The world around Atlas flashed violently.

There was no sense of up, nor down, and every time Atlas thought he understood where he might be or what was happening, the world would twist again. Throwing him like a ragdoll through a space he couldn't comprehend.

Something like wind roared in his ears. Not so much caused by air rushing past his ears, but as though there were a great building pressure that mounted around him. Heavier and heavier, looking for a breaking point.

Once found, Atlas felt his body jerk. Being pulled back with a violent force as he was thrown yet again.

Not knowing where he was, not knowing what was going on, Atlas tried to open his eyes but there was only that blue. Everywhere. Like he had stepped into one of those memories that plagued him and had been swallowed up by it. Rendered no more real or present than those ghosts had been.

And in the colour and screaming in his ears, there were moments.

Little scenes snatched from time that he knew would be another memory if only he could focus on any one for long enough to let it play out in full. If those memories were his or Rapture's, it was impossible to say. But snippets of them reached him all the same and once again he became a voyeur to time.

His back struck a solid surface, the ground. Prying his eyes open again Atls found himself in a dimly lit, smoke hazed room. Somewhere homely, orange lights inside that did not match the neon hues Rapture lit up with beyond this private room's doors. It was a familiar place to him, but Atlas couldn't remember when he'd ever been here.

In this private room, he saw Fontaine and another man. The later was impressive in size and awkwardly smiling with the former tyrant as he said something Atlas couldn't hear.

Both had a glass in hand and when Fontaine laughed, the brute by his side laughed as well with no hint of fear. Laughing because he was amused, not because he was terrified of what a powerful man like Fontaine might do.

Comfortable. Safe. Not afraid of Fontaine in the slightest. Maybe it was because he was built like a big daddy himself or perhaps it was because, under that coarse shell, Atlas knew undoubtedly that man was soft like anyone else. And in that softness there was affection for the smaller, more vicious man.

Someone close to Fontaine…?

Before the thought could settle, the memory was ripped away from him along with the location as a whole. His body dragged back into the mess of black and blue as he was thrown again.

This time, Atlas knew what was happening. Sinclair and Fontaine's discussion on plasmids coming to mind.

He'd grabbed the bottle that they'd been discussing and while he had no idea how this was the reaction to that, Atlas did not doubt that the plasmid was teleport and the cause of this. That plasmid inside that flashing bottle unstable, at a guess.

Teleportation. It took him to different places and his fractured mind did the rest, attaching memories to each one as he landed but they all went too fast to fully catch. Leaving him reeling.

Now as to make it stop he didn't have the foggiest and the ADAM made nightmare tossed him around like he weighed nothing, blasting him right into another location.

Rather than controlling a plasmid himself, it threw him around like a rag doll and all Atlas could do was hope that when it stopped for a moment he would be able to take control of the situation again.

It was his shoulder that struck this time. It hurt no less.

Atlas vaguely recognised it as Arcadia, the thing he struck a tree and up above he could hear the crackle and pop of fireworks. In the tea garden, two women enjoyed the music at new years. A private moment between the two, hand in hand and dancing together.

It was nothing he had any right to witness but still he caught a gentle whisper shared between them under the sweet music of Arcadia at new years, "Don't tell a soul."

And Atlas was taken away again.

Tossed back to the ground, he saw an artist's study. A home that was probably an apartment in the upscale parts of Rapture. Not Mercury suits by any stretch, but it wasn't the slums either. It was lived in, warm.

Among the musty books a young lad, with his back to Atlas, was chattering away to another man who held a paintbrush in one hand with the other planted on his hip, an enduring smile for the avid talker.

Dazedly, Atlas thought he recognised the young man's voice and instinctively tried to reach out for him. Only for the unstable teleportation to steal him away from a moment a third time.

Thrown again. A wall this time.

Before he'd even had a chance to stop his vision from spinning, Atlas recognised Sinclair's fleeting laughter.

Saw only a glimpse of him with a women and man in his company. Jaclyn he knew, the other he struggled to recall. That sense of knowing nagged at him and before he could dwell on it, he was pulled away again. Given less time than the last. Each new location was given to him for a shorter time.

Again and again.

Thrown down in a new place, dragged away just as quickly. Names flashing through his head fasted than the memories, both his and others, could settle.

