Author's note: Hey, sorry for my absence! I had writer's block for this story, and just now I'm getting inspiration for it again. I'm really sorry in advance for Jackie's potty-mouth; it's disconcerting to write a child swearing like she does, and she's picked up her language from Fontaine. This chapter beta-read and polished by the amazing Storychan.

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A few months after Jacqueline's terrifying experience with the bathtub, the worst possible thing happened: Daddy sent her back to the lab. Daddy must not love her anymore. It was probably because she was a bad girl, and still wouldn't take her bath without crying. She would have taken a million baths if it meant staying in Daddy's nice house with real beds and real breakfast. She had grown so attached to Daddy the minute he rescued her from the cruel, white lab where Mama Tenenbaum did so many painful tests. She wondered, if she was a good girl and did real good on Mama's tests, if Daddy would let her go back home soon.

She was laying on the hard cot where she had slept since she was a baby, scribbling in the coloring book she'd taken from one of the Little Sisters. The Little Sisters had lots of coloring books and sets of crayons and toys. They wouldn't mind having something taken from them. Wouldn't even notice it. They had so many pretty things. Mama Tenenbaum obviously liked the yellow-eyed bitches best. Yellow-eyed bitches was a phrase Daddy had used to describe the Little Sisters, and it fit. She hated those meanie-pants Little Sisters so much!

Jacqueline had nothing of her own in the lab. Everything she owned, she'd gotten from some of the Little Sisters. One dress, blue, that had puffed sleeves and was a couple sizes too big. One pair of shoes, black and scuffed from use. One pair of white undies. She had thought Daddy would buy her more clothes when he took her home with him, and he did, but she'd been bad and now Daddy didn't want her anymore. All her nice new clothes were back at Daddy's house. Now she had this coloring book and set of crayons, and they were also from a Little Sister, but she'd taken them from a Sister who was out gathering ADAM.

It wasn't fair! The Sisters got everything from their Daddies without even trying! They had so much stuff in their lab! All they did was just stand around and look cute! Sure, they took ADAM from corpses and drank it and gave it to their Daddies, but that wasn't why the Daddies loved them. The Daddies looked for them and loved them automatically, the Little Sisters were made to be loved by their Daddies. What bitches! They didn't do anything! She hated them so much! It made her want to scream and hit things. Jacqueline had to work hard with combat training and the weekly blood draw and all these endless tests and injections, and she didn't get love from her Daddy!

Why wasn't she good enough for Daddy? She did everything to make sure that Daddy loved her! She did everything! Tears started to form in her eyes, but she pushed them down and bit her cheek until the pain overwhelmed the tears. Cause she couldn't ever let them see her cry.

A clacking of slightly-heeled women's shoes sounded near her room. Oh no! Mama Tenenbaum was coming! She hid the coloring book and crayons underneath her pillow, quickly hiding under the bed and laying down flat on her stomach. It wasn't as easy to hide under the bed as it had been last month, cause she was now seven and now weighed forty-nine pounds after Daddy kept giving her big meals and lots of snacks as rewards for being so good. She hoped she could go back home soon and get more of those. She ate everything he gave her, even if she felt queasy and sick inside.

If Mama Tenenbaum discovered that she'd taken something that didn't belong to her, Mama Tenenbaum would call her a bad girl and not be nice to her during Fun With Electrodes Time! She had to be good! Being a bad girl made her sad!

"Jacqueline, it ist time for zee bath!" called Mama Tenenbaum.

No! Not Bath Time! That was the worst! She didn't want Bath Time if it meant washing her in the horrible, awful, scary bathtub! She liked the lab's big industrial sink better, even if it made her feel like she was just another dirty beaker in Mama Tenenbaum's eyes. The big industrial sink wasn't scary. It was what she had been bathed in her whole life before Daddy came. But she was too big for that now. She didn't want to be a big girl if it meant she had to have the bathtub. The bathtub was weird. Bathtubs looked like beds with middles that got full up of water. She was used to the sink. The bathtub was new, and that was never ever good. In her short life, she'd learned that new things came with needles and electrodes and syringes and they hurt her.

She had to say something. "I don't wanna get in the goddamn fucking piece of shit bathtub! It's scary!" Jacqueline cried. Those were all words she'd heard Daddy use when he didn't want to do something. Mama Tenenbaum and Papa Suchong acted like they were bad words, but she used the same words Daddy did cause she wanted to be just like Daddy. She crawled out from under the bed, not wanting to disappoint Mama Tenenbaum at all even though Bath Time was soon. Oh how she hate-hate-hated Bath Time!

