A/N: I am reuploading this chapter because I accidentally uploaded a chapter that comes after this lol
Anywho, this is where things start to get really dicey. I'm trying to step up my game, but there's a lot of stuff going on with college, and my personal writing is a whole hell of a lot more appealing than fanfiction.
22
An Atlantic Express Train Station
The water was absolutely freezing.
It was just as bad as Jack remembered it – perhaps even worse, even though he knew what to expect. Jack stepped out of the airlock, loudly commenting on the temperature of the water. In his hand was the Instant Oxygen Plasmid, the lid screwed off. Holly looked back at him with a frown. She, too, held her own bottle of the same Plasmid. Her dark blue frock was stuffed into the dirtied, tattered pants she used in the diving suits. She wasn't willing to part with her frock.
They both had their shoes off. The airlock had only a thin layer of water left to line the grated floor, but it was enough to be an indicator as to just how cold the ocean was. "This is not such a great idea," Jack growled. There was nothing less appealing to Jack than going out into the ocean with no bodily protection whatsoever. He thought that going out there in a diving suit was terrifying, but he wasn't expecting something like this as a follow up. "Don't you have a plan B?"
"This is plan B, Jack." Holly stepped out of the airlock. "Plan A was getting a bathysphere that could get to where Sapphire is hiding out – but she's always got her own bathysphere docked, and there's only room for one. This is plan B, C, D… all the way to Z. There's no other choice." She gestured to the Securis door on the other side of the room. "Other than walking away, of course. Which is always a viable option." She waited for a response from Jack that she never received. "That is an option, you know. We could just leave. This isn't our responsibility."
Jack tiredly rubbed the bridge of his nose, shaking his head subtly. "I can't just…leave." Something inside him wouldn't let him leave, especially while knowing what Sapphire was still orchestrating in Rapture. "This is my responsibility."
"It's not. It just feels like it. Now…" She unscrewed the top of her own Plasmid bottle, holding it up to Jack like it was a glass of champagne. "… drink up, or walk out. Make up your mind."
The Ryan ran his fingers slowly through his hair, trying to calm himself as he eyed the inside of the airlock. "And what if something goes wrong? The Plasmid doesn't work, or we get attacked by those Splicers?"
"It'll work. It has to." Holly wiggled her bare toes. "And those things will be fast, but we'll be faster. We're thinner and lighter than them."
"They're strong. They're fast. They're used to the water. We're none of these things."
The girl pointed to the door once more. "If it worries you that much, you know the other option you have."
"After everything that we just went through?" Jack looked at the girl skeptically. "Holly, I almost died more times than I can count to get here. And you-…" He trailed off, pursing his lips, deciding to step away from that dangerous territory. "We can't just walk away from this. Especially not while I know what Sapphire plans to do."
"Then drink up, Jack, or we lose our window of opportunity." The girl trailed her words by taking a huge gulp of the Plasmid – nearly half the bottle – and walked back into the airlock.
Jack darkly muttered a curse to himself, followed by a prayer… something he rarely did. This was an occasion that seemed to call for supernatural aid. He stomached half of the Plasmid, assuming they might need more of it again, soon. It tasted salty, with a strange leafy taste, like lettuce or celery, and had the sickening consistency of cold phlegm. And then he forced himself to step back into the airlock.
The metal door behind the duo began to close, and Jack could feel that all-too familiar anxiety. What if the Plasmid doesn't kick in on time? What if it doesn't work at all? What if Sapphires Splicers hunt us down? Worse yet, what if they catch us? Needless to say, the Big Daddies Jack once feared were now the least of his worries…
A metallic click, and the airlock door snapped shut like the lid to a coffin. It was getting harder and harder for Jack to breath. His chest was tight. It already felt like he was starting to drown – a sensation that was still fresh in his memories. He figured it was the fear, and glanced down at Holly to see a similar response coming from her… among other things.
