Passersby stood frozen before the screens. You could see how the words went into their ears and then painstakingly burrowed into their brains, arriving at the Wernicke area at the back, the upper part of the left temporal lobe. This takes time. But then. The realization erupted in the form of a collective shout from hundreds of

People.

They fell, within the framework of their typical British contact aversion, into each other’s arms. Money. Free money! It would be said many times that Great Britain was as a result the first country in the world to rise to the challenges of the future, and so on. With a basic income, welfare, retirement benefits, sick pay, and disability pay would be dispensed with.

The collective mouth was agape. This policy, it was further said, would necessitate a laborious registration of all residents; citizens should sign their claims in the next few days by appearing at registration offices. And don’t forget proper ID. And kiss my ass, thought

DON

It’s nothing to do with us. We’re not citizens, we’re runaway children. Meanwhile

What had upon their arrival seemed like a demonstration had become a riot. As if the money the state was giving the citizens would be shared only with the quickest, everyone seemed to go mad with greed. Taxis were stopped. People ran, fell, stumbled over those who had fallen, and everywhere single shoes lay dubiously in the streets. Peter got scared. It seemed advisable to leave this scene of insanity. The children took their bags and pressed through the tumult. It took a quarter of an hour to shove their way into a rich neighborhood a hundred meters from Victoria station. The contrast between the wretches in the street, the riotous common people, the homeless, and these elegant living arrangements was amazing. The general public apparently stuck to the division between the classes. Residences as big as ships, with golden light shining from within, overlooked a handsome park that seemed perfect for their first night, a night on which for once it wasn’t drizzling. The four children had barely sat down before two security guards with a dog, which was probably mechanical, turned up. They told them that this was no public park. Because there were no public parks. That is, there were parks that the public could use under certain conditions. Every green patch and open space, every square in the city, belonged to somebody. Russians, Arabs, mobsters, and it was up to the owners to determine the rules.

So

The new life

Started with a delayed euphoria.