Ch. 11: Subject Delta vs. Comstock Part 2 (flashback)

A.N.:

Hey everyone! As promised, the second chapter. Only a few hours late right?

I would like to add that I do like the characters in Infinite and am not claiming anything regarding certain characters being better/worse.

I just love the characters in BioShock 2 xD

Anyway,

This is the end of the flashback, which ends at a point that we all should be familiar with :( That's okay though because it is a happy story in the end. Again, I tried very hard to maintain continuity and still have an AU story.

Read and review if you want.

New Year's Eve

1958

Somewhere beneath the Atlantic Ocean

The sounds of the crumbling of concrete and plaster, the snapping of wooden boards, the thundering of my footsteps, and the sick crunching of splicers' bones were lost to me as the little girl's agonized wails filled my entire being while I rushed to her aid. My surroundings were a blur as I smashed through walls, security gates, and anything else that got in my way. Any splicer that failed to react in time was violently tramped beneath my weighted diving boots as I charged full speed towards Sally's cries for help.

Everything in front of me was awash with the hellish red light being emitted from my segmented eye. My rational, calm thoughts were gone. In their place was the molten, primal rage of my Protector Instincts. Indeed, the monster Subject Delta had been let out of his cage. Even my ever forgiving and compassionate master was so furious about the betrayal that she was shaking with anger where she was in her favorite spot in the ducts of the Little Sister Vent network back in Rapture.

Hours earlier, Elizabeth had put her plan into action. As she masterfully tricked Comstock into following her while she led him towards his ultimate demise, I slowly followed them from a distance. As luck would have it, Comstock had spliced Devil's Kiss, an early version of the powerful Incinerate! Home Defense Plasmid, and Possession, a discontinued early Plasmid Line. As such, Eleanor had been able to track their movements from inside the Little Sister Vent network.

I had thought that Elizabeth had trapped Comstock when they entered The Garden of Muses after securing an invitation mask. However, something must have happened because, minutes later, I saw an unconscious Comstock and Elizabeth being taken from the establishment to one of Cohen's private bathyspheres by some his guards. Knowing that even if I had followed them I would be unable to keep pace with the submersible, I instead ripped an advertisement posture with Elizabeth's picture on it off a wall and went to The Garden of Muses.

I forced my way to the inner sanctuary of the lunatic. There, I found the artist and tried to interrogate him about where he had sent them by thrusting the picture of Elizabeth into his face as he was examining a painting of the two individuals that he had apparently drawn while they were dancing in the rigged platform before him. The nut job had been rather amused by my actions and ranted some nonsense about me, my paintings of blood on the canvas that was Rapture, and how my art rivaled the work of the masters. He had then asked me, with genuine curiosity, "Where did you study?"

Losing my patience, I had lifted him up into the air by his throat with my left hand. Cohen began to laugh like a madman and did not stop until I pressed my whirling drill's razor sharp tip into his manhood as a final warning. I should have followed through with my threat. Even if only half of what Eleanor had told me about the man was true, then I would have been doing Rapture a favor by castrating him. However, I had more important problems to attend to and when he had informed me that he had sent them to Fontaine's Department Store, I left him to whatever sick art abominations he fancied.

Eleanor wanted to go with me to the sunken department store turned prison for Fontaine's splicer army, but I refused, saying that I could not protect her from the hordes of deranged addicts and fight Comstock at the same time. She agreed to stay in Rapture but made sure to make it known that she was doing so under protest.

Unknown to Andrew Ryan, he had failed to truly isolate the condemned building from the rest of the city. There was a path that snaked down the near sheer drop of the ocean floor. It was difficult and extremely dangerous if one did not know the way, but it did lead to a small outcropping along the trench wall. There, the Housewares building had come to rest up against the side of the trench. The outcropping was just the right level to allow a Big Daddy to reach one of the airlocks that allowed access into the building's interior.

Even with my specialized diving suit and genetic modifications, the trip was nearly a death wish. The beam of my headlamp only cut into the pitch black abyss about a foot out in front of me. On a previous trip, a passing giant squid had seen the light coming from my lamp and had decided that I was a meal. The razor sharp tip of my drill going through one of his enormous eyes had ended both that notion and the creature's life. This time, my trip was without incident and I entered the building through the airlock.

I tracked Elizabeth's and Comstock's progress as they struggled to survive against the splicers. I had to admit that the man knew his way around a brawl. Their struggle against the deranged residents was understandable considering that all three buildings were practically stuffed to the brim with Fontaine's thugs. The splicers held a great fear of me and usually fled upon my approach though there were always those who were so desperate for ADAM that they were willing to fight a Big Daddy in a one-on-one death match without even making sure that said Protector was even escorting a Little Sister before attacking him.

I was confused about what it was exactly that they were doing. The way that Elizabeth had explained her plan, both Eleanor and I had gotten the impression that Sally was only bait to lure Comstock to a place that he could not flee from, and, in that regard, did not even have to be actually there at all. The only thing that mattered was that he believed that Sally was somewhere so that he would willingly place himself in a position that was impossible to escape from.

Due to our pair bond, Eleanor was able to perceive everything that I did. Both of us grew increasingly concerned as the pair closed off the Little Sister Vents. Wanting to believe that the woman was good-natured and would never put a child in harm's way, Eleanor suggested that maybe Elizabeth was driving Comstock deeper and deeper into the building just to be on the safe side. After all, the deeper she managed to lure him, the less likely it would be that he would be able to escape. If she managed to lure him into the very heart of the building, even if he somehow managed to escape me during our confrontation, I would have managed to severely injure him by that time and the army of splicers would finish him off as he attempted to flee.

