BEYOND THE SEA (Bioshock 3 quest)

You had some advantages here - and some disadvantages. No one knew who you were, so the people who stole Bri wouldn't know you were coming after her. But it also meant that you didn't have any contacts. Still...this was a boom market, with a bunch of people coming in to pull their fortunes out of the deeps. It was the city to be - you saw just how many people had been streaming through the entrance, how both the Soviet and American powers were throwing the gates open wide.

You could do this.

You crammed the last burger into your mouth, chewed, swallowed.

You left without wiping your fingers.

One trip to the nearest map and a few short walks down tube corridors, you came to West Rapture's docks. They were a series of large chambers that were then locked off into a series of glittering, shimmering moonpools that showed the electric blue color of deep sea water, lit by bright lamps. A constant sound of hissing and pumping filled the air, and crates were being hauled in from the exchange stations. Dock workers walked too and from their positions, and shouts and calls echoed off space that had been clearly built for stability and lasting, not acoustics. Thick blobs of scientists and military personal waited in clumps, until dockworkers gestured them to the berthing pools.

The place was fucking cold too. Fog steamed from everyone's breath and nearly everyone was in a rainslicker and jacket. You had brought a jacket, but it was pathetically light for this. You shivered and rubbed your shoulders, frowning as you took it all in - and spotted that there were several crews that stuck out from everyone else.

They were civilians, but they were armed.

They were technically equipped - with wrenches, cutters, carts, and other tools. But they weren't looking like scientists. They had tattoos and they had beards, and you saw one woman entertaining herself by literally sparking fireballs into existence and juggling them between her palms, laughing as she grinned at her friends.

That was who you were looking for.

On the TV, the general breakdown of modern discussions on the past few years was pretty simple: the twin follies of America's prodigal sons was that they took the basic ideas of America to dark, fucked up places. Ryan had been free markets without limits, while Comstock had been all about racism and slavery. With Columbia stripped for parts off the shore of New York City and reconstruction still taking place, and Rapture kicked open and regulated properly, everything was supposed to be hunky dory, and it's why Carter looked like he was going in for a landslide against the Republicans - who found that pissing on the Soviets after sixty three of them died fighting to save ten thousand New Yorkers was a losing proposition in most of the country/

But...

The thing was, it was still capitalism down here.

And capitalism meant freelancers.

The new freelancers of Rapture were called divers, and you...hoped you could get in with one of them.

As you approached the first Diver group, you saw this one was the smallest and the best geared. They had big bulky diving suits that looked like they were modeled on the old Protector DC2s, but they had been enhanced with the new Q-string engines that had been reverse engineered from Columbia. They sparked and hissed alarmingly, but the men didn't seem concerned. As you lurked close, their leader said: "All right, guys, Mr. C wants to see if we can find anything in Frolick worth taking. That means we want gentle clamps and extra eyes..."

The next group over was a lot bigger, but a lot scrappier looking - but they also had a few people with obvious plasmids, like the girl flaunting her fireballs. They were racking up oxygen tanks and cheap rubber wetsuits, while one of their members was setting up a portable whiteboard. The map had a label on it - but you couldn't quite read it, but...yeah, that was FF.

Fontaine Futuristics, you thought, somewhere deep in the back of your brain.

Then...you spotted a third option. One of the government teams was slotting huge cargo containers onto the sides of a submarine, suspended over the nearest moonpool. It was a flurrying anthive of activity.

Enough to slip in, if you borrowed a wet suit and breather?

---
[ ] Approach the small group
[ ] Approach the large group
[ ] Smuggle yourself in

The leader of the large group is a middling aged man with a curved scar along his cheek, a big bushy fisherman beard, and bags under his eyes. The crew are at work loading up their submarine for the crossing to Old Rapture, and he looks at you with his lips pursed. "Jackie, huh?" he asks, as you nod and slide your hands into your pocket. He sees where your eye is drawing and he grinned. "Didn't get it in Rapture, if you're worried."

"Oh," you said. "I wasn't really wondering. I hear the city's not...that dangerous. Right?"

"Not where the marines are," he said, frowning, then chuckled. "All right, you're new here. And if you have a plasmid, like you say?"

"I got one," you said, then grinned. "I can demonstrate?"

"What did you get? Some hacked sportboost?" He asked, scratching at his jaw. "Or one of those Tristar mods?"

"Uh, it's Honda Teek," you said, nodding and rubbing your hand along your wrist, tracing your tattoo a bit nervously as breath fogged around your lips. The man jerks his chin up, his beard bristling.

"Teek?" He asks, then looks left, then right, then leans in. "I'm going to assume you have a permit, right?"

You blink, then nod.

"Good," he said, softly. "And we're going to definitely get that permit, if we need to show it. From your luggage. But it's...pretty valuable. So you left it back in your apartment. Right?"

You nod again. "Right," you said.

So, Divers ran just about how you expected them to run. The man nods back at you, his arms crossed over his chest. "Pick up that crate. Subtle, like."

