Ch.27: Edge of the map
A.N.:
Hey everyone!
Sorry it has taken me so long to get something posted.
I had this end point in mind and, by the time I finally got to it, I had typed up like 30K plus words.
So, I have had to chop up this one massive Word document into three. The part with Emily is in the third one and I got so focused on all that I forgot to just post updates...I'll try to avoid doing that in future.
I meant to have all the chapters ready to post at the same time but it is already almost the Fourth of July so I decided to get this first one out just so we can get the show on the road already. I will try to have the other two chapters up by the end of the summer.
It feels like it has been a lifetime since my last chapter so I apologize for how rusty I am with both writing and proofing stuff.
Still, I hope it was worth the wait.
Read and review if you want :)
With Subject Alpha drawing the majority of the Thompson-wielding Splicers' attention, I ran through sparse gunfire as I charged towards the Brute with my highly modified Drill's industrial grade engine filling the air with its signature roar. The abomination slammed his noticeably scarred fists onto the ground in front of him as he let out an unintelligible cry of animalistic fury before he then began to charge towards me hunched forward on all fours as if he was a gorilla. In a matter of seconds, we had both neared the wooden platform in the middle of the street. I had to be mindful of the large hydraulic jack that was placed off to the side in the left corner of the street as it was one of the very few things that were holding up the lowest of the two haphazardly constructed wooden bridges that ran overhead and connected the upper levels of the two buildings on either side of us.
At the last possible moment, I let out a low grunt as I willed a massive discharge of bright blue bolts of electricity from the ported digits of my left hand into the massive humanoid. The Brute Splicer let out an agonized cry as his body began to involuntarily spasm as it was engulfed in arcs of genetic electricity that were powerful enough to cause the remains of a badly torn black vest and yellow shirt with somewhat matching black dress pants to begin to smoke as they were on the verge of outright igniting into flames.
Before he could recover, I thrust the razor sharp tip of my Drill into the right side of his badly deformed face. The hardened metal tip of my tool hit home almost perfectly in the center of the Brute's bloodshot right eye before effortlessly continuing on to inflict barbaric levels of devastation upon its victim. The brutal power of the strike succeeded in gouging out the majority of the right side of the abomination's head including the eye and most of the brain matter that was caught in the path of my Drill before it exited through the rear of the skull in a bloody cloud of flesh and bone fragments. The remaining portion of the Splicer's brain was visible through the gaping wound as ADAM-infected green-tinted blood began to flow out of the gaping hole but, despite missing part of his head, the gorilla-like individual was hardly even fazed.
Letting out a now even more unintelligible noise that vaguely sounded as if it was a grunt of anger, the heavily-built denizen slammed his right fist into the center of my copper diving helmet's thick, reinforced chest plate between the two auxiliary lights. I let out an enraged grunt as I also coughed up a few drops of blood onto the interior of my segmented glass eye as several of my ribs broke, with at least one of them piercing one of my lungs, as a result of the blow while a metallic hum filled both the inside of my helmet and the area around us.
However, the thick copper skin of my face defiantly stood steadfast against the abuse and my suit's automated First Aid System began to pump its miraculous red fluid into my body via its intravenous tubes as I forced myself to ignore the maddeningly unnatural sensation of my ribcage and lung being healed at a rapid, artificial rate. Meanwhile, the Brute had retreated back a few steps and now had a noticeably bleeding and slightly mangled right hand as a result of no longer having the mental capacity to coordinate his strike enough to not break his own fist against my armored face in the process.
From where she was hanging onto the handles on the back of my Alpha Series diving helmet, the Eleanor-controlled Little Sister taunted the Splicer with a confident tone, "Nobody hurts my Daddy!"
I let out a low growl with my surgically modified Alpha Series Big Daddy voice as I began to move towards the abomination with my bloodied Drill at the ready. When the Brute swung his left fist towards me, I calmly reached out and simply caught it in the palm of my gloved left hand. Before the surprised gorilla-like denizen could react, I leaned back before then thrusting my frame forward as I used my copper forehead to deliver a brutal headbutt into the center of what was left of the abomination's skull. What seemed like at least a liter of green and red-shaded blood splattered over the exterior of my segmented eye as the sound of cracking bone filled the air as the entire front of the Brute's skull collapsed inwards under the raw power of the impact.
The abomination's entire body began to sporadically shake as its ability to properly send electrical impulses to control its muscles was now significantly impaired. Muffled whimpers were just barely audible over the roaring of my Drill's powerful gasoline engine as I pressed my assault by gunning the throttle and then thrusting the hardened tip into what remained of the stunned Brute's skull. There was a brief moment of resistance as my industrial-grade tool powered its way to reach the base of the hulking denizen's spinal cord before the hulking individual finally fell silent. Despite a few persistent muscle spasms, the Brute was essentially dead before he even hit the floor as he collapsed into a heap at my feet. Powering down my drill, I then took a step back from the mangled corpse and began to survey the firefight.
Far above me, I could see Jennifer engaging with the Spider Splicers in vicious mid-air combat as they used their inhumanly proportioned bodies to propel themselves off the sides of the decaying infrastructure of Siren Alley. The armored young woman was more than a match for the skinny denizens as she picked them off one by one with each leap through the air. Had it not been for the inevitable miscalculations of the Splicers that cost them their lives at the experienced and merciless hands of the Elite Big Sister, the entire scene would have seem staged, almost like a macabre rehearsed waltz.
