Chapter Text
Ellie, wake up!
Eleanor Lamb snapped awake with a jerk as urgency not her own slammed through her mind.
Father? She questioned sleepily, barely coherent. The jolt of answering adrenaline her father’s urgency sent through her body jolted her fully awake.
Something's wrong, I heard a strange sound and Celeste hasn't come to bed. Now the apartment is too quiet.
Eleanor sat up, listening intently. As her father indicated, she heard nothing, and that was more concerning than if whatever sound her father had initially heard had repeated. Celeste was a wonderful and considerate partner. Her girlfriend always tried to keep it quiet when Eleanor was managing to sleep peacefully, knowing how rare that was for her, but her lover was a klutz. The quieter she tried to be, the more noise she inevitably made as she dropped things, tripped over the coffee table, and, hilariously, kept shushing herself at the slightest noise. Eleanor hadn't the heart to tell her that she'd sleep easier if Celeste just went about like normal.
But those sounds were routine and comforting, father wouldn't wake her just because Celeste had dropped the remote or slammed her shin into the coffee table, again. And right now there was nothing. No shushing, no soft cursing, just total silence.
Something was very wrong.
Silently, Eleanor slipped out of bed and made her way to the closed bedroom door, not bothering to get dressed. A bright white camisole and panties may not be the best choice if there's an intruder but she's more than capable of fighting in them and won't leave Celeste vulnerable for the time it would take to change.
Slowly, quietly, she opened the door, taking care to lift it, slightly, as she did so as to prevent the squeaky hinge she'd been meaning to fix from complaining. She peered out into the darkness of the apartment, another sign that something was very wrong. Celeste always left the kitchen light on so she could see to walk through the dark apartment. Thankfully, Eleanor wasn't normal and had been born and raised in the near pure darkness only the deep Ocean can produce. It only took a moment to spot the five figures dressed in black and wearing night vision goggles and tac vests. They looked like commandos (burglars wouldn’t be so well equipped) and were each armed with what appeared to be silenced handguns. The men were gesturing silently to one another with some kind of sign language. Celeste was no where to be seen.
Fury ignited inside her that these men would dare come after her and the small family she’d built, Father's anger and worry feeding her own. As much as she’d love to fry these assholes she wouldn't be able to use Incinerate. The old turn of the century building is beautiful, but with it’s ancient wood floors, old wiring, and ornate wooden molding it was a fire trap. Thankfully, there were other abilities she could use. Eleanor called upon every ounce of enhanced speed ADAM had granted her and moved. The bedroom door slammed against the wall, wooden door and drywall both cracking from the force.
Eleanor came out at full speed, and before the intruders could react to the blur racing across their goggle’s lenses, she'd already crossed the living room and slammed into the closest commando. Her fist smashed into his jaw just beneath the goggles before delivering a brutal kick to his knee, the sound of splintering bone and an agonized scream sounding out visibly startling the man’s comrades.
The soldier that had been standing beside her victim jumped and fumbled his weapon at her sudden appearance and his partners agonized shrieking as he writhed on the floor. He started to raise his gun but Father had already whispered a devious suggestion in her mind. Eleanor snarled a vicious grin, her white teeth gleaming threateningly in the dark room, and gestured. Her telekinesis picked up the television behind him and hurtled the heavy black box towards the unsuspecting man. His fellow commandos shouted a warning even as glass shattered and plastic snapped, the television crashing screen first into his head. The intruder dropped to the floor in a graceless sprawl, the heavy, ruined television capped over his head and blood pooling underneath him. A large shard of the broken screen was jutting out of his neck, glistening with rivulets of bright red.
Yelling and panic immediately erupted across the room as the three remaining commandos attempted to regroup and respond. Eleanor rushed towards her next victim, ignoring the sting of shots they fired at her in their desperation to keep her from getting close. She trusted her enhanced healing would keep her up and fighting, though she may have to reopen some of the wounds later to remove the bullets.
At Father's reminder that her healing would not be much help against a head shot, Eleanor leaped, nearly touching the high ceiling and easily crossing the few feet between her and the next startled commando, slamming her fist into the side of the man's head with all her weight and enhanced strength. The man's skull burst open like a melon, blood and brain matter splattering across her face and clothes. Unfortunately, her landing wasn't as solid as she'd planned. He knees buckled slightly against the force of it and she had to grab the back of the blood stained sofa to balance her stumbling body. Irritated, she shook off the slight dizziness, leaving Father to figure out the cause of it, and turned towards where the remaining two commandos were continuing to fire at her even as they attempted to put more distance between her and them in the vain hope that it would save them. To throw off their aim, she allowed a ball of arcing electricity to envelop her right hand, the bright light blinding their vision through the night vision goggles. The gunfire immediately ceased as the men threw their arms up to block the searing light burning their eyes.
