The long search. Wandering around various parts of the city, because otherwise they’d never have found this useless district. Just when they thought they would never find a spot that wasn’t already occupied by a vacant condo building, they had taken the last tube on their list to the end of the line. They’d passed old rail tracks and ponds in an area that seemed ready-made for ironic dystopian photo shoots. Dystopia had been the big thing in recent years. Everyone was filled with an overwhelming end-of-times fear. Fear-based laws were passed in a matter of days. Laws against: covering your face, gathering, disguising yourself, hate speech. Internet-blocking laws, asset-freezing laws. But all the loving attempts by the government to calm the people, to protect them, hadn’t helped. Like ants being hunted out of their colony, or hive, or hill, or whatever the hell you call what ants live in, people ran around scared to death, shitting their pants with fear. Scared of multiresistant microbes, Sharia law, feminization, the abandoning of traditions, poverty, and, well—they were still alive. Fear still lingered in the Western populace’s DNA, but it was already half forgotten. Now there was—a basic income. Everything would be all right. Oceans were still rising, the ice caps were still melting, resources were getting more scarce, but everyone had returned to their religion as if nothing had ever happened. The religion of shopping.

In any event, there was

Nothing in the area where the children did their final round of scouting the city. Other than the aforementioned poisonous ponds, a few old warehouses, junk heaps, and motorway on-ramps. The group had checked out a few derelict buildings, old factories with collapsed floors, with rats’ nests in the corners or with drafty, horrible karma.

And then they’d found this space.

“Holyroodhouse,” whispered

KAREN

Impressed. Indeed a light fog hung over the wasteland, the contours of the factory hall became one with the sky and the world, and the building looked like a watercolor painting of the Highlands. Don opened the door, which didn’t even creak. “Please take note of the light in this architectural gem. We’ve spared no expense on the wood flooring, which is sourced from organic, sustainable forests. Significant, too, is the small but charming brook in front of the property, a feature sure to stand out in any portfolio,” said Don in the old warehouse, which upon first sight they knew was the reason they’d come here. A flat-roofed building with nearly intact windows, solid walls, and a wonderful view of—nothing. That was the day the four of them found their new home. A beautiful property. Beyond the gentrification ring. Meaning: a right shitty area. The financial resources of the investor class had run dry about five kilometers from Holyroodhouse.

And now