AUGUST 12, 1969 — 5:34 PM
Just as Sinclair had suspected, finding anything close to a safe place had been far easier said than done. Shaking splicers off their trail was no cakewalk, particularly not when they'd already caught Tenenbaum's scent, but eventually their persistence ran dry.
He and Tenenbaum found their shelter in what had once passed for a ticket station, though Sinclair had his suspicions that the spot had been shabby and worn even long before its interior had been looted and its windows boarded over. An electric lamp flickered and buzzed in the corner, casting the only light to be found in the little booth over the map Tenenbaum had rolled out on the floor.
Sinclair watched, having already offered to help and having already been refused. (He busied himself with prying open a can of fruit instead, one he'd found stashed in the splintered desk behind him; evidently they hadn't been the first to use this booth as a hiding place, and he doubted they would be the last.) The so-called map looked as though it had been crudely torn from a bathysphere timetable, and he found himself wondering just what Tenenbaum intended to do with it.
It was only one of a multitude of things he'd found himself wondering about her, really, chief among them being just what had happened on the surface to make her look so haggard as she did now, or just how she had managed to return to Rapture under Lamb's watch and keep herself alive for this long. But the question of the map seemed like the only one that might have any immediate answer.
"Tell me," she said finally, after several long moments of what looked like intense concentration. "What has happened to Rapture?"
At first, he just raised his eyebrows. "Can't say I'm certain how a history lesson will help us move forward any, but—"
She cut him short with a hard glare. "You are the only man I have found in this city who is still alive and still sane. All I have heard is the mutterings of splicers and Sofia Lamb's public announcements; what I need is concrete information."
Although he hadn't necessarily been opposed to giving her that history lesson in the first place, Sinclair could find no fault in her logic, so he only nodded rather than try to argue.
"Well, where to begin..." He looked toward the ceiling as he thought it over, his line of sight tracing over patterns of water damage in the tile. "As I recall, the popular assumption was that you'd been caught up in the explosions at Olympus Heights. There weren't too many survivors out of that, at least none that weren't fightin' for Atlas's side."
In his peripheral view, he could see Tenenbaum duck her gaze to one side. "I was... But I managed to escape."
"Evidently," he said, unable to keep the dryness from his tone. "The popular assumption was also that Jack Ryan didn't make it out, either. But ole Andy never did say anything one way or the other on the matter."
Tenenbaum had no immediate reaction to that, at least none that Sinclair could see. Eventually, however, she lifted her head to look at him again.
"What happened after that?"
"Well, as I'm sure you can imagine..." He scratched at his neck as he considered where to continue. "Jack Ryan being unaccounted for was a problem. Most people thought he'd been killed, sure, but then some people got to thinkin' that he'd started batting for the other team—Atlas's team, that is—and then some people got to thinkin' that Andrew had the kid put down."
Again, Tenenbaum paused before she made any kind of reply.
"What did Andrew Ryan have to say about it?"
Sinclair snorted. "Not a single damn word. Now, with all the fightin' that was going on, I can imagine that he wouldn't necessarily want to publicize the fact that his only heir had passed on... But keeping mum really didn't do him any favors."
She nodded, her gaze having fallen to the map.
"What became of Atlas?"
"Now there's a funny story." He paused. "Not funny haha, mind, but funny in a peculiar sort of way... See, after the bombing at Olympus Heights, he went and made a nice big speech over the intercoms to stir up the people against Ryan, and where a good deal of people were concerned, it worked. But after that? Nobody ever heard from him ever again."
Tenenbaum didn't seem as surprised by this as Sinclair might have thought. "And?"
"Well, naturally, Ryan put forth the proclamation that he'd had Atlas killed... And that's when things got hairy."
There was still no look of surprise, but her brow furrowed instead.
"What do you mean, 'hairy?'"
As he continued, Sinclair decided to busy himself by using the head of his Swiss army knife to fish a peach slice out of the can. This wasn't exactly his favorite part of the story.
"As it happened... While Atlas was still around and raising hell, Sofia Lamb broke herself out of prison, and she had an army on her side to match Atlas and all his bandits."
Tenenbaum frowned.
"She broke herself out of your prison, you mean."
"The details aren't all that important," he said with a quick, dismissive wave of his hand. After a beat, he offered her the can in his hands. "Here, if you'd like."
Her frown remained, and her unbroken stare remained just as cold and stony as ever. He quickly decided it would be best to move on.
"Anyway, she started up with claiming that Atlas was not only alive and well, but that he'd gone and pitched a tent in her camp."
That frown was still on Tenenbaum's face, but now it seemed less likely that Sinclair was its intended target.
"How could she prove such a thing?"
