Battleship Bay:
When you wake up on the beach, after your extended nap. You walk around a bit looking for where Elizabeth has wandered off to. You find her dancing on a promenade and enjoying her new-found freedom. But Dewitt ain’t got time for that. He quickly makes up a lie that the “First Lady’s” Dirigible will take them to Paris, if they can get on it, and the naive Elizabeth is more than eager to go for it.
Shortly after setting off, the clouds part at the idyllic beach setting to reveal to everyone what has happened to the Tower. The people of Columbia are visibly shaken.
To get past a checkpoint Elizabeth reveals she is an expert lockpick. You and she go around the checkpoint through the servant's areas, where you meet the couple who you DIDN’T throw a baseball at, and they reward you for your kindness. Unless you are Kyle, then I imagine they just stare at you like the bastard you are.
Ultra Right-Wing Discovery Zone:
Leaving the servant area and into the “White” area, we find ourselves in the more youth oriented parts of the Resort. Columbia starts its indoctrination early. We also see our first mechanical patriot, which just kinda looks like a cheap animatronic window display.
Venturing further, we come up to the air-ship station which seems to be closing for the day. As you talk to the man at the counter, he attacks and stabs your hand, and you are set upon by the people around you. In typical Dewitt style, you murder the ever-loving crap out of everyone there. This does not sit well with Elizabeth, and she runs in terror from you. You catch up to her shortly after and try to calm her down. Elizabeth begrudgingly accepts the situation, losing a healthy dose of her cheerfulness in the process.
The Hall of Heroes:
You nearly get to the air-ship dock, but unfortunately they are powered by something called “Shock-Jockey”, which looks like floating crazy crystals, and is very unstable. Of course at the moment you try to use the lift to the dock, the Shock-Jockey fizzles, and you are detoured to The Hall of Heroes, where Shock-Jockey is on display. Of course nothing can ever be easy...
On the way, we see another example of Elizabeth opening a tear (to shoo a bee of all things). She explains them as windows to other places, other variations. Booker is less than happy about it.
On the way to the Hall of Heroes, you start to notice signs of dissent. Vandalism and violence that WASN’T done by you. It seems that a man by the name of Cornelius Slate, who Booker knows from his days in the Armed Forces, has incited a minor rebellion in the Hall of Heroes. Slate is angry that Comstock has usurped both Booker and his military achievements for his own, in order to bolster his own image.
But Slate’s rebellion didn’t go quite as well as planned, and now he is merely holed up in the Hall of Heroes, waiting for Comstocks forces to annihilate them. He would rather they died in glorious battle with a REAL soldier, namely you.
Booker wants no part in Slate’s madness, but since Slate has the Shock-Jockey he has no choice but to do what he does best all over the asses of Slate’s men. And Elizabeth begins to understand just what Booker has gone through, and done in his life.
In the end, you kill them all. And can choose to either kill or spare Slate. I killed him, because my grandmother raised me to always finish everything on my plate.
What Were We Doing Again? Oh Right...:
Back to the plan of leaving the city by air-ship!
Back-tracking your previous progress through the resort area, and leaving no small amount of bodies in your wake, you now FINALLY can board the air-ship and get out of Columbia. As you board the vessel and lay in a course, Elizabeth notices the coordinates you chose are not Paris, but New York. At that point Booker finally comes clean about why he is there, and Elizabeth breaks into tears. When Booker tries to explain further, Elizabeth takes a page from Bioshock 1 and clobbers him with a pipe-wrench.
This allows the Vox to sneak up in their own airships and take possession of yours. And now we finally meet the infamous Daisy Fitzroy. She’ll give the ship back, but only after you get some weapons from a manufacturer in Finkton, the manufacturing heart of Columbia. Thus ends the first thematic third of the game.
What's in the Vox?!:
So here you are, in Finkton, and Elizabeth has run off. So once again you have to chase after her.
All over the docks where you begin, and further into Finkton, there is both visual and audio propaganda at all times. It extols the virtues of being a “Fink Man”, someone who never asks for breaks, or more pay, or any worker’s rights in general.