Eleanor crouched, fist full of lightning held at the ready, bunching her muscles to leap across the room once more when, with a thundering crash and the echo of splintered wood, the door to the apartment slammed open, a dozen more commandos pouring into the room, all of them shooting as soon as they caught sight of her.
Eleanor's knees buckled, and this time her grip on the sofa couldn't steady her. Down she went, slamming into the hard wood floor with bruising force. Looking down, Eleanor expected to see her camisole soaked with her own blood, though she surprisingly felt no pain. She was shocked to see her torso and legs were riddled with dozens of small darts. Her vision swam and the world whirled around her.
When reality finally settled, somewhat, she was sprawled out on her side, the oak flooring cold and hard beneath her. Black booted feet surrounded her and she felt a writhing ball of panic build in her chest and throat. She wanted so badly to get them away from her. Her power had faded away with her break in concentration so, desperately, Eleanor reached down to pull on the blistering inferno that had raged inside her since she was 13. She managed to snap her numb fingers, but no ball of flame emerged to ignite her attackers and burn them to ashes for daring to touch her tiny family. Confused and terrified, she again reached for the flame, but again it slipped away from her. Through the smothering wool that clouded her mind she frantically reached for her telekinesis, hoping to at least blast them away from her. Nausea and exhaustion left her reeling, her power barely able to make one of them stumble back a step from the push.
Her vision darkened, Father screaming in her mind for her stay awake. Forcing her eyes open, Eleanor finally spotted the body lying on the kitchen floor behind her attackers. Celeste's pretty green eyes open and blank, a single gunshot wound between them. Tears slipped down her face as everything finally went black.
* * * * *
Icy water trickled down the thick glass, pooling in freezing puddles on the broken tile. Outside the giant window a massive, hulking figure in a bulky diving suit hefted his rivet gun, scattering the few curious fish brave enough to investigate the air bubbles drifting up from the crack of space between the glass and metal trim, and set to repairing the loose bolts allowing in the salty ocean water. T he rivulets of water slowed to a trickle, then stopped. The large figure checked the seal, then turned to seek out the next leak, one heavy, lumbering step at a time. He’d likely find one before too long, as building a city at the bottom of the ocean, with the humongous pressure from the extreme depth and sheer amount of water that came with it, meant for never ending maintenance. The civil war and resulting anarchy that had erupted within Rapture had left, and was still leaving, a lot of damage to fix, as well.
From where she lay strapped to a medical bed, her ADAM rich blood steadily dripping through the IV and into the nearly full blood bag, Eleanor watched hazily as the Big Daddy disappeared into the murky water outside. The sight of the familiar figure made her chest burn in remembered grief.
Neither of them had asked for what Dr. Tenenbaum and Dr. Suchong had done to them. Eleanor had only been 6 when she was kidnapped and sold to Fontaine’s Little Sister Orphanage, a front for human experimentation in the quest for more ADAM, a chemical produced by a parasitic sea slug that could alter DNA. The so called ‘miracle drug’ could change a person’s looks, race, sex, intelligence level, and even give them super powers via injections called Plasmids. The company and scientists behind the sale of ADAM and Plasmids conveniently hid the fact that not only was ADAM addictive but repeated, long term use of it eventually caused the break down of DNA, leading to horrific cancerous tumors, physical mutations, and violent mental instability. But the slugs alone couldn’t produce enough ADAM to meet public demand.
Through horrific and unethical human experimentation, the scientists had discovered that, for some unknown reason, young girls between the ages of 4 and 12 were the only humans capable of surviving both the implantation and long term hosting of the ADAM parasite. The company fueling the research and sale of ADAM, Fontaine Futuristics, put up the facade of an orphanage for girls and starting implanting them with the parasite. The implanted girls were called Little Sisters, after the so called orphanage they were taken from. The ADAM parasite turning them into human ADAM factories and the huge amount of the chemical in their systems turned their skin an ashy gray, made their eyes glow a bright gold, and even caused their voices to gain an eerie hollow quality. Looking so monstrous seemed to make it even easier for the scientists to convince themselves that the girls were no longer human and, therefore, didn’t need to be treated humanely.
