Elizabeth's mind was racing with questions. What had they done to her powers? How did they manage to do it? How did they know what to look for? Was Suchong really that much of a genius? How did she not see all this before?
Maybe if she had not been so preoccupied with her carefully woven plan and actually bothered to look further than that, then she surely would have... but no, she wouldn't have seen it if she had wanted to... right?
No point in dwelling on that now. She frowned at her own inability to act quickly and effectively enough. She just had to linger here and rub it in Comstock's face...
Damn it. Damn it all.
The little girl in her arms started to get anxious. "I'll go ask some angels for another way to Lilly Poppy." She said with a determined look. Elizabeth put her down, still deep in thought, uncertainty radiating from her every move.
"Okay... we do have to find another way, but I need you to stay close to me at all times, Sally." She was looking straight into the child's eyes in an attempt to get the seriousness of the situation across to her. That visage of plain white didn't become any less disturbing. "No wandering off, and no looking for angels. When I ask you to be quiet, you stay quiet, alright?"
Sally wasn't all too happy to hear that. "Daddy never tells me what to do. You're no fun."
Elizabeth sighed, this was starting to get tiresome. "Sally, if you want to go to that nice place you have to trust m-"
Both of them picked their heads up to the clattering noise echoing from the stairways. They were not alone anymore. Muffled speech and nervous laughs could be heard from the corridor that connected the toy store with the rest of the department. The one she and Comstock used to enter. The only way out.
"Oh no..." whispered Elizabeth the same time Sally joyfully exclaimed "Angels!". The woman reflexively pressed her hand over the little girl's mouth, swooped her up and dashed towards the cover of the great central pillar.
The distant chatter became more audible as the unexpected guests crept closer and began descending the stairs.
"Now where's that grand whoop-de-doo them havin' here? Rude folk they are, not inviting us fine gents, rude indeed! Ain't they, Billy?"
Elizabeth slowly moved her head to peek at the newcomers from the shadow of their hiding place, still keeping Sally from uttering a sound. It was two male splicers. The chatty one was swinging a wooden stick around his head between his mad snickers as he led on "Billy", a golem-like figure of ice and muscle.
A Frosty. Great.
Those things gave even Comstock a run for his money and she did not have any weapons, save for her Air Grabber. The odds were not in her favor. They would have to sneak past them somehow, or wait until they leave. That thought was quickly abandoned however, upon hearing the next line of the splicer. "They're here somewhere, Billy boy. I smell fresh meat. Fresh meat!"
She began frantically looking for another exit and her eyes spotted something on the lower level. An opening in the wall, surrounded by the signature grey halo of a tear.
The only problem was getting there unnoticed. Elizabeth threw a worried glance at the confused girl before her. Subtlety was surely not one of Sally's fortés, she imagined. Still, they had to work with what they had.
She knelt down to be at the level of Sally's eyes, crossed her own lips with an index finger as a warning, then slowly pulled her other hand away from the child's mouth, hoping she would not start screaming at the same instant.
Thankfully, she did not. There was this odd calmness emanating from her that only Little Sisters seemed to possess. Elizabeth guided Sally's gaze towards the tear. "There's our way out," she whispered while silently taking off her high heels. "I can put a hole into that wall. You don't see it, but it will appear when we get there. Follow me and be really, really quiet, okay?" The girl answered with a short nod, mouth still agape.
The woman clenched her shoe in her fist and threw it to the far corner of the store, where it landed with a loud clank. The splicers' attention immediately turned towards the source of the sound. "H-honey? Is that you?"
Oldest trick in the book, Elizabeth smirked to herself. The two ruffians quickly sprung down to the lowest floor and out of sight. Here was their moment. The older girl tiptoed to the ledge, shortly followed by the younger one. She carefully stepped over the handrail and dropped to the lower story in perfect silence, motioning for Sally to do the same.
The tiny Sister squeezed herself through under the balustrade, but looking down on the three meters drop, she stopped in her tracks. The splicers' voices in the background became more and more frustrated as they bashed the remaining furniture in search for their victims. "Come on out, sweeties! Where's the festive spirit, eh?"
Sally still did not budge, so Elizabeth started to nervously wave her hands, indicating that she would catch her.
The girl reluctantly leapt from the edge and fell right into the waiting arms, but the woman had slightly underestimated the force of the impact and she landed squarely on her bottom accompanied by a loud thud.
Next thing they heard was the click-clack of agitated steps closing in on their position.
Elizabeth quickly scrambled up, dragging Sally by the hand. "Run! Now!"
