by John Shirley
Bill chuckled and tightened his arm around her shoulders. “Steinman’s a prat, all right. But don’t worry. We’ll all be just fine. I’m going to protect you, darlin’. You can trust me to do that. It’ll all come right in the end…”
Atlantis Express, Adonis Station
1949
Stanley Poole had never been this nervous on a reporting assignment. Maybe it was being this close to larger-than-life personalities like Andrew Ryan, Prentice Mill, and Carlson Fiddle—them being all casual-like, almost acting like he was one of them.
The four men were sitting together at the front of the first train car. Poole couldn’t quite make out what Ryan and Mill were saying over the rumble of the Atlantic Express. A pensive, pinch-faced man, Mill seemed worried about something …
They were all on their way to the Adonis Luxury Resort, though it was far from finished—only the Roman-style public baths were ready, steaming for bathers. Ryan wanted The Rapture Tribune to report some progress. To Poole’s right were Mill and Ryan; to his left sat Carlson Fiddle, a bespectacled, nattily dressed, soft-faced man, gently wringing his hands in his lap. Fiddle looked put-upon and preoccupied—and prissily startled as the train lurched into motion. The kind of fussy little man who made you think of an old lady. It was like he’d spent too much time with his mother. They’d just come from the future site of what was to be Ryan Amusements, and now, as the train started for Adonis, Poole sensed that there was a story in Carlson Fiddle’s pensiveness.
“Well, Carlson—” Poole began. “May I call you Carlson?”
“No,” Fiddle said, frowning at the floor.
Poole winced as he took out his pen and notebook. He knew he wasn’t a person who easily commanded respect. As the train passed through a tunnel he could see his reflection in the dark window, beyond Fiddle—the reflection was sickly, the dark glass making him look even more hollow eyed than normal. But, at best, how did anyone take him seriously, with those jutting ears, that skinny neck, and protruding Adam’s apple? The gauntness was worse lately—he had trouble keeping his food down. Maybe it was the binges on booze and drugs he’d gotten into since arriving in Rapture.
Poole cleared his throat and tried again: “Quite a job you’ve got, Mr. Fiddle—designing Ryan Amusements, I mean. Amusement park for the kids, that the ticket?” He smiled encouragingly, hoping Fiddle would get the joke. But not a flicker of amusement came from the guy.
Fiddle adjusted his glasses. “Yes, yes, we’ll have animatronics, some interesting, ah, exhibits planned. I’m a bit baffled about what Mr. Ryan wants exactly.” He glanced sharply at Poole. “Don’t quote that in the paper. About me being baffled.”
Poole winked at Fiddle. “Oh, Mr. Ryan was clear…” He lowered his voice. “… this is going to be a puff piece all the way. All about the swell new constructions coming, the new branch line, the spa. So—what’s this animatronics thing?”
Tired of adjusting his glasses, Fiddle adjusted his tie. “Oh, not everyone calls it that. But—there was that Westinghouse exhibit, in ’39, with Electro the robot and his little pal Sparko. That kind of thing. Animated mannequins, some say. They’ll talk to visitors.”
“Animated mannequins! Do tell!”
Fiddle went back to gently wringing his hands in his lap. “It’ll be about the history of Rapture. I’d like to put in some fairy-tale material too, to keep the kids coming back. Maybe something like the Walt Disney cartoons. But he … well, never mind. Just print that I—that I think it’s a wonderful project, and I’m looking forward to making it a reality.”
“Sure thing!”
The train jolted as it took a turn, rising up to pass into a transparent tunnel through the sea. Coldly magnificent, like some sunken fairyland, Rapture rose about them. A school of big fish zigzagged by, glinting silver. A private bathysphere whipped along below them as they entered another building.
Poole glanced over at Ryan and Mill, when Mill raised his voice. “He does keep implying, Andrew, that I … that eventually—”
“Come, come,” Ryan said equably. “You worry too much, Prentice! Augustus is not some predator of the sea.”
Mill snorted bitterly. “Then what does Sinclair mean when he says, ‘Enjoy the Atlantic Express while you have it’?”
“Oh, that’s just one businessman using a bit of psychology on another! He probably plans to make you an offer and wants you to worry about a takeover. Keep you off-balance. Perfectly normal business tactic.”
