AUGUST 14, 1969 — ?: ? PM
When she began to stir, Eleanor found the world around her had been suffused with a soft golden light.
Her body felt heavy, too heavy for her to lift herself up off the smooth tiled floor. A crooning voice sang in the distance, gently crackling through unseen speakers, echoing in waves through the gilded thresholds at either end of the room.
"Unbelievable!"
A sense of rage flickered somewhere in her heart, sparking to life with a peculiar warmth that began to spread throughout her very limbs. But still she could not will herself to move.
A ghostly figure paced the floor in front of her, its translucent form appearing cold and alien amidst the golden light, until it turned on its heel and violently ripped down a poster from its frame on the wall.
"Ruined, everything's been goddamn ruined—"
Another ghost approached from the left, hands raised in an appeasing gesture. The first only turned and swung at it, with the crumpled poster still held tight in its clenched fist.
"All because that goddamn Kraut couldn't keep her goddamn mouth shut!"
The words sank into her like venom, flooding her senses with hot-blooded fury. She didn't know why, or where it had come from, but this anger was like none she had ever known.
"Everything..."
"Easy." The other ghost took its chance to speak in a calm, wavering voice. "Not all is lost just yet—"
"Shut up."
The fury in her blood could not be contained. Eleanor felt near to bursting with it.
"Do you have any goddamn idea just how much time and money I've poured into this little investment...all for it to fall apart on account of one goddamn flatfoot who jumped the gun? Do you?!"
The ghost stalked away with a frustrated howl, the sound of it shaking Eleanor to her very bones, and started to rip the poster apart.
"But we have the investigator."
The other ghost's voice remained just as calm as before. Eleanor could still feel the rage thrumming in her veins, but the first one finally fell still.
"We do... And we've got that little monster, don't we?"
That spark of fury had begun to sputter out, only to stoke itself into something closer to hunger. Eleanor felt a cold weight in the pit of her gut as she struggled to keep it from overtaking her all over again.
"Get the girl, get the private eye, and bring them both to the Silverfin. Do whatever you have to, as long as you keep the bastard alive. Got it?"
"Of course."
She realized for the first time that she had been clawing at the tile, pooling all of her strength into pulling herself forward, into pushing herself off the ground, into doing the slightest damn thing to put herself into the middle of the scene. But by the time she realized it, the ghostly figures had already begun to disperse, and the golden light had already begun to dim into pitch darkness.
AUGUST 14, 1969 — 12:49 PM
Eleanor jolted awake to the scent of brine deep in her lungs and the sound of retching from somewhere behind her.
Beyond that, the first thing that drew her attention was the large crack in the porthole of her helmet, large enough to obscure her view, and the sensation of some moisture that had seeped inside. She couldn't remember whether it had been broken by the splicer that had grabbed her or by the bathysphere's collision course, or even by her apparent crash landing onto this floor, but whatever the cause, it was of no use to her now.
She fumbled with the fastenings, then tugged it off with a grunt. With the porthole out of the way, she could now see where they had landed.
The room looked exactly the same as the one in her dream, but only so far as its layout was concerned. The golden light was gone, leaving only the deep blue glow of the ocean outside to illuminate the room. The cracked tile floor was slick and glistening with seawater, and the tables and seats she was so sure had once been so artfully arranged were now overturned or broken to splinters.
An empty poster frame still hung on the wall before her, torn fragments of paper still clinging to its edges.
She turned to look to her side, through the wide glass window to the outcropping they had first crashed into. The bathysphere was still there, completely flooded where it sat wedged into the broken clamshell-shaped sign, but although it had destroyed some portion of the sign's flickering neon words, her genetic memory stirred with recognition and filled in the blanks: MANTA RAY LOUNGE.
In the back of her mind still hung the picture of this place from a time long ago, before she could have ever seen it for herself, before its gilded decor had faded into forgotten darkness. It only made the reality of her surroundings, broken and waterlogged, all the more grim.
