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

[did_unkindly]

"I come back alive," says Jack.

That's really the simplest way he could put it, though Sinclair is an inquisitive sorta fellow and may well want to inquire further into the mystery.

He starts wading steadily forwards, quite ready to collect his not-radio buddy and find some higher ground.

[modestman]

Sinclair shakes his head, frowning. "Come again?"

[did_unkindly]

"In the Vita Chambers."

It's okay, it was a big deal for Jack the first time too.

"We should go higher."

[modestman]

"The Vita--" Sinclair starts, but that's a whole mess of questions they probably don't have time to get into right now. He holsters his gun and follows Jack, allowing the relief to take over. He smiles. The kid's a damn wonder, and at this point Sinclair expects it's not the last time he'll surprise him.

[did_unkindly]

Jack isn't easily given to awe and wonderment -- he was always supposed to just accept things and move on, not dwell on them too much -- and his mind is on the job of finding a staircase. But he keeps remembering the thought that Sinclair was dead, and half-glancing at Sinclair alive and walking behind him, and getting these sudden feelings of relief. It's almost bizarre. There have been plenty of people down here who've made him feel all kinds of things, but relief has not been a frequent offender.

At a broad staircase, he begins to jog up, but then he pauses and looks back to make sure Sinclair is limping up it without issue. He's not letting the guy get away again that easily.

[modestman]

Sinclair's slowly shuffling his way behind Jack, not at any sort of speed to worry about. He's trying to keep up and succeeding reasonably well, though jogging is probably out of the question.

At the top, he leans back against the wall and holds his hand over the wound on his leg. When he pulls it away, there's blood on it. Well, you know, it's pretty impossible to heal a cut in a bunch of water. He'll need more bandages, whenever they come across them, but he doesn't suspect he's in danger of bleeding out.

While he's leaning, he takes the opportunity to voice one of his many questions. "You're telling me...you can't die?"

[did_unkindly]

Jack gets in a worried look or two at Sinclair's bleeding leg, in between shifting from foot to foot and looking out for splicers. For all that he's been mauled and murdered every way from tuesday, he's not wholly familiar with the natural way a cut like that should heal. Should it still be bleeding? At least Sinclair doesn't seem worried, so probably he can trust the guy's judgement.

"Only down here," he says, and just catches himself before adding I think.

After a few moments, he adds reluctantly: "It's... because of Ryan."

[modestman]

He shakes his head. He's seen the Vita Chambers around and knew of course what they were intended to do but he'd never seen anyone use them. Of course Ryan would be able to, but...

"If Ryan rigged this place so he couldn't die, you want to explain why he's stone cold dead right now?"

[did_unkindly]

Jack looks a little startled at the question. It's too... perceptive. It cuts too close to the truth of things.

He doesn't want to flat-out refuse to answer, though. Sinclair nearly dying has shaken him a bit. So he stumbles over words for a moment, and then says--

"The -- the only one close, it was turned off."

Not the whole truth, but you know.

[modestman]

Sinclair's still shaking his head when he looks at Jack. He's still hiding something, and it's still relevant, whatever it is.

"You shut it off?" Because if he didn't, that sounds like some rotten bad luck. Ryan's own Vita Chamber in his own office mysteriously turned off on the day that he just so happens to be murdered.

[did_unkindly]

It's kind of really really hard to lie when he's asked a direct question like that.

He shakes his head.

[modestman]

And there's guilt all over Jack's face, anyone could see that. Sinclair's expression is some just short of frustration, something a little more on the distressed side when he speaks.

"Kid, I was-- you were dead. You died in that bathysphere. I think that warrants some sort of honest explanation, don't you?"

He's not exactly pleading, but at least this time he's not asking purely out of intrusiveness. After all, the image is still fresh in his mind, and the lingering sourness of guilt. As much as he always hates being in the dark about anything, this time it might make the difference between escape and imprisonment. This time, he might actually need to know.

[did_unkindly]

"He told me to kill him," Jack blurts out at last, almost cutting Sinclair's question off.

There are a hundred and one good reasons. He can't get the image out of his head. He doesn't want to make his only remaining ally leave by keeping too many secrets. He's just bad at saying no.

The statement hangs heavy on the air, and he doesn't know what to say next.

This is not how he imagined the tearful loving papa-kid reunion would go, Sinclair, you jerk.

[modestman]

Well that...

lines up pretty well with the facts.

If Ryan wanted to die, he would shut off his own Vita Chamber, but--

"...Why?"

[did_unkindly]

"I don't know. I don't know!"

Theories, theories, theories, but there has been a lot to come to grips with since the encounter in Ryan's office, from Ryan himself to Fontaine and the entire story of Jack's own purpose and history. Crashing in a mysterious city and shooting up superpowers doesn't have shit on what he's had to wrap his head around since breaking through that door. And how can he even know what the hell Ryan was thinking? He doesn't know the guy except from a few audio messages, and being yelled at over the radio. He knows a loving figment of his imagination better than he knows his flesh and blood father.

