The Neverland Wars

Chapter 11

Emma

"It doesn't make sense," I murmur, scanning over the article pulled up on my tablet. "There's nothing. No clues as to how the city was constructed. Nothing about the technology used to design it."

Peter frowns beside me, both of us sitting side by side on the floor, our legs outstretched, surrounded by a sea of files and tablets. From this angle, I have a perfect view of the thick scar on his cheekbone, and for the first time, I notice several smaller scars peeking out the neck of his t-shirt towards the back of his neck.

"Stop staring at me," he remarks, his eyes still on his tablet. My cheeks heat in embarrassment.

"You're just so handsome, I can't help it," I say teasingly, making him laugh.

"That's how it always starts. First, my good looks attract my prey. Then I really seal the deal with my sparkling personality," he grins before cocking his head towards his laptop. "I haven't been able to find much about the city's origins, just that the base was drilled into the bottom of the ocean and it just stayed there. It was maintained by these things called Big Daddies."

"You're joking."

"I wish. That's a hilarious name."

"Let me see," I lean closer, peering over his shoulder.

He pulls up an image of a hunkering giant with a glowing helmet and huge boots. "It looks like a metal man."

"Emma Saint Clair, I do declare you're a genius."

"Shut up," I push his arm, still leaning against him to see his tablet.

"They're also listed here as Protectors," he says, typing a few things on the tablet and opening another file, this one a scanned document. Most of it is redacted; scratched out with heavy black ink prior to being scanned, leaving it virtually unreadable.

"What were they protecting?" I ask.

"The city?" he shrugs. "From what little is left of this, it looks like they handled basic maintenance of the city. Fixing leaks and whatnot. The suits were pressurized with controlled oxygen flow in the helmets."

"They're a little threatening to be protectors," my nose wrinkles.

"Agreed. It's probably best they're at the bottom of the ocean."

"Have you been able to find coordinates or anything? Everything I'm finding is just about plasmid culture."

"Yeah, here," he slides them off his tablet so they transfer to mine, along with a photograph of a lighthouse in the middle of the sea.

"What's this?"

"Not sure," he responds. "I'm guessing the lighthouse is what you find at the coordinates. It's not exactly the city but maybe a clue how to get there?"

I save the image and coordinates to my files for later. "I am reading a lot about these two guys, Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine," I say, pulling up a couple of photos on the tablet screen for him to take a look. He adjusts his body so he's looking down on my screen, turning so I'm no longer leaning into his arm, but his chest with him looking over my head at my screen.

"Skinny guy with the moustache is Ryan," I continue. "He's the founder of Rapture itself. Built it to be exactly that: a paradise, free of organized religion and workers unions. It took six years to complete construction but already had citizens living there after the first year of building began."

"Why is that Fontaine guy important?"

"He was one of the first people to mass-produce plasmids, and did so by smuggling goods from the surface--which was forbidden in Rapture. He and Ryan had many very public conflicts that ultimately ended with the city in Civil War."