"You're almost there. The Sphere to Ryan is up ahead." Atlas said, the fuzzy sound of the radio filling cramped space of the Bathysphere as it trundled along towards the destination. "Ryan's handed the keys to Fort Frolic over to a guy named Sander Cohen. Cohen's an artist, says some. He's a Section Eight, says I. I've seen all kinds of cutthroats, freaks, and hard cases in my life… but Cohen, he's a real lunatic, a dyed in the wool psychopath."
"We can handle some freaky art type." The Sniper scoffed. "Hell, pretty sure half the blokes in here are some sort of screwy or another."
"Yes, as if you are the picture of a normal man." The Spy remarked, casting a wary glance up at the insects that had taken roost on the roof of the Sphere above the Snipers head. The swarm a little smaller now after all the fighting to leave Arcadia.
"Ah piss off."
The dock as the Sphere surfaced was a small room, whose door lifted as the door of the sub opened, revealed a messy hallway, marred by a spot where the ceiling had collapsed and littered the floor with rocks and debris. A wire dangling from the opened ceiling throwing sparks.
"You think those things still work?" The Scout asked as he caught sight of the slot machines tucked into the corner. The Soldier and the Pyro wandering off to poke at a animatronic fortune teller before the Demoman shooed them away, urging them back down the hall. Down towards the door at the far end of the bend lit up by a sign for another Metro station to a place called Hephaestus. Around the corner the hall went on, ending with a short flight of stairs and flashy neon signs welcoming the residents of Rapture to Fort Frolic, though the door doorways at the apex of the stairs were closed, heavy metal shutters blocking out any would be wanderers like themselves. A few suitcases littered the floor beside an overturned barrel that had leaked its dark, oily content onto the floor.
The only way to go, it seemed, was into the metro station and hope a Bathysphere stood docked.
The inside of the Metro to Hephaestus was dimly lit, but not so dark it wasn't easy to see where they were going. For a brief moment, a glimmer of excitement and hope ran through the group as they began to cross the long room and there waited a Bathysphere.
But as quickly as it was built hope was extinguished as the door of the sphere slammed shut, and it began to descend into the cold water. As the Sphere descended, something else began to ascend from the water. A giant version of a mask Splicers commonly wore began to rise up the wall.
"Are those… statues?" Jack asked, pointing the ropes sliding down from the ceiling, life sized gray figures dangling in various acrobatic positions from them.
"Ah, that's better." A voice crooned from the speakers of the metro. "Atlas, Ryan, Atlas, Ryan. Duh duh duh duh dudg… time was you could get something decent on the radio. The artist has a duty to seduce the ear and delight the spirit… so say goodbye to those two blowhards and hello, to an evening with Sander Cohen! Now, I haven't seen a sign of real life down here in ages. Let's see if you're a bunch of Johnny come latelys… or maybe something more delicious…."
"That sounds like an invitation as well as anything." The Engineer said, turning away from the empty dock and danging statues.
"Blowhards, huh? That don't sound like he and Ryan are on friendly terms." Jack mused.
The difference in the hallway when the Metro door opened again was shockingly different. Literally.
The same sort of crisscrossing electrified wires they'd seen in the grotto in Arcadia were stretched here and there across the hall without much of a discernible pattern.
"Shit! They're on us." The Sniper cried, his gunfire breaking the quiet of the hall. The first shots met with a short lived scream of pain as a large, human figure dropped from the ceiling. Another quickly crawling towards them until the Spy's revolver sent the other one dropping.
Others came dropping from somewhere above, their feet splashing droplets of the thick oily substance pooled on the floor.
Two screams erupted at the snap of the Pyro's fingers. A whoosh of flames pluming up as the oil was set alight.
It was Jacks revolver that earned a third and final scream as the last one fell.
"Ohhh, I can smell the malt vinegar in these ones." Cohens voice cooed, "I've waited so long for something tasty to come to this little burg. But all that pass are yokels and rubes…. Where are my manners?" A grating sound filled the air as the metal shudders under the fleet hall sign began to rise. "Come in! Come in! Sander Cohen awaits you… at the Fleet Hall!"
"Let us move. I do not have good feeling about this Sander Cohen." The Heavy said uneasily.
"Considering everyone we've met down here so far, I don't think anyone could have a good feeling about this." The Engineer replied, ripping the nearest of the electrified wires out with his gloved hand.
"Y'know, I think I recognize his name, though." Piped the Scout, earning the young man a few surprised looks. "My Ma's got a record with that name on it. Doesn't play it much though. Said it was a gift and she doesn't wanna wear it out. Think it mighta been from one of our dads or somethin."
The spacious atrium was pitch dark as they crossed through the small transitional space the shutters had previously blocked. The sound of running water filling the quiet space.
"Is he a bloody bat? Can't see a damn thi-" The Demoman began, cut off as Cohens voice boomed over speakers around the Atrium.
