Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters, though I have no real copyright on them...
Fall Rapture, fall
Spring, 1958
Adonis Luxury Resort, Rapture's 'finest spa and getaway', it was a place of rest and relaxation reserved only for the city's higher classes. How my mother managed to even get past the doorman will always be beyond me.
I was waiting in the foyer when the secretary came to find me, staring into the fountain which pooled around that enormous globe in the center of the room. The spa's neon logo illuminated my face with a bright shade of blue, reminding me uncomfortably of the sky which we'd left behind, along with so many other things. My two youngest siblings put their fingers to the water, cooing and laughing as the ripples arched out and around them. This brought a small smile to my lips, at least they would never miss the sun – they'd barely seen it.
"Mr. Wagner?" A woman who I guessed was the clerk or secretary broke me from my daze, tilting her head a little in good humour.
"Yes, that's me." I smiled, looking from her golden hair, to her brilliant blue eyes, and down to her practically sparkling teeth. It was scary what treatments you could get from a guy like Doc Steinman, and this girl was a testament to them. She looked fresh out of a painting – though in this city that painting was likely to be a forgery, and this girl was a testament to that as well.
"Your mother has just finished her treatment; you can go in to see her now." She flashed those teeth again, and it was a struggle not to wince.
"Thanks. Come on Amir, Samira."
The three of us ascended the stairway, my brother and sister taking them two at a time, dashing ahead, giggles abound. "Mommy, mommy!" Samira laughed excitedly as they turned the corner to the next flight of steps, but she fell silent as her and Amir crashed into the legs of a well-dressed man and his woman.
"Caelian!" My little sister cried as she ran back and buried herself in my pant leg. Amir stood his ground however, and I felt a smirk coming on, watching him stare up at the big cheese himself.
"Oh how cute!" The woman I knew to be Diane McClintock cooed, bending over a little and looking down at Amir. "What beautiful curls!" She reached out to touch a lock of my brother's naturally twisted hair, the same hair on Samira's head and mine. For a moment my brave sibling allowed this invasion of his space, but it didn't take long for him to flinch away, a look of slight fear on his face.
"You've got a bold one here." Andrew Ryan addressed me, raising his eyebrows a little, and judging by his expression this was the first reprieve from his woman he'd had all day.
"Yes I do sir," I smiled politely, deciding to make the first move by reaching out with my hand. There was a split second when I feared that Mr. Ryan wouldn't take it, but to my surprised relief he clasped my outstretched hand tightly, and we shook like two proper gentlemen.
"You're Leo Wagner's oldest, aren't you?" He asked, though looking into his eyes I could tell that he already knew, something told me that he knew all the big names that lived in his city.
Nodding, I glanced downward for but a moment as Samira started peeking out from behind me and Amir made his tactical retreat, backing up until he could feel my comforting presence. "Yes Mr. Ryan, Caelian Wagner, at your service." Then I motioned to the children using me as cover. "And this is Samira and Amir, my siblings." When the two remained silent I had to smile again to make up for their apparently forgotten manners.
"Oh, we just saw your mother not a minute ago, didn't we Andrew?" Diane perked up, looking at Ryan with a smile.
"Indeed we did, a most interesting woman. I hope that Rapture proves a better home for you than the one you shared with the Gestapo." There was a glint in the man's eye as he said this, though I couldn't read it. "I know that it has been so for me."
Looking about, our city's founder sighed. "But Diane and I must be off, we've reservation at the Kashmir," There was that glint again. "Your father is the proprietor, is he not?"
"That he is sir."
"Then I'll be sure to ask for him, a pleasant evening to you all."
As the three of us watched Andrew Ryan saunter away, we all seemed to let out a collectively held breath.
"I don't like him." Amir finally piped up, turning to me. "He's the reason we gotta live down here."
I frowned at the boy, kneeling down to look him in the eye. "Mum and dad are the reason we've got to live down here, and don't say it like a bad thing, this place is wonderful."
