Atlas was jittery. He knew perfectly well that was anticipation, nothing to do with the injection he'd just taken. It never happened so quickly, but the nerves began all but immediately.
Already Atlas was trying to work around this unexpected diversion from their progress. Hopeful that perhaps they could get this over and done with before it really did kick in. Then find a nice quiet place to settle and wait it out. Surely Delta still had enough turrets and trap rivets to set up a safe zone. Granted Atlas didn't think they'd be using those to wait out the worst of a trip.
However, Delta was looking down at his hands intently, turning them over in a way that was confused. Atlas didn't understand the problem until Delta began poking around the needles again, just as baffled. Delta snorted quietly in amusement. Delta had no idea why the EDEN wasn't doing anything.
"Even with ADAM in it, the stuff isn't going to give you the kick for at least half an hour." Atlas assured Delta.
Naturally Atlas couldn't get a word in without someone else cutting in. "Give or take." The way Sinclair tacked that onto the end of Atlas's assurances that made the whole thing seem far less reliable. Prick.
A low groan of understanding came rumbling out of Delta along with a nod. Despite his size Atlas couldn't help but think he was some naive kid umming and ahhing and pretending to comprehend after having something explained to him by adults.
Setting the tray down carelessly, practically tossing it aside now it was useless, Delta went to turn and get back to it. Stanley buzzing in his ear as he did. "The worst part of Ava's parties is the splicing. She pays her informants in ADAM, Johnny. Two-faced gene traitors can't be trusted! I-I-I mean, who are you shaking hands with? The man or the habit?"
Uh-huh, so what did that make them? Atlas had decided that if Stanley wasn't jacked up on ADAM then he had to be on everything else under the sea to make up for all that contradictory crazy.
Keeping his scathing words to himself Atlas moved to follow after Delta, only for the radio at his side to speak up once again. "Say, Atlas." That sounded like Sinclair wanted something. Atlas prepared to say no out of spite, on principle. "There's something I want you to do while the chief goes and hunts down Stanley's 'breakthrough story'."
"And why would I be doing that?" Atlas challenged.
"Consider it a favour for old times sake." The answer was presented in a casual light, it was only because he knew Sinclair that he could hear the darker undertone to it. "I believe you owe me plenty after all the lives you lost."
Delta hadn't stopped walking and Atlas swore he could hear Tenebaum's voice faintly from his helmet. Sinclair was speaking only to him. He waited for Delta to be out of earshot. He did not fancy being separated but knew this to be a requirement. He was under no illusions at to how precarious his position was. Sinclair was the one pulling these strings, so best he listen when he said to. It did not mean he'd do so obediently.
The moment Delta stepped out the door Atlas tore the radio up from his side, vicious words on the tip of his tongue. "You want to start moralizing, Sinclair? You?" He snarled through the radio. "Now you listen real fucking close, Augustus. You can't hold one fucking life over my head. Not when you didn't do a damn thing for anyone other than yourself. Expressing guilt after the fact doesn't wash you clean of the act. The entire city is fucking dead – you can't put that on me."
"And yet here you are." Sinclair's answer was flat. Cold even. So unlike his usual jovial tone. Atlas knew this one a little better. He did not interrupt Sinclair contempt. "Alive above it all. Now I do wonder how you managed that? Oh, yes. That's right. Because you're standing on every other dead man's shoulders."
The anger came burning through Atlas, violent and nearly overwhelming. But is bubbled away in silence.
He thought of Moira when Sinclair said those words to him. Thought of men that died for him on his word, the son who trusted him. The family he'd lost and the memories he'd been robbed of.
"What do you want, Augustus?"The demand was low and unfriendly. A slow grind of words that would have been substituted for fists had he the chance.
"Glad to see we're on the same page, friend." The jovial tone had made a return and as expected it was as shallow and thinly veiled a distaste for Atlas as always. "An old competitor, a colleague I suppse, of mine was around these parts before things went under. Last I heard from her, she was holed up in the projector room. An air pocket after this section of park joined the rest of the flood supposedly."
