If man could perform all daily life chores more efficiently, would he use that time to create, to think, to love?
Or just to pick his nose?
Mirza is flying through the streets, barely missing people on all sides, while chatting away as if there have been no near misses.
“Mirza, you ever hit anyone?” Jeff asks.
“Only a few people a week, and 90% of those live,” a smiling Mirza responds.
“Let me guess, you just made up that stat,” challenges Margo.
“Right, I really don’t keep track. So many people, so little time.”
“Would you say that about them if they had a fifth limb?” asks Margo.
“Ah, they would not be out on the street if they had a fifth limb,” responds Mirza.
“Aren’t you ever out on the streets?” asks Jeff.
“I cannot be a hazard to myself!” responds Mirza.
As Jeff and Margo look at each other to sort out this logic, Mirza pulls up to a very heavy gate with tall walls on both sides, totally hiding whatever lurks behind. Not even a sign gives away its identity from the street.
“Here is the facility” Mirza announces as he drives through the gate. Directly inside the gate, low walls line the sides of the drive. A sign on the right hand side says, ”Chennai Institute for Gene Therapy”.
Behind the walls are multiple playing fields stretching for hundreds of yards on both sides of the road. Youngsters on the right are running around with 3 and 4 legs and some extra arms. On the left are older kids with just extra arms, no extra legs. Every now and then, there are arms sticking out of their heads. One fairly large boy has an arm sticking straight up out of the top his head. Jeff thinks that could be a detriment in soccer – the hand might accidently touch the ball, causing a foul. The goalies have 5 and 6 very, very long arms. Jeff sees this and can’t help remembering his days out on the soccer field. “That has got to be considered cheating! We will need all new rules,” Jeff exclaims.
“These kids are just experiments to prove a point. How many arms can you learn to control? Right now, they are up to 8 on the sides and one in the middle on the bottom, which can sometimes be used as an arm and sometimes a leg. Can we change the basic shapes of the arms? The answer to that is obviously yes. The younger kids are experiments with extensions of both arms and legs. Not long ago, we weren’t certain if the brain was agile enough to learn to control both extra arms and legs. Early experiments left some doubt, but with improved surgical techniques, the brain proved to be more than up to the task.”
Margo starts fixating on a younger player with a long arm coming out of the back of his neck and asks what is the deal with him. All the rest came out of the sides or the bottom.
“Dr. Hudini can provide the details. These were some of the earliest CRISPR experiments. They have this fixed now, but the arm is pretty useful, so they have left it on. They really need to put some eyes on the finger tips, though and they are working on that.”
‘The bouncers at my bar last night had those,” Margo says, vaguely remembering the eyes hovering over the crowd on the dance floor.
Mirza gives Jeff a quizzical look and Jeff just shakes his head.
They pull into the portico and a well -dressed doorman in a white, flowing Indian robe and with multiple arms helps them out of the car and welcomes them to the institute. As soon as they get inside, Dr. Hudini welcomes them.
“I see you survived the flight and the car ride with Mirza!” Dr. Hudini says.
“Yes, thanks for the warning on the driving. We are part of the lucky 90% – I think.” Margo says while embracing Dr. Hudini.
“You know he’s a very safe driver and has a very large car. Sounds like he regaled you with some of his interesting statistics. Please get your statistics about this place from me….”
“Yes, doc. As part of the top 1%, we caught onto that pretty quickly,” Jeff tells him.
Dr. Hudini starts walking them down a long hallway to his office. “I trust your accommodations were fine. And, you got a little glimpse of the campus on your way in.”
“Yes, the hotel is great and we did get a glimpse of some of your SNAFUs on the way in.” Jeff says.
“Awe, the road to greatness is often paved with a few failures. And, sometimes the failures ARE the advancement. We could fix those limbs you saw; but even though we call them mistakes, when the kids find them useful, we leave them alone. We have an exemplary safety record. We’ve made these amazing strides and fewer people have been killed in our entire operation than the number of you crazy Americans climbing K2 in one year.” Says Dr. Hudini, referring to the second highest mountain in the world that sits between China and Pakistan, in a region that is either Pakistani or Indian, depending on whom you ask. Ask a local tribesman and he will tell you that it doesn’t matter. They pay taxes to whomever is threatening them at the time.
