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Eleanor supposed that, looking back, she probably should have foreseen this. She had been so focused on getting them to the surface: her, Father, and the little sisters, that she never even stopped to think of what would happen after.
So much for the greatest mind in Rapture.
She cast another glance across the horizon, not that it had changed in the last hours. All there was to break the uniformity of water was an imposing lighthouse and the immobile escape shuttle they were stranded on. She had already scoured both structures and neither offered salvation. The lighthouse, and more importantly the bathysphere docks it hid, were empty. The last pod having been launched years ago. Sinclair’s escape shuttle was equally useless. It seemed that for all the man’s scheming, he too never stopped to consider how he’d get to land, since the shuttle was only capable of rising to the surface. Not only that but all the food and supplies he squirreled away for his escape had long gone bad, spoiled by dampness and time beyond the use of even girls who once sustained themselves on rancid human blood.
The girls themselves were huddled on the deck further back from the water, pressing close together to stave off the encroaching cold now that the sun was inching its way toward the waterline. They had all moved away from where Eleanor had laid Father out, and she was sure they’d take refuge inside the shuttle if not for the second corpse inside. Eleanor wasn’t quite sure what she should do with her mother’s corpse, part of her wanted to lay her out as well, give her some measure of peace in death.
Part of her just wanted to toss the old tyrant's body back into the sea and be done with it.
In the end, neither she nor the sisters could bring themselves to do anything with the corpse or the woman who damned them in the name of utopia, so the crumpled body was still on the damp floor inside.
Eleanor’s morose musings were interrupted as a bright something caught the corner of her eye, at first she wrote it off as a reflection of the last sliver of sunlight on the water, but the light persisted, slowly growing brighter until she was forced to acknowledge it.
It was a boat, a rusty old fishing ship like she’d read about in her books. It was also zeroing in on them unerringly. Eleanor climbed to her feet and waved towards it, unwilling to let this chance pass her by.
She knew it was a double-edged blessing. On one hand, it was their only hope of getting to land, on the other, Eleanor had no idea just how she was going to explain why a dozen-odd girls in ratty dresses and a teen in a diving suit were on some platform in the middle of the ocean with a corpse. And, as much as it pained her to subscribe to any part of her mother’s philosophy, she knew that there was a non-zero chance of whoever was on that ship having less than innocent intentions for her sisters. And if that happened, she was ready.
She watched as the boat pulled up to the side, a bright light and heavy clanking sound rang out as a top-down spotlight flicked on and silhouetted a man hooking a heavy chain to the side of the shuttle. She got a better view of him as he hopped onto the metal surface of the raft. He looked to be in his thirties, tall and fit with calloused hands and countless scars on every visible bit of skin. He had a revolver in his hand, but kept it pointed down for the time being.
“You ain’t Brigid, what’s your intentions with those little sisters?” That caught Eleanor off guard, and by the look the man gave her, he caught her slip. She drew into herself, standing tall and steeling her gaze. This man somehow knew about the little sisters, and seemed to know Tenenbaum, neither of those facts painted a particularly good picture.
“I am Eleanor Lamb, and my sisters are under my protection.” She kept his gaze, tensing for the next move. Gun or no gun, she was confident in her ability to eliminate this man at the first sign of a threat. Instead of anything she expected though, the man simply shoved his gun into his pocket and rubbed his eyes.
“Lamb… Lamb… You’re the Project Alpha lass, one of the ones that Brigid couldn’t find.” He took a closer look at her before shrugging. “You look the right age, and the little ones seem to trust you.”
During their little standoff, the little sisters had crowded behind her, although to back her up or to hide, Eleanor couldn’t tell. In the time it took her to look behind, the man had halved the distance between her. It was only at this distance that Eleanor could notice the details that, for the third time in the last few minutes, sent her mind reeling.
A mess of scars across his neck, and a set of chain tattoos on the insides of his wrists.
“You’re… the experiment, Ryan’s child.”
“I prefer Jack, but yah. Nice to meet’cha.” He had his hand out for her to shake, but her mind was still trying to pick itself up. Jack Ryan, the man who killed Fontaine, killed Andrew Ryan himself, the man who freed the little sisters her mother hadn’t already snatched,
The man who inspired her mother’s plans for Eleanor.
“Ello, earth to Eleanor?”
“How’d you know to come here?”
Jack sighed and dropped his hand back down, choosing to instead light up a cigarette with a spark of Incinerate and look over the little sisters again.
“Been campin' on the coast since Brigid left, jumped in as soon as this deathtrap surfaced.” He offered her a smoke as well, shrugging when she turned him down. “Right, don’t wanna be around her longer than I have to, and I’m sure the little ones' appreciate dry land, so I’ll be quick. Where is she?”
“Tenenbaum? She… Last we communicated, she said she was seeking out something. Something that could… could restore a Big Daddy.” She looked at Father’s corpse again, and Jack seemed to notice it for the first time. He rubbed the bridge of his nose again.
“Oh, Brigid…” He took a deep breath, shaking his head. “She’s tough, tougher than I am, sometimes. She’ll get word to us.” If it sounded that he was more trying to convince himself than her, Eleanor didn’t mention. “Right, it’s just gonna get colder. All aboard!”
