BioShock Rapture

“I will let you go, right now, Captain,” Gorland said. “But you got to climb that ladder. I’ll help you.”

“I need clothes, it’s freezing out here.”

“You’ll be all taken care of. Up the ladder…”

He got the bleary Fontaine up, at last, and out on the tilting deck. Fog streamed by and wreathed the sea. He glanced at the pilothouse. Bergman was facing out to sea. Not that he would probably have cared. The man had done five years in prison not so long ago. He was being well paid—he’d go along with whatever his new boss wanted.

Fontaine was swaying on deck, goggling blearily about him. “We’re … we’re out tuh sea … why are … we…”

“I’ll show you why,” Gorland said, escorting him to the side. “You ever notice how much you and I look alike … Frank? We even have the same first name! Possibilities, Frank—possibilities! I’ve got a whole new concept here—I call it, ‘Identity theft.’ What do you think?” Then he bent, grabbed the vessel’s former captain by the ankles, and tilted him over the side, headfirst down into the cold sea. A yell, a splash or two—and Captain Fontaine went down … He didn’t come up.

Captain Fontaine was dead. Long live … Captain Frank Fontaine.

5

The North Atlantic

1946

The Andrew Ryan was pitching at sea-anchor that gray morning, and Bill was queasy. The cigarette helped a little.

He tried to ignore the steward throwing up over the starboard rail. Gazing into the sea, he watched the frothing bathysphere bob to the surface …

“These are no ordinary bathyspheres,” Ryan said proudly, joining him at the taffrail, his hair so slicked down the considerable wind didn’t budge it. “Some of the men call them slinkers because they get around with such agility.”

“Never seen the like. Almost elegant, it is.”

Ryan looked at him closely. “Feeling seasick? I have a pill…”

“No,” said Bill, stepping back from a burst of spray. The spray put his cigarette out, and he flicked the butt overboard. “I’ll take this rust bucket over your bucketing palace in the sky any day, guv’nor.” He grabbed the rail as the deck pitched under him.

“Now then, Bill—” Ryan took a good grip on the rail himself and looked at Bill closely. “Are you ready to go down? I’m informed that the wind’s dropping; in an hour the sea will be just calm enough for the launching.”

Bill swallowed. He looked out to sea at the other two platform ships and the retreating shape of the Olympian as it headed back to New York for supplies. The platform ships were modified barges, linked by chains and buoys, marking out a square half mile of sea. It was an enormous enterprise. He had to do his part and accept going down in the bathysphere. He had been expecting this, but he wasn’t eager. “Ready, Mr. Ryan. Always ready, me.”

He expected to change into a diving suit or something aquatic, but an hour later they went as they were, both of them in overcoats—Ryan’s cut of the best material, precisely tailored. The bathysphere was hoisted onto the deck, steadied by the stoic crewmen in their rubber slickers and sou’westers as Ryan and Bill got in. It was roomy enough for two inside, with a window in the hatch and small ports on the sides. The smell was a bit like a locker room, but it was comfortably padded and equipped with handholds. Between them was a bank of controls and gauges. Ryan didn’t seem concerned with them as the bathysphere was hoisted up, lowered over the side, and released.

A light switched on inside as the sea closed over them …

Bill, licking his lips, waited for Ryan to somehow pilot the vessel. But he didn’t. He simply sat back, smiling mischievously, seeming amused by Bill’s transparent attempt at appearing unworried. They sank deeper and deeper.

Then the bathysphere stopped with a slight jolt and began to move horizontally of its own accord.

“It’s radio controlled,” Ryan explained, at last, “we don’t have to do a thing. It follows an underwater radio signal to the entrance shaft, uses turbine props. You will experience no discomfort from increased air pressure—there isn’t any increased air pressure needed. The same will hold true in Rapture itself. There is no danger of the bends. We have a new method for constantly equalizing air pressure at any depth with no special gasses. It will be almost always exactly the same as on the surface, with only minor variations.”

Bill looked at him skeptically. “Air pressure always the same—at any depth?”