JUNE 10, 1959 — 2:29 AM
When Jack's vision returned to him, it was awash in blindingly bright blue light.
At first, he supposed he must have reached some kind of afterlife. But the splitting pain in his head, far worse than any he could ever remember, quickly put that notion to rest.
His hands came to rest on a curved glass pane. He pounded and pounded until it gave way, sliding out from beneath his fists, and he fell forward onto a bed of grass.
Pain. His head was killing him, utterly killing him. He didn't understand.
Hadn't he just drowned?
Another throb of pain rippled throughout his body as he struggled to remember. He couldn't think like this. He couldn't remember anything at all.
Jack flexed his hand, felt the give of dirt beneath his fingers and smelled the scent of greenery in his burning nostrils. Arcadia—this was Arcadia. Past the ringing in his ears, he could hear the soft babble of a nearby stream.
Slowly, he began to crawl in its direction. Perhaps the water would clear his head.
Water—flooding his mouth, filling his lungs, driving all the air out of his body—
His head throbbed again. He had to get to the stream. He had to remember what had happened.
"What are you waiting for, silly? It's beautiful."
A ghostly voice echoed from somewhere beyond the stream ahead. The sound of it only caused his head to throb again, worse than before.
Was that a voice he should have known? Was that something he needed to remember?
Remember— Stop. Think. He just had to remember.
Fire. He remembered fire—he remembered the heat of the flames stinging his face, the smell of smoke and spent fuel—the orange-red glow cast against the walls of the cavern while the wreckage of the submarine burned alight—
No, no. That wasn't right, that wasn't right at all. The sub had gotten away safely, it didn't burn—did it?
His head nearly screamed in pain, as though something, someone had driven a spike right between the halves of his brain. The ringing in his ears grew louder, and something wet dripped from his face.
When the ringing passed, Jack could hear the rush and flow of water once more. The stream—he had reached the stream.
With a shaking hand, he splashed water on his face. His fingers came away with a slick, reddish stain.
"I'm spliced up in ways you've never dreamed of."
The voice was coming from inside him and in front of him all at once. He couldn't bear to lift his head from the stream, to see what ghosts lay before him.
Think.
Why did he remember a fire?
All at once, the memory came back to him. Fort Frolic—it was Fort Frolic that had been set alight, set aflame by Fitzpatrick himself—Fitzpatrick, Kyle Fitzpatrick the pianist, the man with the talented hands and accommodating touch, who had played for him a concerto before his piano burst at the charge of several pounds of dynamite—no, no. He had danced with him, hadn't he? Jack had danced with him in the blazing atrium, while the music of Tchaikovsky had played overhead—Tchaikovsky, it was Tchaikovsky, Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers...
No, no, no. It was all a jumble in his mind, one he could hardly make any sense of.
His head pounded again, feeling as though it was trying to tear itself apart, to pull itself open so that somebody, anybody could put the pieces together for him.
Blood dripped from his nose as he shuddered from the pain. He knew it only by the blooms of red it made upon striking the water beneath him.
Why was he bleeding?
Another memory came to him more suddenly than what he remembered of Fort Frolic—the memory of a fist crunching into his face again, and again, and again.
Fontaine.
A wave of fear, more than strong enough to outclass his pain, rolled throughout every part of his body, and forced him to convulse and retch. Fontaine had beaten him, he remembered now—Fontaine had killed him, and there would be nothing to stop him from doing it again save the time it took to track him down.
Dimly, Jack realized that the only reason he must be alive now was the Vita-Chamber system. But that made hardly any difference, did it? Fontaine had destroyed that chamber at the bay, Jack was certain of it, and what would stop him from destroying even more? What would stop him from destroying every single one until Jack had no chance of being revived?
He could fight back—but could he really? If Fontaine managed to kill him again, and he emerged from a Vita-Chamber again in this sort of condition—if Fontaine was there to find him again...
He was going to die.
No, that wasn't it—he was going to die again, and again, and again and again and again, however many times Fontaine saw fit, and there was no question that he would see fit to make each and every death brimming with pain and fear.
His heart pounded, and his head throbbed with an even greater pain. The sound of static filled his ears, coming from somewhere both inside and outside his aching mind.
"You get to the bathysphere in Rolling Hills. That'll take you straight to the devil himself."
The voice of Atlas came entirely unbidden to him, echoing in the space of his fractured memory like a hollow noise.
