a soviet defector and a test tube baby walk into a bar

[did_unkindly]

Jack is really looking forward to getting out of here.

Maybe he'll visit his parents. The farm seems like a beautiful dream compared to the broken, bloody awfulness of Medical Pavilion. He's pretty sure he never walked around in fear of drowning any second back in Kansas. Nobody tried to put hooks in his liver at all. It was nice!

He sits behind a reception desk, shaking. He knows he's got to push forward, he's going to keep pushing forward, but... give him a moment, okay? He's just been swarmed by splicers; he's found out that he has to detour around and find some kind of mad doctor just to reach Atlas's submarine. Boy. That's going to be... great. He's going to die, isn't he.

So he's regrouping behind this reception desk -- the receptionist's still here, give or take some of her head -- with the wrench in one hand and a creme cake in the other.

Munch. Munch. Munch.

Breathe, Jack. It's aaaaall gonna be okay.

Probably. Maybe.

Index, Why Not?
Scene One: He Blinded Me With Science ~or~ Stop Giving Yourself Brain Damage, Asshole
Scene Two: Telekinosis ~or~ Been Around Rapture And I, I, I, I Can't Find My Baby
Scene Three: All I Wanna Do Is [Bang Bang Bang Bang] And [Big Daddy Noise] And Take Your ADAM

Comments

[did_unkindly]

Jack's face registers a complete lack of understanding. Sometimes he can not be very bright.

"But I'm not looking for anyone else," he says. "Except Atlas's family...?"

He kind of lets that end as a question, trusting that if Kostya means Atlas's wife or something, he'll pipe up and fill in that piece of information.

[krasotamozga]

A sigh, and a pinch of his nose.

"No, Jack." He stands so he's looking away. "Not his wife." And then he takes to muttering. "Didn't even know he was married..."

He really didn't, either. Who has time to keep up on the social column when the neighborhood is going to hell.

[did_unkindly]

"Then who is it?"

Jack finally gets around to stuffing the late Bouncer's somehow-gotten gains into his own wallet. Aww yeahhh, somebody round here's got a date with a vending machine and about eight hundred cake bars.

[krasotamozga]

Well...

... maybe it's time the doctor told him. The boy's riddled with more drugs than old Cohen on opening night, but what the hell.

So when he speaks up again, he's quiet.

"I have a daughter," he begins. "Not mine. Adopted." He still won't turn and face Jack. "I found her when she... escaped... from the house of the Little Sisters. Before they could do this." A limp-wristed hand beckons down to the corpse. "But when the war began, she disappeared..." he brings it up to pass it over his brow - "... and I haven't seen her since."

"You understand, molodoi, I'm not an optimist." His tone darkens. "And you know what is easy to assume."

[did_unkindly]

Kostya's sad story just makes Jack all the more convinced that he can come up with the perfect answer. He switches out shotgun for pistol, checking and reloading as he talks -- something that's already second nature.

"I haven't seen any children," he says. You know, besides the uh... obvious. "Only Little Sisters and grown-ups."

...Although. Ah. Actually, that might not be so reassuring as he intended.

"But, um. If she's one of them... there's a lady who looks after them, she might have seen her!"

Jack is a fucking genius.

[krasotamozga]

"You have strange taste in company..." Kostya observes, the moroseness not totally drained from his tone - "... for you to know Dr. Tenenbaum."

He rubs his chin as he searches in his pocket. "Then again... if you want to know a city..."

The thought trails off as he pulls out a wallet and produces a slip of paper.

"Here." He comes back around and holds it out to Jack. "In case you find her and I'm not with you." What a surprise - a photo of a little girl. "Though you should know I can help you, in ways..." a pause for thought - "... Atlas cannot."

That may have been a bad decision. Oh well. At least he didn't say anything incriminating.

[did_unkindly]

He gives the photo a long look, accepting it into his quest log because of course that's what you do when a near-stranger gives you a mission. Find girl, presumably do not eat her stomach. Shouldn't be too hard.

And then there's that cryptic remark from this guy who just loves talking about Atlas.

"What d'you mean by that?"

He's not suspicious yet, but he is curious.

[krasotamozga]

"Well." Kostya steeples his fingers. "I'm sure Atlas is charming, but..." a concerned look at the floor - "... he still was a worker." His gaze roams in search of something. A vending machine, maybe? "He didn't know the elite."

"And the elite in this place, they had things to hide. Places to hide them." Whatever it was, the search turns up unfounded. "I don't know it all. They weren't my friends. But I... well..." a thought passes over his face - "... let us say I saw things."

[did_unkindly]

"I don't need to know what they were doing, though," says Jack. I mean no offence he's sure it's all very interesting gossip but he's vaguely on the clock here.

"I just want to go home. And Atlas has a submarine."

[krasotamozga]

"I mean they may have set traps." A step. "Diversions." Another. "Things to lead you off your path."

And when he looks back at Jack, his face is dark. "You're far from the only one who wants that submarine. And if I find Sasha before you reach this place... perhaps we can all get out together."