Another side effect of the huge amounts of ADAM in their developing systems was enhanced healing (Eleanor forcibly pushed away the memories of being strapped down and cut into over and over, of regrowing whole limbs they’d sawed off so the scientists could test the limits of that healing). Later, after puberty, they’d discovered that, while their bodies no longer produced ADAM as effectively, they had gained enhanced strength and speed as well as the ability to use several of the Plasmid powers which, unlike normal Plasmid users, they could use without the need for frequent ADAM injections, marketed as EVE, to fuel the abilities. Though excessive use of their powers were a drain on the teenage Little Sisters’ systems and overuse without a boost of ADAM, or at least some down time and a good meal, could be dangerous.
But even that vast increase in ADAM production hadn’t been enough for the company or public demand. Eventually the scientists devised a combination of brainwashing, conditioning, and mental reprogramming to force the Little Sisters to feel a constant hunger to seek out the corpses of the recently deceased and drink their ADAM rich blood, their systems able to filter and purify the ADAM within it and jumping up production of the chemical even more.
But due to the erupted civil war requiring greater and greater amounts of EVE to fuel the Plasmid power use in each battle as well as the increasingly violent and unstable citizens’ addictions, both sides of the conflict were seeking out the Little Sisters, intending to rip into them and claim both their ADAM rich blood and the parasite within the children for the massive amounts of ADAM it contained. Thus the Big Daddies were created to serve as protectors.
Eleanor’s own Big Daddy was Jack Darcy, a surface dweller who’d stumbled upon the discovery of Rapture and, in order to keep its existence a secret, was imprisoned and eventually forced into the Big Daddy program. They’d experimented on him, injecting him with experimental Plasmids, and sealed him inside the Big Daddy’s armored diver’s suit. They’d brainwashed, conditioned, and reprogrammed him, just as they’d done to her. Then they’d brought Eleanor and the newly dubbed Subject Delta together and, through a combination of electricity, ADAM, those damned chairs, and a cocktail of drugs, managed to force a mental pair-bond on them.
That bond was indescribable. For all it had been unwilling, Eleanor would never have wanted to give it up. The feeling of being in another’s head, to know them backwards and forwards, to intimately know every thought and memory was an amazing experience. She’d never felt so safe as she did with him. Part of the drugs they’d given them had forced a sort of artificial love. The emotion is, after all, only a series of chemicals released in the brain. It had been their choice to embrace it rather than endure it. They’d grabbed hold of that love with both hands, the only comfort they had in their bleak existence, and had become father and daughter in truth.
And then her mother found her and murdered her father right in front of her eyes. She took her away, took control of Rapture, broke Eleanor’s Little Sister programming, and then decided to continue her daughter ’s sad history of be ing a human experiment in the name of saving humanity from itself .
Eleanor consoled herself with the knowledge that even now, one of the new Little Sisters was on her way to give her final instructions to revive Father in a cloned body to the repentant Dr. Tenenbaum, who would ensure the Big Daddy mental programming wouldn’t revive with him. Father would be wholly himself when they revived him . 'Soon', she told herself, ' S oon Father will be alive, again, and he’ll save me . We’ll be together and free and I'll finally know what sunshine feels like outside of Father’s memories .'
A whoosh sounded out in the quarantined room, distracting her from her thoughts of freedom. She turned her head, slowly so as to avoid the usual dizziness from the blood loss, to witness her mother enter with another... volunteer. The woman's torn, form fitting red dress and scraggly bond hair were typical in Rapture, these days.
Large, sagging tumors clung to the woman's face and hip clearly identifying her as a Splicer, her ADAM addiction having damaged her mind and DNA hit by hit until tumors erupted all over her body and violent madness corrupted whoever she may have been before she’d chosen to alter her DNA. She was a marked contrast to Eleanor's mother. Dr. Sophia Lamb was the picture of prim propriety from her worn but clean dress and perfectly pinned coif to her neat little spectacles and polished heeled shoes. Both of them, however, wore the butterfly broach pinned proudly to their chests that proclaimed them members of The Rapture Family, her mother's sycophantic cult.
"Hello, Eleanor, it's good to see you finally awake." Her mother spoke distractedly, more interesting in peering into whatever test results were displayed in the folder she carried.
