Brave Purple World E-Book

Franziska Freitag

• Herausgeber: novum publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 331

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

The drama takes place in the near future: the discovery of cold fusion for energy production has fundamentally changed the country. The apocalyptic climate change menace has been replaced by the ideologically similar New Feminism, which is successfully established with the massive commitment of its champions and the effects of a newly discovered feminizing drug, HL2. However, due to its own shortcomings and initially unknown factors, the totalitarian power of the "Great Feminist Transformation (GFT)" begins to falter after many years of rule. But that's not all: there are "counter-revolutionaries" who are committed to destroying the drug, whatever the cost!

Leseprobe

Dedication

For P.

1

Jutta Zita was sitting in her favorite café in S2, on an autumn afternoon, mild as it often is in October, by the Great River. The mild late fall invited her out onto the terrace once again. The foehn wind turned the colorful leaves in front of the café square below. At least it was just like 35 years ago. Back then, the city was simply called Cologne and the river Rhine, butin the course of the Great Feminist Transformation (GFT), everything nationalistic and stuck in the old days was to be banished. The Patroness, the leading protagonists of the GFT, defined numerical codes as city names. Cologne, City 2, S2, completely out of touch with real life and of Orwellian proportions. But people did not accept this, as they had done before with similar attempts at linguistic excess. Jutta, although she was an activist against too much traditionalism of the bourgeois era from the very beginning, was not passionate about it then and not at all now. What nonsense that is,absolutely out of touch with reality, she thoughtall the more these days. Recently, Cologne on the Rhine was once again tolerated without the pc guardians "asking" to talk. Thirty-five years ago, when this was still simply the Rhineland, everything seemed more cheerful, today it seems monotonous with a clear tendency towards the grey of general decline. And this even though rainbow flags were flying everywhere back then and the declared intention of everyone was to create a large, colorful social diversity. Somehow that does not seem to have worked out, she thought bitterly. For a long time, Jutta was sure that she had done everything right with her political commitment. She was a personified part of the system that had created the new order. Feminine serenity instead of toxic chauvinism and martial dominance; joie de vivre, diversity and transparency should be the order of the day. But today, in this place, she was repeatedly symbolically aware that the reality was different. Thick panes of glass were installed on the terrace of the café facing the square below, where the people were sitting. The separation was intentional, officially for the safety of the high activists and their guests.In reality, they just wanted to be among themselves. Over the years, theinitial splendor and enthusiasm of renewal had disappeared, and even here, in this central location, there were unmistakable signs of degeneration. One of the windows had been broken three weeks ago and had not been replaced. Of course, this should not be the case, but, as so often in recent years, there was a lack of will as well as substance. Even if the staff at the pub knew that Jutta was a regular customer, they did not bother to solve thesupposed security problem. Through the intact window at her table, Jutta seen two men sitting opposite her in the restaurant, quite far along the pedestrian zonee, making it easy for her toobserve them. One was dressed as a man, the other as a PINK. However, they had consumed a lot of alcohol, the normal one more than the Pink one. She could not hear everything through her thick windshield, but the normal one was ranting about "all this shit here" and what "they" had done to his friend ...

At first, she saw the eventsrather indifferently; just as she began to think more intensively about the incident, she saw Karin and Waltraud coming, they had an appointment. Karin, her wife, gave her a kiss and Waltraud gave her a distant fist salute, as befitted an adept.

Waltraud was terrible. In Jutta's presence, she constantly and emphatically affirmed that the Great Feminist Transformation GFT had been the most overwhelming event ever for her, more important than her own birth. She herself, plagued by increasing doubts, was annoyed by so much enthusiasm. But as a member of the 1st Council of the Republic, she had to put up with the would-be activist for Karin's sake. It only helped to persevere.

