The doctor said, “Whoops, there seems to be triplets here.”

Whoops?

It's not bad enough we'd tweaked the fetus' genetic structure.

It's not bad enough we'd given it super-strength, a host of mental upgrades, camouflage-like skin pigments (swiped from chameleons by yours truly), and that we didn't know a damn thing about its social demeanor – now there were three of them.

“Aren't there supposed to be safeguards against that happening?”

“They didn't work.”

“You don't say.”

The donor female perished in the birthing. I noticed one of the infants curling a tentacle around the doctor's thumb.

“It's kinda cute, don't you think?” he said.

I winced at the scream when the thing's tentacle gave a twitch, snapping the doctor's thumb. He dropped the baby on the floor and ran from the room, followed by a string of obscenities. I glanced at the wet, fleshy lump – now colored like the brushed metal floor.

Cute.