'Would you get down?' Ash snaps. 'There's no time!'
Zuko finally catches a wake-up and starts scrambling down.
Toby rolls over the railing, real dramatic, and I'm praying he clipped in incorrectly, that his harness is going to spill him the twenty-metre drop, but no such luck. The karabiner catches and he rappels down, easily overtaking Zuko.
'Six seconds. Come on!'
I touch down. Ashraf is struggling to unclip, and there really is no fucking time when we're ankle-deep in smart barbwire that is about to reactivate. I flick open my Spiderco, rip the blade through the reinforced webbing of his harness, and we vault over the wire, his hand locked in mine.
'Minus three.'
Toby kicks off hard from the support beams, still relatively high, so that he swings out over the highway, clear of the wire, and then the moron simply unclips, which means he tumbles two metres onto the tar. He lands hard. I hope he's broken something.
'Jesus fuck!' He stands up and starts hobbling across the highway, clutching his shoulder.
But right now I'm worried about Zuko, who is only halfway down. If he gets caught, and caves and links this back to me, it's going to be the end of more than just a promising junior soccer career.
'Minus sixteen,' Jasmine says, still watching her clock. 'I'm sorry, I must have messed up the timing. But it's going to kick in any second.'
'Jump, idiot!' I shout. And Zuko does, landing on his feet, barely, but his boot catches one of the barbs, so it shears through the leather and skin underneath, and then he's in my arms, almost sobbing with relief.
Except the barbwire is not twitching back to life. The screen is still frozen. There's no time to consider. I yank Zuko up and out of the coils at his feet and pelt across the highway, holding up a hand to the oncoming headlights that swerve round us, disappearing into the curve of Hospital Bend, horn bleating angrily.
Toby is waiting on the other side, sitting on the fence and rolling his shoulder. I hope it's fucking broken.
The adboard comes back up with a flicker. And I feel that hard kick of victory. Cos we've fucking done it. And now, with the TSR fraying the signal, all those too-beautiful clebs and models and realife™ virtua spokespersons frisking in the ocean or nodding into the latest cell or acting in the consumer mini-movies for LG or Lucky Strike or Premiere Recruiting will look somehow wrong.
And maybe it will take the commuters a second or two to figure it out. To pick up that the features of the bouncy beach babe or the cool hand smoker in the ads on this board are melting, running down their faces. Smeared. And it feels fucking great, even with Zuko sporting an injury that is going to be difficult to explain to casualty. Until Toby opens his mouth.
'Shit, that really hurt. Do not try this at home, kids. Oh, what. Don't be so panicky, Tendeka. I was kidding about the eight minutes. Lerato's real generous. She gave us twelve. I just thought you could do with added incentive, up the drama, you know?'
This time I do hit him. In the face. Full on.
Lerato
I get to work to discover that Mpho has turned stalker boy. There is an outrageous bouquet of flowers on my desk, complete with miniature butterflies, the kind gen-modded to stay within a hand's-length radius of the scent of the assigned homing flower and guaranteed to live seventy-two hours, if you believe the advertising. Until now, I've never met anyone cheesy enough to fall for it.
Seed has paired us on the MetroBabe Stroller audio job, designing an interface that works for both toddlers and parents. At the touch of a button, it has to be able to play back rockabyes, current hits packaged as instrumental lullabies for baby, or MetroBabe's private info station, simply jam-packed with useful information to help guide new parents through the very special hell they've signed up for. The things already come with two cup-holders, one for baby's bottle, one for mom's moccachino or, more realistically, mom's whisky flask.
I wave away the butterflies that are hovering near my screen, attracted to the light, and shove the bouquet to the edge of my desk, which will hopefully limit the little bastards' range. There's no sign of Mpho, which is savagely annoying.
There is a MetroBabe audio file in my jobs folder, so I can get some idea of the content we're dealing with. I ignore it and kill time waiting for Mpho by checking my mail, updating my dating profile on Seed and prowling the responses. There're three pre-approved potential matches, all within Communique or affiliated companies (which means no lengthy mutual non disclosure contracts to sign before you can move on to the sex), one civilian, which I delete without even looking at (at least I admit I'm biased), and a man of real interest from a rival corp, which Seed has tagged as questionable, meaning a potential headhunter.
Considering how I got here, to this twentythird floor office, to this desk with its views of the seaboard, you'd think the system might trust me to spot one all on my own. Or maybe they're letting me know that they know. Heads up, girl, we're paying attention. Hopefully not too closely.
The guy's profile looks sony, as Toby might say. Stefan Thuys. Forty-one, which is ten years older than my ideal, but hey, I'm open to trying new things. He's a development exec on gamesoft, reasonably attractive apart from the craggy nose that looks as though it may have been broken at some stage, which is unreasonably hot. He claims an interesting selection of media, although his choices are suspiciously hip. But who doesn't paint themselves in a prettier light? And I've always been interested in development. I msg him. He msgs back, and we hook up a date for later in the week.