I admit that even I wanted to believe that our new associate was still a decent person despite the unimaginable pain that had been inflicted upon her. Surely, she was incapable of justifying the harming of an innocent little girl, a Little Sister no less, as being means to an end. However, all of our hope in Elizabeth's character proved to be horribly misplaced.

I was nearing the customer service center when I had first heard the sound that made my blood run cold. Shattering the relative calm of the area, the most god-awful, heart-wrenching scream erupted from somewhere ahead of me. I had never heard such intense agony in a scream before and I had dragged burning sailors out of a destroyed Mark 12 5-inch Naval gun turret on the destroyer that I was serving aboard after a Japanese Kamikaze Zero crashed into us off Okinawa.

I heard the robotic tone in the child's voice. There had been no mistaking it. Sally was in desperate need of help. Eleanor had screamed through our link, "Daddy! She lied! She lied! They hurt Sally! Bad man and bad lady hurt my sister! Kill them Daddy! Kill them all!"

At the same time that my master had demanded that I killed all those who were responsible for Sally's torture, mental images of the poor girl being burned alive had filled my mind. The call for blood had gone out. Subject Delta had been let out of his cage. Even if Elizabeth had known what she had unleashed and brought down upon herself, there was nothing that she could have done to stop it. Not even Eleanor could have calmed my blood lust.

The artificial fury of my Protector Instincts had filled me with such intensity that it had felt like I too was being burned alive. Every single nerve ending in my body had blasted my mind with sharp, burning sensations that had felt like I was being stabbed by millions of needles. In pure agony from my own homicidal rage, I had let out a primal roar that had been so loud that I had temporarily rendered myself deaf before beginning my unstoppable charge towards the wailing Little Sister.

Now, as I neared the Toy Department, I began to hear voices. I recognized one of the voices as the one belonging to the lying bitch. The other must have been the one belonged to the man that was the cause of all of this. The already maddening rage inside of me spiraled even further out of control as I realized that the pair were telling Sally to come out of her Hidey Hole.

She was still in her sanctuary? Then why was she screaming in such a horrible manner? Suddenly, it all made sense. They had closed the other vents except for the one in the Toy Department so that she could only escape through that one exit. Then, they had done the unimaginable by raising the setting of the central heater to the point that they had been literally cooking her alive inside the ducts. Forced to flee to her only escape route, Sally was now facing death on all sides.

Contrary to the popular belief among the splicers, there were actually two ways of killing a Little Sister. The first was, of course, the run-of-the-mill violent removal of the slug from inside her. The second was to essentially cook the girl alive until the slug's ability to hold back the tide with its ADAM production was overwhelmed and the slug died from the intense heat. The girl would die almost immediately after the slug's demise, having had felt every second of her hellish torture of being unable to die even though she was being cooked like a piece of meat.

Meanwhile, if she was extracted from her Hidey Hole, then she faced almost certain death at the hands of these two sick demented individuals. I did not know what shithole these two rats had crawled out of where it was acceptable to heartlessly cook a girl that was no more than eight years old alive, but I was going to ensure that Rapture was where they were going to be exterminated like the filthy rodents that they were.

Finally, I arrived at the Toy Department. The department was darker than the others that I had just bulldozed through. The numerous display racks of all manner of children's toys had been seemingly untouched by the splicers as they were still fully stocked. Directly in front of me was the second floor platform. In the middle of the platform, I saw the pair standing in front of the Little Sister Vent. The intense heat was causing the metal structure to glow as the metal skin threatened to melt. Elizabeth was still wearing what she had been the last time that I had seen her but now the fabric of both her shirt and skirt was torn, her red ribbon was untied, and her bird pendent was gone. I saw Comstock aggressively trying to pull Sally out of the glowing vent even as the terrified child begged him to stop.

The private investigator was wearing a blue and black buttoned vest over a white collared shirt that had its long sleeves rolled back until they were equal with the sleeves of the short sleeve vest. The shirt's cuffs had been folded backwards so that they went over the top of the vest's sleeves. A short distance away from the backwards cuffs were two small brown leather adjustable straps that were on either side of each other on both arms. Around his neck was a red ascot tie that had was tucked under the blue and black vest. Meanwhile, he was wearing a pair of dark pants that were secured with a brown belt around his waist where the hem of his shirt was tucked into his pants. His white and black pointed shoes were rather fancy-looking and seemed somewhat out of place on the man's otherwise roughened appearance.

There was something off about his face. While his attire and even his voice suggested a much younger man in his thirties, his face suggested a much older man in his sixties or seventies. His hair was white and thin like that of an elderly man. Wrinkles were visible along his brow. The skin around his cheekbones and recesses was beginning to droop and thus highlighted the underlining bone structure.

As with Elizabeth, I got the impression that Comstock did not belong in Rapture or, for that matter, in our world at all. Killing them both would be doing my world a favor. Every action of the two had caused far-reaching ripple effects of absolutely nothing but hardship and sorrow. Their meddling ended here.

Somehow remaining oblivious to my overt charge towards them, the two continued to try to get Sally out of the vent. Comstock finally managed to grab her and hauled her partially out of the vent. He suddenly paused as he saw her appearance. My rage spiraled even more out of control when I saw the look of revulsion on his face.

How dare he look at her like she was some kind of freak?! Given that she had been isolated at the bottom of the trench near Rapture, she was in remarkably good health. Her black dress with a red ribbon around her waist and red buttons was in good condition as the only noticeable damage was the large section that was missing on the right shoulder area. Her face, arms, legs, and feet were the cleanest that I had ever seen second only to Eleanor. Even her blonde hair was still somewhat neatly trimmed.

