December 30th, 1958

Audio Transcript – 'Goodbye'

[There are times when I forget the warmth of the sun, the sound of birds, the indigo of a midnight sky peppered with starlight. In my dreams, I open Tears, just to remind myself of the worlds I've left behind. But the Doors have become mirrors; through every one, there is a city. There is a shadow growing unseen in the corners of the room, darker than the nightmare depths of the ocean. These universes have become infinity mirrors, reflecting the world back into the Doors, in recursion, creating smaller and smaller reflections that appear to recede into the infinite distance. When Lutece told me that this city housed the final iteration of my enemy, I wonder… did they mean Comstock? What if this is the final iteration for all of us, the last mirror in infinity. These echoes have become my epitaph, here at the end of all things.]

Elizabeth thought the tracks on Cohen's new album "Why Even Ask" were an insult to the inner ear, but the people of Rapture seemed to like them. And so long as Cohen was busy posing and posturing on the Fleet Hall stage, Elizabeth was free to poke around the projection booth.

The door was locked with a Yale lock, a radial variation of the cylinder lock, one that used tubular pins. The original key would be circular in shape, with several half-cylinder indentations designed to align with the pins. The locks in Rapture had proven to be slightly more sophisticated than the locks in Columbia, but like Sinclair, Elizabeth had adapted. And after Cohen decided to lock her books in a safe beneath his office desk, Elizabeth had readily accepted the challenge. It hadn't taken her long to design her own lock pick.

She inserted her lash-up into the lock, turned it clockwise with only a slight bit of tension on the pins. As she pushed the pick further, the pins were forced down, binding the driver pins behind the shear line of the lock. As Elizabeth pushed the final pin down, the lock clicked, and the door swung open.

It never gets old, Elizabeth thought to herself, smiling grimly.

The projection booth was a small, sparsely furnished room overlooking the center aisle of the Fleet Hall. The projector dominated the center of the room; several filing cabinets and a desk had been pushed into one corner. Elizabeth sat in Cohen's chair. He kept his accu-vox diaries in a bin on the floor. Elizabeth picked one up, dated the tenth of December. After a brief burst of static, the tape began to spin:

[I was a little leery when he shuttered Fontaine's business and sent that bald buck to a grave deep in the briny. But when Ryan buried all of Fontaine's pals in that department store, someone had to find a home for all those freshly minted orphans. And if I turned a dollar or two in the process, you can hardly blame me for doing well by doing good…]

Elizabeth placed the recorder back on the pile. She began to rifle through the receipts and invoices stored in the desk. Cohen may have had more than several screws loose, but he kept a meticulous record of his transactions. Most of his accounts detailed sales of the girls to the Optimized Eugenics laboratory, formerly the Fontaine Futuristics Genetic Research Department, where Ryan had taken over as chief executive officer. However, several bills of sale corroborated Sinclair's allegations: some girls had been sent to other buyers, mostly shadowy characters in Rapture's less reputable neighborhoods. Elizabeth found an invoice from Daniel Wales, the owner of the Pink Pearl brothel in Siren Alley. Elizabeth knew what went on in the Pink Pearl, and she didn't like to think about it at great length. The word on the street was that Daniel Wales, the local governor, was spliced beyond recognition and had traded an architecture firm for more carnal métiers. Siren Alley was one of Rapture's unspoken horrors, left to fester in its depravity. The prospect of children living in a place like that turned Elizabeth's stomach.

She found the manifest of the Little Sisters Orphanage in Hedone Plaza. The date was stamped the tenth of August, five days before Elizabeth arrived in the city. Cohen had kept photographs of the children, stapled them next to the names. She perused the bottom of the list, skipping to the girls who had gone missing by the time Frank Fontaine contracted out to her: Mascha, Leta, Eleanor… Sally…

Elizabeth checked the manifest against the register Augustus Sinclair had provided; Sally's name was glaringly absent. She wasn't listed amongst Gilbert Alexander's test subjects either. The girl had never reached Point Prometheus.

