"Big Daddy"-FAUXHAMMER

Author’s Note/Disclaimer: I do not consider the following a work of fan-fiction. Rather, I used Rapture as an inspiration and setting for an entirely different story, one which hopefully offers a different perspective than that of previous protagonists like Jack, Subject Delta, and Booker DeWitt. This is a work of anthropomorphic (“furry”) fiction because I originally intended it as a concept for an artwork, however, it expanded enough that I now believe it capable of standing on its own merits. Rapture, Andrew Ryan, Brigid Tenenbaum et al. are © 2K Games, Inc. /Take-Two Interactive I do not own these characters, nor do I own the setting, nor anything else relating to the Bioshock franchise.
“Big Daddy”
Based on the Video Game Bioshock
FAUXHAMMER
 The North Atlantic (63° 2' N, 29° 55' W) - 1961
 (“Nightmare”-Artie Shaw and His Orchestra)
	Rapture. Andrew Ryan intended to create a heaven for the free-market, free from government regulation and the tax collector’s greed down here. It seems a bit more like hell to me now. The re-circulated air, thick with humidity from a thousand leaking windows, a thousand rusting pipes, comes in thick and metallic through my helmet’s filter. My footsteps leave loud echoes banging through the worn, plainly-tiled hallway. Mir, my bonded Little Sister and I emerge into a dilapidated Rapture Metro station. Back before the New Year’s Eve Riots and Atlas’s insurgency, it would’ve been a masterpiece of Art Deco design. Even in its faded glory, dust obscuring the ticket windows, thick clumps of seaweed and barnacles threatening to obscure the engraved motifs on the bronzed walls, it still retains a hint of graceful beauty, like an old flapper unpacking her Robe de Style and Bakelite  cocktail-length cigarette holder for one last dance. Somehow, it seems fitting. A decaying monument to Ryan’s hubris, nearly forgotten now, left to decay at the whim of an unforgiving sea. At least the lights are still on. That’s something.
	Ahead, I catch a sweet young voice excitedly chatting away. “Here Daddy! Here! I found ADAM!” I catch sight of her as I round the edge of the ticket booth. Old enough to qualify as a cub, seven or eight years old now (I’ve lost track of the current date), the little cheetah kneels over the gruesome remains of an elegantly-garbed fox. While the tattered remains of a Plague Doctor mask covers most of his muzzle and face, it’s still possible to tell that he might have been handsome, once. That was probably before he fell prey to the enticing demon of ADAM though, since the addictive compound has wreaked havoc on his body. Several patches of fur seem to have randomly shifted color, while a smattering of tumors run up his left arm like engorged boils. I’m surprised he didn’t starve to death, with such a painfully thin body, but a smattering of pellet-holes over the left-flap of his dinner jacket seems to have gotten to him first. While it might be considered a tragedy on the surface, messy ends like these are common enough down here to have become rather mundane, at least to me.
	I give her a nod to signal that it’s time. Standing sentry just behind her, I scan the room as she draws that macabre extraction device-a long hypodermic syringe at one end, an infant’s bottle at the other-over the trunk of his body. I’ve seen this process many times before, and trust me on this-it doesn’t get any easier to witness. The extraction begins. She wriggles the handle about until she finds a good entry angle, and then leans in, thrusting it in up to the grip, bringing forth a sickening squelch from the decomposing flesh. Then, it reaches the disturbing apex when she begins taking long, deliberate sucks on the nipple, drawing the ADAM-rich internal juices into the bottle below, making in glow an ominous crimson in the back-up lighting. It’s difficult to look away, in the same way it’s difficult to keep yourself from slowing down as you approach a car wreck, something inside you hoping to catch a glimpse of blood, or perhaps a front-end dented in like a tin can. After a minute or so, she drains the contents of the bottle into her muzzle, the fox’s essence disappearing down her gullet. With a contended burp, she slides a paw across her muzzle and gives an eerie grin at me. Her eyes, which used to remind me of the delicious little bonbons I’d buy for her at the little shops along Elizabeth Street, glow like little suns. I shove down my revulsion as she giggles out “All done Mr. Bubbles!”
