Chapter 3
June 21, 1948
We were going to throw a party in the apartment. Everyone on our floor was invited. That meant that we needed to take a stop in downtown Rapture to get the supplies.
We got acclimated rather fluidly. The moving service came in shortly, and we managed to receive our personal belongings. I opened my trunk to my favorite set of clothes, which I hung in the closet, and a copy of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which I placed in a wardrobe nearby. I also had a slim journal, which I placed on the writing desk in my room. Much to my chagrin, they confiscated my encyclopedia of the world and my books on Indian history. It was as if they wanted to cut us off completely from the surface.
I was pleasantly surprised at how many views of the sea we had in Rapture. The windows were large and rectangular, giving a luxurious view of the ocean. We also had a "balcony" which was encased in a reinforce glass bubble. The first time I sat there, I saw a giant squid swim by. It was a powerful sight. My eyes met the squid's, which were jet black, and with a spurt of water, it blasted away.
I think it was then, when I finally accepted that we were really under the ocean.
Our first stop was to the Farmer's market to buy some groceries. My father lent me some money (a hefty wad of 100 Rapture dollars, each with Andrew Ryan's face on it!) When our bathysphere arrived, it opened up first to the entrance of a ticket booth called "Arcadia" surrounded by a grass and a few trees.
"They've got plants down here?" I asked out loud. Then I clapped a hand to my mouth, realizing the volume of my outburst, and how stupid I must've looked when I shouted over a bit of greenery.
"Where do you think we get our oxygen?" my father asked rhetorically. I let the question sink in and realized he was right. It was obvious that we needed to breath in the bottom of the ocean with no air. What better way to allow us to breathe than by the oxygen from plants? I must admit that it still was jarring. It was like I never saw a tree before.
"Arcadia's the tree farm they've made down here," said my father. I gaped. Never mind the plants; they had a whole fucking forest. "Someday, I'll take you there."
We then went down to a corridor labeled Farmer's Market. We went down the glass tunnel corrider, to a bulkhead marked Securis, which looked very similar to the door of a bank vault. It automatically opened up to Farmer's market.
The market had a pleasant garden theme to it, with cobblestone paths leading to the shops, and open grassy spaces. We bought our groceries there, then we headed back to the bathysphere: our next stop: Fort Frolic.
When we came to Fort Frolic, my first thought was that of Las Vegas. Multiple neon signs advertised various shops. Some were theatres, music halls, casinos, and, as I noted with distaste, "gentleman's clubs." Others were shops, selling things from fine clothing to drugs like tobacco and…ADAM?
"Dad, what's ADAM?" I asked my father.
"I dunno. Tenebaum, that woman we met on the train, apparently she's in the business."
"Whatever it is, it's pretty popular here."
My mother took me to the Gardner Deluxe to buy clothes. There we were picking out clothes for me to wear when the guests came. She chose for me a white button-down shirt with a navy blue vest, and a solid black tie to match it with and khaki pants.
After we bought these, we returned to our apartment, where we set up. I dressed in my new clothes; my father set up shot glasses, and laid out ashtrays. He took out the phonograph. My mother cooked food for the party. We were ready.
Slowly guests came trickling in. The party went relatively well, with many of the guests conversing, and my father playing many songs on the phonograph. They were munching on the Hors d'oeuvres, and even tried some of the Indian food we cooked.
Surprisingly, there weren't many people in the apartment that had children. I suppose planning to become Rapture's "best and brightest" meant not having enough time for getting busy. Fortunately, my parents thought that I was mature enough to interact with the adults.
We eventually served dinner, where everyone tasted the food.
The guests were interesting. There were scientists like, Mrs. Tenebaum, who we met earlier, and Dr. Yi Suchong, a Chinese man and a "Genetic genus." Currently, he was explaining me the mechanics of ADAM
"ADAM comes from a sea-slug located in this region. It produces stem cells, each with a powerful mutagenic power to overwrite native cells and replace it with their own. This allows people to change their very genetic code!" He exclaimed in a thick Chinese accent.
"It means that people can change everything about themselves. They can become faster, stronger, smarter. We've even managed to give them powers that they've never had before." Tenebaum added on.
"Adam may be the canvas, but Plasmids and Gene tonics are the paint." replied Suchong with an almost fanatical zeal.
"Speaking of canvas…" interjected Sander Cohen, an artist who was dressed particularly flamboyantly in the party, "Have you visited my art in Fort Frolic, Mister Chandra?"
"You can't call a waste of canvas art, Cohen." remarked Anna Culpepper, another artist, who seemed to have a bone to pick with Cohen.
"If it weren't for me owning Fort Frolic , Miss Culpepper, the amateurish noise that you call 'music' wouldn't sell a penny."
"If it weren't for you, Mister Cohen," she dragged out the words saucily "Neither would your cheap din."
"I'm afraid I haven't, though both you're art sounds very nice, Mister Cohen." I replied. That seemed to have quieted them down.
"Now now, let's not mix business with pleasure. We're at a party here." That was Frank Fontaine. The words came out of his mouth in with his thick Bronx accent. He then smiled. It was a leer that gave me the shudders.
There was something I didn't like about that man, though I couldn't put my finger on it. He was the owner of Fontaine Futuristics a business that sold ADAM products. How the hell did he get to there from being a fisherman. There's something crooked about that man. I don't know what.
And as everyone left the apartment and said there goodbyes, I lay in bed thinking.
Fontaine's not any ordinary thug. He's the most dangerous kind: The one with a vision.