But the catch is that we're still phoneless. It took fifteen minutes just to get out of my apartment block, waiting for someone else's SIM to trigger the door so we could slip out. Pretend making-out in the hall, so we had an excuse to be hanging about.
I accost a pedestrian on the sidewalk, a man in a red leather jacket unlocking his car, one of the only people around.
'Hey, excuse me, sir? My phone is down and I was wondering–'
'No. I'm sorry,' he says, super-brusque in the brush-off, already getting into the car, adding, 'God bless you,' through the window as he zips it up, like I was some filthy riff. Like a riff could afford to be traipsing round town in a BabyStrange coat, even if it is fritzing, blurting random images from its memory. It did not take kindly to that power-up at the station. Shit. At this rate we're going to be walking to Lerato's.
It's the same story at the underway. The automatic doors won't fucking open to let us get into the station, let alone onto the trains. I don't see how they're expecting us to report to our nearest handy vaccine centre if we can't fucking get there. And no one will let me cadge a call.
K keeps touching her mouth, distracted, like she's making sure it really is all there.
'Do you think you could stop playing with your face and give me a hand here?'
'What do you want me to do?' she says, as if it's my fault that we're stranded, isolated. Disconnected.
'You're a girl. You're cute. Get someone to let you use their phone.'
'What do you want me to tell them?'
'That you dropped it in the toilet. That you were mugged. I don't care. Anything. Wait, here's the number you wanna connect,' and as I'm writing it down for her, I realise I don't know the fucking number. It's on autodial, preprog nine, starts 083-253 something something something. I don't know Lerato's digits either, or even that skank Unathi's. Which doesn't leave us much in the way of options. My stomach is knotting audibly with hunger.
Someone tugs on my sleeve. 'Buy me a bunny chow?' It's a street kid, wearing filthy men's shoes that swallow his feet, tufts of newspaper sticking out in ruffles, clutching a brown paper bag like his life depends on it, and faintly reeling already at this time of the a.m.
'Aw, c'mon don't touch the fashion. Not now, okay? Just piss off.'
The kid is nonplussed. He plucks at my coat again, skittering out of reach when I move to grab him, laughing. 'You should check, my larnie. Your fashion is fried.'
'Do I know you? Fuck off!'
'Toby.' Kendra puts her hand on my arm, and I'm so fucking sick of people touching me.
'What?'
'Maybe he has a phone.'
But the best the mangy street kid has to offer is a browning banana, which he proffers like a serious act of benevolence. Kendra takes it in both hands, like you're supposed to do with Japanese business cards. 'Thanks,' she says, as genuinely grateful as if it was the same fucking species of usefulness as a phone. So much for the black-market, the underground economy.
I grab it out of her hand and hold it up to my ear, feeling how it's already turned soft and squidgy inside its skin. 'Hello? Hello? Mom? Yeah, send the fucking cavalry already. What's that, you say? I'm sorry, you're breaking up.' This cracks the kid up, especially when I crush the banana in my fist so that the skin splits and the insides squelch out. 'You could do with an upgrade,' I say, examining the sludge in my hand. 'This one's fritzed.' I hand it back to him, but he declines, shaking with laughter. I shrug and chuck it into the alley, wiping my hand on my jeans, mixing the gunge with the dried snot. And it occurs to me, that's what my insides will be doing within the next forty-eight, liquefying inside this bag of skin. The novelty of being on the run is wearing off quick.
'We could have eaten that,' says Kendrasweet, as I pull her away from the kid and down the street.
'Least of our problems.'
'Toby. I'm hungry. If I don't get something to eat–'
'Then what, buttercup? You might get hunger pangs in your tummy?'
'I'm hypoglycaemic, you asshole.'
'Oooh, so you're gonna faint on me?' She punches me in the chest. It's not a playful punch.
'Don't be an asshole.'
'Cos if you did, I don't know if I'd have the strength to pick you up and carry you. I mean, maybe you want to go back for that banana. You could scrape the leftovers off the pavement.'
She is near tears. I check off all the signs: her complexion gone blotchy, the liquid shine in her eyes. I hock another thick loogey of phlegm onto the pavement.
'Tell you what, baby girl, I got it all worked out. But I'm going to need you to take one for the team.'
'Toby, stop it. This is serious.'
'And I'm deadly serious.'
'You shouldn't spit. You don't know that it's not contagious.'
'You think I give a shit about these people?' I tuck her under my arm, crushing her up against me, aggressive, so I can feel the expansion of her ribcage as she grunts in surprise. I hope it leaves a big fucking bruise, but what would be the use, her nano would just clean it up, the same way it's sopped up the virus, like that bacteria that eats oil spills.
'I hope all these fuckers get it. They deserve it. And you know, I don't know why the fuck you give a shit either.' She squirms away, furious.
'It's not my fault.'
'Hey. Hey, I'm not holding it against you, sweetness.' I kiss her nose. 'Chin up, okay? We'll get you something to eat just as soon as. But first we need to get connected. We need help. You agree.'