The girl, who had her short hair tied back in dark ribbons in an attempt to keep it out of her face, had her mouth agape as she took in deep breaths. Something caught Jack's eye, something that couldn't be more than two or three centimeters down her neck, right below her ear. A hole. Shaped like an upside down raindrop. It retracted when she opened her mouth to breathe in, but bulged outwards when she closed her mouth. It almost looked like a bullet hole at first, which startled Jack, but the sudden realization that those holes were gills is what really startled Jack.
Uneasy anticipation surrounded Sapphire as she watched the two walk into the airlock. When the door closed behind them, so did her surveillance of them. She pursed her lips. She could only wait and ready herself to see if they made it.
Sapphire felt an awareness of frustration and anger. Holly had taken some… creative liberties in her method of getting to Sapphire's building. There had been no Plasmid in the mix. She was only supposed to use the diving suits to reach Sapphire. It was determined by Sapphire to be the safest mode of transportation available.
Sapphire got to her feet, reminding herself that young women like Holly, a troubled youth, have a proclivity for rebellion. This was just something she would have to speak to the girl about. In the meantime, Sapphire had other things to worry about, such as preparing the stage for the scene to come. The main foyer needed to be unlocked and opened for Jack to freely stumble into. She also wanted to prepare her office - set up a nice, comfortable chair for Jack Ryan to sit in. It should be a pleasant sitting experience... it would, after all, be his last.
The blue lady started confidentiality towards her office, where she could control the locks for the doors. But, without any sort of warning, that confident walk withered and died, taking away part of her vision and hearing simultaneously. Light headedness and quick, shallow breathing ensued. She was only halfway to her office, and she was leaning against the nearby wall, gripping it as tightly as she could with whatever strength she still had left in her muscles. Any sounds around her were distant and muffled, and she stared blankly in front of her as a darkness edged itself around her vision with an annoying bluntness.
This wasn't exactly an unusual experience. Sapphire often had nosebleeds, usually proceeded by waves of dizziness that took away her vision and hearing for a few minutes. It's never lasted more than a two or three minutes, but it was always just as startling as it first was. They seem to be getting worse as the days go by, and with no explanation as to why arose.
Determined to keep moving forward, Sapphire kept one hand steady on the wall, using the other to balance herself and to wipe the blood off of her top lip, as she knew it would be there. Undoubtedly, this was one of the worst nose bleeds she's experienced yet. Fortunately, her vision was returning, though she was still seeing doubles. As she passed a tall, oak, decorative table - nearly knocking over the vase of orchids placed on it - a blurred palette of yellow, brown, and green caught her eye. She stopped moving to let her vision clear, and to focus on the blurry colors.
Her brows twitched together when she could comprehend what she was seeing. "You two…" She muttered breathlessly, still lightheaded and weak-legged.
"Why does everyone greet us like that?"
Sapphire watched as a double turned into a quadruple, and then back into a double. She backed up ungracefully, feeling a sudden sense of urgency. Her head started to clear, and she managed to focus her eyes properly on who was standing at the top of the wide staircase across from her.
Two familiar faces, two familiar voices, one familiar attitude. It was the two twins that seemed hell-bent on either stalking Jack Ryan, or helping him. Either way, their sudden presence alarmed Sapphire. The only thing she could think of as to why they were there was that they wanted to do what Jack had every intention of.
Instead of ordering them out, or threatening them – as the proper responses probably would have been, in that particular scenario - Sapphire squinted at them, focusing carefully. "Who the hell are you people…? How did you get in here?"
"Hm. A bit better, I suppose." The brother gave his sister a serious expression. "Still rather bland."
"Be fair – one is born with creativity. Others… aren't so blessed."
"And what are the odds of that, do you estimate?"
"Observe and calculate, brother. Then deduce and resolve." The female twin paused only so that she could look at Sapphire and tilt her head curiously. "Are you still here?"
"It would seem that way, yes." The brother answered in Sapphire's place. "Although that much could have been assumed."
"A wasted trip, then."
Sapphire knew for certain that she had never seen these two in Rapture – before or after the war. She had no real way to gauge their intentions. But they seemed almost… docile. Like they were statues. "Alright," Sapphire hissed, putting as much venom in her voice as she could. "If you're not going to kill me, then get out, and I'll return the favor."