Sinclair, Tenenbaum, Ryan, Reggie, Jaclyn, Edmund, Johnny, Walter, Charlotte-

Faster and faster, he couldn't catch enough of any single memory. He was pulled and tossed, beaten black and blue, but unable to garner any new information. Just the need to make it stop, stop, stop!

And it did.

Sharply, suddenly. It halted.

Left where it dropped him, Atlas lay prone and panting on the ground. Disoriented, Atlas struggled to rise, body too weak and laden to go anywhere at first. But the memory of times long lost went on around him not stopping to let him catch his breath.

This time the voices he heard were both familiar and came through crystal clear to him.

"You push too much!" A sharp woman's voice registered in his ears. Tenenbaum, younger. "Expect too much from such a small creature." She was angry. That he was used to but Atlas couldn't move to see who she was angry at. Could only just make out her form across the room from him.

"You're the miracle worker here, doc. So you better start working some damn miracles." Fontaine's voice cut in, just as biting at Tenenbaum's. Letting him know the source of Tenenbaum's anger. "That kid is going to be on that sub out of here by the end of the damn week or you can kiss your entire set up here goodbye!"

"Why do you demand these limits?" Tenenbaum asked, exasperated and cornered. Looking for some rationality from a totally unreasonable source. "The boy grows at an acceptable rate, stable, reliable, why rush-"

"Do I fucking pay you to ask questions?" Fontaine snapped back and even where he was left prone on the ground, Atlas was fairly sure he could see how Tenenbaum fought down the desire to say that yes, part of her job was to ask questions. But smartly kept those remarks to herself.

"One week." Fontaine reiterated darkly. "If you can't do it, then I get someone that can."

The conversation was over just like that and as Fontaine's ghost stalked away from Tenenbaum's, leaving hers to fade away, it remained solid. Walking right past Atlas and vanishing from view, but not before Atlas heard him snarl.

"Can't push this appointment back any further...fuck….fuck."

The edge to Fontaine's words was not one of anger and yet Atlas wasn't sure if he could apply the word 'fear' to the man either.

This time when he was pulled away, Atlas was a bit more prepared for it.

His weight was thrown into that blue space again but he recognised it better now. It did not feel unlike that darkness he first awoke in before the Vita-Chamber dumped him back out. The biggest differences was just that there was more in here. The roaring in his head, the flashes of light, the confusion - but the weightlessness was the same and slowly Atlas found some form of footing in there.

Enough that when it spat him out again, he did not strike the ground but instead landed on his feet. With an unbalanced, inelegant stumble, but on his feet none the less. The ground solid beneath his feet and Atlas let out a haggard breath of relief before looking up to see where the plasmid had brought him now.

He had never seen this place before… and it was real.

It was now.

Atlas stood in a child's room. At least that's what he believed it to be.

At his back was the familiar landscape of Rapture, falling apart and leaking at the seams, just as he knew it, through shields of glass. But inwards, there was a room that seemed to be designed for a single child. Children's building blocks left scattered around, soft and safe carpet, toys, drawings on the walls.

A little girl's room...

And there. At the centre was the girl herself. Asleep and alone, she curled up tight and it looked to him, as though the cold had nothing to do with her shivering.

Atlas stared and he barely even had to look at the height chart etched into the doorframe with her name upon it, to know that this was Eleanor.

Delta's little girl was here. Alive.

However, when Atlas attempted to step towards her, the blue leapt back up around him again and he was once again pulled away. This time he tried harder to fight it and go back, but he was not in control here. Not yet.

Flung backwards Atlas felt the air get punched from his lungs again and what small balance he'd found previous was lost all over again. Violently this time he was hurled back and striking the ground twice before his back hit a wall and he was left there to gasp and heave, seeking out his footing again.

No memories this time.

Confused, Atlas looked up slowly. His body ached but his attention stayed focused on the memory he expected to find. Every other location struck him with something and he expected this to be no different. Atlas sought out the memory he hadn't yet heard.

Instead what he saw - was the plasmid.

The bottle sat on a stone pedestal, it was lit by a single light. The only light.

