Sorry for the long gap in updates. Been working on other projects.
Audio Diary updates:
The first casting call is wrapping up soon and hopefully the audio diaries will be getting recorded and polished up for release very soon.
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Alexander droned on his prerecorded messages as the facility slowly came back to life.
"Sophia and I knew that to create the first true utopian would come at a high cost my friend. We needed someone to be host to all that Adam raptures finest minds. A willing subject…That is to say, myself."
No sooner than the lights were switched on entirely, Alex was howling. Cursing Delta and writhing in his watery chamber. While Atlas strode up to Delta's side, expression decidedly unimpressed, he could feel how Delta squirmed beside him.
They'd seen plenty of awful things inside of Rapture but, Alex? Well Alex certainly was something else.
Fortunately Atlas had been prepared for the sight this time and took some pride in being able to say he didn't so much as flinch while Delta recoiled. Let the big lug think he wasn't as horrified by Alex as he was.
Gave him a little chuckle to be the only one with his wits about him for a change.
Unable to witness in person the raw emotions his abhorrent appearance inspired now, Alexander seems wholly aware of it as his escorting spoke on. "Whatever you may have seen inside the take that was Indeed me. And I fear the fate of Eleanor lamb will be less physical but no less grotesque."
Alexander confirmed it, but still some people seemed to struggle to accept that this thing in the tank was once the man that left those recordings for them. Sinclair among those people.
"That thing in there used to be a man…?" Sinclair sounded rightly horrified.
Atlas wasn't sure you could really call Alexander a man even in his prime.
Maybe in body he was, but there had to be a point at which someone became too immoral to be considered a man anymore. An animal maybe. A cockroach. Atlas definitely knew how that felt from a personal perspective.
Alexander didn't seem to think too highly of himself anymore. Neither the man he had been or the thing he had become.
Atlas listened with quiet detachment as he instructed them on how best to destroy him. He distantly thought he recognised that kind of resignation, maybe even desperation. Guiding someone else to kill him to escape the weight of his own sins. Sounded more familiar than Atlas would like to admit.
"This tank for deep sea life is the ideal way to dispose of me. You'll need to retrieve enough Adam infused plant life to lure me out. The slugs feed on the stuff and it's all I seem to want now. I have left a sample here so you know what to look for." Alexander's recording wound down and seemed to go quiet with the knowledge that someone would take care of the mess he'd made before losing his mind entirely.
Still Alex, as he was now, writhed and cursed at them, hurling insults and cries of insubordination at them. And Altas, of course, saw this as a wonderful opportunity to gain some personal closure through relentless mockery.
"Hey, ya big ugly squid." Atlas greeted with a wicked sneer. "Don't be getting so riled, we're here to grant your last request. Ain't that right, Delta?"
He could tell the big daddy was only just resisting the urge to give him a cuff around the ears.
But hell, a man had to draw his amusement from somewhere in this underwater hellscape. And if his amusement came from mocking Alex-The-God-Damn-Great, then that's exactly what he'd do.
"You!" Alex screamed, voice breaking and cracking along the radio lines. "This is all your fault!" He accused vehemently and Atlas shrugged.
"How do you figure?" He asked dryly. "Way I see it, I didn't put you in that tank. You got Lamb to thank for that. And the lights? Well, you - oh, so sorry - Alexander, told Delta there to do it. My hands are clean on this one."
For as jovial as his jeering came across, Atlas did gradually feel a familiar hatred seeping in. Anger so deeply ingrained in him he wasn't sure if it was his or Fontaine's anymore.
Not that it mattered. The anger came from different places, betrayal when thinking how quickly Gilbert had abandoned ship to Ryan's employment and seething loathing when he stood next to Delta - one of many Alexander had so callously killed in his own scientific way.
Regardless of which source he chose, he hated GilbertAlexander.
"So really. This is all your fault." Atlas finished, voice lowered and slowed and he glowered at the thing in the tank.
