The Obsolete Protector

by M10m gas mask soldier

Upon being revived 10 years after being murdered by Sofia, Subject Delta has to fight his way back to his beloved master Eleanor. However, he is not alone. Upon being reunited, the two Alpha Series Big Daddies must get to their captured daughters before it is too late. Meanwhile, Eleanor wishes for Delta to be more than her father. Burial at Sea connections. AU BioShock 2.

7. Chapter 7: They grow up so fast

Ch. 7: They grow up so fast

A.N.:

Hey everyone!

Sorry about the wait.

I have been amazed by the attention that this story is getting. It is rivaling the traffic that my main F.E.A.R. story gets and…that thing is 40+ chapters long, is at 300,052 words, has 55 fav's and has 53 follows.

So, seriously, thank you everyone for your support.

By the way, I want to assure you that this story will not become the monster of a story that my F.E.A.R. story has. To be honest, I did not set out to create such a long story, since it was my first ever fanfic and the first thing that I ever posted, but it kind of took on a life of its own. Plus, I have a thing for Alma…so…it got a little out of hand.

Anyway,

I am aware that in the game Delta uses his right hand to exorcise the Little Sisters when he saves them but my Delta has a thing about making himself "vulnerable" by removing his drill from his right hand so I improvised.

Oh, and yes...it is a reference to the Brotherhood of Steel from the Fallout series. Because any waster can lumber about the wastes but only the truly elite can wear sexy T-45d power armor and wield Gatling Lasers and Miniguns like bosses.

Steel be with you xD

Coming soon: the wrath of the first Big Sister.

Read and review if you want.

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As we walked through the forcibly opened bulkhead, I asked with a grunt, "Have you made any contact with the rest of the Brotherhood of Steel?" As a private joke, we sometimes referred to ourselves as the Brotherhood of Steel, though now that most of us were presumably dead or worse, I feared that the "Brotherhood" part no longer had any relevance.

My brother replied immediately, "No, sir." It did not take much effort on my part to know that he was lying. I had accepted the heart-wrenching truth of what being dead for ten years meant. The men that I had called my brothers were long gone. As skilled and resilient as we were, even we could not last forever. We were not fighting the Splicers as much as we were the march of time. Roll the dice enough times and your number would be up sooner or later.

As we entered the dark foreboding entrance to the ride, I saw the automaton of the big man himself: Andrew Ryan. The machine was positioned to give the impression that Ryan was casually sitting behind his desk with his left arm bent as he laid back in his chair and supporting himself by placing his left hand near his left hip. Meanwhile, his right leg was crossed over his left.

The ravages of time had taken its toll on the machine's exterior. While the light brown business suit, I doubted that he even owned any other clothing other than that monkey suit, and matching pants were still identifiable, the rest of the machine's exterior was rough with chipped paint and pot marks. Around the automaton was the imitation of an office with bookshelves against the wall behind it and with filing cabinets against the walls on the left and right.

Standing in front of the desk, I wondered aloud with a grunt, "I wonder how someone managed to kill him."

To my surprise, Alpha, who had moved to stand next to me, replied, "Some fool used an EMP bomb to gain entrance into his clubhouse up in Hephaestus. Then, he killed him with his own golf club. Found it sticking in the side of his head with blood everywhere and the man's face heavily bludgeoned."

Shocked, I asked, "It wasn't you was it?"

His shoulders dipped for a moment as if he was sighing before he grunted back, "Negative, sir. Wish I had though."

I asked, "So how do you know all those things?"

He explained, "Emily and I were there while it happened but we never saw who was doing all the shooting. Later, we entered his office and she started stabbing him with her needle."

Confused, I remarked, "I didn't know Ryan was using."

My ally laughed with repeated grunts before he said, "I didn't say that she was gathering from him." I laughed in response. Like Eleanor, Emily retained a large amount of who she had been prior to her forced enslavement as a Little Sister. She had been the daughter of a family that had had owned their own newspaper. Though they ran an admirable paper, her parents had unfortunately ruffled the big man's feathers when they printed an article suggesting that he had been somehow involved in the murder of his mistress. Just like me, they "disappeared". Without parents, Emily was sent to one of the many Little Sister's Orphanage around the city.

As much as I enjoyed being known as the original Big Daddy, in truth, the difference between when Alpha and Emily had been bonded and when Eleanor and I had been bonded was mere hours. Both of our respective "pairs" were favored by the butchers called scientists as being the best candidates for the new procedure.

Looking over at the far left corner, I saw a golf club leaning against the wall next to an oversized golf ball. Smirking beneath my armored face, I moved over to the object and picked up the club with my gloved left hand by its leather grip. After turning around to face the automaton, I let out a grunt of exertion as I swung the golf club at it. The metal tip collided with the right side of the machine's head and, with a shower of sparks and the sound of an automaton's limbs being severed filling the air, sent it flying off to the left. It smashed against the wall with a dull thud. Dropping the club, I exited the mock up of an office.

