Chapter 23- Epiphany

The third-class train compartments on the trip to Epimetheus Park were jammed packed. An inattentive man kept poking Lupe with the end of a curtain rod and had she not specifically been trying to keep a low profile she would have told him off loudly for his carelessness. But she didn't want to attract attention, especially not from the police.

For the past few nights she had been having trouble sleeping. Her mind would snap right back to the cell at the police station – the drip of water, the coldness of the bars, the panic and fear that she'd be left to rot in the bowels of Rapture. It was such a relief to hear Richard breathe next to her. He will protect me, she told her over and over again.

Once she banished that particular mental caterpillar chewing on her subconscious her thoughts turned to Helena. Where had she gone? Was she still in Rapture? The police had led her to believe that they didn't know anything, but then again police lied all the time. Maybe they had her in prison and were trying to get Lupe to incriminate herself for plotting to escape as well? Or maybe Helena was already on the surface and trying to get help but no one believed her? The more Lupe thought about it the more likely that seemed. They probably laughed her out of the OSS office. A city at the bottom of the ocean. Madness. Impossible. Nothing about it is believable.

She could get her own fear and anxiety out of her mind, but not her concern over Helena's fate. She did that burglary for me just as much for her. Lupe had to see if there was anything that Helena had left behind as a clue or hint to her plans. She owed it to her. So on her day off Lupe returned to the last place she had seen Helena.

In a burgundy red skirt and grey sweater Lupe certainly hoped she wasn't going to turn any heads. She had rolled up her hair and pinned it neatly at the back of her head and wore a navy blue beret. She was very unnoticeable, very regular, just the sort of person who lived in Epimetheus Park.

She tried to retrace the steps that Helena had taken last time there were there, but Lupe had never had a great sense of direction and was soon wandering around the narrow passageways that counted as streets. This looks familiar. Or does it? Lupe recognized the handwritten cardboard sign for Madame Mimi's shop. If nothing else maybe she can give me directions.

The small window next to the door had been boarded up. Lupe thought for a second that maybe Mimi had gone out of business, but the door opened as normal and a bell rang out. Mimi, who had been hanging up some lacy underthings, turned at the sound.

"Good afterno-oh, oh it's you. Oh doll, I'm sorry, but they threatened to destroy my shop, they broke my window, I'm sorry I didn't have a choice in the matter!"

Lupe was taken aback. "What, um, sorry about what exactly?"

"Some of Ryan's goons came sniffing around here a few days ago, those gangsters they call security. Looking for Helena, they found receipts from my shop in her room, I don't know a thing, I don't, they wanted something, anything, so I told them her friend had come in here. I'm sorry, they were going to confiscate everything. I had to throw them on your trail."

Lupe sighed. "They arrested me. My boss got me out though, he yelled at them or something and they let me go. Oh, also I didn't do anything and they have no evidence of anything either."

"I'm sorry, I really I am." Mimi apologized. "But if I lost my shop, well, it's been a long time since I've been in the trade and my hinges are probably rusted shut by this point. I feel awful, let me give you something, on the house, to make up for it, hm?"

Free anything in Rapture was rarer than hen's teeth so Lupe believed that Mimi truly felt bad about it. She probably would have done the same anyway. She nodded. "Alright. Water under the bridge, yeah?"

"Thank you doll, that's a load off my mind. Let's get you something good, hm? How did your young mister like the Venus balls?"

Lupe was impressed by her memory. "Quite a bit. I liked them too, to be honest." She hesitated before asking her next question. "Richard, um, he, I, don't know how to phrase this…" she trailed off as she lost her courage.

Mimi chuckled to herself. "There's nothing you can tell me that will shock me. Just spit it out girl."

"I don't want you to think ill of him, please understand, he's a very sweet man, he's kinder to me than anyone has ever been. He's not cruel at all-"

"He likes to smack you around a bit during sex," Mimi deduced.

Lupe reddened slightly at the bluntness of it in a non-sexual context, but nodded. "And, um, other things."

"He likes to tie you up?" Mimi guessed.

Lupe nodded again, relieved she didn't need to say it out loud. "How did you know?"

"Bless your heart, you think you're the first girl this has happened to. It's more common than white on rice. Men who likes to smack also like to tie up, generally speaking. Let me guess, he likes you to either ask for his peckerwood or for you to say 'no no, I'm a good girl, please don't put your peckerwood in me' or something like that?"

"Um, the former, yes. Is it really that common?" Lupe was stunned that this was not unusual. As far as she had imagined it was something she and Richard had discovered on their own like sexual scientists.

