Finish-a-Thon = Finished!
This is my story for the finish-a-thon, in which the popular vote resulted in me being induced to flesh out the plot bunny I described thusly: "You know that, um, thing that the Doctor lost on top of the spaceship in 'The Christmas Invasion?' This is the story of what happens to it." I'm not sure this is quite what I (very vaguely) expected to write when I came up with that idea, but it definitely fits the bill. So:
Title: "First-Hand Knowledge"
Author: AstroGirl
Fandom: Doctor Who
Length: About 4,500 words.
Rating/Warnings: Rated at most a PG for, uh, I dunno, one mild swearword and maybe the very slightly creepy existence of the abovementioned "thing." Contains spoilers for "The Christmas Invasion." Any connection with Torchwood canon, however, is purely coincidental. I wrote this, completely unspoiled, before the show ever aired, and I haven't changed one word of it since. I swear!
Author's Notes: Many thanks to vilakins and wychwood for useful and reassuring beta-age.
First-Hand Knowledge
25 December
What an amazing, amazing day! At the risk of sounding egotistical, I feel a certain amount of personal vindication. I've been talking for years about the potential of advanced technologies, about the fact that alien races have almost certainly harnessed such technology for interstellar spaceflight, about the apparent evidence that Earth has been visited by such advanced creatures before... But very few people have ever taken me seriously on the subject, no matter how solid my credentials as a scientist, and I essentially gave up hope when the world somehow managed to convince itself that the alien spaceship that crashed into Big Ben was some kind of hoax. But this... This is surely impossible to deny! Of course, it's unfortunate that they weren't friendly aliens, but given that they failed in their aims, I think it's perfectly justified to feel excited about the confirmation of their existence.
One downside, however: due to the crisis, most of the streets have been closed. I'm not sure why. Perhaps they're worried about falling spaceship debris. Although, given the fineness of the ash currently falling on the city, it seems sadly unlikely that anything large enough to study will have survived. (I don't know how people have been mistaking that ash for snow, by the way. One hardly needs a spectrograph to tell the difference!)
In any case, I have been unable to get to the lab, making this the first day in five years I haven't spent at least part of the day there. This is really quite distressing... I had several fairly delicate experiments in progress which should be checked on, and it's important for the rats to be fed on a regular schedule.
26 December
Things seem to be slowly returning to normal. Or at least the streets are open again, which is good enough for me. Fortunately, everything seems to have survived reasonably well in my absence, although one or two minor experiments will need to be redone.
If there was any decent-sized debris from the ship, on the streets or elsewhere, the government appears to be covering it up, which does not surprise me in the slightest.
One odd thing did happen today. Little Billy from across the street knocked on my door as soon as I returned from the lab, very excited, and told me he'd found something he thought I should have. I expected him to bring out a fossil of some kind, or perhaps an oddly shaped stone -- children always seem to imagine such things have genuine scientific value, merely because they've seen nothing like them before -- but instead he dashed home and returned with a small picnic cooler. Inside, nestled atop a bed of ice, was a severed human hand. It seems he'd found it floating in a fish pond, which would explain the fact that it seemed to have been nibbled a bit, though not what it was doing there in the first place. Of course, I told him that he should have taken it to the police, not to me. I don't know what on Earth he expects me to do with such a thing.
Well, no, that's not true. I can easily imagine what he's thinking. He doubtless believes I'm building a monster in the basement and am in need of spare parts. Alas, no matter how one attempts to instill an appreciative understanding of science in the general populace, they will insist on regarding scientific competence as magical ability, scientific curiosity as a power-hungry grasping for Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, and a visionary attitude as madness
In any case, I told Billy that I would take his find to the police, as it seemed like a task for a responsible adult. It occurs to me now, however, that this might provide an excellent opportunity to test out some of the new bio-analysis equipment I've been developing. It's possible I could gather some useful data that ordinary police lab techniques might not pick up, and if my work could assist the police in solving what certainly looks as if it could be a murder case, it would doubtless bring me some favorable attention... always useful in the continual quest for funding.
I'll need to do the analysis before I go to the police, of course. They'll never let me have it back once I've handed it over. Yes, I shall run the tests first thing tomorrow.
28 December
Amazing! Simply amazing! Spent all day yesterday running tests. Still cannot believe the results. The hand is not human. Complex triple-structured DNA, strange unidentifiable components in cells... No possibility of a hoax; it would take super-human technology just to fake this. Current hypothesis is that the hand belonged to a Sygorax, or perhaps an attendant species, and somehow survived the spaceship's destruction. No chance of turning it over to the police now, of course. They'd send it to government labs. Bureaucratic idiots would either bungle the science or cover it up. And this could make my career.
Too rushed to write more. Must get back to my studies. I have several interesting lines of inquiry to pursue...
18 January
Three weeks of study, three weeks of spending every waking hour in analysis of the hand, of neglecting all my other research... and I feel as if I am accomplishing nothing. I have reams of data, more than enough to publish. Enough, probably, to make a name for myself that will never be forgotten. But I am no closer to answering the questions I am truly interested in, the questions that have begun to haunt even my dreams. What sort of creature did this appendage belong to? It seems that it must have looked like a man... Did it think like one? Act like one? Dead flesh can yield to analysis, but it cannot communicate. I need an alien I can speak to.