Eleanor asked, "What was that for Daddy?"

I laughed before I replied, "Just paying my respects to the founder of Rapture my dear Eleanor."

Moving on towards the ride, we passed the pile of boxes on the left and the sealed employee entrance on the right. As we came to the staircase that led down to the now jumbled mess of cars that resembled miniature bathyspheres, I noticed the machine gun leaning against the railing in the corner of the stairs along with an extra box magazine that was lying on the metal floor.

At that moment, a female Splicer dressed in tattered aristocratic attire and wielding a Thompson Submachine Gun appeared on the balcony in the far opposite left corner. Meanwhile, a Thuggish Splicer dressed in security guard attire and wielding a baton rushed out of the open ride entrance below the giant neon yellow sign that read, "Journey to the Surface" and disappeared from view as he entered the maze of jumbled cars. The woman, whose face was covered by a bunny mask, began to shoot at us while she yelled, "I told you about this one. Make him listen."

Two of the rounds struck my frame. To my shock, the rounds easily penetrated my armored hide. I growled loudly in agony as the pain shot through my body like a massive flood of molten metal. When I had been ambushed by Sofia's followers in the booth in the train depot, I had assumed that the massive amount of damage that they had managed to inflict upon me in such a short amount of time was merely due to their close proximity and numbers. However, this time, I realized that there was something else going on.

The standard Thompson Submachine Gun fired .45 ACP pistol rounds. Hence, the designation of "submachine gun" as opposed to "machine gun". .45 ACP was a brutal round at close range against lightly armored targets. However, it lacked in penetration capability due to its pistol cartridge. There was only one round in Rapture that could have just inflicted such damage upon me: .50 BMG or .50 caliber Browning Machine Gun.

More of a small artillery round than a rifle round, the .50 BMG was the brainchild of John Browning who designed it for his revolutionary machine gun, the fabled M2 Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun. Damn near indestructible, the M2 was death incarnate for any living creature foolish enough to get caught in its crosshairs. In my days in the U.S. Navy, we had strapped them into aircraft, ships, and vehicles. However, if the Splicers had bored out their Thompsons to be able to chamber .50 BMG rounds, then they were even more foolish than I had originally thought. The immense size of the round would severely weaken the structural integrity of the Thompsons. It would be a miracle if the weapon did not shatter in their hands.

As the red liquid from the tank on my back healed my wounds, we made our way down the stairs. Electrical arcs danced around my left gauntlet-encased hand and my drill was poised at the ready. We reached the landing and turned to face the entrance of the ride. Before us, there were two cars that were separate from the massive pile of them further down the line. Meanwhile, to our right, there was another sealed employee access door and I could make out a Plasmid container beyond the sealed bulkhead.

Seeing movement behind the second car, I prepared myself for the coming assault. Seconds later, as we slowly moved forward, two male Thuggish Splicers rushed towards us with their batons raised up in the air in their right hands. The high-pitched report of Alpha's modified Rivet Gun sounded through the gloomy space and, almost simultaneously, blood squirted out of the furthest Splicer's face as the industrial-grade projectile imbedded itself into the man's skull.

Meanwhile, I electrocuted the nearest Splicer with a blast of Electro Bolt. The deranged denizen cried out in agony as the high-energy electric arcs danced around his form. Letting out a grunt of exertion, I swung my drill in a powerful singular thrust to the left in an arc. The razor sharp point of my favored weapon struck the right side of the man's head. The power behind my thrust succeeded in allowing my drill to gouge out the portion of the skull around the area of impact.

With the two Splicers neutralized, we continued forward. However, after only a few steps, two more Thuggish Splicers rushed towards us. The first one, a man wielding a pipe wrench and covering his face with a welder's mask, yelled, "A baby! Let me, let me!" The second, a man dressed in security guard attire and wielding a baton, followed behind the first as they both charged at us.

I absentmindedly wondered what could have been motivating them to attack two Big Daddies simultaneously; two Big Daddies that were protecting a Little Sister nonetheless. Bravado only went so far, even for an addict. This was more like a plea for death. They reminded me of the famous Japanese Banzi charges that went straight at entrenched American machine gun emplacements and the Russian Mass Attacks that went straight at the entrenched German machine gun emplacements.

Meanwhile, I had reached up and grabbed the pipe wrench wielding Splicer's right wrist with my gloved left hand as he tried to swing his weapon. Still pondering their motivations, I was only vaguely aware of his cries of pain as I crushed his wrist with my immense strength while I simultaneously revved up my drill and sent its whirling bit into his lightly protected lower torso. Blood flew as the sound of ripping tissue filled the air as my drill powered its way through the Splicer's organs and then through his spinal column.

