Alright, I'm back. Been busy with college or I would have updated much sooner. I hope that you're all excited to see just why Cheshire is in Alice's bedroom. Has she finally gone mad? Or has he actually managed to find his way into the real world?
Before I begin, I just want to say something about crossovers. The ones that come easiest to the mind are those with similar settings or characters, such as Star Wars and Star Trek. From both my reading and writing, I've come to the conclusion that the best crossovers are those that share similar themes. For example, the fic Other Gods is a crossover between Coraline and the Cthulhu mythos; heroes fighting against impossible odds and monstrous aliens. Scorpiofreak's Winter Wonderland deals with characters that wish to protect the innocent from the evil. As for WonderShock, in both BioShock and in the Alice series, the hero and heroine respectively fight for survival in a world gone mad. Even if the stories used are completely unlikely, a shared theme can make all the difference.
Ok, enough yapping. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Chapter 2 of WonderShock!
(Re-edited as of 7/27/2016)
Chapter 2: Leads
November 17, 1958
"Cheshire!"
Alice jumped off of her bed and stared. The Cheshire Cat sat on the floor at the foot of her bed, his skeletal and mangy frame showing off every rib and vertebrae in his body, his devil tail flicking in the air as though in amusement, grinning with those human blood-spattered teeth of his. It was one thing to see him in Wonderland; she was used to seeing him there. But seeing him now, in her room in Rapture…Alice was struck with just how huge he was, for a cat. Sitting down, he was at least as tall as she was.
"How the deuce are you here?" she hissed, remembering that the walls weren't that thick. "I'm not insane. I rid myself of the Infernal Train, the Dollmaker, the Ruin, and Bumby. You shouldn't be here." She glared at him, waiting for an answer.
Cheshire casually lifted a paw and began to lick it. "Tell me," he said between licks, "just how would my appearance here qualify as a symptom of mental instability?"
Alice stared at the cat, exasperated. This was just like him, evading a direct answer and instead giving tidbits of seemingly useless information. Typical. It was enough to nearly drive her mad in Wonderland when she had already been in the throes of insanity.
"Because," Alice started slowly and enunciating every word, y"ou are a figment of my imagination, the product of an old childhood daydream. Your place is in Wonderland with all my other imaginary…acquaintances." Friends wasn't quite the right word for most of them. "You shouldn't be here. The fact you are calls my sanity, or lack thereof, into question. Now answer me." She started tapping one foot impatiently.
Cheshire put his paw back down on the ground and rolled his eyes. "For someone with such an imagination as yours, you can be quite narrow-minded at times Alice. I'm here, because you are allowing me to be here."
Alice thought her mouth would clatter on the floor. "How am…."
"Alice, are you alright?" Helen chose that moment to walk through Alice's door and into her room without waiting for permission. Alice expected her to scream when she saw Cheshire, but to her surprise, Helen had just stood there. Alice sneaked a glance back at Cheshire to find that he had pulled off his vanishing act.
"I…I'm fine Helen," Alice answered awkwardly. She was rarely caught off guard like this; it wasn't an experience she was familiar with. Drat that cat.
"I thought I heard voices." Helen was glancing around the room now, especially at the wardrobe. What did she think was in there, a boy?
'That assumption would be warranted, if I was any other "normal" girl.' Alice was attractive, but her stay at Rutledge had a tendency to scare male admirers off, not that she was actively seeking any.
"I was talking to myself," she lied. There was a strong possibility she wasn't lying. Cheshire was probably a hallucination and talking to a hallucination could qualify for that, right?
Helen gave her a look that was halfway between 'you're lying' and 'I'm concerned'. She considered Alice with her usually-disinterested, ice-blue eyes before she replied. "Ok. You'd best come to the kitchen. Oatmeal that tastes like cod is better than oatmeal that glues your teeth together."
"I'll be there in a minute," Alice said. Helen turned around and the door seemed to take its sweet time closing behind her, allowing her to eye Alice the whole time. The instant the door closed, Cheshire reappeared with the orange outline that preceded his body.
"Fish-flavored oatmeal," he mused, licking his lips. "Sounds quite appetizing."
"For a cat, yes," Alice said wryly. "Now, how am I allowing you to be here?"
Cheshire narrowed his eyes at her in thought. "Let's see how much your memory has recovered. What was one of the things that your father taught you about emotions?"
"What does that have to do with your presence?" Alice crossed her arms over her chest angrily. Cheshire was being quite difficult this time around.
"Answer the question, and I'll lead you to the answer you desire," he purred.
Alice considered throwing something at him, but decided she didn't want to test how solid he was. She thought back to when her father would teach her and Lizzie. In both their London and Rapture homes, they had been homeschooled in their library. Alice remembered the smell of paper, the camera equipment laying around, and the sound of her father's voice as he taught them about the sciences. Mother had been in charge of writing and grammar, while Nanny had taught them French and music. As Alice dived back into those happy, old days, she knew it had been worth it. Recovering her broken memories and piecing them together had been well worth the cost.
One suddenly came to the surface. "As far as the brain is concerned girls, emotions are nothing more than chemical reactions. It's what we do with them that matters." Her father's deep, kindly voice faded back into the depths of her mind, ready to be recalled with a single thought, unlike forty-eight hours ago when she couldn't even remember the fact that Lizzie never locked her door.
Alice looked up at Cheshire. "He said that emotions are just chemicals in our brain, that it was what we did with them that mattered," she answered, smiling.
Cheshire nodded. "Nicely done. Now, what were the emotions that you felt very strongly not over twelve hours ago?"
The answers came almost instantly to her. "Anger, that Bumby was so sure of his power over me and the other orphans," she said slowly. "Fear, that he was going to have me murdered and my body left in the streets or out in the ocean. Despair, that after everything I had done to recover my broken memories and save my mind, he was going to continue his heinous activities."