The retching noise came from behind her again, and this time she was alert enough to look to its source: Anders doubled over on his hands and knees, head touching the floor as he sputtered and coughed out the last of the water in his lungs.
So he had survived after all. For a long, unsettling moment, Eleanor truly didn't know whether to be relieved or not.
Despite her hesitation, she reached over to place a hand on his back. He didn't move beneath her touch, but he was shaking like a leaf.
"Are you all right, Mr. Anders?"
Slowly, his back rose and fell as he sucked in a deep breath, and then he lifted his head to look around.
"How..."
Before he could finish, the floor beneath them began to quake. As the rumble spread up to the walls around them, rattling the glass windows in their steel frames, Eleanor realized with horror that only one thing could be the cause.
"Stay quiet—"
She glanced around the room for anything that could possibly serve as cover, and as soon as she found the one table that still stood upright beneath the wide window, she quickly grabbed Anders and tugged him with her to crouch beneath it. He clearly wasn't alert enough to help drag himself there, not just yet, but he didn't resist her efforts either.
"What—"
"Shh!"
The rumbling was audible now, sinking into her very bones, as a great shadow fell over the already darkened room. It was soon followed by a bright light—not the soft golden hue that had illuminated her ghostly memory of this place, but rather a harsh yellow glare that poured itself into every corner it could possibly reach.
It felt as though an eternity had passed before the rumbling faded to still silence, the bright yellow light finally retreated, and the great shadow passed over them. Eleanor took a deep breath, her first since the shadow appeared.
"What was that?"
Anders was still shaking beside her, and he stared at her with widened eyes. Eleanor didn't feel bold enough just yet to check whether the coast was clear, so she remained where she was for another moment longer.
"He must have been looking for the bathysphere..."
"Who?"
Briefly, Eleanor stared at Anders with her own look of surprise. How long could someone stay in Rapture and not know the answer to that question?
"The Mariner."
His brow furrowed, and into his face came a look of understanding. So he had heard of the Mariner after all, apparently, though Eleanor found herself doubting just how much he knew. But that didn't matter now.
"Why..." He stared at the ground, as though searching for his words, then shook his head. "Why?"
Perhaps her doubts would be confirmed. Eleanor took a deep breath, then climbed out from their hiding spot to look out through the window. The sign remained, though the bathysphere had vanished.
"That's just what he does," she said as she stared at the sight. "I should have known better... He'll go after anything that moves about in the water—"
"No, I mean—" Anders grunted as he pulled himself out from under the table and up to his feet. "Lamb—your mother is the one who controls that thing, isn't she? Why would she have it do anything that could kill you?"
She looked at Anders then, unconsciously tilting her head in confusion. The thought wasn't one that had occurred to her, though not without reason.
"My mother has no more power over the Mariner than anyone else in the city," she said. "She only says that she does so the people won't live in fear, or ever think of crossing her... So they'll all think he was always meant to be part of the plan."
"You mean it..." He stumbled over the word before mirroring Eleanor: "He wasn't?"
"No."
Eleanor took another long look through the window before she turned to survey the rest of the room.
"We should go," she said, glancing back to Anders. "Mother might not have any control over the Mariner, but she'll probably have splicers after us any minute now."
There was a look of unease in his face, made obvious in the knit of his brow. But he made no indication of dissent.
"All right," he said with a nod. "I'll follow you."
She nodded in return, then took another deep breath before heading for the doorway at the far end of the room.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, that singing voice still echoed down from the high vaulted ceiling, crooning words too distantly for her to make out; the chandeliers above were still brightly lit, showering radiant brilliance upon the patrons below. Memories sparked to life, whispering to her limbs of all the things they'd once done here: her legs had danced to the tune of some old doo-wop that played through the speakers; her fingers had lit a cigarette with a snap to the delight of her giggling date; her mouth had tasted watered-down whiskey while her hand worked the shoulder of a prospective partner...
