Big problem:

Rapture: Time Unknown

Jacob walked the halls of Rapture as quietly as he could. Rapture, it scared the living daylights out of him. It wasn't anything like his dad, Mark, Daniel, or Delta had described to him. No, it was far worse than anything he had been told. Being told about something and experiencing it were two very different things, he was fining out first hand.

Up ahead he saw a faint red light. Jacob thought of the worst things it could be. It could be an extremely angry Big Sister. Maybe some sort of trap. Fire in a trash can that he was told splicers gathered around was also possible. He knew he would probably be easy picking for Splicer's at the moment. Movement was getting easier, but he was still awkward.

He stopped for a moment and listened, "I'm a little tea cup short and small, here is my handle, here is my spout." He heard someone singing, every couple of words was interrupted by an odd sound. He'd never heard anything like it before. The closest thing he could compare it to was someone hitting sand with a pickax.

"Must be a Little Sister." Jacob whispered to himself as he walked to get a closer look.

Debris beneath his feet shattered under his weight as he walked, "KID STOP!" Red shouted at him through the radio, Jacob immediately obeyed. Looking at the ground right in front of himself Jacob shined his light on the floor and saw why Red yelled. One more step and Jacob would have taken a very nasty fall.

Sighing in relief Jacob took a rock from the ground and dropped it in the hole. He counted to twenty before he heard the rock hit the bottom, his guess the drop would have been at least fifteen to twenty feet.

"Thanks Red." Jacob said, "No problem. Remember Kid, my aim is to keep you alive." Red assured, then added. "Look to your left at the bottom of the drop."

Jacob obeyed, looking at the spot Red mentioned and saw nothing but darkness, "I don't see anything" Jacob said, Red paused for a few second before he spoke again "ah, her it is. I'll turn on the lights." The lights immediately turned on, flooding the entire place with light. It blinded Jacob for a few seconds.

He blinked rapidly to clear his vision and looked around. "Ah, much better. I thought for a second there that there was no more power, but I guess I was wrong." Red muttered to himself, Jacob barely heard him as he was busy looking. He underestimated the height of the fall. The drop was no more than ten feet, at most, and it wasn't a hole, it looked like he was on the second floor of a giant shopping area. Looking around Jacob also saw a bunch of stores, an elevator, and a flight of stairs. Jacob's guess was that with a little bit of love and lots and lots of cleaning this place could be magnificent.

"Welcome to the Upper Atrium, once home to the fabled Big Brother."

The same little sister... what was her name? Masha, was busy doing something. Looking closer he saw her stabbing a corpse in the stomach, which was glowing red, this also seemed to be the source of the noise. "Get closer to her, try to be sneaky though, her Sister can't be far away from where she is." Red instructed.

Jacob wanted to laugh, her sister couldn't be much older the her. How could he be afraid of a little girl? Looking for a way down Jacob's guess was that the fastest way to get down where the Little Sister was was to simply drop. Noticing the railing in front of him he tried to hop up onto it and then drop down, unfortunately he didn't know his own strength and ended up jumping wrong.

Jacob ended up snagging his foot on the railing and flew rather gracefully through the air, flipping as he went, and slammed into the ground head first not even five feet away from the humming Little Sister.

Just sitting there for several moments trying to form the words "I hate you gravity." He realized the fall didn't hurt much. Well, it still hurt quite a bit, but he guessed it would have been a lot worse if he hadn't been wearing armor.

The little sister got up, walked over to where he was laying so she was standing over his fallen form and giggled, "Silly Big brother, you can't fly."

"I'm aware, thank you." Jacob groaned as he got into a sitting position.

"What's your name?" The Little Sister asked.

"What's your name first?" Jacob asked.

"Masha" she answered.

"Then I already told you my name." Jacob reminded.

"I forgot." She said innocently, Jacob knew she was playing a game with him but he was forced to oblige. "My name is Jacob Andrew."

"That means Big Brother Ryan is your Daddy! YAY, I found you, I found you, yay!" she sang cheerfully.

Jacob's eyes widened in surprise. "My Dad? You know where he is?" Jacob asked.

"Yeah! He told us to take anyone that knew him to his hidey hole, he-" A loud screech ended Masha's sentence however.

