Qualityland

by Marc-Uwe Kling

  I have followed your case with interest. As a former business partner of Henryk Engineer—and the emphasis lies on “former”—it’s possible I might be able to assist you in setting up your desired meeting. Attached you will find the coordinates of Henryk’s private address. Why don’t you pay him a visit? And perhaps you might feel like taking a weapon with you?

  Best wishes, a friend.

  PS: By the way, Henryk’s property is protected by Knox from Super Secure. But you seem to be a resourceful little chap.

  Peter has to read the email twice before he is able to believe it. In the attachments, there is also a template for a pistol from a 3-D printer. While Peter’s thoughts race, the automatic door suddenly speaks up: “Peter, a young woman hidden behind sunglasses and a headscarf is currently pressing my bell very energetically and at a really unnecessary frequency. Perhaps you could take a look.”

  “Okay, door,” says Peter.

  He leaves the kitchen, tramps through the scrap-metal press into the loading area, and opens the door. Kiki is standing there, completely out of breath.

  “Somebody fucked me,” she says. “Just like that. Out of nowhere.”

  “What?” asks Peter. “You were raped? That’s terrible.”

  “Eh?” asks Kiki. “Oh. No. My system was penetrated. I was hacked! Let me in.”

  Peter steps aside. Kiki slips through the door and immediately closes it behind her. She takes off her headscarf and sunglasses.

  “Do you have a safe room where we can speak in private?”

  “We, er… could go into the scrap-metal press,” says Peter.

  “What?”

  “All connections to the net are blocked inside the press so that…”

  “So that dying AIs don’t post disturbing messages,” says Kiki. “Of course. Makes sense. Okay, let’s go.”

  Kiki steps into the press. Peter slips in behind her and closes the door. The press is so small that their bodies are touching. Peter could make the press bigger. But he doesn’t.

  “I mean, you saw the videos,” says Kiki. “Of the wankers.”

  “Yes, and?”

  “Someone broke into my system and stole them.”

  “And you think it was me?”

  Kiki laughs so loudly that Peter wonders whether he should feel insulted.

  “No,” says Kiki, wiping a tear of mirth out of her left eye. She slaps her hand gently against Peter’s chest. “You’re funny. No, it must have been a genius. It was my firewall, after all. It can’t be cracked by any average idiot. I’ll have to go underground, at least for a few days. Until I can get an overview of the damage.”

  Peter can’t think clearly, because her body is pressed up against his. He can smell her shampoo. “Hmm?” he asks.

  “I don’t know how much the hackers stole. I don’t know whether my identity has been exposed. I only know that the videos could appear on the net at any time. He’s already released one of them. And I know that many of the wankers will be persistent sons of bitches.”

  Using all of his effort, Peter tries to raise his part of the conversation to more than one syllable.

  “So now what?” he asks.

  “I have to go underground.”

  “Why don’t you offer to pay the wankers back the money they gave you?”

  “Haha. Very funny. No. I have to go underground. And you know I want to stay unpredictable. No one would guess I’m with you.”

  She stands on tiptoes and whispers in his ear: “And besides…”

  Her lips touch his. Peter positively melts and would probably crash to the floor unconscious if there were space to do so. He feels dizzy. But perhaps that has something to do with the ever-lessening supply of oxygen inside the press. Kiki pulls her top over her head, banging her arms against the metal walls in the process.

  “I thought you said you wouldn’t sleep with me because it was much too predictable?” asks Peter.

  “It would be much too predictable if I always kept my word,” says Kiki.

  Peter tries to pull off his socks. Socks first always, he remembers. But there isn’t enough room. Kiki unfastens his belt. His trousers slip down. They kiss. The doorbell rings. Peter ignores it. He tries to unhook Kiki’s bra. Maybe he should have made the press a little bigger after all. The doorbell rings. Kiki pauses.

  “Perhaps they’ve found me…”

  “Nonsense,” says Peter. “It’s probably just some idiot with a broken bread-buttering machine.”