You turned. The crate he had jerked his chin at wasn't huge. It was near the submarine, blocked from a lot of the rest of the longshores by its bulk. You breathed in, then held out your palm. The shivering sensation that ran along your spine was like raw, crackling electricity. Your fingers spread, bit by bit, and the crate shimmered, then lifted - ever so slightly. Ever so slightly. You released your strange grip and the crate creaked back to the floor. The man grinned slowly. "Hot damn," he murmured. "WE only have two combat capable plasmids in the group - Lilly with inferno and Mack over there with a hacked Tristar telepathy implant. Now, uh, as I was saying - the areas where the USMC and the MPR-"

"Wait, MPR?" you ask, holding up your hand - a third faction?

"Soviet Naval Infantry," he says, grinning. "Russians."

"Right," you said, slowly.

"They lock down areas very conservatively. They seal, they settle, they study. We're more like...strip miners. We're here to pull information, plasmids, Adam, even money, guns, loot, anything that can be yanked out of Rapture. That tends to piss the locals off." At your look, he nods. "You do know why submarine 0451 found this place, right? They were chasing after some smugglers, bringing weird technology and guns back to the Baltic. People have been coming to Rapture since the place was open - old timers say that half the ports in the world had rumors and whispers about it, New York had a whole fucking club dedicated to Rapture sightings, there was a piece in some old times I have up in my room back at the Blocks." He chuckled. "Fucking Ryan."

"Andrew...Ryan?" you asked.

"Yeah. Smug prick thought he could just pull every intellectual and artist and fucking engineer in the world to the middle of the Atlantic and no one would fucking notice?" The man takes out a cigarette and pops it into his mouth. He starts smoking it. "Smug prick."

"Uh...picking up some personal animosity here," you said, a bit hesitantly.

"Yeah, one of them he pulled down was my father and my uncle - they both bought it before they could pay to bring me and mom, when the whole city went down the shitter." He sighs out regret, cigarette smoke, and hot steam all at once. "Anyway, Rapture managed to keep pulling enough desperate, deluded and daredevil dipshits through the seventies to keep almost a steady population going. Some died. Some left. Some stayed. And then there's the ones that have been down there since the 30s. You've seen what Adam can do, right?"

You nod. "Carter looks like he's almost forty," you say, quietly.

"Yeah. And the automated systems are still working at fixing the place up. Now...we're fixing her up faster..." He looks haunted. "...shit, fuck, Jackie, sorry, the name's Martin, Martin Wilkins."

You nodded.

"So, we're going into Fontaine Futuristics. From what the eggheads have put together, Fontaine was a big pusher in the civil war that pulled Rapture apart, and his area is one of the least mined, and most heavily populated. Splicers still live in the apartments, and there's a lot of Suits around, keeping everything functional. There's also the..." He paused. "Shit, I don't mean to scare you. But...have you heard about the Lost Girls?"

You frowned, thinking.

"There...was an expose, on 60 Minuets, talking about the early plasmid trade. There were kids, uh, kids who were used to process Adam internally?" you asked, biting your lip slightly. "It sounded sick. But they all got out or...or died, right?"

He shakes his head. "There are still...maybe one, two hundred of them in that city. Doing the rounds. Processing Adam. Someone modified them in the 60s or 70s, we're not sure when - they don't just reprocess it from corpses, they're actively growing more...they're..." He paused. "They're something else. And if a Lost Girl is around, a Suit is around, and everything gets really, really dangerous. Splicers smell right to Suits - they've got the right..." He shrugged. "Maybe they're just used to em or something. But us? We're automatically dangerous. And these Suits are old, but they're built like tanks, riddled with plasmids, and their repair gear is...well, you know what they say about power tools?"

You shake your head, your throat feeling dry as a bone. The moonpools felt like they were sucking every bit of warmth from your blood.

"They don't know the difference..." Wilkins pulls a slow drag, then blows it out. "Between metal and flesh."

He flicks the cigarette into the pool. It sizzles out, then sinks into the depths.

"Go talk to Lilly, she'll get you suited up. We head out in an hour."

Lilly is, up close, a tough and competent looking lady with nut brown skin, short cropped hair, and a chain tattoo on the back of her neck - bigger than yours, with little dollar signs between the links. She is currently dressed in a sleek wetsuit, which looks thick like sealskin and blubber, turning her all into planes and lines, with only the barest hint of a curve where her body presses against it. SHe turns to you and blinks.

"Wilkins hired on a newbie an hour before we go?" she asks. "What did you say to him?"

You grinned. "I have teek."

"Holy shit," she whispers. "Who did you kill to get that?"

You flinch.

"Kidding, kidding," she holds up her left hand. "Everyone comes to Rapture for their own reasons and if Wiley Wilky trusts you, I trust you." She grinned. "So, you ever dove before?"

You nod. It's a lie, but, you're not about to tell anyone that.