"Welcome to Fort Frolic!" The darkness of the room vanished. Vanquished under the assault of an assortment of bright neon lights and lit billboards as the room sprung to life. The sound of the water revealed as to be a waterfall of water coming from a worrying crack in the glass ceiling, running down the stairs. "No need to thank me for jamming the transmissions of those boors Atlas and Ryan. Let them have their squabble. The artist, yes, the artist knows there is richer earth to till…."
"I don't like the sound of that, fellas." Jack said quietly, his grip on his gun tight. Without a connection to Atlas, they had no guide to point them in the quickest direction to their goal.
"For example, I test you, little moths, but for a reason. I test all my disciples. Some shine like galaxies.. and some.. some burn like a moth at the flame! Come now… into my home. Let us see which of you shine, and which of you burn."
"This ain't gonna end well, is it." The Sniper grumbled.
"Is it just me, or are these things… unnervingly life like?" Jack asked, walking up to the pair of life sized plaster statues set before the edge of a tiny stage set into the wall at the bottom of the stairs. One seemed a decently normal looking man frozen in a pose of fear, but the other looked like a dead man. It's plaster hair thin and half gone and the space around its mouth gone, showing its chipped, stony teeth. An eerily accurate reproduction of one of Raptures spliced up residents, perhaps.
"Is that paint or… blood." The Scout questioned, nearly touching the shiny red dripping from around the statues neck and shoulders before he thought better of it and snatched his hand away.
"Careful now, stairs are slick." The Engineer warned as he began up the stairs, towards the neon sign for Fleet Hall above.
As they passed through into the upper ring of the Atrium the Spy stopped, giving the Engineer and Medic pointed nudges. The Heavy's gaze following after theirs, his face stony as they scrutinized a poster hung upon the wall. The stylized woman and man dancing in black and white, boasting of being a love story. The story of Moira and Patrick.
The glass door rose with a stony grating as they crossed the hall to the Theater. Closing again by the time they approached a pair of ticket booths. A poster for Jasmine Jolene sandwiched between them. Tickets scattered on the floor fluttered around as feet disturbed them.
Spy made his way towards one of the openings set into the wall, cautiously peeking around the threshold before pulling back. "There's a camera on the far wall, set to sweep both doorways."
"If this Cohen guy has control'a this part of the city, think it's safe?" Jack asked, taking his own cautious glance around into the lower room.
"Possibly, but I'm not willing to take the chance." The Spy replied.
"I've got it." The Engineer said, walking towards the opposite doorway, crouching down as he watched the red light sweep across the room. Jumping back up to his feet as he let the light go from his hand, meeting the camera with a satisfying electrical sound that signaled the hurry for everyone to move in. To the far wall beneath the cameras view if it came online again before it could be disabled.
The Engineer grabbed hold of one of the lattice metal chairs that flanked a small, matching table along the wall and set it beneath the camera. Climbing up to reach the panel of its inner workings. It's light flickering from red to green as it rose back into its normal position and back online. "That'll do." The Engineer said as he stepped down from the chair. "Stairs seem a good bet." He said, looking to the hall across the room.
The quiet of the theater made each step on the art deco tiles of the stairs seem loud as the ascended the steps. Slight confusion falling over the group as they made their way into the room at the top of the stairs. The rows of shelves filled with various records and filmreels and logbooks and scripts leading no where, save for a small raised area with an a doorway blocked by a metal gate and velvet ropes. A human shaped shadow stretched across the floor.
"Could you possibly think I would meet with my public now?" Cohens voice came from inside the room beyond. They had found the man they were after, but he seemed not at all inclined to open the door. "While I'm preparing? Unbelievable!"
"He's the one who asked us to come, and now he won't see us?" Jack said, giving the gate an incredulous glance.
"Well, if the dandy want's more time to prep and preen himself, then I say we go and see if there's any drink left in those taps at the concessions while we wait." Said the Demoman.
The made their way back down the stairs, and while some men broke away to poke around behind the counters of the concession, the Engineer crossed the room, giving the small elevator a curious look over. "We'll have to make multiple trips. It'll fit two, maybe three slimmer fellas, but some of us ain't gonna fit except on our own."
"Right then, who's gonna be going first, then?" The Demoman asked, flicking a long discarded wine stopped from the counter.
"I don't think it matters much. I reckon we can send up most of us in pairs. Though we can probably fit Scout, Sniper, and Spy in one go." The Engineer's words were met with a roll of the Spy's eyes, but he stepped into the small elevator alongside the two younger men, and eyes watched as the elevator rose. Returning empty a few moments later at the Engineers next press of the call button.
When the last pair of them stepped off the elevator, the Spy held up a hand before anyone made to move down the short hall way that had greeted them at the top of the elevator. The sound of piano music filtering in from the glass door at the end of it.
