BioShock: Rapture

by John Shirley

  He pointed at Gravenstein with his cigar as he walked up. “What’s this little liar here yellin’ about, Mr. Ryan?”

  Ryan ignored Shep. “Why should this man be responsible for your trash, Gravenstein?”

  Bill could guess why. He remembered that Shep here had diversified …

  “First of all,” the smaller man said, shaking, clearly trying not to shout at Ryan, “it’s not all mine!”

  “Feh!” Shep said, chuckling. “Prove it!”

  “Some of it’s mine—but some of it’s his, Mr. Ryan! And as for what’s mine—he runs the only trash-collection service around here! He bought it two months ago, and he’s using it to run me out of business! He’s charging me ten times what he charges everyone else for trash collection!”

  Bill was startled. “Ten times?”

  Shep chuckled and tapped cigar ash onto the pile of garbage. “That’s the marketplace. We have no restraints here, right, Mr. Ryan? No price controls! Anyone can own anything they can buy and run it how they like!”

  “The market won’t bear that kind of pricing,” Bill pointed out.

  “He only charges me that price!” Gravenstein insisted. “He’s my grocery competitor! He’s got more business than I do, but it’s not enough; he wants to corner the grocery business around here, and he knows if garbage piles up because I can’t afford to pay him to take it away, nobody’ll come to shop at my place! And nobody does!”

  “Looks like you’ll have to move it out yourself,” Ryan said, shrugging.

  “Who’ll look after my shop while I do that? It’s a long ways to the dump chute! And I shouldn’t have to do that, Mr. Ryan; he shouldn’t be gouging me, trying to run me out of business!”

  “Shouldn’t he?” Ryan mused. “It’s not really a business practice I admire. But the great marketplace is like a thriving jungle, where some survive and become king of their territory—and some don’t. It’s the way of nature! Survival of the fittest weans out the weaklings, Gravenstein! I advise you to find some means of competing—or move out.”

  “Mr. Ryan—please—shouldn’t we have a public trash-collection service?”

  Ryan raised his eyebrows. “Public! That sounds like Roosevelt—or Stalin! Go to one of Shep’s competitors!”

  “They won’t come clear over here, Mr. Ryan! This man controls trash pickup in this whole area! He’s out to get me! Why, he’s threatening to buy the building and have me evicted, Mr. Ryan! Now I believe in competition and hard work, but—”

  “No more whining, Gravenstein! We do not fix prices here! We do not regulate! We do not say who can buy what!”

  “Hear that, Gravenstein?” Shep sneered. “Welcome to the real world of business!”

  “Please, Mr. Ryan,” Gravenstein said, hands balling into fists at his sides. “When I came down here, I was told I’d have an opportunity to expand, to grow, to live in a place without taxes—I gave up everything to come here! Where am I to go, if he drives me out? Where can I go? Where can I go!”

  A muscle in Ryan’s face twitched. He looked at Gravenstein with narrowed eyes. His voice became chilled steel. “Deal with it as a man should, Gravenstein—do not whine like a child!”

  Gravenstein stood there, shaking helplessly, pale with rage—then he ran back into his store. Bill’s heart went out to him. But Ryan was right, wasn’t he? The market had to be unregulated. Still, there were other problems cropping up in Rapture from predatory types …

  “Say there, Ryan,” Shep said, “how about coming in the office for a drink, eh?”

  “I think not, Shep,” Ryan growled, walking away. “Come along, Bill.” They strode onward, and Ryan sighed. “That man Shep is an odious sort. He’s little better than a mafioso. But the marketplace must be free, and if some eggs are broken to make that omelet, well…”

  There was a shout from behind. And a yell of fear.

  Bill and Ryan turned to see Gravenstein, hands trembling, pointing a pistol at Shep in the midst of the passageway. Gravenstein shouted, “I’ll deal with it like a man, all right!”

  “No!” Shep shouted, stumbling back, the cigar flopping from his mouth.

  Gravenstein fired—twice. Shep shrieked, clutching himself, staggering with each shot—and then fell like a great sack of dropped groceries onto the passageway floor.

  “Dammit!” Ryan grunted. “That, now, is against the rules! I’ll have a constable on the man!”

  But that would not be necessary. As Bill watched, Gravenstein put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger.