The only issues that I saw were the patches of discoloration on her face caused by the unusually pronounced veins that were a darker grey color compared to the frost grey color of her skin and the milky white appearance of her eyes. Both were symptoms of ADAM starvation in a Little Sister. Like splicers, Little Sisters went through ADAM withdraw if she was unable to feed regularly.

The milky white appearance of her eyes was due to the fact that the bioluminescence cells, which were the source of their trademark yellow glow, cost the slug inside of the girl a lot of energy to maintain as it was having to replace the short-lived unstable stem cell versions of the native cells that had once been there at a greater rate than the other cells that it produced to take the place of the native cells that had been killed.

Sally was only in the beginning stages of ADAM starvation. She just needed to be returned to the rest of Rapture. I had yet to come across any signs of another Gatherer in the building so it was more than likely that Ryan's men had simply missed Sally in their sweep of the ducts to relocate the present Little Sisters to the rest of Rapture before they had signed off on the building being cleared for being sent to the bottom as a prison. Or, Cohen might have gotten a cheap laugh out of sending a defenseless Little Sister to a place like this. Either way, the poor girl had been all alone in a makeshift prison filled with ADAM-crazed denizens who, hopefully by some miracle, only wanted the ADAM slug inside of her and not her. Once she had been returned to Rapture, given a Protector, and then had gotten back into eating regularly again, she would be just fine.

As I came up from behind them, Comstock once again tried to pull her out of the vent, this time very aggressively. Sally saw me coming to her aid and cried out to me, "Help! Mister Bubbles!"

Just as I was about to strike the first blow, Elizabeth cried out, "Mister DeWitt!" Comstock turned just in time to see the whirling tip of my drill approaching his face. Somehow, the elderly-looking man managed to sidestep me to the right seconds before I could send my tool straight into his skull. Instead, my drill penetrated deeply into the large, round, concrete structure into which the Little Sister Vent was mounted as I missed the girl's sanctuary about a foot off to the right.

I tried to remove my drill but found that I was stuck. Irritated, I let out a rumbling roar and then forcibly ripped my industrial-grade tool from the wall, leaving a large round hole. As I twisted my torso to the right while freeing my drill from the wall, I succeeded in collecting three large chunks of concrete in the sharp grooves of its bit. Slinging my freed drill to the right in a straight line, I was able to dislodge the chunks in a way that caused them to fly through the air and hit Comstock.

The first piece hit him in the right side of his skull. The second hit him in the right side of his neck. Finally, the third struck him in the right shoulder blade. However, to my shock, there was no sound of breaking bone. Instead, there was a strange noise that vaguely sounded like a barrier being shattered. I observed a strange yellow light manifest around the man to form a bubble-like shape.

As I watched, cracks appeared in the surface of the bubble around Comstock's face and seconds later, the pieces fell to the ground like a windowpane that had been shattered. Whatever I had just witnessed clearly alarmed the strange-looking man because he went on the defensive by first blasting me with a shot of Shock Jockey, a far weaker form of the overpowered Electro Bolt Home Defense Plasmid, and then retreating towards the row of display racks.

I growled in slight discomfort as the purple arcs of electricity danced around my body while I was rendered immobile. The Plasmid's effects were short-lived and I chased after the man within five seconds after he had used it on me. When I caught up to him, he was trying to circle back around to Sally. With my body consumed by the fury of my Protector Instincts, I failed to feel the impacts of the hail of .45 ACP rounds coming from his rather ornate Thompson Submachine Gun.

My First Aid Reserve Tank negated the effects of the rounds and I charged towards him intent on sending the tip of my drill straight into the center of his forehead. However, seconds before I could strike, what I had seen moments earlier with the yellow bubble happened once again except, this time, it was in reverse. The bubble reformed around him and when I swung my drill into his head, it was like I was hitting the bubble rather than him. Cracks appeared in its surface and Comstock even recoiled as if I had hit him, but I failed to inflict any physical damage upon him.

An energy shield? Was that even possible? It must have been because I had just seen one in action. I knew next to nothing about physics but, if there was one thing that my blue collar work in the Navy had taught me, it was that stored energy, such as in a 12 volt battery, could not last forever. All I had to do was drain the shield's energy and then I could break this coward's neck without a second thought.

Giving off another guttural roar, I revved up my drill. The man attempted to retreat away from me but, with the area filled with the thunderous report of my drill's combustion engine, I thrust its spinning head into the private investigator's shield around his chest area. The sound of glass crunching and cracking joined the report of my tool as more and more cracks appeared in his shield.

He would have been dead long before the shield finally submitted and deactivated about five seconds later. After all, we had different defensive approaches. Comstock used a shield that could negate anything thrown at it as long as it had energy but, underneath, he had no armor or any Gene Tonics to reduce the physical damage that he received. Meanwhile, I, being an Alpha Series Big Daddy purposely designed to be able to take a heavy beating, had no shield but, instead, had thick, heavy copper armor over my vital areas and had Gene Tonics spliced that reduced the physical damage that I received in the areas of thinner, less effective leather and canvas armor.

The second that Comstock's shield was gone, my drill's tip penetrated deep into his chest. The sounds of snapping bone and ripping soft tissue filled the air as my powerful drill easily tore away the central section of the man's vest and shirt to leave a ragged hole in his attire and then bored into the underlying body. He screamed in pure agony as steady, circular spurts of blood erupted out of the bore hole to coat my armored form, particularly my segmented eye which entertained me slightly because I was able to watch the beads of blood slide down its surface.

