Well, in my experience (which is admittedly limited in the "guilt" department, what with having no free will until recently and all), the best way to deal with unwanted emotions is to ignore them and bury yourself in other affairs. The vice-like grip of remorse is somewhat easier to cope with if you're also trying to cope with the vice-like grip of a splicer on your drill, which is what I'm doing now. There's still some splintered logic in the wreckage of this one's mind, not quite destroyed by the roaring tidal wave of ADAM he's forced into his systems, which has led him to brace himself against the drill's framework at just such an angle as to render it impossible for me to attack or dislodge him. I give a growl of irritation, and beat him against a Circus of Values machine, trying to break his clammy hold on the device. He's stubborn, but one of my lashings slams him into one of the jagged corners, and he lets go with a shriek of pain. I swiftly finish him with a swipe of the drill, and hurry back to where the Sister I've adopted is busily jabbing the body we've found with a needle, serenely unaware of the splicers clustering at the edges of the room.

It strikes me, as I disperse the crowd with the aid of a few rivets, that this Sister is a whole lot slower than Eleanor ever was. Though the kid's habit of running off on the job did send me into a panicked frenzy, at least she finished promptly- and didn't bring a mob of abominations down on us. There again, splicers were a whole lot less common in those days, and any who were around were conditioned by several unpleasant experiences to respect the slitted helmet of the Alpha Series and keep their distance. These ones swarm like wasps to warm jam, not recognising my model and therefore not seeing me as a significant threat*.

"Daddy! Help me, please!"

Shoot! I crash to the centre of the ring of monsters that is beginning to surround the body and the girl, who's struggling in the grip of a wizened male armed with a length of lead pipe. The image painfully jerks at my memories of the kid, and I let out a snarl of fury, charging forward to knock the thing back with the butt of my gun. As he lies spitting and swearing on the floor, I take aim and shoot him through the head. The girl goes back to her task after a hasty "Thank you!", humming unconcernedly as if nothing had happened, though the floor around the corpse she's using is now a shiny scarlet. I turn back to my own job, shooting down a couple more of the aberrations as they dash through the doorways facing me. I don't have to worry about the two at my back: I lined the frames with a thick layer of trap rivets a few seconds after the attack started, and even now I hear the squeals and explosions that tell me the mines are still doing their job.

"Just a little itty-bitty now, Daddy…"

I turn around quickly to give her the thumbs-up, and almost miss the three women that smash through the left-hand doorway in quick succession. I take aim and slash right through them with the Electrobolt, grunting in concentration as I focus on directing the veering beam of lightning through each torso. The Sister giggles as they stand there, jittering in a bizarre conga line.

"They're dancing, Daddy!"

As I buckle on the drill, I wonder briefly what kind of a number the conditioning did on her brain for her to laugh at such a disturbing sight, before deciding I don't really want to know. Instead, I stride down the splicer crocodile, swinging the drill against their skulls as I go. I turn back around just in time to catch one of those monstrosities dressed in medical whites dashing towards the Sister, and manage to get him with the Electrobolt too. He's swiftly dealt with by a twist of the drill, which causes him to collapse at the Sister's feet as she stands gulping ADAM from her bottle. She gives a heavy sigh as she finishes, then looks brightly up at me.

"All done now!"

I give her another thumbs-up sign, after making sure that there are no other creatures lurking in the shadows. She looks at the gesture curiously, then laughs and makes one back at me, her little fist looking downright microscopic next to my huge paw. Her laughter is quickly cut off by Lamb's crystalline tones crackling out of my helmet.

"That child belongs to the Family, Delta. It is not a toy for you to pick up and discard as you see fit. Let her go, now."

The Sister, startled at first by the crackle of the transmission, has now grown bored with listening, and is jumping up and down with her arms held out in the universal children's signal for "up". I reach downwards and gather her into my arms, eliciting an excited crow from her as she ascends.

"Very well." Lamb's voice holds none of the heat that usually accompanies anger- instead, it grows colder, frost wrapping around the syllables like the grip of a strangling snake. "You know, it's poetic that you will meet your end here. Another tyrant, rusting away in Ryan's shrine to the self."

I listen to her condemnation of my ego and exploitation, all the while her description of the girl on my back as "it" running round and round my brain. I grit my teeth and trudge away to find the next body, hearing with satisfaction the scratching fog of static that marks the end of the message.

However, my satisfaction is quickly brought to an end when my ears detect the scraping sound of someone loosening the seal on one of my tanks. I twist my helmet to see the Sister unscrewing the cap on the ADAM container, who looks up from her task to give me a cheery wave. I gesticulate desperately for her to stop, not wanting to find out what'll happen if you leave ADAM administration in the hands of a seven- or eight-year-old child, but she pays me no heed, and pours the contents of her syringe into the tank with a smile.