“But it’s not a public company…”
“Perhaps it should be! You need not sell out to Sinclair. You could pump up your liquidity by selling shares freely about Rapture. Rapture is still growing! It’s a bubble that will never burst. You will want the capital for investment, Prentice … Ah—here’s our new luxury resort…”
The train slowed as they came into the station near Adonis. Poole, scribbling on his notebook, was somehow aware of Ryan’s scrutiny.
He looked up to see Andrew Ryan frowning at him. Ryan raised an inquiring eyebrow. “You do remember our talk? Nothing unauthorized, Poole.”
Poole swallowed, tempted to point out that Ryan’s heavy hand on Rapture’s newspaper was counter to his talk of freedom. But then Ryan was the major shareholder in the Tribune, and Stanley Poole had never heard of a newspaper that expressed an opinion its owners didn’t like.
“You betcha, Mr. Ryan,” Poole said cheerfully, winking. He rubbed his nose but quickly stopped, knowing it was an irritating mannerism. Man, he’d like to get out from under that hawkish gaze of Ryan’s, get a bottle from Sinclair Spirits and a little sniff-sniff from Le Marquis D’Epoque, that new liquor-and-drug shop over in Fort Frolic. “This branch line, Mr. Ryan—mighty impressive. Quite a view.”
Ryan nodded, his expression becoming neutral. But he kept staring, a look that could be felt like a finger prodding at Poole’s forehead. “I do think I may have some special assignments for you, in time, Poole, if you prove to be discreet. I’ll need someone … very discreet indeed.”
The doors of the train slid open, and Ryan forgot about Poole, turning to clap Prentice on the shoulder, smiling. “The doors were a tad slow to open once we arrived, don’t you think, Prentice? Let’s make them brisker. Let’s keep Rapture moving ahead!”
Medical Pavilion
1949
“Bill, do we have to do this?” Elaine whispered as she lay back on the examining table, awaiting Dr. Suchong. “Why do I have to see these two? I don’t think that Tenenbaum woman is even a doctor. And Suchong—he’s some kind of brain surgeon or something … what does he know about obstetrics?” She smoothed out the hospital gown so it covered a bit more of her pregnancy-swollen belly.
Bill patted her tummy. “The regular doctor was booked up, love. I mentioned to Ryan you were having some unusual cramps, and he insisted that someone here would see to you. Tenenbaum and Suchong were working with Gil Alexander, who’s doing a bit of work for Ryan.” He shrugged.
Elaine licked her lips and said nervously: “I heard someone say she’s got a reputation of being kinda crazy with her experiments…”
“Haven’t heard that. She’s just another genius type that Ryan took an interest in. Sure she’s odd—they all are. Can’t make people understand what she wants half the time…”
“Ahh,” Dr. Suchong said, bustling in, his glasses catching the shine in the overhead lamp. His thin Asian face had a faint gloss of sweat. “Here is soon-mother!”
Brigid Tenenbaum came drifting in after him—a very young woman, superficially pretty but with bruised-looking eyes, a shapeless bob of brown hair, a distant expression on her face. Both of them wore lab coats, Tenenbaum with the skirt of a shabby brown dress showing under her white coat.
“Third trimester, yes?” she said. “Interesting.” Her accent, mixing German and Eastern European, was almost as pronounced as Suchong’s. “Well fed, yes? Circulation—good.”
Elaine scowled—Bill could see she felt like a lab animal. Tenenbaum hadn�
��t even said hello. But it was true—she wasn’t what you’d call a physician. She just happened to be available today. It was all a bit slapdash for Bill’s liking.
“Yes she is, what is expression, ‘well along,’” Suchong remarked, prodding at Elaine’s belly. “Yes … I can feel the … offspring moving. Almost ready for emergence. The creature wishes to come out and feed.”
Tenenbaum had turned to a nearby table of instruments, moving them minutely, squaring them up so that they were at precise right angles and equidistant.
“Mrs. McDonagh,” Suchong said, examining Elaine’s thighs, “does fetus make the reflex movements with extremities?”
Elaine rolled her eyes. “Do you mean does the little one kick, Doctor? The child does; yes.”
“Excellent sign. Long since I have examined a fetus. Difficult to obtain them in healthy state.”
He stepped around to her feet, reached out, and pulled her legs apart with a sharp, decisive movement of his hands like a butcher preparing to gut a chicken. Elaine made a squeak of surprise.