To this end, I have begun investigating... alternative channels. Unorthodox methods, you might say. I'll say no more here just yet. It's horribly unscientific of me, I know, but I'll admit that I'm afraid of jinxing it.
19 February
After a month of effort, the calling in of a dozen old favors, and the liquidation of my entire life savings and then some, the next stage of my research is finally (so to speak) at hand.
I've always regarded this diary as a purely personal thing, an emotion-chronicling counterpart to the dispassionate data-chronicling of my lab notes, something of no conceivable concern to anyone but me. It occurs to me now, however, that posterity might take some interest after all. For that reason, and in order to clarify them in my own mind for possible future publication, I will explain the thought processes that have led me, at last, to this point.
As I have doubtless mentioned elsewhere in these pages, I have long maintained the belief that Earth has in its past -- and, yes, I do mean before last Christmas -- been visited repeatedly by entities possessed of technology far beyond anything humanity has yet developed. I have been largely ridiculed for these beliefs, until I eventually stopped speaking of them for fear of the damage to my career. But what my closed-minded colleagues have failed to acknowledge is that Occam's Razor cuts both ways. Certainly, a simpler and more plausible explanation is always to be preferred over a more complex and outlandish one. But when the evidence for a complex and seemingly outlandish explanation grows strong enough, it becomes the simpler and more plausible explanation, and it is the more prosaic belief that requires over-complicated logical contortions to support.
The evidence for such visitations is overwhelming. It is indisputable. And it is sitting right here in front of me.
Although I have ceased to visibly pursue my interest in what my colleagues have benightedly labeled "pseudoscience," I have maintained many contacts among those who make it their business to investigate such matters. I do not know the name of the man I finally met. I do not know if his claim that the devices he sold me were left behind by a time traveler from the future is true or not. But I do know that that they resemble nothing currently in use on Earth, and I do know that the evidence he showed me that they will function as he described was convincing in the extreme.
In only a few short weeks, I will have an alien I can speak to. I will learn precisely what the owner of the mysterious hand was like.
I am trying to remain calm, detached, if only for the benefit of my imagined future readers. But my own hands are shaking with the excitement of it all.
23 February
Whatever its provenance, the cloning machinery is working exactly as advertised. Less than three days of growth, and already the fetus has taken on a human shape. A remarkably human shape, though its internal systems are showing distinct signs of developing in intriguingly different ways. Growth should be rapid from this point onward.
9 March
I may not be the mad scientist young Billy likes to imagine I am, but it is nevertheless hard to resist the urge to throw back my head and shout, "It's alive!" Although perhaps a more apt exclamation would be, "It's a boy!"
At two and a half weeks, the subject is now the size and weight of a full-term human infant. Accordingly, I removed him from the incubator for testing for the first time. Without baseline data, of course, it is impossible to tell whether his vitals are normal for his species. Who can tell precisely how his fascinatingly complicated respiratory system ought to function, or how rapidly his two hearts should be expected to beat? (Two hearts! The thought still fills me with astonishment and wonder.) But as far as it is possible to know, he appears healthy, even happy. If anything, his neurological and motor development is noticeably ahead of that of a human child at his approximate stage of growth.
He's a cute fellow, too, I must say. Brown eyes -- unusual in an infant -- a full head of brown hair, a wide and winning smile... I have never felt especially interested in having children, but it's hard not to feel a little like a proud parent. I find that I am somewhat reluctant to return him to the incubator, but it must be done, of course. It will be of great scientific value to raise such a creature slowly and naturally, to observe its development, and I fully intend to do so in the future. But that is not within the scope of the current experiment.
22 March
The subject has now reached full physical adulthood. As my mother used to say: they grow up so fast! His health seems robust and stable, and I can see no reason not to proceed on to Phase Two. There is some concern as to whether the machine I purchased will function properly with his alien brain, but his neurological system, at least, seems roughly similar to a human's, and I am highly optimistic. I know the device works well on a human brain; before my own encounter with it, I did not speak French, and now I am able not merely to speak the language but to think in it fluently. Which was a risk, I know, but one I felt was worth taking. As a demonstration, it was certainly effective.
I'm intending to program him only with the most basic of information and ability: the capacity to walk, to eat, to communicate. Above all, to communicate. As with the forced growth, I am aware that this is less than ideal, scientifically, but what a demonstration it will provide! It will be enough to guarantee that many, many more clones will follow and be allowed to develop naturally, with all the new insights that approach will bring.
In just a few moments, I will set the process in motion. It should not take long. This time tomorrow, the subject will no longer be an empty, unconscious body, but a person. Strange, when I put it like that, it does feel a little... Frankensteinian.
Silly thought. Clearly, I'm just overly excited.
23 March
At 9:32 AM on the 23rd of March, the alien first opened his eyes as a fully conscious being. It may seem pretentious or overdramatic to make a point of noting the exact time in this informal record, but it seems to me important enough to be worth commemorating.
