Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For Subject Delta being a Big Daddy was almost like being in one long dream. When he was with his daughter Eleanor the dream was mostly pleasant. They spent most of their time together searching for angels, but that wasn’t all they did. There were times when Eleanor was able to take a break from her ADAM gathering duties to just play, sing, and be the young playful child that she truly was. Every time they passed by a jukebox that was playing a catchy song Eleanor would stop to dance.

Sometimes she would pull him into the dance while cheerfully calling out “Dance with me Daddy!”

He would try although dancing was not a skill that the oversized diving suit possessed. Regardless the protector and gather’s rather bad attempts at dancing was probably one of the few times the people Rapture would give them at least a few nervous smiles. When they went to the forested area of Arcadia they always had to stop so that Eleanor could run around the artificial forest to catch a few of the fireflies that called that place home. On really good days sometimes Delta would find a mason jar with a lid that he could poke a few holes into so that Eleanor could put the fireflies into the jar. The thrilled smile that she gave him every time he did that made his search for the mason jars worth it. Even when they were sticking strictly to finding angels Eleanor found ways to have some sort of fun. She would sing little nursery rhymes that she knew as they searched for angels, or happily stumble her way through a few tongue twisters that other Little Sisters had taught her.

She was always such a happy child, and her joy was enough to make Delta feel content. He loved seeing his child happy, and he was happy when they were able to break away from gathering ADAM for a moment to simply enjoy life. At the time nothing else had mattered. He was incapable of thinking of anything other than keeping his girl safe and happy. Still, during those brief moments when Delta was alone after helping Eleanor into a vent he would get this vague feeling that something wasn’t right. Something in his gut said that this little life of theirs wasn’t normal. Tiny little thoughts would start to bubble up in Delta’s head and the implications of them all would cause Delta to stand as still as a statue as a sort of awareness started to bubble up inside him.

Some part of him knew that collecting ADAM like this wasn’t normal.

Some part of him knew that he hadn’t always been called Delta.

Some part of him knew that once-

As quick as those thoughts came they quickly dissolved into mindless static that only served to give Delta a headache. Sometimes Delta would try to keep hold of that thought process even with the loud static in his head, but trying to do so only made the headache worse. It never worked anyway. No matter how hard he tried those thoughts would quickly fade from Delta’s mind to the point that he couldn’t even remember having those thoughts in the first place. The brief flicker of self-awareness that he was able to keep hold of when near Eleanor was quickly snuffed out, and he entered a sort of sleep walking state. He would mindlessly walk around the city repairing any damage that he came across. He was never really aware of much of anything when he was in that state. He wasn’t even really capable of any real thought when he was sleep walking around the city doing repairs.

It was only when he felt Eleanor start tugging at their bond would he sort of ‘wake up’, and a small flicker of free will would spark up inside of him once again. When Eleanor started tugging on their bond it meant that she was ready to look for more ADAM, and she was looking for him. He would answer her call the second he got it. The moment he was reunited with his child his tiny spark of free will would come back. He would dutifully play the role of father while he was with her, but once Eleanor went back into the vent the ‘father’ was replaced with the mindless robot that just walked around fixing whatever damage he came across. The ‘dream’ sort of just went on like that for a while. Brief moments of awareness that would quickly fade when that tiny whisper of free will started to make him question anything. It honestly seemed like he would be forever stuck in this never ending cycle of gaining and losing that small bit of free will over and over again.

But one night that seemingly never ending state of dreaming came to a tragic end.

On the night of New Year’s Eve they were attacked. At first Delta had easily taken down the monsters that dared to try and harm his daughter, but then one of them had hit him with a Hypnotize Plasmid. It was all over once he was hit with that Plasmid. What little control he had over himself was ripped away from him so that he nothing more than a puppet who would dance at the command of whoever held his puppet strings. The person who held those strings was a blond haired woman with a monotone voice, a hard stare, and a cold smile. She stared at Delta like he was an insignificant bug that was annoying her. As for Eleanor she treated the girl like she was some disobedient puppy that she had to harshly discipline. When Eleanor tried to rush to Delta’s side the woman grabbed the girl by the arm and harshly yanked her back so that she was standing by the woman’s side. Eleanor let out a small yelp of surprise and pain, but the woman didn’t even seem to notice. She never took her eyes off of the Big Daddy as she stared at him in contempt.

“This is not your daughter,” The woman said as she placed a hand on top of Eleanor’s head.

Eleanor flinched a little at the woman’s touch although she didn’t dare move away.

“Do you understand?” The woman asked Delta all while ignoring how terrified the girl by her side was.

Delta couldn’t answer, and honestly he had a hard time paying attention to her. All he could pay attention to was the look of pure terror on Eleanor’s face as she trembled in fear by the woman’s side.

“Her name in Eleanor,” The woman said. “And she is mine.”

Even in his hazy state some part of his mind immediately latched onto how wrong the woman sounded when she said that. She didn’t sound like a parent talking about their child. She sounded like she was talking about an inanimate object that she owned. Not a child with thoughts or feelings of her own. That thought faded from his head as the woman started issuing her orders to Delta.

“Now kneel please.”

Delta fell to his knees without making a sound.

“Remove your helmet.”

The helmet came off without any hesitation. The scent of salty water, and the metallic scent of blood was the very first thing to hit his senses.

“Take the pistol, and place it against your head.”

Delta tries to fight against the orders, but it is a futile effort. He was forced to follow her every order no matter how hard he struggled against it. The whole time this was going on Eleanor was watching with a look of terror on her face. ‘Don’t look,’ Delta wanted to tell her. ‘Please Eleanor don’t watch this.’

He knew how this would end the second he was given the pistol. This wasn’t something Eleanor should see. Yet, he could not say anything to her and it was clear that the woman didn’t care if Eleanor saw him meet his end. The woman’s smile was absolutely chilling as she gave her final order.

“Fire.”

“Daddy!”

Eleanor screaming for him was the last thing Delta hear before he pulled the trigger. His death was a quick one. He was dead in a matter of seconds with Eleanor being the only one to morn his death. The crying girl was forcibly dragged away from his body, and the Big Daddy’s body was left where it laid to slowly rot. That was honestly where the story should have ended. Delta should have been just another Big Daddy killed when trying to protect his Little Sister.

Yet, that was not where the story ended....

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Ten years later a tucked away in a forgotten corner of Adonis Luxury Resort a Vita-Chamber was altered, and it did what most would think was impossible. It brought the Big Daddy back to life, and gave him his free will on top of it. While gaining his free will back was nice what he woke up to wasn’t as nice. If being a Big Daddy taking care of his daughter was a bit like a hazy dream then being killed and then brought back to life was a bit like being ripped out of a dream and flung into an active war zone. The Adonis Luxury Resort that he woke up in was a shadow of its former self. The room was flooded with enough water that it went up to Delta’s knees. Glowing pink coral had started to grow along the staircase in the room, and barnacles clung to almost every single wall. Painted on the walls in large capital letters was only one strange message.

Fallen, fallen is Babylon

Delta had a feeling that was referencing something, but if he had once known what the reference was from that knowledge was clearly long gone now. All he did know was that he was pretty sure the ‘Babylon’ that the message was referring to was actually Rapture. To say Delta was confused was a bit like saying water is a little wet. That is to say it was a massive understatement to end all understatements. He didn’t where Eleanor was although he could tell that she was still alive. The bond between the two of them was still strong enough for him to be able to know that at the very least, but he didn’t know where she was. He didn’t even know where to start looking. He was overwhelmed to put it mildly.

However, surprisingly he wasn’t alone.

His built in radio started buzz with the chatter of a woman the second he woke up. It was faint. Barely even audible over the static really. All Delta could tell was that she was calling out for someone. At first Delta thought his radio was picking up her signal by mistake. No one ever spoke to him over the radio. Heck, no one ever spoke to him in general. The only person to ever talk to him was Eleanor. Yet, when the signal cleared it became clear that she had been trying to contact him.

“Ah! At last, a signal! You, who has been revived in this dead city, listen. My name, it is Tenenbaum. I know who you are. Und I am in much need of your help. Please, find me in the Atlantic Express train station.”

Unless a bunch of other people were being randomly revived out of the blue like he was it was pretty obvious that the message was meant for him. He didn’t know who she was or if he could really trust her, but at this point what choice did he have? She was the only lead that he had. If he was lucky maybe she would know where Eleanor was. With no other choice available all Delta could do was move forward and try to find a way to the Atlantic Express. Upon exploring the Adonis Luxury Resort it was very apparent that Rapture had changed while he was gone. It was no longer this gleaming jewel hidden at the bottom of the ocean. Now it was just a crumbling wreck of a city that the ocean was quickly starting to reclaim.

The citizens of this once proud city were no longer human. ADAM had twisted them into bloodstained monsters with fangs, claws, and other horrifying mutations. They howled like madmen as they walked the halls chattering on about their misery or their delusions. If they ever even caught a glimpse of Delta they would fly into a rage, and try to attack him all while howling for his blood. He had been forced to put them down just to protect himself only now he was aware enough to feel sorry for the pitiful state that they were in.

“Most who survive are like this: splicers,” Tenenbaum had explained with both sadness and a bit of disgust in her voice. “They are drug addicts, vicious animals.”

Calling them vicious animals was honestly rather fitting. Delta would like to say that the splicers were the worst thing Delta experienced there at the resort, but they were only the tip of the horrible iceberg. The splicers were not the only dangerous thing here. There was another creature here that blew the splicers right out of the water.

That creature was the Big Sister.

She was a screaming banshee dressed up in a diving suit that looked pretty similar to the suits of the Big Daddy. Only the difference here was that the Big Sister was clearly built for speed, and she was able to jump all over the place like she had springs in her feet. The whole time Delta was exploring Adonis Luxury Resort he would spot her running around the resort. He couldn’t catch up to her no matter how fast he tried to move. The only reason why he knew what the creature was called was because he heard his murderer’s monotone voice start speaking over Rapture’s public service announcement system telling everyone that Big Sister was watching, and that stealing ADAM was stealing from the ‘Rapture Family’. Honestly, once he heard her speaking over the PA system it was hard for Delta to pay much attention to the Big Sister lurking around. The whole time he travelled through Adonis Luxury Resort he could hear her periodically chiming in over the PA system.

This is Doctor Sofia Lamb, with a message for the people. Remember, you are not alone. Think of me not as leader, but as a mother to the Rapture Family.

Rapture was to be your Paradise. You grasped the so-called Great Chain of progress and pulled hard in your own interest. But then, the Great Chain snapped. Now Paradise is dying, and you with her. But we are never alone, we shall live on. Join the Rapture Family and be reborn.

This is Doctor Sofia Lamb, with a message for the people. Remember, Big Sister is always watching. To steal ADAM is to steal from the Rapture family, your family.

Every time he heard Sofia Lamb speak a shiver would travel down his spine. He forever associated the woman’s voice with pain. Every time he heard her speak the memory of her ordering him to shoot himself in front of Eleanor played in his head. Even when her voice wasn’t chiming in over the PA system he still couldn’t escape from the woman. In almost every room in the resort there were shrines set up dedicated to the woman. He would find lit candles set up around pictures of Lamb, and the huge amount of wax that would cover the floors made it clear that the splicers had been keeping these shrines in tip top shape for a while now. A book written by Lamb would always be placed at a place of honor on these shrines, and written on the wall near these shrines were rather simple messages.

Lamb is watching

Maybe that message was supposed to be comforting to people in this ‘Rapture Family’ cult thing, but to Delta it only served as a disturbing warning. He didn’t know what happened to Rapture while he was dead, but it was clear that Sofia Lamb had taken over. She ruled Rapture now, and it was clear that most of the splicers were listing to her orders. That wasn’t going to make finding Eleanor any easier. Honestly, with every second that Delta spent in Adonis Luxury Resort the more and more obvious it was that the cards were really stacked against him. Lamb killed him once, and he knew the second that she learned that he was alive she would not hesitate to kill him again. With all of these horrible things going on it was easy to feel hopeless.

Still, he did have one spark of hope. Eleanor wanted him to find her, and she was doing what she could to help him. When he stumbled upon a Gather’s Garden there in the resort he found an Electro Bolt Plasmid wrapped in a ribbon waiting there for him. Childish drawings of flowers and a bright happy sun covered the walls around the Gather’s Garden machine, and written on the walls and floor were messages writing in crayon just for him.

From Eleanor

Come soon to come find me

Please hurry Daddy

Also waiting there for him was a Little Sister holding the doll that Eleanor had made to look just like him. The girl had looked so happy to see him. She hugged the doll close to her chest as she delivered a message from Eleanor. “Daddy was sleeping for such a long time, and Eleanor has missed you. Find her and you’ll be all better.”

For that one brief second he felt hope that maybe he would be okay. That he wouldn’t be stuck pinning all of his hope on the voice of a stranger on the radio That brief flicker of hope was snuffed out when a Big Sister came running in out of nowhere. She grabbed the Little Sister making the child drop her doll.

As the Big Sister carried the girl away the Little Sister cried out “Daddy!”

It was like watching Eleanor getting taken away all over again. Delta scooped the doll up, hooked it to his air tank pack on his back, and tried chasing after them. He couldn’t keep up. All he could do was stumble after them hoping he could catch up before the Big Sister hurt the girl. As he rushed through resort he found audio diaries made of people expressing their misery. He found a diary from Tenenbaum talking about how Lamb stole children from the surface to be turned into Little Sisters, and a diary from a man from the surface who somehow made it to Rapture all in hopes of finding his child that Lamb stole. The worst diary he found was leaning up against a glass wall where a Big Daddy was fixing a leak from the outside. Even as he raced down the halls trying to catch up to the Big Sister that contents of that diary seemed to play in his head over and over again.

Little Sisters are all gone... ain't seen one since who knows when... Big Daddies still wander around, keepin' busy. I see a leak spring in a window, then one of the big oafs wanders on by and seals it up. Like clockwork. If it weren't for them, Rapture woulda been completely flooded fer years, I figure. Big dumb animals... why can't you just let it end?

‘There is no hope here is there?’ He couldn’t help but think. ‘There is no hope or joy here at all.’

When he reached the Grand Foyer he found the Little Sister sitting near a corpse harvesting ADAM from it. The girl smiled when she spotted the Big Daddy, and stopped harvesting to skip over to him. He couldn’t see the Big Sister anywhere. He hoped that meant that the Big Sister was gone. His hopes were dashed when he heard the Big Sister start screeching.

The Little Sister winced when she heard the screech, and she was quick to murmur “Big Sister doesn’t want you playing with me anymore.”

That was the only warning that Delta got. While the Little Sister ran to a nearby vent to escape the Big Sister flung herself at him howling in rage as she tried to burn him alive with her Incinerate plasmid. His first real fight with the thing had been a disaster that he just barely survived. She didn’t stay still long enough for him to really get her with his drill, and while his Electro Bolt Plasmid was able to paralyze her just long enough to get some damage in with his drill it also meant that he had to burn through the EVE hypos that he had collected while exploring the resort far faster than he liked. He had picked up a rivet gun from a dead Big Daddy that he had stumbled upon while exploring, and he was getting in way more hits with that thing. With that said it looked the rivets were barely doing any damage to her.

In the end he wasn’t sure how he survived that fight. All he did know was that he did enough damage to the Big Sister to make it run away. He ended up having to tear the foyer apart for supplies. He had burned through most of his health kits and EVE hypos just to survive that fight. He was able to find a few things to replenish his supplies, but by the time he stumbled into Demeter's Banquet Hall he was officially sick of everything involving Rapture. When he reached the large dining area of the banquet hall all he didn’t feel all that surprised when the Big Sister decided to smash open the large glass window in there to flood the place.

As a tidal wave of water went rushing toward him all he could think was a simple ‘Well, this is going to hurt.’

It did indeed hurt.

The wave of water was strong enough to shove him off his feet and push him to the floor. It honestly felt like a Big Daddy had rammed into him at full speed. It took a while for his body to stop aching enough for him to stand back up. When he had finally gotten himself back on his feet he was left standing he heard his radio buzz to life as Tenenbaum spoke to him.

“In that suit, even the ocean cannot harm you. This is good. But Rapture is the death of many great men. Alone, you will not last long. You can still reach the train station. Find me there.”

That comment got a small sigh from Delta. Sure the ocean couldn’t kill him but having a wave of water slam right into him like that still wasn’t pleasant. At the very least the broken window meant that Delta could get out of Adonis Luxury Resort now. Upon stepping outside, he couldn’t help but look around him. He saw the typical ocean life. Fish swam around him without a care, coral of all sorts of colors could be seen everywhere, and different kinds of sea plants could be seen everywhere. It was pretty although it wasn’t what held his attention. No, what really grabbed Delta’s attention was the sheer amount of wreckage that was lying on the seafloor around the resort. Sunken ships and sunken planes dotted the area. There were too many shrunken ships here to be natural, and a brief glance at most of the sunken ships showed why there were so many ships lying here. A majority of the ships showed signs of being shot down with torpedoes or missiles of some sort. Most likely they were shot down by Rapture itself to keep anyone on those boats from finding this place.

