Ch. 26: Cost of Paradise
A.N.:
Hey everyone!
Apparently "temporary" means two months -_-
Trust me, triple back up everything because you can simultaneously lose both your laptop and flash drive to someone who runs a red light and t-bones your car hard enough to flip it over. Oh and the best part…other driver has no insurance…fun…
Anyway,
So, I retyped the chapter but now I am super paranoid about having lost my touch when it comes to writing :(
I'm very sorry that it took me so long to update the story.
I hope it was worth the wait!
Read and review if you want.
The sound of ripping flesh and cracking bones filled the air as the whirling tip of my razor sharp drill penetrated into the chest of the falling Spider Splicer. The momentum of my assailant and the devastating power of my industrial mining tool were more than enough to pierce through the thin fabric of the stained undershirt to continue through the man's rib cage and then through his spin to exit out of his back. Effectively impaled by the massive drill bit that was still whirling inside him, the denizen screamed unintelligibly while he swing his arms in a wild, uncoordinated manner in an attempt to strike me with the two glowing hot cargo hooks that he was wielding in his hands. However, the Splicer only managed to strike the sides of my copper diving helmet about three or four times before I swung my right arm sideways off to my right to forcibly dislodge him from my tool. The mangled body unceremoniously collided against the far right corner of the wall behind me and I turned my attention to my next assailant.
The scene inside the interior of the besieged auxiliary pumping station was beyond chaotic as the sounds of the mob trying to beat down the security door behind me, the mini turrets that had been deployed by Alpha firing their small caliber rounds, the high-pitched report of Alpha's Prototype Rivet Gun as he fired at the infiltrating Spider Splicers that were falling through the compromised air ventilation ducts above our heads, and Jennifer's predatory growls as she defended herself against our assailants all filled the air as if it was some kind of macabre orchestra. However, I was only vaguely aware of the state of chaos as my attention was fixated on the Spider Splicers that continued to enter the station through the ventilation system.
Mere moments after I had dispatched the first denizen, a pair of them fell from the ceiling in an attempt to simultaneously pounce on me. Letting out a short guttural roar, I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from the ported digits on my gauntlet-encased left hand into the closest one, a gangly man approximately in his late forties with attire that consisted of little more than a crudely repaired pair of suspenders, as he neared where I was standing. The horribly mutated man screamed in agony as the brutal power of the Plasmid overwhelmed his abnormally skinny frame and left him temporarily paralyzed. With his body surrounded by bright blue arcs of electricity and involuntarily shaking, the Splicer continued towards me while his partner, who I could only assume had also been a man at one time but was now little more than a gangly, androgynous humanoid clad in what appeared to be an extremely faded and torn mechanic jumpsuit, followed close behind.
With less than a second to spare, I sidestepped to my right to dodge the temporarily paralyzed denizen. The deranged drug addict landed face down on the hard, unforgiving floor with a wet thud that was accompanied by the clattering of his two cargo hooks as they hit the metal floor. I turned my body to face the second Splicer and simultaneously revved up my upgraded drill before I then thrust it towards the incoming cackling denizen. Meanwhile, I also raised my left leg before then stomping down on top of the incapacitated Splicer's skull with the sole of my heavy weighted left diving boot. While yet another twisted resident of Siren Alley met his end by being impaled by the whirling bit of my drill, through the sole of my boot, I felt the sensation of the skull of first Spider Splicer initially resist the inevitable as it desperately trying to protect its host before it succumbed and burst open near the top of the cranium as my weight proved to be too much.
I powered down my tool and then attempted to dislodge the mangled corpse from it by gripping what remained of its right leg with my gloved left hand and then ripping it from the contours of my drill. However, during my brief lapse in attention, another Spider Splicer dropped from the ventilation system and landed perfectly on his feet on the railing in front of me as if he was some kind of trained acrobat. Given that ADAM was known to rob those that recklessly abused it of their fine motor skills, the athleticism of the abnormally skinny man before me was indeed noteworthy and caught me by surprise. It was even more impressive considering that it appeared that the individual had suffered serious burns judging by the large amount of now moldy yellow medical gauze that had been wrapped around most of his body, including three-quarters of his head, which left only his right eye uncovered.
Still trying to remove the corpse from my drill, I became alarmed when, for whatever reason, the heavily bandaged man focused on Jennifer instead of me. Before I could interfere, the denizen lunged at the lithe, armored young woman with the hook in his right hand cocked over his left shoulder in preparation to strike. The Elite Big Sister had her back turned to the incoming Splicer because she had been dispatching another one just prior to his appearance. However, just as her assailant was within range, she vanished in a cloud of bright purple particles, leaving him to swing and hit nothing but air before landing on his inhuman-looking feet in approximately the same spot that she had just been standing.
Clearly bewildered, the man turned back to face in my direction as he looked around with his one uncovered eye. The Splicer remarked with a frustrated tone as he continued to look for the Elite Big Sister, "She's disappeared." He took a single step forward and called out to the powerful goddess-like woman, demanding for her to show herself. A moment later, the tip of Jennifer's weaponized needle suddenly burst out of the center of his chest. The abnormally skinny man started to cry out in both surprise and agony but his screams were stifled as she fully materialized behind him and reached around to roughly grip his throat with her gloved right hand.
As her prey struggled vainly in her vice-like grip, Jennifer leaned in and then let out an almost robotic sounding sadistic cackle mere inches away from the Splicer's right ear. A look of intense fear entered the addict's eye as the realization of his impending demise pulled the last bastion of his sane mind out of the choking abyss that had taken hold of him and he began to struggle even more vigorously in an attempt to break free from his killer. The Splicer's efforts were proven to ultimately be in vain moments later when Jennifer squeezed his throat so hard that she snapped the section of vertebrae beneath her hand with a loud crack and crunch.
The armored young woman had not even let go of the lifeless form in her grasp before yet another Spider Splicer dropped from the ceiling and landed behind her. Without missing a beat, she quickly ripped her needle out of the body in her grasp and then casually dropped it onto the floor as if it was something as inconsequential as a bag of garbage. Meanwhile, the new assailant, a very tall man dressed in what might have once been a respectable tan business suit that had since become essentially rags that partially covered his tumor-covered body, swung his left hook at her but Jennifer swiftly turned to face him and caught his left wrist in the palm of her right hand. Before he could realize what was happening, she then thrust his arm down while simultaneously lifting her right leg up. The sound of cracking bone filled the air as her armored right knee struck the center of the splicer's left forearm with enough force to break it so severely that it was left bent down towards the floor at an unnatural angle.
The shock appeared to prevent the man from crying out in response to having his arm broken before the Big Sister re-positioned her right hand so that she could control the hook that was still being held in the splicer's left hand and then forced his hand back up until the tip of the glowing hot metal hook penetrated his left eye. When the brutalized individual released his grip on the hook and began to let out a cry of both surprise and agony, she reached out with her right hand and took hold of the tool's grip before then pulling it down so that the tip of the curved piece of metal pierced through the top of his forehead with a wet crunch. The Splicer began to stagger backwards but Jennifer grabbed both sides of his head with her gloved hands and then forced it down to connect with her left knee as she lifted it up to deliver a brutal final blow.
I glanced over at my brother to find him surrounded by the bodies of three Spider Splicers. In contrast to the mangled, broken ones left in our wake, the corpses surrounding Subject Alpha were considerably more intact with the only visible external injuries other than the small caliber bullet wounds from the miniature turrets being either a single or a pair of industrial-grade rivets that had been fired into either the center or base of their skulls.
As I waited for the next Splicer to exit the ventilation system, my helmet's built-in radio powered to life and then, moments later, Simon barked at me with a confident tone, "Your sin itself marches to meet you, Beast…and its name is Legion!"
