"There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth."

C. S. LEWIS
The Screwtape Letters
1942

Dr. Wingate Peaslee smiled at the crowd of clamoring photographers, camera operators and onlookers as he petted the head of the newborn baby. Lightly touching the wispy hair, the stout man said, "Take me away, gents. My work is now done. Behold what only my eyes have seen through the gifts of Ultrasonography."

The snaps of shutters, flashes of light and cacophony of questions couldn't block out the reality of cold steel on Dr. Peaslee's wrist. An officer in navy blue yanked Peaslee's smooth skinned hand away from the scalp of the infant. With a swift motion, Peaslee's hands were secured behind his back.

"Dr. Peaslee!" a youthful female reporter clad in a lime green dress screamed, falling over the barricade of security officers. A few of the college security men bore her up as she shouted above the din, "Did you clone this child to test the federal ban?"

While the police jostled the hefty man, Dr. Peaslee called out, "I'm confident that my attorney will have this straightened out presently. I committed no moral crime performing an Intracytoplasmic injection on the egg. Look for yourselves!" The mass of reporters faced the tall, dark haired man holding the infant. The police stopped pulling the doctor and Peaslee declared, "Adam Benedict is perfect. There is not a Telomeres sequence degraded at the end of any of his chromosomal stacks."

Suddenly, the horde of reporters surged and the security drowned in their mass. Police officers, flummoxed at their impotence and astonishment at the situation, hauled Dr. Peaslee down the pristine hallway. His feet dragging in the main infirmary wing of Miskatonic Technical Institute, Dr. Wingate Peaslee couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

"Removing you from that facility was a show for the press," Irving Goldblatt told Dr. Peaslee as they stood in the professor's large, but cramped office. Boxes of materials, papers, books, and mementos surrounded them, providing a closer atmosphere. "Those fools make me wretch. They are trying to remake the constitution and must think me meshugeh to let that happen. You should have stuck with stem cell research."

Straightening the sleeves of his rumpled tan suit, Dr. Peaslee proceeded to pour himself coffee from a pot concealed in a cave constructed from dusty books. With some humor in his tone, Peaslee said to his lawyer, "Irving, we knew it would come down to this. Those fundamentalists are as predictable as the sun rising, literal antigens to my system."

The lawyer, wearing an immaculate, expensive, shiny gray suit threw up his hands and replied, "But these maniacs paint you as useless in the press already. If they represent you as a lunatic, we will get bupkis from the high court!"

Dr. Peaslee shrugged and walked away from his cluttered, paper-strewn desk. "If I'd have announced my research and tests here at the Miskatonic Technical Institute, the self righteous Presidential administration would've came down on me and interfered. My tests in Unique Morphology and RNA splices must carry on."

Peeking through the blinds, Irving commented. "Yet, that didn't stop his minions from watching your behind close, eh? In all of my sixty years, Wingate, I have never seen so many whoring bastards in one spot."

"Protestors filling the parking lot, are they?" Dr. Peaslee sighed, sipping the coffee, his manner for those outside one of pity more than distain. "They started sniffing when I mapped the human Genome. Gracious!"

"Yes, the same group who protest abortion clinics I've seen at public executions fighting for the lives of murderers." Irving's wrinkled face produced more lines as he looked out through the narrow slot in the blinds. "Those are your enemies out there, professor, the ones who are upholding the pure laws of God! Mazel Tov!"

Peaslee, a man of the same height as his elderly lawyer, gazed out of the blinds, groaned and said, "Don't those fools realize this research is for their own good? I wouldn't be doing this for money! Do they realize how difficult it is to differentiated a cell, read Chromosomes and perform nuclear enucleation?"

Irving shrugged and spoke in a matter of fact way. "That never dawns on such dreck that they are wrong until help is required in their own life. They knew you would be free once I caused mayhem with the police, and then they stage this dog, pony, and jackass show. No one has ever been arrested for violating the cloning ban of the President. This is virgin territory, but I am up for it. After my prostate cancer, I relish the chance at deflowering anything."

