"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.
And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
F. Nietzsche
This all started when she followed the little girl.
It wasn't like she liked kids or anything, god no. It was actually quite the opposite. In her line of work children were lab rats, the lot of them. Ameliè was a woman of science and schematics, far from the warm, fuzzy, and nurturing type. She spent hours listening in to Sophia Lamb's and Andrew Ryan's debates and soaking in Dr. Tenenbaum's audio spent even longer criticizing Steinman's medical ethics or lack thereof when she was working with him. His lab was filthy and the way he went about his surgeries were amateur at best, using rusted needles for the use of anesthesia or no anesthesia at all. (And she's fairly certain the only way she got away with pointing his surgical missteps was due her facial symmetry and calculative attitude. Along with the fact that she stayed as far away from the psychopath as humanly possible during his "operations.") Instead of wasting her time reading and re-reading, writing and rewriting scripts and blueprints of inventions like her fellow denizens of Artemis Suites. She poured over tomes of psychology and physics. Finding it better than wasting her time with fairy tales and get rich quick schemes.
It had been so safe holed up in her room, combing over a copy of Unity and metamorphosis. And god damn it all none of this would be happening if she hadn't realized all her whiskey was gone.
Ameliè was not a woman to go chasing small, childlike street urchins in tattered black dresses as her home dissolved into the gunfire, shouting and general chaos. Rather she was the kind to run for cover, war had torn apart her previous home, taken loved ones, set ablaze her dreams and idealism. She'd seen countless children gunned down for nothing more than a star on their clothes. So, she was conditioned in a way, to be used to the horror of leaving a child alone to survive on their own. To turn a blank gaze towards the floor and scurry for cover. She just never thought she'd have to take up that old line of thinking in a place that was advertised as an utopia.
She really shouldn't have followed that little girl.
But there was something different about her, how her vacant white eyes showed so much emotion. Eyes that had no soul, yet seemed to express so much.
Ameliè met Tenenbaum on multiple occasions while working for Steinman, knowing that she survived the same war as herself, albeit a bit older had put Ameliè at a sense of ease and created a sense of camaraderie between the two. It had been at a ball held by Andrew Ryan back when Rapture wasn't going to hell in a hand basket however, a celebration of a new wing of Steinman's medical clinic, that she had noticed a different side to the woman she originally deemed a God. A few of the girls from work and herself had attended in Steinman's stead. While her group had gathered around one of the numerous punch bowls, she had set a look out for Brigid.
Tenenbaum had looked aloof, deemed the party much too frivolous, despite her expensive silk gown. Her hair coiffed perfectly, albeit graying at the temples and her crystal blue eyes narrowed as she held a hushed conversation with Ameliè about her experiments and how guilty she felt out of what had become of the people involved. Although it had always been hard for the younger woman to tell whether it was because of the war or because her emotions were beginning to get the better of her. After a while it dawned on her that it was not the Camp experiences. There was no trace of survivor's guilt in her eyes. Instead it seemed to be the type of guilt associated with criminals and killers that were given enough time to reflect on their actions.
Brigid Tenenbaum, founder of the most controversial genetic rewiring in human history, felt guilty for creating the Little Sisters.
And she wanted her help.
She told her not to tell a soul, and Ameliè; despite every bone in her body wanting to refuse, and every self preservation instinct she had saying no. She simply couldn't decline her scientific hero.
So she agreed.
The little girl was screaming, not the usual manic delusions the little sister's she knew suffered from. But actual honest to god fear encrypted her speech as she yelled for someone, anyone. To help. Albeit it was littered with bits and pieces of french but the frantic shreds of panic in her tone. As much as Ameliè wanted to go back into the comfortable formality of ignoring screaming little ones to save her own skin. She decided to do something different, and follow the panicking little girl, ducking beneath debris and dodging bullets as deformed citizens ran amok in the streets. She stumbled once or twice, falling over a fresh corpse as Molotov cocktails were lobbed at buildings.
And all the while Ameliè kept chase, silently cursing that she wasn't more prepared. Anyone with half a brain could have guessed that Rapture would be torn apart by rebellion.
She just wished she could have grabbed her things before her life went to shit.
She really shouldn't have followed the little girl.
A/N: Hello, so I've come back from a very, very long bout of writer's block having just finished the entire Bioshock series and wow. Ain't that a plot twist? Either way, I'm sorry for what I'm going to assume is a very confusing and error filled first chapter. (Beta's would be much appreciated.) Without giving too much away, the universe this story takes place in is Burial at Sea Pt. 2.
I hope it wasn't too painful though. And hopefully I'll be updating this once a week. Ciao!