Disclaimer – I don't own any legal rights to Bioshock, blah, blah, etc., etc.
CaliforniaStop – Thank you again for reading this. I really have appreciated your reviews the whole way through, and I really don't think I deserve all the praise you've been giving me. This chapter's going to start off going in a different direction than you might have been expecting, so I hope you're not too disappointed.
Eclipse – Was hoping I'd get a reaction out of that last scene of that last chapter. Glad to see that you and CaliforniaStop are representing both sides of the classic Harvest/Rescue debate.
A/N – So with no further adu . . .
Are you a monster? That was the question Tennenbaum asked Jack when they first met, back on the hard stone floor of the smuggler's hideout.
Jack now had a firm grip on one of the little brats' shoulder. She was squirming in his hand, swatting at his fingers.
"No! No, no, no, no, no!"
Jack tightened his grip.
He clenched his other hand into a fist.
He could see a light, glowing pink, emanating from beneath his skin. He worked the glowing hand, ever so gently, through the little girl's hair.
The scales fell from her eyes. The seaweed covering her skin withered and fell away. The pallor disappeared.
When Jack took his hand away, the Little Sister ran an arm against her mouth, wiping away the last bubbles of sticky pink ADAM. She was perfectly normal. A very pretty little girl who had once been somebody's daughter.
She stepped back, trembling, as Jack turned his attention to the other Little Sister, who had been crawling away from him in terror. He worked the plasmid Tennenbaum had given him in that smuggler's hideout through his blood again and placed his hand on the little girl's head.
He stood back. The little girls were staring at him with the innocent eyes that had been pale voids just a moment ago.
Finally, one of the little girls broke the silence.
"Are you an angel?"
Jack stared at his feet, ashamed of what he had been thinking of doing.
"I'm no angel, kid," he muttered.
A tiny hand grabbed his.
"Yes, you are," she said sweetly. "You saved us."
She walked him to the wall and looked up at a porthole, the same one Jack's guide had disappeared through a little while back.
"Hidey-hole," she said, pointing, and then yawned. "Time for beddy-bye."
She jumped up and caught the rim of the hole, her little feet kicking as she tried to hoist herself up. Jack lifted her until she could just crawl into the hole. Then he lifted the other Little Sister so she could climb in as well.
"Good night, sweet angel," a voice whispered from the hidey-hole.
Are you a monster? Ryan had definitely thought so. Cohen and Steinman had only seen the violence in him. Fontaine had even said that all he was capable of was killing. But Tennenbaum and the little girls had seen something in Jack the others hadn't. And now Jack was feeling more confident that there was more to him than Fontaine had expected.
It was time to tech Fontaine a lesson.
Jack pushed the trap door opened and finished climbing the ladder he'd found in the sewer. Just as Tennebaum had promised, the tunnels had led him straight to what was clearly Fontaine's Little Sisters Orphanage.
He could see splicers all around him, separated from the room he was in by a tall, thick gate. If it was anything like the passages he had seen everywhere else in Rapture, it was electronically locked, and Fontaine had a panel somewhere to control who came and who left.
The splicers were beating at the gate.
"C'mon out, Atlas! We know you're in there!"
"Long live Andrew Ryan!"
Jack saw a winding stairway. As he began climbing it, he spotted a surveillance camera out of the corner of his eye.
"Well, well, well." Fontaine's voice boomed over the loudspeaker system. "Look who's here. I certainly hope it's to reconsider my offer. There's still plenty of room in the family for you."
Jack pulled out his revolver and fired at the camera.
He heard another one ahead of his swivel into place.
"No? Well, fun's fun, kid, but I've had enough. Now, would you kindly put that gun in your mouth and pull the trigger?"
Jack kept walking.
"I said, 'Would you kindly put that gun in your mouth and pull the trigger'?"
There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Fontaine's hearty laugh.
