The Case of the Lost Child 03

"Can you at least pretend to care that my entire history has been rewritten?" Elizabeth asked. Her tone could have frozen a lake in the middle of summer. Lisa wasn't too worried, she'd had to deal with Dinah after denying the girl ice cream. Elizabeth needed to take notes if she wanted to crack her shell of disinterest.

"I mean, it's really not?" Lisa said, shrugging one shoulder. She paused, listening for the pattering of tiny feet. They were getting closer. Why weren't the splicers following them anymore? There had to be something bad up ahead. There was always something bad up ahead. That was just how this worked. "So your evil dad coordinated with a cross dimensional dickbag to cook up the tech he used to hurt you. That doesn't actually change anything about your history. He still hurt you. The only thing that changes is that he wasn't smart enough to figure out how to trap you all on his lonesome."

The quiet grumble from her partner was almost enough to bring out a chuckle from Lisa. It wasn't appropriate though, so she restrained herself.

Fuck, but that dimension-caulking gun really had her in a good mood. Even the impending boss battle wasn't tearing at her upbeat spirit. She was going to have to watch herself or she was liable to make a mistake before she could go and crow about her good luck to her family.

Ugh, Taylor would be so pissed if she came back missing a finger. Or an arm. Though with Lisa's luck, she'd probably just lose her tongue by pissing off the wrong person five minutes before she walked through the portal home. Ah well, she'd learn sign language. How hard could ASL be? Worst case, she always could text fast.

God she missed her phone…She never did quite understand Dinah's emoji-filled messages, but she missed them something fierce right now…

"You are not a very nice person, you do realize that don't you?" Elizabeth sighed.

"I prefer the term acerbic," Lisa said. "Can you cut me some slack? I've been trapped here for months and you just handed me a way home on a golden platter. I'm sorry, but I'm a bit preoccupied."

"You have yet to explain what you intend to do with Suchong's invention. Yes, it can open a tear. But that only helps if you -"

Lisa held up her index finger. "Two main options: one, the original hole in reality I dropped through when you pushed me through that door in the lighthouse thing after Scion blasted through the multiverse." Lisa raised a second finger. "Two, a Hail Mary."

Elizabeth sighed. "Now you're just being obtuse intentionally. What even is a Hail Mary?"

Lisa chuckled. "Okay, so the way I see it, we can -" She abruptly cut off as a child's giggle came from just around the corner, accompanied by several heavy stomps.

"Fuck, I knew it was too easy," she hissed. Lisa waved Elizabeth behind her and peeked around the edge of the wall. Sure enough, there was a Big Daddy standing right there. Along with their missing Little Sister.

"What do we do?" Elizabeth murmured, peering around her, a wince present on her features and her skin pale. "The last time did not go well for me."

No- bo-d-d. Dis-tr-a-t-d.

Holding a hand to her head and biting her tongue at the spike of pain, she tried to hear the words behind the distortion. There was less static now, but it was still hard to make out. Was that…

"No, fucking, way…"

"Lisa?"

"Look at it, Liz," Lisa whispered. She waved her gun towards the Big Daddy. Sally was prancing around the table, collecting Adam from a corpse nearby, but the mechanical man wasn't remotely interested in her. It was just…wandering. Actually it was - "Jesus, it's fixing the fucking rivets. It's not bonded to her, Elizabeth! She's staying near it because she thinks it'll protect her, but it doesn't care!"

Elizabeth licked her lips and let out a shuddering breath. "Are we willing to risk our lives on that guess?"

N-t -on-ed.

"I'm about 85% sure it's not a guess. Give me a sec." Lisa fished in her pockets for Suchong's notes and after a moment, she held them up to the light with a soft crow of victory. Baring her teeth in triumph, she nearly laughed as she sped through the document again. "Oh hell yeah, baby, I'm coming home!"

"Lisa! Share your insights!" Elizabeth hissed.

"Empathy. It bonds through empathy. The first few were all pheromone based and died when their kids died, second gen are empathy." She pushed away from the wall. "I'm going to try something."

"Wait! This is a bad idea!"

"Probably, but desperate times! If I fuck this up, get back to my world and tell Taylor and Dinah I love them, yeah?"

She nearly bounced as she went into the room proper. Sally mostly ignored her as the little girl finished her task. The Big Daddy similarly pretended she didn't exist.