As he said this, one of the overhead gas pipes let out a loud metallic bang and then began to eject a burning jet of bright orange flame. I could not determine if the pipe had been damaged during the fight inside the station or if it was just another example of Rapture's rapidly deteriorating infrastructure. Regardless, the sight worried me greatly because if the city's gas lines failed while there was still sufficient pressure in them, Rapture could potentially lit up like a roman candle before anyone could stop it in time. However, the deterioration of the city would prove beneficial for once as the compromised gas lines would have been slowly bleeding off the pressure over the past several years and, thus, minimizing the threat of a catastrophic release and subsequent flash over.
Over the roar of the burning jet, I could hear the sound of several more Spider Splicers making their way into the pumping station through the ventilation network. Meanwhile, the mob outside the security door was continuing to try to force their way into the station but the reinforced barrier was able to hold them back for the moment. Lamb knew how to use mob mentality to get her own way but, in this case, her inexperience with combat was working against her. In her haste, Sofia had foolishly trapped us in a position that was very advantageous for us as the residents of Siren Alley were forced to funnel into the station in small groups or individually and, thus, allowed us to easily dispatch them rather than being overwhelmed.
"It has two heads!"
I turned my entire body to the right just in time to see another pair of Spider Splicers drop from the ceiling and land just behind Alpha. The individual that was closest to my brother was struck in the back of his head by the heavy midsection of the veteran Protector's Prototype Rivet Gun as the heavily-built man wheeled around and swung his weaponized tool as if it was a club. While he was dazed, the abnormally skinny man was picked up by his neck by the armored giant's free gloved left hand and then thrown headfirst into the nearby concrete wall.
The force of the impact was enough to crack the reinforced wall and even dislodge a few chunks about the size of a baseball before the Splicer landed in a heap on the floor. Blood began to seep out of the denizen's split open forehead as he laid prostrate on the ground twitching from involuntary muscle spasms. Alpha placed his diving boot-clad right foot on the Splicer's back to hold him in place before he pressed the muzzle of his Rivet Gun into the base of his skull and fired a single round to finish him off.
Seemingly oblivious to the demise of his partner, the first Spider Splicer lunged at me with his right hand cocked over his left shoulder in preparation to swing his hook. Had the precious little angel not been riding on her throne on my back, I would have lowered my left shoulder and then rushed at the lunging man to bury my shoulder into his chest so that I could then slam him onto the ground and effectively crush his frail body beneath the weight of my heavily spliced and armored frame. However, such a move would endanger my charge. Instead, I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from the ported digits of my left hand. The genetic bolts of electricity hit their mark and the Splicer's abnormally skinny frame was surrounded by bright blue arcs as he now flew uncontrollably towards me.
As he neared me, I thrust my drill into his chest. The razor-sharp tip of my tool did not have enough momentum to completely skewer him but the force of the impact was still enough to let it punch through his rib cage to devastate his vital organs as well as knocking him out of the air. The horrifically injured denizen landed in a bloodied heap on his back before me less than twelve inches away. However, while such a blow would have incapacitated if not outright killed any normal human being, the mutated individual quickly recovered and started to get to his feet while his right hand probed the gaping wound that was now the front of his chest, which allowed a clear view of some of his broken ribs and underlying organs, in a disturbingly causal manner as if now missing a large portion of his chest was the most mundane thing in the world.
However, before he could fully stand back up, I rushed forward and roughly grabbed his right shoulder with my gauntlet-encased left hand. The Splicer barely had enough time to let out a confused mumble before I thrust my heavily armored forehead into the center of his twisted, mutated face. A dull metallic echo filled the interior of my diving helmet as I delivered the bone-shattering blow that was powerful enough to leave a large concave indention in the center of what had once been the man's forehead. The bloodied form of the Spider Splicer collapsed onto the ground in a disorganized heap and I ensured that he was dead by crushing what remained of his head beneath the sole of my right boot.
I did not even have enough time to collect my thoughts before I heard a thunderous bang come from across the dark interior of the pumping station in the direction of the far right corner. Alarmed, both Subject Alpha and I turned to face in the direction of the noise. The yellow beams of our built-in headlamps illuminated another section of the second floor that was not connected to the one that we were on and appeared to only be accessible through a security door that must have been connected to another area of Siren Alley that we had been unable to reach.
The only sound that could be heard for a few, tense seconds was the soft rumble of the burning jet of gas that was still erupting out of the compromised pipe as a sudden, eerie silence filled the pumping station. I could not determine what the source of the noise was as there was nothing immediately apparent that could have caused the deafening sound. However, we did not have to wait for very long as, seconds later, the sound came again and I was able to make out that it was caused by something very large and heavy colliding with the other side of the locked security door.
The thick metal structure of the watertight barrier let out a groan in protest to the abuse while sparks flew from its surface as it warped and even developed several surface cracks. The badly damaged security door stubbornly remained in place but I knew that it was not likely to withstand the next blow. The identity of what was assaulting the door with such ferocity was revealed as the sound of an unnaturally deep male voice came from the other side of it. The heavy footsteps of the Brute Splicer faded as he moved back to prepare for another charge at the weakened barrier.
Unable to reach the security door, I let out a threatening, rumbling roar that vibrated the walls of the pumping station in an attempt to intimidate the heavily spliced abomination into backing down and leaving the pumping station. However, in response, the Brute Splicer said with a predatory tone in reference to my charge, "She's gonna watch me do ya, son!"
Despite having been incredibly resilient through everything that had been done to her over the past hour, the stress of the situation had seemingly overwhelmed the poor little girl on my back even with the presence of Eleanor inside her mind as I heard her beginning to cry. Before I could try to comfort her, the precious angel pleaded with me with a frightened tone, "Papa Delta, I'm scared! I'm a good girl! Make it all stop, Papa!"
The interior of the pumping station before me was suddenly bathed in hellish red light while the maddening rage of my Protector Instincts stormed into my mind as Subject Delta was let out of his cage. The last rational thought before the monster took control was how it would be more merciful for the foolish residents of Siren Alley and "Father" Simon Wales if Subject Delta was the demon that they believed he was.
As I took control, I reared back slightly and then let out a deafening guttural roar that rocked the disgusting hellhole called Siren Alley to its very core. I had shown mercy inside the Mermaid Lounge but now I could see now that I had been too naïve and optimistic to believe that the trash that lived in this godforsaken place deserved mercy. I was Subject Delta, the pride of the Alpha Series Protectors and the most powerful Big Daddy that Rapture had ever seen. I could not let this stand. I would not let this stand. Such blatant disregard for the Little Sister could not go unpunished.
To my delight, the hulking abomination apparently had a death wish and audibly began to prepare to rush forward towards the door. Just before the abomination charged forward to deliver the final blow, my helmet's built-in radio powered to life once again. Simon again barked at me with an accusatory tone, "Eleanor Lamb is our salvation, demon. You shall not rob us of our final reward!"
I scowled beneath my cold, emotionless diving helmet with whatever remained of the human being that I had once been as Sofia Lamb's favorite pet had the audacity to speak of my master in such a manner. Such filthy, disgusting rats did not even deserve to be in the same city as her, let alone becoming "one with her" or whatever asinine fantasy Lamb had sold to them. If Simon truly believed that any of us deserved some kind of "reward", then he was even more pathetic than I had previously thought. We were all disgusting abominations of science and living examples of the deepest, most disturbing parts of the human psyche that were beyond redemption or salvation of any kind.