Karin was in a good mood as always. She was 15 years younger, and Jutta loved her. She was the way Jutta would have liked to be in the past, cheerful, natural, feminine and rather carefree, sometimes even a little reckless. After separating from Dieter, her hetero husband, she could not simply escape the principles of the GFT as one of the budding greats of the transformation movement. Jutta lived alone for a few years after the divorce. Initially, there was no obligation for women to use HL2, only for men in leadership positions. HL2 is a substance that has a selective anti-androgenic effect and is intended to suppress toxic male behavior patterns. Gradually, however, female activists tried to enforce a quasi-obligation for all men. These now claimed the emancipation vehemently enforced by the GFT for themselves as well. As a result of this bizarre development, there was an HL2 obligation for everyone, butultimately it could only be enforced and controlled for all men and women in leading positions. HL2 also changed Jutta. She had the feeling that after starting the injections with the antibody, her work would be more effective, and she would be more balanced. She therefore rejected the idea that the changes to her character caused by the effects of HL2 could be too unnatural and too extensive forsociety as a whole. Everyday life under the conditions of the Great Feminist Transformation seemed to be easier and better for everyone. Initially, there was therefore only an unexpectedly low level of real resistance. Jutta only realized later why this was the case; she was far too preoccupied with her personal successes at the time. Many people who did not want to accept the new conditions emigrated or were pressured into emigrating. There was repression against dissenters who wanted to stay. Jutta was obliged in her position to enforce this. She had worked hard to convince herself that this was in everyone's interest. However, Jutta always had residual doubts about what was happening. What was decisive and important for her, however, was that she found her partner in Karin with the help of HL2.

Karin said: "See those two boys over there, they're ranting about the conditions, there's something there. There's a broken window up ahead, let's go there, we can hear and see better."

Jutta did not suspect anything good. "Nah, do we really want to put ourselves through this misery?"

"Oh come on," Karin pined.

Waltraud interjected: "Maybe we need to intervene responsibly."

Pain in the ass, thought Jutta. She knows that is my area of responsibility.

Karin again: "Oh come on, it used to be called a cabinet or something. Real satire might do the trick."

"Karin, you don't make fun of other people's misery."

"Why, this is real life here, isn't it? Maybe it will help us with the further development of the Great Transf..."

"Karin!!!" Waltraud interrupted cuttingly. "That's anything but pc!"

Politically correct, pc, was one of the favorite axioms of the very line-loyal adepts.

Jutta had to agree, albeit with amusement.

So, she cleverly conciliated: "All right, let's go to the place with the broken window, maybe it will be fun after all. We will watch out for 'politically correct' together."

It was not going to be fun. The Amazons assigned to the street bar had already been informed. Until they intervened, the following happened:

The "normal" shouted angrily and slightly slurred his words: "You're all hormonally dysfunctional militant pseudo-lives and pseudo-fags!"

The cause of his indignation remained unclear to the three of them.

The Köbes, the waiter who serves beer in breweries in Cologne, in a barely mild, but already somewhat sterner tone: "Please moderate yourself, guest."

The normal one: "Shut up, you conformist. Are you a normal gay or just a HL2 fag?" His anger had something of maximum disinhibition about it. The Köbes had clearly served too much Kölsch, a drink that continues to be popular. He probably thought the two of them deserved it beforehand and realized the mistake too late.

By now the normal man had really worked himself up into a rage, he gave free rein to his words of anger: "You turned my friend here, a former normal man and father of two beloved children, into a vagabond and, what is worse, a 'politically incorrect person, a PINK' (he mocked the whole term linguistically as best his condition allowed) and put him in this damned man's burka, you cunts!"

The Köbes: "That's enough!"

The PINK: “Let it be.”

He was right to be afraid, there was a threat of an educational measure, inpatient. Attempts at appeasement, including from other guests, failed, as did the attempt to get the two of them to leave the bar quickly for good reason.

The Amazons appeared, obviously very well-trained, muscular law enforcers in dark blue overalls uniforms, with a thoroughly femino-martial appearance. They sedated the normal man, presumably with the dreaded sedospray, and arrested him with practiced grips. The Köbes, aware of his responsibility in terms of humanism, explained that the PINK had not taken part. At first it seemed that the Amazons did not want to believe him, but eventually they let him go with an impressive threatening gesture. They were obviously convinced by the fearful look from the slit in his disguise. The two Amazons dragged the newly arrested man from the square into their riot vehicle and floated away.

"What a show!" said Karin in a mixture of fascination, amazement and horror.

