Disclaimer: I don't own nothing (Unless you count the double negative, which means I DO own it. Fun with grammar). All joking aside, please don't sue me :)
Anyways, let me apologize for the delay, dear readers. Seeing as I have no witty excuse to give besides a nice dose of writer's block and a booked schedule, I sincerely hope I didn't let things get too stale for you all. Sorry
Ok, now that I'm done whining, on to the story! At long last, Delta and company are returning to Tenebaum's base to prepare their escape, and Delta has a date with a certain reporter who may know of his origins. Although with submarines closing in from both the United States and the Soviet Union, is may be a short lived reunion. Meanwhile, on the surface, Orrin Oscar Lutwidge has kidnapped Jack's daughters, and dared him to come after him, something our wrench wielding hero is all to happy to oblige him. But with the CIA closing in on these two, this is one clash that may end sour for both parties.
Will Delta learn the truth of Johnny Topside? Why am I asking you all these questions? Why don't you just skip this crap and read the story already?
The train braked at the station with a mighty hiss, and as he looked out at the main station of the Atlantic Express, Delta felt his hand drift almost subconsciously to the waterproofed pocket on his suit. He knew what lied within it; a slip of newspaper, aged and cracked and pitiful. It was his story, his past, his life, before Fontaine's doctors and Ryan's thugs took it away from him with a false crimes and a needle. Here, within this station, was the one man who could unlock it for him once more, the one man who show to him the secrets of Johnny Topside. The one man in the world he wanted dead more than any other. Stanley Poole; traitor, coward, and snitch, who'd sold an innocent man and a terrified little girl to a devil in a pinstriped suit, then damned a whole city district to drown, all to cover his crimes. Delta had seen his handiwork; Dionysus Park was a waterlogged graveyard, and the unspeakable evils Fontaine had visited upon himself and Eleanor….Eleanor, he thought with a sudden pain, a pain that exploded into unbearable agony that wracked his body. With a long, mournful cry, the Big Daddy fell to his hands and knees, body quaking, his vision tinged red and pink.
In some far distant part of his consciousness, he was aware of the panic going on around him. Carnegie bellowed orders to find the doctor, Alice was in fits of sobs. Limp as a ragdoll, he felt Sigma haul him back to his feet, only to collapse back to the ground in heap as soon as the support was gone, like a puppet with its strings cut. Like a metal log, Delta toppled onto his back as the world around him span and swam in a sea of red. The pain was everywhere, inescapable, mind-numbing. Through it all though, the Alpha found one moment of clarity. Eleanor, he thought, with a twitch and a shudder, as the world began to go black. My daughter….
With a roar, Delta shot straight up as fire coursed through his veins, burning away the pain and agony of the attack, his heart racing, every fiber of his being trembling with energy. As quickly as it began though, it ended, and Delta returned to his senses. He saw the empty hypo sticking from the IV port in his arm, and the look of exhausted relief upon Tenenbaum's face as she stood over him.
"Herr Delta," she said, with a tired, wry smile. "You certainly know how to make an entrance." The smile began to fade though as she gestured towards the empty hypo. "We were able to inject you with more of the formula containing Eleanor's pheromone signature, to keep your organs from shutting down. Along with enough adrenaline for a small elephant"
Groaning as he came down from the chemical induced high, the Big Daddy raised himself on unsteady feet, wobbling once or twice, before the world stopped spinning and his balance returned. Tenenbaum sighed in relief.
"You are lucky to be alive, Herr Delta. As we are lucky to have you with us. Go and rest now, my friend. Michael and I will take care of things."
Michael. It took the Big Daddy a moment to realize the doctor was referring to Carnegie. He nodded nonetheless, though he did not intend to rest. He had an appointment with a certain former reporter. And death itself wouldn't stop him.
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It was a strange sense of déjà vu for Sigma as he arranged his meager possessions in the corner of the station claimed as "his". The creeping sense of familiarity and shadow memories were torment, a taunting call that this was not his first home, not his first life. A life without Pearl.
Pearl. Of the few scant things he had brought with him from the Den, Pearl's photo was his most precious. Faded and stained, the sepia print photograph still showed her in all her splendor, hat tilted upon her head, a laughing smile on her lips. With trembling hands, and a sense of reverence, like some lost priceless treasure, the Big Daddy placed it upon a flat topped crate near his "bed", the mess of shipping pallets and torn mattresses he had claimed for some scant comfort. Every recording with him that touched upon her, every lost memory, was arrayed around it. With a trembling hand, he extended a gloved finger to press down on the play button, but pulled back at the last minute, and fell to his knees. He didn't notice his spectator until she walked up beside him, her cane clicking on the tiled floor. Rising to his feet, Sigma turned to face Grace Holloway. Hard lines cut by age and decades in hell furrowed across her face as her eyes moved languidly from the photo to the metal man before her.