"Ah, now there's the rub—she couldn't. It wouldn't have been so hard for him to speak up if it were true, after all, but he never was heard from again. But, on the other hand..." He sighed. "Ryan never did bother to present his own proof. Not to the public, anyhow. I still remember it now, him sayin' that the body was 'too dismembered' to put on display..."
She glanced down at the map again, then shook her head.
"Enough of Atlas. How did Lamb gain control of this city?"
"Well, as it turned out, everyone who'd already been courted over to Atlas's cause didn't need any proof at all to throw in with Lamb. Ryan fought her off for a good, long while, but in the end..."
Sinclair looked up to the ceiling again, tracing out more of those patterns in the dark.
"It was inevitable, you know. Lamb and her whole damn army stormed Central Control and took it by force." He fished out another soggy peach slice, munching on it pensively before he continued. "Soon after that she got to declaring Ryan, 'the tyrant,' as dead and gone. And that's how it happened."
Her frown only deepened as she stared at the map. It took him a moment, but Sinclair realized that the point she stared at was Hephaestus.
"And now Rapture is in ruins," she murmured, barely audible over the lantern's harsh buzz.
To that, Sinclair just shrugged. "Rapture was headed for trouble long before Lamb took the reins. But it didn't help that at some point she seemed less interested in runnin' the place like a proper society and more in preaching about some kind of Utopia."
"This, I have heard." Finally Tenenbaum looked up again. "From what I have heard and observed these past few weeks, I believe I have some understanding of what she is trying to do... But of this, I am not certain yet."
Sinclair found himself wondering about her yet again, about just how she'd managed to figure out such a thing in such a short time. Then again, he supposed she never had been a woman of common talent or intellect.
"But," he mentioned, gesturing with his knife to emphasize his words, "you've decided to take on the Mariner first."
Her brow knit again. "If there is to be any hope of stopping Sofia Lamb, that creature must also be dealt with."
He wasn't so sure about that, himself. But he figured he could leave any arguments until after she was done explaining herself.
"What I have already heard of this Mariner," she went on, "is that it did not appear until some time after Sofia Lamb took control of the city. I do not know if she created this thing with full intent, or if she created it at all. But I do know how it might have been born."
He considered her words over another mouthful of syrup-logged peaches. Rapture-grown produce had never exactly tasted right, which left it difficult to tell whether or not this particular can had gone rancid. But these days, food was too precious a resource to be overly picky.
"And how do you reckon that's gonna help us any?"
"Fontaine Futuristics..." An inscrutable look passed over her face as she paused to correct herself. "The Ryan Industries compound—Lamb would have gained full access to the area, yes? The laboratories there, deep underground, where we used to perform experiments with ADAM... Those facilities could have easily produced such a thing."
At first, Sinclair preoccupied himself with finding some flaw in her hypothesis. After he truly considered the thought, he found his brows rising instead.
"You think she was doin' some kind of experiments down there?"
"How many girls has she taken from the surface to harvest more ADAM for her?" She spoke with renewed energy, enough that Sinclair wouldn't have been surprised to see sparks flashing in her eyes. "What possible use could she have for so much of it? I may not know this yet, but what I do know is pointing to this as the truth."
"All right, all right..." He finally set aside the can as he thought on the situation further. "So, it came from Ryan Industries... Now, I do hate to sound like a broken record, but how is that going to help us?"
"We go to Ryan Industries."
She pointed to the spot on the map, speaking emphatically and leaving no room for questions or doubt.
"We go there, and we find what caused the Mariner to exist."
It seemed like an awfully simple plan from the way Tenenbaum said it. But Sinclair knew better.
"So, if I'm understanding you right..." He wasn't so certain that he did, but he continued nevertheless: "We get to Ryan Industries—somehow—we dig up the Mariner's birth certificate, and then...what?"
"If we can discover how it was created," answered Tenenbaum, more slowly this time, as though in response to Sinclair's apparent inability to follow her line of logic, "then we can devise a way to destroy it."
Sinclair had a sneaking suspicion that would be far, far easier said than done. But although she fell silent, Tenenbaum didn't seem as though she was entirely finished, so he refrained from interrupting.
"Or, perhaps..." When she did speak again, her words were not so much slow as they were halting. "If it was not always in that state, as I suspect, then perhaps... I might find a way to cure it of its mutation."
Of all the things she'd said in this conversation so far, there was no question in Sinclair's mind that that was the most far-fetched.
"I'm sorry, do correct me if I'm mistaken, but..." He had to repeat it to be sure. "Did you really just say cure it?"
"I did."
"Of what, exactly?"
"If what I suspect is true," she said, looking at the map again, "whatever this creature may be, whether it is human in origin or not... It is suffering from an advanced form of the ADAM sickness suffered by splicers—highly advanced, perhaps artificially. I have been working to develop a cure for the condition in splicers, but..."