Jack's mind was betraying him. There had never been an Atlas, there had never been even one person in his entire life who was so genuinely interested in helping him, in being his friend, in seeing him as more than the freak result of scientific excess. Why would his voice come to him at a time like this? What purpose could it possibly serve if not to remind him of what he had lost—no, of what he never truly had to begin with?
You get to the bathysphere . . .
The bathysphere— There was a Metro station just beyond Rolling Hills. If there was a bathysphere to be found there...
He had never manually operated a bathysphere in his life, but from the deepest recesses of his mind echoed a confidence that he knew how. If there was a bathysphere docked at the station, he could pilot it to the surface.
He just had to get there before Fontaine found him.
That alone seemed close to an impossibility, what with the pain that still wracked him. But it was the only chance he had.
He splashed his face with more water, wiped the blood from his nose, and used every ounce of strength he had to push himself off the ground.
Neon lights over the entranceway in the distance affirmed what he had suspected to be true: he was in the Tea Garden. He remembered the last time he had visited this place, when Rapture's finest had shown up in droves to celebrate the fall of the Saturnine.
A sickly scent hung in the air, mingled with the smell of blood and gunpowder. The still figure of a man sat slumped on a park bench some distance away; there was a shotgun in his hands, its butt nestled between his legs and muzzle wedged into his open mouth.
There wasn't enough time to wonder what had happened in Arcadia that would have led to such a sight. But as Jack was about to pass the corpse by, it occurred to him that he was still without a weapon.
Jack's stomach dropped. He couldn't—could he?
But, ultimately, the thought of Fontaine bearing down on him again broke through all sense of doubt and disgust.
It took some effort, but Jack managed to wrench the shotgun out of the dead man's rigid hands. As he tugged it free of his jaws, he noticed a familiar blue glow peeking out from the corpse's coat pocket.
His mouth went dry. The sensation of his veins crumbling to dust was suddenly clearer than ever.
He couldn't—but he had to. He had to do whatever it took to survive.
With a hesitant hand, he plucked the hypo of EVE from the man's pocket, and then propped the shotgun against the bench to inject himself with it. A sensation of intense and immediate relief washed over him as the EVE's blue glow vanished into his veins, nearly turning his legs to jelly by the time he'd fully pressed the plunger down.
In the midst of it all, it occurred to him to check the shotgun's barrel; three shots still rested inside.
Three shots, and a single syringe's worth of EVE. As he gauged it in his mind, it didn't seem like enough to take down the likes of Fontaine.
But it would have to be enough for him to make it out of here alive.
With heavy steps, shotgun in hand and lightning at his fingertips, Jack finally made his way out of the Tea Garden.
As he navigated Arcadia's narrow and winding paths, in the brief spaces between fearful thoughts of what Fontaine would do once he caught up to him, Jack wondered—he wondered what it would be like after he reached the surface. Where would he go if he actually made it out? The ocean was so vast—how would he get there? Would he see Tenenbaum again? Would she even want to see him again, or would she rather they part ways? Would he even be able to blame her if that ended up being the case?
His father had told him to become a man of his own worth—but what would he do with himself to achieve that? What could he do with himself, all on his own?
For so long, he had yearned to be the master of his own determination, to make his own choices by his own right and cognizance. But he'd spent his entire life under the guidance of another, whether it was one of the scientists or his own father—and while his entire life may have been relatively short thus far, it had been long enough to make the prospect of continuing it without such guidance terrifyingly lonely.
Would that even be a life worth seeking?
No—there was no use questioning that now. As long as Fontaine still lived, all that awaited him in Rapture was an assuredly painful death.
More than one, perhaps.
Adrenaline quickened his steps as he crossed through the downward slopes into Rolling Hills. The further he got, the more bodies he found lying about; it was all he could do to press on ahead.
Finally, the Metro station came into view. Langford's Research Center loomed to his left as he passed, its front facade riddled with bullet holes and its great metal door entirely smashed through.
There was no time to worry over what had happened here, Jack reminded himself. He had to get to the bathysphere.
The station hadn't suffered the same damage as the rest of Arcadia, Jack was relieved to find. Indeed, its interior looked no different from any other station save the lush greenery that decorated its walls, and a bathysphere floated safely in its single port.
Jack almost couldn't believe his luck. Just a few more steps...
Before he could take a single one, however, the timetable board at his side suddenly burst into flame.