"You're almost there now," Cheshire grinned. "One more question. What chemical was also present in your bloodstream and your brain when you experienced that emotional mixture?"
Alice searched her memory. "I have no idea. Sorrow that the deaths of my parents and Lizzie would go unavenged?"
"That was there, yes," Cheshire conceded. "But that wasn't what I meant."
"I honestly have no idea, Cat." Alice gave him a look that bordered dangerously on a glare.
Cheshire sighed. "Very well. Let's make this simple, for your cranium's sake. What chemical was injected directly into your bloodstream while you were at Rutledge?"
Alice's eyes shot open and her breath hitched. She said the name in fear and apprehension a few moments after her heart rate reached the apex of its spike. "ADAM."
"Yes, ADAM," agreed Cheshire. "The discovery that made Brigid Tenebaum one of Rapture's elite, the chemical that allows for the rearrangement of the building blocks of life, the substance that allows for the genes to repurposed as one sees fit. It has lain dormant within you all this time, only to finally react with the inferno of rage, the mind-numbing freeze of fear, and the soul-crushing depths of despair."
Alice walked over to her mirror and stared at her reflection. "The dress on the platform, my return to health, you." It all made sense now.
"Yes," Cheshire said. "For a few moments of time, there was no difference between the real-world Alice and the creator of Wonderland. Your Wonderland self is how you wanted yourself to be and there it was. You can call certain aspects of your imagination into the real world. Including me," he finished smugly. "You wanted someone with whom you can freely discourse, and here I am."
Alice had a mental image of the Walrus rampaging through Rapture in his quest for oysters, along with the Mock Turtle taking a ride on the Atlantic Express and the Mad Hatter running amok in Hephaestus. If her new ability was that strong, it would be pandemonium and she would be in deep bilge water with the authorities. Even those two constables that treated her decently wouldn't be able to help her.
"Which aspects, and what's going to happen to me now? I have no desire to wind up an ADAM addict like Witless." Alice had seen what eventually happened to those who threw caution to the currents and spliced themselves recklessly. First, lesions, tumors, and growths would appear on the body and face of the addict (Witless's massive nose for example), followed by mental instability and finally insanity. Alice shivered; She had not gone through all that pain and suffering to go mad because of a DNA-altering drug. The only way to combat the drug's side effects was to take more of it, which would only make it necessary to take more and so on. That was a vicious cycle that she wanted no part of.
"I think that you would have developed ADAM sickness by now," Cheshire replied, studying her. "The how of that is a mystery that needs solving. We can investigate that later. Your breakfast is getting cold." He vanished without a sound, as usual.
Alice left her room with a huff and hurried to the kitchen. She managed to get the last bowl of the disgusting mixture and sat down to eat with Helen, who was still giving her concerned looks. Alice mulled over the new information as she rolled the stuff around in her mouth. Of all the strange things that had happened to her, this pretty much took the "Eat-Me" cake. For years now, a drug that could alter one's very genetic code had been swirling around in her body doing absolutely nothing (apparently), then she felt that whirlpool of emotions and feelings, and the resulting concoction gives her the ability to bring things from Wonderland into the real world?
That made Wonderland and its inhabitants seem almost normal, which was a truly disturbing notion. At this rate, she would be marrying into Andrew Ryan's family, which was practically impossible, as well as disconcerting. She had never really liked Ryan, not even as a child whenever he came to visit her family, and she didn't want to call him a relative. Besides, she had never heard of the man having any living family.
Her new ability would need to be tested. The last thing that needed to happen was for the other Wonderlanders to start coming out as well. They would be pretty much useless in normal life, let alone in a fight or anything like that. Oh, she supposed that Mock-Turtle would make a good conductor for the Atlantic Express and that the Carpenter could rival Sander Cohen with his equally-terrible plays. The only reason that Ryan sponsored the man was that Cohen constantly sang to Ryan's tune. "Rise, Rapture, Rise" was proof enough of that.
'Now if I can bring my weapons into Rapture, that would save me quite a few dollars.' Alice was tired of being helpless. Not in Wonderland, no. She had proved that with the hundreds of foes she had vanquished in her mind over the past few days. In the real world, she was defenseless against the likes of men like Bumby and Jack Splatter. The former wouldn't have been so smug at the station with the Hobby Horse about to strike his face, and the latter wouldn't have dared to strike her if the Pepper Grinder had been leveled at him. She had to admit, that last mental image was incredibly amusing.
Helen explained to Alice over breakfast that they had been expecting a newcomer, but when the girl's parents had been unable to find Dr. Bumby, and had seen Houndsditch for themselves, they immediately taken their daughter back home, declaring that private sessions with Dr. Wilson would be more expensive but worth it. Alice smiled at the fact that she had just saved one person right there. One less victim for Bumby to ravage and destroy.
After she had managed to get the oatmeal in her system and the dishes washed, Alice set out to finish the rest of her and Helen's chores. She had gotten away with two day's absence, and part of her felt guilty for leaving Helen to shoulder the work while she was gone. After she was done with that, and with answering the children's questions about her latest relapse, she was going to Bumby's office. She had some investigating to do.
BS+AMA=WS
"And what exactly are you doing here? This seems like a place you'd rather avoid, Alice."
Alice turned to face Cheshire as she closed the door behind her. "Detective work. I need to know if Bumby was the mastermind of this wretched business, or if he was one of the suppliers, or perhaps both."
Cheshire flicked his tail. "I'd make it quick then. They'll eventually identify his body and everyone here will know that he's gone and will want to get this building for themselves. It wouldn't do if you were caught in his office."
