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BIOSHOCK: THE WRITER, PART I |
The Lighthouse, 1952 It always starts with a sentence. No gods or kings, only man. An intimidating sentence and the imposing face of the Andrew Ryan statue met a group of people as they entered the atrium of the lighthouse out in the middle of the ocean. As they met all who migrated to the undersea colony. Some of these people knew Andrew Ryan, the tycoon, the magnate, from news papers and news reels. And some didn't. Most people who were there seemed really bright or talented in some way. They just gave that impression. People had brought their entire families even. There was a colored lady that kept to herself on the boat ride. The woman had a smooth voice, as if naturally blessed to use it. Another guy had a pregnant wife and a yelling kid who seemed to beg for a beating from his ever more frustrated father. And then there was a writer. He was silent and mostly just watched. A shy man in his early twenties, he preferred to speak when spoken to. And thus he watched, making up stories about his fellow immigrants in his mind. He'd chatted with the black woman a bit on the boat, but that was it. Her name was Grace, and she was going to sing and start a family. The writer didn't really have a family. His mother died years ago and his father just recently joined her. Never had friends and no significant other. He wasn't significant enough. What he did have was a good imagination. He'd published several short stories in pulp fiction magazines and when he received the invitation he felt he had the chance to make it as a writer. All the stories in his head could finally be let out. Still, when he looked at the others on their way to this new promised land he couldn't help but feel he didn't belong. Although, he always did among others. His father, the professor, would have belonged. Well here he was. And there was nothing else to do but pass the banner and the statue, down the beautiful staircase and to the bathysphere. The people all gawped in awe, struck by the construction placed so inconspicuously out at sea. The interior of the lighthouse was decorated in artful style that blended stylish art deco lines with the cultivation of ancient Babylon and there were plaques on the walls, dedicated to science, industry, art, and the Great Chain of Industry, each plaque stylizing what they ought to be - free and independent. Hidden speakers played the musing La Mer instrumental by Django Reinhardt, flowing easily with the lines of the lighthouse. The writer walked among the crowd down the great stone steps of the stairs, going round and down into another chamber, beneath the atrium. There, bobbling safely in a well of water, was a spherical contraption with an open door to let people inside. It looked like a bathysphere, which the writer had seen in photos of Bermudan divers, but incredibly advanced. A Rapture representative was waiting there, smiling and directing them into the bathysphere. There were several of them there and they'd have to take several turns. The writer waited anxiously for what seemed like forever while everyone else, it seemed, got go before him. Meanwhile, people would try and ask the representative questions, but he just smiled vexingly and said: On each side of the bathysphere were red velvet cushion seats for the ride down. The writer swallowed, still not convinced the other people hadn't been taken to some ship waiting a half mile of to be shanghaied. Grace also seemed a bit nervous, thumbing her skirt lining. The representative pulled the bathysphere lever and the door was closed behind them. Immediately the bathysphere descended into the Atlantic water. 10 fathoms. 18 fathoms. And from there, give in to fate. A fate for each of them to shape. Only man. The writer felt a bittersweet sense of reflection as he kissed the surface good bye. The bathysphere steered them straight into the city and guided them among the scrapers of the undersea Manhattan. The writer watched entranced at the city, not believing it could be true. How could it be possible! Neon signs in the colors of the rainbow glimmered on the walls, advertising this company and that; liquors, casinos, art galleries and theaters. Then the bathysphere flowed into a docking tube, heading right into one of the buildings. Big, bright neon letters above read, 'All good things of this earth flow into the city'. At the first sentence starts a story. A tale of deep, burning horror and unanswered prayers. Welcome Pavilion, 1952 Setting foot in the underwater city, the writer gasped. Unable to contain his exhilaration, he dropped his suitcase to the floor. He had seen the city from the bathysphere, of course. Its towering buildings and glimmering neon lights beckoning him through the murky Atlantic water. But it had been so abstract still. Unreal in a way. But now he was here, and before him stretched the grandiose welcoming hall of Rapture's Welcome Pavilion, with its meticulously perfect decor. His fellow immigrants to the undersea colony seemed to be equally awestruck. For quite a while, it seemed, they stood staring, trying to take everything in. They didn't even notice the welcoming committee before Andrew Ryan began to speak. The writer was