Making Monster Girls 2: For Science!

by Eric Vall

  “Speaking of which,” I snorted. “Have you remembered anything from your past, A.B.? You remembered your first, middle, and last names a while ago, that means you have to have something locked away in there.”

  “Nope,” A.B. tittered. “Whoever created me must have wiped away all of my memories. Sometimes, I get that feeling like I’m about to recall something, and then it just stops as if it’s being blocked by something. My name is the only thing that is clear to me, and that’s why I hold on to it so tightly.”

  “I’d like to know who you were, A.B.,” Daisy smiled. “Maybe we could find out? Is there some type of census we could look into? Find out who he was before, and why he is in the state he’s in now?”

  “I like to believe that I was a mighty warrior in the good fight against the matriarchy,” the brain snickered. “That I was so powerful, and such a threat to the capital that they had to take me down! So, they trapped me, strapped me down, and ripped out my brilliant brain for studies.”

  “That could be true,” I nodded. “I’ve always wondered how you got into such a state, especially how you could talk to me. If I'm completely honest, I’d thought I’d finally gone mad and that it was just my imagination making you talk to me, but both Daisy and Valerie can hear you, too, so it certainly must not just be me.”

  “That is strange,” the bear-girl agreed. “Maybe it’s because of the small amount of shared blood between the three of us? The blood you use in the experiment? Do you think that’s the reason that we all can hear A.B.?”

  “Probably,” I nodded. “But it still doesn’t explain the reason behind it. If it all leads back to me, what’s so special about me? Why do I have the ability to hear him, but the Duchess and Delphine couldn’t hear him when they were down here?”

  “We will never know,” the brain chuckled. “I am a brain of mystery! No one knows where I came from, no one knows who I was or what I did, that’s why I have such appeal!”

  “Maybe we should do some experimenting on him?” Daisy questioned. “Find out the reasons why he’s the way he is? I’m sure what we’d find would be fascinating.”

  “E-Experiments?” A.B. squawked. “No, no, no, the last time Charles did such a thing, he violated me!”

  “Violated you?” I raised my head from what I was working on and glared toward his jar. “I never violated you, what ever could you mean by that?”

  “You pricked my stem!” the brain cried. “I sat very, very still for you, and you kept missing! You stabbed me four or five times! I don’t want to imagine what you’d do to me the next time. Oh, no! What if you wanted to dissect me? Get away from me! He’s a madman! Stay away!”

  “I’m not going to dissect you,” I shook my head. “If that were my intention, I would’ve done it the second that I brought you home. Have you thought about that?”

  “Guess not,” A.B. tittered. “I mean, if I were you, and I found a talking brain in a jar at the back of a curio shop, I would’ve taken it home and cut it up immediately. Maybe for science, or maybe to take the abomination out of existence.”

  “You’re not an abomination!” Valerie cried. “You’re perfect in every way, A.B. You’ve said it yourself! You’re the source of all conscious human thought! You’ve said it hundreds of times! Don’t ever think about yourself in that way! We all love you, and we’re glad that you’re here with us, you’re a part of our family!”

  “Aw, thank you, Valerie,” A.B. whispered. “That’s the hardest part about being a brain, I don’t remember anything. How old am I? How long have I been confined to a jar? How did I get into the jar? Whose jar is this and was it another brain’s before me? Are there any pretty female brains out there searching for an astutely handsome mate? All of these questions and yet, I’ll never have the answers.”

  “Well, I don’t know if there are any female brains out there for you,” I chuckled. “But I do know the answer to a few of those questions, if only you’d asked me them sooner.”

  “Really?” A.B. cried. “What do you know?”

  “Well, from the state of your surface, and the quality of your brain stem, I’d say you’ve been in that jar for about… fifteen years. I can’t be for sure because when I found you, you were in a pretty bad state. Your jar hadn’t been cleaned in months, the liquid you were sitting in was pungent, and you’d begun to grow a layer of mold. I brought you here, washed you in the cleansing tank, and then left you in the liquid for about a month. Once I finished, you were as good as new, and I was able to look you over fully.”

