“Should we beat somebody up?” asked Don on one of these interminable afternoons, on the way to one of the abandoned factories in the hope of watching people in the act of having sex. The others looked up briefly from their devices.

“Beating someone up is not radical enough for me,” said Karen. Since the vaccination she’d had headaches more often. And been inclined toward violent fantasies.

“Do you have the feeling they implanted something in our brains when they gave us the vaccination?” she asked.

Peter nodded. “Trackers. They must have implanted trackers.”

Don touched her head. “It would be interesting,” she said, “if they had injected us with nanosensors that worked their way through our brains and sent all our thoughts to a control center. Of course, you have to wonder who could possibly be interested in our thoughts, but…”

Karen said, “Exactly, that’s it. A vaccination. Takes a second, don’t you guys get it?” None of them got it.

“Everything in the world is determined in seconds,” she continued. The others readied themselves for one of Karen’s usual rants, which in their most extreme form didn’t end in less than an hour.

“I’ll put my penis in the vacuum,” said Karen. “My hand in the blender. Chain myself to the car and jam a brick on the gas pedal. Send a message to the school director, climb up a ladder, drive across an icy bridge at night. Light the coal oven with the flue closed and go to sleep. I’ll push the button that starts a nuclear war.

“Know what I mean?” None of them knew what she meant.

“One false choice,” said Karen, “that you can’t even call a choice, more like a reflex. And the result is landing in a coma in the hospital, a shattered family, welfare, layoffs, divorce, and ending up on the street, life without a hand, life in a wheelchair. Choices are illusions of holding power. Oh, yeah, power, how cool. And then they think, well, what they call thinking, and write notes full of pros and cons, but in the end everything is decided—in seconds. When they make false choices in fucked-up lives. But they could all just not be made. You understand what I mean?”

“No,” said Don. “No idea.”

Peter stared glassy-eyed.

Same with Hannah.

“So,” said Karen,

“we’ll take revenge on everyone who’s hurt us. Let’s make a hit list. On it goes everyone who has tormented and insulted us. We’ll track them down, figure out their weaknesses and give them a second they’ll never forget.”

Karen looked at the others with a slightly crazed look.