Charlie nodded. ‘The government websites make it look scary, but, while gene modding is illegal, close to half the population now has at least one mod and they can’t throw us all in jail. The best thing to do is wait a month or so for Judah’s mods to bed in, then go online and fill in the Modification Declaration form. The fines are currently twenty thousand dollars, though with inflation they’ll probably be closer to twenty-five by next month.

‘You’ll also have to register Judah’s modified genome with his family doctor, and it’s best to give them copies of my records. Your medical insurance won’t cover complications related to Judah’s mods and, lastly, you’ll have to notify his school. Once Judah is modified, he’ll no longer be eligible to play for school sports teams, or get an athletic scholarship to college.’

‘I’m awful at sport anyway,’ Judah said. ‘But I’m gonna buy some weights, cos David and Ben look awesome. The girls are practically drooling!’

The grandma went a little thin lipped. ‘There’s more to getting a girlfriend than having abs and a big chest, Judah,’ she said crossly. ‘And you’re only thirteen. You should be focused on your studies.’

There was a moment’s awkward silence before the grandmother opened her handbag and pulled out two large bundles of $5,000 bills.

‘One point two million,’ she said, resting the bricks of money on the desktop. ‘Which is ten times what I paid for my house. But with this crazy inflation …’

Judah mocked his grandma. ‘I remember when you could buy a condo tower, three Bentleys and a slave plantation and still have change out of a dollar!’

‘Don’t be tiresome, Judah,’ the grandmother snapped as Charlie concealed a smirk.

‘I drank a three-hundred-dollar cup of real coffee this morning,’ Charlie said. ‘Hyperinflation is a crazy thing! Now, Judah, on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the worst, how scared would you say you are of needles?’

Judah shrugged casually, but she could tell he was worried. ‘If my friend Ben can do it … Maybe a five, or six out of ten.’

‘OK,’ Charlie said. ‘You’re going to need three injections per day, for thirty days. Then you’ll come back to me, and we’ll do bone marrow and muscle tests. Hopefully all the mods should be locked in, and you’ll be seeing new tissue types growing.

‘Now, I’ll do your first injection and you can do the second yourself while I watch. And remember it’s really important to stick to the schedule and inject the doses in the correct spots. The good news is it’s better than it used to be. When my boyfriend had mods done a few years back, he had to do eighteen injections per day.’

Judah looked anxious as Charlie ripped the plastic off a two-and-a-half-inch needle.