  Sofia Lamb’s Office

  1950

  Sofia Lamb balanced her notebook on her knee, poised her pen, and said, “Tell me about this feeling of being trapped, Margie…”

  “There’s one way I can get out of this burg, Doc,” Margie said in a flat voice. “If I kill myself.” She sat up on the therapy couch and chewed a knuckle. She was a slender, long-legged, brown-haired woman in a simple blue dress, worn-out white flats, a small, shabby blue velvet hat. The paint on her fingernails hadn’t been renewed for a long time; they were patchy red. Margie had a sweet, lightly freckled face with large brown eyes, her face going a bit round, and her belly pooching out—she was a couple of months pregnant. “But maybe not. Maybe killing yourself doesn’t get you out either.” Her large brown eyes seemed to get larger as she added in a whisper, “I’ve heard there’s ghosts in Rapture…”

  Sofia leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “Ghosts are in people’s minds—so is the idea that you have to escape. That’s just … just a notion that’s haunting you. And … after what you’ve been through…”

  “What I been through—maybe I got only myself to blame.” She wiped tears away and took a deep breath. “They said I’d have a career as an entertainer here. I shoulda known better, Doc. My ma always said, you don’t get a free ride in this world, and she was right. Ma died when I was sixteen, my pop was long gone, so I was on my own, working as a taxi dancer when I got recruited for Rapture. I come here, fulla hopes and dreams, end up in that strip joint in Fort Frolic. Eve’s Garden, what a joke! All the big shots come there, grinnin’ like apes at the girls. I’ve seen Mr. Ryan there even. When he got interested in Jasmine Jolene—what airs she put on, I can tell ya! The manager of that place, I wouldn’t have sex with him. So he fired me! It’s not supposed to be part of my job…”

  “Naturally not…” Sofia wrote, Consistent pattern of disappointed expectations in patients.

  “So I tried to get work some other place in Rapture—waitressing, ya know? Nope, no work. Sold most of my clothes. Ran out of money, ran outta food. Living on stuff cadged outta trashcans. Asked to be taken back to the surface. No way, sister, they tell me. Never thought I’d ever end up a whore. A little dancing for money, sure, but this—selling my ‘assets’ to those fishermen down at Neptune’s Bounty! All the damn day in the bar—or on my back in the rooms they got out behind. And Fontaine—he said I had to give him a percentage. My ma always said so: I get stubborn—and I told him to go to hell on a sled. He tells that Reggie to knock me around.”

  Sofia clucked her tongue sympathetically, and wrote, No recourse for those stricken by bad luck. No WPA here. Nothing to catch those who fall. Enormous potential for social ferment.

  “You’re in my care now,” Sofia said soothingly. Her heart was wrenched at Margie’s story. “I can even offer you a job.”

  “What kinda work?”

  “Gardening, assisting. I intend to start a new program I’m calling Dionysus Park. Nothing you’ll have to be ashamed of. But I will need something from you. I need your trust. Your complete trust.”

  Margie sniffled, and her eyes welled with tears. “Gee, if you’ll help me—gosh, you got it, Doc! I’ll trust you from here to the stars!”

  “Good!” Sofia smiled.

  If you could get people to trust you, really trust you—you would get their loyalty too.

  And she would need loyalty, unthinking loyalty, for what she had in mind. A gradua
l revolution, first in mind and then in fact—transforming Rapture from within …

  Between Neptune’s Bounty and Olympus Heights

  1951

  Frank Fontaine felt like a fat kid with the keys to a candy store.

  Gliding through the sea in his private, radio-controlled bathysphere, from Neptune’s Bounty to the station for Olympus Heights and Mercury Suites—past neon signs for several shops, including one of his own—Fontaine reflected on what a feast Rapture was for a man like him. Ryan kept business regulations to the absolute minimum. If you had enough Rapture dollars to hire a space from Ryan Industries, you could open pretty much any business you wanted. Fontaine had even cultivated one of Ryan’s bookkeepers, Marjorie Dustin. As long as he diddled Marjorie every so often and kicked her some cash, she cheerfully added forty percent, on paper, to his fresh fish take—Ryan Industries was paying for forty percent more fish than they received.