“’Ere, Doc, easy on my girl!” Bill said.
Suchong was lifting up the hospital gown—and he and Tenenbaum were both leaning over the exam table, frowning at Elaine’s private parts. Suchong grunted, pointing. “Interesting distention, there and there—you see? Part of peculiar metamorphosis of pregnant woman.”
“Yes, I see,” Tenenbaum said. “I have dissected many in this stage…”
“Enviable. Perhaps you have specimens?”
“No, no, all my specimens were taken when the Americans came, but—”
“Bill!” Elaine squeaked, snapping her legs shut and pressing the gown down over her crotch.
“Right! See any problems, you two?” Bill said.
“Hm?” Suchong looked at him in puzzlement. “Ah! No, no, she will do very well. It would be interesting to probe a bit—”
“Won’t be necessary, Doc! We’re off.” Bill helped Elaine down from the table. “Come on, love. Back in here, there’s your clothes, time to get dressed.”
He heard Andrew Ryan’s voice from the lab next door. “There you are, Dr. Suchong—is all well?”
Suchong said, “Yes, yes, nothing abnormal. I am glad you are here, Mr. Ryan—please to look at experiment thirty-seven…”
Bill stepped to the door of the lab, with half a mind to tell Ryan how coarsely Elaine had been treated. But he stopped, staring.
Andrew Ryan, Suchong, Gil Alexander—a researcher who worked for Ryan most of the time—and Brigid Tenenbaum were gathered around a big motley figure in a sort of glass coffin filled with water; the case was hooked up to a tangle of translucent tubes. Bill had only met Gil Alexander a few times—a serious-eyed man with a thick mustache. He was quite professorial and intelligent, but, it seemed to Bill, cold-blooded.
Stretched out in the glass coffin was a man whose body seemed a patchwork of flesh and, in some places, steel. Corpse-pale, the man lay motionless in the bubbling water—Bill thought it could have been a drowning victim.
Gil Alexander was adjusting a tube sinking into the supine man’s left leg. “A little inflammation. Not bad. We have good induction…”
Bill found himself staring at the exposed left leg—it looked as if flesh and metal were fused at the thigh. It was all puckered, and Bill thought he saw the skin quiver, as if reacting to a perfusion of bubbles. He wanted to speak up or leave, but there was something that held him, something weirdly fascinating in the scene …
“You see, Mr. Ryan,” Tenenbaum said, “fusion is incomplete, but I feel if we were to perhaps try viral gene transfer, we make body more capable of unifying with…”
“Bah!” Suchong said, glancing at her in annoyance. “You always think genes the way. Viral transfer of genes is entirely theoretical! Not needed! Body can be conditioned so that cells bond with metal! We have no way to control genes without breeding program!”
“Ach—forgive me, Doctor,” she said, her voice faintly contemptuous, as she needlessly straightened tools on a nearby table, “but you are mistaken. The way will reveal itself to us. When we consider Gregor Mendel…”
Alexander seemed amused by the simmering between Suchong and Tenenbaum. He smiled, Bill noticed, but said nothing.
Ryan made a dismissive gesture as he frowned over the figure in the transparent, liquid-filled coffin. “I’m more interested in the practical uses—I need a process that makes our men capable of longer hours out there—”
“Cor!” Bill burst out—as the legs of the supine man contracted, an armored knee striking the top of the glass case, cracking it. Water spurted up through the crack …
Ryan and Suchong turned to stare at Bill—Tenenbaum and Alexander seemed more caught up in changing the flow of a chemical through the tubes that communicated with the glass coffin.
“Bill,” Ryan said softly, coming over to him. “I thought you’d gone.”
“Just leaving,” Bill said. “That fellow in there all right?”
“Him? Oh he’s a volunteer—helping us with an experiment.” Ryan took his arm. “Come—let’s leave them to it, shall we? How’s Elaine…?”
And he escorted Bill from the lab.
Fort Frolic
1949
Bing Crosby crooned “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams” from flower-shaped speakers, and Bill hummed along as he escorted Elaine along the upper atrium. There was just time for a stroll before the musical at Fleet Hall. Bill had brought Elaine for a Christmas-season outing. Their friend Mariska Lutz was looking after the baby.
