13

An Atlantic Express Train Station, Airlock Prep Room

Jack stared at the screen that displayed the live motion picture of Sofia Lamb.

The woman had a certain air of confidence and condescension about her as she watched Jack and Holly like they were two goldfish in a tank. Simply seeing her was enough to tell Jack that she was no better than Andrew Ryan. She was an over glorified peacock, just like Ryan. She must have thought herself a queen, at the very least, and Jack had a strong inkling that she was not a person who played well with others.

"May I ask why you're here?" She asked coolly. "Not simply in Rapture, of course. Why are you in Persephone?"

Feeling Holly's expectant eyes on Jack, the man shuffled anxiously from one foot to the other. "We're just passing through." Jack explained, trying to keep a calm tone. "We only need to get through the airlock. We're not here to start any fights."

"Is that so?" Lamb lifted her chin curiously. "If you're not here to start fights, why have you parted a Sister from her Protector? I don't suppose that was an accident, was it?"

Oops. "We-" Jack had to restrain himself from glaring angrily at Holly. He knew picking a fight with that Big Daddy was a bad idea. "We needed the ADAM. We won't be causing any more issues."

"Needed?"

Jack opened his mouth to respond, but, after a sideways glance at Holly, he stopped himself. The girl had shaken her head, then looked up to the TVs. "The girl wasn't harvested. She's safe, I can assure you, and she's probably headed right for you."

"You didn't…?" Jack trailed off in surprise. Then why was Holly acting so surly?

"No," Holly snapped angrily. "That's what I was trying to tell you – I couldn't make that choice, not after what you'd said."

"Safe? You may not have harvested her," Lamb interjected. "But you severed her bond. She will need to be reassigned a new Protector. That's unnecessary work, and unnecessary emotional turmoil for her to go through."

"Look, we let her go. We won't bother them anymore, we're not about that. We're not looking for trouble. We only want to go through the airlock, so if you could just—"

"I apologize, but I'm afraid I simply can't. You see, there is a man who would like to speak to you – Father Wales has a keen interest in meeting you. He's asked me to send you into his hands. He is a faithful man, and he's done so much to help me. The least I can do is help him."

"Sorry, we're on a schedule, Doctor." Holly growled. "And we're already late. We need to get our gears in motion."

"Father Wales didn't ask to speak to you." Lamb raised a haughty eyebrow. "Though I suppose I can let you see him, too. He is a man of faith – a man of forgiveness. If we lost that, the Family would be nothing."

"The Family…?" Jack muttered skeptically under his breath. "What kind of upside down religion is that?"

"Oh, good." Holly drawled sarcastically. "I was really hoping to see the priest – I didn't think things were frustrating enough."

While casting Holly a warning glare, Jack asked "What does he want to speak to me about?"

"He simply wanted to speak to you," Lamb explained, her soothing voice becoming more and more irritating to Jack. The lack of emotion was frustrating. It reminded him of the twins that spoke like they were fortune cookie slips. "He wanted to speak to his messiah."

"Messiah?"

"Yes," Lamb looked at Jack over the tops of her glasses. "You."

Jack laughed incredulously. "You've got the wrong person, lady." He held a hand to his chest, giving the woman on the screen an earnest look. "I'm no messiah."

"Then you are now," She pursed her lips in a failed attempt at a smile - something she seemed incapable of doing. "Regardless, you need to go to the station you came from, and enter the train. It will bring you and the girl to Father Wales. As soon as you've spoken to him, you may move on." Before the screen flickered off, she added "I do hope to see you keep that promise of leaving Sisters and their Protectors alone. It would be a shame if you didn't…"

The lights danced back to life, and then it was just Holly and Jack standing silently in the Preparation Room. The feeling of dread hung in the air. Holly looked over at Jack. "Another chore. I wonder who we'll have to sweep under the rug this time?"

Unamused, Jack headed for the way they came. "It doesn't matter. We'll deal with it when the issue comes up. Let's just go get this over with, before the man starts to get anxious." This was getting real tiresome...

