Pygmalion

[Trillian]

[reserved]

Nero Tereshkova removed his glasses and tossed them onto the mess of papers crowding the desk. He rubbed his face, fingers streaming through his hair and then lacing together at the back of his neck. He stared upwards into the rafters of the warehouse.

The numbers added up. Every test had yielded positive results. Everything was done. He was done. He just had to wait.

He stared at the deep freezer off to one side, powered by its own generator. He pulled his gaze away and onto the metal table a couple of metres away. All he could see from this angle were feet. Healthy, living feet. Unblemished skin without a tan, no obvious stitches, beautifully muscled, vibrant and alive.

Nero stood in order to better see the rest. Muscled legs with fine hairs. Powerful. Healthy. Between the legs, nothing. Just a mound - sexless and anonymous. Briggs had complained that they had found nothing appropriate to attach there. He would have to wait, now. Perhaps his primal urges would vanish in this new body. Perhaps they would be more pronounced.

A sculpted chest that looked as though it had known nothing but constant exercise and a nutritious diet all its life. Nero smiled as he stroked an admiring hand along it. Not a sexual touch, though certainly worshipful. His own work, mastered through science. Strong, muscled arms that ended in fine, though masculine hands. The hands of a musician. Here were the faintest marks of stitches, where it looked more like this man had slashed his wrists rather than where his hands had been joined. They'd fit much better than the other ones.

In his neck, like a parody of Frankenstein's creation, was a catheter and tube, ready to accept the rest of the fluid that would finish him.

Finally, the head and face. Using different parts, but beautifully merged. The man lying here could've been a model, a Spaniard with a glossy acting career and a reputation to rival Casablanca. The mind behind those eyes had been the hardest surgery he'd ever performed. Connecting everything to the brain, using vampire blood to heal it. It concerned him, that he might - instead of creating new life, create something undead. The risk had to be taken though. Briggs could adapt.

Nero's eyes flitted to the deep freeze again before he looked back. His gaze followed the tube to the IV bag filled with what looked like blood - except there were silver threads in it. Vampire mixed with fae, mixed with the solution he and Briggs had invented. It had kept all those body parts alive. Nourished. Flourishing. Now they were together.

Complete.

Nero returned to his chair and sat, his head in his hands. Waiting. Waiting for his creation to wake up. To live. There were no power switches to throw, no storms to harness. Just transfusions and patience.

Eventually, he slept.

[suneater]

Almost an hour after Nero fell asleep, what he was waiting for finally occurred.

It began with respiration. The solution had been oxygenating the admixture of blood running through its much-improved vascular system, but the design still relied on lungs for permanent function. The first breath was short and sharp, in and out quickly through the nostrils, but the second was longer, deeper, and the third followed suit, establishing a rhythm that caused that perfected chest to rise and fall steadily. The execution of that simple autonomic function was a testament to Nero's skills in neurosurgery. The circulatory system was operating optimally as well, and after a few seconds its breathing adjusted to create the perfect intake of oxygen.

Its eyes were still closed, but it was awake. Consciousness had emerged. Initial awareness was limited to sensation- the feel of the cold metal table, the faint caress of the air moving across its skin due to the micro-climate of the large warehouse's heating and air conditioning. Sensation without context was agony. Its first ten seconds of existence were a Hell of sorts. It was trapped in a void, experiencing too much in so short a time. Involuntarily it made a sound, providing even more stimulus.

That was me, it realized, and the concept of me reflected itself a dozen times over in an instance, establishing the context it so craved. It was on something of a lower temperature than itself. Cold. The word was there as soon as it needed it. The surface it was on was cold, colder than the rest of his surroundings. Because that substance conducts temperature differently than the air surrounding it.

It wanted to make the sound again. It wanted to learn what substances it was in contact with. The goals were there, but the tactics for achieving them were not, not yet. It considered. Long minutes passed while it breathed and thought. The more it thought, the more synapses reactivated, and the more it was able to think. It focused on the sensation of the table touching its impossibly perfect flesh. Touch. It was touching the table, the table was touching it. Touch imparted feeling. Touch is a sense. Senses are used to gather information. There were other senses, it knew. Hearing had allowed it to perceive the sound it had made. Smell... was too much information with too little contact. It ignored smell completely. Taste was like smell and right now similarly difficult to implement effectively; it ignored taste as well.

