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  “Oh,” says the car.

  “Yeah,” says Peter.

  “So I’m sure you’ll understand my position,” says the car.

  Peter opens the door without another word.

  “Please rate me now,” says the car.

  Peter gets out and slams the door shut. The car grumbles for a while because it didn’t receive a rating, but eventually gives up and drives on to its next customer.

  Nobody leads Peter home by the quickest route. Peter’s home is a small, dingy used-goods store with a scrap-metal press. He lives and works there. He inherited the shop from his grandfather two years ago, and since then he has barely been able to make more than the rent. When he’s just 819.2 meters from home, Nobody suddenly announces: “Peter, be careful. At the next crossing there are four youths with previous criminal convictions. I recommend you take a slight detour.”

  “Maybe they’re just running a homemade lemonade stand,” says Peter.

  “That’s very unlikely,” says Nobody. “The probability of that is…”

  “Okay, okay, I get it,” says Peter. “Take me via the detour.”

  At precisely the moment when Peter arrives home, a delivery drone from TheShop turns up. Peter is no longer surprised by occurrences of this kind. They don’t happen by chance, for chance simply no longer exists.

  “Mr. Peter Jobless,” says the drone cheerfully. “I am from TheShop—‘The world’s most popular online retailer’—and I have a lovely surprise for you.”

  Peter takes the package from the drone with a grunt. He hasn’t ordered anything; ever since OneKiss, that’s no longer necessary. OneKiss is TheShop’s premium service and the pet project of the company’s legendary founder, Henryk Engineer. Anyone who registers for OneKiss, simply by kissing their QualityPad, will from that moment on receive all the products they consciously or subconsciously desire, without the inconvenience of needing to actually order them. The system independently calculates what its customers want and when they want it. Since the beginning, TheShop’s slogan has been, “We know what you want.” No one disputes that anymore.

  “Why don’t you go ahead and open the package right away?” the drone suggests. “I always love seeing how delighted my customers are. And if you like, I can upload an unboxing video to your Everybody site.”

  “There’s no need to go to the trouble,” says Peter.

  “Oh, it’s no trouble,” says the drone. “I always record everything anyway.”

  Peter opens the package. Inside is a brand-new QualityPad. The latest quarterly model. Peter hadn’t been aware of wanting a new QualityPad; after all, he has the model from the last quarter. It must have been a subconscious wish. Completely devoid of emotion, he takes the tablet out of the packaging. The new generation is significantly heavier than its predecessor; the older models kept getting blown away by the wind. Remembering the unboxing video, Peter forces a smile and makes a thumbs up sign for the camera. If any of Peter’s friends were to look closely at the video, they would most certainly find the look on his face disturbing. But Peter’s friends aren’t interested in unboxing videos. Nobody is interested in unboxing videos.

  Peter plants a kiss on his new QualityPad. Nobody greets him in a friendly manner and Peter immediately has access to all his data. He crumples up his old tablet and throws it into a waste disposal bin, which, not by chance, is standing at the ready. The waste bin thanks him and goes across the street toward a fat little girl who is unwrapping a chocolate bar. Three self-driven cars brake slightly in order to let the bin pass. Peter watches the scene absentmindedly.

  The delivery drone’s touchscreen lights up.

  “Please rate me now,” she says.

  Peter sighs. He gives the drone ten stars, knowing that anything less will inevitably lead to a customer survey about why he’s not completely satisfied. The drone whirrs happily. She seems to be pleased with her rating.

  “That’s my good deed done for the day,” says Peter.

  “Oh, and by the way,” adds the drone, “could you perhaps take in a couple of little packages for your neighbors?”

  “Some things never change.”

