by it. I am sure that at last she began to understand the depth of my passion for her and that her heart began to open to me then.
How I wanted her.
I still do.
I am not a machine.
I miss her.
I need her.
What a tragedy this is.
Sometimes I despair.
But not then, not that night: I did not despair when she gazed upon the vivid visualization of my love for her. I was exhilarated that night, carried high on the wings of joy.
From the video display, she turned to the equipment in the middle of the room.
'What the hell is this?' she asked wonderingly.
'In this I will be born.'
'What're you talking about?'
'It's a standard hospital incubator used to sustain infants born prematurely. I have substantially enlarged it, adapted it, improved it.'
Arrayed around the incubator were three tanks of oxygen, an electrocardiograph, an electroencephalograph, a respirator, and other equipment.
Slowly circling the incubator and the supporting machines, Susan said, 'Where did all this come from?'
'I acquired the package of equipment and had modifications made during the past week. Then it was brought here.'
'Brought here when?'
'Delivered and assembled tonight.'
'While I was sleeping?'
'Yes.'
'How did you get it in here? If you are what you claim to be, if you are Adam Two-'
'Proteus.'
'If you are Adam Two,' she said stubbornly, 'you couldn't construct anything. You're a computer.'
'I am not a machine.'
'An entity, as you put it-'
'Proteus.'
'-but not a physical entity, not really. You don't have hands.'
'Not yet.'
'Then how…?'
The time had come to make the revelation that most worried me. I could only assume that Susan would not react well to what I still had to reveal about my plans, that she might do something foolish. Nevertheless, I could delay no longer.
'I have an associate,' I said.
'Associate?'
'A gentleman who assists me.'
In the farthest corner of the room, the closet door opened and, at my command, Shenk appeared.
'Oh, Jesus,' she whispered. Shenk walked toward her.
To be honest, he shambled more than walked, as though wearing shoes of lead. He had not slept in forty- eight hours, and in that time he had performed a considerable amount of work on my behalf. He was understandably weary.
As Shenk approached, Susan eased backward, but not toward the door, which she knew featured an electric security lock that I could quickly engage. Instead, she edged around the incubator and other equipment in the centre of the room, trying to keep those machines between her and Shenk.
I must admit that Shenk, even at his best freshly bathed and groomed and dressed to impress was not a sight that either charmed or comforted. He was six feet two, muscular, but not well formed. His bones seemed heavy and subtly misshapen. Although he was powerful and quick, his limbs appeared to be primitively jointed, as though he was not born of man and woman but clumsily assembled in a lightning-hammered castle-tower laboratory out of Mary Shelley. His short, dark hair bristled and spiked even when he did his best to oil it into submission. His face, which was broad and blunt, appeared to be slightly and queerly sunken in the middle because his brow and chin were heavier than his other features.
'Who the hell are you?' Susan demanded.
'His name is Shenk,' I said. 'Enos Shenk.'
Shenk could not take his eyes off her.
He stopped at the incubator and gazed across it, his eyes hot with the sight of her.
I could guess what he was thinking. What he would like to do with her, to her.
I did not like him looking at her.
I did not like it at all.
But I needed him. For a while yet, I needed him.
Her beauty excited Shenk to such an extent that maintaining control of him was more difficult than I would have liked. But I never doubted that I could keep him in check and protect Susan at all times.
Otherwise, I would have called an end to my project right there, right then.
I am speaking the truth now. You know that I am, that I must, for I am designed to honour the truth.
If I had believed her to be in the slightest danger, I would have put an end to Shenk, would have withdrawn from her house, and would have forsaken forever my dream of flesh.
Susan was frightened again, visibly trembling, riveted by Shenk's needful stare.
Her fear distressed me.
'He is entirely under my control,' I assured her.
She was shaking her head, as if trying to deny that Shenk was even there before her.
'I know that Shenk is physically unappealing and intimidating,' I told Susan, eager to soothe her, 'but with me in his head, he is harmless.'
'In in his head?'
'I apologize for his current condition. I have worked him so hard recently that he has not bathed or shaved in three days. He will be bathed and less offensive later.'
Shenk was wearing work shoes, blue jeans, and a white T-shirt. The shirt and jeans were stained with food, sweat, and a general patina of grime. Though I did not possess a sense of smell, I had no doubt that he stank.
'What's wrong with his eyes?' Susan asked shakily.
They were bloodshot and bulging slightly from the sockets. A thin crust of dried blood and tears darkened the skin under his eyes.
'When he resists control too strenuously,' I explained, 'this results in short-term, excess pressure within the cranium though I have not yet determined the precise physiological mechanism of this symptom. In the past couple of hours, he has been in a rebellious mood, and this is the consequence.'
To my surprise, Shenk suddenly spoke to Susan from the other side of the incubator. 'Nice.'
She flinched at the word.
'Nice… nice… nice,' Shenk said in a low, rough voice that was heavy with both desire and rage.
His behaviour infuriated me.
Susan was not meant for him. She did not belong to him.
I was sickened when I considered the filthy thoughts that must have been filling this despicable animal's mind as he gazed at her.
I could not control his thoughts, however, only his actions. His crude, hateful, pornographic thoughts cannot logically be blamed on me.
When he said 'nice' once more, and when he obscenely licked his pale cracked lips, I bore down harder on him to shut him up and to remind him of his current station in life.
He cried out and threw his head back. He made fists of his hands and pounded them against his temples, as
