Terribly sorry for the delay. Instead of the usual excuses, here's a longer chapter. Enjoy.
Firmly decided on her destination, Elizabeth had to rearrange priorities. It was apparent by now that Suchong's elusive little piece of machinery was important enough for Ryan to go through the trouble of relocating the whole thing. Wherever it was, it must have been under heavy guard. She could not risk putting Sally in such danger if she could help it.
"We're going to Tenenbaum's first," stated the young woman, "I just have to contact her somehow. I know her private frequency, all I need is a radio." She wondered if the distance between the department store and the city would prove to be too much for a clear signal to reach her. Ryan did not seem to have any problems with his disdainful message earlier.
But he most likely has a strong enough relay to go with it as well. I hope I can still get through without one.
"Will you stay there with me?" asked Sally timidly, eyes glowing with barely concealed hope.
Elizabeth thought she should have got used to unexpected questions by now, but the girl caught her off guard yet again.
"Well... let's just get there first in one piece, okay?"
The girl broke eye contact with her, not saying anything further. The dismissive answer did not fool the child.
Elizabeth chose to leave the subject for now. They had work to do.
"We'll need to find a functioning bathysphere. There's no way out from here with anything else," she folded her arms and thought for a second. "I think I saw an entrance to a service bay somewhere outside. Well, we had to go back out there sooner or later."
The woman looked around the untidy place again. "Let's see if there are any supplies in this mess before we depart." Sally nodded obediently and set out to explore.
They shuffled through the kitchen where Elizabeth found a can of sweet corn on the shelf, and a pack of lockpicks under the counter. She put them away for a later hour when she noticed Sally holding a pack of Nico-Time cigarettes in her hands, staring at it intently.
"We won't need that, sweetheart."
The girl just stared on.
Elizabeth worryingly approached her, "Is something wrong?"
"Booker smoked this all the time. It was smelly."
The woman put a hand on her small shoulder, anxiety not leaving her face. She was surprised that the child seemed to remember such details about her time with Comstock in her present state.
"Did he ever hurt you?"
Sally looked up at her and slowly shook her head. "He gave me food and new clothes. Toys too. He wasn't good at games. I played hide-and-seek with him in the smelly place he always took me to. He didn't find me." Her gaze did not reflect any distress or sorrow. She recited all this like it was a nursery rhyme.
The story made Elizabeth feeling strangely uncomfortable. She was wondering how much she really knew this Comstock. If what she did to him was the right thing to do. Then she thought about Anna again and the frown returned.
What's done is done.
Sally nonchalantly continued the search, and Elizabeth turned to do the same. A second later, she heard a triumphant squeal from her ward who was holding up a newfound bolt for the crossbow which looked a bit different than the previous ones. The woman reached to take it from her when suddenly the lights started to flicker as a gaint television screen descended into the middle of the room, seemingly out of nowhere. The menacing image of Andrew Ryan set his unseen eyes on them in judgement yet again.
"I trust that you have properly assessed your... situation by now, Lamb of Columbia," he boomed. "And so I give you one more chance to reconsider my offer. You will even have my assurance of your little protegé's safety, and I'm a man of my word. You have nothing to lose, but everything to gain. There's no way out from there without my assistance, as you surely found out already."
Elizabeth pursed her lips together with a silent curse and pulled her hand into a fist, but did not say anything.
Noticing the silence, Ryan pushed on with a voice that almost felt like genuine worry, "Tell me, are your stubborn, misguided principles truly worth an anonymous and pitiful death among the worst of human garbage?" He paused before he delivered his final line, "Will they have worth it if little Sally gets buried at sea because of a single careless answer?"
The woman looked at the child strongly gripping her skirt before raising her gaze at the noisy image again. Despite the seeds of doubt that Ryan's prodding just planted in her, she put on the bravest face she could muster.
"If you truly ever cared for this child's safety, or even mine, you wouldn't have put this… barrier on me in the first place. You're just after your own gain and no one else's, like you always are."
To this, Rapture's almighty lord just chuckled. "Dear Miss, you really haven't been here for long if you don't understand the ideals I built this utopia upon. Of course I'm after my own gain, as you should be if you're at least half as intelligent as I think you are."