'Yes,' she says, her face stormy-petulant.
'So we're gonna walk into that internet caff over there, and I'm gonna have a little chat with the guy behind the counter, and then you're going to offer to suck him off in exchange for some time online.'
'Jesus, Toby.'
'Or maybe he'll settle for a handjob.'
Her cheeks are flushed with outrage or humiliation. It's a good look for her.
'Although, you know, your technique could use some work. Speaking from personal experience.'
But I've gone too far. Something changes the channel on her expression. I wish my BabyStrange was still functional, cos it would have been great to capture the transition, kids: the twitch of muscles, that morphing of her expression from shock-wounded to contempt.
'Fuck you, Toby.'
'Ooh ouch. Like no one's ever said that to me before.' I stagger back a step, clutching at my chest, but she is already walking away, too fast, her shoulders as tight as if she'd been strapped to a coat hanger. Which makes me think of how those skinny blades jutted as she arched her back against me. 'And besides, you already did, sweetheart!' I shout after her, so that several of the pedestrians cock their heads in our direction. 'Remember?!' She doesn't turn around.
The shouting rasps in my throat and segues seamlessly into a racking cough as my body works overtime to eject what amounts to a thumbnail of sputum that blends into the street along with the pigeon shit and gunk. Hardly seems worth the effort.
Inside the caff, its windows dimmed to cut the glare on the screens, I dump the BabyStrange on the counter, which is still damp with the residue of cleaning wipes. Under normal circumstances, this would make me cringe in anticipation of the cost of dry-cleaning, which doesn't come cheap on wired fabrics. But I would hardly describe today as normal. 'Hey man, I'm going to cut to the chase. How many minutes can I get for this?'
The guy behind the counter is trying for too trendy for his age, with sideburns razored in sharp isosceles, a sideshow to distract from the thinning on top. Seems the blowout with K was pointless. Judging by the ripped pecs beneath the black vest, this one is more into boys than girls.
'This isn't a pawn shop, china. And even if it was,' he rubs a pinch of the BabyStrange between his fingers, the picture distorting, 'this thing is not well.'
'Yeah, well, neither am I.' And I know I check it too. I've got the shivers and the damp sweats and I can't stop scratching, like a junkie with no fix in sight.
'Man,' he sighs, with re
signation, 'don't make me call in a defuse at this time of the morning.'
'Go right ahead. I don't have a fucking phone, my friend.'
He looks sceptical. 'Well, that's even more reassuring. Do you know what kind of shitsville liability you are to me in here?'
'Come on. Give me a break. The quicker you let me use a machine, the quicker I'm gone. As opposed to standing in here, breathing my disease all over your establishment.'
He is unmoved, starts reaching for the phone.
'It's designer. It's worth thirty-k at least new, fifteen secondhand. Cost you maybe two to get it rewired. Five minutes, man. Doesn't sound like a raw deal to me.'
'How do I know it's not stolen?' He shakes it out, cursory, looking for bloodstains.
'Aw c'mon, like you care? And besides, I got the sneaks to match. You get a lot of colour coordinated scumbags in here hawking previously owned?'
'Okay, okay. Five minutes.'
'Thirty.'
'You just said–'
'Yeah, but I got stuff to do. Takes longer than five. And you only get the coat after.' Send Lerato a chirpy, check the newscasts to see what's already out there, upload my own footage off the BabyStrange while I've still got it.
'Whatever. Just do me a favour and take one of the consoles at the back.'
'So I don't freak out the paying customers?'
'Sharp as your sense of style,' he quips, pinching the sleeve of my coat with a proprietary gesture. I feel a twinge of loss. Or another coughing fit about to hit.
Kendra
Is it perverse to feel liberated? Not just ditching that asshole, just another Jonathan, but the grounding of being disconnect that separates me from the swirl of the city around me. The dissociation is real for once, not artificially imposed and filtered through my camera. I'm a stranger among the commuters and people opening up the storefronts. It's beautiful. And totally impractical, the squeeze in my stomach reminds me.
I realise I'm not so far from District Six, but without my SIM ID, the front door to Mr. Muller's subterr doesn't recognise me. It takes a long time for him to answer the intercom.
'Who's that?'
'It's me, Mr. Muller. Kendra.'
'Kendra! Why don't you just come down, my girl?'
'It's my phone, Mr. Muller. It's…' My voice cracks. There is a brittle pause. I haven't seen him since the exhibition. I should have called, just to see if he was okay, but I've been preoccupied.
'Come down. I'll put on the ultra.'
By the time I get down, it's just starting to infuse. And he has food. A slightly stale bagel with peanut butter. But no Ghost. I wonder if I can convince him to get me one from the building's café, when he points to the news footage, which he has maximised so that it's playing all over the walls, tuned to different channels.
'Did you see this? The bombing?'
I haven't.
