JUNE 10, 1959 — 3:15 AM

From the heights of its tallest spire to the depths of its lowest slum, throughout the lengths of its twisting glass corridors and steel-framed halls, Rapture was tearing itself apart.

The intricacies of the conflict, of course, were entirely lost on those who served solely in the city's function. Even Subject Delta, an Alpha series boasting more self-awareness and intellect than the average Bouncer or Rosie drone, had his mind trained on one focus and that one focus alone: the protection of his Little Sister.

Bursts of incendiary light flickered red and orange from one of the buildings that towered above, until the glass shattered outward, leaving the ocean to snuff them out and swallow them whole. Dimly, a sense of threat registered somewhere in Delta's mind. But the threat was far from immediate.

"All done, daddy!"

Delta looked away from the window to see little Eleanor, dirt on her knees and syringe clasped tightly in hand, reaching up for him. Without a second's hesitation, he delicately picked her up and hefted her onto his shoulder, carrying her away from the corpse she'd just bled dry.

"That way," she said, jabbing a finger in the direction of a grassy knoll. "I want to see the roses."

He grunted his acknowledgment, and began to lumber his way up the path to the Glens.

Arcadia had never seemed particularly likely as a spot to find many fallen splicers, but that had changed over the course of the past few weeks. Many more things than just that had changed, but to Delta, all that mattered was where Eleanor's nose for ADAM led her, and of late she'd been finding more and more of it in the lush overgrowth of this corner of Rapture. So far it seemed there was no indication that this visit should be any different from the others.

So far, at least.

"Daddy, look—angels!"

Directly in their path was what looked like the remnants of some battle: bodies lay strewn across the grassy floor, while scorch marks adorned the stone walls in every direction. A burnt figure stood alone in the center of the carnage, propped up with a pole.

He stepped forward to approach the scene, only to feel something solid, something distinctly not grass underfoot; when he looked down, he found he'd trodden on the hand of a crudely severed arm.

"Look," Eleanor chirped excitedly. "That one's in pieces."

That sense of threat once again flickered to life at the back of his mind. But so far as he could tell, the splicers here had either moved on or were already dead.

He gently set Eleanor down, watched her scurry to the nearest fallen body with a gleeful squeal, and turned his attention once again to the burned figure.

Once he was close enough to get a better look, his suspicions were confirmed: its shape was only vaguely human, and its charred remains were wicker rather than flesh. He'd seen others like this dotted throughout Arcadia, though usually smaller and more well-hidden, but he had no idea what their presence here could have meant.

As long as they posed no threat to himself or Eleanor...

"Is that who I think it is?"

Delta turned at once, spotting the source of the voice before Eleanor had even noticed it: one of two men at the far entrance to the corridor, both wearing masks that marked them as splicers. He let out a groaning, growling bellow as he strode closer to Eleanor, readying his drill.

"Shit, what do we do—"

"I don't know—get the doc!"

The two splicers seemed sufficiently intimidated to start backing away. But a yell from behind came quickly after, and as Delta spun around to meet its source, he swiftly shifted gears from intimidation to full-on aggression.

The third splicer had come at them with a pipe, but he stood no chance against Delta's revving drill. As he shook off the splicer's gurgling corpse, the popping sound of gunfire echoed from somewhere up ahead: a fourth assailant, attempting to take cover behind a tree. Bullets glanced off his armored suit as he dashed forward, grabbed the splicer by his skull, and smashed him into the nearest wall until his shouts fell silent.

Eleanor screamed. Delta turned once again to see one of the first two splicers trying to pull her away from her task.

"Hurry up!"

"Just use that plasmid you found, the one in the bottle—"

Their words were barely intelligible as Delta charged the both of them. Eleanor was in danger, and all he could see was red.

But one of them snapped a wrist in his direction, and the red became clouded over with a haze of green. Everything stopped; something whispered in his ear as what felt like a pair of hands took hold of his limbs and forced him to his knees.

