Guilty.
That's what Grace felt, guilty. That poor little girl had been doomed from the moment Fontain's men had gotten a hold of her. She had been kidnapped, shot at, conditioned, targeted, experienced more death than the Rapture coroner and had lost the only good thing Rapture had given her.
And after everything Grace had done to get baby Eleanor back, the sacrifices she made and the executions she'd ordered, here she was sealing the fate of a child who could have just as easily been the one she'd lost.
She had looked into Holly's eyes and condemned her to a life of...what even was it? A life of servitude? No, that implied the possibility of escape. What Grace had done was beyond that.
It was a life of exploitation.
"Grace, I shall not strive for your attention again. If you have better things to attend to, by all means don't allow me to monopolize your time," Belladonna sneered, pacing the length of the room.
It was quiet in the Medical Pavilion now. The Saturnine had begun to reach farther for bodies, requiring them to stockpile the remains in some gruesome variation of a relay race, collecting the corpses in piles within their teleportation range.
"Forgive me, I just have more important issues to deal with than some AWOL member of your cult," Grace sighed. Belladonna growled with fury and threw a ball of fire at the wall, scorching the paper in a perfect circle.
"That is not the point!" Belladonna quivered, maintaining her furious pace, "He has banded with Rebecca without even considering the repercussions of his actions!"
Grace was still staring at the smouldering hole on the wall, unimpressed by Belladonna's outburst.
"Might I remind you that we are trying to save Rapture? I apologise if I seem...indifferent to your problems, but I just don't see what Frond's done wrong. I'll admit, it would have been nice to have been told sooner about Ceres, but I guess Becky deserves credit for initiative."
"I take no issue with her plans. I was actually rather impressed by her bravery. I encouraged her journey. It's Frond that I'm concerned with."
"What, your cult forbids relationships now?"
"Who said anything about relationships? It has nothing to do with that!"
"Well then I still don't see the-"
"HE CANNOT STEP FOOT IN THERE!"
Grace drew herself to full height in her chair, rallied by this untoward behaviour.
"Belladonna, I appreciate the service you and your cult have provided, but I will NOT sit and have you shout at me just because you can't control your followers. You came to ME for help, and you refused to tell me any valid reason on account of your "sworn secrets", whatever they may be," Grace simmered, suddenly feeling twenty years younger. She was not responsible for every miniscule discrepancy in Rapture, and she never intended to be.
"Now, if you don't mind, I have a city to revive."
Belladonna glared at Grace with poisonous frustration before disappearing in a crimson flash.
Grace deflated, looking around the Twilight Fields' foyer. Gideon had once joked that she'd wash up here one day, presenting her with the walking stick with the handmade bird on the top to accompany his joke. He'd always been good with his hands...
She could have laughed. Guess you were right Gideon. Here I am, an old woman in a funeral house. Not long now.
Grace suddenly realised that this was the first time since that blasted earthquake had ripped her lighter out of her hands that she had been alone. No one calling her on the radio, no one knocking on her door with some emergency, no one escorting her between districts; truly alone.
She didn't like it.
"Alpha?" she called, leaving the foyer into the main pavilion. There was a Splicer on the far side of the room mopping the tiled floor, the end of the mop dark red with old blood. He strained the mop head into the bucket by his foot before resuming his task.
Grace noticed he wasn't wearing a butterfly pin.
"Hey, guy with the mop?" Grace called, deciding that the Splicer wouldn't attack her, seeing as though he was cleaning.
The Splicer looked up. His face was half consumed with ADAM corruption, tumour laden skin obscuring his left eye and a portion of his mouth.
To Grace's relief, he smiled (or tried to) when he recognised her face, wrapping his arms around his mop and resting his head on the top.
"Frau Hollovay!" the Splicer greeted, "Ish nice to shee you!"
"Well I don't know about that," Grace laughed softly. Her walking stick clicked loudly as she walked across the echoing room, "I'm sorry to bother you-"
"Ish no trouble!" the man grinned, the growth on his mouth obscuring his speech. He wiped saliva from his chin with his sleeve apologetically when he realised he had dribbled, "No trouble at all!"
"Have you seen a, um, robot wandering around anywhere? Little girl, looks kinda broken?"
"Ja," the man replied, his tone lowering as though he was sharing salacious gossip, "I shaw man take girl robot down there." He nodded in the direction of the stairs to the lower floor, standing up strait and dipping the mop back into the bucket.
"If shhhhhe ish belonging to you, I vould not let her out of mine sight," the Splicer shook his head, "Too much damage vivout robotsh breaking shingsh."
"Thank you, Mr…?"
"Herr Gabor," the Splicer replied, turning his attention back to the floor. Grace turned to leave.
"Frau Hollovay?" Herr Gabor suddenly asked.
"Year, Mr Gabor?"
"I vas voundering," he shuffled uncomfortably, deciding to rest the mop against the wall, "Mine son. Melchior. He vas taken by Ryan'sh police and voshh never sheen again. But zis ish a time of change, ja?"
"I don't follow you, Mr Gabor."
Herr Gabor stepped forward, his eye bright with intensity.
