Dr. Frankenstein glared at the obstinate fool before him. The rogue golem was an aberration, his reincarnation story an elaborate delusion. The doctor could piece together what had really happened from his ridiculous claims. The fools who had created this golem, using an inferior sub-licensed machine, had tried loading too many data sets all at once, probably out of budget concerns. The result was an overload, but instead of rendering the golem catatonic right off of the slab, the patterns had merged, fragmented aspects finding echoes in another datasets and combining into a pieced-together mock-up of a personality. Not a true mind, and certainly not reincarnation, but rather a set of impressions that fit together to cause the creature to have a persistent delusion. It was like sewing bits of corpses together to create a vaguely human shape and then calling the resulting creature a man. Preposterous.

Frankenstein returned his attention to the problem at hand. He’d seen similar problems before, though not nearly so… convincingly. Several times as Dr. Frankenstein had been perfecting the creation process, there had been mind images that had not been completely trimmed of their personality elements. Memories and mental traits had seeped through when they were imprinted on a golem, resulting in delusional creations that had to be destroyed. But this was much more complex, and the strength of the personality was surprising.

Dr. Frankenstein longed to study further, but with his fortress under attack and his own golem reserves depleted, he needed to end this distraction. Still, this was too useful a test specimen to simply destroy. It would have to be subdued and placed in storage for later study.

He opened his mouth to give orders to his golems, but he couldn't help himself. He so loved to see the expression on people's faces when they realized they had been outmaneuvered. The final dawning realization of his superiority was as exquisite as a sunrise, to be savored like a fine Bavarian wine.

"Very well," he said. "If you will not see reason, you leave me no choice. Take him--", but before he could get the orders out and set his bodyguards in motion, the aberrant construct moved.

Its hand flashed under its jacket faster than seemed possible. Even Frankenstein himself marveled at the blazing speed with which the Mark 6 drew a handgun and raised it.

Frankenstein lunged for a drawer of his desk. He yanked it out and reached for the gun inside. His hands had only barely closed around its grip when the bullets ripped into him. His body jerked as he staggered back, the gun still in hand.

He tried to lift it, but his arm had no strength. The floor came up and hit him in the face. He pushed desperately at the carpet, trying to get up. He had to move. He managed to roll over, flopping onto his back and staring at the ceiling. He gasped, and then his breath stopped. The world dimmed. He heard more gunshots, at least two different guns, barking distantly.

Up above, something loomed over him. It was the aberrant golem. Where were his bodyguards? The defective creation stared down at him with a sneer.

Suddenly, energy flooded through Frankenstein’s limbs. He felt a twinge in the small of his back as his emergency heart started pumping. His hands, limp and lifeless the moment before, still gripped the revolver.

The gun roared, and the golem that called itself a sergeant staggered back out of his sight. Pain flooded through him as Frankenstein gasped for breath.

The defective construct had shot him, its creator by proxy, the architect of its very existence! Anger flared through him. He struggled through the pain and pulled himself to his feet. He had been shot twice through the heart, and he felt light-headed as his back-up heart struggled to keep his large body in motion. The emergency cardiovascular organ down near the base of his spine had been one of his own brilliant innovations, though much less effective than the body's main heart. Only a very few golem models possessed it. It was very tricky to balance organs that had not been in the original design.

One of his golems was down, and even as Frankenstein pulled himself to his feet, the other one pitched over and lay still, its gun falling from its limp hands. The aberrant golem that called itself a sergeant still stood, but its torso was stained with blood from his shots and the ones his bodyguards had got off. It swayed on its feet. Then the Polish golem that thought its name was Sam fell over and lay still.

Such a waste, Frankenstein thought, but he didn't dwell on it. He had more important things to worry about. The back-up heart was not intended for long-term use. It was barely an organ at all, only was intended to keep his blood moving for a few minutes. But that was all he would need it for.

Carefully, holding on to the desk to support himself, Frankenstein turned and made his way across the room. The secret panel in the wall opened easily at his touch. The small chamber beyond was packed with equipment.

The control panel for the golem-making machine was built into a bed because it was designed to be used by himself on his own. It was a simple setup because it didn't need most of the features of one of the licensed and mass-produced Frankenstein machines. In fact, it had only a single function, one the larger machines lacked: the copy setting.

