December 23, 1912
"It's time…"
Abigail smiles as she marches through the factory, heading for where her squad's cargo barge is docked. Everything's just as the memories of Booker's had shown her; the sky is filled with dark clouds; Comstock's airship, the Hand of the Prophet, is docked about Comstock House; and the Vox Populi under Preston Downs are preparing to launch an all-out assault on Comstock and the Founders.
Ever since Abigail learned of the restricted wing in the asylum of Comstock House, she's been looking for a way in there and planning accordingly. But no matter how much she'd planned and how much she'd tried to dig up any more information on the place, Abigail just couldn't see an infiltration of Comstock House succeeding.
"But it's another story now, ain't it?" Chuckling as she rounds a corner and the barge comes into view, Abigail shifts the weight on her shoulder before picking up her pace; today is the day Booker should be returning from the future, and by the time he and Elizabeth will have escaped Comstock House, the Founder forces there should be in shambles. And her squad's been ready for this for weeks now.
Stepping out onto the loading dock, Abigail grins as her squad mates call out greetings; they've all grown stronger and closer since the squad came together in July. "Even me…" Abigail chuckles as she steps to the edge of the dock; she'd gotten pretty good with the sword she now wears slung across her back. She still wears her uniform as it had been after that fateful day in July; her left hand ungloved, the strip of red canvas wrapped several times around her arm, and the mask and headgear is long gone. Running her bare fingers through her long, loose red hair as she takes a breath to steady herself, Abigail steps onto the swaying barge with a grin on her lips, "Alright, let's get goin'-"
"Now just hold up there, little lady!"
"Ah, hell…" Turning back towards the direction of the voice, Abigail's already grimacing before she even lays eyes on the man who'd shouted after her, "What do ya' want, Downs?"
"Sound like little miss Songbird here's getting a mite peckish!" Stepping out onto the loading dock with four of his men flanking him, Preston E. Downs marches towards Abigail and her squad, the bright red streak of paint across his blue uniform standing out in the gloomy evening, "I've been getting my boys ready to storm Comstock House and scalp that bastard Prophet, and what do I hear? Your little band of lily-livered cowards ain't fixing to help! Now why is that, huh?"
"We ain't helpin' ya', Downs, 'cause it's a damn fool idea. Killin' the Prophet might hurt the Founders, but it won't stop 'em. An' if you're goin' after the Lamb, you'll have a different sort of Songbird ta' deal with."
Abigail glares back at Downs as the rest of her squad turns towards the one-time big game hunter; she's not about to throw any of her comrades against Booker and Elizabeth, and she isn't going to send her people on a suicide mission, either.
"You think I won't take offense to your tone, little lady? Huh?"
"Yeah?" Abigail's hand is on the grip of her Hand Cannon in a second, the young redhead flexing her ungloved left hand should she suddenly have pressing need of a Vigor. And from the corner of her eyes, Abigail can tell the rest of her squad's in a similar state of readiness. "I don't think ya' thought this one through, Downs, unless you're hidin' a Handyman around here."
Both Abigail and Downs fall silent, the man glowering up at her while his men fidget; for all his bluster and bravado, Downs has never been on the front lines, and neither have his bodyguards. On the other hand, Abigail and her squad see combat on a regular basis, against both the Founders and occasionally a Vox squad, for one reason or the other. And as the silence stretches on to a full minute, Downs backs down and turns back to the factory.
"Alright… c'mon, let's get goin'! Gotta make up the time we lost!"
With that, the barge pulls away from the factory, Vivian at the helm while Abigail briefs the rest of the squad. The plan is fairly simple, and Vivian already knows the details.
"Once the Hand of the Prophet takes off an' flies away from Comstock House, we're gonna fly up our selves ta' the upper levels an' break in." Explaining to her squad as the barge dips down into cloud cover, Abigail shivers at the sudden cold mist surrounding her. "An'… an' we're lookin' for an elevator in Comstock's quarters, somewhere near 'nough that he can get ta' easy. And as usual, don't hurt anybody unless they're pointin' a gun at ya'. Hear me?"
Her squad mates murmur in assent, and Abigail grins; these people had been there from the start, and she really doesn't need to say that last part. While none of them are bleeding hearts, they all disagreed with the direction the Vox had been going. "Good. We're stayin' outta sight, so it'll be a while till we get to Comstock House."