There was a silence where Atlas waited for the actual favour to come into play. The silence persisted, stretching to an almost uncomfortable length – then he realized what it was Sinclair was asking but wouldn't say.
He wanted Atlas to look for this person.
As if sensing Atlas's judgment Sinclair went on. Heaven forbid someone think the best of him. "She was working on the Vita-Chambers around here – wouldn't tell me why mind you. Perhaps she'd be feeling a touch more conversational with you. Though I wouldn't place money on it. There might be some good in knowing what she was doing down here."
Atlas held his tongue, gaze dropping as he considered this request for a moment. He and Sinclair regrettably had a few names between them. Names that held some animosity. Sinclair had once told him, toward the end, that despite it all – he hadn't found blame in him for what had happened to those few they both knew that had died.
Apparently that sentiment had been retracted. Sinclair had formed a stronger bitterness towards him from the last time they met.
The entire fucking city is dead!
Once upon a time Sinclair had come to him with a different sort of request. Now he asked Atlas to look for a woman he knew, in the past he had asked that if he could, not to kill another he knew.
Present he agreed to try. Past he had failed to keep. "Fine." He answered flatly. Giving none of his thoughts to the other man. "But don't expect another single fucking favour from me." If this woman had worked on the Vita-Chambers then perhaps she'd have something to say on the matter of reanimation – something to tell him that others couldn't. It was barely a favour, just another step in the direction of answers.
Augustus took it all the same with a simple, somewhat snide response. "Duly noted, voice of the people."
Sinclair's voice fizzled out and Atlas looked upwards, towards the projector room. He didn't think that Sinclair thought truly for a moment this woman he was looking for would still be there. Perhaps it was a self punishment of sorts, to look despite knowing he'd find nothing.
Atlas supposed if given the chance he'd have gone back to the sunken submarine… just to let it truly sink in. To find nothing but the evidence of failure and loss and let it scar him.
But neither of them were sentimental men, at least willingly so. "Who am I looking for?" Atlas asked as he head for the stairs. Around him the theater changed from soaked to bone dry but no less ruined. As his foot left the final perilous and weakened softness and landed on a piece of solid land again he passed above where the water level had once reached.
Of all the name they have between them Atlas could only remember a handful well enough to place names and faces together. From what Sinclair had said he managed to clumsily sort through a few. Women, colleague, competitor – the weapon's dealer maybe? The banshee? Atlas could see one's face but not the other's. He tried to conjure up names to go with them but his mind kept him so firmly locked out it only caused his temples to ache.
When he reached the projector room he found it unlocked, why lock it when the water no doubt kept the whole thing closed off to danger? Briefly Atlas's mind flashed full of images of Alex's enormous mass and the thing that attacked his bathysphere. There were things to fear in the water besides sharks.
He hadn't gotten his answer by the time he opened up the door, a careful nudge forward as he peered into the room, wary of the people that might be left inside as opposed to the monster under the water.
It was eerily quiet inside the room. Too quiet.
"Sinclair?" Atlas asked again, expression twisting into one of irritation. He was doing the man a favour, least he could do was give him the right direction. To fill in some of the gaps in his memory. It occurred to Atlas only then but perhaps Sinclair could be convinced to fill in those gaps. He didn't think the kraut would give him anything…but the old businessman could be bargained with.
At his side the radio sparked. Crackled into life only to die in a low distorted shamble of sound. "The fuck…" Atlas growled under his breath, kicking the door open fully as he set the gun down and sought out the gurgling radio.
Why was this thing making such an unholy racket? Atlas looked it over, seeking out some damage he hadn't seen before or cause for the distortion, "What? You want batteries or something?" He demanded the little metal box in his hands but all he got was more static. Abruptly he longed for Sinclair's voice to come through that static again.
Instead what he got was the radio screaming at him.
