To be self-aware is a curse.
DYAD - 1960
Rachel Duncan was angry. Rachel Duncan was furious. She had been locked in her room for hours. A real, old-fashioned lock on the door had stymied her attempt to jolt the door open. She would’ve burnt her way through but the door turned out to be metal underneath the wood panels. Just another cage. How long had there been a lock on the outside of the door? How dare they ?
She sat on the edge of the bed, stiffly, her hands tense in her lap. Occasionally they smoothed her dress down, over her ribs and down her thighs, as if attempting to soothe a restless animal. She looked up at the camera in the corner and glared until her eyes burned. How long were they going to keep her in here. What had happened to Sarah?
There was a click from the door. Rachel stood up, clasping her hands behind her back. Her monitor appeared and she inwardly seethed. He had laid hands on her, dragged her away from Sarah, thrown her in here like some kind of animal . Her fingers tingled with the desire to strike him down. But she didn’t. Not yet. She could wait.
“Your mother wants to see you.” he stated, a trace of a smirk on his narrow face. He was clearly overjoyed at the prospect of this troublesome girl getting her comeuppance. Rachel clenched a fist full of flame behind her back and settled for shooting him a look of contempt.
She walked out into the corridor, shoulders back and chin raised, her shiny buckled shoes clicking on the tiled floor, her eyes moving over the various doors and windows they passed. But it seemed the DYAD was in lockdown - the rows of offices and labs were dark and quiet. Rachel wasn’t really worried about Sarah in a physical sense. She was well aware of the regenerative qualities of ADAM and how it made the Little Sisters essentially unkillable. Did it do the same for me she wondered.
No, Sarah wasn’t dead. But even the Big Daddy wouldn’t have been able to fight off all of DYAD. They would have stopped them all, surely, Dr Tenenbaum and the other Little Sisters...and Helena. Oh, the entire staff would be delighted at the chance to observe Helena. She was so special. Rachel’s face darkened as she reached her mother’s office and knocked on the door. But at least she would see Sarah soon, and they could spend all their time together now.
“Come in,” called her mother, and Rachel opened the door, expecting to see Dr Suchong waiting with an angry expression. She was sure he had seen her, trying to help Sarah instead of distracting her. But it was just Susan Duncan in the room, sitting at her desk with a weary, yet somehow exuberant look on her face.
“Rachel. Sit down.” Her voice was a touch less chilly than usual. “You’ll be pleased to know that we have secured Helena for further study. I suspect she will prove...invaluable, for the future of DYAD.”
Rachel lifted an eyebrow.
“What future is that, exactly?” she asked, her voice as icy as her mother's. “Rapture is falling to pieces while you all sit inside these glass walls and study.” She felt the familiar tremor of power deep within her, eager for release.“ What is the point?”
“I am not answerable to you, Rachel.” her mother snapped. “You are still a child, and will do as you’re told. Now that your little...distractions...have been removed, we can continue-”
Rachel felt an icy prickle moving up her spine.
“Removed?” she repeated blankly.
Susan smiled with a grim satisfaction.
“As I said, we have secured Helena for study. And the other one is...gone. They’re all gone. Dr Tenenbaum stole them all from underneath our noses.” She flapped her hand in a dismissive gesture. Susan had never been completely on board with the Little Sister program - it was a necessity, yes. But the girls themselves disgusted her, and she was quietly pleased that her daughter would no longer be associating with them.
Rachel stared at her mother disbelievingly, noting the cold blue eyes contained victory and defiance. Her fists clenched in the folds of her skirt and then she cocked her head to one side.
“Where is father?” she asked suddenly. “I haven’t seen him for days.”
Susan’s gaze faltered slightly, and her hands found some papers to straighten.
“Your father has...he is taking a break from work. He is temporarily staying...elsewhere. I’m sure you’ll see him soon.” Her smile was brittle. Rachel nodded. Her father had been so emotionally absent for so long now, she could hardly see this making a difference. Still...he could have come and talked to her, said goodbye in person.
Rachel stood up abruptly.
“I want to see Sarah.” Her voice was flat. She simply could not accept that Sarah had left. Had just - left. Deep down she knew she would never leave Helena behind. Surely, she wouldn’t…?
Susan gave her a pitying look.
