mockingly arch as she recited: “‘Engineers work to overcome obstacles, such as diamond-hard rock, obstinate sea life and unexpected casualties!’ Think about it, my friends—how much needless suffering have we taken for granted?” She shook her head sadly. “Unexpected casualties? Oh, Andrew Ryan fully expected them! He just didn’t care! A great many lives were lost in building Rapture—those lives were sacrifices to the ‘god’ that is the human ego! Ryan’s ego! The common man and woman in Rapture is overworked and underpaid; they’re left exhausted. They toiled around the clock to create this city—but how much of what they created do they really share in? What did Andrew Ryan really offer—but paper? A little something called Rapture dollars … mere documents, paper money! Paper for paupers! And precious little of that! Who, I ask you, really owns Rapture? The people who built it? or the plutocrats who control it? The many—or the few? You know the answer!”
A good many in the crowd were nodding. Some frowned, unsure—but most seemed convinced. They’d been thinking something of the sort themselves, Poole supposed. Here was someone who said it right out loud … Dr. Sofia Lamb. A psychiatrist—using her psychology on the common man.
“This woman Lamb is becoming troublesome, Poole,” Ryan had said. “See what she’s up to. Stay discreet…”
If Ryan could hear this, Poole thought, he’d blow his carefully barbered top.
Sofia Lamb paused thoughtfully, then pointed at the ornate walls. “Rapture looks like a great big palace at times, doesn’t it? It abounds in luxury—but where’s housing for those who maintain it? You’re crowded into places like Maintenance Seventeen! But that’s traditional in a palace, isn’t it? There are the luxury quarters for the elite—and then there’s the little cubbyholes under the stairs where the servants live! Palace servants have always outnumbered kings and queens! Yet we blindly continue to serve them! My vision of a new, united Rapture is revolutionary—yes, revolutionary! I say it proudly! And yet all I’m bringing is a new spirit of cooperation, my friends. A new shape for love! Cooperation, in a place like Ryan’s Rapture, is transformative, and the word I’m bringing is a sacrament, the beginning of a new church of cooperation. I have had an inspiration that seems to come from some cosmic place of certainty—and it is telling me that Rapture’s foundation on competition is cracking! Competition is division, my friends. A house divided cannot stand!” As she spoke, Poole noticed, she became more intense; her nostrils flared, her eyes flashed, her hands fisted. She radiated charisma—just as Ryan did. But her magnetism was somehow powerfully maternal. Poole glanced at Simon Wales and noticed he seemed totally captivated by Lamb. She went on, declaring loudly, “We must evolve to heal Rapture—and we will heal it by redesigning it from within! We will create a true utopia—and utopians fit to live in utopia! We will build a unity that will thrive, even as the surface world fails! But the new Rapture will not be based on greed—it will be a collective based on sharing! What is the collective? It is the body of Rapture! Therein will lie its truth! An end to the burden of mindless competition—a turning to cooperation, altruism, community—and communality!”
Holy cow, Poole thought. Ryan was going to flip. The boss was caught between a rock and a hard place. Ryan was officially against censorship—so how could he censor this woman? But from what Poole had heard about the secret structures being expanded in the Persephone Project, Ryan had a plan for taking care of Red organizers …
As the speech ended he turned away—and spotted someone at the back of the crowd he hadn’t noticed here before—a man with dark glasses and a hat covering his bald head.
Poole knew him, despite the man’s attempt at going incognito. It was Frank Fontaine. And Fontaine had a mighty thoughtful look on his face …
* * *
Frank Fontaine wasn’t aware of Poole watching him. He was mesmerized by Sofia Lamb.
The woman’s amazing, Fontaine thought. What a con artist. She was a grifter with two or three college degrees—he had to admire her. “What is the collective?” she’d said. “It is the body of Rapture!” Good stuff. You could plug almost any feeling you wanted into that. Conning one guy at a time wasn’t much challenge.
But a whole crowd—conning a whole population. Man, that was a thing of beauty.
