The run of good luck Atlas had experienced thus far in his little collection quest obviously couldn't keep up its momentum forever. As such, he was hardly surprised when he caught the distant wailing of something that used to be human.
Cursing quietly under his breath, Atlas pressed his back flat against the wall he'd very nearly rounded before the faint whimpering sound caught his attention. He knew splicers to be chatty at the best of times. Some of them moaned and shrieked at nothing in particular. Others even pretended they still had the capacity for something like conversation as they threw out old snippets of conversations or phrases they used to know.
Atlas had long since tuned those echoes of human thought out. Dwelling on them would only make things more unpleasant for him.
Encounters with splicers only ended in blood after all. It was only a question of if it was his or theirs.
However, what he found himself keenly listening to now wasn't the rabbid howling or mindless babbling he knew so well; it was just a quiet mournful sobbing. Not nearly theatrical enough to put him in mind of some of the more… emotive splicers that would weep as soon as they'd try their luck at eating your eyeballs. All he was listening to now was… misery.
Confused more than anything else, Atlas peered around the corner, trying to find the source of the unpleasant crying. At first he had no luck, unable to spot any obvious bodies out in the open. But after a bit of searching, he caught the slightest sign of movement beneath some discarded crates. Spotting the briefest glimpse of a pale, bloodied foot curling back into the shadow of the moulding boxes.
Had he not known the fate of all children in Rapture, he might have thought the tiny limb belonged to some lost little boy or girl.
No more enlightened by what he'd seen and with the weeping continuing to drone on in the background, Atlas leant back around the corner. Resting his head against the cement as he tried to puzzle out what sort of splicer behaved like that. He did not even entertain the thought of a clean survivor. Not at this point.
"Well kid?" Atlas breathed to the empty air. Keeping his voice hushed as he hoped the splicer would not hear him over their own grief.
"What's the verdict on this one? Go around?"
He didn't want to alert the thing and end up dealing with a fight that could be avoided. He felt that he'd taken more than enough of a thrashing for one man.
There was radio silence in his head briefly, something that he often craved but now needed filled with the reassurance that Eleanor was still watching. It took a few more seconds before they answered, tone still able to be deciphered with the ADAM made link, and it was ever so sad. Aching with a sympathy Atlas was taken off guard by.
"Once Olympus Heights was taken over by Mother and the family, these ones had no home anymore, not that there was much left after the war to begin with. So they eventually found their way down here, where it's dark and quiet. Where Mother rarely ventures. They are… sad creatures."
As was evident by the crying, Atlas noted dryly.
"Best to leave them be." Eleanor advised gently. "Their suffering is deep and pitiful but also, with the city as it is, likely to end soon. We should not add to their distress."
Atlas knew he could be a right bit of work, and blamed it quite wholly on his maker. But Eleanor's level of empathy for what was the closest thing the world had to real monsters still left him at a bit of a loss.
This was not the first time he'd seen compassion for the mutant lunatics in action before. All at once the memory of Delta stopping him at the theater and sparing a pair of dancing splicers came back to him. Atlas sagged, a soft sigh leaving him in a rush.
"You and your Pa are peas in a pod I tell ya." he commented warmly.
While Eleanor said nothing, Atlas was sure that he felt something like pride come prickling through their connection.
Then, as an act of regard for both Delta and Eleanor, Atlas lowered his gun while stepping out into the room.
Regardless of his decision to leave the poor wretch well enough alone he did not expect the same courtesy to be extended towards him should he disturb it. So he tried to keep a healthy distance from the cluster of crates. Unfortunately the closer proximity brought the weeping into keen focus and Atlas cringed as he failed to block that sound out as effectively as he had the wailings of other splicers. There was something too bone deeply mournful about the sound that lacked the usual manic hallmarks of other splicers that left him uncomfortable.
Eager to escape the sound and place as a whole, Atlas damn near stepped on something else that was still alive.
Atlas wasn't entirely sure who screamed first - him or the cat he'd damn near just flattened under his boot.