"I guess there's a man inside those suits after all," she said softly, at last, a look of sympathy in her eyes, boring into the glass of his porthole. She pointed towards the picture with her cane, the carved bird of its handle fitting her hand like glove. "An animal can't feel that kind of pain," she continued, sad, small smile on her lips. "Monsters don't grieve. "
With a poise and elegance befitting of her name, Grace lowered herself onto a nearby bench, and sat facing the faceless man. "Your wife, before all," she waved her hand at him, "this?"
Sigma could only nod as he stared blankly at the woman, trying to read her. Her eyes were proud, but dimmed by some long aching pain. His visage was blank glass, and the woman received no response, but Grace continued, unabated.
"I know what its like to lose someone, Tin Man." She gestured to the others in the station. "We all do. And I know what hanging on to all that pain and grief can do to you." The older woman shifted slightly in her seat, and stared straight into the metal man's porthole. "It turns you bitter, Tin Man. Twists you up inside, so bad, any kind of evil can just latch right on." Grace's face fell slightly, and she looked away, if only for a moment, before she shook her head and met the Big Daddy's gaze once more. She sighed. "We need you two in top condition," she said, finally, "or at least the Doc tells me so. I don't know nothing about machines and weapons, or fighting," the pride returned to her eyes, "but I know pain. And I know what it can do."
Shaking her head rapping her cane as she rose, Grace Holloway turned to leave. "Knew this was a bad idea," she muttered under her breath, before facing Sigma for a final time. "Doctor Tenenbaum told me all about you, Mr. Porter." The name felt strange upon her tongue, as if the very act of giving a name to Rapture's golems of flesh and steel were abhorrent in and of itself. "Learn to let go, for your own sake. And ours."
With that, the woman slowly walked across the station floor bake to the ticket booth, bent but not broken, destitute yet proud. Sigma watched her leave, and then turned to Pearl's picture. He stared at it, and time flowed on without a care in the world. He could not say how long he sat there. Seconds, minutes, hours; it mattered not to the man within the monster. He stared at the picture in silence, until at last, with trembling fingers, he turned it over, face down. Eyes burning beneath his glass face, the Big Daddy turned away in shame. There would be time for the past, time for grief. But not now. Not in this hell.
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Stanley Poole broke into a cold sweat when Subject Delta rounded the corner that led to his secluded section of the station. There was no face to betray emotion, but the metal man's gait, his posture, his aura, all seemed to radiate a barely contained rage. In an instant, the newsman knew what had occurred. Delta knew. He scrambled for some escape, but the Big Daddy was nearly on top of him, stomping forward with every booted footstep. Sweating and shaking, Poole backpedaled, and backpedaled, until all too quickly his back met the cold gray wall. A fist like a wrecking ball swung towards him, and the little man screamed, only for the gauntleted hand to crash into the tile a half inch from his head. With brusque, deft motions, the Big Daddy's other hand swept up towards the man's face, a piece of newspaper in hand. The headline shattered any last trace of hope in Poole's mind.
Oh shit, is what he thought. "Oh that, nothing but a fluff piece. No substance to it really," is what he said, with a nervous chuckle.
Delta roared, and slammed the wall with his fist once more, bits of dust flying up from the impact.
Poole cringed and gave a distinctly unmanly whimper. "Alright, alright I'll talk," he screamed, voice jumping a few octaves. "I-Information is power. I was holding onto this one as a last resort, my, my ace in the hole." He gave a nervous smile full of yellow teeth. "You. You wouldn't begrudge me my back up plan, would you, buddy? After all I've done to help you?"
Delta snarled; it seemed Poole's memory was as selective as his loyalty. In one swift motion, he freed his fist form the wall, took hold of Poole's shirt, and tossed the man to the floor, before laying a boot upon his chest. He held the newspaper unfurled like a sail before the terrified man, and bellowed a grunt that commanded "talk".
Poole swallowed hard, and nodded, and as Delta released his boot the man sputtered and coughed, forcing himself into a seated position. "Alright," he wheezed. "I'll tell." Wiping a bit of phlegm he had hocked up with the sleeve of his shirt, the pasty, weasel of a man began his tale.
"You know how you got here, right? Big shot deep sea diver, getting stranded down here, and then Ryan getting paranoid enough to contract Sinclair to disappear you. But you want what was before all that, don't you?"
