'You have to break through. Hell of a momentum required. Sometimes we toss a chair through first.'
'I want a representative.'
'Would you like to see–'
'A lawyer? Yes. I would, actually.'
'No. The evidence.'
She picks up a remote control for the wall2wall display, taps it against her lips.
'You sure you want to go here? It's not too late.'
'No, no, I want to see.' How bad can it be? How much can they have? I wrap my hands around my knees and lean in. I am the anticipation of vindication.
She hits the button. The wall powers up on a folder system I recognise immediately as our central home™ cache, accessed remote. I relax imperceptibly. I'm careful about cleaning up, about auto-deleting, running shells and reroutes. If this is all she has… but then she clicks through to another folder entirely, her stash of Mexican soap operas. Episode 212 of Ángeles de la Calle. Which is not, when she presses play, the story of love and life and death and betrayal in the favela. It is a recording of every transaction I've ever performed on my cell phone, which means they chipped it, downloaded it direct, every message, every time I connected to the triplines, probably every one of my calls. Jane smirks.
I have nowhere else to go.
'You've been an awful bitch to live with, you know that?' She blinks, and I lunge to the attack. 'You're boring. You're anal. You have no imagination and almost no talent to speak of. This…' I waft a hand at the dogs, the man with the semi-automatic. 'Why doesn't this surprise me?'
'You're not taking this very seriously, Ms. Mazwai.'
'You're a pathetic gutless bureaucrat who couldn't hack it in the real world, Jane. I always wondered how you got to this level. Are you even genuine Internal Affairs, or just some nasty little snitch spying on your colleagues? And cut the "Ms. Mazwai" crap. I've shared a bathroom with you for over eight months.'
'This isn't helping you.'
'Get me your superior officer. Now.'
'We've been watching you.'
'Who is it? Rathebe? Mogale? Give me a name.' I pull out my phone. The man with the gun shifts behind me, causing the dogs to stir. She makes an impatient placatory gesture, waiting me out.
'How do you think you got away with this?'
'This is bullshit. This is not company policy. This is fucking intimidation. Give me a name.'
'You think you're that good?'
'Fuck this. Fuck you, you crazy bitch.' I speeddial reception thirty-one floors down, entertaining visions in my head of someone, anyone charging upstairs to my rescue.
'Did you really think we wouldn't notice?'
'Thembi? Hey, it's Lerato. Can you put me through to Internal Affairs? Someone senior. I have a situation.'
'We let you.'
I look at her blankly for a moment. I lower the phone. I am a crumpling façade.
Toby
Once it breaks, it's kif deluxe. Total 360, matter of, what, an hour? From spitting up blood, to an endorphin overload equal to a bliss hit. I wonder if that's intended, designed to make you more willing to hand yourself over, flooded with goodwill and lush happiness, or if they fucked up the formula one time. Maybe it's the whisky, the bug burned up in the alcohol content we just poured into ourselves. Maybe they didn't factor that in, didn't get the lab rats loaded before they made 'em sick. Course, the bottle we sunk between us is starting to catch up with me. I smack my tongue against my parched palate.
Tendeka is looking savagely grim, but it'll wane soon soon. It's cos I'm thin, I tell him, fast metabolism, but he's still on his apocalypse trip. He's still trying to explain it away: 'It's your body's natural response. It's an old evolutionary trick of the mind, flood your system with happy chemicals when you're dying.'
'You don't understand, buddy, I'm flying.' I lug him towards my apartment. Despite his good intentions, I'm not going to hang around the street corner while he waxes lyric about the repressive regime and rights and clampdowns. Not when I've managed to avoid the cops, being arrested, the freaking Aitos prowling outside my door. And by the time all this is over, I will have wangled a new phone, found a legit excuse for why mine was stolen or schmangled, and everything will be back to normal.
Tendeka slurs something.
'What? I can't understand you.'
'Alcohol. Adrenalin.'
'Alcohol and adrenalin what?'
'Why you're feeling better.'
'Yeah, yeah. You'll see. Wait till it hits you. Any second now. It's not the booze.'
'My tongue is swollen.'
'That would be the whisky talking.'
'No, it's…' He wrenches forward and kotches a thick splodge of blood onto the pavement. There are globby bits in it. It's seriously vile, and maybe I'm underestimating how he's handling. Lucky then, kids, that his primitive hackjob of a key works perfectly on my apartment block's door. We have to swipe it a few times over the door scan, which squawks in protest, but just when I'm ready to concede, the override goes through and it clicks open. It's a handy thing to have, and when Tendeka doesn't ask for it back specific, I pocket it.
He's badly delusional by the time I lug him onto the roof of my apartment block, going on about getting skywards and future renovations, as if this were the time for home improvements. It's very pretty up here. I should come here more often.
'Is it casting? Is Lerato hooking us up?'
