Will the Circle Be Unbroken

By RaymondtheA.I.

Adapted from BioShock Infinte by Ken Levine

"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle

to create memories where none exist…"

Barriers to Trans-Dimensional Travel,

-R. Lutece, 1889

Chapter 1 – The Lighthouse

"Are you going to just sit there?"

"As compared to what? Standing?"

"Not standing. Rowing."

"Rowing. I hadn't planned on it."

Even over the wind, the rumble of the sea, the millions of tiny splashes with each small but thundering raindrop on the surface, the man and the woman chattering away were loud and clear. It felt to Booker, who sat alone in the back of the small dingy, as though the other two had been mouthing off at one another for the entire ride. They had been at it so long, and their conversations so elliptical that the ride seemed to stretch on and on as Booker tried to recall where the argument had started before he could even remember how long the ride had taken. He on the other hand hadn't said a word and intended to keep it that way.

"And why is that?"

"Coming here was your idea."

"My idea?"

The two of them were a man and a woman. One of them was named Lutece, but Booker had forgotten which one. The low-key argument had blended their voices together in his mind. It definitely didn't help that they sounded exactly the same. At first Booker thought it was merely their British accents and he was just being prejudiced. But no, they really did sound too much alike. Everything from the cadence to the way they felt they had to respond to the other's insinuations, it was obvious way neither of them could quit. They had to be twins or something.

"I've made it very clear that I don't believe in the exercise."

"The rowing?"

"No. I imagine that's wonderful exercise."

"Then what?"

"The entire thought experiment."

Booker stared off, trying to find the coast of Maine through the fog. It could have been daytime for all he knew. It was gray enough. Some sunlight had to be lighting up the bottom of those clouds, even as they poured down this torrent. Booker shivered in his boots. His socks and toes seeped with moisture. If he were a younger man, one who had seen less horror in this life, he would have been scared to die from the boat being overturned by the wind, or the water filling out the bottom. But Booker just shivered, wracking his brain to see if he could find that long ago mistake, discarded away in his sorrows, that had led him to getting on this boat and following these two to the lighthouse. Nothing came. If he tried any harder to pin it down, Booker worried he might find something trivial, almost innocent – something that would paint himself as a hapless victim in all this. More than he deserved.

"But one does not partake in an experiment knowing that it has failed." Without breaking from her conversation, the woman turned around and shoved something into Booker's hands. Before he could ask what it was she was back facing the man and locked into the argument again, remaining eerily tranquil the whole time.

In the faint light of boat's lantern, Booker examined a wooden box, lacquered with an embossed set of letters set into a small copper plate. The letters looked scratched out, rusted, but he could make out a date: 1910. Only two years old and it was already crumbling. So much for the miracles of the industrial age, he thought. Lifting open the lid, Booker found a photograph in the shadows. The wind nearly plucked it away, but Booker quickly grasped in his calloused hands. Once the box fully was opened, the sounds of the fellow travelers fell hushed on Booker's ears. He could only focus on making sense of what the contents meant together. A postcard was taped inside, with an illustration of some kind of golden cherub. A pistol sat in the center. That'll work, he thought. Finally, he held up the photograph in the dim light. In faded black and white, he saw a girl. She looked roughly fourteen, facing away from the camera with a giant bow in the back of her dark hair. Scrawled in the corner of the photograph, Booker read: ELIZABETH

As he slid the photograph back in the box, he saw there was more written on the back. He pulled it back to give it a skim: BRING TO NEW YORK UNHARMED Good thing he had the pistol.

"Can we get back to the rowing?"

"I suggest you do or we're never going to get there."

"No. I mean I'd greatly appreciate it if you would assist."

"Perhaps you should ask him. I imagine he has a greater interest in getting there than I do."

"I suppose he does. But there's no point in asking."

"Why not?"

"Because he doesn't row."

"He doesn't row?"

"No. He doesn't row."

"Ah. I see what you mean."

Up ahead, Booker could see a small pier breaking through the fog. Soon the lighthouse was in full view. It was a plain thing, but for Booker, coming in from a world of gray expanse, the way it stood so boldly against the storm made it feel like the tether it was made to be, before the years of use had made it something mundane.

The boat pulled up next to the pier. A net hung across the tip of it in the same way a curtain might hang over a window. Booker, along with his crewmates, leaned out of the boat to grip on to the net and pulled the boat closer in, until he came face to face with a firm, wooden ladder.

"Well, go on, then," said the woman.

Gripping the box under his arm, Booker hoisted himself onto the ladder, trying not to slip on the rain-slicked wood. Once he got his footing on the pier, he turned around to see the boat already in the distance. He thought of calling out, but sure enough, they were already talking to each other, loud and clear over the sound of the sea.

"Shall we tell him when we'll be returning?"

