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with a shot in the stomach. But she doesn’t die immediately, rather suffering a slow death from her pain, lonely and abandoned. There’s nobody there who could give comfort, or hope for heaven.
    This documentary is pure torture. Every time I think it can’t get any worse, it gets even more violent. We see children abused, people burned alive, every kind of torture, countless corpses. The film lasts for two hours that feel like forever.
    At the end, one of the Legion commanders speaks to us. “The Third World War was an atrocity without equal. Man is his own worst enemy. Never again shall we let its like occur. Never again—abuse, torture, rape. Never again—murder.”
    His voice is so loud and full that it echoes from the walls of the arena. He’s right, and I nod, as do many others.
    “We are the Legion. Our order protects the last of life.”
    Enthusiastic, we begin to applaud. If I ever had any doubts, they are gone now. The Earth was a terrible place. A place without laws.

03. THE KIDNAPPING
    S lowly I get used to my work. It’s not exactly exciting or eventful—probably even unnecessary. The program would distribute the food correctly even if I didn’t check it. Mistakes are impossible. Still, I am starting to see the positive side of my assignment. Here in nutrition distribution, every day I can become familiar with new inhabitants of the safety zone. People I would probably never meet otherwise. I learn things about them that they probably don’t even know. For example, B269 circles his left index finger around his right ring finger when he is waiting for his food. D375 thinks we won’t recognise the people whose food we have checked before, because there are so many people in the safety zone and you would have to be a genius to remember all the individuals and their designations.
    But that’s not true. These tiny peculiarities that make us different from one another—they help me. There’s a little girl, F701, who always taps on her lip while she waits. C515, on the other hand, always sucks his lower lip between his teeth, so that I can see his broken front tooth. I thought about D523’s accusation, but I didn’t come to any conclusion. It’s true that I’m always happy when C515 is assigned to my monitor. I like to watch him and it makes me happy to see him healthy. But I enjoy it just as much to watch F701 or B269. In general, I’m always happy to see someone I recognise.
    All this thinking has made it occur to me that I never saw D523 herself before the performance tests. I’m sure I would have remembered her. That spot of pigmentation under her left eye is certainly quite noticeable.
    We come from the same generation, the same as C515. A generation is made up of 99 people who grow up together. Our paths only separate after we are assigned to tasks. As small children we are divided into different educational groups, but then we meet again in training in our teens. I don’t recognise all of the 99, but D523 is so unique that I can’t have missed her. Even her way of speaking is strange. Her eyes are so lively, and wild like a storm on the sea, although they are the same pale blue as everyone else’s.
    I steal a furtive glance at her. She’s concentrating on the screen in front of her, tapping away. I can’t see what it is, so I carefully lean back a bit. Her camera shot shows a young man. The program suggests 10 cereal cubes, a vitamin tablet, a protein tablet, and a glass of water. But D523 changes the setting and adds an extra protein tablet and three iron rations.
    My eyes go wide with disbelief and I gasp, alarmed. Immediately, D523’s gaze locks onto mine, but she doesn’t seem shocked, just annoyed like always.
    “What are you doing?” I hiss at her.
    “I’m adjusting his nutrition.” She shrugs, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
    “But the program is suggesting something different.”
    “Then the program is wrong.”
    “The system doesn’t make