Sometimes, when Elle was really bored, she considered banging on the grate just to see what they would do.
In many ways Elle was lucky that Rapture was so far below the sea. The only way to keep a place like that warm was to channel some of the heat from below into the boilers, which in turn distributed the hot air through the vents into the rest of the massive buildings. To keep from turning the inside of the place into a vortex, and to facilitate whatever maintenance might have been necessary, these vents were large enough that a grown man could squeeze into them if they had to. Elle, who was much smaller than a grown man, considered this quite the blessing in disguise, as it meant that she was perfectly comfortable lying down inside one and listening to the awkward huffing and puffing as the fat man packed it in.
Eleanor Peck was not exactly the odd little duckling that her mother pretended she was. She was also not the ditsy little debutante her father pretended she was, parading her around at a few events and even bringing her along to a few of the more sophisticated parties to complete the perfect nouveau riche family appeal that he and his wife seemed intent on perpetuating in spite of everything. Truth be told, ninety percent of the time they thought she was absent either fooling around with the other local children or reading (she never could tell exactly what it was they thought she was doing when she disappeared) she was probably stripped down to her knickers and undershirt in the vents. It was hot enough inside and good enough exercise that she sweat a bit and dirty enough besides that she learned after her first ventures to strip down a bit, but once she'd gotten the hang of it she found it surprisingly comforting to lie in them, nestled tight in the warm metal belly of a massive beast. Like being inside a dragon, she sometimes imagined, all fire and sharp scales.
The best thing about the vents, however, was that they went everywhere. Especially into the places that girls like Eleanor weren't supposed to--bars, back rooms, bedrooms. Anywhere and everywhere, you couldn't exactly afford to keep places unheated, which meant that in the vast majority of situations Elle had something alarmingly close to free reign to snoop. It was like a drama every other room, a new story every other vent. She could watch a mother yelling at her son to clean his room one moment, crawl a little ways down to the next storage area and find a man humping away at his mistress in the next--those, she freely admitted to herself, were her favorites.
There was something oddly soothing about spying on people doing it. Sometimes it was less soothing and more exciting, but with her bottle green eyes opened wide and her chin propped up on her small fists she could have spent hours watching people buck away at each other. Everyone was so different--some couples were boring, some were elaborate, some were downright weird, but ever since she picked up her little hobby her favorite had been Sylvia.
She could start with the fact that the woman was gorgeous, but that wasn't really what separated her from anyone else in Rapture--being beautiful was just a matter of money with some of the best surgeons in the world under the sea. More important was how deliciously casual about it she all was. Popping gum, for Christ's sake, right in the middle of a screw! It was enough to make a girl curl her toes a little, watching her breasts bob up and down on impact. Never mind that she was married (to some thug, no less!), or that she kept a rotating cast of partners, there's was just something about the way she played with her food that was just... well...
Cool.
So when they were all set and the woman stood to clean herself off--she wanted to get the man in trouble, if she didn't she would have put the file back right--Elle scooched her way back out of the vent towards one that would lead more directly to the hallways. She'd gotten pretty good at following people through the vents, her mental map exceptional, and so by the time she was making her way down the corridor Elle was already coming out of a janitorial closet, tugging on a wrinkled white blouse and skirt number she'd stuffed into the small pack she carried with her on her little excursions. Looking a bit sweaty and more than a little mischievous, she fell in step with the older woman and grinned up to her, beaming.
Today was the day they would finally talk.
"Do you like it when they call you 'doll'?"
A slight pause and a blink of realization later...
"Also, hi!"
