trouble. He was tempted. Still—there was the risk of what Reggie might do if Fontaine went down. And Fontaine’s other men. He settled for an implied ultimatum. “No smuggling, Fontaine—and no Teleport.”
Fontaine’s smile went crooked on his face. “I’m finding Teleport problematic too. People who use it get extra crazy—they’re giving me problems. I’ve got my own security issues…”
“Security issues? You act as if you have your own little fiefdom here in Rapture.”
“If I do—you gave it to me, Ryan. By deceiving people about what they’d find in your pretty undersea ‘utopia.’ By not providing for them once they got here.”
“Everyone has a chance to earn their way,” Ryan snapped back. “Only parasites and slaves remain in their little dilemmas.”
“Is that right?”
Their gazes locked.
“What exactly are you up to, in that Little Sisters Orphanage, Fontaine?” Ryan asked. “You barely take care of the boys in the other wing of the orphanage. It all seems to be about the girls. If you’re using them for your personal little playthings…”
Fontaine’s eyes flashed. “What do you take me for? I’m like you. I like full-grown women. As for the orphanage,” Fontaine went on blandly, “we’re just trying to give back to the community.”
He managed to say it with a straight face.
Ryan snorted. “I’ll figure it out eventually. One thing I’m sure of—you’re using that ‘food for the poor’ charity to recruit people into your little syndicate. I’ve known mobsters to do the same thing.”
“Mobsters?” Fontaine took a step toward the desk. “I don’t have to stand for that.”
Ryan moved near the security-alert button on the edge of his desk. Maybe this was the moment after all …
“What I’m here for really,” Fontaine said sharply, “is to tell you that if you leave me alone—I’ll leave you alone. All that recruiting you’re guessing about won’t come and bite you in the ass. If. You back. The fuck. Off! You respect strength, Ryan. Well, respect mine. I’ve got six more armed men out in the corridor. And I’m leaving here now, so don’t interfere with me. I won’t distribute any new Teleport. But there just might be some other new plasmids. And you people are going to live with them. Because I’m changing everything, Ryan. I’m changing it from the inside out. And no one can stop me. We can do this easy—or the hard way…”
Fontaine beckoned to Reggie and they stalked out of the room.
Rapture Detention
1956
They walked under the dimming-glowing-dimming lights of the cellblock, Sullivan following Redgrave and Cavendish, their footsteps reverberating. Constable Redgrave was a medium-sized, wiry black man with a Southern accent. He was vain of his white linen suit. Cavendish spun a police truncheon on a thong as he walked along.
The overhead lights spat a few sparks and guttered again. Water dripped down. There were shallow puddles in the metal hallway.
“We’re gonna get fucking electrocuted in here,” Sullivan said.
“Always a possibility,” Cavendish said. “Tell your friend McDonagh. Got a lot of leaks now. Can’t afford to lose any more men.”
Sullivan grunted to himself. “Lot of our best men transferred over to keep order in Persephone. I hear that Lamb woman is still up to some rabble-rousing … how she does it from jail, we don’t know.”
“Subversion’s easier to deal with than getting electrocuted…”
A splicer just ahead of Cavendish reached out from the barred windows of his cell, screeching, “Electrocuted? Did I hear ya say you want to be electrocuted? To be punished for your crimes? Here you are, you bastards!”
Electricity flickered along the splicer’s arm—and sputtered out.
“Don’t worry about that one,” Cavendish said. “He’s got no EVE left in him. Can’t do anything with his ADAM…” And Cavendish cracked the splicer’s elbow hard with his truncheon. The impact made an ugly crunching sound, and the man jerked his arm back in, shrieking in pain.
“You broke it!”
“You deserved it,” Cavendish said, yawning, as they passed onward. “Ah, there it is. Number twenty-nine.”
As they strode up to the door, Sullivan hoped the denizen of cell number 29 was ready to talk. Herve Manuela wasn’t a splicer—he was quite sane. They’d caught him carrying a large box of contraband. He’d worked closely with Fontaine’s man Peach Wilkins at the fisheries. He was finally ready to make a plea deal, but he was still scared of crossing Fontaine.
“Hey, Manuela!” Sullivan called as Cavendish unlocked the door. Redgrave was standing to one side, using his white handkerchief to polish his chrome-plated revolver, whistling to himself.
As they stepped through the open door, Sullivan could smell the putrefied blood …
Herve Manuela was lying facedown in blood-splashed prison blues. He was missing most of his head. Strands of dark hair were glued to the wall by dried blood. It looked to Sullivan—his stomach lurching as he contemplated the mess—as if someone had grabbed Manuela and smashed his head so hard against the wall it had simply exploded. Only splicers had the strength to do that.