Mama Tenenbaum gave Jacqueline that scowly angry look that Daddy often gave her when she made him mad. They were the same! Mama Tenenbaum and Daddy both hated her! They didn't love her anymore ! She was bad! Tenenbaum huffed, "Jacqueline, stop zee profanity. Zee bathtub ist vhere zee washing happens."

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She knew she was a bad girl because they kept washing her in the bathtub, but why did they keep her around? Only good girls should stay with their Daddies. Maybe that was why those goddamn yellow-eyed bitch Little Sisters got love from their Daddies even when they just stood around and looked cute. They were good girls. Clad in her dress once more, she followed Mama Tenenbaum's clacking heels to a room that had a chair in it. Above the chair was a helmet that looked like the one she wore during Fun With Electrodes Time.

Ooh! Yay! It was Fun With Electrodes Time! Whenever that helmet went on her head, she got hooked up to lots of electrodes, they monitored her brain waves, and sometimes she got to hear the radio at the same time! It always played music or radio shows and things like that. She really liked Sander Cohen. His piano music was pretty, so he was her favorite. Her little legs scurried up to the chair. It was time for Mister Cohen to be on!

She sat like a good girl for Mama Tenenbaum putting the helmet on her head. Mama Tenenbaum put the electrodes on her too, on her face and shoulders and body, and Jacqueline smiled. "Put Sander Cohen on!" she squealed, tiny legs kicking out with joy. She wanted to hear Mister Cohen's music!

"Nein," said Mama Tenenbaum. Jacqueline pouted and stuck out her tongue. Mama Tenenbaum was being a poop-head! But she knew that she must've been a bad girl if she didn't get to hear Sander Cohen on the radio. Why else would they make her music go bye-bye?

A buzzing humming came through the helmet. Why? Why did it buzz? It tickled her head! That was so funny! She giggled. Mama Tenenbaum started poking and prodding at her with syringes, and Jacqueline stopped laughing. This must be punishment for her being a bad girl. She didn't like needles! She knew she was just getting her shots, and some other special formulas meant to make her better and more special for Daddy, but it just hurt so bad! She didn't like it!

Papa Suchong entered the room, eyeing her up. A syringe was in his hand. He jabbed her shoulder with it, pressing the plunger down as a yellow liquid entered her body. Liquids meant she was getting shots, but shots always hurt. Why didn't this one hurt? She had no idea. Never really knew anything that happened to her in the lab, just that it was what Daddy wanted and she didn't want to make Daddy upset by not doing what he said.

Her body felt really heavy, like moving would be too much effort.

"Suchong is turning machine on now," Papa Suchong said. Jacqueline thought about what that might mean, but then it sounded like a switch was thrown with a click.

The world around her went black.

A song in her head chanted A-B-C, and she was singing the chant along with it. The squiggles that were in the books Mama Tenenbaum read suddenly had a meaning. Those squiggles were letters, and letters made words. Perhaps that wasn't a revelation she should be having at this age, since most children in Rapture already knew, but she had never thought squiggles were letters or that she could read the squiggles to make words.

She could half-remember someone teaching her to read, a small, sad woman who wore a green floral dress and a tan sweater over it. The woman...was teaching her and the Little Sisters at the same time, and she realized it was Mama Tenenbaum.

Mama Tenenbaum and Papa Suchong must have decided to experiment on her mind and see what she was capable of learning. They must have wanted to teach her new things with the help of the injections and the electrode-helmet. That was fine with Jacqueline. She was used to the poking and prodding and experiments. It would be abnormal if the experiments didn't happen.

She expected them.

There were specific days when she had an experiment done to her and got a reward for being a good girl. Today was one of the days she'd thought she would get a reward. She'd been so good except for stealing the coloring book and crayon! She'd even gotten through her bath today without crying that much!

But Sander Cohen wasn't on. Rapture Radio wasn't on. Mama and Daddy must be punishing her for being bad.

All she could hear was chatter from Mama Tenenbaum and Papa Suchong, and that strange song. Now I've sung my ABC, next time won't you sing with me? She could see words. Letters. Her hands ached, and a pencil was in them, and then her hands felt like they were writing her name, which wasn't a concept that she knew much about before now. "Zee subject's handwriting ist clumsy, awkward," stated Mama Tenenbaum.

