Eve

By Andrew Miller

Mad scientist or brilliant artist? Dr. Manny Loewe makes history by creating, Eve, the world’s first ever living humanoid with real DNA. His joy in creating her is matched only by her voluptuous physical beauty and her enormous capacity for love. Yet it is these very features that ultimately bring her to the edge of ruin, and him to a shocking resolution. There was always much more at stake than she could ever have imagined.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365064777

Andrew Miller

ANDREW MILLER is an operations expert whose clients include the Bank of Nova Scotia, McKesson Canada, 3M Canada, Mount Sinai Hospital, and other world-class institutions. Before starting his firm in 2006, he held senior consulting positions with IBM Business Consulting Services and PricewaterhouseCoopers Consulting.

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Eve

Eve

Andrew Miller

© Andrew Miller, 2016. Unauthorised use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Andrew Miller with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. For further use, Andrew can be contacted at [e-mail]

ISBN #: 978-1-365-06477-7

For Daryl

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

Psalm 139:14

1.

Manny fell in love with her while working on her back teeth.  Somehow it was there he found perfection.  Not in the cheekbones, not in the hands, not in the breasts.  It was in the detail.  It was in her hidden recesses, not the extraneous.  Not that her external features lacked beauty.  They didn’t.  They were exquisite.  Absolutely glorious!  There was no doubting that.  But he seemed to find more pleasure and a higher perfection in her specifics.

The gums were a specific of perfect consistency and colour and the way they moulded around the enamel, embracing and supporting it, so delicate yet so strong, was beautiful.  The back teeth themselves were modelled on the Taurus Mountains in southern Turkey, not that anyone could probably ever know or appreciate such artistry.  He remembered his time trekking there all too well.  They spent the night at the last climbing station with numerous other souls, including - incredibly - one poorly counselled woman who was seven months pregnant.  Well, as timing would have it, in the middle of the night, she went into labour.  She starts writhing in pain and her friends start asking if anyone is a doctor.  Michael’s a doctor, he had gladly pointed out to them.  Michael, his climbing buddy, looked sheepish and evasive.  No, no…well yes, I am but… 

He’ll help! Manny offered enthusiastically.

Oh, thank you!  Thank you! they cried, ushering him toward the woman.  Seven hours later, the daylight revealed one exhausted but delighted young mother, a healthy baby girl and one completely frazzled doctor.

When do you want me to tell them you’re a doctor of economics? Manny asked.

I hate you, was all Michael could reply.

For Manny, these visions came back to him not just as hilarious memories but as inspirations for his work.  Joy-infused creativity.  Teeth, gums, Taurus, Michael: laughter.  It was beautiful.  At times he found himself laughing so hard he could barely keep his hands steady as he worked.  But the whole undertaking was a sheer delight.  Not at all unlike the process of working on her hair. 

Hair is intriguing stuff.  Living but not alive.  Common but unique at the same time.  Strong but soft.  And hers was something really quite fabulous: strong but extra silky, modelled on the silk he came across in the Imperial courts of China many years ago on a trip with Gabby and Archie.  Gabby had no idea that the mulberry leaves were there for the silkworms.  All he could see were the mulberries and assumed that they’d been left for visitors to enjoy.  When they caught him walking around with a number of small branches in his hand it was too late.  Mulberry juice stains the corners of the mouth terribly so there was just no denying his guilt.  The three of them were led away by the captain of the guard who without explanation left them under the authority of a young recruit who assumed the three gentlemen were VIPs.  He presented each of them with a silk gown and a bag of mulberries and escorted them proudly to the exit where he worked overtime bowing to them till they were out of sight. 

Manny wears his gown to this day yet not without breaking into cackles.  And the feel of its silk is a measure of both the brilliance of her hair and of his own artistry.  He would feel her locks from time to time between other works and enjoy letting them run through his fingers, brushing and tickling them.  It was such gorgeous hair.  He really was so pleased with it.  Jet black and wavy, tumbling lush over the shoulders; it was perfect.  And from time to time he would just stand back and admire it.