  He knew Ryan had men keeping an eye on him. That very morning Fontaine had spotted that Russian thug Karlosky following him through the Lower Concourse. Ryan was setting up security cameras around Rapture. Not a lot of them yet, but more were coming—and Ryan controlled them. Hard to keep a secret for long from those cameras.

  Fontaine watched an enormous fish with a gigantic mouth swim past. He had no idea what kind it was—it swiveled an eye to look through his bathysphere port, seeming intrigued. Fontaine shook his head, amused at how much he’d grown accustomed to living in a giant aquarium. Maybe someday, when he’d gotten control of Rapture, he could use the undersea city as his base for forays onto dry land. He’d always have a place to escape to, where the cops would never find him …

  Fontaine caught a glimpse of one of his own subs sliding by below, heading toward the underwater wharf entrance, dragging a net full of glistening silvery fish. Silver—like silver dollars. Cash just swam along in the sea, and all you had to do was find some sucker to scoop it up for you. Sometimes he thought he was the only guy in the world who wasn’t a sucker.

  People in Rapture were getting sick of eating fish. Fontaine had started smuggling in beef, which was all but impossible to get in Rapture otherwise. Shortage was opportunity. A lot of these saps were even feeling short on religion, so Fontaine brought in Bibles. Which was sure to make Ryan angry. Ryan hated religion—whereas Fontaine simply laughed at it.

  The bathysphere arrived at the station, locked into place, and Fontaine emerged. He hurried past a group of snazzy partiers heading through the Metro for one of the nightclubs. The overhead lights were dimming, as they were designed to do in the evening, to give people in Rapture a more normal sense of night and day.

  Fontaine took a tram up to Olympus Heights, and then the elevator to his place in Mercury Suites. He arrived just in time to grab a quick bite before his meeting. He walked through the marble-lined rooms, past small bronze statues of dancing women and the comforting paintings of New York City scenes. He did miss New York.

  He sat at a marble-topped, gold-legged table by the big window looking out on the blue, lamplit sea, where glowing purple jellyfish wafted by like skirts on invisible dancing girls.

  His cook Antoine made him beef bourguignon with seaweed and a few lonely leafs of lettuce on the side. He drank a glass of a pretty dull Worley wine, and then the doorbell rang. Reggie let them in.

  “Da boss’s in here,” Reggie said.

  Reggie ushered Dr. Suchong and Brigid Tenenbaum into the sitting room. “Keep an eye on the door, Reggie,” Fontaine said. “We don’t wanna be interrupted…”

  “Sure thing, boss.”

  Dr. Yi Suchong was still wearing a long white lab coat over a shabby suit peppered with rusty spots that looked like bloodstains. Brigid Tenenbaum wore a calf-length blue dress. She walked somewhat awkwardly in red pumps, clearly unused to them. She was a young woman—the wunderkind they’d called her. Her face, however, its angularity reflecting Belorussia, was marked by experience. There was a cold distance in it. Fontaine understood that distance. He didn’t let anyone close to him either. But there was something almost robotic in her movements. And she never met his eyes, though sometimes he felt her watching him.

  She obviously dressed up for the meeting, with a touch of lipstick, awkwardly applied. She wasn’t so bad, despite her tobacco-stained teeth and chewed-down fingernails.

  As they sat on ornate sofas across from each other, Fontaine ran a hand over his bald head, wondering if he should grow out his hair—but women seemed to like him bald. “May I smoke, please?” she asked.

  “Sure you can. Have one of mine.” He passed her the ornate silver cigarette box he kept on the coral and glass coffee table.

  She took a cigarette with trembling fingers, inserting it into an ivory holder she produced from a small pocket in her dress. Fontaine lit it with a silver lighter shaped cunningly like a seahorse. She glanced at him as she blew smoke toward the ceiling—then looked quickly away.

  Both of the scientists, sitting widely apart, seemed quite stiff and formal. Seemed like they didn’t trust him. They’d get over it when he started shoveling mounds of money over them. Something nice and cozy about a blanket of cash.

  Suchong was a lean Korean, wearing wire-rim glasses. He must’ve been twice Tenenbaum’s age. She didn’t at all seem in awe of him, though he had a string of degrees.

  “How about some wine?” Fontaine asked.

  She said yes and Suchong said no at precisely the same instant. Suchong laughed nervously. Tenenbaum just stared fixedly at the end of her cigarette.