You continue to chase her through several obstacles she creates through rifts, and even some guards that detain her for a moment. In the end, you are jacked by a Handi-Man and thrown over-board to plummet to your death. At the last moment though, Elizabeth saves you with a well placed blimp. Maybe she doesn’t hate you entirely, but she still needs convincing. While dangling precariously Booker explains the current situation with Daisy. Elizabeth agrees to join you again, but only as a means for her to escape.
Two in the Fink...ton:
And so, you and Elizabeth sneak your way into Finkton Industries. And when sneaking fails, Booker just murders everyone around. Along the way Elizabeth spots Slates locker, and finds Lady Comstock’s personal diary within. As it turns out, Lady Comstock was NOT her mother, and could not stand Elizabeth.
On your elevator ride down into the heart of Finkton Industries, you are stopped and contacted by Jeremiah Fink himself. He claims to be interested in you, and considers you a “Top Candidate” for the position. Although its unclear what that means.
Later, you find your way to Chen-Lin’s workshop, but he’s been arrested and taken for interrogation at the “Good Time Club”. When you enter the club however, Fink reveals he’s had his eye on you since the Raffle. He wants you, as the unstoppable killing machine/ex-Pinkerton that you are, to be his hired muscle to help quell the labor unrest that is festering in his sweat shops. For your “interview” you only have to kill all your rival interviewees. Not that you have a choice.
After you win, and refuse Fink’s offer, you journey on to the holding cells for detainees. Only to find that Chen-Lin has already been beaten to death by his captors. As all hope seems lost, the Twins show up and explain that death is only a matter of perspective, and that in another version of Columbia, Chen may still be alive. There is a convenient tear where you are, and you and Elizabeth decide to go through it to the “other” Columbia, in search of Chen.
The Unbearable Sadness of Being Chen:
In the “other” Columbia, there is no dead Chen, but the holding cells are full of captive and very angry Vox, and the storerooms are overflowing with Vox contraband. It would seem that the Vox are much further along in their goals in this world. We also see that the guards we killed earlier are also alive, but seem to be affected by their deaths in the other world.
When you get back to Chen’s workshop, he is indeed alive, but he also seems to be affected by his death in the other Columbia. He is also without his machines, which he seems fixated on. You now have to go get his machines from the impound, down in Shanty Town. (Goddamnit can’t anything in this game happen as expected?)
So now you travel down into the underbelly of Fink Industries, the squalor-ridden Shanty Town, where all the lower classes live, when they aren’t working. And there you find the police station, and the impound with all the machines. But how are you going to move it to the workshop? Hey, how about that, another tear. One where there IS no machines there, so they must be back at the shop...where Chen is surely still alive in that world...thus making it a 3rd alternate world...what could go wrong?
Never Bring a Gun to a Scissors Fight:
Elizabeth opens this tear and you step through. Immediately the sounds of violence and panic are evident, the Vox are in full revolt in this world. Elizabeth is hopeful it will lead to better lives for everyone. She’s so cute.
You come into, and push back a major pitched battle taking place in Shantytown. And when the smoke clears for a bit, one of the Vox recognizes you as Booker Dewitt, the HERO of the Vox. Looking at the propaganda poster, you see that you are not only a hero, you’re a martyr. You should be dead in this world. You get a nosebleed.
You continue to lead the charge of the Vox as they push into the Fink factory. On the elevator up to the top floors of the factory, we are stopped and called, much like Fink did not long ago. But this time, its Daisy, and she’s not happy you’re alive. She considers you a threat to her cause, and once you step off the elevator, the Vox you had previously been fighting alongside now want you dead too. When you reach the top, you find Daisy has Fink and his son trapped, and executes Fink right in front of his son. She then wipes his blood and brain matter off the window and wipes it across her face, Uruk Hai style. After setting a squad of people to kill you again, Elizabeth sees that Daisy is now about to execute Finks son as well. You quickly boost Elizabeth through some ducts, and distract Daisy long enough for Elizabeth to stop her...by putting a large pair of scissors right through her chest.
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