JUNE 3, 1959 — 12:06 PM
Lately it often seemed as though Andrew Ryan never left his office in Central Control. As for Ryan himself, he often felt as though he never had the time or opportunity to be anywhere else.
There was always, always, always something new for him to see to, some new threat to bring under control, some new concern for him to address. Rapture had never been stronger, he was certain of this, but at times it seemed as though it had never been more restless. Its people had never been more restless, and someone, something was making them that way. What exactly that could have been, he didn't yet know, but come hell or high water, he was going to get to the bottom of it—and eradicate it.
His city had never been more restless, and his ideals had never been put to the test this severely. But he had survived for this long, come to this great height, won this much in his life thus far by holding fast to his principles without any room for doubt, and there was no question in his mind that those principles would continue to serve him well. He would make it through this. His city would make it through this, no matter how far the parasites spread their poison, no matter how deeply they entrenched their claws into the great pillar of his success.
The Great Chain would prevail above all else. From this belief, nothing could sway him.
But there were always those who gave it the old college try.
Sullivan and one of his officers sat before him in his office, caps removed and expressions grave.
"Nothing?"
"No, sir," Sullivan said with a shake of his head. "Sinclair told us he had his security sweep every floor of the Sinclair Deluxe. Our men are searching the rest of the Drop as we speak, but so far I haven't heard them turn up with any stolen goods."
Ryan drummed his fingers against the desk as he considered this new information. Augustus Sinclair was a man he had trusted in past business dealings, but he always seemed to have his own agenda or two; Ryan wondered if his word could be trusted now. But to have his men storm the Deluxe and perform their own search wouldn't do only to betray whatever trust remained between them, no—it would betray the trust between him and his city, and the ideals upon which it was founded. No, he had little choice but to take the man at his word.
It burned him to do so. But some sacrifices had to be made for the sake of Rapture's sanctity.
"But, uh... He did have something else to tell us, sir. Don't know yet if it's directly tied to the robberies, but we're looking into it."
"Just tell me, Sullivan."
Sullivan and the other officer exchanged an uneasy glance before he spoke again.
"Well, he's got sources in the Drop, you know, keepin' his ear to the ground and all that... And what these sources are telling him is that there's been someone coming into the slums every few days, giving out food and clothes and such to the people there."
Ryan frowned. He'd heard of this in weeks previous, reports of charity in Lamb's old territory. He hadn't thought much more of it than the random acts of someone who thought doing her bidding would somehow preserve her memory. "And?"
"And they also tell him that the people down there got a name for this guy: Atlas."
Atlas. Ryan had little doubt that the name was an alias and nothing more, but what a peculiarly presumptuous alias it was for a man to choose.
"So we have one of the men involved in these thefts, surely. Stealing from the rich to give to the poor... How childish."
He sighed. Ryan was certain of the connection, but Sullivan and his man seemed less sure.
"Is there anything else?"
The two men exchanged another uneasy look. Then Sullivan nodded to the other. "Show him, Patrick."
The officer reached into his coat to pull out a slip of paper—a pamphlet, from the look of the block print on its front—and slid it across the desk. Ryan gave the man a hard look before he took the paper and began to read:
WHO IS ATLAS?
SOMEONE WHO CARES—
SOMEONE WHO KNOWS YOUR STRUGGLE—
SOMEONE WHO HEARS YOUR VOICE!
THE TIME OF RAPTURE'S TYRANNY IS COMING TO A CLOSE—
WILL YOU STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS AS A WORKING MAN?
Ryan felt a sharp twist in his gut, a reaction that provoked nothing but cold, quiet anger.
"They're all over the Drop," said Sullivan. "Sinclair said he even found some himself in the Deluxe lobby, last he was there. When I asked some of the boys at the station, they said they're turning up in Apollo Square too."
Ryan folded his hands together and slowly brought them to rest at his chin.
"Find whatever press is printing this tripe and put a stop to it," Ryan said softly, ice in his tone. "Then find this Atlas character himself, and put a stop to him as well. I will not have him threaten my city any more than this."
"Understood, sir."
Still, they looked uneasy. Ryan gave the both of them a long stare.