The former architect had no sooner finished his final statement before the Brute Splicer collided with the security door. The already badly damaged barrier was no match for the heavily-built denizen and it fell forward until it hit the floor with an ear-shattering crash. The ape-like individual entered the station and I could see that he was clad in a badly torn business suit and was also wearing a partially crushed black top hat. The section of the second floor that he was on did not have any railing so he jumped down to the ground floor of the station and landed near the Circus of Values Vending Machine that still had the fallen female Leadhead Splicer in front of it.
Seeing the red metal fuel drum next to the railing to my right, I aimed the palm of my left hand towards it and then willed the drum up into the air before me. Just before I propelled the drum at the denizen, the Little Sister that was being controlled by my master chirped with her edged voice, "Catch!"
The Brute Splicer did not make an attempt to shield himself when I then willed the fuel drum through the air to collide with the large denizen in a large, fiery explosion that sent metal shrapnel flying through the interior of the pump station. Peppered by shrapnel and with his clothing now fueling the flames that were covering his frame, the abomination yelled furiously while he swatted at the flames with his tumor-covered hands. Alpha moved to stand next to me and then began to fire his modified Prototype Rivet Gun at the hulking individual. The Brute Splicer roared as the rivets began to embed themselves into his chest, head, and then his arms as he raised them up to attempt to shield himself from the incoming torrent. Meanwhile, his clothing had all completely burned away except for his top hat, which had flown off somewhere in the pump station when he had been caught in the explosion, and there were visible patterns of third-degree burns along the tumor-covered humanoid frame where the articles of clothing had been moments prior.
The beautifully maddening rage of my Protector Programming demanded satisfaction and, without a second thought, I moved to the metal railing in front of me, raised my right leg up to place my right foot on top of the railing, and then jumped down to first floor. I landed perfectly on my feet with my heavily-built, diving suit-clad frame impacting with enough force to create a depression in the black and white checkerboard patterned tile floor and kick up a cloud of the dust that had been accumulating over the years. Without missing a beat, I repeatedly smashed the side of my weaponized mining drill against the chest plate of my diving helmet several times while I let out a guttural roar that was loud enough to cause a ringing inside my own ears. I then charged towards him with my drill revved up and with my gauntlet-encased left hand passively generating small bright blue arcs of genetic electricity.
The abomination responded by first slamming his fists onto the ground in front of him and then charging at me on all fours. I ignored the agony of what was likely several broken ribs upon colliding with the ape-like denizen with enough force to overpower him and send him partially back onto the ground on his left side. With my drill still revved up and at the ready, I moved towards the Brute while I let out a low growl. When I was about a step away from reaching the Splicer, he wildly swung his right fist towards me. Reaching out with my gloved left hand, I firmly grabbed the abomination's right arm around the wrist and halted the incoming strike.
The Brute remarked with a confused tone, "Wha…?"
In response, Eleanor taunted him through the link with the Little Sister in a singsong tone, "Daddy's mad, and you'll be sorry!"
Before the monstrosity born out of reckless science could react, I thrust the razor-sharp tip of my drill's steel alloy bit into his lower jaw. Flesh and bone were no match for the brutal power of my favored weapon and the Splicer was spun around and then sent stumbling backwards until he fell against the front of the Circus of Values Vending Machine after its bit shattered his lower jaw bone and sent a few teeth flying as it removed most of the upper and lower right jaw as it exited out through the denizen's right cheek.
Naturally, the heavily spliced man was not overly inconvenienced by missing most of the right side of his face as he managed to regain his footing and then grabbed the Circus of Values Vending Machine by both sides. The recorded laugh of the clown filled the pumping station as the Brute lifted the vending machine up into the air above him without any respect or care for the corpse of the woman that had been lying against the front of it. My Telekinesis Plasmid was not powerful enough to give me control over something as large and heavy as the vending machine so I willed a blast of Electro Bolt from the ported digits of my gloved left hand into the denizen before he had a chance to throw it.
My grunt of discomfort as the unnatural feeling of fresh EVE being autonomously pumped into my body through the IV Line on the underside of my left arm was slightly muted as the Brute cried out in agony as he was simultaneously electrocuted by my genetic electricity and had the heavy frame of the vending machine fall down on top of his head before it then landed on its back off to his left. Moving to capitalize on the opening, I let out another deafening Alpha Series roar as I charged towards the temporarily paralyzed denizen. The Brute had just been able to shake off the effects of my Electro Bolt Plasmid when my enormous armored frame slammed into him like a freight train.
This time, I succeeded in knocking the ape-like man completely off his feet to land on his back with a heavy thud and the distinctive sound of cracking bones. He had no sooner hit the ground before I moved in and stomped down on his chest with my diving boot-entombed left foot. I continued to pin him to the ground with my body weight and revved up my drill before then thrusting it down towards the remains of the Brute's skull. The abomination reacted in the predictable manner of instinctively raising his hands up to shield his head. Growling in a demonic manner, I held his right hand back with my left hand and simply held down the throttle on my drill's joystick as I began to bore through the center of his left hand as he tried to push it away after grabbing its bit by its razor-sharp tip.
I smiled in sadistic enjoyment of the Splicer's pain beneath my emotionless Alpha Series face as my drill slowly but surely powered its way through the Brute Splicer's hand until moments later when the abomination's gargled screams were silenced as the blood-soaked tip continued forward and into the center of his skull. I could feel the muscles in his right arm briefly tighten even more before relaxing as my drill finally made contact with the floor and its engine audibly protested being used to bore through the reinforced concrete slab foundation of the station. Releasing my grip on his arm, I ripped my drill free and then began to make my way back up to my position by the security door on the second floor.
As if disheartened by the death of the Brute Splicer, the Spider Splicers that had not emerged out of the ventilation network began to make their way back out of the station. I stopped in front of the door and waited impatiently for the only barrier between the large group of denizens and their impending violent demise to be removed by the return of the power. As I waited, I willed the small arcs of genetic electricity around my gloved left hand to grow until, by the time that the lights inside the station turned back on as the emergency back-up power finally activated, my hand was surrounded by several thick arcs that generated a visible blue glow and generated a low humming noise.
As the security door finally opened, I was meet by the sight of one final small room that was approximately fifteen yards long and had various control panels on both sides of the middle path. At the other end of the room was another security door. However, this one had long since malfunctioned as it was jammed inside its housing in an almost completely open position with only the very bottom of the door itself being visible where it was frozen at a shallow angle with the right corner lowered further down than the left corner below the top of the frame. Inside the cramped confines of the room before me was at least ten or fifteen Splicers that were primarily Thuggish Splicers but I could also see that several of the individuals near the back of the group were armed with modified Thompson Submachine Guns.
As the first five denizens, three men approximately in their early thirties dressed in the typical haphazardly mended rags and two middle-aged women dressed in what could have once been very elegant dresses but now were merely the bare ribs of a corset with sections of cloth attached to them, walked towards me with their rusted sections of metal pipe raised up in preparation to strike, I willed the charged blast of Electro Bolt from the ported digits of my gauntlet-encased left hand. The entire group of Splicers screamed in both surprise and agony as the arcs of electricity jumped from individual to individual in a rapid chain reaction. Before they could recover, I revved up my drill and then charged into them.
The sound of breaking bones filled the air as I was able to force my way through most of the mob and either trample or slam the light, unarmored denizens against the walls on either side of me as I bulldozed through them. The high-pitched report of Alpha's Prototype Rivet Gun came from behind me as the veteran Alpha Series Big Daddy systematically executed the fallen Splicers left in my wake while he followed close behind me. I finally came to a stop near the end of the room to face the four Leadhead Splicers just as they recovered from the effects of my Plasmid.