Elizabeth put the old manifest aside and opened another drawer. She found a newer list of names, the latest Little Sisters converted at Optimized Eugenics. The date stamp was the twentieth of November, two days before Ryan sunk Fontaine's Department Store to the bottom of an ocean trench. And in his scrawled shorthand, Sander Cohen had penciled an extra name in the margins adjacent to the typed register.

Sally… at Sir Prize

Elizabeth leant back in the chair and pinched the bridge of her nose. The manifest confirmed an ugly suspicion Elizabeth had been harboring since Arcadia. Somehow, Cohen had gotten ahold of Sally. Found her at Sir Prize, the casino in Poseidon Plaza, Cohen's home turf. Martin Finnegan or Hector Rodriguez had probably tipped Cohen off about the girl. Even though Sally's mysterious benefactor had successfully spirited her away from Fontaine and Alexander, Cohen had managed to steal her back… and had had her converted into a Little Sister.

At least, Elizabeth thought miserably, Sally wasn't in the hands of someone like Daniel Wales. Then Elizabeth thought of those girls, with their glassy eyes and disjointed, haunting nursery rhymes, wandering barefoot and dirty through the streets of Rapture, accompanied by their golemesque companions, and she wondered if conversion really was preferable to the alternatives.

A crash outside the projection booth caught Elizabeth's attention. At first, she thought one of Cohen's disciples was going to break in and discover her, and she didn't think Silas Cobb and company would take too kindly to her rifling through their employer's private belongings. She picked up one of the audio diaries, prepared to throw it at someone's head and dive through the door…

Elizabeth was almost relieved to hear the shouting coming from the Fleet Hall, far below the projection booth. She stuck her head through the window. The show that night was standing room only; the theater hall was packed with patrons, all clamoring to hear Cohen's new album. Those without seats languished in the aisles. But someone was pushing through the crowd, trying to make his way towards the stage, where Cohen was still singing, even though the pit band had gone quiet. There were murmurs of confusion from the stage crew, while people in the audience shifted uncomfortably. Someone in box seating began to shout. Cohen, finally, finished a protracted cantata and glared indignantly at the source of the interruption.

"WATCH YOURSELF, YOU CLUMSY SOW!" Cohen thundered, "THIS IS MY WORK YOU'RE INTERRUPTING!"

Elizabeth strained to hear the response of the man pushing through the audience. Behind the glare of the stage lights, his features were hard to distinguish. He was tall, and quite strong; he pushed the audience aside with ease. When the man reached the stage, the microphones picked up the trailing ends of his slurred, drunken garble:

"I'm not… letting you… take her. No… no I ain't gonna… let you take her…"

Some of the stage crew began to murmur amongst themselves: "What's he doing off Main Street?"

"Probably crawled out of Sinclair Spirits."

"Nah, they don't serve him no more…"

Cohen clearly recognized the man, as did a few of the burlier security guards. The man managed to lift himself partway onto the stage, until he was hanging on his elbows. He was so drunk that he could barely keep his head up. Cohen smiled and put one spat on the man's forehead. Somehow, Elizabeth heard the maestro from across the Fleet Hall:

"Come and find her," Cohen hissed.

Find me…

Cohen gave the man a gentle push with his shoe. The drunkard fell onto the floor.

"Get this rube out of my sight," Cohen ordered Ryan security.

The officers hauled the man to his feet. One on each arm, they dragged him away from the stage. The crowd parted for them; some people looked distinctly annoyed. Others looked frightened. Most thought it was all part of Cohen's act. As he was lead down the center aisle, Elizabeth got her first clear look at the stranger.

His was an older man; his face was lined, but youthful. White hair cut short. High cheekbones. Tall and limber. Red-rimmed eyes the color of a cloudless sky.

It was Booker DeWitt.

…MASKED Faces VISAGE within a wheel of blood spinning round and SALLY round WHEN DOES PORCELAIN BECOME FLESH faces… spirals…

… find me. I'm here, in Rapture. Find me.

"I found you."

Elizabeth felt another Door open. And this time, she looked behind it.

She was in the Lutece laboratories, back in Columbia. She was wearing Lady Comstock's blue dress. Her short, ragged hair blew around her face. She could smell the rain on the wind, the thunderstorms in the coppery taste of the air. Static curled along her arms. Outside, black clouds rolled out from under the floating city. Lightning flashed in glowing fractals, and thunder cracked across the sky.