Deciding that Jennifer did not need any assistance, I focused on dealing with the Leadhead Splicers. Turning my frame back to face in the direction of the orphanage, I saw a group of them standing on the lowest wooden walkway above me. The three men in torn dockworker attire and one woman in a badly deteriorated upper class formal dress were seemingly oblivious to my presence below them as they focused on Subject Alpha and a manifested decoy that was completely animated as my brother telepathically controlled it while also being able to simultaneously return fire with his Prototype Rivet Gun. Upon examining the walkway, I saw the large hydraulic jack in the street nearby that was holding up the structure in a spot that was close to where it had been anchored to the second floor of the building that was occupied by Joe's Green Groceries.
The group of Splicers continued to be ignorant of my presence as I moved to stand in front of the faded yellow heavy-duty jack. The tool was placed on top of a stack of miscellaneous debris such as large grey rocks from the nearby seafloor and thick pieces of wood. The stack was almost tall enough for the top to be even with the auxiliary lights of my diving helmet. It was obviously only loosely constructed and the only reason that it was most likely still standing was the pressure that it was under due to the weight of the jack above it. A single, strong hit would be enough to knock it down.
Upon close inspection, I was quickly able to deduce that the bridge was unlikely to be able to support its own weight without the aid of the jack as it consisted of three long underlying support beams that spanned the expanse of the distance between the two buildings and about a dozen individual planks of wood nailed on top of the beams to create a crude platform that was just wide enough to allow single-file travel across its span. In addition, on the side of the bridge that I was facing, there were two reinforcing sections of wooden boards that had been nailed into the side of the out most support beam and then anchored into the side of their respective building with the right one beginning anchored into the upper left corner of the bulkhead housing for the Security Door that was the entrance to the Joe's Green Groceries. The walkway was filled with holes as the planks of wood were both rotting away and were literally whatever pieces of scrap that the denizens could find that looked thick enough to support a person's weight when they walked on it.
The reason why the jack was needed to hold up the bridge was that the Splicers had apparently not found three support beams that were long enough so the last maybe twelve inches to the side of the right building was completed by placing three different boards to the side of the ends of the first three and then nailing them together. It was at that critical section of structural weakness where the lengths of the support beams were joined that the jack had been placed to bear the stress.
I took a step back with my weighted diving boot-encased right foot before then sending it back forward into the side of the pile of debris just below the base of the jack with as much force as my tree trunk-like leg could produce. My kick succeeded in dislodging the stack right out from beneath the hydraulic jack, which began to fall back towards me but I caught it by its shaft with my left hand with relative ease despite it easily weighing more than a ton. I then tossed the massive device onto the ground off to my left as I began to backpedal away from the compromised structure. The Thompson Submachine Gun-wielding denizens on the bridge cried out in a mixture of confusion and alarm as a result of both the noise of the jack hitting the ground and the realization that there was only mere moments before the walkway would collapse.
As I continued to move back to avoid getting caught beneath the structure when it fell, I heard Eleanor sing with a playful tone, "London bridge is falling down…falling down…falling down…London bridge is falling down…my fair Daddy."
In their panic to get off the walkway before it collapsed, the Splicers actually hastened its failure as the drastic increase in vibration from their desperate footsteps put even more stress on the mortally wounded structure. Sure enough, they were unable to reach the safety of the two buildings on either side before, as I had just reached the overturned bathtub on the opposite side of the street, the nails holding the support beams together snapped. The anchor of the much longer and heavier section of the bridge was unable to handle the weight and the entire length of the left span almost instantly fell straight down to the street below. However, the shorter right section remained firmly anchored in place as it was able to support its own weight for the time being.
It was a relatively short fall so the majority of the left section actually remained intact upon impact with the ground save for three planks being dislodged. In addition, the four Splicers were left uninjured by the fall. They were, however, unable to maintain their balance and they fell onto the ground on either side of the narrow walkway when the structure landed on the street with two of the men and the woman falling towards me and the remaining man falling towards Subject Alpha.
With my bloodied Drill at the ready and my gauntlet-encased left hand poised to unleash a blast of genetic electricity, I audibly shook the ground beneath me with every step as I moved towards the Splicers as fast as my heavily armored frame could allow. One of the men had fallen much closer to me than his comrades and had also had the misfortune of landing face-first onto the street. As a result, he was only able to get up onto his knees just in time for me to reach out and firmly grab the entire front of his head with my massive left hand. With the denizen held in a vise-like grip, I began to violently shake his entire body as I held him up in the air above me for a moment while he desperately attempted to claw at the thick brown leather and blue canvas hide of my left arm with both hands after dropping his Thompson in his panic.
Letting out a rumbling roar that was loud enough to drown out the sounds of gunfire and screams of crazed Splicers around me, I cocked my left arm back and then threw him at the two armed individuals in front of me. The man flew through the air before he hit the woman square in the center of her chest and the two fell onto the ground in a heap. Meanwhile, the man, who was just to the left of the woman, had managed to get to his feet and had raised his Thompson up in preparation to fire upon me. In addition, the man who had fallen on the other side of the bridge had gotten to his feet and had also turned to face me as he began to make his way over the top of the fallen structure to join his allies on their side.
However, they were both quickly struck down by from behind by rivets fired into the base of their spinal cord at the back of their skulls as my brother moved towards me while his decoy had the other Leadhead Splicers' attention as it continued to move around out in the open in front of the orphanage. I could not help but smile slightly beneath my copper face as the real Subject Alpha reached the fallen bridge and the puppet then mockingly gave an informal salute before vanishing into thin air as my brother telepathically willed it to cease existing.