Alice had to agree with him there. "I'll make it quick then. Besides," she held up a feather duster in her right hand, "I have a valid excuse for being in here." She set the duster down on the couch and sat at Bumby's desk. She began to ply through his drawers. "Out of curiosity, if Helen could hear you, could she see and touch you as well?" She found a thick ledger and began to leaf through its pages.
Alice assumed that Cheshire was shaking his head. "She would have seen me, which is why I turned invisible. She wouldn't be able to touch me however. As far as the real world is concerned, I'm nothing more than a visible and audible ghost."
"Most certainly audible," Alice replied as she started leafing through Bumby's account book. "Curiouser and curiouser."
"What is?" Cheshire asked, giving Alice a slight glare.
"Bumby must be keeping another ledger somewhere. The final balance here wouldn't be enough to support all this." She gestured to the office, which was the best part of the entire structure when it came to furniture and decoration. The desk inlaid with coral, the bookcases full of psychology books and medical journals, the globe detailing both the continents on the surface and the immediate area around Rapture, the red velvet couch that his victims lay upon, and the various, expensive nick-nacks such as the teal vase right next to the couch. The totaling sum in the book for that month wasn't small, but it could in no way support the moderate opulence sported here.
"For someone who lives in Rapture he certainly liked to keep secrets," Cheshire mused.
"Even in Rapture, there are enough people that would want nothing to do with him if the truth came out," Alice answered as she began to study the bookshelves. "Quite a few women seemed to fancy him. If they knew how he truly brought the sea-weed in, they'd scorn him at every turn." Alice gave a short laugh. "They might even have killed him for me, if anyone would have believed me."
Cheshire shrugged. "If he's that secretive, why not try that safe over in the corner?"
Alice had never really taken note of that particular safe before. It was like any other safe she had seen: a large, solid-looking, metal box with a door and a combination lock on it. Now however, it was a source of great interest.
She leaned down in front of it and studied it. She had never seen it open before and with what she now knew of Bumby, there was a part of her that didn't really want to know what it contained. "I haven't the faintest idea of what the combination is," she muttered. "Maybe I can hack it."
"Do you possess the knowledge or natural skill for that?" Cheshire peered over her shoulder at the lock. "I don't recall the art of lock-picking being part of your curriculum."
Ignoring him, Alice removed a panel next to the combination and took a look inside. Most of the machines and devices in Rapture utilized a hydraulic system for their mechanical workings. As she stared at the network of pipes and wires running through the safe's innards, Alice realized that she didn't have an inkling of what to do. She quickly put the panel back in its place.
"I thought not," Cheshire grinned.
Alice gave him a glare. "If you're so smart, why don't you tell me how to open this idiot lock?" she hissed.
"Take a look around," the Cat advised. "It's possible that he recorded the combination somewhere, though certainly not probable."
Alice began looking through some of Bumby's papers and notes for something, anything, that looked like a lock combination. Most of it was just numbers for the pneumo lines or notes for his clients' sessions. Alice even up-ended his wastebasket in her increasingly-fruitless search.
She was about to give up when she saw something poking out of his bookcase that wasn't a book. Slipping it out from between a copy of Steinman's Aesthetics of the Human Body and Mind and Fontaine's Don't Let the Bastards See You Sweat, Alice realized that it was an audio diary. It was dated December 12, 1957, about a few weeks after she came to live at Houndsditch and Bumby had labeled it "Extraordinary Results".
'This likely won't be of any help, but it could divulge something of interest.' Alice pressed the play button and Bumby's hated voice sounded in the room.
"The results from the latest round of tests have yielded some very extraordinary results. The cells are inundated with the treatments but they don't seem to reacting adversely, or beneficially. If I play my cards right, Alice will be a two-fold source of income. I believe that a certain Korean doctor and his German assistant will be very interested in this. Unfortunately, Alice cleans my office and I'm afraid she'll stumble across my research, so I've changed my safe combination to protect this little secret. It's now 1-9-2-9."
"I wonder what that was about," Alice mused.
"It can await pondering," Cheshire yawned. He had taken up a position on the patient's couch, dozing. Alice wondered if his new presence in the real world was as beneficial as he seemed to think. Now that he was here, he seemed to be acting like any other cat. Or had she only seen him while giving her advice and riddles?
Alice entered the combination and was rewarded with the sound of the locks clacking open. She was about to open it when she realized just what the combination was. "1-9-2-9. 1929. That was the year of Lizzie's birth!" For an instant, Alice saw pure red. Bumby had absolutely no right to use anything that belonged to Lizzie; not her, not her bedroom key, not even the year she was born. "If he wasn't already deceased I would, I would…." For the first time in her life, Alice couldn't think of a thing to say.
"If you're going to lose your temper every time you come across some evidence of Bumby's warped nature, I'd suggest leaving that safe alone," Cheshire said. "My opinion of him was already so low, I'm surprised that he hadn't tuned that lock to the genetic frequency on that key."
Alice silently admitted to herself that the Cat had a point. Thinking of Bumby now, she wouldn't have been surprised if that had been the case, though the idea of it still made her sick. She steeled herself and opened the door, prepared for anything. It was almost anticlimactic. There were a few ledgers, several more audio diaries, a cashbox, and a drinkable-plasmid bottle, along with a few bottles of EVE. The last items were what truly piqued Alice's interest. They could wait though.
She grabbed the ledgers and began leafing through them. She found what she wanted quickly, much to her stomach's regret. "F-7" and "M-7" referenced to the cards that Bumby had the other orphans wear around their necks. There was two of each, one for a boy and one for a girl. The columns afterward really made her blood boil. They were notes about how much money each one "earned", the expenses they "incurred", and how many times each had been on an outing before they had been bought. Alice shoved the folder back into the safe angrily and grabbed another ledger and the cashbox. The amount of money in the ledger's "Profits" column was far more than what Bumby made off of his psychiatry business, which was further proved by the large bundles of "Ryans" in the box.
