Part 10: Zeus's Crown
"Place your hand on her head." Following the doctor's instruction, David gently se the girl on the floor and placed his hand on her forehead. There was a pulling sensation in his stomach and her eyes glowed brighter. In fact, the longer David held her head, the brighter the room seemed to get, like the sun was rising for the first time a mile below the ocean. As the pull became stronger the world faded to a blinding white.
When his vision cleared, the strange pulling sensation gone, the Little Sister stood before him, her eyes normal. Even her complexion had been altered, more color in her cheeks, her skin less gaunt. For the first time since David had found her, the young girl looked human. She smiled at him, the gesture bellying a greater sadness behind the gratitude in her eyes.
"Thank you," she whispered and turned to climb into the air vent. Giving her a boost, David felt warmth in his stomach. It was more than a physical sense of accomplishment. It was like he'd had a drink of hot coffee, the heat beginning in his stomach, rising from his esophagus to reach his heart where it spread to every limb.
"You are having ADAM now." Turning away from the vent, the former assassin waited to hear what Tenenbaum would need from next. "Nearby you will be finding a Gather's Garden. Go there."
Finding the Gather's Garden was simple. These were the hubs of Rapture's Plasmid based economy. One of these small machines had the ability to completely alter someone's genetic makeup. They could go from nothing to a god with the touch of a button, as long as they had the ADAM. Unfortunately, the Gather's Garden in Volcanus Flats was in a severe state of disrepair. It looked like a Splicer had taken a crowbar to the machine, leaving it covered in dents and cracks. In the end, the Plasmid vending machine yielded only a single vial.
"That, David, is Telekinesis." Using the syringe that came with the vial, David injected himself with the Plasmid. Unlike Electro-Bolt, which had felt like a kick in the stomach, this dose of genetic altering material, left the teen with a sense of euphoria. As the sensation faded, David looked at a nearby piece of rubble. With a whim, he sent it flying through the air.
"Now go to this structure's train station," Tenenbaum instructed. Following the dilapidated signs labeled, "Metro," David soon found his way to the Volcanus Flats train yard. Like the one in Fontaine Futuristics and Gaia Plaza, this station was a simple construction. There were two, massive doors that led to the pressurized exits, allowing the trains to dive under the surface before they made their trip through the ocean. As he entered the station, David felt a twinge of anticipation. Perhaps now Tenenbaum would tell him her plans, the price for his resurrection.
"I told you before that I needed your help, that the little ones needed your help. Unfortunately we do not have time to rescue the Little Sisters one at a time. I believe Rapture will soon collapse entirely. I am needing you to take control of what remains of the city. To do this, you are needing to be in Ryan's home." David gave a soft whistle of awe. He'd heard stories of Ryan's home, a small palace that occupied the peak of Zeus's Crown. Of course getting there would be another obstacle entirely.
"Thankfully, Ryan was not a public man. He had his own, personal train car to travel through his city. Go to the control room." As he followed Tenenbaum's instructions, David felt another twinge of excitement at the thought of riding in Ryan's private train car. He could still remember the occasional trip with his mother in public train cars. They were cramped, filled to capacity with just enough air to keep the people within from suffocating. However, Ryan's car was supposed to massive, large enough to hold a banquet with three women from the Garden of Eden to wait on him hand and foot.
"You will need to access the main control panel," Tenenbaum continued. Of course, those women would be long dead now, or spliced beyond sanity. "Give me a moment." David waited patiently, imagining himself as the king of Rapture, being fed peeled grapes by his own troop of maids hired from the Garden of Eden.
"There, you are having access now." Snapping himself from his fantasy, the former assassin began to wonder where Tenenbaum was hiding that she would have access to the train controls. "There is switch marked 'Ryan.' Find that and turn it."
After a moment, Ryan's personal train car pulled into the station. As he had anticipated, the car was a shamble of former luxury. The once gold-plated door frames and windowsills and turned green with age. Cobwebs hung from every corner, and the velvet red carpet had turned to a grey streak of slime and mold.
With the train car moving, David found the largest, most comfortable chair and sank into it. As he propped his legs on the nearest ottoman, the teen helped himself to a bottle of Merlot that sat next to the throne of satin and velvet. After removing his helmet, he bit into the cork before spitting it across the train. This one's on you, David thought in a mock toast to his former employer. He took a deep swig and promptly spat it back up. The ten years or so of aging hadn't improved the wine's taste, making it bitter and dry. He didn't want Tenenbaum to know how poorly he had reacted to the alcohol, so he turned his helmet to face the front of the train car while he darted to the back. Once in Ryan's personal washroom, David's stomach wretched, forcing what little liquid had made it down his esophagus, into the toilet.
His little escapade into luxury over, David consigned himself to simply waiting for the short ride to end, in one of Ryan's chairs. The train had left the bowels of Rapture, spiraling up Zeus's Crown along a rail that the former assassin was sure had been put in place for Ryan's use only. Placing his helmet back on his head, David entered the height of Rapture's architecture.
"This is the Council hall," Tenenbaum explained. "At one point this was where Ryan met with Rapture's elite to form the laws that governed the city." Marveling at the impressive structure, David couldn't help but feel awed. The room where the train had stopped connected into a massive, domed hall. Wooden lecterns and podiums ringed the room, panels where the elite could argue with one another. At the far end, higher than the others, a single podium stood, adorned with a plaque of Andrew Ryan. Above, the ceiling was adorned with paintings of Greek gods and goddesses, though years of neglect had left them faded and barely recognizable.
What caught David's eye, however, was a section to his left, where the roof and floor had collapsed. Apparently something extremely large had fallen through both the ceiling and the floor, and, as he moved closer, it had continued to fall, punching a tunnel through the massive building. Oddly enough, a lone statue, a goddess of some sort, a scythe in one hand while her other stretched over the pit, had narrowly avoided destruction.
"Several floors above, you will find Ryan's home, and, if my guess is accurate, this Cassidy person as well." A shallow smile crept over David's lips at the thought of meeting his training instructor again. He'd been quietly hoping he'd have a chance to find Cassidy and return some small token of the pain and torture the man had visited on David and the other boys.
Still curious, he moved closer to the pit, wondering what had caused so much damage. When he stared up, water dripped onto his faceplate from a skylight that seemed to hang miles above him. As he turned to look down, his eyes swept the statue at the edge again. As he looked into the pit, he wondered what Greek goddess would need a pair of scythes that looked so wicked and sharp. Wait a minute. Didn't she only have one scythe a minute ago? David thought, snapping his head back to the statue. She was gone. "Oh shi-" the armored teen began. Before he could finish, something hooked his leg and sent him tumbling over the edge, and into the gaping maw of the abyss.