enthralled by the oratory gift the man possessed. As Ryan spoke, the writer listened carefully. Ryan was welcoming them, cursing the parasites of the upper world and, in a fatherly tone, uplifting the concept of his undersea colony. It was basically the same speech as the one on the monitor on the way down, only a little different and his tone was more booming, as if he was tired yet resilient. He had taken a chance and exchanged all his money for Rapture currency and set for the Atlantic Ocean. A gamble if there ever was one. The moment he stepped into the lighthouse and saw the giant statue of Andrew Ryan and the banner with it, the words 'elaborate hoax' drifted through his mind. Even when he saw the city through the bathysphere window it was distant. Abstract. But setting foot in Rapture made him realize: this was real. The writer's apartment, 1952 Standing by his window, the writer wondered how all this was possible. How do you build a city under the sea? The brothers who designed it, Wales, wasn't it? They must be geniuses. He took a zip of coffee. Not like what he would have had back home, but it wasn't too bad. Starting a new life in Rapture required some changes, he had soon realized. It was three weeks since he arrived in Rapture. He had put a down payment on an apartment before coming, and though it was expensive, it was furnished by the time he moved in. A service Ryan Industries provided. Not for free, of course. It wasn't exclusively beautiful, but he had a single bed, a couch and a coffee table of coral. And, most importantly, a brand new Rapture made typewriter. There was a blank page in it, waiting to be filled with stories. He had been scared that he would come up with nothing, but after just a few days in Rapture he started getting ideas. The writer's apartment was located in Artemis Suites. It was one single room and a small kitchen and an even smaller bathroom. It had a single window which let in the ominous blue green glow of the ocean. That took some getting used to; the physical changes that came with moving to Rapture. There was no real natural light, so in order to see what he was doing he used several lamps. Right now, though, the sun must be shining over the Atlantic ocean, because the wavy moving of the ocean scattered with a brightness only seen when weather topside was good, and it danced glittering light blue on his window and on the wall in the room. Not exactly lighting he was used to. The notes for his story was handwritten and littered the coral coffee table. The writer turned from the window and started looking through the notes for a place to start. Then he left Rapture behind and sunk into fantasy. He sat down in front of the typewriter and started to write, the words flowing and the keys clicking willingly as they formed the world he was creating. Mercury Suites, 1953 Just walking around Rapture was inspiring. Wonderful how such a place could exist in the darkness of the deep. Endless ocean, almighty deep. A million years old, and you never, ever sleep. The writer was in Mercury Suites. Fancy neighborhood. And the apartments were just as fancy as the people. Far from his single room place. But he wouldn't want to live here. Not yet, at least. Maybe when he was Rapture's most famous writer and had someone to share the place with. For now he simply watched the place. The people all seemed busy, and no one met his eyes. Then again, these were important people. Back home in Artemis Suites there were mostly the working class. But he still liked coming here, sometimes. If only to watch the kind of place that a guy like him couldn't afford. From there he took the train over to Fort Frolic. Maybe when his book was released he could buy a personal bathysphere. Fort Frolic was even better than Olympus Heights and Mercury Suites. Full of people and life, and he felt included, even though no one ever noticed him. He didn't have a penny to spend there, though. The advance he'd been given by the only publishing company that wanted to take the risk wasn't very big, and he had to stretch it out. Writing a book is a long process, and he was running out of time. He was looking for a job to make some extra cash, and it seemed there might be something opening up on the leading newspaper in town, the Rapture Tribune. The editor had seen potential in his pulp fiction stories, at least. |
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Fort Frolic, 1953 Ah, here he was. Fort Frolic. Now here there were people. Always something going on. Some new exhibit by that Sander Cohen at his collection, a new play at Fleet Hall, or some exotic new dancer at Eve's Garden. In fact, one of Sander Cohen's latest songs was playing on the public address system. The writer hated that kind of music. He liked faster stuff. Stuff he felt didn't quite exist. But there were some swingy acts he liked. Overall, though, he wasn't very into the music in Rapture. Maybe he should look up Grace and see if she got her career started. As he walked, the music in the public address system shifted and became something else. He went over to Rapture Records, the store owned by the eccentric Silas Cobb, to look for albums by Grace Holloway, but he couldn't find any. There were a lot of records though. They were