BioShock: The Fall of Rapture

Chapter 8 Journey to the Surface

Rapture, Ryan Amusements, 1968

The Atlantic Express station for Ryan Amusements was dark, with only the sound of water leaking in from ever-growing cracks in the walls breaking the silence. Few splicers came here now.
A rumble of metal echoed through the empty space and the doors at the end of the platform began to open. Moments later, the sleek body of a railway carriage broke the surface of the entrance moon pool.
In the driver's cab, Michael waited until the carriage was level with the platform, then pulled hard on the brake, bringing it to a standstill. He pushed a small button on the control panel, and the door of the cab slid open onto the half-flooded station.
"Mind the Gap," he muttered, scratching his unshaven face.

He had been planning this moment for nearly three months, and knew this was likely his only remaining chance at escape from Rapture.
Taking a torch from his tool belt, he shone it around the ruined station. Most of the paintwork and decorative elements had been destroyed by years of decay, and the floor was lost under at least a foot of water.
"Eleanor?" he whispered into his radio, "Eleanor, are you there?"
"I'm here Michael," she replied, her voice almost lost among the static, "Are you at Ryan Amusements?"
"Yeah. Place is a wreck, but I shouldn't have trouble getting to the workshop."
"Good. There's a Little Sister waiting at the vent inside, she's got something you'll need to take with you."

He smiled. Since his escape from Fontaine Futuristics, Michael had been living a life on the run, barely managing to stay ahead of the Rapture Family. Sophia Lamb had declared him a traitor, and ordered the splicers under her command to kill him on sight. Fortunately, she was unaware that her daughter Eleanor had a strong mental connection with the new Little Sisters. This meant she had been able to send him warnings of coming attacks and even supplies.
"Got it," said Michael, "But make sure she leaves once I've got it. I don't want her hanging around."
"You worry too much," Eleanor chuckled.
"You can never worry too much in Rapture."
He grabbed a heavy backpack from beside the train's control panel and stepped onto the platform.

The water was icy cold, cutting through the worn material of his overalls and shoes.
Doing his best to ignore it, he pushed on across the station and headed for the security door at the far end. It was heavily rusted, but still managed to open, revealing a long flight of stairs.
A thin layer of water flowed down the steps, but they could still be climbed. Grabbing hold of the railing, Michael pulled himself out of the freezing water and up the stairs, his feet squelching all the way.
The stair's tiled steps had held up well, despite the years of neglect, but it was murder getting a grip on the smooth wet surface. More than once he slipped and had to hold on to the handrail for dear life, but after almost half an hour, he made it to the atrium of Ryan Amusements.

Like the station below, it had been heavily damaged by years of civil war and neglect, with rubble and overturned benches littering the floor.
Stepping carefully over the debris, Michael creped to the entrance door. It was locked, but he was able to open it using an employee key card, which Eleanor had managed to smuggle to him.
The door opened and a large object came stomping at him, a faint green glow about it. Michael raised his pistol and torch, only to lower them quickly. It was just a Big Daddy making its rounds. Pressing against the wall, he allowed the lumbering hulk to pass, filling his nose with the smell of wet dog. Once it was gone, he headed down the stairs to the lower atrium.

Like the station stairs, it was impossible to get a grip on the wet marble, and he had to grapple with the banister to stay upright. It was strange to think that the rusting hall had once been an amusement park, where happy families and couples had spent their free time.
"And the same place you were arrested."
He wondered if there was anyone besides himself who remembered the Rapture General Workers Union? Doubtful. Those members who had not been arrested during Ryan's crackdown had died during the war, or become so spliced up that their memories were nothing but a confused mess.
Reaching the cold stone floor of the lower atrium, he made his way towards a doorway with the words, Journey to the Surface, written across the top in silver letters.

"Hello Mr. Michael!"
Michael nearly jumped out of his skin. He whipped around, revolver drawn, before realising that the voice was a Little Sister, sitting on the edge of a nearby ventilation shaft.
"Yes... yes, that's me," he said, "Eleanor said you had something for me."
"Yes! Here is a present from big sister Eleanor!"
The young girl held a bundle of books out for him, her face breaking into a smile, lit up by her bright yellow eyes.
"What are they for?" he asked, carefully taking the books.
"Eleanor needs you to take them to Doctor Tenenbaum."
"Tenenbaum? But she's..."
Before he could finish, the Little Sister had vanished back into the vent.
"Stay safe little one," Michael whispered.