He immediately focused on my face with no difficulty, and was clearly aware of both my existence and of his own. Only a moment later, much to my surprise, he spoke.
"Hello," he said. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are. I don't seem to remember anything since... Hmm. That's odd. I don't actually seem to remember anything at all. Do you happen to know who I am?"
I don't know exactly what I expected from him on his awakening. Confusion or fear, perhaps, or a slow and difficult period of adjustment. Instead he sounded terribly matter-of-fact and rather cheerfully bemused. On reflection, it seems a highly encouraging result; I'm not sure why it took me aback as much as it did.
I answered his question about his identity truthfully, in a careful, simplified way, much as one might explain to a child. He seemed to have no difficulty understanding or accepting any of it, and leapt in several times to ask intelligent questions or even to anticipate what I was about to say.
He continued to surprise me when I began the first round of experiments -- mostly evaluations of his perceptions and motor skills. He seemed as enthusiastic about the tests as I was, and far less inhibited about showing it. I wonder how much this almost childlike emotional quality is due to the fact that he is, in some sense, a child and how much is due to his innate personality? Yet another question to be answered by future experiments.
I must confess, for a while I felt almost extraneous. He seemed so interested in exploring and cataloging his own reactions and capacities that he was actually suggesting variations on the testing procedures I hadn't thought of, and several times I had to snatch my pen from him as he attempted to take over the process of recording the data. I even allowed him to persuade me to take several of the tests in order to satisfy his curiosity about my species, though I feel I can justify that as useful in providing human data for comparison.
His remarkable levels of intelligence and adaptability, however, do seem to be offset by an extremely flighty attention span. He seems equally interested by sophisticated pieces of scientific equipment and by the buttons on the clothing I've provided for him. He also shows a somewhat disconcerting inclination to lick things when he is attempting to gather information about them, although my tests indicate a taste bud sensitivity only slightly above normal human levels. (All of his capacities seem to be at or slightly above human norms, in fact, except for a slight, incongruous touch of myopia.)
I had expected to be too excited to sleep tonight, but he has completely worn me out. I am planning on sleeping on my cot in the next room for the duration of this experiment, of course, and I've set up a comfortable living area for the alien in the corner of the laboratory, where the monkey cages were before that unfortunate business with the public health authorities.
Hmm. I just realized that I am still calling him "the alien." I had intended to come up with some sort of name for him, but somehow he just doesn't seem to need one. Perhaps I'll think about it in the morning.
24 March
Newly acquired fact: the alien does not sleep. Or at any rate, not much. I woke up this morning to discover a lab that looked as if a small hurricane had been through it. He'd pulled nearly every book and journal off the shelves. (He claimed afterward to have read all of them, or at least all the interesting parts. I'm honestly not sure whether I believe him or not.) Pieces of equipment had been dismantled and, in some cases, reassembled in slightly different configurations. He'd gone through all my lab notebooks, scribbling comments in the margins. When I walked in, he had one of my rats out of its cage and was apparently offering it helpful advice on maze-navigating strategies.
At least nothing seems to be permanently damaged... In fact, several of those machines appear to work better than they did before. When I asked him how on Earth he knew anything about them -- for he should not logically have any knowledge of things off Earth, not having been programmed with any -- he merely shrugged and said that he'd read some of it in the books, and that the rest was obvious after a little trial and error. I've always thought it an unwarranted assumption that aliens who have developed spaceflight must be intrinsically smarter than us, as advanced technology does not seem to me to require advanced intelligence to use, but he certainly appears to provide a data point in favor of the theory.
His social skills are somewhat lacking, though. He disappeared as soon as it was time to face the consequences of what he'd done and clean up the mess he'd made. I found him later in the bathroom, staring in fascination at a sink full of soap bubbles.
I do believe this experiment is going to be interesting in more ways than I'd anticipated.
25 March
I attempted to engage the alien in some formal, controlled tests of his learning ability today, but he was extremely uncooperative when it came to performing the repetitive memorization tasks. I find myself feeling sorry for his original's schoolteachers, assuming he had them.
Eventually, I gave up and taught him to play chess instead. I suspect he'd already be capable of beating me if he weren't more interested in creating intriguing patterns on the chess board than in winning, and if he didn't occasionally refuse to capture a piece because he felt it "hadn't done anything to deserve it."
26 March
Had a bad moment of panic today when I woke up and discovered that the alien was no longer in the lab. Fortunately, he hadn't gone far; he was poking around the old garage/storage area attached to the side of the building. There's not much in there except for a few boxes of old papers, some obsolete equipment, and that broken-down van I've never got around to fixing, but he seemed to find it interesting. For which I'm grateful; if he hadn't stopped to investigate the junk, he might well have wandered off down the street and finished up anywhere at all. I gave him a stern lecture on the subject, in which I invoked the possibility of him being murdered by a mugger or hit by a bus, unfamiliar as he is with the outside world, but he seemed entirely unimpressed by the possibility. I'm afraid I lost my temper at that point and threatened to lock him up in a cage, since the lock on the laboratory door was clearly inadequate.