“Leave your notebooks and pocketbooks in my office,” he says, opening a door to reveal a large room that may have been featured in a movie showing a top British magistrate’s office during the time Britain ruled India. “Mirza and I will give you the basic tour of the facility and then I’ll leave the 3 of you to wonder and poke around. We’ll meet here again before you leave.
“Notice we are self- sufficient here,” he says as they continue down the hall, after duly handing over their possessions (does someone not want us to have our cameras, Margo wonders). “One reason is because we are testing the utility of doing everyday tasks, as well as more ambitious endeavors. Let’s start in the kitchen.”
They go into the whirlwind kitchen that smells of fresh bread and baking chocolate as Ravel’s Bolero wafts with the aromas through the air. Two people are holding bowls with one hand, whisking with the other, and using the third to taste and add seasonings. Another person is cracking an egg with one hand while holding the beater in another and wiping his hair off his forward with a third. At a stove, someone with four arms is stirring with one hand, salt in another, pepper in the third, tasting with the fourth. A teenage gal with her hair in a bun is rolling out dough with two hands and flouring the dough and rolling surface with the third. A gal whom Margo estimates to be about twelve years old is getting a tray out of an overhead oven she can barely reach with two arms and putting in another tray with the other two arms. A skinny pre-teen male at the refrigerator is trying to find something – holding bottles in each of two hands while shuffling items around with the third and fourth. It takes a few minutes of ogling for Margo and Jeff to absorb the scene, which Dr. Hudini allows them to do without interruption.
Then, he restarts the narrative. “We give them some basic instructions in cooking and then let them figure the rest out on their own. Each generation learns from the earlier group”.
As they are walking through the kitchen, Jeff grabs a quick finger lick from one of the bowls that appears to be cookie mix. A hidden hand of one of the kitchen worker’s jumps out and gives him a playful slap. Jeff responds, “More chocolate chips!”
“Next, let’s go to the washroom. Again, we take care of all our own laundry.”
As they walk down the hall, Margo asks Dr. Hudini if perhaps they could hire some of this “students” as au pairs for a summer. She really wasn’t kidding, but he laughs it off.
They go down a set of stairs and enter a bustling laundry area. The somewhat younger kids are folding sheets using 3 and 4 arms with ease – Margo watches one child easily fold a fitted sheet. “You know I never could get the hang of that fitted sheet,” she says to anyone who cares to listen. “My king sheet takes up half the closet – and it is very wrinkled. My mother tried to show me how to do it by tucking in the corners and smoothing it out, but I never caught on”.
“Margo, you need to get people to do that for you! It will be easier and cheaper than trying to get Tinker Bell to do it,” replies Dr. Hudini.
“I just tried to hire your staff and you flatly shut me down. Hey, speaking of your staff, how come Mirza knows Darwin’s name? He somehow got Darwin confused with Tinker Bell!“
Hudini and Mirza exchange a somewhat pained glance that even an anti-social ten-year-old would be able to translate as they’d already had a painful discussion on the issue.
“Let’s get through the tour and then we’ll chat at the end,” says the red faced doctor.
Margo decides that works for her. There are too many interesting side shows to be distracted with talks that can happen later, she thinks as she watches an unusually chubby male preteen at an ironing board. He is stretching a fabric on the board with two hands, ironing with a third and spraying with a fourth. Jeff watches his wife watching the young guy, and knowing her feelings about chubby kids as well as chubby pets, suggests that perhaps they should move him to the soccer field. Dr. Hudini explains that the children go through a rotation, they each work in the kitchen, the laundry, the garden and general housekeeping at some time during their schooling. And, every day, this is mixed with schoolwork and sports. The tasks are geared to the children’s age, and as they age, they are allowed to make more decisions about where to spend their time. This might be in academics, music, robotics, chemistry, biology, etc. The general computer programming curriculum includes a hacker’s club, which Dr. Hudini says will be used for the good of society, once they figure out weaknesses in a system and how to exploit them. As of now, no such vulnerabilities and solutions have been shared, except by the 2-armed instructors.
As they are leaving, Margo watches as kids take clothes out of driers and put them on hangers. hold pants with one hand and attach it to the hanger by doing the two clips simultaneously. One gal at the rear drier holds a hanger with one hand and use two hands to slip a shirt on the hanger. Another set of kids hold pants with one hand and attach them to the hanger by doing the two clips simultaneously, almost faster than her eyes can follow. Obviously, there is a contest going on here, so she gives them a yell, “Great move! A perfect 10!” she exclaims as they leave the room.