Sight.

It opened its eyes. They had been improved sufficiently that the bright overhead lights didn't bother them. Like smell, sight provided it with an incredible amount of data, but it was better equipped to use that data. Words came rapidly, light, rafters, ceiling, sky, night. The context was immediate in this case, fuller. I am better able to use sight it decided.

Twenty minutes passed before it had gleaned all that it could from its current field of vision. It knew there must be more. There was the cold thing he had felt, in the very least, and the concepts he already stood suggested compliments and antonyms that could also be seen. But how?

Move. But how? It realized that it already was moving. Breathing was a form of movement. Movement involved using muscles to manipulate ones body. It focused on the action of breathing and in doing so found that for a long minute it could not. Solution was still circulating through it, so it suffered no ill effects. Eventually it managed to access conscious breathing, and with that section of its knowledge accessed, it turned its head to one side. In doing so it experienced pain for the first time. There was something in its neck, which had caused the pain when it moved. Pain was just another sensation, and an interesting one at that. It felt no urgency to reduce the level of pain it was feeling.

Instead it beheld the new view its movement had unlocked. Wall, window, equipment, floor, door.

It sat up. The process was slow. It was activating muscles manually, and there were quite a few involved. Its perspective changed yet again though, and the pain was relieved when the thing in its neck was no longer pressed against the table. It worked through a variety of options and determined that there was no way for it to see the thing in its neck. Its muscles could only do so much. Slowly it reached up and touched the thing, and then the neck, and then the thing again. It ran its fingers over it several times, but touch was not nearly so reliable as sight. It gave up and continued to look around.

Eventually it had absorbed as much visual data as it could from its current position. It needed to move again, off of the surface it was on. It decided that it would attempt to move to the window. It had learned about movement from turning its head and sitting, so it employed even more of its formidable muscles.

It swung its leg off the table (the metal table, it had learned in its inspection), then used its core to shift in the same direction, moving closer to the edge. Its foot touched the ground, which was cold as well. It activated more and more muscles, sitting up and sliding off the table so that both feet were on the ground. It remained sitting that way for long minutes, unsure how to proceed. Finally, it shifted its weight forward and stood.

It lacked sufficient control to balance itself. It could feel its body moving without instruction and reacted violently, forcing its legs to move, move, move, attempting to stabilize itself through brute force. It staggered in an ungainly fashion, its bare feet quiet on the cold warehouse floor. Eventually it traveled far enough to eat up all of the slack of the tube in its neck. The tube came out, designed to do so easily, and it careened forward, crashing into a rolling cart of sterile implements. The impact launched the cart forward noisily and it fell, experiencing more, different pain.

It lay there in a tangle of perfectly proportioned limbs, processing the new sensations it had experienced- the sound of the cart, the feeling of the catheter sliding free, the wetness and warmth of blood. The position it had fallen in imparted new visual information as well.

There is a man on a bed and he is staring at me.

[Trillian]

The loud noise woke Nero rapidly from slumber. His eyes opened and at first he thought it was a dream from a micro-sleep, for the warehouse lights were still blazing and it hadn't felt as though much time had passed. But then his brain caught up to his senses and processed what he'd actually heard - the clank of a metal tray hitting the ground, a clatter of medical instruments skittering across the concrete floor, and the meaty slap of a body.

He half-sat up and looked, his eyes adjusting poorly as he attempted to focus on the table. His hand moved up to adjust his glasses but they weren't on his face. He'd left them on the desk. Still, it was obvious even without them that his project was no longer where it should be.

Nero's heart leapt in his throat, both from excitement and fear, followed by a gamut of emotions too mixed to identify. His gaze took everything in at once; the swinging catheter, the IV stand leaning against the autopsy table, the overturned trolley and scattered tools, the man on the ground looking at him with a constantly moving expression, as though he couldn't yet control his face.

They locked eyes.

