Qualityland

THE BETA TEST

TheShop—The world’s most popular online retailer—bought up QualityCity’s unused space dock four years ago and transformed it into an offline shopping center. An insanely hip idea. It’s like a virtual shopping center, except that you’re really inside it, in real life. And once you’ve chosen a product, the delivery time is a sensational zero seconds.

Kiki is sitting there at the counter of an open cafeteria and watching a man repeatedly bang his head against the wall. For some reason that isn’t clear to Kiki, the crazy man suddenly stops and steers his way toward the cafeteria as though nothing had happened. He orders himself a green smoothie and sits down on the bar stool next to her.

“What was that about?” asks Kiki.

“You mean, why was I banging my head against the wall?”

“No,” says Kiki. “That I can understand. But why did you stop?”

“I finished the midday ritual.”

“Well, that explains everything.”

“I belong to a relatively new faith group,” says the man.

“Oh yes?”

“We believe in a godly creator who is genuinely benevolent, but who unfortunately made a number of catastrophic mistakes during the creation process.”

“Aha.”

“We are disciples of the Stupid Design Theory.”

Kiki grins. “I have to admit, the theory that humanity resulted from a mistake in God’s thought processes seems more plausible to me than the creation stories of all the other religions I know.”

“And due to the many difficulties presented by life in this stupid world, we don’t refer to it as the creation, but the Beta Test.”

Kiki grins again.

“There’s no need to laugh,” says the man. “Anyone can make mistakes.”

“Of course.”

“We’re not some comedy club, you know! We have a number of high-ranking engineers, architects, and politicians in our ranks.”

“I bet,” says Kiki. “And why did you bang your head against the wall?”

“The wall is the Stupid Design Theory believers’ wailing wall. One of our most holy places.”

“Why?”

“Well, the architects of the space dock thought of all the important things during the planning, like shops, restaurants, and travel offices. But shortly before the opening, they realized they had forgotten to put in starting and landing platforms for the spaceships. And by then there was no space left. The planners are, by the way, now renowned members of our community.”

The man points behind him.

“Gate number one was supposed to have been behind the wall.”

“And you were involved in this catastrophe?” asks Kiki.

“No, no,” says the man. “I’m a researcher at QualityCorp—‘The company that makes your life better.’” He leans over to Kiki and whispers: “I even worked on John of Us for a while.”

“Really?”

“I tried to create an artificial intelligence that works like the human brain.” He clears his throat, a little embarrassed. “Unfortunately, however, that led to machines that constantly forget things.”

Kiki takes a sip of coffee.

“Did you know that valuable code now arises from the crossing of different AIs?” asks the engineer. “It produces mutations, just like with evolution, only much quicker.”

Kiki nods.

“It is, of course, never completely clear what the result will be,” says the man. “One can only make prognoses. Just like when two human beings are crossed. I’m Paul, by the way.”

Kiki wonders to herself which sequence in her genetic code seemingly makes her so irresistible to complete idiots.

“Look,” says Paul, showing Kiki the photo of a little girl on his QualityPad. “She’s pretty, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” says Kiki, in an attempt to be polite. “Your daughter?”

“No, no,” says the engineer. “That could be our daughter. There’s this new dating app that predicts how your offspring with any woman in the room would look. The app’s called Kinder. If you release your DNA data too, the prediction would be more accurate of course.”

“Excuse me?”

“Anyone who has Kinder can easily get chatting to pretty women.”

“Says who?”

“The ad for Kinder.”

“Was this app also developed by one of your faith brothers?”

“How did you know that?”

“Let me give you a tip,” says Kiki. “Most women prefer Kinder Surprise.”

Suddenly, out of the blue, the freak with the dolphin vibrator appears in front of her. Luckily without the dolphin vibrator. Nonetheless, Kiki is taken aback.

“Hi!” says Peter. “Er… I wanted to ask you… I mean… Could I perhaps invite you for a coffee?”

