Her smile widened as she answered, "I suppose I do, a bit."
His next question caught her rather off-guard. "Why?"
She blinked, her smile fading, and did not answer immediately. He seemed to take this as a refusal to answer, and said with genuine concern, "Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry."
She gave herself a mental shake, and assured him, "No, you said nothing wrong. I guess I just don't know what the answer is. I just... like to dress like this, I guess."
He seemed to consider this, and they stood for a time in silence, each waiting for the other to speak.
Alexis cleared her throat, and blurted out, "Kim told me to come see you."
His face lit up. "She did? Is she coming to see me?"
She dropped her gaze to the floor, biting her lip, and said, "I'm sorry, Edward. She's dead."
His face fell, and he took another step toward her. "How? When?"
Still not looking at him, she replied in a slightly shaky voice, "A week ago. She was old, Edward, very old, and... She went to sleep, and just... didn't wake up."
"You were her friend?"
Alexis looked up through a curtain of black hair. "I'm her granddaughter."
He reached toward her with his right hand, bringing his index "finger" to rest an inch from her right eye. Against her better judgment, she didn't back away. He carefully drew her black hair away from her eyes, and gazed intently into her face. At last he said, "She sent you to see me." It was not a question.
Alexis swallowed hard, one eye on the foot-long, razor sharp steel blade hovering dangerously close to her face, but pulled out the envelope, opened it, and took out the necklace. "She wanted you to have this."
The necklace glittered in the starlight as she held it out to him, the small gold heart shining against her slender, white fingers. The faintest of sad smiles brushed his bruise-colored lips, and he said, "Would you help me put it on, please?"
"Of... of course." Careful of his hands, she reached around the back of his neck and fastened the tiny gold clasp, holding the envelope in her teeth.
"Thank you," he said, close to her ear. She hastily backed away, pulling out the deed to the house.
"She also said to give you this- it's the deed to the house and grounds."
"Thank you."
"Umm...," she trailed off.
"It should be kept in the library," he said. "This way."
*
For the house of an inventor, the library/study was relatively small, but still managed to hold an impressive amount of clutter, mostly of the paperwork-books-and-random-printed-items variety. The amount of dust kicked up as they walked made Alexis indulge in a prolonged bout of sneezing.
Edward shuffled over to a desk (or what Alexis assumed was a desk; it was so cluttered it was hard to tell).
He tapped a drawer with his scissorhands. "This was where he kept things- the Important Things." Alexis could hear the capitol letters as he said it.
Alexis pulled the drawer open, releasing yet another cloud of thick white dust. Inside were a variety of yellowing envelopes and a black-bound notebook.
She slid the deed into the drawer and, on impulse, grabbed the notebook. She glanced sidelong at Edward, but he simply looked at her with mild, dark eyes, so she opened it to a random page and started reading. It was written in a thin, spidery hand, which read:
"-creation of an artificial man. I have researched for many years on this subject, and now I believe it is time to put theory into practice. My hope is to create something that not only has the appearance of a human being, but also the mind and, more importantly, the heart of one. I wish to create a kind soul with the capacity to truly love others."
She flipped through the rest of the pages, which seemed to consist primarily of complicated notes and an occasional conceptual sketch. Some of them were quite bizarre. The very last page was a pencil sketch of Edward, accurate to the last detail, save only that the face in the picture was smooth and unscarred.
Alexis glanced up at the real Edward. He was still patiently watching her, motionless as a statue of alabaster and ebony, except for the small, metallic clicks of his 'fingers'.
She frowned and turned back a few pages. Here was the design for his heart, for his brain, for his spinal cord, but here... the old man's detailed notes on how to make his hands. She skimmed a few of the pages. Difficult, very difficult. The sheer number of complicated joints and connections that would give a full range of motion and a sense of touch made her shake her head in wonder.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Your... father's notes," she replied distractedly, still reading. "It tells how he created you."
"Does it say how to finish me?"
"Yes," she said doubtfully, "But it's incredibly complicated. I mean, just look at this." She showed him a diagram of the steel "bones" that would make up his hands.
"Could you finish me?"
She closed the notebook with a snap, a refusal on her lips, and stopped short at the look on his face. For just a moment, she saw the world through his eyes. He was all alone, endless days and nights spent bereft of companionship or purpose, no friends, no family, no one to love or even to talk to. She shivered. "I can try."
*A month later...
"Why did I ever agree to this?" Alexis demanded of herself through gritted teeth, irritably crossing out what she had written.
She had been living at the mansion for a month now, having evicted a large extended family of rats from the study and made it into her own temporary quarters. Edward had insisted she come live in the mansion for the summer, and in the end, she had agreed. 'So here I am,' she thought grimly, 'Merrily sending myself mad trying to do the impossible.'
'Improbable,' she corrected, arguing with herself as she so often did. 'Merely improbable. Edward shouldn't exist, but he does, and he's as human as I am. So logically it would follow that this can be done. After all, if the Inventor can make people, I can make hands.'
'As human as I am?' another part of her mind demanded crossly as she slammed a heavy book shut. 'Emotionally and mentally, maybe, but I played enough Dungeons & Dragons as a kid to know a construct when I see one.'
