What Is Perfection?

    In his eyes a solution, a solution to a problem he imagined. Left alone in a lair with mindless servants, he lumbers, he broods, he works meticulously alone on a project only he thought to achieve.

“How many corpses do we have?” He says to one of his mindless servants, lobotomized and mindless, and yet cognizant of his surroundings. 

“Forget it, put another on the slab.” He says, his voice echoing as he towers above a metal operating table. 

“For years I’ve had narrow minded goals. My Chorts, you are simply humans who I’ve plucked the bits I deemed unworthy, and yet you’re not perfect. I crave to find absolution in my work, and I haven’t struck it yet.” To him he had one simple objective. Perfection. An army of mindless beings, wounds sewn and tied shut, with yellow puss and scars dotting their pale white flesh, their eyes hallow and sunken in, lips emaciated and gone, and their bodies so frail one could snap them like a twig.

“Ahh, this one has been dead for only four days!” He says so eagerly, so excited.

    He loomed above his next project, to raise the dead. Resurrection. 

“You are so close to being perfect my Chorts.” He says, observing one. 

“A demonstration, your brethren don’t care—and surely you don’t—if I just, well…” And he pauses, a grin rising across his face as he approaches one of his creations with a scalpel. He drives it into the creature’s neck : and yet it doesn’t howl in pain, it just accepts what happened. Yellow bile or blood oozing from the wound, and yet it feels no pain, it doesn’t react, and to him, it is what he asks for. 

“You have no fear, a perfect being has no fear. And yet, you let me do that. A perfect being would never let anyone—be it master, creator, God, or friend—do such a thing!” He exclaims in utter defeat. 

“Run!” He shouts as the creatures begin to flea the room, disappearing and leaving their master alone.

“Return!” He shouts again and they come to his command, his beckoning cry. 

“So flawed, so, so imperfect! Where they surpass the mortal, they fail to be perfect. And this experiment, I hope to change that.” 

    He observed the body on the table, cold, pale, lifeless. 

“Not enough muscle, it is still fresh, hasn’t started to decay yet. Too much fat.” He says to himself, continuing to observe the body. 

“The brain will stay, but we must mechanically start its heart.” He says to himself, looking at the body.

“The arms will need to be replaced, mechanically enhanced forearms and talons he walks on will be preferred, increasing his mobility.” He says to himself.

“Chort! The saw!” He shouts out as one of his creations, one of these foul pale creatures, comes lurching from the darkness of this castle he calls home. In its deft hands a saw, easing up to his master like a scared puppy. 

    And echo of the mechanical whirring of the blade as he cuts the corpses arms off, watching as little blood trickles from the wound.

“Perfect, we’ll need to reconstitute the blood, the bile that runs through your veins allows for slower energy release allowing for prolonged endurance.” He says, approaching a large rack of limbs and mechanical parts. He finds a pair of black mechanical arms, like a human arm, but with a second elbow and a large, curved talon at the wrists that it would walk on. He approaches the corpse again and observes it. 

“We’ll attach a mechanical socket to the shoulders, we’ll have to close the wound, attach the hydraulic tubing from the mechanical implants to the veins and fuse them at a biological level, then ensure the new host body accepts the prosthetic.” He says to himself, his tone so confident, replete with assurance.

“Chorts! The legs!” He shouts out with a grin as his servants hastily head to the shelf, and yet stand bewildered. 

“Exactly as I thought.” He says to himself with a sigh, his curved, goat like legs lumbering his hulking body to the shelf again as he observes. 

“Cannot rush the procedure.” He says with a murmur to his booming voice, looking at the selection of mechanical parts he has fashioned together.

    He takes two, both would make his creation walk on almost fours, with the legs having springs for muscles and hydraulic pumps for aiding in locomotion. One of them had the leg parallel to the body, the other the leg would prop the body up like a horse. He eyed a third one, one that would strike a balance, with a third joint to allow for proper balance, but he decided to leave it for the moment. 

“What makes us perfect? Do you know?” He asks one of his creations, its black marbled glossy eyes looking back at him lifeless, void of any attention.

“You don’t, surely, you wouldn’t. I created you to be subservient, to be controlled. You’re never going to be perfect. See, man is perfect because he has thoughts, he has choices, he has free will. But we are not perfect because of our fear, our inability to cooperate and our struggles mentally and physically. We are not built to be at the peak of perfection, though so few of us achieve something minute of that. Something that resembles perfection but fades as we age. I achieved my status from a miracle maker, and yet, not all of us can achieve such things.” 

    He begins to saw at the corpse’s legs, marveling at his face with a glistening grin upon his brow. 

“You were once a human, once a being. Once something to be feared. So many animals fear us, and yet, we fear almost every animal.” He says to himself, to his invisible audience, operating delicately. Once the legs were removed, he stood over the body, ready for the next procedure.

“Your organs, they’re so frail, so fragile. Your heart must be stronger, genetically speaking one made from more muscle to be more durable could be perfect, but a synthetic mechanical heart tied to your nervous system would be even better.” He says as he begins to cut the chest open. From a freezer drawer near his table, he had several organs prepared. Synthetic and yet somewhat biological, they were a hybrid between something living and something mechanical. 

“We’ll replace those fragile lungs that are susceptible to disease and corrosion.” He says as he removes the windpipe and lungs, replacing them with a mechanical breathing apparatus that would suck air in and directly pump it to the blood stream. 

    The heart went in as well, with it replacing his old heart. It was larger and was a lot more difficult to fit into the chest, but he made it fit. 

“The kidneys are flawed, they will fail. Easy to replace them with something that is genetically built not to fail.” And so, he removes them, replacing them with lab grown kidneys he hopes would last a lot longer. 