He laid full length on the bed. The big activation switch beckoned to him, but first he had to make his body selection. He had spent too long dealing with the aberrant creation, and he had work to do. Reports were coming in of intruders in the labs, and he needed to get down there and eliminate them. For that, he needed something bigger and stronger than even a Mark 6.

Frankenstein dialed the setting next to the activation lever and selected the Mark 10. It was his strongest and most effective creation to date. While it didn't have the mental capacity of the Mark 8B or the manual dexterity of the Mark 5, it surpassed all his other bodies in combat ability except perhaps the new experimental Mark 9F. He wasn’t quite ready to try one of those himself. Even with the new power they promised.

This machine had a battery of reserve bodies in it, clad in utilitarian trousers, a tan shirt and boots. As he made his selection, the rotating tray spun around. Four bodies waited in reserve, with one empty slot where a fifth had been. Frankenstein did not use the full array of possibilities he had created, inhabiting only a handful of the best bodies.

The golem body magazine spun to the Mark 10, of which there were two. He looked longingly at the Mark 9B, the one he wore right now. Its mental acuity felt just slightly better, and its smaller, more dexterous hands were better for laboratory work. All this unpleasant fighting was a distraction from his real labor that he longed to get back to. He had so much science to do.

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The magazine rotated to his selection, and the Mark 10 body lay stretched out beside him, its chest intact. Already Frankenstein could feel the back-up heart struggling to keep this body moving. It was time.

He pulled down the lever and activated the machine.

The pain was blinding. It felt as if someone had shot a bolt of lightning into his brain and burned out every nerve and pain receptor present, which was pretty close to what actually happened. He’d designed this machine himself and knew this was a highly scientific form of suicide. His old brain was obliterated and his mind imprinted on the new one, as it was simultaneously infused with life. All he felt was agony, and then nothing.

His eyes opened. There was a smell of burning flesh. Frankenstein grabbed the handholds and slid himself out of the cradle. His old body lay on the table, the head charred and blackened, the chest a mass of gaping wounds. His clothes were ruined. Such a waste.

He pulled the final lever on the machine and a panel opened. The table tilted and the body slid away towards its date with the incinerator.

He stepped out of the secret room and made his way to his desk. Flipping the top open, he ran his fingers along the controls until he found the ones he wanted. A buzzer sounded as he pressed several circuits. A door on the far side of the room slid aside.

Two of his most recent and most experimental creations entered the room. The Mark 9Fs were two inches shorter than the body he inhabited, only slightly shorter than the Mark 6 like the late aberrant Sergeant Golem. The experiments to make fertile female golem bodies to replace country peasants had been so far a failure, as far as self-replicating golems went, but they had produced one of his greatest triumphs.

These golems had the ability to wield magic.

It was not yet perfect, but his experiments have been very promising. They would probably need at least two more iterations to refine the design. Already they had the ability to absorb the desh byproduct that the Polish called istota and use it in basic spells. He had not been able to acquire the mental patterns of a skilled Hussar rider. The skills and abilities of his 9Fs came from a much younger, barely trained female who had not gained much skill with magic.

He hoped with his capture of Eva or perhaps some of the others that were attacking his fortress now, he would be able to remedy this problem. Then he could begin his experiments at bonding a golem with a Hussar. He wasn’t sure if those experiments would ever produce much utility. The Mark 10 body’s capabilities, in a much more compact size than a metal robot, seemed much more useful. Still, he couldn't be sure until he had tried. That was the nature of science. "Come with me. We have work to do in the dungeons."

The Golem Creation Chamber was just as he had left it. The machine containing the firesoul was hooked up to the chamber filled with golem-making machines, each with its slab holding a body. Fifty Mark 10 golems laid out in neat rows. His preparations were almost complete. Lightning levels were good. The castle's own storeroom remained intact. Loss of the power station had been merely a setback. He checked over the bank of instruments and dials, making a few adjustments as he watched the needles twitching up and down.

