The Light in the Deep

by Alcoac

Rapture Noir. Exiled Inspector Teddy Nuckles wasted not a single good thought when he set eye on the lumbering brute clutching a bag of blood on Opening Day of Rapture. He shot him. In the bag, a beautiful woman's severed head. Chief Sullivan orders him to focus on the Fontaine case, but Tenenbaum's autopsy brings up many a puzzle, including a link to German experiments in Poland.

1. Chapter 1

"The Lord reveals the deep things of darkness and brings utter darkness into the light. He makes nations great, and destroys them; he enlarges nations, and disperses them. He deprives the leaders of the earth of their reason; he makes them wander in a trackless waste. They grope in darkness with no light." – Job 12:22-2, Edom, 600 BC

CHAPTER ONE

"You'll be dropping the bag or dropping your own self, but choose straight away," I shouted.

I'm not one for cities, but somehow I kept finding myself in one. Turns out there ain't much use for a gunhand outside of those urban nightmares. So, that's how I ended up in the deep, pointing my gun at this brutish fellow causing trouble outside the Grand Atrium. He didn't even have the courtesy to look back at me as he lumbered away with shuffling steps, clenching the burlap sack in his meaty right hand. I could see the sack was heavy with something, giving it a large lump. It dripped a foul, black syrup down to the deckplates, leaving a dark stain behind him. The brute.

"Last chance. The bag on the ground and hands on your head, or you'll cease to have one. Ryan doesn't allow warning shots down in here."

The man continued in his uneven steps. The only sounds were his incoherent mumblings, and the far off music of the anthem being played in the theater several compartments away. Any other day, I might have responded differently. I would have gone through my non-lethal takedown training, immobilization with my nightstick around his neck, maybe. Then again, the brute was so wide he didn't seem to have a neck in the normal spot most humans put theirs. He was all head and shoulders, thick as a brick. I needed at least two constables on hand for that, which I didn't have. Everybody was up at the big ceremony. I don't think any of them had seen me follow the brute out into the passageway. They probably all missed the trail, as well. That, or they didn't care enough to check it out.

I squared my shoulders and focused down the length of my steel revolver. Front sight focus. Two shots rang out, and struck the brute high in the center of his back. He tumbled to the floor like a roll of dimes falling apart and spilling over itself. He wasn't the only spill. As the bag fell loose from his stubby fingers, it opened, its contents rolling across the deck towards me. Sullivan's going to love this, I thought. The cold blue eyes of the woman's severed head stared blankly at me through a smear of blackened blood like one of the deep sea fish glaring at me from outside the portholes. The day was supposed to be dedicated to the official opening of Rapture, but even Andrew Ryan couldn't plan for everything.