<!-- ______Pauper's Drop______
The traps were working better than expected.
I was beginning to see why these psychopaths had managed to nearly bring Rapture to its knees in a civil war. They knew every sidepath and easily hacked device. However, they had just told me a report had come that another pair of bathyspheres had arrived at a closer docking station. We'd been holding off against three sphere's worth of goons already.
We needed more firepower if they were going to be getting in closer. Most of the splicers couldn't carry any of the weapons someone like Father could have carried, and had thus been trying to set them up as mounted guns. Despite their best efforts, only two gatling guns and been able to be welded to functioning turrets without having to have some semi-necessary part cut off.
I hated that these people were dying -for- me. Even though I had tried to explain to them that mother had been throwing bullshit down their throats, they simply had convoluted their belief that mother had been corrupt by the "higher ups" in Phespherone.
I was not their damned savior. I almost didn't even feel guilt that they were dying... rather simply that they were still so blindly ignorant that they were more willing to believe my mother now even when she was sending them to their deaths.
I needed to get out of here, soon, or I would be just as crazy as the splicers.
"It's gonna be fine. We'll have you patched up soon enough," Grace was saying to every injured man and woman lying in the hap-hazard infirmary she had begun inside the Sinclair Deluxe.
"Grace, we can't keep this up," I said to her as she walked back over to me.
"I know that baby girl, but I don't really see any other way of gettin' ya outta here. That little suit of your's is only gonna keep you going so long, and Doc' Lamb will just keep comin' for ye'," she said.
Grace then paused for a moment, thinking.
"I might be able to take one of their bathyspheres if I can get behind their lines," I started.
"Child. You ain't in no condition to fight. And even if ya was, I wouldn' let ya! This is a grown up fight, not somethin' you can just fix with a smile and a single shot," Grace responded, giving a stern look up at me, "Now let me think of somethin'! I've had worse scraps than this before, even if the numbers are different."
As I waited, arms crossed, there was an explosion. Suddenly, the radio blared to life.
"They've breached Costello's! We're pullin' back now! Move it or lose it!" a male voice said, then another radio turned on.
"Water breach in market! The brutes are leaving us behind! Get out before the doors seal!" a woman's voice yelled.
Naledi grinned as the water began pouring into the market section.
"Have our Big Blokes stock up what they can, then have them drop it off in the nearest sphere. We want every piece of ADAM that's left in those corpses. The Little Sweeties will have a feeding frenzy today!" she said, grinning as she looked at the crossfire for the path to the Sinclair Deluxe.
"Hack into their radio, I wanna talk to whoever thought they'd bloody well stand up to the family without going tits up!" she ordered one of her men. He began messing with the electronics in a box, then he closed the box.
"Done," he said, and then began firing his pistol from behind cover.
"Alright. Now who am I speakin' to, love?" Naledi said, taking the mic in hand.
There was silence for a moment, then someone picked it up.
"One of the last damn sane people in Rapture, you bitch," Grace Holloway responded.
Ah, Naledi had remembered booing one of the nigger's stupid songs – always just sulking and whining, Naledi could have shot herself over it.
"Ah, well I'm gonna have to debate that statement – later. We've got ya in a right good fix, and I don't see you coming out of it with all your ding-dongs attached. Now you can give the girl over, and we'll stop blowing up this little slime hole you call home. Your choice," Naledi responded.
"Oh we'll give her to you alright. I will damn well send her to smash your heads in!" Grace answered, her voice as hot and anger as a fireball from hell.
Naledi closed the line.
"Alright gents, she's coming out. Keep her alive, but a few bruises are warranted – she's been a naughty girl. After that, blast the remaining sods at will – we'll just have the kiddies pick up and hand stuff to their 'daddies' for us to use. Recylcing, some would say," Naledi said, grinning arrogantly at herself.
Suddenly, the fire from the Sinclair Deluxes' defenses stopped. Things became eerily silent. Naledi's eyes narrowed.
