and fifteen months later, I’m back where I started. The vivification process was easy. Tissue rejection? I beat that monster. So what’s missing? Why can’t I make the cells stable? Tell you what—why don’t we chuck everything out the window and see what floats.”
He saw Yakky doing mental battles with his vocabulary. “Chuck equals toss, Yak. See what floats means see if anything is salvageable. Oh, no. Salvageable means worth saving. Follow me?”
Yakky took off his half-pound glasses and wiped them on his shirt. “Certainly, Dr. Peyton. In Osaka I was the best English talker of the whole school.”
“Any more ideas, then, you English talker, you?”
“Pizza break?”
“Sounds fine. Do you like green peppers?”
Yakky wagged a hand. “So-so.”
“Let’s find the phone, then.” He pointed to the floor. “Follow that wire.”
Yakky followed it. The phone was behind the aquarium tank of pink soup, for reasons only Peyton might know. Yakky carried it to him.
“Got this one memorized,” Peyton said, bringing the receiver to his ear. He frowned suddenly. “Wait, I forgot my wallet. Have you got any cash?”
“Not until payday.”
“To hell with it.” He put the receiver back onto the cradle. “Let’s make you a new face.”
Yakky found his stopwatch and hung it around his neck while Peyton fiddled with the camera. He posed, and after the strange, waffled-looking pictures rolled out, Peyton began to process them through the computer. Yakky looked on without much obvious interest. Peyton guessed he would last about three weeks before going insane. Oh, well.
He fed electricity to the electrodes on either side of the reservoir tank, or, as Julie liked to say, the ThinkTank-PinkTank, whatever that might mean. While the bullet charge built up he switched on the Bio-Press and let it warm up. This one Julie liked to call the Bio-Mess. It struck him that she had pet names for just about everything, except him. Was that a good sign or a bad one? He had no idea.
He put a hand on the pipette that fed into the Bio-Mess, ready to open it after the bullet charge, nearly two thousand volts, whipped the soup into something more respectable. Yakky yawned and stretched, looking like he could use some more sleep. Peyton shrugged to himself. How come nobody got a kick out of this anymore? Even Julie tended to doze off while the ninety-nine minutes crept along toward inevitable cell fragmentation.
The bullet charge arced noisily through the tank, flashing blue and white, heating the fluid to an instant boil. Peyton opened the pipette, making mental apologies to Michigan Power, which was now operating in the dark. Pink soup flowed over the Bio-Mess’s face, blue sparks dancing over its surface. The tiny pins raised up, forming a perfect likeness of Yakky’s face. When it was dry and the color had changed, he peeled it off and held it up.
“Start timing, Yak.”
Yakky snapped the stopwatch on, looking somewhat green. “Is that what I look like?”
“Yeah, but only if you were skinned. Want to put it on?”
“Not really. What about the hair?”
“Please,” Peyton said, “only one miracle every few years. For now you have to be satisfied with a wig.”
“Eyebrows?”
“Shut up, Yak.”
He shut up.
Peyton trimmed a slice from the chin area, put it in a petri dish, and stuck it under the microscope. He checked it once, seeing what he knew he would see: cohesive cells pulsating with artificial life. Not a bad accomplishment; too bad the damn things went haywire every time. What was causing it?
He spread the face on a steel table that already had thousands of faces and face parts on it. He wiped his hands on his lab coat. “Might as well kick back, Yak. There is absolutely nothing to do but wait.”
And so they waited.
Ninety-eight and a half minutes later Peyton was horsing with the toy drinking bird, watching it bob, bored to death. He took a quick peek through the microscope, stifling a yawn.
He saw Yakky doing mental battles with his vocabulary. “Chuck equals toss, Yak. See what floats means see if anything is salvageable. Oh, no. Salvageable means worth saving. Follow me?”
Yakky took off his half-pound glasses and wiped them on his shirt. “Certainly, Dr. Peyton. In Osaka I was the best English talker of the whole school.”
“Any more ideas, then, you English talker, you?”
“Pizza break?”
“Sounds fine. Do you like green peppers?”
Yakky wagged a hand. “So-so.”
“Let’s find the phone, then.” He pointed to the floor. “Follow that wire.”
Yakky followed it. The phone was behind the aquarium tank of pink soup, for reasons only Peyton might know. Yakky carried it to him.
“Got this one memorized,” Peyton said, bringing the receiver to his ear. He frowned suddenly. “Wait, I forgot my wallet. Have you got any cash?”
“Not until payday.”
“To hell with it.” He put the receiver back onto the cradle. “Let’s make you a new face.”
Yakky found his stopwatch and hung it around his neck while Peyton fiddled with the camera. He posed, and after the strange, waffled-looking pictures rolled out, Peyton began to process them through the computer. Yakky looked on without much obvious interest. Peyton guessed he would last about three weeks before going insane. Oh, well.
He fed electricity to the electrodes on either side of the reservoir tank, or, as Julie liked to say, the ThinkTank-PinkTank, whatever that might mean. While the bullet charge built up he switched on the Bio-Press and let it warm up. This one Julie liked to call the Bio-Mess. It struck him that she had pet names for just about everything, except him. Was that a good sign or a bad one? He had no idea.
He put a hand on the pipette that fed into the Bio-Mess, ready to open it after the bullet charge, nearly two thousand volts, whipped the soup into something more respectable. Yakky yawned and stretched, looking like he could use some more sleep. Peyton shrugged to himself. How come nobody got a kick out of this anymore? Even Julie tended to doze off while the ninety-nine minutes crept along toward inevitable cell fragmentation.
The bullet charge arced noisily through the tank, flashing blue and white, heating the fluid to an instant boil. Peyton opened the pipette, making mental apologies to Michigan Power, which was now operating in the dark. Pink soup flowed over the Bio-Mess’s face, blue sparks dancing over its surface. The tiny pins raised up, forming a perfect likeness of Yakky’s face. When it was dry and the color had changed, he peeled it off and held it up.
“Start timing, Yak.”
Yakky snapped the stopwatch on, looking somewhat green. “Is that what I look like?”
“Yeah, but only if you were skinned. Want to put it on?”
“Not really. What about the hair?”
“Please,” Peyton said, “only one miracle every few years. For now you have to be satisfied with a wig.”
“Eyebrows?”
“Shut up, Yak.”
He shut up.
Peyton trimmed a slice from the chin area, put it in a petri dish, and stuck it under the microscope. He checked it once, seeing what he knew he would see: cohesive cells pulsating with artificial life. Not a bad accomplishment; too bad the damn things went haywire every time. What was causing it?
He spread the face on a steel table that already had thousands of faces and face parts on it. He wiped his hands on his lab coat. “Might as well kick back, Yak. There is absolutely nothing to do but wait.”
And so they waited.
Ninety-eight and a half minutes later Peyton was horsing with the toy drinking bird, watching it bob, bored to death. He took a quick peek through the microscope, stifling a yawn.
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