He then gave me a lecture on the morality of keeping sentient beings in cages, which still makes me blush with shame to think of it. In fact, he seems to have talked me into letting the rats roam free in the lab, although I can't for the life of me now remember why I agreed to that.
27 March
My conclusion thus far: either this species is far, far more strange and alien than it appears on the outside, or I've managed to clone possibly the single most eccentric individual said species has ever produced.
It's hard not to like him, but he makes me rather nervous.
28 March
He's gone. I probably should have seen it coming... Actually, I did see it coming, but the precautions I took -- installing better locks, moving my cot from the room next door into the laboratory proper, rigging up a fairly sophisticated alarm system -- apparently were nowhere near good enough.
He left me a note, thanking me for all I'd done for him but explaining that he felt stifled and restless in the isolated, regimental environment I'd provided for him and had decided that it was time to, as he put it, "abandon the sterile pretense of scientific detachment" and to "go and be part of the world instead of sitting around talking about how researching my DNA is going to change it."
He must have got the old van to work, somehow, because it's gone too. I hadn't even realized he knew how to drive.
I've put out word among my contacts to look for him, but I'm not optimistic of ever seeing him again. I did think briefly about calling the police, but what would I say? That my alien clone had gone missing? The only thing that would be less useful than them not believing me would be if they did believe me. I'm quite sure that if the government got hold of him, I'd never see him again. Not that I expect to as it is.
I'm honestly not sure whether I'm more worried for him or for the world around him.
31 March
Still no sign of the alien. If he hasn't been found by now, I sincerely doubt he will be.
It could be worse, I suppose. Dr. Frankenstein's creation came back to stalk him and wreak horrible vengeance. I think I treated the alien well enough to prevent that. I hope I did. Anyway, he really didn't seem like the horrible vengeance type.
And all is not lost, of course. I still have all my research notes, and the hand itself. I can start again. I will start again.
2 April
I'd heard the name "Torchwood" whispered here and there. I'd never really believed they'd existed.
Well, for people who probably don't exist, they're certainly intimidating. I hope the bastards enjoy sorting through all the completely irrelevant -- to them -- notes they took with them along with all my research on the alien. I hope they use that hand to clone an army of aliens who beat them mercilessly at chess, trash their labs and steal their cars. Although from the way they were talking, it'll probably end up in a warehouse full of frozen alien hands, like some sort of sick Indiana Jones parody.
It's times like this I wish I were a mad scientist. At least then I might have had a death ray and a fighting chance. Although I suppose I should simply be glad they didn't kill me. Or erase my memory, or something.
I'm just surprised they managed to miss this diary, although I wouldn't put it past them to come back and take it, too.
5 April
I've been trying to re-create my notes, but it's no good. Even if I could remember them in sufficient detail, what use would they be without proof?
The alien was right. Life in this laboratory does seem futile and pointless.
19 April
He came back! I was sitting in the lab, trying uselessly to think up some new line of research for which I could work up any enthusiasm at all, when I heard a wheezing, groaning noise in the street outside. It was my old blue van, battered and noisy, but still functional, with the alien behind the wheel. He told me immediately that he'd come back for a visit, but didn't plan to stay. I thought that surely he wouldn't trust me enough to set foot in the lab again, but he did, quite willingly. We drank tea brewed over a Bunsen burner, and he related the most amazing stories of what he'd been doing for the last few weeks: haphazard wanderings, excitement, adventure, peril, discovery... And I believed, well, if not every word of it, then at least most of them. There is something terribly convincing about the man. Convincing and infectious. I found myself growing jealous, thinking of how I'd spent those weeks staring at the walls of this laboratory feeling sorry for myself. Thinking of how I'd spent every day before that also in this laboratory, consumed with the idea of discovery and yet accomplishing... what? Nothing. Years of scientific discipline, of living a detached life of the mind, and did I have a single good story to show for it, other than his creation?
I said as much to him, in a rush of self-pity of which I'm not especially proud. He looked at me for a long moment, until I started to wonder what he was thinking and to regret having said anything.
And then he said, "Why don't you come with me?"
I'm afraid I merely stared at him for a moment. Something about his words seemed to have difficulty penetrating into my mind. But my lack of a response didn't stop him. "There's a whole exciting world out there!" he said. "And if you're right about my origins, more worlds beyond it, just in case we ever get bored with this one. I intend to keep traveling, to see what's out there to be seen. To learn, to explore, have fun, make a difference. I may not be a human being, but I'm discovering that I like them. A lot. Yesterday, I helped a little girl get a kite down out of a tree. It was the most remarkably satisfying experience. It would have been easier, of course, with someone else to hold the ladder. Or to distract the dog... Never mind, it's a long story. The point is, I'm sure it would be better with two. Or even two, plus the rats. We wouldn't want to leave them behind, would we?"
Yes, that is a verbatim quote. I'm fairly certain I'll remember those words exactly for the rest of my life.
So. I'm not sure whether I'm going to continue keeping this diary. Perhaps instead I'll end it here, put it in an envelope and mail it from some exotic destination to my old neighbor Billy. I think he might enjoy the story of where his fish-pond discovery eventually took me.