"Emmanual," he cried, though something in him didn't think his friend was within. There'd been no recognition, no familiarity. Not even curiosity. It had never been his theory that the brain would hold all of Briggs' memories, it had been his close friend and work partner's hope. Once severed, Nero had argued, it's possible that the brain will reset, and like a computer, any unsaved work will be lost

How Briggs had laughed, and convinced him that his brain would keep his memories. He was the neuroscientist, not Nero, but he'd had doubts at the very end, after attaching everything and seeing how many 'wires' had been cut. It was hard to know what would happen when injecting vampire and fae blood into the equation. The only research available had been their own. The only results, their own.

Remember the piano, Briggs had written on the screen for Nero to read. It was all he'd needed to persuade Nero to go ahead. The musicians hands that they'd kept in a box; they'd given it a toy piano and after running fingers over it and feeling what it was, the hand had played a short, obvious tune. He couldn't remember which it was. Twinkle, Twinkle? No, that hadn't been it.

Nero got to his feet and almost immediately dropped to his knees. Not in compassion but because his muscles felt watery and strange. He crawled over to

what do I call him?

the man on the ground, who looked like he was making snow angels among the scalpels.

"Stop," Nero said, holding out a hand before using it to further his advance. "Don't hurt yourself."

He could always stitch his project back up, but the blood pooling on the floor would be wasted. He didn't have a great deal left of it, and he would prefer his creation be sustained by food.

As he got closer, he marvelled at the animation he was seeing. Muscles working beneath skin, a heaving chest drawing breath, wriggling toes and fingers. It was beautiful. He made shushing noises, as though soothing a very small child. It occurred to him, belatedly, that he and Briggs' had made a terrible oversight. They'd planned for everything; getting the body what it needed, how to put it together, how to keep it alive until it could sustain itself through eating. But they hadn't planned for it to start living.

They hadn't made any action plan for what to do when their creation woke up.

[suneater]

It regarded Nero in silence until the man spoke. It watched his mouth move, heard the words, and linked the two concepts. Immediately it open and closed its mouth soundless, like a fish eating flakes of food. The sound meant nothing to it, but it was valuable information. It gave up on simply moving its mouth, leaving it closed, and began moving its tongue, gauging the various texture in its own mouth, gums and roof and teeth.

The man was moving toward him across the ground. He did so on all of his limbs, which seemed sensible to it after its first attempt to move using only two. It shifted its weight again, moving onto all fours. It had managed to avoid much injury so far, but it heedlessly planted a hand on scalpel and the blade sliced flesh on the palm of its hand easily. It analyzed this new flavor of pain, then lifted its hand to inspect what had happened. Something that was a very different color (red) from its hand was flowing out, warm and wet in the same way that its neck had been. That bit of bleeding had already mostly stopped.

The man made more sounds, but they still meant nothing to it. It returned its attention to the task of replicating the man's stance, and managed to successfully get onto its hands and knees without further incident. It moved its right arm first, planting the attached hand a good eight inches forward. It followed suit with the left, smearing blood on the warehouse ground, and then used its hips and quadriceps to push its right knee forward, and then finally its left. It had moved forward. It repeated that system of movements again, and then again, more smoothly with each repetition.

Its tentative crawling brought it to meet the man partway. It stopped, regarding him from this close vantage point. Its head tilted slightly and then righted itself. There was no true expression on its face, but its features were not slack. The closest word for what it was evincing was wonder. It was learning so much, and now it could move and learn more.

Slowly, it lifted its bloodied left hand and reached forward to touch the face of the man before it. Because it did not know violence, there was no violence in the movement. It simply wanted to touch another being in order to experience doing so. Neither fast nor slow, the movement would result in its fingers brushing against Nero's nose, then left cheek, then chin with feather-light touches, spotting his flesh with just a little blood. It then brought its hand back, to touch itself just above the clavicle. It smeared blood up, onto its neck, then its chin, then its right cheek, and finally its nose.

The same. It was the same as the man's. For some reason, it felt something powerful inside of it, something aching to get out. The urge to move was almost unbearable and it gave in, rising up onto only its knees with its hand still touching its face.