Alice wasn't able to find a mention of permanent business partners beyond the names of the people he had sold to and was about to call her investigation closed when she noticed something. Over the past few month about a dozen of the younger girls, ages 5 to 9, had supposedly found homes and left the orphanage. In this particular folder, it recorded them leaving, but not to a new home and family, or to a new "owner". Instead, it was a morbid collection of sales receipts for the little girls to a "Dr. Suchong" and a "Brigid Tenenbaum".
Alice recognized the names of course. They were two of Rapture's foremost scientists. Tenenbaum had discovered ADAM back in 1952, and Dr. Suchong had been hailed as the "Greatest Genius of Rapture" for his work with plasmids. Ever since Fontaine had gone down Suchong had worked for Ryan, while Tenenbaum had vanished from the public eye. Ryan and the Rapture Tribune had assured the people that she was merely working hard in her new laboratory. Rumors were that she had apparently kidnapped a few Little Sisters for their ADAM and vanished.
'What would those two want with a dozen little girls? From what I've heard of them, they don't seem like the type that would buy from Bumby. Wait a moment…."
Alice felt a chill run up her spine as she remembered the rows of Little Sisters that she had seen outside a "Little Wonders Educational Facility", listening to a woman drill them using a childish rhyme for directions: "Red means stop! Green means go. This is the rule all little girls know." That was want those two had wanted with those dozen little girls.
The dark and sinister truth behind the color and child-like nature of the Dollhouse came into Alice's mind as she reviewed that memory, now with the dark undertone of exploitation covered by the cheerful and happy disguise of the Little Wonder's bright depictions of children's toys. The exploited "services" were very different, but they were both just as vile: Bumby's warping of innocent minds to make them into "playthings", and Ryan's genetic technologies twisting little girls into "ADAM factories". As the realization of how big the evil beast of Rapture was and how many tentacles it had throughout the city dawned on her, Alice began to feel small and powerless against it.
She had heard that Sander Cohen had done charity work for the orphaned girls that had been turned out on the street after Fontaine's orphanages had been shut down. Only it was never mentioned what happened to the little girls after they had been "helped". Was all of Rapture's elite in on this horror? Bumby had been very close to making it onto a poster as one of Rapture's greatest minds. Were the so-called best of Rapture in on this child-trafficking business? It was obvious that it had started with Fontaine, but Ryan seemed to be just fine with the grotesque method of ADAM production, while Bumby had been apparently supplying them both with little girls while turning others into child-prostitutes.
A few days ago, she hadn't truly cared about the little girls with the strange, grey eyes and almost clown-like make-up. They were the product of someone else's business and not hers to meddle with. Now though, she had seen what happened when she had minded her own business. She had concentrated solely upon her own miserable situation and ignored the pain and abuse that Bumby had heaped upon the other orphans. And now, not even twenty-four hours after his death, she had become aware of the fact that she had barely made a dent in the exploitation of the innocent and helpless for profit.
'Then again, this wouldn't be the first time I've faced an opponent so powerful and so evil,' Alice thought. If the cream of Rapture's crop had to be reaped early in order to stop this new abuse, she had the experience of fighting against impossible enemies and odds. A ray of hope struck Alice's spirit and she felt her spirits rise once more, along with the corners of her mouth as they morphed into a dark half-smirk.
"Now there's a juicy tidbit," Cheshire commented. He had been reading over her shoulder. "That and the plasmid. What is it specifically?"
Alice picked the bottle and studied it. It was still sealed shut, meaning he'd been planning to take it. It was a lurid green and made to look like some sort of dancer, the inappropriate type. A picture on the front showed a sly-looking man winking and holding a finger to his lips. Alice read the label out loud. "Peeping Tom. Turn every room into a…Peepshow! Invisibility and X-ray vision." Alice's mouth dropped open as she realized just what the plasmid's intended use was.
"He was planning to…that perverted…oh!" The walls in Alice's room weren't that thick to begin with. It would be easy for someone with X-ray vision to spy on her, not to mention any other woman. The idea of him spying on her while she was changing…. Alice shivered in disgust and wondered just where Bumby had got the plasmid. She'd like to strangle whoever had sold it to him.
"I was starting to believe that my opinion of Bumby had hit bedrock," Cheshire had his ears pinned back against his head, signaling his displeasure. "Maybe you should have opted for making his death a little more painful, and for it to have taken a longer duration."
"When it comes to the deaths of oozing sores like him, I prefer irony to agony," Alice retorted. Bumby would have loved this plasmid, this disgusting thing. She prepared to throw it back into the safe.
"I would hold onto that if I were you," the Cat interrupted. "It might prove useful." Alice slowly turned around, her eyes wide open in shock and disbelief.
"Cheshire Cat," she said slowly, "I have two things to inform you of. First, even though I already have ADAM floating around in my genetic code, I don't desire anymore. Second, I am not some Khaki-wacky share-crop!" She almost screamed the last bit.
"I never said that," Cheshire answered back. "What I meant was that it could prove useful in combat. The ability to see through walls and turn invisible is a great advantage to wield. I would know about the latter."
Alice scoffed. "This isn't Wonderland, Cat. There are no Red Queens or Dollmakers here."
Cheshire narrowed his eyes. "This is the real world, Alice. It's worse. Here, there are Jack Splatters, Angus Bumbys, Frank Fontaines, and a host of other vile characters out to get you if you're not careful. Take the plasmid with you." He cocked an ear and looked up. "There's someone at the front door. It sounds like those two constables who regularly confine you to that cell in Neptune's Bounty." He nodded towards the ledgers before vanishing. "Now there's a golden opportunity if I've ever seen one."
