Depardieu had heard all the commotion from the upper floor. He peaked and saw how the splicers left one room and entered another. He crouched and started walking up to the stairs, when the last splicer left the room where they had beaten the woman. The Frenchman looked how he entered another room and ran to the room where he had just exited. A battle had really taken place in those offices, bullets holes could be seen, as most of the desks and furniture were turned over and there was blood everywhere. He shook his head, there was nothing he could search for. For what he had heard they were indeed very violent, he was about to leave when he heard a soft noise. He ran toward the source of the noise and found a woman, or what was left of her. The woman stared at him, one of her eyes started watering.
"Please… no more…" she whispered softly.
He was shocked, he had never seen something like that, she was truly torn apart.
"Don't worry, I'm here to help you" he said lifting his mask to assure her that he wasn't a splicer.
Her eye filled with tears, "Please help her…" she begged.
"Shh…" he said. "You shouldn't been talking, you are really injured, let me help you," he started searching in his bag for some first aid kits.
The woman grabbed his arm. "No! Go and help her, help my girl," she pleaded.
"Une enfant?" he said, he looked at her. "Where is she?" he asked but the woman didn't answered back. He shook her violently, "Where?" but the woman remain silence.
She was dead. Depardieu watched the death body of a woman that had tried to protect her daughter, his hands were covered up with her blood. They were shaking, he had seen blood before, but this was different. He wanted to scream in rage, but doing it would tell the splicers of his presence. He simply tried in a desperate way to clean them up. He ran out of that room and throw up in the nearest trash can. He didn't feel fine, not after seen what those splicers where capable of doing. His survival instinct told him to run as fast and far as he could. But the girl… he shook his head, trying to think clear, he had to think for himself.
"Je suis désolé" he said quietly as he started walking away.
A scream came from another room, it was a little girl screaming. Depardieu squeezed hard the railing. He was shaking, was he really going to left a little girl with those monsters. He had seen what they could do.
"Merde!" he exclaimed.
He entered the room where the scream had come from, he had load his shotgun with Exploding Bucks. The splicers had already found the little girl and where about to tear her up to try to find some ADAM. Depardieu simply shot the splicer that had captive the little girl, he hoped he didn't hurt the girl since he shot the man in the proximity of the hand. The splicer howled in pain as he bent down grabbing his arm with the other hand, the girl crawled under a desk.
"What's your fucking problem!" screamed the splicer that was on the floor. "We found her first!"
"He isn't one of us," said the other male splicer. He smiled showing some kind of fangs, "Let's have some fun with him."
The splicer that was on the floor grabbed his pipe and ran to meet the newcomer, the female splicer jumped onto the ceiling and started crawling to where Depardieu was. The French doctor was ready to shoot down both splicers. The male splicer screamed and jumped straight into him, striking Depardieu with his pipe in the head. Depardieu's vision became blurry, as he shook his head, he managed to evade both hooks. He grabbed his shotgun and shot to the woman's shoulder, making her scream in pain. Blood was starting to paint most of the desks in the room.
The woman lifted one of the hooks and screamed insanely, Depardieu could see the flesh and bone where he had injured the crazy woman. She ran directly to him, he raised the weapon and before he had knew what had happened the barrel of the shotgun was in her mouth. He simply shot, he could feel how the blood of the splicer splashed his mask and clothes. The headless body fell over him. He was shocked, he had never killed a person before in such an aggressive way, he could felt the warm blood of the splicer against his skin, he was shaking.
"Sara!" screamed the splicer with the pipe. "You will pay for that bastard!"
Depardieu was still shocked when a second blow from the pipe stroke him down. He screamed in pain, the shotgun rolling off his hand, it was in that moment that he returned to reality. He evaded the third blow, and searched for a scalpel from his bag. He cut down just above the wrist of the splicer, he knew that the hand would become useless.
"What the hell you did to me!" he screamed, unable to grab the pipe anymore.
The desperate splicer tried to jump over Depardieu who simply stuck the scalpel in his eye. The splicer screamed in pain and Depardieu took out the knife from the other man's eyes and making a clean cut he slashed the man's throat. The splicer tried to stop the bleeding with his hand, but he couldn't move it at all. Depardieu gasped as he saw how the man died. He looked up and met in the eyes the last splicer that was left there. Depardieu's pupil shrank in fear when he saw that the last splicer was holding his shotgun.
"Quite a sight," he said softly. "But this end here."
Depardieu gulped, he had one chance to try to kill him. He could try to crawl under the desks and kill him with the scalpel, he had always been good with the cuts. "Only one chance," he told himself.
As he crouched the splicer shot him down, Depardieu could felt the pain in his body, it was agony. He screamed. "Don't tell me you were going to try to get me Depardieu" said the splicer in a mocking way.
He knew that voice, it belong to Dr. Carson. The man approached the fallen Depardieu and smiled in an evil way. "You were always trying show up as a hero, treating kids in Pauper Drop and Apollo Square, when you were by far the cruelest of all of us. Working for Fontaine, well send him my greetings," he said as he raised the shotgun. It was in that moment that Depardieu saw the little girl crouched and crying. He wasn't going to let him hurt her.
Depardieu threw himself against the other doctor, the shotgun fired, the two men tried to take it from the other. Finally there came another shot, and Depardieu seize the opportunity to cut the other man's throat. "No, you give my regards to Fontaine," he said.
