[for Rory] Cause no-one is safe in these streets
I came down to Rapture because I genuinely thought there was a chance I could help. That I could contribute something, whether it be scientific insight or assistance, simple willingness to do the right thing -- kind of in short supply among the native residents, clearly -- or, after I got hopped up on the same power-granting substance that's helped cause all these problems, combat expertise.
So far, my one contribution is to knock out someone who was on our side, sort of.
No, not sort of. Jack was on our side, one of the good guys. He just wanted to help, too. He didn't choose to kill Ryan, to attack us, never chose to be born, subjected to accelerated ageing, programmed to obey commands without realizing that was what he was doing until that last one.
Last couple, really.
And now he's dead. Dead, without ever having a chance to really live, to make his own decisions, to be a person. All the things I'm trying so hard to do and be, that I've had the opportunity to do because of simple chance, really. They made me, too, and they were going to program me.
I'm taking this personally. There's a lot of people gearing up to go find Atlas -- Fontaine, I should say, and should have known that accent was way too folksy to be real -- but I intend to get there first and show him what lab grown tools can do when they get free will and choices of their own.
I intend this, right up until I get to the Little Wonders educational facility quote unquote, and hear the girl cry out.
Little Sister. It could be that it's some unfortunate little girl who just got dropped out of her normal life into this bowl of crazy, but there's a cadence to it, an unearthliness. That doesn't change the fact that there's a little girl in distress, though.
Someone else they took and changed and perverted and conditioned, just because they could, because it was convenient, because the output, the power, the profit, all of these were more important than a little orphan girl. I don't even know what's going to happen to them, now. They can hardly stay here, with everything that's going on, but given that plasmids and ADAM only operate at these depths, what happens to a Little Sister if we take her up in a bathysphere? No one's tried, yet. They always go to Tenenbaum, who presumably has her own exit strategy, but I don't see that staying viable.
Fontaine can wait. I'm getting this little girl, this one little girl, and I am finding a way to get her out of here.
I'm at the source of the sound in moments. Swinging through Rapture isn't the same as New York, and my acquired powers don't work in entirely the same way, but it's close enough that I got used to it real fast. I drop from the ceiling, gauging the situation even as I rush it: one Little Sister, cornered by a splicer that looks about ready to tear her apart to get at her genetic material. Charming looking fellow.
"Shouldn't you at least bring candy?" I ask, shooting a webline to the back of his leg and yanking. He goes down, rolls and starts to get back up, but my forward stride has brought me closer by then. I don't even bend down, just put another line of webbing on his chest and wrench him up to meet my fist.
Previously, the question of what to do with them afterwards has occurred to me. Whether I can just leave them there, knocked out, vulnerable to anyone who comes by, people that may be less concerned with human life than I am.
Right now, I don't care. This guy got to make his own choices, and he made all the wrong ones. It's the girl that concerns me now. The one backing up, saying, "No, stay back," as if I've got the same ugly designs as the unconscious rabbit-masked fellow I just put down. I guess it's reasonable. I'm wearing a mask, I have powers.
"I'm going to help you, I swear, you don't have to be afraid," I tell her, darting forward and scooping her up. Which is easy enough, but holding on isn't, because she's determined to be neither scooped nor carried.
"No! No, no, no, Mr Bubbles, make her put me down."
Is Mr Bubbles the doll? That's adorable. A little depressing, and it doesn't help me feel any less of a monster, but it's really for her own-
It's not spider sense that warns me. Nothing they worked up down here simulating that. But something, some primal animal sense, some instinct everyone has, call it human sense, picks up on the sound behind me. If it was spider sense, I could have been moving before I even had a full idea what was going on. As it is, I have to turn and see the Big Daddy, confirm that yes that is a rivet gun being aimed at my person, and then I'm moving.