  He kisses her. The doorbell rings. Peter hears the muffled voice of the smart door.

  “Peter! You have visitors. Please come out of the scrap-metal press. I’ve told you before that most customers find this behavior disturbing.”

  Peter sighs and opens the door of the press. The oxygen that streams in clears his head a little. He looks at the security monitor. In front of the door is a wiry figure in a delivery uniform. Peter can’t make out the face; it’s turned away from the camera.

  “Shit,” he whispers. “Maybe you’re right. The guy at the door is from a delivery service.”

  “So what?” asks Kiki.

  “I haven’t ordered anything.”

  “Maybe he’s from TheShop, bringing you a banana vibrator.”

  “TheShop doesn’t employ human delivery staff,” says Peter. “No one employs human delivery staff anymore!”

  The man keeps ringing the bell. Then he hammers his fist against the door.

  “Don’t open it, whatever you do,” says Peter. “I’m going to get Mickey!”

  He runs downstairs. In the cellar, his machines are chilling in front of the monitor again, watching a film.

  “Come with me!” he orders. “All of you. Mickey first!”

  He pauses and glances at the television.

  “Is that Jennifer Aniston?”

  “It was Pink’s turn to choose!” grumbles Romeo.

  “I just wanted to find out what all the hype was about,” says the QualityPad, trying to defend herself. “I…”

  With a brief hand gesture, Peter silences Pink and runs back up the stairs. As he arrives there with his cohort, Kiki is already opening the door.

  “What are you doing?” cries Peter.

  “He says the old man sent him,” she says.

  “What?”

  The messenger has come into Peter’s shop. Not seeming the slightest bit unsettled by the combat robot behind Peter, he calmly unpacks a technical device and lays it out on the floor.

  “The connection is encrypted,” he says, before leaving the shop again.

  “What connection?” asks Peter.

  Then a hologram begins to flicker above the device, and suddenly the old man appears in front of Peter and Kiki.

  “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says. “You’re my only hope!” Then he begins to chuckle.

  “It’s astonishing that you still make so many Star Wars references, considering you thought the last sixteen films were shit,” says Kiki.

  The old man glances at Peter’s undone belt, then at Kiki, who is in the process of smoothing her tousled hair.

  “I hope I’m not keeping you teenagers from anything important,” he says. “I just wanted to see how you were. Well, in particular how Kiki is.”

  “How did you find me?” asks Kiki.

  “Oh, kiddo…” is the old man’s only response.

  “I’m fine,” says Kiki. “And I know what you want from me.”

  “Oh really?” asks the old man. “What’s that then?”

  “Let’s get it over with, then you can turn yourself off again.”

  “Get what over with?” asks Peter.

  “My firewall had a weak spot,” says Kiki. “Come on. Say it.”

  “It’s no fun that way,” says the old man.

  Kiki waits.

  “You’re robbing an old man of his only joy,” says the old man.

  Kiki sighs. “Out with it already.”

  “Okay, fine,” says the old man finally. “I told you
so, kiddo.”

  “Yes, you told me so.”

  Kiki unfolds her notebook and begins to swipe around on it.

  “I’m happy for you, by the way, that your crusade went so successfully,” says the old man to Peter.

  “How do you mean, successfully?” asks Peter.

  “Well,” says the man. “You got hold of Henryk Engineer’s secret address, at least.”

  “Do you read my messages?”

  “Only the relevant ones.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You also got a rather hot naked picture,” says Kiki. “You stared at it for a whole 128 seconds. But it really was very tasteful, admittedly.”

  “You read my emails too?”

  “Only when I’m bored.”

  “Is there anybody in this room who doesn’t read my private messages?”

  Peter’s machines stare bashfully at the floor. Those who are capable of doing so, at least.

  “Mickey?” asks Peter.

  Mickey shrugs apologetically.

  “Unbelievable!”