Watching as Alex squirmed and recoiled from the light. Finally shrinking out of sight and into the safety of the depths with one last pitiful cry.
"Damn you, Atlas." It croaked, while withdrawing into the darkness of the tank. "Damn you."
Atlas very nearly replied, damn us all.
How fortunate that Delta was not half as grim in humour or defeated in heart as his Irish companion. Stepping forward to scan over the control panel now that the lights were back on. He briefly paused on the specimen that Alexander had left them, but quickly returned to roaming over the controls.
Looking for something.
When he came up empty handed, Atlas saw Delta making a hand gesture right before his helmet. Communicating. He was more surprised than he should have been. Delta had to give his guiders some sense of what he was thinking and seeing after all.
What he was thinking now was that he wasn't seeing much of anything.
Over the radio, Sinclair sighed. "Yeah I thought about as much. Can't be making this easy for us now can they?" He groused, but just as quickly chirped back up. Taking on his more helpful tone. "Well, it's not as though the other override keys you've been huntin' haven't been difficult to nail down too. Genetically encoded keys are scary difficult to work around. No fuss, I know ya can manage it, sport."
Atlas saw Delta sag with a heavy sigh, yeah, he felt that too. Heaven forbid they just be left with the key to work with. Delta had been too hopeful, thinking he could just find one laying around at the control panel for them.
Even if they had, Atlas doubted Delta would leave without dealing with Alex.
Grumbling, Atlas started rifling through his bag, taking a knee to look around his supplies while Delta picked up the plant Alexander had laid out for them. Still dutifully listening to Sinclair instruct him.
"And unfortunately, to get to Lamb, you'll need one from ol' Gil in there. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to try fishin' around in his pockets. I think we're gonna have to print a new one from a sample of his DNA. Step one is to find those plants he left ya and lure him back out." Sinclair explained, never once breaking from his role as Delta's guidance.
Tenenbaum would occasionally break in of course - only to correct Sinclair here and there on certain moral points.
Though as of late she'd broken in less and less. Atlas was willing to put money on that being down to Sinclair needing course correction far less often than when they'd started. He kept that to himself.
He hadn't been there to see what Sinclair said and did when this little mission of theirs first started, but he could more than imagine how he'd have behaved. He'd known Sinclair too well when they were both on top of Rapture.
They'd fallen quite far, but it seemed that Sinclair had managed to find somewhere soft to land with Delta to help him.
So long as his secrets stayed secrets that was.
"Real shame we can't just go printing another one of those keys for Lamb. Would save us a whole lotta trouble getting the keys from her." Sinclair pondered with a light sigh. "Not like we could cut loose now even if we did o' course. Not with little Eleanor still out there."
At this, Atlas groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. Already needing to think about the quickest, safest way possible to lure Alexander back out with those plants.
"Genetically encoded, how fucking typical-" Atlas groused only to pause abruptly.
Mind sharply stalling on one point that Atlas himself would rather not dwindle on but is mind refused to let him move on from.
Ryan's key. The genetic key to Rapture. To all of it.
"Lamb has the key to Rapture?" He heard his own voice asking raggedly.
"How else do you think she's been running this sinkin' ship? Oh sure, she had a bunch of those faithful followers before this - the mad dogs they are - but the splicers? Need the keys for that party trick."
Atlas felt dizzy. A little sick even. "And that's what we need…"
It was barely even a question but Sinclair answered as though it were.
"No other way to get topside. Got control of all the goodies down here, heard her blow subs that tried to take off." There was a hitch in Sinclair's words and had Atlas not been so distracted by the sick feeling coiling in his stomach. "Heard her send off people to deal with any too curious subs…"
"Right. I hear ya, I hear ya…" Atlas mumbled, making a vague gesture with his hand that, even if Sinclair could see, would have convinced no one. "Just...need a second to think." Except, thinking was the exact last thing Atlas wanted to be doing. Diving back into his own thoughts more dangerous than stepping into the clear sights of a big daddy.
