Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Marc-Uwe Kling
English translation © 2020 by Jamie Lee Searle
Cover design by Rodrigo Corral Studio. Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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First published in Germany in 2017 by Ullstein Verlag. First English translation published in Great Britain in 2020 by Orion Fiction, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd., a Hachette UK Company.
First Grand Central Publishing edition: January 2020
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LCCN: 2019951938
ISBNs: 978-1-5387-3296-0 (hardcover), 978-1-5387-3297-7 (ebook)
E3-20191128-JV-NF-ORI
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
TECHNICAL NOTE
QUALITYLAND VERSION 1.6
INTRODUCTION
A KISS
Have you tried FaSaSu yet?
THE BIGGEST COALITION
EARWORMS
ADO & EVA
LEVEL
QUALITYPARTNER
PARTNERCARE
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice Has Arrived!
THE VOICE OF INSTRUMENTAL REASON
QUALITYCARE
Woman From Nowhere Gives Birth to Hundredth Baby
CALLIOPE 7.3
THE MACHINE BREAKERS
MORAVEC’S PARADOX
IN THE CELLAR
Family Receives Combat Robot Instead of Vacuum Cleaner
INTERVIEW
Books Tailored Just For You
ASCENDING OCULOGENITAL CHLAMYDIA INFECTION
SECRET POWERS
President Condemns Drone Attack as Inhumane
THE GERMAN CODE
MONEY
MACHINES DON’T MAKE MISTAKES
4.63 * 10170
Your New Best Friend
A FRIENDLY VOICE
NO GOING BACK
AN UNWANTED PRODUCT
Foreigners Steal Car. Useless Man Runs Amok
MORAL IMPLICATIONS
Are You Also Suffering From RAMnesia?
ABRACADABRA
THE DUEL
The Whole of Humanity on Everybody
MINCEMEAT
Machine Breakers Host BBQ
WHAT’S IT GOING TO BE?
PETER’S PROBLEM
CASH MACHINES
THE BETA TEST
TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
COUNTRY AIR
WANKERS
New Film Recommendations For You
COLLATERAL CONSEQUENCES
THE DINNER PROBLEM
The holidays are the most wonderful time of the year.
EVERYTHING IN GOOD ORDER
PRIVATE TUTORING
HOW TO UNDO THE PAST
Jennifer Aniston Poised for Big Comeback
A LITTLE GARDEN PARTY
THE GRAINS OF RICE
JULIET & ROMEO
Ten Facts About John Of Us
THE COMPLAINT
Quick Resolution Thanks to Selfie Drone
THE MASTER OF THE SHITSTORM
AT THE TOP
Are You Sick of Your Life? Simply Subscribe to Another!
IN THE SCRAP-METAL PRESS
CLEAN
DISORIENTED
Are You Unknowingly Endangering the Health of Your Car?
ROAD TO NOWHERE
THE BLUE EYE
Optimized Reality Lenses from QualityCorp
A GOOD BREAKFAST
Successful Call for Boycott Against TheShop
JUDGMENT DAY
THE AUDIENCE
CHANCE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
DISCOVER MORE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
QualityLand
FOR YOU
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TECHNICAL NOTE
This book is not internet-enabled. You can, however, still add comments to it. But it’s very unlikely that anyone will read them. You can share this book. But not with all your friends at once. If you do share it, of course it’s possible that someone will read your comments after all, and perhaps even comment on your comments. In order to change or update the contents of this book, the publisher would need to hire someone to break into your house at night, creep over to your bookcase, and cross out or edit sentences with a felt-tip pen or ballpoint. That’s possible, but unlikely. If you want to copy this book in a print shop, it might be cheaper than buying the book, but the copy wouldn’t exactly be a replica of the original.
QUALITYLAND VERSION 1.6
VERSION NOTES
Dear readers, noble alien life forms (whose existence is highly probable), valued AIs, and respected search algorithms,
I wish you an enjoyable read. What you have before you is Version 1.6 of this work. This most recent update has created an all-around better reading experience—including the following improvements:
• Major logic loopholes in Chapter 2 have been resolved.
• Defective punch lines in Chapter 7 have been replaced.
• Compatibility for the far-sighted has been improved.
• The newsfeed has been personalized.
• New option of “flicking back” to repeat difficult passages.
• Improved synchronization with the reader’s upper temporal lobes.
So all that’s left to say is—have fun in QualityLand!
Calliope 7.3
* * * QualityLand * * *
Your Personal Travel Guide
INTRODUCTION
“Come to where the quality is!
Come to QualityLand!”