"Naledi, what in the Sam hell is-" Buck began over the radio, then as Naledi picked it up he suddenly yelled out.
"It's one of the Daddies! He's gone rogue! Someone's with him! Buck! Come on! Don't die on us now!" a splicer yelled, and then there were screams.
Then Naledi realized the screams she was hearing weren't over the radio, they were from down the hall.
The door to the bathysphere room opened, and steam mixed with smoke as it poured out into the tunnel. Naledi took up her elephant gun and raised the sights on it.
"Start movin' back to the bathy's now!" Naledi yelled at the radio.
She held the gun ready, and fired as an armored figure ran out of the smoke. It looked like Big Sister, but Naledi had damn well heard she was all the way over at Ryan Amusements.
Whoever the hell it was, they began rising up again. The glass was fogged up, so Naledi took the chance of firing again. The firing yelled out as the next shot hit in the belly, ripping through the fabric gap left in the armor.
"Well, it seems we'll need more pieces to put you back together," Naledi said, stepping over and removing the mask from the figure.
As the mask was pulled off, a gasping Grace Holloway was revealed.
"What? You're not-" Naledi didn't get to finish, as she just barely looked in time to see a lanky Big Daddy charging at her.
She'd shot Grace! The flaming bitch had shot her! I lost control of myself as I charged, and keyed the drill to be active again. I aimed straight at the face, and plowed into her. I could barely see outside of the suit, but I felt myself crash into the wall that was behind the murderess. I stopped the drill then, and what was left of the bitch to lie on the wall.
There were no more splicers near, so I quickly ran over to Grace and removed my helmet.
"N-now get-t goin' ch-child," Grace chattered, and I could see the bloody pouring out of her suit, "Do your Aunt Gracie a f-favor and... look at the sky... look at it long child... and think of the man in the sky... I'm headed there now..."
"No, don't die on me!" I yelled, trying to raise her up.
"Ch-child... I don't have much longer... j-just go. And l-look at the sky," she said.
I felt tears pouring down my face. I put my forehead against hers.
"I love you," I said.
She kissed my forehead, and then I pulled back slowly.
"I know baby girl... I know..."
Her eyes fell blank, and I felt as if all that had been left after Father's death suddenly vanished. I had lost the two people who had actually loved me.
I was going to look at that sky, no matter the cost.
_____Ryan Amusements_____
I hit the monster in the shoulder.
"Bad! Bad Big Sister! No hurt Mommy! Mommy is friend!" Elizabeth barked at the monster.
Big Sister? What? I had remembered Gil once suggesting a plan of action for when the girls entered the pubesent stage – but this was far more vile than what I had expected him to have come up with; and apparently he had only one sucessful subject. What few sisters had been left in Rapture had been wasted for this beast?
Big Sister roared, and began tossing fireballs. I ducked behind an anamatronic Ryan, and his upper body was sent flying; paint was melting off as he crashed into a wall.
She jumped over the desk in front of the pair of legs, and I quickly raised the gun to her helmet. As I did this, she grabbed it with telekinisis, and crushed the pistol in her hand.
Elizabeth looked at the lump of metal, seemingly both scared and saddened at the same time. As tears began to form her eyes, Big Sister seemed to pause for a moment, apparently looking at her.
I took the momment to smash her helmet with my SMG – my primal instincts gaining control over me. She slipped and fell, and howled loudly. I ran and ducked into a room. Behind me, the doorway became a lit on fire.
I was in the primary museum area. I could see old displays starting to com to life, and I quickly rose up. Big Sister blasted large pieces of metal flying at me, and I barely landed on the floor of the building in time. I quickly bolted through a hole in the wall. It was a maintanence shaft. The backway was cut off, so I just kept going forward. After several minutes of running, I came out of the maintanence path. I could see fire coming, so I slammed the door shut. I realized I was gasping for air.
As I stopped for a moment, I realized that this was a repair shop for the park. Connected to it was a bathysphere, and it was unlocked. How it had remained unlocked was beyond me – most likely hacked by someone trying to get out. I nearly tripped over a corpse that was probably that someone, and an idea began to form in my mind.