He fell to the ground; he could feel how his body screamed in agony, and how his cloths were starting to stick to his body with his own blood. He turned and saw the little girl. He rolled over and walked toward her.
"Come here, little one," he said softly. The little girl looked up and hugged him.
"Uncle Pierre" she said crying.
Depardieu bend down to level the girl, and recognized her. She was the daughter of Marie Dupin. That's why she had asked him to rescue her, but he didn't recognize her. He hugged the girl.
"Let's get out of here, ange," he said.
"Mère told me not to leave until she came back for me…" said the girl crying.
"I'm sorry Becky but your mère is already an angel."
"Like daddy?" asked the little girl. So Thomas had died.
"Yes…"
Depardieu carried the little girl out of the room, he didn't care his body was screaming in agony, he needed to take her as far as possible from that place. Maybe he could ask for Tenenbaum's help, after all they continued to be friends, he only hoped that she was still alive.
Tenenbaum shot the man that was wearing an owl mask, how much she hated those masks. She gave a sigh in relief and pushed her hair out of her eyes. She only had some scratches, she had been glad that the Big Daddy had been there to help her. If the golem wouldn't have been there it was probably that she would have been dead a long time ago. It had been a large group of splicers. She had only had to take out three. Tenenbaum scouted the room with the her eyes, there was not a single splicer left alive.
"Come out, little one," curious phrase, she thought, it was him the one that used it, not her. "No one is going to hurt you anymore."
A little girl walked toward the woman, she was crying. The girl looked at the woman with her bright amber eyes. "Mr. Bubbles doesn't move anymore, Mama."
"Don't worry," she said as she passed her hand through the girl's hair. "He will awake after he rest a little."
The little girl nodded softly and started looking for a vent, she found one and ran toward it, the German woman followed the girl and helped her get in there.
"We will meet again, süßes Kind," she said as the Little Sister disappeared from inside the vent. She needed to create a plasmid that would allow her to cure them, to make them human again. She was so close, but yet she wouldn't want to test it unless she was totally certain that it would work.
The woman walked again into her small lab, that was hidden inside Point Prometheus, she had decide not to leave that place, it was far more secure that her house, and it was technically abandoned, although the Big Daddy were created there, there were too many, therefore the place was in ruins. She knew that she had to find another place for her and more if she wanted to cure the girls. She would need a safe house.
She looked at the sea slug that she kept in a glass, the disgusting animal remain glued to the crystal. Tenenbaum had tried every single thing that had occurred to her to kill the slug, but nothing seems to work. She was running out of patience. She sighed, she was so close, but so far at the same time.
"Why won't you die?"
She was tired but she needed to keep working, she needed to find a way to liberate those girls from their suffering. She started reviewing her notes about the sea slug, there must be something that could help her. Anything would be good. The frustration was beginning to cloud her judgment. How could it be that she wasn't able to create an antidote? Tears of desperation came down her cheek, she needed to save those girls, but she couldn't.
"Calm down Tenenbaum, you just need some rest" she told herself. She walked over to the old mattress and lie down; before she knew she was already sleep.
The static invaded the whole room then it was replaced by the voice of a man.
"Brigid… Tenenbaum are you there? Please, for God sake answered me…"
Tenenbaum opened her eyes, she knew that voice, how long had it been since the last time she had heard it, months for sure. She got up and looked at the small shortwave radio that was lying in her desk.
"Are you there?... I need you help… Please, je vous en prie…" finished the man, he sounded tired.
"Pierre is that you?" asked Tenenbaum, already knowing the answered only static came from the other end.
"You are alive…" the male voice sounded with a mixture of anguish, happiness, surprise and relief.
"Just as you," she answered.
"I need your help Tenenbaum, I need to see you… please" she remained quiet, she didn't want to leave Point Prometheus. "I don't know…" she said.
"Please, I'm begging you. I need to see you, I really need your help. Please, something went wrong and… I need your help, please."
She wondered if he had splice. Could she ask him? Why was he so desperate to see her? Only one answered came to her head: ADAM. Surely he needed it.
"I'm sorry Depardieu, but I can't see you" she said in a dark tone.
More static came by and then the voice of the man came. "I see, well thanks for everything, Dr. Tenenbaum" he never called her that way, only when he was really angry at her.
She was about to cut the transmission when another voice came out from the shortwave radio. "Is she going to help us Uncle Pierre?" asked a little girl.
"You have a Sister with you?" she demanded.
"What do you care, you aren't going to come anyway," he said simply. "If she is or not a Little Sister, what do you actually care."
"I'm sorry is that… I had already been there and well it turned really bad" she excused herself.
It really had, she still remembered it, as if it had just being yesterday. A scientist that had been working with her had spliced too much and had almost killed her and the Little Sister she had been trying to save. That's why she didn't trust anyone… anymore.
"I'm not like the others and you know that," he said angrily. "If it makes you feel better, I never spliced."
She didn't know what to say. She could felt the anger in his voice, and he had the right to be angry at her. "I'm sorry…" she said softly. "Where do I meet you?" she asked.
"Meet me at my apartment in Athena's Glory," he said coolly. "Make sure no one follows you."
And with that the transmission died away. She smiled at the thought of seeing Depardieu again, she had long wished for some human contact. For someone to talk with but he had sounded so tired. She wondered if he was alright. She gave a sigh and started to prepare her bag for the journey to Athena's Glory.
