BioShock Rapture

“We got detention for troublemakers—but they’ve got to be, say, outright murderers. Thieves. Rape. Major smuggling. Stuff like that. We’re strict about watertight integrity—and about leaving Rapture. But apart from that…” Sullivan shrugged. “Not much in the way of laws. Fella opened a shop called Rapture Grown Coca the other day. Grows his own coca bushes under some kinda red lights. I’m hearing he makes cocaine from the leaves. Or claims he does. Might be anything in those syringes. Gave me a bit of a turn, seeing the people come out of there—looked like they might get up to any goddamn thing. But Ryan’s all right with it. So I guess taking a bit of extra blood … long as it’s voluntary…” He shrugged. “Isn’t a problem.”

“Yeah. Well I hope it isn’t.” Sinclair shook his head. “My old man was sure we got to do things for the greater good—and what happened? I don’t hold with worrying about anything but number one. Still—I don’t want to get the public up in arms neither. You hear any rumblings like that? People talking … unions? That kind of thing?”

Sullivan had been thinking about his Scotch, but this stopped him. “You heard something, I take it? Mr. Ryan worries constantly about Communist infiltrators.”

“Some rumors from our maintenance guys. Heard ’em talking about that place the workers have made up for themselves, down below. Not much more than a shacktown. Who knows what goes on down there?”

Sullivan pulled a paper and pencil from his coat. “Got any names for me?”

Sinclair opened a desk drawer, took out a pint bottle. “A few. Care for a drink, Chief? It’s that time of day. This is from my own Sinclair Spirits distillery. Very good, if I do say so myself…”

“Augustus, you’re a man after my own heart. You pour; I’ll write…”

Lower Wharf, Neptune’s Bounty

1949

Andrew Ryan had an odd feeling as he looked up at the sign that read, FONTAINE’S FISHERIES. He and Chief Sullivan watched two burly workmen on stepladders hanging it from the ceiling of the lower wharf area. Ryan didn’t believe in omens, in anything supernatural. But there was something about that fisheries sign that bothered him. Frank Fontaine had installed an office, a conveyor belt for fish, big freezers for long-term storage down below. Nothing unexpected.

But the feeling of vague dread returned every time Ryan looked at the neon sign—and it seemed to increase, becoming an inner shudder, as the neon sign was switched on. A nice-looking sign, really, with FONTAINE’S in electric-blue neon, FISHERIES in glowing yellow, under a neon fish shining against the wooden backdrop.

“Seen enough of Neptune’s Bounty, boss?” Sullivan asked, glancing at his pocket watch. It was cold in here—they could see their breath—and they’d been inspecting new businesses for hours, trying to get a sense of what was taking root in Rapture.

Ryan heard a splash of water on the pylons nearby and glanced over to see a small tugboat-style vessel pulling up at the wharf, the smoke from its engine sucking into vents on the low ceiling. The lower wharf was an interior space designed to look exterior, with shallow water around the jutting wooden dock and the occasional boat from neighboring chambers where fish and other goods were off-loaded. Another peculiarity of Rapture—a boat that wasn’t a submarine, putting around deep under the surface of the sea.

“Mr. Ryan, how are you sir?”

Ryan turned back to Fontaine’s Fisheries to see Frank Fontaine standing at the open door, hands in pockets, dressed in a yellow overcoat and three-piece tailored suit, black shoes decked out in spats, bald head shining in the blue light from his sign—Fontaine’s own name glowing over his head. Stepping out beside him, smoking a cigarette and squinting past the smoke, was the thuggish bodyguard Fontaine had brought in recently—Reggie something. Reggie was looking at Sullivan with a kind of smirking contempt.

Ryan nodded politely. “Fontaine. You seem to be settling in, all right. I like the fisheries’ sign. Neon brightens Rapture up.”

Fontaine nodded, glancing up at the sign. “Sure. Just like the forty-deuce. I help you, Mr. Ryan? I was just about to check on my fishing sub…”

“Ah, yes. The fishing subs—I like to keep tabs on them myself.”

“That right? Got you worried?” Fontaine’s tone was cool, a little mockery behind the respect.

“Rapture leaks enough,” Ryan said, wryly. “We don’t want too much coming in—or too much slipping out. Nobody comes or goes without our authorization.”

“For a place that likes to keep the rules down, Rapture’s sure got a lot of ’em,” Reggie muttered.

“We’ve got only as many rules as we need,” Ryan said. “No robbery. And nobody leaves Rapture—or brings in stuff we don’t want here. No outside product or religion—no Bibles, ‘holy’ books of any kind. Luxury goods—we’re going to make our own, soon’s we can. No letters, no correspondence with the outside world. Secrecy is our protection.”