Chapter 26
Atlantic Express Car 264 - En-route to Dionysus Park
Grace Holloway held up her aged frame by leaning forward on the control console of the Atlantic Express carriage, her right arm laying her weight down on the accelerator lever that was positioned forward at full throttle.
She'd been volunteering that morning at the Pauper's Drop station, welcoming and guiding the handfuls of evacuee's from the Adonis Resort. She'd meanwhile overheard one of Edward's splicers, a burly, shady Brit by the nickname of 'Bear', picking a few men to follow him down to Dionysus Park to clear it out. She took that to mean Edward's economy cuts had been expanded to include Dr Sofia Lamb's former home, and that it was soon to be returned to the sea.
Grace's loyalty to Dr Lamb had been shaken and ultimately broken, but that hadn't mean she didn't still have a great number of very dear friends that had been or still were part of the Rapture Family, many of whom she had spent many hours and days speaking with, dining with, even singing with. One such friend had been Melissa Bailey - a darling little black girl that had been nearly as dear to her as little Eleanor Lamb, the two of them had even played tea time with dolls sat on Grace's living room carpet more than once. It had broken Grace's heart to watch little Melisaa grow to be twisted and warped by the insanity of the splicers that surrounded her, leading inevitably to her own ADAM addiction.
Grace's standing in the Rapture family had helped her protect Melissa from Dr Gil Alexander and Dr Lamb's Big Sister program, but the poor girl had still not been much better off out in the open.
The last Grace had heard of her, she'd refused to renounce Dr Lamb's teachings despite the Doctor's apparent abandonment to the surface. After it was pumped dry, she and a few of the other die-hard believers had gone on a pilgrimage to the great Dr Lamb's temple, Dionysus Park, to be as close to her as possible. After hearing Bear and his goons arranging to travel down there, Grace had waited anxiously for an Express Carriage to arrive with whoever they'd rounded up down in the Park - but it had never come. How she'd desperately waited to see little Melissa's face appear through the glass of the carriage window each time one had arrived, even if she had been bound in chains.
Finally, when the klaxon had sounded marking thirty minutes until the Adonis Resort's pumps, power and air supply were shut down, Grace had been left with little choice but to assume it marked the same for Dionysus Park. She could have tried to contact Edward, she didn't doubt he'd at least take her call - but by the time they'd debated it to whatever answer he gave her, it would have been too late to do anything, either way. Grace had thrown down her walking stick and marched straight passed the giggling gang of splicers that had been tasked with maintaining order in the station, and had locked herself in the waiting carriage's control compartment. The morons had crowed and screamed as she'd powered the car up and opened the bulkhead doors, one had even tried to smash through the glass with a fish hook. But ultimately, her determination had seen to it that she single-mindedly drove Atlantic Express Car 264 away from the platform, and following its track, sank it down into the sea. Once submerged, the car was able to travel much faster, only having to slow to pass through three further stations en-route.
Grace hadn't been back to Dionysus Park in years, and not once since it had been drained and re-opened a short while ago. Pulling into the station, her heart sank at the state she found it in. The floors deep in sediment and the walls and overhead glass canopies thick with grime and dirt. When Dr Lamb had first opened it, oh how beautiful it had been! One of the most glamorous places in all of Rapture!
Stepping out of the Express Carriage onto the platform, she grimaced at the squelch underfoot, and her first few awkward steps without her cane had been slow and cautious. Yet quickly she had remembered that she only had a short time left - less than fifteen minutes probably now by her count. Somewhere in the far distance she could hear Bear barking orders at his men, telling them to "finish up" and "get the hell out". Grace swiftly forgave the muddy floor and moved as quickly as she could, hunched awkwardly and in pain without her cane, making for the main entrance.
Grace had climbed the stairs and reached the Carousel Atrium, when suddenly she heard one of the brutes helping Bear shriek with delight "I've got it boss! That's the back up system shut down." Grace cursed under her breath "Damn it... damn!" She spat, her fear that the park was truly being shut down realized. Quickly stopping to rest against one of the wooden horses on the carousel, Grace gave her throbbing knee's a hard finger massage, able to poke most of her hand through the holes in her tights. Looking around, Grace realised that she had no idea where to start looking, and let out a subtle cry and whimper. "Oh Melissa, where are you honey?" She gasped aloud.
As if in a taunting response, the primary lights suddenly shut down, followed by the mechanical, grinding whirring of the many electric dynamo's throughout Dionysus Park as each began to slow to a halt. As designed, the parks handful of working back-up batteries kicked in, giving Grace just enough light to see across the room in either direction - back the way she came, or onward, deeper into the park.