Last Night in the Kashmir

"The Lord created the world in six days, and that's why we've got six targets. Mainly, we'll be focusing on the Olympus Heights area. Friedman, you need to take three-fifths of us. Leave Fontaine's Home for the Poor and go to Olympus Heights. Once you get there, use the tram system to attack the following areas: Central Bistro Square, Mercury Suites, and Athena's Glory. Focus on the last place especially. It has its own private tram. There's only one way in, and only one way out. Once you're all in, crash the tram to seal off the building and don't leave until everyone in there is taken care of. If you find any working people in any of these places, don't lay a finger on a hair of their heads unless they don't commit to our cause. Now, LaLiberte, you're going to lead one-fifth of us to Arcadia where you're going to take out the Tea Garden. I myself will lead another fifth of us to the Fleet Hall where they've got a big New Year's floor show going on. And you, my friend, are going to lead the rest of us in the raid on the Kashmir Restaurant."

Recorded instructions for the 1959 New Year's Attack

Rapture

December 31st, 1958

Diane McClintock

The sound of saxophones, clinking dishes, and laughter permeated the smoky atmosphere of the Kashmir Restaurant. It was New Year's Eve, the biggest holiday in Rapture. Nobody really paid attention to Christmas in this city six miles beneath the Atlantic surface. December 25th had come and gone without a blip on most people's radar. New Year's, on the other hand, was an appropriately secular holiday for a society that put most of its trust in The Great Chain of Industry rather than in God. Thus, all the celebration that people on the surface packed into Christmas and New Year's was stuffed into one single night down in Rapture. Diane McClintock sat alone at her table in the Kashmir's dining room underneath a gigantic statue of the god Atlas. Her short blond hair and pallid eyes were given a carrot-like illumination from the lively red neon of a circular sign suspended above her that read "HAPPY NEW YEAR 1959." She drew the Oxford Club cigarette she was smoking from her mouth and blew an acrid gray cloud out of her nose, which went on to mingle with similar scents from other cigarettes, making the whole restaurant smell like a gigantic ashtray. Diane looked across the table over her empty cake plate, party hat, new Accu-Vox audio diary, and floral handbag, to where the empty chair sat facing her. Despite the fact that it was just a short cocktail chair, it carried all the authority of the man who should be sitting in it. But Andrew Ryan, the Russian-American businessman who had built Rapture and taken Diane for his mistress when he knew her in New York, was conspicuously absent from the New Year's Eve ball he was billed to attend. Some of the other patrons had noticed his absence, but were too busy dancing, gossiping, or getting knocked up on vodka to care. While Diane had been drinking too, the alcohol had not been able to remove the sting of getting stood up yet again. She'd received too many audio diaries over the past few weeks filled with Ryan's excuses for having to leave her out in the cold on this date or that. Now, as Diane extinguished her cigarette in the table's ashtray, the thoughts she had been wondering for weeks rushed to the fore of her mind: was it time to get over Andrew Ryan? Being the mistress of the most powerful man in Rapture had its perks and brought no finite amount of status, but Diane had to ask herself: was it was it really worth it when she was feeling torn up inside? She wanted to go up to Ryan and tell him that Fontaine had been dead over three months now and he didn't have to work those long hours scheming up ways to make the Great Chain of Industry work for him rather than his late rival. But he never gave her the chance because he was still buried himself in his office in the Hephaestus section of the city.

The jazz playing over the Kashmir's speakers was cut off as the public address system crackled to life, playing the string music that accompanied any From the Desk of Ryan segments. Ryan's own voice came over the PA just moments later:

"To my friends, the good people of Rapture, Happy New Year."

The people in the Kashmir momentarily stopped dancing or talking to stare at the nearest speaker.

"I am sorry I am not able to be with you all on this occasion, but important business has constrained me to my office. Nevertheless, I implore you to enjoy this night to its fullest. Not only are we to welcome in a new year, but in the process celebrate our triumph over the forces that have caused this city and its people so much trouble over the past years. Tonight, we celebrate not only the passing of 1958 into 1959, but the victory of free markets over smuggling, the victory of free thought over a revival of religious superstition, and the victory of free men over parasites!"

The patrons broke out into applause and cheers.

"We all remember the day just three months ago when Frank Fontaine and his gaggle of parasitic smugglers who so maliciously attempted to subvert our way of life were eradicated from our midst. Tonight we celebrate the symbolic meaning their deaths should be given, as a passing from trying times back to order. I have said before and will say again that Rapture's objectivist philosophy is not worth having if it is not tested. It has been tested, and it has pulled through. Thus, celebrate the night my friends! It is yours to celebrate!"

The cheers heightened in intensity as Ryan's speech wrapped up. Diane just sighed and took another long swig from the bottle of Chechnya Vodka next to her. She drained the bottle dry and let it fall over onto its side when she put it back down on the table. Her vision was getting hazier, and the people who were dancing and laughing in the adjacent cocktail lounge were getting blurry. She turned around to look behind her. Aside from the floor-to-ceiling window that wrapped around the dining room and provided nothing more than a rather depressing view of the Medical Pavilion buildings, Diane could see the young family at the table behind her she'd been spying on all night. It consisted of a father in a three-piece suit, probably a banker, with his blonde wife and young daughter. The daughter was not paying attention to her parents, but rather was off in her own little world, playing with her blue and white party hat as a makeshift doll. Diane could only guess how much her father had paid to keep her out of the Little Sister program. Diane had turned around because the wife's raucous voice was bawling out the unfortunate waiter she'd summoned.

"You call that sirloin?" she demanded, pointing to the large steak on her plate with a fork. "If you tried to serve that at any respectable hotel in New York they'd laugh you out of town!"

"Our apologies madam," the waiter said with strained patience. "I'll have the kitchen take care that."

"Well make it quick!" she said, thrusting the plate at him.

Diane sighed again.

"I'm going to the little girl's room," she said to nobody in particular. She grabbed her handbag and stood up to go.