Disclaimer: I do not own Bioshock or anything to do with it.
The next morning, Thomas had cleaned up all of the mess in the library with the help of some early-risers, and had told everyone how he had seen a glimpse of Rosy's telekinesis.
"It was like a whirlwind had entered the room. All the tanks on the walls and the photos started to flap and shudder against the walls, and the fire went crazy, like it was an animal being tortured. I could hear the ceiling creaking, and it was when the tanks actually came off the walls and just hovered there I must have shocked her out of it." Everyone had gathered round, and some tutted and shook their heads while others whispered to their neighbours and looked very thoughtful.
"So, does she know about Christina and Nat?" Thomas nodded.
"She seemed to expect the news about Christina, but when I told her about Nat, she suddenly acted in a very adult way. It was like she had switched off her childish mode to something more…efficient. It was quite disconcerting."
"So what could trigger it?" Lin asked, elegantly spooning a section of grapefruit into her curved mouth. Everyone was silent, and a couple of heads turned to Tenenbaum.
"Possibly shock, or overwhelming emotions. I'm not sure. More data is needed." She said, shrugging. The conversation had ended sharply as Nat entered the foyer from his usual sleeping place in the study, and the normal orders for breakfast ensued.
Rosy soon got used to the weekly routines in The Vault. At daytime, halfway through the week, all of the men would go out of the Vault to scrounge Rapture for anything that could be of use, or any rescue submarines. The women left over would check to make sure no entrances to The Vault could be found, and just to tidy up generally. Every Saturday a big meal would be prepared, everyone spending most of the day on it in a very social activity. A very cheerful Italian woman called Rosa-Marie took Rosy under her wing and showed her how to make lasagne from scratch, and soon Rosy undertook the task of carrying plates and cutlery into the Foyer. A huge table would be set up from all the side cabinets, bureaus and wooden crates. The dinner was always very wholehearted, but vague order was administered at the beginning when an old woman called Miss Bird said grace for all of the 'troubled souls' outside of The Vault. Rosy had, of course, been aware of these trouble souls and so been equipped with a pistol and a long length of pipe, and was given regular shooting lessons by an old colonel called Charles Rigsby. She was encouraged to practise with the pipe, and after a few knocks into the wall Rosy became a dab hand at carrying momentum and using it to her advantage.
A week after Rosy had her talk from Thomas, on a Tuesday night, everyone seemed to change. The atmosphere of family unity disappeared once Rosy had gone to bed, and everyone silently crowded around Nat as he finished off his glass of ice water at the bar. He turned to look at all of the now cold faces, and sighed.
"Okay. Let's get this over and done with." He said in a sadly tired voice, as if he had lost a long and brutal battle. Thomas stepped forward and handed him a rusted (or so it seemed) spanner and a pistol with a carved wooden handle, and Christina helped him into a tattered but tailored coat made of brown, coarse material. These small actions had a kind of hallowed ritual about them as they both stepped back into the crowd. Nat walked to the Vault door and heaved it open, not turning back as it shut behind him. He started to climb the stairs in the light of the few flickering candles with a rhythm only those last soldiers returning home know of. He raised his hands to turn the collar of his coat up, and slipped the pistol and the spanner in the deep pockets. A mask was placed neatly in the silken inside pocket, and as Nat put it on he could feel something savage stirring in him already. The cat mask had lost an ear (a reminder of a frantic feud), and a bloody handprint stained half of it, much like the blemish of the memory one of his darker moments held. The door with the slash swung open as Nat pushed it, and he stepped out slowly, as if waiting for something. As soon as it shut, he heard a shrieking from the gallery above him. He threw his head back to see a bedraggled Splicer jump down, her hair askew and her dress ripped and torn. Two hooks flashed in her hands, a maniacal grin permanently plastered on her face where her mouth was stretched up, a smeared lipstick smile. Once she might have been a respectable woman working on the stage to make a living, but now she was reduced to a disillusioned figure in a child's nightmare.
"Baby Jane is going to carve up the alleycat, alleycats should stick to the dirty holes they came from!" She cried, running towards Nat with her hooks held high above her head. Nat calmly waited till she was close, then struck his leg up and hit her in the chin with his heel. There was a sickening 'crack' as her head snapped back and she fell onto the floor with a heavy 'thud' rebounding round the foyer. Nat took out his pistol and crouched down, pressing it to her forehead.
"The alleycat chases scrawny pigeons like you." Two shots rang around his ears, and as he stood up, he felt something twitch inside him, like a string was being pulled. Ghosts appeared everywhere, walking and talking, reading newspapers, but then there were muffled screams, and silver Splicers appeared, cutting them down in hazes of smoke before turning to their vaporous partners and laughing hysterically. Nat froze, and then turned slowly and straightened up as he heard footsteps. He was different- while before he held himself like he was sure of what he was doing in a broody kind of way…now everything was straight and rigid. His arms twitched, and a grin of someone who thought they were superior appeared on his face, the only reminder that Nat held someone else's characteristics. A shadow stepped out of the dark doorway, a pipe dripping blood on the tiled floor. Nat cocked his head in a feral way and started to walk forward at a fast pace, taking the spanner out of his pocket and twirling it round in his hands.
"Good night, sonny." He hissed manically as his hand swung around and hit the figure on the side of the head, smashing him into the wall and leaving a red splatter where he slid down, like smudged make-up upon a cracked mirror. The splicer looked up as his mask slid from his face and two eyes that seemed to be stretched across to the other cheek gazed up at him, the light already leaving them. Nat brought his boot forward and crushed it slowly and excruciatingly into the splicers face, and stopped only when the hands stopped clawing at his foot and he felt the wall touch his boot sole. He took his leg back and wiped it on the splicers clothing, then walked off into the darkness, muttering something under his breath. Rosy watched, and closed the door silently before walking back down the stairs with her head drooping into her shoulders.
Thanks for reading….reviews please! BP
