I know, I know, I'm terrible with updates. Fear not, the rest is still on the way.
The fogginess of dreams quickly faded from Elizabeth's eyes amidst the ringing noise and the whizzing of bullets as she reflexively closed her arms around Sally and rolled under the operating table.
"Is it an ang- mmph" murmured a sleepy Sally, her mouth quickly covered by her guardian's hand.
They sat still until the turret went quiet, then continued its routine scanning of the room outside accompanied by the casual humming.
"Stay here," whispered Elizabeth while slowly crawling to the closed door, perking up her ears. After another minute of silence, she cautiously opened it and looked around. A lone splicer lay dead not far from the entrance, with his face to the floor. The turret apparently made short work of him.
"You can come out now, Sally" she said in a more audible tone. "We're leaving."
The Little Sister toddled out after her and upon seeing the body she rushed to it with cheers of excitement. "Juicy angel!"
Before the girl could lunge herself at the fresh carcass, Elizabeth stopped her.
"Hey, it's gathering-free day, don't you remember?"
"But it's tomorrow now. Break is over," resisted Sally. "All good girls gather, and I want to be good."
The woman hung her head in defeat, resorting to a plea instead of another lie. "Can you just... leave him be? For me?"
The child gave her one of her most puzzled looks yet.
"Please," she pressed. Sally glanced at the dead body once more, then turned back to her with a comically overacted sigh.
"Okay."
"Thank you, sweetheart." Elizabeth smiled warmly at the girl, secretly being proud of herself for this next milestone.
She searched through the body in case he had any darts for her crossbow, but instead it was an oddly shaped bottle that got caught in her hand.
"A vigor?"
The color-changing liquid shone brightly inside the otherwise nondescript glass container, half of it still intact. A piece of paper on the bottom had the word "Teleport" on it with rough handwriting.
"Huh, haven't seen this one around. Must be experimental." She rotated the object in her grasp for a few seconds, deep in thought. "It would sure come in handy."
The woman then knelt near the body whose face was still obscured by the floor and turned him over. Looked less than thirty, his features now lifeless yet surprisingly ordinary. But Elizabeth could still see what she had been afraid to find. Fresh and tiny, but visible gashes on his chin and cheeks. The horrible dark crystals coming out of Cornelius Slate's head immediately came to her mind.
Eyeing the bottle with renewed disdain, she threw it towards the wall where it smashed to pieces, leaving a multi-colored stain.
"Rainbow!" giggled Sally.
"Yeah. Now let's go see if they left the Service Bay already."
When the two stepped out of their hiding place and back into the department store's central area, only an eerie silence welcomed them. There were no splicers circling around angrily mumbling to themselves, nor burly mercenaries purposefully searching for their prey. With only the occasional dripping noises in the pipes echoing in the empty locale, it seemed more withered than ever.
"We better get moving now while no one is around," said Elizabeth, though the curious absence of last night's activity raised her caution considerably.
They reached the elevator without trouble, and the woman pushed the button hoping that their lucky break from life threatening chases would extend to the maintenance area as well.
When they reached the bottom floor and the door opened, the silence continued into the deserted corridors.
"Look 'Lizbeth, those can take us to Lilly Poppy!" pointed Sally excitedly towards two bathypheres on display that they just passed.
The woman shook her head, "Those are as old as the hills. We would suffocate in them in minutes."
"Oh," the girl wilted.
They halted before turning the corner so Elizabeth could take a careful peek towards the enormous hall. She could not see movements of any kind, and the only sounds came from a radio from somewhere on the lower floor.
"I don't like this," she muttered. "Where are they?"
Then she got closer to the handrail, and her question got answered.
"Oh my God..."
The entire bay was littered with dead bodies, splintered glass and piles of scorched metal. All of the bathyspheres were nothing but battered wrecks.
"No... there must be at least one. There must be."
