We were all buried at sea. We just didn’t know it yet.
Rachel - 1966
The labs and offices of DYAD, or at least what remained of them, were quiet and dimly lit at this time of the night. But they were quiet during the day hours as well, just brighter,
Rachel walked down a corridor, her heels clicking on the tiles. Her reflection wavered over the rows of mirrored windows, and glass-paneled doors that opened into empty rooms. Some of the rooms were full of shattered glass, topsy-turvy furniture, scorch-marks on the walls.
It’s not like she needed to sleep. Not very much, at any rate. The ADAM gave her the ability to stay awake for extended periods of time, although eventually her head would feel like it was going to split open. She still went to bed every night, in some attempt at normality.
In the deathly quiet of the building, she could hear the power simmering away inside her as she lay in bed, a faint hissing and zapping and whispering deep down. Or was she finally succumbing to the same delusions of the common splicers? No. No, she was fine.
She still had a lingering dread of waking up with the bed aflame, which was ridiculous , really, she had complete control over herself now. When she did sleep, her dreams were full of jumbled images - golden eyes, silver eyes, her face mirrored so many times she didn’t know which was real, Sarah was there, her back turned, Rachel slamming her fists against the glass, screaming, Sarah turns and smiles and it’s Helena snarling, fire oh god the fire
So, the early hours of the morning would find her stalking the halls, checking doors and making sure the vents were still blocked off, sitting in front of the bank of surveillance monitors, searching for anything out in the city that wasn’t splicer-shaped. The remaining Little Sisters were locked in their bedrooms at night - she couldn’t have them wandering all over the place, leaving crumbs in her lab and whining about their Daddies - and a cursory check was all that was needed.
Sometimes she would spool through the archives of footage from the facility, watching her younger self move around the common room, small face looking this way and that as she searched for Sarah; the three of them eating in the dining hall, Sarah always giving Helena her dessert; the day she had first read to them, Sarah's hair tickling against her legs; when everything had been perfect. She would watch until her eyes burned. She never cried.
Then she would return to her lab and run her daily tests on herself, checking her ADAM stability, her EVE levels, plasmid strength. Apart from that, her special project was coming along nicely. She would soon run out of test subjects, but that was a problem for another day.
Even before DYAD fell, Rachel had gotten very good at deciphering the various codes that the doctors had used, and she’d listened to all the accu-voxs that had been left behind, scoured every notebook she could find.
As ambivalent as her feelings about her parents were, she had to credit them for giving her a proper education. Even though it had taken a back-seat when they decided to make her a guinea pig. Her mouth tightened for a moment. Still, she picked up a lot during her treatment. Many of the doctors weren't as scrupulous as her mother when it came to discretion, or they were the type of adult who actually believed children couldn’t understand words of more than three syllables.
Discovering one of Dr Tenenbaums notebooks hidden away in her old office had been a delightful surprise. She hadn’t expected to find anything of value left in there...but then, they did leave in quite a hurry. Breaking her special codes had taken longer than any of the others. Rachel admired the woman's intelligence...even while she hated her for taking away Sarah. If they’d just waited an hour or two, I could have gone with them, she thought, as she had a million times since that day. Why didn’t they wait, I could have gotten Helena out and we all could have gone, together.
Staring at her notes, she clenched her hands until the nails dug into the palms, then sighed and opened them, flexing one to produce small flames. Rachel moved her fingers slowly, staring at the flames as they flickered. She held her hand flat, palm upwards, and concentrated until the flames gathered into a sphere, then flicked her wrist and sent the fireball upwards. It hit the ceiling and splashed harmlessly outwards, rippling flames that died as they spread.
This room was fireproof, of course. She’d made certain of that. Especially after -
Her head whipped around at an unfamiliar sound coming from somewhere down the corridor. It was an alarm, of sorts, a soft beep-beep-beep coming from down the hallway.
Rachel’s first thought was Helena. She’s inside.
Then she shook her head. The entire building was secure. And Helena either couldn’t or wouldn’t teleport inside. She was safe. She was safe. So, what was that sound?
Rachel moved swiftly, heels clicking faster and faster down the corridor as she moved towards the surveillance room. Her reflection matched her step for step in the glass. There was a small blue light flashing on one of the panels. She pressed the button next to it and silenced the alarm, then started flicking through the various channels. Screen after screen flashed as she scanned for anything out of the ordinary. Her fingers were moving over the buttons so fast they were almost a blur, then-
There -
There it was. A bathysphere sat in dock. She laughed. It sounded rusty. Rachel hadn't laughed for a very long time.
“Is it someone...new?” she murmured, “or someone old? Today we are silver, tomorrow gold.” The words tripped out of her mouth like some old nursery rhyme, but Rachel couldn’t remember ever learning it.
She hadn’t seen a bathysphere for years, not since…
“...Sarah?”
Was it possible?
Rachel could see a figure inside, moving, then it disappeared from view. Her hands clenched, released, clenched, released. The figure moved in front of the door again, seeming to study the area outside. Then the door opened slowly and out they stepped. It was dark down there and the figure stayed in the shadows as they walked warily up the red-lined dock. The camera zoomed in, as far as possible, as the figure walked into a pool of reflected neon, the light on the mane of dark hair flashing blue and red. Then they turned their face and Rachel stopped breathing.
Sarah. She was here. She was really here. The image was grainy but it was her. She held a gun in one hand, and carried a backpack slung over her shoulder. Rachel stared at the screen, for a moment unable to think anything except - she’s so...beautiful. A heat that had nothing to do with the plasmids ran through her body and for a moment she forgot that Sarah had left her here, had just left her. For a moment it didn’t matter at all.
Sarah looked left, then right, then turned left.
Rachel’s skin hummed, her fingers flexing automatically, tiny sparks crackling. When she reached out to touch the screen, tiny lightning bolts arched from her fingers. Flicking her hands impatiently, the electricity subsided, but now Sarah was gone.
Her hands gripped the back of the chair, wanting to pick up it up and smash the screens in with it, wanting to scream. Her eyes flicked over the bank of monitors, searching for movement but found nothing. She could feel her skin ripple with fire as her anger grew sharper.
Helena will get to Sarah first and then, they will leave me behind, she thought, again.
The tiny sliver of fear inside her shivered and sighed, but her anger coiled around it like a snake.
Her fingernails tapped on the desk as she considered her options, light from the monitors reflected in the silver polish. Distract Helena with more Little Sisters, and head Sarah off. Bring Sarah back here. Show her what I… She made an exasperated sound and closed her eyes. Helena will know her sister is here as soon as Sarah sets foot in Rapture, and nothing would stop her.
I’ll just have to get to Sarah first.
No matter what.