"Would that change anything?"

"It might give him some comfort."

"At least that's something we can agree on."

For all the annoyance, Booker silently wished them a safe travel back to the coast, or whatever adventure they were onto next. It was an odd, familiar feeling. He didn't know exactly where he was going. He only knew that the answer was in the lighthouse.

Maybe there was someone waiting to meet him inside. After getting off the pier and onto concrete, Booker broke into a run. He was fed up with this rain, exacerbated by the bleak sights of the world around him. He trudged up the stairs of the lighthouse, spiraling him around half the island and giving him another view of gray and wet in every direction. Coming up on the door, he was about to rip it open when an old instinct crept up on him. New territory is always hostile, Slate was fond of telling him, if it's not housing enemies you already have, then the locals are hostile to anyone who comes storming into their home unannounced. Even the Injuns respected Slate for thinking like that. Booker gave a few loud knocks instead.

"Ah, excuse me? It's Booker DeWitt. I guess you're expecting me…"

Reaching for the handle, he noticed one last set of writing, this one a post nailed into the wood.

DEWITT—

BRING US THE

GIRL AND WIPE

AWAY THE DEBT

THIS IS YOUR

LAST CHANCE!

Booker heaved the door open and stumbled into the lighthouse. The door, lighter than he expected, swung away, and he would have fallen on his face if the floor hadn't been so dry. Indoors at last, he realized just how sopping wet the journey had left him. Every part of his clothes weighed him down with water. The remnants of the rain soaked through his hair and dripped from his nose, chin, and fingers. An old memory, something out of the long drowned away days of the last century, crept on his mind. Sunlight, the robed man in the river, his hand outstretched, calling the people forth – "Of thy sins, shall I wash thee." Booker wrung out the edge of his vest and pulled his shirt from his waistband, letting the water spill over the floor. Good luck with that one, pal, he thought.

The bottom floor of the lighthouse was dim. Some faint light came from a candle in the corner. Judging by the amount of wax remaining, someone had to have been here within the last hour. Light was coming in from above too, as the sound of crackling electric light trickled down from above. Across the room was a spiraling metal staircase.

"Is anyone here?" Booker called up the stairs. "Hello? I'm ready."

Up the stairs, the light grew brighter, along with the crackle and hum of the electric current. There was something else, too – a scratchy echoing noise, and as he made it to the next floor, Booker realized it was music coming from an old phonograph.

The next floor felt lived in. A cot sat off on the far end, flanked by a grandfather clock and a dresser. Hanging on the wall, just beyond the staircase, was a map of the United States, covered in pins. Between the pins someone had tied a mass of string, going all around from New Mexico to Maine and circling back to Florida, all in the shape of a rhombus. The phonograph sat on another table, cranking out a trio of men singing, "Old Time Religion." And on the far end, a sink and an oven plugged into the wall with a large pipe.

Finally, there was a desk, covered with stacked books and a typewriter. Booker decided he needed to take a moment. Judging by the room he lived in, whoever was meeting Booker didn't seem the kind of man who would sneak up on a guest and cause any harm. Sitting down, he slid the box out from under his arm and sprawled its contents over the desk. After taking a minute to wring out his water logged socks and vest, he folded the postcard and the photo of the girl into his pockets once he was sure they were at least dry enough. He slipped the pistol into his holster, which he wore all the time now, less out of necessity and more because he felt naked without it. Out of the box tumbled a large key, with something that looked like china embedded into it, which he stuffed into his pants pocket. After removing everything, Booker found one last piece of paper taped to the bottom. There was no writing on this one, not even a photograph or a copied painting, but just some crude drawings: a scroll, two keys, and two cutlasses. Booker shrugged, but he still had room in his pockets. He left the empty box on the desk.

Nearing the next staircase, Booker stopped for a moment to stand close to the oven. He contemplated turning it on and getting a little dryer, when he felt something under his foot: a fruit. Not exactly clear what kind, but it was surrounded by others. In fact, there was a lot of mess concentrated just at the foot of these stairs: a teakettle propping up an overturned frying pan, silverware all over the floor, sitting amongst a field of shattered plates. It seemed like a horrible spill, but in in the gray light coming through the window, Booker saw a table lying on its side. It looked more like a struggle. He hurried up the stairs as quietly as he could, avoiding pieces of paper and open books strewn about the metal steps. The mess only grew as he climbed higher. At the top, there was a small bookcase, dangling between the third floor and the staircase. Booker took to the opposite side, carefully.

