20 years ago

Watching the 3 year old boy leave the leaf next to the caterpillar that had stung him half an hour ago, the man with the blue gloves frowned. “He won’t do Mr. Tam. We’ll have to try again,” he declares.

“Try what again?” indignantly asks the nervous Blue Sun executive.

“Another child,“ he explains patiently. “A little more splicing. He’s almost what we’re looking for but he has the wrong instincts,” looking sadly at all the implements a child of his intelligence could use to kill the source of the painful sting on his wrist. “Besides we’ve isolated the sequence for an eidetic memory which will increase the mental capacity exponentially.”

“You can’t be serious. My wife and I have done everything…” Gabriel Tam breaks off at the glassy stare aimed in his direction.

“There will be another promotion and a significant raise in pay,” cold smiling lips inform the man. “You can keep the boy as compensation for your continued co-operation. I suggest you prepare him for a career in medicine. He’d be bound to excel.”

“’Keep the boy,’ he says,” Gabriel thinks gratefully. “I had no idea how hard this would be. Regan and I were pushed together. The implications that there would be a raise and a promotion if we married were clear to us both. Then we were encouraged to participate in the Eugenics Project and I was rewarded with another promotion and huge bonuses when we had Simon,” he remembers.

Looking fondly at the boy who carried some of his and Regan’s genes although not quite as many as the rest of the world assumed, he replies, “Of course we’ll be happy to co-operate, sir.” It’s not like he really has any choice. He’ll have to make sure he doesn‘t get as attached to the next one. Foolish really. “I’ve always been a loyal company man.”

“We’re confident in your ability to appreciate the Big Picture, Mr. Tam. Now if you’ll just sign here.” Another blue-gloved man hands Gabriel a contract promising obscene amounts of money but clearly stipulating that all product