BioShock Rapture

Bill glanced at Elaine working diligently at her desk: a sturdy brunette in a gray-blue dress suit. She was about twenty-nine, a self-contained woman with snappy blue eyes—and that upturned nose that reminded him of his mum. But the jiggle when she shifted in her seat—that sure wasn’t like his bony old mum. He’d watched Elaine walking about the office whenever he could do it discreetly. She had slightly wide shoulders and hips, long legs. One of those leggy American women like Mary Louise, but smarter, judging from the brief contact he’d had with her. Bet she liked to dance. Maybe this time he’d get up his nerve and ask her …

Bill made himself sit back in the seat, suddenly feeling weary—he was still knackered from staying up past midnight supervising the night crew in the tunnel. But he was glad for the work—he was making far more money than he’d ever made before. He’d moved up to a nicer flat on the west side of Manhattan after his first month working for Ryan, and he was thinking of buying a car. The work was sometimes like plumbing writ large. But the gigantic pipes in the tunnel project weighed tons.

Maybe he should talk to Elaine. Ryan didn’t respect a man without enterprise. Didn’t matter what the enterprise was in.

Bill cleared his throat. “Slow day, innit, Elaine?”

“Hm?” She looked up as if surprised he was there. “Oh—yes, it has been a bit slow.” She looked at him, blushed again, bit her lip, and looked back at her paperwork.

He was encouraged. If a woman blushed looking at you that was a good sign. “Things are slow, got to make ’em brisker, I always say. And what’s brisker than the jitterbug?”

She looked at him innocently. “Jitterbug?”

“Yeah. Fancy a jitterbug sometime?”

“You mean—you’d like to go dancing…?” She glanced at the door to Ryan’s inner office, and lowered her voice. “Well, I might … I mean, if Mr. Ryan doesn’t … I’m not sure how he feels about employees who…”

“Employees who cut a rug?” Bill grinned. “All quite ’armless…” He cleared his throat again. “Harmless.”

“Ah Bill, you’re here—!”Andrew Ryan was at the door to the inner office. He seemed cheerful, almost ebullient.

“Right you are, sir,” Bill mumbled. He got up, trying to catch Elaine’s eye as he went. She was studiously back at work.

“I expect you’ve brought the report,” Ryan said, looking at Bill’s manila envelope. “Good man. But I already know how it’s going. Tell you what: let’s skip the office meeting. You and I, Bill, if you are up for it, are going on a trip. Couple of stops. One in town, and one—far beyond town … we’ll talk about it on the way…”

*   *   *

It was Bill’s first ride in a limousine. A smooth, quiet ride, a world away from the traffic outside. But Bill felt out of his social depth.

He’d only had a few meetings with Ryan since being hired. He’d been working mostly with contractors, and sometimes with Greavy when the engineer was back from the North Atlantic. Only it had seemed to Bill like Greavy came out to the site mostly to watch him. Like the boffin was trying to guess his weight. One time Greavy had brought a couple of bearded, scowling Irishmen in fancy suits to look him over—brothers by the name of Daniel and Simon Wales. Greavy never did bother to explain what that was about.

“When you get a chance to take a dekko at the figures, sir,” Bill said, “you’ll see we’re caught up on the schedule and just about done—”

Ryan held up a hand to stop him. But he was smiling—faintly. “I’m not surprised that you’re almost finished, Bill. In fact the crew can finish without you, at this point. That’s why I hired you—I knew that you’d do a good job. Greavy was testing you on this tunnel assignment. But I had you figured right all along. There’s something else I need to know. Something far more important, Bill.”

“Yes sir?” Bill waited, fascinated by the electric charge of sheer certainty that seemed to shimmer around Andrew Ryan.

Ryan looked at him seriously. “I need to know if you’re ready to meet the greatest challenge of your life.”

“I…” Bill swallowed. Whatever Ryan had in mind, he had to be equal to it. “Anything you want to throw at me, sir—I’ll take it on.”

“Bill—” Ryan leaned forward, glancing at the chauffeur to make sure the window to the front seat was closed, and spoke in a low, urgent voice. “Have you heard of something called the North Atlantic project?”

Bill couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Heard those four words and not a word more. They’re all like monks with a vow of silence when I ask what it is.”

“Yes. Yes, and for several good reasons. Reasons like the United States government—the OSS. British intelligence, Soviet intelligence.”

“OSS—that’s American spies, yeah? When I was with the RAF we’d get a report from those blokes from time to time…”

“Right. Office of Strategic Services.” He snorted. “We run rings around them and the FBI, I can tell you.” The bonhomie faded from his eyes, replaced by a hard glitter as he looked sharply at Bill. “You fought in the war—tell me a little about it.”