rapturecity | somewhere beyond the sea [open to all]

Current Location: Everywhere!
Current Music: September 1st, 1958

Entry tags:

somewhere beyond the sea [open to all]

When the bathysphere doors creak open, Rapture’s Welcome Center isn’t exactly a hub of activity. The red light of a silent radio blinks innocently from its position by the bathysphere door, then crackles abruptly to life. The words the broadcast utters are far from welcoming.

It would be simple enough to pry the radio loose and pocket it for safekeeping. No one would be the wiser.

The red carpet is plush beneath the feet, running from the Bathysphere Station to the lounge, resplendent with its rich decor and a distinctly 1950’s aesthetic. Rows of lamps illuminate the room with a soft, auburn glow. The faint strains of a placid violin drift from speakers invisible to the untrained eye. The walls are lined with ads, the falsely cheery sepia-toned grins of vacant-eyed men and women promoting PLASMIDS BY FONTAINE FUTURISTICS - EVOLUTION IN A BOTTLE! COMING SOON to the public. TELEKINESIS! announces another, MIND OVER MATTER!

There is no orientation, no tour guide waiting to explain the city beneath the ocean to any new arrivals or elaborate on the ominous words from the recent broadcast. What few denizens are present in the lounge area or the atrium keep their wary distance, several murmuring furtively to each other from behind cupped hands. Beyond them, there's simply exposed glass, open sea. The water is dark and rich and green and clear, kelp trailing lazily as it strains for rays of sunlight it will never touch. Schools of silver fish ripple sleekly past. The passage of time is relative here, impossible to guess with the city's well-lit interior.

Whatever happens next, one thing is patently obvious: this sure as hell isn't Kansas anymore.

Welcome to Rapture.

Opportunity awaits.

[ooc: We are opening this intro log to ALL players and characters, regardless of whether or not they’ve apped into the game (yet, possibly?). If your character is newly arrived, feel free to give them a top-level here (the Welcome Center), in any number of the location-specific top-levels, or anywhere else within reason. They can stay in one part of the city or wander from one to another, to the player’s discretion.

If you like, you can choose for your character to have already been in the city for a time. The maximum time for this is a month, meaning they had to have arrived in early August or later. Characters who have been living here have more freedom in terms of where they are or what they can be doing in their top-levels or subsequent tags - they may have already found a living space, started a business, or found other employment. Be sure to check the state of the city post in the OOC comm to get caught up on what's happening.

If you'd like to interact with any of the NPCs, drop the mods a line and we'll get on it!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unlike the atypically empty Welcome Center, Apollo Square is rife with citizens of the unlucky middle- or working-class variety, flooding the tram lines and the metro station as they depart for whatever meager jobs they’ve managed to hold onto. Yet a sizable chunk of those denizens seem to have broken off from the dense-packed majority, drifting to the southern end of the city where some nameless activist seems to have mounted an impromptu protest, or possibly an advertising campaign in front of a derelict building. Despite its apparent state of disarray, the sign labeling it as Fontaine’s Home for the Poor is starkly visible above his head.

"You think Ryan's gonna be there for ya when you're down n' out?” hollers the man to the accumulating crowd. He scoffs. “No - Fontaine, Fontaine's the man with the helping hand!"

Incensed, many of them begin to nod eagerly. Others depart much the same way they arrived: scornfully, mouths turned downward in distaste as the train rattles on, indifferent.

After emerging from the horribly cramped little sphere, gasping and shivering and soaked to the bone, exploring was really, honestly the last thing on Tim's mind. Not when only twenty-four hours prior he'd rammed a sliver of knife into another man's throat, over and over again, gutted him alive until he was up to his elbows in that thick, hot rush of scarlet.

This isn't right. This isn't right.

It should be gone, shouldn't it? He took care of it. He cut its puppet's strings, and it should be over. But he'd just gone from one nightmare to the next, from derelict school walls to seething, storm-tossed, oil-dark water that tumbled him ruthlessly from waves to the hard sea-slick steps at the base of the lighthouse that loomed right the hell out of nowhere.

Was this another one of its - games, tricks, whatever they are? Another hole in reality to go taunting at him through? It feels too solid, too real. He keeps expecting the ground to warp away with each stumbling step, but the apparition remains horrifyingly tangible.

Some kind of protest is happening in the square. He glances left and right, grimacing with a sickening lurch in his gut when he realizes that practically everyone is in the same kind of old-time-y clothing, and he's starkly out of place.