	I meet her satisfied smile from behind a layer of thick plate-glass. I don’t know if she can see it in my violet eyes (a side effect of an experimental appearance-modifying plasmid), but I’m still proud of her, no-matter what fucked-up monster Dr. Suchong and his ilk transformed he in to.
	“C’mon sweetie. Can you find Daddy s’more ADAM?” I coo as I tousle her head-fur with my thickly-gloved left hand, engraved with a Φ marking in the center. Unlike the bulk of Alpha-series “candidates” I was allowed to keep the usage of my vocal cords. I probably would’ve gone insane by now if that wasn’t the case. There’s something about being trapped within your own mind that drives a man to madness.
“Okay.” She nods and starts out the door, peeking her head back out as I approach. “Time to find some angels Da-ddy.”
	I follow behind, keeping my distance, close-but not too close. My eyes sweep ahead, searching for foxholes, suspiciously placed obstacles, gun-ports bashed out of walls, anywhere a Splicer could lay in wait for an ambush. Too many of my colleagues are gone because the suit made them feel invincible, and they got cocky. You don’t last long down here playing stupid. Splicers are like a pack of hyenas, alone, easily dispatched, but together, I’ve seen them bring down Bouncers in surprisingly one-sided fights. Make no mistake, they are animals, and will tear you to shreds at the slightest hint of weakness. That’s why I stay strong. Because I know that without my protection, she’s a smorgasbord to them.
	Walking through these long abandoned hallways, faded and torn advertisements for a “Glaustein Thermos” with a “patented, pneumatic-driven, unbreakable pressure seal,” delivering a radio-pitchman style case to buy today dotting the walls, I can’t help but feel a little at home. Fitting, that my city has become as tattered and run-down as its so-called “morals.” What Ryan failed to see is that it takes love-no-empathy, to create a great city. When everyone’s looking-out for number one, it’s hard to notice everyone else’s troubles until your illusion is shattered like it was that night in the Kashmir Restaurant for Rapture’s upper-crust. They reaped what they sowed, and we all suffered for it. Some more than others.
	As she moves through a Securis bulkhead, I stop to admire the view from a row of posh porthole windows, under which a stained velvet seat runs so that, before the war, a citizen could take a short break from the humdrum of their day and marvel at the beauty of it all.  Athena’s Glory is the most prominent icon, a towering skyscraper still alight, glowing softly for no sane eyes but mine. Still, the piles of rubble and ominously leaning structures around it showcase the brutality of the ocean. I turn away. When it all finally comes tumbling down, I don’t want to be around to see it, whether dead down here or alive somewhere up there.
(“Monster”-Skillet)
“Bad man! Bad!” I catch Mir’s frantic screams through the layer of reinforced steel. Fuck. Immersed in my reminiscence, I’d forgotten the first rule of training: always keep the Little Sister close at hand. As I charge through the door, missing the bottom edge by a fraction of an inch as it retracts, I take stock of the scene. One Splicer, a wolf clad in a pinstriped suit, complete with requisite fedora, is tugging on her arm, while two others, a feminine bunny puffing on a cigarette and a fox impatiently drumming his fingers of the stock of his Thompson, look on.
	“Come ‘ere ya little brat!” the wolf yells, attempting to maneuver her into a position to shove the extraction tool, a long cylinder with clawed hand at the end, down her throat. They’re trying to harvest her, ripping the sea slug implanted within her stomach out to get the precious ADAM within.
	I catch her eyes. She manages to scream “I don’t like him Mr. B!” before the breadwinner muffles the rest with his free paw. I don’t need to see any more of this. Spinning up the drill that encases my right hand, I charge full-out at him. Before he can dodge away, I ram the drill straight into his gut. Flecks of gore obscure parts of my visor as I turn his vital organs into mincemeat. The rage of combat completely obscures whatever dying words manage to escape his lips. Firmly grasping Mir and drawing her protectively behind me as his body rag-dolls to the ground, I turn my attention to his buddies.