There were enough reflexes ingrained in it to translate the feeling into an expression that Nero would likely recognize:

It was excited.

[Trillian]

He was enraptured, as fascinated as the other while he was mimicked and investigated. Nero stared at him, adoringly, completely trusting, while the other's warm hand moved over Nero's face in spidery movements. It was particularly enchanting to watch him take that sensation back to his own face, discovering the similarities.

The blood eventually brought Nero out of his daze. He made a sound of exclamation and got to his feet, rushing around

Briggs?

the other man on the floor to pick up all the instruments that were unsafe, holding them in his hand. He set them down on the metal table as he circled back.

"Wait here, don't move" he said, even though he

Briggs?

wouldn't be able to understand. Nero had his palms out, which was the universal sign for stop or surrender, but even as Nero went looking for bandages, he wondered about his project's language skills. Obviously something in the brain had remained intact, or he wouldn't have been able to get up at all - he would've remained on the table. In truth, that was what Nero had expected. Every now and then, whilst moving around the warehouse for the equipment he needed, he looked at his creation and held a hand out for him to stop moving. There were the bandages! They'd rolled a short way on the floor - and there was tape not too far away! As he moved to them, he berated himself for lying down in the first place and being asleep when

Briggs?

their project had floated into consciousness. But he'd been so exhausted! He'd only sat on the cot because his back had been killing him on the chair. He didn't even remember lying down!

After picking up bandages, tape, disinfectant, tweezers and his glasses off the desk (putting the latter on his face), he returned and knelt down in front of the other man, who hadn't moved too far from his position but Nero hadn't really been paying attention to what he'd been doing.

"Hand," he said, and demonstrated what he wanted by holding his own hand out, hoping he would be copied again.

[suneater]

It watched the man move about the room. There was no comprehension of Nero's words or gestures, but it seemed to be complying with him by happenstance. When the man shifted from four limbs to two, it watched him carefully, trying to detect the secret behind that mode of movement. It fell back onto its haunches. Each time Nero looked its way, he would find that it was studying him with that same not-expression.

The man held out his hand and made a sound. It was the first time that one of the sounds had so closely matched a concept it had already discovered. It didn't understand why it would do that. It slowly held out its own hand, still trying to discern why the man might have that sound, and still curious how he had done it. Of course, the hand that it held out was its uninjured right hand. The left was on his thigh, smearing blood on its bare flesh. The bleeding did seem to have slowed considerably, much faster than it should have, likely due to the cocktail of solution and supernatural blood pumping through its veins.

It waited to see what the man did next, paying particular attention to the part of him that sounds came out of- his mouth. It opened and closed its own mouth again, several times, iterating on the movement until it was satisfied that there was no way to do it that would produce sound.

[Trillian]

Nero first pointed to, then slowly reached for his creation's left hand.

"This hand, I need this hand," he said softly, he hoped soothingly. He retrieved it without too much trouble, for his creation seemed compliant. New. Uncorrupted. Not Briggs. And even while he mourned his friend, he also believed that a part of him lived inside their creation. His creation. This perfect example of mankind was not only his idea, but he was the creator who lived.

He held his creation's hand in one of his own, and held the bottle in his palm supported by his lower most fingers, turning the cap with index and thumb. The cap dropped to the floor with the sound of a small hollowed bowl of plastic meeting concrete, the noise fading after each bounce. Tap, tap, tap.

Who is that tapping at my chamber door?

The thought was errant, fleeting, various forms of art crowding for acknowledgement as Nero stared at what used to be an open cut. The aniseptic had washed away the blood, revealing a closed wound. Even as he watched, the skin finished knitting the ridge together and became clean. Smooth. Perfect.

"Sensational," Nero breathed, his fingers stroking the skin of his creation's palm. He knew it had to do with the qualities of the regenerative blood but seeing it in action was mesmerising. With love and adoration, he looked to his creation's eyes... and smiled.

[suneater]

It did not resist Nero's ministrations. It watched the man's actions with unblinking eyes, following his movements, trying to make sense of what they meant.

