Dylan silently led the way through the ocean, holding Lilith's hand gently to keep her close to him as she swam at his side and he tried to keep his eyes forward from looking at her ocean blue hair that flowed gracefully with the water. She was occupied in looking around at the large buildings and staring in awe at the neon lights that showed beautifully in the water surrounding them. She then snapped her head up as a whale groaned above them while making his way slowly overhead of Dylan and Lilith as they stared at his large, wide underside and Dylan looked at her before slowly moving her towards him with her back against his chest, then turned himself so his back was facing the ocean floor and he took her hand within his. Lilith stared back at him with eyes slightly widened in confusion before they difted up as she felt her fingers graze the leathery skin of the whale's belly and she giggled faintly hearing him rumble as if purring to the gesture before she looked back at Dylan excitedly.
Lilith's smile slowly faded as she went into thought while staring at Dylan through the porthole of his helmet and her hand slowly laced with his gloved fingers, silently wishing she knew what it was like to have such a bond with the ocean world around you while still maintaining human contact with the one person you loved most. She never said it outloud, but from the time Lilith left her home and arrived in Rapture, Dylan was the first person she met with a heart that was brave and true to the ones he loved...he was the first person she'd met that valued everything he was given and didn't take it for granted. As she allowed Dylan to turn them so that she could look at the ocean floor and at all the sea life, she held onto his hands that rested on her belly to keep her close while she continued pondering on his character. The one thing she wished the most to be the outcome of getting this close to Dylan was to see the world he saw and to know how he feels...that was her wish because, deep down, she didn't really remember the last time she'd met someone who cared about her...and he hadn't known her past two days.
She was broken out of her trance as she began seeing forgotten machinery on the sea floor and looked up to see them passing larger machinery and parts of a bridge left forgotten before she looked back up at Dylan, though he never met her gaze as he manuevered them through the machine graveyard. Dylan then slowly swam past a corner and they were met with a walkway leading to an airlock with bold words reading "MINERVA'S DEN" welded into the metal above the airlock. He slowly lowered down to the walkway and set Lilith on the metal while looking around suspiciously as every muscle in his body tensed and he became completly alert. He walked alongside Lilith on the walkway slowly while holding her hand and keeping her close to him while he still looked around and he didn't relax until they were in the airlock, his helmet radio staticing upon them entering.
"Dylan...I'm afraid I won't be able to meet you on the other side. Something just came up and I need to take care of it first. But, do not fret, I have you well protected from any danger that my colleuge might throw upon you. Also, I've sent a messanger to greet you once you're close to the heart of Minerva's Den. Hurry, Dylan...I have something important to discuss with you." Charles said over the radio before his helmet radio went silent.
Dylan pulled the lever and the water drained out of the airlock as soon as the door behind him and Lilith dropped closed. Once the airlock was fully drained, he carefully removed the air mask from Lilith's face and blinked noticing her hair practically sticking to her arms and her wet clothing, which was now see-through and Lilith had her trembling arms around her chest while she stared at the floor. He slowly placed the air mask against his air tank and walked out to look around for danger that might be waiting for them and had heard the airlock. Dylan then slowly turned to see Lilith standing right behind him while rubbing her arms to warm herself up and she was looking up at him with ocean blue eyes that Dylan couldn't resist staring into.
"D-Dylan? C-Could you hold me for abit? I-I-I'm f-freezing..." Lilith asked shakily as she continued rubbing her arms.
Dylan blinked, then nodded slightly and held out his arms to her. She smiled and slowly moved into them and closed her eyes to the comfort of his leather armor as his arms wrapped around her securely. He then turned her sideways and picked her up bridal style while still holding her against him gently as he began walking through Minerva's Den while he warmed Lilith by focusing his Incinerate! energy into his arms. His arms glowed a dim magma red in response to this as heat was sent through Lilith's nerve system and it warmed her body while also drying her off.
"Mmm..." Lilith purred as she nuzzled against Dylan's shoulder while her hair slowly shifted from an ocean blue to a firey red as well as her eyes.
Dylan slowly made his way into the first lobby and looked around to see the room almost pitch black other than the ocean colored lights coming from the sky light. He tensed as a machine woman greeted with him with a programmed welcome and slowly passed her after seeing that she wasn't a threat to continue his way through Minerva's Den. His helmet radio began to static as he continued walking, a rough chuckling barely being heard within the static, and Dylan slowed to a stop to try and see if the static would clear. It did clear eventually and Dylan heard a sinister chuckle in a rough man's voice and Dylan tensed slightly, not noticing Lilith staring up at him with concern.
"Ah, Dylan...I'm so proud of what you've got growin' inside ya. Just to bad your mommy kept it all bottled up inside ya for so long...the beast is asleep...soon, though. Soon, Dylan, you're gonna see what me and Rosemarie had planned all along..." the rough voice said before the static returned.
It cleared once more as Charles' sigh was heard over the radio, "Alfred...he was my greatest friend. Splicing turned him mad...and ruined a good man."
Dylan continued walking once the radio became silent once more and he slowly entered another empty lobby, this being bigger than the last, and he looked around at his surroundings suspiciously. He then looked down hearing the pattering of small feet on the hard floor and widened his eyes slightly in disbelief once he saw a Little Sister rushing towards him with something in her hand. She slowed to a stop in front of him with an innocent smile and held up a radio communicator in her small hand while not saying a word. Dylan slowly got over his shock and disbelief to use his Telekenesis to pick up the device and stared at it in slight confusion.
"Put this in your lady friend's ear so she can hear our conversations, Dylan. If she's going to be traveling with you, she might as well listen in to what we are discussing together." Charles said over his helmet radio.