As she went to stand just inside its peripheral view, Lisa found her nerves starting to fail her. All of her confidence was fading fast in the face of that monstrous drill hand and that giant diving bell head. She had a family. What was she doing? She had a way home. Probably. This was stupid. This was…so…damn…

She needed muscle. Elizabeth was not enough and Power-kun wasn't rebooting himself fast enough. She needed muscle, especially if they were going to try and drag a Little Sister through splicers and Fontaine, hot wire a bathysphere, drag the Little Sister through Rapture itself, and get all the way back to that original hole in space at the back of her office…

Fuck. This was never going to work. She was going to die. They were all going to die. This was a horrible plan. This was something Taylor would have come up with; or Brian. That was how she was sure it was a horrible plan.

She ground her teeth at the memories of the traitor.

Screw it. She was going to survive this hell of a utopia just to spite him. He'd probably already tried to move in on her family - again! She'd get back and kick his ass six ways to Sunday all over. Better, she'd have her new pet Big Daddy do it for her!

"A girl can dream right, big guy?" Lisa murmured.

Swallowing her fear, she smiled up at the metal man. "Hey there, buddy." Going down on her knees, she kept herself small, made sure her eyes were wide, the beginning of tears at the corners of her vision. Her tone was light, but the warble was carefully modulated. "I know you're busy, but…I'm lost. I was hoping…I was hoping you might, maybe, be able to…help me get…back home? Do you think that you could help?"

Holding her hand behind her back, and out of view of the Big Daddy, she swiftly sliced a line across her palm with her knife. Just barely managing to keep the pained wince from her face, she slipped the knife back into her belt and held her blood-dripping hand up where the man could see. "I…got hurt…I'm not sure how much farther I can go by myself."

From the corner, she caught sight of Elizabeth gaping at her, hand over her mouth and eyes wide.

It wasn't important. The Big Daddy was important. It was looking at her now. Full-on staring at her. Was the gaze of the thing focused on her hand? That was…good. Right?

"I'm just…so scared…" She sniffled, casting her gaze down towards the ground.

The ground in front of her trembled as heavy boots clomped to a stop less than two inches from her face. This was it. This was the moment. She either died here or -

"Arghhhggh." A giant glove nudged at her hand, poking her fingers, forcing them into a fist.

Lisa let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. "Stop the bleeding?" She asked. Looking up, she saw its drill arm had a piece of cloth extended out towards her. From the pattern, it seemed like the Big Daddy had poked one of the tablecloths with the tip of its drill, holding the remaining strip in her direction. The rest of her breath left her lungs and her grin widened into a genuine smile. Pulling herself back up to her feet, she took the offering and looped it around her palm, tying it off. Then she leaned in and tried to hug the metal man.

"Thanks, big guy." Turning to Elizabeth, she smirked, and wiggled her eyebrows. "Hey, Liz, we got backup now!"

"You are insane," Elizabeth stated, for what had to be the third time. Sally's hand was firmly clutched in her fist as the three of them and their Big Daddy trudged along the department store's corridor.

"I've been called worse."

Sally was quietly humming and skipping along, they'd had to keep distracting her before she caught sight of any nearby corpses. The splicers might be sticking to the shadows for the moment with her new protector following in their wake, but the very moment they saw a Little Sister stop to collect Adam…they would all swarm. They wouldn't be able to help themselves.

Lisa needed to make sure her group reached the bathysphere before that happened. And before Fontaine found out they were en-route anywhere specific.

"Any idea how we're leaving yet?" Elizabeth asked. "I only inquire, because, while we have Sally now, we are still no closer to survival or escape."

"Yeah, about that," Lisa murmured back. The shadows moved, one adventurous one inching closer. She slowed her pace just enough to drop back closer to the Big Daddy, and the splicer thankfully kept their distance. "Keep an eye on the caulker."

"The what?"

"Suchong's dimension gun. If there's a tear, we go through. If not, I'm hoping Mr. Big can fix the bathysphere. It's rigged for one direction. But these guys are labor units when they're not bodyguards so, he should be able to work his mojo."

"Mr. Bubbles! I smell angels, but I don't see any angels. Do you see any angels around here?" Sally asked, her head swiveling left and right, her voice far too perky.

"What did they do to her?" Elizabeth whispered, the horror in her voice all too familiar.

"They broke her mind," Lisa sighed. "Eyes on the prize, Elizabeth. I know people who can help. If this city is still standing after we leave - if we can still get back - I can send in a group of friends to help the others. But we can't save them all right now. You can't bring down the entire system by yourself."

