Smugglers hideout, Rapture: 5:00 A.M.
It was very early, he knew that nobody in the Rapture family was awake. Despite how tired he was Ryan knew he had to explore. He needed more than anything to know the terrain so he wouldn't get caught off guard, so he would be ready for any attack. Using his new found ability he was jumping from place to place, a bag held securely in his right hand. It was a messenger bag, made out of leather. (or maybe pleather? He could never tell the difference) It was empty now, but who knew? Maybe he could find something useful here. Back when he was a Little Brother he often saw people coming in and out with crates in their hands. One time in particular one of the crates broke while being moved. The adults argued over it for hours until the bell rang announcing the end of their shift.
Once they were gone Ryan decided to peek inside of the crate to see what the adults were arguing about. Inside he found a bunch of neat things he had never seen before, like round things that you play in a projector... movies, he remembered they were called. Books were also prominent in the crate. Looking over them he found they were different, some were fairy tales, called The Brothers Grimm Collection, the other books were of math, biology and geography.
Ryan took them, and in his time off he read them, learning, finding out how things worked in the real world. Thanks to that knowledge, and a generous dash of common sense, Ryan learned how to survive Rapture, but it also made him a prime target. also thanks to that knowledge he survived when Andrew Ryan sent people after him, offered huge rewards for the Little Brother's head, but that crackpot Russian never got his hands on Ryan, no matter how many Splicers Andrew sent his way, he always got away.
Sometimes just barely.
Pushing away the horrible memories he made his way through the smugglers hideout. Finding various crates he pried them open easily and looked inside. Books were the most common thing in this crate, taking one Ryan opened it and looked inside. It was filled with beautiful paintings of places with grass, flowers, trees, and a round orb of light. Touching the page with an armoured hand he touched the ball of light, the book was written in a language he couldn't understand, but somehow he still knew what the ball was. "The Sun..." he muttered to himself. Closing the book Ryan decided to take it, searching through more of it he found a few dolls.
They were different then any doll he had ever seen, no bigger than seven inches. These dolls had weird dresses on with huge sleeves, big extravagant hairstyles and their skin was as white as snow. It didn't matter to him though, a doll was a doll, whether plastic or cloth. So Ryan stuffed them into his bag, perhaps the Sisters would enjoy them. Ryan continued to look and take things, the things he took were a few records of music...for Gracie whom he found out that she was the one who found him and everything that could be classified as a child's toy. Any and all playthings the Sisters had were made by their own hand, usually Big Daddy dolls.
Looking in the very bottom of the crate Ryan even found a box with a tea set inside it. The set actually looked rather manly, the kettle and four additional cups were gun metal Grey. There were at least thirty different kinds of tea in a box next to the kettle also. Unfortunately giving caffeine to Little Sisters was a very bad idea. He didn't even want to think about the one time a Little Sister got her hands on some drink the adults called 'coffee'. Plus, this was ordered by Lamb, so if he gave this to the Sisters, even without the tea, she would know he stole this stuff, as opposed to a passing Splicer thinking there may be a bit of Adam within them.
Looking around he saw an ancient looking crate, deciding this was the last one for the day he walked over to it. Prying it open Ryan looked inside, trying to see past the dust that was kicked up when he opened it, there was nothing inside but a bunch of old knick knacks. Moving them around he found what looked to be a small journal from before audio logs were invented. Picking it up gently he opened the cover and read the small bit at the top on the first page. printed at the top were the words This journal belongs to _, in the space provided for a name the words Johnny Topside could be made out.
He looked at the hand writing for some time, his vision began to grow blurry as he stared. Ryan shook his head a few times but that didn't help. His vision began to grow even more blurry. He tried to stand from his kneeling position, only to fall down face first onto the ground. Ryan tried to fight the darkness that overcame the haziness but he stopped when another vision started.
Flashback:
"Ryan... RYAN! COME BACK HERE!" He heard somebody shout, Ryan spared a glance back but he kept pushing his way through the crowd. It was his chance to see him, the hero of Rapture. Ryan made a final push and he was in front of the crowd of adults. Looking upwards he saw his idol. A man, in his late twenties or early thirties. He was well built, his brown hair was shaggy, and his eyes were blue.
But none of that mattered, Ryan was more interested in seeing and hearing the hero of Rapture tell his stories, "Did you face the Kraken Mister Johnny?" asked one of the other children around him, Johnny laughed and said, "No, there's no such thing." The adults muttered and whispered to one another. Ryan stared at his hero until he felt a hand grab his shoulder.
End of flashback:
The vision faded away. His eyesight back to normal Ryan slowly got to his feet. Grabbing the journal he had dropped when he fell he slipped it into the leather bag and looked around. Down the hill in the port he saw a bit of bronze coloured metal sticking out from the water. A few jumps later and he saw that the bit of metal was what looked like a bathysphere, but it wasn't round, it was more of an oval, like an egg tipped on it's side.
Curious about why it was mostly submerged, Ryan jumped into the water. The water level wasn't too deep, probably fifteen, maybe twenty, feet. The diving suit look his armour had wasn't just for show and Ryan could easily adjust to being underwater. Falling like a rock he was soon at the sea floor, walking over to the large circular door he pried it open. Once inside it was fairly easy to see exactly why this bathysphere was left to rust, it had a large hole blown out of the back. With the right equipment he could easily fix it though.
Looking around he came to the conclusion that this was either Andrew Ryan or maybe even Lamb's personal bathysphere. These things weren't cheap to make and this one was enormous, easily able to hold maybe fifty adults comfortably. With that though a plan hatched in Ryan's mind. He could use this, it would take time and equipment to fix, but he had woken up extremely early and he still had about an hour before anyone was even awake, and even more time before he had to report in for Little Sister duty.
Deciding to see if the crane he had seen still worked, Ryan got out of the bronze egg and crouched down before jumping as high as he could. Unfortunately he didn't know his own strength and came shooting out of the water, straight into the cement ceiling. The loud *Clang!* of his helmet hitting the ceiling disoriented him enough that he didn't notice he was falling. Hitting the ground with all the grace of an armour-covered coma patient he spent the nice five minutes enjoying the pretty, pretty stars before he got up and marched over to the crane controls.