Dylan nodded and silently did so with Telekenesis, it fitting perfectly against Lilith's ear, then he looked down at the Little Sister with blank eyes. Lilith turned on the device by pressing her finger against it and slowly balanced herself as Dylan set her on her feet on the floor. She watched Dylan as he knelt down and held his arms out to the Little One and Lilith smiled slightly as the Little Sister giggled and eagerly went into his arms while sisterly wrapping her arms around Dylan's neck. The Sister didn't seem to notice Dylan's eyes through the porthole of his helmet.
"Ah, good...now, the Subject Chamber is located at the other end of Minerva's Den, where the Thinker is located. The heart of Minerva's Den. I've been able to restore and re-program the Thinker myself. It's funny...but, he seems eager to meet you, Dylan." Charles said softly over the radio.
"I've heard rumors of the Thinker computer...is that the same Thinker you're talking about?" Dylan asked curiously while standing up as he held the Little Sister against him.
"Why, yes. Originally, the Thinker computer was created and only programmed to predict the outcomes of baseball games and predict lottery numbers. But, Charles Milton Porter, the creator, gave the Thinker a personality to attempt in making the Thinker act and sound like his deceased wife, Pearl Porter. The creator left the machine behind and left Rapture with the Thinker's intellect programming system, but I was able to reboot and hack into the system and restore some data the Thinker kept with it." Charles replied.
Dylan nodded slightly and slowly walked forward while looking up at a statue of a muscular man in a thinking pose against a stone where he eternally sits, then he looked over at the Sister and saw that she had her head resting on his shoulder. He blinked and slowly knelt down on the floor while setting the Sister gently on the floor on her bare feet. Lilith blinked as he watched him do so and watched as Dylan raised a gloved hand as it glowed a pure white. Dylan the placed his hand on the girl's forehead and a white light bursted from the contact of his hand to her head.
He smiled slightly behind his helmet once his vision cleared and the girl looked up at him with normal brown eyes and smiled innocently. She hugged him around his neck again while giggling softly and he returned the embrace whole-heartedly while Lilith stared in slight disbelief to what Dylan had just done. The girl slowly released him and moved back away from him to curtsie and cutely say her thanks before scurring off to find a Little Sister vent to crawl into for safety. Dylan slowly stood and looked over at Lilith who was still staring at him.
"How did you do that...?" Lilith asked in awe.
"I promised them a long time ago that I'd protect them and free them from their endless dream. Born without the slug with access to every plasmid available at my disposal...that's me. Every plasmid including the one that is said to free them from the parasite's control." Dylan replied softly.
Lilith slowly moved beside him, "...What made you promise...?"
Dylan was silent for a long while before answering, "...I was betrayed from the one person that I believed to be my mother figure. She believed my only purpose was to be a sperm-bank to a bunch of unconscious Big Sisters that had out-lived their usefullness. So...I decided to do something else with my life rather than donate my sperm constantly every day..."
"Wh-What?" Lilith asked in horror, trying to hide the anger in her tone.
"...I'll show you what I mean when we get out of here and Minerva's Den is safe..." Dylan replied.
Lilith nodded silently and slightly while she gently took a hold of Dylan's gloved hand and she gripped it between hers to contain her anger at what Dylan just told her. He returned the gentle grip and slowly walked with her away to continue their travel through Minerva's Den. As they walked, Dylan looked around at all the technology that he had never seen before in awe and curiosity through his helmet porthole and Lilith watched him in slight amusement as he only kept his attention on the machinery. Moments later, they entered the heart of Minerva's Den, the room of the Thinker.
The Thinker was a large computer that consisted of different screens that were blank and was built into the wall with it's cords and wires running along the floor and walls of the room to generate power into the machine. Dylan looked up and down at the cords before tensing slightly as a light appeared in one of the rooms on the second floor of the room and he got into a defensive stance in front of Lilith. He then slowly relaxed as Charles appeared in the window and he slowly got out of his stance after recognising him from the t.v. monitor from earlier. Lilith, however, remained tense and clung to Dylan's arm gently once he was out of his stance.
"Dylan...oh, thank goodness. You came. Safe and sound. I'm up here in the Control Room...just wait a few moments and I will open the doorway for you." Charles said through the radio before he slowly vanished from the glass window.
Lilith gently tapped Dylan's shoulder to get his attention and pointed towards the large machine built into the wall, "I-Is that the Thinker you were talking about?"
Dylan blinked and nodded slowly, "Mmhm. That's the Thinker...the most legendary of Rapture's technology...although, the Big Sisters said it was a hush-hush thing..."
The machine suddenly had a white light turn on above it's screens and made a metallic sound as the screens began staticing before showing different sections of Minerva's Den and electricity ran along the cords and wires going out from the machine along the wall. The main and largest screen glowed white and in black bold letters had "THINKER" written across the screen letter-by-letter as if someone was typing it. Lilith made a sound of surprise from the machine's sudden life and quickly moved behind Dylan, only peaking over his shoulder when the Thinker became silent. Dylan, however, remained calm and watched the Thinker awaken itself.
"VISITORS...SCANNING..." the Thinker's metallic voice said.
Two seperate white lights appeared on Dylan and Lilith from the scanners above the Thinker and a dinging sound was heard only a few moments earlier as Dylan's profile appeared on one screen while Lilith's appeared on another.
"ANALYZING...DYLAN HARRIS...PRESENT KNOW IDENTITY: "BIG BROTHER"...ANALYZING...LILITH...FORMER KNOWN IDENTITY: "SUBJECT BETA"..." the Thinker spoke.
"I beg pardon for the Thinker's curiosity. His analyzing program is something that is permanently etched into his intellect...I look at yours and...oh, Dylan, I am so proud of all you have accomplished. However, your lady friend has me curious...it says here that she was scheduled for an execution in Russia before being shipped out to sea..." Charles said over the radio.