"I'm sorry mother, was my drugged unconsciousness inconvenient for you? How rude of me!" Eleanor drawled, facetiously apologetic. Her mother even glance at her but she did, unfortunately, catch the Splicer’s attention.
"Oh! The Messiah! What an honor it is to meet you! I am blessed to gaze upon the Lamb! " The woman's heavy Polish accent and surprisingly girlish voice practically dripped with awe and adoration. Eleanor sneered at the both of them and scoffed, choosing not to answer with the scorn the woman deserved. The satisfaction of seeing the offended shock her mother's crazy followers always showed wouldn't be worth what Mother would do to her to for it later.
"Right over here, Zivia, just lay down on the gurney and we can begin." Sophia ushered forward the star struck woman, choosing to ignore her daughter's attitude. She helped the Splicer get settled, aiding the woman in lifting up the massive tumor attached to her left hip and raising the gurney’s side just to keep it from hanging off the bed, before cleaning and sanitizing the woman's filthy arm. Eleanor watched, a heavy dread setting in her chest , as her mother tried to get the woman's shaking arm to hold still long enough to insert the IV.
"I'm sorry, Dr. Lamb, I'm just so nervous! What if I'm not accepted into Paradise? The things I’ve done… am I even worthy? " The woman apologized, the dark blush of shame that painted her cheeks making the pa sty skin of the sagging tumor obscuring nearly half her face all the more prominent.
Her mother took the woman's now clean hand into her own, the calm faith in her eyes sending a chill up Eleanor spine even as it reassured her follower. "Listen Zivia, you know as well as I do that so long as humanity can hold on to all those selfish desires it will . To truly be free and happy we must let go of the self and join with all of humanity in one, selfless, Utopia. Once you are free of your earthly body you will also be free of the self’s grasping selfishness and thus will be made worthy. You have been chosen as one of the first of the Rapture Family to reach that paradise! You're faith and sacrifice will finally be rewarded as you are made part of one grand Utopia within The Lamb !"
Blissful joy blossomed over the woman's ruined face. Eleanor fought down the nausea that threatened to overtake her. She didn't try to protest or talk sense into the woman. She didn't bother to beg or plead with her mother not to do this. She'd tried it all before and it only made it worse. Her mother was determined to eliminate ‘the self’ and create a Utopian repository of all mankind's minds and she'd decided that her daughter's body, with all it's enhancements and immunities due to her status as a Little Sister, was the perfect vessel. Never mind that she's destroying her daughter in the process, so long as her insane ideals are fulfilled she views it as a sacrifice well made!
Eleanor was terrified of the day her mother decided it was time to begin implanting the mental programming. Everything she was, her personality, memories, hopes, dreams, and emotions would all be wiped away to realize her mother’s ideal of a “perfected” humanity. That would be the day Eleanor Lamb died and her mother’s First Utopian was born.
Eleanor clenched her teeth as hard as she could to hold back the scream building behind them. Futilely she pulled at the restraints holding her down, the damned drugs her mother kept administering left her weak as a kitten, before finally settling back in the bed again, feeling hopeless and afraid. Her view of her dark, depressing cell wavered as helpless tears threatened to spill down her pale cheeks. Stubbornly she blinked them back, she refused to show weakness in front of these lunatics! And besides, Father would be alive again within next 24 hours so her mother would never get the chance to erase her.
Sophia had apparently finished whatever crazed, fanatical speech she was giving during Eleanor's moment of panic. Distantly, she heard her mother promise to turn on the radio so the woman could focus on the music instead of the procedure.
A click echoed against the tiled walls and floor and upbeat music drifted into the room, the perky beat at odds with the tense moment .
"I haven't got a headache darling
And my vision is ok too
Just look in my eyes and you can see
the trouble with me is you"
Eleanor couldn’t help the snort she gave , incredulous at fate's sense of humor. "Look, Mother!" she exclaimed dryly, "It's our song!"
Sophia Lamb shot her daughter a warning look as she finished setting up the IV. Her heels clicked against the cold tile as she strode across the room to disconnect the glowing red bag of blood Eleanor had steadily been draining into. With practiced, concise movements she hooked her captive daughter up to the to the tube leading to the transfusion machine sitting on a small table between the two beds. With a flick of a switch Sophia set the machine buzzing, steadily drawing the blood out of the Splicer and into Eleanor.
The ADAM enriched blood burned. I t always, always, burned as it forced itself into her veins.
