Don't Stop Me Now

Doctor Roget is much too surprised to speak words. He only stares silently, his mouth drawn in a straight line, at his three creations-- specifically the one with the red eyes who has a liking for dancing.

All he can think is that he never should have introduced them to music.

The little Shadow, flinging himself with grace much like a descendant of Michael Jackson, hardly notices when its creator walks in the room and shuts the door behind him. It is so absorbed in the music that it does not pay any mind until he himself steps over to it, shoes clapping against the tiled floor, and calls its name.

"Red?"

The child-shaped Shadow pauses, still in the position of its dance. Its two brothers had stopped quite a few minutes ago and stand, peering with their large, twinkling eyes, at the scientist.

"Yes?" Red still bounces on one leg to the music, clearly not giving its full attention.

Roget clears his throat. "How... how did you get access to the music?"

A shady grin splits Red's face. It hides the smile with its hand, still bobbing up and down on its knee, sniveling. It doesn't say a word.

Its little brother, Blake, raises a small hand, waving it back and forth. "Red stole the record and-- and he played it on the record-play and-- and he turned it up-- and-- and he--"

Red's head snaps back toward Blake. Its crimson glare echoes with the color of blood and the promise of later punishment. At the sight, Blake shuts its mouth, lowers its hand, and sinks physically into the floor like a puddle of spilt oil.

Roget places a hand against his own forehead. He had always wanted children; but when he thought "children," he wasn't thinking "three little Shadows made for the purposes of government testing that only he had the heart to take care of in a humane way because of their similarities to human emotions." He was thinking more like "three little boys that wanted to play baseball with their scientist father and liked watching football on Sunday afternoons and going to the movies to see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." But he never had time for a wife. And no one liked his face.

Christopher spits into its hand, rubbing the acidic saliva in between its palms. Its habits were-- and are-- very strange. "Are we in trouble, Mr. Roget?"

He considers. Perhaps this mishap only provides him with more information on how the Shadows function in response to certain genres of music. But again, it only resembles Red's tendency to break rules enforced upon it, and that, especially for a project of such importance to the American government, is no good feat.

Deciding firmly upon what he will do, he kneels down to the five-year-old height of Red (even though it is not five years old and only takes on a larva form in response to the caring nature of its surroundings), speaking in his gentle tone. "Why have you done this, Red?"

Red squints its pointed eyes, pupils narrowing, seeing through the professor's mask. "I did it because I wanted to." It folds its arms, giving him a snarky glare.

Chris blinks. "I have observed," he says softly. "Red is always the one who gets all of us in trouble."

The former shrieks. "I do not always get you in trouble!" Red, enraged, stomps his spiky foot against the ground. "I do not! I do what I want!"

"Now, Red--" As usual, Dr. Roget is interrupted by his own creation, which snarls at him abruptly, upset.

"Don't talk to to me like that." Its gaze lowers to the floor. "I do what I like. I like music. I like freedom."

Roget gasps behind his mask. "'Freedom'?"

Alerted that his own creations may have discovered self-awareness, he looks around the room, searching for something that may have informed them. "Where did you hear that word?"

Blake, the tiniest one at only the size of a two-year-old and the most ignorant, walks toward him. "You talked about it in one of your science meetings, Mr. Roget. You said sum'in about us being 'freedom'."

He sighs. "You are very free," lies the scientist, to soothe the concerns of his Shadows that they are not "free." "Of course, I suppose you would be more free if your performances did not have to be so... sporadic." He often arrives back at his office to find that the Shadows have broken one, two, or seventy-two of his rules.

Red lifts its round head. The curved horns adorning it, like the crown of an evil, mischievous, and dance-loving prince, glimmer in the bright lighting. "'Performance'? What is a 'performance'?"

Chris coughs. Which is strange, because he knows that these minion-like creatures have no organs whatsoever and have nothing inside of them but emptiness and a thirst for whatever blood and/or knowledge they can get their hands on. "A performance is an act of a play or a dance or anything along the lines."

Roget stands, dusting himself off. "Yes. Good, Christopher." If his project of the Shadow development does find a finish in the eventual future, he knows that Chris will be a source of limitless intelligence. He has hope for Blake, too; that it will flourish in its ability to soundlessly sneak by security and snatch up whatever it likes.

For Red...

...well...

Red is a maze of things, and to box it up in one category would be to its own dislike. For Red, the future is unknown.

Maybe, and just maybe, he will become a leader. Though a leader to what-- except an army of bloodthirsty, opinionated monsters seeking to destroy the world?

Red whips around, its piercing eyes following every movement of its drained creator. "Do you mean, mayhaps, that my brothers and I dancing is a 'performance'? And that we could, perhaps, just maybe, perform in front of other humans?"

Blake squeaks with excitement, recalling a memory of not long ago. "Like that time when Red crashed into your science-men meeting?"

The doctor wipes the sweat off his forehead just remembering the day. Red had scratched its way out of its confinement chamber and then stumbled through the halls, frightening every researcher and security guard it could, following his scent into the conference room where it then presented itself clearly by jumping onto the glass table and puffing up its chest.

He left the meeting holding his rowdy creation by its horns, frazzled.

He does not find it funny. But they do.

"No." He sets his foot down, trying to draw a line. "I never said that you could. I never said you will. You will have no performances."

The room pauses, going quiet. The three of them show signs of genuine disappointment.

Red bares its teeth in resentment. "You think so, Mr. Quinlan?"

He shudders.

It has been chastised greatly for calling him by his first name, an action reserved for human-people and not Shadow-creation-people. But even though it knows its punishment, it says his name anyway, grinning smugly at his anger.

"Don't you think the humans would enjoy our brother's singing?" asks Blake, folding its hands together in a pleading motion. "Don't you think so? Wouldn't they like him? They liked him at that science-men meeting, didn't they?"

Red glares at Blake, frowning at its stolen spotlight.

Roget shakes his head. "They would not enjoy it. They would not..."

He continues to himself, leaving the room and slamming the door behind him. As an unthought punishment, he leaves the lights on Blaring, making the Shadows' skin tingle and prickle with annoyance. The three of them watch the door.

Red lifts his head, cocky. He raises his shoulders, puffing up his chest, and showing off the two spikes that have begun to grow out of his shoulder-blades. His eyes sparkle with delight.

"We're gonna perform. I know they'll like us."

Don't Stop Me Now (Queen) resumes its playing through the brightness of the room, and Red resumes his singing, confident that his dashing looks and charming personality will win over the science-men. And confident that he will, no matter what sort of punishment threatens him, be the brightest stair this laboratory has ever seen.