Face off
“You egotistical mother …!”
Frankenwein regarded him coolly. “What’s your problem?”
“You want to play god.”
“No, I want to be god.”
Edward shook his head in disgust and started to leave.
“Oh come on Ed, I’m winding you up! I’m a scientist. I want to know how things work and one of the best ways is to duplicate them. That is the scientific method.”
“Except you want to improve on the original.”
“I’d be happy if it just works!”
“But why try at all?”
“Because it’s now possible.”
“So is inventing a virus to wipe us all out but that doesn’t make it worth trying!”
“We’ll learn so much about the human body, what can go wrong and how to fix it or prevent..”
“By creating a human guinea pig?!”
“You’ll be talking about its soul in a minute.”
“Never mind its soul, what about its life? Have you not read Mary Shelley’s original?”
“It’ll have a good life.”
“It again! And you’ve got me at it! Will this perfect human be male or female.”
“Logically female.”
“Logically! And will she be allowed to breed?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Really! I can see you’ve thought this through carefully. How will this synthetic woman have any kind of life if she’s a laboratory animal? What happens when she’s fulfilled her experimental duties? Euthanasia? Or does she get released to mix with the rest of us imperfect models to improve the race?”
Frankenwein sighed and leaned forward onto his desk.