Chapter 41
Minerva's Den - The Thinker
The blackout was terrifying, even for those that had caused it. Jack Ryan stood beside the frantic Dr Lydia Wells, who was pouring over readouts as they spilled from the printer, communicating the results of the system-wide purge they had initiated.
"Well... what's happened?" Jack cried out over the alarm bells and booming of the giant machine.
"The system is old, poorly maintained - it will take some time to be sure of the result! But yes... I think we have managed to reset most of the Thinker's systems!" She yelled, periodically breaking from the readouts to wipe the cold sweat from her forehead. The come-down from her ADAM binge the day before was a cruel one, but she had managed to complete the task nevertheless. Lydia Wells had single handedly accomplished in six hours what would have usually taken a team of programmers a month to prepare for.
"And Andrew Ryan's genetic Key? Edward won't be able to access anything with it?" Jack asked,
"In theory no..." Dr Wells stammered, hesitant to ever offer a guarantee - a habit she picked up from when she had worked so closely with Reed Wahl. "I can at least now lock down Minerva's Den, I have complete control over the Den's own functions. Ryan was never able to persuade Wahl or Porter to hand over access to our internal systems." Jack sighed, and collapsed into a chair.
"At least we can pull up the draw bridge for now... but we're about to bring down all manner of hell. Before I take you to meet some people, please gather all figures relating to the cities life span - oxygen levels per district, power supply, heating... we're going to need to know our stuff when we draw Edward to the bargaining table."
Hepheastus Core
Edward was marching ahead of Boxer, Bear and the team of jittery, spliced-up engineers who were terrified that their supply of ADAM was about to be cut-off for their incompetence. The group stormed across the landing, until Edward reached the observation platform that overlooked the rotating core in the center of the main cavern. Although it was rusted, filthy and groaning like a drunken whore, the core was still turning steadily and gurgling away.
"See boss! We told you it wasn't us! The core's still pumping, we got us lots of power! It just ain't bein' sent to the right places!" A splicer dressed in heavy overalls and clutching a tool box whined aloud. Edward span around to glare at the man.
"Every second the city doesn't have the power I've promised it, we loose credibility - we loose the people that follow us! Get it fixed, whatever the problem us!"
"Sir," Bear interrupted before the splicer could protest again, "what the grease monkey is saying is, the problem isn't with the heart, it's with the brain telling it where to go..."
Edward went quiet for a moment whilst figuring it out, "The brain... you mean, The Thinker?" The whole group frantically nodded in unison, praying they would escape any repercussions. "Well we'll see about that!" Edward declared as he reached deep into the inside pocket of his freshly laundered velvet jacket, and pulled out his Genetic Key.
The flustered procession had made it half way to Edwards office, when a refreshing hum began to sound from the air vents again, and the lights quickly came back to life, blowing a bulb or two in the process. "What is Wells playing at over there - at least we can fucking see again!" Edward muttered, continuing onward. Bursting into his office, he barked at the three female splicers scrubbing his oak floorboard clean to get out, before proceeding through to the small room on the opposite side, containing the Rapture master controls. He slid the genetic key straight into the access slot, and slammed a fist against the machine as it took time to read the key. When the recognition light finally turned green, he entered the instruction to provide him with an update on the Thinker's mainframe.
"Access to Minerva's Den denied. Please use another key, or contact your Minerva's Den customer service representative. Thank you".
His eye's wide, his limbs trembling, Edward couldn't even bare to look at the console, and turned quickly to face his companions. "Get out."
"But boss, you see now it wasn't our fault? We gets the ADAM still right boss?" The engineer croaked. Edward threw out his hands, casting a fireball from each that struck the floor, charring the wood. "Get the fuck out! Now!" With the exception of Boxer and Bear who knew to stand their ground, the terrified splicers scrambled over each other to be the first out of the door. Still they bickered between themselves, "We'll still get the ADAM right?"
Breathing heavily, Edward staggered across his office and threw his weight down into his chair. The office of Andrew Ryan, how his office, had over these last few weeks come to feel like his throne room - the office that granted him the status and power of a worthy replacement for Andrew Ryan. But at that moment, stripped of the power the genetic key gave him, Edward felt terribly naked, vulnerable and frightened. He felt as he had back when he'd first come snooping down in Hephaestus as a lowly, skulking nobody - confused and desperate. Someone was playing against him - he'd suspected it, but now it was certain. Somebody that had evidently gotten to Dr Wells.