The groves on my drill's bit acted as an extra hand to keep the man from being able to push himself off the bit as well as drawing him in. By the time that the bloodied tip appeared behind the man, he had become hunched over near my chest, almost resting his head against my right shoulder. Having come to the conclusion that I should not compare Splicers to human beings and to instead compare them to animals, I powered down my drill and then unceremoniously flung the "animal" off to my right. Meanwhile, Alpha had casually dropped the second Splicer with a headshot.

As we continued onward, we came to a wall made out of cars and sheet metal. Continuing along the side of the makeshift barrier, we continued to stomp our way further into the large room. To our right were props that mimicked the buildings of Rapture before the city had fallen into the state of extensive disrepair that I had observed in the train car. The blue light of the surrounding Atlantic Ocean lazily drifted through the cracks in the props.

Moments later, the sight of the purposely scary sign that had evil looking seahorses along its exterior as well as the words, "Journey to the Surface" loomed in front of us above the entrance to the ride. When the ride had been operational, there had been a bulkhead that would seal off the ride itself until the operator started the ride. Judging by the rubble along the path as it made its way up a steep incline beyond the entrance to the ride, that had long since stopped being the case.

After investigating the side room to the left of the cars, which resulted in around forty dollars that was split between the two of us, we returned to the main area. A male Leadhead Splicer had appeared but my brother quickly cut him down with his Rivet Gun. I could feel Eleanor's fear through our bond as we approached the open entrance to the ride and let out a reassuring groan to calm her. She replied with her robotic sounding Little Sister voice, "Don't worry Daddy, I will be brave like a big girl."

Beneath her cute, childish façade, I sensed her desire to prove herself to me. She wanted to prove to me that she was no longer a child so that I would see her as an adult. Despite my uneasiness about her repeated attempts get me to think of her as something more than my charge, I had to admit that, to a certain extent, I was grateful for her affection. The hulking tin men may have been able to lumber about the cold, dark sunken ruins of Rapture in happy ignorance of their miserable plight but my kind was cursed with sentience.

We were very much aware of our plight. We yearned for love, acceptance, and comfort just like any other creature. The typical remark that I had heard before Rapture's Fall was, "What could they possibly be upset about? Just look how strong and invincible they are. There is nothing to be upset about when you are that strong." Our "strength" came at a high cost. Simple connections like the touch of another person were all but lost to us. A sentient mind could only take so much torment before it cracked. As the old expression goes, "Something's got to give."

Our daughters had kept us from that horrible fate. They loved us and we loved them. No matter how miserable our circumstances were, they were always optimistic and happy. Their playful antics could lighten even the heaviest situations. Until our bodies turned cold, we knew that we could always look forward to being with them again when it was time to gather. What could be more natural than to love someone that gave you hope, happiness, a sense of purpose, and loved you in return?

As we began to ascend as we continued to follow the tracks, I noticed a car that was precariously perched at the very top of the incline. My instincts cried out in alarm and I braced myself to counter the ambush should it occur. My suspicions were confirmed seconds later as I heard the female Leadhead Splicer address an unseen Splicer, "Come on, exert yourself! Flatten him out!" Giving off an audible growl, I felt my rage return inside my mind. Shaking the ground, the car began to crash towards us.

Ducking behind the pile of rubble on our left, we dodged the incoming car as it rolled past us to finally smash into the beginning of the group of cars at the bottom of the tracks in the previous room. My Protector Instincts flared inside my mind and I let off a thunderous roar as my segmented eye began to emit red light. As the voices of deranged Splicers filled the air, Eleanor egged me on as she exclaimed, "Unzip 'em Daddy!"

Charging forward around the pile of rubble, I stormed up the flight of stairs. When a female Thuggish Splicer rushed at me with a golf club raised above her head, I trampled her beneath my heavy frame, causing the sound of cracking bones and agonized cries to fill the air as I continued forward. When I reached the top of the incline, I found the female Leadhead Splicer waiting for me to my right as she took cover behind a box that was on the imitation of a dock from the surface.

She raised her modified Thompson's barrel up to open fire at me but she had no more brought it up before I had reached her. Before she could fire her flimsy weapon, I collided with her at full speed. She could not react quickly enough to prevent me from roughly gripped her right shoulder with my left hand. As savage rage continued to flare inside of me, I leaned back and then violently smashed my armored face into her skull. My brutal headbutt succeeded in cracking open the Splicer's skull like a raw egg. Releasing my grip, I left the Splicer in a heap in the pool of water.

As I exited the water, I noticed that what I had assumed to be part of the illusion of the surface, the water, was actually the result of a collapsed section of the ceiling back toward the entrance to the balcony area. There, the ceiling had partially collapsed in a section and a deluge of water was pouring in. Turning back towards the track, I was struck by the deterioration of the ride. The walls were missing whole sections in places and there were piles of rubble every few yards along the path. A derailed car was facing towards me as it leaned against a pile of rubble. The sound of some Splicer crying could be heard over the roar of the incoming water and the crackling of fire. Beyond the derailed car, I saw the first "scare", which was the imitation of an idolized farm house from the surface.

