Page 4 of Adam, Mine

Victor could grasp the humiliation one might feel at being made to take classes next to a child of fourteen when one was twenty. But it had been four years.

Now Victor was nearly eighteen himself. Henry, another bright young thing who had been kind to Victor at the start, was only a few years older at twenty-one. Their classmates held a place for Henry at their sides, for some reason. For Victor, there was none.

He hazarded a glance over his shoulder at the group.

While the rest of the men had distributed throughout the library to begin their research, Petyr, the most popular student, and his closest friend, Gregor, remained. Petyr was looking back at Victor, curious, while Gregor spoke to him.

Petyr was tall, blond as Victor, handsome and quiet. He wasn’t the brightest in the class or the most well-liked by the professors, but he was a natural leader. When he spoke, everyone listened, and he used his words wisely. It was as though he spent the day waiting for something worth saying. Gregor, on the other hand, was more of a brute, ferociously whiskered, and much louder. Victor didn’t like him or trust him, but he never left Petyr’s side.

Jonsi, another of their group, was quieter than Petyr and Gregor both, but he wasn’t any kinder to Victor than the others.

Henry avoided Victor’s gaze as he always did, then murmured something to Jonsi that made him laugh and join Petyr in his staring. Henry hadn’t spoken to him since he had pressed Victor on his feelings for him and Victor had rejected him, soundly. It had been a year. If it had been any other reason, Victor might have missed him dearly, since Henry had been his only friend. As it was, he was just deeply irritated.

Victor shot Henry a frown and walked farther into the library to get away from their scrutiny.

This paper was the last project of their academic careers. They were meant to use their work from this project to get jobs or advanced fellowships. Employers willing to hire straight from university were looking for experts who could provide quality service at an affordable rate.

Victor couldn’t compete. His age had him at a disadvantage: The prestige of being a wunderkind did not last. Wherever he went, he knew he would be underpaid and treated like a child unless he produced something that made him stand out. Alchemists often sought the worlds of engineering and invention; men of chemistry and metallurgy sought fortune in the world of industry.

But Victor and his family had been rich and they had been poor and now they were rich again.

His father had taught him one very important thing: the best job is one that men need in time of both feast and famine. The most valuable skill to have is one that men would pay for with money if they have it and blood if they don’t. Victor believed in that and would always choose to service its moral with action.

Victor passed the texts on elements and went farther to the back, where the older, biological texts were located. He skimmed a few titles, then began pulling items from the shelf.

“Can I help you find anything?”

Victor startled.

The librarian, a Mr. Jung, didn’t like when people went into this section of the library. Victor thought he’d seen him sitting at his desk at the front of the room, but he must be faster than he looked.

“Ernst Haeckel,”* Victor blurted.

Mr. Jung was a round man with skin so thin and papery it was nearly transparent. He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes.

“Ernst Haeckel is in the biology section. We do not have the largest biology section in this library as it is not the medical school. I suggest you seek your learning there.”

Victor looked over Mr. Jung’s shoulder at the locked collection just behind him, the library of the Incomparable Arts: the alchemy of the body. This university had the largest collection of alchemical books in the entire country—and functioned as more of an archive than a traditional library. As such, it held works even the students were not allowed to access. Judging from the look on the librarian’s face, that wasn’t about to change.

“Would I be able to request access to additional biological alchemical texts for the purpose of—?”

“No,” Mr. Jung interrupted. “Restricted texts are limited to faculty use only. If you can somehow convince faculty to lend secondhand to you, perhaps that may work. But for now, please confine your explorations to the rest of the collection.”

He put a firm hand on Victor’s shoulder, gave it a warning squeeze, and left.

Red

Professor Krempe wasn’t pleased. Victor was not the only person in class to have his thesis proposal rejected, but he was the only person fighting about it.

It wasn’t even grotesque. Just a proposal for a type of breathing device he’d spent the better part of a year designing on paper. It was feasibly sound, but the components would require live subjects for testing. Undergraduates didn’t have permission for that kind of experimentation. But for this device, such a constraint was absurd. A patient qualified for volunteering for a machine to help them breathe would have to be in such a state that death was their only alternative anyway.

Their argument was reaching a pitch so wild and loud that Jonsi got up and walked out of the room, but still Victor pressed the matter.

“Progress cannot be stalled by something as immaterial as the probability of wickedness!” Victor spluttered. “Should we turn from the wickedness of the past that provided us with lifesaving treatment in the present?”

Professor Krempe slammed a hand on the desk. “The barrier for progress must be governed by an understanding of potential damages. The current damages are the legal ramifications of my potential approval of your use of human test subjects for the purpose of unethical experimentation on the weak and vulnerable. Even the medical school has guidelines for involvement of living persons that this project defies—regardless of these subjects’ supposed impending mortality. Damages are governed and reduced by rigid understanding and respect of the rules. Acknowledging the use of a tool as a catalyst for a loss of life before promoting its availability as a tool.”

“You honestly believe the inventor of the hammer considered its efficacy as a bludgeoning instrument before—”