Disclaimer: The only thing I own of Bioshock would be a copy of the game. All the rest was created by the people that put forth the time, effort, and funding to create it. Of which, I am not one of.
By the time Davian got back to his room, it was empty. Both Amelia and Wren were nowhere to be seen. The only thing that kept him from worrying about their sudden disappearance was the fact that the big sister's armor was still neatly piled in a corner. If she had finally decided to take Wren and go, or they needed to go gathering, she would certainly not have left it behind.
Well, maybe that wasn't the only reason…
As it turns out, he had been refused entrance to the bar. The owner apparently only let him in the first time because he was with Archer at the time. In the man's eloquent words; "I don't trust assholes who burst into flames with my booze."
This left him with far more time to worry about the plasmid he had been given. The vial weighed almost nothing, but right now it felt as though he were carrying a lead block. Every step caused it to jar the inside of his jacket, reminding him that it needed his attention.
Groaning, he collapsed on his bed, letting the (relatively) soft mattress absorb his weight for a few precious moments. He was tempted to let the reprieve lull him to sleep after the earlier events. But instead, he fished the vial out of his pocket and held it up to the bedside lamp.
The rays of light danced inside the blue liquid, giving the impression of a child's toy. Davian would never understand how something so cripplingly powerful could look so innocent. It was a plasmid. It killed people. That's what plasmids did, some more obviously than others.
He was no stranger to killing, that was for sure. Nobody in Rapture was. And yet, he was so bothered by the very notion of using the plasmid that his mind felt like it was breaking in two. Why hadn't he simply refused? It would have been easy to do so. Just put it back on the desk, and walk away. If the others didn't like it, too bad. They couldn't force him to follow through on it.
Feeling conflicted?
The bottle fell from Davian's hand, landing on the bed, as he bolted back upright. A quick survey of the room told him that nobody had snuck up while he was distracted, which meant…
"Your back." He sighed.
I never left. You should know that by now.
He got to his feet, brushing himself off in an attempt to ignore the voice.
You never listen to me anymore, do you?
"Cry me a river." He muttered, making his way over to the dresser. When they had arrived, he had taken the liberty of stashing his Adam supply inside.
You need to follow through on this.
Davian paused for a moment, surprised that the voice actually had an opinion on anything other than killing and feeding their mutual addiction.
We both know how this will end, even if you try to ignore it.
Shaking his head, he deciding that he didn't really care what it thought. He made his way over to the dresser and began rifling through his belongings.
Stop! I am trying to help you damn it! You can't hide from me forever!
"Who's hiding?" He asked. "Last I checked you were the one that pulled the disappearing act whenever I decided it was time for you to leave."
You push me away whenever you can't face the reality of your situation. You need to stop running away.
"You're awfully talkative for a delusion." Davian remarked. Finding the Adam vial and a clean syringe, he made his preparations.
Have it your way then.
His arms suddenly locked up, the vial and needle clattering to the ground as they dropped from his nerveless fingers. He struggled to move, but none of his limbs would obey his commands.
"What did you do to me!?" He demanded. Nothing like this had ever happened before.
I forced you to listen.
The voice sounded frustrated, like a parent trying to reason with an overly forceful child.
You can't decide which path is the right one? Well, I can tell you that it is blatantly obvious to anyone with half a brain.
"Cheap talk, coming from someone without a body." Davian shot back.
You have to free her. There is no other choice.
He glared at the voice, an action that was slightly hindered by the lack of a physical object to direct his anger towards.
"Of course there's another choice." He argued. "I don't have to do anything. If she starts going crazy, then I can help her through it. She doesn't have to die!"
If you truly believe that, she's already dead.
The cold rebuttal caused Davian to flinch.
She's a prisoner in her own mind. The thing you think you know isn't human. It's a construct created to gather Adam for the drug addicted masses.
"Shut up!" He knew it was unreasonable to get this angry at something that didn't actually exist, but nobody, not even an illusion, would question Wren's right to live and get away with it.
"You're in no place to judge her!" He shouted, not stopping to think who might hear. "You're just some messed up freak of nature! How about, instead of bothering me at every turn, you go back to whatever cesspool you crawled out of and die there!"
Through sheer force of will, Davian managed to move his limbs so that he was in an aggressive stance. He silently dared the voice to dispute his statement.
Tell me something. What would you do if I were the one in control?
Before he had a chance to respond, it went on.
I'll tell you what; you would kill me. You would do everything in your power to see me torn down, broken, and destroyed. The girl is in that exact position right now. Her entire consciousness is under the influence of something beyond her control. If you let it stay there, she will die just as surely as if you cut her throat yourself.