"I always kept on staff a few girls who specialized in it. Course some men fancy it the other way around so I had some girls for that." Mimi went to a cabinet on the wall. "I've got something for you here, it may not look like much but believe me, it's a lifesaver. My rope girls would get their wrists and ankles all red and sore and scratchy from a session so I came up with my safety rope."

Mimi took something out of a basin in the cabinet. She handed Lupe a coil of seemingly normal-looking hemp rope, but when Lupe touched it felt smooth and even a little bit oily. "It's so soft," she said in surprise. "What did you do to it?"

"Business secret." Mimi sighed sadly. "That's why I came here. I have a lot of these little tricks and inventions, but I can't tell this stuff on land. I got popped by the cops more than once for selling 'illicit materials'. I just wanted to make a living off my inventions and help make life easier for working girls."

"I wanted to be an artist," Lupe said flatly. "So did Helena. And now she's a criminal, I guess."

Mimi closed the cabinet. "It's a shame about her, isn't it? She had the potential to make some big bucks down here too. Business-minded. Wasn't afraid to work hard."

Lupe tucked the coil of rope into her purse. Mimi was now rooting around in an adjacent cabinet. "Here, take this too," she said as she pushed a hefty unlabeled jar of pale yellow ointment into Lupe's hands. "In case he wants to use something other than the rope I gave you. It'll heal up scrapes and redness toot sweet."

"Thank you. I'll make good use of it."

"No hard feelings?"

Lupe shook her head. She had much bigger things to worry about. "I'll be back once my young mister gives me more to work with." Considering that Mimi did already talk to the security force Lupe wasn't about to tell her that she was sniffing around for Helena.

Lupe's bag was now pretty heavy. A nice long hot soak in my young misters bath when I get back I think, she thought while trying to locate The Octopus Arms. She wasn't going to bother looking there, of course, the security force would have already searched, but Lupe was fairly confident she could find her way back to the warehouse she and Helena had talked in. If Helena had left her a message of any kind, it make sense for it to be there.

It was all beginning to look familiar. Yes, I remember this, the store with the armless mannequin, so right around the corner…there was the Octopus Arms. A ragpicker was rummaging through a trash can in the front and Lupe made sure to avoid eye contact as she walked past. I'm not here. She wound her way through the alleys as she had done a few weeks ago with Helena. Okay, this sign that misspells 'trespassing'… I don't remember this ornate gate…I must have taken a wrong turn…oh no, this isn't right at all…Lupe confidence began to flag. It's foolish anyway, why would she have left me something there?

She was just about to give up when she spied a familiar-looking barrel – it was painted bright red and had a symbol for the fire department on it. Those were relatively rare, at least in Epimetheus Park because fire services were on a subscription model and few business down here bothered to pay for the possibility that they may need firefighters. It's a gunpowder company, that's why, Lupe realized with a start. Oh goodness! That's a poor idea, having a gunpowder manufacturer a few blocks from residential buildings and regular shops!

Lupe quickly found the warehouse, suddenly eager to get out of Epimetheus Park sooner rather than later, lest a stray ember from a cigarette blow them all to Kingdom Come. Not that God would be particularly happy to see me right now, I'd imagine. Lupe frowned to herself. I'll go straight, just give me some time. Don't blow me up yet.

A furtive glance around her assured Lupe that she was alone. She half-hoped that the door would be firmly locked so she could run back home to Adranos Place, which had a far less likely chance of exploding. But not completely null. I suppose there could be a gunpowder manufacturer there if it was deemed to be profitable. Lupe shuddered involuntarily. Come back fast, Helena, and get me out of here.

But the door opened, relatively smoothly. "Hello?" Lupe softly called into the warehouse. Why would I be here? "I'm looking for…James. Does he work here?"

There was no answer so she took a tentative step into the warehouse. "Hello? James?" What rotten luck it would be for someone named James to work here. She called out a few times and no one answered. Emboldened, Lupe ran up the steps to the little office and opened the door expectantly.

The furniture had been rearranged and there was a disassembled small engine on the table. Lupe speedily searched the room, but with each passing second it was obvious that there were no secret messages left behind for her. Why would there be? Lupe was forced to realize with bleak acceptance.

Lupe turned to go but the sound of the door opening below her made her freeze in place.

"Curtis, you knucklehead, you forgot to lock up again," someone called out.

"Aw, gimme a break, huh? You're the one who told me to get my ass down to the station as fast as possible," Curtis retorted.