I'm sorry if the science isn't mad enough for you, Billy. But I fully intend to do better in the future. The alien and I are already working on a frankly crazy device for removing kites from trees. Possibly it's going to be powered by rats...
Title: "First-Hand Knowledge"
Author: AstroGirl
Fandom: Doctor Who
Length: About 4,500 words.
Rating/Warnings: Rated at most a PG for, uh, I dunno, one mild swearword and maybe the very slightly creepy existence of the abovementioned "thing." Contains spoilers for "The Christmas Invasion." Any connection with Torchwood canon, however, is purely coincidental. I wrote this, completely unspoiled, before the show ever aired, and I haven't changed one word of it since. I swear!
Author's Notes: Many thanks to vilakins and wychwood for useful and reassuring beta-age.
First-Hand Knowledge
25 December
What an amazing, amazing day! At the risk of sounding egotistical, I feel a certain amount of personal vindication. I've been talking for years about the potential of advanced technologies, about the fact that alien races have almost certainly harnessed such technology for interstellar spaceflight, about the apparent evidence that Earth has been visited by such advanced creatures before... But very few people have ever taken me seriously on the subject, no matter how solid my credentials as a scientist, and I essentially gave up hope when the world somehow managed to convince itself that the alien spaceship that crashed into Big Ben was some kind of hoax. But this... This is surely impossible to deny! Of course, it's unfortunate that they weren't friendly aliens, but given that they failed in their aims, I think it's perfectly justified to feel excited about the confirmation of their existence.
One downside, however: due to the crisis, most of the streets have been closed. I'm not sure why. Perhaps they're worried about falling spaceship debris. Although, given the fineness of the ash currently falling on the city, it seems sadly unlikely that anything large enough to study will have survived. (I don't know how people have been mistaking that ash for snow, by the way. One hardly needs a spectrograph to tell the difference!)
In any case, I have been unable to get to the lab, making this the first day in five years I haven't spent at least part of the day there. This is really quite distressing... I had several fairly delicate experiments in progress which should be checked on, and it's important for the rats to be fed on a regular schedule.
26 December
Things seem to be slowly returning to normal. Or at least the streets are open again, which is good enough for me. Fortunately, everything seems to have survived reasonably well in my absence, although one or two minor experiments will need to be redone.
If there was any decent-sized debris from the ship, on the streets or elsewhere, the government appears to be covering it up, which does not surprise me in the slightest.
One odd thing did happen today. Little Billy from across the street knocked on my door as soon as I returned from the lab, very excited, and told me he'd found something he thought I should have. I expected him to bring out a fossil of some kind, or perhaps an oddly shaped stone -- children always seem to imagine such things have genuine scientific value, merely because they've seen nothing like them before -- but instead he dashed home and returned with a small picnic cooler. Inside, nestled atop a bed of ice, was a severed human hand. It seems he'd found it floating in a fish pond, which would explain the fact that it seemed to have been nibbled a bit, though not what it was doing there in the first place. Of course, I told him that he should have taken it to the police, not to me. I don't know what on Earth he expects me to do with such a thing.
Well, no, that's not true. I can easily imagine what he's thinking. He doubtless believes I'm building a monster in the basement and am in need of spare parts. Alas, no matter how one attempts to instill an appreciative understanding of science in the general populace, they will insist on regarding scientific competence as magical ability, scientific curiosity as a power-hungry grasping for Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, and a visionary attitude as madness
In any case, I told Billy that I would take his find to the police, as it seemed like a task for a responsible adult. It occurs to me now, however, that this might provide an excellent opportunity to test out some of the new bio-analysis equipment I've been developing. It's possible I could gather some useful data that ordinary police lab techniques might not pick up, and if my work could assist the police in solving what certainly looks as if it could be a murder case, it would doubtless bring me some favorable attention... always useful in the continual quest for funding.
I'll need to do the analysis before I go to the police, of course. They'll never let me have it back once I've handed it over. Yes, I shall run the tests first thing tomorrow.
28 December
Amazing! Simply amazing! Spent all day yesterday running tests. Still cannot believe the results. The hand is not human. Complex triple-structured DNA, strange unidentifiable components in cells... No possibility of a hoax; it would take super-human technology just to fake this. Current hypothesis is that the hand belonged to a Sygorax, or perhaps an attendant species, and somehow survived the spaceship's destruction. No chance of turning it over to the police now, of course. They'd send it to government labs. Bureaucratic idiots would either bungle the science or cover it up. And this could make my career.
Too rushed to write more. Must get back to my studies. I have several interesting lines of inquiry to pursue...
18 January
Three weeks of study, three weeks of spending every waking hour in analysis of the hand, of neglecting all my other research... and I feel as if I am accomplishing nothing. I have reams of data, more than enough to publish. Enough, probably, to make a name for myself that will never be forgotten. But I am no closer to answering the questions I am truly interested in, the questions that have begun to haunt even my dreams. What sort of creature did this appendage belong to? It seems that it must have looked like a man... Did it think like one? Act like one? Dead flesh can yield to analysis, but it cannot communicate. I need an alien I can speak to.