They began to fire their haphazardly modified weapons and I let out an enraged roar as the .50 BMG rounds easily pierced through the canvas and leather hide of my diving suit. While the powerful rounds were not as devastating as before due to the ever increasing modifications to my genetic code, I still coughed up green-tinted blood onto the interior surface of my segmented glass eye as a few of the rounds pieced the breastplate of my copper diving helmet to inflict massive amounts of damage to my vital organs. My suit's automated First Aid System began to pump the lifesaving red liquid into my frame to stem the tide and I forced myself forward as the Splicers began to retreat out of the station while continuing to fire their weapons.
From where she was riding on my back, my master yelled with inhuman fury, "Nobody hurts my Daddy!"
She had no sooner finished her declaration than the Leadhead Splicer, a tumor-covered middle aged man in a tattered double breasted tan business suit, suddenly stopped firing his weapon as the thick, tungsten-tipped length of Jennifer's weaponized needle pierced through the back of his skull to exit out between his eyes as the armored young woman materialized behind him in a cloud of purple particles. Now trapped between an Elite Big Sister and two Alpha Series Protectors, the three remaining individuals, two men who were also wearing the remains of tan business suits and a woman who was wearing a torn formal dress, panicked with one of the men trying to run out the exit, the woman turning to fire at the goddess, and the other man taking his chances against my brother and I.
It was over within moments as I thrust the razor-sharp tip of my industrial-grade drill into the back of the woman's neck at the base of her skull to sever her brain's connection to the rest of her body, effectively killing the Splicer before she even hit the ground, while Jennifer quickly moved to intercept the man before lifting him up into the air before her as he was being impaled by her needle. Finally, I ripped the Thompson out of the grasp of the other man, threw it to the ground, and then picked him up by his neck. Before he could cry out, I lifted him over my left shoulder and Alpha executed him with a pointblank round into his skull. Then, finally, I dropped the corpse unceremoniously onto the ground.
Apparently there had been more Splicers just outside because, upon seeing that the entire group in front of the security door had been quickly cut down, the sound of numerous individuals crying out in fear and the sound of multiple rapid footsteps moving away from the exit could be heard as they began to flee from the area. I could hear several of them mentioning the church as they ran, indicating that the majority of them were going to take refuge in Pumping Station Number Five. However, that was not my problem. Having chased off the Splicers that were terrifying my charge, my job was done.
The hellish red glow being emitted from my glass eye and auxiliary lights shifted back to their normal golden yellow as the rage of my Protector Instincts subsided and my rational thoughts returned. Before I could ask my temporary partner if she was feeling better, the built-in radio inside my helmet crackled to life. Sinclair addressed me with his Southern accented voice, "Atta boy, sport…I think you're closin' on Simon's underground 'temple'. Now get down to that pumpin' station and drain out the park here. Oxygen's runnin' thin in this train car, and I'd sure hate to see our partnership cut short."
My radio fell silent once more and my thoughts turned back to the Little Sister. I asked her with the grunt-based language used by my kind, "Are you okay, sweetie?"
The Little One replied with a happy tone, "Yes, Papa Delta."
I smiled slightly in relief beneath my emotionless copper façade as I began to move towards the open exit before me. As I neared the frame of the formerly functional exterior security door, Jennifer walked forward to allow Subject Alpha and I to leave. Beyond the exit was the metal railing of the concrete platform that connected the second story entrance of the station to the network of once ornate wooden paneled walkways that, like the ones in the previous area of Siren Alley, followed the edges of the buildings with occasional bridges spanning the distance between them with the street below them. Approximately twenty to thirty yards beyond the platform, I could see the rotten corpse of what looked like a man that was being pinned by multiple harpoon spears against a wall that ran parallel with the station before ending in a ninety degree turn just to the right of the body. The Harpoon Gun itself had been abandoned on the ground just below the body.
I thought about the ambush inside the station and how, yet again, Sofia had impeded our progress. Once again, her increasing desperation was clear as I had no doubt that she had only briefly thought through the plan to trap us inside the auxiliary pumping station. If she had truly planned out the ambush, she could have had her followers sabotage the station's power grid to prevent the back-up generators from working, which would have left us trapped inside of it.
As I continued to reflect on Lamb's deteriorating mental stability, as if on cue, my built-in radio powered to life as I reached the threshold of the exit and she lectured me with a steadfast conviction in her accented voice, "Ask yourself, Delta…you, who have suffered beyond measure at the hands of men like Ryan…what is the cost of paradise? To end pain…to end sin…what must we pay? Eleanor is my answer."
I paused as memories of being routinely beaten to the point of blacking out by guards as I savagely bludgeoned and ripped chunks out of either one of them or one of the orderlies with my fists and teeth, sometimes to death, every day when they forced me to take even more Gene Tonic and horse-pill sized muscular growth drug cocktails and spending most of my days bound in a straight jacket with the lower half of my face covered by a leather mask that only had several small rectangular holes cut in it around the area my mouth and secured upright to a restraint board while I slowly spiraled into insanity inside the soundproof interior of my tube-shaped solitary confinement cell for the protection of the other prisoners and staff as a result of continuing to fight against being an involuntary test subject briefly flashed before my mind's eye. I had actually been a quiet and easy-going person when I first arrived at Persephone. Some of the staff even referred to me as "a model inmate". However, that all changed when I was selected for being a test subject.
It was not until they started the Plasmid Theater, stuffed me and several of the most promising subjects into custom-made diving suits, and used us to both entertain visitors and test out new products that I had somewhere to focus my attention. While it was not immediate, with somewhere to vent, my mind slowly but surely crawled out the dark abyss of madness and I returned to my usual, calm self. They even let me back into the general population at Persephone during the increasingly rare time that I was there.
However, except against each other because we were considered highly valuable and irreplaceable assets of the company, we were instructed to kill our opponents as both a means of weeding out weak test subjects and numbing us to the act of killing another human being for when we would become Protectors. They threatened to cut our rations of ADAM and EVE if we did not comply, which would almost certainly kill us as our already highly spliced and modified bodies would completely fall apart without regular doses.
I thought that I would be able to withstand it. After all, I had seen plenty of death and cruelty during the war. However, with each new face I watched as I ripped the gift of life from their bodies, I felt something break inside my head. It all came to a head one night as I looked in a mirror and realized that I could not recognize the subhuman creature of leather, canvas, glass, and copper that looked back at me with an unblinking glowing golden yellow segmented eye.
As I stared down the monster before me, I demanded that it tell me its name but all I got in response was a strange sound that was some kind of inhuman rumbling grunt. Suddenly, the creature reached through the surface of the mirror and grabbed me by my neck with its gauntlet-encased left hand with ported metal fingertips. I tried to get free but I suddenly heard thoughts inside my mind that were not my own. However, I smashed the mirror with my left fist and began to run. The creature crawled out of the broken mirror and began to chase after me.
I ran past bewildered scientists and guards as I tried to escape. I looked behind me several times but, even though I could no longer see the monster, for some reason, I could still hear its heavy footsteps and strange inhuman grunts. Whenever I made any progress, the broken, bloodied corpses of the people that I had killed in the theater would appear before me and chase me while screaming for me to kill myself and join them, forcing me to turn back and run towards the monster.
Even the corpses of my former crew members from Torrey and the girl that I had been in love with only for her to be killed because I had been Caucasian while she had been African America began to appear before me and chase me while screaming that I had killed them and that my whore mother should have killed me, the unwanted bastard son, like she had been planning to the moment that she first held me after the nurses gave me to her.
I kept yelling that I had never intentionally done anything wrong in my entire life and had always tried to be a good person. Just when I thought I lost them all, the diving-suit clad abomination suddenly appeared before me as I turned a corner and faced one of the large glass walls that allowed a view of the ocean beyond Fontaine Futuristics. This time, the monster grabbed me and I was unable to escape.
