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Which might even account for tales of supernatural beings, genies and magicians and the like—but those mutations didn’t work out, you see. Perhaps because they tended to be burdened by negative side effects—like psychosis, facial excrescences, and so on…” “Bit of a dodgy omen, that, innit, Kinkaide?” Bill pointed out. “I mean—if these mutations existed in the past, and they didn’t make it. Didn’t work out then, might not work out for Rapture, then.” “Something in that,” Kinkaide allowed, nodding slightly. “But Mr. Ryan is right—if it’s possible to create plasmids, then it should be possible to perfect them. We can work out the bad parts. Just imagine having rational control of telekinesis or the ability to climb walls like a fly, to hurl electricity. To become … superhuman. It’s wonderful, in its way.” “Maybe people could just learn to use ADAM without overindulging,” Anna suggested. “An education program.” Finally, Ryan thought, Anna had said something useful. “Not a bad idea. We’ll look into that.” “The side effects of plasmids,” Sullivan pointed out, “are the only thing keeping more people from buying ADAM. We fix the side effects, we’ll have superpowered people everywhere. We’ll all have to do it just to keep some kinda balance of power. I don’t want to cough fire every time I belch.” Bill nodded eagerly. “Chief Sullivan’s in the right of it—side effects or not, plasmids are just too dangerous. Rapture is made mostly of metal—but it’s complex, and that makes it vulnerable, fragile in some places. Daft bastards running around shooting fire, blasting lightning about—they could bring down the whole bloody house of cards!” Ryan made a dismissive gesture. “We’ll get the splicers under control. Meanwhile,” he added musingly, “this is all part of our evolution. Just growing pains.” He considered explaining fully. But they wouldn’t understand if he told them what he really thought. Greavy had understood, though. He’d understood the winnowing. The subtraction of weak links from the Great Chain; what they were going through in Rapture now was the heat of a welding torch, both destructive and constructive.