Her eyes met mine. "You did."

Lisa couldn't keep holding her gaze as the shame washed through her. "No. Taylor did. I was a cog in the Hive. Taylor was always the hub; I was just a tool, an instrument of her will. We all were. None of us had her vision. None of us would have been able to work together without her coordinating us. Her power helped, but it was her that kept us together. That let us win. I can't save this city, Elizabeth. Don't ask me to try. I just want to get home to my wife and my daughter."

"Well, at least you got some sense in that pretty little head of yours, Hebert!" Fontaine's booming voice echoed down from a loudspeaker set into the wall just above them.

Lisa sucked in a breath, pulling to an abrupt halt. Her head jerked up and she sought out a camera. "Frank. I thought we had a deal, buddy?"

"Where's my Ace, little Raven?"

"You have seen Suchong's lab right?" Lisa asked. "It damn near entirely collapsed on us while we were still standing in it."

"And yet you're still breathing, darling." Frank's voice turned cold. "Now give me my Ace and tell me how you're getting us back to Ryan."

Lisa's eyes narrowed. "If I give you that now, I don't have any bargaining power."

"You never had any bargaining power, Hebert. Ten seconds, girl. Nine. Eight…"

"Fuck this," Lisa hissed. "This plan was never going to work anyway." She latched onto Elizabeth's arm, dragging her friend and their little charge back behind the Big Daddy. "Mr. Bubbles! We're under attack! HELP!"

Right on cue, six splicers launched out of the surrounding shadows, leaping over furniture and cabinets, rushing towards them yelling and brandishing a myriad of improvised weaponry - everything from a wrench to a golf club.

The Big Daddy took one look at them, and the green light seeping from his helmet turned blood-red. "Awooohooo!" The drill on his arm surged to life and, with a speed that shouldn't have been possible for something so large, he leaped into battle with the mad addicts.

"We seem to be deviating from the plan!" Elizabeth shouted.

"Fuck the plan!" Lisa yelled right back.

Both of them raised their guns and tried to pick off splicers as the crazed fools swiped at their bodyguard. Sally giggled beside them.

Lisa hissed. "Okay, so, that Hail Mary? I don't think we're going to be able to get back to Rapture proper. Feel up to a bit of hope and prayer?"

"There are no Tears nearby, Lisa," Elizabeth yelled. "If you are planning to try running, that's not going to work!"

"Actually," Lisa took the dimension gun and leveled it at Elizabeth's chest. "The way you described yourself before, you're kind of a Tear." Elizabeth tore her eyes away from the continued yelling and inarticulate roaring as the Big Daddy tore through another enemy. She looked at the gun, then she looked up at Lisa.

"That's…I don't think that's how that works."

Reboot. R-li-k. Sep-rat-d. Mome-n-a-ry co-ne-tiss. Int-rmed-ar-.

"You're cut off from your multiversal half. I don't know enough to understand it. But all we need is a momentary connection. Just an instant. That's it. Let my power sync up to you and it'll do the rest."

"Lisa, are you asking me to try and open myself to a parasite?"

"Got any better options?" Lisa asked.

A set of doors near the Big Daddy burst open, pouring out another half dozen splicers. Fontaine cackled over the speakers. Elizabeth remained quiet, her eyes wide, her jaw locked shut.

"Look, some of them really aren't that bad. It's just their parents that are evil. The kids, some of them are sweet. Elizabeth, we don't have another option here. It's all or nothing." Lisa swallowed hard. The sounds from her Big Daddy were growing increasingly more metallic. It was strong, but there was only so much it could do against overwhelming numbers. "I'm not going to do this without your consent."

Sally gasped, holding her hands over her mouth. "Mr. Bubbles!"

Elizabeth took one last look at the dimension gun, then stared into Lisa's eyes. She reached out with one hand to firmly grasp Sally's arm, and with the other, she took hold of Lisa's.

"Do it."

Lisa nodded once. Her lips a non-existent line, her mouth dry, she pulled the trigger.

A gray beam of not-light shot from the tool, striking Elizabeth's chest.

Elizabeth inverted before her eyes, where once there was one, now there were two, then twenty, then one again.

Power-kun screamed inside her head, whether in triumph or pain she didn't know.

Docks, and lighthouses, and oceans, flew across her vision.

Lisa's world collapsed into static and pain.