I wrote most of this over the past few days. I've been on fire for the Lion and the Lamb lately and it's been great to progress so much in so little time. I hope that you'll enjoy reading this as much (and maybe more) as I enjoyed writing it.

Feel free to leave a review or PM with your thoughts, ideas, and opinions, WOULD YOU KINDLY? Onto the latest chapter!

Chapter 9: Of Adult Stores and Flying Cities

The first thing that Jack saw as the doors parted in front of him was a familiar and despicable name: Dr. Suchong. A huge advertisement, like a billboard, dominated the space ahead of him, proclaiming that THE SILVER FIN RESTAURANT had been CLOSED BY ORDER OF DR. SUCHONG.

Jack made a face at Suchong's name. What the heck had that man been doing with a restaurant of all things? The clinic and the secret lab, that was definitely Dr. Suchong's thing. How would a restaurant aid him in his "dastardly deeds"?

Behind and to the right of the advertisement was another of those airlocks, only this one was broken and wide open, the sign over it reading "Elevator". To the left was a store with an obnoxious neon-pink sign, "Cupid's Arrow". The sign featured Cupid and his bow and arrow alternating between two poses.

Jack glanced between the two options, then opted for Cupid's Arrow. As unlikely as it was that she was in there, as long as he thought that Elizabeth had come this way, it was best not to leave any stone unturned.

Approaching the store, Jack could see the posters on either side of the door. The one on the right depicted a big blond man who was missing his shirt, holding a diving helmet with one arm and a drill over his shoulders. "Rapture's Man of Steel - Big Daddy" the sign read, "He works hard...but plays HARDER."

Jack made a face. He doubted that the Big Daddies looked anything like that under their suits. Maybe in the beginning before their skin and organs had been grafted directly onto the suit's interior, but definitely not now. Now there was a question that he didn't want answered.

A girl in a loose-fitting scarlet robe sat next to a pile of food. Appetite for Sin! the poster proclaimed. See…"the temptations of Rapture" through the eyes of a Midwest girl!

Oh good night! It was a freaking adult store. The odds of Elizabeth being in there just appeared to have decreased even further. Still, those odds weren't zero and he was closer to the store's door than he was to the airlock. Already feeling his face flushing red, Jack cleared his throat and then walked forward.

Just like the airlock, Cupid's Arrow's door was broken and wide open. Jack looked around and could confirm that Cupid's Arrow was indeed an adult store. Another poster hung on the wall to the right: Gender-Bender. Another Appetite for Sin! poster graced the wall behind the counter, which had the titles The Farmer's Daughter, Below Decks, Mother May I?, Co-Eds, and Pearly Gates displayed on the front. The blood continued to rush into Jack's cheeks and now his ears. Yup, definitely an adult store.

And it was right next door to a school. Only in Rapture, of course.

"Elizabeth?" Jack called out, listening for an answer. There was none; then again, their last meeting hadn't ended well, what with him grabbing her by the shoulders and shouting. He wouldn't want to answer if he was in her shoes. Damn, he needed to think up one really good apology.

Shaking his head, Jack sped-walked past the counter and into the store. On the shelves of the two stands, there were more of the titles he had already seen, along with some new ones. For once, the merchandise was worse off than the store itself. Even after the valuables had been looted, it was obvious that splicers had seen fit to keep coming back for an "eyeful" at the salacious images that Cupid's Arrow had specialized in.

In the middle of the floor, a dead splicer lay. There was a stab wound in his back, his pants were down around his ankles, and his buttocks were exposed for all the world to see. He was surrounded by open and wrinkled copies of explicit books and magazines, along with a multitude of used tissues which Jack took care to avoid touching. Now that there was inspiration for a cautionary tale: Don't be jerkin' the gherkin in a city full of spliced maniacs.

At the back of the store were two sets of double doors with an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign over both of them. In between them were three doorless openings. Jack peered into the middle one to find some kind of viewing room. An oval window looked out onto some kind of stage, which was occupied by a stripper's pole and a green cardboard cutout of a man winking while holding a finger to his lips and a martini glass.