Turning my back on that is not a thing I like doing, but there is a little girl in my arms and, nigh invulnerable as Little Sisters are or no, I am not using her as any kind of shield. I turn, and throw us into a dash sideways, sliding into cover. I can hear the pops of the gun, the ricochets as the bolts bounce off the walls. I'm certain I feel one hiss past my face, hot and fast and super dangerous.
I can't do this hanging on to a little girl. "Stay here," I tell her, which is probably pointless on a number of levels. The Big Daddy isn't going to hurt her, that's the complete opposite of their deal, and she's not going to listen to me because she thinks I'm trying to kidnap her. Which, technically, I am, just not for the reason she thinks.
But why would she think otherwise? Her life is one long story of people doing fundamental wrongs to her for the sake of profit and their own egos.
I want to fix it, I want to fix this one, this one person here, but to do that...
...I have to somehow take down a giant armored diving suit that is trying to make me a wall fixture. With webs and my fists.
Okay. I can do this.
Step one, move. I'm over the cover and up the wall in moments, swinging in an arc, staying ahead of the rivet gun, changing direction as often as I can so it doesn't start anticipating. Cover. I need cover.
Okay mostly what I need is for this guy to not be shooting at me, and also maybe a rocket car, but for now less imminent chance of small metal bolts shearing through my person, please, thank you.
I fire some webbing at it, in hopes of obscuring its vision, but... there's a lot of visor. I could probably cover it, even, if I'd hit it. No spider-sense, less accuracy. I succeed only in webbing its shoulder to... nothing, which slows it down exactly zero, and it's by the skin of my teeth I get behind a counter before I'm in its sights.
I have a moment. Need to use it. Strategy. It's big, it's in an armored diving suit. What works on things in armored diving suits? The bends. I'll give it the bends.
How the heck would I give it the bends?
I'll-
A small sphere hits the top of the counter and bounces over to land beside me. There are green lights on it. It is flashing. And beeping.
-explode?
I launch myself back over the counter, which absorbs most of the blast, but I can feel it ripping apart behind me, splinters striking my back.
"What do tiny mines have to do with the Art Deco movement?! You are not on theme!" I shout, as I, yes, once again fling myself to the ceiling and into a swing, because once more I'm in that place where a Big Daddy is shooting a rivet gun at me. Also apparently exploding mines.
...oh, no.
There's how I do this.
Oh, this is not going to be fun.
I land and web a nearby trashcan, yanking it off its support and to me, to hold in front of me as a shield. I can hear the all-too-loud sound of metal bolts hitting it, starting to deform it.
"I'm blocking this with a trashcan because your attack is garbage!" I call, from my defensive huddle. I don't think I can enrage it -- further than it's current state of trying to kill me, that is -- but, hell, I can try.
The cannon on its shoulder draws a bead.
Right.
Okay, Jess, here we go.
It fires. I hurl the trashcan, not to intercept, but simply to try and knock the rivet gun out of my path while I...
...scoop up the proximity mine as it lands beside me and throw myself into the air. Towards the huge thing with the guns and such. Holding a mine. A mine. A mine that is beeping faster and faster. I twist my wrist, apply some webbing to the mine in my hand, and then fastball it at the Big Daddy. It sticks.
The Big Daddy fires another, straight at me, swinging straight for it. I catch it in mid-swing and land a moment later...
...on top of the Big Daddy.
"Hey, you dropped this," I say, throwing it hard onto the figure I am desperately trying not to be thrown off of as it twists beneath me and swipes at me, firing rivets into the ceiling as it tries to get the right angle to hit me.
Oh, yeah, that worked, I'm a genius, I-
-need to not be here, jump, swing, because-
The mines explode. At least, I assume they explode. Mostly what happens is some great force punches me from behind, slams me into a wall. I think it's a wall. It felt like... mostly it felt like stopping, very painfully.
I'm on the ground. I assume I fell there from the wall. I may have lost time. I may have... no, thinking, not dead. Probably not dead. Can't breathe very well, so that's... fun.