	“Die, you hack!” The bunny lets the cigarette fall to the ground as she rushes at me, wrench held aloft like a battle flag. I wrap my bloody drill around Mir’s tattered sundress as sparks begin shooting from my fingertips. Then, with a blinding flash accompanied by the acrid scent of ozone, I unleash a burst of Electro-Bolt at her. When the spots in my vision clear, I walk over to her spasm-wracked body, and put her out of her misery as I would a horse with a broken leg-with a shotgun blast to the forehead. The fox seems to have seen the wisdom in a tactical retreat, and a short search reveals him nowhere to be found. Satisfied that the threats to our well-being have been handled for the moment, I turn my attention to my ward.
	“Honey, I think you’re a little messy to see the angels right now,” I say, taking her up into my arms. “How about we get you all cleaned up first, hmm?”
	“Okay Daddy!” She beams at me, always so eager to please. She’s absolutely covered in blood, the aftermath of the carnage clinging to her like the smell of salt water and rotting sea life that seems to get into everything down here. Her nonchalant attitude scares me more than anything, because it speaks to the strength of the conditioning. I don’t know if it can be undone, and the thought of her like this-potentially forever, unable to drown, unable to even end herself to escape this misery, just clinging to the barest hint of life in the all-consuming darkness…I…I don’t have the words.
	I rock her softly (more for my benefit if anything) like a kitten half her age as I carry her to a nearby bathroom. Using fresh water from the one functional sink, I rise her bare body off as best I can. It’s hardly the bubble bath she deserves, but it gets most of the obvious blood and flesh off. I fold the sundress over the oxygen tanks attached to my back to dry off as I watch her, exploring, frolicking in her own little world, far, far away from this undersea perdition.
	Breaking the illusion is agonizing, but we have a job to do. I don’t know the consequences of going rogue, but I’ve heard hushed whispers amongst the Splicers, at least those that’ve managed to retain a bit of sanity. There’s something out there, watching, hunting down anything that threatens a Little Sister. By playing along, I hope to buy us time to find a cure, and then a way out. Incurring the wrath of that…thing…whatever it is, is not a part of the plan.  I slip the now moist dress back over her head as I pick her back up. “Now that you’re all clean, let’s go find some angels, ‘kay sweetie?”
	This time, I keep her close at hand as she wanders towards Maintenance Junction No. 17, nicknamed “Pauper’s Drop” by its residents-the gray, sunken cunt of Rapture. As we draw nearer, the buildings begin to get shabbier, less well constructed even before the toll of the Civil War. Everything here feels tired, already prepared for the inevitable collapse. I’m hardly an engineer, but from the multitude of sea-water droplets pitter-pattering on my helmet, it’ll be a miracle if the whole shebang holds together another six months.
	Just as I catch sight of the Fishbowl Diner’s cracked neon sign, something heavy slams into my helmet like a ton of bricks, knocking me flat on my ass. It was only afterward that I realized it was, quite literally- several cinder blocks bolted together form a very effective missile. For a moment, I’m completely disabled. A spider-web of cracks occlude my visor, and I can feel blood dripping down my face from where part of my helmet caved in, giving me a jagged scalp wound on the way. Mir lets out a piercing scream of sheer terror.
	“First you, ‘den Baby Alice!” I hear a deep, masculine voice above me, shouting. Blind and disoriented, I stumble to me feet, feeling helplessly for the emergency release catch on my helmet. “You think you can take me, queer?” A powerful jab to my gut doubles me over in preparation for a blow to my back that leaves me writhing face-up on the ground in agony. “Fuckin’ poof. You’ll die just like the rest of ya diseased tossers!” The last thing I catch is the outline of a massive black dress shoe rising over me before it all goes black.
	I come to some time later with a murderous headache, a pool of water lapping at my ears inside the ruined helmet.  A solitary, fat droplet falling from above collides with my nose, snapping me out of my grogginess. Then, it all comes back in a tsunami of memory. Mir. Taken. My only comfort is perhaps the brutish Splicer hadn’t managed to perform an extraction yet. While the other Big Daddies serves as one collective, archetypal guardian for the Little Sisters, Alpha Series units such as myself are pair-bonded to a single little sister. If they die…well, there’s a reason the program was deemed a failure, and why Fontaine Futuristics was cordoned off…
	Anyway, I manage to pry the remains of my helmet off my head, letting the damaged apparatus drop to the floor. It’s not worth salvaging in this condition. I’ll need to scavenge up a replacement later. Right now, the priority is getting Mir safe. Tools can be replaced. Lives however, cannot.