The firesoul lay behind a glass panel in a massive machine, surrounded by resonance coils. An eight-foot-tall, fifteen-foot-wide control panel governed the apparatus. On one end, a bank of switches controlled power distribution to each level of amplifier, and on the other end were the dials and knobs for delicately balancing the flux levels and resonance feedback. It was time. He threw the lever, unable to resist a cackle of laughter as his plans at last were complete.

His hair stood on end as electricity filled the room. During his early days, when he had been confined to an ordinary human body, the demands of research had often left him unable to take the time for the tedium of personal grooming. His hair had grown long and greasy, and his beard had gotten in the way, both of which were unwelcome distractions while doing research. These were the primary reasons why he had crafted his golems to keep their hair short and their faces clean-shaven. Now that he had switched to wearing a golem body himself, when his own pathetic original form had finally given out, he was glad to no longer have to deal with those trivialities. The golem body was easily cleaned and quick. It was far less prone to oily sweats and scraggly hair that plagued mere humans.

Where had his lab assistants gone? He shouted for them as he studied the dials. The resonance was increasing, so he reduced the magneto reluctance on the turbo encabulator.

Footsteps scuffled behind him. "You called, master?"

The laboratory assistants had been one of his most useful creations, but they always gave him the heebie-jeebies.

Long ago, when he had been merely a pathetic human inventor grasping at the secrets of the universe in the ramshackle family castle, he had had a retainer named Igor. That man was long since dead. When Frankenstein had achieved some level of success with golems, he had taken time to create the perfect lab assistant, recalling Igor as he did with what he supposed was fondness.

Well, almost perfect anyway.

Making them more talkative than other golems had been necessary for them to support his work. It was important that an assistant communicate statuses correctly, after all. Making them more subservient was also critical. They would be privy to some of his most important secrets, and he could not allow them much independence. Still, their obsequiousness grated on his nerves. Their creation had gone poorly. Trade-offs had been made. The weakened skeleton prone to spinal deformities and the problems with the facial musculature that gave them their slurred speech had been a perpetual irritation for him, but they served their intended function well.

He never quite found the time to create an upgraded version. "Check the connections on 1 through 20. I'm getting an unexpected resonance," he ordered.

"Yes, master."

The hunched-over golem shuffled away, as two more identical ones appeared behind him.

"Is there anything else, master?"

"Stand by the switch to the main power junction," he commanded, finding himself yelling more than was necessary. The act of creating life always filled him with such energy. There was a euphoria to stealing the power of God Himself. "Take over the distribution panel and throw the first switch."

The air crackled with electricity. The machinery started to hum. The humming rose to a crescendo as the firesoul began to glow.

The chamber holding the firesoul flared, bathing the ceiling with red light. Above the golem machines flanking the nearest slabs, green lights flashed. There was an audible thunk as the circuit breakers disconnected.

The vitalization of the golems was complete.

Green lights and disconnecting breakers rippled across the room as the next rank of Golems vitalized. It was a clumsy setup, using the materials Frankenstein had ready at hand. With this batch done and their testing complete, he would set up a full-blown assembly line to mass-produce this model, energized by the firesoul. In fact, he would install it in his primary Mark 6 assembly line after upgrading its equipment and providing it with a suitable quantity of the new model bodies.

He laughed out loud and then stifled his mirth. It was hard not to be elated, knowing soon his improved creations would be pouring across the landscape. There was work to do.

All around him, golems were rising above the tables as the last lights in the room went green. "Open the switch!"

The hum began to die away as all around him, bodies sat up from their slabs. They were alive. "Rise, my creations! Take up arms and fight my enemies!"

His golem lab assistants threw open the large doors on the side of the room, opening up the hallway beyond. Racks of rifles and guns of all descriptions had been rolled up to just outside the door. These golems all had the same generic soldier load, the best he could create for a combat golem. The next batches would have differentiation of roles and abilities to flesh out the rest of his next-generation army.

He stepped to the nearest slab as the golem on it rose. Its eyes glowed red. The golem wore a short-sleeved tunic and the veins in its arms and legs stood out. Under the skin, they looked almost purple.

The golem rumbled deep in its throat. It turned away from him, making for the doorway. Golems everywhere stood and moved towards the weapons.