BioShock Rapture

He heard the door open and turned to see his bodyguard come in, grimacing. He’d left Reggie standing at the door outside Fontaine Futuristics—now his hand was clasping his right biceps, blood streaming from his fingers. “Say, anybody got any bandages here?”

“Reggie!” Fontaine stepped to the door, looked down the concourse. Saw no one. “What happened? You hurt bad?”

Suchong was already methodically sponging off the wound on Reggie’s arm.

“Ouch! Oh, I’m not hurt bad. But I’ll tell you what—somebody shot at me. Kind of at random, seemed like. The prick. I shot back, but I think I missed him. He took off.”

“Shot at you … you mean a constable?” Fontaine asked.

“Don’t think so. I wasn’t doing anything to make a constable shoot at me. And he didn’t have a badge. Loopy-looking plasmid-head with a pistol. Spots all over his face. It’s been like this lately—random shooting. Ryan’s started putting in those security turrets, to keep these guys in check. You’ll want to get one of those babies for this place. Camera with a machine gun that picks out targets. I dunno how it … ouch, Doc, shit!”

“Suchong is so sorry,” Dr. Suchong said, not sounding sorry as he wound a bandage tightly around the wound.

“Like I was saying, I dunno how the turret thing keeps from killing the wrong people. All I know is—on and off all day there’s been gunfire. Plasmids … that’s the reason I don’t use that stuff. I don’t like firing my gun without a goddamn reason.” He winced again. “Waste of good bullets.”

Andrew Ryan’s Office

1955

Andrew Ryan was standing at the window, looking broodingly out at the lights of Rapture shimmering through the sea, thinking: Steps will have to be taken … I have tolerated too much …

“You wanted to see Poole?” Sullivan asked, coming in with the ratlike little reporter.

Ryan nodded and sat at his desk. Stanley Poole and Sullivan sat across from him. “Well, Poole? What’s your report about this Topside character? People are talking about him as if he’s a hero—but he’s an outsider, as I understand it…”

Sullivan frowned. “I could’ve got you the dirt on him, Mr. Ryan.”

“I know, Chief. But your men are sometimes too … obvious. Poole here has a strange gift for being ignored. Well, Poole?”

Stanley Poole licked his lips nervously. “Yes sir, well, near as I can find out, this guy they’re calling Johnny Topside—he’s a deep-sea diver. There was some snoopers out here, you remember; our subs made sure they stopped snooping. When they went missing, why, he came out to see what was going on. Went down at the main lighthouse and found a way in. One of the air locks, I guess. People are pretty impressed with him, making his way here. Acts like he’s on his own, just wants to help. He’s asking about missing girls, seems like…”

“Is he? What is his real name?”

“I’m sorry—he’s being cagey about that. Seems like he prefers an alias. Changes ’em around. Sounds like a secret-agent type to me. G-man is what I figure—hell, how’d he get all the info on boats missing in this area, all that stuff, if he didn’t have connections?”

Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose. He was having small, annoying headaches, more and more often. Hearing that there might be a government agent in Rapture made his head redouble its throbbing. “You got anything on him, Chief?”

Sullivan shook his head. “Same impression. I haven’t found out his name either. Easy enough to do. I can take him over to the new facility…”

Ryan snapped his fingers. “Precisely what I had in mind. He’s an outsider. Who knows who he’s affiliated with. We cannot let a random outsider wander about in here, asking questions … Arrest him immediately, Sullivan. And while you’re at it bring in that wretched Lamb woman. Poole here reports she may be connected to our confetti bomber. I’ve had enough of her Marxist babbling. She’s turned half the maintenance workers against me.”

“You want her charged with something?” Sullivan asked.

“No. I want her to simply … disappear. Into Persephone. Let her followers feel abandoned.”

Sullivan nodded. “You got it, Mr. Ryan.”

“Lamb’s got a daughter,” Poole pointed out. “Girl named Eleanor.”

“Does she? Well, find a home for the girl, Sullivan.”

Poole shrugged. “That colored woman, Grace Holloway, looks after her sometimes. She’ll take the kid…”

“Fine, fine,” Ryan said, with a dismissive wave, “let her take the kid. For now. The child may be of use later…”

Apollo Square

1955

“Spider Splicers, that’s what they are,” Greavy said.

“Spider what?” Bill asked.

“Splicers, Bill,” Ruben Greavy repeated. “Splicers. That’s the common term for real plasmid addicts.”

Fascinated, Bill watched the two splicers, a man and a woman, moving on all fours along the sides of a tramcar. They were crawling on the wall like bugs, defying gravity. “Seen my share o’ plasmid users,” Bill allowed. “But this … sticking to things like bloody bugs … Going too far, maybe.”