I've got a bit of bad news. With school and work both picking up again in the next couple of weeks, I'm not going to have as much time to devote to writing. This will mean slower updates. I'll still do my best to update regularly, but for right now it is looking like a 'once a week' kind of schedule. It will hopefully be every Sunday/Monday. I doubt that I'll have to push it out any further than that, but sometimes things can happen. Anyway, on to what everyone came to see.
Disclaimer: On a scale of one to ten of owning Bioshock, I am sitting at about a negative two
"Not the answer I was looking for."
He was going to die. Davian was sure of that now. One stupid moment of charity was about to get him killed after all the time he spent clinging to life.
The shotgun gave a click as the trigger was depressed.
A flash of movement caught his attention, followed by a strange beeping sound. Both he and Benny turned to see a green object, roughly the size of a soda can, flying through the air towards them.
A proximity mine.
Davian had just enough time to duck his head before it detonated, wiping away all other sensation in a blinding explosion. For the longest time, his world consisted of blurred light and a jarring ringing in his ears. And of course, pain. So much pain.
It was almost like the first time he had injected himself with Adam. Every nerve cried out all at once, bombarding him with torment that refused to lessen no matter how much he receded in on himself.
Very slowly, sounds began returning to him and he realized that the fight was far from over. Forcing his eyes to open, Davian surveyed the carnage that was unfolding around him.
Benny's splicers were scrambling to try and hold back the newest threat. An enraged Rosie. The furious behemoth had no doubt heard the earlier sounds of battle as well as the sister's cries. Now he wrought brutal vengeance for his fallen brother in the form of white hot rivets. Davian watched in gruesome fascination as one splicer was literally blasted apart by the impact of the shots, his arms and lower half all being thrown away from the gory mess that had once been his midsection.
The splicers tried to return fire as best they could in the situation, but without the element of surprise on their side they were hardly a match. One by one they were singled out and destroyed with vindictive fury.
Where had Benny gone? Had he been killed in the blast? It didn't take long to find him. The leader of the splicers was lying in a steadily growing pool of blood, clutching one of his eyes while screaming his lungs out. He seemed far too absorbed in his own suffering to finish what he had started.
With a sense of breathless awe, Davian realized that this was his chance. He lurched to his feet, ignoring the agonizing protests of his body as the action reignited his injuries. Without another moment's hesitation, he ran.
He had never run so fast in his life. His mind told him that any minute now, the Rosie or one of the splicers would see him. They would put a bullet in his back and end his life before he could do anything to stop them
But the shot never came. He never felt the sudden bite of a projectile embedding itself into his back. Nor was he stricken by the sudden cold weakness of his body failing.
Davian ran until the sounds of conflict faded away to nothing behind him, and then he ran some more. It was only when his legs flatly refused to carry him further that he paused for a breath. It was then that he noticed something very strange.
His forgotten passenger was still clinging to his arm. In his haste, he hadn't even noticed that he had been carrying a little sister this entire time. The girl held onto him more out of principal than any trust she might have had. She was shaking badly, and seemed to be still recovering from the stress of her recent loss.
Oddly enough, she bore no signs of injury. Had she been protected from the blast somehow? Davian didn't think so, and yet what other possibility was there?
Now he was faced with a very complicated choice. He had gone through the trouble of saving her, but he hadn't exactly planned on what would come after. If he just left her here alone, she would die. That was for certain. Any passing splicer would no doubt snatch her up without a second thought.
Some dark part of his mind told him that he could do the same. She had no way to defend herself, and she would provide him with an incredible amount of Adam. He wouldn't need to scrounge through dumpsters, or fight with other splicers for who knows how long.
And yet, something held him back. For whatever reason, he couldn't bring himself to hurt her. Not after going through so much trouble to keep her alive.
Grimacing from the discomfort of his ravaged body, Davian began the long walk back to his home with the sister in hand.
He would decide what to do with her later.
Davian paced back and forth impatiently in front of the door to Tenenbaum's office. After he realized who it was that the splicers in the safe house had been working for, he had dashed straight there. The guards had been on edge when he approached, but they didn't stop him.
In all honesty, he wasn't sure what he was even going to say. He had known Benny for a while, but it wasn't like he could offer any shocking insight into the man's inner workings.
Some sense told him that it didn't matter. Maybe being around the colony was doing something to his head, but Davian felt like even this small amount of information had to be told as soon as possible.
"Yes?" Tenenbaum's voice on the radio sounded only half awake. Did she sleep in that room?
"Doctor? It's Davian. Would you mind opening the door? I need to talk to you."
