07-14-2015, 05:38 PM
“A city where the artist would not fear the censor.”
Andrew Ryan’s disembodied voice continued its diatribe.
“Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city, as well.”
Ryan’s welcome seemed enthusiastic; like something worth getting excited over. Gadge knew, though, that it had not been intended for him. The choice whether or not to enter the underwater city had not been his own… it had been made for him, by men in suits. No matter what he wanted, he would enter the city. Not of his own volition, he would become a de facto citizen of Rapture tonight… whatever that meant.
The bathysphere weaved through the tall, magnificent buildings of the city. The architecture, Gadge had to admit, was splendid; very inspired designs, to say the least. Just ahead, a series of wrought-iron semi-circles created a sort of track for the bathysphere to latch on to. As the vessel approached them, one by one, they began to light up, spelling out a message—a mantra, perhaps—that gave the boy genius an eerie feeling:
“All good things of this earth flow into the city.”
The sphere chugged ahead, inside a tunnel labeled “Rapture Transit Authority.” Once through it, the bathysphere slowed to a stop inside a tall, cylindrical chamber, riddled with posters for different things. Gadge tried to catch a glimpse at them, but he had trouble comprehending the words—telekinesis? Plasmid?
Another lurch, and once again the bathysphere began to travel. This time, the direction was up. The posters disappeared below as the vessel moved onward into the longest darkness yet.
She liked giggling.
It felt a lot better than screaming did. It created a… warmth in the back of her throat that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Almost like she was cuddling a teddy bear—the entire time she giggled, she was cuddling a teddy bear.
Her empty-looking eyes glowed with delight as she watched the people down below. The lights of the buildings illuminated a little party happening through a window a few stories down, in the building opposite theirs. She longed to be there: laughing with the fancy people at whatever joke had made them just double over, dancing with a handsome prince in a freshly-pressed suit, sipping on beverages she wasn’t allowed to have. They all looked like they were having so much fun; all she could do was sit up here, and watch them, and giggle a little bit. Why didn’t they allow her to go play with the people down below?
She turned away from the window, looking at her own extravagant surroundings. The golden walls sparkled, ruby red drapes hanging everywhere because everyone knew red and gold looked the best together. A smile appeared on her tiny, round face as she thought about how she would decorate this place and realized it looked exactly as she would have it look. Perhaps, the little girl thought, I can have fun all by myself. I don’t need anyone to play with, I have all of this!
Another giggle, and then she began to skip. Her feet bounced on and off the ground as she pranced around in a circle, taking ownership of her own personal palace like the little princess she was. This is my castle, she decided, and I am the queen!
She ran back to the window, pressing her face against the glass and looking at the tiny figures milling about in the room down below. Their party sure looked fun, but she would make hers more fun. That was what being a queen was about, anyway. Making sure you threw the best parties in the world—better than anyone else in the whole universe! She let out a long, loud laugh at the thought, tilting her head backwards and letting her eyes close. She let herself dream of the people below, and what they would think if they could see her palace—this room was just a tiny little part of it. Heck, even she didn’t know how big it was!
Dorothy.
She spun around. Dangit, Daddy was here.
Dorothy, your Sisters are worried sick about you. The big lug stepped out of the doorway, into the golden light of her room. His big shiny suit reflected the light just right—just like Daddy, to always look good no matter what. Dorothy sighed; she couldn’t even be mad at Daddy when he had dressed up so nice to come and find her.
“Sorry, Mr. Bubbles,” she sang in her most pitiful-sounding voice, trying to win some favor using Daddy’s favorite nickname, but she did not rush to him. Instead, she turned and looked out the window once again, wanting to catch one last glimpse of her new friends down below. The ocean separating them felt like nothing as her eyes studied each shiny thread on the women’s dresses, or each colorful flower decorating the men’s lapels. Just a little bit of a swim and she could be at the party too—or they could be at hers. “Look at the little angels, Mr. Bubbles!” she smiled, touching her nose to the window glass once again, “They look so pretty tonight—I wish they’d come and visit me. I want to see them.”
I know, sweetheart, Mr. Bubbles said, lurching up behind her, but they’re busy. Maybe one day they’ll come and see you.