The radio shrieked at him, getting louder till he had to drop the thing, eardrums splitting and screaming back in protest until he had to clap both hands over his head to try and keep it out. It didn't stay out. The screeching of the radio only got louder and louder until Atlas was forced to the ground. His knees hitting the floor with a bruising crack and his head pounding in his ears behind the ache of the sound piercing through him.
And under the static he swore he could hear everything else. Words that didn't make a lick of sense to him in the jumbled order that they came. Only one word seeming to stand out among the mess. He heard what he thought was his name. The only voice that seemed clear enough to understand. Sinclair calling him through the radio. Though the call was flat. Not one of anger or alarm – just a flat calm.
"Augustus..." Atlas tried to speak, to answer the voice he thought he understood through all that noise. Tried to ask him to make it fucking stop, to help him. But his voice was lost somewhere in the static, impossible to hear even in his own head.
Shut up. He wanted to scream back into that white noise. Shut up and stop trying to speak.
The static spoke back.
"Who else can you blame now?"
His eyes snapped open and when he looked at the world around him, Atlas did not recognize it. Everything around him looked off, tilted to the wrong side as it warped inward towards a point Atlas could never locate but always continued to shift. His ears still ringing with the sound he tried to find the radio again, tried to see through the haze all around him. To find the Rapture he knew, the monster he knew preferable to the one he did not.
What he found was the blue glow of a vita-chamber, the shine of a wrench by his hands on the bloodied ground and a woman. Body still and quiet among all the sound and movement, a thing that was left untouched by the chaos in Atlas's head. He recognized that woman too.
Gaps in his mind closing shut as they filled with the name and face he'd been unable to place.
The name seared itself back into his brain, one he recalled from the revolution. The words, 'arms dealer' passed through his head but rearranged themselves accordingly. 'Ally'. Then again they rearranged themselves, becoming a word colder than that. 'Useful'.
And in the gaps that had been welded shut in the correct form, Atlas's mind sprung forth, buzzing and clumsy as it patched the memory up. From the memory, ghosts were conjured.
From the still body Atlas's blurry vision watched as the image of the woman before death took form, crouched next to where her cold body now lay and as she'd always been in life, working. Arms soaked to the fingertips in oil, wrench in hand.
The apparition paid him now mind, the sound of her wrench pulling metal tight echoed as she tinkered under the machine above her. Focused on her work and not the eyes on her.
Blearily Atlas followed the ghostly figure up to the machine to see what it was that held every shred of her attention. A power to the people sat there just as cold and dead as the woman that worked away under it.
Atlas opened his mouth, tried to speak. "Val-" He managed before a stronger voice took over, silencing his own.
"Miss White."
A set of feet passed Atlas where he remained collapsed, unable to do much more than stare at the scene that surely happened over a decade ago. "How goes it?" A sharply accented voice asked in a façade of informality.
"It goes." The steely woman answered, the echo of a moment in history distorting a once strong voice. It echoed in and out of ghost, just as ethereal as the ghost herself. The man's remained untouched by the double trill of a ghostly memory.
Impatience bled into his voice. "I'm not seeing any magic." He accused and not a second later, as though purely to spite him, the power to the people lit up. Coming to life in a spark of gold. Yet, in the face of that perceived spite, the man smirked.
With a self-satisfied grunt, the woman shoved herself away from the machine she'd fixed to the wall and given life. "It goes." She repeated, a hint of smugness that was almost smothered under a heavy layer of resentment.
"That is does." The suit answered, haughtier than he was impressed. Proud of himself when he hadn't done the work.
The woman seemed less proud as she propped her arm up on her knee and looked back towards the machine she'd just set in place.
This was a machine she'd designed for a monster, all because he said it was 'for the people'. "Right up my ally this. 'A gun in every home, peace on every street,' wasn't it?" She echoed back the man's own sales pitched, not without a heavy dose of scrutiny. "Sound like a right load of horse-shit when it comes from ya." Yet she'd bought into it all the same.