He paused again before emphasizing the gist of his message. "This is the last time that I offer you a chance to come willingly, with all the priviliges I mentioned earlier. What is your last answer?"
Elizabeth did not wait as long with her response as Ryan expected her to.
"The answer is no. I have no interest in anything that this place could provide. I ask you again to restore my powers, and I will be gone from your pristine city, as well as from this entire world forever. You will gain nothing by blackmailing me."
"I'm afraid I can't do that. If I was a person who lets shining opportunities flit away before his eyes, there wouldn't be a thriving city standing here. All you achieved now was stepping on a less desirable path towards the same outcome. You'll have plenty of time to regret your decisions, Miss Comstock."
When the giant screen lifted back up to where it came from, they already heard several thundering steps approaching the restaurant. Without thinking, Elizabeth quickly prodded Sally towards the entrance the girl came in before. "Back to the vent! Now!" The frightened child showed her to the other side of the hall, with the narrow opening right above the floor. They could barely push themselves in by the time Ryan's mercenaries burst into the room, searching for their target.
"Where to?" asked Sally while crawling furiously in the dark.
"Away from here," panted the woman. "It'd be better if we stayed in the vent system for now, they can't come after us in he-"
"They're in the vents!" she heard one of them shouting. "Flush 'em out!"
"Oh hell..." she looked back to see a smoke grenade being thrown into the tunnel, its contents already starting to engulf them.
"I can't see, 'Lizbeth!" cried Sally between heavy coughs. The woman felt her own eyes and nose filling with moisture.
"Go downwards and look for an exit on the left!"
She hoped that the squad was not yet able to cover all the vents in that central hub space. They could not stay in here a minute longer, the smoke was stifling.
"Let me go first," ordered Elizabeth, as she squeezed herself past Sally. As soon as she popped her head out of the opening, the nearby goons immediately spotted her and positioned themselves around the spot. She retreated for a second and checked on her ward, whose face was fully covered by tears and saliva by now. She felt there was a tear nearby, and if there was ever a time when she really needed one, it was now.
There, right behind them.
She tried to focus all her thoughts on something destructive enough, and hoping against hope, opened it. A familiar screeching of gears reached her ears as a mighty Patriot materialized itself, holding his crank gun to the soldiers' backs.
"The Lord judges, I ACT!"
"What in the name of-" exclaimed one of the men with mouth agape, but could not finish the sentence before the mechanical monster wound his weapon up. Panic quickly drove the group away from their position, running from the unexpected bulletstorm like headless chickens.
The two girls hastily got out of the vent, both of them drawing deep breaths of fresh air between coughs. Elizabeth tried to wipe the tears from her eyes to be able to navigate themselves towards the service bay in this short time they gained on their pursuers.
"There!" she spotted the place not too far from them, then grabbed Sally's hand in one of hers and readied her crossbow in the other. They did not take more than a few hasty steps before an even bigger squad dashed into the entrance of their destination in front of their eyes, not paying them a look. Except for the last two who stopped at the door to stand guard, and turned around before Elizabeth could blend themselves in the stairway's shadow. Now they were running towards them.
A tranquilizer bolt hit the faster one in the shoulder, and as soon as Elizabeth could reload her weapon, she shot the second dart into the next man's leg, right when he could reach their cover. But much to the woman's dismay, he did not go down without emitting a painful, particularly loud cry. Elizabeth could already hear the echoes of inaudible orders being barked upstairs, reacting to the commotion, no doubt. She set her eyes on a place they passed with a hasty "Medicine" sign written over it, then loaded her crossbow with the last remaining projectile.
I really hope this does what I think it does.
The woman aimed for the entrance of the nearby Manta Ray Lounge, pulled the trigger, and as sure as the wind blows, the little bell on the dart started its vociferous ringing.
"This should occupy them for a minute," she mumbled as she picked Sally up and ran into the makeshift pharmacy.
As they entered, Elizabeth cautiously looked around for any lurking splicers, but it seemed they all pulled back to a safer location as soon as Ryan's men entered the scene.
The pair surely did not mind this particular turn of events.
