darling it's better down where it's wetter

[did_unkindly]

It's been a day, it's been a day, it's been a whole damn day -- as near as it's possible to tell in this soggy excuse for a city. It's been a day since he killed Fontaine. And Jack is no closer to getting out. He's still down here. He did everything he was supposed to do and he's still down here.

All he's found is locked-down bathyspheres. Broken submarines. Even the goddamn boats are out of service. Where's Tenenbaum? Where's his fucking rescue?

Jack stares about into the greenish gloom, checks the ammo in his pistol, and then kicks and yanks off the rusting panel of a vending machine. His hands are soon full of little wires and pipes. A few seconds later, he straightens up with a grunt, and the machine gives him a tidy discount on a couple glowing hypos of EVE.

With his visit extended indefinitely, he's begun to wonder how many of them are left.

Now arbitrarily divided into chapters!
Part One: A Scene at the Rapture Adoption Agency ~or~ You Found [Pot of Ham]!
Part Two: Come On-A My House, I'm Gonna Give-A You Candy ~or~ Sinclair? More Like Sin Pantalones!
Part Three: Dream Sequences are a Fresh New Concept in Fiction ~or~ It's My Existential Trauma and I'll Cry if I Want To
Part Four: Southern Education Jokes ~or~ Engineer, Engifar, Engiwherever You Are ~or~ The Grave Escape
Part Five: Golfing Accident Memoirs ~or~ Mom... Dad... I'm Immortal ~or~ How To Make Friends And Immolate People
Part Six: Is It A Pie? Is It A Plane?? ~or~ Two's Company, Three's a Row
Part Seven: Escort Missions! In Rapture! Council's In An Uproar ~or~ Bioshock: Cheesecake Edition
Part Eight: Bread, Milk, BATTLE! ~or~ Pleasant Conversations, How They Bore Me
Part Nine: Choices, Schmoices ~or~ Baby's First Moral Philosophy ~or~ Go Away I Want To Take A Damn Bath
Part Ten: A Man Snoozes; A Slave Delays ~or~ The Four Second Rule Applies To Drugs
Part Eleven: A Hearty Meal ~or~ Skeletons In The-- That's Not A Closet
Part Twelve: We All Live in a Secret Submarine ~or~ Plasmids: Not Even Once
Part Thirteen: Paging Dr Tenenbaum To Surgery ~or~ Bribery And Deduction
Part Fourteen: The Prodigal Son Returns

Comments

[modestman]

Shooting range, why is Sinclair not surprised. It's almost like Jack was born for serving up headshots to rabid splicers.

"My granddaddy gave me my first shotgun when I was about twelve years old, tried to teach me how to shoot but I was never much good at it. Aim was always just a fraction to the right, couldn't ever seem to make up for it," he says, squinting one eye shut and holding his arm out to try and illustrate the scenario. "Who gave you your first gun?"

He's interested. Really. Jack's life story is fascinating, he's sure.

[did_unkindly]

And there it is. There's the wall.

Fontaine's people must've wanted to stop him from wondering how come he could shoot. But apparently they paid less attention to crafting a backstory that nobody would ask for.

He tries, furrowing his brow, but it's just not there. The statement, '________ gave me my first gun'. It's as absent as the other ones are ingrained.

Not the first time this has happened since he found out and really started thinking. But it still unsettles the shit out of him.

Quickly: "I don't remember."

[modestman]

Sinclair gives him a surprised look. "Everybody remembers their first gun, chief. Do you at least remember how old you were when you got it?"

[did_unkindly]

Probably less than a year old HA HA HA...

...HA...

"Pretty young."

Without looking at it, he fishes in the cabinet behind him and comes up with a cake bar. Jack is going to eat his feelings.

[modestman]

So Sinclair supposes the question now is whether Jack genuinely does not remember these things or if he just really does not want to talk about it. He watches Jack enthusiastically tear open a cake wrapper and shove it in his mouth (the cake, not the wrapper, although he appears to be hungry enough to eat both).

"When was the last time you ate, son? I mean real food. You look famished."

[did_unkindly]

He looks at Sinclair in surprise, because dang this guy is leading the conversation all over the shop. He answers readily, though. With his mouth full.

"On the airplane I had broccoli and steak and uh... potatoes."

(he didn't finish the broccoli)

(but they gave him dessert anyway)

[modestman]

So it's been days, that explains a lot. "Where're you staying?" he asks.

This is probably a bad idea, but he can't help but feel a little sympathy for Jack. And after all, he'll be useless if he's too hungry and tired to function.

[did_unkindly]

That and his completely insane metabolism. He swallows the cake.

"Wherever I can."

He's tried fortifications, but he's a fighter, not a builder or a mechanic. The splicers always get in and he has to move on and find a new place to sleep. He hasn't done more than cat-nap since he got here and it isn't doing much for his nerves.

[modestman]

Sinclair exhales, fighting with himself. Inviting Jack back to the place where he sleeps, where he keeps his belongings, is an act of trust he hasn't afforded anyone else since he came to Rapture. But then again, he hasn't been this pinched for a second pair of hands since he came here either. And so when he speaks, it's with no small amount of reluctance, though he does a rather excellent job of coming off as warm and inviting.

"Well that won't do at all, we're not gonna get very far with you stumbling over yourself in exhaustion. I've got a sofa with your name on it, kid."

[did_unkindly]

Well it sounds enthusiastic enough, and Jack isn't as sharp as Sinclair when it comes to reading the subtext. But whatever its tone, the offer takes him completely by surprise.

Staring a little, he answers without thinking.

"Thank you, mister Sinclair."

[modestman]

"Don't thank me yet," he laughs, pushing himself up from his seat. "I can't speak to how comfortable that sofa is."

