Bob's Book 2: Chapter Four: American Prometheus: Part Three and Last (Unfinished)

OLDER HACKETT: But as much as I was now in Ben’s confidence, I couldn’t help but feel that there was some inner process going on, something he wasn’t telling me. The old man could be such a sphinx. Perhaps he was afraid that I would sell his ideas to someone else, or even claim them as my own; with my memory that would not be difficult. He needn’t have worried. My ambition – and indeed my skills – could never have reached so far. It’s a quite different talent to know something and being able to do something. Still, there were times when I was denied access to the back room, and once or twice I glimpsed an unfamiliar journal, like the ones we kept notes in, that he would whisk unobtrusively out of sight.

And he did all this while carrying on his regular business. Mr. Franklin had a talent for juggling: science, diplomacy, publishing and the social round … including more rendezvous with the ladies than you would credit for a man of his age. I often wondered when I saw him bent over the hand of some grand dame what she would think if she knew what his own hand had been doing scant hours before. Perhaps she would not have minded; he could be that charming.

It was a gloomy evening in late September of that year that things finally came to a head. I remember everything, as I told you, but that day stays highlighted in my memory, as if painted in peculiarly lurid colors and lit harshly in a phosphorous glare.

I was resting in my little cubby when suddenly the service bell rang. I leaped up immediately. As late as it was, I was still awake; insomnia plagued me then already, as it still does. I do not know why, but I think reading takes the place of dreaming in my head, so that I can look up refreshed from reading a book for hours and go on another ten without feeling the need for sleep.

I rushed down as quietly as I could, ignoring the dark door of Dr. Franklin’s room and passing silently through the halls to the staircase. A summons at this hour could only mean one thing: work in the basement room. 

Cold as the night air was, there was an even chillier blast when I opened the basement. My hair stood on end. As used as I had become to the gruesome work of anatomy, with its smells and its sounds, there was something even more acrid in the close atmosphere, neither quite a smell nor a sound, but something almost felt on the skin or tasted on the tongue.

“Mr. Franklin?” I asked, mouth dry. I wanted to swallow but feared taking that air into my body.

The old man looked up. He always looked somewhat inscrutable, but usually with a little smile, which you could either take as mockery or good humor, whatever you thought of him. But his look was dead serious, perhaps even grim. He gestured me over to the table.

“Ah, Hackett,” he said. “Come here. I want you to witness something for me.”

I walked up obediently, although the air in front of me seemed uncommonly thicker than usual. There was a sheet covered form on the table. Franklin put his hand on the sheet, then hesitated, looking me in the eye.

“Lad,” he said. “You know what I’ve been working up to here, and I think it’s ready. I think. It may not work. Then we shall have to try again, and again if necessary. But if it succeeds … and I have high hopes that it will … I want there to be another witness to the most momentous advancement of the human race since Prometheus stole fire from the gods. Are you ready?”

“Yes, I suppose so. Is there anything you need me do to help?”

“No, everything is set. Let’s begin.”

With a flourish he pulled to sheet away and tossed it to floor. I stood there aghast at what was revealed.

I had seen most of the pieces, of course, some when I had brought them in, others as we had worked on them. On their own and individually they looked fine, some of them even beautiful in their own right. But put together they were a mismatched sight to behold.

The figure on the whole was dwarfish. Mr. Franklin had come to the conclusion that a smaller body would be easier to handle, save on materials, and perhaps a smaller anatomy would take the power of the process more effortlessly than struggling through a larger corpus. The chest and torso were still broad and sturdy, but the arms and legs were only just what might be called functional. The head was of a grown size, but looked almost unborn, as there wasn’t a hair on it, and its skin somewhat wizened and loose to boot. Each foot was from a different source, and the hands, which might have been drawn by Michelangelo for all their sturdiness, hung like shovels at the end of the arms.

I stared at it a moment in disbelief. I had not quite imagined this as the end of our labors.

“Uh, Dr. Franklin.” I hesitated. “Are you sure this is quite what you want?”

