I really enjoyed the meal.'
'So glad. I'll see you tomorrow. I got a really nice pie for you. I thought a few chips to go with it. But don't you go telling Nurse Spindler, okay?'
He managed a smile and a wink. 'Our little secret.'
The pert breasts, the shapely legs and the delightful personality left the room. The empty, silent, sterile room.
Again his sleep was interrupted. 'Arkwright.'
'Sorry. I tried not to wake you, Sir Charles.'
'Then why did you?'
'I didn't mean to. I was just checking our experiment. I did call yesterday to say I would be over.'
Arkwright’s genius was only surpassed by his sycophancy. He literally wrung his hands and stooped as he talked. It was as if being in the same room as a knight of the realm was almost too daunting for a humble scientist. Sir Charles loathed the man. Drowning at birth would have been his option.
'Okay. How is my new body?'
Arkwright beamed at him. 'Ready, Sir Charles.'
'Ready? But I thought...'
'Ready. Just as soon as you are, Sir Charles.'
Not the best way of waking up, being told he now had to make the decision that would either transform or end his life. He had to say yes, or otherwise, what was the point of it all? Arkwright had left the secret wall wide open. Sir Charles pressed a button and the bed glided across the room to the young man in the tank.
'My God. His eyes are open.'
'Your eyes, Sir Charles. Your eyes.'
Was it possible for a body to mature so fast? Sir Charles could hardly look at his creation. The thing was staring right back at him.
'He doesn't look happy to see me.'
'Oh, Sir Charles. He has no real reasoning ability. He is like a baby. Put your brain in him and then we have the complete package, so to speak.'
'So to speak, so to speak.'
'Sir Charles?'
There was more movement, now. Not just hands and feet twitching, but whole arms and legs and head. To Sir Charles, it looked as if the young man in the tank of green liquid was almost dancing. It was hypnotic, but at the same time disturbing. He could hardly look at it.
'When?'
'You say when. Just give me a couple of days to see when I can get the team together. We will have your brain inside that body with just four hours of surgery.'
The body in the tank seemed to convulse with those words. Sir Charles knew he had to make a decision there and then.
'Right. Get this thing organised. Is he okay?'
'He does seem a little lively, to be honest. I see that as a good sign. He is ready to become you.'
Sir Charles watched the body dance in the tank of green solution, bubbles everywhere; the multitude of tubes looking for all the world like strings on a dancing puppet.
Sir Charles looked into the deep clear blue eyes of a young man looking right back at him. There was something going on behind those clear blue eyes, something that chilled his marrow in his self destructive bones.
'I have to get out of here,' he said, steering the bed out of the secret room. He glanced back just once, and he could swear the head of the man in the tank had twisted around and was staring at him. As soon as Arkwright was out of the room. Sir Charles pressed the button to close off the wall. As the wall slid across, the body in the tank twitched and danced, all the time staring at them. Sir Charles breathed a sigh of relief as the wall separated him from the secret room.
'Shall I make arrangements, Sir?'
'Yes. It is now or never.'
Arkwright bowed and scraped. 'Leave everything to me, Sir Charles.' He almost walked backwards out of the room. Sir Charles was close to vomiting, but managed to hold back.
The next three days and nights rolled into one continuous nightmare of prods and pokes from Nurse Spindler, gossip from Sue Featherstone interspersed with her news of her upcoming college course, Barry Featherstone with his interminable mowing, clipping and sawing, and, once they had scurried away, the relentless and continuous visits from Arkwright and his distinguished team, who would take measurements of his head, discus the removal of his brain as if he wasn't even in the room, and then study the living specimen in the secret room. And all this time, Sir Charles would stare at the sterile whiteness of the ceiling, and wonder if it wouldn't be better in the long run to just slip quietly away.
'I've cancelled the nurse and the maid,' said Arkwright. 'I have had a tiny window of opportunity to gather the surgeons together. Everything is ready for two days time. I'll ask you one last time. Are you sure this is what you want to do?'
Sir Charles closed his eyes. Beneath the sheets, his palms itched for the feel of a young woman's breasts. He almost smiled to think the future of his world depended on the imaginary feel of apple sized mammary glands. But what the hell. The world needed him to say yes.
'Yes.'
He went through the daily rituals, the prodding and poking, the tests and the meals, but this time not by his maid or his nurse. Arkwright’s team were buzzing around like bees around a honey pot.
'Right,' said Arkwright. 'All set for the morning. Will you be okay until then?'
'I'm about to undergo one of the most significant medical operations mankind has ever undergone, and you ask if I'm okay? Put yourself in my place, you toady. Would you be ready?'
Arkwright didn't flinch at being called a toady. Toadies have no shame. 'If it meant I could live a normal, pain free life, then yes. I would also be ready.'
There was a moment of understanding between them. It was as if leech was sucking on leech. Sir Charles felt a fleeting second of compassion for the brilliant professor. That he was a revolting example of humanity could not be denied. In that ghastly minute, they both knew where they stood on the dung heap of mankind. Arkwright let himself out, followed by his team. Once again, Sir Charles lay in his motorised bed, waiting for destiny to shake his hand.
The following morning, three men and one woman drank coffee in the huge kitchen in Mouldypile Manor.
'I can't believe this day has finally come,' said the anaesthetist, Doctor Eva Dovely.
'Arkwright. Are you sure the money has gone through, because I for one won't even pick up a scalpel if....'
'Mr Foreman. I assure you we have all been paid. You should see your money in your account next time you look.'
'Mine was there when I looked this morning,' said Doctor Michael Vickers.
'See?' said Arkwright 'Nothing to worry about. Ten million pounds each secures our futures, whatever happens. Now. Shall we get this circus on the road?'
He led the way up the stairs to the bedroom. He knocked, but got no reply.
'Sir Charles sleeps a lot these days. In we go.'
They hardly got three paces into the sterile room, when they halted in horrified unison. On the bed, minus the top of his head was a very dead Sir Charles.
'My God. His brain is missing,' gasped Foreman.
'That's not the only thing missing,' said Dovely. 'Look.'
The secret wall was open and the tank was empty. Walking across the field at the rear of the house, a naked young man carried the brain in his hands, the blood dripping through his fingers.
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