They were dashing towards the yet invisible opening when a sparkling blast of ice flew past Sally, missing her by just a split of a hair. It froze a puddle behind them and they heard the Chatty Splicer slip on it, swearing as he kissed the ground. "Goddammit Billy! Aim at the brat!"
Elizabeth opened the tear with the crack in the wall and pushed Sally into it first before squeezing herself through. The Frosty cast another projectile, going straight for Elizabeth's head while she managed to close the tear behind them in the last millisecond. A big icy smear took the place of the hole in the wall and the two runaways could finally catch a breath.
"I don't think he's called Billy," stated Sally rather matter-of-factly. Elizabeth just gave her a surprised look as she picked off small icicles clinging to her hair. This little creature could not be more off-putting if she tried.
She gave up on her attempt to shape her hairdo into a presentable state again and snatched her wig off altogether, revealing short brown curls damp with sweat. "It was starting to get itchy anyway."
Sally's face lit up like she just witnessed a magical transformation from a bedtime story. "Are you a fairy?"
Elizabeth chuckled a bit at the thought. "I wish I was, sweetheart. See? It's all fake." She placed the wig on the girl's head and could not resist a snigger at the comical sight. "Well, ladies and gents, would you take a look at Rapture's new diva?"
Even Sally started to giggle at that. She looked like a living doll, if a somewhat creepy one. Elizabeth couldn't remember the last time she had a laugh and it was all the more soothing to see the little girl do the same. It was elevating for both of them.
"Then I might as well get rid of these, too," said the woman, reaching into her blouse and taking out two cotton pads from her bra. "No need to play the hard-to-get anymore." Sally looked on in astonishment. "Uhm... I guess you shouldn't try these on." She tossed them to a pile of garbage in the corner and Sally did the same with the wig after a bit of hesitation.
Elizabeth took in their immediate surroundings and stepped into what appeared to be a maintenance elevator, Sally in tow. "Well let's see where this takes us." She pulled the lever and they descended to an even shadier part of the once lively department store. There were no doors in sight along the dimly lit corridor, only a narrow ventilation shaft. The two opted to crawl through, carefully avoiding glass shards on the floor and the attention of the splicers lurking nearby.
Reaching the other end they dropped on a soft carpet and Elizabeth noticed a thug standing in the doorway with his back to them. The woman motioned for Sally to stay where she was as she quietly pulled out her Air Grabber. With the carpet muffling the steps of her almost bare feet, she slinked behind the unsuspecting splicer like a cat closing on its prey, then slowly lifted her weapon for a strike.
This better work.
*clonk*
He was out cold. Elizabeth let out a relieved sigh and peeked beyond the door. It seemed like a nursery of sorts with children's drawings, animal figures on the wall, and thankfully, without any more lunatics around.
"Juicy Angel!"
Elizabeth turned her head back just in time to see Sally kneeling down near the unconscious splicer, taking his right arm in her hands and preparing to bite into his vein.
"Sally, no!" The woman lunged at the girl in a flash and snatched her away from the body. "Whatever do you think you're doing?"
The Little Sister just looked at her innocently. "I don't have my pokie stick with me, so I'll suck out the ADAM from him."
Elizabeth's expression distorted to something between disgusted and horrified. "Is... is this what they made you do?"
Sally did not seem to understand the question. "All good girls gather," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Well, didn't you hear? Today is the gathering-free day for every girl in Rapture. They always hold it on New Year's Eve, the city is full of posters about it. I thought you knew..." Lying had become such a second nature to Elizabeth recently it was scary.
"Really? Is it today?"
"Yes. Everyone deserves a day off once in a while, right?" She was not comfortable with misleading the girl, but she had to reduce all of her more... conspicuous activities to a minimum.
She put her down again and Sally's attention was now taken by an educational short playing in the next room. Elizabeth could hear it was something about those 'parasites' again. She used this moment of peace to properly assess their situation.
So, I can still open tears I find, but cannot create them or control them. It almost feels like the way I was back in Columbia, which means...
A Siphon. Ryan had a Siphon.
Elizabeth gritted her teeth. She could not believe she was outsmarted so easily with the same thing that had shackled her all her life. But... at least a Siphon can be destroyed. She did it before, she could do so again, with or without the help of a giant mechanical bird. It just had to be located first, then she could figure out the rest. First and foremost though, she had to get Sally to safety. That actually seemed like the hardest part as of now with every outlaw of Rapture out to get them in this inescapable hellhole. If only she could just get her powers back for a second it would be so much easier, she could just flash in and out of here like the Luteces used to do.
The Luteces. Surely they could... They are listening, are they not? She would just have to shout or...
"Chocolate..."
"Or cream?"