Slapping both of the lawyer's shoulders, Dr. Peaslee stepped away from the blinds and stepped over to his overstocked bookcases. "You're a good egg, Irving."

"Heh," the lawyer said, facing the professor. "I'm more of an omelet lately. The work you do is good for all. You must understand, Wingate, taking on some shmegma who value life so much is a joy. It makes my blood flow better."

"Value to life? They worry for a soul? What poppycock!" Dr. Peaslee thundered and scanned his shelves. "We are all lab rats in this evolving soup of chance. Those mongrels outside simply aren't bright enough to realize when someone does them a favor. I work for the betterment of mankind and all they can do is chain my feet to the myths of the dark ages!"

Irving chuckled, "I know it took you 86 tries to get a mutt dog cloned."

"Getting the methylation straight alone was a victory in that test." Dr. Peaslee ran his smooth fingers over the volumes on the shelves. Several were modern medical journals, but many were aged, leather-bound texts from antiquity. His fingered tapped on the rusty clasps on a few of these leather volumes. "Yes? And so what are you asking?"

Irving was silent for a few moments before asking, "How many attempts were there before you produced Adam?"

The professor looked at Irving, winked and scrunched up his nose. "Oh, a man needs his secrets, doesn't he?"

"I wonder if the multitude outside is cognizant that Mrs. Benedict is in the asylum at Providence?"

"What would it matter? Mrs. Benedict is a raving lunatic and that is why they have madhouses. She made her contribution. Does she think her Trophectoderm is unique? It was at hand and it worked were others failed, that is all."

"She was quite a yenteh, always out of control. I wonder what pushed her over the edge?" Irving marveled, his thin fingers pressed to his chest like a French conqueror.

Peaslee shrugged. "After a trip through my private lab, she snapped. Her incarceration was hushed up, but in the best interests of the program. Adam's papa has his son back. Mr. Benedict possessed deep enough pockets to reach out and get him. Not every parent who lost their child in a car accident can say that."

The lawyer dropped his hands to his sides and smiled warmly. "If those filthy fanatics outside knew you mingled scientific texts with those ancient volumes of the occult on your shelf, they would be gathering wood and erecting a stake. No amount of my schmoozing would help!"

Dr. Peaslee roared with laughter, stabbing a finger at a volume on the shelf. "What? Just for how I arrange my books? Pee-shaw! A man has to have a hobby! If they thought the NECRONOMICON was real, they would've burnt Miskatonic Tech to the ground by now. Such dark tomes are the stuff of legends to these religious dolts, but if they really saw a copy, goodness! A holy war would ensue."

Irving raised an eyebrow. "They would surmise that you gained knowledge or inspiration from the dark book. If it comes down to such claims in court, I can get you declared temporarily insane from reading the NECRONOMICON or NAMELESS CULTS here. Is that the German translation?"

Wingate nodded.

"Rare indeed! If I spin a tale that you read such things before you did your work, it will accomplish me goal. This way, to justify your research into cloning, you were maddened by the volume!"

Tears sprang to his eyes as the professor giggled so hard. "Damned lawyers! What would I do without you?"

Grinning amiably, Irving shrugged, and gestured up in the air with both hands. It was at that moment Dr. Peaslee looked back at the spine of the NECRONOMICON and saw a hole materialize. His heart skipping a beat, Peaslee thought indeed the supernatural leapt into his life, but this proved a red herring. A supple fingertip touched the hole on the spine and found the opening real. Turning to face Irving, Peaslee beheld the attorney fold at the knees. Still staring at Peaslee, Irving bore a savage plume of torn flesh in the middle of his forehead. Peaslee's ears seemed to run in a slower gear as heard the tinkle of broken glass filtering into his senses. The gentle fount of spraying gray matter baptized Peaslee's desk as Irving's great, legal mind was freed of its housing.