And in his head, he's counting all the things he might need to lock up or hide away, the valuables and the things he would just plain rather not have Jack see. There doesn't seem to be too much, not that he can think of anyway, but there's nothing to say Jack's not going to try to take off in the middle of the night with anything he can sell. It's a risk, but then again Sinclair sincerely doubts Jack is going to be able to come up with a better way to get back to the surface. Another way, maybe, but not one that's going to secure him a happy life.

"I've got a place up in Olympus Heights. I'd say it's a walk, but it looks like you've got that part covered."

[did_unkindly]

Olympus Heights? Uh, Jack has done some sightseeing there, and...

"But that's full of splicers."

(says the guy whose hand was on fire not half an hour ago)

[modestman]

Sinclair shakes his head. "I've got another way in. And once we're in there, we're golden. Nobody gets past my turrets."

Yeah, okay, there's a little excess pride in his tone but he set up those turrets himself. They've been there for a while, they hold a pretty impressive record.

[did_unkindly]

"I probably could."

It's not exactly a boast. He's gotten past a lot of turrets, is what he's saying.

[modestman]

"You've also got a little more up here than most of them splicers who crawl around Olympus," Sinclair says, tapping his temple. "We'll be safe, no one's getting in who ain't supposed to be there."

[did_unkindly]

...

That actually makes him feel a little bit better about himself.

He nods, accepting the claim, and pushes himself forwards so that he's no longer leaning back against the cabinet. Settles into a resting pose that's ready to move, like a soldier at ease.

"When do we go?"

He's over his hissy fit, and now he's looking at Sinclair for direction.

[modestman]

To be fair, it was a hard earned hissy fit.

"We can go right now, if you want," Sinclair says, pulling his pistol out of a drawer in his desk and holstering it. "I could go for another trip in the bathysphere. All this walking wears me out." He walks to the door and holds it open, allowing Jack to step out and lead the way if he chooses.

[did_unkindly]

Jack nods, quickly breaks his revolver to check ammunition, snaps it back together and then heads out the door at a cautious pace.

He pats his belt as he goes. There's the wrench, heavy and reassuring. There are the pockets full of ammunition, and those two hypos safe in a hanging pocket under his shapeless jumper. He has plenty of places to store things, and not a one isn't utilised for instruments of destruction. And out there in the city he's hidden bigger weapons, the research camera, the deadly chemical thrower with its preciously rare ammo. Jack Ryan is kind of a powerhouse.

The pistol goes away and the shotgun comes off his back. Break, check ammo -- it's running on empty, he finds, and so as he leads the way he pushes heavy electric buck into its chamber. Fast, deliberate, efficient. It's second nature.

[modestman]

Really if Jack had no other uses, Sinclair might have just hired him on as a bodyguard. He'd noticed how heavily armed he was, but it hadn't really hit him just how efficient Jack probably is with all of those weapons until just now, watching him check and reload and switch and check and reload.

Following him is definitely not objectional.

He doesn't speak again until they're safely inside the bathysphere, headed to Olympus Heights.

"From the docks we can head into the hall and there's a locked door down a few yards to the left. I'm gonna need to disable my turrets for you, so you may need to wait just a minute outside once we get there," Sinclair warns him, although not with too much urgency. It is useful information, but he says it mostly to take up air space. Somehow being in a silent room with Jack Ryan is about three times as intense as it would be with anyone else.

[did_unkindly]

Jack nods.

He's looking balefully out of the window at Olympus Heights. Its black shape looms out of the greenish blanket of the sea and the neon splashes of the city itself. And one bit in particular stands out, at least in Jack's eyes: the skyscraper raised out of a skyscraper, Frank Fontaine's erstwhile apartment.

The windows are dark. The windows will be dark for a very long time.

[modestman]

It's impossible not to look at Rapture's skyline when it's there in front of you. From any sort of distance, it's still exactly the marvel it was constructed to be. Like many things that had anything to do with this city at all, it was really only ugly up close.

The tallest building in view from the bathysphere is Olympus Heights. Realm of the gods among men. Intellectual and financial nobility. And at the top of the shit pile rests the once gleaming abode of the man Frank Fontaine himself. Dead for several months now, at least. He points to it to direct Jack's attention.

"Frank Fontaine used to live all the way up there, son. He's the one who developed all these plasmids. Well. His money did, anyway. I don't believe he spent more than two seconds looking over any of the research. You'd better believe he knew how to turn a profit, though. Can't knock a fella for that."

[did_unkindly]

Jack looks startled for a moment. He wasn't expecting to hear that name out loud. It's like Sinclair is breaking into his thoughts in order to give -- not a glowing review of Fontaine, but not as bad a one as the bastard deserves.

"Did you -- know him?"

And secretly, he hopes and prays that Sinclair says no, or at least that they weren't friends. That would be even worse than being Ryan's man.

[modestman]

Ah, there it is. Something to break that heavy silence.

He shrugs, visibly trying to decide how to answer. "I knew him. Didn't talk to him any more than I had to though. He may have been good at doing business for himself but I know grifter when I meet one. No thank you, he can keep his hands well out of my pockets. Or could have, rather. He's nobody's problem anymore."

[did_unkindly]

"Yeah."

If only Sinclair knew it, by badmouthing Fontaine he's gone up quite a few points in Jack's estimations.

"Because he's dead, isn't he."

An expression crosses his face which I can only describe as a pained kind of smirk.

[modestman]

Sinclair might have been incredibly suspicious of Jack's expression, but luckily he's still staring out of the porthole.

"Stone cold," he says. There had been rumors floating around for a while that perhaps he was still alive, but Sinclair knows that to be impossible. "Shot dead in the middle of the street by one of Ryan's. As you can see, Rapture's been a place of peace and unity since long before you got here."