BioShock: Rapture

by John Shirley

  “Do you really think so, Mr. Ryan? I mean, if you wanted to—”

  “In fact—” Ryan interrupted—with such authority that her voice cut off in midsqueak. “I’m going to help you—I’m going to pay for you to take elocution lessons. Your only weakness as an artist is … shall we call it vocal presentation. I took such lessons myself, once. You’ll sound differently—and people will look at you differently.”

  “El-o-quew-shun! Sure, I know what that is!” She seemed a bit frustrated, though. Seemed improving her elocution wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

  “I am founding … a new community,” he said, glancing about them. “In another place, some distance away. You might call it a resort—in a sense. It will take a while to complete. But, given the right dedication, you could work there—in show business. It would definitely be a new start.”

  “Where will it be exactly?”

  “Oh—foreign places. You know.”

  “Like Bermuda?”

  “Well—um, more or less. Ah, Sander!”

  “Ooh, a resort, that’d be swell!” she said, walking away but looking at him as she went—so that she almost collided with Sander Cohen.

  “Do excuse me, my dear,” Cohen muttered, with a forced smile. Cohen brightened when he saw Ryan, putting on a completely different aspect, beaming, one eyebrow arched. “Andrew! My dear fellow! You caught the show after all!”

  “We have been standing here entranced. Allow me to introduce you to Bill McDonagh.”

  “Bill, eh?” Cohen scrutinized him with sleepy eyes. “Mm—earthy!”

  “Right you are,” Bill said. “Keep the ol’ feet on the ground, me.”

  “And British! How charming. You know, just the other day I was saying to Noël Coward…” He went into a lengthy anecdote, much of which was lost in the buzz of the backstage bustle, but it seemed to be something about Coward’s rather embarrassing admiration for Cohen. “… one wishes he wouldn’t fawn so.”

  Bill noticed that Cohen’s left eyebrow seemed permanently cocked, stuck higher than the other, never going down—as if he’d been paralyzed in a condition of irony.

  “You’re a real artist, not just a cocktail wit like Noël Coward,” Ryan said, “it’s only natural the man should be overwhelmed.”

  “You are too good, Andrew!”

  It bothered Bill, hearing this man call Mr. Ryan by his first name. Didn’t seem right, somehow. He took a step back, feeling that Cohen was standing rather too near him.

  “Andrew—can I expect you at my little opening in the Village?”

  Ryan frowned. “Opening?”

  “Did you not receive the invitation? I shall have to positively flay my personal assistant alive! Ha ha! I have a bit of a gallery show, at the Verlaine Club. My new obsession. An art form almost unknown in America.” Looking sleepy eyed again, he turned to explain to Bill. “It’s a tableau vivant show.”

  “Ah yes,” Ryan said to Bill. “Tableau vivant. It’s a French artistic tradition—they pose people on a stage, in different ways, to represent scenes from history or drama. They stand there in costume … almost like sculptures.”

  “Precisely!” Cohen crowed, clapping his hands together with delight. “Living sculptures, in a way—in this case they are representing scenes from the life of the Roman emperor Caligula.”

  “Sounds fascinating,” Ryan said, frowning slightly. “Caligula. Well, well, well.”

  “My protégés, such artistic courage—they stand there posed in a state of near undress in a cold room, minute after minute, as if frozen in place!” He tossed his head like a stallion and whispered, “They’re in fierce competition to please me! Oh how hard they work at it—but art calls for an agony of self-sacrifice, for submission, an inverted immolation upon its altar!”

  “That’s what I admire about you, Sander,” Ryan said. “Your complete devotion to your art. No matter what anyone thinks! You are yourself completely. That’s essential to art, it seems to me. Expressing one’s true self…”

  But it seemed to Bill that whatever Sander Cohen really was, it was all hidden away, even as he presented another side of himself to the world with great verve. It was like there was a scared little animal looking out of his sleepy eyes. And yet he spoke with flourishes, moved with striking dynamism. Queer sort of duck.

