weathertop | darling it's better down where it's wetter

darling it's better down where it's wetter

It's been a day, it's been a day, it's been a whole damn day -- as near as it's possible to tell in this soggy excuse for a city. It's been a day since he killed Fontaine. And Jack is no closer to getting out. He's still down here. He did everything he was supposed to do and he's still down here.

All he's found is locked-down bathyspheres. Broken submarines. Even the goddamn boats are out of service. Where's Tenenbaum? Where's his fucking rescue?

Jack stares about into the greenish gloom, checks the ammo in his pistol, and then kicks and yanks off the rusting panel of a vending machine. His hands are soon full of little wires and pipes. A few seconds later, he straightens up with a grunt, and the machine gives him a tidy discount on a couple glowing hypos of EVE.

With his visit extended indefinitely, he's begun to wonder how many of them are left.

Now arbitrarily divided into chapters!
Part One: A Scene at the Rapture Adoption Agency ~or~ You Found [Pot of Ham]!
Part Two: Come On-A My House, I'm Gonna Give-A You Candy ~or~ Sinclair? More Like Sin Pantalones!
Part Three: Dream Sequences are a Fresh New Concept in Fiction ~or~ It's My Existential Trauma and I'll Cry if I Want To
Part Four: Southern Education Jokes ~or~ Engineer, Engifar, Engiwherever You Are ~or~ The Grave Escape
Part Five: Golfing Accident Memoirs ~or~ Mom... Dad... I'm Immortal ~or~ How To Make Friends And Immolate People
Part Six: Is It A Pie? Is It A Plane?? ~or~ Two's Company, Three's a Row
Part Seven: Escort Missions! In Rapture! Council's In An Uproar ~or~ Bioshock: Cheesecake Edition
Part Eight: Bread, Milk, BATTLE! ~or~ Pleasant Conversations, How They Bore Me
Part Nine: Choices, Schmoices ~or~ Baby's First Moral Philosophy ~or~ Go Away I Want To Take A Damn Bath
Part Ten: A Man Snoozes; A Slave Delays ~or~ The Four Second Rule Applies To Drugs
Part Eleven: A Hearty Meal ~or~ Skeletons In The-- That's Not A Closet
Part Twelve: We All Live in a Secret Submarine ~or~ Plasmids: Not Even Once
Part Thirteen: Paging Dr Tenenbaum To Surgery ~or~ Bribery And Deduction
Part Fourteen: The Prodigal Son Returns

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Jack's sudden temper doesn't startle Sinclair. He was kind of expecting it, after Jack keeping it all together for as long as he did. It's not something you just master all at once.

"You don't die," he points out, keeping his tone as quiet as it was before.

"I die all the time," says Jack angrily. Death to him is a moment in time, sometimes longer or shorter or more or less painful -- he doesn't really think about what happens next for people who don't wake up in a Vita Chamber.

Sinclair sighs. It's probably a bad time to start arguing philosophy.

"They're special because the doctor cares about them, sport. If something's important to you, aren't you gonna take a special interest in it?"

"Yeah, but..."

He glares, face scrunched up, as he searches for a reason why that totally shouldn't be a good answer.

"And she doesn't care about me?"

...which would probably be a more compelling dilemma if Sinclair had more of Jack and Tenenbaum's backstory, but like hell is Jack actually going to fill him in on that.

It's true that without all the back story, it's hard for Sinclair to give him a reason why she might not, harder still to understand why Jack thinks she should.

"I don't know that she doesn't," he says. Improvising. If you say vague enough things, eventually you'll be led in a clearer direction. "Maybe she did at some point, but she's having a little trouble trusting you. But she's giving you a way to fix it, and I don't believe she would bother if she didn't care at all."

"She'd better care."

Or else, says his tone. Or else... he doesn't know what.

Jack's breathing raggedly.

"I want to go find one," he says. Find a Sister and get this mission started. And get a little bit of ADAM now, since he can no longer get a lot later.

If anything, Sinclair knows an empty threat when he hears one. He just wishes he had the full story here, maybe he could understand what exactly is making Jack so angry. How it happened.

But he nods in agreement, although he doesn't particularly trust this place to have a safe spot for him to wait out Jack's Big Daddy battle. But he's got a chemical thrower now! Burn everything that comes too close! Reminding himself of that, he follows close behind Jack, listening for the mournful groans of the nearest metal man.

