In that year, the trend among the west-side elite was Hinduism, and, more specifically, Hindu artwork. Dr. Sandover's office was busier with design work than any time since the trend had been fantasy literature. This time around, however, it didn't involve designing wings or pointed elf ears for the embryos, but much more complex problems.

Fortunately, most parents were not interested in having their customizations be inherited by their grandchildren. Ectopic actvation of early arm cells worked remarkably well for giving children muliple arms, although Dr. Sandover found that going above 8 arms led to over-dense muscle mass in the back and neck area, resulting in children whose posture and health suffered. Parents inspired by paintings of Krishna often asked for blue children; transgenic pigment manipulation made that simple, although Dr. Sandover was quite surprised by the sensitivity of parents to just the precise shades.

Where the biggest challenge arose, though, was in adding a third eye. Again, manipulation of early cells in vitro was successful in forming the structure of the additional eye, and further work with the glycoproteins in the extracellular matrix made it possible to orient the new eye vertically. The brains of the children did not seem to adapt to the third eye, however, and the signal didn't appear to enter the visual cortex.

It was only years later, when the Hindu art trend was long forgotten (and the rage was having "high-speed" children, whose nervous systems worked at twice the ordinary speed. This was a very short-lived trend, as the parents would have had enough trouble keeping up with un-modified children anyway), that the few surving three-eyed people realized that they could see things that other people couldn't. One thing they could clearly see was what a mistake the whole idea had been in the first place.

Phone in comments to 310.210.3347, meil 'em to the postal address skillfully concealed elsewhere on this page, or email 'em to samuelg@themeander.org

All misspellings, misattributions, omissions or errors in naming should be construed as Acts of God, directed through yours truly (for reasons at which we as mere mortals may only guess...)