret.

And finally, there was the first of the city's defenses. Anti-air turrets, ground defense, and the first steps for the infrastructure for a barrier wall that would go around the entire city, all being set up in secret. I was hoping to have every angle of the sky around the city covered with anti-missile systems by the end of the week, and be ready for the wall project by the end of my Bioshock cycle.

It was just about inevitable that war was on the horizon, and I wanted the city to be ready.

Of course, the intention of visiting all of these visible projects was to show people I was still around, show them that I was genuine enough that I walked around the same halls as them, shaking hands with workers. It was a bit to PR run for my tastes, but at this stage in our mission,  winning hearts and minds was just as important as any other fight we faced.

So it was rather interesting to hear that at one of our final stops, an apartment building being built on bulldozed Militech land, had an unexpected guest. We were just about to start our drive over to it when Mary reported that someone was waiting for us. Apparently, Yorinobu Arasaka had shown up, bold as brass, looking to have a meeting with me.