I realized the futility of my situation and also that the monster did not want to hurt me but, instead, give me a way out. Not wanting to lose my mind to the black abyss of madness of the solitary confinement cell again or die a horribly painful death as my body slowly cannibalized itself from the inside out, I looked into the glowing eye of the abomination before me and began to laugh loudly but without any trace of human emotion in my voice. They wanted a monster; an inhuman, amoral, relentless psychopath that butchered with the passion of a sadist and the primal savagery of a wild beast. It was the nature of men to create monsters and it was the nature of monsters to destroy their creators. While it would not be until he was fully let of his cage by the introduction of my Protector Instincts, the newly born monster, Subject Delta, was going to teach them just how true it was that they should be careful what they wished for.
When the memories left my mind, I raised my left arm and drill up to be perfectly in front of my glowing segmented glass eye. The amount of blood splatter on both my drill bit and the blue canvas and brown leather skin of my left arm was horrifying. However, I closed my eyes for a moment as I clenched my left fist and smiled sadly in acceptance before opening them and exiting the station. For me, Eleanor was paradise and my answer was Subject Delta.
Upon exiting the auxiliary pumping station, I turned my to the left to see a broken Vita-Chamber at the end of the concrete platform where it met the back wall that marked this end of the somewhat U-shaped area that wrapped around Pumping Station Number Five with each end being the two entrances into the station.
Above the watertight security door of the entrance below me was an ornate metal seal that consisted of a large number five in the red center and the words, "Pump Control Substation" and the year, "1958" around it in a black ring. Above the seal was a column of milky white glass squares framed by black metal. On both sides of the door, I saw that thick vines had grown into the wall around it. Above the door to the right was a security bulletin display that was currently flashing the warning, "Security Lockdown" in red letters.
However, upon examination of the door itself, I saw that it was malfunctioning as the large gear in the center was continuously attempting to turn in order to raise the door only to give off sparks as it was unable to turn at all. The fact that the door was still attempting to raise indicated that it had only just malfunctioned. It had most likely been done by the Splicers under the orders of Simon to prevent us from entering "the church" for as long as possible.
Directly across from the concrete platform was the wooden staircase that connected the area directly around the entrance to the second level of the walkway network. Two massive drainage pipes emerged out of the top corners of the wall from Pumping Station Number Five and traveled several feet before traveling in opposite directions through the wall behind and in front of me. The distance between the platform and the walkway along the opposite wall was spanned by a wooden bridge that was clearly not original as it appeared to actually be old wooden pallets that had been laid on top of each other and crudely nailed together to form a makeshift path. However, despite their age and crude construction, the thick pieces of wood appeared to still be capable of supporting traffic.
Beyond the body, the path continued around the corner and down the side of the building. About ten yards from the corner, there was an original bridge that connected the left walkway to the walkway that ran along the exterior of the second floor of the apartment complex across the street. I could tell that it was original because of the anchored stainless steel railing that ran along both sides of the path just like the majority of the sections of the original walkways.
Just beyond the bridge on the apartment side of the walkway was the double door entrance inside the complex and, as I started to make way across the bridge by the concrete platform, the sound of a woman screaming filled the air before the doors exploded. Wooden shrapnel flew through the air along with the pieces of the woman's body and, moments later, the massive frame of a Rumbler Mass Production Model appeared as the towering giant exited through the now permanently open doorway. Not wanting to take on the Tin Man as he was not in a Gathering Cycle at the moment, I turned left and began to descend the stairs down to the street level by the inaccessible entrance to the pumping station.
As I did, the Eleanor-controlled Little Sister asked me, "A 10 foot rope ladder hangs over the side of a boat with the bottom rung on the surface of the water. The rungs are one foot apart, and the tide goes up at the rate of 6 inches per hour. How long will it be until three rungs are covered?"
I smiled before I replied as I reached the bottom of the stairs, "Never. The boat rises and falls with the tide."
I turned to face the street and saw a Little Sister Vent mounted into the wall of the apartment complex directly across from me. There were two massive drainage pipes along the wall beneath the platform to my right along with a single rusted smaller one running along the bottom of the platform itself. Near the corner of the right wall just before the street was an El Bandito Vending Machine that was still functional as its buttons and signature image of a man's face covered by a bandana and wearing a sombrero with two revolvers on either side were all still illuminated. Past the vending machine was another large yellow hydraulic jack similar to the ones in Pauper's Drop that was fully extended and holding up the far corner of the concrete platform.
As I made my way towards the street, I asked my charge in turn, "What gets more and more the less it has?"
After thinking for a moment, she answered, "Holes in a net."
Upon nearing the street, I saw the corpse of a woman lying against the corner of the left wall. She had clearly been bludgeoned to death with something as the right side of her head had been bashed in with the slightly mummified remains of the right side of her brain visible through the caved-in opening and her entire body was covered in dried blood. I saw bits of something white around where she had been bludgeoned but I could not immediately identify what they were from. On the ground to her right was a black leather bible with a golden cross in the center of the cover and several chunks of concrete. One of the pieces of concrete was covered in dried blood, which, along with the white bits around the wound, led me to believe that it was the murder weapon. On the ground to the left of the body, written in white house paint with some kind of brush judging by the telltale streaks in the paint from where it had been dragged along the surface of the ground, was the threat, "Nonbelievers are not welcome here anymore".
I reached the street, which was made out of large square sections of some kind of polished green metamorphic rock that might have been granite, but that was as best of a guess as I could make considering that I knew very little about Geology. The sections were framed in golden and there were circular metal drainage grates spaced out every fifty yards. Discarded and faded newspapers covered the street and some showed signs of being used in the multi-step process of relieving oneself rather than being used for reading.
After a quick visit to the vending machine, we turned left and entered the street. I moved down the center as I led the way down to the far end approximately hundred yards away. Though I could not see him, I heard the footsteps of Subject Alpha just behind me on my right and Jennifer's much lighter footsteps to my left. Stainless steel metal railing flanked both sides and there was a large staircase that extended out from the side of the apartment complex near the far end of it and allowed access to the walkway on the second floor.
As we walked, Eleanor asked, "How do you lift an elephant with only one hand?"
Subject Alpha replied, "You can't...elephants don't have hands so you will never find an elephant with only one."
In turn, my brother asked, "If there are six apples and you take away four, how many do you have?"
Apparently having never heard of a trick question, Jennifer answered, "Two."
My brother laughed with repeated grunts before he replied, "Four…the four you took."
The Elite Big Sister said with a confused tone, "I don't get it…six minus four is two."
I explained, "It is a trick question, Jen. The wording of the question is, 'how many do you have?' You have four apples because you took four apples."
I then asked, "Why is six afraid of seven?"
Eleanor replied, "Because seven raped nine."
I corrected her, "Ate…because seven ate nine. You know…six, seven, eight, nine."
She informed me, "That's not the version I've heard."
I sighed and then remarked, "Of course it's not…"
The Little Sister climbed up the top of my helmet and then bent over to look directly into my segmented eye upside down. I let out a questioning grunt and she began to tap the tip of her Gathering Tool against the glass surface of my eye with her tongue pointed out and her left index finger slowly sliding down her left cheek from under her left eye.
Annoyed, I grunted, "Get that out of my face."
Eleanor pointed at the makeshift tool with her left index finger as she corrected me, "It is not in your face…it is in my hand."
I replied, "Then get what is in your hand out of my face."