Next, they enter a beautiful, multi-floor, wood paneled library with ladders leading to the upper floor that has walkways in front of more bookshelves. Four children who look about 10 years old are dusting and vacuuming. A five armed child appears to be receiving instructions from a rare 2-armed adult on how to properly hold and dust a piece of glass. Hold it with two, cotton-gloved hands while dusting it; then pick it up with two hands and dust underneath it. Two of the children are on the ladders, holding on with one hand while holding a book with another and dusting with the third. Jeff can’t wait to see them on the Jungle Gyms.
Moving through the library, they enter a room with rows of benches and chairs, and a row of computers across a back wall. This room is under repair. “Of course the ability to perform carpentry and house repair are all much improved with additional limbs and no tour would be complete without the classic 3-armed wall paper hanger,” says Dr. Hudini, pointing to a corner.
Sure enough, there is a 4-armed man wall papering the room.
“So, you always make sure there is a wall paper project going on?” asks Jeff.
“There is one going on 99% of the time,” replied Mirza who has been remarkable quiet during the tour until now.
“Now there is a stat I believe,” says Jeff.
“Let me give you a quick tour of the musical facilities. This is most interesting and you may want to spend more time in there with Mirza. We instruct on most instrument and now our carpentry students are building instruments specifically for 3 and 4 hands,” says Dr. Hudini.
“You didn’t operate on Bob Dylan, by any chance?” asks Margo.
“Bob who?” asks Mirza.
“No, I am sure that never happened,” says Dr. Hudini with a wink to Margo.
They enter a large conservatory hall with practice rooms all around the edges.
In the first room, a person with 4 hands is playing a beautifully melodic piece, originally written for two people at the piano. An additional arm swoops down from her head and changes the pages.
In the second room, a guitarist plays a guitar that has two necks and 12 strings. She is playing chords on one neck and picking on the other. A second guitarist with a similar guitar uses two hands for chords and one to strum.
“That is Maybelline,” says Hudini as he points to a guitar with 2 necks.
I assume Maybelline is the name of the guitar, with a nod to the late, great Chuck Berry” says Jeff, who also considered that perhaps Maybelline was the guitarist’s name.
“You got that right!” says Dr. Hudini. “Zara, the guitarist, studied Chuck Berry early on, built Maybelline herself and is still making changes to it while writing new music for it.”
“And most of her music is Rock and Roll?” asks Margo.
“Yes, she just discovered Jimmy Hendrix, so I expect the sound to get a bit wilder – but she’ll have to become a better guitarist first. I think she is through her Blues / B.B. King and Buddy Guy era.” As he says this, Margo makes a mental note that Zara needs a trip to Chicago and New Orleans.
The third room they enter is very large and has a band. The drummer sits in a veritable cockpit with drums all around him: 1 base drum on each side, 6 sets of cymbals, 2 snare drums and 6 Tom drums. His 4 arms and 3 legs are whaling away in a whirl. Apparently, there are no need for eyes behind him to find the drums. Jeff watches in wonder for a few minutes and then thinks perhaps he’ll reposition one of those drums behind the drummer just a bit. As he moves into position, Margo grabs and reigns him in. God, she thinks, glad we never had a handicapped child!
The guitarists, except for the lead, all have variants of multiple throated guitars and 4 arms for chording and strumming. The lead plays a harmonica with two hands while playing a regular guitar, looking remarkable like the young Bob Dylan from the bar. The keyboardist has 4 hands and is playing and controlling the board all at once. A guy sits at the mixing board, adjusting 4 dials simultaneously with his 4 arms.
“I swear I saw these guys last night in my dreams!” Margo says loud enough for even the drummer to hear. “Bob Dylan was on the harp and guitar. Unfortunately, he didn’t introduce the rest of his band before the brawl broke out.”
“Must have been some dream, Margo! You need to write that one down for your analyst,” says Jeff.
“I don’t have an analyst.”
“We ‘ll have a court appointed one soon enough.”
