BioShock Rapture

Fontaine was glad to get out of there. He might’ve gotten fried during that demonstration. “So—what did we just see? That was a plasmid, right?” He added wonderingly, “Lightning coming out of a man!”

Dr. Suchong paused in the barren metal corridor under a naked yellow light and rubbed his hands together.

Fontaine and Tenenbaum lingered with him in the hall, all of them a little shaken up. Fontaine glanced through an open door into a small, cluttered lab where one of the nondescript sea slugs squirmed in a bubbling aquarium on a table seething with fluid-filled tubes.“Suchong is most impressed by plasmid possibilities! Powerful electrical charge, drawn from atmosphere, can be used to activate machines—or to attack enemies! Maybe for self-defense against sharks when our men work in sea! That Brougham—he cannot control it. But soon Suchong will improve stem-cell communication with the nervous system! Soon a man can control this power! And other powers!”

Fontaine found that his pulse was racing with a mounting excitement. “What other powers?”

“We have found special genes, can be changed with stem alteration, using ADAM—so a man has power to project cold, as Brougham project lightning! Power to project fire! To project rage! To make things move—with power of mind alone!”

Fontaine looked at him. Was he in earnest—or was this a sell job? Was Suchong trying to con him? But he’d just seen a sample of plasmid power. “If that’s true, ADAM is the ultimate score. ADAM—and EVE. It’s fuckin’ amazing.”

Tenenbaum nodded, looking through the door at the sea slug in the aquarium. “Yes. The little sea slug has come along and glued together all the crazy ideas I’ve had since the war. It can resurrect cells, bend the double helix—so that black can be reborn white, tall can be short. Weak can become strong! But we are just beginning … there is more we need, Frank. Much more…”

Fontaine grinned—and winked at her. “You’ll get whatever you need! Fontaine Futuristics will transform Rapture! I feel it in my bones.”

Tenenbaum looked curiously at Fontaine—right at him. But he suspected she could look right at him only because she was thinking of him as a specimen. “Really? You feel that in bones?”

“Nah, that’s just an expression—what I’m saying is, this is going to go big. And it’s got to be presented big. I’m going to buy space from Ryan Industries … and we’re going to move Fontaine Futuristics out of this dump, into the best-designed location in Rapture! It’ll look like the inside of a mansion, with lots of décor and sculpture so that people’ll sense the power behind those doors!” He broke off, shaking his head. Thinking that he was starting to sound like … a businessman.

Won’t have to do it long, he told himself. The bunko possibilities in this one are all about selling something to people they only think they want—until they’ve got it. And once they’ve got it—it’s got them. Meaning I’ll have ’em in my hip pocket.

Suchong glanced at the sea slug—and licked his lips. Something was troubling him. “But Mr. Fontaine—there is danger.” He looked gravely at Fontaine. “Danger in using ADAM—and in developing plasmids. You should know before proceeding. Come this way. You shall see…”

They went down a metal-walled corridor, feet clumping on wooden planks. The air at this end smelled like raw chemicals and curdled human sweat. They came to a steel door stenciled

SPECIAL STUDIES: KEEP OUT.

Suchong put his hand on the knob …

“Perhaps we should not go in!” Brigid Tenenbaum said suddenly, not looking at either of them but holding the door shut with the flat of her hand. She stared at the closed door.

“Why?” Fontaine asked, wondering if they were planning to lock him up in there. It occurred to him that maybe he should be careful around scientists who strap random people to tables and inject them with things …

“It is dangerous inside—perhaps diseased…”

Fontaine swallowed. But he made up his mind. “There can’t be any part of this I don’t know about. It’s all my business.” He wanted plasmids—bad. But he needed to know what the risks were. If this was something that exposed him too much …

She nodded once and stepped back. Suchong opened the door. Immediately, a disturbing, unnatural smell emanated from the room. It was a scent Fontaine would expect from exposed human brains when the top of the skull was sawed away …