Disclaimer – I own no legal rights to Bioshock or related etc.
Shadowelf144 – I know Jack must feel like the unluckiest man in the world right now, but he's the only hope Rapture has. Please, keep reading.
CaliforniaStop – Trying to make up for leaving you hanging so long last time, so I tried to put this next chapter out sooner than I normally would. It is a really short one, but the last couple of chapters have been pretty long, and I honestly expected this chapter to turn out longer, but I think it accomplishes everything it needs to before we continue the story next month.
darkanine – Thanks for reading. Hopefully, you're caught up and reading this as soon as it posts, but if you're getting to it later, I hope you like whatever of the story I have up by the time you read this.
The secret elevator shook to a stop.
Sullivan stepped out first, then turned around, grabbed Jack by the arm, and tugged him out after him.
He pushed and Jack landed on his buttocks on the cold stone floor. He was looking down a long corridor, lined with barred cells, the closest cells empty, and covered in puddles of sea water. His hands were bound together behind his back by a pair of rusty handcuffs.
"Welcome to Persephone," Sullivan said. "This is where we keep the most dangerous psychos in Rapture locked up."
From his seated position, Jack didn't have to look up far to stare the standing Sullivan in the face.
"Really?" he said bitterly. "Because I think you might have let a few slip through the cracks. Like Dr. Steinman. And Sander Cohen. And a hundred spliced up spider people. And . . ."
"And me?" Sullivan said.
"You don't mean most dangerous. You mean the people Andrew Ryan didn't like."
Sullivan sat down across from Jack, and then he drew the pistol that was tucked in his pants and swung the butt across Jack's face.
"You killed a good man today."
Jack spat a mouthful of blood into the nearest puddle, watching the clumps of red separate and float along the surface.
"I didn't kill Ryan," he said through clenched teeth. "It was Fontaine's gang. They used me."
Sullivan was concentrating on the gun in his hand.
"Your little girlfriend," he said slowly. "She was really pretty. I didn't enjoy killing her." He sighed and looked directly down the barrel of the gun.
Jack flashed back to witnessing Sullivan's execution of Teagan in silhouette. Then the terrible mental image returned, of Teagan smiling as she slit Julie Langford's throat. It was becoming harder and harder to know who to feel sorry for down here.
"I had to do a lot of things I didn't enjoy," Sullivan continued. "Become everything I hated. By the end, I was more of a thug than I was a cop. But I did it because I believed in him. In Andrew Ryan. Believed him every time he said sacrifices were necessary to create paradise. Even when it became more an' more obvious lookin' around that paradise wasn't what I was seeing."
He pointed the gun at Jack.
"The only thing that kept me going was believing in Andrew Ryan. Believing he'd somehow be able to pull this off. You see, back topside, he gave me a chance, even when no one else would. I've been living my life for that man. And now that he's gone, I got nothin' to live for. So, even though it's obvious to me that you need to die, maybe I need to die to."
And he put the gun down. Pulling out another pair of handcuffs, he fastened one bracelet to his wrist and the other to the nearest cell.
"This lever right here," he stroked the control on a nearby panel, "will release the automatic locks on the door of ever cell in Persephone. Then all the goons in lockup down here can decide what to do with us. And maybe, if I decide we've had enough punishment, I'll just pick up that gun there and put us both out of our misery."
He stood up and pulled the lever. There was the loud clank of a hundred locks unfastening at once, accompanied by frenzied laughter that echoed down the corridor. Sullivan calmly walked with the slowly, mechanically opening cell door he was handcuffed to, and then sat back down when the door was completely opened.
Jack braced himself for pain as he heard the insane laughter coming closer, as well as dozens of echoing footsteps. Sullivan turned his head to see the splicers coming.
But he didn't see them. Their footsteps were drowned out by the thunder of a much heavier set of feet, and the laughter died down to the sound of a single child giggling.
"Oh, sh—"
Sullivan's last word was cut short by the hum of an industrial drill, which was rammed into the exact center of his face.
Jack bit down hard on his lip as the Big Daddy's drill smacked him on the side of the head.
He was surrounded by an inky blackness, his head pounding. His fingers felt something softer than the stone floor he remembered, and, as he forced his eyes open, he saw a bright light, a tall, slender figure framed by it. The figure was whistling "Oh Christmas Tree."
"Am I . . . Am I dead?"
"No, my child, I am not God," a female voice with a heavy European accent said. "It is true what they say on the banners, there are no Gods or kings. At least, if there are, they are not down here in Rapture. But . . . I did create you."
Tennenbaum stepped to the side and Jack's eyes began to adjust to the lamps in the room. At first, they had seemed obscenely bright after the pitch darkness of the Persephone cellblock. The soft feeling under Jack's fingertips was a well-worn rug. And, all around the warmly lit and furnished room, little girls were playing.
"So, what do I call you?" Jack asked. "Mom?"
"No," Tennebaum said, stroking Jack's chin and looking at his teeth. "I do not think I would feel comfortable with that. You may call me Brigid."
She let go of his chin and began studying his arms with clinical thoroughness.
"While you slept, I injected you with a large dose of ADAM," she said. "It was necessary to eliminate the influence of Fontaine."
Jack felt healthier and more clear-headed than he could ever remember. Tennenbaum stopped at the track marks on Jack's arm.
"As well as the effects of any . . . other influencing substances," she said suggestively.
"Thank you," Jack replied.
Dr. Tennenbaum helped Jack to his feet.
"You may go now," she said. "There is a bathysphere just beyond this room. You can use it to return to the surface now. Actually, you would have been able to do that any time. But your friends misled you, kept you distracted, did not allow you to realize this."
"They're not my friends. And I'm not going back up there. Not just yet, anyway. I have unfinished business with Frank Fontaine."
"I was hoping you would say that," Tennebaum replied. She walked to a brick wall and rested her hand on it. "Now that Fontaine has control of Rapture, he will not rest until he has harvested every last drop of ADAM, even if it means destroying my little ones. And when he is done with Rapture, he will take his evil to the surface."
"You mean unless he's stopped, Brigid."
"And you are the only one who can stop him. I am not strong enough to confront him myself, and everyone else is either loyal to Fontaine or a useless splicer. Fontaine will be nearly impossible to get to. He makes his hideout in the Little Sister's Orphanage, the same hellish place he turned these precious innocents into those ghoulish things."
She pressed on the brick wall and it swung open like a door.
"This secret tunnel," she said, "is your best chance. It will lead you into the basement of the orphanage. Then you can take down Fontaine and the rest of your friends from inside."
One of the Little Sisters enthusiastically ran through the passageway.
"This little one will guide you," Tennenbaum said. "Go with her, now!"
Jack nodded and stepped into the tunnel.