Elizabeth VI

Over the static of the radio, Elizabeth could hear the shuffling of papers and Tenenbaum clicking her tongue.

"Aright," she said. "I found what looks like a vault in the back of the store that includes a vent that is attached to one of the main ventilation shafts. If you can drop down into that you should be able to crawl forward about twenty meters to a drop down to the floor below."

"The floor with the hardware store?" she clarified.

"Ja. Then go forward to exhaust vents and turn left. That will put you right across from the store. After that thhhhccccrrrrk!"

"Doctor?" Liz called into the radio. "Doctor? Doctor, can you hear me?"

"Crrrcrrrcrrck! Yes, I can hear you," the older woman's agitated voice finally cut through the static. "Teufel noch mal, these radios are awful. I don't know how much longer we'll be able to keep in contact. Listen, after you get down to the next level you need to grab the supplies and get back as quickly as you can!"

"Can you see any path for me to get back to the safe house? I could take those stairs back up but that would put me in the path of that herd of splicers," Elizabeth asked.

"...I'll keep looking."

Then the radio cut off and Liz was left alone once more.

Well, almost alone.

"That doesn't sound reassuring," Booker commented, lighting up a cigarette. "Going down there without a plan of escape doesn't sound like a good idea."

Elizabeth chuckled, "Did you have a plan of escape when you came to get me out of that tower?"

Booker choked on the cigarette smoke and blushed. "I figured one out... eventually."

"Oh, eventually?"

"Hey, we both made it out of there alive!"

"If I remember correctly-" and Elizabeth wasn't so sure she did; after a while, all those different timelines tend to blur together and scramble "-I was the one who did plenty of saving that day! After all, I was the one who pulled you out of the water and onto the beach so you wouldn't drown."

That got her a crooked smile, "Yeah, you were pretty amazing."

Even if it was just a hallucination, that was nice to hear.

Ducking her head to hide a stupidly broad grin, Liz shrugged. "We need those supplies, no question about it. I'll figure it out a way back when the time comes; no use worrying about it right now."

Booker just gave a concerned hum and vanished from sight.

It was hard getting the vent grate off, more so than with a regular one. More than ever, Elizabeth wished that Booker could be there in person to help her with the heavy lifting, to support her in general.

"Fuck!" she hissed, glancing down at the ragged gash the sharp metal of the grate sliced open the side of her hand. Wrapping a cloth around her hand, Liz couldn't help but think, 'Tetanus, here I come.'

If nothing else, she now had her way back into the ventilation system.

Being that this was one of the main ventilation shafts, it was much wider than the previous ones and Elizabeth was able to move more freely. That didn't change the thick layer of dust and grime that covered the inside though, but Liz tried to ignore that as she made her way eastward until she came to a drop. Flicking the lighter back on, she lowered her hand down as far as possible; the small flame was able to illuminate the shaft, but not enough to show her what lied below.

"Looks dangerous," Booker comments, crouched across the small gap and peer down into the darkness with her. "Best-case scenario, you get down there safely but aren't able to climb back up. Worst-case scenario, you break your leg or neck and die down there."

"Your negativity isn't going to help anything, Booker,'" Liz huffed.

Fishing around in her pocket, she eventually pulled out a stray steel bolt the overall's previous owner must have left behind and dropped it down the shaft.

"One... Two..."

Clank!

"Alright, that is about a twenty-foot drop," she muttered.

Definitely, a long enough drop to kill her... but also one she could easily survive.

"Are you really going to risk it?" Booker asked.

"Well, I don't really have a choice, do I?"

"There is always a choice," the man argued. But, after a moment, he added, "Even if this isn't a very good one."

"Story of my life," Elizabeth grumbled. "I just have to keep pressing forward."

After a moment of hesitation, she swung her legs down into the shaft and stretched them forward until the soles of her steel-toed boots were pressed firmly against the metal wall. Clutching onto the ledge, Liz slowly slid her butt off the edge and down the wall of the vent With her hands on the other walls and pressing her legs against the vent with all her strength, the young woman was able to gradually descend downward. The shaft was pitch black and there was no way for Elizabeth to use the lighter; the ground below could have been ten feet away or ten thousand for all she could see it.

'Booker, after you there?' she thought.

'I'm always with you, Elizabeth.'

Even though his voice was just a hallucination, that she was probably crazy for hearing it so often, Liz always found comfort in Booker's 'presence.'

Inch by inch, she slid further down. She tried not to think of the actual distance, instead just focusing on the next step downward.

"Just one step at a time," she said to herself. "Just one st-"

RHHHHHUHHHH!

"AHHHHHHH!"

Elizabeth fell, she fell as Rapture shook and rattle and seemed to scream in pain. She could say how long she fell, be it minutes or barely a second. But when she hit the ground, Liz's vision went white from the pain.

She laid there, crumpled at the bottom of the ventilation shaft, for who knows how long. When she was finally able to move again, Liz slowly pulled the lighter out. Hands shaking and breathing through the shutters of agony, she flicked the lighter on and set it down. The shadows cast by the little flame did little to provide comfort, but they did allow Elizabeth to check from blood.

Moving slowly, she gently prodded at her body, checking for injuries. Fingers moving up and down her arms and legs, Liz let out a deep sigh of relief as she found no breaks or obvious fractures. She wiggled her toes and, yes, it was good to know that she wasn't paralyzed.

'Now it is time for the bad part,' Elizabeth thought.

Then she forced herself to sit up...

...and very nearly threw up.