However, just before the final blow could be struck, I noticed that he glanced off to his left and motioned by nodding with his chin. Concerned, I powered down my drill and ripped it out of the man's body. I turned my entire body to face in the direction that he had motioned and what I saw there would haunt me for the rest of my life. Elizabeth raised her right arm up and then motioned towards a seemingly empty space on top of one of the round display platforms for the floor beneath us. I was confused until, seemingly materializing out of thin air, a large humanoid automaton appeared standing upright.

The automaton was in the likeness of the first president of the United States of America, George Washington. On its back where the spine would have been with a person, the machine had large metal gears. Two American flags were flying from a mount on either side of the gears. Two red lights mounted on the end of long metal poles protruded from the machine's back as well. The porcelain face of George Washington was cracked and weathered. However, I noticed that the automaton was shimmering and had a faint discoloration as if it was out of an old black and white cinematic film that was out of focus.

What was this? Elizabeth had caused this thing to appear out of thin air. How? What were these two individuals and what had I gotten myself into? Though our link, Eleanor quickly informed me, "Don't worry, Daddy. They are both mortal but not from our world. Elizabeth was somehow physically divided between two worlds by her pinky finger. As such, she is able to bring something like that automaton into our world because she is in a state of quantum superposition. She is a fluke of physics, Daddy. She is nothing more than a human being that is spread across time and space by a physics loophole. She can die just like everyone else."

The automaton turned and faced me. In its grasp, I saw an old crank action Gatling Machine Gun. Wherever they were from, their world was somehow as advanced as our own but, at the same time, was also less advanced than ours. The Gatling Gun was rendered obsolete by machine guns like the M1919 Browning Machine Gun decades ago in our world.

I roared as I was suddenly engulfed by genetic flames. The coward Comstock must have hit me with Devil's Kiss while my back was turned. At the same time, the automaton jumped from the platform to the edge of our platform and then began to charge towards me as it fired its Gatling Gun. From behind me, Comstock began to unleash a hail of shotgun rounds into my metal lungs and reserve tanks at point blank range.

Though the pain was numbed by the immense amount of rage pumping through me, I could still feel the rounds that were tearing into my body from all sides while the dying genetic flames continued to eat away at me. I went to charge at the automaton, but I was suddenly rendered immobile by another blast of Shock Jockey from Comstock. Unable to move, I was powerless to stop the hail of bullets from ripping into my body.

My chances of surviving the confrontation became even more negative when I heard the dull thud sound that indicated that my First Aid Reserve Tank had been either depleted or rendered inoperable by Comstock's shotgun blasts. I berated myself for falling for the bitch's trick. I had been the one that the lying bitch had led into a trap. I was at the bottom of an ocean trench in a decrepit department store turned into a prison for spliced up killers with an inoperable First Aid Reserve Tank and was fighting an individual with an energy shield, an individual that could materialize objects from across multiple worlds, and the Gatling Gun-armed George Washington automaton that the latter had materialized to help ensure my demise.

Sensing my plight, Eleanor screamed in pure terror, "Daddy!"

Meanwhile, Sally, seeing her Protector dying, screamed in terror, "Mister Bubbles!"

Their screams sent my Protector Instincts into uncharted territory. Suddenly, the rage was gone. Instead, I felt very calm but my thoughts were gone. The monster was in complete control and I was acting on pure instinct. Indifferent to both the blood now squirting onto the interior surface of my segmented eye and the world around me in general, I calmly charged towards the automaton through its hail of gunfire. Upon reaching it, I flanked around behind it to gain access to its comically vulnerable internal mechanisms.

Destroy. I grabbed ahold of the large, circular, toothed gear protruding from its mechanisms in a vice-like grip with my gauntlet-encased left hand. Thoughtlessly, I ripped the gear out of its slot and then thrust my drill straight through the automaton's chest cavity. Able to access one-hundred percent of my muscular potential, my thrust was powerful enough to send my drill all the way through the machine. I examined the tip of my drill where it was protruding from the front of the automaton by a good seven inches with mild interest for a moment. Then, I placed my right boot-encased foot into the paperweight's back and used it for leverage while I violently ripped my tool back out of the presidential impersonator.

Looking back towards the male rat that I had to exterminate, I noticed that his female companion was using the overhead Jet Postal lines to circle overhead to be able to materialize more aid to the male wherever he asked.

Take away advantage. I took aim and then threw the circular gear that was still in my grasp. My aim was dead on and the gear struck the large blue nutcracker soldier doll that was in front of the bottom floor staircase landing. A loud cracking sound could be heard as the concrete figure collapsed towards the staircase, which sent it right into the Jet Postal line. In a loud crash, the heavy figure demolished the section of the line that was in its path before crashing to the landing of the staircase in a cloud of dust.

The bitch, clearly surprised, released her grip on her Air Grabber. She fell from the line and landed hard at the top of one of the flights of stairs. The disorientated liar began to tumble down the steps. Some freak of physics she may have been, but her weak physical body would need approximately one to two minutes to fully recover from the harsh landing.

Advantage neutralized. Kill later. I turned my attention to the male rodent that had touched the precious Little Sister with his disgusting, grubby paws. The defiler was over where he had been towards the far left corner of the landing. The varmint had stopped firing his magnum revolver and was looking in the direction of his companion. He even appeared to be calling out in concern for the bitch's welfare. How touching.

Kill! With my drill revved up, I charged towards the rat while letting out a loud guttural roar. When I reached him, I body slammed the coward at full speed. My assault broke his shield. So much for the shield having an advantage over my armor. I firmly grabbed ahold of the top of his skull with my massive left hand and then lifted him off the ground. Wheeling around, I threw the defiler clear across the room like a baseball. Comstock cried out in both shock and fright before smashing into a display shelf.