The few plane parts he saw were so damaged Delta couldn’t exactly tell how those fell out of the sky. Unlike the boats they probably fell for reasons unconnected to Rapture although honestly at this point who really knew. Besides the ships parts and broken planes there were also ruined bathyspheres. Some looked like they had been tossed out here after they had been stripped for parts. However, a disturbingly high number of them looked like they had also been shot down much like how the ships had. One destroyed bathysphere that he found still had the bodies of its unfortunate occupants inside. It was a man and a woman curled up together on the floor of their sunken vessel. It looked like the local sea life hadn’t started nibbling on their bodies so they probably hadn’t been dead for long. As far as he could tell they were not splicers either. Their bodies were free of all of the mutations that the splicers had.

Lying on the floor in between them was an audio diary. It took a bit of time for Delta to set the tape up with his radio so that he could actually listen to the thing. He probably could have waited till he got indoors to listen to it. It would have been easier to do so. With that said his curiosity was overwhelming, and for once in his life he was able to actually chose to do something about it. He had the freedom to do as he liked, and he was more than willing to indulge. Upon playing the diary the sound of a man happily talking filled his ears.

All right, Diary -- last entry! ...Lizzy and I... we found a 'sphere and we're going home! Ain't that right, baby? Next stop, topside!

The sound of a man and woman laughing in joy quickly followed the man’s words. Their laughter was different from the mad laughter of splicers that Delta had heard back at the resort. This laughter was one of pure relief. It was the laugh of people who had seemingly escaped an awful situation. Delta heard a woman’s voice quickly chime in once the laughter died down.

Oh, I love you. It was you who saved us, Sammy. It was you, button.

Right after she said that the sound of frantic beeping filled the air.

I -- what was that? What's that sound?

Sammy sounded downright terrified when he answered Lizzy’s question.

She's seen us! It's Lamb! Torpedo!!! ... I'll try to --

His words were cut off by the sound of screaming, and then the sound of something crashing into the bathysphere. After that all he heard was the gurgling of two people drowning before the dairy came to a quick stop. Delta was left standing there in front of their bodies feeling a strange mix of emotions of both sorrow and rage for these people. They just wanted to leave this place. They just wanted to go home together, and Lamb shot them down. The woman who kept going on and on about being a ‘family’ over and over again over the PA system murdered two innocent people who just wanted to go home.

‘Well, why are you surprised by that?’ A little voice in the back of Delta’s head asked. ‘Lamb seems to have a bad habit of killing whoever annoys her. Case in point: you.’

Delta didn’t really have much else to think about the whole thing beyond that. Honestly, that audio diary ended up being his breaking point. He was sort of there already, but that diary was the thing that finally made him think ‘To hell with this place.’

When Delta finally reached the edge of a cliff that overlooked the city of Rapture and spotted the billboard that was sitting there it officially felt like he was staring at some great cosmic joke. The city was a shadow of its former self. Neon signs advertising different business were flickering on and off as they barely clung to life. A few of the signs had already given up the ghost and had permanently gone dark. Some of the tunnels that connected the buildings together had collapsed. While there were a few buildings that still had their lights on there were also a lot of buildings that had gone completely dark. All of the buildings had structural damage of some sort. It was clear that it would only be a matter of time before all of the buildings in the city would finally collapse. Displayed in front of this crumbling failure of a city was a giant billboard that was probably only a week or two away from collapsing to the seabed. The billboard displayed the picture of a bunch of smiling beautiful people who looked like they were just thrilled to be there. Written on the billboard were two cheery little messages.

Welcome to Rapture!

Your beautiful city!

Delta couldn’t help but read that sign with some heavy sarcasm. Maybe the city had looked beautiful once, but its glory days were long over. As for it being his city? This place was never his city. No, until now he and Eleanor had only been this city’s slaves forced to gather ADAM to satisfy the city’s craving for the stuff. He wanted nothing to do with this city. If Lamb wanted it so bad she could have it. As for Delta had other desires. He wanted out of this hellhole. He wanted to see the sun, and he wanted to take Eleanor with him so that she could see the sun too. That was all that he wanted. It wouldn’t be an easy desire to fulfill. The audio diary he picked up from the broken bathysphere made that incredibly clear.

With that said he didn’t care. There had to be a way out of here, and if anyone knew the way it would be Tenenbaum. The audio diary that he had picked up where she mentioned that children from the surface were being kidnapped also mentioned that Tenenbaum had ‘returned’ to Rapture. So apparently she had found a way to leave, and come back. If she could do that then she could tell Delta how he could get the hell out of here once he was reunited with Eleanor. With that thought in mind Delta continued to make his way through the Atlantic Express Depot where Tenenbaum was waiting for him. Upon reaching the Atlantic Express Depot Delta hurried on his way to Tenenbaum.

As he explored the halls of the Atlantic Express Depot he came across even more audio diaries. A few of them explained how Lamb got down to Rapture in the first place. Apparently people hadn’t been doing well under the sea so they wanted a psychiatrist to help out. Out of all of the psychiatrists in the world why Andrew Ryan had to choose Lamb for his city Delta would never know. If the audio diary that Delta found that consisted of Ryan losing a public debate with Lamb was anything to go by the man probably came to regret that decision.

Delta also found a few diaries from Lamb lying around. Most of them were addressed to Eleanor, but considering the fact that Delta found them all the way out here usually tossed in a corner forgotten Delta thought it was safe to assume that Eleanor tossed them out the second she got them. The thought of Eleanor chucking out these things that Lamb worked hard to record made him feel happy, and he had no shame in admitting that. Besides the audio diaries two other important things happened on his little trip to find Tenenbaum.

The first thing was that Lamb had figured out that he was alive. She was bound to find out that he was alive sooner or later, so honestly he wasn't surprised that she figured out that he was still kicking so quickly. With that said the encounter with her splicers had been less then fantastic. While on his way to Tenenbaum he tried to go through a gate control room, but he had been locked up in the room the second he stepped inside. As he stood there trying to figure out how to get out the security TV screens that were hung up all over the room flickered on while Splicers started to gather outside of the room. Before Delta knew it he was surrounded by TV screens displaying Lamb's face while a bunch of splicers angrily tried their best to smash through the glass that kept them away from Delta.

As the splicers screamed their heads off Lamb stared calmly at Delta as she said “I know you. That symbol on your hand marks you a dead man. Ten years, Subject Delta, since I watched you put a gun to your head and pull the trigger. But take heart: Out of your pain, paradise was born. I don't know how you survived, but your suffering is over now. These men will ease your burden. Please understand that like all I have done, this… is an act of love.”

The screens then flickered off after Lamb stated that trying to have splicers murder him with guns and Molotov cocktails was somehow an act of love. Some snarky part Delta's brain couldn’t help but think ‘Lamb has a really funny way of showing her love.’

Delta was somehow able to escape the ambush, but that moment just really cemented Delta’s desire to get the hell out of this city. While the ambush was less then pleasant he did find one good thing here.

He found another sign of Eleanor being alive, and that she wanted him to find her.

He had found a red wagon filled with jars full of fireflies in a Jet Postal mail roon. Eleanor had always loved catching fireflies in Arcadia to the point that if they were ever there she wouldn’t go back to the vent until she was able to spend at least an hour running around the underwater forest chasing after the glowing bugs. It was due to this that fireflies always made him think of her. Sitting in between the jars filled with fireflies was a Telekinies Plasmid. Written on the floor around the wagon were hopeful messages like ‘Hope this helps’, and ‘Come find me’. Upon reaching out to grab the plasmid Delta was hit with a vision that came from his daughter.

“Father… it’s me, Eleanor. I know you’re awake in there- I can feel it. Mother won’t be able to.. to toy with you like that, ever again. This Plasmid is for you. Please find me!”

With that message given the last thing Delta was in his vision was a flash of Eleanor’s bright blue eyes. The second the vision faded away Delta was left standing there with the Plasmid bottle in hand. Delta wasted no time in doing as Eleanor asked. After he got that message he ran through the halls trying to find Tenenbaum. The splicers were constantly nipping at his heels, but Delta dealt with them as best as he could. After searching the halls for hours he finally found an elevator that would take him to Tenenbaum. As the elevator took him up to the floor that Tenenbaum was waiting on the woman finally decided to fill Delta in on what she knew.

“Ah, Herr Delta ... you arrive, as the Little Ones said you would. They have been talking about you for a long time now.” The woman let out a soft sigh through the radio. “I do not know much about your situation, but here is what the children tell me. You are a very old Big Daddy, bonded for life to a single Little One. When you are apart for too long, your body begins to shut down, like a coma. As long as the girl is in Rapture, you are trapped here as well. The name of your Little One is Eleanor Lamb, daughter of Sofia. She is kept at Fontaine Futuristics, on the other side of the city. You must go there und save her… before it is too late.”

Fontaine Futuristics.

His daughter was being held at Fontaine Futuristics.

That was the only part of that little speech that Delta considered important. The whole coma thing was more than a bit concerning, but he wasn’t going to get him down. He refused to fall into a coma here. He was going to escape this place with Eleanor.

They were going to see the sun.

That was the only thought that went through Delta’s head as he stepped out of the elevator and made his way toward the ticket booth where Tenenbaum was waiting. There had been a single splicer that had been banging on the glass of the ticket booth, but that splicer was easily killed with a few rivets from his rivet gun.

The second the splicer fell to the ground dead Tenenbaum said over the radio “Here. In the ticket booth. Press the button so we can speak face to face.”

Delta pressed the button that would open the security grate that was over the window. When the grate opened Delta was left looking at a woman. A woman who hadn’t been spliced to hell and back. She was an older looking woman with long gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. She looked tired, but her green eyes held a sort of warmth in them as she looked at Delta. It was probably the kindest look that anyone besides Eleanor had given him. In the ticket booth along with Tenenbaum were a few little girls. Two of the girls were sitting on the floor playing with toy blocks that Tenenbaum had provided for them. One little girl was sitting on the shelf in front of the window that Delta was standing in front of. The girl that was sitting there turned to look at Delta, and upon spotting him a happy smile appeared on her face as she waved wat him. Delta slowly waved back which seemed to be the right thing to do because the gesture caused the girl’s smile to become even brighter. Tenenbaum smiled softly at their interaction as she reached out and gently ruffled the girl’s long hair.

“You see? This is why I must fight Sofia Lamb. She is using the new Little Ones for… for something, and I have returned to rescue them.”

Tenenbaum gave him a serious look as she said “If I do not, more children will die for my sins, and the Rapture nightmare will repeat forever.”

The ‘her sins’ comment captured his attention, but any questions he had about it quickly faded from his head when he saw the TV inside the ticket booth flick on only to show a security photo of Delta taken somewhere in the Atlantic Express train station. The child sitting on the desk quickly tapped Tenenbaum’s arm and frantically pointed at the TV screen. When Tenenbaum turned to look at the screen Delta could see the color drain from her face.

“Citizens of Rapture,” Delta heard Lamb call out over the PA system. “This is Subject Delta. Behind that mask hides an enemy of the people- without soul or sympathy.”

The without sympathy part drew a loud grunt of both annoyance and dark amusement from Delta. After seeing the innocent couple that she had murdered Delta knew the only one without sympathy here was Lamb.

The sound caused Tenenbaum to shoot him a confused glance, but she was quick to look back at the TV when she heard Lamb say “It is a beast apart- and as Family, we must tear out its jaw and drive it back into the sea!”

With those spoken the TV flicked off and the sound of a siren could be heard in the distance. Tenenbaum quickly picked up the little girl that was sitting on the desk as she said “Lamb will take this place apart to find you. Please hold back the splicers until we escape.”

The metal security grate quickly slammed shut after she said that, and Delta could hear the screaming of splicers as they hurried toward his location. Delta sighed as he pulled his drill out. He hoped this wouldn’t be a long fight. Upon stepping out into the room where the train waited he found the splicers waiting there for him. Luckily most of the floor in that room was covered in water. One shock from Electro Bolt was enough to kill any splicer standing in the water. As for the splicers that were not standing in the water his drill was usually enough to deal with them. Delta kept alternating between using Electro Bolt on the splicers standing in the puddles, and the drill to deal with any splicers that got close to him. Even when a pile of bodies started to fill up the puddles the living splicers never seemed to figure out that maybe they should avoid standing in ankle deep water. It made the fight easier, but to some extent it made Delta wonder just how much did ADAM fry their brains that they all fell into the obvious trap. Eventually the splicers stopped coming. Delta was left standing there with a pile pf bodies surrounding him. Delta let out a soft sigh as he started looting the bodies for any money, health kits, or EVE hypos that they might have. As he did so he heard his radio buzz to life.

“Thank you,” He heard Tenenbaum say. “Now I must leave you, and I am sorry for this. But there are others I must help before the city drowns.”

That one comment caused Delta to pause.

There are others I must help before the city drowns…

She was obviously talking about the Little Sisters to some extent, but the way she phrased that made it seem like she was referring to more than just the Little Sisters. At first he couldn’t help but wonder if there was actually anyone down here that could be saved. It seemed like everyone down here had been mutated by ADAM into crazed nearly mindless monsters. However, as soon as that thought entered his head the image of Lizzie and Sammy’s bodies popped into his head. Sammy’s voice filled with joy and relief echoed in his head as he remembered something that he said.

We're going home!

Lizzie and Sammy probably weren’t the only people down here in Rapture who wanted to leave. There were probably other people who weren’t spliced to hell who wanted to go to the surface. There were probably people trapped down here by Lamb who wanted nothing more than to escape. Like him they probably wanted to see the sun. Would he run into any of those people while he was trying to rescue Eleanor? It was possible. Of course that thought brought up another question. Could Delta help any of these people if he came across them? Maybe? He didn’t know.

He wasn’t sure how many people would accept help from a Big Daddy much less a Big Daddy that Lamb wants dead. He couldn’t exactly search the whole city for survivors either. He had to save his daughter. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t help whoever he came across. Like Tenenbaum he wanted to help people escaped before this city drowned. Maybe he was thinking too deeply about this. Chances were high that he wouldn’t run into anyone sane enough for him to help. Still, if he did find someone he could help he would do so.

Delta’s thoughts were cut off when he heard Tenenbaum suddenly say “With that said I will not leave you alone. This man Sinclair, he is an ally and will guide you to Eleanor. Goodbye, Herr Delta, und good luck.”

‘Sinclair?’ Delta thought with a bit of confusion.

Who was Sinclair? He got his answer to that question pretty quick. As soon as Tenenbaum stopped speaking his radio clicked back on as a different voice started to speak to him. This voice was that of a man with a smooth southern accent.

“Well, look at you! A bona fide knight in armor, complete with iron horse. The name's Augustus Sinclair, sport. Esquire. Ol' Tenenbaum an' I share an interest in the ol' Fontaine buildin', the very same place you'll find Eleanor Lamb. I think you an' I can do business. Take the train to Ryan Amusements. I'll see you shortly.”

With those words spoken the radio clicked off and Delta was left alone with his thoughts once more. Delta couldn’t help but silently chuckle at the discerption that Sinclair had given him. A knight in shining armor, huh? Eleanor had called him a knight a few times back when she was a child. Mostly she did so after Delta rescued her from someone who tried to attack her for the ADAM that she had in her body.

“You’re like a knight Daddy!” She would say. “You always protect me from the monsters!”

That memory was a bit bittersweet now, but it was just sweet enough that Delta could look back at it with a bit of fondness. Once Delta was done looting the bodies he made a quick stop at the Circus of Values machine to buy a few health kits, and some fuel for his drill. Once that was finished he walked over to the train. The door to the train’s cockpit slid open without any issues, and Delta was able to step inside. Upon stepping inside he noticed two audio diaries sitting on top of the controls along with a paper note. Delta ignored those for the moment in favor of pulling the lever that would make the train move forward. It was only after he pulled the lever and the train started moving did he finally grab the note and start reading it.

Delta,
I am not sure if we will be able to travel together through Rapture. There are others I must rescue besides the Little Ones, and there are things that I must do before I can leave this place. While I cannot accompany you on your journey I did not wish to send you off completely blind. First, we must speak of the Little Ones. When you were revived you were given a special plasmid meant for saving the Little Ones. By using this plasmid on them you will kill the slug in their bellies, and the girls will survive and be free of their torment. I beg you. Please save the girls. They do not deserve this torture that Lamb puts them through. I wish you luck on your journey. May we both complete our goals and escape to the surface. -Tenenbaum

After reading that message he played the first audio diary. Tenenbaum’s voice could be heard clear as day from it, and she sounded exhausted.