“What?” The old man looked at me and then at the thing on the table. “Oh, well, I’m sure it’s not going to win any beauty contests, but then that’s not the point, is it? However he looks, he’ll be the most famous person in the world, and what’s more to the point, he’ll be alive. I don’t know if the brain we used will retain any of its old memories, or if it will be wiped clean like a slate, but whichever happens, he will surely appreciate that it’s better to be a live donkey than a dead lion.”

He turned to the apparatus he had set near at hand.

“Now let’s have no more stalling. History awaits, my lad. Give me a hand.”

There were a few wires to be attached, and some unguents to apply, and I handled the body while the Doctor performed the operations. I opened the barrel in the corner. Inside was a chemical bath that had been simmering all week. As gently as we could we dumped the body in, wires and all. Then standing well-away from it all, Franklin turned the crank and activated the Voltaic pile.

There was the briefest but brightest of flashes, like lightning, then a dull boom almost immediately as the barrel exploded in a hail of slats and splattering goo. The electrical apparatus shorted out with a belch of smoke. Luckily the table sheltered us from the worst of the effects, and I had ducked down at the last instant. Franklin, being closest to the machine, was momentarily stunned by the percussion and reeled back, sheltering his face with an upthrust arm. The lamps were blown out in the wake of the blast.

When the smoke cleared, I roused myself cautiously, and more by feel than sight I sought out a candle, scratched a match, and lit it. The Doctor was there, leaning on the table, looking bruised and winded. He stared up at me as the light flared.

“Hackett,” he said. “Bring that light over here. We must have a look at our patient!”

“Hold a minute,” I replied, as I sought out one of the lamps and held the quivering flame to the wick. A clear, steady light filled the underground room. I took it over to the Doctor, who took it impatiently and rushed over to the remains of the barrel.

The body lay still in the midst of the shattered splinters and twisted hoops and spilled fluid, that was still bubbling weakly as if just going off the boil. We examined it in suspense. It was seemingly as lifeless as before, but I swear to you my hair stood up on end. There was something about it that was different than before. You might have seen someone so deeply asleep that they seemed to be dead. There was the same ambiguity in that tumble of limbs and silent torso.

“Pick him up and straighten him out,” Franklin ordered after staring at it intently for a moment. “Let’s get him on the table and take a look. It can’t be comfortable or easy to lie that way.”

“Aye, sir,” says I, and laid my hands on the thing, still slippery with goo. After I finally got a grip under its shoulders, I hauled it upright, the arms and legs falling into place. The head flopped loosely back and forth. I thought I might have felt a tremor go through it, but I was trembling a bit myself, so it was hard to say. I wasn’t scared of no dead body, you understand, but if it was alive … well that was another thing altogether.

As I tried to haul it up onto the table, my arms squeezed around the chest, compressing it, and suddenly there came a spew of vile liquid out of the mouth, spattering to the floor in an unexpected cascade. And with that the thing coughed, drew a shuddering breath, and was alive.”

 

Mr. Hackett looked up at me. I had cried out in wonder.

“But that … that’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever heard!” I said. “How come … how come I’ve never heard of it before? What happened? Why doesn’t the whole world know about it?”

“Cause that’s the way Dr. Franklin wanted it. ‘Twas only him and me knew the rights of it, and after what happened, neither of us really wanted it to get out. Not that we needed to make any promises.” Hackett chuckled. “No reason I can’t tell you about it now, though. There ain’t no evidence left anymore, except up in here.” He tapped his graying skull. “Besides, who’d ever believe you if you did tell ’em?”

“But what did happen?” I asked. “Why aren’t there any of these … these synthetic men walking around nowadays? Didn’t it work out alright?”

“Well, for the first few days, yes. I still don’t know what went wrong, exactly. But there seemed to be the mischief in that creature, from the very start.

“Dr. Franklin dubbed him Primus, since he was the first of his kind. He even came to respond to it, though I’m not sure he truly realized that it was his name and not just a sound to grab his attention, because from the first to the last he never uttered a word himself. Don’t know why about that either. He seemed healthy and clever enough.