The footage focuses on the wall of the old city library, where a mural of a soccer ball and two hands forming a heart shape with the fingers has been painted. The words UBUNTU appear above it, spangled with glitter – no, lightbulbs, LEDs forming lightshow patterns. The soccer ball becomes a globe, a skull, a heart. And then the bulbs suddenly all pop, not exactly co-ordinated, with a noise like firecrackers, spraying twinkles of glass, so that people below cringe and duck.
A few of them sort of run away, hands up above their heads before they catch themselves and look back. The bulbs crackle and snap for another few seconds and then a thin drift of chemical-coloured smoke peels off, leaving the wall cratered and pitted.
'If they had an agenda, I might be able to understand, but this nihilism… Six dead, nineteen wounded. What are they protesting, anyway? Capitalism? As if there's an alternative. Where do they think their fancy technology comes from?' Mr. Muller is in full rant mode.
I'm not really paying attention. Most of the channels are playing footage from what looks like a warzone. Rubble, people screaming, broken glass and blood, a torn-apart car – like the truck in Mr. Muller's photograph.
'And don't get me started on the fantasy of economic equality,' he says. 'Society has always been structured by privilege. This is the best we've had it. You work hard, you put your back into it, you get to claim the rewards. Freedom is a state of mind, Kendra. How old are you? Too young to remember what it was like.'
The footage plays back in slow-mo. A line of people, with the desperate look of refugees or Rural, wait outside a glass box marked Casualty. There is a twist of tar leading up into the parkade, like a loll of grey tongue in a butcher's window, an ambulance parked outside. A soccer ball floats surreally towards the building and, more surreal, the doors slide open to let it in. A woman smiles, delighted and points. And then the building turns itself inside out. I sit down heavily on the couch. It's too much.
'Compared to living in fear, terrorised by criminals, the hijackings and shootings and the tik junkies ready to kill you, shoot you, stab you, for a watch or a camera, I'll take those modified dogs and the whaddayacallit, the cellphone electrocutions, any day. But these people don't understand what they're trying to achieve.'
Every channel comes back to it, on constant repeat. Like the chorus of a terrible song.
'Anarchy? Undermining our way of life? And what's that going to prove? More to the point, what's it going to change? This is only going to lead to more severe controls. But we need them, Kendra, I'm telling you, humanity is innately damaged. It's a flaw in the design code. We're weak. We're fallible. We need to be told what to do, to be kept in line.'
He notes me shrinking deeper into the couch.
'Forgive me, I'm ranting. You know what happens when I get started. What's this about your phone?' The sudden generosity of all his attention makes me want to weep with gratitude, so I fumble over my words.
'It's dead. They blew out everyone's phones. I don't know what to do.'
His voice takes on a sharp note of query. 'When was this?'
'Last night. The station. There was a protest. I guess it dropped off the scanner in light of… this.' I wave my hand at the overwhelming visuals cramming into the lounge.
Mr. Muller's face solidifies around his jaw. 'You can't stay here. You have to get to a, whatsit, immune centre. You're sick.' The word strikes me like an accusation. It's not only the associations of the superdemic; it feels like a personal attack on my genetic potential, the dark rotting tumour waiting to flower in my gut, like my father.
'But I'm not. The nano…' but suddenly it feels like too much to explain. And can I really explain?
'Are you part of this? Are you associated with those terrorists? I know what art school is like. And my God, that thing at your exhibition. You are part of this. If you don't leave my house immediately, I will call the authorities. There's a number. On TV. I'll call them. I won't be an accessory, Kendra. I'm an old man.'
'Mr. Muller, please,' I laugh, despite myself, at the quaver in his voice, at the absurdity. 'Look, whatever they said on the news, it's not the full story. Did they say it was a complete over-reaction to a peaceful protest?'
'Those kids had weapons. They showed it. Hacking up the dogs. People were next.'
'You talk about controls, but this wasn't control. This was a…' I cast around for the right word, and as soon as it's out, I know it's a mistake, the end of our rational discussion: 'A holocaust.'
He takes out his phone and starts hitting the keypad, his hand shaking so hard I'm sure he's going to drop it. 'I'm calling them, Kendra. I'm calling.'
It's more pity than fear that incites me to leave.
Toby
I leave a voicemail for Lerato. And send a msg. And an email. But there's no response. Of all times. The manager guy comes over. 'Hey, man, listen, I changed my mind. I really need you to go now.'
'What the fuck? I've still got four minutes.'
'It's on the news, china. You should… wow. You need to get medical attention.'
This is not exactly a revelation, kids, although I have to tell you, I'm
feeling a little more up about the whole thing, probably due to ditching that little princess Kendra. Course, I'm gonna have to find her again, cos this is exactly the kind of shit I should be getting on cam. Documenting how the nano cleaned her up like a Catholic in confession. I scratch my beard.
'Fine. But then I'm keeping the coat. And gimme that whisky.' I say, pointing to one of the bottles up behind the bar counter.
'What? Hey, come on, man. That's not cool.'
'Neither is Marburg. Wanna risk it that it's really not contagious?' I cough for dramatic effect. He doesn't need to know it's faked.