"So ol' Mother Goose has been playin' around in that ol' noggin of yours, huh? That's okay. I had you brought into this world, and I can have you taken out of it."
Jack opened the door at the top of the stairs. Mr. Touch was standing on the opposite side of the room. A low chuckle emanated from his throat, and a sadistic smile crossed his lips.
He made a quick gesture and Jack flew back, rolling down the stairs, just barely catching the edge of a step before falling to the floor below.
He hoisted himself back up and ran, as fast as he could, towards Touch.
Touch gestured with both hands and Jack flew into the wall.
He climbed back to his feet, only for Touch to raise one hand over his head.
Jack was levitating, his feet lifting from the ground. As Touch motioned, Jack's body began spinning in the air, rotating faster and faster in every direction. Dizzy, Jack reached for his gun, but it came loose and slid across the floor, disappearing somewhere.
Touch was laughing, pulling one arm back with a clenched fist, rolling his shoulder back, and crossing the room with a surprising amount of speed.
He dropped his other arm and Jack hit the floor. Touch was getting closer, he was swinging his fist . . .
Cold air flowed from Jack's fingertips, turning both of Touch's feet into a single block of ice. Jack raised his hand, creating a layer of ice over Touch's legs, torso, neck, and finally head. A look of abject fear was literally frozen on Touch's face.
With a quick flick of the wrist, Jack used the same plasmid Touch had been demonstrating to lift the ice sculpture off the ground and fling it into the opposite wall.
Touch shattered into pieces.
"Nice work, kid," Fontaine said over the speaker. "But you don't wanna be my enemy. And if you don't wanna be my friend, it's not too late to turn around. Get out of here while you still can. We won't follow you."
Jack found a locker near part of Touch's face. It was labeled "Power to the People." Inside Jack found a shotgun and a box of electronic buck shot shells, which he rapidly loaded into the gun.
"Come on, Jackie. I'm givin' you a chance to walk away now, while you still got feet to walk with. You already got no job, no family, no purpose. Walk away now, before it all goes busto."
Twitch was sitting in the next room, in a swivel chair, surrounded by different remote controls.
A swarm of security bots, firing their built-in machine guns, was buzzing all around the room, Twitch laughing manically the entire time.
Jack aimed the shotgun at a security bot and fired. The drone fell to the ground, shooting sparks. Jack ducked behind a shelf, waited for another security bot to fly by, and then jumped out and fired at that one before scrambling behind a shelf a little bit closer to Twitch. He shot down another security bot, and then another, running from cover to cover, watching each one short circuit.
When all the security bots had been shorted, Jack threw the empty shotgun to the side, and Twitch reached for another remote. A panel opened on the floor in front of Twitch's seat, and a turret rose up through it. Twitch hit a button, continuing to shake with laughter, as an RPG launched directly at Jack.
Then Twitch stopped laughing. Jack had wiggled his fingers, and the rocket had stopped in midair, just an inch from his face.
Twitch's face now held the same look of horror Touch's had. Until the last second, he hadn't realized Jack had spliced with Telekinesis.
A wave of Jack's hand, and the RPG rotated 180 degrees.
Twitch's lips moved again.
"Ah, sh—"
Jack dropped his hand and the rocket continued on its course, reducing Twitch to a smoking crater.
"You got some nerve," Fontaine said, his voice sounding more amused than offended. "Poor Twitch was just a kid. You sure we can't just talk this out? Plenty of ADAM here for everyone."
Jack was now beginning a climb up the next flight of stairs.
"There's no doubt about it," Fontaine continued. "You're another Ryan, all right. No one else could be this stubborn."
Jack made it to the top of the stairs and then threw the next door open.
"Hello, lover."
She was standing in the center of the room. Her face was warped, half of it covered in greasy red boils. The other half of her nose was caved in, one of the prominent jaw bones looked like it had come unhinged.
She had put on a dress, a bright blue thing that was probably one of the finest outfits Fontaine's men had smuggled from the surface, but it was torn, possibly by the jagged bones almost poking through the woman's skin, and covered in stains of purplish blue and pinkish red substances.