The two of them descended the stairs and started tiptoeing around the dozens of fallen splicers and handful of mercenaries. Elizabeth checked a few for some remaining ammunition or weapon, but could not find anything.
"Someone already stripped them clean."
The radio they heard humming before was more audible now.
"And now we got something very special for you coming up next. This little lady, by the name "Elizabeth" was picked out from the thousands by the master himself, Sander Cohen.
And when Sander finds a songbird, she's sure gonna sing sweet. So here's Miss Elizabeth with 'You Belong to Me'."
Rapture's Songbird halted her step when she recognized her own voice emanating from the dingy contraption. It quickly caught her ward's attention as well.
"Is that you 'Lizbeth?"
The woman blushed a little. "Yes. Do you like it?"
The girl listened to the song a while longer then gave her a small smile and a curt nod.
"It's a little slow though."
Elizabeth just laughed at the girl's bluntness. "It is. I first heard it when I was... very lonely." Her face fell for a minute at the memory. "I just couldn't get it out my head since."
They continued to search for a bathysphere in at least an acceptable shape to no avail. Sally did find an audio diary under an unfortunate victim however, which she handed to her companion right away.
"It looks broken. Let's see if we can get something out of it," commented Elizabeth, then pressed the button. The tape started playing, distorted and unnaturally deep, but still intelligible.
"I dunno what the hell they're doing here, but Ryan's cronies can knock on our door any minute now. We worked our asses off to get these damn bathyspheres working. If they get their hands on 'em, Atlas can say bye bye to the fancy New Year's party he's been planning all these months. We're trapped. Can't hold these guys off with this bunch of hillbillies. There goes our last chance. Boss will be pissed."
Elizabeth tossed the device aside exasperatedly.
Last chance.
She crumbled to the floor silently cursing to herself, and buried her face in her hands in despair. Sally waited a minute before carefully approaching the motionless figure sitting on the cold metal grid.
"Are you sad?"
The woman was on the verge of sobbing. "I'm... sorry sweetheart. There's no way out of here. I can't get us to the city."
"No Lilly Poppy?" pouted the girl.
"I'm sorry," said a broken Elizabeth. "Ryan won't release me, and even if Dr. Tenenbaum got my message, she can't reach us here."
She continued her ruminations with a heavy sigh. "I just don't understand. At least those damnable twins could have helped, but all they ever care about is their stupid mind games!"
Her despair quickly turned into anger. "They knew that I was heading into a dead end and they did nothing! They knew none of these cursed things would work, they knew we'd be stuck here!"
She rose again, now shouting into the air around them. "Where are your tricks now when we need them, huh?! You can keep your stupid cake next time and shove it up your-"
"How did you get here, 'Lizbeth?" asked the Little Sister, oblivious to her warden's ramblings.
"What?" It took a few seconds for Elizabeth to calm down and process the question.
"That loon Cohen sent us here with Comstock. The bathysphere was automated and..." something just clicked in her mind. "That's it! The one we arrived in must be still there at the Pavilion."
She took Sally in a fierce hug with newfound hope in her eyes. "All is not lost. We just have to get back there and reprogram it somehow. With everyone out of the way for the moment, we might even make it in an hour or so. I hope."
She put the girl down and jolted back towards the elevator with her. Just when Elizabeth reached for the button though, a red light above it came to life, indicating that it was called back to the upper floor.
"Oh no. Not now."
She quickly checked all her pockets for some remaining darts but found none.
"This elevator is the only way back. I'm not waiting around for more maniacs."
Ushering Sally to the dark corner, the woman positioned herself near the door, ready to strike down anyone who stepped outside with her trusty air grabber.
The red light started flashing, and she heard the elevator descending again.
"Can't be more than two of them. I can take both by surprise." She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, adjusting her grip on the weapon.
Then she heard Sally's muffled voice behind her.
"Sally?"
Elizabeth never had the chance to turn around. The thick smell of chloroform was the last thing her senses registered before she succumbed to blackness.