"Stupid baby! Doesn't even have good handwriting! Make stupid baby do this three times week now!" snapped Papa Suchong.

"I am agreeing, Suchong. She is needing to learn skills."

What was this experiment for?

Why? What were Mama Tenenbaum and Papa Suchong doing? What was the point of this experiment? She didn't know. She didn't understand. Her head hurt so much, but she didn't know where her head was. It hurt, and she couldn't figure out how to move her hands to rub it and make sure that it didn't bother her anymore. Why? What did Mama Tenenbaum and Papa Suchong decide to do to her?

She didn't know, and that was the problem.

New things were always a problem. What if this new thing happened again? It probably would. That might be bad! This could be punishment for bad girls!

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" she screamed, loud as she could so that maybe they'd leave her alone.

Slap! Papa Suchong hit her in the face, growling. She felt him stab another needle into her arm—ow! That really hurt! Papa Suchong just wanted to hurt her. Why?

"You! Stupid baby girl! Shut up! Now!" snapped Papa Suchong.

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Jacqueline sat in the corner of her room, hunched over and hugging her knees. She didn't know if they were going to start their horrible experiments again, but they would stick her with so many needles when they did. Cause they hated her. That was the only reason she had for why they would keep doing bad things to her.

It had become obvious that her beloved Daddy didn't want her. He wouldn't come to her rescue again; she'd be in the clutches of Mama Tenenbaum and Papa Suchong forever. That meant she was good for nothing.

A strange scritching sound made the girl prick her ears up. She sat up straight. Where in her room was the noise coming from? She didn't know, but she had to find out, cause the scritching noise kept getting louder and louder. It was so annoying! She didn't like it!

Scritch-scritch-scritch said her room. Getting up from her little spot, she cocked her head and pricked her ears towards where she thought the noise was. It sounded like it came from the vent in her room. Huh. Slowly, carefully, she started walking towards the awful annoying scritch-scritch-scritching that kept filling her room from the vent. She'd never wondered that much about the vent, since she thought everyone's room must have a vent, but now it was starting to bother her.

As soon as she walked over to it, a tiny pair of hands opened up the vent. She looked up to see the characteristic yellow eyes of a Little Sister. The other girl had skin that was the same color as Papa Suchong's, with black hair in pigtails and really delicate facial features. She looked like a princess in a clean dark blue dress with short puffy sleeves that screamed I'm special. Just one more way that Mama Tenenbaum liked the Little Sisters best, Jacqueline thought, cause she didn't look like a princess. She didn't get new clean clothes unless she was with Daddy. Even then, her new clean clothes were still with him. She didn't have them now. It made her sad. She'd loved those new clean clothes and how they came from Daddy's department store. It was called Fontaine's, named after Daddy, and she liked getting to pick out her own clothing. She'd picked clothes that were just like Daddy's, of course, since she loved him and wanted to be just like him.

"C'mere, c'mere! Follow me!" cried the Little Sister. "Let's play in the vents together! I'm gonna find Mister Bubbles, and he'll play with us! He'll play with us and we'll have so much fun! We'll spin on his drill together and ride on his shoulders!"

No, Jacqueline didn't want one of the Daddies that belonged to the Little Sisters. She wanted her Daddy, who needed hair on his head but was perfect in every other way. Why did the sister want to play with her? Did she think that Jacqueline was also a Little Sister? Well, Jacqueline did have the same clothes as one of them. She had a dark blue dress too, with the same puffy sleeves. But her dress wasn't new, and it got cleaned whenever she took one of those awful terrible baths in the horrible bathtubs.

Maybe the Sister would take her to Daddy. She nodded. "Okay," she said.

The Sister reached out a hand to Jacqueline, who took it like she was supposed to. It would get her to Daddy. She could go crawl in the vents with the Sister, and it would be a lot more fun than being with Mama Tenenbaum and Papa Suchong while they decided to do experiment after experiment on her.

"Come on!" the Sister shrieked. As soon as Jacqueline got into the vent, the Sister shut it behind them. She started crawling forward, and Jacqueline followed her. She had to follow her. She didn't know her own way around the vents. after all.

"I'm going to find Mister Bubbles. Where are you going?"