The twins didn't answer Sapphire directly, acting like she simple wasn't there. "Will she?" The brother sounded amused as he spoke.
"She has to." The sister responded in a similar tone. "There's nothing else she can do."
Sapphire glowered at them, offended and annoyed. These strangers somehow got into her building, and decided to just stand there, insulting her like a couple of school children. "Oh, believe me – I can do plenty." She reassured them acridly. "You assume too little of me…"
"Our assumptions of you and your capabilities are factually based. You claim to be able to do plenty, yet…"
The brother made a slight sweeping gesture. "… here we are. Still waiting."
Sapphire ground her teeth. With a stubborn determination, she forced herself to walk calmly towards the twins, putting a lot of energy into her balance. The twin intruders didn't move. They only stood on the spot, watching Sapphire with faint interest. She opened her mouth to spit something at them – perhaps a threat with something witty laced into it – but she could already feel her body going against it. The sudden movements dizzied her already fuzzy head, and one of her legs gave out from under her. As she reached out for the nearby rail that overlooked the foyer, she could hear the twins give a disapproving hum.
All she could do for a moment or two was flinch back and grip the banister, expecting to feel a sudden and sharp pain, or to hear the clap of a gun going on. But… nothing happened.
Sapphire cautiously opened her eyes. She looked around the room, not moving from her spot by the banister.
The twins had apparently vanished.
Jack opened his mouth to inform Holly about the sudden appearance of gills, but no words came out. A wheezing sound is all that passed his lips, though it was enough to catch Holly's attention. She looked over her shoulder at him as he brought his hands up to his own neck. Holly's eyes widened as she watched his fingertips brush over the strangely shaped gills, and she copied the action. Jack took a step back, nearly bumping into the pipe-covered wall, staring down at his hands, slowly turning them to view the top of the hand and the palm… and the webbings.
Water started piping into the airlock, trying to replace the panic-filled air. As the water, which felt like nothing despite its actual tortuously cold temperature, rose up to the duo's knees, they struggled to comprehend what they was happening to them. Webbings – thin, opaque, and surprisingly strong – now bridged between each finger and toe. They felt nothing of it, yet could see the change mirrored in each other. The terrifying feeling of loss of control didn't help, either.
It wasn't long before the water completely enveloped them, holding them in earie stillness before the door that led to the ocean opened slowly, like it was reluctant to let them through.
The duo didn't move when the thick metal door stopped in its runners. They stood in shock and utter disbelief.
They were in ocean water, and they didn't feel as much as a twinge of cold. Their fingers and toes had webbed.
They sprouted gills.
That seemed reason enough to stop and reassess their entire situation.
Holly was the one to take the first step - or rather, the first buoyant leap. She exited the airlock, examining he surroundings like someone seeing something truly magnificent for the first time in their life. Jack watched her as she carefully turned on the spot, gazing all around her, stopping it on the Ryan. The corner of her mouth slowly twisted into an amazed smile.
A very firm feeling of dread remained inside of Jack, but he followed after Holly. The first thing he noticed was the sheer weightlessness that he felt. Nothing held him down anywhere he didn't want to be… No one-hundred-and-twenty pound suit to slow him down. Just the sensation of being untethered. The second thing he noticed were the sounds, which took him off guard. Everything was loud. He could hear Holly's breathing, things whirring and humming softly, and watering moving all around him.
When Jack joined Holly at her side, taking in the sights, he found one more notable thing: Seeing the plant life with his bare eyes, no thick sheet of glass between him and the corals, was like seeing them again for the first time ever. The plant life seemed so much more vibrant, emitting the usual soft glow, but colors seemed to bleed into the water around them. Nothing Jack had ever seen was so picturesque, so filled with raw beauty, so dazzling.
His fear remained, but a state of shock and awe was now masking it. It was only when Holly moved that Jack snapped out of his amazement. And, just as it always did in Rapture, the initial shock wore off, only to be replaced with anxiety and tentativeness.
