Bioshock Infinite: Union
Chapter 1
He jolted up out of bed as he had so many nights before. Though the room was pitch black, he easily found his way to the dresser and struck a match to light the small lamp that rested there. Not the first time he had woken like this and wouldn't be the last.
As the flame brightened the room, Booker DeWitt looked at the reflection in the dresser's mirror. It still bothered him a little, even after five years. The face in the mirror was younger than it should be. True, he had not changed much from the ages of 19 to 38, but it been had very strange to suddenly be nearly twenty years younger.
Not nearly as strange as being alive and back in 1893 after dying in the Sea of Doors though.
Many things were different from the last time he had been 24 years old. His daughter, Anna, slept down the hall in a room of her own in the small home he owned. She had long dark hair tied in a ponytail, big blue eyes and was practically bursting with energy. She was more than just smart and learned incredibly fast, which could be a problem at times.
But he didn't mind, she was everything to him.
He was doing well financially because of hard work and investments. Of course knowing what would probably happen ahead of time was a big help. He had friends, not many, but a few. Drinking and gambling had been easier to quit this time, but smoking had been a real challenge. Anna's coughing had been more than enough reason to stop, but he had to admit that he did feel better for it.
One thing had not changed and that was the nightmares. No, that wasn't quite right. Wounded Knee still haunted him as it had tonight, but in a different way. Before when the nightmares came, he was in the encampment full of rage, killing at will and unwilling, unable to even think of stopping. Now he stood on a hill and was forced to watch the slaughter below, unable to stop it no matter how hard he tried.
Columbia rarely troubled his dreams, but instead lived with him during the waking hours. He could remember them all. All the other Booker's, Comstock. He could push away those memories so they did not bother him much, but some things still preyed on him. Was Comstock really gone? Could he still someday become Comstock?
Elizabeth.
'No getting back to sleep tonight. Better get dressed and do something.'
He glanced at the clock and sighed. It was just after four in the morning. At least he didn't have to worry about waking Anna. She slept like a log after running around like a little hellion all day. Today was Saturday and they usually went to the park. Hopefully she would get good and tired before lunch.
Like that would happen.
He looked around the room. Plain wood floor with a few carpets, a bed, the dresser, a night stand, two wardrobes and a lonely wooden chair. It was simple and functional. There weren't even any paintings on the walls. He knew he could afford something much more lavish, but why bother? He didn't need anything more and the money was better used for the small, but growing library he knew Anna would need as she grew older.
He rubbed his eyes and walked over to the closest wardrobe to put on his work cloths and check on the furnace. It was the second week of October and the nights were getting colder. As he started to pull off his nightshirt, he heard a sound. It was a sound he could never forget.
The sound of a Tear opening.
"ANNA!" he screamed as he raced to the door.
As he pounded down the hallway he heard his daughter shriek and call for him.
And then a man's voice, but he couldn't make out what he was saying.
"Daddy!"
"Anna! I'm Coming!"
Just before he hit the door to Anna's room he cursed that he had left his pistol in his office. But it had been too dangerous to keep around the house with Anna there. She got into everything.
Booker slammed open the door to Anna's bedroom. The Tear shimmered at the foot of his daughters bed, illuminating the room and three men in long coats that had invaded it. Two of them struggled with Anna as she fought and screamed for him.
The third had pistol in hand and opened fire.
He was on the floor, didn't remember falling. It was all black, but he could hear Anna screaming for him.
"Shut the little bitch up will you? We gotta get outa here before someone else shows up."
There was a sound of something striking flesh and Anna became silent.
"What about him?" asked another voice.
"He's had it. Not wastin' a bullet on em." A third voice said. This voice was harsh, distinctive.
Booker's vision was slowly returning, but it was dark and everything was far away. He could see last of the men step through the Tear and reached out to try and stop them.
"Anna."
As the Tear closed, Booker lost his grip on the world and everything faded away.
