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The City was the City. It wasn't Rapture. There was a sky and sun. Which was better than Rapture.

The curses were a pain but... It wasn't Rapture.

On this particular day Alec walked into a bar with his limp looking for somewhere to sit and maybe someone to talk to. It was crowded and busy but he spotted an empty seat at the bar. Hobbling over to it he slid into the seat and gave the man next to him a short nod of greeting.

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"Honestly, I was so glad to get out of Rapture. It was driving me crazy. Twelve years without seeing the sky and sun? Being here was a relief. No one's trying to kill me." He sighs and laughs softly. "I guess people enjoy being in denial when their world is falling apart."

"Not seein' the sky 'n the sun? I'd've gone fuckin' crazy."

Fuckin' crazier, actually, but that's a matter of debate, right?

"No one's trynna kill me here, either. At least, not so far as I know."

Alec hesitates a moment. "I think I might have. I think I did."

He grins a little. "Why were people trying to kill you?"

"Oh, y'know, the normal reasons. Business, rivalries, the fact that I tried to kill some of 'em first."

"Hah!" Alec laughs. "Yes! Perfectly normal reasons. Mine are about that. Though I've only tried to kill people who tried to kill me first."

There's a sigh. "How sad are our lives that we have people trying to kill us and that's normal?"

"I dunno. Where I'm from, seems to happen to a whole hell of a lotta people. Seems stranger if you don't have anyone trynna kill you."

"Same. Someone tried to kidnap me when I was little even. I didn't think it would be considered normal when I was little."

"Yeah, probably not, but the way you put it, your father's pretty powerful. That makes people do strange things."

He'd know all about that.

"He was one of the most powerful business men in the world. He gave it all up to build a city under the ocean," he says. "It made me a target. I don't think he ever ... he took it as an insult to himself that people would try to hurt me."

"Yeah, well, that's what guys like that do. Guys who own cities, guys who think that just 'cause they made a city what it was, that they're infallible."

He doesn't come from the same kind of world. There are no cities under the ocean. But there are powerful businessmen, and men who might as well have singlehandedly made a city. His biological father is one. His surrogate father is another.

"What city are you from?" Alec asks. "I'm from New York."

"Atlantic City, New Jersey. I've spent some time in New York, though. Ain't a bad place."

"I've always wanted to go to Atlantic City. I never got the chance to. When I was finally old enough to go by myself I got drafted... and then..." he shrugs.

He got dragged down under the ocean depths to probably die a horrible death where no one will ever know.

"New York's wonderful. I miss it a lot. I wish I could take Drew - my son- there."

"Atlantic City's okay. Depends on when you go, I guess."

He brightens considerably when Alec mentions a son. "You've got a son? So do I. How old's yours?"

"It's different. Which is why I wanted to go."

Alec smiles. "I do. He's eleven now... how did he get to be eleven? How old is yours?"

Of course Alec digs out a picture of Drew. He has one. It's him, Rose, Drew and Andrew looking, in theory, like a happy family.

"He's, shit, four now. Does this mean I gotta be concerned about him bein' eleven before I know it?"

He smiles at Alec's picture, then pulls out a picture of his own, of course, a picture of him and Tommy and Angela, looking just as happy as Alec's picture.

"Probably. Drew's stop seeing girls as icky... I don't know how to feel about that one," Alec says.

He looks at the picture. "He's a nice looking boy. Looks smart."

"Tommy's kinda a charmer, too. Yeah, he's a smart kid -- takes after his mom. She..."

He pauses, then shakes his head. "Anyway, never mind. You got a good lookin' son there, too."

"Drew... he's got my hair unfortunately... but he takes after his mom too. ... At least... in most parts." His voice cracks just briefly and he shakes his own head.

"She... it's stupid... she this stupid not war killed her. They were looking for me and she got caught in the crossfire." Normally he wouldn't say anything but he's tired. Jimmy's a stranger with some commonality. And sometimes strangers are just safe.

"That's..."

Jimmy's silent for a moment, and then, for a brief, paranoid second, he thinks someone might be playing a trick on him, a cruel trick, the kind that involves sending someone here to fuck with his mind, to refer to situations that are exactly like his own. Then he remembers that they're in the City, and there's nobody from home who knows him here, nobody except Al, and he wouldn't do something like that.

"That's what happened to Angela, too. They wanted to shoot me, but they... those fuckers got her instead."

Oddly, Alec gets the same paranoid second. Or perhaps not oddly. They've had too many similar circumstances which made them semi similar men.

"Shit man, that's... just ... if you want to kill someone. You should kill them. Don't bother with other people."

"Believe me, I'm gonna kill every single one of those motherfuckers. I already started with some of 'em, the guys that're to blame for it all. The fuckers who pulled the trigger're gonna be next. I ain't gonna rest until every one of 'em is dead 'n dumped in the fuckin' ocean."

"Good! I wish I could do that." There's an savagery in his voice that surprises him.

"So why can't you? You might as well. Ain't like you got anythin' to lose, right?"

"I don't know who did it for starters," Alec says. "There's so many different factions. I've got an idea, but I'm not sure. Also my father's not letting me go anywhere. I'm too much of a security risk."