"Holy shit, it worked..."

"Doctor Lamb!"

The splicers' words remained unintelligible to him, although it wasn't rage that masked them this time. It was the incessant whispering instead, an ethereal voice that surrounded him on all sides, quelling his mind and stilling his body in spite of all his adrenaline and instinct urging him to guard Eleanor.

Eleanor.

"Daddy?"

She stared at him, fear and confusion contorting her small face. He struggled to jerk his head away, to look anywhere but at her, to see anything that would cause him less pain. But an otherworldly hand stroked down the side of his head with a gentle touch, fixing him firmly in place.

Another pair of feet came into view, accompanied by the hem of a long skirt. When his head finally rose, it was to see the face of an unfamiliar woman, a face unmarred by ADAM.

"Eleanor..."

Her attention, however, was focused not on him but rather Eleanor—until she drew back, and her long fingers closed into fists as she turned to face Delta.

"So... This is what's become of my daughter."

The whispers drowned out everything but the sound of the woman's voice. They were beginning to grow softer, but not quickly enough for him to do anything about it.

"Daddy—"

Eleanor reached for him, only for the woman to grab her by the arm and roughly pull her away. His instinct panged—his limbs screamed to rise up and put her through the ground for touching his charge like that—but still those invisible hands kept him weighted down.

"This is not your father, Eleanor."

Eleanor looked in confusion between the two of them, but she didn't reach for him again. The haze was starting to clear, but still, still, it wasn't nearly enough.

"I am your mother—do you remember, Eleanor?"

It took every last ounce of strength and effort in his body, but he was beginning to push back against that weightless grip; he could just barely begin to reach for Eleanor...

"Doctor Lamb! You should get a look at this..."

The other splicers were too far out of sight and out of mind for Delta to care about them now. All that mattered was him closing the distance between himself and Eleanor, a distance that seemed to grow greater by the second.

"Very well." The woman tugged Eleanor closer to herself. "Eleanor will be coming with us."

"What about the metal Daddy?"

The whispering was fading now, fading enough for him to finally hear the bellow rising in his throat.

"This creature has no use to us now. Destroying it would be a mercy."

He could feel it now—he could feel that invisible grip loosening, he could feel control returning to his limbs.

"Whatever you say, doc... Good thing we just found this thing in Langford's lab."

Somewhere in his peripheral view, Delta could detect something being hefted in his direction. But that didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was how much closer he was getting now, how he could feel himself starting to get back to his feet...

It was the only thing that mattered right up until the splicer fired a stream of electric gel straight at him, and through the sudden voltage that wracked his body and overloaded his senses, all he could hear was Eleanor's screams.

AUGUST 12, 1969 — 3:44 PM

Ever since the earliest days of its founding, from the very moment its doors were opened to those first few brave souls seeking a new life below the sea, Rapture had never been particularly kind to anyone who happened to be down on their luck. As it turned out, that was never truer than when the city itself happened to be down on its own luck.

To Augustus Sinclair, it often felt as though no one knew that better than himself. Sure, he'd made a buck or two off the backs of others' misfortune while Rapture was still at the heights of success, but ever since the day Sofia Lamb rallied her forces and took over Persephone from right under his nose, he'd had no end of misfortune himself.

Of course, the fact that he was still alive at this point probably meant he was more fortunate than most others. But he preferred not to give luck too much credit for that one, considering all the work he'd put into his own survival.

Besides, it took a lot more than just luck to get by these days. Rapture had never been a safe place to put much stock in fortune, but with every day that passed, that became more and more so.

Ocean water seeped through the flooded ceiling overhead, flowing in rivulets down the wall and pooling in the cracks of the tiles on the floor. Light still shone through the glass overhead, from forgotten buildings that had so far managed to survive the ravages of time and all of Rapture's other troubles, but every day more of them blinked out. Rapture was crumbling—it had been crumbling for years now, but the state of decay was reaching critical mass, and if Lamb had any power to do anything about it, she sure as hell didn't seem bothered to lift a finger.