"Yeah, but the real world was prettier!" Samira cut in, and as I looked at her I could practically see the waterfalls and open fields of flowers dancing in her mind's eye.
Standing up again, I started to make my way up the stairs again. "Let's go, mother's waiting." I told them, not able to devise a response to my sister's statement.
It was probably because, everything else aside, the surface would always be prettier than Rapture.
---
"Mommy!!" My siblings crooned in unison as they practically bum-rushed our mother, who was laying on a plush lounge chair and looking content, if not tired. With narrowed eyes I noted the ice-pack she was pressing to her forehead, and then I looked to the gigantic sign back out in the hall. "Plasmid Therapies" it read, just as it had when last I looked. It was then that I turned to the Gatherer's Garden beside me in the hall, and everything became clear.
"Oh mum, you didn't." I breathed as I walked into the room, and my mother seemed to read my expression as I did so.
"Just a little something to surprise your father when we get home." She smiled weakly at me, holding her hand out and appearing to concentrate, her face screwing up in effort. "He's always wasting money on matches for those cigarettes of his, so..."
We three minors all gasped as our mother's hand began to glow with heat, and a miniature flame appeared above her thumb. My own surprise quickly turned to disgust as I witnessed what appeared to be second degree burns growing snaking around her wrist, though mother wisely turned her hand away from us before the children were finished being fixated on the flame.
"Wow mummy!" Amir whispered, watching the fire dance from one of my newly pyrokinetic matron's fingers to the next. "Can you teach me to do that?"
"Maybe when you're a little older darling." Was the lighthearted response, and we watched as mother closed her hand to snuff the flame out, though only I noticed the burns slowly retreating down the back of her wrist.
I zoned out a little as we exited the room and mother stopped to chat with that same blond woman who'd summoned us earlier. My mind moved at a sluggish pace, and the hairs on the back of my neck were still standing up. My mother - my own mother - had subjected herself to that poison! I couldn't imagine what father's reaction might be, especially when he noticed that nasty little 'side-effect', or so I inferred the makers of such a product would call it. What had her excuse been? That turning herself into a freak would help cut down on the money we spend on matches? Matchboxes were so cheap that I was confident father could go out and buy a thousand of the damn things - and it would have no discernible effect on our lifestyle, not with the income his restaurant was bringing in.
For all my misgivings however, I couldn't help but be intrigued by the prospect of it. I, along with all of Rapture, had seen and heard the infomercials, on both the radio and television. Not to mention the announcements constantly being made over the PA, the sounds of which were practically inescapable. Plasmids were all the rage, or so we were told. And even I, being the cynic I was, could not deny the evidence. School friends of mine were becoming fit as weightlifters overnight, I could watch some of the working class citizens hurl bolts of electricity at faulty machines, I even heard that my first 'love' had spliced herself with some pheromone designed to override any other body odor, effectively keeping her smelling like daisies at all time - I would add that little tidbit to the list of reasons I was relieved to be rid of her.
Bringing up the rear of our quartet, I followed my family as we headed to the counter, where mother paid for her 'treatment' and purchased a few absurdly large needles, filled with a blue liquid which made me shudder just to look at it.
"Have a nice evening Mrs. Wagner!" The blond clerk tipped her head in a little bow which I guessed was meant to be reminiscent of an Asian courtesy, though my mother was not Japanese, she was in fact from Iraq. This offense itself was enough to make me lift a hand to rub a temple - even in a city comprised of the world's elite, the nincompoop population was staggering.
"Oh please, call me Asriyah!" Mother waved a hand with a smile, and though the clerk smiled back, I doubted that she would remember that obviously middle eastern name if we ever returned, or whether she'd be able to pronounce it all.
"And goodnight cutie pies!" The woman cooed to Amir and Samira, the latter of which beamed in response, though her brother scoffed boyishly. Again I felt the smirk on my lips, at least one of the four of us shared my sentiments for this preppy clerk. Glancing up though, I noticed her smiling at me now, and in spite of myself found the need to give her a little wave as we exited the room.