Sofia Lamb has taken Rapture, and is responsible for stealing children from the surface. Her Splicers destroyed my submersible and forced me to run. But the ticket booth here is secure... and though I cannot trust him, Sinclair is a valuable ally. I have already rescued a few of the new Little Ones from Lamb. They all want to know how we will get home. I wish I had the right words for them.

The audio diary clicked off, and Delta was left feeling a small bit of unease. That mention of not trusting him didn’t exactly inspire confidence. The next audio diary looked old and a bit beat up.

Attached to the audio diary was a slip of paper that simply said ‘Do whatever you like with this information.’

Delta hit the play button only to hear Sinclair’s voice start playing from it.

I hear often, "Mr. Sinclair, you just gotta heart o' stone... don't you wanna share with your fellow man?" An' I tell 'em, listen... I hail from sunny Panama... and my grand-daddy got himself drowned buildin' the Big Ditch. Went on an' on about doin' it for the "People." For the world entire! Well, not for me, thank you. I came to Georgia to strike it rich, and Rapture all the moreso. You won't catch me blowin' my last bubble for any other personage... plural or singular.

The audio diary clicked off, and Delta was left staring at it with his confidence in this going well hitting an all-time low. After hearing that he was sure that his little mini mission of helping anyone he could would be even harder then he originally thought, and it was hard to begin with. However, ignoring that little issue Delta couldn’t help but wonder about one thing.

Just what sort of partnership did he just get himself stuck in?

He didn’t know, and right now there wasn’t much he could do about it since this man was his only guide to Fontaine Futuristics. All he could do was sit back and hope this ‘partnership’ wouldn’t end in disaster…

Chapter Text

“Whoa there, now better apply the brakes unless you're aiming to dash yourself against that glacier up ahead.”

That was the very first thing Delta heard as his train slowly pulled into the Ryan’s Amusements station. Delta had been sitting on the floor lightly dozing, but upon hearing Sinclair mention a glacier the Big Daddy sprang up to his feet and looked out the window. The giant metal gate in front of him was completely iced over. Delta quickly pulled the breaks, and the train stopped only inches away from the thick ice. The second the doors slid open Delta stepped outside to get a good look at the ice problem.

As Delta looked at the ice problem he heard Sinclair say “As you can see, chief, the station here's iced over. To reach Eleanor Lamb at Fontaine Headquarters we'll have to clear the way.”

Delta looked at the thick ice that covered the door only to slowly look down at his drill. Yeah, there was no way he could drill through all of that ice. His drill could break it, but with as thick as it was and with how much ice was there it would take hours for Delta to clear it all away with nothing but a drill.

Sinclair seemed to be following his thought process because he said “While that drill of yours is certainly strong enough to pierce the ice hacking away at it would take way too long. Now, in order to melt that ice, you’ll need a plasmid like a handful a’ hellfire. We used to sell a fine ol‘ product called Incinerate in the amusement park up yonder. Go on and find a way in. I’ve already been on all the rides.”

With those words said the radio clicked off and Delta was left standing there in silence. Delta really didn’t know what to think of this Sinclair guy. He was probably just using him for his own ends. He said he had an interest in the Fontaine Building, and the audio diary Tenenbaum left for him made it clear that he probably wouldn’t go out of his way to save anyone if it would inconvenience him at all. Still, while Tenenbaum said she didn’t trust him she had to trust him enough to work with him. With that said he had no idea how much he could trust the man. As long as Delta was useful and they had a common goal in mind everything would probably be fine.

Although, there was no telling what Sinclair would do once they got to Fontaine Futuristics. Delta sighed as he turned away from the iced over door and started to make his way toward the park. It wasn’t like standing around would accomplish anything. All he could do was move forward. As he moved he passed by another strange shrine. It had been a painting of a woman with a blue butterfly for a head. She glowed like some sort of angelic figure, and surrounding her were more painted messages.

We will be reborn!

She is our salvation!

“You are gonna see a lot of shrines like this all over Rapture,” Sinclair chimed in. “Lamb’s followers seem to see your girl as some sort of Jesus figure, and Lamb was the one to plant that idea in their heads. They like to show their faith by leaving these signs on every single surface that they can find. While they might be unpleasant it’s worth checking the shrines out. Lamb’s followers tend to leave behind useful offerings.”

Sinclair was right. Sitting in front of the painting were some wooden boxes that had been stacked together to make a sort of shrine table. Sitting on the makeshift shrine table was a health kit and an EVE hypo. As Delta picked the items up he also spotted an audio diary. Delta automatically picked the diary up, and pressed play. He couldn’t help but wince a bit when he heard Lamb’s voice come out of it.

Eleanor is progressing brilliantly. My physical participation in her birth was… minimized, of course- it is vital that I am unhindered by nature’s cruse bias. I will be, above all, her intellectual progenitor loyal not to her, but to the people she will ultimately save. But, I admit, it is with some measure of pride that I review her marks in standard intelligence tests. As an agent of our beliefs… she may surpass even me.

As the audio diary clicked off Sinclair quickly chimed in with “She sounds like she’s talking about a science experiment. Not a child.”

Delta couldn’t help but let out a small grunt of agreement. It really did sound like Lamb was talking more about a science experiment that was running smoothly rather than the growth of her own child. The intellectual progenitor thing also made it sound like Lamb doing everything in her power to not sound like a loving mother to Eleanor. It was a bit unsettling honestly. With a sigh Delta pocketed the audio dairy and moved along. He passed by a fountain that had been frozen over only to spot some money and an audio diary of all things stuck in the frozen water. Much as Delta wanted to take it he had to leave it behind. If he tried to dig it out with his drill he would probably just end up damaging the audio diary.

Stepping into the lobby Delta was happy to see that there were not any splicers around. In the center of the lobby there was a bunch of broken rubble that used to be a clock tower once, but other than that the clock the lobby was surprisingly in good condition. It was dirty, but there weren’t any cracks in the glass or puddles of water lying around anywhere. Delta walked around the mess in the middle of the room to approach the door that led into the amusement park. As soon as he got close to the door an automated message screeched to life.

“Welcome to Ryan’s Amusements! Please insert your ticket now. Half price for children under three.”

He could see the booth where he was supposed to insert a ticket, but he didn’t have any ticket to shove in there. From where he was standing he could see the ticket area where people brought their tickets. There was probably a ticket in there somewhere. Before he walked over there to check it out he decided to take a look at the map that was near the door. He had never been to Ryan’s Amusements before, or at the very least he didn’t remember being here. When he went harvesting with Eleanor they tended to stick to Adonis Luxury Resort, Arcadia, Athena’s Glory, and a few other scattered places. Ryan’s Amusements wasn’t a place that they ever went to, so it was probably a good idea to take a look at the map to know what to expect. The map was surprisingly not very big. There were only a few places on the map. There was a souvenir shop, Hall of the Future show area, and some restaurant called the El Dorado Lounge. As far as rides went there was the Journey to the Surface ride, and….

That was it.

Delta stared at the map for a few seconds only to let out a loud grunt of annoyance. Really? That was it? There was only one freaking ride here? This place was billed as some great amusement park, but there was only one freaking ride. Rapture's Grand Carnival had more amusements to offer then this. Just thinking about it made him think of how Sinclair said he had ridden ‘all of the rides’ here. Well of course he did. There was only one freaking ride. He didn’t even know why he was bothered so much about this. Chances were it was mostly due to the fact he knew that they probably charged a lot to get into the park, and anyone who actually paid the price only had one freaking ride to go on.

As if able to sense Delta’s annoyance Sinclair asked “What’s wrong, Chief?”

Delta only groaned as he jabbed his finger at the ‘Journey to the Surface’ words written on the sign.

Somehow Sinclair seemed to at least somewhat understand what Delta was getting worked up about because he laughed, and said “I did say I went on all of the rides didn’t I? It’s pretty easy to do when there is only one ride.”

Sinclair laughed again while Delta just grumbled as he stomped his way over toward the ticket area that also seemed to function as the security room if the map was anything to go by. Sinclair’s laughter died down as Delta stepped into the Security area.

“You know now is a good as time as any to tell you some of my plans,” Sinclair said as Delta rummaged through the desks in the ticket booth section of the security area. “Did you know that you are a rare old model, son? You are an ‘Alpha Series”, I believe. Now, Rapture’s full o’ scientific wonderments just like you an’ if we can sell ‘em to the world at my price, well curin’ your condition oughta be a cakewalk. Once we find Eleanor the sky’s the limit.”

Delta couldn’t help but pause upon hearing that. So Sinclair’s plan was to escape to the surface and sell Rapture’s technology to get rich? Sounded about right if that one audio diary that Delta had found was anything to go by. With that said did Sinclair really mean it when he said they could cure his condition? Delta couldn’t help but look down at his glove covered hands at that thought. He didn’t know what he looked like out of the suit. He had no memories of being out of it. He tried to picture what he must look like when he is out of the suit, but nothing came to mind. He couldn’t get a mental picture of himself no matter how hard he tried. Delta quickly shook those thoughts off. He had no idea if Sinclair’s offer of ‘curing’ him was real or not. He wouldn’t worry about it for now. Right now he was focused on getting Eleanor, and actually seeing the sky. He could worry about what he looked like out of the suit later.

With that thought shelved for now Delta left the ticket area of the security room to go into the actual security area. There was no tickets for him to use up front. Hopefully, there would be a ticket somewhere in the back. As he walked he passed by a security inventory that was filled with tiny machine guns, and one rather large machine gun. The large machine gun was so big that he couldn’t see a normal human using it. With that said it was the perfect size for a Big Daddy.

‘Maybe there is a key to the security inventory somewhere around here?’ He thought.

He would have to keep an eye out for it. At the opposite end of the hall was some strange machine called a ‘Power to the People’ machine.

“You're gonna want to use that,” Sinclair said quickly as Delta approached it. “Power to the People machines can be used to upgrade any weapon that you got. It will even work on Big Daddy weapons. With that said you can only use a Power to the People station once. So chose what upgrade you get carefully.”

Delta let out a small grunt of understanding as he started to look through the list of upgrades.

As he looked through the upgrade options he heard Sinclair say “You know ol’ Andy was steaming mad when Fontaine started installing these things all over the place. He hated the fact that the machines were free. Thought giving out free upgrades was too close to altruism. He probably would have torn them all out, but the people of the city kicked up enough of a fuss about it that he ended up leaving them. People don’t exactly like it when you take something free from them. Heck, once the civil war stared Ryan’s army started to use the Power of the People stations too. Guess Andy didn’t have a problem with altruism if he could profit off of it.”

Delta let out a small hum as he chose the fuel efficiency upgrade for his drill. While that was an interesting bit of info Delta couldn’t really comment one way or the other about it. He didn’t know what this whole civil war thing was about. It must have happened when he was dead. As for the names Andy and Fontaine Delta recognized those. Andy had to be Andrew Ryan the man who made this hellhole in the first place. Fontaine was the owner of the building that they were going to, and Delta recalled seeing the Fontaine Futuristics company name on a lot of advertisement posters that hung on the walls all over Rapture. While he recognized the names he didn’t care at all about either of them. According to Lamb’s PA messages Ryan was dead. As for Fontaine Delta thought he was dead too. He had some hazy memory of hearing someone say so when he was out harvesting with Eleanor once. Well, even if he wasn’t dead he really wasn’t Delta’s problem.

With a mental shrug Delta walked deeper into the security area. He found a few audio diaries from some disgruntled workers of the park. One was from a security worker complaining over the fact that the job wasn’t as easy as he was led to believe. Apparently riders had a tendency to jump off the ride carts to go running around the ride displays, or if they were not jumping off the ride carts they were throwing stuff at the wax dummies that made up the displays. That audio diary was a bit funny, and it made Delta feel a little bad for the man who had to deal with it all. The other audio diary that he found had been a bit more noteworthy. It was from the man who made the ride in the first place, and the second the diary started it was very apparent that he was not happy.

I was hired to engineer a park the likes of which no man has seen, and now all I do is watch over it like a grizzled sheepdog. My first line of mechanical puppets made the children here coo with wonder. But Ryan thought my vision was immature... "antiquated," he said. This place could have been something magical, but instead he turned it into a school... no, a cathedral. Dedicated to himself.

Delta felt a bit bad for the man, but all thoughts about him faded away when he heard the voice of a Little Sister.

“I’ll make you light as feathers again.”

Upon hearing her Delta ran toward the source of the noise. There in the very back of the security area was a window that looked out onto one of the display areas of the ride. A waxen replica of Andrew Ryan sat slumped in a chair at a desk in a mini replica of an office. A dead body of some unfortunate man was lying near the dummy, and standing over the body was a single Little Sister. While Delta couldn’t see any Big Daddy around the large shadow of a Big Daddy that loomed on the wall made it clear that he was nearby. The loud whale like groan, and the Little Sister immediately jumped to attention upon hearing that. She looked around quickly before she quickly scurried away out of view. The Big Daddy let out a loud groan as it slowly left the area. Once the duo was gone Delta let out a small sigh as he looked around the area. Sitting on a nearby desk was a single ticket.

Delta quickly snatched up the ticket he heard Sinclair say “Jim Dandy. That’ll getcha in the park. But buyin’ Incinerate’s gonna cost ADAM- it’s a sorta genetic goo that lets you rewrite whatever God gave you. The Little Sisters carry the stuff, as you may recall so you’ll need to locate one. I heard whisperin’ near the El Dorado Lounge. Have a look.”

As the radio clicked off Delta couldn’t help but mentally wonder what Sinclair expected him to do once he found the Little Sister. Chances were high that the Little Sister would have a Big Daddy with her. Big Daddies didn’t really interact with each other much if at all. They tended to ignore each other most of the time. The only times they interacted was when their Little Sisters wanted to play with each other, and even then their interaction with each other was more like two guard dogs working together. At least that was how it used to be. With Lamb in charge now there was no telling what would happen if Delta were to interact with a Big Daddy now. He doubted his fellow Big Daddy would just let him take his Little Sister and then walk off into the sunset.

Delta’s train of thought came to a screeching halt when he heard what sounded like glass being smashed somewhere near the entrance of the security booth. Without even thinking Delta raced toward the source of the noise, and upon getting there he saw that a splicer had smashed open the security inventory, and was currently trying to pull one of the machine guns out.

‘Well, this means you don’t have to find a key to the inventory anymore,’ A little voice in the back of Delta’s head cheerily thought.

That thought was also quickly followed up by ‘Why the hell didn’t I try smashing it open first?’

If a Splicer could break it open he sure as heck could as well. Delta mentally shrugged as he zapped the splicer and knocked him out with his drill. Honestly, it really didn’t matter much anymore. The case was open now, and Delta was free to take the monster of a machine gun with him. Once he had his prize in hand he made his way back to the park’s entrance. Luckily, the ticket machine took his ticket without any issues, and Delta was free to step inside. Upon stepping inside he was greeted with the sight of a small booth displaying a single Gene Tonic along with a sign saying ‘Free sample! Get more at the Hall of the Future!’

Upon picking the tonic up the light suddenly flickered on while some confetti burst out from nowhere and started raining down on him.

As Delta shook the confetti off of himself he heard a recorded message say “I am Andrew Ryan, and I welcome you to Ryan’s Amusements. Please enjoy the park.”

The man sounded so bored in his message. He honestly sounded like he would rather be doing anything other than recording that message. It was a bit pathetic for an amusement park honestly, but it only grew more pathetic when some music started to play over the speaker system. Maybe the music sounded nice back in the park’s heyday if the park even had a heyday to begin with, but these days it was just sad now. The song quality was very scratchy and it sadly limped along as it tried to sound majestic. It honestly sounded like the tape that the song had been recorded onto was only seconds away from giving up the ghost and just straight up breaking. Honestly, with the way Rapture was these days it was sort of fitting for this whole city. Ignoring the sad display for a second Delta quickly used the tonic. The tonic was a simple Sports Boost tonic. This tonic was extremely common, and from what Delta remembered it was pretty cheap too. Its cheapness was probably why it was being given out as a free sample to paying customers. Delta wasn’t going to complain. A free tonic was a free tonic, and honestly as a Big Daddy he could do with a bit of a speed boost.

If the lobby of the amusement park had been in a more or less good condition the museum of the park definitely wasn’t. Most of the museum exhibits had been obliterated. Heck, one was just straight up on fire. A lot of the railing that was up on the second floor had been knocked down. There was gas spilled on the floor, and a few bodies laying around the place. Delta also found signs that a lot of people had been living here once. The benches in the room had been made into makeshift beds, and Delta could see a few messy piles of blankets and pillows. Lying on one of the makeshift beds was a single audio diary. Upon pressing play on the audio diary he could hear the sound of children playing. Laughter echoed around him from the diary along with children cheerfully calling out toward their friends. Over the sound of happy kids an exhausted woman started speaking.