	I top off my drill’s fuel tank at a small, tucked away pumping station before moving on towards ”Skid Row.” It was never a respectable part of Pauper’s Drop, but now it could hold good company with any of the slums of India or any other third-world shithole. Refuse and debris blocks access to storefronts looted long ago, while the whole place reeks of stale piss. No wonder Atlas had so much appeal. Living in a place like this, I’d say a martyr’s death would be a substantial improvement.
	It’s hard to emphasize the sort of eerie stillness that’s settled on the city. There’s something about vague mechanical whirrs and clicks and groans that allows them to sort of fade into the background after a while, allowing you to notice how alone you really are. It’s odd, walking through without being full entombed in a diving suit. Reminds me off the good times, when I’d take Mir on a day trip to Arcadia, and we’d marvel at the beautiful little alcoves for picnics, and the friendly vendors selling hot dogs and soft pretzels, and I’d read her a story set on the surface, and then she’d point and the glowing ball in the pictures, and then get a little sad since she was too young when we immigrated down here to remember exactly what the sun felt like. I made a promise to myself that I’d let her feel the warmth of the sun again, and I don’t intend to break it. Not for Lamb, not for Sinclair, and sure as hell not for anyone else down here. Some promises can’t be broken.
	Then, out of the corner of my eye, scrawled on the pavement, I catch a line of childish drawings, scribbles really, but done with enough distinction to make out an Alpha Series. I pause and lean over it for a closer examination. A little cheetah kitten stands near the Big Daddy, a bright red present with a silver bow held in outstretched paws at him. An arrow nearby, drawn in neon yellow chalk slightly smudged in places by water, points towards one of the only storefronts nearby with a visible entrance. Despite my ingrained reluctance, I decide to follow it. Perhaps there might be something of use inside. There’s only one way to find out, as the phrase goes.
	From the look of interior, it might’ve been a bakery of some sort. A smashed glass display counter stands empty next to a ransacked cash register, lying sideways on the floor, a few measly cents left behind, unwanted. Several collapsed wooden shelves crack under my weight as I head back into the rear, drill held low and ready for action if need be. My concerns go unfounded. My only company is a small Teddy bear, purposefully placed on one of the short rolling counters. Clutched in its paws, a small phial of blue liquid glows unnaturally bright in the darkness, like some of the deep-sea jellies that occasionally drift past, adrift in the ocean currents.
	A clean, bright tag is knotted around one of its ears. It reads: Fatherhood has its rewards. Keep up the good work. B. Tenenbaum. For reasons I can’t explain, I feel it to be of paramount importance. I slip it into a small waterproof pocket near my diving knife, then move to inspect the bottle. It’s unlabeled, but sort of resembles something taken from a standard laboratory glassware set. Something about it tells me it’s a Plasmid, though I can’t pinpoint exactly what. Carefully, I draw out an empty Eve hypo, and then draw the liquid into the internal reservoir.  Sans fanfare, I draw back the plunger, and shoot the load straight into my body.
	Whatever the mysterious serum is, it takes effect quickly. Behind my eyes, a pain like needles being delicately worked through my eyeballs in order to bore into my brain doubles me over, while a second attack comes in the form of a sledgehammer-eqsue series of pulses at the base of my spine. I let out an involuntary groan of agony as I fall to the floor. At that moment, I would’ve given absolutely anything to be rid of that horrid torrent of reality-splitting pain. Then, as if a light switch was flicked in my head, nothing. I stretch my left arm out for the edge of the counter to pull myself up with, and instead summon a rolling pin which gives me a solid conk to the head. Ouch. At least that clarifies which Plasmid was in the phial then. I’m glad I came. Telekinesis could come in handy in these trying times.
