BioShock Rapture

“He means pheromone, I suspect,” Kinkaide said, smirking.

“Maybe that was it,” Sullivan said, unruffled. “Something about Suchong using phero … those things … to control the splicers, without the splicers even knowing it. Maybe spraying a chemical that makes them all show up in one place, so they cause problems for … well, anybody you wanted to cause problems for. I guess.”

Ryan scowled. “Control the splicers … with pheromones…” He was intrigued. But it was troubling too. Because Suchong worked for Fontaine.

Meaning that Fontaine in turn would eventually control at least some of the splicers. And it was becoming clearer: Fontaine was a predator. If you allowed him to grab that kind of power, he would use it to take Rapture over. Probably he’d do it behind a smokescreen. As Bill had warned, Fontaine could even partner up with Lamb’s followers, now that they were at loose ends.

It could mean the destruction of Rapture.

Fort Frolic, Fleet Hall, Backstage

1956

“Can anyone ever make you feel like Sander Cohen can? Rapture’s most beloved musical artist returns with ‘Why Even Ask?,’ his greatest album yet. Songs of love. Songs of joy. Songs of passion. Buy ‘Why Even Ask?’ and invite Sander Cohen into your home today.” Hurrying along through the empty backstage area, Martin Finnegan chuckled to himself hearing the public-service announcement playing from Cohen’s dressing room. Cohen was listening to the PA announcement over and over again. “Can anyone ever make you feel like Sander Cohen can? Rapture’s most beloved musical artist returns…”

Martin went down the wood-walled corridor, found Sander Cohen seated pensively in front of his gold-framed oval dressing-room mirror, putting on another layer of makeup with one hand. With the other he was shaping the needlelike points of his hooked mustache. Cohen wore a purple and blue silk smoking jacket, silk slippers, and purple silk pajamas. He looked at Martin in the mirror. “I’m running short of makeup, you know,” Cohen said. He picked up the stub of an eyebrow pencil and began to darken his eyebrows. “I’ve asked Andrew for more, but he talks tiresomely of import priorities, the importance of creating our own goods. Does he really expect me to make my own eyebrow pencil? My, you look virile today, Martin…”—all said while outlining his eyebrow, looking at Martin in the mirror. That face became ever more lurid each time Martin saw it, ever more like a mad, mustachioed mime. “… And invite Sander Cohen into your home today…” The recording ended, and Cohen restarted it. “Can anyone ever make you feel…”

“What do you think of that announcement?” Cohen asked, starting on the other eyebrow, watching him closely in the mirror. “It’s going out tonight on the public address. Trying to push my new record. It seems a bit bland to me. Lacking in verve. Doesn’t have that libidinous fevre that I so delight in…”

Martin sat in a wooden chair behind Cohen, wishing he’d stop playing the announcement. “I think it’s good for regular folks to hear,” Martin said. “Kind of family friendly, like. That’s good, you need that.”

“Oh God, I hope it doesn’t mean they’ll bring their children to my shows. I can’t imagine how I was able to bear being one. Fortunately it didn’t last long.”

Martin shifted in the uncomfortable chair, making it squeak. “Speaking of how Sander Cohen can make me feel … The note you sent me mentioned trying something new…”

Cohen tittered, hand fluttering over his mouth. “Well…” He winked, and opened a dressing-table drawer and drew out two bottles, setting them down on the dressing table, one after the other. They were squat bottles filled with red fluid. Martin knew full well what they were. Cohen opened the lower drawer, took out a flat black box, and opened it. In velvet-lined compartments were two syringes filled with glowing fluid. EVE. For activating the plasmids. Staring at the bottles, Martin’s mouth was dry. He and Cohen had taken cocaine together before, cut with a lot of booze. But this … He had seen splicers. Some of them seemed fairly together. Others, though, were like nitroglycerine, always ready to explode. And then there was the disfigurement. Those who used a great deal of ADAM ended up looking like they had a skin disease. The loony expressions glued on their faces made it all worse. On the other hand—look at that blue glow in the bottles! The implied power in it.

“Well? Shall we indulge?” Cohen asked, his mouth screwed to a cone and twisted comically to one side. “Hmm?”