Read Online Hellboy: Unnatural Selection by Tim Lebbon - Free Book Online

That is what she had been told. You exist, creature, because I give you my will to exist, Blake told her. You are here because I brought you, you breathe air because I allow it, and in your creation there was a pledge of faith to me. Wander the ship, but do not wonder. See what is happening but do not question. Your time in the Memory is over, and now you have a new home in reality. Accept that, accept me, and your future is one of triumph.
    That was the only time Blake ever spoke to her. She has seen him many times since then, working at a vat or wandering through the ship. But although he always offers her a smile and a nod, he never speaks. He is a tall, thin, ghostly figure, and for some reason he always reminds Abby of her time before memory began. That is a dark time, and Blake carries darkness with him. It is also a deep, hollow time, filled with nothing but space, and when she looks into the tall man's eyes — past the light of passion, past the shades of madness — she can see the hollowness that lies at his core.
    The hollowness of her own mind has its ghosts as well. They are knowledge and intelligence, things that she was born with but that are not exactly hers. Her first memory is of Blake staring down at her, smiling as he uses a rough old cloth to wipe fluids from her eyes, clearing them, ensuring that he is the very first thing she ever focuses on. Even then she has a strange awareness, and yet everything this awareness brings up feels as though it has been left behind in her mind by someone or something else. Her life is new, her mind old. She screams. Blake steps back, still smiling, and she thinks her first true thought: He's more than used to this.
    Experience with no history; life with no true birth; knowledge without a past. She accepts them all and yet yearns for something more: understanding.
    The hollowness inside her, haunted though it is, needs filling. And this is when she first perceives her need for escape.
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    On the day she leaves, there is one goodbye to make.
    Few of Blake's creations speak any sort of language that Abby can understand. They fly or crawl, walk or slither, sleep or scream, but there is only one other creature whom Abby has any sort of communication with, and she never sees him. He — she assumes it is a he, simply because of his voice — is contained behind a heavy steel door, and the only space through which he can talk is a narrow grille at its base. Abby first noticed him soon after her birthing, when she wandered naked through the ship trying to find who she was, and since then she has been back at regular intervals to talk with him.
    Her voice feels like an alien in her throat, the thoughts that conjure it strangers in her mind It is the hidden creature — Voice, as she has come to know him — who helps her come to terms with herself. His words are few, but their meaning is always deep. He has built her from nothing to something, and years later she realizes that it was Voice who made her something more than Blake ever intended. He gave her the thirst to fill her potential. And he made her free.
    On that final night, she sits on the floor and leans back against the door. She can hear him breathing on the other side, and she likes to think that the metal is warmed by his breath. Some contact, at least. Some affection. Without really understanding or knowing why, that is something she has always missed.
    "It's so dark in here," she says.
    "It's made that way."
    "You told me years ago that he locked you away because of what you think, and what you know. Why doesn't he lock me away as well?"
    A snort comes from behind the door. "Because I made no secret of my doubt. I've told you before, you're unique here. You're a bright mind among stupidity. You're human. The fact that Blake didn't take that into account shows just how mad he has become. He has these things he has brought out of the Memory — you and me included — and because of that, he has begun to doubt the