Raising the Dead, in Spite of the Natural Order: A Cautionary Tale
Chapter 8
"So. I didn't expect to see you getting to work already, Victoria," Iga asks, stepping up from behind me in the lab. She does not draw attention to how she has not been present thus far.
"It's better to get to this sooner than later. Even with the process working as it does, fresh tissue is best," I say, continuing to cut into the cadaver. Removing a vagina is actually a new one for me, if you can believe that.
"I guess nothing can take the scientist out of-" Iga begins, but is immediately interrupted by a series of labored grunts echoing through the lab.
"Iga, do we still have any replacement parts for the voice tubes?" I ask, looking up and staring straight forward, "This one appears to be broken, and I can't shut it off. It, um, coincidentally leads directly to my bedroom. Which is where Eve is right now. And Eli. I have suspicions about the tube breaking in such a specific way, at such a specific time, but no evidence."
"Um, I'm not sure. I'll have to check. I was just down in the basement, and I didn't see anything, but I wasn't really looking. Just checking on our... guest. She's down there. Eve put her in the cell down there. Also, we have a cell in the basement. Which I didn't know. So there's that," Iga informs me.
"Yeah... I think we put that in before you got here. It was related to the thing with the fire weasels. It's complicated," I explain.
Iga pauses in thought, and in the silence, we can both hear a series of loud moans echoing through the voice tube.
"That cell doesn't seem like it would really hold something like a-" she begins.
"Hindsight is 20/20, Iga," I quickly interrupt her. No need to relive old failures.
"Right," Iga says, after a long moment in which we get to hear some moans that are clearly masculine, this time, "So Eve locked her down there. She's taking it well, all things considered. That may involve certain promises. But that's probably nothing to worry about."
"Promises?" I quirk an eyebrow.
"Eve said something to the effect of letting the coroner have turns with Eli if she behaved herself and didn't cause trouble," Iga unsuccessfully tries to downplay it by saying it so casually, "But probably an empty promise. I mean, Eve seems pretty busy riding his cock as it is, I can't image her stopping to give someone else a turn."
I could point out that she isn't helping, but that seems like an obvious conclusion. Unfortunately, our awkward silence is met by a similar silence from the voice tube, which was so noticeably loud just a moment ago.
Eve graces us with her presence a lot earlier than I might have expected. She appears in the lab, thoroughly naked, with a sheen of sweat across her skin, and an expectant look. And it's a weird time to be self-satisfied with my work, but she really is quite the specimen.
"Are you prepared to perform the operation?" she demands to know, in a rather stoic tone.
"It's, um..." I can't help but notice a thick stream of semen dripping down her thigh as she approaches.
"Eve, I think you've got a little-" Iga feels the need to draw attention to it, for some reason, but is met with a decidedly harsh stare from Eve, to which she backs off, "You know what? Nevermind."
"I'm... almost done removing the, um, parts," I tell her, "Did you mean for us to do this now?"
"Yes. The operation will be the most successful if the tissue is fresh, correct?" she astutely observes.
"Eve! I think they need time to finish with-" Eli calls out to her, coming down the stairs.
"No, Victoria says she is ready," Eve says, without turning to him.
He's also naked, but actually observes some level of modesty, half heartedly covering his penis with one hand. Which is a little silly, since everyone in this room has had it inside of them. And one of them still has her fluids all over him. Making him look very shiny. And smell incredibly lewd.
"Oh," he says, a little surprised. It's nice that he was coming down to protect me from being interrupted. He's a sweetie like that.
"We are just about prepared," I nod.
"Well we're not doing this already, it seems a little earl-" he yelps out loud, though in surprise, not pain, as Eve reaches back and firmly grabs his penis.
Iga's and my eyes shoot open in surprise, as well as she pulls at him, and he's given no choice but to follow.
"Hey! Be careful with him!" I demand of her, a little unwisely, now that I think of it.
"He belongs to me," she declares, with a slight scowl in my direction, "I will do with his body as I please."
I glare back, angered at this behavior, but knowing full well that there's not really anything I can do, right now. Iga does not look as outraged as she should be. She's mostly just staring at the way that Eve drags him along.
Eve pauses and looks back at me, almost with sympathy, "Don't worry. I'm not going to harm him. That would interfere with my ability to use him, sexually."
"What... Where are you taking him?!" I again demand, as she pulls him along towards the door.
"To the basement. I will lock him up with the hospital woman," she informs us. Not a fan of that.