"Well son, it looks to me like you're in a tight corner." The voice took him and his two bodyguards by surprise, coming from the shadows where the crooked figure had been waiting the entire time. Edward sat up right in a sharp motion, and in no mood for theatrics, called out the intruder. "Grace, cut the shit and tell me what's going on!"
Grace slowly hauled her tired body out from the small alcove she'd been waiting in, and leaning heavily on her cane, came to stand a meter from Edwards desk. "Edward, my boy, despite our past - you know I'd come to think of you as a friend, maybe even as close to a son as I was ever going to get." She rocked awkwardly as she spoke, and she couldn't seem to control her eyes enough to focus on him.
"Grace - please tell me I'm wrong, tell me that right now." Edward leant forward, pouring himself a much needed glass of Old Tom Whiskey.
"Well, I can safely say it wasn't me that played with your computer personally. But you've been raising more than one or two eyebrows lately son, you've lost your way... just as Ryan did. I tried to warn you this would happen back when we was friends..."
"So you've been mobilising people against me? Against my efforts to save Rapture and everyone in it? You're the veritable Atlas to my Ryan now?" Edward slammed his glass down on the desk.
"You believe what you are doing is for the greater good, I'm sure of that. But like Ryan, when the greater good and your own interests differ, your judgement is proving to be severely impaired, Edward." She confidently accused him, with her soft but firm tone.
"I have done nothing but work to preserve this city the best way I can! I care about everyone down here! And now you're fighting to steal their last chance to survive by fighting me..."
"No son, you can't see what I see. You drowned Dionysus Park... killed my Melissa, you drowned Ryan Amusements." She began.
"All accidents, accidents I tell you! It was necessary to flood those areas's to save those with larger populations! Whatever I did, I did for the people!" Edward screamed across the desk.
"For the people? The people that slug away to rebuild your city for you, then go home to their shared bunks crammed into Paupers Drop like sardines, while you swan about Mercury Suites in a fresh suit drinking Worley 1948?"
Edward threw his glass this time, Whiskey and all, across the room. Grace wasn't sure if he had been aiming at her or not. "I was building something for them to aspire to! To work for! That is what Rapture is all about!"
"No son, you were playing Andrew Ryan, playing king of the castle. When you gave up being the Edward Carson I used to know in favour of being Ryan junior, you forced my hand to become 'your Atlas' as you describe me. Ryan's great chain philosophy died with him. Rapture no longer has the luxury of being a philosophical playground Edward - this is about live or die. Whilst you're feathering yourself a nice little nest and convincing yourself its for the good of the people, the people that you need to fill your city, are dying out - many by your own hand."
Edward fought to come back with a clever reply, but to his horror, the words caught in his throat, and for a second that felt like a century, he hesitated. Grace noticed it, he noticed it.
"See boy - you're not so drunk on power yet that you can't see it for yourself. You know I'm right..." Grace smiled, and held out a hand towards him in a gesture of compassion. As Lily Van Zant had done, Grace had humiliated Edward even further, and his heart hurt with rage. In defiance he pushed her words aside, and erupted up out of his chair, flipping over the desk entirely. It rolled over and struck Grace, sending her frail frame crashing to the floor. Grace cried out in pain, and began to grasp at her hip.
Edward came bearing down on her like a triumphant lion about to take the first bite out of its prey. "Fuck you Grace! Fuck you bitch!" He spat on her, and blind with hatred, kicked her sharply, her cries of agony only making him even angrier, after her vulnerable nature that had led him to trust her once, had played him for a fool - not this time!
"Tell me who you sent to Minerva's Den! Tell me what little whelp you've brainwashed this time!" Edward realised as the words left his quivering lips that he already knew the answer - it would be the man that had been seen spending time with her only to vanish from sight soon afterwards.
"Jack Ryan will be your reckoning Edward! He'll bring you down and save the sisters! He'll save everybody!" As her final cries confirmed what he already knew to be true, that Jack Ryan had aligned himself with Grace over him, Edward summed up a powerful dose of Telekenisis, and threw Grace's broken body into the air, slamming her hard against the ceiling, before pulling her back down faster than gravity could carry her, straight into the wooden floor. Blood burst out of her mouth across the new carpet he'd had laid only that morning.
Grace Holloway never spoke again, but in her final moments of life, managed to fix her gaze upon Edward, making direct eye contact with him at last. Edward looked away, as he brought down the fatal blow of his foot that broke her skull.