FOREWORD
What This Is
This is a BioShock novelization. I tried to change the original story as little as possible while accounting for the differences between mediums. This story's intent is to play the BioShock story straight—just in an expanded form. Think of this both as a literary response to video-game storytelling and a "quality-of-life" AU, if you will.
BioShock's storyline takes precedence over BioShock: Rapture's and BioShock 2's and Infinite's; BioShock: Rapture's storyline takes precedence over BioShock 2's and Infinite's; and Infinite's storyline takes precedence over BioShock 2's.
BioShock 1-related events of BioShock: Rapture usually override BioShock 2's and Infinite's as Irrational Games Creative Director Ken Levine was involved and I consider BioShock the seminal work.
Content Warnings
All the trigger warnings: this story is physically brutal and ideologically foul. Swearing, slurs, extreme violence and abuse (systemic, individual; physical, psychological), animal abuse and neglect, child abuse and neglect, grooming and sexual assault, cults, torture, drug abuse, kidnapping, body horror, sociopathy of every stripe, sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, capitalism, Objectivism, libertarianism, and a number of other -phobias and -isms feature both prominently and randomly throughout. You have been warned.
Additionally, period-specific language, technology, products, belief systems, trends, and fads are used throughout the text. Some of these terms and practices are now considered everything from prejudiced to abusive. Do not think that I support these backwards belief systems myself; this is simply a way of holding a mirror up to the past. Moreover, since this is historical fiction, I wish to be as historically accurate as possible, so I do not necessarily comment on their moral appropriateness. Even if a character is coded as "good," you should not take for granted that they are laudable on all points. Consider all characters and myself as idiots and you should get along perfectly.
Miscellany
I'm fine with criticism—most especially when you catch grammatical, factual, and historical mistakes. If you find an error in this work, do not hesitate to let me know. I ain't affordin' no editors anytime soon, so I see that kind of thing as a huge favor. Thanks for your time!
Consider this work as Creative Commons 4.0 BY-NC-SA. Feel free to translate, podfic, fanbind, MST, or otherwise reinterpret this work as long as you give me credit, link to the original, and do not profit off of the venture.
Last but hardly least: thank you for reading. You don't have to be here. I appreciate you and your time.
Dedication
To Ken Levine and the staff at Irrational Games;
to Ayn Rand and those who destroy us;
and to John,
who knew firsthand what it was like.
Quotes
Look and don't tell me, don't tell anyone, just tell yourself: what are you living for? Aren't you living for yourself and only for yourself? Call it your aim, your love, your cause—isn't it still your cause? Give your life, die for your ideal—isn't it still your ideal? Every honest man lives for himself. Every man worth calling a man lives for himself. The one who doesn't—doesn't live at all.
— We the Living, Ayn Rand
the dark is empty;
most of our heroes have been
wrong
— Charles Bukowski
UPRISING
BOOK IV: CITY OF WORMS
Chapter One: Take the Head
You remember Pa teaching you how to pop the head off of a chicken. You weren't very big yet, maybe five. You had always been taught to treat the animals with respect, so it jarred you to yank the chicken up by the throat. The chicken flapped and kicked; the golden eye latched on yours, a panicked pinpoint.
You couldn't break her neck. You tried and you tried but you just rubbed her throat in a circle over and over like you were trying to give her an Indian burn. She frantically scratched your arm up and down, her beak gaping in a terrified pant. You know now that you could have done it easily—a chicken's spine is little more resistant than a dry stick or a pencil—but that was just the problem: she wasn't either of those things.
Then Pa took her from you, wrapped his fist around the throat, and popped the head clean off. He held the head out to you. The eyes had closed. The lids were soft and pink. Her face was peaceful. Her body still kicked.
"See?" he said. "Easy. She didn't feel a thing."
There was blood on Pa's hands. When he pointed out the cockerel for you to try again, there was blood on your hands, too.
You aren't much of a conversationalist. You've gone on dates where you barely spoke a word. Your coworkers don't know your name. You work in a factory line, screwing in one piece at a time. Dull work, monotonous work. Lets your brain run on its own time at its own pace.
You like to remember lists during such times. Pa taught you about something called a "mind palace," a detailed map you build in your mind and store thoughts inside of. Somehow recall is easier when you can imagine them in a physical space. You store your shopping lists there. You also store guns—lists about makes, models, and ammunition.
Guns have been a fascination of yours since before you can remember. As a boy, you would rip pages out of the Sears catalog and tape them on the wall so you saw them when you woke up. You were fascinated how they went together and would draw them in their disparate parts before drawing them put together again. You liked drawing them from all different angles just to admire the geometry. You checked out books on guns from the library so often that the librarian started setting aside new offerings for you. You had never been able to own guns of your own, but you practiced with your father's Mark I Sturm Ruger and the old .22. You could ping prairie dogs like a pro.