  “Huh… fifteen years,” A.B. murmured. “I wonder how it all ended? How did I die? Could you tell that from just my surface?”

  “No, sadly, I cannot,” I admitted. “But the jar you’re in is the one I brought you home in. While you were in the cleansing tank, I washed it and sanitized it. The bottom has the place and date from when and where it was made. So, I can only assume that you came from a city a few miles east of here called Frandelch, or at least, close enough to it that your previous owner bought the jar from there.”

  “Huh…” A.B. muttered.

  “Does that bring back any memories?” I asked. “Does Frandelch mean anything to you?”

  “No, not at all,” the brain chuckled. “But it’s good information to know. Thank you, Charles.”

  “You’re welcome,” I nodded. “I would like to look deeper into your past once we get some free time. I think you’re a little too shrouded in mystery, I’d like to peel back the layers of Abraham Benjamin.”

  “Hey, hey, Scientist,” A.B. snickered. “Keep your paws away from me, you’re not peeling away any layers of this brain!”

  “Not literally,” I snickered. “I just want to know more about you. Why you ended up in a jar? Is there a real reason behind it, or was it just another curious scientist?”

  With all of the ingredients for Adelia’s chemical weapon laid out, I turned, crossed the room, and moved toward the flaming barrel. Smoke poured from the seam in the lid, out the window, and tinted the blue sky an ashy gray color. I lifted the lid, wafted the smoke away from my face, and peered in at the contents.

  “Perfect,” I coughed.

  “Was that a sarcastic perfect or an actual perfect?” A.B. asked.

  “No, they’re almost ready,” I smiled. “Now, all we have to do is let both of the fires die down, and we’ll have our charcoal ready to go.”

  “What happens next, Charles?” Daisy asked. “What’s the next step?”

  “Well, after the fires stop burning, I’ll remove the charcoal,” I stated. “Place it in that big hand mill over there and grind it into a fine powder. Then, I’ll clean out the hand mill, grind up potassium nitrate, repeat the process, and then grind up the sulfur. It all has to be done separately, or the finished product won’t work.”

  “Then what, Charles?” Valerie asked.

  I bent down beside the fire underneath the barrel, grabbed handfuls of sand from a small bucket beside me, and threw it into the roaring flames. The rising flames slowly died, and then I reached for a pair of tongs leaning against the wall. I stirred the sand onto the smoking pieces of wood until they died out.

  “I’ll mix the charcoal and sulfur together,” I informed them. “And then pour denatured alcohol over it. Then, I’ll have to prepare the nitrate. I’ll put it, and some water, into a pan, bring it to a boil, add more water until the nitrate is dissolved, and then pour the charcoal and sulfur in. I’ll remove all of it from the pan into a cheesecloth, pour more of the denatured alcohol over it again, and then squeeze it out. After that, I’ll let it dry for two or three days, run it through a sieve, and dry it some more. Then, I’ll place it in airtight containers, and send it off to Liliana’s.”

  “What about the item that Adelia asked for?” Valerie rolled onto her stomach, darted forward, jumped to her feet, flipped, and then landed onto my examination table.

  “I have all of the supplies I need to make it right here,” I told them. “They’re complex items, and I’v
e never made them before, but I’m a scientist and doctor by nature, and I feel as if I’ve made them hundreds of times before.”

  “You’re brilliant, Charles,” Valerie sighed. “I’m so amazed by you every single day, especially when I watch you create something.”

  “T-Thank you,” I stammered.

  “How much time will it take to make a gas compared to the powder?” Daisy asked. “It sounds difficult.”

  “Not entirely,” I explained. “It’s a mixture of a series of chemicals. The most tedious task of it all will be building the container to hold it and release it on the battlefield. It’s not considered deadly, but it has effects that can be, mainly respiratory issues, and being heavily exposed to it will form boils on the surface of the skin.”

  “Not considered deadly?” A.B. echoed. “That sounds horrible! They’re using these for the ‘mock wars,’ correct?”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “They’ll use them against each other.”