Dr. Hudini waits for them to focus back on him. “This is our top level, the 1 O’Clock, rock band, The Glad Handers. They do have a few gigs around town – if you have time, you should go see them. I’m sure Mirza will love to take you,” says Hudini. “Although perhaps that’s where Margo went last night.”
Mirza smiles widely and says, “What do you American says – it is a tough job so nobody must be forced to do it.”
“Something like that,” replies Margo.
“Next, we’ll take a quick stroll through the study hall to get out to the athletic facilities.”
As they enter the room, they see regular sized desks for the older students along the walls and smaller desks for the younger ones in the middle. There are cameras from the ceiling focused on the small desks. And Jeff asks about the function of these.
“We record the kids to observe little things, such as if they use all hands equally to do automatic things, such as scratch themselves. That tells us they’ve stopped thinking about the extra limbs. By the time they reach 6 years old, the differences between which hands get used for which tasks become much more subtle and by the time they are 7, we can’t distinguish,” says Dr. Hudini. “We have noted that for right handed children, limbs on the right side are still dominant over limbs on the left side – and vice versa. I believe this is as to be expected.”
As they walk through, they see the teenagers at desks with open books and laptops. Two hands typing, while another hand holds open a book, or holds a phone to see something.
“We find it makes studying and writing papers about 10-15% more efficient than the most efficient student,” Hudini continues.
“Mirza, is that one of your stats?” Jeff whispers in Mirza’s ear to which Mirza vigorously shakes his head no.
“I’ll leave all of you to wonder around the facility from here and I’ll see you back in my office in let’s say 30 minutes? Mirza, make sure they see the rock climbing wall,” Dr. Hudini says and then efficiently turns on his heels and marches out authoritatively. Margo detected a hint of military training that she’d never noticed before.
“This way to the sports facilities,” Mirza offers, leading them out of the conservatory into a verdant courtyard with flowers and fountains and a driving range an amateur’s pitching wedge behind them.
As they reach the driving range, they see golfers teeing up a ball with one hand that quickly reaches down from their mid sections and retracts just before they swing. It takes Jeff and Margo a few seconds to even realize that they are teeing their own balls. It looks more like the new ball just pops up. Jeff takes a mental note that there could be an awesome product there – The Auto-Teeing Baller Unit (TABU…..).
“Wow, just think, Margo. You wouldn’t need me to tee the ball up for you on the range,” says Jeff teasingly to Margo.
“Not fair to talk about golf since right now I can hardly bend over, say nothing about swing a club!” says Margo.
Then, they see another golfer raise a hand from behind his neck and press on top of his head to hold it down while swinging. Seeing this, Margo says, “I could really use that!”
“90% of all golfers lower their handicap by at least 5 strokes,” adds Mirza for which he receives a punch in the arm from both Margo and Jeff.
“Perhaps you could insert a chip in my arms to swing properly – maybe some kind of a tuned gyroscope,” Margo says.
“We don’t do that kind of work here. We’ll leave that to Jeff and his engineers.”
“Oh, another collaboration here in Chennai! I love it,” says Jeff.
From the driving range, they head towards the climbing wall area, which is around the side of the courtyard. The climbing walls goes up a 12 story tower at the end of the building. A group of about 20 kids is on the bottom and a half a dozen others are scrambling up the wall – using up to 12 feet and hands to grip the rock. From a distance, they look like ants swarming up a rock. They move fast, very fast. Someone at the bottom has a stop watch, so it is some kind of a contest.
“Dr. Hudini is most proud of this area. We quickly decide which of our students will be elite climbers and we give them advanced training. They form rescue teams and we’ve just begun to deploy them in the Himalayas. Already, they’ve saved dozens of lives on K2, six of them aged Americans who have no business climbing there. “
“Where did you get that number?” Margo asks as she pretends to pull a number out of her butt and look at it.
“Dr. Rice, I assure you I only make up statistics, not real numbers.”
“Thanks, Mirza, I am glad we got that cleared up,” Margo retorts.
“Look at the small child in red passing everyone! He’s like the super dude of spiders and he can’t be any older than 10.” Jeff says pointing near the top of the wall. “They will break every climbing record in the books; they will need new categories for them.”