"There's something else, isn't there?"
Neither of them seemed to want to answer. Sullivan was the first to work up his nerve.
"It's just that, well... There's an awful lot of splicers holing up at the old Fontaine's Home in Hestia Chambers, even though we had the place condemned months ago. It looks like there might be something going on in there—I don't know, something big."
Ryan frowned again, his brow knitting. "And is there a reason you're telling me this instead of investigating it as you should?"
There was a heavy pause.
Patrick cleared his throat, then spoke in hesitant words: "I was there, keeping an eye on the place, and some guy—no uniform, no weapons, no nothing, just looked like any other slummy type around the Square—anyway, I watched him go up to these splicers, kept saying he needed to see somebody in there, and next thing I know, one of those spliced-up freaks just laughs and...whoosh." He gestured with his hands in mimicry of a burst of flame. "Just like that. Whatever they've got in there, they don't want anybody getting to it."
Ryan could feel something fuming inside him. "You men have a duty to uphold as protectors of this fair city...and you mean to tell me you're going to let a few splicers stand in the way of that?"
"Sir," cut in Sullivan, "with all due respect, it's more than just a few that's down there. And..." He sighed heavily. "After what happened with Fontaine... We lost a lot of good men that day, Mr. Ryan. We can't afford to have those kinds of casualties again."
The flames at the back of Ryan's mind only grew hotter. Fontaine—even now, even in his death, the man was causing him no end of troubles.
At that moment, without any announcement or warning, the door to his office hissed and slid open. Ryan looked up to see his son in the doorway.
"Ah..." A look of surprise came over Jack's face when he noticed Sullivan and the other officer. "I'm not interrupting something important, am I?"
Ryan sighed deeply. His secretary was still missing, it seemed.
"No," he said curtly, then turned to the others. "You have your assignments. Get to them."
"Yes, sir."
They both got to their feet, Sullivan taking the lead, and nodded to Jack as they passed him on their way out. Jack watched after them for a long moment before he took one of their seats in front of his father's desk.
"What were they doing here?"
Ryan found himself sighing again. His anger, powerful as it was, was starting to become wearying. "They've been investigating the recent thefts from our properties."
Jack shifted in his seat, his brow furrowed as he spoke. "What did they find?"
"Nothing of worth."
"I see."
Jack said it with a frown, his eyes lowering to the desk. His brow furrowed again, and Ryan realized his line of sight crossed the pamphlet still on his desk. He covered it with his hand and crumpled it before Jack could have the chance to question it.
"What was that?"
But his effort was for naught.
"Something that's been turning up in the slums." Jack didn't need to know the details. "Propaganda. Nothing more."
If the expression on his face was any indication, Jack wasn't assuaged.
"What kind of propaganda?"
Ryan gave him a wary look. He supposed he couldn't begrudge the boy for being curious, but there was some question in his mind as to where he thought he was going with this.
"The kind that's meant to empower the parasite," Ryan said carefully, while opening a drawer in his desk and dropping the crumpled leaflet inside. "Something meant to paint me as some kind of tyrant rather than the man responsible for their salvation."
Jack shifted again. He seemed hesitant, though for what reason Ryan couldn't quite yet fathom.
"Are you sure salvation is the right word for it?"
Ryan only felt wearier and wearier. Perhaps he was expecting too much of the boy to fully understand, but he could accept nothing less.
"This city is the salvation of mankind, Jack—of the best and brightest this world has to offer, safe from the grasp of those who would seek to undermine their worth. You know that." He realized he'd started tapping his fingers against the desk again, and quietly laid his hand flat. "I am well aware of its godly connotations, yes, but what other word would I have cause to use?"
Jack looked down, pointing his gaze somewhere below the desk. "Well... It just seems to me that there are a lot of people out there who don't exactly see this place as any kind of salvation."
There it was.
Ryan narrowed his eyes. "Every man and woman in this city came here by their own choice. If the burden of that choice has become too great for them to bear, that is no responsibility of mine; it is for them to bear alone."
Usually that would have been enough to quell any doubts on Jack's part. But it seemed he would not be so easily mollified today.