'This isn't helping,' she told herself sternly. 'C'mon, you've nearly got it. Just a little more research and you'll be able to help Edward. Just open that next book, the answers you need are probably in there."
'Not to mention a good deal more about Edward's physiology than I really wanted to know,' she said to herself with grim good humor. 'At least I'll ace my human anatomy class next year, no doubt about that.'
She impatiently read a paragraph about the need for living things to have water, and how Edward was an exception to the rules. "At least that explains the state of the plumbing around here," she said aloud, rolling her eyes at the thought.
As the mansion had gone unheated since the Inventor died, most of the pipes had frozen and burst in the winter. One tap in the basement still worked, but the water was undrinkable, both because it tasted terrible and was the rich color of apple cider, and because it was carried to the house in genuine, old-fashioned lead pipes. A good deal of her not-for-use-at- school vocabulary did come to mind. She hated having to go to Suburbia to buy food, water, and other necessities.
She heard the quiet tap of metal on the wooden door and sprang up to open it, nearly knocking over her rickety wooden chair. Edward walked in, stepping cautiously over the piles of books and papers that littered the floor. "How are you doing?" he inquired.
"Could be worse," she said diplomatically. "Come see what I've been working on."
When he did not move after a short pause, she took him by the arm (carefully) and led him over to the desk where half a dozen papers lay spread out on its scratched surface. She pointed to each of them in turn, explaining, "This is the sketch for the bone structure- see how he labeled each one? He devoted twenty pages of writing to those! Very detailed and thorough, lucky for us. Here's a paper on the stuff he used for your skin. Quite the recipe. And this one is about your circulatory system, such as it is. I'm afraid I don't fully understand why he wanted you to bleed like a person would, but I understand the general theory- he wanted you to be as human as possible, I guess. And this-" she concluded, holding up a sheaf of yellowing papers- "is what's giving me trouble. This is what he wrote on your nervous system."
"What trouble?" he asked quietly, concerned.
"It's just odd, is all," she assured him. "It's difficult to set things up so you feel things in your hands the way people do. Things like heat and cold, or pain."
"I know what pain is," he said softly, "Kim's boyfriend hit me with something when we fought, across my shoulders. It hurt."
"I'm sorry if I sound patronizing," she said, afraid she had offended him.
"You don't. You are only trying to help me," he said simply.
"We'll get there," she said, sounding as confident as she could. "It won't be long now."
He nodded, then did something she saw all too rarely. He smiled. Despite his scars, he was weirdly beautiful.
His next question caught her rather off-guard. "Why?"
She blinked, her smile fading, and did not answer immediately. He seemed to take this as a refusal to answer, and said with genuine concern, "Did I say something wrong? I'm sorry."
She gave herself a mental shake, and assured him, "No, you said nothing wrong. I guess I just don't know what the answer is. I just... like to dress like this, I guess."
He seemed to consider this, and they stood for a time in silence, each waiting for the other to speak.
Alexis cleared her throat, and blurted out, "Kim told me to come see you."
His face lit up. "She did? Is she coming to see me?"
She dropped her gaze to the floor, biting her lip, and said, "I'm sorry, Edward. She's dead."
His face fell, and he took another step toward her. "How? When?"
Still not looking at him, she replied in a slightly shaky voice, "A week ago. She was old, Edward, very old, and... She went to sleep, and just... didn't wake up."
"You were her friend?"
Alexis looked up through a curtain of black hair. "I'm her granddaughter."
He reached toward her with his right hand, bringing his index "finger" to rest an inch from her right eye. Against her better judgment, she didn't back away. He carefully drew her black hair away from her eyes, and gazed intently into her face. At last he said, "She sent you to see me." It was not a question.
Alexis swallowed hard, one eye on the foot-long, razor sharp steel blade hovering dangerously close to her face, but pulled out the envelope, opened it, and took out the necklace. "She wanted you to have this."
The necklace glittered in the starlight as she held it out to him, the small gold heart shining against her slender, white fingers. The faintest of sad smiles brushed his bruise-colored lips, and he said, "Would you help me put it on, please?"
"Of... of course." Careful of his hands, she reached around the back of his neck and fastened the tiny gold clasp, holding the envelope in her teeth.
"Thank you," he said, close to her ear. She hastily backed away, pulling out the deed to the house.
"She also said to give you this- it's the deed to the house and grounds."
"Thank you."
"Umm...," she trailed off.
"It should be kept in the library," he said. "This way."
*
For the house of an inventor, the library/study was relatively small, but still managed to hold an impressive amount of clutter, mostly of the paperwork-books-and-random-printed-items variety. The amount of dust kicked up as they walked made Alexis indulge in a prolonged bout of sneezing.
Edward shuffled over to a desk (or what Alexis assumed was a desk; it was so cluttered it was hard to tell).
He tapped a drawer with his scissorhands. "This was where he kept things- the Important Things." Alexis could hear the capitol letters as he said it.
Alexis pulled the drawer open, releasing yet another cloud of thick white dust. Inside were a variety of yellowing envelopes and a black-bound notebook.