  “And you said that Edony doesn’t take part in these ‘festivities?’”

  “That’s what the three aristocrats told us,” Daisy confirmed. “Something to do with the Queen and Edony not getting along.”

  I crossed the room, lifted the lid from the barrel, used the tongs to lift out the smoldering pieces of wood, and placed them within a metal pail. Then, I slipped on a glove, grabbed the metal handle, and lugged it closer to the large hand mill in the corner.

  Why did the Duchess and the Queen hate each other so much? There had to be a reason other than they were two women in competition, but with the Queen… there really couldn’t be any, she was all-powerful. Edony was nothing more than the Duchess of a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, what did the two of them have to do with each other? I’d heard from the other aristocrats that my manor had been given to Edony’s family hundreds of years ago, but what had turned their favor into bad blood?

  “You have to wonder,” Valerie mused. “Why do the Duchess and Queen hate each other so much?”

  She’d taken the words right out of my mouth, and I couldn’t help but smile at my brilliant creation.

  “Maybe Edony did something to make the Queen angry?” Daisy offered. “Disobeyed a rule or something.”

  “That could be true,” I whispered. “But what could be so horrible that a female aristocrat would fall out of grace with the Queen? You’d think that she and Edony would be the best of friends, they’re both atrocious people who do terrible things.”

  “We’ll never find out,” Daisy shrugged. “We can’t ask Edony, she’d never tell us, and we certainly can’t ask the Queen, we’ve never met her, and if she’s anything like Edony, she’d wipe us off the face of the earth.”

  “I hope we never have to meet the Queen,” I grunted. “Only those who’ve committed ‘horrendous’ crimes are taken in front of her… we might be if they ever found out we killed the Warden and Delphine, but… we covered that crime up well enough that no one will suspect us.”

  “That Chief Constable, though…” Daisy whispered. “Why is she so obsessed with you? She hasn’t said it outright, but it seems as if she suspects you of murdering both of them.”

  “I know...” I nodded. “And that’s what’s most concerning. It makes me wonder if she’s on my case so much, did she find something at the crime scene? We placed everything perfectly, including the bodies, and made sure that we left nothing behind… what could she have found to think otherwise?”

  “I think the Chief Constable is the least of our problems,” Daisy uttered. “Personally, at this moment, I think the Duchess is our biggest threat. She mentioned sending a letter to the Browning family three times already… what are we going to do about that?”

  “It’ll most likely be sent, received, and then sent back by a courier,” I replied.

  “What’s a courier?” Valerie asked.

  “A servant that sends the letter along,” I stated. “They generally take a piece of mail, deliver it, and then return it once the person receiving the first letter writes back.”

  “So, our objective is easy!” Valerie threw her arms into the air, leaned back, and then rolled backward onto the porcelain table. “We kill the courier!”

  “No killing,” I warned.

  “Fiiiine,” the feline-woman groaned. “No killing… we just maim them a little, teeny, tiny bit.”

  “Absolutely not,” I chuckled. “We’re not doing that, either.”

  “You could steal the letter?” A.B. offered.

  “No,” I shook my head. “If the letter is stolen, or the courier loses it, the Duchess will be suspicious.”

  “Then what do we do?” Daisy asked. “We can’t just sit around and wait for her to receive a letter back from the Browning family. Then she’ll know that I’m a fraud, and we’ll be taken in, the house will be searched, Valerie will be found, and everything will explode. We can’t let any of that happen.”

  “Then what do we do?” Valerie whispered.

  “We have to intercept the letter…” I boomed. “We prepare a letter stating that they don’t appreciate the duchess’ prying, and that the Daisy Browning in Edenhart is real. We intercept the courier, no, we’re not going to kill him… or maim him… switch out the letters, and then go on our merry way. The Duchess will receive the letter, read it, and have to accept the information as truth. She won’t suspect anything because the letter wasn’t stolen and didn’t go missing.”

  “Do you think it’ll work?” the feline-woman asked.

