Nature or Nurture: the raising of a monster

Chapter 11

They leave the house together, Adison and Vincent heading towards the Chinese quarter, the doctor downtown to a certain Doctor Van Helsing, the man who has made the study of blood and its capacities his life's goal. The day is nice and sunny, and the two lovers thoroughly enjoy the walk through town. Entering the Chinese quarters, the scenery changes. The buildings are more or less the same highrises with appartments as most of the city, but a lot of the homes have brightly coloured banners, and the shop-signs are of course in Chinese characters. There is more green in the streets, potted shrubs and even trees, there are more children about. The reason for this is also clear, the social structure here is much stronger. Adison is greeted immediately by her title as doctor, and Vincent is hailed by name, by most passers-by and all of the children. It gives a feeling of belonging. They head for the community centre, a lower building set in a garden. The grounds must have once cost a fortune, and the building itself another one, built as it is in traditional style and of materials imported from China. Adison likes the strong community spirit, Vincent can imagine Bruce feeling very controlled and limited by it. Tradition is strong here, and for a restless young man it can be very restricting.

They enter the building and head to master Man's room. Knocking, they are invited in, and find the room already full with a kind of council, consisting of three men and three women, of different ages. Bruce is there too, master Man heads it. 'We were expecting you two, welcome!', he says to the stunned couple, 'we had hoped to finally meet the doctor as well, but I suppose he had other pressing business?' Adison stutters: 'How did you know we'd come? Do you also know our goal?' The council nods confirmatively. Master Man says:' You want to know more about the evil that is trying to manifest in our city and that is threatening us all. Please be seated, both of you, and tell us what you know.'

Adison starts to speak:' A week ago, in the doctor's workshop, three people came in with the body of a gruesome creature. It was man-shaped, it had a light grey hard exoskeleton, no body hair and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Cutting into the exoskeleton, the doctor found the body a darker grey, with hieroglyphs in relief. Its blood was human-like, only with signs of an infectious disease.The sight of the body and of the lady of the company of three, Miss Vanessa Yves, gave me a premonition: that the appearance of that particular group of people would change all our lives, explaining why the three of us felt compelled to learn weaponscraft and why Vincent needed to get to know and accept the violent side of him. We were going to need both in a battle against evil.' She hands master Man the sketches.

'And your story?' he asks Vincent. Thinking back of what might be relevant to the council, he starts: 'Do you know how I was born a year ago?' Master Man answers: 'We have an idea, but we'd like to hear it from you. We have a suspicion you may be quite important in all this, so we'd like to hear first-hand.' So he tells them:' The doctor took a body dying of head trauma and resurrected it using lightning. It went totally wrong, I was born totally confused and in excruciating pain. This brought me to near-madness and violence.The doctor fled in fear and might have abandoned me, if I hadn't killed him in my state. Adison intervened and comforted me, healed my wounds and relieved my loneliness. She taught me to walk, speak, read, write and think, and she showed me how to love and how to forgive. Finally she helped me face my violent streak and learn to love it as well.' This is what we thought had happened, '' says master Man, 'now hear our share: We knew the doctor had a task to fullfill, so we had him watched. We set up Adison to live next door, so she could assist in his task, and found a practice with him to bring Chinese medicin to English patients. When we finally could see you in our readings, we were glad we had decided to intervene, for you had been set up for great evil in your life before your death. We don't know exactly what the enemy was planning of course, but you were supposed to be resurrected, then scare your maker into flight, leaving you to grow up in utter loneliness, virtually indestructible and howling mad with hatred for your maker and all humankind. You were to be the ultimate bringer of evil, though we don't exactly know in what way. We know this is not all, but we don't know the rest of his plan, we hoped you would find out.'