"Disgusting," commented Waltraud.

Stupid goose, thought Jutta sullenly, that's exactly what makes me doubt, the process ultimately falls within my remit as security manager. I'm also partly responsible for the fact that one of them is stuck in the unspeakable men's burka and the other has the right to complain about it. But nobody has the right to get drunk and let off steam on the street. From this point of view, my instructions were consistently carried out without the Amazons knowing that I was watching what was happening. On the other hand, they will have been aware that they could be observed, as the incident took place in the immediate vicinity of a regular activist café. Anyway, if they had both taken HL2 and sipped their Kölsch peacefully, everything would have been fine.

Right?

Karin said: "Before Anglicisms were banned, pink was one of my favorite colors. I think PINK for the Politically ‘Inkorrekts’ is stupid. Besides, this veiling, I don't know ..."

Waltraud's counterattack was not long in coming.

"Did you prefer to endure the obscene grins of the horny old PINKs? No, I'd rather put a scarf over it, I don't care what they do underneath, as long as I can't see it. They'll never take HL2 anyway, let them choke on their pseudo-masculine toxicity!"

"Leave it alone, girls ...", Jutta said jovially, she knew the statement was meant for her and didn't want to put up with Waltraud's annoyance any longer, so she added: "... and let's talk about our real topic."

The actual topic was irrelevant, and Jutta knew Waltraud's "topic" would not captivate her, so she sank back into her thoughts, at most with a quarter of an ear for Waltraud.

Jutta Zita Lindner was brought up in the system. Her mother was an initiator of the GFT in the mid to late 2020s. She named her daughter after one of the original activists. Jutta's father quickly "put her down", as she liked to say. Jutta quickly lost contact with her father. He was weak, had given up and bowed down far too quickly without a fight and then somehow disappeared. Jutta then lost contact. She only heard from him again with the sad news that he had hanged himself. Jutta initially felt partly to blame for his fate. In a resulting phase of rebellion against her mother, she met Dieter and quickly married him. He was different, different from the zeitgeist. Smart, non-conformist, imaginative, a little too jittery, but never boring. From GFT's point of view, he had later chosen the completely wrong profession, he had studied medicine and had become a gynecologist as a man. He thought that major cancer operations and making difficult decisions at half past two in the morning during childbirth were definitely a man's job. That fell on his feet. At some point, Jutta Zita gave in to the general line of the new feminism. Dieter's attitudes were contrary to the ideals of the GFT in almost every respect. He had to go. The man who loved her had to go. His arguments against the whole thing were blasphemy, were directed against the "new thinking". Somehow, her mother's imprint on Jutta broke through again. The opportunities available to her at the time were simply too tempting. She was talented, she recognized her talents very quickly and self-confidently and wanted to consistently use her abilities for security and internal order. She had started her career by studying psychology with the aim of working in the police force. And because she was good at everything she did in this respect, and because few women could match her, she quickly established herself in the political arena, convinced that she was doing the right thing. With a few lucky breaks in her professional career, her clever and late-youthful fresh wit in her early 30s and the protection of her mother, she reached the very top of the political scene, surprising even herself. She later realized that Dieter had no choice but to leave. It must have been painful for him to leave her and the children and emigrate to Poland. He realized that Jutta was lost to him. She was so convinced of the GFT at the time that there was no room for him. Heterosexual love with traditional family ties no longer counted. The children missed their father very much. Jutta always tried to talk herself out of it, but as a psychologist she knew deep down what the consequences were.

"We have to do more for security in the western border regions, it's not that far away from S2," Waltraud blurted out in Jutta's memories.

It was true that attacks on female comrades and activists from the West increased as a result of the Islamic orientation and initially by misusing the idea of the GFT as a means of uniting peoples. Houellebecq had foreseen the changes in the neighboring country towards a theocracy in a visionary way. At the time, there was actually no majority in favor of an Islamic Republic of France, but it happened. This development created the breeding ground for what subsequently developed as a radical counter-movement, a fascist regime in the eyes of the GFT. The "old order" was to be restored. In reality, however, it was a new order, and the French put up with it. They either adapted to it or considered it the lesser evil, even though the right-wing dictatorship had cost human and idealistic victims. One Frenchman had succinctly explained to Jutta: "Either Islam or GFT, I'd rather take Durand." This was the new, now permanent and strong man of France. The apodictic Durand would never voluntarily vacate the executive chair, like almost all historical role models of his kind. Unfortunately, her son Robert had succumbed to the fascination of the authoritarian regime; he had moved to the neighboring country a few years after the seizure of power, as the changes in France were defined by the 1st Council. Fortunately, contact with him had not been completely broken off.