Tim withdraws, pressing himself against the glass separating him from the water that stretches onward, upward, forever and further. He's shaking, shaking too hard to retrieve the bottle of white capsules form his pocket. He braces fingers against his temples and hunches until he's nearly doubled-over in agony.

His head. Oh god, his head.

A few months ago, maybe, he'd be surprised to see a new person in Rapture. He had had to sign a deal with the devil to escape the surface, and as far as he knew the devil wasn't taking any new contracts. But it's been a couple of months since he was sober enough to worry about that. Right now it's just... a fact. Someone new is here.

And what a mess he is. Dodger can't complain. He hasn't slept in at least 24 hours, as usual, his veins are pulsing with a little more ADAM than he needs to survive and he smells heavily of whiskey. There's a half-empty bottle of whiskey in one of his hands and a fresh cigarette in the other. It takes him a moment to light it properly, as he fails to snap his fingers quite right.

"Need a hand?"

He doesn't expect anyone else to help. He is a drunkard, and this new man is a drowned rat in a weird shirt. But the slur in his speech and the tone of his voice is enough to say he's not really interested in being much help, and he won't be much help even if he tries. He's mostly just making conversation.

And hoping it ends up mostly coherent.

He startles, and would have stumbled back if he weren't already pressed as flat against the glass as possible. Tim eyes the man opposite him warily.

He looks about the same as everyone else in this weird city - underwater, why did it have to be underwater - though a bit on the pale side. The stench of alcohol and the mumble to the words is unmistakable.

"I'm, uh," says Tim, running a shaky hand through his hair as he tries to plaster on some kind of composure when he can't stop shivering from the wet and cold and encroaching panic. "I'm just - lost, I think. I think."

He swallows hard and tries to look the other man in the eyes. "Do you, um, do you know - where I am, exactly?"

Whether he's asking to know in the vague or the specific sense, he can't really say. He doubts either will help.

Lost.

"Aren't we all." He drawls lazily.

But the question of where he is piques his interest. No one comes to Rapture by accident, he knows that much even in his drunken stupor. So to this he just stares at the man, trying to decide whether to take him seriously.

"Rapture." He mutters after a moment, pausing to flick the ashes of his cigarette and swearing under his breath when he fails and has to relight it. "...I'd dry off if I were you. No one's gonna help you find your bearings."

Including himself, clearly.

Rapture. Okay, great. Hell of a name. It doesn't sound like a good, welcoming, wholesome kind of name - but then again, no one would except an innocuous title like Rosswood Park to be associated with the vague, horrifying, primal terror he knows lives there.

He has no idea what 'rapture' even means. Does he mean the city, or the region or -

"Yeah," says Tim, bitterly. "I'm kinda figuring that out. Every man for himself, or whatever. Do you mean Rapture is the city, or - ?"

He trails off. God but he could use some nicotine right about now. He fishes a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and sighs when he remembers they're just as sodden as he is.

"City. Yeah. The City of Rapture." Roll credits.

At the very least, even drunk off his ass Dodger has a knack for noticing details. He glances at the waterlogged cigarettes, and pauses as if considering whether he really cares enough to help, before offering the half-smoked cigarette in his mouth to the other man. He considers that a neutral option.

"Tell you what, though - once you've got all the seawater outta your lungs, it wouldn't be too hard to steal some clothes and a bite to eat." He pauses, "And if you run across any more gigglewater I might call that payment for being your tour guide."

At least, it would give him something to do. He has to admit he's curious.

He regards the cigarette with a faint frown, torn. On one hand, this might be a kind of 'rite of passage' thing, some unspoken social expectation down here. On the other, sticking someone else's cigarette in his mouth right after taking a swim through the Atlantic Ocean seems like a very bad decision, hygienically.

He's also at the bottom of the ocean, talking to a drunk. Maybe hygiene is off the table at this point.

He accepts it, and snorts softly.

"You mean alcohol?" he says, raising an eyebrow. "You're welcome to it. I can't drink any, anyway."

Stealing, on the other hand, is a much less appealing prospect, especially if Tim's stuck here.

"Any kinds of jobs or things around here?" he hazards.

Dodger makes a small snorting noise; a response to a joke that's only funny to him. This guy really is new... he'll learn to appreciate alcohol.

