James blinked at the title of the chapter, and flipped to it. Calloway had been researching golems and homunculi, artificial creatures that would serve the alchemist loyally. With his medical background, he'd realized the ancient Alchemists had some concept of DNA, and Calloway adapted their studies. He could create an artificial body, what the Sci-Fi authors called a clone. Organs for transplanting were hard to come by, especially good ones, but what if they could be created as needed?
The ethical concerns never seemed to bother Calloway, and after several false starts, he finally hit upon the right process. He filled a vat with the various chemicals that composed a human body, as well as animal blood, and "his own seed". Adding to this "four drops of reactant", he sealed the tub, which he then immersed in water kept at a steady 98 degrees.
Three nights later, he was suprised to hear a pounding noise from inside the tub! Unsure of what had happened, he removed it from the water and opened it, only to find a naked young girl inside!
"The golem was much more lifelike than I'd been led to believe; upon first glance, she seemed completely human. That she was related to me was without question, she had my hair and eyes, and while much more attractive than myself, was obviously my own blood. Despite having only rudimentary memories, she was obviously intelligent, and able to follow a wide variety of instructions."
James read on.
"Physically, I'd say she looks to be about thirteen or so; had I left her inside the vat, she would have reached adulthood in another day or so, but what a racket she made! Closer examination of her body revealed several oddities; she weighed more than she ought, easily three times the weight of a normal girl of her height, age, and build. Her bone and muscle structure were far denser than human flesh, and her skin was exceedingly tough; I broke several needles before I finally got a blood sample. Her blood seems human, and it's quite similar to my own, yet...it's obvious she's not entirely human. Her skin is smooth and hairless, like a young child's, and she lacks both navel and anus. Though she's very capable of eating, whatever passes for golem digestion apparently leaves no waste to dispose of, and in fact, she can go for some time without food."
"Her intelligence constantly suprises me, I'm quite certain she's smarter than myself; she was talking by the end of the week, in complete sentences. Realizing that a golem was in fact, a living being, capable of independant thought and action, I decided not to repeat my experiment. I named her Angela..."
"At her insistence, we tried again a few years later, when it became obvious that Angela wasn't maturing, or aging, in any appreciable way. While it didn't bother her at the moment, she was curious if it was possible to artificially induce golem maturity at a later date. We repeated each step perfectly, but by day four, there was no sign of life. By day five, we opened the vat, to find a perfectly formed young woman, perhaps 19 years of age. She could have been Angela's elder sister."
"We named her Victoria, but where Angela had a will of her own, Victoria could only follow orders, she was merely a doll. We agonized over this at great length, as to what made Angela different than her sister. We never could find the answer, nor did we clearly gain understanding of why the end product was always female. Rather than make another golem, we turned to necromancy.."
From here, the book referred to another chapter. Flipping through the pages, James reached a chapter about "Soul Transference".
"...a success. Angela has a soul of her own, where Victoria does not, and we were able to transfer Angela's conciousness into her sister's body. Her old body, much like Victoria had been, was listless, only able to follow orders like an automaton. Angela seems quite pleased to have two bodies, and constantly switches between them, unable to make up her mind which form she likes best. I, of course, prefer her young form, it's easier to think of her as my daughter that way...Victoria's body has...more pronounced attributes, and I'm too old for such."
"Angela has expressed some fear that I'll die on her, while she will remain young for a very long time. She has urged me to transfer myself into Victoria's body, but I've lived a full life. And I'm too set in my ways to become a woman now! So we settled on a new project..."
"Angela seems to have decided to remain young for now, at least for the remainder of my life. Trying to please me, I suppose. I won't complain. We put Victoria's body in the freezer; golems seem to react well to cryogenic sleep, going inert at low temperatures, but regaining motive power quickly when the temperature rises, without any side effects that we can observe..."
Fascinated, James made a decision, one that would change his life forever.