BioShock: Rapture

The pipe smoker had been tailing Sullivan since he’d gotten a cab at Grand Central and maybe before. There wasn’t much the guy could learn following him here. The ship was already loaded. The feds would never get an inspection warrant before it sailed at midnight. And what would they make of the prefabricated metal parts, giant pipes, and enormous pressure-resistant sheets of transparent synthetics? It was all stuff you could legitimately call “export goods.” Only it wasn’t being exported across the ocean. It was being “exported” to the bottom of the ocean.

Sullivan shook his head, thinking about the whole North Atlantic project. It was a crazy idea—but when Ryan put his mind into something, it got done. And Sullivan owed the Great Man a lot. Almost ruined him, getting kicked out of the NYPD. Shouldn’t have refused to grease those palms. They’d set him up to look like a crook, fired him, and taken away his pension. Left him with almost nothing.

Sullivan took to gambling—and then his wife ran off with the last of his dough. He’d been thinking about eating a bullet when he crossed paths with the Great Man, two years earlier…

Sullivan reached into his coat pocket for the flask—then remembered it was empty. Maybe he could get a drink from Greavy.

Sullivan waved at Greavy and climbed the gangplank. They shook hands. Greavy’s grip was soft, fingers puny in Sullivan’s big grasp.

“Sullivan.”

“Professor.”

“How many times… I’m not a professor, I have a doctorate in… never mind. You know someone’s shadowing you on the dock back there?”

“Different gumshoe this time. Probably FBI or IRS.” He turned his collar up. “Kind of chilly out here.”

“Come along, then, we’ll have a drink.”

Sullivan nodded resignedly. He knew what Greavy’s idea of a drink was. Watered brandy. Sullivan needed a double Scotch. His father had sworn by Irish whiskey, but Sullivan was a Scotch man. Sure, the black betrayal of yer heritage, it is, his pa would say. A steady liquid diet of Irish whiskey had killed the old rascal at fifty.

Greavy led him along a companionway to his cabin, which was not much warmer. Most of the little oval room that wasn’t the narrow bed was taken up by a table covered with overlapping blueprints, sketches, graphs, intricate designs. The Wales brothers’ design sometimes looked like Manhattan mated with London—but with the power of a cathedral. The designs were overly fancy for Sullivan’s taste. Maybe he’d get to like it once it was done. If it ever was…

Greavy took a bottle from under his pillow and poured them two slugs in glasses, and Sullivan eased the stuff down.

“We need to be ready for any kind of raid,” Greavy said, distractedly looking past Sullivan at the blueprints, his mind already back in the world of the Wales’s design—and, very nearly, Ryan’s new world.

Sullivan shrugged. “With any luck he’ll get the place finished before they can screw with us. The foundation’s already laid. Power’s flowing, right? Most of the stuff’s in place on the support ships. Just a few more shipments.”

Greavy snorted, surprising Sullivan by pouring himself a second drink—and irritating Sullivan by not offering him one. “You have no idea of the work. The risk. It’s enormous. It’s the very soul of innovation. And I need more men! We’re already behind schedule…”

“You’ll get some more. Ryan’s hired another man to supervise the—‘foundational work’ he calls it. Man named McDonagh. He’s going to put him on the North Atlantic project once he proves he really can be trusted.”

“McDonagh. Never heard of him—don’t tell me, he’s not another apple picked from an orange tree?”

“A what?”

“You know Ryan, he has his own notions of picking men. Sometimes they’re remarkable, and well, sometimes they’re—strange.” He cleared his throat.

Sullivan scowled. “Like me?”

“No, no, no…”

Meaning yes, yes, yes. But it was true: Ryan had a way of recruiting black sheep, people who showed great potential but needed that extra chance. They all had a spirit of independence, were disillusioned with the status quo—and sometimes willing to skirt the law.

“The problem,” Sullivan said, “is that the government thinks Ryan is hiding something because he’s trying to keep people from finding out where these shipments are going and what they’re for… and he is hiding something. But not what they think.”