BioShock: Rapture

He tried to ignore the steward throwing up over the starboard rail. Gazing into the sea, he watched the frothing bathysphere bob to the surface…

“These are no ordinary bathyspheres,” Ryan said proudly, joining him at the taffrail, his hair so slicked down the considerable wind didn’t budge it. “Some of the men call them slinkers because they get around with such agility.”

“Never seen the like. Almost elegant, it is.”

Ryan looked at him closely. “Feeling seasick? I have a pill…”

“No,” said Bill, stepping back from a burst of spray. The spray put his cigarette out, and he flicked the butt overboard. “I’ll take this rust bucket over your bucketing palace in the sky any day, guv’nor.” He grabbed the rail as the deck pitched under him.

“Now then, Bill—” Ryan took a good grip on the rail himself and looked at Bill closely. “Are you ready to go down? I’m informed that the wind’s dropping; in an hour the sea will be just calm enough for the launching.”

Bill swallowed. He looked out to sea at the other two platform ships and the retreating shape of the Olympian as it headed back to New York for supplies. The platform ships were modified barges, linked by chains and buoys, marking out a square half mile of sea. It was an enormous enterprise. He had to do his part and accept going down in the bathysphere. He had been expecting this, but he wasn’t eager. “Ready, Mr. Ryan. Always ready, me.”

He expected to change into a diving suit or something aquatic, but an hour later they went as they were, both of them in overcoats—Ryan’s cut of the best material, precisely tailored. The bathysphere was hoisted onto the deck, steadied by the stoic crewmen in their rubber slickers and sou’westers as Ryan and Bill got in. It was roomy enough for two inside, with a window in the hatch and small ports on the sides. The smell was a bit like a locker room, but it was comfortably padded and equipped with handholds. Between them was a bank of controls and gauges. Ryan didn’t seem concerned with them as the bathysphere was hoisted up, lowered over the side, and released.

A light switched on inside as the sea closed over them…

Bill, licking his lips, waited for Ryan to somehow pilot the vessel. But he didn’t. He simply sat back, smiling mischievously, seeming amused by Bill’s transparent attempt at appearing unworried. They sank deeper and deeper.

Then the bathysphere stopped with a slight jolt and began to move horizontally of its own accord.

“It’s radio controlled,” Ryan explained, at last, “we don’t have to do a thing. It follows an underwater radio signal to the entrance shaft, uses turbine props. You will experience no discomfort from increased air pressure— there isn’t any increased air pressure needed. The same will hold true in Rapture itself. There is no danger of the bends. We have a new method for constantly equalizing air pressure at any depth with no special gasses. It will be almost always exactly the same as on the surface, with only minor variations.”

Bill looked at him skeptically. “Air pressure always the same—at any depth?”

Ryan gave him a mysterious smile, leveraging the opportunity to brag a bit. “We have gone to great lengths to keep our discoveries to ourselves. I have found some of the most unusual, extraordinarily talented scientists in the world, Bill—and in some very difficult spots.” He peered through a porthole, smiling absently. “The hardest one to get at was this quite peculiar but brilliant fellow, name of Suchong—he was stuck in Korea during the Japanese occupation. The Japs had accused him of selling their men opium to pay for his experiments. Imperialists have such a narrow view of things. Ah, speaking of marvels, you can just see the foundations of Rapture there, before we go into the dome shaft… And let us have some appropriate music…”

Bill bent and peered through the port. Below them, electric lights glowed through the blue gloom along the rocky bottom of the sea—lines of lights like landing markers for a plane on a foggy night. He saw the rugged outlines of what might be a decayed volcanic crater, like a miniature mountain range, around a mysterious electrical glow. The music kicked in: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, the Grofe arrangement for piano and symphony flowing from hidden speakers in the bathysphere. As the rhapsodic music swelled, Bill made out structures looming through the dark blue water beyond the stony natural ramparts: the frameworks of elegant buildings, the panels of unfinished walls, the silhouette of what might be a statue, tilting as it waited to be craned into place.

“The genius of the Wales brothers,” Ryan said, as more mighty, soaring structures came into view. “Simon and Daniel. Ironic, really, their starting with cathedrals and coming to build Rapture. But Simon says that Rapture will be a great cathedral—but not to God. To man’s will!”

“How’d you get the foundations done?” Bill asked, peering through the viewport. “That had to be a great challenge.”

“We retrofitted my steamer the Olympian, fixed it up to take cargo—and we brought the sinker out here and put it together. It’s a big submersible platform. We’d lower it to the bottom with the deep-sea team and everything they needed. It’s there permanently—absorbs vibration, offers insulation, for the biggest central section of Rapture… Brought in the platform ships for the next stages…”

A small submarine equipped with mechanical arms glided by the construction site…

“You can see the remains of a very ancient volcanic cone,” Ryan went on, pointing. “That’s a clue about Rapture’s energy source. You see that dark spot there, to one side—that’s the opening of a deep crevice, a real abyss—but the city’s foundations rest on solid rock. It’s quite secure.”

And then the panorama vanished, swallowed up in shadow. The music continued as they dipped into the dark, vertical entrance shaft leading down to the dome. It was as if they were going down a chimney. The descent was sickeningly fast and smooth until they bumped against the concrete and steel sides of the water-filled shaft with an alarming clang. A metallic squeal came as a hatch in the shaft shut above them. A shivering clunk—and they came to a complete halt. They were in an air lock, Bill reckoned, as the water drained away. A mechanical grating sound and another metallic screech—and the hatch of the bathysphere opened.

“Come along, Bill!” Ryan switched off the music and climbed out through the hatch.

Bill followed and found himself in a short metal-ribbed passage of rough concrete. Electric lights burned overhead. The smell of the sea mingled with the smell of new cement.

Two strides along the short passage, then a metal door swung open for them and there was Dr. Greavy, in a long work coat and metal construction helmet. Greavy’s mouth trembled as he gazed at Ryan. He backed away, to let Ryan enter the sizable hemispherical room, like a courtier backing away from a sovereign.

“This is an honor, sir,” Greavy sputtered, “but really, it’s a bit too risky—”

“Risky!” Ryan said, looking around. “Nonsense! Bill, he’s trying to keep me out of here!” But Ryan was chuckling as he looked around at the equipment in the dome.

“Only until we have more safety structures in place—McDonagh understands.”

“I’m here now, Greavy,” Ryan said, “and I mean to have a look around. I am sinking my life into this project, and I need to see it flourishing. Is Simon here?”

“Not here, sir, he’s in sub three.”

“Let him do his work. You can show us around.” The dome was about two hundred feet in diameter, about thirty-five feet to the ceiling in the center, which was supported by a grid of metal girders. To Bill the girders looked like steel, but he knew if they were only steel they’d all be buried under a mountain of saltwater. He supposed they must be made of some special alloy.

Bill recognized some of the big, wheeled machines crowded into the room: routers as big as small cars, mining drills, scoops and cranes, many of them still dripping water; some, adapted for deep-sea use, looked strange to him. One machine was about twenty feet long, with enormous pincers at the ends of the jointed arms, like the ones on the submarine.

“What’s that thing do?” Bill asked, pointing to it.

“The mechanical gripper?” Greavy said. “That’s one of our basic workhorses. Remote controlled. It’s a concept that came out of weapons development in the war.”

“Right—like the teletanks the Russians use. Didn’t work out so well, them things.”

“Our remote control is reliable—like the bathysphere you came in. Remote-controlled machines speed up construction. Very difficult to set up the foundations of Rapture in this deep cold water otherwise. We have a good deal of the Hephaestus level set up already—and indeed geological energy is already flowing into the finished units…”