The impact sent the display tumbling towards the nearby staircase but it stopped just as it reached the first step, effectively blocking off the left path down to the lower floor. Though clearly in pain, Comstock recovered and darted towards the back wall where there was an escape route while firing his magnum revolver at me.

Prevent escape. Letting out a guttural roar, I charged at the fleeing coward. My speed was superior to his and, just before he could pass through the double doors, I body slammed him like a football player. The force of our collision sent Comstock flying into the doors. The two objects were compromised by the impact and collapsed in their housings, effectively blocking off access to the area beyond.

Without a functioning First Aid Reserve Tank, I could not let up on my assault and give the coward's shield time to recharge. As the saying went, the best defense is an overwhelming offense. I thrust my drill at the rat's head where he was recovering up against the compromised doors. However, Comstock recovered and rolled to avoid my attack. Instead, my drill penetrated the thin material of the left door.

In the brief instant that I was trapped, Comstock stood and then sliced into my left arm with a swipe of the Air Grabber secured over his left hand. The crudely made toy's hooked blades became snagged in the thick canvas hide of my left arm. I mentally laughed as the child abuser tried to yank his tool free only to fail miserably. I quickly bent my left arm and then sent my elbow straight into the trapped rat's nose. My blow broke Comstock's nose and the force of the strike sent the alcoholic flying backwards with a blood trail coming from his broken nose. I had helped him though in the name of good sportsmanship. His tool was freed from my arm.

I ripped my drill free from the door, which left a large hole in the bottom left corner of its frame, and then stomped towards the downed rodent. Before he could recover, I had reached him, grabbed ahold of his left ankle with my left hand, and then threw him across the room like a throwing disk. As the defiler flew through the air, I saw his revolver fly off to a faraway place in the room. Comstock landed hard near the right front corner near the second staircase.

Enough games old man. Finish the threat off. Letting out a guttural roar, I loudly charged towards the threat to Sally, shaking the floor with every footstep. Comstock recovered and stood just as he was within the striking distance of my drill. He swung his left arm at me with the Air Grabber in his grasp. Mentally sighing in disappointment, I reached out and firmly grabbed his left wrist with my gloved left hand.

I applied pressure and the child abuser cried out in agony as he dropped the toy. When the nuisance remained attached to the private investigator's arm by the strap, I released my grip on his wrist and then grabbed the piece of junk. I ripped it off the defiler's arm and then tossed it off to my left. When I did, I noticed the shotgun lying on the floor nearby.

I retreated back a short distance and then rushed forward. As I reached the man again, I reached up and firmly grabbed his right shoulder with my massive left hand. Then, I leaned back before thrusting my heavy copper face violently into the rat's skull. The sound of snapping bone filled the air as the rat fell backwards and landed hard on his back. My brutal headbutt had cracked open Comstock's forehead and blood was beginning to cascade down the sides of his face.

Now all that was left was to exterminate the pest. I stomped down on his chest with my weighted right boot when he tried to crawl away. With my foot holding the coward in place, I revved up my drill and then lowered its spinning razor sharp point down to bore into the coward's weakened skull. The child abuser raised his left hand up instinctively to protect his face while I also felt him press his right foot into my heavy frame to try to push me away.

The animal squealed in pain as my drill's point began to bore straight through its grubby little paw. Before I could bore through the obstacle and finish the defiler off, he leaned back and began to frantically claw at the tiled floor with his right hand as he tried to locate the shotgun. I mentally laughed at his frantic search for a moment, but then, to my surprise, he actually managed to grab ahold of the close quarters powerhouse.

Before I could stomp down on my victim's right hand, he relocated his fingers around the shotgun's grip, raised it up, aimed it at my chest, and discharged a round. The buckshot peppered my form and, due to the close proximity of the shot, my body was forced backwards by the raw energy unleashed into me. I did not go very far and I quickly recovered. However, as I turned back to continue my victim's execution, I found him drinking a bottle of Drinkable EVE, which I vaguely recalled being originally called Salts for some reason.

Enough! This has gone on too long! Kill! I gave off a deafening roar and then charged at Comstock to put an end to our death match. I had promised Eleanor that I would take her out to dance during the New Year's Eve celebrations and these two rats were making killing them far too complicated and time consuming.

However, as I neared the coward, he blasted me with a shot of Shock Jockey from his badly mangled left hand. I gave off an ear-shattering roar in irritation as I was rendered immobile while the purple arcs of electricity danced around my frame. Taking advantage of my vulnerability, the defiler rushed forward with his shotgun in his grasp. I had just broken free from the Plasmid's effects when the gambler placed the shotgun's muzzle against the surface of the center segment of my eye and then discharged a final round.

My eye's protective glass hide was shattered and compromised by the shotgun's pointblank discharge and I fell backwards. I gave off a loud grunt of discomfort as I landed harshly on my left side. Luckily, the glass of an Alpha Series Big Daddy's eye was unusually thick to be able to withstand the extreme pressure of the ocean's depths that we regularly endured. As such, the lethality of the shotgun's round had been all but nullified by the glass hide of my eye absorbing most of the buckshot and accompanying raw energy. The only damage that I had suffered was minor shrapnel cuts and gunpowder burns.

Still in one piece. Get up old man. Defend Little Sister. However, when I tried to get back up, I found that I was unable to move. Some unseen force was preventing me from finishing off the rat. I could feel it upon my body like an invisible blanket made of immensely heavy material. The same force appeared to also be silencing my deafening roars of confusion and rage because I could hear the pair returning to the Little Sister Vent. Unable to move, I was powerless to do anything except listen as the entire event unfolded.

Elizabeth cried out, "Mr. DeWitt, the girl!"

Comstock yelled, "Sally!"