She slid the deed into the drawer and, on impulse, grabbed the notebook. She glanced sidelong at Edward, but he simply looked at her with mild, dark eyes, so she opened it to a random page and started reading. It was written in a thin, spidery hand, which read:
"-creation of an artificial man. I have researched for many years on this subject, and now I believe it is time to put theory into practice. My hope is to create something that not only has the appearance of a human being, but also the mind and, more importantly, the heart of one. I wish to create a kind soul with the capacity to truly love others."
She flipped through the rest of the pages, which seemed to consist primarily of complicated notes and an occasional conceptual sketch. Some of them were quite bizarre. The very last page was a pencil sketch of Edward, accurate to the last detail, save only that the face in the picture was smooth and unscarred.
Alexis glanced up at the real Edward. He was still patiently watching her, motionless as a statue of alabaster and ebony, except for the small, metallic clicks of his 'fingers'.
She frowned and turned back a few pages. Here was the design for his heart, for his brain, for his spinal cord, but here... the old man's detailed notes on how to make his hands. She skimmed a few of the pages. Difficult, very difficult. The sheer number of complicated joints and connections that would give a full range of motion and a sense of touch made her shake her head in wonder.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Your... father's notes," she replied distractedly, still reading. "It tells how he created you."
"Does it say how to finish me?"
"Yes," she said doubtfully, "But it's incredibly complicated. I mean, just look at this." She showed him a diagram of the steel "bones" that would make up his hands.
"Could you finish me?"
She closed the notebook with a snap, a refusal on her lips, and stopped short at the look on his face. For just a moment, she saw the world through his eyes. He was all alone, endless days and nights spent bereft of companionship or purpose, no friends, no family, no one to love or even to talk to. She shivered. "I can try."
*A month later...
"Why did I ever agree to this?" Alexis demanded of herself through gritted teeth, irritably crossing out what she had written.
She had been living at the mansion for a month now, having evicted a large extended family of rats from the study and made it into her own temporary quarters. Edward had insisted she come live in the mansion for the summer, and in the end, she had agreed. 'So here I am,' she thought grimly, 'Merrily sending myself mad trying to do the impossible.'
'Improbable,' she corrected, arguing with herself as she so often did. 'Merely improbable. Edward shouldn't exist, but he does, and he's as human as I am. So logically it would follow that this can be done. After all, if the Inventor can make people, I can make hands.'
'As human as I am?' another part of her mind demanded crossly as she slammed a heavy book shut. 'Emotionally and mentally, maybe, but I played enough Dungeons & Dragons as a kid to know a construct when I see one.'
'This isn't helping,' she told herself sternly. 'C'mon, you've nearly got it. Just a little more research and you'll be able to help Edward. Just open that next book, the answers you need are probably in there."
'Not to mention a good deal more about Edward's physiology than I really wanted to know,' she said to herself with grim good humor. 'At least I'll ace my human anatomy class next year, no doubt about that.'
She impatiently read a paragraph about the need for living things to have water, and how Edward was an exception to the rules. "At least that explains the state of the plumbing around here," she said aloud, rolling her eyes at the thought.
As the mansion had gone unheated since the Inventor died, most of the pipes had frozen and burst in the winter. One tap in the basement still worked, but the water was undrinkable, both because it tasted terrible and was the rich color of apple cider, and because it was carried to the house in genuine, old-fashioned lead pipes. A good deal of her not-for-use-at- school vocabulary did come to mind. She hated having to go to Suburbia to buy food, water, and other necessities.
She heard the quiet tap of metal on the wooden door and sprang up to open it, nearly knocking over her rickety wooden chair. Edward walked in, stepping cautiously over the piles of books and papers that littered the floor. "How are you doing?" he inquired.
"Could be worse," she said diplomatically. "Come see what I've been working on."
When he did not move after a short pause, she took him by the arm (carefully) and led him over to the desk where half a dozen papers lay spread out on its scratched surface. She pointed to each of them in turn, explaining, "This is the sketch for the bone structure- see how he labeled each one? He devoted twenty pages of writing to those! Very detailed and thorough, lucky for us. Here's a paper on the stuff he used for your skin. Quite the recipe. And this one is about your circulatory system, such as it is. I'm afraid I don't fully understand why he wanted you to bleed like a person would, but I understand the general theory- he wanted you to be as human as possible, I guess. And this-" she concluded, holding up a sheaf of yellowing papers- "is what's giving me trouble. This is what he wrote on your nervous system."
"What trouble?" he asked quietly, concerned.
"It's just odd, is all," she assured him. "It's difficult to set things up so you feel things in your hands the way people do. Things like heat and cold, or pain."
"I know what pain is," he said softly, "Kim's boyfriend hit me with something when we fought, across my shoulders. It hurt."
"I'm sorry if I sound patronizing," she said, afraid she had offended him.
"You don't. You are only trying to help me," he said simply.
"We'll get there," she said, sounding as confident as she could. "It won't be long now."
He nodded, then did something she saw all too rarely. He smiled. Despite his scars, he was weirdly beautiful.