So you’re off to QualityLand for the first time ever. Are you excited? Yes? And quite rightly so! You’ll soon be entering a country so important that its foundation prompted the introduction of a new calendar system: QualityTime.
As you don’t yet know your way around QualityLand, we’ve put together a brief introduction for you. Two years before QualityLand was founded—or in other words, two years before QualityTime—there was an economic crisis of such severity that it became known as the crisis of the century. It was the third crisis of the century within just a decade. Swept along by the panic of the financial markets, the government turned for help to the business consultants from Big Business Consulting (BBC) who decided that what the country needed
most was a new name. The old one was worn-out and, according to surveys, only inspired die-hard nationalists with minimal buying power. Not to mention the fact that the renaming would also divest the country of a few unpleasant historical responsibilities in the process. In the past, its army had been known to… well, let’s just say they overshot the mark a little.
The business consultancy firm commissioned the creatives at the advertising agency World Wide Wholesale (WWW) to come up with a new name for the country, as well as a new image, new icons, and a new culture. In short: a new country identity. After a considerable amount of time and even more money, after suggestions and countersuggestions, everyone involved finally agreed upon the now world-famous name: QualityLand. Can you imagine any name more perfectly suited for appearing after “made in” on products? The parliament voted in favor by a large majority. Or rather, by the “largest” majority, because the new country identity strictly forbids the use of the positive or comparative in connection with QualityLand. Only the superlative is allowed. So be careful. If someone asks you what you think of QualityLand, don’t just say that QualityLand is a wonderful country. It’s not a wonderful country. It’s the wonderfullest country there is!
Even the towns you are likely to visit on your travels used to have other, insignificant-sounding names. Now they have newer, better names, or as one would say in QualityLand, the newest and best names. Growth, the industrial center, expands and prospers in the south, while the university city of Progress pulsates in the north and the old trade capital Profit thrives in the country’s heartland. And then, of course, at the forefront of them all, there’s the undisputed capital of the free world: QualityCity!
Even QualityLand’s inhabitants were renamed. They couldn’t just be ordinary people, after all; they had to be QualityPeople. Their surnames in particular sounded very medieval and didn’t fit with the new progress-oriented country identity. A land of Millers, Smiths, and Taylors isn’t exactly a high-tech investor’s wet dream. And so the advertising agency decided that, from that moment on, every boy would be given his father’s occupation as a surname and every girl the occupation of her mother. The deciding factor would be the job held at the time of conception.
We wish you an unforgettable stay in the land of Sabrina Mechatronics-Engineer and Jason Cleaner, the most popular middle-class rap duo of the decade. The land of Scarlett Prisoner and her twin brother Robert Warden, the undefeated BattleBot jockeys of the century. The land of Claudia Superstar, the Sexiest Woman of All Time. The land of Henryk Engineer, the richest person in the world.
Welcome to the land of the superlative. Welcome to QualityLand.
A KISS
Peter Jobless has had enough.
“Nobody,” he says.
“Yes, Peter?” asks Nobody.
“I’m not hungry anymore.”
“Okay,” says Nobody.
Nobody is Peter’s personal digital assistant. Peter picked out the name himself, because he often feels as though Nobody is there for him. Nobody helps him. Nobody listens to him. Nobody speaks to him. Nobody pays attention to him. Nobody makes decisions for him. Peter has even convinced himself that Nobody likes him. Peter is a WINNER, because Nobody is his WIN assistant. WIN, an abbreviation for “What I Need,” was once a search engine, into which you had to enter questions—very laboriously—by speech command, and before that by typing by hand! In essence, WIN is still a search engine, but you no longer need to ask it questions. WIN knows what you want to know. Peter no longer has to go to the effort of finding the relevant information, because the relevant information goes to the effort of finding Peter.
Nobody has selected the restaurant Peter and his friends are sitting in according to their calculated preferences. He has also ordered the appropriate burger for Peter. The “best recycled meat burger in QualityCity” reads the paper napkin in front of him. Nevertheless, Peter doesn’t like it, perhaps because the restaurant selection had to correspond not just to his tastes, but also to his bank balance.
“It’s getting late, guys,” says Peter to his friends. “I’m going to head off.”
A few indeterminate grunts come by way of response.
Peter likes his friends. Nobody found them for him. But sometimes, and he’s not sure why, his mood turns sour when he hangs out with them. Peter pushes aside his plate, which still contains more than half of the recycled burger, and pulls on his jacket. Nobody asks for the bill. It comes immediately. The waiter, as in most restaurants, is a human being, not an android. Machines can do so many things nowadays, but they still can’t quite manage to carry a full cup from A to B without spilling it. Besides, humans are cheaper; they don’t have any acquisition or maintenance costs. And there aren’t any wages in the gastronomy industry either; you work for tips. Androids don’t work for tips.