Occasionally Stan would catch him at it.  You’re weird.  You know that, don’t you? Manny would only smile.  The world’s most elaborate companion.  Manny would say nothing but there were times when even his closest friend could cross the line.  You don’t ever think that your brilliance is tipping you over the edge? he softened.  Manny would study her hair, or fingernails or eyes.  No, he would say.  Then smile a little.  No. 

But it wasn’t hard to see why he would have his critics.  His accusers.  His abusers.  After all, he had been to her most intimate places and her most hidden.  Worked on them, woven them, wondered over them.  Few would understand either the awe or the joy with which he did this.  Even her hollows were filled with waggish memories.  The late winter mornings on the family farm outside Dunedin when the sheep went into labour.  They would sometimes need help with the delivery.  His hands were freezing cold but the ewe was so warm inside.  He loved feeling the warmth thaw his frozen fingers but his icy touch sure made the poor animal kick and bleat horribly.  They all thought it was hysterical.

Every one of her features was designed with the same evocation and longing and thrill.  The arches of her feet were modelled on the very Wave Rock in the Northern Territory that Manny had photographed himself body surfing on.  Her lips were sculptured around the lines of the autumn leaves of Kyoto which he had told Simon were perfectly edible.  Puns fully intended and appreciated, her breasts really were modelled on melons - varieties of the honeydew which Manny and Gabby had enjoyed in the States.  And her voice was orchestrated from the songbirds of Australia - a fusion of warbling magpie, cooing spotted turtle dove and trilling fairy-wren.  (The magpie was the most memorable of the three for him, having relieved itself just as he was basking in the sun under the branch.  Yawning, he copped it right in the back of the throat.  Never before had he experienced choking and laughing at the same time with such intensity.)  And these memories would all come back to him as he worked, at times causing him to laugh so hard the tears would roll down his cheeks and he’d have to collect himself before continuing.  Never had his work been such a source of delight and a product of joy.

Perhaps the thing that really set her apart from the other pretenders though was her skin.  Far removed from the nasty plastics and the ultra-high tech synthetics of lesser creations, her skin was real, living human flesh.  Abstracted from a pool of rich human DNA and genetically morphed into one, her skin grew as a self-replenishing organ.  It had not only a beautiful light mocha tone, but a flawless complexion and a perfectly balanced and natural texture.  It was completely indistinguishable from any other human skin except that it was, perhaps, impossibly gorgeous.

Yet if there were any physical feature more alluring than her skin, it would be her eyes.  These, too, were not complex synthetic structures or programs.  They were products of the miraculous.  Grafted and grown from living human tissue, they were fully functioning eyes, free of blemishes or weaknesses.  A deep, rich brown, they sat in soft, almond-shaped sockets under full lids and lush lashes.  And to Manny at least, they were absolutely captivating.

But these were just her physiognomical properties.

The real artistry, the real magic, lay within.  The glory of Manny’s empire lay in her essence.  She had what Manny referred to as the three B’s.  The first of these was that she would be able to Breathe.  She had functioning lungs which would power what was, in effect, her whole respiratory system.  The second was that she could Bleed.  That is, she had a functioning heart that powered what for all intents and purposes was a cardiovascular system.  She also had functioning digestive, muscular and nervous systems.  In effect, she could eat, drink, speak, spit, fart, feel pain, be tickled, laugh, cry, bleed, get dirty and wash, get injured and heal, get tired and sleep.  There was little to distinguish her from any regular human being. 

But it was the third ‘B’ that was Manny’s pièce de résistance.  Already the detail and living nature of her external physical appearance had set Manny far apart from anyone else.  And if there were any doubt at all as to that, the first two B’s inside her would lay that to rest.  No-one had ever seriously conceived let alone created a Breathing, Bleeding being with such fully functioning interactive systems.  And certainly not without an entire team of experts falling over each other.  But the thing that set Manny in his own universe, the thing that put him in the demi-god status, was her third ‘B’.  And now that it had been achieved, it still somehow seemed unimaginable, unfathomable.  Unbelievable. 

