Iman Asadi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
etherthief) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rapturecity2015-10-24 12:01 am
etherthief) wrote in rapturecity2015-10-24 12:01 am
the ocean on her shoulders [closed]
Water.
That's all she has room in her brain for: water. Water water everywhere. Freezing fucking cold. Shock to the system. She's sinking. What the hell is happening?
Dream. Gotta be a dream. One of those hyperrealistic dreams the rift always makes them have. Except she always knows when those are happening, like they feel real but they feel different too, and this—well, it's different, but it's reality, the distinction is intangible but it's there.
So she's just drowning in the ocean. Okay.
Her arms flail in slow arcs around her, her body kicking sluggishly into gear as she struggles back to the surface, kicking so hard she feels like she's going to dislocate something, until she's breached and gasping and choking on saltwater.
Where is she. Where is she.
What the hell is happening?
There is, by some apparent providence she's not stupid enough to trust, a structure within reach, and she swims toward it, already feeling a numbing in her extremities. She has to get there, out of the water, inside, and then she can—
She'll fill that part in later.
She hauls herself out and up the stairs, shivering so violently she can barely keep herself upright, rocking and stumbling against the hard, water-slicked stone. A staircase lit by lanterns that seem somehow out of place, and doors that are heavy and... gilded? Yes, a gilded fucking relief of a man and a city, which, she's never been to a lighthouse before, but this doesn't seem entirely on. Still, though, thoughts are so hard to hold onto right now, who even cares, she just can't be out here in the elements, the dark, icy wilderness; she needs to be inside. She hauls the door open and shoulders her way in and stops short, the door falling slowly, ominously shut behind her.
The room is brilliantly lit - more like a lobby than what she expects the inside of a lighthouse to be. She stares up at the absurd decor, the imposing statue greeting her, the bright red banner, the slogan—that slogan—all of it, all this art deco nonsense, what is this, what did she just walk into? Her first thought is 'cult' and her second thought is 'cult so secret it's in the middle of the ocean' and then she thinks she might rather go back outside.
But she's never been good at leaving things alone, so instead she steps forward gingerly to examine the plaque beneath the statue, which is both enlightening as well as not. Andrew Ryan is not a familiar name, which is neither comforting nor alarming. Thinking is still beyond her, so she keeps moving instead, trembling and dripping all over the elegant marble floor, down the stairs, slow and disoriented. She stares at shiny plaques proclaiming various nouns that seem meaningless out of context: art, industry, science. Pillars of society? And in the center of the room... is that... a submarine?
Her eyes widen and she spends a solid several seconds just staring at the spherical vessel, its door open, inviting.
She should not do this. Definitely should not do this. Doing this would be a terrible idea.
She steps forward slowly and extends a shaky hand to brace against the open portal. She ducks her head as she climbs in, then spends several more seconds staring at the lever.
Well. Why the fuck not, anyway.
She pulls it and falls sharply into the plush seat as the door shuts, sealing her in, and the vessel jostles into movement. Obviously this was going to happen, she doesn't know why she's surprised, but she's still breathing hard and sharp as she descends into the goddamn sea, and only then does she realize how fucking stupid this was, how she's trapped now, you can't just go back from this. She's going down, somewhere, and there is no turning around.
Through the window she sees a full statue in the same style as the design on the door, and numbers, hauntingly measuring the fathoms as she drops down deeper and deeper.
And then the lights go out and a little video starts to play, projected flickeringly against the wall of the vessel. The video is... distressingly old-timey, with a 1950s looking ad for something called Incinerate—"Fire at your fingertips!" it proclaims. And then, a photograph of a man sitting in an armchair smoking a fucking pipe, oozing smugness.
His voice rings hollow and tinny around the sphere. Illustrative images of bald-faced propaganda accompany his every word. I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone. I rejected these answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture.
Oh dear lord. She can see where this is going and it's nowhere good. She's awake now, fully at attention. He's still talking, describing a city—a city. A fucking city. Called Rapture.
The projection stops, leaving only the self-satisfied narration, but Iman isn't listening anymore. She's looking out the window.
"Ho-ly shit," she breathes, and the glass fogs.
That's all she has room in her brain for: water. Water water everywhere. Freezing fucking cold. Shock to the system. She's sinking. What the hell is happening?
