It was grayish white, like wood left soaking until it swelled, or a clay figurine freshly dug out of the earth, still covered in dirt.
Its limbs were out of proportion: arms too long, legs too short, six fingers on each hand and seven toes on each foot. Its face had no nose, only two small holes. Where its mouth should have been was a narrow slit without lips, like a cut scored into grayish-white clay with a knife.
Kabuto walked over to the table, took a pair of gloves from the rack, and unhurriedly put them on. They were transparent rubber, revealing every joint in his fingers. He reached out to touch the thing's face, running his thumb across the slit. His thumb pad felt an extremely faint tremor, like wind brushing against skin.
"It's awake," Kabuto said.
His voice was quiet, but it echoed through the empty room, rippling outward in layers like a stone dropped into water. Two people in white masks stood motionless at the door, like a pair of guardian statues.
The thing on the table opened its eyes. They had no whites; the entire eyeballs were a murky yellow-green, like glass marbles left so long that mold had grown on their surfaces. Its pupils were vertical slits, like a cat's, but thinner and straighter, like knife marks scored into yellow-green glass.
Kabuto took a notebook from the rack beside the table, opened it, and wrote a few lines. He wrote slowly, stroke by stroke, as though recording something important that could not tolerate mistakes. When he finished, he clipped the pen to the notebook, closed it, and slipped it into the left pocket of his white coat.
"Can you speak?" Kabuto asked.
The thing on the table worked its mouth. The slit widened slightly,