She could Believe.  Her neurological capacities were so advanced that it left poor artificial intelligence floundering in the dust.  While others were still trying to make basic A.I. work, Manny had already left it way behind.  Her coalescence of neurological cloning and software programming was so advanced - and this is where Manny’s genius was unparalleled - that she had in every way, free will.  Not a program that allowed for a near-infinite number of choices to be made but actual free will.  She was able to imagine and conceive things that she had never been taught or seen or even suggested to her.  She had a basic operating system of lawfulness but had the free will to override her own programming.  And because she had such over-riding free will, it meant she had the capacity for the greatest of all qualities, the one that was both the essence and desire of Manny: love.

~

It was mid-morning on a Tuesday when she was finally complete.  The others in the lab gathered around.  There was Stan, of course, his endearing, blonde American colleague and closest friend.  Stan was absolutely in awe of Manny and not a little intimidated by his surpassing brilliance.  Beside him stood Vivienne, a makeup-averse researcher from Spain who felt that Manny’s project, while undeniably brilliant, was also somewhat weird and humiliating to women.  Ami, a local, was Vivienne’s alter-ego, as frilly and cutesy as she was studious and clever.  An anime fan to the core, while Vivienne spent her weekends at animal rights meetings, Ami would be fully immersed in cosplay conventions.  So it was no surprise to anyone that she found Manny’s project wholly intoxicating.  Entranced by the presentation before him and softly bouncing his belly into the corner of a lab table was the remaining member of their department, Nanda, a small, neurotic Sri Lankan who spent almost his entire existence under artificial light, usually right there in the lab, but occasionally at a late night cafe or in his dorm room on the rare occasions he decided to actually sleep.  It wasn’t lost on any of them that in Japanese his name meant ‘What?’

In front of them all, before Manny, sat resplendently an old man with snow white hair and a long white goatee.  His face was leathery and lined but wise and kind at the same time.  He carried an air of majestic peace about him.  Though close to him in every way, none of the others dared stand too near.  He had been at the university forever and he wore a magnificent purple happi coat that bore all the marks and kamon of his honours and heritage.  His given name was Hidemasa and he was both the Chancellor of the University and the Professor who oversaw everything they did.  Most professors just liked to be called Professor.  Some preferred "Professor family name.  But Hidemasa was unique in that he just liked to be called Hidemasa.  There was a familiarity and intimacy in this that at once unnerved those before Him and privileged them.  Hidemasa, he would say.  Just call me Hidemasa.  Hi-de-ma-sa.  Hidemasa. Hidemasa."  It seemed to more than one of them that he just really liked the sound of his own name, like it was the very essence of the famed bushido spirit, like it was the fear and wonder of his name that kept the department alive and funded and functioning.

From the beginning Hidemasa had seen in Manny a capacity that he had never seen in any researcher before.  As Head of Kyoto University and overseer of the university’s Department of Life Sciences, he had seen his share of brilliance over the years, but this young man from the South Island of New Zealand was in a whole other league.  He was capable of achieving on his own in a relatively short time what would normally take a team of dedicated specialists decades.  And he made it look easy.  He was prodigiously rounded as an intellectual.  It was as though one field of expertise was simply not capable of satisfying him.  That was the academics.  But the thing that really intrigued the old man was Manny’s wholeness.  He wasn’t nerdy or antisocial like so many that shuffled pigeon-toed through these corridors.  He was musically gifted.  He was a voracious sportsman.  And he was funny.  He had an intoxicating way about him that saw the humour in the precarious and the silliness in seriousness.  The old man was taken by all this and gave Manny whatever license he desired to push all boundaries.  And today was the culmination of that latitude.

Sir, Manny began, addressing Hidemasa.  My esteemed colleagues.  They acknowledged him.  Stan.  Vivienne chuckled.  May I present to you the first ever living humanoid created from a synthesis of human DNA and technology.  The two ladies were breathless; Nanda bounced his