Meanwhile, the two denizens on the ground were still trying to get to their feet. Alpha and I both moved towards them and reached them at about the same time. The unarmed male Splicer had managed to get to his knees once again but, with his attention focused on my brother, he never even saw me as I moved to stand behind him. The addict's cry of shock was silenced as the air was filled with the sound of snapping vertebrae as I reached down to grip his chin with the palm of my left hand and then snapped his neck with a smooth, well-practiced motion. The woman was just as swiftly dispatched in the exact same manner by Alpha while her attention was focused on me.
There was hardly any time to celebrate however as the sound of multiple cries from the second floor of the building behind me drew both of our attention. Wheeling around, I saw another group of Leadhead Splicers standing near the edge of the path that snaked around the sides of the building across from the grocery store just as they began to open fire upon us through the gaps in the original metal tube-style handrails that ran between each supporting column. Due to the incredibly crude modifications to allow the already nearly worn out frames of the Thompsons to chamber .50 BMG rounds, however, the Splicers were unable to land a hit before I had revved up my tool and began to repel their rounds back towards them with the electromagnetic dynamo modification on my Drill.
The group of two men who in their early thirties in tattered, dirty business suits that may or may not have originally been their current brown color and a broken bunny mask wearing woman who was in her late forties in a badly deteriorated white formal evening dress all cried out as the repelled rounds penetrated the thin railing in front of them and then traveled on to hit the wall behind them. The hail of lead caused the trio to cease firing and temporarily retreat back out of sight.
Taking advantage of the lull, I powered down my drill while I also turned towards the staircase that was near the end of the street to my left before my brother and I then began to make our way towards it so we could access the network of walkways on the second floor. Clearly, these poor fools were not accustomed to fighting our kind or they had not been around when we were at our zenith before we were heartlessly cast aside in favor of the Tin Men. Otherwise, they would have known better than to challenge a Protector such as Subject Alpha in an open environment.
These Splicers should consider themselves lucky as to the fact that Alpha was no longer able to unleash his full Protector Instincts. Fully enraged, my brother was easily able to match even the psychopathic killing machine Subject Delta. The monster inside of me was the living embodiment of primal rage and raw power. However, unlike the Tin Men who were all completely identical in their Protector Mode within their own models, those of us in the Alpha Series had our own individual demons. The monster inside of my brother was an entirely different beast.
As we neared the stairs, I heard the unmistakable whale-like call of a Mass Production Model Big Daddy that seemed to originate from inside the second floor of the apartment complex before us. I began to ascend the steps and noted that the Tin Man's haunting cry had a distinct irritated tone to it as if he was quickly losing patience with something. As I neared the middle of the flight of stairs, the entire building shook as a thunderous explosion rocked the area while a cloud of fire mixed with metal and wooden shrapnel along with chunks of meat erupted out of the open doorway above us.
When I reached the top of the flight of stairs, second floor walkway, I saw the towering Rumbler Mass Production Model standing in the threshold of the smoldering, jagged hole that was once the double door entrance of the building. Judging by the bloody pieces of what remained of some Splicers that were strewn about the room beyond, the area in front of the door frame, and even down on the street, I deduced that the Tin Man had been attempting to leave the building but had come upon a group of denizens that were attempting to take part in the ambush. When they did not make way for the lumbering giant, the Rumbler had grown impatient and fired a RPG to remove the obstacles in his way. Leaving the Tin Man to his single-minded existence, I turned and began to make my way across the nearby properly built bridge that connected the apartment complex to the building that we were attempting to reach.
As I neared the middle of the structure, the sounds of deranged laughter and metal scraping against concrete to my right drew my attention. I turned just in time to see a Spider Splicer clad in little more than rags lunging at me with his right arm cocked back above his left shoulder in preparation to swing the glowing cargo hook held tightly in his hand.
I let out an enraged growl as the tip of my assailant's molten hot cargo hook penetrated the leather and canvas hide of my diving suit and then lodged itself in my right shoulder blade. With the tool stuck into my arm, the Splicer let go and then used my armored chest to attempt to backflip back out of harm's way. However, reaching out with my gloved left hand, I managed to grab ahold of his left ankle with a vice-like grip just in time.
Having been caught in mid-air, the denizen cried out in shock as he began to flail his remaining limbs around in a blind panic in an attempt to break himself free from my grasp. With the intense agony of having the cargo hook's rusty tip stuck into my right shoulder's rotatory cuff fueling my resolve, I sadistically clamped down on the man's ankle until I felt the underlying bone first break into several pieces and then slowly crush into powder under my inhumanly strong muscular strength. Unsatisfied, I then turned my entire body from side to side to repeatedly slam the Splicer into the short bridge's two ornate round metal support columns at either end of it with enough force to audibly break the bones in his spinal cord and ribcage with each impact until the metal columns both snapped clean off from their top and bottom bases.
Motion in my limited peripheral vision drew my attention to my left and I looked in time to see the group of Leadhead Splicers moving into position to open fire on us from the far corner of the walkway. Letting out a low growl, I willed a surge of genetic flame through the ported digits of my gauntlet encased left hand point blank into the captive Spider Splicer before releasing my grip to let the burning and broken denizen fall unceremoniously to the hard, emerald green tiled surface of the street below the bridge.
