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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After the growth? The growth of what? Of something in Jack? Or...

Sinclair drowns his questions in his coffee cup, not setting it down again until he's got a better plan of action than to just word vomit whatever comes into his head.

"How long did the growth take?"

"Three years." More water, as if it can wash away the taste of the words. Her voice takes on a scornful tone: "It was quite the long con."

It's not the hardest thing he could ask, at least. The actual timespan of what they did is just peanuts next to the horror of the details he already has.

He nods as if he understands.

"That's a good bit of dedication," he says. "How did you manage it? I can't say I've seen anything like it before."

An incredulous laugh here, to add to the effect. Because he totally knows what she's talking about.

Yeah, laugh it up, asshole. They all get a wrench to the face sooner or later.

"Of course you have not. I doubt it would be possible without ADAM, and without Rapture's disregard for ethics."

But, fine, he asked a question and she's agreed to answer.

"It was done with many plasmids, designed for this purpose. Suchong, every day he would be coming to me with his ideas for new ways to customise the child. How we might strengthen his muscle, or give him habits." She says it all in a dull monotone, a tone of faint disgust. "And Fontaine, of course, had suggestions always."

"Of course," Sinclair says, shaking his head. "He always did."

Meanwhile behind Sinclair's easy pokerface, Jack is...literally the science experiment he said he was. In WAY more ways than Sinclair ever even began to think. He'd seen Fontaine's picture on the board, but from the sounds of it, he funded all of this. Which means if he wasn't Ryan's project, he was Fontaine's.

Three years though. Jack must be...god, how old does that make him then?

"Which parts were his ideas?"

The sandwich is right there in front of her, but Tenenbaum is no longer sure how much of an appetite she can manage while they're talking about this stuff.

"The child's memories, some of his triggers."

--Which, shit, does he know about the triggers beyond the WYK? That was one thing, a pretty identifiable phrase that Fontaine must have used a good few times, but she'd be impressed if Ryan had figured out any of the others. And she somehow doubts Jack opened up about Code Yellow.

"The would-you-kindly, it was not the only one, but I do not think you need a list."

"I shouldn't think so," he agrees, although the curiosity is certainly there. If none of the triggers work anymore, then knowing them would prove pretty useless. On the other hand, if any of them still work...he agrees it would probably be best if he didn't know.

Still, he figures this is a safe question--

"If I may, what'd the other triggers do?" It might at least answer a few things about what Fontaine wanted Jack for.

"Prompted behaviours," she says, which is about as close to deliberately unhelpful as she will get while they're doing this bargain. "One was to kill him."

And how Code Yellow would've reacted with the Vita Chambers is an interesting thought experiment, if not something she would inflict on a test subject at this point.

Sinclair frowns. It's not quite the answer he was hoping for, but it's enough. And he supposes every good war machine needs a self destruct button. Something about that pinches a nerve somewhere, and it may or may not reflect itself in an extra line somewhere on Sinclair's forehead, but he keeps moving along.

Or tries to, anyway. There's a lot to process here. If they sped up Jack's growth over the course of three years, they must have gotten a hold of him when he was very young. And then just...sent him away when they were done? Bided their time until they needed him again. They must have used a trigger to bring him back.

He pulls a cigarette out to buy himself time and leaves the pack on the table in case Tenenbaum decides she wants one.

Why would they need to bring him back, though? It looks as if the only person who might have benefited would have been Fontaine, but he's supposed to have been long dead. Unless...

"How long was Jack away before Fontaine brought him back?"

Tenenbaum claims a cigarette without hesitation. And she actually uses her own lighter this time, unless Sinclair is set to offer his.

"It was a year." In fact they sent him up not long before Fontaine died -- or 'died', as it turned out. "I had him travel."

There's something fuller in her voice when she says that, behind the chilly efficiency. She likes to think it was a good year for him, on the surface. She likes to hope it was.

Something in her voice tells Sinclair that Tenenbaum wishes at least to some degree that Jack hadn't needed to come back. It was a good thing for several people that he did, but Jack himself is definitely not one of them.

But that answers that. Fontaine didn't die when everyone thought he did. Sinclair assumes he is now, though. It doesn't seem like Jack would be content to wander around Rapture knowing the man who made him what he is is still going about his business like nothing ever happened.

"It's a damn shame," Sinclair shakes his head, blowing smoke out of the corner of his mouth. "Almost makes you wish he never found out about any of it. All those years of memories, then to find out none of it ever happened. Poor kid."

That in itself is another feat altogether. Implanting memories of an entire lifetime up until where he is, a family, a home, experiences, a personality, hopes, fears, etc. And none of it is his own, none of it's real. The ultimate identity crisis.

But it's over for him now, Ryan's dead, Fontaine is dead, legitimately this time. He's starting over, rebuilding. And it's slow going, but Sinclair can already see where it's begun. And once they get to the surface, then he'll be able to make some actual progress. Things will get better for him, so at least there's that much.

"And to find out from Ryan and Fontaine," she says bitterly. "There must have been a way easier for him. Perhaps if I had..."