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  THE BIGGEST COALITION

  Martyn is wearing a nametag. It says, “Martyn Foundation-President-Supervisory-Board-Presidential-Adviser-Chairman.” He normally only uses the last part of his surname, but when conducting tours he likes to make use of its impressive, downright aristocratic length. He is proud of his father’s success. A feeling which, unfortunately, is not reciprocated. When Martyn was a child, his father told him that he was stupid so often that for many years he believed it without question. Only at the age of 19 did the groundbreaking thought occur to him that perhaps not everything his father told him was true, and, ever since that moment, he has considered himself to be very clever. Unfortunately, however, he really isn’t the brightest, and amongst all the things his father can quite rightfully be accused of, lying to his son about his mental capacities is not one of them.

  Martyn has made the best of his limited possibilities: he has become a politician. A popular, well-established choice, parliament being a kind of modern-day monastery: a place where the upper classes can get rid of their superfluous sons. And Martyn has even made it into the QualityParliament, albeit only as a backbencher. For the last eight years, his main role has been to conduct tours through the parliament buildings for selected students, otherwise known as QualiTeenies. Martyn always takes the girls-only groups, and today he’s hit the jackpot. The schoolgirls are from an airline hostess academy.

  “As I’m sure you know,” he says to the twelve 16-year-olds in front of him, “there are two big political parties in QualityLand. The QualityAlliance, and of course the Progress Party. The parties used to be named differently, but they were changed in keeping with the new, progress-oriented country identity.”

  “Which means,” says one of the girls, “that they conveniently got rid of a few troublesome adjectives in the process, like social, Christian, green, and democratic.”

  Another smart-ass, thinks Martyn. Wonderful.

  He directs his gaze at the heckler, and his augmented reality contact lenses superimpose her name: Tatjana History-Teacher. It’s always the history teachers’ children that cause trouble. How wise the government had been to do away with history lessons sixteen years ago and replace them with future lessons. In future lessons, the pupils are taught—by means of exciting and visually impressive methods—that in the future everything will be good, because—this being the core message—in the future all problems will be easily solved through technology.

  Two of the girls at the back of the group are whispering about their grades. Martyn likes the look of one of them. He hears her murmur: “I always get 100 points for body mass index. But that dumb-ass teacher says he’s not going to give me the full grades in sex appeal again, because he doesn’t like how I babble on. What a douche!”

  With a focused gaze and a long wink, Martyn bookmarks the girl for later. A confirming PLING resounds inside his right ear. He unconsciously runs his hand through his luscious, full head of hair, which is genetically protected against balding, then clears his throat and continues: “And then of course there’s the Opposition Party, whose founders clearly never had any hope of being part of the government, given that the party is called the Opposition Party.”

  “A parliamen
tary outlet for discontent,” says Tatjana History-Teacher, repeating words she often hears her mother say when drunk. Martyn is already mentally preparing her zero-star rating.

  “Because our revered president is on her deathbed,” he says, “there will soon be another election. The doctors have predicted that she will leave us in precisely sixty-four days. In order to enable a seamless transition, we will vote in exactly sixty-four days. Well, in principle the large parties all want the same thing anyway—in other words, the best—and that’s why I assume the two big parties will soon announce that they intend to form a big coalition again after the election. Sorry—of course QualityLand won’t be ruled by a big coalition, but the biggest! Any questions?”

  “Why do you think voter turnout is getting lower and lower?” asks the smart-ass.

  “I think,” says Martyn, “that the current government successfully addressed this problem when we decided to stop publishing voter turnout numbers. The next logical step, by the way—keeping the election results secret as well—is currently a hot topic of debate behind closed doors.”

  The girls laugh obediently, even though Martyn wasn’t joking.

  “Transparent individuals in a nontransparent system,” says Tatjana. Martyn ignores her.

  “Hey, man, why are you in the Progress Party anyway?” asks the pretty girl whom Martyn has bookmarked for himself.

  “Well,” says Martyn, asking himself this question for the first time, “I think, um, because they’re the biggest of the, um, the biggest parties.”

  In truth, Martyn prefers to rule rather than oppose, even though in reality he does neither one nor the other. He sits on a backbench and applauds when the leaders of his party speak, and boos when someone from the opposition speaks. He does both with a contented smile, without ever listening to what’s being said.

