Originally Posted by personage

He could remember his birth. The sensation of floating, warm and safe in the womb then the sudden glare of light and sound. The air, though warmed for his arrival still felt cold to his thin skin.

Behind him, he could hear the cries of what he understood had been his mother. She was crying to hold him, just once, her voice raw with anguish. This was something promised to her, now being denied.

He craned his tiny neck to see her and managed one quick glance at the woman who had let him grow inside her. Her hair was long and disheveled, spread around her like thick strands of silk. Her legs were still up in the air, although someone had taken the time to cover her.

A nurse approached her with something long and sharp quickly plunging it into her arm. Her cries immediately subsided and the strong hands holding him turned him away from the scene of his birth.

"I told you the vessel would be a problem," said the Good Doctor.

"Every mother wants to hold their child," said another voice, a softer voice the newborn would come to love, while he would despise the voice of the Good Doctor.

"She is not his mother," the Good Doctor snapped.

Already, his amazing mind was picking up the thread of the conversation; recognizing words he had been taught while in the womb. He came to understand, at five minutes thirteen seconds, that the woman he would have called Mother had only been a vessel for his growth.

He would have many mothers and fathers, all of them there to teach him. And how he would learn.( ...?)He was the culmination of genetic science, a child created to save the world, to be the stand-in for the son, it seemed, God decided not to send a second time.

Maybe being nailed to a tree once was enough for any parent to let their child endure, even God.

No problem, thought the great minds of Man, the Christian Fundamentalists are screaming for the Messiah. We can create one.

The Good Doctor took the infant in his latex-gloved hands, only his eyes were visible above the mask he wore. But the eyes were enough. They were alive and full of malevolence and pride. The child understood then and there that the Good Doctor thought of himself as his father and mother. He had been the one to map the genetic code, he was the head of the God project, and at last it had some to fruition.

The child let out his first wail of disapproval.

Behind the membrane of the mask, the Good Doctor's lips moved into the semblance of a smile, "Perfect," he said.