“Even an average climber would be amongst the best in the world with a few extra limbs. Mirza says. “The top 10% can’t be matched and the top 1% are indeed ant-like. However, the point is to build the elite teams that can go where man has been unable to build machines to help. I’m sure as an engineer, you know that helicopters are useless above about 18,000 ft. They may be able to fly that high, but they can’t hover very well and landing can be quite dangerous. Plus, the weather is often so terrible at those altitudes that they can’t fly at all for long periods of time.”
As they wonder back through the wonderland of the multi-limbed, every turn displays a feast for the eyes: the gardeners tending to their flowers and vegetable gardens, an area where the students assemble small engines, a wood working area, the ceramics shed and an area the size of a small track where students have contests with fighting robots. Margo thinks it looks like a very fun summer camp.
Once they reach Dr. Houdini’s office, Mirza opens the door for them, but then remains outside.
Dr. Hudini greats them warmly and points to the chairs in front of his desk.
“I hope you enjoyed the tour. Later, after you’ve had time to process everything, I want to hear about the parts that you find the most interesting. And, I will be lobbying a bit for my climbers. However, right now, I want to explain about Darwin. “One of the techs in the office found Darwin in her horse barn – with a leg chewed off.” He takes a big breath to gauge their reaction, but their expressions refused to give up any information; they certainly weren’t shocked. He continues, “We assume it got caught in some type of a trap. So, she brought her in and I tried using some of my techniques to grow a limb for her and then reattach it. Everything seemed to be going fine and we removed the cone of shame. But then one night, she somehow decided she didn’t want that leg and started chewing it off. I think my tech thought I was going to put her down, so she hid her cage outside and that is when Darwin got out.
“I was not going to put her down. I just wanted to run some tests to figure out what had gone wrong. Was it my technique, did something happen to the limb I grew? I heard Allison found the cat and you saved her life. I was going to the auction to help pay for at least some of that care. That is why I was there. Then I saw she had such a good home with you and she had been through enough. I did buy lots of pottery before I left and I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but I didn’t want Ceramics for All to be upset that they only made money from their contributions being smashed. But, I must admit, except for meeting Allison, it was the highlight of the evening. We found enough of the severed leg in the cage for me to analyze a DNA sample. Perhaps I can get more later, if you’ll forgive me.”
Margo nods. “So what did you decide went wrong?” she asks, thinking more as a clinician than a mother.
“The best we could tell, the cat was having an allergic reaction to the sutures and perhaps a little infection. We should have kept her better drugged for the first few days – at least kept on the collar of shame.
“Cats don’t normally respond too well to those – they need to be pretty well drugged, depending on the cat. You just need to watch them,” Margo replies.
“I’m sure you are right and that experience also convinced me that I need a veterinarian’s help. I told Mirza all about Darwin and Tinker Bell and he got the two mixed up. Do you have any other questions for me after your tour? “
“We’ve talked about the road to great achievements having a few bumps, says Margo. “What kind of bumps could we expect?”
“The technique we are suggesting for you is no longer experimental, we are past the bumps. Now, the way we avoid the bump that produces too many limbs and attaches them in less than desirable places, such as the soccer player you saw with the limb on his head, is to operate on the limbs in the womb. We remove or reposition them slightly, as required. Every operation has some risk associated with it. For you, the risk is almost solely to the fetus. Even so, we haven’t had even one fetus abort in the last 18 months and we’ve done approximately 200 of them. We haven’t had one limb born out of place and we haven’t had one child who couldn’t use all their limbs after 6 months. We’ve had one instance where the limbs, for some reason, didn’t attach. We have no idea why, the limbs were there, they just didn’t have the nerve connections to the spinal cord, so we removed them. It was simply a matter of cutting through the skin and sewing it back up, like removing a cyst that sticks out from the skin.”
“Have you noticed any other changes in the children?” Jeff asks. “Are they more likely to have any mental health issues, for example?” Jeff and Margo had discussed the issues with having a child that was “different” and how that would affect the rest of their mental development.
“Here we might be getting into some of the nurture vs nature issues. The children here are all very healthy – mentally and physically. They have a much lower incidence of depression, for example. A good number of the older children predate our work in the womb and they all come from the slums. So, their lives are exceedingly better than they would have been otherwise. And, they are old enough to know it. There’s a comradery here and the feeling that they’re exceptional and superior. We try to temper that a bit.
“You did an excellent job with Mirza.” Margo says, looking at Jeff and making sure she didn’t sound factious for once.