Being touched was different than touching. Touching the man had not yielded nearly as much sensation as having its hand taken, wiped, and then caressed. It did not pull away, but its gaze fell to the hand that Nero was studying.

It met Nero's eyes for a few second with no recognition or discernible change in expression before looking instead at his mouth. It reached forward and covered that mouth with its hand. It was not like the way one covered a mouth when wanting to keep someone quiet. Instead, his fingers were splayed, creating as much contact as possible. It opened and closed its own mouth again several times, completely fixated on Nero's lips and chin and jaw.

[Trillian]

Wide-eyed and fascinated, Nero continued to hold one of creation's hands while the other pressed against his mouth. He stayed that way for a long time before he realised he should really start teaching him

Galatea?
Briggs?

how to survive. He also had to give him a name. He couldn't continue without a name. Whilst his immediate thought went to the mythos of Pygmalion and Galatea, he didn't think that 'Galatea' was an appropriate name, seeing as how it was feminine. And whilst technically his creation had no sex as yet, he still felt obliged to refer to him as 'he'. He wondered, vaguely, if his creation would have sexual urges and how he would identify himself. Perhaps Nero should refer to him as they, and them. It might be more respectful until he made the choice for himself. For themselves. Themself? He didn't know how to use the pronouns.

"Food," he said through those fingers. "You need to sustain your body. I hope that food will do it for you, rather than the ingestion of blood or, or, mushroom dust or glitter or whatever it is that the fae eat." He laughed and let go of the other's hand to take their right hand to guide it away from his face.

He got to his feet slowly, encouraging them to do the same, providing support if and when needed.

[suneater]

It watched when the man made sound. It felt the slight vibrations, and its eyes widened slightly. It moved its fingers down, to Nero's throat, almost as if to take his pulse. It could feel the vibrations more strongly, and determined that producing sound also relied on apparatuses within the neck. Excitement flooded its exquisite features again, and it pulled its hand away to touch its own throat. It probed gently, breathing, and then a sound emerged from low in its throat. It was deep, resonant, just a blending of shifting vowels, but pleasant. There was a song-like quality, unlike anything that it would ever occur to an actual human to make.

Its swayed where it was sitting, giving in to the need to move, bouncing a bit on its haunches. The noise continued until it ran out of breath, which revealed to it the connection between breathing and making sounds. It drew another deep breath and did it again, and this time, the pitch was a bit higher, the volume greater. It modulated the pitch experimentally, and when it ran out of breath this time it bounced even more animatedly.

"Aaaaaaa, aaaaa, aaaaaaaaaaaaa." It made a series of shorter sounds. It had ignored Nero's standing, but now, satisfied with its progress, it regarded the man again, curious what else it could learn from him. It topped forward onto all fours again, then tried to rise to its feet, failing miserably. It would continue to try a few different methods of copying the man's effortless bipedal movement. It evinced no frustration, but would clearly need help from Nero to stand.

[Trillian]

The attempts were fascinating yet too slow for an impatient man. Nero made himself wait and watch, reaching out but not making a connection, seeing what progress was being made by...

Galatea? No, something masculine. Pygmalion suits better, but he was the creator... so from that, create a new name!

Pygmalion. Absolutely not Pyg. Maybe Malion? Or Leon? Yes.

Mimicking the sounds Leon made, Nero sang along with him, thinking it would be the first step towards communication.

"Aaaaaaaa," he said, then had to drop the pitch and perform it in bursts as well. "Aaaaa. Aaaaa." Then he grinned and assisted Leon to his feet, raising Leon's arm and ducking under it so it rested on his shoulders, then placing his own arm around Leon's back, high on the torso, gripping him close to the armpit... and lifted. His other hand extended palm up before his creation, in case he wished to hold onto something.

"We're standing. Standing, now. From the verb, to stand." He knew the other couldn't grasp language yet for it was too early, but he thought he should start making a habit of his instruction so that it would become second nature. "Now we will walk."

He demonstrated by moving forward a step, struggling under Leon's mass but wanting to advance his development as quickly as possible, to see how rapidly he learned. If walking proved difficult, there was a wheelchair among the filing cabinets on the other side of the warehouse-cum-laboratory.