By then, we were nearing the corner. The street continued to the left and there was a path that descended down into what was likely a maintenance shaft just before the corner on the right. On the wall of where the right path had been cut into the wall were two illuminated white arrows with the labels "Orphanage" and "Pumping Station" in black letters in the center of them. On the far wall just beyond the corner was the entrance to a large grocery store made out black brick and trimmed with metal. The name of the store was "Joe's Green Groceries" with the word "Joe's" in bright red neon light, angled down to the left, and in stylized cursive, the word "Green" in green neon light, and with the word "Groceries" in white neon light. Near the top of the wall directly across from the corner were two large advertisement posters. One was for the "Journey to the Surface" ride at Ryan Amusements and had the image of a bathysphere making its way through the deeps of the ocean towards the light of the surface and the name of the ride itself in "scary" text. The other advertisement was to the left and was for "Affordable Endings Funeral Home" with the image of a tombstone and the name of the business to the left of it in gold letters.
Turning left, I saw the orphanage down at the very end of the street approximately one hundred yards away. The entrance to the pumping station was to the left of the orphanage. Above the entrance to the station was a security camera. Above the grocery store was another crudely constructed bridge that ran from the left second floor walkway to the roof of the store. Above that was another bridge that ran from the left third floor walkway to somewhere behind the wall that was most likely another maintenance area.
Along the left wall underneath the overhang directly across from the store was another Gatherer's Garden Vending Machine. The path between the store and the vending machine was wooden and there were flights of tiny steps connecting the street and the slightly higher path on both sides. An ornate light fixture with a thin curved neck was mounted into the left wall and bathed the path with a soft yellow glow. There was a seemingly out of place black volcanic rock that was about knee-height to me in the center of the path. Beyond that, slightly off to the right was another fully extended yellow hydraulic jack that was supporting the second floor bridge.
Just before the double door entrance to the grocery story was an overturned white porcelain bathtub and, as I began to walk towards the orphanage, I was actually somewhat startled when an unarmed middle-aged man with short black hair wearing nothing except black lacy women's lingerie suddenly stood up from where he had been, quite successfully, hiding behind it. I was immediately disturbed by the huge cartoon character-like smile and wild, wide open eyes as he stared at us.
However, Eleanor taunted him, "Sir, are you aware that nine out of ten men don't wear the correct sized bra?"
I let out a sigh in the form of a grunt and then began to advance towards the smiling man. He turned and began to run towards the pumping station. However, I pointed my left palm towards the large rock and willed it forward. The blow was able to knock him off his feet and then I simply crushed his skull beneath the sole of my right diving boot as I casually moved towards the entrance to the orphanage. Alpha fired a Hack Rivet into the camera and I stopped just before where Eleanor had been sold to and then taken by scientists to Fontaine Futuristics to become a Little Sister.
There was a Little Sister Vent mounted to the far left wall and an ornate black garbage can by the left door of the entrance. The sign above the doors had parts of a rainbow on the sides, a cartoon-style Sun along the top, several little girls holding hands along the bottom, and then the name, "Little Sister's Orphanage" in the center. The two large windows on both sides of the entrance were all covered with pieces of sheet metal and boards. The once sky blue paint had been flaking away over the years due to neglect and now there were large sections of rust along its surface. An abandoned, destroyed couch was to the right of the short staircase that led up to the entrance.
To the right of the rusting administration section of the building was the attached housing section that had a red exterior and had several windows on both the first and second floor that were covered with thick metal bars. I could see that the lights were still on inside the building but the orphanage itself had been abandoned or at least closed even before Rapture's Civil War. These places were simply fronts that Fontaine Futuristics used to gather little girls to be converted into Little Sisters. Once Ryan took control, he closed them all down and then they simply began abducting children in front of their parents. I did not know if it was a joke or because the scientists had decided that the name had a ring to it because they began calling the Gatherers "Little Sisters" because of the name of the orphanages.
I did not know if they picked the little girls in particular or if it was simply a massive cast net. Eleanor told me that they came to get her in particular but I did not know if she was the exception or the majority. However, most likely, they hand-picked the candidates for the Alpha Series Gatherers and then simply snatched every little girl in sight for the Mass Production Gatherers.
I had always wondered how differently things could have turned out had both Eleanor and I not made certain decisions. However, I had always come to the same conclusion that we were both ultimately doomed to our fates. Eleanor, as one of the few little girls in Rapture, was ultimately doomed to become a Gatherer no matter what anyone did. I was an outsider and would always be an outsider no matter what I did. It was always only a matter of time before Ryan's thugs came for me.
As if sensing my line of thought, Eleanor cryptically remarked, "Not a man and lighthouse but a girl and a diver."
Bewildered, I let out a confused grunt. She replied, "Don't worry about it, Johnny."
Before entering, I asked my charge, "Are you going to be okay?"
In her typical manner, she put up a strong front and asked in return, "Are you going to be okay?"
I let out a grunt of annoyance and then entered the administration building. I was met by the sight of a large room with a horseshoe-shaped check-in desk a few feet from the entrance. The floor was the same black and white checkerboard tile pattern that I had seen before in various other buildings. A scaled down version of the sign outside was above the desk though now I could see that it had the line, "Brought to you by Fontaine Futuristics" beneath the little girls. The walls were covered in green and blue striped wallpaper that was faded and water damage in spots. A decorative plant was in the left front corner and, further down the wall, was a framed advertisement posters for the orphanage that consisted of the image of an adorable little girl with brown hair, rosy cheeks, and a large smile while the name "Fontaine's Little Sister's Orphanage" was above her and the line, "Bringing large smiles to small faces" was below her. The large rectangular poster had been hung above two red couches. Along the right wall were two more posters hung above two red couches. Several vines were growing in the corners and down the sides of the walls along the floor
I moved past the desk on the right and approached the back of the room. There, I saw that there were two wooden filing cabinets on the two ends of the check-in desk. The back wall had a large staircase leading up into the rest of the building. On either side were short paths that ended in wall-height filing cabinets. There were two small red bookshelves by the rounded corner next to the staircase along the left wall but the books themselves were scattered all over the floor in front of them. The right wall had a large decorative plant and a Bot Shutdown Switch instead of bookshelves. The right corner had a large section missing, likely from deterioration, but I could not locate any debris around it. There were crayon drawings of fish, a little girl in a red dress, a jellyfish, a frowning man, and even a dog along the walls. In the center of the floor just before the staircase was a circular red rug that still had an open box of crayons with a few of them scattered around its moldy surface.
At the top of the stairs, I could see that the metal security gate was open. I ascended the metal trimmed, worn stone stairs up to the next room but, as I neared the top, a Spider Splicer ran past and out of my line of sight to the right, causing two empty glass bottles to roll down the steps as he did. I reached the top to find a square-shaped room with two columns in the center and with two entrances to the left and right sections of the orphanage. There were vines along the walls and floor in spots, there was garbage and small bits of concrete on the floor, a stack of advertisement posters were leaned against the right column, the large white rug in the center between the columns was covered in what I sincerely hoped was just water stains, and there were large sections of missing wall. I saw the Splicer in the threshold of the open path to the right with a burning pile of furniture behind him. As soon as he saw me, he darted further into the building.
I walked into the center of the room and then turned to face my comrades. I instructed my brother, "Stay here and watch our back."
Alpha replied, "Roger that, sir."
With the veteran Alpha Series Big Daddy holding the main hub of the building, I began to make my way down the open right path as the other path was inaccessible because of the security grate. Beyond the open security gate was a small room approximately thirty yards long. The floor in this room was wood and there were piles of chairs and tables on both sides of a large white rug in the center. Carefully navigating around the burning pile near the gate, I made my way towards the end of the hallway approximately sixty yards away. I passed through the small room to find that the area beyond was badly deteriorated with a large hole in the left wall, water seeping from a large hole in the back wall, and the checkerboard-pattern tile floor cracked in multiple spots. Crayon drawings of sunflowers covered the walls near floor and a drawing of a little girl in a red dress was in the center of the flowers on the right wall. However, the girl was clearly unhappy as she frowned despite being depicted as waving with her right hand.