Holly rose several feet off the ocean floor, paddling her feet like she wore diver's flippers. Jack followed her lead, taking in the real view – the view that was hidden behind all the glamour and bleeding colors. Towering above everything, casting what felt like a gigantic shadow over the coral-filled gardens that Jack and Holly had emerged into, was a high-rise building. Or, at least, the cadaver of one.
It stood sickly and dark, a third of one side of the structure had collapsed. No lights peeked through the windows of the building. It was nothing more than a grim reminder of what Rapture had become.
The girl didn't seem as phased by it. She was too interested in the narrow-eyed scouting she was in the midst of doing as she paddled deftly to stay at her height. It took her less than a minute to find what she wanted. She pointed, and Jack's heart dropped when he saw what she wanted him to see.
She was pointing out towards the empty ocean. Past the coral garden, past the corpse of the high-rise, and, Jack could only assume, past the tall rock shelf covered in wiry green plants and shrouded in an uninviting darkness. When her sense of direction was established, Holly pushed off of her spot beside Jack, heading towards the derelict building. Jack, not wanting to be left behind in the emptiness of the ocean, kept close behind her.
This was their final destination; their last and most important trip.
They were in the OCEAN.
It was a thought that repeatedly occurred to Jack. Every time the prospect entered his head, he felt the same twinge of sudden panic. They weren't wearing any suit, and were without any protective gear or weapons. Jack kept imagining that the Plasmid would wear off before they got to where they needed to be, or that they'd run into trouble and have no way to defend themselves.
He felt like a deer with its ankle caught in a bear trap, exposed and just begging for some predator to come along and nibble on him.
Despite the obvious problems, the water felt perfectly fine, much to Jack's surprise. It was just like expertly moderated pool water... It was certainly not warm, but it was far from cold, which was how Jack had previously experienced it. Whatever Sapphire did to create the Instant Oxygen Plasmid... she did it too well.
As Jack and Holly headed for the decrepit building, Jack's thoughts kept turning to the incoming scene. He'd met Rapture's throne owner and seat warmer before Sapphire, the most disillusioned of them all. Both encounters ended with Jack on top. Needless to say, he wasn't entirely worried about confronting Sapphire. She seemed practically harmless. Jack was eager to get it over and done with... After all the hard work and pain he and Holly had been through, they were finally at the end. And Jack so badly wanted to be back home with his girls. He had no doubt that Elaine McDonagh was capable enough to handle the five girls, but he still worried about them.
Jack felt that dealing with Sapphire could let him forget Rapture once and for all. He wouldn't have to worry any longer about some crazed politician trying to expand the city onto dry land. He wouldn't have to worry about knew Plasmids that would affect the life of ordinary people. Everything would settle with the dust. He wasn't too worried about Sophia Lamb and her mental case 'Family'. They weren't safe nor sane, but they didn't seem to have any intentions of leaving Rapture. It just seemed like Sapphire was the only real cause for concern... at least, when it came to the concept of developing Rapture outwards.
A swarm of multicolored fish interrupted Jack's distant thoughts. The school scattered, diverging around the duo in a tango of flashing scales and blank eyes. The reality of the situation hit Jack square in the face once again, just as it had been over and over again throughout the trip. They were in the damn ocean. They should be drowning, or be compressed by the sheer weight of the ocean, or, at the very least, be freezing to death. Jack, following loosely behind Holly in the water, nearly slowed to a stop, wondering how the girl was taking it all so well. Surely she should be reacting somewhat similarly to Jack?
Holly looked over her shoulder when Jack started to lag. Without slowing herself down too much, she faced Jack, tapping the top of her wrist. And then she grabbed her neck and kicked her feet about as though she were drowning.
That was the last thing Jack needed to see. But it got the message through, loud and clear.
They were on a timer.
Jack was started speeding through the water alongside the girl. Waves of anxiety continued to wash over him, and he stared dead ahead seriously, trying to ignore the fact that they might begin feeling the pressure of the ocean on them, or the icy cold water seep into their skin, as the Plasmids wore off. He wanted to get to their destination before it even started to dissipate on them.