While he leapt back a few paces, the cat seemed to have far greater courage than he did and arched up from what must have been a nice little napping spot for it. Hissing and spitting at him furiously and Atlas couldn't help but notice that its teeth just so happened to look a bit too long and those eyes were most definitely glowing.
He'd never really stopped to consider what happened to animals when ADAM got involved. Or, more accurately, he hadn't thought about how it applied to fucking house pets.
With his heart still firmly lodged in his throat and the hysterical thought that he might just end up getting mauled to deal by a junked up kitten, Atlas entirely missed the sound of wooden boxes being pushed aside and clawed fingers scrambling at the ground.
It was only once he noticed that the crying had stopped that Atlas also came into the thought that he was probably fucked. And he would be blaming his death on a goddamn cat of all things.
Turning his back to the feral little bastard didn't appeal to Atlas at all but he knew that the human sized threat ought to be placed at a higher priority.
Spinning sharply on his heel Atlas reached for his gun, the act so second nature to him that he'd nearly pulled the trigger on the splicer before even fully laying eyes on it. Knowing he could trust his instincts a little more than he once had after so much time spent fighting for his life down here.
However, when he did catch sight of the splicer he managed not to immediately pull the trigger. Half freezing out of sheer shock and half responding to Eleanor's hastily delivered order to, "Wait!"
The splicer he expected to be flinging itself at him in the usual manner was still a good distance away from him. Out of the boxes and into the open but still keeping well away from the man with a gun. It had no weapons itself to speak of, there were barely any clothes left on it and Atlas could see how frail it looked under the rags.
Crouched low to the ground, the splicer didn't lunge for him, instead watching with eyes not unlike that of the yowling cat by his back. Neither had gone for his exposed back when given the chance, but seemed to just be in wait. Watching his every twitch so very closely.
Baffled and most definitely afraid, Atlas tried to take a step away from the idle splicer but that step took him closer to the cat at his back. Both hissed at him in unison and Atlas damn near yelped. Not having expected the sound to come from the splicer in front of him as well.
"Okay, okay, no getting close to the kitty. Got it. Hear ya loud and clear." Atlas rushed the words out.
He was not exactly sure the splicer would understand him anymore than the cat might, but both thankfully seemed to settle again. Only producing low, rumbling growls of what he took to be warnings as opposed to outright threats.
Despite the fact he was not being torn to shreds being a decidedly good thing, Atlas didn't know what to do from there. His thoughts so frazzled with the fright and absurdity of it all he struggled to figure out what he was looking at. But then he saw how the splicer's eyes kept dropping down to the cat behind his feet when it seemed able to take eyes off him for even a second.
Checking on it.
After a few more glances from the splicer and a soft, beseeching sort of sound it made and was answered by the fur covered beast behind him. The issue became startlingly obvious then. Atlas stood between pet and owner.
The thought of it left him somewhat gutted.
"Right I… sorry." Atlas stuttered awkwardly and testingly took a step to the side, no closer to either splicer or cat.
This step was met with silence, a notably more positive response than the earlier theatrics. Now certain of his course, Atlas was quick to take a couple more quick steps away from the pair, all but stumbling back to put space between them all again.
The little black feline in question gave him one last nasty snarl, seemingly for good measure, before skirting over to the splicer in a quick dash. Welcomed with open arms from the splicer and then a hasty retreat back to the boxes. Which Atlas guessed they thought of as safety. Home even perhaps.
Stunned, Atlas could do little more than stand there for a few seconds once it was clear he wasn't actually about to become a target.
Glancing back to the boxes, he could at first see two pairs of glowing eyes looking back at him and then jumped when two pairs became many more.
Thoroughly unnerved, Atlas was quick to make his own retreat, escaping out into the next room over where he paused to gather himself away from the stare of many little eyes.
"I….I don't think 'what the fuck' even begins to cover all that. What was that?" Atlas asked no one in particular but Eleanor was still there to answer him.
"You may encounter others like that one around here. They tend to keep to themselves if you do the same. There are… less amicable splicers similar to these ones but they're quite uncommon. They do not play well in packs and down here they'd be outnumbered."