stacked in shelves from floor to ceiling. Evidently, by having decided he didn't like the music in Rapture, he was missing out. From there, he went over to the Pharaoh's Fortune Casino, where people were spending their money. Repulsively posh, yet at the same time approachable, the casino was ready to part any and every sucker from his hard earned Rapture dollars. The two floor enterprise had several slot machines and gambling tables and there were serving girls peddling drinks to keep the gamblers happy and spending. The writer thumbed a couple of dollar bills in his pocket. It'd be so easy to just gamble them away. Have a little fun, he told himself. No, he had to spend them more wisely. He had to go by the Farmer's Market. God, that sounded boring in comparison. Eve's Garden wasn't hard to find. The neon signs shone bright in big, bold letters. Under the name of the establishment were the three X:es that signified that children generally shouldn't be there. A place like this on the surface would have been shut down within a week. In any God fearing town, at least. There were posters advertising the dance club all around Fort Frolic, and indeed in several places all over Rapture. Many of them were specifically designed to draw attention to one miss Jasmine Jolene. Andrew Ryan's favorite gal. He felt good though, about helping the girl. It was the joy of doing a good deed. It sent good energies out into the cosmos. And while he felt good he went out from Eve's Garden - giving Jasmine Jolene what he thought was a subtle look, but which was very noticeable, as he left - and back to Pharaoh's Fortune Casino. He did have a couple of dollars in his pocket, and a few tins of potted meat in the pantry back home. The first time the writer gambled he put a coin into the slot machine, took a deep breath, and pulled the lever. It was kind of a rush, seeing the three wheels spinning. Before they stopped, he was convinced for a moment that he was going to win the jackpot. But then they did stop and they all showed different pictures and the machine fell silent. The writer chuckled, took another coin from his pocket, and even though he knew he shouldn't have, he put it into the slot machine. The lever cranked as he pulled it. A moment later the wheels started spinning anew. The first one turned up apple. And the second one turned up apple, too. Then came the clinking of coins as the third one came up apple as well. The writer's heart jumped at that. He won! Not the jackpot, but still. He wouldn't need to eat the potted meat tonight after all. He picked up his winnings. Two tries and a win. He'd still go out here a winner if he tried just one more time. He put two coins in this time. Double the winnings, he figured. The slot machine figured otherwise, and spat no coins at the third try. A serving girl came up to him, all smiles, with a drink on a tray. The Rapture Tribune, 1954 Up through the corridor of the office of Rapture's largest newspaper, the Rapture Tribune, walked a girl whose every step was an act of confidence and independence. Though she was young - just out of her teens last year - she knew what she wanted, or so she thought. She was wearing brand new clothes that she'd saved up for at her temp job, and had a camera around her neck that her parents had given her for a birthday presents many years ago. Under her arm she had a folder with some of her best and select photos and a recommendation from her former employer. Some people looked her way as she walked, maybe even wondered who she was. She held her head high and had a determined face, rounding a corner and pretending she knew precisely where to go. She'd stepped out of the elevator on the floor that the bellman had directed her to, and walked along a corridor adorned by framed first pages of old editions of the paper. It all looked very professional. With bright, scarlet dyed hair, the girl who'd never been there stood out, but she refused to be something that you just look at. Coming to Rapture a few years ago was a major life changer of course - leaving her friends and her fiancée and her studies behind on the surface. Her parents had said she was too young to marry Robert anyway; that she'd have to go to college first. But then they got the letter of recruitment, and brought her along. She'd cried, but not any longer. In her mindset, she was over it by now. Staying at her parents place she'd gotten a temp job as a clerk in a shop, meanwhile studying photography on the side. Now she considered herself good enough at it to make something of it. Just to find the way. Her heels clacked hard and loud as she walked. She wasn't used to wearing shoes with high heels and frankly, she preferred not to; she preferred a solid footing. But you do what you must in order to seem professional. The girl stopped for a few seconds, unsure of where to go, then hurried along, unwilling to seem lost. She stopped at a desk where a gentleman was sitting, working. Artemis Suites, 1954 A furry little something had been separated from its mother at birth, being as the mother had died. It had lived for some two or three months in a janitor's closet in the basement of an Artemis Suites apartment building. For these months the janitor himself cared for the little