‘Why?’ asks Doug. ‘I have a licence for it – what did I do wrong?’
‘It’s a counterfeit item, sir. If you do have a licence it will be a forgery – you are either handling illegally edited goods or … you’ve done this yourself.
Doug had bought the dog, a Dachshund he ’d named Noodle, from a breeder who had a reputation for dealing with upgraded animals. He had taken the risk because he didn’t want something that might lose the use of its back legs after a few years – he ’d had a pug in the past and as much as he loved it, it could barely breathe at night. If he had to have another animal that screwed up again – his apartment was too small for even a moderately sized dog – he wouldn’t have bothered at all. ‘Give me a break. These animals have been bred to fuck by us, we made them like this, and now you are saying it’s illegal to put that right?’
‘So you are aware of the edits, sir?’ asks the policeman, putting away his gene tracker and beginning to tap on his tablet.
‘No I wasn’t, and you won’t be able to prove something that hasn’t happened … it’s just I find all this nonsense of scanning for “Frankenstein” animals and crops and people … it’s fucking ridiculous.
‘It’s the law, sir. If we didn’t have these rules in place, then where would the incentive be for people to create new solutions? People could just do anything they wanted.
‘Or heal anything they wanted,’ Doug muttered.
The police oficer remained completely indiferent. ‘Now sir, may I take your name, address and a shot of your retina … stand still, this won’t take a moment.’
All of the accounts above are fiction, and yet they are based in fact – reasonable guesses about our prospective future. In
8
fully automated luxury communism