The wall behind the stage was dominated by a large advertisement. TURN EVERY ROOM INTO...A PEEPSHOW! The vision of the leering guy was dominated by a yellow, hourglass-shaped silhouette and the words PEEPING TOM. So Ryan's company had made a plasmid that allowed one to both turn invisible and to see through walls.

There really was no depth that his father wouldn't fall to, was there? Well, at least Elizabeth had found a good usage for it. Was there any chance that this was the same striptease joint where she had found the plasmid in the first place?

Jack backed out of the room and headed towards the employee's doors. Passing through them, Jack glanced into the staging room and continued past it as there wasn't anything to scrounge up.

The back of the store served as a changing room for the strippers, apparently. The entire back wall consisted of a long mirror with a counter and chairs for applying makeup and other accessories. A garbage can was overflowing with what looked like gift boxes, and one section of the counter was dominated by several vases filled with dead flowers. Old gifts for a popular girl?

What really caught Jack's eye was the wire-frame mannequin right by the flower vases. Walking up to it, Jack confirmed his suspicion. The clothes were Elizabeth's, her blouse and her skirt. If these were right here, then what was she wearing? The good news was that he was on the right track, and that she still had his weapons with her.

Jack turned and ran for the exit. Elizabeth had been through here, and not too long ago. If he hurried, he could catch up with her before she ran into serious trouble.

As Jack ran out the formerly automatic door, he suddenly put on the brakes, just barely coming to a stop in time. The red-headed twins who had appeared and disappeared without warning in Suchong's secret lab stood in front of him, as unfazed as though they just hadn't almost been bowled over by a big guy hauling ass in a diving suit.

He swore as he caught his breath from the sudden run and equally sudden stop. "Would you not do that!?" he gasped at the two of them.

The Lutece Twins simultaneously raised an eyebrow at him, still completely nonplussed.

"Thoroughness can be a virtue, Mr. Wynand," the man, Robert, if he remembered correctly, said.

"Except in cases where speed is of the essence, Mr. Ryan," the woman, Rosalind, continued.

Jack would have winced at the application of both surnames, if he hadn't been practicing the very approach that Rosalind had just advised. Annoyance bloomed in his chest as he finally caught his breath. Did these two seriously have nothing better to do than to bother and delay him?

"But unless one knows where one has to go, speed isn't of much worth," Robert countered.

"A fair point, unless one is moving fast enough, then time and distance aren't of too much concern," Rosalind pointed out.

"First, either call me Jack or Mr. Wynand, please," Jack interrupted. "Second, would you please move? I need to find Elizabeth."

"Oh really?" Robert said, raising his other eyebrow. "Didn't you leave her to fend for herself?"

"Understandable," Rosalind observed, "given how she used a Little Sister for her own devices, unleashed Fontaine back upon Rapture, and then gave him the trigger phrase."

Jack grit his teeth before forcing himself to calm down. Punching these twins would likely be every bit as futile as shooting them.

"I-I don't know the whole story," he said, shame creeping into his voice. "And I shouldn't condemn her when I've practically forgiven Tenenbaum for her sins."

Rosalind raised her other eyebrow now, before she and her counterpart exchanged looks. Some kind of communication passed between them before they both turned back to him.

"The woman will be wanting this back." Robert took something out from one of his pockets and flipped it towards Jack.

Jack caught it without having to use his telekinesis. He thought it was some kind of large and unusually thick coin until he opened his hand to see it. It was a pendant, blue with a silver rim and bird symbol. When it buzzed in his hand, he almost dropped it. Before his eyes, static covered the pendant like a television without a signal. When the static subsided, the bird symbol was replaced with an empty bird cage.

"This should help in locating her." Jack looked up to find Rosalind holding an open pamphlet to him.

He took it and looked over the pages. It was evidently an advertisement for "Bathyspheres Deluxe", another one of Frank Fontaine's businesses down here. The pamphlet was currently open to a map of the store.

"Use your head, but quickly," Robert advised.

"Unless you wish to haul her carcass all the way back to Suchong's lab," Rosalind added as the lights overhead began flickering.

"Wait, how will this-" Jack looked back up only to find himself alone. "Ok, that's...annoying."