He stumbled back with a cry, but quickly recovered well enough to turn and put his shotgun at the ready. Fontaine stood in the entranceway, just as menacing as Jack remembered him.
"You're a tough rat to track down, you know that?"
Fontaine stalked forward as he spoke, though there was a caution in his steps that hadn't been there in the submarine bay. If Jack was of any clearer mind, he might have attributed it to the much heavier-caliber gun he now wielded, or he might have noted the raggedness in Fontaine's words and breath. Unfortunately, the snarl on Fontaine's face kept Jack from thinking clearly for even a second.
"But I knew you'd scurry down here eventually." The edges of Fontaine's snarl grew more jagged as he took another step forward. "And now it's time to put the screws on ya."
Think. He had to stop Fontaine from getting any closer, he had to stop him from using that plasmid again—but how?
Jack's hands tightened where they gripped the shotgun. "Stop—" His voice was hoarse. "Stop, just— Give it up, Fontaine. It's over."
"Over?" Fontaine barked out a laugh. "Why, 'cause you say it is? Maybe you ain't noticed yet, but I don't think Mother Goose is here to protect you anymore. Your girlfriend sure as hell ain't here to protect you anymore."
The sight of Diane's mangled body suddenly forced itself to the forefront of Jack's mind, leaving him nearly incapable of managing another response.
"You—" He shook his head violently. "What good does it do you to kill me? I'm leaving Rapture, all right—I'm leaving, that's all I want to do! I'm not a threat to you anymore, am I?!"
"Leaving Rapture?"
Fontaine's brows lifted. Then he laughed again, loud enough for the sound to echo throughout the station's vast and vaulted space.
"And where the hell do you think you're gonna go, huh? You really think some freak like you's gonna last a single day up there with nobody lookin' out for ya?"
The gun shook in Jack's hands.
"I made you, kid!" Fontaine lunged forward as he gestured to himself, causing Jack to stumble back another step. "Don't you fuckin' forget that! I made you to do one goddamn thing, and you know what? You couldn't even do that right."
"No," Jack murmured, only half-conscious to the fact he was shaking his head again.
"You know what that makes you, Jack?" snarled Fontaine. "A tool. No, I got a better one—a defective tool. And you know what a defective product is, don't you? Garbage."
He was close now, too close, too close for Jack to do little more than stand stock-still and tremble.
"And you know what we do with garbage at Fontaine Futuristics—hell, you know what they do with garbage at Ryan Industries?"
Fontaine flexed his wrists, sending fire flickering down his fingertips.
"They throw it in the trash."
Whatever strength Jack had felt earlier was completely gone by the time Fontaine raised his flame-wreathed hands. He could think of no way to refute him, after all. Nothing he had said was a lie, was it? Jack had been born and built for naught, utterly naught but to act at Fontaine's whim, and now that he could no longer do that, what sort of life was left for him? What could he possibly hope to make of himself now?
At that moment, the PA system of the bathysphere station came to life with a loud electric squeal.
"Are you going to let him unnerve you so easily, Jack?"
The voice of Andrew Ryan boomed out around them, commanding their attention with its forceful tones.
"Or are you going to take action?"
For the briefest of moments, Fontaine's expression filled with dread. He was back to laughing soon enough, but the moment was long enough for Jack to reclaim some of his senses.
"And now your old man's gotta have his say, huh?" Fontaine spat. "What makes you think he's any different from me, huh? What makes you think he never woulda used you the way you were meant to be used?"
That was right—Tenenbaum had something about the so-called keys to his operation, hadn't she? What could she have meant?
"Why should he believe such a thing? Never have I done such a thing, Jack—and no one ever shall."
But who could he believe?
Fontaine's look of easy confidence faltered again, and this time he recovered with a snarl. "Listen to me, Jack—at least I've been honest with you. Except for the whole Atlas thing, but hey, that was a necessity, you know?"
That much was true, wasn't it? Atlas was a lie, everything he had ever said as Atlas was nothing but lies—but nothing Fontaine had told him as himself could be disputed from the truth, could it?
"Maybe the truth hurts," Fontaine growled, "but I've been givin' it to ya straight. Not like there's any point in puffin' you up to believe you could actually be somebody—somebody better than a waste of space, at least."
No. No, that couldn't be true...could it?
He could see no reason to believe otherwise.
"Telling you that you have the power to be a man of worth was no mere puffery, Jack."
But he wanted to believe.
