Chapter 37
Minerva's Den - Office of Dr Lydia Wells
Lydia Wells couldn't recall how she had ended up sprawled across her office floor, her face smashed into the cold tiled floor among her damp collection of books and screwed up pieces of waste paper. Her head was spinning and she couldn't help but cry aloud as a wave of remorse repeatedly struck her as she began to try and count how many had possibly died as a result of her letting Ryan Amusements and Dionysus Park flood. She wept also for herself, for what Rapture had turned her into. She had once dreamed of building super-computers that would reshape the human condition for the benefit of all the world. Instead, she was forgotten nobody, feeding murderous instructions into a machine that the world never knew existed. She, and her beloved computer, were soon likely to be lost to the sea, her entire life a waste.
She cried again as she looked across the floor from her horizontal angle at the empty ADAM syringe she had disguarded, and wondered if that trickle in the bottom of the chamber would be enough to make up another shot. Just one more shot would be wonderful, enough to dull the cries that she couldn't block out, of everyone she had let die.
"Why did I do it?" She shrieked again, wearily trying to regain control enough of at least one arm, swinging it wildly outward towards the syringe trying to grab it.
Barely, Lydia could make out the hammering against her office door. It had tried to slide open, and jammed about a quarter of the way. Through the haze in her eyes, she could make out a number of arms reaching through the crack trying to push the door the rest of the way open. Somewhere among the chaos, she could see a pair of glowing red lights, that seemed to glare at her, accusing her, judging her.
"Leave me alone! Get away!" She called out, kicking her legs out in a vain effort to propel herself across the floor to the furthest corner from the door.
Within a few short minutes, Jack had the door open far enough to climb through, and pounced down onto the hysterical Dr Wells, who put what little energy she had left into resisting. He grabbed her wrists and held them above her head whilst she threw her legs around.
"Calm yourself down! I'm only trying to help you! Stop it!" He barked down at her, struggling to keep her in position.
"Don't bother yourself, stupid bastard. Leave me here, let me drown with the rest of Rapture. Its all this shit hole is good for now, drowning people." She began to tire, and stopped kicking. "That's all my glorious machine is useful for now - drowning people."
Jack didn't speak a word as the woman in his arms slowly fell into some sort of daze. He kept hold of her sweating, stinking body as she calmed down, and pondered what she had meant - whether there was any truth to her ranting. He still hoped more than anything that this venture would only confirm his wish that Edward was an honest, determined man with a genuine love for Rapture and its people - all of them. But already, this crazy woman's raving seemed to suggest 'The Thinker' had somehow been complicit in drownings - which by no stretch of the imagination could refer to the floodings across Rapture by Edward Carson's order.
Looking the woman over, Jack found her not to look terribly spliced up - certainly there was some ADAM use, her mania and fit was evidence of a recent hit, but other than a fresh rash and distortion of the skin across her face, she wasn't as deformed as the other splicers long past the point of insanity. He read the name stitched into her lab-coat just above her right pocket - 'Dr. Lydia Wells - Senior Programmer'.
"Lydia? Is that your name?" Jack sat her up slightly, and then dragged her up into the armchair in front of her desk.
"Eugh...who's asking?" Her head was rolling around her shoulders, and she was fidgety. When she spoke, Jack was hit with a wave of onions, alcohol and tooth decay.
"My name is Jack. Are you alright? Do you need anything?" He put a hand on her own in a gentle gesture of friendship, but Dr Wells snatched it back and glared up at him through strands of her knotted hair that had fallen across her face.
"I need a hit of ADAM and a bottle of Chechnya... and for you lot to fuck off out of my office." Before Jack could think of what to say in reply, she spoke out again. "I'm done with Rapture, with it all. Gimme a drink and then I'll just let the sea in, finish us all off. God knows I've had enough practice... I couldn't fuck that up at least..." Pushing Jack's hands away, she pulled open a desk drawer and retrieved a bottle of Chechnya Vodka.
"Knew I had some left somewhere! It's not ADAM, but it'll do." She swigged what was left of the clear liquid straight from the bottle, and then settled into silently staring at the wall, like a naughty school girl that was being scolded by the headmaster.
"What do you mean, you've had enough practice? What is it you've been doing that could be worth all this screaming?" Jack kept his voice low and calm, hoping not to trigger another outburst.
"Practice..?" She asked, momentarily forgetting her own words before catching back up. "Oh... yeah. Well that's what I'm expected to do these days isn't it? For the good of the city! That why he said it was worth it... yes, the good of Rapture." She began to cry again, but this time without the screaming or violent fit. "We killed everyone down in that fucking fun park... drowned them all."
Jack tensed up at hearing someone finally come out and say it. Was that what she was saying, through all the drunken bullshit - that Ryan Amusements hadn't been an accident?
"And that bitch Lamb's place - Dinosaurs Park... or whatever it was. Filled the tank - filled it right up. All because I love my machine, and wanted to go on loving it..." She poured out a small trickle from the vodka bottle as she finished her sentence.
Jack turned away, and took himself around Dr Wells' desk to stand beside the window and look out at the city. He was angry, certainly, angry at himself for trying to trust anybody down here. Angry at everyone, out for themselves at whatever the cost, but moreover, he was furious with his decision all those years ago, to leave Rapture without a leader, when he could have stayed and taken the city for himself, and prevented any of this from happening. He knew why he made the decision to leave, and he knew deep down he would make the same decision again - but he hated himself for it. His anger quickly gave way to sadness - a deep mourning for Rapture, and for the lost hope he'd had of building a friendship with Edward Carson and working with him to restore Andrew Ryan's vision. His fathers vision.
"Will you come with us, Dr Wells? I know a lot of people that would be interested to hear what you've told me." He looked down at the quivering mess of a woman, doubtful of a positive response.
"Fuck you. I'm staying here until I drown, I told you that, you deaf bastard." Sighing with aggravation, Jack was ready to turn away and curse, when his gaze fell upon a Rapture Central Computing in-house gazette on Dr Wells' desk. Pushing some other documents aside, he looked down upon two pictures of Central Computing's founding members. He didn't recognize the picture of Reed Wahl, nor did he expect to - but the second photograph was undeniably of the man Jack had seen waiting in Brigid Tenenbaum's car, back when she had appeared on his doorstep! The man in the car had been scarred somehow certainly, but the shape of the head, the nose, and most certainly the eyes, were identical to the man in the photograph - Charles Milton Porter!
Jack smiled to himself - well that certainly tallied up with the passing comment Tenenbaum had made about having a copy of 'The Thinker's programme! It had made absolutely no sense to him at the time, but if Porter had escaped to the surface with Tenenbaum, there was every chance he had indeed taken whatever he could salvage of his computer with him!
Jack turned to Dr Wells, who was sitting up straighter with a slightly more composed expression. "Help me, Dr Wells, and I will reunite you with 'The Thinker' up on the surface."
She snorted back at him, and chortled. "Got a fleet of cargo ships and a submerging platform at your beck and call have you?"
Jack just smiled at her and leant forward with the newspaper, pointing to the picture of Charles Milton Porter. "The Thinker, is already up there. Porter is alive and well."