Dream. Gotta be a dream. One of those hyperrealistic dreams the rift always makes them have. Except she always knows when those are happening, like they feel real but they feel different too, and this—well, it's different, but it's reality, the distinction is intangible but it's there.
So she's just drowning in the ocean. Okay.
Her arms flail in slow arcs around her, her body kicking sluggishly into gear as she struggles back to the surface, kicking so hard she feels like she's going to dislocate something, until she's breached and gasping and choking on saltwater.
Where is she. Where is she.
What the hell is happening?
There is, by some apparent providence she's not stupid enough to trust, a structure within reach, and she swims toward it, already feeling a numbing in her extremities. She has to get there, out of the water, inside, and then she can—
She'll fill that part in later.
She hauls herself out and up the stairs, shivering so violently she can barely keep herself upright, rocking and stumbling against the hard, water-slicked stone. A staircase lit by lanterns that seem somehow out of place, and doors that are heavy and... gilded? Yes, a gilded fucking relief of a man and a city, which, she's never been to a lighthouse before, but this doesn't seem entirely on. Still, though, thoughts are so hard to hold onto right now, who even cares, she just can't be out here in the elements, the dark, icy wilderness; she needs to be inside. She hauls the door open and shoulders her way in and stops short, the door falling slowly, ominously shut behind her.
The room is brilliantly lit - more like a lobby than what she expects the inside of a lighthouse to be. She stares up at the absurd decor, the imposing statue greeting her, the bright red banner, the slogan—that slogan—all of it, all this art deco nonsense, what is this, what did she just walk into? Her first thought is 'cult' and her second thought is 'cult so secret it's in the middle of the ocean' and then she thinks she might rather go back outside.
But she's never been good at leaving things alone, so instead she steps forward gingerly to examine the plaque beneath the statue, which is both enlightening as well as not. Andrew Ryan is not a familiar name, which is neither comforting nor alarming. Thinking is still beyond her, so she keeps moving instead, trembling and dripping all over the elegant marble floor, down the stairs, slow and disoriented. She stares at shiny plaques proclaiming various nouns that seem meaningless out of context: art, industry, science. Pillars of society? And in the center of the room... is that... a submarine?
Her eyes widen and she spends a solid several seconds just staring at the spherical vessel, its door open, inviting.
She should not do this. Definitely should not do this. Doing this would be a terrible idea.
She steps forward slowly and extends a shaky hand to brace against the open portal. She ducks her head as she climbs in, then spends several more seconds staring at the lever.
Well. Why the fuck not, anyway.
She pulls it and falls sharply into the plush seat as the door shuts, sealing her in, and the vessel jostles into movement. Obviously this was going to happen, she doesn't know why she's surprised, but she's still breathing hard and sharp as she descends into the goddamn sea, and only then does she realize how fucking stupid this was, how she's trapped now, you can't just go back from this. She's going down, somewhere, and there is no turning around.
Through the window she sees a full statue in the same style as the design on the door, and numbers, hauntingly measuring the fathoms as she drops down deeper and deeper.
And then the lights go out and a little video starts to play, projected flickeringly against the wall of the vessel. The video is... distressingly old-timey, with a 1950s looking ad for something called Incinerate—"Fire at your fingertips!" it proclaims. And then, a photograph of a man sitting in an armchair smoking a fucking pipe, oozing smugness.
His voice rings hollow and tinny around the sphere. Illustrative images of bald-faced propaganda accompany his every word. I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? No, says the man in Washington, it belongs to the poor. No, says the man in the Vatican, it belongs to God. No, says the man in Moscow, it belongs to everyone. I rejected these answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture.
Oh dear lord. She can see where this is going and it's nowhere good. She's awake now, fully at attention. He's still talking, describing a city—a city. A fucking city. Called Rapture.
The projection stops, leaving only the self-satisfied narration, but Iman isn't listening anymore. She's looking out the window.
"Ho-ly shit," she breathes, and the glass fogs.
tw: racism, unsurprisingly fontaine is a fucking bigot
There's something to be said for the supposed land of opportunity, of course. He reeled the old Kraut in easy enough, and the chinaman was shrewd enough to know to sell himself to the highest bidder. Seems everyone knows who the big man in town is these days. Everyone except the biggest fish at the top of the food chain.