However, such was the extent of the deterioration that I questioned the safety of taking Eleanor, or at least the Little Sister that she was controlling, through the decaying ride. Sensing my worried thoughts, Eleanor chirped, "Don't worry Daddy, I will be okay. I'm always safe with you." I mentally sighed. Eleanor seemed to still be under the false belief that I was "superman".

Hearing a machine being smashed, I turned back behind me to see Alpha destroying the Health Station back in the hallway to the balcony. He picked up the First Aid Kit that the destroyed machine dropped and returned to where we were. He handed it to me and, giving off a grateful grunt, I took it from him. After applying the red liquid soaked bandages to my body so that the excess would refill my tank, we proceeded onward.

The wooden boards beneath us creaked loudly in protest as we proceeded towards the first scare. There, we found the same farm house with the farmer who was tilling the soil, his wife, and his child. As we reached it, suddenly, the recorded voice of Andrew Ryan preached, "On the surface, the farmer tiles the soil, trading the strength of his arm for a home and land of his own."

At that moment, dark music played as red light illuminated the little scene. As it did, two giant hands that were the representation of "big government" descended down from the ceiling to rip off the roof of the house and then pilfer through whatever was inside. As they did, Ryan preached with a darker tone, "But the parasites say NO! We are the state! We are God! We demand our share!"

Eleanor cried out in fright but I assured her with my modified voice, "Sweetie, they aren't real. Besides, on the surface, it is called taxation…it pays for government works like road construction and repair…maintenance of buildings…it is an important part of maintaining the country's infrastructure and it is usually not that bad…usually."

She replied, "But Ryan said that they take away your possessions."

I explained, "No, that is not the government. That is called a repossession, sweetie. It is not the government that does that…it is the bank that that individual has taken out a loan with in order to have that piece of property. In which case, that person does not actually own said piece of property…the bank does. So, if the payments to pay back the bank stop, then the bank has every legal right to repossess it...after all, it is their property."

She asked, "So, the government taxes its people to maintain the infrastructure and banks only…repossess…things if the individual fails to pay off the loan?"

I smiled beneath my face and then replied, "Exactly, sweetie."

My charge remarked, "That…seems…reasonable."

I replied, "It is most of the time." Having explained the truth behind the first scare, we continued forward to try to find the "angel". Beyond the first scene there was a barrier made out of boxes. Luckily, there was a kind of ramp on the right side of it. The scrapes of wooden boards threatened to buckle under our weight but we managed to get to the other side of the barrier.

As I dropped down onto the track, a male Leadhead Splicer yelled as he shot a nearby barrel. The container exploded and metal shrapnel went flying through the air. Luckily, we were unscathed. The man, dressed in tattered casual attire and with a horribly disfigured head that was barely visible beneath numerous wrapped bandages, ran a few yards down the straight track and took cover behind a shipping box.

I mentally sighed as I saw the second barrel, this one mere inches away from where the man was behind cover. Too easy. I sent a blast of Electro Bolt into the metal container. As the high-voltage arcs of electricity made contact with the exterior of the barrel, it exploded. Shredded by flying shrapnel and engulfed in flames, the man collapsed to the ground as he groaned out a death rattle.

"Daddy, over there." I saw the faint trail appear in the air before me. It led into the room on our right that looked as though animals had ripped their way in through the bulkhead that had once stood there. The yellow neon sign that read, "Ride Maintenance Employees Only" was still hanging above the entrance but the bulkhead and most of the surrounding wall was gone. It looked as though the very panels of the wall had been ripped out in order to remove the entire bulkhead, watertight door and all, from the entrance. Whatever was inside must have been desperately needed by those that had been trapped inside the park.

Meanwhile, to our left, there was an open side area. When we investigated it, we found a sealed employee entrance. However, beside the bulkhead, we found a lever-style switch. As I flipped the lever up, the door audibly opened so loudly that I feared that the Splicer would come running. The moments ticked by but, luckily, none appeared.

Returning to the forcibly opened maintenance bay, I heard a male Splicer mumble to himself as if he was working on something. Upon entering the bay, I found that it had an inner ring and an outer ring layout. The outer "ring" was separated from the inner workshop by a semi-complete wall with glass panels uniformly spaced along its thin skin to allow an observer to peer into the inner workshop area.

Peering through one of the glass windows, I saw a horribly disfigured male Thuggish Splicer working on a malfunctioning sentry turret. Alpha quickly dropped the oblivious man with a headshot and we entered the inner workshop area. On top of the sideways "L" shaped work table in the center for the living room sized space, there was some cartridges of Trap Rivets, which my ally quickly grabbed.