As the Splicer's breathing began to stutter and slow, Eleanor could hear the screaming in her mind begin to build . An overwhelming avalanche of memories, thoughts, and impressions crashed over her, nearly drowning her as she struggled to hold onto herself in the midst of the onslaught .
Her name is Eleanor Lamb. She’s 16 years old and the daughter of Jack Darcy, code name Subject Delta. She was going to bring her father back and... and...
She is 10 year old Zivia, sobbing brokenly as she lay on the tiny gurny with the cooling body of her twin sister clutched in her emaciated arms as the doctor tsked over the failure of yet another test. Her sister is dead and the doctor will now surely send her to the little red house to die, as well. Why has HaShem let this happen? Does He hate them? Has He abandoned His people?!
"אָפּשטעל! ביטע, האַלטן! עס טוט וויי!" Ziv i a/Eleanor begged, her/their head felt like it was breaking open ! Why won't the doctor/mother stop? Can't she see her/their skin is blackening and burning? Surely she/they must be on fire, nothing else could possibly hurt this bad!
In the depths of her/their agony, and as a lifetime of thoughts and memories poured over her/them, one memory in particular caught her/their attention.
She is now was 35 and scuttling through the shadows, desperate to reach the room at The Pink Pearl she'd rented from Daniel Wales as quickly as she could. Sure she had to spread her legs to pay for it but it was still a dry roof over her head and relative safety considering the body of the last guy that killed one of his hookers was still hanging, skewered, on the wall in the lobby. She'd even managed to steal a hit of EVE from the two Splicers busy tearing into each other over it at a bar in the Plaza where she'd been trying to score a john for the night. If she could just get home she could enjoy the ecstasy of the hit as the tin of tuna she'd bought heated over the fire.
So excited to get home and shoot up, Zivia nearly walked out of the shadows of the boardwalk and into the path of the Little Sister and Big Daddy walking past the doorway of the The Pink Pearl. Terrified of the humongous drill attached to the trigger happy and very protective Big Daddy’s arm , Zivia froze huddled further into the shadows, barely daring to breathe as she silently watched t he cheerfully demented Little Sister grinned up at her monstrous protector, excitedly exclaiming to her “Mr. Bubbles” that she smelled an "angel" with ADAM . The girl’s yellow eyes glowed fiercely and her skin was ashy gray underneath the smears of blood and dirt, a sure sign of a well fed Little Sister full to the brim with ADAM. If the little bitch was alone… but she wasn’t, so Zivia held still and quiet, praying for the first time since she was 10 years old that the monster and his little demon would pass by without noticing her.
Eleanor Lamb grabbed hold of the memory of that Big Daddy. It reminded her of something... something that would save her, that would keep her Eleanor . It was... was...
* * * * *
"FATHER!" Eleanor screamed, desperate tears tracking down her cheeks. She tried to jolt out of the bed she was laying on, fear and terror making her want nothing more than to run and hide, but a tight pressure around her arms, legs, and feet held her trapped. Panic gripped her tightly as she took note of the tiny concrete cell she was trapped in, the only contents of which were the bed she was shackled to and several tables of what looked like medical equipment. It was all distressingly familiar, like her worst memories had forced their way out of her nightmares and taken her captive all over again.
Past and present blurring, she wondered wildly if she'd ever really escaped, if maybe the years of happiness she'd had were just a desperate dream.
I'm here, baby! Ellie, I'm here! Rapture's gone, I swear! Remember the apartment? We were attacked and they drugged you, remember?
Memories of the fight flooded back to her, along with them came the image of Celeste. Her beautiful, beloved Celeste, lying dead and discarded on the kitchen floor. Her panic mounted and grief burned in her chest. Tears flowed unchecked down her face as she gasped for breath, Eleanor unable to even wipe at them due to the metal shackles that gripped her bruisingly tight and kept her completely immoble.
Oh god, Father they… Celeste! Eleanor sobbed, still jerking at the restraints. The dizziness and weakness in her limbs in addition to being strapped down were so familiar it threatened to send her straight into another flashback. The overwhelming grief, ironically, was helping to just barely anchor her in the now. God she would never see her girlfriend again. They’d never watch silly French dramas on their tiny sofa or just wander Paris together for hours. She’d never snuggle with her as Celeste’s family teased them good naturedly at her girlfriend’s parent’s home or call in sick to work and just make love all day ever again. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, wanting desperately to deny that any of this was real.