It wasn't long after that when Holly started to slow down. At first, Jack thought that they were close to the entrance of wherever Sapphire had holed up. He expected to descend, or to go towards the rocky walls and clefts that were below and around them. To his disappointment, the girl didn't move. She slowed to a stop simply to look around their surroundings with wide eyes. A moment passed, and then she looked straight at Jack. She made a motion that Jack could only assume meant to hurry, and kicked off in the direction that they had been heading down.
They were in much darker territory, now. The glowing reefs and city lights barely reached the ocean's terrain, but Holly still seemed to know where she was going. And it wasn't until they reached a small alcove in the sharp, uninviting wall of rock that Jack finally caught a glimpse what they were trying to move quickly to get away from.
Barely twenty feet away, curving around a mound of rock, was the green and purple bulking mass of a Splicer, watching Holly and Jack with beady human eyes. It glared at them, it's huge, disturbing eel-like head bobbing up and down as it moved towards the duo, its mouth opening and closing calmly. Sticking right through its upper snout at an angle was a short and thin harpoon. Clearly, this Splicer wasn't just there to get Jack, the one that got away. It was there to return the harpoon.
Jack didn't want to rip his eyes away from the Splicer, especially since he was noticing movement out of the corner of his vision – more Splicers were joining them. They all moved at a slow, relaxed pace, stalking the duo with confident movements.
Jack didn't feel like being dinner for a group of angry nightmarish mermaids. He turned his frightened stare back to Holly, hoping she had something in her utility belt that could possibly help them.
To Jack's distress, she was searching the rocky walls behind them. When she noticed Jack was staring at her in disbelief, she pointed, raising her eyebrows. She was trying to gesture to the other side of the rocks, apparently. Either she really just wanted to get to that side, or that was where the entrance was. Jack was hoping for the latter.
The rocks were sharp. All the Splicers would have to do was slam into the duo, dashing them into the walls, and they would be filleted. The thought gave Jack a feeling not dissimilar to the cold, squirming feeling in his gut while leaning over the ledge of a high distance, aware of the potential to fall.
Jack looked around for some way to get out and to the other side. He knew that his best bet was to just make a mad dash for it, but if there was any other way, he would take it. He turned back to Holly to indicate that they should get out while they still can, but the girl was gone.
Feeling abandoned - and somewhat confused as to where Holly had disappeared to- Jack moved to the girl's empty spot. Aware of the hungry eyes on his back, he searched the sharp, rocky walls. He didn't have to look far to see where she'd gone.
There was a slim crack in the rock wall. It was just big enough for someone very thin to fit through. Jack could see Holly on the other side of the crack. She pointed frantically above her, making a shooing motion at Jack.
Well… she decided to just up and leave him in the dust, hoping he'd make it to the other side in time. How considerate.
Jack crinkled his nose, drawing his lips back angrily. He kicked away from the cleft, twisting so that he could glare at the approaching Splicer. It only watched him as he quickly kicked his way up, swerving to avoid hitting the rocks. He scanned the top of the rocks, but he knew where his entrance should be. Along the side of the clefts, right where the giant, heart-dropping, endless drop was, which lead to nothing but even darker, even deeper water.
All he could do was hope he was right – until he saw Holly's head pop up from the side of the cleft. She saw Jack, and waved for him. She then ducked back down. Jack grudgingly followed, still feeling the eyes of the Splicers on him.
Just as the water was getting intolerably dark, Jack spotted hope. The entrance… or, rather, the bathysphere docking entrance.
For the time being, it was close enough. Under the assumption he could get through the bathysphere shaft before the Splicers reached him.
Seeing this motivated Jack to swim faster. He pushed past Holly, heading up the bathysphere shaft with determination and exasperation. At the very top of the shaft was, as Holly predicted, a bathysphere. Which meant that Sapphire was still in her hiding place.
Jack's head broke the surface of the icy water. He took in his first breath of air after what felt like hours of swimming – though he knew it couldn't have been more than thirty or forty minutes.
When he opened his eyes to the lights inside the private bathysphere station, blinking against the sudden brightness, he felt a sudden flutter in his stomach. He momentarily forgot about the fact that Holly so easily left him for dead, and let the anticipated feeling sink in.
This was the end.