The squad members disperse after that, killing time in whatever way each of them prefers. Left to her own devices, Abigail wanders over to the front of the barge's cabin and takes a seat, her back to the wall.
"Abby, don't worry; this'll work."
"Thanks, Viv." Smiling as she looks up to find her friend peeking out the still broken window, Abigail heaves a deep, weary sigh; Vivian became second in command of the squad, her time in the Columbian military helping them all out more than once. Aside from her own Hand Cannon, Vivian also packs a nasty surprise for anyone who wishes them ill; she'd been the first of the squad aside from Abigail to imbibe a Vigor, and now the brunette can launch any unfortunate fool who gets to close into the air thanks to Bucking Bronco, especially useful when she needs to stop an advance.
Turning her gaze to the next nearest of her squad mates, Abigail grins as she peers at a young, dark-skinned girl; Mattie came to Columbia with her family from Georgia, she just old enough at the time to be deemed acceptable by Fink. Now, she wears a bandana over her short, black hair and an eye patch over her left eye; nobody's quite sure why she wears it, both because the girl's a quiet one and her eye's fine so far as they can tell. But she's also a crack shot with her Bird's Eye rifle, and she'd found an Undertow Vigor to further keep people at a distance.
Next is their Chinaman medic, Wei; he'd made damn sure all of them knew his name is spelled 'Wei' rather than 'Way'. He's an educated young man with dark hair, a little older than Abigail, but he's more comfortable with a first aid kit than a weapon; he carries a Broadsider but rarely uses it.
"And he butts heads a lot with our next man..." Turning her gaze to the prow, Abigail stares at the back of the older man standing there; though he'd given them his name, nobody could pronounce it right, so they'd settled on using his initials, "Yu… guess it's better than when we thought it was Uy." The man had been a soldier in the Imperial Japanese Army, and he carries a sword on his belt; he'd been the one to teach Abigail how to use her own sword, though the weapons are very different beasts. Once he'd warmed up to the rest of them, of course. The man prefers his sword in combat, and once he got his hands on a Charge Vigor, 'Yu' only brought his Burstgun on especially dangerous missions like this one.
"And finally we have Sean…" Abigail shakes her head; the boy's actually a little younger than she is, and his disheveled mop of brown hair makes him look even younger. He even looks a little too thin to be a soldier, but the boy's a decent scout and isn't too bad with a Repeater. Then they learned of his affinity for disarming explosives, and in a fit of irony, he'd showed them a flaming ball of Devil's Kiss that same day. "Wait… hey, Sean! What're ya' readin'?"
"Huh? Oh, this?" The young Irish boy holds up a red book of some sorts, "I found it up in Worker's Induction… won't believe it, but this' supposed ta' be Lady Comstock's diary!"
That draws a murmur for the others, and Abigail climbs to her feet, "Anythin' interesting 'in there?" Not that Abigail really needs to ask.
"Nothin' yet. Just a lot of lady talk…"
"Sean, it ain't polite ta' snoop in a lady's diary, 'specially a dead one." Coming to a stop beside Sean, Abigail snatches the book away, "Maybe I'll give it back to ya' when you're older." And she silently adds, "Might be good ta' hold on ta' this for later…"
"Aww… alright, Abigail…"
"Last thing I need is more questions…" Muttering to herself as she returns to sit against the cabin and tuck the journal into her uniform, Abigail heaves a quiet sigh; it's been a rough month, ever since Monument Island.
Shortly after his so-called 'victory' at Monument Tower, Downs began to move against his rivals, sending squads to eliminate the other faction leaders. While he'd struck at most of them at the same time in the hopes that the remainder would fall in line, he'd made a mistake; several of the leaders survived and struck back, and the factions who lost their leaders split up and joined the others. And Abigail stayed out of it, her group seen as the 'weakest', and a lot of the dispossessed Vox found that joining her people seemed to be the safest option.
"Downs has the biggest chunk of the Vox Populi, but he needs a win… like takin' out Comstock." Groaning, Abigail shakes her head; it's going to be a civil war should Downs go after her people, the 'peaceful' faction she leads having swelled in numbers till they were nearly as large as Downs' army. And with the half dozen remaining factions biding their time, who knows how this powder keg will go off.