Shoving the books into his backpack, he headed through the entrance for the Journey to the Surface ride.
The wooden floor had rotted away in many places, so he took great care as to where he placed his footing. Before long, the entrance opened up into a large room, filled with derelict ride cars and wooden boxes. Heading down another flight of stairs to where the cars sat, he followed the track of the ride.
"Eleanor?" he said into his radio, "Are you sure about this?"
"Of course I am," she replied, "The sisters told me there was a maintenance bathysphere in the ride's old workshop. They were even able to check the systems to make sure it is still in working order."

"It's not that I don't trust you, but how much can children know about submarines?"
"You forget Michael, the sisters are my eyes and ears. There isn't anything they see that I can't."
"I still don't understand how that can work."
"Neither do I. I can only guess it's a result of ADAM, and the conditioning we were all subjected to."
Michael shuddered. When he had learned that Sophia Lamb was kidnapping girls from the surface to turn into Little Sisters, it had shaken him to the core. How could anyone want to rip so many children away from their homes?

He carried on through the ride, passing the long-ruined caricatures of the surface world.
"And now it's your ticket to getting back up there. Funny how things work out."
The tracks had a number of blockages, mostly steel beams that had fallen from the roof, but it was easy enough to climb over them.
There was a clatter of running feet somewhere out of sight, but close.
Michael turned, fumbling for his revolver, pointing the torch about wildly, but could see nothing. He finally tugged the pistol free of his belt and lined it up on the beam of torch light. There was nothing. He looked around, but still could not see anyone else.
There was a hissing sound, almost like a laugh. Michael took a step back, only to catch his foot on one of the fallen beams, causing him to fall to the floor with a crash.

The torch went out and the pistol was thrown from his hand. The footsteps were now very close, and coming fast.
Panicking, Michael searched for the revolver and his fingers closed around its barrel.
Stuffing the gun into his hand, he pointed it towards the sound of steps, but just as he got his bearings, a fist hit him hard in the stomach.
"YOU DON'T WALK OUT ON FAMILY!" screeched a high-pitched voice just inches from his ear.
Winded, Michael struck out at the assailant with the revolver's barrel, catching it around the head. They cried out in pain and backed off. Aiming where he guessed the thing was, he fired. The muzzle flashed and there was a brief glimpse of a horribly deformed face before it disappeared into the darkness.

Taking deep breaths, he searched the floor and found his torch lying nearby. He switched it on and found it still worked, though the bulb only glowed dimly.
"Michael? Michael? Are you alright?" came Eleanor's voice.
"Yeah, I'm fine, he answered, just got jumped by a splicer."
"As if getting attacked by some genetic freak is something normal."
Readjusting his backpack, he hurried down the ride tracks. Now that a gun had been fired, splicers would be drawn to his location before long. It took several minutes of clambering over piles of rubble and fallen beams, but eventually, he passed the mock-up of a city slum, and saw what he was looking for. A staff-only door, marked with a blue cross.
Opening it, he entered a dimly lit workshop, lit by a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The floor was strewn with discarded tools and a long-dead body. None of that mattered to Michael however as he looked out of the sea window, and saw the one thing he had not dared hope for.
A bathysphere.

The craft was docked behind a round airlock door, but Michael knew how to deal with that.
"Eleanor, it's here, you were right!" he said into his radio.
"I knew it would be," her voice crackled gleefully.
Since going on the run, Eleanor had kept him updated on her mother's activities.
After finding out that Lamb was planning to subject her to a massive dose of ADAM, to turn her into some type of 'living computer', Eleanor had made plans to escape. Coming to the conclusion that they would need help, she had hatched a plan for Michael to make his way to the surface and recruit others. Though he had his doubts, Michael had kept them to himself. After all, what did he have to lose at this point?