He didn't want to listen. Didn't want to give any thought to the voice's words, but he had no choice. They burned into his mind, burrowing into every corner and crevice. He couldn't escape them.
There is only one choice. If you care about her at all, you WILL free her. To do otherwise would be to choose your own selfish desire over her well-being. You know what lies down that path.
He knew all too well. One seemingly harmless choice could lead into another, and another, and another, until you became just another slavering psychopath. But this wasn't a time like that was it? This wasn't about him! It was about her, and what was best for her!
Wasn't it…?
Pick up the plasmid.
He refused to budge. This was a choice he would make on his own, and no disembodied voice would be the one to force it on him.
Are you going to let her suffer for your own stubbornness?
Davian grit his teeth. He was sick of the voice. He was sick of his choices. He was sick of Adam, and Plasmids, and Rapture. He was sick of every homicidal, greedy, or downright insane person that had created the city as it was today.
Pathetic. You're still just a child who's grown too attached to his toys.
He snapped. Hellfire burst into existence in his palms with a roar. Whirling around the room, he struggled to keep from burning everything in sight. In that moment he dearly wished the voice was a real person so that he could tear it apart.
"You call me pathetic!?" He screamed the challenge, working himself into a frenzy. "I'm the one who survived! I'm the one who endured! I fought against everything Rapture threw at me, while you just sat back and undermined my actions! I'm the stronger one here! You're nothing more than a sorry fucking mistake!"
Silence fell on the room like a blanket, the only sound being Davian's panting as he recovered. The voice didn't respond, and he realized that it was gone. Not permanently, but at least for the moment he had a moment of peace.
He took a moment to get himself back under control before turning to clean up his fallen belongings. As he bent down to pick them up, he froze. In his rage, he hadn't noticed that someone else had entered the room.
Tomas stood in the doorway, a grim expression on his face. The shotgun he carried hung loosely at his side, but his grip on it had tightened the moment Davian turned around. For several seconds, the two of them stood locked in place. Neither budged. Neither knew just how to react.
Eventually, Tomas was the one to break the standoff.
"Where's your metal friend?" He questioned, his voice kept carefully neutral.
"Don't know." The splicer responded truthfully. "She wasn't here when I came back." The man's eyebrow twitched slightly in what might have been irritation.
"Find it." He ordered, turning to leave again. "Then meet me downstairs at the entrance. There's a job that needs doing, and the two of you are coming with me. We're going hunting."
Davian watched him go, the thought of asking just what he was talking about never occurring to him until long after Tomas was gone.
Sighing, he made to go looking for Amelia.
"Any helpful advice?" He asked the empty room, his voice laden with sarcasm. The voice didn't respond. "That's what I thought."
Joseph loved working with machinery. Be it security cameras, attack bots, or auto turrets, they all had their own unique charm. There was just something reassuring about piecing together wires and metal. Machines made sense to him. People, not so much.
Leaning back in his chair, he observed his handiwork. A damaged security bot lay on his worktable, its metal plating removed so that he could better see what was wrong. This one had a bullet lodged in its motor preventing it from flying properly. Removing the object was a delicate procedure as even a slight misjudgment could cause his tools to sever the fuel line, rendering the bot grounded until another could be found.
Taking out a pair of very thin tweezers, he positioned the metal carcass to get the best possible entry position. The work was slow going but, with careful guidance, the bullet was pulled little by little out of the machinery. When at last the projectile was removed, he surveyed the wounds it left behind.
The impact of the bullet had dented the casing on the engine coils that spun the propeller. He would have to find a way to buff out the impression or the friction from the coil rubbing on it would cause massive amount of wear on the engine.
Rubbing a bit of sweat off his forehead, Joseph reached for a screwdriver to open the casing.
"Whatcha doing?"
The young man jumped back with a shout, tipping over his chair and crashing to the ground. Desperately scrambling away, he was assailed by the sight of two glowing eyes staring at him.
When his heart rate regulated enough to feel anything other than panic, Joey realized that his attacker was in fact not a demon or some malicious spirit. In fact, she was only three feet tall.
"Are you building things?" Wren asked, turning her attention to the various pieces of machinery around the room.
"N-N-No. Fixing them." He managed to stammer out. "W-What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be… well… somewhere else or something?" The workshop was his personal sanctuary, and only Archer was allowed to enter uninvited.
He yelped slightly as her unnaturally bright gaze turned back to him.
"E got lost." She stated. "I needed to use the potty, but there's so many halls that we couldn't find the way back."
"E? Who is-" Joseph answered his own question when he turned to see the other person in the room.
She wasn't wearing her armor, but there was no mistaking the big sister. She stood near the entrance, regarding him with the same look a vicious dog might give a kitten. Her own yellow eyes having the slightest tinge of red in their depths.