"Are we just...not going to broach the level of batshit insanity this is?" Atlas asked in disbelief. "They...there's nothing even remotely human about this. When did splicing get this bad? Between this and the fucking fish people, they're just…"
"Animals. Yes." Eleanor clarified calmly. "Do not make the mistake of thinking this to be a bad thing, voice. The only tragedy here is that they cannot escape the sinking ship."
Between evil humans and animals?
Well...Atlas could almost see where Elanor was coming from.
"Fine. Fine. Okay… fine. Let's just… not talk about the freaky feral people anymore. I've had enough of Rapture for… ever I think."
Eleanor laughed and Atlas damn near wanted to throttle them.
"Loathe as I am to remind you, voice." They didn't sound 'loathe' to do anything. "But you will need to come back this way to return to the ADAM reserves. Remember?"
"...Can't have anything nice in fucking Rapture, can I?"
Well, at least Eleanor sounded entertained.
…
…
Atlas made a concentrated effort not to think about the fact he'd have to pass back through the way he'd come as he descended deeper into the abandoned belly of Persephone.
Occasionally he caught little signs of life.
The scratching of claws on damp tiles or a distant whimpering sob. Nothing close enough to cause true alarm. And while every distant whisper or shuffling left his skin crawling, he could be superficially comforted by the thought that he was unlikely to be attacked if the creatures down here were all like the first he encountered.
It made the ruins no less disquieting and Atlas' pace picked up as he sought out these gloves of Eleanor's.
To Atlas it seemed a strange thing to have to chase down into an area of the dead city he might have considered haunted had all the ghosts not seemed to follow him regardless. Surely their old gloves would work just fine and with the rest of the suit he'd gathered did they really need a pair of bleeding gloves to complete the look?
However, any time he began to make such an argument Eleanor would remind him that an incomplete suit could very well get them all killed. Eventually adding that they needed a new way of obtaining ADAM directly.
"What about that...needle thing you had?" Atlas asked irritably as he peered into another room he was so very sure he'd seen a shadow moving within.
Yet when he looked inside there was nothing to be found, just the deceptively innocent sound of water dripping down from a leaky ceiling. Atlas couldn't help but notice there were fish bones scattered about and all too many places for something feral to be hiding. He crept inside carefully.
Eleanor's answer was soft and while he knew they couldn't possibly be heard outside of his own head, it didn't add to his confidence that they seemed to be staying hushed to avoid detection just like he was.
"Gone…" they said quietly.
Atlas found this to be rather bizarre. He'd seen them using that needle to gather ADAM on the run, harvesting corpses far more aggressively than a little sister would.
"You really don't have it anymore?" Atlas asked, looking around slowly as though he might find a pile of the gear stacked up in a corner somewhere. It just seemed unthinkable to have such an integral part of the Big Sister suit to be lost.
"Taken by Mother. Scattered to keep us...docile. Without it we cannot even use the ADAM reserves." Eleanor explained and Atlas did not miss the bitter note in their tone, incorporeal as their voice might have been.
"Your ma is a bit of work, kid." Atlas remarked as he carefully lit a small fire in his palm.
It was too dark down here to go without some form of light and this small usage of incinerate seemed safe enough. He didn't feel Fontaine stirring and he needed to be able to see, so he risked it for now.
"But don't worry about it." he added under his breath, as he crept deeper into the dark stillness. "Pretty sure the custody battle is almost over."
And he had his money on Delta.
Something to his left moved. A sudden sharp shifting that nearly caused Atlas to set the spot ablaze with his makeshift lantern.
However, his experience with the one upstairs taught him better and Atlas froze instead, waiting a beat to see if anything would lunge at him but whatever had moved in the dark corners continued to move away from him.
Fleeing the intruder deeper into their quiet tomb.
That worked just fine for him and after a steadying breath to calm his racing heart, Atlas pressed on. Looking around the mold encrusted walls Atlas thought this might have once been something of an armoury for the guards that used to patrol the prison above. But nothing seemed to have been truly left behind once the riots hit.
