Which is something

THOME

Does not have.

For him, this is the greatest moment of his lifetime, in fact the greatest moment since the invention of the steam engine. Everything is possible right now. Every goddamn area of life is being reinvented. By people like Thome.

Another way to put it:

The era of uninteresting men has begun.

The decade or—hey—the millennium, when brain power is more important than banal fame as a rock star or actor. Models consort with unsightly men like Ayers and Spiegel. Applebaum can have anyone, girls masturbate to digital 3-D fanzine puzzles of developers. What a gift, that the world is currently in the midst of a thoroughgoing renewal. Thoroughgoing—Thome loves to intersperse his thoughts with quirky terms. It makes him feel nifty, which by the way is another unfairly forgotten word. Today. The most exciting moment since the invention of the steam engine. And Thome’s on the team, meaning: men; meaning: he is one of the men making the transformation happen. The men planning the establishment of city-states on the high seas, the colonization of Mars, and various cyborg ideas of immortality, all of which, of course, always include leaving earth as quickly as possible after restructuring it. “On Mars. It’ll work on Mars,” calls

Thome. He’s talked himself into a strange condition of weightless euphoria. Without really even thinking about it, he has pulled his member out of his trousers and had a wank to his fading thoughts. Peter stands up, takes the mobile phone from the hand of the trembling man. Sends the video to his own device, which is resting beneath a shack almost beyond the city limits.

It’s quiet in the room

The silence

Is as heavy as a sack of coal, which

MR. M.

FINANCIAL STATUS: leader

HEALTH: tip-top

MENTAL CONDITION: manic depressive

POLITICAL INCLINATION: indifferent

Feels on his chest. It’s time once again to get up. Mr. M.’s current life, which is to say for months now, consists of a montage of waking-up moments. “I’m happy to go through my life without saying anything to anyone.” This saying, which Mr. M. had nicked from a wise man, white, dead, and which served as his motto, seems embarrassing. Beside his bed—no weapons. Weapons are banned here; the danger of ruining the glass dome is too great. If the glass dome were destroyed as a result of—let’s say—a weapon, the residents would have very little time to reach the shelter. Because outside is. Well.