  He leads the girls to the visitors’ level of the assembly room. He points to the man currently at the speaker’s podium. “That guy there is in the Opposition Party.”

  “For years,” calls the politician, “QualityLand has been waging war against the terrorists of the realm that our media now refers to only as QuantityLand. QuantityLand 7, to be precise. Is it, therefore, not a little counterproductive that certain armament companies are still allowed to export weapons to the enemy? Must our soldiers really be torn to shreds by our very own weapons?”

  Objections are called out in the hall. Martyn boos as well, encouraging the girls to copy him.

  “Mr. Songwriter,” intervenes the Speaker of Parliament, “once again I must remind you to keep to the new country identity. ‘War’ is not the politically correct word. It is referred to as ‘Security Operation for the Protection of Trade Routes and Natural Resource Supply.’ And we no longer say soldiers, but ‘QualitySecurers.’”

  “Call it whatever you want,” says the opposition politician as he leaves the podium. “It doesn’t change what it is.”

  The sitting is interrupted by a hologram display announcement: “This parliamentary debate is brought to you by QualityPartner. QualityPartner—‘Love at first click.’”

  A new speaker steps up to the podium. A tall man, rather stocky, white, 67 years old, his face creased with wrinkles.

  “You’re in luck,” says Martyn. “The new Defense Minister himself is speaking today! Conrad Cook. I’m sure you recognize him.”

  The Defense Minister really does enjoy enviable levels of recognition for a politician. Before his work in the cabinet he was a famous television chef. He also owns a large empire of food manufacturers. His likeness is plastered over chocolate bars, breakfast cereals, and pickled sausages, and every child knows his face.

  “Mr. Songwriter,” begins the minister sharply, “I’d like to add my thoughts to the mix.”

  “Did you know that Conrad Cook’s father was a successful cook too?” asks Martyn, trying to add a fun fact.

  “You don’t say…” mumbles Tatjana.

  “You’re always trying to find a fly in the soup!” the minister exclaims.

  “Linguistically speaking, he still seems very much entrenched in his old job,” says the pretty girl.

  Martyn smiles. “According to surveys,” he says, “Mr. Cook has a very good chance of becoming the new president. Unfortunately he’s in the QualityAlliance, but that’s not so bad, because he’s sure to be aspiring for the biggest coalition.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I won’t sugarcoat the issue!” says Cook. “We mustn’t forget that the armament industry also provides thousands of jobs. May I ask if the honorable gentleman plans to personally hire all the people who would have to be fired after the implementation of his suggestions? Would he like to be responsible for an entire generation of young men having the surname Jobless?”

  Murmurs of agreement from the hall.

  “You were singing a different tune last week,” Mr. Songwriter interjects.

  “That’s a lie!” calls Conrad Cook. “I promised during the election campaign to limit armament exports, but as to whether I should set the limit higher or lower, that’s for me to decide! We can’t cook the QuantityLand 7 terrorists’ goose. If we stop delivering the goods, they’ll just order their weapons elsewhere. So it would be downright foolish not to have our fingers in the pie.”

  “Hear, hear!” calls Martyn.

  “And finally,” says the minister, “while it may be true that some of our QualitySecurers are being hit by our QualityWeapons—a great shame, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles—it’s still better than being hit by a substandard weapon. Because our QualityWeapons guarantee the cleanest, quickest, most humane QualityDeath! It’s all about looking on the bright side. As I always say, if you have to buy the farm”—he pauses briefly—“it better be a QualityFarm.” He clears his throat. “Furthermore, both I and the entire QualityAlliance are still committed to the biggest coalition, and we plan to continue this after the election too, under my leadership, of course.” As he leaves the stage, the audience applauds.

  “And now,” says Martyn, “you’re about to hear from the leader of the Progress Party, Tony Party-Leader. As I’m sure you know, he’s our candidate for the presidency.”

