After returning to New York from Washington, Lynn didn't pause for a moment.
A black Ford sedan drove away from Manhattan's bustle and plunged into the Brooklyn District's intricate industrial arteries.
Its wheels rolled over the potholed roads before it finally stopped outside an abandoned cannery.
Lynn stepped out of the car, straightened his suit collar, and walked toward the deepest part of the industrial ruins.
A semi-basement laboratory.
The rusty iron door stood ajar, a dim light shining through the gap.
Lynn pushed the door open.
The pungent smell of chemical reagents hit him in the face.
Blueprints, beakers, and tangled wires covered every inch of space.
There were even suspiciously colored liquids on the floor.
A man in a white lab coat, his hair as messy as a bird's nest, was hunched over a workbench, muttering to himself as he examined artificial muscle fibers in a glass tube.
"No... that's not right... the stability still isn't good enough..."
He hadn't noticed at all that someone had appeared behind him.
Dr. Phineas Horton.
Lynn said nothing to disturb him.
He quietly stepped around a pile of discarded mechanical parts and scanned the chemical formulas on the walls.
According to the report, this man was an obsessive madman, out of touch with reality.
Lynn's gaze finally settled on a blueprint discarded on the edge of a trash can.
It showed a vague humanoid figure, its body filled with a complex mechanical skeleton and energy circuits.
"Machines can't perfectly replicate the pulse of life."
Lynn suddenly spoke.
Dr. Horton's body jerked.
He sprang up from the workbench, instinctively snatched up a welding torch that was still hot, and turned around, glaring warily at the uninvited guest.
"Who are you? Someone from the military? Get out! I told them my research isn't ready to be demonstrated yet!"
His voice was hoarse and halting from a prolonged lack of conversation.
Lynn ignored his hostility.
He simply picked up the blueprint and smoothed it out.
"By using artificial nerve bundles to transmit energy, aren't you overlooking the emotional redundancy in the conduction of bioelectric currents?"
"You want to create life, but you're actually using the logic of building a machine."
Horton was somewhat surprised.
This stranger had identified the bottleneck he was facing with a single glance at his discarded draft.
"You... who are you?"
"An investor."
Lynn carefully placed the blueprint back on the table and looked around the rudimentary laboratory.
"A thinker who, like you, isn't understood by this era."
He pulled over a reasonably intact chair and sat down, as composed as if this were his own office.
"Dr. Horton, have you read Plato?"
Horton had some trouble keeping up with the sudden change of subject.
"What?"
"The Republic."
Lynn crossed his legs.
"He believed that the world we live in is merely a false projection, and that in the real world, a perfect form exists for everything."
Lynn paused and looked at Horton.
"The perfect form of a person."
"Doctor, those fools in generals' uniforms and those politicians who think of nothing but profit... they can't understand your greatness. In their eyes, you're just a tool for making better weapons."
"Nietzsche said that man is something to be overcome."
"What you're doing is building the bridge to the superman. An entirely new species that will transcend humanity's fragility, stupidity, and inherent flaws, and lead all of civilization to a higher level in a state of perfection."
As Lynn worked his persuasion, Phineas Horton felt his blood surge.
He felt his soul, made stiff by years of research, being reignited by those words.
This man had undone the shackles deep in his heart, one after another.
Lynn stood up, walked over to Horton, and looked straight into his eyes, bloodshot with excitement.
"You're creating a better, nobler, more perfect life!"
"Stop..."
Horton's voice trembled as he covered his face.
"No, I have to say it."
Lynn gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Because in this world, we're the only ones who can understand each other. We're the same kind, Doctor. True humans, shunned by those apes who can see nothing but money and power."
Warm liquid seeped through Horton's fingers.
The genius scientist, nearly fifty years old, regarded as a disgrace by academia and a mad dog by the military, suddenly burst into tears.
He wasn't crying because he felt wronged.
It was the ecstasy of finally being understood.
Lynn waited quietly.
When dealing with a pure genius like this, money was the cheapest means.
The most masterful control was to corrupt him with his ideals and hold him hostage with his dreams.
What Phineas Horton wanted was a kindred spirit, recognition, and the "perfection" he had spent his entire life pursuing.
Lynn would give him all of it, every last bit.
After his emotions settled somewhat, Horton wiped away his tears and looked at Lynn with a new expression in his eyes.
"Come with me."
He led Lynn through the chaotic laboratory to an area sealed off by a heavy lead-plated door.
"They only saw my failures, but they never understood the value of failure."
Horton opened the door, and the sight inside made even the air oppressive.
Three glass cultivation tanks stood in the center of the room, his past "works" suspended in the liquid inside.
The first tank contained a burly robot made entirely of metal.
"Number one,"
Horton said, pointing at it, self-mockery in his voice.
"A mechanical creation. It has greater defenses and strength than a tank, but it has no soul. It's just a walking steel coffin."
Lynn turned his gaze to the second.
It was a deformed, bloated mass of biological tissue. Countless growths of flesh filled the entire tank, still writhing slowly.
"Number two. I tried to combine biological synthesis technology with a mechanical skeleton. The result... was uncontrolled cancerous growth."
Horton's fists clenched.
"Its cells can multiply rapidly, but there's no order to them whatsoever. It only wants to devour and grow, until it ultimately becomes a meaningless heap of rotting flesh."
Finally, Lynn looked at the third tank.
The specimen inside looked the most human.
A handsome male body with perfectly defined muscles.
But there was a charred hole in his chest.
"Number three,"
Horton's voice sank.
"He was my most perfect work. I succeeded. I created stable artificial life with self-awareness. He could think, learn, and even... feel emotions."
"Then why did he..."
"He killed himself."
Horton closed his eyes.
"I gave him a perfect body, immense strength, and even a brain capable of thought. But I couldn't give him a reason to exist. When he realized he was neither human nor machine, he fell into an irreconcilable inner conflict."
"In the end, he used the energy core inside his body to burn through his own chest."
Lynn turned and looked at Horton.
"A soul without faith is bound for self-destruction. What you need is a supreme will that can make him obey."
The two returned to the main laboratory.
Lynn took a blank check and a fountain pen from inside his jacket and placed them on the workbench.
"Doctor, I need a creation."
"One that can prove to the world that your theory is correct, one that can silence everyone who has ever mocked you."
Horton raised his head, his reddened eyes full of confusion.
Lynn signed his name on the check, then pushed it in front of Horton.
"Unlimited funding, the most advanced equipment, an independent laboratory three hundred meters underground where you won't be disturbed. I can provide everything you need."
Horton looked at the check, then at Lynn.
"What... do you want?"
"I want you to create a miracle for me, a perfect creation that surpasses mortals."
He stepped forward and lowered himself.
"And loyalty."
Horton nodded without hesitation.
He didn't even look at the number on the check.
A kindred spirit.
A benefactor.
A guide of divine revelation.
He was willing to offer everything he had for this, including his soul.
"He will be humanity's future."
Horton spoke as though taking an oath.