What few remnants there were of an armour were waterlogged and rusted. A couple of fumbled bullets and forgotten pistols lay scattered around the emptied and opened lockers but if they were not overgrown with the sea life that had inched its way inside, then they were torn apart.
Gutted was perhaps a better word for it. Atlas was careful to avoid stepping on the bits of broken, discarded metal as he walked through the wreckage. Some of the metal came from the guns, that much was clear, but there were old diving suits there too. Just as cut apart as the weapony. There was no doubt in Atlas's mind that this was Alex's handiwork, the lunatic must have been here before losing his body to the mutation.
Without question, this was where the gloves would be.
Encouraged, Atlas urged the flame between his fingers to burn a bit brighter and sure enough the orange glow eventually fell over something that shone back promisingly.
In hindsight he should not have been at all surprised when he found the 'gloves' that sat before him were adorned with a sizable drill.
"Sweet jesus, you lot really can't help yourselves with these things, can ya?" he breathed in shock. Letting his illuminated palm drift over the length of the weapon slowly, careful not to get close enough to heat or burn it.
By comparison the Big Brother's drill was lithe and delicate when held against the daunting mass of a Big Daddy's. That was not to say it was not formidable. At its base it remained larger than Atlas's fist and he knew it would have no problems carving out a considerably sized hole through anyone that attempted to get too close.
It was also, unsurprisingly, no less heavy than the rest of the suit he'd collected thus far. Atlas had to kill the lights in order to pick it up and did so with one quick, sharp breath. Making a hasty grab for the drill and gloves once the fire died. Afraid that at any moment he would hear the scuttling of many little legs or the mournful wailing of something that skulked in the dark.
Something did move but the soft sound of its inquisitive peaking was drowned out by the pounding footsteps of Atlas's retreat and he was out into the light of the hallway within seconds. Thankfully untouched by the splicers that might be lurking in the inky shadows.
Releasing the breath he'd held Atlas continued further down the hall and inspected the final piece to Eleanor's suit. With its combined weight he wasn't sure how anyone could reasonably be expected to move in such a suit. Then again, Eleanor was hardly just 'anyone', they were frighteningly strong and Atlas figured they'd make it look easy.
"Show off." Atlas muttered with a huff of amusement as he began to journey back to the other pieces of the suit he'd stored.
He'd need to get them all back to the ADAM reserves for Eleanor, which his aching muscles were less than thrilled about. Atlas pointedly did not think about what he was expected to do once that was done. He didn't have a long game plan for any of this.
"With this suit, we will be a bit closer to being free." Eleanor mused almost wistfully and the use of the word 'free' caught in Atlas's head more than he expected it might.
"And what will you do?" Atlas asked. "Free will and all that. What will you do with it?"
At this Elanore seemed to pause. If the silence was one of consideration or bafflement, Atlas couldn't have guessed and their tone offered little clarification. Flat as always.
"What will we do with it? Well..." Elanore replied slowly, "We will simply have it."
And that was enough for them.
Atlas distantly wondered if Jack felt the same when he realised how many strings were dragging him through his life. Elenaore had been a tool for Lamb from birth. They'd probably understand Jack's situation better than anyone else.
Maybe the two of them would have gotten along as kids…
Hell, they were still kids as far as he was concerned, and Eleanor's destination was the surface so maybe they still would.
Encouraged by this thought Atlas gripped the drill tighter and nodded with a smirk.
"Then we better get you back to it."
…
…
For as unenthused as Atlas was to be traversing the area he now knew to be crawling with potentially dangerous splicers, he was a tad more confident with the drill in his hands.
Despite its weight and his inability to start it, finding no 'on button' so to speak, he was sure that having a large, sharp and pointy thing would at least be a visual deterrent if nothing else. Thus far the splicers down here had been little more than timid beasts skirting away from any sign of another person, the sight of the drill would surely dissuade and of the bolder ones from approaching quickly enough.
With a newfound, firm sense of security, Atlas moved more quickly back towards the ADAM reserves.
