A flame from the lighter built into the thumb of your right hand illuminates your features from the end of the alley for a brief half second as it lights your cigarette. Your expression is carved from stone. โOr just an answer, thatโd do me just fine.โ
Youโre suspicious as hell.
Half of this islandโs citizens are constructs. Not interdimensional travelers like you, but living decor. No extraordinary abilities, none of the confusion and tension that runs rampant in actual abductees, not much else in their holds other than clockwork and a mass produced emotional blueprintโ no oneโs told you outright, you didnโt read it in a book anywhere or anything, but itโs an educated guess.
The other half? It consists of those abductees. And the vast majority of them are marked with strange abilities, physiologies or personalities that make them prime subjects for observation.
Both those factions are easy to suss out and pick apart from each other with enough experience, leaving mundane and powerless human citizensโฆ the surprising minority.ย Ten dust out of your booze money would say this guyโs more than the plain John Doe he seems to be.
Your confidence only doubles when you catch the familiar scent of death on the breeze.
โHeard a guy scream bloody murder. Followed it, and only found one guy standing when I got hereโ you.โ Your voice is low. Even. โIโm not in a mood to muck up my boots tonight if I donโt have to, so Iโm gonna give you a shot to explain yourself since Iโm such a good goddamn sport.โ
In Rapture, peopleโor splicers, which could arguably be excluded from that groupโgenerally started screaming bloody murder whenever they saw him, then tried killing him in any number of ways. Being glared at... itโs refreshing, but not exactly welcome. It would be better if this person hadnโt showed up at all.
But now that sheโs here, Jack has no recourse but to size up the potential threat.
The stranger stands at Jackโs height, with a solid build and a posture that betrays her wary confidence, a confidence echoed by her voice. When Jack sees the light flicker into life, casting dim light across the strangerโs face, he thinks that they too had Incinerate or some other Plasmidโhow terrible that would beโbut no, itโs something else entirely.
Mysteries within mysteries.
โHe started it. Pulled a knife on me.โ Jack jerks his head to where the knife fell, among some crumpled wrappers. Thereโs a moment of silence before he continues. โHeโs alive.โ As if the world itself sought to condemn him, what little light that filters into the alleyway only serves to cast Jackโs face in a sullen gloom. โI was looking for his wallet.โ
Thereโs a bluntness to his tone that could easily be seen as impatienceโwhat else would I be doing, it seems to say.