It was a few moment's walk before mother spoke, now holding Samira in her arms. "She was nice."
This was obviously directed at me, so I snorted halfheartedly. "I'll take your word for it mum."
"Yeah!" Amir jumped in, as eager to back me up as ever. "He'll take your word for it mum!"
We all chuckled our way back to the bathysphere.
---
Father and I were in the sitting room that night with the television on. He was blowing long wisps of smoke into the air and I might as well have been twiddling my thumbs for all my inactivity. The stupid flashing box on the table before us was tuned into some plasmid demonstration program, though neither of us were watching. Amir was in the tub, and mother was putting Samira to bed, so for the moment it was just us men, alone.
"Something on your mind son?" Father asked, tapping some ash from his cigarette onto into one of our ornate trays. As always, he seemed to read my mind. "Is it your mother's spicing?" His voice was perpetually low and cold, only once had I heard him shout, and only once had I heard him choke, but both memories gave me goosebumps for the rest of my life.
I'm told that I sound the same way, sometimes.
"Y-yes dad." I began stiltedly, unnerved by his powers of perception. He was reading my eyes, my body language, but he wasn't even looking at me. "It seems... well, unnatural."
"That's the point." My sire turned to me, his very deep-set eyes making him look as imposing as he always did, making him look like he was glaring at everything. "If it was natural than we wouldn't do it. Rapture was built for people tired of the natural way of things." He stood then, walking over to the wall-length shutter nearby and tapping the button to open it. Outside the blue undersea sunlight was dwindling, but one could still see the 'skylights' and bright windows of Rapture. "We came here to escape the natural law that the surface seems to adhere to - people are always controlled by those with more money, more power than them. People are pushed around, discriminated against, killed, put in concentration camps..."There was a long pause, during which father stared out at the ocean and took a very long drag on his stinking stick of tobacco."But I digress. What your mother does may be unnatural, but that it the beauty of it. On the surface one could only dream of manipulating their genes as we do here."
"I understand that father but--"
"You clearly understand nothing." Dad flicked his still-smoldering cigarette butt into the wastebasket beneath a nearby desk, causing it to slowly go up in flames. I watched with wide eyes, but otherwise didn't react. It was unwise to interrupt my father when he was giving a monologue.
All of a sudden however, my father lifted up his left hand and stared at it, first focusing on the back of his palm, then the front, as if seeing something I could not - all while the wastebasket proceeded to blaze subtly in the corner. I didn't realize what dad was doing until it was obvious for anyone to see. The skin on his arm paled immensely, and even seemed to turn a little blue. Then ice began to form on his fingertips, a thin layer of frost which inched its way down his arm until it was encased from fingers to elbow.
I gaped at the sight, "Dad!?" At once I was on my feet. "Dad what the--!?"
My words were drowned out by father's grunt of exertion, as he jabbed his open palm in the direction of the trash-bin. A stream of what looked like icy air jumped from his hand, flying at the burning basket and suddenly freezing it over within the blink of an eye. When I looked back at my dad, the frost had all but dissipated from his arm, and he was drawing another cigarette from his breast pocket.
"It is rather pathetic that a fifty-year-old man is more up-to-date with current fads than his fourteen-year-old son." Father said wryly, as he produced a miniature flame with a snap of his fingers, lighting the end of his new cigarette, and then he grinned that evil grin of his.
As I lay in bed that night, staring out my porthole-like window at a one of those hulking tin handymen, I made a point to go to see that blond clerk again tomorrow. Father's words were my sermon - get spliced, or get left behind.
It was a disgusting idea, but humans, by nature, are disgusting.
Or the men are, anyway.
Drifting away on that thought, I proceeded into a heavy sleep, dreams full of beautiful but flawed women - not like that blond - and there was me, in father's clothes...