Have not been riveted. I think. I think. I don't know that I could feel it right now, there is... a lot of pain. I can't pin much of it down. My chest... chest hurts a great deal. I think... I think I will just lie here until that stops. Maybe that's a bad idea? That's a bad idea. Move. Jess, move.
I turn my head. The Big Daddy is a crumpled heap on the floor.
Look at that, we match. "Who's... your..." I manage, and then choke out a cough, which also hurts a great deal. On top of the great deal of pain already mentioned.
I need... well, medical attention. Little Sister is probably fine, but I don't think I can convince her to come with me, and I sure can't go over and grab her. That would involve standing. Moving. Things that are beyond me. Which makes that medical attention thing... kind of tricky. Ow.
Radio? Broken. Maybe I could ask the Little Sister to go for help. Ha. Ha. Ow.
She's saying something, I think. I can see her mouth moving, indistinctly, although she seems to be making a high pitched whine. Everything is. Explosion. Equals. Ears. Pain. Vibration?
Did the Big Daddy get up?
No. No, I can see it. Still on the ground. I think she's talking to it, although she's looking...
With monumental effort, I turn my head again, a wretched noise -- I assume, I can't hear it -- escaping me.
...she's looking at a second Big Daddy, that apparently just arrived to help save the Little Sister. Lot of people wanting to save this one. That's all I wanted. Working out... working out real well. With the... with the pain and all.
And the drill-wielding behemoth about to finish the job.
That's it, then. Can't move. Can't get out of the way. Can't save the Little Sister. Couldn't save Jack. Couldn't save Uncle Ben. Can't even save mysel-
No.
No.
That was Peter. Peter didn't save Uncle Ben. I didn't even exist. I'm not Peter-
-but he sure as hell wouldn't lie down for this, painful internal injuries that may cause death at any moment, possibly, from the pain it sure feels that way, or no painful internal injuries. I'm not him, but you can bet your ass I'm not about to do any less.
It charges.
I shoot a webline to the wall and simply pull with the last of my remaining strength, skidding mere yards but out of the path, the drill slamming down where I was a moment ago, my next batch of webbing tangling its feet, sending it tipping to the ground.
It's going to get up.
Get up, Jess. Get up first.
I don't.
It's getting up, and...
I can't.
So far, my one contribution is to knock out someone who was on our side, sort of.
No, not sort of. Jack was on our side, one of the good guys. He just wanted to help, too. He didn't choose to kill Ryan, to attack us, never chose to be born, subjected to accelerated ageing, programmed to obey commands without realizing that was what he was doing until that last one.
Last couple, really.
And now he's dead. Dead, without ever having a chance to really live, to make his own decisions, to be a person. All the things I'm trying so hard to do and be, that I've had the opportunity to do because of simple chance, really. They made me, too, and they were going to program me.
I'm taking this personally. There's a lot of people gearing up to go find Atlas -- Fontaine, I should say, and should have known that accent was way too folksy to be real -- but I intend to get there first and show him what lab grown tools can do when they get free will and choices of their own.
I intend this, right up until I get to the Little Wonders educational facility quote unquote, and hear the girl cry out.
Little Sister. It could be that it's some unfortunate little girl who just got dropped out of her normal life into this bowl of crazy, but there's a cadence to it, an unearthliness. That doesn't change the fact that there's a little girl in distress, though.
Someone else they took and changed and perverted and conditioned, just because they could, because it was convenient, because the output, the power, the profit, all of these were more important than a little orphan girl. I don't even know what's going to happen to them, now. They can hardly stay here, with everything that's going on, but given that plasmids and ADAM only operate at these depths, what happens to a Little Sister if we take her up in a bathysphere? No one's tried, yet. They always go to Tenenbaum, who presumably has her own exit strategy, but I don't see that staying viable.
Fontaine can wait. I'm getting this little girl, this one little girl, and I am finding a way to get her out of here.
I'm at the source of the sound in moments. Swinging through Rapture isn't the same as New York, and my acquired powers don't work in entirely the same way, but it's close enough that I got used to it real fast. I drop from the ceiling, gauging the situation even as I rush it: one Little Sister, cornered by a splicer that looks about ready to tear her apart to get at her genetic material. Charming looking fellow.