Alpha began to fire upon the group of armed addicts with his highly modified Prototype Rivet Gun to cover me as I began to make my way towards them. I noted the large square-shaped opening of the recessed entrance to a personal residence that was securely locked by a skeletal metal frame security door that was in place over the original wooden one that were both at the top of a short flight of three wooden steps that was in the wall directly across from the end of the bridge before I turned right to face in the direction of our assailants. In that very brief amount of time, I could not help but mentally sigh as I noticed the completely out of place black and white checkerboard tiled pattern of the floor between the exterior wooden surface of the walkway and the wooden flight of steps that led up to the doors.
As I moved towards the Splicers, I reached up with my gloved left and then forcibly removed the cargo hook that was embedded in my right shoulder while letting out a low grunt that was a mixture of both pain and anger as I felt the rusted, molten hot metal tip pull against my shoulder blade as it initially resisted being removed from my frame for a moment before it finally relented. Ignoring the incredibly unnatural sensation of the bones of my shoulder healing within mere seconds due to the ADAM-infused red liquid being pumped into my frame by my suit's automated First Aid system, I forced myself forward.
I satisfied my now sore shoulder by angrily thrusting the tip of the dislodged cargo hook onto the closest section of the approximately six faded green rectangular areas that had been painted onto the wall of the building on my left. The once rather aesthetically pleasing design had consisted of beautiful emerald green rectangles with interlaced gold leaf patterns within them that were all then framed by deep red borders in conjunction with tall, narrow light fixtures with brass-plated housings that were mounted flush with the wall using matching brass rivets. By now, however, it had all badly deteriorated by years of exposure to the damp air of the flooding city. There was also a square white marble framed window sticking out from the center of the green section near the corner at the far end of the walkway. However, it was now not only boarded up but also had metal bars mounted to its exterior over the top of the boards.
As I continued moving towards the Splicers, my brother was able to dispatch one of the men before the group had the sense to retreat back into cover around the round corner of the building. They had once had the luxury of an avenue of escape to the second floor of the building containing the grocery store across the street. However, because of my earlier actions, the makeshift bridge was no longer available to them and they were trapped at the other end of the walkway beyond the corner.
Of course, the pair could have just simply jumped down the street below because, even for a normal person let alone a Splicer with almost zombie-like durability, a two story fall was actually not lethal just from the distance of the fall itself under normal circumstances. Of course, it would be a very painful landing but, considering that the alternative was having an almost comically oversized drill bit being thrust into one's face, jumping would have surely seemed like the better option. However, that must have never occurred to them because, as I reached the corner, they suddenly emerged to stand in front of me with their crudely modified Thompson Submachine Guns held at the ready in a final desperate attempt to fight their way out of their predicament.
Due to the short distance between us, I was able to reach out and grab the man by the front of his head with my left hand while simultaneously willing a blast of high-powered electricity from its ports directly into his frame. Before she could go to the aid of her comrade, I then thrust my Drill into the woman's firearm with enough force to shatter the nearly worn out weapon into several pieces before she could even pull the trigger. The blow caused the former socialite to stagger back into the curved section of metal handrails on the corner of the building as she recoiled in both pain and shock.
With one of the Splicers temporarily stunned, I moved forward to the closest section of straight railing in front of me, which happened to be the one that was directly opposite of the still lit neon sign of the grocery store across the street, and then thrust the captive man down onto it. The impact was enough to audibly snap the denizen's neck. Then, turning my entire body to the right to face the deceased man's partner, I tossed his body over the side to land with a wet thud as it ended up in a heap in the middle of the wooden section of the street below.
However, I paused as I towered over the unarmed, ADAM-ravaged resident of Siren Alley with my immensely larger Alpha Series Big Daddy frame while I examined her from beneath my blood-stained, glowing segmented eye. Despite being nearly obscured by the broken, chipped white and gold leaf accented porcelain bunny mask that covered her face, I could just barely make out a final shred of humanity in the form of a look of genuine sadness in the woman's glassy, bloodshot eyes as she slowly looked at me, then over at my brother where he was standing in the middle of the short bridge at the other end of the walkway, and then finally back at me.
However, the humanity in her eyes just as quickly left as she noticed the Little Sister riding on my back. The compulsive, all-consuming hunger returned and the madness overtook her reality once more. The woman began to scream like a lunatic as she charged at me with nothing but her bare hands to use against me in her single-minded drive to get to the ADAM in the little girl. Just as quickly, my own madness returned as I let out an enraged roar at the threat to my beloved daughter while I moved forward to thrust my Drill into the center of her unarmored chest.
The industrial-grade mining tool had little trouble in piercing all the way through the denizen's skinny torso. Effectively impaled as I held her up in the air above me, the crazed addict clawed at the exterior of my glass eye and the nearby area of my copper diving helmet in a blind rage even as the tips of her fingers began to bleed profusely as the underlying bones began to be revealed by the rage-fueled destruction of flesh.
When she began to kick at my chest, I firmly grabbed the ankle of her right leg with my gloved left hand. After forcibly ripping my Drill free, I then wheeled around to face the wall behind me whereupon I violently slammed the Splicer against it hard enough to leave a vague outline of her body before roughly dropping her onto the floor in a pile of dislodged debris from the new depression in the wall. The bloodied, mangled mass at my feet remained motionless for a few seconds as I waited to see if there were any signs of life. Green-tinted blood began to pool around the body but I was still not convinced and, thus, I made sure of the woman's demise with a final downward strike through her neck with my Drill.
