Chapter Text
Today is the day. Gem has had it marked on her calendar for three days. On the day she realized Jimmy VII might be ready, she decided on this date. It gave her plenty of time to run every test under the sun. Her thorough preparation has revealed a steady heartbeat, passable lung function, good blood work, and most excitingly, robust brain activity. It’s measurable evidence that he won’t just be in a coma.
And now, the day has come. She wakes up, gets ready for the day, and sips at her coffee while trying to read in her armchair. She is trying to follow her normal morning routine, having told herself that she’ll go downstairs afterwards. She needs to be focused if she's going to do this right. But the words seem to melt off the page because she can’t stop thinking about Jimmy VII in the tank in the basement. Eventually, she decides she’s waited long enough, pulls on her lab coat, and descends the stairs.
The lab looks as it always does. Martyn VII and Jimmy VII float silently in their tanks. The machines that monitor them display the same consistent vital signs as always. Only Jimmy VII’s rhythmic spasming seems out of place. She’d decided not to wait too long to take him out for fear that letting the spasms carry on for too long might damage his core muscles. As it stands now, he’s essentially had the equivalent of hiccups for three days straight. That’s gotta make you sore, right?
She marches up the metal stairs of the catwalk reaching above the tanks. The clanking of her boots echoes through the quiet lab. The catwalk is a steel grate, full of holes that let her see the concrete floor of her lab below. She’s been up here more times then she can count, but the height seems to have doubled this time around. She carries a backpack of supplies and drags a small wheeled cot behind her.
The cap on the tank is a great big steel thing, sealed in place with watertight rubber O-rings. Normally, Gem does her sampling through a small hole in the lid. Today is the first time in several months that it will be completely opened.
Gem places the cot beside her on the narrow catwalk and grabs hold of the handle on top of the lid. It takes a firm tug to turn it. Firmer than it has taken in the past. As the handle moves to the other side of its range of motion, the seal disengages. There’s a strange sound as air rushes into the tank. It’s the first exposure to something non-sterile of Jimmy VII’s life. Gem hooks both hands under the lid and hauls it up. It is heavy, but it swings freely on its sturdy hinge. Gem gazes at the surface of the growth medium below her. And below that, her clone.
He does not react in any particular way. He’s been disconnected from the blood machine for quite a while, so there are no tubes to worry about.
Well, only one thing left to do.
Gem drops to her belly on the catwalk and submerges her arms nearly shoulder-deep in the green liquid.
The fluid is at human body temperature, so it feels like a warm bath. She feels around indelicately. When he was an embryo, every interaction with him was made with the utmost care. He was so, so fragile. And now here she is, reaching around blindly for him like she’s bobbing for apples.
One of her hands feels something solid. She realizes it’s his shoulder, and uses this to orient herself. She grabs him under the armpits and hauls him up like she’s pulling a child out of the bathtub. His head breaks the surface and the thin growth medium runs off of him in little streams. Gem readjusts and hefts him the rest of the way up. He’s heavy, but she’s strong, and the angle gives her an advantage.
She manages to get him laid on his back on the catwalk. Immediately, her mind runs through the checklist of things that need to happen to keep him alive. She turns his head to the side because his lungs are full of fluid. The fluid itself won’t hurt him, but she wants him to be able to clear it effectively. His convulsions turn into something resembling a cough. That’s good! He coughs and chokes and sputters, but he does not breathe.
Worst come to worst, she will try mouth-to-mouth. But she gives him just a little longer to try and work it out on his own.
He wheezes, but can’t seem to get any air into him. His lips are turning pale. Right as Gem is about to call it and begin resuscitation efforts, there is a crackling sound as he breathes in for the first time. On the out-breath, he coughs violently and repeatedly. But it must have worked this time, because all of the next breaths are clear.
He’s breathing. Thank goodness.
Even though she brought a stethoscope, she presses an ear to his chest. She hears his heart race as his body adjusts to the new environment. Where her hands touch his chest, she feels it rise and fall gently underneath her touch. She clips a pulse monitor onto his finger. When she runs a finger across his side, his muscles twitch on the same side. It’s a test of his reflexes.
She pulls towels out of the backpack and rubs him clean. She gently wipes his closed eyes. His pupils move under his eyelids. She’s tempted to open them for him. His hair is too long, she notices. It doesn’t look like the real thing. She does her best to dry his hair, but he’ll probably be a little sticky until she can give him a proper bath.
She pulls back, wipes the sweat off her forehead, and takes a moment to really look at him. At least in the face, he looks pretty darn close to the Jimmy she knows and loves. Right now, he’s pale and trembling. His skin almost seems thin. Gem swears that she can see quite a few veins underneath it. He breathes in quick puffs, but that isn’t unexpected.
