BioShock: Rapture

Frank Fontaine—formerly Frank Gorland—could see the peculiar little tower rising tantalizingly from the waves, a quarter mile off. Beyond it were two ships, one of them the platform ship with its winches and hoists. Slabs of ice still floated about the trawler, brightly white against the green-blue water.

The object was to get from up here—to down there—to get safely into the city marked by that anomalous lighthouse. The first time Rapture’s buyers had come to his trawlers to purchase fish, he’d given them a letter to take down to Ryan.

To the Overseer of the Undersea Colony: The commerce between us has made me aware of your enterprise, & I have inferred something of its heroic scope. I have always yearned to be a frontiersman, & an appreciation for the mysteries of the deep draws me to offer you my services. I have a plan for harvesting fish underwater using modified submarines. Up above, this idea is dismissed as “crackpot.” I hope that you, clearly a forward thinker, will be more open-minded to this innovation in enterprise. Accordingly, I request your permission to relocate to your colony and develop my subaquatic fishery.

Yours Sincerely, Frank Fontaine.

In fact, he’d sent variations of the same letter with three different deliveries to Rapture.

Standing at the prow of the pitching deck of the trawler, unscrewing the top of his flask, Frank Fontaine asked himself: Am I after fish—or a wild goose? Sure, he always dreamed about a big-paying long con, but this one was threatening to go on indefinitely—and though it was afternoon and supposedly summer, it was cold as a son of a bitch out here. Made a witch’s tit seem like a hot toddy. Was it worth giving up Gorland—becoming Fontaine?

A city under the sea. It was becoming an obsession.

Fontaine looked up at the streaming charcoal-colored clouds, wondered if it was going to storm again. Just being on this damn tub was too much like work.

Talking to the men who picked up the fish for Rapture’s food supply, Fontaine had confirmed that Ryan had indeed built some gigantic underwater habitat, a kind of free-market utopia—and Fontaine knew what happened with utopias. Look at the Soviets—all those fine words about the proletariat had turned into gulags and breadlines. But a “utopia” was pure opportunity for a man like him. When this undersea utopia fell apart, he’d be there, with a whole society to feast on. Long as he didn’t step too hard on Ryan’s toes, he could build up an organization, get away with a pile of loot.

But he had to get down to Rapture first…

The trawler lurched, and so did Fontaine’s stomach.

A small craft was being lowered over the side of the platform ship—a thirty-foot gig. Men descended the ladder and clambered aboard it. When it started motoring toward the trawlers, almost a quarter mile away, it was bristling with men, rifles glinting in their hands.

But he hadn’t come this far to run. He waited as his crew lined up behind him. Peach Wilkins, his first mate, came to the rail. “Doesn’t look good, boss,” Wilkins said as the launch came steadily closer. “What they need all those guns for?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Fontaine said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

The launch cut through the tossing waves and then came about to ease up against the trawler’s starboard side. A man in early middle age, wearing a top coat, rubber boots and leather gloves, climbed the ladder and swung aboard, followed by two burly, watchful younger men in watch caps and slickers, rifles on straps over their shoulders.

Looking chilly and gray-faced, the older man braced himself on the bucking deck and looked Fontaine up and down. “Name’s Sullivan, chief of security for Ryan Industries. You’re Frank Fontaine. Am I right?”

Fontaine nodded. “That’s me. Owner and operator, Fontaine’s Fisheries.”

“Mr. Ryan’s been watching your operation out here. Seen you build it up, edge out the competition—make a success of it. And you’ve done a good job supplying us. But you’re nosy. You’ve been asking questions about what’s down below—” He hooked a thumb at the sea and grinned unpleasantly. “You even bribed some of our platform workers with booze…”

“I just want to be part of what you’re building down there. I sent several letters—”