It seemed, for a split second, that Stanley Poole grew a backbone, as his face twisted into a sneer.
"Yah," he said, finally accepting that it was perhaps his day to die, and resolving to enjoy it, "yah you want who you were. Not Subject Delta, or Johnny Topside, but the man and the life that you lost the second you stepped foot in this rat hole." Poole shook his head, with a half wheezed laugh. "The thing though, Johnny, is you're coming here to find out your past because you want to know that you weren't always the monster you are down here. Problem is, and here's the real kicker, is that you were just as ugly topside as you are down here."
Poole shook his head and gave a bitter laugh. "The bit in the paper there," he continued, pointing to it, "ain't got a drop of truth in it. A load of bullshit we threw together to draw the suckers into reading. We played up the story of the glamorous Johnny Topside, because the real McCoy didn't cut it. You want your precious life story? Here it is."
The cowardice and self-service of Stanley Poole had melted and stewed into a bitter fatalism. Delta could see it in his eyes; the man knew this was the end of the line, that no more scam or cover up could stave of destiny, and he was determined to make it just as painful for his executioner. The metal man knew he should end the pathetic waste of space, should unload into him with a shotgun shell, but he couldn't, the newsman had him enthralled.
"Here's the life of the glorious Johnny Topside," he spat. "That interview was the last you ever gave. You sat down with me, spilled your guts hoping to atone for all you've done, and then Sinclair's boys came out from the hall and dragged you away. The sob story you told though," the man gave his wheezing laugh once again. "Your mama was a New York City escort, a nice classy whore who serviced all the big wigs, right up until she got herself knocked up, and the madam of the escort service kicked her out. Then she was just a whore. Well, a couple of years later all those nasty little bugs gals in her line of work tend to pick up caught up with her, and you were on the streets. You started rolling with a street gang, practicing the noble art of chucking bricks through shop windows and shaking down old ladies for pocket change."
Poole shrugged. "Guess a shred of conscience caught up with you though, cause when old Adolf started shaking thing s up over in Europe, you tried joining up with the service. Lying about your age never worked, so you didn't get in till right before they dropped the nukes. You saw some action in Korea though, and here's where things get good. Apparently, you went a little bit postal out there, shooting up a couple of civvies during and engagement with the Chinamen. You were staring down the barrel of a court marshal, and dishonorable discharge, until Uncle Sam came through with an offer. See, the feds were racing to keep one step ahead of the Ruskies, and Joe Stalin, and they needed men to test their toys. There was the deal. You tried out the equipment, and they didn't throw you out on your ass. That's how you ended up in that diving bell, big boy. You got stuck as a monster down here, because you were the scum of the earth up there. That what you wanted to hear?"
Poole gave a bitter laugh, only for a backhand from Delta to silence him and send him sprawling.
Coughing and cursing, Poole raised himself on unsteady feet. "Do it," he spat. "Finish me off. End this, all of this!" The fire in his eyes smoldered, and his voice wavered. "Do it," he commanded, more cowed then before. "Do it before I try and run from it…again." Eyes downcast and face dour, Stanley Poole seated himself on a chunk of masonry, his head between his hands, and lit himself one last cigarette.
"Do it," he said, in a soft, weak voice, between drags of his smoke, as he close his eyes and prepared to die.
Delta stood still as a statue. For a moment, he considered it. Considered putting a bullet in the man's skull, before deciding he wasn't worth the ammo. In silence, he turned and walked away, Poole's accusations of cowardice echoing in his ears until the man was out of earshot, but even then his words haunted the metal man.
Thug, criminal, whoreson, scum; they flitted through his mind, mingling with monster, and freak, and above it all the ghastly image of his own face. In silence, Delta walked.
Had he never truly had any happiness in life? No lost family, no forgotten life? Had he been nothing but a street thug, whom no one would mourn? He didn't even care to learn the name of the man he had been. Oblivious to the worrisome glances Alice and Carnegie shot him, Delta walked on, exiting the station and sitting in silence by himself.
Delta sat, and pondered his lives, both above the sea and below. His fears had been confirmed; there was no goodness within him, no good and great man beneath his metal shell. He had no family, no friends, nothing of importance…except Eleanor, and the survivors he shared this perdition with. He would see them to safety, he resolved, find Eleanor and insure her happiness, and then…then, there was nothing else left for him to live for.
End chapter. Sorry for the delay folks. Been a bit busy. Hope you enjoyed this one. No action, I know, but we DID just have "an evening with Sander Cohen" after all. Please review! Things are starting to wind down here, and I'm always eager for feedback. Till next time folks