I love the kids in Ms. Englert's third grade class, but boy, I had NO idea what I was getting into, volunteering to chaperon this New Year's sleepover party at Ryan Amusements...

Donny?

Donny! Get down off of that exhibit, and I told you, spit out that gum! You'll choke!

A loud sigh filled the air, but apparently the Donny kid stopped what he was doing because the woman continued speaking.

The kids' parents deserve a night off to enjoy New Years, but I'm at my wit's end -- Donny! I TOLD you –

The audio diary cut off just in time for Delta to hear Sinclair sigh over his radio.

“I almost forgot about that school sleepover thing,” Sinclair said. “For the 1958 New Year’s Eve festivities a lot of schools offered to let parents pay to have chaperones babysit their kids for them so that they were free to take place in the New Year’s festivities. They were spread all over the place. When the New Year’s Riots happened a lot of places got shut down so that travel in or out of those places was impossible. Ryan Amusements was one of those places that got closed down meaning that the class, the volunteers, and a few of the employees got shut in.”

Delta had a sinking feeling he wasn’t going to like where this story was going to go.

“A lot of those kid’s parents were killed during the riots. The few people who survived that still cared about the people stuck here had their hands tied. Ryan started setting strict curfews, and he started restricting travel. A lot of the Rapture metro station had been destroyed during the riots. A few stations survived, but Ryan restricted their use so only he and his inner circle could use it. Not that it mattered much. After a few weeks had passed by the war was in full swing. Everyone was a bit too busy trying to survive the war to really think much of poor souls that were trapped here. Travel to this area only opened back up some time back in 61, and by then most of the people who had been trapped here were either dead or splicers. This place is more of a tomb to those abandoned souls then an amusement park.”

Delta couldn’t help but sigh upon hearing that.

1958 New Year’s Eve sort of just sucked for everyone didn’t it?

Delta pocketed the audio diary, and charged forward toward the El Dorado Lounge. He honestly intended to just keep charging full steam ahead until he found the Little Sister. However, when he stepped into the waiting area of the restaurant he couldn’t help but freeze when he got a good look at the place.

One look at this place made it very clear that Sinclair’s comment that this place was a tomb was actually very fitting. Every single booth there had body lying on it. Delta couldn’t see the bodies since they had all been placed in makeshift body bags made out of blankets, sleeping bags, and pillow cases. It looked like the doomed party had made this part of the restaurant into a makeshift final resting place for the dead. It was a rather grim sight. The only source of light here was a small red wagon waiting in front of the door to the restaurant. An audio diary and a tonic sat inside of wagon along with a jar filled with fireflies. A drawing of a Little Sister giving a gift to Delta had been scribbled onto the floor along with the message ‘Hope this helps!’ Delta stepped toward the gift only to pause when he felt Eleanor tugging at their bond. It was a week pull. One that gave him no indication of where she was. All it did was let him know that she wanted his attention. He could hear Eleanor’s voice echo in his head the second she started to pull at their bond.

“Until you arrive, father, I’m trapped here. Smuggling these gifts out is the most I can do to help.”

With the message given Eleanor’s voice faded away, and that tugging sensation he felt from their bond vanished. It was good to hear from her, but he did feel a small stab of concern for her. Was it safe for her to be smuggling these gifts out to him? Lamb probably wouldn’t kill the girl after all the trouble she went through to get Eleanor, but he could easily see Lamb hurting Eleanor if she found out. Delta quickly shoved that thought away. He would get to Eleanor before Lamb could punish her for such things. The tonic was Drill Power which would be useful, but he didn’t pay much attention to that.

The audio diary that came with it was much more interesting. It was one made by Eleanor when she was still a young child, and it was both innocent and disturbing in equal measures. In it Eleanor spoke of sneaking out and seeing the children that Lamb had lovingly said were being raised on a diet of ‘dog eat dog’. It was clear that Eleanor probably took that whole dog thing a bit more literally then Lamb had meant. That child innocence in misunderstanding the whole dog eat dog saying was sweet, but what Lamb had done was disturbing. In the diary Eleanor said that Lamb didn’t let her interact with other children at all. Just how isolated had Eleanor been? The more he heard from these things the more he was convinced that Sinclair was right on the money when he said that Lamb was treating Eleanor like a since project. Heck, he would go as far as to say that to Lamb Eleanor wasn’t just treated like a science experiment. Eleanor was a science experiment. That thought made Delta feel a bit sick. Who treated their own child like this?

‘Someone who doesn’t actually care about their kid,’ Was the answer that immediately popped into his brain.

Delta sighed as he shook his head and stepped forward. Upon entering the restaurant itself he immediately heard the voice of a Little Sister echo through the room.

“Can we go on the ride and see Mr. Angry again, can we?"

The loud rumble of a Big Daddy was the answer to that. Delta quickly moved forward only to find the pair that he had been searching for. Standing there on a small stage was a Little Sister. She was staring up hopefully at the Bouncer Big Daddy that was standing on the stage with her. The Big Daddy let out another low rumble as he reached out and ruffled the girl’s hair. She pouted a bit, but her smile was quick to come back. Apparently she took the rumble as a no, but ultimately she didn’t seem too bothered by it. She was quick to forget her request as she danced along to the music that was being played through the speaker system set up in the restaurant. The Big Daddy with her just stood to the side as it watched over her. Neither one of them had noticed that Delta was there. They were both lost in their own little world where the only thing that mattered was each other. It was a familiar situation to him. Once he and Eleanor had been in the exact same situation. Delta’s radio buzzed to life before Delta could lose himself in his memories.

“Now, that Big Daddy won't bite until you do. But to get to Lil' Sis, you gotta put the old boy down for good. Make sure you are prepared before you start a fight. Those Big Daddies are just as deadly as you are.”

Delta froze a bit upon hearing that. The idea of him attacking a fellow Big Daddy just felt inherently wrong. There was no difference between him and the other Big Daddy. The only difference between the two of them was that Delta had his free will. He didn’t want to kill the Big Daddy. Yet, what choice did he have? The only way he could move forward to get to Eleanor he needed the Little Sister’s help. Besides the girl was a child that Lamb stole from the surface. The child didn’t deserve to die with this sinking city. Tenenbaum had come down here to save the girls. Any of the kids he sent though the vents would probably find their way to her, and Tenenbaum would help get them home. He had already made a silent promise to himself to help whoever he could to get out of here.

So like it or not to save the girl he would have to kill the Big Daddy.

Delta took a deep breath, stared right at the Big Daddy, and quickly zapped him with Electro Bolt. The Big Daddy let out a loud grunt of pain while the Little Sister let out a cry of fear.

"He's bad! He hurts!" Delta heard the girl scream out.

It was something that didn’t help at all with Delta’s feelings of guilt, but he tried to ignore her words as he used his machine gun to try and take the Big Daddy down. It wasn’t an easy job. The Bouncer only had his drill to fight with which meant that if Delta could keep enough distance between them he could avoid the drill. Unfortunately, the restaurant was not very big at all. There wasn’t a lot of room for Delta to duck and doge when a Bouncer was charging at him at full speed. Electro Bolt could stun him for a few seconds, but a few seconds wasn’t enough time to do much. Try as he might Delta wasn’t able to avoid getting smacked a few times. One hit from the Bouncer’s drill was enough for Delta to feel at least a bit sorry for anyone he ever used the drill on. It wasn’t pleasant. By the time the Big Daddy went down Delta had gone through at least two Eve Hypos and he was in despite need of a health kit. The enemy Big Daddy crashed to the ground while letting out a one final sad moan. Delta felt sort of numb as he watched the red lights of the Big Daddies helmet flicker off while the Little Sister wailed in sadness. The girl ran to her protector, and fell to her knees as she cried her heart out.

“Take a breath son, you did it. Now, just let her ride on your shoulders, an' she'll trust you like her own daddy.”

Delta really had to wonder if Sinclair was right about that. Would she trust him? He just killed her protector. How could see trust him after that? Still, he slowly walked toward the girl. Once he was close enough the girl let out a small sniffle, and looked up at him. Upon spotting him a bright smile appeared on her face.

The girl sniffled as she asked “Why am I crying? You're -- You're okay!"

With those words said the girl threw her arms around his leg, and hugged him. Delta let out a small groan as he carefully ruffled the girl’s brown hair. Sinclair really hadn’t been lying. She really did trust him. In fact, it looked like she thought Delta and her previous guardian were the same person. Delta felt a small stab of guilt at how easily he was able to just replace the other Big Daddy, but he tried his best to ignore that feeling. The girl let go of him, and rubbed her eyes. As he watched her he was instantly reminded of the fact that he still had the doll that the Little Sister at the Adonis Resort had dropped when the Big Sister picked her up. He never did get the chance to give it back to her. At this rate he probably never would get to give it back to her. While he couldn’t give the doll back he could at least give it a new home. With any luck maybe the doll would help to make the girl feel a bit better. Delta took the doll out and let out a soft groan as he held the doll out to the girl. The Little Sister let out a soft gasp upon seeing it. The way she was eyeing the thing one would think Delta was offering her something really special and not just some old doll made up of cobbled together parts.

“For me?” She asked softly.

Delta just let out a soft groan as he handed the doll over to the girl.

The girl hugged the doll close to her chest as she cheerfully chirped out “Thank you Daddy!”

Delta let out a small moan in response. While the child marveled over her doll Delta quickly used a health kit on himself, and took stock on his supplies. He used up most of his machine gun ammo on the Big Daddy, so he needed to get more ammo for that. He also needed to find at least two Eve Hypos, and a health kit to replace the ones he used up. He didn’t like the idea of going anywhere without carrying as many health kits as he possibly could. It was better to be over prepared then under prepared after all. Delta glanced around to see if there were any health kits or Eve Hypos lying around.

“Are you looking for something Daddy?” He heard the Little Sister ask.

Delta looked down at the girl only to see that she was looking right back up at him with a smile on her face. To answer her question Delta held up the empty health kit that he had just used to answer her question.

“You need to find one of those?” The girl questioned. “Can I help you look? I’m really good at finding stuff!”

Delta thought about how to answer that question for a moment. The restaurant wasn’t very big. She couldn’t disappear out of his sight, and there was only one way in and out of this place. It would probably be safe to let her search this small area here. The Big Daddy nodded, or well he attempted to nod. The helmet made it sort of impossible to nod like a normal person. All he could really do was make a bowing sort of motion to say yes.

The girl seemed to get the message because she let out a small sound of joy as she said “Don’t worry Daddy you can count on me!”

She probably would have started running around the restaurant right then and there to search, but Delta placed his hand on her shoulder before she could run off. He let out a loud groan as he quickly pointed at the door that lead out of the area and did his best to shake his head no. Again thankfully the girl seemed to get the message.

“It’s alright Daddy I’ll stay right here,” She promised.

Delta groaned softly as he ruffled the girl’s hair and finally let the girl go about searching. The child smiled at him as she carefully put her ADAM syringe down on the stage. Once she had done that she tucked her new doll under her arm. Once her doll was safely tucked under her arm she started to run all over the place searching for health kits. Delta couldn’t help but chuckle a bit at her energy. She was definitely dedicated to the little job that he had given her that was for sure. Delta started to do his own searching, but he made sure to keep an eye on the Little Sister the whole time.

First he searched the corpse of the Big Daddy. He felt a bit guilty doing so, but if he wanted to survive and protect the Little Sister he needed to loot pretty much every corpse that he came across. He knew that the Big Daddy would have some useful things on him. Since it was a Bouncer it would probably have some fuel on him. He would also most likely have a bit of money or possibly even a health kit on him too. He knew all Big Daddies were given money so they could pay to heal at health stations once a battle was done, or to pay for ammo or fuel. Delta had a few memories of having to buy fuel for his drill, or he had to pay for healing from a health station. Sometime he would buy Eleanor a pep bar or a Hop-Up cola from a Circus of Values machine if she mentioned that she was feeling hungry or thirsty. That probably wasn’t what he was meant to do with the money, but it wasn’t like anyone could tell him to not do that.

Thinking of it now he had no idea who had been supplying him with the money back when Eleanor was still with him. Heck, he couldn't even remember where he got the money now that he thought about it. Chances are whoever was in charge of keeping the Big Daddies supplied with cash, bullets, fuel, and whatever else Big Daddies needed probably had some cash delivered to him during his ‘sleep walking’ moments when Eleanor wasn’t with him. It wouldn’t be hard to have what he needed shipped off to one of the many Pneumo Tubes that were all over the city. Delta mentally shrugged off his thoughts about how Big Daddies got money when he was able to find 34 dollars on the dead Big Daddy. He gave a silent thanks to the dead Big Daddy before he finally moved on.

There was an Ammo Bandito machine there that he was able to buy some bullets from. Upon searching the restaurant he was only able to find one Eve Hypo, and one audio diary. He pressed play only to be surprised when he heard the voice of the father that came to Rapture from the surface in search of his kidnapped daughter. Delta had found the diary describing his arrival in the city, and his first encounter with a splicer. Delta honestly didn’t think he would find anymore audio diaries from the man, so hearing the man’s voice yet again was a pleasant surprise. It meant he had survived long enough to get here.

I found one of those children at last. Filthy dress, all alone. I approached her… praying that it was my little girl. But she was… gorging herself on blood from a corpse. It wasn't her. I stared, just, just reeling, and then that skinny… armored freak that took Cindy jumped me, shrieking like an animal! I escaped but… could Cindy have become one of those… things? I've got to find her, now more than ever.

The diary clicked off and Delta was left standing there in silence. He about jumped out of his skin when he heard his radio squeak to life, and Sinclair suddenly started speaking.

“So the topsider has been here, huh? I’m surprised he survived long enough to get here all the way from Adonis Luxury Resort.”

Delta let out a small grunt of confusion upon hearing Sinclair say that. How did he know the about the man from the surface? Sinclair only chuckled at the sound of a confused Big Daddy.

“Don’t sound all confused, Chief. The second you came back from the great beyond I’ve been watching what you are doing through the camera on your helmet along with Tenenbaum. I’ve been listing to all the audio diaries that you have picked up, so I already know about our surface friend.” Delta could hear Sinclair let out a small hum in thought. “Now the question is when did he get here? He’s not here anymore that’s for sure. If he was I would be able to see him on the security cameras. Either he swung by here before I got here, or zipped through here during the rare moments when I was resting and not keeping my eyes glued onto the security cameras. Honestly, I’m surprised Lamb hasn’t raised the alarm over him already. She doesn’t exactly like the idea of anyone getting in or out of Rapture.”

The audio diary from the poor unfortunate couple who tried to escape briefly flashed in Delta’s head upon hearing that. The Big Daddy couldn’t help but mentally winch a little at the memory.

“I suppose Lamb doesn’t think he’s worth mentioning when she has much bigger fish to fry,” Sinclair said. “A Big Daddy is a lot more threatening than a normal man from the surface.”

Sinclair probably had a point with that, but honestly Delta was sure that at least part of the reason why Lamb didn’t raise a stink about him was due to the fact that she probably expected the splicers to deal with the man before he became a problem. Delta hoped the man was alright, but well….

It was Rapture. Good things didn’t exactly happen here.

“Daddy!” The voice of the Little Sister caused Delta to look up only to spot the girl racing toward him with an arm full of supplies.

“I found what you were looking for!” She chirped out.

She did indeed find a health kit although that wasn’t all she had found. It looked like she had also found some money during her search.

“I found some money too! That’s useful isn’t it Daddy? You can buy candy, and pop, and all sorts of good stuff with it!”

Delta let out a gentle groan as he patted the girl’s head. A bright smile appeared on the girl’s head upon hearing his gentle groan. She was clearly proud of herself for helping Delta out like this. The health kit was greatly appreciated, and the money would be useful. She found 24 dollars which was honestly more than he expected. Once he had everything that she had found tucked away for safe keeping the girl asked “Are you ready to go Daddy?” Delta groaned as he bowed forward slightly in an attempt to imitate a bow. The girl quickly ran over to the stage to pick her syringe back up. With the doll tucked under her arm and her syringe in her left hand she grabbed Delta’s hand with her right hand and carefully guided him out of the restaurant.

“This way,” She sang out as she gently guided him forward.

Delta let her guide him forward without making any sound. Honestly, this was petty nostalgic for him. Having the Little Sister gently guide him along reminded him of all of the times that Eleanor would take ahold of his hand to guide him.

Upon stepping out toward the main area the girl pointed down to the entrance to the park’s only ride and said “There it is!”

Delta looked down where the girl was pointing only to spot a dead splicer lying on the ground. The bloody wrench next to the body, and the fact that the splicer’s head looked like it had been smashed in sort of answered any questions Delta may have had about how the guy died.