"Shouldn't you at least bring candy?" I ask, shooting a webline to the back of his leg and yanking. He goes down, rolls and starts to get back up, but my forward stride has brought me closer by then. I don't even bend down, just put another line of webbing on his chest and wrench him up to meet my fist.
Previously, the question of what to do with them afterwards has occurred to me. Whether I can just leave them there, knocked out, vulnerable to anyone who comes by, people that may be less concerned with human life than I am.
Right now, I don't care. This guy got to make his own choices, and he made all the wrong ones. It's the girl that concerns me now. The one backing up, saying, "No, stay back," as if I've got the same ugly designs as the unconscious rabbit-masked fellow I just put down. I guess it's reasonable. I'm wearing a mask, I have powers.
"I'm going to help you, I swear, you don't have to be afraid," I tell her, darting forward and scooping her up. Which is easy enough, but holding on isn't, because she's determined to be neither scooped nor carried.
"No! No, no, no, Mr Bubbles, make her put me down."
Is Mr Bubbles the doll? That's adorable. A little depressing, and it doesn't help me feel any less of a monster, but it's really for her own-
It's not spider sense that warns me. Nothing they worked up down here simulating that. But something, some primal animal sense, some instinct everyone has, call it human sense, picks up on the sound behind me. If it was spider sense, I could have been moving before I even had a full idea what was going on. As it is, I have to turn and see the Big Daddy, confirm that yes that is a rivet gun being aimed at my person, and then I'm moving.
Turning my back on that is not a thing I like doing, but there is a little girl in my arms and, nigh invulnerable as Little Sisters are or no, I am not using her as any kind of shield. I turn, and throw us into a dash sideways, sliding into cover. I can hear the pops of the gun, the ricochets as the bolts bounce off the walls. I'm certain I feel one hiss past my face, hot and fast and super dangerous.
I can't do this hanging on to a little girl. "Stay here," I tell her, which is probably pointless on a number of levels. The Big Daddy isn't going to hurt her, that's the complete opposite of their deal, and she's not going to listen to me because she thinks I'm trying to kidnap her. Which, technically, I am, just not for the reason she thinks.
But why would she think otherwise? Her life is one long story of people doing fundamental wrongs to her for the sake of profit and their own egos.
I want to fix it, I want to fix this one, this one person here, but to do that...
...I have to somehow take down a giant armored diving suit that is trying to make me a wall fixture. With webs and my fists.
Okay. I can do this.
Step one, move. I'm over the cover and up the wall in moments, swinging in an arc, staying ahead of the rivet gun, changing direction as often as I can so it doesn't start anticipating. Cover. I need cover.
Okay mostly what I need is for this guy to not be shooting at me, and also maybe a rocket car, but for now less imminent chance of small metal bolts shearing through my person, please, thank you.
I fire some webbing at it, in hopes of obscuring its vision, but... there's a lot of visor. I could probably cover it, even, if I'd hit it. No spider-sense, less accuracy. I succeed only in webbing its shoulder to... nothing, which slows it down exactly zero, and it's by the skin of my teeth I get behind a counter before I'm in its sights.
I have a moment. Need to use it. Strategy. It's big, it's in an armored diving suit. What works on things in armored diving suits? The bends. I'll give it the bends.
How the heck would I give it the bends?
I'll-
A small sphere hits the top of the counter and bounces over to land beside me. There are green lights on it. It is flashing. And beeping.
-explode?
I launch myself back over the counter, which absorbs most of the blast, but I can feel it ripping apart behind me, splinters striking my back.
"What do tiny mines have to do with the Art Deco movement?! You are not on theme!" I shout, as I, yes, once again fling myself to the ceiling and into a swing, because once more I'm in that place where a Big Daddy is shooting a rivet gun at me. Also apparently exploding mines.