Behind the sentry turret against the wall, I saw a ride car that appeared to have been in the process of being fixed. To my right along the wall, I saw a watertight door that strongly resembled one that an individual would find in a submarine or any other naval vessel. As I walked to the edge of the table, Eleanor chirped happily, "We found it!" Looking down at my feet, I saw a mummified man dressed in a business suit lying on his back. A pipe wrench was a few inches away from his outstretched right arm.

As I looked down at the corpse, the park's intercom system activated and a song began to pipe through its speakers. "How much is that doggie in the window?" Ignoring the music, I studied our surroundings. The room had two entrances. Both were compromised by the earlier forced entry by unknown individuals. However, both entrances were narrow and could easily be booby-trapped with Trap Rivets. The malfunctioning sentry gun could easily be repaired and used against the incoming hordes of Splicers. Meanwhile, there was a barrel in the far right corner and a Health Station in the far left corner. 'Hack the Health Station and turn the barrel into a bomb,' my instincts informed me.

I grunted at my brother, "Alpha, place Trap Rivets in the entrances and on the barrel. Destroy the Health Station. I will repair the sentry turret."

He grunted back, "Yes, sir."

As he moved to place the traps, I went over to the side of the sentry. Brainchild of Gilbert Alexander, the standard sentry turret was based around a M1919A4 Browning Machine Gun, which was a scaled down version of the .50 Caliber M2 Browning Machine Gun. The belt-fed, recoil-operated M1919 fired 30-06 Springfield rounds at a rate of two hundred to four hundred rounds per minute, respectively, depending upon the condition of the ammunition and the operator. Housed in a jerry-rigged revolving platform, the machine gun was perfect for suppressive fire. Upgraded variants were based around grenade launchers and even, in Minerva's Den, Ion Lasers.

I examined the sentry, which was arcing electricity around itself, and found that the electric motor was damaged from what appeared to be a small caliber gunshot and the circuit breaker on the device was preventing the machine from operating to prevent further damage. I could bypass the circuit to make the turret work for a few minutes but, shortly afterwards, the motor would fry itself and the turret would be useless. The primitive CPU would need to be reprogrammed to prevent it from attacking us. Perhaps, I could overclock its parameters to make it hostile to anything other than a Big Daddy.

In truth, I understood very little about the machine's ability to judge friend from foe. How something could be so primitive yet so advanced was beyond my ability to understand. Most of the devices in Rapture were science fiction compared to what the surface possessed. Alexander considered us to be dumb brutes so, even as products of the same company, originally, before Ryan Industries began to manufacture the sentries as well, we were not educated on the designs of the sentries.

Removing the back panel of the CPU, I found the internal parts of the sentry and "overclocked" the parameter meter, which resembled a small wheel, to target anything between a Big Daddy and a Little Sister. Then, ripping out the wire that attached the breaker between the motor and its power source, I forcefully bypassed the turret's circuit protector. I connected the wire that was connected to the battery straight into the wire that was connected to the motor.

Almost instantly, the sparking turret powered to life. Meanwhile, Alpha had finished setting up the traps and destroying the Health Station. He returned to where we were and took up position back behind the corpse in the corner so he could provide support with his Rivet Gun once the Splicer got through our initial perimeter.

Meanwhile, I would remain by Eleanor's side as she gathered from the "angel". I kneeled down to allow my charge to safely dismount. Giggling, she lowered herself to the ground. When I sensed that she had successfully dismounted, I returned to standing upright. I turned and looked down to see her pointing at the corpse with a happy smile like she had before. Meanwhile, she remarked with a playful tone, "Who watches over sleeping angels? I do, I do."

As she began to gather, my built-in radio activated. Sofia addressed me with her usual formal manner that had a hint of sympathetic understanding, "I do not hate you Delta…indeed, I care for you with equal measure to any other sentient creature, but I cannot sacrifice a thousand of my children for one rebellious son."

Maddening, burning rage erupted inside of me as my Protector Instincts rushed full force into my mind. Losing myself to my programming, I let out an ear-shattering guttural roar that vibrated the air of the decrepit amusement park to warn everyone that I was now in "protector" mode. Meanwhile, hellish red light began to emit from my eye that was so threatening in its color that even another Big Daddy would have been intimidated.

There was a part of my mind that even I was afraid of. It was the monster that I had become: Subject Delta. It almost felt like I had a Dr. Jackal and Mister Hyde personality complex. One side of me was gentle and compassionate. The other, however, was a homicidal monster that felt nothing except the desire to protect my beautiful Eleanor. I was no longer a man in those situations. I was an armored behemoth that killed anything or anyone that so much as looked at my daughter the wrong way.