  Fontaine got wine for himself and her and said, “Dr. Suchong—I understand you’ve been working for Ryan Industries.”

  Suchong sighed. “Suchong works for himself. There is the Suchong Institute and Laboratories. But—contracts with Ryan and Sinclair, yes…”

  “And Miss Tenenbaum—you’re working … as a free agent?”

  “Yes. This is a good description.” She looked past him, over his shoulder, as if she were trying to give the impression of looking at him without quite being able to.

  “This is where I say, You’re all wondering why I called you here,” Fontaine said, putting down his wineglass. “I asked you two here because I’m thinking there’s bigger opportunities in this science stuff than I ever thought of. I’ve got people who work for Ryan giving me the inside skinny. What I hear, you two are feeling somewhat frustrated.”

  Tenenbaum bobbed her head, her eyes flickering at everything but Fontaine. “This is true, what you say. Ryan says work on anything—but research costs money. Financial support is, what is the word—inconsistent.” She flicked her eyes at Suchong. “Dr. Suchong does not wish to make Mr. Ryan angry—but we both need … more!”

  Suchong frowned. “Woman, do not speak for me.” But he didn’t deny it was true.

  They were ripe and ready to pluck. “Well now,” Fontaine said, “given the right situation, the three of us could start our own little research team. Suchong, I understand you’re working on a new kind of tobacco?”

  “Not precisely.” Suchong’s accent was heavy—it took Fontaine a moment to translate plee-cise-lee into precisely. “Suchong alters genetics of another plant to make nicotine. Make nicotine in sugarcane! We will extract and make ‘Nico-treats.’ Nicotine candy!”

  “Clever!” Fontaine said, grinning. “Yeah, I’ve been reading up on this whole genetics business. You could make all kinds of things by switching genes around, seems to me. Maybe miniature cattle we could keep down here somewhere for fresh beef, yeah? And from what I hear, you could switch a person’s genes around. You could make changes in people, right?”

  Her frown deepened into a scowl, which she directed at the floor. “What do you know of that?”

  “Just rumors. That you’re paying for some kind of special sea slug. I hear you’ve bought ten of them…”

  She nodded once, briskly. “I would buy more if I could. No ordinary sea slug. This species is a living miracle! I asked Ryan to help fund these experiments. He was not
listening.” She sniffed, taking her cigarette butt from the holder and dropping it vaguely toward the ashtray. It fell onto the table and smoldered there. She gnawed at a nail, her eyes unfocused, seeming halfway in another world, oblivious as Fontaine reflexively put the cigarette out in the ashtray.

  Making a sudden awkward pushing gesture with her hand, she went on, “Ryan, he put me off! ‘Maybe later,’ all this sort of thing.”

  “You on the point of a breakthrough?”

  “Perhaps.” She glanced at Suchong. He shrugged.

  Fontaine smiled. “Then it’s something I want to invest in. I’ll pay well for a stake—and Ryan doesn’t have to know about it. When you’re ready, you can come and work for me completely. Both of you! I figure this genetics dodge could be the wave of the future—and I’ve got a few things in mind. The two of you could work on it—Suchong could bring you into his lab, and I could pay your salary, for now … Maybe get this guy Alexander involved. Only I don’t want Ryan to know about any of this. I want it on the QT, see. He’ll move in and take anything we come up with otherwise—and he’ll find some excuse to keep all the rights to himself.”

  Tenenbaum smiled crookedly. “Meanwhile, Ryan pays for Suchong’s expensive lab, yes?”

  “Why not let him pay for the big stuff?” Fontaine said, toying with his wineglass. “I’m doing good here—but Ryan controls more resources in Rapture. He’s got deeper pockets. For now.”

  “Suchong needs more research money, yes!” said the Korean abruptly. “But also need something else.” He put his hands on his knees, leaned stiffly forward, his eyes washing out behind his glasses as they caught the sea lights from the window. “Yes. We both think of altering human genes. Difficult to do without humans! What Suchong really needs is—young humans! Their cells have very much more possibility. But—everyone crazy about children! Overprotect them!” He made a face. “Vile creatures, children—”

  “Don’t much like kids, eh?”

  “Suchong grow up in a household where my father is very poor servant, only children there the brats of rich man. They treat me like dog! Children are cruel. Must be trained like animals!”