Moments later, Sally cried, "No! No!"

Elizabeth said with a sympathetic tone, "Mr. DeWitt."

However, Comstock had become consumed by getting the poor girl out of the Vent. He ignored Elizabeth as he said, "It's okay…see…it's Sarah…she's come to see you…we're going home. You want to go home?" There was a pause. Then, I heard him grunt while Sally screamed in terror. No! They were going to kill her! Why could I not get up? If I could just get up, I would kill them like the disgusting rats that they were! Sally!

The hurt, frightened child struggled and Comstock begged, "No. No. Please no. Just please let me take you home." However, something happened seconds later. Comstock suddenly stopped talking and even stopped trying to get Sally out of the vent. What was going on? Did something happen to Comstock? My confusion deepened when Comstock started muttering to himself as if he was remembering something.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth said, "Let her go!"

Comstock replied, "No she's mine!"

There was another pause. Then, I heard a body hit the floor. However, it was too heavy to have been Sally or Elizabeth. It was Comstock? Why? What happened? Comstock, sounding as if he was in a daze, muttered, "I remember…all of it…the poor child."

Elizabeth then shot back, "She wasn't yours! Comstock! I wasn't!"

I felt like a load of bricks had been dropped on top of my head. This truly had been a trap for Comstock. That meant that Elizabeth had been telling the truth. Why had she hurt Sally then? Was she so consumed by her desire to kill Comstock that she had been willing to harm the innocent child despite giving us her word to the contrary? In front of a Big Daddy no less? Surely, she did not believe that she could hurt the Little Sister and then just walk away. If she did, then this had been a trap for her as well.

Comstock muttered, "No…no…no…" I heard the rat get to his feet before he continued, "This isn't right…"

Elizabeth, meanwhile, continued her assault, "The guilt was too much…"

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I heard a new voice. It was a male voice that had an intelligent, charismatic yet indifferent air to it. The man said, "So you turned to us to handle your problem."

Moments later, there was a second new voice that nearly identical to the first except it was a woman. The woman said, "To provide a place to go so you could forget."

After a brief pause, the man said, "Where there never was an Anna in the first place."

There was another pause and then the woman asked the man, "Comstock never was one to own up to his errors was he brother?"

The brother replied, "Never was comfortable with the choices that he made."

Now, the siblings were clearly taunting the poor man because the sister said, "Always claiming another's life for his own."

Meanwhile, as inexplicably as it had manifested, the unseen force afflicting me was suddenly gone. Sally had not made any noise since her last scream. I had to assume that she had been harvested, or worse, had fled back into the molten ducts of the network where she would slowly be cooked to death. The entire situation had degraded beyond the point of being fixed. All that was left now was to avenge the fallen princess by slaughtering her murderers.

Unchained, I began to get to my feet. The rage inside of me had not dissipated. If anything, it had only increased because of my failure to save my master's sister. The impulsive drive to kill the filthy little rats that had attacked the innocent child was still in overdrive. It was still the monster that was in control, not the man. In the monster's eyes, all the parties were responsible for the blasphemous attack on the princess. They all deserved to die.

Kill!

As I moved towards the rats, I heard Comstock address Elizabeth, "Elizabeth…darling child…I'm so sorry." Sorry?! The memory of Sally's agonized screams while she was being cooked alive filled my mind. Sorry?! My mind was too consumed by my Protector Instincts to discern that Comstock was, of course, referring to his past misdeeds and not the fact that he had just taken part in the torture of an innocent child.

My master's command echoed through my mind over and over like a broken record, "Kill them Daddy! Kill them all!" I let out a guttural roar and then charged forward with my bloodied industrial grade drill revved up. These rats had taken up enough of my time. I had to make myself presentable for my daughter in time to take her out to celebrate New Year's Eve and, thanks to these rodents, I only had a few hours left to do so.

As I rounded the corner of the round structure that the Little Sister Vent was mounted into, I heard Elizabeth reply coldly, "No, you're not…" I found Comstock before Elizabeth trying to gain her forgiveness. I saw no trace of the siblings but I would deal with them in due time. I mentally yelled in frustration.

So many to kill. So little time.

Seconds before I thrust my whirling drill into Comstock's back, Elizabeth finished with an ice cold tone, "…but you're about to be." Before he could react, I sent my drill's razor sharp tip into the rat's back. The sound of snapping bone and ripping soft tissue filled the air along with large amounts of blood as I bored straight through the rodent's spine and rib cage, utterly destroying its vital organs, before finally powering down my drill as its tip exited out of the rat's chest.

My strike was so sudden and violent that Comstock was in shock. Elizabeth's face and shirt were covered by her kidnapper's blood. However, she calmly accepted the liquid as if Comstock's spilled lifeblood was a badge of honor. She sneered at the impaled defiler with an expression of pure, sadistic pleasure and satisfaction as he comically looked down at the protruding tip of my drill as if to confirm what had happened. Only the pressure of my drill was keeping Comstock alive.

Kill them Daddy!

I reversed the direction of my drill and then revved it up once more. Comstock screamed in agony as I retracted my drill completely, thus releasing the pressure. I circled around to the right to line up my Drill Dash on the last rat that had to be exterminated. In one final act of life, the coward looked at the woman whose life he had ruined. Then, dead before he hit the floor, the monster fell forward to land prostrate at Elizabeth's feet.

Kill them all!

I let out a primal roar of fury and then revved up my drill. Tragically, Elizabeth was shocked by my aggressive demeanor. The woman had actually thought that I would let someone who had hurt a Little Sister just walk away. She had finally killed Comstock, but, in doing so, she had been consumed by her obsession and had become the very thing that she had hated so passionately: a monster that hurt innocent children. Too late, she realized that she had dragged herself to the edge of the abyss right along with Comstock.