"Ah. Yes, one moment." Eventually, the metal bulkhead moved aside allowing him entry. He stepped into the room to find that Tenenbaum had cleaned up a bit since last time. It still looked like the place had been ransacked, but at least now it seemed that the looters had been somewhat orderly in their invasion.
"What is it you need at this time of night?" She asked. "Is there a problem that must be addressed?"
He took a seat in the same chair he had used the previous times.
"It's about the splicers you had us take care of." He said. "The man they were working for, was his name Benjamin Hawthorn?"
Tenenbaum's eyebrow raised in mild surprise. "Yes, that is his name. Did one of the others tell you about him?"
"No. I found a note he gave to his troops." Davian explained, holding up the mentioned paper. At a gesture from the doctor, he handed it over. She skimmed over the writing with practiced ease.
"This letter only mentions his last name." She pointed out.
"Yeah, I kind of pieced together the rest." He said. "I used to work with the guy."
"You did?" She questioned, unsure what to make of his sudden admittance.
"A long time ago, yes. I was doing odd jobs for some spare money, and he was one of the few guys who actually paid in cash instead of bullets. We had a bit of a falling out though."
"What happened?" She asked, leaning back in her chair.
"I was in the way when he tried to get at Wren." Davian said. "It was a mess, and I doubt that he was happy when it was over. I didn't stick around to find out."
She regarded him for a moment, taking in everything that he had just said.
"So am I to understand that you acquired the little one by saving her from him?"
Davian's mouth half-opened, realizing that he had given away more than he had intended to. Mentally berating himself for his carelessness, he nodded. A part of him felt as though he had disclosed some sort of vital information.
"Yeah that's how I first found her. But that isn't important right now." He said, trying to change the subject. "The problem is Hawthorn. Have you done anything to try getting rid of him for good?"
"We have done what we can." Tenenbaum stated. "Our current situation prevents us from striking at him directly, but we have repelled the attacks he has sent at us thus far. Our resources are far from unlimited, and to fight him in a frontal assault would cost far too many lives. Why do you ask?"
Davian was getting a sinking feeling. From his brief experiences with the man, he knew him to be far too dangerous to ignore.
"I don't think sitting on the defensive will be enough." He said. "Benny isn't the kind of guy to let potential threats go around unchallenged. If he wants you dead, you can bet he'll be sending everything he's got your way."
"He certainly doesn't seem to have done much to go after you." She pointed out.
"I like to think that I'm too terrifying for him to mess with." At her raised eyebrow, he rubbed the back of his neck and continued. "…but I might just not be worth his time. I did my best to stay out of sight after the incident."
"Duly noted." Her lack of concern made him wonder if she knew far more than she let on, or if she was just overconfident. He hoped it was the first one for all their sakes.
Tenenbaum shifted in her chair, silently debating something. When she came to a decision, she leaned forward again and addressed him once more.
"It is fortunate that you happened to drop by." She said. "There was something I wanted to speak with you about."
"You mean besides the fact that half the people here look like they want to kill me?" Davian asked, leaning on the arm of his chair.
"You are a splicer." She said bluntly. "It is only natural that they would be suspicious of you. But no, that was not it. I had wanted to discuss the little one with you again."
He tensed.
"What about her?" He asked, his full attention devoted to finding any subtle nuances in her expression or voice.
She noticed his sudden change and frowned.
"I have no desire to harm the child." She said, fixing him with a deadly serious gaze. "Believe what you will, but I want the best for her and all those like her."
"You still haven't said what you wanted to discuss." He said, not backing down.
"Actually I have. I wanted to discuss what is best for her." Tenenbaum's gaze softened slightly. "You seem to care about her, but I wonder if you truly understand the condition she is in. Tell me, what do you have planned for her assuming that all goes well?"
Something told Davian there was a hidden catch in her words, but he couldn't tell exactly what it was.
"Living would be nice." He began. "Maybe going somewhere that isn't crawling with killer psychopaths. Preferably in a place without Adam filled corpses to trigger her gathering reflex."
"And what happens when she reaches puberty?" She asked. Davian cringed at the question.
"I think I'll let Amelia handle that…" He said. "I'm not all that good at explaining bodily functions to small children."
"That isn't what I meant." She stated flatly, rubbing her forehead. "What will you do when her mental condition begins to wear off?"
"Wait a minute, that stuff wears off?" He questioned, sitting up straight in his chair.
"You weren't aware?" She frowned at his confirmation that he hadn't had any idea. "The damage done to her mind begins to break down once she reaches early maturity." The doctor explained.
"Why do I get the feeling that it isn't just limited to mood swings?"
