BioShock/Sinking City/Vampyr: Taking Control
One thing I’d like to point out before I get into the story about the Mutants: They are basically the pre-concept art Splicers. They look like something straight out of the Dead Space games. You can look them up if you want; be warned, they are nightmare fuel.
Once Jack and Co. are apprised of the situation in Rapture, they decide the best thing to do is to recuperate and resupply at Minerva’s Den. Without their guns, which were left on the Mary Catherine, they need replacements. And while bullets don’t one-shot Mutants like a dart of SERPENT, they are certainly more common than darts.
Subject Artemis, Dr. Reid, and Lady Ashbury lead Jack and Co. to the safety of Minerva’s Den. Whenever they run across some Mutants, Jack and Liz do their best to aid their guides, Porter (who actually brought his weapons), and Eleanor from the sidelines. They have no intention of being useless escorts.
After some harrowing encounters, the party of seven makes it back to the safety of Minerva’s Den with a bathysphere. There, they find a welcoming party of non-spliced survivors waiting for them. After Porter cleaned out Minerva’s Den of splicers, no new ones moved thanks to it being cut off from the rest of Rapture.
While awaiting Tenenbaum’s return, Artemis found as many non-spliced survivors as possible and escorted them to Minerva’s Den. They passed the time by cleaning up, making repairs, organizing the supplies that Artemis brought in, fortifying Minerva’s Den, and also preparing to evacuate once rescue had arrived.
The welcoming committee, happy to see Artemis, Reid, and Ashbury return safely, are stunned to learn of their companion’s identities: Jack Ryan, the Son of Andrew Ryan; Eleanor Lamb, the former “Daughter of the People”; and Charles Milton Porter, who made their refuge possible. (Liz isn’t miffed that she isn’t recognized; her role was behind the scenes after all)
The moment of stunned silence gives way to cheers, which only increase in volume when Jack confirms that he and the others are there to rescue them. The survivors are only too happy to provide them with weapons, ammo, medical supplies, and security bots equipped with lasers, electricity, and rockets (Jack, Liz, and Eleanor are a mixture of impressed, surprised, horrified, and delighted at these bots).
Jack and Eleanor are both surprised at how much these people look up to them; as far as they’re concerned, they abandoned these people to escape by themselves to the surface, leaving them to rot in the ruins of Ryan’s dream and Lamb’s nightmare. Instead, for the most part, these people see them as heroes for daring to escape Rapture, doubly more so for coming back to save them!
Amongst the survivors, Eleanor is surprised and delighted to find her old childhood friend and playmate, Amir, who has survived Rapture and grown into a young man (and a handsome one, she thinks). He’s happy to see her again as well, and that she has managed to cast off her mother and her teachings (In his opinion, she is an angel that ascended from Hell into Heaven and then returned to save the damned).
Once they’ve resupplied and rearmed, Jack and Co., now also including Artemis, Reid, and Ashbury, take the bathysphere to Hephaestus. Jack allows himself to think that it’s going to be easy for once. Last time, he was on his own and he had to go on a scavenger hunt to make an EMP bomb to get past Ryan’s fancy electronic lock. This time around, he has his stealthy wife, a Big Sister, two Big Daddies, and two stable Splicers on his side, and an open door right into his dad’s office.
Turns out, it’s not easy, thanks to the few dozen Mutants prowling the halls and offices of Hephaestus. The fight that ensues the moment they walk through the front door is ferocious, but the party of seven is able to make their way through the nightmare of teeth, claws, and monsters to the Office of Andrew Ryan himself.
Once in Ryan’s sanctum of power and control, Jack gains access to Rapture’s security thanks to his father’s DNA and shuts off the anti-ship defenses. He then radios Tenenbaum to let her know that it’s safe for her to come down, before giving everyone in their group top-security access and also Vita-Chamber usage (just in case). He looks at the corpse of his father, still laying where he fell nine years earlier, and then tells everyone to head back to Minerva’s Den. He’ll be right behind them.
Back at Minerva’s Den, the Party (sans Jack) arrives just in time to see the submersible dock and Tenenbaum disembark. She is even more flustered at the welcoming committee’s greeting than they were, but she is quick to get down to business. She’s not at all happy to learn about the new ADAM, the resulting Mutants, and SERPENT’s lethal effect on them.
In Tenenbaum’s absence, Artemis and the robotic Little Sisters gathered a truly disgusting amount of ADAM, giving her plenty of material to work with. Additionally, Dr. Reid has been studying the Mutants and their variant of ADAM for months now, and he is more than happy to share his findings with Tenenbaum. Between her, Dr. Reid, and the gathered ADAM, they have what they need to make a new version of SERPENT to cure the Mutants.
As Tenenbaum is settling in and the supplies are being offloaded from the sub, including their actual guns, Jack returns to Minerva’s Den with a very unexpected guest in tow: Andrew Ryan himself.
Back in Ryan’s Office, after everyone left for Minerva’s Den, Jack turned the Office’s Vita-Chamber back on (Ryan had turned it off nine years before Jack confronted him), bringing his father back to life. When Ryan realized he was alive again, he attempted to use WYK on Jack, which earned him a bloody nose.
A mob quickly appears, looking to get revenge on Andrew Ryan. Jack intercedes, pointing out that his father has been dead for nine years, plus killing him wouldn’t do anything; he’d just resurrect in the nearest Vita-Chamber. Eleanor points out that they could torture him to death again and again, but shuts up with a look from Jack.
As far as Jack is concerned, the best punishment for Andrew Ryan is to see the depths that his city, his Rapture, has fallen to. Before bringing Ryan back to life, Jack cut him completely out of Rapture’s systems with the exception of the Vita-Chambers; Ryan isn’t taking back control of Rapture, and he is going to see exactly what his dream has become.
While Jack and Co. continue offloading the sub and making plans, Andrew Ryan is left to wander Minerva’s Den. He sees firsthand the ruin and decay that the Den alone has fallen into despite the repairs and cleaning up done by its new residents. Thanks to Jack’s speech, the survivors either ignore him or glare at him; he is persona non grata with them.
He sees how malnourished they are, how they jump at the smallest sounds despite being safe for months now from splicers. Many have turned to religion to gain some semblance of hope, openly worshipping in what was once Ryan’s cathedral to himself. He sees the people sharing their food and medicine with each other, engaging in the altruism he hates so much.
Finding that people avoid the airlock for some reason, he goes there and looks out into the ocean. He’s shocked to find dozens of corpses floating outside; as part of cleaning up the Den, the survivors tossed every corpse out the airlock and into the ocean. Their mutated and mangled bodies, now being chewed on by the local marine life, seems to mock him as he beats a hasty retreat.
Finally, he finds a seat and window where he can just look out at Rapture, his dream, and think about all he has done and how it has led to this.
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