"These parts are hard to get and I didn't want them to get scooped up from under me again," the other voice argued. "Lewis wants that engine back on the mill by Saturday at the latest, I'm not going to explain to him that we got outbid on the parts."

Lupe's eyes fell onto the small engine carefully laid out on the table. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Now would be a good time to make my exit. She hastened to the window and slide it open.

"You hear something upstairs?" called out one of the voices beneath her feet.

Making sure that she had a good grip on her bag, Lupe squirmed through the small window feet first. Footsteps came bounding up the stairs as Lupe found her footing on the thankfully gently inclined roof.

"Hey, hey you, get back here!"

Lupe scampered off and ran to the edge of the roof. Behind her she could hear Curtis and the other one shouting that she was a thief. Her heart was hammering in her chest as she scuttled across the tarpaper. She climbed down onto a pile of crates, stumbled a little bit, and ran off as fast as could.

She nearly ran smack into a cartload of raw fish and once she regained her composure from that she bumped into a strikingly tall man carrying a carpet. She ducked under the rolled up carpet and ran pell-mell down a narrow alley where hopefully two men wouldn't be able to fit side by side.

How can this place be so big? Epimetheus Park was a virtual warren of narrow alleys. Twist here, turn there…Lupe's disorientation overcame her fear of the chase. She came to a stop at the intersection of three equally crooked alleyways and spun around, trying to generate some sense of north or south, or up or down, or where she had been opposed to where she hadn't. This damned place! No sun, no moon, only man! She stamped her feet in frustration.

"You lost sister?"

Lupe shook her head. She knew better than to react to the threatening stranger's voice. Instead, she walked as calmly as possible down an alley at random, but began to pick up her pace as she heard (or thought she heard) footsteps following her. She ducked into a small courtyard, which was packed with crates and barrels. Lupe hid behind one of the larger crates until she was certain she wasn't being followed.

I've lived in Adranos Place for only a month, have I really gotten so soft and naïve since then? She was trembling and took several deep breathes to steady herself. I'm being foolish. It was foolish to come back here. It was foolish to sneak into that office. It's foolish to think that Helena will save me. That final realization was a kick in the gut, but once she accepted it a stream of epiphanies erupted in her. The smugglers make their money only because Rapture is a secret. They will not take her to the surface because they will not risk ruining this business model.

Tears began to leak out of her eyes as Lupe came to a final, horrifying conclusion. Helena must be dead. The smugglers took her money and killed her! Oh, Merciful Mother above! Why didn't I figure this out sooner! I could have warned here! Lupe sunk down the muck encrusted paving stones and sobbed as silently as she could. I could have stopped her! It makes so much sense now! I'm so stupid! I should have seen this before now!

Lupe's tears and self-recrimination continued unabated for the better part of an hour. I'm sorry Helena, I'm sorry, she kept repeating in her head on a seemingly endless loop. I'm so sorry. She tried to convince herself that maybe Helena wasn't dead, maybe she had gotten away, but she saw it all so clearly in her mind's eye – Helena meeting them in a darkened room, her handing over the cash, and then a dagger plunged into her back. Or they strangled her. Or-

"Stop thinking," Lupe whispered to herself. It didn't matter exactly how. She didn't want to know anyway. The initial shock and horror had drained from her and she wiped her tears away. She sighed sadly and put her hands down on the hemp tarp next to her. It felt weirdly squishy, weird enough to distract her from her misery.

It felt almost like a body – almost, but not quite. It was too bumpy and…Lupe frowned. It was wrong in a way she couldn't articular. She turned her head and stared at the tarp. It stank powerfully, but she had been so preoccupied for the last hour she only noticed it now.

It was very dim in the cramped courtyard, but as she slowly peeled the canvas tarp back she felt the bile rise in her as she beheld the abomination. The thing under the tarp was nearly unidentifiable, but if she had to make an educated guess it was, or more correctly had been, a large fish. But it was covered in grotesque misshapen lumps and tumors that bulged with festering ooze, and its fins had morphed into spiney and jagged protrusions. Its eyes were segmented like those of an insect, and its mouth was too large for its head. The more Lupe looked at the monstrosity, the more she found wrong with it.

She noticed another tarp behind it and, unable to contain her morbid curiosity, slowly peeled back the canvas as well. This one was a lobster with at least twenty more legs than a lobster should have and bizarre greenish fluid crusted around its exoskeleton. Lupe anxiously peered into a bucket and saw an eldritch mishmash of oyster shells and slimy rotting goo. The smell coming from this was so unholy she gagged and stood up.