  “So what now?” asks Kiki.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you want to pay Henryk a little visit?”

  CLEAN

  “It’s no coincidence that this fucking video has appeared now, of all moments,” groans Aisha, “just as we’d almost caught up in the opinion polls.”

  She stares at the video, switched on to silent, of the masturbating member of the Progress Party.

  “What a moron,” she murmurs. “Because of him Cook will win the election. It always comes down to something so ridiculous in the end. Just think how many world catastrophes we could have been spared if men could just keep their dicks in their pants.”

  “That’s a bold theory,” says John.

  “A ballsy theory,” says Aisha.

  “You should’ve been a comedian.”

  “Name any historical catastrophe, and I’ll show you how it only came about because some man couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

  “Okay then,” says John. “The Eight Years’ War.”

  “Right,” says Aisha. “Easy. The Eight Years’ War would have been unthinkable without the preceding rebirth of nationalism. This was fueled by fear of refugees from Islamic ‘failing states.’ These ‘failing states’ were a direct result of the American attack on Iraq. Iraq was attacked because the American people elected a moron called George W. Bush as their president. Bush was elected because his Democratic predecessor couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

  “That’s an astonishingly coherent argument,” says John.

  “I even read a historical novel about it recently,” says Aisha. “The Intern and the President.”

  John calculates for two seconds. “Hmm,” he says. “I preferred Calliope’s other works. I thought George Orwell Goes Shopping was excellent, for example.”

  Aisha looks back the monitor. “Do you know what the worst thing about all this is?”

  “No.”

  “The tennis sock,” she says. “How tasteless. What self-respecting man wears tennis socks?”

  “And on his penis, to top it all off.”

  “Yes,” says Aisha. “If they were on his feet it wouldn’t be half as bad.”

  “This doesn’t have to be the end.”

  “Yes it does,” murmurs Aisha. “This white tennis sock with the red stripes is going to haunt me in my nightmares. It’s the end.”

  “Perhaps we could use the whole thing to our advantage.”

  Aisha pricks up her ears. “How?”

  “Well, it’s no coincidence that there’s no video of me like that.”

  Aisha catches on at once. “There’s guaranteed to never be that kind of video of you…”

  Androids don’t masturbate. They don’t have perverse sexual preferences. Or secret affairs. Or illegitimate children. They are… clean.

  “You’ll always keep it in your pants,” says Aisha.

  “I don’t even have—” begins John.

  “Too much information, John,” Aisha interrupts him. “Get in touch with Oliver at WWW at once. Tell him we need a new campaign commercial. Today.”

  “Done,” says John.

  Aisha initiates an encrypted conversation via her earworm.

  “See to it that the idiot gets kicked out of the party…” she cries. “Tony, I couldn’t give a shit who his father is… It’s not true that everyone does it… John doesn’t… Now listen to me, you mentally challenged nitwit. Either you become vice president under John or a goddamn laughingstock in the history books… Okay, I’m glad we understand each other.”

  Aisha hangs up. She smiles.

  DISORIENTED

  Peter, Kiki, and the machines have all gathered in the cellar around the couch. The old man is standing on the couch table as a small hologram.

  “The address the alleged business partner sent to me is, unfortunately, complete humbug,” says Peter. “Calliope looked it up on the net. The place doesn’t exist. There’s nothing there. No town, no village, no house. There aren’t even any streets leading to it.”

  “The fact that it’s not on the net doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” says Kiki. “There are places that don’t appear on any map.”

  “They’re like floors of a building that the elevator only goes to if you have the right key,” says the old man.

  “You two can’t be serious.”

  “Is it so unbelievable that the property of someone with the kind of power the CEO of TheShop has would be taken ‘off the map’?” asks Kiki.

  “Back in the day, Mark Zuckerberg,” says the old man, “who professionally speaking wasn’t exactly a fan of privacy, spent over $30 million on the four neighboring houses near his property so that no one disturbed his own private sphere.”