Every part of her body seemed to be giving off a differently colored glow, from all the different plasmids that were flowing through her veins.
She'd been splicing, and now Jack could barely recognize her.
"Evelyn?"
She hovered over the floor, books flying from nearby shelves and orbiting around her.
"Call me EVE."
The books all flew at Jack at once. He crouched, wrapping his arms around his head as the books bruised them. He then scrambled across the floor on his hands and knees, taking shelter under a nearby table.
"I've been splicing with the good stuff," Eve said, her once sweet lilt now an ugly throaty sound. "Fontaine Futuristic's stockpile of the very best ADAM."
Empty hypo needles rose from the ground nearby and went streaking towards Jack's face. He quickly flipped the table on its side, the needles thwapping into the table top.
With his own telekinetic powers, Jack lifted the table and launched it at Eve. Giant icicles shot through it, shredding the table to pieces.
The colorful lights in Eve were starting to dim.
Jack lunged at her, tackling her to the ground. But Eve wrestled her way on top. Blue sparks of Electro-Bolt shot from her fingers as she lowered a clawed hand towards Jack's face.
"Miss me?"
Jack managed to arch his fingers and flick his wrist, sending Eve flying off his waist with a sonic boom.
He jumped to his feet. Another empty hypo needle darted towards him. A quick wave of his hand and a fragment of the broken table intercepted it. He kept the table fragment floating in front of him, shielding him from the bits of debris Eve was flinging. When he was about a yard away from her, he snapped his wrist and the board caught Eve in the gut.
She was lying on her back, looking up at him, frantically wiggling each of her fingers. Flecks of ice and sparks of electricity impotently spat out.
"That's the thing about ADAM, darling," Jack said, pulling her to her feet. "It's really no good without EVE."
He lifted Evelyn off her feet and carried her to the window.
"You wouldn't hurt me, Jack," she said, trying to put a girlish flutter into her throaty snarl. "You couldn't. We made love."
One hand caressed his cheek. In her eyes, her lips, her dark bangs, he could still see a glimpse of the woman he had felt a connection with.
He smiled, and she smiled back.
Then he lowered her onto the windowsill, overlooking the throng of enraged splicers.
Evelyn's smile was replaced by a look of panic.
"What are you doin'?"
"I'm letting you go, sweetheart."
Just a small shove and Evelyn fell into the crowd below, screaming on the way down. She continued screaming as the splicers caught her, and as splicers hooked their sickles into each arm and leg and pulled in opposite directions until the limbs came apart from the torso.
Jack watched, fist clenched, forcing himself to feel nothing.
"That's a real shame," Fontaine said. His voice seemed to be louder, deeper. "I'm gonna miss her. I sure did enjoy sleeping with her. I guess you can relate, huh?"
Another bitter laugh as Jack climbed one last flight of stairs.
"Looks like you finally found out what it takes to make it in Rapture, kid. Now how's about we settle this like men? Just you and me, face to face. Mano a mano."
Jack came to the door marked "Office of Frank Fontaine." He could hear Fontaine's voice behind the door.
"Oh, that's good. I want more. I wanna keep splicing until there ain't nothin' left to splice with."
Jack pushed through the door.
There was a large globe in the center of the room. Beyond that, just shadows.
Staring at the shadows, Jack caught a bulky outline. A Big Daddy? But then he heard Fontaine's laugh.
"Well, if it ain't the half-Asian, half-Kraut, half-megalomaniac."
A face emerged from the darkness. It was Fontaine's, but it was . . . different. It was larger, more chiseled.
He stepped completely into view. Hunched over, like a gorilla, and just as large as one, with bulging arms, massive legs, and a body that seemed to be purely muscle. Fontaine had been splicing, and he'd turned himself into a real Brute.
He lifted the globe and held it over his head.
