The red eyed traveler ch. 24

Marion looked around the office that Samantha used as a safe room, the entrance to the place was blockade by rubbish and several unused furniture. There was a leak on the far end of the room, near one of the windows, the ceiling had several cracks in it and had crumble down where the entrance was, just to reveal several pipes, the floor had several tiles loose and cracked. There was a bed and a sofa that was evidently that it had just been brought into the room as the original furniture had been place in the entrance to keep unwanted visitors out of it. Marion walked to the sofa and started taking off her armor, she would be needing some bandages and would also need to mend her diving suit. She sat down and looked a Samantha that had just sat in front of her in a desk.

“There isn’t any other way to enter this place, is it?” Marion asked looking at the younger girl.

“No, that was the only way into this office,” said the girl. “Joan and Judy help me found it, they said is important to have a safe place, like the hidey holes, so I could come and rest here.”

Marion nodded and then looked at the younger sister. “I’m sorry about your friend… Though, I’m curious of how he become your friend on the first place. I had never seen something like that before, I mean I heard that there were some splicers that tried to befriend a Little or Big sister, but well it always ended badly…”

The younger girl simply shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess he was just friendly toward me… Maybe he saw the potential of having a Little Sister as a friend and decided to become my friend…”

“And how was that?” asked Marion as she finally took off the lower part of her armored and began taking off the corset and the gloves.

“Well Mr. Bubbles was hurt and his drill didn’t roll quite well, he approach us, saying he wouldn’t hurt me…” said Samantha and took off her helmet. “Of course I was afraid but Mr. Bubbles wasn’t in fighting conditions, but instead of trying to get me, like any other splicer would had done, he helped out Mr. Bubbles and repair him. Then he looked at me and asked for a bit of ADAM, I gave him some and after that, he repaired Mr. Bubbles and Mr. B. every time they needed it. But I guess he most had gone insane after I left to become a Big Sister, he surely didn’t find anyone to give him more ADAM…” said Samantha at the edge of tears.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Marion. “But there is a reason why things happen, maybe it was for the best so you wouldn’t have to hurt him.  After all Dr. Lamb wants the ADAM that is inside of him, so maybe it was for the best,” Marion knew that her words didn’t really offered any comfort, but she didn’t want the girl to think that she had done something wrong. “And you also have to think that before any splicer the Little Sister came before, they are your sisters as much as mine and we need to look after them even from friends…”

Samantha nodded, as she cleaned her tears. “I know… but still he was a good friend…”

Marion simply looked at her and took of her diving suit and sat down, she walked toward a medical chest that was attached to the wall, she opened it and find that there were bandages, a needle and a seam. She took it and return to the sofa she sat and began bandaging her leg. Samantha leaned forward and looked at her.

“It looks as if hurts a lot,” said Samantha as she saw how Marion wrapped the wound.

“It’s more the look than what it really is,” she said while looking at the younger girl. “It will be good as new tomorrow morning. While we are out we should look for more things for your medical chest. Who knows when you will be needing one.”

Samantha nodded. “Does it happen often?”

Marion looked at her and simply shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess it depend on the splicers, if they are well organized, well they can be challenging but if they are like crazy animals, they are easier to take down, but before anything you should really look after the Little Sister. If they are aggressive it can turn nasty and horrible. You can’t let that happen.”

The younger sister frowned softly then she looked at Marion. “Why you care so much about them? Why are the Little Sisters so important to you?”

Marion looked at Samantha in the eye. “I… I… I brought them from the surface, I separate them from their families, so that the Family could had ADAM again, they are now part of the Family and we are suppose to look after it. We can’t let anything bad happen to them, we can’t allow that. And I promise myself that I would look after them making sure that no splicer would harm them.”

“But aren’t they all around Rapture? How could you look after all of them?”

“That’s why I need your help and the help of our other sisters, so no harm will fall upon them.” Samantha nodded simply and walked toward the bed that was in the office. “Tomorrow morning we will start searching for the bodies, I think it would be better if we just rest now,” said Marion as she finished sewing her suit and put it down. Then she lay down on the sofa and cover her face.

“Goodnight Marion,” said Samantha as she lay on her bed.

“Goodnight Samantha.”