The sunlit beach was bristling with people and cawing seagulls; her nose filled with the freshly discovered smell of fine sand. "Dancing at Dusk", said the sign in front of the pier and a quartet played a gleeful melody ahead, their legs tapping on the planks to the rhythm.
Just like she remembered.
Something stuck out of the scene however. Or rather, someone.
A waiting Booker DeWitt stood patiently outside the circle of merrymakers, leisurely pushing himself away from the railing he was leaning on as soon as he laid his eyes on the newcomer. The man never seemed more at ease.
She timidly took the last few steps between them, and when he extended his hand towards her she could swear she had seen the tiniest of smiles crawling up on the face of the ever somber veteran.
"A dance, Miss?"
She dared not answer, not trusting her voice in this moment, just silently reaching for the offered hand. His fingers closed on her more delicate ones, but he did not move any further.
"Hmm, soft as a baby's bum. Fancy uptown gal, this one." Booker's gaze became empty.
"What?"
"Won't see a gem like this here every day, huh." He tightened his grip on her painfully.
"No, please let go!"
The beach around them slowly evaporated like haze after sunrise, carrying Booker's tall frame away with it.
Only the grip stayed.
The drowsiness started to wear off and she could now pair the intruding voice with the man who was busy tying her hands to the chair she had apparently been placed onto.
"If you're saying what I think you're saying Lonnie, then drop it," said another man from behind her. "Boss said 'unharmed'."
"Yeah, yeah, boss this, boss that. He sure loves ordering our asses around all the damn time. And what do we ever get from him other than angsty speeches?"
Elizabeth tried really hard not to twitch when Lonnie's hand wandered a bit further than her wrist. She wanted to hear as much banter from them as possible before they noticed she had come to.
"Come on, toots is still out for a while. Won't feel a thing..."
At that, the woman could not hold back a weak but all the more frightened grunt.
"Oh, seems like she's finished with the beauty sleep."
"Get your hands off me," growled Elizabeth as menacingly as a person tied to a chair possibly could.
"Feisty, aren't we?" smiled Lonnie, smoothing her short hair with his index finger. "You see, you're not exactly in the position of-"
The door suddenly flung open, giving way to a dark haired man wearing an off-white shirt and suspenders.
"Girl awake yet?" he asked in an accent thickly coated in Irish.
Lonnie hastily drew his hand back like it just had been stung by a flame. But it was not fast enough to avoid the man's attention.
"She did, in this very minute," answered the thug a little too defensively. "We just had a bit of a laugh, Atlas."
"You two get outta here and wait outside. Now," ordered the one time leader of Rapture's unfortunate lower class, with a voice that left no space for retorts. "I'll talk with our guest alone."
The submissive pair obeyed, and Elizabeth was now in the exclusive company of the infamous revolutionary. He leaned on a shabby desk in the dim office, casually lighting a cigarette and inhaling the first drag deeply.
The woman waited quietly for him to speak, with as blank an expression as she could muster in her present situation.
Atlas was merely eyeing her for a minute, fixated on something only he saw, slowly blowing out the mouthful of smoke. Then he stepped closer and gently pulled her chin up, inspecting her face from various angles like she was a mannequin on a set.
Elizabeth did not try to mask her disgust this time. "So you sent away your cronies to have the prize to yourself, huh?"
Curiously enough, Atlas just chuckled.
"Don't be so high on yourself, love. You ain't that special." He let go of her and backed away again, pulling in another drag. "But you're clearly no Rapture gal."
Elizabeth was taken aback by this unexpected remark, and could not come up with anything to dismiss the man's claim with.
"So, darlin'," continued the man. "It just so happens that I heard about the hustle you had going out there. Some bloody wild tales, too."
Looking straight into her eyes with his own pair of ice cold blue ones, he let the previous sentence to set in.
"Let's talk business."