Big Sister hadn't seen us yet, so I ducked behind a corner. The repair shop was far too small to simply slip past her, but there was an ammo dispenser behind me.
I took out some of the dollars I had found in the ticket office, and inserted them. I managed to get a proximity mine out, and it clanked loudly as it fell down to the floor. Big Sister howled and turned towards us. I pressed the button for the bathysphere to open, and feigned trying to enter. Big Sister failed to see me toss the mine in; or at least she couldn't act in time.
Big Sister jumped at the door, and I tossed in the mine behind her. I pressed the emergency release for the bathysphere, and it floated away as it exploded. I looked out the window and saw the whreckage float onto the ocean floor below.
I could also see a figure swimming out, but I turned away.
"Please God, don't tell me they retain the invincibility after puberty," I whispered.
The Little Ones had been made to withstand most damage and survive unscathed. They had even been shown to survive the cold and pressure of the ocean, if necessary; but that was only for when they were younger. If all the genetics put into them was constant, and never disrupted, then all I had done was anger an already psychotic descendant of the Protector program.
"Look! An angel!" Elizabeth said, suddenly happy again. I realized she was pointing to the corpse.
"-rigid? Do you hear me?" Sinclair's voice blurted over static.
"Yes, yes I can hear you," I said as I regretfully let Elizabeth go and begin harvesting the adam from the corpse.
"Lamb's got splicers headed to the park from every which way. There's somethin' else apparently gone down at Pauper's Drop, and I can't get anyone on the radio over there. Somethin' about a revolt against Lamb. Now I realize the former of what I said means you need to hurry, or you need to—" Sinclair began.
"I am not harming the child. Do you hear me?" I responded, my throat sounding raspy from the stress.
"Let me put it to you this way: it's either she dies for somethin', or she dies because Sofia Lamb made her become part of whatever crazy scheme she's been workin' on," Sinclair said.
I paused, and watched the child continue to extract adam.
"Can you delay the splicers?" I asked.
"I'm already priming six different sector alarms to go off further down the ride. You'll need over a'hundred ounces of adam to get Incinerate!, so I suggest you get movin'," Sinclair answered, "And for heaven's sake – don't stand in front of a camera so Lamb can see ya! You're lucky you tricked Big Sissy this time. She'll be back."
Evading the splicers was no walk in the park. As I rounded a corner, there were two splicers arguing next to a garbage can. I took a small pebble from the ground, and threw it into a puddle.
"What was that?" the man growled, turning.
"Don't try and change the subject you bastar-" the woman responded, her mangled jaw coming clearly into view from the firelight.
"Shut up! I think that was the kruat! Come on!" the man yelled, grabbing the woman by the hand and dragging her along with him through the water drenched floor.
I fired off a bolt of lightning as they stepped into the pool of water, and they both began to twitch and convulse. After a few moments, they both fell over. I heard footsteps coming down a stairway behind me, and I pulled back into the corner.
The splicer stepped down, not noticing me at first. I pulled out the gun and shot it straight into his eye before he had a chance to yell. He gasped, and fell over onto the floor. An alarm began to blare, and I bolted up the stairs. As I headed through the metal supports of a facade, I could see the shadows of splicers on the other side of the fabric.
I kept moving, keeping as quiet as I could. I opened the next door, and nearly fell down one of the giant anamatronic hands, disconnected and rusting. I slowly slid down, and grabbed some spare ammunitions a splicer had left lying on a table.
When I neared the exit door, I could see a splicer group were busy debating on something, right past the clockwork scenery that apparently had given me enough cover.
"That's it! Spread out! She's gotten three of our boys, and I'm havin' no more lost! Clean house!" a male splicer in prison uniform barked.
I looked for another way out of the room, but there was no other exit. I was trapped.
- Sofia lives, Big Sister lives
- Sofia dies, Big Sister lives
- Sofia lives, Big Sister dies
- Sofia dies, Big Sister lives