Checking each room a little less thoroughly as he passed through the decaying bowels of Persephone. Only briefly pausing whenever he thought he heard something once human moving ahead of him, giving it time enough to move somewhere it felt safer and well away from himself. With that method he moved unscathed back towards the pneumo tube.
It was only when he came into the room he damn near found himself caught between splicer and its pet gremlin that Atlas truly came to a standstill. At first he planned to carefully creep around the cluster of crates to avoid a second encounter with the creature and had slowed to check the place out before walking inside.
He needn't have bothered.
The small pile of boxes had been scattered across the ground.
More than scattered in fact. Smashed and left in splinters on far sides of the wall, there was very little left of the 'nest' that Atlas had first stumbled across.
There was something dark and wet shining against one of the jagged pieces of wood where it lay. Atlas knew the sight too intimately to delude himself into thinking the stretch that lay thick across the room was anything other than blood. Freshly drawn and haphazardly strewn about the place as a memory of violence.
For a moment that stretched on far longer than Atlas was ready for, he did little more than stand and observe the newly made ruins. Among the broken boxes he could even see a tiny body. Not quite whole with its fur coated in shiny red drops of red.
The blood was its own obviously and Atlas got no closer to see if all the other small clumps of fur belonged to it or if other cats from the splicer's colony had been mingled in with one another. Each chunk was rather indistinguishable and, save for the coloured tufts of fur, their insides all looked much the same.
There was no reason for him to get any closer to it, aside from a morbid sense of curiosity that he would rather not indulge in.
Instead Atlas took a single deep breath, resolved to try and keep his mind from wandering to the how and why of the situation and strode on. A little faster than before in an attempt to leave the sight far behind himself.
He was no less than three steps from the door when he heard a softly strangled sound that was decidedly not even human enough to pass for a splicer but strong enough to still be something alive.
Part of him did not want to turn to see what state the creature making that sound might be in. But the noise came again, louder and more distinctly feline this time and, despite himself, Atlas did turn.
Damn him for it, he should have known better than to look back in Rapture but he had and all he saw was a pair of softly glowing eyes peering back at him from across the room.
The collection of mangled bodies stood between himself and a cat that seemed, more or less, alive and well. The dots of red around its claws clearly not from its own body.
Atlas no more knew if the splicer he'd encounter had done this to the colony or if this cat had turned on the others. The sight of its illuminated slitted eyes was creepy enough to lend credence to that idea but Atlas didn't quite buy it. He must have been a fool to think a splicer knew the first thing about kinship or family, but he didn't believe the splicer he'd seen earlier had done this, nor the little cat that stood before him now.
"What?" Atlas asked harshly, expecting no conversation with the beast, although he asked all the same. "What do you want, fleabag? I can't do anything for you."
The cat didn't even need to argue its case as in the distance a shrill screech split the stagnant air.
Both man and cat jumped at the sound of it but while he took a step back, the cat darted through the far door in search of the sound, leaving Atlas woefully alone with himself. A condition he'd not found particularly agreeable since returning to Rapture.
"Kid? Got anything for me here?" Atlas tried to call on Eleanor for their input.
Either a command to leave it well enough alone and return with their suit or to investigate further. Either command would have done, just so Atlas would not be burdened with choices he'd rather not be saddled with.
So of course, he remained pointedly alone.
The silence only broken up by the far away sounds of something unpleasant. Atlas heard screaming that he recognised as the feral creature that had once squatted here and something else that sounded closer to the manic cackling that was typical of other splicers.
He needed little imagination to figure out what was happening.
"None of my business. Just a distraction." Atlas told himself and turned back for the door he'd originally intended to exit through. But that cry came again and every nerve on his body sat on end.
The it he had subscribed to the feral creature that he could hear shrieking was too close to a she for him.
"Just leave." Atlas hissed again.
His shoulders were bunched up as he willed himself to keep moving away from it all. Whatever was happening out there had nothing to do with him, it would be little more than a wasted bullet or another chance for a monster to kill him. It wasn't worth the trouble or the risk.
Leave. The thought continued to persist and he was downright baffled as to why he hadn't yet.
She screamed again and Atlas turned with a curse.