"What are you going to do?" the pushy Waltraud chattered into Jutta's thoughts again. She realized that Jutta wasn't quite on the ball. She was obviously assessing what was going on with the drunk, she thought, and was annoyed at her inappropriate, intrusive demand.

"As always, de-escalate," said Jutta, now looking confident again and using appropriate diction in accordance with her function as Security Intendant of the Western Districts and Undersecretary for Security of the 1st Council.

"The contact with the Paris interior minister is not so bad. Even if he talks arrogantly, cooperation has always been quite good recently when problems have arisen. The well-known large family groups are responsible for the attacks. If they could not be driven out of the country for the known reasons, Durand pushed them into the regions near the border, and many also settled in Alsace. Unfortunately, despite all our protective measures, they felt invited to take advantage of our tolerance, sometimes quite brazenly. Unfortunately, they came closer to us unintentionally after the seizure of power. And their relatives in S6, S9, S4 and so on are almost next door. Despite our intensive efforts, we also have the same problem here in some regions, Waltraud, if we're honest."

Waltraud was temporarily confused, the number game was too exhausting for her, was S6 now the former Duisburg or Essen or both? Thank goodness the city names were allowed again. But Jutta had to react like this, as a leader. Strong, she thought.

"You're right, Jutta. Fortunately, the fascists in France don't have any expansionist tendencies, they're more like Pinochet," politicized Waltraud.

Where did she pick that up? She never thought of it on her own. But she was right, or the person who told her, Jutta was convinced.

"We don't live in an easy world," Karin interjected, "and anyone who believed that the discovery of cold fusion would solve all the world's problems has probably made a huge miscalculation."

Karin hadn't earned it herself any more than Waltraud had earned her Pinochet. But you didn't have to hold that against Karin, who was rather apolitical and anything but egotistical. She was honest in everything she did. Jutta was convinced that Karin was a lesbian by nature, even without HL2. Jutta wasn't. She liked Karin very much, and with HL2 she loved her.

Waltraud babbled on about all sorts of things. Jutta occasionally cleverly wove in phrases such as "very interesting", "I agree with you", "thank you for the suggestion" and the like, so that she could reduce her remarks to the optimum minimum. At some point, Waltraud said goodbye, obviously satisfied with the messages and placements she had received here and now. Jutta even gave her a kiss goodbye. Great, triumphed Waltraud!

Jutta and Karin stayed a little longer.

"One or two HL2 defaulters are quite happy about one or two attacks from the 'real guys'," Karin mocked in reference to Waltraud's gossip. Jutta smiled, at least there was something to it, she had her own experiences, but Karin wouldn't know that. Not at all pc. You should think very carefully about the circle in which you're allowed to say that, she thought, and please don't go any deeper.

They took the train to their neighborhood. Private transport had only been available in exceptional cases for years, and the abundance of electricity had also revolutionized urban transport. The ideas and developments were originally impressive, but in the years with the GFT, innovation had suffered. Many things now seemed paralyzed, became unsightly and even often dilapidated, including the previously revolutionary local transport system. Jutta knew deep down what the problem was. They drove through streets with houses whose facades were crumbling, through dirty tunnels, past stops where garbage was piling up. Jutta should have become accustomed to the sight, but the inadequacies increased or she became more aware of them. Even the green belt, which was allowed to grow wild, seemed neglected to her. Karin stared silently out of the window and seemed to be thinking the same thing. She seemed to sense what was on Jutta's mind.

"Don't tell me everything used to be better."

"Of course not," replied Jutta, "but it has to get better, otherwise I won't feel comfortable here anymore."

"We have it nice at home, that's what counts most."

