somewhere beyond the sea [open to all]

[rapturemod]

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!]

Comments

[lottawork]

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.

[etherthief]

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.

LOOK OUT HERE COMES THE EMOTIONS TRAIN

[lottawork]

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.

okay first of all how dare you

[etherthief]

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.

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

[lottawork]

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.

[etherthief]

"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?"

[lottawork]

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.

[etherthief]

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.

[lottawork]

"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."

[etherthief]

"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."

[lottawork]

"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."

[etherthief]

"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.

[lottawork]

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?"

[etherthief]

"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."

[lottawork]

"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."

[etherthief]

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.

[lottawork]

"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."

[etherthief]

"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.

[lottawork]

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?"

[etherthief]

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."