[writing] Having my butt kicked by "The Baby Killers"

"You, my child," he whispered to the unblinking brown eyes that stared at him through the course of the operation, "will be a father of history."

Or a mother. Just at that moment he couldn't remember if this one was male or female. The child shed no tears, naturally, but a small silver tube dripped saline across the exposed eyeball in lieu of any such emotionalism. The reader will naturally recognize this for the sort of dramatic grace note that only occurs in life, for it is beyond belief when forced upon us by a kinescopic auteur or a scribbling talesmith.

Encased in stout bonds and thick chains just below the operating theatre table, the brass body groaned. The first of its hydraulic reflexes had been tickled into being as a part of the long and complex operation now taking place. Only mechanical eyes and the inferior punchtape intelligences of Dr. Scholes' laboratory stood mute witness to the first stirrings of a new life.