BioShock: Rapture

“Well, there’s no time to wait for more people to…” Ryan cleared his throat. “I’ll tell Cavendish to see to it we have a few more until… something else is worked out.” Ryan tossed the pencil on the desk. “As for Brigid Tenenbaum, we shall find her. If you betray me, Doctor—I warn you, things will not go well.”

Suchong smiled sadly. “I would not respect you, if that were not the case, Mr. Ryan.” Suchong bowed. Then he hurried to the door, bent on his mission.

A whisking sound—and Ryan turned to see a small package arrive for him in the pneumatic tube. The handwriting told him it was from Sullivan. He removed it from the tube and opened it. It contained a reel of recording tape and a note in Sullivan’s hand:

Don’t think you’ll see me alive again, sir. I plan a quick get-together with a bullet. Can’t live with what I done. She had the cutest little red and black blanket. Here’s a tape, might clue you in on why Jasmine Jolene moved out. Why she’s been ducking you. Owe you that, I guess, Great Man. Now I owe myself something else. A little drinky, a little bye bye.

Bye bye, Great Man!

Ryan stared at the note—then looked at the tape. He was strangely reluctant to listen to it. At last he put it in the tape player, and pressed Play.

19

Arcadia, Rapture 1959

“I just don’t feel comfortable in this park anymore, Bill,” Elaine said. “Bodyguards or not.”

She and Bill stood on the little bridge, watching the reflected light play in the stream. The cryptic pagan graffiti of the Saturnine cult marked the wood of the little footbridge. They’d seen bullets lying about in the grass—and ADAM syringes.

Bill nodded. “Does seem daft, coming ’ere. Suppose she steps on one of those syringes? What’ll that do to her?”

Elaine put her hand to her mouth. “Oh—I hadn’t thought of that.”

“But—she and Mascha were all atwitter about coming here, love.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders. “A few minutes more, and we’ll go home, eh?”

He glanced over his shoulder, saw Constable Redgrave and Karlosky, talking a few strides away, each with a shotgun and a pistol. The little girls were playing with the little wooden dolls Sam Lutz had made them over by a boulder, close to the sliding Japanese-style doors, about fifty feet away.

A drumming of propellers caught his attention, and he looked up to see a security bot fly overhead. It whined past, watching for splicers. Arcadia had been cleared of splicers and rebels—at least for the time being. Bill had requested a day with his family in the park, and Ryan had seen to it.

“I just have the worst feeling, Bill,” Elaine whispered…

Bill sighed, wanting a cigarette. Real tobacco was in short supply. “I know. You’re right. I’m going to get us out of here.”

“Bill!” Redgrave called, worry in his voice.

Karlosky was already hurrying toward the boulder where the girls had been. They were gone…

“Sophie!” Bill shouted. He found himself running after Karlosky. “Redgrave—keep Elaine here!”

“That door—” Karlosky puffed.

Bill saw it then—the sliding door was open. And the girls were nowhere to be seen. His daughter was gone.

Then—there she was. Sophie, stepping through it, alone, tears in her eyes. “Daddy?”

Karlosky ran through the door, calling, “Mascha! Hey kid! Where you go!”

Bill ran to Sophie, swept her up in his arms. “Crikey, I was so worried, love, don’t run off like that. Where’s Mascha?”

“We heard someone call us—from the tea room! We went through the door, but it was someone I don’t know… a big man… He said she had to go with him—for Rapture!”

“What!” Still holding her, Bill stepped through the door—and saw no one except Karlosky coming back, frowning.

Karlosky shook his head at him. “They’re gone.”

But there was Mascha’s doll, lying on the floor. Its head was snapped off. Bill put Sophie down, placed his hands on her shoulders, and looked tenderly into her eyes. “Did he hurt you, love?” Bill asked, heart sinking as he thought about poor Mascha…

Her lips quivered. “I pulled at his arm, and he pushed me down! And I ran away!” And then she burst into tears.

Elaine rushed up, then, crushing Sophie to her, tears of mother and daughter running together.

Redgrave was close behind her—he’d been watching her back. “Bill—where’s the other one?” Redgrave asked, looking around.

“Some bastard took her…”

He stepped up to Karlosky, drew him aside. “You see anything?”

“Nyet—but I think I heard Cavendish back there.”

“Cavendish? I’ve got to get my wife and girl back to our place. You and Redgrave see if you can find Mascha, will you?”

“We try. But…” Karlosky shook his head. “Not much hope.”

It seemed to Bill that those three words summed it all up.