Hello, everyone. So. I haven't been updating my fics on here because of reasons (they're lame reasons, don't worry about it) for the past six months, but I'm going to try and catch up with everything. I won't be able to do it all at once, but I'll be doing my best. To see all the chapters I've added to multichapter fics, just keep going until you don't see this message at the top of the chapter anymore. Sorry about this!
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Vlad dozed in his chair.
It wasn't the first all-nighter he'd pulled in his basement lab, and he doubted it would be the last. There had been more of them since he'd begun this latest project. Each time it seemed like the project was over, like this time he might have some success, he just couldn't leave.
This time was no different.
Oh, like all of the trials thus far, there were issues with this particular batch. But there were some promising numbers this time. The core complexity had increased much more quickly than his last attempts, and the stability numbers were much higher. It was too bad he hadn't been able to get detailed readings from Daniel to compare, but if that ship wasn't long since sailed, he wouldn't have started this project to begin with, would he?
The alarm he'd set blared, startling him badly enough that he phased through his chair, showing an embarrassing lack of control. But who was here to see it? The failures? They didn't have enough of a mind between them to tell when he'd done something embarrassing.
He brushed himself off and straightened his lab coat - he, unlike Jack, actually cared about lab safety and contamination protocol - and hurried to the tanks.
At the moment, only two of them were full. Glowing green ectoplasm filled both, with dense, spiderweb-like strands hanging throughout it. They pulsed with energy around the core-kernal in the center. Both tanks were also seeded generously with stem cells cloned from Daniel.
It was the only way Vlad had been able to get any success at making half ghosts, although it had a high rate of failure. The three still-extant failures were the exception, not the rule. Most of them failed to coalesce, and almost all of the rest collapsed back into ectoplasm in hours, if not minutes.
But the monitors on the left tank were screaming that a ghost was about - for lack of a better word - to be born.
Vlad watched, every nerve burning in anticipation. It was almost enough to make a man pray.
The ectoplasm pulsed, contracted, the spiderweb strands folding them together into a humanoid shape. Even better: an intact humanoid shape. Eyes, head, arms, legs, hands, it was all there. A little on the small side, but Vlad could live with that, if only it gave him the son he craved.
A blinding light flared behind the glass, and Vlad smashed the release button. A thin ectoplasm-water soup, largely depleted of useful elements, poured out, followed by a slender body. Vlad caught it. White hair - long, but it could be cut. Tan skin - the shade was an exact match. Proportions tended towards childish, but that was all to the good. And-
Ah. Of course, even at this juncture, he couldn't have a success. This body was female. Still, it was a step in the right direction. He could study it, see what had worked, what hadn't.
The alarms on the other tank started to blare, and Vlad put the failed clone down. The ectoplasm in the other pod underwent a similar process, but it refused to open when Vlad hit the release. The stability numbers were too low.
But... inside, behind the glass...
If Vlad didn't know better, Vlad would say that was Daniel.
He licked his lips. He had to stabilize him, somehow.
He turned back to his equipment, and the female clone caught his eye. With a disgruntled and annoyed sigh, he shrugged out of his lab coat and draped it over it. Her. Whatever. She'd wake up soon enough.