I know, Ellie. I'm sorry. She didn't deserve that. N either of you do. But I need you focus right now, honey. Celeste is at peace but you’re still in danger! After you passed out they carried you down and loaded you into a v ehicle . They kept giving you drugs to keep you unconscious. Without your eyes open I couldn't see where they brought us but I know they loaded you onto a plane at one point. We could be anywhere. Her father’s mental voice was tense and worried. With the ease of long practice he sent her the memories of being carried down the four flights of steps at her apartment building and being lain on a mattress in what he assumed to be the back of a van. He shared the feeling of a needle sliding into her skin to keep her drugged and unconscious over and over again, unfortunately also interfering with his ability to pick up information with her senses.
A soft, cold voice sliced through air, interrupting her father’s run down of their situation. "21 years old and still crying out for 'Daddy' in your sleep. You disappoint me, Eleanor."
Eleanor froze at the familiar voice. Her eyes flew open and, shocked and horrified, she stared at her mother. Her mother whom she'd left behind on an American beach in favor of taking her Little Sisters and seeking help with Jack Ryan and his daughters. Distantly she could hear her father cursing in the back of her mind. For all the pain she’d caused her, Eleanor hadn't been able to kill her own mother. Father had been the one to teach her mercy, that you don't kill your enemies once they were subdued. Mother had been beaten, without her cult army at her beck and call or access to ADAM she hadn’t been a threat. Even Father had agreed that they likely would never have to see her again. What had changed?
"Mother?! What are you doing? Did you send those men after me? Tell them to kill Celeste?!" Eleanor demanded, struggling once more against the metal restraints holding her down. She couldn't figure out why they wouldn't break, Father’s memories showed it had been long enough since her last dose for her healing to have neutralized at least some of the drugs she’d been given, she could even feel the foggy weakness slowly lifting so why can’t she break them? With her enhanced strength she should be able to at least dent them!
Giving up for the moment, Eleanor took a long look at her mother. Sophia Lamb looked a lot older than she would have expected. In the five years since they'd left Rapture her mother looked to have aged fifteen. Deep wrinkles now lined her face, and the coldness she always seen her mother's eyes was now harsh and wintry. Any trace of softness or affection erased. Staring into those unfeeling eyes, Eleanor felt a chill of fear and dread.
Her mother strode closer, crossing the stark concrete room with the same prim, concise walk she’d always had. The familiar click of her high heels on tile contrasted sharply with the modern skirt, blouse, and lab coat she wore. She finally came to a stop next to the bed currently holding Eleanor captive. She stared down at her daughter for a long moment.
"After your selfishness destroyed my life's work I was a broken woman, Eleanor, but I knew I couldn't just give up. Humanity is sick and self destructive and needs help, desperately. So I picked up my old practice and started from scratch on finding a solution. Thankfully, the answer found me, instead. A group of like minded people had been searching for me since I left the surface. They read my published papers and saw the same truth I did. HYDRA was very interested in what I had to say."
Shocked disbelief erupted from the back of her mind. 'Father?' she called to him silently.
HYDRA was a fascist organization known for horrific human experiments who helped the Nazis in World War 2. Eleanor, they’re supposed to have been destroyed by Captain America! If they’re still around… Ellie we have to get you out of here! In his panic, flashes of her father’s memories raced, uncontrolled, though her mind. School books with a handsome blond man in a colorful uniform standing tall and proud. Horror stories his mother shared with him when he was older, his fingers gently wiping her tears away as they both stared down at the number forever etched on her forearm. The familiar images provoked the ghosts from her mother’s experiments that her father kept caged in the back of her mind to stir, several of them with first hand accounts of the atrocities HYDRA was only too eager to commit.
Nausea welled up inside her as her father struggled to push everything back down for her. Fear and panic writhed in her gut from dozens of people in her mind, building upon one another until she thought she would scream.
Sophia picked a cannula up from the metal table to the side of Eleanor’s bed. “I told them everything about Rapture and they were rightfully intrigued by ADAM. Unfortunately, Rapture seems to have descended into all out anarchy after we left. Not only is the city completely dead and half destroyed, but their thirst for ADAM caused them to hunt the ADAM parasites to extinction! In three years our people couldn’t locate a single specimen!”