Alice muttered a few incoherent insults as she gathered up the items. 'That feline is impossible sometimes,' she thought grumpily. After peeking into the hall to make sure that none of the children were passing by, Alice hurried to her room with the duster, the ledgers, the plasmid, the EVE bottles, and the audio diaries.
'I wonder what Bumby meant by referring to me as a "two-fold source of income." Besides my body, there's nothing else he could sell. Unless he thinks that some scientist would want my cadaver for an experiment.'
Alice couldn't help but shudder as she entered her room and shut the door behind her. This whole concept of thinking of people as a commodity to sell was incredibly revolting. It was especially nauseating if one knew that someone had been planning on selling one or using one's body for their own perverted pleasure. If she had been born in the early 1800s in America, she likely would have been an abolitionist. Among other things.
Alice set the items down on her bed and considered her next move. She now had evidence of Bumby's abuse in her hands and the only two constables who had ever treated her with any kindness, Bobby Carmine and Fred Taggart, were right outside the front door. They had escorted her to a cell in the makeshift jail at Fontaine Fisheries several times over the past few months whenever she had suffered a psychotic episode in public. Out of all the men employed in Ryan Security, they were the most decent out of all of them. A golden opportunity indeed.
She stuffed the plasmid, the EVE, and the first audio diary under her pillow. Gathering up the ledgers and the audio diaries that she hadn't had a chance to listen to, Alice hurried to the front door. Only two days earlier, she had walked the same route after complaining about her room. The Alice of two days ago and the Alice of today were truly different from each other. Not even she could have imagined just how quickly things could change in just two days.
Helen was already at the door, speaking with Bobby Carmine. Alice could see the top of Fred Taggart's cap from where he stood at the bottom of the stairs. Both of them had muscular builds, complemented by the thick grey trenchcoats, black boots, gloves, and low-laying caps they wore. The shoulder holsters, complete with a full ammo belt, finished painting the picture of the average constable of Ryan Security.
Bobby looked up at Alice, his blond hair easily fitting the boyish smile he sent her way.
"'Ello Alice, back in the land of the livin', I take it?" Alice gave him a quick half-smile; the only times she really interacted with Carmine and Taggart was when they let her in and out of "her" cell at the makeshift jail at Fontaine's Fishery. Hardly a place to cultivate a decent friendship. He and Taggart were the only members of Ryan's security force to treat her with any respect; most of them just sneered at her and made snide comments about her one day waking up to a permanent cell in Rutledge.
"Much better, Constable Carmine, thank you very much," she said. "I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble last time. I hope Jack Splatter is enjoying his new accommodations."
"Other than when you fainted, you were no trouble at all. Can't say the same for Splatter, rotten little bugger." Bob frowned. "Hasn't stopped denyin' the fact he gutted that heavy outside the Mermaid, even with that camera that caught 'em in the act. Nastiest bloke down 'ere since Fontaine kicked the bucket."
"I couldn't agree more," Alice said.
Helen turned around to face her right then, her usual bored expression replaced by a melancholy sorrow. Helen wasn't prone to expressing her emotions very much and it was hard to gauge what she was feeling sometimes, though not now. She was sorrowful about something, and Alice had a good idea what, or rather "who" it was about.
"Helen, what's the matter?" Alice asked, concerned.
Helen looked at her hollowly. When she spoke, she could barely hear her. "Dr. Bumby's dead. They managed to identify his body after he was killed last night in an accident at the train station."
"Took a while," Carmine coughed. "The Express did a number on him, took a few 'ours to get his body out, or what was left of it. Never seen such a mess since the raid on Fontaine's. It was them glasses of his that finally told us who he was. Real sorry 'bout him, Alice."
"Oh," Alice said quietly. Bumb's final words kept repeating themselves in her head. "Who would believe you? I can scarcely believe it myself." With all the evidence she held in her hands, it was no longer impossible to show Rapture just what kind of man Dr. Angus Bumby had really been.
"They don't know what happened," Helen murmured. "They're saying he either jumped, was pushed, or slipped."
"Hard to tell right now," Carmine offered. "Didn't seem the suicidal type, bloke didn't seem to have anyone who'd want 'em dead. The platform can get slippery though, all that sea water sloshin' about."
Alice almost smiled. So she was in the clear, for now. She could feel the truth screaming in her heart and mind to be let out, to scream to the world that Angus Bumby was a fraud and a supplier to vile appetites. That he was the one responsible for the fire that destroyed her home, that roasted her parents, and that covered up what he had done to her sister. It was time for the truth to triumph at long last.
"Constable," she began, "I was dusting Dr. Bumby's office just now, and I noticed his safe was ajar. These," she held up the ledgers and the diaries, "slipped out and I think it would be best if you had a look. They're…the smoking gun, as the Yanks say." She held out the first ledger. "Dr. Bumby was far worse than Fontaine could ever hope to be."
Helen gaped at Alice while Carmine, hesitating at first, took the ledger from her hand and began to look through its pages. His eyes squinted as he studied them. When the realization of what he has looking at came crashing down on him like a thunderbolt, his eyes shot so wide open that Alice was surprised his cap stayed on. His mouth hung open for a few moments before he said the only thing he could think of to express his disbelief.
"Bloody Hell!" he yelled. "Fred, get up 'ere and take a look at this. You're not going to believe what Bumby was up to." His face had turned a positively hideous shade of green.
Taggart came up the stairs at a gallop at his partner's summons. "What are you yellin' about, Bob?" he asked as he took the ledger from Carmine's outstretched, shaking hands. "Let's see: Name, number, expenses, number of outings, date bought, profits…." Unlike his partner, Fred's face drained of color completely as he quietly came to the realization of Bumby's true business.
"Dear Lord," he finally breathed. "Is…is this a joke? You're tellin' me that Dr. Bumby was sellin' kids as slaves?!"