...oh, no.
There's how I do this.
Oh, this is not going to be fun.
I land and web a nearby trashcan, yanking it off its support and to me, to hold in front of me as a shield. I can hear the all-too-loud sound of metal bolts hitting it, starting to deform it.
"I'm blocking this with a trashcan because your attack is garbage!" I call, from my defensive huddle. I don't think I can enrage it -- further than it's current state of trying to kill me, that is -- but, hell, I can try.
The cannon on its shoulder draws a bead.
Right.
Okay, Jess, here we go.
It fires. I hurl the trashcan, not to intercept, but simply to try and knock the rivet gun out of my path while I...
...scoop up the proximity mine as it lands beside me and throw myself into the air. Towards the huge thing with the guns and such. Holding a mine. A mine. A mine that is beeping faster and faster. I twist my wrist, apply some webbing to the mine in my hand, and then fastball it at the Big Daddy. It sticks.
The Big Daddy fires another, straight at me, swinging straight for it. I catch it in mid-swing and land a moment later...
...on top of the Big Daddy.
"Hey, you dropped this," I say, throwing it hard onto the figure I am desperately trying not to be thrown off of as it twists beneath me and swipes at me, firing rivets into the ceiling as it tries to get the right angle to hit me.
Oh, yeah, that worked, I'm a genius, I-
-need to not be here, jump, swing, because-
The mines explode. At least, I assume they explode. Mostly what happens is some great force punches me from behind, slams me into a wall. I think it's a wall. It felt like... mostly it felt like stopping, very painfully.
I'm on the ground. I assume I fell there from the wall. I may have lost time. I may have... no, thinking, not dead. Probably not dead. Can't breathe very well, so that's... fun.
Have not been riveted. I think. I think. I don't know that I could feel it right now, there is... a lot of pain. I can't pin much of it down. My chest... chest hurts a great deal. I think... I think I will just lie here until that stops. Maybe that's a bad idea? That's a bad idea. Move. Jess, move.
I turn my head. The Big Daddy is a crumpled heap on the floor.
Look at that, we match. "Who's... your..." I manage, and then choke out a cough, which also hurts a great deal. On top of the great deal of pain already mentioned.
I need... well, medical attention. Little Sister is probably fine, but I don't think I can convince her to come with me, and I sure can't go over and grab her. That would involve standing. Moving. Things that are beyond me. Which makes that medical attention thing... kind of tricky. Ow.
Radio? Broken. Maybe I could ask the Little Sister to go for help. Ha. Ha. Ow.
She's saying something, I think. I can see her mouth moving, indistinctly, although she seems to be making a high pitched whine. Everything is. Explosion. Equals. Ears. Pain. Vibration?
Did the Big Daddy get up?
No. No, I can see it. Still on the ground. I think she's talking to it, although she's looking...
With monumental effort, I turn my head again, a wretched noise -- I assume, I can't hear it -- escaping me.
...she's looking at a second Big Daddy, that apparently just arrived to help save the Little Sister. Lot of people wanting to save this one. That's all I wanted. Working out... working out real well. With the... with the pain and all.
And the drill-wielding behemoth about to finish the job.
That's it, then. Can't move. Can't get out of the way. Can't save the Little Sister. Couldn't save Jack. Couldn't save Uncle Ben. Can't even save mysel-
No.
No.
That was Peter. Peter didn't save Uncle Ben. I didn't even exist. I'm not Peter-
-but he sure as hell wouldn't lie down for this, painful internal injuries that may cause death at any moment, possibly, from the pain it sure feels that way, or no painful internal injuries. I'm not him, but you can bet your ass I'm not about to do any less.
It charges.
I shoot a webline to the wall and simply pull with the last of my remaining strength, skidding mere yards but out of the path, the drill slamming down where I was a moment ago, my next batch of webbing tangling its feet, sending it tipping to the ground.
It's going to get up.
Get up, Jess. Get up first.
I don't.
It's getting up, and...
I can't.