He stuffed the strange pendant into his bag and turned his attention back to the pamphlet. The entrance to Bathyspheres Deluxe was on the floor above, accessible via the elevator just through the open airlock up ahead. The main area was a showroom for the bathyspheres. Branching off from that was a test-drive for prospective customers, a service bay for the spheres, an information kiosk, a lounge, and a restaurant.

Wait a moment, the Silver Fin Restaurant? Wasn't that the restaurant that Suchong had closed down?

Jack ran back up the stairs to confirm that yes, that was the restaurant that Suchong had ordered closed. And hadn't Elizabeth been Suchong's "lab assistant"? Bit of a leap of logic, but it was the only real lead that he had.

Jack rushed around the advertisement, up another short set of stairs, into the airlock, through the set of double doors, through the open area beyond, almost into a splicer, and into the elevator. Coming to another halt in the elevator, Jack hurriedly smacked the button before the splicer could join him. He couldn't help but smirk as the splicer yelled in rage as the doors closed shut and the elevator began to ascend.

As his breathing calmed down, Jack took another look at the map. The Silver Fin Restaurant was to the right and up a flight of stairs from the entrance. Hopefully, there would be no other surprises on the way to the Silver Fin. And just to be on the safe side should the splicer he had almost run into hold a grudge, Jack placed a proximity mine in the middle of the elevator's floor.

When the elevator door opened, Jack found himself looking upon the Bathysphere Deluxe. It had definitely seen better days. The neon sign had been trashed, one of the display windows had been blown up, pieces of its mannequins all over the place, while the other was riddled with bullet holes, its mannequins looking like swiss cheese. Off to the side was a bunch of smashed crates and wooden boxes, a destroyed guitar the most noticeable of the debris.

Jack took off on his third dead run of the day. He leapt over the set of steps out front (what was with Fontaine and little flights of stairs everywhere in his Department Store?) and continued on to the front doors. He burst through them, leaping over a set of descending stairs, slid, took a hard right that almost brought him down, and ran for the first true staircase he had seen all day.

Sure enough, at the top of the stairs, there was the Silver Fin Restaurant. He had to take another hard right and another stop as he waited for the automatic door to open. As soon as it had come up, he was through the entrance.

As he entered the reception area, the roar of a Big Daddy echoed through the restaurant. Remembering the Luteces' parting words, Jack put on an extra bout of speed, hurtling up yet another set of stairs. He almost screamed with frustration as he came to yet another stop in front of another airlock. He just about broke the lever when he flipped it. Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long for the airlock to cycle.

A Big Daddy stood in the middle of the room, all eight portholes glowing a baleful crimson as its drill spun and it shuffled around the room. Jack almost opened up with Electro-Bolt before he realized that he wasn't the target of the beast's wrath; something or someone else had angered it. Three guesses on who that was?

"Elizabeth!?" he called out over the threatening drone of the Big Daddy. "Are ya there?"

For a moment, nothing stirred other than the Big Daddy. Then Jack saw her, peering out from behind some kind of counter towards the back. Even from where he stood and with the poor lighting, he could see the terror in her face. Right, from her point of view, a Big Daddy was still an apex predator in Rapture's jungle. Luckily for both of them, he was an apex predator too.

Jack took out his chemical thrower and wrangled a canister of electric gel from his bag. He forced his hands to be steady as he took the napalm canister off of the thrower and connected the electric gel canister. Even though he could bring Elizabeth back should she be killed, he didn't want to see that happen, and he doubted that she wanted to experience death a second time.

Speaking of Elizabeth, he'd better make sure that she would be getting out of this in good shape. Fishing out a med kit and an EVE hypo, Jack smiled as he formulated a plan. Zap the Daddy with Electro-Bolt, toss Elizabeth the kit and the hypo while the Daddy was convulsing, and then finish him off with the thrower. Quick and easy.

Smiling, Jack turned and fired off his Electro-Bolt at the Daddy. The drone gave way to a convulsing groan as the Daddy twitched and arcs shot over its suit.

"Elizabeth, catch!" Jack yelled as he threw the kit and hypo towards her. Despite the surprise evident in her eyes, Elizabeth managed to catch both of them.

"Jack, look out!" she cried, pointing back towards the Big Daddy.