"Hey, look. I'm Atlas."
He heaved the globe at Jack. It broke against Jack's face on impact, the weight and the pain sending Jack back to the ground.
"I could see you'd been doin' some splicin', too," Fontaine said, stomping closer. "You look in a mirror since then? How you know you haven't turned into a monster like everyone else?"
Jack stood up and began throwing punches at Fontaine's face, as hard and as fast as he could.
Fontaine didn't even flinch. When Jack stopped for breath, Fontaine returned the punch. Jack stumbled back, fighting back the pain, clutching at his chest, over the rib Fontaine must have broken.
"I gave you everything," Fontaine yelled. "Literally, everything! I had you made . . ."
He swung at Jack again, sending him reeling back further.
"I gave you a good life on the surface. I got you your job. Then I brought you back here, kept you alive, let you fulfill your true purpose. You wouldn't even exist if it weren't for me."
A blow to the stomach sent Jack to his knees.
"I even let you screw my girlfriend. And this is the thanks I get?"
Jack got back to his feet, punched Fontaine in the face again, harder this time. Fontaine flinched. But only a little.
Fontaine pushed Jack away again.
"I paid good money for you," he growled. "What a disappointment."
Jack was back on his feet again. This time, he arched his fingers. There was a bolt of lightning. But Fontaine side-stepped it. When Jack wiggled his fingers again, all he could conjure was sparks.
"You're out of EVE, kid. I told you. Hand-to-hand. I'd hide if I were you."
Instead, Jack limped his way over to Fontaine, clenching both fists.
"You were the closest thing I ever had to family," Fontaine said. "And I'm gonna hate to lose you. But this is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me."
He grabbed both of Jack's arms, lifted him off the ground and whipped him around like a ragdoll, and sent Jack sailing across the room.
"How does it feel, Jackie? Knowing you was just a science project?"
Fontaine marched closer. But when he was right under a hidey-hole, one of the little girls from earlier dropped out and landed on his back. She plunged her long needle into his back.
Fontaine was trying to reach back and knock her off.
"Now you did it," he shouted at Jack. "Just for that, as soon as I kill you, the next thing I do is kill Mother Goose, and all her little eggs!"
"Come on!" the Little Sister shouted. "Help me, everyone! We don't like the bad man. He's hurting the man who helped us."
Fontaine managed to knock the girl to the floor. But now other girls were climbing out of other vents around the room, plunging their needles into Fontaine.
Fontaine was frantically reaching for them as they crawled up and down him like spiders.
"It's gonna take more than brats to stop me!" Fontaine yelled.
But Jack was standing up . . . next to a control panel.
Fontaine's tone of voice changed.
"Now, think about this, Jackie," he said. He was trying to affect a smooth voice for the sales pitch, but Jack could hear the notes of panic. "What're you gonna do next? There's nothin' for you on the surface. You got no job, no girl to go back to."
Jack pulled one lever on the panel. The panic in Fontaine's voice increased.
Fontaine managed to knock a couple Little Sisters off his back, then pulled one off his leg.
"I gave you the only purpose you ever had. We could work together. Be partners. The whole world's ours for the taking."
Jack pulled another lever. Even with Little Sisters picked off, Fontaine was having more trouble walking. The ADAM they pulled from him must have been weakening him.
Jack grabbed the last lever on the panel. Shouts and footsteps were already coming from downstairs.
The Little Sisters had let go of Fontaine and were crawling back into their hidey-holes.
"Would you kindly shut up?" Jack said, pulling the last lever.
Fontaine had fallen to his knees, and was weakly trying to drag himself over to the panel. Through the window Jack could see all the splicers outside pouring into the orphanage.
He found an elevator nearby and pulled the gate shut.
The footsteps and shouts were closer now.
Fontaine pulled himself up to the panel, but it was too late. Splicers were already flooding the room, digging their blades into Fontaine's back, gouging out chunks.