As I neared the rear of the hallway, I heard the security gate off to the right close while I also saw their shadows move on the floor before me. The Spider Splicer let out a cackle as I heard him ascend up a flight of stairs. I reached the far end and turned just in time to see him make it out of sight beyond the security gate.
Turning to my left, I saw a wooden doorway and, upon entering the room beyond, I found that it was filled with bare, skeletal, metal bunk beds in two columns of seven down the left and right side. At one time, the beds might have been painted white but it had flaked off and rust had been forming along their frames. The floor was wooden and there were two large rectangular rugs in the center of the path between the beds. The walls were painted sky blue with puffy white clouds and there were two columns against the right wall. The atmosphere was, at best, suffocating and I immediately felt my heart clench as I tried my best not to imagine what it must have been like for the orphaned little girls.
To the right, I saw an open path to another section of the building with another burning pile of furniture near the far left corner. More importantly, as we had hoped, there were abandoned articles of clothing still neatly folded on the end of the beds. The Little Sister signaled me by tapping on the copper surface of my diving helmet and I lowered down onto my right knee to allow her to disembark. After she had safely hopped down, I stood back up and she moved to stand in front of me. Eleanor glanced around at the various dresses that were on the beds before she then looked back at me, smiled mischievously, and asked, "What color dress does Daddy want his little girl to wear for him?"
I glanced at Jennifer, who in turn gestured for me not to worry about her presence, before turning back and answering with a slightly embarrassed tone, "You know what color, Eleanor."
The small brunette's glowing yellow eyes narrowed as she demanded, "Say it, Daddy. Your little girl wants to hear him say it."
I admitted in a submissive tone, "Daddy wants his little girl to wear a white dress for him."
Eleanor cried out in delight and then hugged my massive frame as best she could with the Little Sister. She then ran to retrieve a dress that would fit her. I knew that I actually did not have anything to be embarrassed about but it would still take a little more time for me to get more comfortable with my bonded partner's unique way of teasing me. After locating a dress that would work for the time being, both she and Jennifer went into the other section to find a place to change.
As the Eleanor-controlled Little Sister went to change into the replacement dress with Jennifer, I stood in the center of the room and began to wait. However, I had only been waiting for a few seconds before the sound of quiet crying in a heart-breaking familiar voice drew my attention to the back of the room. There, lying against the back wall with her arms holding her knees up near her chest and her head down, was a human, seven year old Eleanor.
I felt as though my heart was going to seize as I saw the state she was in and I began to move towards her. Her once short, smooth, and shiny dark brown hair had been reduced to a tangled, dirty mess. The beautiful white dress that she had been wearing the day that she had confronted Stanley was torn and effectively ruined. Her white shoes were completely gone and, as a result, the soles of her tiny feet were dirty and covered with several small scrapes and painfully infected cuts. The knuckles of her tiny hands were bruised from what was most likely self-defense. Most of her porcelain white skin was covered with dirt and the areas underneath her despair-filled blue eyes were puffy and raw. Perhaps worst of all was the shackle around her right ankle with the other end secured to the bunk bed directly in front of her.
I stopped and stood just to her right as I fought the urge to vomit from seeing the person that I loved so dearly in so much pain. However, there was nothing that I could do as this was just some kind of imprint of a deeply traumatic memory that I was seeing due to my physiological bond with Eleanor. I tried to calm myself down but, moments later, I felt my entire body turn ice cold as I heard her call out in a ragged whimper, "Pl-please…somebody…help me…pl-please. I…I have done nothing wr-wrong. I…just…want to go…home."
Unable to bear it any longer, I turned around and then laid against the wall just to her right with my left knee raised up in the air and my left hand resting on top of it and with my right leg bent slightly and lying sideways while my drill rested on top of it. I did not even know what I was doing or thought that I could accomplish by doing so but I was powerless to resist the almost instinctive desire to always be by my beloved companion's side even if she could not see or hear me.
I did not have the heart to keep looking at Eleanor in that state so I simply looked forward as I began to assure the frightened, child-aged version of the amazing individual that had since become my other half, "I know it hurts, kid. If I could somehow magically make it all better for you, I would but I'm not a genius like you, or have quantum…whatever…powers like the twins or that woman. I'm just some old man from a town in the South that is so tiny that it is not on any map and whose only noteworthy accomplishment is stumbling upon an underwater city while investigating an unusually high amount of missing ships in the North Atlantic for the U.S. Navy."
I paused before I continued, "Soon, some people are going to come for you and they are going to do terrible things to you…to me…to so many others just like us…turn us into monsters…all because the people of this city are so obsessed with being better than each other that they got themselves addicted to a substance that lets them rewrite their DNA."
Eleanor screamed as the sound of several sets of heavy footsteps could be heard coming towards the entrance of the room. The trapped little girl then began to desperately pull at the shackle with both hands. The sounds drew closer and she released her grip while frantically turning her heard in both directions to try to find something that she could use to escape. However, there was, of course, nothing for her. She was an expert at escaping due to her stubborn, rebellious nature but her luck had finally run out.
Even with the scene right in front of me, I continued in order to keep from losing my mind, "A lot of people are going to try and hurt you…I'm going to do my best to keep you safe but I'm going to ruin everything because of one tiny mistake and you are going to have to see something that I would give anything for you not to. Afterwards, you are going to have to grow up without me. I'll understand if you choose to forget about me. If do you though, please don't let your mother hurt you, your sisters, or the little girls from the surface."
At that moment, five men entered the room with three of them being uniformed security officers armed with nightsticks, one of them being an employee of the orphanage, and the last being the representative from Fontaine Futuristics wearing a lab coat and holding a clipboard with what looked like several clipped lists of names held to its frame. Upon seeing that they had been brought all the way out this far just for the small, terrified, seven-year old girl before them, the officers glanced at the man in the lab coat with questioning expressions on their worn faces. The man replied something along the lines of her being a known delinquent with a high flight risk and that it was on record that she had bitten the individual that had sold her. The orphanage employee added that she had just attempted to escape the building the previous night and that she would have likely succeeded if it had not been for one of the other children overhearing her while she was recording on her Accu-Vox, and then alerting the on-duty desk employee in exchange for extra servings at dinner.
With only moments left, I promised my precious companion, "Just, please remember that no matter what happens…I love you Eleanor. That…well…fuck…I don't know how I am going to do it…but…I will find some way to make this all up you."
To everyone's surprise except my own, as the futility of her situation finally hit home, Eleanor calmed down and then began to try to clean herself up as much as she could by straightening her tangled hair and trying to knock some of the layers of dirt off her skin. She then calmly waited as the officers unlocked the shackle and then motioned that she was going with them without giving any resistance. The looks of shock in regards to her sudden change in demeanor were enough to make me briefly smirk and I actually enjoyed watching my beloved companion's departure from the orphanage in a way that perfectly summarized her personality.
After the officers motioned that she could freely walk, knowing full well that whatever was in store for her was not going to be a two-way street and that these could easily be her last few hours alive, Eleanor's expression became one of pride and sophistication as she raised her head up high and then began to walk towards the exit as elegantly as she could with the painful cuts on the soles of her bare feet. The only time that her classy departure was interrupted was when she raised her right hand up and flipped the orphanage employee her middle finger as she approached him where he was standing off to her right and continued to non-verbally insult him without ever looking anywhere except directly in front of her or allowing any change in her expression until she had passed him by three or four steps. Then, as if it had never even happened, she lowered her hand back down to her side and exited the room.
Finding comfort in the fact that her last few noteworthy moments of being human had been on her own terms, I smiled. I then reminded myself that she was still an amazing person, possibly even more so than she would have been otherwise. After calming down, I stood and returned to the center of the room.