"What was that!" Jacob shouted, Masha began to tremble "Big Brother doesn't want me playing with you." she said in a small scared voice.

'That's not good.' Jacob thought as he began to scan the area quickly before a figure jumped from one of the many floors of the Upper Atrium and landed right behind Masha. The figure wore a suit similar to his own, but there were a few huge differences.

This Big Brother didn't have a Harvester or a cage. His helmet was like a Big Daddy Rosie and where his harvester was supposed to be there was a fairly large drill. Not as big as a Bouncer's, but big enough to pierce through Jacob's armor with just the slightest resistance. His helmet light was red, he immediately grabbed Masha and sprinted off.

"Kid... KID! You alright!" Red shouted after the Big Brother left, Jacob was so scared he was paralyzed, he couldn't move, taking a deep breath Jacob tried to calm down. That was NOTHING like from his family's stories. Answering in a shaky voice he replied. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Man, I thought you were a goner. What you just saw is a Big Brother, some crack pot turned an innocent boy into a monster. If you thought Big Sisters were bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. He was one of four different designs." Red explained.

"Wait... four different designs?" Jacob asked.

"Yeah, each one of them is designed to do different tasks. The one that you just faced is called a Scout Big Brother, his job is to retrieve Little Sisters that are trapped from... well basically anything. They rarely work inside of Rapture, as most trapped little sisters are trapped outside due to faulty airlocks, unless they're needed inside."

"Oh well that's a relief." Jacob muttered sarcastically, there went his only hope to finding his possibly alive dad.

"I hate to rain of your parade but I couldn't help but overhear your the son of the first Big Brother, is that true?" Red asked.

"Yeah, Ryan Andrew's my dad." Jacob admitted.

"Huh, I never would'a guessed" Red laughed.

Rolling his eyes Jacob began to search the upper atrium, he finally found a hidey hole. This one had to be his father's because of all the drawings made around it and all the bows tied to things around it.

His dad had always told him that the Little Sisters loved him a lot, more than their own daddies he claimed. What he was seeing now was enough evidence to prove he wasn't lying.

Approaching the hole Jacob stuck his hand on it and felt around, there was something inside. Taking off his helmet and cage he was barely able to reach the object. Pulling it out he half expected it to be a sleeping Little Sister or something. But it wasn't, it was an audio recorder and some sort of jar with a strange syringe. If memory served this was a plasmid and the needle is filled with eve, but... it looked different then what it should.

Taking the audio recorder Jacob pressed the play button, a young voice started talking.

"Hello? Is this thing on? Okay since the box said that you were a close and personal friend I guess you should get to know me better, my name is Ryan like Andrew Ryan, only its not my last name and Andrew is not my name. Me, mommy and daddy came here to hide from war. My dad works as a scientist and my mom doesn't work. Recently she doesn't look like my mom though, my dad says she is 'splicing up' and no make up can cover it, whatever splicing up means it must be pretty bad for you."

Was this his Dad when he was young, when he lived in Rapture, before he became a Little Brother?

Jacob's sight began to grow blurry, "Jacob..." He heard. That voice, Jacob knew it "Dad? Your alive!" he couldn't help but smile.

"Yes I am, but are you okay?" Ryan asked.

"Yes I'm fine. But what is this?" Jacob asked as he held up the stiff, he didn't know if his dad could see but it was worth a try.

"Its a way to defend yourself. Be careful Jacob, Rapture is even more dangerous than it was before. You need to escape, this plasmid will help you. It will give you the abilities of a full fledged Big Brother" Ryan said, and just like that he was gone.

"No wait, DAD!" Jacob shouted, but he was already gone.

Looking at the plasmid Jacob knew what to do with it, but he had one problem, he was afraid of needles. "Okay, I can do this, just... don't look." he whispered the last part over and over as he injected the needle in the jar before sticking It into his arm and injecting himself with the mysterious liquid.

At first nothing happened... 'Maybe it was expired or something?' He thought before it hit him. He screamed in pain, his body was on fire! Everything hurt, his arms, legs, face, even his hair hurt! After what seemed like an eternity Jacob fell to the ground, unconscious.

To be continued...

BETA'd by: Slicerness