BioShock Rapture

Rapture’s architecture and design was a fusion of the style of the World’s Fair of 1934—an event that had a great impact on Andrew Ryan—and the industrial grandiosity of “The Art of the Great Chain.” To either side of the stage, heroic statues of electroplated bronze, forty feet high—the elongated forms of sleek, muscular, idealized men—stretched their arms toward the heights as if straining for godhood. To Bill they looked a bit like giant hood ornaments, but he’d never say as much to Ryan, who loved that sort of art. Bill had been a trifle taken aback the first time he’d seen a towering statue of Ryan, like the one at the other end of the big room—there were many about Rapture, the figures looming magisterially, seeming to embody an iron determination. In Apollo Square, relief images of lines of men—cheerfully pulling chains—decorated the walls. Everywhere was art decoratif trimming, often shaped like rays of light emanating from glistening knobs, intricate borders evoking both the industrial scale of the modern world and the temples of Babylon and Egypt.

As the song droned on, Bill felt suddenly giddy, riding an inner rush of amazement at what he’d helped build. The Waleses had created the look and feel of Rapture, but he and Greavy had built its flesh, its bones, its inner workings—and Ryan was its animating “soul.” They’d done it with the help of all those men who’d labored in the tunnels, under the sea—who’d risked their lives in the completed, watertight sections of Rapture, levels built from Hephaestus to Olympus Heights. Rapture was a reality: a small city, three miles to a side so far, rising from the depths to tower over the deep seabed.

Rapture. They’d really done it! Oh, there weren’t enough maintenance workers, there were still more heating ducts to be put in, still pipe to be laid in some levels. So far, only three of the five geothermal turbines were running in Hephaestus. Slow seepage was a problem in some areas. But Rapture was real: a man had conceived it, funded it at gigantic cost— spending the kind of money that small countries spent every year—and saw it through to completion. It was breathtaking.

He looked over at Sullivan, who always seemed gloomy, worried. Rumors were still rampant about G-men sniffing around in New York, wondering if Ryan was dodging taxation on some new project.

Some of the faces in the crowd seemed pinched with a vague anxiety of their own, were staring restlessly around at their strange new habitat. A lot of Rapture’s people were high-tone types, moneyed or formerly moneyed nobs who’d become disaffected with society. They’d come here looking for a new start and liking the fact that a wealthy man like Ryan had offered them one.

Bill hoped it was all worth it. So much was sacrificed down here. Like the time he’d seen three men boiled alive setting up the geothermal central heating. The volcanically heated water in the feed pipes had been released at too high a pressure—something he’d tried to warn Wallace about—and the pressure burst a pipe joint. Superheated water gushed to fill a room in seconds. Barely got out in time himself. Wallace should have known better after that close call the first day in the domes. Bill had felt those deaths hard—he’d watched the men die through a port, and the sight had given him nightmares for a week.

That first accident, though, in the dome tunnel, had cemented Bill’s relationship with Ryan. He had saved Andrew Ryan’s life—and Ryan had rewarded him with a nice raise, for one thing.

But he wondered if money really meant the same thing down here. Initially most of the inhabitants of Rapture were required to change their money for Rapture dollars, some percentage kept by Ryan to pay for maintenance services. And what would happen to a man when his Rapture dollars ran out? People couldn’t wire out for money—or even send letters out of Rapture. Did they really understand how sealed off from the outside world they were?

The song ended, and Elaine reached over, giving Bill’s hand a discreet squeeze. Long as Elaine was there, Bill was happy. It didn’t matter where they were.

He had helped build something glorious, something unprecedented. Sure, Rapture was untried, was a glaringly new idea. A gigantic experiment. But they’d planned Rapture down to the last detail. How badly could it go wrong?

The North Atlantic

1948

A raw morning on the North Atlantic. Broken light slanted fitfully through silver-gray clouds. Wind snapped the tops off waves, smacking packets of saltwater into the men manning the decks of the six Fontaine’s Fisheries trawlers. The man who now called himself Fontaine had invested some of his own cash, and somewhat to his surprise he’d made a success of Fontaine’s Fisheries, selling tons of fish to Ryan’s project—and to Reykjavík. Cold comfort, so to speak.