He'll hear them eventually. Jack has already taken a chunk out of Rapture's Daddy and Sister population, but in a city this large, that population is pretty huge.

The groans are angry and the drill is already whirring. There are shouts as well, and screaming. The girl's shrill voice shouting encouragement to her Daddy. Sounds like a few splicers have gotten brave -- and when Jack and Sinclair round the next corner, they'll be able to see the last one dying, slammed into a wall and shaking, then spinning, then dropping, smashed in half by the enormous drill.

Jack doesn't waste much time. He fishes in his pockets for a moment, counting EVE needles and health kits -- then jams a new canister into the chemical thrower and coats the Bouncer in a stream of electric gel.

Sinclair ducks behind a corner, poking his head around to watch the fight unfold. The Sister dances around behind her Big Daddy, screaming something about stars and parties. He can really only imagine what she thinks is happening right here.

He can see the Bouncer gearing up to charge Jack, but he stops suddenly, almost stuck mid-stride. A nice strategic move on Jack's part, this fight probably won't last long.

It's kind of a cheat, but Jack isn't in a patient mood and he has enough electric gel to take the Bouncer two thirds of the way to its grave in one go. Sinclair wasn't planning on using that ammo, right?

When the stream of zapping gel peters out, he drops the thrower and swings his shotgun into place*. The standard practice of zap-shoot-dodge commences -- but it's shorter than Sinclair might remember, because the shotgun and its electric buck are considerably more powerful than the pistol, punching holes in the Daddy's armour that leak blood and other less wholesome fluids.

The Bouncer slams the ground with its drill, making the whole room shake -- dust falls from the ceiling -- and Jack stumbles, stunned for a moment. The Bouncer begins another charge and Jack recovers just in time to leap out of the way--

--mostly. He falls and the Bouncer straight up thunders over his leg, and he screams, over a very audible cracking and crunching noise.

The Sister cheers triumphantly. The Bouncer slows and turns around for another charge. Jack screams through his teeth and fumbles for a med kit. Two shots of Electrobolt -- one goes wide, one keeps the Bouncer in place for a couple more seconds. A couple of seconds for him to stick the med syringe into his hip. There's a furious itch that overtakes the pain.

Thankfully a med syringe is more specialised than pure ADAM, so the fragments of bone and muscle line up roughly where they're supposed to go before they fuse in place. He's not going to have to re-break anything.

The ground thunders with the Bouncer's charge. This time Jack flings himself to his feet, really does make it out of the way.

"Oh no," shouts the Sister. "Hurt him, Mister B! Hurt him!!"

Jack uses the wall to break his momentum, spins round and keeps moving and shooting and zapping and moving. After the beating it took from the electric gel, it doesn't take too much longer for the Bouncer to let out a final agonised moan and drop to the floor. Jack stops running and slumps over for a moment, breathing hard.

*which I have to say is not loaded with pistol ammo, even though I'm probably the only person who even remembers or cares that I made that mistake

It does feel something like a sporting event, the Sister cheering on her protector and Sinclair silently praying it doesn't kill Jack and decide to come after him next. But in the end, Jack prevails. Of course he does. He's an expert by now.

Sinclair steps out from his hiding spot and approaches Jack and the Sister, who is wailing pathetically by the Big Daddy's side.

"Your call, chief," he says to Jack. Although it looks already like Jack has made up his mind. Somewhat reluctantly, but the choice has still already been made. Sinclair's just reminding him that he's got one.

Jack gives him a dead sort of look. He still doesn't always know how to handle things being his call, even when he's sure that they are.

Then he squats down, quirks a hand and drags the Sister towards him with telekinesis.

She wails in fear and struggles, but the plasmid is strong as I'm sure Sinclair can attest, and a moment later Jack has a none too gentle hand around her arm. He stares at her horrible face, already feeling sick, the kind of sick that happens when you miss too many meals. Already he's anticipating the boost that usually comes next. And he's not going to get it. And it's going to be awful.

"Shut up," he says sulkily. "I'm not killing you."

Then he calls up yet another plasmid, and his veins begin to glow a pure white.

Well that's a plasmid Sinclair's never seen before.