Meanwhile, I heard the Splicers descending upon us. They attacked the entrance that we had used ourselves moments prior first. The sound of Trap Rivets firing and bodies hitting the hard floor filled the air. Alpha had placed them so that they fired directly into the Splicers' heads. However, this time, Sofia had put more pressure on the resident Splicers and so they were attacking in increased numbers. Within seconds, they had compromised our first layer of defenses.

The sentry turret chirped with a strange mechanical bell sound as it began to fire at the incoming Splicers. However, it could only track one target at a time. As it fired upon a Splicer that had taken cover behind the outer wall, two other Splicers left their comrade to his fate while they went to rush at my charge. Despite the rage pulsing through me, I smirked beneath my face. It amused me how Sofia believed that she had "unified" the remaining population of Rapture. You can say whatever you want to but at the end of the day, a drug addict is a drug addict.

The first Splicer, a male Leadhead wielding a haphazardly repaired revolver, rushed towards Eleanor. Growling, I electrocuted him with a blast of Electro Bolt and then quickly followed up with a swing of my drill. Giving off a pathetic whimper, the disfigured man crumpled to the ground.

My victory was short-lived as the second Splicer, a female Thuggish Splicer wielding a golf club, tried to run around me to get to Eleanor. I twisted to the left and grabbed her around her thin, scrawny neck with my massive gauntlet-encased left hand. With more Splicers pouring into the room, I unceremoniously moved my hand up the side of her skull and then crushed her head against the nearby wall.

Small caliber rounds suddenly impacted my frame but failed to penetrate my chest plate. Roaring in fury, I wheeled around to face the original entrance to find a security guard wielding a revolver. As he took cover behind the outer wall, a guard wielding a baton ran at me. As he tried to swing his baton at me, I thrust my drill's bloodied tip into the center of his face. Skull and brain matter flew out of the corpse's compromised skull.

Using Telekinesis, I levitated the corpse into the air and then propelled it straight at the other guard as he emerged from cover. He cried out in shock as the body slammed into him. The weight of his former comrade sent him collapsing to the floor. Another female Thuggish Splicer ran at me from my right. Swinging my drill from left to right, I struck her in the side of her head with the grooved side of my heavy industrial drill. Though not as sharp as the tip, the grooves protruding from the shaft of the drill bit were still sharp enough to slice open the side of her face and the force of my swing combined with the incredible weight of the drill succeeded in cracking the underlining bone.

However, to my horror, the deranged woman tumbled to ground inches to the left of Eleanor. I went to protect her, but, to my amazement, she withdrew the needle of her "toy" from the corpse and then stabbed the woman in her head before she could react. Then, without missing a beat, the controlled Little Sister continued to gather the ADAM from the corpse. I joked darkly, "Not tonight ladies and gentlemen!" Alpha laughed in response with his repeated grunts and Eleanor giggled as she continued to gather.

Seeing the guard starting to get to his feet, I levitated the pipe wrench from the side of the corpse and sent it flying into his head. The wrench struck the Splicer's head with a sick wet thud and he collapsed back onto the ground. A final Splicer tried to rush across the room but was quickly shredded by the 30-06 rounds of the M1919.

I heard the Trap Rivets by the other entrance fire as the new wave of incoming Splicers attempted to assault the other entrance. I had just twisted around to face towards it when the barrel, Alpha must have placed it just behind the entrance with a single Trap Rivet imbedded into it facing the open pathway, exploded. Letting Alpha and the machine gun handle the incoming Splicers, I remained by Eleanor just in case a Splicer managed to get through the withering fire of my ally and the turret.

At least six Splicers, mostly Leadhead security guards, tried to force their way to Eleanor but Alpha's lethal marksmanship and the turret's steady spray of rounds quickly cut them down within half a minute of their arrival. As the last Splicer fell to the floor, Eleanor stood as she chirped happily, "Daddy, I'm ready."

My Protector Instincts returned to the back of my mind and my eye returned to emitting golden yellow light. I looked down at her just in time to see her place the end of her needle into my right thigh and inject ADAM into my body. Strength flooded my system as the genetic substance flowed through my body. It would be so easy to become addicted to the feeling of fresh ADAM entering your body. However, as I merely needed ADAM as food, I was immune to the addictive properties of the corrupting substance. It would be like someone becoming addicted to apples. I could sense that I almost had enough to splice Incinerate! into my body. I had to deal with Little Sister herself to get the rest.

Sure enough, as Eleanor climbed back onto her throne on my back, Sinclair addressed me through my radio, "All right chief, we've almost got enough ADAM now. To get the rest, you'll have to take care o' that Little Sister. There should one of the air vents that they favor in the workshop. Bring her down there."

After scavenging the bodies, which resulted in twenty dollars for both of us, we began to make our way to the workshop. Around the corner from the room that we had been in, we came upon a female Leadhead Splicer in tattered formal attire and with a bunny mask covering her face. She was painting on the wall with a paint brush as if she was in a trance. So oblivious was the Splicer that the presence of two Big Daddies failed to register with her. Before she knew what was happening, Alpha terminated her with a single headshot.