"Any work you can get won't be worth the work you get." He takes a swig of whiskey and lights a new cigarette. "But stealing's a little more friendly than killing, I figure. Either way, Rapture's a ritzy sorta place. You're not gonna get a job dressed like... that."

Like what. Like a normal, 2014 person? What the hell even time period is it down here?

Would it take him - this far back? Literally, beyond his own past and straight into another time entirely?

He braces a hand against the wall, swallowing in an effort to choke back the hot, sick rush of panic to his chest. He's still here. He's still here. It's okay. Nothing's after him, yet. He's flat against a wall. There's nothing -

There's nothing behind him.

"I'm used to working shit jobs," he says shortly. "I'll do what I have to. But I'd rather not get on the wrong side of any law, if you know what I'm saying." If worst comes to worst, he'll pilfer a goddamn trash can for clothes more appropriate for whatever fashion is accepted here.

Dodger raises a brow.

"You really are new..." He laughs quietly, "Rapture has more guidelines than rules. Long as no one catches you, they can't say you didn't earn what you've got..."

The clothes he'd bought himself were burned ritualistically, anyway, when he ran with the Saturnine. It took him a while to find someone his size and kill them for a new outfit.

"Oh, and there's probably money in the trash. Rich folks really don't know what to do with what they've got."

"So?" says Tim, flaring briefly on the defensive. He's pretty obviously new, isn't he? Is that a thing here? "There was a submarine - thing, and I didn't know where else to go, so - "

He shrugs pointedly. Maybe acting subtly challenging isn't the best idea, but it's not like the guy is going out of his way to be nice.

"Is it, like, uh." He rubs at the back of his neck nervously. "Is everyone here rich? Cause it - it kinda seems like it."

Huh. He didn't expect the bathyspheres in still worked. He certainly didn't come in that way. But that just makes this newcomer more interesting.

"Rich, or dirt poor. One o' the two." Dodger shrugs casually, "And we don't get new folks often. Actually... I don't remember ever seeing someone new." He pauses, "Guessing from the tee shirt you're not part of the upper class."

That, and he knew if this man was rich he wouldn't have sat here chatting up with someone like himself.

Class divide. Well, that's just great. At least it'll give him the chance to lay low. That's always preferred - or at least, it's safer for pretty much everyone.

"No, really?" he says dryly. "Does it matter?" Maybe it does here, where everyone shoots him vaguely suspicious looks and pretty much walks around like they own the place. For all he knows, a lot of them might. Does a city like this have apartments? Cars, even?

A flutter of paper catches his eye, a shred of newspaper trapped between an ashtray and the ground. He tilts his head to get a look at the date stamped at the corner, and pales.

1958?

"It's - 1958," he mutters hoarsely. "How can it - "

"Is it?"

It's news to him too. It's probably been months since he was keeping track of time. It barely matters anyway. Every day is a new opportunity to either struggle for survival or die. That's what his life boils down to.

"Listen.. the longer you stay here the less it matters whether it's even day or night. Give it a year or two and you'll stop caring if it's 1958 or 1925." He tries to drink from his bottle again, but it's empty. And without a warning he throws it and smashes it beside him.

Barely anyone even glances up.

Maybe it makes relative sense to him, but - but you don't just go from 2014 to 1958. That's not what it does.

The guy practically slams the bottle into the ground, and Tim jumps, hands leaping upward to shield his face from any glass that might come pinwheeling his way. Based on the non-reaction of everyone else, this apparently isn't out of the ordinary.

"Jesus," he hisses. "I don't want to stay here. I want to go back."

Then he shuts his mouth, because who knows if there's even a 'back' to go to if it's 1958.

"There is no back." Dodger mutters. His tone is much more sullen without a bottle in his hand. "If there was half the working class wouldn't be here. Ryan built it to be a fly's trap, see- you can wriggle in but there's no way back out. And I wouldn't be surprised if someone's gotten killed trying - this whole place is supposed to be a big secret and all."

Which is bullshit. And he's known that since the day he got smuggled into the city by the thugs in Neptune's Bounty. But going too far into that risks giving out personal information.

He pauses and glances down at the man. "You know, having company is pleasant and all but unless you've got something worth my while I'm running outta patience for showing you the ropes." From his tone, it's clear he'd rather receive compensation than just be left alone.

