BioShock Rapture

Bill and Elaine rushed past into the rear hall. Bill turned left; a gun banged just beside him. He turned to see Elaine pointing her own pistol, its muzzle smoking, her face contorted with anger as a nitro splicer fell back, his head shot open. A grenade fell from his hands and bounced to the floor—

“Down!” Bill yelled, and dragged her behind a steel kitchen cart, covering her with his body—and then the bomb went off. The cart caught the blast and slammed into them with the shockwave, the steel cart cracking painfully into Bill’s right arm. “Ow, buggerin’ hell that hurts!”

“Bill—are you all right?” Elaine asked, coughing as the smoke cleared.

“I’m okay, except me bloody ears are ringing like a mad monk’s church bell! Come on, we got to get up, love!”

They made their way dizzily down the smoky hallway, eyes stinging. Gunfire rattled behind them and explosions shook the floor. Other people were running from the kitchen. He looked back and saw Redgrave stumbling along, wounded in the leg but game enough—Karlosky behind him, urging the wounded Redgrave along.

Rizzo was turning to fire behind them through the door at splicers Bill couldn’t see. A swishing sound—and Rizzo shrieked, the scream becoming a gurgle as a curved blade buried itself in his throat. Rizzo fell back, blood gushing over his tuxedo …

Bill fired at the door—a masked splicer jerked back. Elaine kept tugging on his arm, shouting about Sophie. He let her urge him through the emergency exit to the stairs, and they saw a group of white-faced, scared-looking constables a flight below, yelling up at them: “This way! Down here!”

Hoping they weren’t heading into a trap, Bill and Elaine went with the constables.

A blur of corridors, passages, a checkpoint, another, waving ID cards, an atrium, an elevator …

Time did indeed seem all funny, weirdly collapsed, a telescope snapped shut …

And then they were in their own flat, panting, Bill locking the door. Elaine with her purse in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Hello!” called Mariska Lutz, their sitter, from the next room. “Back already? Have a good time?”

Rapture Central Control, Ryan’s Office

1959

“It makes me half-crazed to think of it,” Ryan said, voice trembling. He balled the report in his hands and threw it into a corner. “On New Year’s Eve! The cold-blooded treachery of it! They expected me to be there! It was an attack on me—but it was also an attack on the heart and soul of Rapture. Our most accomplished men and women were in that room, Bill, celebrating the new year. And at least six constables betrayed us! We’re lucky Pat Cavendish acted quickly—he shot most of the treasonous scum. But, by God, we must root out any other bad apples.”

He sounded bitter—but rational. Lately, Bill suspected that there was something twisted growing in Andrew Ryan …

Bill and Ryan sat alone in his office, Bill wishing someone were here to back him up. He had to say something Ryan wasn’t going to like.

Shifting in his chair, Bill rubbed his deeply bruised arm where the explosion had knocked the cart into him. His ears still rang a bit; Elaine was haunted by nightmares. “Mr. Ryan—this attack didn’t come out of the blue. It’s because you took out Fontaine. It’s a reaction to that, really. People are saying Rapture doesn’t mean what it used to—nationalizing a business … by force! It gave them the excuse to go a bit mad! That Atlas took the opportunity—lit the fuse of the whole bloody thing…”

Ryan snorted. “It’s not nationalization. I own most of Rapture anyway. I built it! I simply—acted for the best interests of the city! Atlas is just another babbling ‘Pravda,’ a tissue of lies he calls truth! If we let him take hold here, he’ll be another Stalin! The man wants to be dictator! If it’s war—why then so be it!”

“Mr. Ryan—I don’t think it’s a war we can win. It’s the math! Atlas just has too many of them rogue splicers. And too many rebels with him. We need to broker some kind of peace deal, guv—Rapture can’t take a revolution! This city is underwater, Mr. Ryan! It’s in the North Sea! It’s sitting on channels of hot lava! All of that is … oh, crikey, it’s volatile. We’re dying the death of a thousand cuts from leaks already—but one major leak in the wrong part of Hephaestus, and we could have a hell of an explosion. Suppose some of that icy water contacts the hot lava, in a pressurized area? The whole thing would go up! All this fighting risks exactly that kind of damage!”

Ryan looked at him, his gaze suddenly flat. His voice was flatter as he said, “And what do you suggest we offer them?” He closed his eyes and visibly shuddered. “Unions?”