The next floor was dim, its ceiling obscured by ropes and buoys dangling from above. Only one electric light hung on the wall, illuminating a man sitting in a chair. Below him, a trail of blood collected around his pale, lifeless feet. The blood was dry, both on the floor and on the man's trousers. He had a burlap bag over his head, the obscured face a deep red. Walking to the other staircase, keeping his distance, Booker saw the sign strapped to the man's shirt:
DON'T DISAPPOINT US

Booker ran up the last set of the stairs and into the wind and rain and across the railing of the lantern room. His stomach convulsed but his hand stayed on his pistol.

"Come out!" said Booker. "It's DeWitt! I know you're here!" He circled every inch of the railing, around the whole perimeter of the lantern room. Nobody was there. He whipped around and stuck his pistol straight against the windows of the lantern. But even past the misty glass, he saw no one. Again he heard Slate yelling in the back of his head: Press on. The enemy is always advancing! Are you just a tin soldier? Booker had been trying to shake the old bastard's voice from his mind for twenty years, but most of time it seemed more that he had forgotten how to discard the memories. More than the blood and the fear, it was his commanding officers screaming charges, his Spartan belief in the glory of it all that Booker hated but stuck with him nonetheless, because sometimes it was the only thing that forced him to push forward.

Booker stepped around the perimeter, slowly this time, looking for a door. It seemed as though there were only windows. All that stood out were the bells hanging from the lantern room's scaffold. They hung low enough that Booker could grip them without ringing them. Taking one in his hand, he saw a carving on its shell: a long thin triangle, almost like a pointed stick. Was it a knife or a cane or even a sword?

Wait a minute, that card… he remembered. He pulled out the card – the one with the drawings – and inspected it. One scroll. Two keys. Two cutlasses. Booker held two more bells before him: a scroll and a key. It was worth a shot. He pulled scroll-bell until he heard a note ring out. He gave two tugs to the key-bell and heard something a little higher. With two more pulls of the sword-bell, he got two more notes, lower now.

But still there was only the rain and the wind. No answers. Booker crumpled the card and tossed it into the sea. Now what? Then suddenly he heard a foghorn bellow out. But not from a coming boat. It seemed to be coming from all around him. Then another fog horn burst. The world went quiet and then the foghorn bellowed again. Then another, lower and deeper. And finally the longest burst of all, deep enough that Booker felt the metal beneath him rattle and he almost slipped. The five horns, each a different tone and timbre, Booker realized, were responding to the bells.

Without a moment's delay, the lantern room illuminated, clicked on and off – three, four, five times. All the bells rattled and Booker saw through the windows the lantern rise to the ceiling, pulled up by rods. One of the windows clicked and then hissed open. Booker took a last look at the endless, gray sea, and entered the lantern room.

Where the lantern had been, there was a chair, covered with polished leather but supported by a visible metal frame. He looked about the room. Nothing else. He checked the back of the chair. No sharp edges, no exposed wires. Nothing that looked like it was meant to torture him. But he was still uneasy. Looks like they expect me to sit in their fancy chair. I've come this far and I've got nothing to lose. Bracing himself for whatever surprise was around the corner, Booker thought back to the boat, the debts, the mistakes, Slate. And Anna. Whatever's next, no matter how bad, nothing can get worse. Booker slid himself into the chair, reclining and took a moment to appreciate the soft leather. Sow what now-

Two manacles snapped into place around his wrists. The hell? Steam rushed out from the floor around him and beyond the veil of moisture the metal plates of the floor unlatched and opened up. As Booker struggled, a metallic voice that seemed to come from within the floor, crackled out a message.

"Make yourself ready, pilgrim. The bindings are a safeguard."

This was a mistake, thought Booker as he tried to pry his arms free, but more metal plates rose out of the floor until they encased him completely like a chick in an egg.

No, no, no, no, no. He started yelling out loud to whatever this was. "Get me out of here!"

His metallic egg sealed shut, only a small port window that pulled up before his face. The floor opened from beneath and he fell forward. His legs dangled down, but the manacles kept him strapped into the chair. He felt some weight drop for his side and saw his pistol fall into the gears of the lighthouse.

"Goddammit!"

And though it seemed like the darkness stretched out infinitely beneath him, after a moment a raging fire burst out and lit his little cell. Beneath him looked like four engines spat fire out downward like open boilers.

"Ascension… Ascension…" the metallic voice said. "On the count of five… four…"

The chair rose again and pulled Booker upward, pressing his face against the port window.

"Three… two…"

"No no no no no no no…" Booker said quietly, without panic, because he was ready to face the end.

"One. Ascension."

The world outside Booker's window rushed downward. The lighthouse was gone, and only the sea remained. And the sea and its horizon grew smaller and smaller and fainter and the clouds grew closer and closer until he was caught in the midst of them there was nothing he could make out it at all except the faint reflection of his own petrified face against the glass. The voice kept counting.

"Five-thousand feet. Ten-thousand. Fifteen-thousand."

The clouds broke.

"Hallelujah."