  “I may be out of the country for your opening, I’m afraid,” Ryan was saying. “But I was just telling Jasmine—”

  “Oh—Jasmine.” Cohen shrugged dismissively. “She does have her charms. Believe me, I understand. But Andrew—I’m told that this show may close rather sooner than we expected. Dandies was to be my re-emergence, my metamorphosis! And the cocoon, I find, is rather constricting and may squeeze me out too soon—” He hugged himself tight, seemed to writhe in his own hug as he said it. “I feel positively squeezed!”

  “Artists chafe at constraint,” Ryan said, nodding sympathetically. “Don’t worry about the show—Broadway will soon be old hat. We’ll create our own venue for genius, Sander!”

  “Really! And with what sort of … scope? A large audience?”

  “You’ll see. As for scope—well, there will be plenty of people to appreciate you there. Almost a captive audience in a way.”

  “Ooh, nothing I’d like better than a captive audience! But I must away! I see Jimmy signaling desperately to me from the dressing room. Do keep me informed as to this … this new project, Andrew!”

  “You will be among the first to know when it’s ready, Sander. It will take some courage on your part”—Ryan smiled crookedly—“but if you take the leap, you’ll find yourself immersed in something beautiful.”

  They watched Sander Cohen strutting off toward the dressing rooms. It seemed to Bill that Cohen was off his trolley, but Ryan was right—genius was eccentric. As if guessing his thoughts, Ryan said, “Yes, Bill, he can be … outrageous. Exasperating. But all the great ones hurt the eyes and burn the ears a bit. He calls himself the Napoleon of Mime sometimes—and so he is, when he’s miming. Come along, Bill. We’re off to the airport. If you’re quite ready to go. Or are you having second thoughts?”

  Bill grinned. “Not me, sir. I’m in, A to Zed. I’m diving in at the deep end, Mr. Ryan…”

  4

  New York City

  1946

  “Look, Mr. Gorland—I don’t know that much about it.” Merton was sitting in the backroom of The Clanger, across from what used to be his own seat. Now Gorland was behind the desk, with Garcia standing to one side, eyeing Merton and tapping a blackjack in his palm, while on the other side was Reggie, a bruiser from the Bronx, wearing the doorman’s uniform that went with his day job.

  Gorland knew Reggie from the old days—he was one of the only people alive who knew Frank’s real last name—and he sometimes hired him as extra muscle. Tonight, Gorland had to put the fear of God into Merton. Harv Merton needed to have more fear for Frank Gorland than for the powerful Andrew Ryan.

  “I mean, if I knew anything else,” Merton went on, wringing his hands, “I’d tell ya.”

  “Hey, you got any hot advice on the horses, Merton?” Garcia, asked, grinning.

  Gorland signaled for Garcia to be quiet. The bookie shrugged, put away his sap, and took out a cigar instead. In the lull, the sound of the bar seeped through the closed door. A girl squealed with laughter; a man hooted, “Aw you don’t know nothin’ about Dempsey!”

  “Let’s all just think this through, Merton,” Gorland said, pouring Merton a drink from the bourbon bottle. “You’re telling me you got a job with Seaworthy, on the North Atlantic project, from this guy Rizzo—you were working as a steward on one of their ships. Right? And they take your ass out to the North Atlantic and keep it there for a month and a half—and you didn’t see a thing out there?”

  Gorland shoved the shot glass across the desk, and Merton snatched it up. “Thanks. Uh—that’s about the size of it. I mean … some stuff was taken down, you know, under the water. But…” He laughed nervously. “I
didn’t go down with it! They were all hush-hush about what was going on down there. Much as your life was worth to talk about it, one fella said, after he come up. I don’t know what they’re up to.”

  “You see, I know what they’re up to—in a general kind of way,” Gorland said, pouring himself a drink. “Building something big. But I don’t know what Ryan’s angle is. Where the money is. You seen ’em bring up any … ore? You know, mining goodies? Gold, silver, oil?”

  “No, nothin’ like that. Just a lotta ships. Never saw Mr. Ryan. Heard his name sometimes, that’s all. I was busy the whole time. Seasick too. I was glad to get back here and look for another job…”

  “Yeah, you’ll live to look for another job too,” Reggie said helpfully, his voice mild. “If you tell Mr. Gorland exactly what he needs to know.”