"I shink I know where he vash taken, and I shink you know too. Ve know it vash meant to be ein secret, but pleash…"
"What are you talking about?"
Herr Gabor stared at her, the light in his eye wavering.
"The reformatory. Pershephone. That vash-"
"What did you just say?"
"Pershephone? Did you…not know?" Her Gabor took a step back, suddenly fearfully, "You are in charge, I asshumed…I must be going."
"No WAIT! A…reformatory? In Rapture?"
What was this man implying? Lamb had never mentioned a reformatory.
Persephone.
A pretty name fro a prison.
"It ish maybe just rumoursh zen," Herr Gabor replied sadly, "If you did not know of exishtance, perhapsh it vas jusht vishious liesh. Damn that Herr Zirshnitz. I vos a fool to hope. Cursh him!"
Herr Gabor swore in German, kicking over the bucket and spilling its scarlet contents over the freshly cleaned tiles, the red eclipsing the white. Grace stared after the Splicer, watching as his figure disappeared around the corner. There was a cry of heart wrenching anguish and a flash of electric blue as Herr Gabor blasted a door open out of Grace's sight. She heard him storm away and all was finally quiet again.
Herr Gabor had just sent Grace reeling. She stood there, unable to move as her brain was working to assort this onslaught of information. He'd just given her the piece of the puzzle.
Persephone.
PNE, perhaps?
Could that be it? Could PNE really be Persephone, the unknown base of Lamb's headquarters?
A secret prison in a city with no restrictions. A facility that should not have been built, and therefore kept from the public's knowledge.
It couldn't be a coincidence that the one seismic reading Becky had received as negative that should have been the highest was that of Lamb's domain.
It was also where she would have kept Eleanor.
And that Tin Daddy had been hunting the pair of them down; kill one and rescue the other.
Despite having the concrete fact, Grace had linked everything together so intrinsically it couldn't possibly be untrue; Persephone had been destroyed by some kind of showdown between Delta and Lamb, causing the earthquake and setting into motion a new age for Rapture.
And Herr Gabor would never see his son again.
Grace needed a moment.
"Do you not value your job in the SLIGHTEST!? You're lucky Delta destroyed the security, or I'd see to it that you'd never work AGAIN!" Alex the Great missed his mobile-presence-device. All he could do was watch through the cameras as his staff abandoned their duties, ignoring his superior orders and preferring to maim each-other instead. They needed his motivational guidance to zap them back into line, and Alex the Great couldn't coax ANY of his employees to customize a security bot for him to replace his broken one. He couldn't even persuade them to install the flame-throwers for his own professional use. Was this not his business!?
Was he not trying to save Rapture alongside the others? In a matter of hours, he already had commissioned a range of new products that could aid in the city's revival. He'd developed a solution to the fertility problem, better ways to transport people between districts and thought of new, more useful plasmids to help Rapture.
Why wear a diving suit when you could have gills? Something rattled in his chamber. "WHO GOES THERE!?" Alex the Great yelled. He had permanently disabled the lights after Delta had left, so he couldn't make out anyone in the room. "Are you one of mine? Why aren't you working?! I asked MINUTES AGO for the prototype shape-shifting plasmid. I gave you that idea an HOUR ago. AN HOUR! See what happens when you don't have an adequate leader? Well get out! OUT! FIIIIIRED! Outoutoutout!"
Nothing moved. Alex the Great intensified the microphone's sensitivity in the room, straining to hear any exhalations of a terrified employee, cowering with fright in the presence of his boss. And still nothing moved.
"Hmm, maybe you aren't one of mine then. Good news, I've just fired a particularly elusive employee, so there is a position available. Interested?"
A creak, the sound of an un-oiled hinge being opened slowly, a high shriek that was barely detected by the microphones.
Alex the Great locked onto it immediately. It came from the control booth directly in front of his face.
"I shall take that as a yes. It's settled, you're hired! Now get out!"
One final noise cracked through the room, so loud Alex the Great was deafened by the in-tank speakers.
The Sample Disposal button had been slammed so hard that sparks fizzed from the cracks in the panel that the impact created, the glass protecting the readouts cracking with the force.
"No…"
A "massive jolt" of electricity coursed through the specimen tank, racing through his body as though it was erasing every cell of his existence with acidic fire. And in his final moments, the small portion of Alex the Great's ADAM saturated brain that contained what was left of Gilbert Alexander flickered, flaring and corrupting as the electricity fried the synapses there.
Gilbert Alexander had finally been granted his dying wish. Alex the Great had been disposed of.
Across Rapture, every light throughout the city dimmed slightly. Some of the Splicers looked up, worried that something new had come along to threaten their existence. But nothing came of it; the lights quickly brightened again, unwavering and strong.
The Splicers quickly forgot about the lights and returned to their business.
A/N: I know. Break out the champagne, a miracle has happened: Shadowerr1 uploaded a chapter! So yeah, theres a reference in here, see if you can get it :P
EDIT: I'm re-playing the game for the billionth time and I realised that its actually the twilight fields, rather than elysian and its a funeral home, not a retirement home. I tweaked the story slightly so now it's right