"Well, at the very least it ought to rile Ryan." Fontaine remarked as he turned away from both the woman and machine. For a chilling second Atlas swore the ghost saw him when it sneered.
"Don't you think?"
A child screamed.
Abruptly the memory vanished, leaving only the lifeless body of the once sturdy woman and a child standing by her side, crying.
The ghosts had vanished so abruptly, fizzling out into nothingness once again, but Atlas's world had not stopped twisting. He couldn't find his balance, trying to get to his feet once again though his eyes did not leave the child.
A little sister, said his logic. Of course, it had to be a little sister, there were no other children left to cry in Rapture.
But as Atlas looked at her in that tattered red dress she seemed to…fall in and out of reality. The red dress turned mauve, tore a little more at the shoulders, then just as hastily snapped back to red before losing the shape all together, becoming a different garb entirely.
White shirt, white shorts, a little boy crying. Not a little sister, a little boy.
He fought harder to stand. Atlas's feet were unsteady, but he managed to take a step forward, the world nearly dipping where his foot connected with what he'd thought was solid ground.
Suddenly the crying stopped and the child that had been curled up with hands over his ears went still, hearing Atlas's movement over his own crying. Little, dirty fingers still fisted in a mop of blonde hair, Atlas swore he knew that form. No. He knew he recognised it. He did, he couldn't be wrong. There was no doubt in his mind. That was his kid.
Softly, Atlas tried again to speak. "…Patrick?"
Upon hearing the name the boy sprung upright faster than Atlas's warped vision could follow and darted around him. Instinctively Atlas reached for him, the boy's name on his tongue as he shouted after him. But the kid was too quick and Atlas had no choice but to force himself to run after them. His world only became less recognizable as he left the projection room. What had once been Rapture in decay was now Rapture in its prime. Beyond its prime.
Something right out of Cohen's books and surpassing his twisted idea of beauty. Every light in Rapture seemed to light the theater, small red petals passed by Atlas's head as he entered the animated theater.
There was a swell of music, bright and lively against the sound of many chattering voices. Voices that had no form to go with them, at least not at first.
As Atlas raced down the steps, more ghostly figures began to appear. They appeared nothing like the ghosts he'd encountered up those steps. Their forms clumsy, dripping and losing their detail every few seconds. Greyed out and as lifeless as the corpses they'd no doubt formed from.
Each one he nearly passed through turned to watch him, masks where their faces ought to have been. Each one started at him as he ran after the child and even though they had no eyes with which to judge him Atlas felt the weight of their stares resting heavy on his shoulders.
He didn't care about that, all he cared about was reaching his kid.
Again he tried to call for Patrick, to tell him to come back, but the words got caught in his throat as his weight abruptly fell out from under him.
The final step he'd placed his foot on had given away and while it looked perfectly sturdy to his eyes, it felt corroded, wet as he placed weight on it and collapsed under his weight, sending Atlas tumbling. He shouted out a curse as his burned shoulder struck the floor bellow, taking the brunt of the fall and all around him those faceless figures were still watching. Filling up the stage seats, they turned towards him and no longer spoke.
Their empty masks didn't hold his gaze. Neither did the brilliant golds and reds of the theater in a moment of blissful, impossible vibrancy. Not the music, or the incessant chatter of long gone voices – just his kid.
Looking up from where he'd struck the ground Atlas sought out that little form again and found the boy standing before the stage. Radiant lights from the screen falling down upon his tiny form, lighting up blonde curls as he stood quietly and looked upwards to the show. As if enraptured by something Atlas couldn't see.
Scrambling back to his feet Atlas continued to chase after the now stationary boy. "Boyo!" Atlas called before he reached his son, prompting the boy to begin to turn towards him.
He swore he caught a glimpse of blue eyes before his vision was cut off sharply, blocked not by a shadowy form of the ghosts, but by a very real figure. Atlas fell back out of reach just in time to see a long, unnaturally sharp limb come crashing down where his head would have been only second earlier had he not moved.