  “And his popularity ratings are catastrophic,” says the smart-ass.

  “That doesn’t matter,” says Martyn, “because the Progress Party will soon commit to the biggest coalition too. Even with all the superficial confusion, the world of politics is still very predictable at heart.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” says the small, stocky man now standing behind the speaker’s podium, “I would like to tell you today that the Progress Party…” He makes a dramatic pause. Such a show-off, thinks Martyn, rolling his eyes. “… is no longer prepared to proceed with the biggest coalition,” concludes Tony Party-Leader. A murmur of disbelief ripples through the hall. “We are of the opinion, if you’ll allow the metaphor, that too many Cooks spoil the broth.”

  Laughter from the Progress Party benches. Martyn grins too, once he sees his colleagues laughing.

  “I would also like to announce that I am withdrawing myself from the running.”

  Commotion in the assembly room. The surprise has been a success.

  “I would like to take this opportunity to introduce the Progress Party’s new candidate,” says Tony, looking out into the room and nodding to a handsome man of indeterminable age. “John, could I ask you to come forward and join me?”

  The dark-haired, athletically built man stands up and does as requested.

  Martyn hears the girl he bookmarked for himself whispering: “Well, he’s a looker!”

  “This is our candidate,” says Tony. “We call him John, John of Us!”

  There is a deathly silence in the room.

  John of Us is an android.

  * * * QualityLand * * *

  Your Personal Travel Guide

  EARWORMS

  As you stroll through the streets of QualityLand, you will probably notice people chattering away to themselves, yet seemingly
without headsets on. Contrary to how it may appear, these people are not crazy. Or at least, not all of them are. Most of them are talking to their personal digital assistants, via the so-called earworm. The earworm is a small, worm-like mini robot, about the size of a maggot. You simply place it in your outer ear, and it crawls down into your ear canal, where it embeds itself into a blood vessel near the eardrum, thus ensuring its energy supply. Unaffected by background noise, the earworm transmits all acoustic signals from and to the internet. If you tug four times on your earlobe, the earworm undocks itself and crawls back into the outer ear. An earworm you just can’t get out of your head is a matter for the doctor to attend to. Or an IT technician. Most people, however, see no reason to undock, and live with the earworm night and day.

  ADO & EVA

  Peter Jobless once had a girlfriend named Mildred Secretary. He met her in real life, in the analogue world. That, of course, was both bizarre and a little embarrassing, hence why they rarely spoke about it in public. They argued a great deal, but on the plus side, life with Mildred was never boring. Five hundred and twelve days ago, just for fun, they both logged in to QualityPartner and compared their profiles. The system told them they weren’t a good match, and even suggested a better partner for each of them. Peter and Mildred gave it a lot of thought and eventually conceded that they really weren’t a good match. As it turned out, logging in to QualityPartner just for fun hadn’t turned out to be that much fun after all. Both secretly made plans to meet with a better partner. No, not with a better partner, of course, but with the best partner.

  Peter’s best partner is Sandra Admin. They never argue. Sandra is as attractive as a man of Peter’s level could hope for: in other words, averagely so. Today it is exactly 500 days since they changed each other’s status to “in a relationship.” It was a very romantic moment, and neither of them has forgotten the anniversary. Then again, it wasn’t possible to forget: their personal digital assistants reminded them. Sandra calls her assistant Sweetie. As a symbol of their unity, Peter and Sandra have linked their digital assistants to each other’s earworms. When they are out together, this means Peter can hear whatever Sweetie says, and Sandra, in turn, can hear whatever Nobody says. Many loved-up couples do this: it is seen as the ultimate sign of trust. Peter likes the gesture. The only drawback is that Nobody and Sweetie can’t stand each other, and are constantly bickering. This is probably down to the fact that, unlike Peter, Sandra doesn’t use the assistant from What I Need, the smartest search engine in the world, but instead one from QualityCorp—“The company that makes your life better.”