BioShock: Rapture

The blade clattered on the floor. Elaine groaned at the sight of the dead man. They crawled onward.

Bill risked a look over his shoulder and saw a group of loyal constables, including Redgrave and Karlosky, firing above an overturned table at spider splicers crawling across the ceiling near the blown-open doors. A red- masked nitro splicer made a bomb fly through the air with the power of his mind—it flew past the table, then doubled back. Karlosky and Redgrave dove to the side, and the bomb went off. Redgrave rolled, wounded. A shotgun blasted nearby—Rizzo firing over a table at the nitro splicer. The splicer’s face vanished in a welter of red, and a grenade blew up in his hands, his body flying apart like a New Year’s party favor.

Bill crawled onward, one arm over Elaine, who crept along beside him alternately sobbing and cursing. They’d reached the swinging doors into the back kitchen. “Okay, kid,” he whispered in her ear. “On three we jump up and run through them doors. Watch out for my pistol, love, I might have to fire it. One, two—three!”

They were up and rushing through, Bill shouldering the door aside—and firing at a spider splicer hanging upside down from the low ceiling. Wounded, the splicer fell off onto the stove, clattering into pots of boiling water and lit gas burners. Shrieking in pain, the splicer flailed and tumbled off the stove and onto the floor.

Bill and Elaine rushed past into the rear hall. Bill turned left; a gun banged just beside him. He turned to see Elaine pointing her own pistol, its muzzle smoking, her face contorted with anger as a nitro splicer fell back, his head shot open. A grenade fell from his hands and bounced to the floor—

“Down!” Bill yelled, and dragged her behind a steel kitchen cart, covering her with his body—and then the bomb went off. The cart caught the blast and slammed into them with the shockwave, the steel cart cracking painfully into Bill’s right arm. “Ow, buggerin’ hell that hurts!”

“Bill—are you all right?” Elaine asked, coughing as the smoke cleared.

“I’m okay, except me bloody ears are ringing like a mad monk’s church bell! Come on, we got to get up, love!”

They made their way dizzily down the smoky hallway, eyes stinging. Gunfire rattled behind them and explosions shook the floor. Other people were running from the kitchen. He looked back and saw Redgrave stumbling along, wounded in the leg but game enough—Karlosky behind him, urging the wounded Redgrave along.

Rizzo was turning to fire behind them through the door at splicers Bill couldn’t see. A swishing sound—and Rizzo shrieked, the scream becoming a gurgle as a curved blade buried itself in his throat. Rizzo fell back, blood gushing over his tuxedo…

Bill fired at the door—a masked splicer jerked back. Elaine kept tugging on his arm, shouting about Sophie. He let her urge him through the emergency exit to the stairs, and they saw a group of white-faced, scared-looking constables a flight below, yelling up at them: “This way! Down here!”

Hoping they weren’t heading into a trap, Bill and Elaine went with the constables.

A blur of corridors, passages, a checkpoint, another, waving ID cards, an atrium, an elevator…

Time did indeed seem all funny, weirdly collapsed, a telescope snapped shut…

And then they were in their own flat, panting, Bill locking the door. Elaine with her purse in one hand and a gun in the other.

“Hello!” called Mariska Lutz, their sitter, from the next room. “Back already? Have a good time?”

Rapture Central Control, Ryan’s Office 1959

“It makes me half-crazed to think of it,” Ryan said, voice trembling. He balled the report in his hands and threw it into a corner. “On New Year’s Eve! The cold-blooded treachery of it! They expected me to be there! It was an attack on me—but it was also an attack on the heart and soul of Rapture. Our most accomplished men and women were in that room, Bill, celebrating the new year. And at least six constables betrayed us! We’re lucky Pat Cavendish acted quickly—he shot most of the treasonous scum. But, by God, we must root out any other bad apples.”

He sounded bitter—but rational. Lately, Bill suspected that there was something twisted growing in Andrew Ryan…

Bill and Ryan sat alone in his office, Bill wishing someone were here to back him up. He had to say something Ryan wasn’t going to like.