Jacqueline didn't know how to answer that question. She didn't know the vents. But she knew that she needed to find her Daddy. "I need to find Daddy! His name's Frank Fontaine, and he's bald, and he has a big fancy place to live! Can you help me find Daddy?"

"Yes! I know where your Daddy is! I've seen him! He has an office! I'll take you there," the Little Sister said.

Yay! She could see Daddy again! Since she'd returned to the lab, she'd thought he was gone forever.

Crawling around the vent, on hands and knees like a dog, she couldn't help but smile the moment they came to another vent. She could see people past it! The world wasn't just the lab after all! There was a Rapture outside of her lab, that she could never have imagined the past few months with Daddy!

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The imbecile of a special project he was charged to work on for Fontaine was gone. Somehow, she'd managed to escape from her room; he didn't know when she'd gotten out or even why, only that the stupid girl had left. Yi felt anger boil inside him, and he snarled in irritation.

Fontaine would have his hide if he didn't know the girl's whereabouts! Children were so stupid! He despised the whole lot of them in Rapture. Chinese children were good, of course. They knew how to behave. Rapture's children were little brats who didn't have any respect for their elders! It was why Yi had been so eager to alter the girl with ADAM that would age her into a productive adult. He despised the thought of handling a bratty child for eighteen years. This way, the girl would become a productive adult in two years rather than eighteen, and she could be useful for Fontaine sooner rather than later.

Now he had to find Fontaine's precious project. Fuck. He was probably screwed if he didn't locate the little báichī.*

The girl couldn't have gone outside of the lab; the lab was all that she knew, after all. Yi knew how to find her. He'd just check the entire lab. After all, she couldn't have gone far. At least, that was what he told himself. It made no logical sense that she'd manage to leave both the room and the lab. Not when, except for Fontaine's house, the lab was the only place she'd ever been! She had to be lurking around somewhere.

Yi started looking around in his lab, grumbling curses to himself in Chinese when he didn't see the girl. She wasn't in any of his cabinets. She wasn't hiding under any of the tables. She didn't hide behind the bookshelf. She hadn't hidden in his closets.

Okay. She wasn't playing a trick on him by hiding in his lab, so that meant she had to be somewhere else. Scowling and grumbling more curses to himself, the scientist figured that the most logical place must be the ladies locker room. The girl must've assumed that no sane male employee of Fontaine Futuristics would voluntarily go in there.

Well, Yi was a sane employee, and he was entering that locker room! The girl would be found! He, Yi Suchong, would make sure of it! Tenenbaum wasn't stealing his glory this time!

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Brigid Tenenbaum was changing into her work clothes after having taken a shower. It had come to her attention that she probably reeked of dead slugs after having done a particularly malodorous experiment with the ADAM slugs today. As she didn't wish for her stench to be mocked by Herr Fontaine, who would most definitely notice eau de dead slug and make a comment about her "terrible perfume," she had to shower.

The door to the locker room creaked open just as she was starting the process of donning her brassiere. It was probably another woman. Tenenbaum was going to just ignore the other employee. A familiar "Ahem" in a definitely masculine voice settled the question of who it was though. Suchong. She turned around, making sure that she could stare at him. He must need something. Or he needed a shower and had forgotten that this was the ladies locker room. It was most likely the shower issue. Science often meant one would conduct experiments with unpleasant odors.

Suchong being in there wasn't a problem for her; Brigid had never understood the social convention that stated men and women should not change clothes in front of one another. A body was a body, after all, and halting one's changing routine just because a man was in the room—or making some attempt to find privacy—stressed Brigid far more than continuing the routine did. Yet his presence was unprecedented. What was he doing here? More importantly, why was he in the locker room while she fumbled with the hooks in the back of her brassiere?

"Tenenbaum," he said. Brigid managed to fasten the infernal hooks. She grabbed her white button-up shirt next, putting her arms through the sleeves before affixing Suchong with a pointed glare.

"Verdammt! Vhat du vant, Suchong? I am busy, und I am not having zee time for your nonsense. Du understanding, ja?"

Suchong rolled his eyes, scowling at her. He grumbled, "Girl has gone missing. Suchong doesn't know where girl went. Suchong thought girl would be in ladies locker room, but girl not here! You here! You, Tenenbaum, help Suchong find girl!"