"Say thank you, Daddy!"

The effect is instantaneous. The gashes and grazes that occurred in the battle after my own supplies of the drug ran out start to knit together, their edges twisting and writhing as they tangle themselves to form unbroken skin**. This would normally be all to the good- and don't get me wrong, I'm very glad this Sister's well-trained in her job and hasn't emptied the stuff into the wrong port- but I needed to save that ADAM in order to get enough for the plasmid. Now, we'll probably have to gather from another corpse as well. I fold my arms and tilt my helmet reproachfully at her, which makes her wince guiltily.

"You were all leaky, Daddy," she says, twisting her stubby fingers together. "I wanted to stop it."

I sigh, but not too heavily: although her actions have set us back a bit, I don't have the heart to criticise one of the only truly selfless acts I've seen since- well, since I lost the kid. I give her another thumbs-up, trying to let her know that I'm not really angry. It must work, because soon she's humming cheerfully to herself again as we traipse down another corridor, breaking off occasionally to give me directions as the location of our next target or to tell me seriously that the man in the moon is a girl. This last comment tugs painfully on my insides- I remember Eleanor liked to tell me facts she'd picked up from somewhere or another, some of them accurate, others less so. In the haze I existed in during those years, I wasn't much concerned with anything other than safe-guarding the little girl, but even then I felt there was something wrong when she informed me that six times two was chicken.

We locate another "angel" that meets with the Sister's approval, and she hammers on my tank for me to lower her. I don't let her get to work straight away, though- the last time we did this, I didn't realise how bad the splicer situation had got, and so I didn't properly prepare. As a result, I ended up frantically trying to establish defensive measures whilst simultaneously defending my partner.

Now, I'm more careful, shooting down a couple of trap rivets at every entrance and salvaging as many supplies from the area as I can, all the while scouting for oil slicks and water patches I can use to conduct my plasmids. The Sister's impatient, pounding a constant tattoo on my tanks with her fists and feet, but she quiets down when I give her another reproachful look***.

Whilst rummaging through the ruins, I come across another tape. This one's by Moustache Man, talking about Lamb becoming a problem. I find myself inclined to agree with him on that point, although for different reasons- he objects to her being a collectivist, whereas I myself find the casual way she conducts kidnappings and murders more troubling. From the recording, this is not the full extent of her crimes, either: she used her position as a psychiatrist as a front to indoctrinate her patients with "religion", or so Moustache Man says, spitting out the last word like so many ashes in his mouth. I think back to the "Reborn" messages I've seen plastered across the walls, and feel a chill slither down my back. Lamb doesn't seem the type to patiently wait for rebirth- if she's offering it, it's a pretty safe bet that she's trying to make it happen with all her might. And Eleanor's been under her wing for ten years.

I'm so perturbed by the thought that I almost miss Moustache Man resolving to call in Sinclair at the very end of the diary. I'm not quite sure what Sinclair's profession was back in the day, but it seems as if he was quite the jack of all trades- pulling people onto the shady side of the city with one hand and serving Rapture's bigwigs with the other. The fact I'm working with him now unnerves me all the more, but I shove my doubts and fears to one side as I set the Sister to harvesting. If events earlier taught me one thing, it's that you need to focus on the task in hand in this new Rapture- particularly if the task in hand involves dealing with the bloodthirsty inhabitants of it.

Footnotes:

* You might have thought that my appearance- even without the dread reputation the Alpha Series used to have- would be enough to make them stay away, and if splicers were regular humans in full possession of their mental capabilities, you'd be right. But most of the things have had their ability to reason ripped out of their skulls by the current of gene-altering liquid they continually pump into themselves, so it never occurs to them that it might be a bad idea to attack the heavily-armoured gent built like a brick wall.

**Greyish and clammy unbroken skin, but I'll take what I'm given

*** Is it even possible to give someone a "look" when your eyes are obscured? It seems to communicate my message fairly well, but all the same, I feel like the presence of a visor means that an integral part of the action is lacking.

Author's Note:

Finally, I'm back. My sincere apologies for the long wait for this chapter. Unfortunately, it looks like I might have to adopt a chapter-a-week schedule in order to cope with work as well- although I'll update more often if I can. Again, sorry about this, but it's just not feasible to continue the way I've been going on. My thanks to you all for sticking with me.

Also, many thanks for your reviews and favourites! I apologise for not thanking you individually, but I appreciate your feedback so much- it's basically what this fic runs on. More comments and suggestions would be very much welcomed- as previously stated, I'm new to this business, and so I need all the help I can get to improve. Thank you so much!