I'm back and better than ever! This is my first Bioshock FF. Slightly AU because while I did like the ending (IT IS FAN-TASTIC), I just wanted to put my own spin on the story. Peace! -TTL
Disclaimer: I do not own the Bioshock franchise or any affiliates.
The night was dark and cold and the weather was unforgiving. As the rain lashed the boat over and over again and again Booker heard someone yelling his name.
"Booker!" The voice said, "Booker! Snap out of it! I think we're almost there!"
The voice was young, male, and barely audible over the crashing of the waves and crackling of the thunder. Booker looked up to see his partner, Jack Harper yelling at him. The young man had just joined him this year. Booker decided to take the boy in after he had shown up at his door asking for a job.
Cornelius Slate, his father and Booker's old "friend" had abandoned Jack and his mother and a young age for a job in some forsaken place. Despite this, Jack was a good kid, except when he was on the job. He was cold, calculated, and focused. In a lot of ways, Jack mirrored his father, but Booker chose not to mention that.
Jack stood at a good 6'1 and was well versed in the use of weaponry. Booker never would have guessed him to be Slate's son if Jack didn't have a picture with him. Jack had dirty blonde hair and freckles on his face, in fact, when Booker met him the kid looked like a farm boy lost in the big city. He carried a bowie knife with him at all times and was a crack shot with most rifles.
But Jack was illusive at times too. When Booker would ask about Jack's training, he would simply shrug and say "Hunting" or if he asked about his mother, Jack would just go silent.
Suddenly, one of the couple that shared the boat with Booker and his partner tapped Jack on the shoulder.
"Excuse me," She said curtly, "Do you happen to row? Apparently your friend over there doesn't and my Brother seems rather desperate for some aid in this exercise."
Jack shot Booker a dirty glance before her answered her with a smile, "It'd be my pleasure to help row, ma'am." Grabbing the second set of oars.
As Jack turned around and began rowing, the lady next to him passed back a box to Booker. It was the box that he had when he was still in the 7th Cavalry Division, back before Wounded Knee. Inside he found a few items: Some coins, a key, a pistol, a card with New York's coordinates, a paper with a scroll, key and sword with a x1, x2, and x2 next to the respective symbols, something that looked like a postcard from a place called Monument Island, and a picture of a young woman named Elizabeth.
She looked about Jack's age, but the picture was at an awkward angle so it was hard to tell much else. Booker turned the picture over to find a message: 'Bring to New York unharmed'.
Booker pocketed some the items, holstered the pistol, and kept his eyes forward. Jack seemed focused on rowing and the couple in front of him seemed to be arguing about something. Then the lighthouse came into view.
Booker thought that the place was the epitome of dreariness as he and Jack disembarked from the boat. Turning around, Booker saw that the couple remained on the boat and were rowing away.
"Hey!" Booker yelled at the increasingly small pair, "Is somebody meeting us here?"
"I would certainly hope so!" The lady cried over the storm's bellows, "It seems like a dreadful place to be stranded on in this weather!"
"Well, boss." Jack said as he climbed out from the shack next to them, "Nowhere else to go, but into that lighthouse. The other boat here is busted beyond repair."
Braving the howling storm, Booker and Jack made for the door, only to find an ominous note left for them written in red ink: 'DeWitt,' the note read, 'Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt. This is your last chance!'
"Hell's bells," Jack whistled, "Are our debts that high?"
"Mine are." Booker grumbled as he knocked on the door, "Excuse me, its Booker DeWitt and Jack Harper. I think you were expecting us."
After a second, he looked at Jack and shrugged at he opened the door. The interior of the lighthouse matched the exterior's dreariness. It was poorly lit, dingy and cold. The pair of investigators approached a washbasin sitting under one of many signs concerning the washing of sins.
Jack and Booker looked at each other and shared a chuckle after staring into the basin.
"What a load of bull." Jack said, "We came here for a job, not a church service."
"Yeah," Booker nodded in agreement, "anyway, its not like a dip in a pool of water will actually wipe away our sins."
Making their way through the lighthouse, the pair found many odd things, such as a telephone that connected to nowhere the steps are creaky and the glass in the windows is cracked. One each new floor, trash, piles of paper, and empty cabinets are scattered everywhere. A radio crackles, playing upbeat music that does not fit the setting at all. But despite the natural dreariness and darkness of the place, the most concerning discovery that they made was a dead man, his face covered by a blood-stained burlap sack, tied to a chair and sitting in a pool of his own blood. Around his neck was a note: Don't Disappoint Us!
"Jesus Christ," Jack explained as he examined the man, "He's been gone for a while, boss. Rigor mortis is already set. Whoever did this is long gone."
"It's not them I'm worried about." Booker said grimly as he turned away from the scene, "Let's go Jack. We have a job to do."
"Yeah, I guess you're right." Relented Jack.
At the top of the lighthouse, they find a door. Locked behind it, sit a pair of burgundy velvet chairs side by side. Jack tries to find a way open the door to no avail. Booker spots a trio of bells, each with a symbol: A scroll, a key, and a sword.
"Jack, hold up a bit." Booker takes out the card with the same symbols on it. He rings the bells left to right in the numbers the card tells him. The sky itself began to weep red light as horns resounded through the air.
"What in the world is that noise?" Booker stares upwards in confusion and awe.
Jack turns around and notices that the staircase behind them is covered by a grate.
"No way out, Booker!" He yells over the horns,"The way back is sealed shut!"
Now the lighthouse begins its own series of less omnipresent tones and flashes of red light, as if in communication with the sky above. The world above again answers with its great horns. Then, a bell rings and the doors open.
"You've been holding out on me again, Mr. DeWitt." Jack teases playfully as he breaths a sigh of relief.
"Well," Booker says smugly as they enter the room, "I am the boss. Even you tell me that."
"Well I guess they want us to sit in these fancy chairs." Jack eases himself into a seat.
"No other options." Booker agrees as he takes his own.
As if on cue, the second Booker settles into the chair, metal clamps bind the duo's legs to the chairs, setting off an air of panic. Then, to make matters worse, the floor angles downwards to show rockets and then Bookers pistol slips from its holster to the ground below.
"Ah shit!" Booker's eyes widen as the gun tumbles away and the floor corrects itself. Suddenly the compartment begins the shake and structures rise from the floor to make a pod.
"What the hell were those things?! And please don't tell me we only had one gun." Jack laments as he tries to get over the shock of what just happened.
Booker's grimace is all Jack needs to answer his question. "Fuck." He shakes his head in dismay, "We. Are. Fucked."
"Do not be alarmed, Pilgrims. The restraints are for your own safety." An automated voice crackles over an unseen intercom.
"Oh now they tell us no to pani-holy shiiiiiit!" Booker begins only to be cut off by the roaring of the rockets roar to life.
"DeWitt!" Jack struggles to be hear over the loud roars of the rockets, "If we die, I'll see you in Hell!"
"Stuff it, Harper!" Booker cries back, "We're not dead yet!"
"Five thousand feet." The automated voice starts on cue as the pod shoots into the sky, "Ten thousand feet."
"We are so screwed!" Jack panics. He would be thrashing in the chair if the force of gravity weren't holding him in place.
"Fifteen thousand feet." The voice continues as the pair believe their demise has come, "Hallelujah."
So, how was it? Like it? Hate it? Questions/Comments/Concerns? Review or PM me with anything. Feedback is greatly appreciated!
Much love-TTL