Isn't that just the way with those fat cats.
The Welcome Center's been dead for a long while, and not since the early rush of hopefuls that come streaming down to Ryan's precious promised land has anyone seen much activity down with the Bathyspheres. But sure enough, there's a dull clank and the rush of water streaming from the dark-slick surface as the 'sphere emerges, neon welcome lights stuttering to life.
OF THIS EARTH
FLOW INTO THE CITY
Fontaine stubs out his cigar and flicks it into the nearest ashtray. If someone's come down from the surface, chances are Ryan already knows about it. It doesn't give him long to make whatever move he's got to make. He hangs back just outside the Bathysphere Station, waiting for the creak of the 'sphere's doors as they groan open.
Who knows, these days. Might be there's something to Rapture's newest that'll make it worth his while.
no subject
That's where the cigar smell's coming from. Not this Andrew Ryan, from the look of him. He's looking at her like she's an opportunity, all soaking wet and lost and confused. She does not like it.
"Where am I?" she says bluntly.
no subject
Desperate. These lonely little saps always are.
He smiles thinly.
"You're in Rapture now, sweetheart," he says in his thick Bronx drawl. "Didn't clean the water outta your ears, did you?" He cants his head lightly. "What's someone like you doing down here, instead of topside?"
no subject
is she gone, did the Rift send her away, has she lost Greta and Rush forever- deeper down where she can't note it. This conversation is going to be fucking efficient, so she can spend as little time possible under the eye of this fuckstick."I ain't your sweetheart," she snaps, matching his slang deftly. "I'm here on accident. Wound up in the ocean, nowhere else to go. Is that normal?" Also, fuck. She should know better than to miss asking this next part. It's a question that'll show more of her hand than she wants, but it needs to be asked. "What year is it?"
no subject
It's damn fine clear from the outset. She's not from around here. She must've come from topside, landed herself down here, in the crown jewel of Andrew Ryan's overwrought list of trophies. What're the damn odds? Andrew Ryan don't send for anyone he don't already know up and down, tits to toes.
"1958," he says, slow and unhurried and easy. "People showin' up out of nowhere, right outta the blue - not exactly a frequent occurrence down here. Andrew Ryan invites you."
He lets his eyes glide right over her, onto the security cameras that have yet to spring to life. He looks back at her and arches an eyebrow. "You got something to show for it, or are you just sight-seein'?"
no subject
She can't quite latch onto anything else he's saying, because she's stuck for a while on 1958.
Shit. This changes things. So she's in the past - a past, she seriously doubts this is either her world or the Rift's world - and she's trapped, just like she was before, but this time she didn't do it on purpose. The rift sent her away, or something stronger pulled her here. All the work she was doing is now gone, all for nothing. And she's lost everything she had on top of that. She's lost Greta. She's lost Rush.
She cannot show weakness. She swallows once.
"So only the best of the best, I'm assuming," she says. Eat or be eaten. It's 1958, and she needs to survive. "I'm a physicist and an engineer. Better than anyone you've ever met." Keep the alchemy on the down-low, for now at least. "You think this Andrew Ryan would find that worthy? Come to that, why am I asking your opinion? Who are you?"
no subject
"I'm sure he would," he says, even and languorous. "I'm also sure he'd lock you up as some greedy little parasite. Rapture's king, and more paranoid than he'll ever admit. You can trust me on that."
He extends a hand, offering a faint upward tick of one side of his mouth. Cute, thinking she can talk back, thinking he's some slimy nobody at the bottom of the Great Chain. But she's a topsider Ryan don't know about just yet, and he'll take anything that will put him one step ahead of the old bastard.
"The name's Fontaine," he says. "You say you're so smart? What say I offer you a better deal than working for Mr. Ryan's dying regime."
no subject
"What are you offering?" she says coolly. "Just what do you do, Mr. Fontaine?"
no subject
She says she's smart, does she? Time to see how much she knows. If she's not the type to be useful, well, then, no one'll miss another body floating in the brine. People die in Rapture every day, and it never makes the papers.
