Chapter 43

Arcadia - Upper Rolling Hills

Edward waited until one of the new gardeners had wiped the bench before he placed himself down upon it, and began to take in the revitalizing efforts. One thing about spliced up females, was how fiercely protective they became over whatever they considered their property - and so it had been a stroke of genius to convince them Arcadia was their garden. They worked tirelessly tending to the plants and gardens, and barked harshly at the weedy little men that had been allocated to tree cutting and pruning duties. Certainly there had been an accident or two, as was to be expected when having to pay your workforce in ADAM, but they had been kept to a minimum. The worst had happened just that very morning, when an older woman had hurled a swarm of bee's from her palms at a younger man that she had accused of ogling at her breasts. Edward had chuckled for the first time in days when he had been presented with the perpetrator, as her breasts were perhaps the least eye-catching of all her bodily extremities, and far smaller than the majority of her tumors and blisters.

Regardless of the incidents, Arcadia had come along splendidly. He recalled when he had first arrived in Rapture back in 1946, and that first stroll he and Sheridan had taken that first evening, which had led them straight to Arcadia. The city hadn't been anywhere near as large then as it eventually became, and so Arcadia had been very much a go-to destination back then, rather than a simple commodity. How exciting life had been back then, and how hopeful. In many ways, he missed the innocence of his youth, back when he had been too timid to make the simplest of decisions, and had relied upon Sheridan to make every single one.

Boxer appeared from behind a far cluster of oak tree's, weaving his way between two splicers trimming the lawn, before striding up to Edward. He reached out with a dripping wet bottle of Worley Wine. The label was sodden and the ink had run, but it appeared to be a 1958 vintage.

"Heaven's old boy, how did you come across this?"

"Well, you told me to find you more wine. I did." Boxer seemed less obliging somehow, grouchy and fed up. "The water had gotten back into the winery after that creepy bitch Wells re-started your computer and stopped the pumps, it was almost neck deep. I had to send in another splicer... same as last time though. Lost him after the third round trip..."

Edward sighed with frustration and momentarily turned away from the bottle he had just opened. "For fuck sake..." He didn't wait much longer before he took the first gulp. "Any word from Bear?"

"Yeah, and not a good one. He lost six of his boys to lousy diving suits, and not one of them managed to get inside Minerva's Den. Place is locked up tight. Only solution would be to have a Big Daddy take a window off - but until you get control back over the Thinker from inside the Den, the metal men aren't listening to a goddamn word we say."

Edward cursed again under his breath, "But you've stationed guards around it?"

"All I could spare, but I didn't think you'd want me to take men from guarding Hephaestus - we're running low on men with all their marbles. I ain't trusting splicers with anything as serious as security."

"Fine, fine." Edward had heard enough bad news. He took another, larger gulp of wine.

Without The Thinker, the work had stalled on sectioning off the city, and he no longer had the computer estimates on how long the city now had, nor did he have any information on anything. He'd lost Grace Holloway - not just as a respected friend, but he'd lost her allegiance and her trust. He re-lived those final moments with her in his office over and over as he stared aimlessly among the Tree's of Arcadia, and swung violently and erratically between regret and surging anger at the woman. The emotions deepened as he drank further.

So without Grace, without Wells or her damned computer, Edward was stuck, and he knew it. He had the power in Hephaestus, that was a trump card. He had the oxygen too - Arcadia, that was another. The problem was, whilst he could distribute the products of both, he no longer had computer control over either. Wells and Jack Ryan could turn either off in a second, and there was bugger-all he could do about it. Not that he could flaunt it too wildly, but he also had the only source of fresh ADAM in Rapture too - now that appeared to be his only pawn left worth playing on the chess board. He just had to figure out the best way how.

He could use it to blackmail the splicers into doing his bidding, that might work. But if Jack started dishing out this ADAM Cure, who knew how long the ADAM would be effective. He could use ADAM to splice up the few men he had, and try to storm whichever castle Jack and Wells had barricaded themselves inside - but the unknown factor there, was he had no idea how many of Grace Holloway's loyalists would now be switching their allegiance to Jack - Edward didn't want to encourage any confrontation that would clarify just how outmatched he may now be.

Edward threw his head into his hands and groaned. 'Oh Andrew - how did you hold out against Fontaine so long?'

Then, something struck him. It had been Fontaine, or rather Atlas's army of splicers that had brought Rapture - and Ryan, to their knee's. Splicer's wanted ADAM. The one thing Edward had, was a shitload of ADAM. And what had Ryan used to combat the threat? More splicers, controlled by ADAM and mental suggestion.

"Boxer - last estimate we got before things turned south - how many splicers are still roaming free? The one's that didn't respond to our efforts to re-home them all down in the drop?" The large man scratched his stubbly chin. "Uh, last count from the Thinker was around a couple of hundred, maybe three to four hundred? But they are animals boss, gone full bye-bye. They aren't any use to anyone."

Edwards face dropped, and he felt his stomach ache at the thought, but he knew what he had to do - all he had left to do. "It's that animal we're going to need."