Elizabeth stepped towards the Lutece device in the corner of the room. The silvery, shimmering Tear opened onto a back alley, faced a nondescript brick wall. Light flickered across a threshold that spanned universes.

Cascading across an infinite number of worlds, Elizabeth heard the sound of a baby crying.

Suddenly, Robert Lutece stumbled through the Tear, breathless, his expression resolute and grim. Rosalind Lutece –– whom Elizabeth hadn't noticed before –– steadied her counterpart before peering anxiously through the Tear.

"Is he…?" she began.

"Coming," he finished. "Yes."

Elizabeth knew what was going to happen next, but she couldn't stop it. The crying drew nearer. She heard shouting. Cursing. Despair.

When Zachary Comstock lurched through the Tear, he was carrying a swaddled infant in his arms. "Close it!" he bellowed at Lutece. "Close it now!"

Then Booker appeared. He seized Comstock's arm, tried frantically to tear the child away.

"Give her back!" Booker barred his teeth and tugged. "Give her back!"

Comstock struggled to pull the baby girl through the Tear. "She's mine!"

Elizabeth appeared at Comstock's side. Her blue eyes blazed. "You're hurting her!"

Somehow, Comstock could see her. Tears poured down his cheeks. "She's got to come with me!" he said desperately.

On the other side of the Tear, Booker DeWitt pulled with every ounce of his strength. Zachary Comstock pulled with every ounce of his.

"She's not your child!" snarled Elizabeth.

"She IS mine!"

"Let her go!" Elizabeth screamed, "Let her go!"

"She's mine!" cried Booker. His voice echoed across a Sea of Doors.

"The Tear is closing!" warned Robert Lutece.

Comstock whirled around to the Luteces. "Shut it down. Shut down the machine!"

Elizabeth shook her head, tried to reach out to him…

"You've got to pull her through," pleaded Rosalind Lutece.

"Pull!"

"Pull!"

And they pulled.

"Shut down the machine!" bellowed Comstock.

The aperture in the air was closing.

"No, she's not through!" cried one Lutece.

"Hurry!" cried the other.

"SHUT IT DOWN!"

"Oh no no no look out…"

Elizabeth knew what was going to happen. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

Booker DeWitt finally wrenched his child free from Zachary Comstock, just as the Tear closed, and the gateway telescoped shut. Somewhere, the Luteces shouted in despair. Comstock's hands grasped at empty air. Something landed at his feet, rolled across the floor…

Elizabeth screamed in grief, in hatred. No one heard her. The silence swallowed the world.

She was back in Rapture, standing at the window of the projection booth. And Ryan security was dragging Zachary Comstock out of the Fleet Hall.

Elizabeth felt a rush of lucidity, like a dash of icy water. She took a deep breath, and suddenly the recycled Rapturian air didn't taste quite so stale. It tasted of thunder and fury.

She looked at the open register on Cohen's desk… at the name scribbled in shorthand. Her father had never been content with his own decisions. He was only ever satisfied after he had appropriated someone else's life for his own. Always a lighthouse, always a city. Always a girl. Regret, fate, mercy, revenge… superpositive forces, simultaneous but decohesive, dividing one universe from another. But the superposition had collapsed. Elizabeth knew what she had to do.

She tore out the page, and crushed it in her fist.

Below her, Kyle Fitzpatrick picked at the piano, his ruined face hidden behind his mask. His fingers hovered over middle C.

Elizabeth ignored him.

She soon forgot the names of the other Little Sisters. Forgot Cohen. Forgot Sinclair and Fontaine and Tenenbaum. Forgot Andrew Ryan. Forgot all the little people. History would steamroll over them. Their lives would begin and end in the blink of an eye, their memories would fade, turn to dust, and evanesce into the forgotten margins of eternity.

Elizabeth unclipped Sally's photograph from Cohen's ledger. She slipped it into her pocket, and left the projection booth.

Around her, the city slept. And somewhere in Rapture, a clock chimed New Year's Eve, 1958.

Continued in Bioshock Infinite: Burial at Sea