"What?!" Helen was looking at all of them like they had all grown gills and a third eye. "Alice, what's this all about? What was the doctor doing?" Alice could see the frantic look in her eyes, like she could sense her world about to end and she was hoping that it nothing more than a poor joke or a bad dream.
"Helen," Alice went directly to the point, "Dr. Angus Bumby was using hypnotism to wipe the orphans of their memories and condition them to do his bidding, which was to be sexual slaves, before he sold them to their new 'families'. I believe he intended to do the same to me. I was losing my memories of my family along with the fire not two days ago, just before my latest episode."
Helen's face lost all expression. She stumbled backwards until she came to a chair and settled down in it. Alice had thought that Helen's face was usually expressionless, but now she knew that she was wrong. Handing off the rest of the ledgers and the audio diaries to the constables, she knelt down by the shocked girl and hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder. Comforting people had never been her forte; the only experience she had was with her family, and that was far different from Helen, an acquaintance with whom she had worked for just a year.
Behind her, she heard the distinctive click and whirring of an audio diary coming to life just before she was once again subjected to hearing Bumby's arrogant tones.
"It's been a year to the day since my 'tryst' with Lizzie, and I still can't forget the girl. That alabaster skin, that chestnut hair, and those emerald eyes. Those eyes were the only things I didn't like about her: They seemed to judge me all the time, picking me to pieces. Even when I gave her what she wanted, she still looked at me that way, like she hated me. She was a tease, through and through! I hear her sister Alice managed to survive, currently in Rutledge. With any luck, she'll never remember what happened that night."
As the diary whirred to a stop, Alice's memory of that night came crashing back into her mind. She remembered hearing the odd noises coming out of Lizzie's bedroom and she had gone to investigate. In Lizzie's room, she found herself staring at a tall man tightening his belt as he stood over her sister's bed. Lizzie lay unmoving on the bed as the man turned to face Alice, his glasses reflecting the light from her little torch, making him look like some inhuman monster come to torment them in the night. Alice had ran back to her room in a fright, the dead-eyed creature almost on her heels. She could remember him looking down at her with a predatory look on his face, just before she had passed out on her bed. One visit to Wonderland later and she had awoken to the fire, which had consumed both her family and her memory.
"October 19, 1948. One Year Anniversary," Taggart read the diary's label out loud. "Hey Alice, what was the date when your 'ome burnt down?"
"October 19, 1947," Alice answered, trembling as the memory subsided. "I remember him now. He wanted my sister back then, and she wouldn't have him. And when he couldn't have her willingly, he…he had his way with her before killing her and burning my parents alive!" she almost screamed. A few hot tears made their way down her face as she stood, breathing hard in her anger. Helen was the only one present who didn't take a few steps back from her. She looked and felt the incarnation of Wrath right there, her green eyes flashing in her face, her breath coming out through her clenched teeth and flared nostrils, and her fingers curled into fists.
"Never liked Bumby that much," Carmine muttered. "Always seemed to have such 'igh opinions 'bout himself, for someone who lived in the Drop. No offense meant," he added, looking at the girls. "But I never would 'ave pegged him as the bloke who was supplyin' all those traffickers I've cracked over the 'ead." He glanced over at Alice and Helen. "Either of you girls know 'bout this?"
Alice gave him a scathing glare. "I had no idea," she answered stiffly.
"I always thought it was odd that he would take the orphans on those outings to see potential families," Helen said in a quiet tone. "I figured that it was better than having them come to Drop to see the children. Now…." She hung her head.
"Slippery, little eel," growled Taggart. "I 'eard that Ryan suspected Fontaine of something like this with those girls-only orphanages of his. Guess the boss was lookin' in the wrong place. Come on, Bob." He gathered up the ledgers and diaries and headed out the door. "Ryan needs to see this stuff. The Tribune's gonna have a field day when it catches current of this."
Bob paused by the door and looked back. "Will you girls be alright?" he asked.
Helen let a tear form in the corner of her eye. "Houndsditch was my first real home," she answered. "My life on the surface was a nightmare and I couldn't find anywhere else in Rapture to stay besides Pauper's Drop." Dr. Bumby gave me a home and a job and now he's gone and a child-pimp to boot, Houndsditch will be closed down, and they'll send both us and the orphans away."
"How long do we have?" Alice asked.
"Until Bumby's solicitor reads his will," Carmine answered, "If he 'ad one. All those ledgers and diaries he kept of his…business though, bugger probably figured he'd be around for a while. I 'ope Ole Nick had something special for him when he reached Hell's gate. Take care, Alice, 'ope you get better now that he's not messin' with your 'ead."
"Thank you, constable," Alice answered. "I'll be fine now, just make sure people learn the truth." Carmine nodded and winked at her before departing.
"Alice, I have no idea what to do." Helen just sat there, staring at everything and nothing. Alice wasn't good at situations like this. Defending herself verbally or physically (well, mentally)? That was a snap. Comforting someone she had worked with for a year with but wasn't friends with? Much harder.
Alice awkwardly put her arms around her. "It'll be alright. We'll find homes and work elsewhere." She tried to convey a sense of confidence to the girl, knowing full well that she was likely botching it.
Helen hugged her back and then pulled away. "Alice, the whole reason that we're in Pauper's Drop is that we have nowhere else to go." A few tears were sliding down her face now. "We're the lowest of the low here in Rapture. We're never going to be better off, even with that man," she spat the word as she thought of Bumby in the new light he had acquired, "dead. The one thing we can do, however," she stood to her feet with a new light in her eye, "is get those tags off the orphans' necks." She ran out of the room, leaving Alice alone.
