by Eric Vall
“Fine, Charles, if it’s funding you need, you’ll receive it,” Edony sighed exasperatedly as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Funding and as many prisoners as you need, but if I don’t see results within the next few months… no, the next few weeks, your ass will hang from the nearest tree. Now, get out of my sight before I change my mind and cut off all of your funding.”
“Yes, madam,” I whispered as I lowered my eyes from her face. “Of course, I’m very sorry for the inconvenience. I will return home at once and begin the trials again.”
The Duchess watched me out of the corner of her eyes, and I gritted my teeth and launched myself forward into a bow so low that my nose nearly brushed the tops of my polished shoes.
“Enjoy the party for a while if you like, Alchemist.” The blonde woman grabbed another drink from a passing tray, nodded in my direction, and gestured toward the rest of the party. “It may be your very last.”
“Yes, Duchess,” I said as I slowly stepped away from her.
I maneuvered my way through the crowd, and without the Duchess in front of me this time, it was more difficult. The aristocratic women didn’t move out of my way, and if anything, seemed to go out of their way to block my path. Through the mass of towering hair, feathers, and bulky dresses I spied the towering doors that led to the foyer in the distance over the heads of the Duchess’ guests, but my stomach gurgled loudly as the scent of freshly prepared food wafted over to me, and my mouth watered at the sight of the delicious spread to the left of me.
“Might as well eat before I head home,” I shrugged to myself as I snatched up a sparkling plate. “Can’t work on an empty stomach.”
I piled my plate high with one of each of the steaming containers and stepped away from the crowd of cackling women. Then I ate quietly as I leaned against the wall and expertly avoided the gazes of the female aristocrat’s. The food was quite delectable, especially since I normally sustained myself with simple bread, butter, and the occasional ration of dried meat. My work was all encompassing, and I didn’t have time for foolish endeavors such as preparing food.
I caught snippets of different conversations as I kept my head low by the feasting table, and my eyes roamed over the crowd of cackling women. I couldn’t really pick out any of their individual conversations, but my eyes drifted from the powered and powerful women to their male consorts. Each of the men stood by their mistress’ sides, and the male’s empty eyes glanced at me. I pitied them, since they lived a different life than me, and I couldn’t help but think that the aristocrat Delphine would gladly enslave me if I wasn’t under the Duchess’ protection.
“Congratulations, Winifred!” a woman to my left cried out, and I peeked over my plate at her and her companions as they held their glasses filled with glittering champagne aloft.
“Thank you, thank you,” a redhead who I assumed was Winifred smiled as she placed a hand over her pregnant stomach. “It wasn’t planned, but I am grateful for the chance to finally have a baby with my third consort.”
I glanced at the man directly beside her, and his green eyes stared off into space with absolutely no emotion. It was almost as if his body was held in place by invisible wires or struts. The redhead patted his bare shoulder as she smiled to her friends, and finally, he seemed to awaken from his trance, and an almost pained smile spread over his pale lips.
“I’m surprised you wanted to have another child,” the dark-haired woman to Winifred’s left whispered. “Since the other two were… you know… male.”
“Don’t worry,” Winifred grinned as she rubbed her hands over her swollen belly. “The poor bastards will be taken care of humanely and trained to serve as all others of their idiot sex are. The doctors assured me that this baby is pure and female.”
I sighed softly under my breath and stepped away from the group of women. I felt sick to my stomach every time the conversation was brought up, and it was one of the many reasons I stayed locked away in my manor. I wasn’t interested in their conversation. It was all the same vile rhetoric that I’d heard my entire life: Women were more powerful than men, and men were useless.
“Dio and I came together to create a third being,” I heard the woman continue over my shoulder as I walked away. “A new living creature from two others, it’s such a strange and beautiful notion, isn’t it amazing to think about?”
I froze with one foot raised above the floor, and then I turned to face the women.
“I’ve never thought about it,” one of the other women snapped as she avoided Winifred’s gaze. “I would never soil my body by laying with one of those beasts.”
“But Dio is a tamed brute, look how docile he is.” The redhead chuckled as she stroked her consort’s cheek.
The empty plate nearly clattered to the floor as it slipped through my sweaty fingers. I grabbed it at the last second and hastily set it down on the edge of the table with a clatter. A few of the aristocrats glanced at me out of the corners of their eyes but paid me no mind.
“A third component…a third component!” I muttered under my breath. It was so simple, and yet so complicated, and all I needed was this small push to figure it out! It was as if something within my brain clicked, and all of my neurons fired at the same time.
I was doing it all wrong. I was trying to create something new from two components, but I hadn’t thought to design a third container to hold the new entity in.
This was the strike of brilliance I had been waiting for, and to think that it could come to me from the conversations of a bunch of idiot women. Still, when opportunity stuck, one must be ready for it. I had to return to my manor and start work on the machine immediately.
I slithered my way through the crowd toward the doors as excitement pumped through my entire body.
“The machine couldn’t rely on two components,” I muttered to myself as I dodged through the crowd. I knew my voice was just repeating my thoughts, but it felt good to review my theory again. “No, if I inputted two objects, the crystals, and the prisoner, there had to be a third element.”