To this end, I have begun investigating... alternative channels. Unorthodox methods, you might say. I'll say no more here just yet. It's horribly unscientific of me, I know, but I'll admit that I'm afraid of jinxing it.
19 February
After a month of effort, the calling in of a dozen old favors, and the liquidation of my entire life savings and then some, the next stage of my research is finally (so to speak) at hand.
I've always regarded this diary as a purely personal thing, an emotion-chronicling counterpart to the dispassionate data-chronicling of my lab notes, something of no conceivable concern to anyone but me. It occurs to me now, however, that posterity might take some interest after all. For that reason, and in order to clarify them in my own mind for possible future publication, I will explain the thought processes that have led me, at last, to this point.
As I have doubtless mentioned elsewhere in these pages, I have long maintained the belief that Earth has in its past -- and, yes, I do mean before last Christmas -- been visited repeatedly by entities possessed of technology far beyond anything humanity has yet developed. I have been largely ridiculed for these beliefs, until I eventually stopped speaking of them for fear of the damage to my career. But what my closed-minded colleagues have failed to acknowledge is that Occam's Razor cuts both ways. Certainly, a simpler and more plausible explanation is always to be preferred over a more complex and outlandish one. But when the evidence for a complex and seemingly outlandish explanation grows strong enough, it becomes the simpler and more plausible explanation, and it is the more prosaic belief that requires over-complicated logical contortions to support.
The evidence for such visitations is overwhelming. It is indisputable. And it is sitting right here in front of me.
Although I have ceased to visibly pursue my interest in what my colleagues have benightedly labeled "pseudoscience," I have maintained many contacts among those who make it their business to investigate such matters. I do not know the name of the man I finally met. I do not know if his claim that the devices he sold me were left behind by a time traveler from the future is true or not. But I do know that that they resemble nothing currently in use on Earth, and I do know that the evidence he showed me that they will function as he described was convincing in the extreme.
In only a few short weeks, I will have an alien I can speak to. I will learn precisely what the owner of the mysterious hand was like.
I am trying to remain calm, detached, if only for the benefit of my imagined future readers. But my own hands are shaking with the excitement of it all.
23 February
Whatever its provenance, the cloning machinery is working exactly as advertised. Less than three days of growth, and already the fetus has taken on a human shape. A remarkably human shape, though its internal systems are showing distinct signs of developing in intriguingly different ways. Growth should be rapid from this point onward.
9 March
I may not be the mad scientist young Billy likes to imagine I am, but it is nevertheless hard to resist the urge to throw back my head and shout, "It's alive!" Although perhaps a more apt exclamation would be, "It's a boy!"
At two and a half weeks, the subject is now the size and weight of a full-term human infant. Accordingly, I removed him from the incubator for testing for the first time. Without baseline data, of course, it is impossible to tell whether his vitals are normal for his species. Who can tell precisely how his fascinatingly complicated respiratory system ought to function, or how rapidly his two hearts should be expected to beat? (Two hearts! The thought still fills me with astonishment and wonder.) But as far as it is possible to know, he appears healthy, even happy. If anything, his neurological and motor development is noticeably ahead of that of a human child at his approximate stage of growth.
He's a cute fellow, too, I must say. Brown eyes -- unusual in an infant -- a full head of brown hair, a wide and winning smile... I have never felt especially interested in having children, but it's hard not to feel a little like a proud parent. I find that I am somewhat reluctant to return him to the incubator, but it must be done, of course. It will be of great scientific value to raise such a creature slowly and naturally, to observe its development, and I fully intend to do so in the future. But that is not within the scope of the current experiment.
22 March
The subject has now reached full physical adulthood. As my mother used to say: they grow up so fast! His health seems robust and stable, and I can see no reason not to proceed on to Phase Two. There is some concern as to whether the machine I purchased will function properly with his alien brain, but his neurological system, at least, seems roughly similar to a human's, and I am highly optimistic. I know the device works well on a human brain; before my own encounter with it, I did not speak French, and now I am able not merely to speak the language but to think in it fluently. Which was a risk, I know, but one I felt was worth taking. As a demonstration, it was certainly effective.
I'm intending to program him only with the most basic of information and ability: the capacity to walk, to eat, to communicate. Above all, to communicate. As with the forced growth, I am aware that this is less than ideal, scientifically, but what a demonstration it will provide! It will be enough to guarantee that many, many more clones will follow and be allowed to develop naturally, with all the new insights that approach will bring.
In just a few moments, I will set the process in motion. It should not take long. This time tomorrow, the subject will no longer be an empty, unconscious body, but a person. Strange, when I put it like that, it does feel a little... Frankensteinian.
Silly thought. Clearly, I'm just overly excited.
23 March
At 9:32 AM on the 23rd of March, the alien first opened his eyes as a fully conscious being. It may seem pretentious or overdramatic to make a point of noting the exact time in this informal record, but it seems to me important enough to be worth commemorating.
He immediately focused on my face with no difficulty, and was clearly aware of both my existence and of his own. Only a moment later, much to my surprise, he spoke.