As we passed by her, I glanced at the wall and saw that she had written the message, "WE WILL BE REBORN" in white house paint on the wall. I pitied the woman for a moment. Perhaps, beneath that unbreakable homicidal desperation, the Splicers had grown tired of the miserable slog of daily survival. Maybe that was why they listened to Sofia: they just wanted it all to stop. Who could blame them for wanting some nice words and an occasionally warm meal?

As we passed another Ryan automaton, I asked Alpha, "Do you ever miss?"

He grunted back, "Sometimes, sir. After a while, it feels like breathing…don't really have to think about it."

I paused as I noticed that this was the spot that I had seen the Little Sister. I recognized the corpse back behind the automaton to the right. Glancing towards the wall where I had looked out at the little girl, I was somewhat unnerved to see that someone had drawn the curtain shut. However, noticing that I was unnerved, Alpha explained, "That was me, sir. I was working on my Rivet Gun and I did not want a random Splicer to see me."

Immense relief filled me as well as slight embarrassment that such a minor thing had gotten to me. I heard Eleanor giggle quietly. In response, I let out a curt grunt. She replied, "The man on the moon is a girl, Daddy." I mentally sighed and hoped that Eleanor had grown out of the habit of talking like a Little Sister. Unlike our grunts and calls, which did have meaning, our charges' rants were sometimes actually unintelligent nonsense caused by the slug inside of them. Such statements made as little sense to us as it did to the casual observer.

Around the corner from the automaton, we came to the second scare. A derailed car blocked our path so we had to wait for the scene to play out so we could move through the set in order to continue on towards the workshop. The scene was a mock-up of a science lab. There, in the center, was a scientist working at his station. A light illuminated him from above as Ryan preached, "On the surface, a scientist invests the power of his mind into a single, miraculous idea…" At that moment, the automaton's arms raised up over his head to imitate an individual celebrating his triumph. Meanwhile, the platform that the machine was mounted to began to rise up into the air.

"…and naturally begins to rise above his fellows. But the parasites say NO!" At that moment, a large hand of "big government" lowered down from the ceiling above the scientist automaton. Red light bathed the area as the hand began to "push" the scientist back down as he lowered his arms down to his sides to imitate disappoint and heartbreak. Ryan continued, "Discovery must be regulated! It must be controlled! And finally, surrendered!"

When the scene had played out, Eleanor asked, "Daddy…"

I groaned before I explained, "Scientific discovery has a way of…backfiring…if not handled correctly."

She asked with a timid voice, "Like the bomb?"

I replied, "Yeah, kid…like the bomb. Sometimes…just because you can doesn't mean that you should. Remember that, Eleanor."

After moving through the second scare, we soon came to the third. This one was about censorship. However, as our path was clear and none of us really cared about such things, we pressed on rather than observing it. Finally, as we turned another corner and approached a third Ryan automaton, I saw the sign that indicated that we had reached the workshop.

Upon seeing the sign, Eleanor remarked with a yawn, "Yay…hidey hole." I smiled slightly beneath my armored, emotionless face.

As I crossed the threshold of the entrance to the workshop, my radio activated. Sinclair addressed me, "Now Tenenbaum would have you turn that Sister human again. You'll get just enough ADAM for our purposes, an' the girls'll likely try to repay you somehow. But Rapture's a high-stakes town, son – an' she's a jackpot. You'll harvest more ADAM than the price of one plasmid…so the rest is gravy. Think about it…down here, it's your survival or her's."

Having heard everything that he had said, Eleanor asked with a frightened tone, "D-Daddy? I-I've b-been good haven't I?"

I noticed that the edge to the girl's voice was gone and realized that it was the Little Sister, not Eleanor, that had addressed me with such a frightened tone. My heart went out to the little girl that had willingly gone along with this bizarre arrangement of being my real Little Sister's "vessel" so that we could spend this time together. She was so innocent, trusting, and naïve that it had never crossed her warped little mind that her "big sister"Eleanor, and Mister Bubbles would consider harming her.

Seconds later, Eleanor's personality returned to the Little Sister as she said with her robotic voice, "Father, what you said before…"

I interrupted, "Just because you can doesn't mean that you should, Eleanor. I shall rescue them all."

She asked, "Because you are a protector or because of morality?"

I replied, "Neither. Some things should not need a reason to justify them."

She remarked, "I don't understand."

I assured her, "You will in time, my daughter." By then, we had reached the lower level of the workshop. Much to my displeasure, the majority of the floor was flooded and we were forced to endure the ankle-high frigid water to reach the Little Sister Vent on the other end of the "C" shaped path. As we reached a Vita-Chamber in the center part of the "C", luckily, we found dry ground.

