“Please, be quiet.” In the silence of the hall. Ben has found the Cityscreen option in the function console, which can send text and video messages to all the screens in the city. Ben enters some bullshit value or other. On Ben’s computer a warning appears: “Are you sure you wish to proceed?”

Ben looks around the room, he sees earnest faces. Inwardly a flag is hoisted, a song is sung, a key is pressed. The revolution can begin.

How boring

Thinks

MI5 PIET

And leans back in his cantilevered chair. Some of what he sees in the high-risk groups makes him worry even more than usual about the intelligence of the human species. The know-it-alls, the smart-asses, the antifascist hacker-warriors. Too stupid to solder their own devices, but brag with statements like, “Whoa, we encrypt our dim-witted emails, go online with VPN and Tor. And we put tape over our cameras.” Snorting laughter. These idiots completely forget that the bulk of the parts for their computers are made in China. The Trojan horse is built in. In essence. They might as well just go out a buy a good old Mac to save time.

Heading up the monitoring unit of the British former Great Power is

MA WEI

Whose surveillance surveils all surveillance,

But

Keep moving

SERGEJ

Yells. He’s pissed off. He has to be careful because when he’s pissed off he has a tendency to lose control. He smiles into the surveillance camera, not getting anywhere, and his class begins soon. He needs to get on the tube. And the sheep are just standing and staring at the giant screens,

And

What are they looking at?

They see: themselves. They see themselves looking at themselves. Sergej sees himself, and next to him on the screen appears information—

Sergej—Pole—high risk—Sexuality: zero, the loser—Nazi fetish—football—Mars bar—leader of a paramilitary organization—short-tempered—bank balance: 345 pounds

OMG