Better to just get on with it. Not stop long enough to get caught up in it all.
"Ay, Delta?" He called, tossing a glance up at the big daddy as he toyed with the plant in his hands.
The call seemed to take Delta off guard and those large gloved fingers squeezed a bit too tight. The plant squished in his hand, Delta jumped in alarm and only ended up squeezing it tighter in his panic.
God bless this boy. He had Atlas laughing again.
"Just the most delicate bull, aren't ya?" He teased and Delta seemed to huff before plopping the somewhat squished plant life back down onto the display panel. A touch embarrassed by the look of it. "Yeah, well," Atlas went on, "Try not to trample all over the other ones we get."
The fact that they'd be getting others left Atlas preemptively exhausted. Then again, that might just be his existing fatigue catching back up with him. No rest for the weary.
Standing back to his feet, bag carefully sealed back as best as it could be, Atlas's gaze caught on Alex's currently vacant tank. He couldn't help but wonder how much the disgusting sea creature would really struggle, given how desperate the sane man's actions had been. Desperate to die before the insanity took hold. Desperate, but still too great a coward to do it himself.
If he'd wanted so badly to be put out of his miserable existence, how much of a fight would he actually put up now? Insane or not.
But perhaps, it was not so much that Alex was insane - though that was irrefutably the case - but rather the creature that had slunk away form the light didn't retain a trace of Alexander. Truly its own grotesque person.
Well, Atlas had killed people who wanted to live all the same - no difference to him.
Sighing, Atlas rubbed the back of his neck with the hand not used to hold his pistol. Knowing that this place was no doubt crawling with things that were as unhindered by his desire to live as he was with theirs.
If it came down to him or them, then there was really no question as to who would be swallowing the bullet.
For what must have been the thousandth time, Atlas turned to Delta with those exhausted eyes of his and mustered up a 'what can you do' smile and shrug. "Should we get on with it?"
Their fatigue shared, Delta nodded slightly and Atlas replied with spinning the barrel of his gun. "Wonderful, I'll lead."
Might as well, he knew this place's schematics after all.
…
…
The testing chambers had fared about as well as he expected.
That is to say, not at all.
What wasn't flooded was blood coated or rusted beyond the point of salvageability. Large sections of the metal supports left exposed, only able to be walked over by the haphazardly tossed down planks of wood. Making sure they had to keep track of where they were placing their feet.
Even before the water began to leak in it had been a dreadful place.
Fontaine himself had visited less and less towards the end. Plenty of things hard warded him off, but mostly he had no need to keep up the visits after a certain point. Little sister production set in motion and no longer needing him to come an inspect the progress each week.
Then there was little Jack… Atlas tried not to think about the times Fontaine had gone to check up on that particular pet project. It was a bag of mixed emotions he didn't have time to unpack when crawling their way through the ruins of Fontaine Futuristics's labs.
Decaying, filthy, reeking of stale blood and no filled with ghosts no doubt - the facility had long since become unbearable to be in.
Oh. And it was crawling with splicers.
Of course it was.
Perhaps if their faces had not mutated so much Atlas might have recognised one or two among the remaining doctors and scientists. Unlikely, this place had been overtaken by Ryan's men once he stole it from Fontaine. Once a bargaining chip that had almost been handed back to him and the revolution - now a mass grave to Ryan's industry. Any faces he would have known were little more than traitorous rats that had jumped ship into Ryan's camp when Fontaine Futuristics got seized.
Atlas could respect that. He'd reward that survival instinct with a bullet.
And with Delta watching his back, that particular reward became an easy one to deal out.
Without the need to focus on what might be trying to sneak up on him, Atlas was free to go on the offence. Always knowing if Delta was there at his back by the tremors his every step caused at close proximity.
If he missed one, Delta was sure to clean up after him. A carefully aimed spear or drill at close quarters and it was a short lived scuffle for splicers stupid or suicidal enough to fling themselves into the fray.