She put the girl down and checked if she could lock the doors somehow, even though she felt their pursuers' resonating steps towards her little diversion. Then she heard some strange mechanical click from the end of the room where Sally just carelessly wandered to, followed by an ear-splitting alarm. Elizabeth was barely able to snatch the child away from the array of bullets coming from the red-lit turret they stumbled upon. They retreated behind a counter littered with bloody bandages and various medical supplies.
"Stay here until I disable that thing," she told Sally, and waited until the machine reached a pause between its bursts.
She sleeked behind the turret in the right moment and started overriding its tiny switches with a lockpick, silently praying that they did not notice all this noise outside.
As if on cue, the second the lights died out on the contraption, she heard steps as someone entered the room.
Damn it! So much for diversion.
She quietly hid behind a bulkhead near the disabled turret while she checked on her arsenal.
There were no bolts left, only the air grabber.
"Come on out, miss! Don't make this more difficult on yourself than it has to be!" boomed a deep voice, dangerously close.
Elizabeth risked taking a peek at their attackers. A regular gunner and another one with flaming hands, probably using Incinerate. They were slowly approaching the counter where Sally huddled up, whimpering a bit too audibly. The woman's thoughts were racing for a quick solution with no avail, she could not take them out both with the air grabber, they were too close to each other.
The one with Incinerate formed a small bird-like figure from the flame on his hand, speaking casually. "You know, it would be a shame if your little friend had to be roasted a bit to shorten this cat-and-mouse game. Will we find her behind this table, I wonder?"
Elizabeth was just about to charge at them, odds be damned, when Sally popped her little head out from the cover, throwing something at the man that eerily resembled her crossbow bolts. She just realized that during their hasty escape, she never did take what the girl had found in the restaurant.
"Take that, you meanie!" shouted Sally as the bolt's small container shattered on the mercenary's helmet, its contents rapidly expanding to a thick green cloud. In the same split-second, the fire emanating from the man's hand ignited the gas, causing a spectacular explosion. Elizabeth pulled her head back just in time to evade the destructive wave, but it still took a few seconds until her ears stopped ringing and she dared to take a look at what remained.
The two corpses got flown to the rear of the room, laying there lifelessly like big blocks of charcoal. Elizabeth stood up to check on Sally who also got out from behind the blackened counter, going towards the burned bodies.
"They are not angels," stated the Little Sister, her voice surprisingly calm. The woman just watched as she vaulted back to her, humming a cheerful song like nothing in the world just happened.
"G... Good move, Sally," she said after she remembered to close her mouth and went to look over the corpses herself. One of them had tranquilizer darts in his belt, but they were either broken or too bent to be of any use. But he also had something more peculiar with him that got her attention. She tore the leather-bound harness from where it partially burned into the pocket of the coat. It had a collar at the center, with small syringes attached to it in a circle, all filled with the same yellow liquid that was a frequent guest of her nightmares.
"Son of a..."
"What's that?" chirped in Sally.
"A leash. Ryan doesn't take 'no' for an answer." Her voice was dripping with barely veiled animosity. "If there was one thing I'm absolutely sure of, is that I'd sooner kill myself than wear that dreadful piece again, even for a second."
The woman reflexively dropped the harness when she heard short beeps coming from the inner, locked room they did not yet have a chance to explore yet. She pressed her ears against the door, and could now distinguish short beeps from longer ones, orderly following each other.
"It's Morse code. There's a transmitter in there."
Elizabeth shortly produced a lockpick and started working on the opening mechanism as fast as she could. The lock clicked open after a few seconds, and they entered what appeared to be an ad hoc operating theater with a table at the center covered in towels, various medical tools and fresh blood. The transmitter on the desk was still recording the dots and dashes on a thin roll of paper. Elizabeth waited until it finished the message, then tore it from the roll to decode it.
"Emergency. Ryan's men are storming us at the bay. There are many. They're battering the bathyspheres. Tell Atlas we need reinforcements ASAP."
She put the strip of paper down with a weary sigh. "Seems like we're not going there anytime soon." The young woman gave one more good look over the small space they were in. "We could wait it out here. The doors can be locked, and I think I can reprogram that turret outside as well."
"Can we sleep here?" asked Sally while trying to suppress a yawn.
"I think so, yes," answered Elizabeth. "We don't have anything better to do now anyway."
The yawning proved to be infectious. She could almost swallow the turret she was working on if her jaw had gone a bit lower.