She trailed off, and for once Sinclair felt like taking the opportunity to interrupt her. "Again, I truly do apologize, but... I did hear you correctly, didn't I? You said you've found a way to cure splicers?"
Tenenbaum flashed another glare at him. "You don't believe me?"
Honestly, he wasn't sure whether his answer was a yes or no. So he decided to respond with neither.
"Does it work?"
Her glare softened, though not by much. "I have...not had the chance to test it. I had always planned to return here to complete my research, but..."
Again her words trailed into silence, but this time there was no indication that she meant to continue them. Sinclair could think of a few different ways to finish that thought, based on what few inferences he'd been able to make about her over the past few hours, and he considered them carefully before choosing to supply one.
"But you never planned on returnin' to all this."
He certainly never would have anticipated it himself, not ten years ago. Back then, he might have laughed at the mere notion of Ryan's fair city falling so far in such a relatively brief span of time.
That inscrutable look returned to Tenenbaum's face before she shook her head.
"I had suspected," she said with guarded words, "that if Atlas continued his war... I had accounted for the possibility that there might not be a Rapture to return to. But Lamb..." She hesitated, then sighed. "I had never accounted for anything like this."
"If any of us had, we might not be so bad off." Sinclair wasn't actually certain whether or not that was true, but it sounded right. "In any case... Back to the subject."
She nodded, seeming just as glad to switch topics. "The Mariner, you mean."
"That's right." He took a moment to examine the map for himself, judging the distance between their current location and the Ryan Industries compound. "So, if I'm following you right: we want to get at the Mariner, then we have to get at Ryan Industries first... Now, how do we get there from here?"
"It is likely that Lamb has the pedestrian tunnels under watch, if they are not locked down entirely." Tenenbaum's brow furrowed. "I had first thought to take one of the bathyspheres there, or to use the express rail, but..."
There was no question this time as to what she was thinking, so Sinclair didn't hesitate to finish for her: "But anything movin' about in open water is fair game to the Mariner."
"And I would prefer not to take any chances." She sighed again. "I know of only one other way, but it will be difficult."
He raised an eyebrow. "Just how difficult do you mean?"
She pointed to another spot on the map before she answered: Apollo Square. "Here, there is an underground tramway... It took workers to the maintenance access. If I am remembering correctly, that access point will take us directly to the laboratories."
His brow rose even higher. "That doesn't sound so difficult to me."
"I have already been to Apollo Square," she said with a frown. "All power to the railways there has been cut off... Without the power, I could not even get into the tunnel to walk there."
"No power, huh..." Now there was an obstacle if he had ever heard one. "Don't suppose you got any Electro Bolt handy?"
Her frown deepened. "It would require more than one man's plasmids to power that tram."
Sinclair decided it would be best not to take the time to explain he'd meant it as a joke.
"Well, if restoring that power is our only option..." His mind came to one conclusion as he thought it over, but it wasn't one he particularly liked. "Then our only option is to head for Central Control."
Tenenbaum's brow scrunched again, though in confusion this time. "But you said that Lamb took over Central Control."
"And she did. But that's not where she runs the show; as far as anyone can tell, she keeps herself sequestered away in Persephone."
Of course, even in Persephone, she had a great deal of access to administrator control that could affect the city in potentially nasty ways, and nobody knew that better than himself. But that wasn't a detail he felt like sharing at the moment.
"If we can get ourselves into Central Control, then we can have that power switched on lickety-split... Or anything else you might feel like doing."
She didn't yet seem convinced. "It will be dangerous..."
"And there's a single part of this plan that isn't dangerous?"
To his surprise, that seemed to do the trick; the scrunch in her brow finally eased away, and she looked up at him with a nod.
"Very well." As she continued, she traced out their path on the map. "We go to Central Control, restore the power, use the emergency access duct to reach Olympus Heights, go to Apollo Square, and then we use the tram to get to Ryan Industries."
He knew well that, in practice, it wouldn't be nearly so straightforward. Nothing these days could possibly be so simple as that. But he found himself nodding along anyway.
"Sounds like a plan to me."
"Sehr gut." Now that she was finally done with it, Tenenbaum began to fold up the map. "But before we do any of this, I suspect we will need more weapons."
"And that's a suspicion I can agree with."
Sinclair didn't exactly know where they would be able to find those weapons, but he was glad for the suggestion nevertheless. He hadn't yet found a chance to send that parcel, after all, and if he could manage to do it out of Tenenbaum's sight...
Well, he supposed it didn't make a difference whether or not Tenenbaum spotted one of his coded messages. But he had a feeling that it would make all the difference in the world to his contact, and besides that, the fewer questions about it he chanced, the better.