I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. This entire time, I’d assumed that all of the powers of the minerals and crystals would simply transfer over to the prisoner, but maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe the third capsule would allow the power of both components to flow and create an entirely new being. I couldn’t believe that it could be so simple, it was almost so mind-blowingly inane. How many sleepless nights had I spent tirelessly working on the machine only to have it fail time and time again?
“Charles!” Delphine’s voice rose above the low din of the crowd, and I cringed at the sound. “Charles Rayburn!”
“Shit.” I ducked down, scrunched my shoulders, and continued my race toward the door.
I soon broke from the large mass of women, and two men at the doors swung them wide for me to escape. I nodded to them before I scrambled down the stairs into the darkness of the night, and then I shrunk back into the shadows underneath an oak tree as Delphine stepped out onto the landing behind me.
“Charles? I know I just saw you leave!” The gray-haired woman lifted a pair of glasses to her eyes and squinted out into the night.
I’d only met Delphine once, and she was already becoming obsessed. I wouldn’t allow myself to become her consort. Damn it, I was a man of science, I had a purpose in my life other than to pleasure a vile woman like Delphine.
“Goddamnit,” Delphine groaned after she searched the dark trees on the other side of the street for a few minutes. Then she turned on her heels and stomped up the front steps back toward the Duchess’ front door. “Another handsome one got away!”
“Excellent,” I sighed to myself once Delphine had entered the Duchess’ mansion again. “Now I can return to my laboratory in peace.”
The night was pitch-black away from the front of the duchess’ house, so it took me a few minutes to find the post where I had tied off my horse. But as soon as I untied him, I quickly settled myself into his saddle, took the reins
into my hands, let out a shrill whistle, and kicked his sides with my heels. The horse reared back with a loud neigh and broke off in the direction of my manor.
For the first time in months, excitement flowed through my veins. In the beginning, I hadn’t wanted to take on this project for the Duchess, but now I’d made an actual breakthrough, and I couldn’t help but be excited about testing my new theory.
My horse’s hooves beat at the dirt road until my manor came into view atop a far hill. From the distance, I saw only a few lit windows, and I knew that most of my butlers had already gone to bed. Unlike most grunt men, I was a man of intellect and science, so the Duchess had allowed me a small manor house with a handful of servants. It wasn’t much, but compared to how other men in my city were treated, I lived in a certain amount of luxury.
“Master Rayburn!” a manservant called from the side door as soon as I rode my horse into the stable. He held a lantern aloft and shuffled toward me as I pulled the saddle from my steed’s back.
“Hello, Nathanial,” I greeted him.
“Back from the Duchess’ party so soon?” he asked.
“Yes,” I nodded as I offered him the reins, and then brushed off my hands. “I didn’t want to stay too long because it gets… you know.”
I waved a hand in the air vaguely, but Nathaniel nodded knowingly. It was quite nice to have all-male servants, they understood what it was like to be a man in today’s society.
“I know.” Nathaniel pressed his lips into a firm line as he led my horse away toward the stables, and I turned on my heel.
Time to get to work.
My laboratory was located in the sprawling basement of my manor house, and the only entrance was from the outside, so I hastily descended the stairs and ripped the reinforced door open. It was dark and chilly inside, and I flipped the switch to the lights in one swift movement.
Despite the location of the room, it smelled sterile, almost like the hospitals downtown. A light buzzing reached my ears as the overhead tubes flickered three times and then held steady. The stone flooring looked wet to the touch as I strode across it, and my eyes landed on my precious machine. The great beast was made entirely of metal and took up the entire far wall. The massive structure reflected my face in coppery hues, and I stood in front of it with my hands on my hips.
“You’re finally home,” a crabby voice snapped from behind me, and I smirked softly as I turned. “Was the party shit? Oh, I can tell just from looking at your expression that the party was shit.”
The voice spoke directly into my mind instead of echoing across the laboratory, and with each word, an eerie green light flickered in the darkened far corner.
“Yes, it was shit.” I sighed loudly, shrugged, and headed straight for the green light. The sound of flowing water reached my ears as the speaker came into view from inside the confines of his jar, and I set my eyes on my assistant.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” the brain suspended in neon green liquid asked. “Is there something on my jar? A smudge? Come on, Charlie, help me out, you know I can’t see for shit.”
“There’s nothing on your jar.” I snickered as I reapplied the tape label on the glass that read ‘A.B. Norman.’
“Can you take me out of the goddamn corner?” A.B. huffed. “No one puts brainy in the corner.”
“How do you know you’re in the corner?” I questioned as I grabbed his cart and wheeled the brain out into the open. “You just said that you couldn’t see.”
“Because it’s colder than a witch’s titty in the corners of your laboratory,” A.B. snickered directly into my consciousness. “The rest of the room is nice and toasty.”
I shook my head as I placed A.B. in his rightful position beside my main workbench, and then I grabbed an apron from the far wall and tied it around my middle as A.B. seemed to watch, or at least, float in his jar to face me.
