"I don't know what to tell you."

"Then start wherever the hell you feel like. Just talk."

"I love the living body. I love everything about it," he finished, his mouth curving into a smile. There wasn't anything pleasant about it. It was the kind of smile that didn't really show any sign of being comforting; but it wasn't malicious either.

"The body, I daresay, isn't anything to scoff at. It's the ultimate Creation. It's a fully functional automaton capable of anything, and it makes me excited. And the genetic map, which it follows in stages of development, is Highly Unpredictable."

"You want to go into detail, or do I have to punch you in the face over and over again?"

"You make it sound like I have choice in the matter."

.....

"Get on with it."

"The Living body is Muscle, and Muscle covers bone. And surrounding the bone is tissues, blood cells, blood clots, and lots of healthy, vibrant, organs."

A painfully awkward pause.

"Warren put me through the ropes. But bugger to just a piece of string. The procedure of cutting through skin. Of applying mendicants to haemorrhages, sterilising wounds. Surgical and Anatomical Reconstruction. Isolating cellular abnormalities. Everything from the kindergarten basics of medical practice, to medical malpractice."

His face softened. The manic look didn't. Bates' looked so much worse than a child who stuck his hand in a cookie jar.