Heart hammering in his chest Atlas backtracked, fingers fumbling for the gun he'd so foolishly put back by his side. He hadn't wanted his son to see him holding a gun as he followed after him.
All the while the world still turned and the thing in front of him twisted along with it. Something whipped past his face, slashing a long cut against his cheek, Atlas cringed and jerked away from the thing only to see it was a ribbon. Nothing more than a long curling strip of red and as he followed its length it lead back to the looming body before him.
The creature that had separated him from the child was towering over him.
In a second Atlas took it in. The red his eyes had followed leading to streamed it clutched and had seemingly used to cut him. The jarring jingle of the bells dangling from the things mask had Atlas staring at it. Twisted body turned like a wire frame and large, bloodied, calloused fingers where each joint and knot in its hand had hardened, enlarged and inflamed till it looked painful.
The thing before him was a mess of colours, just as gold and red as the rest of the grotesque circus the theater had become. Its legs long and spindly passed up above Atlas's waist. He could not tell where the flesh began and ended, if the long pole like limbs were wooden at all or if it had all become flesh.
All of it an affront to Atlas's eyes.
And it laughed. Oh it laughed.
The beast cackled in a way that only barely resembled a human's giggling. Breathless, wheezing and at points shrieking as it drew its spear like leg back to its body where it hunched in on itself, supported only by one leg as the other had been used to strike a large hole in the ground. The thing had been aiming for Atlas.
Like the creature in the ocean, this one had once been human he was sure, but Atlas could find nothing human about it now. Not as its bones cracked and snapped into unnatural positions and it moved again.
Spider like and far too quick as it came at him again, the sound its long limbs made as it scuttled around was unpleasant, as though each step it took rearranged and contorted its bones. Each step leaving another hole in the soft ground beneath it.
Atlas leapt back, world curling in on him in that nauseating way, though it did not touch the mad jester's form. It continued to chase after him, wailing hicks and giggles growing louder as it hunted him down.
Impressively he refrained from cursing, fucking Rapture!
Again one lean, talon like leg came flying up and this time Atlas saw how it poised and prepared to strike him. It was quick, but an awkward creature. Each movement it made lacked subtly, giving Atlas more than enough time to guess its intent and aim. He darted aside the spear as it came racing down for his head yet again.
The spear missed but the red ribbons in those enlarged, knobbed fingers struck him again. Leaving another paper cut along his arm. It stung but it was little more than a distraction.
A way for the creature to hurt and drag prey's attention away from the real deadly weapon it possessed. Atlas hissed in pain but did not focus on that slashing ribbon, did not dare try to grab it, least it sever his fingers. Atlas let it fall away from him, harmless after the initial cut.
The jester shrieked, furious and deforming itself to turn in the limited space it had. Seeking out the prey that continued to skirt by it. While the thing repositioned itself Atlas had grasped his gun but his eyes caught on the child on the other side of the looming form.
There he was, curled on the ground, hands back in his hair and sobbing. Terrified.
Right. He thought violently. Enough of that.
Atlas looked up, took in the creature's movements and steeled himself again. Behind its smiling, clown mask, the creature was cackling again.
Jaw unhinged, dropping too far down to be obscured by even the full faced mask it wore. Atlas could see its jaggard teeth and hear how it wheezed and choked on it's own laughter. The spider like creature arched up again, spine curling back just a bit too far as it lifted the spear again.
This time he timed it better. Stayed as still as his nerves would allow, crouched and breathing hard through his mouth. The second that spear came hurtling down at him, Atlas kicked off the ground. Having to account for how the world had taken on a mind of its own, he managed to navigate the thing's legs.
Slipping under the first and between them until he'd darted behind the second, turning only for a second, taking his aim and focusing only on the creature's body, not allowing the ever warping theater to draw his eye.
Then he fired. A thunderous bang that he swore shattered the very air around him. The bullet flew from the mouth of the gun and Atlas saw the moment his aim rang true as the bullet tore through the jester's thin leg, right through its knee joint until it tore out the other side.