Jack pulled a lever. The elevator began to descend, right as a splatter of Fontaine's blood splashed in his face.
On his way down, he watched hordes of splicers crowding the stairs, even saw Big Daddies lumbering by, fighting for a piece of Fontaine. And a twisted part of Jack perceived Frank Fontaine's dying screams as music to his ears.
Jack got out of the elevator and climbed back through the trap door and down the ladder.
Tennenbaum and her Little Sisters were waiting for Jack by the bathysphere.
"Fontaine?" she asked.
"Dead," Jack replied, still clutching his chest and dragging one leg behind him. "Along with the rest of the gang."
"Good," Tennenbaum said, without a trace of emotion in her voice. "Then we are safe from him. We have you to thank for that."
"Please," Jack said. "Don't thank me for killing people."
He climbed into the bathysphere, dropped onto the soft red cushions. And then buried his head in his hands, trying not to cry.
"It's not enough," he said. "There's got to be more. More I can do to help."
Then he looked at the children. He stepped back out of the bathysphere. And he recognized the little girls from the sewer. They each took one of his hands.
"I can take care of them," he said. "I can't do much, but I can give them a place to live. I can bring them up like normal kids."
He looked around, tears still forming in his eyes.
"But I can't take them all. I can't afford to."
Tennenbaum put a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"You don't need to."
The Little Sister that had guided Jack through the sewers came forward. Jack dropped to his knees and all three hugged him.
"If you can find room in your heart, even for just these three little ones . . ."
Jack climbed back to his feet. He led the girls into the bathysphere.
"Go," Tennebaum said. "When the rest of us are ready, we will see you again on the surface."
Jack pulled the lever. The door closed, and the bathysphere plunged into the water below.
"Mama Tennenbaum?" a Little Sister asked, watching the bathysphere disappear. "Where are they going?"
"Someplace wonderful, my child."
Meanwhile, Jack's bathysphere was whipping through Rapture's water ways. His adopted daughters had their faces pressed against the glass, watching the city rush by.
"This angel," Tennenbaum continued, "will give them a life. Will give them a family."
She imagined Jack with a good job, a nice home. A man that would raise those children as if they were indeed his own.
"Give them a chance to learn, to love. To find happiness."
The bathysphere was now rocketing skyward. It broke the surface of the water in a mass of foam and bubbles.
"And what will they give him in return, Mama Tennenbaum?"
Jack led the little girls through the lighthouse doors. They squinted and shielded their eyes, experiencing daylight for the very first time.
"They will give him the best gift of all," Tennenbaum said, sitting and letting the Little Sister climb into her lap. "The one thing he's always needed: A reason to live."
Elsewhere in Rapture, at the Adonis Luxury Spa, something stirred by the pool.
The Big Daddy, the prototype, clutched its head as if experiencing a massive headache, quickly drew the hand away from the helmet as if it were surprised the helmet was there.
It waved its massive gloves through the porthole in the helmet, surprised by them as well.
Then, slowly, it stood up.
"Finally awake, huh, sport?" a smooth Southern drawl sounded from somewhere in the helmet. "Good, because we got plenty to do. Welcome back, Subject Delta. My name is Augustus Sinclaire. And I think we can do business together."
A/N - First of all, I realize there's a flaw in Fontaine's "half, half, and half" math. That was intentional.
And, again, I apologize if anyone's disappointed Jack didn't go through with harvesting the Little Sisters. I just didn't have the heart. The Little Sisters are just too adorable, and the only time I've done anything other than rescue them is one time in Bioshock 2 where I pressed the "Harvest" button on accident.
It's past four in the morning, which I find interesting because that's also the time I've realized it was every time I've finished Fontaine playing Bioshock. Always spend more hours than I thought I would playing the ending of the game. And I can't believe it's taken me nearly 2 years to finally conclude this story.
I really hope you all enjoyed it, and that, if there ever is a Bioshock movie, I at least came somewhere close.