"Oh…"
The little sister gasped, drawing his attention back. She stood on her tiptoes, trying to get a better view of the security drone he had been working on.
"Wow, there's so much stuff in there!" She said with childlike enthusiasm. "How did you fit it all inside like that?"
Not knowing how to explain the complex nature of bot assembly to a little girl, he tried changing the subject back to her presence here.
"L-Listen." He began, his voice betraying his nervousness. "If you're lost, I can help you get back to your room. Would that be ok?" He made a point of avoiding her older sibling's gaze.
"Yeah, Mister M is probably looking for us." She said, immediately forgetting all about the metal curiosities she had been looking at. Taking Amelia's hand, she turned to wait for him to lead them back. With only a bit of hesitation, he did just that.
The three of them stepped out into the hallway, with Joseph locking the door behind them. He knew that most people would respect the privacy of his workshop, but there were always one or two who would see it as an opportunity to snag some ammunition for themselves. Not that they had the proper firearms to use said bullets, but that didn't stop them from trying.
For a time, they walked in silence while he tried to remember which room was theirs.
1-0-something. Which was it? 101 is empty. 102 is Kendrick's room. When was the last time he slept there instead of the bar? I think 103 is for storage… 104 maybe? That sounds about right.
Noticing the pervading silence of the group, he tried to ease it somehow.
"What did you call the other guy before?" Joseph asked. "Mister M? Why is that?" He normally wouldn't be the one striking up conversation, but the presence of a big sister at his back made him desperate for a distraction.
"That's cuz he's a magician." She stated, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "He does magic tricks all the time. Didn't you see that before?"
"Yea, I think I saw some of that…" He also saw a few of the charred corpses that the splicer had left behind.
With a rush of relief, Joey noticed that the hallway leading to their room was straight ahead.
"That should just about do it." He said. "Take that hall down to room 104 and you should be fine. It was… um… nice talking to you."
Wren looked up at Amelia, who was in turn staring at him uncomprehending.
"Room 104…" He said again, suddenly unsure of himself. "You know… just follow the numbers…"
The protector looked back at the doors, before shaking her head in mild annoyance. When she turned back to him, her eyes were narrowed as though she thought her was making fun of her.
For Joseph, it felt like a death threat.
"Y-Y-You just have to follow along." He repeated for the third time, not knowing what else to say. "You see? That's room 90 over there. Room 104 would be farther down."
She glared at the door he had pointed out, not showing the slightest recognition as she read the number. Joey was starting to panic until he was suddenly struck by the realization of what was going on.
"You can't read." Amelia's glare shot back to him, taking on a dangerous edge. He immediately began backtracking in terror.
"N-Not that that's a bad thing!" He spouted quickly, raising his hands in defense. "I-I-I know plenty o-of great people that can't read! I was just… just… surprised! That's all. I-I thought that… well… you could do everything." To be fair, ripping apart solid steel girders with your bare hands was probably almost as good as everything.
With a huff, she gestured for him to continue on. Apparently his words had satisfied her, or she might have just decided he was too pathetic to kill at that moment. Either way, he was incredibly grateful when a familiar figure caught his eye.
"Davian!"
The red-headed young man approached quickly.
"There you two are." He commented, patting Wren on the head who giggled happily. "I was looking for you. Apparently Tomas wants us downstairs." Seeing Joseph, he turned towards the boy. "Were they bothering you all this time?"
"No! Not at all." He assured, still very wary of Amelia's temper. "I'm just helping them get back here. They got lost and…" He let the rest of his sentence drift off.
"All right then." Davian said, raising an eyebrow. "Thanks for helping them out. If you'll excuse us, we need to go get prepared for whatever it is we're supposed to be doing."
Joseph nodded, more out of reflex than anything else. As their group made the short trek back to room 104, he watched for a few more moments. Wren reached up with her free hand to grab the one Davian had offered, swinging both his and Amelia's while commenting about something he couldn't quite hear.
Joseph frowned, his mind suddenly trying to figure out the puzzle he was looking at. Gatherers didn't normally act like that around strangers. They were conditioned to only trust their big daddies, and a few choice personnel who extracted the Adam they collected. Why did she seem to trust Davian? Not only was he not a protector, he was also a splicer.
Maybe he should ask that at some point.
Then again, maybe not. Part of him felt like any interactions with the strange trio beyond what was absolutely necessary would be hazardous for his health. Still, maybe they weren't so bad. And Archer was always trying to get him to talk with more people…
Shaking his head, Joseph turned to go back to his workshop.
Splicers and sisters or no, the bots wouldn't fix themselves.