Sinclair had known this for some time. He also knew that if he didn't step up his efforts to get the hell out then he had nothing to look forward to but a watery grave, and what good would that be after all the effort he'd spent on keeping himself alive for this long?

All of this was why he picked his way through the train depot, why he willingly put himself out in the open instead of sticking to what hiding places he knew were safe. He only had one contact left in this miserable city, and as long as that contact remained alive, he still had a chance of escape. He still had the slightest chance...

The sounds of a commotion up ahead brought him to a stop at the threshold to the station, and he ducked behind the doorway to keep himself out of sight. His goal was the pneumo tube on the other side of the ticketing area; whatever splicers were squabbling in the space between could go ahead and kill each other, for all he cared. In fact, it'd just make things easier for him.

So he squatted down, pulled out his pistol, and waited, keeping an ear out for any signs of them leaving. He wouldn't be likely to hear those signs for some time yet, he figured, not with what he was hearing so far: gunfire, the unmistakable scream of a Little Sister, shouts from one end, German expletives from the other...

German. With the addition of the Little Sister, something clicked, and he realized that the voice sounded peculiarly familiar.

Soon after came the realization that he'd hardly profit by just sitting by and doing nothing. Not this time, anyway.

He poked his head around the door frame to scope the situation. A man with a gun was relatively close to his position, but—to the splicer's peril, and to his own advantage—not quite close enough to notice Sinclair's presence.

Once he was sure the area was clear of any other threats, he fired at the man's back. It took three shots before he fell to the ground with a cry.

Sinclair waited another moment longer before he stood back up and crossed the threshold, still keeping his pistol at the ready just in case. From his new vantage, he could see the bodies of a few other splicers strewn across the floor.

"Bitte, wait—"

A woman shouted after a Little Sister who was already clambering up into her vent. Sinclair had a feeling he already knew the woman's identity, but it had been so long, and there was no way to be sure of anything anymore in this city.

"Bitte..."

She tried calling down the vent, but to no avail. Once she seemed to give up, she finally turned—and upon seeing Sinclair, she froze.

Now he was sure.

"Dr. Brigid Tenenbaum," he called to her, approaching with something of a casual stride. "Alive and in the flesh, after all these years... Can't say I ever expected—"

"Stop."

Tenenbaum pointed her own gun directly at him. There was nothing in the hard lines of her face that indicated she wouldn't shoot him where he stood.

"Put your weapon down."

Sinclair wasn't looking for a fight—quite the opposite, really—but he wasn't willing to voluntarily disarm himself, either. Still, he stopped and cut his approach short, and put up his hands in a defensive gesture.

"Dr. Tenenbaum... May I call you Brigid?"

"You may not."

"Fine." He shook his head. "What exactly gives you the impression I'd want to shoot you?"

Even from where he stood, he could see her tense at the question.

"The people here are not kind to those who interfere with the Little Sisters."

Sinclair could have guessed as much behind the reason for Tenenbaum's sudden reappearance. Really, with what he'd heard of just where the Rapture Family was getting all of these little girls, he supposed it was only a matter of time.

"Now, if I understand you correctly... Are you meanin' to accuse me of aligning myself with Lamb and her sort?" Despite the delicacy of the situation, he managed to flash her a grin. "Because I can assure you, nothin' could be further from the truth."

Her brow furrowed. "A man like you strikes me as one who would do whatever it takes to survive."

"And you would be correct in that assumption. But as it happens, ah... I hold a rather lofty position on the Family's list of targets to eliminate."

At that, the frown that was already on her face only deepened.

"The Family... Lamb's followers, you mean."

"That's right." Of course, her need to confirm such a simple fact stuck out in his mind like a sore thumb; he could think of only one explanation, but he wasn't yet sure just how likely it might be. "You haven't been livin' under a rock, now, have you?"