[suneater]

Its head whipped to face the man's when he began making the same sounds. That meant it was on the right track. It did not resist when Nero stooped to help it up. As he lifted, it understood, and engaged the right muscles to help itself rise to its feet. With Nero's aid, it was able to remain aloft. At first, he'd find himself having to work hard to support its bulk. He should have known better than most that it was heavier than it looked, what with the improved bone density and muscle fiber.

It could feel which muscles were being strained by its new position, though, and by concentrating on them it managed to maintain an approximation of balance with the man's help.

"Aoooah eeay," it sang, bouncing a bit.

It watched Nero take the step and followed suit. The movement was clumsy- it more or less swung its leg, but it did manage to advance, albeit with that much more of its mass exerting force on Nero. It stamped its foot a single time and then tried again. This time it was just a little smoother, a little more like a controlled, human step.

"Ooo oo oo," it trilled, adjusting its balance again, standing just a little more under its own power. Nero would sense that it still required his support, though, judging by the occasional wobble. It hadn't yet found its center of gravity, or learned to harness the myriad muscles involved in keeping it where it belonged. It did firm up its hold on him with the arm he'd slung across his own shoulders, realizing that doing so helped it stand. It was too enthralled by the process of making sounds and standing and walking to explore the idea of that much contact with the man, even though it did register the sensations involved.

[Trillian]

They moved in circles, of a kind. Nero didn't want to hinder Leon's progress, and mimicked some of the sounds made, or converted them into words if they had a similar structure. He would have to teach his name to Leon, so that he could be summoned. He had a feeling he would be called Eeyo for a while until the other got the hang of consonants. Theories abounded, but they weren't his expertise. What kind of expert would be best here? Not a child development psychologist, for Leon's brain was of an adult. Perhaps a rehabilitative psychologist? As if he could just call one up and bring them here without causing alarm.

"Good job," he praised as Leon's walking smoothed out a bit further. They headed in a slow arc towards the cot, and when they got there, Nero turned them around in a slow circle. "Shuffling, now. Kind of... shimmy your feet around. Like... not quite like that... here, look, yes... close enough," he said. Once they had the cot at their backs, he made some hushing sounds, holding his hand out in front of them and making some lowering gestures. "We're going to sit now. To sit. Sit," and he started the motion.

[suneater]

Its progress was remarkable, all things considered.  It continued to create its song-like sounds, and did indeed start to echo Nero's replies. Actual words still did not seem to register for it, but it did start to replicate the vowel sounds in them, rapidly developing its limited vocabulary. "Oo ah, oo ah, oo ah," it chirruped in the wake of good job.

The lesson in shuffling and turning wasn't completely effective. It didn't so much learn to do it as stumble through, guided by Nero turning them together. "Iih iih iih," it announced, sit sit sit, watching what Nero did. It seemed to pick up on the fact that the man was helping it, teaching it things. It saw Nero's knees bend, lowering his body onto the bed, and it very slowly did the same. "Iih," it declared, bouncing slightly on the mattress.

When it looked to Nero, there was something almost expectant in its gaze. What's next? it seemed to ask wordlessly.

[Trillian]

"Wait, wait," Nero said, encouraged by the mimicking, excitement thrumming through him so electrically that he was having trouble focussing on steps beyond whatever he was presently thinking. He held his palms out again, in the same gesture he had before. Stop. "Wait," he said again, then left Leon to sit on the bed whilst he rushed over to the fridge standing isolated to one side of the lab's main working space. Opening the door created a chinking of bottles and rustling of plastic bags that held blood and various solutions.

There it was, his lunch and dinner. Sandwiches in various containers with various fillings. He pulled out the first container, playing pot luck with the fillings inside, and hurried back to Leon. On the way, he opened the lid but too forcefully and it flew out of his fingers, the plastic square landing on the floor behind him. He didn't bother going to pick it up, instead he knelt before Leon and took out a sandwich, showing it to him before he bit into it. Ham, lettuce and cheese. Meat, plant and dairy. Would that be an overload of the senses?

He offered it towards Leon for him to try. "Food," he said, figuring learning words in general terms was best for now.