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The Start of Your Itinerary

It is the year 1960. You are in an airplane over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. As you smoke your cigarette, you ponder a photo of you and your folks. You also look on a package from them, on which is a note that begins, Jack, would you kindly not open this until …. And you think to yourself, My parents told me, Son, you're special. You were born to do great things. And you know something? They were right.

Things go dark as the airplane goes down into the sea.

When you open your eyes, you are in the water. Various personal effects of the passengers and parts of the airplane drop past you as you make your way to the surface.

You break through the surface to find yourself almost completely surrounded by flame. There is a gap in the flames near the sinking tail section; that is where you swim to. As the tail sinks, you notice a lighthouse towering over you, topped by a stylized winged statue holding the tower's beacon. You swim towards the steps at the base of lighthouse. You reach the steps, emerge from the water, and walk up to a pair of bronze doors.

You step inside. The doors close and lock behind you. The lights come on, and you hear the soft music of La Mer as performed by Django Reinhardt. Then you find, glaring down on you with angry eyes, the giant bust of a man in a business suit. Draped under him is a red banner that reads in gold letters:

NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MAN.

There is a similar banner beside the door; but it is ripped, and the only word you can make out is PARASITE. On the railing is a plaque that says, Is there a country for men like me? Andrew Ryan.

There is a door behind the bust. As you approach the lights come on. This will keep on as you go down the stairs to a room with round plaques labeled ART, SCIENCE, and INDUSTRY. In the middle of the room is a bathysphere, a ball-shaped boat for traveling at extreme depths of the sea. You walk into the sphere and pull the level (press the E key).

As you descent a movie screen pops up. You are treated to an introductory film sponsored by something called Incinerate, which makes fire come out of your fingers. It starts with a picture of the man on the bust.

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

— No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.
— No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.
— No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose — Rapture.

A city where the artist would not fear the censor; where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality; where the great would not be constrained by the small. And, with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.

As Ryan speaks, a great city appears as you pass an undersea ridge. The bathysphere travels across a vista of great buildings, glass walkways, and neon signs, all executed in the Art Deco style and among which whales and other sea life swim. As you marvel the view, you hear voices over the radio next to the door. Whoever is in the city has noticed the plane crash and knows you are coming.

Your sphere approaches a building and enters a tube whose segments are adorned with the phrase all good things of the earth flow into this city. It stops before a line of billboards, one of which advertises something that gives you mind over matter. The voices tell of splicers, and one urges the other to go over and meet your bathysphere as it comes up.

Your adventure really begins with Welcome to Rapture.