BioShock Rapture

A short spear of ragged wood flew by, and Sullivan turned to fire his pistol at a leering splicer. Bill jumped over the bodies of two men, stepping up beside Sullivan, and used the butt of his tommy gun to knock down a babbling splicer who was slashing a curved blade at Sullivan’s face. Sullivan turned, stumbling up the wharf, and Bill followed close behind, pausing only once to duck a passing fireball.

A swag-bellied spider splicer in stained underwear, its face a welter of ADAM scars, clambered buglike on all fours along the wall above the door. Doggish yelping sounds rang in their ears as they ran toward the exit, the splicer alternating barks with phrases like, “Mommy, daddy, baby! Mommy, daddy, baby! Folks’re all here! Blood in my ears!” Sullivan fired at him and missed. The spider slicer pointed a pistol down at them just as Redgrave stepped into view. From behind a pylon he fired his shotgun, blowing the splicer off the wall. The body spun heavily past them and bounced off the nearest pylon to splash into the water.

Sullivan, staggering now, led the way through the door, back into the corridor. And then they were through the door—Sullivan, Bill, Constable Redgrave, followed closely by Cavendish and several other men, one of them with his clothes on fire from a splicer fireball; another with an eye missing, the socket smoking from a lightning strike; and two others staggering with gunshot wounds …

Bill gave the grinning Cavendish points for nerve as he and Redgrave posted themselves at the open door, firing to cover the retreat, blasting at splicers through the doorway. Bullets pinged and Electro Bolt blasts crackled from the metal doorframe. Bill took a pistol from a collapsed constable and fired it almost point-blank into the upside-down face of a spider splicer coming across the ceiling from nowhere … The man dropped like a dying bat …

“Come on, keep moving!” Sullivan yelled. “Back!”

Then Sullivan’s Special Weapons Backup Team was there, coming from the rear of the corridor, the planned second wave; they rushed between Sullivan and Bill, charging the pursuing splicers: nine constables with chemical throwers, icers, flamethrowers—clumsy weapons spewing corrosive acid, frozen entropy, and burning chaos into the onrushing splicers.

Sullivan had kept the backup team in reserve, afraid they’d hurt his own troops with their imprecise weapons. They were a bloody welcome sight to Bill now. Ryan’s new weapons wreaked havoc on the splicers, making heads pop open like popcorn, faces slide off skulls in bubbling acid …

Stomach writhing in horror, Bill took Sullivan’s good arm, helping him get back up the corridor. He called for Redgrave to give them cover. Sullivan was bleeding heavily from the shoulder wound, and they had to get him to the infirmary.

His feet slipped in Sullivan’s blood; men screamed and begged not to be left behind. Guns cracked and flames roared. On and on they went … and somehow found that they’d made it to the Metro. They’d gotten out safely.

But as they went, Sullivan grunting with pain, Bill thought: But maybe there is no escape for us. Not as long as we’re in Rapture.

17

Fontaine Futuristics

1958

“Turns out that report about the Little Sisters Orphanage was—” Sullivan paused, shaking his head sadly. “Well—it was all true.”

They stood outside the “nursery,” looking through the window in the door. A little bare-footed, dark-haired girl in a tattered frock was huddled on a bed, in a corner, staring into space and sucking her thumb.

Ryan let out a long, slow breath. “She’s got a sea slug in her—and she’s producing ADAM?”

“Yep. Apparently, the slugs didn’t produce the stuff fast enough. And using the girls worked to increase the production.” The disgust dripped from Sullivan’s voice.

“Indeed. You’ve confirmed this with Suchong?”

“Yes sir. You want to ask him, we’ve got him under house arrest, just down the hall.” He gave out a sickly grin. “Poetic justice. They’re locked up together, him and Tenenbaum, in one of the rooms they had the kids in.”

“I’ll have a word with them.” Ryan turned away from the door.

“Mr. Ryan?”

Ryan looked at him, frowning. “Yes?”

“What about the kids locked up in there? Do we let ’em out?”

“They are, I believe, actually orphans, yes?”

“Uh—yeah. One way or another.”

“Orphans will need somewhere to stay. Perhaps when we find another way to … to produce ADAM efficiently, we’ll arrange for them to be … adopted. Until then…” He shrugged. “They’re better off here.”

Ryan could see that Sullivan was disappointed by that response. “What do you want from me, Sullivan? These kids will be of use. In time … Well, we’ll see. Do you think we could proceed with our inspection now—Chief?”

“Sure.” Sullivan avoided his eyes. His voice was hoarse. “This way, Mr. Ryan. They’re down the hall…”