"Telling you that you are capable of greatness was the furthest thing from a lie. You are a child of my flesh and blood, Jack—but more importantly than that, you are a man of your own free will. That alone gives you greater purpose than whatever you were supposedly 'born' to do."
He wanted to believe it more than anything else in the world.
"You have an entire life ahead of you, regardless of what this man tells you."
He didn't know if he could, but he wanted to believe in himself most of all.
"Have no fear, sin moj—and strike him down before he takes that from you!"
Fontaine must have known that he had lost, for he lunged forward with another enraged howl, but he was too late. Jack fired, sending him reeling back—and then he fired again, and again, filling Fontaine with enough buckshot to send him to the ground and keep him there.
Jack's heart thudded in his chest, sending blood to rush in his ears and adrenaline to make his knees nearly buckle beneath him. He could scarcely move well enough to lower his gun, even though it was now empty.
"What are you waiting for?"
He could hardly hear his father's voice past the ringing and pounding in his ears, but the slightest stir from Fontaine's fallen form reminded him of what he needed to do.
"Go, sin moj. Do not forget what I have told you."
Jack tossed the spent gun away, turned, and made a dash for the waiting bathysphere.
After the bathysphere had departed safely from the port, after Jack had wrested some control over its manual operation, doubt finally managed to take hold of him again.
You really think some freak like you's gonna last a single day up there with nobody lookin' out for ya?
No matter how many times Jack told himself that Fontaine had only lied to him, no matter how much he tried to convince himself otherwise, no matter how much he tried to believe in himself, he knew—he knew that Fontaine had been right. He had been wondering the same thing himself just moments before, hadn't he? How could he possibly hope to make anything worthy of himself up there when he hadn't even come close to it in Rapture, in his home, in the one place where he truly belonged?
Even supposing he could manage it—assuming he could even come close to achieving what his father had wished of him... How could he live with himself then? So many people had died because of him, whether by his direct action or lack thereof: the people of Arcadia and Olympus Heights, those splicers in Fort Frolic, Diane, Diane... Hell, he doubted even Fitzpatrick had long to live after Cohen came to, and then his blood would stain Jack's hands just as much as all the others.
So much, there was so much blood on his hands by now. The thought of it sickened him.
He was an assassin, just like Fontaine intended him to be. He was a cold-blooded killer and he had done nothing over the past few days but prove it again and again and again.
How could he go back to any semblance of a normal life after this?
How could he even think of going back to a normal life after all of this?
The bathysphere drifted aimlessly throughout the deep as Jack pressed his hands to his face, gripping hard enough that he thought he might tear his skull open. Perhaps that would have been for the better. Perhaps that would have been better for all.
After some moments of this, he finally dared to lift his head. Rapture shimmered below him, lights all aglow as though nothing had ever changed, as though his entire world hadn't been torn from under his feet in the span of mere hours.
It wasn't fair. None of it was fair.
But which was less fair: that his life had been taken from him, or that he ever existed to begin with?
Somewhere in the distance beyond Rapture, Jack could make out a faint glow—a glow suspended over a vast, deep chasm in the seafloor.
He remembered the sight of it from the Ryan Industries compound. He remembered wondering what could have possibly been there.
Perhaps now was his time to find out; perhaps that faint glow would only lead him to dash the bathysphere upon the rocks, or to fall into a truly interminable abyss.
This, surely, would be better for all.
Jack's hand shook as he reached for the bathysphere controls. His father would be none the wiser. He no longer belonged in Rapture, and he could never belong to the surface. This would be better for all. This would be better...
At that moment, the bathysphere's emergency radio crackled to life with a burst of static.
". . . Mayday, mayday, mayday—I have a small craft and several passengers in urgent need of rescue, at coordinates . . ."
That was Tenenbaum's voice, wasn't it?
Tenenbaum was still within reach—not only that, but she needed help. The question of whether he could actually do anything to help was one he met with uncertainty, but...
Help me to help them because they are like you, Jack—because they have suffered from my wrongdoing.
For all he had done to help Tenenbaum and her girls so far, he couldn't just leave them now.
Maybe he didn't belong on the surface. Maybe he never would. But he couldn't abandon them until he knew with certainty that they were safe—that they didn't need him anymore.
Maybe there was nothing more he could do for them—but he couldn't bring himself to crash the bathysphere until he knew that for himself.
Jack's hand was still shaking as he reached for the controls again, this time to pilot the bathysphere upwards, lifting himself up from Rapture and into the world above.