She's right, Jutta thought. But when you feel partly responsible for it all, the visible decay is really annoying.

2

They only had to walk a few minutes from the train station to their villa in Hahnwald in Eisenweg, which they shared, de facto had to share, with a couple of female professors. Executives were also expected to adhere to the living space rules of square meters per head. However, they had privileges in this respect too.

Both couples were childless, which contradicted the principles, at least in part, because Jutta had children. The doctrine that every woman should have two children was adopted when it became clear that the natural conditions of reproduction did not harmonize with the ideas of the radical feminist leadership. At some point, critics formulated this rather cautiously. It was therefore established as good form that everyone had to contribute to stabilizing the population pyramid. Since the GFT had decided that the responsibility for offspring had to be solely female, artificial insemination and the resulting optimization through selection became a socially desirable norm. At the same time, however, natural procreation processes have increased again in recent years, although the official proportion of heterosexual relationships has stagnated. Overall, the entire problem of reproduction remained unsolved by the GFT. An original left-wing thesis that having children was selfish clashed with the movement's original philosophy of living all existence as naturally as possible. This in turn did not fit in with the GFT's anti-virile world view. The lioness pride model postulated by extreme feminists, according to which the masculine would only be responsible for fertilization, but social life in the pride would be female-dominated, again clashed with the theses of the human rights activists, as did in vitro fertilization with embryo selection, which had been elevated to the status of the norm. In this respect, Jutta was sure early on: what a mess and what nonsense! And glad that she already had two children at the time. Always hoping not to have lost them in the confusion of it all.

For Jutta and Karin, the pair of professors simply seemed too shrill and strange for children. Hardly anyone thought to ask. Overall, they had little contact with the two of them and avoided each other for no specific reason. However, they wanted to change that soon. But both couples had the feeling that the well-divided villa belonged to each party alone.

Karin didn't want children, Jutta knew that. A liver enzyme defect could make a pregnancy life-threatening; she had been told by her doctor. Allegedly, Jutta was aware. There could be some truth to it, but she knew that too. The doctors had therefore recently even advised her to take a break from HL2. Jutta was aware that monoclonal antibodies can have life-threatening side effects in a small number of people with enzyme defects. Usually, activists were expected to apply HL2 regularly. In senior positions, this was mandatory. Karin was in a leading position in the security service of the sole manufacturer of HL2 - 1st Biotechnology Site S2. Prof. Müller-Schenkentorff, the developer of HL2, Scientific Director and CEO of 1st Bio, had personally released Karin from her obligation to regularly apply HL2 a few months ago.

Her apartment was simple and tasteful, Bauhaus, Jutta liked to say. She liked the purist, functional elegance. A collection of Tibetan singing bowls from Jutta's daughter Frauke stood on a sideboard, not really fitting at all. She lived in Tibet and found life here too conformist and unnatural. All she really wanted was to get away from the new kind of stuffiness of the time, into a chaos to her liking with a basic order that suited her. She was self-confident, but always on the lookout. She was rarely satisfied with herself and her surroundings. Like her father, Frauke had studied medicine, but had not passed the 3rd state examination. She dropped out during her practical year. She argued that it wasn't medicine that was being practiced there, but rather cookbook healing, dominated by health managers, who in turn had no idea about illnesses in the medical sense. Additionally, there were far too many of them. Jutta thought that was exaggerated, but Dieter was of the same opinion before he left. That's why she feared that Frauke might be drawn to her father in Poland. But that was out of the question for Frauke because everything there was too orderly and bourgeois for her. Instead, she supposedly wanted feminism in harmony with nature and the countryside. She thought she could find this in the highlands with tantric Buddhism, as did some other alternative feminists who had broken away from the GFT. However, Frauke did not really belong to this group. She returned every two to four years for a visit. However, Jutta hoped in vain that she would stay. The son was a fascist, the daughter was crazy, something had gone wrong with their upbringing, Jutta mused. At least she saw the children occasionally and could talk to them, something many others didn't have. But the nostalgia for orderly family relationships, no matter what they might look like, had grown stronger in Jutta over the last few months.