Alice watched the door close and then sat down on the chair Helen had just vacated. This was something that she hadn't really given any thought to. What would become of her, Helen, and the orphans? Rapture wasn't a kind place to the destitute or the unlucky; Alice was both of those unfortunately. Tomorrow she would go and find other work and a place to stay. Now, she would care for the orphans as best as she could and finish up what chores needed doing around the place. At least the orphans were out of Bumby's clutches. It couldn't get much worse for them, unless certain parties took an interest in their helpless state.
BS+AMA=WS
After dinner and dishes, Alice went to her room and this time she locked the door. All day she had done her best to catch up with her chores that Helen hadn't been able to do in her absence, rid the children of their tags, reassure them that Bumby wouldn't be taking them to the "nasty men" anymore, comfort them and listen to their personal stories of Bumby's cruelty, and help with dinner and cleaning up. Plus, she had to get up early in the morning and go out for work and a new home. If she had any luck, she'd be able to find a place.
This was Pauper's Drop, the queen-mother of all slums. Those who didn't live in the squalid, often over-crowded housing slept out in the streets. The only charities that had ever operated in Rapture had been the "Fontaine's Little Sister Orphanage," and "Fontaine's Home for the Poor" and those hadn't ended well. All buildings that had housed one of those had been closed down, though people still lived in the decaying poor houses.
Alice was no fool. She now knew what the orphanages had been for (basically a way to cut out middlemen such as Bumby), and she doubted that Fontaine cared anything for the destitute. The rumors that she heard suggested that he was just as bad as Ryan, along with a real vicious streak. She wasn't sure what Fontaine wanted with them other than to gain support and sycophants, but she knew that they had been going over to Atlas until Ryan got rid of him too. Rapture had used to be a melting pot, a nation of immigrants like America. But now, that pot was threatening to boil over.
Alice massaged her forehead. She was physically and emotionally exhausted, she honestly needed to go to bed, but there was something that she needed to do first. Sitting down on her bed and closing her eyes, she thought about Cheshire Cat in her mind, recalling his every whisker, every tooth in his disconcerting grin, every rib in his skeletal frame, every tribal stripe in his grey fur, and willed him to appear in front of her.
"I must say, you don't need to pull that hard. About a fourth of that effort will do." Alice opened her emerald eyes to look into Cheshire's glowing orange ones. It was still a little hard to believe, that he was out in the real world. Alice had created him soon after the Liddell family had taken in Diana. Mr. Liddell had been able to convince Ryan to let them bring Diana and Snowball, her remaining kitten, down with them to Rapture. Her father had used to joke that he would probably have to wait until 1957 to ask another favor; that one had taken quite a bit of wheedling. Alice imagined the look on Ryan's face if he ever saw Cat and half-smiled.
"In a good mood for once?" Cat asked.
"I was just speculating on Mr. Ryan's facial expression if he were to ever see you," Alice replied, giving him a full-out smirk.
Cheshire gave her an annoyed 'humph'. "Yes, that would be quite amusing. But the ensuing chaos and explanation would not be humorous." He sat down and yawned. Alice was forced to endure the sight of his gigantic mouth and throat before he closed them. He honestly needed to clean his teeth; it looked like a biological hazard in here. "Now, what is my presence required for?"
"I want to see if I can draw anything else from Wonderland into the real world." Alice answered. "This new ability could be quite dangerous, or useful." On one hand, she could let someone particularly disagreeable out. On the other, it would be a good thing if she could bring her weapons into reality. No need to carry them around; she could just store them in her imagination.
"Hmmm, no time like the present," Cat responded thoughtfully. "Let's try someone relatively tame. The White Rabbit is a good candidate."
Alice focused on the first Wonderlander that she had ever met. The White Rabbit with his waistcoat, battered top hat, and ever-present watch. His off-white fur, frantic, twitching nose, nervous eyes, and high-pitched voice constantly telling her that she was late. He had died twice, once during the Red Queen's reign, the second time when the Dollmaker had been corrupting her mind, and had come back twice. Alice willed him into existence as she had Cheshire and opened her eyes.
The White Rabbit wasn't anywhere in sight. Repeating the process didn't bear any fruit.
"It appears that I'm the only one that can enter the real world," Cheshire mused. "An earlier hypothesis of mine has been proven correct."
"What hypothesis would that be?"
"That I'm exceptional," he purred.
"Exceptionally infuriating and puzzling, yes," Alice snorted.
Cheshire gave her a look. "If we're done here, I want to be on my way."
"One moment please." Alice now concentrated on her Vorpal Blade. The weapon, which resembled a large kitchen knife, had been of great use to her during both adventures to defend her mind. She remembered its smooth, almost mirror-like blade with the ornate etchings in its surface. The beautifully-designed handle which fit her grip like a hand in a glove. Its balance, its speed, its deadly edge.
Alice felt a weight in her outstretched hand and smiled as she opened her eyes. The Vorpal Blade glinted in the lamplight and Alice gave it a swing. She could hear it cutting through the air with a zing. Now that was a welcomed and comforting sound.
"What about your ranged weapons? Never bring a Vorpal Blade to a gun fight," Cheshire said.
Alice tried bringing up her Pepper Grinder, or the Tea Cannon. The smell of hot peppercorns in the air, the distinctive pop as the Grinder spat out its deadly projectiles; the shrieking of the whistle, the splat and sizzle of the scalding, green tea. No matter how hard she tried, none of her other weapons from either of her adventures appeared before her.
"Pity," the Cat observed, "though a knife that can appear out of thin air is quite the ace in the hole."
"I'll make do until I can acquire a gun," Alice replied.
"So," Cat continued, "you can summon the Vorpal Blade, a useful item, and me, without whom you are lost. It could be worse, I suppose." He grinned wickedly.
"Yes, it could be just you, Cat." Now it was Alice's turn to receive a dirty look. "I don't have any of my Wonderland abilities either. I tried to dodge earlier to increase my speed."