…
He returned to consciousness slowly. It took some time for him to remember what happened and push the pain of his wounds aside. Then he became aware of two people talking. A man and a woman. The voices sounded familiar. Smelled odd.
The woman "Are you sure he is going to live?"
The man "The others did show themselves to be quite resilient."
Ah hell. Those Two.
The woman "I still don't see why you are doing this."
The man "Payment for services rendered?"
The woman "This one never did anything for us."
The man "Then, maybe I dislike our invention being used to kidnap children?"
The woman "Yes, that is quite disagreeable I will admit."
He cracked his eyes open and coughed. Was in a hospital room. That accounted for the smell.
The woman "Ah, I see he is awake."
Booker really didn't want to put up with these two's antics right now, but they might be the only way for him to find Anna.
The woman "Mr. DeWitt, if I may…"
He interrupted "You're Rosalind Lutece, and that is your "brother" Robert Lutece. You invented the Tear Machine and the quantum whatevers that kept Columbia afloat."
Wished he could have enjoyed the expressions on their faces, but had far bigger concerns right now.
The male Lutece recovered more quickly "Well, that certainly eliminates the need a lengthy explanation."
"Why are you here?" he asked. It was difficult to keep from demanding, but he managed. Barely.
"My brother was attempting to convince me to render some small manner of assistance to you in this particular matter. But this recent revelation promises to make this experiment much more interesting than I had anticipated."
The male Lutece pulled out a piece of folded paper and presented it with a flourish. "I believe that you shall find everything you require here."
Booker took the paper and a key fell out. He looked at the paper and noted that the only thing written on it was an address, someplace on east side. When he glanced back up the two had vanished. Not surprised by that in any way.
"Time to get to work."
He tried to get up and nearly passed out. "Maybe... in a little while."
Moments later a fortyish looking woman in white came through the door looking puzzled. She looked at him and quickly left.
A few minutes later a man in a long white coat came in followed by the woman.
"I see your awake Mr. DeWitt. I am Doctor Schoff. You gave Helen here quite a surprise, we didn't think you would wake so quickly." The tone of Schoff's voice hinted that he hadn't expected him to wake up at all.
"When can I get out of here? Got something to do."
Schoff was taken back by the question. "You are a lucky man and despite you exceptional recovery, it will be sometime before I could allow you to leave."
"How long." he demanded. Not like the first time he had ever been shot.
"I would say three week, maybe longer."
"Not going to be that long." he promised the doctor.
…
As he promised, it was only two weeks before he was well enough to leave the hospital. Two maddening weeks. Friends and acquaintances visited to help lift his spirits, but they could never understand what happened, so he didn't even try to tell them. Anna's nanny, a young woman named Mary visited the most often. Theodore had been uncharastically quiet when he visited the one time, but he had known loss and understood it well. The police came by several times and acted like they had leads on who took Anna, but Booker didn't think they cared much. Newspaper reporters bothered him constantly, but he was able to avoid them by claiming his wounds pained him. They smelled a sensational story and didn't care about much else. He needed to stay out of the light of news coverage and as deep in the shadows as he could.
One thing he couldn't figure was who had sent the people to kidnap Anna. At first he had thought they were from some Columbia that had somehow escaped destruction, but that didn't feel right. Their clothes where wrong and they were too sloppy to be Comstock's fanatics. The Founders would never have left "the False Shepard" live. These people had acted more like street thugs. But who else other than Comstock would want Anna? The Vox? Anna wasn't the Lamb. They had not quarrel with her.
The first thing he did when he got out of the hospital was go to the office to get his gun and then it was to the address Lutece had given him. It was slow going because he needed a crutch to get around, but that wasn't going to stop him. When he got to the address he found it to be a small warehouse. The key he had been given didn't work on any of the locks on the first floor so had to try them on the second. At the first door at the top of the stairs the door the key easily opened the lock and he pushed the doors open.
