Thome’s father smirks. “If I might be permitted to answer.

“Esteemed colleague. That is extremely simple—it will take care of itself by natural means.”

If you vanquish all things human.

Thinks

KAREN

Then feelings will also be under excellent control. Karen has become a machine. No fat. Only muscles. Bones. Sinews. She’s grown strong. She injects herself with testosterone that she gets from the lab director. She runs, does a thousand push-ups and pull-ups.

As if her brain had likewise been battered by the hormone, Karen simply has no fear anymore. Afraid of nothing. Even now, in Hyde Park as darkness gathers. It will all start in the dark. The first homeless will be lit on fire. Hurray, light in the dark—

Karen walks past a bench around which a few young men stand, looking at a homeless person.

Students from Trinity College. Karen recognizes them by their ugly blue jackets and gray trousers, despite their ridiculous clown masks.

The unbelievably overwhelming demands on the collective consciousness, that now manifests itself in the form of flaccid groups of idle men roaming the inner city to hunt down beggars. He doesn’t look up. The tramp.

“Hey, would you kindly get up,” say the

YOUNG MEN

CITIZEN POINTS: as a result of stable family relationships, no reductions despite multiple traffic violations, various accusations of sexual harassment

FUTURE PROSPECTS: pillars of society

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: perversion

The homeless man doesn’t get up. “So, you’re resisting,” says a tall student, nodding to the others, and they begin to punch the vagrant, almost halfheartedly. At first with their hands, which are covered in gloves, you certainly wouldn’t want to actually touch him. And hands don’t leave any marks, at least until you break the nose at some point, the snap is good, the blood is good, it gives you a rush. One of the three young men gets up on the bench and orders the tramp to the ground with a few kicks. Right, that’s better, now you can really step into it, at first in the side, the body, then in the face, something breaks. Then the three of them jump one after the other on the tramp’s head. Someone else can clean it up. For instance

KAREN

Who tries to find a pulse among the remains, but the vagrant is no longer alive.