Gene modding is amazing.  CRISPR opened the floodgates to genetic engineering like none had ever expected.  Designer babies, gene therapy eliminates hereditary illnesses, no more vestigial organs, gene mod enhancements for damn near everything.  Even you had some modifications. Nothing too major, but that stuff would have made you a star athlete just a few decades ago.  All good stuff but nothing that really made headlines.  No, the big topic for years was uplifts.  It started as a hobby for the wealthy:  Pay a huge wad of cash, and you could take an animal, splice human genetics into it, and make a new creature.  Walks and talks like a human, but retains the features of the base animal, adult sized in a single year.  They became the new pet everyone wanted.  As more people bought them, the cheaper it became to produce uplifts as new, more efficient methods arose to develop them.  Soon they became commonplace.  Hell, even your parents have a round little Pomsky uplift they treat like the grandchildren you never gave them.  It was so easy to acquire one, half the population of a town could be uplifts.  They became so numerous that people stopped referring to them as their official names, which was basically ‘[Species]-uplift’ and were simply put under the blanket term ‘Pets’.
    Of course with such new advancements comes a whole buttload of new problems.  Attempts at increasing their intelligence only lead to their brains deteriorating until you were left with a vegetable in 5 years that aren’t even able to breathe without help.  Lead to a lot of bereaved owners demanding more standards be applied to making uplifts.  So came the Thinking Cap law, a limitation on brain development that leaves matured uplifts about as smart as a really dumb teenager, but at least no more painful deaths from melting brain cells.    
Then came crazy hybridization, as stranger combinations of animals were called for.  Dog and lizard.  Horse and lion. Lynx with eagle wings and Crystal Jelly bio-luminescence for blue highlights. Gene modding has gone far, but not that far.  Such combinations lead to pets that looked exotic yes, but by their second birthday the conflicting animal bits would start breaking down as they rejected each other, leading to an uplift whose body was literally killing itself trying to expel the foreign genetics with tumors that spread rapidly through the body.  The rise in fatalities called for a means to stop such tragedies from happening in the future.  Thus came the Uplift Standardization clause, which cited every Uplift had to be based on an existing species or breed recognized by an official association.  No crazy wolf-bird hybrids that would die from malignant cancer in a year.  This also meant any interbreeding had to be seriously reworked.  People could no longer have two different species Pets fuck each other, or in some cases a human knocking up their Pet,  and make a freak baby.  No from now own Pets only took the bare minimum from the father, the child’s sex, hair color, eye color and maybe some personality traits.  Beyond that, they were the mother’s genes.
	Then came the controversy about Uplift rights.  It started with the previous laws, and from them came movements that called for more than that.  A movement to give uplifts freedom, calling Pet ownership ‘slavery’ and ‘inhumane’.  Some nations saw this progress into a new law.  They all had different names for it.  The Uplift Humanization Act, the Pet Freedom Act, La Libération Animale Évoluée, basically the Anti-Pet Laws.  
	They were rushed, filled with loopholes, and generally made a bigger mess than the one they were created to solve.  It was illegal to own an Uplift as a Pet unless they gave their express permission; but that was easy to get when an uplift was about as smart as a bag of turnips.  Once they became a Pet, they voided all uplift rights, which rendered the laws moot.  Also despite making Pet ownership much harder, it did nothing to help support the million of uneducated, unskilled uplifts that were now homeless, jobless, and penniless.  Most slipped through the cracks, living on the streets, getting jammed into low-income areas, or going feral in worst cases, setting up shanty towns on the outskirts of civilization.  But some did manage to, through  donations, local charities, or very giving patrons, adjust to their new lives as individuals and eke out a modest existence.  
	One of them is a tenant in your apartment, and their rent is long overdue.   You were more or less given this apartment to manage for your parents, who in turn got it from your grandmother when her mind started to go south.  They had their own properties to look after.  At least that’s why you think they gave this for you to manage.  Frankly it seems like a total money sink.  Every day brings a new problem.  Broken AC, leaky pipes, moldy walls, creaky floorboards.  The rent only just breaks even with all the expenses it makes.  You’ve been tempted to sell it many times, but nostalgia holds you back.  Your grandmother raised you in that apartment.  The same unit that gave you some of the best years of your childhood is now getting rented out by an Uplift.
