Your eyes don't shine like they used to shine

And the thrill is gone when your lips meet mine

I'm afraid the masquerade is over

And so is love, and so is love


"I don't suppose you know the way to Triton's Grotto?"

Kat had outfitted herself with Elizabeth's old diving suit. It didn't fit quite as well as she would have liked, but it was added protection for what lay ahead. She felt a little spooked knowing that the left gauntlet had touched a dead guy's liver.

"It's part of a huge shopping complex," she said after thinking for a moment. "It has—well, had—business offices, apartments, and a saltwater swimming pool. Most employees there would have lived in the apartments just above. Andrew Ryan commissioned it to replace the hole left in business by the loss of Fontaine's Department Store. Perhaps a little narcissistically, he called it 'Ryan's Department Complex.' It wasn't finished by the time the war started, so there's not a lot in there to loot, so I'm not so sure about what's inside the actual building. Triton's Grotto is a submarine pen where supplies for the store would have been delivered. The submarines are all non-functional, just so you're aware: Ryan had them all disabled."

"Where is it in relation to the Welcome Center?"

"Well, I suppose from here, it would merely be a detour."

Elizabeth smirked. "How convenient."

Kat scratched her head. "Listen, if we get her back…I don't suppose there's room in the bathysphere to the surface for me, too?"

"You really thought I was going to leave you down here?"

Kat shrugged. "We don't exactly have a good history as of late."

They stood there quietly. It was hard to not acknowledge the elephant in the room.

"Listen, is it wise for me to walk around here without a helmet?"

"Lamb's forces tore it off my head down in the basement of the Casino. It didn't regenerate with the rest of my body in the Vita-Chambers."

"Feel like taking a detour?"

Elizabeth looked at Kat, puzzled.

The Splicer sighed. "I haven't seen Amber in over a year," she said. "I can wait a little longer."


The trip to the basement was surprisingly uneventful. It seemed the surviving Splicers had left with Lamb.

"Eugh," Kat said, looking at the dead citizen on the cross. "Angus and I met Simon Wales a while back. Real psycho. He started shouting stuff at us about being naysayers, so Angus shot a bullet through his leg."

"Good way of handling someone like that."

"A bullet to the leg is a good way of handling anyone…hey, put that gun down, I was kidding."


They walked into the room with the generator. No Splicers in sight, but there was a small damp spot where Elizabeth had "died" a short while beforehand.

"Helmet," Elizabeth said, handing it to Kat.

"Thanks. Why the heck were you down here, anyway?"

"Some fellow named 'the Gambler' sent me down here to fix that generator. Had to replace some fuses then turn it back on."

Kat looked at the machine. "Hate to break it to you, but I don't think these are fuses." She pulled one out and showed it to Elizabeth. "These are dummies: they fit into the slot, but are, for all intents and purposes, useless." She opened a side panel and looked in. "If this is a generator, it certainly isn't any generator I've ever seen."

Elizabeth looked in. The inner pieces looked very familiar…


"This is my tower…what's this…the siphon?"
"I saw this there. I could hear you singing from above…and the machine came to life in response."
"And then in my mother's grave, there was a smaller one…they were draining me…maybe that's why I can't—"
"Can't what?"
"When I was little, I used to be able not just to open tears, but I could create new ones…to anywhere I wanted to go. But in the tower…"


"It's a siphon," Elizabeth said with shock.

"A what now?"

"Something that I never thought I'd see again. It's this…thing…that was built to limit my tear abilities."

"…your what?"

Elizabeth shut her eyes. "Dammit." There was no point in keeping her powers a secret. Kat was bound to find out at some point in the near future. "You know, the ones that I used to hit you on the head with a toolbox that came out of nowhere."

"Oh…so those were 'abilities,' were they?" Kat said, sounding very skeptical. "Well, these parts are pretty new. Can't be more than a day old." She pointed at the visible glean on the device.

Elizabeth looked at her hands. "That explains why I still don't have complete control over my powers," she said, wiggling her pinky. "Someone doesn't want me to get them back."

"So we need to destroy this thing, right?" Kat asked. "Get your powers back and all that jazz, maybe hit me on the head with a few more toolboxes."

"Yes…right," Elizabeth said, putting her hands down. "Except for the toolbox part."

"That's a relief."

"But the explosion is going to be huge," she added, remembering the destruction of Monument Tower. "We need to get a safe distance away. Have any grenades?"

Kat scowled. "I'm a Splicer, not a pyromaniac. Not sure what we can do, short of using Incinerate and then teleporting away."

Elizabeth looked at her left hand. A teleportation marker protruded from her palm. "I have an idea."


Kat stood in the middle of the street. Pausing for a moment, she looked at the ground beside her and stuck the teleportation marker into it.

"All set," she said into her radio.

"Alright, just give me a moment."

Then she waited.

After a moment, Elizabeth appeared right beside her.

"Well?"

"Watch."

A few seconds later, the windows of the Delta Casino lit up with fire spreading through the entire building. The glass burst open, and the fires were extinguished as water flowed in.

"Ladies and gentleman, there has been a breach in the Delta Casino," the Rapture announcement system sounded. "Do not access. Authorities have been notified and will fix the breach in the coming days."

"I wouldn't bet my life on that happening," Kat muttered.

"In the meantime, why not gamble at Sir Prize? Try your luck with games of chance!"

A wave of light suddenly went right through Elizabeth, and she abruptly felt as though her body had been submerged in cold water. Feeling short of breath, she tore off her helmet and leaned on Kat for support.

"You alright?" the Splicer asked, concerned. She took off her own helmet and helped Elizabeth stand up straight.