"Are we going to have a nice evening?" Karin bravely interrupted Jutta's gloomy thoughts. She recognized her partner's melancholy mood and knew what would help. "A nice evening" meant cooking together in peace and quiet, eating slowly and with relish and, of course, drinking. Drinking a little more - alcohol was her favorite sex drug - and watching stimulating films. Jutta's mood actually improved. Her need for sex had become stronger rather than weaker in her 50s. Unfortunately, she found that this development ran counter to her appearance, she felt she was ageing faster than in previous years and worried that she might eventually tire of her attractive younger partner.

They lay on their 'pleasure meadow' and stared at the screen. Neither of them would have dared or wanted to do what the girls were celebrating, but it was great to watch. As always, Karin was in charge of the selection.

"I found something antique, not bad, Jutta," she said.

"I'm curious," she replied.

And indeed, the antique ladies did amazing things, but the effect was not stimulating because of the unusual actions, but rather because of the spontaneous naturalness. It wasn't acted as usual but seemed authentic. But then something happened that Jutta hadn't expected: a man was added, which was considered obsolete in the industry these days. Karin had made a brave choice. They didn't talk about the guy and what he did and what was done with him, apart from the odd astonished "Oh". Afterwards they made love, it was particularly intense, and Jutta had the impression that the man from the porno was in bed with her, more in Karin's head than in hers. Karin believed for a long time that Jutta hadn't thought in this way for a long time, and that was true, Jutta had been unfamiliar with heterosexual thoughts for many years. At the very beginning of their relationship, Karin once had the feeling that Jutta was longing for sex with a man. This disappeared quietly at the time, but Karin has recently been reminded of the impression she had back then. Karin was right about both, without ever finding out what had been bothering her partner for years.

For the moment, Jutta herself could not understand what had changed in her recently and what had changed in Karin without HL2. The stuff had brought a lot of balance to the world, but at what cost. Jutta had to admit to herself that the thought of the porn star had given her experience of that night a huge kick. Karin had more or less deliberately intended it that way.

Radical feminism did not initially have a very broad base, but the GFT was made possible primarily because of the harnessing of cold fusion for energy production and, above all, the discovery of HL2. HL2 is a compound that suppresses typical androgen-mediated behaviors. However, the substance does not simply repress everything hormonally male, but merely changes behavioral patterns. Jutta also knew that women needed androgens and that they played an important role in female sexuality. It was therefore not plausible that her need for tenderness became stronger under HL2. Hems, as Prof. Heinz-Egon Müller Schenkentorff liked to be called pragmatically, did not want to answer her question. He merely responded with a jovial grin and evasive phrases, according to the motto, you won't understand anyway. That wasn't entirely wrong, who understood the world of monoclonal antibodies, their highly complex production and the effect of messenger substances and their antagonists and so on? But the man was simply arrogant. A close friend and fellow student of Dieter's had dedicated himself to biochemistry after medical school, just like Hems. He was highly gifted, but almost autistic, and therefore rather unsuitable for day-to-day work with patients. Theoretical medicine was therefore the right path for Horst. Hems was his boss at the institute, and they researched hormones. Horst was obsessed with developing a therapy for sex offenders. He had been impressed by the fate of a girl whose life had been destroyed by a violent pedophile. Dieter occasionally mentioned in passing that Horst didn't think much of Hems. Little talent and knowledge, a big mouth and always trying to make a perfect impression on the head of the institute with well-placed words. His colleagues had more or less voluntarily helped with his habilitation, especially Horst. In return, however, he was able to carry out free research in his own laboratory at a very early stage of his specialist training in molecular and biochemistry. Incidentally, even back then Hems was considered a piglet, a womanizer. Horst said that he loved extreme porn and that if he found child porn in his house, he would kill him. Always concerned about his good reputation and to avoid being discovered, he was rumored to carry a chip with his favorite films with him most of the time, never watching them online. One day at the institute, Hems was looking rather desperately for his "stick", which for heaven's sake must not fall into the wrong hands. Horst suspected what was meant by that. It almost made him wet his pants, the horny bourgeois. He amusedly told Dieter, and Dieter told Jutta. For Dieter and Horst, Hems was a symbolic figure and an example of the decadence and opportunism that, in their view, would lead to the downfall of the old world, as they put it. This actually insignificant episode came back to Jutta's mind when Hems was suddenly celebrated as a pioneer of the GFT with the development of HL2 some time after Horst Kemmerer's death. Müller-Schenkentorff had never realized this personal connection; he saw Jutta for what she obviously was, a significant representative of the New Era, and therefore treated her politely and charmingly. At the time, he was quick to include Karin in the 1st Bio security team. Nevertheless, Jutta was suspicious of this man from the outset.