This Lamb woman knew how you got “the people” on your side. Figure out what was bothering them and use it as a kind of harness, and pretty soon they’re pulling your wagon for you. Smart. “But that’s traditional in a palace, isn’t it? There are the luxury quarters for the elite—and then there’s the little cubbyholes under the stairs where the servants live! Palace servants have always outnumbered kings and queens!”
Smart—give ’em something to repeat to one another. “We’re like the palace servants, living under the stairs, see?”
This Dr. Lamb was going to be too much competition, of course. In time he’d have to see to it that Ryan got the info he needed to arrest her. Meantime, she was inspiring him, along with the crowd. Only, not the same way …
He’d do it all his way, of course. She was kind of the female version. His own version of radical leadership would be very different.
Maybe it was too early to really get going on it. But he could start to plant the seeds. Get it growing. And in time—harvest.
Andrew Ryan’s Office
1954
Bill found Andrew Ryan at his desk. “Mr. Ryan—I have that maintenance report.”
Ryan glanced up. “Oh, Bill, have a seat…” He looked back at the folder in his hands as Bill sat down across from him. The folder was marked CONFIDENTIAL. “I just want to have another look at the end of this one … I had Stanley Poole look into some things … this Lamb woman is a problem…” He flipped a page. “Bringing that woman in was bad judgment…” He grunted to himself, closed the folder, pushed it aside, and opened another. “Yes. Poole’s also found out something about Fontaine’s new venture he’s calling Futuristics … Seems quite … pregnant with possibility … Take a load off while I sort through this…”
Ryan made notes, nodded to himself. Then he looked up at Bill, smiling. “I get so caught up in the day-to-day business—I forget to really take a good look at the people around me. You look a bit careworn, Bill. That’s natural. How’s Elaine?”
Bill smiled, relaxing a little. He liked to see this side of Ryan. “Grand, Mr. Ryan. Knows how to make a man happy, that one.”
“Good, good. I too will settle down when the time comes. I dream of having a son one day, you know. Someone to take what I’ve built in his hands and keep it thriving—build on it! An investment in the future. What a wonderful place to grow up, Rapture is, too. A wonderland for kids, I should think…”
Bill wasn’t so sure of that. Not at all. But he only smiled musingly and nodded.
Sullivan came bustling in. He nodded to Bill and stood beside the desk with the tense air of a man who was fitting this stop into a tight schedule. “You called me, sir?”
“Ah—Chief. There you are! Yes…” He pushed the folder toward Sullivan. “I need you to jump with both feet into this. Have you heard something about a … a new development called plasmids?”
“Plasmids? No sir. What the blazes are they?”
“Some kind of product. Look at this…” He reached into a desk drawer, drew out a folded copy of The Rapture Tribune, and laid it out on the desk for Bill and Sullivan to see. It was opened to the back page, on which an advertisement proclaimed,
EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO BE
YOU CAN BE
WITH PLASMIDS! THE WAVE OF THE FUTURE
FROM FONTAINE FUTURISTICS
Free Samples of HairGro
BrainBoost
SportBoost
Electro Bolt
BruteMore Muscle Enhancer
And watch for Incinerate!
Ryan shrugged. “Fontaine is putting them out. Grows new hair, new teeth, makes you prettier, stronger, younger, even faster. Already selling big to the maintenance workers. A genetic breakthrough, according to Poole. Our restless young rival is at it again. I want you to find out what you can about these ‘plasmids,’ Sullivan, and everything about Fontaine Futuristics. Apparently he’s hired Dr. Suchong and Brigid Tenenbaum to develop these products. That woman seemed unstable to me—but she’s a whiz.”
Bill looked at the advertisement and shook his head. “Too good to be true, innit? I mean—got to be side effects. They test these things first?”
Ryan waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not really concerned with weighing down progress with a lot of testing. People want to try it, they can take their chances. Well Sullivan—can you take this on? Poole’s got his hands full watching that Lamb woman…”
Sullivan rubbed his jaw. “Working on that smuggling thing pretty hard right now, sir. Fontaine’s changed his MO.”
.