Jack turned, raising the thrower to finish off the brute, only to find that it had already recovered from the Electro-Bolt and its red gaze was fixed solely on him. Before he could pull the thrower's trigger, the Daddy thrust its drill arm at him, and the drill was launched. Right. At. Him.

Jack threw himself to the side; the drill grazed him, knocking the thrower from his hands and taking a chunk out of his suit. Jack crashed to the ground and looked up in time to see the Daddy retrieve its drill thanks to a long cable and turn its gaze back on him.

He remembered back in Suchong's lab, the chalkboard that described the removal of the launching option for the drill in future Bouncer models. Jack grit his teeth as the realization set in. Looked like this one didn't get the memo; time to put him out to pasture.

The Bouncer prepared to charge, prompting Jack to roll out of the way. The Bouncer shot right by him, colliding with the wall instead. Jack snapped his fingers at the suited brute, engulfing it in flames and buying him enough time to get up.

Reaching back for his weapons, Jack's eyes widened as he found that they weren't there. Looking at the ground, he found them quickly, right where they had fallen after his "maneuvers". Before he could grab them, physically or telekinetically, the Bouncer, flames still licking at its suit, came out at him, drill swinging.

Jack turned and ran for the counter dividing the restaurant between the dining area and the kitchen. He vaulted over it, smirking as he heard the Daddy roar in frustration. The Big Daddies were big, strong, and tough, but they lacked a lot in agility.

Jack got back up to his feet and glared at the Bouncer from over the counter. It responded by slamming its drill into the ground and revving it hard. Jack's vision blurred and his ability to move decreased as the vibrations rattled his brain around in his skull. That was honestly his least favorite thing about Bouncers.

When the Bouncer ceased shaking his head like a maraca, instead of attempting to hit him over the counter, it turned and went straight for the doors between the dining area and kitchen. As it was coming through the doors, Jack was pulling himself back onto the counter. Attempting to hit him, it charged, slamming into the counter as his boots touched down on the other side.

Jack hit it with another Electro-Bolt, hoping to buy time to grab one of his weapons. This was going to be just like his first fight with a Bouncer in the Medical Pavilion, wasn't it? Him jumping back and forth over that insurance booth's counter to avoid the Big Daddy, shooting at it whenever he got the chance, hoping to avoid the same death as that idiot splicer in the theater.

"Jack!" Elizabeth called out. "Keep him distracted! I got an idea!"

Jack twisted around, trying to find Elizabeth before remembering that she was likely using her Peeping Tom plasmid. Now if only his Natural Camouflage tonic could work while he was moving.

With a roar, the Bouncer quit convulsing and headed once again for the doors. Jack reached telekinetically for his tommy gun, physically grabbing it out of the air, and beginning his climb back over the counter.

This old song-and-dance was repeated a couple times: Jack vaulting over the counter just before the Bouncer could reach him, hitting it with a plasmid or some bullets and then waiting for it to head for the doors before climbing over the counter again. Thankfully, nothing could be said for the Big Daddy's intelligence.

It was working, until the Big Daddy saw him climbing up and decided to shoot its drill at him. Jack's suit kept the drill from penetrating his flesh, but it allowed the Daddy to reel him in like a fish, only much faster. As soon as he was within range, the Bouncer reared back its fist and punched him so hard, his suit was torn off the drill and he was sent flying backwards.

Before the Big Daddy could continue wailing on him, an icy projectile struck it, freezing it in place. Jack glanced towards the origin of the Old Man Winter cast. Elizabeth was standing by the device.

When he had come in, Jack had of course noticed the strange device in the middle of the room. The Big Daddy had been of more concern, so he hadn't paid any attention at the time. Wires and cables ran from the corner of the room to its two pillars. Between them on the ground was some kind of dais, and over that, supported by the pillars was some kind of white oblong mass surrounded by a ring of cylindric nodules. The mass was glowing white, like it was about to overheat.

As he watched, Elizabeth turned towards the device and fired another round of Old Man Winter at the mass. The white glow gave way to icicles and frost.

"Jack, get out of sight," Elizabeth said as she approached the right pillar of the device. "If this works, we get rid of that damn Bouncer in one shot."