  “I swear—I didn’t find out anything else! I hardly left the galley on that big ol’ ship! Now, Frank Fontaine—he might know something. He’s got boats going out there to supply ’em with fish! And they get to talk more. You know, to the guys in the construction…”

  Gorland frowned thoughtfully. “Frank Fontaine. Fontaine’s Fisheries? He used to smuggle stuff from Cuba up here in those fishing boats of his. Now he’s delivering … fish? You kiddin’ me?”

  “I saw him on the dock—that’s what he told me! I used to buy some of the rum he smuggled up here for my … for your place.” Merton swallowed. “Fontaine says there’s more money selling fish to Ryan for that crew out there than there is selling rum to New York! They got a cryin’ need for food out there—got an army of workers to feed…”

  Gorland grunted thoughtfully to himself. That did dovetail with what he’d heard at the loading dock. The one sure way to get close to that operation … was to supply it.

  A crazy thought came to him. Bringing with it some interesting possibilities …

  But if he did go that far—and far was the word, all right—he’d be way out of his own stomping ground. He’d be splashing around in the North Atlantic.

  There was something about this secret project of Ryan’s that fascinated him, that drew him the way rumors of buried pirate gold drew a treasure hunter. Millions of dollars were being sunk into the North Atlantic. He ought to be able to scoop some of it up.

  Years ago, when “Frank Gorland” was dodging the law, he’d hopped a freight train. Riding the boxcar he’d read an old newspaper about the newly minted industrialist Andrew Ryan. There was a picture of him standing in front of a fancy building with his name on it. That picture had stirred something in him. The picture of Andrew Ryan standing there in front of the skyline of Manhattan, like he owned it, had made Frank think:

  Whatever he’s got—I want it. I’m going to take it from him …

  Could be now was his chance. But first he had to figure out what Ryan’s angle was. What he was up to—or down to—out there with a city down in the cold guts of that dark ocean …

  Somewhere over the Atlantic

  1946

  “It’s a converted Liberator, really.” Andrew Ryan led Bill McDonagh through a big, humming aircraft cabin, toward the tail. “A stratocruiser now—United Airlines has ordered eleven of them for luxury flights. But this is the prototype. Of course, this is a prop plane, but the next generation will be jets…”

  “Saw a fighter jet in the war, my last trip out,” Bill said. “ME-262 it was. German prototype. Didn’t even engage us—I reckon they were test flying…”

  “Yes,” Ryan said distractedly. “Fast and efficient, the jet engine. Haven’t bothered developing them—not as aircraft—because after the North Atlantic project we hope to need no aircraft. We’ll have a great many submersibles—and in time we’ll hardly need those. We hope to be entirely self-sufficient…”

  Submersibles? Bill must have misheard him.

  Bill had mixed feelings about being on this plane. The drone of its engines was just close enough to the sound of the bombers he’d flown on in the war. He’d taken a ship to get to the USA, after. He’d had enough of planes. Seen his best friend turned to red marmalade that last time out.

  Inside, though, this plane wasn’t much like a bomber. Except for the sound, the vibrations through the floor, the curved “inner skin,” it could easily be a luxury suite at a hotel. The Victorian-style chairs and sofas were bolted down, but they were luxurious, their silken red cushions trimmed in gold. Lace curtains were elegantly swept back from the windows with silk cords. The cabin was quietly served by three liveried servants and a chef. Behind a stainless-steel bar, an Asian servant in a red and black jacket, with gold braid, looked up attentively as they passed.

  But Ryan wasn’t after drinks yet. They passed through a red velvet curtain into an after cabin, smaller, with a metal table bolted to the center of the floor. On the table was a fairly large object, rising like a ghost under a white muslin covering. The room contained almost nothing else—except taped to one interior wall, to the left, was a full-color drawing of a crowded, highly stylized city. It reminded Bill, at first glance, of the Emerald City of Oz. Only the city in the colorful drawing appeared to be underwater—a school of colorfully sketched fish swam past its windows. Was it Atlantis, the day after it went down?