“Are we going to get the angel Daddy?” Delta groaned and shake his head no as best as he could.

He hoped she got the message. Luckily, she did. Little Sisters seemed to understand Big Daddies better than most.

“But we are going to get it soon, right?” She asked.

Delta gave the girl a thumbs up, and that was enough to satisfy her. Delta looked away from the girl and looked around. Besides the ride which he was sure he was going to have to go into to find more ‘angels’ the only places left to explore were the Hall of the Future, and the Gift Shop. The Hall of the Future was probably where he was going to have to go there to get the fire plasmid so he was willing to ignore that for the moment. He would probably want to check out the Gift Shop. There could be something useful in there. It wouldn’t hurt to check at the very least.

Andrew Ryan wakes one night, while cruising the Atlantic in his steamliner "The Olympian." His sleep interrupted with a singular purpose: "Here!" he shouts to his crewmen, as he wipes sleep from his eyes. "Full stop! We begin building here!”

Delta about jumped out of his suit when he heard that rather loud recorded message echo through the room. He quickly turned only to see that the Little Sister had gone up to one of the still standing exhibits and pushed the button there. She looked a little sheepish when she saw that the sudden loud noise had made the Big Daddy jump.

“Sorry Daddy,” The girl said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The girl hummed a little as she looked at the rest of the intact exhibits.

“Can we listen to the rest of them?” She asked.

Delta let out a small rumble as he approached the second exhibit in response. It wouldn’t hurt to listen to them. There were only four exhibits, so it wouldn’t take long to listen to them all. The girl let out a loud cheer as she quickly raced over to Delta’s side. They spent the next couple of minutes going from one exhibit to the next. Surpassingly they were all actually informative. Most of the exhibits explained how they got supplies down to the bottom of the ocean, and how they moored the city into the sediment. It seemed the museum had actually been made to educate. It was a bit sad that most of the exhibits had been destroyed, but honestly it was a miracle that some of them had survived at all.

Once they finished listing to the last exhibit Delta picked the Little Sister up, and placed her on his back. He didn’t know what to expect from the Gift Shop, so he didn’t want the girl to get too far away from him. When Eleanor had gotten too far away from him things had ended badly for the both of them. He wasn’t going to have a repeat of that situation. Upon stepping into the Gift shop he spotted a splicer trying to open up the shop’s cash register while another splicer was studying what looked like a fortune teller machine. Delta tossed an Electro Bolt at the splicer near the fortune teller. The splicer screamed and twitched as the electricity ran through his body while the Little Sister happily laughed.

"It's dancing, Daddy, dancing!" The Little Sister happily yelled out.

For a brief second Delta really had to wonder what exactly it was that Little Sisters saw, but he let that thought drop when the splicer near the cash register let out a screech.

"Hand me that child! Now!" The Splicer screamed as she rushed toward him with a crowbar in hand.

That little comment earned her a drill through the head. As the body of the splicer fell to the floor Delta quickly turned his attention into the other splicer that was still paralyzed due to electricity. A few shots from his rivet gun put the splicer out of his misery. After looting the bodies Delta explored the location. There really wasn’t much there. There was only 11 dollars in the cash register. As for the store itself most of the shelves were bare already picked clean by splicers and the unfortunate people who had been trapped here so long ago. The only things there were a few moldy birthday cards in the card rack, and a few dusty toys left behind on the back shelves along with one lone audio diary. The audio diary wasn’t interesting. It was just the shop keeper made a deal with Sinclair of all people to get toys made by people from an area called Pauper’s Drop. When the man in the diary mentioned picking a few needles out of the toy shipments Delta decided right then and there he wasn’t letting any Little Sister that he cared for touch any toys that they found here.

Other than that there really wasn’t much of interest here. The Little Sister seemed rather interested in the fortune teller machine, but she didn’t say anything about that as Delta moved on to investigate the bathrooms. The men’s restroom didn’t have much in there other than some trap rivets. The rivets would be useful when he finally harvested ADAM from that dead body, so honestly just fining those was justification enough for coming into the Gift Shop. The woman’s restroom held no ammo but it did contain yet another shrine dedicated to Lamb. The image of Lamb's stern gaze made Delta’s skin itch. Her picture was surrounded by blue butterflies pinned to the wall. Candles were lit and set up around the picture like it was something worthy of worship. Sitting in front of her picture was a single audio diary. Delta picked it up, and wasn’t surprised when he heard Lamb’s voice come out of it.

I know the surface, Eleanor. I spent half a lifetime there, in service of the common good. But then, I heard my own words twisted by fat old men, squatting over the embers of Hiroshima. Were the modern world a patient in my care, I would diagnose it suicidal. On perhaps that point alone, Andrew Ryan is correct. Rapture... is deliverance.

As the audio diary clicked off Delta couldn’t help but let out a small huff of disbelief. Rapture was nothing but a hellhole. No more. No less. The piles of bodies laid out at the El Dorado Lounge, the dead couple in the sunk bathysphere, and the sorry state of this city made that incredibly clear. Delta turned and left the bathroom.

He was content to leave the Gift Shop behind, but as they passed the Fortune Teller he heard the Little Sister ask “Can we get our fortune told?”

Delta paused for a moment before shrugging. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt. As he approached the machine he heard the girl say “Can I give the money to the fortune teller?” Delta only groaned out an agreement as he gently grabbed the girl and plopped her down in front of the machine.

“We need four dollars, Daddy!” The girl said as she dropped her syringe onto the ground and held four fingers out. “Enough for a fortune for you, and a fortune for me.”

Delta pulled out four dollars, and handed them over.

“My fortune first!” The girl chirped put as she fed two dollars into the machine.

The eyes of the mechanical fortune teller let up as a little mystical sounding song filled the air. The Little Sister looked excited, but her smile quickly faded when the machine said “Believe me when I tell you I wouldn't want to be in your shoes."

Another little song as the eyes of the fortune teller flickered off. The girl stood there staring silently at the fortune teller with a blank look on her face. Delta actually started to worry a bit. He had never seen a Little Sister look so void of emotion before, and the only time a Little Sister was ever silent was when they were hiding from something that was trying to hurt them. The girl stared at the machine for a moment before she finally shoved the last two dollars in.

“Daddy’s fortune next,” The girl mumbled.

The machine’s eyes flickered back on, but the fortune that Delta got wasn’t much better than the child’s fortune. Delta felt a chill go down his spine when he heard the machine say "Well, I hope you have somebody to carry on your family name."

As the lights in the machine’s eyes flickered off the girl very loudly said “Those aren’t very nice fortunes.”

“Those Epstein the Swami machines never give out good fortunes,” Delta heard Sinclair say. “They only gave out bad fortunes, or advice to prepare for the worst. They were real popular during Rapture’s heyday. Never understood why. Who wants to hear that their future is doomed?”

Delta was quiet after Sinclair said that, and almost as if sensing that Delta was feeling uneasy Sinclair quickly said “Don’t you give any of those fortunes any mind. Destiny isn’t written in stone, kid. Anything that fortune teller says is garbage.”

Delta didn’t really react to what Sinclair said. Instead, he just picked the Little Sister up and started to walk out of the Gift Shop. They had an angel to harvest. As he walked he tried to forget those fortunes. He really hoped Sinclair was right when he said that those fortunes were not a warning of things to come…

Chapter Text

Delta figured his first ADAM harvesting would not be like all of the harvesting sessions that he had with Eleanor. Unlike with Eleanor he had someone who wanted him dead, and she wouldn’t just sit around and let Delta collect ADAM for his own use without a fight. He had to really prepare for this fight. He used every single trap rivet he had to make a protective circle around the body. No one was going to get to the Little Sister. Not on his watch. Once that was done he carefully placed the girl down next to the body. An eager grin appeared on the girl’s face as she dropped down to her knees next to the body.

“Who watches over sleeping angels?” The girl sang out. “I do! I do!”

The second her needle made contact with the body the PA system sprang to life.

“That is a child of the Family, not a toy for you to exploit and discard. It is fitting that you expire here — one more forgotten curio in Ryan’s shrine to the self.”

Red hot rage bubbles up inside of Delta when he hears that. This girl did not belong to the family. She was a child cruelly ripped away from her home under the sun. She was a child dragged into this hellhole, and used as a pawn by someone who didn’t care about her. The fact that Lamb had the audacity to say such a thing when she ripped away the poor girl’s childhood was absolutely maddening. Luckily, he had something to take his rage out on. When the PA system went off the splicers started to appear. They arrived screaming in rage as they demanded that he hand the child over.

Delta answered their screams with his own roars of rage as he tossed himself into battle. There was no strategy being used as he fought, and honestly a strategy wasn’t really needed. Most of the splicers were brute splicers who just tossed themselves at Delta with their only plan being to try and bludgeon Delta to death with whatever they had on hand. Delta’s drill was enough to deal with them. The few gun wielding splicers that he ran into fell to his machine gun. A few splicers ran toward the Little Sister completely ignoring Delta only to die when they ran into the trap rivets that he had put down. As for the Little Sister she was absorbed into her task, and completely unaware of anything going on. She trusted her guardian to keep her safe. Eventually the wave of splicers came to an end right when the girl finished her task.

The second she was done she sprang to her feet and chirped out “All done Daddy!”

Delta quickly scooped her up upon hearing those words, and once she was in his arms she gave him some of the ADAM that she had collected.

His radio clicked on, and Delta heard Sinclair say “Now you know the stakes, son. Lamb won’t let you harvest ADAM in peace. Every time you harvest she will send the hoard after you. Make sure you are ready before you start harvesting a body.”

Delta let out a small grunt of acknowledgment.

“Now while the ADAM you have gathered is a nice start we will need much more than that if we want to get that plasmid. There should be an ADAM rich corpse somewhere on the ride itself. Take a look around, and remember that little dimples there can lead you to it if you are having difficulty finding it.”

Delta let out another grunt of acknowledgment, and continued on his way after he looted the bodies and picked up the few trap rivets that had been left over.

Upon stepping through the doorway the Little Sister on his shoulder started to bounce a bit in excitement as she pointed at something and yelled “Look Daddy! It’s Mister Angry!”

Delta looked over at what the girl was pointing at only to spot a diorama of an office toward his left. A waxen doll of a man sat there in front of a desk staring at him with dead eyes. In front of the desk was a little speaker with a big red button that just seemed to be calling Delta’s name. Delta didn’t resist the call. For as long as Delta could remember he had never really been able to investigate things that captured his interest. If it didn’t capture Eleanor’s interest and it didn’t involve protecting her in some way Delta was forced to ignore most things that he found somewhat interesting. The fact that he could investigate stuff just because he wanted to was still enough of a novel idea that Delta was willing to indulge in the desire whenever it popped up.

Upon hitting the button, the light in the little office flickered on, and the waxen dummy straightened up in its chair. The speaker let out a small squeak of protest, and then a recorded message started to play.

“Why, hello there,” The waxen doll seemed to say as it spun its chair around to face Delta. “My name is Andrew Ryan. I built the city of Rapture for children just like you, because the world above had become unfit for us.”

Delta could swear he heard Sinclair let out a snort of disbelief from Delta’s radio at the ‘built this city for children just like you’ bit, but Delta let that thought drop when the waxen doll flung its arm out as if to make Delta focus on it again.

“But here, beneath the ocean, it is natural to wonder if the danger has passed, if those we left behind will ever come to their senses. So, let us imagine, you and I, what might befall us… on the surface.”

With those words spoken the lights flickered back off, and the dummy slumped back in his seat.

Delta heard Sinclair sigh over the radio as he said “Right, well now is as good as a time as any to let you know what to expect. This amusement park wasn’t made for fun. Not really. Andy knew that any children born here in Rapture would become curious about the surface world, and that they would want to leave one day to see the surface. This ride was made to essentially scare any child from ever wanting to go up to the surface.”

Delta could hear Sinclair sigh over the radio as he said “Unfortunately, the audio for this ride is still in working order. Trust me I know. Anytime a splicer passed by one of the sets the audio would go on off, and I would be forced to hear it here in my little hideaway. Practically have the whole ride script burned into my memory at this point.”

Delta could not help but winch a bit in sympathy. Having to hear the same thing over and over again like that had to be maddening.

“Anyway, I figured it would be best if I let you know what to expect. Fun fact by the way, or maybe not so fun fact. Lamb had a hand in helping to make this ride into reality. Think this is the only thing those two worked on. Although, from what I understand she wasn’t thrilled with the partnership and neither was Andrew Ryan.”

Delta didn’t feel as surprised by that bit of news as he probably should have. Lamb seemed to have her hand in everything that made people miserable. Why should this ride be any different?

As Delta climbed down the stairs that would lead him to the ride loading and unloading section he was quick to notice that the area had been set up to look like Rapture. The ride buggies were made to look like bathyspheres, and the sets around the area had been made to look like Rapture buildings. A sign for the ride hung above the ride entrance in all caps with a bunch of menacing looking seahorses with glowing red eyes surrounded the sign, and seemed to glare down at Delta. Menacing and seahorses wasn’t two things Delta thought would ever go together, and yet here he was.

There was a storage room off toward the side, and through the security glass Delta could see a tonic. Unfortunately, the metal security door was locked, and no amount of bashing at it with his drill would do much. The glass windows were so small that smashing them wouldn’t get him into the room. There had to be a switch he could push to unlock it. He just had to find it. Unfortunately, the lock wasn’t in the ride control booth that was nearby. Actually, the control both was surprisingly empty. The only thing in there was an audio diary sitting on the desk. Upon picking it up and pressing play he could hear a woman’s voice start to whisper to him. It was the same voice as the woman who had been telling a child to get off of the dioramas.

I think all of the children have finally fallen asleep. And now that the park is all quiet… I can't sleep myself! I guess it's just you and me, Mr. Voice Recorder. You, me, and 1959. I wonder what the new year will --

The woman was cut off by what sounded like explosions coming from somewhere far away. He could hear the voices of all sorts of people coming from the audio diary. Most of those voices were clearly children. All of their voices mixed together, but Delta could hear some of the children asking questions.

What was that?

Was it an explosion?

Did it happen near us?

Faintly Delta could hear a child crying. Over the confusion he could hear a few adults trying to comfort the children.

It’s alright.

It’s okay.

Don’t be scared. We are safe here.

As he heard those faint words of comfort come from the audio diary Delta remembered how Sinclair said no one who had been trapped here had survived. He remembered the body bags that had been piled up at the El Dorado Lounge. Delta’s heart aches for him. That ache only grew stronger when he heard the woman start to speak.

What… what was that? Something's happened, the lights are going out. Kids, stay in your sleeping bags, it's going to be fine….

The recording clicked off, and Delta was left standing there knowing that unfortunately she was wrong. It would not be fine. For one brief second he could not help but wonder if the woman in the recording was in one of those body bags at the lounge, but he quickly pushed that thought away. That really wasn’t something he wanted to think about. With a sigh Delta slowly climbed up the ride track. The first scene he walked into was one of a dock surrounded by trees. The ceiling had been painted to look like a bright blue sky filled with white fluffy clouds. Honestly, the whole thing felt like it was taunting him somehow. Here he was desperate to get to the surface walking through Rapture’s bad imitation of the real thing. Delta sighed as he walked along. Least it was splicer free for the moment.

As Delta walked out of the dock scene and into what seemed to be a scene of a tranquil farm he was willing to just keep moving without bothering to stop. However, as he walked past the farmhouse set up complete with the farmer working his field the ride’s audio kicked in. Delta paused when the farmer dummy in the field started to till the ground while Andrew Ryan’s voice boomed all around him.

“On the surface, the farmer tills the soil, trading the strength of his arm for a home and lands of his own.” The lights above the farm suddenly turned red as Andrew Ryan started to angrily say “But the Parasites say, "NO! What was yours is ours! We are the state, we are God, we demand our share."

As Ryan shouted this two arms descended from the ceiling and ripped the roof off of the farmhouse. The arms reached into the house and started digging around inside. The whole time this was happening the famer’s family which consisted of a wife, son, and dog dummy just stood there on the porch of the house looking happy. When the red lights turned off to be replaced by the normal lights while the arms slapped the roof back onto the building, and returned back to the ceiling. Delta just stood there staring at the farm set.

Well…

That was certainly something…

Delta could tell that this was supposed be scary, but the whole thing just felt silly. He couldn’t take any of it seriously when the dummies on the porch were grinning like a pair of goofballs while the roof to their home was ripped off. It also felt really cheap honestly. How hard would it have been to have the son and wife turn around to look up at the ‘parasite’? The first show scene sort of set the mood for the rest of the ride. As Delta walked along the ride tracks the countryside scene quickly transitioned into a cityscape thing. As Delta walked along he would see signs hanging around saying things like ‘Taxes Avenue’, ‘Censorship Bureau’, and ‘Welfare Road’.