But not a single one of these experiences had ever been her own. They littered the floor about her as drifting ghosts, flickering and playing out like film reels of dead men's memories upon the backdrop of a cold, wet, dimly-lit ruin.
Anders had already gone some steps ahead of her, though his focus was just as drawn by their surroundings as her own. He stared up at the dark ceiling, at the barely-suspended chandeliers, and back down to the ruined tables and signs of chaos on the floor around them, that same expression of unease on his face all the while.
"What is this place?"
Eleanor hadn't known the first thing about it, but now that they were here, the answers rose from the depths of her mind as easily as if they'd always been there. In some sense, she supposed they always had been, or at least since she'd first been dosed with recycled ADAM.
"The Manta Ray Lounge," she said softly. From those few words, it felt as though the rest fell naturally into place: "In Fontaine's Department Store..."
"What?"
There was a note of confusion in his voice, and it showed on his face as he continued to look around. She found it somewhat startling herself, just how easily the information was coming to her.
"This was the building we were passing by," she continued, more to herself than to Anders, "before the Mariner attacked us... It must have been."
"No..."
When Eleanor looked to Anders again, she found that the look of unease on his face was now closer to distress.
"Mr. Anders?"
"This wasn't..." He took a step back, leaned his weight against the bar counter behind them and held onto it with a white-knuckled grip. "I don't..."
He made a pained noise and pressed a hand to his forehead. Just beneath it, Eleanor could see his nose dripping with blood.
"Mr. Anders—" She was too alarmed to do anything but stand and stare. Had something broken in his nose? Had he hit his head that hard in the crash? "What's wrong?"
He made no immediate answer; he only pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled in a sharp hiss as he leaned his head forwards with another pained grunt. Eventually, though, he muttered, "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," she said warily, then just as warily began to approach him. She could only pray that somewhere in her sea of memories were those of a doctor; she'd brought the man this far, and for the first time she was feeling reluctant to let him fall behind. "Let me—"
She'd barely touched a hand to his bloodied face before he flinched away, causing her to flinch back in turn.
"I'll be fine."
When Anders looked up to meet her gaze, there was a peculiar distance in his stare.
"I've never heard of this place."
Eleanor could only wonder at how he'd changed the subject so easily. Then again, some part of him seemed eager to put this, whatever this had just been, behind them, and she couldn't blame him for that.
"It's..." She shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts from earlier. "You wouldn't have, if you'd only been here for a few weeks. After Fontaine was killed, Andrew Ryan had the place shut down."
His eyes narrowed, once again filled with confusion. "Andrew Ryan..."
"Not that it stopped people from getting in." More memories flickered in her mind, memories of picked locks and shattering glass, of dodging bullets behind crates packed with seized goods... "We should still be able to get back to Rapture from here...as long as the Mariner doesn't find us again."
At the mention of the Mariner, Anders visibly went rigid. To his credit, though, he kept his voice calm.
"And then... Then I can get to my little girl, right?"
Again, some small part of her wondered whether Anders would make it that far. But Eleanor nodded nevertheless.
"That's right."
Anders took another deep breath, then moved his hand to wipe the blood from his face. He only succeeded in smearing it further, but he didn't seem to care.
"Then let's go."
He pushed off the counter and began to stride ahead. Eleanor watched him for a moment, then looked down at her upturned hand; some of the blood from when she had touched his face still remained on the fingers of her gauntlet.
There was something about this man that was beyond her understanding, something she doubted he would willingly divulge to her, and it set her on edge. It ate at her, triggering some deeply-set instinct that warned her of danger to come.
But was it truly her own instinct, or that of someone long dead and forgotten?
No matter what the answer to that might have been, there was no time to ponder it now. For all her power, she had no way of knowing whether she would need his help again by the time she got back to her father.
Her father...
Eleanor clenched her hands into tight fists as she caught up with Anders' pace. Above all else she needed to return to her father, no matter what she had to do in order to get there.