Kiki points at the half-full cup of coffee in front of her.

“Erm, well, I was thinking more of, er, a coffee at my place. Or at your place, I mean…” He glances at the man next to Kiki. “Um, is that your boyfriend?”

Kiki laughs loudly. “You’re funny,” she says. “It’d be nice if you could credit me with having just a little taste.”

Looking peeved, the engineer goes off and sits down next to another pretty woman in order to tell her about Kinder.

“Who was that?” asks Peter.

“That was Paul,” says Kiki.

“Who’s Paul?”

Kiki doesn’t answer. Peter points at her half-eaten fruit salad. “Are you still eating that? Could I try it? I’ve never seen that fruit before. I’ve started to make lists, you see. About things I like and things I don’t like. I want to try everything I don’t know yet, and…”

A group of cash machines rushes past, chattering excitedly. Without paying any attention to Peter, Kiki jumps up, leaves the cafeteria, and follows the horde. Peter hurries after her.

“Was that a no?” he asks. “I mean, to the coffee?”

“Do you know your way around cash machines?” asks Kiki.

“Should I? What makes you ask?”

“You’re a machine scrapper, aren’t you?”

“How do you know…? Oh, stupid question.”

“So, do you know your way around cash machines or not?”

“I never had one as, er, as a customer.”

He looks at the group of androids in front of them.

“Did you know,” asks Kiki, “that cash machines flock together into small groups on their daily shopping excursions? Watch closely.”

The cash machines meet another group of BuyBots. They all begin to shriek joyfully.

“I’m always asking myself,” says Kiki, “whether the machines are really just trying to imitate human behavior, or whether it’s some kind of intentional parody.”

“What do they actually do with all the shit they buy?”

“Good question. I have no idea.”

Kiki catches up with one of the cash machines and heaves a magnetic microbot onto its head as she passes. The microbot scrabbles into position and bores itself into its host’s brain. Kiki’s shopping list begins to burn itself into his system.

“Some of the purchases get stolen, of course,” whispers Kiki with a wink. As though on cue, a security guard comes around the corner.

“Shit,” mutters Kiki.

“What is it?” asks Peter, before Kiki grabs hold of him. She pulls him between herself and the shopping-center detective, backs up against a window display, pulls Peter closer still, and begins to kiss him.

The security guard continues on, uninterested. Once he has disappeared around the next corner, Kiki pushes Peter away from her.

“No one said you could use tongue,” she says.

Peter is completely confused.

“Luckily they don’t use CPUs here,” says Kiki.

“What?”

“Crime Prevention Units—police robots that calculate who is likely to commit a crime in the future, then arrest him preventatively. In the beginning they used to let them run around here in the shopping center, but the people didn’t feel comfortable while they were shopping.”

“Are you afraid of them?”

“Afraid? Pah! My name is Kiki Unknown. And I’m my mother’s daughter.”

“Kiki Unknown,” repeats Peter.

“Exactly,” says Kiki. “And I’ve made staying unpredictable into an Olympic sport.”

This is why Kiki suddenly turns around and goes back in the direction she came from. She hurries into a pharmacy, logging in as she enters with her own credit chip. She buys Valium, condoms, ten pregnancy test packets, a magazine about fly-fishing, two FaSaSus, and a blueberry-sorting machine. Kiki smiles. That should give the algorithms something to think about. Peter is standing in front of the door to the pharmacy.

“I don’t want to annoy you,” he says. “But about that coffee… I really don’t live that far from here.”

Sixteen minutes later, the two of them are standing in the car park, waiting. A cash machine comes out of the space dock.

“Good little bot,” says Kiki.

The BuyBot places four shopping bags, stuffed to the brim, in front of Kiki and then disappears back inside.

“Okay then, Peter Jobless,” says Kiki. “Let’s go to your place. But you have to help me carry.”

She walks off, without a single bag in her hand.