"We're here."
"Alright…" Blinking in surprise at the sound of Vivian's voice, Abigail looks up through the clouds they hide in to see the underside of Comstock House; the trip here was supposed to take half an hour, she must've gotten lost in thought. "Hey… isn't that…?"
"Comstock's flagship." 'Yu' answers, his thick accent identifying him as the speaker.
"It's taking off…" Mattie's quiet voice follows, the girl unslinging her Bird's Eye slowly.
"Then it's time ta' go." Nodding, Abigail turns to Vivian after a moment, "Take us up, nice an' slow."
"Aye, Abby." A smile tugs at Vivian's lips as she pulls on one of the controls.
As they rise, things go about as smoothly as Abigail had figured; no gunships come screaming out of nowhere to intercept them, and no alarms start blaring as they approach their target. Only the impassive faces of the three Founding Fathers greet them, and Vivian quickly streets the barge towards the back of Comstock House.
"Look!"
"Huh? What is it, Wei?" Young Sean brushes his hair from his eyes as Wei points, and Abigail looks in the direction he's indicating.
"Oh no…" What she spies draws a grimace across the young Vox's features, though she knew it was coming. A gunship just took off from Comstock House and is in pursuit of the Hand of the Prophet, the small hovercraft being chased by both Founder and Vox gunships alike. The distinctive hoot the Vox gunships make are especially unnerving.
"Must be the False Shepherd and the Lamb up there." 'Yu' mutters, and everyone aside from Abigail and Vivian nod in agreement; there's still hard feeling on the rest of her squad's part over Daisy's death, and Abigail only managed to explain what had happened to Vivian. But the gunship disappears into the clouds, and Abigail and her squad's ascent goes unchallenged. Even when they pull up to a window at the uppermost level of Comstock House there isn't so much as an alarm, 'Yu' and Sean shooting it out.
"Fan out an' look for that elevator. It might be hidden, so keep a sharp eye out!" Barking orders once the squad's jumped through the window, Abigail draws her Hand Cannon and peers around the room they find themselves in, "Sean, you want ta' stay on lookout up there?"
"Alright, Abigail." Sean's voice comes from the barge still, the boy usually the last to jump, "Guess I'm still up here anyway…"
"Thanks a lot, kid." Chuckling as she turns away from the floor to ceiling window, Abigail focuses on the task at hand.
The squad looks to be in a study of some sort, shelves of books lining the walls and a roaring fireplace stands at the back of the room. An ornate, solid desk sits between the squad and the door, and a golden statue of Comstock stands in the corner nearby. The place is decadently lavish, much like the homes in Emporia but even more so. It looks even fancier than Fink's was, and that's saying something. "C'mon, let's move…" Forcing her attention from her surroundings, Abigail makes for the only door out of this place and leaves the shattered window and cargo barge behind.
Spreading out through the home of Zachary H. Comstock, Abigail and her squad search every room they come across; dining room, bedroom, bathrooms, den, prayer room, the study they were first in and even a closet by a gold-trimmed elevator. This isn't what she's looking for; this elevator goes down to many floors but not all the way down to the asylum, and Abigail doubts the Prophet would've had an elevator installed in secret and a hurry to allow anyone else access.
"Abigail… can you come here for a moment?"
"Viv? What is it?" But Vivian just disappears back into the bedroom, Abigail following a moment later, "What?"
"Look at this." Waving her over, Abigail's friend kneels by a large armoire before motioning for her to do the same, Vivian points at something on the floor, "That doesn't look like it belongs, huh?"
"Huh…" Focusing on the spot Vivian's pointing to, Abigail raises an eyebrow in mild surprise; there's a pair of long, old scratches in the polished wooden floor, leading up to the legs of the armoire. "I thought we checked this one already?"
"We did, there's nothing inside but clothes…" Nodding, Vivian stands and stretches her back before looking back to Abigail.
"Okay…" Breathing a sigh, Abigail gives the scratches one more look; they look covered in an ever so thin layer of dust, the armoire probably having not been moved anytime recently. "Let's get this thing out of the way… 'Yu'! Come over here an' help!"
A couple minutes later and the armoire is pushed aside, and in the wall the piece of furniture had been hiding stands an elevator for all to see. It looks to be made like all the other elevators in Columbia, and the doors slide open the moment Abigail pushes the button.
