BioShock: Rapture

“Let’s all just think this through, Merton,” Gorland said, pouring Merton a drink from the bourbon bottle. “You’re telling me you got a job with Seaworthy, on the North Atlantic project, from this guy Rizzo—you were working as a steward on one of their ships. Right? And they take your ass out to the North Atlantic and keep it there for a month and a half—and you didn’t see a thing out there?”

Gorland shoved the shot glass across the desk, and Merton snatched it up. “Thanks. Uh—that’s about the size of it. I mean… some stuff was taken down, you know, under the water. But…” He laughed nervously. “I didn’t go down with it! They were all hush-hush about what was going on down there. Much as your life was worth to talk about it, one fella said, after he come up. I don’t know what they’re up to.”

“You see, I know what they’re up to—in a general kind of way,” Gorland said, pouring himself a drink. “Building something big. But I don’t know what Ryan’s angle is. Where the money is. You seen ’em bring up any… ore? You know, mining goodies? Gold, silver, oil?”

“No, nothin’ like that. Just a lotta ships. Never saw Mr. Ryan. Heard his name sometimes, that’s all. I was busy the whole time. Seasick too. I was glad to get back here and look for another job…”

“Yeah, you’ll live to look for another job too,” Reggie said helpfully, his voice mild. “If you tell Mr. Gorland exactly what he needs to know.”

“I swear—I didn’t find out anything else! I hardly left the galley on that big ol’ ship! Now, Frank Fontaine—he might know something. He’s got boats going out there to supply ’em with fish! And they get to talk more. You know, to the guys in the construction…”

Gorland frowned thoughtfully. “Frank Fontaine. Fontaine’s Fisheries? He used to smuggle stuff from Cuba up here in those fishing boats of his. Now he’s delivering… fish? You kiddin’ me?”

“I saw him on the dock—that’s what he told me! I used to buy some of the rum he smuggled up here for my… for your place.” Merton swallowed. “Fontaine says there’s more money selling fish to Ryan for that crew out there than there is selling rum to New York! They got a cryin’ need for food out there—got an army of workers to feed…”

Gorland grunted thoughtfully to himself. That did dovetail with what he’d heard at the loading dock. The one sure way to get close to that operation… was to supply it.

A crazy thought came to him. Bringing with it some interesting possibilities…

But if he did go that far—and far was the word, all right—he’d be way out of his own stomping ground. He’d be splashing around in the North Atlantic.

There was something about this secret project of Ryan’s that fascinated him, that drew him the way rumors of buried pirate gold drew a treasure hunter. Millions of dollars were being sunk into the North Atlantic. He ought to be able to scoop some of it up.

Years ago, when “Frank Gorland” was dodging the law, he’d hopped a freight train. Riding the boxcar he’d read an old newspaper about the newly minted industrialist Andrew Ryan. There was a picture of him standing in front of a fancy building with his name on it. That picture had stirred something in him. The picture of Andrew Ryan standing there in front of the skyline of Manhattan, like he owned it, had made Frank think:

Whatever he’s got—I want it. I’m going to take it from him…

Could be now was his chance. But first he had to figure out what Ryan’s angle was. What he was up to—or down to—out there with a city down in the cold guts of that dark ocean…

Somewhere over the Atlantic 1946

“It’s a converted Liberator, really.” Andrew Ryan led Bill McDonagh through a big, humming aircraft cabin, toward the tail. “A stratocruiser now—United Airlines has ordered eleven of them for luxury flights. But this is the prototype. Of course, this is a prop plane, but the next generation will be jets…”

“Saw a fighter jet in the war, my last trip out,” Bill said. “ME-262 it was. German prototype. Didn’t even engage us—I reckon they were test flying…”

“Yes,” Ryan said distractedly. “Fast and efficient, the jet engine. Haven’t bothered developing them—not as aircraft—because after the North Atlantic project we hope to need no aircraft. We’ll have a great many submersibles—and in time we’ll hardly need those. We hope to be entirely self-sufficient…”

Submersibles? Bill must have misheard him.

Bill had mixed feelings about being on this plane. The drone of its engines was just close enough to the sound of the bombers he’d flown on in the war. He’d taken a ship to get to the USA, after. He’d had enough of planes. Seen his best friend turned to red marmalade that last time out.