Elizabeth sprinted towards the showroom where she heard the ever-elusive twins' voices filter out from. She hastily turned at the corner, and there they were, kneeling in front of Sally, each balancing a plate on their hand. Robert held a slice of chocolate-filled cake, while Rosalind held a cream-filled one. Both looked extremely appetizing. Sally glanced back and forth between them in a visibly indecisive manner.
"Chocolate is an ageless classic…" prodded Robert.
"But you cannot go wrong with cream," cut in Rosalind.
"Oh, you can't be serious," said Elizabeth, throwing up her arms exasperatedly.
Sally looked at her, supposedly for help with the choosing. "I can only take one, what do you think tastes better?"
The twins smugly raised their gaze at the woman who was a bit taken aback by the question. It felt oddly comforting that Sally was actually asking for advice from her even when they just knew each other for a mere hour. Elizabeth almost felt humbled but could not help seeing her younger self in the girl and think about how badly she had been burned herself by being too trusting before.
"Well… Chocolate seems tasty enough."
Robert flashed a barely noticeable but knowing smile as Sally took the slice from his plate with a quiet 'thank you' and started greedily chewing on the delicious piece while continuing her exploration of the room.
"About as expected," he mumbled behind his smirk.
"It was but a lucky guess, brother. We did not have enough previous input to safely establish a tendency in probabilities," retorted Rosalind.
"You are still a sore loser, sister."
"Do you mind?" asked an increasingly irritated Elizabeth, drawing their attention back to her. "What took you so long? We could have died back there!"
Rosalind did not seem the least bit concerned. "In another ocean, you did."
"It is quite surprising that someone such as you could so easily forget about the way the universe diverges after one's decisions," added Robert. "After all, it was you who chose to come back here…"
"Back, where she has no right to be," interceded Rosalind, talking to her brother like the other woman was not even present.
"Back… where she doesn't belong."
"Doesn't belong? I didn't mean for anything of this to happen, I didn't know…"
"We know you didn't," said the male twin.
"Yet, you went through with it anyway," said the female one.
Elizabeth's face shifted from being offended to simply confused. "Are you referring to that variable? The one that-"
"The Arcane Variable," put in Rosalind, with quite a bit of pride and a slight upward tilt of her chin.
"You know, that doesn't sound terribly scientific. It's more like something out of a children's book," confessed Elizabeth sheepishly.
The redheaded woman's eyes narrowed to a slit, while Robert could not suppress a chuckle at the bold statement.
"If you ever happen to observe a previously unknown phenomenon such as this in either the future, past or present, you can name it whatever you please." Rosalind's words could actually cut if they were just a bit sharper.
Elizabeth bent her head apologetically. "What I mean is… you could at least help get Sally to a safer location until I deal with all this. Please?" She put on her most innocent and pleading expression from her repertoire that always seemed to work so well on Booker. Well, most of the time.
The twins however, were not as easily manipulated.
"What happened to the girl is your responsibility and yours alone."
Robert, as always, seemed to have a less hostile attitude towards her, but his words were not much warmer than his sister's. "We had our own cross to bear, child, and it took an excruciating amount of work to get you out of your plight and free you from the shackles of an uneven universe."
"And she spent that freedom to enact some petty revenge."
"Gratuitous bloodshed."
"A futile exercise." The two recited their accusations, and Elizabeth never felt smaller before.
"Now it's time for you to fully understand what your own toxic imprint can cause to a world that has no place for it," continued Robert.
"It is already done…"
"Will have to be done…"
"And you will have to do it."
The Lamb dropped her shoulders in defeat. It was obvious at this point that she could not count on the twins' help. "But… how am I to do that by myself? I'm just a helpless girl again, I don't have Booker with… Oh god, Booker!" Her eyes widened when the realization dawned on her. "Is he still..?"
"Where you left him." Rosalind's face became expressionless rather than stern.
"Far from all this." Robert's eyes were just inscrutable.
"I have to get back." Elizabeth appeared to be determined for a second, but fell back to uncertainty once again. "What if I don't make it? What if I fail again? Then he'll-"
"As Mr. DeWitt would surely point out," cut in the male Lutece, "you don't give yourself enough credit, child."
Even Rosalind eased up a bit. "The fact that you're standing here now breathing, is in itself a defiance of the overwhelming odds you never knew about." She lifted her plate to Elizabeth, adopting a highly uncharacteristic feature, a smile of all things. "Care for some cream? You must be starving."
Elizabeth dazedly accepted the cake, not sure whether she should be grateful or insulted.
"Uhm… thank you, but this will hardly make things any-"
She looked up to face empty air in their place.
"-easier?"
I don't know what I expected.