“There are so many organs that are useless for you. You don’t need a separate organ attached to the stomach, heh, what does a liver even do? We’ll wrap that function into the stomach itself. We’ll move the stomach into three chambers that can seal when they rupture, allowing for you to survive impalement easier!” He says, ripping out the stomach and the intestines, leaving a gaping cavity in the torso. Installing three stomachs, with metal dividing the body into three sections, giving stability to the lower abdomen. 

“Your metabolism is greater, better than mine. Your body is built to survive, and yet you’re still flesh, still bone. And your body must interface with these new implants.” He says, beckoning one of his creations over. 

    And as he labored on the technical, the computers and the wiring that would interface with the nervous system, his creations, programmed to obey, would follow his orders as he instructs them what to do with the body. Where to put the arms, how to connect the tendons and vessels, how to make sure the organs are wired to the spinal cord. He’d give a command, hark an order, and they’d listen so ignorantly to their place. Ignorant of their disposition. Their ability to be disposed of is so evident and yet they sit ignorant of this fact. He created them to obey, not to think, not to question, not to act. And yet he hopes his newest creation is the opposite. Void of everything wrong with man, void of what ails us, void of our flaws. Able to think, able to feel, able to react, able to choose. And once the programming is done, he diverts his attention, rotates the body, and begins work on the spinal column. 

“We’ll add metal plates to the back, though it seems to the work rearranging the position of the skull to allow a parallel walking position was successful. My creation, almost ready to be born again!” 

    All of this, all of it mechanical with very few biological components. He just needs to send a few impulses to the brain, start the heart and the lungs, fool the brain into believing the body is alive, thinking that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. That it was a coma, a switch shut off and the brain was the only thing functioning. And His master awaits anxiously for resurrection. 

“Our friend is asleep, but I shall awaken him!” He shouts out with malice as he powers his machinery, mechanical whirls buzz and hisses as the electronics take effect. Monitors show the heart has started and that the lungs are breathing. Fluids begin to pump into the body, feeding his creation. The brain is not awake yet, but signals are being sent. He turns it off, it goes silent, the sensors make a droning alarm as the subject flatlines.

    He sighs and gives it another go. Everything comes to life, everything is loud, deafening. The machines, they stir, they attempt to breathe life into his creation, and every passing moment the creator waits with a look of frustration as he turns it off, and life is not born. All his work, the turbulation, all he endured, was it for nothing? He paces, he looks over his notes, and decides for a few changes. He wants to swap the legs, he needs to rewire the nervous system, hopefully something was wrong. And with these changes maybe the creation will be alive again. He gets the third pair of legs from the shelf, replaces them, reconnects the veins, the arteries. Does trial runs, sends signals and impulses.

    He sends a signal to the brain to move the arms, and to his surprise the arm moves a little bit.

“Bozh moi!” The creator says to himself, watching as the arm moves more and more with each impulse. A malevolent smirk comes across his face as he begins to work on the machines once again. He sends impulses to the legs, watching as the hydraulics slowly move, creaking and aching as they move sluggishly.

“Oil, needs more oil.” He sighs.

“You are supposed to be perfect and yet parts of you have needs, neigh, maybe that is just part of humanity? I can remove as much as I can but there are somethings that require maintenance.” He utters to himself, his creations surrounding him, his Chorts, watching from the shadows.

“And whosoever live and believe in me shall never die.” He said to himself, with the machines coming alive one last time. Heart normal, lungs normal. The body was taking on fluids, processing them. And to the delight of the creator, the brain started to take activity. It was slow, but slowly, things began to communicate, signals being sent back and forth, to and from, and he turned the machines off one more time.  

    To his satisfaction the heart still beats, the lungs still breathed, and the brain was still sending signals. But to his discouragement, there was no life. It was a lab experiment, sending electricity through a frog’s leg. There was no life, there was no mind. It was mechanical. The only difference between this creation and the rest being this one can’t move, can’t operate, cannot even function. 

“This sickness will not end in Death. No, it is for the God’s glory so that God’s son may be glorified through it.” The creator said begrudgingly, looking at his creation with malice. 

“I am the resurrection and the life : he that believes in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live.” He gets up, and heads to another machine, a computer, a rather towering one. Though it looks ancient from its size the machine was quite advanced. 

“Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them rule over man and the sea, over the sky and the universe.” The creator says, beginning a final procedure. If he can make an artificial organ, he can surely make an artificial soul! 

    It took him a few hours, but he programmed it, an artificial soul, completely digital, with his personality, his thoughts, and his understandings as the baseline.

“You are me, but you’re better than me. You won’t feel pain, you won’t feel fear. You won’t tire as easily, and you won’t have anger or hatred. You won’t be bigoted, and you won’t be disrespectful. You may disobey but it comes from perfect reason and logic, and I shall not question your programming.” And so, he approaches his creation, hopefully not for the last time, with a small chip in hand. He begins to work at the base of the neck, slowly adding a mechanical slot to insert the chip, and then adding a protective covering to shield it from damage. Inserting the chip, he waited anxiously.

“If you would believe me, wouldn’t you see the glory of God?” He said, one last time time, as something miraculous happened.

    It stirred awake, frightened, and yet without memories. Without a name, alive, awake, and conscious.

“Who am I? What am I? Master, I am Adam, but who is Master?” The creation said, with the Creator hoisting the creation from the table to the floor. A look of confusion, a look of horror, rest upon this wretched chimera’s brow. A heart the size of a cow’s, lungs made of machines, three stomachs, and a brain that has been dead for four days. It’s eyes glossed, horror rocked gaze and a tone so ignorant to reality one can only imagine that it isn’t aware of how much of an affront it is to creation.

“My creation has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take from the tree of life. For I am Chornobog, I am your Master. And so now I must banish you from the garden of eden.”