Disclaimer - I own no legal rights to anything in this story.
1960.
Mid-Atlantic.
"Can I get you something, honey?"
Jack looked up, still tracing the tattoo on his right wrist with the tip of his left forefinger.
The stewardess smiled at him. Jack wanted desperately to ask for something strong to calm his nerves, feared the words would come out even if he tried not to say them. But he reminded himself that he had decided this would be the first day of the rest of his life, and virtue won over.
"No thanks."
The stewardess leaned in closer.
"Is this your first flight?" she asked in a cool Southern accent.
She was very pretty. Thick, straw-colored hair was tied into a pony tail beneath her jaunty cap. Beneath that, long eyelashes curled above brown doe eyes. Beneath- that, pouty lips protruded above a gracefully sloping chin. The nametag, pinned on the navy blazer above the white shirt stretched tight against her physique, read: "VIVIENNE."
Jack laughed nervously.
"Is it that obvious?"
Vivienne nodded.
"Let me assure you, honey, there's nothin' to worry about. This is one of the safest ways to travel."
"Yeah. That's what they say. But it doesn't make sense. This thing's so big and heavy. What happens if it just falls out of the sky?" Jack smelled Vivienne's perfume, plum and sweet lilacs, as she leaned in even closer and gently touched his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I don't really travel. Ever."
"I'm Vivienne."
"I know. I mean, I saw your nametag. I'm Jack. Jack Wynand."
She held out her hand and he took it. Her neatly manicured fingernails felt good against his palm. Jill who? The woman who had shared his apartment for the past several months, who had left him heartbroken and humiliated the other day, was quickly fading from his memory. For the first time in a long time, Jack was in a good mood.
"It's not that I'm afraid of death," Jack said. "Just of pain. Just of being horribly, unrecognizably mangled."
"So, Jack. If you don't travel, what made you decide to finally take the gamble?"
Jack reached into his pocket and brought out his brown leather wallet, flipping it open to show the pretty flight attendant the black-and-white inside.
"My parents. They finally decided to leave the farm and see Europe. I'm meeting them there."
"That's so cute," Vivienne said. She sounded sincere, but maybe Jack was just swayed by the intoxicating effect of her nearness. "Well, if there's anythin' at all I can get you . . ."
"Actually, Vivienne, I'll take a scotch and soda."
Vivienne winked at him and turned. As she retreated down the aisle, Jack couldn't help admiring her long legs and the way her tiny navy skirt hugged her butt. Maybe today would be a good day after all. He promised himself he would only have the one drink and reached for his pack of cigarettes and book of matches, the one vice he hadn't vowed to give up. He closed his eyes and fantasized about his flight attendant's return as he struck a match and lit his cigarette.
He inhaled deeply, opening his eyes to watch the other end of the cigarette turn orange, then shook the match out and looked around the plane.
Jack tugged on his sweater. It was khaki with tiny black anchors, and for some reason, he had felt it was appropriate for this trip, but it felt uncomfortable and scratchy against his body. His chin felt scratchy as well. He had shaved for the photo for his passport, but the stubble had grown back thick already.
He blew a few smoke rings then picked up the package in blue wrapping that was sitting in his lap to examine it again. He held it to his ear, shock it a couple times, and then turned his attention back to the neatly printed tag.
"To Jack, With Love, From Mom and Dad. Would you kindly . . ."
As he stared at the words, he begin to feel oddly groggy. Feeling, for the first time since he boarded the plane, completely comfortable and at ease, he closed his eyes to give them a little rest, then allowed himself to doze off completely. Only for a few moments . . .
The next thing he knew, people were screaming and the plane was hurtling straight into the ocean.
Jack's head burst out of the water. He coughed and sputtered, ejecting water from his lungs, trying to inhale oxygen. The ocean was lit by moonlight and burning oil. As Jack thrashed against the water, pieces of luggage drifted by.
Slowly, the panic wore away, and Jack felt more at ease in the water. He begin to make easy strokes around the water, just like he remember in the old watering hole back on the farm. Soon, he saw a pair of shoes attached to long, shapely legs.
"Vivienne!"