Before Jack could ask for an explanation, Elizabeth grabbed a lever on the machine and cranked it. With a sound like an electronic sink, something like wisps poured from two glowing white spheres into-into some kind of crack in the air between the dais and the mass. With a swish, reality itself distorted like a bubble around the crack before it expanded, becoming something like a hole in the air itself.

"Jack, move!" Elizabeth yelled. She positioned herself between the hole and the Big Daddy, shotgun aimed at the latter. "And pray that he charges!"

Jack did as he was told, once again vaulting over the counter and peering over it, praying to whoever was listening.

The moment that the Bouncer broke through its icy shell, sending fragments of dry ice flying everywhere, Elizabeth opened fire, peppering its suit with buckshot. The Bouncer turned towards her and went berserk. Roaring with rage, it dispensed with shooting its drill at her and prepared to charge.

As it began to lunge forward, Elizabeth disappeared from view. Too late to stop or change its course, the Bouncer shot forward and right into the hole. It let out one last bellow as it disappeared from view, soon fading out.

Elizabeth came back into view, crouched to the ground mere inches from the Bouncer's path. She was wearing a dark blue, old-timey dress with a white corset and a little blue jacket. A white choker around her neck displayed her Rapture Lighthouse pendant. While her other outfit gave the femme fatale look, Jack had to admit that he kind of liked this outfit more, even if it was old fashioned.

As she straightened up, Jack clambered one last time over the counter and ran towards her. Elizabeth had been looking at the hole as though she expected the Bouncer to come roaring back through, so she wasn't expecting him to run to her and embrace her.

He could feel her tense up in his arms, before she relaxed and embraced him back. When they finally stepped back, it took Jack a moment to formulate his words.

"Jack, what are you-" Elizabeth began.

"I'm sorry," he interrupted. "I shouldn't have yelled at you like that, and I definitely shouldn't have left you alone. I shouldn't have judged you when I didn't know the full story. That was wrong of me and I won't do it again. Can you forgive me for that?"

Elizabeth studied his face for a long moment. Jack began to wonder if she could forgive him, if she should, given that he had left her alone in one of the most dangerous cities on Earth. Just as he thought that she was going to walk away or give him a verbal lashing in return, she smiled.

"I forgive you, Jack," she answered, "and I don't blame you. What I did to Sally was beyond terrible, and then I set Atlas and his army loose on Rapture, and gave him the power to control you."

"Yes, you did," Jack replied, "but then you gave your own life to save her. As for Rapture, I saw that 'Ryan the Lion' school, and I honestly don't think that letting Rapture exist would have been good. And who knows what would have happened to me if Atlas hadn't summoned me back to Rapture. In any case, I'm glad that you're safe."

Elizabeth smiled up at him and they embraced again. Jack rested his chin on the top of Elizabeth's head and closed his eyes. Elizabeth's frame in his arms was reassuring in an odd way; despite being so small compared to him, it was like she was anchoring him, providing him with support in this crazy world.

When Jack opened his eyes, he found himself looking at the hole in the air. He could make out some vague shapes inside, only increasing his curiosity.

"Hey Elizabeth," he began, raising a hand to point at the hole. "What in the world is that?"

Elizabeth pulled out of the hug to see what he was talking about. "Oh, that," she said. "That's exactly what I was going to show you in the first place. It's called a Tear."

"Ok," Jack said as he approached it cautiously, "what's a Tear?" He squinted into the Tear, before his eyes widened in incredulity. "Are those...buildings in the clouds!?"

"Yes," Elizabeth answered, a sad note in her voice. "That, that is the flying city of Columbia, circa 1912. A city very similar to Rapture, and very different at the same time. It was meant to be a paradise, but it turned out to be a perdition."

"A city in the sky?" Jack snorted. "Ridiculous."

"That's exactly what my father said when he saw Rapture," Elizabeth said wryly.

Jack made a face. "Ok, good point there," he admitted. "But from what I know of history, there were no flying cities back in 1912."

"And in some worlds, there are no underwater cities in 1960," she countered.

Jack was about to open his mouth to argue when her words finally clicked in his head.

"Did you say...other worlds?" he asked, not sure that he had heard right.