being, feeding it with milk and keeping it warm in place of its mother. But sure enough, if life starts out bad, it's liable to turn even worse. The janitor, a surly, elderly man, straight out of the stereotype, was forced to be let go. True to the spirit of Rapture, the janitor decided to leave the furry creature to fend for itself - he couldn't well bring it home, his wife would go bananas. He'd simply carried it a few floors up on his last day, and left it in the hall for someone else to find, and then he'd forgotten all about the life that he had nurtured for months. Just like that. For a long time the little fur ball sat there, exposed and alone. No one came, or even passed by. After an hour or so, it took its first, stumbling steps of a new life. One of independence, forced upon it. Its stumpy little legs carried it off, down the corridor. How could it know how to survive? Along the corridor, all doors looked the same; large, imposing, each concealing a mystery and an adventure in its own right. The furry little creature had better learn what was behind them. And beyond. Before one door, the kitten sat down. This one, this door, it would be the first. It smelled nice. He began to meow, softly, and waited patiently for a minute or so. Then the door opened. A face peeked out, wondering what that sound was. It looked to the left; no one there. It looked to the right; no one there. Might be a dense one. The kitten meowed again and stood up, tail high. The human looked down and was genuinely surprised. For a few moments they read each other. When they'd decided that they were no threats to each other's existences the writer bent down to pick the kitten up. The furry little fuss ball purred gently at that, and the writer looked into its eyes. Atlantic Express depot, 1968 Screaming in agony. What was left of a human inside the metal casing of a Big Daddy was awakened by the electric shock. There was chaos, both in and around. Splicers were shooting and firing plasmids. Among the gunfire was heard the sound of a girl screaming. With the coast clear, the newly awakened husk of a human looked around. A vast hall, ornate and beautiful, but dark and taken over by an aura of emptiness. In the middle of the hall stood a collapsed train car, since long taken out of service. All around was the musty smell of metal corroded by sea water. There were several leaks, each dripping in its own pace. At some places mere drops and at others the water gushed in, only to be drained back out to sea through the drainage system. The Atlantic Express train station gave the overwhelming feeling that the sea was reclaiming what once it lost to the greedy hands of a man. Topside, 1951 The writer stood gloomy eyed and dressed in black, and watched his father being lowered into the ground for his final rest. The coffin was polished and neat, but a few drops of rain fell upon it as it was lowered. Only the writer remained, not only at the funeral which was visited by very few people, but also in his family. No tears were shed. His father used to say 'don't cry for me. I'm already dead'. He'd been in the war and gotten home changed. The well educated man, a professor of history at the university, got home from the war different. His brother - the writer's uncle - was in the war, too. He didn't come home at all. Now the writer watched his father become one with the Earth, after struggling with health problems both physical and psychic for years. He was forty-three years old. The writer was left alone with the inheritance that had been passed on since his father's grandfather died. Dusty bones left dusty money. The writer didn't earn them. Let the bank have them. The sky was dark grey and an autumn rain was beginning to put its cold taint on the red and yellow leaves and the whole world. He left the graveyard in silence feeling the rain thump on his hair and shoulders. Just a few days earlier he quit his job at the factory. Walked into his boss' office and said 'I quit', and that's all there was to it. Didn't show up again. He didn't even tell Johnny, with whom he usually worked. And so that's why Johnny stopped by the writer's home on the day of the funeral. To ask where the hell he'd been. Johnny had probably noticed the writer changing when his father died a couple weeks back. Complete loneliness. Johnny was his only friend, really. They sometimes went bowling after work. But the writer wasn't in the mood for questions. In hindsight he was probably a bit short with Johnny, telling him he wanted to try for a writer. And he told him to go work at the factory if he liked it so much. And Johnny did go.
The last thing Johnny said to the writer was: A few hours later he returned back home, all wet from the rain and somewhat tipsy from the drinks. A couple ideas for stories in his head. Something about the moon, no doubt. He came back to the empty house where he'd lived with his father during the man's last years, and found the letter still sealed and unread on the kitchen table. All that could be heard was the ticking of the clock on the wall and the sweet drumming of the rain against the window. The darkened sky cloaked the house, and indeed the entire world,in a somber veil of silence. With a sigh he took the letter and opened it. |