"Because it isn't." She said. "When the illusion of Rapture fades away, she will be faced with the reality of what she has been. She will still be a gatherer, but her mental state will deteriorate rapidly. She will become feral. Aggressive. She will be just as mindlessly vicious as splicers who have lost themselves to Adam addiction."
"What about Amelia?" Davian asked, trying to counteract her argument. "Sure she's angry and stuff, but it isn't like she's going around ripping people's heads off for no reason."
Tenenbaum hesitated before responding.
"That would be Lamb's doing." She said. From the tone of her voice it was obvious that she dislike conceding that the former tyrant of Rapture had done anything good. "There is much that I despise the woman for, but in this she did something to prevent further damage to the girls under her control. Her watch over them was absolute. She allowed them no sense of freedom or individuality. In doing so, their loyalty to her will allowed them to fight against the animalistic rage that built up in their hearts. They lived as her slaves, but they retained their minds."
She folded her arms on the desk, looking him in the eyes.
"Is that what you want for Wren? Because that is what you would need to do if you wanted her to stay sane when the time came."
He looked away, not able to maintain against her gaze.
"I take it you have something else in mind?" He asked grudgingly.
"I do." She opened one of the drawers on her desk, and began rifling around inside of it. When she drew her hand back, she was holding an object that he knew all too well.
A plasmid. The bottle was unmarked. No doubt it was some concoction that existed outside the formerly mass-produced boundaries that he was used to.
"This is a serum of my own design." She said, placing it on the desk in front of him. "Once, I was the one turning little girls into monsters. Now however, I have dedicated myself to freeing them from their affliction. This plasmid will allow you to undo the damage that was done to her, without breaking her sanity."
Davian eyed the vial warily, not entirely trusting its contents.
"It is safe." The doctor said, seeing his trepidation. "I would not offer this to you if it could cause the kinds of complications that most plasmids could. I seek to fix damage, not create more."
Slowly, he reached out and picked it up.
"You say this can fix her…?" He asked softly. "What happens exactly? What does it do to her?"
Tenenbaum seemed to be expecting the question. "It will erase the mental conditioning she has been through in a way that does not cause massive strain on her mind. In addition to that, it will purge her body of the slug and the Adam in her veins. She will become human again."
The plasmid was blue, and deceptively clean looking. He rolled it lightly in his hands while he considered his next move.
"She might be human, but will it be her?" His eyes looked back up into the doctor's, his former resolve returning just as strong as before.
She sighed at the question. Perhaps she had feared such a thing, or maybe it was just something she didn't like to discuss. Either way, she didn't answer immediately.
"The one you know now is a mask." She explained as delicately as she could. "The real Wren is a little girl that was taken from the surface several years ago. She is a child that was stolen from her family to serve the sickness of Rapture. When you use this on her, the mask will disappear and the real girl will return."
The words were chosen to be as convincing as possible, but he saw the truth behind them.
"You're asking me to kill her."
Tenenbaum closed her eye for a second. When she opened them again, they were filled with determination willing him to see things from her perspective.
"That is not what I'm asking." She said. "I am asking you to save her. She has been a prisoner in her own mind ever since she was kidnapped and converted into an Adam factory. The child you know now will not be gone, quite the opposite. She will be here again for the first time in years. She is caged and this is the only way to set her free."
Davian's gaze turned back to the plasmid. Part of him wanted to hurl the sinister thing against the wall before storming out. Was it selfish to want to preserve Wren as she was now? She was happy. If she saw the city for what it really was…
"What about Amelia?" He questioned after several moments of silence. "Will this plasmid work on her too?"
"I'm afraid not." Tenenbaum said, her voice taking on a sympathetic tone. "The Adam slug has been in her body for far too long. To remove it now would be fatal. The person she once was is no more."
He lapsed back into silence, glaring at the object held in his hands. It wasn't enough that plasmids had taken his sister, now they wanted Wren too.
"I know it is hard to see right now…" The doctor began. "But to let her stay in her current state would be a crime of the utmost severity. The longer she is under the illusion, the worse it will be when she must face reality once more."
"…"
Davian gave no indication that he had heard her. Instead, he tightened his grip on the bottle. For a moment, it looked as though he would crush the glass but he loosened his muscles at length.
"No promises." Those were the only words he spoke as he slipped the plasmid into his jacket. Without looking at Tenenbaum's reaction, he got to his feet and made for the door. She didn't try to stop him. As he made his way past the guards and back on the path to his room, he felt as though his body was turning to lead.
He couldn't do it could he?
He couldn't not do it either.
Both options were terrible in their own right. Both options left him cold.
Casting his eyes down, he turned the corner to head for the bar instead. He had never needed a drink so bad in his life.