Beyond the chamber, I saw the vent. It had chalk drawings of smiling green stars and a doddle of a gathering tool around it. Meanwhile, I saw a plush doll down by the base of it along with a First Aid Kit. Before, this would have been the point where I assisted my Eleanor in getting to the hole so she could return to where her other sisters went to sleep. Though near the end, she refused to return to the vent and insisted upon staying with me instead.

It put me in an awkward position but I quickly began to enjoy having her sleeping form nuzzled against my chest as we both rested in whatever temporary shelter I had found. No one in their right mind would disturb a Big Daddy that was protecting a sleeping Little Sister so there was never any problems. My captors had removed my ability and need to sleep so I spent my time thinking about various things as well as tending to my drill. How Eleanor found my armored chest comfortable enough to sleep against, I did not know.

Naturally, we had to go to where they forced her to regurgitate the ADAM that we had gathered every so often so that they did not get suspicious. As a Little Sister, Eleanor was supposed to not be able to remember anything about who she was or even really be aware of what was happening around her. If they had found out that she was still aware of who she was, beyond her name of course, they would have deemed her a "failure" and disposed of both of us. It was our little secret that we both kept from everyone else.

As I reached the vent, my charged yawned, "Hidey hole…" Gently, I removed her from her throne on my back with my left hand. Meanwhile, I also pointed my drill to the left. Using the section of my right arm just before my elbow as a seat for her posterior, I held the little girl out in front of me. Her angelic marble-like face held a goofy expression as she tried to understand what I was doing as she also fought to stay awake.

What the majority of Rapture did not know was that the condition was not permanent or incurable. The sea slug inside of them was the cause of their condition, at least physically. The brainwashing did the rest. Tenenbaum had developed a Plasmid that killed the sea slug inside of them without hurting them during my time. While she had been tinkering with my genes, she had given me the ability so I simply had it as a "natural" ability without the need of an injected Plasmid.

Focusing, I willed the ability to activate. A bright white light began to emit out the palm of my ported left hand. Slowly, I lowered the palm of my left hand onto the top of her dirty head. As my hand made contact with her, a bright flash of light overwhelmed my vision. As it did, I felt the ADAM in her body flow into me as the slug was killed.

When my vision returned, I saw the confused, but happy little brunette girl look up at me with normal eyes that were surrounded by dark rings from the ordeal that she had endured for however long it had been since her forced conversion into a Little Sister. She began to clasp her hands together as she audibly thanked me for "rescuing" her. However, my radio activated and Sinclair's voice prevented me from hearing her as he said, "Well, our tin man had a heart all along. Personally, I call that a liability - but you have enough ADAM now…barely. Head to the Hall of the Future an' splice up with Incinerate."

Meanwhile, I had been helping the little girl reach the hole of the vent. She disappeared as she retreated into the vent network and, hopefully, began to make her way to a safe house set up by Tenenbaum or, perhaps, Eleanor. I hoped for the latter because the little girl had the baseball that Eleanor wanted to use to build a new Big Daddy doll.

The feeling of bliss entered my mind and I eagerly submitted to my beautiful master. She addressed me, "I hope we get to play again soon, Father. Don't worry, I have made arrangements with Tenenbaum. The girls will be looked after."

I asked her with my former life's gruff voice, "You knew that I would save them before you revived me didn't you, Eleanor?"

She replied with her hypnotic voice, "Of course, Topside. I know the kind of man that you are. When we get to the surface…we can have our own little girl."

I could have sworn that I felt a bead of sweat trickle down the right side of my face as she revealed her desire to have a child with me. I scolded her, "Young lady, you are too young to be thinking like that. Also, that is a very inappropriate thing to say to your Father."

Personally, I was not sure if I was even still physically capable of fathering a child because I had never been brave enough to examine that particular area of my body after my conversion into an Alpha Series Big Daddy to see if everything was still intact. Considering that I no longer felt the urge to urinate, I did not desire to know what else was different. I still thought of myself as a man and I really wanted to be able to continue thinking that I was one. I guess no matter how old a man was, some things about his mindset never changed.

Eleanor huffed before she replied with a disturbingly calm voice, "Oh Topside…resisting me only makes it more enjoyable…for me, that is. You forget…you are my protector…I can make you do whatever I want you to do." Then, she finished with a cheerful tone, "Anyway, go splice Incinerate, Father. The surface won't wait forever."

The feeling left my mind and I found myself back in the lower level of the workshop. I turned to look at my brother, who seemed to be exiting his own trance from communicating with Emily. He grunted, "They grow up so fast, huh, sir?"

I replied, "Yeah…let's get to the Hall of the Future and get the hell out of here."

He said, "Right behind you, brother." Together, we began to make our way out of the lower level and back to the main level of the workshop.