Boris Uspekhom was not a skittish man, he never was. During the war he had seen things that no man was meant to see, children with nothing but skin on their bones, grown men to weak to stand, bodies carelessly left in piles like dirty clothing. Yet through all this Boris stood strong, kept his nerves steeled, if not for him then for his comrades and the men, women, and children they rescued from concentration camps.
Though after the war, what he had seen, it was wearing on him, all he wanted was to get away from all those memories, all the death and sadness. So he did, he followed his grandmothers advice.
"You're a great listener, and a great talker, Boris, those are the prominent things about you, you would make a great business owner, open a bar or better yet, be like me open a bed & breakfast, you wouldn't go hungry" she had said.
He had put no stock into her advice until now, after she had already died fighting off a robber. At one point a man named Andrew Ryan approached him, said he wanted him to be one of the first members of a project of his.
He agreed on the condition that he could open his bed and breakfast in this "city of the great" and for a certain amount of time it was all that he dreamed of and more. He was meeting new and interesting people, seeing humans bending the elements like gods, hearing stories from all across the world and watching injuries that would permanently cripple a man being healed in instants. It was too good to last.
Reports of it started few and far in between, people doing insane things for Adam, stealing from family, selling all they own, and the stupidest of all, attacking the little sisters. But gradually the reports escalated, the city was starting to go insane, and eventually there were only a few truly safe strongholds left, the rest overrun by the insane. Even he had had his B&B ransacked for everything it had.
Boris was one of the few who were unaffected by this addiction and strong enough to fight off the ones who weren't. This made him the ideal candidate for the experiment. A new version of the teleport plasmid, one that would be strong enough to get the out of Rapture completely.
Boris had volunteered, even though he was fully aware of what might happen to him, he had seen the previous tests, people who had left arms or legs behind, body parts simply blinking out of existence, one test subject had even teleported the entire contents of the brewery they were hiding in before he himself seemingly suffered sudden compression, it looked like that one video of a tin can thrown into space, not pretty. But as stated before Boris was not a skittish man, and he was also not afraid of death, he had seen to much to really think death is the worse that can happen.
The scientists herded him onto a metal table and scurried around some more, they seemed pretty confident in this version. Finally one of the scientists, a short, bearded man wearing a tattered lab coat, walked up to him, his hair reminded Boris of a porcupine. He handed him a paper. It was, in fact a waiver
"if we do get out and your missing a limb it's not our fault" the porcupine had said with a sneer.
The paper was skimmed over quickly,
"The scientists and engineers of the Teleport v6 plasmid are not responsible for any of the following ailments or injuries: cancer, heart conditions, atomization, lose of limbs, lost of internal organs, lose of skin, death, and/or dimensional displacement.
Boris signed the paper quickly, he wanted to get this over with.
Finally one of the scientists approached him and motioned for him to lie down on the table. Normally they would have also have him strip down and dress him in a gown of some sort but all materials like that went to better means. They strapped him in with thick leather straps and gave him a plastic bite stick, the porcupine approached with a bottle attached to a thick needle, he had never understood why the plasmid needles had to be so large, ever since the first one he received, telekinesis, he had always despised them despite the advantage they gave.
Just as he was going to inject the plasmid a large crash echoed through the room causing the porcupine to almost drop the bottle, a voice was heard through the door
"Splicer! They found-"
whoever the speaker was got cut off by the sound of a machine gun firing and the security bots flying in.
"Careful!" scolded a scientist nearby, scowling at the porcupine, "I will not have all our hard work for nothing" he hissed.
The porcupine seemed incredibly embarrassed, clutching the plasmid like it was his lifeline.
"Well, don't lollygag, inject it now, before the splicers get in" the same scientist ordered.
The porcupine did just that and immediately stuck the needle into Boris's arm with more force than needed. But that did not matter as the pain Boris was feeling eclipsed that small sting one million fold.
It felt like someone was forcing sand through his veins while simultaneously shoving an electrified needle in his ears like his brain was the thanksgiving turkey of an insane surgeon. It honestly dwarfed all other pains he had felt in his life.
A few more minutes in he started to feel almost numb but not, like they were not just devoid of pain, but devoid of everything, it started from his toes and fingers and slowly creeping upward, he then heard a panicked shout. Through extreme effort he moved his eyes to gaze at his arm and lethargically realized that, oh his arm was disappearing. Normally anyone in his position would shout, but to him the numbing feeling this disappearance was causing was sweet relief compared to the pain the still visible parts were in. At one point he belatedly realized he was just a he was just a head, and as the darkness showed itself creeping in on the corners of his vision, he welcomed it.
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When he regained consciousness the first thing he realized was that he was either in Arcadia, dead, or it worked and he was outside, because there was a canopy of leafs above him. The second thing he realized was that he had all of his body parts or could at least feel all of them. The final thing he realized was that he actually felt pretty good, like he had just had a large meal, slept, and woke up with full Eve.
As Boris sat up he scanned his surroundings, he was in a small clearing with trees, trees, boulder, bush, large multi-headed reptile, more tre- wait what. Standing just outside of the clearing and stomping forward, Boris thought it would be in the best interest of both parties to utilize his gene tonic, natural camouflage, and simply fade into the background for a bit, no need for unnecessary conflict. As the creature stomped by Boris only had one thought, he made it.