"Who will take care of the wine on Saturday?" asked Karin the next morning.

Oh yes, weekend, socializing, Jutta thought with a sneer.

Karin guessed what she was thinking.

"Oh, come on, maybe it will be fun after all, at least refreshing!"

"With the two dried-up aunts from over there!" replied Jutta. At some point, they had to promise to invite the two professors. They had thought of a good occasion in good company. But Jutta was still skeptical about how the supposedly obligatory event would go.

"They're not that bad, at least they're clever and somehow they seem funny in their own way. There's not enough fun in our so factually serious, 'politically correct' present," Karin said mockingly, "on the whole. Even Cabinet has been banned. Mixed with a gay couple and a straight couple, perhaps a flight of fancy in conviviality could be teased out of Alice and Eligia. At least if the wine you (!) get has the necessary percentages and is drinkable, Zita!"

Zita always said it when she wanted to tease her.

"Don't be cheeky, little girl," Jutta replied and grabbed her roughly between the legs. She wanted to restore equality of arms.

"Besides, it wasn't called Cabinet, which was banned, but Cabaret, little heart. And there was a good reason for that. In the old days, activists made fun of the bourgeoisie, the other way around didn't work and was unbearable, so it no longer exists. You don't make fun of our ideals and achievements," said Jutta, not very seriously.

"Oh, this morning is she very correct, my Jutta!"

"Just because you've been cheeky again and I have to call you to order occasionally."

Karin turned her nose up at Jutta, who turned it back.

In view of this good mood, the tasks for the evening ahead were quickly distributed. Kisses, Jutta went to her office, Karin to the 1st Bio.

Jutta was on the train in the special compartment for the senior civil service, on her way to the Intendants Building. It was due to her merits and her position that she was allowed to travel alone on the train, shielded from the masses. In the past, limousines with special signs for leading personalities used to speed through the city. How aloof. It was a step forward to at least be on the same train as the people, albeit separately, she thought. But the good mood she had brought with her from home evaporated the closer the train took her to the center of the city. What she saw from her compartment window kept running through her mind over and over again. She was convinced that the changes with and through the GFT had brought many positive things. Of course, because she was convinced of the power of change. Nevertheless, the economic and social stagnation could not be overlooked everywhere.

The short walk to the Intendantur didn't improve her mood today. She had never liked this postmodern block in the form of an unsuccessful copy of the Bauhaus style she loved so much. Completely oversized, but expressly intended. Demonstrative, because the Intendants Directorates were a key instrument of power for the GFT. It was no surprise that there was no staff available for the important things of everyday life. People went to offices. There they did supposedly important things. When she thought about her area, she felt complicit. She had recently founded an institute to evaluate the quality assurance of relevant security structures. She hadn't really wanted to, but the young, up-and-coming, dynamic, new activists in the 1st Council reported on the successes in the Leading Intendants Directorates with hot red faces and pushed the decision through. She wondered how the employees in these job creation schemes could find satisfaction in their daily work. Conditioning! But who had conditioned this generation? She was getting old, younger Patroness made her feel it to some extent, or so she thought. She told herself that her suppressed criticism of the excessive bureaucracy was the wisdom of old age. The present doesn't prove you right, she despaired in her thoughts, you've known it for a long time. I'm talking like Dieter years ago; he had already foreseen the undesirable developments back then. Dieter anyway. She often thought of him. The man in the porn had nothing in common with him, but today he set the pace for memories of Dieter.

Her thoughts straightened out when she joined the Intendants Building. Once electronically logged in, all paths opened up to her immediately. She greeted the high-ranking staff of the institution respectfully; the swarm of ants submissively avoided her. Great feeling, her doubts from a moment ago were back in a lower drawer of her consciousness.