Before there was any time to even remotely rest, the just barely audible sound of maniac laughter came from behind me. I turned my entire frame to face the incoming Spider Splicers just in time to see the two abnormally tall and skinny individuals land before me with one of them landing upright on the walkway and the other crawling along the ceiling with the use of his cargo hooks. Before he could assist me, Alpha was surrounded on both sides as two Spider Splicers landed on either end of the bridge. However, I was unable to see much more than the two deranged individuals lunging at him at the same time before the pair before me demanded my full attention.
Letting out a threatening growl, I stared down the pair as I revved up my industrial-grade Drill while, at the same time, bright blue electrical arcs began to manifest along the surface of my gauntlet-encased left hand. The two madmen seemed rather amused by my threats because they began to cackle even louder before they simultaneously lunged at me with their molten hot cargo hooks in position to strike. Letting out a low grunt of exertion, I willed a super charged blast of chain lighting from the ported digits of my left hand while I also charged forward to intercept the incoming Splicers.
The two men howled in agony as the area of the walkway around us was bathed in a bright blue light as multiple electrical arcs traveled between their frames. Paralyzed by the effects of my Electro Bolt 2 Plasmid, the pair were helpless as I caught both of them in mid-air as they landed on my left and right shoulders. I then wheeled around to face the wall behind me before then charging forward as I carried them out in front of me. Shaking the entire building to its foundation, we smashed into the wall with the two Spider Splicers taking almost all of the force of the impact and also all of the addition force of my weight crushing them from behind. The bone-shattering collision was enough to nearly collapse the section of the wall around the impact as the two denizens were left embedded inside of it facing in my direction as I took a step back.
Before they could recover and attempt to dislodge themselves from the wall, I sent the whirling hardened bit of my Drill into the center of the skull of the denizen to my right. The sounds of cracking bone filled the air as my frame was splattered with green-tinted blood until, less than three seconds later, the individual was effectively beheaded. After forcibly extracting my weaponized mining tool from the blood-soaked cavity in the wall, I turned my attention to the remaining Splicer.
The abnormally tall man had the faintest look of panic in his beady eyes as he was desperately trying to pull his frame free from the wall. It seemed as though his amusement from just seconds prior was gone. Balling my left hand into a fist, I delivered a punch into the center of his head to disorientate him before I then grabbed him by his scrawny neck as I effortlessly pinned him back against the wall.
As I held the Splicer in place, Eleanor asked him as the side of my daughter that terrified even me briefly surfaced as she asked with an incomprehensibly cold and sadistic tone, "So, tell me, do you find my Father funny now?"
Before the denizen could reply, the sound of cracking vertebrae filled the air as I crushed his neck. Leaving the limp corpse inside the wall, I turned to my left as I started to move to assist my brother. When I did, however, I paused as I took in the scene that was playing out before me.
It had been little more than a minute or two since I had been forced to look away to deal with the two Spider Splicers that had attacked me but I was stunned by the fight that must have happened in that short amount of time between the Alpha Series Big Daddy and the two addicts that had gone after him. Subject Alpha's now bloodied Prototype Rivet Gun was in the middle of the bridge on its right side with the top of it facing in my direction. It was where it must have fallen after it had either been knocked out of his grasp or he had voluntarily dropped it at the start of the fight or soon afterwards judging by the fact that it was about where I had last seen him. Just to the left of the discarded weapon, lying face down in a pool of its own blood, which had spread to the edge of the bridge and was now dripping over the sides and down to the street below, was one of the Spider Splicers.
The denizen had never even landed a hit judging by the lack of any blood on the tips of his two cargo hooks that were on the floor just a few inches away from his body. Furthermore, the only visible signs of physical injury on the near pristine corpse was the nearly surgical knife wound in the right side of its neck just below what little remained of the horribly mutated denizen's lower jaw.
Meanwhile, Alpha was standing off to the right of his Rivet Gun near the edge of the bridge. The much heavier built Big Daddy had the taller but far weaker Spider Splicer pinned against the middle of the dual riveted seam in the reinforced breast plate of his weathered copper diving helmet as he held the denizen dangling above the street below with a vise-like grip on the front of the man's head with his gloved left hand. Facing away from my brother and effectively blind because of the massive hand covering his eyes, the captive man cried out in panic as he wildly kicked his legs and swung his arms in an uncoordinated, desperate attempt to escape.
However, it was all too little, too late as the Alpha Series Big Daddy calmly rotated the Splicer's head approximately forty-five degrees to the left before he then confidently thrust the terrifyingly sharp tip of the wooden handled dual-edged diving knife in his right hand into the man's neck at a slight upward angle. The simple but incredibly effective move sent the non-magnetic beryllium blade first slicing through the denizen's jugular and then into the medulla oblongata. The Splicer dropped his cargo hooks as the near instantly fatal blow killed him as easily as a light switch could turn off a light bulb. After dropping the corpse down onto the emerald green and gold trim surface of the street below, my brother screwed his diving knife back into its cast brass sheath where it was securely strapped to the side of his upper right leg.
As the Alpha Series Big Daddy retrieved his Prototype Rivet Gun, I began to make my way over to him while briefly wondering if the Splicers were as sensitive to the toxicity of the beryllium of our knife blades as normal human beings. They were genetically mutated wrecks of their former selves but they were still living creatures so surely there had to be a line somewhere between what you could do with ADAM and what was simply just biologically impossible for a living organism. Even Little Sisters, who were technically immortal, were not completely invincible hence the existence of the Protector Program. In that regard, surely even Eleanor had to have some kind of biological ceiling that her body simply could not pass.