She raised her hands up as she begged, "No! St…stay back!"

I tried to stop because she had not revealed how we could escape. However, Eleanor screamed through our link, "Bad lady kill Sally! Kill her Daddy!" Obeying my daughter, I charged forward and impaled the brunette in her thin midsection with my bloodied drill. My blood lust screamed for further satisfaction. With Elizabeth still impaled by my drill, I continued my charge.

The floor beneath my feet shook as I rushed towards the only remaining flight of intact stairs. Upon rushing down them, the structure collapsed and we began to fall towards the bottom floor. I continued my charge and, instead of joining the falling staircase when it hit the ground, we ended up on the platform-like area on the far right side of the department.

Sally's screams filled my mind once again and I felt wet drops flowing down the cheeks of my human face. I was confused because blood had never come out of the ducts in the corner of my human eyes before. However, I discovered that it was not blood when one of the drops managed to enter my mouth and, instead of the taste of iron, the strange liquid tasted salty. What did the human body produce that was wet and salty and exited through the ducts around the eyes?

I would solve that mystery later. I launched Elizabeth off my drill and she collided back-first with the wall in front of me. To her credit, the woman proved to be unnaturally tough as she raised her hands up once again and said something even though there was a gaping hole in her midsection. Her words were inaudible to me. All I could hear were Sally's wails of agony and her crying out, "Help! Mister Bubbles!"

Fucking abomination!

Not even worthy enough to look at her!

Little Sisters are precious angels!

Who the fuck do you think you are?!

I revved up my drill and then charged forward. My visual perception degraded into only sporadic flashes of what was in front of me as visions of Sally screaming while fire engulfed her tiny fragile body and, worse, Eleanor being burned alive as well tormented me while their screams deafened me.

What if Eleanor had come with me?

I collided with Elizabeth. My violent charge slammed her back up against the wall. She continued to say things but I could not hear what they were. This woman had come to Rapture on a personal vendetta. Had won over my Eleanor only to betray her trust in the most heartless manner possible other than killing me. Had used one of Eleanor's sisters as bait. Had then convinced her victim to cook said sister alive inside the one place in Rapture that the girl could truly feel safe. For all I knew, had killed that innocent child in the process of trapping a man who was some alternate version of the man who had actually been the reason for her father's death in whatever shithole of a world they were from.

If Eleanor had come with me, this woman would have likely caused her death as well. My Eleanor! This bitch had almost killed my Eleanor; my best friend, my daughter, the only spark of love and hope in my life!

Die you heartless bitch!

With one mighty swing of my drill, I sent the woman through the wall. Elizabeth continued flying backwards until she hit reinforced concrete. Her body became still and the light was gone from her open eyes. Examining her form, I saw that there was a bloodied piece of steel rebar protruding from her chest where her heart was located. I guess she actually did have a heart all along.

Picking up a nearby piece of debris, I placed it in front of the hole in the wall and sealed it. I mentally laughed as a thought occurred to me. There was a hole here. It's gone now. Having had my fill of violence and blood for one evening, I turned and began to try to find a way back up to the upper floor. The rage inside of my mind subsided as my Protector Instincts deactivated. The area in front of me became bathed in the usual golden orange light of my glowing eye.

My rational thoughts returned as the monster was put back in his cage. As the full extent of my actions hit home, I was unable to continue forward and collapsed onto my hand, drill, and knees. More of that strange salty liquid from earlier seeped out of the ducts around my human eyes while my body began to shake involuntarily. It became hard to breathe as I was inexplicably seized by a coughing fit.

Through our link, I begged my daughter, "Eleanor…I…I'm so sorry…I…I tried…forgive me please! Daddy tried…he did…please…forgive me! All of this…for nothing…"

Before Eleanor could say anything, I heard the brother say, "'For nothing,' he says."

Shocked, I looked up to see the sibling standing before me. My vision was still blurred due to the strange condition that had seized me seconds prior. I could only make out the silhouettes of the two as they stood next to each other.

The sister said, "How pessimistic."

The brother taunted his sibling, "Says the fatalist."

The sister retorted, "Given his reputation, I had expected him to be like you."

He asked, "How so?"

She explained, "You don't know when to stop trying to fix things."

Her brother corrected her, "I do know when to stop, dear sister. He does not."

She stated, "I do find his attachment and devotion to Eleanor inspiring."

He replied, "I must say that this new side of you is refreshing."

She countered, "Nonsense, dear brother. I find it inspiring because of what they are about to go through."

He said, "Ah, and now we have come full circle."

The sister added, "The reason why we are here."

The brother said, "It is only fair. He did hold up his end of the deal."

The sister said, "Pity that she had to pay with her life."

He consoled her, "Don't grieve, dear sister. She is in a better place."

She commented, "For Eleanor's and his sake, let's hope she stays there this time."

The brother admitted, "I have high hopes for these two."

His sister remarked, "It would be wrong of me to try to disillusion you, my naïve brother."

He boasted, "I wager that they will make it this time."

The sister replied, "Since you are so eager to embarrass yourself, I accept."

Her brother said, "We shall watch then."

She finished, "Indeed."

There was a sudden flash of light. When my vision finally returned and cleared, the pair were gone. However, where they had been standing, I saw a neatly folded blueprint with a strange yellow key sitting on top of it. I stood and then walked over to the items.

Upon examining the key, I found that it was a genetically encoded key. The blueprints were very technical and there were hand-written notes in the margins. However, I immediately recognized the building-sized, flying saucer-shaped bathysphere that had a large glass windowed tower protruding from the center and octopus-like arms extending out from the central part of the vessel that had the underwater equivalent of booster rocket engines attached to their ends. There was no mistaking the identity of the behemoth: Augustus Sinclair's Lifeboat.