Elizabeth looked at him before glancing around, a hand raised to her chin in thought. Suddenly, she started towards one of the counters. Stopping at the one she'd been hiding behind, she began gathering a bunch of papers and photographs together. Confused, Jack went to stand by her side and peer over her shoulder.

"Elizabeth?" he asked.

"One moment, Jack," Elizabeth said, focused as she searched for pen or pencil. "The science behind Tears is hard to explain. Some visual aids will probably prove helpful. Ah, here we are."

Picking up a pen, Elizabeth turned a sheet of paper over to its blank side. She drew a straight line lengthwise across the paper before turning to him and pointing at the line.

"Alright," she hesitantly began, "let's say that this line represents history, all that has ever happened and that we know to be true. Now," she pointed at the very end of the line, "this is where you are, at the very point where the future becomes the present for an instant before becoming the past.

"You come to a point where you have to make a decision. It can be something small like having tea or coffee, or something huge that changes the course of your life. You consider your choices, and then choose one."

Elizabeth drew another line from the end of the first, continuing it at a forty-five degree angle.

"You continue on, your choice becoming part of what it is, along with its results and consequences. However, that's only one side of the coin."

Elizabeth sighed. "And here's where we enter the realm of disbelief. Whenever a choice is made, another world comes into existence, where you made the opposite choice."

Elizabeth drew another forty-five degree line, opposite to the second one. The line now looked like a capital Y with a very long tale.

"For this other world, that choice is what you chose and what is real, and that version of you has to live with that choice and its consequences.

"This means that for every choice ever made, there is a world where the opposite decision was made. This means that," Elizabeth continued as she began drawing more lines coming off the main one, "there's a world where Truman didn't drop the atomic weapons, where Prohibition wasn't repealed, where the Lusitania wasn't sunk, where Lincoln wasn't assassinated, where the American Revolution failed."

She stopped and pointed back at the Tear. "And where a flying city exists in the year 1912."

Jack nodded. On the inside, his brain was rebelling against what Elizabeth was telling him. How could this be? The world was how it was, how could an alternate exist? With all the choices that one person made in their lifetime, there would be more worlds than could be counted, and that was just counting one single person. How could so many worlds exist alongside each other at the same time? Then again, that Tear was basically supporting what Elizabeth was telling him.

"Ok," he responded, "and how exactly do the Tears fit into all this?"

"Tears are essentially rips in dimensional time and space," Elizabeth explained, drawing a curving line connecting a branching line with the main one. "They connect two different points in time and space, forming a door between different worlds. In this case," she pointed back to the Tear, "between 1960 Rapture and 1912 Columbia."

"Alright, I think I understand," Jack said. "One question left: How do you know all this and how do you fit in?"

"That's technically two questions?" Elizabeth said, and then smiled sadly. "But the answer fits both."

Putting down the paper and pen down and picking the photos up, Elizabeth sat down, patting the ground beside her. Jack looked around, and then sat down next to her, positioned so that he could keep an eye on the airlock door. Once they were settled, Elizabeth began telling her story.

She told how a young man by the name of Booker DeWitt, torn apart by the atrocities he committed in the Battle of Wounded Knee, came to a choice: A baptism. Deciding that what he had done couldn't be washed away, he rejected the baptism and continued on his way.

Booker DeWitt married a woman named Annabelle Watson, who would die giving birth to her daughter, Anna. Stuck with the infamy of being a former Pinkerton who was fired for being too violent, a gambling debt to the wrong crowd, and an infant daughter, Booker was given another choice by a man in a suit: Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.

After Booker regretted his original decision, he tried to get his daughter back, only for her and her captors to disappear through a hole in the air, leaving nothing behind but her pinky, severed by the closing of the hole. For nearly twenty years, Booker lived in squalor with his regret. In 1912, the man reappeared with a woman at his side, offering a chance to redeem himself. With nothing to lose, Booker accepted their offer.

Going through the Tear, Booker forgot that Anna had survived her birth, believing that the phrase "bring us the girl and wipe away the debt" meant that he had to retrieve Elizabeth from Columbia and bring her to the Luteces in New York to be rid of his debt.