For now, he looks stable. Gem breathes a sigh of relief. Theoretically, this is the most challenging obstacle he should face. The point in his life where he would be most likely to die. And he hasn’t. Her experiment has persevered.
But there’s far more to do. First, she has to get him off of this precarious catwalk. Gem grabs the little cot and drags him up onto it. He’s tall, so his feet hang off the end just a little. She wheels him over to a little lift that goes between the catwalk and the ground. She’d installed it just for this purpose. He can’t exactly make it down the stairs in this state, can he? So she puts him on the lift, holds the cot stable, and turns the key that operates it. There’s a loud hum as the motor jumps into action and the two of them are lowered.
She wheels him across the floor of the lab, past Martyn VII, and towards a door on the other side of the room. Behind it is a room that she has set up specifically for him.
Medical equipment and monitoring devices, both those that are necessary and those that are for emergencies, line one wall. A bed with comfortable sheets and plenty of pillows sits opposite the door. There’s a rocking chair for Gem and a dresser for supplies and clothes. Random posters are on the wall, just to have something to look at. She’d wanted the lights low to not overwhelm him, so the whole room is lit by a floor lamp just inside the door.
She made sure there is no possible way he could hurt himself unintentionally. He’s going to be uncoordinated. He’s not going to know how to use things that humans automatically know. And he is extremely, extremely valuable, and also equally fragile. There just can’t be any accidents. She put rails on his bed and covered the floor with a thick rug in case he should fall. She padded any sharp corners with cut-up pool noodles. Hey, she’s a professional, but if it’s cheap and it works, then why not.
She lays him in the bed and pauses. For the first time in his life, she needs to take her eyes off of him for a second. Just long enough to grab his clothes from where they are folded in the dresser. He will stay right behind him and probably won’t even move. She’ll hear if he does, anyway. Still, it’s nerve-wracking to tear herself away from him and get his clothes.
She gets back to discover that his eyes are open. Just barely, but it’s startling. His half-lidded eyes gaze up at her without really seeing. He slowly blinks them closed. He looks sleepy, which is not surprising. Gem dresses him in something comfortable, and while she works, his eyes keep opening for just a bit. He looks at her sleepily for a few seconds, then seems to doze off again.
Since he looks so exhausted, Gem decides to let him sleep. She pulls a top sheet over him and lowers the lights. In the meantime, she flits around the room, organizing and reorganizing the things in the dresser and around the room. It’s really just a way to keep busy. She realizes she should grab a few things from outside the room and walks to the door to leave. She grabs the knob, but the thought of leaving him alone fills her with dread. She has to remind herself that the room is as safe as can be.
She walks out the door, shuts it behind her, and clicks the lock on the outside of the door.
It’s just a precaution. She’d rather he stay where she left him.
She spends a few minutes grabbing what she needs, checking on Martyn VII’s data readouts on her laptop, and recording some qualitative data about his first few moments.
When she reenters the room, he is awake and moving. He’s uncoordinated, but he’s gently grabbing at the sheets below him and softly kicking. He’s managed to kick off his own blanket. His eyes are fully open and he seems slightly more attentive. The click of the door shutting gets his attention and he looks over.
“Hello.” Gem says. The unsurety in her voice takes her by surprise. “How do you feel?”
He doesn’t understand, of course. He doesn’t know words yet. She hopes he can learn quickly.
As she approaches him, he stills. Now that he’s awake, she conducts a more thorough check of his reflexes. She pulls up her chair and slowly moves a pencil back and forth in front of his eyes. He tracks it without issue. She claps, and he flinches at the noise. So he can see and hear just fine. She taps his Achilles tendon and feels his ankle flex slightly. When she taps his elbow in the same way, his arm extends just a bit. All of the other checks she makes turn up good. That’s excellent. Intact reflexes mean that his difficulties breathing at the start have not caused him any brain damage.
Once that is done, it’s time for another potentially challenging milestone. He should eat.
She arranges the pillows and helps him sit up leaning against them. As he is a mature adult, he should theoretically be able to digest solid food. But that seems like an unnecessarily rough start. So Gem decides to start with chicken broth. She has pre-warmed a little cup of it. She dips a spoon and holds it under Jimmy VII’s nose. He makes no attempt to drink it. She waits for a little bit, but he only looks at her with wide eyes. So she gently grabs his jaw with her other hand and encourages him to open his mouth. She puts the spoon in his mouth and tilts his head back. His swallow reflex kicks in and Gem sees his throat bob.