“The first thing we established was that the brain didn’t seem to retain any sort of personal memory at all, like it had been wiped clean of whoever it had been before. The next thing we established was that there seemed to be some kind of physical memory. It didn’t have to learn to stand or to walk, like a baby does. From the very first it was quick, and strong, and I suppose you would say coordinated. I know that, because one of the first things it did was punch me in the eye when I tried to clothe him.

“That was quite a struggle, I can tell you, and in the end even Mr. Franklin had to help me. We finally got it into a sort of loose gown, and after a bit of persuasion combined of blows and a reward of a bit of bread and cheese, we got Primus to resign himself to being dressed.

Dr. Franklin by now was weary and needed to rest himself from the night’s labors. He yawned mightily. As excited as he was, he had been working for almost two days and looked ready to drop.

“Hackett, I leave Primus in your care. Treat him well, feed him if he wants it, and if he gets tired, tuck him into bed. Anything goes wrong, get me right away. Pamper him, Hackett, coddle him, lad. After all, today is his birthday!” He chuckled and yawned again. “Observe him closely. When I get up, I want to know everything he did. Keep him away from the rest of the house if you can. I don’t want anyone else to meet my little man just yet.”

With that he was out of the room, and I was left alone with that little beast. He watched Dr. Franklin leave, then turned to observe me with great cunning.

I cautiously began cleaning up the workroom, gathering the burst bits of barrel, sweeping the spilled fluids into the drain in the middle, and putting the apparatus away. Primus watched every move I made, sometimes moving those shovel hands of his as if mimicking my movements, but in the main just crouching where he stood, gazing intently. When I was done cleaning up, I slowly went over to the shelves and picked out a jar of peach jam.

“Now then, old fellow,” I said, like I was talking to a dog. “How would you like something sweet?”

I took off the muslin lid and picked out the wax that sealed the fruit inside. Never taking my eyes off of him, I dug in two fingers and scooped out a generous glob.

“Mmm,” I said, mimicking great satisfaction as I ate a few bites. I held out the jar and offered it for his consideration.

After a moment’s hesitation he took the jam, sniffed it suspiciously, took a tiny taste, then began wolfing it down greedily in as large portions as his questing fingers could.

As I watched him, I came to some conclusions that later experience only confirmed for me. I think Primus was learning and reacting, not like a newborn baby would with uncertainties and experimentations, but rather as a clever ape would. It was as if his muscles had memories, even if his brain did not. He finished off the jam, and when he could fit his enormous hand into the jar any further, stuck his tongue down to see if it would reach.

“Very well, Primus, my lad, that’ll do.” I reached for the container.

He snapped at my outstretched hand and I drew back in alarm. I continued to watch his baffled attempts to reach the last of the jam until finally he smashed the jar to the ground and knelt to lap up the remains from the shattered glass.

I watched as he picked up shards of broken glass to lick the sweet stuff up. And that was how things went on with him as the days went on.

He seemed clever enough, but with no restraint. He seemed to learn things quickly, as if remembering them, but he had no judgement, no feeling for others, as if his fellow beings were just another object in the universe to him. Dr. Franklin tried to teach him, or at least train him, but he was too often busy with his diplomatic duties, and I didn’t have much success, never having raised anyone up before or even tried to teach anyone anything. Maybe Primus would have done better with someone with a more instinctive nurturing soul. But he had to make do with me and Dr. Franklin when he could spare the time.

After a few days we concluded that we were inadequate to the job and that Mistress Lydia would have to be let into the secret circle. Franklin concocted a tale that the creature had been placed into his care from a relative of his in America, a poor soul whose condition he hoped would improve under gentle care. Mistress Lydia, a rather dour Englishwoman, looked dubious and declared he was better placed in an asylum, but reluctantly agreed to do what she could. My own burdens were eased when Primus was moved into a secure room in the back of the house.   

 Notes

And there I paused, for almost five years now. I think the problem was it was growing unweildy, more like a book and less like a chapter. I think in the end it would have been Primus who took off Hackett's hand and was somehow destroyed.