"Jack, wait..." Holly jogged after Jack, gripping his elbow, turning him to face her. "Do you even know who Father Wales is?"

"A priest, I suspect."

"This is serious, Jack. He's not like the people you've encountered down here. He's a man of religion. A crazed man of religion. And, down in Rapture, do you really expect him to just want to have a chat with you? He'll kill you! And then who knows what he might do?"

"I'll be fine – I'm the one he wanted to talk to in the first place. I'm his 'messiah', remember?" He gently pulled his elbow away. "You're the one that needs to be worried. You'll be there uninvited. Besides, where else can we go from here? Lamb's got the airlocks disabled." Jack continued on his path towards the station. "We've only got to deal with whatever this guy wants, and then we can tail it outta there."

The train cars were still surprisingly lush, compared to the rest of Rapture. The deep-red leather seats were still taut, comfortable, and spared from the results of constant nearby fighting. There was some algae and crustaceous life growing on the large windows, but, other than that, the cars were in shockingly good condition.

As soon as they had sat down in the riding car of the train, they were moving. It seemed as though Sofia Lamb – or someone else – had their course already worked out. As uncomfortable as it was for Jack being blind as to where they were going, he knew he couldn't do much about it – They'd just have to wait and see what happens next. This Father Wales guy seemed about as stable as a fishing boat in an ocean storm, but Jack was apparently important to him. Logically, Father Wales wouldn't let his would-be messiah get injured, but… not everything worked on the premise of logic, in Rapture.

The whole scenario was a real cog-turner.

The train set off towards its unknown destination, and Jack watched the ocean pass by around them, a melodic tango of colors and sea life. They were moving rather quickly – faster than they would be by bathysphere.

For a few moments, neither of them said anything. Holly shifted in her seat, quietly smoothing out her frock. Jack glanced over at her. She seemed unusually quiet. Passively, Jack dismissed it. But, as he looked back out the window, he couldn't quite stop concerning himself with her attitude. Eventually, Jack sighed. "Alright... What's eating you?"

Holly blinked, looking up at Jack. "What?"

"Normally, you'd take this time to try and pry some sort of knowledge out of me."

"Oh… I…" She brushed her short hair behind her ear. "Well… Look - Mr. Ryan…" She started, sounding a little exasperated. "… I'm just tired. I'm tired of all the things we've had to do just to get where we are – on route to some priest who doesn't know up from down. I mean… how do we even know they'll open the airlocks for us? We could have gone through everything that we did… for nothing. Isn't that a little discouraging? Not even a little bit?"

"We'll find a way, Holly. Rapture is interconnected. If Lamb and Wales don't open the airlocks, it won't be easy to get it done, but it's possible that we could just find another way through." He tried to maintain eye contact with her, but she looked away. "If there's one useful thing I've learned down here, it's that you never give up on anything – whether you want it or need it. Because giving up is what's going to get you killed. Without motivation, it's easy to become careless."

"But, with everything that's happened…" She shook her head. "…We just keep getting driven off course by one crazy person or another. I can't see us winning. How are you able to keep doing any this?" Her green eyes held genuine curiosity, her lips pursed in frustration and anger.

"The way I see it, it's better to get it over and done with before they come out of hiding and attack." Jack shrugged, crossing his arms. "Besides that, there's really nothing we can do about it. If they have the ability to cut off our only passage, then we've gotta do what they don't want to." He paused, knitting his brows together at Holly. "And did you call me Mr. Ryan, again? I thought we were past that."

"Did I…?" She mumbled, looking away, as if embarrassed. "I'm sorry, it must have just slipped. My mind's not in one place..."

"I don't care what happens, junior – it's Jack, not Mr. Ryan, and not Mr. Rianofski." Jack would have asked why she was acting so strangely, but he had the funniest feeling that he knew why. He lifted his chin curiously. "What did Coleman do to you?"

Holly stared at him blankly, her mouth still open. Her expression quickly changed to that of anger. "Nothing. Why does it matter? He's gone."