"What for?" Iga asks.
"So that you cannot kill me while I am unconscious," Eve says, flatly, "I have changed the combination on the cell door, and only I know it. You will have to complete the operation to get him released."
"What!" I throw up my hands, "Eve, I would..."
Iga and I exchange a nervous, knowing glance, "Eve, I would probably never do something like that! That's absurd!" I declare, a little unconvincingly.
"The hospital woman will also have my permission to use him for sex while they're locked up together," Eve adds, "It should keep her docile and cooperative."
My jaw sets in, but she's already led my poor baby out of the room by his penis, by the time I muster up the courage to protest.
The operation actually goes a lot smoother than I would have expected. I've never replaced an entire female reproductive system before, and the new one is noticeably smaller than Eve's more robust frame. She's much taller than the petite asian woman we removed the vagina from, though still a little shorter than Eli - Iga, at one point, accused me of specifically making her a good height for pairing well with him, whether consciously or not. Which is madness, because that implies that I somehow wanted her to take advantage of my poor baby. How insulting! As if I'd get off on the idea of my Eli being with some other woman. Granted, Iga didn't say that was specifically why, but I could tell she was thinking it. I took the opportunity to remind her that these accusations that I would subconsciously sabotage myself are likely, in fact, her own insecurities about being so short and not being able to compete with my genius. She laughed at that, which is, I guess, some sort of defense mechanism to avoid dealing with the truth.
Speaking of genius, I do manage to 'install' her new vagina in record time. Like I said, I've not done this specifically before, but between how much stitching parts together I did when assembling Eve, and my overall impressive intellect, figuring out this sort of thing was fairly trivial.
"So..." Iga pipes up as we finish, "Do we really want to wake her back up?"
"Of course, how else will we know if everything went right?" I lift up my hands, but not my eyes, at Iga's silly question.
"I mean because of the whole 'constantly making our boyfriend her personal semen supply' problem," Iga crosses her arms.
Oh, that. For a moment, I'd gotten so invested in my work that I forgot the exact particulars of our living situation with the monster on the slab. It does feel good to be really working, creating, again.
"Well, Eli is still locked up with that corpse-counting harlot down there, what am I supposed to..." I realize what she just said, "What do you mean 'our' boyfriend?"
She laughs, uncomfortably, "I mean, technically speaking, I've been intimate with him more than you have in the past six months, give or take, so he's really as much mine as yours. I didn't mean to imply that he was also the boyfriend of Eve and the coroner downstairs. We should really ask her what her name is, by the way."
I narrow my eyes at her, "Eli is mine, Iga."
"That's not what his cock says, so..." she abruptly stops, clearing her throat and averting her eyes when I continue to glare at her.
"We have to get him out of the cell, and Eve is the only one who knows the combination. I'm kind of in a corner here, Iga," I say, flatly.
"Okay, yes. He's locked in the cell downstairs. And yes, that coroner woman has probably got the head of his cock on her tonsils as we speak," Iga says, unhelpfully, "But that doesn't mean that he's stuck in there without the combination. We can find another way to break him out, can't we?"
My eye twitches a little, "He's not doing anything. And those bars are a special carbon-tungsten fiber I put together, they aren't going to break so easily. We need to get my baby out of there, and so far, Eve has kept her word."
Iga puts up her hands in surrender, "I can go either way. He either fucks the coroner for awhile, or he fucks Eve for awhile. I'm willing to share him, either way, you're the one that wants to get all greedy with Eli."
"It's not greed, he's -my- boyfriend, Iga," I scowl in her direction.
"Yes, yes. Fine. He calls your name in bed, after all. Fair enough," she continues to be kind of a bitch.
"Are you trying to provoke me?" I ask her, my voice dropping deeper.
"Sorry, Victoria," she sighs, "Just tense from all the undead monsters and corpse thievery and not getting to have sex with our boyfriend."
I guess that's as close to an apology as I'm going to get, "Let's just wake her up. We can figure out our next step after Eli is free."
"I can't help but notice that the words 'let's wake her up' have been followed, not by waking her up, but by doing the exact thing that I suggested," Iga complains, unhelpfully.
"As a woman of science, I reserve the right to change my mind, should new information become available, or should closer inspection of the details require a re-evaluation of the details," I carefully explain, and honestly, Iga sometimes just doesn't think like a scientist, "Now hand me to blowtorch, already."
Iga sighs and surrenders it, "Is this really a good idea, with them so... naked, in there?"