"Hello," he said. "I'm afraid I don't know who you are. I don't seem to remember anything since... Hmm. That's odd. I don't actually seem to remember anything at all. Do you happen to know who I am?"
I don't know exactly what I expected from him on his awakening. Confusion or fear, perhaps, or a slow and difficult period of adjustment. Instead he sounded terribly matter-of-fact and rather cheerfully bemused. On reflection, it seems a highly encouraging result; I'm not sure why it took me aback as much as it did.
I answered his question about his identity truthfully, in a careful, simplified way, much as one might explain to a child. He seemed to have no difficulty understanding or accepting any of it, and leapt in several times to ask intelligent questions or even to anticipate what I was about to say.
He continued to surprise me when I began the first round of experiments -- mostly evaluations of his perceptions and motor skills. He seemed as enthusiastic about the tests as I was, and far less inhibited about showing it. I wonder how much this almost childlike emotional quality is due to the fact that he is, in some sense, a child and how much is due to his innate personality? Yet another question to be answered by future experiments.
I must confess, for a while I felt almost extraneous. He seemed so interested in exploring and cataloging his own reactions and capacities that he was actually suggesting variations on the testing procedures I hadn't thought of, and several times I had to snatch my pen from him as he attempted to take over the process of recording the data. I even allowed him to persuade me to take several of the tests in order to satisfy his curiosity about my species, though I feel I can justify that as useful in providing human data for comparison.
His remarkable levels of intelligence and adaptability, however, do seem to be offset by an extremely flighty attention span. He seems equally interested by sophisticated pieces of scientific equipment and by the buttons on the clothing I've provided for him. He also shows a somewhat disconcerting inclination to lick things when he is attempting to gather information about them, although my tests indicate a taste bud sensitivity only slightly above normal human levels. (All of his capacities seem to be at or slightly above human norms, in fact, except for a slight, incongruous touch of myopia.)
I had expected to be too excited to sleep tonight, but he has completely worn me out. I am planning on sleeping on my cot in the next room for the duration of this experiment, of course, and I've set up a comfortable living area for the alien in the corner of the laboratory, where the monkey cages were before that unfortunate business with the public health authorities.
Hmm. I just realized that I am still calling him "the alien." I had intended to come up with some sort of name for him, but somehow he just doesn't seem to need one. Perhaps I'll think about it in the morning.
24 March
Newly acquired fact: the alien does not sleep. Or at any rate, not much. I woke up this morning to discover a lab that looked as if a small hurricane had been through it. He'd pulled nearly every book and journal off the shelves. (He claimed afterward to have read all of them, or at least all the interesting parts. I'm honestly not sure whether I believe him or not.) Pieces of equipment had been dismantled and, in some cases, reassembled in slightly different configurations. He'd gone through all my lab notebooks, scribbling comments in the margins. When I walked in, he had one of my rats out of its cage and was apparently offering it helpful advice on maze-navigating strategies.
At least nothing seems to be permanently damaged... In fact, several of those machines appear to work better than they did before. When I asked him how on Earth he knew anything about them -- for he should not logically have any knowledge of things off Earth, not having been programmed with any -- he merely shrugged and said that he'd read some of it in the books, and that the rest was obvious after a little trial and error. I've always thought it an unwarranted assumption that aliens who have developed spaceflight must be intrinsically smarter than us, as advanced technology does not seem to me to require advanced intelligence to use, but he certainly appears to provide a data point in favor of the theory.
His social skills are somewhat lacking, though. He disappeared as soon as it was time to face the consequences of what he'd done and clean up the mess he'd made. I found him later in the bathroom, staring in fascination at a sink full of soap bubbles.
I do believe this experiment is going to be interesting in more ways than I'd anticipated.
25 March
I attempted to engage the alien in some formal, controlled tests of his learning ability today, but he was extremely uncooperative when it came to performing the repetitive memorization tasks. I find myself feeling sorry for his original's schoolteachers, assuming he had them.
Eventually, I gave up and taught him to play chess instead. I suspect he'd already be capable of beating me if he weren't more interested in creating intriguing patterns on the chess board than in winning, and if he didn't occasionally refuse to capture a piece because he felt it "hadn't done anything to deserve it."
26 March
Had a bad moment of panic today when I woke up and discovered that the alien was no longer in the lab. Fortunately, he hadn't gone far; he was poking around the old garage/storage area attached to the side of the building. There's not much in there except for a few boxes of old papers, some obsolete equipment, and that broken-down van I've never got around to fixing, but he seemed to find it interesting. For which I'm grateful; if he hadn't stopped to investigate the junk, he might well have wandered off down the street and finished up anywhere at all. I gave him a stern lecture on the subject, in which I invoked the possibility of him being murdered by a mugger or hit by a bus, unfamiliar as he is with the outside world, but he seemed entirely unimpressed by the possibility. I'm afraid I lost my temper at that point and threatened to lock him up in a cage, since the lock on the laboratory door was clearly inadequate.
He then gave me a lecture on the morality of keeping sentient beings in cages, which still makes me blush with shame to think of it. In fact, he seems to have talked me into letting the rats roam free in the lab, although I can't for the life of me now remember why I agreed to that.