Shifting in his chair, Bill rubbed his deeply bruised arm where the explosion had knocked the cart into him. His ears still rang a bit; Elaine was haunted by nightmares. “Mr. Ryan—this attack didn’t come out of the blue. It’s because you took out Fontaine. It’s a reaction to that, really. People are saying Rapture doesn’t mean what it used to—nationalizing a business… by force! It gave them the excuse to go a bit mad! That Atlas took the opportunity— lit the fuse of the whole bloody thing…”

Ryan snorted. “It’s not nationalization. I own most of Rapture anyway. I built it! I simply—acted for the best interests of the city! Atlas is just another babbling ‘Pravda,’ a tissue of lies he calls truth! If we let him take hold here, he’ll be another Stalin! The man wants to be dictator! If it’s war—why then so be it!”

“Mr. Ryan—I don’t think it’s a war we can win. It’s the math! Atlas just has too many of them rogue splicers. And too many rebels with him. We need to broker some kind of peace deal, guv—Rapture can’t take a revolution! This city is underwater, Mr. Ryan! It’s in the North Sea! It’s sitting on channels of hot lava! All of that is… oh, crikey, it’s volatile. We’re dying the death of a thousand cuts from leaks already—but one major leak in the wrong part of Hephaestus, and we could have a hell of an explosion. Suppose some of that icy water contacts the hot lava, in a pressurized area? The whole thing would go up! All this fighting risks exactly that kind of damage!”

Ryan looked at him, his gaze suddenly flat. His voice was flatter as he said, “And what do you suggest we offer them?” He closed his eyes and visibly shuddered. “Unions?”

“No, guv—a lot of these blokes worked for Fontaine. The others just want the ADAM. Crave it. Let’s hand over Fontaine Futuristics to Atlas’s lot. It’s not right to go against our principles—to nationalize, Mr. Ryan. We can take the high road, show ’em we stand for something! We can go back to the way we were and give up Fontaine Futuristics!”

“Give them…?” Ryan shook his head in disbelief. “Bill—men died to take over the plasmids industry! They will not have died in vain.”

Bill didn’t believe for a moment that Ryan was concerned about who’d died in vain. That was just an excuse. Andrew Ryan wanted the plasmids industry. It was in his nature. He was a tycoon. And the plasmids industry was the biggest prize in this toy store.

“Ryan Industries owns Fontaine Futuristics now,” Ryan went on. “For the good of the city. In due time, I’ll break it up. But I’m not going to give it to that murdering parasite Atlas!”

“Mr. Ryan—we’ve got to stop this war. It’ll destroy us all… there’s no place to retreat to! If we won’t make peace with them—well, if that’s the case, I’ll have to submit my resignation from the council.”

Ryan looked at him sadly. “So you’re walking out on me too. The one man I trusted… betraying me!”

“I’ve got to show you how strongly I feel about this—we’ve got to make peace! It’s not just Atlas—suppose he makes a deal with Sofia Lamb? Her people are fanatics. Now she’s broken out, she’s twice as dangerous! Her mad little cult’ll have a go at us too! We have to stop this war, Mr. Ryan!”

Ryan slammed a fist onto the desk so hard the room echoed with it. “The war can be stopped by winning it! It can be won with superior might, Bill! We can do more and better splicing, use pheromones, keep control of our splicers… and have an unstoppable army of superhuman beings! We have the labs—oh yes, we’re short on ADAM now, it’s true.” He cracked his knuckles. “The Little Sisters we have left can’t produce enough ADAM. But there’s ADAM out there—in all those bodies. It lives on after the splicer dies! It can be harvested, Bill! And the Little Sisters are ideal for harvesting it. We can make this war work for us! War can be opportunity as well as catastrophe!”

Bill stared at him.

Ryan flapped his hand in dismissal. “It’s written on your face, Bill. You’ve left me. You’ve always been loyal. But I’m afraid you will be a disappointment—like so many others. So many who’ve turned their backs on the grand