"I'm... concerned." Jack answered carefully. He was fully aware of the thin ice that he was treading. "Whatever he did, it's obviously bothering you. If you want to talk about it, we-"

"Let's not discuss it," Holly suggested sharply, shifting in her seat to look out a window furthest from where Jack sat.

"Alright, alright... fine." Jack held his hands up defensively. "We don't have to talk about it. You're just acting a little… odd, is all. I wanted to know if you were OK." The last thing he needed was the two of them being butchered because Holly couldn't focus.

"I appreciate the sentiment…" Holly said quietly, not looking at Jack as she spoke. She still stared out the window. "But you don't have to pretend like you care. I know that we're both just helping each other to get to our own objectives. And I'd… I'd just really appreciate it if you wouldn't patronize me like that."

Patronize? Jack was taken aback. That wasn't his intention at all… He was honestly curious if she was going to be OK. He had a fairly good idea of what Coleman might have done to her, but he didn't really know, up until now. He didn't want her to talk about it to talk about it, but he wanted to at least let her get it off her chest. Evidentially, though, she took no interest in the idea. In fact, she was now ignoring him, sitting with her arms crossed on the seat adjacent to Jack, her body slightly turned away as she glared out a window.

Whatever anger she had pent up inside was slowly finding its way out. Her normally unusually-happy demeanor was dampened by this rage, this disgust, which she refused to express properly. Whether it was her idea of preserving her own pride, or that she was just uncomfortable about the entire situation, she was going to have to do something to let out these dangerous emotions. Otherwise, they may just explode in a frightening catharsis. Jack didn't want to be there when it happened.

He made a silent goal to get her to talk about it before that

Outside the windows, Jack noticed, the scenery had changed – This time, Jack actually recognized where they were. He sat up suddenly, startling Holly, whose head snapped up attentively. "Why are we back here…?" Jack muttered, turning around in his seat. He furrowed his brow, standing on his knees, and staring out the window like a child on a bus.

Holly, too, looked out the window, tilting her head. "Fort Frolic? What's somebody in Persephone got to do with Fort Frolic?"

Both of their radios turned on with a jarring hum of static. "Persephone and Fort Frolic both have connections, and are surprisingly close to each other. But Wales isn't taking you to Fort Frolic." Lady Sapphire's cool voice answered. "You're being taken to a museum."

Jack didn't want to question the fact that she so readily butted into their conversation. Instead, he seized the opportunity to ask something else that had been on his mind since breaking Holly out of Coleman's makeshift prison. "You've tried to have me killed –multiple times. Why are you helping us?"

"'Helping'?" She echoed innocently.

"You sent security sentries to help me break out Holly," he growled "And now you're helping us again."

"You did me a favor." She said simply. "You killed Wayne Coleman. Therefore, by rule of give and take, I should return it. I can assure you; this is the last you'll see of my good side."

"That was your good side?"

"As good as it gets – I could have let you die at Wayne's hands. But I needed him to die more than you. In any case, I needed the rest of those fools slaughtered, and having you distract and confuse them was the easiest way for me to get in there."

Holly glanced over at Jack, raising an eyebrow. "So I guess we're even now, huh?" Holly asked tentatively into her own radio.

"For now," Sapphire paused thoughtfully on the other end, the continued: "Although, I do feel I owe you a warning. Father Wales is a religious fanatic. He'll do anything to please his… 'messiah'… That would be you, Mr. Ryan. And he will also do anything to prove your existence." Jack gave Holly an incredulous look as Sapphire said: "Take that as you will."

As the sound of the transmission ending was heard, barely audible over the sound of the train slowing, Jack let out a long, confused sigh. "... She just loves to stir the pot, doesn't she...?" He hissed.

Even as the train slowed to a stop in the station, Jack and Holly sat blankly in their seats, still holding their radios. Finally, after an anxious stretch of silence, Jack got to his feet, clipping the radio back onto his belt. "Alright…" He exhaled deeply, glancing outside the window again. "… let's go see what Father Wales wants from us."