A few people, who look alike, cringe. Loud outbursts are no longer welcomed. “You’re going to go extinct, you idiots,” screams Don and then sits down again, quiet and empty.

In the greatest of all eras. The education. The opportunities. The infant mortality rate. Hurray, look how we propagate in this, the greatest of all worlds. How do we propagate? Doesn’t matter. And we eat meat. No generation has ever eaten so much meat. We eat meat morning, noon, and night, meat in sausages, meat in soup, meat in aspic. We eat anything that can’t talk. We’re people; we eat meat that is grown in animal form in giant factories, and then you cut them open, still alive, it makes the sausages taste better, and we like to see them kick their legs, we like to see things kick that we’re going to eat, perhaps while it’s still trembling, or better yet we spoon brains out of an open skull, that’s the latest trend, to grip animals’ heads in a vise and lick them clean.

Speaking of. Licking.

MA WEI

Interjects briefly. “Yes, I’d like to briefly interject here. Because—I’m also a bit proud. Because what the entire world consumes comes from our facilities in Africa. There’s space there, indeed, space is something Africa has. Tens of thousands of beef lots. The livestock stand in self-cleaning stalls with a tube in their bottoms, which sucks out the excrement, and another tube in their mouths, to pump in food concentrate. And antibiotics. Who gives a fuck. In China nobody would even think of eating the stuff.”

That’s great, thinks

KAREN.

With a bit of blood on her face.

She’s squatting on the footpath next to Don. It’s still cold. It’s still London. Soho, the streets full of quietly cheery people. “Is he still alive?” asks Don. Meaning Patuk, the tailor. Karen pulls a wad of bills from her jacket. And a blood-smeared chip. The moment when Patuk will realize he made a huge mistake. Is nearly here. The moment of definitive revenge.

While

The

ATTACKERS

INTELLECTUAL CAPABILITIES: added together the two have 110 IQ points

THREAT LEVEL: 10

HEALTH CONDITIONS: hormone problems, skin problems, problems with everything

Are inconceivably bored with themselves, the contradiction between the hormones racing inside their bodies and the lifeless drabness outside cripples them. One of them came from Rochdale and moved in with a friend here in the city just a short time ago. They share a fondness for