Lupe tried to take a breath of relatively clean air, but she got another mouthful of the foul scent of the oysters and started to cough violently. I've got to get out of here, I've got to-

The door to the attached building opened. "What are you doing here?"

Lupe froze. She recognized that voice. The German woman from the Medical Pavilion, the one who had referred to Richard as a subject. Lupe coughed again to give herself time to think.

"James sent me," she wheezed out.

The woman stared at her but didn't seem to doubt the authenticity of her statement. For the life of her Lupe could not remember her name in the moment, only that she had done something to Richard. Something awful.

"Who is James?" There was only curiosity in her voice, no suspicion.

Lupe coughed again to buy more time. "Sorry, it smells real bad out here," she blustered why trying to figure out who James was. "The landlord, James, he sent me. I'm his wife. He sent me to pick up something that was delivered here. Some mail. James sent me to pick up some mail. He's busy."

The woman shrugged and walked back into the building, leaving the door open behind her. Lupe hesitated. Whatever was inside this building was unlikely to be pleasant, but Lupe could not ignore the serendipity of this situation. This woman knew something about the slug inside Richard. And it was a suitable distraction from Helena.

Lupe stepped into the surprisingly well-lit building. It was a relatively small space that stank of salt water and chemicals and something that had recently been burned. Dozens of metal trays held sickly white pieces of flesh or stripped bones or scales or organs. Labeled vials of blood were lined up on shelves next to notebooks. A huge tank held a dozen or so of the strange little slugs. Despite all of the odd and horrific things in the makeshift laboratory, Lupe stared at the rather mundane-looking slugs. They were almost as long as her forearm, blackish grey, with iridescent spots on the side. The slug's mouth was unnervingly large, but then again Lupe was not familiar enough with sea slugs to know if that was atypical.

"I do not know where your package is, have a look around for it," the woman flatly said and went back to dissecting a blob of unidentifiable organic matter on a stainless steel table in the middle of the laboratory.

"Are these your pets?" Lupe asked as casually as she could. Thankfully this woman avoided eye contact so it was not obvious that Lupe had spent the last hour weeping profusely.

"No."

Lupe began to walk around the room, pretending to search for a package. "They are very unusual creatures. What are you doing with them?" Why do you put them in people? What are you trying to do? Lupe resisted the urge to shake the woman and scream questions at her.

"They have…unusual properties." The woman didn't look up from her dissection, but Lupe caught a hint of pride in her voice. "But their properties are not fully understood. More time is needed, that is what he does not understand."

Lupe looked at the blob of oily-looking meat the woman was slicing up with a carving knife. "Does it…turn things into other things?" It was an awful idea, but she had to know what Richard was in store for. She had allowed her naiveite and foolishness to claim Helena, she wasn't going to bury her head in the sand anymore.

"Nothing is turned into something else. It only becomes a different version of itself. A better version? That is desirable. A worse version? That is more likely." The woman still didn't look at Lupe.

Whatever happened to those creatures outside, this woman did it with the slugs. "Goodness, how long does it take to turn these bad versions on?" Lupe hoped that the woman would not notice what a strangely specific question this was.

"It is quick. Days, a week at most, after the stimulant has been removed. The body can no longer function without the stimulant. It becomes unstable and can no longer sustain itself." The woman finally looked up. "I should not speak more on this."

Lupe nodded. Best to not push her luck any more than she already had. "Of course, I understand, it's just that it's all so, golly, well so interesting. I best get moving though, and leave you to your work." She turned and walked as quickly as she could to the door.

She was halfway there when the woman suddenly spoke. "Wait, do not go yet."

Lupe came to a halt. "Yes?" She's going to ask my name. I was asking too many questions. Should I run? Should I give her a fake name? What a name? Canasis? Larna? Lupe's overworked and emotional mind began to throw out ridiculous options.

"Do not forget your package. Check the drawer next to the sink, I sometimes place unnecessary items there." The steady slurping of metal sawing into flesh signaled that the woman had gone back to work.

"Right, of course, thank you," Lupe gushed. She went to the drawer and caught sight of a mass of purplish entrails in the sink. She tried to not think about it while looking through the drawer. "Oh, here it is," Lupe announced and took a small box from the drawer and hurriedly stuffed it into her purse.

Lupe wasted no time getting back to the door and sheepishly mumbled some thanks to the woman. I'm never coming back to this place again, she promised herself while keeping her eyes both downcast and on the lookout while making her way back to the train station. She tried not to think about Helena until she could have the luxury to cry in private