A tremor runs the length of his spine, and Tim unconsciously curls his arms around himself, adopting the withdrawn position redolent of every night spent in a windowless hospital room. Maybe he's not making the best or strongest first impression, but with any luck, it won't matter. Maybe this guy won't even care. He sounds more grumpy than anything, probably wanting some kind of, what, payment for his less-than-helpful help?

He's trapped. He's trapped here, underwater, under fathoms and fathoms of - of dark, crushing water -

His head feels like it's floating, his breathing too shallow and too rapid. Tim shakes his head once, less in response to the implicit demand and more out of an effort to get his awareness to return to his skull.

"I don't," he shakes his head again, trying to clear it, "I don't have anything, I just -" He can't panic, not here. Not now. Not in front of some sneering drunk. "I just got here."

Some part of him vaguely knows he should feel bad for him... more than anything he just feels annoyed. He's been stuck in Rapture for five years. All because some bald asshole convinced him it would be better than getting torn apart by his adoptive brother's gang. It seems so pointless to get upset at this point.

"Cool it. Alright? I didn't say I wanted cash, I just wanna see if you're any use to me." He pauses to think it over a bit, mostly trying to ignore the... shell shock, maybe? "We can say you owe me a couple tens, or you can tell me what the surface is like these days. Anything useful. If it's real useful I can help you get started on blending in."

"These days?" he repeats, struggling to keep the edge of panic from his voice. Somehow he doubts the revelation that he's from some fifty years in the future is going to sit well with his drunk acquaintance.

He was never good at history. His only vague idea of what American life was like in the 50's probably came from the old movies Brian rented and tried to sit him down to watch. He scrambles frantically for any kind of information, anything remotely plausible.

"The economy," he blurts without thinking, "is, um - it's, it's really bad. People charging ridiculous amounts for, you know, just a pack of cigarettes or something. Prices going up."

Great Depression? No, that was the twenties, wasn't it? Fuck, he doesn't know.

"Lots of - crime." Does it sound like he's making shit up? Hopefully this guy is too drunk to care. If he's been away from the - fuck, from the surface for a while, maybe he has no idea what it's like either. "Police are totally out of their league."

What use he can be. Well, he's accustomed to being used, he can say that much. Granted, he was only used in recent memory because of the specific kind of information he happened to have on him, and he doubts - god but he hopes - that kind of thing will be no use here.

Dodger groans in annoyance. None of this is saleable information. At best, it sounds vague and made up. And by the look on the panicking man's face he's sure it is.

"Fuck do you know about crime..." Dodger pinches the bridge of his nose briefly, "Inventions. New political figures. Fashion sorts of things - that's what people care about, what's it fuckin' matter if life is hell on the surface?"

He's supposed to be a liar, isn't he? But fuck if he knows anything about history. He's not smart, he's not a scientist. The only halfway useful thing about him is an apparent talent for self-preservation.

He wavers. Then he shakes his head, and something in the back of his brain just goes, fuck it. What's it matter if the guy can't verify it?

"The Internet," he says. "Kind of a - open-access network, like a hub of information anyone can just tap into if they've got, like, a phone or something. Or, uh, here."

He digs his own phone out of his pocket. A hopeful press of the button yields nothing - he made sure to get something waterproof after the last time, but a lengthy swim through the ocean seems to have been too much for the little black rectangle.

It's useless like this. He offers it to the other man hopefully.

"Broken, now. I guess the water killed it."

"Internet." Dodger says slowly, taking the small, thin box into his hand and examining it.

There's only one button on the front, a couple small things on the edge, and... none of it does anything. He shakes it by his ear, and that does nothing either. There's nothing credible about the story, but... some sucker might be able to take it seriously.

"The hell is this thing, then?" It's certainly not anything he'd call a phone. He's more used to the rotary variety.

But either way, he's pocketing it for later. And it's clear he doesn't care whether Tim wants it back or not.

"Hey, you!" Victor's clothing is far from modern but he feels just as out of place as the rest of the random interlopers. He really does not like being under the sea and right now he uses anything to keep his mind off of the idea of what drowning down here must feel like. He's seen worse, right?

"It's the pressure. You just got to yawn and you'll be fine. It'll pop your ears. Places like this can get to you real quick if you don't just breath now and then." This guys clothes are far stranger than the general citizens of Rapture. Maybe he's from some foreign place. Victor's been avoiding Europe lately after all. He also doesn't realize his advice isn't going to help Tim.