When the real Eleanor, or at least the Little Sister that she was currently controlling, entered the room less than ten seconds after the memory finally disappeared and moved over to stand directly in front of me in her "new" white dress, I panicked slightly as I thought about all the things that I had just said and realized that there was no way that the current Eleanor had not heard all of it. There was no way that my mischievous bonded partner was going to let me live any of it down. Sure enough, after spinning around before me to give me a complete view of the replacement dress, she smirked at me while the glowing yellow eyes of the Little Sister burned with amusement.
I started to come up with some snide remark but instead declared with a determined tone, "I will find a way to make all this up to you, El."
Her expression changed to a grateful smile before she assured me, "Come on, Johnny…I'm not that mysterious." She paused and then offered, "If you want, you can help me with my makeup."
I let out a confused grunt and she explained, "You can give me my facial."
My daughter looked at me with a blank poker face as she awaited my reaction. I sighed and then informed her, "I'm going to do unspeakable things to you after we escape."
Eleanor smirked darkly before she challenged, "Careful, old man...my immortal body will always be tight and powerful...you think you can tame me?"
Before I could try to come up with something, the built-in radio inside my helmet powered to life. Moments later, Subject Alpha informed me in as much of a hushed tone as our kind could manage, "Sir, trouble…front entrance."
Confused as to why he was going so far as to use our radio despite the short distance between us, I replied, "Copy that. Moving to your location."
I lowered down to my right knee and, after Eleanor climbed back up onto her throne, we returned to where Alpha was in the main hub. Upon reaching him, he pointed down to the entrance. As I listened, I began to hear what was bothering him. Someone was actually knocking on the wooden doors of the entrance. In any other circumstance, it would have been the most non-threatening sound in the world but in Rapture, where polite social etiquette had long given way to brutal survival of the fittest, it was incredibly disturbing to hear.
Leading the way, I made my way down to the entrance. I could see several sources of light through the glass window in the center of the two doors that could have possibly been caused by flashlights. As I approached, I could also hear several voices though there was something off about them that seemed vaguely familiar but I could not place it at the moment. I took position to the right of the entrance and glanced at Subject Alpha as he took position on the left side. He returned my gaze and we understood what each other was planning. Then, with me taking point, we burst through the entrance.
I felt my stomach drop as I was greeted by the sight of five Mass Production Big Sisters waiting for us just outside. My mind went into overdrive trying to quickly formulate some kind of solution to suddenly having five of the incredibly powerful young women standing in front of me. However, to my horror, Eleanor actually taunted her sisters by imitating the voice of an old man as she remarked, "We don't want to buy any of your cookies, little girls."
Before I could react, the closest one, who must have been the one knocking on the door, walked up to me and then wrapped her arms around me. Having been on the verge of a panic attack, I was beyond dumbfounded as the lithe, armored woman continued to hug me while she rubbed the side of her helmeted head against my chest. Not wanting to upset her, I began to awkwardly pat the back of the oxygen tank on her back with my left hand. It was then that I noticed that the Big Sisters did not have their aggressive red glow coming from their eyes but, instead, their calm yellow glow.
Realizing that this was not what I initially thought it was, I calmed down and relaxed. The Big Sister that continued to hug me started to remark, "She wasn't lying…Papa Delta is nice and warm."
I let out a questioning grunt. She let out a soft giggle before she retracted from my body. From behind me, Jennifer inquired, "What are you five doing here?"
They looked at their sister and the one that had been hugging me explained, "Our sister has been telling us about how Mother is a liar and that Papa Delta is kind, gentle, and completely devoted to Eleanor. We wanted to see for ourselves."
The five Big Sisters began to examine me, occasionally lifting and wrapping their inhumanly firm and warm bodies around my arms and against my torso to feel the muscle tone beneath the skin of my diving suit. Upon hearing their amazement, Eleanor remarked proudly, "See…told you." She then continued, "Also…even with the five of you pressed up against him…look."
I wanted to curl up and disappear as one of them remarked, "So loyal…as expected of Eleanor's daddy. There is no way Mother is right about him."
One of them said, "Eleanor…you have to share."
My companion replied, "You can have nothing." However, when her sister began to whine like a little puppy, Eleanor relented, "You can watch."
I object, "No she can't!"
The group of young women collectively giggled at my comment. Finally, about three minutes after first seeing them, they retreated away from us. The largest one, the one that knocked on the door, stated, "Well, I've seen enough. We are at your service."
I replied, "Much obliged. Sorry to ask you to get your hands dirty but we need you guys to start causing chaos in the other areas of Rapture to put more pressure on Sofia."
One of them raised her left fist into the air as she exclaimed, "Burn it all down!"
Another remarked in turn, "About time…"
The biggest Big Sister nodded and then said, "As you wish, Papa Delta." Then, she paused before looking at the smallest one of the group. She motioned towards me and said, "Go on…"
I was confused as the armored young woman approached me timidly but then understood moments later when she unzipped one of her pockets and withdrew a small notepad and ball point pen. The noticeably smaller and skinnier Big Sister could not look at me as she held the notepad towards me with shaking hands. I smiled slightly and then used my Telekinesis Plasmid to sign the notepad in a clear spot on one of the pages, most of which were all filled with the signatures of various people including other Protectors. After I signed her autograph collection, she took it back and hugged it tightly against her chest as she quickly moved back to stand with the others. Just before they all disappeared in clouds of purple particles, the biggest one thanked me as her painfully shy sister had been trying to finish her collection for ten years.
After they left, Alpha remarked, "I think I just lost ten years off my life."
I replied, "I know, right?" I then continued, "Still, things are continuing to go our way."
My brother replied in agreement, "Yes, sir."
Jennifer remarked, "I just hope those idiots don't destroy the entire city before we can even get the chance to escape."
Eleanor replied with a noticeable amount of cringe in her voice, "They knocked on the door…"
We all let out a collective sigh in response. Then, Jennifer asked, "So, now wh…"
She was interrupted as I wheeled back to face in the direction of the other end of the street just in time to catch the harpoon spear in midair with my gloved left hand just inches from the center of my eye. Letting out an enraged guttural roar, I threw the spear to the ground as I revved up my highly modified industrial-grade drill. Six Leadhead Splicers armed with modified Thompson Submachine Guns began to open fire upon us from the makeshift third story bridge. Meanwhile, at least five more of them began to appear on the second floor walkways and bridge. The sound of cackling gave away the Spider Splicers as they began to appear dropping down from the roof of Siren Alley and making their way along the exterior walls of the buildings like a hoard of insects. Meanwhile, a Brute Splicer came barreling around the corner at the end of the street.
Alpha began to return fire with his Prototype Rivet Gun. Meanwhile, Jennifer let out an ear-piercing predatory screech before charging forward and then jumping from one exterior wall to another to make her way up to intercept the Spider Splicers. As she did, I began to stare down the Brute Splicer as he locked eyes on me and smashed his fists on the ground.
Despite the utter chaos surrounding us, Eleanor asked, "Not on a map?"
After roaring at the Brute Splicer, I replied, "Nope. About the only thing you'll find is the P.O. Box for the post office."
After a moment, she instructed me, "Take me to see it."
I admitted, "I haven't been there in years…might not even be anything left. I'll take you if you really want to see it though."
Eleanor replied, "Thank you." My precious companion then declared, "I love you."
I smiled beneath my emotionless copper façade before I replied, "I love you too." The Brute Splicer began to charge towards me. With my drill revved up, I charged towards the ape-like denizen through the incoming .50 BMG fire letting out a guttural roar that rocked Siren Alley. No, paradise was not a place, but a person and her name was Eleanor. The cost was Subject Delta but, at least in my mind, the monster was worth it.