Everything else was dark. Atlas himself stood just beyond the point of visibility, staring in at the small illuminated space. A chill met his spine and Atlas was hit with the urge to not look behind him. To keep his eyes on the plasmid and nowhere else. Like monsters might lurk in the dark corners he couldn't see through.

Around the pedestal, there were posed statues. All looking to the plasmid. Taking photos, fawning over it, but never moving. The sight of them uneased Atlas. Expecting any moment one might twitch, and give itself away as alive.

Cohen made statues out of people. Everyone that knew anything of substance about Cohen knew that. So to think that these might have once been people - it was no great comfort to Atlas.

Very slowly Atlas pushed himself forward, gasping and momentarily staggering as the nausea from each tumble set in when he finally tried moving himself. But he stayed firmly in this place. No more being dragged or thrown.

Given time to breathe and now the plasmid was stationary. Once again lying in wait, Atlas was free to gather his wits before approaching.

In the dark he heard each footstep. The water came up to his ankle, and every splash sounded deafening in this silence. It felt disconnected from the rest of the world. Like nothing else could reach this place.

It was eerie and Atlas felt his skin crawl every second her was here, but he knew that he needed to grab that plasmid again. Afraid that if he lingered too long it might flash out of existence and leave him here in this place to wither away with the statues.

But as he stepped into the light, past the posed photographers and between the presenters that proudly delighted over the plasmid, Atlas could not help but hesitate.

His outstretched fingers flinching back just inches from the bottle he'd tried to collect.

Just touching this thing had nearly torn him right out of reality the first time. Just when he thought perhaps he had some sense of grounding, it was ripped away again by some fucking plasmid that left his dazed and off balance.

He felt lost. Less like himself. Atlas didn't want to play these game anymore. He wanted to be himself again. To no longer wonder about who he was doing or why he thought the things he did.

"Home." He whispered sharply. "Back home and then that's it."

The words were meant for himself, but when he touched the bottle's surface again, the message seemed to have been adopted by the plasmid as well.

This time when the blue light rushed over him, Atlas didn't fall.

He stood still, not needing to shift an inch as the world warped around him and left him untouched. It was as though he'd gone nowhere at all at first and then, through the blue haze, he could see...the surface.

The blue he was seeing was the sky.

Unable to breathe nor look away, Atlas could only stare through the image. There was no sunlight on his skin, no sound of birds or cool breeze - but he could see the sky.

And beneath that sky…

"Kid?"

Atlas swore he saw Jack there.

Standing out on the grass, not looking at him but still in that ridiculous sweater that he'd grown into. Atlas would know him anywhere no matter how long it had been or how he might have changed.

He knew his kid no matter where they were.

Atlas tried to reach out with the hand that didn't hold the teleport plasmid bottle, but it was all for naught. Just as quickly as the image of the surface was given to him it was snatched away again.

Violent once more, the air was stolen from Atlas and he hit the ground for one final time. Hard and sharp, he struck the ground and let out a grunt of pain followed by some pathetic wheezing attempts to get air back into his bruised lungs.

Confusion forgotten, Atlas became angry.

The teleport plasmid was still in his hand. Glowing a steady blue now. As though it had never been flashing sporadically through all the colours Atlas could name, almost innocently so, and Atlas became infuriated by the sight of it. Throwing the bottle across the room before thinking better of it.

"Home!" He screamed after it as the bottle hit the ground with a dull thunk and, mercifully, did not shatter. "I said home you useless piece of shit! Why did you drop me back here? Back in this fucking place!"

Rolling sluggishly to a halt the plasmid remained inactive. Glowing away like any other plasmid would. Causing no problems, vanishing nowhere. Having gotten it out of its system he supposed.

Atlas needed a few seconds to just breathe. Fingers reaching up to fist in his hair as he curled in on himself, biting down the urge to scream. There was only so much one man could be expected to endure, wasn't there? He was reaching his wits end.

For a moment he'd been so sure he saw Jack. The surface. But maybe he was truly just insane and that entire thing had been nothing more than an illusion.

But...no. That couldn't be right. He had certainly not imagined being chucked through time and space by that teleport plasmid, he had the aching bones and blooming bruises to prove as such.

Slowly Atlas uncurled his fingers, noting the floor he was on was not the same as the marketing department. Sitting up he saw the plasmid had brought him somewhere new yet again, but he recognised this as still being a part of Fontaine Futuristics.