I wish our mutually-shared language wasn't English, Brigid thought, not for the first time. If he knew German, or if I knew Chinese, we could communicate much more easily. Oh how she loathed how clumsy and uneducated spoken English made both herself and Suchong sound.

She didn't say that though. Instead, she buttoned her shirt and sighed. There really was no other option, was there? "Ja, ja, Herr Fontaine vill make our lives miserable if we lose girl. I vill be helping."

"Do you know where girl went?"

"Ist logical assumption zhat zee subject ist hiding und lurking somewhere only a child could get to, vaiting until zee lab ist empty for zee day to go back to her room."

"Suchong have to say that makes sense."

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After four hours of searching, the scientists had concluded two things. The first was that Jacqueline was most definitely gone. The second was that they'd have to find a way to tell Fontaine about the situation that didn't make them look like irresponsible bastards, get them killed, or get them banned from doing science in Rapture ever again.

So they stood together, a unified front, outside of Fontaine's office door. This was a terrible place to be, but they had to do it. If they didn't, science would no longer be a career option.

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"I vill tell Fontaine," groaned Tenenbaum.

"No. Suchong telling Fontaine!"

Seriously? Does he want to be the one to tell Fontaine that Jacqueline is gone and we have no way of finding her? thought Tenenbaum. She knew how to handle Herr Fontaine; she had experience with Nazis that Suchong would never get. Herr Fontaine wasn't a Nazi, and he didn't frighten her in the same way, but he demanded the same level of kowtowing and sucking up to the boss that the Nazis she'd dealt with had.

She cleared her throat. "Suchong. Du must be listen to mein vords now. I can handle zhis. Du cannot protect me from him."

Then, not giving him a chance to reply, she knocked on Herr Fontaine's office door.

"Whaddaya want?" demanded Herr Fontaine. "I ain't got time for this shit."

"Herr Fontaine, zhis ist Tenenbaum. I am having something important to say." Never mind asking him for permission to enter the room. She'd given him enough warning. Tenenbaum took a deep breath and opened the door, pushing it away with all her strength. Right then, it felt like she had nerves of steel.

"Whaddaya want, ya stupid Kraut? I ain't got time for ya an' yer creepy Kraut bitch face! I'm busy! But ya would know that if ya weren't a fuckin' stupid Kraut!" he yelled as soon as he saw her face. Tenenbaum sighed. The racism had to start right then. She should've known. What an asshole. She hated working for him, but at the same time, she needed him so that she could continue her ADAM and genetics research. Nobody else would hire her.

Tenenbaum took a few deep breaths. "Herr Fontaine, ve lost zee Jacqueline. Herr Suchong und I vere looking for four hours, und ve could not find her. She ist gone."

"Whaddaya talkin' 'bout, bitch? Jackie's right here. Get yer ass over here, an' you'll see her." With that, Herr Fontaine rolled his eyes and let out a rather rude belch. Tenenbaum wanted to gag at his lack of manners, but she was more surprised that Jacqueline had gone to find Herr Fontaine, of all people.

"I don't know how the hell she got here," Fontaine continued. "But I come back t' my office after lunch, and there she is. Ya got to keep a better eye on her if ya don't want me t' fire yer ass, ya hear me? I ain't got time to babysit the brat."

She walked closer to see if Herr Fontaine were lying or not. For once, the bastard was telling the truth about something. Little Jacqueline-no, Herr Fontaine had called her Jackie-was curled up asleep on Herr Fontaine's lap, sucking her thumb. The girl's hair was long and loose around her shoulders, and she wore a knit pastel pink nightgown that must've come from Herr Fontaine's department store. It almost seemed like an angelic sight, if Tenenbaum forgot that Herr Fontaine was an awful man and his lap was the most dangerous place in Rapture for a child to be snuggled upon. They looked like a father and daughter, even to the point when Herr Fontaine stroked Jackie's hair and she opened up her eyes to stare up in adoration at him.

This was obviously a ploy to make young Jacqueline trust him. From the way he'd been talking about her moments before she woke, it was obvious that he felt no real affection for the girl. All he wanted was a way to take down his oldest enemy, Andrew Ryan. And if he had to feign love for the troublesome child in order to earn her cooperation with his plan, that was exactly what he would do.

"I am seeing. I am sorry, Herr Fontaine. I vill not bother du in zee future."

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*Báichī:Chinese word for "fool."