	As I exit the bakery and head onward, I hear the clanking march and low rumbles of a fellow protector on his rounds, emanating from somewhere up ahead. As I descend a flight of stairs to a lower level, I catch sight of the pair. Skipping along happily, fingers occupied with an improvised fabric caricature of her guardian, the Little Sister -an arctic fox kit- skips past the run-down entrance to the Limbo Room, an old jazz club that shut down soon after the Civil War began, before I was tossed in Persephone. I wonder what ever happened to ole’ Holloway, the headliner of the joint. She deserved better than a ragtag place like this.
	Without warning, the Bouncer pivots around to stare intently at me, eight porthole eyes glowing an inscrutable yellow. I quickly avert my gaze, and gradually back away until he seems satisfied that I’m not a potential threat. They’re a bit like bull elephants; aggressive beyond belief if you make the wrong moves or get too close. At the beginning of the program, Ryan had to warn citizens to keep their distance because of numerous “accidents” that seemed to occur around anyone brash enough to invade their territory. I’m not saying that I’m living it up as an Alpha Series, but compared to the poor fucks who got pressed into service as production models…I shudder a bit. Mindless slaves grafted into a life-supporting suit, a melancholy palate of algal green and dullish red covering what used to be some of Rapture’s most brilliant political thinkers, social advocates, and innovative but dissident scientists. What a waste.
	Then, just as I reach the long, razor-straight Main Street, I catch the sight of a small spotted body, curled in the fetal position, back pressed against the edge of a discarded refrigerator. Mir. I know this is the most obvious trap ever devised (Splicers are hardly know for their critical thinking skills), but I don’t care. I can’t tell whether it’s paternal instinct or the pair bond driving me, but I steam forward like a diesel locomotive; even weighted down by my armored dicing suit, I still carry most of by natural speed, boosted by a tonic of Sports Boost.  I see the fox Splicer from earlier pop out of a foxhole with the grinding of metal on brick as he rises up. Instead of getting the drop on me as he intended, I simply use his skull as a stepping stone as I grit my teeth, directing every minute ounce of my strength towards gaining that critical millisecond advantage on my potential ambushers. I catch a small flash above me, the sort of flash that polished metal makes when it catches the light. My instinct kicks in, and I do what comes naturally: I drop. The armor covering my tail comes in handy, absorbing the bulk of my impact. Good thing too, or I’d be in need of Doctor Steinman’s assistance right now. A flurry of sparks trail behind me as I skid over the rough and uneven bricks, which jolt me occasionally when they clang against my back-mounted oxygen tanks.
	I must’ve been moving at near locomotive speeds, because I actually manage to hit the fridge with enough force to send a clang ringing out as the door bangs against the rear of the interior.
	“Daddy!” I quickly hold her tight against my chest as I use the force stored up in my legs like a spring to launch off, avoiding a spray of phosphorous-coated buck aimed at where I was just a second before.
	“Nice dodge there, fuckin’ ponce. Gonna put on your pink tights and dance ballet?” It’s the brute again, situated on one of the rooftops, though I can’t tell which. Using my drill as an improvised crutch, I manage to bring myself to a tottering stand. Once I slam an Eve hypo directly into the port that feeds into my Basilic vein, the pain of my earlier beating fades from an all-encompassing roar to a dull throb in the back of my consciousness. An electric buzz of energy seems to wipe away my weariness like teacher would a wrong answer on the classroom blackboard.
	I decide to use provocation to draw him out. “Hey, how about showing your face down here? You afraid of a little man-to-to combat? Sissy!” I let a little grin arise on my muzzle. Someone’s about to get their ass kicked, and it’s not going to be me if I have any say about it. Mir’s managed to climb to her usual position, resting in a little area below the nape of my neck, braced against the oxygen tanks. I feel her shift slight, leaning in to whisper “unzip’m Daddy.” Like the words of a Sergeant ministering to his unit, I feel a tide of courage rise within my chest. I’m ready for him.