"Sorry, bit of shock," Elizabeth said. She took a deep breath. "That thing's been leeching away at me for some time now."

"So, this means your powers are back, right? Do something impressive."

Elizabeth glared at her.

"Alright, alright, take a moment to heal." Kat looked around. "These powers of yours: how should I picture them?"

"Well…not really something I can explain, so…" Elizabeth pulled out a health needle and stabbed it into her arm. The needle, already full of ADAM and stem cells, provided a little more comfort. "Let's try something small."

She looked around. She could see a few tears, just waiting to be opened. Concentrating, she opened one.

Out came a bar of chocolate.

Kat stared, impressed. "Sweet," she said, picking it up and unwrapping it. "What are you, a sorceress? Pulling things out of midair?"

Elizabeth nervously felt her nose for any blood. Nothing so far. "Well, let's say I am a sorceress and I did just pull something out of midair. The question is, where would I be pulling it from?"

Kat thought about this mid-chew. "That's actually a really good question."

"The answer is, an entirely different universe."

"…I don't follow."

"A long time ago I was given the abilities to open and create little 'tears' in the fabric of reality, which could allow me to pull things from another universe into this one, or to transport myself and others to a different time, place, or universe. Like, about an hour ago I transported to Sinclair Pharmaceuticals in 1954 and met you in there." She thought about this. Had she even been responsible for that time jump?

Kat stared at her. "…so, when I assaulted you in that hallway before the hospital, you genuinely didn't know where I got this thing?" She removed her glove and held up her arm, showing off the bird pendant. "Because for you it hadn't happened yet?"

"Right." Elizabeth stared at the bird pendant. It had come a long way since 1954.

"Let me see if I can understand…you're some kind of higher power deity who can go wherever you want whenever you want?"

Elizabeth pursed her lip. "Well…yes."

Kat stared. "Lady, you just got ten times more attractive."

"Thanks?"

They stood there awkwardly for a moment.

Kat cleared her throat. "Just so you know, I don't actually want to…"

"No, I get it."

"…I'm not looking for a relationship at the m—"

"Kat. I get it."

"Alright. Do you want this back by the way?" She fiddled with the bird pendant.

Elizabeth was about to respond in the positive, but was interrupted by a voice whispering in the back of her mind. "Let her keep the pendant, Elizabeth. It will play a role in events to come."

That's what I call foreshadowing, Elizabeth thought to herself. "No, hang on to it," she said. "It might come in handy later."

"Suit yourself. Do something bigger. Like, teleport us somewhere without that plasmid you have."

"Well, I can try." She clasped her hands together and tried to see what she could do. "Maybe I can get us to Triton's Grotto."


A moment later, they found themselves in a dark, funny-smelling hallway, with white-washed walls and a ceramic tile floor.

"Uh…what the hell just happened?" Kat asked.

Elizabeth looked around. "I…don't think we're in Rapture anymore." That was when she noticed a scraggly-haired man in a white labcoat that read "Aperture Science" was standing nearby, staring straight at them.

"Uh…Alyx?" he called to someone else coming down the hallway.

"We were never here," Elizabeth said quickly, sending herself and Kat back to Rapture.

A young woman ran up to the man in the labcoat. "What is it, Doug?"

Rattmann rubbed his eyes. "Erm…probably just hallucinating."


Kat scratched her head. "That was…different," she commented. She looked at Elizabeth. "Why do you keep rubbing your nose?"

"It's…whenever I've tried to do this sort of thing recently, my nose started bleeding. You remember, back in our first fight, after that toolbox clonked you on the head, I paused because of blood dripping out."

"Oh yeah. I thought I'd punched you in the face and forgot all about it. Well, at least it's not bleeding now."

"Yes, but I didn't have control over where I went," Elizabeth commented, staring at her hands. "There's another siphon somewhere in this universe: weaker, but it's definitely in operation. It's limiting what I can do."

"Think Lamb has something to do with it?"

"I would be surprised if she didn't, but as far as I know she doesn't have the technology. Still, all things considered, that was a triumph: I managed to get us to a different universe, even if it wasn't the one we wa—" She was interrupted by a large amount of blood pouring out of her nose. "Damn." And then she collapsed.


She was back in the room with the mirror, and once again, her reflection looked back at her silently. The radio was still playing "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square," only it sounded much sharper.

Worried, Elizabeth raised her right hand. The reflection raised its left, as it should have.
Elizabeth turned her head to the left. The reflection turned its head to its right, as it should have.

The reflection blinked. As it should not have.

Elizabeth, startled, stepped backwards. The reflection merely stood there, grinning.

Elizabeth turned around to face Robert Lutece.

"I am not what I seem," he said. A small pool of blood began to form around his left temple as the image dissipated.


The next thing Elizabeth knew, Kat was extracting the ADAM needle from her hand.

"What happened?" she groaned.

"Conked out like someone hit you on the head," Kat replied. She showed off her hand, which had a visible hole in it. "Gave you some of the ADAM still in my system. Guess I spoke a little too soon about the nose-bleeding." She touched Elizabeth's cheek. "How do you feel?"

Until a short while before, Elizabeth had just viewed Kat as a psychopathic woman who only cared for ADAM. But now—that touch was almost motherly.

"Better, actually," Elizabeth said, pushing herself up.

"Good girl," Kat said, patting Elizabeth on the shoulder. "You had me worried there."

Elizabeth felt her nose. "That's one thing we're not going to try again."


Author's Note:

Some of you may know I'm also writing a Portal/Half-Life story called Epic Rattmann. I got side-tracked with this story, I'll get back to it once I'm done here. But I figured I'd give an update on what's going on in that completely different universe.