Dorothy pouted. “Grown-ups are always so busy,” she sighed, her frustration evident. She turned to look at Daddy, though, and couldn’t help but smile. “Except you, Mr. B! You always make time for me.” She rushed for the big lug, wrapping her arms around his big, strong leg. It was cold to the touch, but something inside her ignored that and all she could feel was her Daddy’s love bleeding into her through the very fibers of his being. She felt so incredible hugging him that she couldn’t imagine wanting to ever be permanently apart from him. Only small detours like this, Dorothy decided. Check on the little people—the Queen’s subjects, as it were—every once in a while.
Outside the window, there was a noise. Dorothy turned and looked down, seeing the bathysphere sliding into its little tunnel. “A new friend!” she exclaimed, her smile growing broad. “Maybe they’ll come visit me, Daddy?” She looked up to her giant guardian, hope barely visible in her pupil-less eyes.
Maybe, sweetie. Daddy’s response didn’t seem all too certain, but Dorothy felt confident. How could anyone new not want to meet the queen of the city immediately upon arrival? Time to go home, I think, honey, Mr. Bubbles said, and Dorothy stole one last glance at the party below before deciding to comply.
She sighed, trying her best to sound rebellious. “Okay, I guess, Daddy,” she groaned, but then she couldn’t help but slip a little mischievous smirk in there at the end. Her Daddy treated her too well for her to be mean to him. She sprinted past him, toward the hole in the middle of the wall. A simple little trip through her tunnels would take her immediately back home, she knew. Before she climbed up, she turned and looked at her Daddy once again. Her hero.
“See ya back home, Mr. B!” she giggled. She climbed up and in the hidey hole and headed home.
After five minutes rising upward through the shadows, the bathysphere finally stopped.
Outside the window, light poured in. A long, red carpet led from the bathysphere across a bridge to the opposite platform. A couple leaned against the rail of the platform, basically eating each other’s faces. For a moment, Gadge’s thoughts drifted to Paige and the terrible, terrible events of earlier that evening; he quickly tried his best to focus on something else, anything else, but the mounting guilt he felt for her death could not be shaken. The only break in his thoughts came when the door to the bathysphere swung open without warning. The far off couple stopped making out for a moment to gaze at the scrawny, dripping wet, boy—clad only in his underwear—tentatively clambering out of the gigantic sphere.
Gadge tripped as he tried to exit, falling face first onto the metallic platform the vessel had docked next to. When he removed his face from the floor, he saw drops of blood fall from his nose to the ground and added a broken septum to the laundry list of injuries he had uncovered this evening. His gaze shifted upward, and for a second, he focused on the couple, who seemed altogether turned off by the sight of this mangled, half-naked boy laying on the opposing platform. Within a few minutes, though, they were not his only spectators, joined by a few more fancily-dressed people who had snuck out of whatever party nearby was making such a racket. Loud, trumpet-filled music wafted in from a chamber close by, and Gadge could tell that the clinking and clanking of his arrival had certainly disturbed a bunch of people having quite the fun night.
From the small crowd that had gathered across the bridge, the boy genius heard a few hushed whispers. “Should we help him?” “Who the fuck even is he?” “Why does he look so awful?” The judgmental tones of these people reinforced Gadge’s belief that he was not at all welcome in Rapture—that, perhaps, he was not one of the good things that flowed into this city.
A woman—tall, thin, and draped in a floor length emerald dress—burst forth from the crowd. Her blonde hair had been stacked on top of her head in a style that seemed altogether too large for her frame. It resembled a beehive, and for a second, the engineer became incredibly afraid that this wasp was here to sting him while he was down. She clumsily rushed across the bridge, her heels slamming loudly against the metallic surface, and knelt down next to him, touching his back gently and without malice. It was then that he looked up and met her gaze. Her eyes regarded him with pity, not with hatred.
He took in a deep breath. “…help,” he said, for the first time asking for what he so desperately needed.
She nodded, trying her best to put the situation together in her brain. Slowly, she helped him up off the ground. “I’m afraid,” she said loudly, “I’m going to have to make an early exit from the party.” The crowd groaned with annoyance. “Sorry, folks, but sometimes, duty calls!” she smiled at them as pleasantly as she could, and then helped the newest denizen of Rapture begin to walk across the bridge. “Come, boy,” she urged him, “let’s go get you washed up, hm?”
Gadge hobbled along beside her as she ushered him away from the crowd.