That wall of grief welled up inside Eleanor, vying for prominence with the fear and nausea. Echoes of the same emotion came from the ghosts, but it was thankfully faded, now. Her father successful in pushing them back into their cages. For all that she’d hated Rapture and it’s madness, there were good people, innocent people, trapped there. The Little Sisters and Big Sisters she’d been unable to save have weighed on her for years, the knowledge they were all dead now was part horrible guilt and part relief. They were finally free of their suffering but they hadn’t deserved the fate they’d been given.
And as for Aunt Gracie… Eleanor can’t bring herself to think about it. Between Celeste’s murder, Aunt Gracie and Rapture’s demise, and her current situation if she let herself dwell on it all too deeply she would fall apart.
That’s right, Ellie, fight and kill and bleed to be free. You can mourn your losses when your safe, baby girl.
Clearly annoyed, either by their shared history or Eleanor’s drifting attention as she dealt with one shock after another, Sophia wasn’t careful as she plunged the cannula into Eleanor’s arm, searching around inside to find the vein when her carelessness caused her to miss it the first time. Eleanor grimaced at the stinging pain, she was almost grateful when her mother finally found the vein she was looking for. Almost. She’d been in this position before, after all. IVs had only ever meant suffering for her. Especially when administered by her mother.
“And considering you, Delta, and Tenenbaum cured all the surviving Little Sisters, well… that just leaves you as the sole source of ADAM, doesn’t it Eleanor? Tenenbaum never did figure out how to safely remove the parasite from a fully developed body, did she?” Sophia connected the tubing to the cannula, leaving Eleanor in the familiar position of having her blood drained in order to collect the ADAM saturating it. The tale tell red glow flowing into the bag gave proof to the existence of the healthy ADAM parasite still inside her.
“Mother, please! Don’t do this, you know what ADAM does to people! You want to bring the addiction, the genetic degradation, and murderous insanity here!? ADAM should die with Rapture or it will destroy the surface, too!” Eleanor pleaded with her mother, hoping to appeal to whatever sanity and decency remained in her. Even the idea of Splicers on the surface made her feel sick. She’d never forget the violent, mutated faces and dirty, grasping hands bruising the tiny arms and frightened faces of the Little Sisters, of her, as they tried to take the ADAM they carried inside. Every room and hallway slick with blood and littered with bodies as they tore into each other over scraps of food and syringes of EVE or Plasmids.
As Eleanor pleaded with her mother to see reason, Sophia silently hung the blood collection bag on a hook on the side of the bed and picked up a second cannula. Walking around the bed, she inserted this one in Eleanor’s left arm, thankfully getting the vein on the first try this time, and hooked it up to a bag of fluids hanging from the IV pole at the head of the bed that Eleanor could only just see if she craned her neck.
IVs in place, Sophia finally looked her daughter straight in the eye. “You’re childish selfishness robbed humanity of Utopia, Eleanor. I raised you to understand that sacrifice for the sake of alleviating human suffering is an acceptable price! I can only assume it was your pairbond with Delta that so corrupted your judgement. Well, it’s time to grow up and take your place! The scientists here are the greatest minds of a generation and we will fix ADAM’s degradation issues and use it to create a better mankind!”
Eleanor glared rebelliously into her mother’s cold blue eyes, she could see the light of fanaticism shining brightly in them. “Channeling Andrew Ryan, now, mother? Advancement at any price? Scientists can solve all mankind’s ills without petty moralities weighing them down? We’ve seen where that leads us. You once believed so strongly against Ryan’s views on how morals were holding back humanity that he threw you in prison for disagreeing with him publicly. How low the mighty have fallen! I told you before, I am not your bloody messiah!” she hissed at her mother, disgusted at how easily she seems to have forgotten the lessons of Rapture and the suffering it had brought to the once shining city of one million men, women, and children.
“No, your not. Not anymore, anyway. But you are a useful tool for curing humanity of it’s self destructive insanity. Perhaps you will even be the weapon we use to cut out the diseased parts of mankind. Either way, we will wield you well.”
With those chilling words, Sophia strode to the thick metal door of her cell, knocking and announcing in accented Russian that she was finished. A guard opened the heavy door and as she paused just before stepping out. Sophia glanced back at her daughter, taking in the terrified frustration on her young face, her clear blue eyes glowing eerily as her body produced more ADAM in reaction to her fear.
“Mother, please!” Eleanor pleaded, jerking uselessly against the restraints.
Sophia turned away and strode out the door, the clicking of her prim heels echoing against the concrete walls as the door swung shut with a solid metallic thunk.