BioShock: Rapture

They would vomit up the remains.

Brigid hurried down the dimly lit hall to the row of children’s cells. She leaned the shotgun against the wall before she let the girls out, not wanting to scare them. She put a finger to her lips, to signify quiet, as she let each one out, and winked.

“Now children,” she whispered, as they gathered around her, a diminutive crowd, “we will play a game of quiet—like hide-and-seek. We will get the other girls and then…”

“Someone’s coming,” said one of the moppets.

Brigid heard the heavy footsteps then. Probably the fourth sentry, who stood out in the hallway. “Hey, the system’s down!” he called, from around the corner of the corridor.

“Children, we will go back into this nursery, together, all of us, and we’ll wait till he goes by—we will trick him!”

The children giggled mischievously, and she hushed them, herding them into the nursery cell. One of them lay on the cot, pretending to be asleep; the others pressed into a corner near the door, squatting in excited silence with Brigid. A few moments more, and then they heard the guard striding by.

“Rolf!” the man called. “Where the hell you got to? The system’s down! Christ, if the splicers’ve got in…”

Brigid and the Little Sisters waited another long, slow minute. She guessed it’d be two or three minutes before the fourth sentry found the others sleeping in the showers. There was no time to get any more children out—they were far down the hallway. She’d lose the ones she had if she tried…

Heart pounding, Brigid stood up, and whispered, “We must go like ghosts! Quiet as ghosts!”

“The ghosts aren’t so quiet,” a black-haired Little Sister remarked, twirling the ends of her hair around a finger. “I hear them talking all the time!”

“Then be quieter than ghosts! Come on!”

Brigid opened the door and they tiptoed through. She herded them around the hallway corner, toward the front door of the facility. They were almost running when they reached the outer corridor—the cameras out there were still angling inertly down. But that wouldn’t last…

They got across the anteroom to the Metro just as the alarms went off behind them. But she managed to get all the Little Sisters with her into the bathysphere.

She knew an abandoned dorm that might do for a safehouse. It was a dusty place, almost forgotten now, in a basement corner of the city. There, she could clear the sea slugs from the children and give them a chance to be human beings. They would lose something, but they would gain much more.

And perhaps the cruelty of her maternal instinct would transmute—and pain would become joy.

Rapture Central Control, Ryan’s Office 1959

Andrew Ryan hit the Record button on the Acu-Vox and cleared his throat: “I am told that Lamb has been seen in the streets… come out of her sanctum in Persephone. Rapture’s split up between our territories, the Atlas turf, and Lamb’s little group of psychos—my city is schismed.” He sighed. “One of the Alpha Series was killed in the incident, and his bonded Sister stolen. But the counsel has no time for a manhunt; Atlas swells the ranks of his marauders by the day. Regardless, Lamb’s name has already faded among the people. She is no more than a ghost who has forgotten to die…”

A chime came on the desk. He heard Karlosky’s voice over the intercom. “Boss? Doctor Suchong is here.”

Ryan switched off the tape recorder. “Very good. Send him in.”

He opened a desk drawer, drew out the folder containing Suchong’s proposal, and scanned it again as the doctor came padding in. Ryan was distantly aware of Suchong bowing. “Yes… sit down.” He heard the squeak of Suchong sitting in the chair and went on: “I’ve looked over this little plan of yours—frankly, Doctor Suchong— frankly, I’m shocked by your proposal.” Ryan glanced up from the folder, tented his fingers, closing his eyes as if considering the idea objectively, though in fact he’d already made up his mind. “If we were to modify the structure of our commercial plasmid line as you propose, to make the user vulnerable to mental suggestion—would we not be able to effectively control the actions of citizens of Rapture? Free will is the cornerstone of this city. The thought of sacrificing it is abhorrent.”

Suchong, sitting across from Ryan, nodded, somehow conveying apology, disappointing Ryan by acquiescing. He’d hoped Suchong would “talk him into it.”

Ryan cleared his throat. “However,… we are indeed in a time of war. If Atlas and his bandits have their way, will they not turn us into slaves? And what will become of free will then? Desperate times call for desperate measures. And, after all, if you say Fontaine knew of this sort of thing—then it could be working its way to Atlas. We can’t let them get the edge on us, Suchong.”

Suchong looked at him attentively. “Then—you approve Suchong’s plan? We can proceed with pheromone conditioning?”

“If you can guarantee the splicers respond to me. Not to anyone else.”

“Suchong works for Ryan! I will see to it…”

“And what does Tenenbaum think? Does she think there might be a means to block this… this hormonal control?”

Suchong shrugged. “Suchong… think not. But—not sure where she is. Cannot ask.”

“What? Why not?”

“You do not know? I assumed guards reported to you! She is… gone. Hiding somewhere in Rapture. Took Little Sisters with her.”

“No one told me this.” Ryan laughed softly and bitterly. “Who got to Tenenbaum? Was she paid to do this? By Atlas?”

“Something bother her for long time, Mr. Ryan.”

“Had an attack of conscience, has she?”

Suchong blinked, not knowing what was meant. The English word conscience was one he hadn’t bothered to learn. “She is… troubled female. She says we are harming children, even though we give them immortality! We give them power to always heal! This is harming? Suchong does not think so…”

“Ah.” Ryan picked up a pencil and flipped it from finger to finger. He was not convinced the Little Sisters were happy little elves working away for Rapture. But—he was convinced that ADAM was Rapture’s edge on the outside world. Suppose they were ever invaded. KGB, CIA, some other insidious “intelligence” lurkers would infiltrate. Perhaps this new pernicious influence, this Atlas, would bring them. Or some of Lamb’s treacherous bunch. She could have been a KGB agent all along. And if they were invaded by the Soviets or the Brits or the USA—then what? Only the extraordinary abilities provided by plasmids could protect Rapture from outsiders. So ADAM must go on. He needed the Little Sisters more than ever.

“If she took any Little Sisters with her, plasmid production will be drastically undercut.”

“Yes,” Suchong smoothed his greased-back hair thoughtfully. “We will need more… ‘Little Sisters.’”

“Well, there’s no time to wait for more people to…” Ryan cleared his throat. “I’ll tell Cavendish to see to it we have a few more until… something else is worked out.” Ryan tossed the pencil on the desk. “As for Brigid Tenenbaum, we shall find her. If you betray me, Doctor—I warn you, things will not go well.”

Suchong smiled sadly. “I would not respect you, if that were not the case, Mr. Ryan.” Suchong bowed. Then he hurried to the door, bent on his mission.

A whisking sound—and Ryan turned to see a small package arrive for him in the pneumatic tube. The handwriting told him it was from Sullivan. He removed it from the tube and opened it. It contained a reel of recording tape and a note in Sullivan’s hand:

Don’t think you’ll see me alive again, sir. I plan a quick get-together with a bullet. Can’t live with what I