27 March
My conclusion thus far: either this species is far, far more strange and alien than it appears on the outside, or I've managed to clone possibly the single most eccentric individual said species has ever produced.
It's hard not to like him, but he makes me rather nervous.
28 March
He's gone. I probably should have seen it coming... Actually, I did see it coming, but the precautions I took -- installing better locks, moving my cot from the room next door into the laboratory proper, rigging up a fairly sophisticated alarm system -- apparently were nowhere near good enough.
He left me a note, thanking me for all I'd done for him but explaining that he felt stifled and restless in the isolated, regimental environment I'd provided for him and had decided that it was time to, as he put it, "abandon the sterile pretense of scientific detachment" and to "go and be part of the world instead of sitting around talking about how researching my DNA is going to change it."
He must have got the old van to work, somehow, because it's gone too. I hadn't even realized he knew how to drive.
I've put out word among my contacts to look for him, but I'm not optimistic of ever seeing him again. I did think briefly about calling the police, but what would I say? That my alien clone had gone missing? The only thing that would be less useful than them not believing me would be if they did believe me. I'm quite sure that if the government got hold of him, I'd never see him again. Not that I expect to as it is.
I'm honestly not sure whether I'm more worried for him or for the world around him.
31 March
Still no sign of the alien. If he hasn't been found by now, I sincerely doubt he will be.
It could be worse, I suppose. Dr. Frankenstein's creation came back to stalk him and wreak horrible vengeance. I think I treated the alien well enough to prevent that. I hope I did. Anyway, he really didn't seem like the horrible vengeance type.
And all is not lost, of course. I still have all my research notes, and the hand itself. I can start again. I will start again.
2 April
I'd heard the name "Torchwood" whispered here and there. I'd never really believed they'd existed.
Well, for people who probably don't exist, they're certainly intimidating. I hope the bastards enjoy sorting through all the completely irrelevant -- to them -- notes they took with them along with all my research on the alien. I hope they use that hand to clone an army of aliens who beat them mercilessly at chess, trash their labs and steal their cars. Although from the way they were talking, it'll probably end up in a warehouse full of frozen alien hands, like some sort of sick Indiana Jones parody.
It's times like this I wish I were a mad scientist. At least then I might have had a death ray and a fighting chance. Although I suppose I should simply be glad they didn't kill me. Or erase my memory, or something.
I'm just surprised they managed to miss this diary, although I wouldn't put it past them to come back and take it, too.
5 April
I've been trying to re-create my notes, but it's no good. Even if I could remember them in sufficient detail, what use would they be without proof?
The alien was right. Life in this laboratory does seem futile and pointless.
19 April
He came back! I was sitting in the lab, trying uselessly to think up some new line of research for which I could work up any enthusiasm at all, when I heard a wheezing, groaning noise in the street outside. It was my old blue van, battered and noisy, but still functional, with the alien behind the wheel. He told me immediately that he'd come back for a visit, but didn't plan to stay. I thought that surely he wouldn't trust me enough to set foot in the lab again, but he did, quite willingly. We drank tea brewed over a Bunsen burner, and he related the most amazing stories of what he'd been doing for the last few weeks: haphazard wanderings, excitement, adventure, peril, discovery... And I believed, well, if not every word of it, then at least most of them. There is something terribly convincing about the man. Convincing and infectious. I found myself growing jealous, thinking of how I'd spent those weeks staring at the walls of this laboratory feeling sorry for myself. Thinking of how I'd spent every day before that also in this laboratory, consumed with the idea of discovery and yet accomplishing... what? Nothing. Years of scientific discipline, of living a detached life of the mind, and did I have a single good story to show for it, other than his creation?
I said as much to him, in a rush of self-pity of which I'm not especially proud. He looked at me for a long moment, until I started to wonder what he was thinking and to regret having said anything.
And then he said, "Why don't you come with me?"
I'm afraid I merely stared at him for a moment. Something about his words seemed to have difficulty penetrating into my mind. But my lack of a response didn't stop him. "There's a whole exciting world out there!" he said. "And if you're right about my origins, more worlds beyond it, just in case we ever get bored with this one. I intend to keep traveling, to see what's out there to be seen. To learn, to explore, have fun, make a difference. I may not be a human being, but I'm discovering that I like them. A lot. Yesterday, I helped a little girl get a kite down out of a tree. It was the most remarkably satisfying experience. It would have been easier, of course, with someone else to hold the ladder. Or to distract the dog... Never mind, it's a long story. The point is, I'm sure it would be better with two. Or even two, plus the rats. We wouldn't want to leave them behind, would we?"
Yes, that is a verbatim quote. I'm fairly certain I'll remember those words exactly for the rest of my life.
So. I'm not sure whether I'm going to continue keeping this diary. Perhaps instead I'll end it here, put it in an envelope and mail it from some exotic destination to my old neighbor Billy. I think he might enjoy the story of where his fish-pond discovery eventually took me.
I'm sorry if the science isn't mad enough for you, Billy. But I fully intend to do better in the future. The alien and I are already working on a frankly crazy device for removing kites from trees. Possibly it's going to be powered by rats...