It was unpleasant, gruesome work, but they weren't the ones coming after them with a blood lust. Delta would have sooner left them all to their business had he the option.
Again, Atlas was reminded of just how soft a soul Delta was, in one of those rare moments of calm when Delta stopped to observe the derelict testing chambers. Atlas was content to push on past the sordid past of facility, only knowing it from the outside, safely away from all experiments.
But when Delta stopped to look at the patient holding tables, Atlas knew he was remembering - however vaguely - what it was like to be on the inside of the facility. This place was no place for Delta to be. Atlas wished they hadn't been forced to come here.
Those examination tables looked more like tools of torture than any kind of medical device. One, an uninviting looking chair to be strapped into standard but no less eerie, but the second was designed to hold a subject upright. As though at any second someone might start flinging knives at it in some bizarre circus display.
Either side of the containment devices, screen continued to cycle through familiar propaganda. The kind they made for children.
And above first chair, emboldened in big, pitiless letters - 'Gather Candidate'.
How much larger those restraints looked now. Larger and cruller, knowing that it was sweet little girls that had been strapped into them.
Recently at that. This whole facility had been brought back to life by Lamb, no doubt at least a few little girls had been made into little sisters down here before Alex took control. The children that was snatched from the surface, dragged down here and made into monsters. The sheer unapologetic heartlessness of it struck a familiar cord with Atlas.
It was abhorrent enough that Ryan had torn children away from their families down here, that Fontaine had taken in the lost and needy and used them to further his ambitions - but to go that extra mile. To take from people that had never stepped foot in Rapture. It seemed a new level of cruelty, to snatch the unwilling away from the sun.
There Delta was, staring at it all. His gaze lingering on those restraints for children rather than the larger device that had 'Protector Candidate' hanging above it. Regardless of which horrible thing he started at, Delta seemed unable to tear himself away from it.
So it fell to Atlas to guide him back. Little more than a touch to his arm and a silent look. If it were encouragement to push on or comfort it was hard to say, but it was what Delta needed to get moving again.
Unfortunate that moving required that they get closer to those dreadful contraptions, because nestled between the two was one of the ADAM infused plants they needed. Atlas took the lead, as promised.
Stepping ahead of Delta so he need not get any closer. He didn't question Delta's reluctance to approach, couldn't begin to imagine what might be going through his head at that moment. But he knew what was going through his own. These plants were just another rung on the ladder to getting out of here. A step closer to Eleanor and maybe undoing the few horrors of this facility that they could.
"How many do you reckon we need, Sinclair?" Atlas asked into his radio as he plucked the plant up and cringed at the unnatural way it seemed to pulse in his hand.
"Do I look like the resident expert on what that thing eats?" Sinclair groused, but the heat behind the words was lighthearted. The sort of barbs born of exhaustion. Seemed they were all feeling it.
Tenenbaum broke in smoothly. "How fortunate, I am." She said calmly, though paused before adding, "Well, as much as one person may be. Bring no less than three back to the feeding chamber."
"Two more don't sound so bad." Atlas replied and then internally kicked himself for saying something so stupid. If it did turn out ot be 'so bad' then he'd have no one to blame but him and his big, stupid mouth.
Two more. Surely they could handle that.
As it turned out, the second one was easy enough to find. Easy in regards to how quickly they were able to locate it. Less easy was getting to it. Alex had set up turrets around the plant's location. A small lower level that had 'Pacification Chamber' hung above the stairwell down.
Seeing that, Atlas had given Delta sidelong glance. "Sit this one out, eh? Not much good to me if you're all dozy."
But apparently that had sounded too close to splitting up and Delta wasn't having it. Not after the last few times they'd been split up from one another.
Thus, they'd both descended into the chamber and, sure enough, the doors had closed up tight behind them.
Atlas managed to get half of a justified 'I told you so' barb out before he'd needed to focus on avoiding gunfire rather than tossing snide remarks at his big daddy companion. Delta didn't need to say it, Atlas could practically feel Delta screaming back at him 'I know, I know!' when getting clipped by a bullet from the turret.