At last I'm prepared to get round to the MetroBabe audio file. I drag it into my player and crank up the volume. I'll be damned if I have to suffer through the incessant infant-stuff alone.
'…surrogate breast milk is a risk, Noeleen, but it's a qualified risk if you go through the correct channels, and get a certified provider who can provide you with a full medical history. You can get cocktails specially made to order, get your provider to take vitamins and nutrients tailored to the very specific needs of your baby's gene map.'
Across the office, a couple of people raise their heads. Genevieve mouths at me, 'Can you privacy that?' but I ignore her.
And finally Mpho materialises at my desk, pushing a stroller, the dull grey of the plastic marking it as a prototype fresh off the printer. 'Hey, L. Hope you haven't been waiting too long. I thought I'd get a demo model from product development so we can really nail this thing. Oops, nearly forgot!' He produces two lattes with a flourish from the cup-holders. 'Mamzelle.' In four days of getting room service together, you'd think he would have picked up that I take my coffee black.
'But couldn't you just add those to the content afterwards? Or, I don't know, give your baby supplements, Dr. Redelinghuys?'
'Thanks, babe.' I deliberately let the coffee slip through my fingers so it drops into the bin, spilling its contents en route. Someone else will clean it up. I probably should have done the same with the flowers, just swept them off the desk into the rubbish. Mpho looks shocked.
'So, M,' I emphasise the consonant, how it's really not a name. 'You ready to tackle this baby thing?'
'I'm sorry. Was there something wrong–?'
'I'm lactose-intolerant, Mpho. Thanks for asking.'
'Shit. I'm sorry. Let me get you another one.'
'Can we just do this?'
Mpho is insistent. 'Seriously, let me get you another one. I'll be right back.'
'No, honestly–' but he's already dashed off.
'That's a good question, Noeleen, but really I think we have to look at the way the body system processes nutrients, and how that's passed on to your baby. She really needs all this goodness in a way that's palatable to her still-developing immune system, that she can readily absorb, especially when it comes to HIV antibodies–'
I click it off. As if actually having a drooling, mewling, puking little troll weren't enough. If I had to listen to this shit all day, I'd kill myself.
There's a good reason I need to get this out of the way asap. I
'm expecting a tech support callout any minute to deal with a damaged adboard. I stayed up all night coding upgrades with some neat little added features of my own for the security software they're going to have to install today, and then covering my tracks to ensure it looks like they've always been there.
When the maintenance team head out, I need to monitor them remotely to ensure there aren't any unexpected surprises that might betray me when the software update goes live. But of course, I'm not supposed to know that an adboard has been hit. Not yet. So I wait.
Mpho finally gets back, balancing a filter ultra and a selection of every variety of sweetener and cinnamon/chocolate/mint additive possible, just in case. I drink it black just to spite him, not that he notices.
'What did you do to your hair?' he asks, in a little-boy-wounded way. He should have seen it before I had the Communique inhouse stylist tidy it up this morning. 'I liked it long.'
'I get bored easily.'
You'd think I would know better than to get involved with someone in my own department. But I'm really crap at resisting sexual tension. Oh, it's entertaining for a few weeks, the fuzzy sting that rushes down your vertebra to your groin when the eyes meet, the banter spiked with innuendo – then it becomes irritating, and you need to get it out of your system. Neutralise it by indulging it, which is fine, assuming you can both keep it tidy.
'You've had a listen, what do you reckon? The prototype isn't functioning 100%, but you can see the way it's structured is there's one big tactile button for baby right where he can get at it, and here, on the pushbar, full audio controls and screen for mommy…'
'I'm just the programmer,' I snarl, cutting him off. 'I'm only interested in the internal processes.'
'Whooo! Someone is grumpy this morning.'
'I was up most of the night,' I snip, too defensive. He's caught me off guard, and I've slipped up, which is a good indication that I haven't in fact had enough rest, but please let him not try and get into the why. Fortunately, his brain defaults automatically to the same strand of primitive code every time.
'You should have called me,' he leers. 'I could have come over. Helped you sleep.'
'The job?' I point at the screen, impatient.
'You didn't even say anything about the flowers.'
'They're stunning. Amazing. How did you ever think of such a meaningful and original gesture?'
'Wow. You are vicious.' He seems hurt, and because I need him to hurry up and get this out of the way, I kiss and make up.
'I'm sorry, Mpho. I'm ratty when I'm sleepdeprived. You should tell the product designers it should be a hanging mobile rather than a button. You want something the little shit will want to play with, something sparkly or dangly that he'll reach for anyway, and then it just happens to make a cute sound or play a lullaby or whatever.'
'Rockabye.'
'Yeah, okay. That too.'
'That's actually brilliant, Lerato.'
'I know.'
'You should be in design. You should be heading up design!'
'Oh, I know.'