-.-.-

Marion looked at the corpse or what was left of the corpse, she kicked it softly, the bones cracked with the heavy boot, there was no doubt that it, they didn’t contain any ADAM at all. She looked around and walked around the office, she opened up some drawers in the desk and find that most papers were mess up. She only found a small notebook, she opened it and read it quickly, most were annotations describing some work that had to be done in one of three cores. She opened it up again in the first page and looked at the name written in the upper corner of the page. J. Kyburz, there was no doubt the notebook and the office had belong to the man she was looking for. She looked at the bones that were lying near the entrance. Marion gave a sigh as she walked toward them, there was a high probability that those were indeed the bones of Kyburz.

Samantha entered the room and Marion turned to look at her. “Are you sure that none splice had ever mention Kyburz?”

“None,” said Samantha. “I asked once Jacob with whom he work, he told me that he used to work with a lot of engineers, but most of them were dead, including Kyburz and that few had survive. So I think that indeed that is the man we, well you are looking for.”

Marion looked at the bones, Dr. Lamb wouldn’t be pleased with this, but at least she had got Jacob Norris, at least was one of the names she had to find. Marion wondered if Helen had known way before that Kyburz had been long time dead.

“Alright,” said Marion as she walked forward. “Let’s keep moving on, we need to find some other persons.”

“Who else do you need to find?” asked Samantha.

“Just a few men and women, some engineers and mechanics, what which were their names…?” said Marion as she made her way to the top part and entered the area of the core. “Oh, yeah. Jason Bourne, John Williams, Juan Perez, Juliet Di Caprio, Stalin Vasiliev… at least those are the ones I remember, but there are a couple more. They are all suppose to be engineer and mechanics, alongside people that took jobs repairing the Big Daddies and Rapture thermal core.”

“I know someone that will be able to would be able to help us,” said Samantha. Marion looked at her and hoped that she didn’t mean Norris. “Follow me,” said Samantha as she started jumping and leading the way.

As they made their way, Marion looked at the younger sister. “Who are we searching for?”

“Oh, is a friend,” said Samantha. “She was the head of the nursery that was here, when this whole place used to work, or at least is what she said.” Samantha stopped and looked at Marion. “She is a bit nuts, or sometimes gets a bit nuts, let me do the talking and probably we won’t have any problems.”

“She can go nuts? Or is she already nuts?”

“Well, she isn’t nuts…” said Samantha as she looked at her boots. “But she can get really paranoiac sometimes, and well… I don’t know if she will try to attack you, she is really afraid of Big Sisters…”

“Then why are we searching for her? Doesn’t she get freak out when you get close?” said Marion with both arms crossed.

“She knows us, I mean, Judy, Joan and myself, somehow she knows who we are and well she knows that we won’t hurt her since she had never tried to hurt a Little Sister and sometimes had helped us and we look after her, but she doesn’t like people she doesn’t know and less anyone who have any connection to the ADAM.”

Marion wondered if the woman was spliced at all or maybe was one of the few survivors that weren’t, one of the few that had just go crazy by the isolation, but either ways she could be dangerous. “Is she spliced?”

“No, she always thought that that was crazy and evil, I guess she must have seen what happen when you splice… or maybe something else, I have never really asked her, why?”

“Well you said she could be paranoiac, so I guess that she could be spliced like pretty much everyone here, yet I have to said to be able to survive all these years without splicing, she must be a very good fighter,” said Marion. Samantha nodded and proceeded to lead the way.

They reached a small area that was in between the thermal core number 1 and the thermal core number 2, from there they walked until they reached a door that had an sign over that read, ‘First response area’ and had a small cross next to it. Marion looked at it, she walked slowly and looked at it closely.

“Is there something wrong?” asked Samantha.

“No,” said Marion. “Is that… I had the feeling that I had been here before, but… that’s impossible since is the first time I had come to Hephaestus,” said Marion and looked at Samantha.

“Maybe there are other areas like this one in Rapture,” said the younger sister.

“Yes, perhaps,” said Marion.

“Come on,” said Samantha as she moved her hand. “Let’s get inside, there is where she is,” then she stopped and looked at Marion. “It would be better that you take off your helmet, that way she will know you are not dangerous,” said Samantha as she took of her helmet and walked inside.

Marion looked at her and shook softly her head, she moved her helmet and heard the soft noise that was heard after the pressure was release, she took if off and looked at the helmet then gave a sigh and walked inside with her helmet on hand.