[ WP ] In the far future , people are genetically engineered to be `` perfect . '' Occasionally this produces defects , but instead of being cast out of society or destroyed , the `` defects '' are sold for millions of dollars to collectors .

Maddie had been with the Grangers since she was three-years-old. They were kind people, better than most of her kind ends up with. They let her go to school in the town with the other children, and they even let her write to her parents. She lived out back in one of the cottages with the other children like her. 
 
 With one green eye and one blue, her defect was obvious the second she opened her eyes to her new world. Her mother had been devastated, Mrs. Granger would later tell her, and tried to hide her. But she was caught, as they all are. Heterochromia, Mrs. Granger says, is one of the better imperfections to have. Some people even breed for it. Perhaps someone in Maddie's family had been like her. She imagined standing with an older man or woman, and them looking back at her with her own eyes. 
 
 The Grangers loved children with the `` better'' defects. Her best friend, Sam, had bright red hair and freckles. He had been bought at auction right after birth. Maddie used to brush her hair through it, marveling at it's almost shocking hue, until Mr. Granger warned her off. 
 
 But there are others here too, Maddie knows. She's not supposed to ask. Mrs. Granger finds them foul. She loves to dote on her precious favorites, and her husband appeases her. But his interest lies in the grotesque. She's heard them fight over them, and heard the screams from across the property. Mrs. Granger will look sad, but then she'll put a pink bow in Maddie's hair and buy her new dresses. 
 
 At night, she hears her mother's voice tell her that she'll never let them have her. She tells Maddie that she's perfect the way she is. 
 
 She wishes that were true, but she looks at the Grangers, and the school-children, and knows that she'll always be a freak until the day she dies.