“Son of a bitch,” Cavendish said. “Hey, Redgrave, look at this shit!”
Redgrave looked through the door and made a gagging face. “Lord, that’s one bad mess, sure is! Who done that, boss?”
Sullivan turned away in disgust. “You didn’t do this, Cavendish?”
Cavendish was capable of something like that. He was strong and brutal. He might be pretending to be surprised.
“Me? Hell no!”
“You definitely had the door locked?”
“Goddamn right it was locked! Hey—there’s something else…” He pointed at the opposite wall.
Sullivan looked—and saw words written in blood:
THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB WILL CLEANSE US ALL … HER TIME WILL COME … LOVE TO ALL!
“Lamb!” Sullivan muttered. Ryan could jail the woman, but she was still a thorn in his side.
He snorted, shaking his head. “Love to all!”
Olympus Heights
1956
Jasmine Jolene had a very comfortable apartment in Olympus Heights, almost as close to the surface of the sea as the council’s conference room. Sipping his martini, Ryan felt a certain pride. A chandelier gleamed; a picture window and the intricately framed skylight offered views into the sea. Turning to gaze out the broad window, Ryan could just make out the red of sunset, the setting sun adding a muted crimson to the iridescent scales of a school of big blue-fin tuna sweeping by.
He glanced at the bedroom door, wondering what was keeping Jasmine. He’d left her lolling on the enormous pink-plush bed, with its pink-satin headboard.
There was a kitchen, a Frigidaire stocked with food, and a liquor cabinet with the best brandies and wines. Andrew Ryan had given Jasmine all this. He had provided for her. The small salary Sander Cohen gave her for her rather clumsy, poorly attended performances in the Fleet Hall would not have paid for much more than Artemis Suites. But she earned her luxuries—Andrew Ryan saw to that, once or twice a month, and with some vigor for a man his age.
He tightened his red silk bathrobe and sipped his martini. Feeling the alcohol, he frowned and put the drink down on the flamboyantly carved side table. That would have been his third martini. He hadn’t been much of a drinker before coming to Rapture. He’d kept it to a minimum until recently. But it seemed to be creeping up on him.
The complainers had opportunities to make a good life in Rapture. They simply did not have the will to make use of them. Work two jobs, three if necessary. Cut rations in half. Squandering their Rapture dollars on ADAM just to have an electrical joust with some drunk. What do you expect? But they always blamed him when they failed.
The graffiti was still out there: Andrew Ryan doesn’t own me.
And, Organize Artemis! The Collective Lives! Trust Lamb! And the enigmatic: WHO IS ATLAS?
Slogans. It started with slogans. Then it became Communist revolution. Mass murder of real workingmen by parasites.
And indeed—who was Atlas? Sullivan’s intel suggested the name was a pseudonym for some Red organizer. Some would-be Stalin …
Something was going out of balance. The top was spinning, left, right, left, right, wobbling, about to fall …
“Um, Andrew darling, there’s something I need to tell you…”
He turned to see Jasmine, looking rather more full-figured than usual in a pink negligee. She wore pink slippers with little gold puffs on the toes. She patted her golden hair nervously, though she’d already spent some considerable time brushing and grooming after their lovemaking. “What is it, my dear?”
“I…” She licked her lips, and her gaze wandered restlessly to the big window. Her thick black eyelashes batted. She’d always blinked rather too much. “Um…”
There was something she wanted to tell him. She was afraid to, he realized. “Come, come, Jasmine, I won’t bite, what is it? Out with it!”
She chewed a lip, hesitated, started to say something, then shook her head. She looked around with a quiet desperation—then pointed at the corner of a window. “Um—those. Snail things or … whatever they are.”
He looked at the lower edge of the window. Some spiny crustacean was creeping across a corner of the glass outside. “You wish to have your window cleaned of those things? I’ll try and get a crew up here when you’re at work. You know how they like to stare in at you when you’re home.”
“You can’t tell where they’re looking in those big dark helmets. Scary ol’ big daddies, I call ’em.”
“Is there something else you wanted to tell me, Jasmine?”
She closed her eyes, pursed her lips, and shook her head. He could see she’d made up her mind not to tell him.
Ryan opened his arms to her—and she came to him. He enfolded her in a warm embrace, and they gazed out the window, where the light was fading, the shadows of the deep rising with the coming of night …
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