Elizabeth recounted how Booker had freed her from her prison at Columbia's Monument Island, evading her protector and warden, the "Songbird". Together, they had traversed not one, not two, but three different versions of Columbia, witnessing first the radical nationalism, religious fanaticism, and racial hierarchy of the "Founders" and their leader, "Zachery Hale Comstock", and then the rage, hate, and violence of the "Daisy Fitzroy" and her "Vox Populi". How to save the son of Jeremiah Fink, robber baron extraordinaire, she had stabbed Fitzroy in the back with a pair of scissors. How they had faced off against some inter-dimensional fusion of different versions of Lady Comstock, Elizabeth's supposed mother, a ghost-like entity who could somehow raise the dead. How she had allowed Songbird to capture her again to save Booker's life. How after six months of torture, Booker finally came to save her, bringing with him a message from a future version of her, from a world where Columbia was out to destroy the world and then all the worlds.

Together, they had stormed the Comstock's flagship, the "Hand of the Prophet", killing him before taking control of the Songbird and using him to fight off the Vox Populi as they went to destroy the siphon hidden away in Monument Island, finally unshackling Elizabeth and allowing her to fully experience and utilize her powers. She had then teleported herself, Booker, and Songbird to 1960 Rapture, drowning Songbird in the crushing ocean depths and then taking Booker to the "Sea of Doors", the world behind the worlds.

There, she had learned the truth about herself and Booker DeWitt and Zachery Comstock: They were the same person. Booker, her father, had refused the baptism. Comstock, all of the Comstocks, were a result of Booker DeWitt taking the opposite choice, accepting the baptism and seeing himself as resolved of both his guilt and his responsibility for his actions.

Sterilized by constant use of the Lutece Device for his facade of prophecy, Comstock opted to find a version of himself that had offspring and obtain theirs. Booker had sold Anna, and Comstock had rechristened her "Elizabeth". Thanks to the accident with the Tear, Elizabeth developed abilities typical to sentient "quantum superpositions": Able to create Tears at will and to know anything that she desired, the closest thing to omniscience that a human being could get.

What she learned first was this: Booker DeWitt was far from a good man; Zachery Comstock was much, much worse. There was only one way to prevent his existence, to protect all of reality from his bloody and monstrous legacy, and that was to smother him in his cradle. For Comstock, that was the baptism. In the Sea of Doors, Booker had stood in for Comstock on the day of the baptism, and Elizabeth and several other versions of her had drowned him there, erasing him and Columbia from the multiverse.

Immediately afterwards, every possible version of Elizabeth had converged, the Prime Elizabeths, the ones who had actually succeeded in erasing Comstock, becoming the "dominant" personality and memory of the new, single Elizabeth.

From there, Elizabeth learned of a subset of universes where her assimilation into Comstock's universe had gone horrifying wrong, resulting in her death by decapitation. She had attempted to prevent that, only to fail miserably. Those Comstocks, beset by guilt once more, left for other worlds, ones where Anna had or never would exist. One by one, Elizabeth had hunted down these fugitive Comstocks, ending with the one that had come to Rapture.

Discovering that the final Comstock had readopted the name and identity of Booker DeWitt and forgotten his time as Comstock, Elizabeth had begun looking for ways to remind him of his former life. When she had learned of Sally, her relationship to Booker/Comstock (Bookerstock?), and her predicament as a Little Sister, Elizabeth had waited for the right moment to go to Bookerstock and set him on her trail. Her plan worked exactly as she had foreseen; now if she had only looked a little further to see her death at the drill of that particular Big Daddy.

From what she deduced, she had woken up in the Sea of Doors only to succumb to her guilt of leaving Sally in Fontaine's Department Store. After using her powers to come up with a plan, she had returned to Rapture, where she had collapsed from a quantum superposition into an ordinary person, void of even her severed pinkie and its thimble. Utilizing her own talents and education, she had survived both Bathysphere Deluxe and a return trip to Columbia, resulting in everything that she was responsible for and her own death.

"The doors opened for me one last time." Elizabeth was nearing the end of her story. "I saw you on the plane, saw you save the Little Sisters, bring down both Ryan and Fontaine, and escort the Little Sisters to the surface. Just before I died, Sally came to me. She sang 'La Vie En Rose' to me, and then I died. And you know the rest."

