Intelligent Design

"I want a horse!" proclaims my seven-year-old sister Suki, one Saturday morning.

My mom frowns. "A horse?"

"Yeah!" she yells.

"We can't afford a horse."

Suki gestures wildly to the machine sitting on the desk near the door. It looks like a combination between a microwave and a printer. "Why can't we just use the replicator?"

"Blueprints are expensive," is my mom's reply.

"But Asa uses it all the time!" whines Suki.

I'm about to protest, but my mom responds first: "Asa only uses it because they need to for school."

"Biotech class," I add, as it makes me sound sophisticated when I mention that.

"I want a horse," repeats my sister stubbornly.

Mom sighs. "Suki, we're lucky to even have a biological replicator. Most people just have a regular 3D printer. And besides, the only reason we have it is for food and your ADHD medicine."

Suki opens her mouth, as if to protest that she doesn't even like the medicine anyway, but thinks better of it.

*

After breakfast, she comes up to my bedroom. I'm on my computer, like usual, fiddling around with a piece of virtual DNA.

"What're you doing?" Suki asks, sounding a little bored.

I show her the blueprint I'm working on.

She cheers up immediately. "Are you gonna make me a horse?"

"It's not that easy," I say, laughing. "Blueprints are incredibly complex. DNA isn't even half of it. You need a complete, three-dimensional diagram of the organism and all its molecules, too. Only then can the replicator print it. And I won't even start on how much harder it is to print a living being, like a horse...."

Suki groans. "Why do boys have to be so smart?"

"I'm not a boy," I remind her for perhaps the hundredth time. "And gender doesn't determine brainpower anyway. Mom has this friend who's creating her own virtual world called Cyberspace or something like—"

But it's clear Suki's attention has wandered, as it often does. "Hey Asa, can't you download a horse blueprint?"

I blink. "Download one? You think I have enough money for—"

"But I heard this kid at school say he made a hamster. For free. Is that true?"

"Not sure," I tell her. Knowing Suki's fellow second-graders, however, it seems likely that the kid was just trying to impress his friends.

"Can you look it up?"

"Fine." I pull up an Ambinet browser and do a quick search for horse blueprint cheap. Turns out the cheapest one is still more than $800. More than I can afford.

"Wait, aren't there any free ones?" She grabs at my computer, but I pull it away from her.

"Maybe. I don't know. Probably illegal to give away free blueprints, anyway."

"Can you look it up though?"

"I don't think—"

"Please? There might one that's not illegal!"

I roll my eyes, and type in the new search criteria. A couple bogus-looking sites pop up.

Suki suddenly points at one of the links. "Ooh! That one has a pretty horse on it! Can you download it? Please?"