She was perfect. This was expected, because he had designed her to be.

He had spent hours in the laboratory, perfecting her little, pointed nose, her plump, pouting lips, and her seashell ears. He had made sure her hair fell like a waterfall of honey, her eyes sparkled with just the right touch of stardust, that her fingers were measured to be the perfect length, tapered and elegant.

Such a shame he could not get her to be alive.

One could most assuredly say that Jasper Clinton was obsessed. Nobody ever referred to him as Dr Clinton, it was always Clinton – he was undeserving of his doctorate. His mentor, Dr Oppel, often spoke despairingly of Jasper; such a shame it was that he wasted his young life away on this project.

Mabel, he called her; he had named it, which proved that it – she – was more than an experiment to him. Madeline Dippet, another young protegee, had said he had fallen in love with it, many a time, fiddling with her lab coat as Dr Oppel responded, as always, “It’s impossible.”

“It’s impossible, my dear,” he would intone, looking in the young lab assistant’s eyes with his own withered ones. “But, sir, just suppose it could happen,” Madeline would respond, bright blue eyes opened wide with wondrous fear. Dr Oppel always shook his head. “You can’t fall in love with something that has no soul,” he assured Madeline.

But being the young, impressionable creature that Madeline Dippet was, she refused to believe him.

She had seen Jasper wither away his nights by the vat they held Mabel in, watching the sentient being float in its sustaining liquid. She had seen the way he gazed at her. That was love. Madeline knew because she had never received such a look before.

Jasper Clinton had also let his other responsibilities fall by the wayside.

He was the best genetic engineer the institution had, but he spent his efforts trying to make Mabel come alive – and, when that failed, he would just stare and wish. “Results don’t come from wishes,” Dr Oppel said. He disapproved very much of Clinton, especially of his neglect.