He watches the Sister fight him for a couple moments more before she relaxes and quiets.

When Jack sets her down again, her eyes are clear and there's color in her cheeks.

She's healed. Sinclair's not sure what he expected when Jack said he was going to start helping Doctor Tenenbaum rescue Little Sisters, but it sure wasn't a plasmid that does all the work for him. That woman doesn't get half the credit she deserves, if she's the one who invented this.

As the unnatural light fades from her eyes, leaving them a rather more ordinary and frightened-looking brown, the girl blanches and claps a hand over her mouth. The ADAM in her body is leaving it and it only knows one way to go.

Jack wishes he'd brought a bucket.

He shifts out of the way, and the no-longer-Sister puts a hand on his knee and vomits green stuff onto the floor.

Nice.

Jack starts to search his pockets. The ADAM smells kind of chemically pungent and he's sure there are splicers who can smell it. So, here -- okay good, he has an empty syringe. There's no way this is leading to a bad place, right? Nope, this is a great idea.

And now commences the quickest and least sanitary filling of a syringe in recorded history.

"Mister?" says the girl, less nervous now. Her voice is normal now as well, and she's wiping her mouth with a small hand. "Mister, are you hurt?"

"Go away," says Jack, who is not feeling very charitable. He's still fumbling away with the small puddle and the syringe. "There's a hole over there."

Sinclair makes a conscious effort not to laugh at the brazen way Jack speaks to the girl. She doesn't appear to understand what's happened or what's happening, and she just ejected the diluted contentes of her stomach onto the floor.

Which Jack is.

Collecting.

In a syringe.

Well. Sinclair has seen less hygienic things in his time, and ADAM probably can't harbor bacteria. Right? Sure. We're gonna go with that.

Carry on, Jack.

Fun fact: Jack sees absolutely no problem with his plan, medically speaking. He has figured out by now that he can stick whatever the hell he finds lying around right into his veins without danger. Totally safe. God made ADAM and EVE, not ADAM and AIDS.

Wow. This puddle is piddling compared to what he'd get from a slug, even before you take into account what he's not going to be able to get off the floor.

He's still annoyed at the girl, as if all this is her fault, and a few moments later she takes the hint and runs off to her hidey-hole. And none too soon. A voice sounds down the tunnel behind them -- a man's voice, rough and slurred from long-time plasmid abuse.

"Little fish, little fish, let me come in," he calls, his voice echoing off the glass.

Jack looks up sharply. Shit. Called it.

Then he rises to his feet, hanging onto the syringe, and ignites his free hand. If this guy thinks he's getting away from here with anything better than fourth degree burns, he's got another thing coming.

"Little fish, what've you got theeeeere?"

"Mister Sinclair, you should move."

The Little Sister's not the only one who can take a hint. Without another word, Sinclair returns to where he was when Jack fought the Big Daddy. But this time he takes the chemical thrower with him.

It's just one splicer though, he'll be dead in a matter of seconds at Jack's hands.

ha ha ha one splicer ha ha

"Stop there! You stole that from me!"

Yep, it's another spl-- another two splicers, entering the room from another direction. First a small haul, then the problem of getting it off the floor, and now this. Welcome to reason #3 why Jack hates saving.

"Get out," he yells, lifting his flaming hand, and the only reason they even get a warning is that he's loath to leave his prize behind to bring the fight to them. Of course, of course, they all soundly ignore him.

The first guy has appeared, hook-weilding and leering, so Jack quickly sets him on fire and turns to concentrate on the other two -- who both disappear, one in a bloody cloud and one in falling ice crystals. Shit.

Okay so he underestimated that a little bit, but he's seen Jack take on more. It'll be fine. Even after...a fight with a Big Daddy...and a lot less ADAM than he's used to. ...Totally fine.

He keeps his chemical thrower close, switching out the electric gel for the napalm and watching from around the corner, careful not to get noticed.

And don't forget, he hasn't even taken the ADAM yet.

He's already tired to the point of just wanting to sit the fuck down, so when there's a laugh and a spurt of flame behind him, he kind of gets set on fire a little. He has a tonic that puts it out fast, but still, ow. He yells in pain and retaliates with fire of his own, earning an answering scream -- then has to sidestep fast as ice blasts at him from the other direction.