"Good…" Stepping inside, Abigail finds there's only a single button, unlike the other elevator in the Prophet's home. Holstering her weapon, Abigail turns to her squad mates with a smile, "Keep this place secure; I'm goin' down alone. Only come down if there's an emergency." She hits the button the moment she's finished and despite the protests of her squad mates, the doors closing quickly and much to her relief, "Sorry friends… but this is somethin' I have ta' do on my own." All of her squad mates know that she's searching for someone, but she has yet to tell any of them who, even Vivian; how can she explain she's looking for another Lamb?
"I'd sound like a lunatic, that's how it'd go." Resting against the decorated wall, Abigail lets her mind wander as the burgundy wood and metal elevator car slowly descends. She'd turned nineteen only a couple days ago, though she'd gladly let the event pass without any mention; Abigail had been too intent on today to care much. Yet, she's the 'by default' leader of a faction within an otherwise violent group of revolutionaries, and now she's breaking into one of the most heavily guarded places in all of Columbia.
"Sounds ridiculous, too…" Bringing a hand up, Abigail brushes the back of her hand against the scar running down the right side of her face; the scar helps to make her look older than she is, a boon when dealing with the others in the Vox Populi . She'd gotten this far on resolve and no small amount of advice from her friends and the Luteces, the peculiar twins visiting her on occasion, but she's still learning as she goes.
"I wonder what my life woulda been like if my Da an' Ma never came ta' Columbia…" That brings a grin to her lips, but Abigail doesn't have time to contemplate anymore; the elevator doors open to reveal a dark, gloomy hallway, the place barely lit enough to see clearly.
Stepping out into the murky darkness, Abigail draws her Hand Cannon again as she peers around the hallway; there are well over a dozen doors lining both sides of the restricted wing of the asylum, all of them looking like the security doors in Monument Tower, but with small, eye level windows built into them and a wide, shuttered slot near the bottom.
But what catches her eye the most is a door off to the left of the elevator, at the far end of the hallway. While still a secure door made of dark steel, the small rectangular window of the others is replaced by a large round one, and the frame is decorated by the same sort of wood as in the elevator and a pair of Columbian angel statues standing on either side. Light streams from the window, brightening the gloom at the hallway's end.
"That's gotta be it…" Advancing slowly, careful so as not to make any noise, Abigail follows the wall the elevator's built into while keeping her weapon raised last thing she needs right now is to be jumped by guards, soldiers or whatever inmates are kept in this place. But as she goes, something from the corner of her eye stops her dead in her tracks.
Through the glass in the asylum door Abigail sees a mass of dark… something, sitting in the middle of the empty room. But it doesn't take long for the young redhead to realize what dark mass is; feathers, raven black and covering someone like a blanket. And that someone starts to move.
"Oh… oh hell…" She can't get the words out, the thing on the other side of the door from her standing slowly and turning to stare back at her; it used to be a man, but his body has patches of black feathers growing of him. The rest of the black feather 'blanket' falls to the ground in clumps, probably having been shed from the creature's body and used like a nest. His nails are long black hooks that Abigail's all too familiar with, and his eyes are that of a crows; brown surrounding a black bead in the center. As she watches it in horror, the monster opens its mouth and lets loose a piercing, wailing caw.
Abigail falls away in a panic as black crows slam into the door, the cawing, clawing birds seeming to come from nowhere. "Hell's bells! What… what was that?!" The thought of that birdman sends a shudder down Abigail's spine, and just as she's horrified by the creature's appearance, she's equally sure she knows what it is. "A Murder of Crows test subject…?"
Pushing herself up and away from the door and the cawing, screaming thing within, Abigail hurries down the hallway even as she fights to keep a feeling of nausea from overwhelming her. But the nausea is soon accompanied by a growing sense of dread as her mind starts to turn from the horrific thing she just saw to the rest of her surroundings; each of these doors must hold another creature like the birdman, more mutated test subjects. Just like the Splicers her other self had only heard tell of.
"Why would they keep her down here…?" A grimace touches her features as she turns her attention back down the hallway, "Why would Comstock an' his scientists keep Elizabeth down here… with these things?" Running now, Abigail keeps to the center of the hallway, wanting nothing to do with any of the horrors that might be behind these doors. The young woman still has to fight to keep the nausea and her lunch down, the sense of dread spurring her on. The seconds feel like ages until her foot kicks something on the floor.