Today's appointments, the only interesting one: Caroline Dickendorf, forensic scientist, full professor at the university and one of the Scientific Directors. She was kind of a weird person, rustic, tomboyish, clearly too much testosterone despite HL2, but competent and honest. Sometimes a little too much black humor. It was probably the only way to endure her field of expertise, or she just had the right personality for it. Fortunately, Jutta rarely had to meet with her about bad things, but she appreciated her as a counselor. The subject was the violent death of Constanze Rehling, a 42-year-old rising political star, member of central parliament, deputy leader of the Liberal Feminists, very ambitious and a candidate for a ministerial post. However, her attempt to become a member of the 1st Council had failed, her career ambitions were too ambitious for the committee. She had been found dead in a riding school and was considered a passionate horsewoman. Everything spoke against a riding accident, but everything spoke for a violent death. A genuine task for Prof. Dickendorf. Jutta kindly instructed her assistant Sabine not to keep the professor waiting under any circumstances.

She arrived right on time, deep voice, short bursts of laughter. She didn't take a seat on the sinner's chair in front of Jutta's desk, but joined Jutta at the small table with coffee cups. The professor answered the obligatory question with: "No, I prefer tea."

Small talk wasn't her thing, so after "Long time no see, unfortunately ..." we got straight to the topic.

"It's tricky, very tricky, Jutta," she said in an unexpectedly mild tone.

"Murder?" asked Jutta, horrified.

"No," she was denied. "The cause of death was a heavy blow to the back of the head, but Conni didn't die immediately, she probably fell unconscious a few minutes later as a result of a brain hemorrhage and probably died an hour or two later."

"Blow? From whom and couldn't she have gotten help and why didn't she leave the stable?" asked Jutta.

"The injury to the head was obvious, the autopsy quickly clarified the cause of death. There were no signs of a struggle. Your question is justified."

She paused, with a worried look on her face. Spit it out, Jutta looked back curiously.

"We forensic experts always examine everything, even if it didn't seem sensible or necessary here. I found sperm in her noticeably wide vagina, a lot of it."

"Oh!"

Pause for thought. Jutta thought about it. That doesn't fit. "Can you use the DNA to identify the lover?"

"I already have."

Jutta looked questioningly again.

"It was Andlangur."

"Who?"

"The stallion, Conni's favorite stallion."

Jutta was speechless. The ever-superior activist Rehling, arrogant, argumentative both downwards and upwards, overconfident and snooty, outwardly feminist through and through, needs a cock and then completely oversized by a stallion. Jutta didn't want to think any further.

"What do you think happened?"

"I think what we found was a frame that made the act of love possible. Not recognizable as such at first glance. Andlangur probably caught a wooden plank by accident, which then caught the love-hungry Constanze. I found her DNA on it. She removed the traces of her lust until she fell unconscious. Logically, no one was near her box. She already knew how to do it so she wouldn't get caught."

"That cost her life. Could that have been prevented?"

"Probably yes, she could have been saved with a skull trepanation, i.e. opening the skull to relieve pressure. There would have been time."

Silence. Accidents happen, no question, but dying over something like that? That was just too stupid. Tough Constanze! But she was immediately more likable to Jutta because she had satisfied a natural need in the truest sense of the word. That made the arrogant witch more human.

"Can you explain what drives someone like our esteemed activist to act like this? That's quite extreme."

"I have no idea, but this has happened before."

"How do we deal with this, Caro?"

"Riding accident. I can manage that. There's a memo, I'll ask you to sign it. We'll get it signed off by the Minister of the Interior and, I'm asking you, by the competence center of the 1st Council, all with the note of confidentiality. I don't think they want anything else. If they do, they should say so."

The forensic scientist had also become much more endearing to Jutta today. They had the same thoughts. Why, even if Rehling was an upstart par excellence, should human things be disparaged in public or even just among the political elite? They were very much to blame for the whole thing, she was spontaneously certain.

"That's how we do it. Thank you very much. We need to meet outside of the bad things," said Jutta.