Besides the signs Delta was quick to notice that people had clearly been camping out in the ride. There were makeshift shelters built with wood and ripped up bits from the ride dotting the area, and Delta even spotted a cooking area that had been set up under a sign that said Welfare Road. It felt weird to be walking around in a ride that was going on about how awful the surface apparently was while at the same time Delta was surrounded by signs of how Rapture had failed.

Delta was only pulled out his observation when he heard the Little Sister say “Daddy, there is an angel over there!”

The girl was pointing at one of the workshops that was tucked away on the ride. Delta quickly stepped inside. When he entered the room he spotted a splicer working on a lone turret that was in the middle of the room. The splicer didn’t seem to notice them yet. He was too busy muttering to himself as he fiddled with the turret’s wires. A hack dart shot out from his hack tool quickly brought the turret to his side. The turret made short work of the splicer. Once the splicer was defeated Delta had a chance to look around the room. It looked like the room was used to repair the ride buggies. There were a few machine parts lying on a few of the tables in the room.

There was a loading area that lead out to a bathysphere that was docked outside, but a glance out the window showed that the bathysphere wasn’t really in any condition to go anywhere. Lying outside of the door to the bathysphere was a dead body of a man. The body looked like it had been rotting for a long time. Whoever this man was he had been dead for a while now. An audio diary was lying on the ground near the body, and upon pressing play on the recording Delta could hear someone breathing heavily.

I been rationing my supplies ever since the park got cut off from the rest of Rapture. Gotta stay strong. I'm holed up in this workshop, surrounded by those wailing brats, tryin' to beat their way in. They want my food, my guns... they want it all! But I've got a plan -- gonna fix up the transport sub that's been rusting in the maintenance bay. Then I'm gonna get the hell out of this hole. These animals want Rapture? They can have it.

‘Looks like he didn’t make it out,’ Delta thought.

While he didn’t appreciate how the man spoke about the children who were trapped here with him he could at least agree that Rapture sucked. If Lamb wanted it so badly she was free to have it. Delta just wanted out of here. With a sigh Delta put down some trap rivets before he placed the Little Sister down next to body. As the girl hummed some nameless song Delta heard his radio click on, but it wasn’t Sinclair’s voice that came out of the radio.

Instead he heard Lamb’s monotone voice as she said “I do not hate you, Delta. Indeed, I care for you in equal measure to any other sentient creature. But I cannot sacrifice a thousand of my children for one rebellious son.”

Delta was sure that the whole ‘I don’t hate you’ bit was a lie, but the sound of screeching splicers made him drop that thought. Luckily, the turret kept most of the splicers away. The few splicers that the turret couldn’t take down Delta was able to easily shoot down with his machine gun. It was a pretty quick fight, and the second the girl said she was done he swept her up into his arms and placed her on his back.

“All right, chief, we've got enough ADAM now.” Delta heard Sinclair say “To get the rest, you'll have to take care o' that Little Sister. There should be one of the air vents they favor in the workshop. Bring her down there.”

Delta was about to leave the room, but he paused when the Little Sister called out “Look Daddy!”

He glanced over at what the girl was gesturing at only to spot a tool box on a nearby table. It was hard to see but sticking out slightly from the rather ridiculous amount of screwdrivers was a bit of money.

“You are looking for money, right?” The girl asked as Delta pulled the ten dollars out from under all of the tools.

Delta let out a soft groan and the girl started to grin in joy. He could feel her bouncing in joy from her spot on top of his pack as she said “Don’t worry Daddy! I’ll keep an eye out for everything you need!”

She sounded so determined when she said that. Delta had no doubt that she would point out every little thing that she looked useful. Delta honestly didn’t mind. At the rate she was going she was able to find useful things a lot quicker than he did. They walked along the ride tracks passing by show scenes where Ryan screamed about parasites censoring art or impeding progress in the field of science. Honestly most of what the ride was saying went in through one ear and out the other. The Little Sister didn’t seem to be paying much attention to any of it either. After giving herself the job of supply finder she had been focusing solely on finding supplies. She was actually doing a pretty good job of it too. It seemed like with every few steps he took she spotted something that she thought would be useful.

“Daddy, there’s money sitting there!”

“There’s a health kit sticking out of Mister Angry’s desk! See it?”

Whenever she pointed something out Delta would go get it. Sometimes she would even point out an audio diary if she saw it.

The first time she spotted one she had said “You like listing to those things don’t you Daddy?”

Delta didn’t know if he liked listening to them per say, but he found them worth picking up. Sometimes they had useful info on them. Other times they at least offered up bits and pieces of info that helped fill in the blanks as to what happened to Rapture while he was dead. Most of the audio diaries that they found were not too horribly interesting. One was from some man who fell for Lamb’s lies, and really seemed to believe the idea that she cared about her fellow man. The next diary they found was from Lamb herself going on about her philosophy to Eleanor although the fact that the dairy was all the way out here made it clear that Eleanor didn’t care much for it. While the diary wasn’t interesting the Little Sister’s reaction to it was. When she heard Eleanor’s name she seemed to perk up a bit. When the audio diary clicked off the small girl waved her hand in front of Delta’s helmet to grab his attention. Delta let out a small moan of confusion as he carefully moved the child so that he was holding her right in front of him. Once she was facing him the girl said something rather strange.

“Eleanor lives in the upside-down house with her mommy, but she doesn’t like it there. You have to find her soon, Daddy."

Delta could only stare at the girl in confusion upon hearing that. Upside-down house? What was the upside-down house? He didn’t exactly have the ability to ask her what she meant. If Sinclair knew what she meant, he wasn’t saying anything. With a sigh all Delta could do was place the girl back on his shoulder and continue to move along. Eventually he reached the workshop that Sinclair had mentioned. It was a bit creepy there honestly. It was filled to the brim with tables, and every table had a waxen head sitting on it staring at him with dead blank eyes. There was something unsettling about having multiple wax heads of Andrew Ryan staring right at him when he entered the room. Besides the tables filled to the brim with wax heads there were shelves filled with things like dummy arms, legs, and clothing accessories. It looked like this workshop was used to make and repair the wax dolls, and nothing else.

Delta quickly walked past the multiple wax dummy heads and scurried down the stairs that would lead to the basement of the workshop. Upon getting there he finally found the Little Sister vent that Sinclair had been talking about. It was pretty much the only thing down there. Some Little Sisters had apparently taken to decorating the place because there were all sorts of doodles around the vent. There was even a tin full of crayons sitting on the floor near the vent. With that said most of the drawings were not exactly of happy things. A few of the things were normal like the green stars and a few flowers. However, those normal things were greatly outnumbered by the more unsettling drawings.

Crude drawings of the Little Sister Syringe dripping with what was either ADAM, blood, or both were scribbled all over the wall. Drawings of Little Sisters also covered the wall and while that was normal Delta didn’t miss the fact that every single drawing of a Little Sister looked absolutely miserable. There wasn’t a single smiling Little Sister among the dozens that had been drawn onto the wall. In fact, it looked like a few of the Little Sister drawings had been drawn to make it look like they were crying.

As Delta approached the vent he heard Sinclair say over his radio “Now when you were brought back from the afterlife you were given access to a special Plasmid. Somehow this Plasmid has the ability to kill the slug in the child and turn her human again. Now Tenenbaum would have you turn that Sister human again. You'll get just enough ADAM for our purposes, an' the girls will likely try to repay ya somehow. But Rapture's a high-stakes town, son, and she is a jackpot. If you harvest her you'll harvest more ADAM than the price of one Plasmid.”

Delta tensed when he heard that. Was Sinclair actually trying to talk him into harvesting her? He almost felt like snarling at the very idea of it.

No.

There was no way he was going to murder a child just for a bit more ADAM. He already made a mental promise to himself to help whoever he could to get out of this hellhole. He wasn’t going to break that promise just so he could buy a few more tonics.

Cutting into Delta’s thoughts Sinclair said “The only one who can choose if you will harvest or rescue is you, Chief. I can’t force you to do anything, and neither can Tenenbaum.”

With those words said his radio clicked off. It felt like Sinclair was now sitting there at the edge of his seat just waiting to see what Delta’s decision would be. Like there was actually any choice here. There was only one option here when it came to this. Carefully Delta plucked the girl off of his back and held her out in front of him. She smiled up at him without even a hint of worry on her face. She looked up at him as if she trusted him completely. Delta dug through his head of the Plasmids that he had, and sure enough he was able to activate the Plasmid that Sinclair had mentioned flickered to life in his hand.

It was different from any sort of plasmid that he had used before. When he activated it he felt a sort of warmth wash over him. It wasn’t an overwhelming heat by any means. Instead it was almost comforting. If he had to compare it to anything he would say that it felt like what he imagined, it would feel like to sit in front of a warm fire on a cold day. His hand glowed with a soft gentle white light that he had never seen any Plasmid create before. Running on nothing but instinct Delta placed his glowing hand on the girl’s head.

There was a bright flash of light, and when the light died down the girl was no longer a Little Sister. She was a normal child now. She was no longer a sickly pale color, and her once glowing yellow eyes were now a bright beautiful blue that had to be as blue as a clear sky up on the surface. The girl blinked a few times in surprise, but once she recovered from the process of being turned human again she started to grin as she allowed her syringe to fall to the ground. Delta noted while she tossed the syringe without a second thought she still kept a tight grip on the doll that he gave her.

“Well, our tin man had a heart all along,” Sinclair said over the radio. “Personally, I call that a liability — but you have enough ADAM now... barely.”

Delta let out a small snort upon hearing that. Sinclair didn’t sound thrilled at the fact that Delta was clearly going to put the girls’ safety over his own but Delta didn’t really care. The man would just have to get over it.

“Just stick the girl in the vent to send her off to Tenenbaum. Once you’ve done that head to the Hall of the Future an' splice up with Incinerate.”

Upon hearing that Delta tried to put the girl down so she could climb into the vent, but just as he was bending down to do so the girl wrapped her arms around his arm and yelled “No Daddy!”

Delta paused when he heard that, and looked right into her blue eyes. She stared back at him as she said “I want to stay with you! Don’t send me away!” Delta stood there unsure of what to do upon hearing that. The girl just tightened her grip on Delta’s arm to the point that Delta knew it would probably be pretty hard to pry her off of him.

Delta heard Sinclair sigh over the radio. “If you tried to put her in the vent I have a feeling that she would just climb right back out of it and follow you.”

Delta let out a small groan of agreement.

Sinclair let out another sigh as he said “Well, much as I don’t like it I think the only choice we got here is to give in to the little lady’s demands for now. There’s more than enough room on the train for her, so she can at least stay with us for most of the ride. When we reach the last stop we can send her through a vent there. Luckily all the vents are connected so they all lead to Tenenbaum, and from what I understand all the girls should know where to go after they have been ‘rescued’ so to speak. I suggest dropping her off before you buy your upgrade, kid. Wouldn’t put it pass Lamb to ambush you after you get your plasmid.”

Delta let out a small grunt of agreement as he carefully placed the girl back on his back. It was only when the girl was on his back again did she release her hold on his arm.

“Thank you Daddy,” He heard her murmur. Delta said nothing as he took one final look at the vent. He hesitated for a moment, but eventually he reached down and scooped up the tin full of crayons. The girl had the doll that he had given her, but he had no idea how long the train ride would be. He figured the more toys she had to amuse herself the better. He didn’t have any paper for her to draw on, but the kids didn’t seem to have any issues drawing on the floors and walls of Rapture. She could draw on the floor of the train. It wasn’t like anyone would care if she did. Once he had the tin of crayons tucked away along with his boxes of bullets he finally turned away from the vent, and started to make his way back up to the ride.

There was a small ambush waiting for him when he got back upstairs. Delta probably burned through three EVE Hypos just to keep the splicers stunned long enough for him to shoot them down. Burning through his supplies so quickly wasn’t great, but the girl with him wasn’t a Little Sister anymore. She was a lot more vulnerable now. He had to be careful. As such he adjusted how he walked through the ride. Before he had just walked through normally, but now he was moving slowly peaking around corners and hiding behind walls. Heck, he was even crouching to try and avoid being spotted by any splicers. Being stealthy wasn’t something a Big Daddy ever did, but here Delta was trying to be quiet when he was a giant behemoth capable of making a floor shake if he just stomped his feet with half of his strength.

Thankfully, the child understood the importance of being silent. She was as quiet as a church mouse as she sat on top of the pack on his back. One hand kept her doll hugged tightly to her chest while the other one kept a tight grip on one of the handles that was on the back of Delta’s helmet. They carefully moved along the tracks only stopping when they hit a display of a family watching TV in a living room. Delta wanted to get out of the area as quickly as possible, but he didn’t want to move while recording of Ryan screeching about parasites. The audio was loud enough that it could cover up even Delta’s heavy footfalls. The last thing he needed was to turn the corner, and slam right into a splicer that he couldn’t hear due to Ryan’s dramatic speech. As Delta stood there staring at the scene the lights over the scene flickers on. The ‘happy’ waxen couple on the couch sat there with frozen smiles while the boy dummy lying in front of the TV started to kick his legs back and forth slowly making it look like the boy was just minding his own business watching the television.

The audio for this part of the ride quickly kicked in, and Delta heard Ryan say “On the surface your parents sought a private life, using their great talents to provide for you. They learned to twist the lies of church and government, believing themselves masters of the system.”

The lights suddenly turned red and a giant hand emerged from a hole in the back of the wall.

As the hand grabbed the now struggling child dummy, and started to drag it back into the darkness Delta heard the recording say “But the Parasites said, "NO! The child has a duty! He'll go to war and die for the nation."

As the lights flickered off and the child dummy and the hand puppet slid back to their places Delta could not help but be a bit slack jawed at how hypocritical this scene was. Delta was clear headed enough now to know that the Little Sisters did not just appear out of thin air. They were made much like the Big Daddies were. They were stolen from their families, and forced to harvest and die for the city of Rapture. The absolute gull this ride had to act like Rapture wasn’t doing such things was almost mind blowing. Maybe when this ride was built Little Sisters were not a thing yet, but that didn’t really matter. They never changed this show scene, so obviously they had no issues acting like they hadn’t done anything wrong. That wasn’t even addressing the fact that the city let a bunch of children trapped here die due to a civil war. They probably could have gotten the children out before the war got really bad, but Ryan had just closed of travel to everywhere and didn’t think twice about the people trapped in his awful park.

‘They should just change this place’s name to Hypocrisy: The ride,’ Delta thought a bit bitterly.

With a sigh Delta slowly stepped up onto the stage. The track path was blocked off by a bunch of crashed ride carts, so they couldn’t continue ahead that way, but there was a door to the left in the living room show room. They could go through there. Upon stepping onto the stage he felt the child poke him in the arm.

“Daddy, look over there!” Delta looked to the right only to spot what looked like a doorway into a storage room.

There were a few boxes in there along with a bunch of piled of ‘parasite’ arms.

“There could be like health kits and money and stuff in there, right?” The girl asked.

Delta let out a small groan in response. The child may not have been a Little Sister anymore, but she was clearly continuing her mission in ‘help Delta find supplies’ that she had assigned herself when Delta first picked her up. Delta slowly made his way into the storage room, and started checking it out. Most of the boxes were empty. Chances were high that if they had held anything useful the trapped party probably cleared them out, and whatever was left behind was picked clean by splicers. He did find a few rivets, so at least coming in here wasn’t a complete waste of time.

“Can we go up there?” The girl asked.

He looked up at what she was pointing at only to spot a sort of balcony up above. There were no stairs or ladder that led up there, but one of the giant arms was leaning up against the wall and it lead up to the balcony. Someone could just walk up the arm to get there. Delta walked up to the arm, and stared at it. Could it even support his weight? From what little he had seen most of the waxen dummies seemed to be made with wax and chicken wire. Not exactly stuff that screamed sturdy to him. He wasn’t exactly light either so that would be doing him no favors here. Delta slowly put his foot on the palm of the hand and slowly pulled himself up onto it. The giant wax hand didn’t strain under his full weight nor did it make any sounds of protest at having a heavy Big Daddy and one child on it.

‘So far so good,’ Delta thought.

He slowly walked up the giant arm all while mentally preparing himself to jump off if it gave any signs of collapsing. Surprisingly, it didn’t. Whoever built the waxen arms clearly built them to take a lot of abuse because it didn’t even move an inch under his thundering steps. While the arm remained sturdy Delta still felt a bit better once he was off of the arm and on the balcony. There wasn’t much up there. No props, no signs, and not even any other insane messages written on the wall by mad Lamb obsessed Splicers. Delta was about to write the whole thing off as a waste of time, but just when he was about to turn around and go back down the arm he spotted something from the corner of his eye. There tucked away in the corner out of view was a body. Like a moth to a flame Delta automatically walked over to the body.

