Galaxy 1001D presents:

Washustein; or the Modern Mad Scientist

Starring Washu Hakubi as Doctor Washu Fitzgerald von Washustein

Tenchi Masaki as Tenchi Mancini

Mihoshi Kuramitsu as Mihoshi Gerstell

Aeka Masaki Jurai as Ayeka Jurai

Sasami Masaki Jurai as Sasami Jurai

And Ryoko as the Monster-woman

Tenchi Muyo and all related characters are © AIC/Pioneer/Genon/Funimation. This story is written solely for entertainment and is not intended to make a profit in any way.

Based on "Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus" created by Mary Shelly

And "Tenchi Muyo" created by Masaki Kajishima

Chapter Ten: Throw the Switch!

"Mihoshi, get in here!" Washu bellowed from her basement lab.

"Coming, Master!" Mihoshi dutifully answered.

"Mistress, you idiot!" Washu growled.

"Oops," the blonde cowered as she entered the lab. "Sorry Master, it won't happen again."

"Urg!" the redhead snarled, a vein bulging on her forehead. "You have got to be the most… Never mind! Bring Baby Washustein in here! I'm nearly ready to copy and transfer my brainwaves over to Eve."

"Ryoko," Mihoshi corrected.

"EVE!" Washu roared. "Eve you idiot! And I am a 'mistress' not a 'master'! Is that too hard for a pinhead like you to understand?"

"Oh no!" Mihoshi smiled. "Even a pinhead like me can get it, master. I'll go get little Ryoko…"

"Eve!"

"Oops," the blonde blushed. "Sorry master. I won't call her 'Ryoko' again." She walked over to the doorway and shouted out of it. "Hey Ryoko! Would you come in here please! Oh Ryoko! Your mother wants you!"

"Erg…!" Washu growled as she put her hand on her aching forehead. "The last week has been impossible! Seven hours of work has taken us seven days! We can't get anything done because we have to stop everything to take care of that overgrown infant!"

"Well taking care of a baby is a full time job you know," Mihoshi said in an understanding tone. "It's hard being a single mother. It doesn't really leave a lot of time for other things."

"If I have to change another diaper I'll cut my nose off!" Washu grumbled. "And that girl is so selfish! She acts like it's all about her!"

"Well of course she does," Mihoshi shrugged. "I mean, she may look like a full-grown woman, but she's just a baby. She really can't take care of herself you know."

"And it seems like every day she wants food-food-food!" Washu continued. "She acts like I gotta feed her three times a day or something!"

"Well three times a day is normal," Mihoshi suggested gently.

"But the more she eats the more she poops!" Washu sniveled. "I don't know how much more I can take!"

"It's not so bad," the blonde said in a cheerful tone. "She really doesn't dirty that many diapers you know."

"That's because she doesn't like wearing 'em!" Washu shuddered. "Most of the time she just leaves her little buried treasures behind the furniture! I just can't stand it anymore! The sooner that girl grows up, the better!"

Upstairs, Ryoko had found her creator's art supplies. After checking to see if the paints were edible, she discovered the purpose for the strange dyes. It wasn't long before she was finger painting on the kitchen floor. She created three little stick figures. The tallest one she gave legs and a black dot for a head. To the middle one she gave a purple circle for a head. Instead of legs she made a crude triangle at the bottom of the figure. The shortest figure had a triangle for legs and a blue head. As an afterthought she painted two curvy lines out of the blue circle representing the head. Next to it she painted a tiny brown blob with two short straight lines coming out of it.

Ryoko stared at her creations and whined. "Ten… chi…" she sniveled as she put her paint stained fingers on the stick figures she painted. "Ee kuh… Sauce me… Ree oh kee…" A tear trickled out of her golden eye.

"Oh Ryoko!" Mihoshi's voice called. "Where are you…? Your mother needs you… right now…"

Scampering about on all fours, Ryoko followed Mihoshi's voice. Mihoshi's voice usually meant food, hugs or a clean nightgown to wear.

"Eve, where are you?" Washu shouted.

Ryoko scooted to a stop and looked for a place to hide. Washu's voice usually meant spanking, confinement, or probing in sensitive places.

"Oh… Ryoko, there you are!" Mihoshi smiled. "Come over here, will you? Your mother needs to see you."

Soon Mihoshi was dragging a struggling Ryoko into the lab. The blonde domestic had the feral woman by the feet as Ryoko's hands were clawing at the floor trying to find a handhold.

"Here she… unh, …is master!" Mihoshi grunted as she put her legs against the doorframe and pulled to get Ryoko inside. "Just like you ordered!"

"Good, strap her down in that chair there," Washu ordered.

"Oh… hunh, …kay master, you can count on me!" Mihoshi nodded as she dragged Ryoko over to a large chair covered with leather straps.