By then, I had reached Subject Alpha in the middle of the short bridge. Sensing my line of thought about her in regards to what her body could achieve even with the uncharted, astronomically high level of ADAM being forced into her through the physiological link of our Pair Bond, Eleanor remarked with a confident tone, "Hold my beer and watch me, old man."
I started to let out a series of grunt-like laughs in response but I was interrupted by the sound of multiple screams coming from the third floor of the apartment complex in front of us. Turning my entire frame to the left, I looked in direction of the screams to see three Leadhead Splicers that were engulfed in flames and running towards the openings in the pair of metal arches that were clearly not original to the building near the far left corner of the third floor. As we watched, one of them did not make it and simply collapsed into a burning heap on the floor right in front of one of the far right arch while the remaining two men made it and then jumped towards the street. Their actions were revealed to be desperate attempts to flee from the Elite Big Sister when she came into view moments later as she calmly walked to stand at the edge of the building beneath the closest arch.
Meanwhile, the two men that had jumped had landed near the bottom of the flight of stairs with the sound of breaking bone briefly filling the air as one of them fell forward onto the ground as he snapped one or both of his legs upon impact while the other one managed to land without doing so and then began to run in the direction of the only working security door to the main pumping station despite the majority of his body being covered in severe third degree burns. However, the fleeing denizen did not make it far before Jennifer had jumped from the third floor of the apartment complex, gracefully performed a back flip during her descent, and then landed directly in front of him.
The Splicer fell flat on his posterior after colliding with the unnaturally tall armored young woman and then attempted to crawl backwards away from her while begging for her to stop. The former elite assassin of Sofia Lamb let out a high-pitched cackle that sounded like a strange combination of some nightmarish machine and a screeching animal in response to her prey's pleas. Then, in less time than it took to blink, the armored predator had both willed him up into the air before her and also thrust nearly the entire length of her tungsten-tipped weaponized needle that was mounted into her left arm through the denizen's chest.
The man's cries were drowned out by the sound of fluids being forcibly sucked out of his body and into the Big Sister thanks to the paths created by the large, hollow corkscrews that penetrated deep into her arm from the bottom of the needle's housing at the end of the shaft. The skewered individual dropped his charred Thompson Submachine Gun and then grabbed a section of the needle a few inches away from his body with both hands as he attempted to push himself back off the Big Sister's weapon. However, time was rapidly running out for the denizen as the grown Alpha Series Little Sister's ADAM supercharged boy greedily consumed every trace of the corruptive gene-altering substance in his body as fast it could be drained out of him.
When he began to cry out as the hopelessness of his situation became clear, Jennifer lowered him so that he was looking directly into the largest porthole of her custom built bulbous diving helmet and then raised her gloved right hand up to place the thin side of her right index finger up against the exterior of its round metal reinforced glass lens while the glow of her façade's eye bathed his anguished face in its golden-yellow light. The Splicer's body went limp within seconds as nearly all of his blood was drained from him and the Elite Big Sister simply swung her left arm off to the left to unceremoniously remove his corpse from the shaft of her weaponized needle. Her emotionless glowing eyes then locked on the remaining gunman near the bottom of the stairs.
The horrifically burned man had managed to roll over and then crawl to the side of the apartment complex before finally ending up in a sitting position with his back propped against the badly cracked emerald wall. There was an entrance to a maintenance path between where he was and the large ornate metal column at the very end of the street where it took a ninety degree left turn to go towards the orphanage. The man could have attempted to escape down the narrow metal corridor but he instead opted to make a final stand against the slowly approaching nearly immortal young woman. Holding his crudely modified Thompson as best he could, the Splicer began to fire his weapon.
The burst of .50 BMG rounds hit nothing but air as the assassin vanished in a cloud of purple particles mere fractions of a second before they reached her. Before he could process what had happened, Jennifer rematerialized just to the left of the man as she sent a brutal punch into the left side of his head with the balled fist of her gloved right hand mere fractions of a second after her body was solid once again. A cry of shock escaped the Splicer as the powerful blow was just barely shy of being strong enough to outright knocking him unconscious as it sent him to the ground on his right side.
As the man was in a daze, she kicked his weapon out his grasp with the metal capped toe of her weighted diving boot clad right foot. The Thompson flew out the denizen's hands to land nearly two feet down the street, leaving its former owner defenseless against the ruthless armored killer now towering over him. Her prey was still in a stupor as the powerful young woman roughly grabbed him with both hands and then lifted him up. Holding the unarmed man firmly against the front of her lithe frame, Jennifer then easily snapped his neck with complete indifference.
Finally, letting out a high-pitched screech, the Big Sister rotated in a near complete circle in the middle of the street before throwing the deceased individual into the lit neon sign for the grocery store. The sounds of shattering glass and surging electrical current filled the air as sparks rained down on the wooden surface of the area in front of the store when the body smashed into the center of the green and white lettered words "Green Groceries". The deceased Splicer then fell to the ground beneath the sign to land in a glass shard covered, charred heap.