With its quiet stream and soft-lit paper lamps, the tranquil calm of the Tea Gardens is nothing like the bustle of activity that seems to suffuse most every other part of the city. A few straggling couples can be glimpsed embarking on a romantic stroll, meandering here and there throughout the Waterfall Grotto and the Tree Farm and the concourse winding all about. For the most part, this part of Rapture is silent.

By contrast, Fort Frolic radiates the same wild energy that has become such a prominent draw to Rapture’s denizens. Sander Cohen has opened his gates to the newcomers, seemingly unbothered by their manifold origins - admirers can only manifest if they are first exposed to his genius. Despite the ill-advised nature of the act, he’s allowed his guests free reign of most of Fort Frolic. Maybe he’s really as cracked as they say, but with rich alcohol flowing freely from the taps and the whirr-buzz of gambling slot machines jangling away, does it truly matter?

Explore his galleries or sit in a show; regardless of what anyone chooses, tonight visitors are welcome to enter and peruse the offerings of Rapture’s artistic community at their leisure.

The wharfs may not be as luxurious as most of the living areas catering to Rapture’s upper-class, but there’s something to be said about the restaurants and taverns available to the workers here. Newcomers might even be able to snag work, though there seems to be a certain wariness to many of the employers and employees alike. Whispers of smugglers and contraband pervade even casual conversation. Anyone who’s been in the city for longer than a minute has probably heard the name that’s on everyone’s lips these days - 'Fontaine.' And sure enough, Fontaine Fisheries has its own vital spot in the port’s economy.

The Fighting McDonagh’s Tavern is open to the visitors, and anyone desperate for a place to stay might even be able to bargain for a room. Neptune’s Bounty isn’t the most well-to-do one can do for oneself, but it makes no lies about what it is.

The radio had come away cleanly in his hand, snapped from its mount in the globular submarine through which he had entered the city and, by extension, a universe beyond the one he had come to know and understand as, nominally, his own. Potentially in the act of tearing through so many different iterations of the same universe and its many diverging, varying, splitting counterparts, his tangible body had become partially untethered to the brane from which he originated. He lacks a means to accurately replicate the process. He also lacks a means to confirm his hypothesis. He could be wrong regarding the nature of said hypothesis, but he doubts it.

Rush closes his eyes. Right then.

He will have to acclimatize to his new set of circumstances and to do so he will have to find employment and shelter and possibly a means of contact of some kind, and since the inception of this list of requirements he has found that he has already completed the third objective which is, though he had not formerly thought to enumerate it as such, obtaining a radio.

Rush runs his fingers along the smooth contours of the 50's-styled radio. In terms of temporal placement, he finds this less than promising.

The air is cold on his skin, and he shivers and does not think about the water. He is not fond of water, in theory, in principle, in practice. He does not think about the water.

He finds he misses Asadi and he misses his dog.

He is getting distracted.

The sharp tang of salt in his nostrils is bitterly reminiscent of San Francisco, an association which he neither wants nor requires. Ports. Wharfs. Fisheries. All lay relatively within his skillset, assuming said skillset is adaptable, which it is, and he remains starkly over-qualified.

Hissing his annoyance between his teeth, Rush begins perusing the neon signs and salt-slick docks for a means of adequate employment.

Edited 2015-10-25 19:53 (UTC)

Lord but did she need those four drinks.

It's been a very long, very mind-numbing month since she arrived here and became welcomed into Fontaine's grotesque fold of indentured scientists. She had a lot to offer the bastard and in return for selling her soul she got herself a sweet flat in Olympus Heights, for all the good that does her. Mercury Suites is a swell place to live and all but they don't do taverns like Neptune's Bounty does.

Fighting McDonagh's has been her second home for a while now, while she attempts to drown her sorrows. Never was it so hard to drown something in the goddamn ocean.

It's early yet but she doesn't think she can stay put any longer. Needs to be on the move. Keep swimming or she'll die. Something like that.

She departs to the wet, fish-smelling open air - sort of - of Neptune's Bounty, walking steadily enough. She moves her gaze around slowly, scanning the people around her for no particular reason other than to reinforce her feeling of isolation. No one else has appeared as she did, not to her knowledge. Rapture ain't kind to foreigners, and she is as foreign as any of them will get.

Her stomach jolts and drops when she spots Rush. Rude. She sees his face all the time, his hunched shoulders, his scraggly hair, but this is really uncanny, it's really-

It's really him.