Screaming in rage the beast balanced itself on the one leg it had left, a high pitched keening wail dragging from its mouth. Mourning the leg it had lost in agony.
The pain kept it distracted only for seconds. Long enough that Atlas had nearly reached the shaking child.
Hands rushing out to see if he was okay only to be jerked back as something snared him. It took a moment for the pain to register as the red ribbons caught his arms, slicing into them as he was pulled back towards the still screeching beast.
Atlas grit his teeth, biting down a scream of his own as warm blood dripped from his cut up arms. He tried not to pull away despite his instincts screaming to do just that, knowing a struggled would hurt more as the ribbons would cut in deeper. He was caught in a spider's wed.
Despite this Atlas's eyes were forced back open as his kid screamed again and he saw more of the monster's red lines rushing towards him. That brought Atlas back to himself.
It brought him beyond himself until inside his own head he heard a shout of, Not a fucking chance, I won't stop here! I came too far for this!
When Atlas shouted, the sound came out as a roar that surprised even himself and both arms exploded into light. Atlas did not even know what he'd done until the wire like ribbons holding him burst into flames around him. Falling away uselessly as he burnt right through them.
His first thought was one of horrified understanding. Plasmid. His second was a more visceral, hateful thought. Kill it.
Before his mind could think too much of it and lose what little control he had, Atlas twisted once free of the restraints, hands still burning furiously and took aim for the creature again. Flinging one burning ball at it. He hit his mark in the adrenaline-fueled focus, fire exploding along the thing's mask, cracking and breaking it in places.
More importantly than all that as it fell back and the red wires were pulled away from his son. Leaving the child completely unharmed. Atlas wanted nothing more, even if the rage burning away in his chest said what he'd wanted most was to see the creature burn.
Screeching the perverse jester went down, flailing and screaming through broken teeth. Its entire weight when rushing down to the ground, unable to stand as its leg was rendered useless.
All its limbs twisted and pulled in different directions, looking for balance it could not find until finally the other leg snapped. It gave away under its own weight as the jester twisted but the spear remained firmly stuck in the ground. Leaving the creature hanging form its own kneed joints, still screaming.
But Atlas hadn't stopped.
That first spray of blood was enough for him, the moment he saw the jester begin to fall he'd turned. Closing the distance between himself and the child. Arms instinctively wrapping around their head, hands over the kid's ears. He cringed against the piercing shrill cry of the maimed creature, teeth grit as he tried to block it out but physically kept the sound from the child's ears.
Still it wailed. Louder and louder until Atlas could take it no more.
With one arm wrapped around the child's head, the other raised his gun once again, aiming for the gaping mouth under that mask as the downed animal screamed and squirmed pathetically. Two shots. The first ripped clean through its jaw and the scream became a gurgling, pleasant sound as it choked and wheezed. The second managed it, clean through it's head and out the other side.
Then silence. Blessed silence.
Panting heavily Atlas stared at the jester's body, not so much as a twitch from it after all that wild thrashing. The red ribbons that bore drops of his blood quietly landing around the corpse. The murmuring started again. Those hazy figures among the theater seats speaking between themselves in low whisper he didn't understand to be any language starting up again. They grew louder until there was a sound that felt crisp. Real.
Someone broke through the wordless mutterings with a clap.
Clap after clap, he was being applauded by someone. Slowly Atlas realised the sound was coming from above. He turned slightly, pulling the trembling child closer to his chest and still covering their ears as he looked to the stage. Up above, standing in the spotlight that had once held a simple tray of needles red – was a woman.
"Oh, darling. What a show!" She chimed, elated voice carrying too far for the breathy way it spoke.
While the figure above had changed plenty, the red clad form fit perfectly into the gap in Atlas's mind, no struggle to attache a name to this one.
He hadn't seen Ava-Marie Tate in years.
She still looked like a bitch.