My mind become numb as I struggled to grasp the extent of our good fortune. Our payment had been the blueprints and ignition key for the one vessel in all of Rapture that could safely transport not only Eleanor and myself out of the dying city, but all the remaining Alpha Series Big Daddies, their Little Sisters, all the other Little Sisters, Tenenbaum and her rescued Little Sisters, and anyone that was still sane enough to want to get the hell out of the Neverland of madmen called Rapture.

This was perfect. Sinclair was a shrewd business man that had sold me out but he would be more than willing to help get his baby back from Sofia Lamb. She had seized control of Persephone and the docked Lifeboat. Knowing the man as I did, Sinclair would jump on the opportunity to "stick it to" Sofia. With the assistance of my Alpha Series brethren, we could retake Persephone and claim the Lifeboat. After that, not even Andrew Ryan could stop us from escaping. Hell, I would even offer him and Sofia Lamb a spot on the one-way trip out of the city as my way of making nice. Atlas/Fontaine wanted the city so badly? He could have it.

Eleanor stated, "We can save everyone…yay Daddy! You're a hero!"

I laughed sadly before I replied, "No, kid…I just brutally killed two people while failing to save an innocent child. Your old man is not a hero…he is a monster."

She dismissed my remark and assured me, "Nonsense, Daddy...you are a hero! You only kill bad people that deserve it."

Shocked, I lectured her, "Eleanor, get thoughts like that out of your head right now! Killing is never right…no matter how pure the intention may be. Killing is killing, plain and simple."

She asked, "So...if it is wrong...why do you do it?"

I explained, "I only kill because I want to protect you from people that would kill you if I did not stop them. I don't want anything to happen to you. I love you Eleanor and I always will...which is why I do the things that I do."

Eleanor was silent for a moment. Then, she asked with a strange tone that I had never heard her use before, "You…love…me?"

Confused, I replied, "Of course I do kid…what…what's wrong? Are you alright? Do you feel sick?"

She assured me, "No…no…I'm alright…" Then, she declared, "I love you too Daddy! I've been wanting to tell you that for so long. I love you a lot. A real lot."

She asked, "Is that okay? That I love you so much?"

Confused as to why she would ask if it was wrong for a Little Sister to love her Alpha Series Big Daddy Protector, I replied, "Of course, why wouldn't it be, kid? It is perfectly natural for two people like us to love each other. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any point for us to be together."

Sounding as if a huge burden had been lifted from her shoulders, Eleanor said, "I'm so glad to hear you say that, Daddy. I love you so much…I…I honestly don't know what I would do if you were gone…"

I assured her, "I'm not planning on going anywhere anytime soon, kid. Listen, I'm headed back. I need to fix my suit but I should be back in Rapture in time to take you out to dance before the clock hits New Year."

Eleanor asked, "Oh, right…dancing. Actually, Daddy, can we celebrate New Year's Eve… alone?"

Navigating the rubble strewn department, I replied, "Sure…if that is what you want. Are you hungry?"

Eleanor said, "Well…maybe a little…are you able to fight after that?"

The fight against Comstock and Elizabeth had taken a brutal toll, I could not deny that. My suit had been severely damaged and my body itself had taken a heavy beating. I would not be able to do very well in a fight until I could get patched up at Point Prometheus. Ryan had seized Fontaine Futuristics so now I had to go all the way to the Ryan Industries-owned alternative. Alpha Series Big Daddies were able to gain access to the old Fontaine building, hence why we used it to store our more valuable assets such as my collection of currency because no one else could get into the building. However, we now had to go to Point Prometheus for everything else.

Being New Year's Eve, there would be no one there to patch me up. I would be on my own until tomorrow morning. However, the likelihood of being attacked by anyone that was sober enough to be a threat, let alone ambushed by an organized Splicer Gang, was so remote that I honestly did not think that it was worth forgoing a quick gathering session to hold Eleanor over until morning. The entire city was going to be blind drunk except for the Protectors and Gatherers. What could possibly happen?

I replied, "To be honest, I'm a little messed up, kid. Still, I should be fine if we just do a quick food run. Then, we can celebrate the New Year proper."

Eleanor chirped, "I promise I'll be quick, Daddy. Hurry back…I have a surprise for you."

I smiled beneath my armored face as I replied, "I can't wait to see what it is. Stay where you are, I'll be there as soon as I can."

My daughter said, "Okay Daddy. I'll stay right here for you."

By then, I had found a way back up to the second floor. I felt my heart fall when I failed to find any trace of Sally. She was likely dead, cooked to death inside the vent network. If she was still alive, there was nothing that I could do. She was a Mass Production Model. They did not respond to us like they did the Tin Men. In a desperate enough situation, they would call out to us to protect them but we did not have the awful stench of the Tin Men so they would not follow us or exit the vent if we called for them with our fists.

I had done everything that I could have done for her in my current condition. After I got patched up and the city was somewhat back to normal tomorrow, I would seek out Tenenbaum and then return for her. If she was still alive, I would rescue her and take her to the surface with us when we escaped in Sinclair's Lifeboat.

I suddenly heard approaching splicers. The sounds of battle had ceased and the scavengers were coming to pick through the remains. I quickly vacated the area and began to find parts to repair my suit. Eleanor was waiting for me and I would hate to begin 1959 on a bad note by not getting back to her before the clock hit midnight. Compared to the events that had already happened, the rest of the evening was surely going to be rather uneventful as Eleanor and I welcomed in the New Year together.