Working fast, he hurried over to the first airlock door and turned a brass wheel, set in the middle. It unlocked without difficulty, but the hydraulics that would have opened the door before had long since broken down, and he had to pull it open by hand. Once it was wide enough, he climbed into the small square airlock that separated the bathysphere from the rest of the city.
"Michael," said Eleanor.
"Yes?" he replied, now working to open the door to the bathysphere.
"I just wanted to say thank you, for always being kind to me."
"Just trying to be a good human being."
"There's.... there's something I never told you."

"What's that?"
"You know that I said I can't remember much of my time as a Little Sister? That's true, for the most part, but there are some things I do recall."
Michael paused what he was doing.
"Like what?"
"When my father was.... murdered, I remember that you tried to comfort me, even when mother threatened to kill you."
"Your father?" he said, puzzled.
He had learned that the creature Lamb had forced to kill itself that night had been a prototype Big Daddy, but never thought it was family.
"Not literally," Eleanor explained, "When I was... changed, I was bonded for life to a single Big Daddy. He was the only person that I could depend on, and mother took him away in the blink of an eye."

Despite speaking over a radio, the fury in her voice was raw and clear.
"Eleanor," said Michael, feeling a rush of sympathy, "I'm so sorry, I never knew."
"Few did, and it's why I asked the sister to bring those books to you. Mother has to be stopped and only Brigid Tenenbaum has the means to do it."
"But Eleanor, no one's seen Tenenbaum in years. She's most likely dead by now."
"No, I know she escaped the city, and from the little information my mother gets from the surface, she's still alive."
"And you really think she's gonna help?"
"I-"
Eleanor's voice suddenly disappeared.

"Hello?" said Michael, puzzled, "Eleanor? What's going on?"
The radio crackled into life again, but it was not the girl who spoke.
"Michael," said the cool feminine voice of Sophia Lamb, "You've disappointed me greatly."
He felt his blood run cold.
"You were a core member of our family for years," Lamb went on, "And now, when we are so close to achieving our goals, you abandon us."
Ignoring the radio, he started opening the bathysphere, when a shout came from the ride.
"HE'S THIS WAY! COME ON!"
Splicers.
Jumping out of the airlock, Micheal ran to the workshop door and slammed it shut, jamming a length of pipe against the handle.

With the door barricaded for the moment, he darted back across the room and searched his backpack for a few seconds before pulling out a bomb.
There was a bang on the door.
"DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY! HE KNOWS TOO MUCH!"
Working fast, Micheal armed the bomb and placed it against the door before jumping back into the airlock. Opening the bathysphere's door, he climbed inside and began activating its controls.
"Do you really think there is anything for you on the surface Michael?" said Sophia, "You forget, you told me why you came to Rapture."
Micheal picked up the radio and said two words.
"Shut it!"
Before Lamb could reply, he switched off the radio and threw it to one side. He was not going to let her get into his head anymore.

The bathysphere's motors whirled into life. It was ready to go.
Micheal began to close the airlock, when the workshop door crashed open and splicers piled through, a mass of twisted flesh and hateful faces.
One aimed a pistol at him, when the bomb exploded.
The blast ripped through the workshop and splicers, scattering tools and chunks of flesh across the room. Though he was mostly protected by the airlock door, the shockwave still hit Michael hard, throwing him against the wall and making his head spin.
"Move," he hissed, "Move!"

Pushing himself upright, he closed the airlock and crawled into the bathysphere. After closing the second airlock door, he sealed the bathysphere and reached up for a large red handle with white lettering painted across it.
RELEASE
"Goodbye Rapture," he muttered.
He pulled down hard on the handle. There was a grumble of something metallic and suddenly the bathysphere jolted upward as it came free of its mooring.
"It worked! It really worked!"
Turning his attention to the controls, he entered a series of commands, and the submarine powered away from the rusting walls of Rapture as it began to ascend.

With the craft underway, Michael turned his attention to his backpack and took out a metal box. It was about the size of a lunchbox and had a panel on top covered with dials, switches, light bulbs, and a small television screen. Placing the box on his lap, Michael turned two of the dials until a green light flickered on, giving off a sickly glow in the darkness of the bathysphere. He then switched on the television screen. It waved into life and showed a sonar display which gave off a pulse of sound every few seconds. At that moment all that showed up was the mass of Rapture moving further and further away. Michael leaned forward and watched intently, waiting for that to change.
After a few seconds, a small object flew out from the mass of Rapture and headed towards him. It was a torpedo.
Michael began turning one of the dials on the box as the blobby profile of the torpedo came closer and closer, until a red light lit up.
"Let's hope this works."

