Disclaimer: Blah, blah, I don't own anything but my own ideas and characters etc., blabbity, blabbity, blah. Those things get so boring after a while. Sorry for the delay in updates, but I'm afraid real life must take priority over this little story here. Anyways, thanks once again to all my reviewers, anonymous and known alike. The feedback you guys give is excellent, as always, and it really helps me keep going on this story, so please continue to tell me what you think. Without further ado, here is the latest chapter.
With a pained groan, the man's eyes fluttered open and shut, only to reveal the grinning, ghoulish face of Orrin Oscar Lutwidge. Panic overtook him as memories returned, and he struggled to escape, only to find himself barely able to move. Eyes went wide as he beheld himself trapped in a stained straightjacket, and tied down to a wooden chair. His feet had been stripped of shoes and socks, and he found them placed in a metal tub of frigid water. As the memory of Lutwidge's hand, crackling with lightning returned to him, the man's face went pale as he noticed the pair of wires clipped to the tub, their ends held by his captor.
"Well, well, well my pawn, at last you are awake," Lutwidge said, his smooth, chilling tone sending shivers down the back of a man who had not felt fear in a long time. With a curt cackle, he continued.
"I see you are enjoying that little souvenir I brought back with me from Tollevue's fine psychiatric ward," he said, one bony finger pointing towards the straightjacket.
His prisoner struggled against it in silence as the man ranted on.
"Oh and just to really make sure you won't be leaving, I took the liberty of setting up this little apparatus, observe."
With a toothy and wolf-like grin, Lutwidge let a cluster of small cluster of sparks crackle between his fingers before shooting down the wires held. In an instant, his prisoners mind was filled with agony, locked in the spasms of a silent scream. Whether it was a mere heartbeat of pain or an eternity, he could not tell, his sense finally returning as the torturous electricity ceased to flow, the pain ebbing away. His breathing ragged, the Pawn looked up at his former master, the madman gleeful as ever.
"That was just to whet your appetite my dear boy. Answer my questions and you shan't have to taste it again. Now," his voice devolving to a venomous hiss, "how did you find me?"
His initial terror boiling away into anger, the Pawn forced himself to meet his captor's eyes, and slapped a small smirk onto his face.
"You'll get nothing from me, you senile halfwit. That the answer you were looking-"
His comments were curbed as bolts of electric agony shot through him once again. The basin of water steamed and the room reeked of burnt flesh. The scraggly, cadaverous form of Lutwidge leapt forward and seized the Pawn by his jaw, forcing their gazes to meet.
"Your acid tongue may just cost you your legs, boy," he spat, eyes blazing with the wild fires of lunacy. "A few more shocks and all manner of distasteful consequences could follow; every kind of pain, save death. I may just start...relieving you of some unnecessary parts of your anatomy, starting with something that would really leave the ladies quite," he paused for a chuckle, "unfulfilled."
His free hand retrieved and pressed the blade of a butcher's knife into the Pawn's abdomen. The victim squirmed in futility, imprisoned by his bonds. The terror he had first felt slowly creeping back upon him, the Pawn caved.
"Fine," the prisoner spat, "the name was a dead give-away. I don't pretend to understand what deranged mania with Lewis Carroll drives you, but a cross-reference with names in the city with names from his life provided a few dozen candidates. Factor in a few of your other obsessive behaviors and check on financial records, and I'm left with you, hiding in this dingy little tenement. Satisfied?"
Lutwidge released his vice-like grip and stepped back, beginning to pace, blade in one hand and wires in the other. Finally, he spoke.
"How did you come into possession of the information, those records are guarded surely?"
"Guards and archivists aren't really much of a hindrance once dead."
Lutwidge shrugged this new fact off casually and continued on, though he seemed slightly irate with the answer.
"Messy. Though evidently I too am getting sloppy in my old age. To think it was a simple paper trail that gave me away! Perish the thought."
Sighing, the madman ceased his pacing and turned once more to his pawn.
"Well my boy, it appears we are at an impasse. You see, you evidently know far too much to let safely frolic about in this urban wasteland, yet at the same time having to go out and dump a body in the river at this time of night is far from an appealing thought. And it does so grieve me to waste as resourceful a pawn as you. So, my offer to you, boy, is to make me an offer."
His wheezy cackle returned for a moment, only to quickly die back down. He resumed his tirade.
"If you can convince me of some worthwhile reason to let you live, then you have your freedom. Make me an offer, a barter, a trade of some value, and I shall ponder it. Hurry along now, we haven't all night!"
The Pawn sat in silence for some time, letting Lutwidge simmer to the point where his mottled, deformed face seemed ready to burst once more into fury.
"Well, anything? Have you anything of value?"
The Pawn met his captor's manic stare with his own, and a simple response.
"Revenge."
One bushy eyebrow jumped in intrigue on the older man's face.
"Oh really," he inquired, "do tell how."
"It's simple," came the Pawn's answer, fighting to keep his voice level, his tone calm. "I know that you found Rapture, and that you returned here with tales that everyone else decried as insanity. And I know that Ryan snubbed you."
Lutwidge's ghastly visage twisted even more as the man continued on.
"You helped him build it, helped funnel supplies into his paradise, your Wonderland. And then what does he do? He invites the world's best and brightest, but leaves you behind. You, the puzzle master, the schemer whose cloak-and-dagger dealings made keeping Rapture secret possible. You hate him for that, I know it, and so do you. So what do you say, is revenge enough to buy my freedom?"
"My boy," Lutwidge spat, trembling in rage, "we both know you couldn't possibly give me Andrew Ryan. You don't know where to find him or his city, and that's why you came here. That's one strike on your part, two more bad offers, and you'll end up floating out to the bay by morning."