'Course, man. Would I let you down? Oh, there I go.' This is a joke, kids, cos I'm easing him down so he can sit, only he sort of keels to the side, so he ends up lying on his back instead. And then he curls half-foetal on his side.
'Nice position,' I say. 'There's a reason people lie on their sides like that, we covered it in first aid. I'm not remembering what it was, though. But it's good. You got it right.'
'Where's the camera?' His eyes dart around, hunting out the lenses in my coat.
'All over. There're like a thousand of them embedded in the fabric. Miniature. You can't see 'em.'
'Okay, tell them…'
'Tell 'em yourself. You're going out live. Just speak into the coat.'
He looks up and grits his teeth, focuses. 'My name is Tendeka Mataboge.'
'Excellent start.'
'I'm thirty-two. I'm dying. It's the only way to show… I've been infected with the M7N1 virus as an act of government-corporate censorship. Repression. This is human rights violation taken to its worst. They are wilfully killing their citizens. It's… It is casting, right?'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah.' I'm getting bored with this whole shebang. 'Oh hey, I can see it from here.'
'Where?'
'No, no, don't sit up.' I point and watch the LG billboard flashing through its routine. Smiley models selling consumer electronics and cars. 'Trust me. It's going out all over the city. I'm surprised they haven't sent out the helicopters yet.'
'Good. That's good. That's…' he feels for my hand, 'important, Toby.'
I grasp his hand in both of mine.
'Do you think Ashraf is watching? Will you tell Emmie? It's, it's… I'm doing it for the baby.'
'China, I don't know what you're on about. You just hang in there, Ten. Get your strength up, then you can finish the cast.' He looks up at me with painful gratitude.
I'm so looking forward to him pulling out of this whole dying swan mode, and how stupid he's going to feel when he does. On a whim, I hit record on the BabyStrange anyway. It might just record something. Keep in mind, kids, it's always good to catch humiliating moments live.
Tendeka
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Not so bad, not so bad. Had food poisoning once. Worse. Like someone twisted my guts round a fork. Like spaghetti. Can't open my eyes. Too bright. Light hurts. Climbing into my head. Breath is liquid. Can't find my pump. Where's my fucking pump? But it's casting already. If I could open my fucking eyes. If. I could see the fucking adboards, hundreds of them. All fucking casting already. Casting us dying. Capturing our death. Captive audience. Me and Toby, of all people. Everything clenches. Jesu
s fucking motherfucking Christ! Every muscle. Squeezing. Doing damage inside. I can feel it. My muscles spasming. Too fucking tight. Too. Christ. Toby, I've changed my mind. Toby. FUCK! I've changed my mind. I want… Toby's wrist is glowing green. Try to grab it. Show him. Tell him, cos I've figured it. What was I–? The cast. The cast. The fucking cast. No one will be able to ignore or suppress it. Going out. Not this. Not anymore. FUCK! I have to chill, I have to relax. I have to fucking relax. Fuck fucking fuck. I have to relax. The spasms in waves now. Clench. Un. Clench. Something rips free inside me. Mouth full of molten copper. I can taste the light. Force my eyes open. The city is shimmering. Red and blue and green, like Christmas. Like skyward* said. Worth it. It's okay. Ash's gonna be so proud.
Lerato
'Are we done fucking around now?'
It's the first time I've ever heard her swear, and she does it so level, so cold, not even bothering to raise her voice, it's like a slap. They've played me, given me just enough rope to loop around my neck.
'I won't testify.'
'You don't have to. That's taken care of.'
'I don't understand.'
'Everyone involved in the incident has handed themselves in already. And those that haven't…' She doesn't even bother to shrug, as if that would commit too much energy. 'Well, they've made that choice. Now your choice, if you want to call it that…'
A door opens across the lounge and Stefan strolls in. Behind him, I can see a bank of monitors, a screen showing the inside of the lounge. He's been watching all along, the whole show. Defeat tastes like sour milk.
Jane takes some unspoken cue and stands up. The deference in her manner makes me suddenly, badly scared. I didn't know it was possible to be even more scared. She snaps her fingers impatiently at the man with the gun and he turns to follow her out, along with the dogs.
'Good luck,' she mouths at me, as the lift doors close, leaving me and Stefan alone. The SIM is starting to get really uncomfortable now.
'No papaya mojitos today, I'm afraid.'
'So, are you Mr. Wall Street?' I glance at the window. I would stand up to face him, but I don't trust my legs to support me, or for that matter, my heart not to burst.
He laughs. 'I'd very much like to hope we're beyond that stage. We haven't come this far with you to… waste your potential. No, I'm the closer.'
'Ah yes.' My mind fails to come up with a snappy comeback. 'And here I thought you were in recruitment.'