Measly ammunition like that did little damage to Delta and when he rammed his drill into the poor turret, it was inescapably clear who was the superior gun here.
All in all, the second plant was an easy find and a slightly less easy grab. But when Delta picked it up with a definite huff of frustration, he at least managed not to crush it before they added it to their little collection kept in Atlas's bag.
One left.
This one was far harder to find. It required too much back-pedalling. Delta and Atlas roaming the floors of the ADAM Laboratories in search of the remaining flower. It meant they were in the testing chambers more than either would have liked and the sense of time running short was bearing down on both of them.
Delta became increasingly distressed as they ran short on places to check.
That distress showed in the way Delta began to stomp around and began upturning things that simply couldn't have been hiding the plant. They were large and not at all hard to spot. Atlas trailed a little behind Delta, looking around more carefully. He was calmer than Delta was, a more level head for a change. So he let Delta push on ahead and break things in his path while trying to do the thinking for both of them this time.
It was purely by accident that Atlas happened upon the third plant. Because he tripped on it. Almost literally.
Despite having been so careful with his footing in the beginning, minutes spent wandering around this awful place had him becoming too complacent and finally it caught up with him.
While walking over one of those unsafe, open areas of floor Atlas's foot caught on the edge of the carelessly placed wooden boards and he tripped forward onto his hands and knees with a string of curses that he was sure would have had Delta trying to scrub his mouth clean with soap had they any handy.
If he was summoned to attention by Atlas's potty mouth or the possibility that Atlas was about to fall to his death was up for debate. Either way, Delta stopped and whipped back around to seek out Atlas to see what had happened.
What he found was an Irishman with his foot jammed between two metal support bars, jerking at his stuck boot with curses being thrown to the wind in every direction.
So - perfectly fine, but mad as hell. Atlas's default state more or less.
Looking up at Delta, Atlas scowled like somehow the big daddy was responsible. Like he'd somehow set up a situation in which Atlas would not only trip but also manage to ensnare himself right then and there. It was such a childish sort of scowl and, despite himself, Delta relaxed some with an amused sigh. A momentary distraction from his mounting stress.
"Well come on!" Atlas barked, face flushed from the shame of such a mess up on his part. "Help me out of here already."
Meandering on over to his trapped companion, Delta allowed himself a little chuckle at Atlas's expense. The man tugging furiously at his trapped leg to try and get free.
But when Delta knelt down to help him with his struggles, he caught sight of something glowing down in the floor beneath them. Pausing Delta's fingers stilled just short of Atlas's boot and when the Irishman snapped at him to demand that the hold up was, Delta gestured downwards. Following his direction, Atlas struggled to look past his leg and down into the prison like area under them.
Sure enough, there was the last ADAM infused plant glowing away. "Ah shit… Yeah, I see it. Down there in the corner of the cell." He grumbled, peering through the exposed rebar to the cell beneath
Frowning, Atlas looked around the gaps in the bars, at best he could probably get a leg through one of them. Or, as he had already, get one foot jammed between them.
"How do we get to it?" Atlas wondered aloud as they both returned to working his boot free.
Delta tried to see if he could pry the bars apart but with only one hand to work with while the drill was in use he couldn't get much done that way.
As Atlas wiggled his ankle free with only just managing to pull one bar back enough to allow for the slightest extra space to move, he began to throw up ideas of simply blowing the fucker. Only to correct himself, knowing that the last thing they needed was more holes in an already unreliable foundation.
With the foot free, Atlas fell back onto his rear, a huff that was equal parts indignation and exhaustion pushed out of him. Then he was pondering, looking around the laboratory floor to see if there was a more obvious, larger opening he might be able to slip through. Even if being lowered down there was the last thing he wanted.
The cells looked barren and inhospitable. Ice having built up around their walls. Even from this distance, Atlas could feel the chill from them. But the plant was down there, glowing tauntingly as it remained out of reach.