Beyond he found a storage area filled with unusual equipment. It only took a few moments to confirm they were parts for a Tear Machine. But this equipment looked older than what he had seen in Columbia and hadn't been used in some time. Unbidden, Comstock's memories told him this equipment was for the first prototype device like the one that used to take Anna from him last time.
Was there a version of Robert Lutece still in this reality? Or had he left to be with his "sister"?
He decided that it really didn't matter.
There were some things in the room that where not parts of the Tear Machine. The first of these was something he never thought to see again, a Skyhook. Picking it up felt like shaking hands with an old friend. Close examination confirmed what he already knew deep down. It was the same Skyhook he had used in Columbia. Really didn't want to know how Lutece had gotten their hands on it.
Beneath it was a stack of papers that contained a full set of instructions and plans to assemble the Tear Machine. He found a work bench and a chair to spent the next several hours reading through. Looked like a some new parts would be needed to get the Tear Machine to work, but he knew someone that should be able to supply them. The last page of the instructions was filled with warnings. One of them predicted that the Tear Machine would have a limited life span and would burn out after only a short time. He understood the underlying warning. If he went through the tear, he probably wouldn't be coming back.
He didn't care. He had to find Anna.
…
The first thing he had to do was let Mary go. It was hard, Mary thought of Anna as her little sister and Anna loved her. The girl almost begged to stay and help him, but he couldn't have anyone else around for his work. He gave her three months' pay and promised her that if Anna did come back, she could return.
Next, he had the equipment from the warehouse moved into his home. He would have liked to have built it elsewhere, but it needed to be as close to possible the location of the tear. Creating a new tear wouldn't take him to where his daughter was. He needed to reopen the original one.
The instructions estimated that it would take six to eight weeks to build the Tear Machine, but it took just under four, despite being slowed by his still healing wounds. Comstock had studied the Tear Machine and leaned much from Lutece. He put that knowledge to use despite how much he hated Comstock.
He was going to use everything and anything he could to find his daughter, no matter the cost.
When he first started, friends would visit often, but he had no other choice but to gently turn them away. There was no way he could allow them to enter the house. How could he explain it? They likely thought he had gone mad and if they saw the Tear Machine they would be certain of it. He couldn't allow even the chance they might interfere.
Finally, everything was ready. The device squatted in the remains of Anna's bedroom like a monster and pushed up into the attic. He'd had to make some modifications in order to keep it from punching a hole in the roof and the floor had needed to be reinforced. Cables snaked all over the place with some running all the way down the stairs to the engine needed to power the device.
All he had to do was throw a single large switch and it would all come to life.
He had planned ahead for this trip in every way he could think of. Plans if they came back a week from now, a month, even years. Plans for if only Anna came back.
Plans if neither of them came back.
He was going through this tear more prepared then when he went to Columbia at least. A leather shoulder bag packed with food, some silver and gold coins, extra ammo and simple survival tools. He had even written himself a message in case going through the tear caused problems with his memory as it had done the first time. His pistol and the Skyhook were the only other things he would carry.
One thing he couldn't plan for was how close the tear would be to Anna. Tears could drift both in time and space. He could be some distance from Anna and arriving many weeks after she did.
Taking deep breath, Booker threw the switch to start the Tear Machine and stepped back as far as he could.
It started slowly. First a spark here and there, then tiny bolts of electricity played over parts of the device. He glanced over at the dials and gages that monitored the machine's status and everything was as it should be. In a few moments electricity arced over the machine regularly and he briefly felt like he was in one of Nikola's demonstrations.
With a flash, the Tear opened. A shimmering hole in what people called reality.
He quickly studied the readouts and they confirmed that he had reopened the Tear, not created a new one. Somewhere on the other side of that Tear, that Door was his daughter.
He walked to the Tear and studied it for a moment. It looked to be inside a building with lots of chairs and tables. A restaurant? Outside the windows it was dark and there were no people he could see. Was as good as he was going to get.
"Daddies coming, Anna. Hold on." he whispered.
Booker DeWitt stepped through the Tear and into another place and time.
End Chapter 1