	Xiao Yu.  Panda uplift, artificial age 39, natural age 21, mother of two uplifts, father unknown, that are enrolled at an inner city high school.  She was made from scratch by some rich mogul that wanted a panda with none of the hassle of feeding or cleaning up after it.  Then she got her freedom after the Anti-Pet laws were passed.  You met her once during for an apartment interview.  She only came up to your shoulders, and the very definition of a ditzy milf.  A striped T-shirt that hugged her chest tightly, meant for someone much smaller than her, jeans that struggled to close around her, showing off her midriff.  Wide, baby bearing hips, and a bust size just as big.  Her face was not quite like other pandas you’ve seen.  Her left eye spot actually formed more of a smudge underneath her eye while her right spot was more grey than the other black spots on her fur.  And a blank look on her face that looked like she was staring through you and into the horizon.  
	She was nauseatingly happy about everything, even as she asked for an explanation of her rental contract whenever a word with more than two syllables came up.  You still remember the negotiation.
	“What’s a deposit?”
	“What counts as a reference?”
	“I used to be a Pet.  Does that mean I’m not allowed in?”
	“What’s EPA?  Is that like BMW?”
	It’d be more adorable if she wasn’t asking those dumb questions every five seconds for an hour.  How she managed to make a living for herself is a mystery to you.  You are drawn away from your thoughts by a shout “ANON!  MOLLY SPILLED THE TEA AGAIN!”
	“I DID NOT MOLLY, YOU SPOOKED ME!”
	Even since your grandmother had her stroke, her memory was shot, and as a result lives with you to keep an eye on her...and her pets.  You just bought a modest home for yourself, with plenty of room for others, but having the guest bedroom occupied by your grandmother all day, and three uplifts running around underfoot makes even your home feel cramped.  
	Three Doberman uplifts, all based on an old dog she used to own when she was younger.  Not being to original and having a stubborn streak a mile wide, she ignored your advice and named them all ‘Molly’, because it was the name of her old dog, and to confuse the hell out of everyone else.   They seem to have caught onto the joke and carry it even further.  They dress the same, usually by stealing your clothes, style their hair the same, and when feeling mischievous, act the same.  
	Normally you can tell who is who.  There’s the first Molly, first out out of the tank, first to speak, first to pick a bed, first to the dining table, always first to everything.  She’s super competitive with her sisters.  It doesn't matter if there is a competition involved.  She'll make it a competition and will do whatever it takes to be first.
	Then there’s Molly two.  She’s about as dim as your tenant Xiao Yu.  Clumsy, dumb, excitable, and a high tolerance to pain.  Good thing too.  Given the number of accidents she gets into, most people and Uplifts would be on a permanent prescription for painkillers.  But Molly two just brushes herself off and walks away.  This translates to a very calm, and surprisingly affectionate girl.
	Molly three is the exact opposite of two.  She’s smart as a whip, always looking for a way to come out on top.  And ever since she moved in with you, has been looking for a way to establish herself as alpha bitch.  The moment you put your foot down however, she stops and becomes a submissive, clingy bootlicker.  She does whatever it takes to get back on your good side.  Even if that means shifting blame onto her sisters.  Much like today.
	“Alright Molly-”
    “What Anon?” One pokes its head out of the bathroom, red, shoulder length hair, standing in all directions, the sound of a hairdryer turning off.
	“Not you, Molly, I mean Molly-”
    “I told you, Molly did it!” Another steps out from the kitchen.  Her hair is done more neatly, though unlike the other dressing in one of your T-shirts, this one has an apron and sweatpants on. 
    “No, you did it!” The third appears, pushing the second Molly aside.  This one forgot to touch her hair up this morning, frayed on one side where she slept on it, dressing in another one of your shirts, your boxers clinging to her small frame.
	“Oh you are such a liar Molly”
	“You’re one to talk Molly! You-”“ENOUGH!” you shout.  The two stop arguing and stand to attention.  Even the Molly in the bathroom meekly shuffles out after hearing your frustration, hands clamped around your white undershirt she’s wearing.  Dammit, you don’t have time for this.  You pinch the bridge of your nose and sigh.  “I don’t care who spilled the tea.  Just clean it up, brew another pot, and get it to grandma for her morning meds.  I don’t care who does it just get it done okay?”  All three nod.  “I’ll bring food back when I come home.  Burgers sound good?”
	All three run up and wrap around you.  Your legs struggle to stay upwards under the weight of three jubilant dog-girls.  
	“Thanks Anon.”
	“Extra patty on mine!”
    “No onions okay?”
	And just as quickly the girls disperse.  You suppress a smile.  They have a hell of a lot of problems, but then again that unbridled affection was the main reason most people got Pets in the first place.  As you hear the kitchen fan turn on, you make for the door.  You have business to deal with.