"Mistress, you moron!" the mad doctor growled.

"Oops! Sorry master! Won't happen again!" Mihoshi said as she tried to get Ryoko to sit in the chair. "Now hold still, Ryoko! I'll give you a piece of candy if you hold still all right?" The blonde pulled out a candy cane and waved it enticingly before the cyan haired woman. "It's peppermint, isn't it just delicious? Now if you just sit still I'm going to give it to you all right?"

She handed the confectionary to the golden-eyed girl, who sniffed it suspiciously. Ryoko sniffed it, shook it to see if it would rattle, then stuck one end of the candy cane in her mouth.

"Oh… kay…" Mihoshi cooed as she strapped the feral girl into her chair. "You just sit tight and enjoy your candy while your mother and I do grownup work, okay? I'll just strap you in so you don't run off 'till we're done!"

"Excellent Mihoshi," Washu rubbed her hands together sinisterly. "Soon my plan will be completed!"

"Um, what exactly is your plan, anyway Doctor Washustein?" asked the befuddled blonde.

"It's simple, really," the redhead replied. She pointed up. "You see the apparatus above the two chairs?"

Mihoshi looked up at the strange machinery above the two chairs in the center of the lab. "Yeah, it looks like two silver bowls are hanging upside-down above the seats."

"Those are special helmets of my own invention," Washu smiled. "The one on the right records the neural engrams of the brain, while the one of the left that Eve is sitting under implants the engrams into the brain! In this way I'll be able to record my mind data and implant it into baby Washustein. Am I a genius or what?"

Washu's two homunculi appeared on her shoulders. "You are a genius Washu!" the one on her right shoulder with the letter 'A' on its blouse proclaimed.

"You are the greatest!" the one on her left shoulder with the letter 'B' on its blouse agreed.

"Oh those little guys are so cute!" Mihoshi reached out to touch them.

"Hey! Hands off!" Washu sneered as her two doll-like familiars disappeared into her cascading crimson ponytail. "Get your mind back on the job! Do you understand what we're doing?"

"Not really," Mihoshi admitted. "It sounds as if you want to transfer your mind from one body to another."

Washu's eyes opened in surprise. "What a great idea!" she gushed. "Why didn't I think of that? No, I'm only going to make a copy of my mind data. That way my creation will be able to do basic things like talk, walk, and care for herself. Hopefully she will be able to read and write as well!"

The blonde maid frowned in thought. "Hm," she mused. "If you put a copy of your mind into her brain, won't she be exactly like you? I mean, she'll think her name is Washu von Washustein won't she? Then there will be two of you!"

"I wish," Washu grumbled. "If I could transfer such an exact copy, I really would be able to transfer one mind into another body. No, the imprint of my mind data that will be transferred won't be anywhere near so precise. The problem is that the mental patterns of recipient always mess up the information sent from one brain to another."

"'Always mess up?'" Mihoshi repeated. "Uh… Washu? Do you mean that you've done this before?"

"Of course," Washu shrugged. "Otherwise I would have to design and build the equipment from scratch, and not just assemble it. I've performed dozens of experiments with… near success."

"'Near success?'" Mihoshi paled. "What do you mean by that?"

"Oh uh…" Washu blushed and looked away. "Back in Switzerland I left behind about fifty people who stand in a corner and do nothing but…" the demented redhead stuck out her tongue and clapped her hands while making rude sounds known as 'the raspberry.'

"Uh, not to pass judgment or anything but how is that going to help?" Mihoshi asked. "I mean we'd still need to clean her diapers and everything…"

"What went wrong in those cases is that when the new data mixed with the old they just turned all the information in the brain into complete gibberish," Washu clarified. "When my mental engrams enter Baby Washustein's cranium, there shouldn't be that much distortion. She's only been around a week, y'know."

"Oh I see," Mihoshi put her thumb and forefinger to her chin as she nodded.

"Her brain is mostly empty and since I used my own ovum to create her the similarity in our brain structure should increase the chances of success!" Washu paused to curb her enthusiasm and study her assistant. "You don't get it do you?"

"Uh…" Mihoshi made a sniveling sound, since she really wanted to appear that she understood.

"Get out of my way," Washu sighed as she made her way to a bulky platform with levers on top and cables snaking out of the front to connect to various machinery. "Okay, I managed to charge the batteries during last week's lightning storm so they should be charged for at least one attempt…"

"Batteries?" Mihoshi asked.

"Yeah," Washu shrugged. "Benjamin Franklin coined the term because it takes so many of them to hold any kind of charge that you need a whole bunch of them, like a battery of cannons, get it?" The petite redhead pointed to a collection of bulky copper pots that were sealed at the top and had metal cables attached to knobs on the lids. "They work by converting chemical energy into electrical power, but the science is still new. Although Luigi Galvani first discovered electrochemical power while dissecting frogs it was Alessandro Volta who first invented the electrochemical cell. Last year John Daniell managed to eliminate the hydrogen bubble problem by… wait a minute, you aren't following any of this, are you?"