Looking up, Atlas found himself sitting squarely before the office of Frank Fontaine.

Kneeling there he looked up, shadow of Fontaine's trademark stuffed bear looming over him, feeling almost more lost than before. The world around him was quiet, the doors behind him closed and the rest of Rapture busy falling apart at its own pace while he sat there in shock.

Off to his right was a portrait. The Fontaine Family it was titled, but looking at it Atlas couldn't figure out who 'Fontaine' was in that image. Fontaine had no children of his own, nor a wife.

So who was he in that painting? The child?

Seemed overly sentimental for a man like that. If Fontaine had a family to begin with, he certainly didn't give a damn about them.

What did Frank Fontaine care about family anyway?

Gradually Atlas gathered himself up off the ground. Eyes lingering on the portrait of the family he didn't believe in before finally dropping to the plasmid he'd thrown. It didn't so much as brighten its glow when he picked it up now. Sitting in his palm, innocent and still.

This was the last stop, huh?

But no memory played. No ghosts showed. There was nothing here but Atlas and a big empty office.

Finally Atlas drew in a full breath. Eyes shut as he took a few seconds to try and put himself back together. He still had a job to do. Couldn't stop so suddenly. So he slipped the new plasmid into his bag, vowing he wasn't going to use it, but unwilling to abandon something so significant for some other splicer to happen across.

Though he did wonder why no one else had snatched it before him. It certainly hadn't been hidden. Maybe no one else had survived the trip through Rapture it had dragged him into. Fair enough.

Without meaning to, the first thing Atlas did was approach that portrait that so irked him. He'd barely finished in his approach when he caught sight of something that lifted his mood somewhat. A nice, momentary distraction.

"The signal relay!"

Atlas was filled with delight as he laid eyes on the device. Finally some good news.

But even as he grinned and approached the relay, those memories he'd seen kept pulling at his thoughts. Weighing him down bit by bit.

Those ghosts still danced in his head, laughter he knew, people he'd forgotten and Fontaine's snarled orders, it all kept looping. Unable to be processed because Atlas simply wouldn't allow himself to do so. Scared of what might happen if he slowed down long enough to think about it all.

So he took the signal relay into his hands and with one flare of incenterate fried it between his palms with a vindictive sneer.

Then he waited.

A breath taken as he waited for Alex to appear and say something about what he'd done. To kick up a fuss, bitch and moan - improve Atlas's mood a bit more with a drop in Alex's own.

But nothing. Atlas waited a little longer but no annoying little bot came bustling in and no voice made its appearance over the radio. Alex made no show at all and Atlas's skin crawled a bit. Wondering where he could possibly be.

What would distract Alex from something like this?

Finally, Atlas sighed.

His smoking hands dropped away from the busted device and he was left standing in this massive, somewhat pointlessly extravagant office. Alone again.

"Maybe I should check in." Atlas muttered to himself, reaching for his radio.

He had been talking to Sinclair just moments ago hadn't he? How had that conversation ended? He'd heard Sinclair calling his name, hadn't he?

"Sinclair? Hey, I got a signal relay down. Any ideas on where that last one might be?"

Static.

He got nothing in return but static.

Frowning, Atlas stepped away from both portrait and destroyed device. Moving back into the shadow of the stuffed bear while his eyes stayed on the radio before him.

"Ah...Sinclair, you there?" Had they not just made a truce?

More static.

A cold dread came creeping down Atlas's spine as he walked to the other side of the room and, oh lord have mercy, there was a whole array of drinks to choose from. There was no shame to be felt when Atlas went straight over to them, picking through the bottles and finding every single one of them to be a little gold send.

Say what you will about Fontaine but his taste in liquor was unmatched.

Although the boar head he'd mounted up on the wall above him was a little bit grotesque. Atlas wasn't surprised at all, given the man's habit of keeping stuffed bears around. Still, it could put a man off his drink having that thing just sitting above him.

Atlas plucked up a bottle of whisky while trying just again to get some sort of response.

"Tenenbaum, what about you? Anyone home?"

No answer. Just more static.

"Delta?" He tried instead. An edge creeping into his voice that he tried to deny hearing.