"Huh? What's this… a voxophone?" The voice recorder skids a little away from her foot as Abigail comes to a stop, the young redhead staring at the voxophone for a moment. Reaching for the recorder hesitantly, Abigail picks up the voxophone and starts slowly down the hallway again as she hits the play button.
The voxophone comes to life, a voice filling the dark asylum wing. "Dr. Pettifog, July 7, 1912. We've received the specimen and have begun treating her in the manner we've prepared in the eventuality that she should prove uncooperative. But in the past 36 hours that we've had her, the specimen has proven to be far more resilient than we estimated; though we continue to use the Siphon and administer electric shocks whenever she tries to alter the state of things, the specimen seems to be testing how far we will go and how much she can take. She's managed to dislodge several of the electrodes in her latest attempt, and we were forced to sedate her. I fear it is becoming inevitable that something drastic may occur, and the only question may be on whose part will it be; ours, or the Lamb's?"
Dropping the voxophone as it finishes playing, Abigail's mood darkens, the redhead frowning as the mention of the missing Elizabeth's 'conditioning' reminds her of the six months of hell Booker's Elizabeth suffered through. "Bastard! Soundin' so… so calm when he's talkin' about torturin' the girl…" Kicking the voxophone so it slides down the hallway, Abigail lets out a low, angry growl. But there's little she can do, Elizabeth having already made her escape with Booker's help, and the voxophone still doesn't shed light on what truly happened to the missing Elizabeth.
"Elizabeth…?" Stepping up to the door and between the angel statues flanking it, Abigail rests her ungloved hand on the cool metal doorframe and takes a deep breath; she's nervous now, the dread, nausea and anger from before taking a backseat as her nerves start acting up. It takes her a second to work up the courage to peer into the glass viewport.
Peering through the circular glass window, Abigail blinks as her eyes adjust to the light; while the rest of the closed off wing is suffused with shadows and murky darkness, the place beyond this decorated security door is anything but. Warm, soft light fills the room, and Abigail can only stare once her eyes have adjusted to the light enough to see.
Beyond the door lies a room that looks like it'd been spirited away from the lavish home of the Prophet and cast down into this pit of an asylum. The walls are paneled in rich brown wood, upon which paintings of landscapes and still lifes hang; there's even a painting of the Eiffel Tower hanging between two depictions of a sunset in Columbia.
The floors are carpeted wall to wall, a deep shade of green and looking both soft and comfortable. For a moment, Abigail fancies it looks like a field of grass, but she quickly shakes the thought from her head.
The room itself stretches past the bounds of the window to the left, and Abigail spies a chair and phonograph sitting in the back right corner across from her place at the door. But it looks unused, the phonograph and a small stack of records bearing a layer of dust visible even from where Abigail stands.
While the lavish but slightly unused looking room has much for her to focus on, it's what she notices at the very edge of the viewport that causes Abigail's breath to catch in her throat; the footboard of a bed stands there, carved of dark wood with a pair of columns rising from the ends. The columns support another piece of dark wood overhead, a cover that stretches past Abigail's field of view.
"Is it…?" But even as she tries to angle herself to peer deeper into the room, Abigail hears a metallic 'click' from behind her, and the hairs on the back of her neck begin to stand on end.
Whirling about, Abigail grits her teeth as she peers back into the darkness; she can't make out the person standing in the hallway, she can only see the barrel of the gun pointed at her as she brings up her Hand Cannon and left hand. And the barrel suddenly flashes, illuminating the hand and face of the wielder for the briefest of moments.
Author's Note: Well, here we are. Abigail's in the depths of Comstock House while Booker and Elizabeth are off facing Comstock on his airship. Is this world's missing Elizabeth on the other side of that door, and why is she there? Well, I'll leave that to your imagination for now. And sorry for the delay, my work schedule this week hasn't been the best.
Now, about the test subject in the asylum cell; between the whole 10x ADAM and mention of Fink working out the kinks, I figured the result would be much like a Splicer, like the Frosty Splicer in BaS.
I'll be cleaning up the chapter and looking for problems later, as usual. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'm also not quite pleased with the title, and may change it.