He looks at her with a hard glint in his eye, subtly challenging. "You ever see someone reinvent the nucleotide chain? Create history, rewrite genetics?"
no subject
Of course, "rewriting genetics" and "changing history" is generally the worst when coming from someone like him. But she's not going to look too closely. Can't afford to. Too much of a coward. Something like that. When her world comes crashing down, scientific endeavors have always been there to help pick her up. Usually ill-advised ones.
"I'm no biologist," she says, "but I've worked with body modification, if that's what you're talking about. Organic engineering, to some extent. Mostly mechanical, but..."
Well, what's he going to do, pry her arm off and try to sell it? He might do, but he'd be dead before he finished. The time for being cautious is over before it began. She's trapped at the bottom of the ocean and as far as she's concerned, he's the only man down here. He seems the type to either dog her or report her if she doesn't play along.
So she opens her hand, and then she opens her fingers. Precise, delicate little tools extending outward from the open shell of her digits, lovingly re-crafted into the overall mechanism with Rush's invaluable assistance. All of it back to the way it was. Just in time for her to vanish and leave everyone behind.
Maybe this is punishment anew. They fixed her, and the Rift wanted to make sure she didn't use that on it again.
"I'm not unaccustomed to changing the world, either," she says, fixing him with a droll gaze as she closes her arm back up. "Does that interest you?"
no subject
"I think we can help each other out," he says smoothly. "Ryan doesn't like people from the surface creeping in on his city uninvited. 'Course, there's no reason he ever has to know someone like you's down here with the rest of us, now, is there."
He looks back to the camera. He doesn't have to say it. She's smart enough, she'll know that time's ticking.
"Have we got a deal, or don't we?"
no subject
What choice does she have. What choice does she have.
"I'll want to know what you have me doing," she hedges, but she extends her other hand for a shake. "But yeah. Deal."
She frowns at him. "Iman Asadi," she adds. "Since you didn't ask."
no subject
"And I didn't have to," he says, with the barest twitch of a satisfied smile. "You just gave it to me, free of charge."
He moves briskly, heading for the nearest lift and hitting the button in its gilded panel to call the elevator.
"I've been working on some projects," says Fontaine. He pushes one hand into a pocket as the elevator ticks lower. "Revitalization. Making man what he never was before. I'm thinking - someone with vision has to run this place. Someone who's willing to change things for the greater good."
no subject
It's something she could get behind, provisionally, but so far, he's done little to endear himself. She stares at the intricate patterns on the elevator doors. Beautiful. Everything here is so beautiful it's fucking creepy.
no subject
"Ryan wants his elite utopia, but what happens when someone beats the man at his own game?" He smirks dryly, coldly, his eyes hard. "He takes them out. He brings them down to lower than they've ever been. So he's got the market on oxygen and entertainment and travel, and anything else that makes this great city tick. But Fontaine Futuristics? We've got ourselves a hard patent on genetics."
He waits for her to cross the threshold before entering and hitting the button with two fingers. The elevator shudders to life, then begins moving smoothly upward. The red-carpeted welcome center grows ever distant as they ascend higher and higher into Rapture's splendor.
"You ever want to shoot flame from your fingertips?" He snaps his fingers once. "Or stop a speeding bullet with your mind? Then I got one word for you, miss: ADAM."
no subject
"I'm guessing 'Adam' is a thing and not the name of some guy who invented magic," she says, fixing Fontaine with a searching look. "Some sort of catalyzing agent for genetic modification?"
This sounds incredibly dangerous. Unfortunately, it also sounds right up her alley.
no subject
Might be she's too on her toes to fall for a little ruse like that one, but it might be she's too weary to question it. Frank Fontaine: entrepreneur, businessman, but scientist? Far better to let them think low of him. Ryan never looked twice his direction right up until the moment he surprised him with a bit of business know-how.
He moves swiftly through the Welcome Center, cutting a hard line to the nearest Atlantic Express Station.
"We'll be takin' the train to my place - Fontaine Futuristics. Someday soon we'll be running this place."
no subject
She keeps quiet as she follows him onto the train. It's still not sinking in. She feels like she's going to be sick, falling so far and moving so fast. This is the second time she's having to start over, and she's acting like it's a new job. This is not healthy. How much can she forfeit before she totally loses it?
She can't afford to think about that. She can't look weak in front of this man. So she keeps steadfast silence, waiting patiently for the train to take her where it takes her.