  “I don’t know,” I grunted. “But it has to, we have no other choice.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Do you have the fake letter?” I asked.

  I tossed my bags into the back of the wagon, lifted a small canvas tent into the back, and then reached for Daisy’s. The brunette came around the little cart, peered into the bed, reached into her dress pocket, and produced the perfectly copied letter.

  “Fresh off the press,” she giggled. “I even copied the seal perfectly, all I had to do was sketch it from the copy in the library, mold it in clay, and then make a copper seal out of it. Then you know the rest, I poured hot wax on the sealed letter, and placed the seal over it.”

  “What does the letter say?” Valerie asked.

  “Well, we’ve all seen how Edony treats those below her,” the bear-girl started. “So, we can only assume how she treats those who are higher up than her.”

  “Groveling…” I grunted.

  “Yup,” the brunette nodded. “The general greetings that an aristocrat would send along to those of higher standing and then… the request to know why our darling, dearest Daisy Browning has decided to settle down in Edenhart with a man that the Duchess once held in her patronage.”

  “Do you think she’ll believe it?” the cat-girl asked. “Since this is your first time writing a letter such as this.”

  “I can thank my Delphine memories for that,” Daisy grinned. “I usually don’t like to remember things from her past life, but a few things came in handy while writing this letter. If I were writing to someone who was in a lower station to me, I wouldn’t have to be as respectful or courteous, but since the Brownings are a powerful family in close contact with the Queen, Edony would have to word her letter very… politely without it coming off as an impromptu inquisition.”

  “So, how did you write the letter?” I questioned, cinched my work tools into the bed of the wagon, and then turned toward the two women. “What voice did you use as a higher ranking aristocrat?”

  “Well, I addressed the letter from Daisy Browning’s mother, Celestia,” the brunette explained. “And let me just say, ‘Celestia’ was not pleased to receive a letter from the Duchess of such a small town where her daughter now resides with her upstanding consort, Charles Rayburn.”

  “Please tell me that you gave the Duchess a proverbial tongue lashing through the letter.” I chuckled.

  “You could say that,” Daisy breathed. “Celestia asked why Edony, as the Duchess of Edenhart, was bu
tting her nose into the Browning family business. It was of no consequence to the Duchess what Ms. Browning is doing in the city of Edenhart since the young Mistress is free to go and do as she pleases.”

  “Did you say anything else?” Valerie questioned.

  “Well, ‘Celestia’ told the Duchess that if she continued to invade the Browning’s personal business, the older Browning would have to take action against her,” Daisy laughed. “And I’m sure that’s something Edony does not want to happen. The Duchess may be powerful, but… I doubt she’s as strong as the Browning family since she’s so afraid of them.”

  “And you’re sure that Edony will have written such a letter respectfully?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Oh, I’m sure of it,” Daisy nodded. “I have a distinct memory of the Duchess, a much younger Edony than the one that we know, asking Delphine about correspondences between different aristocrats, and what I’ve just said is exactly what Delphine told the Duchess.”

  “Huh,” Valerie sighed. “It’s hard to imagine what the Duchess looked like as a child. Charles, do you have any memories of her from then?”

  “I do,” I nodded. “I told Daisy about it earlier, but I’ll tell you, too.”

  The feline-woman bent her legs, launched herself up, twisted through the air, and then landed perfectly in the driver’s seat of the wagon. Her oceanic eyes rested on my face for a moment, she tilted her head, slid forward, and stretched out over the length of the seat.

  I glanced over my two women for a moment, breathed a heavy sigh, and then nodded. Valerie’s mouth dropped open, she wriggled closer, and stared down at me with wide, curious eyes. Daisy blinked once, smiled softly toward me, and then leaned against the brick wall behind her. I inhaled slowly, pressed my lips into a firm line, nodded once, and then lifted my face to the both of them.

  “I never met her until she sought me out in the street,” I told the feline-woman. “But I’d seen her once before, we were both children, and she rode through the city in a matriarch procession. It was mainly just a bunch of old women, but she and her mother were the last carriage to ride through.”