But when he swam to her, he found she no longer had a face. Beneath what was left of her white shirt and navy blazer and skirt, her body was completely charred. All that was left to positively identify her was the nametag, still shiny against her breast.
Jack saw other charred bodies tossed with the tide, and he felt cold all over, not just from the water. A large chunk of the wing came floating across the surface, and he latched onto it. He was submerged from the neck down, the ocean on his shoulders.
He hoped he would just float to shore like a piece of drift wood, but he knew that wasn't the most likely ending to his scenario. He had no idea how far from shore he was, and it was only a matter of time before his legs attracted a school of sharks, or until his muscles gave out and he slipped stiffly into the ocean to slowly drown. Waves crashed over the wing, filling his mouth with salt.
Then he saw it. A light piercing the darkness. He must have seen it before now, must have mistaken the beam for moonlight. A lighthouse stood only a few yards from him, and the tide was taking him right to it.
Within feet Jack abandoned the piece of wreckage and dove under the water, doing the breast stroke to race the rest of the distance to the lighthouse. He finally was able to grab onto a concrete step and pull himself out of the freezing water. Here, tall lamp fixtures shaped like mugs of foaming beer (at least in Jack's imagination) illuminated the stairway up to two giant doors, one of which was already ajar.
Jack's water-logged anchor sweater felt heavy as he stood in the doorway, lingering a moment to let some of the excess water drip away. He took a step forward, and then he heard a long creak and a loud slam. The door was shut behind him.
"The wind," he thought. "It's got to be the wind."
He leaned hard against the entrance, but the heavy door wouldn't budge. He was trapped in pitch blackness.
Then a light flicked on. Then another and another. Somewhere a record began to play, and Jack could hear Bobby Darrin's voice crooning "Beyond the Sea."
"Hello. Anyone there?"
There was a huge bust in the center of the room. It looked like the rounded head of a man with an imposing stare and a thick mustache. Above the statue, a red banner proclaimed: "No Gods or Kings. Only Man." Beneath the statue, a plaque read: "In what country is there a place for people like me?"
"Hello?" Jack called again. He walked around the statue and came to a flight of stairs. As he started walking down them, more lights flickered on to illuminate his path. Bobby Darrin's singing grew louder.
In the room at the bottom of the stairs were three round shields, attached to the walls, bearing the words "Science", "Art", and "Industry." The three shields formed a triangle, and at the center of that triangle, there was a hole in the floor leading straight into the ocean. Bobbing in that hole was a giant bronze sphere. Jack cautiously stepped closer to the sphere. He could make out words etched into its surface in Latin. "Totus valde res flow in urbs." "All good things flow into the city."
Jack stepped around and found an opening in the sphere. A gangplank led over the water into the sphere, straight up to a lever. Attached to the lever was a sign, decorated with a 1930's style cartoon of a man pulling with all of his might on the lever, and the words, "Pull, would you kindly?"
"Why not?" Jack muttered.
He threw the sign to the side and yanked on the lever. The sphere shook, knocking Jack off balance and throwing him into a seat cushioned with red satin. Two enormous panes of glass extended from the top and bottom of the opening, connecting in the center. Then, much too Jack's horror, the entire contraption began to submerge beneath the surface of the water.
A canvas screen dropped over the glass encasing, and a film projector next to Jack came to life, projecting a reel of film onto the canvas.
A man in a suit spoke to the camera. He was a balding man with a thick mustache, and Jack soon recognized him from the monument in the lighthouse. Even in black-and-white, the man's beady eyes and chiseled jaw were a fierce sight to behold.
"I'm Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ashk you an important question," the man said, tugging on a meerschaum pipe. When he spoke he barely concealed a harsh Scottish burr. "Ish a man not entitled to the shweat of hish own brow?" He waved his pipe dramatically. "'No!' criesh the man in Washington. 'It belongsh to the poor.' 'No!' criesh the man in the Vatican. 'It belongsh to God.' 'No!' shays the man in Moscow. 'It belongsh to everyone.'" His flashing eyes seemed like they would melt the film. "I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose shomething different. I chose the impossible. I chose . . ."
The canvas shot up, and Jack's jaw dropped as he watched a squid bob above what looked like an impressive city skyline.