“We’ll take care of their smuggling later. Unless you have solid proof it’s Fontaine?”
“No sir. Not arresting proof. Of course, the constables would probably arrest anybody you told them to…”
Ryan leaned back in his desk chair, seemed to consider it. Then he shook his head. “No. If I did that, we’d be no better than the Reds. No, we’ll get evidence. But first I want to know what this plasmid thing is all about. My instinct tells me it’s something that could change Rapture’s marketplace.”
Sullivan nodded, ran a hand through his hair, licking his lips as if he were thinking of bringing up another issue. Then he shrugged. “I’m on it, sir.”
He headed out the door, a man on a mission.
“How are those leakage problems I’ve been hearing about, Bill?” Ryan asked, though the glazed look in his eyes suggested his thoughts were roving elsewhere.
“Constant maintenance, guv. The bloody sea doesn’t just sit quiet out there—we push it out of our way, and it pushes right back. Always throwin’ its weight around—sheer water pressure, currents, changing temperature, ice formation, sea creatures a-scrapin’ and squeezin’. Barnacles and starfish and seaworms. Had to send scraping crews out twice the last month.”
“Yes. Some of the men spend so much time in deep-sea diving suits they’re beginning to feel like part of them.” Ryan smiled to himself.
Bill remembered the experimental subject he’d seen in the labs. Not something he wanted to think about.
Ryan tossed the pencil on the desk, tented his fingers, and scowled broodingly. “Fontaine is shaping up to be my great rival here. He can only sharpen me. It is like fuel for the fire of my talent. But I cannot let him come to fully dominate the marketplace in Rapture. No. I may have to take action. We may have to get tough with Mr. Fontaine…”
Maintenance Station 17
Early 1955
It was right depressing, visiting the old maintenance workers’ colony. Bill McDonagh didn’t like coming here. It made him feel obscurely guilty as he walked along from the Metro passage to the back of the pawnshop at the corner, picking his way past moraines of trash. Bill felt responsible for Rapture—he sure hadn’t planned on any slums.
Someone had written “Welcome to Pauper’s Drop” in red across one wall in dripping paint. Below it, a long, tatty row of sullen indigents squatted against the metal bulkhead, shivering, some of them in carapaces of cardboard. The heating duct for this area was blocked, and the few merchants down here were reluctant to pay the Ryan Industries service fee for getting them unblocked. Bill had come down to do it in his spare time. Not that he would tell Ryan that. If Ryan knew he was doing charity work …
Bill had gotten Roland Wallace to help—each swearing the other to secrecy—and Wallace promised he’d bring an electrician along. But neither Wallace nor his wire jockey was here now.
Bill was beginning to feel nervous about being here alone. The surly unemployed along the wall watched his every step. He heard them muttering as he went along. One of them said, “She’s watching him too…”
He was relieved to see Roland Wallace at the corner. With Wallace was a bearded man in overalls, carrying a toolbox—a tall, gaunt man with an aquiline profile.
“Oi!” Bill called, his breath steaming in the chill. “Wallace!” Wallace saw him and waved. Bill hurried to him. “I’m bloody well glad to see you, mate,” Bill said, keeping his voice low. “These ragamuffins over ’ere’ve been giving me the gimlet eye. Half-expecting a knock in the head.”
Wallace nodded, looking past him at the ill-kempt men and women along the wall, many with bottles in hand. “Drinking too, a lot of them. No rules against making your own in Rapture—someone’s been selling cheap absinthe to this bunch, I hear. Three people died from bad hooch, and two went blind.” He cleared his throat. “Well, come on—the best way into the duct is in the back of the pawnshop. Glad to get the heat working here—it’s damn cold…”
The electrician said nothing, though it seemed to Bill that the man was muttering to himself under his breath, his hawkish, deep-set eyes darting this way and that. Bill noticed thick red blotches on the man’s forehead.
They stepped over small piles of trash and went around a quite large one to get to the back of the pawnshop. “There’s no trash pickup here either?” Bill asked.
“We can’t afford it.”
“You live down here too?”
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