Jack climbed back onto the boat, and a nod from Eleanor was all it took for the two adults to start helping the kids on. They were all shuffled into a small, but warm, cabin, while Jack took the helm again. And as much as Eleanor wanted to stay, her body telling her to rest and her heart telling her to protect her sisters, her brain won out again. She needed answers, and so she climbed back on deck, sitting on a box right behind wheel.
“I’ll be a good few hours till we’re aground, ya’know. And I assume it wasn’t no gentle ride up.”
“No, it’s wasn’t. Not an easy time getting them out in the first place, but…”
“But ya got questions.” He said simply, already expecting it.
“Who wouldn’t, in my place? Are you really…?”
“Ryan’s bastard? Yep. Not that I knew until after I broke a golf club on his skull.”
“They, the Little Sisters that is, they say you were test-grown.”
“Yep, don’t got no memories of that either, and I plan on keeping it that way.” He looked behind him, sighing. “Right… Well, from what I was able to get out of Brigid, my dear old Mum sold me off to Fontaine before I was even born. Bet that bastard felt he won the lottery, Ryan’s genetic code, on a silver platter. But shit like him don’t like waiting. Oh, they can, but Fontaine had a different plan, and got Suchong make me grow faster. Plus all the shit they did to my brain. When it first hit the fan, they sent me up, called me back down when they needed me.”
“O-Oh… I…” Eleanor honestly didn’t know what to say. It was one thing, to know abstractly that he was turned into a tool to use, another thing to have the man himself tell her.
“Quite something, huh?” He let out a mirthless chuckle. “Now, that’s my sob story, how about yours? How does a missing Little Sister end up leading the new generation to freedom?”
“Well, I’m sure you can guess the long strokes. I was the first Little Sister, but… before that, I was Sophia Lamb’s daughter.” She looked at him to see if he recognized the name, and when she could tell he didn’t, she continued.” She was a psychologist Andrew Ryan brought down, to try and calm the masses. She helped turn them against him instead. And after she was arrested, I was… sold off, by one of her followers. That’s when I was bound to Father.”
“Heh, both got sold to Fontaine, huh? And when you call him Father, is that just…?”
“Ironically enough, no.” It was now Eleanor’s turn to laugh mirthlessly. “Mother… wasn’t one for physical connection. So when she wanted an heir, she descended to get a gene donor. Jonathan Hights, a scuba diver that stumbled onto Rapture. They called him Johnny Topside, before Ryan turned him into Subject Delta.”
“Ah, quite the coincidence, first Sister and first Daddy. I take it ‘Mother’ is why you’re like you are?”
“Yeah…” She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him why she was. “She based me off of you.”
“Eh? How?”
“She leared of Suchong’s experiments on you, how you were meant to… meant to be a mindless automaton. She liked the idea, and implemented it into her concept of utopia. A hivemind, selflessly serving the people, literally. And who better to be the host than her own flesh and blood?” She couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying, but Jack simply offered her another smoke.
This time she took it.
They sat there in silence for a while, just watching the ocean pass in the night. Eleanor didn’t know all long passed, but by the time she spoke up again, the cigarette in her lips was burning at the base.
“The girls, what will happen to them?”
“The little ones? I’ll have to make a call, when we get ashore. Luckily, most of them still have parents to go back to. Wasn’t that way last time.”
“What happened to them?”
“Well, when their parents disappeared off the bloomin’ face of the earth before they were even born, that caused problems. Fortunately, I was able to get in contact with some suits, and weren’t they interested in hearing all of daddy’s dirty laundry?” Jack let out a chuckle, a real one this time, before stilling again. “Some of them still had families we were able to track down, though even that was a tossup. Too poor, too old, or simply didn’t want no indoctrinated babe to care for. Me and Brigid took in as many as we could. Which was a bloody lot, between her fortune and me getting access to the cash Ryan squirreled away, the hypocrite. The others… they told me they went to specialized caretakers. Don’t know why they had caretakers specialized in caring for brainwashed tots, but wasn’t in no position to ask.”
“And the ones you took in?”
“Wonderful girls. The oldest just got accepted to a fancy college, youngest is about your age. Funny to think about, raising kids older than me.” Eleanor could see the change in Jack’s face, when he started talking about them. Like a cloudy sky suddenly clearing.
“I hope I get to meet them. Wonder if I’d recognize any, or if they’d recognize me.”
“Doubtful, on their end at least. Their time before is blurry at best, and better for it. What little they can remember is already enough to send them runnin to mine or Brigid’s bed. Even nowadays.”
The conversation petered out again, although this time on a moderately lighter note. Jack consulted a map before checking the moon again.
“It’ll be dawnbreak by the time we even see land, and even spliced-up tossers like us get colds… My clothes are gonna be a mighty bit loose on you, but I’d bet there more comfortable than that suit. You should rest up.”
“...Ok, wake me when you first see land?” Questions answered, her heart and body redoubled their protestment, and she was finding it much harder to ignore them. She needed rest, and she needed to see her sisters, see that they were OK.
“Aye lass, I’ll wake you.”