No. She stops; Sinclair's not the kind of sympathetic ear you say these things to.

"Never mind. You do not care."

Wow, that's a little presumptive don't you think?

"I wouldn't say that," he tells her. "What were you going to say?"

Oh c'mon, it's not like he's doing his best to radiate 'good Samaritan' vibes.

"My own regrets are not what we agreed to talk about."

"Alright, fair enough." Sinclair flicks his cigarette against the edge of the ash tray. "I know what you must think of me, Doctor, but for the record I care a great deal. This whole matter concerns me now, I've got to care about it."

And he doesn't know precisely what she was about to say, but he thinks he at least understands where she was coming from.

"I don't know that it would have mattered where he heard it first, it all adds up to the same total. If you'd told him as kindly as you could've, it just would have been a slower burn. One way or another he'll have to learn how to get around it, and nobody can do that for him. It's gotta be him."

Well that's... an odd sentiment to hear from someone who's done such a good job of projecting that trademark Rapture heartlessness. She frowns at him -- not angrily for once, but in the manner of someone who's been surprised.

"It would be best, of course, if there was nothing to tell," she says after a moment, because nobody has ever accused Tenenbottom of not dwelling on the past. But.

"But to say 'what if' is not useful."

Which Sinclair probably knows. It's more a reminder for herself.

"Has-- he said much of it?"

Sinclair laughs and shakes his head.

"Does he say much about anything? No, I think he's just wishing it would all go away right about now. But he said enough."

He takes a long drag, staring at a spot on the wall somewhere behind Tenenbaum.

"Kid's in a lot of pain over the whole thing. Should've seen his face when he was talking about it, what little he said."

A pause, Sinclair crushes his cigarette in the ashtray and straightens up a little.

"He'll do better topside, we just have to get him there."

She... yeah, she has no trouble believing that Jack's going through some trauma about all this.

But Tenenbaum's clock is sort of ticking here. Partly because she's expecting at least one girl to arrive from if when Jack performs his rescue; they don't come to her straight away but she likes to always be there when they do. But partly because this meeting is still missing their prodigal son.

"How long has he been gone?" she asks, 99% keeping the worry out of her voice.

"Oh, I'd say about an hour, maybe more," Sinclair says, glancing at the clock on the wall. "I'm sure he's hoping to find more than one of your girls to try and make up for the loss."

That is if the temptation doesn't get too strong and he decides to change his mind about the whole thing. It's a mild concern in the back of Sinclair's mind, if only because the minute Jack harvests another sister he'll probably lose all possible ties with Tenenbaum. And helping Jack get past his withdrawals or not, those are some valuable ties.

She gives that a nod, face still halfway to anxious. Tenenbaum has a similar thought nagging her, that the child might give in to temptation. And what's worse, there's nothing she can really do here and now to make sure he doesn't.

But let's not voice that doubt.

"Soon I must leave," she says instead. "The newly-rescued girls, they will want help when they arrive at my home. But first, I must ask one more thing. The defence systems -- have you examined them?"

"Ryan's?" he frowns. "Well we got pretty friendly with it not too long ago, but no, I can't say I've had much of an opportunity to study any of it too close."

He probably should have while they were at the sub bay, or at least taken the time to figure out where the central part of it was located exactly. See what all they were going to need to get around, but there was a lot going on at the time and Jack needed to get home.

"Why, have you?"

"I have been able to look a little at them." In between running a full-time daycare service, so, you know, a very little.

She pauses, weighing the pros and cons of sharing this particular piece of information. But if she's right, then it's not exactly going to help these two get out of Rapture. If anything it'll delay them even further. And if they do figure out a way around it, then maybe she and her girls can get out on the same ride.

"I may be wrong. But it seems that the remote control of the systems has been broken."

Wonder what he'll think of that.

Something in Sinclair's gut churns. An overreaction, probably, but they're so close to figuring out an actual way out of here. They've got Ryan's sub, they're at the absolute most two or three days away from seeing the sun again. There's no place for the word "broken" in any of this, they don't need any more roadblocks. Haven't they had enough already?

"...Define broken."

Well. In for a pfennig, in for a mark.

"They will work, I think." They'd better. "But, perhaps, only with a person there to control them."

It's probably clumsily phrased, but it should get the message across. And she has a few reasons to pay attention to how Sinclair responds.

Sinclair shakes his head, continues shaking it as he thinks about what he's going to say. There's no way she can know that for sure, she's not a mechanic, she's just...a highly trained and extremely intelligent doctor...who has been working with Rapture technology since she got here...but that doesn't mean she knows for sure. She can't know for sure.

Even if she's right, it's not the end of the line. They can fix it. Jack can fix it. It can be fixed, it's not anything to worry about. Not right now anyway. He takes a drag, a good long drag, on his cigarette before grinding it out in the ash tray.

"Well," he says, sitting back in his chair. Relaxed. He's totally relaxed. "That's a problem we can face in the morning, I'm sure the kid can work out what's wrong with the damn thing."

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