It takes twenty minutes to work out the details of how the interface needs to work, and then I chase Mpho off so I can focus on the programming. I have an idea I can patch in a fair amount of the code I used in a previous job (the PlayPlay Pterodactyl Robot Friend), but it's still going to take me most of the morning, and I run into trouble with a finicky bit with the voice recognition, getting it to filter out baby's babblings. Of course, the real solution here would be to program it to recognise the different gooing and gurgling and translate it into English for mama. Didn't I read some pushmag thing on the theory of baby communications? If I could figure out baby's language code, that would be a product feature. Let's call it Radio Gaga.
Toby calls, just as I'm about to crack it. Okay, so I'm nowhere near cracking it, but I tell him it's his fault anyway. He's not sympathetic. 'Don't dump me with your dilemmas. I need serious work-related tech support.'
'Uh-huh?' I say, carefully neutral, surreptitiously activating privacy on my cubicle so the audio dampeners kick in, just in case he's stupid enough to make any passing reference to the adboard. There still hasn't been an official report. Not that I don't know that invoking privacy means that Seed automatically tags my conversation, all phone calls will be recorded for quality assurance purposes blah blah blah, but I've got misdirects in place. I have a mix of prerecorded conversations, from the polite and cursory catch-ups with my sisters (when Zama can be bothered to call), to a variety of hot and heavy that gives the spyware controllers upstairs something to do with their hands. The only hassle is constantly updating them, so the monitoring boys don't get suspicious. I needn't have bothered on this one. Toby's 'dilemma' is almost a legitimate request. Easy enough. And fucking hilarious.
'Whenever you're ready, sweetness,' Toby says, put out, which only makes me laugh harder.
'That's a new record in lame, Toby.'
'Yeah, let's see how you handle getting cut off from your trustfundable by your motherbitch.'
'Oh nice, Toby. Real nice.' The only thing I ever got from my parents was a kickstart into corporate life.
'You know what I fucking mean. Don't get touchy.'
'Fine. But you owe me.'
'Rack it on my tab.'
'And you're still king lame.'
'Love ya, babe. Gotta run, got little kiddies to kill for fun and profit.'
It takes a minute and a half to reroute Toby's IP address so it looks like he's logging in from Melbourne rather than Cape Town, which should sort out his little problem.
And then, at last, the adboard call comes in. I'm not technically involved in the maintenance process, but I have access to the job sheets, and it's not unusual for coders at my level to monitor the execution. Yusuf and Petronella get the call as the closest technicians in the vicinity. I couldn't have calibrated it better myself. Yusuf is smart but lazy, and Petronella is just plain lazy. They'll be more worried about the damage Toby and his friends have done to the hardware than any inconsistencies in the software. Assuming my code holds, all will be well.
And it does. And it is.
There's a surplus of people who do what I do, to the extent that I'm surprised they don't consider culling. Good programmers are as easy to score as a blowjob on Lower Main Road, and just about as cheap. You really have to distinguish yourself if you're going to make any progress.
It was easy getting noticed at nineteen, but I'm getting on, and if you haven't cracked management by twenty-eight, your chances of doing so decrease exponentially for every year you add to your CV. I've still got a few years, but I'm not ending up like Jane. Rather be a startling failure than a benign success.
I figure my options are pretty limited within Communique. But with the penalties for intercorporate poaching running into hundreds of thousands, it's going to be difficult to persuade another corporate that they need me, when they can get fresher and younger talent straight out of the skills institutes for much, much less. Unless I have something to sweeten the deal. Like a backdoor, say, installed in their rival's security software on the adboards that allows you to access Communique's proprietary information, track the data and the response rates. Call it market research. 'Corporate espionage' is so over-dramatic.
A monarch alights on my keyboard, flexing its wings, flashing the striations of velvety orange and black. Strayed too far from the nest, little guy. They don't like that around here. I crush it delicately under my thumb.
Toby
Digging through my laundry to find something relatively fresh and suitable for public consumption, I happen upon Jasmine's scarf, which she left here after the raid last night. It smells like her, very faintly through the musty wool and the overwhelming notes of Fairtrade caramel butter, cos Jazz isn't the kind of girl to wear perfume, but she's not the great unwashed specimen of activist either, which I appreciate. I take a deep breath of that warm girly goodness, and then trash the thing. Hey, it's not like she's going to be coming back to get it
.
I stagger over to my console, clip the Moxy chip into the game socket and, instantaneously, there are little blobby monsters bouncing around all over my projecta walls and singing. This, after all the sugar, and with the residue ache of being sucker-punched in the face, is a very bad thing, kids. My cheek has turned a bluish-yellow where that bastard Tendeka got me.
I reduce the display to just one wall, skip the jangle, choose the first character I'm offered (some furry blue thing with oversized paws – RomperStomp, special move the ShakerQuake) and connect to the gameworld along with the 1,487,763 other players currently online, 99% of whom are in the eight-to-twelve demographic. The remainder are like me, gatecrashers cashing in on the system, or maybe paedophiles looking to hook up. I suspect the former group may be the more evil of the two.