Andrew Ryan’s disembodied voice continued its diatribe.
“Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality. Where the great would not be constrained by the small. And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city, as well.”
Ryan’s welcome seemed enthusiastic; like something worth getting excited over. Gadge knew, though, that it had not been intended for him. The choice whether or not to enter the underwater city had not been his own… it had been made for him, by men in suits. No matter what he wanted, he would enter the city. Not of his own volition, he would become a de facto citizen of Rapture tonight… whatever that meant.
The bathysphere weaved through the tall, magnificent buildings of the city. The architecture, Gadge had to admit, was splendid; very inspired designs, to say the least. Just ahead, a series of wrought-iron semi-circles created a sort of track for the bathysphere to latch on to. As the vessel approached them, one by one, they began to light up, spelling out a message—a mantra, perhaps—that gave the boy genius an eerie feeling:
“All good things of this earth flow into the city.”
The sphere chugged ahead, inside a tunnel labeled “Rapture Transit Authority.” Once through it, the bathysphere slowed to a stop inside a tall, cylindrical chamber, riddled with posters for different things. Gadge tried to catch a glimpse at them, but he had trouble comprehending the words—telekinesis? Plasmid?
Another lurch, and once again the bathysphere began to travel. This time, the direction was up. The posters disappeared below as the vessel moved onward into the longest darkness yet.
* * *
She liked giggling.
It felt a lot better than screaming did. It created a… warmth in the back of her throat that made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Almost like she was cuddling a teddy bear—the entire time she giggled, she was cuddling a teddy bear.
Her empty-looking eyes glowed with delight as she watched the people down below. The lights of the buildings illuminated a little party happening through a window a few stories down, in the building opposite theirs. She longed to be there: laughing with the fancy people at whatever joke had made them just double over, dancing with a handsome prince in a freshly-pressed suit, sipping on beverages she wasn’t allowed to have. They all looked like they were having so much fun; all she could do was sit up here, and watch them, and giggle a little bit. Why didn’t they allow her to go play with the people down below?
She turned away from the window, looking at her own extravagant surroundings. The golden walls sparkled, ruby red drapes hanging everywhere because everyone knew red and gold looked the best together. A smile appeared on her tiny, round face as she thought about how she would decorate this place and realized it looked exactly as she would have it look. Perhaps, the little girl thought, I can have fun all by myself. I don’t need anyone to play with, I have all of this!
Another giggle, and then she began to skip. Her feet bounced on and off the ground as she pranced around in a circle, taking ownership of her own personal palace like the little princess she was. This is my castle, she decided, and I am the queen!
She ran back to the window, pressing her face against the glass and looking at the tiny figures milling about in the room down below. Their party sure looked fun, but she would make hers more fun. That was what being a queen was about, anyway. Making sure you threw the best parties in the world—better than anyone else in the whole universe! She let out a long, loud laugh at the thought, tilting her head backwards and letting her eyes close. She let herself dream of the people below, and what they would think if they could see her palace—this room was just a tiny little part of it. Heck, even she didn’t know how big it was!
Dorothy.
She spun around. Dangit, Daddy was here.
Dorothy, your Sisters are worried sick about you. The big lug stepped out of the doorway, into the golden light of her room. His big shiny suit reflected the light just right—just like Daddy, to always look good no matter what. Dorothy sighed; she couldn’t even be mad at Daddy when he had dressed up so nice to come and find her.
“Sorry, Mr. Bubbles,” she sang in her most pitiful-sounding voice, trying to win some favor using Daddy’s favorite nickname, but she did not rush to him. Instead, she turned and looked out the window once again, wanting to catch one last glimpse of her new friends down below. The ocean separating them felt like nothing as her eyes studied each shiny thread on the women’s dresses, or each colorful flower decorating the men’s lapels. Just a little bit of a swim and she could be at the party too—or they could be at hers. “Look at the little angels, Mr. Bubbles!” she smiled, touching her nose to the window glass once again, “They look so pretty tonight—I wish they’d come and visit me. I want to see them.”
I know, sweetheart, Mr. Bubbles said, lurching up behind her, but they’re busy. Maybe one day they’ll come and see you.