Before Tenenbaum answered, she finally, finally lowered her gun.

"I had returned to the surface, until three weeks ago."

So it had been likely, after all. Her answer only raised a plethora of other questions, but although she had lowered her weapon, he still had to play this very carefully.

Sinclair similarly relaxed his stance, slowly putting his hands down and placing his pistol back in its holster. "And exactly what, if I may ask, prompted you to come all the way back down here?"

Despite the apparent lowering of her guard, the frown didn't leave Tenenbaum's face. If anything, the question seemed to make her more guarded all over again.

"Young girls from the surface have been disappearing in droves. I had to confirm for myself that they were being taken here."

Her reasoning seemed sound enough, though the hesitance in her reply left Sinclair some room to wonder. But he could think on that later.

"And you've found your confirmation, I take it," he said with a slight shrug. "What now?"

"What now?" She repeated him with a tone of incredulity, and advanced on him as she continued: "Do you not understand what this means? Sofia Lamb, or whoever is doing this—whoever is continuing my work, whoever is continuing the suffering of these children... Lamb must be stopped!"

"Hold on, now—" He stepped back as she spoke, once again putting his hands up. "That's all fine and dandy, and I don't mean to stop you from it. But again, if you don't mind me askin'... How exactly are you planning to do that?"

She stopped, her face hardening once more.

"I am not the only one in this city planning to stop her."

Sinclair gave a little chuckle at that. "Well, I could've told you that. But I was just wonderin' if you had any kind of plan to get on doin' that."

Her eyes narrowed into a glare. "As a matter of fact, I do. But there is one thing that must be done first."

The sound of an actual plan was music to his ears, though he did his best to keep it from showing on his face. It wouldn't do to let on that he was in dire straits himself, after all.

"So, Dr. Tenenbaum... What one thing might that be?"

Again, she seemed to hesitate, but her glare didn't waver for even a second.

"The Mariner must be destroyed."

At that, Sinclair's blood ran cold.

"Ah..." There was no way he could keep his dread from his face, but he could at least recover verbally. "So you've already heard about the Mariner, I take it."

"I have." If she was at all moved or fazed by his reaction, it didn't show. "And I have determined that there is no possible escape from Rapture so long as that thing runs amok in these waters."

She wasn't wrong. But the idea that any one person could simply put the thing down...

"Just how do you think you're going to manage that?"

"Like I said," she said curtly, "I have a plan."

As she spoke, however, she turned and began to walk away.

"But I am not about to share that plan with the likes of you."

"Wait—"

He had to jog to catch up with her, and although she jerked away when he tried to grab her shoulder, she still came to a stop.

"Just wait a minute, now... I've certainly got no intention of stopping you—why, I think we'd all be a lot better off without the Mariner breathin' down our collective necks—"

"Be out with it, Sinclair," she snapped at him, cutting him short.

"Well— All I'm sayin' is, since neither one of us is particularly well-liked in this town... I'm sure there's some mutual benefit to be found in, ah, us joinin' our efforts."

Tenenbaum gave him a wary look. "You are saying we should work together?"

"That's right." He flashed her another grin, and before she could protest— "Because I've been stayin' alive in this rotten city for a straight shot of ten years by now, and I can tell you nobody wants to get the hell out more than me."

Her brow creased in apparent thought. Sinclair hoped that he wouldn't have to be more obvious with his implications: that she could use a guide who had actually seen the state of things for more than three short weeks, and that he had no intention of double-crossing her as long as they shared the same goal.

After a few tense moments...

"All right," she said with a short sigh. "We will work together. But first, we find a safe place. Then we discuss."

"Fine by me," he replied, "though there ain't much that passes for a safe place in Rapture these days."

"As close to a safe place as we can get, then."

Fortunately, Sinclair knew just where to find one of those. His parcel for the pneumo would have to wait, but that was no matter now, not when he'd just come into the opportunity of his lifetime.