I wasn’t sure if the brain could see, sometimes he did, and sometimes he didn’t. A.B.’s existence was a complete mystery to me, but when I found him at the back of a decrepit curio shop, and he desperately called out to me, I knew I had to take him home. I had considered the possibility that he only spoke to me as a sign that my sanity was slipping, but I dismissed that thought immediately.
There was no way I was insane. I was a doctor after all. A great scientist. A man who would change the world.
“So, what’s on the agenda today, Charles?” A.B. asked from behind me as I walked toward my machine.
“I’ve got it figured out, A.B.,” I cackled as I grabbed a wrench and worked at taking apart the copper paneling. “I finally got it, and this time! This time it’s going to work!”
“You said that the last fifty times, Charlie-boy,” the brain grumbled, and from across the room came a loud crash from the spare paneling I’d placed there months ago. “Oh, yeah, the cat’s back, too.”
“What cat?” I asked as I pulled a single copper sheet back, leaned it against the wall, and looked inside at the electrical mechanisms.
“Oh, yeah,” A.B. gasped, and I glanced at him over my shoulder with furrowed brows. “We have a cat, her name is Clementine. She snuck in a few days ago, and I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d kick her out. We’re keeping her, and that’s final.”
I pursed my lips and stared at the space where all of the paneling rested against the rock wall. Then I spied the glowing blue eyes of the cat in the darkness underneath the paneling, sighed heavily, and glanced toward A.B.. There was no way I was going to allow a cat in my house, let alone in my laboratory, so I walked toward the paneling, lowered myself to the ground, and offered a hand out to the feline underneath. The cat hissed loudly and swatted at my offered palm, and I quickly withdrew with a low whistle.
“Why’d you name the cat Clementine?” I questioned over my shoulder as the cat retreated even farther behind the paneling.
“Because she’s a pretty orange color.” A.B. giggled back, and I shook my head as I rose to my feet.
“Sorry to crack your jar, bud,” I snickered as I went back to removing the paneling of the machine. “But that cat’s Siamese, not an orange tabby.”
“Are you sure?” A.B. pouted.
“Absolutely positive.” I grinned as I began to craft the adjustments to my machine.
I worked tirelessly late into the night, and A.B. watched, or at least, floated in his jar and looked as if he watched the entire time. I didn’t speak to him, I simply wanted to remain concentrated on the task at hand. I tore the entire front of the machine out and built a third, much larger compartment, and then gave it locking doors. I screwed the paneling into place and peeked into the third compartment through the glass. Then I added the conduits between the original two vats so that they could connect to the new third one.
Then, finally, it was done.
“It is perfect.” I stepped away from the new and improved machine with a sense of satisfaction. With the new compartment, it spanned out almost to the middle of the room, and I breathed a heavy sigh of relief. The machine, which the Duchess or myself had never named, was grotesque but beautiful, and I was nearly vibrating with excitement to try it out.
“So,” A.B. uneasily uttered, and I barely glanced at him as I moved toward the cabinets at the far side of the room. “You’re just going to… go for it? Shouldn’t you rest or something? I know you’re a scientist, Doctor Charles, but you’re starting to look pretty insane around the eyes without any sleep.”
“I’m fine, A.B.,” I waved over my shoulder as I dug through my supplies and grabbed a palm-sized crystal. “Why don’t you worry about yourself?”
“I’m just a brain in a jar.” A.B. snickered as I crossed the room and jammed the glowing crystal into compartment A.
“No,” I cackled. “You are my very important assistant. Never forget that.”
“Ohhhh, I like that,” the brain cooed.
“Now,” I whispered. “To collect the components.”
I headed to the darkest corner o
f the room, stood outside of the small cell, and stared inside at the unconscious body lying on the floor. Then I quietly unlocked the cell door and slipped inside as I kept my eyes hard on the prisoner lying on the cold stones.
The prisoner was out cold, and as I turned him over with the toe of my boot, I realized he weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. I wondered for a second if I should handcuff him or use the complicated pulley system to get him into compartment B, but then I decided against it. The pulley system was made for the heavier, hostile prisoners. Most of the patients sent to me were heavily drugged when they arrived, and I drugged them even more before each experiment.
“Throw the deadbeat in, and let’s get this party started!” A.B. shouted, and I gritted my teeth against the sound.
“Yes.” I grabbed the petite, unconscious man, shook him to make sure he wouldn’t wake up, and then slung him over my shoulder.
“A.B.,” I stated in a calm voice as I rested my eyes against his bulbous surface. “You’re a literal brain. You should not yell like a buffon in his cage.”
“Y-yeah, w-well--” A.B. stuttered, but I was broken away from our conversation as the prisoner slipped from my grip, and I had to grab him before he fell to the hard stones.
My hands clenched him around the back with a single hand pressed to the middle of his chest, and I held him there for a second as the realization hit me. What I was feeling wasn’t the hard, flat chest of a man but instead, the round, soft plush of two breasts.
“Uh, oh,” I sighed.
“What?” A.B. asked.
“This is not a man,” I groaned.
“What?” the brain scoffed. “What else could it--”
“It’s a woman,” I cut him off.
“Ohh, shit!” my assistant gasped. “What are you going to do?”
“Hmmm,” I muttered as I weighed my options.