"Hey, do you think you could use that telekinesis of yours to-"
"Don't be a slow poke, Mr. B. Angels don't wait for slowpokes!"
A familiar shrill voice cried out from deeper within the facility and both Delta and Atlas stilled upon hearing it. The two shared a frozen look as the little girl's voice echoed through the dilapidated labs. They remained stuck until a rumbling, wordless groan followed the child's voice - the telltale call of a big daddy.
Out there, in the facility, a little sister was wandering around stuck in a dream.
The situation presented to them had just become a bit more difficult. They needed to get to that plant, but they both knew Delta wouldn't leave that girl unattended to.
Truthfully, Atlas couldn't force himself to leave her either.
"Okay...okay yeah…" Atlas muttered to himself, getting to his feet as he scrambled to try and think of what to do. "We- alright, lets go get her, big guy."
Following the sounds of a big daddy was easy, especially once that was clear that was what what they were looking for. It was just a matter of which type they found.
Now, Atlas wasn't going to come out and coin a favourite type of big daddy, they were all massive and perfectly capable of killing on sight. But if he had to pick a least favourite of the bunch, it would have the be the Rumblers.
At least Bouncers had a certain...charm to them perhaps. A sort of mascot of failure for Rapture. They were the ones Atlas would be having nightmares about the longest that was for sure. If you said 'big daddy' people thought Bouncer. Of the three, Rosie's were the least offensive to Atlas's sensibilities.
But if you said, big fuck off ass monster with a canon, that was a Rumbler.
A great, big thudding beastie with a rocket launcher hooked over one shoulder. Nothing Atlas would put himself in front of unless strictly necessary. Unfortunately this was shaping up to be one of those times.
So when he saw the hulking form of a Rumbler swaying to and fro while its little one gathered from a corpse, Atlas groaned quietly under his breath.
"You know, old boy, I'm beginning to suspect that maybe God thinks I've pissed in his coffee because this is some bullshit aimed specifically at me." He told Delta factually with a scowl. "Whole damn city is out for me, I tell ya."
Pity party aside, they were in a fairly ideal position, two of them with supplies aplenty, they'd just have to take care of this big guy and snatch up the kid. Easy as pie.
"...I'm not saying it." Atlas muttered under his breath, still rather sore after having so stupidly jinxed them when it came to how easy finding the plants would be.
He hoped that thought crime didn't apply in this case.
Strategising came easy to Atlas. With the Rumbler unaware and otherwise indifferent to them, they could take a moment to think. "Long range is a bit of a bitch but...but I think we'll manage. You keep those rockets off me and-"
Delta made a sound of protest.
"Ah! No, shh, shut up. I can't cover you from rocket fire, you're the one with the fancy telekinesis stuff. We do this my way or we don't do this at all."
It was a baseless threat but Delta simmered down all the same.
"Good, now listen. It's simple. You keep the heavy fire off me, knock the beast back if it gets too..rowdy. Your spears should cover that just fine, and then you can just leave the heroics to me."
Delta was giving him a steady, unshifting stare that had Atlas lofting a brown. "What? Don't I look heroic enough to you?"
The little shrug Delta answered with was decidedly coy. The brat. Atlas's expression screwed up childishly and he jammed a finger against Delta's chest. He was kind enough to pretend it was strong enough to push him back an inch.
"Listen here, tinman. They made posters with my face slapped on 'em! I have songs made after me. I am plenty heroic!"
"Gentleman." Tenebaum's tight voice broke in, clearly tiring of their bickering. "The child." She reminded, bringing them back on track.
"Right. This disbeliever aside, my plan still holds. Go in, go fast, no fuss no muss. Better to stun it then drop it before the poor bastard even knows what's happening." It would be a merciful kill as much as it would be a means to keep them both safe. A drawn out fight could go in too many directions, draw too much attention.
Delta still seemed unconvinced and Atlas merely tossed him a casual smirk.
"Trust me will ya? I've got this."