The body was that of a young woman, but unlike all of the bodies he had seen so far this body had been placed here with great care. Someone had gone to the trouble of lying her out straight, and they had even crossed her arms over her chest. She had been a lied down on top of a bright red blanket with golden trim, and drawn all around her were pictures obviously made by children. Children who had clearly made an effort to make the drawings look as good as they possibly could. There were drawings of happy smiling children holding hands scribbled around the body. Stars of all sorts of sizes and colors had been drawn around the woman as well. Candles were set up around her, and the piles of wax around her seemed to imply that someone had been keeping the candle vigil burning for a while now.

Even now a few of the candles were still lit although who was keeping them lit was anyone’s guess. Dolls, teddy bears, and even a single plush toy of a Bouncer Big Daddy had been set up around the body almost like they were offerings to the dead, or maybe even silent guardians protecting the body. This was very clearly a makeshift grave that had been made to give the woman the highest amount of honor that a bunch of children could possibly give to her. Lying on the blanket next to the woman’s head was a single audio diary. Written on the audio diary in red crayon in a childish scribble was a single name.

Nina Carnegie

Delta slowly picked up the diary, and pressed play. In a matter of seconds, the by now the familiar voice of the lady chaperone filled the air.

Two weeks at my last count… two weeks since we were trapped in this rotten park. I haven't been eating… the children need all the supplies we've got left. Need them more than I do. I… I don't know what's gonna happen. I can feel myself getting weaker. The children have noticed the condition I'm in, of course… What will happen once I'm gone? They'll be… all alone…

With those final words of worry spoken the audio diary clicked off, and the woman’s fate was finally revealed. Nina had starved to death, and during her last moments her only worry was about the well-being of the children she cared for. Delta’s heart ached for her. He could empathize with her on a level few others could. During his last moments before Lamb forced him to kill himself his only concern was his child. As Delta stared down at the body he could not help but wonder when she died. Her body was in a good enough condition, but that told him nothing. Bodies in Rapture didn’t exactly decompose at a normal rate. ADAM was probably to blame for that. For a brief moment Delta could not help but wonder if he could have saved her and the children trapped here if he had been revived sooner, but that line of questioning wasn’t one he perused for very long.

Ultimately it was useless to think of the what could have been here. It wouldn’t bring Nina or the children she cared for back. With that said he could at least keep her memory alive. He would remember that once upon a time a kind woman named Nina had given her life to help the children under her care. Out of all of the people there in Rapture she was one of the few that would be remembered. Heck, assuming all of Sinclair’s talk about money wasn’t just a bunch of hot air and he truly intended to share some of the riches with Delta maybe Delta could get her a headstone on the surface. It wasn’t much, but at least a headstone would be proof that she existed. It would be a way to make sure that her existence wouldn’t be lost along with this city.

Shelving the thought of headstones for the moment Delta carefully took out the tin of crayons that he had picked up a while back, and dug through the tin until he found a bright red crayon. Once he had a crayon in hand he knelt down and ever so carefully wrote Nina’s full name on the spot above her head. It was a very slow process. The crayon was tiny in his large hands, and he had to be careful with his strength to not snap the delicate crayon into a bunch of tiny pieces. Somehow he was able to pull it off. Satisfied with his work Delta put the crayon and tin back with his collection of ammo. He stood up and admired his work for a moment. Considering how untouched this whole place was he was sure that no splicer was really smart enough to get up here. However, if someone who still had a brain that wasn’t turned to mush due to ADAM abuse somehow found their way up to Nina’s final resting place they would at least know her name. Satisfied with his work Delta turned and slowly made his way back down the large animatronic arm, and made his way to the door that was on the right side of the display room.

The next room seemed to be another storage room although it was mostly empty. The only things in there were a Circus of Values Machine, a Tribune newspaper vending machine that had the glass of it smashed open, and a Power to the People machine on the wall near a doorway. A splicer was standing in front of the Power of the People machine apparently trying to choose an upgrade for his pistol. Since the room was already flooded with ankle deep water a single bolt of electricity shot at the water took care of the splicer. Once the splicer was dead and it was safe to go into the water Delta started to trudge his way over to the Power to the People station. He paused when he glanced over at newspaper vending machine only to see that someone had shoved an audio dairy into it. The second he spotted it he changed course, and started to trudge up to the machine. Upon picking up the audio dairy he saw the name ‘Stanley Poole’ written on it. A click of the play button caused the voice of a man to fill the room.

I uh... met with Sinclair today, of "Sinclair Solutions". It's this pseudo-legal firm he set up to take problems Ryan doesn't want to admit he has, and make them go away. I could fill forty front pages at the Tribune with stories about this fella, if he wasn't payin' me not to. And he's got work for me, right? I ask what, and he flashes me these thousand dollar Steinman teeth, sayin' this job'll quote change history end quote.

As the radio clicked off Delta could not help but let this little bit of info turn in his head. It was another piece of the puzzle to the Sinclair question although did not help to clear up much about the man. Just what sort of stories could this Stanley guy fill a newspaper with? And what sort of job did Sinclair want to hire him for? If this Stanley guy was telling the truth about Sinclair making Ryan’s problems ‘go away’ the job probably had something to do with that, but what did Ryan want gone? Sinclair was noticeably being silent about it. He wasn’t exactly offering up any info. He wasn’t trying to make the audio dairy sound less shady either. It was like Sinclair was sitting back and letting Delta make up his own mind about the whole thing. Honestly, maybe he was. Or maybe he didn’t think the Big Daddy was just mindless enough to not question it or think much about it?

Delta was quick to shake that possibility away. He hadn’t interacted with the man much, but what little interaction they did have made it clear that Sinclair clearly thought Delta had a brain in that helmet of his. He talked to Delta like he was a person who was actually capable of understanding him. He gave him some background info on a few of the things here in Rapture. That wasn’t something he would do if he didn’t think Delta could not comprehend what he said, or if he thought Delta wasn’t really listing. Honestly, Delta was sure that he showed enough signs that he was actually listing when Sinclair talked that there was no way that the man would think that Delta was tuning him out anyway. Delta sighed as he shook those thoughts away for now. He could ponder over the mystery of Sinclair once he was back on the train.

For now, he moved over to the Power to the People station, and quickly selected to add some augers to his drill to make it deal out more damage. The second his upgrade was finished he pulled his drill out of the machine and left the room. The room was rather large although there really wasn’t much to see. It was just empty space with only an occasional desk or overturned chair to fill the space. He did find a safe that he was able to break into, and amazingly it actually had a few useful things in it like two auto hack darts and a box of bullets that he could use. With how picked over this area was he was honestly surprised that there had been anything in the safe at all. Then again the splicers here didn’t seem overly bright so maybe none of them had been smart enough to crack the safe open. Regardless, he took his small prize and stepped out the door that led back out onto the ride tracks. As he walked along the tracks he kept seeing signs that people had been sleeping here like mattresses and blankets.

He also saw the most signs of destruction here. For some reason this part of the ride was covered in the shredded remains of the ride. The tracks were littered with the ripped apart pieces of waxen dummies. Chunks of the wall had been ripped off to revel the chicken wire and plywood that had been hidden behind the city backdrop. Signs had been ripped off of the wall, and strangely someone had set up a few of the wax dog dummies up so that you would latterly stumble over one every time you turned the corner. It was a lot of people just snapped, and started tearing things down here. The long line of destruction ended when he reached yet another Andrew Ryan office diorama. When the lights of the little office scene flicked on Delta was greeted with the sight of a Ryan Wax dummy hanging from a noose. The dummy’s eyes had been covered up with rope while the dummy itself had been ripped apart so badly that the only thing left of it was the torso and the head. The bookshelves in the room had been overturned, the TV in there was smashed, and the floor and desk were covered in white paint. Painted all over the walls were insane ramblings left behind by Lamb’s Family.

Lamb will lead the way!

The end of Ryan is the end of Self!

Rapture failed! We will not!

Reject the tyranny of the Self!

It was like Lamb’s family had released all of their rage toward Ryan out in that one little room. As Delta stared at the deviation the audio system set up in the little office let out a pathetic whine as Ryan’s voice filled the area.

“Unable to provide for itself, the need of the Parasite grows until war is made to justify it. Your parents brought you to Rapture, where you need never fear the Parasites again. So you see, there is no place for you on the surface, but you may bring the world to you! If you know someone who belongs in Rapture, write a letter to the Ryan Industries mailroom. And you never know! The next new face… might be familiar.”

Warbling music started to fill the air as the show scene next to the destroyed office one lit up. Delta couldn’t help but stand there and just look at it as the song ‘Rise Rapture Rise’ filled the air. The auto quality of the song was awful. It was scratchy and warbled so much that it sounded like it was only seconds away from dying and falling silent forever. The show scene wasn’t much better. The lighthouse that had been lit up when the music started was tilting so far to the right that it looked like just the smallest of touches would send it crashing to the ground. The small bathysphere in the water was beat up, and filled halfway with water making it look like the wax dummy inside of it was drowning. Honestly the drowning dummy in a bathysphere was a pretty good representation of what really happened to Rapture and the people who went there. Delta could see a bit of dark humor in that, but to some extent it was a bit of a painful reminder that he was in the same boat as all of the poor suckers who ended up down here.

‘It is only now that you have the free will to know that,’ A small voice in the back of his head whispered, but Delta quickly shoved that thought away as he continued to examine the display.

The only impressive thing about the whole show scene was the night sky. Someone had gone through the effort of making the night sky look as beautiful as possible. It was probably only a pale shadow to the real thing, but it was beautiful enough to fuel Delta’s desire to reach the surface and see the real thing. If this copy of a night sky looked beautiful the real thing had to look breathtaking. Hopefully with any luck he would be able to see it with his daughter. Delta took one final look at the copy of the night sky before he finally moved on. The doorway where the ride vehicles were supposed to pass through to get back to the loading bay was blocked off by crashed vehicles. Luckily, there was a service maintenance door that he could go through. Upon stepping through the door he found another audio diary from Andrew Ryan. It mostly consisted of his thoughts about the ride, and said thoughts could be boiled down to ‘The wax dummy of myself creepes me out’.

To be fair to Ryan Delta couldn’t blame him for finding a wax dummy of himself creepy.

The other half of the diary just confirmed that this whole thing was a propaganda ride meant to scare kids from ever wanting to go to the surface. The service area led to a glass booth that looked down on the loading bay part of the ride along with a switch that Delta flicked on without much thought. The switch opened the door nearby that went out to the entrance of the hall. It also opened the security door down in the loading area that Delta hadn’t been able to get into. Delta was quick to rush out the door and go to the security door to finally pick up the tonic that was in there. The tonic was the Booze Hound tonic which meant that he would get a bit of EVE from drinking alcohol. Not a super exciting tonic, but at least it was something. Also in the room was enough alcohol bottles to supply a bar, a dead man hugging a wine bottle to his chest, and an audio dairy filled with dating advice that clearly didn’t work out too well for the dead man.

At any rate Delta had everything that he could possibly get from the ride. It was time to get the Incinerate plasmid. However, before he did that he decided to take Sinclair’s advice and drop the child off at the train first. Luckily, the trip to the train was a peaceful one. They didn’t run into any splicers which Delta was beyond grateful for. Upon reaching the train Delta approached the doors to the passenger cart. The doors slid open without any issues, and upon stepping inside Delta gently plucked the girl off of his back, and gently placed her down on one of the nearby seats. The girl hugged her doll close to her chest as she looked up at Delta with a worried look on her face.

“You are gonna come back, right?” She asked in concern.

Delta let out a low groan as he bowed his head forward in an attempt to nod yes.

The girl smiled slightly as she said “Okay, I’ll wait here. But don’t make me wait too long!”

Delta let out another soft groan as he gently pats her head. Before leaving he pulled out the box of crayons he had picked up, and handed them over to her. The girl took the crayons with a cheerful thanks. She didn’t waste any time in popping the lid off of the box to look at all of the crayons. Delta didn’t have a sketchbook to give her, but he figured it was fine. With all of the Little Sister drawings he had seen up to this point they clearly had no issue drawing on the floors and walls.

“Is it alright if I draw on the floor?” The girl asked. “I don’t have any paper to draw on.”

Delta let out a groan to let her know that he didn’t mind. With the condition that the city was in it wasn’t like there was anyone around to really care anymore. The girl grinned as she gently placed her doll on the seat so that it was sitting, and leaning up against the seat. Once her doll was comfortable she slid out of her seat, and flopped down on the floor to start coloring on the floor with the bright pink crayon that she had chosen. With the girl successfully distracted for now Delta left the train, and made his way toward the Hall of the Future.

Upon entering the Hall he was confronted by a turned off turret, and two splicers trying to get it running. Well, trying was probably not good word for it. Only one splicer was actually trying to fix the thing while the other splicer screamed at her for not getting it running quicker. A single hack dart from his hack tool brought the sentry online and onto Delta’s side, and the sentry made quick work of the splicers. Once they were dead Delta walked inside. Upon stepping inside the he walked by the walls covered in TV screens displaying animations of the different types of plasmids that were for sell. As he stepped through the door that lead to the showroom and the location of the Gather’s Garden machine. Upon stepping through the door he froze when he saw a Big Sister sitting on an outcropping of rocks that were right outside of the window. The Big Sister hadn’t noticed him yet. Her gaze was turned out toward the crumbling wreck of the city. As he stared at the Big Sister he heard his radio squeak to life, and Lamb’s calm voice start speaking to him.

“So… you would drain the people of their life’s blood. Rapture is a body, Delta. I am the voice… and Big Sister is the hand.”

Right after Lamb said that the Big Sister finally turned to stare at Delta through the window. The port light of the Big Sister quickly turned red, and she quickly swam off of her perch and out of view.

‘Well, that’s probably not good,’ Delta thought.

The whole moment was finished off when Lamb gave a less then subtle threat to his life.

“When Rapture speaks of you it says only this: Sleep now. Your day is done.”

Delta’s radio silently clicked off once Lamb was done with her little speech. Delta pretty much ran toward the Gather’s Garden machine. There had been an audio dairy lying against the machine, and Delta had picked it up and played it although he was in such a rush to buy his plasmid that he didn’t really register much of what was said. It was some guy talking about having issues getting Big Daddies to protect and stay near the Little Sisters when there was no danger currently going on. Interesting, but currently not Delta’s main concern at the moment. Purchasing the plasmid was pretty easy since it was the only thing in the machine. The plasmid also didn’t cause any sort of painful reaction when Delta used it. The only thing he felt was a brief feeling warmth like he had just come in from the cold, and parked himself in front of a warm fireplace. The feeling only lasted for a few seconds. The second the feeling faded away Delta about jumped out of his suit when he heard an automated voice start to speak behind him.

“Congratulations on your recent purchase of the Incinerate Plasmid!”

Delta quickly turned around only to see a small show scene that was behind him light up. The scene consisted of a wax couple cuddling on a couch in front of a fireplace. It looked like it was used for new owners of Incinerate to get a bit of practice with their new Plasmid. Delta hesitated for a moment, but he did use the Incinerate Plasmid on the fireplace just to see how powerful it was. It lit the fireplace alright. It also lit up the trail of fuel that had leaked from the fireplace, and all the way over to the dummy couple on the couch. All Delta could do was watch as the fake couple was consumed by the fire.

Delta quickly scurried out of the room zipping right past the second display that was set up for people to get more practice with the plasmid in. Delta rushed by that so fast he didn’t really hear what the automated voice set up to that display said, but he did get a quick look at it only to see that every single dummy in that display was burnt to a crisp. Either everyone had bad aim, or the Incinerate Plasmid was a lot stronger then it looked. Either way Delta didn’t think too much about it. He got the Plasmid, and his quick test run showed that it worked and was strong. It would work on the ice that covered the train doors. He was more than ready to get out of there.

Unfortunately, getting out of there wasn’t going to be easy. When he approached the doors that would take him out of the Hall of the Future the sound of a screeching filled the air. The loud screeching caused the few TV screens that were there at the entrance showing off the Plasmids and Tonics that one could buy shattered from the sound.

Out of all of the things that Delta could think at the moment the only thought that went through his head was ‘Well, that’s a bad sign.’

Two seconds later the door out was quickly ripped off of its hinges and Delta was left standing there staring at a very angry Big Sister. At first the two just stared at each other not doing anything, but once Delta truly processed what he was looking at the only thought that went through his mind was one line that was quickly becoming his go to thought here in Rapture.

‘This is going to suck.’