He glares at the floor, his face and the place behind his eyes prickling hot.

[modestman]

Sinclair sighs, watching Jack stare down the cracking tiles. It's understandable that he wouldn't know Ryan's motives, Sinclair figures he might actually have a better handle on that part than Jack. But for the short time Jack has been here, Sinclair also doubts that he himself would have motive enough to commit this murder for the reasons anyone else would. As brave as Jack is, it's hard to believe he fell from the sky purely to be Rapture's savior, defeating the tyrant to free the city. There's something else here.

He makes sure to soften his tone a great deal before he says anything else.

"So why'd you do it, son?" Simple enough, non-accusing. Just asking, if your motive wasn't Ryan's then...what was it?

[did_unkindly]

Wow, is that ever a question he never intends to answer honestly.

He could do it, if he could give any of the reasons Fontaine fed him. He could do it, if he could even say that yeah, I heard enough, I wanted to kill him.

He could answer, if he knew for sure that, when everything came together and he realised what was happening, he still would've done what he did without the influence of that phrase.

"Doesn't matter," Jack tells the floor roughly. "He's dead."

[modestman]

Sinclair gives Jack a somewhat pitying look. Whatever happened in that office is obviously something that's been messing with Jack's head ever since. That's something he's seen a lot of since coming here. When people have no solid guidelines to follow, some sort of instruction to tell them right from wrong, they tend to forget. And they start to wonder. And they confuse themselves, they lose track of their morals and it eats them up. At least it did before they figured out they could splice their turmoils away.

"Look at me, kid," Sinclair says after a moment. "Andrew Ryan had his coming for a long time. If it wasn't you, it was gonna be somebody else he ruffled up. If you're feeling guilty, I can tell you a hundred percent you don't need to."

[did_unkindly]

He looks at Sinclair when he's bid to. He listens. He even tries to take the words to heart.

Then slowly, he goes back to glaring daggers at the floor.

He's uncomfortable, unsettled, but he doesn't think he feels guilty. He isn't ashamed of killing Ryan. He's killed plenty of people. But it -- it wasn't Jack doing it, exactly. And he had so many questions. And Ryan seemed so ashamed of him.

"He said..." Jack's voice is still rough. "He said I was a big disappointment. The biggest."

What's worse is that he doesn't know why he cares.

[modestman]

"No one could please Ryan, son. By the time you came around, he'd chased off every friend he ever had," Sinclair says. "Kept saying everyone was turning against him, but it was really only ever him turning against himself. He was always a bully, but a different man built this city than the one you killed in that office."

He steps forward, risks squeezing Jack's shoulder. "Andrew Ryan's opinion ain't worth a cent, kid. More than that, it ain't worth another second of your time. He's got enough already, don't give him anything else."

[did_unkindly]

Jack allows his shoulder to be squeezed. His body is tense, very tense, but I'm sure Sinclair wasn't expecting differently.

He is a little comforted. A little.

And he nods (at the floor) to show he's... at least, he's understood. He's trying to understand.

But he can't... he can't do this. He should be having this conversation with the sun on his face. It should be about something that's passed, something that doesn't matter any more, not... this. Not here.

The thought reminds him that they're exposed.

He rubs his face and looks at Sinclair. "I want to go somewhere safer."

It's kind of a relief to think about survival, no further than the next few seconds of his life. The moment, not the big uncomfortable questions.

[modestman]

Sinclair nods, dropping his hand but still watching Jack's face. He can tell he was listening, but it doesn't look like he feels any better about anything. He supposes he can't really blame him, it's one of those things that takes time. He's got to realize it for himself, he can't just be told.

"If I could figure out where exactly we are, I could take us back to Olympus heights," he says. He's familiar with most areas of Rapture, but he just can't seem to place himself here.

[did_unkindly]

Thank you based Sinclair for knowing when to let the subject lie.

"It looks like the doctors' place," offers Jack, who has spent enough time electrobolting people in Med Pavilion to recognise the black and white floor tiles and stabbed-scrapbook decor.

He shivers. The heating in Rapture has seen better days, and soaking wet clothes aren't great insulation.

[modestman]

He's right, it's a part of the Medical Pavilion Sinclair's never seen, but design is right for it. Now they just need to figure out which way is north and maybe they can start making some progress.

"If you know where to go, I'm following you. I don't favor getting lost in this place."

[did_unkindly]

"I'll work it out."

It's not a part of the Pavilion he recognises specifically, but he covered a good bit of the place when he was here last. It's just a case of finding his way back to familiar ground, and another bathy.

Looking around, Jack shivers again, but this time not from the cold. The last time he was here, this was all new to him. He didn't have a clue. He was following Atlas's voice.

Nope. Not thinking about that.

There's a signpost of sorts over there. He starts jogging towards it.