“How would you like to pay?” asks the waiter.
“TouchKiss,” says Peter.
“Certainly,” says the waiter. He swipes around on his QualityPad, then Peter’s tablet vibrates.
Since its launch, TouchKiss has rapidly established itself as a leading payment method. Researchers from QualityCorp—“The company that makes your life better”—have discovered that lips are far more forge-proof than fingerprints. Critics claim, however, that it has nothing to do with that, but instead with the fact that QualityCorp wants to achieve an even higher emotional connection between its customers and products. But if that really was the goal, it certainly hasn’t worked with Peter. He gives his QualityPad a dispassionate kiss. With a second kiss, he adds the standard 32 percent tip. After eight seconds of inactivity, the display goes black, and his dark mirror image stares back at him blearily. An unremarkable, pale face. Not ugly, but unremarkable. So unremarkable that Peter sometimes thinks he might have confused himself with someone else. On those occasions, such as now, he feels like a stranger is staring back at him out of the display.
Outside of the restaurant, a self-driven car is already waiting for him. Nobody called it.
“Hello, Peter,” says the car. “Do you want to go home?”
“Yes,” says Peter, getting in.
Without any further questions about the route or address, the car sets off. They know each other. Or the car knows Peter, at least. The car’s name is shown on a display: Carl.
“Lovely weather, don’t you think?” says Carl.
“Small talk off,” says Peter.
“Then let me play you, in accordance with your tastes, the greatest soft rock hits of all time,” says the car, turning on the music.
Peter has listened to soft rock for twenty-three years: his entire life.
“Turn it off, please,” he says.
“With pleasure,” says the car. “It’s not to my taste anyway.”
“Oh no?” asks Peter. “So what do you like?”
“Well, when I’m driving around by myself, I usually listen to industrial,” says the car.
“Put some on.”
The “song” which immediately drones out from the speakers suits Peter’s bad mood perfectly.
“The music’s okay,” he says to Carl after a while. “But could you please stop singing along?”
“Oh yes, of course,” said the car. “My apologies. The rhythm got to me.”
Peter stretches out. The car is spacious and comfortable. That’s because Peter treats himself to a flat rate mobility plan in a vehicle category which he can’t actually afford to be treating himself to. One of his friends even mockingly commented today that Peter must be experiencing a quarter-life crisis. From the way he was going on, anyone would think Peter had bought himself a car. And yet only the super-rich, plebs, and pimps have their own wheels. Everyone else relies upon the mobility service providers’ huge, self-driven fleets. “The best thing about self-driven cars,” Peter’s father always used to say, “is that you don’t have to look for a parking space anymore.” As soon as you reach your destination, you just get out. The car drives on and does whatever it is that cars do
when they feel like no one’s watching. In all likelihood it goes off and gets tanked up somewhere.
Suddenly, Carl brakes sharply. They’re at the side of the road, close to a big intersection.
“I’m very sorry,” says the car, “but new safety guidelines have classified your neighborhood as too dangerous for self-driven cars of my quality. I’m sure you’ll understand that I need to ask you to get out here.”
“Eh?” asks Peter eloquently.
“But you must have known,” says Carl. “You received the updated terms and conditions for your mobility plan 51.2 minutes ago. Didn’t you read them?”
Peter doesn’t respond.
“You approved them, in any case,” says the car. “But I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that, for your comfort, I’ve selected a stopping point which will enable you to reach your home, at your average walking pace, within 25.6 minutes.”
“Great,” says Peter. “Really great.”
“Was that meant sarcastically?” asks the car. “Unfortunately I tend to have problems with my sarcasm detector.”
“You don’t say.”
“That was sarcasm now, wasn’t it?” asks the car. “So you weren’t really pleased just then either, were you? Do you not feel like walking? If you like I could call you a car of lesser quality corresponding to your neighborhood’s new classification. It could be here in 6.4 minutes.”
“Why was the classification changed?” asks Peter.
“You mean you haven’t heard?” says Carl. “Attacks on self-driven cars have rocketed in your area. Gangs of unemployed youths are getting their kicks by hacking the operating systems out of my colleagues. They destroy the tracking chip and wipe the navigation system. It’s awful. The poor things are driving around day and night like zombie cars, completely devoid of any sense of direction. And if they get caught, they end up being scrapped because of the Consumption Protection Laws. It’s a terrible fate. I’m sure you know that since the Consumption Protection Laws came into force all repairs are strictly forbidden.”
“Yes, I know. I run a small scrap-metal press.”