“Thank you, Margo. He is an early example.
“The extra limbs also appear to stimulate other areas of the brain, so the average IQ goes up a good 10% with one limb and then another 5% with the second limb, followed by lesser gains. We believe extra brain cells develop to control the limbs and the stimulation carries over to other parts of the brain. We can show this with the MRI data, but not sure we fully understand it. If the limbs are left alone until they are at least 6 years old, the IQ gains are retained, even if the limbs are removed. Think of the limbs as brain growth stimulators for children.
“The two of you must talk, and I don’t mean to put a lot of pressure on you, but you don’t have much time before you need to decide. First, I insist you have lunch in our garden before Jeff has to leave for work”.
Mirza, who appears to have been waiting right outside the door, escorts Jeff and Margo to lunch. The café is as pretty as the rest of the facility. An open veranda overlooks a garden where 3 young teens, each with 3 arms, are pruning and building bouquets. Waiters waltz around the room, delivering food with 3 and 4 arms, while other waiters who look considerably younger clear the tables with 4 arms and refresh water glasses.
Mirza brings them right to a table overlooking the garden, with a big fan above them. “Make sure you leave room for dessert. They make the best crème Brule on the planet here. And, you should watch them decorate the sugar cookies! I’ll come retrieve you in about 90 minutes.” With that, Mirza elegantly backs away from the table – Jeff wonders if he is going to bow.
As soon as Mirza backs out, a waitress in a stunning orange and gold sari approaches with a couple of cappuccinos. “Welcome to the Salamander Café. Dr. Hudini says you’ve been deprived of caffeine all morning. He also told us that you are our guest for lunch. So, take your time looking over the menu and I’ll be back in 10 minutes to answer any questions.” She raises her voice with the “10 minutes”, looking for confirmation.
“That sound perfect,” says Margo and then Jeff and Margo smile at the waitress and wait for her to leave.
“I bet they were told to listen to us. Let’s check this plant for a mic,” Jeff says as he paws through a flower arrangement on their table.
“We aren’t that shy about our reservations,” Margo says.
Jeff takes a glass of water and dumps in all over the flowers, “Just in case”, he says.
Margo continues. ” I can’t wait to tell Allison about Darwin – and of course, I’ll tell her that the good doctor is pining for her. She had a feeling about Darwin.
“Geeze, this is all so fantastical. And it seems to fit here, but I am not so sure about making Tinker Bell a freak in the US,” Margo says. “You know, like those bright colored paper Mache birds we bought in Mexico.”
“They might have had something to do with Tequila testing, too. You know Beth will have us arrested for child abuse,” says Jeff, as he slowly sips the best cappuccino he’s had in a week. “Of course, we might be arrested on our way back into the country, anyhow. Is it so bad having average kids?”
“Well, we could give them the extra limb and then remove it after their brain fully develops, if they feel like freaks. That way, they get the brain boost from the limb,” says Margo from behind her cappuccino cup, as she stares at the decoration on the cup – looking for a little microphone.
“Really, Margo? Since when have you been so cavalier about operations?”
“Operations will be better in 10 years. “
“You know, I think my dad might be right about few of us having jobs in 15 years. Society is going to need to adapt. However, the future is difficult to predict.”
“Well, I think I can predict that if I have this operation without you 100% onboard that the rest of my life will be miserable,” says Margo, putting down her cup. “We can predict that humans will have more and more spare time, or that we’ll all be busy sand bagging our homes due to raising oceans. Your engineering firm should focus on preventing that!”
“OK, Margo, let’s not fix the world right now. We need to focus on the next few weeks, make some decisions and get through them.”
“Sorry, I digressed. I feel stressed and overwhelmed. Maybe this just isn’t the right time. We can call it off; we gave it a look,” says Margo.
They both sit quietly for a moment and then the music from Hamilton starts playing. They look at each other as the lyrics “I am not throwing away my shot” play.
“You think they timed that?” asks Margo.
“How about we enjoy the lunch, and the crème Brule and then sleep on it. We’ll tell Dr. Hudini our decision tomorrow,” says Jeff. With that, they sit back, groove with the Hamilton sound track, marvel at their surroundings, enjoy their very American soup and salads and in the end agree that this may not be the best crème brulee in the world, but it would be hard to beat anywhere within a thousand miles.