Having once again been reminded that our companion was, in fact, a trained and experienced assassin, Subject Alpha and I made our way down the stairs to regroup with Jennifer. We had just reached her when a final set of voices came from above us. Looking up at the makeshift bridge between the third floor sections of the two buildings on either side of us, I saw a group of three Leadhead Splicers. The individuals, two women that were clad in what remained of skimpy dresses that were just barely managing to stay in place over their badly malnourished frames and one man who was wearing the stained, torn remains of an orderly uniform from the now abandoned orphanage at the end of the street, were wielding a mixed collection of weaponry with one of the women being armed with a Thompson Submachine Gun, the other woman brandishing a Webley Revolver, and the rather heavily built man hunched forward as he strained to wield a strange, homemade weapon that appeared to be furnished out of a wooden handle, sheet metal and several paint or oil cans that had been riveted and welded together into a crude, spring-loaded projectile launcher.
Seeing the obsidian rock that I had used to hit the lingerie-wearing man that had been hiding behind the bathtub when we were traveling towards the orphanage when we first entered this section of Siren Alley, I willed it up into the air towards us. Without missing a beat, Alpha quickly reloaded his highly modified Prototype Rivet Gun with a clip of Trap Rivets before he then fired the entire clip into the rock's smooth black exterior while I held it suspended in the air in front of him.
When my brother finished, he grunted with his Alpha Series voice, "Go, sir."
As I then willed the ordinance-laden rock straight up into the air above us, I grunted, "All yours, Jen."
The Elite Big Sister jumped up to side of the second floor walkway of the building to our left before then launching herself like a rocket towards the rock. When she reached it, the young woman struck the smooth, black object as if it was a volleyball with enough force to send it flying towards the group of bewildered Splicers that were still standing in the middle of the bridge. With inhuman ease, she then fell towards the ground only to land perfectly upright on her feet in front of us.
The ADAM-corrupted individuals let out a collective cry of shock as the Trap Rivet covered projectile flew towards them. The male Splicer, momentarily forgetting what he was holding in his state of panic, fired a small soup can with an ignited delay fuse protruding out of the top of it from the launcher straight down onto the floor of the walkway beneath his feet just as the rock impacted dead center of his head with enough force to splatter it like a watermelon that had been shot by a cannonball. While the headless corpse was being knocked off its feet and over the opposite side of the bridge to plummet three stories down to the street below, the rock delivered its lethal secondary payload into the two women that had been on either side of where the man had been standing. The chunk of volcanic glass then continued on to end up somewhere on the roof of the orphanage.
The two female Splicers were shredded by the Trap Rivets as the second stage projectiles were discharged from their host rivet housings at such close range that the two denizens might as well have taken a pointblank blast from a shotgun. Their mangled bodies collapsed onto the bridge just as the fuse of the homemade grenade fired by the man reached the payload packed inside the canister. The deafening explosion was powerful enough to demolish the majority of the bridge in a cloud of thick milky white smoke while wood and metal shrapnel flew out in every direction.
An eerie silence followed the explosion as the entire area around the pumping station became deathly quiet save for the sound of light pieces of wood shrapnel landing on various surfaces as it continued to rain down like a kind of bizarre snow. We waited for any signs of remaining hostile inhabitants for nearly a minute but continued to hear nothing but near complete silence from the section of Siren Alley around us.
When it became safe to assume that the ambush was over, I lowered my Drill down to my right side and relaxed my tense frame while I grunted, "Right then…"
In desperate need of supplies, I began to move towards the Circus of Values Vending Machine that was placed against the wall beneath the covered area of the building to my left near the end the street beyond the Gene Bank and Gatherer's Garden Vending Machine. A low growl escaped me as the unnatural sensation of fresh EVE being pumped from the reserve tank on my back and into my body through the surgically implanted tubes and the intravenous line along the interior of my left arm when I manually commanded my suit's automated system to replenish the supply inside my body before it was necessary. It was a small trick that ensured that I could completely refill my reserve tank when I stopped for supplies at the Circus of Values.
As he walked close behind me on my right reloading his Rivet Gun, Alpha informed me, "The inner sanctuary is at the very back of the pumping station, sir. It is a straight shot so anyone still left inside will have no choice but to either stand and fight or make a run for it."
I replied, "I understand. Sinclair is running out of time and he knows more about Persephone than anyone. That lifeboat is the only real chance to get the kidnapped girls out of here safely and I will be damned before I let all of this be for nothing."
My brother grunted in agreement, "My sentiments exactly, sir."
Jennifer then informed my little companion, "Eleanor, I found evidence that Mister Meltzer was here in a little hideout up there on the third floor. Our actions here in Siren Alley must have let him make a break for another area of the city because it appeared as if he was still inside the hideout only a few hours ago. According to an audio diary that he left behind, he has figured out that Alexander is the person that he has to find."
Eleanor replied, "I see…I do hope he is careful. Father is drawing the majority of Mother's attention but, as an outsider, he is in far more danger than the rest of us."
By then, we had reaching the Circus of Values. I ignored the urge to simply smash open the machine and simply restocked on Drill Fuel, First Aid Kits, and EVE Hypos with the small collection of cash that I still had with me. After buying everything that I needed for the time being, I moved out of the way to allow Alpha to use the Vending Machine as I just vaguely noted the machine's clown voice as it informed me, "No refunds! No returns!"
I then moved to stand in front of the orphanage. As I was inspecting my Drill and noting that everything still seemed in working order despite the extensive use that it had seen in just a few hours, I heard Eleanor sigh with a sad tone. Concerned, I lowered my tool down to my side as I let out an inquisitive grunt.
My daughter reassured me as she explained, "Oh, it's nothing Father. I was just looking at that building up there."