  Ryan strode dramatically up to the table and whipped off the cover. “Et voila!” he said, smiling. He had revealed a scale model of the city. It was all one structure formed of many lesser structures, all in the industrial-arts style, as if the designer of the Chrysler Building had made an entire small city to go with it. The model was about three feet high, a construction of linked towers, sheaths of green glass and chrome, transparent tubular passageways, statues, very little open space between buildings. The structure seemed quite sealed off, and indeed Bill made out what appeared to be air locks near the bases of several towers resembling artfully turned lighthouses. Outside the air lock sat the mock-up of a small submarine. Through one of the miniature city’s transparent panels he saw what looked like a tiny bathysphere, partway risen up through a vertical shaft.

  “This,” said Andrew Ryan, breathing hard as he said it, the muslin sheet dangling at his side, “is Rapture!”

  A surge of turbulence hit the plane at exactly that moment, making the model city quiver dangerously on its table.

  Bill stared at it, careful in the turbulence. “Right. Lovely, innit? Rapturous, like.”

  “No Bill—Rapture is the name of this city. What you see here is just the core, the downtown you might say. Its foundations are already under construction—a habitat for thousands of people beneath the waters of the North Atlantic.”

  Bill gaped at him. “You’re taking the piss!”

  Ryan flashed one of his pensive smiles. “But it’s true! It’s being constructed in secret—in a part of the sea rarely plied by anyone. The architecture is glorious, isn’t it? The Wales brothers designed it. Greavy’s been implementing their vision—and now so will you, Bill.”

  Bill shook his head in wonder. “It’s—being built right now?” The turbulence died down, to Bill’s relief. It brought ghostly memories of being in a plane hit by flak. “How big’s Rapture to be, then?”

  “It will be a small city, hidden away under the ocean … Miles to a side … lots of open space inside it. We don’t want claustrophobia…”

  The model’s shape reminded Bill of the densest parts of Manhattan in some ways, all those buildings packed together. But in this case the buildings were crowded even closer, and even more interconnected.

  “Do you see what’s in there, through that little window?” Ryan pointed. “That is going to be park land … a park under the sea! I call it Arcadia. We have a system for bringing reflected sunlight down, as well as electrical light. Arcadia will help provide oxygen as well as being a place for relaxation. Now here you see—”

  He broke off at a sudden rough turbulence and the boom of thunder, somewhere close at hand. Both men looked nervously at the window opposite the drawing.

  Bill put one hand to the edge of the table an
d ducked to see through the port—black and gray storm clouds billowed angrily outside, flickering with lighting. “Dodgy ride coming.”

  Another boom, another quiver, and Bill closed his eyes, trying to will away the pictures rising in his mind. The boom of a flak shell, the clatter and whine of many small, vicious impacts. Another shell exploding just outside, a section of the bomber hull suddenly gone, blown out by the Jerries. Wind roaring in through the ragged gap like a mad house invader, as Bill McDonagh, radioman, sees the curly-headed Welsh lad, a green little blighter just a week out of training, being sucked backward against a five-foot breach in the curved metal wall, pulled hard by the sudden drop in air pressure, the boy’s face contorting in terror. Bill shouts to the pilots, “Reduce altitude!” as he rushes to the young flyer, gripping a stanchion with his right hand so he can try pulling the Welsh lad back with his left—knowing full well it was no good. The boy screams as the suction around the breach jerks him harder into the jagged edge, the sharp metal ripping through his left shoulder; his blood precedes him, streaming out through the gap—and then he follows it, just gone like a magic act, vanished into the roaring sky. All that remains are scraps of torn clothes and skin flapping on the ragged edges of the bulkhead. The boy is falling somewhere, out in the gray mist. Bill clings to the stanchion as the bomber angles sharply down to equalize air pressure …

  “Bill? You all right?”

  Bill managed a sickly grin. “There’s a reason I took a ship to America ’stead of a plane, guv. Sorry. I’m all right.”

  “I think we both need a drink…”

  “Right you are, Mr. Ryan. That’s the very medicine…”

  “Let’s have a seat in the main cabin and ride out this storm. We should be at the airport in another hour or so—winds are behind us. Then it’s to the ship. Come on, I’ll have Quee pour you the best single malt you ever tasted, and I’ll tell you about the Great Chain…”

  * * *