Dorothy pouted. “Grown-ups are always so busy,” she sighed, her frustration evident. She turned to look at Daddy, though, and couldn’t help but smile. “Except you, Mr. B! You always make time for me.” She rushed for the big lug, wrapping her arms around his big, strong leg. It was cold to the touch, but something inside her ignored that and all she could feel was her Daddy’s love bleeding into her through the very fibers of his being. She felt so incredible hugging him that she couldn’t imagine wanting to ever be permanently apart from him. Only small detours like this, Dorothy decided. Check on the little people—the Queen’s subjects, as it were—every once in a while.
Outside the window, there was a noise. Dorothy turned and looked down, seeing the bathysphere sliding into its little tunnel. “A new friend!” she exclaimed, her smile growing broad. “Maybe they’ll come visit me, Daddy?” She looked up to her giant guardian, hope barely visible in her pupil-less eyes.
Maybe, sweetie. Daddy’s response didn’t seem all too certain, but Dorothy felt confident. How could anyone new not want to meet the queen of the city immediately upon arrival? Time to go home, I think, honey, Mr. Bubbles said, and Dorothy stole one last glance at the party below before deciding to comply.
She sighed, trying her best to sound rebellious. “Okay, I guess, Daddy,” she groaned, but then she couldn’t help but slip a little mischievous smirk in there at the end. Her Daddy treated her too well for her to be mean to him. She sprinted past him, toward the hole in the middle of the wall. A simple little trip through her tunnels would take her immediately back home, she knew. Before she climbed up, she turned and looked at her Daddy once again. Her hero.
“See ya back home, Mr. B!” she giggled. She climbed up and in the hidey hole and headed home.
* * *
After five minutes rising upward through the shadows, the bathysphere finally stopped.
Outside the window, light poured in. A long, red carpet led from the bathysphere across a bridge to the opposite platform. A couple leaned against the rail of the platform, basically eating each other’s faces. For a moment, Gadge’s thoughts drifted to Paige and the terrible, terrible events of earlier that evening; he quickly tried his best to focus on something else, anything else, but the mounting guilt he felt for her death could not be shaken. The only break in his thoughts came when the door to the bathysphere swung open without warning. The far off couple stopped making out for a moment to gaze at the scrawny, dripping wet, boy—clad only in his underwear—tentatively clambering out of the gigantic sphere.
Gadge tripped as he tried to exit, falling face first onto the metallic platform the vessel had docked next to. When he removed his face from the floor, he saw drops of blood fall from his nose to the ground and added a broken septum to the laundry list of injuries he had uncovered this evening. His gaze shifted upward, and for a second, he focused on the couple, who seemed altogether turned off by the sight of this mangled, half-naked boy laying on the opposing platform. Within a few minutes, though, they were not his only spectators, joined by a few more fancily-dressed people who had snuck out of whatever party nearby was making such a racket. Loud, trumpet-filled music wafted in from a chamber close by, and Gadge could tell that the clinking and clanking of his arrival had certainly disturbed a bunch of people having quite the fun night.
From the small crowd that had gathered across the bridge, the boy genius heard a few hushed whispers. “Should we help him?” “Who the fuck even is he?” “Why does he look so awful?” The judgmental tones of these people reinforced Gadge’s belief that he was not at all welcome in Rapture—that, perhaps, he was not one of the good things that flowed into this city.
A woman—tall, thin, and draped in a floor length emerald dress—burst forth from the crowd. Her blonde hair had been stacked on top of her head in a style that seemed altogether too large for her frame. It resembled a beehive, and for a second, the engineer became incredibly afraid that this wasp was here to sting him while he was down. She clumsily rushed across the bridge, her heels slamming loudly against the metallic surface, and knelt down next to him, touching his back gently and without malice. It was then that he looked up and met her gaze. Her eyes regarded him with pity, not with hatred.
He took in a deep breath. “…help,” he said, for the first time asking for what he so desperately needed.
She nodded, trying her best to put the situation together in her brain. Slowly, she helped him up off the ground. “I’m afraid,” she said loudly, “I’m going to have to make an early exit from the party.” The crowd groaned with annoyance. “Sorry, folks, but sometimes, duty calls!” she smiled at them as pleasantly as she could, and then helped the newest denizen of Rapture begin to walk across the bridge. “Come, boy,” she urged him, “let’s go get you washed up, hm?”
Gadge hobbled along beside her as she ushered him away from the crowd.