“It’s funny about this place,” Elaine murmured, as she and Bill strolled along the balcony walk of Poseidon Plaza, in the neon-bright upper atrium of Fort Frolic. Elaine wore a shiny pink satin dress and Bill wore a white linen suit. Other couples hurried by, dressed up, hair coiffed, faces glowing with laughter. Almost like New York, Bill thought.
“What’s funny about it, love?” he asked. They were passing the entrance to the Sir Prize Games of Chance Casino, with its big knight’s helmet projecting between Sir and Prize. The neon signs seemed to radiate sheer insistence in an enclosed space. There was no sky to put them in perspective.
“Well, I mean—I thought it’d be really different from the surface world. It is, of course, in some ways—but—” She glanced through the windows at the people working the slot machines. “The idea was to bring just the best of the world down with us—but maybe we brought some of the worst too.”
Bill chuckled, tucking her hand under his arm. “That happens when a place is settled with people, love. They bring the worst and best with ’em wherever they go. People’ve got to have some place to let their ’air … their hair down. Got to have their Fort Frolic.”
They went down the stairs to the lower atrium, past Robertson’s Tobaccoria, and she sighed as they passed Eve’s Garden. She looked at it askance. “A strip club was necessary, was it?”
Bill shrugged. “Especially necessary, some would say—with all the men we’ve got here. Men building, working maintenance. Now me, I don’t need any such diversion. I’ve got the best-looking bird in Rapture to admire.”
“Well, don’t expect a strip show.” She batted her eyes at him like a flapper in a movie. “Until we get home I mean.”
“That’s my girl!”
She laughed. “Oh I don’t mean to sound like a bluenose—Let’s get some wine in Sinclair Spirits … or maybe something in the Ryan Club. You’d probably rather have ale…”
“It’s wine for milady! But we’ve got tickets for the show at Fleet Hall, love. Thought we’d have our drinks after.”
“Oh, Fleet Hall! I’ve been wanting to see it. That Footlight Theater place is kind of cramped.”
“Fleet’s big. Mr. Ryan planned for big all through Rapture.”
She glanced quizzically up at him. “You really admire Mr. Ryan, don’t you, Bill?”
“What, me? You know I do! Gave me everything I’ve got, he has. I was installing toilets, love—and he made me a b
uilder of a new world!”
They passed the liquor and drug emporium Le Marquis D’Epoque—which was quite thronged, mostly with young men. He saw someone he knew inside, the rat-faced Stanley Poole, shifting from foot to foot, nervously buying a vial of some narcotic. Bill hurried on, not wanting to talk about the place with his wife—and not wanting to make small talk with the execrable Poole.
The piped music had become Fats Waller jazzily banging out the Jitterbug Waltz. Happy voices echoed from the high spaces of the atrium. People looked a bit ghostly in the reflected light from the neon, but they were happy ghosts, smiling, teasing one another. A young red-haired woman squealed as a young man pinched her. She remembered to slap him, but not very hard.
Bill saw one of Sullivan’s constables, big Pat Cavendish, looking like a hotel dick in his cheap suit and badge, swaggering about, hands in his pockets and gun on his hip, leering at a parcel of young girls.
Elaine brightened when they came to the Sophia Salon, and Bill resigned himself to standing about with his hands in his pockets as Elaine poked through the finery in the “high fashion” boutique. He bought her a nightgown and a new coat to be delivered to their flat, and then it was time to go back upstairs to Fleet Hall.
They hurried out of the boutique and up the stairs, where Bill spotted the architect Daniel Wales talking to Augustus Sinclair. But the younger Wales was in close conversation with the mercurial businessman and didn’t even look up.
Bill peered up at the ceiling, thinking about watertight integrity, and was pleased to see no sign of leakage. Some parts of Rapture were more scrupulously maintained than others. This one was pampered like a baby’s bottom.
It seemed to Bill that Rapture was thriving: the Atlantic Express rumbled efficiently from one building to another. Shops bustled with business. Rapture’s galleries and atriums glowed with light; its art deco fixtures gleamed with gold leaf. Crews of workmen kept the carpets clean, picked up trash, and repaired cracks in bulkheads. Looking down at the lower atrium, the increasing crowd, and the shining signs, Rapture seemed fully alive, thrumming with economic brio. And just maybe Mr. Ryan, the Wales brothers, Greavy—just maybe they couldn’t have done it without Bill McDonagh.