‘Rachel, dear, she is gone. She has betrayed her sister, and Dr Tenenbaum has betrayed us all.” She shook her head. “Regardless, we have very exciting plans-”
“No.” Rachel's voice was still flat, but louder. “I don’t believe you. She would not leave her sister.” Her chin raised defiantly. “Or me.” You’ve taken her away from me she thought bitterly. She wouldn’t...
Susan laughed, a surprising tinkling sound.
“Oh, my, you always gave those guttersnipes too much credit. You can go and look wherever you like, but you won’t find her. They. Are. Gone. And it’s time you had more suitable companions anyway.”
Rachel stood still, nearly vibrating with rage. In her mind she screamed and screamed at her mother until fire roared out of her throat, in her mind she roared . She could feel her fingers starting to spark and clenched her fists even harder. Her knuckles were white. She had to get out of here and see for herself. Her mother could wait.
The door slammed against the wall as she left, rebounding almost shut again. Her monitor straightened up from where he had been slouching against the wall and prepared to follow her. Rachel glared and raised a hand, preparing to freeze him where he stood, but Susan called out his name, and he quickly moved into the office and closed the door firmly. Rachel let a small smile steal over her face. He could wait, too.
She started walking purposefully towards the doors through to Little Wonders, and a feeling, a terrible gut-wrenching feeling, began to grow in her. She began to run, no longer caring if anyone saw her, panting and red. It couldn’t be true...could it?
As she ran towards the entrance, her hands lifted and violent gusts of icy wind blew the doors open, ice forming around the edges and freezing them ajar. Down the hallway, into the twins bedroom.
Empty.
Into the common room.
Empty.
The dining hall, the schoolroom, the outer entrance.
All empty.
Rachel was cold. She had never felt so cold. If she cried, she felt that the tears would freeze on her cheeks. But she wasn’t going to cry. She would not cry. Her fingers were blue and her heart felt like a block of ice in her chest. In one last desperate idea, she ran to Dr Tenenbaums office and slammed the door open.
Empty.
Rachel had been in there a few times before, and now, looking around, she could see a few things were missing, small, personal things. All the equipment remained. They must have had to leave quickly and not carry much.
She sat down on the floor, like her legs had suddenly given out.
They were gone. Sarah was really gone. She had left Rachel here - abandoned her in this underwater prison. She felt the fire start to rise up her veins. Dr Tenenbaum had acted so nice to her and then she had stolen Rachel's only friend. Rachel hated her. She hated all of them.
She got to her feet and looked around wildly. Her skin felt hot and tight now, as her rage grew. She had to -
Rachel's hands twisted and opened and flames roared out, playing over the ceiling and walls of the office, the curtains catching alight, books burning on the shelves. She was silent, except for a hoarse panting. The heat blew her hair around her face in fine blond strands. If there’d been a mirror, she would have seen her silver eyes reflecting the fiery glow.
Eventually her breathing slowed down and the flames ebbed. The sprinkler system was sluggish - water was abundant here but pipes still got blocked - but finally started to send out a fine mist to douse the fires in the room. Rachel was still so hot, however, the water evaporated as it approached her skin. She felt exhausted suddenly, hollow. Her face was expressionless as she left the smouldering room and the door quietly clicked shut behind her.
⇌ ⇌ ⇌
Later that night, she snuck out of her room. They would have to replace the bolt on the door. When returning to her room, Rachel had simply looked at it for a moment, froze it solid with her plasmid, then smashed it with a wrench she’d picked up somewhere on the way. It felt solid and heavy in her hand, and she carried it with her as she slipped down the darkened hallways. Not that she needed a weapon - she was a weapon. But she liked the weight of it.
She made it down to the cage, the cell-like room that was kept for Suchong's more specialised experiments. Surprisingly, there were no guards keeping watch. Rachel entered the small observation room and stayed close to wall, keeping out of the camera's scope.
She could see a heap on the bed, which turned out to be just twisted up blankets. Then she caught her breath as two golden eyes suddenly opened in the darkness under the bed. Now she could see Helena, curled up on the floor. The misery was evident in every line of her body.
She seemed to stare at Rachel for a moment before the golden glow winked out again, and she rolled over to face the wall, barely visible.
Rachel felt a pang of something deep in her heart. She stared unblinkingly at the shadow where Helena was, and pushed the feeling, whatever it was, down, down, down. Under the ice.