"Rapture!"
It all made sense now, Jack thought. He'd never gotten on a plane. He was still in his bed in his trashy apartment, a needle stuck in his arm, seeing pink elephants. Or, in this case, an entire city at the bottom of the ocean.
Jack could see flashing neon lights and skyscrapers just inches beyond the transparent glass keeping the ocean outside of his vessel. The Scottish burr continued.
"A place where the artist would not fear the censor. Where the scientisht would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the shmall. And, by the shweat of your brow, Rapture can be your city, too."
Jack was now approaching a huge ring in the side of one of the imposing buildings. His vessel passed through and began ascending up a long, vertical tunnel.
The bronze sphere broke the surface of the water and the glass panels retracted. Jack stood up, wobbled around until feeling returned to his legs, and then stepped onto what seemed like dry land. A red banner, like the one he had seen in the lighthouse, proclaimed: "Welcome to Rapture."
Outside of the transparent walls of wherever Jack was, he could see exotic ocean life travelling through the expansive city scape.
"This is some trip," he said.
Then the hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He was suddenly conscious of not being alone. He took a step back, slowly, studying his surroundings.
He heard a metallic scraping. Spinning around, he saw sparks as a monkey wrench scraped against an iron railing. Then, whatever was holding the wrench charged at him.
He threw himself out of the way, just as the wrench crashed down next to his ear. The person wielding it barely looked human. The skin around one eye was puffy and horrendously swollen, the mouth and chin saggy and deformed. The thing jerked the wrench back and lunged again.
"This is a bad trip," Jack said, backing away more quickly. "This is a very bad trip."
The strange being swung the wrench sideways at him, and as Jack lunged back, he tripped over the iron railing and went hurtling down to the next story.
A foggy haze came and went, back and forth, in Jack's brain as he collapsed in and out of consciousness. Soon, he saw twisted lips below a mask with bunny ears.
"Doesn't look like this fishy's got any ADAM on him."
A loud clanging came from somewhere in the distance.
"You hear that?" another voice said. Jack recognized the thing that had tried to clobber him with the monkey wrench. "Let's bug!"
"Weak! You're a weak chopper!" the thing with bunny ears said. "Yellow. Always have been."
"This little fish ain't worth toeing it with no Big Daddy."
The thing with bunny ears leaned in so Jack could feel his warm breath.
"You'll be no better off with the metal Daddy, little fish. See you floating in the briny."
Blackness.
Jack came to again to the sound of labored breathing. He found himself looking at the tip of an industrial drill bit.
"Look, Mr. Bubbles, an angel."
Jack's eyes turned towards the fragile voice. It looked like a little girl in a dirty pink dress, but her hair and skin were coated in seaweed and barnacles, and her eyes were just two large white saucers where pupils should be. Her lips were chapped and swollen, with slimy pink spit bubbles in the corners.
"No. He's still breathing. Don't worry. I'm sure he'll be an angel soon."
Blackness.
Jack could hear voices, distant and echoing, as if they were at the other side of a tunnel.
"What's it look like, Doc?"
A teenage boy's voice, not possibly any older than eighteen.
"Look at his arm."
A woman's voice, low and husky.
"Nice tattoos. I like the chain links."
"No. The needle prick on his arms."
"The guy doesn't look like a splicer."
"I don't think it's EVE. I don't think this man's ever even heard of ADAM. Probably some other more common drugs."
"Never thought I'd see the day I'd be relieved to see someone was only a heroin junky."
This last statement came from another, much softer, voice, with a sweet Irish lilt.
"I know everyone in Rapture," the same voice continued. "And I've never seen this man before in my life. What's he doing here?"
"I think he's cute," another Irish voice, softer and sweeter, said.
"You thought Andrew Ryan was cute, sister."
"You know I hate the bastard. But Andrew Ryan's still gorgeous at any age."
"We can't just leave him out here," the lower female voice said. "Splicers'll tear him apart."
"I think that's precisely what we can do," the slightly softer female voice said.
Then Jack lapsed, once again, into complete unconsciousness.
A/N - If you enjoyed, then review, would you kindly?