"No! No! No!" Cohens voice rang angrily down the hall. An unfamiliar voice answering in response. "Mr Cohen, please…."
"Silence!" The Artists voice thundered, quieting the pleading voice. "Allegro… Allegro!"
The source of the music and the unfamiliar voice was obvious as the door opened on their approach.
Cautiously they stepped into the theater.
Lights overhead casting a spotlight on the man at the piano on the stage… and at a few of the eerie plaster statues that sat here and there in the otherwise empty theater hall.
Sanders voice sang out among the music, growing more irritated with each note. "Presto… Presto! NO! No!" A light flashed behind the curtain of the stage, silhouetting three ominous figures, large scissors clasped in their shadowy hands before the light faded.
"I'm trying… Please….!" The man at the piano begged as the light flashed again, the silhouettes much closer now.
The Sniper motioned a hand towards the stage. "He's stuck there."
Another flash of the light brought the figures closer still as the man frantically played. "Oh Cohen, you sick fuck! Let me out of this-" The man's plea was cut short, and men jumped back as the piano burst into smoldering splinters. Leaving the unfortunate pianist a charred husk on the floor of the stage.
"Come down now, little Moths." Cohens voice cooed after a moment. "Life, death… the burden of the artist is to… capture! See young Fitzpatrick here on the stage… do be good lads and take a picture for me… take him as he is now… so I may remember him…."
"He's fucking crazier than I thought even somebody in this hell could be." The Sniper muttered. The Scout dug in the bag strapped to his back. The camera hadn't seemed useful to pick back up among the things they'd reclaimed from Peach Wilkens, but it hadn't taken up that much space in his bag so it had seemed harmless to take along.
Reluctantly, the boy climbed up to the smoldering stage, taking a hasty snapshot of the burnt man before he hopped down again.
"Now that you've got Fitzpatrick, caught in his moment of glory. Now, head to the atrium and place his photograph in my masterpiece." Commanded Cohen. "And so our collaboration begins."
"It seems we don't have much of a choice but to play along for now if we want to get out hands on the key to Ryan." The Engineer said grimly, leading the way back to the Elevators.
The silence of the way back was broken as they made for the door of Fleet Hall.
"I know why you've all come. You've your own canvas, one you'll paint with the blood of a man I once loved…." Sanders said over the speakers of the hall. "Yes, I'll send you to Ryan. But first, you must be a part of my masterpiece. Go to the atrium. Hurry now… my muse is a fickle bitch with a very short attention span…."
"C'mon, men. Time to march." The Soldier said, urging them all on back towards the stairs.
There was a sense of caution as the men approached the top of the stairs, at the bottom of which the curtains on the stage had been lifted, the harsh lights above spotlights above drawing attention to the collection of statues resembling rabbit masked splicers in various poses that showcased the small corkboards they held.
"Do you see it? When I am dust, this is what they'll point to! My quadtych! My masterpiece." Sanders voice was a reverent echo. "Go ahead, don't be afraid. Touch it."
"Looks like that's where the photograph is supposed to go." The Demoman mused they filed around the pour of water from above.
"Let's get this over with, then." The Scout replied, jumping up onto the last section of railing, sliding down it to bypass the rest of the group. His shoes sending a splash of water up as he jumped off at the end, moving to hop up to the statues. Pulling the picture from the bag on his back, stuck it to the board held between two of the middlemost statues.
"Yes, and there's Fitzpatrick, freed of his own kinks and defects. And here's the glorious news… this is just the moment of conception…. Out in this place, there are three men, all former disciples of mine. All connected by a common thread… betrayal. Find them, little moths, and immortalize their mortality in my quadtych." Said Cohen. "Go. Once they've been sent to their reward, you shall go to yours… and to Ryan."
With a flash of smoke and petals, another statue rose from the floor of the stage, sat cross legged on the floor. A crossbow perched in its lap in offering.
"So he wants us to go do his dirty work? Just great." The Scout muttered. The Medic walked up to the stage, plucking the weapon from the statues grasp with a gleaming grin. The Statue, its load gone, began its descent back into the floor of the stage. The tiles over it sliding back into place.
"Well, I suppose least going round killing folk is somethin' we're all used to." Said the Sniper, giving the bow his own curious glance, though he doesn't make his own bid for the weapon. The Doctor had little more than his saw for weaponry, and the clear confidence in his grip leaves little room for argument for it to go to anyone else.
"Speak for yourself! Fixin' chickens for dinner's the only things I've killed until today." Jack said.
"Today's your first? Huh, wouldn't have thought that. You've done pretty good for a first timer." The Scout said, giving the mans shoulder a hearty pat.
"Thanks, that's real comforting to hear, Jeremy." Jack muttered, pulling away.
"You're welcome, man. Anything to help out the newbie."
Somewhere in the near distance, there was a soft grinding sound before Sanders voice floated over the speakers once more. "The door to Poseidon Plaza is now open for you, my moths."