Forcing back nausea and a dizzying blood rush that had Liz seeing double, she checked over her head and, yep, that was blood.

"You've probably got a concussion," Booker observed

Looking up from her red-stained fingers, the dark-haired woman shrugged. "Probably, but there isn't much we can do about it right now. Just got to keep pressing forward and hope I can hold out long enough to get medical attention back at the safe house."

"You could wait a bit, get some rest," the man said. "I know you aren't supposed to sleep if you've got a concussion but-"

"That is actually a common misconception," Elizabeth interrupted, glancing around to gather her bearings. "Well, sorta. It's perfectly safe for a person to sleep if they have a concussion, just so long as somebody wakes the person regularly to monitor their symptoms, there is no harm in them sleeping and can even be beneficial as it promotes healing."

"And since I'm not actually here..." Booker trailed off, his green eyes downcast.

"You can't help me," Liz finished, equally somber. "I can only help myself. So I have to keep pressing forward."

That was all Elizabeth could ever do.

Even with the pain and nausea, Liz was able to crawl forward to the nearest exhaust vents and turn left. Through the grating of the vent, she was able to make out the broken neon sign reading Bancock's Hardware. The glass storefront had been busted in but, from what she could see, there were still plenty of supplies inside; if Elizabeth had to guess, most people didn't know what to do with most of it.

Putting out the radio, she pressed the 'call' button down and whispered, "Tenenbaum? Are you there?"

All she got was static.

'Right, she did say that we would probably lose contact as I got further away. I guess I'm on my own.'

Booker didn't reassure her this time. Once again, Elizabeth reminded herself that he wasn't really there and, when he was, 'Booker' could only tell her what she wanted to hear or what she already -subconsciously- knew.

Liz closed her eyes and listened, ignoring the throbbing in her head. She heard the creaks and moans of the dying city, but there were no sounds of splicers. For now, at least, it was safe to make a break for the store.

The vent grate came away easily enough and Elizabeth was able to grab it before it hit the ground, not wanting the clattering to attract any enemies. She slid out of the vent, landing in a careful crouch. One hand on the Hand Cannon -' Only three bullets for this one left. I'd rather not have to pull out the shotgun.'- she surveyed the area, making sure no one was lying in wait to ambush her.

Once Elizabeth was confident she was safe as could be in the situation, she gave one last glance around and bolted across the hallway. Planting one hand on the half-destroyed bookshelf, she vaulted over the rubble that blockaded the destroyed storefront. Her landing was less than perfect, far from the confident, smooth side-roll onto her feet she'd imagined, Liz's body slammed hard against the linoleum floor, her left shoulder taking the lion's share of the impact and causing another wave of pain to flood Elizabeth's still-sore body. She bit back a grunt -Elizabeth didn't know if anyone was here- and pushed herself up to investigate the store.

Her first observation was right, the store was still mostly full. Everything that could be used as a weapon or eaten or used to create a fire may have been long since scavenged, but there were still plenty of tools and other extremely useful bits 'n' bobs.

Ducking down back into a crouch, Liz systematically checks every part of the store, underneath the register, in the backroom, and under the shelves. Once satisfied, she pulled off the canvas backpack she'd brought along from the safe house and pulled it open. Not knowing how much time she had before being discovered, Elizabeth began grabbing things from the shelves -not even really caring if they were items she'd ventured out into danger to collect in the first place. Oh, she put the lubrication, tubes of rubber insulation, coolant, compression and oil control rings all went in first, but Liz also crammed just about everything else she could get her hands on in the bag as well.

She didn't know if any of it would be useful, but she also didn't know that it wouldn't be either. And Elizabeth wasn't going to take that chance.

"Umpf!" Liz hauled the bag back up, sliding her arms through the straps and clipping it around her chest to distribute the weight.

"That is going to slow you down," Booker commented. "You should ditch everything you don't need and travel light."

"This coming from the man who looted everything in sight and shoved every abandoned hot dog around down his gullet?" she grunted back, trying unsuccessfully to shift the bag into a more comfortable position.

"You still don't know how you'll get back, do you?"

"Nope," Elizabeth said. "I've been thinking about it though... If I can create a distraction for the splicers, I can draw them away from the elevator shaft and use that to climb back up. Maybe I could even get it working again, at least temporarily."

At her words, Booker clicked his tongue and looked around the store. Smile playing on his lips, he said, "A lot of chemicals have been left lying around here, someone could do a lot of damage with them."

"Yeah, they really could," Liz echoed, an identical smirk growing on her face.

She really was her father's daughter.

A fundamental truth of chemistry is that, if you try hard enough, everything blows up. You can make a self-lighting Molotov cocktail with three simple, inexpensive ingredients: Potassium, sulfur... and normal household sugar. With the right knowledge, just about anything found in a kitchen could be turned into a deadly weapon.

So, in a mostly-full hardware store, there was little Elizabeth could not create.

Truthfully, it isn't that hard to create a bomb. A switch here, a coil there, throw in a flammable liquid, and BOOM!

What was really hard is making a bomb that is loud enough to the attention of hoards of insane, blood-thirsty attackers while also not being incredibly deadly or damaging to the structures around it.

Keeping that in mind, Elizabeth ended up with a bizarre, half-noisemaker and half-flash grenade creation. It was an ugly thing, but, considering she wasn't going for aesthetics, that was fine.

"Even if this works, you're going to need to move fast," Booker said.

"I know," Liz shrugged. "Alright, let's do this."