No. Yes. Yes.

"Rush-!" she cries, abandoning all desire to blend in, abandoning everything, because fuck it, fuck it all. She runs to him, actually runs like in an airport in a movie, and throws her arms around the sorry bastard. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she says feverishly, clinging to him all the same. She knows he'll smell the alcohol on her and maybe that'll incline him toward lenience even as she breaks his very clearly dictated personal boundaries. "I didn't think I'd ever - I thought I was-"

His patience with this display is no doubt up but she can't seem to let go, like if she lets go he'll disappear.

It is at that point in time that something collides with him with the force and velocity equivalent to that of a ballistic projectile, disrupting his center of balance and forcing him to adjust for the drastic difference in weight distribution. He tenses, assuming direct skin contact to mean forceful intervention of some kind, but the purpose of said contact becomes perfectly fucking clear in short order.

"Ms. Asadi," says Rush, slowly, breathlessly, and then, with the requirement of empirical evidence to confirm his analysis because hallucinatory output is not out of the question given his present situation, he pulls his arms around her, fisting fingers into the fabric at her shoulders.

All heuristic evidence would dictate that she is both tangible and real.

Some sort of extension of that verbal response is in all likelihood both expected and required.

Rush finds he can think of nothing to say.

He doesn't push her away or swear at her, doesn't grunt with well-veiled affection, doesn't even stiffen up uncomfortably. He hugs her back.

Shit, don't cry. Don't cry.

She holds onto him for a few moments more before finally releasing, straightening up with both hands on his shoulders to get a good look at him. He looks the same as she remembers. That could be good or bad.

"How did you get here," she says. "How - were you looking for me? Was it the Rift, or..." She doesn't want to give voice to the other option, that he doesn't know anymore than she did, that this could happen to anyone.

It could happen to Greta.

It could happen to Greta. Shit.

He steps away in the same moment she draws back, searching his gaze in silent demand for an explanation, one he would very much appreciate but doubts will be in any way posited in the near future.

"I assumed it was another interdimensional transfer," says Rush. "Unrelated. Though the astronomical unlikelihood of the odds doesn't speak well to that hypothesis."

He withdraws and looks at the radio. It is silent and therefore unobjectionable as far as he can tell.

"We don't entirely seem to be welcome," he notes dryly, indicating the radio with a tilt of his chin.

"Nobody's welcome," says Iman with a careless wave of her hand. "Look, don't worry about that right now, I'll help you out, I'm connected. How did things get left back - in Manhattan?" She almost said 'home'. "How was Greta, was she... okay?" God. This is exactly why she'd been drinking. She understands his questioning, expects it, but she can't just launch into that, not after so much time. "What's happened over the last month?"

He scrutinizes her carefully.

"Temporal displacement," he says crisply. "Time is relative. From my perspective, you were never gone."

He glances up, around, noting the style of the architecture and dress, his eyes narrowing.

He looks back to her skeptically.

"What year is it," he says, slow and measured.

She feels that like a stone in her gut. She sags slightly, staring at him with open disbelief, not at his answer, but that it happened to her at all, that she went through all this and Greta is only now realizing - or will she never realize? are they just in stasis here? is this some kind of Narnia bullshit? No answer is comforting.

"I..." She swallows, mouth and throat desert dry. She shakes her head slightly. "It's 1958. Just turned September. I've been here since August, and as far as I know no one else has shown up." She nods at the radio. "Got one already? I've been leaving mine off. Can't stand hearing that prick babble at me whenever the fancy takes him. Maybe I should have kept it today, huh?" She gathers there is something going on. And she's been effectively asleep. "I have catching and sobering up to do. Come on." She motions for him to follow, leading him away from the thoroughfare, back to the tavern. Not really an ideal place to sober up but at least it's relatively quiet at this hour.

"Starting early, are you," says Rush with less than his typical vitriol. The revelation that Asadi has been here for a month does not defy possibility but he finds it less than promising in a long-term and short-term context.

He follows without direct complaint.

"Fantastic," he says, the disgust stark in his voice. "Some experimental American society, no doubt."

"Something like that," she says in response to either comment, angling them both toward a table in the back corner. "I start early every day. Have since I got here. This place is fucked and I've been alone. Listen, I don't know if you picked up on this, but... I'm glad you're here." She avoids looking at him, keeping her head ducked down as she slides onto the stool and slumps onto the table. "This has been a real lonely fucker of a month."