"People came here because they thought it would be some great opportunity for them, didn't they? Better than whatever they could find on the surface." Jack's tone began as tentative, but strengthened as he spoke. "But that couldn't be true for everyone, could it? Somebody always has to be at the bottom for others to be at the top."
It had been quite some time since Jack had attempted to argue his philosophies in such a manner. Ryan had almost thought he'd grown out of it.
"Those at the bottom of your metaphorical scale are never deprived of the opportunity to lift themselves up." He spoke with firmness, intending to leave no room for Jack to object. "Those at the top are there by virtue of their merit and hard work. Nobody handed them success out of the kindness of their hearts; their achievements are not undeserved."
He hadn't intended to leave any room, but Jack found it anyway. "What about everyone else, then? You can't really say that the people in Pauper's Drop deserve to be left to starve, can you?"
Pauper's Drop—he was certainly hearing a lot about the place as of late. Ryan felt he was gaining a clearer picture of what Jack was truly driving at.
"What do you know about that place, Jack?"
Jack bristled. "I've seen it," he said quietly. "I saw that there wasn't a single dry surface down there. I saw people lying dead in the streets."
Ryan's fingers were tapping again. He didn't know what he was going to do with this child.
"You have no business being in such a place, sin moj."
"I wanted to be there," he countered, suddenly leaning forward. "I wanted to see it with my own eyes, and—and now that I have... I want to do something to help."
Ryan could feel his fury bubbling up all over again. This was unacceptable.
"And in doing so you would seek to undermine all I have worked for—not only that, but you would seek to undermine all that Rapture stands for. Is that really what you want, Jack?"
"No, but—" His fortitude wavered, but only for a moment. "It wouldn't undermine anything to keep people from starving in the gutter when there's no good reason they should have to live like that."
"You're right," said Ryan, his voice quiet but not soft. "There is no reason why they should have to live like that. But they do because it is their own will that traps them there. No one, not a single soul on this earth, is ever entitled to prosperity."
"But you're the only one who's bringing prosperity into this." In contrast to his father, Jack's voice was now raised. "I'm not talking about prosperity, goddamnit, I'm only talking about a basic standard of living!"
"And who will be the one to set this standard?" Ryan met his son's words tone for tone, decibel for decibel, but he would not allow himself to be so physically moved. "Who will be the one to keep them to it, hm? Will it be you? Will you be the one handing them money out of your own pocket? Will you give them your food, your home, the clothes off your back? What will you do when you've been reduced to nothing and yet they keep asking for more, more, more?"
"Stop it, stop—"
Jack got up from his seat with a clatter, paced to the other side of the room with his head in his hands. Ryan watched him without a word, without moving from his seat. His tendency towards such exaggeratedly physical expression—something he had seemed to grow out of, but evidently still manifested under duress—was perhaps a result of his genetically-engineered predispositions. No matter what it was, Ryan considered it little more than a weakness.
Once he had collected himself, he looked at Ryan with a wavering glare.
"You had me created to serve Rapture, didn't you? To carry on your legacy? Why shouldn't I be allowed to do what I think is best to protect it?"
Ryan turned to better face him, but did not stand. Other situations might have called for him to stand at eye level with his son, to better assert his authority over him; in this situation, that could easily be achieved by remaining calm.
"Whether you actually fulfill the purpose for which you were created remains to be seen." He was calm, but he didn't let that stop his fury from shining through. "If this course of action is what you truly think is best, then that day may never come to pass."
Jack only continued to glare at him. It seemed he didn't have a retort prepared.
This time Ryan stood, keeping a steady hand on his desk, to ensure that Jack would not try to ignore him or look away.
"Remember this, sin moj. All that you have now was given to you by me, and it was only by my mercy that I gave it to you—by my mercy, and my expectation that you would grow to earn it in due time. Do you understand?"
Again, Jack didn't respond, though again his stance seemed to falter.
"You have yet to show me that you've earned it, Jack. I will not be kept waiting much longer."
All he did was clench his hands into white-knuckled fists.
"Do you understand, sin moj? Answer me."
"Yes, batya."