You like to think that eventually, you'll buy one of your own. You know just the model—the BAR, or Browning Automatic Rifle—full-aut, carried by Bonnie and Clyde, only running second-fiddle to the M1 Garand throughout World War II. When you repeat the gun list, you think "BAR" before any of the others; it is the highest honor you can bestow.
You like monotony for the same reason you like lists. There's something relaxing about rhythms. It's like music, like dance. You can't dance, of course—you never learned. You don't own a record player, either—you don't spend money on frivolous things. The Depression is still a heavy black cloud in the back of your mind. You lived on a farm, so your belly never went empty, but you also didn't grow up wearing shoes.
You are 28. Or is it 29? It's been a while since you've thought about your birthday. It's on July 3. "Our independence baby," someone said. It may have been Pa, but you don't remember exactly; you were very small. You do remember Ma replying that it was one day off and they weren't in America anyway, so it didn't count. You were disappointed for some reason; sure, you know it doesn't make a difference either way, but it would be nice to have something special that was just your own.
Oh, Ma and Pa told you you were going to do great things someday—that's something you could believe when you were, say, eight. But then you had to make your way in the world and all the world offered was a factory line, a small dark room, and the weather. It's hard to believe in anything magnificent at the bottom of a hole.
You live in sparsely-furnished rooms in cheap apartments near the ocean. On weekdays, you make your bed, eat breakfast (eggs, toast, coffee with cream), shave, dress, go to work (screw, screw, screw), come home and turn on the radio (evening news, then whatever entertainment strikes your fancy, usually action and adventure programs), drink a beer while completing the evening ablutions (wash dishes, pack lunch for tomorrow, shower, set alarm clock, read evening edition in bed until you get tired).
Sometimes you go to your neighbor's to watch their television in exchange for a beer; you sit side by side and quietly drink as Lucy gambols and the laugh track rolls. On Saturdays, you go shopping for the household essentials and stand in lines while the grocer bags produce and the butcher cuts your lunch meat.
If it's nice enough, you walk down to the ocean to stretch your legs. It's not a pretty place by any means; all you can see is a sodden gray beach where colorless rushes thrust insistent heads. In winter, it's even more dreary. The Atlantic is a sullen gray sweep and the cold steals your breath. It's the kind of cold that makes you feel wet and heavy even if you haven't touched water.
You have never felt as though the sea is a nice place; you decided this back when you first entered the town. Even in the summer, when the water is glassy green and the beach crowded with tourists, you feel as though the sea is something apocalyptic—in depth, in scale, in potential.
Apocalyptic: you don't go to church, but that's the word that comes to you. The sea feels as though it should be the focus of worship, the kind of thing you sacrifice to; you've never held much by spiritual claptrap, but you will grant one place worthy of godhood.
You did not grow up near the sea. You grew up in Kansas, a land so flat you used to roll up papers like spyglasses and try to see Japan. You moved to the coast of New Jersey because you'd wanted to see the ocean. No—no, it may well have been because of the factory job. They do pay well and they probably printed something in the help ads. A family friend in New York often sends newspaper clippings with his letters just to be of service. Yes, that would make a great deal more sense. "I heard Jack is looking for a job," he'd say. "Here are some local ones that are right up his alley."
Yes, now that you think about it, that's exactly what happened. The sea was a bonus—until you saw it. But how were you to know what the sea was really like until you went there? It's too bad someone couldn't have told you.
Sometimes you think you should move away, but learning new routines is such a pain that you just put up with it. Someday you'll probably get tired enough to leave. The way the cold weaponizes humidity tires you down to your bones.
You know, you haven't thought of the family friend in a while. What was his name again? Joe? Jim? John? One of those common names. You'll have to check your address book. It's been a while since you've heard from him. You should write sometime to make sure he's all right.
For that matter, you haven't heard from your parents. When did they last write? Hell! Maybe it's your turn to write. Yes, it's your turn to write for certain; that would explain why you haven't received any letters recently. Your parents are older now; you know better than to leave them without a word every now and then. Your mother must be worried sick.
You decide to purchase some stationery and stamps that weekend, but you forget until the invitation comes, and by that time, it's far too late. You didn't know that then, of course. You didn't know much of anything, if you have to be honest.
NOTES
Originally posted on Tumblr. Too complete to post to Black Scrapbook, and I wanted something to work on.
Jack's birthday is officially Sept. 1, 1936, according to an unused passport in BioShock's game files. Because this is technically non-canon, I went ahead and ignored it lol
If you want perfect background music for this story, listen to the Shutter Island soundtrack on loop and don't skip any of the songs.