"That was exceedingly foolish," the Cat chided. "If you had succeeded and someone saw you, you would have to explain where you got the money to purchase the plasmid. You're not much of a liar, which is something you once claimed of me."
"Never had the chance to cultivate that skill set. Besides, the hallway where I tried was void of witnesses." Alice yawned. "Cat, I slept last night on the street and I've had an incredibly taxing day. Eight or more hours of sleep are a requirement."
"I concur," Cheshire yawned again. "Sleep well, Alice. I'll prepare Wonderland in case you decide to visit." He gave her one last smile and then vanished.
Alice went into the shared bathroom to change and brush her teeth. She changed from her dress into a nightgown. She did quickly since the Peeping Tom plasmid had been on her mind all day. The thought of someone using it to spy on her made her tremble in both rage and embarrassment. When she was a child, people had said she would be attractive when she got older. Turned out, they were right. Alice just wished that she that didn't attract the wrong sort. That is, the perverted sort that would use an X-ray vision plasmid to spy on her while in the loo or changing. At least she had the sense to close the curtains on her window, which looked out into the Drop.
Tomorrow she was going out to look for a new place to live and new work. Hopefully, she would be able to find something. She had seen the kinds of things that people did to survive in Rapture and none of it was pretty.
People were getting angry; angry because of what they saw as Ryan's inability to make good on his promise. He had promised that they would be able to make something of themselves. The conditions created by absolute freedom in the marketplace allowed for some to completely stamp out their competition, ruining livelihoods and lives. No labor laws allowed for the horrific working and safety conditions present in so many workplaces. The rich got richer and the poor got poorer, turning Apollo Square and Pauper's Drop into slums. Alice missed her family, but at least they didn't have to see what had become of Rapture.
People took too many things to distract them from their troubles. Alcohol, recreational drugs, places like Eve's Garden and the Mangled Mermaid, those got most of their business from the hopeless. ADAM, too, was used as an escape. Apparently, the act of splicing gave the user a sense of euphoria and empowerment, the last of which was augmented by the gain of actual powers. The cancerous tumors and growths along with the insanity and need for more ADAM made it unattractive. However, as conditions worsened and a sense of powerlessness pervaded through the populace, many turned to it to gain back that power.
Alice picked up the plasmid from Bumby's safe and considered it for a moment. Would she have to use this and possibly other plasmids? The stir that Atlas had caused had been stifled since Ryan had turned Fontaine's Department Store into an underwater prison. He had already set up a special prison for "parasites", but he apparently wanted them gone with no chance of escaping, period. Alice knew things from the streets though, and one of those things was that the powder keg needed only a spark to ignite one big mess. Quite a few Atlas supporters were still out there, hoping and preparing for his return.
There was also the support that Dr. Sofia Lamb had garnered just before her arrest at the hands of Rapture Security for her "subversive, collectivist beliefs". With her arrest came the reveal of Persephone, a massive prison for criminals, madmen, and anyone deemed a "threat" to Rapture's security (and to Ryan's objectivist philosophy). It was ran by Augustus Sinclair of "Sinclair Solutions", one of the most infamous businessmen in Rapture. Many believed that Lamb would come back to save Rapture and its "Family". Quite a lot of her support came from Pauper's Drop. Her collectivist philosophy sounded like a far better solution after so many felt cheated by Ryan's empty promises of capitalism's power and success.
Alice didn't care for any of them. Arthur Liddell had taught his girls that extremes on any issue were bad. It was a part of human nature to believe that any situation was either/or, this way or the other way, black or white. Extreme capitalism resulted in a dog-eat-dog mindset, while communism zapped human initiative. Alice was a cynic after everything that had happened to her. Attempting to recover some of her life and sanity had also left her little time for politics. She didn't know how any of this was going to end; she just knew it wasn't going to be peaceful.
Alice set the plasmid down under her pillow with the diary, the EVE bottles, and Lizzie's key and slipped between her thin covers. After the question of housing and work was settled, she intended to go visit Dr. Suchong's Free Clinic in Artemis Suites. She needed to see what had happened to those little girls and if it wasn't good, well, it was about time he went under a knife. Alice had heard some very disturbing things about him and she didn't have high hopes for his continued health if they were true.
She trusted Bob Carmine and Fred Taggart (up to a point), but she knew that Ryan wasn't going to do anything to Suchong or Tenenbaum for buying orphans to be made into Little Sisters. The ADAM business was far too profitable for him to give up; as long as there was demand for ADAM-based products, he was going to supply the cursed drug. In a way, he was no better than Bumby, though she wasn't about to announce that.
Alice felt her mind begin to slow along with her heart rate. That was always a pleasant sensation, especially for her. Natural sleep meant being able to escape from the world without resorting to a mind-wrecking hallucinations, without taking pills that would threaten to bring her stomach's contents back up. A whale sang outside and Alice took the song with her into her dreams, into Wonderland. For the first time in a year, she slept soundly.
The plot thickens already. Why is Alice still "normal" with ADAM in her mind? What was in Bumby's research that he didn't want Alice knowing? This is getting interesting.
When I started writing this fic, Scorpiofreak told to look up slang from the 1940s-50s, as Rapture's downfall took place in the year of 1959, only about a month away for Alice. "Khaki-wacky" means boy-crazy, and a "sharecrop" is a sexually-promiscuous girl. Also, Rapture would develop its own slang, so "seaweed" equals "money," my own invention.
I hope you all enjoyed my second chapter, and the third is close behind (for once). Please leave a review or PM me. Reviews are one of the most satisfying things on Fanfiction. Also, please check out my poll about evil Eleanor Lamb's actions after the evil ending in BioShock 2. Again, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. Until next time!