She sighs heavily, massaging her temples through the fabric of her hijab, which is less neatly done up than usual. She's taken to wearing it looser here, not sure if that's because of the general attitude or because she's simply stopped giving a shit. Probably both.

"At the same time," she says, finally looking up at him, "I'm so sorry."

Edited 2015-10-28 21:55 (UTC)

"I hadn't noticed," says Rush, dryly.

He insinuates himself into the seat opposite her. He runs a finger along the rough, darkened wood surface of the table, digging a nail into the grain. The handiwork is clean and solid despite the rough-edged appearance of the place.

He regards her neutrally, noting her frayed edges, the fringes of her quiet anxiety. "I hardly blame you for the transition."

"It wasn't that kind of apology," she says quietly, refocusing on the table. She locks her fingers together, rubbing a thumb anxiously over her knuckles. "I wouldn't wish this place on anyone, least of all..." She gives up that train of thought with a fatigued sigh and slumps forward to rest her head on her arms.

"1958, alternate history from both of ours, I'm assuming, and from the Rift's too. Andrew Ryan is a rich self-serving lunatic who commissioned a fuckin' city on the bottom of the Atlantic. We're near Iceland right now. He called it Rapture, as I'm sure you've picked up. Gross." She gives a dry, slightly hysterical chuckle, muffled into her sleeve. "There's no way out. Of course. At least not until we make one."

Hey, there's a thought. She's not alone anymore. It's not just her serving that piece of shit Fontaine and hating herself. She has her partner in science and violent uprising back. They can do anything. Right?

She peeks up at him, curiously awaiting his response.

Rush says nothing. He taps one finger along the edge of the table in silent contemplation. Whether this grossly unlikely circumstantial meeting can be blamed upon the Rift or some other interdimensional force capable of penetrating D-branes and tearing away select portions of that fabric in the form of individuals is irrelevant. Any progress to be made on that front will reside in the form of the purely theoretical, as he finds it supremely improbable that the technology of the late fifties will be of any direct assistance in that regard.

He smiles faintly, hard and cold and without mirth. Rapture. It has a dark ring to it. Years ago, years in his future, he named a project doomed to succeed and cursed it with the title of Icarus. In the context of their situation, Rapture seems a suitably fitting title for the city in which they have been unceremoniously and impossibly deposited.

Andrew Ryan. His lip curls in disdain. The name had been one of the first he'd heard, uttered from the radio by the way of an introductory speech and later in the form of the man's scornful message to the apparently unwelcome arrivals.

"I assume we'll be making that way," says Rush smoothly, with an even pronation of palm against wood. "Clearly the capability exists. Is it any law holding us back, or Andrew Ryan's technical equivalent?"

"You bet," she mutters. "No contact with the surface. Rapture is a well-kept secret, Ryan's personal bullshit objectivist Eden. If people came and went at will, well, that'd fuck up his perfectly good white supremacist clubhouse." She sighs and reaches up distractedly to fiddle with her hijab. She's never been in a situation where wearing it was as hard as it is here. Manhattan was unfriendly, but this? This is dangerous.

"So yeah, we'll need more than a route. We'll need... hell. I don't know. Explosions, probably. And trust me, we don't really want anything exploding down here." She catches the bartender giving her his traditional unfriendly stare, and she nods at him, an indication of 'sure, fine, I'll have another damn drink'.

"So... here's how it is. I sort of conscripted myself into the service of Ryan's chief political opposer, this guy Fontaine. He's no better. I'd be hard pressed to say which of them I hate more, but then I've never met Ryan face to face. There's a lot of shit getting stirred, basically. Fontaine is planning something, but I don't really know what. It isn't gonna be good."

Her drink arrives, straight whiskey, and she takes a solid swig. "You got here at a weird time."

"No," says Rush, inspecting one of the thick glass windows with the schools of bubbles drifting skyward sluggishly. "I don't imagine we do."

He reaches forward and takes hold of her wrist to prevent her from draining her drink and regards her wryly. She's unlikely to benefit from imbibing further quantities of alcohol.

"So I see." Rush withdraws his hand. "In that case, I imagine Mr. Ryan will find someone of my technical capabilities useful."

She's startled by his hand on her wrist, startled enough that she obeys the motion, lowers the glass back down to the table. It's not often that she sees him like this. Wasn't often. It hasn't been often that she's seen him at all. She missed him so fucking much.