Jack pockets the negligibly-filled syringe, swaps it out for the shotgun and blasts one of them through the -- shitfuck, she teleported away. He puts the electric buck through the spider instead, who's put himself out and is limping determinedly towards the ADAM puddle. Was limping determinedly towards the ADAM puddle.

No yeah you're still good. You've got this, Sinclair believes in you Jack. He's just gonna stay right over here.

Although he's holding that chemical thrower just a little bit closer than he was before. Just in case. That's one splicer down and two particularly tricky ones to go. The houdinis always make him nervous. If one teleports to the wrong place, they're going to see him and then he'll get to use this thing.

I mean he'll have to use this thing.

And that would be terrible.

"I got here first, parasite!" shrieks the female splicer -- the one with the burning hands -- at the other.

He retorts with a stuttering "Don't cheat me! The blood -- the blood is mine!"

It would be nice if they'd act on their squabble and start attacking each other instead, but they both seem to have pinpointed Jack as the bigger threat. So while they're not really coordinating their efforts, they aren't making things easier for him with in-fighting either. Of course.

He gets the ice-wielding guy with a shotgun blast -- and he'd press the attack, but that was his last round of electric buck, and the houdini has time to curse and teleport away. Before the blue cloud has even gone, Jack feels a searing pain in his back and stumbles forwards -- on fire again.

As he falls forwards, he spins, turns it into a fall against the wall that douses the flames -- thank contraband God for wet stone -- and he grits his teeth -- who knows if he's more in pain or angry at this point; he's a lot of both -- and throws fire at the woman. Who vanishes with a laugh.

"Come back here!" he bellows, his voice ragged-edged from pain.

He searches in his pocket for a med kit -- and finds nothing. He used up his last in the Big Daddy fight.

Well. This just got especially serious.

The man appears again in his blue fucking cloud, and he starts to yell something but fuck him, Jack may be exhausted and injured but he can still move, and so the houdini's taunt turns into screams as he's set alight. He still hasn't reloaded the shotgun, so Jack zaps the guy to keep him in place and finishes him off with the wrench. The good old standby.

Whoosh. Crackle.

...Jack's on fire again.

And this time he really does stumble, yells, goes shoulder-first into the wall as his vision swims.

No really though, you've got this Jack. You...you don't have this. Alright.

Sinclair watches as Jack trips over himself into the wall, oblivious to everything but his pain. With which Sinclair sympathizes, and while he wishes his priority could be to find Jack a med kit ASAP, the danger's not done here.

The final splicer cackles delightedly, taunting Jack in a sing song voice. And as she approaches him, Sinclair takes a deep breath, steps out from around the corner

and unloads the canister of napalm. It's a lot harder to miss when you can see the entire path your ammo is traveling.

The houdini splicer lets out an ear splitting scream before something final happens and she shuts up forever. Her crisp corpse lies still on the ground, and Sinclair thinks if he kicked it, it might turn to ashes.

...Maybe later.

For now, Jack isn't really looking so good.

He drops the chemical thrower by the wall and kneels beside him.

"You good to walk, or do you want me to find you a kit?"

Jack's fire goes out after a few endless seconds, but ow. Ow. Ow. Life is pain. His body feels like pork looks when it roasts. But he's still turning around, blinded by pain, and lifting his hand--

--as the splicer starts to scream. Not a scream of triumph. A scream of pain. And he realises she's dying.

And then the person in front of him is Sinclair.

He stares. His eyes are watering, cutting through the smoke that's blackened his face.

Sinclair totally killed that houdini, didn't he?

...Actually, he'll worry about being impressed and grateful when he is not slowly dying.

Jack lowers his hand, slowly. It takes a bit of concentration and motor control. The fire has eaten through his skin but not cauterised, leaving bloody patches, angry red blisters. And burns hurt, it's like being stabbed on every inch of his body, over and over.

"C'n walk."

So ignore the slurring.

"H'lp me look?"

Sinclair nods and immediately goes to the splicer he just torched. Time to test that theory!

He looks it over for a moment before reaching out and nudging it with his foot.

...It doesn't have quite the predicted effect, but she is a whole lot skinnier when he pushes her onto her back.

This one lacks any med kits, but she is carrying an EVE hypo.

"Hey, kid," Sinclair says, holding it up for Jack to see. "Need this?"

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