I looked up above the orphanage to see the enormous skylight in the ceiling. Dark blue light lazily flowed through the arch-shaped glass structure as it allowed a strangely calming view of the ocean above the city. The towering remains of a badly damaged skyscraper-like building loomed over us with the upper most portion of it being hidden from view because of the distance between us and the choking darkness of the ocean floor. It amazed me that the majority of the art deco-style building's lights were still on given the fact that there were huge sections that were completely missing along its exterior from either the Civil War or the lack of maintenance over the last several years.
After a moment, Eleanor suddenly asked with an uncharacteristically shy and timid tone, "Daddy…will you…can I sit on your arm…you know…just for a second? Please? Can I live in my fantasy again…just this once?"
I smiled beneath my copper diving helmet as I instantly knew what she was talking about. After slowly lowering my massive frame down onto my right knee to allow my precious daughter to disembark safely, I positioned my left arm out in front of me so that it was flat and bent at a ninety degree angle to the right just as I had done so many times for her all those years ago to let her have a better view of the ocean beyond Rapture's many glass windows and skylights. I waited for Eleanor to get situated in the middle of my forearm with her tiny legs dangled over the side in front of her and her Gathering Tool held peacefully in her lap. Then, I slowly stood back up.
It might have just been a trick of the light or it might have been the white dress that the Little Sister was wearing, but the sight of the smiling little girl sitting on my arm while she gazed out at the ocean beyond Rapture with a look of unquenchable curiosity about the world mixed with unbroken hope for what the future held in her glowing eyes whenever she turned just enough to allow me to see her eyes hit home as I was able to go back to a time that was long gone.
As I quietly observed the precious little angel as she marveled at the world just beyond her reach, I could not help but reflect on the fact that it was strange what moments we held onto when time marched us forward. We always seemed to end up missing the silly, seemingly unimportant things. We almost always took them for granted as we went about simply trying to survive without ever realizing until it was too late just how significant they had been in our lives.
As she stared off into the abyss, my daughter asked, "What is the surface like at night, Father?"
I thought for a moment and then explained, "Well, at least out in the middle of the ocean…like around where Rapture is in the Atlantic…it is so dark…normally you only have your ship's running lights along with the Moon and stars above when you have to navigate by eyesight alone. However, it is beautiful because when the ocean is calm, you almost cannot tell where the water ends and the sky begins."
With child-like wonder, she asked, "Why?"
I replied with my Alpha Series voice, "The surface of the ocean becomes like liquid obsidian and it almost perfectly reflects the sky. It is so easy to let yourself get lost in it all and believe that your ship is the only thing in existence as you travel through the sea when it is like that."
The controlled Little Sister remarked with a longing tone, "Sounds so peaceful…"
I smiled slightly beneath my emotionless copper face before I replied, "It is."
After a moment, Eleanor asked, "Have you ever seen a 'Midnight Sun', Johnny?"
Memories from my time aboard the Fletcher-class Destroyer turned research ship U.S.S. Torrey after the war once again flashed through my mind as I grunted in response, "A few times above the Arctic Circle."
I then paused before I continued, "As fascinating as that is, the opposite is also true. There are places at the edge of the map that go without daylight for a time during certain parts of the year."
Then, as mysterious as I could make my voice despite the surgical modifications, I said, "But…you know…"
Falling into my trap, Eleanor asked with a whisper as she looked back at me by first turning her head and then finally twisting her tiny, frail frame around to face towards me, "What?"
My mischievous side flared as I once again teased my daughter like I had done a few times all those years ago when I drew my arm in to bring her closer to me as I said, "During those times of darkness is when the monsters come out."
Though we both knew better, Eleanor continued her innocent façade as she gasped and raised her free left hand up to her mouth while her glowing yellow eyes were filled with concern. She then asked with a hint of fright in her edged Little Sister voice, "Mon…monsters?"
Her response was so adorable and endearing that I could only just barely keep it together. Naturally, I could not help but imagine that a being as powerful and nearly immortal as Eleanor would have very little to actually fear from them if she ever actually did encounter such folkloric entities. However, I savored the moment as my daughter let me tease her.
After pretending to be frightened for a few more seconds, the precious little girl asked, "But, you'll protect me from the monsters…right…Father?"
I raised my Drill up as I flexed the genetically enhanced muscles in my right arm while I let out as manly of a grunt as I could to reassure her. A few seconds passed before we both finally lost it and Eleanor began to giggle loudly while I almost simultaneously began to laugh with repeated grunts. Green-tinted, ADAM-infused tears began to roll down her doll-like cheeks while she continued to giggle as my daughter then placed her forehead against the exterior of the center of my segmented porthole.
That was how we stayed for a moment before Eleanor finally relented and, after giving me a quick kiss on the exterior of my diving helmet, returned to her perch on my left arm. She then once again began to gaze off into the abyss beyond the skylight. After about another minute of letting herself indulge in her fantasy, my beloved companion looked at me and then nodded. Once my temporary Little Sister charge had been returned to her throne on my back, I turned to face the entrance to Pumping Station No. 5.
The security door was located at the top of a short flight of steps and was housed in a reinforced, riveted metal bulkhead that was specifically meant to resist far more stress than the typical variant found around Rapture, which was most likely why the Splicers had chosen the building as their safe house. My attention was drawn to the handmade banner above the door with the white lettered words "Temple of The Lamb" that were either sown or written onto its dirty, dark fabric. Ignoring the urge to burn the banner with my genetic flames, I raised my Drill and left hand up at the ready and then began to climb the flight of stairs.