Dr. Peaslee sank to the floor in terror, his legs quaking uncontrollably. He fumbled for his cellular phone as sounds of confusion and screams from outside reached him. Gaping at Irving propped back against the wall, he noted the lawyer still looked at him. Dr. Peaslee's bladder failed. He fought to retain his water, but after the initial outburst of brains, cleanliness didn't matter much anymore. With his fingers trembling so, Dr. Peaslee couldn't dial his phone. In moments, college security and the police were in his office. Struggling to breathe normal, Peaslee pointed at his fallen friend. While the officers assessed what happened, Peaslee covered up his soiled waist with a blotter-map of the world.

"Are you all right?" one of the officers asked the professor, helping the chubby man to his feet.

Looking down at Irving and then out of the blinds, Dr. Peaslee saw the clean bullet hole in the glass. "No, sir, it will be a long time before I'm all right again!"

The officer's left and the professor relaxed on the edge of the desk. Looking at his friend's face, brains and blood painting the once articulate mouth of Irving Goldblatt, Dr. Peaslee's heart leapt. It wasn't out of revulsion, but by the riveting idea in his mind affecting his heart. Reaching into his desk, he withdrew a tiny Tupperware container. Usually, he brought in fish shaped crackers for his visiting grand children in this container. Quickly gobbling up the final three fishes, Peaslee knelt and scraped the lip of the Tupperware container under Irving's chin. Crudely, he swiped the tiny dish up over Irving's lips and nose in a motion not unlike tidying up a baby eating pudding. As the sound of footsteps in the hall rebounded in his ears, Dr. Peaslee snapped the container shut, sloshed the grimy, gray matter once, and stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

"Doc?" a dark haired police officer with his gun drawn asked. "We got the bastard! Some radical was trying to—"

"Kill me and shot Irving, yes," Dr. Peaslee said softly, tears in his eyes over the loss of his friend. The two older men had known each other most of their lives and for an instant Peaslee felt his research might not be worth this.

The cop nodded, his words falling rapidly, "Yeah. We got him. Screwball tripped over the student rendering of Cthulhu made up for the spirit week float. Lucky for us all the tentacles weren't placed on the float yet, huh?"

Staring at his friend, the professor stated, "Lucky, indeed." He pointed to the stain on his tan pants. "Please allow me to go into my lab and change into fresh clothes. I'm not a courageous individual, my boys. Grant me some dignity."

The dark haired cop shrugged. "I have no problem with that. Let Mike here stand outside the door. I want no accidents, ok?"

"No more accidents," Peaslee promised and looked up at Mike. This policeman was husky, black and appeared to mean business from his ruthless expression. "A fitting angel. Follow me."

The two men marched down the hallway, taking the stairs to the basement, and arrived at the door to Dr. Peaslee's research facility. The cop gave him a disappointed look as the professor unlocked the door and slipped in. Peaslee figured the cop wanted to follow, but shut him out anyway.

Once in his private lab, Peaslee locked the door and let out a great sigh. From a small locker he retrieved a fresh pair of tan pants and quickly changed. Fishing in his coat, he removed the plastic dish and said, "Irving, my friend, you will thank me someday. We shared so many good stories, fun times…and we shall again."

Dodging the tables full of beakers, computers and tiny machines, Dr. Peaslee started to hum an old tune. Switching on some lights, he went to the large door in the rear of the lab and undid the multiple locks with a key only he possessed. Opening the thick door, he stepped into a cold, murky chamber that was illuminated only by dull florescent light.

With a spring in his step and a song on his lips Dr. Peaslee waltzed past rows and rows of large jars filled with heavy amber fluid. Peering into the brains of Irving Goldblatt, he felt the confidence that it would never take so many attempts to get his friend back. Dr. Peaslee, ever a man to learn from his errors, felt a slight pang of guilt to reclaim his friend and not just do this duty for the furthering of science. Nevertheless, he glanced at tall the jars around him as he walked to the end of the storage room. Peaslee looked into the last slot, the one he never filled, and was overjoyed at the number of his success. Inside containers were various twisted, freakish, slimy, anthropoid-like, rejects with one thing in common. They were all Adam Benedict.

Dr. Peaslee grinned, faced the tiny, nuclear accelerator in the corner and sang, "Six hundred and sixty five jars of Adam on the table..."

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