"Not really," Mihoshi said quietly as she put her hands together and bowed her head in shame.

"Look all you gotta know is that the information will be transferred by an electrical process…" Washu stopped as she searched for a simpler way to explain it to her terribly uneducated assistant. "Look, we're getting the power from those copper pots with the copper cables attached to them, okay? You'll notice that I wrapped the cables in rubber and surgical gauze to insulate them, but whatever you do, don't touch them or you'll probably electrocute yourself, all right?"

"Rubber?" Mihoshi scratched her head. "You mean the stuff they make erasers out of?"

"Yeah, it's surprisingly nonconductive," Washu smiled. "Talk about dumb luck, huh? Who knew it could be used to insulate electrical wiring?"

"Yeah," Mihoshi gave an embarrassed laugh as she tried to pretend that she had the slightest idea of what Washu was talking about. "Who knew?"

"That's just it," Washu crowed. "Nobody knew until I discovered it! This will take experiments in electrical power to the next level! We may be able to find more practical applications of such energy!"

Once again Washu's little plush effigies appeared at her shoulders to congratulate her.

"You are the greatest, Washu!" the one on her right shoulder with the letter 'A' on its blouse cheered.

"You've really outdone yourself this time!" the one on her left shoulder with the letter 'B' on its blouse added.

"Oh they are so cute!" Mihoshi again reached out to embrace them.

"Knock it off!" Washu slapped the blonde's hands away as her two doll-sized cheerleaders disappeared once more. "Now pay attention! I've got to be in that chair on the right when the circuit is completed and we probably only got one try at this, so don't mess it up, got it?"

"Oh yes," Mihoshi nodded dutifully. "Got it."

Washu gave her assistant a hard look as if checking to see if the dizzy blonde truly understood. "Okay," she said finally. "I'm going to throw the switch with the green lever and go sit down in the chair. When the chime goes off, I need you to throw the switch with the red lever, and then throw the switch with the black lever, do you understand me?"

"Okay…" Mihoshi frowned in concentration. "You throw the switch with the green lever, and I throw the switch with the black lever…"

"The red lever!"

"Right… right… the red lever," Mihoshi squinted as she tried to remember. "And then I throw the green lever…"

"The black lever you idiot!"

"Right… the black lever after I throw the red lever," Mihoshi nodded to herself. "Right. Should be easy-peasie."

"Urg," Washu grimaced in disgust. "Just don't mess up." She threw the green lever and walked over to the empty chair under the apparatus on the ceiling. "Okay, the capacitors should be charging up…" a soft chime was heard from the control panel. "Okay, it went off! It's time! Throw the switch, Mihoshi! Throw the switch!"

"Yes… master…" Mihoshi muttered sinisterly as she bent over strangely.

"Will you get your head out of your ass?" Washu snapped. "Throw the switch you idiot!"

"Sorry master! Sorry!" Mihoshi squeaked as she stood up straight again. "Just getting into character!"

"Throw the red switch before I eviscerate you!" Washu growled.

"Okay… okay…" nodded the flustered blonde. "I throw this switch here…"

"Not that one, you idiot, the other one!" Washu screeched. "The red one, you idiot! Don't you know red from green?"

"I throw the red lever here," Mihoshi muttered as she pulled the lever. Above the two chairs, the two silvery helmets lowered to reveal that their tops were laced with copper wiring.

"Okay," Washu said as she straightened out her helmet. "Check to see that the one on Baby Washustein is secure!"

Mihoshi dutifully walked over to Ryoko, who was startled by the electric crackling and the Jacob's ladders on the bulky machines in the lab. "Got it!" Mihoshi called out as she pressed the helmet down on Ryoko's head. "Got it! The helmet is on and secure!"

"Okay!" Washu shouted over the noisy machines that churned to life in the room. "Go ahead and throw the switch! The black one! Throw the switch, Mihoshi! Do it now!"

"Yesss… master!" Mihoshi hissed with a wacky grimace on her face before she pulled on the black lever with both hands. "It's kind of… stuck!"

"Hey! Be careful!" Washu warned her. "Don't knock anything loose or…"

At that moment Mihoshi threw the lever. "Yaaaaaaaah!" Washu screamed as cerulean forks of lightning danced over her cranium. For a brief moment her skull was visable.

"Aaaaaaah!" Ryoko screamed as her helmet electrocuted her too.

"Eeeeeeeeee!" Mihoshi screamed in horror as the electrical machines gave a terrific pyrotechnic display. "Oh my! What do I do? What do I do?"

An explosion hurled Washu and Ryoko out of their chairs.

Next: They Grow Up So Fast