The Pawn broke into a cold sweat, scrambling for his words.
"I, I can't give you Ryan, but I have the next best thing."
"And what, pray tell, is that?"
The Pawn gave a nervous smile
"His son."
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Delta stared out at the murky waters beyond the glass window, Rapture's ghostly light casting wild shadows in the currents. Next to him on a beaten coffee table lay a stack of audio recordings. They were Eleanor, his Eleanor, as a little girl, before the War, before the madness, when all she had to worry about was sneaking out to play with friends and dodging an overprotective mother. A mother which he took from her, the metal man thought grimly. Will she ever forgive me?, he pondered, wavy reflection providing no answer. Will I ever even see her again?
The innocent laughter and ponderings of a child echoed through his head, his mind swimming through guilt, sorrow, and rage near simultaneously. He felt as if part of him had been ripped away, so cruel and mangled a split that he could feel nothing, think nothing, do nothing that did not serve the purpose of bringing back his daughter to him.
Daughter. The very word almost seemed hollow to the Big Daddy as he used it. He knew not what true fathers were supposed to feel for their children. Would a true father feel this way? Feel like no beast of hell nor creation of man nor act of God would stop him from retrieving that girl who was his world, his very purpose in this city of the damned? It was all that he knew, all that he was built for; a machine, a tool cobbled together to keep a little girl safe. It was his one purpose, and yet he had failed...
Delta stared at the crude reflection in the glass, as if hoping for the answer to strike him, but to no avail. He turned away, glowing porthole of a face focusing once more on the table of recordings, played in a loop. Eleanor Lamb's life played before him in bits and pieces, echoes of an time before sisterhood, before ADAM, before her Daddy. It was the history of his daughter, the history of his purpose in this pitiful excuse of an existence. It held her triumphs and failures, her joys and tears, memories good and bad. The crushing weight of the past and of hindsight weighed down upon him, these recordings sucking him in deeper and deeper into the pit of his own self-loathing, and yet like some shell-shocked bystander of a train wreck, he could not look away, could not stop, utterly transfixed by the piteous tragedy of Rapture.
The whispers of a new voice, foreign and unfamiliar, shook the Big Daddy from his tormenting reverie.
"That, that's Eleanor Lamb, isn't it? You were her Big Daddy?"
Whirling about to face this intruder, Delta found himself facing the slim, unassuming frame of the boy Carnegie had introduced, Amir, he called himself. As the name rattled about in his head, memories synced and realizations dawned. This was Eleanor's Amir, the childhood friend that she had spoke of so fondly and frequently in the tapes he played, those musings and messages forever immortalized. All the metal man could do in response was nod mutely, cursing once more his mauled vocal chords.
Visibly effected by this confirmation, Amir, seemed to go weak at the knees for a moment, before shuffling over towards the table that held the voices both man and monster held all too dear. The young man scanned over the pile of recordings in silence before speaking once again in what was barely more that whisper.
"Things make sense now, I suppose. You went after Eleanor didn't you? That was why her psychotic mother wanted you dead."
The simple nod was all the metal man could do in response, but Amir's rapt attention only grew, words beginning to tumble out of his mouth.
"I...she is still alive, right? I mean, I'm assuming that is so because you're still alive, and, well, sane as far as an Alpha Series goes, but one can never really truly be sure about assumptions and-"
Delta cut off the rambling flood from his mouth with the raising of one hand, then a confirming nod, one finger simply pointing upwards. Amir's brow furrowed for a moment before realizations dawned upon him, his gaze softened.
"Oh," he said quietly, "I...I see. She made it to the surface and you're still...I can only imagine what this is like for you, I got hold of some research on the Alpha Series, and, and I know how the Pairbond mechanism causes...side effects." The teenager paused to swallow, hard, before continuing. "If there's still a man in there, then know that you have my sympathies."
Delta could only grunt in response, and with one gloved finger stopped the looping playback of Eleanor's childhood that had filled the background of their conversation. Staring at Amir, the Big Daddy could almost feel the palpable sense of sorrow that hung in the air around him, some deep aching pain that the boy carried with him. This was a broken man, just as he himself was. The metal man could not help but feel some compatriotism to this boy, this soul that Rapture had chewed up and spat out as a jittery bundle of nerves. With a rumbling sigh, Delta turned his back away, facing the forlorn ruins of utopia through the looking glass of a murky window, silent as ever.
Amir watched him with fascination, this golem that had passed through hell and back, and defied death itself to find Eleanor Lamb. The man within the machine could not speak, but even in his muteness one could sense a smoldering rage, and a simmering guilt.
"Thank you."
The words caught the Big Daddy off guard, his curiosity piqued, but he kept his unblinking glass gaze upon the ruins of the city that had destroyed him. Amir continued one.
"Eleanor was my best friend as a kid, and," the boy hesitated, voice quiet as ever, "and, well it's just good to know that she survived all this. I know that you were a key part of that so...thank you."
Delta did not move a muscle, and the young man sighed, showing himself out of the room, and leaving the metal man in silence. With slow deliberate motions, Delta reached over to the table of recordings, and with the plastic click of a button, Eleanor's voice filled the room one more, the Big Daddy staring back off into the abyss.
End Chapter. Sorry for the delay there folks, but what can I say, things happen. A happy Halloween to all those out there who celebrate it, and thanks once again for all your reviews and comments. Please keep them up, I love hearing back from you guys. Tell me what you liked, what you didn't, mistakes you found, anything really. Feedback helps me improve for the next chapter. Until next time dear readers, jschneids, signing off. You stay classy, .