He punched a switch next to the red light. Suddenly the blob on the radar disappeared and a low rumble went through the bathysphere as it was shaken by the exploding projectile.
Two more torpedoes flew out from Rapture.
Once again he tuned the box to the torpedo's control frequency, hitting the switch when the red light came on, and soon two more explosions rocked the craft.
More torpedoes sped out from the city, but Michael took them down.
Suddenly the lights on the box died as two more torpedoes were fired at him. Frantically Michael opened the box and searched through the mess of wires for the problem, soon finding a blown fuse. He tore it out and searched his bag for a new one. The torpedoes could strike any moment.

He finally found a spare fuse and clumsily loaded it into the box before smacking the top down. Desperately, he turned the dial to find the torpedoes frequencies. The light turned red and one of the torpedoes disappeared from the radar screen. The second kept coming however. He turned the dial, but the light remained off. The torpedo was less than 20 metres away, then 15, then 10. Suddenly the light turned red. He hit the switch and the torpedo exploded, just 5 metres away, sending the bathysphere spinning wildly. Michael was slammed against the back of the craft and there was a blinding flash of pain as he cracked his head on a length of pipe.

Trying to right himself, he grabbed hold of the side of the bathysphere, shaking his head to clear it. The craft had been plunged into darkness by the torpedo's blast, and now only an emergency light cast a dim red glow over everything.
Michael turned to the radar screen to see if any more torpedoes had been fired, but to his relief, the sea was empty of weapons. Lamb must have thought the last explosion had destroyed him.
"Here's to hoping she keeps believing that."
The bathysphere was in a bad way, and it only got worse as he looked around. Most of the electrics had been damaged by the shockwave, and water was leaking in around the edge of the door. Nonetheless, the craft kept rising, heading toward the faint glow of sunlight above.

Slowly the light became stronger and stronger, until, with a great woosh, the bathysphere crashed through the water's surface in a shower of foam.
Michael wasted no time. He fumbled at the door and threw it open. There was a hiss of air as the hatch opened and he fell face-first into the freezing sea.
Coughing and spluttering, he pulled himself out of the water and looked up, and for the first time in over twenty years, was blinded by the bright white disk that was the sun.

Blinking furiously to clear his vision, he climbed back into the bathysphere and searched for its survival kits. He quickly found two metal boxes clipped to the wall, one marked RATIONS and the other EMERGENCY RAFT in faded stencilled letters. Grabbing the latter and placing it in the water outside, he aimed the lid of the box away from the craft and undid its catches. In response, the lid shot off out to sea and a yellow rubber raft began to inflate itself from the box. Before long, the hiss of air stopped, and the raft took on a hexagon form, resting on the surface of the water.

Michael threw the supply locker and his backpack into the raft and climbed on board himself, just as water began to flood the bathysphere. He pushed off from the craft with his foot, sending the raft drifting into the sea. As the bathysphere sunk, Michael noticed the Rapture lighthouse in the distance, still standing after the years of madness below.
Turning away from it, he went to check what supplies the locker had, when he knocked his backpack over, spilling its contents onto the raft's rubber floor. He started shoving the various odds and ends back into the bag, when he noticed the bundle of books the Little Sister had given to him. He picked them up and looked at the cover of the first one. In neat, curly handwriting were the words, Gilbert Alexander Research Notes 1955-1963.
"Why would Eleanor want to give these to Tenenbaum?" he thought.

Deciding to put them out of his mind for the time being, he stuffed the books back into his bag and opened the supply box, finding a brass flare pistol. Checking that a cartridge was loaded, he placed it to one side, then drew his revolver from his belt. Breaking open the cylinder, he found it had three rounds left.
"Wonder which one I'll need first," he muttered, closing up the revolver and placing it next to the flare gun.
With nothing else to do, Michael settled back against the side of the raft, and, for the first time that day, rested. Eventually, his eyelids became heavy, and he slept, letting the wind and currents carry the raft across the emptiness of the Atlantic Ocean.

The End