When he comes, the brute comes down hard, whipping up a cloud of concrete dust on impact. When it dissipates enough to allow me a good look at him, even I’m surprised at his appearance. A hulking bear, he’s even more muscled than the models in the shady porno mags sold under the counter at Sinclair Drugs, the ones you might catch Splicing up over at the Adonis to reach new heights of physical perfection. He’s well-dressed, but in clothes that all seem a few sizes too small. A fraying vest looks almost ready to burst under his bulging gut, with the right sleeve of his dress shirt already having suffered that fate, revealing a patch of matted fur barely distended by a patch of tumors resulting from excessive ADAM usage.
	Like an African gorilla, he meets my eyes and then brings those bulging forearms down to meet the ground. “I’ll cut ya down to size, ya god-dammed fairy!” Confidently, I spin up my drill with the low grumble of a revving diesel motor. This is going to be too easy. Then, with a small shudder, the drill stops spinning. A solid knock fails to bring it back to life. This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I remember noticing an excessive amount of water pooled on the floor near that fueling station, though it seemed unremarkable at the time. Some of it must’ve contaminated the fuel reservoir, clogging up my drill’s fuel lines. I lower my drill and assume a more agile stance. Manually draining the water out is a luxury I can’t afford right now. I guess this really will be straight man on man combat. The eggheads never included this situation in the combat training manual, the aloof bastards. Never expected their equipment to fail under the stress of field conditions. Fine by me. There’s no other way I’d rather die than defending my daughter with my bare paws.
	Without warning, he charges. Time seems to slow down as I sidestep, feeling the vortex of air rush through my head-fur like the aftermath of a departing Atlantic Express locomotive. Instead of coming around for a second go, he transfers the momentum to leap onto the fire escape of the apartment building behind me.
	“You have the balls to call me a poof? Gonna run like the pathetic bitch you are?” I jeer at him as he scrambles up the ladder and back on to the rooftop overlook. I have a good feeling I know what he’s going to try, and I feel my left palm thrum with energy as direct my focus squarely at a small crack in the wall just below the edge of the roof asphalt, clearing my mind of all other distractions.
	I’m ready for a repeat of his initial attack. With a grunt of effort, I halt the hurled assemblage of cinderblocks just a few inches from my outstretched paw, and then return it to sender. My aim is true. Brimming with gravity-defying momentum, it slams into his lower jaw, forcing his neck back at an unnatural angle. His legs stagger around for a few moments before his body becomes aware of his death and collapses. Several more bones make a distinct crack as falls downward to his final resting place on the unforgiving concrete.
	“I think the bad man is gone, Mr. B,” she mutters, staring intently at the bear’s corpse. I sometimes wonder exactly how much see really sees through the veil of the mental conditioning. I don’t know what’s better: frighteningly blissful ignorance, or the horrifying truth. Either way, she’s still alive, and that’s answer enough for now. Her breath is warm on my neck as she rests against me. Letting out a soft little sigh, she yawns. “I’m ready for dream-time now, Daddy.”
	“Okay sweetie.” I purposefully pat the brute down for anything of value that I can salvage. I find a small roll of hundred-dollar bills tucked away in the breast pocket of his vest, and a few unused shotgun shells stuffed in his pants pockets. What a slob. I doubt even the full brainpower of The Thinker could figure out what happened to the firearm itself. Still, you take what you can get down here. Satisfied as I tuck away my loot, I decide that I’ve had enough gathering action for one day.
(“Twentieth Century Blues”-Noël Coward”)
	For whatever reason, I don’t encounter any Splicers or armed resistance as I slowly make my way back to my home base in the Aphrodite’s Seduction apartment building, located in the swanky Olympus Heights neighborhood. While the name may be straight from the peanut gallery, the apartments are second only to those in the Mercury Suites. Frank Fontaine had his apartment there, back before he was gunned down by Ryan’s goons. I give it a wide berth as I pass. There’s just something wrong about the place, almost as if it’s a standing reminder of how far the mighty have fallen. Creepy as fuck, even by Rapture standards, at that’s saying something!