'You could say that. You're an exceptionally bright woman. We're quite in awe of your work – and your arrogance. It borders on pathological. But you're remarkably inventive: the faked phonecalls for spyware, the backdoors in the adboards, circumventing the diagnostics reportback feed! Unfortunately you missed the obvious. The oldschool search function – or didn't you know admin could request info at any time? It was fluke, of course, a random inspection that did you in. You got around all our security systems, but not a human being. You see, you're not the first to try to steal data, siphoning it off through the backdoor. Although you're the first to get our own technicians to install it. That was ingenious, we all agreed. Your only mistake was thinking we wouldn't notice.'
'What would I say that would make a difference at this junction? I still want a lawyer.'
He nods to himself, a tight little nod, as if he's decided something. 'Let me lay it out for you, Lerato. You keep your job. Things carry on exactly as per normal. Three months from now, you will be transferred to Mumbai, into another department. Your contact with your former coworkers and Zamajobe and Siphokazi will dwindle away. You'll be too busy to correspond, and within a couple of months, they'll stop bothering. It's not like you have any meaningful relationships anyway.'
'I don't understand.'
'You're being promoted. Unless you'd rather…' He tilts his chin at the window and smiles. He's smiling because he knows that even though I can't refuse – considering the unscheduled flight that would entail – I wouldn't anyway. But I'm still apprehensive.
'What would this reassignment be?'
'It's sensitive. Government linked. But you already know that. Doing what you've been doing, all that subversive stuff you so perversely enjoy. We feel we haven't been challenging you sufficiently. We feel you're ready for more responsibility.'
He hands me a page of twelve names. I recognise one immediately.
Tendeka would too.
Stefan sees my face and smirks. 'Defusers just aren't enough any more. You know that, with your little workarounds. But any action is justified in a state under terrorist threat.'
'You just have to create your own terrorists.'
'Smart girl. You'll be running several identities, posting, inciting, organising. Whatever is required. Let's just say you're on the up. Heading skywards.'
And it makes perfect sense. The process has to be managed. Fear has to be managed. Fear has to be controlled.
Like people.
Kendra
It's not a toothpaste commercial. The Inatec building is clinical, military, with double doors for gurneys leading past wards and theatres, the corridors painted a cool mint, and rows of metal cages like you see at the vet, all standing empty.
'Prisoners out on parole?' I say to defuse the silence bristling under the hum of machinery and the muffled clop of our shoes on the polished floors.
'Ha.' Andile snickers. Dr. Precious sniffs daintily.
I persist. 'Kinda creepy, though. Where is everybody?' But what I'm really thinking is, where are the dogs?
'Sunday, babes. Or are you on a different schedule? Ah, here we are. Come on.' He makes scooting motions with his hands towards a small theatre with a biohazard sign on the door. There is a cubicle to one side, with a curtain the same colour as the walls, a catscan machine and a sonogram, and other equipment I can't readily identify.
Dr. Precious goes over to a metal basin outside and starts washing her hands methodically. Andile holds open the curtain for me. They're both so tense.
'Put on the smock, please.' His voice has taken on a flavour of detached authority.
The cubicle barely has enough space to manoeuvre. I fold my clothes on the bench and reach for the green smock hanging on the back of the door. 'Front or back?'
'Doesn't matter,' says Dr. Precious. 'It's procedure for the scan. You can put your clothes back on when we do your blood work.'
'How serious is it, doctor?' I call out from the cubicle, fastening the gown at the back. 'Am I heading for the big kennel in the sky?'
'Really, babes,' Andile says, aggrieved.
'Can't say until we've got the results.'
'I wouldn't stress it too much, babes. Dr. Precious already put in a request for the vaccine from head office, so when it gets here, we can do everything at once.'
'When?'
'When what?'
'When did you put in a request on the vaccine? I didn't hear you.' I throw open the curtain, ignoring the undignified vulnerability of the smock.
'When Murray phoned me from the gate. I called it in immediately,' snaps Dr. Precious.
'Babes, you have to chill out. You've been through a hell of a time, but we're on your side. Now take it easy. I'm not the doctor here, but you don't seem to be showing any of the symptoms. I'd say your sponsorship has paid off.'
'Can you sit up here, please?'
'I think… I know. I want it out. Now. Get it out.'
'Out? Babes, you know it's permanent. You agreed to that. Got your DNA signature on that.'
'It's not permanent in the dogs.' I am near hysteria and I don't quite know why. I feel like I'm no longer in limbo. As in, I've hit the water and it's closing over my head.
'Different technology, I told you before. The Aitos are on a more basic system. It wears off in the dogs because it's pure tech, the nanobots have a limited lifespan. Maybe ten years before they wear out. Your nano is much more sophisticated. It latches onto your own cells as a power source. It reproduces itself.'
'Andile. I can't do my job if she do
esn't cooperate.'
'Babes.' He opens his hands, but I know he's not the one armed with the syringe. I get up on the table, obediently, and push up my sleeve for the good doctor. She straps a blood pressure sleeve over my wrist, shoves it all the way up to my bicep.