Ordered nutrient solution with fetal bovine serum to culture adenovirus. She’d also ordered via the lab 293T cells for reproduction of the little bastards. With a pipe fermenter, 37 degrees, and a little blast of CO2, Karen sets up a starter stock of the beasts which she will soon need to transfer into a new home. For today there’s nothing more to do. Karen looks out the window—there’s an incomprehensible light outside.

Waiting outside is

DON

In that light, which occurs only in areas near the ocean, creamy, pale blue—pink.

After the outbreak of violence which, unfortunately, she’d been at the center of, Don is in shock, as if she’d survived an accident and is now standing on the street, in front of her the wreckage of her convertible. Nice cue, thinks god. A few Russians glide past in an electric sports car with the top down. Nobody at the wheel. Probably for the best because they’re drunk. Bad Eurotrash music coming out of the giant speakers. The Russians laugh, pass a bottle around, and hold their arms up in the air, a move they probably picked up in the primitive music videos that people like them enjoy. They’re all wearing designer combat clothes. Camo with golden trim. It’s the thing of the moment. Uniforms. Fatigues, gas masks. But ironic. With gold. People love it. They want to survive. Want to look as if they’ve been to battle. But nobody knows what they should fight against. Everything’s calm, after all. The Great Replacement—whereby whites were to have been displaced by Arabs—hadn’t happened. If anything Europe had witnessed an increase in Chinese people buying up properties in so-called prime locations. The Russians, too, are barely noticeable on the street anymore. Karen’s eyes follow the people living out their own promo film clips. The others are still not happy.

The city is full of tense people for whom the basic income hasn’t provided genuine peace. It just isn’t enough. The money just isn’t sufficient, even though the official numbers are so brilliant. Thanks to the basic income there’s no more unemployment, for instance. Thanks to minijobbers and job-hoppers and minicontracts and temp work and

JOB NOMADS

HOBBIES: gaming, making videos of themselves, being free

HEALTH CONDITIONS: bad teeth, sleep deprivation, trouble concentrating

POLITICAL TENDENCIES: none.

Who live a truly free life. Well, kind of. And who are constantly being visited by BBC camera teams. Used to be. Before. When there were. Bye-bye.