Once I pass by and enter the home stretch, I allow the tension gripping my muscles to ease slightly. The main entrance, a bit shabby due to the absence of a gardener, still maintains an air of dignity. A small Victorian-style pleasure garden is hidden by the wrought-iron gates, signs of rusting visible where the black paint has been worn away. I flick the dials of the Keypad until I see the code, 1-9-0-8 (the first year of Model T production) on the ivory dials. With a slight push, the gate swings inward on well-oiled hinges. A marble recreation of The Birth of Venus stares at me as I enter the main foyer, her lascivious form marred by shrapnel chips from a long-ago firefight. A friendly turret vigilantly scans the hallway for potential intruders, accompanied by the buzz of several hacked security bots on their rounds. I head up a flight of stairs, towards the “penthouse” of the building on the second floor. It’s not a sprawling complex, like the Sinclair “Deluxe,” but way back when, this used to be the haut couture of Rapturian housing. The apartment I’ve taken up residence in used to belong to Charles Porter, before he re-located to Minerva’s Den. I guess they didn’t have time to find a new resident before the Civil War turned renter against landlord and ended any possibility of peaceful living.
	Once I fiddle with the door and mange to get it unlocked, I emerge into a posh living room softly lit by a series of bulbs recessed into the ceiling. A row of mahogany bookshelves line one wall, filled what literature I’ve managed to salvage during my expeditions. I’ve got most of the classics, with The Great Gatsby front and center. It seems fitting, somehow. While there’s a vent down the hall, Mir always sleeps with me in the bedroom, an unintended effect of the pair bond.  I lay her down on a small cot near my bed, placing a plush arctic fox in her arms, and then sliding a blanket over her to tuck her in. Odd, how innocent she seems now. So much more the child that was torn out of her, leaving only a biological machine, an implement designed solely to gather ADAM for Ryan’s selfish gain. Bastard. I plant a tender kiss on her forehead before softly shutting the door.
	Laboriously, I remove my diving suit over the course of an hour or so, placing the individual parts in the expansive full-marble bathroom for my inspection before heading out to gather tomorrow. I doubt I could’ve learned to do this without bashing down the front door of Dr. Suchong’s apartment and raiding his personal papers, along with the bulk of his rice wine collection. It feels good to finally be rid of the dammed thing. I don’t care how many times it’s saved my life, donning it always feels like a curse, one I’m determined to free myself of. Perhaps this mysterious Tenenbaum might be able to provide some answers, maybe even a cure… no, I shouldn’t set my hopes that high.  Still, I resolve to seek her out. Surely there’s some un-spliced individuals in need of some muscle in exchange for a hint about her whereabouts…
	But those are problems for tomorrow, not for a night like this. I pour myself a few fingers of a ’38 vintage sake, settling down in a leather easy chair situated in front of a large, panoramic window with an unobstructed overlook of Rapture’s neon skyline.  A hammerhead shark swims casually by the window as I use an illegally imported Zippo to light a sea shell and fish egg free Oxford Club cigarette. Taking a pleasurable puff, I decide to revisit an old favorite, which I grab off the shelf. In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since…it begins, slowly drawing me into a fantastical world little different from that of Rapture itself. Ander Ryan gambled on a pipe dream and lost, lost big, leaving the rest of us to clean up his mess. Seems Fitzgerald was a bit of a literary prophet.
	After a few chapters, and a few more cigarettes, I feel drowsy enough to head off to bed. Before lying down, I ruffle Mir’s head-fur and give her a solid good-night kiss. In the morning, I’ll need to resume my gathering duties, and we’ll go back to our semi-professional relationship, but for now, she’s only my daughter, nothing else. Lying half-lucid in bed, I think through my mental list of preparations for tomorrow as I begin to drift off. After all, a Father’s work is never done…
Bioshock, Rapture, Andrew Ryan, et al. are © 2K Games, Inc. /Take-Two Interactive I do not own these characters, nor do I own the setting.

“Nightmare” is © Artie Shaw and His Orchestra
“Monster” is © Skillet/Lava Records/Ardent Records
“Twentieth Century Blues” is © Noël Coward
“The Great Gatsby” is © F. Scott Fitzgerald
Subject Φ (Phi), Mir, et al. © FAUXHAMMER