Jack was quiet, his mind buzzing as Elizabeth's story and more questions swirling around, threatening to overwhelm. As fantastical as his own story was, hers was magnitudes stranger than his. Were it not for the vividness of her recollections, the photographs of the Tears to Columbia, and the Tear itself, he'd be strongly inclined to say that she was either a liar or completely insane.

No matter how incredible something was however, if there was proof for it, it was therefore true. After everything that he had experienced in Rapture, he didn't think that anything would ever stun him again, but damn, had he been wrong.

"Jack?" Elizabeth asked, a note of worry in her voice.

"I believe you," Jack said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I mean...I'm still trying to believe it, but I believe you. Wait a moment." He glanced back at the Tear and pointed at it. "If you and Booker erased Columbia from existence, how is there a Tear to Columbia?"

"In the Sea of Doors, Time is...different, to say the least." Elizabeth scrunched her brow as she tried to come up with an explanation. "Time isn't linear there. Everything behind the doors exists and happens at the same time. Depending on when Booker and I arrived here, the Tear to Columbia should disappear shortly afterwards."

Jack was about to continue when he noticed the Tear. Something was beginning to happen to it; the humming noise that it emitted began to stutter, the edges of the Tear distorting and contracting. The old-timey buildings flickered as though they were going out like an old light. At the very center of the Tear, a bright pinprick of light appeared. Slowly but surely, it grew to encompass the entire Tear. Instead of a perfect, humming sphere, the Tear was now a distorted, crackling, and fluctuating white rip in space/time.

"The hell?" Jack finally said.

"What did I tell you?" Elizabeth said. "Right now, from Rapture's perspective of that term, I just drowned Booker in the Sea of Doors." Sorrow was strong in her voice at the end of the sentence. "Zachery Hale Comstock and all the evil he wrought has been erased from reality, and other than the Luteces, I'm all on my own."

Jack felt the urge to reassure her that she wasn't, not anymore, but the Tear's stuttering increased, indicating that something serious was about to happen. Just when Jack was about to grab Elizabeth and make a run for the door, a dot appeared in the middle of the Tear, expanding until the white had been banished to the edge of the Tear. The stuttering and distortion gave way once again to humming and spherical perfection, objects appearing in the Tear.

"Elizabeth?" Jack said as he cautiously got to his feet. "What just happened?"

"If I had to guess, with Columbia gone and the Lutece Device still on, it locked onto another reality," Elizabeth said, getting to her feet as well. "Something tells me that this Tear is closer to our Rapture."

Jack peered closer into the Tear, squinting. It was definitely Rapture, that much he could tell, but where exactly, he wasn't sure. Where had he seen that banner before? THE GREAT SHALL NOT BE CONSTRAINED BY THE SMALL. Something moved and Jack had to walk around the Lutece Device to get a clear look at it.

With a start, he recognized the moving figures in the Tear. "Elizabeth, it's me!" he cried, pointing into the Tear. "And that first Little Sister I cured!"

It was strange, seeing himself standing there under that stupid and pretentious banner, the Little Sister hiding behind that couch, desperately hoping that the "bad man" wouldn't find and hurt her. If only she had known that he had no intention of doing so.

Of all the moments to witness in his past, this was the best. This was where he had made the first decision of his own, the first that had mattered, and the first that had made him the man he was. This was why Elizabeth had come back, to save as many Little Sisters as possible from either a life of slavery producing ADAM for Ryan Industries or becoming the victim of a crazed, ADAM-hungry splicer. This was what Elizabeth had sacrificed herself for.

Hold up, he hadn't grabbed her like that, and why was he reaching into his bag instead of using the Little Sister cure plasmid?

Jack realized what was about to happen, just before the other him pulled out a surgical knife, something that he had himself had taken from Steinman's surgery, and plunged it into the Little Sister's stomach.

Oh snap! Bet none of you were expecting that, huh? For some reason or another, I find the idea of a good person seeing just much evil they're capable of and having to come to terms with that to be interesting. Probably a side effect of my liking for choice-based games (BioShock, BioShock 2, InFamous, etc.) and multiverse theory.

Have a good one, and happy reading!