As soon as he thought that the Big Sister screeched at him again, and started to fling fireballs at him. He tried to dodge out of the way, but he wasn’t able to avoid getting a few fireballs flung into his side. It hurt like hell, but Delta ignored the pain as much as he could as he charged toward the Big Sister with his drill out. He was able to stab his drill right into her left arm, but strangely the Big Sister didn’t give much of a reaction to that. She let out a small screech, but after making that noise she quickly started flinging fire into Delta’s side with her right hand. Delta was hurting her, but ultimately she was doing more damage to him then he was to her.

After a few seconds passed the Big Sister shoved Delta away like he was nothing but a tiny annoying bug and not a giant Big Daddy. The second he was away from her she started flinging fireballs at him with both hands. If the injury Delta gave her bothered her at all she wasn’t acting like it did. In fact, she was acting like Delta hadn’t touched her at all. She was acting like she was completely untouched while Delta was burned, heavily injured, and quickly scrambling behind cover to use one of his health kits. His run in with a Big Sister back in Adonis Luxury Resort had given him a small taste of how strong they were it was only now that he understood exactly why Lamb was using the Big Sister as a threat to everyone to ‘behave’. The Big Sister had enough strength that he didn’t think any splicer could stand up against her.

Heck, he wasn’t sure how he was going to stand up against her. Much as he loved his drill it wasn’t going to help him here. Getting close to her just resulted in him getting a bunch of fireballs to the face. He would have to rely on his guns here, and he was going to have to try and keep her as far away from him as possible. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. He shot at her with his machine gun and rivet gun while running around the lobby of building periodically applying a health kit to himself to keep himself from keeling over. He also tried tossing a few electro bolts and fireballs back at her, but it didn’t seem to do much against her. She seemed to shrug off the fire attacks that Delta flung her way like they were nothing. As for the Electro Bolt it actually stunned her every time he hit her, but she only stayed stunned for five seconds at most. All it did was give Delta enough time to duck behind some cover, or quickly apply a health kit to himself before he had to start running again. Delta had no idea how long the fight went on. It felt like it went on for hours.

The fight was also causing Delta to quickly burn through all of the supplies that he had collected. He had some money that he was quickly able to shove into the nearby vending machines to get bullets and health kits every time he started to run low, but eventually he started running low on money too. By the tail end of it Delta only had ten dollars left, five rivets, three trap rivets, one health kit, no bullets for his machine gun, and a single EVE hypo left. When Delta got down to that point he honestly started wondering if he would be brought back to life if he died. He had passed by a few Vita Chambers since he was first resurrected, and it looked like they were all turned on. If he died would they bring him back again? Thankfully, Delta didn’t have to wonder about that for long.

After firing off one of the few rivets he had left at the Big Sister she finally went down. The way she went down was almost unsettling. One second she was charging at Delta full steam ahead, and the next she just fell to the ground like puppet whose strings had just been cut. She had made no noise as she collapsed. There was no final screech. No grunt of pain. No one last wail. She just crumbled to the floor, and the red light of her helmet quickly flicked off. She laid there on the floor like a broken doll her legs tangled together as her head was turned so she was facing the wall staring at nothing. When she fell Delta was honestly afraid to approach her. He honestly expected her to just jump right back up to her feet and finally finish him off, but she never did. After a solid three minutes passed by and nothing happened Delta heard Sinclair start to speak to him over his radio.

“Holy Moses, son. Not even a Big Sister can keep you down! Well, come on back and melt the ice, an' we can say goodbye to this two-bit carny ride.”

At that moment Delta wished he could speak so he could say that the Big Sister probably could keep him down he was just lucky enough to have a bunch of health kits on him and enough money to buy more when he ran out. With that said he was sure Sinclair’s praise there was more of a way to tell Delta that the Big Sister was dead, and he could finally loot the body and move on already. Delta hesitated for a second, but he finally did move forward toward the body. He carefully searched the Big Sister’s body, and he felt very uneasy as he did so. He kept waiting for Lamb to make a comment about the Big Sister falling, or for her to send in a wave of splicers to finish off the job that the Big Sister started. Heck, to some extant Delta kept waiting for the Big Sister’s helmet lights to flicker back on and for her to let out a loud screech and start round two of the fight.

Yet, none of that happened. His radio and the PA system remained off as Delta searched through her suit’s pockets for anything useful. He didn’t hear the deranged voices of splicers either. The only sound that he could hears was the dripping water and the faint warbling music that was somehow still playing off near the entrance of the park even though it sounded like the music would just give out any second now and permanently shut down. It all felt very eerie to Delta. It also felt strangely lonely too. While the park left much to be desired this was still a place that people came to for amusement. Children came here to have fun on the lackluster ride. Couples would eat the El Dorado Restaurant as part of their date at the park, and families would buy souvenirs at the store to remind them of their trip here. A class full of children came here thinking they would have a fun slumber party at a theme park. This place was once full of life, and now it was a ghost town filled with the bodies who had been forgotten and left here to die. It was all so sad really. Heck, sad felt like too small a word for it all but Delta couldn’t think of anything else to describe it.

The Big Daddy let out a small rumbled sigh as he stood up. After looting the Big Sister, he did get a small prize. A small bottle of 40 ADAM, a EVE Hypo, and fifty dollars. It was all useful things, but not exactly a big reward. Most of the money would be used to heal himself at the health station, and the rest would be used to buy some much needed ammo. The ADAM wasn’t a lot, but it could probably get him a somewhat useful Tonic at the very least. It would all help him live a little bit longer in this hellhole of a city. He stood there and looked at the Big Sister lying there in a crumpled heap, and he felt a familiar sort of twinge of sadness that he felt when he killed his fellow Big Daddies. Fighting her had been absolute hell, but ultimately as far as Delta could see she wasn’t too horribly different from him or any of the Big Daddies. She had been made to do a job just like Big Daddies were, and she had died for that job just like how most Big Daddies were killed for doing their job. While he hadn’t enjoyed fighting her and he knew she probably wouldn’t have thought twice about killing him he could not help but feel a tiny bit of empathy towards her.

Delta sighed as he knelt down again and straightened out her body so she at least wasn’t lying in a crumbled heap anymore. He placed her hands over her chest before he stood up again. It wasn’t much, but at least he could give her a tiny bit of dignity in death. With one final look at the Big Sister Delta went to do one final supply run. Fifty dollars didn’t get much. He was able to pay to get healed up at the health station, and since he wasn’t coming back he smashed the health station to get a health kit out of it. He was also able to buy a bit more ammo. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough for now. Once he had spent all of his money he finally left the theme park. As he walked along Delta passed by the frozen fountain that had the audio dairy stuck in the ice.

Delta paused when he saw it. He honestly didn’t need to collect it, but at the point collecting the audio diaries was a habit he liked to indulge in. Silly as it was but having the ability to just pick the audio diaries up was like a constant reminder that he had free will now. It also helped that the audio diaries sometimes had info that helped Delta piece together what happened somewhere. On a darker note most of the audio diaries had names of the people who made them written somewhere on them. Whoever made the audio diaries that were lying around were probably dead, or so spliced out of their minds they might as well be dead. Delta couldn’t save the dead, or heal the splicers that had been spliced out of their minds. With that said he could at least take their names with him up to the surface. Maybe he could pay to have a plaque with their names written on it set in a graveyard or park somewhere. That way the surface world would have some sort of proof that these people existed.

He already knew that Nina Carnegie’s name was going to be on the top of that plaque with Sammy and Lizzy’s name right underneath her name.

It took a bit of time to free the audio dairy from the ice. He had to be careful to use just enough fire to free the thing, but not enough to accidently set the thing on fire. Once he had freed the audio diary he was quick to find a nametag although he was disappointed that the tag had been water damaged to the point that he couldn’t really make out the name. All he could see was that whatever the first name was it had started with a G. At least it looked like a G. Could have been an O for all he knew. It was water damaged enough that just trying to figure out what letter it could have been was difficult. Upon pressing the play button, he was relieved that the voice that came out of it was clear enough. The tape had been unaffected by the water. The voice sounded like a woman. A woman who sounded heartbroken, and scared of something.

He's gone. James was the only man I ever loved... now it's like he never even came to Rapture. He heard me sing at the Limbo Room, came up all bashful. He liked hearin' songs about what it's really like to live in this town... I think he's been trying to organize folks against Ryan, and now he's gone, and I'm here, singing "Rise, Rapture, Rise"... scared to death they're gonna come for me!

When the diary clicked off Delta was left feeling… confused. For some reason the voice sounded familiar. It felt like there was some distant memory standing at the very edge of his mind calling out for attention. Yet, no matter how hard Delta tried he couldn’t really remember anything. He was sure that he had heard the lady’s voice before. It rang some very distant bells in his head. Still, while he recognized it he couldn’t place any sort of memory or name to it. The name Limbo Room also sounded familiar. He was pretty sure that was a business in an area of Rapture called Pauper’s Drop.

He did remember that place although the only reason he remembered that place was due to the fact that it was the worst place that he and Eleanor had to go to harvest ADAM. Even during Rapture’s heyday that place was rough. It was dirty, rundown, and filled with people who had lost all hope and had hit rock bottom. People there didn’t have much, and they were desperate enough to attempt to attack a Big Daddy with a Little Sister in hopes of getting a bit of ADAM. That place stuck out in Delta’s memory as being a place where he was attacked the most when he was out with Eleanor.

Thankfully, they didn’t go there often. In fact, after two months had passed they stopped going there altogether. Why did they stop going there? He couldn’t really remember why. Most of his memories of his time before he had free will were pretty fuzzy.

‘Does it really matter why you stopped going over there?’ A small voice in the back of his mind asked.

It really didn’t matter. Chances were high the reason why the woman sounded familiar was most likely due to him hearing her sing when he passed by the Limbo Room. Eleanor always loved music, and it wasn’t uncommon for her to stop gathering for a bit to listen to some music if he captured her interest. Shrugging it off Delta added the tape to his collection, and continued on his way. Upon reaching the train station Delta used his new Plasmid on the ice on the door. The ice melted in a matter of seconds leaving the path clear for the train to continue on its way.

His radio clicked on as soon as the ice was gone, and Delta heard Sinclair happily say “Outstandin', sport, You're provin' to be quite a windfall. Now just open the train tunnel from the security booth there, and I'll come out an' jump on.”

Delta paused when he heard that. It was only now that he was aware of the fact that he would be seeing his traveling companion in the flesh for the first time. What did the man look like? It was not like the man’s smooth southern voice didn’t give much away. With a slight shrug of his shoulders Delta walked over to the security booth, and hit the switch. The door to the side that Delta hadn’t been able to open earlier slowly slid open. The second the doors opened a man walked out of the room only to stop once he was in front of the security booth.

He turned to face Delta, and Delta could not help but study the man. When Sinclair first started speaking to Delta the Big Daddy had no real mental picture for him. He had trouble coming up with a solid image. Yet, looking at the man now he could not help but think that the smooth southern accent fitted him. He was a slightly heavier set man with pitch black hair, and honey brown eyes. The man seemed to be studying Delta just as much as Delta was studying him.

After a few seconds had passed by the man smiled as he said “I like to look a man in the eye when I give him my word, You and me Kid....We are going places...."

And with a wave of his hand the man turned, and walked onto the train. Delta watched him go feeling a bit concerned. Just how good was Sinclair’s word really? He didn’t know, and that honestly worried him. Still, at this point he had no choice but to go along with it. Sinclair was the only guide he had here in Rapture, and he needed a guide more than anything at the moment. With a sigh Delta turned to leave the booth only to freeze when he saw the TV screens outside of the booth that were hanging around the train platform suddenly display live footage of Lamb. Her gaze was cold and hard as she seemed to stare at Delta, and Delta stood there frozen in place as he stared at the screens. He would not lie. Her gaze made a shiver go down his spine. He hated the woman and felt more rage toward her more than anything else, but that cold gaze of hers had a way of making you feel like you were less than nothing. It wasn’t really a look of contempt or hate. Just a look of cold indifference that made the Arctic feel like a warm tropical getaway in comparison.

“I had thought you some golem of Sinclair's, brought here to hold Rapture's arms as he rifles through her pockets,” Lamb said as she stared Delta down. “But no... you are aware of your plight. Who, I wonder, would be so cruel? To force a mirror on a man with no face...”

For once Lamb sounded somewhat thoughtful as she asked that question. Like the thought of someone forcing awareness on a Big Daddy was some unthinkable act. Delta could only stare back at the camera unsure of what to even think about that. The way she said that seemed to imply that she thought Delta was basically mindless until now. That he was only following the orders of whoever held his puppet strings, and wasn’t aware at all of what he was doing. If she truly thought that why did she even bother talking to him? Why did she go on about this ‘family’ of hers to him if she thought he wasn’t aware enough to really understand anything? Was it all an act to seem like some strong leader to her followers that were listing to every exchange, or did she just like the sound of her own voice?

Heck, maybe it was both.

The sound of what sounded like a group of people racing toward the booth filled the air along with the now familiar sound of angry splicers approaching his location. Lamb says nothing as her splicers race toward Delta’s location. She only offers up a serene smile before the TV screens flicker off.

“Lamb was waitin' for us!” Delta hears Sinclair yell over his radio. “Come out shootin' and start the train!”

Delta allowed the flames of his Incinerate Plasmid to dance along his fingers as he stared at the door. Well, he spent a decent amount of ADAM for his Plasmid. He might as well get his money’s worth out of it. Upon stepping out of the booth Delta quickly set the closest splicer on fire. The shriek that he let out upon being set aflame caused a few of his fellow splicers to cover their ears from how loud it was. This allowed him to quickly finish them off with his drill while the other splicer raced toward the train tracks in an attempt to jump into the shallow water that covered the tracks. He didn’t make it in time as he collapsed just a few inches away from the lifesaving water. The splicers fell quick. It really wasn’t much of an ambush, but Delta was thankful for that.

After looting the corpses, he started to walk toward the train only to pause when he saw the door to the room that Sinclair had left. That pull of curiosity struck him. He couldn’t resist the pull. Upon stepping into the room it looked like it acted partially as a control room for the train, and partially as another security room. There wasn’t much there. A mattress laid in one corner of the room, and by the makeshift bed was a stack of TVs. A glance at the TVs showed that they were showing the view from different security cameras that were set up around Ryan Amusements. A mostly empty suitcase was sitting near the bed, and on that suitcase was a single audio dairy. Delta picked it up, and hit play. The Audio Dairy must have been from Sinclair, and if it was Delta wanted to hear what it said. Anything to learn more about his new ‘partner’ here in Rapture.

Andrew Ryan. He reckoned the free market was some kinda holy spirit gonna lead us all over the rainbow -- and I reckon it's a big fat hooker too dim to spot a wooden nickel. So old Andy went an' became his own ghost, and I whittled nickels 'till I made a mint.

‘Charming,’ Delta thought with some heavy sarcasm.

So far every single audio dairy that Delta found from this guy made him dread this partnership more and more. Was partnering up with this Sinclair guy really going to work out? Delta didn’t know, and that scared him more than it had any right to.

With nothing more to do Delta turned around, and walked back to the train. Upon stepping onto the train he pulled the lever. The doors in front of the train slid open without any issues, and the train moved forward. Once the train was moving Delta turned to look at the doors that were behind him. The doors lead into the passenger compartments where Sinclair and the girl was waiting. Delta didn’t hesitate to open the doors to step inside. The train didn’t need Delta to stand there to keep it moving, so there was no point in staying there.

It also helped that Delta wasn’t exactly comfortable with the idea of leaving Sinclair alone with the girl either. She wasn’t a Little Sister anymore so she didn’t have any ADAM on her, and Sinclair was no splicer so that wasn’t really much of an issue anyway. Still, Sinclair’s suggestion that Delta harvest the girl when she had been a Little Sister still lingered in the back of his head. Sinclair had been honest and said that saving them was an option, and that Delta was the only one who could choose what would happen to them. While great that he hadn’t tried to make harvesting sound like it was the only option the fact that he tried to encourage Delta to do it at all made Delta highly uncomfortable to the point that he wasn’t too jazzed at the idea of leaving them alone together.

Upon stepping through the doors he immediately spotted Sinclair sitting on one of the passenger seats holding a handheld radio that had a small built in screen on it. That was probably how Sinclair had been able to see through Delta’s camera, and how he had been communicating with Delta. Sitting on the floor nearby was the girl who had clearly went to town with the crayons. Leading from the door that Delta stepped through all the way to Sinclair were a bunch of drawings of different colored flowers. It honestly looked like a carpet of flowers were covering the ground. The two stared at each other in silence clearly unaware of the fact that Delta had entered the area. Sinclair was giving the child a weary glance while the girl just stared at Sinclair in curiosity.

After a few seconds had passed the girl gave Sinclair a bright smile as she cheerfully chirped out “Hi, my name is Lucy!”

Sinclair only sighed in response while Delta sighed right along with him.

Delta could already tell this was going to be a long train ride….