The bottle of scotch in his hand was not the distraction he desired. Atlas had not even been able to open it. Unable to pretend even to himself that he was not getting anxious.

"Anyone alive out there?" He tried just once more and once again, got nothing in return.

"Shit."

Cursing, Atlas put the bottle right back down, forgetting it in a heartbeat.

He had to find Delta. Maybe something went wrong with the radios. Wouldn't be shocked after he'd just been tossed through the entirety of Rapture as best he could tell.

It would be okay. He just had to get back to them.

Hurrying, Atlas made for the door. Thinking that if he really wanted to save time he could always take a short cut by falling through the patches of missing floor on the main second floor landing.

The door was was begin difficult to open. His hands were cold, making his fingers numb and heavy. Hard to use. The door shouldn't need opening at all, everything in Rapture was automated unless locked down by security. But Atlas had stopped to fumble with the keycode. Trying to find the right numbers.

Why did he think it was a good idea to guess the right comination?

He'd never be able to get it, but he simply began to push the buttons without question-

But everything was okay. He'd hunt Delta down, likely be scolded for some nonsense or another and then they'd move on.

His arms were cold. His chest was cold. His head hurt. The radio was still making that awful racket. He couldn't seem to focus long enough to turn it off.

They'd welcome him back. It was okay.

They'd avoid splitting up again. Toss this broken radio. And that static would go away.

Everything would be fine after he got to Delta. Everything would go as planned from there. Eleanore, the surface, Jack. God, he'd actually get to see the kid again. He had so much he wanted to tell him, so much he never took the time to say when they were down here.

He'd done so much talking to Jack but never said anything that important to him. He wanted to change that. To actually hold a conversation this time.

They...had never really shared a conversation had they? Atlas didn't know why, couldn't remember as the chill inched up his throat and stilled his fingers on the numbers - but Jack had never spoken a word.

So how was it that Atlas knew his name?

It was then the static spoke to him. "Don't you get it?" It asked him and the chill became unbearable. "You're not actually alive."

The static spoke to him.

The static….

No.

No, it didn't. Atlas had said that.

Through the static, over it. His lips moved and the sound came from him in a voice not his own.

Scared, Atlas stumbled back away from the door. His bag was dropped and forgotten along with the radio at his feet as he continued to back up. Trying to get away from the screeching static the radio produced.

But the voice got no quieter as it came from his own tongue.

"Starting to show your cracks huh, Fontaine- No, no stop it. God- fuck stop!"

And in his head it all mashed together, too much too fast.

"Just don't be letting the con slip away from you, Frankie..." A memory murmured in concern and he wanted to cling to it. To ask it not to leave this time, he couldn't let go yet. His family.

"Known you since you were knee high, boss. If that ain't family..." Another memory told him, steadying, comforting. Forgiving and final. Ready to let go before him. His friend.

"My work is second to none and my silence affordable, sir. You will not regret coming to a real doctor." A final memory. When he was preparing to let go. His choice.

"Make no mistake, Atlas. You are a tyrant." He hadn't been able to fight Lamb then, and he could not now as the words echoed in his head. His guilt.

"My Moira…Well she might be a pretty fantasy but there was a truth behind her. Amazing – you managed to kill her twice." His own voice snarled in his ears. Unable to let go just yet. His mistakes.

And the voice that was and, was also not, his own screamed, "Stop it! Just let me out!"

In answer a memory whispered. "Gotten a bit too lost in 'Fontaine', have you?"

And his eyes opened again.

Sharp, sudden, his eyes snapped open and before him the office was unchanged but appeared to be wholly different to him now.

The picture to his right - a fabrication there'd initially been delight and mockery in. That stuffed monster at the head of the office - a trophy to lord over Ryan. It was familiar to him. A stage he knew how to perform in.

Home.

The memories screaming in his head no longer ached. The voices he heard had names and lies attached to them that he knew better than he knew himself.

Reggie, loyal to a fault and speaking to him the final time they'd ever seen each other. Jaclyn to him many days before with her own lie for a name that he'd come to so despise.

And his own lies speaking back to him in an accent he was never born with.

He had practiced that voice.

He'd practiced to play the part of a revolutionary, because he was not.

Because Atlas wasn't real.

And he never had been.