"I don't know if that's wise," she says quickly. "He's like Fring, but worse. More powerful. You know I'm all for burning things from the inside out but I don't want you in that position again, not ever."

Maybe he likes to pretend that didn't happen, but she hasn't forgotten finding him broken, left on the floor to die, torn up because of her. She won't ever forget it.

"Please," he says dryly. "As if your position is any safer from an objective standpoint."

He surveys the nearly empty room with its dark wooden chairs and tables, the bartender wiping the counter with an old rag. The bottles lining the back shelves bear labels unfamiliar to him. Arcadia Merlot. Lacas Scotch. Chechnya Vodka.

The bartender shoots him a hard look. He meets the other man's eyes steadily.

"If one wants a cohesive perspective of the city, one must be willing to make sacrifices," he says without looking away. "To overlook Ryan would be a poor plan."

"Of course it would," she says, annoyed at his stupid good-point-making. "But I'm not - I won't let you get hurt again. I only just got you back, I can't lose you, okay, I can't."

Fuck. Okay. She's sounding not like herself. Not put together. Not chill.

She hasn't been that for a month. She's been alone, whittled down to nothing. How can she expect herself to be different now, just because she has her friend back? Her friend who is prone to getting himself almost killed.

"I'm too drunk for this." She presses both hands to her face. "Let's get out of here. I'll take you to my place. You can stay there for now. More room than I know what to do with." And she can make coffee and pretend this isn't happening. Her usual post-tavern routine. Plus one.

He smiles faintly, a wry upward quirk of one side of his mouth.

"I'm touched."

He pushes away from the table and rises.

"Do they have currency here?" he asks mildly, eyeing the lines of dark bottles and their darker contents. "Or are they too enlightened for such a thing?"

She snorts and climbs to her feet, leading him back out. "They do," she says. "I made a deal with the devil to get a nice apartment in a quote-unquote good part of town. Got some saved too, cause I don't really buy much. Wine, food. Work's not too hard to come by, especially not for people like us. They're all about science and industry." She rolls her eyes, leading him across the wharfs to the exit. "They're all very impressed with themselves. We'll blend right in. Well. Sort of."

She waits until they've reached the bathysphere before turning to him and regarding him seriously. "They aren't fans of different here, as you probably guessed from the year and the American bit. I've managed more or less. I work for a bigot who hires people like me. I can probably get you what you need, but I don't know how good it'll be. And I don't think I can trust any of my connections to get specific about the whys."

It’s an unfortunate fact, but any new arrivals who don’t end up at Fontaine’s Home for the Poor are likely to have to scrounge up a place of residence in the Drop. It’s its own, self-sufficient town, but the residents don’t carry themselves with quite the same elitist, slightly smug air that seems to be the norm for most of Rapture’s higher-class citizens. People here keep to themselves, darting looks at anyone they might not recognize and wondering if they could be one of the new arrivals, wondering if they might become part of the competition for the best housing available in the Drop.

No business here has the courtesy to even provide the semblance of being welcome. No restaurants or shopping centers have opened their doors in greeting or offered discounts, and no denizens are overly eager to approach anyone who might become a new, unwanted roommate. It might be best to find a room in Sinclair Deluxe and lay low.

In the darker, more secluded recesses of the Drop, an odd silhouette peels itself away from the surrounding shadows. Its coat and bag are slick and dark. A slender, saw-edged scalpel glints at its side. It carries itself with the subtle confidence that should anyone be in its way, they would part to either side without a murmur of dissent. Nearly anyone who passes too close looks away quickly, eyes sliding past with furtive urgency.

Whether it's entering or leaving the Drop, it walks with purpose, its distinct appearance setting it apart from the rest of Rapture's citizenry. But if any should think to waylay it, it may not react as violently as the rumors and whispers would claim.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

somewhere beyond the sea [open to all]

APOLLO SQUARE;

tw: flashbacking, fear of drowning, gore mention, dissociation

Gently pretends I'm not late to the party.

not at all!

phew uvu

we backtag forever no worries

be warned i will actually take you up on that to infinity

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ARCADIA;

FORT FROLIC;

NEPTUNE'S BOUNTY;

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LOOK OUT HERE COMES THE EMOTIONS TRAIN

okay first of all how dare you

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

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PAUPER'S DROP;

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