How long have I been going on without sleep? Feels like weeks since I got Comstock out of his office.
The automaton responded to her tinkering with a satisfying green light, and continued its monotonous sensor movement where it previously left off, but now working in their favor. Elizabeth then went back to the operating room and locked the door behind her, using the same lockpick she opened it with before.
She wondered if the device Atlas's men apparently used their correspondence for could be of any help to her to reach Tenenbaum.
"Looks like a short ranged method, but I have to try." After tuning the scale for the right frequency, she began tapping the knob.
"I have a Little Sister with me. We're stuck in Fontaine's department store. Will try to head back to the city. I mean you no harm. Please help the girl.
- Elizabeth."
She repeated the message three more times for good measure, then joined Sally who made herself comfortable on the operating table, oblivious to all the blood. Elizabeth disgustedly threw the reddened rags and forceps away and sat near the child. She put her carefully pocketed can of corn in front of her and bashed its lid with the air grabber.
"Dinner?" she asked, offering the humble meal to the girl. Sally quickly crawled to her side, taking the can and starting to devour as much of its content as she could fit in her tiny palm at a time. Before finishing it however, she savored the last bites at the bottom and handed it back to her warden. Elizabeth hesitantly accepted it and fished out the rest of the can's sweet contents.
The echoes of distant shooting outside were still audible, but Elizabeth was so tired she could fall asleep near a firing cannon. Leaning back to the wall, she was staring ahead of herself for a minute, maybe hoping that was all just a bad dream which she will soon wake up from, then closed her eyes with a long sigh. They popped open again immediately however, when she felt a small body crawl onto her lap.
"You're sad," whispered Sally, looking in her eyes intently with her unsettling yellow ones. It was not a question.
"No, I... I'm just... a bit lost, I guess."
"Are you missing your Daddy?"
Elizabeth thought about that for a second. Was she really missing Booker? After all he has done to her? She frowned as the fateful scene of him handing over his own baby to a stranger played in her mind over and over again. She wanted to answer 'no', but the word just stubbornly refused to come to her lips.
Because she also remembered the not-so-valiant knight without the shining armor who broke her out of her prison. Who rescued her from the cruel fate Comstock would have forced on her. Who played that serene little song in that shoddy basement.
The one person she ever felt truly safe with.
Unable to answer with words, she just weakly nodded. Sally did not say anything for a moment, then came up with something unexpected, as was her custom.
"What about your mommy?"
The woman looked at her in sudden confusion.
And here I thought Little Sisters forgot that mothers existed.
"She died a long time ago," she said in a somber voice. "I tried to save her. I... I brought medicine, called different doctors, I tried everything, and..." she had to pause to awkwardly wipe away an unshed tear. "It didn't work. I can't change constants. I failed every time."
Sally looked away and stayed silent. Apparently she was not even confused by Elizabeth's last sentence.
"What happened to your parents?" asked Elizabeth this time, if only to divert attention from her own troubles.
The girl looked like her mind was trying to process something with slight movements of her head and frequent blinking.
"I don't remember," she stated, not looking like she was bothered by it much.
Elizabeth now felt more pity for the child than ever before. She knew all too well what it was like. Not knowing. All those years in the tower, wondering who her parents were and why they had left her. If they had been alive at all.
Then she thought about the truth she uncovered, and if it was really worth to exchange all her hopes and daydreams for.
However cruel it was, it was still better than never knowing.
Sally curled up in her lap for a strange sleeping position. "Good night, 'Lizbeth."
The woman stroked her damp hair as she started to drift off as well. "Good night, Sally."
It was a peaceful day outside. Sun shining, music playing, people passing by. Among them a little girl with dark hair and big blue eyes, holding a cotton candy that was almost bigger than herself. A tall man taking her little hand and swooping her up in one swift motion.
They were laughing. She could not make out the man's face, but there was something about his laugh. It was quiet, but deep and rich. Almost familiar.
Then the laughter changed. It was by different voices. The girl in the man's arms turned blonde, holding a red balloon instead of cotton candy.
Different music started playing. Hard and monotonic.
A bit too loud even.
Like the sound of shooting.
Elizabeth roused.
The turret was ringing.