"Cool, here," she said, walking over to their supplies. "We have a few spares - this team gains and loses members. Uh, not to dying or anything." She adds, hurriedly. "Most of the time, we bug out if anything looks too risky. No, some people just get their first check and bounce - and, hey, a job in Rapture usually pays for a year of living easy on the surface, if you don't mind living cheap." SHe chuckled. "but we're not here to live easy and cheap. WE're here for the big bucks..."

As she speaks, you look over the wetsuit. It looks like it's made to go on over your clothing. You start to tug it on, after taking off your shoes. It slips on, tight and uncomfortable. You stretch out in it, rolling your shoulders, and then grunt quietly as Lilly comes up behind you with a backpack that she straps on. You feel the weight and glance back. "We're not going in the sub?"

"Plasmids and weapon specialists ride on the exterior. We have to go in first," she says. "Then, we find a safe docking port - the old bathysphere systems have locks that we've designed these...to..." You finish strapping the backpack on. The weight is heavy. Comforting. She holds up a helmet to you and you take it. It slots onto the metal gorget. She slaps your helmet with a thump, then starts checking the seals. "...mate with."

You grinned, a little. "At least the subs are having fun."

"Heh." She chuckles. "Now, we usually go armed with harpoon guns. They work well enough in the water, and well enough on the surface. But some people prefer to pack normal heat. Since, uh, you didn't bring any, you're going to be using your plasmids if anything spicy shows up." SHe grins. "Don't worry, again, we run if its anything we can't handle."

You nod again.

Lilly slides her helmet on with a click and then stands still. You realize she wants you to check her seals. Stepping up, you do your best. You run your gloved fingers along them, and feel one of them click more securely into place. You rub your finger against it, then give her a thumbs up, then slap the top of her helmet. The rest of the team is getting similarly geared up.

"Now, this suit has a shortwave radio built into it, works right here." Lilly patted a box on your belt. "Tick up for general, middle for the breach team, and down for straight to Wilkins. Give it a try."

You clicked the big fat metal toggle to the middle. "Uh, hello? This is, I'm...a new member of the breach team. I'm Jackie."

A second later, a male voice crackles. "You should say over once you're done, Jackie."

"Over," you say, hurriedly, speaking over his over. Everyone laughs. You blush, but find yourself smiling.

You feel...bad about lying.

But hey, you were still going to help these guys, even if you were planning to ditch them once you were in Fontaine Futuristics. Once you were there, you could make your way through Rapture until you fucking found Bri. Then...then you'd be able to work for a ticket to get both of you out of here.

Right.

"This is Bus-1 Actual, we are go, over." Wilkin's voice is coming over the line.

"This is Breach TP Lead. We are go, over." A male voice.

"Breach Fire, go. Over." Lilly, next to you.

"Breach Lance 1, go. Over." Another male voice.

"Breach Lance 2, go, over." A female voice.

There was just you left. You gulped, and then croaked. "T-This is...Breach Teek, go. Over."

"All right boys and girls. Lets dive." Wilkin's voice is firm and confident. Before you, Lilly steps over and then drops into the moonpool. The splash is not as loud as the grinding, rattling creak as the submarine lowers link by link, the chain lowering it down into the water. You jumped in after Lance 1 - who was called that, you saw, cause he had a harpoon gun. Your feet hit the water. It was shockingly cold, even with the wet suit. The whole thing was humming with some kind of engine to warm you up, and it was still fucking cold. And dark. The darkness was stark and terrifying, stretching out beyond the brilliance of the lamps.

There are a few footprints of light, stamping along towards the dim, guttering embers that are Rapture.

The neon is gone.

The art deco is quiet.

The power lines are only fitfully repaired.

The only permanent sources of light in that vast, dark city are the areas claimed by Soviet and American intervention - a glowing light shining along coral covered, reef encrusted buildings that loom like brass tombstones among the floodlamps. Subamrines cruise by overhead, thrumming along with their propellers beating a slow, steady whomp whomp whomp in the water. They go in...but you don't see them going back.

Lilly swims over to the submarine and you see a handhold. She grabs onto it. You grab onto another behind her, and she slaps the sub twice, then holds on. More echoing slaps ring out, one after another after another, until there's just you. You slap twice, thump thump, and the submarine lurches into motion. Your legs draw out behind you and your stomach drops, as if you're really descending now - like all the flight and the slow dropping was just prelude, was just the preamble, was just the sick fucking joke before now. The tombstone city is coming, closer and closer and closer. Your throat is dry and your body is soaked.

The cold is in your bones.

I shouldn't have come here. I shouldn't have come here. I shouldn't have come here.

---
HEAT: 5/6
SPARKS:

[ ] You arrive...and see something unusual (Succeed a Diff 4 Awareness check by lightly overheating)
[ ] You arrive. Everything seems quiet. Until... (Fail a Diff 4 Awareness check, resetting your heat to 0.)

Mechanically: It was a diff 7 check to get in. Your Lying skill is 2, so, it took 5 heat. Now, you're can either fail awareness and be ambushed, or you can succeed the awareness check and spot the ambush before it happens...but something makes the situation more dangerous.