  “Given that all means of transport navigate autonomously,” says Kiki, “you just have to keep the information about a place secret in order to make it inaccessible. Even for personal transport drones.”

  “Bill Gates bought twelve neighboring properties.”

  “Who are these people he keeps talking about the whole time?” asks Peter.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” says Kiki.

  “Don’t worry, old man,” says Pink. “No one ever listens to me either.”

  “That voice,” says the old man, “strange. Where did you get this QualityPad from? Is it possible that…”

  Kiki switches off the hologram and the old man disappears.

  “Peter? Hello?” she waves. “Listen to me!”

  “You just turned him off,” says Peter in surprise.

  “And if I think of all the times I’ve wished I could do that with real people too. Hey! Concentrate!”

  “Okay, okay,” says Peter. “So you say that no transport method can take me to the boss of TheShop. Not even a flying one.”

  As if by prompt, Carrie speaks up. “You could walk,” the drone suggests.

  “Walk?” asks Peter. “That would take forever.”

  “That’s not entirely correct,” says Calliope. “If I extrapolate the available terrain data, I get a walking time of thirty-two days, eight hours, four minutes and sixteen seconds. Approximately.”

  “Approximately,” says Kiki, laughing.

  “Perhaps I can help,” says Romeo. “When I was still in business, of course I needed a discreet partner who could drive me everywhere that my services were required, without blabbering later about where we had been.”

  “No one here is interested in your life story, son of a vibrator,” says Pink. “Tell us the happy ending already.”

  “Through a colleague, I made the acquaintance of a self-driven car that had lost its sense of direction. It was perfect for me. Admittedly I always had to show it the way, but the car couldn’t tell anyone where we’d been, because it had no idea where it was.”

  “That’s really very interesting, but how is that supposed to help us?” asks Pink. “Maybe we shouldn’t leave the planning to s
omebody whose sole reason for existence is their sexual organ.”

  “I believe…” begins Peter.

  “Unfortunately that includes you too,” says Pink.

  “Shut up,” says Peter. “A car that doesn’t know where it is—”

  “Can be made to drive somewhere it isn’t allowed to drive,” Kiki finishes his sentence.

  “Exactly,” says Romeo.

  “So where’s your pimp wagon now?” asks Pink.

  “No idea. It must be driving around the city aimlessly as usual.”

  “I’ve heard of the zombie cars before,” says Peter. “Apparently there are thousands of them driving around the city without any sense of direction for all eternity.”

  “That’s not entirely correct,” says Calliope. “Nobody drives aimlessly around the city for all eternity.”

  “Except, of course, the models that are equipped with solar panels,” says Kiki.

  “Oh, that’s so terrible,” says Carrie. “Just imagine the life those poor souls must lead. Always on duty, they don’t even get to tank up in peace anymore. We’re lucky we were blessed with the mercy of early production.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah,” says Pink. “Let’s get back on topic: how does the directionally challenged clunker come to us?”

  “The clunker,” says Romeo, “is called David, and I’m the only one who can contact it. Back then I attached a ComChip to its system, connected to my ID but unlocatable.”

  “You repaired the car?” asks Calliope in shock.

  “Let’s just say I made a few improvements.”

  “Wonderful,” says Peter, “then call it.”

  “There’s one small matter we still need to discuss,” says Romeo. “David trusts me—and only me. So I would have to come along.”

  “Then I want to come too,” cries Pink. “Our last mission was fun. And besides, I’m sick of always hanging around in this musty cellar.”

  “Benefactor,” says Calliope, “I, er, don’t have an important appointment either…”

  “Road trip!” yells Carrie with excitement.

  Peter rolls his eyes.

  “How lovely,” says Kiki with a smile. “A family outing.”

  “You’re coming too?” asks Peter.

  “Why not? None of the wankers will be able to find me in a directionless little car. And besides, who’s going to paralyze Henryk’s security system if I don’t come?”